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brekitten · 10 months ago

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Bruce doesn't dream.

He never has, really - at least, not that he can remember. He never even had nightmares from the night his parents died. Maybe that's why; maybe he just subconsciously trained himself to not dream after that night, in fear of the nightmares that were sure to come. But the point is that he does not dream.

And yet.

The dream always starts out the same, every night, every time he closes his eyes and slips into the embrace of sleep. He's in a pitch-black room, one so dark that he can't see his hands even when he raises them right in front of his face. He knows, somehow, that he can walk for hours without coming into contact with anything - walls, furniture, anything at all to indicate that he was even in a room. Yet he knows that he is, although he's not sure why, as there really is no reason for him to know that.

The dream changes, after a while of walking. He knows that he won't find anything, no matter how far or how long he walks. This place is empty, desolate even. It fills him with dread every time. The change is never consistent, always bringing him to a different place each night.

(Once, it was a dusty old bedroom, one that made his heart ache, although he didn't know why. He had taken notice of the various space-themed decorations, the model rockets and NASA posters and stars on the ceiling. It was clearly a child's bedroom, but it hadn't been used in a long time. Another time, it was a darkened lab, illuminated only by the strange vials of green liquid lined along the many, many shelves. Bruce had wondered, after he had awoken, if it was Lazarus Water, but that felt wrong. It was something else. Something more. It had made him uneasy, and he got the feeling that something terrible had happened there. He didn't get a chance to investigate the gaping hole in the wall before he had been whisked away to another part of the dream.)

This time, he is in a brightly-lit white lab, and he has to blink stars out of his eyes at the abrupt change in lighting and color. He looks around; it seems like a typical lab, but everything is pure white, except for a green stain on the table. He can feel bile rising in his throat at the sight of the cuffs on the table, and though he still doesn't know what the green substance is, he gets the horrible feeling that it's blood. A lot of it.

He uses what little time he has to investigate the lab. There is an abundance of medical supplies, but many look unused, with the exception of the scalpels. The pit in his stomach continues to grow. Why were there so many? He reaches toward a vial of red liquid, wrong wrong wrong this is wrong, when the dream changes again.

Now he's in what is clearly a cell, except even the cells in Arkham aren't this bare. The only thing it contains is a familiar white-haired teenager, who is chained to the floor with cuffs that glow the same green as the vials of Lazarus Water that he's seen before.

Though Bruce has never learned his name, he has been in every dream, the one constant (besides the empty room, of course) in each one. The kid has never spoken, never done more than watch, but Bruce has always gotten the feeling that he was the reason for these strange dreams.

He knows that he should be more worried. If some kind of meta has managed to get inside his head, there's no telling what could happen. But he can't bring himself to be. Something is wrong, and it's not the teenager.

He can't help but think of his own children.

Something feels . . . off this time. The kid isn't looking up, isn't even moving - he seems limp, almost, as he kneels on the ground, weighed down by the chains keeping him there. Green blood - Bruce knows it's blood now, it has to be - drips from his still figure, pooling on the ground underneath him.

Bruce can't move. He desperately wants to, what could he even do? but it's like he's frozen in place. He can only watch as the teenager slowly, agonizingly, looks up at him, his bright green eyes dull and filled with fear and desperation and hope and -

Bruce wakes.

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ikamigami · 7 months ago

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THE CYCLE OF TRAUMA

In this post I'll try to explain how Sun is trapped in a cycle of trauma and I'll try to answer the question whether he can escape it or not and how he can escape it if it's possible.

I think that I know the answer to why Sun is often pushed aside and doesn't even feel like MC in Sun and Moon Show sometimes.. it's because the show is telling two stories.

One story is the one that we see. The one which follows mostly what happens with Moon because Moon does more things than Sun. Sun is doing his own things in the background. Or he's a gag character in most of funny lore episodes. This story is the surface level of watching it and seeing the obvious parallels between events.

It's not a bad way to engage with the show but it's more like watching MCU - easy story to follow with foreshadowing, payoffs and parallels.

But there's also a second story.. a story hidden in details and subtle hints and lines which are echoes of the past events.. and the main character of this story is Sun who is a traumatised victim of abuse.

This is more deep reading of events in the show - we could say it's meta interpretation of it.

I'm not going to lie to you that I found it weird and a bit repulsive how awfully Sun is treated as a victim of abuse.. because his trauma was never addressed properly - Sun could never talk openly about what happened to him and no one even helped him with that.. sometimes they didn't even want to listen to him..

I didn't want to accept that Sun healed off-screen or just even got better off-screen because of how much he went through and things like that just don't magically disappear.. all this trauma couldn't just disappear.. especially if Sun never had a break. His life is traumatising event after traumatising event after traumatising event..

"Stop! How can you say that Sun didn't have a break when he literally did while Solar and Moon took care of everything?" you're probably asking this right now. And my answer is: yes, you're right, Sun literally had a break. Literally - a surface level of watching show.. a story that we see..? You probably don't know what I'm trying to say. But this is exactly why I'm making this post.

Today's episode helped me realize that what's happening right now is just another face of Sun's trauma.

Moon is not only acting similarly to Old Moon but he even tried to guilt-trip Sun and he minimized his trauma by mocking it which was the exact same thing Old Moon was doing during their fights.

Moon even said that only after two years Sun was able to grow a spine to stand up to Moon.. doesn't it sound familiar?

Old Moon said during one of their fights that Sun shouldn't apologize for yelling at him because he shouldn't apologize for having a spine.. hmm.. it's obvious parallel yet it's a reverse one.

Old Moon was trying to make Sun stand up for himself in abusive way.

Now Moon is trying to squash Sun's confidence by laughing at Sun's efforts of trying to stand up for himself which essentially mocks Sun's trauma.

And later when I was watching mgafs episode it dawned on me. Sun went to Monty for help when Moon is dangerous.. doesn't it sound familiar?

The last time Sun went to Monty for help was when kill code reactivated in Old Moon.. but before that Sun went to Monty for help when Lunar was pretending to be Old Moon and they couldn't switch places.

But who told Sun to go to Monty for help if situation with Moon would be too much to handle for Sun? Old Moon.

It seems that Old Moon's words still have an impact on Sun.

But there's more.. Sun locked Moon in a cell just like Old Moon did to him a year ago. Sun decided to use shocks to keep Moon from doing something stupid and harming himself.

It really seems that Sun was influenced by Old Moon's actions.

But also the only helpful thing that Sun knows is talking to Earth because Earth was the one who helped him back then.. so if Earth's words didn't help Moon what else can?

Old Moon never listened to Sun and now Moon also doesn't listen to him. So what left?

He went to Monty for help but it turned out that Monty can't help. Monty's words don't work anymore with Moon like they used to with Old Moon. Monty and Foxy's only solution is to forcefully snap Moon out of it by endangering Sun at expense of Bloodmoon's life cause who cares about Bloodmoon..

So the only answer is violence. But if you think about it Sun's life is filled with violence to the brim. Old Moon used to solve their every problem with violence. New Moon also tried to solve their every problem by killing whoever he deemed an enemy.

Sun tried to talk with Eclipse but it didn't work. The only thing that left was to expell him from his head which was a death of OG Eclipse.

He tried to warn Bloodmoon. It didn't work and he killed them in self-defence.

He tried to listen to V2 Eclipse (Eclipse with the star) but Eclipse could only threaten them and told them to kill Lunar. So the only thing that left was to push Eclipse through the portal and Moon killed him.

He tried to talk to New Bloodmoon but it didn't work either and the only thing that left once again was violence.

He convinced Moon to help Ruin which turned out to be Solar's and trillions of others' lives doom. So what left? They had to lock Ruin but it created more problems - Molten trying to kill him and now Ruin is once again working with Bloodmoon and we can only imagine that they're up to no good. So they'd most definitely have to use violence.

Sun tried to resolve things differently. He tried to help. But none of this worked. His help only made things worse. And everyone's answer seem to be only violence.. violence violence violence violence violence violence violence..

So it's not surprising at all that Sun is doing what Old Moon taught him. Even if it isn't what Sun wants. And the worse thing is that now others are trying to force him to make a decision that will have an impact on everything. It'll either work and things will get better or it won't and everything will get worse.

You may say that Sun has Earth and Lunar as a support. But while it is true that he still has them they already expressed that they don't want to help. And let's be honest, neither Earth nor Lunar did much to help Sun with his trauma. They aknowledged it but that's it. Lunar never talked about it with Sun. And the only thing Earth did was apologizing to Sun for making him sad by mentioning Old Moon's death because she knows how hard it is for him.

But it isn't what Sun needs. He needs help. You may say "why he doesn't talk to them about his trauma?" The thing is he tried. But when he needed help the most - after Old Moon's death - they told him to move on or Moon straight up yelled at him for just simply mentioning Old Moon.

So it's not surprising that Sun doesn't try to open up about it anymore. Because he learned that it's better not to do that. And that's why he thinks that his issues are less important than others' problems. Because no one cared to help him. But because Sun knows that they love him so there's only one reason why they didn't help him. And this reason is that his issues aren't that much of a big deal. Why should he bother others with his issues when others don't seem to care that much? They probably don't care that much because these issues aren't real problems.. I bet that this is what Sun thinks about that.

Let's get back to the main topic of this post. Sun is trapped in a cycle of trauma. From the beginning of his existence the only thing he knows is trauma. First with Old Moon who abused him physically, mentally and emotionally. Later Old Moon promised to change yet he left Eclipse in Sun's head which created another trauma for Sun and Old Moon didn't stop being abusive. Later when they thought that they defeated Eclipse another problem appeared - Bloodmoon. But it wasn't enough because it turned out that there's new Eclipse who activated Old Moon's kill code reopening Sun's trauma.

Eventually Sun's already poor mental state worsened even more and he experienced psychotic episode. And what others did at that time? They abandoned Sun and because he was too detached from reality he wasn't able to stop himself. And in such state he did things that he regrets. But even if he regrets them he can't do anything about it. He has to live with consequences of his actions even if he wasn't at fault for neither Old Moon's nor Lunar's death. But it only deepened his trauma.

At that point Sun thought that the only solution is to die hoping for fresh start like Moon had. Hence why he decided to be conduit for star's power and tried to sacrifice himself. Thankfully he survived and Eclipse was gone. Things seemed to get better. Unfortunately Sun's family didn't help him with his trauma at that time. Even if it was the best time to adress his issues considering that he was still suicidal back then.

Though Ruin already was a threat. After all he kidnapped Sun and the way Moon dealt with it wasn't the best - reminding Sun of his trauma once again. Yet back then Ruin's threat seemed so distant. Until he decided to bring Bloodmoon back. And also Solar's appearing disrupted dynamics in the family regardless of this being unintentional. Then Ruin blew up the Daycare and Sun and Moon were sent to Ruin's dimension.

And even if later things seemed to get better once again it wasn't long before Bloodmoon completely mauled Earth's body and they had to deal with them and also Stitchwraith threatened that if they'll try to interfere he will do worse things then simply kidnapping Earth.

At that time Sun seemed very distanced from everyone. He had serious memory issues and he wasn't answering any messages and calls. It didn't seem good.

And then Eclipse returned once again. And we all of a sudden found out that Sun was feeling great until Eclipse's return.. it doesn't add up.

And later Sun decided to leave everything to Moon and Solar to deal with while he was spending time alone in their house, drinking wine and relaxing with his cats.. and he seemingly got better. He just needed a break.

It doesn't make much sense when you consider everything Sun went through. Yes, on surface level Sun seems to be doing much better and break helped him.. but is it actually true?

If we look at it deeper through lense of a story of very traumatised victim of abuse.. it seems that this was Sun's another attempt at breaking the cycle of trauma. The first attempt was sacrificing himself. Second was to try and avoid getting engaged with anything. After all when he tried to help everything got worse. So he naturally tried to do the opposite.. which turned out even worse.

Solar died because of Ruin's plan and he wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't for Sun convincing Moon to help him. Moon is now losing his mind because of Solar's death and like Sun said he wishes that he said more to Moon when he had mental breakdown. And now Moon is acting worse than Old Moon and Sun is basically reliving his trauma. Sun is trying his best to keep his family together but is he actually able to do that?

You may think that he is.. but when you consider Sun's mental state - depressive psychosis and delusions centered around guilt and unworthiness making Sun feel like he's the one who is bad.. it doesn't seem likely.

You can disagree with me but there's plenty of evidence that support my claim. Also Moon told Sun that he has a little bit of Eclipse in him still.. and not so long ago Eclipse told Sun that he would make a good Eclipse when this is exactly what Sun was afraid of a year ago. And Lunar back then told him that he's acting exactly like Eclipse.

I'm pretty sure that it's affecting Sun. As much as he tries to say otherwise. That Moon's words doesn't have any impact on him anymore. It's not true. After all, we can still see how much Old Moon's words affected him.

Having all of this in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if Sun ended up blaming himself for what happened. Also considering that things will get worse soon. After all, Taurus is after Lunar and he'll either execute them immediately or put them to test.. which probably won't be anything nice. And Earth is hiding that she's friends with Eclipse and she trusts him more than her family because she tells Eclipse things that she wouldn't say to them. And who knows what Ruin and BM will do. And lastly.. Sun will find out soon that Dazzle is victim of July 16th incident. It doesn't look too good for him.

Even if Sun keeps going for his family. Will he be able to take more of this?

I don't think so. Because why then showrunners didn't let things to get better even if a bit? Why everything seems to get worse?

But is there a way for Sun to escape the cycle of trauma? He tried to sacrifice himself which even if it'd ended with him being dead he still would do something good, right? He'd protect his family. He tried to distance himself from everything to not make things worse with his help. But it ended up making everything even worse. So is there any option left for Sun to break the cycle?

Yes, the help of others. Unfortunately it doesn't seem likely. Even now when Sun is clearly suffering he still chose not to talk about his own feelings but focused on Moon. Even when he's hurting so much that Monty and Foxy found Sun crouching outside Monty's house. Yet he didn't say anything. And what they did to help him? They told him that he needs to make a decision that he isn't capable to make in the state he is right now.

But what about Earth and Lunar? Like I said Lunar will have a much more concerning problem soon enough. And when Sun will find out about Earth's secret.. I doubt he'll trust her to talk about his own issues. You may say that he can change his mind about Eclipse. Maybe normally he could but not now. Not when he's reliving his trauma and his mental state is threatening to worsen. Sun isn't in any condition to deal with his own issues with Eclipse unless Eclipse will surprisingly not insult Sun and will be able to convince him that he wants to help. But Sun isn't in the right state of mind to deal with it, to rethink everything between the two of them and try to forget about trauma Eclipse caused him and his family.

And when Sun will learn the truth about Dazzle.. I wouldn't be surprised if it'll be a final straw for him.

So what else left? How can break the cycle? The answer is he can't. He could with a help of his family but it really seems not to be an option.

Though there's one thing that will stop the cycle of trauma once and for all. And it's death. You may say that Sun already tried to do that. Yes but also no. Back then Sun thought that he'll be lucky if he get reset and if not he'll at least sacrifice himself to protect his family.

But what about now? There's a plan to put Sun in dangerous situation that will cause Sun harm in order to snap Moon out of the state he's in. But if it won't work Moon will kill Bloodmoon and then I doubt that he'll stop at that. And then what?

This plan is messed up because no one can be sure if it'll work and there are very high chances that Moon's mental state will worsen either way. I bet that Sun will try to help no matter what.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Foxy wanted Sun to decide when he'll say enough is enough and he let them kill Moon which isn't an option for Sun - imagine keep going with this in mind that the life of your brother depends on your decision.

But when things will get worse will he be able to keep going? After all he wasn't able to help anyone, to stop anyone, to comfort anyone.. he tried everything yet things only got worse. And because of Sun's mental issues I'm pretty sure that he'll blame himself for everything. So even if Sun will still have Earth and Lunar (maybe).. can he be sure that his decisions won't end up harming the rest of his family?

I wouldn't be surprised if Sun will consider taking his own life as an answer to how stop this madness. If he thinks that all of this is his fault and he even expressed that himself that he was wondering if it'd be better if Moon and him never separated.. and even if Sun went to dimension where they separated but Eclipse never happened and they seem to have happy lives. That Moon didn't help Sun that much and even if he said that deep down Moon still cares.. now Sun learned that it isn't true. Sun can't handle this anymore.

Sun's mental state seems to be not good but considering what is about to happen it'll only get worse. I doubt that Sun will be able to think it through and stop himself from doing it while everything around him is collapsing and he thinks that it's all because of him..

I won't say that he'll succeed because there's high chance that someone will stop him or even if he'll attempt it he may end up heavily injured or in a coma and not dead dead.

But seeing how showrunners keep making things harder and worse for Sun and knowing that Davis wanted to include topic of suicide but previously received backlash for that though it seems that the issue either got resolved or they decided to implement it anyway it seems highly likely that Sun may try to kill himself.

I'm not saying that he'll do that but this is just my hypothesis based on the analysis of events in the show and meta analysis of Sun's character and that his character represents a story of traumatised victim of abuse. I'd rather have them addressing it even if it'd mean that Sun will attempt suicide then them completely ignoring it showing viewers that "screw victims of abuse".

We may argue about whether VAs are doing good job with portraying this things in the show but I don't want to immediately say that there's no hope and that they just don't care about the fact that they made Sun to be a victim of abuse.

I'm trying to be positive about this and I hope that Sun's trauma eventually will be addressed. I'm trying to trust the process. Maybe I'm a fool for doing so but whatever. I don't care about it.

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