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mania-sama · 1 year ago

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A Look into Mental Health: Jujutsu Kaisen Analysis

"Being a child is not a sin." (Nanami Kento, Jujutsu Kaisen)

With the release of Chapter 251, I've seen many horrible takes from dudebros saying that Megumi has "sold" the team. This makes me unreasonably angry because of course it does, so obviously my next plan of action is to take all of my hour-long rants about the mental health of JJK characters and put it here, where said dudebros will never see my (correct) analysis in their entire life. Oh well.

One thing Gege is really, really good at is creating believable, undeniably human, and complex characters. Every character has a different set of motivations, beliefs, ideals, and especially mental states. The constant theme of Jujutsu Kiasen has been "Strength vs Weakness". While the clearest interpretation can be seen through the physical attributes of the characters (Gojo being the strongest sorcerer of his time due to his abilities, and Miwa being one of the weakest, again, due to her abilities), it is also directly applied to the mental strength of characters. No two characters are able to withstand the same trauma and come out the exact same, just as no two real people can process the same trauma. Not only is it a result of nature, as people are genetically different and therefore process information differently, but a product of nurture - in other words, character motivation and environment.

This is where we come to the current state of the manga, Chapter 251. The fated Yuuji vs Megumi debate. I keep seeing people wildly misunderstanding these two, and why it's so important that Megumi isn't standing up to fight, why he isn't able to handle his trauma, when Yuuji can.

Gege writes phenomenal characters. And I want to express just how well done they are, making Jujutsu Kaisen actually kind of deserve its popularity, because some people only care about power scaling. I'm going to touch on Megumi last, because understanding all of the other characters' makes his visible struggle that much more impactful.

1. Geto Suguru

I want to start this mental health analysis with Geto. He is the best representation of depression I've ever seen in Shonen. It doesn't take a hundred chapters to showcase a character's downfall. It doesn't take a hundred significant events to cause a character to break down. Gege shows the best, realistic mental breakdown using only a handful of chapters, and still makes it slow and painful.

Depression can start because of a big event, but it doesn't take more for it to worsen. Untreated, depression runs a vicious course that eats a person through slowly but effectively. It isn't one screaming session, hands clutched over the head and cursing God and the world. It's everything piled onto each other. It's coming to the end of that pile and realizing that nothing will ever change.

This is Geto Suguru's story. He has a big event: the fight with Toji and the failure to save Riko. But his mental health journey was fated to decline, even without the fight and failure. The root issue of his depression came from his ability: Cursed Spirit Manipulation. As long as he kept devouring the embodiment of every vile, human emotion, the more he would lose himself to that vileness. He wasn't changing anything; he couldn't help but continue to swim in negativity because that's all he could do.

Gege wasn't making a commentary on Geto's ability. He was talking about people, as they are, and how staying in a bad situation will not always make you stronger. It can, and most likely will, make you worse. A direct comparison to the sixteen-year-old Geto would be a sixteen-year-old at school, surrounded by people who bully and pick on them with harsh words. The kid will eventually consume all of that bullying, all of that negativity, into their being, because there is simply nowhere else to go. School is mandatory; they can't just leave. They eventually feel isolated, with all that vileness piled on. Even if they have friends, those people could never understand what it's like to put up with humiliation and cruelty day after day.

It's not rational to push away a support system, but who said human beings are always rational? People make mistakes. They don't make the right decisions. Geto didn't. He saw someone offer him a chance at change, a possible light at the top of his pile and twisted it to match his overwhelming negativity. He left and swore to destroy the world that made him the way he is, just as that bullied child may turn away from school and society in whatever form that may take.

I want to touch on the physical aspects of Geto's depression, too. I noted this in a previous analysis I did on him (his character is just that amazing, what can I say?), but Gege knew that the mind can't be affected alone. Geto was drawn with deep eyebags, a nod to an inability to sleep or needing to sleep all the time. Depression makes you tired all the time. Everything becomes difficult. He sits with his back hunched, resting his weight on his knees, like sitting upright is too hard. When someone speaks to him, he blinks and takes a second too long to look over or respond, like speaking takes too much energy. To me, it even looked like he was becoming thinner. It's extremely difficult to maintain a schedule of exercise and mealtimes when your mind is fighting an active war against itself.

Again, a beautiful representation of depression. Geto means a lot to me in this aspect.

2. Gojo Satoru

In comparison to Geto, Gojo's horrible mental health is a lot subtler. Depression isn't the correct term, but you don't have to be depressed to be sad. Sadness is his stagnant state; he has moments of bliss, goals to work towards, a reason to keep going, to continue living, to continue chasing the sun over the horizon, but he does return to the same place he is always at when the lights turn off and he's painfully reminded of this one fact: he is isolated.

All of Gojo's problems start and end with isolation. From the moment he was born, everyone knew he was different. He knew he was different. Through glimpses of his childhood and honestly reading between the lines, it's obvious he never played with kids his age. People don't just develop a superiority complex with their only drive to be better than literally everyone else for no other reason than to get better. It comes from somewhere, and in Gojo's case, it's from his young childhood. It seriously messed him up; even now, he can't shake the lesson that "Strength is the only way to success and happiness".

This is what made Geto so important. Geto was somebody who could share the burden of being the strongest. Geto was someone his age who understood him in a way Shoko could not, though they both were able to see Gojo beyond his capabilities as a Jujutsu sorcerer. Gojo then had somebody to base his moral principles on. Because he couldn't connect with anybody else, he had no basis other than strength. Geto taught him why it was important for the strong to protect the weak.

Then everything went wrong. Gojo became isolated again in his strength and lost the only person who could plausibly stand with him. "Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?" Gojo was young, then, and fresh-faced into his newfound godhood. He didn't kill Geto in that moment because he wanted to deny the claim that he is nothing without his strength, that he isn't as shallow as he was raised to be.

But he knew better. He grew older, he killed his best friend, and he realized that he was nothing without his strength. He never got over Geto. In order to cope with the guilt of being unable to save him when he left, he adopted a whole kid, thinking that if he wasn't strong enough to save Geto, maybe he could save Megumi. But there it is all over again - he never broke from the cycle of strength defining his worth. Saving Megumi would define his strength, right? It would prove Geto wrong, right? He raised Megumi under the same logic (that the only way to save his sister is to be strong), only ridding the boy of the crushing isolation.

In this way, Gojo isn't mentally weak. He didn't abandon society and everyone who loved him, instead choosing to hone the trauma of his isolated childhood into a weapon and teach the next generation to be better than himself. He isn't depressed, but he isn't happy. You can't be happy if you're alone all of the time. He hoped Megumi could be someone to stand by him, but in the end, he failed to save Megumi. His strength couldn't save him, just as it couldn't save Geto.

He isn't mentally strong. He isn't weak, either. He is horribly, painfully average. He's not weak enough to be saved, but not strong enough to save others. His childhood plagues him, but not to the point where it prevents him from living. He killed Geto but was unable to bury the body. Gojo is everything he never wanted to be.

As it turns out, strength can't buy you happiness. Gojo may have understood that, but he couldn't abandon it, even to the bitter end. Just as a human struggles to shed their conditioning. Not everyone can break the cycle, but we are always trying our best to work with what we've been dealt.

3. Okkotsu Yuuta

I'm putting Yuuta in between Gojo & Geto and Itadori & Megumi because he is, in a way, a bridge between the two. Geto and Gojo have lived their lives; their stories are complete and ended in tragedy. Itadori and Megumi's are not. They are still actively struggling and fighting their physical and mental battles; their stories have yet to be completed.

Yuuta's story isn't technically completed (ignoring everything that happened in the recent chapter with him for the sake of MY mental health), he is still a success story. He is the average protagonist who started from the bottom and ended up at the top. Only he, as Gege has done time and time again, has a slightly stronger focus on mental health than most other Shonen. He is success where Gojo & Geto failed, and the success that Itadori & Megumi are narratively striving for.

At the beginning, Yuuta was depressed and suicidal. He was bullied at school and involuntarily hurting others. Instead of becoming resentful of the world, he pushed all of the vileness inward. His guilt caused him to try to take his life, presumably multiple times, but Rika stopped him before he could succeed. His life was effectively out of his hands; he felt powerless with all of the bodies stacking around him, and he couldn't atone for "his" actions.

His mental health, as it was, was in shambles. Gojo then offered him a way forward. Yuuta's mental health did not improve overnight. It was when he made friends at Jujutsu High, and developed a support system, that he was able to relieve his anxiety and realize that life is not so bad after all. That all of this pain and suffering and loss - it will pass.

The most important thing to acknowledge when it comes to Yuuta is the sheer fact that he was not alone, nor did he allow himself to be alone. Unlike Gojo, who still had Shoko and Nanami after Geto left but refused to connect with them, Yuuta allowed himself to get close to those around him. They didn't know the suffering he'd undergone for so many years. They didn't know what it was like to be him, but that was okay. He knew that they had empathy, that even though they could never experience his life, they could still be there for him now when he falls.

When given the opportunity to surrender, Yuuta stands in the face of one Geto Suguru and swears to protect his friends and fight with Rika. He's so far removed from the boy who tried to kill himself at the beginning of the manga, and that's because he let himself be changed. He did not succumb. He had friends, he knew. People that would miss him if he left, and people whom he would regret leaving.

This stays consistent with his character. He doesn't let himself become isolated in his strength or his experiences. He's much stronger than everyone else in the room, he's a special grade and he knows that, but he still treats everyone like they are equals. Like they are his friends, like they are people who could share this burden of existence with him. This is something that Gojo couldn't accomplish, which lends to the fact that Gojo had a very off-hand teaching method when it came to mentoring Yuuta. Instead of influencing him under this idea of strength conquers all, he let Yuuta develop far away from the ideals of the Japanese Jujutsu Society.

And, in the end, the fact of him being physically strong - a special-grade sorcerer from the get-go - never helped him in his mental health. In fact, it made him miserable until he learned to get a handle on Rika. His winning or losing that fight with Geto wasn't the point of his character, it was reckoning with the fact that he is okay now. That he can embrace the ugly part of him with dignity instead of guilt.

4. Itadori Yuuji

Itadori's entire character is that he has an unbreakable spirit. As the only one who can bear the soul of Sukuna, he started off like Yuuta, only on the opposite end of the mental health spectrum. When we first see him, he's happy, spending his afternoons with the Occult Club and watching movies.

... What happened?

Like Geto, everything piled on very slowly. So slow that I'm not even sure he felt the true effects of everything he experienced up until the fall of Shibuya. It starts with the death of grandfather, whose parting words "Just save as many people as you can" haunt him even now during the final fight with Sukuna. He was never given time to properly grieve his grandfather, just as he never had time to grieve the brother curses, Junpei, Nanami, Nobara, Gojo, Higurama. At the end of it all, when the fighting is over, I have to wonder what will become of the boy that realizes he's lost most of the people he loved.

The one time he did try to process it, when he realized that he couldn't control Sukuna, was when he broke down in Shibuya. Sukuna leveled an entire city. For the boy who never wanted to kill another human being for fear of devaluing life, the weight of his weakness killing thousands was crushing. Then Nanami died. Nobara died (still hanging onto that unknown status but I digress). Both are right in front of him, and powerless to prevent Mahito from disintegrating their bodies. So, obviously, Itadori broke down. The boy with the unshakeable spirit, the only person who could contain the King of Curses, has his psyche completely shattered.

He laid on the ground, and he wouldn't have gotten back up if there wasn't somebody to help him, to be there with him. Todo pulled him back together, stitched back up the broken into somebody who has allies and people to fight for. Itadori has the success that Yuuta had, only Itadori did not come out of it with better mental health.

After the breakdown, his unshakeable spirit was nothing more than the will to keep fighting. He cares little for himself, and he tries to distance himself from people to prevent them from dying from his cursed hands. He is jumping, quickly, down the same rabbit hole that Geto fell down. One big event, and they realize just how tall the pile already is, and that it will never stop growing. Unlike Geto, however, he continues to get overbearing support from those around him. Against his will. He can't push them away, for they refuse to leave his side. Yuuta, Choso, Megumi, even Higurama. They won't let him fall. This makes him better off than someone alone, in a sense. He can withstand his trauma when others may not.

Even so, even so, there is only so much support, the lack of self-isolation, can do when the traumas keep actively repeating. When he says that he will gladly die to defeat Sukuna, it is not said with the same tone that another Shonen protagonist would say it. Take Naruto for example. If he were to go into a battle to protect, say, Sasuke, he would scream, "I'll die to protect him." We understand that his willpower is stronger than his self-preservation, but we don't get the idea that he actively wants to die. He'll die if he has to. Now, Itadori says the same thing, but about saving Megumi. He says, "I'll gladly die." There is something different. His willpower is leaps and bounds stronger than his self-preservation, but that's not only it. There is an undercurrent of severe suicidal ideation prevalent in Itadori's tone. It's not that he will die to win, it's that a part of him wants for this to be his final fight. For it all to be over. To save Megumi, then atone for the sin of being too weak to save Shibuya, or being unable to stop the Culling Games, or letting Megumi get hurt when all he wanted was to keep him safe.

I'd call it more along the lines of passive suicidal ideation. He doesn't plan to kill himself, but what would it mean for him to go into dangerous situations without protection? What would it mean for him to succumb to his wounds after he wakes Megumi's soul and kills Sukuna? To not even try to seek medical attention? He's guilty. He believes everything that happened in Shibuya and after is his fault. When faced with the executioner's sword, he was ready to die for his sins, if not for the goal of ending the Games. There is a fine line between willing to die for those you love versus wanting to die for those you love.

Right now, Itadori is fighting to save one person, like his grandfather said. He is not fighting to survive. And that's what people fail to understand about Itadori when they compare him to the other members of the cast. These power-scaling dudebros don't understand that their favorite OP main character has fallen apart at the seams, that his unshakeable spirit to save people doesn't include himself.

5. Fushiguro Megumi

Here we finally come to the question: Why can Itadori take it when Megumi can't? There is a very similar quote that you probably think of whenever you hear this question asked. It's from The Outsiders: "Dally is tougher than I am. Why can I take it when Dally can't?" The answer to this question that Ponyboy gives is the same we can attribute to Megumi. "And then I knew. Johnny was the only thing Dally loved. And now Johnny was gone."

The entire reason Megumi became a Jujutsu sorcerer was to protect his sister. When he was five years old and probably too young to understand most of the words Gojo said, he accepted the offer of training to become a sorcerer in exchange for Tsumiki's happiness. Every day, he fought to protect her. He only had one goal in entering the Culling Games: to prevent Tsumiki from having to participate.

It's easy to attribute Megumi's constant attempts at summoning Mahoraga to a lack of will to live - suicidal ideation, the same that Itadori now experiences. On one hand, I do understand that he has a fundamental lack of care for his own life, but on the other, I don't think that he intends to throw it all away every single time. He just didn't know any better. Ignorance can lead to death as easily as intentionally seeking it out. That's why he changes his habit after Gojo gives him a lesson in risking death versus dying to win; Megumi still has someone to live for, after all.

Megumi's mental health was already rocky from the start. Not that it was in shambles like Yuuta, but he wasn't fully stable. Like a lot of teenagers, he's moody, somewhat reclusive, and only really likes one or two people maximum. Teenagers aren't known for their sunshine mental health anyway.

Megumi was given time to grieve Itadori after he first died. This trauma of losing him in front of his eyes stuck with him, but he was allowed a grace period of two months to grieve with Nobara. He experienced Shibuya, too, but he still had that one important person to protect. His mental health was alright at this point, all things considered. As long as his sister was alive, he would be fine.

Sukuna knew this. So Sukuna killed Tsumiki using only the Ten Shadows Teqchnique. The one person Megumi spent his whole life dedicated to, was killed by his own cursed technique, his own failure to suppress Sukuna.

In the void of his soul, Megumi was alone. Truly, utterly alone. The only person nearby was Sukuna, the murderer of his sister, the murderer of thousands upon thousands of people. He drowned in the ceremonial bath of crushed curses to hold his soul down in the depths of despair, literally drenched in all of the vileness the world has to offer. Sukuna killed Gojo using Mahoraga's adaption ability, and before that, Megumi was forced to take several of Gojo's mind-altering domain expansions.

Already, he had given up. He gave up when his sister died, but the rest ground a pointed spur into his neck. When Itadori shakes his soul, Megumi is repeating, "That's enough." He was at the end of his rope a long time ago. What more is there to keep living for? He doesn't want to live with the blood of his sister, the blood of the man who practically raised him, and the blood of countless others drenching his hands.

Sukuna killed all of these people, not Megumi. But then, Sukuna killed of those people in Shibuya, not Itadori. Why can Itadori take it? Why can he keep fighting when Megumi lays broken on the ground? Itadori wasn't alone. And Megumi has never been known for his unshakeable spirit. That is the one thing that Itadori can hold over everybody else, the one trait that everyone admires. He was born to shoulder the burden of the world. Megumi wasn't. Megumi wants to die. He is not passively suicidal, for he has no goals left to complete, a plan to die within the body no longer inhabited alone. He is suicidal. He would drive a stake through his heart if it meant relieving his pain. He doesn't want to do it anymore. He's had enough.

And Itadori was in this position once, too? Perhaps not as directly, but he was there. Here is the moment that the protagonist gives the motivating speech to will someone to keep fighting, that life is worth living. I realized today that this is not something Itadori has done yet. He hasn't had a grand speech that's not been about his own willpower. He's never encouraged someone else to keep living in the way that you would expect from the main character. This is his moment, I suppose. He needs to be the person for Megumi that Todo was for him. He has to show Megumi that he isn't alone.

He needs to save Megumi when, all those years ago, Gojo couldn't save Geto.

I don't think some of this fanbase understands how horrible Gege has to be at writing if he just. Let Megumi get up to fight in Chapter 251. All this time, he has shown how Megumi has been defeated. He showed him crumbled on the ground, unmoving. It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the measures Sukuna took to ensnare Megumi's soul worked. Megumi is suicidal after the people he loves have all died because of his technique. God forbid a sixteen-year-old is unable to cope with his trauma alone.

Honorable Mentions:

There are a lot more characters in this story that represent/show mental illness that I didn't go into depth on but are worth mentioning. It was easier to only talk about the major characters since we spend so much time with them and I can fully flesh out everything that should/can be said about them. Anyway, here are a few more that are notably well-written in their mental struggles:

Yoshino Junpei. His story arc follows very similarly to Geto, except he is the bullied student I was making a reference to. Depressed, alone with a mother whose habits he can't stand, he turned to someone he thought could provide him a better life. Interestingly, he is a good representation of the type of children that tend to be groomed. That's surely what happened to him. Mahito used him, then discarded him for his own gains.

Ieiri Shoko. Her main struggle can be seen through her smoking habits. She's been through a lot, lost so many people, and has to keep healing sorcerers only for them to die. Eventually, she was able to come to terms with this. She kicked her smoking habit at the same time she kicked the vicious mental cycle of caring too much about the patient on her table. It's no wonder she picked up a cigarette, for the first time in a while, when Geto led the phantom parade.

Zenin Maki. She works as a very good contrast to Megumi. They both lost their sisters, the people they loved the most, but she turned all of her grief to killing the Zenin clan and gaining Heavenly Restriction. But this, this is because she could do so. There is simply nothing Megumi can do as a soul trapped in his own body. Her grief made her stronger, while for most, it made them weaker.

Inumaki Toge. He isn't seen a lot, but his story is ultimately quite compelling. A boy who hurt many when he was young. He turned his guilt into kindness, a will to protect. He tends a garden to raise plants healthily, for God's sake. He's one of the examples that shows Yuuta that your past actions don't define you, but instead, what you choose to do going forward.

I am not proofreading any of this before I post it. Sorry if it is borderline unreadable with spelling / grammatical errors.

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obsessivelysweet · 11 months ago

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Our Lovely Scorched Sun

Part 1

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Hello! Long time no see lol. I have just been busy with work and life, honestly, but I got some inspo and motivation, so here I am with this post. I wanted to do a different take on the SAGAU, but instead of normal creator, what if we had a presence of an Eldritch horror? Just being near us hurts them or touching our skin burns them, ya know? Like that kind of route. Reader is FemReader! Also, this is gonna be multiple parts! Also, sorry for any errors! I tried my best, hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Blood, gore, self h4rm, mental breakdowns, angst.

Story under the cut!

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You were their god, their salvation during dark times, their reason for living. When you finally descended into Teyvat, you were stunning, breathtaking even. A white flowly dress hugged your form as Teyvat softened your fall with flowers beneath you.

Your (h/c) falling around you like soft leaves, outlining your face. You were sleeping peacefully.

It was so serene.

You were beautiful even as they watched you softly fall.

Your followers were kneeling before you when you awoke from your slumber. Everything was hazy as your eyelashes fluttered open, the sun blazing onto your face, the gentle breeze softly pecking your cheek, and the soft whispers of people felt so surreal yet warm.

You looked around to see the characters you loved so dearly look at you with admiration, waiting for you to speak. It was truly a blessing to witness their creator finally here, with them, about to be worshiped by them.

However, this serene scene soon turned into cries of pain. Everything happened so fast. One moment, the characters you loved reaching to help you up, and the next moment, they recoil back screaming in agony as their skin blisters from something boiling hot.

It wasn't just their skin, either. It was their eyes as they looked upon you. It felt like they were staring into the sun, like daggers stabbing their eyes countless of time. Eyes tearing up from the intense pain, bloodshot even.

However, amongst the chaos, your followers still tried to comfort you as you began to panic as the scene got worse. They just wanted to help and make sure you were safe. However, even those followers got burned. Without thinking you got up and ran away, scared from what was happening, you didn't know if it was you causeing it or something else, but your mind said to run. Your followers screamed your name to come back, and even as they were screaming cries of pain, they still wanted their creator with them.

Months passed, and everyone learned how to live with their creator. You in the lavish palace they made for you, adorned with the most finest furnishings, colors, and flowers. You don't see any of the characters or be close to them at all. You have to stay in the palace, almost like a bird in a cage, alone. The only company you have is the sky and the breeze of the winds outside from your windows.

You gotten used to the quiet halls and the echoing audeince chamber. This was the only way for everyone to be safe.

You kept saying to yourself, "No more pain or screams from anyone."

When its time to eat, get new supplies, or get letters they wrote, a trusted follower will come inside your abode. The follower will put everything where its meant to be, while you are on the other side far from them, so your presnce doesnt effect them. This took a while to figure out, but if you're a good distance from them, they're safe.

Once you hear a bell ring, that's your cue that you can go back. This is how yall coexist, their creator safe and sound, and your followers are safe and sound. However, no one was truly happy in this situation. You were lonely, touch starved for human interaction, while your follwoers wanted to be closer to you, help you, be by your side..to fully worship you. It was years when you finally snapped, sick of being truly alone, you wanted to end it all. You were tired of just existing.

God, you were tired.

You started thrashing around your room, throwing plants, pillows, perfums, candles, anything really you can get your hands on. Suddenly, you hear a crash, and like a sign, you look towards the noise only to find your vanity mirror. It was broken, some pieces fell onto the marble floor, while the rest stayed in the mirror. Walking towards it, you saw your reflection, your e/c orbs looking back at you. The night gown you were wearing was a mess, hair in disarray, puffy eyes shown hours of crying. This is you, as pretty as you were, you were disgusted at yourself. And it didn't help that this reflection of you was broken. Jagged pieces showed yourself as broken. Which is how you felt truly at this moment. You were exhausted, angry, and humiliated at the face, looking back at you.

This body of yours was like posion to others, turning and twisting their faces into agnoy. That's when something inside of you erupted, sending your hands to your face. Tearing at your skin, you didn't feel any pain, too high on the aderaline to notice. Your nails dig deeper into your flesh, wishing this body, this flesh of yours didn't exist. Your once clean, beautiful nails were now coated in golden blood.

This was your fault.

If only you didn't have this body, you would be normal, be able to be with everyone. After what seemed like forever, the pain finally hit you, your raw flesh burned, golden hot liquid staining your gown, pooling at the ground. You gotten so deep that you saw bits of bone. You screamed in agony, trying not to touch your face, grabbing onto anything to squeeze your hands onto, to lessen the pain. While in this panic state, you saw your reflection one more time. This time, though, it was grotesque and feral. You looked non-human, almost like some kind of monster. Even though you saw the raw flesh, the bone, the veins, your mind told you this was your true form. The beauty you had earlier was an illusion, which made you sob from the realization. Soon, everything was turning hazy as your body began to shut down. It was all too much for you. With a loud thud, your body fell onto the same marble floor that was covered with your golden blood.

You awoke to the birds chirping outside, the soft morning light hitting your face to wake you. You slowly opened your eyes to see the marbled floor and the dry blood before you. In the same spot when you first fell, slowly getting up, you looked around to see the mess you made. Instinctively grabbing at your hair as pain surges from your head, the fall being to blame, you slowly pulled away to look around. You were still a bit hazy from sleep, so it was somewhat hard to focus on what's in front of you.

You were about to rub your eyes to wake up some more. However, you tensed up when you remembered about last night. Unfortunately, you realized too late, fearing for the buring sensation to come back, you closed your eyes to brace for the pain.

However, to your surprise, you didn't feel any burning or raw flesh in that matter either. Just your normal skin, like if none of what happened last night even transpired. It took you a second to snap out of your shock state to look at yourself in the mirror. Like a moth to a flame, you cling to the mirror, scanning your features from the jagged pieces.

You couldn't believe it.

There was no blood, no bone, no raw flesh being exposed.

It was fine.

You were fine.

You looked beautiful.

The only notion that something happened last night was the blood, the mess of the room, and the scars on your face. Like a reminder that you are stuck as you are, in this body, with this face, and with this flesh. Forever to be alone living like this.

Forever.

#genshin cult au #genshin sagau #genshin x reader #genshin self aware #genshin yandere #genshin x female reader #genshinimpact x reader #trying my best #genshin brainrot #sagau genshin #sagau #cult au #genshin men x reader #genshin cult x reader #genshin sagau x reader

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class1akids · 5 months ago

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I have an unpopular opinion: I know Shoto not using his fire really held him back for a long while, but honestly atp I think that it’s not as big as a character flaw as others think.

Can you imagine being Shoto and being abused since you were five and it being severe enough to make you vomit with no breaks to play, being separated from the rest of your family and watching your older siblings play from a window, witness your mother get slapped around by your father and eventually having a breakdown that leaves you with a massive facial scar and her gone from your life for a decade, peers at your school seeing you as Endeavor’s son and project how they view him onto you (Inasa for example), and having everything controlled to even your diet?

How much dehumanization do you think Shoto went through just from his father? Who could he have turned to outside the family without them just throwing him back towards his abusive home? Barely anyone seemed to care when Endeavor’s crimes got exposed when he wanted to but didn’t take responsibility. What would have happened if Shoto (or anyone in the family) tried to get outside help with Endeavor still trying to beat Shoto into his “masterpiece”?

I think that him repressing his quirk was probably the only way he could have gotten any control back into his life. Was it unhealthy and bad for him in the long run for his goals? Yes. However, it was probably one the few mental lifelines he had at the time, and that and his love for All Might was probably the only things that kept him going.

Maybe with how the story ended and how spin off material seems to prefer Endeavor over Shoto, I feel more sympathetic for Earlyroki. Lashing out at others wasn’t great, but Shoto continued to have such a heavy burden throughout the story with very little reward in comparison, especially with a good chunk of other characters being used to either tease or praise Endeavor. He didn’t get any comfort from his family and he didn’t even get to cry about not being able to save his brother even when he tried his damnest to keep him alive. His family he tried to connect to became permanently broken, and although I’m glad he was about to love and appreciate his class, I think a lot of adults failed him- especially when no one stood next to him besides his father who caused Touya to become a villain and Hawks who we know where his loyalties lie.

It’s a miracle he didn’t end up a villain, and he was close to toeing that line if it weren’t from Midoriya and his mother’s words that stopped him, made him rethink, and work to become who he wants to be.

I think Shouto repressing his fire and pushing his ice to its absolute limits first actually did serve his endgame. It was part of the narrative about "taking the long way around".

After the Sport Festival, the story focused a lot on Shouto's fire development, and made it clear that by not developing his fire, he was on the back foot. But when he finally mastered flashfire, and Dabi came into the picture, it also became clear that fire was a dead-end. Fighting Touya with fire would just kill them both.

So the story did justify early Shouto in a way, who pushed his ice to its limits early. Because a Shouto who didn't resist his father and would have gone along with what Endeavor wanted, would have used ice only as a complement to fire.

But Shouto, after going the full circle comes back to his own way, comes back to ice and uses fire to be able to surpass his own output limits.

So I felt that Shouto's ultimate move did his teenage rebellion justice. The achievements of those angry, Earlyroki version of himself was absolutely needed to build his endgame move.

#c1a asks #todoroki shouto

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applebuttercringe · 7 months ago

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Arcane episode 8 immediate thoughts

-NGL this is not the direction I thought Mel was going in.

-cool that she is a magical girl though, and made of gold.

-oh it’s the girl her mom killed.

-Mel’s outfit is very fan service

-Leblanc

-this is a lot to introduce in the second to last episode

-Well that didn’t take a lot of convincing…

-Richters funeral

-Time for Viktors T-shot

-Is Ambessa gonna lecture him into living?

-Viktor Machine Herald voice!

-No Viktor you are anti war.

-Oh, so Sky is her own will, disturbed by his actions.

-Do we not see Caitlyn’s reaction to Jayce.

-Ah she thought Loris was Vander

-Caitlyn’s haircut is hot.

-Is she still with Maddie?

-Maddie knows she is about to be cheated on

-Jinx isn’t eating, she is suicidal.

-the hair down

-The Jinx pain train is brutal, this is a lot even for Arcane.

-The Jayce Mel reunion?

-If Mel is untwined with the Arcane then Jayce’s mission will be to end her as well.

-Excuse me what?

-Viktor achieved the ultimate tenderness form? Mannequin.

-Why not come as Huck?

-Well, the Polycule is back together again. This time it is a three way breakup.

-Mel knows how to do the magic at will now?

-Why not explain what you saw? It might not change anything, but he didn’t even try.

-Viktor wants his evil BF back

-Aw man. Villain Viktor. That idea sucks.

-Once again Jayce rushes to Mel lol.

-Is Viktor gonna get broken up with on the astral plane?

-Jinx is finally hearing and seeing Silco hallucinations.

-Killing is a cycle and yet in Ep 7 Vi dying ended the cycle and healed its wound?

-Doesn’t the metaphor not work for Zaun? How do they walk away. They are trapped in the mines working forced labor and banned from Piltover institutions. Is the moral to become passive? Cease to care? How do you forgive and walk away when the crimes are ongoing and inescapable?

-The hug is good

-IS JINX GOMNA KILL HERSELF?

-That’s her resolution?

-Jayce’s self made leg brace perfectly fixing his untreated wound is bullshit.

-The shoulder armor is a CHOICE Jayce.

-How did he manage to get them together? They hate each other? His proposals for peace don’t work but he can get them talking and civil from off screen? Arcane is really abandoning the Zaun v Piltover thing. Like, straight up pretending it was never happening.

-Caitlyn gasses these people like a month ago.

-Yeah, start treating the Undercity as people so you can draft them. Whatever.

-Why the emphasis on the pianist

-I knew they were gonna abandon it but this is unreal to watch.

-Sassing your gf during her mental breakdown is insane

-Caitvi sex scene in a prison cell lol

-Maybe care that this is cheating

-Freaky~

-Damn

-The Tumblrinas are gonna love this

-The Medea’s scene is good

-She can touch embers with her bare hands

-Ambessa you’ve been trying to use Hextech for magic, TF do you mean you hate magic.

-Is there a delay on Viktor saying stuff and the clones saying it? Cause that happened a while ago.

-The song. So this was real Sky all along. She just really wanted him to use the Arcane this way. If this was the intention she should have had more S1 screentime to build up their relationship.

-He is letting them kill her again

-He’s gonna become Warwick?! That is a twist

-EW THE FEET SHOT

-He’s kindred? It isn’t a mask? It’s his head?

Ok so thought: This is a fumble for me. It feels like they are abandoning all the pre established plot and just rewriting the characters into new plots and then rushing those new plots to hell and back. They aren’t finishing what they started. The Jinx pain train is disappointing. Like, more Jinx being self loathing and suicidal, cool. Likely she will have a turn around in this last episode but. IDK. Did I like the time I spent with Arcane? Yes. Is it peak anymore? No. Sorry.

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane season 2 #viktor arcane #jayce talis #arcane spoilers #arcane jinx #arcane theory #vi arcane #arcane jayce #arcane viktor #sky arcane #arcane caitvi #caitvi #arcane discussion #spoilers

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mdhwrites · 10 months ago

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Do you think Boscha was treated unfairly in the context of the show? I know you've said before what you would have wanted her characterization to be, but what do you think of her character as we have it in TOH - and do you think fan and narrative treatment lines up with this?

I'm going to ignore the fan element. Fandom is going to fandom after all. However, I can easily say where her narrative treatment went wrong in the show!

She should not have been in S3.

This is always a fun topic to me essentially because I am pro-Boscha. You ask me what her character is, the potential of it, etc. like that and I can give you reams of thoughts. However, I also said, before S2 came out and I was working on a fanfic where Boscha was quickly becoming the main character, that I didn't think Boscha should show up again. The reason is pretty simple too. TOH already had a lot of threads to pull and Boscha's narrative use was over. Honestly, Hexside was essentially was used up by then.

Boscha is a minor supporting character to the main character's love interest. Not a major supporting character, a minor one. Amity's family is MUCH more important to her character than her one bitchy friend. The only use Boscha had narratively was to both contrast how Amity was changing and to also allow Amity an antagonist to overcome as she made her way to being on the side of good. Her being a one note bully is perfect for that and exactly how she should have been written. Winging it Like Witches capitalizes on this and fulfills both of her purposes and Amity cuts Boscha out of her life so... Why are we still seeing her? She is no longer even a supporting cast member to the love interest, she is just a floating character in the background.

And in S2, we get a fine answer for that. She's essentially one of the townsfolk of Wartwood in Amphibia. Someone who can show up for a quick gag but doesn't take up too much time. We're not trying to progress her character, we're just taking advantage of the fact that she's not gone. She's a gag but it's genuinely rooted in her character unlike the one joke that King or Hooty have that we're just supposed to mock. This worked. Period.

Then S3 tries to give her an arc. Why? Well... Because it doesn't want to be a kid's show. Kid's shows after all, like Amphibia, have characters who don't have some deep backstory or brooding complexity, they're just... Fun. They're nice. They aren't complicated. Boscha, WAY too late, was made to be complicated during a shortened season so the show could claim it had one more redemption? So it could claim its shallow bully character wasn't shallow? And she takes up a good amount of time in this episode for this when you have THREE SPECIALS. The stress of the world ending isn't enough to cause Willow to lose control, she needs one more push from Boscha. We finally have to acknowledge that what Amity did was a complete dick move to her best friend and then not actually acknowledge it because Amity gets to just be morally superior instead of a decent human being to this girl having a mental breakdown. It's awkward, clunky and does NO favors to Boscha besides just kind of making her look pathetic, which is a pretty common trick in TOH for trying to redeem someone. Boscha isn't so bad because she's actually a loser and not as bad as someone else in her nearby vicinity.

Why? Why do this? Why do this TWO SEASONS after Boscha was no longer narratively useful? It is just pointless to your overall story so it should have been cut. THAT is Boscha's biggest problem in the show and if anyone told me they couldn't forgive her for adding filler to S3, I couldn't tell them they're wrong.

I love Boscha. That means I know when to let her go, something the show should have learned if they actually cared about her. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #boscha

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dndeceit · 2 months ago

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Fander Fic Rec Friday (#32)

(Canonverse Angst Stories)

Just Out of Reach by Midniteblue Canonverse (Gen) Rating: T On the outs with his family after the events of PoF, Patton is having a hard time of it. Then one morning he wakes up to a new reality where he is the single father to several very familiar children. Confused and unsettled, he does his best to fill the role he finds himself in. Notes: Some of the most subtly intense psychological horror I've read in a good while, and even the smaller elements of Patton's simple suburban life manage to hold a significant amount of menace. (There is some seemingly adversarial behavior from a few of the characters, but I promise it will all make sense by the end.)

The a feeling's not a thing you own series by Anonymous Canonverse (Gen) Rating: NR Thomas suffers a significant depressive breakdown and all of the sides are transformed in the process. Patton is dead, Roman has become the worst possible version of himself, and everyone else is just hanging on by the skin of their teeth trying to keep Thomas going just a little longer. Notes: Take a good look at the tags for this one, as it handles some extremely serious topics, including severe depression, disordered eating, and suicide (and it's probably not one for Roman fans unless you're in the mood for reading a tragedy). This series has been a huge influence on my own writing in terms of how I, personally, imagine and write the connection between Thomas, his mental state, and the sides.

The You need the dark to see the stars series by gothfoxx Canon AU (Gen) Rating: NR Logan's outbursts of emotion begin to grow more volatile and more frequent, particularly when he or the former 'dark sides' are being dismissed by the rest. Eventually things come to a head and he reveals a long hidden and painful secret he's been keeping from everyone. Notes: I don't want to spoil this one, but it's Orange Side!Logan with an especially tragic twist.

Set All My Regrets on Fire by Avery_Kedavra Canonverse (Gen) Rating: T After Putting Others First, Janus and Roman both want to talk, to explain themselves and to apologize. Unfortunately, neither has the courage to be the one to do it first. Notes: An extremely poignant story about how the feelings can all be right there on the tip of your tongue, but nothing will really get better until the communication actually happens.

Remus Fucking Dies by AndSceneButGreen Canonverse (Gen) Rating: M When Remus dies in an incident in the imagination no one winds up taking it well, but his loss hits Janus harder than anyone (including Remus himself). Notes: Temporary character death, but it still manages to hurt.

No Longer Deceive Yourself by Avery_Kedavra Canonverse (Gen) Rating: G After PoF, Remus is convinced that it's only a matter of time before Janus will leave him behind. Assuming that sooner is probably better than later, he tries to be the first to cut off contact so that Janus can leave guilt free. Notes: There's just something about self-isolation fics that hits me especially hard.

Faulty Logic by Quarantinevibes Canonverse (Gen) Rating: NR When Logan falls ill, only Janus seems to notice how severe the problem is getting. He takes it upon himself to try to get the other side to rest long enough to recover, but as it turns out Logan makes a rather uncooperative patient. And even getting to the root of what is causing the illness has its challenges... Notes: This one's got some proper hurt/comfort mixed in if you're in the mood for something with a sweeter aftertaste.

#fic rec #fander fic rec friday #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #rec list

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canonsinthehead · 2 months ago

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Bucchigiri?! Headcanons: How would they be on Social Media?

Welcome back! Let's go over how our beloved characters would be on their social media accounts/online "public figures". Mainly on TIK TOK but it applies to all other platforms as well.

TOMOSHIBI ARAJIN

Gooner Incel

ASAMINE MATAKARA

Mukbanger who never gains weight

Loves Tik Tok dances/challenges (& goes viral for it)

shows his Martial art/gymnastic practice online

Justice for Palestine, Congo, etc.

DOMAN KENICHIRO

hotep leader with large cult following (idk how because he dont talk much)

ZABU KAKERU

Tik tok beat maker

Livestreams himself playing video games

Have rants about legits topics but gets turned into a joke/meme

does skits with komao from time to time

caught that dude dancing ONE TIME and now its a meme and not a going anywhere anytime soon

Proffessional hater of the 2009-2013 era memes

SAKIGAKE KOMAO

Japanese Maya Winky

JIN MARITO

Unhinged Fashion dude who always has the juiciest story times

Got banned 3 times already

"I'm at your house! COME OUTSIDE!" (live streaming in front of his enemies house a 3:00AM

Got into a car crash during a live stream (he was driving recklessly anyway). not only walk out without a scratch but got a new car the week after

Casually reveals a humongous cash flow (yeah i own Clip Studio Paint...)

Wishes more people would have "beef" with him or got into more scandals

"I was invited to an influencer event and it was BORIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!!"

JIN MAHORO

Internet Pick Me

Argues in favour of the alpha male idology because she really belives it and thinks it applies to her brother

AO3 soldier

Tumblr soldier

Cosplay Hobby-ist (making a lot of money from it cause of her large simp audience, they're cave dwellers btw)

OUTA TAHIDE

There's not much going on with his account but has a massive following

Work out routines & OOTD

goes live and answer quesitons in the chat (dont talk much)

Legit model or back up dancer

you dont know much about him in general

the suspected face censored buffy dude that appears in Marito's videos from time to time

JABASHIRI NAGARE

Gym Vlog

sitting in his car having the most insane/unhinged talks/takes in the world (if you overlook the profanities he is making sense a lot of times)

always get caught going back and forth with randos online

testing/reviews food in his car

WAIT HOW DID YOU AFFORD TO BUY A LUXURY CAR LIKE THAT?!

Will sometimes watch/look up what people recommend him in the comments or dm and ALWAYS REGRETS IT.

HAGURE TATSUTO

Social Commentary/Gossip

K-pop/jpop fan

Tik tok dances with my roomate/boyfriend (It's Jabashiri)

Talent hosting Lives

loves to answers questions in the comments and very active with his followers

love to rank music, media, food, and anything with his roomate/boyfriend

"come with me to go fry my hair with hairdye ANOTHER TIME"

"Let's make a bento for my roommate/boyfriend..."

SHINDO AKUTARO

Japanese Toni Fitness

Skinny Tok President and prolific scammer

Showcases his whipping skills online

Had monumental mental breakdown during a live stream before vanishing from all online spaces, nobody know what he is up to now.

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twistedtummies2 · 10 months ago

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Leona's Sadism

So, someone sent me...an EXTREMELY long Ask basically questioning why I keep saying Leona is a canonical sadist, and arguing against that fact. Rather than answer the Ask directly, I decided it was best to sort of answer in my own words, since I know I can get pretty long-winded myself. XD I should point out that when I say things like this, I'm partially exaggerating/joking. (Though only partially.) The one thing for sure we can say on that front is that Leona is certainly a canonical jerkface, which is part of why he's fun. To quote an Internet video: "He's a d*ck...but he's a NICE d*ck!" That's why I love him; he's such a colossal ass a lot of the time, but then he'll flip around and show another side, and it's fun. XD HOWEVER, I am only PARTIALLY exaggerating/joking because Leona is, in fact, at least slightly sadistic in the game. There are multiple occasions throughout his appearances in the Main Story, Vignettes, and so on where he will deliberately do things to make people miserable, make people angry, or make people scared. He ENJOYS having that kind of power over others and dangling things before them before snatching it away. He does it a lot, sometimes with comical results, sometimes more severe ones. He also clearly takes pleasure in watching others in pain during his darkest moments, such as the clear relish he showed and the mockery he exhibited when using his Unique Magic on Ruggie. That's certainly a bit more than just being, say, "mischievous," which you could argue in other instances. NOW, OF COURSE, that last example IS a very extreme one: Leona was basically having a mental breakdown at that point (which the Asker did point out, hence why I'm bringing it up), and wasn't totally in control of his emotions or actions. And he DOES seem to regret it at least a little bit in the aftermath. But the point still stands...when pushed to his limits, so to speak, Leona can be EXTREMELY cruel. It's also worth pointing out that this isn't just an inference; OTHER CHARACTERS are fully aware of this in-game. My favorite example is when Azul defends himself at one point (I think he was talking to Jamil, but my memory may be wrong here) by stating that he "doesn't take pleasure in other people's suffering, unlike Leona." Which, of course, is SUCH an ironic statement, since Azul does, in fact, do that...but there IS a key difference. Azul typically only takes pleasure in that when it benefits him in some material manner. He enjoys having power over people, too, and watching them squirm and dance and play his games...but it's specifically because he's getting something out of it that's tangible. Leona just does it because he's a jerk like that. He doesn't get anything out of turning Ruggie to sand, he doesn't get anything out of mocking Idia after ruining his costume, he doesn't get anything out of teasing Azul before destroying the contracts. He literally just ENJOYS doing stuff like that and - with the exception of Ruggie - shows neither remorse nor apology.

Leona can be cruel. And he can ENJOY it when he's cruel. That's sadism, plain and simple. It's not about inflicting physical bodily harm on others, and while it CAN mean one "gets off" on causing others misery, it doesn't necessarily HAVE to mean that: a character can be described as "sadistic" without that specific stipulation. When I say Leona is a sadist, I simply mean it in the sense that he can, in fact, show sadistic tendencies at times. He's not the only one in the cast who's like this, but he IS one of the ones where that part of his personality is a MAJOR character trait that others POINT OUT in the story and dialogue. In terms of my kinky nonsense and weirdness, I basically just take that simple fact - that Leona can be a jerk and, on some level, enjoys watching others feel bad for his own enjoyment - and take it to its natural extreme, so to speak.

I should also point out this makes perfect sense given Leona's source material. A LOT of Disney Villains clearly relish their own evil, and Scar is no exception: there was no REASON to give Mufasa that taunting "Long Live the King" before hurling him to his doom. There was no reason to pretend to still be a kind and caring uncle to Simba before siccing the hyenas onto him (a fact many have argued over time), there certainly wasn't a reason to whisper his little secret into Simba's ear before attempting to kill him. Scar is DEFINITELY a sadistic villain: he enjoys being nasty just because he enjoys it. TL, DR: Leona is a canon sadist in the definition that he can be sadistic in his actions, other characters in-canon are VERY aware of this fact, and there are multiple examples of these points within the game and the manga alike. On top of that, his source inspiration is also a sadistic character, so this makes perfect sense as an element of Leona's own personality. This doesn't mean Leona Kingscholar can't also be nice, or funny, or even cute, and it doesn't mean he necessarily "gets off" on those sadistic actions in the literal sense. But one also shouldn't ignore the fact that he can, in fact, be a big fat meanie-face when he wants to be, for basically no reason at all. I hope I have explained myself with clarity. XD

#ask #answer #q&a #kink-related #but only peripherally #you all know the kinks #disney #twisted wonderland #leona #leona kingscholar

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xianhuashi-second-blog · 1 year ago

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Big Hero 6 was 9 years ago, going on 10. Next year is when it takes place. So, this is an appreciation post for the movie, and what it’s done for me.

Trigger Warning ahead, the post mentions de@th and $u1c1d3, (spelled wrong so I don’t get flagged/shadow banned by the Tumblr gods.) complex grief and mentions of mental health.

BH6 came out when I was 4-5 (what a long time ago omfg-) so its importance to me was non existent. Me and my (much) Older brother watched it together a few years later in 2016. Young me didn’t know the nuance and severity of Hiro Hamada as a character. All I saw was “Two Asian siblings” that had a relationship like me and my brother. I tuned out the rest of the movie that night because I had *and still have* the attention span of a goldfish with dementia. Years later, very recently, (near the end of 2023, but school still in session ) he jumped. He passed away that day. I think I cried an ocean when I got the news from my father.

I cried, not only because I love and miss him with all I am, I sobbed because he was my other half, essentially another father. I cried because I felt, I knew I could have done something differently, so then maybe he’d be alive a bit longer. And, I cry because of all he put himself through for me. It’s hard to imagine the suffering and agony he put himself through to be there for me.

I have diagnosed High functioning Autism. My brother had a feeling, but he helped me understand how neurotypicals interact, how to fake making eye contact, how to hold up a conversation, learn body language, you name it. He even bought me noise canceling headphones because I’m sensitive to loud sounds, and fidget toys that I could use during school. My parents, on the other hand, thought I was just a spoilt brat who needs to pay attention to people, and stop being so picky with foods and their textures, a brat that has to be more social, stop shying away from kids my age. My brother was the one to convince them to get me tested for Autism, to prove I wasn’t just a bratty kid.

He sat through my ramblings about Steven Universe and The Stanley Parable. He helped me work through my meltdowns, and told me it wasn’t my fault that certain things make me upset.

I crumbled to the ground. My world was shattered. After I was “back into reality,” I realized my father was holding me in his arms. I hugged him tightly. My face was smushed against his chest so hardly that it felt like my cheek was about to break. It felt like him. It felt like how he’d wrap me in bear hugs. Weeks went by. We had his Funeral. I looked at the picture of him near his casket. It felt surreal knowing that the same man was inside of the wooden box, awaiting his burial. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream and shout and cause myself to have a breakdown, but I physically couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at him either. So I just stood there, fingers slightly touching his coffin, where I knew his face would be.

Later on, being forced to go back to school the following week because the American school system sucks 🖕 🇺🇸

I got back home. I went on disney plus to elevate myself of my grief. I scrolled through the home screen, when Big Hero 6 showed up. I remembered watching it with him, so I convinced myself- despite not wanting reminders- to watch it. “Welcome to Nerd-school. Nerd.” I watched the fire alarms blair. The infamous “someone has to help” scene before he ran into the fire. Then, the scene where Hiro was sitting alone on the staircase in his memorial outfit. That frame alone was truly a perfect representation of sudden loss and grief. I felt seen, and acknowledged. I felt understood. I kept watching. Near the end, Hiro was trying to “fix Baymax” with the violence chip thing. “Is this what Tadashi would have wanted?” “It doesn’t matter!” And then finally, “Tadashi’s GONE! Tadashi’s… gone….” The feeling that scene gave me was complicated. But, it left me with the knowledge that he was with me in memory. That, of course, didn’t take away everything that was happening to me.

That movie helped me through complicated emotions, and I cannot thank the BH6 team enough for what they’ve done for me, and how that movie helped me. I still blame myself for what happened. I’m still grieving, and it’s still hard to live without him. And the idea that Tadashi doesn’t get to see his baby brother’s super hero team, yet said team wouldn’t exist without his death, helps me realize that without my brother’s death, I wouldn’t have such a kind community of fellow fans of the movie, who enjoy my art and my storytelling.

Thank you for all you’ve done. Thank you for everything. It was an honor to have you as my brother, and I miss you so much. I know not many people have good relationships with their older siblings right off the bat, so I am so grateful you could give me that friendship. I promise i’m gonna make you proud.

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matrixxsystem · 6 months ago

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Boots With The Spurs (the real first chapter)

"Turn left here."

"Where?"

"Just- Up here, left- Left! Your other left!"

"Don't yell at me!"

"Then don't miss the turn!"

"Do you wanna drive?"

"I would but I can't!"

"Well-! Oh.. S-Sorry Don.."

"..It's fine.. just... You stick to driving and I'll stick to giving directions okay big guy?"

"Yeah... Okay.." The drive seemed to take forever, going from New York all the way to "the middle of nowhere" wasn't exactly around the block. Donnie glanced back to where Mikey was sitting, a Jupiter Jim comic in metal hands Donnie had loaned him while his were still recovering. Leo was sitting next to him, watching Mikey read to him doing his signature voices for all the characters. There was a faint smile on his face but it was overcast by the dark circles under his eyes and the bandages covering his limbs. Everyone still had injuries that were hearing but Leos took the most time considering he got the worst of it.. Well, him and Raph really. Raph was another case, it had only been four years since the "Kraang incident" and everyone seemed to be dealing with their own aftershocks even now.

Leo lost his arm coming through the portal back to Earth, his mind was a mess, constantly having nightmares and losing sleep over his memories. Raph lost his right eye, and split a new alter from the time he was possessed by the Kraangs parasites. Donnie suffered severe nerve damage in his back that sometimes flared enough to cause seizures, Leaving him bedridden, sometimes for days. And Mikey's carpal tunnel got worse, with mild Tendinopathy added to his diagnosis only meaning he wasn't able to use his hands half as much as he'd like to. He could hardly hold a pair of chopsticks long enough to finish a meal before his hands started to cramp up. But they all helped each other through it, they all took turns playing nurse and making sure their family was okay. Or as okay as they could be at least.. The final straw that made them want to leave the city was when Splinter passed away and Leo had a minor mental breakdown. They all decided to go somewhere they didn't have to hide. Somewhere quiet, without the constant reminders of everything they'd lost or the constant threat of danger. With the NYC foot clan disbanded there was less crime, and less reason for them to patrol or try to be heros there. "This is it." Donnie said as he pointed to a driveway that was coming up. "Decrease speed and proceed into the driveway."

"On it, so.. This is like... A house big enough for all a' us right?"

"Something like that. But fret not, I have a plan to make sure its able to accommodate all of our needs." Raph parked the car, everyone perked up now that they'd stopped moving. Mikey rushed to open the door, excited to see what their new home was going to be like. He expression quickly went from ecstatic to confused. "Dee.. Are we at the right place? This one looks... Janky"

"It is 'Janky' Michael, it's a large plot of land I only managed to get for cheap because of it's quote unquote 'Jankyness' so.."

"It's not janky, it's just a fixer upper is all! Nothin' a lil elbow grease and.. uh... Regular grease can't fix!" Leo got up last, following everyone out of the turtle tank. The overgrown grass and weeds, the dirt road beneath his feet, the warm breeze against his back.. "Raph as fun as this brotherly DIY project sounds, were all seriously injured and none of us can hold or lift anything long enough to repair the front door let alone this entire house. This is a job for my tech.. The last job for them..." He took out a remote from his pocket and pressed a few buttons, dozens of small robots sprung from the tank and ran towards the house. Scanners covered the house, barn, and even the yard. Then they took a moment to calculate before they started humming with energy.

"Donnie..?"

"They're supposed to sound like they're about to blow up, the internal motors are half the size of their exoskeletons to give them extra power. Just sit back and be amazed." A few took to the lawn, what looked like a mouth turning into spinning blades that trimmed and seemed to eat the grass. Others went to the house, and started repairing the wood, spewing resin and metal threads, gnawing the broken wood into clean cuts and merging them with the spun material. Others did the same with the barn. And the last few flung themselves into drains and pipes, cleaning them from the inside. They all came together, mixing the materials they'd harvested and made it into paint, coating the house and barn. And after five minutes the house looked brand new, like they were transported to a completely different place.

Donnie gently clapped his hands together and the robots disappeared into the house, "Alright fam, we have two hours, sixteen minutes and forty three seconds till the sun sets. As long as you stay on the property you are free to do at you please, but be reminded there are wild animals and birds of prey about and I won't have a foolproof fence up and running till the bots are finished recharging. Mikey's ordering dinner for us when he feels up to the task and we will be calling first dibs on rooms with the usual exception that the biggest one goes to Raph and I get one downstairs."

Leo glanced between them with a nod, "I'm uh.. I just wanna sit out here for a bit, stretch my legs and all if it's cool with you."

"In the grass? I mean, suit yourself but take a shower when you get inside cause, eugh, dirt.."

"Donnie don't you love gardening?"

"Ironic isnt it?"

"Oh oh I want to pick my room! C'mon Red let's go see what it looks like on the inside!" Raph took Mikey's hand and let himself be pulled into the house, Donnie was busy walking the perimeter and taking measurements, just his usual nerd stuff. Leo went and sat in the grass, it looked faded and dead, but it wasn't as scratchy as it looked, it was actually kind of soft.. He felt another warm breeze and laid back, one arm behind his head as he looked up at the sky. It was so quiet compared to the city, no cars, busses, or trains. No one shouting or promoting anything in the streets. Not even the constant chatter of birds and various stray animals. Sure everything ached, but breathing the fresh country air made that pain seem so small.

"Leo- Hey, Leoo"

...

"Jesus Crimmity Leo get up before you catch a disease-"

Leo opened his eyes and suddenly the sky was dark. He saw Donnie standing over him with an unamused expression. "Oh.. Hey Dee... I uh"

"You fell asleep. It's fine but maybe do it inside the house next time? Kay?" Leo rolled his eyes as Donnie offered his hand to help Leo up. He knew by now as much as he didn't want to admit it that he needed to accept defeat. He took Donnie's hand and stood up, "Thanks. What did Mike end up getting for dinner?"

"You'll see, just get inside before something eats you"

"Pfft.. Okay"

Leo headed inside, opening the door to reveal a surprisingly nice place..? A few feet ahead was a straight staircase leading to the second floor. To the right was a open archway into a decently sized kitchen with an island counter and everything they needed, well, except the food but all the appliances were there! To the left was probably going to be the living room, right now it was pretty empty but it wouldn't take love for Donnie to fill each corner with a plant or Mikey to staple his art to the walls and make it look more lived in. He could see it now, how lively this place would be once they settled in and started their usual shenanigan's.. What were their usual shenanigan's again? He rubbed his eyes trying to think back to why they even left New York in the first place.. He knew his dad passed away but that wasn't the only reason right?

"Hey Leo! Come check out our rooms!!" Leo snapped out of his thoughts and saw Mikey waving at him from the top of the stairs. He smiled a little and put his hand on the railing heading up to see what the commotion was about.

"Alright alright I'm coming! Which rooms did you guys pick?" Mikey was practically bounding in place as he waited for Leo to reach the top, widely gesturing to a door that already had an Encanto style sketch scribbled onto the front. "This is my room! It had the best lighting for art! Raphs is the one across from yours over there!" He walked past him pointing to the door with a small blue sticker stuck on at eye height, on the left side of the hall, the back of the house. Then to the door on the right with several red stickers. "Donnie says the one next to mine can be his too so he has a room up here to store stuff, but dont worry that's why he gets the small one hehehe" Leo nodded a little, opening the door to his room, it had a bed, classic. Some empty shelves, a small dresser and two boxes which were presumably his stuff from the tank. He looked back to Mikey who stood in the doorway, still looking so excited he might combust or something. "Soooo? What do you think?"

"I think.." He shrugged and put his hand on Mikey's shoulder, "It's nice. Really. I can't wait to put it all together, maybe you could make some posters to liven the place up a bit when you're up for it?"

"Ohhh that's a good idea! Yes! Well need one with cats, and one with lasers! And one with a cat, shooting lasers!!" Leo let out a little chuckle, Mikey always had the craziest ideas..

"Hey Donnie said you took care of dinner, so what're we having?"

"He didn't tell you? That silly goose, I got some stew from some local restaurant. The.. The Fancy Phrog or something idunno, but it's really good! The dining room is through the kitchen, or there's a hall behind the stairs that goes there too so, take your pick! I'm gonna see if Raph wants seconds"

Leo nodded and left after Mikey, heading downstairs and taking a right to see the rest of the house on his way. The living room had a bookshelf and a long couch, a few of the robots from earlier had formed a monkey chain and were passing books from a box up to the bot who was neatly placing them on the shelf. There were a total of three rooms in that hallway, one was a full bathroom on the left, then Donnie's lab/room in the middle, and a spare room that they had agreed would be their medbay across from the archway to the back of the dining room. Donnie was sitting at the table, he didn't have his phone like he usually would, not even a tablet or projector.. Instead he had a notepad and a pen scribbling something down with one hand while he ate with the other. Leo took the blue bowl that hadn't been filled yet and served himself from the container on the table. "Watcha writing there..?"

"Code.."

"... Okay .. For what?"

"A sentient tractor"

"I'm sorry what!?"

"Kidding. Sort of.. It is code, but it's... How do I put this in a way a Leo would understand- I want a function that lets the machine assess the situation and use variables to determine the best course of action, but the parameters for those variables isn't set in stone, so it needs to be able to adapt and understand a vast blanket of skills to have a full and accurate assessment.."

"...Okay so, a robot with opinions?"

"Sure, well go with that."

Leo shrugged and ate his food, he was never a big fan of vegetables but the stew was pretty damn good.. His mind wandered back to why they were there in the first place, it was something unpleasant for sure but why couldn't he remember? He looked back up at Donnie, "Hey... This is.. It's gonna sound stupid but can I ask you something?"

"That's never stopped you before."

"Oh ha ha, but seriously, why did we move out here again?" Donnie's hand stopped writing, he looked back at Leo a little confused at first but there was something else too, he was nervous? "You don't recall you're morphine induced rant about wanting to be a 'cowboy baby' or however the Vine goes?"

"..No- But c'mon that can't be the only reason we left the city right? I mean, you guys wouldn't leave everything just cause I randomly blurted out that I wanted to be a cowboy, while I was loopy"

"Well- No that wasn't the only thing that provoked us leaving. But if you don't know the reasons maybe it's better to keep it that way? Your brain might be trying to protect you from information you might not want to know?"

"Oh please, I saw big mama shoot webs from her ass and saw Jericho throw up the special sauce that's used on his food. I think I can handle whatever my brain is worried about!" Donnie sighed, putting his pen down, "Leo, I shouldn't be the one to talk about this really.. But a lot of bad things happened, it was just a constant stream of bad luck and injuries, nearly losing everything, and everyone.. It was bad, so the less you remember the better."

"...But that doesn't answer my question-"

"Then ask someone else! I can't talk about it."

"Can't or won't??"

"Fine. I won't talk about it." Leo huffed and leaned back in the chair. "Ugh... Whatever" Donnie took his bowl and notepad, heading into the kitchen then to his room downstairs. And Leo was alone again.

-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-

The next morning rolled around and it seemed like the only thing to do was unpack, anytime Leo tried to ask Raph about why they were there he was only met with, "Go ask Raph" which really wasn't helping.. When he asked Mikey he was also told to "Go ask Raph" so, it was a lose-lose battle really. Eventually he gave up and finished unpacking his boxes, there really wasn't much besides his knick knacks and comics. Most of his other things were trashed or left behind.. He was older now anyways, a lot of what he kept in his teens just didn't spark joy like they used to.

He pulled out a string of photo booth pictures with him and what used to be his boyfriend, he scoffed at the pictures but he'd held into them all this time. It showed him, on his twenty first birthday and the guy beside him with his arm around Leo. Some dog yokai with blonde fur and a streak of blue dye in his hair, he had a drink in hand and so did Leo. They looked messy and absolutely trashed, but happy. If he was being honest he didn't remember much of that year or the one before it, but like Mikey says, if you don't remember then maybe it's not worth remembering? He set the pictures down on his dresser and flattened the boxes under his arm, "There's gotta be a way to remember all the stuff I'm missing right..? Maybe Cherry can help.. Leo headed out of his room and downstairs where Mikey had dragged Brick, one of Raphs alters, to play "Downbeat" a game Leo never understood, I mean all you do is shake dice and then yell 'downbeat' it's not very fun in his opinion. "Hey, can you help me Mikey-"

"Downbeat!"

"Mikey hey-"

"Oh! Hey Leo! You wanna play with us?"

"I'd rather stick my tail in an anthill, then in a fire- Sorry, no, but I do need your help with something soo.. Can you come here for a sec" Mikey pouted a little but put the dice down and headed into the kitchen with Leo, "What's up? Need help rewrapping your nub?"

"Wha-? No, no this is unrelated to me. I need to talk to Cherry"

"Well, Brick's fronting right now, it might be rude to ask him to leave?"

"I know, that's why I need your help.. Think maybe you would be down to bake? You get to cook, I get to talk to Cherry, you two get some quality time?" Mikey narrowed his eyes at him for a moment, "I don't know why you need to talk to her, but I do want to break in our new kitchen so.. Fine, I'll do it." Leo smiled and put his hand on Mikey's head ruffling the air where hair would be. "While you do that I'm gonna go see what Dons up to, any idea where hes at?"

"Yeah uh, he's in his downstairs room, the middle one." Leo nodded and headed through the dining room to get to Donnie's room, he knocked seven times in a special pattern. "Password"

"Wha-? Donnie, open up I did the special knock"

"Password." Leo sighed and rubbed the bridge between his eyes, "God damnit- Just- Open the goddamn door." After a moment of silence the door opened, "You sir, are no fun."

"It's too early for this."

"It's 11:15."

"My point stands."

"State your business"

"Brotherly shenanigan's."

"For or against?"

"For, it's already in motion"

"Seeking asylum then?"

"Why would I do that with you? No, I'm killing time while I wait for the pay off."

"Noted. Entry granted." Leo stepped into Donnie's room, a few boxes were stacked along the walls, a table was set up with a chair and one of his forearm crutches leaning against it. Along with a bed on the opposite wall. A potted plant already sat on the table beside a stack of papers. "Getting all settled in are we?" Leo joked as he went and sat on the bed. Donnie gave a little shrug as he sat back in his chair, taking one of the papers off the top of the pile and sketching something out. "Yeah yeah, I know, I should be focused less on causing trouble and more on fixing things up or whatever clever advice you have in mind."

"Well that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but close enough. You're still healing, not just physically either."

"Whats actually funny, is that you guys keep telling me that I'm healing, but you still won't tell me what I'm healing from- I mean if you're going to lie at least make it convincing"

"Oh what? You want me to break your foot or something?"

"I'm just saying a physical injury is way more of a reason to be bedridden than a mental one"

"Well think of it like your brain being punched, is that a mental image wounded enough to make you stop acting like a dum dum?"

"I didn't come here to get roasted."

"Then you came to the wrong brother, my sanctuary comes at a price, otherwise what would be the means to harbor such a fugitive within my quarters?"

"Ugh, I lose braincells when you start using big words-" Donnie rolled his eyes as he kept writing, it was only quiet for a few more moments before one of the small robots that had rebuilt the house came to his side. They both looked down at the small machine and waited for it to do something.

It started dancing

Leo looked more and more confused and Donnie just nodded along, "Mhmm, Mhmm, I see" He muttered as the little jig went on. "Oh you can't be serious- Did you actually program them to talk through dance? Just give it a voice box-!"

"Shhh! He's not finished. Please, Stephan, continue."

"Stephan??"

"I said shhh!!" He watched as the robot danced for another minute or so before bowing, Donnie gave a small applause and leaned over to extend his hand, picking the robot up and examining it closely. "Well- Are you gonna tell me what it said?"

"..You're still here?"

"Yes! And I'm being nosey! So what's the deal with that thing?"

"To answer your previous question, yes and no. The dancing itself wasn't the form of communication but it was the steps. The tapping was mores code, he was informing me about the structures that were reformed and the ones that would need to be repaired by hand."

"..Oh?"

"Ill be taking care of it later, thankfully with the long, long drive out here I had plenty of time to rest and gather strength so that I would be able to do a fair amount of physical labor provided my bots were unable or I was unable to have one of the Raphs help me since they're quite a bit stronger. But don't worry about it."

"Well hey wait I can help-"

"Did you not listen to the part I said fifteen minutes ago? You, my dear dum dum, are still recovering and are down one arm. While you'd be a good supervisor, or even director if you could read blueprints, it still wouldn't be as much help as the physical strength required to say, lift a post or a seventeenth of a ton of bricks. So, the gesture is appreciated but I'll pass. Besides, you're still seeking shelter correct? Just, sit here and don't touch anything. We'll watch a movie or something you approve of later."

"Are you seriously gonna go out there?" Donnie looked unamused at his poor attempt to prevent him from leaving, "Should I be worried?" He asked, pushing some papers aside to organize them while he waited for Leo to try and rationalize how much of a dum dum he was being. "Well- No.. But..." Donnie rolled his eyes, "Then yes, Once all the repairs are fully complete we can start doing the real work." He got up from his chair, about to head out. "Real work?" Donnie nodded, "But of course." He looked back to Leo as he stood in the doorway.

"You didn't think I'd purchase all this barren land and not plant something, did you?" Chapter 2

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #lgbtq #fanfic #bwts #boots with the spurs #au #alternate universe #risetmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt

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wanderersrespiteblog · 1 year ago

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Character Introductions and How to Fuck Them Up

In Rogue Trader, one of the earliest party members you meet and recruit is an unsanctioned psyker by the name of Idira, a retainer and servant to Lady Theodora von Valancius. In 40k, unsanctioned psykers are those who have not been given the literal and metaphorical seal of approval for their training by the Imperium and its bureaucracy, and as such are hunted down on sight by the Inquisition to prevent their latent arcane abilities from manifesting daemons and other monsters from the warp through negligence or intentional summoning. She's introduced practically within the first cutscene of the game as a devoted, if eccentric, member of Lady Theodora's retinue, and Idira owes the woman her life in more ways than one. She makes no show of hiding that she's a powerful psyker due to the immunity afforded by her liege's writ, and you see this expressed both in her gameplay and dialogue options; the woman's psyker abilities physically bend and break the fabric of reality around her, and if used too much in too short a timespan in combat can cause daemons to spawn out of nowhere as the wall between the material world and the warp grows thin to the point of being utterly bypassed by them, and in conversations she regularly advocates for a pragmatic yet heretical approach to dillemas and emergencies. She's with you all the way through the opening act and serves as your main psyker for the first half of it.

The woman takes Lady Theodora's death especially hard due to the history the two of them have, and following the conclusion of the prologue rumors begin to abound that Lady Theodora's ghost has begun appearing to crew members aboard the vessel. Given the nature of 40k as a setting, it's entirely possible her spirit is appearing, which while sweet presents an existential threat to the health and integrity of the crew due to the possibility of it being corrupted by the malevolent nature of the warp. During this time, Idira begins complaining of nightmares and visions of Lady Theodora beckoning to her, with others writing these appearances off as survivor's guilt from her unable to save her friend and master.

After a certain length of time and enough trips through the warp, a disastrous daemonic incursion appears on one of the main decks for your vessel, accompanied by reports of Idira in the midst of it. As your party arrives, you find the crew mutated and possessed by these malicious spirits as daemons feast upon those they could not turn, the twisted image of Lady Theodora mocking her once-servants and deriding you for your failure to lead them effectively. At the end of the encounter you find Idira having an absolute mental breakdown, her psyker abilities out of control as she grieves the loss of her friend. As soon as she spots you she confesses that she sought out the ghost intentionally, hoping that some way, some how, she might be able to give the woman peace, pleading for your assistance and forgiveness for her grievous mistake, all while the perverted form of her former charge demands you face her.

There, you are given a choice: shoot Idira yourself, have one of your party members shoot her, side with Idira and banish her from your ship right after, or side with Idira and work to save her.

In all of the above cases you as the player have genuine freedom for roleplay and agency within the story. Even prior to this point you at any time can expel her from your retinue, even sending her off for execution via the Inquisition once you pick up a certain character if you so please. You spend more time with Idira, see the pros and cons of her abilities for yourself, and are only put into a situation where she could plausibly end your life once you're familiar with the stakes of her condition and temperment.

Contrast this with Baldur's Gate 3's Astarion, who's introduction consists of him deceiving you and putting a knife to your neck to figure out what's going on, outright threatening to kill you himself if you don't comply. While this does establish him as a cutthroat - literally - it also immediately gives reason for not wanting any association with him from the in-world, PC perspective. One could argue the desperation of having a ilithid tadpole in your skull gives way to odd bedfellows, but with how the game immediately undercuts that possibility by asserting that those the party has are somehow different (and then immediately undercutting that undercutting, but that's a separate issue) there is genuinely little motive for a reasonable person to want to even be around him, let alone have him in their party.

Moreover, the actual "reveal" of him as a vampire is incredibly mishandled. By his own admission he feeds off of animals where he can, and while we can see evidence of this in the overworld of the game, but this does not suffice for his full strength. So, instead of targeting a random civilian or a downed enemy - the latter of which we have many of in Act I - he goes right for the person that already suspects and has reason to distrust him. Not only does this reinforce the above issue of "Why should my PC keep this guy around in-world?" it also comes off like he's a blathering idiot with no conception of self-preservation or ability to recognize when it would be a bad idea to try and feed off of someone who is aware he's prone to sneaky shit. If he went after an enemy, and we walked in on him feeding midway through, there's some more grounds for plausible deniability, those that can be surpassed with an Insight check, but also presents a moral dilemma to the PC: is it acceptable for an allied vampire to feed off of those who tried to attack you? Given the clear and present discomfort shown by the PC when Astarion feeds off of them it's clear the process is neither pleasant nor easy to shrug off, so that then places the burden of deciding where the line is on the PC. There your options could be stake him, allow him to feed off of enemies, allow him to feed off of enemies and strangers, or banish him outright. There's nuance and legitimate grounds for debate as opposed to the "do you consent to getting your blood sucked by a stranger who threatened to murder you at your first meeting" the game runs with.

I bring Idira up in this discussion because she, in essence, presents the same issue Astarion does, but handled in a far better way. Both possess a condition that makes them a clear and present threat to the player and the people around them. Both are immediately established as rule breakers. Both can and do put the party in peril because of their innate characteristics, albeit through different circumstances. Both then present the player with the option to kill them, banish them, or help them, but one is done in a far more interesting way than the other.

Bear in mind this is not an assessment of their overall character arcs, just how they are initially presented and the way their conflict is set up with the PC.

#rogue trader #40k #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #warhammer 40000 #bg3 astarion #writing #Idira has her issues as a character as well but that's independent of this #gaming #game writing #idira tlass #completely forgot what Idira's last name was until I made this post ngl

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cookiesupplier · 1 year ago

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Every Rose Has Its Thorns - Part Twenty Two

pairing: Ricky Olson x ofc x Chris 'Motionless' Cerulli

warnings/tropes: slow burn, soulmates, strangers to enemies to lovers, betrayal, angst, fluff, smut, language, panic attack, stalking, online bullying, mental health issues.

❗PLEASE CHECK THE AUTHORS NOTE FOR THIS CHAPTER.❗

summary: In a world where soulmates inexplicably receive a tattoo that will match that of their soulmate the moment they turn eighteen years old, being famous and covered in very visible tattoos can make finding your true soulmate a questionable fate. For everyone involved.

❗❗ author’s note: This chapter includes description of an emotional breakdown, I am not including skipping points this time as it is very integrated in a characters thought processes. However if this is triggering to you, please be aware of this.

tags: @tearfallpixie @cncohshit @jordynyingling0219 @faceless-mirror @nyxthedestroyerofworlds @wild-child-7747 @witchyweeb34 @black-damask1999 @jilliemiw86 @ilovesamkiszka @lyschko666 @lacktoesandtoddlerants @bngurngheart @collapsedglasshouses @laurpartyprogram

Tag List is Open, please let me know if you would like to be added to it or in general.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s about time we try to find out.”

Talia looked at Ricky with wide eyes when she heard that, she could tell him, tell him about her father’s connection to the clinic back home, the one with the doctors that he was friends with. She’d mentioned that he’d tried to have her committed to Ricky already, she remembered that, but not that he knew the people there who could possibly help them, personally. People that he could ask for help. Would they, help them? Would she even want her family's help after how they’d treated her for years? She’d been right, the very soulmate that they claimed she was delusional about having, was standing right here… Swallowing, hell, a sinking feeling in her stomach, she could just hear her mother now. Claiming that this feeling coursing through her veins never happened to them, not in her parent’s soulmate bond, or any of her siblings, cousins, aunts, or uncles, so obviously it's not supposed to happen. If it didn’t happen to any of them, why would it possibly have happened to her?

Her so-called delusion that he was her soulmate must have destroyed this poor man.. Fuck fuck fuck.. Talia’s eyes flew to the floor, she remembered her mother ranting about all the things that could happen if she were to ever succeed in meeting Ricky, how he would have to pretend for her, if only for a moment, how that ‘poor man’ would have to let her down gently, feed her delusion while they called security on her so she didn’t make a fuss before they had her taken away. Then gone into detail about how she’d end up in a worse facility than the treatments her father was trying to get her admitted into if she ended up being dragged away by the officials.

Talia didn’t even realise she was crying until Ricky reached for her and lifted her chin back up from where she’d looked to the floor. Tilting her face up had one of her hot tears falling from her face and hitting the hand that she had wringing before her. Taking in a soft, almost inaudible gasp of breath as she tried not to meet his eyes, she didn’t want to do this.

What if her mother had been right? Had they all been right? What if she was broken? Had she done this to their soulmate bond? Was there just something wrong with her? Something that happened that she’d caused that had fundamentally destroyed them? Or worse. What if her parents had been right, and she’d been delusional about her tattoo all along?

Ricky had been fine until he met her, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he!? Yes, Grace hadn’t been his soulmate, but there were those that were happy with people who weren’t their soulmates all the time, and she’d ruined it. If she’d never come into his life, if Vinny had met Ava on her own, if Talia had never existed in this, he’d have been fine. Ava would have a new best friend, Grace. She felt more tears fall, and she couldn’t look at him, she couldn’t even focus on the noise in her head, the pain in her neck as she started to panic, the noise that was his voice trying to get her attention.

“Talia, Talia, Sweetheart, look at me, please?”

The tears just fell harder, faster, feeling his fingers against her skin in her panic..

“Shit shit shit,”

Ricky pulled back as Talia cried, he couldn’t get through to her, and she wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, what was he supposed to do to get her to snap out of it? Slap her? No way in hell, after the shit he’d already done to her there was no way he was going to fucking hit her that was barbaric! Pulling out his phone, he called Ava,

“Pick up, pick up… shit Ava Pick… why won't you pick up..”

It rang out.. So he tried Vinny.. And he had no luck there either..

“The one fucking time I need you to pick up the damn phone and you idiots are probably sucking face, shit.”

Scrolling on his phone, he came to another name and selected the number, and this time the tone barely rang twice before the call was picked up,

“Chris, man, I need your help, it’s Talia, she’s, she’s just.. Shit just get here, I don’t know, please. Help.”

Talia was virtually hysterical by the time Chris got there, and Ricky, well, he was freaking out internally. But at least, this time, touching her didn’t have their soulmate tattoo distracting him, driving him to, questionable ends with Chris on his way. Rick had at least managed to get her from the kitchen and into the living room, sitting her down on the couch. For some reason she was not even pulling away from him, after everything that would be what he’d expect, her to pull away, shove him away.. But instead, she had shocked him to no end in that she was clinging to him, her hands gripping his shirt, and crying against it, sobbing uncontrollably. Just as he realised what, the sobs were coming from her,

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

That was when heard Chris’ car pulling up out front of the house.. What in the world would did Talia have to be sorry for that would cause this kind of reaction, of all things?

“DOORS OPEN!”

Ricky had made sure it was when he’d brought her into the lounge, not wanting to leave her alone again in her state, looking at her now, he was glad of it. Glancing up at Chris, as much as he’d felt such a severe intensity seeing him with his connection with Talia just days ago, there was a fresh wave of relief washing over Ricky right now. Relief that there was someone who could help him with her, right here, now. Someone who cared about her here with him now. Yes, he was his best friend, but seeing them together, he could tell Chris cared enough that it mattered what happened to her.

“What the fuck happened, Ricky, you were supposed to talk to her, you said you were going to come over and talk to her.”

Rick knew he wasn’t going to be in Chris’ good books over what had happened between them in the kitchen. He wasn’t sure how he could explain what had happened with the way the soulmate tattoo seemed to be affecting them both the way it was, not that it could excuse it.

“I know! I know, just help me calm her down, and I’ll explain, please Chris?”

He knew the odds were that Chris was going to be royally pissed at him for what had happened between them earlier, but the truth was, Ricky didn’t even care anymore. He’d deserve it, and more, what he cared about right now was that Talia was going to be okay. Furthermore, he might be fucked up right now, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hurt her, that he wanted to have her fall apart into a complete wreck like this.

It was when Chris sighed and got a better look at Talia as he walked around the couch, focusing on the way she was clinging to him, the sobs against his shirt, that was when Chris gave in. Rick always knew he’d agree to help, it was why he’d rushed over here, but whether he’d rip into him demanding an explanation first had been a question. Honestly, Rick was not sure if he could explain why she was like this, one second they’d been talking about figuring out the mark, and the next she was freaking out. If he was a paranoid person, he’d wonder if she knew whether she’d done something to cause this, but Talia seemed to be just as confounded as he was by their soulmate tattoos.

Chris moved by them to sit by them on the three-seater couch, his hand rubbing down Talia’s back. She didn’t seem to want to let go of Ricky’s shirt or pull away from his chest, so they settled her between them. Ricky was massaging lightly up and down her arms, holding her close, and Chris stroking little circles down her spine, talking to her softly. Chris had his cheek resting on the back of her shoulder almost, and the three of them huddled together on the couch. It would be awkward if Ricky wasn’t so worried about what had set her off in the first place. Slowly she was starting to calm down, her sobs soothed, and her tears dried, and eventually, she was just leaning against him until he almost wondered if she was asleep.

Sure enough, as Chris leaned back, and just let his hand soothing run up and down her back lightly, glancing at Rick as he sighed, she was out like a light.

“I could take her to her room, but I don’t want to just leave her here alone. Not after that.”

Chris nodded slightly, which he could agree with, talking low, not wanting to wake her, after all that crying, she needed sleep, she would have worn herself out.

“Alright, well, we stay here, but start talking Rick, out with it.”

Ricky sighed, what to say, but he knew he had to say something, he was the one that had called Chris for help.

“Well, I came over, we talked, we talked Chris.”

Ricky saw the incredulous expression on his face.

“I apologised for the way I’ve been treating her, I swear I did, and we got to talking about everything. She thanked me, she thanked me, for apologising.”

Yeah, he saw the frown on Chris’ face, and he agreed with the sentiment exactly. No one should be thanked for apologising for being a fucking asshole and acting the way he had. He’d been treating her like she was worthless, and nothing, like she didn’t even exist because she wasn’t his soulmate, and she was.. Had wanted nothing to do with her, hadn’t even wanted to hear her out. He knew Grace was a bitch, but not even talking to Talia was on him.

Not Grace.

“But then ah.. Things started happening..”

“What things?”

Chris shifted, but Ricky couldn’t really move, Talia was still leaning against his chest, asleep, and he didn’t want to disturb her, and where her head was against his shoulder, she mumbled slightly, shit.. He stilled, not wanting to wake her, and watched as Chris rubbed his hand lightly down her back again to soothe her, waiting until she was calm again before he continued.

“Well, yesterday, since the party actually, I’ve noticed my soulmate tattoo has been doing strange things-”

“Ricky-”

“Wait, I know, it sounds insane it does, but it's been happening, and yesterday, I noticed, that Talia was reacting the same time my tattoo was getting these strange sensations. I didn’t say anything because of the video and needed to get it done, but then, when it started happening again today, I said something, I, well, I asked her if she could feel it.”

Hearing what Ricky was saying had Chris raising his eyebrows, looking down at the sleeping form of the tiny woman between them. He had heard things about soulmate tattoos potentially doing things like this, but never seen it, and it was only ever rumours from the people that he’d talk to. Some things could never be proven, some things that none of the doctors wanted to admit that they just never could know for certain. Like why, and how, the tattoos chose the people they did. They always talked about those kinds of things like it was down to a science like it was never wrong, but Chris was never sure, because if that was the case, why did some never even get the chance to meet their soulmates, and so many lived with so much pain from a loss of a bond that probably should never have been forced on them in the first place.

Chris had strong opinions about that, especially because he knew first-hand.

“And?”

“And it ah.. It got heated, extremely.. It was both of us, Chris, neither of us could help it, I fucking swear.”

Ricky remembered the way she told him how much she needed him, she just needed to touch him, and he swallowed slightly, shuddering, glancing down at her, what were they going to do, how were they going to handle this if he couldn’t be around her, alone with her, without their tattoos, doing that to them? Everyone said they could at least be friends, and how, how could they even be friends when that happened? Anyone that said it was just about self-control, Rick would personally take a fire poker and stick it in their eye because the feeling from his soulmate tattoo was like a fucking brand sometimes, and how was that not overwhelming?

Chris frowned just the same, it didn’t make it better to hear it, it didn’t make it better at fucking all that they were both been affected like this, that they were both being driven, and then his eyes flickered down to Talia, if she was driven to do something, and she thought, and Ricky..

“Did you walk away again?!”

Oh, the only thing sparing Ricky right now was Talia asleep against him, Chris’ terse words were only hushed for her benefit,

“Is that why she broke down Ricky? I don’t care what happened, I don’t care what she might have done, you both are going through this, and you need to figure this out together, not you walking away all th-”

“I didn’t walk away! I pulled away yes, but only to stop touching her, every time I touched her, even close to that, I couldn’t stop.”

Swallowing. He took in a slow breath, Chris still didn’t look happy, not in the least,

“This, this seems to be okay, I guess around other people, maybe I guess, seems to be okay.. But when we’re alone, it just, it’s like everything kicks into overdrive Chris, and these feelings from the soulmate tattoos, they’ve been building up, it’s just, it’s immense Chris, I, I can’t-”

Ricky choked off, he didn’t know how to handle any of this, he had been struggling even before this development, and now what the hell was he supposed to do? No, no, what were they were going to do? Shit. No, no they weren’t together, and even Talia agreed, they didn’t have to be, but dealing with this alone led them here hadn’t it? Sighing, if they kept going like this, they were just going to destroy each other, he wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t tell that.

“Then what caused this Rick, why’d she break down?”

Closing in his eyes, trying to focus on before, Talia had her meltdown even if all he could think of was that fear, that pain in her eyes as she started to cry and he couldn’t calm her down before he called Chris.

“I pulled away from her, okay yes I did that, not touching her, we talked, about how we couldn’t be, together”

Ricky sighed heavily,

“Chris, we were talking about this fucked up bond, and everything that happened with Grace, and how I can’t even handle being in my house let alone a relationship, how she deserves a better soulmate-”

“Rick-”

“Yeah, don’t worry Chris, she shut me down too. She gave me a talking too, told me to listen to all of you, and that just if I couldn’t trust myself, I should trust you-”

“Such a smart girl, our Talia.”

Ricky rolled his eyes at the smirk Chris gave him at that, which just made the singer laugh softly as he reached over and punched his upper arm lightly.

“Smart arse. Unfortunately, that brought up a thought that I really didn’t want to think about..”

The curious look on Chris’ face was clear, he wanted to know what Ricky meant.

“How everyone has been encouraging me towards her since I broke it off with Grace, it’s been feeling like you’ve all been pressuring me, pushing me as much as this fucking soulmate tattoo is now. It just -”

“Shit, Ricky, that isn’t what we -”

“I know, I know you guys only meant good things, but it didn’t feel good. I felt like shit, so in turn I took it in the worst way, in turn I spiralled with everything you said. Then with Talia saying I should trust you, and feeling like everyone was pushing her on me, thinking every time we were alone we couldn’t control ourselves, the whole conversation brought up the soulmate tattoos and thinking about them.. It all basically led to shit skyrocketing and the tattoos reacting pretty badly.”

Ricky didn’t want to admit that it was Talia talking about her time with Chris that had the tattoo reacting the way it had, because it made him feel like an even bigger asshole. He had no problem with her having friends, he didn’t, hell, right now, Chris sitting here with them, his hand rubbing up and down her back like that, didn’t both him at all, so where was the line? What was going on here?

“So, I said we should find out what’s going on, and the next thing I know, she starts getting upset, and soon it’s a full meltdown. I don’t know Chris, I just don’t know.”

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

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