What fandom says it wants vs. what fandom actually wants

[transemacabre]

What people in fandom say they want to read:
-- IC, slow burn, realistic romance with world-building and canon details, totaling many thousands of words
-- Female and non-white main characters
-- Femslash

What people in fandom ACTUALLY want to read, judging by hits and comments:
-- Any Two Guys/whitecock explicit PWP under 1k
-- AUs set in bakeries/coffee shops with fantastical canon elements replaced by the mundane
-- Not femslash

Comments

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

AUs set in bakeries/coffee shops with fantastical canon elements replaced by the mundane

The occasional crack!fic is one thing, but I don't understand the massive popularity of modern AU fics in ASoIaF fandom. I really don't. You have all these amazing characters in a fascinating pseudo-Medieval world and so much potential, but people prefer to read about a boring everyman version instead??? I don't get it.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

It's been a dog's age since I was active in ASOIAF fandom, but there were (are?) huge, comprehensive websites about every tiny detail in the books. It's not like its SO hard to research! Coffee shop/bakery AUs where the canon characters are inexplicably modern-day college students are the laziest sort of AUs.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I don't get the modern AU fic thing at all. Researching the settings is half the fun! I'm doing Tolkien fic at present, and mixing book and film canon with the sort of Norse lore that he used as his sources. I've got a lot of the books, know a lot of bardic/skaldic verse & c.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

Oh god don't. Even get me going in coffer shop AU's. I just do not get the mass appeal.

That said, as far as fanart goes, what fandom says it wants and what fandom lavishes attention on seem to be more inline than it is with fic, at least from what I have seen.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

The sheer onslaught of images overwhelms me on Tumblr. Glad fanartists get some attention, though! *high five*

[candyflosskillr.livejournal.com]

Any comic/movie/tv show based remix or fic swap type thing is a clear example of this imbalance of desires. If the request is too hard (because it contains poc, women, or unpopular white cock), the writers back the hell off completely. It's hilarious watching the request vs. offer stats rise and fall in those things.

I love coffee as much as the next girl but the amount of coffee shop/bakery!au fic on AO3 is staggering. Have these writers been to a coffee shop? Seriously, it's not that interesting, not even enough to make mundane life look good. I blame a lot of it on Pushing Daisies and Stranger Than Fiction making bakeries look romantic.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

Coffee shop/bakery AUs strike me as the laziest kind of fic writing. No need to do even the basic work necessary to stick to canon, just plug in any two characters' names and voila. I think its that combination of a) easy b) cozy and c) everyone loves baked goods and/or coffee.

I'd honestly prefer it if people were just up front about what they wanted. Don't be a tryhard. Have you ever read fic about POC/women/femslash that rings a little hollow, like you can tell the author was writing it for kudos and not because they were really excited by their subjects? Fail-fandomanon has a funny term for that: "eating-your-veggies fic."

[candyflosskillr.livejournal.com]

Eating-your-veggies fic might be my new favourite phrase.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes, depressing, isn't it?
Well, I can safely say, I don't write what people want to read. No explicit sex, no mundane present-day AUs (why gratuitously remove characters from their setting?!), and my current story is going to include an inter-racial (Elf/Orc) femslash subplot.