#hateful ao3 comments

[cinder46231]

I don't know if I handled this correctly so I'm turning to here to help me decide. I received this comment on one of my fic today.

And I responded to it with this.

I just want to know if I took it too far because I didn't really put many tags on the fic, only these

So maybe it was my fault?

[bardofavon]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

[cilil]

So today I got a rather unkind comment on AO3 (one could call it hate), but I believe it to be a bot for several reasons:

Guest account, but username attached

Said username exists but person is unlikely to be reading Tolkien fic (according to their Tumblr and AO3, they are in other fandoms)

Two grammatically correct sentences

Super generic text that could apply to any fic:

"I've seen better fanfiction written by a toddler. Get it together!"

I'm curious, did anyone else get comments like this? Let me know.

And to those who have gotten rude comments and are now worried/upset: Maybe it was just a bot too. Either way: You're awesome for putting your writing out there for others to enjoy and you don't deserve to get rude comments for it. If you want feel free to message me to compare cases and discuss details :)

[erinwantstowrite]

the duality of comments i get gives me whiplash sometimes. cause i'll get a really nice very sweet comment from people, then i'll get needless feedback that is like. if i wanted you to critique my work i would have asked for that. and then i'll get a comment like "you should kill yourself" and i'm just like. if i wasnt an adult and/or wasn't in a good headspace can you imagine the repercussions that would have. if i had gotten these types of comments when i was a teenager i don't think i would be writing right now. people get real brave when they think things are anonymous. anyways you don't know what people are going through and maybe, just maybe, think before you make a mean comment or critique without permission. if you're leaving any other kind of comment then you're already doing 10x better than that and making someone's day

[borealing]

Question for fic writers!

[zer0-thehero]

Which ship do you guys prefer and why?

Comment down below! :)

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

Oh no, unwanted hate disguised as constructive criticism! Whatever shall I do?

Ooh, ooh! I know: I don't care. Get a life, and I hope your pillow's always warm on both sides.

[pokemon-radical-red]

I hate it when I headcanon a character who’s canonically a girl as a trans man and make ships of him and a character who’s canonically a guy and I refer to it as a gay/mlm/guyxguy/whatever ship and someone gets mad. Like omg let trans people have FUNNNNN. Why are queer headcanons and genderbends cool until they’re saying that the character is trans???

“OMGGG you’re so misogynistic I can’t believe you would erase FEMALE representation!!!”

and like half of the characters in the franchise are women, and a total of… NONE of the characters are trans men. Also, my headcanon doesn’t change the source material. If my stuff upsets you, you can block me and go engage with the source or maybe every single other fanwork, since mine is the only trans man hc for this character that I’ve ever seen.

or when people are like “WTF??? this is so transphobic!!! how dare you imply that a character who looks like that could be a trans man?!?! do you think that trans men are women or something??? she uses she/her, and you’re misgendering her!”

No, I don’t think that being a trans man makes you a woman or vice versa. That’s why it’s a headcanon, and the headcanon is that this character is actually a trans man and not a woman at all! You’ll never guess what pronouns most trans men had to use at some point in their lives, and you really won’t like it when you find out about pre-(or no-)transition trans men… or trans men who are in the closet… or trans men who don’t know that they’re trans yet.

“But the character is a kid!!! Saying they’re trans is sexualizing them.”

I’ve seen this one from other queer people. Like did you miss when all of the homophobes said this about your identity, or do you think that bigotry is only bad when it’s directed at you?

“Why would you say ‘testosterone could fix her’??? Are you trying to call her a delusional woman?”

Why would your brain even go to that first? This literally has to be a bad faith reading, because there’s no way that someone could see what I said and get this unless they were specifically looking for something to be mad at me for.

(Note for anyone unaware: “Estrogen would’ve fixed him!” was a meme going around at the time I said this. I’m not sure if it’s still super big, but this was a joke to the effect of that.)

“So girls can’t be tomboys anymore? You just wanna trans everyone?”

This is like actual real life transphobic rhetoric. This isn’t even just shitting on my headcanon, but in fact, sending transphobic hate to a trans man. Thanks 👍. Maybe you should go send JK Rowling another message about how much you loved her essay instead of bothering me.

[shadesofbrixton]

you know all those tumblr posts that are like "it's okay to comment on old fics" i wrote a 56k post-canon Firefly fic for NaNo in 2005 and i just got a comment on AO3 that's like "This fic is only a few months younger than I am." and i am having a MOMENT about it, holy shit.

COMMENT ON OLD FICS. THIS SHIT MAKES MY LIFE.

[deliajackson]

PJO ≠ Greek Mythology

I can't believe I have to say this but I swear by the gods, the next time I see a pjo fan saying "the gods can be easily overthrow. This is canon on riondanverse and in greek mythology" or "yes. Mortals, specially demigods can win a fight against the olympians and easily defeat them. It happend on greek mythology. So it is plausible for Percy overthrow Zeus." I'm gonna riot.

You want a story where Percy takes down Olympus? Ok! There may be fics on ao3. You want a fic where Zeus is taken out of his crown and someone else takes his place? Fine. There may be fics on ao3 with this premise. I may hate this take, and I won't read it. But if you like, go ahead.

The riondanverse barely scratches the greek mythology correctly. The Gods are marely réplicas of the tales of Old. They dont match with their myths - since Riordan basically blanded one myth on the other, or created a few himself. - The PJO Gods are not a source for greek mythology, they dont properly represent their importance, much less their complexity, nuance and power.

So stop. Just stop spreading misinformation about Mythology - which u know nothing about if you are saying those things - or using it as a basis to your takes.

The Gods, the Olympian Counsil cannot be "easily" overthrow in any possible way. Using the idea "Zeus did that with Khronos so it is easy" is literally absurd. Zeus is a God. He has always been a God. He was born a God.

Only a God can fight another one and win. And a mortal - including demigods - can only harm a God with divine help - which usually is Athena's helping them. - No God can overthrow Zeus powerwise, let alone a mere mortal (Im looking at you, Epic fans). He is the King of Gods for a reason. That is a fact in greek mythology.

But if you want a good idea of "dethrone Zeus" trope acordding to Hesiod, there was a prophecy one of Zeus children would be the one to do it. When Zeus learned about it, he pushed a Khronos and devoured one his pregnant wives, Métis. Athena was still born from his head though.

Do you know what he did to Athena? Nothing. She is his favorite kid. He kept doing it? Also no. He never did that again. And all his god children were welcome in Olympus. Even Dionysus - who was born a mortal and ascended. Even Heracles, who became a minor god.

+ the "overthrown" of Zeus wouldnt happen. Zeus is - according to greek mythology - the fairest of the kings. I dont care if you don't like Zeus because for your modernized view on ancient tales "he is evil". He is a good king and that is a fact in Greek Mythology. You like it or not. He is not a tyrant. And he is not considered a Tyrant in mythology either. Another reason for one of his wives be Themis - Justice.

By the end of the day, getting out of Myth and going into their philosophy and theology.

The Gods are literally a representantion of the Cosmos and natural law. They are not "beings with too much power". Hades is the underworld. Poseidon is the nature. Zeus is the heavens. More than that, Zeus is the one who brought harmony to the universe - the oikos. Without him, everything we know about crumbles.

And Zeus children are the parts of human society. The pillars of "civilization". Apollo is art and healing. Hermes is communications and commerce. Athena is strategy and warfare. Hephaestus is technology. Ares is conflict/war and bloodthirsty. And there you go.

All the Gods represent the "good" and "bad" aspects of their domains. + They also reflect the human nature. That is why they are "flawed". That is why they are way more complex in the myths. Why they make good and bad decisions. Why they sometimes are kinder, why sometimes they are crueler.

Overthrow the Olympians mythwise? Would be the end of the life as we know of. The end of civilization. If there would be human life by the end of it.

Stop saying shit u don't know about only to support your takes on a greek-american fanfiction written by an American man.

[otrtbs]

*me responding to ao3 comments with the same attitude and tone the original commenter gave me instead of ignoring/deleting/blocking*

"i'm in my evil era"

[gingerswagfreckles]

Great I just totally blew up at someone online who did not deserve it at all bc I completely misunderstood something and now I want to kms.

[starchaserdreams]

The thing about being an adult and living alone is I can do LITERALLY WHATEVER I WANT with my space so yes I am going to print out AO3 comments and put them up on my fridge

I'm like a 2nd grader with an art project lol

[cowboylikeyouu]

i made a pretty angry post about people not commenting on fanfics (and it wasn’t even about my own lmao i‘m perfectly satisfied with the amount of comments i get) and some people get too offended by it:

the same person told me to "not say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say" btw !!!

i could’ve been nicer in that post yes and i might take it down, but i was civil & polite in the comments so why can’t u?

[glitter-stained]

Some of the posts I see here y'all gotta stop seeing fanfics as "bad dc takes". Like, it's perfectly fine to not like a trope that's popular in fanfic, but you gotta stop seeing it as character meta is what I'm saying. Fanfic writers are not canon writers, they do not owe you canon compliant, and you don't get to assume that what they're writing comes from a place of ignorance when there are so many reasons to include/not include something in your fic.

Like, allow me to use my own fics as example since they're the only one I have background info on the knowledge and motivations of the author:

-I wrote a fic with Lazarus Rage in it once. Do I know it's not canon? Absolutely. Do I think it's necessary for the understanding of Jason's character? Not at all, I think canon Jason is more interesting without the pit rage. I just wanted to write it once because it looked cathartic and you know what? It was. It was super cathartic. I wanted to write a story about the progression of a depressive episodes and using pit rage to talk about the feeling of loss of control with intense anger issues and sensation of loss and deep self-hatred afterwards, and i thought writing this is gonna feel good and it felt good, for me and for the readers.

-I'm also currently finishing another fic, in which I've simplified Tim's relationship with Jason's a lot (basically Tim is still haunted by Jason's ghost and Dick is still his favourite Robin but the victim blaming is much less intense and there's an intense, genuine admiration for Jason and happiness to get him back). Is it because I hate canon and its complexity? No, I love it, I love when character relationships are fucked up and they make a mess. I'd love to explore that in a different fic, even have the prompt already. But I'm writing a really intense fic about trauma, taboo and lack of communication around sexual abuse, and there are so many characters pov and things happening and I have to do this right because we're talking about things that happen to real people and not being accidentally insensitive or sending a shit message is more important to me than perfect canon compliance, and it's just not the place for it. This story isn't about tim, and it's not about victim-blaming. It's a fascinating can of worms to open, but I'm not gonna open it if I don't have the space to deal with it because I'm not gonna let worms roam freely all over my fanfic when I can choose not to include the worms in my story, because it might rely on base material but it's still a finite story that exists within its own scope because I'm not a comics writer, I'm a fanfic writer and my story doesn't exist as a pure extension of the comics and I don't owe you canon compliance. And how boring would that be if we could only write canon compliant stuff! No more coffee shop aus, no powers aus, fantasy aus, no more non canon ships between characters that hated eachother until the day they died (but had so much sexual tension)... Fanfic is not one single entity that takes place in a simplified version of the canon universe complete with consistent lukewarm tropes and watered down understanding of characters. Fanfics are rich and diverse and yeah canon compliant is great and i want more of it but the universe is so much wider and that's what makes it rich! Do some people write fanfic and also don't interact with or know canon? Sure, plenty of them. Does that fanfic reflect their opinion of canon? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You don't know that. In the meantime, people are still creating extra content and enriching the fandom experience and if you don't like it, genuinely, the filter tags button is right there. That's not to say there are no racist or classist or sexist tropes in fanfics, but again that exists within the scope of that story. Bad writing exists in canon, and it exists in fanfics, and sometimes a story is canon compliant with a terrible message and sometimes a story is canon divergent with a terrible message and pushing away everyone who writes things that aren't canon compliant is not going to fix these issues in the dc fandom. Telling people to "not write the character at all if you're going to write them ooc" assumes your understanding of what is essential to the character is perfect and The Right Way to interact with a fandom and it's patronising and not only do you take the risk of looking like a moron the second you make a mistake, it is actual gatekeeping and the reason many people find getting into comics/fandom intimidating in the first place. (And it also shits on the potential of AUs like dark reflections, mafia etc. Of course Mafia Bruce who kills people is deeply ooc. These stories are still fun and it's not wrong to write them!)

"This story really should have addressed that thing that happens in canon" did it happen in the setting of the fic? No? Then shut up and let the fic tell its own story, it doesn't have to "address" anything it doesn't have space for. Again, don't like don't read is a thing. Fanfic enriches the fandom, it doesn't take away from it, but you know what can? Canon writing. I'm way more concerned with what dc is having batman represent nowadays than with fanfic I haven't read because I knew I wouldn't like it.

TLDR: It's understandable to be upset when people who don't interact with canon material at all try to assert their opinion on canon as the truth, especially if they call any attempt at disagreeing with the mischaracterization gatekeeping, but that doesn't make you immune to being a gatekeeper. Assuming you know a writer's knowledge and opinions on a character because of that one fic of them is naive and a misunderstanding of what fanfic is. Fanfic writers are still real people who give you cool stuff for free and you don't have to like it but you still have to be respectful about it, and all that negative energy you spend on rants about "bad character and" you've read in fanfics would be so much better spent on bad canon writing because these people do have the power to fuck your favourite character over and they do owe you canon compliance, and with the amount of effort some fanfic writers put into their fics compared to some of the writers who get payed to write canon, you guys could stand to be more respectful about fanfics.

[lynx-224]

guys!! first (somewhat) hate comment on ao3 i’m so proud of myself

did i eat in my response yes or no