#and theres all sorts of thkngs i could bring up but im a too tired and b thsure not pu lishes or finished so itd be so co textless for yall

[this-should-do]

anyways guys hold on had a breakthru in barneys gordon centric conflict,

so like before now, his co flicr has been a sorta vague "gordon is so different and traumatized and im struggling to readjust to having this new gordon compared to the idealized mental image i made of him" that would eventually develop to "oh he is so traumatized and closed off i need to balance vetween my own mental health and trhing to help him" thats made more difficuly for barney becuz hes developed a lil bit of a short temper but made easier becuz hes learned the ins and outs of how to ingeneral treat others who are so outwardly traumatized by way of everyone bei g sum kind of fucked up

and like thats fine thats cool, a nice development but its kinda flat, and it doesnt allow for a strong enough inner co flict on barneys behalf and also kinda centralized gordon too much to him for someone whos been without gordon for 20 years and also gets in the aay of having other charas have their moment to shine and to help gordon, cuz this whole thought lrocess spawned from writing a kleiner pov fic about kleiner reaching ojtto help gordon almost immediately followkng the showerfic and im writing it and wondering "hey why the fuck isnt barney the one to do this if he isnt that opposed to getting close to gordon again since he gets to gordon first in the timeline?" so the answrr obvs is that:

Barneys second develiped conict after the first mwntioned inner co flict ovwr gordon is trying to figure out if he even Wants gordon back in his life, cuz FR 20 fucking years hes old his back hurts hes doesnt jave time for this shit, he for all intents and purpoaes is over gordon (sure theres like the lil fantasy of what if maybe.. that u get over like childhood friends u "miss" in the abstract) and adding gordon back into his life would be a whole new balancing act, its also a firther reason for barney to distance himself from gordon outaide the laready big reason of barney has gotten used to distancing himself from those around him (including loved ones) to protect himself and them given a) the fact that citizens in general arent even allowed talk in public (at least by the time of hl2) and b) b-boys a fucking spy! u dont get the luxury of talking to peiole around u all willy nilly lest u risk harm to urself or others

like barneys og conflicts prerescas is the inability to express himself deeply, which evolves to become more the extreme just discussed, and the inability to make descions for himself, which then evolves to the extreme of trying to decide if he wants gordon back in his life

anyways no clue if this is intelihible or makes any sense particulalrly that last end bit its 120am and i need to go to sleep, so to summarise barney better inner gordon conflict is he needs to decide if he wants gordon back at all