Subject: Huh
Author:
Posted on: 2018-05-03 01:49:00 UTC
I generally try to avoid TvTropes (find the whole thing to be a bit too timewastey), and I was hoping to go a bit off the beaten path, but I can't deny the presence of like-minded individuals on that site. And besides, any lead I get at this stage is worth following.
Thank you :).
Yesterday I, like any well-adjusted individual, decided to go on the prowl for badfic. As you can probably guess from the title, my haul was rather limited. Sure, there is the poor SpaG and dubious premises, but nothing that really jumps out as fascinatingly bad. This has been a recurring problem for me, and I suspect that it comes from a narrow band of interests which happen to not attract that many fandom-y types.
I know the solution is likely to read/watch more things. But I'm a lazy bum, and so here I am to solicit opinions. Where and how do you go about looking for badfic? Are there any tricks I'm not getting? I will pay for such information in words of gratitude and smiley faces.
Thanks in advance,
1visible.
The website Television Tropes and Idioms (TvTropes) has seveal pages for fanfic tropes, some of which are staples of badfic. I've noticed that the pages "Draco In Leather Pants" and "Ron The Death Eater," which refer to when a villain is considered good, and also attractive, by the fandom, and when a hero is considered evil by the fandom, respectively, have ever expanding lists of fanfic where characters are ridiculously OOC.
I generally try to avoid TvTropes (find the whole thing to be a bit too timewastey), and I was hoping to go a bit off the beaten path, but I can't deny the presence of like-minded individuals on that site. And besides, any lead I get at this stage is worth following.
Thank you :).
I mostly look for more... racy fic than your average Sue, but I still look for other things on occasion.
What I usually do on fanfiction.net is exclude works under 1000 words, sometimes even works under 5000. Most of the things on the Pit are oneshots or just getting started, so it's hard to tell if they're going to be bad enough or long enough to be entertaining.
On AO3, I've found it useful to sort fics by how many hits they have. Oddly enough, the things with the most hits can sometimes be the worst fics around. AO3 makes it much easier to find badfic (or goodfic, for that matter) because of their tagging system; once you find a tag that has a lot of terrible things written for it, you can just search for that tag later.
Beyond that, there's a lot of reading summaries and hitting that "Next" button at the bottom of the page.
I mostly try to dredge fics from Quotev, but I will check other sites on occasion. Might just poke around those spots on your lead.
Thank you for sharing this with me (:.
On the Pit, I set the ratings to 'all' and the language to English, which helps make things go a bit quicker. If I'm looking for an OC Sue, I add that filter on as well, but otherwise I just scroll and look for a summary that catches my eye.
If I'm in the mood for a particular type of badfic, I'll use the search bar and type in something like "lord potter' or 'veela malfoy' and go from there.
On Quotev, you can't swing a kneazle without hitting something hilariously bad, so for that site, I just bring popcorn and enjoy the ride.
Your post made me realize that I have been a bit picky with fics. Quotev is teeming with second person works, which I can't stand. Maybe I should give them a second pass: what's the worst that could happen?
Thank you :^).
Keep pressing "next". Make sure to go to different sites: for example, in the 40k fandom FF.net tends to have higher-quality content than AO3 in my experience, and other fandoms have it reversed. The larger your fandom, the more likely you are to find something, and the faster you can find it on average.