Talk:Badfic

Anyone have anything about the history of the term? I know it was being used as long ago as 1998 in XF … — iggy

I think an internal link to Care Bears makes sense, because obviously there is a Care Bear fandom if people request it for Yuletide, and the BDSM story isn't the only Yuletide entry for that fandom either. So the link wasn't to explain that Care Bears are toys, but to a fandom page like for other fandoms. I mean, maybe it only warrants a subpage together other toy based fandoms like My Little Ponies if there is not enough to say about Care Bear fans, but I don't think a wikipedia link is an appropriate substitue for that information. --RatCreature 04:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel like there are three things here that are getting smushed into two categories,

1. badfic: fic that is bad
2. badfic: fic to parody fic that is bad
3. Lord King Bad Fic, fic written in the the understanding that what you are writing is a horrible idea, but gosh-darn-it, SOMEONE needs to write about that time Batman filled in for Reba at the Opry. --Betty 06:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. It's appropriate to distinguish the three. --Msilverstar 04:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Notorious Badfic Titles

I think we need to have more context to this section so it doesn't become a place to put fics specific fans dislike, or a place to call fics out for perceived problematic writing or topics. MPH (talk) MPH 16:36, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Also I disagree with the inclusion of Cupcakes (My Little Pony fanfic). Cupcakes may be a very disturbing fic, but I don't think it qualifies as badfic. Alpha (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I haven't read Cupcakes (and have no desire to) but from my understanding, it's more shockfic rather than bad writing. Trollfic redirects to this page, but should probably be separate. In my opinion, badfic, shockfic, trollfic, and shitpost-y fics are all separate concepts that should have their own pages, despite some amount of overlap. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 19:08, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Nothing to add but I agree about trollfic not being the same as badfic and deserving its own article. I have read Cupcakes and it would qualify as dead dove nowadays if it had been tagged as such and not disguised as fluff, so yea, shockfic imo. Alpha (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

some suggestions for this page

very much a brain dump here, these are some suggestions for improvement of this page:

"What badfic is"

"What badfic is not"

"Badfic from the eye of the creator, from the eye of the reader/critic" -- who decides what is badfic?

"The label as harassment/vendetta"

"The purpose of badfic and/or labeling something as badfic"

"Examples of badfics" -- more context for examples such as a short summary (with fan comments?) of why the story appears on the list/history, rather than simply a list of titles and tags

"Badfic challenges" -- writing badfic as a community activity

"Related terms" - add a very short description, then a link to a separate page for each one: shockfic, trollfic, shitpost-y fics, other

I'm sure there's more to add and talk about. MPH (talk) MPH 13:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I think these are great suggestions! I'm not sure where to fit this in, but I'd also suggest mentioning intentional badfics somewhere on this page - how they can be difficult to distinguish from unintentional badfics and they are often trollfics. In this way we could link to a separate trollfic page from here, and remove the redirect that's currently sending trollfic links to this page. --Auntags (talk) 22:51, 6 April 2023 (UTC)