So, like many people, I love to put my comfort characters through The Terrors TM,and my new obsession is putting Troy through The Terrors.
Um so like…here’s a list of some of The Terrors (also some Situations TM) I like to put Troy in
TW- death, child abuse, SH, rape, chronic illness.
Dead Mom- I know in Role Model Troy’s mom is very much alive and they do have a pretty good relationship, but like…dead mom just really helps to add to the next Terror…
Abusive Dad- again in the story Curtis is definitely abusing Troy in some way (we just never will be able to understand the scope bc it’s Troy), but I lowkey just like making it worse, sorry Troy
Past self-harm issues- now I don’t think in the main story he would experience this, but I do think Troy would in his teens/year twenties when he’s still with Toronto. This could be mainly bc of his self-worth issues and him thinking he deserves it (which could possibly cause a relapse when he is in Ottawa?), but I think it could also be in part a control thing? Or I could also see it in a way that it’s like a release thing. Idk if that makes sense tho (also like not to get like morbid but I think he would cut or scratch up his skin to the point where he is bleeding, exercising to the point of collapse, and sometimes purposefully not eat even when he knows he should(like after a tough practice or game))
Give him (bad) siblings- okay, I should be clear when I say ‘bad’ I don’t think it’s a situation like Ilya and Alexi, where Alexi is just a bad brother in the way he is intentionally abusive and manipulative of Ilya. Instead, I think his siblings would be bad in the sense that they unintentionally gave Troy a lot of his bad habits. Especially if they are older than Troy but could also apply to younger siblings.
Rape Victim- This is something that I am always a little unsure about how to approach. I think there are multiple people in his life who maybe could be responsible for violating him. In some fics (like one) I've seen people bring up the idea of a past coach. I dont think he raped Troy, but maybe he did molest Troy and Troy tried to tell his dad and was told he was being stupid and was being horrible for trying to ruin that poor mans life. I also can see Troy and Adrians relationship coming to the point where this happens. The last person I can see is Dallas Kent (shocker) but that is a whole other can of worms.
Chronic Illness- now there is a balancing act with this idea since Troy can have health issues but they can’t be so bad that it stops him from playing all together. I could see Troy struggling with migraines, type 1 diabetes, and epilepsy as well as possibly joint issues and POTS but those ones I’m not as certain.
Troy 100% had a stim that started as chewing his finger nails, and when Curtis made him stop that it went to picking at his nails until he bled, and when Curtis made him stop that he just resorted to scratching at his skin to get that ‘itch’ to go away. It worked until it didn’t, and he began to draw blood but it was fine because he wasn’t using a knife and he didn’t want to die, so it wasn’t self harm obviously and he was fine.
Except he started doing this whenever he was stressed and whenever he thought he failed, not just to ground himself. He learned to associate the pain to grounding himself, so when he was upset with himself, either after a bad game or after a fight with his dad, he would start doing things more extreme. Pulling at his hair, hitting his skin until it turned red ‘to release his anger’, exercise until he nearly collapsed because he needed to get better, etc. In his mind he was doing this to calm himself and make himself better, so he doesn’t realize when eventually in Toronto it shifts to him thinking of himself as a failure and deserving the pain when he starts his homophobic macho persona. He would’ve gotten more reckless and less caring about his safety as well, drinking to blacking out and getting into more scrums in games the year before he got traded when his relationship with Adrian is at its roughest and things with his internalized homophobia are boiling over.
It isn’t until he goes to Ottawa and meets Harris, falls in love properly and finds a home that he starts to realize what he’s doing. It isn’t until he wants to scratch himself until he bleeds and run until his lungs nearly collapse and then drink on an empty stomach and reminisce about his time with Dallas after getting into a fight with Harris and feeling like a fuck up that he realizes something’s wrong. It isn’t until a few weeks later that he breaks down about this to Harris that he finally gets help privately, and it isn’t more a few more weeks after that that he admits to others he’s been struggling.
Ilya pulls him into the biggest hug, and with tears in his eyes tells him he’s proud of him for choosing to get help.
Anyways yeah, Troy defiantly goes through the horrors.
