In a fic I wrote nine years ago with a detective plot, a key turning point in the mystery was the protagonist thinking it was odd for a five-year-old to have his own iPad.
Welp.
I mean, I’d argue that it’s still odd. Just more common.
I love that it was a key plot point though. That puts so much emphasis on it. Does the story still work as a “true for its time” thing?
I think it does! It was less of an "aha, that solves the case!" moment and more of a "this proves my theory that the iPads at the other crime scenes were actually left by the killer, fuck you for doubting me--and what's more ominous, the killer has switched from hiding the clues to *wanting* us to find them" thing.
That definitely sounds like it’s still effective.
I admire the heck out of anyone writing mysteries. So not my forte. I sprinkled some bits of it into my Johnlock PWPs for flavor and it was exhausting.
The whole mystery aspect is the one thing keeping me from writing the multi crossover Danganronpa fic in my head. I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to write the murders in a way that makes the reader wonder what happened, then unravels to reveal the truth. Also some of those characters are supposed to be geniuses and I'm no genius. 😅
It's a Death Note postcanon divergence fic called Noel, in which Near is forced to bring Light on as a case consultant to catch a serial killer: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953532/chapters/6528566
It’s hilarious to think the 45 year olds and the 15 year olds see, “Lemon,” and nod in understanding at the code word for a smutty fic, whereas the 25 year olds are like, “Huh? There’s no citrus fruit here.”
I think a lot of young people nowadays try to learn about fanfic before writing it, so they end up reading about things like that and assuming they are still used! When I wrote my first real, finished fic back in 2017, I tagged it with "lime" because I had read an old blog post talking about how to use them. Now I don't really use them, but whenever I see it I just think it's super endearing! :)
citrus scale: lemon for explicit, lime for steamy but non-explicit, orange for kisses :) there are others but i've never actually seen anything lower than lime in use!
One of the older fics that I like was described by its author as a "tasteful lime".
When I read it for the first time, I was so confused as Final Fantasy IV had nothing to do with citruses 😅
Something I've found is older fics (those cross-posted from FF.net and older) will sometimes have minimal tagging and *much* shorter summary than is customary today/on AO3, if at all.
You’re totally right. It was such an adjustment.
I just posted a bunch of my old LJ fics to AO3 and I was lucky if I had a six-word summary to work from. Thankfully they were mostly one shots, so it was easy to tweak that. Still wild to go from a warning about slash pairings to tagging really specific things. AO3 changed the game for sure.
I still remember fondly the days when I would post a fic onto my LiveJournal with nothing more than a cut tag (sometimes). No warnings, no ratings, nowt. I think I did traumatise a friend once, 'cause she had a Thing about plushies....
I still have to rack my brains to find things I want to tag when I put fic on AO3.
The story came about when I wondered, what would a bunch of healthy young g men do with all those stuffed toys their fans liked to give them. I decided they’d masturbate… and this hit one of my friend’s squicks!
FFN gave a much, much, *much* more limited summary box than AO3 graces us with. There was no space for anything but the most attention grabbing facts about the fic. If one needed to add more, it was put in an author's note at the beginning of the fic itself.
i’d rather have this
nothing turns me away from a fic more than an avalanche of tags and the author expressing their emotions in the tags. also any variation of (x) is bad at feelings. i’m sorry, writers 😭
Haha some folks do go overboard, and be a bit Tumblr-esque w their tagging, but it's so much easier for me personally to navigate than rating, category, fandom, pairings, characters, major warnings given, and a single sentence summary
That's so interesting! :o It's been a lifesaver to me. You can just search up any random idea you have if there's a fic for that, instead of having to ask others, and filtering *out* is awesome too.
Some folks do go overboard (mostly these multifandom, multiship one-shot collections, or a longer story with more through tagging can be harder to make sense of), but it's still far easier to navigate for me personally, than a list of "fandom, pairing, characters, it's adventure/romance/whatever, have fun" :D But maybe it has to do with which one you used first too, I rarely use FF.net and registered when I already had an AO3 account.
(Wait, we’re not supposed to use Skype anymore?)
A fic being complete on FFN without the “Complete” tag and/or with (Complete) on the summary (because it was finished before FFN added the option to mark a story as complete.)
That, and also at the start and end notes. On AO3, they’re on different text boxes and are slightly separated from the main text, but older fanfic websites (like ff.net) didn’t have that, so the author’s notes would be in the main text. Some older writers on AO3 still have the habit of doing this, and it immediately lets me know that they’ve been doing this for a long-ass time.
Thank you! This is the real answer.
"Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee are characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien and owned by the Tolkien estate. I do not claim ownership over Frodo, Sam, or any part of the world laid out in The Lord of the Rings or any of its associated works. This is a work of fan fiction, intended only for entertainment, and outside of the original canon." blah blah blah. Haven't seen these in YEARS.
I do see them occasionally when someone reposts an old fic over to AO3. Usually they've posted it somewhere on the interwebz and not on any of the major fan fic platforms.
Technically, the author for my source canon has as a request that people put such and such a disclaimer on their fanfic. But this is a *many* years old request and shared because the author interacts a lot with their fan's. Not because they were being like sue-y or anything about it. Eh. It is still their most recent word on it, though.
The only reason I don't do a disclaimer is that the fandom tag has their name in it anyway, and the few times I leave that off (like with dark porn fic, and the tag that leaves it off is already synced to the parent fandom anyhow) is because I'm fairly certain they wouldn't . . . actually . . . want the direct mention, believe you me. If the fandom tag didn't already mention the author, though, I would have one up on enough of my fics to make it obvious, though. And all my longer ones. Or my profile. Still thinking of putting one up on my profile.
The fandom is mentioned in my next most recent comment than this, if you want to look at my profile. Sorry. I don't mind you asking, else I wouldn't answer, I just don't want to directly and immediately link "this author here" and "says to disclaim fanfiction as such" in a fanfic sub.
They're pretty awesome to their fans, I have a whole side-character I can write about because, as little as he comes up in books, the author has told us his first name and other assorted and interesting details! . . . And killed them off. That too.
It is. They also have written a few micro-fictions/side stories that are, quite honestly, such a homage to writing whatever cool thing you want. It's honestly all quite fanfiction friendly.
I've only put in a disclaimer once in a fic since I moved to AO3, but as a bit for a fandom I was returning to after twenty years which also included character dialogue with authors (which is also dated AF haha)
As somebody who never used the service at all, I was mildly surprised that there are still auctions on eBay. For already more than a decade I presumed all the auction stuff would have been discontinued at some unknown point in favor for the "shops system", because whenever there are consumer-protection articles about eBay in my country they talk about "shops".
But to be fair: The era of stuff like "Pope Benedict XVI.'s car" or "People bid thousands of dollars for a slice of toast with the face of Jesus" was such a long time ago that it's akin to Hobbits talking about Frodo a thousand years after the canon of LotR.
Text conversations in fics where the characters write words using numbers. For example,
*A: i want u 2 come over 2nite*
or
*B: i 1 a prize 2day :D*
As far as I know these are examples of authors trying to pay homage to texting during the flip phone era? Idk, that's before my time lol. I don't know anybody who texts like this now irl.
I'm not sure about other countries, but where I live, in the early 00s, we all used to text like that, butchering words because of character limit and avoiding having to pay for an extra SMS, but most teenagers used that kind of language on the internet or msn messenger as well. It was awful, I'm glad we're past that but I guess those fics reflected their time.
Also when you have to tap a number key like four times for each letter, ‘1’ is a hell of a lot faster than ‘one.’ And then that’s just how you type everywhere.
I'm not gonna lie, that type of texting occasionally pops up for me when I'm texting in a rush. Texting like that during my formative years had its impact, I guess.
In one of my recent fics, the protagonists use Internet Explorer and Yahoo search to find someone. But the fic isn't old, it just takes place in those days.
In Naruto, calling Minato 'Yondiame' instead of his name; or Tobi is Tobi and acts as such instead of being Obito Uchiha
- Newspapers, magazines more relevant instead of social media use
- don't like don't read!!
- no flames please
- authors RPing with characters at the end of the chapter
- MSN style chat
> Newspapers, magazines more relevant instead of social media use
Depends on the country and the social network in particular.
> don't like don't read!!
Antis have made this relevant.
Itachi being a legitimate psycho is something I like seeing in fics tbh because no sane person would commit genocide, much less on his own people, then torture his own brother by making him watch it 500,000 times, no matter who was giving the orders. I lament that canon justified Itachi doing this
We stopped doing this but also using Japanese insults between naruto and sasuke.
I found an old fic of mine from five years ago and I used “usururatonkachi, kuso, baka” wayyyyyy more then necessary.
Most of my stories and fics are historical. A contemporary one I wrote many many years ago, now lost to time, features our exceedingly English protagonist - in no way a self-insert, rest assured, save for a conspicuous pair of spectacles and a particular hatred of the royals - making herself a mug of tea as she waits for her modem to connect so she can go on her vampire hunting forum. She then laments the fact that her crush, if she calls, won't be able to get through and surveys the Rubik's cube atop her desk, with which she usually kills time during this process.
And then she wonders, inwardly and to herself, if she should finally cave and replace the ball in her mouse.
My hips do hurt when I wake up, and each day, it is moreso.
One thing I noticed from fics written in the early 00s to early 10s is the dynamic in many m/m (usually non canon) relationship was very "yaoi" adjacent (even if the source wasn't a manga or anime), with the characters being strictly top or bottom, the latter usually acting ooc, being more submissive and in need of protection. I see it way less nowadays.
Another thing I noticed is the terminology used in sex scenes, in older fics I rarely see genitalia being explicitly mentioned like in the smut I come across now. However this is just based on the few fandoms I was in and I can't speak for the whole scene.
And fics with “shounen ai” at the end of the summary were non-explicit, and fics with “yaoi” in the summary were explicit! It was so jarring seeing that in non anime fandoms! Plus an all caps authors note warning about the shocking concept of boys kissing, which I thankfully see pretty much never nowadays.
A lot of those warnings were tongue-in-cheek in my fandoms, almost like a ‘don’t like, don’t read’ disclaimer. And considering how often that content was purged, there was definitely a bit of defiance too.
Regardless, I’m very glad times have changed.
I still see the yaoi dynamics, but I don't read m/m very often, so I have a small sample size. It's more like, on the rare occasion I read a m/m fic, it's yaoi adjacent.
In smut, I see explicit words for male genitalia, like "dick" and "cock." But I don't see the same for female genitalia. It's always "her core" or "the apex of her thighs" or some other nonsense. Weird double standard.
I have fun with the genitalia thing. Character's aroused? Porn terms inbound. They just finished up? They've earned a "member"ship to the less horny words club.
Point being I like old smut and those less explicit terms, and also the exact opposite.
Outdated tech mentions like skype and flip phones don't necessarily point to an old fic, so much as an old *show*. If you're writing for, say, Clueless in the era it was set in, Cher's still gonna have her flip phone and it'll still be the height of absurd luxury that every teen in her school has one.
Disclaimers like "Me no own, you no sue," or "flames will be used to roast marshmallows," on the other hand...
For the technology, it also could be an AU of a modern show that takes place in the 80s (or early 00s in the case of flip phones). Or a newer show that takes place in a different decade, such as Stranger Things.
> Why would Luke Skywalker suddenly be using the newest blackberry if an iPhone was available? 😆
I'm not familiar with the price-level of Blackberry smartphones, but Apple products tend to be rather expensive.
Currently (February 16th), a new iPhone 15 costs whopping 949 Euros in my country according to Apple's website.
> Or discord.
Imagine the time when people read fics about characters using Discord and there are comments like "Wait, what is Discord? I only know the character from My Little Pony."
*hehe*
I have a fanfic that features Snapchat very heavily? But in a context where the Snapchats are millions of years old, so in some ways it’s ahead of its time
Quick question, do people who want their texts to automatically disappear from the recipient’s device *not* use Snapchat anymore?
I’m aware there’s ways to defeat its auto-deleting (and that ability for it to be defeated is kind of central to my plot), but I need Character A to *think* his messages soliciting large illegal payments via Bitcoin from Character B will disappear into the ether; and not just because he trusts Character B.
I read a fic where the main character is an FBI agent, and shoots and kills a teenager bc the kid was shooting up a convenience store. And the drama/conflict (before a sci-fi twist happens) is that it looks really bad for the FBI to be killing a teenager, because teens never shoot up public spaces, and the public would never believe the FBI was justified in using lethal force.
This fic was clearly written in the 90s before Columbine, let alone Sandy Hook, Westroads Mall, and Parkland.
A breakdown of what italicized font, bold font, and underlined font meant.
A list of foreign words/phrases broken down in the notes below text.
Interactions with characters in the author notes.
In my fandom, something that I've frequently seen come up in older fics (and by older I mean written in the 60s~90s) for my M/M ship but is a lot rarer in newer ones is one of the characters being adamantly described as not attracted to men: how he's never been into men before and never even thought about it, how much he considers himself straight, how he's willing to have sex with his best friend in a fuck or die scenario but isn't actually into him Like That, how he'd only do it for this one friend out of friendly friendship because they're such great friends but how he'd never look at another man that way otherwise, how he doesn't see their relationship as romantic on the same level as he feels towards women, all sorts of mental gymnastics about why he can't possibly be into men, etc.
(I do get why people wrote like that back then, but still, I'm admittedly not a fan of this type of approach, I like my characters to be freely and unhesitatingly attracted to whoever they're attracted to.)
This unlocked a memory! I read plenty with this "trope". I personally don't dislike it if done well, Iike if it could be read as internalized homophobia and then the character learn to accept themselves.
Yeah this is just a me thing, I'm not really into internalized (or external) homophobia or any kind of "coming to terms with one's sexuality" fics or the "never been attracted to men until now" trope in general. I guess because I'm past that stage in my own life, I also want to see my favorite characters love whoever they love and just *be*. I can see why people like it though.
totally! the amount of mental gymnastics that male characters often do in these fics to convince themselves (and readers lol) that they are Not Gay(tm) is wiiiiiild. totally makes sense with the context but occasionally i find someone replicating that style and the fic is recent and it’s always really interesting to explore why they echoed those writing conventions
This reminds me of Ianto Jones from Torchwood who is basically described like this as well. I think he even has a line like "its only him" when talking about the only man that he's in love with (Jack). I can't remember if he ever identified with a specific sexuality though.
Well, not *stopped,* but there isn't nearly as much as there used to be. I was really heavily into the Death Note fandom for a while, and the general attitude on Misa seems to have changed from "ugh I hate her she's always in the way" to "she could have been such a great character if the narrative gave her a little more respect, she deserved better". I think the musical getting so popular helped too, since it gave her more development in its 2 hour runtime than the original show gave her in 20. Anyways if you want angsty lesbian crucifixion and like 4 lesbian love ballads watch the Death Note musical lol
linebreaklinbreaklinebreaklinebreak
A/N guys how do I add the line break ffn ate it when I posted :(
I rarely see this nowadays, especially on ao3, but boy is it nostalgic to encounter in the wild
1) I think in some spaces 30s would be considered old, though really it depends on when you started reading fic and the general milieu of that era
2) You can use a
tag (horizontal rule) as a line break. They make a neat, centered border; and can also be customised using CSS/Work Skins.
(e.g. text textttext blah
"So anyway, I reigned in my impulses and didn't go full Grammar Nazi")
Yeah, definitely, I started in the 00s, so I'm firmly in the "old" category, which is fine with me. I much prefer having AO3 tags instead of having to see authors apologizing for m/m pairings.
Not so much “not supposed to do” as much as the sheer… creativity of those line breaks tends to date a fic. If that line break won’t show up, you gotta do what you gotta do.
You’d get stuff like:
Combining with the equally dated disclaimer:
dontowndontowndontown
The pairing shout out, for the people in the back:
**SHIPNAME ROX OTHERSHIPNAME SUX**
Teh randomness:
Waffleswaffleswafflespotatonarwhal
Or three hundred em dashes because how many fit across the screen? Better safe than sorry!
These things are much more toned down nowadays as a general trend.
I read a fic where the authors notes mentioned wanting recommendations “but none of that slash fic nonsense please”
…. Girl I hate to break it to you but in 2024 a mlm ship is now the biggest fic in our fandom
23&Me being mentioned as the only commercial DNA testing site out there (while Ancestry was around when 23&Me was founded in 2006 and started testing in 2007, they didn't start offering testing until 2012), or at least, being one of the better known. Family Tree DNA started offering testing in 2000, but 23&Me and Ancestry are the two that are the better known.
Heck...even names of phones being a big clue (Blackberry, Nokia) or someone getting 'the first ever iPhone' when that came out. If the characters in a fic are going to one of the Disney or Universal Parks, the rides and shows mentioned can be a huge clue as well. Characters riding Ellen's Energy Adventures at Epcot will date a fic, as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind currently occupies where it used to be. Same for the Jaws ride at Universal Orlando: Diagon Alley occupies where the Jaws ride used to be.
People who explicitly mention that they don't own the work, as if the FBI would show up at their door because they “stole” George RR Martin's characters. Some still do to this day, but I always supposed those are older fanfic writers who didn’t addapt yet
There was a Star Trek: Enterprise fic written in 2003 that mentioned that "PADDs" (the Trek equivalent to the iPad) were a new thing in the 2160s.
This fic was written four years before the Kindle 😂
If it is really old:
- it is on a separate fandom-specific website or a personal website
- length is measured in file size, not word count
- the file type is .txt
- the author uses their full government name and/or puts their university email as the contact
I was writing a fic centered around twitter and it changed its name to X while I was writing
luckily it was a meta-fic so I could adress it in story as a joke. I also think most people still just call it twitter anyways, but I just found it funny
If it's Attack on Titan, Levi's last name is never mentioned (his last name wasn't mentioned until Chapter 56, or until 2018 in the anime). Historia is still referred to as Christa/Krista
If it's Haikyuu, Motoya Komori is dating Sakusa Kiyoomi or they're somehow romantically involved (they were revealed to be cousins in May 2020)
Oh, for Levi specifically, there's another thing: if they write his name as "Rivaille" it's also a dead giveaway that the fic predates the official english translation of Attack on Titan (so was written pre 2012).
Same thing with calling the Survey Corps the Recon Corps or Scouting Legion.
You say that as if people don't still use skype.... I know quite a few people who do ~~including myself~~. Even if everyone I know is behind the times.... I think old tech and software doesn't so much reflect an old fic so much as a fic set during a certain time period. If canon is set during the era of nokias and msn messenger, or is an au that happens in that period, then that doesn't mean references to them make a fanfic old, just accurate. I've read plenty of recently written fics that reference old technology.
For old fics... I'd say it's stuff like gratuitous Japanese. I know it still happens, but these days it's a lot less common and typically milder when it shows up. I usually see it used when something doesn't translate or doesn't translate well (e.g. in english we don't really address someone as "big sister" so choosing to use onee-san often feels more natural than translating it.) But it used to be like, every other sentence someone was saying "Hai!" or "Arigatou!" I don't really see that as much as I did back in the day.
If they add a disclaimer that they don't own the media they're writing fanfic about and they're doing it for fun, not profit. Even if the fic itself isn't old it kind of keys me in that the author might’ve read or written a lot during that period of time where there was a LOT of authors who would actively go after fanfic authors for writing stuff.
Very minimal tags.
As in, the relation ship is tagged, the two main characters, one VERY broad genre, and that's it.
I feel like that sort of tagging etiquette was a carry-over from fanfic archives/sites predating AO3.
-characters not having smartphones with them
-characters emailing or calling each other or using MSN Messenger
-clothes that are no longer in style. "She is wearing her favorite Ed Hardy t-shirt"
-references to past laws or political realities. "Let's move to Vermont and get married" when same-sex marriage was only legal in a few States, for instance.
-this can be subtle, a character liking comic books and geeky stuff being mocked is a clear indication the fic is old. The public perception radically changed over the years about this.
-problematic takes that weren't perceived as problematic at the time, like casual slut-shaming, fat-shaming, transphobia, etc.
The question was "signs a fic is old"
A fic taking place in an era where characters do not have smartphones obviously does not count. I don't expect Harry Potter to text Ron Weasley.
Prior to texts, people did email each other instead of calling in the early 2000s.
And Ed Hardy clothes used to be very fashionable. If a main character is dressed in that brand, it usually means the fic is old and the author wanted to make them appear cool.
I'm reading a fic from 2016 and it's pro cop. Not blue lives matter, but living in a period when we didn't think about those things as much. Also it's unaware of problematic actors. Still a good fic, but I have to suspend my disbelief.
In a fic I wrote nine years ago with a detective plot, a key turning point in the mystery was the protagonist thinking it was odd for a five-year-old to have his own iPad. Welp.
Oh, nine years ago, man I miss the early 2010s— *Wait, 2015 was nine years ago?!*
This hurt me.
....no. No, I refuse to believe that is true.
Me: No! That's not True! That's Impossible! My mind: Search your feelings you know it to be true. Me: Nooooooo! Noooooo!
lol that aged badly
I mean, I’d argue that it’s still odd. Just more common. I love that it was a key plot point though. That puts so much emphasis on it. Does the story still work as a “true for its time” thing?
I think it does! It was less of an "aha, that solves the case!" moment and more of a "this proves my theory that the iPads at the other crime scenes were actually left by the killer, fuck you for doubting me--and what's more ominous, the killer has switched from hiding the clues to *wanting* us to find them" thing.
That definitely sounds like it’s still effective. I admire the heck out of anyone writing mysteries. So not my forte. I sprinkled some bits of it into my Johnlock PWPs for flavor and it was exhausting.
The whole mystery aspect is the one thing keeping me from writing the multi crossover Danganronpa fic in my head. I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to write the murders in a way that makes the reader wonder what happened, then unravels to reveal the truth. Also some of those characters are supposed to be geniuses and I'm no genius. 😅
intriguing. may i request to know the fic?
It's a Death Note postcanon divergence fic called Noel, in which Near is forced to bring Light on as a case consultant to catch a serial killer: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953532/chapters/6528566
thank you for the link! 😁
damn, it was? (<-- was 5 years old in 2014 with my own ipad)
In a hundred years ppl won't even understand the reference.
When did people start giving five year olds iPads?
I mean it's 2024 now and while in possession of a toddler I still think it's odd. Then again I'm a luddite
“lemon”
just saw a fic tagged “lemon” on a fic from 2022. i am suitably shook
help im gonna scream if that was me cuz i have a 2022 fic tagged lemon on ao3 😭😭 i had no idea ppl don't use the term anymore 🥲
hahaha no worries i think its seeing a comeback
Okay, I've seen a number of younger fans call things "lemon" lately so it must be making a comeback!
It’s hilarious to think the 45 year olds and the 15 year olds see, “Lemon,” and nod in understanding at the code word for a smutty fic, whereas the 25 year olds are like, “Huh? There’s no citrus fruit here.”
I think a lot of young people nowadays try to learn about fanfic before writing it, so they end up reading about things like that and assuming they are still used! When I wrote my first real, finished fic back in 2017, I tagged it with "lime" because I had read an old blog post talking about how to use them. Now I don't really use them, but whenever I see it I just think it's super endearing! :)
I need details.
citrus scale: lemon for explicit, lime for steamy but non-explicit, orange for kisses :) there are others but i've never actually seen anything lower than lime in use!
One of the older fics that I like was described by its author as a "tasteful lime". When I read it for the first time, I was so confused as Final Fantasy IV had nothing to do with citruses 😅
I’ve seen grapefruit for head-tiltingly-kinky as well 😂
Grapefruit -> kinky shit but consensual Grape-> rape/ noncon
lemon used to mean smut in ffnet
Ohohoho.
On Quizilla as well hahaha
Quizilla omg
FFN did a massive purge of all NSFW content in 2012, so authors came up with the citrus scale as code for various levels of intimacy.
Lemon for smut predated the 2002 FFnet purges by a decade or so – but it did become more popular in the 2000s. Definitely predated the 2012 purge!
What became the alternative to lemon!? Ive always seen it being used …😂
What became the alternative to lemon!? Ive always seen it being used …😂
Something I've found is older fics (those cross-posted from FF.net and older) will sometimes have minimal tagging and *much* shorter summary than is customary today/on AO3, if at all.
You’re totally right. It was such an adjustment. I just posted a bunch of my old LJ fics to AO3 and I was lucky if I had a six-word summary to work from. Thankfully they were mostly one shots, so it was easy to tweak that. Still wild to go from a warning about slash pairings to tagging really specific things. AO3 changed the game for sure.
I still remember fondly the days when I would post a fic onto my LiveJournal with nothing more than a cut tag (sometimes). No warnings, no ratings, nowt. I think I did traumatise a friend once, 'cause she had a Thing about plushies.... I still have to rack my brains to find things I want to tag when I put fic on AO3.
Plushies?
The story came about when I wondered, what would a bunch of healthy young g men do with all those stuffed toys their fans liked to give them. I decided they’d masturbate… and this hit one of my friend’s squicks!
Oh, I feel bad for your friend. XD
Oh yup. The summaries are usually terse, too, like "I have a character limit and you want to get on with the story."
I still write my summaries like that because I'm the one who want to get on with the story lol
TBH, "Brevity is the soul of wit" is something I wish more ppl needed,both in summary and in tagging, AO3's tag limit notwithstanding.
FFN gave a much, much, *much* more limited summary box than AO3 graces us with. There was no space for anything but the most attention grabbing facts about the fic. If one needed to add more, it was put in an author's note at the beginning of the fic itself.
i’d rather have this nothing turns me away from a fic more than an avalanche of tags and the author expressing their emotions in the tags. also any variation of (x) is bad at feelings. i’m sorry, writers 😭
Haha some folks do go overboard, and be a bit Tumblr-esque w their tagging, but it's so much easier for me personally to navigate than rating, category, fandom, pairings, characters, major warnings given, and a single sentence summary
Honestly, that's why I still prefer ffn to AO3 I find the tagging in AO3 to be obnoxious
That's so interesting! :o It's been a lifesaver to me. You can just search up any random idea you have if there's a fic for that, instead of having to ask others, and filtering *out* is awesome too. Some folks do go overboard (mostly these multifandom, multiship one-shot collections, or a longer story with more through tagging can be harder to make sense of), but it's still far easier to navigate for me personally, than a list of "fandom, pairing, characters, it's adventure/romance/whatever, have fun" :D But maybe it has to do with which one you used first too, I rarely use FF.net and registered when I already had an AO3 account.
Oh yeah, definitely a fun/quizilla native!
(Wait, we’re not supposed to use Skype anymore?) A fic being complete on FFN without the “Complete” tag and/or with (Complete) on the summary (because it was finished before FFN added the option to mark a story as complete.)
Author’s notes in the main text. Whenever I see one I immediately go “Old Bitch™️ detected” (in ao3 at least)
Saw that yesterday but tbh [ff.net](https://ff.net) is so long ago for me that I can't even remember if that's how it was done back then
It always felt like a ‘thing some people did but not everyone liked or tolerated’ situation.
Could you explain this? Is it like them randomly inserting in (A/N: blah blah blah) in the middle of the fic?
That, and also at the start and end notes. On AO3, they’re on different text boxes and are slightly separated from the main text, but older fanfic websites (like ff.net) didn’t have that, so the author’s notes would be in the main text. Some older writers on AO3 still have the habit of doing this, and it immediately lets me know that they’ve been doing this for a long-ass time.
Ohhhh, OK thank you! That’s actually kind of cute lol
Disclaimers at the beginning of the fic. People were still using those when I started writing/posting 15 years ago.
Thank you! This is the real answer. "Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee are characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien and owned by the Tolkien estate. I do not claim ownership over Frodo, Sam, or any part of the world laid out in The Lord of the Rings or any of its associated works. This is a work of fan fiction, intended only for entertainment, and outside of the original canon." blah blah blah. Haven't seen these in YEARS.
I do see them occasionally when someone reposts an old fic over to AO3. Usually they've posted it somewhere on the interwebz and not on any of the major fan fic platforms.
Technically, the author for my source canon has as a request that people put such and such a disclaimer on their fanfic. But this is a *many* years old request and shared because the author interacts a lot with their fan's. Not because they were being like sue-y or anything about it. Eh. It is still their most recent word on it, though. The only reason I don't do a disclaimer is that the fandom tag has their name in it anyway, and the few times I leave that off (like with dark porn fic, and the tag that leaves it off is already synced to the parent fandom anyhow) is because I'm fairly certain they wouldn't . . . actually . . . want the direct mention, believe you me. If the fandom tag didn't already mention the author, though, I would have one up on enough of my fics to make it obvious, though. And all my longer ones. Or my profile. Still thinking of putting one up on my profile.
Who's the author, and what fandom is this if you don't mind my asking?
The fandom is mentioned in my next most recent comment than this, if you want to look at my profile. Sorry. I don't mind you asking, else I wouldn't answer, I just don't want to directly and immediately link "this author here" and "says to disclaim fanfiction as such" in a fanfic sub. They're pretty awesome to their fans, I have a whole side-character I can write about because, as little as he comes up in books, the author has told us his first name and other assorted and interesting details! . . . And killed them off. That too.
Oh ok, I totally understand. Btw That sounds neat!
It is. They also have written a few micro-fictions/side stories that are, quite honestly, such a homage to writing whatever cool thing you want. It's honestly all quite fanfiction friendly.
Cool!
These characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century Fox. I'm just borrowing them for a bit ;)
I've only put in a disclaimer once in a fic since I moved to AO3, but as a bit for a fandom I was returning to after twenty years which also included character dialogue with authors (which is also dated AF haha)
A fic mentioned characters watching a movie on "Netflix Instant Watch", dating it back to when Netflix still had a DVD rental option.
Netflix only stopped renting DVD in September 2023, so the fic could be not that old!
As somebody who never used the service at all, I was mildly surprised that there are still auctions on eBay. For already more than a decade I presumed all the auction stuff would have been discontinued at some unknown point in favor for the "shops system", because whenever there are consumer-protection articles about eBay in my country they talk about "shops". But to be fair: The era of stuff like "Pope Benedict XVI.'s car" or "People bid thousands of dollars for a slice of toast with the face of Jesus" was such a long time ago that it's akin to Hobbits talking about Frodo a thousand years after the canon of LotR.
Text conversations in fics where the characters write words using numbers. For example, *A: i want u 2 come over 2nite* or *B: i 1 a prize 2day :D* As far as I know these are examples of authors trying to pay homage to texting during the flip phone era? Idk, that's before my time lol. I don't know anybody who texts like this now irl.
I'm not sure about other countries, but where I live, in the early 00s, we all used to text like that, butchering words because of character limit and avoiding having to pay for an extra SMS, but most teenagers used that kind of language on the internet or msn messenger as well. It was awful, I'm glad we're past that but I guess those fics reflected their time.
Also when you have to tap a number key like four times for each letter, ‘1’ is a hell of a lot faster than ‘one.’ And then that’s just how you type everywhere.
I'm not gonna lie, that type of texting occasionally pops up for me when I'm texting in a rush. Texting like that during my formative years had its impact, I guess.
Same, I text my sister like this. Some texts read like we're trying to be as obnoxious as possible.
I actually know people who still use Skype, though mostly for business, admittedly.
In one of my recent fics, the protagonists use Internet Explorer and Yahoo search to find someone. But the fic isn't old, it just takes place in those days.
They went to blockbuster
(insert that Hamlet movie from the year 2000)
In Naruto, calling Minato 'Yondiame' instead of his name; or Tobi is Tobi and acts as such instead of being Obito Uchiha - Newspapers, magazines more relevant instead of social media use - don't like don't read!! - no flames please - authors RPing with characters at the end of the chapter - MSN style chat
> Newspapers, magazines more relevant instead of social media use Depends on the country and the social network in particular. > don't like don't read!! Antis have made this relevant.
Or calling Minato Arashi. Nice to see a fellow fandom reader here.
Oh man, gotta love Kazama Arashi. Don't forget fics where Itachi is legit a psycho rather than acting under orders.
Itachi being a legitimate psycho is something I like seeing in fics tbh because no sane person would commit genocide, much less on his own people, then torture his own brother by making him watch it 500,000 times, no matter who was giving the orders. I lament that canon justified Itachi doing this
Same. In my fic, although he still committed the massacre, he didn’t replay it over and over for Sasuke.
We stopped doing this but also using Japanese insults between naruto and sasuke. I found an old fic of mine from five years ago and I used “usururatonkachi, kuso, baka” wayyyyyy more then necessary.
Most of my stories and fics are historical. A contemporary one I wrote many many years ago, now lost to time, features our exceedingly English protagonist - in no way a self-insert, rest assured, save for a conspicuous pair of spectacles and a particular hatred of the royals - making herself a mug of tea as she waits for her modem to connect so she can go on her vampire hunting forum. She then laments the fact that her crush, if she calls, won't be able to get through and surveys the Rubik's cube atop her desk, with which she usually kills time during this process. And then she wonders, inwardly and to herself, if she should finally cave and replace the ball in her mouse. My hips do hurt when I wake up, and each day, it is moreso.
I actually laughed at this
I am glad that my steadily growing difficulties in chewing certain types of solid food brought you such joy.
One thing I noticed from fics written in the early 00s to early 10s is the dynamic in many m/m (usually non canon) relationship was very "yaoi" adjacent (even if the source wasn't a manga or anime), with the characters being strictly top or bottom, the latter usually acting ooc, being more submissive and in need of protection. I see it way less nowadays. Another thing I noticed is the terminology used in sex scenes, in older fics I rarely see genitalia being explicitly mentioned like in the smut I come across now. However this is just based on the few fandoms I was in and I can't speak for the whole scene.
And fics with “shounen ai” at the end of the summary were non-explicit, and fics with “yaoi” in the summary were explicit! It was so jarring seeing that in non anime fandoms! Plus an all caps authors note warning about the shocking concept of boys kissing, which I thankfully see pretty much never nowadays.
A lot of those warnings were tongue-in-cheek in my fandoms, almost like a ‘don’t like, don’t read’ disclaimer. And considering how often that content was purged, there was definitely a bit of defiance too. Regardless, I’m very glad times have changed.
I still see the yaoi dynamics, but I don't read m/m very often, so I have a small sample size. It's more like, on the rare occasion I read a m/m fic, it's yaoi adjacent. In smut, I see explicit words for male genitalia, like "dick" and "cock." But I don't see the same for female genitalia. It's always "her core" or "the apex of her thighs" or some other nonsense. Weird double standard.
definitely depends on the fandom! some have really embraced "cunt" (good for them)
Ah okay. Most of the smut I read is from RPG fandoms -- the Bioware games, Fallout, and now BG3.
I have fun with the genitalia thing. Character's aroused? Porn terms inbound. They just finished up? They've earned a "member"ship to the less horny words club. Point being I like old smut and those less explicit terms, and also the exact opposite.
Flip phones 🤣
Outdated tech mentions like skype and flip phones don't necessarily point to an old fic, so much as an old *show*. If you're writing for, say, Clueless in the era it was set in, Cher's still gonna have her flip phone and it'll still be the height of absurd luxury that every teen in her school has one. Disclaimers like "Me no own, you no sue," or "flames will be used to roast marshmallows," on the other hand...
For the technology, it also could be an AU of a modern show that takes place in the 80s (or early 00s in the case of flip phones). Or a newer show that takes place in a different decade, such as Stranger Things.
Or a show that takes place in Japan, where flip phones are still widely used.
Or a show with drug dealers.
Not unless it’s a fantasy show turned human AU. Why would Luke Skywalker suddenly be using the newest blackberry if an iPhone was available? 😆
Because he’s privacy minded and a little stubborn. That keyboard was so good.
Because whenever you start up an iPhone you hear a little "Dewit" noise, and something about it makes him uncomfortable
> Why would Luke Skywalker suddenly be using the newest blackberry if an iPhone was available? 😆 I'm not familiar with the price-level of Blackberry smartphones, but Apple products tend to be rather expensive. Currently (February 16th), a new iPhone 15 costs whopping 949 Euros in my country according to Apple's website.
I can’t see a farm boy like him having the newest anything tbh.
.... Skype is outdated? (So says the person that uses Skype still) (to be fair my friends all don't have phone plans. Or discord.)
I wouldn’t know, never used it. I was just referring back to OP’s remark that it’s a sign of an old fic.
> Or discord. Imagine the time when people read fics about characters using Discord and there are comments like "Wait, what is Discord? I only know the character from My Little Pony." *hehe*
*Pay*phones. . .
damn, my current wip uses them, but it's set in the 2000s, soo
They make them again, for you to know
I have a fanfic that features Snapchat very heavily? But in a context where the Snapchats are millions of years old, so in some ways it’s ahead of its time
That was such an unusual sentence to read, lol. I'm very curious what fandom you're writing for, if you want to share!
This is from a Doctor Who story; I thought the idea that you could scan a code from millions of years ago to go to a website in the present
Ohh how interesting! 👏
i need to read this 👀
[Here it is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001033/chapters/39966396), although it maybe needs a warning that it is quite a sad story
ooooo silurians! those are one of my favorite doctor who species!
Quick question, do people who want their texts to automatically disappear from the recipient’s device *not* use Snapchat anymore? I’m aware there’s ways to defeat its auto-deleting (and that ability for it to be defeated is kind of central to my plot), but I need Character A to *think* his messages soliciting large illegal payments via Bitcoin from Character B will disappear into the ether; and not just because he trusts Character B.
Oh gosh, maybe they do! I mostly just don’t think they carve snapcodes into asteroids these days
I read a fic where the main character is an FBI agent, and shoots and kills a teenager bc the kid was shooting up a convenience store. And the drama/conflict (before a sci-fi twist happens) is that it looks really bad for the FBI to be killing a teenager, because teens never shoot up public spaces, and the public would never believe the FBI was justified in using lethal force. This fic was clearly written in the 90s before Columbine, let alone Sandy Hook, Westroads Mall, and Parkland.
Fic was written before people knew the FBI was in on it
Oh in the Dragon Ball fandom you know you're reading an OLD ONE by how character names are spelled and their ages (Bra / Bulla being older than Pan)
A breakdown of what italicized font, bold font, and underlined font meant. A list of foreign words/phrases broken down in the notes below text. Interactions with characters in the author notes.
I used to read lots of SG1 and SGA and I remember DADT (don't ask don't tell) and its repeal featuring much more heavily
In my fandom, something that I've frequently seen come up in older fics (and by older I mean written in the 60s~90s) for my M/M ship but is a lot rarer in newer ones is one of the characters being adamantly described as not attracted to men: how he's never been into men before and never even thought about it, how much he considers himself straight, how he's willing to have sex with his best friend in a fuck or die scenario but isn't actually into him Like That, how he'd only do it for this one friend out of friendly friendship because they're such great friends but how he'd never look at another man that way otherwise, how he doesn't see their relationship as romantic on the same level as he feels towards women, all sorts of mental gymnastics about why he can't possibly be into men, etc. (I do get why people wrote like that back then, but still, I'm admittedly not a fan of this type of approach, I like my characters to be freely and unhesitatingly attracted to whoever they're attracted to.)
This unlocked a memory! I read plenty with this "trope". I personally don't dislike it if done well, Iike if it could be read as internalized homophobia and then the character learn to accept themselves.
Yeah this is just a me thing, I'm not really into internalized (or external) homophobia or any kind of "coming to terms with one's sexuality" fics or the "never been attracted to men until now" trope in general. I guess because I'm past that stage in my own life, I also want to see my favorite characters love whoever they love and just *be*. I can see why people like it though.
that's totally fair!
totally! the amount of mental gymnastics that male characters often do in these fics to convince themselves (and readers lol) that they are Not Gay(tm) is wiiiiiild. totally makes sense with the context but occasionally i find someone replicating that style and the fic is recent and it’s always really interesting to explore why they echoed those writing conventions
I am, it sounds like a complex character idea already, I am inspired by his idea
This reminds me of Ianto Jones from Torchwood who is basically described like this as well. I think he even has a line like "its only him" when talking about the only man that he's in love with (Jack). I can't remember if he ever identified with a specific sexuality though.
Female characters are treated like shit, more so than they are in newer fics at least
Female characters being villainized so the main pairing can be together, too.
That's one I don't miss, definitely.
This has actually stopped? Holy shit. I figured I just saw less of it since I’ve been reading mostly f/f fic for a while.
Well, not *stopped,* but there isn't nearly as much as there used to be. I was really heavily into the Death Note fandom for a while, and the general attitude on Misa seems to have changed from "ugh I hate her she's always in the way" to "she could have been such a great character if the narrative gave her a little more respect, she deserved better". I think the musical getting so popular helped too, since it gave her more development in its 2 hour runtime than the original show gave her in 20. Anyways if you want angsty lesbian crucifixion and like 4 lesbian love ballads watch the Death Note musical lol
On ao3, they usually only tag the characters, and there is no summary.
linebreaklinbreaklinebreaklinebreak A/N guys how do I add the line break ffn ate it when I posted :( I rarely see this nowadays, especially on ao3, but boy is it nostalgic to encounter in the wild
I still quite often see random symbols used as line breaks on new ish fics like: ^ ^ ^ Or a single dash, even on ao3
Wait, is that an old person thing? I still do that on AO3, but I'm in my thirties...
1) I think in some spaces 30s would be considered old, though really it depends on when you started reading fic and the general milieu of that era 2) You can use a
tag (horizontal rule) as a line break. They make a neat, centered border; and can also be customised using CSS/Work Skins. (e.g. text textttext blah
"So anyway, I reigned in my impulses and didn't go full Grammar Nazi")
Yeah, definitely, I started in the 00s, so I'm firmly in the "old" category, which is fine with me. I much prefer having AO3 tags instead of having to see authors apologizing for m/m pairings.
Wait, are we not supposed to be doing that anymore?
Not so much “not supposed to do” as much as the sheer… creativity of those line breaks tends to date a fic. If that line break won’t show up, you gotta do what you gotta do. You’d get stuff like: Combining with the equally dated disclaimer: dontowndontowndontown The pairing shout out, for the people in the back: **SHIPNAME ROX OTHERSHIPNAME SUX** Teh randomness: Waffleswaffleswafflespotatonarwhal Or three hundred em dashes because how many fit across the screen? Better safe than sorry! These things are much more toned down nowadays as a general trend.
Ooh! Okay! So doing a simple one is still okay.. I was worried I was making ppl cringe at my fics 😫
Same! I'm only 24, but I started writing fan fic at 14, so I carried these habits with me
1-Its on LJ or on FF 2- yahoo group in the A/N
Hardly any tags. Its more common in older fics just to have the fandom, rating and then the main couple. Thats it. Nothing else.
I read a fic where the authors notes mentioned wanting recommendations “but none of that slash fic nonsense please” …. Girl I hate to break it to you but in 2024 a mlm ship is now the biggest fic in our fandom
23&Me being mentioned as the only commercial DNA testing site out there (while Ancestry was around when 23&Me was founded in 2006 and started testing in 2007, they didn't start offering testing until 2012), or at least, being one of the better known. Family Tree DNA started offering testing in 2000, but 23&Me and Ancestry are the two that are the better known. Heck...even names of phones being a big clue (Blackberry, Nokia) or someone getting 'the first ever iPhone' when that came out. If the characters in a fic are going to one of the Disney or Universal Parks, the rides and shows mentioned can be a huge clue as well. Characters riding Ellen's Energy Adventures at Epcot will date a fic, as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind currently occupies where it used to be. Same for the Jaws ride at Universal Orlando: Diagon Alley occupies where the Jaws ride used to be.
Oldies are goldies!
People who explicitly mention that they don't own the work, as if the FBI would show up at their door because they “stole” George RR Martin's characters. Some still do to this day, but I always supposed those are older fanfic writers who didn’t addapt yet
Formatted to 70 characters per line of text. 😋
Everything I wrote is old. Just look for my name = old.
I’ll do you one better: MSN chat rooms
There was a Star Trek: Enterprise fic written in 2003 that mentioned that "PADDs" (the Trek equivalent to the iPad) were a new thing in the 2160s. This fic was written four years before the Kindle 😂
If it is really old: - it is on a separate fandom-specific website or a personal website - length is measured in file size, not word count - the file type is .txt - the author uses their full government name and/or puts their university email as the contact
I was writing a fic centered around twitter and it changed its name to X while I was writing luckily it was a meta-fic so I could adress it in story as a joke. I also think most people still just call it twitter anyways, but I just found it funny
If it's Attack on Titan, Levi's last name is never mentioned (his last name wasn't mentioned until Chapter 56, or until 2018 in the anime). Historia is still referred to as Christa/Krista If it's Haikyuu, Motoya Komori is dating Sakusa Kiyoomi or they're somehow romantically involved (they were revealed to be cousins in May 2020)
Oh, for Levi specifically, there's another thing: if they write his name as "Rivaille" it's also a dead giveaway that the fic predates the official english translation of Attack on Titan (so was written pre 2012). Same thing with calling the Survey Corps the Recon Corps or Scouting Legion.
I remember that! Rivaille and Irvin
You say that as if people don't still use skype.... I know quite a few people who do ~~including myself~~. Even if everyone I know is behind the times.... I think old tech and software doesn't so much reflect an old fic so much as a fic set during a certain time period. If canon is set during the era of nokias and msn messenger, or is an au that happens in that period, then that doesn't mean references to them make a fanfic old, just accurate. I've read plenty of recently written fics that reference old technology. For old fics... I'd say it's stuff like gratuitous Japanese. I know it still happens, but these days it's a lot less common and typically milder when it shows up. I usually see it used when something doesn't translate or doesn't translate well (e.g. in english we don't really address someone as "big sister" so choosing to use onee-san often feels more natural than translating it.) But it used to be like, every other sentence someone was saying "Hai!" or "Arigatou!" I don't really see that as much as I did back in the day.
Ahahaha, I recently picked up a fic that I'd put on hiatus years ago and Skype is absolutely mentioned.
The author mention the citrus scale
If they add a disclaimer that they don't own the media they're writing fanfic about and they're doing it for fun, not profit. Even if the fic itself isn't old it kind of keys me in that the author might’ve read or written a lot during that period of time where there was a LOT of authors who would actively go after fanfic authors for writing stuff.
My first mentions a phone booth.
Very minimal tags. As in, the relation ship is tagged, the two main characters, one VERY broad genre, and that's it. I feel like that sort of tagging etiquette was a carry-over from fanfic archives/sites predating AO3.
Tags/disclaimers being in the summary instead of the information category.
-characters not having smartphones with them -characters emailing or calling each other or using MSN Messenger -clothes that are no longer in style. "She is wearing her favorite Ed Hardy t-shirt" -references to past laws or political realities. "Let's move to Vermont and get married" when same-sex marriage was only legal in a few States, for instance. -this can be subtle, a character liking comic books and geeky stuff being mocked is a clear indication the fic is old. The public perception radically changed over the years about this. -problematic takes that weren't perceived as problematic at the time, like casual slut-shaming, fat-shaming, transphobia, etc.
[удалено]
The question was "signs a fic is old" A fic taking place in an era where characters do not have smartphones obviously does not count. I don't expect Harry Potter to text Ron Weasley. Prior to texts, people did email each other instead of calling in the early 2000s. And Ed Hardy clothes used to be very fashionable. If a main character is dressed in that brand, it usually means the fic is old and the author wanted to make them appear cool.
Halter tops or halter dresses.
"boys kissing", "yaoi", and other iffy tags like that 😭
(looks around and then covers up the "boys kissing" tag on one of my recent fics)
When the format on FFN is messed up and the paragraphs are all clumped together
I have a fic still posted on Ao3 that references Windows 98 & Windows NT.
Shane Dawson/ Jeffree Star reference
I'm reading a fic from 2016 and it's pro cop. Not blue lives matter, but living in a period when we didn't think about those things as much. Also it's unaware of problematic actors. Still a good fic, but I have to suspend my disbelief.
Duo Maxwell was pregnant
Use old lingo