Story: "Blended" Part 2
May. 19th, 2014 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," and "Green Eggs and Hulk."
Fandom: The Avengers, Hulk
Characters: Hulk, JARVIS
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Past abuse. Past fugitives. Dysfunctional family dynamics. Isolation. Internalized oppression. Low sense of self-worth. Self-destructive behavior. Shame. Depression. Bruce and Hulk are somewhere between self-abuse and domestic violence inside their headspace. Current environment is safe.
Summary: Hulk makes his first, violent appearance in Avengers Tower. JARVIS helps him calm down.
Notes: Accidents. Hurt/Comfort. Anger management issues. Sensory processing disorder. Artificial intelligence. Hulk is an enormous green fear monster. Sibling rivalry. Emotional whump. Communication issues. Loneliness. Touch starvation. Memory problems. Boundary issues. Trust issues. Daddy issues. Attachment disorder. Friendship. Hope. Hulk needs a hug. Safety and security. Protection. Teambuilding. Family of choice. Competence.
Begin with Part 1. Skip to Part 4, Part 5.
"Blended" Part 2
Hulk feels funny inside. Wobbly, like stepping on stone that should not move but tilts underfoot. Hulk wants to pull back foot and stand on same old ground again. But he does not know how.
"Do you see anything that could hurt you?" Voice asks.
Hulk looks again. He still cannot find bad people. He shakes his head. Must be here somewhere.
"You are safe here. I have sealed off this floor so nobody will bother you while you are upset," Voice says.
"No guns?"
"Nobody is shooting at you. I will not let them," Voice says.
"No army?" Hulk asks. Army always come for Hulk. Bruce worry, worry, worry. But Bruce hides inside him now, quiet like mouse under hawk shadow.
"There are no hostile soldiers here. I will not let any in."
"No drugs?"
"Certainly not!" Voice snaps. Not angry at Hulk, but ... something. Hulk does not have words, but Voice sounds different. Not happy sound. "No one will do anything to you without your permission. You are a person, not a lab rat. You are a resident of Avengers Tower. If anyone tries to hurt you, I will protect you.
Too many words. People always try to hurt Bruce and Hulk. Grumble, mutter. Voice is stupid. "Hulk job, Hulk protect."
"You do that very well. However, it is also my job to protect the people who live in this tower," Voice says.
"Voice protect Hulk?" Nobody does that. Wait, one person. Betty. Maybe Voice is like Betty? No. Betty was soft to touch. Voice is not for touching, only listening. Not same.
Hulk whimpers. Lonely. Always lonely. Hulk wraps arms around own knees and rocks himself. Not same. Never enough.
"I am here. I will protect you," Voice says again. Soft to hear.
Betty had words like that, nice for Bruce. Betty was kind to Hulk too, back when Hulk still looked like Bruce, all puny.
Come here, love, let me get the blood off. I'll be gentle. Those fucking ignorant bullies! I swear to God, I will wipe every college record they ever had or ever hope to have. I'll keep you safe from them.
Hulk smiles. Betty is good at sneaky sort of smash.
"You look like you're feeling a little better. That is good. Do you understand now that nobody here will hurt you?" Voice asks.
"Hurt Bruce," Hulk says. He only gets out when something goes wrong.
"Bruce hurt himself. He dropped a blender on his own foot. Do you remember that?" Voice says.
Hulk shakes his head. Too hard to remember. Bruce life just bits and pieces. Sharp like splinters. Hulk pokes at smash with one finger. Whole life is smash. Sad. Hulk droops.
"Would you like to see?" Voice asks.
Hulk feels confused. Memories are only in own head. How could Voice have those? Hulk wonders. He whines, high in throat.
"I am able to show you pictures of what happened. Then you would know that nobody else hurt Bruce. It was just an accident. Everyone has accidents sometimes," Voice says.
* * *
Notes:
Uncertainty is a natural part of life, but it's not good to force people out of their comfort zone. There are questions to ask and steps to take for dealing with uncertainty. It's important to stretch the edge of your comfort zone gently.
JARVIS is starting to teach Hulk how to distinguish between past and present danger. I couldn't find a good safety tracker worksheet, so I made one.
Worry is an unhealthy focus on things that could go wrong. Canonical Bruce, especially in The Avengers, shows many signs of excess worry. Know how to tell if you worry too much and how to cope with anxiety. Here is a thought record sheet for worry and one for positive vs. negative beliefs.
Hulk has boundary issues because of past abuse, which tends to shatter boundaries. There are different kinds of boundaries and types of boundary breakdowns. Here are some ways of developing healthy boundaries.
Parentification appears in the trope Promotion to Parent when one sibling has to look after another for lack of appropriate adult care. One thing that complicates the relationship between Bruce and Hulk is that each of them takes the dominant, sometimes protective but other times abusive, role at different times. Parentification can have positive and negative effects, and both of those show in both Bruce and Hulk although not the same ways. Parentified children (and later adults) often benefit from help setting healthy boundaries. Foster or adoptive families face challenges in getting them to accept care.
Abuse survivors often need to catch up on basic nurture that they missed at the time when people usually get it. They need to learn that they can have food, shelter, clothing, physical safety, and comfort. This can cause a disjunction between developmental and chronological age. As far as we know in this series, Hulk and Bruce are the same chronological age or very close to it. (This varies in canon; sometimes it explicitly states that Hulk comes from the lab accident, other times it implies his presence in childhood.) But Hulk has very little "out" time and mostly observes the world through Bruce. Hulk is emotionally "stuck" as a toddler in many ways, such as his speech. He hasn't had the opportunity to learn things like fine dexterity or emotional regulation. The extra years, and the spillover from Bruce, do give him a much deeper understanding of things than a natural toddler would have, though.
At this stage, Hulk is touch-starved and has a lot of skin hunger he doesn't know how to meet. Everyone needs nurturing touch.
Hulk shows sad body language in this scene. Knee-hugging is a particular sign of self-soothing in distressed children.
Revictimization is a risk due to lingering damage from trauma. This is hard to overcome and makes the victim an easy target for more abusers and bullies looking for easy prey. Studies show that people who are mistreated once have a considerably higher risk of being mistreated again. It's exactly what happens to Bruce-and-Hulk in canon; childhood abuse sets them up for later bullying and exploitation. You can see the effects in Bruce's cringing body language, and even Hulk almost never stands up straight.
Children are often distressed by accidents, even in stories, and especially if adults don't model appropriate behavior when things go wrong. This is especially true for abused children who learned that accidents led to severe punishment. There are ways of teaching children to accept responsibility and cope with accidents in a positive manner.
[To be continued in Part 3 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers, Hulk
Characters: Hulk, JARVIS
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Past abuse. Past fugitives. Dysfunctional family dynamics. Isolation. Internalized oppression. Low sense of self-worth. Self-destructive behavior. Shame. Depression. Bruce and Hulk are somewhere between self-abuse and domestic violence inside their headspace. Current environment is safe.
Summary: Hulk makes his first, violent appearance in Avengers Tower. JARVIS helps him calm down.
Notes: Accidents. Hurt/Comfort. Anger management issues. Sensory processing disorder. Artificial intelligence. Hulk is an enormous green fear monster. Sibling rivalry. Emotional whump. Communication issues. Loneliness. Touch starvation. Memory problems. Boundary issues. Trust issues. Daddy issues. Attachment disorder. Friendship. Hope. Hulk needs a hug. Safety and security. Protection. Teambuilding. Family of choice. Competence.
Begin with Part 1. Skip to Part 4, Part 5.
"Blended" Part 2
Hulk feels funny inside. Wobbly, like stepping on stone that should not move but tilts underfoot. Hulk wants to pull back foot and stand on same old ground again. But he does not know how.
"Do you see anything that could hurt you?" Voice asks.
Hulk looks again. He still cannot find bad people. He shakes his head. Must be here somewhere.
"You are safe here. I have sealed off this floor so nobody will bother you while you are upset," Voice says.
"No guns?"
"Nobody is shooting at you. I will not let them," Voice says.
"No army?" Hulk asks. Army always come for Hulk. Bruce worry, worry, worry. But Bruce hides inside him now, quiet like mouse under hawk shadow.
"There are no hostile soldiers here. I will not let any in."
"No drugs?"
"Certainly not!" Voice snaps. Not angry at Hulk, but ... something. Hulk does not have words, but Voice sounds different. Not happy sound. "No one will do anything to you without your permission. You are a person, not a lab rat. You are a resident of Avengers Tower. If anyone tries to hurt you, I will protect you.
Too many words. People always try to hurt Bruce and Hulk. Grumble, mutter. Voice is stupid. "Hulk job, Hulk protect."
"You do that very well. However, it is also my job to protect the people who live in this tower," Voice says.
"Voice protect Hulk?" Nobody does that. Wait, one person. Betty. Maybe Voice is like Betty? No. Betty was soft to touch. Voice is not for touching, only listening. Not same.
Hulk whimpers. Lonely. Always lonely. Hulk wraps arms around own knees and rocks himself. Not same. Never enough.
"I am here. I will protect you," Voice says again. Soft to hear.
Betty had words like that, nice for Bruce. Betty was kind to Hulk too, back when Hulk still looked like Bruce, all puny.
Come here, love, let me get the blood off. I'll be gentle. Those fucking ignorant bullies! I swear to God, I will wipe every college record they ever had or ever hope to have. I'll keep you safe from them.
Hulk smiles. Betty is good at sneaky sort of smash.
"You look like you're feeling a little better. That is good. Do you understand now that nobody here will hurt you?" Voice asks.
"Hurt Bruce," Hulk says. He only gets out when something goes wrong.
"Bruce hurt himself. He dropped a blender on his own foot. Do you remember that?" Voice says.
Hulk shakes his head. Too hard to remember. Bruce life just bits and pieces. Sharp like splinters. Hulk pokes at smash with one finger. Whole life is smash. Sad. Hulk droops.
"Would you like to see?" Voice asks.
Hulk feels confused. Memories are only in own head. How could Voice have those? Hulk wonders. He whines, high in throat.
"I am able to show you pictures of what happened. Then you would know that nobody else hurt Bruce. It was just an accident. Everyone has accidents sometimes," Voice says.
* * *
Notes:
Uncertainty is a natural part of life, but it's not good to force people out of their comfort zone. There are questions to ask and steps to take for dealing with uncertainty. It's important to stretch the edge of your comfort zone gently.
JARVIS is starting to teach Hulk how to distinguish between past and present danger. I couldn't find a good safety tracker worksheet, so I made one.
Worry is an unhealthy focus on things that could go wrong. Canonical Bruce, especially in The Avengers, shows many signs of excess worry. Know how to tell if you worry too much and how to cope with anxiety. Here is a thought record sheet for worry and one for positive vs. negative beliefs.
Hulk has boundary issues because of past abuse, which tends to shatter boundaries. There are different kinds of boundaries and types of boundary breakdowns. Here are some ways of developing healthy boundaries.
Parentification appears in the trope Promotion to Parent when one sibling has to look after another for lack of appropriate adult care. One thing that complicates the relationship between Bruce and Hulk is that each of them takes the dominant, sometimes protective but other times abusive, role at different times. Parentification can have positive and negative effects, and both of those show in both Bruce and Hulk although not the same ways. Parentified children (and later adults) often benefit from help setting healthy boundaries. Foster or adoptive families face challenges in getting them to accept care.
Abuse survivors often need to catch up on basic nurture that they missed at the time when people usually get it. They need to learn that they can have food, shelter, clothing, physical safety, and comfort. This can cause a disjunction between developmental and chronological age. As far as we know in this series, Hulk and Bruce are the same chronological age or very close to it. (This varies in canon; sometimes it explicitly states that Hulk comes from the lab accident, other times it implies his presence in childhood.) But Hulk has very little "out" time and mostly observes the world through Bruce. Hulk is emotionally "stuck" as a toddler in many ways, such as his speech. He hasn't had the opportunity to learn things like fine dexterity or emotional regulation. The extra years, and the spillover from Bruce, do give him a much deeper understanding of things than a natural toddler would have, though.
At this stage, Hulk is touch-starved and has a lot of skin hunger he doesn't know how to meet. Everyone needs nurturing touch.
Hulk shows sad body language in this scene. Knee-hugging is a particular sign of self-soothing in distressed children.
Revictimization is a risk due to lingering damage from trauma. This is hard to overcome and makes the victim an easy target for more abusers and bullies looking for easy prey. Studies show that people who are mistreated once have a considerably higher risk of being mistreated again. It's exactly what happens to Bruce-and-Hulk in canon; childhood abuse sets them up for later bullying and exploitation. You can see the effects in Bruce's cringing body language, and even Hulk almost never stands up straight.
Children are often distressed by accidents, even in stories, and especially if adults don't model appropriate behavior when things go wrong. This is especially true for abused children who learned that accidents led to severe punishment. There are ways of teaching children to accept responsibility and cope with accidents in a positive manner.
[To be continued in Part 3 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-19 08:31 am (UTC)Aww...
Date: 2014-05-19 09:17 am (UTC)It's not sad. I feel the same way, hence why I write him like this. I've always had a certain inclination in that direction, and okay my hero-bone is really poking out to say that I felt protective of a nearly-indestructible giant when I've been watching Hulk since I was little, but it got even stronger after seeing The Avengers because of the body language there.
>> I'm having the same reaction I would to a puppy...I just want to pick him up and squeeze him to bits. <<
Well, yeah. Hulk is signalling "I'm hurting, somebody comfort me." At this point it's not entirely to safe to have squishy people around him when he's upset, but he'll get there later in the series.
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-19 10:11 am (UTC)She told him he couldn't smash her, that it was safe to hug her back... and got enveloped in a huge bear hug with an absolutely joyous "HULK HUG !"
Hulk might well be indestructible, but emotionally it's all too easy to hurt him... and it's perfectly natural to want to comfort the big kid.
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-19 03:18 pm (UTC)~ty
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-19 03:51 pm (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-21 06:07 am (UTC)Wow. Thanks for sharing.
>> She told him he couldn't smash her, that it was safe to hug her back... and got enveloped in a huge bear hug with an absolutely joyous "HULK HUG !" <<
That is so cute.
>> Hulk might well be indestructible, but emotionally it's all too easy to hurt him... and it's perfectly natural to want to comfort the big kid. <<
Yes. Some of the strongest characters physically -- like Steve -- are the most vulnerable emotionally. It always frustrates me when people overlook that. There's no such thing as an overpowered character, just underpowered opposition and writers who don't know what the merry heck they're doing.
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-21 10:30 am (UTC)So, my fighter/thief who was about ten levels below this guy, and was bit squishy even for his class, frankly took to his heels, and of course the now evil and somewhat bonkers Paladin gave chase... to cut a long story short...he chased my character right up roughly a hundred flights of a spiral stone staircase in this dungeon/castle and at the top, 'I' turned round and unleashed my secret weapon....
which was...
a bag of steel ball-bearings.
Of course, it helped that the paladin was wearing full plate armour, complete with steel shod shoes.... on a stone floor.
Cue about 3 minutes worth of assorted sound effects as the paladin failed his agility roll with a mighty 20 on a d20 and fell down every one of those 100 or so flights of very hard stone steps. The DM rolled for damage by basically emptying his entire dice bag, and then borrowing everyone else's... [although the character survived on about -9 hit points]
Moral of the story being: even the mightiest heroes have weak points... and never underestimate the little guy, because he's used to fighting at a disadvantage and using his wits.
Appendium to this:
Of course, it took awhile for the rest of the party to catch up, and we'd played the chase out just between the three of us mid-week. So next session they found my character at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly ok, sitting on the mangled heap of the paladin. Grinning.
Totally worth it for the look of shock on our fighter's player's face!
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-21 10:06 pm (UTC)ROTFLMAO!
Thank you for sharing that epic humor.
One thing I did in my highschool game was include some of the everyday magic used in Hallelaine. So at one point, part of the treasure haul was a set of several industrial spells, including Ferdinand's Frictionless Freightway. (It's basically a conveyor belt spell.) Cast without the matching freighloader, it doesn't last very long. But if you cast it on a mountain switchback whilst being chased by a band of orcs, you really only need it for a few seconds ...
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-21 10:21 pm (UTC)Oh yeah... some of those lesser used spells can be epically useful if you have a bit of imagination.
I did mention we had long standing competition in the sci&fi soc to find creative uses for all those weird little useless bits&bobs in the manuals. Like bags of steel ball-bearings for example.. well it included oddball spells like that. [and that one would've got you a round of free drinks]
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-05-22 08:47 am (UTC)Oh yeah... some of those lesser used spells can be epically useful if you have a bit of imagination. <<
I always admired stories like With a Single Spell and Myth Adventures where characters did an amazing amount of things with just one or a few spells.
>> I did mention we had long standing competition in the sci&fi soc to find creative uses for all those weird little useless bits&bobs in the manuals. Like bags of steel ball-bearings for example.. <<
Your use of the ball-bearings is basically what I thought they were meant for. I always loved watching people problem-solve like that.
>> well it included oddball spells like that. [and that one would've got you a round of free drinks] <<
Yay!
Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-09-02 02:33 am (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2014-09-02 02:44 am (UTC)More? YAAY!
Date: 2014-05-19 03:45 pm (UTC)(Yes, I /did/ hold off reading this until I knew I'd need an emotional lift.) Sorry for the lack of superlatives in the feedback, but I think it's simplest to say: there's a sense of RIGHTNESS in the story, even when discussing difficult elements, that "this will turn out better than it might have been, or was in canon".
I think everyone needs a little reassurance that people in the world /want/ to make it better, and are trying hard to do so.
Thanks for posting, again!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-19 04:38 pm (UTC)...can Tony build some kind of a hug robot? A big, sturdy, not easily smashed one?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-20 03:19 am (UTC)I adore that you're adding more to the series, and not just the moving-forward pieces, but the foundational pieces. I just want to hug everyone to bits.
-kellyc
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-20 08:06 am (UTC)I am up too late again.
•If anyone tries to hurt you, I will protect you.
> Append close-quote.
Good night.