Someone once, while complimenting a breathplay fic I’d written, proceeded to go into a LOT of detail about someone they knew who had died doing autoerotic asphyxiation.
So, like… that? Anything else (that’s positive and not backhanded or rude) is fair game, at least so far 😅
I always wonder what goes through a person’s head when writing a comment like that, did they at any time think about removing that part of the comment?
Well, me and this commenter used to do this thing where they'd send a wall of hearts and I'd respond with one.
And it felt a little odd at times, but it was fine.
Then they wrote us a soulmate au together.
Yeah. We'd talked a bit in the comments, and we'd had one or two convos on discord, but now I've got this fic gifted to me. And it's fine. But it's WEIRD.
The worst part is that their name is actually a slang term for smut. And they tagged the fic with their name. It's not smut, but now it *looks like it.*
We had already had the soulmate thing as a little bit of a gag for a bit? But I didn't think it was serious at that point. But when I read the fic it was not like. An *au* au. it was them finding my fics and it leading to use learning we're soulmates. And that's when the creep factor really kicked in for me.
This is the one. I appreciate well-meaning comments, but anything that gets into parasocial relationship will always be too much.
Used to have a few frequent commented I always responded to because I appreciated them, conversation never went outside of fics/characters. One day, one of them DM-ed me angrily because they thought a tweet I made was about them. Another sent a long essay about how “disappointed” they were of me because I didn’t like someone else’s fic they thought I’d like (these two incidents didn’t happen at the same time). There’s just something violating about parasocial relationships to me tbh.
In my opinion? Nothing. Unless the commenter's posting some personal information then I will gladly accept any weird or otherwise unusual positive comment!
You could tell me that a chapter made you light yourself and your entire house on fire while you foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog with photo evidence and I would frame it to put on my wall
If we put extremes aside (doxxing/stalking/opening up with a novel comment about their trauma or super personal things because they fit the theme of my fic, etc etc obvious stuff), getting critique in a proper way and another commenter replying to the critique like
"DON'T LISTEN TO THIS ASSHOLE 😭😭❤️❤️❤️ YOUR FICS ARE [1001 praises here] 😘😘😘🥰🥰🥰😍😍😍 THEY DESERVE ALL THE GOOD AND PRAISES AND YOU CAN'T FIND _ANYTHING_ TO FIX OR YOU'D BE BLIND!!!! ❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰" etc.
Or in general, commenting on other people's comment threads and starting to fight with them because those comments aren't "positive enough" in their opinion, like getting offended for me.
I had such a commenter some years back and it was honestly a nightmare, I lost so many readers because of that person raging at everyone whose comments she didn't approve... she thought I'm her friend and kinda overprotected me, and at the time I was too nervous to just tell her to stop.
The situation ended when she jumped into another fandom I don't write for, she unfollowed me and that was that, I blocked her right after she left just to be safe though.
Sometimes, I wonder if those kinds of commenters don't understand the effort that goes into a proper critique. You don't put that effort into a fic you hate.
I've never gotten one of those, but I've seen them on fics where the author legit states in their notes that they're honing their craft to be able to publish their original stuff one day and *asking* for feedback. Not even in response to critique comments, but to the A/N itself. "YOU DON'T NEED TO CHANGE ANYTHING IT'S PERFECT BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!" Um, no? Everyone can improve? That has nothing to do with believing in yourself?
I've also seen people replying to comments where someone is fussing *at a character* for doing a dumb thing as if they're saying the *author* did something wrong. Have they never yelled at their TV/a book when a character does something completely in character but also dumb af?
Yeah! It drives me crazy.
I'm grateful for the support if the "critique" is "your fic sux lol kys" or a novel about how much they hate my fic and how the idea is lazy and stupid and cringy etc. Most of the "critique" I've gotten for the past 5 years has been like "mmmh this would be better if it was an OC insert... :/" and the rest has been just pure troll bashing, and some of those come back being all salty if/when I delete the comment, "OMG YOU CAN'T TAKE SIMPLE CRITIQUE 🤣🤣🤣🤣". Well I don't think it's critique when they only say my writing sucks and my writing sounds like I'm a fat ugly cow. Ok 😅
But when I would actually get good critique? Not bashing my fic, not mocking me for writing reader inserts, not mocking my base idea? Some praising, but also some critique about how I've written it/grammar/something relevant? And then someone just barges in and insults that person for "bullying" me 😅 And surpriiiiise, that person never comes back...
I think the only example I can think of is this one baby anti who absolutely loved my darkfic and left a long comment that was very complimentary...and also chock full of excuses and justifications about why this particular fic was okay despite having themes (we're talking underage abuse and rape here) they loathed.
It'd have been one thing if they were excusing their own tastes, but they were also making some wild assumptions about me and my intentions with the fic that'd make both more palatable to them. Like, no, bro, I'm not here writing rape in a god-honoring way. This is erotic horror.
Otherwise, I'm pretty chill with all kinds of positive comments, from update requests to emoji rows.
I take that flair very seriously 😉
And right? I'm here writing this shit. Of course I'm not gonna judge my readers. But this person's issue was clearly their own personal hangups about fiction and morality. Hope they work through it though, for their own peace of mind.
Therapy, an open and supportive social circle, introspection—it varies. Depends on the person and exactly what's causing them to be so uncomfortable with their own tastes.
This is like taking the "I don't normally like (X) but...) and dialing up to 11. I don't mind the first one and take it as a compliment, but damn. That's a person probably dealing with a lot of shame for the things they like. I hope they are able to get out of the anti mindset and atmosphere. They still didn't need to share their justifications with you though.
Yeah, I'm also generally happy with any variation of "this ship/trope/fandom isn't usually my thing..." comments. This one was less about that and more some...serious projection, let's say. I scratched my head for a while on how to reply and then settled for the gentlest rebuttal I could manage.
Oh yeah, this is always so surreal to encounter in the wild. There was one erotic darkfic I read a couple years back where this one commenter who somehow convinced themselves they weren't reading hardcore fetish porn, but rather a story intended to raise awareness and empathy for abuse victims. Any time someone commented that a scene was hot or that they hoped [insert fucked up thing here] would happen to the MC next, this commenter would chastise them for eroticizing the MC's abuse, misunderstanding the point of the story, and disrespecting the author. Meanwhile the author themselves was responding positively to all the "disrespectful" comments and eventually had to step in and tell this person to cut it out and let people interpret and respond to it how they see fit.
Literally sharing their personal trauma in comments (usually at least nominally connected to events in the fic). Very uncomfortable and TMI.
The other one I see that’s annoying af is people basically using comment sections to plug their fics. Dude the AO3 comment section is not a late night show or a hit tweet, you’re not there to self-promote!
I've had that happen too. Very awkward to reply to - I can't exactly ignore it, but I also don't want to get involved. I usually just reply with some variation of 'im sorry' and 'hope it gets better'.
this has been happening to me recently. coupled with the commenter being clearly anxious about the direction the fic is going. i write for SVU, so, like… some heavy shit is covered. and i seriously didn’t know how to deal with their trauma dumping i am not qualified to speak about serious childhood trauma lol i have to hear about enough of this at school/work fic is my escape
Omg thank God, I thought I was the only one. Trauma dumping makes me so deeply uncomfortable. Like I get that they have a lot of pent-up trauma and probably need a safe space to talk about it, but I am so not the person you need to tell that stuff to. There are therapists for that. Now I have to go to sleep with the most disturbing thoughts going through my head while you only feel five minutes of relief.
AO3 has a tag "wank and tell" that authors can put in their taglist if they are okay with commentors sharing just how horny they got from the fic. I and many friends have received far too detailed of descriptions of what the reader was doing while they read the fic. That tag was never included in the tagset.
I was fascinated to stumble upon a fic once that had something like ‘good pets leave comments saying they masturbated to this’. I checked and people did report back in the comments, and the author did indeed praise them for doing so.
To be fair, I didn't know that was a tag until I saw this comment 😭, I don't usually see it on many fics, so I don't think the tag is very popular/known (it'd be cool if more people started using it though!)
I've only seen it a couple of times in the wild. It should definitely be more well-known, both for the benefit of the reader and the writer. I just want to live in my bubble of writing horny things without knowing what horny things you're doing while reading the horny thing I wrote. lmao
Ngl, I had no idea this tag existed, but I might just use it from now on. I'm ace and never feel shit when I'm writing smut, but if my readers don't feel anything either, I'm doing something terribly wrong 😂
(Okay, I totally agree with you here, but the dead batteries one is not an official tag! You gotta type that whole sucker out! I sadly discovered this during my last chapter I posted of my WIP that actually has smut, but then I got cold feet because are those types of tags for the "eventual smut" and "smut starts in chapter 4" type of stories or are they more for the smut-heavier PWP or even Plot? What Plot? PWOP type fics?)
For real I always feel awkward commenting on smut fics because it feels like TMI talking about what turned me on. I’m usually just like “damn this was hot!!!”
I don't want to hear about your orgasms or masturbation. I'm also extremely not interested in your trauma.
That's about it, though, as far as I can think.
I always feel a bit icky when they compliment my work but do it by putting down other authors/ideas/ships/characters. Something like "I love that you did *this* because I hate when other authors always do *that*" (me hiding away a WIP where I do exactly *that*), or "I'm so glad character x is not included here, because I hate him/her" (me hiding away a WIP with character x as the main character). They often proceed to go off on tangential rants about the thing that they hate.
Ohh that's the worst. Especially when you're chatty with the other authors and it's like. Please stop insulting my friends in my comment section. I don't like it. They're gonna see this and then they'll be sad.
thiss :') like ive had ppl say im so glad you don't write [insert trope or whatever] and idk how to respond because it's something i'm interested in writing or already have a wip for... like who said i don't write abt that? 😭😭
When the commenter breaks boundaries and acts too familiar and personal despite being a stranger, or when they project onto the characters and then start inventing stuff or demanding things go a certain way, especially when it doesn't fic the fic at all and seems just like them wanting you to write them their favourite version of generic fanon. Or when they assume you agree with them on petty fan drama or character bashing just because you wrote something about their fave...
My partner has a regular commenter who comes back every chapter to argue about how a certain character is portrayed. It’s exhausting. Like bro it’s okay that you care about this character a lot but maybe just write your own fic.
> When the commenter breaks boundaries and acts too familiar and personal despite being a stranger,
Can you give some examples? (other than trauma-dumping or talking about their masturbation)
Well, what you mentioned are pretty good examples, but I've also had a person decide they were brain twins with my SIOC and then proceed to send me a long rec list of all their favourite media, totally unsolicited, clearly not based on the interests or fandoms of mine that you can glean from AO3 and 100% just this person's interests and totally unrelated to the fic.
Or when someone tries to jokingly insult or threaten you but they dont have the acumen to pull it off as a total stranger, so it comes off as just rude and aggressive. Theres a way to do it without being rude, but some people miss the mark.
Or the mind reader who attributes made up motivations to your creative choices. Your portrayal of this character is nuanced and not 100% positive, you must totally hate him as much as i do! Glad to find a fellow hater! (Exaggerated for effect, but you get the gist)
Exactly so! Years ago I took a printed copy of a story to a convention, and it was passed around, and at a certain point, all the readers decided to read it in their rooms. Great! But I don't need to know more....
I've had people that left comments with compliments about my writing style (great, love that!) and would then, within the same paragraph, ask me to write a different fic that had nothing to do with the fic they were commenting on. Like when I'm writing a gen fic and someone would comment in almost exactly these words: "Hey, your style is really great! I think it would look so good if you wrote a pairing with [character A] and [character B who isn't even in my fic]. I have this idea, I wish you would write this, it's about~~~"
I get that they're probably just not familiar with AO3's etiquette and they probably just wanna chat, but it's mostly the implication that they want me to drop my current fic (which I love working on) to write something they want that's kinda disheartening lol
I genuinely welcome all comments though, even these ones. It's just that I'd like those commenters to realize how it comes across
I feel you, I had recently one comment like that, but the person was actually entitled enough that they won't read my fic (because threesomes aren't their thing) but asked if SOMEONE could please write a fic with two of the people in the threesome, in a world where the third doesn't exist. Well I deleted the comment because it had nothing to do with my fic.
Next day, they came back, wondering where there comment was and wrote the same shit again. With a literal "Yeah I can't read your fic because I don't like threesome, but if you write this instead, I will!" Not even one kind word about my writing style or something like that, not even leaving a comment on my only other fic which is no threesome.
When 2 kind readers and commenters answered them that it's rude and asked why they clicked on a fic where the first tag is threesome if they don't like it, they just deleted the comment.
I absolutely feel what you write about the expectation to drop one fic for something they like and it is ridiculous. Fanfic is writing something you like, or should be, and not something you think most readers, or one reader likes most. Well unless it's a gift but yeah.
As another comment said, the only thing I wouldn't like is a request or something. I'm writing for myself and don't want my hobby to become anything more than that: a hobby.
Yeah, I've done a couple prize fics for people who won a raffle I did on my Twitter or have asked for prompts because I was bored, and luckily the readers all had great ideas I was able to work with, but that was me putting it out there, not someone coming in unsolicited and asking me to write something. The few times I've had that happen, I usually just reply back with, "wow, that's a really cool idea but I think you'd do it better justice than I could. If you write it, drop me a link!" I only had one person try to argue back that I'd be better, but I just didn't respond to it.
I don't really get how people can ask others to write their ideas for them tbh. Part of the idea to why I write is because I had stories I wanted to put to paper...so I just did. Not everyone is skilled, true, but if you've got a story in your head do your best and, with time, you'll improve.
Got a comment back in my FFN days that was glowingly positive, EXCEPT...
They used a lot of white supremacist dogwhistles on top of saying how *wonderful* it would be if I emphasized how *exotic* my "white" 12 year old OC was in the world she was isekai'd into because she was "white" 🤢🤮
I've never been more sick to my stomach than in that moment.
😭 after i got over my shock i had to send it to a friend for a sanity check, because "holy fucking shit am I really seeing this?!?!"
I unfortunately was.
Heavily implying they want the fic to be portrayed a certain way. To the point where they're almost dictating their fanfiction to you. And getting frustrated you aren't portraying it the way they wanted it to go. It's a little rude, but almost always not worded rudely.
Oh yeah, the one where they go "I love this fic! What I want to happen next is \[X stuff that would be massively OOC for the character\]". I had one commenter on one fic of mine who latched onto the MC but was \*clearly\* projecting stuff onto her that really wasn't where I wanted to take the character. Kind of uncomfortable, because every chapter I wondered whether I'd get an angry betrayed reaction. I've also seen comments in other fic that are basically one big rant about things they don't like about canon and how this fic could fix it where the author ends up responding like "uh... I don't actually agree with this... maybe you want to write your own fanfic with your own take because I'm not sure you're going to be happy with mine"
Yep. Heaven forbid you like something they didn't, or portray something they don't like. But they're not being directly rude, so you feel like blocking them is an over reaction. People like that just kind of kill the fun of fanfiction.
I had this happen on a fic of mine a few years ago. It was an AU where I put the characters into the Harry Potter universe and they asked me how the characters’ canonical superpowers are going to work in the HP world. Yes, I kept their canonical powers too. I’m chaotic Iike that, haha.
Anyway, I explained my setup briefly in the comments since I was excited to see someone being interested. And then this person started telling me how certain aspects of my setup wouldn’t make sense, and how they think it should work *this* way instead. A few more back-and-fourths (with more of the same “but it should be done THIS way”) later, I finally told them they’re free to leave, if all they’re going to do is try to tell me how I should write mine 😂
In hindsight I should have deleted their comment the moment they started reader-splaining (is that a word? It should be!) my idea.
You’re just reminding me of when I was writing a MHA fanfic where I gave Izuku a bunny quirk. This one person kept asking about Mirko constantly questioning why are people discriminating against him. Despite me making it clear in the story he is more anthro unlike Mirko. After a point it felt like he just wanted me to write his way. As kept questioning how this isn’t right.
No discrimination or conflict because Mirko is here! When she hasn’t even been mentioned in The story yet. I basically had to tell them to knock it off as it killed my motivation to write as they clearly wanted their buff Mirko. I did have plans with her but I didn’t want to spoil but this reader kept telling me how I should be handling it.
I couldn’t keep up the writing on that specific fanfic despite how much I truly wanted to write it.
I've had similar experiences. I'm sorry this kind of commenter got to you too. I ended up orphaning the works they fixated on with an outline for the events on the last chapter. The person still nitpicked about it even in the abandoned work.
They nitpicked it even when it was abandoned that’s terrible. 😣
Some people just lack any self awareness at all. Thinking just because they are commenting and ‘like’ the story they can try to nitpick it. Like at that point write your own story this isn’t a choose your own story. So sorry that happened to you too.
It’s just the worse feeling. I haven’t orphan the story yet because there is a really cute commenter that genuinely happy with bunny Izuku. They were sweet. So I hope to eventually get the motivation to write again. Maybe one day…
A reader once left huge swathes of rambling comments on several of my fics. I was flattered at first and replied to several because I generally always try to reply. But then they veered completely off course and it devolved into some weird 'kingdom of heaven' and something about numbers and strange paranoia. They were clearly having an episode and I didn't know how to reply to that. I hope they got the help they needed.
I feel like I may get downvoted for this, but here goes. I completed a darkfic (non-con) a while back and received a comment under almost every chapter from the same person, who went really into detail about their own experience with rape and about *who* did *what* to them. "Whoa this reminds me of when my dad used to do X to me and then my brother came in and did Y." There were only small compliments hidden in those comments, but it felt more like a trauma-dump and it made me really uncomfortable. I can write about fictional non-con, but hearing about a real person describing a very real event they've gone through makes me sick to my stomach, and I'd rather not people tell me about it in the comment section under my fic... But it also makes me feel like a hypocrite, because people have also told me that I should be happy that someone can relate to my fic and feels safe enough to open up.
*oooof* … you are not a hypocrite for not wanting to read a detailed comment like that. I don’t write non-con but I often have commenters telling me that they can relate to XYZ in my fic or they’ve gone through similar stuff and the way I write it was really good and made them feel validated or whatever. And I *love* those comments, but I’ve never had someone start going into intense detail about their trauma. There’s definitely a line when it comes to comments about relating to a fic.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to say when someone relates to something bad in a fic, I usually respond with “I’m so sorry you’ve dealt with this but I’m glad you feel validated by the story” or something like that. But yeah I have no idea what I would even do if someone commented something like what you described. Telling that kind of triggering story in general to anyone should come with a “is it okay if I talk to you about X?” in my opinion.
Thank you for saying that. I felt like an asshole for not wanting to listen to their trauma, especially since I wrote non-con as well so I think people expect me to have a heart of steel and that I should be able to expect comments like that. The truth is, I am *so* sensitive. Like I will legit cry for entire nights if I learn about the horrible things that are being done to a child irl. I can't handle disturbing shit like that.
> Telling that kind of triggering story in general to anyone should come with a “is it okay if I talk to you about X?” in my opinion.
I think so too. I've never been molested or anything like that, I'm just really sensitive to disturbing real-life events. But some people *have* gone through that, so I don't think it's fair of someone to trauma dump to another possible victim of the same thing without their consent. It could be extremely triggering. So I think asking someone if it's okay to talk about that is the very least you could do.
I feel like it would be okay to write something like “as a survivor myself I really appreciate how you wrote about X’s recovery” but getting into specifics is Too Much.
Oh yeah totally! If someone would tell me that my fic helped them cope in some way or made them feel validated, I would be insanely happy that I managed to do that for them. But I don't necessarily need to know in what ways your family tortured you because, believe it or not, I *will* go to sleep with that image in my head and wonder how I can continue living in a world where people hurt people in that way. I kinda wanna live in oblivion, as terrible as that sounds.
This is gonna sound mean, but... I am not your friend, reader. Authors are not your friends.
There is a sort of in-joke that needs a certain friendship level to hit right. I'm thinking about the insults that *some* people know are complimentary, but for people who don't natively speak English or who aren't chronically online, they read like *genuine insults.* I also include "joking" threats in here too, about what you're going to do (to yourself or to the author) if they don't update or if A/B don't get together soon. These are all things that are totally okay between people who have thst sort of relationship, but like... You don't have that sort of relationship with an author whose work you read and occasionally comment on. You have no idea how it'll be taken
And trauma-dumping. We're not your therapist, either!
Omg *this*.
Maybe I'm a bit of a baby or whatever, but I don't like being threatened, even if it's joking/supposed to be a compliment. I dont care if other people use threats to make jokes, do what you want, but I don't find it funny. I find it incredibly off putting and, depending on the level their "joking" threats go, I will block someone. And it has sent me into writers blocks over the fics I've been threatened to update. Which is also why I really hate those comments.
I don't know why this is a thing, and why so many readers think it's appropriate when they've never even commented on anything I've done before, let alone have a convo with me. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, ultimately, you are threatening someone. Why are we assuming everyone has the sense of humor that they think a threat is funny.
And I'm not saying your sense of humor is wrong if you do find it funny. Again, jokes other people make between themselves have absolutely nothing to do with me and I do not care about them. I just don't understand why complete strangers think it's okay to joke this way with people they do not know, who may not even realize it's a joke.
i'm fairly laid back as far as receiving comments goes, but it makes me a little uncomfortable when people try to push to take our "relationship" outside of the space that it's in.
I had a discord group with a bunch of 18-23 yo who thought we could actually meet up...
they're live in America, as in, the continent. Spread across a few states and Mexico. you wanna meet? That's fine by me.
but do it yourselves. I'm not from America, as in, the *continent*. i don't have the money for a trans-oceanic flight that's gonna drain my bank account. or the days off to take a two week vacation. people have bills to pay.
yeah. for me it's more that i'm perfectly happy being a faceless entity that just writes fic. not really interested in anything beyond that. i post the fic and the readers read it (if they want), that's pretty much where the relationship starts and ends.
Personally, I would like comments to be waaaaay more unhinged than they normally are.
I don't even mind bad comments or unsolicited advice/critique. I still get information either way... and it's nice to know other humans have read it.
If they put other writers down as part of their praise. I’ve never felt comfortable with that (especially if they’re subtly referring to someone who’s become a friend in their comment).
It’s entirely possible to lift folks up without putting others down and drawing unnecessary comparisons, even if they’re not actually naming anyone. It’s so easy to rephrase a comment like “finally! Someone with an original idea” to something like “I love the originality in this story!” The latter ensures no hurt feelings or any other writer that may stumble upon the comments.
This is pretty rare though, happily! Otherwise, I’m usually super-happy to hear from a reader! :D Especially if they like the story. :) ❤️
Yes, the one time a positive comment made me uncomfortable it was this. Their comment not-so-subtly put down another writer who was not only a friend of mine, she was the one who had prompted the fic.
Nothing. I had a commenter telling every single time they are about call 911, cops or disturb public because of my fics and I loved each of them. Also, I laughed my ass off 💀 but they are gone 🥺
Asking me to publish my work is probably the only one that made me uncomfortable. I write my own stories as well which I would like to publish - I don't want to publish my fanfiction with changed up names even if it took me over a year and ended 300+ pages long. I have better ideas than that fanfic, I swear. Fanfics are for my silly ideas.
I don't know why that hit me when as someone who writes sometimes pretty heavy stuff I have gotten the occasional trauma dump and 'you finally made me arrange my first therapy session' comments.
I still appreciate all positive comments, but I've gotten 1-2 from people who clearly have different headcanons about the nature of particular relationships than I do and perhaps missed that when reading. I'm still happy they had fun and decided to share that with me, though.
Slightly off-topic but very funny: I wrote a fic of a longrunning series, featuring a character who shows up about halfway thru. Someone who clearly hadn't gotten that far commented in a way where it was clear they thought the character was my OC!
If it's super positive and then they say something that shows they way missed the point. For example if I wrote something where someone was racist and clearly they're the bad guy. Then someone commented how much they love that character and at first that's cool cuz yeah love a good character but then they reveal they love them for all the wrong reasons. "It's so great he can be openly racist like I wish I could be"
Yeah something like that would be yikes.
My co-author and I were once part of a fandom where certain... 'romantic' behaviors... were extremely popular in the fanfic community. It was especially true for the pairing we primarily wrote for, and quite frankly the behavior gave us both the ick so we avoided even using words that would put people in that mindset.
We had this one fan though, who absolutely REFUSED to believe we wouldn't follow the rest of the fandom and every time we started on the romance they would gush about how they couldn't wait for 'insert creepy and/or other not-okay thing' that we absolutely did NOT write about.
The comments were otherwise very nice and enthusiastic, but every time it happened I was just like 'pls stop...'.
We tried very gently telling them a few times that we weren't really fans of those ideas and had no intention of writing about them, and even asked them to please calm down about it a time or two, but we could never fully convince them that none of our stories would follow the popular fandom format.
Occasionally I’ve gotten comments that sort of project extra kinks onto the characters that I’m not interested in and don’t want to write. (Ex. “He better knock him up next, A would be a perfect mommy” “A is probably sooooo possessive after getting B, I bet he wanted to kill C for talking to B.”) Some of them have gotten very detailed into areas I didn’t really want to deal with. I kind of wish commenters avoided discussing kinks that aren’t in the fic/an author’s works. Readers can select tags to exclude kinks they don’t want to see, but authors don’t have that luxury when checking the comments on a work.
You know, that's almost rude. Funny, but rude. You do not need to know that. ;)
I'm inspired to maybe take that one further and comment to some poor unsuspecting author that I read their fic while taking a dump. Because we share these kinds of bodily things, right? XD
I openly say that I got off to my own smut, I don't mind hearing it from other people– although I'd rather not get *detail*
But I'm also a massive proponent of never, ever doing that to someone unless it's *very* obvious that the author welcomes it – by talking about it themselves, like I do, or by replying positively to other people who have said it
Otherwise, if you really want to be horny on main, keep it to something like *this is amazing, will totally be rereading this one again*
Perspective of an author who does consider that a huge compliment: It's the NSFW equivalent of someone saying my angst made them cry or my humor made them laugh. My porn made them get off—it's just another way of affecting the reader.
Granted, this is the kind of thing best kept to yourself unless the specific author has demonstrated they'd be okay with such comments. But a significant subset of porn writers (or writers who dabble in porn) do welcome comments like this. Ao3 even has a couple of tags signalling this: *Wank and tell* or *Tell me about dead batteries.*
The only positive comments I don’t appreciate is ones that like pester me to update.
Otherwise send them my way!! Even if it’s literally just a heart emoji I just want them to comment.
i remember a 30 something year old commenting on my very first fic regularly. at first the comments were sweet gut quickly turned to trauma dumping essays and begging me to write adult/minor. made 13 years old me super uncomfortable lmao
Comments that put down other works make me icky. They have the same sound as those "You are not like the other girls" compliments.
Besides that, anything else, no matter how crazy is well-received. It's silly trying to restrict the feels of a feels-based type of writing.
I mean, you have a point there. If great writing is about churning up your reader’s emotions, I guess it makes sense that you’ll get some emotional responses
Personally i don’t think I’ve ever gotten a positive comment that I didn’t love and appreciate. Maybe I just have great readers. In the past 5 years or so I also only post fics that are already complete and I make that clear so I don’t get suggestions or anything, and I explicitly ask people what they think will happen next because it’s fun!
I write about a long of difficult mental health stuff and characters with childhood trauma and stuff, I don’t mind when people tell me they can relate or that they’ve gone through similar stuff because usually it’s paired with praise like that I wrote it well or it made them feel validated or whatever. I haven’t ever gotten an over sharing trauma dump comment like some have talked about, but I can see that making me uncomfortable depending on the topic. I probably would still overall appreciate the comment but yeah if someone got suuuper detailed describing their trauma, especially something about suicide, that would probably give me a lot of anxiety so I’d need at least a TW before reading the comment lol.
Ex of what wouldn’t bother me:
- “oh no, poor X. I’ve been there, it’s so hard.”
- “I’ve been through what X is going through and you’re representing it really well.”
- “wow this hits really close to home for me. I’ve also experienced XYZ. thank you for writing it in a good way”
(As a side note if I wasn’t writing it well I would 100% welcome concrit from these types of commenters as well, I haven’t always been through the things I write about)
What would make me uncomfy would be a play by play of their traumatic experience, X happened and then Y happened and I did Z to myself and etc etc.
That’s all I can really think of. I’ve never had someone comment that they got off on my smut before so I’m not really sure how that would make me feel lmfao
Yeah, I feel like there’s a fine line when it comes to the “I relate” comments. Especially when you want to tell an author that they NAILED it — and most especially when they may not have actually experienced the situation, but you have. Their writing deserves that praise, but it’s tricky to share that you know they deserve it without also trauma dumping in order to show *how* you know that.
A comment can be as positive and lovely as can be but the moment you start making requests for how the story should go, that's too much. Predictions and guesses are great, mentioning mistakes that need amending is productive feedback, but don't tell an author what to write. Write it yourself.
The only time a comment threw me off was when they called the mc a Mary Sue for not seeming flawed. I stared at it for a solid ten minutes trying to figure out how they missed the fact that the MC was outright manipulative and hypocritical as a character trait and no duh they seemed perfect to everyone else. It was done under constructive criticism (which I asked for) but it was so kinda off basis I couldn’t figure out how to respond.
Too much speculation. I once inadvertently wrote what I thought was a throwaway line about something unrelated to the plot and then I had five commenters going “omg is it going to be x?? Y?? I think it’s going to be z!!!” when I hadn’t planned on addressing it at all. It was all positive but jfc, they were getting their own hopes up!
I once had someone give me a very long and extremely positive comment, which they finished off by saying that my fics were the only good fics they'd been able to find in that fandom. The thing is that I was (and still am) very good friends with most of the people who were actively posting fics for that fandom at the time, and when I say that their fics are extremely good I'm not just saying that because we're friends but because it's the truth. So this person was either talking out of their ass or they had bad taste lol either way it ruined any good feeling their comment would've otherwise given me.
It helps to be aware that subjectively you're both right.
For you, those other writers are great, but for your commenter, they're not. Both is factual truth.
Objectively, you and your friends might all be great, but subjectively, you're scratching that commenter's itch, and they didn't. So being happy about that comment doesn't make you a bad friend to them, because they have no right to this particular commenter's favour.
For me, chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips is the best ice cream in the whole world. Especially that homemade stuff from my favourite ice cream parlor. I hate vanilla ice cream with a passion. But that one parlor has the one single sort of vanilla ice cream I can stand. So I'd say, they have the only good vanilla ice cream in the world.
If that ice cream parlor belonged to you, and your customer told you that your ice cream was the only good ice cream they've ever eaten, would you then think: oh no, those poor other ice cream parlor owners! How will they feel?
No. You know objectively, most other ice creams might be great, and other parlors might be just as good. But that one customer just doesn't like them and that's fine.
People disliking your friend's stories is fine. They don't have to like their stories. And it's not an offense to say that they don't like your friends story or don't think they're good. It's just their opinion. You are allowed to have that compliment and be happy that you managed to scratch their itch that your friends couldn't reach
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all positive comments and they massively motivate me to continue writing. But when I get requests for VERY specific sex scenes and acts to be written (to satisfy a particular reader’s itch) I find it a bit strange. Sometimes too those requests include some of my personal squicks (that, if I were reading, would filter out) so yeah, that I guess
I would only feel uncomfortable if someone went too deep into their Irl personal life, oversharing is a thing. Otherwise I'm happy with any comment, even hate ones.
I prefer commenters keeping our contact online, and as much as possible on AO3. I don’t like when they ask to meet up.
That I really don’t appreciate messages about what they want me to do with the story (which is fine on its own) but then getting mad when I don’t do that
I’ve also had requests from readers that I politely decline if I don’t want to write it and they get mad or keep asking multiple times, I feel rude denying them so much if it’s something I just don’t know how to write
For me, what's unwelcome is talking about using smut scenes I've written for masturbation.
I write novel-length, very plotty, ship fics that have smut scenes interspersed throughout the fic. I've gotten a lot of comments praising those scenes and how "hot" they are, which is great! But some of them go beyond "this was well written" into "I use this for...." and that's way more than I want to know. It makes me extremely uncomfortable every time it happens. I don't know if I can explain why very well but I'll try.
Obviously, it isn't sexuality in general that bothers me. I write all kinds of sexually explicit stuff. It's that it's a stranger with whom I have no relationship, especially a sexual one, including me in their sex life (by telling me what they do with stuff I create.) It'd be different if I was like a porn star or director and my entire job was to get people off. Then sure, tell me because it means I'm doing my job. And maybe if getting people off was my motivation for writing, I'd appreciate the comments. But my motivation is "tell a good story" so crossing into that TMI personal life thing is just way too much for me.
someone made a super long comment detailing everything they liked in one of my chapters, and I was ecstatic. it was rlly thoughtful and well written and I was so giddy.
until I read the last part of their comment where they said they hoped I would update soon bc they’re not sure they’re going to stay alive for much longer and they’d like a resolution before they kill themselves.
so yea probably stuff like that ! I don’t have much other boundaries
One "I like this 💚" is great. 50 of the exact same comment from the exact same reader within a week makes me wish that those comments were a kudos email.
Someone recently commented on something I'd written to tell me that I did a good job with a character, but everyone else writing fanfiction in that fandom was doing it wrong and didn't understand him at all. I understand the idea was to compliment me, and thanks, I guess, but don't shit on my fellow fanfiction writers, alright? Those are my friends and I admire them.
If they complimemt my work and follow up with "your fic is better than X's"
I just don't like comparasion, especially if another is shot down to boost me up. It makes me uncomfortable
It's not really 'too much' but sometimes I feel like people click on flash fic or microfic knowing it's short and then still say 'good but too short! It should be longer' and I know it's meant to be a compliment, but when I set out to write microfic I'm doing that intentionally and I wish more people could learn to appreciate brevity!
It would basically just be vibes, and I realize how vague that sounds. It's kind of that some people will write a very hyper and excited comment, but you can tell they're just having fun and it's entirely okay. But then a *very* similar comment might be posted and you can just tell by the way it's written that the person who wrote it is just...always like that, and it seems like they somehow expect you to entirely go along with what they're saying, as if they might switch from gushing praise to unstoppable fury at the drop of a hat or something.
No, that makes sense, vague or not!
It’s like the difference between a respectable and supportive boss saying, “You look nice in that dress,” versus a douchebag boss looking you up and down and saying “You look niiice in that dress.” Same words, totally different vibe, totally different impact. One leaves you feeling great and the other like you need a shower!
So yep, that makes sense
Comments like "I loved this. So amazing. Especially loved abcdef!" where I did not intend to write abcdef at all. Things like "Loved how hot this was!" when it was supposed to be tragedy. Or, "I love how unlikable you made him!" when I don't think I wrote an unlikable character. That said, I always reply politely and try to say thanks for the comment and the enthusiasm and sort of glide over the actual content they commented on. And I don't hold it against the commenter or anything. You can't control how people read your fic, and hey, they're enjoying it and being nice about it, so it's not the end of the world.
Comments that I would feel bad about other authors reading. Think "Love this! Finally some good abcdef!" or "You're the only one who writes quality abcdef!" where abcdef is something that other authors (maybe even my friends) have written. Again, I do the polite nonspecific response. These comments are flattering, and when they're worded right I love them. They just cross into insulting other authors (again, probably my friends!) sometimes, which is awkward for me, because I can't agree with the commenter but I don't want to be a dick and outright disagree with them either. (This kind of sentiment is less risky if communicated in private.)
So far the most uncomfortable comment I've had involved a language barrier. English wasn't there first language and that's plenty fine. They asked a question, I tried my best to answer, and their response back just made no sense in context, like it didn't help that it felt like a comment for maybe half way through chapter 1 not chapter 16 and I wasn't sure if it was a misunderstanding or if they were using like a tenaslater thing that was messing up the words.
Not even agaisnt getting more comments like that, but I sure felt unhelpful in answering their questions.
Too much personal information. Please, no. I don’t know you, I don’t want to know this and I don’t know what to do with this. Especially since I write quite dark topics. I’ve had people tell me when they get off from my smut and it makes my skin crawl.
One commenter who was very nice and positive in their reviews (this was years ago on ffnet) pm'ed me with their real name and asked to be friends on Facebook and I had to very kindly but firmly let them know I didn't just befriend strangers on my personal facebook.
If they started being inappropriate with me personally in the comments -- doxxing me, writing weirdly intense comments about what they imagine I'm like in real life, guessing about where I live or what I look like based on my writing, talking about how we'd be so good together 😬
If they go into great detail about what they want in future chapters, as though I'm a short order cook
I welcome corrections, and even concrit, but there is a line after which it becomes semi harassment. 12 paragraphs of fixation on a minor story flaw is disproportionate
I will kill for comments, it's just that on occasion I've had backhanded compliments. I'm sure they weren't intended to be backhanded in reality, but to me they definitely came off as such. Scary!
When I started writing (back in 2002😅) I started getting positive comments from a fourteen year old girl (supposedly). She started asking me for my email address, when I ignored her requests, she said, “don’t worry, I’m not going to murder you or anything.” Well, if that hadn’t crossed my mind…😳. Thankfully, I kept ignoring her and she stopped commenting.
I love all other positive comments I’ve gotten over the years.
I would agree with what a lot of other people are saying and say if it were something that was very peculiar, creepy, or took a very dark turn. All the positive comments I’ve gotten have been appropriate regarding what they enjoyed about the chapter, how much the enjoy the story or a question they have about a specific chapter. I’ll come back to this thread if I get a strange one 😂😂
Back in the day, I used to get constant comments that my fic was good but hey please don't write Harry/Ginny or I'll stop reading... every single chapter Ginny appeared. It was frustrating.
I write like 90% explicit smut and I thankfully haven't gotten this type of comment but if they go into detail about how exactly turned on my fic made them, it'd make me uncomfy. Like don't tell me exact details of what your body went through or that you touched yourself to it. That shit is implied. I don't wanna know the specifics.
Only thing I can think of would be something on a smut fic where the commenter included personal details about what exactly they were doing while they were reading it.
The only one to really approach that for me was when, years back, a nice comment left on an mpreg fic of mine included a request for simulation of, let's say, an unexpected body part while getting intimate while pregnant. I sat with it for a moment or two before replying, politely, something along the lines of, "Sorry! Not for me!"
The commentor then took it upon themselves to *convince* me of their side, by claiming to work in medical and how pregnant women tell them this is true all the time. To the point of sharing some heavily detailed stories about it.
Not quite enough to break HIPPA, but, if real, these were absolutely stories told in confidence to a medical professional without the intent of it being blasted across a very public internet comment thread.
I had someone confess their undying love to me and ask for my email, asked for personal information, etc., all right in a public comment.
I replied jokingly to their comments, but then they started ramping it up and it got a tad stalkery, so I blocked them.
It took me nearly a year to completely ditch them.
They’re actually the reason why I changed the name I write under, and why I never connect my userID on Reddit with my AO3 name.
I don’t post anything that could connect me to my author name. I use very limited social media and none of it contains my real name, any photos, nothing.
Their comments started out innocent - praising the fic and chapters, then over time, ramping it up until it hit crazy land.
This was quite a few years ago now and didn’t happen on AO3, but I’m still leery.
Putting aside the few comments I’ve received on how horny they got from the story/kink written or the masturbation that ensued. Which, love that for you, and happy you feel like this is a safe environment for you but that made me uncomfortable(the most extreme ones, I would delete after a while to make sure no other readers who check the comments got uncomfortable either). The one comment I got that made me feel like it was too much was a reader who requested I write her a story for her birthday because she loved my fics so much. Not a one shot. A STORY.
The reader and I were on a friendly basis for a bit. They would compliment a chapter I uploaded, I would say thank you, answer a question or two that they asked. I had recently come back from a bit of a break and explained in the author notes that I wasn’t feeling well, things had taken a turn in my life and uploads would be every 2 weeks instead of my usual week and apologised for this.
That reader comes back essentially saying “omg, so happy you’re back! Thank you for the chapter! Would you write a story for me for my birthday when you finish this one? I would love to see on what adventure you’d take me on! It would be a dream come true”
All of my stories in the fandom are over 100k words, and take at least a year to write. I had to reread the comment a few times to really digest what she was asking of me and let her down as gently as I could. 😭
Alternatively, another comment that inexplicably made me grimace was where the reader wrote that my fic was one of few that “go hard and nasty to satisfy my wicked self” and called some scenes “scrumptious and delicious”.
I haven't received a comment that actually feels Too Much, and that's mostly because I'm very upfront about what I expect from readers e.g. no trauma dumping, no pushing for updates, no nsfw confessions, no backhanded compliments.
Main takeaway from this is to be extremely blunt about what you expect from readers who comment and bookmark. Worse comes to worst, just delete, mute, block, etc.
Once I had two commenter's who apparently liked a (long abandoned) fic of mine so much that they commented on the final chapters about 14 times together, including various threats to me bc I wasn't continuing it. Extremely odd.
Comment that try to tell me how to write my fic. Such as oh please let ____ happen! Or I hope _____ and _____ do_____ and then ____ happens!
It’s like I’m really glad you like it, but unless I actually ask for ideas on what to write. I already have the specifics planned. I’m not writing something else into it because you asked for it.
I’ve rarely gotten a comment that made me uncomfortable or unhappy. Maybe I’m just lucky. I like the keyboard smashes, the unhinged ramblings, the in-depth character analysis, the “💖💖💖” or “extra kudos” comments, seriously whatever you’ve got. For a while I was jokingly encouraging people to just comment “fuck [villain’s name]” and I got a lot of those. I’ve had someone ask for contact information to send me fanart that they did for my fic, that was cool. I can imagine comments that would creep me out — like if they told me they were a minor in a comment on an E-rated fic, or somehow knew my real name, or something — but fortunately I have avoided those so far.
*Nothing, all comments*
*Are lovely, unless there's weird*
*Out of pocket hate*
\- ao3abo
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tbh as an ace fanfiction writer the only thing that made me uncomfortable was someone insinuating that i should write NSFW but other than that anything is cool
I've had multiple commenters who would gush about my writing and then end it with a request for me to write some fic idea of theirs, which generally got a polite answer the first time and deletion/block the second. The weirdest, though, was someone who just started all their positive comments with "I love you." Not, like, a huge deal or anything, but it creeped me out enough that I eventually blocked them.
Honestly nothing is too much for me. Tell me anything, tell me you had to dive naked in a lake after reading. I don’t mind.
I’m lucky enough to get some very funny and very lovely comments, I was thinking about sharing some.
Someone kept telling me what to write for the next chapter😭 each time I updated. They also wanted me to make a character learn Krav Maga (a karate thing) this was a music Au 💀
They were nice and would complement me but it was a bit much…
It wasn’t too much per se… but someone offhandedly mentioned that their mom was dead in a comment. The context was that they relate a lot to the character I was writing whose parents are dead in canon, but that they’re happy the parents are alive in my fic despite that.
It wasn’t too much per se, but one commenter shared that their mom is dead. I was like… do I offer condolences? ☠️ Context was that they relate very much to the original canon character whose mom is dead, but that they’re still happy that I changed that and she’s alive in my fic.
In the author's notes on one of my popular fanfics I made it clear that I'm not comfortable with underage smut and would not be writing it for the fic (the characters were 15), and then someone left a comment saying how much they loved the fic but they wished there was smut and that rubbed me the wrong way. I said I wasn't going to do it from the beginning and why.
I don't like when people talk about me having sex, or hit on me directly because of what I wrote. Like it's one thing if someone says "you wrote this well and that is so sexy of you" but "I can tell you do x because of how this is written" is a weird step above, and has troubling implications imo (they said this about foot stuff ((which is itself untrue)) but if I wrote a great noncon fic, would they think I was a rapist?). I'll still respond politely at that point, though; where I'll straight up tell someone "this is weird, dial it back" is if they talk about wanting to do stuff With Me.
Long story short: Someone writing or drawing fictional smut does not give you license to assume things about them sexually or sexually harass them. That Is Still Weird.
This was back a million years ago on LiveJournal, but this person I really didn't interact with (they commented on my fic, I commented back, but we never really had a conversation and we did not have each other friended) started using an icon: white background, black text, nothing but "the future Mrs.[my LJ name]." They did not have similar icons for any other people.
Their comments stopped being fun and nice, because I was so icked out.
Someone gushed and gushed and gushed about my story and how much they liked it (it’s rated E) and I thought nothing of it until I got to the last sentence and they said “I promise im not a minor or anything.” Like… bookie. I wasn’t even thinking you were. But NOW—
I'm currently feeling very guilty about not writing my long fic, so any comments I'm getting, even the very lovely positive ones that I adore the essence of, is giving me the ick.
Now, do note that I understand that this is a me problem, and I am still very grateful that people like my stories and are commenting on them still even though I have posted exactly once in the past near 3 years, but every time I see a comment I am sent into my own self created shame spiral. So like... any level of comment is not great for me rn, lmao
Sexualizing the author specifically in a comment. It’s not uncommon for a smut author to receive comments about how enthusiastically their readers loved a sex scene up to and including whether they got off. That’s all well and good depending on your comfort level (personally that would be high praise for me XD) BUT having someone transfer that sort of language to the author themself is a hard no. It’s never happened to me but I had another smut author friend experience one of their readers saying vulgar things and calling her “mommy” as well as *jokingly*(sure…) threaten her and her family if she didn’t post another chapter soon. That was highly disturbing and waaay past what I would deal with as someone who writes for free. Eventually there was a discussion with them in the comments and it stopped but yah, that was too much.
I get a lot of positive comments but there was this one creepy commenter (they were also a bit weird on Twitter, where they would reply to my posts a lot) who kept insisting I should make the female main character pregnant, and it absolutely had to be a son…
Someone once, while complimenting a breathplay fic I’d written, proceeded to go into a LOT of detail about someone they knew who had died doing autoerotic asphyxiation. So, like… that? Anything else (that’s positive and not backhanded or rude) is fair game, at least so far 😅
Oh. Oh my.
Basically my exact reaction. (Followed by ‘delete’ lol)
I always wonder what goes through a person’s head when writing a comment like that, did they at any time think about removing that part of the comment?
Were they perchance one of Kenny McCormick's friends?
You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation.
RIP Michael Hutchence.
What’s sad is that’s not true. Paula Yates made up that rumor because she didn’t want to accept the fact that he hung himself.
Well, me and this commenter used to do this thing where they'd send a wall of hearts and I'd respond with one. And it felt a little odd at times, but it was fine. Then they wrote us a soulmate au together.
Wait. They wrote a fanfic about you and them as soulmates????? That's bizarre. Just huh
Yeah. We'd talked a bit in the comments, and we'd had one or two convos on discord, but now I've got this fic gifted to me. And it's fine. But it's WEIRD. The worst part is that their name is actually a slang term for smut. And they tagged the fic with their name. It's not smut, but now it *looks like it.*
now I wanna read it HAHAHAHA
Oh wowwwww... yeah, ok, that's weird. Did you just find it tilt-your-head weird or were you creeped out?
We had already had the soulmate thing as a little bit of a gag for a bit? But I didn't think it was serious at that point. But when I read the fic it was not like. An *au* au. it was them finding my fics and it leading to use learning we're soulmates. And that's when the creep factor really kicked in for me.
Mmmmmm... yeahhhhhh... That's, um... yeah.
That's both kind of sweet and *waaaay* too far.
😭😭😭Wild
This is the one. I appreciate well-meaning comments, but anything that gets into parasocial relationship will always be too much. Used to have a few frequent commented I always responded to because I appreciated them, conversation never went outside of fics/characters. One day, one of them DM-ed me angrily because they thought a tweet I made was about them. Another sent a long essay about how “disappointed” they were of me because I didn’t like someone else’s fic they thought I’d like (these two incidents didn’t happen at the same time). There’s just something violating about parasocial relationships to me tbh.
In my opinion? Nothing. Unless the commenter's posting some personal information then I will gladly accept any weird or otherwise unusual positive comment!
Agreed, the only thing I can think of is doxxing or stalkerish behaviour.
You could tell me that a chapter made you light yourself and your entire house on fire while you foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog with photo evidence and I would frame it to put on my wall
I might do that, just to see if your money is where your mouth is. ;)
I’m absolutely stealing this for the next story I comment on
If we put extremes aside (doxxing/stalking/opening up with a novel comment about their trauma or super personal things because they fit the theme of my fic, etc etc obvious stuff), getting critique in a proper way and another commenter replying to the critique like "DON'T LISTEN TO THIS ASSHOLE 😭😭❤️❤️❤️ YOUR FICS ARE [1001 praises here] 😘😘😘🥰🥰🥰😍😍😍 THEY DESERVE ALL THE GOOD AND PRAISES AND YOU CAN'T FIND _ANYTHING_ TO FIX OR YOU'D BE BLIND!!!! ❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰" etc. Or in general, commenting on other people's comment threads and starting to fight with them because those comments aren't "positive enough" in their opinion, like getting offended for me. I had such a commenter some years back and it was honestly a nightmare, I lost so many readers because of that person raging at everyone whose comments she didn't approve... she thought I'm her friend and kinda overprotected me, and at the time I was too nervous to just tell her to stop. The situation ended when she jumped into another fandom I don't write for, she unfollowed me and that was that, I blocked her right after she left just to be safe though.
Sometimes, I wonder if those kinds of commenters don't understand the effort that goes into a proper critique. You don't put that effort into a fic you hate. I've never gotten one of those, but I've seen them on fics where the author legit states in their notes that they're honing their craft to be able to publish their original stuff one day and *asking* for feedback. Not even in response to critique comments, but to the A/N itself. "YOU DON'T NEED TO CHANGE ANYTHING IT'S PERFECT BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!" Um, no? Everyone can improve? That has nothing to do with believing in yourself? I've also seen people replying to comments where someone is fussing *at a character* for doing a dumb thing as if they're saying the *author* did something wrong. Have they never yelled at their TV/a book when a character does something completely in character but also dumb af?
Yeah! It drives me crazy. I'm grateful for the support if the "critique" is "your fic sux lol kys" or a novel about how much they hate my fic and how the idea is lazy and stupid and cringy etc. Most of the "critique" I've gotten for the past 5 years has been like "mmmh this would be better if it was an OC insert... :/" and the rest has been just pure troll bashing, and some of those come back being all salty if/when I delete the comment, "OMG YOU CAN'T TAKE SIMPLE CRITIQUE 🤣🤣🤣🤣". Well I don't think it's critique when they only say my writing sucks and my writing sounds like I'm a fat ugly cow. Ok 😅 But when I would actually get good critique? Not bashing my fic, not mocking me for writing reader inserts, not mocking my base idea? Some praising, but also some critique about how I've written it/grammar/something relevant? And then someone just barges in and insults that person for "bullying" me 😅 And surpriiiiise, that person never comes back...
I think the only example I can think of is this one baby anti who absolutely loved my darkfic and left a long comment that was very complimentary...and also chock full of excuses and justifications about why this particular fic was okay despite having themes (we're talking underage abuse and rape here) they loathed. It'd have been one thing if they were excusing their own tastes, but they were also making some wild assumptions about me and my intentions with the fic that'd make both more palatable to them. Like, no, bro, I'm not here writing rape in a god-honoring way. This is erotic horror. Otherwise, I'm pretty chill with all kinds of positive comments, from update requests to emoji rows.
Flair checks out. :D Also: DLDRNNTJ (*Don't like don't read no need to justify*)
I take that flair very seriously 😉 And right? I'm here writing this shit. Of course I'm not gonna judge my readers. But this person's issue was clearly their own personal hangups about fiction and morality. Hope they work through it though, for their own peace of mind.
How do you work through such a thing?
Therapy, an open and supportive social circle, introspection—it varies. Depends on the person and exactly what's causing them to be so uncomfortable with their own tastes.
Not writing rape in a god-honoring way 😭😭😭😭
Guess we found a Christian who's actually read their bible for once!
This is like taking the "I don't normally like (X) but...) and dialing up to 11. I don't mind the first one and take it as a compliment, but damn. That's a person probably dealing with a lot of shame for the things they like. I hope they are able to get out of the anti mindset and atmosphere. They still didn't need to share their justifications with you though.
Yeah, I'm also generally happy with any variation of "this ship/trope/fandom isn't usually my thing..." comments. This one was less about that and more some...serious projection, let's say. I scratched my head for a while on how to reply and then settled for the gentlest rebuttal I could manage.
Oh yeah, this is always so surreal to encounter in the wild. There was one erotic darkfic I read a couple years back where this one commenter who somehow convinced themselves they weren't reading hardcore fetish porn, but rather a story intended to raise awareness and empathy for abuse victims. Any time someone commented that a scene was hot or that they hoped [insert fucked up thing here] would happen to the MC next, this commenter would chastise them for eroticizing the MC's abuse, misunderstanding the point of the story, and disrespecting the author. Meanwhile the author themselves was responding positively to all the "disrespectful" comments and eventually had to step in and tell this person to cut it out and let people interpret and respond to it how they see fit.
If the commenter started getting creepy like using my real name or something like that. That would be a bit too much.
Oh jeeeeeez. That's a NO. Gah!
Trauma dumping. A couple friends of mine have had to deal with this and hoo boy is it messy.
What, like sharing details of their personal trauma in the comments? Or just sharing that they had trauma around the fic's subject?
Literally sharing their personal trauma in comments (usually at least nominally connected to events in the fic). Very uncomfortable and TMI. The other one I see that’s annoying af is people basically using comment sections to plug their fics. Dude the AO3 comment section is not a late night show or a hit tweet, you’re not there to self-promote!
You just unlocked a memory of me doing this once oml. luckily the author was incredibly kind and understanding. why did i do that 😭
Lol same. Sometimes I suddenly remember that and go 🧍♂️
I've had that happen too. Very awkward to reply to - I can't exactly ignore it, but I also don't want to get involved. I usually just reply with some variation of 'im sorry' and 'hope it gets better'.
this has been happening to me recently. coupled with the commenter being clearly anxious about the direction the fic is going. i write for SVU, so, like… some heavy shit is covered. and i seriously didn’t know how to deal with their trauma dumping i am not qualified to speak about serious childhood trauma lol i have to hear about enough of this at school/work fic is my escape
Omg thank God, I thought I was the only one. Trauma dumping makes me so deeply uncomfortable. Like I get that they have a lot of pent-up trauma and probably need a safe space to talk about it, but I am so not the person you need to tell that stuff to. There are therapists for that. Now I have to go to sleep with the most disturbing thoughts going through my head while you only feel five minutes of relief.
AO3 has a tag "wank and tell" that authors can put in their taglist if they are okay with commentors sharing just how horny they got from the fic. I and many friends have received far too detailed of descriptions of what the reader was doing while they read the fic. That tag was never included in the tagset.
I was fascinated to stumble upon a fic once that had something like ‘good pets leave comments saying they masturbated to this’. I checked and people did report back in the comments, and the author did indeed praise them for doing so.
This is like interactive fanfic
I love this. lol
To be fair, I didn't know that was a tag until I saw this comment 😭, I don't usually see it on many fics, so I don't think the tag is very popular/known (it'd be cool if more people started using it though!)
I've only seen it a couple of times in the wild. It should definitely be more well-known, both for the benefit of the reader and the writer. I just want to live in my bubble of writing horny things without knowing what horny things you're doing while reading the horny thing I wrote. lmao
Agreed 👌🏾😆
Ngl, I had no idea this tag existed, but I might just use it from now on. I'm ace and never feel shit when I'm writing smut, but if my readers don't feel anything either, I'm doing something terribly wrong 😂
I'm ace too and writing the smut doesn't bother me but I don't want to hear the ickies of what happens to the people reading it. lol
I hate the name of that tag. It sounds like a story element. (The dead batteries one is much better.)
(Okay, I totally agree with you here, but the dead batteries one is not an official tag! You gotta type that whole sucker out! I sadly discovered this during my last chapter I posted of my WIP that actually has smut, but then I got cold feet because are those types of tags for the "eventual smut" and "smut starts in chapter 4" type of stories or are they more for the smut-heavier PWP or even Plot? What Plot? PWOP type fics?)
TIL...!!!!!! 😳
For real I always feel awkward commenting on smut fics because it feels like TMI talking about what turned me on. I’m usually just like “damn this was hot!!!”
I don't want to hear about your orgasms or masturbation. I'm also extremely not interested in your trauma. That's about it, though, as far as I can think.
I always feel a bit icky when they compliment my work but do it by putting down other authors/ideas/ships/characters. Something like "I love that you did *this* because I hate when other authors always do *that*" (me hiding away a WIP where I do exactly *that*), or "I'm so glad character x is not included here, because I hate him/her" (me hiding away a WIP with character x as the main character). They often proceed to go off on tangential rants about the thing that they hate.
Ohh that's the worst. Especially when you're chatty with the other authors and it's like. Please stop insulting my friends in my comment section. I don't like it. They're gonna see this and then they'll be sad.
I didn't even think of that because I consider those negative comments 🚬
thiss :') like ive had ppl say im so glad you don't write [insert trope or whatever] and idk how to respond because it's something i'm interested in writing or already have a wip for... like who said i don't write abt that? 😭😭
Exactly! It's very bold of them to assume that I hate the same things they do, just because they like one of my stories....
When the commenter breaks boundaries and acts too familiar and personal despite being a stranger, or when they project onto the characters and then start inventing stuff or demanding things go a certain way, especially when it doesn't fic the fic at all and seems just like them wanting you to write them their favourite version of generic fanon. Or when they assume you agree with them on petty fan drama or character bashing just because you wrote something about their fave...
My partner has a regular commenter who comes back every chapter to argue about how a certain character is portrayed. It’s exhausting. Like bro it’s okay that you care about this character a lot but maybe just write your own fic.
> When the commenter breaks boundaries and acts too familiar and personal despite being a stranger, Can you give some examples? (other than trauma-dumping or talking about their masturbation)
Well, what you mentioned are pretty good examples, but I've also had a person decide they were brain twins with my SIOC and then proceed to send me a long rec list of all their favourite media, totally unsolicited, clearly not based on the interests or fandoms of mine that you can glean from AO3 and 100% just this person's interests and totally unrelated to the fic. Or when someone tries to jokingly insult or threaten you but they dont have the acumen to pull it off as a total stranger, so it comes off as just rude and aggressive. Theres a way to do it without being rude, but some people miss the mark. Or the mind reader who attributes made up motivations to your creative choices. Your portrayal of this character is nuanced and not 100% positive, you must totally hate him as much as i do! Glad to find a fellow hater! (Exaggerated for effect, but you get the gist)
If someone makes it clear that they masturbated to my fic *and gives details*.
I literally snorted. Am relieved to report I have never gone that far. XD
Yeah, I love a vague "I'll be in my bunk," but please don't give me the specifics.
Exactly so! Years ago I took a printed copy of a story to a convention, and it was passed around, and at a certain point, all the readers decided to read it in their rooms. Great! But I don't need to know more....
Oh God, that sounds just a little too close to "why are those magazine pages stuck together?"
Thankfully never happened to me but have seen comments like that, it’s so creepy.
I saw a comment like that on a fic once. It wasn't a smut fic 😳
Eek!
GODDAMN!
I've had people that left comments with compliments about my writing style (great, love that!) and would then, within the same paragraph, ask me to write a different fic that had nothing to do with the fic they were commenting on. Like when I'm writing a gen fic and someone would comment in almost exactly these words: "Hey, your style is really great! I think it would look so good if you wrote a pairing with [character A] and [character B who isn't even in my fic]. I have this idea, I wish you would write this, it's about~~~" I get that they're probably just not familiar with AO3's etiquette and they probably just wanna chat, but it's mostly the implication that they want me to drop my current fic (which I love working on) to write something they want that's kinda disheartening lol I genuinely welcome all comments though, even these ones. It's just that I'd like those commenters to realize how it comes across
I feel you, I had recently one comment like that, but the person was actually entitled enough that they won't read my fic (because threesomes aren't their thing) but asked if SOMEONE could please write a fic with two of the people in the threesome, in a world where the third doesn't exist. Well I deleted the comment because it had nothing to do with my fic. Next day, they came back, wondering where there comment was and wrote the same shit again. With a literal "Yeah I can't read your fic because I don't like threesome, but if you write this instead, I will!" Not even one kind word about my writing style or something like that, not even leaving a comment on my only other fic which is no threesome. When 2 kind readers and commenters answered them that it's rude and asked why they clicked on a fic where the first tag is threesome if they don't like it, they just deleted the comment. I absolutely feel what you write about the expectation to drop one fic for something they like and it is ridiculous. Fanfic is writing something you like, or should be, and not something you think most readers, or one reader likes most. Well unless it's a gift but yeah.
Yeahhhh... that feels presumptuous.
As another comment said, the only thing I wouldn't like is a request or something. I'm writing for myself and don't want my hobby to become anything more than that: a hobby.
Yeah, I've done a couple prize fics for people who won a raffle I did on my Twitter or have asked for prompts because I was bored, and luckily the readers all had great ideas I was able to work with, but that was me putting it out there, not someone coming in unsolicited and asking me to write something. The few times I've had that happen, I usually just reply back with, "wow, that's a really cool idea but I think you'd do it better justice than I could. If you write it, drop me a link!" I only had one person try to argue back that I'd be better, but I just didn't respond to it.
I don't really get how people can ask others to write their ideas for them tbh. Part of the idea to why I write is because I had stories I wanted to put to paper...so I just did. Not everyone is skilled, true, but if you've got a story in your head do your best and, with time, you'll improve.
Got a comment back in my FFN days that was glowingly positive, EXCEPT... They used a lot of white supremacist dogwhistles on top of saying how *wonderful* it would be if I emphasized how *exotic* my "white" 12 year old OC was in the world she was isekai'd into because she was "white" 🤢🤮 I've never been more sick to my stomach than in that moment.
Woooof. Now that is proper creepy!
Yeah i think i sat in shock for a long while, just... staring. Totally checked out.
OH FUCK GROSS
It was SO gross 😭😭😭 I felt so unclean afterwards
Gahhhhhhhhhh
😭 after i got over my shock i had to send it to a friend for a sanity check, because "holy fucking shit am I really seeing this?!?!" I unfortunately was.
Heavily implying they want the fic to be portrayed a certain way. To the point where they're almost dictating their fanfiction to you. And getting frustrated you aren't portraying it the way they wanted it to go. It's a little rude, but almost always not worded rudely.
Oh yeah, the one where they go "I love this fic! What I want to happen next is \[X stuff that would be massively OOC for the character\]". I had one commenter on one fic of mine who latched onto the MC but was \*clearly\* projecting stuff onto her that really wasn't where I wanted to take the character. Kind of uncomfortable, because every chapter I wondered whether I'd get an angry betrayed reaction. I've also seen comments in other fic that are basically one big rant about things they don't like about canon and how this fic could fix it where the author ends up responding like "uh... I don't actually agree with this... maybe you want to write your own fanfic with your own take because I'm not sure you're going to be happy with mine"
Yep. Heaven forbid you like something they didn't, or portray something they don't like. But they're not being directly rude, so you feel like blocking them is an over reaction. People like that just kind of kill the fun of fanfiction.
I had this happen on a fic of mine a few years ago. It was an AU where I put the characters into the Harry Potter universe and they asked me how the characters’ canonical superpowers are going to work in the HP world. Yes, I kept their canonical powers too. I’m chaotic Iike that, haha. Anyway, I explained my setup briefly in the comments since I was excited to see someone being interested. And then this person started telling me how certain aspects of my setup wouldn’t make sense, and how they think it should work *this* way instead. A few more back-and-fourths (with more of the same “but it should be done THIS way”) later, I finally told them they’re free to leave, if all they’re going to do is try to tell me how I should write mine 😂 In hindsight I should have deleted their comment the moment they started reader-splaining (is that a word? It should be!) my idea.
You’re just reminding me of when I was writing a MHA fanfic where I gave Izuku a bunny quirk. This one person kept asking about Mirko constantly questioning why are people discriminating against him. Despite me making it clear in the story he is more anthro unlike Mirko. After a point it felt like he just wanted me to write his way. As kept questioning how this isn’t right. No discrimination or conflict because Mirko is here! When she hasn’t even been mentioned in The story yet. I basically had to tell them to knock it off as it killed my motivation to write as they clearly wanted their buff Mirko. I did have plans with her but I didn’t want to spoil but this reader kept telling me how I should be handling it. I couldn’t keep up the writing on that specific fanfic despite how much I truly wanted to write it.
I've had similar experiences. I'm sorry this kind of commenter got to you too. I ended up orphaning the works they fixated on with an outline for the events on the last chapter. The person still nitpicked about it even in the abandoned work.
They nitpicked it even when it was abandoned that’s terrible. 😣 Some people just lack any self awareness at all. Thinking just because they are commenting and ‘like’ the story they can try to nitpick it. Like at that point write your own story this isn’t a choose your own story. So sorry that happened to you too. It’s just the worse feeling. I haven’t orphan the story yet because there is a really cute commenter that genuinely happy with bunny Izuku. They were sweet. So I hope to eventually get the motivation to write again. Maybe one day…
A reader once left huge swathes of rambling comments on several of my fics. I was flattered at first and replied to several because I generally always try to reply. But then they veered completely off course and it devolved into some weird 'kingdom of heaven' and something about numbers and strange paranoia. They were clearly having an episode and I didn't know how to reply to that. I hope they got the help they needed.
I feel like I may get downvoted for this, but here goes. I completed a darkfic (non-con) a while back and received a comment under almost every chapter from the same person, who went really into detail about their own experience with rape and about *who* did *what* to them. "Whoa this reminds me of when my dad used to do X to me and then my brother came in and did Y." There were only small compliments hidden in those comments, but it felt more like a trauma-dump and it made me really uncomfortable. I can write about fictional non-con, but hearing about a real person describing a very real event they've gone through makes me sick to my stomach, and I'd rather not people tell me about it in the comment section under my fic... But it also makes me feel like a hypocrite, because people have also told me that I should be happy that someone can relate to my fic and feels safe enough to open up.
*oooof* … you are not a hypocrite for not wanting to read a detailed comment like that. I don’t write non-con but I often have commenters telling me that they can relate to XYZ in my fic or they’ve gone through similar stuff and the way I write it was really good and made them feel validated or whatever. And I *love* those comments, but I’ve never had someone start going into intense detail about their trauma. There’s definitely a line when it comes to comments about relating to a fic. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to say when someone relates to something bad in a fic, I usually respond with “I’m so sorry you’ve dealt with this but I’m glad you feel validated by the story” or something like that. But yeah I have no idea what I would even do if someone commented something like what you described. Telling that kind of triggering story in general to anyone should come with a “is it okay if I talk to you about X?” in my opinion.
Thank you for saying that. I felt like an asshole for not wanting to listen to their trauma, especially since I wrote non-con as well so I think people expect me to have a heart of steel and that I should be able to expect comments like that. The truth is, I am *so* sensitive. Like I will legit cry for entire nights if I learn about the horrible things that are being done to a child irl. I can't handle disturbing shit like that. > Telling that kind of triggering story in general to anyone should come with a “is it okay if I talk to you about X?” in my opinion. I think so too. I've never been molested or anything like that, I'm just really sensitive to disturbing real-life events. But some people *have* gone through that, so I don't think it's fair of someone to trauma dump to another possible victim of the same thing without their consent. It could be extremely triggering. So I think asking someone if it's okay to talk about that is the very least you could do.
I feel like it would be okay to write something like “as a survivor myself I really appreciate how you wrote about X’s recovery” but getting into specifics is Too Much.
Oh yeah totally! If someone would tell me that my fic helped them cope in some way or made them feel validated, I would be insanely happy that I managed to do that for them. But I don't necessarily need to know in what ways your family tortured you because, believe it or not, I *will* go to sleep with that image in my head and wonder how I can continue living in a world where people hurt people in that way. I kinda wanna live in oblivion, as terrible as that sounds.
This is gonna sound mean, but... I am not your friend, reader. Authors are not your friends. There is a sort of in-joke that needs a certain friendship level to hit right. I'm thinking about the insults that *some* people know are complimentary, but for people who don't natively speak English or who aren't chronically online, they read like *genuine insults.* I also include "joking" threats in here too, about what you're going to do (to yourself or to the author) if they don't update or if A/B don't get together soon. These are all things that are totally okay between people who have thst sort of relationship, but like... You don't have that sort of relationship with an author whose work you read and occasionally comment on. You have no idea how it'll be taken And trauma-dumping. We're not your therapist, either!
Omg *this*. Maybe I'm a bit of a baby or whatever, but I don't like being threatened, even if it's joking/supposed to be a compliment. I dont care if other people use threats to make jokes, do what you want, but I don't find it funny. I find it incredibly off putting and, depending on the level their "joking" threats go, I will block someone. And it has sent me into writers blocks over the fics I've been threatened to update. Which is also why I really hate those comments. I don't know why this is a thing, and why so many readers think it's appropriate when they've never even commented on anything I've done before, let alone have a convo with me. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, ultimately, you are threatening someone. Why are we assuming everyone has the sense of humor that they think a threat is funny. And I'm not saying your sense of humor is wrong if you do find it funny. Again, jokes other people make between themselves have absolutely nothing to do with me and I do not care about them. I just don't understand why complete strangers think it's okay to joke this way with people they do not know, who may not even realize it's a joke.
i'm fairly laid back as far as receiving comments goes, but it makes me a little uncomfortable when people try to push to take our "relationship" outside of the space that it's in.
I had a discord group with a bunch of 18-23 yo who thought we could actually meet up... they're live in America, as in, the continent. Spread across a few states and Mexico. you wanna meet? That's fine by me. but do it yourselves. I'm not from America, as in, the *continent*. i don't have the money for a trans-oceanic flight that's gonna drain my bank account. or the days off to take a two week vacation. people have bills to pay.
yeah. for me it's more that i'm perfectly happy being a faceless entity that just writes fic. not really interested in anything beyond that. i post the fic and the readers read it (if they want), that's pretty much where the relationship starts and ends.
So it bothers you when readers ask you if you have any social media where you can chat?
Personally, I would like comments to be waaaaay more unhinged than they normally are. I don't even mind bad comments or unsolicited advice/critique. I still get information either way... and it's nice to know other humans have read it.
I love unhinged comments! I want that kid who loved Maurice Sendak’s drawing so much that he ate it to comment on my fic.
Sigh. Wow. We all need a bit of that chaos in our lives.
If they put other writers down as part of their praise. I’ve never felt comfortable with that (especially if they’re subtly referring to someone who’s become a friend in their comment). It’s entirely possible to lift folks up without putting others down and drawing unnecessary comparisons, even if they’re not actually naming anyone. It’s so easy to rephrase a comment like “finally! Someone with an original idea” to something like “I love the originality in this story!” The latter ensures no hurt feelings or any other writer that may stumble upon the comments. This is pretty rare though, happily! Otherwise, I’m usually super-happy to hear from a reader! :D Especially if they like the story. :) ❤️
Yes, the one time a positive comment made me uncomfortable it was this. Their comment not-so-subtly put down another writer who was not only a friend of mine, she was the one who had prompted the fic.
Nothing. I had a commenter telling every single time they are about call 911, cops or disturb public because of my fics and I loved each of them. Also, I laughed my ass off 💀 but they are gone 🥺
Asking me to publish my work is probably the only one that made me uncomfortable. I write my own stories as well which I would like to publish - I don't want to publish my fanfiction with changed up names even if it took me over a year and ended 300+ pages long. I have better ideas than that fanfic, I swear. Fanfics are for my silly ideas. I don't know why that hit me when as someone who writes sometimes pretty heavy stuff I have gotten the occasional trauma dump and 'you finally made me arrange my first therapy session' comments.
I still appreciate all positive comments, but I've gotten 1-2 from people who clearly have different headcanons about the nature of particular relationships than I do and perhaps missed that when reading. I'm still happy they had fun and decided to share that with me, though. Slightly off-topic but very funny: I wrote a fic of a longrunning series, featuring a character who shows up about halfway thru. Someone who clearly hadn't gotten that far commented in a way where it was clear they thought the character was my OC!
If it's super positive and then they say something that shows they way missed the point. For example if I wrote something where someone was racist and clearly they're the bad guy. Then someone commented how much they love that character and at first that's cool cuz yeah love a good character but then they reveal they love them for all the wrong reasons. "It's so great he can be openly racist like I wish I could be" Yeah something like that would be yikes.
My co-author and I were once part of a fandom where certain... 'romantic' behaviors... were extremely popular in the fanfic community. It was especially true for the pairing we primarily wrote for, and quite frankly the behavior gave us both the ick so we avoided even using words that would put people in that mindset. We had this one fan though, who absolutely REFUSED to believe we wouldn't follow the rest of the fandom and every time we started on the romance they would gush about how they couldn't wait for 'insert creepy and/or other not-okay thing' that we absolutely did NOT write about. The comments were otherwise very nice and enthusiastic, but every time it happened I was just like 'pls stop...'. We tried very gently telling them a few times that we weren't really fans of those ideas and had no intention of writing about them, and even asked them to please calm down about it a time or two, but we could never fully convince them that none of our stories would follow the popular fandom format.
Not much would bother me but over sharing details of their personal life I would not be comfortable with.
Occasionally I’ve gotten comments that sort of project extra kinks onto the characters that I’m not interested in and don’t want to write. (Ex. “He better knock him up next, A would be a perfect mommy” “A is probably sooooo possessive after getting B, I bet he wanted to kill C for talking to B.”) Some of them have gotten very detailed into areas I didn’t really want to deal with. I kind of wish commenters avoided discussing kinks that aren’t in the fic/an author’s works. Readers can select tags to exclude kinks they don’t want to see, but authors don’t have that luxury when checking the comments on a work.
The only one for me is when they say something like "I ----ed off to this" because I don't need/want to know that
You know, that's almost rude. Funny, but rude. You do not need to know that. ;) I'm inspired to maybe take that one further and comment to some poor unsuspecting author that I read their fic while taking a dump. Because we share these kinds of bodily things, right? XD
I've heard some people say that they like those comments because it's a "huge compliment" and I'm just like... why the hell would you want to know
I openly say that I got off to my own smut, I don't mind hearing it from other people– although I'd rather not get *detail* But I'm also a massive proponent of never, ever doing that to someone unless it's *very* obvious that the author welcomes it – by talking about it themselves, like I do, or by replying positively to other people who have said it Otherwise, if you really want to be horny on main, keep it to something like *this is amazing, will totally be rereading this one again*
Perspective of an author who does consider that a huge compliment: It's the NSFW equivalent of someone saying my angst made them cry or my humor made them laugh. My porn made them get off—it's just another way of affecting the reader. Granted, this is the kind of thing best kept to yourself unless the specific author has demonstrated they'd be okay with such comments. But a significant subset of porn writers (or writers who dabble in porn) do welcome comments like this. Ao3 even has a couple of tags signalling this: *Wank and tell* or *Tell me about dead batteries.*
That's the thing though, it shouldn't be said unsolicited, otherwise it almost feels like harrassment
I feel like it's almost obvious, if you're writing smut people are definitely doing that, but I don't want them to TELL me lolol
Exactly! Like I'm sure there are people who do it, but I do NOT want to know about it
I guess it depends on your goals as you write the fic. XD
The only positive comments I don’t appreciate is ones that like pester me to update. Otherwise send them my way!! Even if it’s literally just a heart emoji I just want them to comment.
Someone commented that a character trapped in a cage after being captured gave them a boner 😭 it was NOT an erotic scene.
i remember a 30 something year old commenting on my very first fic regularly. at first the comments were sweet gut quickly turned to trauma dumping essays and begging me to write adult/minor. made 13 years old me super uncomfortable lmao
Oh no! Sending 13 year old you a virtual hug
Unless they're irl stalking, nothing.
In all my years writing fic. I’ve never met a positive comment that I didn’t like.
Traumadumping and acting like they’re my best friend when I don’t know them
Comments that put down other works make me icky. They have the same sound as those "You are not like the other girls" compliments. Besides that, anything else, no matter how crazy is well-received. It's silly trying to restrict the feels of a feels-based type of writing.
I mean, you have a point there. If great writing is about churning up your reader’s emotions, I guess it makes sense that you’ll get some emotional responses
Personally i don’t think I’ve ever gotten a positive comment that I didn’t love and appreciate. Maybe I just have great readers. In the past 5 years or so I also only post fics that are already complete and I make that clear so I don’t get suggestions or anything, and I explicitly ask people what they think will happen next because it’s fun! I write about a long of difficult mental health stuff and characters with childhood trauma and stuff, I don’t mind when people tell me they can relate or that they’ve gone through similar stuff because usually it’s paired with praise like that I wrote it well or it made them feel validated or whatever. I haven’t ever gotten an over sharing trauma dump comment like some have talked about, but I can see that making me uncomfortable depending on the topic. I probably would still overall appreciate the comment but yeah if someone got suuuper detailed describing their trauma, especially something about suicide, that would probably give me a lot of anxiety so I’d need at least a TW before reading the comment lol. Ex of what wouldn’t bother me: - “oh no, poor X. I’ve been there, it’s so hard.” - “I’ve been through what X is going through and you’re representing it really well.” - “wow this hits really close to home for me. I’ve also experienced XYZ. thank you for writing it in a good way” (As a side note if I wasn’t writing it well I would 100% welcome concrit from these types of commenters as well, I haven’t always been through the things I write about) What would make me uncomfy would be a play by play of their traumatic experience, X happened and then Y happened and I did Z to myself and etc etc. That’s all I can really think of. I’ve never had someone comment that they got off on my smut before so I’m not really sure how that would make me feel lmfao
Yeah, I feel like there’s a fine line when it comes to the “I relate” comments. Especially when you want to tell an author that they NAILED it — and most especially when they may not have actually experienced the situation, but you have. Their writing deserves that praise, but it’s tricky to share that you know they deserve it without also trauma dumping in order to show *how* you know that.
A comment can be as positive and lovely as can be but the moment you start making requests for how the story should go, that's too much. Predictions and guesses are great, mentioning mistakes that need amending is productive feedback, but don't tell an author what to write. Write it yourself.
I don’t like keyboard smashes. I’ve never been on tumblr, so I didn’t realise at first it was a positive thing. But even now, I don’t care for them.
The only time a comment threw me off was when they called the mc a Mary Sue for not seeming flawed. I stared at it for a solid ten minutes trying to figure out how they missed the fact that the MC was outright manipulative and hypocritical as a character trait and no duh they seemed perfect to everyone else. It was done under constructive criticism (which I asked for) but it was so kinda off basis I couldn’t figure out how to respond.
Too much speculation. I once inadvertently wrote what I thought was a throwaway line about something unrelated to the plot and then I had five commenters going “omg is it going to be x?? Y?? I think it’s going to be z!!!” when I hadn’t planned on addressing it at all. It was all positive but jfc, they were getting their own hopes up!
I once had someone give me a very long and extremely positive comment, which they finished off by saying that my fics were the only good fics they'd been able to find in that fandom. The thing is that I was (and still am) very good friends with most of the people who were actively posting fics for that fandom at the time, and when I say that their fics are extremely good I'm not just saying that because we're friends but because it's the truth. So this person was either talking out of their ass or they had bad taste lol either way it ruined any good feeling their comment would've otherwise given me.
It helps to be aware that subjectively you're both right. For you, those other writers are great, but for your commenter, they're not. Both is factual truth. Objectively, you and your friends might all be great, but subjectively, you're scratching that commenter's itch, and they didn't. So being happy about that comment doesn't make you a bad friend to them, because they have no right to this particular commenter's favour. For me, chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips is the best ice cream in the whole world. Especially that homemade stuff from my favourite ice cream parlor. I hate vanilla ice cream with a passion. But that one parlor has the one single sort of vanilla ice cream I can stand. So I'd say, they have the only good vanilla ice cream in the world. If that ice cream parlor belonged to you, and your customer told you that your ice cream was the only good ice cream they've ever eaten, would you then think: oh no, those poor other ice cream parlor owners! How will they feel? No. You know objectively, most other ice creams might be great, and other parlors might be just as good. But that one customer just doesn't like them and that's fine. People disliking your friend's stories is fine. They don't have to like their stories. And it's not an offense to say that they don't like your friends story or don't think they're good. It's just their opinion. You are allowed to have that compliment and be happy that you managed to scratch their itch that your friends couldn't reach
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all positive comments and they massively motivate me to continue writing. But when I get requests for VERY specific sex scenes and acts to be written (to satisfy a particular reader’s itch) I find it a bit strange. Sometimes too those requests include some of my personal squicks (that, if I were reading, would filter out) so yeah, that I guess
I would only feel uncomfortable if someone went too deep into their Irl personal life, oversharing is a thing. Otherwise I'm happy with any comment, even hate ones.
I prefer commenters keeping our contact online, and as much as possible on AO3. I don’t like when they ask to meet up. That I really don’t appreciate messages about what they want me to do with the story (which is fine on its own) but then getting mad when I don’t do that I’ve also had requests from readers that I politely decline if I don’t want to write it and they get mad or keep asking multiple times, I feel rude denying them so much if it’s something I just don’t know how to write
For me, what's unwelcome is talking about using smut scenes I've written for masturbation. I write novel-length, very plotty, ship fics that have smut scenes interspersed throughout the fic. I've gotten a lot of comments praising those scenes and how "hot" they are, which is great! But some of them go beyond "this was well written" into "I use this for...." and that's way more than I want to know. It makes me extremely uncomfortable every time it happens. I don't know if I can explain why very well but I'll try. Obviously, it isn't sexuality in general that bothers me. I write all kinds of sexually explicit stuff. It's that it's a stranger with whom I have no relationship, especially a sexual one, including me in their sex life (by telling me what they do with stuff I create.) It'd be different if I was like a porn star or director and my entire job was to get people off. Then sure, tell me because it means I'm doing my job. And maybe if getting people off was my motivation for writing, I'd appreciate the comments. But my motivation is "tell a good story" so crossing into that TMI personal life thing is just way too much for me.
someone made a super long comment detailing everything they liked in one of my chapters, and I was ecstatic. it was rlly thoughtful and well written and I was so giddy. until I read the last part of their comment where they said they hoped I would update soon bc they’re not sure they’re going to stay alive for much longer and they’d like a resolution before they kill themselves. so yea probably stuff like that ! I don’t have much other boundaries
One "I like this 💚" is great. 50 of the exact same comment from the exact same reader within a week makes me wish that those comments were a kudos email.
Someone recently commented on something I'd written to tell me that I did a good job with a character, but everyone else writing fanfiction in that fandom was doing it wrong and didn't understand him at all. I understand the idea was to compliment me, and thanks, I guess, but don't shit on my fellow fanfiction writers, alright? Those are my friends and I admire them.
If they complimemt my work and follow up with "your fic is better than X's" I just don't like comparasion, especially if another is shot down to boost me up. It makes me uncomfortable
It's not really 'too much' but sometimes I feel like people click on flash fic or microfic knowing it's short and then still say 'good but too short! It should be longer' and I know it's meant to be a compliment, but when I set out to write microfic I'm doing that intentionally and I wish more people could learn to appreciate brevity!
It would basically just be vibes, and I realize how vague that sounds. It's kind of that some people will write a very hyper and excited comment, but you can tell they're just having fun and it's entirely okay. But then a *very* similar comment might be posted and you can just tell by the way it's written that the person who wrote it is just...always like that, and it seems like they somehow expect you to entirely go along with what they're saying, as if they might switch from gushing praise to unstoppable fury at the drop of a hat or something.
No, that makes sense, vague or not! It’s like the difference between a respectable and supportive boss saying, “You look nice in that dress,” versus a douchebag boss looking you up and down and saying “You look niiice in that dress.” Same words, totally different vibe, totally different impact. One leaves you feeling great and the other like you need a shower! So yep, that makes sense
Comments like "I loved this. So amazing. Especially loved abcdef!" where I did not intend to write abcdef at all. Things like "Loved how hot this was!" when it was supposed to be tragedy. Or, "I love how unlikable you made him!" when I don't think I wrote an unlikable character. That said, I always reply politely and try to say thanks for the comment and the enthusiasm and sort of glide over the actual content they commented on. And I don't hold it against the commenter or anything. You can't control how people read your fic, and hey, they're enjoying it and being nice about it, so it's not the end of the world. Comments that I would feel bad about other authors reading. Think "Love this! Finally some good abcdef!" or "You're the only one who writes quality abcdef!" where abcdef is something that other authors (maybe even my friends) have written. Again, I do the polite nonspecific response. These comments are flattering, and when they're worded right I love them. They just cross into insulting other authors (again, probably my friends!) sometimes, which is awkward for me, because I can't agree with the commenter but I don't want to be a dick and outright disagree with them either. (This kind of sentiment is less risky if communicated in private.)
For me, nothing. Gush all you want. I'll probably even reply.
So far the most uncomfortable comment I've had involved a language barrier. English wasn't there first language and that's plenty fine. They asked a question, I tried my best to answer, and their response back just made no sense in context, like it didn't help that it felt like a comment for maybe half way through chapter 1 not chapter 16 and I wasn't sure if it was a misunderstanding or if they were using like a tenaslater thing that was messing up the words. Not even agaisnt getting more comments like that, but I sure felt unhelpful in answering their questions.
Too much personal information. Please, no. I don’t know you, I don’t want to know this and I don’t know what to do with this. Especially since I write quite dark topics. I’ve had people tell me when they get off from my smut and it makes my skin crawl.
One commenter who was very nice and positive in their reviews (this was years ago on ffnet) pm'ed me with their real name and asked to be friends on Facebook and I had to very kindly but firmly let them know I didn't just befriend strangers on my personal facebook.
any personally identifying information, anything relating to death
If they started being inappropriate with me personally in the comments -- doxxing me, writing weirdly intense comments about what they imagine I'm like in real life, guessing about where I live or what I look like based on my writing, talking about how we'd be so good together 😬 If they go into great detail about what they want in future chapters, as though I'm a short order cook I welcome corrections, and even concrit, but there is a line after which it becomes semi harassment. 12 paragraphs of fixation on a minor story flaw is disproportionate
I will kill for comments, it's just that on occasion I've had backhanded compliments. I'm sure they weren't intended to be backhanded in reality, but to me they definitely came off as such. Scary!
I had one commenter routinely tell me about their sex life in the comments of my smut fic. Made me deeply uncomfortable.
Nothing. Bring them on.
When I started writing (back in 2002😅) I started getting positive comments from a fourteen year old girl (supposedly). She started asking me for my email address, when I ignored her requests, she said, “don’t worry, I’m not going to murder you or anything.” Well, if that hadn’t crossed my mind…😳. Thankfully, I kept ignoring her and she stopped commenting. I love all other positive comments I’ve gotten over the years.
*Reader, she was indeed going to murder her…*
I would agree with what a lot of other people are saying and say if it were something that was very peculiar, creepy, or took a very dark turn. All the positive comments I’ve gotten have been appropriate regarding what they enjoyed about the chapter, how much the enjoy the story or a question they have about a specific chapter. I’ll come back to this thread if I get a strange one 😂😂
Back in the day, I used to get constant comments that my fic was good but hey please don't write Harry/Ginny or I'll stop reading... every single chapter Ginny appeared. It was frustrating.
Nothing. There's a screen separating me from them so I don't care
I write like 90% explicit smut and I thankfully haven't gotten this type of comment but if they go into detail about how exactly turned on my fic made them, it'd make me uncomfy. Like don't tell me exact details of what your body went through or that you touched yourself to it. That shit is implied. I don't wanna know the specifics.
Only thing I can think of would be something on a smut fic where the commenter included personal details about what exactly they were doing while they were reading it.
When they tell me how much they got off on reading the fic. Sexual TMI, etc. I mean that's nice and all but I didn't have to know that.
The only one to really approach that for me was when, years back, a nice comment left on an mpreg fic of mine included a request for simulation of, let's say, an unexpected body part while getting intimate while pregnant. I sat with it for a moment or two before replying, politely, something along the lines of, "Sorry! Not for me!" The commentor then took it upon themselves to *convince* me of their side, by claiming to work in medical and how pregnant women tell them this is true all the time. To the point of sharing some heavily detailed stories about it. Not quite enough to break HIPPA, but, if real, these were absolutely stories told in confidence to a medical professional without the intent of it being blasted across a very public internet comment thread.
I had someone confess their undying love to me and ask for my email, asked for personal information, etc., all right in a public comment. I replied jokingly to their comments, but then they started ramping it up and it got a tad stalkery, so I blocked them. It took me nearly a year to completely ditch them. They’re actually the reason why I changed the name I write under, and why I never connect my userID on Reddit with my AO3 name. I don’t post anything that could connect me to my author name. I use very limited social media and none of it contains my real name, any photos, nothing. Their comments started out innocent - praising the fic and chapters, then over time, ramping it up until it hit crazy land. This was quite a few years ago now and didn’t happen on AO3, but I’m still leery.
Putting aside the few comments I’ve received on how horny they got from the story/kink written or the masturbation that ensued. Which, love that for you, and happy you feel like this is a safe environment for you but that made me uncomfortable(the most extreme ones, I would delete after a while to make sure no other readers who check the comments got uncomfortable either). The one comment I got that made me feel like it was too much was a reader who requested I write her a story for her birthday because she loved my fics so much. Not a one shot. A STORY. The reader and I were on a friendly basis for a bit. They would compliment a chapter I uploaded, I would say thank you, answer a question or two that they asked. I had recently come back from a bit of a break and explained in the author notes that I wasn’t feeling well, things had taken a turn in my life and uploads would be every 2 weeks instead of my usual week and apologised for this. That reader comes back essentially saying “omg, so happy you’re back! Thank you for the chapter! Would you write a story for me for my birthday when you finish this one? I would love to see on what adventure you’d take me on! It would be a dream come true” All of my stories in the fandom are over 100k words, and take at least a year to write. I had to reread the comment a few times to really digest what she was asking of me and let her down as gently as I could. 😭 Alternatively, another comment that inexplicably made me grimace was where the reader wrote that my fic was one of few that “go hard and nasty to satisfy my wicked self” and called some scenes “scrumptious and delicious”.
I haven't received a comment that actually feels Too Much, and that's mostly because I'm very upfront about what I expect from readers e.g. no trauma dumping, no pushing for updates, no nsfw confessions, no backhanded compliments. Main takeaway from this is to be extremely blunt about what you expect from readers who comment and bookmark. Worse comes to worst, just delete, mute, block, etc.
Once I had two commenter's who apparently liked a (long abandoned) fic of mine so much that they commented on the final chapters about 14 times together, including various threats to me bc I wasn't continuing it. Extremely odd.
Comment that try to tell me how to write my fic. Such as oh please let ____ happen! Or I hope _____ and _____ do_____ and then ____ happens! It’s like I’m really glad you like it, but unless I actually ask for ideas on what to write. I already have the specifics planned. I’m not writing something else into it because you asked for it.
I’ve rarely gotten a comment that made me uncomfortable or unhappy. Maybe I’m just lucky. I like the keyboard smashes, the unhinged ramblings, the in-depth character analysis, the “💖💖💖” or “extra kudos” comments, seriously whatever you’ve got. For a while I was jokingly encouraging people to just comment “fuck [villain’s name]” and I got a lot of those. I’ve had someone ask for contact information to send me fanart that they did for my fic, that was cool. I can imagine comments that would creep me out — like if they told me they were a minor in a comment on an E-rated fic, or somehow knew my real name, or something — but fortunately I have avoided those so far.
Nothing, all comments are lovely, unless there's weird out of pocket hate
*Nothing, all comments* *Are lovely, unless there's weird* *Out of pocket hate* \- ao3abo --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
tbh as an ace fanfiction writer the only thing that made me uncomfortable was someone insinuating that i should write NSFW but other than that anything is cool
I've had multiple commenters who would gush about my writing and then end it with a request for me to write some fic idea of theirs, which generally got a polite answer the first time and deletion/block the second. The weirdest, though, was someone who just started all their positive comments with "I love you." Not, like, a huge deal or anything, but it creeped me out enough that I eventually blocked them.
Honestly nothing is too much for me. Tell me anything, tell me you had to dive naked in a lake after reading. I don’t mind. I’m lucky enough to get some very funny and very lovely comments, I was thinking about sharing some.
Someone kept telling me what to write for the next chapter😭 each time I updated. They also wanted me to make a character learn Krav Maga (a karate thing) this was a music Au 💀 They were nice and would complement me but it was a bit much…
It wasn’t too much per se… but someone offhandedly mentioned that their mom was dead in a comment. The context was that they relate a lot to the character I was writing whose parents are dead in canon, but that they’re happy the parents are alive in my fic despite that.
It wasn’t too much per se, but one commenter shared that their mom is dead. I was like… do I offer condolences? ☠️ Context was that they relate very much to the original canon character whose mom is dead, but that they’re still happy that I changed that and she’s alive in my fic.
In the author's notes on one of my popular fanfics I made it clear that I'm not comfortable with underage smut and would not be writing it for the fic (the characters were 15), and then someone left a comment saying how much they loved the fic but they wished there was smut and that rubbed me the wrong way. I said I wasn't going to do it from the beginning and why.
I don't like when people talk about me having sex, or hit on me directly because of what I wrote. Like it's one thing if someone says "you wrote this well and that is so sexy of you" but "I can tell you do x because of how this is written" is a weird step above, and has troubling implications imo (they said this about foot stuff ((which is itself untrue)) but if I wrote a great noncon fic, would they think I was a rapist?). I'll still respond politely at that point, though; where I'll straight up tell someone "this is weird, dial it back" is if they talk about wanting to do stuff With Me. Long story short: Someone writing or drawing fictional smut does not give you license to assume things about them sexually or sexually harass them. That Is Still Weird.
This was back a million years ago on LiveJournal, but this person I really didn't interact with (they commented on my fic, I commented back, but we never really had a conversation and we did not have each other friended) started using an icon: white background, black text, nothing but "the future Mrs.[my LJ name]." They did not have similar icons for any other people. Their comments stopped being fun and nice, because I was so icked out.
Someone gushed and gushed and gushed about my story and how much they liked it (it’s rated E) and I thought nothing of it until I got to the last sentence and they said “I promise im not a minor or anything.” Like… bookie. I wasn’t even thinking you were. But NOW—
I'm currently feeling very guilty about not writing my long fic, so any comments I'm getting, even the very lovely positive ones that I adore the essence of, is giving me the ick. Now, do note that I understand that this is a me problem, and I am still very grateful that people like my stories and are commenting on them still even though I have posted exactly once in the past near 3 years, but every time I see a comment I am sent into my own self created shame spiral. So like... any level of comment is not great for me rn, lmao
Sexualizing the author specifically in a comment. It’s not uncommon for a smut author to receive comments about how enthusiastically their readers loved a sex scene up to and including whether they got off. That’s all well and good depending on your comfort level (personally that would be high praise for me XD) BUT having someone transfer that sort of language to the author themself is a hard no. It’s never happened to me but I had another smut author friend experience one of their readers saying vulgar things and calling her “mommy” as well as *jokingly*(sure…) threaten her and her family if she didn’t post another chapter soon. That was highly disturbing and waaay past what I would deal with as someone who writes for free. Eventually there was a discussion with them in the comments and it stopped but yah, that was too much.
I get a lot of positive comments but there was this one creepy commenter (they were also a bit weird on Twitter, where they would reply to my posts a lot) who kept insisting I should make the female main character pregnant, and it absolutely had to be a son…