Becky. Very much legal. Such fangirl. Currently stanning: The Untamed but mostly a big old pile of multifandom trash.
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I recently read an article about a therapy group for depressed people who had all attempted suicide at some point. The breakthrough question for them was, “If your goal was to be just as miserable as possible, what would you do?” Most of them listed things like not getting enough sleep, or isolating themselves from everyone… the list goes on, but the point is, they listed things they already do. But now they saw those “coping mechanisms” for what they really were: things that were actively making their condition worse.
I read that article at 2:00 AM, asked myself, am I TRYING to be miserable tomorrow? And it was easier than usual to put my phone down and fall asleep. Even my intrusive “lying down” thoughts about meaninglessness and existential dread were easier to suppress when I framed them as things I’d think about to purposefully make myself feel as awful as possible.
Fuck that is helpful
This is an incredibly helpful reframe! Especially when we also have grace for ourselves by understanding that the worst coping mechanism we ever had being the best coping mechanism we could wrap our fingers around at the time.
“Even in the act of turning against ourselves, we are turning towards relationship with ourselves.”
I don’t want my cellphone to have AI I want it to have 3 days of battery time. I don’t want my computer to have AI preinstalled I want it to have seven usb ports and high ram at affordable price. I don’t want my games to have AI built levels I want them to be so optimized I could run them on a nokia.
Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?
Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.
Secondly, I don’t know if I would call them ‘interests’ so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn’t bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It’s fun to torture characters, as a treat!
But, anyway, assuming this question isn’t, “Do writers know they’re gross when I think they are gross” which I’m going to take the kind road and assume it isn’t, but is instead, “Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?”
Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, “So…what’s up with that?” or sometimes I read enough of someone’s work that I have a PRETTY good idea what’s up with that.
I’ve never read Robert Jordan and I don’t intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I’ve really never read Rice’s erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don’t remember it perfectly, but there’s plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic’ I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out’.
Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn’t mean I’m interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago’ ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.
But I’ve known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don’t seem to realize it. Or they’re very good at hiding it. Based on the people I’m talking about I would say it’s more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don’t even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It’s extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain’t me, babe.
Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.
i have so many hobbies and interests but each day the four horsemen (instant gratification, shortened attention span, procrastination, exhaustion) grab me by the throat and shake me until i collapse in my comfy bed
#肖战1005生日快乐# Standing at the intersection of time, looking back at the past you, I find that you are still you, you are still Xiao Zhan. Work hard, love life, embrace the world, and enrich yourself.
Time will record the best of the moment, @X玖少年团肖战DAYTOY wish you no regrets and enjoy yourself, happy birthday~
modern social media should stop offering “sync with your phone contacts to follow them” options and start offering “block all your phone contacts so they never see your account” options
