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flydotnet · 1 year ago

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WHUMPTOBER 2023, DAY 13: “It comes and goes like the strength in your bones.”

Cold Compress | Infection | “I don’t feel so good.”

I suppose the HSAU Taro and AkeJun fics aren't my only annual fic - "Matsuyama gets a wound infected and Yoshiko has to wrestle that out of him" is another. 2021 had my first CT fic, "Little Things", serve as a fill for "Infected Wound". 2022 had "Helping Hand", another challenge fic which was a take on traditional H/C, but make it my OTP. And now 2023 has this fic! Wowie kazoowie, mental illness never stops!

I did swerve a bit on the formula by setting this a year after both LT and HH (…not Hungry Heart)... so that's something, I guess?

Okay, more seriously, the quote prompt was just prime MatsuYoshi material, I couldn't resist. Also, it's Friday, and around here we do F/M Fridays sometimes, and Whumptober won't be an exception dammit.

I owe being on time, somehow, to rewatching some Detective Conan stuff to jolt me back awake. Life hasn't been very nice to my mental health lately, I'm afraid. Oh, and spite. Spite and not wanting to miss my chance at the bingo at the end of the month! Nice carrots to have.

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Fragile in the Rough

Summary: Matsuyama has a confession to make; not of love, but of weakness. It does have a similar level of intimacy, at least.

Fandom: Captain Tsubasa

Word Count: 1.2K words

AO3 version available here.

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There are things you learn throughout your life for which it’s worth sucking up your pride and ask for someone else’s help. There’s improving yourself when just doing it on your own isn’t cutting it anymore. There’s asking for help when it involves someone other than you and your skills or knowledge isn’t enough.

And there’s admitting when you’re not doing well. It takes a bold amount of trust in whoever you need to tell that too, a good assessment of one’s limits and – most painfully – an admission of vulnerability that’s not easy for everyone.

The thing is, right now, that’s exactly when he needs to do, but he can’t do it; yet this isn’t even a matter of pride.

He’d guess, for some, it’d be a gigantic bruise to their ego they may never recover from – but for him, it’s not. How do you expect a good team captain to consider admitting to your weaknesses something to be ashamed of? None of your teammates will ever tell you what’s wrong with them if they read on your face disdain and shame about it. Even just for their sake, upholding such a senseless sense of pride wouldn’t be of any use – quite the opposite.

But this isn’t a matter of pride. He isn’t above admitting he needs help. He has before and he will do it until he dies, that’s just how being a human is. He isn’t stupid enough not to know that nor too proud not to recognize that, actually, today’s difficult on him and he’s tired.

He just hates worrying people, man. Every single time he’s unwell, he sees the weight it puts on the shoulders of those who care about him and the way it drags their faces down. He sees how his friends will drop what they’re doing, ask if he’s fine, and never be able to fully focus back on what they were doing before that. All of it, he hates it, because he isn’t worth distracting yourself. He can take care of himself without any issue… most of the time.

A leader has to take on himself, sometimes – well, in his case, it’s most of the time. He treats colds like he’d treat small scrapes and handles it all on his own. The leader, however, is also the one who serves as an example, and for all of his unwillingness to worry people, there’s also an undeniable feeling that he can’t let his teammates follow in his footsteps, in this instance…

Well, if he’s come to this conclusion, it’s ironically because his brain’s much too fuzzy to properly work on anything and the guys have noticed. Oda has said multiple times he’d take care of his workload and he’s noticed Kato very unsubtly assume a role as assistant coach. Neither of them is slick, but he appreciates it, no matter how much his sense of responsibilities and duty is barking at him to get back to work, not to let anyone worry about him.

Not to mention, there’s nobody he wants to confess this crap to. Who even has time for that? He’s supposed to streamline the team’s efforts, not add onto the pile. A pair of hands is never too much around here, not when there’s snow to shovel away and strategies to brainstorm. All in all, no, there’s nobody he should be telling this stuff about.

Well… that’s not entirely accurate. There is one person he’d be willing to talk to about this. Unfortunately, it happens to be the one person he’d rather not worry at all, because of all people he knows, she’s the one who’s plenty concerned for him already on a good day, perhaps even more so than his parents because she isn’t too used to him yet.

Fujisawa has become perhaps not the centre of his life, but saying she’s half his heart is pretty accurate. The fact they’re even both dating is somewhat of a miracle, because he’s rough and while she’s solid as steel, she’s also soft to the touch and not the sort who likes rubbing elbows and getting dirty. He does love the parts of her who will get her hands dirty and do it, fix what needs to be fixed, without a complaint. Oh, that’s part of why he doesn’t want to burden her with worry, her natural compassion, her strive to take care of issues and the inability to speak of her feelings if she feels they’d also be a burden… (They’re kind of made for each other, in that sense, huh?).

But you know what his parents have always told him? That a husband and a wife are always here for each other – and if they’re not married (they’re sixteen, give them some time dammit)

So there he is, inside the clubroom, holding onto an aching arm that’s not stopped causing him issues for a couple days – hey, maybe it’s part of the issue, actually.

“Hey, Fujisawa,” he says without any real intonation.

She turns around almost immediately, the unhappy expression on her face all but confirming she has noticed something was off before he could even tell her about it.

“Oh, it’s you, Matsuyama,” she greets him. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I… ask you something a bit private?”

The flush that comes to her face, oh so quickly, is beyond endearing. He’s really down bad, but also, isn’t that the point?

“Of course.”

He gets closer to her, to the point where he can start counting her hairs.

“See, I’m a bit, uh… I’m a bit loopy, today.” Yeah that sounds accurate. “By that, I mean, uh… I don’t feel so good.”

He’s pretty sure confessing his feelings to her was less difficult. Even now, he doesn’t really want any of this.

“I thought you were feeling off,” she replies in a tendre tone. “Can I take your rtemperature to check something?”

“Oh, sure, go for it.”

He expects her to get a thermometer from the first-aid kit under the desk; but all she does is tiptoe to his height, push his hair out of the way and put a hand on his forehead. The contact is enough to make him have to repress a chill – it’s not a bad feeling, far from it, just a little overwhelming.

“You do have a fever, I’m pretty sure,” she tells him as she recovers her normal footing.

“Ah, crap, that doesn’t sound good.”

Her eyes slide to his left arm.

“Is your wound not getting any better?”

“Ah, uh… No, it doesn’t seem to. I dunno why, maybe I’ve done something wrong when I dressed it….?”

“Can I check it?”

“Oh, sure! Sure.”

He tends his arm so she can easily unwrap the bandage… or try to, because as it turns out, she has trouble taking off his skin, the damn fabric sticking to the wound. There’s fresh blood just peeking through the worst of it and the stench – oh, he forgot how much this thing stinks.

“It’s gotten infected,” she verbally recoils as she announces it. “That’d explain your fever pretty well…”

He forgot to disinfect the thing the other day. Goddammit, that didn’t sound too hard to do too.

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”

Fujisawa frets a little, looking around, before settling on him back again.

“Can you sit down, please? I’ll take care of it, but I need you to sit still as I do.”

“No worries.” He takes a seat right where she needs him to be. “You’re sure you don’t mind, though? I could do that myself or just ask the nurse.”

“No, it’s fine, I’ve learned to do it. Plus…” She blushes again, right as she opens the first-aid kit. “I want to do it for you.”

“Then go for it.” He watches her prepare the operation with undenied fondness in his eyes. “Thank you so much, Fujisawa.”

“Don’t fret it. Now, I apologize, but it’s going to sting a little…”

A dab of water on the wound just to wash it does remind him to be more careful, next time.

#whumptober 2023 #no.13 #infection #“i don't feel so good”#captain tsubasa #fic #otp: feelings across the ocean

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magistralucis · 2 years ago

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Had my worst confrontation with The Pigs so far, especially awful because I didn’t even intend to stumble upon this. I didn’t choose any hostile options, I was alone (I think having Kim around makes this encounter worse and longer), and I passed the check for the gun just fine... but because I hadn’t talked to the Hardie Boys yet, literally hadn’t approached them at all, my detective had no idea what to do with her afterwards. All his mangled brain could come up with was this:

Sure, Lieutenant ‘I-will-instantly-pull-a-gun-at-a-mentally-ill-old-woman’ Kitsuragi totally would. 🙄 But in his absence, I’m shattered that HDB can’t act on any other option, despite being able to conceptualize one. Logic says it right there: the locals will take care of her. It’s the right answer. In terms of video game logic, this is exactly the sort of thing that'd be a positive modifier for the Hardie Boys talk. Even if you never approached them before, it feels like it’d forward your case if you ask their help, since you have the interests of the vulnerable members of their community in mind. Even if the Hardie Boys aren’t an option, Lilienne is a short distance away, isn’t she? Couldn’t HDB ask the Washerwoman, any other local in Martinaise? If he gives anyone a heads-up, he will have delivered a minimal duty of care.

But no. None of that happens, because this scene isn’t a brownie points exercise, and HDB isn’t a reasonable authority figure. He’s deeply unwell, like The Pigs. He’s been abandoned, like The Pigs. He’s in horrible pain, clinging to the vestiges of a cop identity like her, in the desperate hopes of something real and present to hold onto. This is a man who can barely face his own reflection. Seeing The Pigs, a near doppelganger of what he is and may become, is clearly too much for him to handle. HDB can react with compassion, or he can react with threats and violence, and both threads persist through the very end of the encounter with her.

Mutually exclusive options, but both present, and both possible. They are equally valid indicators of the person HDB is, and since he’s capable of the threat at all, it’s not looking good. And this is his double he’s saying this to. We know HDB hates himself to the point of self-destruction, and didn’t/doesn’t think he can improve (’I don’t want to get better, I want to get worse’): the fact that he can think up the pieces that might help her, yet his posterior neocortex shuts him down before he can put them together, implies to me that HDB is actively refusing to believe he can help The Pigs. He’s afraid to believe. He’s beyond help, after all. Everyone told him so.

He thinks it’s true, too, so the same must go for her, yes?

It’s. It’s just. How fucking broken is HDB that he knows what must be done, but simply cannot connect himself to the idea that he ought to do it. How are we meant to bear that his immediate thought upon seeing this poor woman - this horrific, devastated mirror of himself - is that Kim will know what to do, but he does not, because he convinced himself he’s utterly helpless. ‘Cause obviously, Kim’s stabilizing him, right? Surely Kim can do the same for The Pigs, and since RAC sure as fuck doesn’t know what to do about himself, he might as well just give up if Kim’s not around. So without Kim and without the Hardie Boys, HDB will simply walk away, and never bring up this incident again. It fucking breaks my heart it can’t end any other way. There are no adjectives for this level of self-loathing.

And you know, I bet he’d have reacted similarly had he been with any other RCM officer - Jean, others in Precinct 41, whatever - because he fundamentally doesn’t exist in a system that has compassion for people like this. Note that it is Esprit de Corps, your cop sense, which pipes up first to assert that you can’t help her. ‘’’Protect’’’ and serve my fucking arse

And no, Kim doesn’t know what to do in this situation either, according to FAYDE. Unlike HDB he doesn’t even come up with the right answer, only nightmare fuel, as regular cops with regular thoughts do

oh god. oh god, kim

#disco elysium #disco elysium meta #disco elysium spoilers #harry du bois #kim kitsuragi #the pigs (disco elysium)#magistralucis plays disco elysium #long post #ask for tags #this is a harrowing scene with no good paths and this post is definitely not about the better of those paths #the reason i hadn't talked to the hardie boys yet at this point was because i was testing to see if i could do the shivers check #without having progressed with the investigation at all #i could not. there was no payoff for this and i just abandoned this woman on the boardwalk for nothing #this post is pretty damning i get that but i was just so taken aback i had to scribble it out. no pulled punches in disco elysium no sir

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ottiliere · 3 years ago

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Ok so, 2 things

1. Oh? System Dirks are coming in here to show their appreciation? Because ours also DEVOURS this AU. It is genuinely so relatable and cathartic. When people don't think sharing vent art is good, I point at this AU and how it shows the ugly side of recovery so perfectly.

2. I was idly scrolling through the JTHM tag as I do frequently and got such intense whiplash seeing your recent post about asks in it. Like. Complete opposite side of our dash radar. What is this I hear about a JTHM ask?? I am fascinated already I font care if it's related to Dirk or not I just genuinely would love to hear your thoughts on it.

1) pulling all the dirks who follow me in for a hug through the walls of my plastic isolation bubble. it really makes me so happy to hear this. I can't give an extended answer to this point because I spent so much time talking about the next one but I hope you feel the mind waves of love I am bombarding you with.

2) The ask I got was in fact about Dirk, but as I'm drafting it it is...drifting...very much...into being about JTHM. "hear my thoughts on it" … this would be nothing shorter than a dissertation. I think about JTHM very often. I don't think it's possible for me to be concise about this in any sense of the word.

JTHM, to me, is one of the formative experiences that made me who I am. It is one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever made, that I have ever engaged with, and I know for a fact I will struggle to find something that is told in such a captivating way from an author with such an open soul. I discovered fanart of it by chance on DeviantArt, and, being naturally drawn towards edgier themes, searched everywhere on the internet until I found it uploaded onto some woman's livejournal account. I was obsessed with JTHM for a very, very long time. I reread it periodically, once or twice a year, and I have been doing this since I was 12. It has heavily influecned the way I go about making art and telling stories and engaging with everything I watch or read or what have you.

Everything about this comic blew my mind as a child, artistically absolutely, thematically especially. The narrative style that is glib with occasional moments of morose clarity that never lasts too long... we will never see anything like the suicide scene in anything else ever written again, of that I'm sure. It is unique in its existence. once you read that it unlocks something in your brain and you just can't go back. Multiplied by a million if you read it at a formative age you weren't really supposed to be reading it. Like homestuck.

Nny... he is the base of the character trope I always return to in fiction, usually unconsciously. I didn't realize that what I was doing to dirk mirrored nny until some friends pointed it out... it is a fascinating phenomenon. He is the first of his kind I have ever encountered in anything, ever. Blatantly unwell, the focus of a story that isn't necessarily slotting him into an antagonistic role. Like, he's the protagonist who I guess is also the antagonist but he's also a human. He's this guy with severe mental illness who is lead around like a puppet on strings first by the society that torments him for existing and then by the creature living in his walls that steals his memory and cognitive ability and manipulates him into doing his bidding. I had never seen that before? Usually I am not one for "made mentally ill by inorganic sources" trope, but the fact that it's stated in the comic that he was already seriously unwell before he became a flusher... it's just sad. He is not a good person, but his life is inherently tragic and the outcome of a society that does not care for him, or people like him, at all. forgive me for the comparison, but he is like the joker 2019. I mean this in a way that I love joker 2019. if you didn't like joker, well. sorry. but it's true.

This ties in, obviously, with the way that Jhonen goes about fiction: he does whatever he wants, to an extent. I have recently very closely befriended some individuals and while pondering how we were meshing so well on the creative side of htings, it eventually came to light that the singlemost defining moment in our lives was how we all read JTHM at a very young age. And it is insane, stepping back and looking at all of our narrative and art styles and seeing that the similarities we've all evolved independently stemmed from JTHM, in addition to our view of what it's like to be an artist. we are but jhonen's warriors in a world that is currently characterized by a very homogenized mixture of “art”. I mean, just look at the current box office trend. look at the “genre” that is marvel movies. not that I don’t enjoy marvel movies, I DO like them, my loki phase was strong and hard, but objectively... these things are what they are: mass-produced consumables. there is a reason people got excited when it was announced that Cronenberg was making a new film (which was awesome btw); art is dying. milquetoast narratives, stories afraid to push boundaries and be "weird", authors not trusting the audience to pick up on their intended message so instead of leaving it just a little ambiguous, they must instead spoonfeed it to every reader... There is some equation of what it means to make art and how it equates with your moral standing; my stance has always aligned with dear Jhonen's.

in a way my view of the world is the direct inverse of nny's; I truly believe in the best of people, I love humanity, I love the world and I am fundamentally incapable of being outwardly cruel towards others. my natural setting is to logically empathize, to put myself in the shoes of other people and look at their life the way they're living it. there is nothing more important to me than showing unconditional positive regard towards others. I have not always been this way. I used to foster great amounts of animosity in my heart for the things that have been done to me. I used to be an abjectly miserable person, I used to be violently suicidal every day for years and years and years etc. now though... I don't know how to describe it. something alights upon you after vast quantities of self-reflection, detached from the scrying eyes of swathes of people, of strangers, fandom most relevantly but I do also mean society as a whole. at this point in my life there is nothing more important to me than being a nice person, and helping others in what ways I can. if that's through posting raw depictions of mental illness, I will happily do so. I didn't realize that people didn't KNOW they can do this, and it is heartwarming that I can touch people in such a way even parasocially. I have worked on myself, I love people and I love when people are weird and their true creative selves because that is what the world needs in this day and age. art is dying. If you let bitterness into your heart it will consume you. it will cloud your judgment and prevent you from making a true connection to the medium, it will block you from making what you REALLY want to make. It will poison how you interact with other humans on a fundamental level, if you are constantly walking into interactions suspecting the worst intentions.

it almost seems like critical thinking is a dying skill...or, at least, it is when it comes to interacting with art and not relying on other people to tell you what to think. but even still I still do not hold ire towards those who seek me harm for what I make. I do not answer many of the asks I get on purpose, the death threats, etc... because these people are hurting in a multitude of ways, and they have not yet learned how to cope with their own pain. You could call being an optimist a character flaw, maybe it is. I don't know. That is, for better or worse, the epitome of what I am: an unrelenting pollyanna who believes in the best of people and the potential they have to heal. The one anon hate I got about the AU months ago that I actually deigned with an answer; they eventually came off anon and admitted they were just frustrated they didn't know how to properly use tumblr's UI to filter me off their dashboard and displaced their emotions onto me. They apologized. Such is life. We are all humans inhabiting this great big earth and I love to love people. contrary to what I depict in my art, I am a very happy person. I love my friends and I'm currently in a very good life situation with occasional downfalls and eventual upturns. Jhonen, I know, as stated in the second interview image, was often like this as well. nny was a speakerphone for little observations about life and pessimism; he was a character, a means to tell a story.

so ya I guess those are some of my thoughts about JTHM. not all of them though. here’s some nny

#ask #lucy art #these asks really got me plugged into nny again... expect art soon probably #like besides whats here these are PRACTISE #the power of anonymous users on tumblr #jthm

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border-spam · 4 years ago

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Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #sirens #leech lord #my hcs #my writing

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where-theres-smoak-2 · 4 years ago

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This Needs To Stop.

Trigger warning: Sensitive topics, p*dopilia, grooming, mental health and r*cism.

Ok so this is a bit of a rant so apologies for that, I usually try to stay away from sensitive or controversial topics but this is something that I am passionate about and that I think is important. Also I just want to say that I am in no way directing this to the entirety of the M*lina fandom, I know most are just enjoying their ship, but there are those few who are deliberately seeking out darklina posts or are cross tagging and coming into darklina’s asks and just generally harassing the fandom which sadly I am seeing happen more and more often. Also I do feel like this can apply to all fandoms not just exclusively shadow and bone/ grishaverse, its just this is the one I am experiencing it in right now.

I’ve seen antis call darkling/darklina fans many problematic things, delusional, mentally ill, ab*se apologists. They also like throwing around words like grooming and p*dophile. The thing that makes me angry about this is that they are taking sensitive topics, topics that many users have been effected by and they are using them to attack shippers merely for liking a character or ship that they don’t. What is even more frustrating is they seem to be throwing these words around without evening fully understanding what they even mean. For example the claim that the Darkling is a p*dophile because Alina is only 17 in the books. Well p*dophilia is a psychiatric disorder where adults are attracted to children and in order for it to be classed as p*dophilia the child involved has to be 13 or younger. A 16 year old can be diagnosed as a p*dophile if they become attracted to a child that is five years or more younger than them. So the relationship between the Darkling and Alina does not meet the criteria to be categorised this way as Alina is over the age of 13. As for it being a case of Alina is underaged, well, for one that depends on where in the world you are. This is based on imperial russia, in russia the age of consent is 16. This means that a 16 year old can have a sexual relationship with a 30 year old, a 70 year old or a 500 year old immortal and in a court of law it is still legal, whatever your own moral issues around age gaps might be. Even then it can be argued that it is irrelevant because, as with most historical literature where young girls marry older men, you cannot put modern day concepts onto them. Like I said this story is based on Imperial Russia, the life expectancy of a person in that time was around 30 years old. That means a 15 year old girl is already half way through her life, she is literally middle aged. It is at this point usually that girls started to prepare to get married and have children and yes sometimes it was to an older man because men were expected to provide for their wife and family which means having a house and job and means to support a family which an older man was more likely to have. My point is a 15-17 year old in say Imperial Russia is not the same as a 15-17 year old in modern day therefore you can’t take modern day laws and morals and place them onto that situation, it doesn’t work, they lived completely different lives. In Alina’s world, she is at the age where girls might get married and her being courted by a man of the general’s status would have been a normal occurrence, for her to have caught the attention of someone with his standing would have been considered very advantageous for her. I mean she literally gets two marriage proposals in book 2, where I believe she is still 17, and Nikolai is talking about how if she marries him it’ll be in name only and they can make Mal her guard so she can do the horizontal tango with him whenever she feels like it, so clearly the characters themselves feel like Alina is at an age where she can, one get married, and two be engaging in a sexual relationship.

So why does all of this matter? Well it matters because people reading these posts, asks and comments left on posts, may be victims of p*dophilia and grooming. A lot of these comments don’t have trigger warnings and when you are talking about sensitive and triggering topics like this you need to be careful and when you are talking about them without even really understanding them, and where they can’t apply to the characters you are talking about anyway, then you are potentially triggering someone needlessly because you didn’t need to be talking about it in the first place, I hope I am making sense there. I am not saying don’t talk about these subjects if you do think they are relevant, I am saying make sure you do the research, that you understand the subject you are addressing and when you do talk about it do it in a respectful manner, don’t throw it out there in an angry spew accompanied by alot of other derogatory words because that won’t help anyone.

Another subject I want to talk about is I am also seeing a lot of posts about how darklinas must be delusional or mentally unwell. This, again, is hurtful and harmful. Mental illness for a very long time has had a stigma around it, one that makes the person suffering from it feel weak and ashamed. There was always the attitude of if you are mentally ill then there is something wrong with you, or the attitude of oh just get over it, cheer up, think a different way. But mental illness isn’t just a state of emotion its often caused by hormonal imbalances and chemicals. Genetics can also play a part. There is nothing wrong with someone who is mentally ill their brain is just wired a different way. I also find it problematic when people throw around the word delusional. Maybe its nothing to you, just a word, but alot of mental illnesses have actual delusions as one of their symptoms. These can be scary and upsetting and are outside the control of the person experiencing them. Making the suggestion that liking a particular ships means you are delusional is potentially very triggering to those who do battle delusions and have fought to overcome them. The stigma around mental illness has prevented alot of people suffering from mental illness from seeking help out of shame or embarrassment or even out of fear of being judged and although I do feel like as a society we’ve become alot more open about mental health and alot more accepting there is still a long way to go. When antis start saying things like ‘I can’t believe people ship this, they must be mentally ill,’ or ‘they must be sick in the head’, or ‘if you like this ship than you must be delusional’ not only are they being incredibly prejudice against people who have mental illnesses but it is also so harmful because if there is someone reading that post who is struggling with their mental health and are considering seeking help then you’ve just made them feel more ashamed, more like there is something wrong with them which will make them even less likely to seek out help and as I said before there isn’t anything wrong with a person who has a mental health condition they are just different from you. That doesn’t give you the right to make them feel like they are less capable of deciding what they do or do not like or even what they should or should not like to be classified as a ‘normal’ person.

The most latest problematic statements I’ve seen have been those accusing Darklina’s of being r*cist. This one I found a bit funny in a it’s not funny kind of way. I just don’t think there is much logic behind this view point. I’m not sure I understand the antis reasoning here. Mostly because I’m pretty sure the majority of the Darklina fandom comes from the books where Mal is described as being a white, brown haired, blue eyed guy. Funnily enough the Darkling is described as being able to pass for Shu, though to be clear it isn’t confirmed that he is a POC, but out of the two in the books the Darkling is more likely to be a POC than Mal. On top of that whilst many darklina fans have made it clear they are not a fan of Mal in the books many have said they like the show version of Mal who, as we all know, the actor Archie is a POC. So by anti logic darklinas are all r*cist because they don’t like book Mal who is depicted as white but we do like show Mal who is a POC. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I do understand that there were some ‘fans’ who made inappropriate and r*cist comments to some cast members including Archie and I would never ever condone that no matter who I ship. But you also can’t condemn an entire fandom just because of the actions of a select few. I don’t judge all M*linas for that one fan who accused Ben of being a pr*dator and p*dophile because of his friendship with Jessie. Once again my point is r*cism is a serious topic and not something someone should use as a retort or comeback to someone not shipping your ship. When we use these words casually it makes it less likely that they’ll be taking seriously when they really do need to be taken seriously, when they really are relevant to what is happening. If we keep using them so casually then when we really do need to talk about them, when it really matters, people will just shrug and go ‘its just antis being antis.’

I think it is possible for people to like different things, to debate and analyse different relationships and characters and talk about what flaws they may have in a respectful manner. I wouldn’t say I am anti m*lina but at the same time there are things about them that I find problematic but when I talk about those things I hope I do so in a way that doesn’t demean those who do like the ship. I understand that people will have a different interpretation than me and whilst I might not understand where their thinking comes from or why they have a particular opinion I would never make the assumption that they are mentally unwell or make judgements on their character or morals. I try to think about the words I am writing. I know how easy it can be to just throw a word out there without thinking about it. I used to use the word delusional to describe fans of certain ships, but when I recognised how damaging and problematic that was I stopped and I changed my behaviour because it was never my intention to hurt others. I guess the main message I am trying to convey here is we need to be careful with our words they’re not as insignificant as we might think.

#darklina #anti anti #anti anon hate #anti anti darklina #excuse the rant

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voiceless-terror · 4 years ago

Note

hi friend!!!! i love your writing!!! if you're taking prompts from the bingo card (if you're not then feel free to delete this!!), how about N5 for Jon? :) i hope you have a great day!!

‘fighting to pay attention to urgent information’ ahh i love this prompt!! thank you so much for the ask, it means a lot since i love your writing so much (and it inspired me to starting posting my stuff, to be honest). Here you go, I hope you like! This takes place right after Sasha makes her statement to Jon in season one.

Sasha is talking but Jon can’t hear her.

It’s all muddled in his mind. So many things have happened over the last couple of weeks- Martin’s worm attack and now Sasha’s encounter with Michael- and his mind is refusing to process. She gave her statement in his office and was now explaining the situation to Martin and Tim while Jon stood awkwardly in the doorway, trying to nod at the appropriate time.

“We’ll need a plan of attack if Prentiss comes or if any of us encounter Michael again,” she’s saying. “Martin’s already living here, but-”

A plan. Yes. A plan would be good but Jon can’t think beyond Sasha bleeding in his office and Martin throwing open his door demanding to be heard. The worms on the pavement crawl and creep and remind him of something he thought he’d finally put behind him but he’s been chasing it the entire time, hasn’t he?

His body feels at once too hot and too cold. Jon’s never understood that about illness. How a body can burn with fever and shake with a chill at the same time. But he’s not sick, he’s just...overwhelmed. Needs to eat a normal meal, needs to get some sleep. If he could just get a deep breath in his lungs the black spots would stop dancing in front of his vision and he could pay attention and come up with a plan.

But every other word is ‘worms’ and ‘infestation’ and all matter of disturbing things and his mind goes wild with imagination, horrible scenarios playing out in his mind as his breaths turn into an uneven staccato of sound that he tries to stifle.

“-could get more CO2 you think? Jon?” That’s your name.

“A-Ah, yes. I’ll t-talk to Elias.” Sasha nods and Jon is relieved to have said the right thing. The fog in his brain lifts; the panic eases for just a few moments but it only reveals more physical pain and he starts to shake. He knows he needs to sit down soon or he’ll be lying on the ground either way. So he slowly backs out of the room, hoping no one notices as his hands grasp at the wall for balance. He manages to stumble back to Document Storage before he hears someone calling his name. But he’s lost now, barely breathing as his heart stutters in his chest and he sinks to the floor.

________

Martin had been watching Jon while Sasha spoke. Martin watched Jon a lot- innocently, of course, and Jon never seemed to notice. He was either willfully ignorant or really that oblivious.

Martin was starting to double down on the ‘willfully ignorant’ theory.

Jon was nodding along, sure. But his face held a detached blankness, as if each word were in one ear and out the other. Of course he would zone out during this conversation; it involved real, actual supernatural occurrences. He only contributed once, a vague promise to talk to Elias, who was turning out to be a very useless manager. Martin thought Jon was getting better about this. After all, he seemed to believe both Martin and Sasha’s stories. But he watched as Jon moved further and further out of the room when he should be contributing to the conversation. He disappeared down the hallway and Martin let out an irritated sigh, drawing Tim and Sasha’s attention.

“What’s up?” Tim asked from his perch on Sasha’s desk. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna figure this out-”

“It’s not-” Martin got up, starting to make his way down the hallway. “It’s Jon. I can’t believe he would just walk out on this. I’m going to go talk to him.”

“Martin-” Sasha sounded hesitant but he ignored her as he spotted the open door to Document Storage. Why would Jon go here instead of his office? This was Martin’s room with his things. And I didn’t exactly keep it clean. “Jon?” he called out. “Jon, you need to- what are you doing?”

The man was leaning against his cot, knees brought up to his chest as he stared at the floor. His glasses were tucked into his sweater and his hair was a mess, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. And he was ignoring Martin in favor of whatever the hell he found so interesting about the floor. Martin stooped down to his level, ignoring the twinge in his knees on the cold cement. “What’s going on?” he asked again, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. God, Jon could be so infuriating at times, but he was still concerned.

Jon barely spared him a glance and tightened his arms around his knees, looking like a ball of tension. His shoulders moved very minutely upwards in a sort of shrugging motion and Martin thought he heard a mumble of ‘’nothing, fine,” under his breath and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He moved in closer, setting a firm hand on Jon’s bony shoulder- when did he get so thin?

“Look, I know it’s a lot,” Martin tried for comfort, though it was getting harder and harder to do so these days when the man refused to see reason. “But you can’t just bury your head in the sand whenever someone says something you don’t want to hear, alright? We’re all struggling and it would be a lot easier if we had a boss who actually listened instead of- shit.”

Jon was shaking so much. How had he not noticed? His breathing was off, like a sputtering engine as his white-knuckled grip dug into his knees. His face was ashen and sweaty. He was clearly unwell but he opened his mouth anyway in an attempt to respond. His eyes did not meet Martin’s.

“It’s- it’s all I think about,” he began, his voice more of a croak than the smooth baritone Martin was used to. “She’s after us, after you and Sasha and now there’s Michael and I don’t know what to do.” Martin watched in horror as his eyes filled with tears and his voice trembled. “And- and what if I go home and she’s waiting there? What if she gets Tim? What if we aren’t safe anywhere?” A slender hand shot out and grabbed onto Martin’s sweater, startling him as Jon’s eyes met his own with a desperate fervor. “I-I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. And Elias doesn’t even care, just w-watches while we all scramble around doing- doing-” his voice broke into a hacking cough and Martin couldn’t witness any more. He dislodged Jon’s hand and backed away. Seeing Jon like this was uncomfortable and he wasn’t sure what to do about it, so he went into his natural problem-solving mode. “I’m going to get you some water, yeah? You’re- you’re not well, we can talk about this later.” Despite keeping his voice soft and low, Martin watched as Jon shrunk into himself, desperately trying to stifle his coughs. “I’ll be right back.”

He hightailed it out of the storage area, eyes firmly on the ground and steps so quick he didn’t notice Tim until he ran right into him.

“Oof! What’s wrong, Martin?” Tim said as he grabbed him by the shoulder. “Boss giving you trouble?” Martin shook his head, voicing his next words as diplomatically as possible.

“He’s, um- I think he’s sick?” Tim’s brow furrowed in concern. “I’m just going to get him some water, yeah.” He walked off before Tim could ask another question; he didn’t want to leave Jon alone for too long but he also didn’t want to be subjected to Tim’s questioning.

It only took him a couple of minutes to grab some water and a cold towel but by the time he got back to the room Jon was laid out on his cot, eyes barely open as Tim said something Martin couldn’t hear and smiled softly at the man in the bed. He knew they’d all known each other before the Archives; it was something that he thought about quite a bit, to be honest. But he’d never really seen Jon interact with someone like this, so quiet and trusting that he nodded off right in front of them.

“There you are!” Tim said, uncharacteristically quiet. He reached out and Martin handed over the supplies, still stupefied by the whole situation.

“Just gonna let him sleep for a mo’ before I force this down his throat,” he chuckled as he gently placed the towel on his forehead. “Glad you checked up on him- didn’t realize he was having a rough go of it. I’m usually a bit more observant.”

“We’re all having a rough go of it, Tim,” Martin felt like he had to explain some of his frustration. “How did he let himself get to this point? I mean, he’s always so skeptical on the tapes but it turns out he’s worked himself up so much he’s sick and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“We all tell our lies, Martin,” The words weren’t said unkindly, but he remembered that Tim knew about his resume and though he didn’t think the man would ever tell anyone it did seem like the words were rather pointed. “His coping mechanism is all this skeptic nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrible and very annoying,” Tim conceded, giving Martin a knowing look. “But not all of us ended up here accidentally. Most of us are here for answers. For a reason.” Tim’s far off look reminded him that he knew so little about the people he worked with. He wondered what Tim’s reason was, what Jon’s was. And if they would ever feel comfortable enough to confide in him.

Martin doesn’t know how to respond to those words, so he does what he does best- deflect and nervously offer his services. “I can throw the kettle on, maybe order some takeaway? Food would probably make him feel better.”

“Yeah, reckon it would,” Tim’s just staring at Jon as he fitfully dozed. Tim may not have been attacked directly but he looked tired and worried all the same. “He likes Thai.”

Martin noted the fact down for his mental file on Jonathan Sims. Hates spiders. Likes his tea with milk, no sugar. Hates my handwriting. Likes Thai. It’s not very comprehensive.

Later, when he’s making tea in the break room, he watches as Sasha slips into the hallway to Document Storage, attempting to go unnoticed. She’s got a hand to her shoulder like she’s trying to rub away the ache and Martin grabs some paracetamol out of the cabinet, knowing both her and Jon will need it. Everyone in the Archives likes to hide their pain, himself included. But maybe for one night they could help each other out. Four tired humans against two eldritch abominations.

Martin could get behind those odds.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065482

#asks #my writing #tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #sickfic #prompt #panic attacks cw #taylortut #thank you for the prompt! i loved it

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agent-cupcake · 5 years ago

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Dimitri and mental illness

**Warnings for Blue Lions spoilers and armchair psychology

Depending on who you ask, Dimitri is an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. Arguments for both sides have been exhausted, usually in the form of the popular Edelgard versus Dimitri debate, but I feel that both statements are heavily flawed and, truthfully, I think I take more issue with the former. Does it strike anyone else as rather patronizing that the audience (and the game, to an extent) treats Dimitri like an innocent, broken uwu soft boy both before the time skip and once he begins his recovery arc? Of course, a lot of this can be blamed on the awful pacing and poor writing of said recovery (which is the most valid structural critique of his character imo), but there’s a lot to be said about the fan depiction of Dimitri and the way people treat his mental illness. I think the reason this gets me is because I see it as an extension of the problems I have with the romanticization of male-specific mental illness. In this case, “all depressed boys are emasculated, soft, sad bois” and “anger is an accessory that is vanished once the cute boy takes it off” with the related sentiment of “the only two real mental illnesses are depression and anxiety, with a splash of PTSD for argument's sake”. And, speaking of arguments, while many people bring up mental illness in regards to the discussion around Three Houses characters, it is often supplementary to support their points rather than the main point unto itself. Dimitri’s mental illness (aka, the thing his entire arc is predicated upon) is mostly given only a passing recognition in the discussion of his actions. Even then, it’s often used as a justification to defend or lambaste him.

TL;DR Dimitri is a flawed person with a debilitating and incredibly well written mental illness that, while not excusing his actions, allows for further exploration of his character and a well-deserved shot at a recovery arc that is not usually awarded to people with the “non-traditional” mental illnesses. Furthermore, the game offers a wealth of insight as to what they intended his mental illness to be, the symptoms that manifested, and a plausible background to match up with it all and I have the receipts to prove it. Let’s go~

“Me? Oh. Um. Please forgive me... It's difficult to open up on the spot, don't you think? I'm afraid my story has not been a pleasant one... I do hope that doesn't color your view of me, but I understand if that can't be helped.”

I know that mental illness can be singularly caused by a traumatic event or events. That is, generally, how I see people framing Dimitri’s mental illness. My argument, however, is that the Tragedy of Duscur was not the genesis, but the trigger for issues that would exist otherwise. Perhaps it’s due to my own personal experience with mental illness, but I’m almost always more inclined to believe that issues stem from an unlucky combination of many things.

Regardless, my evidence to entertain the idea that he would be naturally predisposed to mental illness is slim. Aside from arguing that it wouldn’t be out of the question for his mother to have been unwell while she was pregnant with him considering she would later die of plague (a cause that in and of itself is subject to skepticism), I would bring up his Crest. In-game there is clear proof that Crests have wide-reaching effects on the person, there are actually a few analysis posts that hypothesize that Crests could be the reason for certain character motivations. In ng+, the Crest of Blaiddyd is called the Grim Dragon Sign. There’s no definitive proof to point to here, but if his Crest was one of the reasons for his mental deterioration it would follow other rules set in-game. Rather than inherited human genetics creating the blueprint for mental issues and the writers having to face that issue on its own terms, it was the Crest’s influence. This goes along with the fact that the game never overtly references Dimitri’s illness, essentially using “the dead” as a blanket symptom of his problems. Both these things are cool ways to imply a possible way to read more deeply without having to use anachronistic medical terms.

Side note: There’s something uncomfortable about the idea of a Crest that gives the individual inhuman strength and mental issues. Grim Dragon indeed.

My next point is one that I don’t see being brought up too often in regards to how it might have affected Dimitri, likely because the events that came later in his life far overshadow it, but Dimitri lost his mom when he was young. The date is not given, but I think it’d be when he was about six-ish. Admittedly, the timeline is strange and non-specific around here but if that were true, it would mean that the plague, Dimitri’s mother’s death, and Lambert and Rodrigue’s war campaign to subjugate the southern half of Sreng would all have happened around the same time. Dimitri says he doesn’t remember it, but that doesn’t necessarily matter. At six years old he had lost one parent and the other one left him to go on a battle march, leaving this child without any sort of parent figure to console him in a country that is culturally opposed to expressing emotion. Lambert will probably always remain a mystery, but I think it could be fair to say he was a poor father. Or at the very least a distant one. Dimitri was undoubtedly a sensitive child (if we’re to judge by the sensitive person he grew up to be) and during the years where he was actually becoming old enough to remember, he had nobody to teach him how to properly navigate and manage his emotions. Emotional neglect in a child who is predisposed to being emotional and empathetic can leave them suffering from a sense of isolation, an inability to ask for help, and a predisposition to having break downs as they get older.

But three-ish years later, possibly one of the best things that ever would happen to Dimitri came to pass and Lambert married Patricia. Dimitri adored her.

“I share no blood with my stepmother, but to hear you say that... It pleases me greatly. She was the one who raised me. I suppose it makes sense that we would share certain mannerisms.” (Dimitri’s B support with Hapi)

I don’t think Dimitri’s feelings about Patricia can be overstated, as I feel it’s one of the most defining aspects of his reactions to things that happen later on. Dimitri talks about Patricia more lovingly than he talks about Lambert. She was in his life for around four to five years but had such an impact on him that even his mannerisms are similar.

Soon after, a ten-year-old Dimitri made his first friend that wasn’t knightly, who didn’t embody those Faerghus ideals of stifling emotions and swinging swords.

People point out the Faerghus crew as Dimitri’s best friends, and yet Edelgard is the one associated with his best memories. It’s just my own assumptions, but I think that it’s because both Edelgard and Patricia gave Dimitri space to be an emotional child, to not have to be the knightly prince who had no emotions and engaged only in the most masculine of activities. And, I mean, look at them. He’s learning to dance and she’s bossing him around, absolutely no regard for propriety.

It’s pretty clear that Dimitri doesn’t feel romantic feelings towards Edelgard in the academy phase, but I think it would be fair to say she was his first love when they were young. He essentially says this was the best year of his life and establishes Edelgard as someone very precious to him (as well as the daughter of one of the most precious people to him). Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not?

Google says that eleven to fourteen is the general age of male puberty. It’s the time that kids begin to more fully define how they’re going to emotionally interact with people and the world at large. Meeting Edelgard was at the cusp of this period of Dimitri’s life, and the Tragedy of Duscur was right in the midst of it.

And we all know what that turned out.

Dimitri’s accounts of what happened during the Tragedy are... conflicting. This CG of an unharmed Dimitri in a field of corpses is... conflicting.

“My father...was the strongest man I knew. Someone I loved and admired deeply. That said, he was killed before my eyes. His head severed clean off. My stepmother, the kindest person I had ever known, left me behind and disappeared into the infernal flames.”

I’ve seen people create a plausible scenario in which Dimitri’s recollection is entirely accurate, where he saw Lambert call for revenge and get beheaded, saw Glenn’s ruined body and face twisted in pain, saw his step-mother disappear into the flames, and all despite the raging chaos of the battle and how people would undoubtedly be targeting the prince, but I think it makes more sense that his memories are unreliable. Dimitri suffered a severe head injury (very important to keep in mind) at Duscur. Maybe that happened early on, after seeing who attacked Lambert but before he was an actual target himself, which merely made him look dead. Maybe he saw a version of the events he described, but through the filter of confused head trauma, smoke inhalation, and intense terror. To think that his recollection isn’t exactly entirely reliable sets a precedent for his later skewed take on reality.

Regardless of opinion, though, the facts are that Dimitri left Duscur with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After that, from thirteen to seventeen, Dimitri was pretty isolated. Most of the people he cared about were dead. His entire emotional support system (Patricia) was gone. He saved Dedue (although they were definitely not on even terms, that relationship is unbalanced to the extreme) and occasionally saw Rodrigue (who I have no reason to believe was emotionally accommodating in any way considering the way he sees Dimitri as an extension of Lambert to his dying breath). Again, it’s strange. People act like Dimitri was super close friends with the Faerghus crew, that he was surrounded by people who loved him (although it is clear there is a lot of love there), but he never presents things in a way to imply that’s the case. In fact, he highlights his isolation:

“In Duscur, I lost my father, stepmother, and closest friends. I didn't have many allies at the castle after that. In truth, I had only Dedue for companionship.”... “I once had people I could confide in. Family, friends, instructors, even the royal soldiers. But they were all taken away from me four years ago.” (Dimitri’s C support with Byleth.)

Two years passed before the next time Dimitri saw his friends and it was a war campaign, putting down the rebellion in western Faerghus. Dimitri speaks about those battles from a place of deeply affected emotion, expressing empathy, pain, and disgust with his actions and the killing.

“I recall coming across a dead soldier's body. He was clutching a locket. Inside was a lock of golden hair. I don't know to whom it belonged. His wife, his daughter...mother, lover... I'll never know.... in that moment, I realized he was also a real person, just like the rest of us… Killing is part of the job, but even so... There are times when I'm chilled to the bone by the depravity of my own actions.” (Dimitri’s B Support with Byleth)

I love this support, honestly. It’s so very telling about the destructive quality of empathy. Although caring can be a good thing, it’s also arguably one of the most destructive of Dimitri’s qualities. His empathy is what presents him with situations he cannot accept, the thing that pushes him to disassociate from reality so he can be rid of it and fight without remorse like he was taught to do by his father and other soldiers. Dimitri is a man of extremes. Either total control or none, without any room for error. This dialogue is also the first time Dimitri brings up reconciling himself with reality and hints to the fact that he has been unable to do so. This is contrasted perfectly in this line from Felix,

“The way you suppressed that rebellion... It was ruthless slaughter and you loved every second. I remember the way you killed your victims. How you watched them suffer. And your face...that expression. All the world's evil packed into it...” (Dimitri’s C Support with Felix)

Dimitri doesn’t deny this. Just like all of the other terrible things Felix says, he takes it without protesting in an act of what I think is stilted contrition. Although, it’s not just in supports that Dimitri’s contrasting behavior is brought up. The Remire incident probably works as a good reference for what Felix saw all those years back.

This is the first time we see Dimitri’s darker side in full. The similarities in the situation to what is shown to have happened in the Tragedy of Duscur are interesting. The fire, the utter chaos, strange figures watching it all from above. This is another case of a perfect disaster. I wonder if his ultimate snap would have been so destructive if not for Remire.

Anyway, this draws parallels to his and Felix’s separate recall of the rebellion because later Dimitri apologizes.

“Professor... I...I'm sorry you saw that side of me in the village… When I saw the chaos and violence there...my mind just went completely dark.”

Dimitri is unreliable. A lack of control, a separation of self, and becoming consumed by a dark rage only to come to his senses later, full of shame and a sense of confusion about why. From my own experience, it’s not unnatural to come out of an episode like this without being able to explain what was happening and being baffled by your behavior. This firmly establishes Dimitri’s uncomfortably fast mood shifts in relation to his trauma from the Tragedy and confirms all of the warnings Felix had given. When Dimitri was faced with a reality he could not accept, he lost control of his emotions and his mental state shifted to adapt accordingly.

This is when I’d also like to note something interesting about how Dimitri discusses his trauma. He is very honest and open about his experiences, explaining exactly what happened to him to Byleth. However, he uses the truth to hide. In recounting the events of the Tragedy of Duscur, in talking about how his family died and saying how badly it hurt him, he does not make himself vulnerable. When he admits weakness, he does so in the past tense or apologetically, vowing to be stronger. “Stronger”, aka, he’ll be better in suppressing his emotions.

“I always strive to keep my emotions at bay, but... Sometimes the darkness takes hold and...it's impossible to suppress. It just shows you how lacking I am... I have much to learn.”

Dimitri lies by using the truth, shoving down his feelings, and blaming himself rather than attempting to figure out how to handle his emotions. In his own words:

“Everyone has something that is unacceptable within them. I certainly do, and I'd wager you do as well. I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway...”

Good advice Dimitri. Might want to keep that in mind.

It is at this point is when I’m going to get into my personal thoughts and armchair psychiatry nonsense.

First off, when I mentioned earlier about “non-traditional” mental illness, I did not mean abnormal or rare. Although people mostly just point to Dimitri having PTSD (and depression) as the source of his issues, I’m going to use all of my above information to make the (decently common) argument that Dimitri is schizophrenic, which is, contrary to popular belief, not too unusual. I state that with the caveat that I understand that there’s a lot to be said about schizophrenia and the tumultuous relationship between mental health and fiction. However, now is not really the time to go into mental health politics and representation or the many lies spread about the illness so instead, I recommend that you read into the topic if you’re personally interested (This has some good information).

At the very least be aware that this IS sensationalized.

That said, Dimitri does not, to my understanding using grossly simplified terms, meet the qualifications generally (very generally) used to diagnose schizophrenia through the majority of the White Clouds chapters. These qualifying symptoms include, but are not limited to, the duration of the psychotic episode, the concurrent presence of hallucinations and delusions, and a greatly lowered ability to keep up with basic quality-of-life tasks. You only see these symptoms in the final chapter of White Clouds and the first few of Azure Moon. This isn’t unusual, however, because schizophrenia manifesting fully in younger individuals is extremely uncommon, sometimes taking years to trigger during a person’s late teens. And since the diagnosis generally relies on the occurrence of a psychotic episode, it can be mistaken as other mood disorders. Actually, the idea of him having a mood disorder was one of the things that caught my eye originally. Prodromal symptoms such as depression, irritability, headaches, sleep disruption, and mood swings are common in bipolar disorder (and, of course, schizophrenia).

Still, I don't deny that Dimitri has PTSD and depression, only that I don’t think PTSD is his main (or only) issue. In reality, PTSD and schizophrenia are closely tied. They share many symptoms, even the symptom of psychosis. There’s also evidence that those with genetic precedent to develop PTSD overlap with those at risk for schizophrenia, and that the nature of PTSD triggers can act as a severe stressor to aggravate a schizophrenic episode.

(From here)

This falls into the realm of being uncertain where one ends the other begins, highlighting the lack of concrete understanding about schizophrenia and the dependency of diagnosis and treatment to rely entirely on the individual experience, but that’s not a conversation I’m actually qualified to have.

The study that truly caught my eye and while researching for this was one called “Psychiatric disorders and traumatic brain injury”. As I mentioned, at some point during the Tragedy, Dimitri sustained severe head trauma. We know this because of his development of the rare inability to taste called ageusia. I was originally interested in following this narrative thread because, as you might know if you follow true crime cases, there are many murderers who recall having sustained a head injury as children. Not that Dimitri shares similar psychology to people that kill and eat their victim's feet... Although his body count is higher. Besides that, head trauma, in general, is known to be linked to mental illness and altering a person’s behavior. There is even a correlation between TBI (traumatic brain injury) and schizophrenia.

From the study I linked above:

To put it more simply, patients in the study who had suffered TBI and developed schizophrenia reported that their most common symptoms were delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, and aggressive behaviors. The auditory hallucinations were often voices. Many of the subjects experienced psychotic episodes two or more years after the initial incident (although, as I mentioned, Dimitri’s age could also have something to do with the timing as children rarely have fully developed schizophrenic episodes). Furthermore, the behaviors classified as an absence of normal behaviors called “negative symptoms” (which include apathy and disordered speech) were rare in this testing group.

Dimitri exclusively displays “positive” symptoms of schizophrenia (“positive” meaning the presence of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions). He also clearly suffers from delusions of persecution in his belief that Edelgard is the sole instigator of Duscur and the war and that he immediately accuses Byleth of being an Imperial spy upon meeting them post time skip. I think it’s pretty fascinating how closely Dimitri’s symptoms follow the outline of the study, especially with the aggressive behaviors, as those aren’t actually very common in schizophrenics.

In very, very simplistic terms, if I’m right and Dimitri was born with the genetic blueprint for schizophrenia/PTSD (through Crests, inheritance, or environmental causes) and later suffered severe head trauma in an event that also gave him PTSD in combination with his pre-existing parental issues and stilted emotional development, then this could definitely create the type of person who loses all sense of reality, can’t control his emotions, and is prone to episodes of murderous rage when being reminded of the trigger (however tangentially) of losing everything he loved.

However, I’ll add real quick that the study I mentioned should be taken with a grain of salt.

I use it mainly because I thought the similarities were interesting and it shows that there was more thought put into Dimitri than maybe people appreciate.

This brings us to my final point; Some kind of twisted joke.

A major point I saw being made as proof of how terrible Dimitri is as a character was that he blamed Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur (a time where she would have been twelve). More accurately, he blamed her for everything that had happened and the thing is, I don’t disagree with that critique entirely. However, this is a case of him being a bad person, not a bad character. This might seem like an odd distinction, but I think it changes the scope of deserved criticism.

As I’ve been trying so desperately to illustrate, Dimitri snapping wasn’t just because of Edelgard being revealed as the Flame Emperor. Rather, it was an unlucky combination of many things. His grasp and interpretation of reality were already hazy at best by the time she was unmasked, slowly falling apart as his prodromal symptoms worsened. Going into the fight, he believed the Flame Emperor to be responsible in whole or in part for the worst thing that had ever happened to him, guessed at Arundel’s involvement, had found (and lied about) the dagger, and was rapidly mentally deteriorating. While Dimitri suspected Edelgard’s involvement to some degree, he did his best to act like it wasn’t true.

Dimitri didn’t want it to be true. To the extent that he was willing to lie to Byleth (and to himself) to avoid reality. He cared deeply about Edelgard. The best year of his life was spent with her, she was his first love, and she was the daughter of the step-mother he adored. Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not? This reveal confronted Dimitri with something that he could not accept, so his mind sidestepped the issue altogether. Delusion convinced him that all of the fears and worries he had beforehand were related, all into one larger delusion that Edelgard had sole responsibility. It’s not right and maybe not even excusable, but it falls in line with everything else.

Edelgard and Dimitri. Bound by some twisted fate but forever doomed to be separated, unable to understand the other’s chosen path.

I do recognize the flaws of Dimitri’s character and arc. There are some pretty major flaws. I have parts of a post typed out about his shoddy recovery and how I’d fix it that, hopefully, one day will see the light of day as well as many complaints about the way the story is hindered by the need for flexibility to accommodate gameplay and a happy ending.

But, despite that, this has all been a very long-winded way of praising Dimitri’s writing. His mental illness has a surprising amount of depth and I loved studying it as intently as I did. I learned a lot about his character as well as about mental illness in general.

Ultimately, Dimitri is neither an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. You can feel bad for his pain and his struggle with his illness and understand that as a reason for his actions, but you shouldn’t use it as justification. He had the opportunity to seek help before things got too bad. He was selfish with the mismanagement of his emotions and goals. However, he also was a victim. Dimitri worked to recover and mend the mistakes he made while he was unwell, which is a side of this mental illness that is rarely shown in media.

I wholeheartedly believe that, love him or hate him, Dimitri is the most well-written of the Three Houses characters,

#dimitri #fe dimitri #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fire emblem 16 #fire emblem #FE3H #fire emblem three houses #i spent an ungodly amount of time on this feel free to share your thoughts

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blookmallow · 5 years ago

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uhHH well i finished rusty lake roots... there are still many things i do not understand but wow that sure was. a lot

-----

oh. ohhhh i was right

albert did get into voodoo

i mean really if you have enough blood to write a sentence with it i think thats more of a “there is blood” scenario but i guess that’s just semantics really

anyway uhhHHh that happened,

oH god what the fuck ok apparently mary’s dead now too

i dont know what killed her other than like, old age, maybe. shock?? could’ve been a heart attack if she. saw what albert did to his brother and ida

the kid with the glasses Was emma’s son and she Did commit suicide in her grief when he went missing

still dont know where he came from in the first place but nevermind

what the hell kind of egg is that (the second thing. the first thing is a potato)

it’s. it’s that kind of egg, isn’t it.

is that what that looks like???? i was under the impression human “eggs” are like, microscopic, like you can’t visually see individual sperm cells and i couldn’t really find a clear answer trying to look this up and got kinda freaked out about it anyway (pregnancy/uterus functions fuck me up sdfgggh) but

APPARENTLY, AFTER MURDERING HER (AND HIS BROTHER) ALBERT HAS DECIDED TO HARVEST IDA’S EGGS FROM HER BODY AND CREATE HIS OWN FETUS SOMEHOW HIMSELF

I DONT THINK THATS HOW THAT WORKS BUT UH. ALBERT???? WE NEED TO TALK

god fucking damn it i liked him so much and wanted to understand him and i still think it’s heavily implied he was abused and/or bullied by his siblings and he’s definitely mentally unwell and definitely had some kind of rivalry going on with samuel, definite “wants what he has” situation but

i guess “murdered his brother and his wife, apparently harvested eggs from her corpse to Make A Child With Her after she rejected him” is uuhhhh not really redeemable is it :’ ) god

or im not sure if she actually rejected him or if he ever made any advances on her in the first place but. definite “she belonged to me/should have been Mine” possessive behavior ramped up to 11

i still think he needed Help and maybe wouldn’t have turned out like this if he got help and had support from his family but my god what a. series of events that was

also this guy keeps showing up everywhere. i dont know what he is but i like him even though he may be some kind of shadow of impending doom or a personification of death

BIG fan of the implication here that i may in fact have been a ghost the whole time, subtly influencing the events of my own family destruction in an effort to sacrifice them all to resurrect myself

is that what all this is. did all this happen because william was haunting everybody trying to get the pieces to revive himself. was this man willing to destroy his entire family line for the chance to live again

oh FUCK THE KID’S STILL ALIVE

HE DIDN’T DIE IN THE WELL HE’S JUST BEEN LIVING DOWN THERE THIS WHOLE TIME. OK

how did nobody hear him calling for help or anything...

guess what

i fucking killed the hand again

apparently albert also knows about this??? and never told anyone??? fucking why??????? he doesn’t seem to be Using the dude for anything, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to keep him down here unless it’s just some fucked up revenge thing on his sister

also i dont think it was albert’s hand that i stabbed Again bc he’s not bleeding when he shows up but

is he the one who has been keeping him alive?? why. what purpose is served in keeping him alive if he’s not using him for anything. if hes just trying to get back at his sister why not just kill the guy or leave him to starve down here. Albert What The Fuck Are You Doing

hey buddy!!!!! its u!!!!

i was wrong it seems like mr. crow is not a voodoo curse victim but is actually probably the first vanderboom brother. the not william one. i forgot his name :’) and i still definitely think william’s going to become mr. owl

i found this picture later (it was shown before but i didnt remember) (also has. puzzle stuff on it but anyway) its definitely the same suit thats it isnt it

i dont want to go searching for the pic of the other brother and the one of mr owl bc ill probably just find spoilers if i do that but Hm. hmm.

is this how the revival ritual works. do u become a bird. is that why everyone else at the hotel was animals too

that would mean the brothers have already done the ritual once though and would’ve needed a bunch of sacrifices to do it before so maybe not

albert’s bizarre science experiment child seems to be living at the house now, which i was gonna say “how the fuck did he explain this to his family how is she just Here Now” but then i realized i think she and albert might be the only ones left now

ida and samuel are dead, emma is dead, mary and james are dead, leonard isn’t dead but i think he might be... out fighting the war at this point

also that dog is still here and i didnt previously question why the cup was called “cup with liquid” and not “water” and i really, really wish i didnt know the answer to that mystery

try to guess how this dog provided liquid. the answer is not blood

rose helped frank get out of the well, not sure if she knew why he was down there in the first place or that he’s her cousin, and. well

sorry things had to be this way, bud

digs up my entire family’s remains to make one hell frankenstein skeleton

sure

o fuck i did it i got all the things

i like how some of these are like “gouge out an eyeball” and then there’s like “cut off some hair”

some of this family suffered more than others for this ritual, shall we say

theres probably Reasons for each of the parts though like, frank’s hair grew super long from his years in the well, so while the removal of a lock of hair itself wasn’t really a Sacrifice/suffering on his end its symbolic of what he went through

william’s the one being revived so it makes sense to use his heart

eyes could be... Too Late To See The Truth about albert or something, ida was a fortune teller so, Inner Sight or w/e, also a pair of eyes taken from a couple

emma died from her grief so we have her tears

james... died from drinking the elixir? so indirectly his tongue could symbolize that?? i guess???

rose means red, she was born through murder, she got her bio mother’s red hair, we have her blood

albert could be seen as a mastermind behind a lot of these events, and a lot of this was caused by the mental illness he never got help for, so we have his brain

leonard lost his foot in the war

the only one i cant figure out is mary’s teeth, i have no idea what that one could mean unless she Did die of old age and “teeth falling out” is meant to symbolize that

theres.... three teeth and she had three children? i have no idea

anyway DONT LIKE THAT AT ALL

hm. unpleasant

the other brother Confirmed to be mr. crow but its still possible mr. owl is Not in fact william but he could be talking about future william when he Becomes mr. owl, maybe

this is such a mess ok so william was reborn as a baby, the grandchildren looked like they were consumed by the roots but we see rose holding the baby so at least she’s still alive (and probably the boys too if she is)

and this process also created the seed which planted the tree so... william’s death and subsequent rebirth also created the family tree?? i guess?? so his family was brought to ruin one by one possibly through him influencing events from beyond the grave, all to revive him, which started the family in the first place, and there’s definitely a lot of... “all time is one/timelines can be altered” not direct Time Travel but just sort of. time as a nonlinear web that the original vanderboom brothers seem able to transcend

hm! hm. theres still. so much i dont understand but i have at least one more game left im not sure if the other things in the bundle are related to rusty lake or just other things by the same developers

#lucy plays rusty lake

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jazy3 · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X14

Holy cow was this an intense episode! Wow! I’m glad that Meredith and DeLuca officially called it quits! I’m also glad that both Meredith and Hayes stood up to him and told him off. He was way out of line as usual. I like that they also explained his bizarre behaviour for the last several seasons. I loved that Hayes was there for Mer and supported her. The scene where they talked about the video games was so cute! The way she smiles around him! Her whole face lights up. Just talking to him about nothing she’s so happy. We haven’t seen her that happy in ages.

Prior to this I thought they might write DeLuca off at some point by either having him move to Switzerland to be with Bellos and be closer to his Dad or by having him go to another hospital to do his fellowship. But now after seeing this episode and how he’s clearly suffering from untreated mental illness that he’s refusing to acknowledge I’m guessing that they’re going to write him off to go seek treatment. My hope is that in the wake of that Meredith and Hayes are going to fall in love and merge their lives together. I can’t wait to see their relationship develop and grow!

I was really worried that DeLuca was going to physically hurt Meredith when he started punching the wall in that last scene. I’m glad Hayes stepped in. I liked that they also explained why Carina randomly showed up in Seattle and hung around after Arizona left. I’m hoping they’ll write DeLuca off sooner rather than later and don’t draw it out as they’ve kinda gone as far as they can go with his character. Also, I love that they suddenly explained away a season of bad writing with a conversation lol. Kind of like the brain tumour storyline with Amelia.

It reminded me of that scene after Amelia has brain surgery. The gang is waiting for her to wake up and they’re all sitting around a table saying how much they wish they could blame their dumb stuff (aka bad writing) on a brain tumour. I’m glad Suzanne is okay. She’s a nice person and a great Mom and her kids really need her. I figured that as soon as that case wrapped up Meredith and DeLuca would be done because of how obsessed he got with it. But I didn’t see it going that way. I figured that if she lived DeLuca would want to celebrate with Meredith and if she died, he would want to commiserate, and Meredith would be over it because she’d already be with Hayes. I did not see DeLuca taking it too far and the realization that he’s ill coming but it did make sense given the circumstances.

I liked that DeLuca showed his true nature and Mer finally saw it. In the past whenever he’s been insubordinate, disrespectful, rude, aggressive, or out of control it’s always been with other characters and when she’s not present. This time she saw it, called him on it, and put her foot down. It’s not just that he’s sick because he’s been disrespectful to everyone from his superiors to his subordinates for a long time now. This episode he was disrespectful to Bailey, Meredith, Hayes, and his patient. In the past we’ve seen him be disrespectful to Alex, his residents, his patients, and their families.

He’s also disrespectful and insulting towards Derek and his relationship with Meredith at every possible opportunity which is just wrong. Meredith deserves someone who is respectful of the fact that she lost the love of her life and wants to be a part of her family not someone who throws hissy fits because he’ll never be better than a dead man. DeLuca’s actions towards Suzanne were reckless and dangerous. Yes, she needed the steroids, but he should have taken the time to explain to Meredith, Suzanne, and her sister what he wanted to do. He had time. DeLuca and Dr. Riley barged into the room and administered drugs to a very sick patient without explaining what they were doing to the Attending Physician or getting consent. What they should have done was run in and told Meredith to stop and asked to speak with her outside.

He should have explained what they had found and what they wanted to do. Instead he gave her the drugs and spent the whole time he was doing it yelling at Meredith instead of explaining himself and that’s what Meredith was upset about. If she had started Suzanne on the drugs already the steroids would have killed her, and they were lucky in that DeLuca administered the steroids before she had a chance to restart the drugs. They could have had a calm reasonable conversation about it, but instead DeLuca barged in there and did what he thought was best damn the consequences.

There’s a big difference between breaking the rules to help a patient and breaking them because you’re convinced your right to the point that you won’t tell others what you’re doing. I do get his frustration, but he needs sleep and that’s all they were asking him to do was get some rest and come back. He’s sick. He needs help. And Meredith deserves better. I also liked that they established that Meredith and DeLuca are done for good because he’s unwell, refusing treatment, not sleeping, and behaving aggressively and violently towards others including her. And there is no way that super mom Meredith Grey would ever let an unstable violent person anywhere near her home where her three young children and pregnant sister are. Now way. They’re done.

I would have liked for there to be more Meredith and Hayes scenes in this episode but I’m hoping we’ll get more next episode and that things will start moving forward especially now that she’s officially single and he knows it! Cormac’s the best! I liked his scenes with Bailey and how great he is with his patients. He really cares about Joey and was super interested in joining Mer’s pro bono surgery project. He’s the kind of doctor that’s in it to make a difference and help as many people as he can just like Meredith is and I love that.

I loved that Cormac stood up for Meredith with DeLuca and that he pointed out that he needed to be written up and made sure she was okay. He was right and Meredith deserves someone who’s in her corner always! One thing I love about Cormac is that he is calm, cool, collected, and takes things in stride. He knows Meredith has three small kids and he knows Amelia is pregnant and that her and Meredith are close and he’s okay with that. He’s forming a bond with her and flirting with her knowing full well what he’s getting into. Because unlike everyone else she’s dated since Derek died, he sees her kids as part of the package. He sees them as a benefit not an obstacle or an afterthought or an accessory and he expects the same from her and I love that.

Something else I realized too is that if they get together now there’s going to be another kid in the family. Cormac’s got two teenagers, Meredith has three young kids, and Amelia is having a baby that she has decided to co-parent with her sisters. Which means by dating Meredith Cormac is agreeing to take on and parent 6 kids including a new baby as their primary father figure because Derek is dead, Amelia is single, and Alex is gone. That’s a lot but seeing as he’s a pediatric surgeon and a single dad already I think he’s up for the challenge.

And he really cares about his patients. I loved his scene with Bailey where he said he was concerned about Joey and Bailey was all ‘Who’s going to be at his graduation?!?!’ And Cormac was all ‘I’m concerned about his arm.’ LOL! I love that Cormac gets along with everybody really well. Even people he’s at odds with like Cristina. So far all of the people who are important in Meredith’s life who have worked with him like him and that’s saying a lot as they are hard people to impress. I also love that he’s making a genuine effort to get along with his colleagues.

I also liked his scenes with Levi. I liked the scene at the beginning where he asked Levi if he was going to just stand there or was he planning on getting some work done? He wasn’t being rude or condescending that’s just the kind of thing your boss says to you when you’re milling around. And I loved how afterward Levi thought he was giving up on Joey when they stopped with the PT, but then Cormac clarified that he could tell that what they were doing wasn’t working and that they needed to try another approach. He found a way to make it work.

In other news Bailey is definitely going to adopt that teenager! I loved the scenes with Amelia and Maggie! So great! That was some phenomenal acting from both actors but especially Caterina. Damn. She has such amazing range as an actor. I loved how Maggie got both perspectives but was also supportive. I’ll be interested to see Meredith’s take on the whole thing as she’s been busy dealing with her own crap recently, so she hasn’t had time to help Amelia.

When it comes to that storyline I kind of see both sides. For Amelia she deserves someone who wants her and loves her no matter what and for Link he wants to know the truth so they’re at an impasse. I did think it was badass though when Amelia said eff it ‘I’m going to raise this baby with my sisters ‘cause they love me unconditionally’. That’s true love. I liked Amelia and Link together, but it looks like they won’t make it through this which is sad. I liked that Jackson finally apologized to Maggie although it was kind of out of the blue.

Also, where the heck is Teddy? Why has she had the flu for the past several episodes? I think its kind of weird that they brought her back as a main character, but then she’s been absent for half of time each season. I’m not sure where they’re going with Alex’s storyline either. I’m kind of confused. Alex ghosting everyone and not responding is super out of character for him and everyone keeps acknowledging that which makes me think something awful has happened. But then I’m more confused because if Alex is dead why didn’t they do a big death send off episode right off the bat?

One idea I had was that maybe he’s not dead, but instead is incapacitated and maybe his sister Amber or another family member has his phone. That would explain why he keeps reaching out, but then stops responding. Maybe they want to tell them, but they don’t know how. I would be cool to see Alex’s sister before the show wraps and think having a send-off storyline involving her would be a cool way to do that. It’s weird that they’re going that route especially because they’ve had Meredith call and text with Cristina recently and Sandra Oh isn’t on the show anymore. They clearly don’t have an issue doing that, so I’m confused as to why Cristina’s super responsive, but Alex is suddenly non-responsive. Hopefully we’ll get answers soon.

I didn’t like Nico in this episode. He was super hypocritical and contradictory. He called Levi out for being a baby gay and said he was inexperienced and yet he hasn’t been living his truth. And they’re being really inconsistent with his character. He previously told Levi he was out and talked about doing Christmas together a while back and now he’s saying he’s not out to his parents? Levi has risen and glowed up from Glasses to someone you can respect, and Nico isn’t treating him right. I think it’s time for him to move on.

As for the case of the week I felt so bad for the husband of that bear camping couple! That man jumped in front of a bear for his wife and she was cheating on him the whole time! The bear took his nose off and then Jackson reattached it to his arm and all he wanted to do was see his wife. And then he coded and died and the wife suddenly felt awful. I’m glad they didn’t tell him though. He died thinking his wife loved him which after the day he’d had was definitely a small mercy.

I hope Dr. Reilly sticks around a while longer. I really like her character and I felt like she had a good chemistry with DeLuca. I thought it was cool that they showed the partially clear face masks and how that works in surgery. That being said she was brought in for this specific case and DeLuca’s currently refusing to even acknowledge that he’s sick, so I don’t see much dating for him on the horizon.

Until next time!

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sweetcatmintea · 6 years ago

Text

Lemon and Ginger and All That

@hannahs-creations very kindly provided a random four word prompt to make into a drabble. Thanks for the prompt! Sorry it took a hot minute to write <u<;;

I hope you enjoy this little scene ^u^ Feedback is appreciated!

Prompt: vitality, manage, fluster and gleefully

Words: 1768

Characters: Marcos, Whitney, Freddy (Briefly), and Mella

Chaotic didn’t cover the state of the 6pm Café. Freddy’s promotion idea went over so well last fortnight, people were practically lining up to see what they’d do to the menu this time. The apple and elder-flower brew did not disappoint. Perfectly refreshing in the warming days of early spring, with a gentle aroma that transported you to the countryside, apple picking with your gran. Light, crumbly, pastries and tiny finger sandwiches sold almost as quickly as they were prepared. Every time a happy customer left, two more would arrive. That may be a little dramatic. It certainly felt like facing the hydra of the food industry at least. Marcos and Freddy were run off their feet greeting customers, taking orders, brewing tea, selling dry blends, answering questions, transporting food, and trying to squeeze in spot cleans. Uncle Antonio hopped between the register and the kitchen, saving Leroy from the flood of demands.

What terrible timing for Whitney to have to skip out. Although she complained about it, she lived for the busy days like today. She loved to get lost in the hustle, while still managing to find a sense of order and co-ordinating the boys. Marcos had never seen anyone more determined not to take a sick day. When the first thing Whitney did that morning was bolt to the bathroom to re-evaluate dinner, it was clear there was no avoiding it. Regardless of how it went down, the result was the same. Whitney was stuck at home while the boys played the service edition of the floor is lava. (Or would that be the customers?)

Marcos’ mind was a blur of orders and customers, but he didn’t let himself lose track of time. As soon as the hour ticked over, he tagged out. Of course, he checked that Freddy and Uncle Antonio could manage without him first. Not wasting a second more of his lunch break, he slipped into the backroom, tore off his uniform, replacing it with a change of clothes he’d prepared earlier, and was gone.

The walk to their house was made significantly faster by running. Marcos was at the painted off-white door in record time. The plan to catch his breath while he fiddled with his pockets looking for his key met a hitch when he couldn’t locate it. Briefly panicking that he’d left it at the café, Marcos tried to calculate how long it would take to run back to get it, would that take too long? It didn’t fall out while he was running did it?? He’d have to go and find it before someone else did. Should he just risk waking Whitney and asking her to let him in? Ah but she won’t get better if she’s no- wait a minute. There it is. False alarm. Fishing the key out of the depths of its fabric prison, Marcos let himself in as quietly as possible. If he was careful, he should be able to avoid the creaky floorboards.

“I cab ‘ear ‘ou.”

Never mind. He followed Whitney’s raspy croak to the living room, still mindful to tread lightly. She was huddled on the couch, cocooned with blankets and half draped over the arm of the chair. Mella, taking the role of mother hen, sprawled over Whitney’s tracksuit clad legs, incubating her just in case folding herself into cotton origami wasn’t enough. Fever was obvious, painted over Whitney’s sweaty face, interrupted occasionally by loose strands of hair. She hadn’t even bothered to tie it back. Even in illness, she was an over-achiever.

“Were you asleep?” He tired to keep his voice soft despite its gravelly texture. Judging by the way the radio was on, but turned down to its lowest possible volume, she probably had a headache. He wondered briefly if she was resenting her rabbit hearing at the moment.

Whitney shook her head, waving his worries off. “I was ju- uh- aacho!” Another balled up tissue in the over-stuffed bin. “I was jus’ dyin’g apparendly. No, I was listenig do the mid-day stories. Whab are ‘ou doin’g ‘ere?” Mella whined and wiggled closer to Whitney’s flushed face. She was supposed to be resting!

Marcos shrugged. “I got you some tea. Give me a second, I’ll make it for you. It’s called, uh, ‘Vitalitea’ and it’s got lemon and ginger and all that. Should hopefully make you feel better.” It couldn’t make her any worse at least. Red eyes and streaming nose, it was almost painful to see her so far from her bubbly self.

Whitney had always been good at reading people. Just because she was unwell didn’t mean she couldn’t see the crease setting into Marcos’ forehead. He was always so busy worrying about others. The demand he not pity her fell away to the realisation of what he’d said.

“You cabe back jusd ‘o bake tea?”

“No. I’ll get you some lunch too.” He wandered off to the kitchen to get started, entirely missing the touched shock he left her in. According to his calculations, he was still on track even after stalling to get into the house. The majority of making food was just waiting for the tea to brew. It took next to no time to make a sandwich or boil water. While the tea was brewing, he grabbed a brush and a hair tie, returning to the sick bunny.

Seeing her face a tiny bit more flushed made his stomach twist. Was it really okay for her to stay here alone?

“Can you sit up? I’ll put your hair up since I’m here.”

Whitney sighed dramatically but wiggled her way to a sitting(ish) position, much to Mella’s disapproval. “Leab me here to die. I’b not lon’g for thid worlb.”

“Nah, I think we’ll save ya Cottontail. You know Freddy and me’ll be lost without ya at the café.” He chuckled, combing the brush through her long, long, hair. She tried not to think about how his breath tickled her ear, sending tingles down her spine.

“I tolb ‘ou nod do call be that.” She huffed. Her mock anger easy to see through. It she’d really wanted him to stop, he would have done so immediately. “You’re righbt tho. You do neeb me. Who else can stob Fred’dy frob gleefully bestering beople on dates?”

“He’s not even here and you’re picking on ‘im?”

“I’b allobed to. It’s by twind given righbt.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Marcos’ hands worked quickly, twisting the strands into a roughly uniform braid. Whitney may have preferred a bun, but that just wasn’t in his skill set yet. As he worked, his own auburn curls wiggled loose. The ponytail must’ve come undone on his way over. He probably should just cut the shaggy mane, but he liked the feeling of it brushing his skin.

Whitney released her arm from the blanket burrito to playfully tug a strand. “You’re kinba a bess. Whab did ‘ou do, rub the whole bay?”

“Yup.”

His steady gaze caught her off guard. “Waib, really?” Whitney’s pink cheeks shifted much closer to a shade of red, causing Marcos’ brow to furrow. It didn’t help that she only seemed to heat up more when he pressed his hand to her forehead. She must’ve been really unwell, even her usually pale rabbit ears were tinted rose.

“Hold on. I think your tea should be ready.” He vanished back into the kitchen, retying his hair as he went.

The butterflies in Whitney’s brain were certainly just sickness making her dizzy. Nothing else. Mella stared at her. Judgementally. It wasn’t her fault her dumb heart was fluttering. Her pop rock pulse was obviously not her buzzing with giddiness. Of course she didn’t have a crush on Marcos. It didn’t matter how thoughtful he was, or how he made her feel special and appreciated with no ulterior motive. His gentle presence was just a part of him being Marcos. Falling for that would just be… well, it would be… Okay. She couldn’t lie to herself. Frog toes. It wasn’t the plague she’d managed to contract that made her face glow when he touched her. His concerned expression flashed across her mind. The tiny tilt of his scruffy eyebrows, the amber that almost glowed against the dark lines that always seemed to line his eyes, the way he looked at her. Oh dear, she melted into a goopy mess. Stars Above, she had Feelings for the scraggly hare. She had to compose herself. Pondering whether he felt something for her too would have to wait until he was gone. Working herself into a fluster was less than ideal. Upon the realisation, Mella smiled at her, in the way dogs do. If Whitney didn’t know better, she’d think Mella could read her mind. Why was she being so cocky? As if she figured it out first! Whitney’s mental rambling was interrupted by Marcos bringing in her lunch.

“Here. I put honey in the tea. It’s s’posed to be good for sore throats? Mum used to do that for me, honey and milk I mean. Should help you too.” His ears twitched self-consciously. Sure it was common knowledge that honey was a good soother, but he still felt the need to explain himself. Maybe because Whitney almost always preferred not to sweeten her teas and he hadn’t forgotten that. Whitney smiled, still too pink for his liking, thanked him and took a sip, evaporating his worries.

“There’s some medicine if you need it, and a bottle of water for later, y’know, so you don’t have to get up again… I’ve gotta head now or I’ll be late back. You gonna be okay?”

“I’b a big girl, I’ll be okay.” She took another sip. “Than’gs fo’ this. I abbreciate ib.”

“Not a problem. Just focus on betting better.”

“Oh byeah, before you go, there’s somb faze wibes in by roob. Take theb with you to geb rib ob the sweat. You brobably smbell.” To make certain she wasn’t being overly sincere, she poked her tongue at him.

“’course I do. I’m healthy so I can still breathe through my nose.” Marcos grabbed the wipes and darted out of the door before he had to face her faux fury.

It took a sprint, but he made it back to the café with just enough time to clean up and get re-dressed. He was tired as anything and had forgotten about his own lunch in the process of it all, but still found a spring in his step for the rest of the day. It was nice to think he might’ve made her feel a little better.

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@inkovert and @snobbysnekboi

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