Idk who needs to hear this, but y'all know if you're reading a fanfic and decide it's not for you, you don't have to... tell the author that? Like, you CAN just click off it. You don't have to comment that you "wish the author the best," but the story isn't going the way YOU want it to. This insistence on making your presence known just to provide nothing positive or beneficial to the space is something I've seen several times in the byler fandom. It's not the worst behaviour, but it's wholly unnecessary. Like readers, I genuinely can't stress enough that the author gains nothing from this input.
This behaviour on ao3, coupled with the gratuitous use of ai, makes it harder and harder to protest against other fandoms' claims that byler fans are 'ruining ao3.' If you want outsiders to respect and appreciate byler, then YOU have to do the work in maintaining a respectful space. Like sorry, but you're not owed that.
(That being said on the ai in fics, the solution is NOT to accuse random authors of using it with no concrete evidence like super soaker had, as I've seen many do on TikTok. I promise you that 9 times out of 10, you're discouraging a hardworking author more than you're catching ai.)
















