#WordWeavers 2404.29 — Who's feeling shame in your story? Is it justified?
/It's'a [#brainfog#fibromyalgia day, but I'm gonna write this to get something out. Hoping it's coherent. —RS/]
This question made me think hard for quite awhile until I—like an artist or a photographer deciphering how shadow defines volume and dimension—saw /negative space/ in a story... where something wasn't. Emptiness.
Wintereyes /doesn't/ feel #shame, and I'm realizing this is an #emotion with which I can make a #feminist point in my story. Whilst shame is IMHO used more often to control women than it is men, it is both incidious and /learned./ Shame is a combination of built-in emotions programmed into a person to make a person self-punish for "wrong" behavior even if it's secret; it's related to, but not the same as guilt.
Wintereyes was raised by wolves, but not until she was 7 when her "gift" caused her to seek a second set of parents. Her early childhood will require investigation in another story, but I'm pretty sure her human parents didn't teach her the emotion; it's not that she forgot. Forced to live again amongst humans over a decade later, to become more human, people's behavior baffles her. Late in the story, when she's asked to disrobe by stylist at a modeling shoot, and does without a thought, the stylist observes, "You don't feel shame, do you?" This is where Wintereyes will go off like a firecracker, and it should be very interesting.
The stylist may actually feel ashamed...
The author is [#actuallyautistic and retains copyright (c)2024 R..S.]
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