Frequently Asked Questions
Getting Started
What is Fanprose?
Fanprose is a platform for reading and writing fan fiction. It’s built around features that matter to fan fiction readers and writers: ratings, trigger warnings, inline comments, bookmarks, reading lists, flexible reading settings, letters, flowers, polls, and a personalized feed.
Do I need an account to read?
You can browse stories and read a preview of each chapter without an account. To read full chapters, you’ll need to sign in. An account also unlocks writing, commenting, bookmarking, reading lists, letters, flowers, and more.
Reading
How do I pick up where I left off?
Bookmarks save your exact position within a chapter. When you bookmark a paragraph, Fanprose remembers where you stopped so you can return to it later. Your bookmarks are accessible from your Library.
What does the Mature tag mean?
A story tagged Mature contains graphic violence, sexual themes, strong language, or dark subject matter. You can hide mature stories from your feed in Settings → Content.
What are trigger warnings?
Trigger warnings are free-form labels set by the author — for example, violence, grief, or major character death. They appear on the story and chapter pages so you can make an informed choice before reading.
Can I customize how I read?
Yes. The reading settings panel lets you adjust font size, indentation, text justification, chapter width, and dark mode. Your preferences are saved across sessions.
What are inline comments?
Inline comments let readers highlight a specific paragraph and leave a note on it. They’re separate from the main story comment thread, so authors and readers can discuss individual moments without cluttering the general discussion.
Writing
How do I publish a story?
Sign in, click the Write button, fill in your story details (title, fandom, rating, tags), and publish your first chapter. You can continue adding chapters at any time.
What’s the difference between a One Shot and a Series?
A One Shot is a single, complete chapter — the whole story in one piece. A Series supports multiple chapters and tracks a status (Ongoing, Complete, Hiatus, etc.) so readers know what to expect.
Can I save a draft before publishing?
Yes. Chapters can be saved as drafts at any time. Only published chapters are visible to readers — drafts are private to you and any co-authors.
What are unlisted stories?
An unlisted story is hidden from all public listings — search results, feeds, and profile pages — but remains accessible to anyone with the direct link. Individual chapters can also be unlisted, which hides them from the table of contents and chapter navigation while keeping the rest of the story visible. Only the primary author can change the unlisted setting for a story or its chapters.
Can I co-author a story?
Yes. The primary author can invite co-authors from the people they follow. Invitees receive a notification and can accept or decline. Once accepted, co-authors can edit chapters and manage most story details. Co-authors cannot change the unlisted or mature settings — those remain under the primary author’s control. Co-authored stories appear on every author’s profile.
Account & Settings
How do I change my display name?
Go to Settings → Profile to update your display name.
How do I hide mature content?
Go to Settings → Content and uncheck Show mature stories. Mature stories will no longer appear in your feed or search results.
How do I block certain tags or themes from my feed?
Go to Settings → Content → Blocked Keywords. Stories tagged with any blocked keyword will be hidden from your feed. You can add up to 50 keywords.
How do I sign in?
You can sign in with an email address and password, or use Google OAuth for one-click sign-in.
Social & Community
What are Letters?
Letters are a way to send private messages to other users. You can include up to four images and up to 2,000 characters per letter. If you prefer to stay anonymous, you can send a letter without revealing your identity. The recipient can reply publicly (which creates a thought) or privately.
Who can send me Letters?
You control who can send you letters in your settings. Options include anyone, only your followers, only mutuals (people you follow who also follow you), or nobody at all.
What are Flowers?
Flowers are a way to show appreciation for another user. Each user can send one flower per day. Flowers come in different colors with varying rarity — some are much harder to find than others. Occasionally, a bouquet may be triggered, sending multiple flowers at once as a special surprise.
What are Thoughts?
Thoughts are short updates you can share on your profile. Each thought supports up to 2,000 characters and up to four images. You can also link a thought to one of your stories. Thoughts appear on your profile and in the feeds of people who follow you.
How does Following work?
Follow other users to see their stories and thoughts in your home feed. Your followers can see your activity in theirs. Following is one-directional — you don’t need someone’s permission to follow them.
What are verified authors?
A verified badge means Fanprose has extra confidence that the account is not impersonating someone else and that the person behind it is a trusted member of the community who follows our content guidelines.
To receive a verified badge, an author who is already verified must vouch for you. Before you vouch for someone, be sure you know and trust them: vouching is a serious endorsement. If someone you vouched for breaks the rules or has their account actioned for violations, you can both lose your verified badges, so only vouch for people you believe will stay in good standing.
Your Feed
What are the different feed tabs?
Your home feed has four tabs: For You surfaces stories based on your favorite characters and fandoms; Following shows stories from people you follow; Thoughts shows only thoughts from people you follow; and Newest shows the most recently published stories and chapters across the platform.
Polls
What are Polls?
Authors can add polls to their chapters and teasers to gather reader feedback. Polls support multiple choices and can be set to expire after one, three, or seven days — or stay open indefinitely. Each reader can vote once per poll.
Photocards
What are Photocards?
Photocards are collectible cards you can earn by using Fanprose. When you interact with stories — liking, commenting, bookmarking, sending flowers or letters, posting wall comments, or sharing thoughts — there’s a chance a photocard will drop as a reward. Each card features an idol (character) and belongs to a group (fandom) and collection.
How do I earn Photocards?
Photocards drop by chance whenever you interact with content on the platform. You don’t need to do anything special — just use Fanprose as you normally would. Cards that match the characters or fandoms of the story you’re interacting with are more likely to drop, so engaging with your favorite fandoms helps you collect cards you care about.
Can I get duplicates?
Yes. Like real trading cards, you can earn the same photocard more than once. Your profile shows a count for each card you own.
Where do my Photocards appear?
Your profile has a dedicated Photocards tab that shows your full collection organized by collection, with progress tracking for each. You can also feature up to six cards on your profile’s Overview tab for other users to see.
Can I trade Photocards?
Yes! You can trade photocards with other users. List a card for trade with an optional description of what you’re looking for, then browse other users’ listings and filter by collection or tier. To propose a trade, offer one to five of your own cards. The listing owner can accept, decline, or let the offer expire after seven days. Accepted trades swap cards instantly. There’s a 30-minute cooldown between completed trades. You can also comment on and heart other users’ listings.
Shrine
What is the Shrine?
The Shrine lets you sacrifice photocards for a chance at a new one. Select one to five cards to offer, and receive a random card in return. Higher-value sacrifices improve your chances of earning a higher-tier card. Cards matching your favorite characters and fandoms are weighted more heavily.
What are wishes?
When making an offering, you can optionally wish for a specific character or collection. Wishes boost the chance of receiving a matching card, but carry a risk — character wishes have a 25% chance of failure and collection wishes have a 10% chance. If the wish fails, your cards are lost and you receive nothing.
What are Power wishes?
A Power wish is different from Fame, Love, or Fortune: you are not trying to pull a new card right away. Instead, the Shrine shows a demanded photocard — a specific card design and quality that is the same for everyone and changes on a timer.
You must sacrifice exactly one card. If it is not the demanded card type, the Power wish fails: your card is lost and you do not get a buff. If it matches the demanded type, the Shrine consumes your offering and stores a Power buff on your account (you do not receive a replacement photocard from this step).
The strength of the buff depends on how close your sacrifice was to the demand: matching the type but not the exact quality cuts the failure chance of your next wish in half (after your cards’ quality is applied) and increases how strongly your next Love or Fame wish pulls toward your chosen character or collection (half again as much as the usual wish boost). Matching the demanded type and the exact quality removes random failure entirely for that next wish and doubles that wish-target pull strength. If you already have a Power buff, a stronger one replaces a weaker one; you are never downgraded.
The buff is spent automatically the next time you make a Health, Fame, Love, or Fortune offering that runs the usual failure roll. Wisdom wishes do not use or remove your Power buff. A successful Power wish does not start the normal Shrine cooldown, so you can use your buff on the next offering right away.
How often can I use the Shrine?
There is a cooldown (currently 60 minutes) between offerings. Recent offerings appear in a public feed where others can comment and react.
Challenges
What are Challenges?
Challenges are community writing events hosted by other users. A host creates a challenge, sets a theme or focus, and opens it for sign-ups. Once the host approves participants and assigns writing prompts, everyone writes a story based on their prompt.
How do I join a Challenge?
Browse open challenges at /challenges and sign up for any that interest you. The host reviews sign-up requests and, if approved, assigns you a writing prompt. Once you receive your prompt, you can submit a story before the challenge deadline.
When can I read the submissions?
Submissions are hidden until the host marks the challenge as complete — everyone’s work is revealed at the same time. Once a challenge is complete, all submissions are visible on the challenge page.
Reading lists & Library
What’s a reading list?
A reading list is a named list of stories you curate. Reading lists can be public (shareable with anyone) or private (visible only to you). Use them to organize stories by theme, fandom, mood, or anything else.
What’s the Library?
Your Library is your personal hub on Fanprose. It brings together your bookmarked stories, favorited works, and all of your reading lists in one place.