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As in, dies_from_cringe.gif or slipping off the degen slope? Or some combination thereof?
I freely admit I have no firsthand knowledge of AO3 and zero interest in actual fanfiction, even having technically genned it on the regular for like two years straight. I already cringe too much at machine-generated text to ever try reading human-generated stuff, I do however like the general informal style and the cute OOC-ish "afterthoughts" conferred by explicitly prompting fanfic, it's a pretty good antidote to corpodrone bullshit.
Actually now I wonder what R1 can output if prompted for xianxia-style shit, its flavor of schizophrenia seems apt, but I have even less experience with that.
Some combination thereof but also the degen slope. Femgooners (and also just gooners).
See my earlier exchange on some of the stuff that's really popular on AO3 (never mind the more niche parts where the smut comes thick and fast): https://www.themotte.org/post/877/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/187490?context=8#context
There are some fanfic classics: HPMOR, Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux, Harry Potter and the Natural 20
I read a little xianxia, started Dao of the Bizarre Immortal (interesting and original but didn't quite hit the high-fantasy button for me), Outside of Time (too generic), Lord of the Mysteries (also interesting but too slow IMO though everyone raves about it and its getting an anime). Reverend Insanity is by far my favourite, uniquely original, clever and thematically interesting too with the metanarrative stuff. Very long and unfinished due to a ban, RIP. Selfmadehuman liked it a lot too.
Problem with writing is that even R1 (with my crude and admittedly poor prompting) suffers from a lack of soul. It rehashes too much, it rehashes well (and a lot of authors only rehash too) but I want more soul. If you ask it to be creative, you get generic machine creativeness. And when it does behave a bit more genuinely creative things get loose and kind of dreamlike, you're on its wild ride. It'll make up bizarre formats. Still quite fun though.
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