#Cultural Commentators

[neil-perrys-suicidal-tendencies]

REBLOG POSTS❗❗ COMMENT ON FICS❗❗COMPLIMENT FANART ❗❗LEAVE LITTLE NOTES IN THE TAGS❗❗ BOOKMARK FICS YOU LIKE❗❗ TELL AUTHORS WHAT YOU LIKED ABOUT THEIR FICS❗❗COMMENT ON DECADE OLD FICS ❗❗ADD YOUR OWN ANALYSIS IN LONG POSTS❗❗ENGAGE❗❗ INTERACT❗❗ BUILD A COMMUNITY ❗❗

While people don't work for engagement, it certainly doesn't do any harm..

[majoringinsarcasm]

DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON OLD FICS DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON FICS IN A FANDOM THE AUTHOR MAY NO LONGER BE ACTIVE IN. IF THE STORY IS STILL UP LET THEM KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IT MIGHT JUST BE THE REMINDER THAT MAKES THEIR DAY.

SINCERELY SOMEONE WHO JUST GOT A REPLY THAT MADE ME WANNA MAKE THIS POST

[maniacalshen]

Remember how LiveJournal let you have several icons (or avatars or "pfps" as you might call them now)? And you'd carefully choose an icon to fit the subject matter, your tone, and the blog on which you were commenting or posting?

And it could make your argument look that much snarkier if you used a rude one? Or you could use it to add a multiplier to a joke?

And icons, alongside banners and wallpapers, were a whole genre of fanwork with its own design language, conventions, and norms, including carefully crediting people for them?

That was neat.

[marsipain]

Norwegian Mikus :)

Left is Miku as a russ and right is Miku in a bunad!

[letteredlettered]

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[musicianfiend]

The Beastie Boys' Journey of Innovation and Influence

Share the story of the Beastie Boys' enduring legacy and their impact on music and culture. Join us in celebrating their genre-blurring music, empowering messages, and commitment to social change. Discover their inspiring journey in this must-read book

Formation of a Legacy In the heart of the tumultuous 1980s, amidst the vibrant chaos of New York City’s underground music scene, an extraordinary chapter in the annals of music history was quietly unfolding. It was a time when hip-hop’s groundbreaking spirit was simmering in the streets, and the city’s boroughs were primed to become the birthplace of legends. Little did the world know that it…

[cochineal-leviat]

"Our dear party celebrate after acquiring the third orb to unlock the House of Dormont. Their location? A tavern. It is a night to drink your worries and sorrows away. Hopefully, they will be able to relax before continuing their formidable journey.

Unfortunately, the booze has more unintended consequences than the group had considered. Especially on their new roguish member."

This is my first ISAT fic (that I have finished), and I am so stoked to share it with everyone! I also drew a comic with it because I was so excited about the story. This is definitely one of my best comics yet. I have been experimenting with panelling, and I am getting the formula down now after much trial and error.

I had a lot of fun designing Siffrin's clothes under the cloak (I even drew a reference for it in my sketchbook). I love designing clothes <3. Especially tunics. It seems a little too fancy for Sif's tastes, but I am chalking it up it being a gift from someone from a long time ago rather than something Siffrin would buy or get on his own)

Please enjoy~!

*Edit*

I decided to continue the comic because of the overwhelming support I received (o゜▽゜)o☆. The link is under this paragraph.

Part 2

(Also, there are no spoilers for the game itself! Except for the ending notes of the fic, but I will place a warning there)

Different coloured pages without text under keep reading

Initially, I worked with different shades of grey for anyone: Siffrin has violet grayscale, Isabeua red, Mirabelle yellow, and Odile Green. But I ended up putting a black-and-white filter on it for unification. Please let me know if you guys prefer the 'coloured' versions more or not, and I will change the comic pages into the OG colouring. The purple for Siff is giving, but I am unsure if it is too noisy.

[comfort-character-central]

"self shipping is cringe" ok who cares "shipping urself with characters is weird" ok don't care "I would never self ship" ok good for u "I could never post that idk how u do" well good thing ur not me so

[buried-in-stardust]

A tea "gangster"

This is the gongfu method of brewing tea (功夫茶藝):

刮沫 (gua1mo4) Rotating the tilted lid around the outer edge of the cup to remove foam

搓茶 (cuo1cha2) Rotating the lid around the inside to press on the tea leaves and release their fragrance

搖香 (yao2xiang1) Putting the lid on, then tilting and turning the whole cup to let the excess spill out

入海 (ru4hai3) Pouring out the tea (first onto the "tea pet", then after refilling, into teacups)

蝶舞 (die2wu3) Turning over the saucer and place the cup on top

(There are more steps but OP didn't do them)

[margaretkart]

The failure of Greek myth retellings

This is a personal rant about how I, as a Greek and mythology lover, view these modern retellings and how they came out more as a disappointment.

Here are some examples of forced labelling from the book sites like Bookreads:

Do you see a pattern? Is not only they are telling the audience rather than showing how "feminist" are these retellings but also..

Man vs woman

According to the retellings all ancient Greek men are bad, sexist, misogynists, worthless, abusers and women are girlboss ✨. But it's obvious that humans regardless of gender are complex beings.

But when you read the Original epics you realise that women have as much importance in the story as men. But not in the way you are used to...

The women aren't afraid to speak their mind, they have agency, they are a driving force the admire, but it's not with shields, armor or physical strength. They are also showing it with kindness, empathy, cunning but also with anger, sorrow, vengeance.

Penelope, Electra, Antigone, Ariadne, Andromache, Helen, Cassandra etc. ARE strong women! They don't have to go to battle to prove it!

BUT that also doesn't mean we should glorify the women who are abusers and do wrong things!

Clytemnestra for example, exiled Orestes, had her daughter Electra a slave, showed proudly her Trojan women (also slaves) and killed Cassandra an innocent woman.. Do i understand how and why she acted? Yes 💯. Does this justifies her actions ? Of course no.

Medea, killed her brother and her children, and also poisoned Jason's next wife and her father because "she wanted to make him suffer like her". Do i understand why she did it? Yes. Does it justify to have everyone suffer because of one man? No.

Hera, punished several women and men alike because she couldn't do it on Zeus (because he is the king and stronger). Is cheating bad? Yes. Does it justify her to punish someone who was obviously a victim or was powerless against a god? No.

The retellings:

fail to do complex characters.

fail to let the audience come to their own conclusions who's right, wrong or neutral.

They fail to make daring characters without be labelled on a modern stereotype.

Fail to understand the norms of ancient Greece and how they shaped these stories.

Fail to realise that men and women are more complex than modern stereotypes.

I am not against retellings but do better! Making a great retelling respectful to the source and having complex characters with quality reading would be deeply appreciated.

And to the readers to not rely on retellings as "faithful resources".

[yellowocaballero]

There's a genre of post that I see pretty frequently, which can overall be summed up as, "Modern fandom has a culture problem where fanfic authors are treated as content producers instead of community members and their fanfic is treated as a commodity to be consumed instead of a high-effort labor of love that deserves attention and compliments given directly to the author". I agree with 3/4ths of that. I find the part I disagree with very interesting, the same way I find a lot of writeblr interesting, because it's a perspective that I had to work very hard to actually understand.

Because the posts have such a warped view of what writing is and why we post our writing! They say that fanfic fights against the commodified internet we live in, but all they're doing is changing the currency of payment in this attention economy. Another way you can summarize about 70% of these posts is, "My payment for writing and posting my fanfiction is compliments, and if you do not give me those compliments you are not paying. If you give those compliments behind my back, or talk about them privately without giving them to me as well, then you are stealing from me." I don't want to put it like that, but a lot of these posts use words like 'deprive', as if the reader who enjoys the fic without commenting is withholding something from them that they deserve. They use the word engagement, and they do talk about how part of that engagement is just the joy of talking about AUs and ships with other people, but when people say that comments are their motivation to keep writing, what they mean is that validation is their motivation to keep writing. Which is compliments.

I understand that, because I understand that fanfic writers are not immune to the attention economy. But I don't understand how almost every one of these posts talk about how this lack of attention makes them stop writing - that this act of theft is killing their desire to write. I could understand this if they meant 'desire to POST fic' (I don't post fic I think zero people would read.), but they talk about how lack of payment stops them from writing at all.

IMHO, that is what creates a commodity from fic. People want to treat fic as art, but an artist makes art for themself. Art is made because we want to hold parts of skills and ourselves in our hands. If you won't make art if you get no payment, then you have devalued the art completely.

We think of AO3 as this unique site that's born entirely from passion and is filled with fics written for love of the game. But guilt-tripping posts that shame people for not commenting on a fic they enjoy, and that describe how there's no point in writing fic if it's not getting attention, are directly contributing towards the culture of treating fic like a commodity.

I also really want a fandom culture where the relationship between artist and reader is reciprocal, where it feels like a community, and where I get to talk about my fanfic with people. My favorite part of posting fanfic is rambling about it on my blog, because I can talk about my art all day and I love it when people stop and listen. But I love that because I love my own art. If you love your own art, then it'll always have value.

Also Google your username, just trust me, that's how you find The Secret Discussions. Someone made a TikTok fansong of me once. WHAT?

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[coline7373]

How to comment 101

A fandom is the subculture inherent to a group of fans. It touches anything related to the field of predilection of such a group of people and is organized or created by these same people. And, like everything that comes from people, it is alive and requires exchanges to continue to exists.

People who receive no comments have often and at length express how lonely it can feel to be shouting alone in the void and how discouraging such silence can be.

I have found after asking around that readers aren’t unwilling to comment, but mainly don’t have the energy or know what to say.

Some readers have also expressed a fear of annoying the author, as they are clumsy with words, or feeling intimidated in front of an author who has such a talent with words that the reader's own words feel too embarrassing. Or not feeling that their own five word sentence is worth the bother.

Every word matters.

Every comment is worth its writing to the author.

I refer you to this post if you doubt the importance and impact of comments on fanfics.

To help those willing to comment, I have done a very modest survey of roughly 20 persons, writers and readers alike, and here is what I have come up with.

For writers:

Write in your notes, at the end of the fic, clearly what type of comment you do not want. 

Clearly stating your limits and preferences helps readers who are uncertain or not very verbose to write in a relaxed way.

If they do not have the anxiety of offending, vexing or annoying the author, they will be more comfortable and therefore more inclined to write.

If you have repeated commenters, try to reply to their comments, even with just a few words. Some people who do not receive replies to any of their comments take the lack of response to mean the author is not reading comments at all, feel discouraged and stop commenting in turn.

If you do read the comments, but don’t want to reply for whatever reason, do say so at the end of the fic, in the notes, so that readers know what to expect and not be disappointed.

For readers:

Do:

About the story: 

You can write about a particular line that you liked, the themes, parallels with canon or within the story, the characterisation, a character’s exploration, a/several character’s motivation, a/several character’s mindset/thinking/emotional reaction, a/several characters’ interaction, the plot, the action happening, the worldbuilding, emotions within the fic, subtext, pacing...

If you liked everything and are overwhelmed on how to narrow it down, you can just say exactly that. “I loved everything!”

You can also focus on pointing out just one moment, one line, one specific thing and why you liked them, specifically. What matters is not that you wrote a novel but that you communicated to the author what made you happy, what you enjoyed.

About you: 

What emotions the fic made you feel, what you think is going on in a wip or what you (think you have) figure(d) out, what you are doing in real life while reading the story, afterward, because of it, and/or how the fic impacted your life (yay! motivation to make art!), how the fic is meaningful on a personal level because x, y, z, what it made you think of, like another fic, a book, a song, a movie, what subject/fact it prompted you to discover more of…

How: 

You can write an essay, a prose, or some serious, meaningful, impactful words but you can also joke with the author as long as you stay mindful or polite. A lot of authors have said they love when people make jokes or break the fourth wall. 

Unsure about your sense of humor? Here is an example: do not write "I hate you! How could you do this to me!” Write "How could you do this? The betrayal! die offscreen.”

Making a parody of what is going on with the characters with a few lines can be funny! Keep it positive. Not everyone has the same degree of sarcasm. But levity and good humor are always welcomed.

Small fics vs longer fics:

Emojis, keysmashing and incoherent yelling are very often correct comments for small fics or drabbles. (Unless otherwise specified.)

They are also loved in longer fics, (unless otherwise specified,) but people who have been writing a story for literal years appreciate you taking at least five minutes to say a bit more than that.

Try to go through all the “about the fic” and “about you” points above, methodically, and choose just two or three of them. Then write just one sentence per point.

If you really don't know what to say, look at other people's comments. Sometimes, you will recognise something you liked too or that you thought was really good. It can help and be the starting point of your own comment.

Long WIPs:

For long fics that you follow while they are being written, people have said they have at first a lot of enthusiasm for commenting, but find it harder and harder to know what to say as the number of chapters accumulate, and so does the number of comments they feel obligated to give in turn.

Please, keep commenting! Love keeps the writers motivated and helps creativity. It’s like shouting in the void and getting a high five back.

Even one line about something specific (a dialogue bit, a reaction, a plot maneuver) can make an author happy.

Writers are not really looking for length or details. They are looking for care. If you read something you liked, just point out what you enjoyed. That's engagement enough. 

Comments aren't really about the act of a compliment. They are about the shared joy of a fandom or a ship or a character. 

Example: “'X character diving headfirst into the sea like that is so like him!”

It’s good. It’s fun. It’s nice.

Some people have said to “save” a chapter, give a kudo and say “looking forward to reading this when I have time!” and wait until they do have time and energy to comment more at length, sometimes two or three chapters at the same time.

It let the writers know their fic is still being read. You just have to be mindful to not let months go by, otherwise, it goes back to leaving the author the impression they invested hours, weeks, months, into something no one interacts with. You can alternate strategies, lengthy comments, short comments, and commenting on several chapters saved.

If all else fails, go back to the tried and true. Choose one of the points above, choose just two or three of them and then write just one sentence per point.

If you are not a native speaker:

Google can help with the bare minimum. It's not great, but it lays the foundations. Write what you think in google translate and the translation will help guide your answer. You can always ask for help from someone else or warn the author that the fic’s language is not your native language, if you are unsure if your words come off in a tone not intended.

At the start of your comment, say “I am not a native speaker”.

Do not apologize. It’s not necessary. Just provide context. Use your words. Be clear.

Remember: 

The writer isn't what they write. They do not necessarily headcanon what they write, nor do they necessarily approve of it in real life. Be mindful to not approve or disprove of x, y, z going on in the fic as if they do. You do not know that.

It’s not about the length or the wording or the quality of your comments. Of course authors love that. But what they love most of all is to hold hands, jump up and down with you and squee and gush about the fandom, ship or character.

It’s about the sharing of the joy.

Don’t:

Do not ask for another chapter and for the author to finish a fic.

Do not threaten the author to put their fics in an AI if they do not finish the fic.

Do not say "I didn't like it" or "I liked but not that" or "It would have been better if x, y, z." If you want to talk about what you didn’t like, whether it’s part or all of the story, discuss it with willing friends. The author is not responsible for you reading something you didn’t enjoy (how it made you feel) and persevering.

Do not “offer” to correct typos, grammar, vocabulary, facts, canon facts, characterisation, ect. unless you know the author and know they are fine with it or they say so explicitly in the notes. 

Do not make demands. Do not.

Like that tumblr op said, “this is not the bespoke zone.” This is off-the rack. If the free suit is not to your liking, look for another free suit rather than demand to speak to the manager for "adjustments."

Tags are not owed to you. Ao3 is not a safe zone. Not everyone agrees on what degree of content merits each tag. Or what qualifies for a tag. So, if you found a fic that was more angsty than you expected and it broke your heart, comment on a part that was good and didn't make you sad, without saying you want a happy ending to the angst fic that was written for angst purpose. Off-the rack, remember?

Exemple:

"I found x,y,z to be upsetting. Would you consider tagging it?"

Vs "Your work is totally x,y,z triggery. You ought to tag it."

Vs "Hey, you do know some people find x,y,z, triggery, right?!? Because they do! So tag it!"

One of those answers is correct. The others aren't. No demands in the comments.

Your emotional well being while reading fic is your responsibility. If your expectations have been disappointed, do not say so. Talk about a point that was positive for you. If your expectations have been exceeded, do share!

Also, if you're mad, I have found that it helps to write your comment, leave it to decant, and wait a week or so to see what it looks like when you're in a different emotional mindset.

Some elements of fics can be very upsetting unexpectedly. It is not the responsibility of the writer to answer that. Nor comments are the place for it.

Once some time has passed, if you still want to talk about it, try to communicate in a way that is neither demanding nor negative. If you can't, talk about it with someone who is not the author.

My own personal opinion:

It can be so easy to focus on the fic and your own inner imaginary garden/cinema, that we sometimes forget to switch from "inner life" to "outer life" and exchange actively with people on both sides of the fence.

But it can also add so much more to the experience <3

Clear communication is always good. Even if you disagree. At least you know where you stand.

Say thank you. Fanfics are a gift. You have been given one. Say thank you. 

[cicaklah]

when I say every day I mean you can't remember the last time you didn't get a kudoes email.

reblog for sample size and to maximise wank over how I'm insisting on there being an e in kudoes

[destinationtoast]

Hello! I keep hearing that fandom culture has changed, and there are less comments now than there were years ago. Have you noticed this in your analysis? Is the percentage of comments being left today lower than before?

Hey! Thanks for the question -- it prompted me to start collecting data about comments (after procrastinating on it for a while, because I had to write new code to gather comment data). I've also seen other discussions from folks also thinking about how to do this kind of analysis (like in the fandom data projects community) -- hopefully we'll end up with multiple people attacking this from different angles and getting a variety of data about comments!

I'll give a sneak preview that partially addresses your question and contains some good news. If we look at the fraction of AO3 works that get at least one comment (focusing just on one-shots for now), I think things have gotten better over the past decade on AO3*:

In other words, it tentatively looks like more works were getting at least one comment in 2024 than in 2014 (for a variety of time periods). One caveat, though -- if a bunch of works with no comments got deleted in the interim, there will be survivor bias here. I'll try to look into that possibility later. Another caveat: this is based on only like ~100 randomly selected works from each year -- this may all change with more data!

Another interesting tidbit: I still see some of the 2014 works getting comments. In fact, ~30% of works have gotten new comments over 5 years after they were posted, and it looks like ~10% of one-shots posted back in Mar 2014 got a new comment in 10 years later, in 2024.

I'm still doing other analyses; there may be other factors that better match with the discourse around how comment culture has changed. It could be that comment activity peters out faster now than it did back then, for instance. Or the total number of comments left on the popular works is less now than it was back then (though my current methods may not be able to capture that). Edit thanks to quick eagle-eyed readers: it's likely that some of what people are thinking about is ratio of comments to hits -- that is hard to compare in 2014 to 2024, because we don't know which hits came from which years. But I am working on some analyses along those lines. :)

If you have other hypotheses about what's changed in commenting culture, feel free to share! I'll look into what I can.

Some methodology notes:

*I've been tackling this by comparing AO3 one-shots posted in early 2014 to one-shots posted in 2024, and comparing activity in the days/weeks/months immediately after the works were posted. (To start with, I'm only scraping the first page of comments for each work -- meaning the first 20 comment threads -- so there are lots of comments I'm potentially missing for the really popular works. But for many works, this captures all the comments, and I think it may be sufficient for a lot of the analyses I am interested in.)

I'm choosing to focus on 2014 vs. 2024 because 2024 is close to now (but it's been long enough for comments to have settled down a bit), and 2014 was well after AO3 was established (thus it was already a pretty lively time on AO3). I don't want to collect data about every single year because it's too time intensive/too hard on AO3's servers. But if people think that I should be looking at different years, I'm interested in feedback.

Because it's only been ~10 months since March 2024, I am limiting a lot of my analyses to only look at commenting activity the first ~10 months after works were posted in both cases.

[the-bar-sinister]

So, I ran a little experiment with my drabbles the other day.

Unsurprisingly Ship A "most popular ship in a popular fandom" gets the a ton of kudos and hits.

Interestingly, the one with more hits is rated explicit, while the one with more kudos and fewer hits (a better hits to kudos ratio) is rated teen, soft confirming my anecdotal observation that while explicit fic is very popular, people are less likely to give it kudos.

However, Ship B "the third most popular ship in same popular fandom" doesn't get as many hits as Ship A, but it has more kudos and a MUCH better kudos to hits ratio, as well as comments.

Ship C is "one of the most popularly enduring ships of all time, but very much an old, slow fandom." It got a lot fewer hits but a drastically better kudos to hits ratio.

And finally we have Ship D, "A ship that used to be very popular in an enduring fandom whose canon has moved on without them." Which, like Ship C, got much fewer hits but a fantastic hits to kudos ratio.

Please note that all of the above are slash / yaoi / m/m. I posted some het fics as well, but all I will say about those is that they got both low hits and a low hits to kudos ratio in comparison to all other fics.

All of this is anecdotal and not strong data by any means but I did think that it was interesting enough to post about. If you're interested in which ships are which, please check the notes of this post!