When Fanfic Authors are Jerks...

[@zenit0]

Wasn't there one fanfic where the author decided to put so many random words and pairings in the tags, that this fanfic appeared in almost every fandom? What a ... strange move

[@gabbithealicorn7327]

Ah, Sexy Times With Wangxian…

[@Pipkiablo]

And there were random tags like 'chairs' in it to artificially extend the tag list. XD I've actually seen screenshots of the tag list used in games of the, "zoom in and the first one you see is how your year is going to go" variety.

[@zenit0]

@@Pipkiablo That's wild😂

[@GrianFan17]

I’m pretty sure that’s the exact reason why there’s now a tag limit

[@IExistAndMyNameIsKawaiiAngel]

​@@Pipkiabloapparently I'm going to die from vacation lol

[@snowyvoidproductionsxx]

When they act like their personal headcanons about the characters are fully canon, and are aggressive/mean about it

[@hannahmetzger4880]

Yeah, I agree. Like, for example, just because some people headcanon Alastor from Hazbin Hotel as completely sex repulsed, doesn't mean that _I_ have to. I headcanon him as demisexual or greysexual. Like I mean, _come on,_ people. :P. And if I wanna ship Alastor with Angel Dust, Vox and Lucifer, and read a ton of smut fanfics with the tag Non-Sex Repulsed Alastor in them, then by God, _LET ME DO THAT, DAMNIT!!!!_ SHEESH, I am NOT hurting anyone else by doing these things!!!

[@GraveyardMaiden]

Bruh I had an ex friend tell me to go kms bc I used to ship an OC with a character they shipped their OC with. Same person went onto harass voice actors from some indie project bc the characters they were voicing got engaged and they shipped their OC with the male lead.

[@snowyvoidproductionsxx]

@@GraveyardMaiden That is like 50 levels of toxic wtf

[@PhoebeTheFairy56]

​@@hannahmetzger4880 are all of those people shipping him actually writing him as aspec though or are they making him allo in the fic. Bc from what I've seen (with a different aspec character) the latter tends to happen a lot more, unfortunately.

[@hannahmetzger4880]

@@PhoebeTheFairy56 I don't really know, man. I haven't read all the fics shipping him. I think I've seen a ton that do it pretty well, at least in my opinion. :P.

[@lizanna6390]

Story is marked as finished but the final chapter is... abandoned. PUT THAT IN YOUR SUMMERY

[@veggieboysupreme]

It has happened to me so many times it is not every funny

[@starlydonati2008]

I thought a fic was going to have 21 chapters, they said so in their notes, but then it ended a chapter early and was marked complete. I still love that fic, (it’s one of my favorites) but I’m still off kilter thinking about it.

[@yes3801]

Throwback to when I used to use Wattpad and this would happen SO MUCH for no reason 😭🙏

[@perpetualsick]

I don’t mind reading abandoned fics but I want to KNOW they’re abandoned :(

[@leena6615]

Like there’s literally a tag specifically for that and they just refuse to use it

[@randomskykidboy]

‘Authors’ who CENSOR the tags, THATS NOT HOW TAGS WORK. I can’t filter censored tags, STOP CENSORING THEM.😭😭

[@Rubberduckie3000]

I know it's so annoying 🙄. Like this isn't TikTok, you won't get banned for saying killed

[@Zyvear]

Omfg exactly! Screen readers also have a difficult time reading text when it’s censored, so people who need them to read might not notice the tag if it’s censored. Censoring tags defeats the ENTIRE purpose of tagging fics!

[@IceFireofVoid]

I'll do you one worse. I came across multiple smut fics written about real people who said they didn't want to have that sort of stuff made about them. Their names were tagged but censored so it wouldn't show up if people searched for that fandom. You'd just know what it was if you stumbled upon it via its uncensored kink tags.

[@mchjsosde]

That's so weird. If you're going to be that willingly creepy and invasive why even post it to the Internet? That's a genuine question but I also feel like it answers itself unfortunately ​@@IceFireofVoid

[@IceFireofVoid]

@mchjsosde I think there's a serious issue where people don't view content creators as people. They view them as things or fictional characters. And by dehumanizing them like this, they justify violating their boundaries. After all, a fictional character can't get offended. It goes the opposite way too with people who idolize content creators or celebrities and think they can do no wrong. Humans naturally have flaws, but an object or character can be made to be perfect.

[@Lambda3141]

Oh no I remember hearing about the "my father has cancer so I'm valid to plagiarize uwu" nonsense back in the day.

[@breawycker]

James Summerton moment

[@one-onessadhalf3393]

Cave Story?

[@FlareStorms]

Can't believe tommy tallarico invented AO3. His mother must be very proud

[@dragonslayeralex3316]

People do this in every. Goddamn. Fandom. It's not an excuse. "But- but my father has cancer and this is thera-" "Shut up, stop with the excuses, take your story down."

[@twotruckslyrics]

before that part it sounded like cassandra clare,,

[@AmongUs-fk6tf]

i once read this hamilton office fan fic and the characters got kidnapped, tortured, and r*ped and it wasn’t tagged it just came out of nowhere and im forever traumatized 😭

[@Pipkiablo]

Even if I didn't have something like that tagged because I considered it too minor in the grand scheme of a massive, multi-chapter fic or didn't expect to include it until the story led me there, I always ALWAYS warn people in the chapter's author notes so they have some warning, even if it wasn't tagged. I don't understand why it's so hard for some authors to warn people about triggering content.

[@AmongUs-fk6tf]

real it’s been like 3 years and im still traumatized 😭😭

[@fig_flop]

damn, not even tagging r*pe. are they desperate for their fic to get attention?

[@veggieboysupreme]

That actually sounds horrible. Hope you are doing better

[@platinumg.8614]

Oh gosh. I wish tagging was more common even in fanart. People will draw a bit gore as romantic or smut and there here I "WHAT" Not every people are okay with gore and smut :))))) even more for characters that you don't think that would have.

[@Mothcat.]

I hate multi fandom oneshot collections please just separate them it is so messy

[@chocobear4078]

yes oh my god its annoying

[@perpetualsick]

I always feel kinda guilty for being so genuinely frustrated over them, so I’m grateful other people find them just as irritating as me.

[@depthstrider68]

​@@perpetualsickMe too

[@spacecadetkaito]

What is even the point? The number one way to guarantee that i'm not reading a story in whatever fandom im actually looking for is to smother it under a bunch of other crap i don't care about. It feels like whoever writes them doesn't know how to use the website and thinks you're only supposed to post multi-chapter stories or something.

[@brkli1485]

@@spacecadetkaito i think they do that because they want to get as many hits and kudos as possible

[@completely_original9760]

my most "controversial" opinion is probably that ao3 should ban people for intentionally mistagging/undertagging dead dove content. it feels like it's EVERY MONTH that a surprise corrective r*pe fic pops up in a lesbian ship tag and it pisses me off every time. ao3's best feature is transparency. even if you write the most vile shit imaginable, you're free to post! ..... AS LONG as you're TRANSPARENT about what you're writing. anybody who hides dead dove content from their tags to trick unsuspecting fans into clicking is doing so MALICIOUSLY and should not be welcome in fandom at all. especially people who specifically do it in attempts to trigger minority groups it's just so frustrating!!! i consider it a type of troll, because you have no way to win. if you give any attention to them at all, they get what they wanted --- which THEY WILL GET because people spread the word when there is harmful content in tags. genuinely disgusting behavior

[@catdownthestreet]

Oh my god, so I'm not the only one who's experienced this! It pisses me off too. And I completely agree with your point about transparency with writing and tagging. The people undertagging their CR works are intentionally trying to bait people into reading their works and punish them in a sense for liking the ship.

[@giaobr168]

this is absolutely against the site’s policy that says the tags must be accurate, and you can report a fic for doing this

[@jodrako4341]

Really, like authors can chose to not use warning tags (r*pe, underage, violence, major character death) for spoiler reasons and stuff but if they do they should tag "creator chose to not use archive warning" so you know there could be *something* But what you said isn't even that, that's just being a shithead.

[@abiean222]

i once read a fic that had self harm in it that wasn't tagged and it fucked me up mentally. i have serious issues regarding such things and i avoid fics like that for a reason. not tagging common triggering topics is actively harmful and i wish those authors would understand that.

[@catdownthestreet]

@@abiean222 I'm so sorry that happened to you, I wish you the best of luck in avoiding those things from now on

[@moonbeamsun9066]

When I was in the Minecraft Story Mode fandom, I saw a young author who was writing a self insert fic (it was just her going into a video game she liked and she was just having fun) get bashed by a troll who told her that her writing sucked and cursed her out. Fortunately the fandom on the site was very supportive and everyone else rallied around the author, gave her a bunch of encouragement and compliments, and chewed the troll out for being a jerk.

[@peckneckanimations]

Awh. Glad that has a good ending. It’s so annoying when people bash others for having harmless fun.

[@peckneckanimations]

@just..the..cyllyz YES!!! She is one of my favorites!! (Oh my god all my faves are women except one I just realized)

[@Blanch590]

Man that sucks. Of all the rice to bash on they pick an innocent story of a kid having fun :(

[@Theawesomeninja_XD]

That's actually really wholesome. I'm glad they supported her.

[@SilentBeaver]

The MCSM fandom is honestly the least toxic of any that I've been in. It's such a chill, accepting and wanting fandom. We all wanna have fun, and write about the characters. It's cool! Heck, even I've been considering it but don't know if I should fully commit.

[@peepysprite]

The author _did_ warn about one of the characters having an ED and being a victim of CSA but what they didn't say was that one of the characters was going to have a major PTSD episode in the sack and that after that they were just going to _just go back to fucking_ while the narrator praises the other character for being "such a good boyfriend". The character also bragged about his ED enhancing certain sexual skills in a way that I feel could trigger urges to harm oneself. It was very strange and I'm legitimately worried that the author is being taken advantage of in their real relationships.

[@Zitronen_]

that's literally insane omg

[@Cage-CatYT]

Holy crap that's.. concerning

[@avacadotoast5571]

Whaaaaaat 💀?

[@urmom7338]

okay wtf

[@cyrok4421]

Omg, I feel very sorry for people who deal with any mental disorder or abuse and then write it into their fic unconsciously or because they brag about it. Like, how do you tell this random author that they should check that out??

[@jasperjazzie]

once i was reading a kink fic, and there was another, completely different, untagged kink in it, and i went to the comments and saw someone else had already mentioned "hey, why don't you tag this other kink?" and the author replied "well, you came here for x kink, so you should be fine with y kink" like?? that's not how that works at all??? just because someone is into one thing that's kind of weird doesn't mean they're okay with everything else under the sun lmfao

[@GraveyardMaiden]

That's like saying because someone comes into a store to get a strawberry boba means they're ok with having matcha mixed in

[@Pipkiablo]

Especially since kinks are extremely weird to read about when you don't have them. Like, I didn't come here to read paragraphs about somebody's feet...

[@soxnsandalsss]

Yeah, like if I'm into bananas, does that mean I like apples too just cause they both fruits?

[@CoraMaria]

@@GraveyardMaiden I know what you're getting at but this is such a funny example to me because I would be so happy if I got surprise matcha in my strawberry boba 😂😅

[@GraveyardMaiden]

@@CoraMaria exactly like you may like that in your strawberry boba but not everyone does

[@eeperrrrrrrr]

i heard abt this one guy who rewrote a fic bc he became homophobic (the side couple was gay)

[@TheBritishDragong]

I can’t even lie this is genuinely funny

[@UltimateDespairado]

Let’s write a fanfiction : Christian and Conservative edition

[@Cinnamonraisin_Bagel]

i saw an author write a mlm ship but then in an authour note start to talk about not like mlm as much as wlw and i was just like :0 i'm just here to see my rare pair.

[@perpetualsick]

That is iconic behavior, but also absolutely insane

[@strawberrychangeling]

i quickly became homophobic

[@dantesdiscoinfernolol]

Tag your corn, people. I know it's the internet, and I ain't your mom, but it's super easy to pick a rating on AO3, so when I filter out explicit, I don't wanna see hardcore stuff crop up. (Geddit? Crop up? Cause- cause I censored it with corn-)

[@tinyshinyfeathers]

Also remember to tag your smut with other, more broadly applicable tags than just with whatever kink you're writing! I'm here to read crack, not learn new words.

[@jonathangoodwin5609]

Yeah, I got blindsided with one of those kind in the Fate Fandom. Literally nothing in the tags suggested it was NSFW. There were a few references to sexual acts that were done 'offscreen', but nothing explicit. Then suddenly in the third chapter, it goes into uncomfortable detail about what one character does with two other characters butts. I had to ask in the comments if the story is gonna get any more explicit, and only there did they admit, after I was 3 chapters in to what seemed like a mostly normal story, that it was gonna gradually get more and more explicit with every chapter, and there was nothing to indicate this.

[@oliviatilleman8055]

i saw a fic that was rated teen and then tagged with explicit sexual content. like. dude what at least they tagged it tho 😭

[@twotruckslyrics]

once found some really, really traumatic smut in the gen category of a fandom and its stuck with me

[@skeltheshapeshifter2697]

There was one I saw that was tagged as "Fluff" teen or something. The actual content was them trapped in a closet with aphrodisiacs and one of them almost doing sexual favors for the other. And I'm like, that's fluff to you??

[@elipsis7651]

7:20 That sounds like the writing equivalent of "Unfortunately, I have depicted you as the soyjack and me as the chad"

[@hachi5362]

It's giving Dante's vibes 😂

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

Divine comedy in a nutshell

[@bubblegum1366]

That one was extra funny to me as someone who did the opposite. Me and my bestie wrote a super goofy fic set in a really niche fanfic (I think there were 6 fics before ours), and we were so excited to have attracted a single fan that we wrote her into the story and let her marry her favorite character instead of killing him (it was for a horror game and he was one of the bosses).

[@ChupacabraRex]

Literally just the Divine Comedy.

[@rosemary3029]

Reminds me of a certain book author who did this

[@plutovy]

When people use “Don’t like it? Don’t read it!” As an immature excuse, yes I agree with the “Don’t like it? Don’t read it!” When it’s used reasonably, but when it’s used when the author didn’t tag anything about the things I didn’t like in a fic so it’s just like a jumpscare! Then when I ask them to tag it properly and how I didn’t like that they didn’t tag it they just go “Don’t like it? Don’t read it!” 😭😭😤

[@LadyPsychic]

I agree with you. How are you supposed to know not to read a fic when it's not tagged properly?

[@flareongirl3606]

I know someone on the Watters in the Yugioh fanfic side who uses that excuse CONSTANTLY! Especially when they write really not good fics like corn of the Yugioh Sevens characters (who are like 11-13) and a Yugioh Vrains Datashipping fic where there’s a massive age gap. I can’t ship Datashipping without thinking about it. And I know this person (we haven’t had a single conversation but I have seen their account) because I use the same fandom tag for some of my fics and that’s how I mostly found out. And I even commented on some of their books before I figured out and I want to take back all the comments I placed! (Sorry if I ranted for too long)

[@explodingpikachu7475]

Exactly. "Don't Like, Don't Read" translates to, "I'm a sick bastard who traumatizes people for my own amusement, and there's nothing you or the site can do about it."

[@yukiandkanamekuran]

thats definitely meant for stories and content that ARE properly tagged. It's supposed to be for people who bitch even after the tags are put in place.

[@ursulajoni15]

Oh yeah I fully abide by don't like don't read but that's what tags are for and like it doesn't even just apply to dead dove do not eat or NSFW tags. As an example I would be really annoyed if I went into a fanfic expecting it to be in the original media's time period and read it only to realize that it was a modern Au that they didn't bother to tag as such

[@captainpalegg2860]

the “writing a pairing as platonic and then constantly bashing people who ship it romantically” hit me really hard because, on some level, i see an akumatized version of myself in that. i personally wouldn’t be comfortable writing romance or smut, and if you aren’t either, it’s totally fine to leave a note explaining as much-but only if you can be nice and civil about it.

[@roul4842]

honestly, same.

[@honeybun8823]

Generally I think keep your opinions to yourself about ships unless it’s smth like incest or pedophilia (Granted you still don’t need to share your opinion but I think judging at the least is fair)

[@Cinnamonraisin_Bagel]

usually i just filter out smut and the ships i don't like and move on (though sometimes i get really annoyed if a fic looks good but theirs just one ship i absolutely hate but i just move on)

[@starlydonati2008]

Idk. I think venting about how annoyed you are about something being popular and not your taste, so long as you give proper respectful warnings should be fine. Just as people are allowed to like what they like, they should be able to dislike what they dislike. It should be kept in a separate area from the place for the people who like that thing, but I think it’s fine for people who don’t like a thing to gather just as much as those who like it, so long as they don’t disrespect each other for their fandom opinions. Though I do wish people would be willing to explain their rationale. Sometimes I don’t get why they feel the way they do and I get curious.

[@honeybun8823]

@@starlydonati2008 I agree, I think the issue is when instead of like wanting to talk about why u dislike smth or have a dialogue ig about it you just trash on anybody who likes what you dislike and call them a horrible person and are completely closed minded about any of it, like even if it sounds crazy to u them liking that thing doesn’t mean they’re a horrible person.

[@ceeford9919]

My Biggest author was a jerk moment was when the author asked readers for possible characters to ship the Protagonist with cause they were having trouble deciding. And when I gave my candidate, the author copy pasted my comment into their next chapter and had the characters react to it and bash it. Then in the next chapter after that, the protagonist and character were now spontaneously related via an OC that no one in the story knew existed.

[@Weird-mah-out]

Wow...that's awful!!! I've read stories where characters react to things, but 1. The author didn't have your permission, and 2. It's so negative! They could've just said no! I'm so, so sorry that happened, I might be getting a little worked up, but I hope that person either apologized and/or stopped being an a-hole, or you blocked them. You deserve better, here's a heart emoji: ❤

[@ceeford9919]

@@Weird-mah-out Thanks. And they never apologized. Especially since there were others in the comment section egging them on. However, I do think the author deleted their account cause when I looked it up out of curiosity years later. I couldn't find neither the story or their account.

[@Daelyah]

Wtf??? I'm sorry you went through that, some people are just too petty... 💀

[@perpetualsick]

The lengths some authors go to is absolutely insane but kind of funny. Like dude, why did you spend so much time getting angry over an innocent comment?? My goodness. Hope you’re alright.

[@scarylol1447]

This is so bad. Like The author just enjoys publicly humiliating people??

[@genericname2747]

A fanfic writer burned my crops and poisoned my watersupply

[@catboymikey]

Fr same they killed my livestock too

[@FlurryPie0]

That was me, I was the fanfic writer who burned their crops so I can confirm this

[@genericname2747]

@@FlurryPie0 :(

[@phloats.]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@FlurryPie0I was also the fan fic writer who poisoned their water supply, and I concur

[@tntrose7285]

@@catboymikey They did?

[@cameraman01productions]

Honestly its kinda sad when fanfic authors are mean, like we're all here to have a good time and explore characters/stories we love in a new way and that should be beautiful

[@not-so-obvious_autism777]

Fr like I just came her for the comments I didn’t even watch the video and I’m not gonna, I don’t need to know about what all those jerkwads did

[@gummibear4757]

As I always like to say, fanfics are the purest form of art.

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

I agree ​@@gummibear4757

[@fluffystuff500]

I can never understand fic authors who are mean about positive feedback they get. Like, I'm extremely thankful for any hits, kudos, or comments I get. I'm shocked when people WANT to read my writing. And then I'll read a fic where the writer gets pissed that the comments don't say what they want them to or are too short or whatever. Buddy, you're lucky to get ANY comments, and you're mad because they aren't all made up of insightful literary analysis? I understand if the comment is something like "you are disgusting, and I hate everything about you" but when it's positive and just not eloquent, just be happy anyone said anything.

[@Pipkiablo]

I have a regular who only ever comments a heart emoji on every single chapter. It's a tad annoying when I see I got a comment and then realize it's just them, but I'd never get mad at them because in the end, they're just letting me know they read the update and approve, and I prefer a heart emoji over radio silence that makes me think no one read it.

[@Blackplaaague]

@@Pipkiablo Leaving a heart emoji is kind of like a second set of kudos, if you think about it! I prefer leaving and getting comments with some more words myself, but wanting to leave extra kudos is a classic ao3 thing, and it seems like they found their workaround!

[@justaperson8381]

I treasure every comment I get

[@Theawesomeninja_XD]

Honestly same. When I got comments for the first time after the fic before it got 7 hits, I was ecstatic. I don't see how people can be upset just because people don't say exactly what they want to hear.

[@perpetualsick]

I have made an attempt to leave comments more often on fanfics I really enjoy and authors are always so happy about it. It’s not like I’m giving them much either! Most people just get excited to see engagement.

[@GalaxyBlasterNP]

6:35 is so confusing to me. I have one person that comments consistently on literally everything I write for a certain ship, and I'm willing to give them my soul and pledge them my undying loyalty. How could someone not love a loyal commenter??

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

Is your pfp Nice Cream Guy from undertale as the boykisser? If so, cool

[@GalaxyBlasterNP]

@@BookWyrmOnAString Eyup. I love that dumbass rabbit lol

[@k0iip0ndzz]

FR. My friends and I on AO3 all comment on each others fics, and I love it

[@TheCoffeeCrow]

as an author, i would love to have a loyal commenter. and i very much try to be one often! (as long as i can specifically think of something funny to say, because adhd be damned im going to be the funiest comedian possible) towards the end of the fic the author started replying to me more, always thanking me for my support and it genuinely made me feel so awesome i was able to show an author i liked more support than just a simple kudos and radio-silence.

[@ofcitzkat]

fr i have a reader who comments on all my fics of a specific pairing and i’d lay down my life for them

[@adonii8364]

I remember on one fic, there was someone commenting every chapter. They were super nice and hyped about the fic, and they would say stuff like "Omg, I wonder if blank is gonna find out about blank!" and "Is blank gonna blank?!" and the author told them "Hey, can you stop trying to write my story for me? It's annoying." and the person apologized and the author responded in a passive aggressive way. I never read it again bc that left such a bad taste in my mouth

[@Theawesomeninja_XD]

Wow...that's messed up.

[@Nikonikotine]

That's literally insane, the other person was just showing their support for the fic. It's not alright to speak to your fans like that.

[@carimeslockdownedtree2654]

Oof that's extremely shitty. From my experience, writers love receiving those sorts of comments and being cryptic about it. It's one of my favorite parts of commenting. If someone replied that to me, I think I'd respond with idk "I'm not trying to write your story for you. It was a way to motivate you, letting you know there's someone who loves what you're doing and engages with it actively. If it bothers you too much, I'll leave. Have fun. 👍" ... Actually, keeping that for safekeeping. Just in case.

[@xXSweetieBubblesXx]

I do not understand authors like this. I get very little attention on ao3 (around 30-40 kudos highest being 70+ which is a good amount for me, honestly) and whenever I get comments like what you mentioned....I legit cry. Seriously. It feels so good to see someone so engaged in something I wrote and as someone who has really bad self-esteem, it just-I appreciate it so so so much and I wish I could hug that person.

[@abiean222]

if an author did something like that to me, i'd never comment or kudo their fics again, if i read anymore of their work. just that is so rude.

[@trollkienofficial1225]

The part about the - vs " " symbols for speech hit me a little, because I'm hungarian, and in hungarian books and literature, if a character is speaking it's indicated by a - so I literally have to reprogram my brain every time I write in english. And I do, I post fics. And it was really hard to get used to.

[@Romych]

Same there but from another country. I still haven't used to " " and still use -. And i dunno. Should i learnd on how to properly use " "? Does that realy so hard to read with -?

[@magamen2433]

I feel you, it took me so long to get used to it

[@juliaabreus]

Same in Portuguese! I have a google docs with the " " rules, but it's way more asshole-y to get mad at people for using the - than just not bothering to learn how the " " works. I'm probably biased, but the - makes so much more sense!!

[@SilentProti]

If you find it hard, I'd recommend reading more proper books in English, it may help you get used to "..." and grasp better how to use them, bc for example you can write narration in the same line before the dialogue starts, while you can't if using -- (at least in Polish)

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

@@Romych If you're writing in English, it's probably for the best, though you don't have to. It's not really for the people who have English as a first language, there are only so many different kinds of symbols that are associated with the latin alphabet, so that's just a matter or a little bit of thought about the context. The English-only people can cry a river about it for all I care, it's not like you're asking them to learn your mother tongue, just slightly adjust to another consistent ruleset. I'm more concerned about people who have English as a second language might have their OWN language differences to try to keep straight and have over-lap that makes it double hard to adjust. I mean, could you imagine if the dash was added in and it didn't follow the English convention of being cut-off or emphasized a great deal in a sentence, and it _also_ didn't follow _your_ language's conventions of indicating dialog? There's bound to be another use for the em-dash in all of the languages people speak, can you imagine the frustration that would cause? At least for those people, for English language fanfiction, using the English rules would probably be a bit of relief. It wouldn't be as much of a of a mini logic test for something that's supposed to be for fun.

[@XxDarkxMoth17xX]

I wouldn't say the authors are jerks but those "fuckton fandoms crossover oneshots" appear that have like 5 chapters and 29 different fandoms and none of the chapters have the fandom I'm looking for, it just annoys me, like I need to start blacklisting crossover fics 'cause of this sometimes. Just make different fics for different fandoms unless said oneshots ARE crossovers. I also don't like when request one shot fics tag stuff that aren't in chapters yet (like a pairing that they haven't made a oneshot of yet) like tag it if you actually wrote it in the fic, please. This is especially in rarepairs, like I finally find a ship with my rarepair, turns out it's a oneshot fic thing and none of the chapters have it, it's just one of the things the author is willing to write. But rather than blocking I'll just comment a request or something, this one is more of a pet peeve.

[@Pipkiablo]

I already blacklist crossovers due to these kinds of shenanigans. Sometimes I miss a good fic that was tagged like a crossover even though the things that they were crossing over technically took place in the same universe, but I'd rather that than have the entire feed be nothing but a crossover where your preferred fandom is only a footnote.

[@mycomnithegreat434]

Right? Not so hard to have different story collections, like "PJO one shots" or "MLP one shots". Or use the actual collection function, that way people can pick out which they want to read

[@ElsaSnowQueen]

Ugh. It makes me feel so bad that I HAVE to blacklist crossover fics every time I wanna read something because like. EVERY fandom I'm in gets flooded with the things!!! And I miss out on the fellers in the crossover tags that have actually good stories with crossovers of fandoms I love because the "Wangxian-Sexy-Time-Infamy-Chasers" (as I've mentally categorized them) have given crossover fics a bad rep for me!!! I usually have to find the goodies on fic rec tumblr blogs that will often look over hidden gems it's so bad

[@Memelord-md5hs]

@@Pipkiablo it sucks because for me I usually dislike Crossovers. (mostly because its usually another fandom I've never watched/interacted with) But I've read some amazing crossovers! I lowkey want to disable crossovers sometimes too but also some fandoms I read (TMNT) have different iterations and I think they technically count as Crossovers if it for instance is tagged {Tmnt - All, Tmnt 2003} so I continue to struggle lol

[@Pipkiablo]

@@Memelord-md5hs They'd usually still show up if they were tagged, as long as they're all within the same universe enough to be similarly titled. I see this in numerous fandoms with many many continuities and games such as Transformers and Pokemon where even if you clicked a specific series or game, disabling crossovers will still show you fics that are tagged for multiple series or games that are still within the same franchise. The only time this affects it is if they're differently named. For instance, if you click no crossovers for Fallout fanfics while browsing the Fallout 3 category, you'll still see fics tagged with both Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. If you disable crossovers while looking at Titanfall 2 fanfics, you're not going to see any fanfics listed as crossovers with Apex Legends, even though they are literally in the same universe and share characters.

[@saltysunflowersugar7826]

the most asshole-ish move I've seen in fanfiction, was this one ao3 user who wanted to post an essay on reddit about Danganronpa and misogyny but they got kicked off of reddit so they posted it on AO3. The author claimed that it's inherently misogynistic to ship two male characters together, that the writers of Danganronpa ruined Sonia as a character because of that one line where she says she's not a virgin (which is ironic because the author claims to be against misogyny yet reduces a woman's value to her sexual history), makes up plot points like Nagito faking his illness for sympathy or Kokichi being attracted to Miu just to complain about them, and then the author brings up Chihiro and the essay just devolves into claiming trans people aren't real. There's a video on youtube of someone reading this essay if you want to see it for yourself. edit: here's the link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIuqgnRseNp_kJIsi=mBHU14Uc-cx1dX33 also, spelling

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

Clicking on that link is a gamble I'm willing to take. I'll come back with how traumatized I am.

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

This reeks of a desperate attempt at trying to repress SEVERAL things on the author's part. I don't want to read too much into the words actually presented, but it's hard not considering a flag factory produces fewer flags in a year than this one singular rant did.

[@veggieboysupreme]

DR is far from the perfect game, and the characters in the game are usually bad people, so I am dumbfounded by someone being offended of some characters doing bad things. Im sure the writers aren't misogynist- the character is.

[@catdownthestreet]

​@@YourWaywardDestiny what a brilliant way to say that a person is a field of red flags

[@rulerzreachf4n34]

OH MY GOSH I REMEMBER THIS-the author was super homophobic/transphobic and also blatantly slutshamed the characters constantly??? “Not a misogynist” my ass 👀

[@ericregis3912]

11:17 In the defense of this author, in my native language, dialogue is written with -...- or -...- instead of "..." It took me years to grow accustomed to the mere ideas of using quotation marks in dialogue.

[@billie-ve_in_yourself6464]

I didn’t know that was a thing, pretty understandable actually.

[@helenahildegarda5739]

Yeah but when I write fics in English I switch to "..." from -...-

[@unaestheticfrog11]

I did read a story where the author tried to make people think it was fluff, and then kill all the characters in the last chapter, but at least they said that in the notes for the last chapter that there was some character death and mild gore. Like, *that's* how you shock readers!

[@fig_flop]

tbh that seems like a cool fic as long as it was tagged to happen

[@lucid_nightshade]

omg. was this tumoasd

[@unaestheticfrog11]

@@lucid_nightshade No

[@Nikonikotine]

I kind of wanna know what the story was though

[@FlurryPie0]

Tell us the title

[@NekoFaustus]

tagging every single character who so much as shows up in the proverbial background is one of my biggest bug bears. it makes finding fic about specific characters extremely difficult, esp if theyre already not very popular in the fandom.

[@MushyRoom77]

THIS

[@IceFireofVoid]

Looking for fics about a rarepair and most of the ones that pop up they just show up for 2 paragraphs as background characters in a 20+ chapter fanfic that's mainly focused on your NOTP. Why did you even bother tagging them on the fic when they are completely irrelevant like that?

[@AietraT]

*cries in Adrian Toomes tag* One single line in chapter three of your 20 chapter IrondadSpiderson fic saying "Peter remembered that time he fought the Vulture" does not count as said Vulture actually being a character in your fic.

[@johngellare3507]

I'm basically the exact opposite of this. I have a story planned out, and then have to decide if X character that's there for half a chapter should be tagged, or if he should have his relationship with Y also tagged, even though they're both in the story for like half a chapter

[@EmeraldSands]

This so much. My favorite character is pretty unpopular (and was widely hated in the past) and I swear trying to find a fic in his tag that is actually about him is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s like 90% ensemble casts and fics about ships between two other characters where he is mentioned once. And on FFNet there’s a bunch of bashfic where he dies and his corpse gets ridiculed or something

[@CoolAnagram]

Marked as complete, ended on a cliffhanger. Last chapter was about how much they hated the media

[@billie-ve_in_yourself6464]

I’ve seen some marked as complete only to find out the last chapter was a notice about how the fic was discontinued.

[@CoolAnagram]

@@billie-ve_in_yourself6464 WHY DO THEY DO THIS

[@sunsetter4940]

That must've been awkward

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

I mean, no one LIKES the media, but it's not hard to call something unfinished.

[@PaigeLTS05]

Why do I need to keep saying this: IF YOU WRITE ONESHOTS, GROUP THEM BY A CRITERIA, MAKE A SEPARATE WORK FOR EACH CRITERIA. IE, group by main fandom (always group by main fandom), group of years they're set in (good if the oneshots tie together to make a cohesive story), main pairing, ect.

[@justsomedweebcat]

honestly just post each oneshot as a separate work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ like unless each oneshot in every chapter has the exact same tags you putting them all in one collection is just gonna make it harder for people to search for your stuff. what if the oneshot in chapter one has exactly all the tags they’re looking for but they won’t be able to find it because the oneshot in chapter two has tags that they excluded? looking through the chapter index for what you want is pretty annoying too. if you really do want all your oneshots in a collection, well. there’s _literally_ a collection function on AO3 for this exact purpose. why post a fic and label it as a collection when you can just… make a collection????

[@Lembowe]

seriously, there's been so many multi-fandom oneshot collections in my main fandom and it's very frustrating, especially when I go click on one and there's absolutely 0 content for the actual fandom I'm coming from I generally think oneshot collections arent a great idea, just makes it harder for readers to find what they're looking for man

[@PaigeLTS05]

@@justsomedweebcat Nah. Multi-chapters don't have the exact same tags for each chapter either and I've seen many multi-chapters, clicked them, and found the character I clicked it for is mentioned once in one chapter, so moot point buddy. With how I group my one-shots, when I get them in chronological order, it creates a vaguely cohesive story from multiple perspectives covering many events, and unlike normal multi-chapters, lets me insert a chapter in the middle of two others to say "hey, this thing happened between this and that" without screwing up the continuity. It's all the same story, split up across different events and perspectives. Too far disconnected to have it as a cohesive multi-chapter, too connected to have them as separate works, perfect for grouping them by timeframe and shoving the chapters in order of when they take place. Also said one-shot collection works redirect the reader to a multichapter then back again in the end notes of a chapter on SEVERAL occasions because the fics lead right into one another, but it wouldn't feel right to make the whole thing one multi-chapter fic due to the prominence of certain events, vast shifts in time and perspective, and many other factors. They can be useful to have one characters entire story in one place, or show everything that happened in a timeframe in a way that offers more freedom than a standard multi-chapter fic, but feels more connected than separate works in a collection. You just need to have the right use-case for using a work for multiple oneshots to work. Something that's rough to understand if all you've seen are those multifandom oneshot works.

[@EmeraldSands]

@@justsomedweebcat fully agreeing with you there, oneshots can stand on their own! If you want to connect them that’s why AO3 allows you to make works part of a series! This also has the nice bonus of readers being able to kudos/bookmark the individual stories.

[@lyraenza]

This one is very specific to my experience so it doesn't really apply but I want to share anyway. I was reading a fic where a character as a lesbian coming out scene with a friend and her friend said something along the line of "I knew already you never had any interest in boys, but I was waiting for you to figure it out yourself". Which sent me right back to the one time half of my classmates ganged up on me asking why I didn't want to date some guy. Their conclusion was that I had to be a closeted lesbian (which I denied). I get they were trying to be supportive but 10+ people pressuring an anxious mess for an answer was not a good move. And later in the year, a girl was asking me if I was a lesbian which led to an even more awkward exchange. People should not assume that a lack of interest in even one person of the opposite sex means that you're gay. I just want to be aromantic in peace 😭 Edit : a clarification in the replies cuz I ran out of space

[@juliaabreus]

I see you, but that was a really normal exchange? Like, "I was waiting until you were confortable saying anything, so I didn't project my idea of you as your responsibility". I'm also on the aroace spectrum, so when I tell it to friends some say "are you sure you aren't a lesbian?" and yes it can be annoying, but most people just don't know about aromanticism and asexuality, and most people will understand if you explain a bit more, specially if they aren't kids. Also, how people see us in their head isn't our business, everybody assumes stuff.

[@IceFireofVoid]

Yeah I am ace and I didn't find this out until my mid 20s but apparently my entire family assumed I was a lesbian and my mom had had a sit down with my younger siblings to...prepare them? For the day I would have a girlfriend. Yeah that day is not coming. But it's nice they were supportive I guess? Basically "He's a little confused but he's got the spirit"

[@veggieboysupreme]

This. Not everyone is going to want to be in a relationship so soon. These things take time, and others need to respect that.

[@rainpooper7088]

Figure out what, their sexuality? Seems like a pretty neutral thing to say if it was really worded like that tbh, unless they were outright making assumptions other than her disinterest in boys being a general matter of sexuality. Of course it isn't always and people just love to jump to conclusions in this regard, but that's why shutting up and waiting for the person in question to say something when they're ready is the right move. I get it, allonormativity sucks and us aros and aces never get any consideration at all when it comes to shipping, but even as an AroAce person myself who has been assumed gay on several occasions, this particular example doesn't really sound that bad. Sad to say of course, I'm pretty sure it's true, I just have seen A LOT worse in this regard.

[@lyraenza]

To clarify : it wasn't the fic author's fault that their words resonnated with my experience in a pretty bad way. I just needed to vent about it because when I mention the half of classmates pressuring me thing, my family and friends think of it as a funny story without trying to understand how I feel about it.

[@fillername6996]

I was reading a fic and one day a new chapter was added to suddenly have one of the (ADULT) characters fall in love with a child. No hints in the previous chapter up until that moment, no related tags, nothing. It was... really uncomfortable and I never read any new chapters after that.

[@bluemayo6822]

Now this is the craziest one I’ve seen. Who does that?

[@Daelyah]

EWEWEWEWEWEW No tags or warnings whatsoever on any of my squigs automatically puts an author on my block list, NO THANKS!

[@kitkatboard]

Reminds me of a fic I read that was about a character (TW for CSA) realizing that his late sister had abused him and that it was okay for him to be broken about it. The fic had some raunchy moments that felt justified with the themes and was pretty well written. Then they added an epilogue that was an AU where the sister didn't die and was forgiven by everyone FOR R-WORDING HER LITTLE BROTHER. A lot of people were mad after this.

[@BJGvideos]

​@@kitkatboardStop with the "r-word" nonsense. Write actual words. People with words blocked need you to do so and this bizarre advertiser-kowtowing self censorship prevents that from happening.

[@qoyote]

​@@BJGvideos youtube autohides comments with certain words though, it galls me as much as you but people have no choice here

[@Hugelag]

To quote Bob's Burgers: A lie is not a twist.

[@february4206]

That one 26 y/o author who wrote a 400+ page callout doc on a 13 y/o that was upset they didn’t properly tag their smut.

[@awhimsyreader9015]

Wait is it that one Glitch Techs author, I remember watching Izzyzzz video about it,that situation was crazy like also the fact that the 26 y /o also doxxed the 13 y/o was just insane also because the kid was uncomfortable with the smut fic they wrote

[@awhimsyreader9015]

* all because

[@february4206]

@@awhimsyreader9015 yeah, absolutely wild situation. my little sister was mutuals with the kid a while back. i've heard they're doing better now.

[@evlpunky]

Once read a fic that was tagged as "humor" but the entire story was the main character's friends taking his phone while he was out of the room, reading his texts, and making fun of him for being gay.

[@vixxcelacea2778]

That just tells you more about the author. Sucks that some people think that's humorous. Unless the person they were mocking was in a sort of "love you beetch" kinda relationship which some people might have. Not dissimilar to Janis in Mean Girls with the "too gay to function" comment being out of love and also being only her to say it due to their relationship. I get the feeling this was not the case.

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

Hey. If someone has a cute idea about how something could go in your fic, or has a head canon based on your head canon and decides to share it with you, this is what fanficion is about. If you're not going to write it in, you have exactly 50billion ways to say "not in this fic," in a supportive and attentive way that shows you do care about their attention and time and like to be a part of the fandom you're writing for. Quite literally, it's as easy as going: "Haha! Cute/funny/intriguing/interesting! I don't think I could sneak that into my fic with the way things are going, but I'm happy I'm inspiring this much thought."

[@starlydonati2008]

Exactly! I’m actually kind of doing something adjacent to that? I’ve been inspired by a certain fic, but I don’t have all the same headcanons so I’m just going to shout out the og author for inspiring a certain aspect and leaving the rest when I finally post.

[@morinomajou]

Honestly my go-to was always ‘that’s a really fun idea! YOU should totally write a fic about that sometime, I’d love to read it :D’ It still sidesteps having to put it in your own fic, but under the guise of saying it was the commenter’s idea so they should get first dibs on it haha.

[@SkullQueen33]

If I had a nickel for how many times I had encountered fics that were tagged as a certain ship only to hate on the ship and their fans... I'll had two nickels. Which it isn't a lot, but is weird to me that happened twice, with different fandoms and pairings 😅

[@catdownthestreet]

Same happened to me, except it was so much worse. Glad your two nickels weren't earned from reading a near traumatic untagged fanfic under your favorite pairing /gen

[@SkullQueen33]

@@catdownthestreet Ouch, I'm so sorry to hear that :'( Yes, thinking of that, mine weren't so terrible. One (Yulivia from Amphibia) was only hating on a popular headcanon of the fandom about them being foster parents to another character (nothing graphic but sounding pretty petty when explaining how they never care, were awful, etcétera). And the other (Stolitz from Helluva Boss) was just a break up fic with an unhappy ending that was untagged and the author seemed to rejoice on breaking the two characters relationship on author notes, saying things like "see? This happens 'cause is a bad couple and toxic and bad >:)". ... Thinking of it, they sounded kinda hilarious because that's pretty much how they explained why they hated the ships and sounded more like immature childs throwing a tantrum than other thing

[@melon_choly]

omg same, i’d reveal the fics/ships but one of them is popular within a fandom and my take might be controversial since people will think I’m too sensitive (not my fault the fic was tagged with my fav ship just for it to be hated on)

[@-Foliage-]

i saw a fic tagged "character a/character b" and i read it and it was just "character a asked character b out and character b was disgusted then character c murdered character a" and it was clearly only made to put some hate in the ship tag and to be rude, not even an actual badly tagged story

[@malenaavalos7829]

"Fanfic cringe compilation" books in Wattpad are the worst. They just foment harrasment towards authors that are clearly children I saw one that was exclusively dedicated to Hazbin Hotel and it was awful, they kept harrassing little girls for writing charlastor (it seemed as if the author had a personal problem with that ship, she acted worse when she was reviewing charlastor fics but then when she reviewed radioapple fics she soften up her language cause she liked radioapple), even making memes about one of the author's house getting burned down and then excused everything with 'dark comedy'

[@queenofqueen-4598]

I write on Wattpad a little but still (moving to AO3 as we speak) and I HATE those books!! If you have an issue with someone’s writing, keep it to yourself or maybe give them advice on how to become a more practiced writer. It’s not that hard to click out of something if you don’t like it

[@IceFireofVoid]

@malenaavalos7829 I once used a wattpad cringe fic compilation as a recommendation list lmfao the person was acting like everything there was terrible but they described it in a way that made it so inviting instead because I was into all of that.

[@bored_potato]

Man, the people who hate the charlastor ship in hazbin hotel can (not all of them thankfully) be ironically toxic as hell. What's funnier is that after season 1 came out, pretty much every charlastor shipper with a decent head knows their ship is never gonna be canon but that's okay cuz that's what fanfics are for. But good grief, the amount of double standards the fandom has for people shipping charlastor and radioapple. What's worse is that the guy being shipped is an ace character. When he's in the charlastor ship, people hate on them for shipping an ace character. But when it's radioapple, the comments are nothing but pure positivity.

[@problem3412]

not defending anyone, cringe comps suck,, but i do find it just a smidgen peculiar little girls are writing anything related to hazbin at all considering how much it parades itself as an adult show and does some unsavory things 😭😭

[@vixxcelacea2778]

@@problem3412 Kids get into stuff they shouldn't (either just status quo socially and also for real that they shouldn't IE NSFL stuff too). I think it's pretty common. Best we can do is try to make sure that what they do get into is not traumatizing or impeding their development. Speaking as a person who remembers being in an age range where some of the fics I was reading were not for my age group (But were properly tagged, so I knew what I was getting into.) This is especially true for teens, given that they have hormones out their ears.

[@DragonLandlord]

I'd read a HTTYD fanfic years ago, between the first movie and series, where the author named the dragons the other kids ride. Idr them all, but they were simple names tied to the colors, Astrid's was Bluebell. The author notes at the end of every chapter said the names were trademarked and she'd report anyone else using them.

[@UltimateDespairado]

How is a fanfiction intellectual property? It’s not even by a big dollar corporation or the names are not even made up.

[@DragonLandlord]

@UltimateDespairado I pointed that out, they don't own any of it and the names weren't even made up. Just got called a bitch and blocked.

[@UltimateDespairado]

@@DragonLandlord that comment wasn’t even directed towards you It was directed towards the author of the fanfiction

[@No-longer1]

…please say this wasn’t an adult. I'd expect this behaviour from a younger insecure kid

[@ExtremeWreck]

@@No-longer1 As someone who's seen a lot of things, it probably WAS an adult.

[@artfuldodgerrr]

The authors that are hostile to commenter really tick me off. I freaking love when people comment on my stories, most of them are super cool and I love interacting with them. In most cases, the comments are praise and advice, I've not really come across many nasty commenters. Be grateful for your commenters, guys.

[@Pipkiablo]

Admittedly I got passive aggressively hostile to one commenter once, and I still feel bad, even though the reason it happened was because I was in a depressive slump because a beloved pet had died in a very traumatic way, my updates were slowing because of my depressive slump, and he kept asking me, "So, when are you going to update again?" if I took more than three days to update.

[@null9014]

@@Pipkiablo Nah bro pressuring for updates every three days is _CRAZY_ you should've cursed them out

[@kitkatboard]

@@Pipkiablo Same, I had someone "are you even going to update this ?" once. Not even "hi", not even "I like it but...". Just felt really entitled so I just left a "when I'm done wanting to kms

[@perpetualsick]

@@PipkiabloTo be fair, people who pressure authors into updating are frustrating. When it’s every single comment, I can see why you’d not be in the mood for it.

[@vixxcelacea2778]

I'm ecstatic to read literally any comment I get. If it's a few or a hundred (which has never happened, but that would be awesome) The idea that people use their time which is non-refundable in life to read my work at all, let alone say something is pretty freaking neato. So long as they aren't being intentionally mean, even criticism is welcome. Same goes for any creative medium I put out. I'll never forget someone giving genuinely helpful advice on a drawing I did that was legit criticism. I will forever use it as a barometer for what good criticism looks like. Appreciate the people who take the time to be interested in your stuff. That's not a payment anyone can take back and no one is entitled to it.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

I once read a fanfic that was intentionally badly written for the purpose of trolling. It was really funny-until the author got some comments saying the fic was badly written, which was, you know, the whole point of trolling. However, the author got upset that their trolling was successful, and the last chapter was just them insulting the readers because how DARE we give them the reaction they were begging for by saying that this deliberately badly written fic was badly written and we’re all big awful horrible meanies who take fanfiction too seriously and they give up and it’s all our fault for being such nasty meanie-pantses. Like, buddy, the whole point of trolling is to get a reaction! Why are you flipping out at us because your trolling WORKED? If you deliberately make something for the purpose of getting negative reactions, you can’t get upset that you’re getting negative reactions!

[@lopanreturns7085]

Enoby?

[@paigemosher8697]

Are you sure the negative reaction to the criticism wasn't also trolling? Because that sounds like something out of My Immortal.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

@paigemosher8697 I’m pretty sure, given that a) their grammar and spelling was much better in the reaction than it was in the fic, and b) they gave up on the story after this. The author of My Immortal constantly yelled at the “prepz” to stop “flamming” and threatened not to update the story unless she got enough good “reviowz,” but she did keep updating. Not to mention c) the author of My Immortal never admitted to being a troll. If she was in fact trolling, she knew that the best way to keep getting reactions was to keep treating her fic as serious business. This author, on the other hand, ended the story with an essay that boiled down to “I was trolling, but you’re all big stupid meanies for giving me the exact reaction trolls are trying to achieve, so I’m quitting this story forever and going home; waah,” and then they followed through on quitting. My Immortal’s author may have threatened to quit countless times, but what makes her a legend among troll fics is that she didn’t quit, and she kept her writing style consistent. This author didn’t do that. If it was a final trolling move, it was a terrible one. It took away the ambiguity of My Immortal and tied everything up in a neat little bow. It didn’t bait more fan rage, it just made the author look pathetic. Heck, even Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles, another famous troll fic, ended with the author confessing to being a troll, but it kept the voice consistent, worked the confession into the ending rather than having it instead of the ending, and it was a “ha, gotcha,” instead of a “waah you’re so mean.” (Sorry for the essay; I have a weird fascination with the art of troll fics.)

[@rigboy1234]

Wouldn't that also be part of the joke? I can imagine them also doing that for the sake of making It more realistic on the "bad fic" side

[@All_thegoodnamesaretaken]

Any real person ship when the ppl keep saying “we r just friends” is so weird. That stuff like actually tears apart friendships

[@liljatupsu]

Real person shipping is iffy in general, because it reduces the people to the level of fictional characters for the author to play around with, and makes it seem as if the shipper knows better than the actual people themselves! I watch a pair of youtubers who are really close friends, and one of them likes to make sussy jokes about it sometimes. People on twitter would actually get mad at him for "getting their hopes up", as if their close platonic friendship is somehow inferior to a potential romantic one (also is your @ a MTMTE reference?)

[@babecat2000]

@@liljatupsu Also makes me think of Gmm. Rhett and link are not gay for each other.

[@All_thegoodnamesaretaken]

@@liljatupsu absolutely agree, also no it is not. What does that stand for?

[@liljatupsu]

@@All_thegoodnamesaretaken More Than Meets The Eye. It's a transformers comic

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

my 14 year old larrie self would be so mad at you for this but it's so true, there's so many fictional couples to ship why do you have to go for the real ones and be weird about actual irl people😭

[@cynthiaanderson6410]

Some straight people see themselves as the default so they don’t tag F/M. When you exclude it a few of them will pop up

[@catboymikey]

Fr like usually I filter out f/m works (cuz I'm a gay guy) it's so annoying like TAG THAT SHIT DAWG

[@brimalt]

when you're a gay guy and find a x reader thats "gender neutral" and then it uses female terms like bro...

[@ahmadalimi9784]

​@catboymikey lol what you're incapable of reading about straight relationships because you're gay?

[@LL-tr5et]

​@@brimalt RIGHT. i HATE how almost all x readers are aimed at female audiences

[@johngellare3507]

Well, being straight is kinda the default. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be a species. 97% of people worldwide are straight, so...

[@homosapien7316]

Untagged noncon. It was a fairly old fic and the author defended herself from hate comments saying she didn't know that marital r@pe was r@pe. I'm glad she learned but she never updated the tags

[@IceFireofVoid]

Her not knowing that is a massive red flag for something in her life being very very wrong and I hope she's okay now.

[@montserratmarroquin400]

A while ago I read a Radioapple fic, which had noncon in it, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t tagged, or atleast the only thing that was tagged was violence, the only other implied thing I guess was "Vox is a jerk" They did put a disclaimer in the notes, but it felt out of nowhere and frankly I came there to see corn, not SA (Some people did also point this out, which the author responded by saying they didn’t want to spoil anything 😒).

[@gaspshichat]

i had a fic writer get mad at me bc i didn't compliment them on what they wanted to be complimented on :( i feel bad complimenting anyone now :( edit: i am an ao3 writer so it makes me feel worse :((

[@teerowawa]

that sucks, i'm sorry. :/ i would say the vast majority of authors appreciate any positive response and compliments they are given(i know i would), and i hope that authors you read from in the future show you that if they respond to comments!

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

Don't be put off. You already hit odds that are basically the equivalent of the jackpot (but the bad version) so what are the chances it happens again? Pretty low. The fic author must have been super young and completely unaware other people are going to be drawn to different things. 99.999% of fanfiction authors could never even dream of acting like this, so please, go make someone else's day and forget this selfish person. They wasted everyone's time and spoiled the positive interaction for themselves. Too bad, now it's energy spent on more worthwhile authors.

[@veggieboysupreme]

Here, complement me. I promise I won't bash you. /gen

[@gaspshichat]

@@teerowawa thing is i'm also a fic writer so it just hurt even more :((

[@starlydonati2008]

I can understand wanting to hear feedback on specific parts, but being mad at you for liking a different aspect is uncalled for imo.

[@catdownthestreet]

Worst experience in fanfic was accidentally stumbling across a CR fic when I just wanted to read about my favorite space lesbians :( To clarify, it was literally a corrective grape fic that 1) wasn't tagged as such and 2) had the pairing I thought the fic was about tagged. The author was mocking everyone who called them out on it. This is the level homophobes will stoop to to bring queer people down...

[@Daelyah]

ALL the ick, I genuinely hope they wound up banned for that BS 💀

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

Out of curiosity, which space lesbians?

[@catdownthestreet]

@@BookWyrmOnAString Black Swan and Acheron, HSR.

[@gothgrape]

​@@catdownthestreet fr honkai star rail fandom is so homophobic if you want good lesbian stories without this kind of people try dynasty sorry for long comment but I hate hate the fandom

[@catdownthestreet]

@@gothgrape thanks for the recommendation, and yeah, it's so bad in the fandom that there's a whole video about it that specifically focuses on fan reactions to that tango. the fandom is genuinely stupid sometimes lmao

[@_AstaLily]

I often get offended by criticism even when I’m trying to be open to it, but I’m good at hiding my initial offence and I can talk myself into understanding they’re being reasonable.

[@UltimateDespairado]

When I see some criticism or some people disagree with my personal thoughts of the day, I would turn off KZbin, be upset, and search up on Google if I have bad taste or me being cringe.

[@starlydonati2008]

I think when I finally get into fic posting, I’m going to admit something similar. I’ll say “I would love feedback! I may not be the best at handling the negative stuff, but I’ll try my best to not make it your problem.” Something like that.

[@No-longer1]

I'd say being able to come back after innitial hurt and engage with the criticism calmly is fairly impressive. I don’t know how much it applies to you, but it also takes time to learn what criticism you can and should ignore, and even more time to have those criticisms drip down from you like water from a duck feather. Sometimes readers are complelty missing the point or direction you are going towards, are stupid, or their suggestions don’t match the energy and wants you put into the fic. You are allowed to write horribly (if whatever kind of universal metric for it exists anyways), you are allowed to do things amatourishly, you are allowed to be self indulgent. Perhaps you genuinenly don’t wanna be, and that’s fine- both options are fine, actually

[@vixxcelacea2778]

This. Like, no it's not fun to realize you did x or y wrong and it hits especially hard when you realize someone is totally right, but feel dumb/inadequate for not realizing it first. I wish society told us better how to take an L sometimes or be wrong. It's not fun to be wrong, but it is vital to learning and growing. It's okay to make a mistake or be wrong. I make a point to if someone is open to criticism and says so, be as constructive as possible. Say what they did right and what I think they can improve on and also acknowledge that I'm not the be all end all for this advice. It's simply advice and I might also be wrong. I know what it's like to realize I did something that makes no sense, made a mistake or was just incorrect. It sucks, but I'd rather know and better yet, know what I can do to improve.

[@bumblebee4746]

I usually say I'm open to constructive criticism specifically because anytime I get a comment that is only criticizing my work without any suggestions I get offended. I'm very open to any suggestions that will help better my writing and storytelling, but just straight up saying "I don't like that you did xyz in your fic" is annoying.

[@Rebelco]

11:13 I had the inverse of it the first time I started reading fanfics in English, because on my language to indicate that a character is saying something you are supposed to use --

[@adhdfuelorwhatever]

Same

[@kuronekochan5582]

I had someone comment on my bff's fic that he shouldn't post on ao3 because his fic had too many oc's in it, and that people on their wouldn't like it. and just went on and on about other non-constructive critique, and just being horrible. I ripped her a new one and explained that she was so wrong for telling people to get off the site for oc's when hundreds of authors that don't even write fanfic publish on their. some people are just so self absorbed

[@LadyPsychic]

Yeah, like there is a section on AO3 for Original works! And even in actual fanfics, OCs (if written well) can enhance a story.

[@kuronekochan5582]

@@LadyPsychic literally, that's what I told her, beyond that she was just rude in telling him to get off the site. I looked in to her profile and saw she'd never published anything on AO3 either, it was crazy

[@catboymikey]

What the heck?????? That's so dumb like let ppl write how they like goddamn

[@ravioliis_]

I have 3 major pet-peeves when it comes to fanfic authors: 1. In progress, abandoned, or otherwise unfinished works that are marked as completed. It's even worse if there's no indication in the tags or summary that the fic is unfinished. I came here expecting a full and complete story, not 50% of one that hasn't been updated in 4 years. 2. AUs/crossovers of another piece of media that is not tagged properly. I always have crossovers filtered out yet I still run into AUs that are more the other fandom than the one I'm searching in. 3. Oneshot collections that don't have any sort of descriptions or chapter guides to figure out which tags belong to which story. If I can't figure out what tf I'm about to read I'm just straight up not gonna read it. This problem is especially egregious with month-challenge collections. "whatever-tober day 23" tells me nothing; give me something, anything to go off of. And multifandom oneshot collections are just an abomination.

[@sophialane3175]

There's a fantastic author on Wattpad that had this zombie Apocalypse book that was fully finished and free on Wattpad... I read most of it and then fell out of my zombie phase, came back to it like two years later, and now half of the first book, and all the rest of it is on patreon😢 I miss reading it. Fantastic author and series, but I can't afford it now so I guess I just have to leave my mind wondering

[@REDFRLegend]

Something similar happened to me but with 13 books of the same author! I can't remember what any of them are called, so I can't look them up!

[@catdownthestreet]

I respect the hustle but that's just disrespectful to the readers... if they wanted income they should've made the story completely available for free and made Patreon optional if readers wanted/could afford to support them

[@honey_Bee1333]

I think I know which fic you're talking about! Maybe. I found a zombie fic a few years ago and loved the beginning of it! Then all of a sudden around chapter 10 I couldn't read any further and had to pay! I remember feeling so let down :/

[@dabatman5187]

Recipe for Sourdough: 1. Go to Walmart 2. Get Sourdough No need to thank me

[@SnakeitySpoonGilmour]

My hero

[@beanestchild9994]

Oh thank god I needed this

[@Wemfsh]

Better option go to San Francisco get sour bread

[@lynnx4345]

I've been trying to make sourdough for so long! Thank you for finally giving me the answer to my internal struggle!

[@flermit645]

I dont have a walmart where i live, do you have any alternatives?

[@lilyd8908]

10:20 oh my GOD this happened to me once. Fic was tagged as Ship A, a favourite of mine. No other pairings were mentioned. Then the whole fic was basically bashing on a VERY OOC version of one character in Ship A-so that the other character could leave them and get together with someone else to form Ship B. Which was my NOTP. I’m still bitter about it.

[@GraveyardMaiden]

You know... I was expecting this to be about like petty drama , but like this is mostly just common complaints.

[@fabianzimmermann5495]

There was a fanfic author who wrote a few stories in a fandom and then created a seperate story, where he decided to shit talk the bad fan fictions of the fandom. He went out of his way to search for bad stories, named their titles and the authors and then just ripped the stories apart in an extremely disrespectful manner. The fandom mostly consisted of younger people, as it was from a kids show, so no surprise that some stories weren't good, but that guy didn't seem to care about that at all and exposed these stories, just to trash and insultingly obliterate them, when the person who wrote them is most likely just a young teen. Also the guy had some specific headcanons about the lore of the fandom and went nuts everytime someone went against that, despite this thing being completely open to interpretation. I mean, just imagine being very passionate about a tv show and you write a fanfic about it. You are young and inexperienced, so you aren't very good at it, but you're proud of it. And then you see your profile name tagged in someone elses story, you take a look and see that some random dude shit talks your story for no reason whatsoever. Do you know what that does to a little kid, when their passion project just gets destroyed like that? Stopped reading that guy's stories after that and I wouldn't be surprised if he got reported or something among those lines, because he just kept doing this.

[@drakothedragon]

I was reading this ‘Valentine’s Day at the workplace’ fic that started out all fluffy and cute, and ended with untagged [sims woohoo]. It was luckily fade to black, but it made me feel really gross, especially considering how a child was in the room right next to them and heard when they were doing it 💀

[@catdownthestreet]

HELP NOT THE [Sims woohoo] 😭

[@johngellare3507]

Coming from someone who's parents were, shall we say, super fucking horny, that shit isn't sexualized. Most kids, when that happens, quite literally just turn on loud music, start gaming or put earbuds in and go to sleep

[@catdownthestreet]

@@johngellare3507 gotta agree with you on that, my parents also had a healthy love life and I honestly didn't mind once I knew about it. I'm also aroace so maybe that's part of it

[@IceFireofVoid]

I remember there was this cool dystopian fic I read years ago where the characters had special powers or unusual mutations and they were constantly monitored by the government who saw them as dangerous, and there was some conspiracy going on behind the scenes and it was a really cool mystery story with a lot of worldbuilding and really good character writing. Until about halfway through, where it turned into a harem fic out of nowhere. All the characters who were fugitives at this point were hiding out at an abandoned house and the author started dropping a bunch of hints about all the inhabitants going at it or wanting to. And then this weird subplot where the electric guy wanted to bang a robot (genderless robot with no...apparatuses to do the deed) just completely took over the fic and I just couldn't read it anymore.

[@TheBritishDragong]

Something kind of similar to this happened to me a while ago. I started reading this huge fanfic that was supposed to be a continuation of the most recent season of the show it was based on, and I really liked it because the quality was really good, and it had like 100 chapters _and_ was going to be part of a series with more works after it. So for a while I was really engaged and kept up with every update. Only thing is, after the first work was finished and the second one came out, I started noticing it was slightly more mature. Nothing I couldn’t stomach without a little reluctance though, so I tried to be optimistic and made it through. But then the third fic came out, and iirc I’m pretty sure this was the only one marked as mature. Somehow, this series that had just started as a “theory about what will happen after this cliffhanger at the end of this episode” had turned into something way too focused on two characters fighting over another character for sex. I couldn’t keep reading it because I don’t like sexual content that’s any more than just implied. I don’t think there was anything indicating it would get like this in the first work, and I’d never read anything by that author before, so it’s not like I knew they had a reputation for writing mature/explicit stuff. I was so upset to have to drop the series, but I just couldn’t read it anymore.

[@IceFireofVoid]

@@TheBritishDragong I HAD ANOTHER ONE JUST A FEW DAYS AGO. Super interesting concept, fic marked as complete, 30 chapters, 175k words. I think oh this is great. And it was, for the first 20 or so chapters. There's a lot of reasons why I dropped it, mainly the protagonist kinda became a Mary Sue and would insert himself into everyone else's plotlines and magically solve all their problems until nobody would get any growth or development or learn anything, but the last straw for me was when the fic got super shippy out of nowhere. Like...the dude goes 0 to 100 with another character he had zero chemistry with over the span of two paragraphs. And then the character starts talking about all the times he was flustered by a cute guy. Except all those incidents didn't have a single shred of attraction when they were originally written in the previous chapters. There was honestly little to no romance before then but suddenly it's all romance, and the author is trying to gaslight readers with these new recap paragraphs. The quality of the writing is so bad now and it's so one-note in the romance that it straight up feels like the account got hacked and another person wrote the last 10 chapters of the fic.

[@Dressup_Doll]

6:32, bro, I get comments from the same people on specific fics, and I always get so happy whenever I see them because I like making my readers happy (or emotionally destroying them). I recently updated a fic and got a handful of people saying that they were excited I had finally updated again, and that made my day. 11:40, sometimes, even the author has no idea where the fic is going and changed the tags/rating to reflect that. That doesn’t mean the other options aren’t true, though. Edit: Yesterday, I found that someone made an awesome blind AU inspired on the blind AU I made, so I was ecstatic all day. Screw become a real author, I’ve made it. Edit 2.0: I found something out related to my favorite character for a show, wrote a new fic, and am now on a power trip. I will do everything in my power to make this story emotional and make my readers crushed, and I don’t care how long it takes to do so.

[@Weird-mah-out]

Yeah, for me, even the simplest reply to a comment I make on KZbin can make my day, once the KZbinr who made the video I commented on replied to my comment (it was also many years after the vid had originally been made) it was a positive comment that still makes me feel good when I look at it

[@Dressup_Doll]

@@Weird-mah-outI get that feeling.

[@Dressup_Doll]

@@Weird-mah-outI get that.

[@futurestoryteller]

This is like listening to gossipy 70's housewives. I swear fan fiction is like a different universe.

[@acloneofmyself]

8:24 as a fanfic author myself, i do fear copying plots off of other fics by accident, i can barely read my own stories without feeling like i have to change everything i find, but i never do that with other people’s works, like sure, there may be a few noticeable mistakes, but i just ignore it because it doesnt really matter so long as the meaning is clear this pet peeve of mine is less about the author and more about the readers, in a fic im reading the plot has sideships alongside the main plot as you do, one of which included an unpopular ship in my fandom, as far as im aware it is tagged and all and whenever the ship is like being shippy, there are often a bunch of comments saying something like “toxic ship, but ok”, if you dont like the ship, why are you reading this??? it also annoys me when someone says something has to be true because “they kin one of the characters”, just because you relate to said character doesnt make you anymore entitled to say something

[@teeteeplays]

the ship that’s tagged takes till the last chapter to be only slightly not problematic and one of the characters in the ship is with another UNTAGGED character for 99% of the story. THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME FAR TOO MANY TIMES

[@catdownthestreet]

They could've at least tagged something like "past -insert pairing-" or "endgame -insert pairing-" but they can't even do that much

[@sarahvanburen7819]

What I hate is how in my fandom, there's these people who just go around criticizing everyone's work and dunking on literally everything...but they've never published a single story themselves! I wouldn't necessarily call this a flat-out a-hole move, but it always kinda rubbed me the wrong way that someone would comment such harsh and cruel things to writers when they're not even a writer themselves.

[@scpfan753]

Which fandom are we talking here?

[@k0iip0ndzz]

Really happy my fandom is small on AO3 😬 it’s super popular on KZbin and I think Wattpad but on AO3, it’s SUPER small and everyone mostly knows each other

[@EmeraldSands]

My fandom has someone like this too (along with a few lackeys who follow her lead), and she’s so infamous that getting a review from her is kind of considered a rite of passage. She has posted work of her own, and it has decent technical quality but it clearly comes less from a place of love than from wanting to demonstrate how she’s so much smarter than everyone else and show her very cynical take on the source material (which is a wholesome power of friendship children’s media). She also has a blog where she posts the responses to her reviews to mock them. Wild behavior from a fully grown adult.

[@sfofcakey]

One time I saw an xreader smut fic with a real person who is ace

[@starlydonati2008]

Oh yikes. That’s horrible. Acephobia at its usualest.

[@Daelyah]

BANHAMMER on whoever pulls that shit, EW 💀

[@c0zmozys]

@@Daelyahi saw 'banhammer' and thought of phighting,, the brainrot,,

[@hello_ree]

jadian animations?

[@starlydonati2008]

@@hello_ree That’d be my guess

[@edwinthemoose]

started off as a f/f post-cannon fic. Halfway through, they break up and one of the people in the couple sue the other as they realise they're straight and then went on to say that there's no such thing as "consensual lesbian sex" and that all lesbians were r*pists. This was untagged btw. That all occured in one chapter and ended in an author's note which had a whole bunch of slurs and whatnot. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement.

[@bogwife7942]

ao3 has a new policy against fics made specifically to spread hatespeech, you absolutely should report that fic. that's disgusting

[@TheBritishDragong]

WHAT

[@abanana_5527]

I once read a fic where in the first chapter the main character starts getting sexually harassed and assaulted by his coworkers, and is noticably uncomfortable with it, but the author kept brushing it off as him "Not being used to the attention", and the character starts acting seriously out of character, engaging in hypersexual behavior, and literally no one was concerned! The author didn't even tag it! It felt like the author didn't believe that men could go through such things, when SA and sexual harassment can happen to people of any gender, and it was very clear that was what the main character was experiencing! The author was just to bullheaded to realize it! It was so depressing and frustrating to see such a major issue treated so lightly, I had to click off!

[@Pipkiablo]

Also, I agree with the commenter on those people that get mad if you see their platonic pairings as ships. One person asked me if I shipped two characters that I was writing platonically because I wrote them as having a really weird, oddly close relationship (because they give those vibes in canon). My response was, "Well I wasn't, but I have no problem with that interpretation either." And another one I forgot in my last comment, I also loathe the kind of authors and artists that call anyone who doesn't like their kind of problematic shipping an 'anti'. Mostly because from personal experience, a lot of the people using that term don't differentiate from the people who will actually harass you for liking something they don't like and the people who merely say, "I don't like this kind of ship, so I don't read it," and then mind their own business. I've seen people harassed and cyberstalked just for saying they were uncomfortable with a problematic ship and avoided it.

[@margarita2003]

How could anyone be mean to a commenter who is saying nice things about their fic? What are those people on? I get very excited whenever I get a comment lol.

[@kittykat5090]

i usually read fics from small fandoms, and it annoys me SO much when it's included in those stories that have a thousand fandoms and tags and only like three chapters. i don't want to remove crossovers outright from my search, but those fics usually force me to since they block out fics that are actually ABOUT the specific fandom i'm looking for fics of!

[@LocalTorchwoodIntern]

I feel you!! I normally read fics for characters an actor has played where either their non existent or those come up. Its not fun realizing they stopped it BEFORE the fandom. Thankfully other characters from this actor have pretty popular fandoms but it sucks when I have such a bland choice of fics. Also does not help that one of said fandoms has been dead since the show ended and my preferred pairing has like 23 fics and 4 of those fics are in another language.

[@autumn_west]

A writer's group I'm in has run into the whole tagging but not actually including a fandom thing multiple times before. We politely commented and asked she removed the tag because she indicated she wasn't going to actually write something for that fandom, and she completely lost it with us - to this day, I'm very wary of multi-fandom fics

[@scpfan753]

When they make their self inserts universally praised in their fic and don't even try to hide that they're doing it for narcissistic purposes.

[@fritzy8318]

Please don’t

[@VoidDoesVideos]

2:52 my humor is broken, i laughed at the "can you dont" pic

[@persialionheart]

1:25 this is the worst thing especially when you read the summary and get so excited for it 3:59 That is just evil When I was younger I defo could not take criticism 😅 But taking criticism is so important because it's only going to help you improve. Criticism doesn’t leave my mind once I come across it and now I am glad to take the advice and change things up. That's the thing about writing for me. I want to learn more and adapt and change to get better. Criticism helps with that. Im so glad ive learned from that because not only can I take criticism for my writing, but I am so much better in taking criticism for other stuff such as my uni work. I love that other people can help me to improve in things I don't quite understand yet.

[@Weird-mah-out]

More power to ya!

[@NotesFromTheVoid]

Multifandom oneshots my detested. My favourite author awfulness story is one of a "reading the books" harry potter fic which plagarised another "reading the books" fic, god kicked off ao3 for either the plagarism or because reading the books fic skirt copyright laws at the best of times, then started posting new chapters on patreon (paywalled of course). They then ran out of the OG fic to plagarise, and added a weird kidnapping subplot, and according to someone who did pay for a while the fic just got worse and worse as they couldn't come up with good character reactions to the books so it was basically just reading harry potter with occasional interuptions. Absolutely pathetic, it's practically begging for a lawsuit.

[@shy2infinity]

6:34 This is wild to me 😅I'm on Ao3 but mostly stick to the Original's tag and I get like, one or two regulars on my stories.... And I get SO excited when I see those regulars. Like "Hi!!! Friend!!! Tell me everything that you think

[@jaymartin505]

Same here😂 I write a lot of Original works in addition to fanfic and i love it when regular readers comment on both or even better I've actually had readers for one fandom find a new one because they liked my fic for Fandom A that they decided to check out my work in Fandom B and found a new fandom 😂 that's so much fun 😂

[@k0iip0ndzz]

I’m a writer for a Fandom, hahah! I’ve got about… seven friends who comment regularly 😅

[@lindapenttinen3382]

I admit, I am very bad a tagging and most of the time don't even know what's going to happen in the story until I write it 😅

[@Pipkiablo]

I felt that. The good news is tags can be updated as you go if you find a good one that you missed or need a tag that you didn't need before. But it's still a pain, especially when you don't know what to tag it as. I also have trouble because some things someone might find noteworthy might not even occur to me as something other than too mundane to bring up.

[@billie-ve_in_yourself6464]

So long as you are hitting the warning tags it’s fine. I don’t mind stories switching lanes from General and teen to mature and explicit so long as all the warning tags are added. I’ve seen some people add clarifications in their tags like “only dubcon because x happens.” So long as you’re trying and correctly tag the triggers, it’s all good

[@Liggliluff]

(2:30) That image is the trope: woman = bare midriff, to the max

[@MrsAverage]

4:54 The exact same thing happened to one of my favorite ongoings. I woke up one day, YEARS after it was finished on a very sad but ambiguous note, got a notification about a new chapter, the "10 years later" or something along the lines of it, and my jaw dropped after I finished reading it. It got so much worse I cried... C'mon, you separated the characters in the last chapter. There's no need for them to get even more beef with each other and tourment your readers! (the unhappy ending tag was also not there) (she must've thought that that's a happy ending in their situation, ew)

[@shipsarebeautiful]

The best example I have is for a fic I read YEARS ago by now. It was a seemingly fresh take on the fake dating trope where the people in the fake couple were intended to be with other people by the end and use their fake relationship as a means to make the other people jealous. The author made it clear in both the tags and the notes that this was the direction they wanted to take the fic. But, by the time we got to the final chapter, the author had a last minute change of mind and completely went back on that promise to make the fake dating couple into a real couple despite the fact they had already thoroughly set up the other two promised end game ships up to as late as earlier the same chapter. It was a completely out of left field/unsatisfying conclusion that left everyone confused and annoyed, especially since it meant that the other two people that would’ve been part of the end game ships were left heartbroken due to an act of “selflessness” from one of them leaving their would-be partner to chase after the other half of the fake couple. I was so salty at the ending of that fic that it actually made me dislike the fake couple pairing and I gained a grudge towards it that I still kind of hold to this day.

[@rowan404]

The first one reminds me of when I read a fic on Wattpad that ended with the protagonist committing suicide. I was suicidal myself, so it triggered me. When I told the author that she should’ve added a trigger warning, she refused to, claiming that she didn’t need to since it was fictional. Eventually, she sent me an angry DM about me being a “social justice warrior” and blocked me before I could respond. Years later, I learned about pro-shippers and realized she was one of them. (She regularly shipped incest, abusive relationships, etc. and whenever I called her out for it, she used the “it’s just fiction” excuse.)

[@catdownthestreet]

I think you mean problematic shipper, not pro-shipper. Also, incoming ramble, I like to talk about terminology in fandoms and it really shows here lol. I want to discuss this with you since you seem like you might have some interesting insight into some of what I have to say. I hope you don't mind. :) Let's talk about the original meaning for pro-ship. Also, yes, I do know that this isn't the widely used definition for the term, hence why you used it in this context. But the original meaning matters more to me, so. Here goes. Pro-shippers just like ships and don't bother people for writing fics about pairings they don't care for. They ship and let ship, essentially. Doesn't mean they think criticism isn't allowed or anything- but being respectful of other people comes first and foremost, along with an understanding that ships are fictional and thus not always relevant to what the shippers like IRL. I'm a pro-shipper, by this definition. Anti-shippers are basically the opposite- they hate shipping, and they especially hate on people for writing about certain ships no matter how unproblematic the fics/pairings are. They can't understand that fiction is a tool that can be used to write about things that would be problematic IRL. They also can't understand the difference between writing about a problematic pairing, and writing a problematic pairing in a good light that makes it seem like a good relationship IRL. Antis conflate the two and assume that anything written about a problematic topic or ship is supporting that thing IRL. Obviously there's a lot of nuance and room for both to be true in some cases, but antis can't even understand that much and resort to attack first, ask questions/discuss later. They also mask their hatred towards other people as constructive criticism, when it's really not because it doesn't help the authors they're criticizing to improve or anything. Also, yes, not all antis are like this, but for the most part people who are antis tend to be this way, at least from my experience. Generally, the term problematic shipper tends to refer to someone more like that person- someone who ships a problematic ship. Unfortunately the definition of problematic has been muddied a lot in fandoms and is often used by antis and other shippers to bash certain pairings they disagree with, no matter how normal and, by definition, unproblematic, the ship is. I personally think the general definition of problematic shipper should be people who try to police other shippers for what they like/what they write about just because these people think certain ships are bad or something. As an alternative, dark shippers could be a potential term for people who ship incest, abusive relationships, etc., like what you're saying. But I don't have any control over what terminology people use in fandoms, I just want to suggest better words for the specific things we're talking about. If you like the idea and start using these terms as well, it might lead to more people using them and thus making things easier to discuss because we have proper terminology for the specific types of shippers in fandoms. But that's just me being optimistic. :) Also, while I do agree that "it's just fiction" can be a flimsy excuse for supporting dark ships, I think it's important to consider whether the authors who use that phrase are supportive of that kind of relationship IRL, or just writing about it because they can. Remember, preferences in fiction do not always equal preferences in reality. And just to cover all my bases, if the concern here is that impressionable people will read these dark fics and think those things are okay, the simple solution is for dark shippers to tag their fics properly and take responsibility by explaining that these relationships aren't healthy IRL. And let's be honest, most people reading these fics are already mature enough to understand that without someone telling them that. What do you think? Do these terms work in your opinion? Is there anything I could improve on? I'm open to discussion if you are. :D

[@catdownthestreet]

Oh- I just realized I only responded to the latter half of your comment. Whoops. I was suicidal myself once, so I understand. Unfortunately I don't understand suicidal thoughts being triggered by seeing the subject, even though I tend to avoid it in fics. I'm sorry you experienced that, and I hope you're doing better now. That person really should've tagged it properly, but she might've been too immature to understand why tagging and trigger warnings are so important. She was definitely too immature to respond in a respectful manner, so I wouldn't doubt it. Although I would consider that she might've been on the younger side (which, yikes), and thus took your comment in the absolute opposite direction of what you actually meant by it. You definitely didn't do anything wrong though.

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

"Tags are super important, label your shit properly so readers know what theyre getting into and can avoid it if they dont want to see it" is like rule 1 of proshipping. The story may not be real, but your readers are! I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, and that someone misused "proship" like that.

[@No-longer1]

The fact she was a 'proshipper' (or was she really? The shipping of certain characters does not make one pro-ship. You'd be surprised by the amount of people that justify shipping one 'problematic' thing and demonize an another one. It’s not indicative of their stance on the debate- or fandom drama, really, that’s more what it is.) and her taste in fiction has no significance on how she was dismissive towards you. She's not responsible for you or anyone’s triggers, but considering Wattpad’s poor tagging and filter options, it’s an unconsiderate behaviour and going into your dms is just cruel.

[@jonathangoodwin5609]

Personally, I believe there's nothing wrong with shipping things that aren't good, as long as you are able and willing to acknowledge how bad it is and how gross it would be in reality. But yeah, they definitely should tag their shit.

[@ionthezeraora]

ohh i got one i jokingly made a wattpad account awhile ago and decided to look at geometry dash fanfictions because 1. it's funny and 2. i was hyperfixating on gd (and i still am) the second most popular fanfiction was an nsfw oneshots book of other people's gd humanizations that was made completely without the original artist's consent. yeah it was. bad. one of the original artists was a minor too so that's even worse!! thankfully loafeebuns (one of the people who's humanizations were used without permission) asked to get that fanfic taken down and the author thankfully listened and removed it! still we were all pretty pissed that they would write that without permission

[@segasonicsega623]

geometry dash.... fanfiction?

[@ionthezeraora]

@@segasonicsega623 you heard me.

[@segasonicsega623]

@@ionthezeraora I've always heard the internet was a strange place..... omg i forgot the a wth

[@c0zmozys]

GD fanfiction as an idea is funny but if you really think about it it could be real cool if you think moreso the cubes are their own characters fightinng against stuff

[@ionthezeraora]

@@c0zmozys that’s. pretty much what i do in my gd universe it’s a whole thing and i would yap about it but nobody is gonna read allat

[@apollolewis]

Multi fandom one shots are the bane of my existence but I love crossovers in the same universe 😅

[@attooned737]

The absolute worst I've seen an author do is delete their entire library out of spite. They were already canceling all of their series because they weren't getting the numbers they wanted (after making a big deal about how they only write for fun) and then made a whole big speech about how lucky we were that they graced us with their writing but were clearly ungrateful since their stories weren't getting huge numbers as the chapters went on, so we don't deserve to read anything they wrote anymore. It was a really weird high horse they got on

[@aaal145]

I'm yet to actually start an account on AO3, but that's a pretty extreme level of entitlement. Especially since they said they only write for fun

[@depresso0423]

The one time i truly respected a fic that was mistagged was when it was essentially that fandoms equivalent of a rickroll. I was going through every single fic with a certain tag bc its my fav and BOOM! I laughed. I cried. I screamed into my pillow. Worth it.

[@catbatrat1760]

"it was essentially that fandoms equivalent of a rickroll" Can you elaborate on this, please? That sounds great!

[@depresso0423]

@catbatrat1760 the magnus archives. "Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to introduce myself." The mc in the podcast itself is tricked into reading it so fans have taken it upon themselves to trick each other into reading it/listening to it too. The fic was tagged as a time travel fix-it 😢

[@averyfields8183]

​@@depresso0423NO! DAMN IT! I GOT HELLO JON'D AGAIN

[@depresso0423]

@@averyfields8183 hehehe sorry

[@averyfields8183]

@@depresso0423 it's cool.

[@shiny_shadow_queen4283]

I'M GONNA MENTION MY OWN "What the fuck is this Author on?" THING! I'm in the Pokemon fandom and enjoy the Preciousmetal ship (Manga Gold/Manga Silver, but some people use it interchangeably with Hunter which is Game Gold/Game Silver) There was this one fanfic that I loved reading on FF that was very old, I would re-read it over and over as it only had like 5 chapters and was unfinished. Then, suddenly in 2020-2022, it starts getting updated! Yippie! Time to see more of my ship! But, without warning, or even an explanation at first, it suddenly becomes Mastershipping (Lance/Silver) and on top of that they made Gold abusive for no damn reason. Apparently it was because their ex who related/they related to Gold was abusive and they decided to do that for catharsis, which all fair and good if yOU KEEP IT TO YOUR SELF?? YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD AND FINE FIC FOR THAT! HELL YOU COULD HAVE DELETED IT AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FAIR! UGH!! I AM STILL MAD ABOUT THIS YEARS LATER!

[@zoranadraws]

It also doesn't help that a good chunk of people who ship Gold/Silver (in either contexts) have hcs that Lance is like a dad/older brother figure for Silver... And none of this was even tagged when the first update happened.

[@SilentProti]

Did you or anyone comment while fic was on hiatus? Maybe the author thought no one cared for the story after so long and that's why it felt fine to "ruin it". Also you made me remember I used to read a gold/silver fic where at the end silver came to as if time travelled to the first chapter, and in the sequel having lived that life he got together with gold quickly but out of the blue started cheating with an oc, like that was the main point of the sequel story and it felt so weird??

[@Cinnamonraisin_Bagel]

also sorry if im wrong but isn't silver a kid and lace a fully grown adult even in the manga

[@shiny_shadow_queen4283]

@@SilentProti Anxious teen + didn't have a FF account to begin with led to me not commenting, and I do not remember if anyone else commented. I remember FF was a little wonky with how you looked at comments so I never really cared to look at them ALSO I KNOW WHAT FIC YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT- THAT WAS REALLY DAMN WEIRD-

[@shiny_shadow_queen4283]

@@Cinnamonraisin_Bagel Last time I checked Lance is 19 at the LEAST when Silver comes into the manga meanwhile he's(Silver) 1 0.

[@KixCamelotMain]

I don't comment on ao3 alot, but one of the few times I did, it was to compliment an authors really cool metaphor they had written. They replied back with an "uhm... okay" response

[@K.KLovelyz]

I once read a fairly old mha fic (written in 2020) and I left a comment along the lines of "the difference between to and too is non-existent but other than that, great fic! Looking forward to more chapters!

[@Adachi69420]

mha fandom moment

[@montserratmarroquin400]

@@Adachi69420Nah it’s a bruh moment.

[@scifiwifi_]

Untagged smut, especially when it's nonconsensual, is the biggest one for me. Usually the people who do this are coming from other sites, but it's soo frustrating.

[@jonathangoodwin5609]

I encountered that once and it was especially bad cuz I was at work. Three chapters in, it suddenly starts getting slightly sexual, but not yet graphic. I had to leave a comment to ask them to let me know if it's smut and they should tag it properly so I don't accidentally read that shit at work. They told me that, yes it's going to be smut and I should have some class and not read mature fics at work. I had no way or knowing it was mature because NONE OF THE TAGS SAID SO..

[@deducetheworld4159]

I’m a lurker on most fics, never really commenting (mostly bc I’m autistic and somehow every time I say something it gets taken out of tone). But there was this one y/n fic set in the military and tagged military in accuracies which is like okay bet idk much about the military either and I’m a military brat. I originally wasn’t going to read it at all bc it was a reader insert and those normally throw me off so hard, but this one was awesome! They never had another character say “y/n” and the descriptions were to die for. I really fell in love with the characterisation of both the main character and the reader insert. Fast forward to 14 chapters in and they used “military time” wrong and it really broke my immersion. So I took to the comments on that chapter and saw nobody mentioning it. And this was a glaring mistake, they put something like 06:93 or something. So, bc I loved the fic and didn’t see anyone talking about it, I decided to make a comment. I didn’t want to be rude and rewrote the comment a bunch of times before posting it. I added small jokes to lighten the tone and everything and when I read it, it all sounded good. Just an explanation of how to use the 24-hr system, my own trick for remembering it, some jokes and some gushing about the story itself. The next day I get an email saying they replied to me. They said my whole comment read as condescending and that if I had really read the comments like I said then I would’ve seen another comment (on a different chapter about a different mistake) just pointing out the mistake and moving on. And then they said they had tagged it “military inaccuracies” so I should’ve expected it. And finally they said that I just shouldn’t read their story anymore. And I’m not gonna lie, that shit made me cry. Bc I was already so anxious about commenting and I really respected the author so it felt horrible to be taken in the wrong way. I sent another clarifying comment just saying how I never meant to be taken like that and was sorry, how I was just excited to share about the 24-hr system and that I wouldn’t comment anymore. It turned me off from the fic entirely even though I don’t think the author was a total asshole about it, they just really hurt my feelings

[@esmesa5642]

I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can't imagine putting in so much effort to correct an author in a kind and respectful manner only to get a rude response back.

[@agispaaa]

11:57 to defend the em dashes (?) this is how you format dialogue in books in other languages, for example in polish! so a dialogue would look like this in America: "What do we do for dinner?", she asked. "Dunno, I'm thinking about soup.", I answered, shrugging my shoulders. and like this in Poland: - What do we do for dinner? - she asked. - Dunno, I'm thinking about soup. - I answered, shrugging my shoulders. it's just a different way of formating! altho it's more common to use "..." in fanfics that - ... -

[@fritzy8318]

Ok? And. It’s hard to read sometimes

[@mariacuellar4764]

6:14 I admit that I do that, but because I express myself better in my mother language (I encourage the use of a translator for non spanish speakers at the very beginning, tho)

[@starlydonati2008]

I feel that’s fair. Though sometimes certain fic websites have some sort of copy lock that makes it impossible to copy and paste it into a translator. I don’t think AO3 has that problem though.

[@mariacuellar4764]

@@starlydonati2008 no, AO3 has no problem with that c:

[@insomniac_at5461]

Because you said to do whatever in the comments, here’s my favourite choc chip cookie recipe: 150g salted butter, softened 80g light brown muscovado sugar 80g granulated sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 large egg 225g plain flour ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda ¼ tsp salt 200g plain chocolate chips or chunks STEP 1 Heat the oven to 190C/fan170C/gas 5 and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper. STEP 2 Put 150g softened salted butter, 80g light brown muscovado sugar and 80g granulated sugar into a bowl and beat until creamy. STEP 3 Beat in 2 tsp vanilla extract and 1 large egg. STEP 4 Sift 225g plain flour, ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda and ¼ tsp salt into the bowl and mix it in with a wooden spoon. STEP 5 Add 200g plain chocolate chips or chunks and stir well. STEP 6 Use a teaspoon to make small scoops of the mixture, spacing them well apart on the baking trays. This mixture should make about 30 cookies. STEP 7 Bake for 8-10 mins until they are light brown on the edges and still slightly soft in the centre if you press them. STEP 8 Leave on the tray for a couple of mins to set and then lift onto a cooling rack.

[@idlegameplayer3756]

you're like matt rose but chill and with fanfiction

[@kavinaderrow3269]

So my autistic ass was like, "Here's a cool alternate spelling that's also canon." The author reported me to A03A-holes. 🤦‍♀

[@lilistuber4546]

The author isn’t an asshole if they do it I just feel like they are. But, when authors make one shot collections (either multi fandom or single fandom) and then don’t title the chapter after the ship makes me unreasonably angry. Like i’m not going to go through your entire 10-80 chapter work just to find works about the pairing i wanted to read about. Not every reader ships the same things you do. PLUS 90 percent of the time the chapters are labeled just not with the ships!! This makes me even more angry than if the author was lazy or didn’t know how to title chapters!!!!

[@TheBritishDragong]

Yes!! If I open a oneshot book and get met with chapter titles that don’t specify the ship, I just leave. Because that’s such a strange thing to do, and I can’t be bothered looking through all the chapters for what I came for

[@johngellare3507]

Worst one for me (I'm a gun nerd, currently working as a mechanic but going into the firearms industry), was when I commented on a story basically saying "Hey, the gun you named can't actually do what you said it did, because it doesn't have an auto sear, and it also can't have a sight mounted onto it without a part that shouldn't exist at the time". The author, for some odd reason, dedicated 90% of the next chapter's author's note to basically calling me a bad person because I 'triggered' her by giving an accurate gun depiction. I literally just name dropped two parts.

[@sailorpanda]

11:22 A while ago I was reading a fic that was updated weekly, but then one of the chapters was, out of nowhere, a really intense make out scene that was like borderline smut ???? It caught me so off guard and the rating didn’t even change after it was posted 😭

[@nathanjarrett728]

Fun fact relating to the first one. The author of Re:Zero, Tappei Nagatsuki, once did something similar in chapter 15 of arc 6, "Scattered to the Sand." It's a chapter infamous for its gory and detailed depictions of very disturbing deaths. He does include a content warning... at the bottom of the page... below the chapter.

[@kolibrispacestation]

8:10 reminds me of a fanfic writer i used to be friends with! they bounced ideas off of me and then one day just started to say everything i did sucked. then when i decided to start writing my fanfic with my HCs they said i was copying them because they included the tropes *i recommended* in their fic.

[@salcalı_tavuk_17]

As someone loves and writes dead dove stories, tags are everything! I want my fics to reach the right people, not to the people who are not comfortable with it. It’s terrible

[@ohshctrash1410]

12:37 oh my god I've actually seen this one in the wild and it's delusional. There is a niche tag that I enjoy, so I often have to sift through a lot of....well let's just say ships that don't meet my personal tastes, particularly in larger fandoms. I once saw a Haikyuu!! fic that was shipping two characters who are brothers, and i read the summary first before noticing it was that ship. At the end of the summary the author had a note about how it was a crack fic and people who actually ship that are gross and creepy and what have you. Like. I don't ship it either but if you write a fic for that ship, joke or not, you will attract people who like the ship. It's how life goes.