#writing shitty fanfiction as a coping mechanism <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[fishhateme]

maxiel(ish) drabble pt 2

part 1 if you're confused

Okay, back to his phone screen. As was common in Daniel's life, the problem was decidedly of his own making, and yet here he was. He'd been avoiding the messenger app all morning, ever since the little notification from Christian popped up, and he would've gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that stupid green owl. Fine, whatever, this was embarrassing to admit, but Seb had (correctly) assumed that after Singapore Daniel had reduced himself to lounging around and wallowing in his own misery, and he'd suggested a hobby, which wasn't necessarily a bad idea. It was embarrassingly mundane, embarrassingly in his mid thirties, embarrassingly retired and trying to pretend like he had important stuff to do, but Daniel had never really gotten around to learning French (he'd written it down on his 2019 resolutions, even joked with Cyril about it, and then promptly forgotten about it), and Alex had convinced him to download the app. He was even friends with Lily on it, too, they gave each other little nudges and sometimes exchanged Streak Freezers or whatever they were called, Daniel was too cool for remembering that. Anyway. Daniel was about to lose his hard-earned 32 day streak, so he clicked on the notification, his long, tan legs spread on the couch as he watched some show he couldn't even remember the name of. He usually went for movies, but he was getting a little bit of a bitter aftertaste to them after he saw Carlos and Charles in that stupid premiere. It was fine, of course, he was happy for his friends, the lingering ughness of it wasn't jealousy, it was just... what could've been. Daniel had watched Gladiator, the first one, with Max, ages ago. A small, bitter, awful part of him wanted it to be them, on the red carpet, matching tuxedos as they mingled. He wondered, sometimes, what would've happened if he'd had the balls to invite Max to the MET Gala, last year, but back then he was too preoccupied with the Alpha Tauri thingy to realize what a dick he was, going alone. Maybe he could ask Lewis for a seat next year. Big, fat chance, Daniel. Ask him to go out for a steak, afterwards, seared with extra butter on top, would ya?

part 3 (last one)

[takeariskao3]

Hey Hannah, I had a personal question for you. How do you balance fantasy/fanfiction life with real life? I’ve been in a slump for the last couple of years and if it wasn’t for fanfiction world allowing me to escape reality sometimes I don’t know what I would have done. The problem is now I’d rather read fanfics than talk to people. I’d rather stay in doors and read my favorite fanfic than deal with the shitty people in my life. I’m getting called out on it. I know it’s not healthy but it’s where I feel the safest and happiest. I’m struggling to find a balance and I don’t know where to start… any advice?

so, i really need to preface this answer with "i am not a mental health professional" but i have struggled with depression nearly all of my adulthood... and i have experienced phases of life similar to what you are describing.

i use writing and reading and consuming media as an escape. and over the years i've been forced to adjust my relationship with fandom into something healthier and intentional. however, fandom to me is still a bandaid. even though i love it, and i love the characters i get to explore, and i love engaging socially with other people who love these characters, it's still a bandaid.

my advice to you would be to go to therapy. find the roots and the origins of your reluctance to engage with reality. you sound like you might already know, but therapy still gives you a safe place to process.

my own experience with therapy is varied, and my coping mechanisms are by no means "fixed" or "solved" or even remotely healthy, however i know i love my therapist. and i love talking to her and even though i hate it most of the time, i am so thankful that she makes me feel my feelings.

if your reality feels unsafe, find someone who can equip you to make it safe again, whether that's through talk therapy, or helping you set boundaries in your relationships, or even identifying and escaping a bad situation. just find someone. don't suffer. i suffered for so long because i didn't know another option existed. but it does. you have options.

i love you and i hope the shitty people in your life aren't permanent. my askbox is always open <3

[keirmoonrock]

Keir's Fanfictions Masterpost

All fics with descriptions, categorized by most recently written and sorted by fandom, plus author's special commentary~~~

Death Note

Top Five: AU where Light and Misa went to Wammy's alongside Near, Mello, and Matt. L asks them to help solve the Kira case, promising that whoever does it will be his successor.

Author's Comments: Very long, very complicated, but totally worth a read if you love high-action plots! Lots of little personal additions thrown in, including expanded shinigami lore and a heavy focus on the inner workings of the Yotsuba Group.

The Beatles

Walk On: A 1980s AU where John lives, George and Ringo are married, and Ringo struggles to manage his failing record shop because of his crippling alcohol addiction. A long-overdue rewrite of my original Walk On trilogy series from 2021!

Author's Commentary: Much better than the original. Way better character development, sharper writing, more Julian than ever before. Sad as hell, though. But it does have a happy ending.

A Goldfish Bowl Life: Or, four times Julian saw his father and one he didn't. A character study on Julian Lennon's childhood.

Author's Commentary: This fic gave me a real appreciation for Julian Lennon! Also I submitted it as a writing final project lmao. I got a good grade if that convinces you to read it. Anwyay, I loved writing this, I love bashing my problematic fav (John Lennon), and I loved being able to write this as "homework" and use a May Pang documentary as "research".

The Walk On Trilogy Part 3: Samsara Can Take a Day Off: The continuing story of Walk On, this time from George's perspective. Fate has finally forced him to confront his crumbling family and try to make things right, no matter how difficult it is for him.

Author's Commentary: I really don't remember a lot of this... again, it was at a very strange point in my life. I still love this series with all of my heart, but I can't really describe what happens in this. COVID becomes a more prominent theme, obviously, and the next stage of the story begins. It actually ended early... I was planning two more parts from Lee and Dhani's perspective, but I cut them to start Top Five. I still reccomend you check it out, if you want to! Just know, this isn't really Walk On as I envisioned it. That, my friend, is on its way.

The Walk On Trilogy Part 2: And Why Not You?: The continuing story of Walk On, this time from the perspective of Ritchie's son Jason. With his own dependency on adderall and recent theft charges, it seems Jason will fall down the same shitty rabbit hole as his father, left to let down everyone around him until he's gone. Unless, of course, his equally troubled coworker Julian can pull him out of his rut. Doubtful, but possible.

Author's commentary: I loved writing from Jason's perspective, and more Julian is always appreciated in my fics lol. Again, I don't consider this trilogy one of my best works, but I appreciate it for what it is. I will say... COVID happens at the end of this. This was sort of a coping mechanism for me at times, so it just wormed its way in lol. Also bonus points if you like the movie 'Wings of Desire' (also called Die Himmel Ueber Berlin, sorry I can't do the umlaut lol).

The Walk On Trilogy Part 1: Digging a Hole and Drinking Wine: A troubled story of the alcoholic owner of a failing music shop, Richard Starkey. With his four kids and husband George to look after, he doesn't think he'll make it much longer before snapping and doing something awful to himself. Set in a pseudo-1980s Liverpool.

Author's Commentary: A lot of people seemed to really like this work, and I do to. To be honest, though, I could never fully realize my vision for the trilogy. This was written at a very weird point in my life? I have some plans for it, but for now, if you enjoy soul-crushing family-based angst with lots of substance abuse and dysfunctionality, enjoy!

Bread and Babies: Short and sweet one-shot about John Lennon baking bread. That's it. That's the fic, folks.

Author's commentary: It's bread. Yummy yummy.

A Dove in the Rosebox: Based on cirilee's wonderful Octopus's Garden AU, former pirate captain turned colonial widow Yoko Ono invites the remainder of her old crew to New York to visit her. Some, of course, couldn't make it--her husband, John, or the sea witch Ethelein, a close companion of his. However, with the arrival of a mysterious and monstrous bird, she and her crew are forced to revisit Ethelein's prophecy, hoping they can make sense of it before it consumes them.

Author's Comments: Colonial America meets a Yellow-Submarine inspired mermaid fantasy. My most cherished fanfiction, and the one that started my writing career! What's strange is that I never wrote down my interpretation of the Octopus's Garden AU, but this is all based on it. It may be a bit hard to understand, but I think it's so good I wrote and submitted an essay about it. Anyway. I can't praise it enough, although I am VERY biased. (Ethelein is the siren name I made for Brian Epstein by the way, in case you were wondering.

If you decide to check them out, enjoy! I appreciate it!

[reachgirl]

So..

Maddie had to basically raise and care for her brother when she was pretty young (from what we can gather), she was in an abusive relationship where her husband  cut her off from family and friends, then when she finally managed to leave him he came back to stalk and kidnap her and stab her boyfriend, and she had to kill him. Then she was held hostage at the call center. 

Buck had a difficult childhood (I think we’re safe to assume this much), then his sister left and it was obviously a big deal to him - and when she found him again she was almost killed by her abusive ex, he almost drowned and almost lost his friend’s son in a tsunami, had his leg crushed by a fire truck, had a pulmonary embolism, lost his job and his friends, his girlfriend left him because she couldn’t deal with the job, his other ex girlfriend used him as an emotional support crutch and then abandoned him without even giving him a clean break, his psychologist used her position of trust so she could sleep with him. Oh and his best friend / guy he’s clearly in love with was almost buried alive and.. it was never addressed again.

Athena’s fiancé was killed, she was almost killed by a serial killer, and her daughter almost killed herself, then she was kidnapped and almost killed again. 

Bobby’s wife and children died tragically in a fire that he blames himself for. 

Chim had an abusive dad, a mom who died when he was a teenager, he was bullied, his best friend sacrificed himself on a call and Chim was there to see it all, then he had a traumatic brain injury after a near-fatal car accident and his girlfriend left him right after, oh and he was catfished and stabbed by his girlfriend’s abusive ex-husband who then kidnapped her, and then she was kidnapped again at her place of work!

Eddie’s helicopter was shot down and his friend died, his son had to have multiple operations while he was away, his parents tried to take his son away from him, then his wife left him, twice, and then died in his arms. Then he was almost buried alive. 

Hen was bullied, her relationship with her ex put her child’s safety in jeopardy, and she inadvertently caused a young girl’s death, oh and she almost died in the earthquake.

And most of the issues I listed don’t even include the stuff that happens to them on a day-to-day basis. Or any of the stuff that happened to Michael, Josh, Karen, Chris, May or Harry.

Now obviously, you could do a show that actually dives into the trauma of emergency responders, but that would be a very different tone. There’s always the question of how realistic can these shows really be in 45 minutes and still give us these crazy rescue scenarios (Tsunami?? Mudslide? Plane Crash? Check) AND emotional development each episode. Realistically, the 118 wouldn’t be the ones - or at least not the only ones - called in to save people on a failed water landing / plane crash in the ocean. Their area of operation wouldn’t span from the coastline doing abseiling rescues to trying to run down a hot air balloon to bank robberies to train crashes in the middle of nowhere.

So we also can’t expect them to be completely faithful to actual trauma psychology, because that would most probably make for boring TV, but even if it didn’t, it just COULDN’T be the show we love so much. They do give it some space, like showing Christopher dealing with nightmares, acknowledging the slower pacing of Madney’s relationship because of her past experiences, Bobby’s unwillingness to forgive himself, Eddie’s anger management issues and poor coping skills in general, Buck not giving himself time to heal properly because of his need to be defined by helping people so he can feel ‘worthy’, and some characters even get to go and see a psychologist - with mixed results, that also aren’t properly followed up on, and when Eddie says he didn’t click with the psychologist that’s seemingly also the end of him dealing with his anger issues. A lot of the time, the show acknowledges mental wellbeing once, and then drops it completely - like Buck’s abandonment issues being dealt with only as a set up for Abby to come back. Lone Star does a little better with Judd’s trauma from his entire team dying in front of him, and his survivor’s guilt, and how that affects his relationship. 

BUT season 3 of 911 actually laid some good ground work with Eddie Begins, with Athena unsure of whether she will get back to work, with Hen considering changing careers, and Maddie and Chim’s relationship playing out the way it did. I really hope that a lot of the events in season 4 - the baby and the anxiety that comes with that (especially if you have shitty parents), May starting work as a 9-1-1 operator, Eddie and Buck going to Texas, Buck Begins, will circle back to some of these traumatic experiences and give them more room to breathe along with the new stuff that will inevitably come up. I mean we already know there’s going to be a freaking mudslide and LAVA and wildfires, so.

Maybe one of the reasons we love fanfiction is because it gives you room to explore a facet of the characters or their lives that isn’t given much room in the canon, maybe because it doesn’t fit the tone of the show or the writers are focusing somewhere else. I think it’s also the reason why buddie is so popular while actual canon ships are less so - it’s the same in a lot of fandoms. You’ll always have more fanfiction about the stuff you don’t get to explore on screen - the other relationships you already get to see played out, so it doesn’t feel as necessary to write about. So in fanfiction, we can give the characters space to breathe and deal with everything, and we can be realistic in how a new emergency doesn’t erase the trauma of past experiences, and how LONG it would actually take to deal with some of these issues in real life. There are SO many fanfiction out there in the 9-1-1 AO3 tag that do this so well, and that have a really good handle on how these characters would or could still be affected by this stuff, whether it’s panic attacks or nightmares or unhealthy coping mechanisms or emotional hang ups like guilt and feelings of inadequacy.(I think this is the reason why I tend to not like fanfiction that puts a heavy emphasis on headcanon for more trauma like kidnappings or abuse or childood trauma. There’s already so much stuff we have seen in the show, and in the hints we get about Buck’s childhood for example, I don’t need insult added to injury so to speak. But to each their own, obviously.) And I think that’s really cool and something we should talk about and seek out and write about, because it’s a huge reason why we care about these characters so much. And we should also continue to hold the show to a standard of not erasing the trauma, and give it space even when we’re realistic about how much space it can have in the kind of show 9-1-1 is. 

So I guess that’s a long way of saying I’m excited it seems that season 4 will focus a lot more in depth on character and dealing with all the stuff I listed above. And I can’t wait to see where Buck’s abandonment issues come from, or how Eddie and Buck could bond over having shitty parents. 

[inyournightmares97]

Personal Update

Hey guys. I know I went on hiatus a while ago and I do keep getting messages about when I'm coming back. I thought I'd update anyone who cares. I'm still on tumblr and I'm still responding to DMs and asks, just not as frequently as I used to.

To those of you who are curious about my personal life: I am doing amazing. I have a full-time job that I'm enjoying so far, I'm living with my parents and spending a lot of time with family. I'm working on my health and I'm preparing to take some exams and apply to universities to get a master's degree soon. Basically, I'm busy and occupied and happy. I know you guys can't see me but everybody in my life who knows me has said that I look like a more happier, relaxed and confident person than I did barely a few months ago.

I think this sudden stage of peace and happiness is what it took for me to realise that, up until now, I was actually incredibly unhappy. College was terrible for me. I hated it but I refused to believe I was miserable because of it. I basically locked myself up in my dorm room and watched K-pop videos all day after class, and spent my nights writing fanfics while avoiding my very real problems. All of those fics are up on my Masterlist now.

The reason I was able to post so much detailed content so often is not because I was really dedicated, or creative, or amazing. It's because this blog became a coping mechanism for me to deal with, and eventually avoid, the problems of the real world. I clung into it like a lifeline because I hated the life I was living and the people that were around me.

Having said that, I now realize that this blog and K-pop in general were basically an addiction that I clung into for the past 3-4 years. Without my fics to occupy myself with, and without you guys to constantly support me and give me something to look forward to, I am pretty sure that I would have succumbed to depression or some other unpleasant addiction with more serious consequences. I am extremely grateful for that. Maybe my addition to kpop and fanfiction wasn't healthy but it's what got me through the dark tunnel. And I have emerged unscathed from the other side.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm NOT unhappy anymore. My real life is going well. I'm in a different city now and don't have to see anything from my life at uni. The people around me are great. I actually ENJOY thinking about my future because I have so many ideas about what I want to do. I don't need a coping mechanism anymore. All the problems that were weighing me down are gone.

Don't worry. This isn't me saying goodbye or leaving this blog or deleting it or anything like that. I just want you guys to understand why this blog isn't such a big part of my life anymore. I love GOT7 and I'm looking forward to their comeback. I love writing and I don't think I'll ever give that up.

I just... don't need these things as much now. Writing is therapeutic for me and, like any form of therapy, I only really need it when there's an issue. Maybe someday something will go terribly wrong in my life and you'll see me back on here all the time, I don't know. Either way, I don't think it's right for me to apologize for my recent lack of presence on Tumblr.

Because I'm happy. And I'm not going to apologize for that.

I know this won't go down really well with people who are desperate to see updates of my fics, but I can't really help that. I'll work on them slowly, at my own pace and when my life allows for it. I still have my Tumblr app, I still answer DMs and I'll still answer asks whenever I can.

So yeah. That's it. Tumblr just isn't something I will be doing as much as I used to. I want to grow as a person and I'll be putting that first.

Thank you so much for all the support you guys have given me so far, because honestly, it means the world to me. I know there are a lot of shitty things about this site but for me, it was a crutch to stand on during a hard time and I know there are other people here who are using the same crutch for support, whether they realize it now or not. I hope you guys can get through the difficult stages in your life too. And you will. You just need to stick it out.

So yeah.

Thanks guys. The ahgase community here is amazing and I owe every single one of you so much. Thank you for supporting me when I needed it.