Hey so this is really random, but I've seen you talk about bookmarks in fan fiction, and what to not put on them. I was just wondering if there are any other etiquette rules when public bookmarking? Eg if someone is tagging an NSFW ask with thirst/appreciation, if there's any sort of personal tag that can be annoying for an author to read, if there are other things authors would prefer not to know.
Disclaimer: I can only speak for myself, this is only my personal opinion, other people have different preferences and boundaries, etc.
I think the most basic rule of responding to fanfiction and fanart across the board -- whether it's comments, bookmarks, Tumblr posts, or Tweets -- is that you should never respond in a way that you wouldn't want someone to respond to you, you should always err on the side of being TOO earnest and kind, and you need to remember that you and the writer do not know each other (unless it's someone you do know).
The problem with commenting or bookmarking or tweeting about how [X] fic is a 7/10 is, A, that metric means nothing -- there is no rubric for what it takes to be a good fic, and even if there were, your taste (editorial you) is not subjective -- and B, it's fucking rude. People are sharing their fic, or their fanart, with you because they love a thing you also love and they are communicating with you about that love. Grading them on their love is cruel.
Grading fics, whether on the A/B/C/D/F scale or the 1-10 scale or whatever, is never, ever actually providing feedback. It's just being mean for the sake of being mean. It also suggests that you view fandom and fanfiction as a hierarchy or a competition and not as a community, which is against the whole spirit of the thing.
And even if you (editorial you, not you you-you) are one of the people who looks at my first "guideline" and says, "But I would want people to be honest about my fic's Quality, and it's weak sauce not to be able to take criticism," then here's the thing: "7/10" is not criticism. It tells the author absolutely nothing about your actual response to their work, it just says "this was mediocre, bye." Like... okay? What about it? And why do I care what you think? What are your qualifications to grade my writing?? And do you understand that fanfiction is written, 99.9% of the time, without significant editing or drafting and is pretty much never totally polished?? Because it seems like you don't know that and therefore, again, why should I care what you think??? Rude!
I have genuinely never seen anyone respond to a fic with so-called constructive criticism and actually be saying anything worthwhile about writing craft. Editing is actually incredibly difficult and that's why it is a full-time, highly skilled career that takes a lot of dedication and education to do in a meaningful way. It's also something that happens BEFORE a work is finalized.
For fanfiction, if it's posted, it's finalized. Going in with suggestions, unless they are VERY SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR IN AN AUTHOR'S NOTE, is both pointless -- the story/chapter is done -- and most of the time, frankly just... not helpful, because most people don't know how to respond critically to a work without confusing "literary criticism" with "being critical" and "editorial comments" with either "personal preferences" or, way worse, "prescriptivist grammar policing."
(And that's FINE! Most people don't NEED that skill! I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that anyone shouldn't be allowed to have preferences or suggestions or whatever for the fic that they read, and I'm not bashing people who don't have that skill. It's a niche skill. I can't do long division. That's not even niche.)
IF you ABSOLUTELY MUST give unasked-for critique, then the ONLY thing that you should be concerned with doing is providing actionable feedback that is concerned with the text as it actually exists, not with what you wish it had done or think it should have done or are pretending that it did. But you know what's way better than leaving unasked-for critique that is 100% guaranteed just to bum someone out and ruin their day, and possibly their whole experience in your fandom?
Just find another fic to read and let whatever you didn't like in the first fic roll off your back like water off a duck.
And if you TRULY CANNOT DO THAT, YOU MUST let the writer know that you don't think their pacing was good, or whatever --
You wouldn't walk up to a stranger on the street and say that you didn't like their shirt. You COULD tell your best friend that. If you really want to have an impact on someone's writing and you ABSOLUTELY MUST tell them how to change it to better suit your personal taste, then put on your big-person pants and message them privately about how you love their shoelaces and make a friend. And then, eventually, they will probably ASK for your thoughts on their writing. Because that's what writers do to their friends. But no one ever wants to make friends with, or consider the opinion of, a stranger who just ran up and was rude out of nowhere.
And if you read a fic and you REALLY HATE IT and you CANNOT CONTAIN YOUR HATRED and you HAVE TO LET SOMEONE KNOW HOW MUCH YOU HATED IT -- my pal, my buddy, that is what private conversations are for. That is not the author's business. That is not Twitter's business. That is not Tumblr's business. That is your Salt Friend Susan's business, and you can shit-talk that fic in private to Salty Susan as much as you want. I'm not saying you cannot have fun being salty about fics you hate. I'm saying you absolutely should never do that in any place that the author could conceivably see it.
Like, I have dunked on "reylo fics" as a thing on my blog, but even at my MOST unhinged anti-reylo, I have never publicly shit-talked any specific fic, author, or fan. Because that's just fucking cruel and there is NO purpose to it besides making someone feel bad. And if you are SO INCENSED that you MUST MAKE THE AUTHOR FEEL BAD then not to be glib but you need to close AO3 for an hour and slowly drink a glass of cold water, because no, you do not need to make an author feel bad. There is never a reason to do that.*
*I'm not talking about troll fics that are intentionally tagged incorrectly or that are intentionally racist/transphobic/antisemitic/anti-Black/etc. The only rule for responding to THOSE fics is "block and report, do not personally engage the troll, protect your own self."
And then the flip side: when you're responding kindly and excitedly and squeeing and AFLSLGSKGLSGLSGDSGL; about a fic, the main thing to remember is that you and the author do not know each other (unless you do) and that they can't read your tone over the internet. If you're not sure how your message comes across, make it nicer and kinder, and then send it. Err on the side of being TOO earnest and kind. That's always better than thinking you're sending a squee comment and accidentally ruining someone's day anyway.
Example: a few months ago someone commented on one of my fics, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever read!" And I was like... okay? Did you have to tell me that? I don't need to know that you're saving it to laugh at or something? Fucking rude??? And I think I wrote back, "Fucking rude???" and they wrote back and were like "OMG no I meant that I loved it and laughed so hard!!!" and it was like... just... say that then? I don't know you, I don't know your language patterns, and there's no way to infer tone from a written comment. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever read" does NOT read like "I loved this." Just say "I loved this."
And in terms of responding specifically to smut and thirst asks... idk. *MY* opinion is that I never want anything more detailed than like, "that was Not Gross and I enjoyed it," but I'm also a giant prude and almost never write smut anymore, so my opinion is very different than someone who runs a thirst-ficlet blog, probably. But I feel like the general stance of, "if you wouldn't say it to a stranger on the street, don't say it to a stranger on the internet" is a fair rule of thumb.
I don't want to know that some random person in the movie theater has a boner any more than I want to know that someone wanked to a smut scene. That's not my business.
But again, my opinion is likely to be very different from someone who runs a thirst blog and is intentionally TRYING to elicit physical reactions. But still. One of the worst comments I've ever gotten was like ten years ago someone said that they thought of a scene I'd written while they fucked their husband and I'm like, scarred. I don't know them. I don't know their husband. I didn't write it "for" that. I... ablsa;hdb;lsn;l;
So all in all, tl;dr, remember that writers are people, they're strangers, and they're doing fandom to participate in a community about a thing that they love, not necessarily to get better at writing and DEFINITELY not to get told by random strangers that they didn't love something correctly.
