#telling someone desperate to live to die for your suicidal mentor

[fea-therlight221]

// spoilers for BSD 55 Minutes

My favorite thing about 55 Minutes is definitely how 4 million people's lives were at stake which is a perfectly good reason for Atsushi to fight Gab but he just kinda forgot about that and really went "can you please die so I can save Dazai-san" holy shit Atsushi I'd be mad too if I were Gab 😭😭

[baku-bowl]

broke 1,000 followers (the fuck? I don't even make content people), so decided to write up a list of some (but not all, I'll make other lists later) of my favorite Bakugou-centric fic recs. my tastes run towards hurt/comfort, as you'll probably figure from the list. if there are some Baku-centric fics that you've enjoyed that aren't on here, please add them - this is definitely not a complete list of the ones I've read and love, but I'm always up for some recs. <3

fair warning, most of these are wips.

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Social Media 101 by WindsChild8178

Part 1: Survival Guide to Fucking Up

[Solely Bakugou’s point of view]

Katsuki Bakugou doesn’t have a gentle bone in his body. He’s aggressive in everything he does and does everything with 100% of his heart in it. After the Sport’s Festival, Katsuki starts to get harassed by strangers for his unheroic demeanor. It starts with letters but it doesn’t end there. The moment Katsuki realizes the harassment has entered dangerous territory and he needs to tell someone, it’s already too late.

Part 2: Post Traumatic Life Disorder

[Point of View opens up to Bakugou, teachers and classmates]

When the Dorms are finally built, everyone is settling in well, but things become tense as people begin to realize something isn’t right with the recently rescued Bakugou.

[Cannon compliant right up to after the License Exam]

hands down my favorite fic in the fandom right now. it’s the one that converted me into a Bakugou lover. if you have any fondness for Bakugou as a character then it’s likely you’ve read this one already, but if not, I can’t recommend it enough. incredibly depressing, but with the hope that comfort is coming soon in the next few chapters.

The Kids Will Be Alright, Eventually by NotWithThatAttitude

Bakugou is spiraling in the aftermath of Kamino and his friends are starting to notice. He's stubborn, aggressively independent, and less than willing to dig into his past, but after a breakdown that ends with a painful secret revealed, he starts to get help.

Whether he likes it or not.

Meanwhile, a new kind of villain threatens an uneasy peace following the loss of Allmight. Whispers build as a new narrative slowly takes shape:

Hero society needs to change.

Feat. Therapy, Dadzawa, best boy Kirishima, dysfunctional families, healing, growing up, and the mortifying ordeal of being known

guys.. the medical accuracy of this fic is just... *chef’s kiss*

I rarely see mental health genuinely handled well in fics, but this one goes above and beyond. kudos to the author for doing such excellent research into psychology, and making the application of it in here not-boring. also, while this one does have abusive!Mitsuki, it’s done in a way that feels realistic, and how I usually will see it occur in real life, rather than just for the hurt/comfort feels.

fair warning, the fic can be incredibly triggering (themes of severe depression, PTSD, panic attacks, rape survival, abuse survival, suicidal ideation/attempted suicide, among other things), so be safe and heed the tw’s if you decide to read. legitimately one of my Top Favorite fics in this fandom.

Lock and Key by autochorystalize

Bakugou made a choked, gravelly noise before croaking out a low, “You can’t be serious.” His fingers ached to blow up everything in the room.

“I’m sorry, young man, but you can’t change reality! This sometimes happens.” Recovery Girl clicked through his file, adding a new symbol in a previously empty slot.

- - -

A pair of eyes discreetly locked on to an explosive blond plowing his way forward, parting people in his path. He recognized the kid, of course. Anyone in the underbelly of society would recognize him, after the publicity of both UA’s Sports Festival and the events leading up to All Might’s fall. The uniform he was wearing cast away any doubts about the young man’s identity.

It was a bit of a surprise that the little firecracker presented as an omega.

- - - - - - - - -

Or: there are certain types of evil that seemed too distant, archaic violations and perversions that would never actually threaten bright-eyed heroes-in-training in the clean, modern world...but sometimes those evils aren't as distant as one might think.

remember when I said that I love a/b/o fics that are full of plot and world-building and gender-induced tension? that’s this one. the OC’s are fabulous and you love to hate ‘em. also, it’s the fic that made me fall head-over-heels for the TodoBaku dynamic, so it’s got a special place in my cold, dead heart. 

be warned, there are rather explicit non-con scenes between an adult (OC) and a minor (Bakugou) in this one, but the author warns for them in advance, and you could likely skip those parts without missing too much if you need to.

Never and Always, Eventually by Wawa_Boonliang

"Katsuki can remember the exact moment that he and Deku…that he and Midoriya Izuku became friends. He can also remember the moment he and Izuku became fierce rivals, a time when they were almost enemies.

However, what he remembers most clearly about their relationship is the moment that they moved passed rivals and became something more close than mere friends. Something more like brotherhood, something forged in fire and secured in the middle of a battlefield or in the midst of natural disaster where the number of the dead was climbing ever higher. And then it was torn from him."

Katsuki is given a second chance. A chance to save everyone. A chance to change everything.

But should he?

y’all. I’m a slutty, slutty whore for time travel fics. a time travel fic with autistic!coded Bakugou? it was love at first read.

Lessons Learned by Sif (Rosae)

Rather than the police station, Katsuki's friends bring him to a hospital after rescuing him from the villains. His wounds were minor, but it didn't make having them treated any less important. As it would so happen, Best Jeanist was also brought to this hospital after the attack.

Sometimes, small choices have a big impact on how a story plays out.

classic Bakugou hurt/comfort. this fic opened me up to the potential that could be a genuinely good Best Jeanist & Katsuki mentor-mentee relationship, and I kind of dig it and search ravenously for it in other fics now. I’m also a huge fan of the behind-the-scences Pro Hero Chat group.

Slope by sunfleurmoon

“I’m not a hero. Or a good person,” Katsuki says, giving Aizawa a pointed look, “So leave me alone. I don’t care about the League or UA, or you—” The two years he’s been away have been fine, more than fine, fucking fantastic actually if you ignore the bi-monthly near-death experiences. He doesn’t need this place. He doesn’t miss this place.

And yet, longing, a childish desire to tear up, or maybe blow something to bits, they all twist in his chest like a band of traitors regardless. “—I just want to go home.”

Or: the one where Katsuki and Izuku fail the first term exam, Aizawa discovers their pasts, and Katsuki is booted from UA. Featuring questionable descriptions of villain organizations, a slightly illegal moving shop, and your favorite emotionally constipated badass in distress with a newly discovered penchant for collecting strays.

paaaaaaiiiiiiiin. the hurt is ALIVE in this one. lots of tortured, angsty exploding child goodness. the OC’s are excellently crafted, and the Bakugou & Eri relationship? beautiful. definitely deserves a read.

Ground Zero by WindsChild8178

In the wake of Kamino, Katsuki is tested more than anyone could imagine. Bound by a villain’s quirk to keep his silence or die, he lives each day knowing it might very well be his last. He continues to work towards becoming a hero, keeping his secret from his classmates and teachers, focusing on making it through each day and trying not to allow the panic or depression to get the best of him. When the villain finally corners him with demands in exchange for his life, there is really only one answer Katsuki Bakugou can give.

honestly don't know which I want updated more - social media 101 or ground zero. this author's fics are amazing, and I really wasn't expecting the twist in this one. can't wait for windschild to come back to this fic some day.

The Defect by LadyGreenFrisbee

"Why do you want to win the Sports Festival so badly?" 

Because I want to see if the defect could usurp the masterpiece.

(In which Endeavor holds a terrible secret and Bakugo has to suffer since childhood for it.)

a great concept, and I adore the shouto and Katsuki sibling interaction here. hoping the author will come back to this one some day.

A Name That You'll Remember by Heronfem

Kirishima Eijirou is a Hero. Bakugou Katsuki... is not. Trapped in his toxic workplace and increasingly desperate to get out, Red Riot's days are only brightened by a new villain known as Caution, who's not exactly villainous and keeps accidentally doing good deeds. But when a real villain appears, a threat from the past that demands that Red Riot make the ultimate sacrifice to keep the public safe, Bakugou is forced into saving the day... and eventually, Red Riot himself.

sob story good guy villains are my weakness, this fic is a gem, and I'd kill for the sequel.

Our Hero by AnonymousTwit

He felt everything jerk to the side and throw his balance off before he saw anything, dust clouding his vision and irritating his lungs as the earth itself opened up to swallow them whole. For a single moment, in a millisecond's time, his wild eyes locked with Raccoon Eyes', hers alight with fear and adrenaline-fueled desperation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that it was the first time she'd looked at him with something other than long-deserved hatred in days.

And then he was free falling.

Or

After a particularly nasty encounter between childhood friends, the class learns about Bakugou and Midoriya's dark history and practically ostracizes Bakugou while trying to defend Midoriya. An earthquake during an outing has all sides regretting their decisions.

just fucking tear apart my self-sacrificing faves in every way imaginable while their loved ones watch on in terror. 💖🥰💖 this one is heavy on the Bakusquad and Class-1A feels, and VERY heavy on the Mina & Bakugou relationship (platonic).

Running back the tape, watching it replay by Faralyne

For someone ripped from their time, ripped from the few but strong relationships built by time and personal development, by self-reflection and swallowed pride, ripped from the one thing that made him feel worthwhile and needed and put-together, and forced to forge everything over again—Katsuki thinks he is handling it pretty fucking well.

Or

A villain’s quirk sends a 29-year-old Bakugou back in time to his middle school days.

am I a sucker for time travel? yes. am I a sucker for vigilante!bakugou? also yes. am I a sucker for this fic? literally refreshing the page in wait for an update as we speak.

Liability by sandelf

After All-Might dies rescuing Bakugou from the League, Bakugou is determined to prove it wasn't for nothing.

But the world is against him, his grief is overwhelming, and his stability is splitting at the edges.

very self-indulgent bakugou angst. tw for harassment, severe depression, and suicidality.

Special Mentions:

How To Win The Sport Festival: A Step By Step Guide by mhwright

Short re-imagining of the Sports Festival Arc if Shinso had planned a little better and worked a little harder to win the Sports Festival and if the match-ups had been slightly different. Self-indulgent fic of watching him succeed.

this is completely Shinsou-centric, not Bakugou-centric, but I love and adore it and am dying for a sequel. Shinsou is Best Boy here and you'll be rooting for him the whole time.

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[runnfromtheak]

hide your soul out of his reach (soldier keep on marchin’ on)

New fic I posted on ao3 already, but I figured I’ll post it here too!!!!

What better for Dumbledore than a child with no sense of self-worth? What better than a child willing to throw his life away for any to show him kindness? What better for Dumbledore than a child who knew no love, burdened with a world of lives he’d value above his own? What better for Dumbledore than a child who lived only to die?

After all, the only difference between a victim and a martyr was how far they were willing to go, and by the time Harry had walked to his death for the final time, he’d had nothing.

“He accused me of being Dumbledore's man through and through."

"How very rude of him."

“I told him I was.”

 -Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* 

Tom Riddle made him a victim, but Albus Dumbledore made him a martyr.

 His existence has always been defined by tragedy, by death and destruction at a power-hungry creature’s – not man, never man – hands. His earliest memory to this day is colored by a green brighter than his mother’s eyes, voiced by Lily Potter’s begging and then her screams. From the moment that bloody prophecy had been uttered he’d been a target. From the moment Severus Snape betrayed his childhood friend in hopes of saving her, he’d been a casualty. From the moment Voldemort killed his father, the moment he’d ‘marked Harry as his equal’, Harry had been a victim.

He’d survived, saved by love, only to live a loveless life surrounded by hatred and anger for nothing more than breathing.

He’d survived, by virtue of the endless parade of corpses shielding him from his delayed fate, leaving guilt to fester within his heart.

He’d survived, but to some (him), the cost had been too high. He lived with Voldemort in his head, in his soul, with nothing but that haunting green color to remember his parents by.

 “…a power he knows not…”

 Before he could walk or speak, the entire world knew his name. Before he had his first friend, the entire world had a picture-perfect image of the Boy Who Lived – who he was, who he would be, and who he should be.

Nobody expected a knobbly-kneed child half-starved with a cupboard under the stairs as a bedroom. Nobody expected a Slytherin playing at Gryffindor, with the mind of the former and the heart of the latter. Nobody expected him, and that’s why he’d had such a hell of a time making friends.

Real friends, friends who didn’t give a shite about his name and called him out for being a git. Friends who were there in the hard times as well as the easy ones and didn’t run at the first sign of Voldemort.

 At the end of the day, he didn’t have many real friends, as the Second and Fourth Year had made abundantly clear.

 Harry James Potter had all the ‘mates’ a bloke could want, but Harry could count his actual friends on one hand. Because they expected things of him, they each had this image in their head of what he was supposed to do and who he was supposed to be. What magic he was to know and who he was supposed to know.

 To them, he was a hero, a savior, but he’d always viewed himself as a victim.

 By the time he came to Hogwarts, he’d been starved for love more than he was for food, desperate to cling to whatever scraps he could get. He’d needed proof he wasn’t a freak, proof he was important. The absence of parental love or guidance instilled him with a certain abandonment complex, a certain need for approval no one seemed able to satisfy. All he’d wanted was to belong, for someone to care, and that played perfectly into Dumbledore’s plans.

  “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a thirst… to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?”

 Malfoy had been cruel, cruel to someone who had only shown Harry kindness, so he turned from that cruelty towards kindness. He’d had enough of cruelty with Aunt Petunia’s indifference and Dudley’s taunts and Uncle Vernon’s rage.

 “Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — no? Well, if you’re sure — better be GRYFFINDOR!”

 Privately, he wonders if Dumbledore would’ve been as approving if he’d been sorted into Slytherin, as the hat had desired. He wonders loads of things about his old mentor, few positive. There’s a wisdom that comes with age, and a bright-eyed first-year fresh from an abusive environment didn’t have the distance eighteen-year-old Harry has.

But Harry hadn’t had that wisdom at eleven, hadn’t had it until seventeen staring into that same green light.

 “…I’m ready to die…”

 He hadn’t known it until he’d stared at the faces of those he loved, those who’d died for him, and Dumbledore never crossed his mind.

 Lily and James Potter, who died in his place the first time (his fault)

Sirius Black, who died to save him (his fight)

Remus Lupin, who died in a battle he prolonged (his war)

 He’d always been Dumbledore’s boy, through and through, but as he faced his destiny, as he faced the end to his suffering and the end of his curse on others…

 “So when the time comes, the boy must die?”

 “Yes…yes. He must die.”

 He realized some things, some lingering questions he’d never been brave enough to voice. Times where he’d thought Dumbledore completely barmy, mad, and never gained any insight on his brilliant plans.

 First-year, where Dumbledore guided him towards Voldemort, towards confrontation, for his destiny.

Second-year, where Dumbledore lied to him to preserve his childhood when he’d already almost died twice.

Third-year, where Dumbledore encouraged him to use the time-turner in place of an adult.

Fourth-year, when he still did not tell Harry his ultimate fate and allowed him to participate in a competition designed for adults that killed hundreds.

Fifth-year, where he kept Harry in the dark until it killed his Godfather, and even still did not reveal the death coming.

Sixth year, where he died and left Harry with a half-baked plan and a suicide mission he didn’t know about.

 He hadn’t had time for anger or grief with the guillotine handing above his neck waiting to drop, the expiration date written in his blood, body, and soul approaching zero. He hadn’t had time to process, which is exactly how Dumbledore would’ve wanted it.

Harry didn’t get a chance to understand anything other than his death, and his role in ending the war.

He’d been raised as a weapon – a sacrifice – gathering the necessary skills under Dumbledore’s careful instructions. Forced into a home that was no home because it left him vulnerable but made him protected. It left him desperate for approval, for Dumbledore’s approval.

 “You’ve kept him alive so he can die at the proper moment… You’ve been raising him like a pig for slaughter.”

 “Don’t tell me now that you’ve grown to care for the boy.”

 Dumbledore gained his trust through mystery, through kindness and distance and the appearance of being more than he was – caring more than he did. He made Harry think he cared, think he valued him, to earn his loyalty. The Dursleys insured Harry had no sense of self-worth, no sense of restraint, and what better than a weapon with no limits?

 From First Year, walking towards Quirrell and what he believed could be his death without hesitation, eyes narrow and trust and faith all he needed to straighten his spine, to every year after it.

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t question.

He’s walked to his death countless times in countless ways, sustained solely by the belief that Dumbledore knew best, and that the information he didn’t know was for his own good.

But then Sirius died, because Harry wasn’t given the right information.

Then Dumbledore took him on missions, still withholding information.

Then Snape revealed the truth, the real truth, with his dying tears

 “He must die… and Voldemort himself must do it. That is essential.”

 Walking to his certain death with eyes wide open and no faith left…

Staring into the creature that killed his parent’s malicious red eyes, watching his lips mouth the incantation Harry knew all too well as the world seemed to still…

 He hadn’t had the time to process what being raised as a weapon meant, to see why Snape had seemed so disgusted at Dumbledore’s words.

 But then, he lived.

 And he watched the memories again and again, until they were seared into his own mind.

 Maybe Dumbledore hadn’t known how the Dursleys would treat him, maybe he hadn’t known how miserable Harry would be…

 Or maybe he had. Aberforth said Dumbledore didn’t know how to view people as opposed to chess pieces, and Snape’s memories showed a colder side of Dumbledore Harry had never seen.

 “What will you give me in exchange, Severus?”

 What better for Dumbledore than a child with no sense of self-worth?

What better than a child willing to throw his life away for any to show him kindness?

What better for Dumbledore than a child who knew no love, burdened with a world of lives he’d value above his own?

What better for Dumbledore than a child who lived only to die?

 After all, the only difference between a victim and a martyr was how far they were willing to go, and by the time Harry had walked to his death for the final time, he’d had nothing.

 No parents, no godfather, no uncle figure, no family.

 Everyone he cared for died, without exception. His death spared many, but his hesitation cost many too.

 His death had been welcome, at that point. The Boy Who Lived had wanted to die, and that had been a difficult pill to swallow.

“Must be difficult to cope without Dumbledore’s favoritism,” Zacharias Smith says with a snort, looking at McGonagall from the Eighth Year table. “Can’t earn points just for breathing anymore.”

 Harry stiffens as the table goes silent, feeling Hermione’s hand clutch his wrist in a death-grip.

 “He doesn’t understand,” she murmurs, tracing patterns into his skin to calm him. “None of them do.”

 Harry grits his teeth, silent.

 “Come off it, Smith,” Ron fires back, “Just because a cowardly ponce like you can’t earn points doesn’t mean there’s favoritism.”

 “Like anyone buys that.” Nott crosses his arms and glares at Harry’s lightning scar. “We all are aware of Dumbledore’s… preferential treatment towards Potter and Gryffindor.”

 “You say that like I bloody well asked for it,” Harry snaps, hissing a little when Hermione’s fingernails dig into his arm. “You don’t know a damn thing about me, so don’t act like you do.”

 “Such a hardship that must be,” Smith fires back, and Hermione releases Harry’s hand with a small gasp as if burned. “Never-ending hero-worship that you don’t even have to ask for—”

 Harry’s burning, he must be, because his skin feels like an inferno and his heart’s beating as fast as it had when he died.

 “I was Dumbledore’s fucking pawn, Smith, that’s why he practically handed us the cup every year! He had me raised by fucking muggles that hated me so I’d be his perfect bloody soldier, his perfect weapon! He wanted me loyal to a fault even if it fucking broke me, to the point where I willingly walked to my death to get it over with!”

 And he stands, pulling away from Hermione and Ron because he just can’t deal with this, and his magic is hard enough to handle when he’s not on the verge of exploding—

 “You, all of you, seem to think that being the Chosen One is something I should be honored to be, that it’s something to want to be! I never fucking wanted to be special! I never wanted to die or to lose my parents and anyone who got too close because some sociopath with no nose said so! I never asked to be Dumbledore’s man, but I was because I trusted the man I knew, and now I don’t because he had me bred to walk to my fucking death! Do you want a walkthrough, Smith, of what the Chosen One actually is?! Do you want me to tell you how I can still hear my mother pleading with Voldemort to not kill me, that I can see her die every time a dementor gets too close?!”

 Smith’s face pales, and he doesn’t have to look at the staff table to feel the Headmistress’s eyes, to see Hagrid’s pity. The fight and the anger and rage leaves him all at once because he’s so tired. He’s tired of the grief and the pain and the suffering. He’s tired of the eyes and the judgment and the condemnation and the praise.

 “He is just a boy!”

But he’s never been just a boy.

 “Do you want me to tell you about the loneliness? About growing up either hailed as a Saint or hated as a madman? Do you want me to tell you what it’s like not being able to trust anyone, because they might use you, or they might betray you to make a quick buck? Do you want me to talk about loss, and grief, because everyone you love, everyone you care about dies? Do you want me to tell you about my Godfather taking a killing curse to the chest and falling through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries because of my mistake? What about death? Being marked for it, having to deal it out? Because that’s what the Chosen One is too. It’s death and pain and grief and loneliness, it’s self-hatred and martyrization and a bloody parade of trauma. What is it you want, Smith? An apology?”

 And Harry snorts because as much as he sometimes wants to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, beg for redemption for his fuck ups and failures, Smith has never deserved an apology. Smith has never been a victim, not by his hand at least.

 “You don’t deserve one, you cowardly git. I have many things I regret, and none of them involve you so shove off.”

 The Great Hall shakes as he runs, runs to lick his wounds and hide in peace, in the place where he lived and died and where he first saw Voldemort come back.

 It’s cold.

 Not as cold as before, when he’d carried the Resurrection Stone into the clearing and felt okay for the first moment since Sirius died, but cold still.

 The leaves crunch beneath his feet, and he can feel the draw of the resurrection stone, the remaining power trying to attract him. It’s tempting… tempting because he misses Sirius with a fierce longing, but he knows better. He does.

 Harry treads the familiar path, watching the clearing open towards where he felt peace, where the familiar curse corrected itself.

 “Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived… come to die.”

 He shivers, holding his too-thin school robes tight to his chest. He hadn’t had the foresight to wear a jumper underneath his robes or anything beyond the thread-bare shirt he’d bought while on the run.

 They don’t understand.

 They don’t know.

 They don’t know what it’s like to be hated for years in a home you never asked for.

They don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you care about die and suffer for nothing more than knowing you, caring about you.

They don’t know what it’s like to crave death, to want to die, and then have to come back.

 He still doesn’t know he is outside of that death, outside of Voldemort’s death. Outside of Hallows and Horcruxes and a fragmented soul that never felt whole and still doesn’t. Outside of the titles he doesn’t want – Boy Who Lived, Master of Death, Chosen One – and the things he’s lost.

 Because he’s a victim, not a hero.

 He’s an orphan shaped by trauma and grief and hollowness, desperately chasing after love and affection to make up for what he’d never experienced.

He’s a child shaped by manipulation and misplaced trust, seeking approval and guidance to redeem himself for sacrifices he didn’t have a say in.

 And above all else, he is as Albus Dumbledore intended:

 A martyr.

 Too bad he didn’t stay dead.

[elenatria]

You are going to write Pacho smut? God bless you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah. Working on it. .__.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20407543/chapters/48722309

The first rays of light shone over the deserted land as a reminder of a long-lost normalcy, a glimpse of how life ought to be everywhere else on the planet but there, on that barren landscape, that unique, eternally poisonous spot on the map.

The man and the boy drove through fields and farms where Pavel spotted many places they hadn’t visited before, the so-called “dirty villages” as opposed to the ones they had already cleaned of the lives and life forms humans had left behind. Bacho was keeping stubbornly silent refusing to make any stops, driving on until Pavel realized they were going around in circles.

He was about to ask why when the brooding man on the wheel broke the silence.

“I’m not supposed to be alone with you,” he grumbled, eyes staring straight ahead.

“Why--”

“You know very well why,” Bacho snapped. “I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life in a Gulag because of you.”

Pavel sighed. “I’m not here to cause any trouble.”

“What are you here for then?”

“Stop you from killing yourself.”

“What?...”

Pavel swore he had never seen a funnier grimace in his adult life. Suppressing a giggle he hoped his mentor was as good a lover as he was a driver: for all the shock in his bulging eyes, his experienced hands and feet were keeping the two of them steady and safe on their course to nowhere.

“I saw a dream,” Pavel explained, “we were at the opera, you were blowing your brains out with my toy rifle.”

“Jesus Christ, and you’re here because of a fucking dream?” Bacho huffed.

“I guess...”

The truck took an abrupt turn on the road between two fields.

“I have no intention of killing myself,” the veteran assured him. “And I still have no idea what you’re doing here.”

“I told you, it was my dream,” Pavel insisted.

“Start having different dreams, will you?” Bacho rumbled. “Try sex dreams, that’s what I do.”

Pavel licked his dry lips gathering up all the courage he had. “Who… who do you dream of?”

“What…?”

“Who do you--”

The brakes’ screeching sound smothered Pavel’s last words as Bacho pulled over on the side of the road. He released his seat belt and turned to the boy.

“You’re gonna get us both shot, you know that?” he pointed a threatening finger at his face.

“But Garo said you--”

“Never mind what that dickhead said,” Bacho spat, “this is Soviet land, not Afghanistan. If they caught us--”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--” Pavel stuttered.

“You’re sorry? Sorry?” Bacho laughed. “You have no idea what being sorry means, boy. No fucking idea.”

Pavel frowned; the last thing he needed that moment was being reminded of his inexperience.

“Maybe you could explain…?” he suggested timidly. He knew this was no time to have an argument with the man on the driver’s seat but there was an unchartered depth in Bacho’s eyes that was both horrifying and pitiful.

Bacho pursed his lips, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening in painful memory. “You weren’t the first to come to me you know,” he rasped. “Lost, wagging his tail for protection, sad puppy eyes…” He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm as if to fight off a lingering migraine.  “JESUS fucking Christ…”

“I… don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand,” Bacho growled. “It never got serious, it was nothing, but the others could smell it on us, the potential, the… need. They thought they’d make him tougher, make a man out of him before it was too late. See, it was just a game to them, it was just…” Bacho squeezed the wheel until his knuckles went white. “They… They hazed him to death.”

“What…”

Pavel felt his heart sinking. It was unimaginable - the strongest, toughest man he had met since he had arrived in that god-forsaken place had stopped the truck in the middle of nowhere to show him the gaping wound in his soul. His only friend, his protector, drowning in an ocean of regret.

He lowered his eyes as if he had been there, as if he was responsible somehow. “I’m… sorry…”

“Don’t be,” Bacho chuckled bitterly like someone who had heard a million sorries in his life. “I assure you no one will ever be as ‘sorry’ as he was when he was gulping down water instead of air. So don’t try acting sad, you’re not him. And you’re not me.”

“I wish I were…”

Bacho turned to contemplate Pavel’s face. “You might want to take that wish back, boy,” he grumbled. “You are nothing like me, you’ll never be like me. Thank God for that.”

“But I want to.”

“You want what, to become an expert in merciful killings?” Bacho roared jutting his face toward him. “Fine. I’ll teach you how.”

He kicked the door open and walked around to the back of the truck. Pavel followed him with fearful eyes as he pulled the back of the stakebed down and grabbed a riffle. Before the young man could turn, Bacho opened the door, grabbed his arm and pulled him out, almost dragging him to the ground like a rag doll. Pavel had barely stumbled back on his feet when the rifle was hurled at him, punching the air out of his lungs.

“I’ve taught you how to shoot,” Bacho panted. “Now shoot.”

“W-why?” Pavel stuttered, his lips white as a sheet.

“BECAUSE I’M TELLING YOU, YOU FUCKHEAD,” Bacho roared. “Can’t you obey a simple fucking order?”

Pavel’s lips were trembling. “You… You told me never to point this gun at you. That was my order.”

“That was a rule, not an order,” Bacho corrected him, raging fire lighting up his eyes. “And I’m changing the rules now. Are you an idiot?”

“N-No…” Pavel whispered lowering his head, looking for a way out of his living nightmare among the rocks and pebbles under his feet.

“Then SHOOT.”

“I…”

For all his numbness and terror Pavel was trying to figure out a way to blow Bacho’s head with the back of his rifle so as to bring him unconscious back to the safety of the camp. Trying to talk him out of suicide would be pointless. He wished Garo had come with them, he wished they weren’t alone. He wished--

“I can’t.”

Bacho grabbed the barrel with both hands and stabbed his own chest with it. “Do a man a favour,” he snarled shaking the gun, digging it deeper into his flesh. “Isn’t that what you want to be good at? Merciful killings? C’mon, no one will know, you’ll tell them you heard rustling leaves and you thought it was a dog.”

Pavel was gawking at him wondering if it would be a good idea to let go of the rifle, leave him with it. They weren’t supposed to be doing this, fighting. They were supposed to be on their knees with prying hands all over each other.

“Why don’t you shoot me, Pavel…” Bacho pleaded, his gaze softer now, broken, welling up with agony. “Shoot me before I… Before anyone knows, before anyone suspects. Before you get killed because of me… Please, Pavlunya, do this for me… Please…”

Pavel felt Bacho’s grip on the barrel loosen for a second – that was all he needed; with one long terrified grunt he ripped it from Bacho’s maddened clutch and flung it beyond his reach. The gun made a circle in the air and landed a few meters away raising a cloud of dust.

Bacho, chest heaving, eyes of a lunatic, dragged his steps toward Pavel glaring down on him, clenching and unclenching his fists on his sides.

“That was a mistake, boy,” he groaned menacingly.

“No,” Pavel said. “You’re not gonna die, not on my watch.”

“You forgot rule number two,” Bacho snarled, his nose inches away from Pavel’s shivering ghost-like paleness. “Don’t let them suffer or I’ll kill you. I didn’t mean just the poor buggers we’ve been shooting down.”

“No,” Pavel shook his head pressing his lips shut. “No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I’m not shooting you down. Kill me, I’m not shooting you down.”

The unexpected blow that landed on Pavel’s jaw turned the world black as he fell flat, chest on the ground, hands scratching on rough pebbles to soften the fall. He sucked in a gasp filling his lungs with dust but before he could turn to face his attacker Bacho rolled him on his back, straddling him.

“Why are you doing this?” the dark-haired man roared “Why? You wanna die?”

“We’re dead anyway…” Pavel muttered with a calmness he didn’t know he had.

Bacho searched his face, his piercing, unreadable stare. Drops of sweat were sliding down his temples, falling on Pavel’s cheeks. Pavel wasn’t panting anymore, he was blinking slowly, his gaze patient, serene and fathomless.

“You don’t understand,” Bacho said with growing despair. “The things I want to do to you, the things… I would have you do to me, they’re not just illegal, they’re immoral.”

“I don’t care,” Pavel breathed as vivid images of his tongue doing sinful, wonderful things to the man riding him played behind his closed eyes, his throat dry as the soil beneath them. He repeated the words softly hoping the Georgian would finally realize his need for him. “I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care…” He raised his head and nuzzled against the tip of Bacho’s long hawk-like nose, his hot breath tickling the waiting, half-open mouth. “I don’t. Care.”

“Fuck—”

Before Pavel knew it Bacho’s hands were all over him and under his clothes, angry lips crushing against each other, eating each other out, a powerful, overwhelming tongue breaching his mouth, ravishing it, fucking into it. Never before had Pavel felt so many emotions at once; he was hard and desperate and longing for a hug and a good fuck, fearing for his life and Bacho’s life and it was all too much, too strong and he was losing his mind as he felt the veteran’s hardness swelling against his, hips rolling softly against his growing manhood, rocking back and forth, yearning for friction, for him. For his warmth, his adorable ignorance, his virginity. He knew it then, the answer to all his questions, to his loneliness; he knew and he would smile the happiest smile if Bacho wasn’t giving his lip a savage bite sucking on his juices, swirling his tongue around Pavel’s hotness, thirsty for more, thirsty for everything he had to give, every trace of his innocence, all of it. Every single drop.

He knew it and spread his legs to let Bacho’s weight sink between them, welcoming the intruder, giving in. He finally knew the answer to everything.

He was loved. He was free.

[animemangasoul]

Reason To Live

By Black aka Darkness my Sorrow (a very talented artist!) - thank you for this hun!!

Summery: In which Akutagawa meets a 7 year old Dazai and tells him what he would have liked to hear.

Characters: Akutagawa & Dazai

Gen

Akutagawa didn’t know exactly how he’d ended up here in this particular moment, in this particular time. He’d touched something he was sure. A falling object? Him and Dazai-san, then it had glowed and right in front of Dazai-san widening eyes, he’d disappeared.  

Dazai-san had said something. Shouted? Akutagawa couldn’t tell, but he hadn’t heard.  

Just vanished.

And now he was here. Staring up at what was undeniably Dazai-san. A tinier, more wide eyed, more scared, but undeniably Dazai-san.  

“Are you suicidal,” the kid snapped, looking at him like he was insane where he was bopping up and down in the cold polluted river water.  

Akutagawa snorted; coughing lightly into his shoulder. The irony. The kid glared in turn, and the hellhound just shrugged. “No,” he answered mildly, looking around curiously and noting how he was still in the same city, Yokohama.

The past then?  

Abilities didn’t affect Dazai-san, so he couldn’t have been turned into a child, and if he was, why weren’t they still in the warehouse?

‘I’m in the past,’ he concluded with a slightly more assurance swimming closer to shore and hauling himself up on too thin arms and on even thinner wrists. He coughed.

“Are you ok Mr?”

Mini Dazai-san didn’t sound concerned, more curious really.  

Of course he did.  

Akutagawa shrugged, glancing down at him. “That depends,” he mumbled.  

“On what?”

“If I can get home.”

Brief flash of disappointment skimmed across the kid’s eyes. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah I guess you have to leave now.” The jacket he was wearing was too big on his too tiny shoulders, his eyes light but still fighting back shadows unseen. He looked young, scared, alone.

Small

“Not right now,” Akutagawa blurted out before he could really think through his words. His stomach twisting into painful knots just by looking at his former mentor. “I need the break anyways.”

‘Why?’ he thought as the kid sent him a beaming smile that could hide the sun itself. ‘I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to talk to this Dazai-san.’

But-

He frowned at what appeared to be the seven-year-old version of his mentor. ‘I don’t want to leave either. Not yet, not until-’

“Why are you here kid?”

Mini Dazai-san shrugged, kicking his feet around, letting them skim across the water surface as he sat down with a flurry of movements. “Hiding from my dad.”

Akutagawa took a short intake of breath. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” the kid smiled up at him where Akutagawa had taken to sit next to him in his wet cloths and tired body. “It’s not too bad all the time,” he said loudly; like he was trying to convince himself. “But it is what it is. It doesn’t really matter anyways, I’ll kill myself before he finishes the job. Less painful that way.”

Akutagawa’s eyes stung. He pursed his lips. “You could run away?” The words tasted like ash on his tongue. ‘You ran away,’ the traitorous words whispered in his ears. ‘What good did that do you.’

“Naah,” Dazai-san shrugged. “I don’t mind. Just when it gets too much. Besides, it’s interesting.”

“What so interesting about fucking abuse,” Akutagawa snapped without thinking, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice.

The kid looked up at him curiously. “Speaking from experience?”

Akutagawa snapped his mouth shut and turned away from him. He couldn’t look him in the eyes. Those too wide eyes on too young face. ‘He’s almost the same age as you were when-’ He shut that thought process down real quick.

“Not really,” he breathed. “Mine had a purpose.”

The kid gaped up at him. “There’s no purpose in abuse mysterious water-man.”

A startled laugh escaped Akutagawa’s lips, and he snapped his head back in the kid’s direction. He was still looking up at him. Mild curiosity mixed with humor shining in his eyes. ‘He’s so much easier to read now,’ he thought absentmindedly. Somewhere deep down; where his heart used to be, hurt at that observation. ‘What had rubbed that openness out of your eyes Dazai-san?’

“Then why do you stay kid?”  

“I told you, I find it interesting. His reactions, his reasons, my mother’s excuses. It’s all so fascinatingly human.”  

Sighing, Akutagwa leaned back on his arms and looked up at the evening sky, the red and orange draping over them both like an old friend. “You’re weird kid.”

“I get that a lot.”

Akutagawa snorted. “Can I ask you something?”

Little Dazai shifted in his position next to him. “Sure,” he’d said. Turning around fully to face him as he spoke. Head tilted slightly, making bruised cheek quite visible where the sun hit his face.

Akutagawa in turned moved too. Now they were face to face, legs crossed and knees almost touching. “Do you want to die?”

The kid didn’t even contemplate the answer for a second. “Yes.”

Akutagawa’s stomach lurched. “Why?”

“There is nothing to live for and I’m curious about death. Maybe it will welcome me with more life then life itself. Do you want to die?” The question was asked mildly, but there was something behind those brown eyes. Something more old and much more tired.

Akutagawa swallowed. “No,” he whispered.  

Mini Dazai-san flinched back in confusion. “Why?”

“I found a purpose to live.”  

The kid bit his lip in thought, a string of powerful and confusing emotions flittering too fast across his eyes to decipher. “How do you know when you’ve found your purpose?”

“You don’t.”

“Then how do you live till then? How do you make sure it’s enough?” The question was nothing more than a soft whisper in the air. Spoken as if the fear of speaking it into existence terrified the younger.  

Akutagawa exhaled. His chest hurt, he coughed. It didn’t let up. It felt like he couldn’t breathe. ‘Have you always felt that way Dazai-san,’ he thought. ‘Have you always questioned your existence like I do. Like Jinko?’

“Sometimes,” he started slowly, desperate to get it right for reasons he didn’t know why “when it’s too hard to live for yourself you can live for someone else. Just for the time being just till you have a reason, a strong reason to carry on.”

The kid blinked, a watery glint in his eyes. He looked vulnerable. ‘Like Gin’ his mind whispered. He could say anything now. He knew with full certainty that he could say anything to the kid right now and Dazai-san would believe him. The thought was sickening. He didn’t want to do that to him. He wouldn’t even do that to the Jinko. It hit too close to home.

“I don’t have someone else,” his young mentor whispered. “I don’t have anyone.”

I had Gin

Exhaling loudly, he scrunched up his nose. “Then you can live for me in the meantime,” he blurted out. Akutagawa didn’t know why he’d said it, had no reason or thought process behind it at all. All he knew was-

He’d had Gin.  

He knew love because he’d had Gin.

Dazai-san hadn’t had anyone. No one and nothing at all.

Mini Dazai-san looked up at him incredulously. “I don’t even know you,” he scoffed; his words coming out wobbly and the tiniest but unsure.

“No,” Akutagawa muttered. “But you will. Someday down the line, you will. So till then, I’ll be your reason to live. Until you find your own, I’ll be your stepping stone.”

Soft tears were trailing down the kid’s gaunt cheeks and Akutagawa had to force himself not to try and brush them away. Dazai-san still had No Longer Human, touching him would probably send him back to wherever he’d come from. He couldn’t do that, not until he said what he had to say.

“What’s your name Mr?”

He blinked. Should he tell him? Would that mess up the timeline? Would Dazai-san even remember this, or would it all be forgotten as soon as he left?

“Atsushi.”  

The words tasted right on his lips.

For the first time in forever, Akutagawa said that name with something that wasn’t hatred. Atsushi. Jinko. If anyone could save Dazai-san from himself it was the weretiger. “Keep going till you hear that name.”

Mini Dazai-san looked confused as hell, but Akutagawa had said what he wanted, and he couldn’t linger here any longer. “Wait for Atsushi,” was his last parting words.

Before the kid could protest against the dumb and very useless answer, Akutagawa impulsively leaned forward and wrapped both arms around the kid’s back, bringing on hand to rest atop of his brown locks.  

Dazai tensed, and Akutagawa breathed. “You have to go?” The kid pressed his cheek into his shoulder as he asked the question. Tiny childish arms coming up to circle his waist.  

Swallowing thickly, the older male nodded quickly. “Yeah, I do.”

The arms around him tightened even more. “Don’t go.” He’d never heard Dazai-san so vulnerable, so scared, so alone.

“I’ll come back,” he muttered, eyes stinging even as the effect of No Longer Human took a hold of him and started to drag him back. “You’ll find me, so please don’t cry. We’ll find each other, and you’ll give me a reason to live.”

That was the last he saw of the kid.  

His tiny frame trembling in his arms as he was forcefully pulled away from the tiny child by the riverbank. The tiny child who bared his soul to him. The tiny child with too wide eyes and just enough hope in his eyes to make Akutagawa want to protect him.

---

When he next opened his eyes, Dazai-san; his Dazai-san was hovering over him, mild sense of curiosity framing his eyes. Akutagawa swallowed down the bile rising up his throat. “You ok down there Akutagawa-kun~”  

He didn’t even think before he acted. Not paying attention to the Jinko, Chuuya or any of the other members of both organizations lingering around them. He reached up and promptly dragged his former mentor into a hug. The startled sound that escaped past the ex-mafia member was almost funny, but Akutagawa didn’t have it in him to laugh at that. “I’m happy you found a reason to live,” he whispered into his shoulder. “I’m happy you found Atsushi,” before he quickly let go and got back on his feet.  

Leaving a very confused Dazai-san sprawled on the floor.

Chuuya-san looked at him like he’d just lost his mind. “Are you suicidal,” he snapped.

Akutagawa paused-  

Then burst into an uncontrollable laughter. Oh the irony.

[squidproquoclarice]

what are your thoughts on arthur and dutch’s relationship... and why arthur went back to tell dutch about micah, even after dutch had abandoned him and manipulated him to no end? if you can’t tell i find the last part especially upsetting lol, since it was pretty much the final nail in arthur’s coffin.

Hoooboah.  Another thorny topic here!

It’s a complicated relationship on both parts.  There’s mingled affection and affirmation and abuse (which is…not uncommon in abusive relationships).  For Dutch’s part, I believe he’s a narcissist.  He’s certainly capable of pride and affection, but I’m not sure he’s capable of love, in the sense of self-sacrifice and putting others’ happiness and security above his own.  Dutch is charismatic AF, talks a good game, and he has some good points.  Victorian society was unquestionably sick and all about the haves and have-nots.  But he doesn’t combat social ills directly.  He goes out and robs a bank, and at this point, he does nothing with the proceeds to help better anyone’s life.  He’s anti for the sake of being against a demonized them, not anti due to determination to help actual victims of a fucked up system.

He’s a man who likes to present himself as intelligent and well read, but reads selectively only the things that support his philosophies.  He’s a man who likes pretty young women who worship him, and when they get older and/or wiser, he trades them in for a newer model.  He’s a man who picks up orphans and the lost and disaffected, gives them a family, and that’s both admirable and sinister given that he’s effectively targeting the most vulnerable, and expecting their unquestioningly personal loyal as their savior, rather than simply doing it out of kindness.  It becomes predatory, not charitable.This is all standard cult leader playbook material.  Dutch is the godhead of an anarchosocialist cult that increasingly turns into a violent death cult, as these cults tend to do when the pressure becomes relentless.Arthur is a child who grew up with a mother who died young, and an abusive and criminal father.  So violence and crime are all he’s known.  He lived on the streets for several years, probably having to become increasingly hard and rough to survive, and then Dutch and Hosea took him in.  Fed him.  Sheltered him.  Taught him to read.  He knows the way he was going, he’d have become nothing more than a mean half-feral bastard until he finally got shot or hanged.  So of course he’s grateful.  Of course he wants to do nothing more than please this man who thought his life was worth something, when everyone in the city he was in (San Francisco for me) made it clear he was worthless to them.  He became the strong right arm, the enforcer.  I think it’s interesting to note that it’s clear that’s all Dutch wants him to be, berating him to be a “man of action”, getting pissed off when Arthur questions him, and accomplishing the neat trick of making him feel special by drawing him into his confidence on some things, while still rarely involving him in the planning in a meaningful way.  Constantly demanding he affirm his absolute loyalty.  Dutch wants an unquestioning brute on command.  Arthur obliges, because that’s what Dutch needs him to be, and doesn’t he owe Dutch everything?Hosea, in contrast, wants him to be more.  He may sometimes tease Arthur as big and dumb, but it’s in that friendly paternal way.  When he’s serious, he’s calling his “angry moron” act out for what it is, urging Arthur to think for himself, and never condescending to his intelligence.  He knows the man is bright, but too trusting and too loyal, and he’s urging him to open his eyes.  And it’s a damn shame Arthur has so little experience of healthy relationships to see that Hosea genuinely loved him, but it was instead Dutch’s approval he felt he had to win.  Dutch, who had affection for him as a proud reflection of himself as a leader and mentor, as a useful tool, but never truly as a person with his own thoughts and feelings and ideas.So you have an abused and angry child, grown up into a deeply anxious man who bases his whole sense of self-worth on what use he can be to his savior.  His lack of self-esteem is in big part because he’s never learned that love is about acceptance, not a prize that’s offered and withdrawn constantly.  So he’s constantly having to worry “Am I good enough for Dutch?”  You have a skilled narcissist using alternating offering criticism and the deep fear of rejection and abandonment, and love in the form of praise, singling him out, and validation, to keep Arthur on the hook.  Bringing in rivals, like John, to keep him insecure.  Gaslighting him by making him feel like his doubts or questions are a personal attack. Keeping him striving to be the best man of the bunch and to prove himself, over and over and over again, because Dutch’s “love” never just is.  It’s so very conditional, and he makes damn sure Arthur knows it.  It’s a hugely effectively control tactic.As to why he went back, twenty-two years of cult programming is not easy to shake.  I imagine he hoped he could get through to Dutch somehow, that knowing the truth of Micah’s betrayal, Dutch would of course do the right thing.  Because Dutch won’t stand for betrayal, right?  If he can count on one thing, it’s that loyalty matters most to him.  Not to mention our boah is too trusting, cynical as he likes to pretend he is, and I think there was some part of him wanting desperately to believe that Dutch isn’t as bad as he’s now fearing. He’s just misguided by Micah, but not truly lost.  Alongside that, this is a man who still places zero value on his own life.  He’s got an illness with poor odds for long-term survival, unless he literally can go on nearly round-the-clock bed rest for several months to give the TB lung lesions a chance to heal, and take likely well over a year to get back to as close to normal as a man with some lung scarring will get.  He can’t do that without someone to care for him, and who the hell is going to do that for him?  He can’t run and hide easily given the price on his head anyway.  And what will he do, even if he lives?  Fighting and robbing and shooting is about all he’s ever known.  He’s probably terrified at the idea of his likely future, sick and alone and without anything that makes sense.  Better to go do something right, and die in doing it.  Confront Dutch and make him see reason, or if he can’t, just damn well kill Micah.  I absolutely believe he intended that as a suicide mission however it turned out, because he thinks it’s better this way.

[crimefighting-spiderling]

Love, your friendly neighborhood spiderman

!!!ENDGAME SPOILERS!!!

Warning: suicidal thoughts, and suicidal attempt.

Loss. Peter knew that he’d never get used to it, though he wished he did. Maybe it’d make life easier, or at least grieving would be.

His parents died before he could make memories with them, his uncle had died in his arms May had died during the snap, a driver who was one of the fifty to be dusted had driven into May. The hospitals were understaffed, if at all, and she, along with hundreds of others hadn’t gotten the treatment they needed.

And finally, Tony had died. Sacrificing himself to save the entire universe, and with great power, comes great responsibility. And when you use that power responsibly? You have to pay the price for power. Tony’s charge was death.

Peter believes he died with Tony.

Peter got along with the team, Cap was like an old grandpa, Clint was the cool uncle, along with Rhodey, Sam, Bucky, and Vision. Wanda was like a sister, Carol was the aunt who came by every so often, and once they returned the soul stone, Nat was also an honorary aunt. Pepper was like a mother when he saw her, Morgan, was his sister.

They tried to get him to talk, to one of them, to Sam especially, or a therapist.

He never did, no use saving the dead, Peter reasoned.

Months passed, and Peter seemed to finally be getting better. He noticed the team’s relief, they all looked more relaxed around him, they didn’t check in as much, they finally felt like they could rest.

Peter was not better.

He wasted oxygen, space, paper rewriting and rewriting his final note. He wanted it to comfort others, and say it was coming for a long time because, to be honest, it was.

The team all met up together once every month to check in, hang out, and make sure team morale was up. It was movie night and it was Cap’s turn to pick, he picked a star wars movie, Peter didn’t know which one. He wasn’t paying attention to the movie.

“During the 70 years, I missed these movies.” Cap claimed though Peter believed Cap could tell he wasn’t feeling well.

Once the night was over Peter said his good nights and retreated to his room. Sighing, Peter wrote his final message and left the compound, telling Friday to say he was asleep if asked.

Natasha woke up at 8:00 and wandered into the kitchen not long after. Sam and Bucky were eating breakfast.

“Hey Nat” Sam greeted and Bucky echoed.

Natasha hummed in response while getting cereal, “Where’s Peter? The kid is usually awake by now.”

“Dunno. Friday?”

“Young sir is still asleep.”

“Did he have a nightmare? How long has he been asleep?” Sam asked, concerned.

“Is he ok?” Bucky added

“Young sir did not have a nightmare, he hasn’t been asleep yet, and I cannot access his vitals.”

For such a worrying statement, Natasha thought, Friday was awfully calm. “Where is he?”

“Young sir has left a note, would you like me to read it?”

Everyone looked at each other, and Bucky nodded.

“Hey whoever finds this. This is going to sound cliché but, I’m sorry. I thought I was strong enough to win this fight, you’d think I would be because all I’ve been through, but maybe it’s time for me to rest.” Friday began and ice slammed into Natasha’s veins, remembering what Pepper said to comfort Tony while he died.

“You can rest now Tony.”

“Mr. Stark had always teased me for my curiosity ‘Be careful Parker,’ he would say ‘curiosity can kill.’ And I remember I would always respond 'I am a spider, not a cat.’ Mr. Stark always sounded like he regretted saying 'That means you’re 8 lives short, kid.’ He said it every time, though.”

Natasha noticed that the others, minus Pepper and Morgan, had entered each looking like each word was hurting them.

“I’m glad, now, that I’m not a cat. That means I’d have to die nine times for finally be allowed to rest. I’ve never been poetic, Ben was the one who could create worlds with words. But I figured that it’d be nice to end where my relationship with Mr. Stark really began. I’ll be sure not to leave a mess, it wouldn’t be fair if someone had to clean it up. For a while, after the reversal, my curiosity paused, though recently it’s taken over me. The only thing that I can think about is what the taste of a bullet would feel like.”

Natasha couldn’t breathe anymore, she was frozen, terrified. She could see Bucky desperately trying to track him down, Rhodey was trying to figure out what Peter had meant when he said where their relationship started. Everyone was doing something.

Natasha had to calm down her breathing and refocus and started helping Bucky look for Peter.

“I’m afraid, though, I already know the answer to my question. Freedom. It will taste like freedom and rest. Once again, I’m sorry. I’ve fought for so tired, and I think I’ll rest now. Love, your friendly neighborhood spiderman.”

Peter didn’t think death was supposed to hurt this much. He knew he must have been dead because he could see Tony. And everything was white, with a light, light blue as the floor.

Tony ran and hugged Peter, and he melted. Peter didn’t know he was crying until he heard his mentor murmuring into his hair “Calm down Spidey, it’s ok.”

“I missed you.” Peter cried into Tony’s shirt, he didn’t want to let go.

Tony sighed and kissed the top of Peter’s head. “I know kid, but you’ll have to go.”

Startled, he jumped back. “Sir- Tony what do you mean? I don’t- I don’t want to go, sir, please!”

Tony looked like he was crying, and sounded like it. “I know kid, I know. I know you are tired, and I know that you can’t just retire like everyone else did. I know that you’ll fight as long as you can still stand. Trust me, I know.” Tony let out a small, dry laugh at the end.

Before he gave time for Peter to respond, he had led them to a pond that seemed almost a tan white. Looking at Tony, who just lifted his eyebrow in the way that he always did when he said ’You can figure it out, just trust yourself.’

Taking a deep breath, Peter looked into the pond.

The first thing that Peter saw was himself.

He saw himself on the floor of the warehouse that fell on himself so long ago. The warehouse that gave Peter nightmares, nightmares that Tony had always comforted him after.

Seeing him dead felt… disappointing, almost dissatisfying. After so much, Peter hadn’t died saving someone or died because he refused to help hurt others. He died because he gave up.

Next, he saw the team. Everyone was mourning. They had all gathered in the common room, none of them speaking. Peter’s old videos, from before Thanos, were playing.

“Queens. It’s a rough place but hey- it’s home.” Peter had said in a deep voice.

Hearing a quiet, small sob, dead Peter turned to see Morgan.

Morgan, his baby sister.

His baby sister wasn’t meant to be crying. She was meant to be great, better than Peter, Tony, and Bruce. She was going to rebuild the world into something better than it was ever before.

She was curled into Pepper who had also clearly been crying. Morgan was wearing one of Peter’s hoodies (One that he stole from Mr. Stark) and it was clearly way too big on her. The hood could have completely covered her face without stretching and the sleeves could have been used as jump ropes.

He would have laughed if she wasn’t crying. Instead, he scolded himself. Even while dead you still hurt people.

He was pulled out of the pond, and he noticed that he was crying also. Peter looked up at Tony who was smiling sadly.

“It’s not your time, Spiderling.”

Peter nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Tony led them to a door, which made Peter laugh, it was so cliché.

Peter hugged his mentor one last time before he turned to leave. Just as he was about to close the door he heard Tony say goodbye.

“Hey kid, if you ever do this again, May and I will kick your ass.”

Wow! Ok, this got a lot longer than I thought I was going to be. And a hell of a lot angstier. I might continue this, and reveal the team’s reaction to Peter being alive. Reblogs and likes are appreciated greatly!  

[lottes-ocs]

one chapter (first chapter maybe? def towards the beginning though) of my story. i turned it in for a workshop in class (capped at 12 pages double spaced). a note from my workshop document:

“Since this is going to be a longer work, I will likely expand upon Adam’s personal and inner life towards the beginning, so that the breakdown and the subsequent conversation with Ezra don’t feel as sudden. I will definitely add more documents like the emails, maybe therapist’s notes or text messages, and I might play around with POV in some later chapters, however, my plan is for Adam to be the primary narrator throughout.”

also lmk if i get anything egregiously wrong. i do have ptsd myself, but i also consulted 2 of my schizophrenic friends to make sure i didn’t include any details that would conflict with that and also to get details about antipsychotics correct

tw for suicide mentions, mental illness, unreality, some graphic imagery.

[January 21st, 2019 // 9:00 AM] Since I got discharged from the hospital last month, I’ve been grateful to live alone. Granted, it makes the paranoia worse, but I’m the only one who needs to know how often I’ve tried to talk to shadows or woken up yelling at the void. And I’m the only one who needs to know that I, a 30-year-old man, have been sleeping with a nightlight. But look, when my room is completely dark, mirages of my father and Dr. Wronski appear in the corner with their faces peeled off like in an autopsy and they won’t stop apologizing. I tell them I forgive them and they double down, I offer them solace and they weep with guilt, I articulate my own guilt and they articulate what it feels like to die. Only the nightlight makes them go away. Does that all sound stupid? Sure it does, but it feels a lot less stupid when I just need some sleep after another day trying to balance crushing grief with debilitating mental illness with my normal-person job, teaching abnormal psychology. Classes have been back in session since last week, so for a week, I’ve felt like a fish teaching marine biology. Or something out of Mariana’s trench. Ezra walks into my office, looking just a little too put-together for the workday (as usual), perfectly-tailored pants, perfectly ironed shirt, and perfectly styled curls, and snaps me out of my self-pitying daze by setting down a large stack of papers on his desk next to mine. “The anxiety essays,” he says with an imperious sigh. “Was I this dumb in undergrad?” “Probably not,” I say. “You were a little older than them.” “And I actually had anxiety.” He’s made a point of bringing up his own issues since I got back. I think he’s doing it so I don’t feel embarrassed or isolated, but he does love to talk about himself regardless, and besides, the support of one grad student doesn’t outweigh the nastiness of some of the higher-ups. “Do you have any new bits, Ezra?” I try to change the subject to his comedy (he does standup on the side, and I hear he’s not bad). “Eh, nothing good. You look tired.” He brushes me off with forced nonchalance. “I’ve had plenty of work to catch up on.” There’s actually no reason that he should know why I was gone, it’s my business, but he definitely does. Everyone does. I work in the psych department, so the people here know what it means when someone’s witnessed the death of their mentor and is subsequently out for a month with no further explanation than “illness.” “Have you, uh…” he clicks his tongue in thought. “Did you drink coffee this morning?” I nod with an exasperated smile. “Well, y’know, the Keurig’s in the lounge if you need it. And I’m in 522 most of today if you need help. Catching up on work, or whatever.” He drums casually on the doorframe, shoots me finger-guns, and heads down the hall. I like Ezra. He’s my TA now, but we were both in grad school working towards our doctorates together, up until last spring, when I received mine. We’re the same age, and he’s definitely smarter than me (as he is most people), he just started college late. I think it’s very sweet of him not to be a condescending dick to me (I seem to be a popular target for condescending dicks lately) especially because Ezra can muster up a dangerous amount of condescending dickishness when he feels the need. However, I process absolutely none of what he said. I was listening, I was trying to listen anyway, but my head’s not working right, not right now. I really didn’t get enough sleep. It’s a vicious cycle. The hallucinations and intrusive thoughts keep me up, the lack of sleep worsens the severity of the hallucinations and intrusive thoughts. In fact, since I arrived at work forty-five minutes ago, I have kept a mental tally: Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab myself: 3 instances. Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab Dr. Carlisle for looking at me weird: 2 instances (fuck off, it’s not like I’m going to act on it). Sudden and overwhelming urge to break down crying: 45 instances. Rats underneath my desk: Yeah, I don’t know, I called maintenance and they told me they’re fake, so I guess they’re fake, even though I can see them. Hanging woman in the back corner of my office: Don’t mind her, she’ll be gone within the hour. I’ll be sorry to see her go, though. A sense of unreality is creeping in. I try to keep Dr. Beauchamp’s voice in my head, “if there shouldn’t be any real dead people in the room, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room.” Well, there was that one time, you asshole. No, fuck it, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room. I reach into my briefcase, desperate for the pill bottle, because I know my thoughts are going to turn into alphabet soup if I don’t do something soon. I split a Clozaril tablet in half and swallow it hastily. I am not supposed to split it in half, and I am not supposed to take more than one dose in a span of 24 hours, and I have a Ph.D. in psychology, obviously I know I’m lowering the efficacy in the long term and increasing my risk of side effects. But at this point, let me die of agranulocytosis if that’s what I’ve got coming. I’ll be out of a job and wasting eleven years of higher education if this shit doesn’t stop. Maybe that isn’t true. It feels true. Maybe it isn’t.

[January 21st, 2019 // 1:30 PM] FROM: Dr. Raymond Carlisle TO: Dr. Adam Collins SUBJECT: Checking in.

Dr. Collins, I sincerely hope all is well. I received word that you cancelled a lecture today. I need hardly tell you that you just had a month off for Winter Break, and two weeks before that for the beginning of your hospitalization. I hardly think an even further extended reprieve from your work is fair, and if you genuinely do, that’s a conversation we need to have. To be frank, Dr. Herrmann and I feel it is irresponsible to allow someone in your condition to continue to work, in the field of psychology no less. Though I do not at all doubt the competence of our colleagues at the medical center, nor your mental facilities, I feel compelled to let you know that if your psychological state continues to cause issues with your work the department might require you to take a leave of absence. While I hope your treatment plan begins to work to its full effect soon, your own safety and the integrity of this department are top priority.

Best wishes, truly,

Dr. Raymond Carlisle Head Professor, Psychology (555) 555-5555

My hands tremble with anger (and hopefully not tardive dyskinesia) as I type my reply.

FROM: Dr. Adam Collins TO: Dr. Raymond Carlisle SUBJECT: Re: Checking In

Dr. Carlisle, all is as well as it possibly can be needs to be. I don’t respect you as a colleague and I believe your total comfort in your new position, which I need hardly remind you is Dr. Wronski’s old position, is quite frankly borderline disrespectful.  If it’s irresponsible for someone in “my condition” to continue to work then why do you give a shit if I cancel my lectures? Leave me the fuck alone or I’ll mention you by name in my suicide note.   At the moment, it is difficult for me walk by Dr. Wronski’s old office, which I have to do to get to 525 (where that lecture is held). Could I request a change of   I was having a panic attack you absolute dick how are YOU allowed to continue to work in the field of psychology when you have NO compassion My new medication has occasionally been making me sick. That issue should be resolved either way after I meet with my psychiatrist next week.

Thank you for your concern, Dr. Adam Collins Department of Psychology

[January 22nd, 2019 // 10:30 AM] I think back to our last faculty meeting, at least my last faculty meeting, in November. It does feel like a while ago, and it’s hard to fathom that Dr. Wronski was still here then. It gets easier to fathom when Dr. Carlisle comes in and takes his seat at the head of the conference table, simply because of how wrong that is. I picture her there instead, how things are supposed to be, how it should have been. I think about how someone should have helped her when they still could have. I really picture her there instead for a moment, her image replacing Carlisle’s. I blink once and she’s gone, and he’s back. As he starts talking, though, I feel a tap on my shoulder and see her behind me for a split second, ephemeral and transparent like the dots in a grid illusion, then she walks away and disappears. My whole body is left feeling cold, sharp, and jolted, as if I fell on a blade without expecting to. I’m filled with dread as I realize Carlisle’s words are simultaneously turning to nonsense and growing louder in my ears, and a high, harsh noise like microphone feedback intertwines itself with his voice. Dr. Wronski reappears in his place again, but she is lifeless this time, blood pooling from her head like it was when I found her, circling her hair in a grim halo. Her eyes are clouded with even more film, her mouth is agape, and I can feel my breathing grow rapid. I squeeze my eyes shut. I know I am in the middle of a meeting; I will not fall apart like this in the middle of a meeting, not when my “mental facilities” are already being called into question. I pinch myself, internally repeating “there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here—” “Dr. Collins, are you with us?” Dr. Hermann’s voice pierces through my mantra, entirely unfriendly, entirely accusatory, despite the faux-sweetness she is trying to summon. “Yes.” My voice sounds thin and weak, and blood rushes to my face. I shut my eyes again, since I feel tears prickling at the corners of them. Not fucking here, Jesus Christ, not fucking here, I think to myself. Then I think again about my last meeting, the old hierarchy, the time when I fell asleep at one of these in October after a particularly long night and Dr. Wronski just pulled me aside afterwards and asked if I was okay, and if there was anything she could do. And now the image of her corpse won’t leave my head. It overwhelms me. I don’t see her in the room anymore, but I might as well be back in her office when I first found her body, the first time in my life I had ever truly hoped that I was only seeing a figment of my imagination. The gun in her hand— I try to think of anything else. Anything to keep it at bay. I click my pen repeatedly (Carlisle asks me to stop), I scratch at my wrists and pull at my skin, anything to shift my focus to anything else. Nothing is working. The lump in my throat grows. My heartbeat gets faster, my chest starts to hurt, and suddenly I can smell the blood and rot that permeated the room that night, and I am helpless to stop it— Someone grabs me. I look up to see every eye in the room on me. I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, and I realize I’m in the middle of this meeting, crying and having a full-on panic attack, surrounded by people who already think I’m a headcase. I am sobbing and shaking and unable to steady my breathing and to them it seems completely unprompted at best, and at worst, it seems like it’s because Hermann and Carlisle snapped at me. And even in the midst of my abject humiliation, the image of Dr. Wronski lying in a pool of her own blood is still in my head, still absolutely fucking killing me, and I couldn’t calm down if I tried. I get up and walk out. That’s what fucking happens when I’m forced to try to power through episodes. I could care less what Carlisle does to me right now, I will not stay in there and continue to look like an emotionally unstable baby in front of my colleagues. I go to finish up my breakdown in the privacy of my office, catching a glimpse of myself in a window on the way and hating myself even more at the sight of my own disheveled hair and bright red, tear-streaked face. I sit down and hide underneath my desk, pop another half-a-Clozaril tablet that I try not to choke back up (I’m still hyperventilating so hard I could vomit), and bury my face in my arms. “Adam?” I look up. “Ezra.” I am barely composed, still hyperventilating, swiping at my eyes furiously and futilely. I look away, and I hope maybe he’ll think I’m just sick. I expect him to walk away, pretend that he never saw me like this and just silently let it color his perception of me. But he comes and sits down next to me underneath the desk. I don’t know what to say. “Do you want me to go?” he asks, after a moment. “You don’t have to.” I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t really want him to. Nobody else is this understanding with me anymore. I keep trying to collect myself, barely noticing at first when he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Do you need anything?” I shake my head, still not making eye contact. Theoretically, I’m getting the help I need, and maybe I do need the support of a friend right now too, but I don’t want to trouble him. Besides, I must look pathetic, cowering under a table and weeping, almost comically vulnerable. Hm. “Ezra,” I turn to him, finally, after a few more minutes of whimpering. I know my eyes look crazy, bloodshot to hell. “Can you take me to a mic?” “A mic?” “Yes. A standup mic. I want to see what it’s like.” “Really?” he smirks. “Yes, why not?” I can’t think of the last time I laughed, at least not genuinely. I can’t think of the last time I let myself. My self-loathing has become entirely unfunny, my psyche and my job both absolute nightmares, not to mention the actual nightmares—I need something light. Something just a little bit light. “You would… enjoy that?” “Yeah.” It makes me sad that he seems surprised, though I can’t blame him. I’ve been awfully serious, not even just for the past week or month, but probably since my dad died last spring. He reads my disappointment. “Sorry, Adam, I just… do you like comedy?” “I don’t know. My therapist laughs at my jokes sometimes.” He smiles at that, and I smile too, through dissipating tears. “Well, if you really want to, yeah. The next one is Thursday night.” I nod and take a deep breath. I realize Ezra hasn’t taken his hand off my shoulder, and he is absent-mindedly rubbing circles into my back. Maybe it’s stupid, but I stay as still as I can. I don’t want him to notice that he’s doing it and stop. “Is everyone there funny?” I ask, just to keep his focus. It’s a dumb question. I rephrase myself, “How funny is everyone?” He exhales a chuckle. “Honestly? About thirty people go up every night, sometimes more. They’re mostly shit. Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty to laugh at with the shitty ones.” He proceeds to tell me about the guys who show up high every time and just get up on stage and talk about nonsense (or weed itself) for 5 minutes, the wannabe Dangerfields and Seinfelds and Mulaneys who “never actually managed to glean what joke structure is” (though to be fair, It’s not like I have either), even the bigoted old men still trying with unflinching determination to resurrect “get back in the kitchen” jokes. I am losing myself in his stories, feeling at least marginally more relaxed, when Carlisle appears in my doorway. Ezra takes his hand off my back. Carlisle glances at us with confusion and disgust. “Dr. Collins, if you would please… get up and come see me in my office.” “We’re actually grading papers right now,” Ezra shoots back, in a tone of voice that says “yes, I think you’re stupid.” “Take a break, please,” Carlisle replies, glaring and exiting. I look hesitantly at Ezra, before getting up to follow him. “I do want to come,” I say. “To a mic.” “We’ll talk more later. I should still be here after you’re done facing the wrath of god.” I know I’m about to get chewed out to an extreme degree. Still, I can’t help but grin back at him.

[spiritsandstealth-blog]

Qunari; Salem

Coming off of this and this, because I have a lot of stuff that hasn’t been mentioned yet about Salem’s thoughts on The Qun, and he can get a bit... hostile towards people in The Qun

TL; DR: having his parents die to The Qun when he was 18 years old and the unresolved grief and guilt from having to run while they stayed behind has made Salem very distrustful of The Qun, and he sees it and its followers as a danger to he and his sister if he lets his guard down.

The biggest issue is that The Qun has no shades of grey when it comes to acceptance— you are either going to submit yourself to them, or you will die. There is no such thing as accepting differences and moving on (i.e. the fact that the only reason they ended their most recent assault and signed a treaty was because they were going to lose and knew it) nor is there much room for change. Not only that, but the entire belief system The Qun is based on tells them that it doesn’t matter the outcome, because The Qun will prevail. If your land is conquered by them, you either willingly convert, face qamek (which is like the rite of tranquility without lyrium), or you’re dead. There’s no option D, no room for any type of deal, and no treaty that will hold them back when the time comes that they can strike and win.

    Salem isn’t a little kid— he knows this about The Qun. He knows that it is either full allegiance or nothing, and that his death means absolutely nothing to them. His parents were very loving, but they were also very honest on how dangerous it is to leave The Qun, and they made sure he knew that he might one day have to leave them behind if he wants him and his sister to survive. Most of his childhood memories involve moving around with various groups of Tal-Vashoth, many of them and their children now dead from elements, attacks by bandits, or even killed or victims of re-education from The Qun. The odds for a Tal-Vashoth having a normal life are very slim, most of Thedas distrusting them for the previous attacks by the Qun, and The Qun thinking of them as honorless things unworthy of a name.

    Then his parents died, and he was suddenly a eighteen year old kid taking care of his blind, sixteen year old sister. He left his home knowing that he’d most likely never see his parents again, leaving for a healer’s cottage a day’s journey away while his parents died fighting for their escape. His father had made sure that they knew every single step of the plan— he’d built their home on a plateau, designing the cellar to give way to a hidden tunnel for their escape as Saachi and Oni fought above them— but that didn’t prepare him for the fact that his parents were gone. He went back to his childhood home a month later and found their bodies in the middle of the clearing he’d played in as a child, burned them because no one else would give them a funeral, and created two cairns before going back to his sister.

    The main reason he left to join the Valo-kas was not for money— although he didn’t want to live on his sister’s mentor’s property forever— but because he was afraid of what he could do if he didn’t leave. In the year that he stayed with his sister, he would constantly think about getting revenge on The Qun for the death of his mother and father, planning more than once to go to Kirkwall and kill as many Qunari as he could before someone finally put him down. It wouldn’t even be hard for him— Kirkwall was literally less than a fortnight’s journey away— and he eventually made himself join the Valo-kas as a way to put distance between him and the nearest Qunari settlement.

    (Even at the point of Inquisition, where it’s been almost five years, he’s still got a lot of anger built up when the conversation moves towards his family’s death, and has thoughts about revenge for his mother and father, although he’s been able to control them by staying busy).

    Salem does not trust anyone from The Qun, no matter their race or gender or background. To him, The Qun is nothing more than a group of violent monsters who will either force you to adhere to their beliefs or will kill you for rebelling. His mother taught him about The Qun’s basic beliefs, and it’s terrifying to him that there is an enemy that will one day try to take over, and that there is no future in their agenda that is not where everyone is under their banner. It doesn’t matter how friendly the person is to him, or how long they have known each other— they are under The Qun, and any personal relationship they have will come second if a superior demands it.

    Not only that, but if The Qun does take over, Mahvash will suffer a worse fate than he ever would. Saachi Adaar’s saving grace was her fear of dying in that split second after her kataam and Arvaarad were killed, otherwise she would have committed suicide because a saarebas cannot be trusted on their own for even a second. Even almost twenty years of hiding and fear couldn’t keep her from eventually dying for her family’s survival, so why would they care if Mahvash didn’t want to submit herself to being permanently silenced— and, since spirits are not allowed under the qun, she would lose her sight in more way than one if they didn’t kill her for the corruption first.

    If someone is still a part of The Qun, no matter how far away they seem from the ones that raided his home and killed his parents when he was eighteen, he will never be able to actually trust their word. Yes, he will fight beside them, but he will always be ready for a betrayal to occur, or for them to disappear. He’ll be especially defensive when it comes to Mahvash— who he knows is more open and curious of The Qun— and try to keep her as far away from them as he can, because he is terrified of the day that The Qun comes for him and his sister. If a betrayal does come, he won’t even flinch, because he knows that they would have no problem murdering his sister once they’re done with him, and he will go down fighting if it means keeping his sister safe— that’s a damn promise.

NOTE: The only reason that The Iron Bull was even brought into The Inquisition was based on the fact that they had little to no one else except for a handful of bickering templars and mages, soldiers with little to no idea on how to fight, and random volunteers. A mercenary band that could handle full-fledged Tevinter mages was something they needed desperately, especially when they weren’t sure what they were up against. If it had not been for the fact that they had yet to even begin to know how to close the breach, let alone how to kill the demons pouring into Thedas, he would have said no and left it there.

[daresplaining]

Blindness, Guilt, Suicide, and Other Cheerful Topics from the Current Daredevil Run

    It’s been too long since we posted about the current Daredevil series-- mostly because it’s difficult to write about a story while you’re in the middle of it (and also because we’ve been very busy. Excuses, excuses...). But we wanted to reflect a bit on the “Seventh Day” arc (#15 and 16), and on the subject of suicide. 

    The current run is a giant exploration of identity. Having reinvented himself/had a reinvention thrust upon him, Matt has to figure out who he wants to be, what he wants to represent, and how he wants to approach this new life. He has done this many times before, with varying degrees of success. (At least this reinvention didn’t involve demonic possession or giant metal shoulder pads). But as hard as he tries, we see again and again that this new start is not working out as well as he would have liked. He is initially unable to handle his work at the D.A.’s office-- to the point where it’s amazing he still has a job. His loss of a connection with his friends and loved ones leaves him feeling isolated and without distractions. He is not in control of the side effects of his identity restoration, which draws Elektra into a traumatic experience for which he blames himself. And his attempt at being a mentor to an aspiring young superhero results in tragedy. All of Matt’s identity shifts have involved periods of adjustment, but even by his standards, this is a mess. 

    Sam’s blinding at the hands of Muse is, in many ways, the final straw. It is the worst possible indication of all of Matt’s recent failures to handle his life, and represents yet another case of someone getting hurt because of him. His main reason for revamping his life was to prevent bringing pain down on those close to him, and now he sees that it was all for nothing. This leaves him feeling helpless and aimless. In the past we’ve bemoaned this run’s failure to integrate the massive amount of character development Matt underwent in the previous two volumes, but we do actually get a nice moment of self-awareness here. Matt is able to reflect on the reality that he does, in fact, need other people to help him handle his despair-- a big lesson he learned in Waid’s run. The only problem is that he’s isolated himself, for secret identity purposes, and now no longer has that necessary support system. 

Matt: “Matt... you know better. Don’t... don’t just pack this away. Give it some air. Foggy? No. He’s made his feelings on Daredevil-related business pretty clear. He’s done with it. Kirsten? No. She doesn’t deserve this in her life. That was the whole idea. You can’t. Natasha. Luke. Danny. Steve. No. I’d have to explain. Tell them... more than I want them to know.”

Daredevil vol. 5 #16 by Charles Soule, Goran Sudzuka, and Matt Milla

    His decision to place a hit on himself to attract Bullseye’s attention is rooted in a complicated series of emotional reactions to the situation. Matt lies to himself (and thus, to us) about his main motivations for intentionally bringing one of his most dangerous enemies back into his life. The excuse he makes is that he needs to get ahold of the blend of chemicals Bullseye used to create Ikari in Volume 3-- the same blend that gave Matt his powers. With this, he can help Sam to cope with his blindness by irradiating him and giving him hypersenses. 

Matt: “Sam wanted to follow my example, wanted to do what I do. I let him. I knew it was a mistake, and I let him do it anyway. He’s brilliant. He invented his own invisibility suit out of salvaged scraps, for God’s sake. He could do anything. I should have pushed Blindspot away, shoved him towards any other life at all. And now his eyes are gone [...] All of this was about trying to help him. Bullseye once created a sort of serum that can duplicate my powers. If I can get it... well. I can’t give Same his eyes back-- but I can give him my enhanced senses.”

Daredevil vol. 5 #16 by Charles Soule, Goran Sudzuka, and Matt Milla

    This is a loaded plan-- even if it’s not his actual intention (which is debatable). Matt has a complicated relationship with blindness-- both his own and other people’s. While he fully acknowledges and accepts his status as a blind person, he is also acutely aware of the distinction between his hypersenses-augmented existence and that of non-powered blind people. We see this in his desperate, almost cruel attempts to train Tyrone-- a young boy who was blinded by swimming in a polluted lake-- in Ann Nocenti’s run.

Tyrone: “Matt? Why do you hate me?! Why are you so mad at me?! I don’t understand this power you talk of, I can’t tell where your fist is, but I can feel your anger! I feel that! I feel your anger so big it’s crashing through the darkness!”

Matt: “I’m sorry! Tyrone... I’m sorry. I want so bad to teach you what I know! But my way is too harsh, too brutal! But we can’t stop! If you don’t learn-- the alternative is the dull stupid empty dead world of helpless darkness!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #254 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita, Jr., and Christie Scheele

    The implication is that he has grown so used to his hypersenses, and the idea of losing them is so frightening to him, that he has internalized the idea that they are a necessary improvement-- something that non-powered blind people are sadly lacking. There’s also an element of personal identification and guilt tied to both Tyrone’s situation and Sam’s. He sees his young self in them, sees the life his hypersenses have allowed him to lead, feels a responsibility to help them in their time of need, just like Stick helped him-- and fails to realize that they don’t need to follow his path, and don’t need hypersenses to live full, happy lives. The fact that he is able to semi-convince himself that he’s summoning Bullseye in order to access the serum suggests that it contains some truth, and as we see at the end of issue 16, he does actually get his hands on a vial of it. On some level, Matt feels he can make up for what happened to Sam by putting him through an extremely painful procedure that he doesn’t necessarily need. And that, from a character perspective, is fascinating.    

    Of course, the other explanation-- the real reason Matt realizes he wanted to summon Bullseye-- is to attempt suicide.

    This is not the first time suicide has come up Daredevil comics, and considering the nature of Matt’s life, it probably won’t be the last. And despite his comments to the Shroud in Volume 4, he has considered it before. 

Matt: “I am quite the expert on self-destructive despair. I know exactly what it’s like to have nothing. To have taken from me all the light there is. I can spend the rest of the night going, for your benefit, through the impossibly long list of tragedies I have faced. All the loves I have lost. All the hopeless moments. I have been where you are, but in all my most desperate times... I have never considered suicide by super villain.”

Daredevil vol. 4 #4 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

    Arguably the most memorable instance is from vol. 1 #225. In the aftermath of Heather Glenn’s suicide (for which Matt is more than a little bit to blame), with the law office in shambles and his friendship with Foggy falling apart, Matt is confronted by the Vulture-- used by writer Denny O’Neil to represent death. Matt chases the Vulture away from an attempt to rob Heather’s grave, and then battles him again on the roof of the now-bankrupt law office. In the midst of their fight, Matt finds it difficult to summon the will to protect himself. He nearly lets the Vulture kill him, before realizing what he’s doing. The thought that he might actually, on some level, want to die shocks him into fighting back.  

Matt: “A while ago, you said I secretly wanted to die. You were wrong. Cowards want to die. I’m no coward. I’m proving it-- to you and to myself-- by beating you... You-- and everything you represent... the death and decay that eat away at a man until he surrenders... the horror that pulls you down into the pit! Well, I’m not the surrendering kind, mister! Got that? I never give up!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #225 by Denny O’Neil, David Mazzucchelli, and Ken Feduniewicz

    This issue is closely tied to the specific context of the moment-- that of Heather’s decision to take her own life, and the specter of despair this tragedy casts on her loved ones. But it’s also part of a long tradition of Matt battling his way back from the brink of hopelessness and surrender. It’s the dark application the “Man Without Fear” epithet-- that he not only laughs in the face of physical danger, but has the strength to confront and overcome psychological torment as well.  We see a similar situation in Soule’s run, in which Matt refuses to face his own motivations until death is literally on its way. 

Matt: “It’s time to be honest. I sought out a man who has brought nothing but ruin to my life. [...] I didn’t do that to find some damn serum. I just want it to end. Bullseye can give me that. I knew this all along.”

Daredevil vol. 5 #16 by Charles Soule, Goran Sudzuka, and Matt Milla

    And in the end, he makes the logical decision-- the one that he, as Daredevil, has to make. He decides to keep fighting. In many ways, this is a rehashing of key elements of his character that have been examined and re-examined for decades and decades. But these themes are always worth bringing back, since they're so central to who Matt is-- particularly now, as he is rebuilding and reinventing his life.

[kalinara]

I saw a list like this for another character (with admittedly, some very valid points) so I thought I'd do one of these for Rip Hunter.  Because while he is definitely not as hated as he used to be, he still tends to get scapegoated or overlooked a bit too often for my entirely unbiased taste.

So, this is a friendly reminder that:

Rip Hunter lived on the streets at the age of five, suffering explicit starvation and implicit violence.  ("I knew what I'd do if someone tried to harm me.")  We don't have many details, but we can guess that it was bad considering that even after he has started living in a comparatively safe place with a supportive parent figure, his instinct is still to stab an adult who threatens him.  (1x12, Last Refuge).

From the age of ten onward, Rip was raised in a hidden, isolated orphanage by the Time Masters, an organization that, we know now, is pretty fucking messed up.  (1x12, Last Refuge).

At some point in his early career, Rip went to a place called Calvert, where he befriended a man named Jonah Hex.  He ended having to choose between remaining a Time Master or staying with Hex, with the knowledge that Calvert would be destroyed after he left.  (1x11, Magnificent Eight.)  There are implications of other unpleasant missions in his past, going by his “I have seen Men of Steel die and Dark Knights fall, and even then, I accomplished my mission, no matter what” speech.  (1x03) Blood Ties.

The Time Masters so strongly disapproved of interpersonal relationships that, upon discovering that Rip and Miranda were in love, subjected them to a fairly brutal public humiliation and forced one of them to leave the Time Masters entirely.  (1x07, Marooned).

Rip Hunter came home to Whitechapel, England, in 2166, to find the corpses of his wife and child after having been brutally murdered by Vandal Savage during the 2nd London Blitz.  Of special note: Jonas Coburn/Hunter had been shot in the fucking face.  (1x01, Pilot.)

Rip Hunter, in a desperate attempt to save his family, shot straight back to Ancient Egypt in order to kill Vandal Savage before he became human.  He hesitated at killing his defeated enemy, and was captured and tortured for his trouble.  (1x03, Blood Ties.  The torture is discussed in 1x14, River of Time.)

Rip Hunter then attempted to save his family “countless times” by trying to rescue them before their murder.  He watched them die. Countless times.  (1x13, Leviathan)

Rip Hunter begged the Time Masters, his employers and FAMILY for most of his life, for help and was denied.  Moreover, they sent ASSASSINS after him.  And his most trusted mentor tried to lure him into an ambush!  (1x01, Pilot.  1x04, White Knights).  Oh, and they’re working with Savage, and actually ORDERED the murder of his wife and child.  (1x14, River of Time/1x15 Destiny).

Rip Hunter has demonstrated numerous symptoms of trauma and mental illness throughout the course of the first season (detailed here), the most dramatic being a week long self-isolation in which he did nothing but watch images of his dead family.  He received no support from the crew at this time, except for Martin eventually telling him that the crew was bored.  (1x07, Marooned).  -- to be fair, there are other occasions in which many of the crew members have shown sympathy to his loss.

Rip Hunter has yet to receive a hug or really any form of physical comfort that was not a hallucination from his dead family (1x16, Legendary) or his imaginary human incarnation of his AI. (2x13, Land of the Lost)

Rip Hunter subjected himself through “temporal electrocution” to try to protect his part of the Spear of Destiny.  (2x1, Out of Time/2x09 Raiders of the Lost Art.)

Rip Hunter was captured by the Legion of Doom and tortured, while amnesiac and helpless.  (2x10, Legion of Doom.)

Rip Hunter had his brain rewritten to become a monster, attack and murder his friends, and turn over the spear pieces that he specifically lobotomized himself to try to protect.  (2x11, Turncoat, 2x12, Camelot, 2x13 Land of the Lost.)  

The single shred of Rip’s original personality spent an unknown amount of time as a prisoner in his own mind, imprisoned and tortured, by mental fragments in the form of his friends. (2x13 Land of the Lost.)

Likely less than a week after he’s saved from brainwashing, he learns that a teammate has turned the Spear of Destiny over to the very people he had suffered for a full season to protect it from (2x15, Fellowship of the Spear).  As a result, he spends a year trapped in solitary confinement, aboard a powerless ship with only his AI as company, with no knowledge of his team’s survival.  (2x16, Doomworld.)

Rip Hunter has shown signs of alcohol abuse (various points of season 1, 2x01 Out of Time) and has never been shown to eat or sleep during the run of the show.

Rip Hunter has attempted to commit at least passive suicide more than once.  (Flying into the sun, 1x16, Legendary; taunting Jax to shoot him, 2x11 Turncoat; Suggesting and volunteering for the hatch thing, 2x14, Moonshot.)  And he has taken pretty insane risks with a very likely result of death additional times.  (Flying the Waverider in front of a Nuke, 2x01, Temporal Electrocution, 2x01, appearing as “Rip” to confront the Legion, 2x09, Raiders of the Lost Art.)

Rip Hunter has now left the ship that has been his only home for his entire adult life, and the being who has been his partner for about that long, believing that he is useless and has nothing to contribute to the group.  (2x14, Moonshot, 2x17, Aruba.)

At the end of season 2, Rip has: 1) no wife and kid - they are still dead, 2) no biological family for support.  3) no adoptive family, as the fucked up space/time cult that raised him is dead, 4) no mission, 5) no home (Whitechapel is destroyed, Vanishing Point is destroyed, and he’s left the Waverider), 6) no partner, 7) no ship, 8) no team, and 9) no confidence

These are just a few things that it’s worth keeping in mind about Rip Hunter.  Feel free to add your own, if you like.  :-)

[itsyourturnblog]

“You do a lot of hard work. I want to give you a break around one topic — saving people. You’ve never saved anyone. You never will. It’s not possible.

A human being saves themself.” — Shannon Weber to her ego

“Show Up Hard” is a very important book. Even more important is the subtitle: “A Road Map for Helpers in Crisis”.

It has been written for those who struggle when helping. Because they help too much, or the wrong way.

The author, who is a helper herself and coordinated the Crisis Hotline of Houston in the late 1990’s, tells us that there are three type of interactions between us and the others.

It can be a missed connection (A. no connection at all, a missed opportunity), an enmeshed connection ( B. a connection that takes all our energy and even much more) or a compassionate witness (C. the sweet spot).

It seems that A. and B. are the ones we usually experiment.

It’s easy not to see someone and it’s easy to invest all our energy (and even more) in a relationship. The key to reach some kind of equilibrium is to set boundaries. Shannon Weber defines them as “our container”.

What is our container ?

Our container is the context in which we will provide help. It clearly set the conditions in which we will help and provide support, what we will do and what we will not do. It’s the framework.

It’s very important to define the container of any kind of help, support, mentoring or coaching. Because the necessary condition to help, support, mentor or coach someone is being ourself, in a position to help, support, mentor or coach. And this can only happen when we set clear boundaries.

As an example, people who help someone who is suicidal through an hotline have the mission to expand the tunnel vision.

The tunnel vision is typical from somebody who is stuck. It’s a black-and-white thinking. Either they die or they continue to live with this level of pain and suffering.

The only goal of the ones who are here to help through the hotline is to increase the field of possibilities. Their goal is to add multiple options within the 15 minutes of the call. That’s their container. Not less, not more.

I am not a helper myself, at least not in such a sense or definition. Anyway, I am managing people and leading initiatives. What Shannon Weber tells us in her book perfectly applies tp my context too.

The danger for anyone who has the ambition to take the lead is to be overwhelmed by the magnitude and difficulty of the task. For this reason, it’s essential to set containers and tend towards being a compassionate witness.

This does not annihilate the passion nor the motivation, but it allows to preserve the (emotional) energy of the helper so that she can really have impact on the people she is supporting.

“The plain fact is that the world does not need more successfu people, but does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind…” — David Orr

I encourage helpers, leaders, game changers and everybody who put their heart and soul in their just cause to define their container and to be a passionate witness.

By doing this, they will preserve themselves and be in a much better position to make change happen and to have a real impact in the long term.

Show Up Hard by Shannon Weber was originally published in It's Your Turn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Jean-Marie Buchilly via It's Your Turn - Medium #itsyourturn #altMBA #SethGodin #quotes #inspiration #stories #change #transformation #writers #writing #self #shipping #personaldevelopment #growth #education #marketing #entrepreneurship #leadership #personaldev #wellness #medium #blogging #quoteoftheday #inspirationoftheday