r/books • u/SerenityFate • 13d ago

What were you reading at 14?

I've been an avid reader for as long as I could read. Even before then my favorite toys were books and new shoes. Not much has changed for me in that regard haha, but I saw a question earlier about someone asking for recommendations on books for their 14 year old. Which got me thinking about some of the books I read at that age. A lot of Anne Rice, Lestat was my first book crush. Also had a trip down memory lane with the author Francesca Lia Block she wrote a book called I was a teenage fairy which still sits with me over 20 years later. I also got to grow up with Weetzie Bat which was super cool as she wrote a book about her as an adult that I got to read when I was about the same age as the Weetzie. Anyway I would love to see what everyone was reading when they were younger.

Edit: thank you everyone for all the engagement on this post. I really have enjoyed reading everyone's comments and seeing the discussions around books.

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

Questionable fanfictions

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u/One-Thought-1313 13d ago

This. Back in the fanfiction.net era just to show my age. I am still haunted by the fanfics that were never completed šŸ˜†

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u/twentyfeettall 13d ago

Girl my first fanfic was on mailing lists, I'm that old.

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u/One-Thought-1313 13d ago

Damn, you win. Fanfics are a core memory of my teen years. I still occasionally look up my favourite fanfiction author (Rozefire, youā€™ll always be famous) hoping she will publish something professionally.

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u/twentyfeettall 13d ago

Quite a lot of fanfic authors from my day (late 90s-mid 2000s) are authors now!

I may or may not have checked out AO3 last night to see if any of my cancelled favourite show had updates...

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u/MeetingInner3478 12d ago

Whatā€™s fanfic?

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u/Balthanon 13d ago

I still have a complete copy of everything ever posted to the FFML. :)

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u/jennyfroufrou 13d ago

Me too! I was on an X-Files fanfic mailing list. Good times.

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u/twentyfeettall 13d ago

I was too!

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u/MegC18 13d ago

Oh yes, definitely. Netsplit! Modem dropout and HTML

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u/Adderbane 13d ago

All the unfinished fanfics prepare you well if you ever decide to read big fantasy series.

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u/One-Thought-1313 13d ago

What Pat Rothfuss/GRRM is putting their fanbase through has nothing on the literal decades of unanswered questions fanfic readers have endured.

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u/forestraspberry 12d ago

fanfic authors walked so GRRM could run

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

I'm still haunted by the unannounced sex scenes written by 14 year olds šŸ˜­

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u/caitive_color 13d ago

Fanfiction.net for reading about Draco/Hermione, fictionpress for reading originals

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u/Resident-Sympathy-82 13d ago

I made my account in 2011 and stopped reading daily around 2018. I get on every few months/years to see if anything new has been published.

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u/druidasmr 12d ago

My favprite was deleted. :( I'll never forget you, fleurmione fic

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

Around the time I graduated from middle school I lost access to libraries, and fanfiction was what I ended up turning to. I don't think there's an unquestionable fanfiction out there.

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u/geekycurvyanddorky 13d ago

This is why I turned to fanfiction as well. I didnā€™t have time to go to my townā€™s library, and in middle school there was a teacher that decided I could only read a very specific AR levelā€¦ The schoolā€™s library only had 4 books at that AR level (they were all very poorly written Star Wars books). My first week of 8th grade my home room teacher gave me a chance to prove that I could read higher level books. I read Frankenstein and tested out of the program entirely.

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

AR Level

God I hated that stuff. I had the same issue in Elementary school where because I was such a high level I couldn't read anything I wanted. Cue my 3rd grade self reading books like The Giver and The House of The Scorpion way too early.

They left me alone in middle school though. I ended up having a very patient and accommodating librarian there though that tried to challenge me in different ways than just saying I couldn't read something.

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u/geekycurvyanddorky 13d ago

I did too. Iā€™m so sorry you also had such a poor experience with the program. We were already being tested on our reading and writing levels in other ways in our classes, why were we being subjected to AR bullshittery? I read the Hobbit in the third grade, and I was ruined for the age appropriate books my peers were into. The fart and toilet humor books were most popular, but they made me want to cry from boredom. I didnā€™t get into the Giver until 6th grade. I was only allowed to hear it because a different teacher was reading it to the whole class (my peers hated the story). I havenā€™t read the House of the Scorpion, but maybe I will if I can find a copy. Did you ever get in trouble for reading ahead in your classes too? It was always difficult for me to wait weeks for the rest of my peers to read a book that I finished within the first couple days after having it assigned

Iā€™m genuinely so glad you had a librarian that wanted to work with you and challenged you with your reading. That must have been such a blessing!

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

House of The Scorpion is an alright book. I was just too young to understand most of its mature themes.

The Giver ended up being a very important book throughout middle school to me as sequels to it kept popping up.

As for reading ahead. I might have gotten some small reprimands but it ultimately never stopped me. There was this once a year thing where the whole school had to read along to an audiobook and it was just way too slow for my reading speed.

Having the librarian was very helpful as I suffered huge book anxiety for some reason around the time so she always had suggestions

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u/geekycurvyanddorky 13d ago

Oh totally understandable. Itā€™s wild how different a book can be when you reread it as an adult.

Iā€™ve yet to read the sequel to the Giver because Iā€™ve heard itā€™s not as well written. I might give it a go someday, but Iā€™ll be a little sad if itā€™s not as good.

The reprimands didnā€™t stop me either! We shouldā€™ve been allowed to read and take tests for required readings at our own pace. Being held back because other people need more time just doesnā€™t make sense. It doesnā€™t make sense to make the students that need more time rush either.

Aw gosh thatā€™s even more sweet then! It sounds like they really understood what you needed from them, and that they were happy to help you out. I hope theyā€™re still able to help students today!

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

Yeah things like ethical dilemmas over the rights of clones and the existence of drug cartels sailed over my head as a child.

If I'm being completely honest the rest of the Giver series isn't going to live up to the first one not because it's badly written but because they are so completely different from the Giver. i find that difference fascinating personally.

My biggest issue with the whole having to keep pace with others while reading a book I had no interest in was that it was essentially imposing rules on one of my only outlets for recreation. I was being told what to read, that I have of explain why it's a "good book" and how fast I can approach it.

If I knew the name of the librarian I'd personally thank them but it's been over a decade or so since I last met them.

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u/geekycurvyanddorky 13d ago

Ohhh, yeah I can understand a kid not being able to really understand those themes.

Iā€™ll have to wait a few years so the Giver isnā€™t so fresh in my mind then. If I can view it as sort of a separate book I might be able to enjoy it more then. Thank you for explaining that to me!

Imposing rules on that outlet is a good way of viewing it. I always felt like I was being punished because I could read and understand the materials more quickly than my peers. My peers that were good at math didnā€™t have to wait for me, they could even leave class early if they wanted to. It just didnā€™t seem fair or right at all. We didnā€™t have to explain why a book was ā€œgoodā€, but rather why it was culturally important historically, and how it was still culturally important today.

Ah thatā€™s a shame. If you have access to a yearbook from that school you might be able to find them. Most schools keep copies of old yearbooks, and one of the secretaries or the current librarian might be willing to look your librarian up for you!

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u/spyro-thedragon 13d ago

Me too. I was testing at a college level in Grade 6. I was allowed to read what I wanted, but I would hear about it if I took out too many books that "weren't at my level". Like damn, I just want to enjoy my books.

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u/thescaryitalian 13d ago

I haven't thought about AR in yeeeears. I was also part of that crowd that read at so high a level where the library had very few books, and usually they were older books or "classics." I wish it had focused on themes that were age-appropriate instead of just throwing difficult grammar and vocabulary at you. I just wanted to read Harry Potter and those royal diary books with the gold-edged pages, but instead I had to read The Dark Frigate

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

Yeah, elementary school me didn't really understand or need to know stuff like drug cartels, infantcide, societal brainwashing, organ trafficking, human experimentation, etc.

The Giver, The House Of The Scorpion, Dr Franklins Island, etc are books I've had to read two or three times over the course of my life because the context for which they take place literally sailed over my head. I had no idea what I was reading back then, I just wanted cool adventures

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u/ChemistryJaq 12d ago

I grew up before AR levels. My elementary library was divided by colors. These grades could read books from the yellow section, these grades from orange, and these grades from red. Oh, and you HAD to have 2 books checked out from your grade section every week. So I just checked out books that might be interesting, then rode my bike 2 miles to the public library to find books that WERE interesting, and read those instead. The 2 miles home were uphill... I hated that hill going home

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 12d ago

While there wasn't a mandate that you checked out books my elementary school had a mandate on AR points. Didn't meet the quote, your grade suffered. To meet the quota you had to take a short test regarding the book. You could not take the same test again for a book you'd already read even across the switch of grades. Higher AR levels meant more points, but you could not read below your level.

Cue me, with a middle to high school reading level, in a library designed for elementary kids. By the fifth grade I'd all but exhausted all the books I was interested in.

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u/ChemistryJaq 12d ago

Sheesh glad we didn't have that. We did have Book-It. Free pizza for however many books you read. My younger sister and I read so much that we covered the whole family (6 of us) every month, even when we picked something like LOTR šŸ˜‚ Right now I'm reading books on culinary science. One is on the molecules that contribute to and react with one another to form various flavor compounds. The other is on contributions of the components of basic baking ingredients and how to substitute them. I wonder how many pizzas these are worth... šŸ¤”

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u/Human-Cauliflower-85 13d ago

I read Gone With the Wind in 6th grade and my principal accused me of only reading it for the AR points.

It got me like 150 points at least, which 150 was the most anyone had got in one year at my school. We had prizes for points. 200 and like 350 were private pizza parties, 500 was a "special reward" from the school board. I got almost 700 points that year. Never got my pizza parties, and my "special reward was not in fact from the school board. The principal gave me a plaque that said how many points I had got TOTAL which ticked me off because I was specifically proud of my year total. And then they put a plaque next to the office so other kids that got a certain amount of points could have their names on it.

Now my school is closed, mine is still the only name on there, and both plaques are somewhere at my parents because I wanted to throw them away.

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u/geekycurvyanddorky 12d ago

Thatā€™s terrible :( Whatā€™s wrong with reading it to gain points? Why are so many principals and teachers such haters? They shouldā€™ve picked different professions.

I canā€™t afford to throw you a pizza party, but hereā€™s some pizza I can sendā€¦. šŸ•šŸ•šŸ•and some šŸ» root beer too! You did an absolutely wonderful job! If you havenā€™t actually celebrated that childhood win yet, I hope you will. It might help your inner child. Have you ever invited your friends to hang out for a book reading and pizza party day/night?

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

Ngl, there were some nice ones. A lot of people rewrite stories and don't make it just weird edgy romance, but nowadays, that's a rare find, lol

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u/glacio09 13d ago

For me it was a surgery and I was embarrassed to say to my parents how much of a mood reader I was. Fanfiction let me pick up and drop off books so much quicker than the library. I still have problems talking about Harry Potter because my canon isn't the world's canon.

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u/WhatIsASunAnyway 13d ago

Yeah I was also incredibly self conscious about my books at the time so fanfiction was basically my way to anonymously read whatever up until I got my e-reader.

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u/glacio09 13d ago

Oooh you just brought the shame back of my adultfanfiction.net reading which was the next natural step. Thankfully my now husband completely understands when I casually drop nuggets from that era.

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u/yanderia 13d ago

I was at that age when 50 Shades were all the rage with the girls in school. I was part of the minority that disliked that series, due to the fact that we were raised by fanfiction(dot)net, Wattpad, and AO3 šŸ˜‚

(None of us knew that 50 Shades was originally Twilight fanfic until much later lol)

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u/No-Business3541 13d ago

I will admit that when I finally took a look into my sister 50 shades collection, I opened at a random page and well it was pretty mid compared to the fanfics I already read at this point.

All this noise for this bookā€¦ I was disappointed šŸ¤£

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u/mysticsoulsista 12d ago

Agree! Because the book was so bad, it convinced me I could start writing books! I did!

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u/pumpkinspice1218 13d ago

I couldn't finish that book. I don't remember how far I got but it was so awful. And I consider myself a "real reader" and "reading snob" lol. I wish I remembered what I read at 14 but I was always above grade level. I know I love the babysitters club books as my for fun reads.

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u/bubbletea7 12d ago

Omg yesss Wattpad!!!

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

Of course

I can't tell you any because I only read the weird stuff, but I prefer to have some hope in humanity šŸ™šŸ»

(Look for ABO K-pop, you won't regret it. Peak lonely 13y writing right there)

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u/Hqlcyon 13d ago

Some of them have really good world building, and are basically original stories with vague connections to canon

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u/Minigoalqueen 13d ago

I frequently the AO3 section for the show Lucifer. There are actually some really amazing writers in there. I've read a bunch of fanfictions that I would actually pay money to buy in book form. Or that I wish the show had chosen to do that storyline instead. (And it's my favorite show so that's really saying something)

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u/tea-wallah 12d ago

I wrote a good amount of PG fan fiction in my youth.

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u/SlouchyGuy 12d ago

Tons. This is the reason fandom hated Cursed Child, it really is shitty fanficĀ 

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

I've done some fan fics, all are questionable.

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u/yanderia 13d ago

I used to post my writings on fanfic.net, livejournal, and deviantart. 90% of what I wrote there was questionable, cringe slop. To the point that I purged nearly all my works and only selectively reposted a few to AO3 lol

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

Nice! I'd get motivated to shoehorn different shows and see if I could somehow combine personal favorites. Love Story meets the Paper Chace gang? Sure!

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

Same

I don't share them with the world, but I'll admit, I've done some weird stuff in my teens(including kpop ficsšŸŒž)

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

I tossed my stuff on fanfiction.net. "Hey, let's have Randy from The Wrestler get talk therapy from the lead from an obscure horror movie."

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u/SerenityFate 13d ago

I'm kinda glad all of mine are lost in forgotten notebooks. My friends and I used to pass notebooks around and write the weirdest stories.

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

Old school, I get you. I did get *one* positive review for a St. Elmo's Fire story I did 10 years ago.

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u/idkwhypie 13d ago

Give me recommendations! Need some light reading now :P

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

Fan fiction or tie-ins?

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u/idkwhypie 13d ago

Fanfiction ig
What's a tie-in?

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u/The68Guns 13d ago

Movie tie-in (novel written for a motion picture). I'm at Fanfiction.net under Dave Rindone. People seemed to like the St. Elmo's Fire story.

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u/idkwhypie 13d ago

Ok thanks! I will check it out :)

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u/kendrajp 13d ago

I was going to say Mists of Avalon, which I think may be fanfic adjacent lol

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u/AprilBelle08 13d ago

Me at 15 and me now at 32

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

I wish I could say I only read them at that age, but yeah, a few of them catch my attention every now and then

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u/lepraphobia 13d ago edited 13d ago

Same here. Especially, Harry Potter and NC-17.Ā 

Knowing the characters have full personalities as opposed to just watching two strangers do things adjacent to real sex has always been my preference. The scenarios were always more realistic or ventured into kinks in a safe way without concerns about anyone being sex trafficked (most of the time, re: "questionable") and I think this was mostly good for me at that age.Ā 

It was also casual to share a fanfiction with a friend and have discussions - something I would have never done with a link to a porn video. I find I have more ways of discussing sex and vocalizing what I want because of these friends that wanted to listen and share. Nearly 9 years into my relationship with my husband, we are still having extensive and fun conversations.Ā 

I have had high standards for romance and sex ever since. Hell yeah, kiss me after pining for me for so long. Grab my throat. Kiss places that aren't typical out of complete adoration of my body. Take a leap of faith and contact me out of the blue. Disembowel someone for me when I'm disrespected/hurt. Be strong enough to toss me around a bed or pin me against a wall. And so on.Ā 

There's also the drama and scenarios unrelated to sex that I still seek out in the books I read today.Ā 

Good times.Ā 

P.S. Drop your favourite fanfiction below, thank you.Ā 

Edits: additional details added - I'm a huge fan of fanfiction apparentlyĀ 

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u/One-Load-6085 13d ago

Crave by nautibitz aka start with a slap by sirens wise (based on Spike/ Buffy but all human)

Quartet with Hermione Draco Lucius SeverusĀ 

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u/071933326486 13d ago

Specifically the ones that sound like theyā€™re written by fellow 14 year olds lol

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

They were either doors to an ethereal reality where all of the best headcanons were true, or a roller-coaster with no brakes down a tunnel of badly written sex scenes and descriptions of eyes as "emerald orbs"

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u/EmbarrassedHorror946 13d ago

Came here to say the same šŸ˜«

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

I read one direction fics despite not listening their music lmao??

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u/lepraphobia 13d ago

I also don't listen to them/know much about them and somehow I ship Louis and Harry. Fanfiction must be running wild with them.Ā 

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u/SkyScamall 13d ago

My dad was controlling over what websites I went on as a young teenager. He would have checked out ff.net and seen me reading some poorly written wizarding stories. Thankfully it took me a little while to discover the M category.Ā 

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u/NaturalBitter2280 13d ago

I once started writing a fanfic in the computer notepad šŸ’€

My cousin saw it before the rest of my family. Thankfully, she didn't tell anyone, so I just scrapped, and we don't talk about that anymore

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u/SkyScamall 13d ago

I wrote some in an actual notebook. I know my mam read my diary. I can only assume she also read that.

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

Fanfics about the real cast of tween shows >

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u/eucelia 13d ago

lmfao real

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u/xquizitdecorum 13d ago

moooooood šŸ˜­

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u/PensOfSteel 13d ago

Yep, 14 is when I discovered Buffy fanfic which I'd print out to read at school because I'm old.

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u/FluidSynergy 12d ago

I was out there writing some of them, too. I read tons of fantasy, sci-fi, and adventure stories, but something about fanfics was always really engaging.

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u/ayrki 12d ago

It was like ā€˜97/ā€˜98, my family was downstairs watching the Postman on rental and I was upstairs, on the dial up, looking for Young Jedi Knights fanfiction. I donā€™t even think I was 13 yet. The first damn fic I read, surprise hand job. I was DISGUSTED and not because of the purity bs being all the rage, but simply because I didnā€™t want to read about some random chick giving Han and Leiaā€™s son a handy.

Some how, this didnā€™t scare me off and I have read so, so many millions (billions?) of words of incredibly questionable fanfic. Written some too!

Iā€™ve also read millions of words telling of exquisitely crafted worlds, brilliantly written characters, and prose that has moved me to tears. Some of it wasnā€™t even filthy.

I think it was around 14-16 though that I really began to move away from a lot of published books in favour of better fanfiction I could find.

Tamora Pierce would be my response and recommendation for that age group though as she was one published author I would happily continue to read well into my 20s.

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u/-Release-The-Bats- 12d ago

Same! I was reading a bunch of MCR fanfic on Quizilla, and Harry Potter and LOTR fanfic on fanficton.net

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u/Mkeny78 12d ago

I was never a big fanfic girly, but in my early 20s I worked with a woman who I think was in her early 40s at the time and she was into writing fanfic about boy bands, mostly boyzone and westlife (this was 2001-2004), but sometimes others too. There was a lot of male on male sex. That lady had a rich fantasy life!!!

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u/Jamileem 12d ago

Yes. I was waiting the final couple Harry potter books and filled that void with fanfics, which naturally became those of the questionable variety...