Ffnet - Blog Posts

Without ao3, I can feel the life seeping out of me. Every passing minute the life force drains from my body, turning me into a sickly grey. My eyes are drooping and I can feel my organs start to fail. I can already see the light, shining so brightly above me. I am only hanging on by the transfusion of fanfiction.net. However, that is not my only woe. I can feel old fandoms creeping up behind me, ready to drag me back into their grasp. Danganronpa got me a week ago, yttd a few days before. Is this the end? Has life come full circle? What will historians think a hundred years from now? What will this crisis be called? The Fall of Creativity? Fanfiction Fodder? The Great Suppression? As a collectivity everyone has united in this detrimental time. We must stick together, offer up other sources to consume media created by talented, life providing authors.

How I use fanfiction.net:

Step one: search fanfiction.net

Step two: type the name of the character you want to read about

Step three: hit search; you will get a differentiating amount of results; use the box labeled narrow results to make your search more specific. It does not filter out ships, characters, and other stuff. However, it can give you fics based on what you choose, such as language, genre, etc..

This can help you @castielssuperhell

I’ve been without ao3 for too long that I’ve resorted to using fanfiction.net again.

I refuse to stoop to the level of wattpad. Sixth grade me was not prepared. I will not make the same mistake again.

(By trope-specific i mean for example all the slash fics hosting websites, or the nsfw-only ones, etc)

parker-leeds studios presents: the avengers (and co.) made by thebigolive

what’s the best way for peter parker, college student, to show his idols that he’s completely serious about his training?

well. becoming a youtube star that specializes in making fun of them couldn’t hurt, right?

Shining Knights And Super Heroes by BlueHoneyBee

Inspired by a fanart by Niki Frost

When little Kara Swan and Lena Mills become best friends, they decide to make it their mission to give their respective mothers a best friend too.

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) by

hrwinter

Lena breaks her ankle, and Kara insists on carrying her everywhere (to meetings, to galas, to conferences, to press releases.) Lena spirals.

Venturing into the wilds

OMG, as someone started out reading fanfic on AO3, a foray into FFN is just plain nerve wracking.

Like, I have no idea whether this story I just started is a fix-it (which I want), or whether it's going to turn out canon compliant. What if there's an MCD?

There's literally no to way to know except sneaking a look at the end of the story, or maybe the comments, and I don't want to do that and spoil it, in case it really is a fix-it! Because while it would be good to know that everything turns out okay, I don't want the all the details, ya know?

How the heck did anyone survive before AO3?

Update: YEP, stayed up till midnight just to get burned by MCD. 😭 FFN, why.

shit i remember from my 2007 - 2013 fanfiction.net experiences (before i finally jumped ship for ao3 like everyone else)

“don’t like don’t read”

uses of the terms “lemon” and “lime” (apparently there was a difference. lemons were porn but i’m STILL not sure what a lime is. i also have NO idea how “lemon” came to mean “porn”. not sure i want to, tbh.)

soooo many “i do not own please don’t sue me” disclaimers

fics where the whole premise that the whole cast was trapped someplace together and the reviewers would leave questions in their comments and then the characters would answer them in-story. like “ask that guy with the glasses” except shitty and usually self-indulgent towards the author’s preferred ships. (i may have written one of these when i was 12.)

authors who legit updated on a schedule (and stuck to it). some every fucking day. (you still see this on ao3, but not NEARLY as much.)

fanfic authors who basically had a following and fandom of their own. (again, this still happens, but not as much. not sure if that’s a good thing or not.) not bad considering most of them were 13.

“yaoi!!! that means boy kisses!!! don’t like don’t read!!!”

putting “————-” or “xxxxxxx” bc ff.net wouldn’t let you insert a horizontal line to show the end of a section

very long, very rambley author’s notes

some of which had the authors interacting with/talking to the characters in the fic.

fics that weren’t so much stories as they were a chapter-by-chapter detailing of all the cliche plots and tropes used in that fandom’s shitty fanfics. (i actually sorta miss these, tbh)

songfics. no, not fics inspired by songs. fics where the lyrics were put in between every paragraph, with some lyrics altered to fit the characters. it was horrific.

fics that were up-front about the oc being a stand-in for the reader so they can read about themselves getting with their fave character. as in, it was written in second person and the summary outright said the pov character was meant to be the reader.

the forums being used for roleplay before tumblr rp was a “thing”

long, LONG author profiles, filled with things like “copy/paste if you’re a [whatever] shipper!” or obviously fake sickly sweet anecdotes (think chain email levels of bad), or worst of all (in my opinion), a pro-life anti-abortion story from the point of view of a fetus. it was as bad as it sounds, if not worse.

listing all your ships on your author profile page

seeing a title that was all lowercase letters and thinking “lazy” rather than “aesthetic”

“101 one ways to annoy [insert character here]” (voldemort was popular for these things)

it being fucking impossible to find f/f fic that wasn’t porn

writing ships as “characterxcharacter” instead of “character/character”

author’s notes in the middle of the story. literally you would be reading a fanfic and all of a sudden, in between paragraphs… “A/N: awwww isn’t it cute how they’re thinking the same thing!!! XD”

for that matter, author’s notes using the XD emoticon

people FLIPPING THEIR SHIT whenever their fave author (or just a well-established author in the fandom) changed their username. ESPECIALLY if they changed it from something fandom-specific to something more neutral.

“character x/character y. NO CHARACTER X/CHARACTER Z.” bc apparently you think i’d think your fic clearly marked character x/character y would be nothing but character x and character z making out.

trollfics trying to capitalize on my immortal’s infamy. there are still trollfics, of course, but they tend to be more subtle. 

for that matter, trying to pass a trollfic off as a legitimate fic rather than just admitting it’s a parody

specifically reading fics for your notp just to bash it in the reviews

people putting replies to reviews for the previous chapter in the author’s notes (this died down a LITTLE once ff.net finally added a reply function, but not much)

the great fanfiction.net purge (ahh yes. history lesson time. basically, back in the olden days of fanfiction, when everyone actually used ff.net, one fateful day, back in biblical times – 2011 – ff.net decided to make MA rated stuff – basically porn – not be allowed on the site anymore. ofc people kept posting it anyway, but then ff.net started deleting stories from the website with no notice to the authors. just poof! gone. the aftermath was HORRIFIC. people were FURIOUS, as a lot of people had no backup and just lost their stories. so ff.net stopped enforcing the rule, but the damage was done. this was when people began to officially leave for ao3, i think.)

lots of harry potter fanfics about the my immortal versions of the characters interacting with the canon characters. some of these were actually quite funny – i think they’re still around, but i don’t see them as much. (i actually wrote one of these stories. it is still, to this day, the most popular story i ever wrote.)

drabbles that were ACTUALLY 100 words long.

fictionpress (a sister site for original fiction. it was like wattpad before wattpad was wattpad. it never really took off. come to think of it, i may still have some stuff on there from when i was 12 i need to take down)

“crackfics” that consisted mainly of “lulz iM SO RanDOm!!!111!!!!!oneone XD cheeeeeeeese!!!!!!” humor

“i suck at summaries”

“this is my first story so please be nice”

“i’ll only update if i get 10 good reviews”

AUs before “AU” was a really widely used term, so the author’s note would have a length explanation for why they had to change things for the story and apologizing over and over instead of just noting the AU in the summary

AUs out of laziness rather than for creative/plot reasons (ie, “luna’s a gryffindor in this fic because i couldn’t find another reason for her to be here”)

authors notes apologizing for late updates

being genuinely shocked when you found a GOOD fanfic

There are only a few things I won’t stand for in hp fanfiction, but goddamn it, it infuriates me when I see it! As follow:

a) Severitus. Anything in which Severus Snape, the disgrace of the Wizarding World, is even remotely nice and/or supporting and/or decent. It stinks. He’s the worst. Let’s not pretend he’s not shit at everything except evilness. Make this stop.

b) Drarry? What the Hell? In what universe would Harry Potter be romantically interested in a nasty, jealous bigot that has done nothing but torment him and insult his friends? What kind of hipster mating ritual is that? Why would he even want anything to do with the son of the man that facilitated the opening of the Chamber of Secrets? The same man that willingly served Voldemort? That thought Harry’s mother and Hermione were scum? Who passed down his beliefs to his son? The son who, at twelve years old, gloated about how the muggleborns at his school were going to be petrified? Who wanted to have a clearly intelligent animal put down because he couldn’t listen to his teacher’s instructions? Draco Malfoy is the racist rich frat boy of Hogwarts and he would’ve voted for Trump and you will never convince me that garbage kid would ever amount to anything good.

c) Petunia secretly loving Harry or anything that even suggest the Dursleys were under a spell. Ok, there’s like this theory that since Harry is a Horcrux, the Duesley could have been influenced by it like Ron was and that’s why they were hippopotamus dung. I don’t buy it. In the Philosopher’s Stone’s beginning, we follow the Dursleys in the first of November for the day. And not only McGonagall describes them as horrible people, we also have a rundown of their opinions about several stuff, including what they think about magic and the Potters, which is nothing good. And that’s a full day before Petunia finds Harry at her doorstep, so they can’t have been influenced by the Horcrux at all. And then there’s the fact that, when Ron had it, he was only affected by it until he left. When he came back, he said he had wanted to come back as soon as he left. If the effect of a Horcrux ends when the person is not in the vicinity of it, then how are the Dursleys not kinder to Harry after he spends TEN MONTHS OF THE YEAR at school and other people’s houses? How come Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus, all sleeping in the same dorm as Harry, are not affected? Or Hermione? As for Petunia being only pretending to hate Harry, she sure is a great actress, hiting him in the head with frying pans and talking shit about his parents. Because her pretending about all that stuff without ever giving Harry a kind word sure makes the physical and psychological child abuse so much better and acceptable. Not.

d) Remus being a great “uncle” and loving Harry as his son or something. Also known as “if I ever have to read Remus calling Harry his cub and saying he is pack again, I don’t know what I’ll do but it’ll be bad”. People. Please. Unless this is a pre-Hogwarts AU in which Remus’ behavior is different, that’s bullshit. Motherfucker was probably aware of Lily and Petunia’s relationship status. Dude was lounging around wherever he was, probably unemployed, for twelve years and didn’t bother writing a single goddamn letter to his dead friend’s son. A friend that risked expulsion and prison time to become an illegal man-deer to help him with his lycantrophy problem. Something I’m guessing most people wouldn’t have done. Now I’m not saying it’s Lupin’s job to do that. He was under no obligation except that it would have been considerate. The only thing I hold against him is not telling Harry about his friendship with James when he taught defence. That was a dick move. Because if anyone deserved to know he and his father were friends with an allegedly dangerous convict hell bent on killing him to avenge his fallen cult master, it was Harry. And considering that Harry straight up ASKED, it was a super dick move of Remus not to tell him. But the point is, Remus was never involved in Harry’s life. He didn’t write him before Hogwarts, he didn’t visit. Considering how the Order was able to follow Harry around, it’s more or less safe to say there was no wards repelling magical people around Privet Drive. But he didn’t go, he didn’t write, not even a birthday card. Not before he was a teacher and not after. He wasn’t involved. He kept his distance. And that was fine, I guess, it wasn’t his job to do that, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t like or respects Harry, but it does not a family makes. Makes this pack shit stop, if Harry was so important to him, he would have been in touch. It’s not like apparition costs money. “Oh” you’ll say, “but Remus is a werewolf, he was afraid of hurting Harry”. That’s a shit excuse. The only way he could hurt Harry by being a werewolf was if he was stupid enough to show up at his doorstep on a full moon, two minutes before transforming, something he knows not to do. Otherwise he has to consciously want to hurt Harry, as a wizard. And quite honestly, if Remus Lupin went about his life constantly afraid of hurting people when not on the full moon or having any reason to think he would, he had no business going to the farmer’s market, let alone teaching at a boarding school. So, no excuse. He just didn’t have that relationship with Harry. Which is fine. I just can’t stand when people disregard all of his actions and pretend like he did.

e) Daphne Greegrass. That’s it. I hate that character in fanfiction. It’s the worst. All the Slytherins are a bunch of childish bullies but somehow every single fic with Daphne she’s this girl with the personality of a Martial Arts Dragon Lady that never shows pain (or any emotion) and it’s superior to everyone else. And she has that stupid nickname “The Ice Queen of Slytherin”. And she’s a shit character. I don’t even think she had a line in any book? She’s the Blaise Zabini of the Slytherin girls, except Blaise has different personalities in fanfiction. Can we kill this fucking trend?

I have 190 tabs opened on my phone, and 187 of them are AO3 Fanfictions.