black_sluggard | Wtf: "The Good Angst" 3.0 (Reply)

(Or, more than you ever wanted to know about the Sluggard's emotional fetishes.)

The following is the third version of a journal I've done twice before elsewhere on the internets concerning a subject near and dear to my heart.

Angst.

The word gets thrown around a lot. As a genre in fandom, it can encompass a wide spectrum of generally negative emotional themes, from awkward social drama to outright tragedy.

Angst takes many forms, but while I am known to enjoy/indulge in/overindulge in all of its many flavors now and then, there is a specific hue of emotional distress that drags me back time and again. A feeling that I have spent practically my entire writing and roleplaying life since middle school contemplating and exploring in detail.

I call it "The Good Angst".

This is not to suggest that other angsts are bad, or that this type is superior, it's simply my phrase for the specific shade of angst that I personally enjoy the most.

The Good Angst frequently involves a base of either horror or shame, with a hefty helping of other associated feelings such as shock, insecurity, fear, doubt, uncertainty, and disgust. The key defining element of The Good Angst, however, is that these feelings are directed inward.

When a character is forced to transgress against some personal code or ingrained taboo, when they find themselves being subjected to some sort of drastic physical or mental transformation, when they come to a startling realization about themself that challenges their very concept of who they are...that is The Good Angst.

Often characters are forced into an examination of the elements that define them and their beliefs. They are frequently forced to confront feelings of isolation as they find themself at a remove from identities they once claimed, and groups to which they once belonged now that they have been consigned to the Other. Confusion is common, and often they wind up afflicted by an painful self-loathing, dread or despair at the thought of being, becoming, or doing that which is in their own minds bizarre, wrong, or utterly reprehensible.

This. This feeling. I live for this feeling, but I have no idea why.

When The Good Angst is involved, my creativity eats it up. My muses flourish. I can spend hours pounding out paragraphs on something, even if it's completely stupid. Yet if the story demands (as stories so often do) that nearly anything else happen for the next few pages, I often wind up losing my momentum...

Which inevitably leads to distraction and (almost as inevitably) the development of some other bizarre and angsty idea for my brain to sink it's pointy teeth into.

I've asked this before in other places and rarely gotten an answer. But, a few people do actually read this journal, so I'd be remiss in failing to echo it here. Probably not meme-worthy, but if you take the time in your own journals, who knows?

Is there any particular emotion or situation that calls to you? Something that impacts you or your writing in ways that nothing else can?