Thread:ThisIsXenon/@comment-32273133-20181231004208/@comment-32273133-20190907133008

Hester taught all of her assassins to be emotionless and cold, able to detach themselves from any situation and do anything without feeling guilty and upset about it. Most of them [Clay, Hanoi, Cyrus, Bex, Xerxes, Korin] have had little trouble bouncing back to normal, healthy emotional expression. But the others [Micah, Midori, Trin] still fight against or just accept that ideal.

Which reminds me as well of something Micah said, after Min-Jin apologised for hurting him—“It’s not hard to do.”

Micah recognises how fragile he is, how easy it is to hurt or upset him, and he resents it. He resents how quickly he’ll trigger or panic, how deep he gets stuck in his head, how physically fragile he is, and how much help he’ll need to heal.

Part of that is from Hester’s abuse. I’d go as far to say that most of it is. Even two, three years later, he’s still struggling to convince himself that he deserves to exist and be loved and cared for, and that he doesn’t have to constantly prove himself or be suspicious of favours. Recently, he’s been too hungry or tired or scared to care, and honestly, if there’s a true threat, he’s hoping it’ll take him out. Plus, he’s not suspicious of anything Min/Damian does because he’s idolising him and seeing him as a rescuer figure. Hopefully when there are more instances of Damian and Micah being in the same space when Micah hits a big trigger I can develop that more.

He’s got a long way to recovery. His PTSD didn’t fully develop until he reentered society after living in that cave, but he’s had symptoms of it for over a decade. Recent re-exposure/re-traumatising [getting kidnapped by 118 in the RP, Delphi forcefully recalling memories as ‘training’ in the fic] has only worsened things—in the fic he didn’t have a full flashback onscreen until after Delphi’s training, and he’s got one coming up soonish in the RP. He needs the time to heal that he doesn’t have because of the CDs and all the other drama.

Micah’s not the only one who has mental issues stemming from Hester—Clay’s alcoholism, Midori’s twisted moral code, Korin and Bex’s separation anxiety, Trin’s inability to stand up for themselves, and probably more that I haven’t developed yet, those all come from Hester’s manipulation and emotional abuse. There were other factors [For Clay, it was Bennet and assumed rejection by his friends; for Bex, it was their aunt; and for Trin, it’s Percy], but the root causes all trace back to Hester.

She was obsessed with absolute control, absolute power, getting everything she wanted just because she was on top. So she manipulated people to stay there. She killed and she lied and she abused and she twisted reality to maintain power. She saw nothing wrong with it—that’s how she thought the world worked best.