r/AO3

Does anyone else hate that term?

Not even because "oh, there's a giant monster here, we threw realism out the window a long time ago," but because... so often people say "it's unrealistic," but... the it is realistic, yk? People write "it's unrealistic", and when you ask them "why", they start listing stereotypes, myths about a given thing or they simply follow the logic "I don't like x, so the entire group of this gender/age/orientation/whatever must not like x".

"no one during sex..." and then at best this thing is "not recommended" but people definitely do it and saying they don't, at worst, spreads more lies instead of fighting them

"No queer person..." and then this is something that a lot of queer people do. I think what annoys me the most is when we're talking about a non-American character, but the person writing this thing is clearly American and trying to analyze the entire queer identity through the American experience.

"no woman/man..." and then... yeah... there are women/men who do that

same with pregnancies, children, and even some jobs etc etc etc.

Idk I feel done with that particular words

I’m so sick of seeing discourse online everywhere where people are acting like X readers are some new thing. It’s literally been around FOR DECADES. I never see people who read X reader focus and complain about canon x canon readers. I only see people who only read canon x canon act like they have moral high ground or a superiority complex bc they read only canon x canon.

“It’s self insert!”
“y/n takes me out of the story!”
“2nd person is UNREADABLE for me I need to be in the cuck chair!”

OKAY? YES! MOST (not all) x reader fanfic is like that, it’s just part of the whole trope. But if you don’t like that then just don’t interact? Don’t act like you’re better than people who do enjoy/write it?

I guess me being on the internet for over 10 years makes me realize how much it’s changed. I come from tumblr age/era where people wrote everything and nobody gave a fuck what other people wrote/read. I feel like COVID did this but I could be wrong. I just feel like I have NEVER experienced such discourse over what the fuck people read/write.

These days people are way too comfortable speaking out against fic writers in general (canon x canon or x readers, but I this post is ab x reader specifically sorry) but especially x reader I have seen get the most hate. And as a mainly x reader writer, putting myself out there gets harder and harder because you don’t know who’s going to act nasty toward you over the simple fact they don’t know how to keep scrolling if they see something they don’t like.

I should note that I haven’t received any hate but holy shit seeing people get torn apart for x reader specifically in my fandom on multiple sites is pissing me off and making me feel like the shoe is about to drop on my fic.

Edit: this has nothing to do with tagging? ppl keep bringing up well x readers shouldn’t be tagged in an oc etc YES I UNDERSTAND THAT. The hate I am seeing has nothing to do with this.

Has anyone else seen fics from authors that genuinely believe they’re posting into an algorithm, and tag like crazy to get ‘reach’? Most of these fics are just clickbait using the most popular tags, or one massive oneshot compilation from thousands of different fandoms. It’s tiring at this point.

These authors need to realise they’ll only get themselves blocked or muted for treating the archive like an algorithm, so the exact opposite of what they want. I think almost every author knows at this point, if someone wants to read your fic, tag it right and your audience will come. It might be a small audience, because you’ve written something that just has a small target audience, but your audience will come regardless.

No one will read your fic if they don’t want to. No one will pity read it. So if you mistag your fic to mislead readers into reading it, you’re just going to get muted, blocked or reported. You will never get what you want from tricking readers into reading your fic that they actually wouldn’t want to read if it was tagged correctly.

Im sorry but there are people in my fandom who completely ignore that one of the people in the ship is literally black, like... she's black and so many people just never acknowledge it.

I get it, maybe these authors are white so they don't know the nuances of writing a black character with black hair. They write things like her tanning and yes, black people (including myself) can and do tan, but this character is more melenated. They also have no idea how to write black hair - they let her shower and let her hair air dry and then they talk about her "running a comb through her hair" and getting ready to go to a gala event. Girl, it doesn't work that way.

You also can't set an AU in the 1970s and never acknowledge that one person in the pairing would have had a significantly worse time than the other.

And before people come and say things like "it's fiction", I know. I understand that it's fiction, it just irks my spirit knowing that majority of the authors in the fandom are white and they don't even bother to acknowledge that they're writing a character who represents and means so much to so many of us. Going into detail about the white partner's Scottish ancestry but not going into the Caribbean heritage of the black partner is just weird. Like, you're going to lengths for one and not for the other just seems pointed to me. I recognize that I might just be sensitive, but I also won't apologize for it because I have a right to feel that way when I see this constantly.

There's just some subtle nuances that can mean so much to black readers when we see it out in the wild.

I read a fic recently and the author made a brief mention of said character putting on a silk bonnet to protect her curls and omg, it warmed my heart and i had to leave a comment expression to the author how much that meant to me.

Anyway, thats my rant and I feel a little better now.​

Recently I got an interesting set of comments going through the chapters of my fic and correcting the typos and things a beta reader would usually catch. I’m curious what other people think because I think overall I’m appreciative, I told the commenter thank you and genuinely ment it, but it also felt a little weird.

I think they were just trying to be helpful but it felt like they were grading my fic like a teacher. Maybe I should be grateful, free beta reader for my fic, but I didn’t ask for help or anything. I know typos bother some people more than others, and since I usually can ignore them easily I might not understand this person’s perspective. I’m curious if people see this as helpful or rude.

As of right now I’m choosing to be thankful and obviously fix the mistakes in the work, but I’m sorta dreading their next comments. I can’t help feeling embarrassed but I’m sure that’s a me thing :/

I just posted my fist ao3 work and I got 5 kudo's already. I'm quite happy someone took the time and read it. When I was a kid I used to write my original work on wattpad, but then deleted it because I felt anxious about other people's opinion of my work. I'm glad I have grown. Now I am able to post without feeling that scared. 😄

https://preview.redd.it/l8e8ewk8xg2h1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=0901c7ae11d68c2ca4191b5b09067b2100963b79

before i start, i wanna say this is VERY MUCH a ranting post. i think the situation i was in is a bit... unique... compared to other cases of writers getting harassed offplatform.

this is gonna be a loooong post so theres a simplified tldr at the bottom.

content warning for discussions of sexual harassment and extreme parasocial behavior.

ok so im an author on ao3; shocker, i know! a solid majority of my writing isnt porn, its mainly just gore and the occasional angst. however, under another pseud, i have 3 fics rated E. one of which being very much a fetish fic. its very blatant in its content, as i obviously tagged it. now, this fetish is a rather stigmatized one online, despite being ultimately harmless, its been like that since ye olden days of deviantart cringe comps. on a large video-based social media platform im on, being accused of having such a fetish is enough to get you "cancelled" and ran off the platform.

i make sfw fandom content on that social media platform (horrible mistake, i know), mainly edits and memes. i wouldnt call myself popular by any means, i do have a small fanbase but its not large enough to call me a niche fandom microcelebrity or anything. and, quite frankly, i like it like that. i can have fun and post whatever without the terrifying downsides of having a massive fanbase watching your every move.

or, at least thats what i thought. i had this one follower who seemed weirdly obsessed with me. im not gonna go into the "hows" of it, it was just typical parasocial fan behavior, like constant unwanted dms and insistence that we were friends despite very much not knowing eachother. now, in a perfect world, i wouldve blocked this person right here and there. however, im not a perfect person. i worried that i was just being overly anxious and paranoid due to negative past experiences with people (in general), and that they were just being an innocent, if a bit overexcited, fan.

aand then they found my ao3. ding ding ding, all of that was just a prelude! just mere context! the appetizer before the meal! they make a story post (a temporary post that autodeletes after around a day) tagging me, the contents of which being fetish art, similar to that of the one i like, and a "cheeky" comment about how i liked content like this. now, obviously a bit panicked, i did the bad thing and gave them the reaction they wanted; going into their dms and asking why the actual fuck they did that. they iterated that they found my ao3 account and joked about the kinkfic i wrote.

now, ive had people dm me in the past over that fanfic. its jarring and a little scary, of course, (i feel like a kid in the principals office whenever i happens) but most of the time those people always ease me into it and have nice stuff to say. yknow, compliments about my writing they couldnt put in a more public space, which is good. typically just a "i saw your kinky fanfic. im normally not into that kind of content but you wrote it so good. thank you." thing, and then we never speak of it again. so i thought, on some level, the parasocial fan would also never speak of it again, and itd just be caulked up to "wow i didnt know you were into that ok i see you kinda differently now". i am remarkably naive, though, i guess!

they did not stop. they did not "never mention it again". what they did was pivot their direction on how to get reactions out of me. sure, i still got random spam dms and mentioned in "were besties yaaay" posts, but i also got mentioned in a bit more than just that now. fetish posts, more specifically inflation/blueberry stuff. now, theirs nothing wrong with those fetishes, theyre the siblings to my fetish so itd be weird to have any sort of moral superiority over it, theyre just not my cup of tea. though i can see how someone would come to the conclusion that id be into it. besides, regardless of what im into, i dont want to be randomly messaged/mentioned in the comments of fetish content on my sfw platform.

at that point, i knew i shouldve blocked them long before, and i shouldve blocked them then too, however i still couldnt bring myself to do it. they had "dirt" on me ("this person has a weird fetish!"), and i worried that if i blocked them theyd get mad and start showing people my fetish fic as revenge. thats embarrassing in general but, like i said earlier, that platforms userbase has a very specific hatred for that fetish, deeming it disgusting and enough to justify harassing someone. so, regardless of how uncomfortable it made me, i figured i had to just power through and not give them attention. surely, theyd have to get tired of a literal brick wall of a person soon, right!

they didnt. and then they did something that finally made me put my foot down. up until then, they had only mentioned me in fetish content either on their story or the comments of related videos. i wasnt happy at all with it, it was embarrassing, but i deemed it not enough to pitch a fit over. stories autodelete in a day and nobodies going to care enough to sift through the comments of some random blueberry fetish video. and then they posted a video (or, well, a slideshow.).

in all honesty the slideshow was rather "tame" in its contents. it was just some weird little inflation-related tierlist with the characters from the fandom im in. but they tagged me, front and center. and people. saw. it. people i knew as acquaintances or were otherwise fans of myself. i was mortified.

i politely asked them something along the lines of "i really dont like this and ask you to stop mentioning me in content like this". they fired back that i shouldnt be uncomfortable due to it because of the content ive made. i reiterated that i didnt like it and was being serious before, in a flash of clarity and realization that i had free will, blocked them.

im taking a break from that platform atm, and working on my writing since i no longer feel so observed over it.

"so, whats the point of all this?"

well, aside from the human need to vent my frustrations to strangers on the internet, i find the nature of which i was treated and how it was justified by the person to be quite disturbing. finding sexual content i made and then using it as ammunition to sexually harass me (because, quite frankly, i find it to be sexual harassment. it was harassment of a sexual nature, of course!). its also quite disgusting how sexual harassment online is deemed as an okay thing to do, as long as the person has a fetish and theyre being sent fetish content. it feels kinda like slutshaming or something.

but uhh, aside from all that, i wanna know if anyone else has had similar experiences. because i know people do sometimes get harassed for their fanfics, but i dont think ive ever seen someone get sexually harassed like this over it.

i also wanna know if i should add an authors note to the 2nd half of the fetish fic (its a two shot) once i finish it, clearly setting the boundary that i thought was already common sense of "please do not bring up my nsfw word in sfw environments, and do not constantly dm me about it". would that be good, or would it just feed the weirdos?

tldr: posted a fetish fic. parasocial fan on my sfw social media decided to sexually harass me for it, using content they believed id be into. wanna know if others have had similar experiences.

I know it's reasonable to be uncomfortable by the contents there. I, myself have been uncomfortable too, e.g. lolicons, shota, graphic noncon, etc—some more of that stuff, which is what I usually put to exclude in the tags filter when I'm searching for fictional stories

But its pretty annoying seeing these people complain about people's fetishes or kinks. So what when an author likes piss? I also saw people in twitter trying to cancel someone for amputation fetish.

Now they're trying to boycott or whatever. Funny thing is that ao3 wouldn't even be affected one bit.

Vanillas, please go back to wattpad

[Edit: The last sentence was a joke. It's absolutely okay being vanilla, but the problem is when you go around telling people they're a disgusting human being for something you can't handle. Surely it's obvious what I meant back there haha]

Do people know what asexuality is? I’m writing an asexual MC. He has sex fairly often, for various reasons. Readers keep asking me “But how can he have sex if he’s ace?” I’ve always thought being asexual means not feeling sexual attraction (or feeling it very rarely). But so many people seem to think it means Can’t Have Sex. I mean, I’m ace myself and for me it’s lack of attraction. But a lot of people seem to think my character isn’t ace if he’s having sex. I’ve had people tell me guys can’t be ace, as if being able to get a hard-on means they’re automatically not asexual. But women can be ace ‘cause, well, it’s different for girls. I mean, really? I’m going to keep writing my guy as ace regardless, but it’s just so irritating that people think this way. Has anyone else who writes asexual characters run across this?

No hate to any authors who are doing this of course, I am simply very confused. Honestly it's getting annoying how often I'm seeing it. I'm aware many are just new authors who are learning, but too many of them are just people who think ao3 is an algorithm and will get more hits for it or do it so that "people who only read completed works will read mine since idk when it will be completed or if I will." (I've seen that like general consensus in a few notes) Idk it's odd to me.

And I'm just seeing this like a LOT recently. Yes I'm sure you guys can guess one of the fandoms I'm talking about, but like since that went mainstream ig, I've seen it happening in other fandoms I'm in. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a nice long completed work, and I see one that's 50k+ words but then I'm on the last chapter and it's clearly not the end and I'm left so confused bc there was no indicator for it being a wip. Not even a heads up from the author in a note or anything and now even tho it's a good read I don't want to bookmark. Ik, ik, it's petty, I am a petty person sometimes. We all have our flaws or pet peeves that make us back out.

I would never leave anything but support and praise on a fic tho. It's not a big deal, and while it is a huge pet peeve of mine it's not something I think is super important in the grand scheme of fandoms atm. The authors aren't hurting anyone, except maybe themselves.

Idk I'm just annoyed by this uptick bc half of the "completed" (especially long) fics I'm reading aren't completed. I actively see them constantly get updated. Again no hate to anyone, I'm just annoyed when I'm looking for new fics and I thought I read yours but now there's 16 chapters instead of the 11 I thought, and I'm seeing 10 other "completed" fics I read constantly on the first page bc they're getting updated bc they're actually not completed.

I just wanted to rant about this, maybe gain some other insight or see if anyone else has noticed this.

I sadly don't have friends in fandoms so it's not something I have people to talk to about. I know I've said this twice now, but I really don't want people to think I'm hating on anyone. This isn't a don't like don't read, but I read it anyways situation. I don't have any issues with wips, I love supporting them! I just want to know if it's a wip or a completed fics 😭