#past brainwashing

[nade2308]

Where do I start with the description for this story?

It all started a year and a half ago after rewatching "Did you see the sunrise?" for the nth time and one day Thistle excitedly started yeeting her thoughts at me, about the gum and that Nuzo chewed from the gum too, not just TC. So this plot bunny was born and I ran with it.

It's funny to think that what started as a story to explain how Nuzo was also brainwashed, ended up being a deep exploration about how Thomas feels about the whole situation and him wanting to help Nuzo out, because he will never leave his friends and family behind.

It was originally supposed to be for the Merry Whump of May 2022 event, but it got shuffled around for other events until I was trying to figure out this year's Whumptober prompts and suddenly it was the right time.

I hope that this story makes sense in the grand scheme of things and that you are going to like it.

Title is from Daughtry's "It's not over".

Thank you @thethistlegirl for all the help.

@whumptober

[musette22]

One common thing people who support Steve's endgame ending claim is that Steve was always miserable in the future. He never adjusted or felt at home in the future, so of course when he got the chance to go back to the past he took it.

However the only proof of this is at the start of catws (and that deleted avengers scene). Yes he was feeling lost and adrift but he didn't stay that way. He made friends with Sam and Natasha and Wanda and Thor and he got Bucky back. He found a purpose and became confident in who he was and what he believed in. Steve may have moments of feeling sad, but if you think he stayed that way for 12+ years you're not giving him enough credit.

And the claim that he was always miserable isn't true either. He joked with his friends on several occasions, and I mentioned how much better he was when he became nomad. And sorry to steggy or staron shippers, but Bucky made Steve happier than anyone else did. Look at the museum footage of them, or them looking at each other in infinity war. He was happy without Peggy.

Also I think fans forget the scene in catws where Sam asks him if he misses the past. And what does Steve say in response? He lists things he likes about the future and makes a point of not romanticising the past. It's especially important that he was talking to a black man while saying this. We rightly talk about how awful Bucky would feel about Steve leaving to live a life without him, but also imagine being Sam and hearing that your friend wants to go life in a time when someone like you had less rights than you do now.

And you know the line about shared life experience? It applies to Bucky of course but in endgame you could also apply it in a non romantic way. Because you say Steve was out of place in the future? Well in endgame he was surrounded by people in the same situation. Countless people were forced to adjust to a time they didn't know. Steve is uniquely qualified to bond with these people. And choosing to go back to the past puts him right back where he was when he first went to the future. He again has to adjust to a time he's not familiar with.

Funny how in order to justify his ending you have to ignore what his story has previously shown us.

THANK YOU! This is so very true, all of it. Completely agree, you make so many excellent points.

Of course Steve felt lost and adrift at first: he was. He was all alone in a foreign time, he lost everyone, he had ptsd because of the war he fought in and everything that had happened to him etc. etc. It would've been strange if he hadn't been depressed in those first years.

But you're right, he was already making significant steps towards being more settled in the new century by the time Bucky returned, and then when he did, I would argue he became a sort of anchor for Steve in the new time. And from that moment on, Steve really started to belong, and realize that he didn't want to go back, but forward. Like, Nomad Steve was NOT dreaming about going back to the 40s, there is no way. That man belonged right where he was, with Bucky by his side, and he knew it.

Home. And he did not mean bloody 1945.

(Gif credit @/dailystevegifs from this gifset)

Also, can I just say that Steve never seemed particularly happy or settled in the 30s/40s? Yes, he had his mother and he had Bucky, and yes, it was "his" time and Brooklyn and I'm sure he came to miss it once he couldn't go back to it anymore, but he was often sick and he was poor and he was frustrated with the world around him and his own body's limitations, and he always wanted sometimes else, something more.

And sure, one could argue that he finally found his calling once he was given the serum and became Cap (and got a healthy body that fit his spirit), but we know he was still miserable at first, as a dancing monkey. I do think the period of time after he'd rescued Bucky, when the Howling Commandos worked closely together for a few years, must've been a special time for Steve, which he will have missed later on for sure. But it was still wartime. Wartime, and being in a war zone, is miserable, and far from a dream life for Steve. So like... what exactly was he supposedly longing for in the past so much that it would've been impossible for him to ever settle in the present? The thing he most clearly missed from his past was Bucky, and he got him back.

So yeah, I think Steve was just fine where he was eventually, and he would have never, ever thrown everything he’d built, the life that had become his, and everyone he'd come to care about and who cared about him, casually out of the window in order to go back to a past he never gave any indication of actively wanting to go back to.

Funny how in order to justify his ending you have to ignore what his story previously showed us.

Exactly that. That's precisely what Endgame did: it ignored Steve's previous story and his character development over several movies in order to shoehorn in the heteronormative ending the studio execs apparently demanded. Spineless, inane bullshit, if you ask me.

[ruffbunny]

“growing up is going from billdip to billf/rd” growing up is realizing shipping is harmless and we all have bills and shit to pay and god above it does not actually matter outside of the online discourse bubble like…. It really doesn’t.

Please just go do something that makes you happy instead of being miserable and militant about thought crimes. Pleeeeaaaseeee Fortnite is free, the local animal shelter would love some volunteer work, there’s probably a shocking number of nature trails in your area, you could make bread😭

[mobius-m-mobius]

#a man who DESERVES A SLICE OF PIE

[wolvertooth]

(Wolverine 1988, issue #41)

[fla-t-line]

If Charles can control Erik's body and powers telepathically then I'm sure Shaw could do something similar with the power of drugs and brainwashing :d

[sankistank]

Its actually super refreshing going through the shipping tags I've filtered out before. Maturing is realizing that ScienceParty isn't the worst thing in the world and that Engineer is pimpin' frfr! Though I do prefer seeing the dynamic of intellectual partners!

[akkivee]

so kuukou as a tengu and why it’s neat from a buddhism point lol

monks who practice shugendo, mountain asceticism, are called yamabushi!!!! for these monks, mountains are revered as gods and symbolic of the buddha and do all of their ascetic training in the mountains and practice worship using nature itself!!!!

when yamabushi monks begin their ascetic training, it’s their belief that they’re going thru a reincarnation. the yamabushi typically when training wear white for this reason; in jp, when you die, you’re dressed in white robes, but it’s also true that when you’re born, you’re swaddled in white clothing. that white is both purity and symbolic of the reincarnation you go thru starting your mountain training

some aspects of that mountain training are food and sleep deprivation. by pushing oneself to the limits of human life, it’s there humans find incredible power within themselves is the belief. once upon a time ago lol, many became shugendo practitioners to try to unlock supernatural abilities

for these monks, tengu, who are depicted protectors of buddhism, traverse the mountains with ease and come with supernatural powers, are kinda like the ideal beings for the yamabushi lol

and so lol!!!! you have kuukou!!!!! whose temple resides in the mountains!!!!!! practices his asceticism by depriving himself of food and sleep and meditates amongst nature!!!!! has been described as pure and sings of reincarnation!!!! he’s even supernaturally powerful!!!! and is doing his best to make buddhism thrive in new ways, thusly protecting his religion lol!!!!

kuukou is a tengu!!!!!!

[aldermos]

Surge secretly loves those comically large plushies you can get at fairs and carnivals. When she moves in with Amy, her half of the room gets filled with some comically large stuffed bears, among other things.

amy with the high striker game = instant profit 🤭

hcs where surge softens out (or is a softy at heart) always get to me (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥)

I feel like they would definitely have some sort of competition to see who would get the biggest plush available pfff

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

The Winged Servant - 11

content warnings: vague medical care, narrator who does not realize he was a victim of violence, unreliable narrator who believes in the divine right of a monarchy, fantasy discrimination against angels, I swear this is actually much less political than these warnings make it seem

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The thing about angel wings was that humans didn't know much about them. Prince Ryan had done some research, early on, just in case, he'd said. From the look on this doctor's face, though, I didn't think she had done the same.

The other thing about angel wings was that I didn't know much about them either.

I wasn't an angel angel, of course. Not like the ones from the bible with eyes all over themselves, begging people not to be afraid of them. I was the type of angel that hadn’t been too different from humans, way back in the early days. Back when people paid egregious amounts of money for the ability to fly. Humans and angels were only separated by a surgery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, still all called humans, until the scientists had learned to change the genetic code of children before they were born.

Wings got a lot less valuable once kids could be born with them. It didn’t help once people couldn’t control if a kid was born with them or not.

“Angels” was a nickname first, and it spread, although I never was sure if it was just the wings or if it was the idea that angels would come to the earth while the world was ending. It didn’t matter. Everyone thought that the world was ending, and maybe it had. But people still ate and slept and laughed and cried, and the world went on.

And once the angels started to show differences from humans, humans stopped caring to know about them.

I knew very little about my wings besides the fact that they weren’t the wings of a bird. Prince Ryan, while in one of his better moods, had explained some of it to me once. Bats were mammals, like humans—easier to attach, easier to maintain. Of course, the prince was human, and I was not, and I would never be able to have his level of understanding with matters like these.

There were humans in this castle, though, that also didn’t seem to have his level of understanding.

The doctor that Dubhe had brought me to had taken one look at me, smiled politely, and left me alone to talk to Dubhe outside the door. “Just stay put for a minute, sugar,” she’d said, voice strained, a southern accent bleeding through her words as she left me to avoid eye contact with the guard who’d had to help me walk down the hall.

Her voice was less strained when she’d returned, but she still didn’t seem pleased that I was there. I shrunk back onto the cot I’d been left on.

“Onyx, Ma’am.”

“Alright, Onyx, that’s good. Do you mind telling me what happened to your arm?”

“It got hit by a sword, I think, Ma’am.” My memories of the night before were hazy, but it was a sword, right? My arm had been… it’d gotten hurt when we were in a hallway, in an endeavor to get us out of that hallway. And Prince Cardan had pushed me in the way. Maybe.

“Mkay. Looks like you got lucky and it just nicked you, hun. Won’t even need stitches. I’ve just gotta disinfect it and bandage it. Would that be alright?”

I nodded jerkily, not expecting the question. Prince Ryan had told me what he was doing to me, sometimes, but not like this. Dr. Charlotte had been smiling the whole time, soft and kind. Prince Cardan smiled at me sometimes, but it was always due to amusement on his part. Of course, that was his right, because I was a servant, but Dr. Charlotte had been smiling as if it were for my benefit. She’d asked before touching my arm. That wasn’t… how people were supposed to act about angels and servants.

“I’m afraid I can’t do much about your wing, sweetheart,” she said once my arm was bandaged, and I nodded. I’d expected that much. “I haven’t ever worked with angel wings before, and I wouldn’t want to make anything worse because of my lack of experience. But I can find someone who knows more about it, alright?”

I nodded. Dr. Charlotte seemed like the type to tolerate questions, probably. “May I ask a question, ma’am?”

“Sure, hun.”

“Why do you want to fix my wing?”

She blinked, and then laughed lightly. “Well, I’m not quite sure what you mean. I mean, I think everyone should get medical assistance that caters to them. You don’t mean to give up on that wing just because I wouldn’t know where to start with it, right? We’ll find someone else. Do you not want it fixed?”

I frowned. “Good servants don’t have wants, ma’am, other than serving the royal family. Her Majesty has always had my best interests in mind, including when my wing was broken to prevent me from flying. And I don’t have a preference, of course, but I don’t know if she wants it fixed.”

“Her Majes- Are you talking about Lucia?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dr. Charlotte’s willingness to refer to the queen with her first name was dangerous, to say the least, and I tried not to let my heart rate spike.

“Okay, well, I’m not sure if she mentioned this to you, but she hasn’t ruled a country for the better part of the last decade. Last night was a pitiful attempt to get the country back under her control. Bless her heart, she might have actually believed it would work.”

I stared at Dr. Charlotte. I wasn’t supposed to contradict the things said by people who ranked higher than me, which included everyone, but holy shit. Holy shit. Talking about the queen that way was treason of some kind, without a doubt, and also flat out wrong. Sixteen generations—the monarchy had been theirs for sixteen generations. “Are you sure you aren’t misinformed, Ma’am?” I settled on eventually.

“Quite sure. Have you ever actually seen Lucia with any of her subjects?”

No, but I wasn’t a traitor and I knew that I was supposed to take the royal family’s word on things. I was a good servant and I would act accordingly. Except-

Except I had just left a room of the entire royal family, tied up together. Except we had murdered three guards to get into this castle, and we’d lived in a house with three bedrooms. Except that the royal family had a total of two servants working for them, and neither of us had been allowed to leave the house.

“Her Majesty’s family has been ruling the country for sixteen generations,” I said weakly.

“Yeah, well, no one wanted Lucia to rule because she’s a dick and hates everyone. So we did something about it. I can’t get you to start hating her—that’s up to you—but you should probably know the facts, and the facts are that she’s not a queen and she never will be again.”

And that was- not my decision to make. Nothing was ever my decision to make. Of course political affairs like this wouldn’t make sense to me; I was an angel and a servant, and my only job was to do what I was told.

That was what Prince Ryan had said, even. Do what they tell you. Don’t get hurt. Even if this Dr. Charlotte was wrong about things, I was supposed to do what I was told.

“Hey,” Dr. Charlotte said softly, and I glanced back up at her. “I’m sorry for overwhelming you, dear. Now that your arm’s all fixed up, Dubhe's got some questions for you, if that’s okay.”

Do what they tell you. Don’t get hurt.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

~

Taglist: @kaleidoscope-of-thoughts @toyybox @rainydaywhump @risk606

[aetalk]

[brainwashed-klarkstella]

you see its its problematic becayse they see the word cest and then scream

I accept this answer

bonus: start calling everything [blank]cest! you see, anything with the suffix -cest acts as a deterrent for many breeds of annoying fucking fandom members (but not all. be warned there will still be some)

you love shipping the perfectly healthy, unproblematic torikasa? that's torikasacest now :)

[singingcicadas]

I find it super ironic that Cyclonus has this highly romanticized, propagandic view of the Decepticons, because like:

This is him 🔽

And this is also him 🔽

Dude you yourself was a member of the ruling elite of the old order. Even if what you said about the Decepticons were all true, you're a big part of why people needed to be emancipated in the first place.

He was part of Nova Prime's inner cadre during a time when bigotry and oppression was even more predominant. Nova. who's literally the founder of functionism, which flourished and peaked under the so-called Golden Age of his rule. And Galvatron's... Galvatron, I don't even want to talk about him everyone knows what he's like. But Cyclonus was somehow fine with being yes-man to both?

The way he spoke about the Decepticons, it sounded as if he's this super dedicated sjw filled with righteous passion about stuff like liberation and revolution and emancipation and 'the people', when in truth it's shown that he'd never cared about any of those things before that point.

Nova Prime's ideology was literally this:

And Cyclonus didn't have a problem with it during his entire life before the Ark, compared to more decent people like Dai Atlas and Omega Supreme who eventually clashed with their group and got kicked off the Ark b/c they couldn't stand Nova and co.'s lack of a bottom line and misuse of the word freedom.

As a matter of fact Cyclonus still believed in Nova Prime after he became Nemesis - not that he was much of a better person as Nova. Where's his sense of justice against corruption? Nova got turned into a literal demon, surely it's hard to get more corrupted than that. But his only complaint wasn't about what Nova/Nemesis was trying to do, it's about the process being too much of a damn ordeal.

He's super excited over the anticipation of murder and has no scruples whatsoever about killing non-combatants. The same thing happened again at Kimia.

He finally grew enough of a conscience to break off from Galvatron in the end but notice his wording. It's not 'you forced me to hurt people', it's 'you forced me to hurt Cybertron'. He even said Cybertron twice for emphasis.

It's not mind control, he just thinks like that. The guy's obsessed with Cybertron - with what Cybertron once was. The Cybertron he lived in. Nova Prime's Cybertron. The Golden Age. He's shown to repeatedly lament over it in his internal monologues.

It's all about the loss of his 'perfect world.' The infrastructure. the scenery. the Tetrahexian real estate lmao. How about let's feel some sadness for the billions of Cybertronians who once lived on it? When did he ever spare a thought for all the people who died?

The Decepticons worked so hard to destroy this. It's a gilded carcass rotting from the inside. It eats people alive. The rot was already there in his own time. He was complacent in putting it there. But he only had eyes for the beauty and nolstalgia.

In the first panel he lauded the Decepticons for wanting radical change. Well he himself seemed to be dead set against change judging by the way he kept wanting things to go back the way they were 8 million years ago.

Back in the Golden Age he would not have looked twice at a bot like Tailgate. He was part of the people who didn't give a shit about the disappearance of one waste disposal bot. He still wouldn't have given a shit if circumstances hadn't forced them together over and over again.

Looks to me he's enarmored with the grandness of the concepts of liberation and revolution and emancipation for 'the people' in the Decepticons' (theoretical) ideology. The concepts of fighting against corruption and bringing down the old order. Just like how he bought into the concepts of Nova's 'spreading freedom to the galaxy' and the glittering prosperity of the 'Golden Age.' Does he know that the Decepticon ideology is a twisted lie built on terror and massacres and genocide and despotism? Does he know that Nova's idea of spreading freedom and enlightenment is galactical conquest and his beloved Golden Age is built upon a foundation of misery and suffering and systematic subjugation? Of course he knows he's not stupid. He's nose-deep in it, it's virtually impossible not to. But he's able to willfully ignore those ugly truths as well as his role in them by only engaging in shallow romanticism through rose-coloured lens and refusing to delve deeper.

It's either that or imperalist mindset and the endorsement of violence and casual murder resonates hard.

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batman: Knightfall

So, Jean-Paul is schizophrenic because of the abuse he went through, the hypnosis from a very young age fucked up his perception on what is real and what isn't. What is interesting is that his visions (not sure this is the correct term for schizophrenia) are a reflection of his feelings. Here, Saint Dumas represents Jean-Paul's desire to make Bruce proud, to do a good job as Batman like Bruce would.

[sumikae]

Someone said that Hakuryuu understands Judar best and Kougyoku has loved him for the longest time.... When I think about it, Kougyoku is the first person to love Judar for who he is and has never thought about using his power as a magi, it's even emphasized in the last battle, and in turn Judar also just hanging out with her because he likes (teasing) her. They just care for each other without any ulterior motive and it's, precious that they are surprisingly pure.

[f-liner]

Sooo...if the divorce is already over, why does Hanto become dark Valen?