It's Been An Awfully Long Time Since I Was So Affected By A Character's Emotions That I Struggled To

It's been an awfully long time since I was so affected by a character's emotions that I struggled to continue working on a piece of fanfiction. I'm pretty good at not letting fictional anything bleed over and actually harm my mental health. Avoidance is always a valid option, just... this is my own damned fanfic!

I was in a really vulnerable place when I wrote what's published of My Bonds in Thee, and I'm in a much, much better place now. So why I could tackle these issues and feels then but struggle to face them now is a bit of a mystery. It's not as if I don't know it's going to have a happy ending, all's well that ends well, kissy happy couple off to kick the arse of the second apocalypse. I've been nopeing out of rewriting the next chapter for months.

Am I getting squeamish about angst in my old age? Have I lost my tolerance for fictional owwies after a lifetime of craving them? Am I going to have to start writing fluff now?

(If any of the characters I've ever dabbled with could appreciate being turned to fanficcy fluff, it's Aziraphale and Crowley. They could be so obnoxiously happy together if everyone would just leave them in peace to get on with it.)

I've become bogged down, blocked, or plain stuck on WIPs before now; I've run out of physical energy to get the writing done; I've walked away from pieces that were generating wanky fandrama or other unwanted attention. I've never (yet) just wimped out of finishing something because it gave me feels. I can't believe I'm even asking myself if that's what's holding me up.

Send help. And possibly a supply of raw fluff.

This is a slow fandom zone

None of that "Oh no they bomb-dropped all the episodes in a week 1 month ago, I'm late!" "The tag hasn't been active all week is the fandom dead?" "I only got a hundred shares the first hour no one cares about my art"

Slow down

Take a deep breath and slow down

Fandom is YOU. And me and everyone. If we doodle stick figures for a show that ended 30 years ago we aren't "late" or "doing too little", we're playing dolls in our own time and having fun with works of art that mean a lot to us

You can literally watch and engage with something that aired in 2004 as if it aired yesterday

If the tag hasn't been active for 14 months guess what? If YOU post there, it isn't dead. Literally you can talk about anything you want whenever you want there is no weird law against watching things that people aren't actively talk about

Let's be deranged about stories together

DOCTOR WHO | 73 YARDS

Portrait of actor James Earl Jones in a scene from Shakespeare's "The merchant of Venice." Stamped on back: "Friedman-Abeles Photographers, Inc., 351 West 54th Street, New York 19, N.Y." Label on back: "From: Merle Debuskey & Seymour Krawitz, 137 W. 48 St., CI 7-7507. James Earl Jones in a scene from "The merchant of Venice,' which opens the seventh season of the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park on Tuesday evening, June 19th, at 8:30 p.m. The production, directed by Joseph Papp, will inaugurate the new Shakespeare Festival Theatre in the Belvedere Tower area (entrance at 81st St. and Central Park West). Ming Cho Lee designed the sets and Theoni Aldredge the costume; music is by David Amram."

E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

You found us.

—Mary Margaret, Once Upon a Time, “Broken”

GEN V 1.04 The Whole Truth