#i wish writing was catharsis

[chocolatecatcupcakecheese]

Tagging this with the fandom critical tag just to be safe but. I appreciate everyone who offered kind words not just to me but to each other yesterday.

We’re a community. It’s good to look up and remember just how many people are quietly doing their own thing alongside me.

I felt a bit guilty for adding notes to what in hindsight was just inflammatory hatred. I wonder if giving them attention didn’t just inspire them to be louder in their unkindness. But after hearing how friends, mutuals, and strangers were upset over the post in question? Worth the BS. OC fic writers get so much shit already. We should stick together, not ridicule and beat each other down.

I emulated their flippant tone as I offered my rebuttal. But genuinely, I do love your Tavs and Durges— because even if I personally don’t enjoy a story someone is telling, I still know how difficult it is to tell it and how brave it is to share it where strangers can see.

I love that you’re creating.

I have a lot of opinions about what makes good writing. More opinions than that person, even. I’m critical of my own work and I’m critical of others’ in turn. But at the end of the day, putting love into the world is more important. And that’s what the connections of social media are meant to foster for fandom. Shared love.

So fuck Enver Gortash ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) And do it how you want. Love from me to you 💞

#bg3 fandom critical #babymoding #at the end of the day not everything on the internet is for me #and I have spent the past decade improving my craft so I can create things which ARE for me #I grew up in peak ‘Mary Sue’ era and even two decades on I still struggle with insecurity and inadequacy about ‘over-self-indulgence’ #I don’t want to see that cruel mindset passed on. I want to see writers new and old doing what brings them joy. #so please know that even if people diss you for writing a thing I will not. fiction exists for fantastical wish fulfillment and catharsis #I support you #from afar even if not from a-near #fandom wank

[sweetmage]

I know not every character deserves a redemption arc per se but if Bioware can take my most beloved and sympathetic characters and paint them out to be evil and unforgivable then I can take all of their most vile and backwards characters and make them grow and develop and learn from their misdeeds instead of having them condoned and glorified by the narrative, right???

Not forgiving or excusing them, not even "redeeming" them in many cases,but making them look at and confront their actions head and work to change themselves and clean up their messes with no real benefit to themselves.

#insanely run on sentence but you know #there is a certain comfort and catharsis and wish fulfillment i get from making ignorant shitty characters grow and learn #its also like a puzzle where i get to put together all the bits of context and loose threads #can you guess who I am writing about? 😊 #jun rambles

[deepfriedpaddymayne]

no more sand wrestling…. no more poetry guys….. no confrontation about fake family… no post episode 6 feels….. kills and maims i want my stupid wife back he deserves catharsis

ok I know it's not Monday anymore but this ask DID come in yesterday and the Terrible Discovery did happen on Monday so from now on I am instituting Missing Augustin Mondays on this blog, where every Monday I complain again about how unfair it is that they took my insane French twink from me and no one gets to be annoyed about it because it alliterates

#seriously though. the things they took from us. i wanted to see paddy and augustin being absolute fucking menaces together #and making everyone wish they had gotten captured along with stirling just so they wouldn't have to deal with them #but no i guess! #also yeah the fact that we're never gonna get catharsis for his fake family situation? insane #i DESPERATELY need to know if that was a production mistake or if it was on purpose #and now we're just going to wonder about that forever i guess #the day i snap and write my long rant about WHY i'm so upset is the day. well nothing is going to happen really #but it's gonna feel a little catartic for me so there's that #jesus i am RAMBLING #oscar answers questions #augustin jordan

[void-botanist]

Okay I wanna ask you Blorbo wrapped questions back lmao. I'm also curious about who you thought was coolest, who you rotated in your head the most and who was most fun to write. But also, did you have anyone that was kinda driving you up a wall but then something clicked and you really figured out how to write them? If not, who's still driving you up a wall?

Kendrick! I think you saw that I got too excited and answered my own questions over here but who has been driving me up a wall is an excellent question, lol. There are a few who aren't actively driving me up a wall (what's up with Aza huh) but the people who I still haven't got a hold on are Declan, Horatio, and Sid.

I'm almost hesitant to say Declan because I don't think I have a hard time writing him but I also feel like I haven't fully keyed into the fact that he's an autism creature of a man (and also making it clear that the way the rest of the crew does things behind his back is not them infantilizing him because of it but more complicated than that. They do think he's fragile but that's because of how he's handled his grief). Also like. He literally trusts his crew with his life. But he is so so bad at talking to them and I haven't totally figured out how that all works out.

Oops this got long so here's a cut

Horatio got a character lift in this version. He's always been a sweetheart but that evolved out of him having A Sense Of Justice while also being generally pathetic and wet and soft. Now he has the Standing family deviousness that goes along with it and I don't know how to write that. Because also he looks completely different to Sid, who knows him very well and who he's open with, than he does to Avis, who hates him somewhat for the circumstances of his birth (she tries not to because it's not his fault) but extremely much for being sun-coded in the "cheerful" and "unavoidable and intense" ways. So like, what is he plotting (especially about getting Sorian and Avis back together) and how is he plotting it and how does this dovetail with the happy-go-lucky florist which is equally as much who he is?

Sid on the other hand is challenging in the sense that writing him feels fine. He's a real everyman if you will. Except I don't get his character and I think that's a major stumbling block for AOM as a whole. Yeah, on some level he has to be the sad traumatized guy but like. How does he handle his parents trying to run his life once he takes a massive step outside of their frame of reference? How does this work with Avis's story? (Can I successfully shove these two stories into one thing that is a whole? They have so many themes in common help) In his earliest iterations he was the devil-may-care I'm-doing-my-best guy who mildly tormented Horatio Sense Of Justice and I guess they've sort of flipped? Except Sid is always the Doing My Best guy.

Also when it comes to Anni and Zel, Anni is so easy to write with all the technical stuff and much more challenging with the romance stuff and I don't want it to be that way aaaaaaa

As for who did click, I think I'm getting there with Patience (even though I haven't worked on TFA in a while), Rodney worked better when I just let him be soft, working out Fay's whole divorce history helped make her easier to write (she's not pretending to be the good suburban mom. she just is sometimes and other times she sucks), the fact that Wylie hates himself cracked his whole character wide open, and lately I've realized that a critical part of post-divorce Sorian is that he's tired. He's tired of Avis needling him, always being there but never being there for him. He's not even sure he deserves for her to be. But he kinda wishes she would just leave and move on so he can too.

#'but your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone' #every iteration I get closer with Anni & Zel. I promise they have chemistry. I just don't feel confident in my ability to bring it out #which is probably the real problem. I think I'm gonna just write a ton of them outside of TFA until I get it #also when I start writing Binna again I think she's going to be kind of tough but we'll get there #original Old Canon Sid was a fucking trip (highly affectionate). I think he was dead? and trapped in the time stream? #so he could just go through time and dimensions however he pleased to annoy everybody equally #he and horatio had this unexplored 'menaces to lovers' potential #his methods were questionable but he really was trying to do the right thing. I wish I had written seven million more pages of him #I originally solved Sid vs. his parents with what was essentially a heist plot crafted to convince them he was a lost cause #which was delightful but. I don't think that's how I want to do things this time #it was great catharsis while I was really going through it tho #also throwback to when I mentally got through finals in the spring by just taking a break to write Vy x Wylie smut #thinking about Sorian and mentally going 'aw my baby' and laughing about who I have/would call my baby #anyone is fair game but I usually say it about Dez (cute) - Tirias (fun) - Mirilde (darling) - Sorian (sad) - Fabian (loser) #c: Sid #c: Declan #c: Horatio #c: Sorian #c: Fay #c: Wylie #c: Rodney #c: Patience #rose meta #rose brambles

[cornerboothcomics]

OCtober day 4: Redraw an old drawing

Here’s Amy! I can definitely see how my skills have improved with this one lmao. The original was drawn on Nov 12, 2019, back when The Corner Booth had a different name and was generally going to be darker. She still had the telepathy, by the way, the knives just weren’t included in this drawing

[ID 1: a pencil drawing of a preliminary design of Amy. She is shown nearly head-on, smiling widely at the viewer. In this, Amy is a young biracial girl with a light build. She has freckles on her cheeks. She is wearing a vigilante-like costume, which consists of a loose baklava around her neck, slightly tactical looking chestplate, shoulder pads, sweatshirt, and motorcycle pants. The whole costume has angular design details, and the chestplate has a spray painted V-like shape on the front that goes up to the shoulder straps. There is an arrow pointing to her saying “yes!!”. /End ID]

[ID 2: A similar ink drawing with purple gel pen details, this time with the current design of Amy. She is shown as a young Black woman, older than she is most art for The Corner Booth. She is mid-sized, and still has freckles. Her hair is still shoulder length, but is now much more coily and done in an afro. She’s wearing the same outfit, but the details are more polished and there are scuffs on her shoulder pads. In addition, there are three diamond-shaped knives hovering around her shoulders. They have black and purple flames surrounding them. /End ID]

#bulktober22 #tcb Amy #At the time I was making this story as a way to deal with escapism + catharsis + wish fulfillment (was dealing w/ a lot of trauma) #but then I was developing my own thoughts on things and learning more about the political aspects of the superhero genre #and the implications that I’d have to deal with if I wanted it to be semirealistic #and that got enormously heavy psychologically so eventually I was like you know what. Fuck it. My writing should not make me stressed + sad #So I took a break from it for a while and then came back to it and was like yeah yeah okay I can work with this from another angle now #this can still be escapism and wish fulfillment and catharsis but from a positive angle #the corner booth art

[apriljinxed]

Flawed Memory

I’m trying not to

Remember the last time we touched

How your tongue savoured my body

& how it had me out to breath

In remembering,

I fear that I’ll corrupt the memory

Leaving it tattered and tainted in fingerprints

The clarity of your warmth worn away with repetition

The details becoming hazy and intangible

I don’t want to ever forget

The last time I felt

Cherished

& needed

By you.

#loss #love #catharsis #writers of tumblr #nostalgia #spilled thoughts #poets of tumblr #self care #poetry #grief #writer #text post #poem #i wish i could make it right #writing #poet #memory

[lavenoon]

Hi<3 hope you are having a nice day today!

💞 and 🍭 for the writer asks

Hi hi! <3 I'm still a tad sick because my fever simply refuses to leave me alone, but after spending most of the afternoon napping I at least no longer feel like a truck ran me over, so I'm taking that as a win!

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Talked about other factors here and here, but the last big thing is definitely grammar/ form. I'm always a little paranoid about the grammar in particular since German grammar is a bit different, and I wonder if I'm mixing things up or if the linguistic choice I make only sounds good to me because I have been mixing up languages for 10 years now, so I can't expect other people to like the way I write. Also a big source of imposter syndrome right there! I tend to think my experience with my writing cannot in any form be universal, because anxiety is mean. But also the form - line breaks. If there are no line breaks I'm out I cannot write like that, I cannot read like that. I sometimes worry I use too many paragraphs, but I try to stick to the TIP TOP rule - time, person, topic, place. If one of those changes, new paragraph! (Sometimes I break that rule, if I think the impact is better like that!) I also try to keep my run on sentences to a more reasonable amount, because adhd brain says "many commas good. let's throw in some parenthesis and also crossed out text, or maybe some dashes and then return to the main sentence." It's a curse sometimes, because I simply cannot be succinct!

🍭 why did you start writing?

In general, well... I always loved indulging! I was always very very daydreamy, and used to roleplay a lot of stories with friends. When they decided we're "too old" for that stuff and it's too childish, well... I just turned to writing! I think more in words than visuals, so bringing myself to imagine more and more elaborate things really helped me flesh things out, and made the dreams so much more fun! Plus, I can write stuff that's catered to my taste exactly, and that's just a huge perk!

This time around (because, well, I was writing for just myself after a lack of feedback for my last fic made me lose nearly all motivation to publish my writing) I started writing publicly again just because the reception for Accidentally Undercover was so good! I kept getting excited messages and feedback and interactions, all exactly the things I felt like I was missing last time, so I decided to try again! And it started out a bit awkward and clunky, but now I'm extremely happy I started writing for AU, and get to share all of that with you guys <3

#answer let luce #betweenblackberrybranches #ask game #also just remembered I have a mutuals tag that I always forget <3 #we're holding hands #think there's probably *reasons* why I love indulging in fantasies so much but yknow. that's the general reason #the specifications depend on what I'm writing #escapism? catharsis? wish fulfillment? take your pick #but yeah I hadnt. actually realized before. #but my very first story I definitely wrote around the time I grew apart with my childhood best friend and we stopped playing a lot #we started “hanging out” instead of “playing” and I missed it so dearly #BUT YE writing fun #indulgence fun <3 #and now it is exactly time for dinner so im hitting post gfhdjs

[arthur-r]

i love (love) (/not correct not sincere this is an untrue fact about myself) dissociating at band practice and then being expected to sing about wanting to kill myself it’s so fun

#fuck. like i’m the person writing these songs but they are not for these moments #catharsis is something you can experience while you have some semblance of a will to live. not when you are staring into space blankly #feeling like a broken person. and actually at that very moment wanting to die #anyway i’ll be okay. just got home. this mom and kid were in the elevator with me up to the apartment and the mom recognized my cello #(​as being a cello i mean) and asked me about it and i told her i’m in a punk band about it and she said that’s the coolest thing #so that was good and cool. and they live on the third floor i live on the first so i might not see them again. but it was nice #and band was fine. and my band likes my song. but sometimes it actually is bad to sing about this stuff sometimes #(especially because it’s like. this particular song is also about. insecurities in relationship. and i’m able to play the song because i #don’t really feel those insecurities as much any more and i’m in a better place with regards to. not spiralling about being loved. however #that only applies to the relationship insecurities of that moment. when i was writing it. and i went a while without developing new ones #but now there’s a lot of irl friendships that feel as unstable as i felt at that time. and so now the song means something to me directly #and now it hurts again. and it’s not good. i’m like scared for certain people to ever hear it) #anyway my mom and little sister are actively waiting for me to come out of the bathroom where i sit typing this. and tell them how band was #and whatever i say will not involve any of these facts. but i sure have to go say it #so idk. i love you guys. struggling a bit. but i’ll be okay. scary current relationships mentioned = nobody here i feel pretty stable #i have built relationships that i feel confident about. with the most important people. and that is really good and i’m glad #there are other newer scarier relationships that i am going insane about. a teacher and two students and a coworker. wish me luck #anyway i have to go. but yeah. idk. i’m so tired. heading out now. be back in a bit #me. my post. mine. #delete later #suicide mention #ask to tag #vent cw #(kind of) #friends only

[firewoodfigs]

.

#submission after submission; rejection after rejection #i want to get better at my craft but 😭 idk how. i feel it so intensely when Rilke said to write like your life depends on it. #when victor frankl said that he with an incomplete creative work stirring inside him cannot rest or die easy #knowing that the tapestry yet unformed cannot be replicated by another’s hand #i want to be better. i don’t want to be mediocre. i don’t know how. time is such a rarity / a currency I do not have in sufficiency #(neither is money or the luxury of dreaming) #😔😔😔 #the truth is i think i will always be shrouded in inadequacy #veiled only by my inadequate attempts at seeming adequate #i don’t have much of artistry to give. sometimes I don’t even have the words #to pen down these threads of thought / spinning so wildly like loose yarn on a wheel #i only have a delicate heart to offer. i used to think it might suffice. but art has become #a commodity embellished for people’s admiration #no longer is it a catharsis / raw and broken / holding the humane and inhumane #without veneers of perfection / that the imperfect may relate and weep with #it genuinely frustrates me so much that people in my homeland who pursue the arts #generally hail from a glut of privilege and a trampoline of legacy and trust funds #me? I’m just that girl who never learnt how to fucking read!!! #genuinely at risk of sounding pathetic i wish someone read to me as a kid so my internal dialogue wouldn’t be so contrived all the time #and i can try and try and cultivate something akin to a native tongue but I’ll always be that imposter / a step a page a book a shelf #a library behind

[down-thedrain]

you'll be happy to know that I am outlining the plot with the intention to write it!!!! im very close to getting to my favorite scene :)

WOOOOOOO 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

#AS A FELLOW WRITER I LOVE GETTING TO THE FAVORITE SCENE #IT'S LIKE. CATHARSIS #i wish you the very best in writing 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[anethum-etcetera]

.

#i wish i had any fucking chill at all #i am so fucking aggressive about how i feel and i fucking hate it #every single part of me wants to break everything around me and scream and cry until my throat is raw #over literally nothing. #this time over stupid video game #once over an argument in my head #sometimes over a conversation going poorly #and instead of the catharsis of busting my knuckles and skull open and breaking my teeth on every object in a 10 ft radius #i break one thing i dont have the time or energy to fix right now. and feel like shit about it. #so now im sitting here writing this out and shaking like a fucking nervous mutt trying my best to...what exactly #minimize property damage #try to impose discipline #act like i have any control over how my body functions #the dumbest part of this is now i have a pretty decent idea on how to repair joycons and procontrollers and how to troubleshoot and #what bits need to fit with others and what specifically is annoying to put together. i wonder if i would have more control if i #didnt enjoy putting stuff back together. its almost like a sick incentive. like i act like garbage and then fix it and get dopamine about it #i need therapy. moreso i need someone to talk at i think. i wanna get drunk and complain and not have to act like i have a plan #biggest thing is i cant sleep. but fixing that is the plan i still dont have and at this point may never achieve. i feel like a failure. #fuck #at least I've stopped shaking and now am just depressed. maybe i should just play games i don't think about until side order comes out. idk

[ayatoscupid]

♡.

#💘.doc #💘.vent #long tags ahead! #nothing like writing a piece so dramatic to project ur problems on hghklhflgf #unfortunately it didnt bring any catharsis to me though :pensive #ive also been feeling sick the whole day thanks to my awful mood. incredible how ur mental state affects ur physical health #but anw........ i just wish i didnt feel so selfish asking for help #or asking if someone cares. i wish it didnt seem so selfish to me to have someone worry over me #idk how exactly how to describe what im feeling right now but i just. yknow? i want someone to worry over me. #i want someone to go looking for me if i go missing #to wonder where i went and come and find me and tell me to come back #ig thats bad for me though isnt it??? i should learn to seek people out #but maybe... just this once

[theminecraftbee]

whats the most important part of the latter/comfort half to you in a hurt/comfort fic?

oh this is an INTERESTING question, because the answer I give is probably unhelpful: the most important part of the conclusion of a hurt/comfort fic to me is CATHARSIS. and sometimes that means VERY DIFFERENT THINGS depending on the fic! like, okay, sometimes the catharsis can be the hurt itself, right, like sometimes there’s catharsis in someone actually being hurt in the same way you are. often for me personally the biggest catharsis is “the characters finally acknowledge the real hurt and that it’s hurting them and cry and scream about it”, because boy, don’t we all wish it was that easy to Know why we’re hurting and cry and scream about it a bit? sometimes the catharsis is “someone takes care of the lead in a way that finally lets them relax”, sometimes the catharsis is “the guy that was causing the hurt gets punched in the face”, I have a trend of “the character physically leaves or destroys something to represent emotionally moving forward” in my writing, and that’s a fun catharsis too!

but, okay, more simply, the thing is that a hurt/comfort has a “conflict” and a “climax” and all that plot structure too! it’s just that climax isn’t always “a big exciting moment”, it’s “catharsis”, and the conflict isn’t normally “guy fights a bad guy or antagonist”, it’s “guy is hurt, and we want them not to be”. and I know that seems like a simple, fundamental thing, but a lot of hurt/comfort I don’t like DOESN’T have a well-paced emotional arc, and doesn’t understand you can’t start at 100% and stay there the whole time and still be compelling, and doesn’t understand you have to earn your catharsis, or doesn’t really land the “this is the cathartic emotional resolution” feeling! whereas a lot of the BEST hurt/comfort understands EXACTLY how to stick the emotional conflict in the right order and the catharsis in the right place! it’s an art that takes practice.

…so I guess the other answer to this isn’t “catharsis” it’s also “pacing” whoops SORRY I KNOW THIS ISN’T A HELPFUL ANSWER,

#answered #whumpydaydreams

[lurkingshan]

Dead Friend Forever: Notes on the Finale

We made it! And I am... mostly, if not wholly, satisfied. That ending was both better than expected and still fell short in a few key places, and there are clear indicators of industry business interfering with the final choices (a common Thai bl problem these days).

The Good

The hallucination sequences were excellent, felt super well grounded in everything we know about these characters, and the way it connected to the real world consequences for each of them was excellent. Fluke stabbing his own eyes, Fluke and Top dying trying to fight each other while they denied their culpability to the end, Jin maiming his own hand, Phee reliving his promises to Non that he utterly failed to keep, and Tee stabbing White thinking he was Non all felt like very appropriate consequences. I am devastated that White died, but it's not an inappropriate consequence in this genre. He got involved with a bad dude and he paid for it.

New's final moments with the hallucination of Non were beautifully done. We've been building to this final breakdown for weeks, and he was too far gone to keep on living. I said last week he was already a dead man walking, and I felt that every moment in this episode. He tried his best to avenge his brother, and mostly succeeded despite Phee turning on him. Phee being the one to kill him in the end was also a good final sin for Phee and completed his descent and betrayal of the brothers over the last several weeks. I appreciated that his hallucination sequence was longer and more detailed than the rest; he had actual commitments to Non, so his betrayal was worse.

The Not So Good

A copout ending and too many loose ends. This episode was great right up until the moment they chose to air an ambiguous ending to protect a ship and attempt to please all fans. They wanted to have their cake (keep the show's main ship intact) and eat it, too (punish them as the narrative demanded). Rather than pick up the axe left on the ground last week and finish the story with Phee and Jin getting what was coming to them, they did an out of nowhere time skip, set up a happy ending for them, and then ended on an implication (but not a clear confirmation) that actually they did die back at the cabin and this last few minutes was another fantasy sequence.

This was frustrating for a few reasons: it broke the mood, tone, and rhythm of the ending, it denied the audience the catharsis of seeing Phee and Jin die, it gave a nod to a happy ending for them that didn't go at all with the narrative, and it wimped out on delivering a more definitive and fitting ending for them. Not to mention that this ending left us with no closure on Non's death, which happened offscreen, or the axe left on the ground and signaled to us as a clear threat in the penultimate episode, or who exactly was behind the mask at various moments. Even if they wanted to do this time jump and final twist, there were much better ways to do it, such as actually showing us Phee and Jin's bodies still in the woods. Leaving it this vague was a copout of a choice designed to appease fans, and it felt like one.

In The End

All that said, I read that ending as a confirmation that Phee and Jin are in fact dead back in the woods. Jin's maimed left hand was never shown in the jump forward, which would have been a crystal clear indicator that it was real. The whole tone of the sequence felt wrong and very discordant with everything that came before. And I simply can't accept that Phee would be allowed to murder New and still survive this story. It would be wrong, and the show clearly knows that, which is why they acknowledged it with that ending.

I enjoyed the experience of watching this show, and I thought the writing was truly excellent through the first nine episodes. The pacing issues and weirdness around the Phee and Jin material began in ep 10, and we can see why now that we know the ending. I wish the drama had stuck to the courage of its convictions and ended on a stronger note, but I am satisfied that most of the characters got what they deserved. It's been a pleasure clowning with you all.

#dead friend forever #dff the series #thai bl #shan shouts into the void