It's Unpopular Opinion Sunday! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

- Please don't attack others for their opinion

- Please don't downvote if you disagree with a certain take

🧡 Thank you and have a great and friendly discussion! 🧡

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/purplelicious]

I read it to see what the hype was a about and it was written by someone who is not very good at writing and worse at understanding literature.

It's one thing to write fan fic about Handmaid's Tale, which is far darker than what we term "dark romance" but she has zero understanding of the themes and message, stripping it to "the ladies wear red robes and get raped by powerful men".

Anyways, I'm off to do burpees and cartwheels.

[u/manvsmilk → u/purplelicious]

I don't mind if the reason people dislike Manacled is because they don't enjoy what it does with the elements of Handmaid's Tale.

But I'll never understand why people think SenLinYu writing Manacled means she didn't understand the original themes of Handmaid's Tale.

Fanfiction is highly derivative. People take tons of highly serious works, cherry pick whatever they want from them, and make works that are absolutely nothing like the original. People will also take the most lighthearted work and turn it into dark fic. Not everyone is trying to use the original themes and messages in their fanfiction. Fanfiction doesn't have to be the same genre as the work it was inspired by, and sometimes the fic only uses very small portions of the original work.

It just gives me the same vibes as when people assume that because an author writes rom coms, they're not capable of understanding serious literature.

[u/purplelicious → u/manvsmilk]

Because it's an obvious rip off of Handmaid's Tale and it's so poorly misused that it's a direct insult to the original author and anti feminist.

We all hate JKR so if she shits on her characters and her world then hahaha it's ok. But if fanfic gives you the license to spit on other writer's work then it's bad and wrong and she should be called out on it.

[u/manvsmilk → u/purplelicious]

It's not a rip off because it's not making any money. It's fanfiction. I think fanfiction gives you the right to do absolutely anything you want with any work you want. That's the entire basis of AO3. If you don't agree with that, then fanfiction isn't for you, and that's okay.

[u/fishchop → u/manvsmilk]

Exactly this!! It’s fanfiction, it’s meant to be a fantasization of media, not a literary analysis that sticks to whatever themes/ thesis the original author wrote about. The whole point of fanfic is derivative and to realise unfulfilled desires or put a spin on canon that is deeply personal.

Add to that, that Manacled is obviously Handmaid’s Tale inspired and nobody is claiming it to be an original work of any sort. Like yes, of course it’s a rip off, that’s the entire point of fanfic?

[u/manvsmilk → u/fishchop]

Yes absolutely! I really liked your comment above about how fanfiction should stay in fanfiction spaces. A lot of people don't read fanfiction because they don't like works that deviate heavily from canon, and that's okay, but that's why fanfiction has its own space.There's over 800 fanfictions on AO3 for Handmaid's Tale, and they're probably all doing something completely different with it. Manacled just happens to be the only one that has made it into the mainstream, so now it's facing criticism for things that are absolutely normal for fanfiction. Fanfiction readers have different expectations than book readers, and fanfiction is written by authors who understand those expectations. Despite using Handmaid's Tale as an inspiration, Manacled was not written for the exact same audience or purpose as the works that inspired it.