pageofkittens

Just because I'm younger than you doesn't make my opinion any less valid. When you use your age to discredit me without providing other reasons to back it, I'm honestly going to lose respect for you and your argument. Some kid on the internet taking his stories away when he gets upset because someone offered critique is not an example of a codependent relationship. This is an example of a codepdent relationship: The codependent who lives with a violent man watches him to assess his moods, walks on eggshells to keep upsetting things away from him, watches what she says so he won't get mad, etc. A codependent boyfriend might keep his needs to himself. He doesn't voice an opinion until he sees what his girlfriend believes, so he won't come into conflict with her. http://www.here-to-l...ency-signs.html If you're trying to say that he's the abuser in this relationship... that is absurd. We're not in any way dependent on his stories. We don't know this guy and don't have any attachment to him like one does in an actual, offline codependent relationship. We might have emotional attachment to his characters, but even so, attachment to a character is something that can be overcome far easier than having an alcoholic father or an abusive partner. If the worst he can do is take a story away, he's a really shitty abuser and needs to work on his technique. And rather than having helicopter parents, codependents tend to have shitty family lives: One of many definitions of codependency is: a set of *maladaptive, *compulsive behaviors learned by family members in order to survive in a family which is experiencing *great emotional pain and stress. *maladaptive - inability for a person to develop behaviors which get needs met. *compulsive - psychological state where a person acts against their own will or conscious desires in which to behave. *sources of great emotional pain and stress - chemical dependency; chronic mental illness; chronic physical illness; physical abuse; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; divorce; hypercritical or non-loving environment. http://www.allaboutc...odependency.htm http://mentalhealtha...go/codependency Also, I think he was a narcissist fishing for compliment/sympathy and hoping we'd beg him to come back, he'd just threaten to delete his stories rather than actually do it. Did he do this before he deleted it or did he just disappear with no explanation? If he's deleted his account too (anyone remember his username?), then it's even more unlikely that he was expecting us to beg for him to come back, because we don't have any way to contact him personally. Unless he's lurking on the forums... which seems unlikely to me. If he lurks, he could just as likely end up reading your responses and this topic, as well reading a response from a different reader begging him to come back. If I was that sensitive, I'd stay as far away from the thing that upset me as I could possibly get and wouldn't want to risk going back. Anyway, I don't think any of us can say what is wrong with him since we don't know him personally and can only make guesses on his rather confusing behavior. It would be more constructive to try to prevent other newbie writers from doing the same thing - or at least, prevent other writers from wasting their time offering critique to those who don't want to hear it. That explains things, I guess. Still, it's not so much that it's in the wrong forum that bothers, as that there's no warning for it. I don't really care which forum it ends up in, so long as there's a note about the content so I can safely say it's my own fault if I decide to read it. It's rather jarring when that happens and I'm not expecting it - it'd be like, I guess, a straight male's reaction to suddenly seeing gay sex in the middle of what seemed like heterosexual porn. ;p Most of what I remember of high school is peer-reviewing... with students who had worse spelling and grammar skills than I did. I never learned much about writing from high school. Reading and analyzing stories, maybe, but not so much writing unless it was non-fiction. The teachers were often too busy (or didn't care enough?) to make constructive personal comments on a fiction story beyond pointing out spelling mistakes. College is different since they're getting paid to care more, and unlike high school, you can chose a good professor before you take the class. Roleplay is what got me interested into it in the first place and that's what taught me to write, and why grammar and spelling was important. If you made glaringly obvious spelling/grammar errors, people would either get annoyed and point it out, or just not roleplay with you. If you tried to have your character hog the spotlight and be annoying, you'd get ignored. There were people who tolerated my horrible writing when I started out (probably because they'd been in the same position before and knew what it felt like), but not to the point of never offering criticism. Roleplaying is kind of like peer-reviewing, in a way.... or it is if you've got a good partner to learn from.

"I blame the touchy-feely education where everyone that participates gets a trophy and they don't keep score." I don't really care about the author or his story (didn't have the time/interest to read it while it up), but I must say that's rather insulting to imply that co-dependency is a result of receiving too much praise. It's insulting to those of who actually HAVE mental illnesses and experienced otherwise. As one of the so-called 'trophy' generation, I can say that receiving trophies for participation does shit all for your self-esteem - it's home life, friends and family that really affect us (which varies which each person; not all of us receive praise for every little thing we do). Please don't assume a certain generation has the same experience. Also, I don't think either of you know understand co-dependency is. Co-dependency is not a result of only ever receiving praise - it's a result of constantly being insulted, belittled, to the point that you simply can't take any insult anymore because it makes you feel like shit - like you're not worth the air you're breathing. And, even when people /do/ praise you, you doubt start to doubt them because you received so much crap already that you think they must be lying and are just doing it to make you feel better, or because they have some ulterior motive. You start to think that your only worth is in making other people happy and then get into relationships to 'fix' people and make them happy, or lean on other worse, off people because at least they -need- you and like you. Now, only ever receiving praise and not taking critique is more the sign of a narcissist... but I'm hesitant to call this writer one, because the one narcissist (or, I should say, growing narcissist...he might possibly grow out of it, or at least I hope so; he's obnoxious and I mentally facepalm every time I hear him speak) I know tends to just ignore criticism/argue with it instead of backing down and hiding his work. I can't say I understand why anyone would lie and rate themselves higher... admittedly, I'm the sort of person who would rate myself lower (a 2 or 3), because I am not sure how much I can take yet. I suppose if someone really is a narcissist and wants to seem impressive, they'll rate themselves a 5 when they really ought to be something else - but I think that'll be revealed very quickly when someone critiques them and starting arguing... which would defeat the purpose of a rating system. Perhaps only allow writers to rate themselves that high (4 or 5) after it's been shown that they can take a normal amount of criticism? I also, by the way, wish stories were tagged more consistently. I'm a gay woman and prefer to read about likewise, and I notice most writers tend to post lesbian stories in the main story board rather than the lgbt board. It's kind of confusing, because I can't tell if they've doing that just because they're a straight male writer so they don't think of it as 'gay', or because there's going to be some heterosexual content at some point. If it's the latter, I'd rather it be tagged m/f in addition to f/f so I know to avoid reading it... or at least so I don't get surprised if I decide to read it. That could apply to anything other thing that would squick one out, too... like some would rather not read a story about an actual child, or physical regression. Although a child main character is usually easy to figure out within the first chapter, at least.

I have to agree with Botox. The writer probably has issues that aren't getting addressed. Deleting a story after receiving critique sounds like the sort of thing I would've have done when I had severe social anxiety. In my case, it wouldn't be because I had only ever received praise and not heard a single word of criticism, but because most of it came from myself - and hearing it from the outside confirmed my worst fears. Although, I was more likely to have edited it and re-edited it until I thought it was perfect, which it never was, so then wouldn't have posted it at all. Doesn't mean you should stop giving critique, though. If I bothered to post something now, I would probably appreciate it. I like the idea of a numerical rating. Sounds a bit like what they do on Deviantart - underneath the art work, there's a tag stating whether or not the artist is willing to receive criticism. Or I think there used to be something like that? Can't find an example of it now...