#‘all the older mysterious men want her’ that is so far from the truth omg

[xiao-lantern]

shonen mfs on twitter bashing Tohru Honda I WILL NOT ALLOW TOHRU SLANDER

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told (Part 2 of 2)

Spoilers ahoy! See Part One for more, plus an update. 

I imagine Steve staying in Winnie’s orbit for a little while before drawing away. The guilt would have been immense, even if she still accepted him as a surrogate son after the breakup. Also, Steve’s move into the military was a kind of amputation of his old life, including Winnie. Winnie was undoubtedly hurt by his distance. But for all of her flaws, also has a strong forgiveness reflex, as we can see with her relationship with Bucky. I think Steve’s own unresolved mother issues also complicated his relationship with her. With Sarah dead and his grief unprocessed, he probably figured it was easier to leave them both behind in the city and try to move forward.

Gah, I’m so sorry I didn’t include that. I put it in shortly after I received this message but forgot to answer the Ask also. MST stands for Military Sexual Trauma. It’s something that the VA regularly screens for and provides special services for. As people have probably heard, it’s a very common occurrence, affecting more women than men per capita but actually happening to more men by sheer volume. So, in other words, the percentages of MST in female service members is significantly higher than in men, but because there are fewer women relative to men in the military, the men’s smaller (and very, very likely under-reported) percentage ends up equaling more men who’ve experienced MST than women. It includes rape, sexual assault, as well as sexual harassment and coercion.

I’m an ass and didn’t track what chapter this was after (as well as being bad at answering Asks in a timely manner), so I cannot respond as specifically as I would like. But they really are making some significant progress. Even when shitty things are happening, you’ll probably notice that they are talking a lot more, sharing a lot more, coming back together after their rows more quickly. I’m very proud of them on a regular basis!

I think Tony is an extremely difficult character to write, you’re so correct. Alas, he’s only alluded to in BW. But I am going to attempt to write him in my next fic. It’s a daunting task, indeed, and definitely not a reflection of whether I like him or not. I think Tony is just fine. It’s just very hard not to write him as a one-dimensional quip machine.

Haha, what? Fic reading during Zoom meetings?? Never heard of her. 

This is an interesting question and a good observation. I think it’s a little of column A and a little of column B. I do like playing with identity, how we are different things to different people. Growing up, Bucky was James to George and Jamie to his other family and Bucky to his high school friends and Steve. I think Bucky is an aspirational name for him, in a way. This Bucky character he created in high school was his best version of himself, as far as he’s concerned. 

And importantly, as you mentioned, it’s what Steve learned to call him, and Steve is also an aspirational object for Bucky. Jamie is pretty loaded, Jamie the soft boy, Jamie who gets hurt, etc. I imagine as he got older, part of him recognized that this isn’t Bucky thing is kind of a farce and probably started referring to himself publicly as Jamie eventually. Thus, it’s also become a very intimate name, because only Steve thinks of him that way, and perhaps he wants to be that person Steve imagines he is. Hence the self-reference. It’s not the tightest argument. I honestly initially started with a name more familiar to readers, and it just stuck.

OMG FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES. Okay. Okay. For those not familiar with the Five Love Languages, here’s a summary of them.  (And you can even take a quiz for yourself here!) I’ve put some thought into this, and so has my beta, and our first response was that they may both be touch. This could be plausible, and it only doesn’t work so well sometimes because of the additional trauma- and defense-informed barriers that Bucky has. Bucky also has lots of ideas about gay love and affection that aren’t very compatible with this, either. 

So that kind of makes me wonder if he wants touch so badly because he doesn’t allow it for himself and he’s just a human with basic human touch needs. I also think Bucky appreciates quality time as well, though he’s not great at asking for it. I think the touch thing works for Steve because even if he was in another relationship with someone else, he’d still crave touch a lot. This is a harder exercise when dealing with such massive amounts of trauma, to be sure.

Does anyone else have thoughts? I’m not married to this at all. I think a number of different arguments could be made.

I’m hanging in there! I just recently moved from one state that was terrible about COVID-19 public health stuff to another state that’s hardcore about it, so that’s been a change. Moving is rough, and I moved alone with not really anyone I know super well in the area. How do meet new ppl now?? But it’s a very good thing, and I’m excited for the time when I can make some new friends in 3D, lol. Thank you for asking!

(Me and my friends now)

I don’t think you’re missing a whole lot, honestly. I think part of it is that up until very recently, Steve couldn’t even begin to comprehend the trauma Bucky has experienced. Like obviously he knew something was there, but the nature of it was still a mystery to him. I think it’s hard to remember sometimes that we know a lot more about Bucky in any given moment than Steve does. So we see all this stuff piled up and are like STEVE WHAT THE FUCK. But Steve doesn’t know all that and has been learning in these really brutal and incomplete chunks. 

And even when Steve first found out about the sexual abuse, the implications have been slow to settle on him. I’ve been trying to write this Steve as a realistic person who can both understand things but also is trying to get his own needs met when he’s vulnerable. He also suspects it’s really bad and doesn’t want it to be, feeding a little of his own denial and defenses. For as complicated as Bucky obviously is, I think Steve is pretty complicated, too. He doesn’t think of himself this way, however, to some detriment. He wants to understand Bucky and he doesn’t want to know, because the truth is horrifying to him. I think these things compete in him and don’t always lead him to have the best behavior.

AND FINALLY - 

Oh, I’ve missed all of you too! These Asks are such a joy to get, even though I suck at answering them in any reasonable amount of time. Thank you for all of your consideration :)

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Thank you so much for the wonderful Asks and for the words of kindness and support! I look forward to sharing the rest of this story with you soon.