#I just really like recovery fics

[darkxsoulzyx]

I know the “emotions translate to strength of magic” and the “repressed emotions character unleashes their emotions and the magic they let loose is so powerful, no one can stop it” tropes are really really neat

However, have you considered: “Repressed emotions character that unleashes their magic, but the only thing that comes out is a trickle from having stuffed down their feelings for years— and it’s a long and painful journey of trying to reteach themself on how to do magic— and in turn cope with their feelings”?

I do love me a character getting to go apeshit after not allowing themself to do so for years, but I am starved of content where when the emotionally repressed character finally *does* get a chance to, they *can’t*.

And they feel this sense of powerlessness since they used to have such a big control of their own magic— having kept their emotions in check for years— only for the moment they need to call upon it again, it lets them down because of the lack of gentle nurturing.

Which in turn causes the character to become frustrated with their magic and the progress they have to retrace, which riles their emotions negatively, which affects their magic and… you get the point.

Think it’d also be nice to have the character have someone that loves them enough to help them one step at a time. Spending quiet hours of the evening, sitting together as they slowly untangle the reservations that have been here for years. Guiding the process carefully as they both figure it out together.

While outbursts of emotion can be cool and flashy, I think the treacherous hours of time and care afterwards are just as interesting.

Outbursts only last a few hours at most.

Healing can take forever.

[sad-leon]

When your greif becomes so overpowering that you break shit, but now you're left empty and with just as much greif as you started with, if not more.

Anyways- guess who was listening to Lost One's Weeping again :D (it was me, i am so normal over that song)

[robin-with-a-pen]

Okay I’m having ideas I need someone to stop me-

Anyways, so we all know that Chilchuck probably doesn’t have the healthiest relationship with food? Right?

I don’t think he has an eating disorder but more so disordered eating- that hellish middle space, right? I mean “maintaining his body weight at an acceptable level” really sticks out to me

So picture this- my man retires, he doesn’t need to control his weight anymore, no worry about setting off or anything, but he realizes that the unhealthy habits he’s developed over he past ten years are harder to break than he thought

[definitelynotshouting]

You know what's insane about the Hunger AU. the fact that Grian is trying to die because he does not want to inflict pain upon his friends, but that's exactly the thing that's tormenting them. he's become so determined to stop himself that he's hurting them anyway, and it only gets worse the harder he tries. he doesn't want to be cruel but leading the Hermits on like this about the potions is cruel. he doesn't want to hurt them but seeing him half dead is hurting them. i am shaking like a dog

hunger au really is all about how suicidal ideation and mental illness can just twist your entire perspective into a knot.... like the objective reality is that he IS hurting his friends with this and he IS going to hurt them 10x more when it comes to the potions!!! but grian is so caught up in his own head and his hurt and his guilt that he cant see that or accept the cognitive dissonance that comes with acknowledging it. Its a genuinely tragic set of circumstances and being able to showcase the rapid spiral down followed by the slow crawl back up through recovery is so so so rewarding for me as a writer-- not least bc of reactions like these >:]

[khonshuscondemned]

a continuation of sorts to this piece.

Steven’s panic attacks always hit like a bullet to the chest.   He knows exactly what that feels like, now; he can adequately relate the metaphor in context and it’s extremely applicable here- his ribs creak as he struggles for breath- wheezes.   It was just a nightmare.  It was just a nightmare. (Then again, he’s always struggled with realising the distinction between his dreams and reality.) 

[Steven?  Hey, Steven, you okay?] -It had been hard to take a breath with a hole in his lungs and he remembers the way the second bullet punched through their body, ripping through skin and muscle and bone , remembers the way Marc’s balance tipped, the way he’d tried to stay on his feet as long as he could. Instinctively.  Stubbornly.  He still swears he can hear the softly lapping waves against the stone steps, the steady  drip  drip  drip  that echoed around the ancient burial chambers.  Swears he can still feel the way their heart pounded in their body- Until it didn’t. His knees feel weak now [Steven- Steven, hey, take a breath for me, buddy-], and despite his best efforts, it’s like there’s cavewater in his mouth and throat, suffocating him- drowning him- he can’t think, he can’t see anything- his eyes are squeezed tightly shut and he rocks back and forth and back and forth and he thinks Wake up, please, please I just have to wake up- There’s a pressure building in the empty space where his heart should be and his head feels light and his throat constricts and clicks.  He’s terrified, he can’t make heads or tails of the right way up- wake up wake up wake upwakeupwake- ‘Steady, hermanito.’ Steven’s eyes fly open and he’s almost startled to realise there’s no one physically in the room with him for a moment before his gaze immediately snaps to the only reflective surface, the window.  He hasn’t been asleep for long- it’s still dark out, and there, just in the corner of the glass, there’s movement- It hadn’t sounded like Marc, but... that could only mean.. ‘M-Marc?’  Steven tries for words [he checks, just in case], his voice raw and his jaw is clenched, making coherency even harder to attain. ‘Yeah, Steven?’  comes the response, but not from the figure in his reflection.  His muscles ache as he tries to sit up, to get a better view.  ‘I’m here.’ His tongue refuses to cooperate and he groans- his limbs feel like lead.  It helps to know that Marc is there, that he isn’t alone, but for some reason tonight his body is stuck in the past and even as he desperately tries to unclench his fingers from their white-knuckled grip on sweat-dampened sheets, to catch his breath, the sting of panic doesn’t lessen.  He wants to close his eyes again, he wants to scream.  There’s an ache in his gut that pulls and twists and it’s got him caught in the eye of a hurricane as his nightmare fades. ‘Keep your eyes open, Steven.’  and he knows that voice- that’s Jake-  ‘You had a pesadilla, a dream.  You’re awake now.’ He’s sure he mishears something even as comfort washes over him, becalming him.  Then he pauses-  Jake’s words pull a short huff of incredulous laughter from his chest like a cork and he’s able to suck in a deep inhale before his eyes latch on the reflection. His expression furrows for a beat as he tries again to wrestle with words.  ‘Uh, I had.. I had a baked potato last night, mate.’  he says through stuttered pants, swallowing hard, trying to process what he’d heard with a muddled mind. Steven finds himself chuckling again breathlessly.  ‘I haven’t had mexican food since-’ ‘A nightmare,’  Jake corrects himself, but there’s a smile in his voice.  ‘You were sleeping, hermanito.  But now you’re awake.’ The ‘and safe’ is left unsaid, unnecessary. ‘Oh,’  Steven says, and he can hear Marc snickering about quesadillas.  His heart isn’t pounding near as hard, now, although it still feels as though it skips every few beats.  He rubs at his chest.  ‘R-right, sorry-’ His reflection waves off the apology before it can even truly begin.  ‘No need for sorries, Steven,’ he says, and gestures to the wall beneath the window, where a small night light in the shape of a moon illuminates the floorboards.  ‘I’m just returning the favour.’ Steven’s smile trembles ever so slightly at the edges, and the cold feeling in his chest is slowly warming, pleased to have been helpful.  The fragments of his nightmare feel further away.

[yellowocaballero]

what stuff can't you forgive batman beyond for? :o

Ugh OK. Disclaimer that none of these things make Batman Beyond bad. None of this is bad writing. I just don't like it. It's fine, actually, I just hate it.

I know Batman Beyond had to justify its existence somehow and answer the question "why is the ONLY PERSON who could become Batman a random teenager off the street?". There had to be some sort of reason why Bruce was completely isolated from Dick, Tim, and Barbara, and why Dick or Tim wasn't Batman.

The ways in which it got rid of them though!! Dick's like 60 and he hates Bruce and never speaks to him! Barbara's a cop, which she would never do, who had a thing with Bruce. Superman's infected by Starro so all of his friends at the League are out. And freaking Return of the Joker, oh my god. Putting aside the fucking sadness of Tim also never speaking to his dad and living an entire life pretending Batman and Robin never happened. COME ON. I really didn't like the "Terry is Bruce's secret kid" thing either, but that's less of a moral and more of a personal stance.

Sometimes a work is the most influential work in your writing completely against your will and without your permission. Return of the Joker traumatized me as a kid, and for some reason although I hate it SO FUCKING MUCH, it's permeated a lot of what I write with Tim. His death in the Reverse Robins thing was directly what happened in ROTJ, except he killed himself instead of the Joker. And I never even get into much detail on Tim's death there because it makes me sad.

Batman Beyond, you did not stop to consider those of you who were watching every DCAU cartoon sequentially, and who had come fresh off watching the most adorable small child run around doing Robin things in the final season of BTAS. You did not stop to wonder if he was a baby only a week before in my own mind. And now this.

DCAU!Batman had always been a lighthearted, kind person who had a robust support network. He had shipteasing. With Wonder Woman. It was really sad to see every good thing in his life stripped away and turn him withered, bitter, and old. Showing Batman in that light isn't bad in and of itself, but I was attached to this guy :c. Why hadn't they just set up another continuity where these characters didn't exist so they didn't have to worry about depressingly shoving them aside?

Oh, and. Just kidding. I can forgive them for all of this. I hate it, but it's fine. What I actually cannot forgive them for is for fucking Bruce and Barbara having an affair. Oh my god. Oh my god. Bad. So bad.

[llycaons]

xl went through so much insane suffering, things like being stabbed until he barely resembles a human form and being locked in a coffin for literally a hundred years, but I think making him immortal and ever-healing and showing how much he learned from his experiences AND ending his story with so much closure and close relationships makes his tragedies a lot easier to bear than wwx's. like, emotionally

[throttlegainwell]

I think I'm due for a Myra Breckinridge reread. Feels like that time of year...

[arundolyn]

im gonna lose my mind i now want a fic so bad where like...... cf better ending ragna doesnt die BUT ALSO izanami lives and since they dont really have a REASON to be at each other’s throats anymore they have to just navigate the weird shit between them like. youre my sister but youre also a fucked up weird ass death god in her body. stop it. go brush your teeth stupid. and izanami being like STOP trying to older sibling me STOOOOOP (goes and brushes teeth anyway)

[apliddell]

i actually had a part 6 of ymt in the works right before good omens came out and ruined my brain and i think about finishing it sometimes. like hurray public domain let me go back to sherlock holmes! but uhhh. ymt was very unpopular and got like. 30 kudos or something on my most recent fic, and that's like. so discouraging. so i write fic for a big ship where i get much more engagement, because i write to connect with people and writing stuff no one cares about makes me feel like i'm not connecting.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

hmmm how about "sleep" (or sleeping / slept / etc.) for the ask game?

Alya: ladybug Kim: why r u awake?? Alya: we’ve been over this: sleep is for the weak Alya: also i couldnt sleep so im doing ladyblog stuff Alya: i just i love ladybug

this is from my miraculous ladybug class chat fic wip where they have a chat for everyone in the class who gets akumatized and you get added once it happens lol - there was a part earlier where nino was like "why were you all awake" and alya was like "bc sleep is for the weak" so this is referencing that iouytfcgyhujiko

[lucienvanitasabysslll]

i feel like panic attacks/common whump scenarios are similar to smut in that once you actually experience them they become a lot less romanticized in your writing

[allylikethecat]

Idk if this is like asking too much and against your tendency to remain mysterious and shocking in your writing 😭 but which fictional! Matty do you think is going to go through it the most out of the entire course of the fic out of your current wips? Bc from the way I see it rn, MOST of them are rlly struggling

Omg this is a very good question. They all suffer so much in so many different ways.

I think that I'd say, at this point at least, it's either Ducklings Fictional!Matty or On a Friday Fictional!Matty. In those two he is very much unable to get out of his own and makes it worse for himself constantly. Meanwhile in All the King's Horses, awful things have happened to him but for the most part he's not self sabotaging constantly like he does in Ducklings and On a Friday.

Honorable mention for You Know Where the City Is - he's too fucked up in most of that fic to even realize how shit his situation is.

In the infection verse he does suffer greatly, however we *know* that one has a happy ending, we've seen it with them getting married and having Ava.

Which one do YOU think includes the most suffering?

Thank you so much for sending me this ask and making me deeply examine my writing lol I hope you continue to enjoy my fics and that you have a wonderful rest of your week!

❤️Ally

[orcelito]

Man. It's not even a good fic.

Probably wasting my time trying to read this.

[definitelynotshouting]

Allrighty, I'll just start signing my asks as 🌠 now, I am sticking around here and you can't get rid of meeeeee /pos/j

Just popping in to say that I'm so grateful for your offer to share the general notes about what happens in the fic!!! It's really kind of you, but I don't think it will be necessary, cuz I did manage to read through all of it today! I started with chapter 4, and then chapter 3, and so on. By starting from the end, from the chapters that had less focus on the pure angst and a bit more character interaction, I pinpointed which exact moment upset me so previously (end of chapter 1 and then beginning of chapter 2), and so I just skipped that part and I was all good ^.^

And I feel like your reassurance about the happy ending helped a lot too! This kind of makes the fic feel less... cold and detached from reality? In a way? I'm not sure how to word this, but learning that you are an absolute sweetheart of a person means a lot to me and made me feel safer when reading ^.^

ALSO, unrelated, but I own the exact kind of scissors you showed in the scrapbooking post, I feel like I should inform you of that hahaha

~🌠

ANONNNNNN I AM SO GLAD YOU WERE ABLE TO READ SOME OF MY FIC AAAAAAAAAA and i am SO so glad you felt safe to do so... 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ this has me legit emotional, im never exactly sure of how i come off but i always want people to feel comfortable and protected when theyre around me. Its SO important to me that people feel safe-- especially when my angst writing ventures into such dark places 😅😅😅 im glad you're doing alright and im glad you're sticking around :D and i hope you'll continue to enjoy the story as it evolves; i have a lot of stuff planned out for the healing process that im super excited to write!!!

Also HELL YEAH FELLOW GAY SCISSORS OWNER!!!!! a friend gifted me those scissors a while ago and theyve become my dedicated craft scissors. I know theyre technically for embroidery thread (at least im pretty sure they are??) but theyre REALLY amazing for cutting washi tape or trimming stickers too, so thats what i use them for (and for cutting patina paper). Also theyre just so cute.... they be a forme of creeture to me<3 i love inanimate-object-beasts :]

[glassfullofsass]

It doesn't bother me, probably because I don't actually care, but some of you Ted Lasso fic writers learned everything you know about athletics from the show and...it shows.