#or . . . are you using the perception of fanfiction as poor-quality work as an easy way to be nasty to things you refuse to touch | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gailynovelry · 1 year ago

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As as unasked-for addendum, people are also using fanfiction comparisons and “boy I sure hate BookTok / anything I think looks like BookTok (book-shaped things)” to belittle small authors that they have no intention of actually reading. Every time I release a new book, I have to brace us for snarky comments about how it’s probably yucky, plotless fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off.

And then I have to grit my teeth and decide if I should politely explain that my silly fantasy book series is also a painstakingly designed and visceral treatise on my fear of queer genocide.

It’s a little heartbreaking when queer folks from my own community are leveraging the same “this thing that I refuse to read should have never been written or published” commentary as the literal neonazi and smattering of other alt-right trolls who bumped into my work.

AND THEY’RE FUCKING CORRECT

#sorry for the downer #we also just hate how shallow “uwu is it fanfiction” is as a critique of a work #aside from the fact that meh BookTok books actually read more like typical meh twenty-aughts tradpub YA than fanfic half the time #do you mean it isn’t edited or is edited poorly?#do you mean to call it amateur; that the author needs time to develop a stronger style?#do you mean that it is hollow outside of fulfilling a tropic niche?#do you mean to say that the characters involved genuinely read as expys from another piece of media?#say those critiques. say what you actually mean.#or . . . are you using the perception of fanfiction as poor-quality work as an easy way to be nasty to things you refuse to touch #while feeling oh-so-very smart yourself?#anyway in good news the people who do actually read our stuff are very sweet and we are glad for their honest critiques and kind words

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