#magic healing

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Takes place in The Lost Hero canon, immediately after Will gives Leo a tour of camp.

New chapter on an old fic. Check it out if you're interested. Short lil PWP.

Summary: Will feels awful for Jake and wants to help any way that he can.

Chapter 2: Next Time is Now

Summary: Will unlocks a new skill—sex healing.

CW: magic healing, shared pain, brief mention of death, headaches (like if there's any i missed)

Ibin the Wizard

His head ached, the throbbing stabbing pain never seemed to ease. It was a pleasant distraction from the searing white hot pain radiating from his right arm. To be perfectly honest, the headaches were something he welcomed and almost craved.

Back to the matter at hand though, he finally looked down at the deep wound that was creating itself on his arm. His exhausted eyes drifted to the person across from him whose arm was mending a similar wound. He managed a small smile as he got gauze and a simple DIY'd sling to dress the deep wound.

“Thank you! Oh! Thank you!! Your magic is truly incredible!” The young man exclaimed.

“Of course… i'm glad I was able to help you… “ the wizard said as he put his arm in the sling.

“I will tell everyone of your fantastic magic! Thank you again!!” The man said as he stood and soon left, examining his healed arm on the way.

The wizard just nodded, giving a weak wave before slumping in his chair. He prayed to the gods that more didn't learn of his blessing curse. After taking a few minutes to recover his will, he managed to stand, then let out a pained hiss. He sighed to himself as a patch of red began to show on his shirt.

“Ugh…. What have you gotten yourself into…. You know that… well… it takes ages. You need to stop helping all these people with their ailments, Ibin. You'll end up killing yourself one day.” The wizard, Ibin, scolded himself.

It started as a practicality; when the team had several injuries to deal with, the healers would help those in the group who couldn’t heal themselves, which was everyone except Alice. So Alice got used to doing things on her own; scurrying off to heal somewhere alone. It was easier that way. Healers weren’t distracted by her screams or moans. Those that were dying wouldn’t have to watch her recover when they could not.

 It was easier that way but it wasn’t easy.

It still hurt. She felt the wounds just as deeply as anyone, and the healing often hurt worse than the injury. 

Alice cried out in pain as she tried to reach the broken tree branch stuck in her back. They’d been trekking to an outpost and the old rope bridge had sent her tumbling down. She managed not to break anything but had landed right on the damn fallen tree. 

 The branch was a good five inches around where it protruded from her back and pencil thin where it was sticking out of the front of her chest, just to the right of her heart. She could barely touch where it was in her back and it hurt to even try to. Her hands were so slippery with blood she didn’t know if she could pull it out even if she could get a good grip on it. 

“Fuck!” her hands slipped again. More blood poured from the wound and she felt dizzy and sick. If she didn’t get the branch out the wound would heal around it and she’d have to pull it out through healed flesh and she really didn’t want to do that. 

But she might have to wait till it healed just to be able to get up to get help. There was no way in hell she was pulling the thing out from the front of her chest. 

Last day of my "I complain about certain things I notice in a lot of writing" week. And last thing that kinda annoys me (well, not the last, but the last I will speak about this week) is how healing is portrayed in a lot of media. Or rather... well, how it isn't portrayed.

Because, let's face it: Physical healing is very rarely addressed in media. With this I mean... Well, usually media kinda tends to either just handwave the kinds of injuries our heroes should have. I mean, in a lot of media that is very action heavy, you can go there with someone working in trauma medicine, and they will tell you the many ways in which this action hero or heroine by now would already be dead, or at the very least bound to bed rest for weeks. But at most they have a few bruises and scratches, that look dramatic, but generally will not hinder them.

When a hero in media gets actually injured, this often happens at the very end of a fight, and either the story ends with "well, he was very injured, but he would make a recovery soon enough" with us never really having to see the character recovering, or there might be an epilogue being set after the character has already recovered. And of course this kind of recovery tends to usually be perfect. People do not have chronic pain issues or anything from any physical trauma they have gone through during their plot. There is no tinitus from having stood to close to explosions or having been present in shoot outs.

And of course, there is rarely ever a case where a character has an injury that ends up with them permanently disabled, even if it would be realistic for the kind of stuff they have experienced. Hell, even if something like that happened (like with "Rhodey" in the MCU), this will often still be handwaved or magically/technically corrected.

In reality, physical healing is often a slow and hard thing. Even if you heal completely (something that is just never guaranteed - even if it is a simple break of a finger bone) you might have a longer journey in front of you than you expect. Not always does healing work out perfectly.

It is this, that also gives me some pause in terms of magical healing abilities. Because... Look, if something heals slowly and does not heal perfectly, you can intervene. When you heal it within minutes/hours something that heals badly might leave you with much larger issues along the line. But that is something we never see. And I am kinda annoyed by that. It would be such an interesting plot point.

Or on the other hand: If magical healing is perfect always, what does this do for people who get hurt and healed a lot. Be it this one fighter who ends every day with broken bones and stab wounds, or - let's face it - someone who in that world might cater then to sadists and stuff as a form of sex worker? How would those people even relate to pain if their minds learn that injuries are nothing to worry about? Do their bodies maybe stop to show self-defense reflexes? (For those who read my Tav stories know that it is something I explore with him a lot. He was tortured and healed a lot as a kid, and because of it he does no longer show normal reactions to pain, coming across as inhuman because of it. He just no longer recognizes realistically lethal wounds as such, because he is so used to magic healing.)

And the same goes double with mental healing and healing from trauma. I kinda spoke about this two days ago, so I will not go into it too much.

Often in media trauma exists to have "a point". It basically builds towards the carthasis of a story, when the character will have this great teary recognition and then they get over their trauma and if it is fantasy they will probably get a new power to go along with it. Hurray!

And of course, the kind of trauma that the characters would have logically acquired during the plot of whatever story never really gets addressed, because usually the story will frame it as a positive experience.

I always found this so funny in regards to my original fandom - Digimon. You have those 10yo kids in a world of monsters, where they are in life threatening situations every other day with no refuge. Where they see other die, and things destroyed and what not. And the show goes: "Isn't this a good driver of character development?!" Which, like... Don't get me wrong. I love it. I love this show. I love the big emotional punches it does. But if I look at it realistically, of course... Those kids need a fucking good therapist, don't they?

And of course you can basically put in every scifi, fantasy or action story in here, as well. Usually there is nothing that involves action and epicness where the characters are not in at least one situation that would give them some PTSD. If not a prolonged situation that might lead to CPTSD.

And this does not get acknowledged in any way most of the time. And if it gets acknowledged, the healing for it gets skipped over as well.

Again, I will point back at the Wednesday blog. The messiness of mental healing is just not portrayed. The way how there are good days and bad days. Or how at times people healing from trauma will be massive assholes to the people around them, which is not fully their fault - because it is the trauma talking in the end - but it never really gets shown. Again: It is why I love Bojack Horseman so much. Because it shows this so well in a way that I rarely ever saw in media.

Generally... I just would love to see a lot more stories about healing. About the different kinds of healing, too. Because people are different - in both body and "soul". And because they are different, not two people will heal fully the same way. And I just would love to see more of that.