"Follow Your Bliss"

Wake up babe, new octopus just dropped

#the trio eloped off screen and you can't convince me otherwise cos what is this if not married behavior

No problem! And sorry about not answering sooner, I was on vacation. To make it up to you, I’ve made one of my trademark Long Posts about it.

TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE PAIN (FOR BOTH ORIGINAL CONTENT WRITERS AND FANFICTION WRITERS)

When I first started writing, about eight years ago, I had the same issue as @imjustafuckinggirl.

How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before???

The characters in my book suffer through all sorts of terrible shit, and in no way am I writing from experience, which is marginally easier to do than write about something that has never happened to you.

However, with time, I managed to gather up a few strategies on how to write pain.

1. Don’t Write Paragraphs About It

I know, it’s tempting. You want to convey to the reader just how much pain the character is in, and you think that the pain will be emphasized the more you write about it.

This, however, is a lie.

As a reader, when I’m reading a book or fanfiction where, whenever the writer uses agonizingly long paragraphs to describe when a character is hurt, I skip it.

Entirely.

It’s boring and, quite frankly, unnecessary, especially during a fight or huge battle, which are supposed to be fast-paced.

When it comes to writing about pain, it really is about quality and not quantity.

In my own writing, I stick to short, quick paragraphs, some of them which are barely a line long. This gives it a faster pace and sort of parallels with the scattered, spread out thoughts of the character as they suffer.

2. Describe it Right

Many times, usually in fanfiction, writers over-exaggerate certain injuries.

This partially has to do with the fact that they’ve never experienced that injury before and are just thinking about what it might feel like.

As a girl with two brothers and who often participated in rough play-fights, I can assure you that getting punched is not as painful as you think it is.

(However, it does depend on the area, as well as how hard the punch is, on top of the fact that you have to take into account whether or not the punch broke bones)

I’m reading a high school AU where a character gets punched by a bully (Idk where they got punched it wasn’t stated) and the author is describing it like they’d been shot.

It was to the point where I was like Did the bully have brass knuckles or something????

It was very clear that this author had never been punched before.

When describing the pain of an injury or the injury itself, you have to take into account:

- What object was used to harm the character

- Where the injury is

- How long the character has had the injury

- (For blades) How deep the cut is

- (For blunt force trauma) How hard the hit was

- Whether or not the wound triggers other things (Ex: Concussion, vomiting, dizziness, infection, internal/external bleeding).

There’s also the fact that when some authors described wounds caused by blades such as knives, daggers, and swords, they never take into account the anatomy of a person and which places cause the most blood flow.

Obviously, a cut on your cheek will have less of a blood flow than a cut on your wrist, depending on what the blade hits, and I hope that everyone consults a diagram of veins, capillaries, arteries, etc. when they’re describing blood flow from a certain place.

There’s also the fact that you have to take into account where the blood is coming from. Veins? Arteries?

The blood from arteries will be a brighter red, like vermilion, than the blood from veins, which is the dark crimson everyone likes to talk about.

Not all places gush bright red blood, people!

3. DIFFERENT INJURIES HAVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN

Here, let me explain.

A punch feels different from a slap.

A broken arm feels different from getting stabbed.

A fall feels different from a dog bite.

I’ll give you a list of all the kinds of things that can be described for the three most common kinds of injuries that happen in stories:

Punch/Blunt Force Trauma

How it feels:

- Aching

- Numbness (In the later stages)

- A single spike of pain before it fades into an ache

- Throbbing

Effects:

- Vomiting (If the character is punched in the gut)

- Swelling

- Bruising

- Broken bones

- Unconsciousness (Blow to the head)

- Dizziness (Blow to the head)

- Concussion (Also a blow to the head)

- Internal bleeding

- Death (In the case of concussions and internal bleeding and broken bones- ribs can pierce lungs)

Stab Wound/Cut

How it feels:

- Stinging (only shallow wounds have just stinging)

- Burning

- With stab wounds, I feel like describing the effects of it make it more powerfully felt by the reader

Effects:

- Bleeding (Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be)

- Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)

- Unconsciousness

- Infection (if left unattended)

- Death

Gunshot

How it feels:

- Depends on the caliber bullet, from how far away they were shot (point-blank range is nothing like being shot from a distance), and in what place. Do careful research and then make your decision.

Effects:

- Bleeding(Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be. Also take into effect the above variables for blood flow as well.)

- Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)

- Infection (if left unattended)

- Death

Some things that a character may do while they’re injured:

- Heavy/Harsh/Ragged breathing

- Panting

- Making noises of pain

gasping

grunting

hissing

groaning

whimpering

yelping (when the injury is inflicted)

screaming

shrieking

wailing

- Crying/ Weeping/Sobbing/Etc.

- Clenching their teeth

- Unable to speak

- Pressing their hands against a stab wound/cut to try and stem the bleeding

- Eyesight going out of whack (vision blurring and tilting, the room spinning, black spots consuming sight)

- Eyes rolling up into their head

- Trembling/shaking

- Ears riniging (from gunshot)

But instead of being present for all of the big important moments of History, they continuously miss the big moments and thus have no idea what’s going on.

They were out of town for a few centuries while the pyramids were being built.

When the French Revolution happened they were chilling in a Thai village.

Currently: the gang are still road tripping to the siege of Seoul—but the party has split after a magic sparring session for the newbies to practice exorcism left Rumi injured by the backlash, with Mira leading the non-Rumi and Celine faction in asking “why the fuck didn’t you tell us that would hurt her?”

And things have only gotten worse with Mira’s realization that she was the only one to actually hurt Rumi.

When the other woman finally does speak, it's just to say that she's found a hotel and texted the others the pin, and then "Left, at the light." Celine turns the car with a nod. She hopes, distantly, that Miyeong-ssi isn't uncomfortable— she's not fidgeting, this time, at least— but can't quite bring herself to ask.

Actually, what Miyeong-ssi is, is blunt, and Celine really should have expected it a few roads later when she says, abrupt, "You're very in your head."

It almost makes Celine smile, in spite of herself, but all she offers in return is a reserved, "I have a lot to think about."

"Tell me. Things usually make more sense when you say them out loud. Take a right two streets up," Miyeong-ssi adds, absently.

And honestly, the better part of Celine wants to take her up on it. Miyeong-ssi has proven easy to talk to, and sensible when she actually wants to be, and Celine would love to think she could lessen the burden of the tangling nest of knots in her head.

But the idea of putting any of it into words that make a shred of sense feels almost absurd. Where could she even start?

The great Rumi-nim, maybe, the root and reason of five centuries of mudang who have forgotten or never knew that she was half a demon, all along. That she was burdened to wield one of the most cruel and terrifying powers a shaman can be called to fight. That Celine had watched four people who she is responsible for, who she is meant to protect, succumb to that power in front of her, under hands she was taught to know as the peak of righteousness.

Perhaps that even if everyone at the table had severed her as hard as Mira had, Celine knows Rumi-nim would have thought little of it, would not have been distressed by simple pain, that there was no such pain regardless, and yet with every moment of their practice something had been making her more and more distraught. That Celine can guess at five explanations that might fit and none that she can do a thing whatsoever about.

Or, of course, the argument. The compounding mistakes, one after another: forgetting Mira and Zoey's civilian perspective; not realizing that the potential danger of exorcism might not be self-evident; failing to diffuse the situation; failing to fully divert Mira's anger in the aftermath. The way that Celine's cascading negligence has hurt all three of them so badly, has driven a wedge between Rumi-nim and her strongest support.

Guilt and shame are the left hand of Gwi-Ma, she tries to remind herself. It's about as effective as it ever is.

"Right lane, up here," says Miyeong-ssi, gentle and patient.

"...I've never had students, before." Celine checks her blind spot and merges, and catches on Miyeong-ssi's eyes, brown like dark leather, before pulling her gaze back to the road. "It's a virtue, in my order. Rumi-nim was known to be a great teacher, and we're encouraged to… 'plant knowledge wherever it might bloom', is the mantra."

"That's kind of sweet," says Miyeong-ssi, like she means it.

“I am trying to understand, but I—” Rumi stumbles. “I am not a horse, easily frightened and unsettled by unexpected pain. I am an experienced warrior. Such brief discomfort is nothing to me. I’d gladly take it again.”

“Maybe it’s not about you!” Mira snaps. “For once!”

Rumi flinches. 

Fuck. Fuck. Mira didn’t mean to snap. She keeps doing this.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and controlled through her nose. This needs to be fucking said. She needs to fucking say it.

“I was thirteen,” she starts, quiet and careful, looking out the window. She doesn't want to see their faces. But the abrupt hush is palpable nonetheless. “The first time they used me in a ritual. They figured I was old enough, I guess. Before that, they'd just leave me locked in my room. I'd thought that was the worst thing in the world, back then. I couldn't imagine anything could be…”

The voice chokes off in her throat. 

A hand settles on her thigh, a warm, reassuring weight. Zoey. Zoey’s warm, reassuring hand.

Mira breathes. 

“But of course it could. That was stupid of me.” Mira clicks her tongue impatiently. “I still remember the first time that I… They gave me something to read, and it was difficult, the words didn't make sense. I was so focused on getting all the sounds right, I didn't even notice until the lamb had already,” she takes a gasping breath, “already exploded.”

They’d passed by a farm a few kilometers back, clearly visible through the car window. No sheep, though. Only cows. Much bigger animal, the cow. So much more blood in it.

“I didn't throw that shirt out for years. The blood stains had set in after the first wash. They thought it was funny.”

Zoey’s hand spasms against her thigh.

“By ‘they’, I mean my evil fucking blood cultist family,” Mira grits out. “In case that wasn't clear.”

“Yes,” says Rumi, unusually subdued. “It was clear.”

Mira scoffs. “Was it? Great! I'm so glad that was clear.”

She can hear Rumi shift uncomfortably in her seat. 

She hazards a glance. Rumi's hand is clenched, and she's frowning intensely. 

“I—” Rumi cuts herself off. Starts up again. “It is a flaw of my character, that I often fail to see others with clarity. I know it. I wish I—I’d like to—”

Her nails drive grooves in the material of her pants, her knuckles white. Mira feels a familiar twinge in her chest. 

She turns toward Rumi. “Okay,” she says. “I get it. I'll be clear, then. I've been made to hurt others. A lot. I didn't fully understand what was happening and I was not able to stop it. It made me feel—Fuck.” She sucks in a wheezy breath. 

Zoey crowds closer, so now their knees are pressed together, and she takes Mira’s hand, and she squeezes. Her elbow is a hard unyielding angle against Mira’s side.

“Thanks,” Mira mutters. “It made me feel—bad. If you ever make me do that again, to you, or anyone else, I'm done. Got it?”

Rumi is—hungry, and cruel, and viciously curling with corruption.

But she wants to say yes. She wants to say it without any of the caveats that spring to mind. She wants to remake the world itself until she will never, ever have to see Mira suffer again.

She shifts her gaze to Zoey, stuck in between them. “This is your issue as well? That you were not… offered full understanding of the possibility of harm?”

And Zoey, still pressed against Mira’s side, nods.

“I had not meant to deceive you,” Rumi says, and this part, at least, is one of the easiest vows she has ever had to make. “I shall endeavor in the utmost not to do so again.”

“Thank God,” Minji-nim sighs in the front seat, which would almost break the tension. It makes Zoey laugh, certainly.

Mira takes a shuddering breath. Her fingers lock around the seatbelt where it crosses her chest, knuckles going white, and then she releases with a small shake. “Okay. Good. I’m glad you—get it. Thank you.”

Rumi hates herself.

“However,” she says, fixing her gaze out the window past them, watching the world pass at dizzying speed, “I cannot promise that you will not be put in a position where it is necessary to harm me again.”

Silence.

Rumi barrels forward. It is her favorite tactic, after all: engage aggressively until the enemy is defeated.

The sickness boiling at the back of her throat does not matter.

“I am not good, Mira. One of my feet lies in the realms infernal, and it seeks always to change my path. It is mere—“

“So what?” Mira says.

Rumi is startled enough to turn her gaze, and find Mira with her brows furrowed and face awkwardly set to keep her jaw loose.

“It’s not the darkness that covers up the stars,” Zoey whisper-shouts, her own anger barely suppressed by a veil of gentleness.

Rumi cringes, thinking of the song that had brought her back to herself. “I am not saying—that does not deny the risk—“

" Freedom " // rafaell vital