manners – There's a Mirror on the Wall

Fanart

if you like something, reblog it. Help the artist get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.

if you want more of it, support it. This can be via commissions, reblogs, recommending the artist to other people, shouting in the tags, or sending the artist asks/messages.

if you hate it, keep scrolling. Keep the hate in a message window with a friend, not in the artist’s notes.

if you want to use it, ask permission. Artwork is beautiful and you want to show it off. But please ask the artist before you throw it into your header or your icon.

if you use it, give credit. And not just a post where you say “Do you like my new icon? X made it!”. Put it in your blog description, that way when someone rolls around your blog three months from now, they also know where your icon/header came from.

Fanfic

if you like something, reblog it. Help the author get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.

if you want more of it, support it. Kudos are fine, but if you want more of the thing you like, you should comment. Subscribe to the story or the author. Send them a message about how much you like what they wrote.

if you read it, kudos it. Or give it a thumbs up. And this is just if you managed to get all the way to the end. If you finished the story and you actually liked it? Comment and reblog.

don’t demand content. Be patient. Stories take time. You can encourage without being demanding. Show your love for what’s there without telling them to post more often.

be gentle with criticism. Some people want it and some people run away from it. If you don’t know what type of person the author is, it’s best not to go there. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”

Fandom

ship and let ship. You love your ship and other people love theirs. No one needs to “win” when we’re all going to end up in tears anyway.

if you hate it, stay out of the tag. This has two meanings: 1) don’t deliberately put hateful commentary in a tag and 2) if you hate a tag, don’t go and read through that tag just to make yourself angry

if someone makes you something, appreciate it. Read and comment the fic. Like and reblog the artwork. Pimp it out and tell them how much you loved it. It’s a gift, treat it like one.

if it’s a gift, put some effort into it. You signed up for that exchange three months ago and now it’s a week before you have to send the gift and you don’t have the time or the inclination to do the thing. Well too bad. Someone out there has been working hard in your gift, so you should do the same for them.

none of us are “better” than anyone else. We’re all trash for our particular show/film/book/ship/artist/what-have-you. My fave is no better than yours and yours is no better than mine.

actors are not their characters. They are people. Treat them like people.

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

Fandom Etiquette tip # I don’t know but it’s pretty damned high on the list:

Criticizing an author who does not get paid for any reseearch performed for a fanfic (which is also free and the author does not get paid to write) about how the author didn’t put in enough effort to make things easily understandable. Despite the fact that the predominant POV is that of a character who didn’t/doesn’t understand those words, either. Despite the fact that fucking Google exists. Despite the countless hours of time that have already gone into the creation of what they’re reading.

“You didn’t write what I wanted to read!” is the rallying cry.

Go pick up an untranslated copy of Beowulf and then come back and tell me how easy it was to understand.* Even if you get the copy like I have, where the OE is on one side and the Modern English translation is on the other, OE grammar and ME grammar are two entirely different creatures. It’s not word-by-word translation.

(*Unless you are an English Major who decided to live the dream
and you’re literally conversant and can easily read Old English. You
have to shush in this instance.)

When you comment on an author’s freely given work only to tell them they’re not doing a good enough job to suit your preferences, you‘re being unbelievably selfish. Worse, if you actually like the fic in question, you are risking that the author’s updates slow down drastically as they struggle to keep caring about what they’re writing and the research it entails…or maybe they’ll walk away from the fic entirely and you’ll never find out what was meant to happen. Think it hasn’t happened before? I personally haven’t given up on my fics once they publish, but I know of so, so, so many people who did. They walked away and they did not come back. If you’ve ever discovered an excllent WIP that stopped updating with no explantaion, check the comments. Chances are good that you’ll find out why.

“Oh, but you should have thicker skin and learn to take criticism!”

Fuck you.

Criticism and critique are not the same. Proper critiquing involves pointing out what was right and good as well as whta might be troublsome. Criticism is only reinforcing the negative and actually doesn’t help anyone.

I’ve heard people use the “thick skin” argument to excuse horrific verbal abuse–I’ve even heard it from other creators, who pride themselves on their thick skin. About how anyone who doesn’t have that proud thick skin shouldn’t be playing in this big internet sandbox.

Those same creators often have stable jobs, stable lives, and aren’t battling physical or mental health problems that plague them 24/7.

Once of those other creators was once a friend. He and his infamous thick skin once spent an entire day harrassing me when I posted on Facebook about how something had happened in public that made me supremely uncomfortable. He lied about what I said (despite the post being public and Right There to verify) and got an entire group of people involved in the harrassment. Needless to say, we’re not friends anymore. That’s also about when I told Facebook to permanently go take a flying fuck.

It isn’t about someone else having thick skin. It’s about having manners, common courtesy, and some basic human fuckin’ decency.

People who talk about someone needing thick skin just want an excuse so they don’t have to face the fact that they’re thoughtless, insensitive bastards and possibly bullies as well.

You don’t know what’s going on in a creator’s life. You might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and then all that free content you were eating up without once expressing appreciation and gratitude for it goes bye-bye.

*erases pages and pages of personal bullshit*

tl;dr Remember that your words have consequences. I try hard to do the same.