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candlewaxandp0lar0ids · 6 months

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How to Leave Comments on Fanfiction

So, I recently made a poll to know if people might find it helpful to have a list of things they could talk about when leaving comments on fanfictions, be it on Ao3 or on here. A majority of people were interested in seeing the post so, well, I'm making it. I started writing and posting stuff online when I was a teenager, on a website where leaving constructive criticism was the norm. It's by far the place where I've gotten the most feedback and it was an incredibly formative experience for me as a young writer — and it taught me how to leave detailed comments.

Writing comments doesn't necessarily come easy. It's something that you may need to learn how to do, but the good news is that you can learn how to do it, so don't worry if you don't know what to say at first. Hopefully this list will give you some pointers on how to do that.

This is more or less the list I go through when I want to leave a detailed comment. Even if I don't have a specific idea at first, I'll go through the steps and I never come out empty-handed.

Comment etiquette:

What became apparent with the poll I made was that a lot of people worry about how they'll be perceived by the writers if they leave a comment. Now, obviously, writers aren't a monolith, but 99% of the time writers will be thrilled that you took the time to leave a comment to let them know what you enjoyed in their fic. I cannot stress this enough. We're not going to judge someone based on a positive comment they leave.

As it stands, on Tumblr and Ao3, it's seen as rude to leave negative feedback, unless the author has explicitly asked for it/agreed to it, so that's what I'll be going over here. Since quite a few writers did say on that post that they would like to get constructive comments as well, stay tuned, I'm trying to get something together to do that for authors. Other than that, you're good to go.

The main ways to let an author know your thoughts on a fic on Tumblr are:

reblogging a fic with your thoughts underneath it

reblogging with your thoughts in the tags, which is often less formal

leaving a comment as a 'reaction'

sending in an ask if they're activated on the blog (which means you can stay anonymous, if anon asks are allowed)

Reblogging means that your followers will see the post as well, and is therefore really appreciated on Tumblr.

As a note, you may find different systems work for different fics! Maybe leaving tag rambles works for you when commenting on drabbles, for example for me it's the system I use to leave comments on smut.

General advice:

Everything I'm saying in here is for people who want to be able to leave longer/more detailed comments and don't always know where to start. If, for whatever reason, you're not comfortable or you don't have time to do it at the moment, a simple "I love the fic, thank you for writing it" always goes a long way for an author.

The key thing to keep in mind if you're trying to find something else to say, I think, is to try making the comment specific to the fic you're leaving it on. It shows the writer what you took away from the fic and the fic's strong points, which is both meaningful and helpful to an author.

Comments don't have to be long to be meaningful. Don't stress about writing a ton; a one-sentence comment highlighting the fic's humor or how emotional it made you can be incredibly impactful.

With this out of the way, I'll go through things you can talk about in a comment, starting with what I think is the easiest and moving on to things that could require more thought. You don't have to do all of that. You may never use some of the things on that list. Leaving comments should not be a source of anxiety. So take what you want from the list, maybe come back to it if you need more inspiration, and don't worry too much about it :)

Favorite line(s) : pull from the fic to let the author know what your favorite line was. If you wish, you can expand on that by saying why it was your favorite: did it make you laugh? Did it make you feel something specific? Did the author nail the characterization with it? Was there some incredible metaphor? Did you find it beautiful or poetic even if you can't go into detail? Is there one line in particular at the beginning of the fic that hooked you in and made you want to keep reading?

All of that is very valuable for a writer to know. Some of my favorite comments I've gotten were a list of a reader's favorite lines from a fic with one or two sentences to explain why they liked them, so don't hesitate to do that more than once if you can!

Emotions: if there’s one thing I know about writers, it’s that we’re thrilled when we’ve made you cry. So tell us: how did the writing make you feel? Did you laugh out loud? If you did, was it the dialogue, or the narrator? Did it make you cry? Which part? Could you relate to one of the characters? Did it make you feel seen? Did the fluff make you feel all fuzzy inside or did the angst twist knots in your stomach? This isn't an exhaustive list, and emotions are great to draw from when you're leaving a comment!

Favorite element of the writing: Is there one thing in the writing that struck you as being particularly good, or what was your favorite thing to read? Is the author a master at writing dialogue? Are their descriptions so good you could see the whole scene? Are they really good at getting in a character's head and describing their emotions? Were you hooked from the start and couldn't stop until you reached the end?

Characterization: Now, this might be less instinctive, but if you've been in a fandom for a while, you'll probably be able to identify these things fairly easily. You can tell the author if you think they've nailed one aspect of a character. Did you have a favorite character in the fic? What did you think of them? Did the author manage to capture their voice? Was the attitude spot-on? Which parts of the character, if you can name them? Were there aspects of the character you particularly enjoyed? Did the author shine a light on something you hadn't considered or on something you don't think is highlighted often enough? Is there one thing from the fic you can actually picture/hear a character doing/saying in your head?

Style: I'd argue this is the hardest part, and you shouldn't feel bad if it's not something you can really comment on. As someone whose first language isn't English, I know I struggle with it. Style can be perceived as the way the author's voice comes through in the text. It can come through in punctuation, in the way sentences are formed, in the choice of the words themselves. If, when you read, you feel something intangible that doesn't fit well in the other categories, it just might be the author's style.

Here are some things (non-exhaustive list, of course) you could say about an author's style: it can be direct, straight to the point. The author doesn't bother with ornaments. Every sentence feels impactful. Maybe the writing feels intense. You're overwhelmed by the characters and their feelings and you feel truly engulfed in the story. Maybe the style is light and airy. It's so easy to read you don't even notice you are reading. Maybe the writing is intricate. Going through it is like piecing a puzzle together, sentences are foreshadowing and metaphors reveal deep truths about the characters. Maybe the style is rich. While not always the easiest, it's a pleasure to read through it, the author has a wide vocabulary, and you might want to compare it to a well-written novel.

If you identify specific elements of that style (metaphors, interesting use of punctuation, etc.), don't hesitate to point them out and let the author know you enjoy them!

That is it for this post, hopefully it doesn't look too daunting — again, you absolutely do not need to do all that in any comment, but maybe going through this list can help you leave comments for authors you enjoy.

I like to end my comments with 'Thank you for writing and sharing this with us', so I'll tell you thank you for reading, I hope this was helpful, and please consider reblogging if you'd like to save this or if you think it could help someone else!

As a bonus, my friend @elidebrey and I (but mostly her) made a 'checklist' for commenting, to help remember all this if that's something you'd like, so use at will!

A big thank you to @elidebrey, @yoongihan and @antoniorhinothethird for their precious opinions on this ♥

#fanfiction #ao3 #fic #fic things #fanfic #archive of our own #author things #fanfic comments #ao3 comments #writing #long post #very long post #fandom

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jeannereames · 1 month

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Dr. Reames! I read where you promised you wouldn't put up a Tumblr paywall and haven't created a Patreon either, because your school pays your salary so you can answer asks here for free.

That's cool, and super generous. Seriously. I've learned so much. The level of detail in your posts I wouldn't expect outside a university class or buying a book. So if, yeah, you get paid by them, is there a way your followers here who aren't your students... but kinda ARE ...support what you're doing? Other than buying the novels (which is actually how I found you to begin with).

Also, do you have any online classes on Alexander like those "Great Courses"? I'd love to take an online course with you if you have lectures.

Thank you!

I’m delighted people read these things! Ha. Some are rather long. But sometimes the answer is complex. (I should make a couple polls; I’m curious how much/many of these people do read.)

Anyway, to answer the questions:

No, I don’t have any online ATG class at present. I am working on putting up Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Origin (e.g., from early Macedonia/Alexander I to ATG). But you’d need to be enrolled with UNO to take it. It’s still a couple years out, at least.

As for other ways to help.

First, buy the books. (The asker said they already have.) Ironically, I get greater royalties from ebooks than paper. Sometimes people buy paper thinking it helps me more. I prefer paper books myself, so certainly buy paper if you also prefer them, but don’t pay the higher price for paper just because you think that benefits me.

TALK ABOUT THE BOOKS … on both Tumblr and TikTok (+ Bluesky and Twitter). I understand Song of Achilles had only a minor following until it blew up on BookTok. So, if you have a TikTok and really liked the books, talk about them and tag it #booktok & #historicalfiction (et al.). There have been a couple BookToks done in Italian, but I’ve not seen any in English. Doing one would be fantastic. On Tumblr, people have mentioned it and shared lines from it in the past, and some folks have found it that way. Word of mouth works. The recent Alexander Netflix series has brought new people looking for fiction (and queer-positive fiction) about him.

Rate (and review?) the novels on Goodreads and/or Amazon (or elsewhere), especially if you liked them enough to give them 5-stars. But of course, be true to your honest opinion. If there’s a fair bit of skepticism about the value of Goodreads/ Amazon ratings in the publishing industry, agents and publishers still (perhaps hypocritically) pay attention to them.

Last, and not book related, but if you read and enjoy my posts here on Tumblr, and feel you’ve learned something from me, keep in mind that it’s the University of Nebraska-Omaha History Department that’s making this possible by paying my salary. 😊

#asks #Dancing with the Lion #DwtL #University of Nebraska-Omaha #booktok #Alexander the Great #ancient Macedonia #Classics #ancient Greece

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trekwiz · 11 months

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I used Tumblr's feedback function about the recent changes. But, fuck, it was hard to get it short enough. It had to be under "5,000" characters--but the system's broken so it required me to get it to around 4,700. I don't think the short version makes as much sense, but I'll provide it under a cut. And I'll follow with a long version.

You want to drive engagement: that means being more fun than nuisance.

We hate snoozing Live. Disrespecting users' preferences and giving busy work means you'll never convert us to Live users: you've only built resentment.

Some users turn off push notifications for being annoying. What does Tumblr have that requires urgency? A friend who needs a ride to the ER is not asking on the fun meme site. When you push notifications, it's your decision to get my attention, instead of my choice. There's no way to spin this as a positive.

The persistent banner in "Activity" warning that notifications are off, is a rude reminder that you feel entitled to my attention. Your intention to SPAM users like me is worse, but we're the kind of users who are also motivated to click “Report Spam” to hurt your domain score in retaliation.

Users hate algorithms. Most users turn off “in your orbit” etc. They made your site harder to use--it's confusing and awkward to see posts of unexpected origin. I had a look at the separate feeds, but I haven't used them again. The chronological feed is more appealing.

Users don't want your vision of condensed reblogs. You'll destroy popular memes that only work in the current format, such as the speech bubble gag. You will lose users if this humor is tough or impossible. 2 better ways of rolling this out: 1. Offer it in the editor, like polls. Users will choose when threaded is better. 2. Offer a toggle on posts. This allows threads to be viewed when it makes sense.

Users like duplicate reblogs. This is social bonding, unique to Tumblr. duplicates show which mutuals share your tastes. The joke about seeing the same post shared by 5 mutuals is endearing, not derogatory.

Be more thoughtful with your ads. You have a lot of LGBT users. Why show ads from a hate organization like Chik-Fil-A ads? It's very offputting.

Don't "fix" the things you do well; improve where you're doing poorly.

Search needs work.

Users who remove their blog from search are confused when they can't use the search bar inside their blog. They turn on favorite tags which can't be used in that case. It would help to have an option to enable search only from within the blog.

Search is inconsistent. I can type a whole post from days ago, with no results. It's not clear why some posts aren't searchable.

I want duplicates in my feed, not search.

Sometimes I lose a post after an accidental refresh. An option to search blogs I follow would help.

Add search to the follower/ing lists. And if you follow someone called 1Funny1 now, it would help to know that they were NotJoking8 when you followed last year.

Fixing search might seem low impact. But it's probably the one thing that will stop users from calling the site broken. That will encourage new users to join.

We want a "mutuals" badge. You're mimicking the worst parts of social media, but we love friend lists. An indication of who's a mutual is helpful. It should increase engagement as well!

Your hate speech policy needs improvement. The bar to remove LGBT-phobic content is too high. The "mundane political speech" has deadly consequences. Allowing LGBT-phobic content if it's "not extreme" normalizes attacks on our human rights--you're influencing public policy by treating these ideas as if they're civil, despite the harm. And we deserve a place to escape the hate.

Next, there are better ways to spotlight content. You could build a tab for curation. 3 kinds: 1. Official Tumblr Curators 2. Sponsored Curators ($), and 3. User Curators. Users should be able to select which type they see at any time. This should include categories for browsing, and search. They should highlight bloggers, especially creators. This allows users to find new content organically, instead of being forced--this is a marketable feature.

For revenue: Editor+. A robust text editor that matches Google Docs, etc, with unique Tumblr enhancements, like a way to favorite gifs and emojis for faster use, and a meme generator--something that fits the most common meme formats but allows quick insertion of text and graphics. Those exist elsewhere, but integration is convenient. That means value to the user.

You should also leverage the Marketplace better. Gifting would be great for digital products. Send DoorDash gift cards, or gift an online watch party or music through Tumblr. The Marketplace is a lot more appealing if it can include useful services.

Closing thought: after a bonus at work, I was about to go ad-free. But the announced changes will be more nuisance than fun: I can't imagine staying here if you make the site unusable. These are obvious errors that will decrease your userbase, and it's surprising that you didn't immediately realize this.

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aslitheryprinx · 1 year

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Hey, so this sucks, but I have a request.

A small handful of 2012- not that many really, compared to how many chill fans there are, but enough that it's noticable in the tags, have been posting hate about rise. In the #rottmnt tag. Which is our maintag for rise stuff.

I know not everyone loves rise, and some people think it's overrated and that's fine. Genuinely, I don't care if it's your least favorite, that's valid.

But please don't post stuff with tags saying you're glad it was cancelled in our tag?

It's just really frustrating to see this small group say how much rise fans as a whole suck, because some ao3 writers bash the 12 characters, and then go to Tumblr and post hate.

When I talked in the notes of one of these posts (a pretty civil debate with someone who wasn't the OP) I was told that rise fans are doing the exact same thing in the 2012 main tag. I checked. I did not see a single hate post about 2012 for as long as I scrolled, which was around a week down. (I used some of those polls as benchmarks.)

Meanwhile, in the past few days I have seen three separate posts either insulting fans of rise in general, or outright hating on the show, all in the main tag.

I know it isn't everyone. Hell, I follow a few 2012 blogs that are super chill! But to that small handful, please stop.

We're all fans of the same franchise, and infighting sucks.

To the vast majority of fans who Aren't doing this, thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy your turtles 🐢💖

#tmnt 2012 #rottmnt #tmnt #tmnt discourse #tw discourse #also let me know in the notes if theres a specific discourse tag you want this to he tagged with

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chaosbound-official · 1 year

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Update

(Note: this is a long and kinda overshare-y post about getting demotivated. Tldr is I still love this project and am leaving the blog as is in case I want to return to it, but it may be another hiatus for the foreseeable future. Feel free to skim, but it's not under a readmore because it feels too important to hide any longer.)

I hate to say it, but I'm thinking about shelving the pollsim - and this blog project - possibly indefinitely. It's hard to say this, because I still adore Chaosbound with all my heart, and I wanted to see this blog through. We got so close to a few milestones I wanted to meet - like seeing the remainder of the cast, the reveal of a sister blog... I was hoping I could push through to those at least, have a chance to work with some of the cast I don't spend as much time with, help everyone get to see some of the plans I have in the works for the gang.

The problem here is, the operative word became "push" somewhere along the way.

I love Chaosbound. I still love its cast and the work I've put into it and the story I still want to tell. But after burning out in art college, art got harder for me to do. Chaosbound, and this blog specifically, became one of the few things I could put my all into - and if you take a skim through any character's tag, looking at the sprites I made, you can probably tell that.

But somewhere around the ghost event, I got really demoralized. The ghost event was an event meant to encourage a lot of interaction and engagement, something for blog followers to also try to puzzle out alongside the trolls. And maybe this is partially on me for how I presented things, I don't know.

But by this point almost all of my engagement, outside of likes and whatnot, was from the same few people - all of them my friends no less. People in the server I had for the blog at the time. And this is not meant to devalue their input in any way at all. I'm still very appreciative because without them, I probably would have abandoned the event altogether, and may have struggled to come back at all.

But I knew there were others following too. Others interacting, and at points earlier on I'd gotten some wonderful anon messages that I still have saved in my inbox.

But for whatever reason, everyone had gone silent. Watching quietly, waiting to see how things would play out. I was practically relying on prompting friends to send in responses just to move things along, and eventually was forced to give up and have the ghost reveal himself. I was like a puppeteer performing in the spotlight of an otherwise pitch black theater, wondering if I even had an audience to speak of.

I hated working through the ghost event. It was meant to be an exciting part I was building up to, from the start of the blog's inception I had the whole thing planned out. But between being burnt out irl and the passive reception I just. Didn't want anything more than to get it over with.

I went on hiatus. And Tumblr collectively got steadily worse about its responsiveness and support to artists.

When I came back, I thought I was ready. I'd missed Chaosbound and was picking up drawing again, incrementally. Pollsim was meant to be padding for my slow work process, so I could chip away at sprites and event art for my next big reveal. But of course, I signed up for too much. I got too ambitious with the idea, but then also found I was much shakier than I thought.

The votes to decide which troll we'd find were a good amount, though I highly suspect at least a few were just passerby who like to click buttons. But once we actually got things underway, Makkea's first choice poll saw a steep drop in participation. I felt the stress from the ghost event grip me once more. But, I reminded myself, things were just getting started. Maybe people who aren't interested in Makkea aren't voting, and will jump back in later. Maybe I'm not boosting the event enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But I also saw something else happen to me. Now I'm reluctant to pick up my tablet pen. And when I do, I'm always agitated. Angry. Asking myself why I'm even bothering, not just for this blog but at all. Each time I pick up my tablet, I'm suddenly reminded of all the times my art - and these blog events - flopped.

I never thought I'd become the type of artist who relied on the external validation online to do art. For a long time, I wasn't. But art college did something to my relationship with art, and I think creating an art project that intrinsically relied on that external validation was the final nail in the coffin.

I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to give up art, or to only associate it with stress and rejection and being ignored. And I don't want to associate that with my audience here, either. That's not fair to everyone who's been here, past and present.

A part of me still feels bad for even writing this. For even thinking of posting it, behind a cut or not. I've felt bad for as pushy as I've gotten, about how people need to engage here more often. But keeping this locked up I think only serves to keep the lid firmly on the boiling pot, and I'm tired of it all threatening to explode.

So in short, I'm sorry that this is how things ended up. To those who have been supporting me, quietly, loudly and all the ways inbetween, I'm sorry I couldn't find that as 'enough' - but your support does mean everything to me regardless, and remains why I am still open to the idea of coming back.

The fate of Chaosbound is up in the air. I was hoping the ask blogs I started would be a sort of warm-up to eventually publishing a fan webcomic - a low-pressure venue for character exploration and a way to garner a little audience interest so that, once the webcomic dropped, I knew someone outside my social circle somewhere would be there to see it off on its first day.

I still pick away at Chaosbound, and I still have some assets for the blog that are as yet unposted. A close friend and I have some ideas for pollsim to lead to a potential game, second of its kind for this story in fact. I'd still like to see its realization, and to get the fantroll's stories out into the world, someday. But I have other projects I've been picking at too, so I may just have to give up on regular progress here in exchange for energy to post anything at all.

So, I may randomly post pollsims. I may answer one-off asks I get in the inbox. I may go silent for a year or more inbetween posts. But for now, I really need my art to be for me, and that means I can't hold myself to any external expectations, perceived or otherwise.

If you read this, thank you for doing so. Thank you for your patience, and understanding, and support. Despite how ungrateful I sound, it really has meant the world to me. I look forward to seeing you all where I can, and I hope anything I do come back with does not disappoint.

Sincerely, Mod Caspian

#modtalk #long post

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kittyphoenix12-xx · 1 year

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Hi!

About that why did you get billy hate poll... Personally i dont post about billy or harringrove so i never had any hate targeted at me, and i cant vote in zhe poll because of it. BUT i had to block so many accounts and tags because i couldnt go into the billy hargrove tag without encountering these mile long posts about how awful we all are. I know you know these posts too well, so i wont detail how according to the antis we are all racist assholes. The worst part is that when i first joined the fandom i saw so many of these that i almost believed them. You know, when a bunch of people are all saying the same bs but you start to doubt yourself, it really sucked. It effected me enough thst i had a hard time "confessing" to my real-life (aka not online) friends who are casual fans of the show that he was my favourite character. And the funny part is most of them couldnt even care less, cause being such a passionate anti for a fictional character and writing 10k essays on how awful that FICTIONAL CHARATER is and therefore his fans and the actor too IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOUR! It is as chronicly online as it gets. There was only one friend of mine who was suprised and since she is a very opinionated person started to explain to me how SHE COULD NEVER LOVE HIM and she is suprised that i care about him. I tried to explain to her that i know that he behaves like an asshole but its due to his background and i believe would he have gotten the same treatment as steve he could have been redeemed, i was hit with the classic tonedeath answer:

Well my home life wasnt sunshine and puppies either but i dont go around beating up kids

At that point i just gave up in arguing honestly and then i felt like an idiot for not putting up more of a fight, cause this made it feel like her argument i agreed with. God.

I love billy so much, but all this negativity that comes with being in the fandom just drains me.

my dear anon, you are absolutely correct and i hope you have a lovely day.

i confess that when i first watched stranger things, i didn't like billy that much. and i handled that by not engaging with media about him, you know, like a normal person. this was just after s2 came out so i wasn't active on tumblr, i wasn't writing fanfiction, i wasn't in the fandom (and I'm glad let me tell you). but i was also thirteen and related to max more than billy, but the older i got, the more mature and aware i became of just the world in general.

in my humble opinion, the vocal billy antis are ignorant. they don't want to a conversation, they don't want to discuss nuance or entertain the idea of people unlearning things.

we've reached a place in this world where racism and homophobia and ableism are so prevalent that people forget that these things are taught and can therefore be unleant. because a lot of the real life people don't want to unlearn, or can't.

and that idea as spread into fandom spaces. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the fact that people's response to children/teenagers saying racist/homophobic things is to immediately call for their death is a bad thing actually. and yes, it's spread to characters as well.

it's all performative. i made that poll just to see how performative antis are and, yeah, the results aren't great.

another thing i've noticed about people in general is that they tend to hate characters that exhibit their *embarassing* flaws. media that has racist/homophobic characters in the bad positions aren't really loved by people who hold those views.

^^^^ i think this summarises what i'm trying to say. no one wants to be the bad guy, so when they see something that forces them to confront that part of them, they push it away, deny it.

billy/harringrove stans have been harrassed, told to kill ourselves, called slurs and yet the people who say those things think they're right because they can't fathom being wrong.

so, anon, what i've learnt from my six months in this fandom, is to embrace it. yea billy was going to hit the kids with his car, i actively encourage that now. yea billy was going to kill everyone, he should've killed them all.

but no matter what, we love and support each other. so feel free to ramble in my ask box whenever, start posting on your blog about billy, do whatever you want.

they don't matter to us. they can't matter to us. fandom should be safe and it should be fun and those people are making themselves miserable. and that isn't our fault and it isn't our problem.

#kitty's asks #idk if i got my point across well #but hopefully you understand #and i'm sorry that you feel drained #i've stopped interacting with antis post ever since i was called a heinous bitch in one of them (which i actually have as my screensaver)#hopefully harringroveweek brightens our lives again with all the love for billy #billy hargrove #harringrove

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