#my biggest hangup is that the tags just Don't Work for me

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IT'S NOT EVEN BETA ANYMORE IT'S JUST THE POST EDITOR.

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WIP Question Tag Game

Tagged by @ceph-the-ghost-writer

Rules: Answer as many (or as few) of the questions about your WIP as you can.

Tagging: I'm leaving this as an open tag

I'll be answering all of them for A Hero's Call.

1. What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

The very first part of A Hero's Call that I created was the concept of dimension jumping in general. It was inspired by both the ghost portals from Danny Phantom and my middle school self's mighty need for crossover content from my favorite shows, and then I kind of just made a self insert to make those crossovers happen, and that self insert evolved into Kira.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

So, when I was young and naive and didn't know how filmmaking worked, I wanted A Hero's Call to be a tv show. The intro song was always gonna be some sort of early 2000's rock/emo/metal song, and I almost always came back to In The End by Black Veil Brides. And honestly, I still stand by that.

3. Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

So, I love Kira, I really do, she's the main character after all. HOWEVER, my blorbos for the series are definitely Lucent and Cairn, which is really funny if you have the knowledge I do (that knowledge being that Lucent has ice powers and Cairn has fire powers). Lucent was a character I originally made to rp with some friends without having to use my already established characters, because I was weird and had stupid hangups about sharing my work, and she's kind of become my punching bag OC of the series which is how I know she's one of my favorites. I love making her go through physical and emotional torment.

Cairn is just fun for me to think about conceptually, because he's a villain that really could have chosen redemption, and he almost does at quite a few different points in his life, but ultimately he succumbs to the cycle of abuse and gives in to that darker side of himself. Also the thought of this very inhuman-looking dude having a Tumblr is SO funny to me (he is canonically VERY internet-savvy).

4. What other pieces of media could share a fan base with your WIP?

Any number of media pieces tbh, but the biggest one would probably be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was a HUGE inspiration for this project.

5. What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

Writing the beginning of it. I've struggled so hard with it and I can never figure out what's holding me back, which annoys me. And the more I write the more I discover that when I have all the pieces to a story that I want to tell, the writing starts flowing eventually. But with this WIP I've just had to drag those first few chapters out kicking and screaming from my brain and I can tell something is missing, but I don't know what.

6. Are there any animals in your story?

Yes, there are. There's the Shade family dog, a golden retriever named Gary (who is, in fact, just my real dog inserted into the story), and there's also Lucent's "pet" Jannik, who is a ferret-like creature called a skitnik. Emily and Pickle are ranch kids so they have a ton of animals that sometimes get mentioned, but Gary and Jannik are more central to the plot than those animals are.

7. How do your characters get around?

All the normal ways you would get around in rural Wyoming in the 2010's (cars, horses, off-road vehicles, etc). And, of course, dimension jumping.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm rewriting the first few chapters (again) to try and get them ready to post on AO3 because I've been churning out fanfiction nonstop because of how much the kudos and comments go to my head, so I want to see if putting my original works on AO3 would spur me on to work on them more.

9. What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

I think that the characters and the worldbuilding will be the major draws for people, cause I have a LOT of lore and a lot of fun characters to introduce and I think it'll be fun for people to explore.

[lettersiarrange]

Moving out of the tags by request:

Ok I disagree with the second poster. As someone currently in treatment for vaginismus, there are pelvic pain specialists.

Vaginismus can be caused by a lot of things... trauma, SA, physical damage to your pelvis (like from a car crash or giving birth), hormone imbalance, etc. The treatment to some extent depends on the cause. For instance, if it's from trauma related to SA you should probably see a mental health therapist along with a pelvic pain physical therapist.

And I'm not going to deny that finding treatment can be hard-- I had to fight my PCP for a referral to a PT. but I got the referral.

The treatment, though, is pretty effective. Barring ongoing physical damage, ultimately your muscles are acting like this bc they're anticipating pain from penetration, whether that's bc you have a history of assault or physical damage or emotional hangups around sex. The treatment is slowly teaching your body that penetration isn't inherently painful or a threat. It's a lot of going very slow and teaching your body how to feel safe and respecting when it says no.

And yeah if you have physical damage you still need to fix that. If you have trauma you still need to see a mental health provider. But retraining your muscles physically is still pretty effective in conjunction with those things.

For me it's primarily psychological but I also found out my birth control fucked with my hormones enough that my vaginal canal is atrophied, which is apparently not super uncommon... so there's some prescription topical estrogen involved as well.

But I really want to emphasize that most patients who follow the physical therapy regimen DO see significant benefits and usually end up ""cured""

And this is not that uncommon-- my PT is booked out 8 weeks in advance and she's a pelvic pain PT specifically.

She says her biggest struggle is she has a lot of patients who make an initial appt but never show up... maybe out of shame or embarrassment, or maybe bc something legitimately comes up but it's too much of a hassle or they chicken out on rescheduling.

I do not endorse the idea that it's this horrible thing you can never recover from.

I felt so broken for such a long time and like I was just doomed to be unloveable...and I was afraid to talk about it bc there's so much shame around it.

But there ARE treatments and they DO work. And they focus on respecting your body and its responses and being gentle with it, not judging it bc it's not doing what you want.

And my PT is so knowledgeable and open and helpful and responsive and really goes out of her way to help people feel safe.

Get! A! Referral!

I actually talked abt this with one of my mental health therapists and SHE has vaginismus too. Which is to say it's way more common than people think.

But you have options. This is resolveable. It's just like any physical issue which needs physical therapy.

While everyone is different and there may be some people who don't find success with the treatments available, most people are able to work through this with the help of a pelvic PT. It is absolutely worth trying and there IS hope.

We all know what erectile dysfunction is but literally no one is ever taught what vaginismus is and it can cause people to feel extremely lost, broken, and cause people to take their own lives. Raise. Awareness.