#this way I am always pleasantly surprised when someone else shows up to my rarepair party

[tavina-writes]

Yes it's a response to your last poll reblogged... I try to not care about kudos and comments but it's hard

AH

sorry nonny my reading comprehension rn is like -50% due to being distracted at all times by the show dropping tomorrow morning, but like, I think it's a matter of like, not necessarily not caring about kudos and comments and such because like, these are nice things to have! We are wired to like it when people go "I LIKE THIS!" about stuff that we make. Why would a person stop caring about that? That seems counter intuitive to me.

But more like, getting stuck on a toxic spiral of "I am creating this so someone will tell me that they like it" -> "I am sad because no one has told me they like it yet" is perhaps, not the greatest use of emotional bandwidth or time.

Also I've seen this happen and like, there comes a point in this spiral where even the biggest numbers imaginable will not fulfill a person who's stuck in this spiral. Think thousands of comments, four or five digit kudos counts, dozens of comments per chapter. None of it actually fulfilled them. They spent so much time obsessing over when to drop a chapter to get the maximum amount of "engagement" that it really sucked all the joy out of like, even getting comments at all. Or writing. Which sucked!

I'm a big proponent of hoarding those good feelings you have about your own work whenever you can, and not letting those good feelings be dictated by stuff you can't control, like other people reacting to it in some way, which is yes, easier said than done.

Overall, sending you a hug Nonny, because I think we all get this way sometimes.