fic preferences

[permutative]

i will continue adding to this as i get better at identifying what i like and dislike about what i read... mostly in the context of kpop fanfic


general likes

• "i like it when people don't like each other" 
• people who don't like each other learning to like each other
• enemies to friends to lovers, friends to enemies to lovers, rivals to lovers
• friends with benefits to lovers, enemies with benefits to lovers
• reuniting after becoming distanced for a number of years, former friends to lovers
• love with resentment... love with something complicated...
• reckoning with multiple selves (idolsona vs inner persona), multiple facets of a relationship (fanservice vs behind the scenes), having to act different in varied contexts/the fragmentation of self in general
• people who aren't the closest seeking each other out for other reasons
• people being passionate about what they do/having hobbies
• people have friends outside of love interest, especially friends who are girls!
• mutual pining, pining in general, it's about the Yearning
• ambiguous relationships
• repression
• bedsharing
• bleak boyband fic (it is hard to go wrong with this)
• canon compliant, canon divergent (what if..? type stories), future fic
• power dynamics fkery (not necessarily a huge power imbalance, just like... power struggles..?)
• fake dating
• secret dating
• arranged marriage
• and then they were roommates
• magical realism
• character studies
• intimacy via nail painting, doing makeup, wound care, doing someone's hair, etc. 
• misunderstandings for comedy purposes
• strong sense of setting/interesting settings 
• crossover fusions that can be integrated with canon
• violence & tenderness
• dreams (especially inception or raven cycle fusion)
• tournament-type competitions (sports, academic clubs, ao3 user markohmark stuff...)
• rule 63 f/f fic especially with trans characters
• unabashed trope fic based off kdramas
• boys_in_skirts
• gender exploration, nonbinary characters, genderfluid characters, trans characters
• non-linear narratives
• practice kissing, practice dating, fwb with the premise of "practice"/"learning" things
• teen romance having all of the dramatics/high tension involved
• coming of age, growing up, finding yourself...

nsfw likes

• porn with ~feelings~, being in Love
• rivalry/competition/hate but tenderness in the subtext of physical touch
• physical aggression, fighting, sparring (somewhat evenly balanced) as a precursor to sex
• hands/wrists/collarbones
• (for txt/enhypen) beqrerq ol ubj zhpu v srry fgebatyl nobhg guvf: v cersre yrsg [gnrulha, fhatubba, lrbawha, uhravatxnv] naq evtug [fbbova, wnxr, wnl, orbztlh, urrfrhat] 

general dislikes

• vampires (especially blood drinking. i HATE blood drinking)
• fantasy and magical creatures in general
• harry potter au (i don't mind them that much but i feel like people don't really do the hp universe justice when they do it)
• hard fantasy, sci-fi
• ridiculous canon premises (i.e. fake dating for publicity...)
• misunderstandings for non-romcom purposes
• lapslock for non-drabble-length fics
• a/b/o for social commentary/social justice purposes
• whitewashing characters/setting (i.e. characters described as smoking weed casually but fic is set in korea, saying that hueningkai is a "foreign kid" who "doesn't know korean")
• recreational drug use
• gore, body horror, scary things...
• patient/doctor or patient/psychologist fic
• noncon, scat, watersports

Comments

[hyojungss]

i feel like i share all your dislikes and most of your likes!! :0

[permutative]

:ooo i feel like 50% of my dislikes are really common whereas the other 50% are just like me being nitpicky about what i see on ao3... T___T it's nice that we have a lot of the same likes, i've probably been influenced by the same writer circles (albeit as a lurker) tbh ;;

[strayion]

likes:
- i think a fundamental difference between you and me is that you like when A and B have love with something complicated mixed in (like you said, hate, resentment, repression, ambiguity) whereas i like— or at least i think i like— when A and B have love that's intrinsically simple (external circumstances don't have to be simple)
- you like it when people don't like each other, i like when people do like each other...
- but then again people liking each other has potential to be very boring and people not liking each other has potential to be very interesting so there might be a slight disconnect between what i THINK i enjoy vs. what i actually enjoy. however i am definitely not drawn to bbb as much as you are.
- we are both about the Yearning
- we are also both into characters being well-fleshed out — i also love when A has friends outside of B, when A has passions and worries outside of love — and also into characters being teenagers. the coming-of-age of it all
- whereas we might have different preferences for dynamics we have pretty similar preferences for settings/scenarios— former friends, practice dating, roommates— I like fake dating, secret dating, arranged marriage a little less than you i think though
- F/F <3
- magical realism and dreams are nice aesthetics!!
- super interesting you put nonlinear narratives on here as a trope, i don't think i have a particular preference for it but when it's done well it's done well? but anyone who pulls off a fast-paced, tight storyline impresses me, doesn't have to be linear

nsfw likes:
- yeah if there's porn there's got to be feelings with it
- [shrugs with all the discomfort of a midwestern virgin]

dislikes:
- oh yeah i totally agree with you on vampires/ magical creatures! (we are exempting rose's vampire chenji from this though bc that SLAPPED) and hard fantasy/ sci-fi ... i'm not sure if i would say the same about original stories but for fic i don't tend to like these things
- oh harry potter au is interesting? i like harry potter aus lmao the dumb premise of "hey why does my amortentia smell like you" gets me every single time... what i don't like about harry potter aus/ harry potter in general is the fixation on quidditch, i mean is that the ONLY magical sport there is? genuine question
- yeah i don't like lapslock either but that was ao3 user fruitily's thing and they just wrote SO WELL it compensated
- a/b/o is generally something i don't like, i mean i understand it's very useful as a porn device, but still ??? for SOCIAL JUSTICE purposes it is INCREDIBLY strange like as a mechanism to discuss feminism/homophobia in an all male/gay world... ???
- i am incredibly guilty of having whitewashed settings, in high school i didn't know any better, like i really subconsciously thought that everybody in the world went by the same school system as america did. nowadays i tend to explicitly set it in america/ or in some ambiguous place that's some amerikorea fusion... i haven't done enough research on korean culture/setting to fully set it there and i don't want to be disrespectful
- everything from recreational drug use to watersports i 100% agree with. i did not make an ao3 account for that !!

losing it i'm obsessed with u

[permutative]

tysm for leaving this comment... will return to this in the future if i ever need to write more CINDY GIFT FIC in the future. <333

anyways:
- i like— when A and B have love that's intrinsically simple (external circumstances don't have to be simple) oohhh this is interesting. i think it's very difficult for me to come up with actual Plots and Conflicts which is why i tend to go for more character driven introspective the conflict_is_the_dynamic type of ships/dynamics?! love the way u phrased this though fr <333
- love that u get me on so many of these likes... yearning, coming of age, f/f etc.
- asdf i feel like u mentioned the "tight storyline" thing during our discord call too and im kinda just like ?__?... will be reflecting on this as i edit the jaywon because i feel like i'm actually cutting out the excess crap for once but at the same time it's soo self-indulgent so idk
- [shrugs with all the discomfort of a midwestern virgin] i love you for this
- LOL AGREED ON ROSE'S CHENJI. in my comment i was like "yeah i hate vampires but i managed to read this so take that as a compliment" ;;__;; i just think fantasy/scifi worldbuilding isn't necessarily what i come to fanfic looking for? i'm more interested in the characters, the dynamix, and also sometimes it isn't done very well in the first place. idk
- OOH OK TRUE AMORTENTIA IS GOOD. it's just that in relatively newer ficdoms like txthypen harry potter aus are sooo common and its just [grits teeth] also the aged-down-ness of it all. agreed on quidditch being lame though where's the magical figure skating sport
- AJKHDLFJSKG i crisis over accuracy/setting things in korea all the time. like it hindered me so much as a ficwriter for so long... nowadays i'm kind of like okay as long as i try to the best of my knowledge (which, for me, is kind of just like. okay i mention kakaotalk instead of messenger, i do at least some basic research) it's fine!?? i feel like fanfic isn't meant to be perfect and as long as u Try it's fine. idk if that makes sense. we can dm more abt it [i talked abt this with crys once!] but, while i do think it's important to try for "accuracy," i also reallyyy dislike the perspectives of people who look down on others for not being 100% accurate/not already knowing Everything about east asian culture or wtvr. no one does anything maliciously! [i hope.] also when i was younger i didn't know better either i guess, it's a part of being young... the part that annoyed me is that popular, well-written bts fanfics written by white adults (like, people in their 20s or older) would just blatantly ignore korean culture. yknow??? it's not just a fourteen year old harmlessly writing svt college aus...