i love your broken Makarov au i want to print it out and hug it and give it a little kiss.
i think it would be interesting if Makarov is so traumatized he age regresses. in the back of his mind he knows he's 40 ish (the age i hc him to be) and feels greatly embarrassed but he can't stop it. he picks at his cuticles whenever he's anxious, a habit he's long since kicked. he sees his tattoos in the mirror and finds them scary. he jumps when someone closes doors loudly because it reminds him of his parents slamming doors when they argued. he's particularly scared of Price because Price gives off dad energy and Makarov's father was extremely controlling so whenever Makarov sees Price he stands up, posture rigid, never speaking unless spoken to and using one word answers when Price asks him questions. one time, Ghost and Gaz got into a heated argument in front of Makarov's cell (probably on what they should do with him) when they hear whispering from the cell; it's Makarov, curled in a dark corner, quietly chanting Orthodox prayers in Russian to comfort himself. he asks, in a little voice, for books on astronomy and botany and world history and, to the surprise of the 141, fictional books he loved as a kid that brought him comfort. he also loved to draw as a kid and asks for art materials. he hasn't drawn anything since he joined the Russian army. he's not a fantastic artist but he's having fun. the 141 find it unnerving to see Makarov, world's most dangerous terrorist, a ruthless killer, smile and hum to himself as he draws a slightly misshapen bird. Laswell takes advantage of this by asking Soap to spend time drawing with Makarov to get intel. Makarov knows Soap is trying to get him to spill something, but in the moment his child self is happy to have a friend. maybe because he feels safe he begins to return to a semblance of his normal self and manipulates the conversation without Soap noticing, all while trying to draw a strange-looking wolf.
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Hehehe :3 I'm really glad you like it
I have been meaning to do more with it, I know another anon really liked it and had ideas for it too, I've just been stuck with my RDR2 hyperfix lately lol. But the au is held close to my heart, trust me. Ignore the fact that I barely remember what I wrote for it /silly
I REALLY like that idea for this
I feel like, yeah, Makarov's mind has regressed a lot. I think it's a mix of age regression and some form of pet regression. I can imagine there was a lot of dehumanisation involved in his torture, so some part of his brain has kind of, taken that to heart. Which, I mean, in part I think Makarov has never truly seen himself as human, but this definitely made it worse. More noticeable.
I can imagine he acts a mix of a scared, hurt child and a beaten dog. He's suspicious of everyone and everything, he begs constantly for forgiveness, mercy, protection, at least towards the start of his "recovery". I think, he does accept and find solace in simpler more childish things, but he still has that kind of, vigilance about him. Awareness that it can be taken away at any moment, fear of being hurt again. I don't think he'd ever manage to relax around the 141, even in the way he is.
The 141 themselves, I can imagine them struggling a lot with this. Price is insistent they take advantage of the state he is in, use the childishness and the fear to get information out of him. I can imagine that Ghost has issues with it, he cannot stand seeing someone act so child-like and hurt, not because it's "embarrassing" or whatever, but because it reminds him of himself when he was a child. However, Ghost is obedient, to Price at least, so he doesn't protest. Gaz and Soap are perhaps the only two that would stirr up issues but I can't decide who is on what side....
Makarov definitely feels more comfortable speaking in Russian in his current state, but I feel he would push himself to speak English when it came to asking them for things or begging or whatever. If he wants them to understand him, he'll ensure they do, but sometimes I feel maybe he loses it. He doesn't remember where he is anymore, he finds himself back in that place, with those chains on him, crying and screaming in pain and fear, no one there to help. In those moments English escapes him and I feel the language barrier only makes it harder for the 141 to try and help him or to get any information from him at all.
I also feel the more he recovers the more he resents them. At first, he may cling to them, they're his saviours, without them he'd be dead and Makarov is a fool but not that much of a fool. The clingyness comes from a mix of his traumatized brain just like, attaching to the first perceived bits of kindness he gets in forever, and his logical need for survival. The knowledge that if he acts all docile they'll be more likely to keep him alive. Though, when he recovers, IF he recovers, he'll definitely hate that they ever saw him that way, he'll see through any plans to get information from him and I wouldn't put it past him to purposely give them bad information or to even give them the right information but too late for them to do anything about it (such as the location of an attack planned but days after it's already happened). I think, if he ever recovered enough and managed to escape, he would try to kill them twice as hard. No one who's ever seen him in that way should be alive to tell the tale of it, in his mind anyways.
God, sorry I have a lot of ideas for this and I'm aware they might contradict eachother because I can see this going many different ways. Also this may make no sense because I am an eepy guy
