whumpcember day 4: shortness of breath
tw: mention of war, drowning
The landscape in front of them was miserable. The sky was grey, the ground was grey, the mud filling what must have been old shelling craters was grey. Deego hugged his arms to himself. The coat he wore wasn't thick enough to keep the cold wetness of the air from piercing his lungs and making him feel cold from the inside out.
Faleece, in contrast, seemed invigorated by the scene. "Wow, look at all this!" she gestured toward the huge holes filled with rainwater. "Must have been quite a battle! Wish I could have seen it!"
Deego frowned and looked wistfully off to the distance. Faleece was strong and clever, but her views on violence always left him feeling alienated from her.
"Welp," Faleece stretched her hands over her head. "If we're going to find some scrap for Itchy, this seems about as good a place as any!" With that, she set off into the old battlefield, boots squelching in the thick mud.
Deego watched her progress. She started a wide berth around the closest crater, looking down and nudging her foot in various areas as she searched for metal beneath the sludge.
Looking down at his own feet, Deego blinked at his worn tennis shoes. This was not going to be comfortable, but he wanted, more than anything, to be useful. He unfurled his arms, using them as a balancing pole as he stepped forward. Immediately, he sank up to his shins, mud soaking quickly through his socks and into his shoes. He looked over to where Faleece continued zig-zagging around the field, in a way that seemed effortless to him.
He laboriously pulled his feet forward, feeling miserable with each step. He seemed to sink deeper and deeper with each foot of progress. Deego looked up to see Faleece wandering around ahead of him, and once distracted, he promptly fell facedown into the first shelling hole.
Deego pulled up his head from the filth and choked out a mouthful of grainy mud. He coughed and flapped his arms through the muck, managing to right himself enough to get his head and chest mostly above water.
In spite of his success, he felt himself sinking. This realization caused him to panic. He glanced around for something to grab onto, and finding nothing, scanned ahead to try and find Faleece. He scraped a dirty hand across this eyes, trying and failing to clear his vision with the one arm he could pull out of the ooze. He was sinking so fast.
"Fa-" he coughed out more mud. "Faleece!" his voice was too soft, he knew it was.
He could feel the mud caving in on him, constricting his chest, and his breaths got shorter and shorter.
"Fa- leece!" he tried again. "H- Please! FA... LEECE!"
The mud was pulling at his hair now, creeping up his neck in a way that gave him chills. Keeping his hand raised had tired him quickly, and he let it fall, quickly being consumed.
Deego tilted his head up as the muck began to swallow his head. He couldn't yell anymore. He was too tired, his voice was too weak, and Faleece didn't care enough about him to notice his absence. He closed his eyes as he felt the thick wetness flood around his ears. Maybe this was fitting - sinking quietly away into a hole, not even having to bother anyone enough to dig a grave for him. The mud filled his mouth as it covered him completely. He felt his lungs burning, and his mind began to swim in thick fog.
Suddenly, he felt himself being pulled up by the nape of his coat. He wondered briefly if this is what it felt like for his spirit to leave his body. After being unceremoniously dumped onto solid, painful ground, Deego decided that it was not.
He attempted to breathe and immediately began coughing up muck in chunks. Each breathe was strangled and labored, bringing in only barely enough air to enable another round of coughs. He sat up on his hands and retched over and over, his body unable to control its desperate attempts to oxygenate.
Finally, enough was cleared that he was able to take a deeper breath. He put a hand to his chest and spat another mouthful of mud onto the ground in front of him. At last, the world around him seemed to fade back into his consciousness. Deego huffed as he continued spitting grit. He tried to wipe his face off again, but every inch of him was filthy and soaked through. His hair was gritty and matted to his head and face.
"Uh... are you okay?" he heard Faleece's voice behind him ask. It seemed like such a silly question, but he knew deep down that she meant it as a genuine concern.
"N... no. I am not okay." The mud and ache from coughing so hard had made his voice strained and rough. It hurt his lungs and throat to talk... He would probably at least get pneumonia from this incident.
"Um..." Faleece stepped next to his kneeling form and leaned down to look at him. "I can carry you back home if you want?"
Deego knew how much Faleece hated to stop one of her "missions" and how much she hated touching him. This offer was very appreciated as Deego felt painful and weak in remission from his body's panicked response to nearly drowning. Muddy eyes sparkling, he nodded as enthusiastically as his hurting neck would allow.
Faleece smiled at him. "Alright then! Let's go home!" Perhaps, Deego thought, she was able to see this as a new "mission". She then picked him up by the back of his coat, holding him out as far to the side as she could, and began tramping toward their home.
Deego didn't exactly expect her to cradle him tenderly, but he was still surprised by the rough treatment as he was jostled about, his coat pulling uncomfortably at his waist, chest, and arms. His eyes closed as he was carried along as though he were a smelly handbag. He had to suppose it was still better travel than walking.
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re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"
this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?
some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.
take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.
and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.
people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.
that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis
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