Actually I have a question about commenting concrit now. What if something in a fic is seriously problematic? And obviously your mileage may vary on what qualifies, but for example – what if the story is pretty rapey but depicted & presented as a love story? And not in that pervasive, intentional way, but as in the author clearly isn’t aware. I don’t think many authors would take a criticism like that well, but should you still comment?

ao3commentoftheday:

pttucker:

“That needs to come from someone with a relationship with the author who can have the kinds of conversations with them that need to be had.”

I feel like this is an important point. Not only because it’s generally accepted that people probably aren’t going to accept concrit if they’re not ready for concrit in the first place, but also because for the concrit to useful they have to accept that the person giving it to them is a) qualified to give it and b) doing it out of a genuine desire to improve the writing and not for some other ulterior reason. With all the anti-ship and anti-kink things going around nowadays, I’d be very hesitant to bring up anything like this unless you are very certain that it is “problematic” and that you have the ability to word it in such a way that the author can see your point without brushing off your words as the ravings of someone who just doesn’t like what they read.

To be honest, if someone suddenly popped into my comment box with “this is problematic” my first assumption would be that this person is on a crusade against whatever upset them in the tags (I’d seriously doubt that they even read it). That’s just the culture we’ve created in fandom, unfortunately. People often go on witch hunts based off of vague information that they themselves don’t understand or haven’t bothered to look into. 

Now, if someone was specific and said “I believe you should tag this noncon/dubcon because there are uneven power dynamics apparent in this relationship that make it difficult to determine the actual level of consent between Char A & Char B, for example…” that’s something else entirely and something I would stop to consider.

It shows that the reader has in fact read the story in question and isn’t just out to attack anyone who happened to have posted Char A/Char B that day, and it gives a specific reason why. 

A comment that I (ironically) received just two days ago went like this:

ao3commentoftheday:

That’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t say in a comment. That needs to come from someone with a relationship with the author who can have the kinds of conversations with them that need to be had. 

That said, if you’ve noticed something I’d encourage you to reach out (from a place of love). Better to come from someone who has concerns and wants the writer to improve than for the writer to see their work panned on a blog post or an anti-rec list. But even then, a tumblr ask/message or a twitter DM or something would be the better place for it. Comments are too public on AO3.

Anyone else have some advice here? I’ve never encountered this myself.

This was well written with only a few normal grammar errors! I liked it and love how well you tagged everything!! 🙂 Only thing I might also tag is a sub-drop like tag and/or something about Sherlock safe wording. Just to cover all your bases! That was the only part that made me uncomfortable. Otherwise I liked it!! 🙂

Also love the aftercare, that you have it and that he has both boys!! 🙂

Personally, when receiving such a comment, I’d probably end up either tagging it as requested (as I did in the case above) or explaining my reasoning for not tagging/tagging it something else, such as “uneven power dynamics.” In the case of noncon/dubcon, I might even go back in and write a few lines here and there that make the consent more apparent if I don’t want to change the tags. 

And I think that’s an important point too – it’s much better to say “I think you should tag this as x,y,z” than “I think you need to rewrite this.” Tagging lets the readers know the author is aware of the problematic elements – and that there are problematic elements in the first place, in case the readers aren’t aware either – without saying to the author “your writing is bad and you should feel bad enough to rewrite it.” Especially since there are writers who purposefully write things they know are problematic. If you see those kind of fics, and they are tagged appropriately, move on. The author knows what’s up, the readers know what’s up, everything is as it should be. 

Ultimately, at the end of the day, this is all just my personal opinion. I’m certain there are other authors who’d just roll their eyes and go “I’m not changing anything, this is obviously a love story” and at that point it’s best to just move on. You can’t force someone to see their writing the same way as you see it. The most you can do is politely provide your side of the argument and then let the author decide how to handle it from there.

thank you so much for this thoughtful addition. I’m also very open to changing my tags because sometimes there are things I write about that I don’t know the “standard” tags for. Plus, I want people to know going into a fic if something will potentially upset them. It’s still their choice to read it, but they’ll have the heads up to prepare for it that way.