aspiring-to-write-a-thing

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

#to answer your question prev#everyone that says shit like#‘there’s a REASON only WANGXIAN end up happy!! and it’s because only THEY were GOOD and RIGHTEOUS!!’#‘and everyone ELSE was BAD. they’re being PUNISHED for their BADNESS’#‘mxtx is telling us that GOOD PEOPLE will be REWARDED!! and BAD people will GET WHAT THEY DESERVE!!!!’#as if mdzs is a story about karma#(it is not)#mdzs is a story where goodness and badness are both praised so long as they are useful to t those in power#and once they stop being useful they are ostracized at best and vilified at worst#where people who wanted to do good were forced to suffer for nothing more than the whims of the powerful#and once they finally snap the powerful point and cry ‘you see? they were bad all along!’#like. not to be all ‘the villain is society’ but it literally IS.#the villain is hereditary power structures and gentry and class disparities#the villain is unquestionable and undeniable and unresistable power#not as in you are literally unable to but as in you are not *allowed* to#um anyway#i hope that answers your question prev#mdzs talk

would like to remind the ppl who are all “wwx was rewarded for his righteousness!!!” that

in his first life, he was very specifically NOT rewarded for being righteous. he fucking DIED.

his second life was given to him NOT because he was righteous, but because not one, but TWO people wanted to use him and the skills he developed to take his own violent revenge…to carry out THEIR violent revenge.

if you want to view getting his happily ever after as a “reward for righteousness,” that would require having done something righteous, but hunting down jin guangyao and turning the cultivation world upside down was Not Particularly Righteous when you actually take everything re: context and fallout into account.

like wwx basically woke up, fucked up their society, then said “fuck this” and fucked off to go fuck. (in a bush.) good for him and all, but that he ended up happy was happenstance. not like. a reward.

so like. i’m just saying. where exactly is this supposed reward for righteousness.

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

Any advice for those where the struggle came from wronged parties being very preoccupied with how guilty you should feel/the punishment you deserve? I grew up with that from parents and some peers, where making sure I was suffering enough was paramount and was the measure of if I actually cared and deserved forgiveness, which is what gave rise to the excessive self-flagellation. It's hard to remember the healthy limits of accountability when the - otherwise non-abusive - people around you want you to earn forgiveness via some desired degree of distress.

holding yourself accountable and tearing yourself down are two different things

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

Things almost every author needs to research

How bodies decompose

Wilderness survival skills

Mob mentality

Other cultures

What it takes for a human to die in a given situation

Common tropes in your genre

Average weather for your setting

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

we are in a media literacy crisis

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Based

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art

Mermaid Dad by 宋大能

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

Low level/continuous pain tips for writing

Want to avoid the action movie effect and make your character's injuries have realistic lasting impacts? Have a sick character you're using as hurt/comfort fodder? Everyone has tips for how to write Dramatic Intense Agony, but the smaller human details of lasting or low-level discomfort are rarely written in. Here are a few pain mannerisms I like to use as reference:

General

Continuously gritted teeth (may cause headaches or additional jaw pain over time)

Irritability, increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, etc

Repetitive movements (fidgeting, unable to sit still, slight rocking or other habitual movement to self-soothe)

Soft groaning or whimpering, when pain increases or when others aren't around

Heavier breathing, panting, may be deeper or shallower than normal

Moving less quickly, resistant to unnecessary movement

Itching in the case of healing wounds

Subconsciously hunching around the pain (eg. slumped shoulders or bad posture for gut pain)

Using a hand to steady themself when walking past walls, counters, etc (also applies to illness)

Narration-wise: may not notice the pain was there until it's gone because they got so used to it, or may not realize how bad it was until it gets better

May stop mentioning it outright to other people unless they specifically ask or the pain increases

Limb pain

Subtly leaning on surfaces whenever possible to take weight off foot/leg pain

Rubbing sore spots while thinking or resting

Wincing and switching to using other limb frequently (new/forgettable pain) or developed habit of using non dominant limb for tasks (constant/long term pain)

Propping leg up when sitting to reduce inflammation

Holding arm closer to body/moving it less

Moving differently to avoid bending joints (eg. bending at the waist instead of the knees to pick something up)

Nausea/fever/non-pain discomfort

Many of the same things as above (groaning, leaning, differences in movement)

May avoid sudden movements or turning head for nausea

Urge to press up against cold surfaces for fever

Glazed eyes, fixed stare, may take longer to process words or get their attention

Shivering, shaking, loss of fine motor control

If you have any more details that you personally use to bring characters to life in these situations, I'd love to hear them! I'm always looking for ways to make my guys suffer more write people with more realism :)

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

“Thoughts on one of the hardest things: banishing the imagined bad faith reader from your writing process” by Melissa Febos on Twitter is hitting really hard today.

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waterfall in tiantaishan天台山, taizhou, zhejiang province by 展辰Shayne

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Extremely displeased to announce I just opened my writing doc to find the fic has not yet written itself. Will check back in tomorrow to see if it’s made any progress

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

too much “this character did something bad” talking about fictional characters like they’re autonomous entities and not enough “why have the writers made this character do the bad thing and how does it contribute to the overall plot and themes?”

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TOP TIER CONTENT

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tiktok necromancer: "i've received a few concerns lately about where i get my materials from, so i just want to assure you all that i always make sure my human remains are ethically and responsibly sourced, and all reanimation i do is 100% consensual :)"

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

You know, when I see fictional characters who repress all their emotions, they're usually aloof and very blunt about keeping people at a distance, sometimes to an edgy degree—but what I don't see nearly enough are the emotionally repressed characters who are just…mellow.

Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around them—and so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realize…

…they've never actually told you anything about themselves.

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

How do I describe a tired person? I got ‘dark circles under the eyes’ but it kind of stops there.

[aspiring-to-write-a-thing]

One upside to being a writer is you can write your own comfort fic. The downside is you still have to actually write it.