This is probably a mistake to ask, but...
Based on responses I get, it feels as though my experience with fandom and the sorts of responses I get on my fanfics are very different than many other's.
I don't kid myself in thinking that I have never written anything "problematic", but across the almost 10k comments I've gotten on fics in both popular and super niche fandoms, I've never faced anything I would consider even approaching harassment, and I have virtually never received "how dare you write this"-esque comments. I have received negative comments, including some really wild ones, but none that resemble the sort of thing people keep telling me is ubiquitous.
I believe that people do receive those, but I've never been sure what leads to their experiences being so different from mine.
Is it that specific ships and specific fandoms bear the bulk of this? Is it that it's happening more in fandom spaces outside of AO3 where there is a lot more direct back and forth? Is it that somehow the negative comments I receive are different because the people harassing fanfic authors have decided I am a poor delicate fawn and/or so terrifying they don't want to cross me?
I'd appreciate if people can not respond with just "evil people harass people because of purity culture" because that's not what I'm asking. I am specifically trying to figure out why there are apparently such disparate experiences of being a fanfic author on AO3.
I don't know if this will help, but I was harassed in 2007 on FFNet by a mob of "Mary-Sue killers" for--you guessed it--writing a Mary-Sue OC.
After being told my character was a Mary-Sue, I asked for clarification, definitions, examples, but I still didn't understand because it didn't seem to fit what they were saying. The story was a work in progress and I had plans that I hadn't gotten around to writing yet. After a while, I just decided to ignore it and continue my story. So not everyone would like my story. Oh well.
They wouldn't get the hint that I just wanted to complete my story in peace after I hadn't gotten any sort of satisfactory answers on what the heck Mary-Sues were, or give me any decent advice to make my story better, and they kept coming back chapter after chapter, not just to tell me my story sucks, but telling me to delete it, to give up writing, and to kill myself.
My story was added to a community collection for "Mary-Sue" stories.
Later, I discovered my username on someone's profile page in a "Wall of Shame" list, encouraging other people to harass me.
Then someone copied and pasted my story on their live journal with their own snippets of commentary intertwined throughout MST3000 style, mostly calling my OC a whore that they gloated about in my reviews, linking back to it. The funniest thing was my female OC had a male OC twin brother, and he wasn't being called any derogatory names or really even referred to as much (as far as I can remember).
After months of this, and 19 chapters in, I called it quits and deleted the story.
Yeah, it was a bad story, and, yes, it was a bit of escapism fantasy that may have been tailored to only me, but say you don't like it and move on. Don't gather a mob or keep coming back. I'm completely supportive of constructive criticism, but no one deserves to be told to delete their work, to quit, or worse. Seriously.
(Sorry; I ranted.)
I didn't quit writing for any amount of time because I had another fan fiction going in another fandom and wasn't getting harassed on that story. And I'm sure it was just as horrendous as the first story.
But, no, I wouldn't call this a normal occurrence. I've never had this happen again, even after more than fifteen years anywhere, even on FFNet.
If you want my two-cents, at least as to why FFNet is vastly different than AO3, I think it's mostly due to vague rules as to what is considered "constructive criticism" and "harassment" along with there being not enough people to moderate a large site, so when harassment isn't being handled in a timely manner, it can encourage others to hop on, not because they think they aren't breaking any rules, but because the rules don't seem to be enforced. Kind of like the Broken Window theory. I'd also like to add that while FFNet users can now delete guest reviews (I couldn't do that fifteen years ago), they still can't delete signed-in reviews, unlike AO3, Wattpad, QuoteV, and just about any other writing platform I've ever been on, which would have curbed the harassment I had received.
Despite what had happened, I still enjoy being on FFNet, and with it's PM system, I had very pleasant conversations with people beyond the initial reviews, even with those who didn't necessarily enjoy my stories.
But harassment on AO3? I'm sure it happens, but unless users aren't using the options available to them, such as blocking users, limiting their story's viewability to registered users, moderating their comment section, and filing detailed reports of their harassment, I can't seem to understand how things blow up on AO3, except if it started on another site, which the AO3 PAC team can't do anything about--you'd have to go to that other site and file reports if it breaks the TOS.
After typing all this up and rereading your original post, I may have deviated from the answer you were hoping for. If you want more details from my experience, or if you want to talk about this more, I'll more than welcome a private discussion.


















