Discussion for original M/M works, both professionally published and free online.
Free Talk Friday!
It's our weekly chat thread! Talk about anything you didn't feel like making a full post about.
Some questions to get you started:
- What have you been reading, and how are you liking it?
- Have you read any "serial numbers filed off" novels? How do you feel about those types of novels?




I read a couple fic-to-novel books and I didn't mind too much. I just don't care, you know?
On one hand, I'd never think of publishing my fanfic as original fiction. On the other hand, when I read a book, I don't much care if the serial numbers were filed off.
I've been re-reading "The Trap" by Indigo Wren. It's technically (?) "friends to lovers" but the friendship ended before the novel starts so maybe not all that appropriate. Also, it's super dubcon-y. There's one scene in this novel that is so blazingly hot to me even without any actual sex involved. My only criticism is that the author seems to want the non/dubcon without actually having it be non/dubcon, so the main character ends up consenting and has supposedly been denying himself all this time. The dom is still kind of an asshole but y'know -- I don't care. The book is hot.
In terms of serial-numbers-filed: if I can't tell it used to be fic, then it's great. But I stumbled across a couple where I recognized the original canon and it really put me off, especially since I didn't like the original canon.
And kind of ironic... I tried Lisa Henry's "Adulting 101" recently, and even though it was never fanfic, it still reads like Sterek fic. Present tense, had some overused fanfic lines ("how was this his life?") and in general I just couldn't get into it. Ended up dropping it.
I've read a number of books I can tell are serial files, but mostly in the lesbian romance (so many Xena uber fics), het romance ("new adult" is basically code for "serial-filed AU Twilight fanfic," and there are several entire subgenres of romance inspired by popular television shows - motorcycle gangs became a popular erotic romance topic after Sons of Anarchy got popular, for example), or plain old sci-fi/fantasy realm (I've read SO MANY SF/F things that were obvious serial-files of people's Star Wars/Star Trek/SPN/Buffy/etc. fic, you have no idea). Most of the current crop of M/M serial-files started life as coffeeshop/mundane AUs, which I have zero interest in as fanfic and little interest in as original fic either, so I never even pick them up long enough to realize they're serial-files.
Either way, with the exception of specific fics where I read the fic version first and prefer it (Gnomon, for example), I don't mind serial files at all. For some reason, I'm really good at spotting them, or at least, spotting things that are either heavily influenced by Franchise X or straight-up Franchise X fanfiction - because there's often not a lot of difference between the two - and if I let the fact that something obviously started life as someone's [insert fandom here] plotbunny, I'd... have a lot less sci-fi/fantasy to read, for one thing. Maybe coming out of a genre fandom background and being into Marvel and DC comics where canon is frequently written by ascended fans makes a difference? Because I know some people in the M/M community and in the Young Adult/NewAdult hetfic communities practically spit acid over serial-files, and I really don't get it. How is Susie's Twilight fanfic with the serial numbers filed off different from Janet's Twilight copycat/rip-off?
I think my experience reading filed-off books depends on whether or not I recognize the canon. If I do, I find it distracting. If I like the canon it also makes me really curious to read the original story because chances are I would like it better.
If I don't recognize it though, and it's a good story, it doesn't matter to me because chances are whatever changes were made to make the story accessible to non-fandom readers are what makes it accessible to me. If I didn't know the canon I wouldn't have read the original fanfic and would have missed out on it.