Reader Subcultures

Fighterman481

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So, one thing I've noticed when looking at reviews on NU or some comments in my own work that has a...less-than-proactive MC, is that there's a very vocal subset of readers who don't like the MC to have any hesitation whatsoever, and to just be a very dominant person in general.
And, as someone who never really minds an MC like that, it got me curious; what other reader subcultures have you noticed? Groups of people who have very distinct tastes that may or may not align with your own?
 

NiQuinn

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who don't like the MC to have any hesitation whatsoever, and to just be a very dominant person in general.
Subcultures? A lot are out there but I just wanted to point out something about this. Personally, I think the reason why more readers now prefer a forward, dominant MC is because Japanese novels are inundated by useless and lackluster MCs. It's a pain and a bore so, unless written well, I as a reader, would find gripes with it as well.

Anyway, back to subcultures....I find certain reader base questionable especially when it comes to revenge stories. The one where they believe MC has every right to wish harm on those that wronged them. Even saying stuff like, "she deserves it!" when villain is raped. Having a villain plan the rape of the MC is, of course, an ugly thing. However, an MC who does the same to the villain is hardly grounds for praise. It's disgusting, vile, and inhumane. The villain deserves it? Then the MC is no better.
 

Fighterman481

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Personally, I think the reason why more readers now prefer a forward, dominant MC is because Japanese novels are inundated by useless and lackluster MCs. It's a pain and a bore so, unless written well, I as a reader, would find gripes with it as well.
That's a valid point, I had never thought of it in the context of being a...backlash(?) against recent trends. I suppose that really just goes to show you can't take things in a vacuum.

And yeah, I certainly have seen that trend in revenge reader bases. I think in that case it's a case of protagonist goggles turned up to 11. In general, people tend to view what the protagonist is doing as "right" regardless of what they're actually doing or how it looks if you take a step back. In and of itself that's fairly harmless when reading regular fiction, but in a revenge story which often has the protagonist doing some pretty messed up stuff, it can lead to people defending some straight up wrong actions.
 

NiQuinn

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That's a valid point, I had never thought of it in the context of being a...backlash(?) against recent trends. I suppose that really just goes to show you can't take things in a vacuum.
Sadly, it's come to that point. I think it's also a reflection of Japanese society. A lot of men have become solitary and even refuse to leave their homes.

To quote:

Staggeringly, the number of hikikomori between the ages of 15 to 30 in 2015 were around 540,000 people, according to a report published by the Japanese government in 2016. Now, the government estimates that 1.55 million people are on the verge of becoming hikikomori.

The 'lackluster' MC is a form of escapism for a lot of readers. It's quite an alarming social issue, actually.

And yeah, I certainly have seen that trend in revenge reader bases. I think in that case it's a case of protagonist goggles turned up to 11. In general, people tend to view what the protagonist is doing as "right" regardless of what they're actually doing or how it looks if you take a step back. In and of itself that's fairly harmless when reading regular fiction, but in a revenge story which often has the protagonist doing some pretty messed up stuff, it can lead to people defending some straight up wrong actions.

Which makes it even more conflicting for me. I mean, when you read those stories, the tendency of the reader is to empathize with the MC. The fact that they're celebrating a ruthless MC turns me off. Sometimes, a story's reader base is why I stop reading a novel altogether.
 

tak

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Those tags that were made for squick, and the gendered version for fetish. Example rape & reverse rape, yandere & male yandere

some like slow romance, some like love at first sight, some like "wtf is this main pairing", some goes "this is a red flag IRL but it's a delight to read"

There's also the most common "no homo" and "full homo" divide

Just write what you want....
Or succumb to peer pressure....
Or like me, backs off when i see some enthusiasm...

I'm not good at advice
 

Sabruness

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Subcultures? A lot are out there but I just wanted to point out something about this. Personally, I think the reason why more readers now prefer a forward, dominant MC is because Japanese novels are inundated by useless and lackluster MCs. It's a pain and a bore so, unless written well, I as a reader, would find gripes with it as well.
+1000000000000000000000

Like, i can theoretically understand the love of self-insert beta (sometimes cuck) potato-kuns in japan when you consider their opressive and borderline masochistic culture and mores but after 10+ years of limp beta protags who cant grow a pair if their life depended on it, the western fandom, i think, has had enough and now generally rails against beta protags.

I, myself, now (and for a long while) only read "true" polygamy harems where the protags are functioning human beings that know what the thing between their legs is and arent afraid to use it.

On a side side note, i've seen it theorized in several discussions in the past that the epidemic of beta af protags had some part (even if small) in the declining birthrates in japan.

On the general topic, i've seen one or two peeps who'll comment in m>f genderbend GL stories solely to request the protag gets turned back into a guy for no reason.
 

Assurbanipal_II

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It is not so much a matter of subcultures. Personally, I have noticed a divide between a clearly younger audience with a, let´s say, an astounding black and white mentality who crave for a specific set of stories and plot, and a more mature audience that is generally more appreciative of literary work. :blob_reach: But these are just my two cents.
 

AliceShiki

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When thinking of gender bender stories (for the sake of this post, assume I'm talking about MTF genderbender, but it could be the other way around), I believe there are two very distinct readerbases with a pretty small overlap... The ones that ship FxF and the ones that ship FxM.

Personally speaking, I ship the MC with whatever possible love interest that I like more, but I saw a fair amount of people that ship exclusively with either other women or other men.
 

Sabruness

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When thinking of gender bender stories (for the sake of this post, assume I'm talking about MTF genderbender, but it could be the other way around), I believe there are two very distinct readerbases with a pretty small overlap... The ones that ship FxF and the ones that ship FxM.

Personally speaking, I ship the MC with whatever possible love interest that I like more, but I saw a fair amount of people that ship exclusively with either other women or other men.
*raises hand* yeah, i'm one of those that exclusively ships FxF in MtF genderbender. I could probably also ship MxF in FtM GB.

I suppose you could also divide GB stories into 'transgender' stories and 'genderbender' stories
 

BenJepheneT

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Reader subcultures are pretty much hive minds. There's nothing inheritly wrong about hive minds, but not when it's about literary moral. Stuff like "I like the villain/villainess getting raped as revenge" or "the men in the story deserves no such niceness". For these fuckers there's no such thing as grey. They don't know literary in general is a definite grey area. Only the interpretations are. They're so black and white I saw Martin Luther King give a speech amidst it all.

I've seen some who'd immediately drop the thing at the nearest mention of nudity, particularly with female. Even with all the context behind without even a hint of fan-service, if as much as a single tit gets described with a bare nipple they see it as "male pandering" and "objectification" and drop it.

Of course, they don't leave silently. They will express their moral dissatisfaction and put up their illusion in a golden frame with all the grace of a honking goose. My dumb luck keeps finding all these fuck asses everywhere I go. There's even one on a pilot chapter of a harem read with explicitly-stated signs of nudity. She walked right into the blitzkrieg willingly. I rub sailors off for nickels and even I thought that was cheap.

Suffice to say, it sucks. It's a stupid thing to have a reader subculture subjected towards morality. Unless it truly is pandering towards something harmful and disgusting feel free to bash it. I'll join you with a stick.

But whatever. I'm subconsciously part of the subculture as well. I can take hesitant MCs but not when he/she literally needs to be ushered into the next scene where every side character lays a red carpet for the MC to show off his/her MCness, no matter how godly his/her character is written. Won't do it. Not even for the side characters.
 

BenJepheneT

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'transgender' stories and 'genderbender' stories
Transgender stories? Where the MC willingly sex changes? Where? Where have you spot that rare animal? Been trying to catch that crock for years.
 

Sabruness

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Transgender stories? Where the MC willingly sex changes? Where? Where have you spot that rare animal? Been trying to catch that crock for years.
not entirely what i mean but where the protag (and sometimes other characters) are legit transgender.
Anything by QuietValerie and Trashlyn, Garden of Amy, Deviled Egg, Jotnar: Mother of Monsters.
 

AliceShiki

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Transgender stories? Where the MC willingly sex changes? Where? Where have you spot that rare animal? Been trying to catch that crock for years.
That's not the type of story I usually seek, so I don't know many that it happens, but I can recommend two mangas that I found by chance:

https://mangadex.org/title/40315/otoko-tomodachi-girl and https://mangadex.org/title/19733/magical-trans

That aside, I believe there is a site specifically for Transgender Fiction out there... TG Storytime I think. You may be able to find more like that in it.
 

Yorda

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(1) I think there is a huge group of people on this site who are looking for quick, cheap thrills. They look for odd premises and need large amounts of fast paced action. Story complexity and or quality is secondary to the intriguing premise.

(2) There is a reader subset that actively wants sexual content in their stories. Like they need the Girls Love and Boys Love to be explicit.

(3) I've noticed a lot of people like stories with a power tripping main character that constantly grows stronger, builds up an army, gets people to join their party, conquers this and that, etc. Sometimes the reader base wants LitRPG style another reader base doesn't care.

(4) I'm pretty much sure that the majority of people can't stand a submissive MC (which is understandable because they don't really drive plot and seem too naive to connect with), and that a lot of people want a dominant AF MC even if it doesn't make sense. Some of these stories have some ****stain loser go to another world for whatever reason and suddenly they are serious about life and become a hero in seconds. (I think stories with submissive MCs could work, but the story's premise/plot would have to be built around it in some significant and interesting way.)

When thinking of gender bender stories
I believe there are two very distinct readerbases with a pretty small overlap... The ones that ship FxF and the ones that ship FxM.
Yes. I have written a GB story like this and it's a war. My current GB MC is stirring up a lot of dust in my readerbase. My story hasn't even properly gotten anywhere yet and people NEED to know whether it's going to be FxF FxM or whatever else. Writing romance is hard when it's taken seriously, especially with a messed up GB MC like mine. Some stories I've read on scribblehub are like, FxF explicit licking in 5 chapters flat, I can't call that romance. And although my story does have romance and relationships in it, that isn't everything my story will be about. I'm wondering if a lot of scribblehub readerbases are very narrow/specific with what they want to read and they want those quick thrills. This all reminds me that I really need to write more ...
 

keitaro-sempai

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There's a couple of writers with their own fantasy universe made of half a dozen stories or so and the main story revolves around a transgender couple, both were guys genderswaped because the Emergence (main drive for all their universe), realizing then the cause of their unhappiness was being in a male body.
So yeah, this is a welcoming place for that and a lot more of genres than most pages out there
 

AliceShiki

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Yes. I have written a GB story like this and it's a war. My current GB MC is stirring up a lot of dust in my readerbase. My story hasn't even properly gotten anywhere yet and people NEED to know whether it's going to be FxF FxM or whatever else. Writing romance is hard when it's taken seriously, especially with a messed up GB MC like mine. Some stories I've read on scribblehub are like, FxF explicit licking in 5 chapters flat, I can't call that romance. And although my story does have romance and relationships in it, that isn't everything my story will be about. I'm wondering if a lot of scribblehub readerbases are very narrow/specific with what they want to read and they want those quick thrills. This all reminds me that I really need to write more ...
Oof, that seems pretty rough! >.<

Feels a bit weird to me too, because personally speaking, I don't care for the final ship, as long as the characters are interesting and likeable... Though I will inevitably like a given ship more and get a bit salty if they don't end up together, I really care mainly about the character development... The ending is just... Well, the closure.

And I agree with you that romance involves more than 5 chapters before explicit licking! >.<
 

Arexio

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So, one thing I've noticed when looking at reviews on NU or some comments in my own work that has a...less-than-proactive MC, is that there's a very vocal subset of readers who don't like the MC to have any hesitation whatsoever, and to just be a very dominant person in general.
And, as someone who never really minds an MC like that, it got me curious; what other reader subcultures have you noticed? Groups of people who have very distinct tastes that may or may not align with your own?
Yeah, these tend to be the readers who only read wish fulfillment stories and down-vote/down-rate everything else. They're the kind of readers that LOVE the stereotypical face-slapping that happens in those cultivation novels.

:blob_awkward:
 

Kldran

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Yeah, these tend to be the readers who only read wish fulfillment stories and down-vote/down-rate everything else. They're the kind of readers that LOVE the stereotypical face-slapping that happens in those cultivation novels.
I got so sick of those stories I ended up writing something to vent... then I kept writing, and now it's something else entirely, though still not face slapping.

I have definitely noticed a number of reviews on Novel Updates either full of complaints about MC passivity, or full of praise for their violence. The latter disturbs me sometimes... Especially when I try to read a story, realize it's a villain MC, but the author doesn't seem to realize that, and the readers don't seem to realize it either and just praise the heck out of the MC. Like... he's actively trying to increase the number of deaths in the world... that's evil!

The other trend I've noticed is the term Loli used for characters who's descriptions are not childlike at all, except for being short. Does that make my mother a loli? She's 5 feet tall. :blob_facepalm:
 
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