Regarding Sunflowers · 3:20am Oct 8th, 2020
Wow, this has been a wild few months for those of you who still read these things and indeed any of the weird crap that I write.
Hopefully, everyone who has read my SunFlower saga has enjoyed it, I truly hope it was worth reading if you took the time to do so. I know it kind of came out of nowhere for those of my watchers who were following my slew of Dead by Midnight stuff, to suddenly see me vomit forth a novel's worth of squishy, dramatic Sunset/Wallflower fics, and all I can say is: Blame Scampy for that one.
SunFlower has definitely been a labor of love though. I really did enjoy telling the arching narrative of these two gay disasters. Wallflower was a fascinating character to explore at length, and I absolutely adored taking her from the broken mess she is in Running Out Of Air to her ultimate happy ending in Helianthus.
CW for Self-Harm discussion to follow:
With that said, I want to address a specific topic that is often attached to both Sunset and Wallflower as characters in various fics with various levels of finesse, which is the topic of Self-Harm. Sunset and Wallflower are both often depicted as engaging in self-harm to various degrees, and usually through the act of cutting. That's not a bad thing in practice, mind you. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of Scampy's work, so my main thing is just that it has to be done well, as any sensitive topic should.
The reason I bring this up is because, as those of you who have read my SunFlower stories know, I never reach for that particular habit. Instead, I approach Wallflower's and Sunset's self-destructive natures from an entirely different angle. Sunset with her totally unhinged and willingness to burn herself alive for other people, playing the martyr because of her anxiety and low self-esteem, and Wallflower's refusal/inability to look after herself being partially a conscious choice because she doesn't think she deserves it.
These are all recognised, if uncommonly spoken of, forms of self-harm and I really wanted to explore that notion, and the slow recovery that the girls make getting out of those habits. It's nothing as dire and dramatic as a scene where a character reveals their self-harm scars, but it has its own sense of impending doom that I really wanted to explore.
Anyway, that's just my self-indulgent rant about my own writing. Thanks for reading if you did, thanks for all of your support, everyone, and as always:
Cheers,
I-A-M
I haven't read those stories yet but I will, once I get in the mood for slice of life romance, right now I'm craving some adventure.
i have read those storys and i loved them you did a really great job and i think you handled there issues really well
I did enjoy it, yes. I mean, if that wasn't clear. :D
Thanks, as I've said before, for writing. :)
And thank you for exploring that sort of thing, too.
I came here for Rules, and am always here for more romance. The dark stories I steer clear of, but to each their own.