Theyre So Adorable I Hate Them

Can we kill therapy-speak in fanfic?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying your characters can’t be familiar with therapy keywords. But the use of it in fanfic is just killing off any sort of real, emotional stakes in certain fics. *cough* the my hero fandom

I’ll be real with you; I don’t want my characters to approach a situation with an acute awareness for any possible triggers or emotional responses in an attempt to build rapport with another character who has experienced severe trauma and/or abuse. And sure, let’s say that it is a professional, whose job it is to approach these situations. That doesn’t mean you have to write them like a mental health textbook vs a textbook victim of trauma.

For example; “Aizawa stepped back, not wanting to trigger any sort of trauma response from the abused teenager.”

Yeah, sure. Aizawa is a professional who, as a professional hero, probably has education in dealing with situations like this. But the way it is written is clinically detached, cold, and also way too professional from a man who has probably attended a total of one therapy session on mandate after witnessing the death of one of his best friends (which he never got over btw).

When you want to write a character who is attuned to other people’s needs and fears, try using less therapy bingo words, and be more descriptive of the emotions of the scene.

Instead; “Aizawa carefully stepped backwards, attempting to show he meant no harm. He knew how easy it was to scare a starving alley cat, you would be surprised how the same logic applied to a starving teenager.”

See? Isn’t it so much more soulful? So much easier to connect with? Sure, the first passage got the point across: Aizawa is aware that the kid he’s approaching is likely a victim of something traumatic, so he is approaching it as such. But the average human doesn’t have the dialogue of an occupational therapist, so writing situations like the characters are occupational therapists, kills off any sort of relatability for readers who don’t attend weekly therapy sessions. And even for people who do, it feels more like sitting in the armchair instead of absorbing yourself in the worlds and stories you’re trying to tell.

I’m not saying to ditch the mental health awareness altogether. Sure, having emotionally stunted characters create for interesting stories, but you can tell just as compelling of a story without having to resort to textbook wording. Instead, use that therapy foundation to build something more around your characters. Because using the therapy speak is just the same as telling, and not showing.

With that, good luck with your next hurt no comfort fic, and happy writing!

headcanon that gojo is actually a massive nerd. if he had to go to university, he would probably major in mathematics just for the fun of it.

he has to run so many mathematical calculations in his head on a moment’s notice just to use his technique. i imagine he geeks out over numbers and whatnot. i bet his passwords are like the answers to some freak equation that only true nerds could know. he’d probably say shit like “yeah my favorite equation is the cauchy-goursat theorem. it’s an important statement about line integrals. it can be used to show that every function that is analytic on a simply connected domain has an antiderivative on that domain. isn’t that insane? that’s insane lol.”

omegaverse may be for the freaks, but have you considered that its also a political commentary on divided power structures, patriarchy, gender roles, societal expectations, rape culture, and intersectionality in gender dynamics?

all while being for the freaks!

SOMEONE WRITE THIS PLEASE I DONT HAVE THE TIME

Need a bkdk body swap fic but instead of doing freaky shit they have a competition on who can embarrass the other the most

true fanfic author culture is being incredibly invested in writing your own literature but your brain turning off the moment you have to do an essay for school

Taking responsibility

#hearmeout#bkdk#stsg#allofalienstage#sacrificeneedsnopermissionitcomesandgoesanywaysdespitetheoutcomeatleastthelovewasthere#alienstageisjustsacrificeandsacrificeoverandoveragain

it’s always “why did you sacrifice yourself and leave me behind” and never How was the sacrifice Was sacrificing yourself fun it looked fun

as much as i love stsg being happy together, nothing brings ME more joy than seeing them piss each other off. it’s so funny seeing these goofballs get on each others nerves (maybe because they’re the only two people in the world who can afford to do it

Gojo's plan

theres a distinct difference between Katniss’s and Haymitch’s narration style that i think a lot of other people are noticing and it is that haymitch seems to know a lot more about District 12 and Panem than Katniss seemed to. and SotR might seem like lore dropping or name dropping but like. i think it says a lot about them as people.

I think the lack of context we get from Katniss isnt just due to propaganda, but largely due to the fact that she’s so deeply rooted in poverty and survival mode that she simply doesn’t have the mental capacity for anything else. When traumatized, our brains automatically retain less information than they ordinarily would and we see that with Katniss. Not for friends, or school, nor propagandized television lore. Notice how we get descriptions of most tributes before she remembers their names, if she ever does, while Haymitch actually remembers a lot of their names right off the bat. When you’re fighting for your life every day, it really doesn’t leave much energy for anything else. She’s used to saving all of her energy for providing for her family.

But Haymitch isn’t providing for his family. He has several friends, a healthy romantic relationship, and retains information about society because hes not neglected.

It’s just so interesting that Katniss is the luckier of the pair because in their childhood parallels, she drew the short stick compared to him. She’s only luckier cuz she had him.

SUNRISE ON THE REAPING SPOILERS

“I first saw the girl at the Hob when she was just a baby. Burdock was so proud of her, he toted her around everywhere. After he died in that mine explosion, she started coming alone, trading the odd squirrel or rabbit. Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old. And after she volunteered for the Games, that nickname couldn’t help but slip out. I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway.”

When we first meet Haymitch, we can instantly tell that he has made a habit of distancing himself from tributes. That he has nobody left he loves, so he pushes away anybody else that tries to come into his life. But now we know how full of love Haymitch was. How deeply he loved Lenore Dove, how deeply he loved his mother and Sid, his friends, even Hattie. Everything Haymitch did was out of love. He was reaped because he tried to protect the girl he loved. As he was reaped, he did his best to protect his sweetheart, 13-year-old Louella McCoy he grew up with. He tried to distance himself from the other tributes, but eventually he couldn’t help but love them too.

He couldn’t help but call Ampert “Buddy.” He couldn’t help but call all of the district 6 tributes his doves, and mourn all of their deaths, no matter how little he actually knew them. How Louella was replaced, and how he wanted to hate her replacement, but gave her the name Lou Lou and protected her like their own. Haymitch was the one who initiated the hug of all four tributes from 12. He was distrustful of Wyatt, and grew to mourn him like a brother. He carried Lou Lou like his life depended on holding onto her. How he hated Maysilee Donner, and thought of her as the most stuck-up girl in 12. He called her Sis. He grew to love her like the sister he never had. She died as his sister.

All of the love that Haymitch didn’t need to give, and yet he loved so endlessly and so whole-heartedly. And with every person he loved, he lost them, and lost a part of himself. No wonder he didn’t want to let Katniss and Peeta into his heart. He had already tried so hard to push away Burdock, who relentlessly tried to care for him in his despair.

Then, in comes Katniss Everdeen. She carried with her a piece of every person Haymitch tried to push away. She was Asterid, Burdock, the Seam children he grew up with, all in one person. He didn’t want to let her in. He couldn’t have.

And yet, Haymitch couldn’t help but call her sweetheart.

Because Katniss was a woven tapestry of every person he had ever loved. She was his best friend’s daughter. She carried Lenore Dove’s songs. Louella’s skin and hair. Wyatt’s protectiveness. Maysilee’s fight, Maysilee’s resistance, Maysilee’s pride, Maysilee’s pin. And in the arena, she painted the best poster Haymitch and Maysilee could’ve ever hoped for- Rue, surrounded by flowers, her passing in dignity and not as another number in the games. And refusing the Capitol their winner by eating the berries with Peeta.

It’s no surprise that Katniss and Peeta broke down Haymitch’s walls. Haymitch had the flint striker, the spark. And Katniss was the fire that caught 25 years later.