[ SECRET POST #2909 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2909 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.



__________________________________________________



09.











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #416.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 (try #2) - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://oi58.tinypic.com/fk1v75.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Try audiobooks.

[(Anonymous)]

I used to read all the time. Now I don't at all, except for a few nonfiction books.

It no longer interests me.

It's perfectly all right to be in fandoms for the films and tv shows.

[(Anonymous)]

I just don't find reading fun. The amount of condescension from otherwise socially ostracized fandom "nerds" for not reading or having an orgasm from he sight of a library is incredible though.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I feel you on this. I'm actually a pretty quick reader, but my brain is so aggressively visual based it's difficult for me to enjoy books. I try not to bring attention to it because I feel dumb compared to everyone who does.

[(Anonymous)]

I get where you're coming from. I love reading, but lately due to my vision problems I've been reading mostly comic books because they're much easier on my eyes than "real" books. I've gotten quite a bit of flack for it, to say the least.

[visp]

Well, it's a shame you don't enjoy it. It's like not enjoying music - there's just a huge world of stuff you're missing out on. But, if you don't like it it's not like you can force yourself to enjoy it, so just enjoy the art forms you do like.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I like reading because it's like watching a movie in my head. I don't understand the elitism that surrounds it, though.

I know tons of people who read who are downright shitty at catching visual symbolism so it bothers me that people equate reading with intelligence when it's more of a preference issue than anything else.

I don't find this too odd

[(Anonymous)]

At least in the fandoms mentioned. I'm a huge reader and I couldn't get into A Song of Ice and Fire until it hit HBO. The books were annoyingly written and boring. And as someone who read all of the Hunger Games, I actually think the movies are an improvement. Don't feel bad that you like good adaptations.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm like the anon above who just doesn't find it fun, though I sympathise, OP. The reactions and elitism I've gotten from fellow fandom nerds have been absurd. With some it's as if it's totally incomprehensible to prefer some forms of stories over another (television is my favorite medium), and that books might not be the be all end all. They're all just stories in different forms.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmph. Oh that I had your problem. I love reading, but I have an advancing condition that is slowly making it harder and harder to do so. I could once shoot through a novel in an hour, and a pretty serious textbook in a couple of days. Now I'm lucky to be able to finish a chapter a day. Soon I won't be able to process one at all. If you have the capability to read, but choose not to take joy in it, then damn right I judge you.

[(Anonymous)]

I come from a family that tends to voraciously devour fiction in multiple forms. We've about a half-thousand DVDs, and ... I honestly don't know how many books we have. Lots more than that. If not for the existence of public libraries, our house probably wouldn't be livable. I grew up reading, and it's always been completely natural to me.

I think that's why I remember so clearly when a friend of mine in school told me that she didn't read books because she couldn't see the pictures in her head. She could work with it if she was given an image, from illustrations or from a film adaptation or whatever, but she couldn't construct an image from scratch based on letters on a page. This completely baffled me at the time. I don't think I was very nice about it, not because I thought she was wrong or stupid because of it, but just because I flat couldn't comprehend that. It was too alien for me. (It's still more than a little alien, but I've spent a lot of life discovering that almost everything in other people's heads is rather alien, so I might as well just roll with it).

It did, however, make me realise that the ability to enjoy a book is based on a lot of different things for different people. Things like literacy, upbringing, languages, what senses their imagination is keyed to, what things get nostalgia priority for them, and a whole bundle of stuff. If your mental and circumstantial stars don't align for whatever reason, then it's just not as enjoyable for you as for others, or just not enjoyable at all. That's just the way things work.

I wouldn't worry about being more attached to film/TV than books. Like I said, in my family that's also pretty normal - my dad and one of my sisters favour visual media moreso, while my mother, my other sister and me tend to favour books. It works out about even in the end. There are things you can do in one medium that you can't in the other and vice versa, and it's interesting to compare those if you have both, but it's hardly going to matter if you just favour the one.

If you do want a rec for a (comic) book, by the way? I had to do a book report recently, student's choice of book, and I asked the teacher if the book in question had to have words in it. This got me a round of laughter, but I was entirely serious. If you've ever heard of a graphic novel by Shaun Tan, called The Arrival? It's an entirely wordless story of an immigrant trying to survive in a fantasy city, like a silent movie in comic format, and it's amazing. It gives a visceral feel of how disorientating things can be when you don't speak or read the language around you, because the symbols used in the book are as incomprehensible to the reader as they are to the protagonist. You can read this book no matter what language you speak. I highly recommend it.

[(Anonymous)]

I know how you feel a little. I can still enjoy a book, but a number of elements have to come together for that to happen. (Simple writing that keeps me interested, characters, build up I care about, non-complicated plots, etc)

I think more than anything else I'm just picky though. I pick a book that looks good, start reading, and usually I need to force myself to keep reading because I just get.. so bored. Not sure if it's the prose style... or what.

And that's just currently. I used to read for pleasure so much, I'd go through so many books in my school years, always had one in my hand. I wonder if it was fanfic that changed the appeal of books for me. I really wonder sometimes.

[(Anonymous)]

That sucks, OP.

My 'problem' is a bit different, but I do often wind up feeling awkward when people start talking about all the books they read.

I used to read a lot when I was younger, but then I guess like you I started to associate it with work. The only exception is fanfic. But I do read a ridiculous amount of that, so I probably read at least as much as anyone else I know, just nothing 'real'.

It's odd having to tell people you're not much of a reader when you spend entire days doing not much else.

[(Anonymous)]

And I'm someone who used to love reading, but has a horrible time focusing on books anymore. :(

[dinogrrl]

Reading is just one form of entertainment. There isn't a rule saying you have to like all forms of entertainment.

[(Anonymous)]

I can see why you'd dislike reading because of that. I think I'm starting to develop anxiety for books because of this as well due to the amount of college textbooks I've been reading and having a lot of trouble with. It doesn't help that my ability to focus on one thing and one thing only seems to have been dwindling and I'm having a way harder time processing information lately too. It used to be that I could get through 20 pages of textbook material in an hour or two. Now I have a hard time reading 20 pages in three hours and STILL be able to understand what I read. :/ Seems like I need to re-read a paragraph 5 times to understand what it's about now. Words just don't stick in my head anymore and I don't know why and it's making all reading not fun anymore.

[caerbannog]

It's not a thing everyone enjoys :( I'm sorry people are / were dicks to you over it.

[(Anonymous)]

I like reading, but not fiction. Just can't get into it.

[saku]

i sometimes struggle through the first couple of chapters in books because a lot of stories start out pretty boring. which isnt really supposed to happen - the idea is to hook your reader from the beginning - but ive found that if i push through those chapters i almost always get into the book. to be fair i dont normally have difficulty keeping interest in a book, and i love to read, but maybe it's just the start being slow that's making it more difficult than it needs to be for you. it's understandable that you'd be wary of books if you were forced to read or are used to technical readings. audio books dont do it for me either since i cant focus on just auditory stim. i dont think theres anything wrong with just liking movies though.

[fingalsanteater]

I've always read a lot and I think it's so weird when people say they don't read. I mean, I don't really read books so much anymore, but but I read fic for fun almost everyday and my job involves lots of reading. I'll read the back of a shampoo bottle just to read something. So, I'm not judging because I know there's people out there who don't read much, like you, but I've always had a hard time comprehending people not enjoying reading.

[herpymcderp]

I'm sorry you've had bad reading experiences, OP. I was a bit like this for a long time before I discovered books that I actually enjoyed again.

When I was very young I read for pleasure all the time, but as I grew older I became more and more dissatisfied with the state of the industry and the things that were getting published. In the past ten years the only mainstream series that didn't make me want to vomit in horror from terrible writing was ASoIaF.

Consequently I turned to reading literature classics and found myself in much more welcoming territory.

Maybe you just haven't found a genre (other than comics) that works for you. There's so much to choose from, OP. You don't have to see reading as a chore if you don't want to.

[welfycat]

It's totally okay to not find joy in reading. People find joy in a variety of things and just as I would be grumbling the entire time if I was trying to cook a complicated meal or chase after a basketball, I'm sure there are many people who find joy in cooking and/or sports. Whatever makes you feel joy, go for it!

As a side note, if there were a book you wanted to experience (because of a rising fandom or because you'd heard about it and thought it sounded interesting or whatever), one option might be to have someone read it to/with you. If you're close to someone who would want to do that, sometimes having someone reading the story out loud can mitigate the distraction problems with audiobooks (I personally can't do audiobooks, I can't hold my attention on auditory stimulation for more than a few minutes at best), and make it feel less like a chore if you're experiencing it with someone.

Good luck to you!

[(Anonymous)]

I used to read a lot when I was growing up. But once I got into college (and subsequently dropped out) I stopped reading as much for fun. And I never really got back into it. I still read the occasional novel, but not nearly as much as I used to. And it's no big deal.

If you only like the TV and movie fandoms, then cool, roll with that. And to those friends who look down on people or judge them for not liking to read books, they can fuck themselves on a cactus.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a condition that has stopped me from reading, but I don't miss reading. It's made the franchises I read for (Harry Potter, Hunger Games, The fault in our stars) movies hard to get through without comparing them. I hate book to movie comparisons, so I'm glad I won't be able to now and hope I'll forget the differences one day.

I don't find your problem unusual though. The movies and tv shows are a good gateway to the books. If you want to read them, but it's fine to enjoy the movies and tv series alone too.