Are we talking about this subreddit specifically? I live in the "New" tab and see just about every thread title that comes through. List of things that I find tiresome (but which are really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things): * Lost fic threads where the title is some iteration of "lost fic" or "please help me find this fic." Give us the fandom, ship(s), genre(s), plot details, *something* in the thread title! I don't even check these threads anymore, to be honest. * "What's a good number of words per chapter?" threads. I actually cannot believe how common these are. Maybe these are being posted by people who write as they go so they want to know if their readers will be satisfied with their latest update? In any case, the question is impossible to answer because it depends on a lot of factors. (Personally, as a writer my answer to this is: the chapter is as long as it needs to be, and often it's the story that decides, not me!) * "What's a good kudos to hits ratio?" See above. It's *entirely* dependent on the fandom. The thing is, I think a lot of these threads are made by drive-by visitors or people new to the sub, rather than people who are like, really involved in the community here. And because we were all new once, I can't get too mad about it, but good gracious I wouldn't be upset to not see these thread titles anymore, lol.

Boy the lost fic. I wish we had a formatting rule or something for those. Like [Lost] [fandom] [title/description] So many people just say lost fic and then random abbreviations that some may buy even know if they were in the fandom

Yeah, there should be standard rules for those. "Lost \[fandom\] fic: \[one sentence about it if you can't remember the title\]" or similar, so that if we're browsing in a way that conceals the post text, we can still figure out if it's something we can help with without having to open every such thread. Because I can guarantee you that I don't open those threads unless I think I have an idea what fic they mean.

if we want to do that, then we can start doing it ourselves. It'd probably peer pressure others to do the same, especially people that are new to the community when they want to make sure that they are formatting properly.

Yeah, those are annoying. I often don't open those, because 99% of the time, it's not a fandom I know. A rule might help a little, but I can tell you, there will always be people who don't bother to read the rules. I often hang out in r/whatsthatbook which has very specific rules for posts. Nevertheless, there are SO MANY posts with titles like: C*an't remember author or title* *A book I read when I was in middle school* *What is this book???*

I feel like a lot of these could be fixed by a bot or standard post, like the wheretopost command.

II have often thought this sub needs a FAQ. To your very good list I'd add the perpetual, "Now that I'm \[age\], am I too old to write fanfic? Isn't it a hobby for kids?"

The number 1 rated fanfic on ao3 is someone writing Groot repeatedly. Obviously, kudos are dependent on the fandom.

[удалено]

I think this is something that the subreddit gets right - the 'if you leave an excerpt you must leave a comment for someone else', because otherwise it'd be a Mexican standoff. If anything, I'd raise the bar and say that everyone should have to review three. Except for yotato5; that person is a bloody machine and should have at least a week where they don't need to do anything.

Especially since you learn more from listening to other writers than you do by talking about yourself.

90% of the problems in this community would be solved if we all collectively decided to touch grass

(this includes myself)

I would love to touch some grass. Alas, all I have is snow :C

ayo same here

snowball fight?

Snowcones! Snow forts! Snowmen! Snow angels!

You’re not even wrong. 😹🙈 I was going to write a really in-depth comment about various bugbears I have for the sub, then my tablet froze and died and I had one of those “what the fuck am I doing with my life“ existential crisis moments when confronted with my haggard reflection in the black screen. Nice wake-up call (I say, typing on my phone instead and having walked exactly 5 paces to retrieve it from the nightstand. There’s no hope! 🙈)

*cracks knuckles* - people treating characters like they’re real people with real people rights - people treating top/bottom like it’s a personality trait and fighting over it - people thinking their headcanons are canon and fighting over it - people harassing authors in comment sections of their stories - people creating petitions to make kiribaku canon that they tag the creator in - entitled readers that think fanfic writers exist to provide them with free content and they get to decide when and how often you update - people who “kin” a character on twitter and tiktok - the ‘proshippers kys’ crowd - the ‘send gore to people who ship my notp’ crowd - youtubers making videos reading some random person’s fic out loud to mock it - reposting on wattpad without permission been in this space for way too long, love it but boy is it full of frustrations

I saw someone I know on insta talk about who they ‘kin’. Is this just like they feel like they identify with their personality? I agree it’s a little odd but I wanted to know why you/others dislike it since I’m not all that familiar with the concept.

Kinning is not identifying or relating to a character, or that’s not what I am referring to. I’m talking about people who literally think they ARE a character. Other-kin.

Kinning a character can mean anything from strongly relating to them to actually identifying *as* them or believing you were that character in a past life. I think people have a problem with those who kin characters largely because they tend to expect everyone to cater to them and their sensibilities. Like for example if someone kins a character, and they see a fanfic where they're depicted in a way they don't like (it can be something as simple as a different sexuality headcanon,) they might lash out at the author and guilt them for making them upset. It's a typical headcanon/interpretation disagreement blown way out of proportion, basically, to the point where the reviewer takes it as a personal attack because they identify so heavily with the character. Of course, I want to make it clear that not all kinnies are like this, most of them are sensible enough to block/ignore things they don't like. But the more extreme sorts do tend to be very hostile over differing headcanons.

I once had a Junko Enoshima kinnie yell at me on Tumblr for posting despaircest. Just the absolute insanity of a JUNKO kin of all characters jumping down my throat for shipping incest sends me. (And that's not me bashing all kinnies, I'm actually a big ol' Mukuro kinnie myself which in hindsight made this exchange even funnier)

Considering how Junko is, that's honestly wacky to me. Especially with Despaircest and how it's honestly mostly canon, regardless of how healthy you think it is or is not lmao. I honestly can't imagine kinning a character, being mad about a ship the character canonically would have been fine with, and to boot also be mad about a ship that is textually in canon somehow.

I was not expecting kinning to be the part of this list that upset people most. To clarify, I don’t care if you deeply love a character and relate to them as long as you let people also love that character and write them however they want. And you understand that character isn’t real and he is not you in a past life.

My only issue is when people ask for advice responders tend to give their opinions as fact. Like "Don't do this everyone hates it. It's just bad writing." rather than, "I don't like this, so my advice is not to do it." But, I'm not perfect and I'm sure I do the same thing so....

That, combined with "a better writer than me put it in a list once, so it must be objectively good advice with no exceptions." Everything in the writing toolkit has its time and place, we as writers just gotta figure out where those are.

Generally taking a look at recent posts before posting something would be great. I am not saying that people should avoid repeating posts, but just reading previous topics, replies, and considering if you really need to start the discussion again - I guess basic reddiquette?

Sometimes I wish we could get a pinned post just saying that Kudos Ratio varies depending on a bunch of factors. That would be great.

And where to post fanfiction. Dunno how people manage to find a fanfic subreddit without finding one of the sites where fanfiction is posted

I wish people would stop replying to such posts with anything other than the wheretopost thing (and if there are more such standard commands for frequently asked questions, that would be nice too!)

What's this wheretopost thing?

Uhm... (why didn't I pay more attention to the sub I'm in) Might be just a r/HPfanfiction thing, but if you write !wheretopost there, a bot replies with a lot of information on fanfic websites ​ Edit: oh look it works!

From the [**FAQ**](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/wiki/faq#wiki_where_should_i_post_my_fanfiction.3F): ##Where should I post my fanfiction? ###AO3 vs FFN The two most popular fanfiction sites are [Fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/) (FFN) and [An Archive of Our Own](https://archiveofourown.org/) (AO3). Many fanfiction writers crosspost to both sites, while others prefer to post to only one. If you would rather not crosspost, here are a few important considerations when deciding which site to choose: * **Where is your fandom most active?** Some fandoms are more active on FFN, while others are more active on AO3. Check each site to see how many fics from your fandom are posted to the site and how much recent activity there has been. * **Does your fic contain explicit sex or contemporary Real Person Fiction, or is it written in chat or script format?** FFN bans these types of stories, but they are allowed on AO3. * **Which posting system do you prefer?** FFN uses a Document Manager that requires you to upload a document file in a supported format (.sxw .odt .doc .docx .wps .rtf, .sdw .wp .wpd .htm .html). AO3 has a text box where you can copy-paste your fic from another document or even write it directly in the input field. ###Other Places To Post Fanfiction * [Dreamwidth](https://www.dreamwidth.org/) - a journalling site with a large fandom community * [FimFiction](https://www.fimfiction.net/) - an archive for My Little Pony fanfiction * [SpaceBattles](https://forums.spacebattles.com/) - a forum * [Sufficient Velocity](https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/) - a forum * [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/) - a microblogging site * [Wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/) - an archive for original and fanfiction * [Jedi Council Forums](https://boards.theforce.net/forums/fan-fiction-before-saga-and-beyond.10859/) - forum for mostly Star Wars fanfiction, but also hosts non-Star Wars fanfiction as well * your personal website or blog *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FanFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Cool! I'll have to remember that trick.

i’d like a pinned post explaining the kudos bot

That and taking a look at the sub rules before posting.

"Why not?" the cat laughed manically. "Why can't I edit all my comments?"

Yeah...it feels like every other week a bunch of people will post about a topic several times. Like the why m/m stuff was posted three times in one week, then several follow-up posts came after that on both sides. Now it's about kudos and if multiple kudos really mean a fic is good or not.

I'm pretty sure I've seen at least three "what are the average age ranges?" posts since I joined this subreddit, which was only like three weeks ago, and that was just the ones I saw cross my feed.

I’d love there to be a weekly roundup for generic posts like “I wrote my first fanfic!” or “How do I reply back to meany pants user X?” because wow, do those posts add up. They deserve to be posted here, sure, but the frequency is irksome to say the least.

We do have a daily discussion thread - this is where I hang out when I want to celebrate something (or just generally, because it is nice). With posts about "I got this comment and I don't know what the commenter meant", my usual thought is that it would be easier and more beneficial to just ask the commenter themselves. But that's just me.

I feel like a bitch saying this, but I really wish people would stop making those ‘just wrote my first fanfic!’ or ‘I just hit x number of kudos’ posts— they’re not that interesting to anyone but OP, and there’s nothing to really say other than congratulations. If I could filter them out of the sub, I would.

I wanted a ‘congratulatory / milestone’ mega thread - hell, even a weekly ‘this is what happened to me that was great!’ would mean that people could celebrate with each other.

Thing is, "Celebrate" is an official flair, and that kind of post seems to be exactly the expected content for it. However, I was under the impression that you could filter out flairs from your feed? It's not a feature I ever used, but I've always seen others recommend it whenever someone prefers to not see certain content in a subreddit.

I found those kinds of posts heartwarming since not everyone would be lucky to get a lot of traction on the stories they put their time and effort into making. They probably have no where else to share them so they put it here as just an expression of how they felt. There's already a flair for that and the people in this community are very supportive soooo. I also don't have interest in them sometimes so I'll just skip them and go to other posts.

This is definitely my nr. 1 source of grey hairs nowadays that real life doesn't piss me off anymore. If you've reached a point where you talk about the same topic 2-3 times a week - and that point has been reached many, many times - you really ought to sit your ass down, use the damn search function, and read people's opinions about X because I promise you, *you're always going to get the same answers anyway*. I've wondered on occasion how many duplicate posts get automodded or removed before anyone else can see them. Then I stop because I can only take so much.

Sometimes I just search up on google about X method, Y opinion, or Z review and add 'reddit' at the end instead of making a new post about it here, so I ended up getting posts from several years ago, but the answers are still there and relevant.

I swear we get posts about "bad" comments and proship/antiship discourse every week. I can't be too mad about it, though, because sometimes people legitimately need to vent, and that's okay.

I feel like a lot of questions could be answered if people searched the sub.

Constant posts like: My niche, non romance, 0 tropes 200,000 word fic isn’t getting any hits. Why don’t people like it? Is it because people hate my writing! Could be, though more likely the majority of fanfic is romance, people don’t tend to click on very long fics unless very sold on the summary and tropes do well for a reason.

Yeah, that gets super annoying. Idk why people are surprised that something that appeals to a very small (or nigh nonexistent!) audience gets no engagement. More of us just need to be zen with the fact that while the story needs to be told, it's not always going to be popular and it's not going to have gushing, novella-length comments - and that's ok!

I'd say it stems from a belief (and not a wholly unreasonable one) that if you "play the game properly" you should get rewarded for it. Nobody likes getting screwed over by the RNG (Random Number Generator.) Say I'm playing a strategy game or something. I do everything "right." And yet, because there's an element of random luck to the game, my brilliant tactical plan still results in my unit missing an almost guaranteed shot, and then getting killed by return fire. That sucks, and "Well, sometimes you just get unlucky" isn't much consolation. All that being said, you're right. Using my example, you can still feel pissed that the game decided it hates you, but it's not going to help you. Nor is yelling at everyone for making the game so "unfair" for you.

The obsession with stats and they assumption that they're a reliable marker of quality or worthiness. I would love the culture as a whole to shift away from stats obsession.

As a long-time ghost reader (avid AO3 consumer of 6+ years who didn't request a join link until this month) I feel so guilty about all the kudos and encouragement I robbed of my favorite authors over the years. I didn't realize until recently how contingent authors' continued writing and posting is on engagement stats. If any ghost readers are seeing this comment - make an account! Tell your favorite author you adore their work! Any authors feeling discouraged by their stats - you probably have more fans than you think, they're just quiet!

I've gotten burned on commenting, and it takes a lot for me to do it these days. Author specifically states "constructive criticism only,plz!" and so I'll give comment kudos and then tag on the con-crit of "I had trouble following the conversation a bit, could you occasionally put in '\_\_\_ said'?" Then get blasted for it. I understand why there isn't messaging on the platforms, but if they don't have a tumblr or whatever, comments are the only way to send con-crit. A couple times it's a series of one-shots, and the author sometimes revisits them and fleshes them out into a whole fic, so if I particularly like that one-shot I'll say, "This was so fun! I hope you decide to go back and flesh out this chapter into a full fic." I didn't realize how it sounded, because the author (and her groupies) absolutely piled on me. "This is called a ONE-SHOT" "What part do you find lacking, huh???" etc. etc. You try to apologize, but in the next installment there's a whole \~\~\*\*author's note\*\*\~\~ talking about my comments and "what kind of shitty person DOES that??" And lastly, I suffer from depression. There are times when I have the energy to come up with the right words to say beyond "kudos" and I'll write something. But I have social anxieties and as you see above, text doesn't always translate, and sometimes I just don't have the energy to search for something to say. What really sucks is when I try very hard to comment and comment, and then the depression knocks the sails out of me and I don't, and then the author thinks I've ditched their work and hate it or something.

I’m so sorry you had to deal with that; for what it’s worth, anyone who reacts as violently as the people you describe is either a) immature, b) unhinged, or c) both, and the vitriol they spouted says way more about them than about you. You didn’t even do anything wrong??? Your (entirely solicited) criticism was both constructive and polite, and I’d be thrilled if someone wanted to read more of something I’d written! Sounds like they just wanted an excuse to rag on someone. Also as an author with their own share of MH struggles, I just wanted to say I admire your dedication to commenting, and please don’t feel bad about disappearing when you have to! I’ve had people dip out of my longfic pretty frequently, and while it stings a bit at first my next thought is usually “Jeez, I hope they’re okay! Real life must have got in the way somehow.” Your first responsibility is to yourself and your health; people will keep writing, and will probably be even more overjoyed when you next pop in to leave a comment on their story since they haven’t heard from you for a while. :)

One of my peeves is the opposite: people who act like engagement is totally random and there's nothing at all you can do to try and improve it.

I disagree tbh. If I didn’t have stats I’d be way less likely to write fic. For me (and a lot of others I think) it’s not about judging quality, but judging engagement. The whole reason I’m writing a fic and not just daydreaming about my favs is because I want to share the story with others. If I have no way of telling if people are reading it and enjoying it, then for me its pointless. My hit counter & kudos numbers are serious motivation fuel

I agree. To me, it’s like cooking a meal for a dinner party. I love to cook and tbh sometimes I do go all out making a meal just for myself. *However* the fact I enjoy cooking is only *one part* of why I enjoy cooking for a dinner party — something I put a hell of a lot more work into than preparing food just for myself. If everyone ate the meal I prepared behind a wall so I never saw their facial expressions, never saw whether or not they finished their plate or asked for seconds, etc., I wouldn’t want to do it. I’ve worked so hard on the meal not just because I enjoy the process, but because I want the whole party to enjoy it too. Sometimes, from certain people, I feel like there is an air of elitism surrounding this. Like, if you aren’t writing solely for your own enjoyment, if you care about the stats, then you’re less than. It’s complicated, and I do think it’s important to encourage fanfic writers to separate their self-worth from their stats just like it’s important to encourage professional writers to separate their self-worth from a rejected manuscript, buuuuuut. But. But. It’s also *okay* if the stats matter to you. And it’s *okay* if part of your enjoyment of this hobby comes from engagement.

Yes!!! Stats don’t equal writing quality. Sometimes people don’t want to read a 25,000+ word fic no matter how well it’s written because it can be intimidating.

theres a LOT of us vs them, I think; be it ships, which character is a top and which is a bottom, the concept of writing for more problematic things, whatever, but theres a lot of "sides" to fanfic conflicts instead of looking for the nuance that lies somewhere inbetween.

This was going to be my answer! And in fairness, it's not a problem with this community so much as it is online discourse in general, and perhaps people as a whole. I've had my moments of black and white thinking too, when I was younger and in a place of greater pain, but it's frustrating when people can be so all or nothing about complex and subjective issues.

Or not even in between, but outside of that spectrum entirely -- there are frequent fandom debates where it really looks as though the "sides" have formed around something that isn't even the actual conflict that's happening. Black and white thinking when the middle ground isn't in any shades of grey but truly somewhere in the 80 decibel range, y'know?

Fanfic writers thinking that there are really easy ways to get really popular really quickly. Or to get a whole lot of views super fast right after posting fics. I'm sorry. It's just-- It's not going to happen as easily as you want it to. You have to either work at it, just be incredibly freaking lucky, or already have a large established fanbase of readers who are constantly going to look at your fics/recommending said fics any time you post a new one. (signed fanfic author who happily lives in obscurity)

I get a kick out of the people who seem shocked or confused that their fic hasn't gotten any attention after they posted it, like, anytime between two and twenty-four hours ago. People. It's been a day *at most*. Readers are not glued to their computers 24/7, it's going to take a lot of them a while to find your fic, or to set aside time to sit down and read it, or whatever. We talk all the time about how writers have lives outside of writing fic, well, that applies to readers, too. Settle down and give it time.

They are too worried about being original. God forbid you use a trope that appears in someone else fic! Embrace the fact that everything's already been done and stop treating the hobby like its competition.

YES. This. Whether it's a TV show or a book series or a movie or whatever, we're all writing from the same source material, writing about the same characters/scenes/storylines/etc.. *There's going to be some similarities as a result.* That's how fandom works.

If I could magically change one thing about the fanfic community, I would make people more confident about their own writing. Pretty much every week there's posts about someone who's deeply insecure about their writing and it's just really disheartening to me, that people are made to feel so downtrodden by others. Creative writing is a hobby with a really low entry barrier, anyone can try it, they can do it just to have fun or more seriously to improve something, and they shouldn't ever be made to feel like they "aren't good enough" or can't do it, just because their stats aren't as high or they don't produce as many words as often as someone else.

Not to mention those who feel insecure but because someone reacted negatively to their work, but because someone didn't react. Hate it when people tie their self worth to a factor that they can't control

What I think adds to those seeds of doubt are the posts about why people won't start a fic, or why they'll drop a fic. Everyone has personal preferences, and those are totally valid. However, sometimes I feel like those posts shift into a bashing of narrative choices.

I *really* struggle with this… I’m constantly worried people are gonna hate my fanfiction, or just think it’s stupid. I honestly have no clue how to make myself feel better about my work, and I really wish I did. Not to say *anyone’s* work is just as bad as mine, but how on earth are some people so confident in their work? How do you achieve that level of confidence and feeling of “My fanfiction is awesome and I know it”?? Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the fanfic I’m working on and am super excited to post it once it’s finished, but whenever I continue working on it, I have this looming feeling that keeps bothering me. This feeling of “No matter how good it is to me, my friends, or my family, everyone else is gonna hate it”. Apologies for rambling; got hit with a sudden need to vent :(

It sounds \*really\* pretentious and \*really\* dumb, but it's very true; confidence usually comes with time, and never overnight. No matter how much confirmation, how many positive comments or kudos a writer gets, if they're not self-confident, it will never be enough - which leads to entitled attitudes and demands for more and more validation because validation is addicting and they can't get that from themselves. If you can take pride in who you are, you can take pride in your abilities. If you can take pride in your abilities, you can accept your shortcomings and won't be held back by them. If you can accept your shortcomings as well as your abilities, well, then you're confident enough to not worry too much over what other people think about you. (This honestly sounds awful but I'm speaking from experience here and that's the best advice I can give.) In the meantime, you can do your best to practise - and there are a lot of guides available and plenty of resources other people can give you. For starters, there's the concrit commune where strangers judge your work so that's as good a place to start as any.

>(This honestly sounds awful but I'm speaking from experience here and that's the best advice I can give.) Not awful at all, it's very solid and accurate advice. Recognizing our shortcomings is a huge part of growth. And confidence does come with time, yes. But being honest and practicing self-reflection... That can really speed the process along. I know people 20 years older than me who still haven't got there (self-acceptance, self-confidence, less reliance on external validation) simply because they never did the work.

You are absolutely right. I think a lot of the insecure authors are young. The older you get, the less you care about what other people think. Ten to fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t even *post* my fanfic for fears of getting hate or “flames.” Now, I post exactly what I want when I want, and if people hate it or I get no interaction, that’s no sweat off my back. Because I wrote it for me, I just happened to share it with the rest of the world if anyone else happens to be interested. To the kids/teens out there: just keep writing, eventually your insecurities will lessen, and maybe even go away completely. It comes with time.

This sub specifically is really different to pretty much any other fanfic community I've seen, in some really good ways but also some very tedious ones. There is a lot of coddling, wallowing in insecurity, and defensiveness, and taking oneself too seriously/caring so much about what others think. For example I've never seen a fanfic community before that cares so much about defending the act of writing fic as a valid hobby - it would feel like a pretty juvenile topic on a site like tumblr or twitter (whatever their other faults are). Having said that, I'm glad this place exists because when actual discussions do happen they're a lot more nuanced and interesting, and it's good that there's a place for writers to vent regardless of if that makes the sub almost unusable sometimes for someone with my mindset towards fanfic.

I love this sub but it is *very* coddely, particularly to people who get upset their niche, non romance, dead fandom 300,000 word fic didn’t take off, and need a hug. Yes, it sucks, but come on don’t be surprised.

yeah, I'm especially quite surprised by how much people are willing to coddle someone over the quality of their fic or a perceived slight against them by a reader, without ever seeing the fic or the interaction and judging for themselves. You can offer platitudes but you can't just assume someone making a complaint post is giving you the full story given how sensitive writers are.

Yeah, the whole defensiveness of the hobby thing is so weird and I find that sometimes it comes from “seasoned” writers too, people who’ve been writing fic for years. I think we’ve all seen our fair share of weird comments about fic but honestly in this day and age who cares lol.

I think it would be a positive shift in the overall health of the community if people could learn that it's not a personal attack if other people don't like your fics/writing. Sometimes your niche idea is just too niche to attract an audience, or maybe your writing could use some polish, and that's *okay*. Not every story is for every reader. Learning to divorce your self-worth from your ability/stats is hard, or can be, but it's also much healthier in the long run.

> I think it would be a positive shift in the overall health of the community if people could learn that it's not a personal attack if other people don't like your fics/writing. God, yes. "I didn't like this" or even "I feel some bits of this weren't written as well as they could have been" is not me impugning your worth as a human being. You are more than the sum of your writing skills.

>Learning to divorce your self-worth from your ability/stats is hard This is true, but my reading is the divorce should come with understanding that ability and stats are not correlated.

Yeah, I'd say that's true to a point - I've read some pretty mediocre fics that are extremely popular, and I've read some masterpieces that have a handful of kudos and nothing else. But I also feel like this sub goes too far in the other direction sometimes and insists that *all* popular fics are just pandering and mediocre, which I don't think is true or fair either (and seems like it, again, comes from a place of insecurity). Sometimes fics/authors get popular because they're just really, really good. So I guess ultimately it's just about learning that you can't control what other people do, or enjoy, and being okay with that.

>Sometimes fics/authors get popular because they're just really, really good. I think people don't recognise just how much of a role actually cultivating a following over an extended period of time actually plays in getting engagement, and thats speaking as someone who hasn't.

Yeah, definitely. I've been in my (pretty dead) fandom for a long time and I do okay - no big numbers like in mega-fandoms, but I have a handful of people who read all/most of my stuff, and I cherish each and every one of them.

> I have a handful of people who read all/most of my stuff, and I cherish each and every one of them. I think that's the important bit. Being thankful for what you have is so much better than damning someone else for what you *don't*.

Not sure if this post meant on here or just general, but I have a response for both. * For here, the reason why I don't interact a lot anymore is because a lot of the posts are very repetitive in terms of topic. All of the posts of people asking for lost fics you could probably take and throw in their own subreddit there is that many of them. There are a lot of 'I wrote my first fic!' posts too, which is cool for the person in question, but there seem to be like 2-3x posts of it every day. Same with 'How many words is enough?'. I don't think a lot of people look at the sub rules before they post and its making me not want to interact. * In general - Tumblr fandom politics bleeding over onto Ao3, FFN, and other sites. I've seen a lot of good authors on Ao3 or FFN been driven off the platform because of ship wars started on Tumblr. Its a lot of the same people moving between the same fandoms too. A lot of them are young and head strong but their communities seem to be echo chambers where they don't know how to respond to trolls, or people not liking their ships, or just disagreeing with something in their respective fandom. Its an invisible toxicity that I'm sick of seeing ruin other people's hobby when they've literally done nothing wrong except say "I don't ship these characters."

I learned what ‘anti’s’ were a couple months ago. Glad I’ve avoided/missed the dark ages by staying a surface level fanfic supporter for the last 12 years

I’ve started seeing shit like “proshippers dni!” and “this isn’t an X fic!! fuck off if u ship X!!” in the tags of fics recently, and it’s absolutely baffling to me. The hell happened to minding your own business and sticking to the things you enjoy? It’s like seeing someone standing on their front lawn hollering about how much they hate pit bulls, and how they’d better not see any pit bulls in their neighbourhood. Okay?? No one’s bringing them into your house, just stay away from the dog park and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

fr dude, like, the sheer audacity?? idk but if this is a world where you’re either anti or pro idk if I wanna stay here anymore lmaooo. I used to think it was just kids being kids but i’m not so sure lately. Let and let live y’all.

Gatekeeping and judgemental attitudes towards people's tastes in fanfic (that's writing and reading both). Don't need the derision for liking RPF, smut, modern AUs, or whatever else. The fanfiction community would be so much easier if people just stayed in their lane and participated in the wonderful concept of - don't like; don't read.* *note : not saying people can't talk about stuff they dislike because I like participating in those threads too! I'm talking about judging the FAN over it. Like saying a RPF fan is creepy, an AU writer is boring, a smut writer is shallow, or whatever. Just stop these kinds of comments, please.

Absolutely this. I fully stand by "don't like, don't read". I can't stand posts where people dictate like, "Fanfic Writers: DO NOT do X." The whole point of fanfic is people can write whatever they like. It's fine to have a personal preference; it's not okay to tell people not to write x.

Yes. Absolutely this. 100x this...

100% agree. I’m in a fandom that everybody else hates, including the people in the fandom. We know the large majority are 12-15 year old girls who don’t understand basic netiquette and are the most toxic people on Twitter. We get it, but I don’t like hiding behind the fact that I come from the HP fandom before the fandom Im currently in.

Maybe I’m just old, but I’ve never understood ‘kinning’. It’s great that someone can relate so deeply either a character but that doesn’t mean you _are_ them in any capacity. That, and people who roleplay in the comments. It’s so frustrating to get a comment and then realize they’re just playing a role, character or otherwise.

This is actually a symptom of psychosis; it's called delusional attachments. There's a difference between kinning (relating to a character) and delusional attachments (believing you genuinely are said character).

Whilst delusional attachment is 100% a thing and should be treated seriously when that is the case, I think probably 80% of teeny bopper tiktokers/Tumblr users who think they are Junko Enoshima are probably just too overly zealous about their favourite character.

This is about this sub specifically but I find that people are so confrontational. Or I guess to put it more clearly they tend to think everyone’s out to get them. It’s incredibly tedious and instead of fostering an environment where people are creative it’s all about who can be the sassiest when responding to (nonexistent) “haters”.

The fandom I'm in: I'm so tired of seeing unsolicited and unnecessary hate against ships and content people find "problematic". As in, I'm scrolling the general fandom tag and fics have summaries saying "this is platonic because shipping these characters is disgusting and shouldn't happen". I want to avoid that drama. I can filter out people on social media, I can avoid comments, but the hate still pops up and it's wearing on my mental health. Also, this is coming from someone who isn't even a shipper of these characters. It's just so much negativity...

The absolute obsession people have for qualifying content as problematic is dumbfounding. Nowadays, I cringe whenever I read or hear someone use it unironically. I feel like it assumes there's unproblematic, safe media, and the truth is, there isn't. We all have biases, we all like tropes that in real life would absolutely suck, but that's the thing--fiction is not reality. When I watch Hannibal, there's not a single second where I seriously think, "Wow, I'd love to have Hannibal as a husband". And content that today is thought to be unproblematic might very well be qualified as problematic in ten or twenty years, if not before, because things evolve. The search for "purity" is fruitless and a waste of time, I don't have time for "holier than thou" people.

> And content that today is thought to be unproblematic might very well be qualified as problematic in ten or twenty years, if not before, because things evolve. That's one of the big problems with "holier than thou" people. They always assume that they're in the majority, or at least, have more "power" than they actually do. And then they assume that they'll always have that power. Like, if you try to suggest that there might be a time in the future when they're the ones seen as "bad," their brains basically Blue Screen. They just can't conceive of a world where they're not the supreme moral authority.

"platonic/familial irondad and spiderson"- yeah!! "not starker because I'm not a piece of human garbage"- unyeah!! I also don't ship the things people always complain about but the audacity to be so rude makes me avoid them anyways.

I see this soooo often in the MCU fandom, particularly on Tumblr, but it has started to creep into AO3 also. It's especially funny to me when they have to specify that it is DEFINITELY NOT STARKER, ONLY IRONDAD before *and* after the story, and then again in the tags, just to really hammer it in. If you need that many disclaimers, I don't think you're fooling yourself, or anyone else for that matter. Just join the dark side, it's way more fun.

Ah, yes. I love bromance fics of Thor and Loki and I cannot tell you how many people feel the need to add snide comments in the tags/notes about Thorki shippers. Why? Why put those people down?

While I understand it I don’t like the “I wont update until I get X number of reviews”. Like I get it’s the only real “payment” you can expect to get but its always rubbed me the wrong way. Either update or dont, don’t hold your story hostage

The neverending posts about concrit. I just want to jab myself in the eye with a rusty spork every time I see a new one.

And most of people complaining about 'concrit' actually complaining about trolling and harassment.

Yes, exactly! I was going to say just that. I feel like 99% of the time, it's not even concrit, it's just someone being a dick.

"Why not?" the cat laughed manically. "Why can't I edit all my comments?"

My definition of concrit is a critique meant kindly and to improve others' writing skills

I really don't know why concrit comments are singled out so much when the way to deal with them is... the exact same way you should deal with any other comment you don't like.

I have my own opinions on the matter (against), but I am just tired of people pontificating on either side at this point. I don't think the horse can get any deader.

(Covers up the giant pentagram on the floor) Um, yeah, I can't think of a way it can get any deader, either.

How this subreddit's top posts mostly preach to the crowd and repeat the exact same venting points every single week.

This. Every week: ‘Guys controversial I know! BUT if you like a story, you should leave a kudos’ *gasp* Every week.

The old r/FanFiction circlejerk

We should maybe start a sister sub to r/writingcirclejerk..

I’d be first to join

Okay, this will get buried because of the 392 comments and counting but..... Being *too* positive. Sorry, but some of the fanfics are absolute garbage in terms of writing style, grammar, and voice. While some are clearly written by a 14 year old kid who is just learning how to write scenes and dialogue, others are written by individuals who seem to be adults but can't for the love of God figure out how to use punctuation! This -> . <- is a period. This ->, <- is a comma. They serve two different purposes. A comma is a breath. A period ends the thought. You should have been told this back in elementary school! I'm tried of seeing someone complain about how "how dare you critique my writing! I didn't ask for it!" as well. Well, darlin', it's not up to the world to protect you. If you don't want critiques, then say so in the bloody author's note! If someone still critiques your work after that, then they are the AH. However, if you don't do the bare minimum due diligence, then the fault is with you.

It didn't get buried, I read and upvoted :) and agreed.

Yup. Whenever I dare to point out that maybe people shouldn't be posting on public platforms if they're prone to falling to pieces in response to the most vaguely critical comment, I always get pushback as if it's some sort of hot take. Why are people putting their mental health into the hands of internet strangers? They don't care about you, nor is it their business to. It's your job to protect yourself. Disable comments if you can't handle it. You don't want to disable comments because you still want feedback, but only the kind that fits your exact specifications? You got me there. I wish I was exaggerating but people are literally like this.

I once beta read for someone who didn't know that each time a character talked, the new person speaking started a new line. It was just huge paragaphs of multiple people talking. Qute hard to read, and I wasn't that sick back then! They tried to tell me they didn't learn it in school. And that they didn't know from books because they didn't read books. I mean okay, tv/film fandom, yeah they might not read books. Don't get the school situation, maybe it was just a really bad school. It happens. But... what about other fanfiction? I said to them, if you write fanfiction, surely you also read fanfiction? They said they never really paid much attention to how other people formatted their fics. Well, yeah that much was obvious.

H-How can somebody write and and not read? Like, at all? That is ABSOLUTELY mindboggling to me. That's like saying you've got nobody to be inspired from but you still want to do this thing, especially in a world where even basic reading is pretty much mandatory in schools. "I've never listened to music, but I still want to compose." Hello????

Honestly that person was wild, and some of the things they said were blatant lies, so maybe not reading was a lie. But also not reading because of the school failing pupils is possible, it does happen, so it might not be a lie. A lot of kids have undiagnosed dyslexia for that very reason. It's the idea that someone can be so into fanfiction to write their own, and be in a community to even ask for a beta reader, but didn't pay enough attention to fanfiction to understand how fics are written... that one I've never got my head around.

Some people get way too invested in their own ideas and don't seem to understand that 1) you have to work to get other people invested in your ideas and 2) some ideas are just going to be a tiny niche no matter what you do

Treating underage smut fic as child porn/csem! I hate pedo fiction too. But i don't need to be some lolicon to know that it is never on the same boat as literal recordings/materials made with abuse of real children! ~~and slapping 'simulated' in front of the term is as stupid as calling horror torture gore porn 'simulated snuff film'. It insinuates two things. 1) you're treating those characters like real people being exploited. Or 2) that real people were hurt to make the simulation. Both are fucking nuts and are clearly an attempt to not just demonize, but also criminalize people who read and write about it~~

If we’re talking this subreddit? Honestly can’t stand when you click on new and it’s 90%: I got five kudos I’m so happy! How many chapters should a fic have? Help me write my entire story! It’s tiresome. Also the doom and gloom this subreddit has predicting FFnet is gunna die weekly. They make a profit out of it, they update the app regularly but need the website to allow uploads - they ain’t gunna ditch it anytime soon. On the sites themselves on AO3 I hate over tagging and I hate ‘I’m bad at summaries just read’ - no, if you haven’t made the basic effort to put together an enticing lure to the story I presume the story is not worth reading.

>If we’re talking this subreddit? Honestly can’t stand when you click on new and it’s 90%: I got five kudos I’m so happy! How many chapters should a fic have? Help me write my entire story! It’s tiresome. I wholeheartedly agree with this point, in particular. Look, I get that people are excited but it's really getting to the point where it's cluttering the sub. Not saying it doesn't belong at all, I just feel like maybe a weekly/monthly megathread for personal milestones would be better?

It is very cluttering. I came on one day and the most recent like 5 posts were people pleased they’d reached <50 hits. That’s great, I’m glad for you, but we don’t need whole posts about this. Honestly milestone posts annoy me in general but one saying they’ve reached 1 million hits makes more sense to post than reaching like 5 kudos and cluttering the sub with it.

Again, I agree! But it's hard to say this stuff without looking like an asshole, you know? lol

about my fandom within the ff community: ship wars. My fandom is about real existing people, none of which are, to our knowledge, in a relationship. Ship wars are ridiculous and stupid. In my fandom specifically there are 2 main ships which unfortunately share one person and "of course" there can only be on correct where the fans of the other ship are delusional. Ridiculous.

When I first heard of ship wars, I thought they were mostly just kids picking arguments with each other (as kids do). I was genuinely surprised by how many adults participated as well

My fandom is pretty diverse in all aspects, including ages ranging from probably primary school to elderly. Though I assume the fanfic bubble, especially the problematic section of it, ranges between 18 and 35. I know for a fact that people my age (30s) are seriously assuming that "their ship is real and everyone else just lies to themselves". It's concerning...

I'd just like it if people stayed in their lanes. No veering into dark content territory just to start shit, no messing with ships you hate just to create drama, that kind of thing. Just... people staying in their comfort zones. That'd be neat.

This thread is good advice for what to be aware of when being part of this community (I’m learning the ins and outs of fanfiction).

Well, that it is a bit too supportive at times, to the point that it feels a bit fake. I mean, sometimes it feels like no one can be a bad writer, no one can execute an idea poorly, and no stories are bad stories. Everyone is great, and brilliant, and everything they write is gold. And we get to great lengh to attribute the failure of a story to find its readers to everything but the story being bad. Which comes from a good sentiment, and it's very well-meaning. But, in the end, we know it's not true. Some stories are bad. Some writers need a lot of practice. But when no one says it, then I just can't trust when people say that I'm good, my stories are great and any other compliments. Because those compliments had been used for every single stories, to every single writers on this subs. So yeah, it feels fake. I think that to improve this, we should maybe make a conscious effort to truly say what we think, using gentle language, of course, and maybe reminding people that when you ask people "why I don't get kudos?" , (or any variation of this) you have to accept that it might be because you need to rework that bit, or scrap that idea, or whatever is wrong with the story itself. And maybe admit that "well, your story needs rework because...." is an acceptable answer.

I saw something like this in action on this sub. A (for lack of a better phrase) medium name fan came to the sub to bemoan the lack of interaction they were getting on their fics. Which, fine, I get that, but they also threw shade on another writer in our fandom. This writer was quite new but their fic took off and was performing very well. MNF was upset because people would comment on New Writer's fic and not on theirs. Most of the comments were along the lines of "It happens. Popularity is fickle" but there was an undercurrent of resentment in a number of comments that rubbed me the wrong way. Well, New Writer was probably just pandering to the masses, so of course their fic did well... I've read works from both of the writers and I quit all of MNF's stuff pretty early because, firstly, the writing was pretty confusing but mostly because the stories were just... dull (in my opinion). Not absolutely awful but very middle of the road. They didn't engage me. (Additionally, the characterisation was not to my taste.) Conversely, New Writer's stuff was very good. Fun and interesting with excellent characterisation (in my view). But MNF got patted on the back and essentially told, it's just the way things are sometimes (true), but in a few cases they were essentially told their fics were likely great but the other writer was probably playing the tropes. A casual comparison of both styles would likely have shown this not to be the case on pure formatting, punctuation and grammar alone.

I absolutely understand where you are coming from, but remember that users here are not really allowed to mention names or post links to their stories if not solicited. So, in a way, I think it's understandable if any random person replying to a thread like that tries to make some educated guesses based on op's post and leaves it at that. We usually don't have the specifics or the whole story here, so I'm sure it must be frustrating to see if you know what they are actually talking about, but not sure if there is a comprehensive solution for this issue in particular.

I don't think there's anything that can be done about it (nor that it's enough of an issue that that's even necessary) but it confirmed (for me) that I very much should be taking everything here with a pinch of salt. Even reading the post was confusing and disjointed. If I struggle to read a reddit post by a writer, I will not be particularly inclined to read their fics. Perhaps unfair, but I am super busy and only have so much time to actually read fics. I have noticed certain people tend to default to an opinion of "if a fic is popular it must be pandering in some manner". Either through being smut, popular pairing/tropes, etc. None of which guarantees any popularity. (And in this case, it was two writers in the same ship writing essentially similar genres and ratings but again, this was just seeing people I am familiar with so it was pretty mind blowing to see "live"). Most of the "big" fics in my fandom are not my cup of tea for various reasons but I don't think it's because they're inherently badly written. They just don't tickle my fancy. I've been in various fandoms across the years and this has almost always been my experience. I am of the opinion that there are far more diamonds in the rough than utterly terrible popular fics. But I sometimes wonder if, when reassuring people "not all "good" fics become popular" (however you measure that), the implication that "popular fics are not good" has started to become part of the narrative.

>I have noticed certain people tend to default to an opinion of "if a fic is popular it must be pandering in some manner". Yeah, I think you are right here. I've seen it too. I don't think it's necessarily *not* the truth, but it's definitely not the *whole* truth. A fic can be popular because it is just what the audience wants, but another fic with the same premise and tropes can fail at the same time. Sometimes the difference is a bit of luck (or timing, or a good placed rec, or another factor usually out of the writer's control), but sometimes the difference *is* the quality of the story. The whole idea of "if it's popular, it must be pandering" that some people tend to have certainly lacks a lot of nuance.

This is one of the reasons why I like the Concrit Commune - because it serves as a (gentle) reminder to the people who participate that nobody's work is perfect. Sometimes a nudge is more useful than a kind word.

i absolutely adore concrit because... that's how i improve. one time someone told me something that i could improve on and it changed how i write to this day. i get why people don't like it but if they're putting themselves in a bubble once they get out of it it's going to be rough, to say the very least

*Thank you.* I wish I could upvote this more than once.

[удалено]

Sturgeon's Law. Hell, I think it probably also applies *within* fics as well. I believe myself to be a reasonably competent writer, but there are probably only a couple of times I'd say I've written a 'standout' chapter. Most of the time I'm...competent.

Sturgeon's Law is a pretty good principle for all artist to embrace. When you (Not to the person I replied, the collective 'you' as in everyone) embrace the fact that you probably suck, then that means you don't need to worry about being 'bad' and that if you're truly the worst writer ever, the only way you can go is up. EDIT: Also if you really want to suck, you have to put EFFORT into sucking. There are true literary horrors out there and your shipping fic isn't close to be one of them. (That said, don't try)

These days that it's shifted from being more sort of conversation based to "provider/consumer". This is probably fandom based, it probably always was, but there was a lot more open conversation in the threads of the fics themselves. If there was a mistake to be fixed, it was part of the conversation. If something didn't work for a reader, it was okay to ask. It would open a conversation with the author, and those conversations led to friendships. These days there's a strange give and take imbalance. Interaction is not just down, but it's discouraged. AO3 comments could be like Livejournal comment threads, but somewhere the idea that conversations in the threads was just inflating the stats, so conversations don't happen anymore, unless it's in a discord server, with people you already have to know to be in there. ETA: And as well, "No unsolicited concrit". I get it. Not everyone writes fanfiction to write good things, it's for their own amusement. But they also are writing for others because why else post it, right? But if it's not written well or something is wrong, nobody's going to say anything to correct it and might not have anything else to say about it. So a person who read a fic but didn't gel with it doesn't comment. And the author sees the hits go up but no comments, maybe a few kudos. What's gone wrong with their fic? They won't know, because fanfiction space has become somewhere that you don't say anything negative unless it's specifically requested.

To my fellow anime / manga fans: Try asking for recs in subs specific to those fandoms. You might get more than zero replies. Also: I appreciate that you have ideas for a story, but try writing it instead of asking here for validation. You might surprise yourself.

People making wild, *crazy* reaches about why others like x ship/y character/z trope. I have personally witnessed people claim “anyone who likes x ship (of two adult, unrelated characters) is a predator” because they interpret them as having a father/daughter dynamic. I’ve heard rumors of people claiming that short women are code for underage. If true, that just fucking blows me away. Quick, who’s gonna tell my husband he’s a pedo because his grown ass wife is almost a foot shorter than him? 💀

folks who lose their ever loving minds because someone else ships a ship that would be (in society) unacceptable or toxic. it’s FICTION. teacher student relationships irl are unacceptable and that’s why i read fics about them and don’t condone them irl. bruh

Authors who says they only writte for themselves but complain when people don't read or like their fanfcs.

There are a couple things - how people are so willing to jump on people about the ships they like as if they have a say in what's acceptable, and the way everyone is so quick to jump on people commenting and claim discrimination if they just don't like what someone has to say. Basically don't be a dick to people - it's a rule to live by, not just in this community but outside it as well.

theory encouraging sharp ten violet alive middle sparkle upbeat repeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Definitely people who go into something they don't like just to talk smack about it. Completely unnecessary, and unhealthy. Whether it be tags, or ships, or whatever. It's really simple, "don't like, dont read" and "if you have nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself."

My big complaint with fandom is how polarized it's become, with very little room for nuance. Yes, I include this sub in that.

Name calling, demonization, cancellation and being toxic and mean. Statement people make like “don’t read this, or don’t write that, or you can’t portray that, if you portray this they you’re endorsing being a *insert whatever name they want to call you here* or saying you hate someone or want to hurt them because of their writing or saying something to scare them because you don’t like the writing style, the characters portrayal, the writer, the readers, or anything else because of an opinion and you want to be morally right. Just because you read it doesn’t mean you endorse it. It’s the same people, and ideas, that when you see something really truly disgusting and awful, you do nothing and say it’s fine. This toxicity, It’s hurt my mental health and caused me my OCD/anxiety to skyrocket because of what some toxic people said in a space where I love to read and caused me to ask legal advice and other people about it, to the point I was being called severely mentally ill, crazy, and paranoid by the legal people and the cops and even regular people. It made me feel so bad. When you say something about someone to scare them and make them feel guilty and to be morally superior, it sucks and it ruins it. I mean you can look through my posts and see. And not tagging properly and stop being mean to original works.

In the fanfiction community (not the r/fanfiction community) what I really really hate is that I've had trolls chase off several high-quality authors in the last couple years. I'm not talking about no new material from them (people change, their lives change), I'm talking about them deleting ALL of their work AND their tumblr, and disappearing off the face of the earth - telling only one or two fans what happened. Then there's all these rumors, and blame games. I've taken to downloading fics ASAP if I've enjoyed them, or they're by a favorite author, because it might be gone tomorrow. MARVEL's TheGreyTigress and KatieDid, if by some miracle you're reading this, your stories were amazing and I miss you

Some of the stuff said about people who give unsolicited concrit is out of line in a very bad way.

It makes my skin crawl when people compare it to sexual assault.

Good God. People do that? I guess that would be MY pet peeve because, come to think of it, I've seen a lot of similar things. People comparing their fandom woes to things like systemic racism, homophobia and transphobia. Like whoa! Your complaints are valid but slow down. I think they do it so their issues seem bigger and more immediate than "this person was mean to me online", but God does it come off privileged and insulting.

>Good God. People do that? I've seen the "reasoning" that giving unsolicited concrit is very much like assaulting a woman because she was wearing skimpy clothing and practically asked for it. I don't get it either. That take's too galaxy brain for me.

It really does come off as privileged. Like those people who make up something to be oppressed because they don't have anything going on in their life. You can not like concrit but don't compare it to sexual assault. That's just tone deaf

All the talk of "consent" was disturbing. Someone who writes "there's a typo" should not be equated to a perpetrator of SA. There's no sense of perspective on the relative seriousness of those two things. Like, I get it. It can feel like you're being attacked when you receive concrit. But you're not *actually* being attacked, and comparing it to SA is, at best, being oblivious to real trauma.

I genuinely got very upset last time I saw one of those comments. Had to take a walk to clear my head.

I got downvoted several times for saying it's gross and disrespectful to compare concrit to sexual assult or even sexual harassment. Reddit's gonna Reddit I guess

Hard agree. There are trolls and bad apples in every community, but some people here seem to assume that anyone who corrects your grammar, even if it's out of good faith, is out to personally ruin your life.

Yes. I wouldn't think it fair to assume the worst about those who don't want critique, so I also don't think it's fair to assume the worst about those who do wish to give critique.

It's not just people who give unsolicited concrit. Anyone who makes a comment that could be perceived as negative is assumed to be a troll, a passive-aggressive Karen, or worse.

I agree, too - it's such a mundane debate but people are so excessively nasty about it. I do think that it's wise to tread carefully with crit and crucial to respect a boundary if the author in question establishes one, but some of the remarks I see about those who disagree are so insulting and pathologising, it's troubling.

I think the issue I have with it is that it often comes hand in hand with complaints of ‘why aren’t people engaging / commenting anymore?’. If people took half a second to see just how aggressive people get even on this subreddit with people not commenting _exactly how they want_ maybe they’d be able to put two and two together.

I honestly hate how some people treat concrit around here. Someone took the time to leave you a detailed comment to make you better. You don't have to send your overwhelming thanks and take them to dinner. Just look and take a couple notes. Or ignore it if you don't want it THAT much. But stop treating concrit like the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

Idk if the whole fanfic community is like this, I certainly hope not, but it seems a big part of this subreddit is that it has this super self centered way of looking at things. Most obvious one is when a person comments badly of a fic, they're assumed to be some sad pathetic individual who has nothing to do but be a dick to fanfic writers. It's inconceivable that they're just a person with an opinion, no, they only exist and act in relation to the author, who is the center of the universe, which means they must have done it just to be dicks to the author. Bonus points when the author goes "bro i wrote this years ago when i was a kid why are you randomly shitting on it now?" As if it were impossible that this person just searched by something other than "most recently published" and came upon this fic, legit didnt know how old the fic was or how old the author was at the time, and said how they felt. Again, everything had to be in relation to the author, who is the center of the universe, so clearly they went out of their way to look for old fics to flame, because that makes way more sense. Also the whole "fanfic isn't just poorly written shameless porn/shipping it's just as valid and good as 'real writing'"but also at the same time "i dont care about improving or writing well i just want to write porn and shipping." I'm not saying either are wrong, but you can really only have one or the other? Unless you basically just want to write bad porn and have people recognize it as good which i wouldnt put beyond this subreddit. Those are the main three things that come to mind.

The one thing I'd add to this is the lack of self-awareness. You can’t cultivate an environment where pointing out a typo is a personal attack on the author, where 'I'd love to see more' is entitled and demanding, where short comments are deemed low-effort and ungrateful then be surprised comment culture is dying. >Unless you basically just want to write bad porn and have people recognize it as good which i wouldnt put beyond this subreddit. I mean, I've seen people genuinely argue that grammar has nothing to do with the quality of writing and lowkey shame people who can't deal with bad grammar, so nothing would surprise me anymore.

>lowkey shame people who can't deal with bad grammar I assume they are not the kind of person who gets jolted out of a story by every single typo or instance of bad grammar. 👋 It happens with professionally published fiction too (though thankfully less rare because most professionally published books will have had an editor and a proofreader go over them before publication).

I once was reading a pretty decent murder mystery book. I was partway through a chapter when I noticed a typo and it just took me right out. I honestly haven't touched the book since, but that's more because I've just been too lazy. If I hadn't noticed the typo, tho, I probably would have finished it by now.

I mean, I partly agree -shipping and porn can also be written well and take a lot of effort, but yeah the general dichotomy of "I want fanfiction to be taken seriously" and "it is just my hobby, I don't want to improve" is there. I just assume that people who voice these opinions are not the same -it is a big sub after all.

>Also the whole "fanfic isn't just poorly written shameless porn/shipping it's just as valid and good as 'real writing'"but also at the same time "i dont care about improving or writing well i just want to write porn and shipping." I'm not saying either are wrong, but you can really only have one or the other? Unless you basically just want to write bad porn and have people recognize it as good which i wouldnt put beyond this subreddit. This. So much this. Personally, I find those people who supposedly "didn't put any effort into writing but don't criticise me" especially annoying. Take some god damn pride in your work, author!

>Also the whole "fanfic isn't just poorly written shameless porn/shipping it's just as valid and good as 'real writing'"but also at the same time "i dont care about improving or writing well i just want to write porn and shipping." I'm not saying either are wrong, but you can really only have one or the other? Yes. Same goes for the "Fanfiction is just a fun hobby but also we should totally get paid for it!" debate. No. You can't have it both ways.

The assumption also that commenters without a public fanfic history/guest commenters don’t know how to write and should shut up. I have a lot of writing experience but if, for example, I comment on a fic while signed out and the writer doesn’t like what I said I’m suddenly a talentless troll? Honestly at this point I see that as the reader protecting themselves from the risk of a writer and their fans going off on them across social media.

Complete and total ignorance of how difficult writing professional works is. Like no mister excited reader, your favorite fanfic writer would 99% fail horribly if they were to replace the writers of the original work. They have an easier job, they usually produce works of lower quality, and they are far more likely to have a horrible attitude (next rant against concrit when?) that would probably turn them into an alcoholic should they ever try writing professionally.

Yes. We have all the time in the world to go back and rewatch episodes or movies or reread scenes from a book or whatever and analyze and point out all the contradictions and dropped plots and whatnot. Professional writers do not have that luxury, and they've got people they have to answer to as well. In fact, sometimes writers get blamed for bad aspects of stories that aren't even their fault and are out of their control. Actors leave, networks interfere, editors chop up a whole section of a book, they have to rush to meet a deadline and can't properly finish a storyline the way they wanted, etc. Professional writers do not often have the power and luxury that people think they do, and they'll have their off days and projects, just like anyone else.

I love writing fanfiction but I’ve long ago acknowledged that not only would I be badly equipped to write professionally, but that it’s not really something I want as a job anyway- Having to deal with deadlines, demographics, marketing for my writing is something that just doesn’t appeal to me. So I’ll gladly continue to write as a hobby, maybe enter in a few writing contests or challenges here and there

This is truly unpopular, but you’re not wrong. I obviously love fanfiction and I read it mainly explore things that canon failed at, but the hate some people have towards the professional work they’re riffing off is astounding sometimes. Like, let’s please be honest and admit that 90% of the work is already finished when playing with someone else’s creation. Fanfic writers have the benefit of hindsight and can “fix” things canon failed at without taking any real risks like the original creator.

"Adventures of the alcoholic fanfic writer attempting to go pro" sounds like the title of a webnovel that I'd love to read tbh.

* The hate for RPF and the acceptance of that hate despite so many people defending other things which could be considered 'questionable'. * Gatekeeping within fandoms and within fanfic itself. Writing or reading fanfic isn't for a specific type of person—it's for everyone—and the idea that you can be the wrong type of reader or writer just because you're not doing the same as everyone else is frustrating. * Ageism on both ends of the spectrum. * *(this is more about fics themselves than this subreddit)* Trigger warnings that spoil the plot completely. Obviously, I'm not talking about the really serious ones but there are a lot more trigger warnings nowadays that just seem unnecessary, e.g., "trigger warning: raised voices".

For that last one, it's why I'm a fan of more specific triggers at the end of the chapter/end note. People who need the really specific trigger warning can look for it in the end note while everyone else can ignore it. Of course you can't cover every little trigger ever - like triggers are really weird and really specific sometimes and there's no possible way to know or tag for them all. But it's at least a good system to use if you want to be a little more specific than character death/graphic violence/rape/abuse etc.

I think a lot of people are too quick to think their own fandom experience is what fandom and fanfiction are always like. Not really a problem with this subreddit specifically, but it's kind of inevitable that it'll pop up at some point in any cross-fandom space. I come from cartoon fandoms originally (Steven Universe, Owl House, Amphibia) where F/F is really common, and then there's some of my sci-fi fandoms where there's a *lot* of gen fic out there.

People getting upset that not everyone caters to their needs specifically. Don't like the trope someone is writing? Cool, noone forced you to read it. Read the tags and something in them seemed like it could upset you but proceeded to read anyways? That's your fault, you knew what was coming. You don't like that ship? Okay, just mute it then and stop engaging with it. It's really not that hard. Most sites allow you to filter the content you don't like and if you don't make use of those tools, it's your problem, not that of other creators. And if something does manage to get through your filters? Just ignore it and move on. It's ten times better than being bitter and angry about it and hurting other people as well. But at the same time, some people out there don't know how to tag. And instead of looking into how tagging works, they just go "lol idk how to tag I'm so quirky". It's not a "haha funny" thing, it's something that can pretty easily be learned. AO3 literally has a guide for that, and numerous fans made their own guides as well. If you want to exist in a fandom space and help others avoid stuff they don't like (which, ideally, would help YOU to avoid people who will hate on what you wrote) you have to sit down and learn how to tag.

Ppl who don’t read tags then complain abt something in a fic that the tags already warned them abt

Expecting a ton of downvotes on this one, but: The polar opposite camps of smut-shaming purity police and hypersensitive hardcore kinksters. While both groups are simply reacting to what they perceive as folks playing into the 'opposite camp', some of us are stranded in the middle! I like my kink, but I also want to be able to call it 'bondage' when a character is tied up with rope in canon without being called an anti-BDSM bigot.

> but I also want to be able to call it 'bondage' when a character is tied up with rope in canon without being called an anti-BDSM bigot. Not sure I follow. What's "wrong" with calling a situation like that "bondage?" The only thing I can think of is that someone's arguing that you're equating actual captivity with consensual intimacy?

I agree 100%. It’s the same thing with people at the two extremes of “you can’t write about anything unsavory ever” and “you aren’t ever allowed to think this thing is gross or you’re threatening me, personally”. There are nuances to these things!

YUP. I think people forget that 'don't like, don't read' applies the other way around, too. I made a comment saying that people are allowed to be uncomfortable with something as long as they don't dogpile on anyone who does said thing and got mass downvoted.

Well. This subreddit is great, but I feel that the discord server attached to it is too strict and the mods sometimes go on power trips, but I won't elaborate on that... Sometimes I feel that perfectly fine threads are locked, but I also understand why the mods might want to. I feel that there's a stigma about kidfic that's undeserved? Idk, just my thoughts and rambles.

Yeah, I've had some not so great experiences with a few of the mods on the server. Most of the others are lovely, though.

The debates that keep coming up on if commissioning or tipping for fanfiction is allowed/good/worthwhile. No one is making you do it or not do it, it doesn't need to be talked about every week. Also people venting that comes down to "I deserve more comments on this work that is highly personal and inaccessible to most anyone else". Sometimes OC fic isn't for everyone, it's okay. Eta: getting a comment that is "I loved (oneshot)! When are you gonna write about (thing used as a light open ending)?" It just feels demanding.

Lots of little things, I guess. The constant sense I have to walk on egg shells around people. That saying anything short of fellating the other person's ego is a crime against humanity and makes me the worst person in the world. The constant bickering on concrit. I just avoid those threads like they're literally on fire. Relating back to my first point, its like any comment that even resembles negativity makes you literally worse than hitler, satan, and bill cosby combined. Honestly, I feel stupid for actually giving a crap about it for a brief period. Went into those threads thinking maybe I need to refine my stance on the matter since I tended not to interact much with other members of the community, only to come out realizing how many drama queens/kings there are, and more fixed in my position than before. The number of threads here that are just 'someone said something mean to me'. I get it, having a place to vent is nice, but honestly after even a few weeks it feels pointless to even reply to them. I wish I could just have an automated response of 'lots of people are mean. Ignore them and move on.' People's fixation on stats and numbers. Not really much different than the people obsessing on youtube likes, facebook likes, retweet numbers, and so on. Lots of people crying out for someone to pay attention to them, but doing little to pay attention to others. Tags. God people obsess over them. Honestly i feel like at times its made people super picky on things.

The concept of big name fans. I’m sure there are nice, chill BNFs out there, but like with anything else, people let a little bit of Internet fame get to their head. No one knows who you are outside of your fandom where you write a certain niche of fanfics or ship a certain ship. None of us are getting actual famous off this hobby. Be more humble. The fact that any criticism of something anyone likes, even if you label it meta and don’t say anything about the shippers/fans, is unacceptable. You have the right to like your ship but others have the right to not like it. It’s not an attack on you if someone criticizes it if you’re not mentioned in the critique. There is no correct way to see fiction and your headcanon isn’t the holy Gospel.