General Discussion

Do you like your fanfic subtle or blatant? Like do you like just something inspired by the source material or something that feeds off of it directly? Asking for a friend obviously.
I’m really motivated to work on mine, but I have no idea what direction I want to take. I feel kinda weird using someone else’s characters, but also what’s the point in changing names and all if the plot remains mostly the same? Any help would be much appreciated.

It depends, I personally love it when fanfics feel like something that could happen in canon or when it's some sort of canon divergence, it doesn't have to be exactly the same that happens in canon, but if it feels believable then it's good

Potentially unpopular opinion, but I only like fanfiction that is mostly complient to the scource material. Some alternate universe stuff can be fun, if it still feels right within the canon.

I can absolutely not stand works that turn all nonhuman characters into humans, and I especially dislike High School AUs. I'm not from the US, so I have no idea about high school culture as a whole, and school was pretty much the worst time of my life, so why would I want to read about it?

If you enjoy stuff like that, more power to you. It's not my thing, but that's okay. But veryone who does AUs, please tag them as such, thanks.


One think I really enjoy is weird little fan theories adapted into story form. I'm a sucker for theories in general, so that's always fun.


Also, for the first question: It depends on the writing style I think. Some people may write good subtlety, others are more comfprtable being blöatant. Or anything in between. That's perfectly alright and both coan be good.

for my own writing I can do both, I prefer staying canon compliant/adjacent (when canon is dumb I deviate from canon a little), but sometimes I need to yeet canon out the window and "roast canon over a low fire and carve it for juicy bits and make AU soup with the carcass". some ideas demand canon compliance, some ideas demand AU soup.
when it comes to reading, I don't really mind either, I like both canon compliant and AU, depending on my mood I'll read anything. though I'm more likely to read AUs that aren't crossovers with another series, unless they are just throwing the characters into worlds based on other series. I don't like characters from different series meeting each other. ...which I just realized is very ironic because two of my fandoms, Kingdom Hearts and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, are both just major multifandom crossovers XD

As long as it's believable and I like it, it's fine!

[quote name="Xionahri" date="2021-10-19 14:14:56" ] Potentially unpopular opinion, but I only like fanfiction that is mostly complient to the scource material. Some alternate universe stuff can be fun, if it still feels right within the canon. I can absolutely not stand works that turn all nonhuman characters into humans, and I especially dislike High School AUs. I'm not from the US, so I have no idea about high school culture as a whole, and school was pretty much the worst time of my life, so why would I want to read about it? If you enjoy stuff like that, more power to you. It's not my thing, but that's okay. But veryone who does AUs, please tag them as such, thanks. One think I really enjoy is weird little fan theories adapted into story form. I'm a sucker for theories in general, so that's always fun. Also, for the first question: It depends on the writing style I think. Some people may write good subtlety, others are more comfprtable being blöatant. Or anything in between. That's perfectly alright and both coan be good. [/quote] I think that may not be such an unpopular opinion, I agree with everything and my friends and me also dislike highschool AUs for the same reason, things like lockers, cheerleaders, american football, not wearing uniforms or underage teenagers getting jobs and having their own cars feel like a completely different culture we can't relate to.

As an avid reader and writer of fanfic, I've found I personally favor the ones set in the canon universe involving the canon characters--a big reason I got into fanfic in the first place is to read stories about my favorite characters. (Though I do enjoy AUs and OCs too!)

As for storylines, I don't have much preference between stuff that could happen in canon and stuff that... probably wouldn't. My main fandom is Pokemon, which doesn't exactly have a lot of romance in canon, but I love my ships. And I'm a big fan of fics that take the darker implications of canon events and unpack that.

All that said, the beauty of fanfic is there's really no wrong way to do it--just spark your joy, and the readers who are interested in what you're putting out there will find it and enjoy it too. I wish you the best with what you're working on! c:

unless its explicitly stated to be au i prefer it to be canon compliant. or at the very least character compliant. OCs are a mixed bag as long as they're well-written, but there's one single big thing that can make or break a fic for me.

FORMATTING.

it HAS to be formatted correctly. i can excuse typos, improper grammar, even bad spelling to an extent, but if it isn't written out in proper story printing format i will NOT read it. i dont even care if the story's good or not. people that write their stories out as scripts baffle me to no end. because frankly, i've read proper two-column scripts before and those are palatable. its just that most places fic is published (ao3, wattpad, ffdotnet) are NOT suitable for formatting a two-column script. they're made for storyprint. ergo thats what i expect should be published to them.

I prioritize proper characterization over "canon". The most important thing to me is if the characters feel and sound like their canon counterparts. If you can't nail their "voices", I don't care how canon compliant your fic is. If you nail the characters' voices, though, you can make your fic as alternate universe as you want as far as I'm concerned! (As long as the AU itself is interesting to me of course.)

[quote name="Dorelei" date="2021-10-19 15:38:22" ] [quote name="Xionahri" date="2021-10-19 14:14:56" ] Potentially unpopular opinion, but I only like fanfiction that is mostly complient to the scource material. Some alternate universe stuff can be fun, if it still feels right within the canon. I can absolutely not stand works that turn all nonhuman characters into humans, and I especially dislike High School AUs. I'm not from the US, so I have no idea about high school culture as a whole, and school was pretty much the worst time of my life, so why would I want to read about it? If you enjoy stuff like that, more power to you. It's not my thing, but that's okay. But veryone who does AUs, please tag them as such, thanks. One think I really enjoy is weird little fan theories adapted into story form. I'm a sucker for theories in general, so that's always fun. Also, for the first question: It depends on the writing style I think. Some people may write good subtlety, others are more comfprtable being blöatant. Or anything in between. That's perfectly alright and both coan be good. [/quote] I think that may not be such an unpopular opinion, I agree with everything and my friends and me also dislike highschool AUs for the same reason, things like lockers, cheerleaders, american football, not wearing uniforms or underage teenagers getting jobs and having their own cars feel like a completely different culture we can't relate to. [/quote] All of this. I don't mind AUs that diverge at a plausible point in canon or explore 'a road not taken' in canon. Taking the characters and completely rewriting the universe or society they live in though? No. Also OCs... OCs should NEVER take a starring role unless you are basically making an original story in a preexisting universe like star wars. OCs works best as supporting roles, NOT Mary Sues taking the protagonist role to make a love triangle with the canon protag and antagonist. One or two well written support OCs are much more acceptable than 12 OCs that are walking cliches/tropes.