City of Villains and me
I've noticed something as my energy and mood pick up some this last week and a bit. I've got a lot of unpleasant emotion sloshing around: personal stresses, rage and helpless despair about developments in US politics, and like that. Now, I don't actually want or even really wish to give up on trying to be a decent person in the midst of awful circumstances. Nor, come to that, do I have a life which would afford me much opportunity for PROFIT!!! even if I did, to be honest.
But sometimes the load just is awfully high. And it's at this point that firing up supervillains feels really, really good. They are free to choose do to terrible things, or to follow compulsions and imperatives I'm very glad not to have, and to look glamorous or sinister or excellent while doing it. This is, as nearly as I can tell, pretty much exactly catharsis in the classical sense: gather up and unleash the negative passions in the framework of an unreal world, and discharge them. I come out of a session with one of my villains feeling better, and am able to attend to various chores I've been putting off.
But sometimes the load just is awfully high. And it's at this point that firing up supervillains feels really, really good. They are free to choose do to terrible things, or to follow compulsions and imperatives I'm very glad not to have, and to look glamorous or sinister or excellent while doing it. This is, as nearly as I can tell, pretty much exactly catharsis in the classical sense: gather up and unleash the negative passions in the framework of an unreal world, and discharge them. I come out of a session with one of my villains feeling better, and am able to attend to various chores I've been putting off.