#and they are working on their communication and their trauma

[forty40love]

Rules

1. Do not depart from these rules, unless you have to.

2. Morgan M. Page’s Rule: Try to avoid criticizing other trans people in public. The world does it enough already.

3. Favor in person or private conversations: Addressing someone’s comments or actions in person or privately is typically more constructive and effective. It allows you to communicate more cogently and with more nuance problems in someone’s actions or words and because it is less likely to make them react defensively from a place of trauma or fear.

4. Take your time: Few things require an immediate response. Responding while caught in a surge of thoughts and feelings is often unproductive. Ask yourself how much harm was done, versus how much we are reminded of an earlier harm. Ask whether your response is rooted in misperception or potential biases towards the person due to race, disability, gender, or other marginalized identities. Consider whether their words or actions reflect a different kind of thinking or communication style, a lack of access to education, or limited access to progressive communities and norms. You can respond tomorrow, once you have collected your thoughts, talked to others, and gained perspective.

5. Don’t mob: Be aware of group dynamics. Ask yourself if you are connected to this person and in community with them. Avoid jumping into the fray when others are already criticizing the person. Do not invite others to join in and mob them. Withdraw if others join in, and kindly ask people to stay conscious of mobbing dynamics. Mobbing rapidly grows out of proportion.

6. De-escalate: Focus on de-escalating conflicts. Ask what people mean or want, and why. Ask them for clarification or elaboration if needed. Ask yourself if you know enough about the context of the situation. Distinguish the action from the person, and acknowledge that it is normal to respond defensively or aggressively to public criticism and mobbing. People are traumatized, mentally ill, and are scared of losing the little social support they have. As a result, conflict can trigger a fight-or-flight response in both those who are criticized and who criticize, which leads to escalating conflict and ends in a loss of community. Dropping the conversation to return at a later date is preferable to escalation. Often, I find it best to limit myself to three replies in conversations that aren’t constructive.

7. Respond proportionately: Responses to words and behaviours should be proportionate to their harm, and reflect a need for healing and protection rather than punishment. When we speak from a place of hurt, we can understandably but unfortunately forget the measure and impact of our response. Use language that reflects the nuances and gradations of harm rather than a coarse good and evil binary. Cutting all social support and community banishment are rarely a proportionate response, even for someone who doubles down and does not apologize. Responding proportionately is asking first and foremost what response sustains rather than dissolves life. Especially when it comes to words, it is better to under-react than to over-react.

8. Ensure support for everyone: Check in on those who are criticized and those who criticize them. Remind people that we are all in this together, and that banishment is not how we work as a community. Everyone deserves to have their needs met. Do not shun or reproach people who offer support to those who were criticized or called out. Distinguish supporting a person from enabling their behavior.

9. Hold space for people to grow: Allow space for people to be accountable, change, and move on from previous conflicts. Do not hold past behavior over people’s head, nor dig up past misdeeds to fuel present conflicts.

10. Resolve conflict and harm as a community: We must ask how our communities enable and cause hurt and harm, and find ways to transform the conditions that create them. Holding accountable, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are functions that should be taken up by the collective, not isolated and unsupported individuals.

11. Center those most hurt or harmed: Focus on supporting and empowering people who are hurt and harmed rather than on punishment. Ask what they need to be safe and integrated in our communities, while committing to support for everyone; what they need to repair their relationship to the person who hurt or harmed them. Focus your involvement on bringing people together, fostering dialogue and mutual understanding, and restoring a sense of community togetherness, rather than deciding who is right or wrong.

Always worth re-sharing this.

[binomech]

irving's "you have betrayed yourself for nothing" turn-of-the-century tragedy swag is off the charts

gay child goes to the vietnam war for fatherly approval and comes back disgusted with war crimes he was complicit in, disgusted by his dad and the navy, disgusted by the life he threw away to be the boot on people's necks and getting severed so he can use his time for community organizing, therapy and art while his innie is going to war for a corporate god-patriarch that will never love him and becoming disgusted by his complicity in the murder of his gay lover by the authorities he worshipped

the parallels with helly and jame eagan in the parent-child cyclical trauma show. you will pry this theory and the "irving is HIV+ and relying on lumon for treatment" theory from my cold dead hands.

"let not weakness live in your veins." ace of spades. he broke the skin, he needs a full tetanus toxoid panel. irving, no one's ever thrown blood on you on your way into work? there is a nonzero chance that the two of you had unprotected sex, and so, i felt the right to ask. are you done humiliating our guest?

[spaceorphan18]

Any thoughts on Chris’s latest interview??

I assume you mean this one?

I have not watched it so.... let's live blog, shall we?

I appreciate that he got his hair to stand up on all sides. Looking good Chris ;)

Basics on Chris? I totally guessed his expertise would be related to the paranormal. I completely forgot about the British History love of his, so I'm so not surprised there.

I really was waiting with baited breath to hear if he'd say llamas were his least favorite animal, lol. (Oh god, a lot of you weren't around when he claimed he liked llamas because he said he was a social llama and ended up getting a room full of stuffed llams, lol)

Oh my god, off of Diet Coke? What even?? Also, guys. Don't kill me. Don't revoke my Chris fan card. While I'm glad that he went back into acting - I have no desire to see that film he just made. It sounds like... not my cup of tea. (sorry :( )

The 'who are you' quiz section was super cute. I do love that he gives us little bits into his daily live and world and something that has just not changed is his sharp wit. I have always been a fan of his humor.

Chris's high school experience - I mean he's talked about this a lot over the years. A lot. But the thing that sticks out is this evolution of being okay with it. When he was first on Glee - it was STILL a big trauma. Which makes sense because instead of going to college, Chris went straight from HS to Glee, and omg, what an insane thing to do.

The getting into Glee stuff is... stuff I've heard before. But always glad to hear him speak on it, and again, glad he's in such a better place in life that he can reflect without the being traumatized part. The stuff about his current auditioning is interesting. He admits he doesn't really anymore unless he really wants to... and I'm guessing not really much has come his way that he really wants to do. I have a feeling that he probably won't do a whole ton of acting moving forward, but you never know.

Chris talking about his coming out on Chelsea Handler, lol... I love that he can reflect about being 18, and how differently choices are made when you're that young. But I also love (and get, and my god sometimes still I remember why he's the only celebrity whom I've ever felt was actually a bit like me in thought process) the fact that he was like - I'm gonna try to do this once and never deal with it again. And have it, like, become a bigger ordeal than he could have ever imagined.

I love though, also, that his story is also being contextualized through a queer lens. And, I mean, I felt this way when he was talking with Kevin about their joint experiences -- I'm so, so glad Chris has these queer spaces to have these conversations, because there's a level of knowledge and awareness and perspective you don't get from straight media.

(He took his shoes off, how cute, lol. Also this interview knows, like, nothing about Glee. Fascinating.)

"I would rather be the unicorn in the room than the elephant." -CHRISTOPHER!!! This quote is fantastic.

Getting into the conversation of activism, and how queer culture and community was still very different back in 2009-10 then it is now. And I mean, it's come a long LONG way since I was in high school back in the 90s. We've come a long way in the past fifteen years, even if the asshats in charge are trying to push everyone back to the 50s (or really the 30s :P) Anyway, some great queer history embedded in this.

The conversation about fame being his protection back then is fascinating. Also, how he calls himself ugly (back then). Oh Christopher.

He talked to Shirley MacClaine about aliens. Because of course he did. I love him.

OOhhh, Chris loved every guest star except for one. Any guesses who? (Honestly - I have no idea. so this is a fascinating new tidbit. Perez Hilton? Lol - Chris didn't work him though.)

Also more interesting things to think about - Chris getting a lot of the spotlight early on created resentment. (I wonder if it was Lea... Hmmm.)

Mr - I'm never getting married - actually mentioned that at some point he and Will probably will get married. Don't know if that was kind of a deflection from this dude assuming or if he's changed his mind. But, I mean, c'mon, in any capacity we all know he and Will consider each other done and locked in for life, which Chris basically confirms. (Awww - I love Will.)

Oh god, talking about the tinhatters. Chris, thank fuck for finally talking about this more openly and explicitly. And guys, I told you. I TOLD YOU that this shit happened.

THE HAIR STORY! HE'S TELLING THE HAIR STORY! No, guys, this was almost like urban legend stuff, but yeah, there were rumored instances of people sending hair to Will (and to Mia) and he actually talks about this. Oh my god, I'm laughing (though my god this was not funny at the time)

Oh, god, he thinks there were 100,000 CCers. No. There weren't. That seems too high. The people who were actually crazy were a very, very small number -- who made an unfortunately huge impact.

Oh. God. Also. He is NOT talking about Darren when he talks about people who are still in the closet. He's just not.

Oh for the love of fuckery, this host is just... he had to take a college course to discover fanfiction? C'mon.

Ah, the awkward conversation of celebrities reading fanfic. I wish this conversation would be had with someone who understood it better. Honestly do not like this host's summation of it because -- not just as someone who reads and writes it, but as someone who understands it's influence on published writing and understands its relevance in women's circles, this is a much deeper conversation and this host makes it feel trivialized (because they don't understand it).

Also - I wonder what Chris read, great abs and about cats? lol.

STOP FUCKING CALLING ANY KIND OF QUEER FANFIC SLASH FIC. It's old school term. Now it's just... fanfic. You no longer need to qualify the fic by saying it's slash.

This host is... bugging me a bit. But that's my issue.

They're getting into the writer portion and as a writer myself I'm... honestly a little bored by this. The TLOS convo he's had a million times. He's also talked about his process a lot, which idk, maybe this is more interesting to non-writers but like, yeah, yup, i've been there done that.

Aww, Chris talking about his anxiety issues - I do always love hearing about this, because I feel like mental health issues don't get addressed in the way should.

Um, they end on a section called 'fight me' where Chris debates a position - and his is that only queer actors should play queer roles. I... think that's a nuanced question that deserves more than a 60 second watered down debate and I'm not going to touch it.

And.. yeah, that's what I have to say about that. It's nice to hear from Chris again, so glad he's so much more open about his life and experiences. If I'm being honest, though, I think I do kind of value the conversations more so when he has them with, say, Kevin and Jenna, because there's something more personal going on there.

But that's just me - someone who has followed Chris and his career for, my god, what sixteen years now? Yeah. :)

Hopefully that answers your question, Nonny! lol :)

[theislandoflosttoys]

Best for last, now onto our boy Vio! 💖

I'll be working on answering asks after this as well as working towards posting some sketches and drawings for this au, I'll probably create a masterlist as well to make it easier to find stuff and to be organized. I'm so happy some people are enjoying this silly AU of mine, every comment, interaction, etc means the world. Thank you guys!! ^^

Now onto the HCs/Trivia~!

6'1" tall, tallest of the gang. Secretly loves it, especially being taller than Shadow.

This man is hard to read, sort of stoic and has the best poker face of the bunch. Is a pro at lying and for verbal sparring. Zelda sometimes asks him to sit in on meetings or diplomatic conferences because he often is able to notice things nobody would, and is able to verbal beat back any attempts made at him or the princess.

Introvert, he would rather not interact with other people outside of his small social circle. People find him intimidating, and though it's gotten better over the years, some people are still wary of him because of his participation in the destruction of Hyrule. Vio doesn't let that bother him, their opinions don't really matter to him, at least that's what he says.

Has the longest ears of the group, more thin too, like most elves in media. He has incredible hearing too.

Can sense vibrations in the earth/ground, kind of like echolocation, he finds it the most useful when he stays up late and has to navigate in the dark. He doesn't bother turning on the lights when doing so, which has led to him accidentally scaring the hell out of the others if they happen to run into him in the dark.

Vio is also very strong, especially for how tall and deceivingly thin he appears to be. He could pick up the whole gang and hold them above his head with minimal effort.

I saw someone mentioned Shadow's earth sign earing in his post, I'm glad you caught that! ^^ Ngl it's my favourite thing to see if someone will catch onto certain things, for example I wondered if anyone noticed that I made Green birthday deliberately so that he could be an Aquarius, which is a wind sign but is commonly mistaken as a water sign, which is just another thing I threw in to tie Green and Blue together. ^^

So the earing, that was deliberate on multiple accounts, both Shadow and Vio are earth signs according to their chosen birthdays, then there's their relationship, but functionally it is actually a communication device that sort of functions like Wind's pirate charm in the Linked Universe world. Vio has one too, it's not pictured in the drawing above but it is tied to the end of his braid, the one behind his ear. ^^ Vio actually was the one to invent it, the normal version of this sort of charm is actually a mirror but with Shadow and Vio's mirror related trauma Vio ended up coming up with something a bit different!

His birthday is December 28th! Surprise he's actually the youngest lol. I mean they're all 25 years old but still. Shadow likes to tease that he's older than him, Vio finds this funny.

Vio is a Capricorn! Earth sign of course, he's a very grounded person. A logical and practical man. He's always thinking ahead and trying to prepare himself for anything. He's a hard worker and doesn't like to leave things unfinished. He comes across as reserved and somewhat emotionless but he's really just thoughtful and quiet, he likes to think before speaking. He really is a sweet man though, he can predict what someone needs before they even need/ask for it. He feels fulfilled being able to help his loved ones in this way, he's definitely an acts of service kind of guy when it comes to love languages.

Also worth noting that Capricorns' most compatible soulmates are other earth signs, Taurus and Virgo. Shadow is a taurus, also worth noting it is the same for Taurus' too. ^^

Vio really drove himself into the ground trying to find a way to bring Shadow back. During this time, he isolated himself from the others, but after sometime and persistence from the others he began to open up again.

Due to this bad habit of neglecting his needs during this period of time, it became a bad habit that has been hard to shake, it often takes the others (mainly Shadow) for him to pull him away from his work.

It's only later on in the AU that it's revealed that Shadow's crystalized heart is actually Vio's. Bro literally gave his heart to him in multiple ways TT^TT.

Because of this, they are linked. Vio has a seal on his chest over his heart because of this. It's a "If I die, you die" sort of situation. Except they didn't realize right away that Shadow is essentially immortal, him being a living shadow and not a hylian. Vio will likely never age and/or die naturally unless he or Shadow are killed. This somewhat horrified them all minus Vio himself because he couldn't imagine being without Shadow, he's already experienced what it was like to live without him and he was not a fan to put it simply.

This man is such a simp, no one outside the group can tell but he is whipped for Shadow. All he wants to do is be around him, even if no talking is involved.

The seal on his chest is usually kept hidden, and like Shadow it isn't something he lets others touch, with exception to Shadow. It doesn't hurt when it is touched by him and vice-versa, it is the link between their souls. It's still sensitive, but doesn't hurt when it's either of them.

Didn't say it but was devastation when Shadow didn't want to be around him at first after his resurrection, he understood but he was still so depressed about it. He worked hard to make up for what happened in the past.

The act that really started to let him back into Shadow's heart was when he made and hand painted Shadow's very first false eye. It took a few tries and he did go to Red for help eventually, face beat red in embarrassment. Red thought it was so sweet.

Man has very beautiful handwriting, until you realize you can't read any of it, lol.

When he realized Shadow couldn't read or write, he jumped on teaching him. It's become a great bonding activity for them. Granted, when Shadow starts to get bored he starts to tease Vio. This stone wall of a man struggles not to crack under the pressure lol.

The type to bite at the ends of his pencils, pens, and brushes. He's a biter, surprisingly.

Vio works as a consult for the princess but mainly spends his time in his own private study which has a library. Zelda has him working with scholars and the castle librarians often enough to keep him busy. He holes himself up in his study often though.

I went for more of a pale sort of coloration for contrast with everyone else's designs, also because it tickles a part in my brain when the eyes are the darkest/brightest in a character's color palette and with me choosing to go with a more pale violet/lilac shade, I think it gives him somewhat of an angelic appearance. ^^

He's hair is more of a angel blonde almost white shade of blonde, and it's quite long because long haired Vios are my favourite lol. It's about waist length and he usually has it down, with the exception of the two smaller braids in his hair. The one behind his ear in particular actually has Shadow's hair braided with his, he tends to fiddle with that braid for comfort.

He has a deep voice, usually takes people off guard because he doesn't talk often much less to people he doesn't know. Shadow likes to ask him to read him to his often just to hear the sound of his voice, is somewhat too shy to admit to it though.

He is a totally hopeless romantic at heart, all those ooey gooey feelings and what they entail included. Yearning, longing, you name it, he's done it. The some from the Epic Musical "Would you fall in love with me again" comes to mind heavily. Ngl I do have like a playlist just for Vidow so TT^TT

Green💚

Blue💙

Red❤️

Shadow🖤

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

RTA, how are you? Genuinely. I've seen you discuss your job. I've read the news. I know some of what is going on, but I can only imagine that's just one percent of the reality. How are you doing? Are you okay? I'm thinking of you and all your peers during this time. Thank you for all y'all do.

I'm doing ok, all things considered. My agency is statutorily mandated, which gives us a little bit of a safety net for now. We're still affected - most of it mentally and emotionally - by what's happening to our friends and peers, especially at agencies we partner and collaborate with. That part of it has been rough and will probably continue to get worse.

What has also been difficult is dealing with two particular groups of people: the people who don't understand why "we're rolling over and taking it up the ass" (as someone said to me over on Bluesky) and the people who are gleeful and ecstatic about what's happening to us.

To be clear: Reform is necessary. There is no federal employee who won't disagree that reform is needed and who won't support efforts to reform and improve the federal workforce. But reform needs to happen within scope of the law and most of what this administration is doing is illegal. They are breaking federal laws that protect the civil workforce. They are breaking statutorily-mandated chains of command to issue personnel directives. They are giving fraudulent, illegal justification for their actions.

The effect is that a lot of us - myself included - are checking out of the news and social media. We are disengaging from community because it's the only way we can focus on doing our work, manage these crises, and avoid as much trauma possible.

Sometimes it doesn't work. 6 people have taken their own lives because they lost their federal jobs (none that I know personally, but which I've read about on a fed forum) and there are probably many more, and many more to come, that we don't know about.

For me personally, all this means focusing more on myself and tuning out more of the outside. Less time on social media, including here. Turning off reblogs on certain posts. More time on my own hobbies like crafts, reading, and going to the movies. Doing what I can to prepare for an extended government shutdown or getting fired, like cutting down my expenses and eliminating extras. Taking time away from people who don't understand or only want to talk about politics. Finding joy and wins in the little things, like cooking my favorite meals and leaving enough for leftovers. Supporting small businesses, locally and nationally.

Federal employees cannot strike. It is illegal and a felony charge. By legal definition, a sickout is considered a strike, so sickouts are also illegal. We can peacefully protest and peaceably assemble, but the law is strict and for most of us, not worth the risk. Our jobs, our passion, our commitment to serve will outlast this administration. To outlast and to serve is resistance. We will do it quietly. We will do it within the scope of the law. We will not make it easy for them. We will make them drag us out of our cubicles and pry our keyboards or our tools or our equipment from our hands. But most of all, we will stay for the ones who cannot.

[endlesslyhyperfixating]

Oh, Carmy, Carmy, Carmy. The man who can turn a beef sandwich into a Michelin-worthy masterpiece but can't seem to manage his own mental health. Season three of *The Bear* has been a rollercoaster of culinary highs and personal lows, with Carmy spiraling into the very chaos he once sought to escape. But then, in the season three finale, enter Chef Terry—Andrea Terry, if you will—a beacon of wisdom in a sea of culinary turmoil.

As Ever's doors prepare to close, Chef Terry imparts a nugget of wisdom to Carmy: "You have no idea what you're doing, and therefore, you're invincible." At first glance, it might sound like a chef's version of a pep talk gone awry. But let's break it down, shall we?

Throughout the season, Carmy has been haunted by the ghost of Chef David Fields, his former mentor who believed in the "tough love" — or realistically more like abusive — approach to culinary excellence. Fields' methods left Carmy with ulcers, panic attacks, nightmares, trauma doomed to be repeated in an abusive cycle, and a fun memory of the chefs general disdain for black pepper. In contrast, Chef Terry embodies a nurturing spirit, emphasizing the importance of people over perfection. Her mantra, "Every Second Counts," isn't about relentless pressure; it's about cherishing the moments and the people who make them meaningful. The BACKSTORY of her famous mantra is even tender and born in sweetness and family, a start difference to what was Carmy's experience with Chef Fields.

By telling Carmy he's invincible because he doesn't have it all figured out, Chef Terry is giving him permission to embrace uncertainty. She's encouraging him to let go of the need for control and perfection, to trust his instincts, and to lead with empathy rather than fear. This is the antithesis of the Carmy we've seen in season three—a man so consumed by the pursuit of excellence that he alienates those around him, and begins to lose himself in the middle of his unprocessed trauma through the only thing he knows which is working the human away.

"The more people I cut out, the quieter my life got"

Okay, my self isolating king!

But lets take, for instance, his interactions with Sydney. Instead of fostering a collaborative environment, as he often claims this season, Carmy often undermines her, believing his way is the only way. It's not how it starts in season two and the beginning of season three however, where they work shopped the menu together (despite his changing it everyday [🙄])This dynamic leads to tension and missed opportunities for growth. Chef Terry's advice serves as a wake-up call for him: it's okay not to have all the answers. In fact, embracing the unknown can lead to unexpected brilliance.

Richie has done to understand and he's tried to embrace in his own personal journey, and that difference in character is also what's keeping their divide all season, their serious lack of communication causing a strain in their relationship. But the strains present because they do truly love each other(this is a rant for another day)

I digress, this season concludes with a cliffhanger—Carmy's reaction to a seemingly mixed review from the Chicago Tribune—it's clear that change is on the horizon. Chef Terry's words are a catalyst for Carmy's evolution. They signal a shift from a leader driven by fear and perfectionism to one who leads with heart and humility. This transformation is essential for the survival and success of The Bear.

Not only chef Terry's words, but I believe and hope that when he finds out about SYDNEYS OFFER from Shapiro.

Ooph, oh boy that'll be a wake up call.

In essence, Chef Terry's parting words are a gift—a reminder that vulnerability and imperfection are not weaknesses but strengths. For Carmy, embracing this philosophy could be the key to unlocking not only his potential but also the true essence of what it means to be a chef.

Terry's vulnerability and tenderness is similar to Sydney's all throughout the series, especially season three(even referring back to the first episode when she encourages him to call Richie to make things right between them. The relationship that matters. Not Claire.)

If and (hopefully) when Carm finds out about Sydneys potential leaving, this will be a real pushing point for him to out into action Terry's words, realize that his control and repeated cycle of everything he's been through needs to change.

Just as Syd expressed early on in season one, The a bear became the very thing she wanted to escape from. People yelling and pushing, the constant chaos of what their industry is. And she and Carm both knew and still know that it can be different.

And Sydney has that opportunity with Shapiro, but Carmy will totally freak without her to enact that change.

Phew.

Anyways, I can't wait to see the post-review chaos, and hopefully some real growth on Carmy's end.

Season four, anyone?

[themoonbutspooky]

Psychiatric justice, reform of the current psychiatric system, and opposing medical abuse both as it intersects with psychiatric abuse and in general are all parts of anti-psychiatry. So is solidarity with all abuse victims and victims of medical mistreatment and ableism.

I’m still learning about the history and the specific politics of current anti-psych and related communities so I can only speak for what I mean when I say I’m anti-psychiatry and I hope OP, some-stars, the 23 other people who reblogged this and anyone else who sees this takes a moment to read what I have to say.

I do not want to take tools out of the hands of people trying to help themselves. I don’t want to take away anyone’s CBT work book or prozac prescription. I don’t even want to take people out of hospitals they want to be in. In fact I want medical insurance to cover cheaper easier less biased access to these tools.

The thing is I also want everyone to have access to everything else they need to make their own decisions about their well being. This includes information In a form they can most easily understand that is as accurate and complete as possible. It includes the time space and resources to process that information and make those decisions under as little economic and social pressure as possible.

It also includes the legal right to follow through on those decisions.

Psychiatry as a system does not share that last goal with me. One of the core purposes of psychiatry is to deny some people that legal right. You cannot separate psychiatry as a historical and present day practice from the hierarchal categorization of people. You cannot separate it from the emotional, physical and social harm caused by the enforcement of that hierarchy.

Say we were able to account for bias (racial, gendered, economic, etc) in diagnosis and treatment. Say Black men weren’t over diagnosed with schizophrenia compared to white peers with the same medical history and symptoms. Say racial and gender bias weren’t factors in the diagnosis of BPD which just so happens to be diagnosed more in Black women than other groups. Say we identify and eliminate completely bunk diagnosis like ODD. Say we’re on to the DSM twelve and all these specific issues have been resolved.

Unfairness would still be present in diagnosis and treatment because it didn’t arise from innocent scientific mistakes. Unfairness, psychiatric violence, and unequal access arise from an inherently and intentionally biased definition of what it means to be a person. A crazy person. A healthy person. An adult. A citizen.

Diagnosis aren’t strictly biological categories they are political ones. Psychiatrists hold the legal power to approve, deny, and force treatment based on those political categories. They are routinely called upon to do so for the sake of a political agenda.

Even if some individual psychiatrists, some offices or some organizations are doing good lifesaving work it is in spite of the structure as a whole not as a consequence of it.

Who is and isn’t “crazy” or “anxious” or “psychotic” or “suicidal” or “hysterical”? What counts as “Trauma”? How normal and acceptable are suicidal urges? intents? Actions? What do I owe to a suffering member of my community and what does my community owe me when I suffer? Whose job is it to fix and explain that suffering?

At their core these are questions about what it means to be a person and have a mind. Psychiatry is one framework that can be used to answer them. I don’t like the answers it’s come up with.

I’m anti-psychiatry because I’m committed to finding better answers.

i have zero fucking patience for "anti psychiatry" people. period. medical abuse exists everywhere. i agree that we need widespread medical reform. but by specifically targeting psychiatry you are regurgitating scientology talking points and perpetuating stigma about mental illness and psychiatric medication

[writing-for-marvel]

In Situ

[He’s Hazardous To My Health Series]

Paramedic!Bucky Barnes x Resident!Fem!Reader

< < PART 8 | Series Masterlist

In Situ - meaning in the natural position (ie. Bucky’s place next to you)

Summary: You ask Bucky to accompany you to the hospital's fundraising gala.

Warnings: strictly 18+, unprotected soft loving sex, creampie, graphic depiction of gunshot wounds & significant bleeding to a major character, a bit of angst as they struggle to reveal their feelings, will we finally get an ‘I love you’??, certain ex-fling of Bucky’s makes an appearance, this part has a bit of everything, fluff, angst, smut all rolled into one; I will apologise in advance you have every right to hate me given the ending of this

Word count: a whopping 10.3k (buckle up)

A/N: this part is dedicated to the wonderful @treatbuckywkisses and @yenzys-lucky-charm, I haven’t updated this series in so long and I genuinely thought no one would care about it being incomplete but you both have left such sweet comments on the other parts that inspired me to continue with my vision for paramedic!bucky, so I hope you both enjoy my darling friends 🩵 banners by @vase-of-lilies

Main Masterlist | Ask me anything! | Taglist | Library

It’s the start of a very long shift when the person you least want to encounter, Dr Thor Odinson, approaches you with a glowering expression which looks like the most accurate embodiment of ‘I would rather be anywhere else’.

You would rather quite literally be in any other room of the hospital than in trauma room 2 right now, but as your direct superior, you have to constantly take direction from the same man who tried to compete with Bucky for your affection, and then blacklisted you at work after you turned him down.

“Before you say no to this, I need you to know this is a requirement of your employment here and you cannot get out of it, no matter how much you might want to.” Thor states with the same amount of joy as if he were inviting you to a funeral. His hands fidget almost unconsciously with a sealed envelope as he speaks, before offering it to you with a firm, outstretched hand. “Believe me, I’ve already tried.”

You consider him for a moment, his eyes not quite meeting your examining gaze and nervously grinding his back teeth. Taking the envelope, you notice your name written in messy, scrawled handwriting on the front.

“Not sure why I wouldn’t want to, whatever you’re inviting me to sounds like the absolute time of my life.” You jest in an effort to diffuse the tension between you. Thor, however, doesn’t seem to find it funny as rather than a chuckle, you elicit the most forced eye roll you’ve seen in a while.

“It’s a fundraising gala, mostly for the research labs associated with the hospital, but part of the proceeds go to supporting patients without healthcare who otherwise would not afford our help.”

Though the thought of contributing to those of the community who are less fortunate, and find themselves in the unfortunately common situation of being in debt to a healthcare system which was designed to further cripple the already vulnerable, the lack of enthusiasm Thor is conveying during the conversation makes you wary of what important information you’re likely missing about the event.

“You’re allowed to bring a plus one.” He adds with a rising inflection, almost as if it’s a question rather than a statement.

Silence falls between you two, and for a moment you fully believe Thor is waiting for you to confirm whether you will be bringing Bucky as your date, which would just make this uncomfortable encounter even more awkward, but thankfully he speaks again before you need to say anything.

“You’ll be representing the ED, and more importantly the hospital, at this event. You and whomever you bring better be on your best behaviour, I don’t want to have to write you up again.” A smirk curves on your face as he walks away. Although there is a finality to his voice in which you know you won’t get out of this work event, Thor has reminded you of the very public display of affection Bucky showed you in the emergency room which had earned you an official warning from hospital HR.

A formal gala, with Bucky dressed up in a suit and you in the most alluring dress in your closet, could be the perfect place to earn a second warning.

* * *

The night of the Gala, Bucky knocks on your front door, feeling rather uncomfortable in this taut suit with the unnatural feeling of the shoulder pads compressing against his already broad shoulders.

He tries adjusting them as he waits, he wants to look his absolute best for you, to rival even a fraction of the radiance he’s sure you will exude tonight. But they feel even more out of place now he’s fiddled with them and regrets the decision until he hears the pattering of your footsteps behind the door.

“You have to close your eyes before you come in.” You call out to him in a playful voice, without opening the door. “I’m not ready yet.”

Bucky’s positive that in any state of undress or stage in the process of getting ready you are the most beautiful girl in the entire world, but a warmth spreads through his chest at the notion you’re wanting to look your best for him.

“Okay darling, they’re closed.” He plays along, knowing that when it comes down to it, he would do anything you ask him without contest because it’s for you.

Bucky hears the lock click as it opens and a small giggle, before the light pressure of a pair of lips on his.

“No peeking.” You request as you take his hand and lead him inside. Bucky knows your place like the back of his hand already and doesn’t need his eyes open to know that you take him towards the couch. “I’ll be right back, don’t you go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” With each beat of Bucky’s heart his anticipation of seeing you only grows. He’s seen you in every way imaginable, naked and writhing for him, vulnerable with sickness, beaming with pride and joy, and yet every time he sees you he is continually flawed by how stunning you are in every scenario.

“Buck, you can open them.”

Bucky is simply lost for words. Never in all his life has he been in the presence of someone so utterly breathtaking. Looking at you now, practically radiating golden light, a brilliant smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, and your body looking downright heavenly in a form fitting dress which compliments the colour of your eyes, Bucky believes angels do actually exist.

“You are so beautiful.” He manages to stammer out once he’s picked his jaw up off the floor.

“Not as handsome as you in this suit.” You grip the lapels of his jacket to pull him even closer to you, straightening his tie in an action that overwhelms Bucky with a need to kiss you.

“What, this old thing?” He attempts to brush off your flattery, because next to you, there is positively no way anyone could compete with your beauty.

Bucky gulps the excessive saliva pooling in his mouth as his eyes roam your frame once again, because he can’t help but literally drool over how stunning you look - can’t believe that he gets to be the one who walks into the gala tonight with you on his arm.

The only other time he has felt this utterly floored by someone’s appearance was the first time he laid eyes on you as you strolled across the ER on that now historic day when he could not believe someone in scrubs and a lab coat could look so breathtakingly beautiful.

“You are genuinely the most gorgeous woman I have ever laid eyes on.”

Bucky’s fearful that you won’t actually believe his statement, even though they are perhaps the most honest words that have ever left his lips. It’s no secret that before he met you, Bucky had enjoyed sleeping around - had entertained more than his fair share of attractive women in his bed, but after just one month officially as your boyfriend, becoming intimately familiar with your beautiful soul, he has zero doubts that you are the only woman he wants in that position for the remainder of his life.

You kiss him in the breath after he finishes speaking, in that luscious, sensual way that no one else has ever kissed him and evokes a warm, fuzzy, almost life-ruining devotion, dare he say love, in his chest.

“Let’s just stay here tonight.” Bucky mumbles against your lips, his hands finding the zipper on the back of your dress and slowly unzips to let the fabric fall from your décolletage.

He can feel you smile against his lips but then you bruise his heart by pulling away and saying “As much as I would prefer to spend the whole night naked here with you, I’ve already been told I cannot miss this event.”

However, they aren’t words which scare Bucky away from a challenge, he dives back into the kiss, the tip of his tongue tangling with yours. He thinks he has you convinced when your hands start playing with the hair at the nape of his neck - you know how much he likes it and do it constantly to turn him on, but then you pull back and Bucky sighs.

“You’re insatiable, aren’t you?”

“Only when it comes to you.” He responds with a chuckle. You’re the only woman who’s ever had him whipped before, and Bucky’s not sure you realise how powerful the hold you have over him is.

“I promise, all we have to do is last an hour at this thing, and then you can take me home and have your way with me.”

* * *

You walk into the Gala, which is already packed with hospital staff dressed to the nines, hand in hand with Bucky who, in your opinion, looks magnitudes more handsome than any of the other men all dressed in black suits.

You turn to him and he’s already looking at you with that sparkle in his eye, like you’re absolutely perfect, just as you are, and there is nothing about you he would ever dream of changing.

“What?” You ask when those twinkling eyes don’t look away, but instead study your features as if there’s words left unsaid on the tip of his tongue.

“Just imagining pulling you into one of the on-call rooms, tearing this dress off you and tasting every inch of you.” Bucky shifts his hand to rest on the small of your back, his breath warm against your ear sending a shiver down your spine.

“Well, we have done some of our best work in there.” Bucky hums in agreement, both of you taking a second to remember the first of many visits to the on-call room which left you with shaking legs, but was also the first time either of you acknowledged that your feelings were deeper than simply hooking up. “I think you need to grab us both a drink to quench that thirst of yours, James.”

You playfully slap his chest, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and then proceeding to rub your lipstick stain off, before pushing him along to get you a drink. He looks back at you as he walks away, almost bumping into the Chief of Surgery, apologising profusely with a guilty glance to you, before he shuffles off towards the bar.

While Bucky is busy with that task, you instead make your way over to the other side of the atrium to take a look at the items available for the hospital's silent auction. You have to chuckle to yourself looking at the prices listed on the bidding sheets - as if anyone with medical school debt could afford to pay for even one of the allusive holidays or artefacts they had obtained for the fundraiser.

But you suppose your job tonight isn’t to bid on the items themselves, but to shmooze the wealthy guests in attendance into bidding with their spare millions.

Searching out one of the items at the lower end of asking prices, you decide to put an almost embarrassing low bid on an all expenses paid weekend to Mexico, that you know someone will outbid you on, just to say you participated in the night without needing to lie through your teeth.

You stroll through the busy hall, keeping your eyes peeled for Bucky near the bar but it seems you’ve lost him in the packed crowd. It’s usually fairly easy to spot your tall, broad boyfriend, and your heart sinks a little that you’re forced to walk aimlessly around the event as everyone else is wrapped in conversation.

“Doctor, lovely to run into you like this.” You hear a voice you’ve heard before but cannot place from behind you. And though you can’t actually see their face, the tone of their voice contradicts their words - they don’t seem pleased to see you at all.

Turning around, a face that evokes prickly apprehension in your chest comes into view. She’s hauntingly beautiful, the type of beauty which artists spend hours trying to commit to canvas and which is just not attainable for regular people like yourself. She holds herself like she’s closing out a Victoria Secret fashion show and is fully aware of the enchanting effect she has on any man who sets eyes upon her.

“Jacqui… I didn’t know pharmacy staff were invited to this thing.” Even with her disagreeable inflection, you do your best to sound pleasant.

“Oh well you are when you’re heading up the department.” She boasts, with a little wobble of her head which you mostly think is to draw attention to her shiny, voluminous blonde hair.

So is she just here to rub her new job title in your face?

“Congratulations, I didn’t know you got promoted.” You try to sound genuine even though you really couldn’t give a shit.

“I saw you walk in with Barnes. Where did he scamper off to?” You are now actually very glad to not have found Bucky in the crowd earlier. Something about the way she is trying to control the curiosity in her voice, and that she was actively watching the two of you together, makes you cautious of her intentions.

“Not sure, I was just looking for him.”

There’s a long pause where both of you refuse to be the next one to speak. You just want this conversation to be over. But you aren’t that lucky.

“How long have you two been together now?” The inquiry is almost punctuated with sharp spite, and though you don’t want to indulge her line of questioning, there’s a voice in the back of your head that’s telling you you need to defend your Bucky from whatever that time is implying.

“A couple months.” Is the defensive response you retort - it’s technically correct, though you’ve only been official for a month of that.

“Months… how much can someone really change in a couple of months? There’s so many of us around the hospital he’s fucked. You really think he’s loyal to you?” You recoil at her words, not having expected the conversation to turn into whatever this was becoming, nor so soon into your small talk.

Where the fuck was this coming from?

“I trust him implicitly.” You attempt to control the absolute bewildered facial expression that’s trying it’s very best to overtake your features.

“Oh you poor, naive thing.” She says with a tone you use when delivering bad news to patients' families. “Men don’t change, they just hide their true nature from you. Wait a few months, he’ll be back to his fuckboy ways, guys like him can’t resist cheating. I guarantee it.”

Most men are like that, at least in your experience. But Bucky has never given you any cause to believe he would treat you like that. Just because he had a reputation of casually sleeping around before meeting you, doesn’t mean once he’s in a relationship he’ll be unfaithful.

You can’t imagine the sweet man who walked into your place tonight with his eyes closed, waiting for your consent to see you fully dolled up in your gown and then proceed to call you the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, would ever cheat on you.

“You don’t know him like I do and have no right to speak about him like that.” You state firmly with a small humph. If you weren’t at an event packed with your colleagues, you’d slap her.

The look in her eyes appears like you’ve challenged her, but you don’t want to think about the connotations of that right now. Without saying goodbye, you turn on your heel, needing to get as far away from her as quickly as possible.

Rippling anxiety bubbles in your chest that in your experience only Bucky’s touch can soothe. You frantically search for him in the sea of black suits, trying to also keep half an eye out for Jacqui so you don’t accidentally run into her, but he is again nowhere to be found.

Where the hell is Bucky? Your mind practically screams as you bump into a strapping chest, but this one unfortunately belongs to the one and only Thor Odinson.

God, could he have worse timing?

You plaster on your best smile, trying your best to keep a calm facade as he introduces you to two older gentlemen he appears to be chaperoning for the night.

As wealthy and influential as they are, having made their billions from a tech empire started with a little trust fund from their families' generational wealth, you can’t find it in you to care at the minute. You just want to find Bucky. Need him to hold you until the tornado of anxiety dissipates in your chest.

But Thor doesn’t allow you to slip away unnoticed, instead he prompts you to talk up the work the team does in the emergency room, speaking about the people you save from all walks of life, from those without health insurance to the affluent who can afford the life saving medical procedures others fail to receive.

Knowing their donations tonight could mean the difference between many getting life saving medicine and not, you summon the will to engage in conversation, trying to push down the acidic bile bubbling in your stomach that had risen as result of your interaction with Jacqui.

The sharp taste remains on your tongue as you’re now caught in philanthropic discussion, silently cursing Thor who stands beside you for ever inviting you to this damn gala in the first place.

It’s at least fifteen minutes later when you finally excuse yourself from their presence, the two men having pulled out their cheque books, much to Thor’s delight, preparing to make generous contributions that would have the hospital naming wards after them.

You hate to think what trouble Jacqui could get up to in that time frame. But you don’t have to wait long to find out.

Finally, after searching near the whole hall for Bucky you find him. Goddess like Jacqui by his side.

She stands there, supermodel tall, blonde bouncy hair, beautiful, toned legs on display through the slit in her dress, a flirty smirk curving on her face, tucking strands of loose hair behind her ears like a schoolgirl with a crush.

The nerve of her, approaching Bucky at all, but especially after the words spoken between you earlier.

Just seeing them together, the most exquisitely gorgeous woman flirting with the man whom you love and confirmed less than half an hour ago to her you are in a relationship with, makes your insides tightly twist with jealousy, as if someone were wringing out a wet towel.

Half of your mind is telling you to stalk over there and possessively claim your man in front of everybody, but the other half, the insecure side which believes Bucky could do so much better than you, who would want someone as beautiful as Jacqui by his side, and which is currently winning the battle in your mind, wants to run off crying into the furthest corner of the hospital.

Coming to a compromise, your brain instead decides that being frozen in place, unable to look away like an impending car crash, is the best place for you to be. But that is also pure torture.

Bucky smiles, not quite his signature cocky smirk that never leaves his face when the two of you are together, but it’s definitely a smile nonetheless and your heart sinks through the pit of your stomach.

Men don’t change. He’ll be back to his fuckboy ways.

You’re not sure why you’re letting Jacqui’s words penetrate your mind, burrow into the deepest crevices and allow them to make a home there. You suspect it’s because at one point in time Bucky thought she was desirable enough to take home and do unexplainably filthy things with. Does he still have that same attraction for her?

What if you are just Bucky’s practice run at being in a relationship, the one who fixes him up, teaches him all the valuable lessons, only for him to leave you and be the perfect partner to someone else?

Practically paralysed in place as you watch their interaction, it feels like your heart has stopped beating all together when Jacqui strokes his arm. But buoyant relief comes near milliseconds later when Bucky brushes her off. That’s your man.

You can’t hear what they’re saying, but you distinctly see him mouth the words ‘I have a girlfriend’, which relieves some of the tension in your tightly wound heart.

Bucky frantically searches around the room, and appears to have found what he is looking for as his eyes settle on your face.

There’s a split second where the whole world stands still, everyone at the gala other than the two of you disappear and it’s like you’re standing right in front of him, regardless of the space separating you.

But when your mind catches up to all the drowning emotions swirling in your chest, an uncontrollable sob bubbles up your throat and tears sting your eyes. You’re not even upset with him, but the fear of what Jacqui had been planning on trying with him still manifests as a choking lump in your throat.

The physical distance between you throughout tonight has let doubt and hesitancy creep into the only small space in your heart Bucky’s affection has not yet touched. Jacqui planted the seed and it’s already bloomed into a large tree, branches crowding space in your tightening chest.

The last thing you remember seeing is Bucky taking a large stride towards you, before your hands fly to cover your mouth and you take off, walking as quickly as you can in your heels, to where you know the nearest on-call room is.

* * *

Prickling panic fills Bucky’s lungs.

Has he inadvertently just ruined the best thing in his life?

Jacqueline’s voice calls his name as he chases after you, watching as you weave between guests and make your way to the nearest exit, which only takes you deeper into the hospital.

He was naive enough to think Jacqueline’s intentions were innocent when she approached him for conversation, just two colleagues catching up at an event that neither of them were fully participating in, but he was sadly mistaken.

He’ll never make that blunder again.

Watching you shuffle into the nearest on-call room, Bucky takes it as a positive sign that he’s not the one you’re upset with, at least not completely, when you don’t slam the door in his face but instead leave it open knowing he’ll follow you inside.

Bucky stays by the doorframe for a split second, watching as you work to steady your breathing, hands wiping the corners of your eyes, but the overwhelming urge and the need to comfort you wins out and he can’t help but hastily rush to your side.

“Darling…” He starts to say but when you look at him with big, wide eyes that are filled with tears, his mind goes blank and all he can think about is holding you.

You turn into his chest, face nuzzled into his lapel, and his arms instinctively close around you.

It’s the little sob which escapes your lips that does Bucky in completely. He hates to see you upset, but never in the months of knowing you has he been privy to this amount of genuine distress. He’s seen some not so great days, shaking frustration, even teary eyed with sadness, but never breaking down weeping.

He would move heaven and earth to ensure you never feel this way again.

He places a feather light kiss to your hairline whispering, “I’m right here. Nothing can hurt you.”

Though it was not his intention, his words provoke more sobs to escape your throat and Bucky pulls you ever closer. He’s practically holding up your entire body weight, and decides you’ll probably be much more comfortable on the bed this on-call room provides.

Even seated, you cling to him like he’s your lifeline, and Bucky can’t ever imagine letting go. He’d drown if it meant holding you safely out of the rough, relentless rapids currently flooding your mind.

As a paramedic, he’s so used to taking action, launching into a crisis with the equipment to be able to provide aid, to prevent further suffering. But right now all you need is his presence, to be the anchor grounding you to this world as a reminder that you have someone in your corner fighting for your happiness.

He hates not being able to do more for you.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Bucky asks after minutes of comforting you without words.

God, you feel so stupid. Crying at a work function because one of your boyfriend's ex-flings decided to flirt with him.

But it’s more than that - it’s the disrespect, the fact that she seems so entitled to Bucky’s affection simply because at some point in his history he slept with her, regardless of if she hurts you along the way to get to him. Do all the women at the hospital look at you like you’re an inconsequential ant they can step on to get what they want?

It doesn’t help that she's also the most stunning, physical personification of a man’s wet dream you’ve ever seen.

“It’s not you Buck, it’s her.”

He doesn’t answer immediately, just continues rubbing his large hand up and down your back, which tells you he’s confused by your statement. Perhaps you’re not making any sense in this outburst of emotion, you can barely keep your thoughts in a logical stream let alone expressing them eloquently.

“Jacqui, she… I told her we were together, she knew I was your girlfriend, and she still had the nerve to flirt with you.”

“I didn’t flirt back.” Bucky says defensively, and as much as you adore him, it’s making you frustrated having to spell it out for him how her actions have made you feel when your throat is aching from pure emotion.

You take a deep breath, allowing oxygen to diffuse into the deepest alveoli of your lungs, calming the constant stream of anxious thoughts, and letting you regain control of the tears falling from your eyes.

You lean your head on Bucky’s shoulder as he continues to rub your back. Why can’t the world just exist like this? Just the two of you in peaceful, quiet, solace. He kisses the top of your head and in that moment you know he’ll wait patiently, all night if that’s how long it takes, for you to explain how you’re feeling.

“I don’t know if it’s jealousy or insecurity. I genuinely don’t care how many women you were with before me Buck, it’s just a number, it doesn’t matter.” You sit up and look him in the eye, needing to convey just how vigorously you believe your statement. “It’s just… it's a soul crushing feeling that people in the hospital, people I have to work with every day, use the fact that you’ve slept with them to make me feel uncomfortable. That somehow because they know what you look like naked it diminishes our relationship and then they feel entitled to flirt with you and try and fuck you even though they know you’re dating me.”

The misery in Bucky’s eyes is almost tangible, and maybe it’s just an illusion from tears in your own, but seeing you hurting makes him start to cry too. His large hands engulf both of yours and his thumb strokes the backs of your hands resting comfortingly in your lap.

Previous partners have always brushed you off, gaslit you or raised their voice and called you crazy when you expressed an ounce of self-doubt or insecurity, but Bucky listens to each of your words with a determined focus, taking the weight of them on himself, as if they have just as much significance to him as they do to you.

“Darling, I’m so sorry Jaqueline made you feel that way. She had no right. But you need to know there is not a single woman on the face of this earth that could tempt me away from you, no matter how hard they try. No one has ever had me like you do.”

The panic beating of your heart starts to calm when Bucky places gentle kisses to your knuckles. His eyes brim with trepidation, as if he’s just realised how fragile relationships can be and he’s desperately trying to hold onto you, preventing you from ever letting go again.

“I can’t change my past, as much as I might want to, but all I know is you’re my future.” Tears trickle out of the corners of your eyes, but now the reason being due to happiness at Bucky’s sweet confession.

What did you ever do to deserve him?

“My life before I met you was dull, black and white reruns of the same shit each day. Since I met you, everything is in vivid colour. If I could go back in time and wait for you, I would. If I knew you were around the corner, there wouldn’t be any other women. But to me, you’re the only woman that matters. It’s so profoundly better with you because I-, because I care about you beyond comprehension. There were never any feelings with anyone else. You are the only person I have ever felt this way for. You have nothing to be insecure about or anyone to be jealous of, you’re the only woman in my eyes, and I-, you’re my everything.” For someone who constantly says he isn’t very good with words, Bucky always seems to know exactly what to say to make you fall even more in love with him. They are perfect words. Precisely what you need to hear from the man who has quickly become the reason for your being.

There’s a buoyancy in your chest as those familiar eyes, so blue you could drown in, examine your face for any non verbal cues of how you’ll react to his words.

“You really feel that way James?” You ready yourself, inadvertently grinding your teeth, waiting, hoping, wishing for him to say those three little words that will take your relationship to the next level.

But that hope pops like a bubble floating in the wind.

“Darling, I would never lie to you.” He punctuates with a kiss to your lips, slow and fervent, full of meaning. The look in his eye tells you he wants to reveal more, but it passes in a blink. “C’mon, let me take you home, and I’ll show you just how much I care.”

Bucky’s firm hold on your hand never leaves yours as he leads you back through the gala. You notice some glance at you, but all you’re focussed on is your boyfriend, his head held proudly high, not giving a damn what other hospital staff are whispering under their breaths.

* * *

Bucky slowly unzips the back of your dress, the material slowly falling away from your shoulders. A shiver runs down your spine as his lips kiss down the path of the zipper, starting between your shoulder blades, careful not to miss a single inch of skin as your dress bunches around your stomach and hips.

“You were the most beautiful woman there tonight. You’re the most beautiful woman in the whole world.” He whispers against your skin, in such a sure tone you can’t help but believe him. His hands roaming over the base of your spine before gently pulling your dress over your hips. “Can’t believe I got to be the man who walked in with you as my partner.”

Bucky turns you around to kiss you once you’re bare for him. The passion, zealousness of his lips feels like you’re drowning in a tender devotion he could not articulate with just words themselves.

You don’t need to break away from the kiss to push his jacket off, unbutton his shirt, nor unbuckle his belt. He’s as hard as a rock, standing at attention ready for you as soon as his trousers hit the floor.

“My darling girl…” He practically growls in your ear when you cup his balls with one hand as the other starts stroking him, using your thumb to spread the pearly bead of precum over his tip whilst placing kisses to his chest. “This will be a very short, one act play if you keep doing that.”

“I’ve barely touched you Buck.”

“Mmm, I know. That’s just how much you turn me on.” The signature smirk he shoots you turns your stomach to mush, and makes you feel like you’re the dazzling sun at the centre of his universe.

Bucky’s large hands pull you down on the bed, on top of him. He sits you on his thick thighs, tongue sweeping into your mouth, hands exploring your every curve.

You wish you could live in this moment forever, relishing in how much care Bucky holds you with, but still manages to make you feel like you’re the sexiest woman in the solar system.

It hits you square in the chest when his soothing, wide blue eyes look up at you with a familiar tenderness that gives life to butterflies in your stomach, that you would do anything for the man underneath you, the man you love.

“What do you want, darling?” Bucky asks between breaths as he sucks on your hard nipple, his tongue swirling, doing magical things that could make you cum just like this. “What do you need?” He adds, switching to your other breast, which makes it hard to control your stream of thoughts - but there is one thing at the forefront of your mind that you don’t have to consider to know you need desperately.

“You.”

He lets out a groan around your nipple and you suspect thrusts his hips up involuntarily, just to feel closer to you.

“I need you Buck.” You repeat, tucking your finger under his chin and bringing his lips up to tenderly touch yours, as the urge to kiss him overcomes you. If it were up to you, the remainder of your life would be spent with your lips locked with his.

“How?” His stubble scratches the tips of your fingers as you cup his face. The desire brimming in his eyes, the hunger to ravish every part of you, the yearning to have you so close to him you can’t tell where you end and he begins, leaves you breathless.

“Just like this, please.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, but your imploring tone inspires Bucky on, not wanting to waste a single second more where the two of you are not joined.

Your forehead rests against his, his eyes boring into yours as he simultaneously uses one hand to assist you lifting yourself to hover over him, and the other to line his tip up to your dripping entrance.

An obscene sound from the back of your throat topples from your lips as you sink down on Bucky's cock. He doesn’t take his adoration filled eyes off you for a single second, even to blink, as he fills you up completely. A whine escapes his lips once you’re seated on his thighs, appreciating how your pussy is swallowing his entire, impressive length.

“You enjoy sitting on your throne?” You can tell he’s trying to tease, a mischievous twinkle in those deep blue eyes, but his voice quivers slightly, almost as if it’s strained, which you know him too well to realise is a dead giveaway for just how aroused he is.

How aroused he is by you.

That fact alone is enough for you to start grinding against him, hips moving back and forth, working up a rhythm that has you seeing stars and him groaning your name.

Both of his large, calloused hands are resting on your hips, helping you keep the tempo, making sure each rock of your hips results in your clit being stimulated against his pelvis. His lips find your collarbone, teeth scraping your delicate skin, the sensation of which clears your mind of any coherent teasing response you could have come up with.

“Fuck, look at you fucking yourself on me. You’re a fucking dream.” Bucky’s mouth is one of the most arousing parts of him, not only for what his lips and tongue can do to your body but also for the salacious words he speaks in that gravelly tone which turns you on just as much as his body does. “That’s it, fuck me darling, this cock is all yours.”

“Buck you’re so deep.” Is all you can think, all you can feel is how his length is nestled within you, how much he fills you up. You’re bursting because of how satiated you feel with him inside you, but Bucky’s musky, woody scent, as well as his warm, tender touch surrounds you from the outside, you feel like he’s everywhere all at once, and it brings you right to the brink of coming undone.

“Be a good girl and cum for me.” In this moment you want to give him everything you have, give him everything he’s asking for and more. His voice is gentle the next time he speaks, a murmur just for you, and matches the softness in his gaze. “It’s okay, I got you. Let go for me.”

Bucky sucks the pulse point on the side of your throat and it’s the complete end of you. You shudder, feeling safe caged in his arms as ecstasy fires up from the base of your spine through every neuron in your body, your toes curling, fingers scratching down Bucky's back - you can even taste it on the tip of your tongue as you scream his name.

Your legs shake uncontrollably, unable to continue your pattern of movement grinding down against him, but Bucky takes matters into his own hands by wrapping his arms around your waist and fucking up into you to prolong your high.

Once you’ve finally stopped seeing stars, your vision coming back into focus, all you can see is the adoration, pure captivation as he looks up at your sweaty form trying to catch your breath.

“That’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”

No one’s ever looked at you like this before, as if you’re the only girl in the world, the only person that matters to them, the one who holds their fragile heart in the palm of your hands and trusts you not to break it.

A dangerous thought flashes through your mind - do you dare tell Bucky that you love him for the first time right now, in the middle of the throes of passion. You have always wanted to let him set the pace of the relationship - he was the one who wanted to take it slow, not rushing into anything, but you can tell by the blooming warmth spreading through your chest, you have never loved someone more than you love him right now.

Bucky reaches up and affectionately brushes his thumb over the apple of your cheek, and before you can think twice about if you truly want to confess your devotion in this moment, he’s kissing you again.

Before you can even recognise what he’s doing, his toned arms have engulfed you in a tight embrace, and without pulling out of you, he flips you onto your back, making sure your head rests gently on one of your pillows. His body weight presses you deliciously into the mattress, it feels like being tucked in securely with a weighted blanket that just so happens to look like a Greek god.

“Need to feel you cum on my cock again, it’s so fucking addicting.” Bucky practically growls in your ear, his breathing heavy. His long chestnut hair falls into his eyes, but it doesn’t prevent him from gazing at you with a tangible combination of awe and lust.

The thrust of his hips is downright sinful. You feel the longing absence of each inch of him as he pulls out, only for him to split you apart again as his hips snap forward. Bucky starts out slow, his fingers intertwine with yours, forcing your hands above your head, but when he starts placing open mouthed kisses on the underside of your jaw, his strokes pick up momentum.

James Barnes has you in a trance, caged in by the sheer size of him, each languid, sensual thrust into you tightens the knot twisting into shape at the bottom of your belly.

He’s so breathtakingly beautiful, the most gorgeous person you’ve ever laid eyes on. As his shining pupils fixate on the pleasure contorting your face you ponder if he is possibly thinking the exact same way about you.

The moans dripping from his lips, mixed with grunted curses, along with the telltale crease in his forehead, and the fact that his teasing mouth can’t come up with anything coherent is evidence of how close he is. But you know Bucky’s generous heart better than anyone, perhaps even himself, and you are sure he’ll be determined not to cum before you.

One of his large hands continues to pin your wrists down as the other moves to wrap your legs tighter around his waist. Then he has the fucking audacity to rub the pads of his fingers over your clit in tight circles. You’re so done for.

“Bucky, oh fuck… yes, just like that.” You manage to stammer out, barely able to move with his weight pinning you beneath him, knowing your body is hurtling towards an inescapable, forceful orgasm, and all you can do is feel as Bucky plays your body like a fiddle.

“Please, need you to… I can’t last like this.” You can feel the desperate, animalistic timbre of his deep voice in your chest and his hot breath against your neck. “Darling please.”

And then you shatter.

Fracture into a million pieces, the fabric of reality tearing apart at the seams around you as euphoria flows through you like wind on the surface of water. Every single cell in your body feels like it’s been lit on fire, burning bright like a shooting star soaring through a galaxy assembled by your love for him.

Bucky speaks your name as a prayer, a vow, a promise. Over and over again. A reminder that you are who he is coming apart for.

It almost makes you dizzy how lost he is in the feel of you, how his hands spread you open as far as your legs will flex, but then you hear the wanton whimper as he spills his orgasm inside you and it’s almost enough to make you cum again.

As your heart rates slowly return to normal, Bucky lays down beside you, cupping your face tenderly as his tongue slips once again into your mouth. You would have thought given the display of passion just produced he’d have had his fill of physical affection, but he continues to surprise you.

Who would have guessed that Bucky ‘doesn’t go on second dates’ Barnes would now be clinging to you like a koala, not being able to get enough of your touch.

* * *

“Sweet dreams Buck.” You whisper in that tired, yet sickly sweet tone that Bucky associates with the contentment of falling asleep beside you.

”They’ll all be about you.” He responds with a delicate kiss to your forehead, fingers tracing gentle lines up and down the expanse of your back.

“Then I wish you nothing but dirty dreams.”

He rarely dreams of anything else nowadays, but it makes him smile nevertheless that your minds think in such similar ways.

You really are the girl of his dreams.

Even more than that, if there was an expression which captured just how significant you had become intertwined in his life after a relatively short period of time. His brain could not have concocted someone as perfect as you, even in his wildest fantasies.

He holds you close to him in the total darkness as your breathing slows, but there are too many thoughts racing through Bucky’s brain for him to fall asleep.

Tonight was perfect. Complete, utter perfection. Not that he expects any less of a night spent with you.

So why, even after building the courage all week ahead of the gala, (and if he was honest with himself, since the week he swapped to be on the night shift with you), had he yet to utter those three magic words?

Steve would say there was one final wall around Bucky’s heart he had yet to pull down for you, to reveal his deepest darkest vulnerability that he could barely admit to himself, let alone the flawless woman who consumed his every waking thought.

The insecurity he had been plagued with since he was fourteen years old and his father had wished death upon him.

The fear that he is innately unloveable.

Just because he loves you in a way that influences his every decision, impacts every aspect of his existence, and alters the chemistry of his brain, doesn’t mean you are as hauntingly consumed by devotion as he is.

And even though the rational part of his brain tries reminding him you would not have shown such patience and stuck around as he clumsily attempted to manoeuvre being in a relationship for the first time if you truly did not want to be with him, that nagging insecurity is always at the back of his mind like a fog that won’t clear, doubting whether after everything he has endured, if he is deserving of being loved the same way he adores you.

But at some point Bucky knows he needs to find the bravery to take that leap, even if your possible rejection would be his ultimate downfall.

“Darling?” Bucky whispers as quietly as he can into the still night air. You don’t stir, nor do you respond, which is exactly what he’s hoping for. “Darling, are you awake?” He questions slightly louder so that you couldn’t help but hear him considering his proximity.

You continue to rest peacefully, lips slightly parted and breathing steadily, which is precisely how you always appear when sleeping beside him, but given the gravity of what he is about to reveal to you, Bucky has to be absolutely positive you’re in a deep slumber.

“Chicken butt.” He says randomly, hoping that if you are feigning sleep this will cause a crack in your rather convincing facade. But to his delight, your expression doesn’t change in the slightest, no muscle in your face so much as flinches, and Bucky is finally convinced.

He takes a deep breath, readying himself even though he knows you’re unable to hear him.

“I love you.” Bucky confesses with a shaky breath, even though he is assured in his affection. Though you’re not conscious to receive his words, something about disclosing his most closely guarded secret to your beautiful face, finally admitting his profound feelings aloud, feels like an enormous step for him. Never in a million years did he think he could open his heart up far enough to allow space for these types of feelings to nestle within. “You are the most precious thing in my life. I’m never going to compromise what we have, never going to take you for granted. I’m going to love you and only you for every day I have left in this life and even when I’m no longer here, my soul will forever be yours.”

You provide no response, features stay perfectly still, breathing rate doesn’t change. Which is of course exactly the reaction he’s hoping for while you rest, but he can’t stop his mind from wondering what your reply might be if you were awake; if you’d profess the words back to him, or if instead you’d recoil, shying away possibly because Bucky was moving too quickly.

Nevertheless, Bucky knows better than most that life can be painfully short, everyone has their expiration date, and you need to tell the people in your life how much you care about them before it’s too late.

“I love you.” He repeats with a smile and a kiss to your bare shoulder. Though he is navigating the all consuming, anxiety riddled, life ruining feeling of falling in love for the first time, Bucky knows with absolute certainty that he would go through it all again, one hundred times over, if it meant getting to spend his life with you.

But now for the difficult part - he has to say those three life changing words when you’re actually awake to hear them.

* * *

When the irritating ringing of your alarm wakes you up the following morning, a wave of disappointment washes over you. The night before with Bucky had been nothing short of memorable; complete with overflowing emotion, devotion, and no hint of apprehension from the man who had previously told you himself he wanted to take the relationship slow.

It was the most tangible display of pure love you have ever beheld.

But now, you lay alone in a web of cold sheets, Bucky’s place beside you unnaturally empty. When he has an early shift, typically he wakes you before he leaves, and at the very least gives you a kiss on the forehead, if not a much more intimate show of affection. But today, you have no recollection of being woken, no memory of his pillow soft lips on yours.

You find it takes a much more determined effort to get out of bed without an energising kiss from your Bucky.

The gala is the talk of the hospital, those who did not receive an invite interrogating everyone who attended for all the latest gossip. You hear your and Bucky’s names dropped a couple times in passing conversation, but all that does is remind you of the night before, and Bucky proclaiming his devotion to you while extracting a pleasure from your body no one else has been able to produce.

Tonight, you promise yourself, those three small words that have been tugging at your mind for the last month, tonight you’ll tell Bucky.

His declaration of wanting to take your relationship slowly was all the way back before your second date, before you officially became his girlfriend, before you held him as his mother underwent life saving surgery, before you knew of his traumatic past, before he switched to the night shift just so he could see you more often, before last night where he told you you are his everything.

Regardless of if he says the words back, you need to tell him. Need him to know that he is the love of your life, that synapses in your brain have reformed so your train of thought always comes back to him, that he has rewritten the molecular code inscribed in your cells so that they crave him like water, drawing him in like osmosis.

Your thoughts are interrupted by your pager going off, calling an all hands on deck emergency.

The ER is a frenzy of nurses clearing trauma rooms, doctors discharging patients who have already been seen to and Dr Strange shouting at surgical staff to prepare the operating rooms.

“There was a shooting at the mall. Police and paramedics are on scene, but it sounds bad.” Wanda fills you in as you both wash your hands and put gloves on, getting ready for the volume of blood and carnage that comes with gunshot wounds.

Dr Strange gathers the emergency medicine team together to brief you all on what you’re about to face. His face is stoic, having treated too many disasters to even seem phased by the decimation of so many lives.

You have not mastered that, but you also like having your humanity, caring about people is what you do best.

“So far we know of eight victims being routed here. There will most likely be more. All G.S.Ws, five women, two men and a child, about eight. One of the men was a paramedic on scene.” The last sentence out of his mouth gives you pause.

A male paramedic was shot.

“A paramedic? Did they say who? Give a description?” All eyes turn to you and no one needs to say it aloud to know exactly what you’re thinking.

“No, that’s all the information we have at this time. They should only be a few minutes out.” You’ve never known Dr Strange to be very sympathetic, but the look he shoots at you is what you assume to be the most compassion he is capable of.

The nagging part of your brain that always finds a route to the most devastating scenario, no matter how unlikely, is screaming so loudly you cannot ignore it.

What if that paramedic is Bucky?

There would have to be thousands of paramedics in a city of this size, what would the chances actually be that Bucky is the one paramedic in critical danger at this very moment.

But the universe has always found a way to be cruel to you, with the exception of when it brought devilishly handsome Bucky Barnes into your life. But what could be more cruel than introducing you to unconditional love and then destroying your heart by taking it away just as swiftly?

Wanda, sensing your paralysing worry beside her, comfortingly strokes her hand up and down your upper arm. “He was working the morning shift today, his shift will be well and truly over. He shouldn’t have been working when the shooting happened.”

“Yeah… he was on morning shift today.” Reminding yourself how you woke up in bed alone. Your lips tremble as you attempt to talk yourself down from the ledge of sheer panic. But your best friend can tell this fact doesn’t convince you.

“Call him.” Wanda instructs with a level voice, only a small glisten in her pupils gives away that she too is worried for his safety.

Your hands are shaking uncontrollably as you locate his contact in your favourites, accidentally dialling your mum first before you see the picture you have of the two of you together set as his contact pop up as it starts ringing.

Time stands perfectly still, the bustling hospital which is always full of movement, the constant beeping of patients pulse oximeters, announcements sounding over the PA, it all goes dead silent and all you hear is the ring tone of a phone call which Bucky isn’t answering.

Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

It goes to voicemail, his voice filling your ears but it’s of no relief because it’s only a recording.

You press his contact again.

And again.

And again.

The fourth time you’re forced to listen to his infuriating voicemail, you leave a panicked message. “Bucky I’m so worried about you, please ring me back as soon as you get this. There’s been a shooting. Please, I need to hear your voice, hear that you’re alright. Please.”

You thought he’d pick up the phone and relieve you from this torment, but now knowing he hasn’t answered after multiple calls, you’re more convinced than ever it’s him that’s been shot.

“Wanda if it’s-”

“You can’t think like that.” But that's all you can think about. Your job, the duty you have to these patients who are en route to the hospital, none of that comes close to the need to know Bucky is unharmed.

The world starts moving in slow motion as the first of the patients arrives. Time runs like molasses, but the anxiety in your chest turns up one hundred fold, as if flashes of lightning strike your chest one after another.

A woman gets pushed in on a gurney, light brown hair stained with blood, and even from the sight of how the paramedic needs to hold her skull flap to her head to prevent her brain being exposed, you know she won’t make it as much as the surgeons will try to save her.

There’s a child, not much bigger than Sasha who you treated the day you first met Bucky, that gets pushed through next. In complete juxtaposition, she’s sitting up talking to paramedics, arm in a sling, but mostly looks unharmed.

And then you see it. The thing that flatlines your heart.

Chestnut hair and an EMT uniform.

You’d know those thick, wavy locks anywhere.

“Bucky!” You don’t even recognise your own voice with how much terror it is consumed with. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.

In a flash you’re by his side, keeping pace as they wheel him deeper into the hospital, your lungs and throat scorching with distress.

You try not to break down seeing the sheer amount of blood, Bucky’s blood, soaking the gauze they are pressing into his shoulder wound, how pale and fragile he looks strapped down to the gurney. You’re an emergency medicine doctor, you’ve treated wounds like this before, confronted much more blood than this from a patient. But nothing in your training prepares you for observing your soulmate barely clinging to life, their claret staining your gloved fingers as you help maintain pressure, how cold his skin is to the touch, how his face looks almost serene even though these could be his final moments on earth, that he could be abandoning you for the warm embrace of death.

Not your Bucky. They can’t take your Bucky.

“Buck, can you hear me?” Your hand cups his cheek, and he’s as cold as ice. His eyes are shut so he can’t even look at you to give you one last chance to memorise the astonishingly blue irises which have been your source of solace since meeting him.

A mask covers his mouth and nose, delivering rescue breaths. You try to place a block in your mind to stop it from retrieving the medical knowledge you have spent years memorising - you don’t want to know how catastrophic a situation his body must be in to be needing rescue breaths.

“I love you, James. You hear me? I love you!” It almost ends your existence when he doesn’t answer, doesn’t even so much as flinch at your confession. You hope any part of him that is still alive inside the casing of his cold body manages to hear those words.

Dr Strange and Wanda have to physically restrain you from following the team treating Bucky and prevent you entering the operating theatre.

Dr Strange’s voice sounds like a hum, too far away to make sense of even though he’s pushing you away from the OR. All you’re focussed on is keeping your eyes on Bucky for as long as you can.

Is this the last time you will ever see him alive?

It’s only once he is out of sight, that your brain starts to catch up to the realisation of what has actually happened.

Bucky was shot. A bullet ripped through his skin, tearing muscle and fascia, lacerating his organs, possibly fatally wounding him.

Bullets are designed to kill. To end the life of the organism the gun barrel is aimed at. There is no mercy from a gunshot wound, you had seen too many to believe better.

A guttural cry forces its way out of your parched windpipe without you being able to prevent it, your kneecaps sting as you fall to the ground. Hot, large tears cascade onto your cheeks as Wanda’s arms engulf you.

Any second now, James Buchanan Barnes’ heart could be taking its final beat and you wouldn’t be any wiser. His lungs would stop breathing, preventing oxygen from binding to hemoglobin in his blood and reaching his brain. Everything else would shut down quickly from there.

One second he’d be here and the next he wouldn’t.

James Barnes simply wouldn’t exist anymore.

You had seen it too often, heard from bereaved family members time and time again how quickly it had all happened, but it wasn’t until this very moment that you understood the magnitude of that sentiment.

How could he go from telling you yesterday night that you were the most beautiful sight he had ever laid eyes on to now possibly his cold, lifeless body laying on an operating table with his soul having crossed over to the afterlife?

You’d never hear his voice again. Or his laugh.

Never see his dazzling sapphire eyes as they regard you with overwhelming affection.

Never feel that warm rapture blooming in your chest when he’d proclaim himself as yours and kiss you in the same breath.

He’ll never get to know you love him.

It feels as though you are tumbling wildly down into an abyss, waiting for the inevitable crash at the bottom that would either end this eternal suffering or that sudden jerk, the lurch as you wake up from this cruel nightmare.

Neither comes. You are fated to live in excruciating limbo, your lungs burning, as if you can’t take a breath until Bucky’s destiny has been sealed.

Oxygen would be the gift you’d allow yourself once your love was awake and talking again; cracking stupid jokes with his signature cocky smirk and flirting with you like you were on your first date again.

And if he were to pass into the next life, taking your heart with him, then you would simply refuse to take another breath until you were reunited with him once again.

Part 10 coming soon

Be added to the series taglist here

He’s Hazardous To My Health [Paramedic!Bucky Barnes] Taglist: @lavenderpenumbra @crazyunsexycool @eralen @buckbuckyoongs @blackwidownat2814 @crayongirl-linz @ozwriterchick @desert-fern @misshale21 @chalesleclerc164 @rookthorne @janineb86 @emmabarnes @scarletbich @princezzjasmine @thebuckybarnesvault @doasyoudesireandlive @solitarioslilium @iamfandomwasted @tanyaspartak @pop-rocks-818 @Dumdidditydumdoo @missvelvetsstuff @kayden666 @amiimar @katheryn1 @safew0rd @kentokaze @thewackywriter @lady-loki-barnes-djarin @badasswlthafatass @loveoldmenlikelana @00cmh @pointless-girl @honeyglee @nerdxacid @ashhsage @prettylittlepluviophile @otomefromtheheart @sjsmith56 @mandijo17 @lokidokieokie @oceansandblackhearts @rebeccapineapple @soorwellystan @excusememrbarnes @lofaewrites @snapcapquartet @wishingwell-2 @aya-fay @lowkeysebby @redbarn1995 @lex-is-up-all-night-to-get-bucky

[collectivephilosopher]

ARCANE WASTED POTENTIAL (PART 5)

(An analysis of Arcane's missed opportunity and what could have been. The title might be a little confusing but since I've started by it, I've decided to stuck with it to avoid anyone feeling gaslighted :p)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

About Vi and her pitfighter montage.

Why in the world did they only show Caitlyn as Vi's only source of turmoil?

Like seriously.

From narrative perspective, the build up was great. Vi feeling guilt about Jinx killing Caitlyn's mother (and the council maybe) and then the memorial attack making Vi feel even guiltier that "her people" did what made Caitlyn called them "animals." And then Vi joinning the enforcers despite clearly looking uncomfortable, betraying her own hometown, Vi trying to kill her sister only to realize she couldn't after all, then Vi stopping Caitlyn resulting in Caitlyn abandoning her.

At this point Vi kinda had lost everything. Her family, her community, possibly her pride, caitlyn. Her childhood spent on stillwater all for nothing. I can imagine her being so fucked up she just stopped caring and plumetting into punching and alcohol.

I loved arcane season 2 for telling this story.

THAT IS IF I WATCHED IT WITH CLOSED EYES.

The problem here is that most of Vi's break down was told through the pitfighting montage (because imo they did shit outside of that). The montage is one of those rare occasion where we finally get to see the inner working of Vi's mind. And they ruined it by showing only Caitlyn as if Vi's only problem in her life was Caitlyn leaving her.

There were a lot of memes about Vi losing her entire family and she turned out fine then Vi facing break-up and she turned emo. While they were just jokes but there is a truth in that.

Seriously. Vi's prison trauma was never explored. How does she feels about Mylo, Claggor, and Vander? How does she feels about being Vander protege only then to betray her own people? Joinning the same forces that killed her parents? Hell how does she feels about Jinx/Powder?

Never shown.

They could've done something with it. For example we know jinx keeps tabs on her maybe have her seeing Powder when she caught a glimpse of Jinx. Or even better make it so that when Vi fought at the pit, she feels like she's punching her own family.

Maybe make the apartment shows her prison habits that she couldn't quite get over yet. Maybe she make scratches counting days because even though she's not in prison anymore, she still feels like it.

A lot of Vi's fans complained that people often seem to forget about Vi's trauma. Well can anyone blame those people because the show itself seem to forget Vi's trauma.

Especially since her counterpart is Jinx which has a stellar exploration in her trauma. Because of this, Vi just got outshined so badly by her own sister when they BOTH should be the stars of the show.

[alkalineapparition]

Ao3 link to the fic, summary below! 18+ MDNI

You are a new member of KorTac, assigned to work on König's task force in conjuction with the 141 as their Communications and Intelligence Specialist. A former Green Beret, you have invaluable skills but are still recovering from the damage and trauma of your last mission.

You become infatuated with the terrifying Austrian giant, but beneath his indifferent demeanor is a passionate man who may be just as obsessed as you are...

*Strangers to friends to lovers. Extreme slow burn.

[thecircularsystem]

Something that’s made me particularly uncomfortable in the system community recently (moreso on tumblr than any syscord I’m in) has been the mentality around recovery.

I’ve never felt more isolated from other systems since I’ve started a recovery process. I don’t consider myself “recovered” in any sense of the term, but I’m doing particularly well with my systemhood. I can communicate with my parts, I don’t experience as much amnesia anymore, and stress doesn’t lead to full meltdowns… most of the time.

But in this community, it seems like people around me are constantly demonizing recovery while simultaneously putting it on some sort of pedestal? And meanwhile, I’m sitting here in the, “This is a very mundane part of my life, Minecraft is genuinely more interesting” stage, feeling… really awkward and alone.

By one token: there’s all the recent posting about fakers, and even posts about resenting those who have “reached recovery.” They call out all sort of things they hate about other systems, often labeling it as a sign of faking, such as:

They can tell you everything about new splits

They have perfect communication

They celebrate splitting

They talk about exotrauma/source trauma

They talk about all being people

They treat their DID like an identity instead of a diagnosis

They don’t have visible dissociation/aren’t dissociative enough

They focus on the alters instead of the disorder

They have a constant certainty of who they are, no blurriness

They’ve got a vivid innerworld with shenanigans happening

And they speak in such a negative way about “those” systems, like:

“I definitely don’t have the fun alter DID like those systems do.”

“Why do you get the helpful DID and I get suicidal DID?”

“I wish I had the perfect version of this instead of the miserable version”

And by the other token, there’s when people do talk about recovery, and they talk about it like it’s a cure. Like my DID will go away.

“Oh if you catch it younger, kids with DID can go through a full recovery and fully fuse so much sooner.”

“I hope everyone fully fuses.”

“I wish I could just get rid of my parts. #recovery.”

Is no one else feeling uncomfortable?

The list of things that show fakers, and the constant misery and hatred of systems, followed by the constant flow of “can’t wait to no longer deal with this misery, can’t wait for final fusion” is…

Its isolating. I’m a diagnosed system who experiences every single thing on that list of “signs of faking,” and even while many of them were on that list before recovery, they only got more pronounced as I worked on integration. I feel so alone in the system community when everyone says that being me (a system in recovery) means I don’t have DID.

It’s distressing. Seeing these posts constantly makes that little worm of self doubt I’ve spent years quelling start to wiggle again. “They’re right, you need to show how miserable you really are.” “You should trauma dump, that’ll really show them.” (The first draft of this post was entirely just my life story, showing my recovery process, until I realized the brain worm won that day)

It’s misinformation. Final fusion doesn’t cure DID. DID is a lifelong disorder. It doesn’t mean you’re no longer a system of parts; you’ll always have parts. But recovery makes that look different for everyone. Recovery is different for everyone.

It’s posts like those I’ve seen lately that remind me of when I was 19 or 20 or so and first seeing system spaces. Fusion was death, because everything I saw about fusion was that it would “make you a singlet, not a system.” Everything I saw was that fusion was the cure.

Now I know better. I really hope others realize soon that recovery can only come if you work hard, and stop hating a major aspect of who you are.

It might feel a bit less lonely.

[walkingstackofbooks]

@dreamerdrop #.oh god. that would catapult julian’s need to express love by fixing people into overdrive.#.he’d work himself ragged trying to help her until he’s a sleep deprived miserable mess. [...] #.the horror of julian bashir feeling responsible for someone’s wellbeing. #.when his first experience with that was his parents who decided that Happiness and Wellbeing were two very different things.

God. To start with, he'd read every book on this sort of trauma, attend every course, spend half of *his* sessions with Counsellor Telnorri sidetracked on methods of therapy that might help Sarina. And he'd be getting nowhere. He'd be reaching out to other Federation counsellors, trying to get someone to help, but none can be spared in person - not with the war and the shortage of them in Starfleet, especially not when DS9 already has a counsellor, and certainly not for one, singular augment.

And I think he'd be patient, and sweet, and kind to her. But he'd also be incredibly frustrated that she wasn't getting better, and that he wasn't good enough to make her better, and be utterly convinced that there must be some way to reach her, to communicate. But trauma works on its own timeline, and there's nothing he can do to change that.

Some weeks later, he gets a communication from a Doctor Lowes, who's woken up to discover that her patients have been spread out across the world. She asks after Sarina, requests a subspace call so she can speak to her - but also includes a recreation of Sarina's medical file: her background, her history, her personality.

Of course! thinks Julian, bitterly. Why didn't I think of that? Because he sees now that he was going about trying to 'fix her' in completely the wrong way. Her silence wasn't because of the bombing - it was a symptom of her enhancements! Which means there could be a surgical solution to this, even if he has to reinvent genetic engineering himself. That's something he could do.

And of course, once he thinks of it, there's no stopping him. And honestly, I'm not sure if anyone would try to. They all know how attached Julian's become to Sarina - they've all become quite attached, honestly - and at least initially it would seem like an endeavour worth Julian's effort.

Unlike in Chrysalis, however, Jack and Lauren and Patrick aren't there to help recalibrate the medical probe, so Julian doesn't have anyone to turn to when Miles takes a look of it and tells him it's impossible, that you can't break the laws of physics. He's only got himself. And once he gets obsessively into engineering, to the point where it's all he talks about, even with Sarina... When his calm patience wears thin from weeks of guilt and insomnia and disappointments, and he starts getting frustrated with Sarina, certain she could help him if only she could do something — that's when the others realise that it's far past the time to bring him back from all this.

---

I can also completely imagine the same situation for your first consideration. Julian being driven to try and "fix" all three of them, because if they can pass for normal, like he could, then maybe they won't be targeted, maybe they'll be able to keep out of danger and look after themselves, maybe they won't be at risk anymore because of him... It's not just his desire to help, or feeling of responsibility - it's a necessary penance for the bombing ever happening in the first place.

Today on "Hurting Julian With Unneccesarily Awful Things": after Julian gets outed, there is an upswelling of anti-augment sentiment, with radical groups using his "terrifying deception in the heart of Starfleet" to rouse people's fear and anger. There are protests; there is violence—

And one night, Julian's woken up by a sorrowful-looking Sisko, who tells him that he's sorry, but he didn't want Julian to find out any other way. There's been an attack. It's the Insitute. It's been bombed.

[orbitposting]

DID but not as in presence of "evil murderer alter", DID as in buying two drinks instead of one because someone came to front after seeing a blue raspberry slushie and DEMANDED to have it, but the alter who walked all the way to the gas station refused to leave without getting what they wanted to get initially.

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[thecircularsystem]

Alright! Let’s break this down.

Don’t talk about their symptoms beyond alters

When I first started in system spaces, I didn’t recall any trauma, and had a hard time even realizing I had amnesia/dissociation. Even then, how would I discuss it? “lol forgot my test today, terrified I’m going to fail out of college” isn’t what I want to post. I don’t want to surround myself with misery when life is already such shit.

So I post the positive stuff. And when I was younger (like 19-21) it was much, much harder to be positive about trauma and dissociation. It was always easier to be positive about alters.

And now, as someone in recovery… I still largely post about my parts, because I’m now integrating with them and seeing more and more about them. Now I can feel our interactions more clearly than ever. Talking about it reminds me of how far I’ve come.

So, I really think this “red flag” is frankly bullshit. It dismisses a lot of individuals recoveries, and dismisses the fact that the majority of people online are trying to escape misery.

Minors, self-diagnosed, who have awareness of parts

Describing me nearly perfectly, back when I joined system spaces. Only difference was I was a newly minted 19 year old, so not a minor. However, I had an incredible awareness of my parts since age 15 or so, and by 19 (when I rediscovered my system and learned what DID was), I had an entire google document of likes, dislikes, appearance, age, etc, and we had an incredibly vivid innerworld. I needed that to not lose my mind.

Sure, maybe it’s unlikely. But genuinely, how often are you seeing people that fit the exact criteria you’ve listed? For instance:

I always say I have had near perfect communication with my parts. And I stand by that, because we’ve always been able to communicate damn well. But through therapy, we worked out that a part that I thought split in college had been there since early high school — and we could even now pinpoint times he fronted. So that means we didn’t know all of our parts perfectly, despite thinking we did.

Does that mean I was faking DID? Or was I just wrong about my experiences with DID?

I appreciate that you’ve brought up that every system is different — but none of the things you listed even go against the criteria. None of these things would stop an individual from being diagnosed.

Anger over being told they’re wrong

I’ve now fit two of the Criteria of Faking DID that you listed. As expected, I’ve been told I’m wrong about my experiences countless times online. I was told my experiences aren’t possible with DID. I’ve been told:

My trauma isn’t real trauma.

I can’t know my alters.

I can’t remember things between switches.

I can’t like having DID.

And a thousand other things. That if I did any of XYZ, then it would immediately invalidate my existence.

… yeah so forgive me if that pissed me off a bit and made me aggressive. Because none of these things go against the criteria for diagnosis. None of what you listed is “not how DID works.” So it’s frustrating existing as a system and being told constantly that I’m not.

As for your comment about diagnosis — I can’t chime in on that one, given that I was diagnosed essentially immediately upon receiving medical care. But I will say, if they want help, they need a medical care team that they feel listens to them. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink, especially if you yell at the horse and tell them they’re fake, you know? I don’t know why people get so upset about this.

id say a good 95% of people on tumblr who claim they have DID/OSDD do not actually have it, if u know anything about the disorder at all it is so easy to tell that a good chunk of people on this site (as well as apps like tiktok, discord, etc) are faking