[preachingfandometiquette]

𝔓𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔉𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔪 𝔈𝔱𝔦𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔢

⏾ : Ask Me Anything: My asks are open to anyone who may have questions about something or just wants to send some kind words. All I ask is that people be civil and patient.

⏾ : Why I Made This Blog: I honestly just really needed a place to complain about how much I hate seeing the lack of fandom etiquette these days, but I thought that maybe I could do some good by talking about it publicly. I feel like a lot of fandom discourse, wether it be about fanfiction, fanart, or general takes is easily preventable when people practice basic fandom etiquette.

𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔓𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔰

Fandom Etiquette 101: ⏾ : OH NO! Someone posted about something I don’t like! What should I do?

Answering Your Questions:

⏾ : Problematic OCs

Reblogs I’ve Added To:

⏾ : AI in fanfiction

⏾ : Monetizing fanfiction

⏾ : Fanfiction writer curse

[frevlover]

I want to post things on wattpad or ao3 but I'm afraid of the authors curse

[preachingfandometiquette]

A lot of people, myself included, make jokes about the fanfiction writer curse, but they're just that, jokes. We’re all human, and sometimes bad or crazy things happen to us. A lot of writers use their author’s notes to give life updates to explain why chapters may be delayed, which is why it may seem like bad things are always happening to us. Also keep in mind there are tons of normal author’s notes, only the crazy ones get screenshotted and reposted. The truth is, those things would’ve probably still happened whether we wrote fanfiction or not.

[preachingfandometiquette]

But there is a big difference in making movie characters because its a job and for other people to watch. No reason to like making characters like that for no reason.

Is there, though? Everything I said in my original response, I still stand by.

Just because someone isn’t getting paid for their art doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to create it. People can do things as a hobby and don’t need to have a reason for it other than that they enjoy doing it. Most artists I know do it for personal enjoyment, and some of them have no desire to turn it into a career because they like having it as a hobby. Also, if someone’s posting their work online, even if it’s for free, then isn’t it still for other people to view? Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be posting it and would keep it private, so that argument doesn’t really make much sense to me either.

Screenwriters didn’t just wake up one random morning and decide they wanted to do that as a career and get magically granted the skills to do so. They started as people writing stories and creating characters in their free time because they enjoyed it. Which means there was a period of time where they were writing things like villain characters for “no reason,” aka, personal enjoyment.

[overdueagood8hoursofsleep]

You know what I don't understand? Shittalking a community and tagging the community in the post shittalking it. Aside from it being rude, it also just shows your ass completely. Congratulations, you've showed everyone that you're a fool. You did the equivalent of getting up in a person's face and yelling at them, bullying them, when you could have just... ranted about this with your friends in the groupchat? Kept a journal? Kept it to your own blog, even?

You look like a goddamn idiot. It's just so obvious by your maintagging and how you're saying everything that you're not really trying to have a productive discussion, if at all. You're only doing this to pick a fight, to um, actually-, to have a gotcha! moment, to upset the person you hate. It's for schadenfraude. It's to feed your own ego because you have nothing better or more meaningful or fulfilling to do. You're not actually trying to get a message across, you're not trying to share your thoughts, or opinions, or feelings - you just want to feel correct. You want to feel superior. Otherwise, you would actually take care to meet the community where they're at and calmly explain your thoughts.

And yes, I know I'm essentially vagueposting. I know I'm complaining about this person complaining, but the difference is that here, I'm actually following tumblr etiquette, and I don't care for picking a fight with the people I'm ranting about. Seriously, it's exhausting, stressful even. I don't know and don't understand how people can do that even once in the day, it's so draining! Wouldn't you prefer to get a drink of water, or treat yourself to a nice snack? Enjoy something you like?

While thinking about this, I thought about complaining about something from the show that bothers me, but... honestly, just getting all these words out has calmed me down enough already that I don't even feel like it anymore. Yeah, I still don't like that other thing, but who care right now? I have a baking stream to watch.

Maybe I will write it down and post it later, but for now I have to figure out how to tag this.

[elismor]

How to Fandom

Step 1: Be nice. Step 2: Do whatever the fuck you want so long as it does not conflict with Step 1.

[charles-smith-pillow-princess]

quick tip from someone who has been in fan spaces for 20 years: being enthusiastic about your rarepair and making your own stuff/engaging your fellow rarepair shippers will ALWAYS work better than yelling at people who enjoy a more popular ship about how bland their ship is

[preachingfandometiquette]

I get the whole keep scrolling when you see stuff you don’t like thing but at the same time I can’t just ignore artists who make problematic ocs.

When you say problematic OCs, do you mean characters that are bad people/have done bad things? (I apologize if I am misunderstanding your ask, anon.) If so, that would imply it’s bad for villains to exist in stories.

Every fictional character ever made is the creator's original character, which means every villain ever created exists because someone sat down and decided to make a “problematic OC.” The killer in a slasher movie is someone’s OC, but that doesn’t mean the creator condones murder in real life or wants to hurt people. If it’s fine for books, movies, and video games to have villains in them, then why is it a problem for an artist who likes to create characters as a hobby to also create villains?

Some of my favorite characters in media are villains, and I personally would find media quite boring if every character were some perfect little goody-two-shoes that does no wrong. I also really enjoy writing and drawing villain OCs because I find it a lot more interesting to work with those sorts of plots.

If you think it’s wrong for people to make OCs that have done bad things, then just don’t create or consume content with characters like that. You’re allowed to have an opinion, but don’t send hate to artists and writers because of it. If someone hasn’t done anything to cause real-life harm, then I don’t think they’ve done anything to warrant receiving hate or harassment.

Follow up response

[meanao3thoughts]

a feel like the new generation of fanfic readers NEED to understand that clicking on a fic (interaction) does nothing. ao3 has no algorithm. your private discord discussions of fic do not reach the authors. if you do not actively engage with writers they will stop posting. this isn’t social media this is community.

[willgrahamscock]

the most essential part of a fandom are those people who immediately tell you to write it, draw it, make it when you share your ideas, you have no idea how many fanworks are born just because someone encouraged it

[msbluebell]

Blocking is your best friend on Tumblr.com Ship you don't like? Block the tag. Can't handle political news? Block the tag. Some hater saying shit about your ship and calling you toxic for shipping it? Block them. Someone vauge posting about this thing you like sucking? Block them. You will have so much better of a fandom experience on here if you just block things. Blocking is your best friend and critical to your own mental health on here.

[sncrlynwtms]

fandom etiquette as a whole died when people who didn’t grow up on fandoms became stans during lockdown, yes, but why am i seeing people openly mocking fics on twitter. why am i seeing screenshots of fics with captions like “bro what is this 😭.” why am i seeing people mock fic writers for not knowing how sports or theater or college or any other organization operates in the real world.

“college is absolutely nothing like this” “why are we writing four people on the team scoring a hat trick in one game” “so tech work is nothing like this, hope that helps!”

if you don’t like a fic, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough to enjoy a fic that exaggerates or ignores real-world orgs, you don’t have to read it. you don’t have to screenshot it and put it on blast for twitter. you don’t have to post a link to it in the replies. the back button is literally there on your phone. it’s not giving baby’s first fandom anymore, it’s giving entitled asshole and it isn’t as cute as you think it is.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

if you leave this kind of comment on any fanfic writer’s work or if you think this shit is okay and isn’t the reason more and more writers are choosing not to share their works with your entitled ass for free anymore, you should be ashamed of yourself.

if you suspect a fic is ai and if that bothers you, quietly close the tap and leave the fic. no one forces you to stay.

[despairreblogs]

And don't do that either:

If you (general "you") create this kind of collections you aren't helping anyone, you're just being rude.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

the irony of people like this thinking they're fighting against ai when all they actually do is harming and tearing apart writing community and innocent writers. at this point they're harming the community more than ai does

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

I’m not a fan of ai, but I can accept that if someone chooses to use ai for their fics or their art, that is their choice. not something I agree with. but still not my business, and I will never condone harassment.

if anything, I think it’s better if these people feel comfortable enough to tag their stuff as ai, so that other people can avoid their works if they’re not comfortable with ai-generated contents.

that said, I think ai writers will stop tagging their stuff as ai entirely if people shame or harass them for it.

so now their stuff is still ai, just untagged, meaning there’s no way for others to know if it’s ai.

keep in mind that speculation, accusations and witch hunt harm genuine artists and writers as much as ai does, if not more.

so if you go to the “ai-generated” tag on ao3 just to harass people for using ai, just know that you’re not actually fighting against ai — you’re just being a bully and you’re also making people more wary of properly tagging their ai-generated works as such. so you’re just making sure they no longer tag their ai-generated stuff as ai. also you can be reported for harassment, and ao3 will not take your side. (whether or not you like it, ai-generated works are allowed on ao3, whereas harassment is not.)

the “ai-generated” tag on ao3 is there so people can either find or avoid works with ai (but in order for it to work, ai users must feel comfortable enough to be honest and tag their works properly, that won’t happen if people keep shaming and harassing them for it — the only thing harassment will do is make sure ai stuff go untagged, harassment doesn’t stop people from using ai).

the “ai-generated” tag is not there so that you can freely harass people with no consequences.

[preachingfandometiquette]

I was going to make a post about this topic, but honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. So infinite kudos to this user!

I hate AI-generated content with my entire being. Not only do I think it ruins creativity, but I hate what it’s done to the planet and society, and the lack of regulations on it in my country is appalling to me. Seeing AI content honestly annoys the hell out of me, but like this user said, if you harass people, they won’t stop using AI; they’ll just not tag their posts accordingly. I love being able to filter tags, but as I always say, tag filters can only work when people tag their stuff properly. As someone who wants to see as little AI-generated content as possible, I’d really like for people to tag their work as such so I can avoid it.

[preachingfandometiquette]

Just so we’re clear, me telling people to filter their tags is also me telling people to tag their shit properly. Tag filters are great, but they only work as good as people are willing to tag their posts.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

be kind and respectful to fanfic writers

be kind and respectful to fan artists

be kind and respectful to people in your fandom

be kind and respectful to people

[himaalaayaa]

KEEP 👏 SHIP 👏 HATE 👏 OUT 👏 OF 👏 THE 👏 SHIP'S 👏 TAG 👏

[ofishal-fish-posts]

This is your daily reminder that while it's ok to bitch about blorbo from someone's shows, you should tag said posts with the anti tags. It's polite. If someone asks you to tag your post with the anti tags, you probably should.

If I see a post like the one below, I will personally send my fish army after you.

Example of a post that attracts my fish army:

Man, I hate blorbo. Blorbo sucks. Blorbo is a big dumb dumb and anyone who likes blorbo should go die in a hole. #blorbo #blorbo from your shows #your shows