gavin-noises:

So, I’ve been in the AH fandom for a long ass time now. I first started watching in 2011. I read my first fanfic in 2012. I’ve been here for a lot of drama in those past six years, as fandoms tend to experience on Tumblr. So when I see a mistake being made that was made before and was catastrophic, I feel obligated to try and stop it before it’s too late.

With a lot of new people in this fandom, there are a lot of new fic writers. That’s awesome! I write and read AH fanfiction and am always happy to see more in the community! But there are some rules about posting it to Tumblr you need to know.

DO. NOT. TAG. THEIR. REAL. NAMES.

I know it’s unintuitive if you’re from another fandom (especially if it wasn’t an RPF). But Tumblr isn’t AO3. There are people here who love AH and are disgusted and uncomfortable with seeing fanfiction (especially smut but all fics in general). And that’s their right to be uncomfortable! These at the end of the day are real people we’re writing about. And we need to respect that. But it’s also more than just that.

Some of these people get mad. Like, really fucking mad. And when fics start to get into the main tags, they lash out. I’ve seen this happen time and time again in this fandom. They will write hate messages, try and shame us around other community members, and try to go to the Rooster Teeth staff (a lot of whom have given permission to write them, but there are rules. @fuckyeahrtfanfic made a list of rules a while ago worth looking at if you’re new or need a refresher) which can feel hella embarrassing for writers, especially young ones. Before RT I was in the Smosh fandom and experienced that and I don’t wish it upon anyone. It’s just all in all a bad situation.

We have made tags to get around this. “Ragehappy” is a thing for this very reason, something you can tag isntead of “Achievement Hunter”. And there are ways to get around tagging say “Ryan Haywood” in a Freewood fic. Tag Freewood, tag fahc!Ryan or whatever AU you write the fic in. Tag Ragehappy. If you really feel the need to tag their names, post to AO3 instead.

I don’t want to be a fic police or anything but I’ve been seeing fics in the main tags and I just don’t want this to be an issue again. Especially because some of you are so new and young or just don’t know better. It sucks, but when you’re in an RPF you have to tip toe, even if the people you write about are okay with it. And this isn’t just for us, but also if it makes people uncomfortable than they shouldn’t have to see it.

Just make sure we tag our fics correctly, lovelies. I don’t want us to make people feel uncomfortable or to attract a lot of hate again.