I am genuinely sick and tired of people bringing up AO3 whenever they’re talking about literature or bad writing.
1. You cannot generalize the entire site of AO3. I GUARANTEE most people have not read nearly enough on the website to do that. Writing style and quality is highly dependent on fandom, so if you’re seeing bad writing, you might just be in a fandom with a younger audience/new writers.
2. Fanfiction, while being wonderful, amazing, etc, is NOT PUBLISHED LITERATURE. It cannot be compared to published/ original literature. I can concede that you can compare the ‘Original work’ fandom tag, but it’s a lot like comparing the works of a creative writing group to published work. It’s just not comparable, and also just discouraging.
3. Hobbies (which is what writing Fanfiction is, a hobby) have their own standard, and they have it for a REASON. Because hobbies are for fun. And it is not fun to have your hard work devalued, looked down upon, and criticized without you being in the space to receive it. The reason published authors are able to receive open criticism without the need for their consent is because the criticism made by readers is not FOR the author. There are spaces for authors to receive criticism for a reason. Fanfiction as a whole is not the same. There’s a reason it’s against fandom etiquette to leave criticism under fanfics.
4. It’s just stupid, and not encouraging to say that.