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call-sign-shark · 6 months

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The Woods Whisper ||Part 1/2

Summary: After a terrific nightmare, your and Arthur’s life change for good. You start to suffer from a mysterious and excruciating hunger, which always seems to lead you to the forest.

Words: 3.2k

TW: Extreme violence, angst, cannibalism, graphic depiction of mutilation, blood kink (wow no one is surprised), piv, rough and unprotected sex but it’s short, supernatural AU.

Notes: written for @peakyswritings's 2k celebration and Halloween. Nina belongs to her. + important notes at the end of the post.

Reader is Heaven from the series Heaven in Your Eyes.

Since the first night they shared together Arthur knew of his wife’s violent nightmares. It seemed that the demons of your past waited for you to close your eyes in order to plague your dreams with the terrific memories of your family's murder and the men who hunted you down in the woods. After a while, Arthur became accustomed to your sudden screams at night and helped you calm down when you thrashed your limbs, fighting against some malevolent ghosts only you could see. When it happened, the tall gangster secured you in his strong arms and gently forced you to rest your head against his lean chest. With his long fingers lost in your snow-white mane, he would then cradle you with indescribable tenderness and whisper in your ear with his hoarse voice, rendered even more raspy by sleep. He didn't stop until your whole body relaxed, sinking in the soothing combination of his warm skin, chest hairs, lean muscles, and musky perfume. A familiar cocktail you assimilated with love and protection: as long as he was here, you knew that the monsters that were lurking in your most twisted nightmares wouldn't hurt you. Or at least they didn't until that one night.

This time you struggled with such violence that you threw a nasty punch to his face when Arthur pinned you against the mattress in a desperate attempt to calm you down. Taking advantage of his confusion, you jumped from the bed with supernatural agility, hurtled down the stairs at lightspeed, and ran outside, barefoot in the dawn-sprinkled weeds. The only thing covering your delicate frame was the thin and immaculate bedsheet that floated behind you at the winter wind's discretion.

“Angel!” Arthur yelled, running behind you as he saw your frail silhouette reaching the vast and dangerous woods that were at the edge of your property. The gravel of his voice echoed with the rumble of the thunder as he called your name, but the savage drums you heard in your trance were louder than him. Arthur had no other choice than to pounce on you before you disappeared into the frozen forest all naked, that was why he shoved you to the ground. A chilling scream escaped from your plumped lips as you fought under his grip but fortunately enough he had more strength. Keeping you pinned on the muddy soil, he tried to make you come back to your senses by shaking you “Wake up! Please, Heaven, wake up! This is just a bloody nightmare!"

“They whisper to me! They whisper to me!” You cried out, moving your head from left to right and fighting like a demon, eyes still shut.

“Fookin’ who?!” Arthur shook you a bit more bluntly, panic kicking in him as he realized that you were still deeply embedded in a profound sleep he couldn't pull you from.

“The woods whisper to me!” You whimpered, your inexhaustible and unusual strength mysteriously increased by your psychosis, “They are calling me home!” Your siren-like voice turned into a banshee's laments and, with one powerful push, you suddenly managed to turn around to lay flat on your stomach and dug your nails into the ground in a desperate attempt to crawl closer to the forest. Overwhelmed by the situation, Arthur had no other choice than to resort to physical violence.

"For fuck's sake, Heaven!"

He didn't know how he managed to throw you over his shoulder just like a floor bag but he did and, wasting no time, he brought you home without minding how hard your tiny and muddy fists banged against his back or how you tried to kick him by thrashing your legs like a wild animal fighting for its life.

“Sleepwalking it is.”

“I don’t sleepwalk.” You mumbled, hands cupping your warm mug filled with hot cocoa, and your knees, which were pressed against your breasts, tightly glued together. Nina got up from the sofa and walked towards the gargantuan dining table of Arrow House’s living room to grab a plate of homemade biscuits she had baked for Tommy even though her husband thrived off whiskey and cigarettes rather than edible and healthy food. As she did, your crystal eyes followed your new sister-in-law’s every move, losing yourself in your thoughts as you watched the Sicilian girl’s elegant gait. With her beautiful tan skin, honey-pooled eyes, and long black hair, Nina Ferrante was your strict opposite. She was made of sun and fire, lava probably running through her veins. When she put her warm hand on the frozen and porcelain skin of yours, you batted your Bambi lashes to shoo your thoughts away and looked at the young Sicilian woman.

“It's nothing but sleepwalking and it tends to get better with time. Maybe Arthur and you should spend a few nights here, away from the forest?”

“Hm.” You replied absentmindedly, putting the mug on the coffee table only for your fingers to reach for the delicious biscuits Nina had made, “I don’t think it would solve the problem. Even when I’m not sleeping at home I still hear them at night.” You took a bite of the biscuit, its hard dough crunching under your sharp teeth. The sweet flavor of sugar and strawberry jam melted on your tongue -- You closed your eyes and hummed with satisfaction.

“What do you hear?” Nina inquired, visibly worried for you for your angelic complexions were undermined by the red bags under your eyes and the weight you had lost. In truth, you had always been thin and tiny, but your adorable cheeks and the voluptuous curves of your thighs proved you were in perfect health. That was just your body shape. Yet, since the night of this horrific nightmare, you had started to lose a great deal of weight and looked more and more gaunt.

“Drums. I mainly hear some odd drums coming from the woods,” You ate another biscuit, “And there are the whispers. It's not someone whispering to me but it’s more like an unintelligible mix of people murmuring incomprehensible things together.” Another biscuit, they were good, “Maybe I’m just becoming crazy.” You finally said, attempting to lighten the tense atmosphere with a joke and a small shrug. Your glossy lips curled in a faint, reassuring smile but it didn’t work: Nina still looked deeply concerned.

“At least you’re eating well.” She said encouragingly when she noticed you had just eaten the entire plate of biscuits by yourself.

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” Surprised by your own appetite, you brought your hand over your mouth, aquamarine eyes wide open in shame.

“Don’t be. I’m glad someone ate them ‘cause Tommy doesn’t anyway. And you know… My aunts used to tell me that eating is a sign of good health. But that's an Italian thing.” Nina’s beautiful smile shone as bright as her honey eyes, but the worried glow in her iris betrayed how serious she thought the matter was.

A few days passed and Arthur noticed brutal changes in your habits. It started with snacking between meals and, even if it seemed to be anodyne, it was something you never did. While not particularly picky with food, you were careful with your diet, taking care of always eating very balanced meals that would suit your small appetite. At first, Arthur thought that your insatiable hunger was due to an unexpected pregnancy. Maybe the baby and your hormones asked you for more energy? But your snacking habit soon took another extreme turn. Constant cravings turned into frenzy binge eating. You ended up waking up in the middle of the night and emptying the kitchen's cupboards. Anything edible disappeared crushed under your teeth as you compulsively ate until your jaw ached. But no matter the amount of food you ingested, nothing seemed to fill the void inside of you. You ate, you ate, and you ate but you were never full.

Moreover, this ravenous hunger wasn't confined to food only. The gaping hole inside of you craved sex. Unhealthy, messy, and nymphomaniac sex. A restless rhythm even Arthur had trouble keeping up with, and God knew he had stamina. The oldest Shelby brother had barely hung up his long black coat when you threw yourself in his arms and devoured his lips, drool running from your chin. You didn't leave him time to catch his breath or to reach the bedroom. In fact, your sly and cold fingers were already tearing his shirt apart and unbuckling his belt while your whole body quivered with excitement. To hell with the bed, the floor would do the trick: you wanted him now.

Adrenaline shot through your veins and gave you enough strength to push him on the ground. Confused but equally aroused, Arthur's back leaned against the couch and he let you rid him. A cry of pleasure escaped from your starving mouth as you took him entirely inside of your tight core with one brutal thrust. He stopped breathing for a short while and dug his nails into the flesh of your hips, starstruck. Considering your size difference, your husband knew that you usually needed a bit of time to adjust to the sensation of his cock stretching your throbbing walls, even after years of marriage. Sometimes he used this characteristic of you to his advantage when he wanted to see you scream his name between two sobs. And yet, you didn't seem to mind the pain anymore. On the contrary, you immediately went for a furious pace, hopping on his lap with your small and round breasts bouncing. With his mouth agape, Arthur's calloused hands clenched on your pale flesh and he closed his eyes, letting out a compendium of moans, grunts, and cuss words. That was fine with him -- he liked it rough and he knew that his angel-looking wife could be the naughtiest whore.

The simple sight of you fucking yourself on his hard shaft, growling like an animal, made him higher than the purest opium he had shot in his veins. He only started to understand the extent of your despair and greed the moment you kept moving your hips fiercely even after you both came. The gangster had done his best: he had worked you with his long fingers, buried his face between your legs until his jaw hurt, and filled you countless times in every position he knew, but you had never enough and it was starting to become painful for him too.

"Easy angel, ay? Easy -- oh fuck." He threw his head back, his lower lip trembling and his mustache twisting from time to time, "L-last round ay? I'm fookin' empty." But you weren't listening.

"More! More! Need more, Art! Please..." You begged. In the depths of your soul, a voracious maw of desire yawned. It was a starving abyss, a giant crevice in your being nothing could ease. Making your two bodies snap faster, you didn't notice the thin trickle of blood that had started running down your inner thighs. The pain should have made you stop but you couldn't. "I'm gonna --" When Arthur felt your pussy clenching around him, he worked you through your orgasm despite being a breathless and sweaty mess. Closer, closer... The moment the knot in your stomach snapped, you instinctively sunk your teeth into Arthur's freckled shoulder.

"Fuck!" Arthur grunted through gritted teeth, a searing shock of sensation coursing through him. The piercing pain that followed, acute and unexpected, made him reach the stars. He came in a long and raspy groan, releasing his load for the umpteenth time deep inside of you. "Heaven!" Pleasure exploded in you like fireworks, resulting in you rolling your hips and biting Arthur even harder. His blood brimmed over your mouth, gushing from the wound in long crimson trails. Your teeth were so deep into his flesh that you could have ripped a chunk of him. Silent fell again in the living room, only broken by the fire crackling in the hearth and the melody of your panting breathing. You remained like this all the while you cooled down, breathing fast through your nose as your starving tongue still licked the blood of your husband, relishing its metallic and slightly sweet taste. "'S'Alright, love." Arthur's shaky hand gently stroked your back to tame your wild spirit. "Your Arthur's here." He whispered softly, tenderly, for you had started to quietly sob in agony.

"M-More..." Tears fell down your rosy cheeks as you realized that something was definitely wrong, "Fuck me more. Hurt me, breed me, I don't care but please... Please do something I can't take it anymore..." You whispered with your bleeding mouth, exhausted, your whole body sore, but still starving.

Arthur had told the family you were sick to keep up appearances and explain your absence. No one asked any questions nor showed signs of doubt except for his cunning sister-in-law Nina, who would stare at him in disapproval. But how could he explain what was happening to you now that the situation had worsened? In fact, Arthur would frequently find you nestled in the middle of the kitchen at night, your delicate form cradled in a graceful curl and your knuckles met by your tender lips as you bit them until crimson tears trailed down your porcelain skin. You did so only to hush the unrestrained, agonizing crescendo of hunger that writhed within you, rendering your sobs into whispers only the silent home and your helpless husband could fathom. The lanky gangster had tried everything to help you alleviate the pain but nothing had worked so far. The one and only trick that would get you relaxed for one to two hours was when he allowed you to take a bite of him. So each time he would find you crying, he wouldn't think twice. Arthur slowly unbuttoned his shirt and opened it, exposing his chest to you as you both sat on the kitchen floor.

"Go ahead, love. Bite me."

“No!" You protested, anger flashing in your crystalline eyes. As much as your husband's support helped you go through it, you hated the idea of hurting him. An intense feeling of shame and sorrow would shake you when you looked at his scarred body. His freckled skin was littered with deep and swollen bite marks, which constantly reminded you of how monstrous you were. But Arthur wouldn't have it — seeing you in pain was torture to him. He would give everything he had and never had only to content your bottomless hunger, even if it meant sacrificing his own flesh. His strong and calloused hands grabbed you by the hips and pulled you to him. Nestling your nose in the crook of his neck, you let out a shaky sigh at the soothing sensation of Arthur's fingers massaging your scalp and bringing your face closer to his skin in a silent invitation. The delicious scents of his natural perfume intoxicated you, leading you to take a long inhale of him. You wanted to resist, you really did, but all your goodwill couldn't compete with your husband's exquisite taste, a taste that was already making you salivate. Finally, you abandoned yourself to your vices and gave Arthur's neck a few little licks before diving your teeth into his juicy flesh. His body jerked a bit against yours but the stinging sensation quickly released endorphins in him and turned the experience pleasurable. Or maybe he was just completely fucked up.

"A good girl you are, eh." A gravelly moan escaped from his mouth as he felt you lapping the blood that was gushing out of the fresh bite like a famished kitten licking milk. The relief you would feel following your twisted cannibalistic ritual would only be momentary, but at least you might enjoy the luxury of a good nap. After a short while, you eventually pulled your head back from his neck, your otherworldly pale eyes staring at his complexions with great attention. His dark blue iris met yours as your frozen fingers ghosted over his face, tracing the lines of his appetizing lips and the crowfeet at the corner of his eyes.

"I don't deserve you." Your hypnotizing siren-like voice was mainly a whisper. Arthur laid a tender kiss on your fingers before arching one of his thick eyebrows, "Look at me, I'm a fucking monster."

"Ye ain't a monster, angel." He immediately corrected you, leaning over your face to steal a kiss from your bleeding mouth. Far from being disrupted by the crimson hemoglobin he smeared on his own lips doing so, the lanky gangster kissed you again but with more passion this time, tongue waltzing with yours. A shiver of desire ran through your famished body at the dizzying taste of blood and whiskey. When he broke the kiss, your breath was slightly hitching. "You're the most dazzling creature I've ever seen, and I promise I'll do everything in my power to find a solution to soothe yer hunger." Arthur swore, the glow of a mad and obsessive love dancing in his eyes, "That will be our secret ay."

"Our secret." Your mouth, painted in a gruesome shade of crimson, curled into a wicked and enamored smile. The blood, thick and vicious, clung to your lips and stood against your otherwise delicate and angelic features.

Dead branches cracked under your feet but apart from them, a stern silence lingered in the forest, only disrupted by the eerie howling of the wind. Your pale locks seemed to shimmer and merge with the ethereal glow of the night, casting an unsettling radiance on their fresh-fallen snow color. As you walked all naked with a haunting grace, your steps echoed softly in the silence of the woods. A winter breeze caressed your bosom, making your nipples harden, but you didn't react, unable to feel cold anymore. Surprisingly enough, no animal had dared cross your path, as if they sensed what kind of lethal and inhumane creature you had become. The only exception was the majestic deer that was by your side, accompanying you like a silent sentinel with ashen fur. The black pools of darkness that constituted its eyes contrasted with yours, glassy like the clouded gaze of a corpse. Yet, you still bore one common feature: an uncanny malice shone in them. In your trance, you reached for the deer antlers, your fingertips gently stroking its bony texture. Guided by the drums and the whispers, you disappeared into the depths of the woods, tired of fighting against this alluring call.

How long did you wander in the woods? And what had happened in there? No one could knew. What Arthur knew though was that when he woke up, you were sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in the sheets, and your tiny shivering being painted in red.

"Arthur... I think I did something bad..."

"What... The bloody hell..."

He mouthed, his steel blue eyes gawking in shock at the majestic and bony antlers on your head.

notes: While this is mainly a supernatural AU written for both Halloween and my lovely moot’s celebration, the myth of the Wendigo is one of the inspirations that brought the character of Heaven to life. From her aesthetic (forest, antlers...) to the whole atmosphere and story of her hunting down men in the woods prior to her coming to Birmingham, the myth of the Wendigo is embedded in the essence of her character. This is partly due to the fact that it’s my favorite creature along with the myth of the boogeyman, but also because of my long-term fascination with cannibalism. Admittedly, the myth of the Wendigo is Algonquian and has been twisted a lot by Western media. Yet, I tried to respect some aspects of the original beast the best I could and sincerely hope it won't pass for cultural appropriation.

✞ Any comment, review, reblog, or constructive criticism is welcome. Your reactions really motivate me and keep me alive, so please don't be shy. English is not my first language.

✞ Taglist: @adaydreamaway08 @theshelbyclan @jomarch-wannabe @esposadomd @zablife @woofgocows @anathemasworld @anastasia000 @kate654 @kxnnxy @babayaga67 @meowtastick @shelbyssins @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @bluevenus19 @raincoffeeandfandoms @kishie8 @zablife @alexandra-001 @dearshelby @alexizodd @helen06dreamer @kmc1989 @emotionalcadaver @peakyswritings @peakyltd @chaosinkest1996

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yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt · 8 months

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I am Never Not Thinking about Comic Ambrosius y'all

This mf was clearly so obsessed with Ballister, constantly showing up to "thwart" his plans without ever seeming to take it seriously, seemingly just as an excuse to be around him. He acts like a bratty thirteen-year-old with a crush who never got taught to express it properly.

He seems to live in his own little world, where he and Ballister have this silly little Nemesis relationship that's just a part of a game instead of the deeply fractured and tragic thing that it was. Presumably because it's easier to deal with than the guilt.

In the prison scene, he seems to completely ignore when Ballister basically tells him to shut the fuck up, continuing to reminisce fondly as though they're still friends. I really feel like he lives in his own little reality half the time. Living in a little world where they're playing a game of cops and robbers and they're still close deep down, even if he isn't doing it consciously, is a lot easier than acknowledging his guilt and the pain he caused someone he loved.

I think this is the reason he didn't apologize for so long, and also the reason his memory is so shit even before the head injuries. He legitimately cannot remember exactly what happened at the joust. He wanted so hard to believe it was an accident, to live in a world where it was an accident, that his brain created a false reality and erased the parts of his own memories that contradicted that. He didn't even realize that he hadn't apologized. He is horrified to receive that information. His brain constructed a reality where they had already made up, even though he knew they hadn't. His memories got so jumbled between his imagined and true experiences that he just assumed he must have already apologized, because he was sorry, why wouldn't he have?

I'm not trying to say that he was struggling with psychosis, he knew what was and wasn't real. But his brain dealt with guilt and trauma in very disorienting ways, choosing to ignore or erase truths that hurt him.

I can't imagine what their healing journey must have been like. Imagine trying to un-fuck the thing you fucked up the most in your entire life while also learning how to exist without the ability to walk unassisted, and possibly also recovering from brain damage, dysmorphia from your face getting shredded, and a myriad of other injuries. I cannot imagine the self-worth of someone who is being cared for by the person they love the most, who they irreparably hurt, while also feeling like a burden because they are newly disabled and can't yet take care of themselves.

Also it makes me sad when people talk like Blackheart would hate/be cruel to him post-comic like he wasn't willing to die/kill his friend to save him. He'd give him a ton of shit all the time probably but he'd also protect him like a wolfhound change my mind okay I'm done thanks for coming to my Ted talk

#maybe Im neurodivergent and projecting my own tendencies to fictionalize my reality #and my experience with depersonalization and maladaptive daydreaming and how they affect memory #but I feel like I saw so much of that in him which is why I have such a soft spot for him #ambrosius goldenloin #nimona novel #nimona comic #nimona #ballister blackheart #cw unreality

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thecatslug · 4 months

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I, Strahd: Depression, Psychosis, and Mental Health

Today I am going over how and where severe depression comes up in I, Strahd (1 and 2). We’ll look at what is wrong with him psychologically, explain the ‘diagnoses’, and go over where this can be seen in the novels.

In I, Strahd (1&2), two forces completely sway every facet of the story: The Dark Powers (TDP), and Strahd’s own fractured psyche. The former can be shooed to the realms of DM knowledge, but the latter casts a shadow over all of Strahd’s actions in the novels.So, when examining these books, we must either ignore his mind and get an inaccurate view of events, or deep-dive into his mental-health and learn to view the novels with such a lens in mind.

Welcome to Series 1; Strahd’s crippling depression

“Blackness surged up and clouded my brain for a time. This had happened before and was now becoming more frequent. I had thought it was simple illness before realizing it was but another part of my growing despair." (I, Strahd, p. 125)

Table of Contents: 1 -> Disclaimers to cover my ass and content warnings to cover yours 2 -> The actual essay on his depression (what y’all are here for) (a) we’ll tell you what is up with him (b) we’ll explain the ‘diagnosis’, (c) we’ll finish with where we see this in the novels (i.e., our reasoning) 3 -> Our sources, further reading, and resources 4 -> My rambling authors note

== Disclaimers and Content Warning: ==

My background on the subject: I am by no means a professional psychologist, but I am in training to be one. I also have extensive experience in writing for mentally ill characters, and neurotically strive for accurate portrayals. Indeed, it has become somewhat of a side hobby to prep for and run NPCs that grapple with themes of mental illness; a core theme which is present in most (if not all) of the games I run. Beyond this- haphazard “resume” if you will, I personally fall into the category of what some people term “severe mental illness”. I have bipolar II disorder, which is characterized by periods of extreme depression and mild (hypo)mania. Unlike bipolar I, which is characterized by full-blown mania. And, while every person is different, and this by no means denotes expertise, sometimes having an inside perspective sheds a lot of new light on the media we consume.

Disclaimer: What this is: The essay below is purely for entertainment purposes for nerds who enjoy literature and this setting. It is meant to be a supplement for DMs who write for Strahd, and an interesting insight for everyone whose curious about the NPC. What this isn’t: The content below does not reflect everyone’s experience with the disorder, nor is it meant to be a professional info-dump. My word is not law, nor is it claiming to be 100% professionally accurate. This is also not professional advice nor a guide for those struggling with mental health. If you are struggling with any of the difficulties described below, I have resources in section 3 to take a poke at.

Trigger/Content warning: We’re talking about severe mental illness in the context of ravenloft. It’s already a bleak topic and now just wrapped in depression: the game setting. Because we’re using I, Strahd (1&2) as our main focus, I have to put in a CW for suicide. Because we’re covering depression in these books, there’s a general CW for the topic, along with a CW for discussions of psychosis and agitated states. (TL;dr: Suicide, depression, psychosis and agitated states)

== I, Strahd: Diagnosis, Explanation, & Reasoning ==

“Secret and safe in some hidden cache within me, the blackness was always ready to rush forth and resume gnawing at my soul like a starved monster.” (I, Strahd, p. 125-126)

{ I } ‘What’s Wrong’ Strahd likely has major depressive disorder (MDD) with mixed-features and psychotic features.

{ II } ‘What this means’ [1] Depression is far more diverse than most realize. It is not merely feeling extremely sad, exhausted, or melancholic. Nor is it always coupled with suicidality. Depression is also not only isolated episodes or only long term/persistent. For some people it can come episodically (MDD), for others it can be lowgrade and chronic over time (persistent depressive disorder (PDD)), and some individuals can suffer from a mix of both. Symptoms can also ebb and change over time, some individuals may go into remission, others may have increasing severity or begin having chronic issues, etc. etc.

(TL;dr: depression is pretty diverse so leave preconceived notions at the door, and remember that Strahd’s issues don’t reflect everyones struggles.)

Below I’ll be talking about two ‘features’ in depression. Mixed-features and psychotic features are essentially ways to describe a sub-cluster of symptoms that individuals can suffer from during depressive episodes (namely with MDD). An individual who suffers from various depressive ‘features’ might not suffer from them during every single depressive episode.

Finally, I’d like to note that an individual does not have to suffer from every single symptom to be considered depressed or to fit the criteria of certain features. Instead, there’s usually a minimum number of symptoms that must be met, alongside making sure context is taken into account, and how much those symptoms impair an individual’s functioning.

[2] Mixed-features (aka ‘agitated depression’)

Individuals during a mixed-features depressive episode experience the ‘usual’ depressive symptoms. They can feel: Hopeless, apathetic, struggle to enjoy life experiences/unable to feel pleasure (anhedonia), feel extreme sadness or low mood, etc. However, alongside these usual depressive symptoms, they can experience: Racing thoughts, extreme physical restlessness, a chronic sense of being ‘on edge’, become impulsive, suffer from angry outbursts, and more.

A good example I’ll use is from my own experience with mixed-state depressive episodes, to help give the gist of how this looks:

Mixed-feature depressive states, for me, felt like my skin was crawling. I couldn’t stop thinking, my thoughts became a jumbled stream that needed to be vented or I’d explode. I felt constantly ready to snap at people because of that inner tension, coupled with a severe inability to simply feel happy, to enjoy anything, to have the motivation to even consider talking with or dealing with people. I felt miserable but, instead of simply wanting to curl up and sleep, my mind and body turned me into some depressed knockoff sonic. I couldn’t sit and not in a hyperactive sense, but in the sense that the inner tension was pushing me into a state of constant pacing or activity. When I’m depressed, I tend to cling to escapism to try and ride out the gloom. During a mixed state, escapism takes on a frenetic quality. I have the energy to do things and need to vent the restlessness. And, I have the impulsivity and lack of mental clarity to launch into clearly stupid endeavors as if they were the most logical thing in the world. Mixed states are like running down a steep slope while sleep deprived. Gravity is pulling you forward, so stopping quite literally isn’t an option- even as your body screams in exhaustion. To people externally, you look like you’re simply a runner- you’re not curled up in a puddle of tears like the titular picture of depression. But, internally, it’s all still there- the apathy, the misery. Except even you don’t necessarily have a moment to focus on the sorrow- because you’re too busy half tumbling down the mountainside.

(¹Individuals with depression (namely MDD) and individuals with bipolar disorder can both experience ‘mixed-features’ during depressive states. The difference is merely that individuals with depression don’t have separate manic episodes. Basically, both disorders suffer from depressive phases and those depressive phases can sometimes come with ‘mixed-features’.)

[3] Psychotic features (‘psychotic depression’) Depression with psychotic features is very different from the psychosis in schizophrenia. Psychosis itself is not a disorder, it is a symptom cluster in which the brain loses contact with reality. Psychosis generally presents with delusions (thoughts or beliefs that unlikely or untrue) and/or hallucinations (these can be visual, auditory, tactile, etc. or a combination).

The difference between depression with psychotic features, and schizophrenia is that individuals with schizophrenia experience psychosis even when they are not depressed. An individual with MDD with psychotic features experiences delusions and/or hallucinations only during their depressive episode.

These delusions and hallucinations can be mood congruent or mood incongruent. That’s a fancy way of saying they can either relate to depressive themes (death, personal failure, guilt, etc.) or they do not relate to depressive themes.

A more ‘typical’ example of psychotic depression would be an individual with the symptoms of depression (low mood, lethargy, feelings of lack of self worth, hopelessness) alongside psychotic features such as being fully convinced they are to blame for an event, or that they are going to die of a disease.

{ III } Reasoning: Where we see it in the book

[1] Depression in general Strahd, in general, is a rather blunt, deadpan, and nihilistic person. He’s an introvert, whose sense of humor generally consists of dark cryptic jokes or dryly bitching about some aspect of life. However, despite his- and most Barovians’- gloomy predispositions, there’s still a distinct difference between ‘Strahd just being Strahd’ and ‘Strahd is currently a dumpster fire’. (I.e., we can’t simply pawn off his ‘struggles’ as mere quirks of personality).

Furthermore, Strahd’s depressive issues are not isolated to after Barovia was slurped into ravenloft. Tatyana dying wasn’t simply what made him sad for eternity. This issue, was preexisting.

The following quote from I, Strahd (1) is a solid foundation for where the depression factors in before the fall of the demiplane:

“…my passion for war and obedience to duty had swept me from the home of my childhood, never to return. I had not seen my younger brother Sturm grow up, or been there for Sergei’s birth or for any of the thousand other joys that a man might take from the heart of his family. I had not even been able to attend the burial of our parents, four years past. Their deaths had occurred during the height of a particularly close and bitter campaign, and I could not be spared. I’d yet to see their graves. In some part of my mind, they were still alive as I’d last seen them three decades ago; Sergei’s presence had driven home the fact that this was not true.” (I, Strahd, p.64-65)

In the early book, before Tatyana is even in the picture, Strahd has a tendency to go on these wordy internal monologues about rather dark topics or observations about his life. He also has a pattern of these smatterings of melancholic, irritable, or angered internal commentary all cast in a very nihilistic haze. In a sense, there’s a lot of documented intrusive thoughts or preoccupations that get stamped aside to deal with whatever bullshit he’s currently tackling.

(And remember, as this is his journals’ narration, he’s very actively describing his thought processes from recent experiences. Along with scribbling down side commentary in his usual, rambling, stream of consciousness style.)

The quote I chose above^ is from an exchange between Strahd and Sergei. It’s one of their first times really ever speaking with each other one on one since Sergei’s arrival. It mostly consists of the pair making small talk about snippets of their past apart. Strahd, being Strahd, kicks the conversation off with a very dry joke about their dead parents. From there, it’s mostly downhill internally even as the spoken and external aspects of the conversation are rather mundane. It’s several pages of deadpan bitterness mostly consisting of commentary on their differences in upbringing and Strahd remarking on how, in comparison, he’s really lost a lot of what Sergei has (namely innocence and the ability to produce serotonin).

Exchanges like these are what I know a lot of people read as Strahd being self-absorbed, whiny, and self-pitying. And that’s exactly what it is! Except, the cause isn’t fully just selfishness.

By the start of I, Strahd- our titular future dark lord has come off of essentially a lifetime of combat and into the static peace of a dawning rulership. He’s spent a lifetime shoving things aside in order to keep moving forward. Now, those thoughts are catching up with him.

For, indeed, the exchange above blatantly admits that he’s barely even processed the death of his parents four years ago. Sergei's arrival is merely a catalyst after what has likely already been a steadily declining period for Strahd. Sergei puts into perspective a lot of things he’s never dealt with- and does so amidst a period where he’s already beginning to backslide. After all, It’s hard to try avoiding thinking about your complete loss of innocence and loveless childhood- when you’re standing next to the family member that isn’t traumatized.

As a person with depression, I can vouch firsthand for how self-absorbed one can become. And whiny. And self-pitying. You get stuck in your head as everything begins weighing you down- to the exclusion of the outside world. So, as ‘whiny’ as his exchanges can appear, they’re understandable. These are his inner thoughts and ruminations on topics which are already deeply depressing on a normal level. And the ruminations spiral further and further out of control as the book goes on.

[2] Mixed-features From this point on, things go downhill- and go downhill fast. His side-commentary rants grow more and more frequent as he begins to ruminate further and further on various topics. Externally his mood takes a bit more of a sour turn, to the point that he even notes the vaguely concerned commentary of others.

By the time Tatyana enters the picture, he’s stuck in his head. After she’s on stage, his behavior becomes objectively abnormal and worrying. He becomes obsessive, to put it mildly, and erratic.

In mixed depressive states (and in hypomanic/manic episodes for bipolar folks), there’s a symptom cluster I’ve held off on covering until now (for dramatic effect, ofc): - Increase in energy or goal-directed activity - Increased or excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences

For those in a mixed-feature depressive episode that suffer from these symptoms, you’ll see an ability to commit to and methodically complete some goal. They’ll have the energy to do so and do so with almost neurotic abandon. You’ll also see them plunge into extremely risky activities or set off towards goals that are clearly a very bad idea. The way I like to describe it is that, in such a state, self-control goes out the window and everything seems like a totally plausible and great idea. It’s like removing the brakes from a car that’s heading down a mountain. There’s no real stopping. There’s just steering towards whatever looks best.

I, Strahd, Part II, chapter 4 is possibly the best unintentional literary portrayal of a mixed-features depressive state that I’ve ever come across. We see him obsessively working to find some sort of magical solution to his Tatyana problem. The recounting of this event coincides with a stream-of-consciousness commentary that grows more out of touch with reality by the minute.

It begins with a blowout fight between Strahd and Lady Illona. Lady Illona attempts to confront Strahd about a previous blowup he’d had over Tatyana and Sergei gifting expensive jewelry to a peasant. The previous exchange had already been uncharacteristic of the man but his fight with Illona- though it openly ends with minimal damage- was internally out of left field.

“Anger such as I’d never known before burned through me from the bones outward. I felt that if I held on long enough to the chair arms, they would kindle into flame from the heat.” (I, Strahd, p. 121)

His rambling internal thought process transitions from his irritation with Tatyana to a convoluted path of fractured logic. I’m going to give you a very janky outline of the thought process which spans the first 5 pages of the chapter, to exemplify the racing thoughts and erratic behavior:

Tatyana+Sergei give necklace to peasant -> peasant may just be taking advantage of their charity -> [insert spontaneous angry outburst] -> [Insert another spontaneous angry outburst] -> she shouldn’t have done that because it was stupid and I also gave them the necklace -> she’s naïve and needs guidance from someone that’s not an idiot -> You know whose also an idiot? Sergei -> yo sergei might actually just get completely shivved for being too nice -> God that’d be really sad for Tatyana -> damn they’ll be leaving after the wedding -> I could convince them to stay -> god I’m fucking jealous of Sergei -> God I really like tatyana -> [>out-of-nowhere paragraph about crippling depression<] -> one page of random observations about the castle rn -> Alek fun facts -> you know what alek got me once? Books, magic books -> [*Immediately tangents off to go neurotically study them*] (I, Strahd p. 119-124)

Strahd is a strange person overall. However, he’s not this strange. Not consistently, at least. In the book, before Sergei and Tatyana were on scene (i.e., before his mental state began to tank), we really don’t see any behavior to this degree of unhinged. The writing itself also physically becomes increasingly more erratic as his mental state declines. The way his prose is structured, especially during Part II, Chapter 4, fluctuates rapidly between rambling paragraphs with barely cohesive themes to short staccato sentences of random thought and observation.

(TL;dr: he wasn’t this weird before. This abrupt shift is abnormal and is telltale evidence that he’s in an altered mental state)

[3] Psychotic features I hesitated adding the section at first, because this is where the lines between reality, psychosis, and magic blur. However, after a great deal of agonizing over my Word doc, I decided to keep this section in.

Because of the nature of psychosis, and because the only recounting we have is from his point of view, we will never be able to truly know what was, and was not, the product of The Dark Powers (TDP). Specifically, this dilemma arises when discussing hallucinations. However, it can also be seen in certain delusions as well.

Before the point in the chapter where voices begin to speak to him out of the darkness, we do see signs of preceding delusional thought processes. This is yet another blurred line; as the racing thoughts and impulsivity of a mixed state and the beginnings of a truly delusional belief intermingle. The latter certainly evolved from the former. What was likely the impulsive internal ramblings of a declining mind evolved into a cemented believe that is utterly out of touch with reality. Of course, I speak of his obsession with Tatiana and his perception of her. Though, I think we can all agree that it worsened in warped closer to the wedding he drew. And, after the wedding, became irrevocably nonsensical.

What I do not term as delusion is his idea that resorting to dark magic was the best way to deal with his “Tatyana problem”. This more exemplifies the “rationally irrational” thinking of a mixed state. There is still a grounding in reality. Using dark magic is a realistic option, it does avoid having to actively do something horrid to other people (or, it did initially). However, it also runs the risk of irrevocably fucking him over in some unseen, cosmic way. But, this is where the impulsivity comes in. The brakes are off the car. That road looked like a good idea in the moment, even though he flew straight past the ‘cliff ahead’ sign.

““That’s a very old book, you should handle it more carefully.” The voice- coming from everywhere and nowhere- took me cold.” (I, Strahd, p. 129)

Throughout the rest of the chapter, and then the rest of the book, and then the next book, and, ultimately, the eternity of his existence– voices periodically surface during his deep depressive states.

I would certainly term the hallucinations, if that’s what some of them are, as mood congruent. They arise in moments of true despair or panic during his less than lucid states. Tatiana’s death, for example, elicits a truly horrifying internal cacophony of laughter and other skin crawling things. Indeed, these moments are among the most chilling across all of the Ravenloft Dark Lord novels. And, or certainly the most chilling and I, Strahd (1&2).

Strahd certainly suffers from depressive delusions, that is some thing I personally don’t see as up for debate. Indeed, this rambling paper alone barely scratches the surface of examples in the books.

Hallucinations, however, are lost in a grey area that even I cannot wholly detangle. So, the best we can afford is speculation.

(TL;dr: he meets the criteria for depression with psychotic features overall, but whether or not he hallucinates is up in the air)

Are they Hallucinations or TDP? I will keep this section short, because it is speculative in the end. And, I encourage y’all to puzzle it over yourselves, as it is a truly interesting dilemma.

Personally, I do think he may have moments of hallucination. However, TDP can easily latch onto these moments and make them far far worse. They can also keep him guessing as to what is him going mad and what is their meddling taunts. A lot of his ‘hallucinations’ are dark powers, especially during the events surrounding the wedding night. Afterwards, however, there are certainly moments that I could see being merely crafted by his own despair.

The second novel, one which I find to be the most entertaining comedy in the Ravenloft pantheon, begins with a suicide attempt.

I’m not going to recount this in detail or put quotes in, the novel is accessible online if you’d like to read in detail, however, essentially consists of Strahd throwing himself from a high place after the death of yet another Tatyana.

This moment is significant in Ravenloft 2e’s history, because it is the first time we learned that a dark Lord cannot die. However, is still a suicide attempt and the imagery and auditory hallucinations surrounding it are subtle enough to where they could very well be sourced merely from his own mind. And not the dark powers.

Suicidal Ideation in I, Strahd: War Against Azalin Rounding out on a happy note, I wanted to take a brief moment to talk about the aforementioned suicide attempt. In the latter half of the first novel, Strahd essentially spends several years in a deep depressive slump locked in his castle. Thoughts of despair are rarely far from the page, however, we never see any active attempts to end things. This changes in the second novel and sets an unsettling precedent.

In the grand scheme of things, his initial attempt takes place fairly early in the history of 2e Ravenloft. Indeed, he hadn’t even met the likes of Madam Eva. And this is worrying, because it sets a precedent of suicidal ideation and self harm practically from the beginning- long before adventurers even have an inkling of the mists, let alone find themselves ensnared by them.

Into “modern nights” he likely still struggles with such tendencies during depressive episodes. After all, Strahd is in an environment which actively seeks to eviscerate everyone’s mental well-being. Because of this, it would essentially take an act of god to wrench him from depressive cycling. But the gods cannot save you in Ravenloft, especially not in second edition¹.

And so, Strahd is left with probably the most unseen aspect of his curse: the inability to truly be free of despair.

== Sources, Further Reading, and Resources ==

🦇Ravenloft Sources: I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire. P.N. Elrod (1993) I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin. P.N. Elrod (1998) ¹Domains of Dread. William W. Connors & Steve Miller (1997) 🔬Non-Ravenloft Sources used: (I suggest poking the links in yellow for further reading if you're curious!) - American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). doi link - Hooley, J. M., Nock, M., & Butcher, J. N. (2021). Abnormal psychology. Pearson. - Koukopoulos, A., & Koukopoulos, A. (1999). Agitated depression as a mixed state and the problem of melancholia. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 22(3), 547- 564. doi link - Gillette, H. (2021, December 22). Agitated depression: Definition, symptoms, and treatments. Psych Central. Website link - Major depression with psychotic features. Mount Sinai Health System. (n.d.-b). Website link - Black, R. (2022, September 14). Psychotic depression: What it is and what you should know. Psycom. Website Link

🧠 Mental Health Resources: Feeling agitated, scattered, or having low mood doesn't necessarily mean one is suffering from a depressive disorder. Life is rough, sadness and rough patches are part of the gig. However, if you, or someone you know, are considering self-harm or experiencing suicidal ideation, you aren't alone. I am not a professional, but here are immediate resources: Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours a day at 800-273-8255. Text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

== My Obligatory Rambling Author's Note ==

Hey, congratulations on making it all the way through! Have a croissant 🥐 I've had this post in the works for... 2 years now? And I will say, I'm glad I waited to scrape things together. I've gained a lot of perspective and knowledge which has helped me hone this... rambling word vomit into a cohesive(ish) form.

"It wasn’t until college that I realized why I, Strahd had almost eerily familiar undertones to it all. Indeed, the prelude to that fated wedding gave almost a strange sense of DeJa’Vu when reading it for the first time in late high school. After I was diagnosed with bipolar II during the summer between freshman and sophomore year, I finally had the words and context to realize why things looked so eerily familiar. The sudden erratic turn to a goal or obsession out of left field, the nights spent feverishly, methodically, hurtling towards some clearly delusional doom as if it were the most logical thing in the world? I’d seen facets of it before many, many times. And I’d also seen the crippling, self-destructive, anguish of deep depression." (Scrapped draft, p. 9-10)

All of us have that one character in literature/film/tv that's just... special or impactful. Whatever arcs or journeys they've followed have somehow personally touched us and come at an important time in our lives. They're special in a way that's hard to articulate. Unfortunately, Strahd happens to be mine- and it's largely because of the everything^^^ mentioned above (minus the psychosis, I thankfully have been spared that struggle).

I have yet to come across another character that struggles with mixed-features in depression, to this degree. But beyond that, I also bumped into I, Strahd (and Strahd as an NPC via the CoS module) when I was in high school. This was a time where I was beginning to subclinically cycle through lowgrade depressive and hypomanic episodes. It was a very dark time, and that hot mess of an NPC happened to be one of the few things that was more of a hot mess than I was. As bad as things got, especially in early college before I was medicated, at least I never plunged my house into a demiplane- ya know?

It's strange what we take small comforts in. But, it's too late to pick a different one. I'm already too deep in the vintage Ravenloft book collection to turn back now. That, and, when you struggle with something oddly niche? You take the rep where you can. Even if that "where" happens to be a generally villainous dark lord with the social graces of a irritable toad.

Any ways, thanks for sticking with this! I know it's long, depressing (no duh) and a bit incohesive. I'm a dyslexic writer, so, cohesion can be a bit difficult at times. If I have time, I will do a part 2 on analyzing his illness' implications on the books (namely his culpability in stuff). And a part 3 on writing for/running this type of mental illness, if folks are interested. I've been running this strange creature for... many years now. And have good writing samples from pbp games i've run for folks looking for inspo on how to pull off the... the everything above^

- Catslug

#in this essay i will #strahd von zarovich #strahd #curse of strahd #ravenloft #dnd #dungeon master #ravenloft2e #catslug essay #dungeons and dragons homebrew

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adhdnojutsu · 5 months

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@theheirofthesharingan asked me how I write Itachi mid-psychosis. Being terrible with time, I didn't realize that was a while ago... but here goes...

I like writing from 1st person POV, so I tend to pick a character close to Itachi to make subjective observations.

An observing character would describe him as gloomier than usual, more withdrawn, sleeping or eating more or less than usual, glowering through unkempt hair, the Sharingan activating at inappropriate times because his acutely troubled brain feels threatened by anything.

OG Japanese Itachi is RUDE on his best days, so when he's in a bad place mentally (as in, worse than usual), I write him to be somewhere between his baseline and insufferable ("Go fuck yourself, Kisame"), or the opposite, completely submissive for lacking the capacity to impose, basically a ragdoll who lies around until someone flings him about.

I write him on meds a lot. I don't know why, but I have a medical "affinity", so that stuff plays a role a lot. From what little is known about his "canon" medication, it'd have him indifferent and "hot mess cheerful" a lot of the time, so I write medicated Itachi "idgaf cheerful" in a way Effy or Cassie from Skins are cheerful (think "wake up in a greasy alleyway with your mascara running down your face and not remembering whose jizz is in your panties, but smiling and thinking this is fine"). Even off Kotaro, he'd take stuff to numb himself or sleep through the days, or uppers if he has to perform. No, he doesn't wipe the occasional trail of drool in that state, and he will scratch his crotch in public without a care in the world or stare at his own barf for a while before deciding to clean it up.

He's more indifferent than usual to what happens to him, he s*lf-h*rms in ways other than "existing while Itachi", and drinks, which in my hc makes him clingy and expressive, so he seeks attention from people he usually avoids.

Sasuke is still his raison d'être, but it becomes hard to give him that much weight when his mental health is weighing more heavily on Itachi. So he may get mood swings from being torn between having to hang on for Sasuke, and the temptation to end his own suffering here and now. He could lash out during such times and be both short in his replies and snappy.

I use body language a lot, too, or I think so. I write Itachi making himself small a lot, like disappearing in his cloak or his clothing being too baggy on him. Like an animal retreating to hybernate or, well, die. Clothing size isn't necessarily body language, but used deliberately, it does work like a turtle shell. When he's around people he trusts, he responds to pain and emotional triggers, but when he isn't, he'd be stiff and irritable from self-restraint. So there's always some tension in his neck and shoulders, feet pointing away from the unpleasant situation, a 1000 yard stare or a gaze into a distance he'd rather be in.

He'd slouch a lot and an observer would think he shrank. I sometimes give him nervous habits like fumbling his lips or scratching, in one WIP he's found sucking his thumb in his mother's blood (granted, he's 12 there). If you gave him a fidget spinner, he'd probably break it, then try stabbing his hand with it.

TL;DR, I think mid-break Itachi would just struggle to retain all that dignified composure of his and the screaming, thrashing, shaking, vomiting inner child would leak in ways it often does with these quiet ones. Or in extreme cases, as Danzo calls it in one WIP, "a dumb sack of emotional incontinence beneath even animals".

Because Itachi isn't a psychopath. He feels. Intensely. Take away his strength to bottle it all up after all he's been through, this could be what you get.

#naruto #itachi #itachi uchiha #itachi naruto #uchiha itachi #itachi headcanons #itachi hc #itachi fanfic #itachi fanfiction

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maddiviner · 1 year

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Hey everyone. I’m posting this to raise a question.

As witches and willworkers, we (should) try to show conspiracy theorists the door, particularly those who’re bigots. But what do we do about people who’re obviously experiencing delusions? Someone who’s mentally ill? Struggling and hurting?

As my username suggests, I’ve got a lot to say about this topic, but there’s not really an easy answer, and I think it needs some discussion. I’d be happy to hear other people’s perspectives. I do think people like me (who’ve experienced psychosis) might have strong feelings about this, but so might those hurt by conspiracy theories. It’s complex.

People online like to laugh when someone posts that the earth is flat, that the moon is a demonic lair, that mountains are trees, etc. When someone starts claiming they’re being “gangstalked” by aliens or the Illuminati, etc, people laugh.

My question is, where do we draw the line? Truth is, a lot of these weird delusions of persecution people write about online are symptoms of actual mental illnesses. So why do people treat it as funny?

Nobody’s going to post a video of me having a seizure and laugh when I bite my tongue. We don’t chuckle when someone with multiple sclerosis experiences spasms. People don’t post screenshots of people talking about deleting with “hahah look at that depressed loser,” so why the “hahah look at that stupid schizo” vibe?

I get that it’s hard not to laugh, at times. Some of it can be quite ridiculous from the outside. If someone on Facebook tells you they think you’re working with the Illuminati to spy on them for purposes unknown, it can be hard not to respond with anything but a confused giggle.

Still, though. Imagine being that person, believing that. From the inside, it can be a terrifying experience. Those things feel unbelievably real in the moment. Three months later, you might find that low dose Abilify (or something) returns your life to normal, but believe me - delusions feel real when you’re in them. I’d wager that’s true for all delusions. When we’re in it, we believe it, we feel it - the fear’s real.

I don’t want to discuss my personal experiences with delusions when I was much younger. I’d rather have written this entire post without mentioning it, but I don’t think my perspective would be taken seriously otherwise. While frightening, my own delusions didn’t involve these kinds of conspiracy theories. They aren’t really relevant here, except to say that it feels incredibly real and terrifying.

In other words, you can be sure that the boomer dude accusing you on Twitter of being a “perp” working with the gangstalkers and beaming “nausea waves” at him really does believe it, and really is frightened on an existential level.

With that in mind, can we really feel okay laughing at people like that?

I guess we might be unable to suppress a private giggle when we read someone’s comment about the hollow earth, or those moon demons supposedly drinking our blood. But it’d be downright unconscionable to directly bully them, even under the guise of “trying to talk them out of it.”

It’d of course, be worse, to pretend I *am* the moon aliens that terrify them, and start messaging them. And yes, that happens sometimes. I have an old friend who developed schizophrenia in 2007 and is STILL convinced we were all working against him/stalking him (at the time) because another person tried to turn his delusions into a joke, thinking it would “make him realize how silly he was being.”

Of course, by “turn them into a joke,” I mean “pretend they were real” and act out the scenario via Skype while the rest of us frantically tried to stop him.

If we’re going to talk about why humor might make such situations worse, we need to discuss humor itself. There’s some evidence that humanity’s capacity for laughter evolved as a way of signaling to our comrades that a situation isn’t actually dangerous. In other words, ancient humans might have laughed as a way of saying, “Yes, this looks scary, but it’s not!”

When we laugh at these things, we’re affirming (to ourselves, if not necessarily anyone else) that we’re not afraid, either of the moon demons or the person frantically telling us about them. Thus, the “laugh at conspiracy theories” thing can be a way of inoculating ourselves and others against them.

We shouldn’t do this at the expense of people who’re scared and suffering, though. We should always take care to avoid making things worse for other people who might have been unfortunate enough to fall into this kind of thing. The issue, of course, is how to do that while also not allowing a place for such conspiracy theories.

I hang out sometimes in transhumanist spaces online. It’s not frequent, but I do keep tabs on the movement and new papers, etc. Naturally, the topic of human enhancement, cyborgs, all that, attracts some conspiracy types, some of which are clearly hurting. In those cases, the moderators of those places tend to show them the door, because reading more transhumanist material and interacting with a volatile online space like that could be harmful for them in that state. That, and of course, not everyone’s kind, and people were trying to “mess” with these “crazies” too.

What it comes down to is this. If it’s a friend of yours or a family member, you likely have the means to help, even if in a small way. When it’s an internet person, you really don’t. Trying to talk them out of it likely won’t work, and might make things worse. Play-acting to make them “realize they’re being silly” is disingenuous trolling, and you’re a grade-A piece of shit if you even consider it. Often, removing yourself from the situation is the best you can do, if the person seems to be in no immediate danger.

I actually wish I’d been banned from certain spaces online when I was dealing with this kind of thing. It sounds ridiculous, but many of the places I visited during my episodes delayed recovery. When you’re experiencing psychosis, material and interactions that would otherwise be innocuous can have straight-up toxic effects. There’s no sense to it - that’s why it’s psychosis, I suppose.

At one point I commented on here that I didn’t do Tarot readings for people currently experiencing mental health crisis or psychosis. I was called ableist for that, and told that I should simply “ask them their triggers and remove those cards.”

Yeah, no. Psychosis doesn’t play by that sort of rules. Or any rules, really. Even if, from the outset, I can’t cite “violent impalement” as a trigger, I might be terrified by the Ten of Swords, especially if I were experiencing delusions again. This is not a black and white issue, and I’m still figuring things out - I just think the matter of mental illness is an important thing to consider. And a lot of these conspiracy theories were intentionally designed by bigots for bigoted purposes. Popular conspiracy theory influencers nowadays exploit the vulnerable for fame and profit.

Many of these conspiracy theories are just updates of centuries-old antisemitic blood libel, though. And these ideas cause a lot of real harm. You only need to skim the news over the past few years to see how far-reaching and dangerous things like Qanon quickly became. How can we best combat this kind of thing, knowing that they specifically target people who are struggling?

We shouldn’t give conspiracy theories so much as an inch. We should be working to both debunk them and warn others from falling into those belief systems. But what do we do in situations where someone is clearly unwell?

As I said, delusions don’t play by normal rules. Mine didn’t. Presenting evidence isn’t going to work, and that’s not because the person is obstinate, either. I usually just walk away, disconnect - but this is something worth talking about. How do you handle these situations? Why?

Before I go, I want to also note that sometimes a response you post to a person online isn’t actually for them. It’s extremely hard to change someone’s mind by arguing with them online. Other people read those exchanges, though, and are influenced by your words.

In a way, when I argued with Qanoners on Facebook during the lockdowns, I wasn’t typing words for them, but for the lurkers who might come across it. I knew the person I was arguing with wasn’t going to listen, but I also knew we had an audience. So, that, too, is important to keep in mind when dealing with conspiracy theorists (of all sorts) online.

#witchcraft #pagan #magic #occult #new age #witchblr #witch #eliza.txt #ableism #gaslighting #delusions #actually delusional #actually psychotic #bipolar disorder #that’s my diagnosis #but even with something like that #psychosis does happen occasionally #and it hurts a lot

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sophieinwonderland · 1 year

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I've been trying to learn about nontraumagenic systemhood for years now, because its part of my psychology special interest, but every single time, i get too deep into it and it triggers my existentialism, especially since some people associate spirituality with systemhood, and especially when people say things like "if you feel plural you probably are, everyone has a dæmon you just need to become separated, everyone is plural in a way". It's forcing an identity, belief, and experience onto an entire population. Especially the first one because feelings and thoughts don't always ≠ reality. I've tried reading academic sources but struggle with reading complex papers (maybe someone here can paraphrase or give the most important parts?), but from what I've read so far none of it actually answers anything in depth. The only thing that in depth explains systemhood is the theory of structural dissociation but I'm aware it may have holes in it (which is why its a theory).

Besides that, I realized maybe we're asking the question in the wrong way- Instead of asking "why/how does (nontraumagenic) systemhood happen or exist", we should be asking "why/how does such a wide range of experiences involving identity and consciousness exist?" this question involves singletonism- how is a single identity formatted, what prevents systems from being singlets, and singlets from being systems. how can a singlet become a system and stay a system. etc. If we can solve these questions, the question of why or how nontraumagenic systemhood exists will naturally follow. Input?

I think that phrasing of the question really might be better!

If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about my own thoughts and theories on this.

Personally, I like the theory of structural dissociation as an explanation for most traumagenic plurality, but there are some notable gaps that it doesn't even try to deal with.

For example, it focuses a lot on what causes personalities to form or become dissociated. What it never really deals with though is how exomemories work. Okay, fine. Trauma can cause dissociation and result in the formation of new internal agents. But does that explain how trauma causes the brain to create autobiographical memories of these agents from fictional universes?

The theory of structural dissociation doesn't ever address this.

After trying and failing to find an explanation for this, I actually turned away from research into DID and towards research into psychosis.

Graham Bell's work in understanding social agent representation in psychotic disorders and non-disordered voice-hearing is most fascinating.

I'm using this in conjunction with the theory from Mosquera and Ross that intelligent hallucinations in psychotic disorders are also parts of systems.

The article on social cognition suggests that people naturally have the ability to create "illusory social agents," citing imaginary companions in childhood as one example of these. This is similar to Simulation Theory, which argues that we empathize with people by creating temporary mental simulations of them.

While some may object to conflating nonfronting agents in psychotic disorders with fronting headmates, I believe the article from Mosquera and Ross shows that these may be the same things manifesting in different ways. It's just that the trauma causes detachment in some cases that allows internal agents to switch and take executive control of the body where they may not in others.

With this view, it's easy to see how exomemories form. Our brains, in this model, would be programmed to create simulations of other people to understand them. These simulations would need to create false memories on a subconscious level to work accurately. (And our brains tend to use the mechanisms for remembering that they do imagining. It's why both remembering the past and imagining the future are grouped together as "mental time travel."

This is the only explanation for how exomemories form I've been able to find that doesn't try to dismiss them as simply "metaphors" as many psychiatrists are quick to do.

Going back to the imaginary companions, I think there is increasingly strong evidence that the hallucinatory phenomenon that we call imaginary companions are often able to act outside of the control of the host children, possibly having as much agency as any singlet or a headmate in a system, with some even engaging in bullying behavior towards their hosts.

If imagined companions are dissociative agents, I'd like to answer your question with this theory:

Singlethood is a sociocultural condition.

Many children naturally have other agents in their head during childhood. There is reason to believe that these agents may possess their own autonomy and self-consciousnesses.

But they are told by society to ignore the voices or convinced that the voices are just their own thoughts. This could cause forced dormancy or result in fusion.

Using the Theory of Structural Dissociation, maybe imagined companions are fully self-conscious "states" that would integrate due to societal pressure. Then trauma interrupts this integration, causing them to become more separate and dissociated.

What does this mean?

Well, I think it could mean that people are biologically inclined to be multiple. That many singlets may have been plural as children, and that there would be far fewer singlets in a world that didn't make people think they were crazy for talking to voices in their head and actively discourage these experiences.

It means that the process of integration that the Theory of Structural Dissociation suggests is being interrupted isn't a natural process at all, but a sociocultural one.

This explanation obviously needs a lot of research to prove it. We need research into endogenic systems, more into traumagenic systems, into the overlap of these with psychosis, and more into the agency of imaginary friends of children. But I feel that this is the direction many of these fields are moving in.

Also, I think the reason "everyone has a dæmon you just need to become separated" works is because singlets are still made up of parts that can be separated and interacted with. We see this in the case of Internal Family Systems therapy where specific parts can be personified and interacted with.

It's not that everyone literally has an animal in their head their whole life. (But some might.) It's that everyone has parts and subpersonalities that can be personified into the form of an animal and interacted with until those parts develop self-consciousness.

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biinarysttars · 3 months

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11, 14, 18, & 27!! for etheara questions :D

YEAAAA Toby I owe you my life <3333

11. If they had a pet or magical familiar as in ESO (excluding the dogs in Skyrim) what creature would it be?

So!! First off-- he does actually have a horse. Her name is Cinnamon and he gets her in Windhelm to travel to Winterhold. And second off, in Heavenfall, before we saw Etheara at all he was established to have a service animal for mental health reasons since he seemed to struggle w psychosis and would steal from the library & then lock himself in his dorm for days on end. The way I'm translating this is by using a nix-hound!

They're native to Morrowind, and physically massive enough to get in the way of Etheara engaging w his triggers (books). Also look at it. That thing's got 0 brain cells <3

14. What is their personal favourite place in Skyrim- a town, hold, home, dungeon, or just a natural spot they happen to have a fondness for?

Etheara loves the hot springs by Windhelm! I'm p sure he hates the cold, so he also loves the areas closer to the Cyrodiil border, too, like Falkreath. I think the dude needs to relax a little bit though, so, while I haven't actually played through a game where he spends much time there, I like to imagine him & his little party chillin over there together :)

18. Your Dragonborn is now an actual dragon- what do they look like? Do they possess any unique features or abilities?

[GRIPS THIS] So I went and did a bunch of research on the anatomy of TES dragons because I wanted to describe a unique take on it. So first, let's start with a serpentine dragon base:

But rather than blue undertones, I would want green undertones I think.

Next, I'd want him to have more eyes because of his strong connections to Hermaeus Mora. More on his face for sure; but I think I'd want it to be a situation where the more you look, the more you realize that he is covered in them. Maybe they're mostly closed; but I think that whenever they open, they are off looking in a different direction for a second before centring on You, y'know?

Idk I think I would also want him to bleed black goop. I'm not 100% sure about any special abilities but something that drains Intelligence would probably be really fitting :)

27. If your Dragonborn were an in-game boss fight, what would their lair be like? What enemies would help them in the fight (if any) and what quest might lead to another hero having to fight them?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION because here's the thing: Etheara does actually have a "boss fight" in Memoir Maormer.

Some context for that is that I found Ancano to be an extremely entertaining but also an extremely shallow and stupid character, boring in every way other than personality. So I wanted to spice him up. I presented him with a character to bounce off of (Kyryi, the Maormer in question), and I gave him motivation for him to do the things he does. Is "motivation" the right word? I fleshed out his actual thoughts and feelings on the Thalmor's goals and considered how much he knew about their end goals AND considered how much he agreed with those end goals; I thought about his loyalty to them and his specific placement at the college- Idk I thought about a lot of things.

What I came up with is, I think, extremely interesting-- but this is not about what I've done to Ancano, this is about Etheara! So part of the reason Ancano responds the way he does to the Eye of Magnus is because of Etheara-- because Etheara is being influenced/watched by Hermaeus Mora, and that maddening drive to acquire knowledge is contagious & exacerbated by sheer nature of being at a school. Ancano and Etheara, who have exactly none emotional intelligence, are both very deeply affected by the Vibes. So they both become obsessive and territorial over the Eye, and it's their informal rivalry on the matter that provokes Ancano to act in the College.

But as I said in my previous post, Etheara is not the hero of this story-- he stays right by the Eye himself, locked in a stalemate with Ancano. It's Kyryi that takes off to Labyrinthian to acquire the Staff; and when he gets back, Etheara has bested Ancano and is looking to take the Eye's secrets for himself (/Hermaeus Mora). So Kyryi fights Etheara in this situation.

BUT! That's not what this exercise is about-- that's just genuinely part of his story.

I think if he had a lair, it would take the shape of a Telvanni mushroom tower; but when entered, is dizzyingly bigger on the inside. Same vibes as when you go into any of the Vivec City compounds for the first time. He would reside at the top of the tower, but getting there would involve solving a lot of puzzles (and that's probably why he's trapped at the top; he could not solve those puzzles himself lmao). The closer you get to the top, the more everything starts to look like Apocrypha-- the walls start to be made out of books; the lighting is green; there is a black ooze on the ground and I imagine there's an acrid scent in the air.

I think that he would be able to summon Seekers to help him fight :) That would be cool

The story that I imagine leading up to this would be an AU where either Kyryi denies Etheara when he asks for help, or one where Etheara never asks for help at all. Etheara's greatest flaw is that he sees himself too much as the "helper friend" to ever let himself be helped in kind-- so as time goes on and his connections to Apocrypha strengthen and his grip on reality weakens, he ends up in a position where he has one last chance to ask for help before his mind-- before the holes in his psyche can never be repaired.

The reason he has this crisis of conscience is because his travels have lead him back to Solstheim, back to a place that looks and feels like home; and has, coincidentally, lead him back to Kyryi. He doesn't remember the end of what happened at the College; but he remembers Kyryi's unique ability. Surrounded by this familiarity, and the certainty of being seen, Etheara is able to pull himself together for a couple of days. His travelling companion at the time, Melanarto, goes to Kyryi and begs him to help-- and in exchange, Melanarto will pull some strings with the sailing company he used to work for in order to get Kyryi back home to Pyandonea.

Kyryi turns down the offer, unless Etheara himself asks him for help. He is not eager to get involved in Etheara's business again-- not after almost losing Ancano. In this AU, Etheara either wouldn't ever ask him; OR Etheara asks him, and he turns it down anyways. So Kyryi never goes home; and him and Ancano are taking refuge in Solstheim, hiding from the Thalmor.

Years and years later, the contagious effect that was seen at the College is ravaging Solstheim-- particularly Raven Rock. And I think Ancano would once again start to succumb; and in a horrific way, he sees and knows what is happening to him, but there would be nothing he could do to prevent this. And Kyryi, watching the love of his life twist this way, would find the strength to go after Etheara, and put an end to him once and for all.

I think that he would have to make the first move against Etheara. I think he's surrounded by books, swirling in a tempest all around him that he looks over, not understanding, flitting back and forth and holding the information without absorbing any of it. But ultimately, Etheara is a pacifist at heart, so he wouldn't attack you for entering his space; he wouldn't attack you if you spoke to him, or disturbed him, or even attacked him directly-- no, you'd need to hit him where it hurts: the only friends he has left: his books.

#THANK YOU TOBY I OWE YOU EVERYTHING DKFLJHGDFKJGH #[makes an AU] [makes an AU] [makes an AU]#I LOVE A GOOD TRAGEDY OKAY .#UGH strongly considering making THIS the real ending to Memoir Maormer and having the happy end be the AU #LIKE. I love the tragedy so much. I love the finality of it all #UGH this tragedy is such a good and fitting end for Kyryi but the happy end is so good and fitting for Ancano #AAA Idk what to do #Obviously the happy end is happy for Kyryi too but like. It specifically forces Ancano to reflect on his biases and come to terms w #the fact that he is not a good person. He has to grapple with his own fascist ideals and dispel them #He has to acknowledge WHY what happened at the College happened; why his sense of superiority was targeted to force him to act in That Way #AAA explodes #Idk I'm probably going to stick with my first thought because I think I like it more. Like it speaks to me more as a story #But MAN. This tragedy AU is making me insane also <3

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deerydear · 3 months

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Psychosis and Personal Mythology, by Rory Neirin Higgs

Following the rise of the biogenetic model of psychosis, psychiatric doctrine has held that the cluster of experiences so-encompassed – voices, visions, unusual beliefs, and other non-standard modes of perception – are little more than chemical noise, devoid of any real meaning or relationship to a person’s life. Many clinicians maintain that encouraging patients to talk or even think about the content of their psychosis feeds an illness that should be starved, constructing psychosis as a kind of malignancy that invades and cannibalizes the afflicted’s senses. But this explanation doesn’t always fit comfortably to the contours of lived experience. Since my own diagnosis, I have come to think of my psychosis (or, as I have sometimes preferred, “personal mythology”) not as a disease that hollowed out my capacity for self-knowledge, but as a strange and lovely cipher.

For me, the grain from which voices, visions, and unusual beliefs take root is typically an inner impulse that I am not yet able to address directly. I am confronted with a reality that is too threatening or confusing to assimilate into my conventional belief system, and the thematic kernel of it finds other ways to communicate itself. For instance, while reflecting on an instance of childhood abuse, I recently found myself wondering whether there was something inherently wrong with me that could have provoked it. Unable to sit still with the possibility that others chose to harm me of their own volition, my thoughts paced towards alternative explanations: perhaps, as a child, some kind of mind control beacon was implanted in my brain that caused people to mistreat me despite their best efforts? On its face, this is an impossible contortion of logic. But in that moment, it was the only way I could translate my feelings of self-blame and denial about the cruelty of other people into a tolerable narrative about my life. Once I calmed down, I was able to reassess this belief – but made note of the autobiographical information woven into it, in the threads of insecurity, shame, and betrayal.

Traumatologists maintain that a central characteristic of traumatic memory is that it is incompletely processed and integrated – more of a gallery of disjointed images than a coherent narrative. Accordingly, research suggests that traumatized people are less able to articulate our experiences verbally. If ordinary life events are remembered, it may be more appropriate to say that traumatic ones are dismembered. To draw again from personal experience: some months ago, I decided to start talking to others about an abusive relationship I had been in, spanning several years. I was stymied by the realization that I didn’t know where to start. There was no beginning or end to what I could remember, no backbone of “and this is why it all happened” to bind the story together. I found myself with only scattered vignettes that I struggled to gather into a legible shape, like crushed glass rendered from what must have once been an ornate cathedral window.

It wasn’t long before peculiar beliefs began their restless turning over in my skull. In the past, these beliefs – or delusions – had grown rampantly where they sprouted, elaborating into something vast and sprawling faster than I could prune them. This time, they merely flashed through me, like the spark of some secret metabolism. I’ve learned that this reflex to mythologize is how I come to tell my formless stories. Literary trauma theory has investigated the idea that both autobiographical and fictionalized life-writing are a way of synthesizing meaning from traumatic debris, and psychiatry itself has employed related clinical practices, particularly during its psychoanalytic heyday. Delusion, I would argue, behaves similarly. It pulls symbolic and exaggerated elements into the orbit of an essential truth in order to describe its gravity. In storytelling about my life – even or perhaps especially in this abstract, subconscious form – I am drawing maps between memories, across the black and foaming gulf that would strand them.

The emerging field of narrative therapy has similarly embraced the power of storytelling. Narrative therapy holds that the stories we internalize about ourselves inform how we interact with the world, and that exploring the origin and significance of these stories can guide us in establishing new ways of thinking. Likewise, cognitive psychology has suggested that memory is not a photographic but a constructive process, involving the incorporation of our preexisting ideas – or narratives – about the world, and that recounting events to others helps us to recall information about them later on. To me, this again demonstrates the importance of storytelling in organizing memory. Perhaps, for those of us who have never had the opportunity to tell our stories in our own words, who have become accustomed to the grisly work of dis-membering, the personal mythology of delusion offers a sanctuary: a domain in which we are free to speak about our injuries without the intrusion of outside perspectives. Society cannot or will not follow us into this magical-metaphoric thicket. Here, we are free to imagine and reimagine our experiences in ways that would otherwise be forbidden to us.

I think of the stories I told, glossolalic, through my psychosis. I think of how documenting this mythopoetic otherworld was, for me, a kind of testimony, laying claim to my role as author and narrator of my past. And I think of how psychiatry’s response of enforced silence and forgetting only intensified my need for meaning-making – how urgent it became to excavate the things I had interred. Psychologists have observed that the content of an individual’s psychosis is often related to past experiences, but I would take this conclusion a step further. My voices, visions and beliefs have been not only a distorted reflection of life, but their own vital truth, running parallel and symbiotic to my “sane” understanding of the world. I am re-membering the past, now, returning the red and beating soul to the sterile, lifeless history I had cleaved from it. I no longer hold the beliefs that characterized my psychosis as literal truth. But I have great respect for the stories I have told, and will continue to tell.

#citations in article #psychology #psychosis #schizophrenia #mental illness #trauma #abuse

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taughtdefense · 3 months

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after his near death experience in between 4x08 & 4x09, ethan struggles with finding a sense of normalcy, & finding healthier ways to deal with his trauma. despite being a member of miyagi-do, internally-wise, he's essentially constantly thrown off balance throughout s5. he feels like he doesn't "fit anywhere" anymore, & tries to act like everything is okay on the surface level.

i hope you guys are prepared to read everything & have some snacks ready, because this is very long.

part one: ethan & the "Silver Voice"

something that is rather prevalent for his character arc in season 5 is the fact that he starts hearing silver’s voice in his head. this applies to @opponentcompel's silver specifically, or, to a lesser extent, my own version of silver ( npc ). this development is something that started a few days after he was released from the hospital ( timeline wise, he is released at the near end of 5x03, after being in the hospital from "4.08 point 5" until then ). that's approximately a week or two he spent in the hospital recovering, then he jump-started his healing with his powers.

please note that i'm guesstimating that recovery time of a week or two, because there's no way it takes one day for miguel to get to mexico by bus ( which takes maybe like ~7-10 hours irl ), for johnny to realize where miguel took off to, or for robby & johnny to drive down to mexico, find miguel on their own, then drive back to/return to the valley that same day, returning early in the morning. all of that can’t just happen in one/two days, in my opinion.

canon ck timeline /negative.

anyway….

the fact that ethan hears silver's voice in his head is a real occurrence that is found in people who have PTSD.

"Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) are commonly associated with psychosis but are also reported in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Hearing voices after the experience of stress has been conceptualized as a dissociative experience."

ethan hearing silver's voice is a trauma response brought on by his PTSD from the event. he can't just ignore the fact that he almost died, alone & terrified for minutes before robby found him. he can’t just ignore the fact that he actually, clinically died two separate times, either. if you’re curious, it was once in the ambulance to the hospital ( he was resuscitated by the paramedic ), then the second time while on the operating room table. these two times are canon, & he is severely psychologically impacted by it, even post season 5.

as i mentioned in this headcanon, ethan confronting silver can be viewed by other people in-universe as a suicide attempt. he was more than willing to let himself die because he thinks he "deserved the punishment".

the development of his AVH is piled on top of his paranoid anxiety/personality disorder… which forms after the same event, too, but it should be noted the voice of silver doesn't correlate with his PPD. ( an explanation of what PPD is linked here, if you’re curious. please note that the bullet point of "Have persistent suspicions, without justified reason, that their spouses or romantic partners are being unfaithful." DOES NOT apply to ethan. )

he hears the voice of silver in every episode of s5. this is non-negotiable for interactions going forward, & i may mention it once or twice in from this point on. at first, ethan assumes that it's the work of his Creators ( which is semi-true, because they KNOW that he's traumatized ), & tries to push the voice out of his head.

he tries everything he can think of, short of killing "the source" ( silver ), but nothing works. ethan doubts that killing silver would even rid him of the voice. OBVIOUSLY, i wouldn’t have him kill terry, of course for plot reasons. but does he think about it occasionally when the Silver Voice gets bad? yes. but he very heavily internalizes these thoughts throughout s5. he decidedly doesn’t want his friends/family or robby to think he’s mentally slipping. ( even if wade, vanessa & damiana can sort of just Tell. )

part 1.5: the effects of ethan’s near-death experiences on himself & my version(s) of the canon characters/my ocs

ethan tries to pretend like everything is fine around his friends/family, because he doesn’t want them to worry. his efforts of trying to make sure that his friends don’t notice him suffering has the opposite effect, though:

wade & vanessa become increasingly more worried about ethan’s mental state with every s5 episode that passes, practically every scene they're in ( all three of them are in the episodes, trust me ).

his friend group ( my ocs & my versions of the canon ck characters ) start really looking out for ethan because they're worried about his mental, physical & emotional states in a near-constant way. both the adults & teens worry over him. they never want to see him get hospitalized, if they can help it.

they even ask ethan to put a sort of tracking app on his phone, so they can have his location to make sure he isn't hurt somewhere, or someplace where he isn't supposed to be. the group also implements what demetri calls a "buddy system", because that's what it is. it basically means that ethan should never be left to his own devices if out in public, & needs to be "babysat". ethan, because he’s ethan, complains & refers to the buddy system as a prison sentence. he knows they're making sure that he's never put in that life-threatening ever situation again, though. he commends them for that & their efforts in keeping him safe, he doesn’t condemn them.

part two: ethan & coping with his trauma / a tiny blurb: aka "How Did He End Up Here?", & "How Is He Throughout Season 5?"

the "silver voice" ( as i call it ) starts rearing its ugly head if ethan makes a mistake, no matter how small or big it might be. it also comes around if he accidentally hurts one of his friends. this especially applies to the secondary example. whenever ethan starts hearing the silver voice, he will essentially go catatonic & nonverbal in an attempt to cope, or reflexively mentally "fight back" against the voice, assuming its persistent enough in his head while reacting to a specific instance that either just happened, or happened in the past ( "failing" to prevent miguel’s accident at the school, "failing" to realize that robby was going to join ck/not doing "more" to prevent it from happening [even if that is a huge turning point for robby’s character/s4 as a whole, & erasing that won’t work storyline wise] ).

it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, or what time of day. the voice is present enough in ethan’s psyche to impact moments in his life. the silver voice mostly just taunts him & calls more attention to his "failures", like accidentally hurting chase during a friendly sparring match prior to 5x07.

ethan begins to lash out at his friends in s5, especially near the end of the season when the cracks in his mental health start to really show. this cracking unearths a lot of his genuine anger at silver, kreese, & the whole valley-wide karate war as a whole. he’s fed up during season 5. he hadn’t been angry in season 3 like sam was about miguel’s accident, because he’d been TRYING to not let himself get to that point. this is because walker!him in his deadpool universe getting angry = mass destruction of property & mass human casualties, including injuries & loss of life. he was trying to be Better.

( robby getting thrown into juvie by daniel ? VERY different story. he literally moves out of the larusso household without telling anyone, not even sam when it happens, or robby during one of his juvie visits. ethan’s feelings towards daniel switch pretty drastically during s3. there’s a lot of anger & tension towards him, even if he was only trying to help robby get a lighter sentence… but ethan is a teenager, & his friend/crush got put into juvie for an accident, of course he’d feel betrayed by mr. larusso. )

but in s5, his rage is palpable. he's furious over the fact that silver was the "cause" of everything ( for kreese & silver turning the students of cobra kai into miniature versions of themselves, for making them play solider because they're Old Men who can't let go of a 30 year old grudge. robby joining cobra kai, & ethan firsthand witnessing him choose cobra kai, was the main contributing factor to ethan just kind of losing his mind.

another - albeit smaller - factor of ethan finally having Enough of the evil karate senseis terrorizing the Valley & seemingly getting away with it… was stingray's hospitalization the morning after prom. ethan found out that happened unintentionally, when he physically brushed stingray's hand during a visit while stingray was comatose, just after getting beaten. ethan saw his final memory before passing out. he saw that entire stingray & silver scene play out, like he was right next to him, unable to breathe or move.

this enraged mindset only escalates further when daniel is beaten up by silver in season 5, unintentionally, perhaps, semi-paralleling his own run-in with silver. but whereas daniel went to mend a bridge with stingray & found silver, ethan willingly went after silver for both stingray's brutal beating, & the bridges robby's betrayal burned with his miyagi-do ( or eagle fang ) friends. ethan himself included.

but that ^ hc is gonna be expanded on at later date. back to this one...

with this unearthing of ethan’s rage, comes a "sudden" surge of his genuine knowledge/strength in martial arts - whereas prior he'd been pretending to be weak/not as trained in marital arts, despite his legacy status of being wade & vanessa’s son. he stops holding back so much, especially during any fights. whereas someone like emma might attempt to de-escalate the situation verbally, ethan is pretty much ready to throw himself headfirst into battle.

which kind of brings me to my next point.

part three: ethan & co-dependency towards robby throughout season 5, formed as a byproduct of shared/collective trauma ( defined as "experiencing a traumatic event together" )

with ethan nearly dying in the back room of the old cobra kai dojo & robby walking in on that, i genuinely think that ethrobby have shared trauma. not to mention all of the drama/big group fights that happens throughout the show, with the school fight is another big reason why i think they have shared trauma. the show pulls no punches, & for any of them to just walk away without severe impacts on their mental health is very unrealistic. sam’s ptsd storyline throughout s3-s4 was great.

"Strong links between psychotic symptoms, including AVHs (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations), and dissociative experiences have been demonstrated in a number of studies, in both clinical and non-clinical populations (see Moskowitz, Barker-Collo, & Ellson, 2004 for review). Allen, Coyne, and Console (1997) argued that dissociative detachment deprives individuals of “internal and external anchors”."

personally, i interpret "internal & external anchors" as a means to ground oneself to reality, or to "pull" oneself out of a nightmare/PTSD flashback. that is just my own interpretation, though.

during season 5, ethan's quote — unquote "external anchor" is @taughtpain . robby is who grounds him to reality, as well as any thread set post season 5, too. i don't think he'd ever disclose that fact to him, even if he does let him know about the silver voice in his head… or if robby somehow finds out about it on his own. the ‘external anchor’ part is Very Obvious to everyone else in their friend group ( potentially robby himself recognizes this, @mads? ).

as of the posting of this headcanon, i don’t think he’d tell robby or his other partners ( my miguel, my tory or mads’s sam ) about the silver voice, mostly due to internalized fears of rejection/the stigmatization of mental health disorders. he wants to avoid ‘losing’ his fiancés + fiancées at any cost possible.

"The absence of anchors is proposed to increase an individual's sense of feeling disconnected from the world, interpersonal relationships, and within their intrapersonal self, resulting in a sense of confusion and disorientation, and critically, in an impairment in reality-testing."

ethan’s co-dependency towards robby is wildly rooted in the their shared trauma. he loves robby to pieces - he’s not obsessed with him. it is not a stockholm syndrome situation. i want to make that distinction very clear. in practically every shot of season 5 that robby is in, ethan is right next to robby, or in the background someplace, watching over him, or physically holding his hand. he feels compelled to be near him because he is his ‘anchor’ - or someone who tethers him to reality - & his boyfriend. robby makes the silver voice less severe. he’s allowed to be clingy with robby because he saved his life.

"In this way, Moskowitz and Corstens (2007) proposed that for individuals hearing voices when exposed to high levels of stress, AVHs should be conceptualised as dissociative experiences. Similarly, Longden, Madill, and Waterman (2012) proposed that voices could be conceptualised as dissociated or ‘disowned components of the self’, arising from the failure to integrate adverse and traumatic sensory and psychological experiences into the context of the self. Hallucinatory experiences might therefore reflect directly or indirectly dissociated traumatic content (e.g., the voice of an abuser) impinging on conscious awareness (e.g. Anketell et al., 2010), rather than a psychotic symptom."

ethan hears the silver voice a lot. if he was counting the amounts, he’d have surely gone past 10 times per episode, typically not per scene, because that would be too many times to calculate. especially depending on the context of the episode’s plot-line. with 10 episodes per season, that’s ( at the very LEAST ) a minimum of 100 pieces of dialogue the Silver Voice says to ethan. he feels physically sick ( or a little violent ) when silver even looks in his general direction during the sekai taikai qualifying matches in 5x08. he wants to fucking run out of the dojo. he doesn’t, although it’s obvious by his facial expressions he’s uncomfortable.

is that a lot of silver dialogue running around in ethan’s head? yes. i’m fully aware of it. but ethan’s severely traumatized, he’s an eldritch being. he doesn’t know how to properly cope with anything that happened to him in the past, & the Silver Voice isn’t ( mostly ) meant to appear during his happy moments. he’s not really genuinely happy or calm during s5. he starts to get his bloodlust up, the desire for revenge. he can’t just sweep his trauma under the rug.

if ethan is away from robby for a prolonged period of time ( ex: a few weeks for whatever reason ), the silver voice can & does routinely say nasty things to him about everything that happened in between 4x08 & 4x09.

some examples of the voice include, but are not limited to:

the miguel+johnny+robby trip to & back from mexico, because ethan was recovering in the hospital

the miguel+robby+johnny apartment fight because my johnny kept him away intentionally ( something that REALLY pissed him off )

when robby confronts silver with tory, the rest of the ck students & sensei kim present in 5x09.

while ethan doesn’t at all feel ‘insecure’ with his romantic relationship, or doubts his faithfulness ( or anything like that ), the silver voice reminds him that if robby was more like ‘him’… specifically: both real-life silver or kreese, he may have put ethan out of his misery. it’s what his creators firmly believe, so they kind of put that thought in ethan’s head.

in an attempt to completely halt the silver voice from making more of a worse impact on his already somewhat fragile impacted psychological state, ethan feels the need to constantly be surrounded by his friends, family or robby. just being around them will typically lessen the voice, or quiet it completely. i’ll admit, he was clingy before his near death experience, but after? that clinginess becomes a bit amped up in its severity. my muses might make a joke out of it with robby, or sam, or everyone else, but they’re all aware that he’s clearly traumatized - understandably so. his friends are ready to help him out with whatever he needs, whenever he needs it.

by the way, his clinginess doesn’t just extend to robby, even if he’s the main person ethan will naturally gravitate towards. for example, if you see ethan w/ his hand on hawk’s shoulder during 5x09, please don’t call him out on it. he’s anxious enough already, & he will react negatively.

part four: closing thoughts ( aka: how the Silver Voice impacts him throughout post season 5 )

post season 5 & with silver’s arrest + ck takedown, the voice no longer comes around nearly as often. there are moments when he can hear it, & that can be deliberating on ethan. sometimes, he’ll just freeze up, his breathing will get heavy, he’ll have a small panic attack, then calm down enough to continue on with his activities. the nightmares are the worst part: they usually involve seeing robby get hurt, where he’s just out of reach from ethan. but the silver voice is no longer consistently whispering in his ear, like it had been in every episode of season 5. he’s healing… or trying to start healing, anyway.

for season 6, i think that the silver voice will once again become MORE of an issue for ethan. if/when terry gets out of jail because he’s Rich, & starts enacting his revenge on the miyagi-fangs, the silver voice will make its return.

ok, i think that’s everything for now! if you’ve read this far, i thank you from the bottom of my heart! :). i hope this made sense & it wasn’t just me making a fool out of myself! if i think of anything else, there will be a part two to this headcanon… or maybe a part three when season 6 drops. let me know if you have any questions or comments! thanks again for reading!

-bows & exits-

#headcanon. ( miyagi!ethan. )#saved.#// self harm #// suicidal thoughts #dyn.: opponentcompel.#dyn.: taughtpain.#// long post #silver quite literally living in ethan’s head rent free… & with a severity level that impacts him daily…#my son :(

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intercoursefluids · 2 years

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BMFBMLBME Chapter 2

Damian was on his way back from the park when it happened.

Sometimes he would go to clear his head or get inspiration for a painting, that day had been the former.

All day he had been jumpy, anxious of… something. It had gotten to the point where even Timothy’s boyfriend was asking him if something was wrong.

He realized that his instincts were spot on when he was plucking a dart out of his neck.

He tried to run, sprinting past an alleyway only to be pulled into it.

His vision swam, his limbs quickly feeling heavier as time went on.

Damian tried to fight back as he was forced inside a van, tied down with a plastic bag covering his face, simultaneously blinding him and suffocating him.

He tried to tear the bag so he could breathe but it was to no avail.

His captors kept him tied up, held, down, and kept the bag over his face until he stopped struggling.

Even after he had passed out they kept suffocating him for a little while longer before placing his unconscious form in a seat and driving away.

____________

A splash of water to his face wakes him.

His mouth feels too dry and his tongue is heavy, he feels sore everywhere and his head is pounding as he tries to gain his bearings.

“Rise and shine, son. We have much to do today.”

Damian’s attention snaps to his mother, spotting her sitting in the set across from him with a soft, slightly delirious, smile on her face.

He leaps to his feet, whether he was trying to go towards her or away he never got to find out as his arms were tugged painfully at the movement.

Looking behind himself he sees his arms chained to the wall behind him, shackles clamped tightly on both hands.

The chain itself is looped through a piece of metal, he can move one of his arms but that shortens the chain for the other, a way to ensure he can’t reach his other hand he guesses.

“I’ve missed you, and I have news!”

Over the years the pit madness had slowly gotten to his mother, sure she still cared for him and loved him, but now?

She wasn’t quite all there anymore, where her every move used to be calculated, everything planned out carefully, no there is no rhyme or reason to it.

Father believed that the influences of Ra’s had finally gotten to her, causing her to have a psychotic break and suffer from prolonged psychosis.

She hadn’t recovered and she refused any and all help from them.

Damian’s mother was slipping away and it hurt him more than he would like to admit.

“... -I wasn’t sure she would be the best choice for you, but watching her and her friends I’m sure you will enjoy her!”

Damian tunes back into what his mother was saying, confusion clear on his face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that first part, my head is still cloudy from the drugs, enjoy who?”

Talia giggles.

That was another thing that had happened after the break, she was more like Harleen when she was still with the Joker.

No regard for what she was doing, not a care in the world.

“Enjoy your wife of course! I chose her myself, I think you will make each other very happy! Oh I can’t wait for you to meet each other!”

Damian pales.

Was this girl someone for the league or…?

“...Of course I had to kill the men who brought her of course, they couldn’t even follow simple instructions! I told them to bring me one girl, Kagami Tsurugi, and they couldn’t even do that! They brought me three girls! I told them to grab the one with blue hair. It's such a pretty colour, Dear. I am sure you will be pleased with her.”

Damian feels like throwing up, pale and green in the face as his mother continues to ramble.

“Anyway, I could have forgiven them for bringing me two of the girls, they both have blue hair, but they brought me a blonde! A blonde! I didn’t ask for her-!”

A door opens, cutting Talia off and giving Damian a chance to regain his composure.

“They are ready for you, ma’am. Do you want us to wake them for you or would you rather do it yourself?”

Talia hummed, walking over to Damian and grabbing his face, forcing him to look up at her from where he kneeled.

“I will go, bring him out when I call you. See you shortly, dear.”

She releases Damian’s face, walking out the door and nodding to, …whoever the hell it is watching him.

The man turns to him, nodding in acknowledgement and walking behind him to undo the chains.

Damian thought about fighting his way out but he was still being affected by the dart he was shot with.

That and he had no idea where he was, how many people he would have to fight through, and what his mother would do to him and/or those girls if he ran then. He would likely have to wait for either someone from his family to find him or wait until he could gather more information.

“So… Big day, huh?”

Damian turned to the man incredulously.

“Are you seriously making small talk right now?!”

The guy shrugged.

“I mean, it's better than sitting around in awkward silence right? Name’s Bill by the way. I’m a professional henchman.”

Bill? Bill, Bill, Bill, where does he know a Bill from?

Twisting his head Damian stares at the guy until it finally clicks on where he knows him from.

“Wait Bill? As in the guy from Gotham who has worked for almost every rouge but the Joker at least twice? That Bill!?”

Bill looks over, chains clinking against each other as he holds them in his hands.

“Yeah! Wait, how the hell do you know about me? Do I really have that much of a reputation?”

Bill said rather proudly.

“No, I’ve just been caught up in a few hostage situations, Red Hood thinks you're interesting by the way. Overheard him and Nightwing talking about you.”

Bill shrugged, passing off the chains to someone who Damian didn’t even notice come in.

“Oh well, you have heard of me. Which is cool I guess, hope you live kid. Bye.”

Damian watches him head towards the door.

“Are you seriously just going to leave right now?! Where are you even going?!”

Bill grabbed the door handle, looking back over to Damian.

“Listen kid, whatever this is? It’s none of my damn business, you seem like a good kid so I hope you live but I was only hired to nab you, so I am going to grab my check, hop on the first plane back to Gothman, and go home.”

He waves a final time before closing the door, leaving Damian reeling from the entire encounter.

After a while of awkward silence Damian and the other person holding the chains to his arms hears a shout from behind the door.

“Bring him in!”

Damian is roughly tugged up and man handled out of the door before he gets hit in the back of the knees, forced to kneel beside his mother.

Looking up, Damian shakes the wet hair out of his eyes, looking at the three girls chained up with their arms above their heads, and by their wet hair and slight shivers, they were woken up in a similar way to himself.

“Damian, I would like you to meet Kagami. She will be your wife.”

Talia gestures to the girl directly in front of him, her blue hair in a messed up braid, freckles covering her nose, and big blue eyes, glaring defiantly at his mother.

Then Talia’s words register.

“Wait, wife?! What do you mean by she will be my wife?! I don’t remember agreeing to this!”

Damian struggles against his chains, trying to move away from her.

Talia sighs, moving over and grabbing Damian’s chin, jerking his face up to look at her.

“Damian, you’ll hurt my feelings if you keep fighting me like this. I went through all the trouble to pick her out and make sure she was good enough for you and you act as though you want nothing to do with her.”

Talia’s pout was extremely unsettling. Damian had never known his mother to pout.

Talia lets go of him, turning her attention back to the girls in front of him.

Mind racing, Damian tries to come up with something to keep her attention on him instead of them.

“And how is she good enough for me exactly? I mean look at her, she’s so small and practically shaking just from a breeze!”

As Talia turns back to face Damian he shoots the girl an apologetic look for basically insulting her, she sends him back a grateful and understanding look of he own.

Neither of them want to be there, that much is obvious to Damian.

“Oh sweetie, of course she is good enough for you! I would never give you anything less than perfect! She’s a very popular fencer, has been trained by her mother her whole life, I’m sure with some proper training she will do well in the league. Plus, I know you were never very interested in women who were already part of the league, I never understood that but to each their own, anyway, I made sure that she was completely fresh! A new blank slate to train here!”

Damian’s nausea was back, he tuned out his mother as her words sunk in.

These girls were civilians.

They had done nothing but be noticed by his mother/ be friends with the one noticed by his mother.

They were innocent.

#maribat #ml x dc #marinette x damian #maridami #daminette betrothal #daminette #BMFBMLBME

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autisticarachnid · 10 months

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how does Jacob Dyer differ from the jacob in game?

oo this is gonna be tricky to answer because i don’t actually know a lot about in-game jacob, so bare with me as i’ll be using the limited knowledge i have

so the most glaring difference comes from the family. my jacob was the oldest of four children with happily married parents- a mother who worked in alchemy and a father who worked for the ministry. he grew up in a stable, loving, supportive household.

another main difference is jacob got into the vaults out of sheer curiosity, and wasn’t involved with R at all. jacob did receive a brief threat or two from them, but he didn’t realize the extent of R’s existence until duncan’s death; duncan had been separately threatened and didn’t tell jacob. jacob was purely a curious child with a desire to figure things out, and got into the vaults because he was curious and wondered if he could figure it out. in fact, by the time the vaults proved themselves dangerous he didn’t even want to be involved anymore; he stayed involved in the vaults because he felt lile it was his responsibility to protect those around him.

after his expulsion, jacob returned home. he briefly stayed with madam rosmerta like in the game, then returned to his house once the heat on him died down. he began sneaking out after realizing R was responsible for duncan’s death; however, this was a mix of wanting to avenge duncan and wanting to protect his family from their wrath. just like in-game, he was duped by rakepick and left in the portrait vault.

jacob slowly began losing his mind in the portrait vault, as he began to doubt the reality around him. it’s important to know he struggled for years afterwards with hallucinations and psychosis, and was even diagnosed with schizophrenia later on. his psychosis did wear down eventually, but he continues to have hallucinations to this day, as an effect of his very mind and reality being warped for years.

also, jacob dyer stayed with thalia up until the moment of the portkey, at which point he instead disapparated into the forbidden forest to search for rakepick. he didn’t face his family for weeks after, too ashamed to show himself. (he did eventually show himself that december over winter break- it was an unbelievably emotional affair on all sides). he did stay somewhat in contact with thalia though, feeling like he owed it to her to keep an eye out and stay in communication. while he still did his best to limit the time he spent around her (for her safety, he told himself) he did talk to thalia, recognizing that she was clearly capable of protecting herself and had a strong army of allies behind her. the two worked together throughout her sixth year (and potentially seventh, i haven’t decided when R disappears) to track down and defeat R.

with the dyer patriarch being a regular ministry worker and not at all involved with ‘R’, that storyline doesn’t exist in my AU. i haven’t yet determined what happens with R in my AU, but they are dissolved by the end of the second war.

after thalia graduated, jacob became an auror briefly. he was an auror from around 1991 until 1993, when he quit to go travel the world instead. in 1995 he settled in greece, and had a one night stand with a woman named dionysia, who later gave birth to his daughter, elysia, in february 1996.

another difference thats important to note is his personality. while i’m still not 100% sure on in-game jacob’s personality, jacob dyer grew up as a shy, introverted and inquisitive child who loved his little sisters dearly. after duncan died, he notably became more reckless, independent and daring. he deeply cared for those around him, but was so afraid of hurting anyone else that he shut himself off from everyone. after he escaped the vault, he was running on pure survival instincts for a full year, being paranoid and constantly on-edge, afraid that he was being tracked/constantly endangering the people around him. after R was (kinda) defeated, he actually mellowed out a lot. by the time he became a father, he was introverted, reclusive, calm and quiet. he preferred to stay out of anything dangerous and distanced himself away from the UK, hoping to avoid his own reputation. he still lives in greece to this day, and lives a mostly quiet life running a small business. he only ever goes back to the UK once a year to visit family.

this is what i have so far on him ! i do want to further develop him at some point, so this may be updated later on ^^

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hp hogwarts mystery #jacob dyer

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farfromstrange · 11 months

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Foreigner’s God: Chapter 51

Main Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OFC

Chapter Summary: Eliza struggles with the reappearance of her inner demons, and they manage to drag her back down into a state of helplessness. She’s drowning, haunted by memories, and stuck in a constant state of fear. Matt tries his best to help her, but with the power of her nightmares that seem to get more and more vivid with each one that happens, he can’t possibly compete. He realizes the hard way that maybe, he’s not the right person to help her anymore, and the Punisher’s actions broke her more than initially suspected.

Warnings: ANGST, nightmares, graphic description of violence, Hydra, lots of blood, pain, murder, PTSD flashbacks, depressive episode, mentions of child molestation, psychosis, self-harm, talk about suicide, suicidal tendencies, talk about antidepressants, talk about therapy and the psychiatric ward, fainting spell, crying, and praying.

Word Count: 9.9k

A/n: Okay, fair warning, this chapter starts dark, turns into comfort, and then takes a sharp right and gets incredibly dark again. So dark, I considered whether or not to even post this. Read the warnings, please! And if you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it.

Read Chapter 51: Demons here on AO3!

The few hours of rest she had hoped for turned into one hour until the darkness around her cracked like a tv screen. Through the fog of restless sleep, the door to her subconscious opened, and she found herself tied down and forced to watch the series of pictures flash by on the big screen.

She watched her little self hold onto her father’s hand while crying violently for him to not let her go, and he did it anyway. She watched the innocent young girl sit with Viktor after days of being locked away and lonely, and the feeling of twisted hope that had flared up. All of the days she spent alone transitioned into the memory of searing pain in all of her nerves as they strapped her to a gurney and bore needles into her brain.

Every day, it was the same. The pain set her on fire even as she watched, her eyes forced open. She couldn’t even blink. She was watching a horror movie that she starred in.

Viktor’s hands wouldn’t leave her body. What started with a gentle caress soon turned into more and she whimpered as she had to see what happened all those years ago all over again. She remembered the feeling of his ice-cold fingertips against her skin, the feeling of his belt against her burning back whenever he punished her, and his reward whenever he thought she did well.

The blood on her hands was heavy. Every life she took, she watched pass by in slow-motion. So many lives ruined, so much terror she had caused, so much fear she had felt. She remembered manipulating the emotions of others to be the best version of herself she could be, to please, and to succeed.

Viktor pushed her hard. He often pushed her past her breaking point, but she always got up and she fought. She followed a cause she had never learned how to question because the times that she did, she ended up bloody and bruised and in solitary.

The children in the White Room came and went until Eliza was the only one left. The only one with powers. The only one Viktor was proud of. He called her the future of Hydra. She was the best, the most dangerous, and the only successful experiment that would make the history books. She had believed so much back then.

She heard his voice in her ear, telling her over and over again how only he could love a monster like her. They belonged together. She fit in nowhere else but at his side because no one else could understand her. Her power made her dangerous; he swore he could help her. In the end, he only made it worse because no one understood what was truly sleeping inside of her.

His laugh haunted her around every corner and no matter how fast she tried to run, she could never outrun her demons. The demons all had the same face. It was Viktor. She tried to forget him before, but he had never truly left her body. He was etched in her soul.

A rotten part of her had loved him. She had once been dependent on him and she had wanted nothing more than to be his. His words imprinted on her mindset and it took her agonizingly long to build her own opinion.

The Avengers offered her a family, as did SHIELD, and she truly believed she was meant to be a hero and do good with the powers she was given. She never thought it would end the way it did. She never thought the pain and the emptiness would lead her down the dark path of drugs and self-destruction. But Viktor knew what an impact his words could have and he made sure to leave his marks. In the end, it all led back to him.

She fell, got back up, then was torn down again. She watched her life pass by, and whenever her life started looking up, the roller coaster would head straight for the abyss. She crawled out of all possible hellholes and fell right back in. Disappointment after disappointment, trauma after trauma – she was forced to sit by and watch, and the pain that started to tear her flesh off the bone caused her to shake violently.

When she watched herself die in Matt’s arms, push him away, and lose herself because she had hurt the man she loved more than anything in the world, a tear slipped down her cheek.

Viktor took everything, but it was her who seemed to burn everything she touched, and the self-hatred found it's way back to her.

Eliza woke up with the feeling of his blood on her face. She shot up, her body covered in sweat. Her chest heaved with labored breaths. The alarms in her head started blaring and she saw red.

The room started to spin. The lights flickered. The nightstand vibrated slightly. Her hands erupted in a crimson-red glow that set her soul on fire. Her eyes glowed red. In her mind, the walls reached their all-time high. She was caged in. The surge of power inside of her tried hard to break out of it, and when it did, the bricks went flying everywhere.

In reality, the furniture was the victim of her outburst. The energy in the room caused every last piece to shake under the force of the static atmosphere. She wanted to start a fire. She wanted to burn her heart and tear her skin off. She was on fire. The power surging through her veins hit her with an intensity like never before, and the control she had was swindling. She had swallowed all of her emotions for too long, and the part of her she tried to keep hidden so she wouldn’t have to address it wasn’t happy. Eventually, it needed out.

A hand found its way onto her shoulder. She could hear Matt’s voice, but his touch startled her and she jumped out of bed, keeping her hands pressed tightly to her chest.

“Don’t touch me,” she choked out.

“Sweetie, it’s okay,” Matt cooed from where he knelt on the mattress, his arms stretched out before him. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you,” Eliza’s voice quivered like the floor seemed to shake. She cursed under her breath. The ceiling seemed to crash down on her.

She pressed herself against the wall and slid down, pulling her knees up to her chest. She wanted it to stop.

“You’re not gonna hurt me.” He rose from the bed and carefully approached her. “I’m not scared of you, I promise. Just take a deep breath. You’re safe. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

She raised her hand to stop him. “Don’t,” she warned.

“Sweetheart–“ He moved only an inch forward, but it was enough for her eyes to widen and the red in her irises to take over completely.

“No!” Eliza heard the sound of her voice hoarsely in her ear. “Don’t,” she said.

The invisible hand grabbed her. The glass next to the bed shattered. The shards tumbled to the floor. She wasn’t in control of the power that felt threatened inside of her, the power that used her moment of weakness to assert its dominance all over again. It was part of her, but she had never felt more like a stranger in her own body, carrying a power that was turning against her.

Matt heard the cracks in the glass’s foundation before it even shattered. Perhaps that was why he didn’t get scared when it happened. Every instinct told him to rush to Eliza’s side, to hold her and comfort her, but he knew he had to be cautious. At that moment, everything could have been seen as a trigger and sent her spiraling further down.

He calmed his breath, his racing heartbeat echoing in his ear, but it didn’t match up to the sound of hers. She was terrified, mostly of herself but also of the pictures that had flashed through her mind. It had happened so many times before, Matt had lost count. There were parts of her trauma that not even therapy or medication could take away, and the vivid nightmares were one of those.

He had felt her pulse race under his fingers as he had slept. He sensed the nightmare coming, and he was still too late.

"Eliza," he said softly, not bothered by the vibrations around him. "Listen to my voice. I need you to breathe with me. Take deep breaths, come on."

Viktor’s laugh echoed in her mind. She shook her head. It wasn’t his voice that mattered. With her hands still clutched to her chest, tears spilling out of the corners of her eyes, she broke through the fog and the blaring of the alarms and focused on Matt’s voice.

He got off the bed, gently lowering himself down on the floor in front of her, mindful of the boundaries she set. He had to be cautious for himself, too, because while Eliza might not have intentionally wanted to harm him, the extent of her powers was unpredictable. She had already broken glass and he needed to calm her down before his furniture, still vibrating with the otherworldly energy in the room, matter being constantly manipulated and put back together by her mere thoughts that weren’t even in her clutches anymore, would suffer from it too.

“Focus,” Matt told her. “Focus on breathing. Breathe in,” he demonstrated, “and out. In… out…”

The breath got stuck in her throat and she gasped for air. “I can’t,” she said.

“Yes, you can. You did it before. Just focus on me, nothing else. That’s the only thing that matters, okay? You and me. Everything you saw, it wasn’t real.”

Matt took deep breaths and she mirrored him. She tried her best to, anyway. The sound of his gentle voice guiding her and the sound of his steady breathing among the chaos that ensued in her mind slowly pulled her back into a state where she began to separate the horrifying pictures of her dream from the reality she found herself in, and the energy running through her responded to the realization.

Noticing her heartbeat starting to slow, he smiled softly. “You’re doing great,” he said. “Now can you do something else for me? Visualize your power as a river, flowing steadily, not crashing against the walls. Can you do that?”

Eliza channeled her focus inward. She could feel the surging energy within her starting to respond, gradually obeying the metaphor Matt had set in her mind. The room began to settle.

“You’re in control, sweetheart, not the other way around. You know what to do.”

She tried to focus on the red in her veins as merely what it was - a river of her blood flowing through her veins. Her heart pumped blood. It belonged to her body. Without it, she would die. The blood flowed through her like the air filled her lungs. It moved to keep her alive, but just like normal human blood, it wasn’t in control of her or her actions. It sustained her, but it wasn’t a stranger that held the reins to her being. She was in control, she had to be in control, and she had to focus on breathing to get the fear out of her system that triggered the outburst in the first place. For someone no longer able to manipulate emotions the way she had before she was pretty susceptible to its effects.

Emotions are part of a person’s subjective reality, she remembered faintly. Eliza reached out a shaky hand. Matt frowned, though didn’t hesitate to take her cold hand in his.

She closed her eyes, focusing on him. She focused on the invisible string connecting their souls. It had gotten lost in translation. After almost dying and losing the part of her that Hydra gave her and made her believe was her only strength, she focused on what she was born with and lost herself in the meaning of the reality stone that she forgot how similar her powers still were. Because they were her. They were part of her still, they had simply just changed shape and definition. She could still feel his soul, even though it was harder than before. She made sense of things faster and channeled her powers, focusing on the world around her, she also focused on the world around him. He was part of her as much as she was part of him. She had made him see. The string tightened with every moment spent together.

He could feel the warmth coursing through his veins. He had told her before that it wasn’t uncomfortable, the feeling of her powers inside of him was merely an unusual feeling that tickled his skin. He no longer only saw within himself, he could see within her. He could feel her soul, the pain she felt, and the bandages that were starting to bleed through. As soon as she touched him, the bond tightened and he could feel his senses circulating her only. The world disappeared. It got quiet. Her pain quieted down as she held onto him, and he made sure not to slip away because as unique as the feeling was, he craved it more than anything.

The calm that consumed him among the rage he felt inside, the protective nature that often kept him uneasy, the sounds of the city that made him nervous and unable to sleep, it all blurred together and formed a protective shield that she hid behind. He wasn’t raging inside. He wasn’t confused. His veins glowed as red as the Billboard outside as she focused on what he felt and slowly started to heal herself. It wasn’t healing in the sense of making her problems go away; Eliza healed herself at the moment, erasing the contents of her dream and returning to reality by using Matt to mend the wounds she had torn into her soul from the second she woke up in a cold sweat.

Their breaths and heartbeats aligned, and their souls intertwined, the invisible string growing more visible. She couldn’t ignore that there was something about the reality stone inside of her that was terrifying yet offered possibilities she had never thought possible, and perhaps that uncertainty was as dangerous as Doctor Strange had told her it was.

All of that didn’t matter though because at that moment, all she could feel was Matt, and she needed to feel him as deeply as possible.

Minutes stretched into an eternity as they sat in silence, the room gradually returning to stillness. Eliza's breathing became steady, her hands no longer glowing. She calmed down, and he matched her demeanor.

The string soon returned to its invisible state as her energy flowed out of him, though their bond never once waivered. Matt let go of her hand and moved to sit beside her, still not sure how far he could go. The silence persisted for a little while longer until Eliza let out a strangled sob.

She rubbed her tired face. “It always feels so real,” she said with the sound of a broken voice. “It’s like he’s in my head and I can’t get him out, not even when he’s dead.”

He knew what that felt like. Fisk haunted him most nights too, and it was the most humiliating feeling knowing the men who hurt them and destroyed their lives would always carry some kind of power, even beyond the grave.

Instead of making up a speech about how her life was going to get better and that he was going to disappear eventually, he nudged her shoulder. “What do you need right now?” he asked softly.

She sniffled. “You’re not scared of me?”

He couldn’t see her eyes, but he could sense the uncertainty in them.

Matt smiled softly and told her, “I could never be scared of you.”

His words caused another broken sob to escape from the back of her throat.

“So, what do you need right now? What can I do?”

His care melted her heart in an instant. Eliza wiped her cheeks, but the tears wouldn’t stop. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to hold her, leave her be, or do anything else. Her body was overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions, and none of them were ones she could place.

Weakly, she gave a vague shrug because damn her mind, she couldn’t even string together a viable thought.

Matt took that as a sign to analyze her signs and act on her needs in the way he thought to be right. He got up, grunting slightly at the ache of his muscles. He stretched his hand out. “Come on,” he said.

She hesitantly took his hand. He helped her up and guided her to the bathroom wordlessly, turning on the shower and setting it to a temperature that was too cold for him, but he didn’t care. As he asked her, “Clothes on or off?” He was already undressing what little he wore himself.

She looked at him with tired eyes. “On,” she whispered.

He nodded, slowly pulling her under the cold spray. She shivered, the cold of the water knocking her senses wide awake. A cold shower always managed to clear the fog. She sat down on the tiles, letting the water soak her, tuning out everything else.

Matt seated himself on the tiles beside her. He hesitantly put his hand on her thigh. When he didn’t get a reaction, he kept his fingers there, gently stroking her skin. Her head slowly lowered onto his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the cold crown of her hair.

“I love you,” he whispered between fleeting touches.

She exhaled, stringing together the same three words, “I love you.”

As the last of Eliza's tears mixed with the water, the bathroom settled into a serene state of calmness. The rising sun cast a gentle golden glow through the window.

Matt's fingers continue to paint delicate patterns on her thigh. The rhythmic sound of their breaths mingled with the soothing patter of the water. His hand moved slowly up her back, drawing her even closer to him. Their lips met in a gentle, yet passionate kiss. Eliza deepened the kiss, pressing herself closer to him. His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting the metallic tinge of the shower water and the tea they had shared before.

Her face silently dropped to the crook of his neck and she inhaled deeply. He stroked her wet hair back, turning off the shower in the process.

He wrapped her in a towel before peeling the cold, wet clothes off her body and helping her change into a fresh set. Her hair glistened with droplets of water.

Matt carried her back into the bedroom. He pulled back the covers, silently telling Eliza to get under them. She did.

He climbed into bed beside her, positioning himself with his face turned in her direction. The first rays of sunshine began to seep through the closed curtains, substituting for the glow of the Billboard outside and signaling the rise of the new day.

Tracing her features, he moved his fingers along her jawline, caressing her cheek. Eliza closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. He touched her face to paint a fresh picture of her face in the morning hours, her puffy cheeks and eyes, and the water that got stuck in the hairs on her face.

As the sun continued to rise, waking the rest of Hell's Kitchen from their slumber and crowding the streets with the summer heat, Matt intertwined his fingers with hers on the mattress. She moved closer, gently nestling against him, her head supported by the crook of his arm as he hugged her close.

He decided to fan his hearing out to the rest of the city. He absorbed the cacophony of Hell's Kitchen's distinctive sounds, but his focus always remained centered on the woman beside him.

Eliza exhaled a shaky breath, prompting him to lean in and press a tender kiss to her forehead.

“You’re safe now,” he said softly.

She whimpered.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Her whimper turned into a soft sigh as he pulled her even closer. He pressed another kiss to her forehead, brushing the damp hair out of her face.

“I love you, you know that?”

She nodded. “I love you too.”

He continued stroking her hair until her breathing evened out. When he traced her features again, he noticed her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep again, and even though the sun was up and he knew he had to go to the office, he refused to let go of her. He owed it to her.

As she slept soundly in his arms, he listened to the sound of her heartbeat, ever vigilant to make sure she was alright, and if another nightmare arose, he would be right there to help her through it.

It would take another agonizing while for Eliza to find back to herself. The past couple of days had been nothing but cruel to her, and the memories that followed the events before and after taking Viktor to court would haunt her for even longer. They haunted her before, but she had managed to learn how to push them into the background. She had been on the road to getting better. One day, one man with a gun, and everything she had worked toward fell into a black hole that she couldn’t seem to find her sanity again. It had gotten lost along the way, lost in translation, lost in a pool of her misery.

Matt felt bad for her. He was trying not to let the worry transcend into pity, but for someone like her even the smallest setback could feel like absolute hell on earth, and since it only kept happening, it was only human to feel sorry.

At this point, even Eliza felt sorry for herself, and she usually hated pity because pity got her nowhere. It made her lose her mind, that was all, but perhaps that was a process that she couldn’t prevent from happening any longer. Losing her mind seemed like the only right response after the shitshow she had just been through.

His fingers painted absentminded pictures over her back. Her skin felt unusually cold but at the same time incredibly hot. The exhaustion brewed under the surface, dragging her muscles down to her feet. He wished he could help her, pull her out of the hole she seemed to be slipping into, but even Matt was clueless. It didn’t happen often; he knew they had to do something about the new player that had entered the game – The Punisher, whoever or wherever he was – and they had to find a way to navigate through this mess, but there was little he could do to help Eliza because what she had been through hardly happened to people, and he wasn’t sure how to catch her if she was barely hanging on and tired of fighting.

He couldn’t lose her, he reminded himself. He almost lost her once, especially to the demons that occupied her mind and took the air out of her lungs, and it broke him. He didn’t want to go through the same hell again. He didn’t want her to suffer the way she had before ever again, and he promised her she wouldn’t have to. He promised he would be there and find ways to make sure she could be happy one day, and he truly believed they were on the best way to getting better and finding their way out of the darkness - Matt had never felt more like a low-grade fool than he did at that moment.

He was helpless, but he swore to himself he wouldn’t be for long.

He closed his eyes. That dreaded day at the courthouse replayed in his mind. After the initial shock of hearing Viktor’s voice had worn off, his focus had been on making sure Eliza wouldn’t make a mistake. He followed her, he remembered as much. The shots came suddenly. He tried to recall any signs he could have missed, but he failed.

The faint clanging of shell casings on cement reached his ears. That was something he hadn’t considered before. He followed the sound in his memory, trying to pinpoint the direction. North-west, he was sure of that. There hadn’t been much wind that day. The sound traveled a long distance, but the direction it came from had undoubtedly been northwest of the courthouse. Considering the angle of the shots, he figured it must have been a high building a few dozen blocks down. The cement suggested a construction site, maybe an unfinished high rise; there were plenty to choose from in Hell’s Kitchen.

Matt’s eyes shot open. He had approached this the wrong way the day before. He went out there blinded by rage, and Daredevil didn’t get much other than an alias. Someone died that night, another soul lost to the hands of the man he chose to despise because he hurt the woman he loved, maybe not physically, but she was living in fear, the uncertainty eating her alive, and watching Viktor die added to the trauma she already had to deal with. For that, he loathed him. For that, he would make him pay.

He texted Foggy that he wouldn’t come in that day, and perhaps not even the next day. He couldn’t bear leaving her alone, and she was in no state to go to work with him. She was slipping away. She needed him. Matt would not make the same mistake again and leave her without thinking or talking about it first, and that included going to work while she was sleeping off the exhaustion that still kept her body tied up in a knot.

Eliza stirred and she met his face with a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. He smiled softly, stroking a strand of hair out of her face.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

That was the first warning sign; She didn’t answer. Her throat suddenly felt trapped, and she couldn’t form even the easiest sentence. She struggled to sit up, every muscle in her body aching with the sudden movement. A sigh left her parted lips, and it quivered as it breached the sound barrier.

A profound emptiness enveloped her, leaving her staring at the wall with vacant eyes. All sense of reality slipped out of her hands, and the power she had felt before was gone entirely. She felt drained. She felt the same way she had felt when Hydra tried to drain her body of blood, of the very essence keeping her alive, except this time she could feel her heartbeat deep in her chest and knew that she was alive, she simply wasn’t present. It terrified her, but the fog that her mind started to escape made the anguish in her soul more bearable. She couldn’t even stand looking at herself in the mirror; all she wanted was to escape, and Matt’s face grew more worried with every hour that passed.

“You want some water?” he asked.

She nodded. It was the first proper response he received. Matt hurried into the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of water. Returning to her side, he gently nudged her.

Eliza held the cold plastic in her hand, for a moment confused about what to do with it. Matt guided the bottle to her lips. She took a sip, a heavy one, and she gave up right after.

The coolness of the water momentarily grounded her, but as the seconds ticked by, her grip on the bottle weakened, and she surrendered, letting it slip from her grasp.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

She wiped the tears that spilled out of her eyes at her sheer incapability to master even the simplest task with her arm, her movements angry enough to move mountains despite the fatigue that was clear enough even for him to sense them. Her low heart rate and racing pulse, her labored breathing, and the scraping over her muscles over bone.

“I’m okay,” she muttered.

That was a lie. She loathed herself. She was useless, and she tried so hard to find back to herself, but she was drowning and the water had claws that dragged her down toward the seabed.

“No, you’re not,” Matt answered. He reached out to cradle her cheek again and catch another tear that spilled over the brim of the too-full glass of agony that was her soul’s existence.

How can existing alone hurt a person so damn much?

“Can I hold you? Would you want that?”

She shrugged, afraid of nodding, afraid of saying yes because while her body screamed for him to make it all go away, she knew a simple touch from him could break her just as well. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted or needed anymore, she just wanted to be someone else. She wanted to have a different brain, a different life, a different identity - she hated Eliza Bennett and at that moment, she even hated Alina, the girl she used to be. She hated the skin she was in, the air in her lungs, and the deafening sound of her heartbeat in her ears.

Matt cradled her in his arms, pulling her close to him. "Eliza, my love, I wish I could take away your pain," he murmured into her ear. "I'm here for you, always. Just let me in."

She didn’t cry, she simply went limp in his arms. He rubbed her back, but the usual enthusiasm to be held by him never came. It was another warning sign; he didn’t even want to be counting, but he had to.

Throughout the day, he tirelessly attended to her needs, silently praying to God to give her some version of her spark back. He offered her gentle reminders to eat, shower, and engage in basic self-care, but his efforts often met with resistance.

Instead of pushing her though, he helped her dress. It was a simple change from the old shirt into a new one and a fresh set of underwear, but even that could do wonders, he knew. Her apathy was evident in her hollow gaze, her stare vacant. She lifted the toothbrush, but her brain was too slow and her heart ached too much. Matt took the toothpaste she forgot to add, put some on the brush, and started brushing her teeth.

In her head, several voices screamed, “Useless fuck!” And she was too weak to protest. If it hadn’t been for Matt, her teeth wouldn’t have been brushed the whole day. That was a sign of failure to the monster in her head, and Viktor laughed again, right in her ear, telling her how she would never be able to be free of him, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times she had to watch him die through her inner eyes.

Useless fuck. She believed it, and Matt’s care slowly grew overbearing. He cared so much, it made her sick. But there was a voice, a tiny light, a version of herself that reminded her that this was how it had started a couple of months ago and she had almost lost him then. And losing him, although the demons told her she would and deserved to lose him, was not something she wanted or could have survived if she had pushed him away again, so she stayed quiet and let him shower her with as much affection as he could give, and she almost started bawling right then and there.

He cooked her lunch and dinner, but she could barely eat. “You have to eat,” he told her, but she simply shook her head after the first two bites, signaling she was done.

As Eliza grew tired, Matt guided her back to bed. He held her tightly in his arms once again, his heart heavy when he heard the shudder in her breath and the clogged tears that made it almost impossible for her to find rest because every time she snuggled into him, guilt consumed her and took her breath away. He wished he could help, but she wasn’t letting him in, and even if she had, there was not much Matt could have done. He made her take her pills and he suggested calling Mrs. Darcy a million times, but Eliza shook her head, and he learned the hard way not to force her to get help. He just hoped she would talk to him more the next day or the day after that before he had to tie her down to bring her back to him because it hurt him, the helplessness eating away at his insides.

Gently, he kissed her temple, his voice a hushed murmur against her ear, “I love you, sweetie,” he said.

Through the tears, she managed to choke out, “Love you too,” and even though it was a glimmer, it was enough to rest his soul for only just a second.

He held her tighter, stroking her hair until her eyes grew heavy and exhaustion dragged her down into a restless sleep for the third time that day.

He should have known that she wasn’t going to be able to rest.

The blood stuck heavily to her hands. Every man in her close vicinity, she dug her knife into their chests, right through the heart, or she aimed for the throat. The time was running out, fists were thrown her way and she had to dodge makeshift weapons. Her fingers itched with the urge to toy with their heads, with the emotions that twirled around their souls, if there even were any, but she had learned that everyone had at least one fear, and feelings could always be manipulated to the point they could be turned into weapons. Everyone had them, even those who pushed them down, and that made her so much more dangerous because she could hurt anyone she wanted.

The soul works the same way within every human chest and she used that to her advantage more often than not. They trained her for this. They made her kill for this. They tortured and shaped her for this. He rewarded her for this. He gave her what she wanted, she graduated and she made it out alive. She was their best – and she was his favorite. She pleased him, no matter what it took, and she learned to Stop disobeying. He loved her and she needed him to love her, to be shown gratitude, and follow his command.

Though when he told her to go through training, she expected to be able to use what was in her hands, not her bare hands alone. She craved to use her blood, the urge in her head that drove her to fight and manipulate and reach into every soul to feel this inhuman power, but he told her to restrain herself and use her mind instead. She was supposed to use another urge, another focus, and she was supposed to do it with her bare hands, and possibly a weapon at hand, but not what they made of her.

She didn’t understand, but she had to follow. She didn’t want to disappoint him. He was the only one who understood, who could love her, and she was useless otherwise. She had to, even though it was hard to fight the pressure that kept getting stronger every day. The power wanted out, but no, she had to restrain it. She had to fight it. She had to learn how to be good for him, for the purpose, of the fight. She had to learn how to fight for the sake of protecting the cause.

The timer ran out. The lights flicked back on from how red they had shone just before. The man before her panted, but she set the knife to just below his ear a second before the shrill alarm rang out, and she dragged the blade deep through his skin to the other side. Blood squirted, it coated her hands and the floor. His throat opened, his aorta severed and he choked on the red liquid that came up his esophagus. His heart couldn’t keep up. He bled out in seconds, choking on his own blood on the floor.

Her face was red, her hands were red, her white suit was red. She dropped to her knees, ready to submit, and when the door opened, she felt the presence in the room, a familiarity like no other. Her heart jumped in excitement, almost, but she kept calm. She kept her hands where they were supposed to be and her eyes pointed straight forward, emotionless and cold, Like a good obedient soldier and his best, most beautiful daughter. His only child. His perfect example. The only one deserving of his purest love and devotion and the touch of his bare hand. She was the only one and he proved it to her, he was the only one who did, the only one who understood. Even though he did not always act in her best interest, it seemed, he made sure she understood. He made sure she couldn’t fight back, but why would she? She had a job to do.

He placed his finger under her chin and tilted her head up. His smile was one of pride and her chest swelled – she deserved a reward. She had done good. She had been a good obedient girl and she would be rewarded. Maybe she would get to Read a book again, she liked those, or he would let her have some time alone in the ballet room with music and her red shoes. No distractions. He sometimes granted her those moments, and she had been so good—

But then his expression twisted and instead of his finger, his palm connected with her cheek. “That was weak,” he stated, his voice not wavering but she could tell he was disappointed. His eyes always turned dark when he was disappointed. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

Her cheek stung from the pain and she could taste copper on her tongue, but she was better than this. She was better than showing weakness. She deserved this.

“You can do better than that, can’t you?” he said. “I taught you better than that.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. He hated when she did that. She was only supposed to when he explicitly told her so.

He clapped his hands. The lights turned red again. “Again!”

The guards brought in the same number of men and didn’t even bother to discard the blood bath. She rose to her feet, took the knife and she stood in the middle again, like she was supposed to.

This time, she rushed faster against the time. She had no mercy. She attacked them first, hitting them right where it hurt, and where they would bleed out the fastest. She slit the last one’s throat long before the alarm rang out, and this time, when he came back in, he caressed the same cheek he had hit and nodded.

“Well done.”

“Thank you,” she dared to say.

“Keep the blood on,” he said, “it suits you.”

And the door fell shut behind him again. He would bring in new men soon, but for now, she could breathe. Among the corpses of her victims, she could rest for a moment before the new phase of his training would roll around.

Matt rolled off of her somewhere around midnight, curling into a ball on his side of the bed, and resumed snoring.

When she shot up, he was still asleep, and not even her panting and erratic heartbeat woke him. Eliza patted her chest and her arms wildly to feel for any blood, she even felt her face and when she looked next to her, Matt was also breathing and not bleeding.

She hated those dreams. They reminded her of all she had done and the people who suffered at her hand. But they were better than the dreams when he touched her. The thought alone made her sick again, but she pushed it down. She silently got out of bed and retreated into the living room where she sat against the brick wall, the billboard offering the only source of light on her pale face. It was yellow this time around.

Eliza pulled her knees up to her chest. Trying to fall back asleep was futile, she just wanted the nightmares to stop. If staring into the dark living room somehow soothed the ache, she would do it.

She hadn’t noticed that Matt also got out of bed only minutes after her, opened the bedroom door, and sighed at her cowering frame.

He stepped up to her carefully, instantly startling her, and her arms shot out as if to defend herself.

“Easy,” he said. “It’s just me.”

She exhaled.

“What was it? Was it him again?”

She shook her head, hugging her legs tighter.

“What then?”

He knelt beside her, not daring to touch her just yet.

She gave a mere shrug. The words wouldn’t come out. Matt reached out to touch her face, but as soon as he did, Eliza shook out of her trance and she jumped up.

He pulled away instantly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, I should have asked. I didn’t mean to touch you.”

She looked down at her hands. They were red. She couldn’t separate the stupid ad on the screen outside from the pictures of her dreams and suddenly she was covered in red, heartbeats fading under her fingers and bodies scattered all around her. It hadn’t been Matt’s hand on her cheek, it had been Viktor’s and he was tricking her once again into thinking she was safe when in reality, she was anything but.

“There is so much blood,” she murmured.

“Sweetheart,” his voice almost sounded like a warning when he got up, “There is no blood.”

He was lying, there was. This was just another lie concocted by Viktor to make her obey and do as he told, a way to prove she was all he said she was and more. She was a monster. She was coated in the blood of her victims and no amount of holy water could wash it off. She was going to hell.

She was standing in the White Room again. It was so real. The metal of the knife weighed heavy in her hands. She couldn’t drop it.

Eliza didn’t register what she was doing, she simply functioned. She moved to the kitchen sink because that one was closer. He said the blood looked good on her, but it was starting to stick. Her hands were still red, and she held them under the water. She took the soap, took the sponge, and started scrubbing. She started to scrub the blood off her hands that he said looked good on her. It was too heavy.

The skin broke. The more she scrubbed, the more red the water seemed to get. It ran into the sink, but it was still so red. With so much blood, she lost count of how many pints she had spilled.

He stood behind her. “That was weak.” His voice was always there. He spoke and spoke but the words made no sense.

“Do better.”

She was trying, but there was no pleasing him. Nothing she did would ever be good enough, might as well succumb to the punishment. The blood continued to run down the drain, but her skin just felt numb.

The only way to get rid of the blood, it seemed, was to get rid of herself. Perhaps if she cut it off–

“Sweetheart,” another voice crept into her consciousness. She knew that voice. “Sweetheart, please ,” he begged. “Whatever it is, we can talk about it, but you’re hurting yourself.”

“I need to get the blood off,” she stated. Her voice sounded distant.

What was she doing? It didn’t matter. Viktor had told her the blood looked good so she needed to get rid of it. She needed to wash her hands, there was no other way. Perhaps bleach could help. It was a good way to get rid of evidence at a crime scene.

“The water’s still red. There is still blood. I need to wash it off.”

“Sweetheart,” he said her name again. Sweetheart . He had never called her that before, Viktor . He had never used that name, so it wasn’t his voice.

His eyes weren’t on her, but she could feel a distant, strange stare. “Sweetheart,” he said, “that’s your blood.”

She looked down. It couldn’t be .

“That’s your blood you’re trying to wash off, but it’s not stopping because you scrubbed your knuckles open. So please, stop before you make it worse.”

Her hands were covered in blood. She had to get rid of it or of herself, possibly, to get rid of it all. Her blood couldn’t possibly cancel out all that was lost, but it was a start.

“Don’t,” his voice grew deafening. “Don’t look at the knives, look at me!”

But the blood.

“The blood looks good on you, malyshka.”

“Did you ever succeed in killing yourself? It seems not. For someone so good at killing, you’re terrible at finishing the job on yourself.”

Suddenly, her wrists were wide open and she was bleeding out. So much blood, but it was hers, and it coated the floor and her clothes and it turned into an ocean at her feet. She was swimming in it; she was swimming in her own blood, her heart pumping more and more until her wrists had nothing left to give and she was pale and cold and simply dead.

She had succeeded. Except that she didn’t and she suddenly realized he wasn’t there and the blood in the sink was, in fact, hers and there were no cuts on her wrists. She only realized it because it started to burn and she wasn’t drowning – the wetness came from the sink, cold water now instead of scolding hot liquid and it snapped her back to reality.

The voice wasn’t Viktor’s, it was Matt’s, and he could tell exactly what her head was telling her to do. The thoughts she almost acted on, the blood in the sink, and the wounds on her knuckles.

At that moment, they both were scared. He was scared for her and she was scared of herself and the thoughts in her head that almost won.

She flinched back from the sink, breath caught in her throat and then her knees buckled, pulling her down into the current.

His arms caught her – Matt’s, not Viktor’s. He wasn’t there.

“Okay,” she heard his slightly unsteady voice in her ear.

He gently set her down on the floor, between his thighs, and in his arms.

She gasped, staring down at her hands and her wrists. She hadn’t cut them. She hoped she hadn’t cut them. It felt like she had, and there was blood, but it was on her hands, not her forearms.

“It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his hands around her wrists, “You’re okay. You didn’t do it. You didn’t cut yourself.”

She took the first breath that night and it soon turned into a strangled sob. She clawed at him for something to hold onto as the water rose to her lungs again, and she was so damn scared, she wasn’t sure where to run anymore.

“You just–“ he swallowed, feeling the blood on her knuckles that smelled of thick copper and burned skin in the air. “Fuck, okay,” Matt muttered a few more curses under his breath. Instead of her wrists, he was holding her hands. “That’s bad,” he said, more to himself than to her. She was still shaking in his arms so he couldn’t do anything but whisper gentle words into her and shush the demons in her head.

“It was just a dream,” he told her, “none of it was real. You’re okay. Breathe for me.”

She tried, and when she caught his shirt and felt his heart, she faintly remembered what he had taught her. She focused on him, his heart, his breathing, and his scent.

“That’s it, you’re doing so good.”

“Matt,” she choked out, “I’m scared.”

“I know, baby, I know.”

“What is happening to me?”

He switched between two possibilities and he was no psychologist, but he had read quite a few articles when she was on the verge of suicide only a couple of weeks ago. “Chances are your nightmare caused a psychosis, but you’re okay now,” he said. “You’re okay, you’re safe and you’re alive.”

“It wasn’t real?” she asked, still panting, but the water in her lungs subsided. What was left behind was the throbbing in her knuckles and the wet feeling of thick blood on her palms. He was still holding the wounds, but they kept on bleeding.

He smiled into the crown of her head. “It wasn’t.”

“Oh, God ! Ow!”

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do: I’m gonna wrap a towel around your hands and then you’re going to sit on the couch, okay? And I’m gonna get the first aid kit to patch you up, so I can take care of you. You just have to hold this-“ he took the clean dish rag from the oven and wrapped it around her knuckles. “There you go, c’mon.”

She held onto the towel until he sat her down on the couch, and then some more as he scrambled for the first aid kit.

“Matt,” Eliza called out for him, “I’m dizzy.”

“No!” He was by her side in seconds. “That’s the stress talking, and I need you to stay awake while I make sure the bleeding stops. Can you do that for me? Stay awake?”

She wasn’t going to last. It wasn’t sleep though, it was a different darkness.

“I’m gonna pass out,” she stated.

“No, sweetheart, don’t–“

But her eyes had already screwed shut, the darkness hugging her and pulling her under.

Matt clenched his jaw. “Damn it!” If it hadn’t been for her pulse, he would have figured she dropped dead, but even with her heart beating, he worried.

He lowered her down before she could fall over, put her legs up on a pillow, and placed a wet towel on her forehead.

He patched up her knuckles, put a thick bandage around them because stitching them up was not possible, and then he waited. He waited for her to regain consciousness, hoping it would be soon, but as the hours dragged on, he grew more and more agitated.

Eventually, he saw no other way out but to pull out his flip phone and type in the one number that was saved.

Claire stood at the door half an hour later, tired and concerned. She checked Matt for injuries, but the call hadn’t been meant for him. Finding Eliza passed out and lifeless with bloody bandages around her knuckles had not been on her to-do list for the night.

“Jesus,” she said, dropping her bag next to the couch, and she knelt next to her. “What the hell happened?”

“She–“ Matt ruffled his hair. “She had a nightmare, a bad one, and when I thought I could comfort her, she completely blacked out. It was like– it felt as if she was in some sort of trance and she wasn’t really here and then she started washing her hands, but I couldn’t stop her because if I had touched her, god knows what would have happened. Part of me wishes I had now. She almost took a knife, Claire,” he said. “She almost took a knife and–“ He couldn’t finish the sentence.

He sobbed into his hand, sniffled, and took a breath. “I can’t lose her,” he said.

Claire checked her pupils and her temperature. “You won’t,” she told him. “Her physical assessment seems fine. You may be right, it could have been a psychosis and the stress took her out. You did a good job with her knuckles,” she pointed at the bandages, “and you leveled her legs up. There’s not much more you can do.”

“Should I– do you think that the whole Viktor situation was too much and that she’s going to– do you think I should get her therapist here and have her admitted or something? ‘cause I’m scared the next time this happens, I won’t be here and I’ll come home to find her lying in a pool of her blood because she killed herself out of guilt. I don’t know what to do, Claire. Tell me! I’m scared for her and I love her, but I don’t know if I can help her through this. I think the whole thing with Viktor, this fucking shooter, and whatever role she plays in that might destroy her. Her powers have been acting out, she’s been apathetic all of yesterday and she’s slipping away… I could tell it in the way she looked at me, she was ready to pull the same shit she did after she-” he swallowed and took an even deeper breath. “Maybe it already has destroyed her for good this time, but I don’t know anymore. Tell me, Claire. I need to know!”

“Did this happen before?”

“Not to this extent.”

“Is she taking her pills?”

Matt thought about the capsule on the fridge. “I made her take them, yeah.”

“Regularly?”

He thought back to the preliminary hearing, the time before, and the night she had spent at the hospital. “Fuck,” he said.

“This is heavy medication, Matt,” said Claire as she eyed the name on the prescription. “If she takes it irregularly, that can mess with her entire brain chemistry. Pair that with the stress and you get a very unhealthy mixture. PTSD is an awful monster and it can manifest in several ways. It can cause very vivid dreams and hallucinations. If she missed a dose of her medication and she’s been subjected to so many triggers at once–“

“Her mind is all over the place,” he finished.

“Yes, it is. But as long as it doesn’t happen again, I don’t think you need to admit her. Don’t think so far, Matt. Not yet.”

“So, what, I’m just supposed to sit here and wait?”

“Yes. And when she wakes up, you talk to her about this and what she wants to do.”

“Jesus, I’m so worried. I really thought–“

“But she didn’t,” she concluded. “You need to hold onto that or you’re going to drive yourself insane. She needs you.”

“She needs a break, that’s what, but no matter what happens, no matter how much better she is doing, something bad always happens and it breaks her. It breaks her every single time, Claire,” he said, and his voice cracked at the call of her name. “I don’t know how much more she can take and that scares me. I mean, how much pain can a person go through before it kills them? How much? I… I can’t…”

Her hands rested on his shoulders, her eyes boring into his. The silent comfort she offered crashed through his defenses. Claire wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.

Matt, feeling the tears burning behind his eyes like acid, buried his face in her shoulder with a strangled grunt. Her hands moved circles over his back. The first tear descended and made its way onto her blue scrubs. She only held him tighter, not once pulling away, and he let the tears fall freely as silent sobs wrecked his body. He fell apart in her arms, a stable constant, a friend, a confidant, and even though she had pulled away so many times before, she was still there for him, always, even when he called at the most unruly of times about someone Claire barely even knew. Guilt mixed with gratitude.

“The truth is,” she eventually said and pulled away enough to look up at him, “there is no benchmark on how much pain a person can endure, mentally or physically because every person is different. Eliza is different. She’s been through hell and back, and I sometimes, too, wonder how she’s still standing, but she’s strong and she’s resilient. The pain she is going through now needs to be managed to help her get through it, but she is built differently than so many of us and she can survive this. She has you, she’s made amends with her past and she has a support system. That’s what she needs. That’s how she survives and that is why she is going to survive. She just needs a helping hand, and maybe she needs you to help her figure this shitshow out so you can both finally lay the past to rest.” She smiled softly at him. “Just a thought, of course. What the hell do I know, right?”

She pulled away entirely after a while, and his tears subsided. She grabbed her bag and her coat, squeezing Matt’s arm on her way out. There were no more words to be said on her end except, “If she’s doing worse, call me.”

He nodded, but there was something else weighing heavily on him. “Claire?” he said, stopping her in her tracks.

In the doorway, she turned around. “Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

She gave a knowing smile and he sensed it, her heart beating in unison with honesty, and then soon enough, the door fell shut behind her as quietly as she could close it.

Matt wiped his cheeks. “Okay,” he muttered to himself and returned to his spot next to Eliza, who was still deep asleep on the couch. Her breathing had slowed and her heart was beating in a steady rhythm again, but he knew her and to him, her body screamed with the pain of the events before. It screamed for help.

He reached out to touch her arm, feeling her pulse under his fingertips. He swallowed. She seemed so fragile right there, almost like an antique vase that had already been glued together once, but that poorly.

“Jesus,” he broke off and turned his head away. The tears tasted salty on his tongue.

Desperate and longing, he took her hand into both of his, closed his eyes and he began to pray. The last time he had done it, she had been on the verge of death, and she pulled back. His faith in God was shaky, but he felt so alone, he saw no other way.

He prayed and he prayed until the sun came up and Hell’s Kitchen slowly came to life, and he still prayed some more. He prayed until his voice was sore, and only then did he stop and press his lips to her heated forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered.

He wasn’t sure when she would wake up, but he was certain that he was not going to leave the apartment anytime soon. And as the clock kept ticking, he slowly found himself praying again, this time for guidance and perhaps a sign of hope. He needed it, but most of all, Eliza needed it. Out of everyone, it was her who deserved it the most, and he simply hoped his faith would be enough for God to finally listen to him. Even if it was just for a second, he needed him to listen. And he needed the woman he loved to be okay, to be safe, and come back to him.

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