If you’re asking yourself if it’s weird to comment on a fic that has been up for years, that hasn’t been touched in ages, that was posted long before you were even in a fandom or even if you think the writer isn’t around or doesn’t care–
The writer cares. Leave the comment. You are the best person alive in that moment just because you have something to say. Even if they don’t hit you back for a while, even if they don’t EVER respond, it is NOT weird to comment on that fic. Fire away.
This post is from my fandom blog. There are some things I need to add to it with regards to tags and additional comments I’ve seen since the post has been blowing up:
This applies to all art, including drawings, paintings, videos, music, pictures, cosplay, scripts, podfic, and even meta.
When leaving comments for older works on a place like Tumblr, by way of reblogs, please do your best to find the original post/source post or at least a post with full credits to the original artist. If you are making a new post (like a review post) or even just screaming at the top of your lungs about how much you like something, please attempt to tag the original artist.
THEY REALLY WANNA HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY.
Many of the comments on this post point out that, yes, it is still always awesome to get recognition and comments on old works with the giant, glaring exception of comments which ask, “More?”
I have comments on some of my works that say, “That’s great, but now tell me what happens next.” You don’t get to demand that. It takes a little bit of imagination to appreciate art, otherwise all art would have to be a 5-senses, all-engulfing experience. You can imagine for yourself or you can ask fuckin’ politely, but don’t get up in my grill saying “Go on…” when I posted a work four years ago and there are CLEARLY other comment responses from me which say, “Sorry, thanks for asking, but that’s the end of the story.”
This goes double for 5, 6, 7-year-old WIPs. There’s a certain point at which you should really give up hope on abandoned WIPs, I’m so very sorry. And most websites have some sort of timestamp on posts, so there’s no excuse for jumping on an author’s back over a post from eight fandoms ago. Appreciate what’s there and give yourself leave to imagine the next bits for yourself. That’s how art works!
Someone said that they feel bad even clicking kudos on a fic that’s more than a few weeks old. This still completely baffles me. You’re basically neglecting an artist and acting as if you’re disregarding their work (punishing them, in a sense) because you don’t have time in your life to be up on a fic when it’s 100% fresh and new. Please don’t do this to artists. That is what this post is about – we want to hear from you even if you feel weird about it. We’re telling you it’s okay.
No, artists, you do not have to respond to all your comments. I make all efforts to eventually respond to like 90% of the comments I get and I wish that I could respond to all the tags and rec posts I get here on Tumblr. But if you don’t get around to it, there’s no hard-and-fast rule that says you must. This is an issue of personal preference, personality, and time available. If you put out art in your free time, FOR FREE, that people love and they gush about it, they’re free to gush about it and if you’ve got two full-time jobs and you don’t have the time to respond, because what little free time you have is poured into your art, please do not feel pressure to respond to every comment. It should be enough that you give your work to people. They have to understand that you are human and you have to live.
And, finally, to the people who genuinely learned something from this post that they did not know before – to those of you who have tagged and commented to say, “Thanks, actually, I always felt weird about that and I didn’t know if it was okay,” – thanks for being open to the concept of changing your reading/viewing/art-appreciation habits in order to give back to the artists a little bit. Especially those here online and in fandom who pump out incredible works, every damn day, without financial compensation. Without being able to make a living off of it. Shouting their story out loud into a HUGE space filled with A WHOLE LOT OF VOICES.
It’s important that you’re there. It’s touchy to leave criticism because it’s so easy to be critical without being constructive or to make that attempt and accidentally step on someone’s toes, anyway. So the one little step you can take for us is to say, “Hey, I liked this,” in any small or large way you can. Learning what people like can help an artist to give their audience more of what works and leave behind the things that do not work. It helps us grow. It sincerely does.
It helps. You are helping. You are still the best person alive in that moment.
kototyph 