#not how trauma works

[chloesimaginationthings]

RIP Michael Afton.. you would of loved FLAF

[casstars]

in the aftermath of 1-2

[zombolouge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pricetagged]

fool's gold (pyrite)

Got inspired by gougie's executioner asks and cloth's egging hehe 💖 have some pirate au simon breeding kink~

Content: 18+; breeding kink; dubious consent*; mean Simon; pirates; captured-by-the-crown reader; barest implication of potential soap/reader and future ghoap/reader; POV shift

*in a 'get out of jail' way, so take that how you will.

---------------------------------

It fluttered in your stomach. A nebulous, squirming little thing.

Not the baby, no. The lie.

You felt it, restless and hot. Kicking your ribs from the inside. It made you flushed, it made you sick-

It bought you at least another few weeks to slip the noose, to slide away in borrowed shoes meant to dance a gallows' jig. Maybe it would buy you more, if the stress held back your monthly the way it often did on the ship. Great, long stretches of time with too much work and not enough food.

You wore the lie like you wore your borrowed clothes, a too-tight bodice and heavy skirts. Impractical, sweet. Modest. A poor little dear caught up and brought low. Fallen woman, sunken to the depths before the law fished her out. 

Your thighs stuck together, warm and bare under the skirts. It was sweltering, damp. Clammy in the cell with its stagnant air and earthy, unfinished floors. The wood of your bench –and bedcot–was warped with age, woodlouse burrowed deep into the pulpy grooves. It was enough to make you shudder, sweat dripping down your spine until it soaked into the cotton of your shift.

It did little to cool you.

Nine months aboard The Watcher had spoiled you, coarse rope and sharp, sea air warping you into something new. Something wilder. It was hardtack and hard work, yes. But it was freedom. To toil under a flag of your choosing, to trust the waves and the Captain to take you to new ports and newer treasures–

You'd left your papa's place with little more than ill-fitting breeches and a pocketed purse. You'd passed the scars on your hands and the patches on your shirt as evidence of experience – hardy little stowaway, aren't ye–. The morals didn't bother you the way stolen scraps didn't bother a dog. Street rat or ship rat; at least this way you could put miles between you and your father. Nautical miles, bobbing away with the wood of the ship's log. You watched it often, knots of rope and grains of sand. Hourglass and paper in hand while you stood on the stern.

It was you who first spotted the English Man O'War, sluicing through waves with colours hoisted high. Three gun-decks, at least, and coming into port.

"–plead the belly–it'll spare ye the choppin' block. Might even get lucky and be sent t' the reformatory– ah heard they do that f'r expectant mothers–" you couldn't quite hear him over the ringing of the cannons and the ringing in your ears.  "–plead the belly, and I'll try tae come back for y–"

They echoed now in your sweltering cell, suspended in the humidity. The boatswain's last words before he was violently wrestled away.

You remembered him as you counted the bars of your cage. Iron-wrought and cruel. As cruel as the chain tethering you to the wall, cold metal biting into your bare ankle.

'–I've got the keys, girlie, if you want freein' from it. Don' have to sit against that wall, all shy. C'mere an' I'll make you a deal–'

You stayed silent, stone-faced. Weathered the taunts and jeers of your gaolers like a battered old rock. The guards took it as arrogance, the other prisoners took it as invite.

The priest took it as shame.

You let them all believe it, lips pressed tight lest you let loose sobs–giggles–something– as days passed and your sentencing drew closer.

You'd heard about him before you saw him. The Ghost. The last face you'd see before facing the faceless. The pitch-black eyes that would watch as you jigged to the jeers of the crowd.

It was the last face you'd see and it was only a mask. More macabre than the usual executioner's hood– a skull motif, bleach-white bones and empty sockets. A nasty minikin mockery of the reaper. It was gristly; it was sick.

But so was he.

A butcher, some said. Fingers caked in blood no matter to which job he attended. A pirate, according to others. One pressed into service, earning his freedom by sending others to the pits. 

And now you heard him for real.

The low, resonant whistle. The heavy tread of his boots.

It had you curling your fingers into your palms, nautical superstitions and fishwives' tales nipping at you like fleas.

–quit yer whistlin', you'll anger the winds and summon a storm–

                                                 –it's good luck, don't worry. It'll make the winds blow strong and steady, you'll see–

–I wouldn't do that if I were you. Cap'n'll think it's code between mutineers–

                                                                                                                                    –taboo–

The whistling stopped, a cheery solitary note wavering in the air before silence. Even the gaoler's dog had scarpered off, keys jingling around its neck until you couldn't even hear the echo.

A gravel-rough voice cut through the swirling tempest of your mind.

"Was told 'got a pregnant little birdie caught in the cage."

That pulled you from your reverie, neck-stiff as you turned towards the voice. It was more of a twitch than a conscious motion, a sudden flaring of deadened synapses as his voice rasped over them. Still, you didn't speak. Didn't even look at him fully, the hulking thing in your peripheral.

It was silent, now. Eerily so, like all the air had been sucked from the prison. Sitting in the eye of the storm, too calm and too quiet. You could hear the drag of his boots as he shifted closer. The rolling clank of iron scraping against itself, your cage creaking open.

The shadow in your peripheral became mass, then man as he stepped closer.

You risked a glance up.

He'd still be large, sturdy, even without you curled up on your dank, spongy bedcot. Tall enough to duck as he sauntered into the cell. Broad enough to block out the flickering oil lamps by the warden's desk. In the lambent glow of dusk it was already dim, hazy with sea-spray and the oppressive heat of wet season. But with him in front of you it was pitch-dark. A pall cast by his sheer size, all light swallowed up until you could just about make out his blurry edges.

The ghostly white of the bones bleached onto his mask moved and his voice rumbled out.

"Well, g'nna show me?"

You stretched out weakened muscles, unfurling as slow as a wind-battered sail. Joints creaked alongside the iron of your shackle, tight from where you'd clenched hard. Dug your blunt little fingernails into the pulpy, malleable fibers of the aged ironwood below you.

Standing was like finding yourself unmoored, sliding off the buoyant driftwood keeping you afloat. Your legs got tangled up in your borrowed clothes, damp petticoats and overskirts clinging as your feet finally touched the straw-strewn earth of the cell floor. It was cumbersome, made more difficult by the sliding of the heavy chain against the bench. You felt the weight around your ankle, anchoring you down.

Though you could barely see it, you felt as he studied you from top-to-toe. Flat, dead eyes followed every curve and dip of your body as you stood before him, your traitorous chest rising and falling in a way that made you grit your teeth. You used that force to steel your jaw, to look straight ahead and keep your arms lax and loose by your side.

Let him look his fill. Let him– your judge, jury and executioner.

He hummed. Circled you like a shark in a balmy waters. It was funny– you'd never felt more exposed than now in all your layers. Not even under the punishing sun in your loose, men's clothes. No, his eyes stripped you bare. More than cotton and linens, he peeled the flesh from bone. Flayed you open, eyes slicing through your skittish guise. Through your rabbity gaze hopping around the walls, the way you tried to arch your back and poke out more of your soft belly.

"You a liar, then?" You could hear the low, mocking note in his voice. "Or got a case of wishful thinkin'?"

That had you looking up, meeting him dead in the eye. Your hands hovered above the slight swell of your stomach, fingers twitching in an abortive gesture–

–you wanted to cradle it, the fluttering in your empty belly. Push down the sick, swirling terror and face the ghost you'd summoned, because you had summoned it–

He grabbed by your wrist, meaty paw pulling you close enough to brush against his expansive chest.

–Hadn't you? Bad luck. Malefic omen, having you on the ship. No prophets, no redheads–

There, in the cradle of his arms, you were frozen. Your wrist felt fragile, bird-like under the firm grip of his thick-knuckled fingers. You weren't weak, you'd rigged topsails in tempest winds with those wrists. But that was then. That was weeks ago, when you were part of a crew on the open seas. Here, it was just you and the beast that had sent stronger than you to their graves. The warnings from persnickety old seadogs tolled death knolls in your mind–

–no women. And now the sea had swallowed you up. Sent you down to the belly of the beast. A Jonah, locked behind something stronger than whalebone. Trapped. Unless–

Wishful thinking.

He chucked at your chin, calloused fingertips arching your head further back until your neck strained. Your heartbeat rushed past your ears, sending your head spinning. Dizzy, docile. An artificial calm; buoyant lifeline in the raging currents. He turned you slightly, left then right. Like he was measuring you up, the line of your throat. The fluttering of your pulse. That treacherous throbbing, sending oxygen to your brain that you were too erethic to feel.

He spoke again, rough and coruscating. You noticed that he didn't blink, just stared down at you. Dead-eyed as a fish, blond lashes spiked around dark irises. He kept you arched, unable to escape as every syllable struck you like a storm. You balanced on bare tip-toes, butterfly-soft fingers spread across his hairy forearm.

"The Beak's happy to let ya swing if it means 'e can catch the rest of y'r crewmates. And, 'round here, the only good pirate is a dead pirate," he must have felt how your fingers tightened, a futile brace against his butal strength and harsh words. "So, I tell him y'r a liar, get paid to do my job, and keep the governor happy."

He shrugged, bulky shoulders popping as he rolled them back. He shrugged like it meant nothing to him, just a matter of fact. The fisherman, fingers deep in guts and gristle. The butcher, hands stained copper and hardened on cannon bone. The executioner, calloused from rope neckties and the deadweight of the condemned–

But you catch the way his eyes follow your flinch. The way his lips move under his mask too as your mouth opens and closes. Hesitant. Dry.

You could only look up at him with wide, naïve eyes, dilating in the dark. The jejune jailbird. Doe-eyed. Caught.

The jig was up.

"Please," the words stuck in your throat, cracking and broken. "Please don't–"

He lets you go. Not a gentle action, no. No careful caress; he lowers you abruptly, chuckles as you scramble to face him. Stunned, you rub at your throat. Still there, still unadorned with the necklace of rope you swear he wants to place there. Coarse twine and hessian brown, constricting tighter until– no. You can't think on it, anathema to the lie you've worked hard to maintain. If he doesn't believe the plea of the belly, you'll– you'll–

You'll make it so.

As he settles his massive frame on the thin, wooden slat against the wall you wonder. Why did he come here in cover of night. Why did he need to see for himself what the priest confirmed as a priori truth? The seal of confession melts away, your moribund admittance flakes and crumbles under his heavy hand. He knows.

Solid legs spread wide, he makes himself comfortable. You follow the bulge of his thighs, easily as thick as your skull–more–, as the bench groans and creaks worse than the brig in a storm.

You worry that it can't handle the weight.

Even sitting, he dwarfs you. Stepping up between his thighs is like willingly stepping off the stern into still waters. It's terrifying, thrilling– your belly swoops and head feels light. You know there must be something lurking in the depths, some undulating hydra ready to slide its malignant limbs around your ankle and wrench you down–

He clamps a filthy boot down over the length of chain across the floor. Keeps you tethered to him, unable to pull back even if you wanted to.

"Clever enough t'come up with the scheme, clever enough t'get out of it." It's an offering, albeit a twisted one. Alms tainted by the greedy slap of his palms against his thighs. Rough, scarred hands frame the growing bulge between his legs.

Even in the dark, you see it. Heavy, perverse, Fattening enough to strain against the seam of his trousers. You can't look away, can't escape the muggy heat in the air and the scorching burn of his eyes on you. Incendiary, it sends heat pooling to your own belly. The damp, stickiness between your thighs seems cool now, sweat superseded by the slick gathering in your core. It's filthy, it's wrong–

It's blazing hot, shame seared away by a want that is not entirely born of desperation.

At first you think it's a tit-for-tat, your mouth stuffed full in exchange for his staying closed. Kneeling before him, you're suddenly grateful for your skirts. Matchsticks of dried straw and dusty smithereens dig into your knees, legs bent awkwardly as he keeps his boot on your chain. He's content to let you paw at him, to tug at the drawstrings and fumble with his waistband as he offers no help.

Eventually, he must grow bored.

"Don' need me to tell ya that's not how it works."

"What–?" He has you frozen, tableau vivant of a wanton grisette. Pupils-blown and lips-parted, you tremble up at him. Try to read the desire that he hides beneath harsh words and heavy breaths.

"Tryin' t'make me a liar, too?" He grunts, brushing aside your confused, hurried protestations. "Gonna make me a liar when I go out'nd tell them there really is a pregnant little birdie caught in the cage?"

He pats at his lap, palming at himself and hissing through his teeth. Sound is muffled by that grotesque mask, but you catch it all the same. Every flash of the man beneath– of the desire wrought by your artless, ingenue fumblings– sends you reeling. You are not a creature of flesh and blood, not when both are fever-hot and itching. You can't breathe in your body under sweltering layers and sultry air. And he can sense it, too. The beast you let into your cage, bars bending as easily as your will to his.

And, through messily-tugged drawstrings, you see it. Tugged through the opening you'd hastily torn open. The thick, ruddy head of his cock is already leaking.

And as you slide into his lap, it all slides into place.

You think of– no, not now. You can't think of him now. When he comes back for you, if it takes, you could pass the baby off as his. He was sweet on you, you know it. A breezy, comfortable kind of affection. Small, just barely burgeoning but still there. He's a good man– You'll claim that you were telling the truth at your capture– that you and he already– He's a decent man– maybe you wouldn't even have to lie. He'd take you in, little stray and the seed that kept her off the scaffold–

Thoughts slip away, sea spray in the wind, as you work yourself open in his lap. You're drenched beneath your skirts, slick running down your thighs and into his. You're spread so wide across him that it burns, pinned open by his bulk. You can feel the power of his frame, coiled muscle holding you up from the worn wooden bench. The soft pudge of his belly presses into yours as you lean forward, shakily lining up with the swollen head of his cock.

It's already weeping, thick globs of his slick mingle with yours as he slides between your folds. Like he can't wait to be inside you, leaking his spend at the barest touch of your cunt. Like he can't wait to put it inside you, to make good on his word and yours and put a baby there.

You shiver, biting back a gasp as he nudges the aching pearl at the apex of your thighs. His chuckle rumbles through his hulking chest into yours. It jostles you, hitching you just right over his length until it notches against you. You press down, hole clenching against the initial pain, until you feel the throb of his slit inside. It's deep, sending your back arching as you grip his shoulders with white knuckles. And there's still more–

"Tha's it, tha's it, birdie," his voice is impossibly thicker, desire dragging it down until he growls at you. "Gonna have t'take more, gotta make it all fit if you want this baby–"

"Yes, yes, please," you babble at him. Voice high, whines catching on every breath you work yourself lower. You can feel him in your stomach, every inch sending sparks dancing along your spine until they're all you can see when you close your eyes. The sparks, and the spectral imprint of his ghostly mask.

He grunts below you, swallowing back groans behind a jaw that you know is clenched tight. Avaricious brute, he needs you closer. Hands that were meant to measure you for the drop dig into your hips, working you lower and lower. He forces you down to the root, bare thighs on hessian cloth, until you cry out. Shaking at the spread– the stretch– you pant in his ear. Hot little breaths, heady against the crook of his neck.

You can hear it, the obscene squelch of your greedy cunt. The creaking of the bench beneath you as you ride him with shaking legs, chasing pleasure that's already beginning to pool in your belly. You feel heavy with it, moaning behind your clenched fist. Through bleary eyes you catch his, cimmerian and heavy-lidded. His head is thrown back against the wall, guttural filth spilling as he waits for you to come undone.

"Want it, don't ya? Want my baby so fuckin' bad, just look at ya," he growls it, frothing with a hunger so biting it reads as rage. "I'll put one in ya, keep you stuffed full. Keep this chain around y'r ankle, too, keep you shackled to me–"

Eyes-watering as you lose yourself in it. In the sounds that that send blood rushing to your head, the deep ache in your core, the desperation– make him come, make him come, want to come, need to come–

---------

At first, he was happy to watch you. To sit back and watch you work yourself up, to perform for him until he sees you drop the mask. You wear the mantle of captive soubrette so well, sweat-damp petticoats clinging to curves that he wants to trace with his tongue. With his teeth. He saw the craft in your sweet, open face. You're a flighty thing, aren't you? Trying to slip the noose and slip past him. Luckily his grasp is strong.

He saw the scheme slip away as he got you speared open on his length. He can see it in your eyes, feels the way you suck him in–. You're dripping down into his breeches, sloppy and squeezing him so tight. Desperate, wanton little naiad. Riding hard like your life depends on it. He huffs out a laugh as he squeezes you tight, rough fingers digging into peach-soft flesh.

He doesn't tell you that you're already free, that the Royal Navy is already in hot pursuit of The Watcher and the pregnant, little skivvy is of as much importance to them as the ship's rats. No, you're a nuisance they're willing to hand off to him. Too big, too blunt, too bloody to find a respectable wife.

(There was a time, once, when he had no need of such comforts. Lieutenant aboard The Larimar's Revenge, he'd docked in many-a-port. But he'd always come back to those blue eyes. The haircut that had even the natives of Port Royal looking twice– Cheeky, cocksure pirate.

He'd thought about him, sometimes. On that godforsaken island with just a pistol and one shot for company. 'Mutineer', he was branded. Traitor to King and Crown. Lower than scum, not worth even a keelhaul. But not even grapeshot can kill a ghost–) 

He feels you reaching your end, thighs trembling from more than just exertion. His mask is damp, sultry air mixing with your musk into something that scatters his desultory thoughts. His belly tightens as he feels you clamping down, whining behind the knuckles you’ve got stuffed between your teeth.

When you're home, together in his bed, he'll bite down on those knuckles. Show you what real toothprints look like. Or maybe he'll let you slip his hand into your mouth instead. Let you whet your blunt little teeth on something with more gristle. His appetite for you cannot be satiated on mere flesh. He's got to pierce you, taste you, feel you from the inside and leave a part of himself there–

For now, he holds you down. Forces you to ride out the wave of pleasure-pain as he sets his own pace. Your thighs tremble, whole body seizing around him. He can feel the fluttering in your cunt, the way you shudder and drip until his cock is soaked and his coarse hair turns sticky with your release.

He ignores your whisper of another man's name– John, or Johnny, it's hard to catch with the way you swallow your whimper–it doesn’t matter. Not when he's the one pumping you full of his spend. His belly clenches hard, balls tight and heavy with the come he's going to give you. Going to force it in, plant his baby in you and still leave thick, white, globs leaking out of your poor, abused hole.

He's filled you up, is going to fill you up again. He'll take you back to his house and do it as many times as he wants. Make you grateful for it, for saving your life and giving you the baby you’ve been begging for. Keep you stuffed so full of him that the only name he'll hear from you is 'Simon'.

(And if you help lure Johnny back, well. It's been a long time, but good dogs come home when called.)

---------------

Well, there is it. Shoutout to my beloved stelle and woolie for listening to me whine about pirate ship names ��💖💖

[valleynix]

One thing I really love about tptm is reader’s character. I love how real they are. Most fics and stories in general usually have an overpowered mc, who like solves their problems in like a chp 💀 but reader struggles, they make bad decisions, it’s frustrating sometimes, but I like that it frustrates me. They just seem so human. They don’t forget about the traumatic shit that happened to them and it troubles them, but they actually try and improve. Its long process and I’m excited to read about it

i’ve had quite a few people get upset with me that i write Reader making bad decisions and i’m just 😭 like that’s the POINT. they’re supposed to frustrate you at times because they’re mentally unwell and traumatized, considering everything they’ve gone through and everything that continues to happen to them

i mean, they wake up with no recollection of who they are to four cannibalistic women who they’re pretty sure want to eat them, but then it turns out they’re really not that bad?? and kind of attractive?? and also pretty kind and accommodate them-

but then it’s all ripped away in the span of a few hours. all those weeks and moments they’ve had are suddenly gone and meant nothing as these women crumble in front of them, as THEY are the reason they’re dead in the first place. that guilt alone is enough to destroy someone, regardless if they went back and “fixed it”

but i dunno- as a psych major, it’s been really interesting to incorporate what i know into my writing and make it more “real”, like you said. i mean hell, we even see a lot of their ptsd symptoms still around 😭

even though Reader may actually seem a bit overpowered, they still have their weaknesses and cons to each power. like, yes, they’re incredibly strong and incredibly difficult to take down, but once you know where to attack, it’s not hard to debilitate them

but anyways. i’m a massive sucker for realism in fiction and i try my best to make TPtM as “realistic” as possible 😔 Reader is incredibly traumatized and it shows in their actions and decisions, but now that they’re opening up further, perhaps it’ll be easier to move forward

[the-barefoot-hatter]

pediatricians are hard to find.

you aren't broken and other important things a triangle needs to hear

[benevolenterrancy]

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

[bunnieswithknives]

Thinking about his brain

[br1ghtestlight]

whenever ppl talk about the contestant sleeping arrangements i just think about that one tumblr post that was like Why would they confirm that the ii contestants prefer sleeping in normal beds but mephone makes them sleep outside on the wet grass like dogs when they're in competition why would they show us that. THATS LITERALLY ALL I THINK ABOUT NOW like what is this bro?????

i dont even blame mephone cuz 1. we know he ALSO sleeps outside on the sad wet soggy grass outside with the contestants like a dog without an owner and he never had a real bed to sleep in 2. he probably didn't even think about it until hotel oj was created

but it's so sad cuz the contestants had NEVER slept in a bed before. we know they had no lives before the competition like imagine how much chronic back pain they have as a collective!!!!! theyve been sleeping on the COLD HARD GROUND!!!!!!!

[undertheredhood]

bruce 'tired single dad' wayne: *lecturing jason once again on something he did during a fight*

jason 'theatre kid extraodinare'' todd who immediately starts fake crying on the spot: do you just not love me anymore?

[chloesimaginationthings]

i absolutely love your characterization of movie vanessa,, like she is so mentally unwell but also she is full of whimsy!

The duality of Vanessa Shelly,,

[fulcrums501st]

how is hallucination Silco more sympathetic to Vi’s prison trauma than the writers lmao

[royaltea000]

trying to learn how to draw this dude

credit to @/transparentalia for the ref images :)

[thewarriorandthethief]

kind of tragic how dean puts all this responsibility onto himself to be sam’s protector, when the truth is sam has never once been safe. the biggest violation in his life happened when he was six months old, and nobody was there to protect him. and nothing anyone did afterwards could ever make up for that fact.

[superbat-lmao]

A Jayroy fic where Jade drops off baby Lian and they just.. retire.

There’s a really difficult conversation they have about dating and raising a kid and vigilante work and they decide screw it. It’s not safe to raise a kid around.

And by retire, I mean they disappear. Go to ground.

(Talia knows what it is to want the best for your child even if they have different opinions on what best is. She gets them off the grid and funded in some sort of suburban hellscape that takes the both of them a while to adjust to. They say they have a deep space mission and just, don’t come back.)

Roy works in a rehab clinic and Jason gets a degree in Literature. He becomes a professor at a small college, taking on graduate students and falling into academia.

They go to therapy, the make friends with other parents, they become normal people. And they have an insane security system for their house, and AI that scrapes cameras of their faces, and a modified basement that Roy compares to the Batcave exactly once that has a gym and space to work on equipment and a method of escape should it be necessary to uproot their lives again.

Because they want to be civilians, but that doesn’t mean that if their past lives come knocking, they’ll be caught unaware and too out of the game to defend themselves. In fact, because they don’t go on patrol, they’re at peak performance at all times and rarely injured more than a sprained wrist or paper cut. Gone are the days of concussions, GSWs, and stab wounds.

The superhero community doesn’t know what to do, what to think. Because all of their resources are expended elsewhere. And because space is a big place, and trying to find two humans in its vastness is an exercise in futility.

So Lian grows up normally. She’s a girl whose parents love her. And her problems are ordinary, like homework and sleepovers and playing soccer.

And when she’s in middle school, the same age as Roy and Jason were when they started superhero training, they tell her about their past lives. About the danger it will bring if they’re found. Because they promised never to lie to her, and to never let her get wrapped up in the vigilante scene.

They’re well adjusted people raising a normal daughter.

And they explain to Lian that they came from very large and complicated families. Families that did dangerous work, work that put anyone who knew about it at risk. And that Lian was a baby, and that all of that risk of their jobs, was not worth her life. That they loved her more than their families, their jobs, their previous lives. But that it meant they could be discovered, and that those old lives would be dragged back up again and she could get hurt.

Lian thinks of it like witness protection.

So Lian memorizes code names and pictures of people that may try and approach her. She learns the differences between friendlies and uglies. Between ex-family, and rogues. And she doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t look into things when her parents ask her not to. Because she trusts them to protect her. She trusts them like a well adjusted young girl who could very well ask her parents for more information, but doesn’t care about the answers because she trusts they’re not important. That it doesn’t change how much they love her or what their lives are.

There are a couple of versions of this:

1. Jason, Roy and Lian live out their lives happily and away from their families. They are never again vigilantes or found out by them.

A) Alfred dies and that is the only thing that almost breaks Jason, that he didn’t get to see the man again before he died.

2. The Bats track them down, ask them what they hell they were thinking, that they thought they were dead. To come home, be part of the family again. They’re told no - and the three of them disappear again to somewhere they’ll never be found.

3. Alfred finds them, says nothing to anyone and once a year, on Lian’s birthday, goes to visit. None of the Bats ever figure it out.

4. Alfred knows where they’re going from the beginning, he keeps them updated on their families and helps hide them from everyone. He never once tells a soul that Jason and Roy are alive. He is allowed to visit Lian sometimes and they are all happier for it.

A) When Alfred gets old enough, he tells Bruce he will be retiring. He asks that he is not followed, that no one from the super hero community is allowed to keep tabs on him. He tells him he’s sorry, but that it has to be this way. Alfred goes and lives the end of his life with Jason, they speak about literature every day, about Alfred’s parents about anything he wants to. Jason buries Alfred in England and Bruce Wayne gets an unmarked alert to its location.

5. The Bats find them, and never approach them. Each Bat basically figures out that Jason is alive, doesn’t say anything to the rest of the family, and keeps tabs on him and Roy. Once they realize that Lian exists, none of them ever breach that level of trust, even as they all grow into old age and move on with their lives.

6. Bruce finds them.

A) He waits for Jason in a cafe, watches him realize who he is and turn to look at the Roy Harper, who nods once and walks away. Jason approaches him and sits down. He asks how he found them. Bruce doesn’t say anything, just looks at his son, alive, seemingly happy. Tells him it was an accident, he had genuinely still thought they were in space, maybe dead, until someone plagiarized Jason’s work, submitted it through a Wayne Enterprises competition of some sort, and it flagged the system. It had been entirely work related, pure coincidence. No capes.

B) And Jason laughs and it’s lighter than Bruce has heard it in years. Jason asks how much Bruce knows about him now, how much intel he gathered before approaching him. Bruce says he knows about their marriage, their daughter, their jobs and habits. Jason nods and he’s smiling. Bruce doesn’t know what to do. He had checked the area, and there were no reports of anything approaching vigilantism, no anonymous casework, no decrease in crime, nothing to suggest the presence of the Red Hood and Arsenal. He hasn’t spoken to Jason outside of business in years, isn’t sure he knows how to anymore. And he looks happy, he’s alive, he’s a civilian.

C) He wants to ask him everything, ask him to come home, wants to know the man his son became. He asks Jason why. Why they disappeared. And Jason is still smiling and it’s honest and Bruce can’t stand to look at him and can’t help it either. So Jason tells him that they will never let their daughter into vigilantism. That they quit, and needed it to be absolute. That he and Roy couldn’t do this halfway, that if they loved their daughter they had to do only what was best for her, and that meant burning their old lives entirely, becoming civilians.

D) Their lives had been too complicated, too many people, too much history. So many ways for things to go badly, to leave Lian without parents or get her killed as leverage against them. And for as much as he and Roy had cared about the people in their lives, couldn’t stop caring about them, they knew that they would just drag Lian into all of the emotional problems that come with being a vigilante. That it wasn’t healthy, for any of them. That trying to do so would kill them. So they disappeared. And Bruce thinks of the pain he and his family had gone through over Jason, wondering how he was doing, if he was dead, hearing nothing and trying not to let it eat at them. But right now, his son is in front of him smiling, something he can’t seem to stop doing. Something Bruce never thought he’d see again.

E) And he has a son in law, a granddaughter. His son has a family, one he built himself. He looks healthy, he’s not closed off, he’s more open than Bruce thinks he’s ever seen him. It’s jarring, like Bruce is wrong footed. He doesn’t know what to say. Wants to tell him about everything that’s happened, to his brothers to their family, to Gotham and old contacts. Wants him back in the loop. Wants to ask about their lives, and college, and his wedding and his daughter. Bruce wants to know all of it. And he wants to know how he did it, how he hid himself so well in plain view.

F) And the detective in him will always prioritize the how over everything else. He wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t. So Bruce asks how. And Jason laughs, says he’s not going to tell him.

G) You know I can’t tell you that, old man.

H) He can’t let it go, Bruce can never let anything go, that’s his burden to bear. He tries to push old buttons, doesn’t notice he’s doing it. But Jason won’t stop smiling, won’t switch from civilian to vigilante. There is no trace of anger, of the Red Hood. He doesn’t look surprised and Bruce’s arguments, about flaws in his code, software, he’s just smiling. Won’t rise to the bait. And for once, Bruce has a feeling he’s only felt around Clark. A feeling of being outmatched. Jason knows all of his buttons, isn’t pushing a damn one. Isn’t letting Bruce push his either. It’s not even a stalemate. Bruce has no openings.

I) He starts telling him about his brothers, about missions and life developments. He tries to tell Jason everything. And Jason listens, hears everything he has to say. And Bruce asks him about himself, his life, his husband, his daughter. And he hears about NA and AA meetings, about therapy and raising an infant, and being a professor and his students about their friends and neighbors, about Lian’s friends at school. All of it. Except the how. And at some point, it’s been a couple of hours, but not very long at all, Jason gets a text. He doesn’t look at his phone. And Bruce knows that whatever spell had been cast over the cafe, whatever bubble of another universe he had crossed into, he was about to watch it close. Implode on itself with only him inside. Because Jason was about to leave. All of it, the cafe, the conversation, the smiling and the laughter, it was the one distraction that Bruce was liable to. And Jason has him right where he wanted him. It was something that wouldn’t work twice, and they both knew it.

J) And Jason says, I can’t stop you from telling anyone. I can’t stop any of you from looking for us, but this was the third life of mine that you ended. Of the two of us, I would go to greater lengths to protect my daughter. I am asking you not to make me do something you’ll regret. I am asking you not to look for us, not to tell anyone, not to put it in a report. I did not want to hurt you, any of you. And you have made that unavoidable. I know you, Bruce, and I have spent time healing from everything I’ve been through. I cannot allow you to pull me back into it, to pull the three of us back into your world. I know that this conversation won’t stop you, now that you know. So I’m sorry, I didn’t want to have to say this. I know who you are, who all of you are. It was never a question before, that I would keep your secrets. If you look for us, I will go public. It’s not just your life I’ll be placing at risk, it will be the entire league. I will burn every bridge, every alias. I have redundancies in place, you send a super my way you better be sure to send them all. You better be sure you’ve caught all my backups, all of Roy’s backups, everything. We have avoided you for years without triggering any of your, or the league’s, systems. I can’t predict another accident, but if you know what is best for you and everything you’ve built, you will prevent even that from happening. Do not force my hand.

K) Bruce stands, trying to memorize his son’s face. And then Jason is gone. Disappearing down a street and out of sight. And Roy is waiting for him, their house had been cleared of all traces, Talia has new lives set up for them and Lian is asleep in the backseat.

L) Their lives are busy for the next few weeks, traveling and covering their tracks and looking for new methods of being traced. And they change their names, change their lives, are prepared for the upheaval of being new people again. This time, it sticks. They watch Lian graduate school, college, get married, have children of her own. And the media is inescapable - they learn very little about their old families lives, but not nothing. There are funerals and weddings and probably so much more in private, things they will never know, never be part of again. And then they’re just old and together. Their grandkids visit, Lian visits, life is good and long and they are happy.

• Or, it sticks until one day, a spell is cast in Gotham and he’s standing on a rooftop, no mask, identity on full display, surrounded by other vigilantes in mixed states of gear and civilian status. Some being or other from another universe required all hands on deck in this universe and had used a spell to summon them all here.

• Jason spotted Roy appearing near him on the rooftop, both of them stunned. No one had noticed them yet, but their moment of indecisiveness and a moment of pure awareness on the Batfam’s part, meant there would be an inescapable confrontation. Batman seemed to notice them first and looked to Jason, who shook his head. It appeared Batman was trying to talk to the person who had summoned them all here, to argue they should be sent back or ask if it was possible.

• Jason moved himself and Roy towards Batman, doing their best to avoid looking at any of the other vigilantes at all, including but especially family. They walked into a tense conversation.

• You must send them back, they are civilians.

• Batman, you of all people understand the threat we are up against, if the spell believes they are necessary to combat X then they were brought here.

• I understand perfectly well, I am telling you to send them back. Having them here is a security risk, not during the fight, but after. This is not your universe, things are different in ways you can’t know of, this is one of those circumstances.

• Jason and Roy approach, Roy tapping his shoulder in a way that means he’ll follow his lead.

• He announces, You are in violation of the Hempstead agreement. You have one hour to return us to our previous location before we are a security risk.

• They can hear intakes of breath around them, some of the arrow clan and bat clan have approached, uncertain of what exactly is happening, but not comforted by the fact that Batman seems to understand the situation without telling any of them. The argument continues, Jason standing just behind Roy, separating him from the group slowly forming around them, people pushing their way to the center to see their son or brother again. Their friends.

• A decision is reached, It will take me 10 minutes to establish a connection strong enough to send them both through. Do not interrupt me while I prepare, follow me.

• And Jason and Roy are walking away, backs turned to their families. To their friends. There are shouts behind them, their names, other things they choose not to hear. It is all held at bay by Batman.

• They are speaking with the universe hopper, giving him a location to send them while clearly stating that he is not to give out that location to any of the vigilantes here, that violation of these terms will risk the hero community at large. The closer it gets to the ten minute mark, the more the riot behind them frays between silent understanding and desperation. Neither of them turns around, they can’t allow themselves to look. It is excruciating.

• Roy looks Jason in the eye and neither of them are fully able to stand it, but the fact that they’re not alone has to be enough. Jason can see the itch start, the overwhelming feeling that can’t be tolerated, the one that motivates people to seek out something that will just stop. He reaches out his hand, taps it against Roy’s and is met with one of the worst smiles he’s ever seen. It threatens to bring Jason to his knees, but Roy threads their hands together. The portal opens before them and without turning around, they step through.

• There is a shared panic attack, a moment of grief and regret where both of them realize just how greatly they hurt all of the people they used to care about. They break apart together and rebuild each other enough to pick up Lian from school and begin the process of torching their home. Whatever fight they had been summoned for had not happened yet, so they had a larger lead time than they had when Bruce had stumbled across them. But now, the entire hero community, many more points of being able to be convinced, was now aware they were both alive and on Earth.

[mitternacht]

Hi I spend way too much time thinking about Fuuta Kajiyama and really wanted an excuse to throw out a full breakdown of his character and why I think he’s so well written.

The long and short of it is that Fuuta’s character was built to represent social isolation and the effects it has on the psyche. And the direction his character has taken in T3 was always going to be the natural progression of his character, especially based on his T1 verdict and the consequences of that, it did not come out of nowhere and is not a questionable writing decision.

(The rest under the cut for really long winded meta and dissection of Fuuta’s character and how we got here)

To start, I want to talk about Fuuta’s life before Milgram.

He’s a 20 year old university student, with no strong ties to family and no real group of friends or social circle to speak of. Already, he’s very isolated and has shown that he’s quite directionless. He doesn’t have any dreams or aspirations, because he thinks things like that are “childish” and “worthless”. He’s also never felt a real sense of protection or authority from the adult figures in his life, based on the way he talks about his parents. I’m inclined to believe they weren’t really present while he was growing up as well based on what we know of them, which caused further isolation and left him devoid of a sense of purpose. (Getting slightly ahead of myself here, but guess which type of people are most susceptible to falling into cults?)

So, what does he have to cling to? What does he have to keep him going? We all have a deep innate need for human connection and community, so where can he get that?

Online, of course.

So, he turns to the internet. He finds a community of people who enjoy the same things he does that he can connect with, and this serves as a lifeline for him. Now, he’s also been shown to have a strong sense of justice, which is perhaps one of the only other defining characteristics he can claim for himself and one of the only things he believes in. He feels a sense of empowerment and pride when he’s “carrying out justice” in his eyes, and it gives him a sense of purpose and duty that he’s lacking elsewhere in his life. It also brings him validation from his community, who further enable him and fan the flames, so to speak. He’s part of a group, he’s part of something for the first time in his life, and he has no way of stopping at this point. And then, it goes too far.

(I don’t feel like I should need to say this, but for the sake of posterity, yes, what Fuuta did was very, very bad and should never be condoned or excused. But again, it’s a very real problem and is caused by social isolation which is very common in today’s world and is worth having a discussion about. Fuuta’s character is an excellent showcase of how easily this can lead people to do terrible things by turning to online validation and praise for their sole source of connection with others.)

Now Fuuta is a person that doesn’t know how to deal with heavy negative emotions. He’s not very mentally strong, and being so isolated for most of his life with no real sense of purpose has left him with not a lot of ways to properly process or cope. When we first meet him in Milgram, he’s leaning very heavily on denial. He’s convinced himself that he did nothing wrong, and can’t even entertain the thought that his actions had killed someone. He’s also the type of person that can’t stand showing any signs of weakness. He acts big, and angry, and tough, because that’s the easiest way to deflect from any other “weak” emotions he may be feeling.

But, the side effect of this inability to process his negative emotions and acting out like this, is that he can’t make any real connections with the other prisoners in Milgram. (I’m not counting minigram as canon in this breakdown as an fyi, I’m basing this solely on interactions from timelines and voice dramas)

He’s lost the only community he had, completely cut off from it, and is experiencing the social isolation that drove him to this in the first place all over again. He sees the older prisoners as unreliable and not anyone he can lean on in this situation, and at this point doesn’t seem to have any particular feelings about the other prisoners. He mentions looking out for Haruka in particular, but (as much as it pains me to say this since I do love the 0103 dynamic) it’s unlikely that this was a significant enough connection to keep him from feeling socially isolated in Milgram. He states that he’s not looking to make friends with the other prisoners, but that was likely just big talk and hiding the fact that he couldn’t make that connection with anyone.

With all of these negative emotions he can’t process or cope with, the fear and uncertainty of his environment, the loss of community he once had, and without anybody or anything to rely on for guidance or protection, it’s already a recipe for a shattered mental state.

Now let’s throw a guilty verdict, some horrible physical trauma, voices that you can’t escape, heavy sleep deprivation and paranoid hypervigilance into the mix!

(I also want to point out… Fuuta’s second voice drama is titled “Baptism of Fire”. Yes, it’s a turn of phrase involving fire because that’s Fuuta’s motif, but knowing what we do now this was completely intentional foreshadowing)

The attack Fuuta sustained from Kotoko would be traumatic for anyone, and I feel that the effect this attack had on him is frequently dismissed because he wasn’t on the brink of death like Mahiru was. In Shidou’s T2 voice drama, he lists Fuuta’s injuries as: an orbital floor fracture, traumatic retinal detachment, bruising, lacerations, and a partial fracture of the thorax. This is going to cause some very severe chronic pain for him, particularly in his head and chest, especially considering they don’t have access to proper treatment and from what Fuuta has said they likely don’t have access to any sort of painkillers either. Even the act of just breathing is going to exacerbate his pain, and there’s just nothing that can be done for it. Speaking as someone with chronic pain myself, it definitely has a severe impact on your mental state and ability to do quite literally anything.

Regarding the “voices and eyes” of the audience, Fuuta has always been a special case, because out of the characters that have mentioned the voices in particular he has been the most severely and negatively affected by them. He states that he can’t sleep because he feels that he’s being watched, and he’s mentioned several times how badly the voices affect him and how badly he wants them to stop. And this sleep deprivation just aggravates quite literally everything else that he’s currently dealing with, physically and mentally, making everything worse by tenfold.

The fact that he even admits to being scared and shows weakness to Es, considering the fact that he has an innate need to hide any sort of weakness, should be very telling. We are also told so many times during T2 that Fuuta is at his breaking point and is a complete mess.

Although it’s not directly stated in canon, Fuuta very heavily showcases symptoms of psychosis that have seemed to become progressively worse through and after T2. (I made a post about this not too long ago, trying not to repeat too much here but I broke this down a little more in that other post)

And what’s a common symptom of psychosis? Religious delusion.

To start with, Fuuta's character even before entering Milgram is a prime example of someone who is extremely susceptible to falling in with a cult. Someone who is socially isolated, craves human connection and belonging, and who is searching for a sense of purpose/duty. You add onto that his murder and the need for someone to forgive him for it, the desperation for something to cling to, the worsening symptoms of psychosis and need for something to cure his pain? How in the world was he supposed to do anything but turn to religious delusion? If he hadn’t, it’s very likely the only other possible option he saw for himself was to end his life, which he mentions doing in Backdraft (and passively in his T2 voice drama).

There was a glimmer of hope when Fuuta mentions that he was grateful to Kazui and Shidou in the aftermath of Kotoko attacking him and what they did to help him, but it’s likely that he saw himself not able to continue relying on them considering Shidou had been so busy with Mahiru and Kazui may not have continued to be as present as Fuuta would have preferred. Which is heartbreaking, considering Fuuta seems to so desperately need an authority/protective adult figure to look up to. Mind you, 20 is not that old and especially if he never had that growing up, it’s natural to still want that at this age.

I would like to reiterate again that Amane did not “brainwash” nor “indoctrinate” Fuuta, she just ended up being the outlet for the only thing Fuuta has become convinced will save him. And now they’re stuck in a very sad cycle of enabling each other through their trauma.

All in all, looking at the pieces of Fuuta’s character I feel that this was always the plan, even from the beginning of T1. We were conditioned from the start to view Fuuta as guilty: by making his character theme red, by introducing him as foul mouthed, angry, arrogant, and unapologetic, and even from Jackalope’s comments in Es’ voice drama. We were conditioned to dislike him from the start, and since that guilty verdict in T1 was made Fuuta’s fate was sealed and this was always going to be the natural progression of his character. It was a slow build up, but was very well thought out and didn’t come out of nowhere.

This is the fulfillment of what happens when you put a socially isolated person through extreme stress and trauma with nothing to hold on to, and again is an excellent showcase of what it can look like to fall in with a cult even with no religious background. And how it’s even easier with individuals who have pre-existing mental illnesses/disorders.

We’ve come full circle and I’m very interested to see where his character goes from here.