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ilovetoxicfictionalmen · 4 months

Text

I’M HERE TO HELP

Pairing - Jonathan Crane x fem!reader

Summary - Your emotional instabilities and impulsive behaviours slowly kills all of your relationships. So you check yourself in for therapy with a doctor who uses unorthodox methods to fix you.

Warnings - BPD, mental illnesses, emotional and physical insecurities, emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, dubcon, dark, angst, p in v, oral both receiving, m! masterbation, daddy issues, toxic relationships, illegal methods, toxic reader.

Word count - A WHOPPING 8.9K

Notes - Heavily inspired by my own personal struggles with BPD. Very long, completely packed with angst and dark themes. A slight AU were Jonathan is your average therapist and not at Arkham. I don't really write longer pics so I'd really appreciative your thoughts. No fear toxin was used in the making.

Borderline Personality Disorder.

There were no medications to cure you of this mental illness. The only treatments were exercises, meditation and talk therapy.

Everyday, you experienced a series of insecurities, issues and habits that all stemmed from your childhood. A traumatic relationship with your father had left you to grow up to be yanked between emotionally codependent and unavailable. Your life was full of mood swings and feeling disconnected from who you were. All of your relationships were either short term or on and off. One minute you’d love them and the next you’d despise them. You had no control on how you felt about others. Their images were constantly changing like a series of short ads on the television.

Everyone was black or white, they were either good or bad for your existence. It left your social interactions to be quite unstable and chaotic. Because you liked to push people away frequently to see how badly they cared for you. It was based on your skepticality and distrust in their words. But could you blame them for leaving with how often you’d self-sabotage your happiness?

This whirlpool of intense emotions, thoughts and behaviors left you lost in your own mind. One day, you wished you never woke up and the next you'd be high on life. There was no stability in your life, you lived on impulses which you would quickly regret and those actions would replay in your mind for hours.

You liked to binge drink, take drugs and partake in reckless sex. The thrill of living on the edge was the only feeling you wanted to feel for years. But when you accidentally formed a relationship with a mutual friend named Peter, you got too attached. It freaked you out and well, you acted impulsively and cheated on him. It painted your bad persona clearly to your friends. You were in desperate need of help.

Your therapist, Doctor Jonathan Crane, was here to help.

Sensitive, timid, hesitant. Those were your clear characteristics Doctor Crane saw within the first few minutes of meeting you, he jotted them in his notepad as soon as he could. Your initial shyness was cute, you were cute. Even underneath the oversized hoodie you chose to wear that day, which you immediately regretted when you saw him.

Doctor Crane preferred the mind over the body. Human’s physicality has barriers. Its capability could only be reached so far. However, the mind could be explored to great depths. Every dot of matter in the brain could create a chain reaction in your physical actions. The mind truly ruled over the body.

Your story was interesting to him, fascinating even. It was gripping for Doctor Crane to find out what made you who you were. How much of an impact your childhood had altered you, broken you. A tiny part of him felt sympathy for you and a large part felt empathy. You were a pretty face begging to be discovered, to be fixed. But he wasn’t even sure yet if he wanted to fix you, he liked the way you were torn.

He wrote your list of fears on a separate page.

Abandonment

Commitment

Vulnerability

Judgment

Rejection

Emotional Intimacy

You were no virgin, but emotional intimacy frightened you immensely. The idea of another knowing you completely felt too overwhelming. You had many promising suitors, but your standards seemed to be as high as a tower. So you’d partake in casual sex and sabotage any chance you had at finding true love. Contradictory, it left you feeling empty and alone. But the thought of being held by another, letting your emotions take toll over your body made you feel sick in your stomach.

The emptiness inside of you begged you to do something, so you bit the bullet and decided to get help. Here you were now, sitting across from your therapist, awkwardly looking at the ground as his eyes lingered over your body.

Today, you wore a plaid beige skirt that rested just above the knee, which didn’t fail to perfectly hug your soft thighs. The black blouse you wore was perfectly in between modest and sexy. Not to mention your polished mary jane shoes accompanied with the white socks made you look like a fucking naughty school girl begging to be bent over.

At least, these were all a part of Doctor Crane’s observations.

Today’s session was different however, he picked up on your behavior immediately when you kept your head low as he warmly welcomed you inside. Your honeyed voice lacked desire, you looked exhausted, broken perhaps?

“How are you feeling today? You look quite… Taciturn…” Doctor Crane pointed out as he looked your appearance up and down. He leant back in his seat and straightened his shirt. His slender index finger pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

A weak smile spread across your lips momentarily, he wanted to know how you were. No, stop thinking that way… Your mood was like a sheet strung up to a clothesline in the wind. Constantly switching up on you, blinding you on what was right and wrong.

You had been seeing Doctor Crane for months now. A friend of a friend recommended him and his bio did not fail to describe his level of expertise. In fact you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to get a slot in with him. The therapy started off well, great even. It was worth the pot of anxiety that stewed in your stomach before you built up the courage to get out of your car.

However, he was wickedly gorgeous. It was like he was made with poison and the more you admired his charm the more it destroyed you emotionally and mentally. Doctors were only meant to be attractive in soap operas or pornos. Real therapists were supposed to be old and borderline creepy. However, Doctor Crane almost looked too young to have his doctorate and a record of accolades that hung from his wall. His beauty was immensely intimidating, his high levels of confidence was a reflection of how little you had in yourself.

Your psychiatrist certainly had a way with words. It was almost as if he knew you better than you did. The zone was free from any spec of judgment and you fell completely open to him over a short few sessions. Before every session, you found yourself pairing the best outfit you could to try to catch his attention. Apply your makeup as seductively yet modestly as you could. You trusted him completely without realizing. That’s when he knew the real treatment could begin.

The exercises came into play by your sixth session together. That session, your therapist presented a new floor length mirror he had brought. It was odd, but you admired the piece nevertheless. When your session was half way through, he instructed you to stand.

“Now, I believe you’re ready for some physical exercises” he smiled innocently to you.

It was simple, stand in the mirror and look at yourself. At first, it was funny, but quickly the discomfort grew as the silence sank in the room. Then you were staring at yourself with pure disgust. Your arms gradually wrapped around your waist as you blinked more frequently, your body swayed gently.

“What do you see?” He asked eventually, still sitting on his seat, notepad and pen in hand.

“Myself” you mumbled as you tugged your skirt down as much as you could.

“Could you be a bit more descriptive?” He cocked an eyebrow towards you, a drip of humor on his tongue.

Shortly after, you came clean on what was on your mind. “I look filthy. It’s disgusting” you admitted shamefully, looking down to the floor.

“And why do you feel disgusted?” your therapist inquired as he wrote down his observations.

“Because, look at me… I’m hideous” you answered, your cheeks feeling flustered.

You weren’t asking for compliments, your honesty was raw emotions. Sometimes you’d look at yourself and see a complete stranger and you’d wonder how people could ever talk to you, let alone want you. You blinked back your tears and stood on wobbly feet. His words were falling deaf on your ears again, you were too focused on your thoughts. He sighed and placed his notepad down on the table.

“Look at how insecure you still are…” Doctor Crane cooed in a slightly demeaning way as he stood up from his seat and gradually stood behind you.

There was silence for a long time. The both of you looked at each other through the mirror, almost as if you were both daring each other to make the next move.

“Do you see someone lovable?” He asked, his face slowly inching closer to your ear.

“No” you replied, emotionless.

“Why not?” He furrowed his eyebrows, his body almost pressing up against yours.

“Because I don’t deserve it” you answered.

You felt dull again, the emptiness had ripped a hole in your body yet again. Doctor Crane analyzed your stern, lifeless expression. It could happen so easily, your switch up. It was enthralling with how many triggers you had, you were a tennis ball being whacked from one emotion to the other.

“You’re too harsh on yourself… Far too harsh” your therapist tutted his light scold at you. One of his hands rests on your shoulder to comfort you.

“What do you see?” You asked him, raising your chin up in an act of hope.

“Don’t look away from the mirror” was his answer in an emotionless yet stern tone.

A swift look of confusion planted on your expression. But regardless you obeyed his simple order and remained silent as you stared at him through the mirror.

His hand slipped from your shoulder to across your chest in an anticipating speed, his pressed fingers spread apart at the same pace. Even though his hand was running across your upper torso, your heart was thudding in your chest so powerfully that he could feel it pump that far away. His hand stopped on your opposing shoulder and gently tugged you back to his chest.

“What are you doing?” You croaked out, your throat dry and tight as you looked at the two of you. It was almost as if you were in a headlock, but it was gentle.

“An exercise. I’m helping you get comfortable with yourself” he answered confidently, his cold face pressed against your heated one.

Your body was as stiff as a board. He sighed to himself when his free hand ran down your body.

“Relax… For once, let go of the thoughts and focus on your physicality” he ordered softly, almost sounding like a beg instead. His tone was soothing, almost hypnotic.

So your mind obeyed him immediately. You body fell back into his like your bones had snapped into jelly, he was practically a crutch at this point, you’d fall to the ground if he let go of you. His hands gently caressed your hip, it felt soothing, comforting, secure.

“Wanna know what I see?” He murmured.

You murmured back and nodded your head. There was this mixture of fear and thrill painted across your expression. Both of you could see how badly you wanted to know, but how frightening the process was. Yet it was clear with how much it aroused you by how your cheeks darkened.

“I see a pretty girl, who needs to be looked after. Taken care of. Someone who only wants to be held by another” he answered honestly.

Your eyes swelled up with tears at his simplicity. When your breathing got rougher as the thoughts swarmed in your mind like a thunderstorm he whispered soothing tones by your ear. Both of you were still staring into the mirror.

“Look at how smooth your skin is. Your face is faultless. And these curves… They are so sexy, is that an improper word to use?” Jonathan grinned at you, a slight chuckle at his deviant comment, both hands now planted on your hips.

His crotch was pressed against your rear, but he wasn’t erect. Honestly, you weren’t sure if it was reassuring or if it made you more insecure. His lips rested against your ear as you steadied your breathing.

“Why are you saying this?” You gasped lightly.

“I told you, it’s an exercise” he answered with a shrug of the shoulders.

That was the day you learnt that Doctor Jonathan Crane was far from your traditional psychiatrist. He tested the modern norms and values of therapy. He used distinctive methods to assist with your progression. Methods that were best kept behind closed doors for both of your reputations. At first you were reluctant to a lot of them, stiff in the bones at the ideas of it. But he persuaded you otherwise, all you had to do was trust him, because it was for your benefit.

So, you turned your head to the uneasiness of his treatment and trusted him. At the end of every session, you’d end up in a physical or emotional exercise. Some exercises were far more concerning than others.

Which now, had led you to be so whipped by him, so mesmerized by. A common thread in people with BPD was for them to have a person that they depend on emotionally, for comfort and validation. They called it a favorite person.

You grew very attached to your psychiatrist who eagerly wanted to help you and you rued at it every night. It wasn’t the type of love you craved it to be, it was obsessive. The both of you knew it. You’d think about him constantly, smile as you recall your past encounters together. Then you’d find yourself crying over the fact that you could never have him. You didn’t love him, you loved the person your mind had created him to be, yet you did love him. Your mind felt like a thunderstorm of confusion with him. No matter how badly you wanted to, you couldn’t let go of him.

You liked the routine you had with him. The security you felt when his arms were around your body eased all of your anxieties. Even though it was always only momentarily. You knew what he asked of you wasn’t right, especially when you’d count the times that he had purposely made you cry, but you did it anyway. Because he wanted you, even though it was only for the moment.

Doctor Crane clicked his fingers to snap you back to reality. You blinked heavily and looked up to him. It was intimidating with how stern his expression was right now. You already knew that he was trying to piece you together like a puzzle.

“Yeah, I’m alright” you replied to your psychiatrist. Typical for your response to be vague, you sounded tired, he jotted that down.

But your smile wasn’t real. It was obvious by the way you were fiddling with the end of your skirt, something was irritating you. He noticed this habit from your first session together.

Doctor Crane was not stupid, but apparently you were dumb enough to think he was. The game was already in motion and you were waiting for the perfect opportunity to cut him off. Being sick was off the table, you would have canceled if you were, actually, you probably wouldn’t have given your condition.

Regardless, he knew what moves were up your sleeves. The same cards you played on everyone. You wanted him to see you this way. Another desperate cry out for attention, for reassurance, as per usual. Mentally you had to be begging for him to drop to his knees for you. You were self sabotaging again. But it was the first time you had ever tried to do it with him.

Last week, Doctor Crane canceled your appointment an hour before it should have commenced. A family emergency. Like he had anyone important enough for that. It was just a little experiment of his, to see how truly attached he already knew you were.

It must have driven you insane. He wished he got to see how much you cried, or how out of touch you were for days. Because despite him constantly claiming otherwise, you thought he was wrapped around your finger by this point and it saddened you to remember how restricted your relationship was with him. His theory looked to be revealingly correct.

“Something’s on your mind… Did you want to tell me?” He asked, tilting his head towards you like you were a dog begging for attention.

Oh how you hated the way his attitude could switch up on you. One minute he was loving, the next he was neglectful. Little did you realize, he was acting how you’d act to everyone else.

“Yeah” you murmured with a gentle nod.

He nodded for you to continue on. When you didn’t continue on, by your voice being stuck in your throat, his left eyebrow cocked. “I want this to be our last session together” you spat out your confession, gulping down your fear as you finally made eye contact with you.

You wanted to read his initial reaction, but the man’s face was carved by stone. It only overfilled your stomach with dreading anxiety and made your heart pound in your chest heavier.

“Oh really? But I enjoyed our sessions” Doctor Crane pouted to you, he closed his notepad and placed it on the coffee table.

His legs were crossed in a slutty manner as he tilted his head to you. You laughed nervously, he was always toying with you now, you couldn’t let your emotions persuade you otherwise.

“So did I” you replied quietly, you face cringing at your response straight after, your thighs pressed together. Now with that, you caught his perfect blue eyes linger down to your thighs, only for a quick second. It could have been missed if you blinked at the wrong time.

“So, what’s the reason?” He questioned. His fingers continued to tap on his knee as he watched you nervously bat your eyes around.

“Because I’m going to work it out with Jaime” you spat out before you could think.

Jaime was this guy you started seeing during your sessions with Doctor Crane. He was a coworker of yours and the tension had slowly been brewing over time. With your therapist’s help, you felt like you should try to open yourself to others besides him. So you did, you went on continuous dates. Yet you were too scared to tell Doctor Crane, this gut feeling told you he wouldn’t like it.

When you were confident enough to share the information in your next session, you did not expect to walk out of the clinic with a flipped opinion on Jaime. Doctor Crane pointed out the facts. You liked the idea of him. He was promising, he looked at you in awe and not in desire. He cared about your future together. Jaime was the type of guy you’d take home to meet your parents. He was financially responsible, family oriented, involved in the community and took care of you.

So Jaime ticked all of the appropriate factors, but Doctor Crane questioned what you really liked about Jaime. It left you lost for words, what previously you felt you could write an essay about, your mind fell blank.

He followed this up on your fear of being sexual with him still.

“You’re not into him. Four dates and still nothing? You’re just trying to fill the loneliness inside of you” He sighed, sounding disappointed in your actions.

“No… No…” You defended pathetically.

Your mind was racing at this point and there was no emergency stop lever. Hands rubbing together in an anxious manner as you blinked hard.

“Fine, let’s do an exercise then” he clapped his hands together dramatically.

You looked at him confused as he moved over to the lounge sofa. His hand gestured for you to follow, hesitantly you did and sat next to him. Through a stiff posture, you looked over to him as he casually leant back into the cushioning, his hands caressing his thighs.

It came out before you could properly process it. A part of you thought it was a joke and then the next thought it was a hallucination. You stared down in a transfix, your throat clogged and mouth dry.

“Pretty… Isn’t it?” He hummed as he stroked his huge size, his gaze panning up to you. A sly smirk was planted under his dark eyes.

As your logic broke out, you whimpered and went to stand up but his hand latched onto your thigh quicker.

“Relax, I don’t want you to touch me. I just want you to watch me” he clarified, as if it made this any better. “Don’t take your eyes off of me, okay?” He mumbled his demand as his eyes moved back down to his length.

He was larger than most. A vein that poked out of his sensitive skin, which looked to be a couple of centimeters long. Typically, he was cleanly shaved as his hand wrapped around his firm member. All you could do was stare, in desire, in disgust, in disorder, in awe.

You therapist looked back up to you, he pictured you dropping to your knees, humping your soaked cunt on his polished shoe as you begged him to fuck you, to make you orgasm. Fantasied you screaming his name out as he buried himself deep inside of you.

He had to bite onto his lower lip to hold back his groans. As your thighs pressed together, you felt your core tingle, the vibrations grew bigger around your sensitive area. Both of your eyes shot up to each other simultaneously.

“You like this? Watching me stroke myself” he murmured, a wicked grin on his face as he observed your wide eyes.

“Y-yeah” you shuddered, your head nodding in agreement. This massive urge inside of you fought to wrap your hands around his size, but you felt too intimidated to do it.

“Dirty girl” he moaned lightly as he picked up his speed.

As his climax almost reached its peak and his cock twitched, he swiftly let go of his member and maneuvered you onto your back. You gasped out in a mixture of shock, fear and pleasure as he roughly pulled up your top and aimed his length at your stomach.

After a couple of vicious strokes, Doctor Crane snarled as his white ropes sprayed across your soft flesh. Your eyes darted up to his blue eyes and down to his throbbing member repetitively, your body stiff underneath him. He hummed in a low tone as his strokes came to a halt.

He tilted his head at the pretty sight and breathed out. Your eyes connected once more and he chuckled to you.

“See, how could you be into him? You just watched me masterbate and let me finish on you” he spoke in a nonchalant tone.

He was calling your bluff, but the fact that you had the audacity to bring up his name angered him. Made him feel a wave of jealousy even. Nevertheless, he would still be up for the challenge. He snorted to you, his eyes studying your facial expressions. There was nothing you could do but awkwardly rub your chin and look away from your therapist.

“You’re a horrible liar” he pointed out with a sly look. All you could do was lower your head in shame. “I thought I was helping you” he hummed, head tilted to the side as he waited for you to look back over to him.

“I don't want to see you anymore” you divulged with a grunt, growing frustrated with his investigations.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t want to” you spoke slowly, every word had your jaw clenching.

“This hasn’t got something to do with our last session together, does it?” He asked, a cynical smile growing on his lips.

All you could do was shake your head. He was getting under your skin, he was meant to be a therapist for crying out loud. Why was he being so mean to you? Why did this have to mean so much to him?

The matter in question was your last session together.

You walked into the room highly overstimulated, unfocused, irritated with your burden of a reality. The past few nights you had been crying endlessly. The thought of him was constantly on your mind. He was an enigma, the impossible puzzle in stores that no one even bothered to attempt. Every move you made with him had you stepping back twice as far. Thinking of him made you so overwhelmed, because you didn’t know what he wanted from you. It was some twisted game in his mind and you were too naive in the beginning to think it was something else.

He touched you, held you, caressed you, whispered sweet words into your ear, kissed you. Your therapist had explored almost every inch of your skin. His hips had rocked in sync with yours. You’ve seen him in completely vulnerable positions. Yet there was nothing that kept you together except for you booking in another appointment.

He continued to remind you that he didn’t want you at the end of every session without saying as he walked you out the door. A constant reminder that these were only exercises. You were exhausted and ready to raise the flag.

There was something real hidden underneath all of this. A twisted sensation that connected you both as one. It was a gut feeling, and you’d be damned if you tried to wait the sensation out of your body. At this point, it was all or nothing.

“Act on it” he told you with an approving nod.

You had just opened up to him with your scenario. Which he instantly knew was based around him despite you being highly vague. He read your expressions and body language clearly. You were overwhelmed, emotional, depressed, anxious and aroused.

“What?” You frowned at him, a mixture of confusion and hope.

“Act on your impulses” he clarified, straightening himself in his seat. There was a pause as you tried to read his expression, questioning if he was implying what you truly wanted to do. “Do it” he encouraged, flashing you a toothy grin.

His legs spreaded on the chair, his hand tapping gently on his thigh, you could see it from where you were seated, the bulge in his trousers. Hesitantly you stood from your seat, he nodded to reassure you. Through a wobbly stance, you gradually approached your therapist, your heart pounded and thoughts raced like hotrods.

As you stood before him, he admired the fear painted on you. You gulped down your thoughts and closed your eyes as you straddled him, his hands crept up to your hips as you took his short dark locks of hair in your hands.

This was different from last time, you held the reins right now. Too afraid to look at him this closely, you leant down and kissed him. He welcomed your tongue into his mouth as his hands slid up and down your lower back, sending sensational shocks amongst your nerves.

You moaned into his mouth and gently tugged at his roots. His hands wrapped around your back and he rocked his hips up and down slowly. When you finally opened your eyes again, he was looking right into you, as if he was studying every single thing you were doing. It discouraged you and you separated your lips and gulped, your hand wiped around your mouth.

“Don’t be afraid… I’m right here, I’ll look after you” he promised you gently.

You weakly smiled at him and found yourself slowly slipping down off of him. As you landed on your knees, your hands ran up and down his thin thighs. He sighed quietly as he watched you undo his leather belt. He helped you by raising his hips so you could tug down at pants, his cock flopped out onto his stomach.

You’ve never touched it before and it sent vibrations up your core. It felt suspenseful, the quick look you gave before you wrapped your hands around him. He moved forward on the seat and you gave him a couple of lazy pumps. Slowly, your lips pressed against his tip and he groaned in approval.

You closed your eyes as his length slipped into your mouth. Quickly, his hands gently held onto your cheeks.

“No no… Don’t look away from me, I want to see those pretty eyes of yours” he ordered kindly, a sweet smile on his mouth.

Your eyes fluttered open and your mouth smiled around his length. As you hummed around his size, it sent vibrations down his sensitive member. At a slow pace, your mouth bobbed up and down, taking in a little more than the last time. His hands looped into your loose, soft hair as he encouraged you to go a little bit faster. Doctor Crane liked it when you thrummed around him, how you’d hollow your cheeks and the way you batted your eyes up to him.

“Oh, such a good girl… You’re doing a fantastic job” he praised in a mixed tone of condescending and admiration which made your thighs press together. He carefully lifted his body up from the chair and his trousers started to slip to his ankles. His legs stood apart as he guided your head. Your hands ran up the back of his thighs and rested just below his glutes.

One hand slipped out of your hair so he could untighten his tie enough so he could pull it off. His hands slowly pulled your mouth off of him, you made a pop sound and for a second he thought he was going to finish right there and then. Even though you were breathing heavily, you were smiling so gleefully at him, he couldn’t help but to look at you in awe momentarily.

“Here… Wear this, it’ll make you look even prettier” he requested as he slipped and tightened his red tie around your gorgeous neck.

His hand wrapped from the tip of the tie and gently tugged your mouth back towards his throbbing, wet member. Eagerly, you took him back into your mouth completely. Your fingernails tickled at his hamstrings as you found a smooth rhythm to bob at.

“You’re so good at this… Can I go a bit rougher?” He gasped out.

He didn’t even give you a moment to respond. He tugged the tie harshly towards him repetitively as his tip would hit the back of your throat. Your nails dug into his flesh as you squint your eyes shut, tears naturally swelled up.

“No, I told you to look at me” he ordered more firmly this time, his free head patting your cheek to get your attention.

You obeyed, but blunk repetitively to try to wash away your tears. He was groaning out gently, he didn’t expect you to look so beautiful this way. It felt almost native to him to have you here in this state.

His size was twitching frequently in your mouth, he could feel how close he was. As his mouth fell open in pleasure, you couldn’t help but to smile again despite the painful speed you were going at. Because you were pleasing him, he was happy.

“Can I finish in your mouth darling?” He asked in a gasp.

Immediately you moaned around his shaft and even though Doctor Crane didn’t know what you were trying to spit out, he took it as a yes. When he felt his climax tip over, he pulled your face to his lower region, your nose pressed against his lower abdomen as he held you still there. His seed shot straight down your throat, only a couple of ropes got caught on your tongue.

His blue eyes rolled back and he moaned out loudly. As his hand around the tie instinctively pulled as far as he could and his other hand slipped back into your hair and caressed your scalp. When his eyes fluttered back to reality and his post orgasm state settled in, he still held you around him, wanting it to last one more longer.

Gradually, the tie slipped out of his hand and he tugged you off of him. Your body slumped down as you breathed out hard and swallowed the remainder of his semen. You took off the tie and rubbed the friction burn around your neck and soreness that pulsed on your mouth.

However, when you looked back up to him, your smile quickly faded.

“And that’s time…” He spoke emotionlessly, his eyes glued onto his watch.

He had already tucked himself back into his trousers. Whilst you sat on your knees looking like a sweating mess. When he held his hand out, you mistook it for a kind gesture of helping you up. But he only wanted his tie back. As he tied it back around his neck, you sat frozen on knees, head laying low.

His voice snapped you out of your thoughts. “Sweetheart, come on. I have another appointment” he sighed, his voice sounding distant.

When you looked up, he was by the door, his hips leant to the left with his hands resting above them. You blinked away your tears and stood up on wobbly feet. Quickly you grabbed your belongings and sniffled as you approached him.

As you went to open the door, his hand rested on your shoulder. You couldn’t help but to look up to him with a sliver of hope.

“That was good progress today, I’ll see you next week” he nodded to you, his expression emotionless.

He opened the door for you before you could even try to utter a word. As you walked out and turned around to see him one more time, he shut the door before you could.

When he canceled on you the week after, reality hit you like a train traveling at high speed. He was using you, you were only a playtoy and it was a matter of time until he grew bored of you. The irony was how your therapist was destroying you instead of fixing you.

You drove recklessly the whole time, wishing that you would just end up in a fatal crash. He told you to stay away from recreational drugs and alcohol early on. But that weekend you went out and impulsively took more than you should have. You ended up grinding with strangers, closing your eyes and picturing him and then you’d drink more to try to forget about him, even though it was just for the night.

You don’t know how you got home the next morning, better yet how you didn’t have a single scratch on your body. It felt a sign that you needed to let him go. That he was the toxic venom in your life and loving him would kill you.

He was the two end balls on Newton's cradle, his behavior to you was constantly switching. The way he kissed you, held you, caressed you. It all meant nothing. Especially when it came to comparison of how he’d shout at you, belittle you, scream even on occasions. Some sessions you’d end up having a complete meltdown in his arms and he’d apologize for taking the exercise too intensely.

Everything he was doing to you was illegal. This wasn’t normal, this wasn’t healthy, this wasn’t proper treatment. He was only making your condition worse. He was taking advantage of you and you had been stupid enough to allow it for so long. It was time to take off the rose tinted glasses.

Doctor Crane was correct yet again. You were not back in contact with Jaime. You only needed an excuse to get out of this cobweb of painful emotions and it was the best idea you had. His blue eyes were shooting daggers at you as he waited for your answer.

“You could have canceled over the phone but you’re here… Why?” He frowned towards you, moving forward in his seat to get a view.

You clicked your tongue and blinked back your tears. Your body was running high on adrenaline, it was hard for you to process anything that was happening around you. Doctor Crane could see how overstimulated you were, how hard this must have been for you.

Your head remained low as you began to speak. “I will-”

“Look at me when you’re talking” he resisted his snarl through his demand as he cut you off.

As you clicked your tongue again, your head shot up in anger. He couldn’t help but to grin, you’ve never looked at him with such fury. The fire inside of you made the blood run to his cock.

A thousand words stormed through your brain. Everything that you wanted to scream at him banged against the walls, desperately trying to break out. It was hard to know what you wanted to say first. But then a thought of reflection sparked and within a click, your angered expression disappeared. Your torso relaxed as you blinked at him. His dark eyebrows furrowed to you as you calmed your breathing.

“Goodbye Doctor Crane” you exhaled, a soft satisfied smile on your lips.

For once, you could read his expression enough, he was taken aback. His eyes widened, only slightly, but nevertheless they widened. As his mouth slowly opened and head tilted, as his mind raced to spit something out, you stood up from your seat and turned to the door, gulping down all of your nerves.

For a moment, he couldn’t help but to admire you walking away, the way your hips would swing. He couldn’t deny the fact that he was proud of you, for finally standing up for yourself. But he knew one thing, you were going to walk out that door and never return.

Doctor Crane would be damned if he allowed you to leave him, especially on your own terms. A quick flash of fear mixed with excitement washed over his face and he acted impulsively for once. A sudden rush of desperation and desire compelled his thoughts. He jumped from his chair like a predator in pursuit of its prey.

Before you could reach for the knob, you’re forced up against the door, not softly yet not too roughly to leave a mark. You gasp out as his hands run over your body animalistically. Doctor Crane’s mouth pressed to your jaw as his arms tangled around your body.

“Doctor-” you whimpered and he couldn’t help but to moan out your name.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked quietly by your ear, his words hissing like a viper.

Tears begin to shed again from your sore eyes. Why couldn’t he just let you leave and move on.

“Stop…” you chortled, shaking your head at the thought of staying in this any longer.

“Let’s talk about this” he pleaded in a humorous tone as he tried to guide you back to the middle of the room.

But you stood firmly, your hand could just hold onto the doorknob. When you shook your head again he grunted and kissed your neck.

“I don’t want to” you shivered, you wanted to sound confident but your emotions were failing you.

Doctor Crane kissed your neck repeatedly to try to convince you otherwise. It only made you whine and struggle against him. His lips pressed to your ear as his head nuzzled against yours, your knees couldn’t help but to buckle.

“I thought you liked me…”

“I can’t do this” you bit back your moan as you felt his erection hump against your ass.

Naturally, your back began to arch as you pushed your head back against his. Whilst being under this seductive trance, he pulled you back towards his chair and fell back onto it. You sat on his lap, you back pressed against his front and his tongue rolled over your earlobe.

“You’re so overstimulated right now… I can feel it running through your skin. You can’t even see how badly you’re acting. I bet you can hardly process what I’m saying” he grinned as his hands ran up and down your body, too greedy to stick to one spot.

“No! Let go of me please! I want to leave!” You cried out, his fingers swiftly swam into your mouth to silence you.

“Darling… Darling, you’re not okay. I need to help you. I legally can’t let you leave in this state, for your safety and others” he disclosed, a mischief look on his face.

As his free hand snaked up to your tits as the other continued to pump his fingers into and out of your mouth. Your body squirmed on his, but you didn’t try to jump off of him, your body felt tired and aroused.

“Fuuuck, you wore such a slutty outfit today. You must have really wanted to get my attention” he snickered as he pulled his fingers out of your mouth and you gasped out.

“Doctor please… Please let me go. I-I” you stuttered as your eyes remained shut.

“Stop thinking… Let your impulses take over” he spoke calmly.

“No I can’t!” you argued, shaking your head at the thought of submitting to him again.

You hated yourself. Because for days you were so determined on ridding him out of your mind. Finally letting go of his abuse. You were going to fix the part that he purposely broke in you. But here you were again, back on his lap.

He sighed out and kissed your heated cheek again.

“Look at how emotional you are. My poor insecure girl, I bet you’re all built up down there” he exhaled deeply as his wet fingers traveled down under your skirt and your body froze.

“No… Stop, you’re upsetting me” you sobbed as his hand danced around your panties.

He breathed out, his hand slid down to your thigh as he pressed his forehead to your hair. Silence filled the room as he hummed quietly, you sniffled a couple of times.

“I know… If it changes anything, I’m sorry” he admitted, his arms wrapped around your waist.

A beat.

“Really?” You asked in a hopeful tone, your head turned back to him.

Doctor Crane’s expression was completely emotionless except for his eyes as he slowly nodded. They were wide and glistening. Slowly, your body shifted back around to face him and his hands rested on your lower back.

“Yes, I fail to remember how subconscious you can be” he explained, his fingertips playing with the end of your skirt. You felt skeptical, but he looked so innocent with his eyes raw with emotion, how could you not forgive that. “Let me make it up to you” he whispered as he leant in to kiss you.

You allowed it, your arms wrapped around his neck as he kissed you passionately. You whimpered, your body shivering as his hands ran up your thighs to your ass.

“I don’t want to do another exercise” you gasped as you broke the kiss.

“This isn’t an exercise” he said sternly, his hands squeezing your rear.

“What is it?” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“Something far more memorable” he shrugged his shoulders gently as his fingers unbutton your blouse. “Now, let’s get you out of this pretty outfit” he instructed. As you pulled your shirt off, his fingers trailed over the perfect blue bra you wore. “So arresting” he admired, his top teeth grazing over his lower lip.

He kindly ordered you to stand up as he unclasped your bra. His blue eyes lingered on your bare torso as he dropped to his knees to unbuckle your shoes. After he assisted you to take off your socks, he slowly pulled down your skirt and panties as one to the floor.

He breathed out as he looked up to take in your perfectly imperfect figure. Your existence was like a piece of kintsukuroi, you turned to be more beautiful after being broken.

He had never seen you naked before. Never seen anything besides the beauty of your stomach or thighs. Your body shivered and subconsciously you pulled your arms to your chest and your thighs crossed over as you watched his dark eyes, dripping with lust scan over you. After you did that, his eyes snapped up to yours and he tutted to you

“No, no… Never hide yourself from me, ever” he commanded firmly as his arms reached up and repositioned yours back to your sides.

You whimpered but nodded regardlessly as his hands met in between your thighs and pushed them apart. He admired your cleanly shaved region and his hot breath fanned you momentarily before his cold lips pressed to your gushing folds.

“Tastes so delightful” he complimented before kissing you there again.

You held back your moan, it got stuck in your throat and he looked up to you. Purely wanting to see your reaction as he flicked his tongue over your clit. You mumbled out, your hands instinctively gripped into his hair for support. As his hands caressed your glutes, you couldn’t help but to feel a similitude to your last encounter together. His tongue lapped at your entrance, zigzagged up and down your folds as your eyes began to roll back. Naturally your hips rocked and fingertips massaged his scalp as he began to kiss your cunt in a sloppy manner.

“Such a cute pussy” he commented in a lustful tone before his tongue shot inside of you.

You cried out as you roughly tugged at his roots. His slippery tongue was darting in and out of you. The vibrations were sparking up your nerves as you couldn’t try to hide your moans any longer. Your toes were curling on the floorboards, breathing unsteady as your eyes blinked heavily.

“I-I need… I need to” you stammered out, lost for words as your sight began to blur.

“Need to finish? You’ll ask nicely then” he demanded with a grin as he looked back up to you.

You cried out in frustration as you heaved. “Please… Can I come” you whimpered softly.

Usually, he’d prefer to tease a bit longer. But you looked so sweet, he couldn’t find a reason to say no.

“Come on then, let me taste your sweet orgasm” he encouraged before his tongue attacked your bundle of nerves again.

Shortly after, you screamed out, your back arched, head snapped back, toes tried to dig into the floor as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. It was music to his ears, as he greedily ate you out completely. You were whimpering words as he licked your cunt clean, your eyes forced shut from pleasure.

Doctor Crane slowly stood up and rubbed his bulge, smiling at your post orgasm state. It wasn’t until you felt the cool sensation of the desk on your rear when you relaxed how far in the room you had moved. Your back fell onto the wood as you breathed out, his pants open enough for his throbbing cock to hang out and be stroked in his hand.

“You go so mindless when you climax, it’s quite fascinating” he pointed out as he lifted your legs over his shoulders.

You smelt of jasmine and rose, the perfect mixture of sweet floral and seductive muskiness which made his nostrils flare. Whilst he smelt of a perfect blend of rose petals, musk, precious woods and floral citrus which made Jonathan feel like he was the aftermath of a rain shower to you.

You gulped as he pressed his tip to your recovering core. “Do you like me?” You blurted out as a wave of doubt crashed over you.

“I fuck all of my patients” he chuckled lightly which made your face drop. “That was a joke” he sighed as he pressed the back of his hand to your heated cheek. “You certainly have my attention” he admitted with a soft smile as he lined his cock to your entrance.

He wasn’t even sure if he was capable of those emotions, at least in a traditional sense. He knew that he loved every bit you hated of yourself, addicted even. There was this primal urge to take care of you, to look after you felt like a captivity he desired to be in.

He liked how much you subconsciously feared him, which always resulted in you wanting to please him, to get some form of reassurance, of love. It was nice, knowing that someone was addicted to him like he was a drug. The feeling of being loved was comforting, in his own taboo way.

As he roughly thrusted himself instead of you, your hands fell back and you knocked something off the desk. Your head snapped back to see what but his hand turned your face back to his serious expression.

“How many times do I have to tell you. Keep your eyes on me” he warned as he continued to fuck you.

“But-” you opposed as you leant back more and gripped onto the edge of the desk.

“Don’t worry about it” he grunted with his hips pistoning into you.

You nodded eagerly with your mouth wide open.

It was as if your eyes could speak the way he looked at you. The inquisitiveness in him always wanted to know what you were thinking. But at the same time, he merely liked to look into your pretty eyes. It almost gave him comfort that he was finally truly seen by another.

You were alluring to him. Apparently made from the same toxin he was, because he was an addict for you. He was obsessed with discovering every single atom of you. It felt like his life mission to know everything there was to know about you. Yes, he took it too far with you on many occasions. But he just needed to uncover your triggers. He needed to know what to protect you from and how to keep you attached to him.

His arms straightened besides your shoulders. “That’s my good fucking girl” he praised as his cock twitched inside of you.

By the force he was going at, it was hurting you, but regardless, you felt your cunt drip immensely. His mouth hung open as his blue eyes fluttered lightly.

“What do you call me?”

“Huh?”

Doctor Crane repeated his words sternly after every thrust. You blinked and stammered for a moment, his cock distracting you from the correct answer.

“Daddy?” You guessed unsurely.

“No… Your father left you. But not me, I’m right here sweetheart. Call me by my name, because that’s what lovers do, isn’t it?” Jonathan smirked as his pace picked up, his own eyes began to roll back.

You whimpered and called him by his name. In return, he moaned back your name and called you a good girl before kissing you. Through swollen eyes, you panted underneath him, his mouth pressed to your jaw.

“You can be so mean to me” you whined pathetically as you struggled to keep your eyes on him.

“I know” he replied blankly.

“Why?”

“It’s all a part of your treatment” he sighed, silencing you with his lips before you could ask any further questions.

When your lips eventually separated, his hips were still thrusting into you viciously. Your region felt full and another orgasm was trying to latch onto your sensitive nerves. One arm shot up to latch around his neck, holding his face closer to yours as you stared deeply into his eyes.

“I love you” you admitted in a trance of lust, comfort and pure raw emotion.

“I already knew that” Jonathan groaned back to you.

You were dreaming if you believed you’d be able to get a confession out of him. If anything, you should be grateful enough to get this much out of him. But Jonathan couldn’t deny his attraction, his fixation towards you.

You were in his dreams quite frequently. Jonathan saw you at home, being a perfect housewife and an exceptional lover for him. He had thought of going back to teaching at the university instead, that way you’d be able to make him breakfast, pack his lunch and have dinner ready for him by the time he returned home. His salary would be enough to protect you both financially, so you’d be able to quit your job and focus your life purely on him. Just as your condition compelled you to. This way, he’d be able to look after you always, and you'd be able to look after him.

“I’m so fucking addicted to you. You’re my favorite little obsession” he confessed with a wicked smile.

The type of look that made your stomach turn, realizing how big of a hole you had dug yourself, you may just never be able to climb back out of it. As a natural instinct urged you to get up and make a run for it, Jonathan forced you completely onto your back.

You grunt out from the pain as he pressed himself completely inside of your pulsing walls. Jonathan’s tongue ran down your face.

“You know BPD is incurable? You’re always going to need someone to look after you” he implied as his movements turned slow and painful as your cunt clenched around his size.

“You scare me so much” you admitted through a wobbly lower lip.

“Darling… That’s the whole point of it all” he replied calmly.

“But don’t stress, I’ll always be here to help you” Jonathan assured your insecurities.

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy smut #smut #dark smut #jonathan crane dark #jonathan crane x you #jonathan crane smut #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane #batman begins #angst

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necroromantics · 6 months

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How To Write ASPD / Psychopathy

half educational, half ramble. dedicated to the creepypasta fandom.

(check out my how-to-write bipolar + ticci toby here)

What is ASPD?

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is characterized by a disregard for others rights and feelings. It's a personality disorder, which means the mindsets and behaviours associated with this condition are deeply ingrained and maladaptive.

The current DSM-5 diagnostic criteria states that to be diagnosed with ASPD, a patient needs to have a long-term (occurring since at least age 15), consistent, and persistent history of three or more of the following:

failure to conform to social norms; repeatedly breaking rules/laws that may be grounds for arrest

deceitfulness; lying, tricking others for personal gain

impulsivity or a failure to plan ahead

irritability and aggression; fighting, hostility, outbursts

reckless disregard for the safety of self or others

irresponsibility; repeated failure to comply to work or financial obligations

lack of remorse; being indifferent to or rationalizing having mistreated or hurt others

ASPD, by definition, can only be diagnosed in people who are 18+. Minors cannot have ASPD due to treatment and intervention reasons. A minor who exhibits traits of ASPD will be diagnosed with Conduct Disorder.

At it's core, though it may seem like people with ASPD are just hostile and insensitive and rude, is a defense mechanism formed in childhood, typically in response to an abusive environment. Self-preservation and a "dog eat dog world" mindset are very common in those with ASPD. Everything is about doing what it takes to retain social dominance, control, and ultimately safety. Boredom and risk-taking is also very common in people with ASPD, and many people with this condition have never had proper, healthy influences in childhood to teach them proper manners, social norms, morals, or how to regulate their emotions and aggression.

It is a chronic condition that affects about 1-3% of the population. Its very prevalent in the prison population as well. ASPD not only causes a person to potentially cause harm to others, but is a condition that very negatively impacts the patients themselves.

(Note: The term "sociopathy" is typically used to refer to an extreme presentation of ASPD. "Psychopathy" may sometimes be seem as a very very extreme presentation of ASPD)

What is Psychopathy?

Psychopathy refers to a set of traits/issues that might be seen in patients. It is NOT a diagnosis. If psychopathic traits cause dysfunctional behaviour in an individual, they will most likely be diagnosed with ASPD.

Psychopathy is now most commonly used in research settings to use it as a term that describes certain patterns and behaviours. It is something professionals study, not diagnose.

The traits related to psychopathy are:

manipulative behaviour; superficial charm, persistent lying, deceiving others

grandiose sense of self

lack of remorse or guilt; lack of empathy, callousness, shallow emotional expressions

reckless lifestyle; need for stimulation, parasitic (constantly takes from others), lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity

antisocial behaviour; poor behavioural control, early behavioural problems, trouble with the law in youth

Not all psychopathic people fit the criteria for ASPD, not all are disordered by their traits, and not all people with ASPD are considered psychopathic. But there is a very big overlap.

Psychopathy is typically only recognized in a forensic or research setting. It is often wrongfully used in the media to describe people who are serial killers, abusive, or used to dehumanize others.

Personally, I believe that media and creators need to move away from the terms psychopath/sociopath. They have far too much negative connotation that only exists to demonize people who suffer with unconventional traits. If you want to write psychopathy correctly, do your research on what it looks like in its presentation, and just drop the label.

What are some harmful tropes with ASPD/Psychopathy in media?

ASPD and Psychopathy have been tossed around in many different settings as ways to cheaply create an evil villain, or a cold calculated monster, or a reckless criminal. There has been only one instance in my lifetime of watching hundreds of movies and shows that I have seen an accurate, humanizing portrayal of ASPD. (That show is House MD by the way, I highly recommend if you want to see good representation).

So what are some of the tropes to acknowledge and avoid?

1. Psychopathic serial killer

Have you seen American Psycho? Great movie. Don't do that. While the character Patrick Bateman is commonly associated with the terms "narcissist" and "psychopath", he also is a satirical character who is a very dramatized and exaggerated presentation of some psychopathic traits.

I will be honest. A lot of real-life serial killers do suffer from various mental health conditions, but correlation is not causation. In the Creepypasta fandom we are surrounded by different characters who are almost all serial killers, and people like to make things easy and just throw the label of "psychopath" onto them and call it realistic. This is very cheap, and very harmful.

If you want to write a psychopathic serial killer character, then acknowledge how harmful, fear-mongering, and dehumanizing this trope is towards people who actually suffer from these traits.

2. ASPD synonymous with abusive behaviour

ASPD is a disorder that does cause people to do and say things that will harm others in some way. Cluster B personality disorders are commonly seen as 'social disorders', as in they cause dis-order in interpersonal relationships, and in response to society. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) for example may cause somebody to threaten harm to themselves in response to percieved abandonment, or to have intense fights due to emotional dysregulation.

ASPD in particular may cause someone to be insensitive towards others problems, lack morality, be aggressive or hostile, put others down, or get into reckless situations. This is why they are disorders. Because they cause significant and serious problems in the persons life.

It is not pretty, and it's not fair, and yes, people with disorders may cause harm to others due to behaviours associated with their condition. But there is a difference between causing harm, and abusing another person.

Lying to someone is not inherently abusive. Being reckless is not inherently abusive. Being an insensitive asshole is not inherently abusive. To not understand the nuance and the complexity of these situations is to completely demonize and stigmatize a serious mental health condition. You don't call people with BPD abusive for their actions inherently, because you acknowledge they are hurting and only doing what they know to cope with this hurt. Of course it's unhealthy. That's what a disorder is. That does not make someone abusive by default. Anyone with any condition, even neurotypical people can be abusive.

3. Cold, emotionless robot

People with ASPD can and do feel emotion. People with psychopathic traits can and do feel emotion. They get sad, disappointed, disgusted, happy, excited, jealous, hurt, angry. There is nothing in the ASPD criteria that states anything about emotional presentation or experience.

In psychopathy, it is mentioned that there may be a shallow emotional expression. This may also be present in ASPD. This means that while a person will feel emotions, it is either beat down or brushed off, or completely repressed. The emotional repression may come from childhood abuse where they were punished for expressing emotions, or expressing emotions had caused them harm.

Lacking emotions/emotional expression is instead highly linked to Schizoid Personality Disorder, and is apart of the criteria for said disorder.

Media protraying people with ASPD/psychopathy as cold, emotionless, calculating robots is another trope used to dehumanize people with mental health issues. It's used to make people with ASPD seem evil or not having feelings that could be hurt. In reality, nearly everything a person with ASPD does, is their dysfunctional way of protecting themselves from being hurt.

People with ASPD may lack the emotional capacity for things such as empathy and remorse, though. Its common that they are unable to care for, or feel upset for others suffering. They may also be unable to feel guilt. This criteria is seen in about 51% of people with ASPD and is associated with more extreme presentations.

Do you headcanon anyone to have ASPD?

Yes, but I don't like to use the label on them. I do write a lot of antisocial mindsets into my headcanons for Ticci Toby, and I heavily write ASPD into my OC, Tobin.

For Toby, his presentation of ASPD comes in the form of rebellion, not understanding/following social norms, recklessness, and a strong desire for power, dominance, and control. I write this as his subconscious response to the trauma he faced in childhood. As a child Toby was constantly put down and made to feel small and powerless at the hands of his father. In order to make sure his father abused only him and not his mother and sister, Toby would act out and be a troublemaker. I think that he would have a lot of ASPD behaviours and views on the world.

For my OC Tobin, he's pretty similar in presentation in regards to power/control, and not following social norms. He is very prone to justifying and rationalizing his behaviours to the point he doesn't feel remorse for the harm he causes. Tobin grew up in a very unstable and abusive environment where, like Toby, he did what he needed to do to get by. He never learned proper morals, norms, regulation, etc. But Tobin does care about others. He takes care of his little sister, and loves his girlfriend, and is very protective. Tobin is still a complex human being with more to him than just being an antisocial insensitive prick.

How can I write a character with ASPD?

Do proper research. Not on Reddit, or Quora, or WebMD. I mean go find trusted, scholarly articles and read real scientific papers and studies on ASPD. Do research into how/why it forms, the mindsets, the symptoms and their presentation, the neuroscience even.

Humanize your characters. While it's fun to throw around a bunch of negative and toxic traits to a character you want people to see as 'bad', it's lazy character development. Give them good, positive traits as well. People are very complex, and nobody will fit in to the mold of good or bad. Make them human enough where someone wont look at your character with ASPD and assume everyone with ASPD are monsters.

But also, don't water down the disorder. ASPD does cause harm to the patient and the people in their life. I've seen it a lot where people will try to fight against stigmatization by completely glamorizing the disorder. "People with ASPD aren't inherently bad! They don't actually hurt others or act hostile or say insensitive things"... Yes we do. And it causes many problems. And that is why its a disorder.

Personally I don't like to throw the ASPD label onto my characters even if I do write them to have ASPD because I feel like it just boxes them in. If you write a character with ASPD, try doing it in a way where a professional would be able to tell they have ASPD without you even mentioning the label.

Remember that ASPD is COMPLEX. It varies vastly in its presentation, its a disorder that is life-consuming and the dysfunctional beliefs and behavioural patterns are deeply ingrained and consistent throughout many different areas in someones life. It's a label to describe preexisting issues. It's something that is highly associated with childhood trauma, and drug addiction, and general suffering for the person dealing with their own chaotic mind.

The biggest problem I see that frustrates me is the way people throw around the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath", especially when someone just wants to add a layer of edginess onto their character. Remember that you are dealing with a condition that real people suffer from every day. If you can't handle it respectfully, and if you would demonize someone with ASPD in real life for acting as your character does, just don't write it in. Keep the label separate. We don't need any more stigmatization and misinformation.

I know this was very long, but it's such a multifaceted and complex issue and I've seen it enough times in the fandom to be frustrated enough to write this. If you have any questions, want more advice or information, please feel free to ask away in my ask box 🔥

#tombtalk #creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta headcanon #ticci toby #clockwork #ticci toby headcanons #creepypasta ticci toby #jeff the killer #creepypasta jeff the killer #eyeless jack #creepypasta art #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta oc #creepypasta fanfiction #aspd #antisocial personality disorder #cluster b #writeblr

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wheelie-sick · 2 months

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Nervous System Effects of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

AKA I spent hours suffering trying to find all this information and I want you to not have to do that!

Cerebrovascular

1. Stroke

"...studies have shown that stroke occurs more frequently in people with SLE than in the general population, with ischemic stroke developing in up to 20% of lupus patients..." link

2. Cerebral Small Vessel Disease

"CSVD is an umbrella term for a variety of conditions resulting from damage to small blood vessels in the brain. In most cases, CSVD is caused by the narrowing or obstruction of small blood vessels in the brain due to inflammation and/or a buildup of misfolded proteins called plaques. This chronic damage can starve brain cells of oxygen and cause internal bleeding, which in turn can damage other nearby brain cells." link

Diagnosed via a brain MRI to look for bleeding of the small blood vessels, damage to white matter, and small strokes - link

Occasionally is confused for Multiple Sclerosis - link

"Quantified MRI brain studies of individuals with lupus show significantly accelerated cerebral SVD, suggesting that this is the most frequently observed radiological–pathological brain abnormality in lupus...." link

CSVD is a large cause of dementia in the general population but the significance of these findings in SLE patients is unknown - link

Central Nervous System

1. Transverse Myelitis

"Transverse myelitis is a neurological condition that happens when both sides of the same section of the spinal cord become inflamed. This inflammation can damage myelin, the fatty substance that covers your nerves. Loss of myelin often leads to spinal cord scarring that blocks nerve impulses and results in physical problems." link

Symptoms can develop quickly or over the span of several weeks. Symptoms include back pain, neck pain, paresthesia, loss of bowel and/or bladder control, and heightened sensitivity to touch - link

Diagnosed via CT, MRI, or myelography - link

Differential diagnosis of comorbid Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder - link

Transverse myelitis occurs in approximately 1% of lupus patients - link

2. Autoimmune Aseptic Meningitis

"...an inflammatory condition affecting the meninges, the protective membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord..." - link

"Given that many individuals with lupus are immunosuppressed, a critical differential diagnosis is one of infectious meningitis caused by typical or opportunistic pathogens." - link

May cause nausea, fever, and neck stiffness among other symptoms - link

Diagnosed with a lumbar puncture and/or CT in part to rule out other causes of symptoms - link

3. Chorea

Chorea is a movement disorder causing involuntary, irregular, and unpredictable muscle movements. It affects arms, legs, and facial muscles - link

4. Parkinsonism

Causes slowed movements, tremor, and stiffness - link

Not the same as Parkinson's Disease!

A rare effect of lupus - link

Diagnosed based on brain MRI, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and response to treatment - link

5. Myoclonus

"Myoclonus is an uncontrollable muscle movement that’s sudden and brief. " link

6. Demyelinating Syndrome

"An association between lupus and MS-like brain changes have been suggested, and sometimes termed “lupoid sclerosis”" link

3.7% of patients have a demyelinating syndrome (though not all have primary SLE demyelination) - link

Demyelinating syndrome may cause vision loss, muscle weakness, muscle stiffness and spasms, loss of coordination, change in sensation, walking problems, and changes in bladder and bowel function - link

7. Lupus headache

"Headache is a highly prevalent disorder in people with SLE, but there is no convincing evidence that this incidence is higher than that seen in the general population. Thus the entity of “lupus headache” is controversial." link

One of the main characteristics of lupus headaches is that they are not remedied by pain medication. lupus headaches require treatment with steroids or immunosuppressants to resolve -- "severe, persistent headache; may be migrainous, but must be nonresponsive to narcotic analgesia" link

8. Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES)

"Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a neurologic disorder in which a person presents with visual disturbance, seizure, headaches, and altered mentation" - source

"Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) has been increasingly identified in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)" - source

8. Seizures

"prevalence of explicit episodes of seizures among SLE patients, varies from 2 to 8%." - link

"SLE patients with recurrent seizures usually have abnormal findings on EEG, consistent with focal aware events, epilepsy with impaired awareness and focal to bilateral tonic-clonic epilepsy, as demonstrated by Appenzeller and colleagues who found that 9.7 % of patients with single epileptic seizure had abnormal EEG findings, compared to 100 % abnormal EEG findings, commonly on temporal lobe, in patients with recurrent seizures" - link

Peripheral Nervous System

1. Cranial Nerve Disorder

"Cranial nerve disorder refers to an impairment of one of the twelve cranial nerves that emerge from the underside of the brain, pass through openings in the skull, and lead to parts of the head, neck, and trunk. These disorders can cause pain, tingling, numbness, weakness, or paralysis of the face including the eyes." - source

"Cranial nerve involvement is also relatively uncommon and usually transient, occurring in 10% of patients with SLE." - source

2. Peripheral Neuropathy

"Peripheral neuropathy happens when the nerves that are located outside of the brain and spinal cord (peripheral nerves) are damaged. This condition often causes weakness, numbness and pain, usually in the hands and feet. It also can affect other areas and body functions including digestion and urination." - source

"Peripheral neuropathy occurs in as many as 18% of patients with SLE" - source

Ocular

1. Optic Neuritis

"The optic nerve itself can sometimes be inflamed in lupus, or it can be affected when the blood vessels supplying the nerve are themselves inflamed (that is, ischemic optic neuropathy). This can lead to a change in vision, or even vision loss." - source

"Optic neuritis is an uncommon neurologic manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and can be seen in about 1% of lupus patients" - source

"Optic neuritis usually affects one eye. Symptoms might include: Pain, vision loss in one eye, visual field loss, loss of color vision, and flashing lights." - source

Autonomic Nervous System

1. Autonomic Neuropathy

"Autonomic neuropathy occurs when there is damage to the nerves that control automatic body functions. It can affect blood pressure, temperature control, digestion, bladder function and even sexual function." - source

"Autonomic nervous system dysfunction is highly prevalent in SLE patients (up to 54%)" - source

Psychiatric

1. Lupus psychosis

" Psychosis is a serious mental disorder featuring defective thought processes, frequently with delusions or hallucinations." - link

Psychosis is one of the diagnostic criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus

"Differentiation of steroid-induced psychosis from lupus-associated psychosis is particularly challenging" - link

#systemic lupus erythematosus #SLE #physical disability #physically disabled #chronic illness #chronically ill #CNS lupus #NPSLE #CNSSLE #neuropsychiatric lupus

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sarahowritesostucky · 6 months

Text

📖"Temporary Custody"

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve x ofc x Bucky; Steve x Bucky

Word Count: 4861

Tags: Dom/sub, bdsm au, dom Bucky, sub reader, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, gay sex'n'stuff, straight sex'n'stuff, Steve being a literal Golden Retriever, mental health issues, dub-con, forced submission, referenced childhood abuse and resultant mental health issues, bakery au, m/f/m, gentle domination, total power exchange

Summary: The stigma and shame of being a submissive has kept Mary unfulfilled and in the closet her whole life, until an inciting incident leads to Bucky and Steve taking her in and giving her everything she was always too afraid to ask for.

Trigger warnings: This story contains themes of eating disordered behavior, body image issues, childhood abuse, self-harm, mental illness, and alcohol abuse.

Wait! I haven't read an earlier chapter of this fic! Story Masterpost

10. S'mores

It’s the “sex play” (God, that term is so cringe) thing being on the table that builds the tension in the apartment, all of them knowing about it but none of them talking about it. Mary sure as shit doesn’t have the guts to break that ice, and now Bucky’s always deep in thought and quiet around her. And Steve, well.

Steve is like a big, mopey golden retriever who knows its humans are upset but doesn’t know how to help besides headbutting things affectionately.

Mary’s feelings for him only grow when she realizes that he really hasn’t told Bucky about that night in the kitchen: the things she’d confided about the razor and her nightmares and sneaking out to the gym. Knowing that Steve’s stuck by his word like that makes her like him and trust him a whole heck of a lot more.

But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

There’s a court hearing in front of a judge next month to revisit the custody arrangement—Next month. And one afternoon while Bucky’s out of the apartment, Steve gently informs Mary that Dr. Linda is recommending the order be extended. Jesus fucking Christ.

And then the results to that test Linda made her take, the “Submissive Sexual Interests and Tendencies Assessment”, arrive in the mail (addressed to Bucky, because of course they would be), and Mary gets her hands on them after Bucky and Steve read them, and she’s mortified at what it says about her.

Tendencies: Passive aggression (reactive aggression in lieu of submission), emotional outbursts, low self-esteem, impulsive sexual promiscuity, self-harm, alcohol use disorder, possible co-morbidity (OCD, EDNOS, BDD). Dynamic Preferences: single dominant authority figure, structured domestic routine, service, discipline, monogamous relationship, emotional bonding. Recommendations: Following assessment review, patient is most likely to benefit from continued domestic control in a consistent (24/7) environment. Transfer of custody not recommended. Continued therapy sessions and educational courses at CDP highly recommended. Most beneficial therapeutic modalities include limited corporal discipline, sex play, and reward-based service routine.

There’s a ton of infuriating psycho babble bullshit packed into those results that she could get upset about, and she does, but Mary’s eyes track over that one, most-horrible phrase over and over again:

“Transfer of custody not recommended.”

Fuck.

She loses sleep over it, sneaks out of the apartment in the middle of the night and does cardio at the gym until she’s exhausted enough to head back home and pass out. It pisses her off that this is such a thing now. She doesn’t want to be special needs, she should have the right to choose whether she even wants treatment or not! She resents the hell out of Bucky and Steve for having custody of her the way that they do. They’re clearly expecting her to blow up or something, after the news from Linda and the SSITA results come in. It’s so obvious that they’re walking on eggshells around her, Mary halfway wishes they’d just do something. One way or the other, it’d be better than this.

Linda claims that they’ve expressed “positive feelings” about a sexual dynamic, but if they have, they sure aren’t expressing it to Mary. She suspects that most of that positivity has come from Steve, and probably only because he’s a golden retriever in human form who just wants to do what’s right and good, not because he or Bucky are particularly attracted to her.

While she has managed to clean herself up quite a bit since moving in with them, Mary isn’t delusional: she realizes that Steve and Bucky are very attractive men, whereas she’s just average. She tries to tell herself she’s fine with that. She knows Bucky and Steve could probably get like, a supermodel to sleep with them if they really wanted to. Mary’s not in their league, and that’s okay.

But if they’re not attracted to her that way then they should at least have the decency to just say so! At least then she could find someone else, get back on Tinder, or even sign up for one of those ProDoms that the CDP has. Darcy said Thor was good, so maybe Mary could request him? The way that Darcy had described the guy, he sounds like he's a hunka hunka burning Nordic god. Mary could go for that.

She brings it up casually over dinner, framing it lightheartedly, and Bucky literally crushes his water glass in his prosthetic hand. “What?” he snaps, frowning down at the mess he’s just made. “No.”

Mary huffs and goes to fetch the desserts while Steve gets the waste bin and begins scraping the broken pieces of glass into it like it’s just another Tuesday. “I don’t see why not,” Mary complains from over at the counter. She’s pulled the plates out from the fridge and grabs the butane torch for the meringue.

“Jesus,” Bucky exclaims when he sees the industrial sized torch she's wielding. “Where’d you get that?”

Mary purses her lips as she focuses on achieving the perfect amount of toastedness. “Hardware store,” she mutters. “So why can’t I go see one of the ProDom’s again?” She purposefully over-torches Bucky’s meringue, because she can tell that this isn’t going to go her way. “Sounds like a win-win. You don’t have to deal with me, I can meet new people, and insurance pays for it. What exactly is the problem?” She’s trying to force him to admit that he doesn’t want to Dom her sexually, trying to get him to see that something’s gotta give and he’ll have to let her use one of the ProDoms eventually if that’s what the severity of her “condition” requires (gigantic ‘Ew’).

But frustratingly, he refuses to engage with her on the topic. “It’s a no, Mare,” he tells her sternly. “Pros are for people who have more experience. You don’t.”

Mary seriously doubts that. “Linda didn’t say that,” she argues, carrying the plates over to the table and handing the nice one to Steve and the burnt one to Bucky.

He pulls it closer to himself and raises an eyebrow at it. “Linda’s being diplomatic,” he mutters. “I thought you said you were making s’mores?”

Yesterday, Bucky had been talking with Steve about how much they both missed their old camping trips they used to take. The two of them must’ve waxed poetic over campfire s’mores for ten whole minutes. So Mary thought this would be an excellent way to butter them up. Apparently not.

She sniffs and picks up her fork. “They are s’mores. It’s a plated dessert, Bucky. An interpretation. It’s not literal.”

He grunts and peers at his portion, poking it dubiously with his fork. “What’s it made of?”

Mary heaves a sigh and snottily recites: “Honey Sablé, 70% Valrhona cremeux, cold-smoked Italian meringue, torched ‘mallow, Graham crumb streusel, and tempered chocolate stick for garnish." Both Bucky and Steve stop poking at their plates and just stare at her for a second.

“Sounds good,” Steve chirps, and digs into his.

Mary stares Bucky down, until he too, deigns to eat the apparently too fancy for him version of a s’more. “Oh, damn,” he says after the first bite, looking taken-aback. “I can taste the smoke.”

Mary preens, then asks again about the ProDom. “Well if I’m not getting it there then who the heck’s supposed to fuck me?” she winds up blurting out of frustration.

When that direct reference doesn’t elicit any response from Bucky besides a barrage of bossy instructions for after-dinner cleanup, Mary loses a bit of the hope she’d been holding onto that maybe Linda was right about them being attracted to her. She just gave him the perfect fucking opening, and he didn’t take it. She gets the kitchen cleaned up from dinner, resigning herself to another evening of platonic domination that doesn’t quite hit the spot.

Nightly drops are nice. Not as nice as they were in the beginning, the effects having waned quite a bit from what they once were, but still better than no drops at all.

Mary sits on her pillow on the floor, head on the couch cushion next to Bucky’s thigh, listening vaguely to the sound of the television while she enjoys the feeling of his fingers carding through her hair, lightly massaging her scalp. It’s been a while now, and she doesn’t think she’s going to get any deeper. It’s late, already they’ve watched two full episodes of their show, and Mary’s got work tomorrow. It’ll be bedtime soon.

A big yawn works its way up in her throat, and Bucky chuckles when it finally breaks free. “Tired?” he asks.

“Mmhm.” She inhales deeply and sits up, sleepy and squinting. It takes a moment before her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room and Bucky’s form sitting right in front of her. Wow, she’d been really close to him, hadn’t realized just how close. Had she been … hugging his shin? God, she hopes not. Not like she hasn’t spent whole evenings fantasizing about rubbing her face all over his thighs and his— Nope. Not gonna think about that when he’s sitting right there. She tears her eyes away and forces that train of thought to stop right in its metaphorical tracks.

“You good, Hon?” Bucky asks, his soft voice drawing her attention back from her own head. She looks up and sees his fond expression, his relaxed posture. Wonders if he’s in Domspace at all. Probably not.

Then her eyes land on the line of his cock at the front of his pants.

He’s hard. Not very, but some. Underneath his sweats his dick is chubbed up enough that it creates a slight bulge against the fabric. Mary freezes, staring for too long before she’s able to tear her eyes away. When she does, and she looks up, Bucky’s watching her with an inscrutable expression. Her breath catches and her mind goes absolutely dumb.

Does he want ..? Should she ..?

She looks back down at it, at the relaxed splay of his thighs. She wets her lips and thinks about reaching forward and sliding her hand over it, what it would feel like, if it would twitch, if Bucky would shiver or make a sound. She wants to touch it, and seriously considers doing so, but when she looks up at Bucky again, he doesn’t look like he’s excited, or anticipating her touching him. He looks … resigned.

“Tired?” he asks kindly. "Do you maybe ... Do you need anything else tonight? From me?"

Mary's lips part, heart leaping at what that might mean ... but then Bucky looks over at Steve with visible yearning in his eyes, and the two of them share one of their silent conversations, brows pinched and expectant.

Oh. Right. Bucky’s just horny and eager to get Steve into bed, wants to wrap this up. Mary wonders if he really can’t tell that she's not far down like she used to get. Maybe he thinks this is all she needs and he really isn’t going to take Linda’s advice seriously. Mary should be happy about that. After all, it’s what she wanted. Isn’t it?

She balls up the hand that she’d been imagining touching Bucky with and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I’m tired. Think I’m gonna … go get ready for bed.”

She glances over at Steve, but he looks mopey and eager to get out of the room just like his husband does, cementing the notion in Mary’s mind that they don’t want to be with her that way. No doubt they will if push comes to shove, because Linda’s told them Mary needs a sexual dynamic, but it’s not something they’re excited about. Mary knows men: They’re not the sort to sit around and wait for a girl they like to make the first move. And certainly not a man like Bucky, of all people.

She tries not to be hurt by it, but still gets a little weepy while brushing her teeth, the unintended rejection stinging more when she’s down in the tingly, vulnerable throes of subspace. She spits, rinses, flosses, rinses. Grabs the mouthwash that she hates to use but that Bucky has ordered her to always use after brushing her teeth at night.

She says goodnight to Steve and Bucky through the safety of her closed bedroom door, and despite her voice being warbly, neither one of them knocks on the door to see what’s up. That drives the point home, and Mary tucks herself into bed with the mindset that she’ll let them know they don’t have to sleep with her just to be nice or to help her or whatever. She’ll just find a way to convince them that she really is fine with going to one of the ProDoms, and that it really is a better arrangement.

Better than a pity fuck, at least.

It’s disappointing to know that Mary prefers the ProDom, that she doesn’t want to make their relationship sexual, but Bucky gets it, and he knows that he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s not exactly an easy person to get along with, after all. He’s prickly as fuck, grumpy, bossy, selfish. And aside from her natural submission, Mary’s personality clashes with his horribly. Steve is essential, but he just isn’t enough to successfully buffer between the two of them—not enough to make her want them that way, at least.

Bucky can see the profound disappointment in Steve’s eyes that night, as Mary doesn’t react the way they were both hoping, doesn’t take the offerings Bucky puts out.

They have to let it be her choice, of course, having planned it out and discussed it between just the two of them. It's all anybody ever talks about in the D/s community these days: making sure subs are the initiators at key moments like this, not letting domination creep in and become manipulation-so easy to do with how naturally vulnerable and people pleasing submissives are. Gone are the days when Doms like Bucky were encouraged to guide new partners in the "right" direction. That leads to too much trauma, too many subs in situations they don't really want. Mary has to be left to make the choice on her own, it's her right.

But it's still the hardest fucking thing for him to do, to just sit there and wait passively. And it still stings when she looks straight at his erection and declares that she’s ready for bed. Well, if it wasn’t clear before.

Steve looks like a friggin’ kicked puppy, as he stands outside of Mary’s closed bedroom door and bids her goodnight. Bucky nudges him in the direction of their own room and murmurs, “Come on, Sweetheart.”

In their bedroom, they each get undressed. Steve continues to mope, so Bucky goes up to him and places a hand on his shoulder and rubs. “Hey. Don’t sulk. You’ve still got me.” Steve’s mouth twitches in a small smile and Bucky’s heart flares with fondness for him. “You wanna play a game?” he offers, leaning in and kissing him once on the lips. “Mm?” He looks down pointedly to both of their boners that haven’t completely lagged since tv time ended.

“Okay.”

Bucky hums and turns, putting his left shoulder out. “Lend a guy a hand?” Steve obliges. He removes the prosthetic arm with practiced motions. Bucky moans quietly at how good it feels to get the heavy weight off. “Fuck.” He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck each way with a blissed out groan. “Yes.”

“You’ve been wearing it more than usual, lately,” Steve points out, going over to set it on the table at Bucky’s side of the bed. “Why?”

He already knows: Bucky can tell from the way he asks it. He grunts and looks away, refraining from answering. He normally only wears the arm to work and to the gym, skipping it around the house or when he’s just got simple errands to run. There’s a surprising amount he can do just fine without the use of two arms, and he’s been confident about being seen in public without it for a long time now, thanks to Steve and their friends at the V.A. Being self conscious about it again after all these years isn’t something Bucky wants to admit out loud or think about, but Steve isn’t stupid. He can put two and two together.

“Babe,” he says softly, walking back over to stand behind him. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist and noses into his neck. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Bucky inhales deeply. “I know. I’m not.” Steve makes a sound that clearly says he doesn’t believe that. But Bucky doesn’t want to talk about it, so he reaches back with the only arm he has to grab playfully at the side of Steve’s ass. “Go in the bathroom. Get the water going how I like.”

Steve groans and thunks his forehead against the back of Bucky’s neck. “Not that game,” he complains, though there’s no conviction to it. He slinks off towards the bathroom to go do as he’s been told. “I hate that game.”

“Fuck you. You love that game.”

Steve shoots him the finger from over his shoulder, but something about his naked body and tight little ass being on display strips the gesture of its animosity. He disappears into the bathroom and Bucky walks over to their bedroom dresser to grab a hair tie, still snickering. He sobers when he takes one from the valet tray and realizes that he’ll have to have Steve tie his hair back. That’s one thing he never could figure out how to do one handed. He stands there and looks in the mirror above the dresser, studying the left side of his body in a way that he rarely does anymore.

He’s gotten so used to it: his life with Steve, whom he knows down to his bones accepts him unconditionally. He’s almost forgotten what it feels like to be self conscious about his body. Bucky hasn’t known how to talk about it, and Mary hasn’t asked. She’s seen him with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, or in tee shirts at the gym, but that’s all so far. Sometimes he’ll catch her looking, but he’s got no clue what she’s thinking. He considers his reflection, looks at the scars and puckered skin, the implanted base of the arm where his stump used to be. He doesn’t like the uncomfortability of being critical of his body again. In a way, he almost resents Mary for it, for making that feeling come back after all these years. Silly, he knows.

“Babe?” Steve’s voice calls out from the bathroom. Bucky’s ears register the sound of rushing water. “You coming?”

Bucky inhales deeply and decides it doesn’t matter anyway. Mary wants a ProDom, not them, so he doesn’t have to stress over what she thinks about any part of his body, let alone the one part he doesn’t have.

“Yeah.” He turns his back to the judgmental mirror and heads towards his very non-judgmental best guy.

“Okay. Stop clenching.”

Steve exhales shakily, but he does obey, body slumping back against the end of the tub as he relaxes his muscles. “Fuck,” he breathes, overwhelmed.

“Hand too, Baby.”

His hand abandons his dick in the bathwater. “Ungh.”

Bucky smiles lazily and rubs the side of his foot against Steve’s hip in praise. “Good boy.”

They’re in the bathtub together, opposite ends, legs tangled. Their combined bulk displaces the water all the way up to above their shoulders, but that’s part of the game: they’re not allowed to splash on the floor, so they can’t jerk off very hard or fast. First one to splash water on the floor is the automatic loser and has to bottom the next time they fuck (Bucky added that little caveat because he’s very good at not splashing, whereas Steve is hopelessly clumsy and overeager ). “How you doing, Sweetheart?” he asks, drinking in the sight of Steve with his lips parted, chest heaving, squirming. He’s pink from temple to tits, flushed from the bathwater and arousal both, and Bucky loves it. “You’re not close already, are you?” he tuts, grinning. “So sensitive.”

“Buck,” Steve croaks, heated eyes dragging over Bucky’s body at the other end of the tub where he’s still gently jerking himself off. “Please.”

Bucky affords himself another toe-curlingly good swipe over the head of his dick before he nods. “Okay. Slow. Just like me”

Steve huffs and wraps his hand back around himself, stroking his dick in slow, measured strokes, just like Bucky said. Bucky’s guts warm and another heady rush of dominance swirls low in his belly at watching Steve do exactly as he says. “You can start workin’ it again, too,” he says.

Steve moans gratefully. “Thank you. Fuck.” His abs start clenching, his body straining again with visible tension as he works the Aneros that’s seated up inside him. Under the water, his knees move in and out in that instinctive motion as he tries to rock it just right. But it’s hard to do it with the water so high, and more than once he catches himself and holds back at the sight of the bathwater sloshing precariously close to the lip of the tub. At one point he gasps and his eyes slam shut, and Bucky figures the toy must’ve shifted to press even more directly against his prostate.

“Ooh, does that feel good, Stevie?”

Steve peeks his eyes open, glaring across the way at him. “You know it does.”

Bucky does, in fact, know exactly how good it feels—because he’s got another of the exact same toy inside of himself, right now. “I don’t know why you still agree to play this game,” he taunts, grunting from the effort of holding back his own moan as his prostate gets a firm prod from the head of the toy. “You—nngh—you always wind up losing.”

“Yeah, well …” Steve’s throat bobs as he swallows heavily. “Maybe I don’t mind you coming out on top, sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Bucky scoffs, but he’s breathing heavier than he was thirty minutes ago, his composure slipping the longer he works the toy inside himself and jerks himself off agonizingly slowly underneath the water. In fact, he’s not even sure it even counts as jerking off at this slow a pace.

Edging is something he’d introduced Steve to early on in their relationship, as soon as he’d realized how delightfully sensitive his new boyfriend was. And Steve, the big idiot, had worried Bucky wouldn’t like it, had actually thought of it as a negative! An absurd notion that Bucky promptly disabused him of. Watching his ungodly sexy blond behemoth of a husband whine and squirm and struggle to hold himself in check is one of the fucking hottest things Bucky’s ever seen—and he’s seen a lot. He’d been a bit of a manwhore back in his heyday, racking up the bodies as he fought to find himself as a Dom and accept the body an IED had left him with.

Steve, his overly-sensitive, glorious hunk of a then-boyfriend, had helped him to do both. And it’s times like this where Bucky remembers just how goddamn lucky he is. Having Steve to love and fuck around with feels like the best gift in the world.

At the other end of the tub, the water sloshes as something he’s done to himself makes Steve’s breath hitch in another helpless moan. He tosses his head back for a moment, eyes clamped shut as his expression crumples beautifully and he whimpers. Bucky’s ass clenches down hard in arousal at the sight, which only makes the toy in his ass rub over his prostate that much better. His cock throbs as his pleasure flares dangerously high. Fuck, he wants to come.

Licking his lips, he decides it's time to end this. His balls are pulled up too close to his body, taut and full and aching for release. Trying to school his breathing into something resembling nonchalance is a lost cause, and his face feels almost as flushed as Steve’s looks right now. Bucky decides to call it, because even though he’s the automatic favorite to win this game every time, he is capable of losing, if he gets too caught up in ogling Steve’s body and reactions and doesn’t focus enough on playing his cards right. “Okay,” he finally says, smirking when Steve’s head jerks back to attention, his irises visibly flaring in excitement. “Yeah, Baby. It’s time.”

“Fuck.”

“You ready for the home stretch?” He waggles his eyebrows and lets his head rest back against the tub, spreading his legs wider and keeping his eyes on Steve. “Gotta keep up,” he instructs, even though Steve already knows how this goes. When Bucky tightens his hand and speeds up the pace of how fast he’s jerking himself off, Steve copies him. That’s how it is at the end of this—totally-rigged-in-Bucky’s-favor—game. They both jerk off at the pace that Bucky sets, and the first one to splash water on the floor or come is the loser. It’s not very fair, but Bucky never claimed he was a fair guy. He is, in fact, selfish as fuck.

Lucky for him, Steve’s into that.

“Fuck,” Steve pants from his end of the tub. He slides down lower, keeping more of his body under the water in an attempt to prevent splashing. It’s a futile effort, though, because he’s doomed to lose anyway with the faster pace that Bucky’s set. Already, he’s going lobster red in the face, brow pinched and desperate, knees knocking the sides of the tub as he compulsively works the toy in his ass.

The arousal in Bucky’s gut coils tighter at the sight. “Watch my hand,” he warns, when he notices Steve slacking off. “Gotta match it, Baby.”

“I am.”

“Tighter,” he says, eyes gleaming. “And stop avoiding the head. I can see you cheatin’ over there, Punk.”

Steve whimpers, and Bucky knows that he really wasn’t going as tight as he is, because Steve’s hand changes its hold and he starts getting the head of his dick with the same intensity that Bucky is. Bucky grins open mouthed, panting. “Atta boy.”

“You should—ugn.” Steve grimaces. “Should get a penalty, for being cut. I should get an extra, nnnh, th-thirty seconds, at least.”

Bucky laughs, because trust Steve to think of a sportsman’s solution to the inequity of their dicks. Steve being uncut means that it takes less intense stimulation for him to come. They both know this, Bucky loves this, and again: he never claimed the game was fair. “No penalty,” he grunts, speeding up his pace even further. Steve’s eyes widen but he matches it. Bucky grits his teeth. He can hold out long enough. Steve’ll blow in seconds at this pace.

And sure enough, it’s not even twenty seconds later when Steve is crying out, body tensing and muscles straining gorgeously as he seizes up and starts to come. “Agh!” His knees fling out hard and hit the sides of the tub, splashing water over the lip to the floor below. But he hasn’t even noticed, he’s so lost to his orgasm. His asshole is twitching, sucking on the Aneros as the contractions of his body pull the toy up against his prostate again and again, drawing the pleasure out. He shoves down hard in the water and shouts louder, as though he’s getting a second orgasm on top of the first. “Ohnfuck …”

Bucky groans as he watches it happen: Steve’s gorgeous face and juddering hips, big hand wringing up hard underneath the head the whole way through. The fucking sounds he makes, Jesus wept. It’s leagues better than any porn Bucky’s ever seen. “Fuck, Baby,” he praises. “Yes. Fuck that’s so hot …”

Steve’s hand keeps working the whole way through, only abandoning his cock once it’s fully spent and softening, the cloudy ribbons of his cum floating away in the bathwater. “Fuck,” he exhales hugely once it’s done, letting his body go lax and slump so far down that only his face is above the waterline.

Bucky grunts and spreads his legs wider, not heeding the splashing rule now that he’s already won. The water splashes precariously as he shoves his hips down and down and down, squeezing the shape of the toy inside so fucking perfectly. Fuck, it feels fucking good working over his spot like that. “Oghnnn,” he pants, grunting and groaning and jerking his cock hard. “Fuck, Baby. You’re so fucking pretty. Fuck. M’gonna cum …”

Steve gives a sated hum from his end of the tub. Bucky can sense him shifting in the water, and then gasps when he feels the ball of Steve’s foot gently press up on his balls. His eyes fly open and he looks down. “Oh, shit,” he whispers. “Fuck, fuck.”

Steve grins and rubs his foot against him. And Bucky doesn’t have that fetish, but there’s something so fucking perverse about seeing Steve’s toes up against his balls that it turns his brain to mush anyway and pushes him right on over into orgasm. He shoots off beneath the water, stroking and thrusting and moaning—and probably splashing water all over the floor just as badly as Steve ever has.

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vernalloy · 4 months

Text

Compilation / Transcript of all three Lawrence documents in Saw: The Video Game

1. Partial Medical File Name: [Blacked Out] Patient ID #: 825-361-3127 Date: April 14th, 1998

Consultation

Doctor’s Notes - Upon initial assessment, [Blacked Out] presents as a well-spoken man with a firm grasp on reality. Patient 34 years old. Married for 2 years. Wife 4 months pregnant.

Denies necessity of psychological treatment, but has kept appointment at the request of his wife, who insisted on visitation due to a concern over growing isolationistic [sic] tendencies.

Patient displays high degree of verbal acuity and is very observant. Initial tests suggest a high IQ, with an extraordinary ability to recall facts. [Blacked Out] expressed pride at his intelligence and knowledge. Exhibits need to point out the weaknesses in others. Insists the behavioral changes are that of his wife who “no longer understands” him.

Patient is polite and cordial, but non-compliant. Seems to take pleasure in obfuscating answers and attempting to trick questioner. Patient’s demeanor is calm and controlled. Shows disconnect with the emotions of other individuals and general lack of empathy towards humanity. Verbally expresses affection for his expectant wife and child, but does not outwardly display so when discussing them.

After initial consultation [Blacked Out] does not feel a need for future visitations. Have scheduled a follow-up appointment with the option to cancel with 24 hours notice, just in case he changes his mind.

Patient displays tendencies towards depression and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

2. Partial Medical File Patient ID #: 825-361-3127

Doctor’s Notes [Blacked Out] continues to show up to appointments despite questioning need for psychiatric treatment. States that he “knows more about medicine and the mind” than any of the staff. Mocks staff credentials and is often uncommunicative during therapy. Claims traditional psychiatric medicine fails patients by not offering them “real choices.”

Patient displays familiarity with psychological/psychiatric language. Patient states that he is well aware of own childhood history and its potential psychological ramifications. Describes authoritarian, punitive father and absent, passive mother. Insists that his superior intelligence and self-control make childhood history of physical, mental and verbal abuse unimportant.

Patient denies history of his own violent and impulsive behavior, citing memory lapses. Our conversations reveal the [sic] [Blacked Out] often manipulates others for his own amusement. Patient shows no remorse at negative effects his behavior has on other people. Views others as objects/pawns.

Based on [Blacked Out]’s behavior and history, I recommend inpatient treatment. Patient refuses to consider this option.

Raise Haldol to 5 mg/twice daily. Raise chlorpromazine to 50 mg nightly.

3. Partial Medical File Name: [Blacked Out] Patient ID #: 825-361-3127

Injury Report Single fracture of the arm, left ulna.

Treatment Prescribed Bone set, cast application recommended for 5 weeks.

Notes [Blacked Out] claims injury is result of accidental fall. Subdermal hematoma at site of fracture, implying fracture was impact-related, but [Blacked Out] had additional bruising on the knuckles of both hands. When asked about metacarpal bruising, [Blacked Out] denied bruising and became violent, interrogating me about my bedside manner. Doctors make the worst patients.

#long post #abuse mention #ask to tag #saw #lawrence gordon #saw the video game #(wow vern talk)#the viddy game lore post really blew up so i'd like to give context from the first game

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mystii-gur0 · 2 months

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Psychoanalyzing Childe

Tw: brief mentions of suicide, s/h, substance abuse, abuse, and sex

A common misconception I see when people make character studies for Childe is interpreting him with bipolar disorder (BD, also formally known as manic depression) instead of borderline personality disorder (BPD, also formally known as EUPD or emotionally unstable personality disorder). If you’re like some people, you might be asking yourself “What’s the difference?” The difference is actually a lot, despite often having similar presentations.

Bipolar disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, is characterized by episodes of mania and depression (usually lasting several months at a time), with bipolar 1’s manic episodes tending to be more severe (often times involving psychosis) and depressive episodes less severe or even non-existent, and bipolar 2 being the opposite. Oftentimes the cause is genetic and the treatment involves mostly mood stabilizing medication. I’ll be listing the symptoms of manic and depressive episodes and highlighting which ones apply to Childe.

Manic Symptoms:

Elevated mood

Irritability

Hyperactivity

Insomnia

Impulsivity

Flight of ideas

Racing thoughts

Feeling unable to do many things at once without getting tired

Binge eating

Binge drinking

Hypersexuality

Feeling unusually important or powerful

Depressive Symptoms:

Lowered mood

Anxiety

Restlessness

Insomnia

Hypersomnia

Talking slowly or being unable to find anything to say

Feeling unable to do even simple things

Lack of interest in most activities

Feeling hopeless or worthless

Suicidal ideation (a little iffy on this one. Childe is passively suicidal as in he doesn’t mind the idea of dying and doesn’t value his life very much, but he’s never shown to actively plan to or actually attempt.)

The four symptoms of bipolar that are shown to apply to Childe are also in line with BPD mood swings. Many people point to his actions in Liyue as a manic episode, however aside from his impulsive behavior there, which I would also like to point out is a symptom of BPD, he does not show any symptoms of bipolar that suggest a manic episode. On top of that we never see him exhibit any signs of depressive episodes aside from restlessness, which you could say suggests bipolar 1, except he doesn’t have nearly enough manic symptoms to have bipolar 1 and the restlessness oftentimes accompanies the “manic” symptoms.

Borderline Personality Disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic, is defined by unstable relationships, emotional instability, dissociation, disturbance in identity and self image, impulsivity, chronic feelings of emptiness, and an intense fear of abandonment. The main cause is childhood trauma, though you can be genetically at risk, and it’s often treated with CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and TF-CBT (trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy). There are four main types of BPD. I’ll be highlighting symptoms from each that apply to Childe.

Impulsive BPD:

Charismatic

Energetic

Detached

Flirtatious (not highlighted because the only example of him being flirtatious is a mistranslation)

Engaging or motivating

Binge eating

Overspending

Addiction (to sex, substances, shopping, etc)

Risky sex

Emotional outbursts

Physical fights

Breaking things

Hitting things

Discouraged/Quiet BPD:

Perfectionism

Highly successful

“High functioning”

Feeling alienated in groups

Feeling like they don’t have strong bonds with others

Seeking approval/people pleasing

Self isolating

Self harm

Suicidal behaviors

Clinginess

Codependency

Neediness

Emotional outbursts when feelings of abandonment are triggered

Seeming numb, empty, or like a robot

Hiding emotions

Self-Destructive BPD:Substance abuse

Risky and adrenaline seeking activities without proper preparation

Self harm

Threats of suicide

Insomnia

Euphoric episodes

Petulant BPD:

Fluctuating between anger and feeling unloved

Possessiveness

Manipulative

Needs to control others to prevent being abandoned

Passive aggressive

Defiant

Irritable

Threatening self harm or suicide

Paranoid delusions

Dissociation (if Foul Legacy isn’t an allegory for a dissociative state I don’t know what is)

Psychosis

Childe has symptoms of all types of BPD, but the ones he shows the most similarities to are quiet/discouraged BPD and self-destructive BPD. I feel like the self-destructive BPD traits speak for themselves, but I’d really like to expand on his quiet BPD traits as those are the ones that show up most often in the Liyue arc, which I feel is significant because it’s his introduction, he’s most heavily featured in it, and we actually see him exhibit splitting behavior.

When we first meet Childe, he’s referred to as just that, Childe. However it’s revealed later that he has a total of three personas, Childe, Ajax, Tartaglia. I’ll elaborate more on them later (see section two: OSDD-1a), but a common experience in people with BPD is mimicking those around them to an extreme degree (in in game example would be Scaramouche adopting Dottore’s personality and mannerisms) to the point of creating entire personalities for different people. That begs the question though, who is he mimicking? I’m going to say Childe is mimicking the Tsaritsa and/or Pulcinella to some extent, as he’s the most social and charismatic of them, and the Tsaritsa being an empress and a cult leader, and Pulcinella being a mayor would probably mean they have to be at least a little bit charismatic. Tartaglia likely mimics either Skirk and/or potentially Capitano (I say Capitano because Childe is stated to look up to him and he’s in charge of the Fatui’s military), as Tartaglia seems more emotionally detached and is first introduced in his boss fight, seeming to potentially be more focused on orders and fighting. Ajax is tricky, because I don’t think he’s mimicking anyone so much as creating a persona for his family and specifically younger siblings. We really only see him during his story quest around Teucer.

Childe’s people pleasing is a common quiet BPD trait and something I see overlooked a lot, mostly because people tend to read him as a playboy, or just straight up evil and manipulative, but it’s a very blatant part of his characterization. His infamous “hey girly” line is a mistranslation from “hey Ms” in the original Chinese, not to mention the way he always tries to come off very friendly and avoid verbal conflict (physical conflict is a whole other can of worms). He was also willing to spend a lot of money on Zhongli just because he asked, despite there being a few indications that he didn’t really want to do that, spends lots of money on his family despite them not treating him particularly well, and helps Yoimiya and Xinyan despite not knowing either of them well.

Now onto the fact he literally had a split on screen in the Liyue arc, yet no one seems to acknowledge it. Childe and Zhongli are shown to have been extremely close prior to the events of the Liyue arc, regardless of if you choose to interpret their relationship as platonic, romantic, or anything else. They go to dinner together, spend a lot of time together, are very well acquainted etc. Childe doesn’t have many friends, his family is distrustful of him, the other Harbingers either just don’t care or actively dislike him, he’s too intimidating to the lower ranked Fatui to be friends with them and he has a negative reputation outside the Fatui (another quiet BPD trait, feeling alienated in society and not having many close relationships). Zhongli was likely one of his only close relationships at the time. Unfortunately their friendship ends at the end of the Liyue arc when Childe finds out Zhongli, Signora, and the Tsaritsa have been lying to him the whole time. We see when confronting Zhongli about being Morax, Childe is extremely upset, snapping at him and Signora and being generally irritable. He then never interacts on screen with Zhongli again after storming off and says that Zhongli will have to earn him back with a fight when asked about him by the Traveler. It’s unclear whether Zhongli has been informed of this or not. He experiences mood swings in the Liyue arc when he gets so angry at the thought of the Traveler getting to the Geo Gnosis before him that he rips the floor up out of the Golden House, and tries to do so again in Fontaine after being sentenced guilty. Other than that he never seems to feel anything other than a calm “everything is fine”, which is very indicative of quiet BPD rather than the other subtypes as people with quiet BPD tend to hide their emotions and implode when upset and come across as empty or robotic. Chronic feelings of emptiness are also a major part of the diagnostic criteria.

On the subject of Childe’s favorite person, I’d say that would definitely be the Tsaritsa. He speaks extremely highly of her, even more so than the other Fatui and definitely more so than the other Harbingers as Arlecchino and Scaramouche either say outright that they dislike her or are at least wary. She’s explicitly stated to run a cult, recruit child soldiers, and fund human experimentation, yet Childe repeatedly defends her despite the fact she likely dehumanizes him and/or is verbally abusive, given the fact his title is literally “the Tsaritsa’s weapon of war”. People with BPD tend to have this idea that their favorite person can do no wrong besides abandoning them, which makes them more willing to put up with bad behavior and even abuse from their favorite person. People with quiet BPD specifically tend to have a “I can fix them/I deserve this” complex when it comes to their abusers.

Another common thing I see is people interpreting Childe with HPD (histrionic personality disorder), and while I don’t think Childe specifically has HPD, it is in the same cluster as BPD and they do share overlapping traits.

Here’s a list of HPD traits I believe Childe experiences:

People pleasing

Easily swayed by others

Naive/overly trusting

Risky behaviors

A need for acknowledgement/attention

Overall, I would diagnose Childe with quiet BPD with HPD traits.

Section Two: OSDD-1a

Earlier I mentioned Childe’s personas, but I’d like to present the idea of him being OSDD-1a system. Usually when we think of system coded characters we think of Scaramouche, Furina, and Layla (Layla canonically has DID, Scaramouche and Furina are just often interpreted as systems), but despite being the only character besides Layla with actual named alters that we see in game, Childe almost never comes up in conversation.For those who don’t know, OSDD1 (or other specified dissociative disorder 1) is a diagnosis given to people who fit most of the diagnostic criteria for DID but not enough to be diagnosed with DID and don’t have a permanently fronting alter like in partial DID. OSDD-1a is used for people who have high amnesia barriers but a lack of distinct alters (they might all use the same name, have similar interests, similar personalities, similar likes and dislikes, etc.). OSDD-1b is used for people who have distinct alters but low amnesia barriers, only experiencing emotional amnesia, where they know how something happened but not how they felt during it, and gray out amnesia, where they know something happened but can’t really remember it.

Childe is known for having a lot of inconsistencies in his character, such as wanting to protect his family, but actively putting them in danger to carry out the Tsaritsa’s orders. However I feel this could easily be explained by him being an OSDD-1a system. Ajax is shown to want to protect his family, however Tartaglia and to a much lesser extent Childe is willing to put them in danger. Tartaglia is introduced in his boss fight and when speaking of his fighting prowess he’s always referred to as Tartaglia. We’re introduced to the character as Childe and he’s always referred to as Childe in social settings away from his family. Now the scene I feel is most system coded is the one where he’s introducing himself to Xinyan. He goes to introduce himself as Tartaglia, because that’s who’s fronting in the moment, however the Traveler stops him and reminds him he’s supposed to be Childe in that moment. As someone who knows a lot of systems and is questioning if he might be one himself, the struggle to pretend to be the host when interacting with people immediately jumped out at me.

Now as I mentioned before, Childe seems to mimic other people, and you might be wondering if that still applies to him as a system. As a matter of fact it definitely does. It’s highly possible that he’s an introject heavy system. In fact I think the only alter that isn’t an introject of someone around him is Ajax, as Ajax uses his birth name and I can’t think of someone he’d have interacted with to introject an alter like Ajax.

Childe being a system also explains why he never mentions things like the Golden House or his story quest afterwards, given that Childe is likely the host but was out of front during those two occasions.

Overall I don't think Childe being a system host was intended by the writers in the same way I think him having BPD was, but it's definitely interesting to think about.

#genshin impact #Childe #tartaglia #character study

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misscammiedawn · 2 months

Text

The Strange Case of Murder Alters

CW: Discussions of real life murder, sexual violence and heavy stigmatization of the mentally ill

It's not easy writing essays about positive representation for complex dissociative disorders in fiction.

Even the most compassionate cases of intentional representation have flawed elements to them. There is no perfect depiction of plurality in popular culture as even those who specialize in the understanding and treatment of dissociative disorders do not have a full understanding of what it is like to live with conditions like this and those who do are often disregarded.

That all goes without noting that it is a highly subjective experience. There are as many presentations of plurality as there are plural people.

In writing this essay series I want to avoid murder alters because I hate how they are used to harm the most vulnerable people in our society.

But at the very least I can do my best to try and understand why people have this horrible view of others such as we...

Because behind the misunderstanding of our condition there is another issue at play.

The zeitgeist.

Today I want to talk about the social impact of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Released in 1886, the story is a mystery about a lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who is investigating the suspected extortion of a his friend and client, Dr. Henry Jekyll by a thug named Edward Hyde.

It is so popular a piece of fiction that it has been adapted over 100 times.

See, the book is a mystery in which a lawyer uncovers the truth about the miracle elixir that allows Henry Jekyll to alter his appearance so that he may drop his social obligations and act without fear of consequence, knowing he can live his respectable life as Jekyll and any depravity within his soul can be exorcised within the guide of Edward Hyde with the Jekyll name unsullied.

The reveal that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person does not happen until the final pages, after Utterson discovers Hyde's body in Jekyll's lab, dressed in Henry's clothes and with a confession letter explaining the whole affair. It concludes that he can no longer control the physical transformations and that he will either be executed or have the courage to commit suicide. Either way the consequences fall onto someone other than himself.

Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

Henry had compartmentalized enough of his undesirable impulses and emotions that he stored them in an entirely other vessel, dissociating himself from the actions of Hyde enough that he ends his confession that they are the same with the notion that the consequences of their actions falls on someone other than himself.

Dissociative Identity Disorder has long been recognized as a condition though it was not fully understood, even by today's clouded understandings. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) has medical journals dating as far back as 1831 on the topic.

Though the concept of "dual personalities" was a curiosity to the medical community it was often discussed in the same breath as hypnotism, spirit mediums and possession. It was still understood and studied at the time.

Stevenson was clearly obsessed with the concept of duality of the soul as Jekyll and Hyde was his third attempt at writing a story which centered on the war of Good and Evil within a single soul.

His previous attempt at the concept, Markheim, is a short story about a man who commits a murder of passion while shopping for a gift to get his fiancee.

The story heavily features the concept of mirrors with the titular Markheim terrified of his own reflection, noting that there is nothing within a mirror that he wishes to see. After killing the store owner he searches the house for money and is approached by a stranger who debates with him on the concepts of good and evil, acting as a spiritual mirror that Markheim must see himself within until he stops trying to deny and obfuscate his responsibility in the evils he has committed.

The story ends with him woefully confessing that he has lost the love of good but still hates evil and confesses for the murder, allowing himself to be arrested.

The stories less focus on dissociated personalities and more upon the way a person can self justify unspeakable acts to themselves by avoiding their own reflection.

I'd mentioned that Jekyll and Hyde had been adapted over 100 times?

Perhaps I misspoke. You must forgive me...

You know, I'd imagined this essay as a video. I simply have never dabbled with the form and am concerned I would take to the form with the grace and skill of James Somerton. It's far easier to stick with the devil that I know, namely typing an irresponsible number of words at my Tumblr audience.

Indulging the mental image a moment, however, the prior segment having us (Camden potentially?) bathed in golden light wearing a suit and a top hat, speaking in a refined and elegant version of our English accent before switching to me (Dawn) in red light disheveled and looking oh so slutty and talking with a little bit of our old cockney twang.

You'll forgive my distraction for this little aside, I am simply too vain not to paint that mental picture as I type.

See, there are hundreds of Jekyll and Hyde adaptations. The issue is they are adaptations of Thomas Russell Sullivan's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a stage play that ran for 20 years with its run starting with Madison Square Theatre and Lyceum Theatre in New York and London respectively.

The stage play tells a neat chronological story focused on Dr. Jekyll rather than an investigation which flits between events as in the book. Moreover the play goes to lengths to sharpen the contrast between Jekyll and Hyde, a trend which would continue down the decades, allowing for Jekyll to be more socially active and Hyde's evil to be more random in its cruelty. The play also introduced women to the narrative and allowed for Hyde's depravity to include sexual violence. The original novella lacked any sexual motivation for Hyde and Stevenson outright denied that Hyde's "unspecified crimes" included sexual violence.

The other major change between the play and the book is that the lead actor, Richard Mansfield, insisted on playing the dual role. In fact the play was commissioned specifically to allow him this opportunity.

To quote a review in The Times (August 6th, 1888)

There is but little scope for acting in what has been described as Mr. Stevenson's "psychological study." As applied to the dramatic version of Mr. Stevenson's book, the accuracy of the word "psychological" is open to question. There is no transfusion of thought or character between "Dr. Jekyll" and "Mr. Hyde." In look, dress, and action they are wholly distinct individuals; and Mr. Mansfield's appearances, now in the one part and now in the other, involve no more psychology than the "business" of a "quick-change artiste" in the music-halls. There is much more psychology, for example, in Mr. Irving's impersonation of Mathias in The Bells, where the conscience-stricken burgomaster leads a double life - one in the society of his family and friends, the other in the solitude of his chamber. But except in the hands of a master, psychology is of small account on the stage, which deals much more effectively with the cardinal passions. It is with no regret that we note the absence of the psychological element from the dramatic version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

In the book the transformation was a physical change that allowed for Henry to act without repression allowing for an exploration into the psyche of an individual caught between actions which one can look at themselves in the mirror performing and those which they simply cannot accept as part of themselves.

In the play the transformation still plays out but it is one man acting both parts and using the weight of performance to mark them as separate characters. A transformation between good and evil spurred on by the elixir. As it was the first major adaption, however, the transformation was not displayed in light until the third act, allowing the twist and its shock to be preserved.

But still an act before the finale.

With every adaption, it seems, the contrast between Henry and Edward's good and evil sharpened and more and more of the audience entered the fiction armed with the knowledge of the transformation.

The gap grew wider.

As the elements changed the story became less about the war of desires versus reputation within a single man and more about a paragon divide between good and evil. A divide which allowed Henry to become more philanthropic and Edward to become more depraved. The further from the original we drifted the more wholly divided the parts of Jekyll became.

The play itself was a success and as noted all subsequent adaptations of the material would go on to focus on the chronological telling of events with the good doctor and his evil alter ego as the central figures, often dismissing Gabriel Utterson from the narrative entirely.

But there is one other element at play.

(if this were the video essay I'd dreamed it as then this would be where I snuck in a clip from Murder, Murder from the Jekyll and Hyde musical)

In 1888 a series of murders caught the public's attention. Known colloquially as The Whitechapel Murders these crimes are more well known in association with the legend surrounding the suspect Jack The Ripper.

The 11 murders carried out between 1888 and 1891 are a crime and a tragedy that truly did occur in the streets of London. With all the cartoon representations of Spring Heeled Jack, the walking tours and the general romantic gothic ethos that has prevailed through history it is important to remember that.

Particularly as the lasting sensationalism from late 1800s London still carries lingering sentiments in the public psyche.

The first of the Whitechapel murders occurred on August 7th 1888. 3 days after the play opened in the Lyceum Theatre.

The press of the time were quick to jump upon the similarities. The Irish Times in September of 1888 were quick to make the moral accusations, decrying Hyde's depiction as murdering for the fun of the thing. The article, linked above, takes great glee in crafting a comparison when none had existed and in time the association caught on.

Enough that Richard Mansfield himself was suspected of being the murderer in question.

Days after the Irish Times story the following was published in The Star

“MEANWHILE,” writes an eccentric correspondent, “you, and every one of the papers, have missed the obvious solution of the Whitechapel myst-ery. The murderer is a Mr Hyde, who seeks in the repose and comparative respectability of Dr Jekyll security from the crimes he commits in his baser shape. Of course, the lively imaginations of your readers will at once supply certain means of identification for the Dr Jekyll whose Mr Hyde seems daily growing in ferocious intensity. If he should turn out to be a statesman engaged in the harmless pursuit of golf at North Berwick - well, you, sir, at least, will be able gratefully to remember that you have prepared your readers for the shock of the inevitable discovery.”

Another went as far as to claim that the victims being women was enough to link it to the character from Stevenson's book, a book which lacked female characters or victims.

The fact that a woman was the victim in each case, and that she was poor, takes away the suspicion of robbery and suggests some unutterably fiendish motive such as that which is supposed to animate the mystical character of Hyde in Mr Stevenson’s book. When the devilish nature of Hyde was pictured in the novel nobody could believe that his prototype could be found in real life. These atrocities and apparently cause-less murders show that there is abroad at the present time in the East End a human monster even more terrible than Hyde.

(source of these quotes and a far more detailed analysis of the Mansfield/Jack connection, please read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Saucy Jacky by Alan Sharp)

The legend had shifted and the idea of Hyde had been solidified in the public consciousness and forever linked with the murders within Whitechapel.

In adaptation these days Edward Hyde is depicted as wearing a big long black coat, a top hat and a cane and coincidentally the vision of Jack the Ripper in the public perception has followed a similar path.

It was only in adaptations where Jekyll and Hyde shared an actor that they also shared a sense of style and the disguise had to take a certain gentleman dressed in shadow approach.

The original book makes a big point of Henry's attire being different from Hyde's as their size difference is enough that during the unexpected transformations they must fashion a way to look presentable. Lanyon describes Hyde's attire as "the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders."

Yet the public perception had found a tidy visualization of Hyde and the visualization of an unknown killer shared that same picture.

And so too was the concept of "dual personalities" linked with murderous intention.

Thus was born the murder alter.

In other Media, Myself and I entries I have worked hard to avoid murder alters. In our very first essay we opened with a passage noting that we wished for positive depictions of dissociative disorders in fiction. Breaking that rule today is a matter of understanding why so many pieces of fiction tend to lean so heavily on the idea of an evil alter ego who kills "for the joy of it".

Because as Jekyll and Hyde's adaptations became more influenced by the culture surrounding their own reception within the public canon, so too did the inspirations take leaps and bounds.

The concept of duality and split personalities was in the public consciousness and focused entirely on the concepts of Good and Evil.

But that only introduced the concept to the public psyche. Even with the links and public fascination with Hyde and Jack the Ripper it was still a matter which existed only in the public's collective imagination.

It was in 1957 when Ed Gein was convicted of a number of violent and horrific crimes that the conversation and assumption become twisted into the stigma that we all endure today. Gein was sentenced to life in a mental institution after being declared unfit for trial by reason of his schizophrenia diagnosis.

His crimes and life were scrutinized and sensationalized at the time and used heavily as inspiration for a number of thrillers including and most famously the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch and its movie adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock and the character of Buffalo Bill in both book and movie versions of The Silence of the Lambs.

The titular "Psycho" from the movie and novel, Norman Bates, is revealed to have an alter personality modeled after his mother who murders any women who get close to him and Buffalo Bill is a serial killer who wishes to become a woman by kidnapping young women and taking their skin.

Both characters would go on to contribute a lot of stigma to both the mentally ill and those who exist outside of the gender binary.

and... that's just sad. Obviously we know that not every person who experiments with clothing outside of their rigidly state assigned gender allocation will have murderous intention. That's absurd.

An often underlooked line in Silence of the Lambs regarding Bill's gender is Clarice noting "Dr. Lecter, there's no correlation in the literature between transsexualism and violence. Transsexuals are very passive."

Ignoring the over simplification and generalization, it speaks against a public perception of AMAB transgender individuals. The stigma claims that trans women are prone to violent and displays of sexual aggression but the reality does not correspond with this perception at all.

The same is true of those with mental illness, especially when associated with childhood trauma.

Though Psycho does not include a throwaway line that makes him out to be an outlier, the story does depict him forming the evil "Mother" personality through the abuse of his own possessive and controlling mother wanting to keep him away from any other women.

Even in the midst of the stigmatizing depiction they were able to show Norman being meek enough to "never hurt a fly" and having been pacified by the abuse he received at his mother's hands.

The fact is that those with dissociative disorders are known to be far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators.

People with these conditions often had to endure horrible mistreatment, neglect and abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to care for them and that society lets us down by holding these violent and dangerous stereotypes is simply inexcusable.

Even those who have alters capable and willing to use violence, they are formed through self-preservation and do not act "for the fun of the thing" as the Irish Times correspondent put it, much of their violence is turned inwards or used to ward off people and prevent them getting close.

Another highly publicized case that adds to the stigma pool is that of Billy Milligan, convicted in 1975 and formally diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, his life and story have been directly adapted several times, including the infamously stigmatizing Split. Airing this year is a TV adaptation of Milligan's life starring Tom Holland.

It's clear the fascination and assumptions are still well and truly alive. Fact is the murder alter is likely not going to go away anytime soon. It is far too useful a narrative crutch for crime stories where a suspect does not even realize they are the guilty party and though there are only a small number of high profile cases, they have latched on to the public's imagination and been adapted multiple times with those adaptations inspiring further stories.

It's why we need good representation. It's why we want to highlight that good representation as much as we can.

Media, Myself and I is a series of Tumblr posts I make to highlight good representation of dissociative disorders in fiction. I do not claim to be the best at academia or research but I care deeply about the topic.

Originally I was going to use the Jekyll/Hyde stuff to build up to the only murder alter I respect but I think we can wait for another day to hear her laughing wav.

Please scroll the tag if you'd like to see more or click on any of the below essays:

Discworld and Plurality Incidental, intentional and accidental representation Gender, Dissociation and Clinical Stigma in The Third Person Recontextualized Memories in Umineko Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal Gear Solid The Dangers of Hypnotic Personality Play in Penlight System Origins in The Incredible Hulk Relationships with Systems in The Incredible Hulk The Healing Journey in Mr. Robot

Thank you for reading.

#dawn posting #media myself and i #plurality #did #watch me post my trauma in public #jekyll and hyde

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