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estiroseUnder cut, as it's mostly for me, though I thought it might be of interest to others.
Well, AO3 is having downtime as I write this, the first two fics in this series are posted, and I'm now sitting back to collect my thoughts on where I'm going. Mostly because I don't feel as steady with Scott, Summer, and Flynn as I am with Ziggy and Dillon, and I need to figure out how the three of them are going to deal with a suicidal teammate. (Right now I'm getting muses arguing about schedules, Dillon insisting that he get most of it, and the other three having guilt trips, but that's about it. Oh, and Ziggy not being keen on any of it.)
As I noted in the end notes for "Easier to Hide", I've been using two main resources for figuring out how everybody might be thinking, and I think I'm going to have to seek out more. I know more about a suicidal person's thought processes and how to deal with one than I know about how people react to suicidal others. (Other than there's a stigma about it.)
So, I thought I'd write down a bit about what's going on so I don't forget.
Now, the first fic ("Harder to be Brave") was meant to be a fairly quick one-shot about an extreme/what-if reaction on Ziggy's part to his new powers. I'd previously written another fic on the matter which is entirely more cheerful, but I wanted a different take. Ziggy is obviously more used to dodging and joking; what does that hide? How would he deal with getting powers he never wanted, but took on because he made a promise to keep the morpher safe?
(Which is kind of the theme of this series: what does it mean to be brave? Running towards danger? Being willing to take on something you don't want? Even killing yourself to make things better, at least in your view? It's something that I want to tackle.)
As the reader probably figures out pretty quickly, Ziggy's strategy is to get himself killed and let someone else bond with the Series Green Morpher. He figures that even Dr. K and Dillon can't find him in a city the size of Corinth fast enough. Initially, I did have Dr. K finding him via the tracking system, and then I realized this contradicts canon; I had to change it to Dr. K only being able to find him via the previous day's scans and a bit of luck. Dillon figures out something's wrong, but his inclination is to leave be until he figures out the whole suicidal angle.
(Which is one of the reasons why he doesn't rag on Ziggy in "Harder to be Brave", but there was some valid crit that Dillon should have done more, and Dillon-muse agreed.)
When I started "Easier to Hide", it was to cover the whole "Oh shit, he's suicidal" Dillon-story. It was really meant to be between Dillon and Ziggy, but Dillon was unable to shut the other three Rangers up in time, and Scott decided that there was Something Wrong With His Team that had to be dealt with.
(Incidentally, like all good stories, both of the existing stories have people who mean well but react the wrong way. Maria might have given the first story its title, but she also confirms Ziggy's thought that he's worthless; Scott, Summer, Flynn, and even Dr. K are trying to be helpful in making Ziggy improve and then deal with a teammate that's suicidal, but first they miss the whole reason why Ziggy reacted the way he did, and then act like he's going to try to kill himself right then and there. Suicidal people don't think straight, but that doesn't mean that they suddenly go totally stupid. To their credit, most people don't deal with suicidal people on a regular basis, and they went with their instincts. And Dr. K does remember to look up treatment right after she realizes that she didn't research the issue before ordering Scott to put Ziggy on watch.)
Throughout "Easier to Hide", Ziggy is having a panic attack. He initially thinks that Dillon's figured him out (in "Harder to be Brave", finds out he didn't, and then panics again when Dillon insists on talking, and when the others get involved. Dillon's right that Ziggy is the type to hide/escape from his problems until they go away. (Avoidance is a valid conflict management technique, but it doesn't work in all/most situations.) He is not really keen on going over the whole thing with his 'teammates', because he thinks they think he's weak/stupid and annoyed that they're stuck with him. Their misunderstanding of the situation (that Ziggy left without his morpher to annoy Dr. K) makes him think he's going to get out of it, for the moment, until he can try again. Unfortunately for him, Dillon figures it out. I think it's very possible that Ziggy would have kept trying had Dillon not figured it out. All everyone would have seen was Ziggy becoming increasingly "rebellious"/flaky and not realizing that one day, they'd have a dead Ranger on their hands.
Random notes:
Maria: I know that Maria means well. She's also somewhat of a mother hen, she wants to clean up peoples' messes, and she's not beyond saying something nasty in order to make them feel worse so that she can feel better. She's a Ranger fangirl and she knows what the Rangers look like on sight, and you'll bet she'll be bragging that she and Ziggy were in the same orphanage, now that she knows he's Ranger Green. As Ziggy notes, they're not really close. (It's funny that Dillon figured out what was going on based on a wrong assumption....)
Suicide watch: From what I've now read, Scott would probably put Ziggy on a watch where he's checked on frequently and regularly. He wouldn't be watched every moment, or at least they wouldn't be required to. But he probably couln't train, wouldn't be allowed to wear a belt or shoelaces, and you can bet that Flynn's going to be pre-cutting his food! (Such a watch can be constant checks/watching, but I don't see the Rangers doing that, and I can see them checking up on Ziggy regularly.) He'd kinda love the attention, but not the assumptions behind it. And Dr. K is going to get him with someone to evaluate his mental state as soon as possible, but it might be a day or so. He's left with his morpher because, as Dr. K notes, she can cancel his morph. Plus, he's a bit harder to kill in morph, so the team would rather leave him with the ability just in case.
(He's still on restriction to base, btw, from the events of "Harder to be Brave". Not that he's going to be allowed out of anybody's sight for a few days.)
More stories in the series: I know there's going to be at least one ("Pre-cut Muffins", possibly, for a title), possibly more as the Rangers begin to trust their Ranger Green to defend himself and not try to kill himself. I know the next story's going to be in at least three parts: one for Scott, one for Summer, one for Flynn. All are probably going to be Ziggy's POV because Ziggy's going to have a lot of downtime on his hands as his teammates try to cope. I know that Scott is probably going to involve Ziggy sitting in the training room as Scott cautiously decides whether he can train, while Summer's going to insist he watch TV/read, and Flynn's going to have him as an assistant in the garage bay and then send him to the couches as he makes dinner.
Canon: In "Handshake", he was obviously part of the team; in "Ranger Red" he says he's a new Ranger, and his fighting abilities are obviously developing. So, at some point in the series, he has to become accepted. Some of it will be helped by the guilt the core trio feel about what they almost caused him to do, but Ziggy has to go beyond that, because they obviously trust him with his morpher by "Handshake".
Well, AO3 is having downtime as I write this, the first two fics in this series are posted, and I'm now sitting back to collect my thoughts on where I'm going. Mostly because I don't feel as steady with Scott, Summer, and Flynn as I am with Ziggy and Dillon, and I need to figure out how the three of them are going to deal with a suicidal teammate. (Right now I'm getting muses arguing about schedules, Dillon insisting that he get most of it, and the other three having guilt trips, but that's about it. Oh, and Ziggy not being keen on any of it.)
As I noted in the end notes for "Easier to Hide", I've been using two main resources for figuring out how everybody might be thinking, and I think I'm going to have to seek out more. I know more about a suicidal person's thought processes and how to deal with one than I know about how people react to suicidal others. (Other than there's a stigma about it.)
So, I thought I'd write down a bit about what's going on so I don't forget.
Now, the first fic ("Harder to be Brave") was meant to be a fairly quick one-shot about an extreme/what-if reaction on Ziggy's part to his new powers. I'd previously written another fic on the matter which is entirely more cheerful, but I wanted a different take. Ziggy is obviously more used to dodging and joking; what does that hide? How would he deal with getting powers he never wanted, but took on because he made a promise to keep the morpher safe?
(Which is kind of the theme of this series: what does it mean to be brave? Running towards danger? Being willing to take on something you don't want? Even killing yourself to make things better, at least in your view? It's something that I want to tackle.)
As the reader probably figures out pretty quickly, Ziggy's strategy is to get himself killed and let someone else bond with the Series Green Morpher. He figures that even Dr. K and Dillon can't find him in a city the size of Corinth fast enough. Initially, I did have Dr. K finding him via the tracking system, and then I realized this contradicts canon; I had to change it to Dr. K only being able to find him via the previous day's scans and a bit of luck. Dillon figures out something's wrong, but his inclination is to leave be until he figures out the whole suicidal angle.
(Which is one of the reasons why he doesn't rag on Ziggy in "Harder to be Brave", but there was some valid crit that Dillon should have done more, and Dillon-muse agreed.)
When I started "Easier to Hide", it was to cover the whole "Oh shit, he's suicidal" Dillon-story. It was really meant to be between Dillon and Ziggy, but Dillon was unable to shut the other three Rangers up in time, and Scott decided that there was Something Wrong With His Team that had to be dealt with.
(Incidentally, like all good stories, both of the existing stories have people who mean well but react the wrong way. Maria might have given the first story its title, but she also confirms Ziggy's thought that he's worthless; Scott, Summer, Flynn, and even Dr. K are trying to be helpful in making Ziggy improve and then deal with a teammate that's suicidal, but first they miss the whole reason why Ziggy reacted the way he did, and then act like he's going to try to kill himself right then and there. Suicidal people don't think straight, but that doesn't mean that they suddenly go totally stupid. To their credit, most people don't deal with suicidal people on a regular basis, and they went with their instincts. And Dr. K does remember to look up treatment right after she realizes that she didn't research the issue before ordering Scott to put Ziggy on watch.)
Throughout "Easier to Hide", Ziggy is having a panic attack. He initially thinks that Dillon's figured him out (in "Harder to be Brave", finds out he didn't, and then panics again when Dillon insists on talking, and when the others get involved. Dillon's right that Ziggy is the type to hide/escape from his problems until they go away. (Avoidance is a valid conflict management technique, but it doesn't work in all/most situations.) He is not really keen on going over the whole thing with his 'teammates', because he thinks they think he's weak/stupid and annoyed that they're stuck with him. Their misunderstanding of the situation (that Ziggy left without his morpher to annoy Dr. K) makes him think he's going to get out of it, for the moment, until he can try again. Unfortunately for him, Dillon figures it out. I think it's very possible that Ziggy would have kept trying had Dillon not figured it out. All everyone would have seen was Ziggy becoming increasingly "rebellious"/flaky and not realizing that one day, they'd have a dead Ranger on their hands.
Random notes:
Maria: I know that Maria means well. She's also somewhat of a mother hen, she wants to clean up peoples' messes, and she's not beyond saying something nasty in order to make them feel worse so that she can feel better. She's a Ranger fangirl and she knows what the Rangers look like on sight, and you'll bet she'll be bragging that she and Ziggy were in the same orphanage, now that she knows he's Ranger Green. As Ziggy notes, they're not really close. (It's funny that Dillon figured out what was going on based on a wrong assumption....)
Suicide watch: From what I've now read, Scott would probably put Ziggy on a watch where he's checked on frequently and regularly. He wouldn't be watched every moment, or at least they wouldn't be required to. But he probably couln't train, wouldn't be allowed to wear a belt or shoelaces, and you can bet that Flynn's going to be pre-cutting his food! (Such a watch can be constant checks/watching, but I don't see the Rangers doing that, and I can see them checking up on Ziggy regularly.) He'd kinda love the attention, but not the assumptions behind it. And Dr. K is going to get him with someone to evaluate his mental state as soon as possible, but it might be a day or so. He's left with his morpher because, as Dr. K notes, she can cancel his morph. Plus, he's a bit harder to kill in morph, so the team would rather leave him with the ability just in case.
(He's still on restriction to base, btw, from the events of "Harder to be Brave". Not that he's going to be allowed out of anybody's sight for a few days.)
More stories in the series: I know there's going to be at least one ("Pre-cut Muffins", possibly, for a title), possibly more as the Rangers begin to trust their Ranger Green to defend himself and not try to kill himself. I know the next story's going to be in at least three parts: one for Scott, one for Summer, one for Flynn. All are probably going to be Ziggy's POV because Ziggy's going to have a lot of downtime on his hands as his teammates try to cope. I know that Scott is probably going to involve Ziggy sitting in the training room as Scott cautiously decides whether he can train, while Summer's going to insist he watch TV/read, and Flynn's going to have him as an assistant in the garage bay and then send him to the couches as he makes dinner.
Canon: In "Handshake", he was obviously part of the team; in "Ranger Red" he says he's a new Ranger, and his fighting abilities are obviously developing. So, at some point in the series, he has to become accepted. Some of it will be helped by the guilt the core trio feel about what they almost caused him to do, but Ziggy has to go beyond that, because they obviously trust him with his morpher by "Handshake".
