This is not a love story

There are some characters where giving them therapy and cleaning them up is the fanfiction equivalent of buying antique furniture and painting it white

theo van gogh was the one who suggested that his older brother vincent start seriously painting. as soon as theo was gainfully employed he gave vincent around 15% of his own yearly salary for art supplies, lodging, and food. about 2/3rds of vincent's surviving letters were to theo (including vincent's earliest and last letters), all of which were found stored in theo's desk. theo's child, vincent willem, was born on january 31st, 1890, and vincent was so delighted by his nephew that he painted almond blossoms for him. vincent shot himself half a year later on july 29th, 1890. theo's distress at his brother's death worsened his syphilis symptoms and he died half a year after his brother on january 25th, 1891 (four days before vincent willem's first birthday). theo was reburied next to vincent in auvers-sur-oise at the request of theo's wife johanna.

i NEED people to realise foreshadowing is. in fact. a literary device. and not a Bad Thing. the audience picking up on your hints is a Good Thing. because. it makes the story and it’s conclusion make sense. and some people will not see those but enjoy seeing them on a second read through. red herrings are one thing but if your novel consists of nothing but red herrings it’s not a coherent story it’s just a collection of paragraphs that don’t actually plausibly link to one another. you're not fighting with the audience you don’t look clever you look like you don’t know how basic fiction works. be vulnerable for once in your goddamn life and don't treat writing like a game to be won where the audience losing is a good thing.

i hope you write (i hope we both write)

hand in unedited hand

related: when you think "this has Implications the author didn't think about" and then it turns out the author was thinking about them the whole time

you get me

GAT DAMN!!