Challenge Angstmongers Anonymous | Angst Challenge & Discussion Thread | Next up: Angsty Settings Roulette!

Welcome to Angstmongers Anonymous, where fan fiction writers and readers from all walks of life come together to share in their love of that particular subset of drama that tears unrelentingly at our heartstrings, beats our favorite characters (and our emotions) to a pulp, and – against all odds – still has us coming back for more. I’m talking about angst, of course; and whether you’re a burgeoning angst lover taking your first steps into a larger world or a die-hard, takes-no-prisoners angstmonger, this is the place for you!

Now, obviously there’s nothing truly anonymous about this thread, but I hope you’ll join us all the same. We may be sadistic and merciless in fiction, but we’re a pleasant and varied and mostly well-adjusted bunch in reality. In this thread, you’ll find challenges that speak to the angstiest parts of your soul and discussions about any and all things related to the writing and enjoyment of angst. So come in, pull up a chair, grab your favorite drink, and prepare to weep.

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What is angst?

Angst is a subset of drama that deals with sad or tragic topics and various forms of anguish, often intense. Stories in this category are meant to elicit melancholy emotions and will often leave their readers and writers sobbing uncontrollably in a corner. (Not that I speak from experience or anything. )


How will challenges work?

The challenges in this thread are currently non-voting, so the due dates for each challenge act as goals rather than true deadlines. It's fun to have us all working toward the same goal at once, but anyone is welcome to join in at any time and go at their own pace. Post-deadline entries are always welcome!

Right now the plan is to have semi-regular challenges and prompts. I’d like to try a few different things and be a bit flexible with the format, so we’ll play it by ear and see what works best. I’m always open to suggestions for future prompts, so if you have any ideas, feel free to PM me!


What are we going to discuss?

ANGST!

But seriously, there are all sorts of interesting discussions to be had about angst as a genre, its merits and pitfalls, its effect on readers and writers, and so much more. We’ll start off with a discussion of why we are drawn to write or read angsty stories and see how far down the rabbit hole we go.

Let the emotional devastation begin!

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Angstmongers Anonymous
Challenge & Discussion Index


Angst Challenge Index:​

Challenge #1: Gothic Literature Quote Roulette

Challenge #2: Angsty First & Last Lines (Dialogue Edition)

Challenge #3: Hurt/Comfort Roulette

Challenge #4: ANGSTOBER 2023!

Challenge #5: 50 Sentences

Challenge #6: Dark Side Challenge

Challenge #7: ANGSTEMBER 2024!

Challenge #8: Apology Letter

Challenge #9: Angsty Settings Roulette

Discussion Index:​

Introductions and why we're drawn to angst (Sep 5, 2022)

Approaches to violence in fiction (Sep 22, 2022)

Allowing yourself to put your characters through the wringer (Nov 2, 2022)

Advice for writing angst without being gratuitous (Jun 16, 2023)

Favorite angsty tropes and why we love them (May 20, 2024)


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All right, everyone, I have our first discussion topic and a writing challenge to kick things off!

Discussion #1:
Introduce yourself, and tell us why you’re drawn to read and/or write angst!​

And for our very first challenge…

Angst Challenge #1

Gothic Literature Quote Roulette​

For this challenge, you will pick a number from 1 to 15, and I will provide you with a quote from a work of Gothic literature to use as inspiration for a story. Whether or not you include your quote in the text of your fic is entirely your choice. You will have eight weeks to complete and post your challenge response. Some additional guidelines:

• Your fic must be at least 1,000 words
• Bonus Challenge: If you feel like being extra (because what angstmonger isn’t a little extra, am I right?), I challenge you to include these three words somewhere in your story: apparition, aberrant, and ambivalent
• Only one number per person and one person per number, at least to start out. If we get closer to the end of the challenge period and there are open spots left, and you want to take another number, feel free to ask!
• Entries are due Monday, October 31st (yes, I timed it that way on purpose )

A great big thank you to @Mira_Jade for putting together the list of quotes! (I’ve shuffled them up, Mira, so you can go ahead and choose any number. )

1. TherenAdarni | “Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.” (Henry James, The Turn of the Screw)
2. brodiew | “The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.” (Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
3. Broken, by Gabri_Jade | “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)
4. vader_incarnate | “They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them.” (Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera)
5.
6. He is what?, by earlybird-obi-wan | “It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.” (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
7. A World of Strange Wonders, by devilinthedetails | “I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.” (Bram Stoker, Dracula)
8. My Spirit Longs With Thee to Rest, by Mira_Jade | “He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.” (Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera)
9. Mononoke, by Nehru_Amidala | “It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)
10. From a Flimsi Scrap Found on the Crystal Cliffs, Lira San, by Findswoman | “I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.” (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
11. Kahara | “Love is like a tree: it shoots of itself; it strikes its roots deeply into our whole being, and frequently continues to put forth green leaves over a heart in ruins.” (Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
12.
13. Mourning, by vader_incarnate | “Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.” (Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death)
14.
15. Break the Silence, by ViariSkywalker | “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)


As always, the TOS apply. We may be wading waist-deep in emotional devastation here, but all discussions and challenge responses must abide by community standards.

Happy writing, and may the angst be with you.

~~

 

This is a safe space where we can use all the positive and negative adjectives without shame.

lolol, I'll bet it did!

You may! And I had to laugh when I saw which one you received, because obviously...

8. “He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.” (Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera)​

Yes, please!



And I suppose I ought to introduce myself as well!

*waves* Hi, I'm Vi, and I'm an angstmonger. I'm pretty sure I could write a whole essay on why I'm drawn to angst (and I'll probably do that in bits and pieces), but I think what it boils down to is that it's interesting. There's something really intriguing about watching a character experience such extremes of emotion and circumstance, whether those circumstances are as normal as our own or as fantastic as battling evil with crazy space wizard powers. There are so many things we can learn about ourselves and others through the lens of drama, and angst is simply a hyper-focused aspect of that.

Plus, it's fun.

 

Thrawn and Jaina could always use more angst, and so could Tumnus and Jaina! Either way, sign me up!

I call dibs on number 9 because my birthday is September 9th, and so it Leo Tolstoy!

 

Great to have you aboard! Your quote is:

9. “It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)​

Of course! I swear I didn't actually think I would get #15 when I shuffled these around, but mine is:

15. “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)​

 

I remember reading Frankenstein at the end of my seventh grade year. Dorian Gray will always be a great read!

 

*pulls up a chair, sips from a mug of readers' tears* My name is Gabri, and I'm a part-time angstmonger ( ANGST! ). It may not be what I'm always drawn to write, but occasionally it is deeply cathartic. Besides, there's a lot of angst in SW. Yes, hope and family overcomes the angst, but dang, look at ANH: Vader kills a bunch of people on the Tantive IV, Leia gets taken captive, Owen and Beru are murdered, Leia's whole planet is destroyed while she's forced to watch, Luke reunites with his lifelong best friend only to have him get shot down right behind him. That's an astounding level of angst. Look at all the stories to be told there! I found it persistently irritating that the EU dedicated so little time to Luke and Leia's thoughts and emotions about the families and homes they'd lost.

And that's what ultimately draws me to angst either as a reader or a writer, I think: simply that it's a huge part of most stories and I don't like when it gets glossed over. These things have a profound impact on people, and it's a cheat to pretend they don't. Even if I'm writing a story that's not entirely angst, I don't want to ignore the bad things that happen or have happened, and their impact on the characters. And I firmly believe that any triumph or happiness the characters experience will be the more wholehearted for having faced up to the darkness and dealt with it instead of sweeping it under the rug. It doesn't mean that I want to wallow in darkness, it's that I want to deal with it.

With the caveat that Reclamation and Coming Home are my top priorities and I make no guarantees at all so don't get excited , can I have number 3, please, Vi?

 

It is.

Angst writers are absolutely allowed to be happy, and they're even allowed to be happy while they're writing all the angst. As for your quote, you have received:

7. “I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.” (Bram Stoker, Dracula)​

I like this analogy! Sometimes to get a full appreciation for the beauty at the end, you need to see and understand all the things that led to that moment, be they good or bad.

That's the good stuff right there.

Is there ever. You hit on several points in your post that I identify with completely, and I'll be back to springboard off of those, but I didn't want to make you wait for your quote any longer...

It's yours! And obviously you're welcome to write for the prompt at any time, even if it's after the deadline. (Same for everyone else here!) Your quote is:

3. “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)​

It's fantastic to see the enthusiasm in this thread so far! I knew there were more than a few angstmongers hanging around here.

 

I love it

 

*kicks in the door* Did someone say angst?!

Omg I'm late but I'm SO HAPPY


I'll be back with a proper introduction, because I'm VERBOSE, but please give me lucky 13

 

I'm Elli, and I fly my angstmonger love flag high and proud. I come in two flavors: angst or crackfic. And it used to be "and never the twain shall meet," but Rogue One introduced me to a Vader who loves Dad jokes, and now they meet with groan worthy frequency.

I currently have a special interest in the Dark side and what the kriff needs to be so deeply wrong with a person that they willingly embrace the psychic hate energy of the universe and a religion based on masochism and murder.

A very long time ago, on some irrepressibly dark fic that I wrote, someone (paraphrased) wrote: "this must be how you're such a bright and bouncy person. You shove all your angst into these poor fictional characters," and I still remember that. I am a bright and bouncy person! My condolences to the fictional characters who land on my radar.

I think my preferred flavor of angst is "angst but with a spoonful of hope for flavor" which, I think, is what Star Wars on the whole is. I'm part of the PT generation, and that trilogy in particular - where you go in knowing exactly how it's going to turn out but you end up falling in love with the story and characters anyway - really encapsulates my love for the universe.

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker? Because the meat of it is a story than people have told each other for hundreds of generations since time immemorial, the fundamentally, inescapably human struggle of man vs. destiny. It's Oedipus, it's King Arthur, it's A Christmas Carol. Heck, it's Final Destination! And no matter how different ways we tell the story, we find a new angle from which to examine and enjoy it.

But conversely, I needed a bigger spoonful of hope than the ST provided, which was a little too grim for my particular angsty taste. But also I might just be biased because they killed my favs without adequately making me love the new favs.

 

Funny story, and I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I think that's basically where Festus's name came from? I was like two days into working on the sequel, and I got to the point where I knew I would need his real name, and I was like "oh, oops, guess I'd better decide what his name is" ... and I went down a rather long and winding rabbit hole of constellation names and mythological twin names and somehow ended up on the wikipedia page for the Byronic hero (which was sort of how Festus originated in EtF, as a dark mockery-but-not of that character type), which led me to skimming through a list of works featuring such characters, and I saw The Picture of Dorian Gray... and every bell in my head went off at once, and that was it, that was his name, like it was always meant to be.

(And then I realized I had to come up with Ferrus's name for that same scene, but because I was anxious to get writing again and wanted to go against the twin-naming mold, I just made up Veeran pretty much on the spot. )

/storytime

THIS. I love how you guys are all mentioning angst being cathartic, because that's another word I could have used to sum up why I love writing and reading angst.

I think that's a really important thing to note, that yes, sometimes the great thing about angst is how brightly the light shines at the end for having endured the darkness... but sometimes what makes the angst and drama so powerful is seeing those repercussions when that better nature is ignored. There's a lot of tragedy in human history, and I think a lot of us (most of us?) wish we could understand why? Maybe some of us have answers, maybe some of those answers are even right... but that's one purpose writing angst can serve, to explore those tragedies and those reasons and try to make sense of them. Sometimes the endings are dark and bleak because life can be dark and bleak, but sometimes the endings are hopeful because there is hope in living. And I think I've sort of lost the thread of what I'm getting at, other than to say I agree!

This response brought me so much joy, you don't even know.

Lol, I can't wait to read it. (EDIT: YOU POSTED WHILE I WAS TYPING THIS AND IT'S GLORIOUS) Until then, here is your quote!

13. “Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.” (Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death)​

I'll be back in a bit with more thoughts, but omg Elli, perfect intro is perfect.

 

LOLOL, I know nothing about hockey, but I do know football, and well, at least you had Barry Sanders?

Totally agree with this. Grimdark is just bad angst. Angst can be dark for the sake of being dark, either to explore some aspect of the story or the human condition or for the sake of catharsis, but it needs to have solid storytelling and characterization at its core, and not be gratuitous. And yeah, everyone has their own limits for a dark story no matter how well told, myself included, but that darkness needs to be integral for the story or character study at hand, not just there for shock value.

Romance and angst are just two sides of the same coin, Mira

I'm just grinning and nodding here. I well remember thinking, she's always so cheerful, but she writes the darkest stuff. Until we get to the crack, that is

I'm OT generation, but I remember thinking that too each time I went to a PT movie: why am I falling in love with these characters when I know everyone is going to die? BUT I DID

That's why I wrote PoL way back when, I really needed some NJO catharsis. Little did I know

You and I have had this discussion, Vi, but I think it's worth saying again: I don't think there is a safer place to explore these ideas and concepts and their ramifications than fanfic. It's not only fiction, it's unofficial amateur fiction. It affects nothing at all, not even fictional characters, not even temporarily, unless we want it to. So, yeah, this is a great place to try to figure some of this out, the whys and the hows of what people do and how they survive it and how it affects them and how they triumph (or don't).

I gotta post that written-long-ago-no-happy-endings-allowed Siriwan vig of mine one of these days But the "hopeful ending after a dark and bleak story" idea always reminds me of Les Misérables. You weep all the way through the dang play as everyone dies and the only two characters who survive are the two most bland ones I like the least and even they're mourning all their friends and family, but that last refrain of "Do You Hear the People Sing" - my gosh, you've been put through the wringer in every way possible but you leave feeling uplifted. Now that's some good quality angst.

She literally just finished saying she loves Dad joke!Vader, I can't wait to see how this one plays out Or, you know, maybe I can because it'll be devastating

 

Hello all. I'm brodiew. I'll take number 2. I haven't been around for a while, but a discussion or good challenge will usually draw me out of lurker status.

Angst is a writing staple of mine, though not as prevalent as its opposite number, witty banter. A good trigger from a movie or tv episode is likely to set me in motion, getting to the head of a character which is not possible in the visual medium. I love delving to characters motivations, regrets, psychoses. It is also quite cathartic to expel of the negative energy that can come with certain angst.
Most of the time, it is either hatred of self, hatred of others, regret or rationalization based on ones circumstances, that drives my writing in angst.

 

Hopefully you'll find lots of good discussion here. I think it's been pretty great so far! And as for your quote, you have received:

2. “The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.” (Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame)​

You are definitely speaking my language! All that messy psychological stuff is so fascinating to explore and can definitely be a cathartic experience.

 

@ViariSkywalker these quotes are fantastic, how did you source them all?

Fantastic, I love that.

You know, I feel like Dr. Seuss is just an untapped goldmine for horror. I recently read something about Horton Hears a Who falling under the broad umbrella of "cosmic horror," the concept of something just so big and godlike that it's beyond the realm of human understanding and leads to madness because it's so incomprehensible to a merely human worldview. And on the one hand, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but on the other hand, yes absolutely, Horton is a kind of Cthulu.

I think a LOT of this is attributable to GRRM, who handled grimdark well at times but the nuance got lost in the translation to the screen. And then maybe a bit also to The Hunger Games, which was just really well done YA dystopia, but so many of the copycats just didn't understand what it was that made it so good. It wasn't the love triangle.

I'm reasonably sure I have ADHD, and though I can generally manage it well enough, my thoughts are racing in at least four different directions at once, so I simultaneously have the ridiculous thought and the incredibly depressing one residing in the same brainspace.

It's devastating, Gabri. I had a really long drive yesterday where my muse had time to luxuriate in the quote, and then she just vomited the results all over the screen entitled "Untitled Angst Bomb" during the witching hour during which I really should have been sleeping, but was drunk instead on the bleakness of Vader's existence.

Though I'm oddly gratified that the quote made someone else think "Vader" rather than it just being my current hyperfixation. But my headcanon for Vader's love of Dad jokes is "uses terrible humor to have a small private bright spot that Palpatine hasn't bothered to take away yet in his otherwise miserable existence," which is also pretty angsty. Dad joke as private, meaningless rebellion.

I love this. It's low stakes because I'm never going to be able to make a profit off these, and for my particular brand of writing there's no real way to reskin a story about an angry psychic hate wizard, so I couldn't plausibly just publish a book of reskinned Vader vigs. But fanfic let's me figure myself out as a person and a writer, and also lets me have these wonderful conversations with all you wonderful people.

*chant* both both both. One of the things I've been figuring out about myself as a writer is that "quippy banter" is definitely a strength - along with the associated weakness, "is this really the time for quippy banter, though?" Fortunately in Star Wars, it often is.

 

I cannot take any credit for them, that was entirely @Mira_Jade. Not even kidding, within like 24 hours of you making that Angstmongers Anonymous comment in the drabble thread, she had compiled a list of enough challenges to last a few years, several of which were fully populated with quotes and prompts, including these ones. She suggested the Gothic roulette for our first challenge, which I thought was perfect.

 

I am Earlybird-Obi-Wan and yes I am an angst writer too with my medics and firefighters. May I have 6 for the challenge?

 

Heh, my sister has ADD (or maybe it'd be diagnosed as ADHD today, I dunno), so this makes perfect sense to me

Arrgghhh *preemptively collapses to stare at ceiling*

"Untitled Angst Bomb", lol

This is some true angstmonger stuff, right here, making me melancholy about Dad jokes

One of the many reasons I love SW so

Mira is reliably awe-inspiring that way

 

Yes, you certainly may! Welcome to the chaos. Your quote is:

6. “It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.” (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)​

I have to apologize for the brevity of this post, guys. I wanted to respond to more of your awesome thoughts, but I'm afraid I'm feeling under the weather and will have to come back later. I know you guys will keep those angsty fires burning in the meantime.