#get a diagnosis or fix your behavior but its been years and I'm over it

[xxlelaxx]

I'm so over people making their problems someone else's problem. Listen buddy, you got issues, you take care of it. Don't make everyone else around you do it. Figure it out cause everyone else has to do that too <3

[smytherines]

☠ agent curt mega pretty pleaseeee

Ooooohhh angry/violent headcanon for Curt. This is an interesting one. I wrote waaaay too much here and I'm probably gonna end up in fandom jail for this one, but...

I mean we've talked about this before, but I genuinely do not see the horrible toxic manipulative Owen/little innocent cinnamon roll Curt dynamic that a lot of people seem to get from A1P1. It just doesn't track for me with what actually happens in that scene. Interpretation is an art, and everyone's art style is different, I just personally can't see anything to support it.

For me, pre-fall curtwen is a relationship of equals. Equals who often irritated each other because they were very different people (but also because they were very similar people), equals who didn't have any real concept of how to have a healthy relationship (especially with another man), equals who individually had a lot of flaws and messed up coping mechanisms and (in my headcanon at least) neurodevelopmental disabilities that made them uniquely suited for espionage, but also gave them all sorts of weird problems that they had no way of understanding or fixing. For me, they each gave as good as they got. For better or worse.

So keeping that in mind, I think about that part of A1P1 where Cynthia is insulting Curt while trying to recruit Owen to A.S.S., because that interaction, and what comes after it, is very important for my understanding of who pre-fall Curt was as a person.

Even though Owen doesn't entertain the idea of working for A.S.S. for even a second, Curt gets jealous, and pissed off, and hangs up on Cynthia. I think Owen's line is "What are you, jealous? You know I'd never work for the Americans," and its incredulous, like its a silly thing for Curt to get upset about because Owen would never even consider it. Curt pulls his flask out as soon as the call is over, and he responds to Owen pretty sharply by saying "Oh I do know that you couldn't handle it." He responds as if Owen has threatened his status at A.S.S.

We see this dynamic again when Owen chastises him for drinking, and Curt mocks his accent while saying "not until the jobs done." We see it again when Owen gestures to the banana peel like "what are you doing," and Curt responds fairly harshly with (I think, I'm doing this off memory) "this whole place is about to be garbage anyways, who gives a shit."

Those moments, for me, imply that Curt gets embarrassed easily, he gets jealous easily, and that he reacts very defensively when he is criticized, which is just Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria 101. It couldn't get more typical RSD than that. And each criticism, even though they're individually pretty mild, just seems to make him act more recklessly during A1P1, like he's trying to show that actually he's a badass and Owen just worries too much. Again, very RSD.

The thing about RSD is that- especially when you don't know you have it- sometimes your first impulse is to get furious. Not annoyed. Not irritated. But like blood pulsing in your ears, seeing red kind of furious. Your heart rate elevates. It's like your body goes into fight or flight, and more often than not your body is going to pick fight. And because ADHD is a lifelong thing, unless you're getting treatment or at least a diagnosis and information, you literally have no concept that this is not how other people react emotionally, so you justify your own behavior because you truly do not understand that this isn't normal (ask me how I know hahahaaa)

As much as we love them, and as much as I truly believe they loved each other, they probably got into a fair few fistfights over the years. These are two men who are accustomed to violence. Who are very good at violence. Who have a flirty torture scene and then tell the guy whose knees Owen just shot out that "you've just been used for sport" (Owen), and "I hope you had fun- I know we sure did" (Curt).

To me, pre-fall Curt seems like the type to put Owen down a lot with relatively minor digs "as a joke" (aka he is bad with feelings), and to some degree it doesn't bother Owen that much because that's just how they are. They banter. But sometimes, maybe when Owen is tired or feeling particularly sensitive that day, he'll go straight for the jugular- zero in on the thing Curt is most sensitive about. With Curt its death by a thousand cuts, with Owen its a laser guided missle.

I've talked about this before too, but I think that by the time we get to A1P1 Curt probably already has a bit of a drinking problem. After the fall, drinking is just how he manages to survive his grief. But I think before the fall he could get miserable and sour and petty while drunk, take out his insecurities on the people around him, and probably on occasion just start fights because he's bored and will take any stimulation he can get.

I don't think this is just a thing he does with Owen either, I think this has probably been a problem for him his whole life. He feels things very close to the surface. He is very emotional, which is a thing you're not allowed to be as a man, as a boy/teen/man in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and a thing that is very dangerous if you are a gay man during this time period.

He also has a big fucking ego. During the 54 Below concert spoken intros they describe what happens in A1P1 as "when these two spies are together they are gay and unstoppable- until Curt's ego gets in the way." And I think a big part of that ego is wrapped up in his performance of his gender. That if he's the very best at this extremely hypermasculine profession then nobody will notice any of the stereotypically feminine traits he has, no one will think he is actually sensitive and tender-hearted and more vulnerable than he appears. He thinks that performing stereotypical 1950s masculinity will insulate him from anyone ever finding out his secret- that he likes men, that he's in love with a man.

Also, ADHD can make you very impatient, easily bored, and Jesus let me tell you I know from experience that when an ADHDer gets too bored for too long, they get irritated. At everything, at nothing. So the combination of these factors makes me think that he probably was the kind of kid to get into scraps (especially at any suggestion that he was not masculine enough), the kind of adult who felt too much and got it out with aggression. He was a brawler. Spying helped focus his aggression. He got to still have it, but he got to feel like it was serving a noble purpose.

I do also think that, even if he gave Owen a lot of shit (particularly for the crime of not being American), if someone insulted Owen in front of him, or if one of their enemies hurt Owen, I fully believe Curt would go full-on berserker mode to defend Owen. So it isn't entirely a negative thing. He can utilize his anger and violence to protect people he loves too.