#i might have hurt myself emotionally while drawing

[fosermi]

I just wanted some hurt/comfort. What better way to achieve that than the Sacrificed Chaos AU.

[andhumanslovedstories]

I am not closely following the election results tonight, but I am occasionally seeing flashes of them out of the corner of my eye. The most obvious sign that things aren’t going well right now is the complete lack of celebrating on my dash. I know what tumblr looks like when it’s happy. Maybe I’ll go to bed tonight and see something different in the morning. I hope to god that is the case. But I’m thinking about the way I’m thinking right now, and I want to get some stuff down before the future kicks in.

In 2016 I was in a period of my life I affectionately refer to as as my fuckup era. I wasn’t even fucking up really. More just chilling out and falling short of the vague expectations I’d had about what I was supposed to be doing after I graduated college. While my friends from college rented apartments in the city and got jobs that didn’t supply you with a uniform shirt, I lived at home and worked as a barista at a fancy movie theater. That’s a real job you can do for almost five years. I didn’t have a clue what the back half of my twenties should look like. The only long term plan I had in my life was moving out west with my best friend, and my plan for finding a job once I was out there was basically to cross my fingers and hope.

Those days weren’t bad on the whole, but it felt like I was not actually living a life so much as I was goofing off in the waiting room. Sometimes that felt embarrassing, sometimes it felt fun, and sometimes it felt like I was completely pointless to the world.

On 2016’s Election Day, I went to bed early. After watching the votes come in, I needed the night to be over. I woke in a world that felt different than it had been the night before—not just in the actuality of who would be president but down to its foundations. I realized for the first time how much hope I’d had in human nature because now I didn’t feel it anymore. It’s almost silly when I think about it—so many horrible things had already happened that year, people had done horrible things as long as there have been people, and I didn’t think I was naive to that—but something clicked into place that morning.

It felt the same way my world had changed a year earlier, in 2015 during my last semester of college. My college victory lap felt like a prolonged downward spiral. Very early in the morning on a Monday, after pulling an all-nighter and overwhelmed by self-loathing that I could not just motivate myself to work on a paper that had been my only thought all weekend, I self-harmed for the first time in a way that was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Earlier that weekend, I’d tried staving off the urges drawing or writing on my arm, something that did (and does) usually work. I’d written this quote in silver sharpie on my forearm: “Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”

I picked that quote from the Ms. Marvel comics and liked the words so much, I thought that I wouldn’t be willing to purposefully mess it up by hurting myself there. Didn’t work. They just made me feel more ashamed of myself as I did it.

That was the worst I had ever felt. Then, on the Friday of that week, a friend of mine was senselessly, brutally murdered.

It doesn’t feel now like there was ever a time before her death. My memoir class is now where I wrote about her. My favorite professor is now the one who held me as I cried. My final thesis, the culmination of my history degree, never got finished and certainly never got polished. I turned it what I had and got an A minus. Sometimes I think of rereading that paper to see if that’s the grade it actually deserved. We hadn’t been the closest friends, but my name was still on the email admin sent to professors, listing students who might be emotionally affected by this tragic event. Grace’s murder hangs over every memory I have with her and everything she ever touched. It feels like its own type of obliteration to leave her reduced to her death.

Grace wanted to be a lawyer because she believed in justice and also liked arguing. She could be rude when she wasn’t interested in what you were saying. When you caught her attention, you felt like the most fascinating person in the room. She was so proud of being Jewish. I watched her become proud of being gay. She was so universally friendly that it took me a year to realize that she actually liked specifically me. She had a somewhat silly laugh and an astonishingly luminous smile.

I thought less of the world and the people in it because of how she died. Trump’s election in 2016 felt like that.

After he won, I left stasis. From November through December, I thought harder about my future than I ever had before. Who did I want to be? What did I most value? What did I think was worth protecting? What work wouldn’t kill me to do? At one point, in presumably a fit of madness, I thought, “what if I got into politics.” Epiphany eventually hit me. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, I was already enrolled at community college, getting my pre-reqs for nursing school.

Now it’s election night again, eight years later. I live on the west coast with my best friend, in a house that we bought together. I work as a nurse in a hospital in a city where there are homeless encampments off every highway and someone begging for change on every corner. Meanwhile, there’s Palestine. Meanwhile there’s Sudan. Meanwhile refugees drown in the sea and border patrol shoots jugs of water. Even hurricanes have human cruelty now.

I don’t think people are inherently good or the universe inherently kind. But I am very good at tricking myself into thinking it for a little while, and when I do, I can remember the a specific feeling from Friday of my senior year, from that morning in November— how fucking hard the disappointment hit me because I had expected people to be better than this. It makes me want to be better than that.

I believe, and hope that I always will, that we can make a better world. I don’t know what it looks like, but I think I will see it in my lifetime. Those of us who can believe such things owe a bit of that naïveté to the world—not to excuse atrocities or think them impossible but to believe that we can stop them at all. You have to have a couple people sprinkled around who are genuinely shocked when people do bad things. It’s not that the pessimists are wrong, but you need the occasional counterbalance. I want to be a reasonable cynic’s pleasant surprise.

Every shift, I interact with people at their lowest and worst. I see the direct pipeline from pain to anger to violence, and how fragile that pipeline can be. So many situations can be changed by things as small as a warm blanket or a kind word. Violence can be quite easy to avert. Crises can be quite simply to resolve. Even when I know that whatever I do that shift will not change the circumstances of a person’s life, I think that what I do that shift still matters.

I’m lying in bed, writing this post instead of looking at the news. I wonder how tonight will change me. Been thinking about what I’ll do if Trump wins. Been thinking about how whatever I think I need to do under Trump will still need to be done if Harris clutches out a victory. I guess this is a pessimist’s optimism: to a degree the election doesn’t matter. Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do. Our better world will always take a lot of work.

But please god please, why can’t it be just a little easier to do it?

[hrts4rn]

I’ve been holding onto something for a long time, but today I feel like it’s time to let it out—both to help myself and maybe to help someone else.

Exactly a year ago, I hurt myself with bigger intentions for the first time. I was exhausted, feeling alone and misunderstood. It felt like my life had become one tragedy after another, and I thought it was all my fault.

This all started days before my birthday, a time when I’ve always felt especially vulnerable. The holidays had just ended, and the combination of entering a new year and a new age weighed heavily on me. I come from a family that has raised me with love, adoration, and constant reminders of how proud they were of me. They’ve always been my biggest support, never saying no to me. It felt like I had the dream life, a privilege that many don't get. But suddenly, it felt like they had emotionally abandoned me, leaving me to deal with my internal struggles alone.

I’ve never had access to therapy, so I can’t say for certain if I was ever in danger, if I was mistreated, or if something is truly wrong with me. I can’t label what I went through as abuse or emotional neglect, and I wouldn’t want to diminish the experiences of those who face clinical depression or anxiety. However, since I was 11 years old, I’ve often prayed not to make it to the next year. I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that vulnerability.

I often joke about having seasonal depression, or about being the oldest daughter in a Mexican household where self-reliance is expected. I laugh about “mommy and daddy issues” and how I’ve been bullied my whole life for not raising my voice. I even laugh at how people joke about my sensitivity, even though deep down, I wonder if there's more to it.

Growing up, I always felt different, but I can’t say for sure that something is wrong with me because I don’t have the resources to confirm it. My family noticed this difference too, and I’ve come to believe it might be genetic. Still, the people I loved and trusted the most turned their backs on me, called me a liar, and said they were ashamed of me and the things I said. To this day, I don’t believe I was lying. I know what happened, and while I may have overreacted and made mistakes, I had reasons for feeling the way I did. I was just a child. I’m still young, still learning, and I apologize for how I acted, but I also know that if someone had believed me, things could have been different.

I needed my parents to hear and trust me like they always said they would, but they didn’t. If they had, maybe I wouldn’t have reacted with such panic and desperation. Maybe we could have found a solution together. But that didn’t happen, and I grew increasingly frustrated. My friends weren’t there for me either. Whenever I tried to talk about what I was going through, they either responded with empty sympathy, made fun of it, or ignored me altogether. Some even called me dramatic. I don’t blame them. I was just a teenager, and so were they. I couldn’t expect them to fix me, but what I needed more than anything was support.

There were days when I didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to eat—all I wanted was to be hugged. I believe a single hug could have made all the difference. I remember the first few days after I hurt myself. I showed my mom my wrists, and she didn’t notice. I wore short sleeves to school, and no one said a thing. A few days before, I had gone to a Melanie Martinez concert, which had been one of the reasons I didn’t try anything earlier when I was eleven. I wore a bunch of bracelets I got from the concert to cover up the scars, and you can even see them in photos from that time.

The day it happened, I was drawing—the drawing you see in this post, actually—and I suddenly felt like I was losing my mind. I could hear people laughing, like a strange hallucination. I went to the bathroom and grabbed whatever I could to hurt myself. Afterward, I saw what I had done, and it hit me. I started shaking, cleaned the scratches as best I could, and went back to finish the drawing. I don’t know the exact day, but I wrote the 24th on it, and here we are now, a year later.

For days afterward, I felt strange—just like I do now. I heard people say cruel things, laughing and joking, even teachers being disrespectful. It made me wonder: would they have treated me differently if I had gone through with it? Would they have learned to be more empathetic, to respect sensitivity? Or would they have just mocked me even more for being vulnerable?

I could have left a year ago. A whole year ago.

What hurts me the most isn’t the way I’ve changed, because I think that all the pain I went through over so many years—the pain that led me to do what I did—has forced me to see the cruelty in people and not live in a bubble of good things. But I do mourn for the person I was last year, the person who came so close to what she had always wanted, only to lose it because of the emotional turmoil she was going through.

In 2022, I spent the whole year praying for certain people and friends to leave my life because I knew they weren’t good for me. I prayed to get into a relationship, to feel comfortable in my own body, to do well in school—all the things we all want. And I got it all. Within just a few months, my life started to change. I felt better. I even remember waking up two days before it all happened and thinking, "This is it." I was healing. I had friends, I almost had a girlfriend, I was comfortable with myself, and my grades were great.

But now, I wonder if deep down I already knew I was going to try to end it. Maybe that’s why I felt so good and so calm, because I thought it would finally be over.

Regardless, I’m here to say this: Your inner battles and struggles are valid, even when the scars have faded, even when no one noticed, even if the wounds weren’t that deep or if they were emotional instead of physical. Your pain, your trauma, your anger—they’re all valid. You are allowed to feel pain, to mourn the loss of who you were or who you could have been. It’s not your fault.

I’m sorry that the people who promised to be there for you weren’t. I’m sorry they didn’t believe you, didn’t hug you, didn’t apologize. You are allowed to be angry, to cry, to feel sad. You’re allowed to find some strange comfort in that sadness, in that pain. It’s not your fault.

I wish I could tell you that it gets better and the pain eventually stops. But now, I realize something more accurate—it never fully stops. But it does get better, even if just for moments. And eventually, you learn how to heal on your own. You start recognizing when you’re falling into that dark place, and you figure out how to pull yourself out.

You are not alone. Your pain is valid, even when it’s no longer visible. I love you, and I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. But I have faith that it will get better for us, even if it takes time.

[nerves-nebula]

Hey I noticed something and I must inflict it upon you. So I'm in this fandom where the cast is all non human, but one of the main characters feels very brown coded to me, like REALLY brown coded, i doubt that it was intentional and maybe I'm the only one who sees it because I have seen gijinka fanart that draws her white (which I don't understand) but she reminds me so much of my childhood growing up being treated like I was a dangerous animal for the crime of being brown, like she speaks to my soul.

Anyway I recently been hankering for a fic centering around her, and I felt like it should be easy cause like she's one of the most important characters in the story, the secondary protagonist in fact! so I start searching

And searching

And searching

And God help me I cant find shit

Like im have been searching through hundreds and hundreds of fics

Most the fics that include her she is a support character, usually helping others through their emotional journeys, either that or romantic fics which I wouldn't mind too much (I'm aro but I don't hate romance, it's fun sometimes) if it wasn't for the fact that the majority of the ship fics arents from her perspective, and those that are still find a way to have her not be the center of attention within the narrative.

And like, I found a few fics centering around her, but they're mostly onshots about her experiences with abuse, but even then a lot of those fics feel a little surface level? Like they aren't really delving into her circumstances beyond the basics, like "oh look her experience terrible things" and that's it

Maybe its just because abuse is hard to write but i keep seeing multichapter fics about the abuse other character's face so that cant be it

And the issues in the fandoms characterisation of her dont stop in fanfics but its in fanworks aswell, with people often characterisating her as dumb (depsite her arguably being the most emotionally intellegient member of the cast, which isnt a high bar but still) and a lot of people take her framing herself as tough and dangerous as what she actually is, despite it being pretty obvious that if you pay attention that often times she pretends to be tough to hide how scared shitless she is.

(Not saying she never hurt anyone, but like, a lot of characters hurt others, whether through inaction or action, her actions arent unique and thats a point within the story, and apoint that is made

And while she has in private hurt a character due a grudge we dont know the source yet, most of the rest of the cast has no clue about this private matter, and treat her as dangerous and gross for no reason, which again, damn thats just my childhood

Like this treatment where other characters bad mouth her and isolate her despite her never harming them, and simply because she puts on a tough apathetic persona is the reason i went "shes like me fr fr" because i too spent the majority of my childhood isolated and bad mouthed for a persona i put on to protect myself)

Also!

A cosmic horror plotline is happening right around the corner that she is currently unaware of it in the story and so far i havent seen a single fic where its centered around her discovering the horrors

Well, that's wrong, there are plenty of fics of her finding about the horrors, specifically of her finding out the horrors another character is going through and becoming their protector

Which

Might i say that i dont think shes emotionally equiepped to be anyones protector?

like yes shes the most emotionally intelligent, yes she tries to protect her loved ones at every turn, but like, are we all forgetting that one of our girl 's main traits is that she gets scared easily but hides it under a tough facade

Like shes not actually all that tough as shes pretending

Like if someone is writing a fic about her becoming aware of the horrors and stepping up to protect others from it you better show how scared she is doing it, subtly of course but still show it!

I want to see a fic about her falling at the seams trying to protect everyone from horrors she cannot comphrrhend, i want to see her fail and jump to conclusions, and i want her fears to be shown and for her to be treated like the kid she is, i dont want to see her being a perfect knight in shining armour

I dont want to see her reduced tp a generic support character when shes the secondary protagonist

At this point whether she is brown coded intentionally or not shes an honorary brown girl because the fandom treats her very similarly to how fandoms usually treat brown girls

Maybe its for the best that most gjinka designs dont draw her as brown

The only multi chap foc that follows her emotional journey is a fic that centered around her being a trans girl, which makes since brown kids and trans girls have some overlap with the fact that they are treated as dangerous for simply existing

Tldr people are falling for her surface appearance and they're not digging deeper

At least that's how I feel, I might be a little (okay maybe very) biased

[chaoschild-hideout]

IF CREATING ART IS PAINFUL, THIS IS FOR YOU

These last days for me have been emotionally challenging. All of the things, thoughts, feelings that haven’t been showing up for almost a month took advantage of a moment of vulnerability and insecurity, and here I am again.

Feeling miserable, feeling as if I am not enough, feeling drained, and also projecting all of this into my art. It made me realize, while working on something out of my comfort zone, that I was not enjoying creating art because all my expectations were about how I wanted the artwork to look in the end, and me failing with my abilities meant being blocked from expressing myself emotionally.

When creating art hurts, it might be because the result doesn’t only define the quality of an artwork, but also how valuable you deem yourself as a person.

I reasoned enough to realize that sometimes being a “good” artist, like having money, or being famous, is about you having this “shield”, this protection from other people’s judgments. Have you noticed how the artists or people you admire always get lots of love, attention, support, or how you are so ready to defend and protect them from anyone wanting to cause them harm or any kind of hurt?

When someone adds value to your life, they become part of your identity, and our ego’s best job is defending its identity at all costs. But that also means that when danger is perceived it does anything it can to protect itself. This is where perfectionism and procrastination get interesting.

If people who make great artworks get love, attention, money, what do you get when you cannot keep up with that greatness? It makes you feel invisible, useless, not enough, not deserving of all those things, those needs you have, appreciation, significance, attention, empathy and many more.

What if perfectionism and procrastination are there to protect us, because we feel so vulnerable with our desires and needs. We want to feel loved, we want to know that we are enough. But “failing” in art, whatever is your unique definition of failure, has nothing to do with doing a bad drawing, you are expecting people to look beyond the artwork, to see the effort, the passion, the pain and you want to be compensated emotionally for it. Because otherwise it feels so unfair, as if the world is against you. But no one is against you, and if you so desperately need validation, it is not your fault and it doesn’t make you a bad person.

You already know how it feels to not be appreciated, to feel humiliated, invalidated, so those protections are necessary in a world where you feel doomed otherwise, no one wants to be at the mercy of others, especially when you have learned that people don’t have at heart your best interests!

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with you. You try to be perfect and reject everything that doesn’t respect your standards because anything other than that puts you in a position of vulnerability, it gives people the opportunity to hurt you, the old wounds that have not healed inside of you. Why would anyone want that? Why would anyone want to be the target of others or even worse be invisible in a world that has become a constant competition for everything? 

We are competing for attention on social media, but we were first competing for that attention in childhood, it doesn’t matter if it was about siblings, or our parents’ jobs or even their STRESS. We have learned that in order to get anything we must be good in a very specific way: letting go of our real needs and abandoning ourselves for a version that is more lovable and deserving of attention.

Creating art won’t stop being painful unless you realize that whatever you create, it won’t ever define your value as a person, not in a good way, not in a bad way. Someone appreciating or ignoring you doesn’t define you. Stop looking for that validation through your art abilities or social media and face directly the roots of your issues. You need love, appreciation, validation, significance, attention from someone whom you can trust with your vulnerability.

We, as artists, struggle because we are trying to compensate through our “hard work” in art, for the lack of support we were supposed to receive while growing up. 

There is always a valid, real reason behind why we behave in a certain way, the same goes for all the struggles artists face daily. Next time you’re frustrated or in pain, ask yourself with CURIOSITY instead of blame: why is that?

[bhaalsdeepbat]

little brain wiring things ✨

i helped plan a party that we decided to throw together last second. It was a fairy themed garden party with a planned mini-concert. The concert had a $5 cover that would be donated to a trans mutual aide fund. it was just supposed to be a house party that was also a nice little community event on my friend's lawn.

my friend knows that i smoke to manage my joint pain and i have very specifically, and clearly, been given blanket permission to smoke on the property because they know me, i can handle myself, and again. it's not just recreational, even if other people (not my friend) think so based on the amount i fucking smoke.

the group of friends i have rn have never made me feel judged or wrong for this, which is extremely important to me bc this is an extreme source of shame for me that i'm still working on unpacking bc of the way I was raised.

anyways, there was a miscommunication where I was not told about this being a dry & sober party, which meant that It was NOT on the invitation that I made and was sent out to a few friend groups, who all did show up with alcohol. I also was not told about 1 of the 3 organizers wanting the event to be dry/sober until I arrived at the house with food, decorations, ect at 3:30 day of, so I couldn't make alternative arrangements.

but i had already like. made specific ones to smoke discreetly regardless bc i'm not an asshole. i use a vape if we are somewhere people might catch a glimpse of me. so this also had me frustrated with the interaction that i was going to have later. like i would have gotten some edibles or smth bc i knew my pain level was gonna be high from how busy the day would be.

it was really fucking hot, I have pretty bad heat intolerance already from disabilities, but also am on medications that make it harder to handle the heat. I had been overheated for 6 hours at that point, had been on my feet for most of it, and like. again. i helped organize the event, so i was there early for set up.

my friend whose house it was at is VERY good about understanding my disability and i cannot stress enough that they're like. 10/10. no judgement. they let me stay inside while people were setting up outside bc they believed me when I told them how sick I get. since i couldn't do anything outside, I set things up inside (food, cleaning, getting garbage) and made sure to clean up after the people who had come over early to hang out inside moved outside.

so i was tired. my hips were fucking hurting. i made an ice pack with the decision of going out and sitting on the lawn to draw and chill. to paint an image, we are all out on the lawn. people are clearly drinking. i'm minding my business, had just finished doing a puff-puff-pass with my vape that INCLUDED ONE OF THE OTHER EVENT ORGANIZERS. and again, i was just smoking a fucking vape.

this group of people all arrived together after we had been out on the lawn smoking and drinking for 15-20 mins. This child fucking zeroed in on me and just came over to me to tell me the event organizers said this was a sober event.

again, people were drinking. and i,,,,helped organize shit. i have a hard time emotionally regulating when I'm overheated like. I cannot handle too hot, it overwhelms me and i get overstimulated VERY quickly. which means i'm more emotional when dumb shit happens

it was such a small fucking interaction, but I heard this child like 5 mins later return to their group and loudly talk about how they had told the friend whose house it was and my friend covering my ass by saying "oh, it was for inside, only. outdoor isn't dry c:"

i was already not feeling the vibe. i felt really alienated earlier bc it's hard to connect with neurotypicals and i don't do well interacting with people in group settings once the numbers get too large. the house also was still empty bc my friend is moving in, so the sound echo inside was SO bad. i had nowhere to go to just let my senses calm tf down, my AC in my car doesn't work when the humidity is this bad, and i just

i a party i helped set up, decorate, and even provided foood for, and cried the entire way home and i feel like such a fucking dumb lmao

I just felt incredibly alienated in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. and i had already felt uncomfortable prior to this incident. there were a lot of people there i didn't know who were writers, but neurotypical. i was struggling to process anything anyone said bc of how loud it was inside, which was making me come off as extremely rude. i had someone tell me they were too intimidated to talk to me based on my appearance, but we had a lovely one on one and they realized i'm just very quiet.

and i can't fucking talk about where the root of THAT specific problem is bc we can't have a fucking conversation about desirability, beauty, and femininity without the "oh it must suck to have pretty privilege" bullshit. it's really fucking frustrating when you present as hyper femme, but are viewed as standoffish/bitchy simply bc you didn't accompany the hyper femme aesthetic with being overly bubbly, friendly, and social to accommodate for other people's own discomfort from your presence. like you have to make up for their perception of you by performing approachability.

i also hate the way people view weed vs alcohol. i hate that i'm made to feel this way for something that helps me manage a condition that i cannot get medical help for. it used to be the only thing i had for my fucking endometriosis pain, too, when i still had my uterus.

all those people were around the lawn drinking recreationally, but I got zeroed in on. while i was just trying to fucking bring my baseline pain back down bc i didn't realize how high it had gotten from being on my feet all day.

i'm just. frustrated. i don't even know what the fuck the crux of it is.

[bosstoaster]

How do you write long stories? Like, 20k+ ? I always have these grand ideas of how I'd like to write a fic that carries grander themes, like a plot against someone that's investigated or a slow burn romance literally anything that feels like it needs to be long to match the content? Like a 5k murder mystery would be over so quickly it'd lose impact? But I can never find the words or inspiration for what should happen in all the "in-between" moments. I can think of things for the beginning and end and a couple of scenes in the middle and it all comes out to about 8-10k. And I can never think of what to put between those scenes. I've got so many disjointed fics I've written over the years that have remained drafts because I don't know how to elevate them from scenes into stories? The pieces don't fit well enough together to turn it into something more epic. It remains a small fic :/ Any advice at all on this? I remember you saying a rough word count of all your fics combined over the past couple years and being flabbergasted by the number. Extraordinary. I'd love to be able to write long fics 🙏 sorry for the ramble!

(Current total AO3 word count is just over 2.75 million words, which doesn't count the 350k-ish in drafts, or fics on account accounts. But anyhow.) I had the same problem for a really long time, actually! Like, genuinely a decade of fic writing through middle and high school. The answer might be different for different people, but one thing really changed the game for me.

Outlines. Outlines are essential for longer stories, by my book.

What I do is I have an idea for a fic, usually a scene or like, an image of a ~vibe.~ From there I ask myself the first question. What do I want from this? Is it a cute romcom situation? Is it a sexy horror story about taming a monster? Is it a surrealist horror story? What do I want someone else to feel when reading this?

When I have that answer, I can answer the next questions: is this an AU or a canon fic? An AU means that your first chapter is probably going to be setting up the differences from canon. Canon means you have to tell your readers when we are in canon and set up how we got to the Situation (or jump into it, if you're feeling spicy.)

With that answer, we have an approximate starting location. It's fic, so we know where your audience is. How do we get from there to what you want to write about? What needs to happen for your fic to occur? For example, in my vampire fic, step one was turning/killing Dave. Okay, so you have your fic in a state where you're ready to run wild with your premise. Here's the actual meat of your questions.

How do I determine what goes in between the start and the scenes I want to write?

Usually one of a few ways

What needs to occur to get to the scenes I want to write? What makes the characters act in a way I want them to, but isn't out of character? Do they need to be hurt? Emotionally compromised? Worn down? How does THAT happen?

What makes logical, in character sense for the characters to do? Given any of the scenes and conflicts you have planned, what would be their next move/concern?

What SLAPS? What scenes add to the feeling I want the audience to have? For example, if this is a rom com, what scenes would make it clear they should get together, or would work well emotionally? If it's a cozy mystery, what clever things does the main character notice that tell you more about the weird cast of suspects? If it's a horror, what makes the situation more tense?

The point of an outline is literally to fill in these gaps. And there's no stress! You can change stuff or ignore it down the line. You're just drawing a basic map for yourself to know the directions you need to go. Just put down ideas, and if they don't work, erase it and try again.

Many vary a lot in length depending on how much detail I already have in my head, how long the fic is, and how complex the story will be. The Vampire sequel outline is six pages long (very long), while most of them are a page or so.

Here's the vampire sequel outline, speaking of. For that, what I had at the start was a) the boys testing what it means to be a vampire and b) Vamp kidnapping Dave. That's all. The rest I made up during the outline.

Without outlines, I would have no idea where I'm going in a fic, so I'd get through what I had then stall out and get writers block and dither and run in circles and eventually give up.

Respect the power of the outline.

[haydenigmatic]

Since I'm feeling a little evil I have an angsty hypothetical ask😈. How would the Ros react if they got married to the mc and they were both super in love

Only for the mc to pretty much ditch them when the mc gets married to someone else. The mc never spends time with them anymore, it's very affectionate ect and very obviously prefers the new person they married 😭

GOOD I LOVE ANGSTY ASKS, THIS WAS SO HEART WRENCHING TO WRITE

ODETTE::

Her heart would shatter in the wake of such a heart-wrenching turn of events. Her once-idyllic love story would be tarnished by the painful reality of feeling abandoned and replaced. While her compassionate nature might initially lead her to suppress her own hurt in favour of supporting MC's choices, the stark contrast in their interactions and the palpable affection MC shows to the new spouse would leave her feeling devastated. Odette would grapple with a tumult of emotions – betrayal, insecurity, and a profound sense of loss. Despite her inner turmoil, she might summon her strength to maintain a composed facade, but the weight of unrequited love and the longing for the connection they once shared would be an ache that lingers deep within her. She would likely confide her turmoil to her journal, the ink capturing the rawness of her emotions in eloquent prose, a private refuge for her shattered heart.

"Love can be a beacon that guides us through the darkest storms, yet when that light fades, it leaves behind a shadow of what once was. My heart, though tested by the tides of change, shall forever remember the love we shared, even if it now feels like a distant echo in the winds of time." 😭

NESRIN:

She would initially mask her hurt and confusion, drawing upon her ability to conceal emotions. While she might maintain her composed exterior, the sharp glint in her eyes might reveal the turmoil within. Privately, she would analyse the situation, questioning her own role and importance in MC's life. Her strategic mind would kick into overdrive as she considers potential motives behind MC's behaviour, meticulously weighing the implications for their relationship. In a moment of vulnerability, she might confront MC discreetly, her voice a mix of controlled disappointment and raw honesty. Her words would be chosen carefully, expressing the depth of her feelings and seeking an explanation for the sudden shift. Nesrin's actions would reflect her determination to understand the situation, and while she may not show it openly, the pain of being sidelined would linger beneath her graceful facade.

"In the intricate dance of power and affection, my steps falter as I find myself relegated to the shadows, watching a symphony of hearts unfold. Tell me, my love, was I but a pawn in this grand design?"😔

VERENA:

Verena would initially mask her pain behind a façade of indifference, her pride preventing her from revealing her true emotions. Internally, a whirlwind of emotions would stir - hurt, betrayal, and a sense of abandonment. Her sharp mind would analyse the situation, identifying the political motivations and potential threats. However, her calculated demeanour might waver as she witnesses MC's affection for the new spouse. She would confront the MC with a mixture of coldness and vulnerability, her voice laced with a hint of bitterness. Her words would hold a subtext of hurt, reflecting her struggle to reconcile her love for MC with the reality of their changed dynamic. As a response, she might distance herself emotionally, rekindling her own political alliances and subtly asserting her independence, refusing to be overshadowed (returning to being the old Verena).

"I see you've found a new favourite pastime, my love. I hope this arrangement serves your ambitions well." 🤧

JASIRA:

Her heart would shatter as the painful reality sinks in. Her once unbreakable bond with MC, now her spouse, feels like a distant memory. The affectionate gestures and intimate moments they once shared are replaced by the cold emptiness of neglect. Jasira's strong-willed nature would initially drive her to confront the situation head-on, questioning MC's actions and seeking answers. Fuelled by a mix of hurt and determination, she might express her feelings of abandonment, refusing to be sidelined. However, she would soon realize that her efforts fall on deaf ears, as MC's focus remains firmly fixed on their new spouse. Struggling to reconcile her feelings, Jasira might withdraw emotionally, her once passionate love turning to a simmering mix of resentment and sadness. Her pride might keep her from begging for attention, yet her heart longs for the return of the affection she once cherished. With a heavy heart, Jasira could find herself at a crossroads, torn between the love she still holds for the MC and the need to prioritize her own well-being and happiness.

"Love that fades so easily was never love at all. Your affections may wane, but my strength remains unshaken. I won't linger in the shadows of your neglect, for I am worth far more than an afterthought."😤

SORIN:

Her heart would shatter as she witnesses MC's affection and attention shift towards their new spouse. A complex mix of hurt, confusion, and disbelief would cloud her expressive green eyes. Her instinctive reaction might be to withdraw, her walls of self-preservation rising higher than ever. She'd struggle with a whirlwind of emotions, torn between confronting the situation and maintaining her pride. Yet, in the quiet solitude of her thoughts, Sorin would grapple with the heartache of feeling replaced, a stark contrast to the once-unbreakable bond they shared.

"Love's betrayal leaves scars deeper than the past. I've learned the price of vulnerability, and I won't surrender my heart again to a fleeting promise." 😠

AURELIA/N:

Aurelia/n's heartache would be palpable as s/he navigates the painful reality of her/his beloved MC's shifting affections. Concealing her/his inner turmoil behind a composed facade, s/he'd continue to carry out her/his duties with unwavering determination. In private moments, her/his eyes might betray the longing s/he feels, and bittersweet smiles would replace the once joyful ones. Her/his conversations with the MC could subtly echo her/his sadness, veiled by a facade of understanding. Despite the ache, Aurelia/n's resilience prevails, allowing her/him to maintain her/his strength and dignity even as her/his heart remains quietly shattered.

"A heart once cherished can't help but ache in the shadows of change." 😥

DORIA/N:

S/he, once deeply in love and now heartbroken, confronts the painful reality with her/his signature stoicism masking a whirlwind of emotions. Underneath her/his tough exterior, resentment simmers as s/he grapples with the overwhelming sense of abandonment. Her/his cynicism intensifies, distrust now colouring her/his view of love. In her/his anguish, s/he adopts a veneer of indifference, determined to protect herself from further hurt. The torment drives her/him to seek solace in fleeting affairs, a tumultuous attempt to cope and perhaps evoke a reaction from MC. A mix of bitterness and longing taints her/his actions, as s/he battles the raw ache of being replaced, her/his heart shattered by the one who was meant to mend it.

"You made a grand show of love, only to trade me like a pawn in your royal game. I should have known affection was just another mask you wear." 😒

HANNIEL:

He would be deeply devastated and heartbroken if he found himself in a marriage with MC, where their once strong love and connection seemed to diminish. His sense of loyalty and unwavering affection for MC would make the situation all the more painful. While he would try to maintain his composed exterior, internally he would be struggling with a whirlwind of emotions. He might feel a mix of confusion, hurt, and a profound sense of loss. His innate sense of self-worth might take a hit as he questions why MC's affection seems to have shifted. He might quietly observe from the sidelines, struggling to reconcile his feelings with the reality of the situation. His sentimentality could lead him to hold onto cherished memories of their past, and he might express his emotions through bittersweet conversations or subtle gestures, desperately longing for a rekindling of the deep bond they once shared.

"I thought our love was a promise, not a fading dream."🥺

DAMON:

Damon's heart would shatter as he witnesses the love he thought was unbreakable crumble before his eyes. He'd be torn between hurt and confusion, struggling to comprehend the sudden distance. Though devastated, he wouldn't give up easily. Damon's determination would drive him to confront MC, seeking answers and fighting for their connection. He'd pour his heart out, expressing his pain and reminding them of the profound bond they once shared. While facing the reality of MC's choices, Damon's love would remain unwavering, and he'd persistently strive to rekindle what was lost, refusing to let go without a fight.

"Love doesn't vanish like a fleeting shadow. Our bond was built on something real, something deeper than passing fancy. I refuse to believe that what we shared has lost its spark. I'll stand in the storm if I must, fight against whatever stands between us. No matter the odds, I won't let go, because my heart is tethered to yours, and I'll fight until it beats as one again."😟

[mobydingus]

Hii um, really sorry about bugging you but I was scrolling through tags and I saw that you drew lovely Nathan and Leslie work a while back; I'm wirting a huge personal AU and one of the subplots is her breaking Nathan out of camp so they can do a world domination thing lol

I've never seen any headcanons of them ever so it's super hard to wirte (even if it is just for myself, but I love over analyzing both of them) so I was wondering if you had any cools ones that you're comfortable with sharing?? I'm really really sorry if this is random, from a random user but I'm just so content starved and your art on here is so comforting and I love the scene one so so much!!!!

So um, if you can please tell headcanons >⁠.⁠<

wow i really appreciate that! i have a few, nothing too exciting. im not sure if you meant for them interacting or independent headcanons but ill say what i remember. it might be a longer response than you asked for LOL

for more technical ones:

i headcanon that nathan knows at least a little about how leslie works as a robot so if she gets hurt he can help fix her (but hes no robotics engineer so he cant do much about major damage). i also think that she can continue to mimic voices (like when she pretended to be president). she can use this to help herself or nathan (usually blackmail) but she also uses it to taunt nathan (for example, mimicking jimmy to piss nathan off). i also think leslie can change her body temperature from colder than a human to scalding hot (sometimes not on purpose, if she isnt working properly she might overheat which could damage her). i always imagined that there was some sort of underground facility (i wanna draw this but lazy) where she went to recharge, but thats one of my more fantastical headcanons. i personally think she didnt have parents or a house to live in (only a facility) but thats just me. i imagined that after leslie died, nathan recuperated and went to the crime scene or wherever her body was held and either: a. she showed signs of being functional, so he broke her out. or b. assumed she was completely dead/a lost cause and left her there (and she was still alive but wasnt capable of showing signs). both are fun ideas . i imagine that nathan diverted a great deal of his savings from drug-dealing to help repair leslie if he had saved her.

as for their relationship, in my headcanon:

neither of them will admit that they care about one another, even though they do. leslie doesnt admit it because she thinks that being emotional could compromise her rational thinking. nathan does not admit it because i dont think hes ever admitted any true feelings of appreciation or friendship for anyone lol. he would not do anything that might make him emotionally vulnerable (not that hes really conscious of this).

they both taunt eachother and can be meaner than they intended to. they both have a habit of lying to others in canon, so i imagine they still do that.

from a rational standpoint, leslie considers nathan an important asset and his ability to keep quiet about important (and unethical) things makes him valuable for secret operations. from a not-so-rational standpoint, she appreciated his different approach to life and the fact that he is not phased by leslies bizarre nature (the way she acts when she drops her act of being some innocent kid). she has grown fond of him in a way that i believe resembles an unspoken friendship.

nathan first considered leslie as another person to harass, but after being "employed" by leslie, he began to actually appreciate her, and its probably the first time a girl did not instantly hate or pity him. he probably has some sort of crush, but maybe not because leslie is crazy. he also thinks leslie is scary (but so do most people who have dealt with her "mask-off"). i think nathan likes leslie more than leslie likes nathan, but nathan is the first person she goes to if she has a problem, so they are dependent on each other at least a little.

thank you for your ask. hope it wasnt too much of an answer

[the-mandawhor1an]

Another ramble post + a rant

As some might have noticed, my uploads for Maia's story have slowed down. I'm still tweaking stuff for the next chapter, writing an Interlude, and drafting a few interesting scenes for the next chapters. I have to spread out the uploads due to multiple reasons. One being that the source material aka the roleplay is progressing a lot slower than a fic chapter is written and I don't want to be stuck by the end of the year. The way it is now, I can update you guys weekly and it feels like I'm making good progress. But no more biweekly chapter uploads.

I am in a bit of a pickle, beause I kind of want to address something that bothers me but I don't want to come off like a bitch in doing so. Heavily emotionally loaded rant underneath the cut.

I've not recieved much feedback as of yet. That's totally fine, I wasn't expecting to 'go viral' or anything, to be honest I'm surprised the story gained tracktion so quickly in the first place. I'm not complaining. if it comes off like that, I'm sorry. I guess I can't express myself all too well about certain things. I'm glad there's people out there that tag along while the story isn't completed yet. Every interaction means a lot to me. I love each and every one of you.

One of the feedbacks unfortunately was criticism on Din's behavior in chapter 4. While the criticism didn't come from a place of malice and I've talked it out with them, it stuck with me. And to be honest, it's been plagueing my mind ever since.

No one needs to be bad-mouthed here. I don't hate said person, I don't want them to get shit-talked for it. It wasn't meant to be hurtful, but ultimately it hurt. It was a bad mixture of my inability to handle criticism and some bad wording.

Writing is my hobby. It has been like that since before I was really active on the internet. Feels insane to say that but it's the truth. The internet isn't that old. Most of us probably had a relatively internet-free childhood.

My job is demanding mentally. I'm an engineer and some days just beat my brain to a pulp. I need a creative outlet. That's why I write, why I draw, and why I make costumes in my free time. It's my escapism. I don't need people to spoil my experience.

What ultimately got me to re-write and publish the fic was the hope that I could share a piece of my 'art' with people and maybe find one or two that my story touches, you know? I have so much love for Maia and Din and I thought maybe the love would transfer.

Din will continue behaving 'ooc', even more so as the story progresses and the feelings towards Maia grow stronger. We're not in the canon universe. He's confronted with things we haven't seen him deal with.

We are a result of our circumstances. So is he. This is my universe and my interpretation of him. Take him for what he is. Not for what you think he should be in this situation.

I'm gonna regret uploading this aren't I?

[nudebabitz]

Please, please, please, is there any chance to get that final part of "an affair, three ways"? These stories (perspectives?) were just so damn perfect! I have re-red them like a million times by now (I'm not obsessed, you are!) and not having Anthony's point of view just bloody kills me! It is literally driving me insane! So, please?

Hi!

First of all, thanks for reading and re-reading. That really means a lot that you enjoyed the fic that much. I appreciate you and feel really touched that you’re spending so much time with the words 🩷

I hesitate to say no, because never say never, but I really don’t see myself ever writing the Anthony POV, and that’s for a multitude of reasons.

Perhaps first and foremost is the anon hate I received over this fic. I received multiple, really long hate comments on this fic, that were exceptionally rude, hurtful, and seemed to think that I, as a person, was condoning cheating just because I wrote about an affair. This was a wildly crazy accusation to make, not in the least because this anonymous person doesn’t even know me, but also because this is a work of fiction. You would not read a murder mystery and think that the writer is promoting murder! Hell, there’s so many books, plays, films, and tv shows that talk about people cheating, and none of them are “promoting” it or trying to make it seem like some really moral act. The anon commenter made plenty of comments about my character, bashed my friends, bashed my writing ability, berated me for being racist, and this is just stuff that I happened to see because I couldn’t even bring myself to read the entire comment. Everytime I deleted the comments, they would repost them in their entirety. I have also seen friends get anon hate comments and those comments might reference my fic or think a friend wrote it or something. I have seen people reference this fic derogatorily in their tumblr asks. I have seen people disparage it everywhere. I’m currently receiving constant emails from AO3 informing me that someone is attempting to reset my password, either in an attempt to hack my account or just harass me, and they’ve been doing it to a few other writers as well who have posted works that people have seen reason to disagree with, despite everything being an act of fiction.

Writing a third POV to this fic would open myself up to a wave of new hate and I sincerely cannot bring myself to do that at this time. It’s a small act of courage to even keep the fics up knowing it draws so much ire. I’m a little aware that people loved it, but also need people to understand this—unless you’re leaving a comment or telling me directly that you liked my fic, I do not know that you enjoyed my fic. And if you’re re-reading it, I don’t know that! And I’m not writing fic to get any sort of recognition or kudos (writing fanfiction is probably the worst way to get recognition because you don’t get recognition for it lol, we’re all truly just writing because we have a story in our hearts), but this is all to say that while I’m vaguely aware that people enjoy the fic, the love doesn’t necessarily outweigh all of the constant harassment I’ve received from it. I don’t want to expose myself to any more.

I suppose if one day in the future, I feel so moved, I might write it. I do warn that my plans were not to write an Anthony POV of the events of the Kate POV and Tom POV either. I was going to write the Anthony POV of before the affair and after the affair, and I also don’t know that readers would want that. It’s not your typical HEA after the affair; they’re both flawed and wounded people with an unhealthy attachment to one another and huge trust issues. There’s a lot to overcome and it’s not super rosy and happy at all. It would be an emotionally taxing fic to write and tbh it doesn’t even seem worth it to write it if I’m going to risk alienating the people who enjoyed the fic because now they’re upset that theyre not seeing the HEA they wanted and I’m going to risk digging up more harassment and hate for myself. Writing fic is already a thankless job which is in and of itself okay if you don’t go into writing it for thanks, but if you go into it and get hate, it makes it worse.

I’m sorry for the likely depressing answer, Anon :( I am truly happy to hear that you enjoyed that AU! For a while I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for spending time in those words.

[zephrunsimperium]

Happy Fiddleford Friday! I have THOUGHTS about this man (and his relationship with Ford) so I will do what I do best and draw him write a short essay.

When I was a kid, I was really drawn to villains of all sorts. The more flamboyant, complex, and morally dubious the better. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself really really liking characters who are good. Kind to others, resilient, and emotionally mature. Upon first glance, this might not sound like it applies to McGucket but I would argue that it absolutely does. This is a man who, upon getting his memories back, reacts extremely positively, with nothing but gratitude and hope for the future. A man who forgives Ford for essentially ruining his life.

I’m honestly of two minds about this because forgiveness is tricky business. Not every act deserves to be forgiven, certainly, and I’ve recently pondered the following: at what point do you stop forgiving someone who has hurt you repeatedly? At what point do you have to cut off someone you love because they’re taking far more than they give?

The fact is, Ford is just bad at caring for people. People like that, you can care for them, but it’s hard when you try to rely on them and they leave you high and dry. Not because they have bad intentions, but because they genuinely don’t know how to give back. I’m speaking from experience here: you find someone brilliant and passionate and creative, someone who you work well with. You would do literally anything for that person. Like, I dunno, leave your family to work on a portal for several months or put together all their work in something publishable. But that’s just not sustainable and it sucks because in order for things to get better, THEY have to change.

Ford and Fidds have undoubtedly emotionally matured by the time they reunite and I hope that they’re able to give each other the support they deserve. Because you KNOW that it’ll take Ford quite a while - if ever - to forgive himself for creating the portal at all. They both deserve better.

[fazscare87]

Fazbear World- (CTW) Funtime Freddy/Proto-time Freddy

Meet Funtime Freddy, or rather, THE original/Prototype Funtime Freddy, and he’s no longer fun for all ages, it’s only fun for him now, but that’s when he’s hurting or killing someone. He was once white, pink, and shiny, but that was in 1983 before he got replaced by the newer model, it’s been 34 years, it’s 2017 now and this is him now. It’s also worth mentioning that this version of Funtime Freddy is a few feet taller. When he was replaced, William had his power module removed and stored away. However, he somehow reactivated himself, even without the power module, even worse, he managed to get out, and now he indiscriminately tortures and kills anyone he comes across for sadistic pleasure. This Funtime Freddy is sadistic and psychopathic, much more than his other counterpart. He takes immense sadistic joy in physically, mentally, and emotionally tormenting his living victims, while showing a cold, psychopathic, and remorseless attitude toward his deceased victims. He’s very knowledgeable about the various methods, from how their inventors, their history, and even what will happen to the victim. Though he is willing to let the victim decide their fate, even giving them suggestions, and if they somehow survive, he just might let them go, but that hardly happens. At first, Funtime Freddy barely had anything to kill or harm anyone, just a strong grip and fatally strong bite force. Not to mention his microphone, which he used to bludgeon people, after time it broke, and now it’s just sharp metal and plastic, which he now uses to stab people to death if he gets a hold of them or can’t get them in his stomach. So he gave himself upgrades, finding anything he could from scrapyards, other animatronic parts, and anything he deemed deadly. To name a few, upgrades range from hidden extendable claws, due to being in a state of disrepair his limbs/endoskeleton became looser, so he can stretch his wires and limbs out if he pleases, his right hand/arm can transform, serving a variety of functions, containing a surprising amount of tools as well as weapons, such as a clamp, a blade, Buzzsaw, a torch, and a plethora of sharp implements and tools. He can even shoot out shrapnel from his hand, anything he finds he will use it, and anything he can think of he will add to himself. But his deadliest feature is his stomach, he’s added all sorts of deadly features and has all sorts of ways to kill a person while they're trapped inside. These methods involve, electrocution, blades and saws, toxic gasses, constricting the victim with his wires until they stop breathing and are crushed to death, manipulating the temperature to burn or freeze the victim to death, he can even fill his stomach up with water to drown them, as well as slowly boil them alive, (Funnily enough he might be sadistic but he is hesitant and boiling people alive). It’s worth mentioning his stomach cavity is soundproof, so it’s no use trying to scream for help. He's also capable of rolling his eyes back into his head, peering into his stomach to see the victim and watch them die. He’s still out there, looking for new victims to have fun with.

-Clarification, whenever I make Fazbear World versions of some characters, I will mostly stick to their design, however, in the cases of the novels I like to go all out while still sticking somewhat true to their designs, or rather descriptions. I also like to go out with certain characters and what they do, so that’s why I added so many ridiculous little ideas for the gadgets he has to kill someone, I just can’t help myself, then again it’s an AU, so yeah.

I also learned how hard it is drawing Sister Location characters, that or it’s just me.

Hope you guys like it and have a faztastic day ^^

[stolas-number-1-vents]

CW: Long winded vent post, just stuff I need off of my chest.

Life's been shit as of late.

Honestly it might be my fault, or might as well be. I can't seem to cry anymore, seems my body is too tired for that emotion. But what's worse is that I feel numb emotionally speaking. I'm irritable by even the smallest things like the wheel of my chair catching on my desk's leg and not letting me push myself closer to the screen or hell even messing up a sketch line while drawing.

It's awful, I don't like not feeling things but at the same it's almost better than feeling things because I don't have to feel. My laughs are genuine, my smiles sometimes are, but more often than not I find myself just sleeping to pass the time as opposed to more productive things and for some reason the thought of that scares me, that I'm simply napping my early adulthood away (18). Graduation is right around the corner so anxieties were already high as it were and now the realization that I'm falling in to my old self destructive tendency of sleeping the days away simply because I'm too mentally exhausted to fathom anything else.

And worse of all, it all stems from one person, one. Their name won't be disclosed for anonymity's sake, and they're my ex (They/Them). We dated from January to March until they ended up finding someone new that was in closer proximity. I forced myself to be okay with that and then when I had the chance to date them again I jumped at it because even though they'd broken my heart choosing someone else, they were the only person who I'd managed to let my guard down for.

Unfortunately things weren't well and around December 5th last year me and them split for good and sent each other final paragraphs. I ended things civilly, them not so much. They told me I said 'I love you too much', that I was too flirty with them, and that I made them uncomfortable. Now I knew I was innocent because I'd given them multiple opportunities to tell me to stop or to tone it down. Not once did they ever vocalize to me that I was being too much. But worst of all they accused me of pushing them into the relationship and giving them no choice but to date me, which is what fucks me up most and continues to.

Ever since they said that, not only have I been just generally diverted from looking for a relationship almost entirely but I've been driven to point where I'm afraid I'll end up doing that to someone else, or worse, making someone else a rebound.

And while yeah, it's not exactly good to date someone to find a meaning or purpose in life, it feels like it's the only thing that'd help me, and yet I'm too socially awkward to talk to someone irl, not to mention that I have to go through the trial and error of finding someone that at least likes some of the things I like. But I also don't want anymore long distance relationships. They're utterly draining, regardless if I'm head over heels for them like I was with my ex. I guess it's true what they say about first true loves being the ones that hurt worst to lose.

Anyway, that was my vent, a long one too.

[televisionianestamisimemology]

I was supposed to have an appointment with my therapist today, but he never signed on. I think I was going to share with him a perspective that I sometimes take on when trying to make sense of my general struggles. I think it’s possible that, on some level, I suffer from affluenza. To be clear, I did not grow up rich. I grew up comfortable, middle-class. But, in a weird way, I share some similarities with people who grew up with a lot of money, more specifically, those who grew up with a lot of money but never achieved true independence. For me, it wasn’t that I was given everything I wanted; it was more like my parents felt guilty for their missteps in my early education. They also worried about my well-being and mental health, so they took care of a lot of things for me. I didn’t have to work through college. They got me out of tough spots with credit card debt. Basically, I had a giant safety net, which maybe resulted in me not developing strong independence. I was also afforded the ability not to overcome obstacles, like depression.

And this is kind of a weird comparison, but my brother has this really strange reaction to physical pain. When he stubs his toe or accidentally drops something on his foot, he screams loudly and punches the wall. It’s incredibly dramatic. He seems a bit unaware of how intense his reaction is. I think I have the same response, but to emotional pain, specifically any moment where I am rejected or when someone says something negative to me, or I catch wind of a negative thought someone holds about me. While I don’t punch the wall, I do completely become undone. It has led to some dangerous moments in my life, periods of self-destruction. But there’s part of me that thinks there’s a relationship between this strong reaction I have and a feeling that’s hard to put into words. It’s like I don’t understand how someone could hurt me like that; don’t they know how much it hurts me? I need to let them know. This is sort of equivalent to my brother punching the wall when he stubs his toe, screaming out in agony; he’s letting everyone know.

So, is it possible that the coddled existence I had growing up, where I was handled delicately, and my emotions were so considered by my parents, educators, and psychiatrists, has led me to think, when someone hurts me, that this isn’t how I’m supposed to be treated? I don’t know if I’ve fully formulated my thought on this. It’s not a recent epiphany. I’ve always felt that a lot of the neuroses that I experience now are the result of growing up in a town filled with psychiatrists, just waiting for hypervigilant mothers like mine to sign up their child for weekly therapy.

But what’s got me thinking about this a lot now is this bandmate of mine. The band recently broke up, but it was led by this woman who seemed to me to be a bit socially and emotionally stunted. And, at the risk of sounding slightly misogynistic, I do psychoanalyze her and pathologize her with affluenza. She’s on antidepressants, and she, in my opinion, is on these because she suffers from some identity issues. These identity issues are the result of having all of her needs taken care of by very wealthy parents. I think I have a lot more in common with her than I care to admit. I’ve met other rich musicians like her who might possibly be leaning in on their own psychological problems because there’s an incentive to do so. It’s sort of like they’re cultivating the helpless, sensitive artist as a brand and identity, and they do this because it’s what brings the monetary support from their parents. I don’t think people I know who do this do it knowingly. I think it’s like having a job; you behave in a way at work that ensures your continued employment. The only difference here is that employment is being helpless, and the bosses are mom and dad.

I don’t want this to sound super cynical, and I’m not going on about this to trash these people. I’m just drawing a comparison between them and myself. With all of that said, I think it’s also a possibility that I’m just giving myself a hard time. I tend to think the worst about myself, and maybe I’ve invented this whole thing in order to put myself down. It aligns with my narrative that I’m a terrible person, so it must be that all of my problems are just selfishness.

Regardless of whether or not this is true, in a weird way, I think that thinking in this way—that I have developed neuroses as a result of helplessness, and that I am perpetuating these neuroses because they serve my interest—could actually be a constructive thing for me. Here's what I mean by that: If failures at tasks at work, or in my social life, are in my mind the result of me being a spoiled, helpless child who failed to develop the skills early on, and if I'm doing this just to bask in my own helplessness, then failure doesn't feel good. I'm not incentivized to fail. I think I had a productive week at work because I had these ideas in my mind. I was a little more organized, driven, and thorough. I put a bit more effort into developing social relationships at work. It's because it's no longer comfortable to fail. I think this is a good state to be in.

I imagine that many people who go to seek therapy go to bask in the comfortableness of failure. While that can be satisfying and cathartic, and maybe emotionally stabilizing, that's not what I want out of therapy. I want to want to get better. I'm not all the way there in wanting to work on it, but I'm working on truly wanting to work on it.

[russenoire]

some points raised by AI advocates that made me stroke my chin and maybe even empathize a tiny bit.

idk, but i like nuance and think it gets elided easily in online discussions. i do not think these below are GOOD justifications, ever, for plundering the hard work and talent of human artists using AI to make art for profit, but they're valid points.

some people tempted by or who make AI art

don't want to take the time to 'git gud, n00b' because they emphatically do not enjoy the process of sucking at shit until they don't suck. and this includes those who might be interested in taking the time, but look at everything they feel might be required and think: 'i could go to film or art school for 3+ years or i could spend 30 minutes tailoring a midjourney prompt.' i kinda get this one, tbh. artistic skill is hard-won whether you're formally trained or not. i am untrained; i would say self-trained. but i never stopped drawing as a child like most people do. something visually and mentally clicked for me, something that i couldn't even articulate until i read drawing on the right side of the brain in my 20s, that allowed me to jump over the initial 'why can't i just draw what i SEE AAAAKSHDKF' hurdle. maybe this is what 'talent' actually means? that early mental/visual shift—where you come to see the world and things in it as a collection of shapes, lines, planes, lights, darks, color blocks, mostly divorced from context or meaning—is present in others like myself, and it does smooth your path. adults just draw for two, three, four years, compare themselves to people who felt some version of that aforementioned shift and/or went to art school, and conclude that they 'have no talent'. while that understandably feels like a long-ass time to go nowhere fast, three years really isn't a lot of time for organic, undirected skill development. i'm serious. inventing the wheel by yourself takes fucking forever; my drawings didn't stop sucking until i was around 11 or 12. that's half my childhood. easily. but actually taking classes or diving into hardcore study? can and will drastically shorten that time. the progress i've seen competent drawing teachers achieve with their students in weeks or months, or artists on youtube who do frequent, deliberate practice in a year is not a miracle. real progress is attainable within a reasonable fucking frame of time IF YOU WANT IT.

really, really aren't satisfied with art that looks bad to them and still want to realize their ideas. and i'm talking crying themselves to sleep over the mismatch between their own skills and said ideas. that frustration is REAL and a version of it is actually a huge factor in why children stop drawing. see all of the above. i don't know how to ease the pain of that skill mismatch. me, i sat with a lot of frustration for a long time; hell, I STILL DO. i think i'd still be halfway decent at lineart and intimidated by actually painting it if i hadn't just started pushing myself to fucking PAINT already, even if it looked really basic. being simultaneously OK with whatever you can do right now and still striving to improve is emotionally difficult. and i know it hurts to have a really cool idea and feel blocked from making it real, especially if you're just not there yet. 'THEN JUST COMMISSION AN ARTIST,' i can hear you artists screaming from the ether. yo. artists are expensive. we are, and we kinda need to be to make a decent living or a feasible side hustle (i'm not going to get into artists underselling themselves). i do think most folks in this boat are not greedy tech bros, just ordinary working class folks who want beauty that is good enough without having to shovel over half a week's paycheck for it. to which i would also argue... dude, you can just save up, too.

often only recognize certain styles of painting (realism or hyperrealism; super-glossy, shiny, high contrast digital painting) as art and want to make art like THAT. putting aside the fact that art is all-encompassing and literally anything can be art, paintings in realistic styles are what i would argue most lay people think of as capital-A art. there is a reason why dictators tend to discourage or prohibit non-realist art; why the early USSR and CPC commissioned bright realist murals everywhere; why more abstract art didn't really catch fire in the western world until the advent of photography. people can see themselves and their history, represented in full color and often writ large. that's fucking powerful and sometimes lost, i think, on those of us who see things differently. but that kind of art is even more out of reach for the lay person who wants it. it takes far longer to make and train for, and artists who work in a realistic style can and do command stupid money. not everyone has that kind of patience or pockets that deep.

firmly believe that some people have more talent than others, so skill development doesn't matter. these are usually the people i mentioned in my first point, who've actually tried for months or years to git gud but never knew how or what to practice. they've been exposed to lots of people their age who felt the shift™ and can't really explain their faster improvement. if you know this feel, gentle reader, and have no clue what's actually happening, i understand why you might throw in the towel. US culture in particular is terrible at growing and nurturing talent of all kinds, and artists don't often share the hours they're actually pouring into improving specific skills. 'talent' by itself is fucking useless; a person who is willing to work at continual improvement will mop up the floor with someone who doesn't think they need to build skill. artists know this. and if you don't feel that shift as a kid, you can learn how to unlock it as an adult.