[ SECRET POST #6042 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6042 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #864.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Personally I do leave comments, and I don't find it that anxiety provoking. However, it seems clear to me that there are many reasons commenting on a fic might make someone anxious in a way that other things don't. One of the first ones that springs to mind is that commenting on a fic is something you're doing voluntarily. You've taken it upon yourself to comment. Even if the author has asked for feedback, they haven't asked you, specifically, for feedback. So if your comment is dumb, or cringe, or it annoys the author somehow, it feels bad in a different way.

If you flub a work or school contribution, it's like, "I was just doing what I was told, okay; I never said I was good at [thing]." So while it can obviously have more serious ramifications if you flub work stuff or school stuff, the emotional impact is different.

For me the difference is basically stress vs. cringe. The thought of being "That annoying weirdo" in someone's comment section provokes an intense cringe feeling. Which personally I find more bearable than strong stress feelings, but that's just me. Someone with intense social anxiety may find the fear of that cringe feeling almost insurmountable.

Also, IDK how it is for people with various other conditions, but for many people with ADHD, once you post a comment on a fic, you basically can't stop thinking about it until the author replies. So if posting it makes you anxious, you're basically signing on to be anxious for days, until the author replies. If the author never replies, then eventually the thought of it will get pushed so far into the back of your mind that it becomes nearly irrelevant. But that's going to take a while. And when your CPU is already maxed out with running fifty-six other totally useless fret programs in the background, opening a fifty-seventh one isn't necessarily the kind of thing you do just for fun.

[(Anonymous)]

See, as an author, I hate this. I want to feel like people are commenting (if they comment) because they want to tell me something, not because they've been led to believe they are stealing from me or freeloading by just reading my fic and enjoying it.

And I want to feel like if I can't or don't reply to their comment, that's not a source of stress for others. There are a million reasons why I may not be up to socializing that have nothing to do with readers or the quality of the comment they left. I did not volunteer to have conversations with all comers at the drop of a hat, just because I wrote a story.

Considering that so many authors are notorious introverts, I find it amazing that this needs to be spelled out. It isn't meant to express annoyance with you at all, but the OP strikes me as a troublemaking ass.