#Writing feelings

[larkral]

Happy Sunday everyone!! I've written this week! It's a March Miracle. (Imagine me checking my calendar to verify that it's March as I type this, despite the fact that it's mid-March. Time is spinning out beyond reasonable perception.)

Anyway, turns out that sometimes when you're writing a scene that you saw coming down the road for several months, and it just keeps not happening and not working, all you need to do is bring in another character who turns out absolutely needed to be in the room for that conversation, and even though the reasons why we're not IN YOUR BRAIN, they were on the page, and everything works beautifully and you end up very happy with what you've written.

Anyway, Agatha did me a solid this week in ADA-land, and I have done her one in return. A snippet of that below (8 sentences, sorry-ish?)

Svea’s hands are rough. Broad palms, thick fingers, nails trimmed and neat. Her hair is tightly clipped to the base of her skull, the tendons of her neck naked under the translucent white-blonde.

Her face is sharp, wicked. Tempting.

We’re in the library, because it turns out neither of us is much for self-control, and I need to write up my final theoretical proof for my alchemy seminar, but I’m not getting anywhere. I’ve written an outline, and the formulae, and Svea’s ears are such smooth alabaster shells under the wave of her hair. I want to fit my lips around them and see what kinds of noises she makes.

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[catinyourroom]

I don't remember the words. But I remember the moment, the closeness. Was it all for nothing?

Am I pouring for the WRONG person again?

What when if I won't be able to pour anymore? Will someone fill me up? Will I repay their kindness? What if I'm empty for too long and become a husk. What if I become dry and can never pour again. What if I shatter, what if I get lost. Will someone search for what's left of me

[agooduser]

me shamefully making a writing wip folder

i suppose this is where works go to die. hopefully my consciousness will remember this folder exists so MAYBE i can actually get one of these little guys finished.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

[image ID: a colorful three-layered wheel with different emotions. In the inner circle are seven base emotions. In the middle circle are words containing more specific emotions. The outer circle lists two more specific words to describe the emotions. The following is a description of the words:

Core Emotion 1: Happy

Playful - aroused, cheeky

Content - free, joyful

Interested - curious, inquisitive

Proud - successful, confident

Accepted - respected, valued

Powerful - courageous, creative

Peaceful - loving, thankful

Trusting - sensitive, intimate

Optimistic - hopeful, inspired

Core Emotion 2: Sad

Lonely - isolated, abandoned

Vulnerable - victimized, fragile

Despair - grief, powerless

Guilty - ashamed, remorseful

Depressed - empty, inferior

Hurt - disappointed, embarrassed

Core Emotion 3: Disgusted

Repelled - hesitant, horrified

Awful - detestable, nauseated

Disappointed - revolted, appalled

Disproving - embarrassed, judgemental

Core Emotion 4: Angry

Critical - dismissive, skeptical

Distant - numb, withdrawn

Frustrated - annoyed, infuriated

Aggressive - hostile, provoked

Mad - furious, jealous

Bitter - violated, indignant

Humiliated - disrespected, ridiculed

Let down - betrayed, resentful

Core Emotion 5: Fearful

Threatened - nervous, exposed

Rejected - persecuted, excluded

Weak - worthless, insignificant

Insecure - inferior, inadequate

Anxious - worried, overwhelmed

Scared - frightened, helpless

Core Emotion 6: Bad

Bored - indifferent, apathetic

Busy - pressured, rush

Stressed - overwhelmed, out of control

Tired - sleepy, unfocused

Core Emotion 7: Surprised

Startled - shocked, dismayed

Confused - disillusioned, perplexed

Amazed - astonished, awed

Excited - eager, energetic

/end ID]

If this image description can be improved let me know

Feelings Wheel

This is the feelings wheel by Geoffrey Roberts, shown to me by my therapist. My initial thought was, "what amazing synonyms to use for diverse emotional vocabulary!"

More than that, this wheel is great for understanding your characters inner motivations and reactions to situations. For example, if a character constantly feels helpless, then their overarching characteristics will be that they are fearful.

Characters who are less emotionally aware may use words and act in the inner most circle. Those much more aware of their emotions may describe themselves or express and use words from the outer most circle.

Hopefully you guys find this as helpful as I did! Let me know down in the comments.

Happy Writing!

[lesbinewren]

we need to make using chatgpt embarrassing bc sorry it really is. what do you mean you can’t write an email

[alivingtypo]

you can pry starting sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of my cold, dead hands

[sleeplessv0id]

what doesn't kill you makes you weird at intimacy

[soul-from-another-era]

Unconditional love isn't a free pass to hurt me.

[what-iz-life]

I confuse people. i have a happy personality and a sad soul. i'm bold but shy. i love deeply but sometimes i feel heartless. i'm healing and hurting at the same time. i'm dedicated to growth, but i self sabotage

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[ducktracy]

sharing a very sage bit of advice from The Simpsons' own John Swartzwelder that i've been trying to hamper down in my writing and drawing alike. let your inner crappy little elf do his worst

[abreathlessplace]

"i wonder if we ever think of each other at the same time."

[king-nyx]

Say it with me now

You are never late to a fandom. Your fic is never "invalid" for being "late". Your fic doesn't need a high word limit. Your fic does not need a high standard. Your fic does not need to be highly popular. Your fic isn't less valid than a popular author's fic. Your fic isn't inheritly bad. Your fic is amazing. Your fic is valid. The only thing that matters is that you're having fun. Fandom is not consumption and consumerism. Fandom is fun, free and for the people. Fandom is not a popularity contest. We're all nerds at the end of the day.

[aphel1on]

nothinggg better than torturing an emotionally repressed character until every single trauma they've ever refused to process starts spilling uncontrollably out of the cracks. like a matryoshka doll situation of repressed trauma and baby you better believe i'm going in there with a hammer

[artsymeeshee]

The magic 8-ball