FanFiction

I follow a couple of writers whose stories are these big emotional pieces. Like the focus is the internal emotions of the characters, the physical effects on their bodies & the writers describe it in depth & use a load of metaphor to expand that emotion out into the world around them. I absolutely love those stories.

But I'm pretty sure that along with a "touch of the 'tism" as I once heard it amusingly described, I also have a condition called alexithymia which makes it really hard for me to identify strong emotions in myself & others, so I could never write those types of stories. And I'm pretty sure I'd hate it if I tried because I struggle to process big & deep emotions without get physically upset. My characters' emotions tend to be much lighter by comparison (unless I'm stressed & then it all comes out, but it's hit or miss as to whether it's readable in the end).

So these fics are great. I get to have someone explain these feelings in words for me & even though I can't necessarily relate, I can feel the beauty in how they're described.

I write a ton of romance stories for someone who doesn't really like romance published fiction. haha. Does that count?

I probably wouldn't write first person POV (just because I know it puts people off) but I wouldn't mind reading it in fic. Also I occasionally write PWP but don't really seek out PWP fic.

As for enjoying reading but not writing... I've gotten ideas for fics that fit into the category of "I'd read it if someone else wrote it", but those are usually "this story would be boring for me to write".

I can't really think of anything I'm super opposed to on either end but would enjoy in some way. If I dislike a trope, I'm not going to read it or write it.

I am very picky about my romances and for hyper-specific genres I looove reading them. Heck, I'll happily read pairings that aren't my OTPs. But I hate writing them unless there is something there to make me laugh.

I'm generally very open to reading all kinds of endings. However I cannot stand writing endings that are closed. To me that immediately makes the story too unrealistic.

One genre I have a very mixed relationship with is horror. Years of getting into unfortunate conversations with others who would be, "why wasn't this tagged for horror" or refer to me as a horror artist made me veeeery upset and it still kind of stings.

The issue with this comes from the fact that certain subject matter that are popular in the horror genre brings me a lot of comfort (most common example: existentialism dripping in voidpunk) however for a lot of people that is terrifying regardless of the goal of the work. To me, it feels like lying if I tag something as horror when the last thing I am interested in is spooking people. I also have a deep, deep hatred for the body horror tag. It's massively depressing and enraging as fuck that people who were born with or end up in a situation where they now have unconventional parts are suppose to be defaulted to the "your existence is now tragedy" genre.

Heck, in general I find the horror genre very annoying. There are works I get into but it was because of some other element. I'm not here to be scared, I'm here because that monster design was beautiful or the worldbuilding did something cool.

These days I do my best to tag warnings for elements so no one comes unprepared. However, I still don't call my work horror because that isn't the goal.

Oh gosh, I'm sure I have them, but off the top of my head I cannot think of any. For me, I tend to hyper-fixate on a specific theme for a stretch and then it's like I just don't want to write anything else. But the theme sometimes changes? So I guess the answer to this question changes as well. This is true for both reading and writing so... XD