in terms of quality and subject matter, AO3 always comes out on top for me personally. but there are some real gems on each of these platforms, so have fun digging around :D ALSO i have some fic recs on my patreon if y'all are interested! would you wanna see a video about things i look for when i go fic hunting sometime?
An incomplete work was my gateway to a particular OTP. I still check in on it on occasion because I am ever hopeful. It hasn't been updated since 2014.
ao3 is the more mature older sibling who occasionally is chaotic, wattpad is the younger sibling that is sometimes annoying but at heart is a good person, and ffnet is the parent who has always been the biggest role model for the other two
That's my weak spot. Even I know they're incomplete but I find the abstract so interesting, I start them anyway and in the end I curse myself. Then, I start this cicle all over again
I deliberately go out of my way to find incomplete fics. I do the same on Wattpad, but I also try to find the cringiest, most horribly written smut fics with bad grammar and whose authors first language probably wasn't english. I genuinely enjoy them, they're hilarious to me. It's not even a guilty pleasure, because that would imply that I have shame.
I project a helluva lot onto this one character and I've noticed that I tend to make his life a living hell, this might be a bad sign for my mental health axgjecjgcdjg But in all seriousness, I think it's actually helping? I always give him hope and a way out of whatever bad situation he's in, and it's kinda giving me hope too.
@@haveagoodmourning Yeah I do that a lot with Virgil. I talked with my therapist about it and she said that it's quite normal! You're able to prove to yourself that you can get through this and that it will be alright in the future. It's your brains way of telling itself that it's not over yet
I’ve seen plenty of those. All you gotta do is do a few filters and really dig into them... Maybe they’d be even better than the original. *LOOKING AT YOU J.K. ROWLING-*
That's because there are so many freaking toxic people on these sites😭😭😭 I had seen a few encounters where they literally hate on users and stories, it's frustrating
One of my favourite authors went on a hiatus recently because of the abusive comments. I only saw a glimpse, as most of the comments were deleted. Still, from what I saw, it was bad.
Fan Fact: They have Ancient Egyptian language option on AO3, as well as Sumerian and Old English. This shows that fandom has beem in existence since 4000 BC, being one of the foundation bricks of humanity.
they also have toki pona, esperanto, volapuk, interlingua, and theres also a category for 'uncategorized constructed languages'. FINALLY, you can read fanfic in YOUR favorite conlang!
Ikr- in a fanfic I read there is a typical mean girl who always bullies the main character, and the comments are all paragraphs long roasting that girl lmaoo
Once I read a fanfic in russian with the google translator, reading fanfic in spanish(my native lenguaje) is a nightmare and english is not always the answer.
But the weird thing is, even though french is my first language, I freaking hate reading french fanfics. It might be because I’m so used to exclusively reading fics in English, but it just feels wrong
I found this really cool story and it was written better than most books I’ve read and it was last updated 2017 with the biggest cliff hanger I’ve seen ✌️😔
I legit found an ONGOING fic that updates almost every day that almost 1.5 million words now... I don't have the balls to read it yet, but I subscribed anyways to watch a legend grow
Fandom tour guide, that should be the next Coleyverse thing! Like the fanfic cafe, ships r us, etc. With her touring through a hallway with all the fandom doors in the "entering fandoms like" series, and a group of bewildered outsiders following her around. Becky was signed up for this tour by her fangirl friend. Muffled screams echo from inside the door labeled "MHA". Becky wants to go home.
"Wow! This fic has all the right tags, all my favorite characters, and the title references one of my favorite songs! It's perfect! Wait, it's a one-shot..."
This is my whole life... Once found a fic with the perfect tags, right amount of words, pretty impressive amount of kudos and my fav characters. It was supposed to be a couple of oneshots but it ended up being only 1 chapter cuz the author never finished it.
I don't feel comfortable writing fanfic on AO3 yet because there are more.. Critics and controversy there. So Wattpad for now is my area to start practicing my writing skills.
@@Creatorsan well, I made a A03 account in May of this year (2020), and made a fanfic in June and I had got no critics, but yeah. I used wattpad to help me write but whatever works for yoy
@@Creatorsan I personally think the 'critics' dilemma might just spawn from what fandom you're in, most people on AO3 [if not all] are really friendly and we love to yell at writers about how much we love their work in the comments. There's an audience for everything at any level, you honestly don't need to worry. Of course you might gain some constructive criticism but if it really comes down to it you can just _address the fact that you aren't comfortable receiving it and would rather people just didn't_ in the *notes section,* and that's totally cool too. Most people respect that, again, if not all. You can also filter your comments by choosing only the ones you reviewed to be made public; and if you're scared of trolls you can also select that only people with an ao3 account have the ability to comment on your work. As you may know, ao3 has a waiting list when you request an account unlike other websites, and it can literally take days, so it really works against people who are just out to cause trouble. Remember that, like any other social media, you can report comments on ao3 if things get hairy, but that's only for serious offenses. And if you have issues with people linking your work to your account, or if you want to write a fic that's a little more 'out there' than your other ones, you can totally just orphan the work or 'lock it' only for ao3 users. In short you can make your writing experience relatively safe at the very least and comfortably fun at the very most. I hope knowing all this might make your writing experience more comfortable to you, and again I wanna stress that you can basically communicate with your audience in the notes section in any way you want. If you don't communicate your needs to your readers they'll just fall back on their own personal defaults/etiquette, and that might not be what's right for you, as a writer, to receive in order to feel motivated or even happy with your work. That's all, I wish you happy writing!
@@LoreCatan I'm totally cool with criticism. I just get massive anxiety over things I really shouldn't be anxious about. Cause if I do manage to come across one, then i ingore them. Everything settled.
Oh, it sends them the notification no matter how many times you hit the button, they know you've spammed them 57 times in a row, they get an email with your name repeated for every time you hit it
@@kittyplayz1480 yeah, that's where thing kind of awkward. I can't raise the kudo, but my name still get sent 😂 Tbh, you need either more kudo or comments to make author more motivated to write
It's SO annoying! Every new chapter, I hit the kudos button, only for that red popup to appear, like the site is angry at me. "You already left kudos here, _idiot."_
The thing about wattpad is the fic could be poorly written with no effort at all but the comments will make it hilarious also the community there is amazing
there’s an infamous bill cipher smutfic and i love going there to see the comments att the innocent start and after the smut to see peoples reactions. “Okay how is it future me?” “i need eye bleach and therapy”
In AO3, many readers would relate about Kudos, where each and every one of us, wished oh so hard that we can click that button more than once for one chapter. Like, for instance, have you ever read something oh so incredibly readworthy that you just want to smash that Kudos button to oblivion? Yeah, me too.
i agree!! but I think that if we had the option to give kudos to every chapter it wouldn’t be representative of the quality of the work? (if that makes sense) I usually sort based on kudos to find the “best” fic in a specific fandom or for a specific relationship tag and not by the amount of hits as every new chapter counts as a new hit... I have to admit that I’ve logged in on my other ao3 accs just to give a second or third kudos more than once :’)
I write fanfiction for A03 (I used to write for wattpad but I grew out of it lol) and I think that the 'don't attack authors for using archive warnings and tags' is a really important message. Archive warnings and tags, while being things you can search for, are also trigger warnings. Say what you like about certain subjects, but I would much rather see that a fic has vore or major character death in the tags than get it by surprise, and people who attack others for using those tags probably share that mindset. If you attack someone for using a tag they may stop using it, and then you get the surprises you don't want. Fanfiction is an art form, and you wouldn't attack a painter for painting a hard subject, so leave us alone with our storytelling and keep scrolling if you don't like what you see.
Anyone who gets mad at writers for using warnings is an idiot. Like, do they want this stuff thrown at them without warning? If that is what they want, AO3 has an option to not show warnings when you’re looking for fic, so they can throw things at themselves without warning. If their problem is that they don’t want stories with that content, they should just filter that content out when they search so they never have to see it, especially since the author was polite enough to tag it so that it could be filtered out.
To everyone reading Wattpad fanfictions: The best part of the fanfic is the comments, trust me, even in my own fanfics I write, the comments are over 100% better than the actual content.
why i never stopped reading fanfics: 1) my vocabulary got better 2) i learned how to see the world in other people's POV's like basically empathy, ya know 3) my mind is really creative with writing and irl experiences like i can immediately figure out a love triangle among my friends 4) my grammar is on point (not flexing) 5) i never thought that i would fall in love with reading but i did and that's something that still amuses me 6) YOU CAN LITERALLY READ BOOKS FOR FREE 7) sex education 8) social problems, like i learned about so many phobias and diseases that people have, which i was never aware of, which was pretty dull and even understood and learned about their behaviour, things not to do and more, which is pretty educating in my opinion also about the LGBTQIA+ community 9) i can just have my own world full of these fantasies, which is really awesome. like whenever i have a bad day, i just go home and start a new JJK ff and yall don't know how much it makes me happy 10) emotions, i remember crying over thousands of ffs and thought it was pathetic but if you look closely, that person is crying about some written on a screen, it has to be something really sad that made that person cry 11) speaking up for myself, i experienced a lot of racism and body shaming when i was like nine or even six but i never spoke about it to anyone cause i didn't know if it was wrong or right because parents never expect their child to learn about these topics so young cause they think we'll not understand it and shit but at least give it a try and ever since i got into reading ffs and see that the same thing happened to me and the character is feeling messed up and you can finally figure out what you're feeling and that it is wrong. now i remember someone calling me skinny and i just replied with a savage comeback that's it, thanks for reading my comment!
Best part is storygraph means you can track how many books you read in a year including fanfics. Truly makes you feel like a reader in a way other sites don't
Hol up, fanfiction is Not the place to get your sex education jabdjsndjs while you can use it as a jumping board to be exposed to terms and stuff, do research into them because fanfic as a whole tends to twist a lot of stuff
@@Kaufmann_ omg why can relate to this I’ve been reading fan fictions for so long and I can’t get out of the loophole. It’s a shame that it’s seen in a bad light
Reading incomplete fics just hurt like salt and vinegar crisps. It’s pain but you keep going with it. I have cried so many times because a good fic just hasn’t been updated since 2016.
To this day, I keep checking my wattpad every year since 2017 to see if 'Staring Contest' has been updated. Are they going to be able to be together? Was everyone seeing A's face when he expresses emotion going to their demise? Will B ask for forgiveness? Will A ever feel something again? I may never know...
Yes. This is so true. Scrolling through pages of fanfics, and testing out the first few chapters of ones that catch your interest. Then, all the way at the bottom (at least for me), there it is. *The* fic. The one you immediately fall in love with, has your pairing in it, and it well-written, that has to be the best feeling in the world.
Useful tip on using AO3: when bookmarking, if you're gonna write something critical on the notes or for some reason you don't want other people to see what you have bookmarked, make sure to check the little box that says "Private bookmark". That way only you can see it and whatever you tagged/wrote.
@@toothfairy10133 yeah some do that 🥴 I think it's rude as shit, but since people aren't gonna stop, they might as well do it where no one will see it.
just want to put this out there: wattpad fics are not always bad! although there is quite a bit of poorly written and satirical fanfiction on wattpad, don't underestimate it. among the bad, i've found a lot of my favorite fics there. while yes it often does attract a young audience, there certainly are talented writers that gravitate to the platform as well. i'd say give it a chance, especially when you're getting into fanfiction for a new fandom; you never know what you're going to find on there.
I got my start on Wattpad and it is by far where I have the most followers. Because of Wattpads audience it's much easier for people to start off on. Places like ao3 can be harsher to newer less talented writers. I'll always have a special place in my heart for Wattpad
Yeah. I have a specific list of my favorite wattpad fics. They're not always common, and take a few searches to find, but there's some great ones on wattpad.
I agree that Wattpad can have many hidden jewels. The thing for me is finding them! it might just be the tagging system, but I can never find great fics through the search engine, it almost always is through a recommendation cause you can't really filter things in or out. And while I have read some amazing wattpad fics I've just kinda given up in searching for them cause not finding any can be very frustrating :(
this is true, one of my favorite fics of all time is on wattpad, but i will say that its harder to find good fanfic on wattpad and that ao3 has more works and is definitely generally higher quality.
Also the community on Wattpad is so amazing. (Usually) if something is bad, they'll say it nicely (if you put that you're okay with criticism) or not say it at all
@@quandaledingle3739 i also started writing fic when i was 7-8! i just didn't know it was called fanfic! it was my own version of harry potter with my oc lol
Dude, self-inserts are my guilty pleasure. There’s a certain puzzle aspect, like when you’re pulled to a stop and you think “Wait a minute, what the fuck IS my favourite flower?” That’s oddly appealing to me. Idk.
I prefer the self-inserts that are just like, either the author or an OC put into the story. I think the Y/N type is more specifically called reader-insert actually? But some people tag it as self-insert. And Y/N stuff just brings me out of the story too much usually. Especially when it gets... Excessive... Y/HairColor, Y/MomsName, Y/FavoriteFood, Y/Whatever.
How to: incognito tab when no one is at home, hold in tears, giggles, blushes, and tears. Cry at night, when you sleep. Edit: I just noticed you used incognito sometimes
Me who was reading fanfic when this came out: Yes I do need to know how to read it. I've never really one in my life, my wattpad acc and ao3 acc? Nope 🙅 don't 🤩 have🔥 one👁
What I usually do is: If I see an Incomplete Fanfic with a summary that intrigues me, I check to see when it was last updated, if it was last updated since like, last month: Great, I know it's still being updated, so it should be complete soon, so I read it, but if I see it hasn't been updated in years: May have to skip out on it unless it miraculously comes back and gets an actual ending.
You can usually identity them fairly quickly by their writing style and the vibe the author gives off in the preface + tags. Basically just avoid anything that makes you go "oh... ew" within the first ten sentences to half a page or so.
i feel like fanfiction. net is the older sibling, used to be loved and cherished but is now kinda forgotten ao3 is the middle sibling, never got listened to so they made themselves unique and great and a lot of people like them now wattpad is the younger sibling, they have more experience than you think they do and can actually do really great things. they can be pretty annoying but that's because deep down they are only a child. quotev is the adopted sibling who is technically better than wattpad in some ways but at the same time can be kind of toxic. (i love quotev, i'm just saying.)
Okay, story time! I used to write A LOT of undertale fanfic on amino back in 2017, and there was this project I was posting monthly (It was around 4 chapters long), but I got bored, never finished it and left amino... and I thought that was it, and it was... UNTIL TWO WEEKS AGO. My younger cousin recently got into undertale and, consequently, joined the fandom. She somehow stumbled upon my old account and read the fanfic I never finished. She texted me about this story she was reading that hadn't been updated in years. She sent me the link and my blood ran cold. I logged back on amino and deleted the chapters I posted, because I'm a coward. TL;DR My past sins literally came back to drag me to hell.
Omg. That is so similar to my story. I was in a summer camp and there was this boy, who had a crush on me but he didn't know that I knew. And he said that he also read Percy Jackson and if I could suggest some fanfiction to him to read. And I idiot, suggested my own fanfic I wrote 2 years ago and never finished. He was compaining about the fic not being finished, and now I'm scared to upload anything to wattpad ever again...
This is why I never post unfinished fics. The last thing I want is for my ADHD brain to suddenly lose focus before I’ve finished writing something and leave my audience hanging. Sure, I’ve only been able to actually post a couple of one-shots, but I think it’s better to have a small amount of complete content than a large amount of cliffhangers that may never be resolved.
I know! The only problem is with longer fics, such as This Bites by Xomniac, I literally couldn't do that without crashing Chrome. It was just too long.
yeSSS i usually let the whole fic load on safari and then not close the tab so it stays open for hours (unless your phone dies rip) it’s how I usually spend time whenever I have to take a long plane flight/car ride I used to download the fics in pdf but it changes the formatting/font and it’s mildly irritating when you’re so used to the ao3 font so I prefer my method now :)
In all fairness, Wattpad was never meant to be a fanfiction site. It’s actually an amateur original works site, and generally, in my experience, the OG works are *far* better than the fanfics.
As someone who has been on wattpad since they were in the single digits, I must say that the search engine is based on pure luck and hours of scrolling
Step 1: Search for what you want, keep it simple Step 2: Filter by completed Step 3: Scroll, scroll some more, scroll, keeping going Step 4: Take a gamble and add 8 random books because you’ll end up removing 6 of them for making your eyes bleed with horrible writing Step 5: Prepare to have your heart ripped out and your sleep deprived as you read the best two fics ever
there’s this one author who’s work i have seen in the fandom since 2018 and they have a collection showcasing their personal favourite works that they’ve published ,,,, in total those 10 or 12 pieces are approximately 750,000 words. Some are just one shots, others have 20+ chapters with more than 2000 words per chapter. I think the sum of their work so far (yes they’re still writing even tho the show killed itself) is over 1million words. The dedication is admirable and the writing is amazing. Even better, I have witnessed their writing improve over the 2 years and to witness someone perfect their art form ever so slightly in such a raw way is a privilege that isn’t possible with writing outside of fan fiction. + side note: i have read fan fics that are so good i genuinely forget that i’m not reading a officially published book and just someone sharing their love for a series and appreciation of characters for -free!-
Coley: 'I only usually do complete works because I am a coward' Me, who's read for later list is all incomplete/slow to update/in-progress works: so you have spared yourself the pain...wise choice.
You find really, really good incomplete fics so much!! it's painful but sometimes you must suffer especially if you're a rarepair multishipper....................like me..............................
man i too hate when a oneshot has made me feel such strong emotion and ive even cried. it leaves me with a broken heart and nothing i can find is like it.
I used to keep an actual word document of lines in fanfiction that made me laugh until I cried, and of course I can't remember a s i n g l e one of those lines now.
i’ve never used AO3 before, being a person easily intimidated when a lot of info is put in my face, but AO3 genuinely seems like a good website to find the exact things i’m into. thank you!
@@mndy129 It's definitely good and I've come to love it now that I (kind of) know how to use it, it was just figuring it out after coming from something like wattpad lmao
also remember that in ao3, if you find "character1/character2", on the tags, it means their relationship is romantic, but if it is "character1 & character2", they're just friends or probably are related somehow (at least most of the fanfictions work like that)
I'm not the only one who has seen Orphan Account everywhere and just thought it was a one mysterious account, that didn't show profile and seemed sus for too many works in many fandoms? Right?
Genuinely my favorite thing to do on AO3 is just reading through the tags. Sometimes they get absolutely ridiculous and you can seen the author have an existential crisis entirely through the tags. I like to take context-less screenshots and send them to my friend.
Or sometimes the tags scare you so much because it's warning you of the angst and pain and suffering so you chicken out but then you encounter it again and you can't get over how interesting the summary is so you a take shot and you suffer.
Once I saw a 'normal' fic, it was long, finished, and it's tags were so cute, like everything was fluff and sweetness and wholesomeness and that kind of tags (there were a lot of them) but the tags that actually caught my eye were almost at the end... 'major character death' and 'suicide'..... it was a good fic
Fan fiction has genuinely taught me so much and I wouldn’t be who I am today without it! It can help teach grammar, empathy, make you love reading, discover a love of writing, make you feel seen or heard, entertain you on slow days, genuinely so many opportunities!
Having minimal amount of friends was fine, I still read it there and now. But quarantine depression hit hard. Dramas and fanfics were 24/7!!! It was a need not a want.
"It's also a lot of people's first exposure to creative writing for the fun of it." I'm currently an English major with a creative writing emphasis, and I started down this path because I started writing fanfiction about six years ago (RWBY and Fairy Tail) and absolutely loved it and wanted to start writing creatively professionally! Fanfiction and fan content creation as a whole can definitely be important in guiding people to creative career tracks! It's like the creative content gateway drug xD
"It can be dare I say it even better than a lot of published stuff out there." *looks at Game of Thrones finale, Supernatural finale, Star Wars finale* I detect no lies in that statement.
@@grilledcheese6358 I love that I've gotten to work with at least one who "made it" and joined the VA cast for the series we wrote fanfic for. Props to Jerem6409
I've never really been that into fanfiction, but ever since watching you I've found these incredible gems of fanfics, like you're a weird lucky fanfiction charm.
this is actually one of the only reasons i ever liked wattpad you can get into such wild discussions sometimes and the interactions you have with other readers are (for when i last used it) x1000 higher and you have a stronger sense of community and i love it search engine is hell tho
@@starsoullove127 if theres a / between the names it's meant in a shippy way; as in Harry/Draco would be a romantic/sexual etc. Drarry fic. The & means it's just a FRIENDship/close relationship (non-incest siblings or other family-centred relationships) without any sexual/romantic feelings and actions involved
@@lisa_vxng ooh I get it now I just didn't realize that a and b meant characters. but yeah I totally get what you mean people always get the two confused
@@starsoullove127 ahah ok valid, that could be seen as confusing but then again, using anything from A to B to X is dangerous coz they have established meanings in fandom language😂
Me trying to listen to what she’s saying but is only able to pay attention to the fact that she clicked on *Yesterday Upon the Stair* and all the feels come rushing back-
I mean- for someone who’s going to start reading fanfiction, it really depends on that certain persons age to which site they can read on first- but I just love heart warming and heart breaking stories, I explore them all. Another reason why I read, is to just learn how to write better. (I really didn’t want to be mentally scarred by most of the fanfiction I found-)
The FLUFF is all you need. Recomendation from the series epithet erased: there is a fanfic where giovanni prepares breakfast for molly and then takes her to a toy store so that she can buy whatever she wants ¿you know why? Because THAT CINNAMON ROLL DESERVES THIS KIND OF BROTHERLY (un my casé fatherly) LOVE
Yeah, there are always authors out there who give warnings- but sometimes I just want to read something and ignore them all. I would be distracted at times and miss the small warnings up top- which isn’t a good thing to do-
You should totally make a skit all about Fanfic "Parents" Like the overrated parents who go on and on about their fic, The ones who are just happy to write their fic The orphaner And any other ones
I've been reading fanfic for 24 years. The second i found AO3 I've never looked back. As you said the search and exclude filters are such a game changer.
Me: *has been reading fic for years, familiar with all major fanfic platforms, and should probably know LESS about fanfic, for my own sake* Also me, watching this video: Click ✍️ the ✍️ ship ✍️ you ✍️ want ✍️ to ✍️ see ✍️
Me: reading fanfics for the last 4 years Also me: Let's just watch this video... I like all her other videos that I've seen... maybe I'll learn something
when you called out “practicing doctors” me as a medical student seeing myself writing fanfics as a doc in the future: 👁👄👁 imean not like I’m not writing now 👀
Wattpad: usually tween girls writing, oc x character, most fanfictions revolve around celebrities, bands, or live action shows, "don't like? don't read!!!", a lot of fanfic noobs use it. fanfiction.net: 80% of anime fanfictions, tags suck, the fanfics aren't amazingly written but decent, did anyone even know you could comment on fanfics? it's all just ships, the covers usually have nothing to do with the story. ao3: fanfictions with actual effort, a bunch of angst, holy shit there's original stories here??, probably the best fanfiction website, prepare to cry when you see "2/?" and hasn't been updated for the past 2 years, there's some weird official tags.
I will se both wattpad and ao3 but mostly wattpad lol I am a teen and and I usually read like dream team SMP stuff and I write like a ships oneshots. but you're pretty much right. the quality on ao3 is way better
I don't understand why people hate on Wattpad. For me, it was where I discovered the concept of fanfiction and where I started reading and writing fanfiction. Granted, I am now only sixteen and have only used and written on Wattpad for a year but still, Wattpad was my beginning. I may not know much and I am still new to many things, now, I have said what I wanted. Thank you for listening to this rant.
Hi, fellow sixteen years old who started on Wattpad! The problem comes mostly from the user base. Sure, there is a good handful of books and fanfics that are good, but since a lot of people in there are also beginners, the quality is usually not the best. There's also the fact that it was made more for original stories than fanfiction, so there is less variety to choose from. I don't hate Wattpad, and I definitely don't think it deserves hate (not for the that, at least) but it could improve a lot, specially compared to ao3
I grew up on it (17yrs) and am now only just moving to the others because I have become slightly pickier yet desperate. I will always skim through Wattpad's results first when looking for a new fic cause I find the others really clunky and ugly. Wattpad just has the best design and website flow. oh how I wish Wattpad would update its search function or ff.net/AO3 get redesigned. lol
I started on Wattpad too I was 14 when I started reading fanfics and now I’m 21. It’s such a good place to start since like coley said it’s generally used by a younger audience. I’ve seen some cringey stuff on there I’ll admit BUT there are some really good hidden gems in there. The user face is pretty easy to navigate too so it’s great for beginners. I don’t really use Wattpad anymore tho, only if I’m really desperate. I use mainly AO3 and tumblr for my finding fics and sometimes quotev.
I began with Wattpad too years ago, but it's mostly short and full of typos fanfictions (as a french kid at that time, it traumatized me and now i only read english fics xd) I mean, sure, i actually found great fanfictions back in the days (yes, even in french gkreg,ceig,e) but since i moved on to FFN then to AO3, which is for me the best site to read fanfictions. You should try it ! Tags system is really amazing :p
Thank you for making this video, and saying it like it is. Sometimes it's hard to get recognition when you do fanfic. I stumbled on this video randomly, and being a fanfic author myself had to check out what was being said. This video was all truth based on my experience. I avoid wattpad. I don't like the interface, and the average age is a little too low for me. I'm 35, been reading and writing fanfics for 20 years now. When you said "longer than LOTR and HP combined"... it warmed my heart. It's a dream few will ever achieve. My magnum opus is only longer than LOTR right now (I'm Exodia-Girl on Fanfic and Demonika on AO3, author of "Mass Effect: The Series"... at 700,000 words and counting), I love the recognition that it is a labor of love.
in terms of quality and subject matter, AO3 always comes out on top for me personally. but there are some real gems on each of these platforms, so have fun digging around :D
ALSO i have some fic recs on my patreon if y'all are interested! would you wanna see a video about things i look for when i go fic hunting sometime?
Hi Coley
Yea it’s true AO3 is awesome
Same
would love to use AO3, but the format is so confusing
That sounds like an awesome video premise yes please
People who use "complete works only" Are people who have been hurt one too many times
Not only one too much....in every new fandom you go to...thats the first GOOD fic you find..
An incomplete work was my gateway to a particular OTP. I still check in on it on occasion because I am ever hopeful.
It hasn't been updated since 2014.
Yes
I felt that
@@sanityisrelative I felt that-
ao3 is the more mature older sibling who occasionally is chaotic, wattpad is the younger sibling that is sometimes annoying but at heart is a good person, and ffnet is the parent who has always been the biggest role model for the other two
Best ever comment
And Quotev is the half cousin who everyone loves but rarely decides to show up and when they do show up leaves abruptly without saying goodbye
Accurate
@@nocturnalnewsie LMAO y e s
nice pfp!
ao3 comments: *goes into long detailed paragraph about how good the fic is*
wattpad comments: le gasp thats gay
Omg the comments i get on wattpad are literally the funniest thing ever, i love my readers. they’re crazy, but they’re the best
As a wattpad user, correct
wattpad comments are my constant source of entertainment
I thrive on wattpad comments 🤺
That's basically Wattpad in a nutshell.
to people who read incomplete stories: i respect it but it ain’t me
yall are braver than any soldier
Thank you, I'm just...
So chaotic. *Shudder*
That's my weak spot. Even I know they're incomplete but I find the abstract so interesting, I start them anyway and in the end I curse myself. Then, I start this cicle all over again
sometimes i stalk the author until i memorize their sleeping pattern to pinpoint when they post the next chapter.
I deliberately go out of my way to find incomplete fics. I do the same on Wattpad, but I also try to find the cringiest, most horribly written smut fics with bad grammar and whose authors first language probably wasn't english. I genuinely enjoy them, they're hilarious to me.
It's not even a guilty pleasure, because that would imply that I have shame.
@@zuyuri845 uh-
Fanfiction is like a coping mechanism for me at this point-
Sad? Go write so much fluff you drown in happiness
I prefer to read so much angst I can’t possibly be sad about my own problems bc what the fuck is going on to these poor idiots.
@@sleepystatic I mean, that's also a valid way of coping my dude
*(plz stay safe I worry bout angst lovers-)*
Me, who is pro in family fanfic: I feel you
I project a helluva lot onto this one character and I've noticed that I tend to make his life a living hell, this might be a bad sign for my mental health axgjecjgcdjg
But in all seriousness, I think it's actually helping? I always give him hope and a way out of whatever bad situation he's in, and it's kinda giving me hope too.
@@haveagoodmourning Yeah I do that a lot with Virgil. I talked with my therapist about it and she said that it's quite normal! You're able to prove to yourself that you can get through this and that it will be alright in the future. It's your brains way of telling itself that it's not over yet
AO3 has the books, Wattpad have the comments, let’s be real
The comments in Wattpad have me crying of laughter sometimes
a lot of the time i’ll only read wattpad for the comments
I live on Wattpad for the comments, there is no other reason 😌
Frr i wish there were comments in AO3
@@chextheroyalbastard3495 same
Not gonna lie the cringe is bad, but when you find one of those golden fics, its DIAMOND
I can't say that better
yes ^^ this 100%
Ngl I basically never find anything really cringy but I also mostly read on ao3 and sort by bookmarks.
I’ve seen plenty of those. All you gotta do is do a few filters and really dig into them... Maybe they’d be even better than the original.
*LOOKING AT YOU J.K. ROWLING-*
Especially when the chapters are like 67/67 with 129,850 words
coley: here's how to read fanfiction
me, who has been reading fanfics for four years straight: ah yes, I totally need this video
Pfft! What a mood! You and me both buddy.
@@harshitadas1435 Sam'e
Honestly, I just got this on my recommended.
@@harshitadas1435 you and me and the other person both buddy. (me grammer very well.)
ok but legitmately 6 years into reading fanfiction and i still did actually need that wattpad tutorial
The fact that Coley has to constantly remind us to not harass writters/artists over fictional content
That's because there are so many freaking toxic people on these sites😭😭😭
I had seen a few encounters where they literally hate on users and stories, it's frustrating
Yep, it's a bit depressing😔
@@RobynFrost I remember one Got writer who was harassed because the readers mother had the same name as a cannon character the writer used.
One of my favourite authors went on a hiatus recently because of the abusive comments. I only saw a glimpse, as most of the comments were deleted. Still, from what I saw, it was bad.
Ikrr 😔
"This is a cool fic-"
*Last updated: 2015*
That is the true feeling of heartbreak.
THE PAIINNN
Lmao every dead fandom fanfiction.
End my suffering.
#LateToTheFandom
@@lplayz605
That’s me. I’m in THG fandom, which is certainly not dead, but the majority of the content came out a while ago.
The fact that "Bakugo Katsuki swears a lot" is the third most popular tag on My Hero fics besides fluff and angst is just- Amazing to me.
You will find that BAMF Midoriya Izuku is also a preeety popular tag... As well as Endeavour's A+ Parenting.
Pfft-
Ikr
ikr lmao
Same
My Hero tags are some of the funniest
Fan Fact: They have Ancient Egyptian language option on AO3, as well as Sumerian and Old English. This shows that fandom has beem in existence since 4000 BC, being one of the foundation bricks of humanity.
Fandom-ation bricks
waitwaitwait, Sumerian?????
@@zombiedogsal Check it out yourself
@@zombiedogsalYupp i can confirm this 😃
they also have toki pona, esperanto, volapuk, interlingua, and theres also a category for 'uncategorized constructed languages'. FINALLY, you can read fanfic in YOUR favorite conlang!
i use wattpad ONLY for the comments- i swear to god everyone on that app is such a comedian it’s half the story
i go through enternal pain reading bad fanfiction just to laugh at the comments there.
@@nagiosman5275 the comments are the reward of reading a bad fic or the comments are the fic sometimes
✧⁺⸜(●˙▾˙●)⸝⁺✧ʸᵃˢ
bro the smuts comments are gold, like the characters are doing the no no and the comments just start a flipping cult
Ikr- in a fanfic I read there is a typical mean girl who always bullies the main character, and the comments are all paragraphs long roasting that girl lmaoo
The eternal pain: The perfect fic is always in Chinese or Italian or anything _not your native language_
That’s when I whip out my handy translator
Once I read a fanfic in russian with the google translator, reading fanfic in spanish(my native lenguaje) is a nightmare and english is not always the answer.
But the weird thing is, even though french is my first language, I freaking hate reading french fanfics. It might be because I’m so used to exclusively reading fics in English, but it just feels wrong
Wow, this tag looks good!
*Is in Chinese*
Oh...
@@burntblueberrywaffles same! My first language is spanish and its so wierd watching anime/reading
The part about reading an incomplete fic until 4 AM hit me personally.
the thing is, when you both read and write fanfiction, *you can complete the fic yourself and no one can stop you*
@@justanothergeek77 *exactly*
@@justanothergeek77 *exactly*
I found this really cool story and it was written better than most books I’ve read and it was last updated 2017 with the biggest cliff hanger I’ve seen ✌️😔
@@justanothergeek77 True, true. ***Writer noises intensify***
Imagine being in a fandom big enough to have the luxury of only reading complete fics :')
this hit. *hard.*
mood
too relatable
imagine being in a fandom large enough to actually have fanfictions
I only read a very specific niche ship. And 90% of it is smut (I don't usually read that ugh)
"If I don't wanna stay up till 4am reading a fic and find out that it's incomplete and has been incomplete for four years now."
*I felt that*
same
sometimes I get desperate enough to read those.... I always regret it but always do it again.
We've all been there...
They're so interesting tho
So it hurts even more
PAIN
"Longer than Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings combined" the second longest work of literature is a fanfic. I'm not even joking.
do you know what fanfic is it?
Wasn't it a Super Smash Bros fic?
@@SingingSuperstar28 super smash bros brawl, if I'm not mistaken.
I legit found an ONGOING fic that updates almost every day that almost 1.5 million words now... I don't have the balls to read it yet, but I subscribed anyways to watch a legend grow
@@lunaloveralex6009 Damn, I could never 🙈
I feel like Coley is like a professional fandom tour guide or something. Like she knows everything about fandoms
Fandom tour guide, that should be the next Coleyverse thing! Like the fanfic cafe, ships r us, etc. With her touring through a hallway with all the fandom doors in the "entering fandoms like" series, and a group of bewildered outsiders following her around. Becky was signed up for this tour by her fangirl friend. Muffled screams echo from inside the door labeled "MHA". Becky wants to go home.
@@haveagoodmourning HELL YEAH
It could be like a museum or something
@@somethingv9522 Dude a museum would be even better, like dead fandoms and really old fandoms!
This sounds like the curator for the Penumbra podcast to me XD
"Wow! This fic has all the right tags, all my favorite characters, and the title references one of my favorite songs! It's perfect! Wait, it's a one-shot..."
now if this ain't a mood-
This is my whole life... Once found a fic with the perfect tags, right amount of words, pretty impressive amount of kudos and my fav characters. It was supposed to be a couple of oneshots but it ended up being only 1 chapter cuz the author never finished it.
BITCH ..👏 .EVERY 👏 FUCKING 👏 TIME 👏
I love one shots
Even better
Me, waving at all the newcomers to the fanfiction life: "Welcome stranger, there is no exit."
Preach
I felt that.
It is true, I have tried
Once you join you can never leave
five years and counting- no escape
Coley: how to read fanfiction
me: *has an ao3 and wattpad account*
also me: yes.
I don't feel comfortable writing fanfic on AO3 yet because there are more..
Critics and controversy there.
So Wattpad for now is my area to start practicing my writing skills.
@@Creatorsan well, I made a A03 account in May of this year (2020), and made a fanfic in June and I had got no critics, but yeah. I used wattpad to help me write but whatever works for yoy
@@Creatorsan I personally think the 'critics' dilemma might just spawn from what fandom you're in, most people on AO3 [if not all] are really friendly and we love to yell at writers about how much we love their work in the comments.
There's an audience for everything at any level, you honestly don't need to worry. Of course you might gain some constructive criticism but if it really comes down to it you can just _address the fact that you aren't comfortable receiving it and would rather people just didn't_ in the *notes section,* and that's totally cool too. Most people respect that, again, if not all.
You can also filter your comments by choosing only the ones you reviewed to be made public; and if you're scared of trolls you can also select that only people with an ao3 account have the ability to comment on your work. As you may know, ao3 has a waiting list when you request an account unlike other websites, and it can literally take days, so it really works against people who are just out to cause trouble. Remember that, like any other social media, you can report comments on ao3 if things get hairy, but that's only for serious offenses.
And if you have issues with people linking your work to your account, or if you want to write a fic that's a little more 'out there' than your other ones, you can totally just orphan the work or 'lock it' only for ao3 users. In short you can make your writing experience relatively safe at the very least and comfortably fun at the very most.
I hope knowing all this might make your writing experience more comfortable to you, and again I wanna stress that you can basically communicate with your audience in the notes section in any way you want. If you don't communicate your needs to your readers they'll just fall back on their own personal defaults/etiquette, and that might not be what's right for you, as a writer, to receive in order to feel motivated or even happy with your work.
That's all, I wish you happy writing!
Ao3, Deviant art, watt pad, tumblr, and quotev 😎😎😎
@@LoreCatan I'm totally cool with criticism. I just get massive anxiety over things I really shouldn't be anxious about. Cause if I do manage to come across one, then i ingore them. Everything settled.
My problem with AO3 is only one: PLEASE LET ME GIVE MORE KUDOS TO AUTHOR. THEY DESERVE MOAR 😭
Oh, it sends them the notification no matter how many times you hit the button, they know you've spammed them 57 times in a row, they get an email with your name repeated for every time you hit it
I wish I could kudos an author for every chapter 😞
@@kittyplayz1480 yeah, that's where thing kind of awkward. I can't raise the kudo, but my name still get sent 😂
Tbh, you need either more kudo or comments to make author more motivated to write
It's SO annoying! Every new chapter, I hit the kudos button, only for that red popup to appear, like the site is angry at me. "You already left kudos here, _idiot."_
@@kittyplayz1480 I didn’t know this 💀 I’ve been spamming kudos to this active fic that i’ve been rereading bcs i love it so much lol
The thing about wattpad is the fic could be poorly written with no effort at all but the comments will make it hilarious also the community there is amazing
there’s an infamous bill cipher smutfic and i love going there to see the comments att the innocent start and after the smut to see peoples reactions. “Okay how is it future me?” “i need eye bleach and therapy”
The fic IS poorly written. Good fics don't exist on Wattpad. Source: I write on Wattpad.
Coley: Fanfiction has a bit of a bad rap-
Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way: Did someone say my name?
That popped into my head too. 😨😰
* f l a s h b a c k s *
What about him/her? 🤔
*mmmmmmmh I don't like you*
Oh- oh no not her again
In AO3, many readers would relate about Kudos, where each and every one of us, wished oh so hard that we can click that button more than once for one chapter. Like, for instance, have you ever read something oh so incredibly readworthy that you just want to smash that Kudos button to oblivion? Yeah, me too.
i did once and my phone actually crashed lmaoo
Yeah sometimes 1 Kudos for an entire work is not enough
i agree!! but I think that if we had the option to give kudos to every chapter it wouldn’t be representative of the quality of the work? (if that makes sense) I usually sort based on kudos to find the “best” fic in a specific fandom or for a specific relationship tag and not by the amount of hits as every new chapter counts as a new hit... I have to admit that I’ve logged in on my other ao3 accs just to give a second or third kudos more than once :’)
I consider it a like or favorite like FF.Net
I wish there was an option for that
me: reads an unhealthy amount of fanfic, knows way too much about fanfic
also me: watches coley's video on how to read fanfic
Same lmaoooooo
Same lol
That's me right now lmao. I only use Wattpad, so it's nice to learn about AO3.
@@pretend_im_not_even_here9336 ah good luck using ao3!! its definetly one of the best skills i've ever learnt ahaha
Same lmao
I write fanfiction for A03 (I used to write for wattpad but I grew out of it lol) and I think that the 'don't attack authors for using archive warnings and tags' is a really important message. Archive warnings and tags, while being things you can search for, are also trigger warnings. Say what you like about certain subjects, but I would much rather see that a fic has vore or major character death in the tags than get it by surprise, and people who attack others for using those tags probably share that mindset. If you attack someone for using a tag they may stop using it, and then you get the surprises you don't want. Fanfiction is an art form, and you wouldn't attack a painter for painting a hard subject, so leave us alone with our storytelling and keep scrolling if you don't like what you see.
Anyone who gets mad at writers for using warnings is an idiot. Like, do they want this stuff thrown at them without warning? If that is what they want, AO3 has an option to not show warnings when you’re looking for fic, so they can throw things at themselves without warning. If their problem is that they don’t want stories with that content, they should just filter that content out when they search so they never have to see it, especially since the author was polite enough to tag it so that it could be filtered out.
Ao3 is the god of fanfics, that’s why I’ve stayed away from wattpad since I found it
Memento Mori
@@artkooky You’ll die anyway?
@@artkooky memento mori
Ikr!! I also can't stand the dumb search engine in wattpad-
Momento mori
me: *has been reading fanfic for about six years, and writing just as long*
also me: ah yes, i would like to learn how to read fanfic
Dont be shy drop us the link for your fanfics 😼
^^^^^ i agree
true 🤣🤣
yes drop the link i must read them now-
link? plwaseeeee
To everyone reading Wattpad fanfictions:
The best part of the fanfic is the comments, trust me, even in my own fanfics I write, the comments are over 100% better than the actual content.
I can vouch for this✋
As a writer on wattpad, I agree, tbh the comments are my motivation for continuing my fanfics. They are just so funny and sweet
@@PinaColadas0604 i know righttt!
This I agree 😂 it’s also a great way to start conversations with other people
I agree 🏃♀️
why i never stopped reading fanfics:
1) my vocabulary got better
2) i learned how to see the world in other people's POV's like basically empathy, ya know
3) my mind is really creative with writing and irl experiences like i can immediately figure out a love triangle among my friends
4) my grammar is on point (not flexing)
5) i never thought that i would fall in love with reading but i did and that's something that still amuses me
6) YOU CAN LITERALLY READ BOOKS FOR FREE
7) sex education
8) social problems, like i learned about so many phobias and diseases that people have, which i was never aware of, which was pretty dull and even understood and learned about their behaviour, things not to do and more, which is pretty educating in my opinion also about the LGBTQIA+ community
9) i can just have my own world full of these fantasies, which is really awesome. like whenever i have a bad day, i just go home and start a new JJK ff and yall don't know how much it makes me happy
10) emotions, i remember crying over thousands of ffs and thought it was pathetic but if you look closely, that person is crying about some written on a screen, it has to be something really sad that made that person cry
11) speaking up for myself, i experienced a lot of racism and body shaming when i was like nine or even six but i never spoke about it to anyone cause i didn't know if it was wrong or right because parents never expect their child to learn about these topics so young cause they think we'll not understand it and shit but at least give it a try and ever since i got into reading ffs and see that the same thing happened to me and the character is feeling messed up and you can finally figure out what you're feeling and that it is wrong. now i remember someone calling me skinny and i just replied with a savage comeback
that's it, thanks for reading my comment!
Hey, can I use this if anyone (rudely) asks why I read fanfic instead of "ReAl bOOks"?
💯
Best part is storygraph means you can track how many books you read in a year including fanfics. Truly makes you feel like a reader in a way other sites don't
Hol up, fanfiction is Not the place to get your sex education jabdjsndjs while you can use it as a jumping board to be exposed to terms and stuff, do research into them because fanfic as a whole tends to twist a lot of stuff
Thanks for this comment!
“UA-cam’s resident fandom lady”
Yes, all hail the Fandom Lady Coley. 😁
This is why I love people who read fanfics they are hilarious
My mom writes fanfics and I still haven't gotten over it.
imsorry whAT
she does what now-
_That's me in the future right there-_
What does she write about?
Me as a mother
Not gonna lie I thought it was just gonna be like:
Step 1: *Don’t.*
If you don't want a huge part of your life to be consumed by it... Then yeah, you should probably not.
@@lightnightsky I think I'm addicted. I can't stop!!
There is no escape.
@@Kaufmann_ omg why can relate to this I’ve been reading fan fictions for so long and I can’t get out of the loophole. It’s a shame that it’s seen in a bad light
@@lightnightsky yeah but it’s worth it in the end
Reading incomplete fics just hurt like salt and vinegar crisps. It’s pain but you keep going with it. I have cried so many times because a good fic just hasn’t been updated since 2016.
And, that is where other fanfic writers come in.
yes
To this day, I keep checking my wattpad every year since 2017 to see if 'Staring Contest' has been updated. Are they going to be able to be together? Was everyone seeing A's face when he expresses emotion going to their demise? Will B ask for forgiveness? Will A ever feel something again?
I may never know...
one of the fics that was not updated 5 years ago updated like 2 months ago. it has not updated since but DAMN THE SERTONINE IN MY BRAIN
wattpad core
Can we talk about how she literally looks like Narcissa...
OMG YES SHE DOES- I JUST REALIZED IT-
W A I T
THATS WHO SHE LOOKS LIKE I THOUGHT SHE LOOKS FAMILIAR OMG QJHSHXJSHDJHSHDJSHSJSDHS.
OMG I JUST REALIZED
Cissa hair is on point
Honestly sometimes it felt like TORTURE, yet when you find THE fic, it's all gonna be worth it.
Yes. This is so true. Scrolling through pages of fanfics, and testing out the first few chapters of ones that catch your interest. Then, all the way at the bottom (at least for me), there it is. *The* fic. The one you immediately fall in love with, has your pairing in it, and it well-written, that has to be the best feeling in the world.
@@Tired_Coffee And then it turns out that it has beed discontinued since 2013...
@@alien5520 why is this so true 😭😭😭
me after scouring the trt ao3 and being forced to see a lot of weird fics just to find the PERFECT leovan fic (it was worth it
AND THEN ITS EITHER DISCONTINUED OR ON HIATUS
how to read fanfics:
see major character death tag
read anyway
finish
try not to cry
cry
Me: *laughs because the major character death in my story will be the reader,and the title are the last words hawks says to the reader*
😂
*search for tooth-rotting fluff*
*laughs in (discontinued)*
Seriously I'd rather go through 100 character deaths than 1 discontinued GREAT story.
me accidentally reading major character death without realising and then being crushed when it happens
Useful tip on using AO3: when bookmarking, if you're gonna write something critical on the notes or for some reason you don't want other people to see what you have bookmarked, make sure to check the little box that says "Private bookmark". That way only you can see it and whatever you tagged/wrote.
i've heard that some people are leaving ratings in their public bookmarks like it's goodreads or some shit :/
@@toothfairy10133 yeah some do that 🥴 I think it's rude as shit, but since people aren't gonna stop, they might as well do it where no one will see it.
Thank you!
to read *smutty* fanfiction you must: master the *straight face* .
Edit: holy shiz thanks for the likes lmaoo
( 。・_・。)人(。・_・。 ) look mom I’m famous-
I can't even write it with straight face, let alone read it 😂
i've read smut in a school event... nobody knows
i read smut right in front of my parents. i am god
@@ardenmurray9217 a superior being
@@ardenmurray9217
We stan
just want to put this out there: wattpad fics are not always bad!
although there is quite a bit of poorly written and satirical fanfiction on wattpad, don't underestimate it. among the bad, i've found a lot of my favorite fics there. while yes it often does attract a young audience, there certainly are talented writers that gravitate to the platform as well. i'd say give it a chance, especially when you're getting into fanfiction for a new fandom; you never know what you're going to find on there.
I got my start on Wattpad and it is by far where I have the most followers. Because of Wattpads audience it's much easier for people to start off on. Places like ao3 can be harsher to newer less talented writers. I'll always have a special place in my heart for Wattpad
Yeah. I have a specific list of my favorite wattpad fics. They're not always common, and take a few searches to find, but there's some great ones on wattpad.
I agree that Wattpad can have many hidden jewels. The thing for me is finding them! it might just be the tagging system, but I can never find great fics through the search engine, it almost always is through a recommendation cause you can't really filter things in or out. And while I have read some amazing wattpad fics I've just kinda given up in searching for them cause not finding any can be very frustrating :(
this is true, one of my favorite fics of all time is on wattpad, but i will say that its harder to find good fanfic on wattpad and that ao3 has more works and is definitely generally higher quality.
Also the community on Wattpad is so amazing. (Usually) if something is bad, they'll say it nicely (if you put that you're okay with criticism) or not say it at all
Coley: fanfiction-
Me: *shudders while remembering writing cringey Warriors fanfictions on FictionPad when I was 7*
SEVEN?!?
@@taylor41 yEP-
😂 seven is a very young age for fan fiction
I was 9 when I read my first fanfiction
@@quandaledingle3739 i also started writing fic when i was 7-8! i just didn't know it was called fanfic! it was my own version of harry potter with my oc lol
Dude, self-inserts are my guilty pleasure. There’s a certain puzzle aspect, like when you’re pulled to a stop and you think “Wait a minute, what the fuck IS my favourite flower?” That’s oddly appealing to me. Idk.
I agree!
As someone who adamantly refuses to read self-insert fanfics, this comment is my exact reasoning. I DON’T NEED THAT EXISTENTIAL “who am i” GOD DAMNIT
I prefer the self-inserts that are just like, either the author or an OC put into the story. I think the Y/N type is more specifically called reader-insert actually? But some people tag it as self-insert.
And Y/N stuff just brings me out of the story too much usually. Especially when it gets... Excessive... Y/HairColor, Y/MomsName, Y/FavoriteFood, Y/Whatever.
How to: incognito tab when no one is at home, hold in tears, giggles, blushes, and tears. Cry at night, when you sleep.
Edit: I just noticed you used incognito sometimes
ahaha true
then theres me who has on multiple occasions read hardcore bdsm smut in public not on incognito with a straight face
@@MonShoe I FELT THIS LMAODJEJDJWJDJDK
Coley: "Has this ever happen to you-"
Me: Y e s.
Coley: I didn't get to finish-
Me: You don't need to finish.
true
yes.
why hello raine
Me who was reading fanfic when this came out:
Yes I do need to know how to read it. I've never really one in my life, my wattpad acc and ao3 acc? Nope 🙅 don't 🤩 have🔥 one👁
Literally my reaction lol I know how to use all these websites but Coley is queen
Agreed, ao3 and wattpad accounts what’re those? I am a newbie that must be taught your ways😁😆
Same, but I actually learned a lot more than I thought I would
“i only usually do complete works because i’m a coward” LMAO MOOD
What I usually do is: If I see an Incomplete Fanfic with a summary that intrigues me, I check to see when it was last updated, if it was last updated since like, last month: Great, I know it's still being updated, so it should be complete soon, so I read it, but if I see it hasn't been updated in years: May have to skip out on it unless it miraculously comes back and gets an actual ending.
this woman has garnered all my respect for being able to navigate the minefield which is fanfiction
I've been really scared of reading fanfic because I didn't want to step on one of those "land mines"
You can usually identity them fairly quickly by their writing style and the vibe the author gives off in the preface + tags. Basically just avoid anything that makes you go "oh... ew" within the first ten sentences to half a page or so.
i feel like fanfiction. net is the older sibling, used to be loved and cherished but is now kinda forgotten
ao3 is the middle sibling, never got listened to so they made themselves unique and great and a lot of people like them now
wattpad is the younger sibling, they have more experience than you think they do and can actually do really great things. they can be pretty annoying but that's because deep down they are only a child.
quotev is the adopted sibling who is technically better than wattpad in some ways but at the same time can be kind of toxic. (i love quotev, i'm just saying.)
Wait-- what about quotev?
forgot about that! i added it in!
I can’t get behind fanfic.net’s user interface even and filters tbh. AO3 is just so much cleaner and efficient.
Agreed.
YES finally someone who knows about quotev! thank you!
I thought that "oh no, i'm a fan" was going to be that one "oh no, I'm a failure" vine for a second wgjxsxgjx
😂😂😂
there's a mushroom on your shirt
Okay, story time!
I used to write A LOT of undertale fanfic on amino back in 2017, and there was this project I was posting monthly (It was around 4 chapters long), but I got bored, never finished it and left amino... and I thought that was it, and it was... UNTIL TWO WEEKS AGO.
My younger cousin recently got into undertale and, consequently, joined the fandom. She somehow stumbled upon my old account and read the fanfic I never finished. She texted me about this story she was reading that hadn't been updated in years. She sent me the link and my blood ran cold.
I logged back on amino and deleted the chapters I posted, because I'm a coward.
TL;DR My past sins literally came back to drag me to hell.
Omg. That is so similar to my story. I was in a summer camp and there was this boy, who had a crush on me but he didn't know that I knew. And he said that he also read Percy Jackson and if I could suggest some fanfiction to him to read. And I idiot, suggested my own fanfic I wrote 2 years ago and never finished. He was compaining about the fic not being finished, and now I'm scared to upload anything to wattpad ever again...
This is why I never post unfinished fics. The last thing I want is for my ADHD brain to suddenly lose focus before I’ve finished writing something and leave my audience hanging. Sure, I’ve only been able to actually post a couple of one-shots, but I think it’s better to have a small amount of complete content than a large amount of cliffhangers that may never be resolved.
I will say: when reading Ao3 on mobile, the "entire work" button at the top is a lifesaver (especially when reading on buses).
THIS YES
I know! The only problem is with longer fics, such as This Bites by Xomniac, I literally couldn't do that without crashing Chrome. It was just too long.
@@francoisecanal4813 wow...
@@francoisecanal4813 I don't read fanfic on my computer anymore. :P
yeSSS i usually let the whole fic load on safari and then not close the tab so it stays open for hours (unless your phone dies rip) it’s how I usually spend time whenever I have to take a long plane flight/car ride
I used to download the fics in pdf but it changes the formatting/font and it’s mildly irritating when you’re so used to the ao3 font so I prefer my method now :)
As an ao3 girl myself for the last 10 years, I have to say, Wattpad search engine seems wild
I don't feel like I'd get anywhere
As someone who's been on Wattpad since like 2014 - finding something good is mostly just luck
I don't like the website but the app is...
Tolerable???
In all fairness, Wattpad was never meant to be a fanfiction site. It’s actually an amateur original works site, and generally, in my experience, the OG works are *far* better than the fanfics.
As someone who has been on wattpad since they were in the single digits, I must say that the search engine is based on pure luck and hours of scrolling
Step 1: Search for what you want, keep it simple
Step 2: Filter by completed
Step 3: Scroll, scroll some more, scroll, keeping going
Step 4: Take a gamble and add 8 random books because you’ll end up removing 6 of them for making your eyes bleed with horrible writing
Step 5: Prepare to have your heart ripped out and your sleep deprived as you read the best two fics ever
Coley's major rule for fandom: Don't attack it, just ignore it.
I can get behind this rule
#CancelCancelCulture(inFandoms)
there’s this one author who’s work i have seen in the fandom since 2018 and they have a collection showcasing their personal favourite works that they’ve published ,,,, in total those 10 or 12 pieces are approximately 750,000 words. Some are just one shots, others have 20+ chapters with more than 2000 words per chapter. I think the sum of their work so far (yes they’re still writing even tho the show killed itself) is over 1million words.
The dedication is admirable and the writing is amazing. Even better, I have witnessed their writing improve over the 2 years and to witness someone perfect their art form ever so slightly in such a raw way is a privilege that isn’t possible with writing outside of fan fiction.
+ side note: i have read fan fics that are so good i genuinely forget that i’m not reading a officially published book and just someone sharing their love for a series and appreciation of characters for -free!-
yep some people have such good writing skills that i wish they had some of there works published! ive even see fanfics with there own fanfic.
I'm vice versa, I think that cannon stuff is a really well written, bound, fanfiction
Coley: 'I only usually do complete works because I am a coward'
Me, who's read for later list is all incomplete/slow to update/in-progress works: so you have spared yourself the pain...wise choice.
most of the fics I currently read (about 30) are still in progress. Some of them even for years. But they are worth it!
Ah yes, I remember the early days when I would only read completed works. Those were simpler times.
You find really, really good incomplete fics so much!! it's painful but sometimes you must suffer especially if you're a rarepair multishipper....................like me..............................
Oh my sweet summer child, I wish for you to never experience the pain of fic abandonment
Hhahaha
Well most of the good ones are incomplete
I got desensitized from the sadness
I reread them a lot
“How to learn to read fanfictions”
Me: step one learn how to read
jared, 19, step one: failed
@@musicmirj lol 😂
Ah yes, basic literacy
I thought i was the only one thinking about this
obviously yea
Honestly for me growing up was
Wattpad- 11-12 years
Fanfiction- 13-16 years
Ao3- 17- present
I still use the others but Ao3 is like top tier
Nothing beats ao3. I’m so glad I found it, Wattpad still gives me shivers to this day.
My Quotev loving ass lookin around nervously
ao3 def has the biggest learning curve, but it’s def my favorite with the tag system
I'm 12 and ever since I found AO3 Wattpad was just never really the same again...
@@cassiescreations4085 Same, I still read from Wattpad, but it just hasn't been the same. (Nothing beats its comment system tho)
I literally read a long one shot that was SOOO good. The emotion and descriptions was so good and how they depicted characters UGH I LOVED IT ALL
Sounds like blackkkat and applepie for the Naruto fandom and others.
man i too hate when a oneshot has made me feel such strong emotion and ive even cried. it leaves me with a broken heart and nothing i can find is like it.
raise your hand if you're going to send this to your friends to get them to read fanfiction 🤚
🤚🏾
when your friends already read fanfiction
raise your hand if you're the friend that got sent this to get them to read fanfiction
@@swirlingsun it's not bad decision hour yet shush
@@Sam-on5jf ✋
“Hello, Yes my boyfriend just got chucked out the window”
This is the best line I’ve found in a Fanfic so far
Sauce plz
There's better ones, trust me
Mine is "ALRIGHT GAYS, LETS GO"
Mine is “What are you gonna do your Royalness, tax me?”
I used to keep an actual word document of lines in fanfiction that made me laugh until I cried, and of course I can't remember a s i n g l e one of those lines now.
Coley: today I'm gonna teach u how to read fanfics
Someone who has been reading fanfics for ages: hmmmm interesting *clicks*
Right. Me too😂😂
Same😂
Fucking same.
did not ask for the call out lmao
literally me
i’ve never used AO3 before, being a person easily intimidated when a lot of info is put in my face, but AO3 genuinely seems like a good website to find the exact things i’m into. thank you!
Can we have a 'how to write fanfiction' or something, because dear god learning how to use the AO3 fanfic writing system was hell-
Coley please see this ^^^^^^^🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Going from FFN to AO3 was so weird for writing, completely different system lmao
@@nahtoyou3
Same here, but I came from wattpad. It completely fried my brain lmao
I actually like how specific the AO3 interface is, I wouldn't know how to portray half of what it has on my own lol
@@mndy129
It's definitely good and I've come to love it now that I (kind of) know how to use it, it was just figuring it out after coming from something like wattpad lmao
also remember that in ao3, if you find "character1/character2", on the tags, it means their relationship is romantic, but if it is "character1 & character2", they're just friends or probably are related somehow (at least most of the fanfictions work like that)
usually
and then there's always the people who don't understand the difference between the two
or in simpler words: '/' is usually for romantic relationships and '&' is usually for platonic relationships
THANK you so much, love been using ao3 for two years and had no idea, thanks
@@elliot_the_simpleton you're welcome
First person is always horrifying. That’s why I avoid Wattpad.
AGREEDDDD
I've read one decent first person fic, but unfortunately the quality really dropped as the chapters went on, and I gave up on it :/
One of us. One of us >:)
it’s just TOO cringy and awkward
@@RS-og7qu ikr
I'm not the only one who has seen Orphan Account everywhere and just thought it was a one mysterious account, that didn't show profile and seemed sus for too many works in many fandoms? Right?
People on Wattpad think the same of -
@@vaishnavivenu5835 Same 😭😭
@@vaishnavivenu5835 I-honey, just wanna check r u being sarcastic?
@@vaishnavivenu5835 oh lol ok
@@vaishnavivenu5835 Yes
Genuinely my favorite thing to do on AO3 is just reading through the tags. Sometimes they get absolutely ridiculous and you can seen the author have an existential crisis entirely through the tags. I like to take context-less screenshots and send them to my friend.
this one isn't and official tag, but it had 120+ works under it: Alternate Universe - The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
Or sometimes the tags scare you so much because it's warning you of the angst and pain and suffering so you chicken out but then you encounter it again and you can't get over how interesting the summary is so you a take shot and you suffer.
Once I saw a 'normal' fic, it was long, finished, and it's tags were so cute, like everything was fluff and sweetness and wholesomeness and that kind of tags (there were a lot of them) but the tags that actually caught my eye were almost at the end... 'major character death' and 'suicide'..... it was a good fic
@@lunad2595 RIP
I saw a tag that was Sugar Daddy Voldemort
“Bakugou Katsuki swears a lot” and “Bakugou Katsuki is bad at feelings” are part of the additional tags pls I love this fandom sm
Fan fiction has genuinely taught me so much and I wouldn’t be who I am today without it! It can help teach grammar, empathy, make you love reading, discover a love of writing, make you feel seen or heard, entertain you on slow days, genuinely so many opportunities!
Who else reads fanfiction as a coping mechanism??
Just to know that I'll never be in a relationship with an anime boy? If so, me.
They didn't deserve that on the source material.
Yes.
Or at least i used to.
It helped me with my loneliness and the fact that I didn't have friends, but I have friends now so I don't read as often.
✋
Having minimal amount of friends was fine, I still read it there and now. But quarantine depression hit hard. Dramas and fanfics were 24/7!!! It was a need not a want.
"It's also a lot of people's first exposure to creative writing for the fun of it."
I'm currently an English major with a creative writing emphasis, and I started down this path because I started writing fanfiction about six years ago (RWBY and Fairy Tail) and absolutely loved it and wanted to start writing creatively professionally! Fanfiction and fan content creation as a whole can definitely be important in guiding people to creative career tracks! It's like the creative content gateway drug xD
you are now my role model. -16 yo who wrote a novel (i mean its shit but I did it)
MY DUDE THAT CROSSOVER SOUNDS AWESOME CAN YOU LINK THE FIC?
*Wait there are Fairy Tail fanfics? I never knew this I need them right now holy shit*
Me too!
creative content gateway drug is my new favorite phrase skdjdhdh (also mad respect from a fellow fanfic writer)
"It can be dare I say it even better than a lot of published stuff out there."
*looks at Game of Thrones finale, Supernatural finale, Star Wars finale*
I detect no lies in that statement.
God works hard but pissed off fans dissatisfied with their finales work harder
I've seen so many fanfics that are better than the original source material-- we gotta get these writers some jobs in the industry...
@@grilledcheese6358 I love that I've gotten to work with at least one who "made it" and joined the VA cast for the series we wrote fanfic for. Props to Jerem6409
@@B2WM :D Great!
Yeeep. Some fanfics can be pretty good. Especially those of movies. They show a lot more details and expand on the universe, it's great.
I've never really been that into fanfiction, but ever since watching you I've found these incredible gems of fanfics, like you're a weird lucky fanfiction charm.
the comments on Wattpad fics are my favorite thing ever omg-
If only I could get past the registration screen but it's all screwed up.
this is actually one of the only reasons i ever liked wattpad
you can get into such wild discussions sometimes and the interactions you have with other readers are (for when i last used it) x1000 higher and you have a stronger sense of community and i love it
search engine is hell tho
HAHA true true
Pet peeve: when AO3 authors don't know the difference between A/B and A&B
Stop tagging smut with A&B 😭😭
wait i use ao3 but i dont know what either of these mean can someone tell me?
@@starsoullove127 if theres a / between the names it's meant in a shippy way; as in Harry/Draco would be a romantic/sexual etc. Drarry fic. The & means it's just a FRIENDship/close relationship (non-incest siblings or other family-centred relationships) without any sexual/romantic feelings and actions involved
@@lisa_vxng ooh I get it now I just didn't realize that a and b meant characters. but yeah I totally get what you mean people always get the two confused
@@starsoullove127 ahah ok valid, that could be seen as confusing but then again, using anything from A to B to X is dangerous coz they have established meanings in fandom language😂
Coley is the hero we need but don't deserve
Edit
Wow I have never gotten this many likes before
Thanks 😍😍😍😍😘
Everyone: Ao3, wattpad, and ffnet!
Me who uses quotev: . . .
*Le gasp* So you're that second user!
Fanfiction is basically what started my writing career. Having your silly little fics receive praise is really motivating for young writers.
Me trying to listen to what she’s saying but is only able to pay attention to the fact that she clicked on *Yesterday Upon the Stair* and all the feels come rushing back-
I literally squealed when I saw it. That fic destroyed me in the best possible way!
Olivia Lopez Same! It was one of the first fics I read when I first got into the fandom and I’m so glad I did! It’s one of my absolute favorites
Wait where in the video did she click on it?
The Deathly Hallows at around 14:10. She clicked on the user name not the actual fic, sorry for confusion 😅
ooh i’m reading it right now. its really good
I mean- for someone who’s going to start reading fanfiction, it really depends on that certain persons age to which site they can read on first- but I just love heart warming and heart breaking stories, I explore them all. Another reason why I read, is to just learn how to write better. (I really didn’t want to be mentally scarred by most of the fanfiction I found-)
The FLUFF is all you need.
Recomendation from the series epithet erased: there is a fanfic where giovanni prepares breakfast for molly and then takes her to a toy store so that she can buy whatever she wants ¿you know why? Because THAT CINNAMON ROLL DESERVES THIS KIND OF BROTHERLY (un my casé fatherly) LOVE
this is why reading tags are so important
Yeah, there are always authors out there who give warnings- but sometimes I just want to read something and ignore them all. I would be distracted at times and miss the small warnings up top- which isn’t a good thing to do-
@@ashashey 👏tags👏are👏not👏for👏show👏 good luck tho
My story has a major death and fluff.My main goal with the story?Emotionally scar the reader.
The fact that I recognized most of the bnha fics that you showed is either embarrassing or impressive 😅
why am I even here, I've been reading fanfics for years already
*_oh right, because it's coley and she's awesome_*
It's funny that BTS is playing while she is advertising wireless ear buds considering BTS advertises samsung galaxy buds...
Ikr😂
Reminds me of when BP accidentally dropped a fan’s phone on stage when they found out it wasn’t a Samsung LMAO
You should totally make a skit all about Fanfic "Parents"
Like the overrated parents who go on and on about their fic,
The ones who are just happy to write their fic
The orphaner
And any other ones
The exhausted parent at their wits end until inspiration strikes at 4am
"The orphaner" I-
I've been reading fanfic for 24 years. The second i found AO3 I've never looked back. As you said the search and exclude filters are such a game changer.
Me: *has been reading fic for years, familiar with all major fanfic platforms, and should probably know LESS about fanfic, for my own sake*
Also me, watching this video: Click ✍️ the ✍️ ship ✍️ you ✍️ want ✍️ to ✍️ see ✍️
Same
LMAO NOO I FEEL EXPOSED 😭💀
I feel like everyone has that ONE FIC with that ONE CHAPTER that is just like their go-to-fic to read
i do
yes lmfao
@Thefemalearrow most have multiple really
@@tazzredbandana6911 *cries in "Tantalizing You"*
*cries in ‘survival is a talent’ and ‘phoenixes don’t take orders part three’*
Trying to think of an insightful comment be like "PEOPLE DIE WHEN THEY ARE KILLED"
“Life needs things to live” - Taliesin Jaffe
@@DrGnoel Ah yes, the floor here is made out of floor
wow this comment and the replies have really interesting facts i didnt know any of this! i feel so big brained
@@taylor41 Did you know? Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes
@@haveagoodmourning wow where are you getting all these facts??
Me: reading fanfics for the last 4 years
Also me: Let's just watch this video... I like all her other videos that I've seen... maybe I'll learn something
when you called out “practicing doctors”
me as a medical student seeing myself writing fanfics as a doc in the future: 👁👄👁 imean not like I’m not writing now 👀
Why not now?
Wattpad: usually tween girls writing, oc x character, most fanfictions revolve around celebrities, bands, or live action shows, "don't like? don't read!!!", a lot of fanfic noobs use it.
fanfiction.net: 80% of anime fanfictions, tags suck, the fanfics aren't amazingly written but decent, did anyone even know you could comment on fanfics? it's all just ships, the covers usually have nothing to do with the story.
ao3: fanfictions with actual effort, a bunch of angst, holy shit there's original stories here??, probably the best fanfiction website, prepare to cry when you see "2/?" and hasn't been updated for the past 2 years, there's some weird official tags.
el famoso "2/?" i'm crying yybtyfki;khnlk
Pretty much my opinions for each lmao
I'm mostly on AO3 but I have to say that my all time favourite fics mostly end up being from fanfiction.net
ao3 are written well too~ i just LOVE IT
I will se both wattpad and ao3 but mostly wattpad lol I am a teen and and I usually read like dream team SMP stuff and I write like a ships oneshots. but you're pretty much right. the quality on ao3 is way better
One thing I love about Wattpad is the customization. The aesthetics you can have for your stories are endless.
As a fanfiction writer, i learned a lot and now I'm writing for my original story along with writing for haikyuu and bnha!
when you're not afraid to read unfinished works and suffer after you find out you just finished the last chapter from 2 years ago
Same
"it's incomplete and has been incomplete for four years now"
Ouch. This is giving me flashbacks.
I don't understand why people hate on Wattpad.
For me, it was where I discovered the concept of fanfiction and where I started reading and writing fanfiction.
Granted, I am now only sixteen and have only used and written on Wattpad for a year but still, Wattpad was my beginning.
I may not know much and I am still new to many things, now, I have said what I wanted. Thank you for listening to this rant.
Hi, fellow sixteen years old who started on Wattpad! The problem comes mostly from the user base. Sure, there is a good handful of books and fanfics that are good, but since a lot of people in there are also beginners, the quality is usually not the best. There's also the fact that it was made more for original stories than fanfiction, so there is less variety to choose from. I don't hate Wattpad, and I definitely don't think it deserves hate (not for the that, at least) but it could improve a lot, specially compared to ao3
I dont like cus i can only read 1 capter at a time not all on 1 page
I grew up on it (17yrs) and am now only just moving to the others because I have become slightly pickier yet desperate. I will always skim through Wattpad's results first when looking for a new fic cause I find the others really clunky and ugly. Wattpad just has the best design and website flow. oh how I wish Wattpad would update its search function or ff.net/AO3 get redesigned. lol
I started on Wattpad too I was 14 when I started reading fanfics and now I’m 21. It’s such a good place to start since like coley said it’s generally used by a younger audience. I’ve seen some cringey stuff on there I’ll admit BUT there are some really good hidden gems in there. The user face is pretty easy to navigate too so it’s great for beginners.
I don’t really use Wattpad anymore tho, only if I’m really desperate. I use mainly AO3 and tumblr for my finding fics and sometimes quotev.
I began with Wattpad too years ago, but it's mostly short and full of typos fanfictions (as a french kid at that time, it traumatized me and now i only read english fics xd)
I mean, sure, i actually found great fanfictions back in the days (yes, even in french gkreg,ceig,e) but since i moved on to FFN then to AO3, which is for me the best site to read fanfictions. You should try it ! Tags system is really amazing :p
Thank you for making this video, and saying it like it is. Sometimes it's hard to get recognition when you do fanfic. I stumbled on this video randomly, and being a fanfic author myself had to check out what was being said. This video was all truth based on my experience. I avoid wattpad. I don't like the interface, and the average age is a little too low for me. I'm 35, been reading and writing fanfics for 20 years now.
When you said "longer than LOTR and HP combined"... it warmed my heart. It's a dream few will ever achieve. My magnum opus is only longer than LOTR right now (I'm Exodia-Girl on Fanfic and Demonika on AO3, author of "Mass Effect: The Series"... at 700,000 words and counting), I love the recognition that it is a labor of love.