I'm an avid movie lover, aspiring filmmaker/author, fanfiction writer/reader, gamer, casual cosplayer, and animal lover.
I'm a bisexual trans man and I use he/him pronouns. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
My tumblr presence is quite up and down, but you’ll see me on here relatively regularly.
I kind of go back and forth with what platform I’m most active on, but it’s a flip flop between Tumblr and my TikTok, owyncountsstars ✨ I make edits, I ramble, I post trans updates, etc.
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Fav ships!
BYLER (Stranger Things) 💙💛
CHERIK (X-Men) ✨
FITZSIMMONS (Agents of SHIELD) ⭐️💫
HOLLANOV (Heated Rivalry)🏒🥅
PEGORYU (Persona 5) ❤️🖤🎩
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I will soon be starting a YouTube channel that I plan to have revolve around everything writing and reading, so I’ll talk about my screenplays, novels, fanfiction, poetry, use fanfic prompts, do writing challenges/games, share tip, tricks, my favorite books, I might do reading vlogs of the Game Changers series, etc.
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Persona 5 Royal has captured my fiery little trans heart and I will likely be posting about that too 🫡
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Here is my AO3 dashboard and profile.
I’m kinda in-between fandoms right now, but I might ease into writing possibly some Hollanov or Pegoryu fanfiction here soon!
The other fandoms I've written for are:
Ted Lasso, Agents of SHIELD, X-Men, Thunderbolts*, Stranger Things, and I did a crossover collab with my best friend @embergoldenwind where we combined the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles world with X-Men, and Donatello attends Xavier's School for Gifted Youngers.
Here is the page to my full list of works!
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Other social medias!!
Aside from Tumblr and AO3, I'm most active on TikTok!
Finally coming clean about something: I’m permanently taking a step back from the Stranger Things fandom.
I tried to get back into the fandom (and the main show) after I ‘got over’ the finale, but to be honest I never really got over it.
The finale and the insulting treatment of Byler/the fanbase sent me into a deep two week depression after New Year’s, then I clung to conformitygate for weeks and weeks to a point where I genuinely felt at times like I was going crazy or that it was deteriorating my sanity and mental wellbeing (it was).
Last fall was so excruciating for my mental health that I almost got admitted to a mental hospital (would’ve been for the sixth time) after a three week long dissociative episode sent me to the ER. The winter was incredibly rough as well, and I found myself clinging to Stranger Things as a source of happiness in the very dark period I was stuck in.
Because of the horrible treatment of the finale and everything about it, the happiest time of the year (Thanksgiving, my bday, Christmas, new year’s) was poisoned and I can’t ever get that time back. Time I could’ve spent with my family rather than hoping and begging the fuckass duffer brothers to achieve something that they never planned on achieving at all.
I can’t control what I get hyperfixated on, not really. I wish I could because then I could’ve just ‘turned it off’ when the thing I was hyperfixating on ended up being the reason for being in a severe depression.
I tried to get back into the show a few months ago, watching it from the beginning through season two with my best friend, and eventually I had to admit that I didn’t want to continue because I couldn’t truly find joy in the show anymore. I have bit by bit been getting rid of all my merch, I deleted all but a handful of my ST TikToks, and I’m mostly interacting passively with any tumblr posts/AO3 fics.
I will still occasionally look at and like tumblr posts, and there are a few ST Byler fics I'm subscribed to, but I likely will stay very off and on passive in the sidelines of the fandom, whatever that looks like. I just simply can't interact too closely with the fandom anymore or I will (and have) literally feel/felt that depression start to creep back. I can't even really talk about it too much or I'll start getting really sad or angry or rageful.
So for my mental health, I'm leaving Stranger Things and by extension Byler behind 💙💛 thanks for a fun ride, but I'm too injured from the crash and I don't want to stay on location any longer
Disclaimer: you do not NEED childhood/adolescent signs to be valid as trans, but for me personally and my journey, I happen to have a good amount, although some of mine are more subtle or less 'blatant' that only made sense after I realized I was trans
ANYWAY:
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!! Here are all of the things from my life (that I can think of) that I did/said/felt that now knowing I'm trans make me go "OH OF COURSE" or just make me laugh because now it's obvious.
As a kid, my family was in a homeschool co-op, and it was from when I was 11 or 12 to maybe 16 or 17. It was a big part of my adolescence and it was a good way to both be social with people my age and families like mine, and a way to learn in a comfortable, fun environment.
In my first year (I was maybe 12) I was in a gym class and, in a class full of maybe 15-20 other people, I was the only girl. I remember feeling so free and so CHILL with all of these boys. I didn't care, I actually was the opposite, I LOVED it. I felt so at home with them all.
I have three brothers so at the time, everyone just thought it was because I was used to being around guys. But, looking back, it felt very different than just 'knowing how to be around boys,' it felt like I was one of them, like it wasn't a question about whether or not I SHOULD be with all the boys, I just was and it felt right.
And mind you, lots of other girls had turned down the opportunity to be in that gym class because they hadn't wanted to be the only girl. So, other girls had a problem with it and thought about it. I didn't give it a second thought, it was the most natural thing in the world for me.
This was brought to my attention through a TikTok I found, but I LOVED Mulan as a kid.
She was my favorite Disney princess, and in hindsight, I now remember thinking she was super cool and badass, but not because she went to war but because she could just 'turn into' a boy.
This is one of the most blatant things I think of all of my signs:
As a kid and into my adolescent life, I played role-playing games with my cousins (we called them Adventure Games) where we would go outside, make up a character, put on a flimsy costume, and just make up a story on the fly, usually playing the whole day and into the evening for hours until we literally couldn't see because the sun had gone down.
But, uhhh a very prominent and reoccurring (almost constant) theme with those Adventure Games for me is that I would frequently request to be a boy character. My cousin and best friend @embergoldenwind can attest that this was true :P In hindsight, that felt like a space where I could be a boy without anyone questioning. Not that I was nervous that anyone would, but idk as a kid it just felt more accessible in those settings.
AND not only would I request to be a boy, I consistently requested to be called a different name during our Adventure Games, AND I would request to be called 'he' and if someone called me 'she' during the game I would yell "HE!!" until they got it right.
If only I had that much unbridled confidence with correcting people NOWADAYS.........
Along that same vein of childhood expression, I was very much a tomboy.
I did and wore things that were commonly associated with boys, and that gained me the nickname of 'tomboy.' Nowadays, I recognize that the tomboy nickname is rooted in toxic gender roles and stuff, cuz why is a girl suddenly referred to as a type of boy as soon as she picks up a foam sword rather than a Barbie?
Of course, I'm a trans man, so being branded a tomboy as a young age was telling, but still.
This one I think is pretty common for trans people, but in video games, I would repeatedly pick the boy character.
When cosplaying (or even with Halloween from a young age), it was very rare that I WASN'T dressed as a boy character. My favorite characters in media and fiction were very often a boy character. I very rarely had favorite characters that were female, to a point where if I had a favorite character in fiction that was a female, I would be surprised.
In adolescence post-puberty, I never felt connected to the genitals I was born with.
Either I never cared, or I disliked them. I would swing between indifferent and apathetic. And there was never a reason that I realized, I just...didn't like them, or didn't care. Especially during periods, I would get more apathetic, at times thinking to myself things like, "why do I have to have ugly genitalia? It looks a shriveled raisin. Do most women feel like this? Am I suddenly gonna wake up and love my vagina? Is this normal to feel uncomfortable towards my private parts?"
It felt weird to me that I wasn't celebrating my genitalia. Not in a weird way, but in a way of just...being okay with it, I guess? Or like, women's rights kind of thing? IDK how to put it. I never really wanted something else, maybe because that wasn't even a possibility or an option in my head, that I could want different genitalia and that being okay.
But like women in media and stuff would be out there celebrating their womanhood and bringing exposure to reproductive issues and periods and stuff, and I was glad for them, but I never saw the point of myself participating in all this hype, because why am I celebrating something that I don't feel connected to?
Anyways, I have no idea if that made sense.
But it is really interesting and telling that now knowing I'm a trans man, I feel more connected to my phantom dick more than I ever did the parts I was born with. I got my first packer the other day (haven't fully taken it out of the box yet, and now I'm on vacation), and honestly knowing I have my very own dick in a box in my closet at home makes me so goddamn giddy. I've never felt anything even ADJACENT to joy towards my female-born parts, so. Feeling this way about a dick instead of a vagina is very telling and validating.
I IDOLIZED my older brother.
Like, more than just having a favorite brother or something. I wanted to be like him, I thought he was the peak epitome of what someone should be. He was like glowing in my eyes, I looked up to him with stars in my eyes as a kid. I thought he was the coolest person ever.
Now, I know that was insane gender envy.
I'm a writer, and even from a kid, I always wrote boy characters.
I tried to write female characters here and there, but it always felt superficial and wrong, like something was out of place with me writing in a girl character's head, like something was missing.
I remember sometimes being confused about why I always wanted to write boy characters because "I'm not a boy, so wouldn't it be easier to write girl characters?"
Hmmm, maybe something in your subconscious KNEW that you were a boy and was rejecting writing in a girl's head because YOU'RE NOT A GIRL :P
Along the same line of writing, I always for some reason made it a thing to describe the Adam's Apple.
My best friend actually brought this to my attention one time. He was like 'you always described the Adam's Apple and described guy's voices a certain way'
I looked through a bunch of stories, and yup. Both the Adam's Apple, and I would describe men's voices as 'gravely' or something like that. Which. Huh.
Along that same line AGAIN, I have always loved the very tail end of a cold when all the pain and sickness has passed, but when my throat is still recovering and therefore very raspy.
Which always has resulted in a lower range of voice and different timbre. I've also always had an urge or a strong desire to record some type of video while my voice is like that so I have some record of it.
There was one time as a kid I tried to pee standing up.
I don't remember too much about it, but I remember I thought something like "if boys can do it, why can't I?"
As a kid and through adolescence, if I didn't know the pronouns for something, I would always default to he/him.
Even before I knew about pronouns within the context of queer spaces, my brain has always seemed to operate on a more masculine basis. I always thought in 'boy' terms.
This one is much more recent, but two autumns ago the first time I wore a tie/vest/suit, I was so fucking euphoric and giddy, at the time for a reason I didn't know.
This was my first semester of (my 2nd go at) college, fall of 2024. I had just gotten my vest and tie from a Charles Xavier cosplay I was putting together for an October comic con. The first time I put on the tie combined with the vest, I have never felt more euphoric in my LIFE. I wanted to jump around my dorm and stare at myself in the mirror forever. I remember thinking "I don't recognize myself in the mirror and it's making me SO HAPPY."
I was so happy that I didn't even bother figuring out why I was so happy. I was content to just SIT in the euphoria of this new outfit, and back then, I remember thinking "I guess I just really REALLY like this outfit."
....No. Think hard about that.
Mind you, this is about a month before I realized I was queer at all. I had no idea what kind of Pandora's Box I'd just opened.
A smaller thing here, but I've always been jealous of how guys can get swole and muscly a lot faster.
IDK boys just always seemed cooler to me. In all the ways, being a boy seemed awesome. I guess you could say I've idolized men just as a gender forever, no matter how much I tried to be a girl.
One time mid-last year at work (I work at a movie theater), I was serving a mom and her maybe 4-year-old son at the concessions stand.
Now, the uniform for concessions is black T shirt, black pants, an apron, and depending on what side of concessions, a black and red cap. So, it has happened a few times that I've been 'mistaken' for a boy while I'm there. The uniform for concessions makes me look both like a newspaper boy and also de-ages me like 10 years.
But the first time I ever got 'mistaken' for a boy (or just as not cis) was with this mom and her son. The boy was barely tall enough to reach the counter, but he put his little hands on the counter and said out of nowhere "are you a boy or a girl?"
I was so caught off guard by the question that I just laughed awkwardly and didn't say anything. Also, now that I'm thinking about it, it felt like a difficult question. Or one that I didn't want to answer. Hmm.......
But anyway, he asked again because I hadn't said anything. I kind of awkwardly and hesitantly said "I'm a girl..."
And uh, in hindsight, I remember it made me both really euphoric that I looked androgynous enough that this little boy couldn't tell, and it made me uncomfortable saying I was a girl. I secretly wished I could say something else.
NOW YOU CAN BITCHHHH 🤣
Last year, I started floating around in the dating pool as a biromantic person (at the time girl), and I matched with someone on an app. We went on one date, and then it didn't end up going anywhere, but the one date we went on, we went to Cheesecake Factory and then a movie. Kind of ambitious for a first date honestly, but I didn't know that lol I was a baby gay and also a baby romance person too idk
Anyway, but the outfit I wore for that date was a fitted, long sleeve pink dress that showed skin, glitter, eyeshadow, nice girly perfume, and heels. I went super fem.
and BRUH when I tell you I felt so uncomfortable and wrong in that outfit??? I didn't really realize it at the time, but now in hindsight it was definitely comphet and gender roles eating me up. Even though the person I was on a date with was non-binary, as the girl on the date, I guess I felt like I needed to perform the girl? Also, I hATE heels. So much. I don't understand them. I'd rather wear sneakers or sandals. I was trapping myself in afab femininity for this date and I didn't even know it. I remember thinking "this is what I'm SUPPOSED to wear as the girl in the relationship"
And also, the dress I wore has a comphet story too. It was a dress I found for 10 dollars at an Old Navy, and at the time I had a very strong crush on a male coworker at my job at the time. Now I know it was gender envy and just a general fascination with men, but at the time I was like 'omg I'm gonna ask him out sometime soon' and my plan was to get that dress as kind of 'manifesting' a first date with him because I was gonna wear that dress on the first date. I even posted a pic of me in the dress on Snapchat (when I had snapchat lol) as a way to get him to notice me. That is what I assumed 'sexy' looked like, and that's what I thought it looked like on a girl. Which, okay maybe that's fine, but now knowing I'm a trans man, I can see how toxic that was for my mental state.
(and mind you, I never wanted to kiss him or anything, I never felt romantically attracted to him, he was just INSANELY pretty. And my straight comphet ass was like 'omg this must be how it feels to have a crushhhhh HAHA NO wait til you have a gay crush for the first time and actually experience REAL romantic attraction, or sexual attraction in the case of being gay for guys as a guy)
Anyway, so that pink dress was attached to 'first dates' and 'heteronormativity' and 'comphet', so I had kept that dress so someday I could wear it on a first date.
Someday, I will, But I'm gonna wear it as a GUY instead of as a GIRL. I'm gonna be the prettiest fucking femboy ever just you WAIT
Last year, I identified as biromantic for a few months, then as a lesbian, because I'd never wanted to be romantically or sexually intimate with any guy. I had really strong crushes on guys as a teen that I now realize was gender envy, but I'd never wanted to actually kiss them. So, after a few months of thinking I was biromantic, I switched to the lesbian label.
And even though that felt okay for a while, while I was identifying as a lesbian, I still felt drawn to male characters, and especially mlm relationships in fiction. I remember trying to get into a sapphic romance book, and I stopped after like one chapter because I couldn't shake this weird 'off' feeling of reading about characters that were supposed to be like me. I was confused as to why I didn't like it, why I felt like I preferred reading about gay men rather than gay women.
Hm...........HMMMMM
Along that same line, throughout the whole time identifying as a lesbian, I had a secret guilty pleasure that I would've never told anyone, which was reading gay mlm smut on my free time.
It was always at night, alone. Whenever I would tell myself 'just one more fic then I won't do it again' I never stuck to that. Against all my better 'lesbian' judgement, I was strangely drawn to it? I told myself it was from morbid curiosity, but i WAS INSANELY ASEXUAL AND SEX REPULSED so whyyyyy was I reading smut? And MLM smut too!
Now I know that I DO experience sexual attraction, just ONLY to men AS a man. And I literally had my egg crack because I read one too many mlm smut fanfics and couldn't deny anymore that I was having physical reactions and getting aroused from reading those fanfics. And bruh it didn't even take me going on T to get me horny– I haven't started any sort of HRT, and from that night on I'm horny on a regular basis. Pffff all my egg had to do was crack a teensy bit and now my brain's like "YOU LIKE DICK HUH OKAY COOL THINK ABOUT IT LIKE 50% OF THE TIME"
But, in light of that, it makes sense that I couldn't shake the 'morbid' desire to peek at mlm smut and stuff like that if there was a hidden pre-awakened bi trans man in me that I hadn't realized yet.
I'm writing another Pegoryu fic (of course, I finish one then immediately have to start another one) and whether or not you follow my tumblr bc of my fics or found me through this post–
I'm writing a fic about the Shujin Hawaii trip and it focuses on Ryuji and his insane gay denial and the gay shit that he has no idea he's doing/saying. It will end with Ryuji realizing he has feelings for Ren and probably a good confession/makeout scene at the end heehee
BUT I want your input!!
I'm considering whether or not I want to do the entire fic in Ryuji's perspective, or hop into other characters' POVs every so often. I'm open to either, and fyi whatever I do, the focus will still be heavily on Ryuji. But the additional POVs would probably just enhance the whole 'this lil boy's gay as fuck' but from other POVs.
Sojiro is out for the day, so Ren has been left to man the cafe. Which wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't facing severe dysphoria and bigotry.
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A fic where I give my gender dysphoria as a ftm trans person and give it to Ren, because Ren/p5 is so trans coded I can't bear it, + supportive bf Ryuji
I find it ironic that transphobes and bigots will bitch about the ‘bathroom issue’ with trans people and say stupid shit about gender neutral bathrooms and gatekeep bathrooms and genders and whatever
when most if not all bathrooms in a regular households are gender neutral from the get go
You don’t see a men or women sign on that bathroom door? Boom, gender neutral bathroom.
Chew on that bitches. If your own bathrooms in your house are unlabeled and are shared by everyone, they’re gender neutral
They’re fine using those bathrooms but as soon as a public bathroom SAYS gender nuetral, they throw a hissy fit
Heeheehee wait til the transphobes find out they use gender neutral bathrooms daily, they would never piss again
I just this year realized I was trans and have started going by a new name.
I went into Michael’s one time to see if they had Pride stickers and couldn’t find them so I wanted to ask someone, but all of a sudden I felt really scared and nervous because I didn’t know if the employees were allies and so I didn’t want to ‘out’ myself.
I was going to a trans talk group and needed to find a specific building while walking around the city, and I couldn’t find it. I almost stopped to ask someone I passed, but I was unsure of how they felt about lgbtq+ people and was really scared so I just walked on by because I was wearing ‘butch’ clothes (I’m a trans man) and figured I would be clocked as trans.
One time I signed up for a rewards points account at a retail store and they asked me my name. I said Owyn, and then made a comment about how I just recently changed it. No one said anything, and I felt the vibe shift. Immediately I started mentally berating myself because “I shouldn’t have done that fuck I don’t know if they were safe people”
One time I went into Half Priced Books to sell some stuff and I was still going by my deadname there, so I wanted to change it. The ONLY reason I felt comfortable doing it was because they were all wearing Pride lanyards that they had gotten during Pride month the year before. They were so incredibly supportive and when I signed the receipt with my deadname for my cash offer, the guy said “this is the last receipt you’ll ever have to sign with that name” 🥹
If I see a pride flag waving in someone’s property or outside of a restaurant or a sticker on the glass, i immediately feel safer and more at ease.
I never knew just how important it was (even back when I was straight) until I started feeling threatened myself.
'Ren spots the right item finally– a vial of Relax Gel. Yes! He yanks it out and unscrews the top. He just has to empty it over Ryuji’s head, then he’ll be back to normal, and they can continue their mission. Easy.
He waits for an opening, one in which Ryuji isn’t murderously scanning every which way for an enemy.
Hold…
Now!'
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A fic in which Ryuji is hit with the Rage ailment and Ren gets too close at the wrong time. The first in a one-shot series of status ailment Pegoryu whump.
I’ve been wanting to do this for a long while, but I’m finally taking action- I’m gonna start streaming on Twitch!!!!
My plans are to start mid-June and I’m gonna play entirely through Persona 5 Royal New Game+ (there’s a bunch of stuff I never did in my first playthrough) as well as I also want to after that stream Strikers (it would be a blind playthrough) along with a bunch of other Persona games, and maybe do Skyrim or other games as well. I’m so excited!!!
I’ve been wanting to stream or get back into contact creation forever because I love entertaining people and I love hosting good times.
Even though it’ll start small, I would like to gain somewhat of a following so i don’t normally do this but if anybody is at all interested, I would appreciate a follow or spreading the word or a simple reblog on this post :)
I am a very loud expressive person especially when playing video games so I think this’ll be fun 😝
I have the same profile pic as on tumblr, and I’m owyncountsstars on Twitch :) can’t wait for mid June yall 🫡
Custom Persona 5 Themed Text Conversation- made by me for a fanfic!
(Created in CapCut, details/fanfic context under the cut!)
MADE BY ME!! This text thread is from a Pegoryu fanfic I’m currently working on!
The fanfic’s premise, set before Futaba’s Palace, is that Ren and Ryuji are dating, and Sojiro accidentally walks in on them making out, sending Ren into a panic. This text conversation happens the day afterward.
While writing the fic, I had the characters chat over text, and my ADHD wouldn’t leave me alone and kept screaming at me to do something more than just type out the texts in the document. No one asked for this, but I’m so so happy I indulged my special interest/creative compulsions and made this!
Everything visually in the edit was constructed by me. I essentially found all of the images elsewhere, used CapCut’s pro features like the remove BG smart brush/eraser, and painstakingly pieced the whole thread together image by image. It took over six hours and my brain hurt so hard afterwards, but I already want to do something like it again. Soooo more to come perhaps??
I originally was just going to take screenshots of the thread at different points to put in the fic and leave it at that, but I got the idea to turn it into a fully constructed scene, so I did! I gathered music, sound effects, and voice lines from the game and made a fully edited custom text thread between the Phantom Thieves for my fanfic!
“Sojiro is very concerned.
Not about the fact that he just caught the kid making out with another boy, of course not, but about how goddamn terrified he had looked after Sojiro walked in on them. He’s never seen someone move so fast.”
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Ren and Ryuji are in closeted romantic relationship and Sojiro accidentally walks in on them making out upstairs, to which Ren has a huge anxiety response that includes overthinking, avoidance, and a severe panic attack. Set before Futaba's Palace, includes trans ftm Ren, bi Ryuji, ally Sojiro, multiple POVs, etc.
Well I guess the positive to now having panic attacks on the regular due to my c-ptsd is that I can use it to my advantage in my writing, and other people can too, so here is
My Panic Attack Bible (symptoms, signs, etc.) (for writing reference w/ tips and fic excerpts)
⚠️TW for mental health stuff
(I've had this post forever in drafts and I'm finally back to post it bc I love when other people do things like this)
Most people know the most common panic attacks symptoms, and if not you can learn them from a quick google search.
But not only can those symptoms vary from episode to episode, but the severity can change drastically, as well as the timeframe of the attack, which symptoms present themselves, and the ebb and flow of an episode all are subject to change. Also certain symptoms may feel different from attack to attack, lasting longer/shorter, targeting different parts of the body, etc. And some attacks will bring certain symptoms and not others, and every attack in my experience is completely different and will have a whole different set of symptoms.
For example, I had an attack a few months ago that was literally just the emotional dread/panic and intense hyperventilation. But other times I’ve had attacks where I’m shaking like a leaf, both my legs bouncing and tense and painful, hands scrambling to any fidget toy I can find, crying, and emotional flashbacks mixed in. Every attack is completely different. No panic attack will be completely the same as one before.
Partly I want to create this post to help people maybe feel less alone, but also I myself have been wanting to lay all this out for a while because I love when other writers do this. I write panic attacks scenes A LOT, it's probably my favorite whump scenario, and I've written probably dozens at this point, mostly in fanfiction. But since I myself started struggling with frequent and/or regular panic attacks, there are some things that I would've never known about with them or how to describe certain things until I experienced them myself. So, huzzah. This post.
The Build Up (physical)
Some of the most common signs for me are a weird feeling in my chest, a rising heartbeat, and increased or sudden restlessness.
Chest feeling- This can vary from episode to episode. In my very first panic attack I ever had, it was a sharp pain what felt like inside my ribcage every time I breathed, down my left arm, and the pain was going down my back following the curve of my spine. So sometimes it’s pain.
But usually for me it’s an intense pressure, which is more common with my attacks nowadays. Usually it’s a localized hot/warm burst of pressure and squeezing right smack in the middle of my chest, and it feels like it’s buried deep into my ribcage between my lungs. It feels embedded there. Sometimes there’s a subtle buildup, and sometimes all of a sudden I realize it without feeling any sort of build.
And it's important to note that the squeezing I'm talking about feels VERY different than someone physically squeezing your arm or your waist or something. It's all internal, it literally feels like someone has reached inside my ribcage and is crushing a giant hand around either my ribcage, my lungs, or my heart, or that all three of those things are being sucked into a blackhole in the middle of my chest. In the most simple terms, everything is squeezed and pulled INWARD.
Sometimes it’s none of these, sometimes it’s just a ‘weird feeling’, and sometimes I can’t describe it more than that. But that also could depend on the trigger.
Rising heartbeat- This and the restlessness usually feed into each other. I’ve developed a habit of when I’m anxious or feeling panicky, I’ll check my pulse in my neck, and at that point, I’m usually suspecting I might have an episode. So this goes hand in hand with the emotional side of all this, because the rapid/rising heartbeat is often one of the first signs to me that my body is responding to something and it could easily escalate to a panic attack. Which can prompt dread of having a panic attack and knowing one is coming, which could make it worse. A vicious cycle.
Restlessness- an inability to sit still, my hands feeling cramped, or feeling like I need a fidget toy or something to mess with. This also is usually paired with an inability to focus on any task, whether that’s eating or reading or whatever I’m doing.
Sometimes, oddly enough, my ankles/feet feel weak and almost like it’s all of a sudden most difficult to keep myself upright. This usually happens when the panic is really severe OR it came on really suddenly.
The Build Up (emotional)
The emotional buildup can be fun to write but of course it’s also scary to experience. For me especially as I’ve started to have panic attacks and episodes more often, the emotional dread of the build up is usually not as bad as it used to be, but that entirely depends on a few other factors:
ENVIRONMENT: I’ve had panic attacks in my school cafeteria, in front of friends/family members, alone in my room/dorm, in my car, in therapy, etc. Lots of places. But that will influence who might be around, what you have access to in terms of comfort and grounding, etc. There are so many factors to consider when writing a panic attack scene.
What’s nearby? Who is nearby? What's the noise level? What’s the size of the room? Does any of this influence the panic attack?
I struggle with overstimulation pretty often, so loud noises, crowded rooms, and intense sensory experiences can be very triggering if I’m already anxious. I’ve had a loud noise set me off before when I was already anxious and trying to rein it in, but the loud noise just sent me over the edge. In addition, the other day I had to be at work in pretty wet clothes since I'd forgotten to take them out of the washer the day before, and the sensory overload was so overwhelming I was hyperventilating just existing in those wet clothes.
If there are people around, are they supportive? Even if so, have they seen your character panic? What would their reactions be? I’ve had instances where I have to tell a friend what to do to help, ask them to do something different, and then other times where a friend knew exactly what to do because they’d had panic attacks themselves before. Sometimes it’s not only the person experiencing the attack, it’s who’s around them and how that affects the tone and flavor of the scene.
Also who you’re with could affect the internal reactions too. When I’ve had panic attacks in front of my friends, I’ve felt guilty and apologized while in an episode. But other times I’ve been too panicked and scared to even be guilty at all. Sometimes I’ve been able to hold a conversation, and sometimes I can’t speak at all because my mouth clamps up and goes numb. A few months ago I had my first panic attack in therapy and I felt so incredibly pathetic and small when I'd never felt quite like that before while having one.
So the people that you’re with can very much affect the emotional experience of the scene.
TRIGGERS: I’ve been triggered by all sorts of things. A text, a loud noise, a spoken sentence, someone’s tone of voice, a song, a drink, seeing someone from behind and thinking it’s someone from a traumatic event, smells, seeing something, etc. Literally anything can be a trigger.
Especially when it comes to trauma, traumatic events can be linked to the most obscure things.
For some examples, I went to a Hobby Lobby a few months ago and felt really anxious and panicky when walking through it. That was because the last time I’d been in a Hobby Lobby was in 2022 when I was in a mental health program for four months away from home, and there had been a Hobby Lobby within walking distance that I’d frequented at the time. So it wasn't the Hobby Lobby itself, it was the association that the store had in my mind to traumatic memories/experiences/environments. I had a panic attack on the clock at work one time because someone texted me that I hadn’t heard from in 3 years and she introduced herself as ‘hey it’s *name* from *mental hospital*!’ Just seeing the name of the mental hospital typed out sent me into a spiral. And the last example, someone I live with was frustrated from something that had happened that day and I heard from another room what sounded like them hitting their head a few times with their fist. That triggered me horribly and I had a really bad panic attack because I all of a sudden remembered that in one of my mental hospital stays, there was someone that used to hit themselves as a form of SH. That memory had been completely buried for years until that moment.
Play around with traumatic memories, buried trauma, obscure triggers, and things like that to make a panic attack believable. In a panic episode, it’s not always fearing for your life, sometimes it’s being afraid of trauma repeating, or just intense emotional overwhelm. Sometimes it’s not ‘I don’t want to die,’ sometimes it’s ’please not again’ or ‘get out of my head’ or painfully reliving something in all sorts of ways. It’s not always life or death, sometimes it’s pure dread and terror of what’s in your head.
Sometimes for me I don't know what the trigger was, or maybe I have a suspicion but there isn't a clear answer. This can cause frustration, confusion, or even self loathing or ridicule for ‘reacting that way.’
Especially in times when I’ve thought I got triggered by ‘something stupid’ before I really understood the extent of my trauma and how bad it actually is instead of minimizing it. It’s not always about the trigger, it’s sometimes about the response to the trigger and how that messes with your mind.
During (physical/emotional)
Panic attacks are a full body experience. They're fucking terrifying. It doesn't matter if it's your fifth one or your fiftieth one. They are terrifying and scary and dreadful and one of the worst things ever. Sure, I myself may know how to deal with them by now, but like I've said each one is different, each one feels different, and again there are those factors I was talking about. I've had panic attacks in lots of different places, in front of lots of different people, some I knew, some I didn't know as well. Panic attacks are fucking SCARY, so write them that way.
Emotionally, there's of course so much going on. But the most prominent thing is an overwhelming, absolutely blinding mess of dread, fear, panic, and terror at the forefront of everything.
But again, this does not have to be from your life actually being in danger. Meaning, the trauma doesn't have to be from your life being physically threatened. I myself have c-ptsd from years and years of mental trauma and anguish, including a total of five months over five years in mental institutions (four week-long stays and one four month program). I was never in physical danger (aside from I guess my S attempts, you could argue), but I was never threatened by another person. And yet, I get panic attacks a lot. I dissociate, struggle with dissociative amnesia, etc. Trauma is broad but also incredibly specific. Trauma is confusing and painful and often times very deep-rooted. So pull some of those roots out and see where the scene goes.
Internal thoughts can be incredibly powerful when writing a panic attack scene. What you could write of course depends on various factors, but here are three examples from stuff that I've thought in my panic episodes:
It might not seem like much, but when you're panicking like crazy and these thoughts are running nonstop obsessively in your brain, it only adds to the terror because often my panicked internal thoughts are born from desperation.
Also, any sort of coherent internal thoughts for me are often swamped by other things, like flashbacks, trying to fucking breathe, or other people trying to calm me down if there are others present.
And also just to clarify, I do get flashbacks like I've said, but I don't get the kind of flashbacks that involve seeing anything. I get emotional and somatic flashbacks, so I feel pain/pressure (in scars), or I feel exactly what I felt in a particular traumatic memory to the T, which is different then just remembering something bad. It's fully like I've time traveled back mentally to that moment, including sometimes having internal thoughts/emotions that I had during that memory as opposed to commentating on a memory in hindsight.
Like I mentioned earlier, the emotional experience of having a panic attack can vary depending on the environment and stuff. So do with that what you will.
Physically, the list of symptoms is very long and like I said for me at least they can switch up and randomize during any panic attack. First and foremost, here are all the physical symptoms I can think of I've had with panic attacks, then I'll get into specifics, colored red if I go more in detail:
hyperventilating
dry mouth (from hyperventilating)
shivers/trembling
teeth chattering (from trembling)
cold/hot flashes
sweating
pins and needles/tingling
darting eyes
chest pain/pressure
racing/rapid heartbeat
gripping nearby things for support (sometimes doesn't matter what it is)
clammy hands/face
severe tension in the body, particularly the face and the legs
uncontrollable bouncing legs
crying/sobbing
wheezing
body (or certain parts of it) going numb
mouth getting clamped up, difficulty pronouncing words
rocking back and forth
blurry vision/tunnel vision
surrounding voices growing muffled
thirst (probably from dry mouth)
accidental self-harm
frantic fidgeting
restlessness, inability to stop moving
Okay I can't think of any more 🤣 Anyways, the ones I highlighted in red, I'm gonna go more in detail about, either to give a personal story about it or to explain the spectrum that the symptom can exist on.
HYPERVENTILATING: Hyperventilating can present itself in different ways, and sound different. For me, sometimes it’s quick, sharp, shallow breaths, my chest moving up and down really rapidly, sometimes it’s wheezing, sometimes it’s sharp and shallow but hiccupy as well. And this can change depending on whether or not I’m crying, because that would make not only breathing more difficult, but the sound and rhythm of the hyperventilating would be completely different. Also with a panic attack I had a few months ago, I was hyperventilating so fast and so shallow for an extended period of time that I actually almost passed out, my vision kept getting blurry and my eyelids were fluttering/drooping and I all of a sudden felt like I was fighting to stay awake but the panic made it really difficult to stop hyperventilating. So, vicious cycle.
SHIVERS/TREMBLING: This one I want to explain more in detail because it's something that I didn't fully understand or realize until I experienced it myself. The words 'trembling' and 'shivers' don't really do justice how bad it can get. For a really severe panic attack, for me it's less 'shivers' and more 'writhing' or 'seizing.' I've had attacks where I literally cannot hold onto my phone or anything because I'm shaking so hard I'm about to give myself whiplash, teeth chattering, I've-been-standing-out-in-a-blizzard-for-two-hours kind of shaking. Y'know when people in sitcoms and comedies over-exaggerate nervousness and the water cup is flailing in their hand and the water is going everywhere? With severe panic attacks, that's what it is except in a panic attack it's not exaggerated, and it's everywhere.
COLD/HOT FLASHES: Not much to say about this one, but with the panic attack I had in therapy, it was a pretty sudden one and due to what the trigger was, the panic kinda washed over me really fast, I got a head rush, and all of sudden my face and by extension the rest of my body went super cold and chilled and hollow, as if the heat had been sucked out of it, and I remember vaguely thinking if this is what it felt like to have the ‘color drain from your face’, which is a pretty common story description for someone going pale.
PINS AND NEEDLES/TINGLING: This one can get really intense and it gets worse depending on the severity of the attack. It can be as little as just my hands tingling, or my entire upper body. The tingling is at its worst when it’s all in my face and my mouth and my tongue, because that is often a precursor to my mouth clamping up and going numb, which is a precursor to me not being able to talk much during an attack. So those things influence each other.
MOUTH GETTING CLAMPED UP: Y’know when you’ve been outside in the cold for a while and when you come back inside, your mouth and pronunciation feel very slow and sluggish? That you can’t pronounce words no matter how hard you try, your mouth can’t do it? That’s how it feels when my mouth is super tense and numb during a panic episode. And it’s more than just my mouth, it feels like the tension is in my jaws and making so I physically cannot open my mouth past my lips being slightly parted. Make a very small ‘O’ with your mouth, or just hang your jaws very slightly open. That’s the shape my mouth and jaws get locked in, and so combine that with hyperventilating and shaking and the pins and needles and understandably it’s incredibly difficult to speak.
BLURRY VISION/TUNNEL VISION: This is less common for me, but the few times it’s happened it’s been like this faint blurry aura around the edges of my sight, like foggy tunnel vision. It usually only happens when the panic is coming on really suddenly.
SURROUNDING VOICES GROWING MUFFLED: This has only happened once, and it was my episode in therapy. There was a sort of auditory blurriness and unclearness that seeped into my therapist’s words and I was so caught up in my panic that I couldn’t fully process what she said.
This symptom and the one before it are the ones that I see mostly commonly in panic attack scenes in movies and TV. It’s also easier to show/portray these visually/in a show or movie. When in reality, there’s a lot more to a panic attack than just muffled voices, tunnel vision, and breathing fast. Most of what I experience in my own episodes actually isn’t in movies and TV, another reason why I wanted to make this post.
ACCIDENTAL SELF-HARM: This has only happened a few times, and it’s when the panic is most severe. I’ve caught myself scratching my elbows nearly bloody, or my cuticles/fingers. I’ve also punched my thigh so hard at one point that I had a small bruise the next day, because I was so panicked that I needed to do something with my hands, and I didn’t realize how hard I was hitting my leg or that I was doing it at all until it started throbbing really bad. I also am a recovering self-harm addict, have been for years, so this symptom is probably because of that, or was made worse by that.
A panic attack ebbs and flows.
Panic attacks in my experience usually last anywhere from 10 - 30 minutes, with more severe ones being closer to 45 minutes or sometimes pushing an hour.
(NOTE: Anxiety attacks are different. Similar, but different. In my experience they are usually a lot less intense with less symptoms, but last a lot longer, usually spanning over multiple hours)
But despite the ‘short’ length (it feels like forever), a panic attack and its severity can change and ebb and flow within the timeframe of an episode. Symptoms can get worse then better, worse then better. Symptoms can pop up that weren’t previously there, or get replaced by another one, or more can be stacked up on what’s already being experienced.
The panic comes in waves. For example, in an attack that lasts 20-30 minutes, this is a typical pattern for me: I’ll be panicking for 5-6 minutes, my breathing will slow down just a tad, I get a few seconds of reprieve, then it will spike again and I’ll sometimes get really bad chills and shivering all with my breathing speeding up again and my teeth chattering as the panic takes hold again, toxic internal thoughts, ‘no not again,’ stuff like that. So it’s kind of like a pattern of waves with panic as the constant, but the severity ebbs and flows throughout the attack.
When I write panic attack whump in my fandoms, I often have a specific scenario in mind, but in order to keep it interesting for me, I switch up the people there, the environment, what the trigger was, the symptoms, the reactions of characters, the POV character, etc. There are lots of different things to play around with and mix and match to make a panic attack scene unique or fresh even if you’ve written similar scenes plenty of times before.
THE AFTERMATH
More often than not, bone-tired exhaustion. Deep exhaustion. Sluggish thinking/movement, a desire to lie down and sleep or watch a movie or play a calm/atmospheric video game. Really just wanting to lie down and relax and do something just fun and engaging but also calm and stimulating, because panic attacks are fucking workouts.
Speaking of workouts, if I’ve had a panic attack in which my legs were super tense and bouncing depending on my position and where I was (meaning my immediate physical environment, the ground, a chair, etc.), one or both of my legs can be incredibly painful and sore for days afterward. Like leg day but it’s from panic and trauma. Like limping around, talking forever on the stairs, wincing while walking and getting up kind of soreness.
I also emotionally will sometimes get a lot more lenient with what I’ll tell people, especially if they witnessed it. Like kind of a ‘well they already saw me vulnerable, what else do I have to hide?’
Depending on where I am, I might have stuff available to me. In my room, I keep a weighted blanket, a box of fidget toys, and candy, including sour/flavorful candy. All of these things can and have helped with grounding and reorientation after both a panic attack and dissociative episodes. I have in my purse usually 1-2 fidget toys (one of them I make sure is a favorite) for if I have an episode while I’m out, which has come in handy on multiple occasions due to my triggers being everywhere and also me not knowing sometimes where and when triggers can occur.
I have in the past also gone right into dissociative episodes after a panic attack, or vise versa. So that can be fun to play around with.
WRITING A PANIC ATTACK SCENE
Now, for the writing itself.
The things that are the most broad that I can apply to nearly every panic attack scene and it can work are:
- Internal thoughts
- Run-on sentences
NOTE: This is based on my own writing style and what I find helpful. If it doesn't work for you, that's completely fine.
In my writing, I usually write in first person (been dabbling more in third person recently though). First person allows an incredibly close and intimate connection with my POV character. But regardless of what POV or tense you write in, these can still be helpful. I really love to try to make my writing fit the scene and the emotion, using the language and words and sentences themselves as a way to portray a character’s internal state. So, a panicked state of mind is going to be running everywhere, fast, chaotic and not stopping for a second, which paves the way for strategically used and structured run-on sentences being very effective.
But, strategically used is key. And sparing, particularly. If I use a run-on sentence for a panic attack scene, at max I use usually two. They’re a lot– they’re a lot to write and at times a lot to read, and they’re not for everyone. I have been writing run-on sentences in this way for years, so I’m used to it, but also sometimes I write scenes that would be better without them, so I have to pick and choose if this panic attack I’m writing would be more powerful with or without it.
This post is mostly about writing in the sufferer’s head, but another way to really spice things up is to play around with writing in the witness’s POV too. Or switch between the two. There’s a TON of fun whump stuff you can write when you mix and match symptoms, environment, POV character, reactions, and the writing itself. It can be so much fun and so interesting.
DESCRIBING A PANIC ATTACK
Instead of laying out every single descriptor I've ever used for a panic attack scene, I'm simply gonna lay out my personal tips that I use to help me write effective panic attacks, because it can be very difficult. Hopefully these are pretty broad and can be used in many different writing situations.
Know your own style and tailor the scene and your writing to it.
Don't know your style? That's fine! It can be difficult, and it took me years to realize I had a style. I would argue that it's impossible to just decide on a style, it takes years of building your craft and trying things to find what you like.
Finding your style can also include figuring out WHAT you like to write and HOW you like to write it. I would say a writer's style is the combination of tools and tricks you've used over time, it's the blend of everything– grammar, sentence structure, writing preferences, etc– that makes your writing YOURS.
I value the emotional experience of a story above everything else and try to pour every part of my writing style into conveying that in a way that makes sense to me.
2. Give the panic attack symptoms a physical body and desire
This may not make sense, but stick with me:
It can be very difficult describing something that feels like it can't be described or put into words, especially an experience as intense as a panic attack.
What I try to get across when writing panic attack scenes is the sheer power of the panic and how that feeds into everything else. It feels like your body and mind are attacking you, so try writing it that way.
Try asking yourself, if these symptoms were a physical enemy and hypothetically had a body and evil desires, how would that manifest? How would that inform your writing/descriptions? How would that feel for the character? For example:
Is your character experiencing chest pain? A rapid heartbeat? A clamped up mouth? Hot flashes? Pins and needles? If each of these were a physical enemy living inside your character, what would it feel like if they were on full power and doing everything they could to take the character down?
It may sound obscure, but imagining panic attacks symptoms as each their own enemy with ulterior motives and malevolent desires turns a simple panic/anxiety response into an internal war for your sanity.
So, I like to play around with this. Whether that's using metaphors, similes, comparisons, or just picking a powerful verb to use when describing a symptom, this has really helped me write intense emotional experiences by treating it differently in my head.
And lastly,
3. Use the language itself to inform the scene
When I'm writing, especially a highly intense emotional scene, I don't just think about the language itself, I think about the shape of the language. Meaning, using sentence structure, grammar, and the sentences themselves to craft an intense visual experience as well.
For example, if a character is panicking, they're thinking really fast and frantically. You could do a run-on sentence and write a whole uninterrupted paragraph of their frantic thoughts, OR you could write fragmented sentences to represent their train of thought and use one paragraph per fragment, creating a completely different visual experience.
Sometimes I may even cut my own writing off if the situation calls for it. I tend to use em dashes quite often for this purpose, for cutting off the sentences themselves to represent things like sudden realization, shock, a rapid decision or reaction, etc. Because in my head, if the character is being caught off guard by something, then I can shape the sentences and paragraphs visually so the reader is caught off guard by it too.
The best way I can describe all this is that I use the writing and the words and the grammar and the language itself to try and express the mental experience of that character.
EXCERPTS FROM MY WRITING
I'm going to include three excerpts from panic attack scenes in my own writing and I'm gonna try to pick ones that include me trying some of the tools I've outlined in this post.
Excerpt #1:
The police are already there, he’s sure of it, he’s sure of it, he’s sure, FUCK.
He inhales, tries to, and his chest squeezes. He can’t inhale, he can’t breathe, fuck fuck FUCK he can’t breathe.
“…Ren?” Morgana’s voice echoes far away.
Ren’s breathing speeds up, and the empty classroom spots with white. His chest flares up with a deep pressure, inside, his heart thrashes, thump-thump-thump-thump, a rapid, stuttering rhythm, and his rib cage is moments away from breaking and releasing the hive keeping everything contained. But he can’t, he CAN’T, this is a classroom, he would get found out.
The buzzing prickles in his hands, tingling and numb in his feet and creeping up his neck, eating away all sensation and feeling in his skin, clammy and sweaty and painful. His limbs lock up. He can’t breathe, he can’t move. Ren’s dizzy, lightheaded, every breath is fuzzy in his ears, cotton stuffs his entire head to the brim, he can’t hear anything, and a hazy black border curls around his vision. His chest aches and the binder he shouldn’t be wearing crushes his ribs and his lungs and the classroom dims and he feels like he’s about to pass out.
He drops his head back against the wall. His wide eyes dart around. Terror floods into his eyes, crackles in his fingers, bleeds into his body and sends shivering chills to attack every muscle.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK he’s gonna die he’s gonna DIE he has to GET OUT.
Without thinking– he can’t manage that anymore– Ren grabs everything and runs.
Excerpt from my Persona 5 fanfic, Skeletons in the Attic.
Excerpt #2:
The clatter of guns and weapons resounds through the truck as the Party gets situated with their gear. Boots shuffle as friends, family, and lovers alike help each other stand and exchange quick works of hope and encouragement for the battle ahead. Steve winces at the biting cold the Upside Down brings, then he steels himself, grabs his spear, and pushes himself off the ground to–
Will hasn’t moved at all. In fact, he’s in the same anxious state as before, but worse: his is body rigid and shaking, his hands clutching nearby support, his eyes stretched wide, but this time there are tears swimming in his eyes and every inch of his exposed skin is deathly pale.
Steve’s love-rotted heart breaks a little.
“Steve,” Dustin calls from the front of the truck.
Once again, Steve doesn’t think, he just does what has started to come naturally. “Byers,” he half-whispers, the nickname coming out automatically. He throws his spear to the side and crawls the few feet over to Will’s side, stopping only inches away from the kid’s shivering legs. “Byers, hey.”
Excerpt from an unfinished Stranger Things fanfic.
Excerpt #3: (⚠️TW for SH)
I sit up in my bed, propping myself up on my elbows, and glance at the time. Almost 6am.
I let out a shaky breath, then another, then another, it speeds up, until I’m almost gasping for air. Breathing is harder than it should be, shit, shit. My hands tingle, the leftover nightmare anxiety still rampant, the pins and needles spidering up my arms promising some sort of panic episode if I don’t rein it in.
I can’t get Lance’s face out of my fucking head. Namely his sightless eyes and his open wri–
Another sob escapes me, another sharp pang tears through my scars, and another flood of pins and needles prompts an anxious shiver. My legs stiffen and cramp up, shit, SHIT, I swing them over the side of the bed and plant my feet on the carpet, pulling my hands up into my messy bedhead and grabbing fistfuls of hair. My body continues to tremble, the prickling static in my hands and wrists dribbling like a dying match up to my neck. My breathing is erratic, my violent heartbeat punching at the insides of my throat– thump, thump thump, thump–
Calm down, calm down, calm the FUCK down–
Thumpthumpthumpthump–
I jerk to my feet and pad through my apartment on sweaty, wobbly legs, rubbing the opposite arms with my hands in an attempt to self-soothe.
