judge not lest ye be judged: fanwork comment edition

[merelydovely]

I've been privately griping (i.e. mentally feeling hard done by) for the past few weeks about never getting a comment from my Sewerexchange gift recipient. Then today I was signing up for the Les Mis Holiday Exchange, writing my prompts, and as I re-added a prompt I'd used before, a memory stirred: hadn't somebody written a fill for this exact prompt?

I headed over to my Gifts tab on AO3 and paged back to 2020 only to discover yes, I had received a gift, opened it in the middle of a busy holiday time, seen a couple of my least favorite SPAG errors, lost my motivation to read 8k of text, and left the tab open until my ADHD ass forgot all about it. For TWO YEARS.

ಠ_ಠ

Anyway, I read it, and despite the SPAG errors at the beginning, it was pretty good as gifts from total strangers go! I left a nice comment with a profuse apology. And I have officially revoked my right to feel sorry for myself over the silence of my Sewerexchange giftee.

The discourse around fanwork comments is often pretty bitter, when it's not outright aggressive. I'm usually pretty firmly in the camp of "comments are wonderful, but nobody owes you any," but I do feel that when the fanwork itself was owed, as in an exchange, then some kind of at-least-minimally-positive reaction is the polite thing to do, even if you didn't enjoy what you received.

I'm usually in exchanges to give rather than receive, so it doesn't bother me much if what I get is underwhelming. Getting assigned an unskilled partner for a Big Bang, though? THAT has led to me dropping out of an event at least once TT_TT

I don't think I have a thesis here, other than that I want to put together a post about making my Sewerexchange gift, because comments or no comments, I'm really really proud of it (✿◡‿◡)

Comments

[hebethen]

Yeah, I think exchanges are a bit of a special case. You've specifically asked for a thing and someone has specifically made a thing specifically for you. That's not just coming across a fic in the wild or whatnot.

[harinezumiko]

At least it gave you that reminder to read a pretty good gift! And you're happy with your work, that's important.

I had the silence once in an exchange. I actually asked them directly if they'd received it. They said yes, they had, and nothing more... So I left it at that. ^^;

It's hard when you don't know people to write for what they like. The prompts give objective likes / dislikes but nothing subjective to get a feel for it. But I still like doing them even if they're hard. (Really struggling with one right now!)

[sunshine304]

It's great that you are happy with your fic no matter the lack in reaction. And at least it had the good side that you checked on that forgotten gift! XD

I think if it's in an exchange, it's totally legit to expect some reaction. You made the effort to write something especially for another person, taking the time to try to write something they might like. So it doesn't seem entitled that you'd want a bit of feeback for it.

We're all happy about comments of course, but I also don't leave comments on everything I read sooo... I'm trying to be better about it, to at least leave a short sentence or some emojis etc. to show my appreciation. I always leave kudos, at the very least, if I've read the fic in full.

Totally get that bad SPAG made you click out of the gift at first. XD I can't read a fic that's full of SPAG, it's too annyoing and I start editing in my head, especially if it's stuff that a simple spellcheck would've caught.

[lassarina]

Most exchanges I've done have a "you must at least say thank you" rule for comments; people who don't comment on their gifts are not permitted to participate in the future.

It's super valid to feel frustrated when you don't get a comment on something written specifically for someone else, though.