oooo it's been a while since the last snippet :]c it's another fantasy au one where I'm! Putting! Barnaby! Through It!
a minor warnings: implied/referenced major character death <3
No one eats dinner, and Frank won’t stop tapping his spoon against his bowl. Tok tok tok it goes, over and over again.
Poppy made a simple stew from their provisions, but only Eddie and Sally make an attempt at tasting it. Their halfhearted ‘it’s good’s don’t pierce the pressure weighing down on them all. Barnaby swears he can taste it, thick and cloying.
Already he keeps catching himself looking for Wally. Where is- he starts to think, and then he remembers the moment Wally fell with a spear piercing his chest, and the grief rises so fast it nearly drowns him in a heartbeat. Barnaby can’t bring himself to try and hide it behind anything but a stony mask. In any other situation he might try to put some levity into the group. Cheer up the sad and empty faces staring into their meals.
He wouldn’t be able to think of a single lighthearted thing even if he wanted to. He doesn’t.
Tok tok tok-
Shuffling from Howdy’s tent has everyone glancing over at it, and Frank’s spoon stills. Howdy briefly woke up while Poppy was cooking. All he did was sit up, look at everyone, then pitch to the side and vomit. They got him into a tent before he passed out again, mumbling something about puppets. Frank made a comment about how Howdy was supposed to be a bit out of it, not at fae-drunk levels of hazy. Eddie had muttered back a dejected apology, and after that the camp was silent until Poppy’s announcement that dinner was ready. The spoon continues tapping when the shuffling stills.
Tok tok tok-
Since Eddie and Sally saying that dinner is good, there hasn’t been a noise beyond the occasional sniffle. It’s a good thing Julie isn’t trying her stew - it must be disgustingly salty from all the tears dripping into it.
Tok tok tok-
Barnaby sighs through his nose and puts his bowl down, sick of looking at everyone’s misery. He would say that he’s going to go sleep, but he has a feeling that none of them are getting a wink tonight.
Tok tok-
Before he can stand, Frank blurts, “We shouldn’t have attacked it. It was a mistake.”
“Please don’t,” Julie begs.
“There’s no need to rub salt in the wound,” Sally says firmly, her stew starting to sizzle from the rising heat in her hands.
“Not right now, Frank,” Eddie mutters.
Frank visibly bristles, and he launches to his feet. “I refuse to pretend not to have seen what I did! The truth is a terrible thing, but someone needs to say it. Wally lied to us.”
“Frank…” Barnaby warns.
“We shouldn’t have attacked the demon,” Frank barrels on, ignoring him, “because there was no need to. It didn’t eat Wally until the end because the demon is his patron. Wally was never a wizard at all, he was a warlock-”
Barnaby lunges with a deep bark that echoes against the trees. The crickets symphony falls silent. Frank trips backwards over his seat, staring up with wide eyes as Barnaby stalks around the fire, growling. Eddie and Sally slowly stand, inching between him and Frank.
Barnaby stops, snout bunched and canines bared. He jabs a claw at Frank. “Don’t you ever say that again. Ever.”
Frank’s mouth flaps uselessly for a moment. When he speaks, it comes out as a whisper, “I’m-”
“If you end that with right instead of sorry, I’ll make damn sure that you are.”
Frank wisely keeps his mouth shut. The crickets continue chirping.
Barnaby glares at him until Frank looks away. Barnaby straightens his vest with a sharp tug and strides away from the fire, towards his and- his tent. Just his, now. Murmuring breaks out at his back. He yanks the flap open, grabs his pipe and herb pouch, and heads towards the forest. He pauses only to listen by Howdy’s tent, waiting to hear proof of life before continuing on.
Once he can’t see the firelight anymore, Barnaby chooses a random tree and sits heavily in front of it. Rough bark digs into his back through his vest. A night bird hoots overhead. Crickets continue to make their music, but Barnaby wishes they would shut up for good.
Light from the full moon pours through the branches to provide just enough light to see by. Barnaby holds up his pipe and quickly puts it to the side to take off a grimy glove. The heart-pad and blue fur underneath contrasts vibrantly with the dust-grayed rest of him. After a moment he removes the other glove, wincing as the leather drags over his injured knuckles. He turns his paw over and scowls at the dirty black edges of the red-raw scrapes. He should have punched harder. He hopes it scars, even though he knows it won’t.
The gloves themselves are scuffed up, but not beyond use. Barnaby folds them into his pocket and gets to work lighting his pipe. He packs it and instinctively opens his mouth to ask Wally to light it for him. The words die on his tongue as he turns only to see dark forest. Empty woods save for the tiny blue lights of night wisps floating on the breeze.
Barnaby stares into the darkness with yawning dread. He keeps looking. How long will it take him to stop? How long until Wally’s face starts to smudge in his memories, until his voice is gone and Barnaby doesn’t even remember what his smile looked like? How long until Barnaby only thinks of him in passing?
He doesn’t want to reach that point. He desperately does.
Will it hurt more or less? Does it matter? He wants it to ache until he dies.
Barnaby frantically fishes his sparkrune out of the herb pouch - only there for emergencies, when Wally or Sally isn’t there to light it for him. It will wear down to a nub within the month. He strikes his thumb claw against it, and sparks fly expertly into the bowl of his pipe. It takes a moment to catch. Barnaby lifts the bit to his lips and takes a drag before enough smoke forms for a lungful.
Maybe he should have grabbed the stronger stuff. If he breathes enough of it, maybe he’d be able to see Wally.
But Barnaby doesn’t get up in the end. He sits against the base of a tree and hugs himself, the pipe’s intermittent glow betraying the shine in his eyes.
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Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).
I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?
That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.
Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌
TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.
Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.
(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)
Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.
(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)
Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.
Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.
Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.
We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).
Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.
(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)
And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.
If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.
Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.
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so much you have added to fx backstory au in your head you say… please feel free to take this excuse to share to your heart’s content… 💐
alex from the future here: this started as a note i was gonna let rot in my drafts and turned into A WHOLE ASS SCENE WITH DIALOGUE AND E'RYTHIN so i decided to copy and paste it here... anyway i have THOUGHTS about feng xin's family and especially his SPITFIRE of an older sister, shen liang...
I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS and omg thank you for sending an ask im overflowing with thoughts of them... see #fx backstory au for more
~
sometimes i like to think about young Shen Liang before her brother was born...
yknow that excited phase some girls have about babies when theyre like 13?
my girl was READY to be a big sister
ready doesnt even being to describe it...
"Xin-er!" she'd talk to Shen Wangxi's belly relentlessly as if he'd already been born... if he even was a "he"
she'd be happy with a didi or a meimei she did not care
she read every bit of prep material from the royal library at least 3 times over
she talked with her mom about how she'd be the best jiejie ever...
she was SO EXCITED
So much so that Shen Wangxi knew Shen Liang could take care of her brother.
That is, until Feng Xin was born...
The event essentially trades her mothers life for her brothers... Shen Liang has the capability to care for her didi, but she isn't too interested in the parasite that stole her mom from her...
But this "parasite" continues to grow more fond of her regardless of how horribly she treats him.
.
"Jiejie is family. I love my family. And Baba tells me all the time i need to protect the things I love. I'll protect you jiejie!" A tiny Feng Xin puffs out his chest and makes a face that he thinks will make him look tough.
"Like how you protected mama?" Shen Liang mutters to herself, standing up from the dirt she'd been kicked down into by that goodfornothing bully and uselessly patting dust off her robes before knocking past him.
"Enough, A-Liang. He's three, he doesn't understand."
No. You don't understand. "Get lost, old man." Shen Liang quips toward her father.
Feng Yang lets her leave. Teenagers. At least she was safe now. This harassment was getting out of hand. He'd hate to take it directly to the king.
"But..." a tiny voice pokes out from behind the contemplating Xianle general.
Feng Yang bends down to pick up his son and rest him on his hip.
Tiny hands grab the fabric of his robes as Feng Xin rubs his head against his fathers chest to comfort himself and he mumbles, "Jiejie... I'll protect you, jiejie, I promise."
Feng Yang's heart aches from his son's words. It swells in his chest until it almost pops and then...
"Baba?"
"Yes, Xin-er?" Feng Yang answers softly with a smile.
Feng Xin chews on the age-old words of the Feng family code, and then speaks. "Well... what does a man do... when he can't protect what he loves." His voice attempts to mimic the commanding tone of his fathers own.
Well... "He tries to get stronger."
Feng Xin's eyes brighten.
Feng Yang is blessed to have this child as his son.
"Baba?"
"Hm?"
"When will I be strong enough to protect jiejie?"
"I don't know." I wish I did. "Sometimes protecting someone is not about how strong you are." I wish I could protect her too. "Sometimes you can't be strong enough to protect someone who doesn't want to be protected."
"Even if you love them?"
"Even if you love them."
Feng Xin's tiny brows furrow in contemplation until his young mind hits a logical dead end. It doesn't make sense to him.
So...
Feng Xin does what he always does when he doesn't know what else to do. "Baba is silly. Of course jiejie wants me to protect her." He hopes.
He prays. Wishes. Believes. Much like the name his mother gave him implies, Feng Xin has faith.
He was born with it. And like any child with a gift from his mother, he'll never let it be taken from him.
Feng Yang tests him. "And how do you know she wants that?"
"She lets me peel her oranges!" Feng Xin looks down and excitedly acts out the motion with his hands.
Yeah, and then she doesn't feed you. It had been beyond difficult for Feng Yang to feel safe leaving Feng Xin in Shen Liang's care. Just the thought of him thinking this way about his daughter made his stomach churn. But recently, even Shen Liang's 'starvation as a form of discipline' was now the least of his concerns.
Oddly, Feng Xin never complained and the treatment went unnnoticed. It took a visit from the royal physician to tell Feng Yang his son was malnourished. Feng Xin never denied that his jiejie sometimes "forgot" to feed him, but he didn't stand for the accusations the physician made about her either. He adamantly refused to cooperate until Feng Yang had asked the man to conclude his visit with the reassurance he'd address his son's care. Stubborn. Just like his mother... Just like his sister too. Feng Xin made his baba promise to never make him see another doctor who talked bad about his jiejie. Feng Yang couldn't deny him.
The feeding was less of an issue now, given the new one (bruises popping up on his skin) but it was best not to bring up Shen Liang's new actions to the little one right now.
So Feng Yang simply says, "But she doesn't share her slices with you."
"I don't need them. I'm strong." He puffs out his chest again and then has the idea to flex his arms like he was heroically nocking an arrow on his toy bow. "Maybe if jiejie eats them, then she can be strong on her own and I don't have to protect her!"
"Maybe. But why do you keep peeling them for her?"
Feng Xin's voice mellows, as sincere as a 3 year old can, but he responds without missing a beat. "I really like peeling oranges for jiejie."
.
Shen Wangxi I don't deserve our son, Feng Yang thinks.
.
...more to come 🤭
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