Sorry if this sounds rude and/or demanding, but what are the "rules of fanfic?" I have been in the community for a while, but have only learned from osmosis and want to make sure I'm doing it right.
There arenât really any set-in-stone rules, just common accepted behavior that the wider fandom community agrees on through practice. The issue is that different fandoms, and in this case different fanfiction sites, have different standards of behavior and itâs annoying to see people not adjust their behavior when coming to a different site. Â Most of it is learned through osmosis like you said, but some people need it spelled out.
- Donât steal shit - Art or fic. The post i made earlier was inspired by seeing a fic where the author said not to repost their work on another site without permission, than admitted the fic featured art they stole from google images. Super hypocritical. Donât do that.
- Donât copy other peopleâs fics - âInspired byâ does not mean tell the exact same story beat for beat with only a few minor changes to detail and word choice. This has happened to me twice now. Insert Doofenshmertz meme.
- If you want to write something inspired by someone else, ask first. Itâs polite.
- Donât beg for updates in the comments
- Donât advertise your own work in the comments of someone elseâs fic
- Donât write sexual comments on nonsexual works
- Donât talk about ships on a gen work
- Donât leave criticisms the author didnât ask for
- Donât ârequestâ what authors should write in future chapters. Speculate what might happen sure, donât demand it.
- Donât make posts/send messages fishing for someone to write/draw your idea for you, like âfeel free to use this idea ;).â Â If you want it so bad, either make it yourself or commission someone.
- Donât bother with that read-for-read stuff. There are discord servers and such to advertise your work, donât demand attention from other authors, then get upset when they arenât interested.
- Donât shame/guilt trip people for not reading your work.
- Donât make a fic on ao3 thatâs just âlooking for a ficâ or âfic requestâ or the like. There are plenty of other social media platforms to ask people for help finding something specific. Doing it on ao3 clogs the feed.
- Speaking of clogging the feed, donât tag every single character who happens to have a speaking line or cameo. The tags are for people trying to find stories that feature the character in question and itâs annoying to have to sort though things where they only appear once and have maybe two lines. Stick to the ones who matter in the story.
- Be diligent in tagging other things. Not just potentially triggering topics. Do research and learn what tags mean and when they are warranted. Unlike wattpad, ao3 doesnât have an algorithm so tags matter more than anything. Â They let people find what they want to see, and block what they donât.
- Donât tagscum, aka stuffing tags that donât/barely apply in order to get attention.
- Just donât be an inconsiderate jerk.
Thereâs also a decent tvtropes forum discussion with these points and others if you want further reading:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=14350378750A28171600&page=1
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