#and then say that people outside their notion of “people” are unloved

[withoutalice]

not to do too much religious yapping but to be honest, the common religious puritanical deliberate ignorance on how medical care has improved over time and what the benefits of hormonal/surgical procedures on quality of life is definitely not what God would want.

(i continue yapping under the cut)

in fact, in part of the Bible, God forbade eating certain animals. when humans had learned how to properly cook/prepare meat (so parasites would not survive), God sent a vision to one of his followers saying all those animals were available to eat now. there was a timeline where it made sense to forbid certain meats.

now in modern times, lots of puritanical culture talks about the Bible forbidding sex for recreation (also forbidding any sort of hormone manipulators on principle) which I think in older times would make sense as people were not the best with germs and hadnt had the pharmaceutical knowledge we have today. God sees how our planet changes and people evolve.

I think if he were to send down a vision today (like the meat vision mentioned earlier) he would say things like contraceptives, hormone therapy, and other health procedures are valid.

we have more knowledge, not complete, but more knowledge. though more unbiased research on women's biology, especially with reproductive health (not just for pregnancy!!), is needed and I recognize that.

I also recognize people in these puritan circles correlate hormonal balance drugs for women (or other vaginal health products in general) with someone being a “slut” or being sexually active in any way at all even if it isn't true.

it's incredibly invasive for doctors and family to treat 8-16 year old girls like they are always having sex behind parent's backs, and i personally think it should be considered verbal sexual harassment or even abuse to make jokes about your pre-teen or newly teen daughter becoming a whore once she starts leaving the house on her own for school/sports; for getting treatment she need to function in a world designed for amab body schedules.

but overall there is no need for such suffering if there are things that have been observed to help. like birth control for women with endo or PCOS. if we can start to help ourselves with the natural, various differences that occur in our bodies, we should. because the 14/15/16 year olds with endometriosis/PCOS and the 6/7/8 year olds with precocious puberty are shamed by family and teachers for being deviant and unpure (for their body shape and) for getting the medical help they need to live full lives.

this culture needs to change, humans have made significant unprecedented progress in medicine. why live on earth paralyzed with pain and scarring? with constant medical abuse because our female bodies are different? it is no different than the changing of how we cook, God would want us to take advantage of the tools and intelligence we have. He has us here so we can take care of this one Earth, our (chosen or blood) family, and most importantly ourselves.

He loves us, no conditions. How your body looks, what your body consists of, what your body and mind have been through doesn't change that.

And i think, that if you loved someone unconditionally, wouldn't you want them to live the best life they can?

[kthaios]

I would love a Fic that follows Peter and the Pressure of being the, “secret keeper.”

who keeps Peter’s secrets?

who can Peter confide in?

everyone comes to Peter, but where does Peter go?

and that is how he got in league with Voldemort, falling into the hands of One Barty Crouch Jr and one Evan Rosier.

how could he resist two people who finally pay attention to him, who finally listen to what he has to say? he couldn’t.

(p.s i don’t support the notion of unloved / outsider peter as a marauder i just would love this)

[good-night-my-sweet-prince]

this is so important!!!

queering has been and continues to be such an important part of queer literary studies but also queer identity formation as a whole

i immediately thought about this one fragment from the first chapter of Gregory Woods' A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition

"Indeed, if one were seeking to erect a memorial at the birthplace of gay literature, it would make sense to site it [...] in one of Oxford’s relatively unloved Victorian buildings. I am thinking of some space where impressionable youths sat at the feet of men like Walter Pater or Benjamin Jowett, or solitary garrets where the same youths read the classics in Greek and Latin and where they made lists of mythic and historical figures who felt the same as they did on catching sight of a muscular physique. Those lists would eventually turn into the contents pages of our gay anthologies and our histories of gay literature." (13)

queer literature and queer literary canon exist because of and for queer people. limiting queer literature to explicitly queer texts leaves out a wide range of texts and authors dealing with queer topics implicitly and covertly, because that was the only way those topics could be dealt with (don't forget that explicitly queer books were often banned and openly queer authors persecuted). it also ignores an entire group of texts that aren't "really" queer, explicitly or not, and were probably never intended to be, but despite that still hold significance to queer people and might even be an important part of their queer identity, or a major factor in shaping it.

all of these are absolutely enough to show the importance of queering, but there's more!!

queerness is about subversion, it's about existing outside of set rules and norms, about rejecting them and breaking them.

queerness is rebellious. queerness is punk!

so queering can also be used on texts (and other things) that are absoltely NOT queer, never were queer and never will be queer. you can read a text as queer just because you want to, you can look at the most aggressively cishet character in the history of literature and queer them anyway! just because you can, just because it challenges the notions treating cisheteronormativy as default, a societal standard, just because it will piss off queerphobes (maybe even the queerphobic author?), or just because it's simply fun

moral of the story: be gay! do crime! every book is queer if you say it is!

"it's not queer fiction unless the queerness is explicitly declared in the text according to currently accepted terminology and in a way that meets the approval of the entire audience" I mean follow your heart I guess but I trust myself as a queer person to recognise queer themes

[energy-healing-with-jen]

WEEKEND LEARNING Habits For Happiness

1. Thank someone you normally would not thank.

Who do you normally not thank? Perhaps it's someone who is providing a service for which you have paid, and you don't feel the need to express gratitude. Go ahead, say it. Instead of just telling your sweetheart "I love you," express gratitude for something you usually take for granted. Thank a stranger for wearing a brightly colored dress that made your day! It takes 15 seconds, but the impact lasts much longer.

2. Honor yourself for something you did today that reflects the best of who you are.

Normally, we spend the day amassing evidence of our failures while ignoring our inner achievements. "I should not have done that." I should not have said that. "I should not have eaten that." This is an extremely unloving thing to do. "Honor yourself for doing something that reflects your best self."I was about to be sarcastic with someone, but instead I took a breath and said, 'I understand how stressful this has been.'" "I spotted a woman dropping a shopping list on the floor of the store, so I picked it up and handed it to her." "I was stuck in traffic and instead of swearing, I used the time to listen to an uplifting recorded lecture."

3. Forgive yourself for something you did today that reflects less than the best of who you are.

Every day, we do things we regret or realize we could have done better. Again, rather than criticizing or punishing yourself, take note of what you want to change. Hold the notion of whatever you're dissatisfied about and intend to wash it away with forgiveness.

4. Feel compassion for someone you would normally judge.

During a typical day, you will inevitably encounter people who annoy, irritate or anger you: the person driving too slowly in front of you, the less-than-articulate customer service representative on the phone, the grumpy co-worker. Just for one moment, try to find a compassionate place from which to view them. Remember that you can have compassion for someone while disagreeing with what they did. Simply think: "I apologize for your unhappiness. "May you find peace." Simply thinking this thought can instantly shift your energy to one of peace and love.

5. See something you would normally take for granted as miraculous.

There are a million everyday wonders that we overlook because we are not paying attention. Choose just one and enjoy it for the incredible wonder that it is. Allow 30 seconds to emotionally immerse yourself in it. Notice the beauty of the tall, graceful tree outside your window; appreciate the fact that your hand can move if you simply think, "Move"; watch a bird take flight and marvel at its freedom; walk through the supermarket and feel amazement at the abundance of food gathered there for you. You can raise your consciousness by focusing on the magnificent buried within the commonplace.

[pizzee]

I WANNA TALK ABOUT ISSUE#15 OK? OK.

So. What an issue, huh? Absolutely stunning, and while I wish we got some Jake and Steven interacting with the Midnight Mission, I do adore this issue and it was an incredible follow up to the last issue. The art, the writing, the color choice's, the Steven, THE JAKE!!! anyway, this is an analysis so let's do it.

Marc Spector doesn’t believe that he’s enough. He never has, which is why he was initially so reluctant and terrified of giving up control (which I went a bit ham on analyzing here). He’s scared of someone else seeing him how he sees himself, as nothing more than a means to an end, and realizing once they’ve gotten what they need out of him, he won’t be useful anymore. He calls himself a “fist”, he literally says “I still have my uses” in the context of a fight. Marc doesn’t see himself as being much else outside of that violence and his mission as Khonshu’s fist.

Which directly contrasts with Steven and Jake. (YAY I GET TO TALK ABOUT THEM!!!)

Steven, who’s already got his own society he feels semi-comfortable in, can slip into that role of rich benefactor like he was born for it. The first thing he does when fronting is always always take off the mask and take care of them. Which is, so impactful. Because yes, he’d care about their appearance. He's rich, sure. But it’s more than that. He takes care of them because it’s what they deserve. They’re worth something. They’re worthy of love and affection, self care in the form of expensive hair treatments and makeovers. 

He takes off the mask (literally and metaphorically and the secret third meaning and fourth and—) and looks in the mirror and chastises Marc for not taking care of them then does exactly that because Steven Grant doesn’t see Marc or Jake of any of them as tools or means, but as people. He proves Marc wrong by just by existing.

Then we got Jake. JAKE FUCKING LOCKLEY!!! Our avuncular scoundrel’s first act when fronting is going to see his friends. Which I just. I love it. When he throws open the doors and says he’s back and is met with such love and care and enthusiasm. Which is such a magenta moment (passion and compassion and kindness and I’m not gonna get into the color theory of it all but the fact that his two colors are magenta and sooome green make me gigle🤭). But it also takes us back to the last issue where he laments losing their friends. Where Marc said he never needed them. Where Marc is obviously dead fucking wrong.

Jake’s not in his element, he’s at home. He’s with his people, and his people have him and it’s beautiful. And it’s how Jake takes care of them, by creating connections with everyone from all walks of life. Because, once again, everyone wants to be loved. So he goes out and makes jokes and earns trust and makes promises and gives and gets love and lives. He shows he — and by default the system — aren’t incapable of giving or receiving affection. He proves Marc wrong just by living.

And now. We got the biggun. Marc. 

We’ve already established Marc’s issues with constantly needing to be in control stemming from his fear of being cast aside or deemed unlovable, said issues causing a lot of the problems in his life. What I love about this issue is that it works on dismantling those thoughts, one by one. If Steven and Jake prove Marc wrong, the rest of the Midnight Mission enforce those ideas by hammering them home with a comically oversized hammer. Soldier does what Soldier does: be the chillest fucking guy around. Badr obviously has his own Khonshu/religious tinted lense of looking at it but that doesn’t make him any less understanding. He just thinks Marc is a fucking idiot (and he’s not wrong!).

Then. Then. Reese. Reese who comes in, shatters every single insecurity and fear and preconceived notion Marc has about himself. Reese who doesn’t know about his past and doesn’t care because she sees what he’s trying to do now, the good he’s trying to do and is doing, and admires that. Reese who doesn’t push when that’s clearly what Marc is expecting her to do (because that’s probably what everyone has done, always done. Ask probing, invasive questions that he forces himself to answer and now he’s so used to them he’s constantly shocked when people don’t ask. He’s shocked when people care. He’s shocked when he finds himself caring.).

Reese. Who says…

…which is probably the first time anyone has said that to him. It’s probably the first time anyone has cared enough to even think it. The very thing Jake and Steven have been proving to him all issue, the thing Reese says so naturally and casually. It’s not a grand revelation from her, it’s not something she has to think about. Marc is enough and she knows it, Jake and Steven know it, the rest of the Midnight Mission and the community know it. The only who doesn’t, or didn’t, was Marc. And now. And now.

He does. And Reese and Steven and Jake will be damned if he forgets that anytime soon. 

(AND VERY BRIEFLY I WANNA TALK AB THE COLORS!!! Ok so I’m absolutely in love with the colors Rosenberg chose. They vary a lot between pages but my color associations are: Steven gold, Jake magenta, Marc blue. There are a lot of pages where the characters swap colors or have different ones but I’m going to stick with these associations because they make sense to me.

Steven gold is probably the most clear cut one. Gold is a warm color, symbolizing wealth and generosity. Divinity and power. Steven is rich (or was) so there’s the wealth, I’d say the generosity comes from how he takes care of the body, mostly physically. There aren’t many pages where Steven appears in, but the one in the barber or whatever is where I’m drawing most of these thoughts from. Marc is also depicted with a lot of gold, particularly when he’s speaking to Dr. Sterman especially when he’s giving long ass melodramatic monologues. Which I find interesting, as those extended metaphors and speeches seem like his way of establishing control, or power, in a conversation which is generally supposed to end up with deep self evaluation and a certain amount of vulnerability that comes with giving up some of that control (he is talking to his therapist, after all, even if she doesn’t do a very good job of it but— that’s a story for another day)

Jake magenta is a very clearly shown visual. Magenta is another warm color, symbolizing passion and compassion, kindness and love. Jake is the Just Some Guy of the three, probably the most affable and easygoing, so magenta makes sense thematically for him as well. What’s also cool is that magenta is the primary, dominating color in a lot of his pages where he’s surrounded by people he cares about (I’m thinking of the last issue in his headspace emotional support strip club where all the dancers looked like Marlene and this issue at the bar with his friends). Almost as if he’s overflowing with love and care for others. 

Both Jake and Steven appear in several pages where the primary color is green, which symbolizes growth, renewal, rebirth. This is the only cool color they’re depicted in, which is also interesting because Marc is almost exclusively shown in panels with cool colors (minus the gold ones I mentioned earlier). Marc also appears in pages with greens, particularly those where he talks to Soldier and Badr, symbolizing his growth of being able and willing to open up to them. 

Finally, Marc blue has been a dominant color for basically this entire run. Blue is a cool color that symbolizes a lot, but I’ll stick with sadness, peace, security and freedom. Sadness is pretty obvious, but the other three are aspirational for him. And I think this is most clearly shown by the fact that the only exclusively blue Marc pages are the last two with Reese. Her understanding and words help take him one step closer to those things he’s always wanted, that love and understanding. And I think her wearing a YELLOW shirt also shows the positive influence and power her words have on him. Plus, it’s a good contrast against the background and his suit ;)

Last last thing I wanna mention about colors because wow this got out hand is the page where Marc takes off the mustache (NOOOOO) and introduces himself. It has all the colors I mentioned in a gradient, which imo symbolizes how he’s finally starting to work with Steven and Jake as a system, a team, and how they’re all separate parts but also parts of a whole. Also harkens back to earlier, when Marc mentioned he hasn’t asked Jake and Steven’s opinion. They aren’t perfect, there’s still some work to be done on communication, but they’re getting there and that’s what matters. It’s a great visual, and he even gets his emo anime boy hair back so win there, I guess😐)

[redphlox]

Dabi's fear of feelings and connections

Dabi is a walking contradiction; he says he doesn't care about anyone, but his flames, which are linked to his emotions, demonstrate otherwise when Twice is killed. Dabi brushes off the news that Natsuo could have died because of him but still refers to him affectionately as Natsu-kun. Touya went around calling Endeavor out for neglecting his children but still trained to regain his approval and attention anyway. He lashed out at baby Shouto, admitted Shouto had done nothing wrong, and then attacked him again years later. He cries blood while thinking about his family but doesn't go home to them or change his actions which hurt them even more. Dabi wants to destroy hero society for a better future but it's obvious he doesn't plan to live long enough to see that future.

The gaps between his actions and his words are a result of dissociation and repression. It's not that Dabi is emotionless. Actually, he feels too much and he's afraid of his feelings because they've done nothing but hurt him emotionally and physically. He literally almost burned to death the one time he had a burst of emotion on Sekoto Peak and in order to prevent a repeat of that, he operates under the flawed notion that safety lies in repressing his feelings and pushing people away. He lies to himself and others and therefore cannot reconcile with his true self and can’t trust others.

In this meta I'll discuss how Dabi deals with his unprocessed feelings of betrayal and neglect by denying himself connections with both his inner wounded child and those around him. I'll also address a few misconceptions surrounding Dabi because dismantling them is key to understanding him. Contrary to popular belief, he does not want to kill his father, he never wanted to be a hero for his own sake, and he doesn't hate Shouto or his family. At its core, Touya's hurt stems from discovering that his relationship with his father wasn't based on unconditional love. This realization destroyed his sense of self so much it caused him to start fearing his own feelings and being close to others because of the link between his emotions and his self-destructive quirk.

To understand Dabi we have to understand Touya. In 291 we see through Endeavor's flashback that Touya was eager to train under him and carry his legacy. It's implied by the fact they’re working on ultimate moves that not only is Touya a willing, eager participant but that the two have been training together for quite some time. In 301 we learn that after Touya's quirk started hurting him Endeavor not only abandoned the training regime but also abandoned Touya both emotionally and physically. Instead of using the time he spent training Touya to help Touya find a new hobby or purpose in life, or just hanging out with his kid, Endeavor chooses to remove himself from Touya’s life. When Touya confronts him about the change of routine, Endeavor is seen putting on his jacket and leaving the home, his body turned away from his son.

Maybe Endeavor had errands to run, but my point is that he was in Touya’s life one minute and then gone the next. Touya says so himself: why did Endeavor change his mind all of a sudden? The abrupt change in attitude was jarring for a 4-5 year old to handle. To Touya, training = love, so he felt compelled to keep training and demonstrate his worthiness despite the fact that his quirk was hurting him. To Touya, the pain was worth it if it meant hanging out with his dad again.

But why? Well, Touya was Endeavor's #1 fan, genuinely so. His admiration and fondness for his father was genuine, and he didn't question the triumphant look on Endeavor's face when Touya said he wanted to learn the ultimate move. Before his quirk started burning him, Touya had no idea he was born for his father's ulterior motives. He had no reason to question his father's attention. Touya lived under the impression his bond with his dad was genuine and special, and he probably felt lucky that his father was willing to share something so important to him (heroism). Even after the training stops and Endeavor stops paying attention to Touya, Touya still wears his merch and vies for his attention. Most kids see their parents as larger than life and Touya was no exception. Keigo Takami admired Endeavor the hero, and Touya Todoroki admired his father who just so happened to be the hero Endeavor. Since being a hero was such a big deal for Endeavor, it was a big deal for Touya.

But that's where Touya's story becomes tragic. His father is a flawed, flawed man with many insecurities and fallacies that he pushes onto his family. I’ll get to those in a moment, but as intelligent and observant Touya is to catch on that Endeavor never set out to marry to become a father, he is too young to separate himself from his father’s expectations. Touya realizes he was born for a purpose and Touya will be damned if he doesn't fulfill that purpose even if he knows it's wrong. His father's ‘love’ meant that much to him. For Touya, it's not about becoming a hero for the glory. It was about his relationship with his father because, as I mentioned earlier, Touya was his #1 fan in the sense that he loved Enji just for being his dad. There were no conditions tied to that. “You are my dad, and I love you.”

But that wasn’t a sentiment that Touya felt in return, and that hurt Touya. He internalized he wasn't good enough, that something about him was inherently wrong. But more than that, his world came tumbling down - he felt betrayed and lied to: his father didn't love him like Touya needed him to, and this truth destroyed him. Their relationship was a lie, a farce, and it hurt so much Touya became obsessed with not hurting anymore because he couldn’t get away from it.

Touya’s motivation to become a hero didn't rise from being inspired by All Might like Shouto. Touya’s thought process wasn’t "I want to be a hero to help others or be like All Might" like Deku. No, Touya only wanted to be a hero because he wanted his father to be proud of him for surpassing All Might. Notice that Touya's obsession with beating All Might slowly diminishes from “I can surpass All Might” to “I can surpass All Might like Shouto, too” to just “look at me, Endeavor.” It was never about being a hero per say, but about his relationship with his father. Touya realized that Endeavor isn't his father first, but a hero, and he understands that he has to be a hero too to fit into his father's world. Even upon realizing that his father was using him, Touya still wanted to be part of his life, still wanted that bond. Touya, in his desperation to be loved and accepted again, could look past his father's selfishness as long as he regained that approval. Touya could pretend the relationship was real as long as he stopped feeling so unlovable.

This is unhealthy thinking, of course. Even if Touya somehow managed to regain Endeavor's approval, the relationship would still be one-sided and dissatisfying because he wouldn't be able to ignore the truth. But, this is how he rationalized his insistence to keep training in his 4-5 year old mind and this line of thought stuck with him as he grew up just as those feelings of inadequacy never left him.

This is precisely why Natsuo's drowsy "can't you go talk to our sister?" hurt so much. Touya was already emotionally fragile, and hearing that felt like being rejected all over again when it was actually Natsuo just trying to sleep. Touya was hypersensitive to any words or actions that could be interpreted as dismissive. His trauma wouldn't listen to logic that Natsuo was 8 and too young to understand, that he was tired - no, Touya's brain said, you're being rejected again! This is also why he also stormed away crying from Fuyumi after she expressed her concern for him.

In Touya’s mind, why couldn't anyone just agree with him that he was good enough? He heard "your dad's right and you're not good enough so why try" not "I care about you, your father is wrong, and I don't want you to keep getting hurt" whenever Rei tried to get him to stop training because that's the message he got from his father, too. Nevermind that it infuriated Touya that his mother could stand there and preach to him when, from his perspective, she couldn’t take her own advice. All Endeavor ever did was teach him to turn up the heat, so why should it matter that doing just so hurts him? Touya didn't understand NOT training his quirk because he had been taught that raising his firepower was ideal in all situations. Those two statements didn't make sense to a 4-5 year old, a 13 year old, and it still doesn’t make sense as a 24 year old.

To take Endeavor's lack of self awareness a step further, because it's important to understand Endeavor to fully understand Dabi, Endeavor has yet to realize his own inherent worth. He doesn't have to prove anything to his family, especially his kids. They love him unconditionally, without special reason aside from the fact that he's theirs and he's himself. However, Endeavor is so obsessed with proving himself that he doesn't realize he never had to, and he projects this onto his children. They must prove themselves by winning the genetic lottery, by being useful to his plans, by surpassing All Might.

The irony that to be a great father he doesn't have to be a hero at all is ugly because Endeavor has no identity outside of being a hero. Endeavor has said before he wants to be a good hero and father to make Shouto proud, but he fails to realize he already had this in Touya all those years ago and it still left him unsatisfied. The issue isn’t his role as a hero, it’s his inner self. In 301 Endeavor literally reaches out to Touya to talk him out of training and hurting himself, and Touya allows his father to touch his shoulders because he wants a bond with his father - any bond. Shouto, on the other hand, wouldn't allow Endeavor to touch him in 167 and slaps his hand away because he doesn’t want Endeavor’s approval. Endeavor doesn't realize Natsuo carries deep abandonment and neglect issues because he wanted to be accepted by his father too (light novel #5) but was ignored. Endeavor doesn't realize he was always good enough by default and that by projecting onto his kids and trying to be the top hero he’s doing the opposite of what he wants. He just keeps pushing away his family.

It’s important to point out Endeavor’s illogical thinking because Touya learned some of these same ideas. Touya repeatedly tries to prove himself without realizing that he was always good enough by default. The problem wasn’t his quirk or his body, but his father’s flawed thinking and self-worth issues. Now as an adult, Dabi is selfish because he's Endeavor's son and emobidies his most negative characteristics. Dabi thinks of his flames as Endeavor's, and he thinks of himself as an extension of Endeavor because that's how Endeavor set him up for life. Touya has no identity to fall back on after his father casts him aside. He was supposed to be Endeavor 2.0, but now that title is Shouto’s. Dabi doesn’t hate Shouto as a person, but he has tricked himself into believing Shouto is their father’s puppet. Shouto is a doll being used by their father with no self agency, and Dabi is going to break all of Endeavor’s toys. It’s nothing personal against Shouto, it’s just Shouto’s bad luck that he happens to be Endeavor’s masterpiece. This is why Dabi doesn’t hurt Shouto when they first meet at the training camp, and why Dabi stops attacking Shouto after Endeavor passes out - it’s not about Shouto. It’s about Endeavor, and breaking Endeavor. Touya is still there trying to be part of his father’s world, only this time not as a hero but as a villain who will end his own suffering. He doesn't want Endeavor to die, he just wants him to suffer, to ruin his dreams. Dabi thinks of it as justice.

But because Touya is still there, there is still that goodness in him, too. His connection to Fuyumi and Natsuo is still there, repressed and compartmentalized. It’s why he calls them affectionately as Fuyumi-chan and Natsu-kun. Touya’s pain is so great he has decided he’d rather end it than to carry on and look elsewhere. He's stuck, rightfully so. He recognizes his mother is a flawed person and ultimately doesn’t blame her for being a victim - she could have done more for her son, but he still sees her and his other siblings, even Shouto, as people who fell victim to Endeavor’s abuse who don't challenge their situation. Dabi sees himself as someone who does stand up to the abuse but doesn’t realize he still wants his father’s attention. He's always wanted it. That's why he went around at 13 condemning his father's treatment of his children but still trained to prove himself. This is part of the reason he became a villain.

Not to mention that Dabi literally can't cry. He has no way to release those emotions, so instead of trying to let them out, he pushes them down. But that doesn't work and is detrimental in the long run. In 290-294 we saw Dabi's flames burn so hot during his confrontation with Endeavor and revealing himself as Touya that his burns have spread. Dabi is afraid of his feelings because of their connection to his flames, but he also uses his feelings to his advantage. He wants to go out in an inferno along with Shouto just to hurt Endeavor and put an end to his own suffering and Endeavor's career. This is why Dabi doesn't bother calming himself down or denying that he never forgot how he was treated when he lived at home. Dabi became emotional in that battlefield, smiling maniacally instead of crying because he physically can't cry. In his mind, if his feelings are going to destroy him, he might as well use them to prove a point. After all, he has experience being used. It's why he was born.

I'm not saying any of these actions or thoughts are healthy or correct or condoned, by the way. Trauma responses don't make logical sense and usually aren't healthy. Knowing how the mind responds to trauma, it's understandable that Touya still wanted his father's attention even if it was abusive. In fact, this is how children often respond to abuse. Their caretaker/parent is all they know and they cling to these figures. Often times when authorities try to remove a child from their abusive parents, the child doesn't want to go because this parent is all they know and they do feel like they love their parent/caretaker. I’m not saying the authorities got involved in this case, because obviously they didn’t, but this same mentality of abused children can be applied to Touya. Touya, in his four year old mind, probably convinced himself that if he was good enough everything would go back to how it used to be.

So, to sum up Dabi’s character, of course he doesn't make any sense. He’s still that hurt 4-5 year old who is trying to protect himself from ever getting hurt like that again while still wanting his father’s validation. Of course he doesn’t want to get close to anyone, not even the League. He doesn't want to be vulnerable or let people in or form connections because the last time that happened he was let down, forsaken, and it hurt so much it literally made him lose control of his quirk to the point he almost died. When Twice is killed, Dabi consoles himself by saying he didn't care anyway, all to prevent another emotional fire. Dabi is a master of compartmentalizing and boxing away his feelings - this is probably why, 310 chapters into BNHA, we have yet to have a few chapters in his POV or his backstory. He's disconnected from himself. He knows his plot to get justice will hurt his siblings and mother and to live with himself and move forward he represses those feelings.

Because of his father not showing up on Sekoto peak, Dabi has to live with physical disabilities due to his scars and memories of burning alive. He doesn't want to go through that again so he lies to himself that he doesn't care about anyone or anything. He denies that he's still in pain while simultaneously seeking validation of his pain. He acts like he doesn't care about his family but still calls them affectionate names. He acts like he hates Endeavor and calls him by his name but still wants his attention. He decided long ago that he would die destroying Endeavor's career because that was the thing Endeavor cares about most of all in this life. It's a "you hurt me so I'll hurt you" mentality. He has tricked himself into thinking this is justice, failing to realize this won't make him feel better if he doesn't die by his own hand along the way.

Dabi is full of resentment and spite, both of which take root from feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and the loss of a purpose and the realization that he wasn't born to be loved for who he was but as a tool for his father. The first betrayal he suffered was in the form of realizing his father didn't love him genuinely, and this was identity-breaking for him. He never recovered from it. The second betrayal, the reinforcer, was his father not showing up to Sekoto Peak. Since then, Dabi is reliving his trauma over and over again the more he uses his quirk and the more he faces Endeavor. To be saved, Dabi needs to accept that he is loved unconditionally and needs to be validated that he was right to feel thrown aside and used.

[secular-jew]

Arab Historian Admits there is No Palestinian People

One of the biggest, most stubborn and costliest untruths of our time is the notion that the jihad waged by Arabs in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Gaza against Jews in Israel is a national struggle of an indigenous people for independence.No matter the facts, the lie persists to the tune of billions of dollars in international aid and political prestige, which makes it increasingly difficult for anyone involved to admit that the whole thing is nothing more than a propaganda stunt.Unlike the fairy tale of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, everyone pretends to be blind and deaf when it is pointed out that the emperor is naked. In fact, if the emperor himself were to stand up and yell, ‘I am naked folks, go home!’ the crowd would go on complimenting his non-existent garments.Last week the naked emperor did just that:“Before the Balfour Promise, when the Ottoman rule [1517-1917] ended, Palestine’s political borders as we know them today did not exist, and there was nothing called a Palestinian people with a political identity as we know today”, historian Abd Al-Ghani admitted on official PA TV on November 1.“Since Palestine’s lines of administrative division stretched from east to west and included Jordan and southern Lebanon, and like all peoples of the region [the Palestinians] were liberated from the Turkish rule and immediately moved to colonial rule, without forming a Palestinian people’s political identity.”In 1917, says this Arab historian on official PA TV, there was no such thing as a Palestinian people. This statement amounts to saying that the whole narrative of an ‘indigenous Palestinian people’ was made up at a later point in time.As Hamas Minister of the Interior and of National Security Fathi Hammad speaking on Al-Hekma TV said in March 2012: “Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians…”There is a reason, why the “Palestinian National Museum” is empty of historical artifacts.The Arab historian’s admission corroborates the observations of 19th century travelers to the region, who notably had no specific political agenda when they visited, unlike so many visitors to Israel today:”Outside the gates of Jerusalem, we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound”, wrote French poet Alphonse de Lamartine about his visit in 1835.”The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.” wrote British Consul James Finn in his 1857 description of the Holy Land.”Palestine sits in a sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that withered its fields and fettered its energies. …Palestine is desolate and unlovely….It is a hopeless dreary, heartbroken land.” wrote American author Mark Twain in his description of his visit in 1867.Nevertheless, the Arab propaganda machine gets away with publishing fantastic falsehoods, such as this one on the Palestinian Authority’s tourism website: “With a history that envelops more than one million years, Palestine has played an important role in human civilization. The crucible of prehistoric cultures, it is where settled society, the alphabet, religion, and literature developed, and would become a meeting place for diverse cultures and ideas that shaped the world we know today”.The international community not only approves of these falsehoods, it happily pays for them.Historian Abd Al-Ghani’s declaration on PA TV was a historic, highly newsworthy admission that ought to have made the headlines everywhere, considering the importance the issue is given by political leaders, diplomats, the media and other establishment figures all over the world.After all, if the Arabs themselves admit that the ‘Palestinian people’ is an invented entity, should not the consequence be that the countless UN projects, billions of dollars in international aid, and the endless campaigns against Israel cease and be used for more noble purposes?The answer is yes, but no one is paying attention.We live in a post-factual world. Facts no longer have any currency, unlike feelings and ideological posturing. The truth has been reduced to a troublesome inconvenience and if it happens to stare you in the face, nothing could be easier than closing your eyes or simply looking away.

https://en.mida.org.il/2017/11/09/arab-historian-admits-no-palestinian-people/

[kirinda-ondo]

You know him, you either love or hate him (or are moderately confused by my sudden dive into this hyperfixation); we're talking about Orko because I have a lot of feelings.

As a disclaimer, I am not gonna claim to be some kind of superfan. I am not aware of every single iteration of the lore and all of its secrets. I don't know anything about the DC comics. I'm only halfway through the 2002 series as of me writing this. I am not someone you want to have discussions on the wider Masters of the Universe.... universe with. However, after watching Revelation, the entire Filmation He-Man (and some of She-Ra, cause he was there too), and going on a deep dive of storybooks, annuals, and minicomics courtesy of He-Man.org and the lovely people who submitted their scans there, I do feel pretty qualified to at least talk about Orko.

So, with all that being said, I'd like to get into a little bit of backstory, if only for my followers who came to this blog for completely different things and are wondering where the hell my love for this funky little wizard dude came from all of a sudden. Truth is, Orko is actually one of my earliest faves! Mind you, I only had limited access to Masters of the Universe as a kid, only seeing a couple of rented VHS tapes and later getting my hands on a small pile of the Golden Books from Goodwill, but apparently it was enough for Orko to  imprint himself into my brain. However, also due to my limited exposure, he kind of got shifted to the back of my head as I got deeper into other things. I still knew for a fact I liked Orko a lot though, even if I couldn't quite remember why anymore.

And then Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix. I'm not gonna get into my opinions of that show lest I open a flood of irrelevant discourse (for those uninitiated, it is a bit... divisive, to say the least). However my feelings on the matter did encourage me to go and watch the original and well, holy shit I love Orko more now than I could have ever comprehended as a kid. He is THE quintessential underappreciated comic relief character I tend to gravitate towards, and then some.

But before I get into that, let me back up a bit and explain. Orko is a Trollan, a race of magical little dudes that are basically floating sweaters with hats and covered up faces. Out of these Trollans, Orko is an incredibly fucking OP archmage. Like, they straight up call him Orko the Great, he's so powerful. But then, he gets caught in a freak storm that whisks him away from his home dimension and into Eternia. Immediately, he runs into a young Prince Adam, who is trapped in a swamp/tar pit and needs rescuing. Orko, being the upstanding lad that he is, uses his magic to save him but in the process loses the item that allows him to focus his magic to the swamp (in the 80s version, it's a medallion, but in the 2002 series, it's a wand). Worse yet, the magic (and dare I say the very laws of physics) in Eternia works pretty much the opposite as it does in Trolla, so he's been incredibly nerfed.

So basically, Orko is trapped in a topsy-turvy world away from friends and family, a world with magic he is fundamentally incompatible with. Ouch. He's not completely screwed, however, as he is rewarded by the king and queen for his heroism and appointed... the court jester. Double ouch. He surprisingly doesn't seem to mind though. He genuinely does enjoy entertaining people, even when his tricks only ever work like half the time because he's basically a Mac program trying to run on a Windows computer.

It's not all horrible though, as he does quite literally get adopted by the royal family  and thus sort of become the entire palace's weird son/little brother (despite being older than many of them. He's very, very child-coded largely for the purposes of being a stand-in and example lesson to the actual children watching). But also, more importantly, he becomes one of the very select few to know that Adam and He-Man are one and the same.

But outside of secret-keeping, he is actually a pretty valuable ally to have against Skeletor and his dudes because even though his magic is kind of screwed up, when it does work, he's still one of the most powerful mages on Eternia. In various materials, he's created floods, a second winter, and hell, he can literally explode himself and still be perfectly fine. He's also really clever and can weasel his way out of a number of situations. In one episode, for instance, he manages to convince someone that he's He-Man and Adam is his "assistant" in order to free him from captivity so the day has a better chance of actually being saved.  He's also got the ability to just be really frustrating and incomprehensible to the point that villains who capture him sometimes either don't want him or don't know what to do with him anymore, which is honestly really funny. In an episode of She-Ra, the villains tried to scan his brain but because the inner machinations of his mind are that much of an enigma, he got diagnosed a weirdo and broke the entire machine. Absolutely delightful.

However, there's a lot more to Orko than just comedy and bungled magic. He's actually surprisingly complex!

See, going into this, I expected Orko's whole situation be played entirely for laughs while the sadder implications of his existence go entirely unaddressed. Coming off the heels of characters like Cobalt and others I enjoy, I'm used to this sort of treatment by writers. But they actually don't do that. The depressing subtext is for once, actually TEXT, which was INCREDIBLY surprising to me. We actually get to see another side of him, a side that hates that he can't be taken seriously no matter what he does, a side that is well aware of all the trouble he causes and feels like a burden to those around him. He actually runs away on multiple occasions, fully believing that he's unloved and everyone would be better off without him, even if that couldn't be further from the truth (a point which the Sorceress hammers home with multiple straight up magical video presentations, and in the 2002 series, a literary adaptation, of why he is loved and important).

Underneath all the hyping himself up that he does, there's a lot of insecurity. He's someone who desperately wants to be loved and respected and feels that without funny magic tricks to entertain people, he has no inherent value (which is incredibly relatable if you are also known by people as The Funny One). At one point he agrees with the notion that he doesn't feel like much more than a pet, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Even when he gets the ability to go back and forth between Eternia and Trolla, his feelings of inadequacy now extend toward his family, worrying that his own uncle, the one who taught him everything he knows and greatly contributed to him being Orko the Great back home in the first place, wouldn't be proud of him. Being on Eternia highkey wrecked his shit, man.

However, even when given the opportunity to go back home for good, he always chooses to stay because he's loyal as hell. Even if he needs some reminders, he does know he's needed not just in the fight against evil, but just because his friends and newfound family genuinely love him. It's heartbreaking, but also incredibly wholesome. I did not even remotely expect a comic relief character like this to get this much depth and respect from the writers, especially not from the incredibly campy and cheaply animated 80s series. I am genuinely so unused to this.

But I think that's also what separates him a bit from his fellow Silly Kid Appeal Characters That Kids Fucking Hate ala Snarf Thundercats or Scrappy Doo. He not only makes a concerted effort to be an actually useful ally, but he's also in fact very self-aware of his status as one of these characters. He knows he screws up a lot but he actually tries to accept responsibility and fix it. It makes me wanna root for the lil dude. Now I understand if someone isn't a fan of the brand of humor he brings to the table, or feel like he's simply a distraction from the Cool Buff Dudes Fighting Each Other, but I hope you can see why he might also be a really appealing character to other people, both kids and adults alike. I mean, he was popular enough to be embedded into the canon despite originating from the cartoon and not the toyline for a reason, after all.

Orko is a fun, entertaining, but also complex, heartwarming, and relatable character. I know there is a faction of people that would disagree with me, but I don't think you need to change him all that much or make him a super serious character to be more appealing. He's already got a lot going on that a writer could easily work with. It all just depends on where you decide to focus. Take a lesson from the show and accept that he's fine just the way he is.

[imaginesga1ore]

Loves Harsh Reality

Summary: Life is a bitch.

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Reader, Avengers x Reader (all platonic)

Warnings: swearing, mention of past/current abuse

Prompt: “You want what everyone wants. You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and maybe even a little danger.”

Word Count: 1780

Do not copy, translate, or post any of my stories anywhere you write stories, whether that’s here, Wattpad, or Ao3.

-----------------------------

Life never treated you well. Not even when you were just an innocent child, trying to navigate your way in this terrible world. You were forced into a cold and unloving organization that was run by people who don’t really give a shit that you were only 2 when they stole you. They never treated you like a human, more like a laboratory experiment, which kind of went haywire. When you were brought in, the sleaze running this entire operation stripped you of everything you had so far, which was only a name you had just barely begun to learn, and they assigned you a number, much like a court case; experiment 973. And that’s what you went by for the next 23 years of your life.

The day you were rescued from that deranged and psychotic place was...hectic to say the least. It began like any other day while you were their little pet; get woken up at the ass crack of you don’t know when, test out your powers until you physically passed out and then get ungracefully woken again only to be forced to use your powers. This continues for hours on end before these assholes make you go fight actual people in hopes that you aren’t lacking in physical strength. You fight until bodies start piling up and when your sadistic handlers are satisfied with your progress, as if you haven’t they haven’t been training you to take down monsters bigger than Goliath himself. But something wasn’t right and you could feel it in the enclosed space of your cell.

While you normally had a rough awakening by someone poking, prodding, and eventually yanking you out of bed, nobody was there. In fact, there wasn’t even a peep from the cells neighboring yours. That was until you heard multiple gunshots and multiple bodies slumping against the floor. See, the thing about HYDRA is that they’ve trained you for this exact moment but every single ounce of training they’ve ingrained in your body and mind left the building completely as you hunkered down against the wall furthest from the thick, metal door barricading you from the outside world.

Suddenly, the door you were just measly standing behind came crashing down, dust from the unwashed floor rising. After the dust settled, you looked up to see the poster boy of HYDRA himself, the Winter Soldier. “Steve, I’ve got a live one here. Female, looks to be in her mid-20s,” he whispered into his ear piece. He slowly moved closer, putting his weapon away as he noticed your frail body shaking from fear. “У тебя все нормально? Я ведь не бил тебя дверью?*” Shaking your head, the soldier stopped in front of you, kneeling next to you. “Меня зовут Баки. Что у тебя?” Shrugging your shoulders, you made an attempt to look over at him. “That’s ok. How long have you been here?”

“двадцать три года*,” you said, a bit of hesitation in your voice, finding it hard to speak after decades of being punished if you spoke out of turn. As you finished speaking, you heard another voice, one which you assumed belonged to this Steve person.

“Хорошо. Стив дал мне добро, чтобы мы могли убираться отсюда,” Bucky said, standing back up on his feet. But you weren’t too sure about this. Along with your training, your handlers had pushed on you the notion that the Avengers, and anyone associated with them, were out to harm you, always, and that’s why you needed to be able to defend yourself.

“Ты ведь не сделаешь мне больно, верно? О-или убить меня,” you asked, clear hesitation towards the soldier who was about to grant you freedom from this hellhole.

Bucky looked at you with sympathy drawn over his features. Shaking his head, he gently grabbed your hands, a shiver traveling up your spine at the coolness from the vibranium arm. “Конечно, нет. Я вытащу тебя отсюда.”

-TIME SKIP-

It had been a few months since the Avengers had rescued you from HYDRA and you were beyond grateful that Bucky had stumbled upon you that day. But the fear that HYDRA had instilled in you about being near the Avengers was still running rampant in your system. Whenever someone knocked on your door, or came up behind you, your fight or flight instincts kicked in like that of an animal in the wild. You thought it’d be better by now, considering you have been going to therapy since coming to the compound. But today, all your frustrations came to a head.

You probably should’ve been in bed considering it was 4 in the morning but you needed to burn off some steam. What you failed to realize was that a certain super soldier was sitting in one of the boxes above the training center, watching your every move. But, him being a super soldier meant that he could pick up on more than you realized. Bucky had noticed that blood dripping onto the floor, which came from your terribly wrapped hands.

He knew you were on edge, but not like you were when he first got you out. By the time that you realized Bucky was in your presence, it was a bit too late. You felt a hand on your shoulder; two seconds later you had the body attached to the arm on the floor, your other arm extending towards their throat, keeping them pinned to the floor.

Once the haze cleared, you could tell who it was that you had down on the ground. “Buck? Oh my god.” Quickly pushing yourself off of him, you started pacing the gym floor. “Fucking shit. I am so sorry Bucky. I-I didn’t mean to do it. Are you ok? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” You kept rambling and pacing until Bucky stopped you, stepping in front of you to stop you from wearing a hole in the floor.

“I am fine, кукла. Are you ok? Your hands are bleeding.” Looking down, you saw the streaks of red coming out from under the tape on your hands. “Let’s go get you fixed up, ok?” Nodding, you followed Bucky out of the gym and towards the medical center. “So, what’s got you going at 4 in the morning anyway?”

“I couldn’t sleep. No matter what I tried. I even tried that tea Wanda suggested. By the way, don’t drink it. It tastes like dirt.” Bucky chuckled as you sat on a gurney, grabbing supplies from the cabinets. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t we wait for, you know, a doctor, or an actual medical professional to come in and do this,” you immediately questioned him.

“Do you seriously doubt my suturing skills? I did serve in World War II, so I’m pretty confident that I know my way around a needle and thread,” he said, carefully unraveling the useless tape from around your knuckles, taking a look at the damage. “Yeah, this’ll probably take a little bit, but don’t you worry, Dr. Barnes is always here to help.” Bucky smiled at you, calming your nerves the tiniest bit.

After prepping and numbing you properly, Bucky began stitching your open wounds shut. “So, do you wanna talk about why you couldn’t fall asleep? Talking might help, at least it usually does for me,” Bucky asked, not taking his eyes off his work in progress.

“I, uh, I keep having nightmares. They went away for a bit, when I could actually sleep for the night, but for some reason, they’ve come back,” you admitted quietly, almost like it was a dirty little secret.

“Well, you’ve only been here a few months so I wouldn’t expect your nightmares to just instantly go away. It took me a few years to actually get a good night's sleep with them waking me or anybody else up. So I know exactly how you feel,” he said, finishing up before wrapping your hands in sterile dressings. “And you are all set. Now, no excessive force, which includes going to the gym at 4 in the morning and working out like you are about to fight the Hulk.” You laughed lightly, shoulders loosening up.

“Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, you just stitched up my hands cause I got too into my own brain after I almost choked you when you could’ve just dropped me here and gone back to bed.” Tears filled your eyes once more, a thickening feeling surrounding your concerns.

Bucky sighed, gingerly sitting next to you on the gurney. “When I found you at the base, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy ride for you. Or for anyone here really. Adding another member to the team can sometimes jostle things around. And I knew for a fact that you would feel like an outcast amongst some of the biggest heroes the world has ever seen...so far,” he said as you laid your head against his arm, wiping away the tears that had made their way down your face. “And I thought maybe, just maybe, if we became friends or even just acquaintances, that you wouldn’t feel so alone here. Cause I know exactly how that feels. And ever since coming here, I can see what I looked like when I was found; lost, felt like I didn’t deserve anything good or even deserving of love. But even though you hide it with a sort of tough exterior and you’re used to being trapped away, I can tell you something about yourself that you probably don’t even know,” Bucky said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Oh yeah? What would that be,” you asked, quite curious as to what he may have found out.

“You want what everyone wants. You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and maybe even a little danger. Cause that’s exactly how I feel right now.” At some point, of which you weren’t sure, Bucky had hooked his fingers under your chin, turning your face up to meet his. Your eyes finally met his, capturing the look of a pure and innocent love in his icy stare. He slowly leaned down, but stopping right before your lips collided. “Is this ok?” Quickly nodding, Bucky pressed his lips to your own, cupping your face as your injured hands made their way to his sides.

Pulling back, Bucky rested his forehead against yours. “Never thought that this is how we would have our first kiss, doll,” he said, making you laugh which in turn caused him to chuckle. “But, I’m not at all opposed to it.”

“I’m glad. Now let’s get out of here. I’m tired.”

-----------------------------

1. У тебя все нормально? Я ведь не бил тебя дверью - Are you ok? I didn’t hit you with the door, did I?

2. Меня зовут Баки. Что у тебя? - My name is Bucky. What’s yours?

3. Это хорошо. Как давно ты здесь? - That’s ok. How long have you been here?

4. двадцать три года - 23 years.

5. Хорошо. Стив дал мне добро, чтобы мы могли убираться отсюда. - Ok. Steve gave me the go ahead so we can get out of here.

6. Ты ведь не сделаешь мне больно, верно? О-или убить меня? - You aren’t going to hurt me right? O-or kill me?

7. Конечно, нет. Я вытащу тебя отсюда. - Of course not. I’m going to get you out of here.

8. Кукла - Doll

If you see this on another blog, @multifandomwhre , that is my first blog where I submitted it to @sweeterthanthis “Quote Me” challenge. 

[lild3m0nnn-bpd]

🦋Chronic People Pleasing Pt. 1🦋

Compulsively trying to earn love and acceptance doesn't work and actually leaves us feeling dissatisfied and empty. All attempts to gain love and approval fall short of achieving the nearly impossible prize of unconditional love, regardless of how well you please others. Though this strategy doesn't work, however, the driving force behind it is understandable and the state of feeling unloved is worthy of great compassion.

Chronic People Pleasing Thoughts

🦋"I'll Do Anything to Be Loved"🦋

You may think you need to satisfy others no matter what the cost is. If others approve of you, you'll finally obtain the unconditional love that you've always wanted. If you don't satisfy others, your chances of receiving unconditional love are slim to nonexistent and you may be abandoned.

🦋"What Do Others Want From Me?"🦋

This is characterized by compulsive worry about what others think about you, what they expect of you, and what you should do about it. Worrying about others' desires and opinions and you fixate your attention outside yourself. If you know what others want and give it to them, surely they'll provide the unconditional love and sense of safety you desire. Avoid displeasing others and creating any conflict that might result in love being withdrawn. You may not even truly know what others want from you, you simply assume you know what they want and then go for it.

🦋"It's Up to Me"🦋

The presumption that people actually need to be taken care of sets you up for worrying about how to help them. You are the one who should do the caretaking. This can elevate your worry to new heights and fuel the fire of chronic people pleasing.

🦋"I'm Not Worthy of Love"🦋

Fairly common belief that there's something innately wrong with you -- that you simply aren't worthy of love and therefore must constantly try to earn it. It's only natural that you would discount your own legitimate needs and focus on others desires. Feelings of unworthiness can make you work even harder to prove your worth by trying to please others.

🦋"I'll Be Judged and Replaced"🦋

People pick up the notion that they are doomed to be poorly judged if they do not act as others would want the to act. That criticism is a harbinger of rejection and therefore you're acutely sensitive to it and possibly adept at avoiding it. You may compulsively scan the environment for indications that someone needs you or is upset with you and be acutely attuned to potential signals that this is occurring. You may interpret the rhythm and force of someone's footsteps as an indication that the person is angry. You may think a certain tone of voice means the speaker is upset and that you're responsible for it, so obviously it's up to you to fix it. The purpose of this is to avoid conflict.

🦋"I Must Be Perfect"🦋

Trying to be perfect and attempting to anticipate and correct any personal faults is another common way to avoid rejection. This becomes a grueling struggle fraught with endless, painful self evaluation and self criticism. Perfectionism may bring about an idealized image of ourselves that masks feelings of unworthiness and shame. This leads to exhaustion and a paradoxical sense of failure. Its instinct to void abandonment and the common tendency to internalize our caregivers criticisms, this kind of perfectionism and self judgment makes sense. If you don't allow yourself to be seen exactly as you are, you can never be accepted exactly as you are.

🦋"You Decide"🦋

If someone asks you directly what you want, you're likely to respond with whatever you think the other person wants or deflect the question back to them. You may know exactly what you want, but you find it nearly impossible to say so because you have a fear of hurting others' feelings or offending them. You may have difficulty deciding where you want to go for dinner, let alone uttering any choice out loud.

🦋"How Do I Stack Up?"🦋

A frequent and unfair comparison of yourself to others. This results in judging yourself as less than or not as good as others and may cause you to think that others are always better than you. You begin to idealize others, further eroding your self respect and self trust and making equality impossible in your relationship.

🦋"I Come Last"🦋

The belief that you deserve to come last and that taking care of yourself is selfish. You often initially find it difficult to take time away fro others to meditate. You feel guilty about taking any time for yourself.

[fox-steward]

how do you personally accept that no one will ever love you?

me, personally?

i can’t tell if this is a shitty ask from some troglodyte trying to insinuate i’ll never be loved, or if this is a cry for help from a person in pain grappling with the false notion that no one will ever love them, and seeking strategies to cope with that falsehood.

but it’s telling that i can’t differentiate between someone trying to troll ME or someone trying, essentially, to troll themselves.

cause here’s the thing: i am currently loved, i have been loved in the past, and i will be loved in the future. even if i had never been loved and weren’t currently, i love myself. that’s enough. that’s how you cope with a dearth of love--DIY. and loving yourself isn’t easy, it’s work. it’s labor. “self-love” as a cultural concept is misleading, loving yourself is about self-labor.

think of yourself like a child and do what’s best for yourself as often as you can. you wouldn’t say shitty things to your child, so don’t say them to yourself. you wouldn’t call your child ugly or stupid or worthless and same goes for yourself. you’d put your kid to bed at a decent time and make sure she had enough to eat. you’d take your kid outside when it’s sunny because that shit rocks and she deserves to walk in the sunshine. you’d read her stories and get her paints and take her biking and share her favorite foods with her and ask her questions and make her feel important. and the same goes for you. you, too, were a child once. we never stop being that kid, even though we grow and learn.

we have to do the labor of loving ourselves, though. if we’re lucky, someone did that for us early in life, but even those lucky ones eventually have to take stewardship of their own life and be the source of their own self love, and self love is work. it’s not permissibility (essentially letting ourselves eat like shit, live like shit, not exercise, stay with familiar but shitty people, think shitty things, etc. because changing those things is hard); it IS effort and discipline, but it’s also compassion (take a rest day when you need it, don’t be cruel to yourself if you miss a goal or have a bad day, allow yourself pleasure in food, etc.).

i like to take gracious interpretations in my life, so i’m going to believe you’re someone hurting looking for help. you’re not unlovable, and very likely you are currently loved and have been before. but maybe you’ve never had love, for which i am very sorry. you deserved love in the past and you still do. others’ inability to show you love does not translate into you being undeserving of it. and the present will not be the future. if you’re not loved externally now, that doesn’t mean you won’t be. there’s only one way to guarantee you will have love in the future, however, and that’s to commit to loving yourself. best of luck, anon.

[multifandomwhre]

Loves Harsh Reality

Summary: Life is a bitch. 

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Reader, Avengers x Reader (all platonic)

Warnings: swearing, mention of past/current abuse

Prompt: “You want what everyone wants. You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and maybe even a little danger.” 

Word Count: 1780

Do not copy, translate, or post any of my stories anywhere you write stories, whether that’s here, Wattpad, or Ao3. 

-----------------------------

Life never treated you well. Not even when you were just an innocent child, trying to navigate your way in this terrible world. You were forced into a cold and unloving organization that was run by people who don’t really give a shit that you were only 2 when they stole you. They never treated you like a human, more like a laboratory experiment, which kind of went haywire. When you were brought in, the sleaze running this entire operation stripped you of everything you had so far, which was only a name you had just barely begun to learn, and they assigned you a number, much like a court case; experiment 973. And that’s what you went by for the next 23 years of your life.

The day you were rescued from that deranged and psychotic place was...hectic to say the least. It began like any other day while you were their little pet; get woken up at the ass crack of you don’t know when, test out your powers until you physically passed out and then get ungracefully woken again only to be forced to use your powers. This continues for hours on end before these assholes make you go fight actual people in hopes that you aren’t lacking in physical strength. You fight until bodies start piling up and when your sadistic handlers are satisfied with your progress, as if you haven’t they haven’t been training you to take down monsters bigger than Goliath himself. But something wasn’t right and you could feel it in the enclosed space of your cell. 

While you normally had a rough awakening by someone poking, prodding, and eventually yanking you out of bed, nobody was there. In fact, there wasn’t even a peep from the cells neighboring yours. That was until you heard multiple gunshots and multiple bodies slumping against the floor. See, the thing about HYDRA is that they’ve trained you for this exact moment but every single ounce of training they’ve ingrained in your body and mind left the building completely as you hunkered down against the wall furthest from the thick, metal door barricading you from the outside world. 

Suddenly, the door you were just measly standing behind came crashing down, dust from the unwashed floor rising. After the dust settled, you looked up to see the poster boy of HYDRA himself, the Winter Soldier. “Steve, I’ve got a live one here. Female, looks to be in her mid-20s,” he whispered into his ear piece. He slowly moved closer, putting his weapon away as he noticed your frail body shaking from fear. “У тебя все нормально? Я ведь не бил тебя дверью?*” Shaking your head, the soldier stopped in front of you, kneeling next to you. “Меня зовут Баки. Что у тебя?” Shrugging your shoulders, you made an attempt to look over at him. “That’s ok. How long have you been here?”

“двадцать три года*,” you said, a bit of hesitation in your voice, finding it hard to speak after decades of being punished if you spoke out of turn. As you finished speaking, you heard another voice, one which you assumed belonged to this Steve person. 

“Хорошо. Стив дал мне добро, чтобы мы могли убираться отсюда,” Bucky said, standing back up on his feet. But you weren’t too sure about this. Along with your training, your handlers had pushed on you the notion that the Avengers, and anyone associated with them, were out to harm you, always, and that’s why you needed to be able to defend yourself. 

“Ты ведь не сделаешь мне больно, верно? О-или убить меня,” you asked, clear hesitation towards the soldier who was about to grant you freedom from this hellhole. 

Bucky looked at you with sympathy drawn over his features. Shaking his head, he gently grabbed your hands, a shiver traveling up your spine at the coolness from the vibranium arm. “Конечно, нет. Я вытащу тебя отсюда.”

-TIME SKIP-

It had been a few months since the Avengers had rescued you from HYDRA and you were beyond grateful that Bucky had stumbled upon you that day. But the fear that HYDRA had instilled in you about being near the Avengers was still running rampant in your system. Whenever someone knocked on your door, or came up behind you, your fight or flight instincts kicked in like that of an animal in the wild. You thought it’d be better by now, considering you have been going to therapy since coming to the compound. But today, all your frustrations came to a head.

You probably should’ve been in bed considering it was 4 in the morning but you needed to burn off some steam. What you failed to realize was that a certain super soldier was sitting in one of the boxes above the training center, watching your every move. But, him being a super soldier meant that he could pick up on more than you realized. Bucky had noticed that blood dripping onto the floor, which came from your terribly wrapped hands. 

He knew you were on edge, but not like you were when he first got you out. By the time that you realized Bucky was in your presence, it was a bit too late. You felt a hand on your shoulder; two seconds later you had the body attached to the arm on the floor, your other arm extending towards their throat, keeping them pinned to the floor. 

Once the haze cleared, you could tell who it was that you had down on the ground. “Buck? Oh my god.” Quickly pushing yourself off of him, you started pacing the gym floor. “Fucking shit. I am so sorry Bucky. I-I didn’t mean to do it. Are you ok? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” You kept rambling and pacing until Bucky stopped you, stepping in front of you to stop you from wearing a hole in the floor. 

“I am fine, кукла. Are you ok? Your hands are bleeding.” Looking down, you saw the streaks of red coming out from under the tape on your hands. “Let’s go get you fixed up, ok?” Nodding, you followed Bucky out of the gym and towards the medical center. “So, what’s got you going at 4 in the morning anyway?”

“I couldn’t sleep. No matter what I tried. I even tried that tea Wanda suggested. By the way, don’t drink it. It tastes like dirt.” Bucky chuckled as you sat on a gurney, grabbing supplies from the cabinets. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t we wait for, you know, a doctor, or an actual medical professional to come in and do this,” you immediately questioned him.

“Do you seriously doubt my suturing skills? I did serve in World War II, so I’m pretty confident that I know my way around a needle and thread,” he said, carefully unraveling the useless tape from around your knuckles, taking a look at the damage. “Yeah, this’ll probably take a little bit, but don’t you worry, Dr. Barnes is always here to help.” Bucky smiled at you, calming your nerves the tiniest bit. 

After prepping and numbing you properly, Bucky began stitching your open wounds shut. “So, do you wanna talk about why you couldn’t fall asleep? Talking might help, at least it usually does for me,” Bucky asked, not taking his eyes off his work in progress.

“I, uh, I keep having nightmares. They went away for a bit, when I could actually sleep for the night, but for some reason, they’ve come back,” you admitted quietly, almost like it was a dirty little secret. 

“Well, you’ve only been here a few months so I wouldn’t expect your nightmares to just instantly go away. It took me a few years to actually get a good night's sleep with them waking me or anybody else up. So I know exactly how you feel,” he said, finishing up before wrapping your hands in sterile dressings. “And you are all set. Now, no excessive force, which includes going to the gym at 4 in the morning and working out like you are about to fight the Hulk.” You laughed lightly, shoulders loosening up.

“Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, you just stitched up my hands cause I got too into my own brain after I almost choked you when you could’ve just dropped me here and gone back to bed.” Tears filled your eyes once more, a thickening feeling surrounding your concerns. 

Bucky sighed, gingerly sitting next to you on the gurney. “When I found you at the base, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy ride for you. Or for anyone here really. Adding another member to the team can sometimes jostle things around. And I knew for a fact that you would feel like an outcast amongst some of the biggest heroes the world has ever seen...so far,” he said as you laid your head against his arm, wiping away the tears that had made their way down your face. “And I thought maybe, just maybe, if we became friends or even just acquaintances, that you wouldn’t feel so alone here. Cause I know exactly how that feels. And ever since coming here, I can see what I looked like when I was found; lost, felt like I didn’t deserve anything good or even deserving of love. But even though you hide it with a sort of tough exterior and you’re used to being trapped away, I can tell you something about yourself that you probably don’t even know,” Bucky said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Oh yeah? What would that be,” you asked, quite curious as to what he may have found out.

“You want what everyone wants. You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and maybe even a little danger. Cause that’s exactly how I feel right now.” At some point, of which you weren’t sure, Bucky had hooked his fingers under your chin, turning your face up to meet his. Your eyes finally met his, capturing the look of a pure and innocent love in his icy stare. He slowly leaned down, but stopping right before your lips collided. “Is this ok?” Quickly nodding, Bucky pressed his lips to your own, cupping your face as your injured hands made their way to his sides. 

Pulling back, Bucky rested his forehead against yours. “Never thought that this is how we would have our first kiss, doll,” he said, making you laugh which in turn caused him to chuckle. “But, I’m not at all opposed to it.”

“I’m glad. Now let’s get out of here. I’m tired.” 

-----------------------------

1. У тебя все нормально? Я ведь не бил тебя дверью - Are you ok? I didn’t hit you with the door, did I?

2. Меня зовут Баки. Что у тебя? - My name is Bucky. What’s yours?

3. Это хорошо. Как давно ты здесь? - That’s ok. How long have you been here?

4. двадцать три года - 23 years. 

5. Хорошо. Стив дал мне добро, чтобы мы могли убираться отсюда. - Ok. Steve gave me the go ahead so we can get out of here. 

6. Ты ведь не сделаешь мне больно, верно? О-или убить меня? - You aren’t going to hurt me right? O-or kill me?

7. Конечно, нет. Я вытащу тебя отсюда. - Of course not. I’m going to get you out of here.

8. Кукла - Doll

I will also be posting this on my other blog, @imaginesmcu. This is a very, very late submission to @sweeterthanthis ‘s “Quote Me” challenge. 

[unofficial-sean]

Individualistic Applications of Love

I feel like I'm always misplacing my affection and love. I'm also constantly confused and unsure about how people feel about me. I don't know how to properly interpret what they are communicating and gesturing. One moment, I'm certain there's mutual affection, and then the next, I get a que that destroys that notion. And without any explicit yes or no, I'm just left in the space between, where I can't be certain if I should push harder, or if I should withdraw. I'd like to keep up an appearance that this doesn't trouble me often, but I can't. I feel. . . unduly anxious. Anxious that I may misplace my heart until the end of my days. I wish I knew how to be direct without being dire about how I feel to people I deeply care about. I've had too many bad experiences where being sincere about what's stirring inside of me has only made people weary, or worse. It's like trapping a maelstrom in a jar made of glass, and then showing it to someone. That glass can shatter at any moment. Then again, I usually make myself clear. So maybe I already have a vague notion of my answer. But I'm afraid to hear it expressly. Love is a very strange emotion, aye?

Then again, I think all this fear and anxiety stems from my framework for how I feel and interpret love. It's like a light switch. It's there or it's not. I wouldn't date or have sex with my family members, so I never tell them that I love them. The word feels inappropriate there, to me. The same for some of my friends. Others, I do feel attraction and affection for. And in those cases, the switch flips. Love is now an acceptable word to express to that friend. But I think for most people, love is not a binary light switch, It's a dimmer switch. They love them like family. They love them like friends. They can love non-exclusively, or they can love singularly. They can separate and distinguish different intensities and types. I forget this. Someone may say they love me, in a platonic or friendly sense. But to me, that word has one encompassing meaning. Because that's how I use it. It's my way of saying "I wouldn't mind a lifetime with you." "It would make me overjoyed to be closer to you." Though, now that I've written that, I suppose those phrases can also be applied to the dimer switch. Fuck, my analogy broke haha

Okay, I can fix it. The word "love," to me, is entirely romantic. So, when I use it, I mean it. My brain has been, and will continue to be, weird. I'm sure an NT might read this and wonder "Well, that a bit odd and limited."

It's one of the reasons I really struggle to remain in any outlet of the furry community for too long. It almost feels like everyone's got a piece of their heart in everyone else's pockets. And when they pay their affection towards me, as well, I don't see it for what it is. I interpret it as my form of singular affection. I end up hurt, the space becomes too suffocating, and I leave. Opening myself up through admission of affection is the most vulnerable I can be. So when I present that affection to someone who doesn't share it. . .

It's devastating.

Maybe if my model of love were more flexible and open, I might be better off. but I can't imagine living very long if I have not a singular deep connection. It's been so long, it's kind of scary to imagine forming one again. Or being so close to forming one, and having it disconnect. With my model, I begin to feel I'm unlovable. People may like me, but never enough to be romantic for any meaningful time. But from the outside in, I imagine friends don't even now this turmoil is there. They love me in some analog capacity on that dimmable switch. Between off and on. And I can't see it.

At some point, I have to flip that switch off and move on. I just wish I knew ho to do that in a non-destructive manner. If I linger around someone who I used to feel "on" for (perhaps still do), it pains me to see them go off and. . . engage in their variable intimacy with others, to put it vaguely. Most of the time, it's best I don't know at all.

Though I'm sure I'm guilty, too, of these things I find hurtful in others. If I feel really lonely, I look for ways to feel wanted, even if it's just temporary. Like posting a nude, getting a commission with someone, light flirting that goes nowhere. Even just pining over someone. At no point would I call that love, and yet it still feels like a betrayal. I feel dirty inside for wanting to feel wanted in return, no matter how brief.

I used to be a lot worse, a couple years ago. I'd just hookup often, strangers or friends, to feel desired. But that had a nasty side effect. Despite being so physically close to someone, they couldn't have been more emotionally distant. And it was taxing to consider that imbalance. It felt worse than not having contact at all. I think it's time to flip this switch off. I think I've done and said enough, for now. It helps to write this stuff to no one. I learn and realize as I go along when I put it on paper.

[hermitreunited]

Hi, I love your fics so much! Could you do 2, 6 and 10 for Everyone Gets Here Eventually? I have such a soft spot for it :)

Thank youuuu!! I have a soft spot for it, too, which is why, oh boy, I went overboard on this reply. So I am definitely putting in a read more and venture forward at your own cluttered risk!

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in eghe?

Some of them I really liked writing because I they were centerpiece scenes that I basically had all the dialogue laid out for ahead of time, so it was easier to sort of just fill in the rest, like the meeting Dave’s family dinner, or when Klaus and Dave have their big fight.

Some I really liked because I didn’t anticipate them existing and then, hello! there they were! and cute and fun, like Rachel teasing Dave about Klaus, and the two of them baking and talking about homophobic dads after, and Diego meeting Dave. Dave going off on Reg was also not a way I thought things would go there and ‘cute and fun’ is not how I would describe it but oh MAN was it satisfying to write.

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in eghe?

ooohh it stayed surprisingly intact, actually! One of the curses that plagues me as a writer is I basically have to write each scene in order, and then things sort of settle in, with scenes leading one to the next in ways I don’t tend to mess around with.

But I pulled out the docs and looked at notes for it, which honestly is where this all went wrong because I have A Lot Of Notes for it. The scene that probably got the biggest changes is in chapter two, where Dave shares about how the afterlife works and that the ghosts Klaus sees on earth are the bad bits that get left out of the afterlife.

So it never made it onto the page, but this was the scene where they decided that they needed a name for this afterlife and they settle on Peace, as in the spirits there are at peace.

And anyway, I always need to know everything that everyone on the page is thinking when I write, so when Klaus learns about the spirits on earth mainly being the worst parts of people’s souls, I have a note about what’s on his mind:  “not only is this a ‘here is why your life is so fucking shitty - solved it’ moment, which sucks, but also I think he’s conflating things a bit and possibly over the top self-pityingly toying with the idea that he keeps getting kicked out because allll of him is the worst of humanity. it’s not an entirely consistent idea, but when he wants to feel really shitty, he dabbles in the notion.”

ALSO in that scene, I have the only chunk of properly written stuff I found that was cut but still saved. I took it out because it seemed like it dipped into too much confusing plot stuff and made the timing weird and it just didn’t work there but - Klaus realizes that with ghosts basically able to time travel, a person or organization could quite effectively change timelines, as long as they had Klaus around to talk to said ghosts for them. (and maybe it was a backdoor idea for a fic that could exist, I don’t know) But anyway here’s a version of what that conversation looked like:

Then the magnitude of this new angle hits him. “This is a lot, Dave. Holy shit. This is turning out to be a lot.” “Too big to mess with.” Dave has had plenty of time to think this over already, and that’s the conclusion he came to as well. “Did you know, there’s a whole group of time-traveling cops who make sure that nothing changes the timeline too much?” Obviously Dave did not know about that. ‘The world got weird’ is turning out to be a greater understatement than he could ever have imagined. “Whatever that even means,” Klaus goes on. “‘Cops’ is actually too sanitized a word, probably. There’s no way they know about this. If they knew that I - I don’t know what they would do. Jesus.” Klaus is slipping into that long distance stare that means he is circling in on a freak-out. “That’s got to stay a state secret, Dave, that can’t be a thing people find out. I can come up with too many ways to exploit that just off the top of my head and I’m the world’s biggest idiot; I’m not half as devious as some of these motherfuckers.” Dave steadies Klaus’ knee as it starts to bounce compulsively. “I’m not going to tell anyone.” The question is unsaid, because they both know the answer, but Klaus flicks his eyes to Dave’s to check anyway before he says it out loud. “Because we’re not going to do anything to save you.”

There’s a part of me that wants to share a little not really written moment from the fic I probably won’t ever write where we get to see Klaus’ side of what happened through all of the fic, but this post is already so stupid long. (maybe I’ll make another post just to spill on that? because I really don’t think the fic is ever going to be written)

10. What are some facts readers may not know about eghe?

So since I went combing through notes, I’m just going to paste in some of the maybe interesting ones here. Most are like, half sketches of a dialogue that never found a spot, but there’s a headcanon and a Thought in there, too.

When Klaus finds out that they just can kind of see each other/be seen as however he wants, he’s appalled with modern religion. “How did modern religion get so hung up on sex? This place is kinky as hell!” (Hm word choice ha)

it cracks him up that he is having this ‘who is older’ argument with his bf and it’s just as nonsensical as it always is with his siblings and that shouldn’t be possible

an unwritten piece of Vanya’s book: “sometimes she wonders if maybe he doesn’t even have powers either, if he’s like her but managed to lie about it early enough to get included. You cant ever see his powers and he never did anything useful with them and he always lied, even about big things like Ben. Maybe he lied about this all this time”

Klaus leaves doors open because a closed door can’t stop a ghost anyway, and he at least likes to know when they are coming.

So anyway just so we’re clear, the subtext story of this whooole thing is about how Dave is carrying around this fear of being unlovable because of gay reasons, which are ridiculous and he learns to set himself free partially due to the ways Klaus shows him that there isn’t nothing wrong with that. Klaus is carrying around this fear of being unlovable because of personality reasons, which are also unfounded and he’s going to learn to set himself free due to the ways Dave shows him that there’s nothing wrong with him. Basically they have the same anxieties, but Dave’s are tied to sexuality and Klaus’ are not. Still about feeling like inherently bad people because of outside influences telling them that they are.

regarding the Diego meeting Dave scene: “Which, good job talking about your feelings, Diego! Klaus might (semi-)jokingly tell him this. Because they are both in therapy. Klaus wasn’t going to go unless Diego did, too.Also, his reaction at first when his doc was like, ‘yeah you’re depressed’ was “if that’s depression than I’ve been depressed for years. Longer than I haven’t” and the response is just 😬😬”

Holy moly I can apparently talk about my own stuff for a while huh?? I hope you didn’t regret asking! I had a fun time looking back at it, so thanks again very much! 💜💜

[evilelitest2]

Just heard your Berserk Fatal Flaw. I agree with a lot of stuff but dude... I.. I don't know if I can follow you anymore seeing you chose to be so wrong about Casca. I need revalue everything you have said. Nah, just kidding, I love ya man. This really is the first time I'm seriously disagreed with you on something though. Not about the way she's been treated (I will add it's not JUST the rape that got to her state), but she is a complex, layered character. In my opinion.

First off, thanks a lot for listening to the Berserk review, I really appreciate it, and its fine if you disagree (nice joke btw). And thanks for asking the question politely (if people want to know what we are talking about, the podcast in question is here) Personally I think Caska has a great character design I love the way she looks especially compared to most anime women characters, (I actually designed a Casca look alike for a dark souls playthrough) and you are right it isn’t just the constant rape that makes her the way she is.  With all due respect I don’t really see the complexity of Casca (is it Casca or Caska?  I keep seeing alternative spellings), I mostly see people referencing complexity without really showing it.  For contrast, lets talk about a different abused character, Guts (Gatz...no i’m just kidding)

Gut’s life is also defined by traumatic events which shape his personality  To witAn unloved Childhood full of physical Abuse Killing his first man at a young ageBeing raped Finding out that his father figure sold him out Accidentally  being responsible for killing a Fairy child who wanted nothing but to help himSeeing his father figure break downFather Figure attempting to murder himMurdering the Father FigureBeing driven out by his surrogate family Period of LonlynessKilling a child who metaphorically was Guts Having his “best friend” (AND NOTHING ELSE) betray him after Guts was nothing but faithful, murder all of their companions by leating them get tortured and eaten by demons, and seeing the women he loves get raped in front of him while having his arm and eye removed and left totally helplessMeeting Puck 

(This manga is weird) 

Every one of these is a horrifically traumatizing event but each one actually tells us something different about Guts, he isn’t just “Traumitized” each one of them informs us about a specific aspect about his personality.  To wit, his abusive unloving and neglectful father fiture who showed just enough affection for Guts to latch unto means that Guts is also defined by his desperate need for affection and love.  Guts really craves friendship and equal relationships and at his heart is a bit of a people pleaser.  However because his father figure then betrayed him in the worse possible way, he associates that aforementioned desire for love to be a weakness unto itself, and he has thoroughly internalized the notion that being weak is a crime and not only hopes never to be weak, but is constantly beating himself up for “being weak”.  

(pictured, hetrosexuality) 

The irony of the strongest man in the world is torturing himself for “being weak” is the core of the story.  Because he is obsessed with always being strong, he doesn’t allow himself access to feelings he really wants to experience, like friendship, attraction to Casca....attraction to Griffith (This story is so fucking gay) and basically tries to avoid dealing with feelings through the very popular use of horrific violence, which doesn’t work, so he keeps trying to have more violence the cycle continues.  His attempt to go be by himself is an important part of his heeling process, because he is learning to actually define himself by himself, not just as a giant mass of muscles with a sword.  He hasn’t really thought of himself as a person until he joins Griffith’s band, and hasn’t thought of himself as “the bad guy” until he killed a child and was like “um.....wait.....I’m the victim here.....fuck”

And that is what separates Guts from Griffith, he ultimately does accept blame for his actions.

(pictured, character growth) 

So each traumatic event informs Guts as a person, and they all tie into the larger theme of Machismo  What is interesting about Berserk is that it is actually about toxic masculinity, both Guts and Griffith are people who are super macho and are extremely unhealthy in how they approach masculinity.  In fact what they have in common is that neither one of them is actually happy with the coarse they are pursuing, but they keep doing that because to do otherwise would make them feel weak.  Griffith wants to have a castle....kinda of for its own sake, it is not like he has any political ambitions or dreams, he doesn't have reforms he wants to initiate, he just wants a castle because he made a goal when he was 7 and has a really hard time changing direction.  Meanwhile Guts keeps pushing everybody away from him and all he wants is some sort of support unit.  Hence why the manga is named after a Suit of armor that tears you apart as you murder people

I..don’t get this from Casca.  Maybe i’m not paying attention enough and i’m missing it, but it feels like each traumatic event leaves her kind of the same until she suddenly losses her personality (I haven’t read the latest chapters yet so maybe she has had her personality restored).  Each cycle of trauma seems to leave her just....kinda of the same

(I do like this scene though) 

So young Casca we see in the flashback is just kinda...demure.  Then Griffith makes her kill a guy (like a dick) and from that point on we see somebody who is controlling, obsessive, tense and hostile towards everybody but Griffith.  And that is...kinda it.  LIke I don’t really see how she changes internally and I don’t see how we go from that to “becomes a child”  Why does Casa become a child rather than Guts?  

My issue with Casca is that we are always viewing her from outside and she is defined by her relationship with the characters rather than with herself.  Guts and Griffith both have scenes where the narrative gets us to see what they are thinking internally but beyond one or two exceptions, Casca always seems like a character who exists as a satellite.  She bounces between rape threat and rape threat and never seems to be able to come into her own.  The scene taht upset me the most with Casca was the Eclipse, because while Juddeau and Pippin and even fucking Corkus got there own special moment where they either fought a bunch of demons or died in a specific way, Casca, the best fighter other than Guts, goes down without killing a single demon.  Her last big fight was against the comedy relief villain.  And in a manga where the way people murder their fellow human beings is actually how they express there character that says a lot. I never actually see the complexity beyond the writing saying that she is complicated, just like she is built up to be a great fighter but never seems to do much. 

(I kinda wish we had gotten to see more of this rather than just skipping it over)

The only time where I kinda liked Casca was the bit between her hooking up with Guts and the Esclipse, ecause then she and Guts were in a relationship and actually got out of their shells a little bit, and its the first time we see them actually show more of their humanity.  

(I also like this scene) 

Just to be clear, you aren’t wrong for liking the character, even if we can prove taht Casca is objectively a bad character, you aren’t wrong for liking her.  The Strength of the art design and the way she is built up means that it makes sense if you like her, I just kinda feel like the narrative doesn’t, and the beset version of Casca i tend to see are the ones fans imagine rather than the one which is written.  Epsicailly because she is one of the very few female POCs in anime/manga who isn’t racist or offensive in regards to race.  

(.....wtf)

[everlarkficexchange]

Maps

Author: @wingletblackbird

Prompt 25: I have a song prompt based on Maroon 5’s Maps. It fits Everlark so much. Peeta was there for Katniss in her dark times while she almost gave up on him when he was at his worst down on his knees. But eventually he followed the map that led to her and they got back together. [Anonymous]

A/N: This one shot references the lyrics to Down in the Valley which is an Appalachian folk song I headcanon as being “The Valley Song.” It’s a pretty good song for Everlark too which works quite nicely. There are several variations to it, as is typical of folk songs, I chose the version I felt suited the best.

Rating/Warnings: Just the confused thoughts and epiphanies of Peeta who is wrestling with his hijacking.  Very minor coarse language. Should be suitable at least for anyone over thirteen.

                                            Maps

                                 I was there for you

                               In your darkest times

                                 I was there for you

                               In your darkest nights

                         But I wonder, where were you?

                               When I was at my worst

                                   Down on my knees

                       And you said you had my back

                      So I wonder, where were you?

              When all the roads you took came back to me

It seemed like he was getting better. Somedays felt good, others bad; sometimes he wasn’t sure. Holistically, they said he was getting better, yet something niggled away at his subconscious. Something he couldn’t reach. In his dreams, he is in the dark reaching for something. He wakes up before he can find it.

Therapy is complex, difficult. There seem to be so many issues, so many fractures. Healing his mind feels like he has two hundred improperly healed bones they need to re-break and reset. The nature of the healing tends to fall in two camps though. First is dealing with the present. Bringing yourself into the present. It took him awhile to do that. It’s easier to live in the could-have-beens. Or just not anywhere children are bombed. But he stamps his feet, touches his face. This is where I am. This is where I live. It’s a harsh cruel world, but it’s still that way even if he lives in his time-loopy brain. Better in the present where he can do something, grasp something, learn to avoid triggers, to handle flashbacks. He’s had enough fake. He’s not there anymore. That’s no longer his reality. Mind over matter. He laughs at the notion when both have been desecrated. So much has been stripped away. He knows he will never get it back. He just needs to know how to move forward. He needs to know what makes him, him. Second camp is dealing with just that. Tracker Jacker venom, even without the torture and hijacking, is designed to target your brain to show your very worst fears. They say it’s driven men mad. Is he mad? Peeta needs to know what his worst fears are–better yet, face them–if he really wants to distinguish reality from shiny. He screams in his sleep and destroys rooms in his rages. He thinks it’s not an inaccurate thing to call him mad. He is in every sense.

It all comes back to Katniss. Everything has to come back to Katniss. Dr. Aurelius stresses that his life cannot revolve around one person, and he knows that’s true. It’s not healthy to exist for a person. You are a person independently, but the hijacking was about Katniss, breaking Katniss, ruining Katniss. He needs to know how the venom would affect that. What would he most fear about Katniss? What did they target?

It’s sadly obvious, especially when they talk about his childhood. The bitter mother who had deigned to have another child in the hopes it might be a girl. It wasn’t. The father who turned a blind eye to the beatings. His brothers who paired up against him, but weren’t particularly close to each other either. The tense politics. Did his mother love him? Did his brothers? His father? He was closest to his father, he recalls.

“Do you think he loved you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess he did, but I often thought it might just be guilt. Like when Mom would take a wooden spoon to me, even a rolling pin, I would get bruised, and Dad would do nothing, but afterwards he would slip me cookies. I wasn’t above taking advantage of it. I knew if Dad saw me bruised up, I’d be more likely to get away with things. If he really loved me though, he ought to have stood up, stopped it. He said he was ‘keeping the peace,’ but there’s no peace in a household like that. He was a coward. Giving me cookies doesn’t make up for it. It was just his way of trying to make himself feel better.”

“People aren’t one-dimensional. It’s quite possible your father felt guilty, especially if it is he who pushed for another child. Likewise, there is no denying he should have stepped in where he saw abuse, but would he have felt guilty if he didn’t care? You said you were closest to him. Did you feel he loved you in spite of the hurt? Can you separate your worth from other people’s actions?”

Ha! They talk it over again and again. He’s only ever partially sold on it. It makes Peeta feel pathetic. That after all he’s been through, all he’s seen and done, all he wants to know is if his Mommy loved him, but it’s important, so important, because it feels like Katniss abandoned him, and used him, and he’s so pathetic he took her scraps while she gave it all to Gale. Used him, abandoned him, tossed him aside like trash, and he the fool who allowed it. Stupid boy. Useless child. They could convince him she wasn’t a mutt, and he could convince himself he didn’t want to be a violent killer, but the hardest thing to shake is feeling worthless. That’s the real fear, and ten times harder to shake when the last thing he remembers after allowing her to bite down on his flesh, saving her life, is her screaming and screaming Gale’s name. And that this happened when he’d deluded himself, again, that maybe she cared, because she didn’t kill him, because she kissed him, because of what Gale said, because she gave him a nightlock pill that was meant for Gale. She’d insisted he take it, closed his hands over it. That feels important, like something just outside his reach. Reaching. Reaching. Reaching. He cannot touch it. Why is it important? It only made sense what she did. It was only fair. She and Gale were together. He was alone. No one to shoot him if need be. But it still feels important. He fixates on it, but nothing. There’s nothing, but the nagging ache. He was a fool. Fooled again by Katniss Everdeen.

He doesn’t hate her anymore. He knows that. He doesn’t believe she was trying to kill him, even in their games. Definitely not in the Quell. He’s seen the footage again and again and again. There was no faking that force field. Gale said that kiss was real. He’s inclined to believe it. There’s no reason Gale would lie about that. Peeta is concerned. Worried. Scared. He knows Katniss is in Twelve, but otherwise nothing. She does not answer calls. There is no response to his letters. He is abandoned. Unloved. Unwanted. Unwanted. Unwanted.

You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real?

Real. That’s what you and I do. Keep each other alive.

After that I always thought of you as an ally.

Was that all it was? An alliance to keep each other alive? But then why the self-sacrifice? And if she cared enough to die, why wasn’t she here? Why, with the exception of that one time she visited him, has she never come to see him? Why? He protected her; he held her on the train. Those memories the Capitol couldn’t quite touch, just alter his impressions of. He tries to remove the taint of fear, of abandonment, look at it objectively. If she wasn’t just a user, if she cared and trusted him in her bed, and he loved her enough to hold her in the night, why wasn’t she here in his darkest night? Why? Why? Why?

Peeta fills papers with etchings of the word why. Why? Why? In various angry angles. Why? It’s like the last piece of the puzzle. He cannot go home until he knows this, because he does not know to handle the enigma that is Katniss. He will have no peace until he knows, has an answer he can live with. He needs to process it, put it in its place. Was he played for a fool? Or was he–is he still–just a fool in love?

Why?

He watches the footage again about how he told her he heard her sing when they were five years old. His memory of it is… faint. He looks up the lyrics to the Valley Song hoping to jog the memory. Some lines stick out like a sore thumb.

If you don’t love me, love who you please.

Wrap your arms around me, give my heart ease.

Was that it? She loved someone else, and he knew it, but didn’t care? He was content just to be able to hold her? There seems to be a hint of truth in that. There’s no denying Katniss has suffered greatly, and he’d like to think he’s not so heartless as to not try and be there for her. (But shouldn’t she do the same? Couldn’t she just write back? Call? Check up on him? If they were at least friends?) (But she protected him. Didn’t want to be separated from him. Gave him the pill). Distantly he thinks he remembers crying when he listened to the song as a boy, but was that just baseless infatuation with a pretty voice? With the idea of even ���Angels in Heaven know I love you”? Or was it merely the words about not being loved back, and being happy with scraps or cookies which resonated with a young, neglected boy? Something else entirely?

  Peeta pulls up the footage of Katniss singing about the hanging tree, because if he fell in love with her because she sang, maybe he can find his way back to understanding if he hears her again.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope

Side by side with me.

  Peeta listens. It’s undeniable her voice is beautiful, that the birds stop to listen. It sends chills down his spine, but Peeta is an artist and more interested in what lies in her voice, why she chose this song. There’s a desperation in her tone, a resignation, an entreaty, a strange kind of hope, almost a yearning. He cannot say he isn’t affected by it. Was she suicidal even then?

  Wear a necklace of rope

Side by side with me

  How many people had answered the call and died side by side? He’d heard they’d sung it as they attacked the hydroelectric dam. Was this a call to die together for a cause? To be free? He shakes his head. He’s still missing something. He knows he is. He shuts the recording off, and goes to sleep.

  As he dreams he’s haunted by lines of The Valley Song that echo through his head in Katniss’s voice, but sweeter, younger, more innocent…loving.

  Down in the valley,

Walking between,

Telling our story,

Here’s what it sings.

  A two-braided Katniss Everdeen is holding out her hands to him. Her hands are stained red with berry juice that oozes out of a Nightlock capsule.

  “Are you coming to the tree?” She asks and raises her hand to bite down on the pill. He sees his hands rush forward to stop her, but all he sees is older, eighteen year old Katniss Everdeen swinging from a tree. He wakes with a gasp. What the Hell was that?

  As is his wont, Peeta sketches his nightmares out. Are you coming to the tree? But Katniss was carrying a pill that oozed juice like berries. He guessed it made sense. The nightlock pills were so named after the stunt he and Katniss had pulled in their first arena. Death and suicide is death and suicide. It all gets muddled in his subconscious. Honestly, as nightmares go, he’s had significantly worse. There is an emotion he felt at the end, when he was reaching for her, he doesn’t recognise. He has to remind himself not to fixate and let it go. It’ll come when it comes. Instead he watches the double suicide scene again.

  He’s struck with a new thought as the berries cross her lips. One he’s not sure he’s ever considered before. What if it wasn’t a bluff? Would she really have eaten those berries? He’s not sure, and at this point he’s not expecting any kind of answer from Katniss. He’s alone in this. Maybe this needs to be about how he understands it anyway.

  Are you coming to the tree?

Had he? Did he?

  He’s not sure. He never is anymore.

  She hadn’t been dead in the first arena though, nor condemned to it. Why would she bite? What motive could she have? What gain would there be? He was the one bleeding out, and there’d been nothing for him to lose in biting down on them, especially if he wanted to get her home. The same didn’t hold true for her. She was probably just bluffing. He decides he can’t fault her for that though, at least she tried to get him home too. He knew she had family that depended on her. He can’t fault her for her actions. Not really. At least she’d tried the bluff. Or was she truly suicidal then too? Did it go back that far? Doubtful. She’d fought too hard for that. Maybe she wasn’t even suicidal when she sung Hanging Tree. Maybe it was just a creepy song.

  She haunts him every night. After his day is done, his sessions over with, he lies and mulls over the mystery of her. He sees a broken girl. He sees a scared girl. A selfless girl maybe, although with the hijacking that’s hard to accept, but he sees what she did for her sister, for Rue, even for him. He’d think she was just a kind, but human girl who’s been through too much were it not for how she approaches him: There for him, but not really. He cannot help but feel slighted by her. Where was she? The girl who would defend him, and guard him against death, but claims she could shoot him as easily as any other Capitol mutt. There’s some piece to the puzzle missing here, and if he could find it, he’s sure he’d understand this riddle.

  Invariably he just plays The Hanging Tree on repeat like a sick lullaby to bring him to sleep. It’s the only footage he has of Katniss he knows for certain wasn’t meant for a propo. It’s his only slice of real. She chose the song of her own accord, for her own reasons. Peeta watches the footage of him warning her not to trust everyone just prior to her going to Twelve, hoping to find a link to the song. He doesn’t see it, and neither does it seem an entirely appropriate response to the destruction of Twelve, unless it’s resignation at the deaths that will come from the rebellion. It’s the song of someone condemned to death claiming freedom, calling another to die for it too. It’s not a concept he’s entirely unfamiliar with. When he’d coded on the table, and they’d brought him back, it had felt like being trapped all over again. He’d have rather been dead. He’d been grateful when Lavinia and Darius had been put out of their misery.

  Thoughts of death over capture, death over torture, and listening to the Hanging Tree no less, it’s no wonder his dreams are grim and confusing.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree?

  The two lines repeat poignantly through a dark night. Peeta can’t see anything. He’s running through the forest trying to find…something, someone, reaching… Lightning flashes, and in the illumination he sees the silhouette of a massive tree.

  He wakes up.

  Peeta devotes most of the rest of the day to painting the lightning tree with strokes of white, yellow, brown, black, and blue. Perhaps it’s fanciful, but he wonders if Katniss was thinking about how they’d been supposed to meet up at midnight when she sang that song. That maybe she’d seen his tortured state in his interview with Caesar and had lamented that he’d been left behind.

  …Just not enough to be here after he was brought back. Or even here now. In any capacity. Letters. Phone calls. Nothing. Even when he saved her damn life, proved he wasn’t trying to wrap his hands around her throat, not to kill her anyway, but to save her. That’s the heart of what is bothering Peeta, and the height of his hope. He’d thought he was slowly understanding Katniss Everdeen. He traces the scars where she bit him over and over and over again, because it is proof: Proof he is not only a Capitol mutt, a liability. He was remade to kill her, but when it counted, he’d saved her, stopped her taking that pill. Maybe he is not a monster. Then she screamed and screeched for Gale…

  He doesn’t understand. What was Gale supposed to do?

  He looks back at his drawings of the first strange dream. The little girl with the berry-pill. She asked him if he was coming to the tree. This girl had wanted to take that pill. She wanted him to take it with her. Katniss had tried to bite down on that pill. She’d also closed his hands over the pill Gale had given him, telling him it was for last resorts, like she’d placed the berries in his hands. Victory or death. Then she’d hugged him, and he’d felt scared, trapped, vulnerable, she was too close to vital organs. She could kill him. But it also felt safe and familiar. Muscle memory had him wrapping his arms around her, fighting through the hijacking. It had felt wisest to separate, but he could feel Katniss’s anxiety. Had they felt that way in the Quell? It’s like something slides into place in his mind, and he remembers her kissing him, saying she’ll see him at midnight. Remembers the anxiety. These aren’t just images on a screen to him anymore. He wonders if this is progress.

  There are many avenues to memory. Muscle memory like what happened with the hug had happened only once before with Katniss. When she had kissed him when they’d been running from the mutts. It had felt so familiar, but of course it had, they’d done it often enough. Had she meant it though? Or was it just her using a kiss to get what she wanted? Him in his right mind. He can’t hold mere survival instinct against her, heck it might have even saved his own life if they’d had to shoot him instead, but it doesn’t mean that she meant it. That’s always the problem. Real. Not real. Real. Not real. It had made him feel good in the moment. She’d kissed him even when he was just the Capitol Mutt: The liability. For awhile, he’d thought she’d cared personally.

  A lot of things should count for something that don’t seem to.

He really is mad.

  After three days of sulking Peeta pulls up the footage of his first interview with Caesar after he was captured trying to find if there was anything more about the Lightning tree moment he’d forgotten, but nothing new comes. “Neither of us knew anything except that we were trying to keep each other alive!“ He’s all but shouting in Caesar’s face. That at least confirms what Katniss was saying about the two of them protecting each other. So he watches the next interview. Again, nothing. Finally, he watches the footage of him warning Thirteen of the attack. He watches it again, and again, and again. It’s futile though. They’d jacked him up so high on venom, his memory of it all is nothing but loopy, if it exists at all. He clearly hadn’t felt abandoned by Katniss in that cell though, not like he does here. (Even though he lost his goddamn leg getting her out of the their first arena, she still doesn’t even have the consideration to answer the questions he sends her.) Is it because he’s ignorant, a fool, or is it something else? Is it because the kiss on the beach was real? Like Gale had implied? Whatever it was, it was strong enough to fight the fear-conditioning enough to talk. He shuts off the projector with a huff. There are no answers here.

  Are you, are you coming to the tree,

Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?

  Well, she might have been his love once, but that had meant for nothing in the end. She’d visited him once, reluctantly, and hadn’t been very nice. Had had the audacity to snark about kissing Gale too. He’d been asking perfectly reasonable questions too. All things considered he’d been decent, and decidedly not a “dead man” at that, but a living one who needed answers.

  Bitch.

  He tries to examine every bitter, angry thought like that against the knowledge of his hijacking, but honestly she is a bitch. He gets she’s grieving, but so is he. He lost his whole damn family, and his leg, and his sanity, but if she asked him questions he’d still have the decency to answer. She responds to none of his letters. It’s like she does the bear minimum of human decency, keep each other alive, no kidding, and that’s it. Allies. Allies are together out of need, nothing else. I need you. Yeah, to keep her alive. When the game’s over, the alliance ends. Goodbye. He doesn’t hate her for it. He’s mad, but he doesn’t hate her. She’s a piece of work is all. He was just a fool, and when he gets out of here maybe he’ll go to Four or Seven or Eleven, but he is not going back to Twelve. When he feels guilty about it, remembering she risked her life for him in the Capitol, he reminds himself it’s not more than they all did for each other. Nothing special. He doesn’t owe her a damn thing. Why should he go see her? When she won’t contact him after all he’s done? Hell, she’d have shot him herself if she’d absolutely had too. That kiss being nothing more than a manipulation. It’d be just like shooting another one of the Capitol’s mutts. He tries to forget about her, but truth is all he does is stew in outrage.

  He dreams about that kiss-on-the-run again and again and again, and hates himself for it. Not just because he dreams of her, but because sometimes he is unbearably rough with her when he responds which he can only attribute to the hijacking. Well, that or he is extremely angry with her in his subconscious too. It’s only when he has the nightmare he wraps his hands around her neck like he’d done right after his rescue, he reminds himself what a risk she really had taken in kissing him. He is breathing and gasping when he wakes up from it, cold with sweat, and he goes to change his shirt, splash water on his face. When he looks in the mirror with dead eyes staring back he wonders how she knew he wouldn’t have done it. He was close then, even now he feels it within him: The rage that lies sleeping, has always lain there even in childhood. He  still fights to reign it in, and used to use wrestling to release the excess pressure of. How had she known he wouldn’t give in to it? How? He falls back into bed a lethargic lump. As he drifts in and out of the realms of consciousness and sleep, he remembers the desperation in her eyes.

  “How did you know I wouldn’t kill you?” He asks in the dream.

  “I didn’t.” She replies.

  Suicidal even then, or just plain insane. Maybe she is as crazy as they whisper about when they decided to send her back to Twelve in exile. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t answer his letters. Maybe she’s a loon. When he falls back to sleep he thinks he hears singing.

  Write me a letter,

Send it by mail.

Send it in care of,

The Birmingham Jail.

  Maybe he will go back, just once, to check up on her.

  He spends the next few days of his free time trying to sketch her lying in bed with him. He remembers that, and there must have been trust on both sides for it to have happened, but he only remembers flashes. Isn’t sure of a lot of it. Was this when he’d told her “Always?” He’s not sure. He’s been given to understand they helped keep each other’s nightmares at bay. She’d asked him to stay. Was this when he’d said it? He must have said it before, because after she’d kissed him that time, she’d begged him, “Stay with me.” The reply had come without forethought. Only afterward did he taste the familiarity on his tongue. He’d said it often. Always. Always. Always. Always. Stay with me. Stay with me. Not us. Me. Her. Maybe he’s reading too much into it. If she’d wanted him, she could have talked to him properly when he’d asked for her in Thirteen. She was trying to get him back to reality, out of his flashbacks, when she kissed him. That’s all. It was about survival.

  And he could’ve believed that if he hadn’t just come to the conclusion that maybe she was as much a headcase as he was now, because survival doesn’t bite through people’s hands trying to get to suicide pills. Nightlock. She hadn’t cared to live. So…

  He has a headache.

  He wants to ask Dr. Aurelius if it’s true Katniss is that mentally unstable, but is scared to reveal so much of himself, and he cannot help but feel that if he is truly getting better, he ought to be able to work this much out for himself. Because if the hijacking destroyed his understanding of Katniss, surely the treatment would mean it would come back? So he runs his conclusions through his head.

  Katniss is not perfect, but is not evil, has even been known to be quite selfless

Refused to shoot him, but risked her own life for him in the Capitol

Has been suicidal for awhile

She seems to care about him on some kind of level, because she told him to take the pill

And she hugged him when she didn’t have to.

He’s not sure how far the caring lies, mainly because she has never been there for him, certainly not like he had been for her in the past.

He’s not sure why she’s not answering his letters now, but thinks maybe she’s trapped in her own head too.

  It’s all random bits of information. He is missing the critical piece that ties it all together, painting a cohesive picture that makes sense. So he draws Prim’s death. Katniss going down in flames. Was this what broke her so badly she’d been exiled? Was this why there are no phone calls and no letters? He misses Prim too, a lot. He can only imagine how Katniss must feel after everything that has happened, and all she did to keep her sister safe. He chokes on sobs, and tears pierce his eyes as he considers how deeply she must be grieved. In this moment, he can forgive her her absence. He’ll never claw the dead children out from behind his eyes. He feels a strange, familiar urge to wrap his arms around her.

  Stay with me.

Always.

  Prim told him once Katniss struggles to see people in pain, especially people she cares about, and she isn’t good with blood. She always runs away when her sister and her mother were taking care of patients. She’d told him  as a comfort when he questioned, if the girl cared so fucking much, why she wasn’t there in Thirteen coming to see him. He wonders if it’s true that it was because she cared and it hurt. He has seen how much Rue’s death devastated her. She hadn’t known Rue nearly as long as her own sister, or as long as she’d known Peeta. It makes her a bit self-centered, maybe, because he’d really needed to talk to her, but maybe it’s also not horrifically bitchy.

  He tries to recall her body language. The way she’d held herself when she’d come to see him, like she was trying to hold in all her internal organs, like she was wounded. She’d looked unhealthy, unkempt. Everyone says that’s why Snow had you tortured. To break me. He’d never considered until just now that maybe it had worked, because she’d been suicidal, if her song choice was any indication, if her kissing him was any indication, long before Prim’s death. She’d also pointed out people were watching, he notices as he pulls up and re-watches the footage. Maybe it made her feel uncomfortable? He hadn’t thought of that before. People were always watching; he’d been past caring; he’d been skeptical and hateful and angry. It was all he could do to stay in control. He listened for explicit answers. Nothing else. He didn’t have the energy to spare for it. Now he’s curious. She had started talking to him more when the cameras were put away. In the Capitol, she’d played Real or Not Real with him. Maybe she’d felt guilty. Maybe she’d felt less hunted.

  He is standing on a thick bough, high in a tree. Jabberjays sing all around him.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where they strung up a man

They say who murdered three

  There is a noose wrapped around his throat. He smells blood and roses. He is shoved forward, and wakes before the quick stop.

  That’s why Snow tortured you. To break me.

Shit. It’s his first thought on waking, because he realizes something. Katniss didn’t sing that song as her own call to arms. It’s his. She was answering his call. She’d wanted him to be dead, and she with him, to go to a place where it didn’t hurt. Or at least, that’s how he thinks she must have seen it… Like those nightlock berries! He’d been strung up. He’d been dying, and she held out the berries. Together or not at all, she’d told the Capitol. She’d told him. He pulls up the sketch again of the little girl holding a nightlock pill that oozes juice. Are you coming to the tree? She’d been echoing his words, his story. She really did care. He believes it now, because that’s why she kissed him. Together or not at all. I should never have let them separate us! Peeta had said. He’d understood. Maybe he still did. Loving someone enough to lay your life on the line.

  Where a dead man called out,

For his love to flee.

  And hadn’t he been dead? When he called for her to flee the coming bombs, isn’t that when they’d killed him? Hijacked him beyond recognition? I wouldn’t be shooting Peeta. He’s gone.That’s what she must have believed. She’d tried afterwards, played the game with him, but then her sister died. Her desperate, “Stay with me,” seems ten times more so now, because if Peeta’s worst fear is being used and unwanted, then Katniss’s must be losing people. Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Him? How can he expect her to handle her worst fears any better than he has?

  So when she’d made to bite that capsule, she’d be dying to be free, because it’s not about what you can die for, but what you refuse to live with. He’d known going into the Games, that the price of his soul, his identity, his integrity, wasn’t worth his life. Better to live a short life you can look yourself in the mirror with, than a long, shameful one, where you turn a blind eye to the evils of this world. Better die together, live free, then live alongside cruelty. Alone. Fight the pain and win on your terms, or die and escape it. And he sees this might have always been the plan. She told him to take the capsule, but hadn’t killed Gale when he’d been captured. She hadn’t expected to survive, hadn’t expected Peeta to survive, didn’t really think he was even alive, but she hadn’t killed Gale when he got captured, so when Peeta stopped her from hanging, she hadn’t been calling for Gale to flee… but to help her do so.

  Peeta looks at the painting of the tree with the illumination of the powerful lightening; he adds two nooses hanging from its boughs; he adds two severed limbs, arms, holding pills that bleed juice. He paints the truth of two people who brave death together to find freedom. This is their gamble, but not their bluff. He finds resolve, peace.

  He’s going home when released. He’s going straight back to Twelve, because the war is over. And they weren’t the ones who had to hang.

  Bird in a cage, love

Bird in a cage,

Dying for freedom

Ever a slave.

  Not anymore, because he’s going home.

  It’s time to live again.