#i would like to thank the academy and also antidepressants

[spookypartycrit]

Howdy, spooky. Gonna use another anon identifier because I saw the sophist clip and the comparisons with projared and I feel like I have to put my two cents about this.

Even when projared was at his worst, he knew which hands that fed him he shouldn't bite. I was a somewhat known account in the asagao academy/hidden block/normal boots fandoms back in the day, and most if not all of these gamer guys had a Tumblr account. They knew a big part of their audience was queer and neurodivergent teens. And even when Projared was having the worst time of his life playing Undertale, I at least don't remember seeing him scoff at or downplay undyne and alphyst relationship.

He didn't like that the game forced him to go full pacifist to get the good ending, and he found some of the characters annoying, but from what I remember he never was openly queerphobic. There's a lot of things that you can throw at his sailor moon dressed ass (being a creep, his mushroom looking dick, not checking who he was letting into his nsfw discord) but he at least wasn't a queerphobe. Holy (his new partner) is poly herself.

Sophist seems to not understand that. He's been doing this for three years (his own admission) and still doesn't get that biting the hand that feeds you is not a good move. As you've said Vern's is his friend and Nick too. If he's not wanting to be queer friendly at least he should listen to his business friend about how to handle these topics.

Is this disappointing? Yes. But does this only fuels my spite and makes me wanna do more polycrashers fan content in the hopes he finds it and pisses him off? Also yes.

(Also, Sophist. Girls don't date because you're ugly (far from it) or a nerd. They don't date you because of the doomer cloud you bring everywhere. Go to therapy, get some antidepressants, touch more grass and meet new people outside the internet. Or you could keep doomscrolling and jacking off to hentai while lamenting not having a girlfriend. Your choice.)

Have a good weekend Spooky, and thank you for what you do.

-🧂

I was gonna name you woody because either the howdy reminded me of a cowboy and that Brent Toy Story vocal stim +undertale off theory was stuck in my head.

But your anon signifier is a salt shaker. I will name you. Flowey, cause hes salty lil flower and he says howdy

If you want a queer fanbase. You gotta be nice to queer people im sorry but it’s just how it works.

My thing is. If he don’t like poly people…. Just… shut up? Why would you even say that. Nobody asked you? All your doing is losing yourself followers and good faith? The one thing u decide to me honesy about.

Form a strictly buisness standpoint sophist if you dont like poly people fucking LIE. You made a persona to hide your true feelings why would the one thing your reveal be what damages your career god you are the most self destructive disaster I’ve ever seen. Well. Seen compare to dsmp but you had to have 2 mental illness and agree to have a tramuatic event happen to you to be on the dsmp so they don’t count it’s not fair.

From a purely logical and buisnes perspective, angering your core audience is a bad move. Angering your core audience and then not having another to immediately pivot into is also a shit fucking move.

Pc main audience is connected to a very special part of the gaming sphere, it’s why dsmp often overlaps with them, they also overlap with alpharad/dougdoug/failboat/smallant and all thier collaborators.

Basicalky queer/marginalized creatives who want a safe place to like games. A lot of the gamer sphere is full of gamer bros who hate everything “woke” so a big chunk has been carved out for the marganlizrd to enjoy games without worry of bigotry or harassment. and alot of these creators naturally starts acting woker (be it thier actual views or not) to fit in and benefit from this space. Alpharad prob the biggest but he’s openly queer himself, dsmp was real big and created a giant marganilizrd market. Doug Doug has slowly but surely (despite some. Deviseive views on ai) has gotten woker and more of a safe space of more of his chat revealed themselves to be marganilizrd.

Pc grabbed a big chunk of this market and it’s about 70% of thier audience. They have the typical gamer bro but not enough to tip any scales. They are firmly in this space and have had to learn to cope with it.

Vern fully embaces it and if probably best off with this outcome

Nick enjoys us but the Kai cenat audience.. I know he thinks of it

Idk if Brent has noticed

And sophist didn’t create a sona for Kai cenat fans now did he? No it was for the creative queers.

All of them benefits and its thier best fit to be in this queer spear and they’ve all changed and adapted to it.

From a completely buisness standpoint. . Pandering to the queers and not upsetting them is the best buisness move. Why sophist in any universe would risk upsetting who pays his bills is completely ridiculous and he would know this if he listened to nicks buisness advice about anything. It’s stupid at best and a self destruction spiral at worst.

Sophist dosnet have another fanbase to pivot into. If your gonna alienate one audience u need a audience willing to catch you. The one crasher I can see successfully switching to a solely gamer bro audience is Brent cause that’s what most of his audience is now. If you have ever gone into the Wild West he calls a discord you will see that. They like that he’s good at games they dont care about any of extra stuff. Though I dont think Brent would alienate his queer audience. Not only would he just have. No motivation to do that. if he don’t like us now imagine when it’s just gamer bros, he gets mildly annoyed at pc fans but dosent really care about the art or fanworks imagine if it was all gamer bro trying to debate fucking speed running or balance patches with him. He’s blow his hairline clean off like I think he perfers his wierd annoying queers. Who will cower back when he growls at them instead of thinking it’s funny a proaking him further like all gamer bros would

Nick could probably pivot too but as much as he wants cool gamer bros fans he really wants that fanart that makes him look hot too i dont think hed last to long without us.

Sophist could not pivot the same. Hes not particularly good at any game besides pizza tower or league and his style of jokey cartoony commentary is much more aligned with the gamer safe space style of humor.

And god forbid he right wing grifts. Grifters think men owning cats is woke propaganda and anti grifter people start doxxing grifters the 4th time they see them on thier fyp sophist dont got the heat for this type of environment.

Nick would be perfect to go to buisness advice too and nick would prob tell him “do what those damn queers want they pay our bills”

This dissapointed me but we’re not new to sophist crit around here everyone always had a kinda bad feeling. My hopes with him are never too high

More poly crashers. More poly prompts, more poly song posts. The poly fans will not be silenced. Then funniest part is he is so bad at confrontation with his fanbase he gonna have to sit there mad about it. sorry you have 3 boyfriends and you all wear matching rings. Gonna have to take off that mask and yell at us directly doomer boy. And I ain’t no bitch if he gotta talk to anyone here he can talk directly to me and I got some shit to say.

Sophist so surrounded by otaku nerd gooner basement culture he think he one of them nerds who needs a anime waifu who will love him. No sophist you look hot, and you can also dress nice. And you dont look like a hot mess like most weebs do. Just fucking delete league of ledgends and take a walk in the park. Go meet girls at conventions. Fucking go to nerd conventions, join a dnd club and go camping with em idk dude just quit rotting in that damn room and maybe u can have two gfs and a couple boyfriends while your at it.

thank u for thanking me, someone gotta hold all the communities complaints in one place. Like a news station, how else would people know when the guys are being annoying

-🎃

[puzzling-reeds]

Always love a Johan analysis!

I get why they couldn't feature him strongly in season four without detracting from other members of the cast--or without tweaking a lot of the plot. Johan is a big shot of antidepressant for Juudai. If Johan had stayed at Duel Academy, Juudai's angst would've been KO'd from one (1) healthy Johan conversation. Plus, there would've been a weaker arc with Asuka about rekindling Juudai's love for dueling. One fun duel with Johan would've fixed that because Johan is the main cast member that Juudai can't kill in one turn; they're established as dueling equals. On top of that, the (albeit already fumbled) pay off of Juudai, who'd been suffering from suicidal ideation, facing off against the literal Grim Reaper, an impartial deliverer of death, at the end of the season would've been even more empty than it already kind of was.

I really like OP's thought of keeping Ryou dead post-season three (Don't we all...?) and having Johan grapple with the guilt of that. It would've created a very interesting and new dynamic with Juudai, who also is struggling with guilt around his actions. Both Juudai and Johan were pseudo villains in season three, and highlighting that connection would've been soooo cool. Even more, a conversation between Shou, who would be dealing with his brother's death, and Johan, who sort of killed Ryou, would've been awesome. Maybe have that be the capstone of Shou learning the cyber art with him taking out Johan (the final person his brother couldn't beat) and Johan getting closure about that event in his life. Yeah. I want that now.

I don't know how O'Brien and Jim could've been integrated, but I missed them too. Just throw all the traumatized kids in a blender and see what happens.

Gonna be spinning some of these thoughts in my brain now. Thanks, OP!

Can you expand on the "Jesse being a foil to the protagonist (Jaden)" bit? 🤨

referring to what I spilled here? yeah sure.

(@ Gallop, you're never touching him again!)

A Foil is technically just as we call it to be. A character who by itself is meant to contrast the mc, and this is not always in the form of the villain. E.g we know how close Sherlock and Watson are with how they rely on each other throughout Doyle's writing, yet they're not the same. Foil is always important to the narrative even if not a fixed one.

Jesse Anderson is given a strong introduction in the anime. Slated to be Jaden's actual Best Friend by default, no argument there. They were meant to pass off as some metaphorical twins separated at birth, everyone's fave "brother from another mother" duo. Right off the bat we hear a professor remark how he's "just Jaden with a southern accent". (yoshida's possible attempt at reverse atem/yugi, one soul two bodies type now?)

(June-born boys are Best boys. Get all my kisses :* )

But I beg to differ. With each passing episode, it became abundantly clear how much Jesse is the knight in shining armor to Jaden's court jester appeal. Whilst Jaden heads into a duel first to save the day (stole all the duels mr. mc did), Jesse gets practical in the physical sense. We saw what a good samaritan he was repeatedly: jumped into the lake to save Chazz without any hesitation, quickly tried to save Syrus from Axel's trap, bodily put himself on the line to keep Blair safe, found the medical aid first, tried cheering up the frightened students and worried over Crowler handling the academy himself during the isekai arc.

(please! Drip too good, Proportions out of this screen. Jesse you're making Syrus drool)

Jesse is a himbo. Those golden retriever vibes emit off him so effortlessly. Truly an up-beat, silly guy. Curiously Goku-coded. He even has the hairdo to go full blonde for a perfect super saiyan cosplay. I had already spotted the dude's noticeable pecs from the start so his ripped body in isekai didn't surprise me one bit. He's just choosing loose fitting clothing like the modest man he is.

(Beefy Hunk, he could pull anybody I tell ya!)

Jaden is scrawny cuz he's loser of Slider dorm, unlike theatre twink Aster. The writers need Jaden to have an Alpha bestie who still balances him somehow. The main friend group have their own thing outside of Jaden going on with them from time to time, so poor mc is in need to connect with someone over shared paranormal experiences. Someone with a stronger savior complex, and also open for projections. For this is the perfect foil yet it comes with a price.

See, Jesse is a blank canvas. There are just too many Whys that are left unanswered because for all his Super Saiyan traits, the dude's got nothing going for him beyond that. The only flashbacks we get of him are Pegasus handing out the Crystal Beast deck, and in his hometown(?) where he promises to save that small boy's card from Trapper. Mind you, none of this is a convincing background for Anderson to have since he's not some disposable side character for crying out loud.

(he's so good with kids. town hero for sure)

Rewatched whole of GX few weeks ago and good god, my adult brain is frying me by deciphering all the plot armor. Plus I found out I've been gushing over a character who's presence makes up hardly 20% of the entire anime. I love the boy but the haunting realization hit me hard ..

..that Jesse's Gary Stu-ficiation was merely a temporary plot device. Can't wrap my head around the fact that this cool guy loses his character outline instead of us ever seeing him develop it further. If he's been designed as the Best Friend already then it was a responsibility to give him the Joey Wheeler treatment and sustain his relevance into the next season. Yet that never happens.

where jesse? :(

In fact, my experience rewatching s4 is just going "where's Jesse" every other episode. Did I also mention this shit is just a bad finale in general?

(this being the last bromance scene, since the series doesn't end on that note, sucks)

And what is Trans King Sartorius doing here before Jesse??? C'mon man, hardly 9 episodes remained to this damn season, and they were having me scared of believing that Jesse was some teen hallucination of mine.

(GOOD BOI'S HEREEEE!)

Mind you, I've done the whole counting already. Excluding yubel's possession since that ain't him, Jesse makes fleshed out appearances in only 33 ep. This series has 180 episodes :/

(peak how he's still taller and broader than mc lmao)

Was a girl waiting for you back in north academy or what pal? Like do you see what i mean here folks, literally no explanation as to why he left when it should also be shown him battling PTSD, after what yubel put him through. You think this good boi would be ok knowing he was used to kill Zan-

Wait, but Zane's alive hahaha. He isn't dead ya know since prior season got terribly retconned and we're served with a "that-never-happened" finale.

(something something the visual contrast now highlights Jaden's changed)

Which further denotes that Jesse's role as deuteragonist sadly disappears like some shadow (no pun intended). Can't be a foil all the way to the end now can he? Diluted as much as possible..

(cue an inner monologue you'd never hear s3!Jesse give)

He's strangely developed this budding rivalry towards the mc to defeat him but also feels compelled that he owes mc for saving his life from yubel's clutches. That's a first for him to acknowledge what transpired in s3 but umm… dude what's with the formality? Where's the love, like you were gushing over soulmatism some 60 eps ago so WHAT'S GOING ON?!

(Derp, Maniac, Loser :D Pick your Jesse!)

No seriously, s4!Jesse feels off to me. Not the dude from either the prior season or the manga but a little bit of both of them. Does that make sense? You follow me? Like who is this?

(Jesse what are you doing there boy, go hug Jaden)

Nobody knows why s3!Jesse, s4!Jesse and manga!Jesse are three different people. What the hell was happening in that damn writers room? Now I'm more curious as to how movie!Jesse will be portrayed to us in the near future (look at me, so hopeful for a gx movie lmao). Do you think he gives up card games to become a full time entomologist?

(Worst. Scene. Ever. Alexis is wearing heels since she's shorter than Jess)

The manga is gloriously better than the anime, in terms of structuring, and even leaving out the pitiful "poor mc has no genuine friends" arc. Yet that led about to it's only setback to me: the strange dissipation of Jesse. Here he's more nonchalant and mostly preoccupied with his personal bug fixation. So while he's a bigger cutie on page no doubt, it's just strange seeing him so irrelevant to the plot and of course, mc. Strange seeing Johan give a rat's ass about Judai in this storyline lol.

Like ugly Gecko gets to keep his backstory with his brother Sid, and damn Aster's still a pro-duelist BUT Mr. Andersen gets nothing. Considering this was published after the anime seems like a slap in the face to me cause it's clear the writers somewhat "regret" overly emphasizing Jesse's character more than necessary. Yeah it sucks that the main gang had to take a huge step back in the anime so he could take over the spotlight, which the manga clearly wags it finger at. Still hurts though.

(sheer laziness, or there's a plot twist here added for laughs)

Anyways, I like Jesse Anderson a lot. Am so innocently waiting for that remake/epilogue/movie where he comes back to us with his quirks.

[soviet-history-detective]

Legasov You Did Not Know

I am going to share an ingot of solid gold right now, the kind that will break your heart and ruin your day.

I have unearthed this some time ago from a book that’s been long out of print. It is the translation of a truly heart-wrenching eulogy written by his late widow, Margarita Mihailovna Legasova. There is a lot of new information about Legasov in this piece, the kind of things only the wife of 30 years would know. 

Defenceless Victor—Margarita Legasova’s title of her reminiscences 

This title in Trud was followed by a quotation by Valery Legasov:

There are two colour photos hanging in my office at work. One of them is of a Nuclear Atomic Plant, the other of storks. These photos hang near each other as a reminder of the close relationship between life, nature and technology, letting one know beforehand of the fragility of life, about the necessity to keep it. I recalled these photos when I worked in Chernobyl eliminating the consequences of the accident at the NPP. Really, could storks in the future, living on the earth, feel themselves to be safe with modern industry? Is such a peaceful coexistence possible? And if possible, then what should be done to achieve this?

It was not until 10 years after the accident and eight years after Valery Legasov’s death that his widow published a short memoir in Trud that unequivocally confirmed that her husband had committed suicide on 27 April 1988. They had first met when students in the same institute and together worked at a students’ building construction project in what were termed in the USSR as the virgin lands. Under the title Defenceless Victor she described her memories of Legasov’s troubled times at Chernobyl and the period afterwards when he was, to a certain extent, ostracized by the establishment. She also includes interesting comments on what life was like for a senior scientist and his family in the Soviet system: very different from the experiences of Western scientists.

***

Last year we at last completed erection of a gravestone on his grave. This was with thanks to my son and daughter and a few supporters and colleagues of the Academician who helped to cover the expenses. That day when the sculptor invited me to his workshop and showed me the completed work, Valery returned home in the form of his bronze sculpture. He often had to travel away on business trips, we tried to be patient and wait for his return, but on 27 April 1988 he was transported away, already lifeless, forever. 

On Saturday 26 April 1986, Valery left for an ordinary business meeting where he learned about the Chernobyl NPP accident and that evening he was already 2 km away from the destroyed reactor. Life seemingly continued but terrible forebodings did not allow us to relax and stop worrying about his health. After 27 April our acquaintances began to say that badly irradiated victims of the accident had begun to be transported to Moscow to Hospital No. 6. Nobody could tell me when he would return. 

On the morning of 5 May about 8am there was a ring at the door bell and Valery entered in a borrowed suit of clothes and carrying a polythene bag with belongings rather than his normal case. He was very thin, with a dark face, red eyes and the palms of his hands were tanned black. He only had time to wash, change, breakfast and ask about his two grandchildren before he had to leave at 10am for a meeting. There was no time to tell us what was the state of events at Chernobyl. Then at lunchtime one of his assistants telephoned and said that Boris Scherbina wanted him again at Chernobyl. 

It was only when he returned home later that he was able to tell us that he had personally entered the most dangerous areas in the fourth reactor and how shaken he was at the criminal carelessness displayed at the NPP before the explosion. 

He next returned home on 13 May and it seemed to us that the biggest difficulties were in the past: but we soon understood that we were mistaken. By summer Valery was already in poor health, suffering from frequent headaches, chronic insomnia, nausea and stomach illness. It was difficult to recognize the earlier Valery in this morally depressed man. He was taken many times for medical investigation to Hospital No. 6 of the atomic establishment. Heart insufficiency, serious leukocytosis, problems with his myelocytes and bone marrow were diagnosed, as well as neurosis. But no official diagnosis was made of radiation syndrome, although I had no doubt that it was so. 

He became an Academician at the early age of 45 but some of the leading figures of Soviet science called him ‘A boy from the chemical suburbs’. However, he was interesting to work with and liked jokes, being famous as an amusing raconteur, although everyone knew that science was the principal interest of his life. His private family life was unknown to his colleagues. 

For five years, 1964–69, we lived in a flat of 22 square metres at Nizhegorodskaya Street. Though we could use only communal transportation we often made trips together with our two little children to Kuskovo, Ostankino and Arkangelskoye. In Tsaritsino we enjoyed ski holidays. It now seems that these were the happiest times of our lives. 

Valery was a car enthusiast for the last 10 years of his life and loved driving at very high speeds. He had always wanted a private car and his first, which was also his last, was a GAZ-25 Volga which we bought in 1977 for 9500 roubles when he was a Candidate Member of the Academy of Sciences. The initial capital for the purchase was his quota from his State Prize received for his achievements in the field of chemistry. 

We usually celebrated New Year in the circle of our family, sometimes in a rest house. One of these days a pure bred chau chau puppy appeared in our family and it was assumed that it was my New Year’s gift. Ma Lu Thomas, as she was called, would recognize only Valery as his owner and loved being in our car. She was inseparable from him and died just after Valery’s death. He was also an adoring grandfather to Misha and Valerik and invented little poems for them and played charades. 

As a boy he received a musical education and for many years was interested in listening and understanding classical music: Grieg, Sibelius, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. He was also fond of Schnitke. Over the years we bought tickets for many concerts in the Tschaikovsky Concert Hall of the Musical Conservatoire. Valery’s last concert was in Lithuania in the summer of 1987: for flute and organ. Little did I know that soon afterwards Valery would make a first attempt to commit suicide. He swallowed a handful of Triptizol tablets but that time the physicians managed to save him. 

In one Soviet TV programme is was said that Academician Legasov was a sincere believer. It is not so. From autumn 1987 he began to read the Bible and thought much about what he read. He was not baptised a Christian, but respected religion even though he was brought up an atheist. 

He considered that the East was weak and during his business trips he tried to see as much as possible of culture. He very much wanted to visit one of the sacred Islamic places, the mausoleum of Hoja Ahmed Iasavi, and the monument erected in honour of the ancient Turkish poet who lived in the twelfth century and was an advocate of Sufism. We visited the ancient city of Yami and worshipped at the grave of the philosopher, and Valery often recalled his verses:

Having met a man of another faith 

Don’t be evil to him

The God does not like people

With a cruel heart...

After their death punishment

Waits for them...

On his return from the Chernobyl NPP Valery told very sparingly, with tears in his eyes, about the unpreparedness for the accident. Those days nobody could precisely estimate the number of victims, but Legasov understood better than others, the lack of necessary means of health protection: pure water, food products, iodine prophylaxis. 

In August 1986 Valery Legasov presented a report to IAEA experts at a meeting in Vienna, about the causes and the consequences of the accident. His five-hour report was very well received and he returned home triumphal. But soon his mood changed. During the last two years after the accident he suffered great psychological trauma and his inner strength was broken. 

Twice he was nominated for a high award from the State, and twice the nomination was cancelled. He received a suggestion that he might take up a position with the IAEA in the field of nuclear technology: again, obstacles appeared. There was also the planned nomination for Director of a Research Centre on the Problems of Industrial and Nuclear Safety: this came to nothing. His election as a Member of the French Academy of Sciences was apparently assured and although we went to Paris on 4 February 1988, his last business trip, he did not receive Membership. Also, just after his Paris trip he was hospitalized with acute leukocytosis, pneumonia and severe neurosis. 

Chernobyl was not only a tragedy of international importance but it was also the personal tragedy of the gifted scientist Valery Legasov. 

Source: Chernobyl Record- The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, R F Mould

Notes:

I had a feeling there was more to Legasov than what we see in the written material out there (I read Russian at upper intermediate level so I have access to quite a lot of info, and I have read the magnificent in-depth science-engineering reform articles of him which were absolutely jaw-dropping in their visionary quality. Yet some of the information in this article blew my mind.  Legasov’s intellectual side is far deeper than anyone’s guess, that is evident.

All the documentary films and other material mention Legasov took sleeping pills in his first suicide attempt in 1987, but it turns out it was Triptizol, which is the brand name of Amitriptyline -a powerful antidepressant prescribed for major depression and where SSRI’s don’t work. It has been used as sleeping medicine in the US, but I have no clue if it had such use in the USSR. It is known Legasov developed a serious insomnia problem, but he was also diagnosed with major clinical depression. 

Margarita Legasova was a professor of chemistry, they both graduated from the prestigious Mendeleev School of Chemistry, where they met (as mentioned in the beginning.)

The dog’s name sounds like it’s mistranscribed or something, in Russian language articles written by Legasov’s close friends she is mentioned as Tomka. Poor thing stopped eating after she realized he was gone forever and died shortly after. 

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told

Hello, everyone! I will have another  20k chapter of Baghdad Waltz posting tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are answers to some intriguing Asks you sent me. 

CW for some discussion of sexual assault. Spoilers for BW through Chapter 34.

Oh, thank you so much! I love writing these and other secondary characters and giving them life and a backstory that will probably never, ever see the light of day. I have enough head canon to write whole side fics for both Winnie and Rikki. I love Winnie in particular, though I know she can be a divisive character. Winnie has not been a perfect mother, even though (like pretty much every mother) she has tried her best, which is one reason I really enjoy writing her. I usually see Winnie written in fic as either a straight saint or, less often, a villain, so I wanted to give her some more dimension. I will keep up with these characters as the fic continues!

A COUPLE OF SHARON QUESTIONS:

Wow, good catch! Yes, this was mentioned one time back in Chapter 17, when Sharon first disclosed to Steve that she was pregnant. As with many of the things like this that I throw in the fic, it serves multiple purposes.

First, I included this biographical information because of how common sexual violence is — at least 1 in 6 women will be victims of sexual violence in their lifetime. I wanted to also show that a) it can happen to “tough” women, which we would likely argue Sharon is/was, as an Army Reserve Officer attending the University of Virginia, and b) even though she still blames herself (at least to some degree) for “letting” it happen, she’s still an overall well adjusted person who can have healthy, intimate, functional relationships, a successful career, and good self-esteem. This hasn’t ruined her life, and I think that’s an important counter message to have in a fic that’s so laden with characters who suffer deeply and chronically with their trauma. Trauma doesn’t always end in PTSD - in fact, statistically, it usually doesn’t. This will likely come up again later in the fic in another context as well.

Thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the read! As to whether Steve feels trapped by Sharon re: fatherhood, I imagine the details are a bit fuzzy to remember, because it’s been so long since that part of the fic, but I doubt he feels that way. He knows that Sharon has always been lukewarm about the family stuff while he has been dreaming about kids since he was, well, a kid. He knows that she didn’t intend to get pregnant and only got that way because her birth control failed due to an unintended interaction with St. John’s Wort (an herb with antidepressant properties she took to avoid going to behavioral health while he was deployed). As for deciding to keep the baby after becoming attached to it while she was pregnant, despite her previous lack of interest in being a mother, he likely wouldn’t have hard feelings against her for that.

If anything, I imagine Steve probably blames himself for having sex with her while he was home on leave, having just cheated on her with Bucky and not disclosing his cheating prior to having the sex that led to this kid in the first place. Had he told her as soon as he got home, she surely would have told him to go kick rocks, and there would be no Ethan. But he was scared and irresponsible and they were drunk... and now here they are. 

And although Ethan certainly feels chaotic and stressful for him because kids can feel that way and because he gets overwhelmed easily, he’s wanted to be a father for so long that he likely sees Ethan as a strong motivator for him to recover from PTSD and the effects of TBI. Certainly a much stronger motivator than Bucky, because in his mind, Bucky can fuck off and cheat on him or abandon him a thousand times over, but Ethan will always be his son. And even though he struggles to be the kind of father that he wants to be, Ethan and fatherhood is at least something very tangible for him to work toward.

Great questions! Thank you!

Ah yes, it’s hard to tell what’s going on with their relationship now, because it’s Bucky, who is at times a horribly unreliable narrator. He’s got so much baggage around the Army and not being part of it anymore, and there’s this piece about Sam having the career he wishes he could still have, and Sam having the personal life he could have had with Natasha in some bizarre permutation of reality. And Sam has been deployed, so he’s probably not able to talk much, and Bucky has terrible attachment problems and interprets behavior… not always very realistically. So he might interpret Sam’s distance (logistical, because he’s busy, because they have less to talk about, because they are moving in different directions) as a sign that their friendship was “weird” or that Bucky is “gross” or whatever Bucky is assuming because he’s going through his own shit right now. In short, it’s very possible that Bucky is projecting a lot of his personal stuff onto Sam, like assuming that a pretty normal phase of life transition is actually a sign that he’s being rejected.

But there is a separate issue of Bucky’s friendships getting physical and having these blurred boundaries with friendships. There’s yet-undisclosed stuff in the past that he’s referring to, so unfortunately you can’t see that yet, but he’s drawing on that, and he’s looking at this cuddling behavior (the “snack cake” scene etc.), and I’ll go ahead and say it, since it may never make it into the narrative, but Bucky would definitely have fucked Sam, if he showed even the slightest genuine sexual interest. Bucky has a bad track record with making good friendships in general, and almost all of his close friendships end up getting sexual or para-sexual. Take Steve. They had a pretty intensely physical friendship that got para-sexual and then sexual, and, interestingly, the intimacy that they shared in their friendship also took a nosedive when they really got sexual, but that’s another matter entirely.

So to answer your question, Bucky and Sam didn’t do anything explicitly sexual, but I think Bucky knows he would have, and now that he’s learning about boundaries in DBT, he’s probably wondering about theirs, and he’s looking at these patterns in his life right now, and he’s also just scrambling to figure out why they’re not good friends anymore. I mean, he also really just misses him and the Army, and he’s mourning for both. He’s kind of flailing around here, and that could be another reason why this doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. But you didn’t miss anything. He’s mostly wrapping himself around the axil over something that may or may not even be a thing. [sigh]

In other words, is Steve a Buckysexual, so to speak? I also am a bisexual person, and I take my bisexual characters pretty seriously (hoo boy). I can see why this might be a big question in people’s minds, because we haven’t seen a very broad swathe of Steve’s sexuality in this fic. He’s very much a monogamist who tends towards longer term relationships, if he can help it (not a guy who does casual fucks well, obvs). We started the fic proper while he was in a relationship with Sharon, then he went to Bucky, and then his sexuality went into hibernation, and now he’s climbing out of that, and we’ve had references to girlfriends in the past peppered along the way.

I’d classify Steve as a late-blooming bisexual. He graduated high school at 16, so he was really coming more fully into his sexuality after he left that environment, and that’s when his interest in Bucky started to fire up. Bucky was the first male he fixated on sexually, which parlayed into a sexual relationship for almost 2 years but then flamed out. Then Steve went into a long sexual hibernation after his mother died and he felt jilted by Bucky’s perceived abandonment, but then he was at the U.S. Military Academy, surrounded by hot young men at their peak fitness and— I will not say more specifically, because this is probably actually going to be addressed in the fic. 

But let it suffice to say that Steve is not a Buckysexual. One could also look at the way he fantasized about Bucky in the coffee house to see some clues to his sexual interest in other men. He wasn’t just into Bucky - he was into all these other guys too, jerking off while watching, all the dicks on the wall.... you know. He has had more relationships with women, so behaviorally he would seem to lean more toward women, but I would not say that women are necessarily his default preference. If Bucky were not in his life and they split to opposite corners of the Earth, never to speak again, I think he would be pretty open about the gender of his parter. As long as they let him put their genitals in his mouth, he’d be a happy camper ;)

And FINALLY: 

Ah yes, I believe you’re referring to the line “Bucky is still an alcoholic, ‘interpersonally unskilled,’ deeply imprinted from God knows what traumas, and really, who knows how willing to actually change, if change means being honest and shining light in the dark places he’s always kept Steve from, no matter how much he’s begged to see them.” Yes? 

So, prior to them separating in 2002, I would say that Bucky and Steve’s dynamic probably went a lot like this:  

Bucky was pretty contained on the outside most of the time, with periods where the he was a flaming dumpster fire just beneath the surface and brief episodes where he was dysregulated and really struggling obviously. The latter looked like, say, showing up drunk to Steve’s and saying cryptic things like “I’m disgusting” and sticking his hand up Steve’s shirt… or his post-Ground-Zero “fuck me/I’m totally fucking falling apart drunk” thing, etc.  And Steve, after these episodes, was probably like, “You know you can talk to me, right? Please. I just want to help.” And Bucky most assuredly responded with something like, “I’m good thx.”

I think Steve probably suspected for years that Bucky has stuff from his childhood (he would be absolutely dense not to), but I want to say that he probably both wants to know it and is terrified to know it. So his “begging” probably looks like gently imploring in a not too insistent way whenever Bucky does one of these big meltdown-y things. And then when they argue, Steve probably whips out the old, “You keep everything from me! I don’t know who you are! I have to beg you to tell me anything!” because that’s how these things usually go down. And Bucky would never volunteer anything and most assuredly lies about many things overtly and lies by omission alllll the time. So yeah, I would say that this a not-so-reliable-narrator situation but with a strong flavor of truth behind it. If that makes any sense at all. 

Thank you so much for the wonderful questions!! What a joy to receive them. More tomorrow. 

[inmyheadspace-alexis]

Feb. 2020: Goals

I have many goals for myself. The most important thing is to make my parents proud. My education has been everything for me. I was an officer for every committee in school, I was eighth in my class, and I had a job while keeping straight A’s. I was expecting college to be a walk in the park compared to high school, but boy was I wrong.

At Pineywoods Community Academy, Freshmen got to enroll in college courses at our local community college. This was incredible, as we were ahead of everyone else in our district. I graduated from college with an associate’s degree before a high school diploma. This time was worse mentally as I have always stressed about everything in life. At the age of nine, I had chronic stomach ulcers caused by stress. I remember my mother saying to the doctor “how does a nine-year-old have stress ulcers”. I am always hard on myself naturally because I saw how unmotivated my older brother was and I knew that was not going to be me. My parents always looked at me like the golden child, and it was hard living up to their expectations of me. My brother started to resent me, which lead to years of not interacting with one another.

In my junior year of high school, I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and help people. I had such influential teachers who made me into who I am today. I want to help kids reach their full potential and shape them to be incredible men and women. I want kids to remember me and were thankful that they had me as teacher, the same way I remember my teachers. My favorite subjects in school were always History and English. For some reason, those came so easy to me, unlike the math and sciences. I would struggle so hard to understand math especially, as I always felt like I was the dumbest in the class. My favorite class was always theater. I loved being on stage and being a different person, in which you can do that in front of a group of students. After every performance of every show, I would have an anxiety attack. At the time I did not know what it was all I knew was that I was scared. I could not catch my breath, I would burst into tears, and almost faint. My fellow castmates were incredible friends and learned how to calm me down after the attacks. My mom never believed me, as she said I was overreacting as an actress would. I felt hopeless that even my mother doesn’t believe me. Since seventh grade, I have always hated myself. I never knew why but there was always an underlying hatred towards myself. When I realized I knew how I would kill myself, I finally told my mother everything. From hating myself, self-harm, to wanting to commit suicide. My mother took me to the doctor where I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and anxiety. I liked knowing that I was right that there was a problem, but I also felt like a freak. I was put on antidepressants immediately and felt out of my own body. I was feeling better as the weeks rolled by with medicine and therapy.

August 2019 was when things changed, as I entered my first semester at Mary Hardin Baylor. I was so excited to be three hours away and to start this new adventure. Slowly but surely, I was getting into my old habits. I didn’t want to leave my dorm and I felt scared of the outside world. I would get physically sick at the idea of walking into a classroom while everyone stares at me. I just kept thinking “well what’s the harm in missing class”. I would get dressed for class and start bawling as I reached for the door. I didn’t want to tell my mom, as I know she was already worried about me being away. She did not need to know how rough I was mentally. I felt all the girls in my classes call me a slut and all the boys call me ugly. I felt disgusted with myself and I couldn’t go. I failed three of my classes in my first semester. I went from having a 3.7 GPA and being on the Dean’s list to having a GPA of 1.14. I was even more ashamed of that number than I had ever been ashamed of before. I promised myself that I have to change everything in this second semester. This second semester I am passing all my classes right now and have been to them every day. My parents told me that my first semester was my “trial semester”. I was hoping that to be true and that college life would look more upwards now. It has, which I am pleasantly surprised by and welcomes with open arms. Most people would think that I should be a guidance counselor, but I want everyone in my class to know that it gets better. Not everyone with problems will go to the guidance counselor, but everyone sees the teacher. I will be able to teach History, which I love, and maybe be able to help people in need.