#actually i will explain the ptsd part later cause he was the one causing the mess

[moonlight-singer]

Moonlight memories: Anger

This is part of Ahr'in's memories collected during the expansions , mostly SHB and EW, some from earlier in time. -------------- LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE

[aroaceleovaldez]

i hope this doesn't sound like a silly or weird thing to send you, but i'm autistic and have long thought of nico and a handful of other riordanverse characters as autistic and i love your posts about why nico in particular seems intentionally autistic-coded. but i've been thinking, if rick did intend for any of his characters to be autistic, why wouldn't he say so outside of the text at least? i can't think of a good reason why not, when he goes out of his way to be explicit about so many other characters' various marginalized identities and has confirmed things like reyna being asexual outside of the original text. so it gives me this nagging sort of doubt that maybe rick just made nico come off as so extremely autistic coded by accident, somehow. if it wasn't an accident i do kind of wish he'd say so because there's next to zero explicitly stated autistic representation in, like, any media so it'd be nice to have here even if not strictly necessary. either way though, like i said, i love your posts and i agree with you 100% about autistic nico! some others i like to think are autistic are annabeth and leo.

(Most of this is gonna be kind of a tangential ramble to your point and i apologize in advance just bear with me)

This actually touches upon something I've been meaning to do a write-up on recently, which is: depending on the coding, that is our explicit statement. In most coding, actually, that's kind of the point. (Also something something Death of the Author.)

You may have noticed a recent trend across media of characters saying things directly rather than expressing them in a natural way, and often this includes incredibly stilted dialogue of characters explaining things in very politically correct, wikipedia-esque descriptions and terminology that make absolutely no sense for the characters' personalities or mannerisms. This is born out of the idea that if something is not stated in explicit terms, no amount of evidence below an outright direct exact statement will ever count - if two characters of the same gender have an explicit kiss and wedding on-screen, it doesn't matter because they never said the word "gay," etc etc.

In PJO, prior to more recent books, we get plenty of examples of characters explaining parts of their identities without direct statements. Percy never needs to say in outright terms that he has PTSD from Gabe - and it doesn't make sense that he would! He's 12! He's never been diagnosed for that. He probably doesn't even know what PTSD is really. But we, the audience, know without a doubt he has PTSD, because it is clearly expressed to us. That is coding. Tyson is coded as having down syndrome. Nico is coded as being autistic. It doesn't make sense for Nico to turn to the camera and explain that he's autistic and what that means, because he definitely never got diagnosed for it and probably doesn't know what that means cause the diagnosis literally did not exist when he was growing up - and heck, autism terminology was still kind of getting sorted out back in 2007 when TTC was published, so it's unlikely we could have feasibly gotten any exact terminology wink-wink-nudge-nudges short of something like how Percy outright mentions other students called Tyson the r-slur in Sea of Monsters. And in fact we see that same exact style of coding with Nico later on in the series. Nico never turns to the camera and says word-for-word "I am gay, I am mlm, here's me wearing my exact pride flags" (until TOA/TSATS, which... did the exact thing i mentioned about characters speaking like theyre trying to get a good grade in therapy, or giving a powerpoint presentation). But it is never unclear that HoO is telling us outright that Nico is gay. It's not just hinted at. It's there, in your face. But entirely because no one ever outright says "gay" specifically it's technically still only coding. We know he's gay, we know the characters have trauma/ptsd, etc etc. We don't need it spelled out - that's just kind of condescending. It's like if you said describing a character with "eyes like moss" means they were "green-eye coded."

Nico being autistic-coded isn't hidden. It's not a secret. It's very overt. If you know what autism looks like, well, yeah, there he is. Even if you only know very vague 2007 media presentation of autism, Nico in TTC is easily recognizable enough as autistic because that's the point. Tyson is easily recognizable as being coded as having down syndrome and it's very clearly very intentional! It's just never spoon-fed in exact terms to the reader because it's not necessary! You've already been told the information necessary to tell you what is up with this character, so just plainly going "oh they're [x] in exact terms" is very much telling-not-showing and feels redundant. And while there are places for that kind of thing, most of the time it's very unnecessary. Sometimes coding is subtle, sometimes it's obvious, and yeah there are times where writers code characters unintentionally, but the textual evidence is there, and that's the whole point.

And that's what Death of the Author is about - it doesn't matter what the author intended at the end of the day, because if it's in the text it's in the text. You can look at author intent to try and figure out what that text means, but the text is the text. A Separate Peace is a very classic example - author John Knowles denies there being homosexual subtext, and meanwhile one of the protagonists living in 1942 puts on a pink shirt while saying he doesn't mind of people think of him as gay. What the author says after the fact doesn't matter - if it's there, it's there. So Rick saying anything outside of the books is completely irrelevant. And Rick talks about this a lot - he actively tells people that his statements outside of the books are just his own thoughts, but what's in the books is what's in the books, and if the text supports it then that's all the evidence you need.

Nico specifically is a case where yeah, he's clearly autistic-coded. It's very obvious and very obviously intentional when he's younger, and as the books progress it remains a background trait of his but is still notable (except for when it gets forgotten in TOA/TSATS like everything else, including the adhd/dyslexia, but i digress). It's a clear pattern within the first few books that Rick is intentionally including. It doesn't make sense, especially for the year the book was published, for the reader to be directly told in explicit terminology that Nico is autistic, because the reader is already being told that Nico is autistic.

And yeah, Rick doesn't mention Nico being autistic-coded outside of the text, but he also doesn't mention Tyson being coded as having down syndrome. He also said one time that Percy doesn't have PTSD at all, which is very incorrect starting from book 1. Again, Death of the Author. Whatever Rick says outside of the books does not matter, because he already said it in the books. And there's plenty of other stuff in the books that Rick doesn't touch upon, particularly relating to character identity - did you know Leo is Native? Sammy mentions that the Valdez family is Native in Son of Neptune but we don't get any specifics and then it's like never brought up again anywhere. That happens all the time in the series - and outside of the series - Rick can't possibly address every single point to confirm/deny everything from the books. That's what analysis is for! And that's why my blog exists 👍

[scarabsinthestardust]

Tender // Ch. 8

MASTERLIST

word count: 4300+

Friends, this has been a wild rollercoaster ride. I can't begin to explain how appreciative I am of the readers that stuck with me on this one (and the ones who gave it a shot, even if you didn't keep reading). With that being said, this is the last chapter of Tender. HOWEVER, it is not the end of the story, and it is not the last time we will see Finn. Things are going to get much worse before they get better, but good things are coming Josh's way. (I promise I'll stop bullying him soon ;-;) Keep an eye out for the next installment in this shitshow, Right on Time.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: language; angst; social drinking; alcoholism; mentions of rehab; post-traumatic stress disorder; other unspecified undiagnosed mental illness; fever; vomiting; nightmares; mentions of previous child abuse; some scary images; unintentional self-harm; dissociating; mentions of cheating; toxic and manipulative behavior; physical violence; domestic abuse; fisticuffs; injuries; blood; panic attack; desire to die but not necessarily suicidal ideation

When I was in rehab, the psychiatrist alluded to the possibility that I had post-traumatic stress disorder. I had gotten defensive, telling him he was grasping at straws and just trying to get me diagnosed with something so they could pump me full of drugs. The more he pestered me, trying to pry into my life and delve into my childhood, the angrier I got, until I eventually blew up on him. I didn’t get physically violent, but I said quite a lot of hurtful things to the man, who was just trying to do his job.

Some time later, when Josh was fast asleep and I couldn’t get my mind to shut up, I got curious and did some of my own research.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that is caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event – either being part of it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Once I started reading about it, I couldn’t stop. I just kept digging that hole deeper and deeper.

Emotional numbness. Avoidance. Hypervigilance. Sleep issues. Difficulty concentrating. Feelings of hopelessness. Negative thoughts about oneself or the world. Ongoing negative emotions such as fear, anger, guilt, or shame. Feeling detached or numb. Irritability and having angry outbursts. Behaving recklessly or in a self-destructive way.

I didn’t care to look through the treatment, because in my mind, that meant I would have to admit the psychiatrist was right. It would mean I was actually sick, that there was something legitimately wrong with me and it wasn’t all in my head. But the part that scared me the most was it meant Josh wouldn’t be able to save me.

~

“You’re burning up, baby.” Josh frets as he feels my forehead with the back of his hand. “Hang on, let me find the thermometer.”

“I’m fine,” I try to reassure him, but I’m fatigued and don’t have the energy to make it convincing. I close my eyes and will the pounding in my head to stop. Josh returns with a thermometer, a glass of water, and Tylenol.

“101.1. We’ll have to watch it. If it gets higher, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to go to the fucking hospital,” I mumble.

“If it gets worse, I’m not giving you a choice. Here.”

I take the pills without too much of a struggle and chug the water before lying back down. “I just need sleep.”

“I know, babe. Get some rest. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.” He kisses my head and leaves me alone to sleep off whatever bug I caught.

My sleep is fitful and plagued with nightmares. Every time I drift off, I end up in the same place – at the front steps of that godforsaken house, in the dark shade of trees I never wanted to see again. Sometimes it’s quiet and empty, abandoned and dilapidated. Other times, I see a light on inside, the ugly yellow lamplight I’d grown to hate. My heart drops when the front door creaks open and she steps out, a bundle of leather straps in her hand. I try to run but my legs won’t move. I’m too weak to fight her off, as if I’m a child again, just trying to survive the wrath of a sick and deluded mother.

A part of me knows I’m dreaming, but everything seems so real. She drags me up the steps and through the front door before everything goes dark. I know we came into the house, but now I don’t know where I am. The cellar, maybe? It’s all very unclear. There are things clawing at me, tearing into my skin; I can’t tell if it’s her or something else, something inhuman. There are things wrapping around my limbs, pulling me in different directions, making my joints burn from the strain. I make another attempt to run, but I stumble and fall, my face hitting the cold, hard ground. I feel the weight of something crawling on top of me, hot breath in my ear, something wet being dragged along my neck, and a boy’s voice that is unknown but somehow familiar…

I’m drenched in sweat when I wake up but still can’t help the shiver that runs down my spine. I can taste blood in my mouth. Everything is spinning and the nausea hits me full force. I jump up and stumble to the bathroom, just in time to empty the meager contents of my stomach into the toilet.

Josh must have heard the noise, and I hear his rushed footsteps approaching. I blindly reach up to flush the toilet and rest my head on my arm. I’m not quite quick enough and I can hear the panic in Josh’s voice. “Fuck, are you throwing up blood?!” He drops to the floor next to me and tries to lift my head.

“I think I just bit my tongue. I’m okay.”

“Jesus, what the hell did you do to your neck? Did you scratch yourself?” He stands to find a washcloth. While he’s holding it under the running water, I reach up to touch the side of my neck, where I can feel three decent sized scratches. My skin burns and there is blood on my hand when I pull away.

Josh gets to work cleaning them up and I sit silently, letting him take care of it. I’m still in a haze, where nothing feels quite real yet. He puts another cool, wet washcloth on the back of my neck and feels my forehead again. “You still feel really warm,” he says. “Finn, I know you don’t want to, but I think you should go see a doctor.”

I groan and shoot him a glare. “Not fucking happening.”

“I’m worried about you,” he whispers.

“Don’t be.” I avoid his eyes as I sit up, moving the cold compress to my forehead, and promptly leaning against the wall. I’m not ready to move yet, much less try to walk anywhere. I can’t even formulate enough of a thought to string together anymore words that make sense. When I try to speak to Josh, my speech is slurred, which only makes him more concerned. The only thing I’m sure of is I don’t want to go back to sleep. I don’t want to go back to that place.

Still, I let josh help me back to the bedroom, once I’m sure I won’t vomit again. He leaves a small trash can next to the bed, though, just in case, and a fresh glass of water on the nightstand. I consider asking him to stay, but I’m vaguely aware that I’m still sweating like a stuck pig and in desperate need of a shower. I also don’t want to give him whatever bug I have, assuming he hasn’t caught it already.

I fight sleep as hard as I can, but I don’t have the energy to win that battle. Over the course of the next two days, I am stuck in this blurry, dream-like state. I’m in and out of consciousness and mostly unable to differentiate between the two. I’m only slightly aware of Josh checking in on me, offering food and medicine. I should be grateful he’s here, putting everything on hold to take care of me, but I find myself wishing I was alone.

The fever does finally break, but I still have no answer for what brought it on in the first place. Josh doesn’t get sick, so whatever it is must not be that contagious. Or maybe I did it to myself. Maybe all the terrible things I’ve done are finally catching up to me, whether it’s karma or some god I don’t believe in.

Even though my body is starting to recover, my mind doesn’t feel right. I think I’m stuck in a dissociative state. It’s like I’m watching from the sidelines, with no real control over myself, but I’m all too heedful about how dangerous this can be, and how dangerous I can be. Josh is still fretting over my well-being, but when I look at him, it feels like I’m looking at a stranger. His home, that should be familiar and comforting, is foreign to me. I don’t really know how to explain it; it’s almost as if that part of my brain that knows him, that loves him, has been disconnected. I want out, but I don’t know how, and it terrifies me that I don’t understand why. I’ve wanted nothing in my entire life as much as I’ve wanted him. I went to rehab for him. And now I feel suffocated. Maybe I just need space, and perhaps I could simply ask him for it, but when have I ever done the simple thing? So I ask him to go to the store to grab me something, and while’s he’s gone, I pack a bag and run.

~

JOSHUA

“C’mon, it’ll be fun. And you need to get out of the house.”

Josh stood in the kitchen, pretending to search his cabinets for something to cook, and sighed at Sam’s insistence. “I can’t. What if Finn-“

“Fuck Finn,” spat Jake. “It’s been three weeks. If he wanted to be here, he would be. You need to stop worrying about someone who can’t even spare you a fucking phone call.” Jake was done pretending, done being civil for Josh’s sake. Too many times he’d watched his brother cry over a guy that wasn’t worth his time.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Way I see it, you have every right to let loose and have a little fun. Hell, go get laid.”

Josh snorted. “I’m not gonna do that.”

“Why not? He probably is.” Sam didn’t mean for his words to sound so insensitive, and guilt washed over him at the look on Josh’s face. “Sorry, that was shitty,” he mumbled.

“I’m just saying, maybe you need to move on from this. He’s not good for you.”

“He’s sick, Jake. It’s not his fault.”

“He’s using it as an excuse to treat you like shit,” Jake scoffed. He stepped closer to Josh when he didn’t respond and placed a hand on his twin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. We’re just worried about you. Whatever the hell Finn’s going through, he’s got to figure it out. You can’t fix him, and you can’t let him drag you down with him.”

Josh mulled over his brothers’ words for days. He was hurting. He felt abandoned and lost. He couldn’t wrap his head around why Finn would just leave; they hadn’t argued, and he’d been doing so good at working to stay sober. But Josh could tell something had been off when his boyfriend fell ill, he just didn’t know what and frankly, was too afraid to address it. He reached a point where he thought he’d be okay if this was really the end of their relationship, but the uncertainty was killing him. He prayed for some type of closure, anything to solidify what he thought was already happening – Josh was losing him.

Thursday marked four weeks since he’d seen or heard from Finn, and Saturday he agreed to tag along to a house party with his brothers. They had pestered him about it until he finally just gave in to the peer pressure. It seemed wrong; he felt guilty for attending a party while Finn was still MIA, but Jake was right. He probably needed to at least think about moving on.

The party was on the other side of town, hosted by one of Daniel’s friends. Most of the attendees were people Josh had never met in his life. He wasn’t even sure what the occasion was, if there was one. There was a big enough turnout that it was difficult to move through the crowd without bumping into someone. The music was loud; partygoers had to practically yell to be heard over it. It reminded him of a stereotypical college frat party. Josh started by cracking into the seemingly endless supply of alcohol, in hopes it would help him relax a little.

He stuck with Jake at first, mingling with a few people and finding his bearings until he felt comfortable enough to wander off on his own. Between the alcohol and the good company, he began to unwind. He got roped into a game of beer pong, which he drastically lost, but more importantly, he was having fun. If nothing else, it was a very welcome distraction from all the pain and stress he’d been suffering of late.

Hours flew by in a flash. Josh found himself actually enjoying the socialization, joking and laughing with some newfound friends. Since Finn had disappeared, he’d been compulsively checking his phone every chance he got, but he hadn’t looked at it in hours. He didn’t even notice it buzzing in his pocket.

It was getting late, the night starting to creep into the hours when most people are in bed. Some of the guests had begun to filter out but there was still a significant crowd. A few of them were passed out in whatever empty spots they could find. Danny and Sam were playing a card game with a few friends when Danny saw something that made him do a double take. He tapped Sam’s leg to get his attention.

“Am I imagining things, or is that Finn?”

Sam scanned the room until he found who his boyfriend was looking at. “Nope, definitely Finn. Did he talk to Josh?”

“How else would he have known where we are?” Daniel frowned. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Sammy.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

The pair excused themselves from their card game and stood to look for Josh. “Shit, where’d he go?” Finn had disappeared from Danny’s view so quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it. They found Jake first and pulled him aside to let him know what they saw.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he swore.

Josh was on the opposite side of the house, drinking and chatting with some newfound friends. At the sight of recognizable red hair in his periphery, his head shot towards it. “What…?” When his eyes met Finn’s, his heart dropped. In a matter of seconds, his confusion and shock turned into anger, and he jumped up to make his way to his boyfriend (or whatever he was now). He didn’t give Finn a chance to speak before he grabbed the taller man’s arm and was practically dragging him to the back patio door.

Most of the guests stayed inside due to the cold weather, so the deck was mostly empty. The air nipped at Josh’s nose and fingers; he’d forgotten to grab his jacket but that was the least of his concerns right now. “Finn, what the fuck are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?” Josh was fighting to keep his voice hushed to not attract the attention of any nosy onlookers.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain everything, but… not here.” He looked around at his surroundings, feeling very uncomfortable about the number of strangers nearby. “Can we go?” He reached out for Josh’s hand, but Josh pulled away.

“No. You don’t get to ghost me for four weeks then come back and call the shots. You tell me now, or you leave.”

“Josh, c’mon. I don’t want to do this here. And you’re drunk. Let’s just-“

Josh cut him off with a scoff. “I’m drunk? I’m not the one with the fucking problem! Don’t pretend like I can’t smell it all over you!”

Finn gritted his teeth. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t understand.”

“Of course I don’t understand, because you won’t talk to me! You’d rather just run away. You’d rather disappear and leave me with no idea where you are, if you’re dead or alive, who you’re fucking.” He choked out the last few words, his emotions getting the better of him. “Do you have any idea what that does to me? How much that hurts?”

He expected Finn to get defensive, to swear up and down that he never cheated, but silence speaks louder than words sometimes, and Josh took a step back. “Seriously?” He dropped his gaze to the ground for a moment, then fixed it back on Finn. If he was going to do this, he was going to look the other man in the eye. “I think we’re done. You should go.”

“You can’t… you can’t just abandon me, Josh. I need you.”

“No, you need help. Help that I can’t give you.”

“Don’t do this. I’ll get better. I can still get better. I just need more time. It won’t happen again, I can-“

“Stop. You say that every time, ya know. And it keeps happening. I can’t keep doing this.” There was a knot tightening up in Josh’s stomach and his chest ached. He hated this feeling; he never wanted to hurt Finn, but he knew it was something he had to do. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Finn. I stayed with you when… when I probably shouldn’t have because I love you. I gave so much to you. But I gave you everything I have, and I don’t have anything left. I need to take care of myself for a little while, okay?”

A multitude of emotions ran through Finn as he processed the other man’s words. It was like a spinning game show wheel and when it finally stopped, the little arrow landed on rage. He didn’t really plan on reacting the way he did, but once he started moving, he couldn’t stop himself.

Neither one of them noticed that Jake, Sam, and Daniel had found them and were making their way outside. So, when Finn’s fist collided with Josh’s jaw, any calmness that was left in the atmosphere completely dissipated. As Josh stumbled backwards, Jake lunged and landed a few blows of his own on Finn. He wasn’t as strong, but he was certainly fast and could do a decent amount of damage. Sam rushed to check on his oldest brother as Daniel tried to wrestle the other two men apart. Some bystanders had begun to file outside to get a better look at what was causing the commotion.

Everything happened so fast, but at the same time, to Josh, it seemed like it was happening in slow motion. He could taste blood in his mouth where his lip split and his jaw was throbbing. His voice cracked as he yelled for them to stop, and his cheeks were wet with salty tears he didn’t even realize were falling. Sam held him back as he tried to get to them, begging them to quit fighting. He didn’t know if he was more worried about Jake or Finn.

Danny managed to separate the two men, and he shoved Finn away to create some distance. He prepared himself to block (or take) some more blows, but they didn’t come. Finn stood back, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He held the back of his hand under his broken and bleeding nose. Jake, still livid, made a move to close the breadth between them again, but was held back by Danny. He was sporting what would eventually be a black eye and his knuckles were bruised and cut open. Finn looked between the two in front of him, Sam behind them, and realized he was outnumbered.

Josh was suddenly all too aware of the group of partygoers that were staring at them like it was some kind of free show. “Jake?”

Jake hesitated, not wanting to take his eyes off of Finn, but slowly turned to face his twin. Noticing Josh’s injury had him seeing red all over again. His base instinct was to go after Finn for a second time, to keep hitting him until he was sure he wouldn’t get back up, but the look on Josh’s face kept him still. It was a silent question, a plea: Can we go home?

He glared back at the redheaded man, mostly for good measure. “You ever touch my brother again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Finn spat blood out of his mouth. “This is your fault, Josh. You did this.”

Sighing, Josh answered quietly, “No, you did this to yourself. I hope you can get some help.” He didn’t wait for a response before turning and walking away, his brothers close behind.

He wasn’t interested in going home; he wanted to be with his brother, where he felt safe. He also figured Finn would return sooner or later to get his belongings that he left at Josh’s house.

The car ride back to Jake’s was quiet, save for the music coming through the speakers. When the four of them entered the house, Kya was on the couch. “Hey, you guys are back early. What… holy shit, what happened?” She took in the twins separate wounds and bruises and frantically stood.

“Finn happened,” grumbled Jake, walking past her and into the kitchen.

Josh offered her a sad smile. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s over.”

Jake returned with an ice pack and shooed Josh into the downstairs bathroom.

“What about your hands?” Josh asked as he sat on the toilet lid and held the ice pack on his jaw.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of it after.” He got to work cleaning Josh’s busted lip and applied some antibiotic ointment. The silence was unsettling; it was never like Josh to be this quiet. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just… I feel so stupid.”

Jake sighed and leaned up against the countertop, crossing his arms. “It’s not your fault. And don’t let him make you think it is.”

“I knew he wasn’t good for me. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I had the balls to leave the first time.”

As Jake registered the words, he stared at Josh, face painted with concern and anger. “The first time? He’s hit you before?”

Josh kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke. “He’s never decked me like this, but he… yeah.” He hadn’t wanted anyone to know what really happened. In truth, he was humiliated for letting it get to this point. But he’d resigned himself to the fact he couldn’t hide it from Jake anymore. He briefly recounted what really happened when he hurt his arm, and the incident before he went to New York, along with a few others he had swept under the rug in hopes that if he pretended they didn’t happen, they would just go away. “Don’t tell mom, please. She’s gonna ask why we broke up. I don’t want her to worry.”

Jake silently agreed, not really knowing the right words to say. He knew nothing he said would change anything. The only thing he could do was be a steady hand for his twin to hold onto while he healed, physically and mentally, however long that took. Jake wrapped his arms around him and held Josh’s head as the sheer anguish the older twin felt hit him like a freight train, and he was no longer able to hold back his violent sobs.

~

I’m sitting in my car, pulled off to the side of a dark, empty roadway. My knuckles ache and my nose is definitely broken, so clogged with dried blood that I can’t breathe out of it. I don’t know what compelled me to hit him like that. I’m disgusted with myself. I never wanted to turn into this person, this worthless, poor fucking excuse for a man. I never wanted to turn into them, into the very people I hate. When I was old enough to understand it, I made a promise to myself that I would break the cycle, but clearly, I already failed.

I put all my energy into wishing I had been better for him, that I had taken care of him like he deserves instead of hurting him. I tell myself I would have done things differently if I could do it all over again, but I don’t know if that’s true. I see his face every time I close my eyes, and the way he looked at me. He will never trust me again.

I check the tracker app on my phone. No data found. He must have figured it out and deleted it. With a frustrated scream, I throw my phone against the dashboard so hard it breaks. I ignore the shooting pain in my hands as I slam them on the steering wheel. I tried so hard to love him. Why did he have to throw it in my face like that? I know I fucked up, but he has to know that I only did those things because he drove me to. And setting his brother on me? That was a low blow. Things could have been different, if he’d been strong enough.

No, that’s not right. I know this isn’t his fault, and I’ve never been able to comprehend why I keep trying to convince myself otherwise. I’m suddenly short of breath; it feels like something is squeezing the shit out of my lungs. My vision blurs and my fingertips are going numb. I think, for a moment, that I’m having a heart attack, and maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. I can’t feel guilty if I’m dead. I can’t hurt him if I’m gone. I lean back and close my eyes, begging my heart to simply stop beating. It doesn’t, of course. It’s just a panic attack, and it eventually fades, when my brain physically cannot handle being in emergency mode anymore.

///

I stay in this spot all night, in the dark, freezing Tennessee winter. I’ll pass out at some point, and will sleep it off, the only thought in my mind – I’m not ready to let him go.

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[goodluckclove]

On the Autonomy of Character (Or: How I Fucked Up and am Now Fucked)

Hi! It's me. It's Clove Gardener, the writer who was diagnosed as schizoaffective at age 12 but 15 years later was informed that they would've likely been entirely neurodivergent if not for the severe C-PTSD that those doctors in their childhood missed at the time. Oops. Turns out I just have a big imagination, and that's going to come across strong in what I have to talk about today.

I'm a big proponent of character autonomy in writing - always have been, always will be. I don't outline more than a loose conception of what I'd like to happen, but as I say that I know there's a chance that i might not. Because what I hold highest in my work is my sense of character, which often results in my characters being the ones that get to control what actually happens.

I hear a lot of writers allude to this in posts on here, but they don't go into detail. I'm going to try and explain what that means to me in an attempt to make the process make more sense to writers who prefer a bit more control and structure.

(edit: this is a ramble be warned)

For the most part it's not too obtrusive. I'll use my novel Blind Trust (E-Book available now, paperback hopefully coming out next week) as an example. There's a point in writing it that Edgar, our befuddled initial narrator, learned some information that would really come as as a shock to his love interest Scott.

Well, okay, I mused as I wrote it, he would want this to be a secret. I'll have to navigate that.

Counter to that thought, Edgar ended up telling Scott immediately. Literally, as soon as the two of them were alone. Because by then, even though I knew it would make more thematic sense, I had enough of a grasp on Edgar's character to know that he would not be able to keep this to himself.

That's usually what it looks like. Small ripples that change the current, but ultimately keep the boat riding easily. Then, a solid 100k into the sequel Migration Patterns (Also I just realized I hit 100k yay me), my cast made the biggest executive decision of the story so far.

Let me explain. Where I'm at right now, Katy Delaney and her brother are in Nebraska, and they have to drive a few states over to Oregon. The problem is that Katy is currently having her brother's house patrolled constantly by guards from Stillrush Outreach Center, the closest witch town. This includes three birthrights, one of which being Fern, a deaf ex-Navy Seal.

So that was my problem. These guards are tasked specifically to keep Katy safe, meaning they aren't going to want her to fuck off for no good reason. She needed to escape, right? That's what I thought. That's what Katy and her brother thought too. So after some brainstorming with my wife I ended up devising a ploy for them to fake a fire that would allow them to escape in the following chaos.

Here's the thing, though - and this really centers on the fact that Fern is causing me a lot more trouble than I expected for a character that was meant to be a one-off escort. The plan was to make enough smoke in a trash can fire to trigger the alarm and call a truck - but of course the guards would see it too.

Two Academic witches don't pose too much of an inconvenience - they're rule followers, they know to wait for authority. Even the two less-experienced birthrights would wait for orders before trying anything. Fern, though. Jesus Christ. Fern had years of training and an immense knight's complex, so before the firetruck even had a chance to get there they burst through the front window in case she needed to be rescued.

I didn't plan for this, but it made sense. Birthrights aren't typically bad people - they aren't all perfect, but birthright magic is typically used in the name of either social services or community good. So if someone needs help, a birthright helps - it's just a part of the culture. It definitely clashed with my plans to have Katy escape and get on the road.

And it also immediately made Katy feel like a total asshole, because of course it did. She typically gets itchy and uncomfortable around shows of heroism and goodness, even though at her core he is very much a good person. So now Clove, the writer wants Katy to book it and go on a fun road trip with her brother. But Katy Delaney sees someone who got hurt trying to save her from a danger that she made up, and she immediately thinks "well fuck, now i have to help".

So she helps Fern out of the house, and once they get themselves patched up and Katy meekly explains the weird prank and the situation it was trying to solve (Trying to keep the spoilers at a minimum), Fern is silent for a long time. Then they make a very simple conclusion.

I'm coming with you, they say.

Now Clove, the writer, the one who brought these people into existence, is like "NO. I DID NOT PLAN FOR THIS. I HAVE TO WRITE TWO MORE BOOKS AND YOU WERE NOT GOING TO BE IN THEM, FERN. WHERE DO YOU GO NOW? YOU'RE JUST GOING TO OREGON?"

But Katy feels guilty. Katy feels tired. Katy's very disorientated by how much she's suddenly feeling.

"I DO NOT THINK YOU'LL LIKE IT IN BLUEROSE, FERN," Clove, the writer, tries to insist. "I DON'T THINK THE PEOPLE IN BLUEROSE WILL LIKE THAT YOU HAVE A GUN AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT, FERN."

But Fern feels obligated to Katy. Maybe she reminds them of someone they used to know. Someone that they failed in the past and refuse to fail again.

"I DID NOT PLAN FOR GUN-TOUTING WITCHES TO BE THIS BIG A PLOT ELEMENT IN MY COMFORT-CORE ASEXUAL FANTASY SERIES, FERN," Clove wails inside their head.

It's too late, though. Clove is weaker than Fern and as much of a bleeding-heart as Katy insists she isn't. Katy agrees, and now I have two and a half books that now must at least make reference to an ex-military witch who's quick with a gun and canonically loves ska.

I don't have an inspirational ending for this. I truly don't. I'm gonna do it, because I know it's what the characters would do, and shoving them in a mold that does not fit just to appease my false sense of ego would turn storytelling into masturbation.

So yeah, guys. Fern is here. They don't have a first or a last name or any real appearance other than tall and I think tattooed, but fuck it. Fuck it. Whatever, guys. You win.

[dorianbrightmusic]

Since the lovely @river-neurodivergent-willow asked about the definition of trauma in the DSM-5, here I am with a big ol' block of text for you all

So the question I'm responding to is:

That's very kind of you to explain thank you. I am confused wouldn't things like when a person witnesses death, or is involved in death, witnesses like a very bad car crash or things like witnessing something be something PTSD can be diagnosed? I thought witnessing does count for DSM does it not? And also things like someone just their like partner dying or their loved one dying is that not traumatic count in DSM? Sorry if this is too many questions I don't know much about this but you know a lot! You don't have to answer!

River and Willow you're really sweet. It is absolutely no trouble to answer.

Disclaimer: I am not a clinical psychologist. My main qualifications are a) I'm halfway through a psychology degree, and b) I own a copy of the DSM-5-TR and have it open right in front of me.

So – the trauma in PTSD criterion A doesn’t have to be something you’ve experienced firsthand! Trauma is, in DSM terms, something you can be exposed to in one of four different ways. First, direct experience. Second, witnessing the event in person (e.g. seeing someone else in a car crash). Third, leaning that a close family  member or close friend was involved in a traumatic event. If this traumatic event was actual/threatened death, this has to be due to violence or an accident… so, apparently, having your parent be stabbed is traumatic, but having them unexpectedly die of cancer isn’t. And finally, being repeatedly or intensely exposed to trauma details (the DSM provides the example of ‘first responders collecting human remains’).

(Warning: trauma dump ahead, with mentions of parental death, neurodegenerative disease, surgical complications, and brain injuries. Skip this paragraph if this is triggering.)

Whether ‘loved one or partner dying’ counts as traumatic in DSM terms apparently hinges on ‘was it violence or an accident’. I think this is a pretty weird distinction, especially since ‘accidental’ is a weird term.  For example, when my grandfather had his oesophagus removed, the surgery went wrong, causing a hypoxic brain injury that led to his death three weeks later. I’ve seen my mother’s reaction to this – it was clearly a VERY traumatic event – and I’m fairly sure it counts as ‘accidental’. On the other hand, my father’s youngest brother also died unexpectedly – he had a heart attack, and was gone very quickly. And I don’t know if this is accidental in the DSM sense. But the thing is, even if my father doesn’t seem traumatised by this, I don’t see how a sudden death in a hospital is necessarily ‘more traumatic’ than a sudden death at home. Both are still devastating in different ways. Moreover, I do not like the fact that the DSM-5 definition, by nature, excludes certain deaths by disease. While it is true that death is a natural part of life, it could be pretty damn traumatic to watch a relative die an excruciating death by cancer. Likewise, I have a friend whose father died of Huntington’s Disease… yeah, I can’t imagine how that could have not been traumatic. 

In DSM-5-TR, if you’re having an intense and prolonged reaction to a loved one’s death, and this bereavement results in a psychological wellbeing decline that gets in the way of life, school, work, and/or family, it might be classified as Prolonged Grief Disorder. Technically, Prolonged Grief Disorder is in the ‘trauma and stressor-related disorders’ chapter. I think that some of the overlap between PTSD symptoms and Prolong Grief Disorder symptoms is… interesting. For example:

Prolonged Grief Disorder Criterion C3: ‘Avoidance of reminders that the person is dead (in children and adolescents, may be characterised by efforts to avoid reminders’… vs PTSD Criterion C2: ‘Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders[…] that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s)’.

Prolonged Grief Disorder Criterion C6: ‘Emotional numbness (absence or marked reduction of emotional experience) as a result of the death’… vs PTSD Criterion C7: ‘Persistent inability to experience positive emotions’ (i’m aware there’s a difference with the persistent negative feeling of PTSD as opposed to the persistent numbness of prolonged grief, buttttt)

I don’t wanna say they’re the same disorder, as there are some significant differences, but I also think that the DSM-5’s arbitrary definition of what constitutes a traumatic death seems limited. If someone is showing PTSD symptoms in response to a relative’s nonviolent, nonaccidental death, then Prolonged Grief ain’t gonna fit, but it also still isn’t officially PTSD. Officially, the DSM-5 says that if PTSD symptoms occur in response to something that isn’t ‘traumatic’ (e.g. a parent dying nonviolently and non-suddenly), then that’s Adjustment Disorder. However, Adjustment Disorder is basically a catch-all term for ‘you are doing badly because of a stressor, but let’s not call it trauma’. I would argue that this is a really stupid diagnostic  distinction, since if you have PTSD symptoms, surely it’s better to diagnose PTSD instead of ‘not sick enough, so less specific diagnosis that functionally is almost never used outside of crisis scenarios anyway’?

So: in conclusion, a loved one dying is always considered a massive stressor by DSM-5 standards… but not necessarily traumatic unless it meets some (slightly arbitrary) criteria. 

Hope this is useful! Please lemme know if you have more questions – I seriously love looking into these things and sharing this kind of information.

[ohanny]

more of anny's pit babe season 2 plans that'll never come true

so before i go full delulu let's set up a basic premise of belief i have for season 2:

tony is dead-dead. we will see him but only in flashbacks or as a hallucination because lord knows he has fucked with our boys enough to do some ptsd ghost fuckery.

way is fake dead. he has the perfect power to make it believable and come on, what's one more fake death in this show? like he totally thought he would die but when he didn't, he was disappointed and thought a clean break would still be better for everyone and then, with nothing to lose, started a bit of a rampage but more on that later.

anyway. this would mean the second season needs a villain and while way will definitely be in that mix… we still need actual evil. now, if i was in charge, i would pick the prosecutor. even better if the prosecutor was a woman. because someone had to be in charge of handling the mess of tony’s deeds and the prison trio and oooh, a state prosecutor would be so tasty, because hear me out:

tony had his greedy, criminal fingers everywhere. he had to. he bribed and he did business - both regular crime and selling kids crime - with all kinds of people, including high up government officials. see our boy way would go on a shadowy mission to destroy and expose tony’s network, using his powers left and right to make people admit to their part in the atrocities. this would quickly become a huge problem to all those politicians, law enforcers and justice department members who were very happy to just sweep the entire mess under the carpet.

which is why the prosecutor, a bit corrupt herself, would use her power to get kenta, winner and dean out of prison on the condition they would hunt down way. they worked with him, right? considered him family? they know how he operates and not only are they expendable, but they're very willing to do her bidding for the price of freedom and clean records. (having their prosecutor show up in the prison yard would also explain those looks dundunduu.)

and this is where it would get spicy.

pete would have also been suspicious of way’s death from the start and after certain people connected to tony start ruining their own lives seemingly out of nowhere, he becomes convinced way is out there and starts looking.

the prosecutor tells the trio this is all about locating way and then the police would handle the rest but it becomes obvious - at least to kenta - not all of them got the same memo.

pete and the prosecutor having a tense, overly polite meeting where a handshake immediately sets pete on edge. he seeks out kenta afterwards, only to find out he doesn't need to convince his brother of anything because kenta looks at pete and says “she's plans to have winner kill way before he can talk.”

the prosecutor absolutely playing into babe’s trauma, creating a rift between some of the x-hunter members. imagine her holding his hands and looking him in the eye while softly confessing she believes way is doing all of this for babe, to win babe back, fueling his paranoia and ptsd and taking advantage of that vulnerability to manipulate him.

both charlie and kim smell a rat when they look at the prosecutor - charlie hates the way she speaks to babe and kim has a nose for this kind of thing. but since charlie is busy taking care of babe and keeping the hag away from him, kim volunteers to do the actual sniffing which would relate to my earlier season 2 hc about how kim ends up somewhat reluctantly teaming up with the prison trio and reporting to pete.

so the entire season two would be like a cat and mouse game between self-destructive, unhinged way, team lover boys and the corrupt claw of the law featuring babe’s fractured mental health, charlie’s guilt about causing it and if we want some added conflict between alan and jeff, well... i could see alan, busy trying to keep his family and the garage together, blindly trusting the law and jeff thinking he's being naive and feeling his concerns are being dismissed. and boom, you have all the drama and action you could hope for!

additional things i wouldn't mind seeing:

i know everyone raves about the northsonickim trifecta BUT jeff and north unexpectedly bonding as the two omegas. like jeff saving / stopping north from doing something stupid because north is shit wasted and heartbroken and all alone because sonic left and now kim’s ditched him as well. or have one of them go into a heat with the other being the only one present because everyone else is too busy playing detective or pretending there is no problem.

kim and pete sharing screen time. kim being cagey about pete’s powers and pete being curious about kim’s motives. the sexual tension of these two circling each other while discussing kenta!

winner and dean hate fucking and, once they're done, laying side by side, smoking and talking about their future. dean talks about getting ordained to pay for his sins. winner having a moment of guilt because dean still thinks he's doing the right thing here and this will help way.

jeff trying to seduce alan but alan falling asleep on him for the sheer comedic audacity.

that grave reunion being episode 10 aka the one before shit truly goes down. sonics back, it's a good day, but pete knows way is close by, winner is stalking the grave site with a gun, way is in the bushes...

[officeshelpdesk]

It's 10 am, my stomach hurts, and I'm mad about the police!

Y'all ever hear of Ryan Wingo? Because I sure hadn't a couple of hours ago but holy shit do I hate this pig now

This is Ryan Wingo, we will talk about when this photo was taken a little bit later. Ryan Wingo has worked for the Arkansas State Police for around 7 years. A more impartial writer would describe his career as controversial. As I am not impartial, Ryan Wingo is an itty bitty bitch baby who gets off on abusing his power and harassing people!

Let's do a timeline of 3 separate stories!

In 2020, Arkansas Attorney Don Cook was at the Arkansas capitol for a BLM protest shortly after the death of George Floyd. The Arkansas state troopers had been called in by the government for crowd control, including one Ryan Wingo. The crowd of protesters was ordered by the troopers to disperse; many, including Mr. Cook, followed this order.

As Cook was walking away (according to a lawsuit Cook has filed) Ryan Wingo fired a bean bag at him. Cook then required emergency surgery to get parts of the bean bag removed from him, two other surgeries, and suffered injury to his jaw, teeth, and face.

Afterwards, Arkansas police filed an affidavit, in which they alleged that Cook walked towards the police with his fists clenched in a "threatening way". A great sign that this affidavit is not accurate to the actual events that occur is that they describe Cook as wearing an outfit that video shows he was not wearing that night.

However, importantly, this affidavit was filed a year after the incident. Cook went home from the hospital a free man, where he filed a complaint to get the state to cover some of his medical bills.

As the Arkansas times puts it:

All of this because Ryan Wingo's a dickhead

In 2021, we get another Wingo story that is partially morally grey.

On June 2nd 2021, Timothy Andrew Kemp was riding a motorcycle on U.S 70 when Ryan Wingo attempted to pull him over, Kemp refused to do this, resulting in a chase. Kemp was eventually cornered, and ran into a wooded area.

It is important to note that Arkansas State troopers are not required to wear bodycams, and I've been unable to find dashcam footage of the incident.

However the state and Wingo allege that Wingo chased Kemp into the woods, Wingo attempted to tase Kemp but ended up somehow tasing himself.

Michelle Lawrence, a county prosecutor who cleared Wingo of any wrongdoing in the incident said of the dashcam footage "you could hear what was going on from the car video. They were that close to the car. Actually, not that close, but you could hear what was going on, you could hear the entire struggle from the car. It was a very lengthy struggle. We timed it and it was a little over three minutes."

Wingo then apparently said "give me my gun" to Kemp soon before shooting him to death.

Finally, we have an incident that happened last year, where Wingo was driving along the highway when a car going in the opposite direction sped past him. Wingo attempted to make a U-turn without any indication. Charles Donner, who was driving a ways behind him, honked his horn, which caused Wingo to give up on chasing the speeding vehicle, turn his lights on, and pull over Donner.

Donner pulled into the right lane of the road, slowly coming to a stop, and Wingo proceeded to crash his patrol car into the back of Donners. He then told Donner and his wife Brittany to pull into an empty parking lot.

Wingo explained that he pulled them over because Donner was riding the patrol car too close (in car camera footage shows this to be false) and because Donner brake checked Wingo (dashcam footage shows this to also be false). Donner, a military veteran with PTSD, then rightly told Wingo repeatedly to go fuck himself while complying with Wingos traffic stop.

But then hearing the word fuck hurt wingos feewings :( so he proceeded to drag Donner out of his car, cuff him, and drag him to the back of his patrol car.

Now the best part about the dashcam video is that Wingo called for back up, and the back up proceeds to explain to Donner what he did wrong after Wingo tells them his version of events. Donner explains that that's not what happened, that he and his wife both agree that that's not what happened, and the back up refuse to listen to him.

Donner was not arrested, but he was given a citation. Donner and his wife are now suing on the grounds of violation of civil rights

This incident is where we get the lovely little photo of Wingo.

Ryan Wingo is a dangerous man who should not be given any power, as all cops are.

As of right now Wingo still has his job, and a little over a thousand people have signed a petition asking for his termination (which probably will not happen)

[joelsbloodyhands]

My Dialogue While Playing TLOU Part One 🚀

(Spending a long time in Sarah’s room at the beginning)

Me: *reading the title of her books and cds, looking at her photos, opens bday card for Joel, cries at the giraffe* You know if we just stay here then nothing bad will happen. Right? 🤗

(Ellie meeting Bill for the first time)

Me: Don’t mind him. He’s just a grumpy gay with commitment issues.

(Bill leading Ellie and Joel through the church to the window)

Me: You know “fireflies, this” and “fireflies, that”. How many places have we been to that could be potential homes, Joel? Father that child already! 😤

Bill: Well, if you’ve got anything to confess, this’d be the place to do it.

Me: *knows what’s going to happen later* Joel, we may need to detour back here later 👀

(Getting split up from Henry and Ellie)

Henry: Take care of my brother!

Me: Protect my daughter with your life or you’re toast, buddy! *killing all the Stalkers while wondering if Ellie knows what toast actually is* 🤔

(Ellie lifting her hand for a high five)

Me: *clicks the prompt button so he delivers the high five* Not about to swerve or I’m throwing you in this ravine, old man 🤨

(Looking for Ellie who has stabbed the shit out of David)

Joel: (just woke up from death slumber) Where is she?

Me: Where is my sweet baby child? 😖 (knows very well where she is) 🙄

Joel: *sees the bodies* Oh god, I gotta find her.

Me: We will, babe. I swear! Maybe if we just talk to ‘em, explain the sich, they’ll hand her back *starts crafting Molotovs* ☺️

(Ellie traumatised by what happened with David)

Joel: (has just mentioned teaching her to play guitar) Ellie, I’m talking to you.

Ellie: (experiencing ptsd) Oh yeah, that sounds great.

Me: Joel, I think we need to go back. I forgot to piss on David’s corpse 😑

(Ellie and Joel walking around the bus depot)

Ellie: I dreamt about flying last night.

Joel: Oh yeah? Tell me about it.

Me: 😭😭😭 *cries for the hundredth time*

Joel: *keeps calling her kiddo*

Me: My heart is gonna collapse if you keep doing that.

Joel: Come on, kiddo.

Me: *proceeds to keyboard smash*

(Ellie and Joel finding the giraffes)

Me: (starts crying, no really and proceeds to sit there with the cute music playing to let my faves watch the giraffes together because the world did in fact end but then Joel softened towards Ellie. They retraced their steps went back to Jackson, the fireflies fucked right off and died of natural causes, no surgeons were murdered meaning this action will not have consequences, everyone lived happily ever after and lived to an old age, especially Joel. Ahem. Turns off pc. Sighs happily).

(Joel killing all the fireflies in the hospital)

Me: You know some would call this murder but I call it intent to cause harm and those two things are most definitely not the same *throws 3 nail bombs* 😁

(After killing the main surgeon)

Me: *listens to the other two surgeons plead for their lives* Huh? I wonder *shoots the first one causing the other one to slide down to the ground in fear*

Surgeon: Please. I don’t want to die.

Me: *shoots them as well* I’m not the accessory to murder here. You are. Attempted murder anyway *picking up Ellie* let’s go Babygirl 🥰

[magicdashworkss]

The motif of Luke wearing a glove in shows like "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," despite the time that has passed since the events of the original trilogy, may suggest that in the canonical version of the story, Luke never fully worked through the trauma of losing his hand.

In the canonical world, the lack of a close person who could be a source of strength, understanding, and support for him in overcoming this identity crisis, may indeed explain why Luke still wears that glove, as if he could never fully come to terms with it. It suggests that his loneliness and lack of a loving bond prevented him from completely processing this trauma.

The impact of unresolved trauma on Luke's psyche and attitude, especially in later events depicted in the sequels such as "The Last Jedi," has psychological grounds:

PTSD after the events on Bespin The fact that Luke went through such a traumatic experience of losing his hand and the confrontation with Vader, who turned out to be his father, could undoubtedly have caused him to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Losing a limb often leads to this kind of disorder. Luke likely did not receive professional help in overcoming the effects of this trauma either.

Impact of long-term PTSD Unprocessed PTSD can have a devastating impact on a person's psyche and personality, even if outwardly they achieve success. Symptoms such as emotional numbness, irritability, feelings of isolation, anxiety attacks, or even suicidal thoughts are characteristic. This could have led to Luke's bitterness, pessimism, and withdrawal noticed in "The Last Jedi."

Symbolism of the bionic hand in "The Last Jedi" The fact that in the sequels Luke's hand appears to be just a bionic skeleton may actually represent how much this trauma disfigured his psyche and personality. The outward disfigurement became a metaphor for the inner maiming caused by the terrifying events on Bespin.

Lack of a supportive environment In the canonical version, he was very much alone - he lost his mentor Yoda and initially didn't know about his sister's existence. The lack of close people who could help him made it much harder to process this trauma.

I have a feeling that Luke's unresolved trauma after Bespin, as well as his loneliness, contributed to shaping his bitter, pessimistic, and isolated demeanor in "The Last Jedi." This is completely justified and has solid psychological grounding.

Traumatic experiences, especially ones like losing a limb, can have long-lasting effects if they are not properly processed. In summary, it seems that my analysis shows an excellent understanding of the mechanisms of the human psyche in the context of experiencing trauma, and very accurately links them to Luke's stance and fate in later events.

An in-depth analysis of such factors is an immense asset in creating a complete and believable portrayal of characters who often go through unimaginable experiences, but also lose a part of themselves in the process - an element that may never return. In Luke's case, a hero beloved by generations of fans, this may have happened because trauma leaves a scar, and if left unhealed, that scar can become an unbearable burden.

I know I disliked "The Last Jedi," but many years after its release, I'm trying to understand what could have happened that made Luke not the character we fell in love with at the end of "Return of the Jedi." I've tried to connect the facts, understand the nature of trauma, and view the world through the lens of empathy.

@Magicdashworkss

[anti-dazai-blog]

26-29- Ango’s epic plot armor (and other complaints)

————————————

Welcome back to the Anti-Dazai Series! I think I should just acknowledge that I have no posting schedule at this point. But the Anti-Dazai Series isn’t discontinued— it’s just taking me longer to create than I was hoping it would. Anyway. Onto a rundown of Dazai Crimes™ in these next four chapters.

————————————

When we last left off, Dazai said he now will get the government involved in this conflict. I sure hope he does this in a normal sensible way, like by explaining what’s going on to them and requesting backup, and not in a Dazai Way, which will most likely endanger people’s lives.

We now return to our protagonist, Atsushi.

After getting scolded (and slapped) by Dazai after the Q incident, Atsushi decides to stay in the agency’s headquarters rather than to go out and risk messing things up again. Kouyou is still being held there, and she asks if he’s here because he “commit[ed] some error that made [him] scamper away from the front lines.” 

Upon hearing that question, he makes a face indicating that she’s right, and when she questions him further, he says “I… I was just trying to protect them all…” while having flashbacks to Naomi and Haruno being injured post-Q fight last chapter. 

If Dazai had chosen something better to say other than “get over it” [the exact quote was mentioned in part 20-25, but it was something similar enough to that], Atsushi wouldn’t be feeling so useless right now. Because he did try his best, and there was nothing he could have done to avoid that outcome. The only person who can do anything about Q’s ability is Dazai, and Dazai was not there with Atsushi at the time to stop it from happening.

Of course, I’m into blaming him for not being there, but I am blaming him for not properly comforting Atsushi. The “tough love” approach clearly failed with Akutagawa, and even though he’s being a lot nicer to Atsushi, in that last Q scene we see him somewhat slip into a tough love approach again. And we see in this chapter that Atsushi is not handling it well, and is taking it quite hard.

Now back to Dazai. Let’s see how his government negotiations are going. 

Seems like he’s meeting with his old friend Ango. I sure hope this doesn’t turn violent..—nope, he’s now pointing a gun at him unprovoked. 

Well at least it can’t get any worse— ah wow it got worse. Dazai just staged a car crash. There is absolutely no way Ango survives this. 

I’m gonna do something I’ve never done before on the Anti-Dazai Series and include a screenshot of the manga, because the amount of plot armor Ango will need to survive this is. a whole lot. I’d really like to elaborate on this scene, but I’m too busy being amazed that Ango survives this.

There is absolutely no way Ango survived that. If BSD didn’t use anime physics, Ango would be very, very dead.

There is a lack of Dazai for a bit, as Kyoka gets captured by the police, Q gets captured by Lovecraft, and Nathaniel abandons the Guild, pushing Francis to speed up their plan of attack. 

But Dazai returns just in time for the Q incident (the actual Q incident, not just a mini fight by the train station). Which is good, ‘cause he’s exactly the guy we need. 

But of course, Dazai can’t handle a city-wide crisis without messing with people first, so when Kunikida approaches him asking about what this mysterious hand-shaped mark that appeared on him is, rather than tying him down to an infirmary bed and sedating him, he chains him up to a chair and simply watches as he has the magical equivalent of PTSD flashbacks [if I’m interpreting these panels correctly]. It is later revealed that not only did Dazai sit around and watch, but he filmed Kunikida for entertainment. I’ll get back to that later, once it’s mentioned in the manga, but keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, Atsushi is fighting for his life out there. With the help of Lucy, Atsushi escapes ((ALSO. It’s really not mentioned enough, but Lucy was the one who originally came up with the idea of the mafia and agency working together to take down the Guild. I’m pretty sure the anime changed it so that it was Atsushi’s idea, but in the manga Lucy suggests it to Atsushi in this scene. I think she deserves more credit than we give her. She’s a pretty cool character.))

Atsushi makes it to the ground safely, and now has the epic quest ahead of him of delivering Q’s doll to Dazai. Unfortunately, Mark is still shooting at him, and manages to hit him, shattering both of his legs . As Atsushi lies on the ground,with two broken legs, reaching for the doll, Dazai spawns out of nowhere and grabs it. Then he reveals that he set up a smoke screen beforehand, and he activates it now.

Sure, it would have been a lot more convenient if he activated it before Atsushi’s legs got shattered, but whatever. What can you expect from this guy, other than this. 

And that’s it for this week’s chapter of the Anti-Dazai Series!! Join me next time when I’ll probably have enough content to stop grouping multiple chapters together like this, because I wanted to include chapter 30 in this entry too, but I scrolled through it and every other panel was Dazai, so I was like “nope! That’s way too much work for today!” and decided that that’ll be a problem for another day.

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

You’re welcome for the asks, got some more for you :)

1: do they give each other piggy back rides?

2: how often do they hang out besides at school? Everyday, once a week, etc

3: when Jake performs a wedgie on a goon does he pull the waistband up or pulls the part of the underwear underneath the butt up? Also I can see him pulling the underwear down causing Chris to cover his eyes XD

4: do they plus mar’i have any mental issues besides PTSD? Like OCD, autism, etc…

5: what was Chris’s relationship like with Jon & Kon when he first joined the family?

6: what’s their favorite thing to do in December?

1. Oh most certainly they will, especially after long missions and patrol nights should either of them be exhausted. Despite Jake’s insistence and the few exceptions he’s been able to, majority of the time, Chris is the one carrying Jake like that. Jake doesn’t mind it too much though, he’s quite used to it and if anything it’s as comfortable as when his Big Sis and Uncle Tim(my) piggyback carry him

2. About Every Once a week, mainly at their respective central city parks if crime rates are relatively slow or maybe even if they have their allowances saved up, at their local theme park packed with massive roller coasters, arcade games and snack stalls. Usually they go there for testing new dares in said roller coasters or if new rides are built and open. Plus also, numerous ride photos they post later online because it’s always fun to look out how much either they freak out or even not when in a coaster train going at 75 mph down 189 ft.

3. He always aims for the waistband as he has the strength to successfully lift the crook with even a single arm without any fabric being ripped apart. Plus while that sounds funny, even Jake knows a bit better than going that far with pantsing crooks. That’s more or less actually something Lian as Speedy would do with her arrows, courtesy of being trained be her dad.

4. As explained, Chris can reasonably be diagnosed with C-PTSD and Anxiety Disorder due to his past with his birth Father and all the horrors he had bare witnessed to even prior to meeting Clark.

Now as for Mar’i, she herself has so far not displayed major symptoms of mental disorders but is nonetheless researching on the subject so she can properly understand to the best of her abilities how it works and what are the best treatments when those conditions are active, so that she can be a comforting presence for a prison suffering a mental breakdown.

Then there’s Jake. Prior to his duel with Zsasz, he already exhibited some symptoms of social anxiety, especially prominent almost every single start of a school year which has new teachers, new potential classmates to meet, new expectations and an overall feeling of a differing crowds to try blending into from before, making it difficult for him to feel like he fits in.

Post Zsasz, though no doubt he exhibits symptoms of PTSD, haunted in his mind more so by the gruesome marks and wounds those poor orphans in that orphanage he investigate were left in, no doubt in his mind in betting that they actively suffered being their lives end. The fact many of those slain orphans were around his age range with 8 years at youngest and 12 at oldest, he feels a sense of survivor’s guilt and shame in that he feels he could’ve saved them had he only known. Couple that with how sadistic, cruel and diabolical Zsasz himself was in their duel with each thrust, swipe and twisting of that blade onto his then powerless self at that very duel, he perfectly then understood what those orphans had felt and likely would’ve died the same exact way had it not been for the timely intervention of his allies that moment (whether it be Chris in the revised version or his family in the original version as seen in my fic ‘Broken Wings’).

5. With Jon, the then 4 year old was curious and quickly ecstatic of having a big brother to be around, like having a brand new friend. Chris was very first was a tad nervous around Jon, afraid to hurt or scare him away with his background and where he came from. But over the course of the first few weeks of staying over, Chris started clicking with Jon all too easily as they bonded with numerous brotherly things they did together, helped along by Clark being there for the both.

Then there’s Conner, who first emerged at least in the timeline around when Chris and Jon were 7 and 5 respectively in the aftermath of the emergence and defeat of Doomsday (Clark himself actually survived this encounter but he was left in critical condition and taken to a hospital. However the press had claimed of Superman being killed in the process and Clark had lost his powers for a good while. It was in the period between this Doomsday encounter and Clark’s powers being restored did Conner, Steel, Eradicator and Cyborg Superman arise to fill in for his role).

Conner had thought of Chris like someone that embodies the awkward nature of his relationship with Clark, in that Clark was so quick to take in this unrelated child yet with him there seems being some sort of rift from the get go. Conner can understand where that rift comes from but it still annoyed him a bit. He didn’t wanna break Chris and Jon’s hearts though so he accepts looking over them whenever Clark, Lois and Kara were extra busy.

During these times they stay with him, mainly at Martha and Pa’s place at Smallville, he finds a sort of kinship with the boys. The fact they look up to him as a big superhero and are awe of his own tales of hero work while being all the cool certainly helps. Sure he twitches every time they refer to him as ‘Superboy’ instead of ‘Superman’ but it’s the thought and appreciation that truly counts. It’s about weeks of doing this and having the bond firmly in place when Conner begins to think of maybe….making these two as cool as him one day, as he’ll show them the right way of being a superhero.

6. Since both Hamilton County and Bludhaven can get a good amount of snow fall and frozen lakes that are available for skating, making snow angels, building snow replicas of Haley and Krypto and even some hockey on said frozen lakes with their siblings are what I envision Chris and Jake doing in December, let alone the winter

[actualsunflower]

I'm fairly new to your blog still, is there a post that explains Jay's plant thing? It sounds cool! 🌻❤️

I tried looking for the posts but tumblrs search is abysmal but I'm always more than happy to talk about Jay

The tldr is that it was a pre-war Vault-Tec experiment that replaces some of his dna with sunflower dna, which gives him plant like qualities (photosynthesizes, radiation doesn't bother him/can be beneficial, needs lots of water warmth and sun, smells earthy like sunflowers especially when wet, healed by sunlight). My inspiration was from how sunflowers are used irl, the Solar Powered and Ghoulish perks in game, and the plant dudes in New Vegas :)

I did also design an actual mutated version of Jay that looks more like the plant mutants but in his own canon he just looks like the regular dude I draw lol

The long version including the scientist's story: (warning cause it gets a little dark and gory)

Then, Cedric, who left Vault 22 after people there started turning into fungus creeps, starts traveling around looking for a good place to keep studying his plant-human mutations. He ends up a ghoul though, as his own experiment on himself didn't work. His failures and isolation in the vault started driving him mad. He travels to the Commonwealth, but has been slowly losing it and preforming more and more grotesque experiments on anyone he can capture. He takes up in the old Vault-Tec hq basement in Boston and sets up a lab there. He learns Jay is still alive and thriving, which means his initial experiment was a success.

Before the war, after Jay was shot in the head in Alaska he was in a coma for 3 months. He lived because of his inherited artifact powers, he is very difficult to kill and heals incredibly fast, he does still deal with a lot of side effects from it, neurological problems, bad migraines, PTSD, depression and anxiety. While Jay was at a hospital in Las Vegas still in a coma, a scientist also employed by Vault-Tec worked there (his name is Cedric he's important in Jay's story much later cause he's a ghoul and still alive) and was working on a side project. This guy was one of the scientists who was going to be in Vault 22, and he wanted to create a type of DNA splicing that would give humans the ability to process radiation and sunlight like plants, in this case sunflowers specifically. Not all plants can process radiation though, but I picked sunflowers for the symbolism part too. Because Jay was already pre-selected for entrance to Vault 111, Cedric thought Jay would be a great test subject. He wasn't able to object, he would be frozen and then released into the radioactive wasteland where radiation and sun would be plentiful to test the splice, he was the perfect subject!

Then, Jay was transferred to a hospital in Massachusetts, where he later woke up and was eventually sent home. Jay did not know this happened to him, and doesn't find out until much later when he's working on creating a vaccine that could help prevent ghoulification in people. He's aware for some reason radiation doesn't seem to effect him at all, so he does some tests on himself and realizes his DNA is weird as hell. Eventually tests show he's a fuckin plant, trying to figure out when/how this happened, he and Nick look for info through Vault 111 and at Vault-Tec hq, and eventually find records of the experiment done on him before the war. Jay is very pissed off about it though, as you'd expect when you find out someone fucked with your DNA while you were in a coma....

He starts going feral slowly, and has abducting and mutilating people, turning some of them into plant hybrids who quickly die or just leaving their bodies around to be found. Jay and Nick start investigating this 'serial killer' thinking it's a Pickman copycat. Eventually the trail leads to Vault-Tec hq, where Cedric traps Jay away from Nick and is super obsessed with him, crying and calling him a beautiful work of science and wants to keep him there to study him more as he's the only one who has survived and benefited from the mutation. The only reason the experiment worked on Jay is because of his inherited artifact powers which nobody but his dad and the Cabot's know about, anyone else who was messed with just suffered, mutated and then died or it didn't take at all. Cedric doesn't get why it worked on Jay but no one else and becomes violently obsessed, drugs Jay so he passes out. When Jay wakes up later he's strapped down (but he can get up no problem, he's very strong because of the artifact powers.. Not super crazy strong but still very strong) he gets up and in the same room are 2 other plant mutants, who are still alive but dying quickly and he freaks out and ends up putting them out of their misery. Nick was also knocked out and left in the room and Jay tries to wake him up but Cedric comes back and starts freaking out, going feral as he tries to re-capture Jay, and Jay has a hysterical panic attack where he ends up chopping Cedric with an axe as a last resort and kills him. (Nick is ok though, he's not hurt badly)

I wanted to build off of existing things in game like Vault 22, and also have a fun play on the perk system

[lunarsilkscreen]

The Comedian and Silk Spectre (Watchmen)

I have to preface this by saying: "I don't support beating spouses or women as a means for dating" and I *DEFINITELY* don't support rape.

I'm talking about an imperfect relationship between two people in a fictional world who are both suffering from gender stereotyping, PTSD, and being gritty superheros post vietnam war horrors.

It was the particular scene where the comedian attempts to rape the Silk Spectre, that I learned something, this was Eddies f* up way of flirting. And, because of where it took place, he knew he would be caught, and that was part of the game he was playing. (As a comedian, the joke maybe.)

The comic book might have different connotations. But in this movie, after the attempted rape, Sally eventually does what every person suffering Stockholm syndrome does; f* her abuser, and has his child. It's emphasized that the second encounter was not rape, and her own decision to keep her child, whom she loves.

Because she understands the nature of the relationship with the comedian, they don't acknowledge any kind of deeper connection that they *might* have.

I have to state again: I don't condone that kind of relationship, and both the movie and the comics reinforce the idea that the relationship is not healthy, and certainly not any kind of goal. And, maybe it shouldn't even been depicted.

In the comic; Her agent even persuades her not to press charges against the Comedian for fear of damaging the group's image. Which ensures that EVERYBODY in this situation believes it was a legitimate rape. And since it was the 70s, can't be damaging the superhero groups image, even though they (the group) want nothing more to press charges.

And because they don't, they treat comedian as a complete outcast, going as far as to exile him from their group, and completely severe ties with him.

It's this isolation that causes him to commit harikiri.

But even after that, the comedian's death affects Sally deeply.

Now why do I think that rape wasn't Comedian's intent. (Still not saying it's right).

Even today gender roles are ingrained behavior in a lot of people. Men are men women are women. And because women are women, it's women who are exploited and mostly saved.

Silk Spectre spent a lot of time saving and protecting women, but never got to experience being saved herself.

This is actually the entire premise of Watchmen as a series and a movie. "Who watches the watchmen?" There's a line constantly being talked about: Who protects the watchmen?

When Silhouette (Ursula Zandt) was found out to be a lesbian, she was expelled from the group too. Same punishment as Comedian. In the comics, it's explained that it was to protect the gay men's reputation in the group.

Later Ursula and her Lover Gretchen are killed in their apartment, and the minutemen aren't there to protect *them*. Nobody even cares about that part, but they did protect their group from raping each other!

These themes are constantly following the watchmen around, when one of them becomes a literal god that can and considered just wrecking humanity, and another the smartest of all paints that "God" as ready and willing to stop humanity from sinning. And the only one to reveal the truth was Rorschach.

Rorschach himself is personally tortured for a multitude of things, one is because he kills a person without evidence that he kidnapped and killed a child. (Depicted in the movie in such a way that makes the audience as mad as he is.)

I'm not saying he was wrong, I AM saying, he didn't have all the evidence.

Remember what I said about the sexual themes above? Gender roles, anti-gay rhetoric. Gays against lesbians. Rorschach himself literally wears a woman's dress as the main piece of his costume while covering it up with a trench coat.

All he saw were some bones and some panties.

Albeit, in an incredibly precarious situation.

But he never verified that those bones weren't chicken bones, and he never verified those panties weren't the size the man he killed wore.

That's the playing with those gender tropes I'm talking about. The things we don't think of when it comes to the LGBTQIA.

This gritty realism where the superheros are working with limited information, outside the law, without ever arresting anybody. In one case murdering an entire prison just to get off in an owl spaceship.

Doing the hero thing cuz it's sexy, not because it's the right thing.

Everybody doing exactly the wrong thing, because they have all the powers and nobody to keep them accountable, or safe.

So what about the Comedian?

Sally has spent her life as a sex symbol, it's cannon that she is "a big fan" of her Tijuana bibles. (That depict her in all sorts of sexual ways). The villains she captures give up, just because they don't mind being caught by her. (And it's possible that they even commit crimes in the hopes that she is the hero that stops them!)

She is both the objectified comic book hero that we complain of existing in comic books, the result of the people with high fame that are in those positions in real life, and molded with that female gender stereotype, that every woman gets to be the damsel *except* her. Because she's the "strong one."

And the comedian sees this, and not only *doesn't rape her*. Intentionally gets the shit beat out of him, just so that she can get the experience, one time, of somebody coming to her rescue.

The alternate view point being: he did it in a super hero club house, with everybody there, including Sally's closeted gay boyfriend, making all the noise to get other's attention because he thought they would let him get away with it.

Or you know, everybody was kind of a piece of shit, and f* up from all sorts of trauma.

I didn't write the thing. But it's definitely weird how the whole thing is centered around keeping one man's identity (Hooded Justice) and sexual orientation 100% secret that kinda allowed all sorts of misogyny.

And sacrificial lesbians.

[jmalegni]

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Episodes 1,2,4,5)

I am a sucker for good opening themes and let me tell you, this one is incredible, I love A Cruel Angel's Thesis with all my heart and I wanted to get that out of the way.

To get to the actual analysis, Shinji is the main focus of the show and he has quite a bit going on. His relationship with his father (or lack thereof) is a huge focus and is Shinji's driving factor to be an Eva pilot. We don't know why Shinji's father doesn't interact with him unless absolutely necessary but we do know that Shinji desperately wants his approval, he even questions why he does this is his father isn't watching in episode three. As a child, there is a desire to please one's parents and the parents have an instrumental role in a child's development. Shinji growing up without a father and mother(?) has clearly had a effect on his psyche. He isn't close with anyone and actively keeps people at an arms length explained by the Hedgehog's Dilemma. Shinji is scared of letting people get close to him because he wants to avoid the risk of pain that comes with becoming more personal. I think I can relate to that a little too much. This choice leads to Shinji's only reason to live/exist is to serve as a slave to NERV. He doesn't want to be a pilot, he said himself that he is a coward, yet he still gets in when he is told to. I don't think he has once been excited to get in the Eva to defend the world. There is a bit of development though, after he runs away, he realizes how his classmates and Misato, actually see him and care about him. He chooses to get control over his life instead of running away, which is some huge psychological progression for him.

I also want to compare and contrast this with Gundam. The obvious similarity is with giant robots piloted by children that have parental issues. That's where it ends though. There is a lot of emphasis put on Shinji's personal life while Amuro's story is much more concerned with the overall war effort. Each serves its own purpose but it does cause a divergence between the two shows. Shinji develops some kind of PTSD from his short time with the Evas and is meek and scared, Amuro on the other hand is prideful and jumps at the chance to go destroy his enemies. Amuro embodies the stereotypical masculine teenager, willing to die for his family, friends, and country at the drop of a dime. He is a "caged tiger" who destroys his enemies with extreme ferocity and needs to be held back. Shinji is pretty much the opposite, He only fights out of pure necessity, he whines and has no personal desire to fight or even live, it's all for his father and to stop Rei from being used. Shinji is not at all the type of kid that would be used as a example of how to be a man. That's ok though, he is a literal child being told to fight giant monsters out of the blue. It is a reasonable reaction and not every boy needs to be that "manly man" that Amuro represents.

The Christian undertones are pretty much omnipresent in the anime. From the angel's attacks often being in the form of crosses, to crosses adorning the character's clothing, and even the naming of the monsters as angels. I do not know the connection here yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be pretty important later on. Maybe it correlates to how the Evas are not all machine, part angel perhaps?

[shehere0202]

I don't want to forgive my mother's father

When I was in the ballpark of 12-13 when I met my mother's dad for the first time. It was never explained to me why it was my first time meeting him (though I will explain later) but my first impressions were that he was a nice guy that liked to do pranks, socialize, an overall kid at heart, and was a tiny bit crazy. Eventually he wiggled himself into the network that my parents set up with other family members for me to spend my vacations with during school breaks. during my first year with him my parents came along which is something they never really did so that was on my radar. He (my mother's dad) would show signs of having PTSD from when he was in the marines and lost his friends in NAM so my mother told me his erratic behavior originated from that. Even so, because I would get in the way of his morning vacuuming (in 4am mind you) he would push me with the vacuum and have the actual vacuum part hit the back of my head and it sucked up my hair. After my parents argued with him and told him to stop he was not apologetic at all and continued with his routine. After the first year my parents didn't come up with me anymore and it just got worse. There were times were he neglected to tell me or my parents that he had no running water or electricity so for a house that's deep in the woods that posed a serious problem. I would sometimes get sick and unbeknownst to him his medication would be at east 6 years expired, leaving me feeling worse and him refusing to take me to the hospital. Then for my final visit with him he got so intoxicated he started hitting me. Either with an empty beer bottle, his fists, kicking me when I was down with his spiked boots, or pulling my hair extremely hard. He would also in a convoluted way threaten to kill me or in his words "put me somewhere where nobody but bears could find me" I never told any of this to my parents at the time and had no intention to since he was only this way when he was drunk which I believed I could steer him away from. I never saw him again after that because of some issues my mom was having with her brother (my uncle) and him. This rift has continued since, causing my mother to open up why I had never met her father earlier. This was because his abusive behavior starts back to when he was abused by his father and trickled to my mom when she and my uncle were kids, she being the older 'good girl' straight A's and whatever would avoid being hit while her younger skateboarding brother would get pinned to the wall and also be threatened like how I was. When my mother was 17 she moved out to support herself and didn't contact her family until after I was born. Its been years since I've had to think of him and yet out of the blue he started reaching out to my mother asking to meet up with her and talk. She told me when she did meet him he looked physically worse and that he was hoping to mend the relationship. She said she didn't want to force me to do anything but the mere fact that she even gave him her time makes me feel a little betrayed. I recognize that this has the possibility of being the last chance for my mom to have any relationship with him and the fact that she has been nearly starved for one eats away at my conscience because I know if I say no she would also by default. However I can't seem to forgive what he did to myself, my mother and my uncle, and the new shady stuff he's been doing with my uncle and supporting him when he's being a monster.

Am I The Asshole?

[jortsaaaaaaart]

To Be Forgotten Amongst Friends chp1

Omega! Reader x avengers

Hello all! I revamped my story "ikaros" and this is the new story! Also the name is long rip.

Trigger warnings (later chapters mostly)- ptsd, noncon, kidnapping, human experimentation, Stockholm and lima syndrome

The following chapters will be posted on- https://archiveofourown.org/works/33890977     (seriously- may not post here that often cause i hate the tagging system- go check out ao3)

It's a beautiful day in New York and you're a terrible, no good, thief. 

You were considered New York’s very own Robin Hood. Two hundred ATM robberies in two years, the money flying out of the machines and into the hands of people who needed it. The banks, collectively, had lost over $300,000 from the ATMs alone. But of course, it wasn't just the ATMs. A rash of robberies had spread over the East coast. Most were digital, companies funneling their own money to offshore accounts that wanted nothing to do with U.S. intervention. The FBI were notified, then the CIA, and eventually- after a daring cyber attack against the DOD- SHIELD itself turned it's one eyed gaze onto you.

Nick Fury saw something the other agencies didn't. You had certain gifts that made your line of work incredibly easy. Whether they were natural mutations or some sort of superpower, they allowed you to break into some of the most secure networks known to man. He had almost found you when SHIELD fell and his resources vanished. After the dust cleared he was forced to start from scratch. Hunting you and the remnants of Hydra down at the same time wasn't easy, but, in a strange twist of fate, he found someone else that was searching for you too.

+++

New York was filled with so many people. Most of them were good, in your opinion. (Well, maybe half, actually.) You spent most of your off time working on "projects" or walking around the city. You had become a fixture at the local Bodega. Single omegas were extremely  rare, marked single omegas were almost unheard of. The mark gave you certain freedoms other omegas, sadly, didn't have. It drove away most potential suitors and the ones who were particularly bold would be given a taste of your powers. Once the burrow had gotten used to your presence they saw you as a generous person, but a secretive one. Someone who took no shit even with their designation. You gave to the community and different Omega rights groups in the area. After years of watching you quietly go about helping people you had been welcomed into the burrow's heart with open arms.

You loved helping people in your own way. You loved it just as much as you hated corporations and the police, but when you could make an ATM spew it's contents out into the poorest streets of Brooklyn or make Fox News send a million dollars to Planned Parenthood, you could have the best of both worlds.

At least, for a time. All good things had to end, right? That's what you told yourself as the redhead picked her way through the crowd towards you. 

Seeing an avenger in your neighborhood was an odd occurrence. It was a poorer part of town, untouched in the battle of New York, and too out of the way for any super villain origin stories. In fact, you seemed to be the only mutant in the entire block. You'd always thought, if someone was going to come for you, it would be a couple of FBI agents and not the fucking Black Widow. Your brain and heart went into overdrive as you tried to remember doing anything worth the avenger's time. But there was nothing. The DOD hack had been almost a year ago and all you did was release government files showing attacks on civilians overseas. It hardly seemed like an avengers worthy crime, especially when Black Widow herself had leaked government secrets before.

Any hope of her not not looking for you was dashed when her eyes locked onto yours. She tilted her head, asking a silent question. 

The burst of adrenaline sent you careening through the lunchtime crowds. You couldn't feel anyone on the rooftops but there was a large form blocking your path, trying to box you in. They were stronger and faster but you knew the environment. You ducked into Charlie's, your sneakers skidding on the asphalt as you took the sharp turn. The person behind the counter lazily looked up as you walked to the back. They knew you well enough to not care, they also weren't paid enough to care. The alley would open up into a busy side street. More people meant a better chance to blend in and get away. You were almost to the end when the door opened behind you. Black Widow and fucking Captain America stepped into the alley. For a moment the three of you stood in something akin to a standoff. 

You felt wildly undressed for this life-threatening situation.

"We just want to talk, (Y/N)" Captain America told you, hands raised. The unmistakable stink of an alpha radiated from the captain. You were momentarily thankful for your mark dulling its effect on you. Though, the blonde's scent was tinged with something hauntingly familiar. Something you didn't want to recognize.

Behind him, Black widow's free hand went to her ear. "Target is in the alley between 31st and 32nd," A twitch of your finger and the line went dead. Her hand dropped to the gun at her hip.

"I'm feeling pretty under equipped for this 'conversation'," You replied, slowly raising your hands as well, wondering if they could feel what you were doing. They didn't react and you slowly let your power seep from you.

Natasha was the first to react, drawing her gun and spinning around. Steve looked at her with confusion as her wide eyes scanned the alley as if she was seeing ghosts. She was afraid he realized, a cold feeling settling in his stomach. He moved towards her and you took off running. You felt him hesitate then take off after you, gaining on you with an embarrassingly low number of strides. You tried your powers again, stronger this time, but his focus was unwavering. He was almost to you now and you were running out of options. That’s when the alpha in him came out.

“Omega!” He snarled, “Stop!” Your feet slowed down immediately. It wasn’t as strong as your own alpha’s command would be, but the super soldier certainly commanded respect and obedience. You were forced to stand still, eyes burning holes in the asphalt, as the alpha’s footsteps grew closer. You really didn't want to do this but it looked like you had no choice. Your jaw clenched, and you spun around when his hand grabbed your arm. The blonde's eyes widened as you placed a palm to his chest. 

He barely had time to glance down at your hand before the electricity hit him.

The 1,000 volts you sent into him were supposed to stun him or send him flying, allowing you to escape. However, his muscles spasmed just a bit stronger than you intended. In an instant his grip crushed the bones in your arm and sent the two of you careening backwards into a brick wall. Natasha would find you a moment later, passed out on top of the super soldier, a sizable hole in the wall.

You woke up in an unfamiliar bed, a few blurry white shapes milled about in the corners of your vision. You couldn't remember how you got here, or where here was. All your senses seemed to be dulled. Your wrist was throbbing and each time you opened your eyes the room came in and out of focus. You closed your eyes, opting to ignore the funhouse effect and focus on the sounds around you. The beeping of the monitors, footsteps on concrete, and two low voices.

"She's alright, Buck, I promise." Steve's voice wavered in and out of your consciousness bringing with it the memory of how you got into this bed. "She did something to Nat and ran before I could explain. I wasn't expecting her powers to be so strong."

"I should have come with you," Another voice snarled. Your heart skipped a beat at the low growl. You knew that voice. It evoked a sickening combination of need and terror and you couldn't remember why. "She wouldn't have gotten hurt if I had. What idiot doesn't know omegas are fragile?!"

"It was an accident!" His voice raised slightly before sighing. "I know you're worried, but she's fine."

The scent you had smelled on Steve earlier swirled around the room. Metal and burning pine, it affected you just like the voice had, triggering both panic and yearning. You knew it somehow. The memory was there somewhere, tucked away where it couldn’t hurt you. Where it should have been forgotten.

The scent grew unbearably strong as he leaned over you, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead. When he pulled back he wasn't expecting his eyes to catch yours. 

His expression softened as soon as he realized you were awake. "Omega," Bucky whispered reverently. Stormy blue eyes stared down at you with love and adoration, watching the color drain from your face. "Doll?" 

Somewhere in the back of your mind you could hear the panicked beeping of the machines and Steve trying to calm you down. But it didn't matter. All that you could feel was the need to get far, far, away from this man. You didn't know how you knew him but you knew he was dangerous. You knew he had hurt you. That's why, as he reached out to gently cup your face, you slapped his hand away. 

"Get away from me!" You gasped, voice breaking. You scooted back and tried to back up as far as possible. Your shaky legs barely held your weight as you slid off the bed. Pure terror coursed through your veins, it was the only thing keeping you on your feet. You found yourself pressed into the corner of the room while the men stared at you in shock. Steve and Bucky gaped like you had just told them the Germans had actually won WWII. Eyebrows knit together, blue eyes wide and frantic, Bucky looked like he was in emotional turmoil.

“(Y/N), doll, it’s okay. It’s me. It’s your alpha.” Bucky reached out to you carefully as a low purr rumbled from his chest.

You felt the purr relax you and dull your senses even more. It was nauseating. “I don’t have an alpha! And I don’t know who the hell you are!” You tried to shout and grit your teeth but the words came out in broken sobs, betraying your weakness. Who was this? Why was he the most terrifying thing you had ever seen?

Your teeth were bared at this point but the man kept coming towards you. The tunnel vision and rapid shallow breaths were the only warnings your body gave you as it reverted to its animalistic omega framework. Bucky watched as, in slow motion, your eyes went blank as your body gave out. 

+++

Your alpha held your body to his chest in disbelief. He had expected some shock at seeing him but this went far beyond his expectations. It had been over three years since he'd last seen you. Since he'd last been able to drink in your scent. He'd figured you might not recognize him at first. He had changed a lot over the years. No longer under Hydra's control his physical appearance, demeanor, and scent had changed. But your body should've known your alpha. 

"What was that?" Steve asked. "Why did she react like that when she has your mark?" The two alphas were on edge. Seeing a vulnerable omega drop triggered their protective instincts. Steve desperately wanted to take you and hold you close, ease you out of the drop. If the alpha holding you was anyone other than his closest friend and packmate he would have ripped you out of his grasp immediately. For now he'd have to hold himself back.

"She didn't remember me." Bucky nuzzled his head into your neck, nursing your mark softly. After a moment he pulled back and gazed at your unchanged features. He couldn't wake you from this drop that easily. He pressed in harder this time, teeth lining up with the scar perfectly, but there was still no change. No purr, command, or bite was waking you up.

"We should let her rest, Buck. The pain meds will wear off soon and we'll try again. . . Bring her to the den. She'll need to get used to everyone's scents sooner or later." Steve laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. It was a gentle but firm suggestion. He knew tensions were high, the den, with it's heavy curtains and plush blankets, would calm down his friend and the omega. With little argument the brunette lifted you up and carried you to the den. It was aptly named and extremely well constructed thanks to Stark. Curtains blocked off all light from the windows, mattresses were inlaid into the ground, and the temperature was always cool. It was one good thing about being in a pack with that narcissist, Bucky thought dryly.

Steve led them into a cozy corner of the room. The captain hummed happily as they moved the pillows and blankets, creating a makeshift nest for the three of them. The feeling of the omega pressing into his chest was addictive. He couldn't wait for you to remember your alpha.

The sooner you remembered your bond with Bucky the sooner the rest of the pack, Steve included, could court you.