Tw: pretentious writing that will get progressively more pretentious, em dashes, very long, will sound like chatgpt at times (I refuse to change bc a robot adopted my way of writing dramatically)
Today was a day many wouldn't care about, but I know Tumblr will understand the significance of it. Today was the first time I read a fanfic in my 17 years (and some months) of life. Not because I wasn't involved with any fandom—I am perhaps a little bit too involved for my family's liking. And it's not because I wasn't aware of them either. All my friends read Wattpad when we were 14.
The actual reason is dumber: I felt like fanfiction was an inferior medium used only by 13 year olds to fantasize about their favorite kpop idols sleeping with each other. And now I stand corrected, although I'm happy I waited this long—I have thousands of works to choose from, and the number increases every day.
The actual fanfic was also something I was not familiar with. I found it on twitter, after a long night of stalking some guy's account, checking the account of someone he had reposted something from, and doing the same actions over I landed on the writer's profile. jawbreaker2772 (check their fanfics out, jawbreaker72 in AO3), saying "DEAD DOVE" in big letters, screaming to minors to get away. So, of course, I took a look at their profile. And I saw something I was not familiar with: FNAF.
My only interaction with the FNAF franchise had been, until that moment, through let's-play and memes. I had watched Markiplier, sure, but knew nothing about the lore besides a purple guy killing kids and murderous animatronics in a pizza joint. And the only time I had interacted with the lore was through Luka Levi lying to me for fun and Backseat Streams making stuff up as he broke the game (dear reader, you should watch their videos, specially Backseat)
So there I went, naked and clueless, to click the link to AO3. The first ten, twenty minutes, I struggled with getting to the fanfics themselves. After a long, embarrassing while, I realized I should not get the fic blindly, but click the very obvious yellow warning telling me it would be NSFW ("if you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content") and started reading "Violet".
I failed to mention a small detail before.
These were the tags: graphic description of violence, , underage sex, father/son incest, domestic violence, noncon, child abuse, child sexual abuse, threats of violence, codependency, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, dysfunctional family, grooming.
If you are anything like me, I shrugged, didn't read past "incest" and went right in. I firmly believe this helped make the experience better, as I was never sure what was going to happen. And, in spite of getting the fanfic from an aftoncest/willmike fan account, I wasn't sure who those were. Have in mind, reader, I didn't know about the very existence of Michael before. I thought William Afton was actually a purple guy. I was truly lost.
So I started reading. And I loved it. If you are a slightly more responsible person than me and you read the tags, then you know it's supposed to have violence and manipulation. The writing made it not erotic but horrific. It was the best worst experience. I shivered at some scenes.
William's character was so deeply psychopathic I now want to write my own book with a similar character in a different position.
In conclusion, I now have 22 works to read from that author, a short novel to write, and the feeling of shameful stupidity—the kind of shame that makes you make the Speed Smile™—because I willingly refused to read masterpieces due to my ego and false superiority.
To end this veeeery chatgpt monologue: it's not just a fanfic, it's an *experience*.
*Let me know if you want to tweak this Tumblr post! I can lean harder into the vibes*
Just kidding (but if you can't tell, I'm starting to think I sound like AI. I promise I'm not. I actually get made fun of at school for sounding like AI when speaking. I write like this because I read a lot of books)
dailybridgerton
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turnnoffyourmind
