#hamsterrambles

Every time I put on a show, watch a movie or read a story and it ends up taking dark turns and characters get buried as rain falls over a crying crowd, I just can’t handle it anymore. I will walk away from that story. 

I don’t know what it is. When I was a kid I would often write sad endings to my own stories, almost every time actually. The main character would die or lose something very important to them. I guess I saw happy endings as too cliche and expected. But today? That sad stuff just makes me depressed. 

I can’t handle characters dealing with dark times and not having any hope left. I can’t deal with it going on for too long. I don’t mean that I don’t want any downs in a story, or for characters to never be sad; it’s just that if they’re sad for too long or a tragedy is too big to really get over fully it hurts too much.

Maybe the sad endings I used to write...well...ended once I fell into my depression. Maybe now I relate too much or get bad memories from seeing characters suffer too much in a story? I make it personal I guess.

It’s frustrating when people hype things up with comments like “oh it’s so good, anyone can die!” or “I literally got my heart ripped out omg the feels”. Because I don’t want those feels, and I feel like the dark things are often taken as more serious and real, and the happy stuff is childish. Like, where’s the twist in having all your characters alive at the end? Yeah maybe there isn’t one, but why does it matter?

Is a story really that bad if you know for sure that none of the characters will die during it? I don’t think so... To me it’s...comforting. I read to escape. Not to feel worse. Of course it’s not wrong to like the dark shit...I just...don’t. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of dark turns in stories I enjoy literally ruining my day. It’s a personal issue I need to solve, I know, but it’s still frustrating. 

Hiya! Ham here with a sudden little tip before she goes back into her cave heh...

At my school we sometimes use a special way to give and receive feedback. We often adapt it to the situation and to the people in the room but here are the basics:

1. You, the creator, start by presenting your creation. You tell the story of what it is, why you made it and so on. The people that you’re looking to get feedback from is quiet during this.

2. Now it’s your turn to shut it. No talking for you. This is the hard part, and trust me it’s soooo difficult to not say anything but it’s important that you don’t!

Basically now it’s time for the feedback-givers to, among themselves, discuss what you have made. They’re not talking with you now, you’re not a part of the discussion. I know it sounds weird, and it really is if you’re not used to just listening to people talking about your creation without being able to say anything, but the idea is that this is the time for you to listen. This is not your time to defend yourself and explain things. 

3. You join the conversation again. Now everyone can talk. You can ask the feedback-givers questions and they can do the same to you. 

I know that this doesn’t work for everyone, but this has helped me noticed just how defensive I am over my choices with my creations, and how when I cut in while someone is trying to give me their opinion it just...halts the whole conversation. The person never gets to make their point and we just go on. i never get to hear the whole thing, and i never actually reflect on what they said. 

Of course sometimes I do have a good answer to why I did something a certain way, but if I don’t say anything the discussion may lead to some other great feedback I can use! 

So I think it’s worth trying! Even if it turns out that it just doesn’t work for you, maybe you’ll learn something about how you deal with criticism? 

Feedback isn’t for you to defend your creation, it’s for listening. And I think this is a nice option for when you want to practice that!

And I realized maybe I could use the words “Redemption” or “Reconcile”. So I looked up what the swedish word would be and...

"I'm sorry" doesn't fix anything. Actions do. Explaining why you did something doesn't erase the fact that you did it.

It might feel impossible to change, to know where to begin but...first thing you do is aknowledge your mistakes. Once you've done that you fix your mistakes and find out how you avoid making them again. This isn't something people can do for you either. It's on you.