#pictures from a better world without all that fucking trauma and its just like

[mekatrio]

i thought i had talked abt kanomomo before but apparently i hadnt omg? but anyways i love kanomomo and i wish they got to interact more in general like off the top of my head i can only recall them interacting when momo first joins the mekakushi dan, and later in novel 8 where they get MURDERED together. but ignoring the murder part i love the way they think of one another in the novels like its sooo interesting to me;

momo's thoughts towards kano:

kano's thoughts towards momo:

and i wish there was something more to their relationship especially considering the fact that momo had to watch her brother wither from depression and kano was a big factor of said depression, with how he spat hateful words to shintaro while disguised as ayano. maybe explore momo holding a grudge even idk. but i just think theres so much potential to their relationship as theyre both younger siblings who are protective of their insane suicidal older siblings. also!!! they both have themes of nights and moons, kano relishing in the darkness of the night to hide his lies, and momo being a shining moon in the night to light up the darkness. it makes me a bit sad that their dynamic wasnt explored more. anyways i love this picture forever:

[paragonrobits]

there's been some real drama with that Youtuber I Hate and a youtuber whom i have come to greatly respect and honestly its been a delight seeing that youtuber i dont like going full circle on 'fuck around and find out' and apparently rapid-fire switching between constantly crying about being victimized and being a vicious and hateful person to apparently EVERYONE who interacts with her (follower or not) and it's a real case of a kind of internet personality i find exhausting but its made me realize a few things:

one is she apparently considers superhero comics an inherently Bad genre without artistic value (a bold statement coming from someone whose big media opinons are 'the entirety of Japan are man-children who do sex crimes' and 'i'm going to hate on these cartoons for not turning into a murder frenzy at the last second'). i'd say she's clearly never read Magneto's story arc under Claremont, or anything to do with the Morrison run on Doom Patrol (its artistic, demented, filled with coming to terms with horrific trauma, your own depersonalization, and also the primary antagonist is literal nonsense) or the famous story God Loves Man Kills but i ain't holding my breath

the second thing is that apparently she's under the belief that once you have been victimized, it excuses all your actions. This lines up with some common elements i've seen in fandom, especially those who fixate on villlains as the True Heroes, similar to some of my other thoughts on how people seem to tihnk a compelling/tragic origin justifies anything the character does. This is the mentality of completely divorcing a character's moral place in a narrative from their actions, and instead based on their victimhood. It really explains the whole idea i keep seeing there, and its something to address in my story concepts.

Third thing is more important, more profound. Its hard for me to articulate WHY people like this bother me so much; that they're so unrelentingly unpleasant, cruel to everyone around them, and even similar attitudes of people who are just casually rude. Even if there's no harm meant, you can just... not talk like that. You don't have to be mean with every single word you say, and you can resist the urge to turn every exchange or observation into an opportunity to sound like a smart ass; that's how you get stuff after James Earl Jones dies, you post pictures of Mufasa's death and then fail to understand why people are upset by you immediately making a joke about an inoffensive, much beloved voice actor who never did anything to you.

So i think about how to describe this... or perhaps how to AVOID this. How to talk and act in ways that's softer and doesn't hurt people for a quick joke or jibe, or acts like they can't understand why its wrong. And then I remember the game Undertale, where in the Pacifist route (the only route I've ever played), Sans will warmly tell a player who has actively refused to ever kill or hurt a single monster by saying that 'it just means you kept tenderness in your heart', and i think that's a good way to do it.

Just keep some tenderness in your heart. Let yourself be open and be gentle as much as you can. A thing that is tender ache when it hurts something or hits something pretty much at all, so its important to keep that tenderness so you DON'T hurt others too.

The world is sad and unpleasant enough as it is. You don't need to make things worse just so you can feel better about yourself.

[spotsupstuff]

are any anemons able to find pictures or videos of themselves from their past lives? If they can remember them i mean!

Oh, definitely, yes.

I really like the idea of someone walking through a hall, decked with murals, graffiti, all such things- and they stop beneath one. Look up and feel a certain gnawing scrutiny from beyond a painted mask. ,I was supposed to be better by now,' the painting in their own voice tells them.

Or someone lonely finding a family video of adults playing with their kids. It feels like they are intruding, but also that they belong. There's wisps of nostalgia caressing the heart, hands trembling in longing. ,This isn't for me to see. *I belong with these strangers.* They wouldn't know me. *I love them so much and I don't know why...*'

Just a fucked mixed bag of incomplete contradicting emotions with the mind bending reality of seeing not-really-me-but-it-is-me acting outside of the conscious memory of the brain. It's almost like sleep talking, with purpose, but without a trace of a spark of own intention. Tangled web of liminal existences, forcing the perception of "I" to be torn between the thing sitting inside a body and an unfamiliar likeness etched on the wall or within a video.

It's almost like trauma- one that the mind rejected to remember to keep itself sane, but the body remembers. In this case, the qualia-soul knows. It is Made out of this knowledge. The brain, its mind, the physical "I" with low karma (aka knowledge of self and metaphysical workings of the world) does not know and cannot identify itself with this cleanly.

Most common ,,recognition of 'previous' self" happens either through dreams/nightmares, deja vus, sense of hiraeth, deep meditation or substance induced states (like what Moon mentions when presented with a Karma flower), though. While pictures and videos are much more tangible and therefore more invasive on the psyché, they aren't required for entering these kind of feelings and states. It wouldn't be amiss to call elder Anemons scatterbrained because of this.

The older one gets, the slower they become, the more space is created for self-reflection and ,,self-haunting" that is often the case with the first three ways. Age chips away at ignorance, even for people like Sparrows who try to outright drown themselves in it. (which is also why I rock with the idea of Rhinestones being a teen/kid)

[side tangent not entirely connected to your answer anymore under the cut, thoughts drifted with Row]

Nightmares, deja vus and hiraeth is what starts happening to Sparrows more and more often as she gets older. Her previous life, the thing that landed her with a Karma lvl 1, was quite horrific because of "her" own actions.

Dreams and such seem to be canonically some kind of bridges between the brain's limits on comprehension and the spiritual, if conditions are right. Such as the white pearl mentioning the ,,millions of glowing stars [moving] menacingly in the distance" which is either the Void worms (theorized to be caused by the worker's closeness to the Void by working in Subterannean) or might be vision of the future with the falling stars in Outer Rim and then Watcher's dreams, that I've seen described as empathetic in nature; essentially having Watcher in Spinning Top's and the Prince's shoes. (Spin's dream is about her hesitating to go with everyone else into the light, resulting in her becoming an Echo. Prince's is about swimming out of the no-awareness of the Rot upwards, into the light of consciousness, selfhood and ability to comprehend.)

Sparrows works closely with the Void, in the way that the thing is what keeps Euros running. The rarefaction cells and other battery-esque things. That + the slipping willful ignorance leading to natural self-recognition results in horrid nightmares of her past life's actions, with deja vus coming along in the waking hours. A haunt of herself.

I'm also considering this past life happened in Desaevio(/Boreas' city). This life meant something in the public eye, so there were paintings and murals and such there. She might've been stalked by herself even during her school years.

After the nightmares and deja vus become bad enough that she starts losing her colors and her hands shake too much to let her drown in work, she finally buckles and listens to Euros about the metaphysical teachings/goes to Ales' church(/monastery) to study RW's dharma, especially meditation.

Because the latter two, meditation and substance induced states, are controlled confrontations with the things that burden, generally with a spiritual guide (monks/spiritual teachers/Iterators would usually qualify too [if I was Row I'd trust Boreas more with this than mr. brand new model Euros is what I mean]) to assist in the process of resolving issues within the self and helping in letting go.

Through that and self-analyzation (and I GUESS some of that gravel eating) is how Ascension was originally achieved, before the Void Fluid revolution.

[solaneceae]

nest

a team bolas oneshot (read on ao3) this one is all fluff and found family and all that cute shit.

Some days aren’t as bad as the others. As far as Team Red is concerned, day Four is one of the better ones, because their minds aren’t as hazy with the fog of war and bloodlust and they can actually, finally think properly. “The others will want our heads today,” Phil grunts, ripping stray roots off the black stone wall to free up a little alcove. (Jaiden will want to put red candles in there, he thinks, right in the middle of the many gas masks hooked to the cold stone. Add to the ambiance.) “We won twice in a row, so I think they’ll just try to trap and spaw-kill us."

“That’s low,” Foolish hums, places a Baghera skull on the improvised altar they’ve set up in the center of their little cave. Cellbit did a good job picking it free of flesh, and its smooth, bleached white surface makes a stark contrast against the red stone. “And boring.”

“Maybe, but they’ll be desperate after the bullshit we pulled yesterday,” the crow snorts, glancing back at the rest of the group — Charlie is recovering from a pretty bad glitching episode in his little ‘hot tub’, his form melted into goopy blob mode to conserve energy. Cellbit is off on the other side of the base, humming into their comms to let them know he’s close, not gone, stay, stay. Baghera has been cooking something in a hidden corner of the base, something she doesn’t want any of them to see yet. Jaiden is perched onto makeshift scaffolding, a bucket in her hand and the other dripping red, tracing lines and curves onto the wall. Carré sits among their chests, checking over weapons and food and head-deep in inventory work. He’s been spending more time with them lately, which Phil is grateful for. Carré is strong (“Carré, more like Carry!” “The goat, the goat!” "La Bestia Argentinia!"), Carré is funny, and more importantly, Carré is one of them. 

The old crow’s heart swells up with pride, pride for what his team had accomplished despite their natural disavantage. He feels lucky to be among fellow hybrids, fellow avians, hindbrain thrumming pleasantly with the proximity. His diaphragm vibrates with the low croon of flock, flockmates, yesyes, and he hears Jaiden and Baghera echo the sentiment back to him, in their respective high-pitched trills and throaty quacks.

Purgatory was Hell. Everyone had been blinded by competition and percentages and the weightless promise of getting some eggs back, unable to consider that hey, maybe the fucking cyclops that despises us and calls us sinner is fucking lying, hello! Too too focused on winning and competing to see the bigger picture like he did, but there was nothing he could do about it for now. So if he couldn’t protect his eggs, he’d settle for the next best thing and protect team Bolas. Flock. Family… 

His eyes cloud over, memories of pain and betrayal drowning the world out in static-fuzz. Étoiles had stabbed him in the back after promising to be there for him. Fit had struck him down like a heartless machine, his face steely and without the slighest trace of emotion, and Phil knows the man has serious trauma from 2b2t but he can’t bring himself to care right now. (Fuck them. Fuck everyone that isn’t on his team. The communicator strapped to his wrist still shows unread messages from Tubbo, and he refuses to read them.)

“Still can’t believe we won that, honestly,” the conure chirps from atop her bamboo scaffolding as she paints the cave wall in dripping red. Phil doesn’t know what she used to make the dye, and he won’t ask. “But yeah, I think we should just stay inside today. Let them look for us, we ain’t fucking budging.”

“They won’t find us, yes?” Carré asks, accent heavy and whistle-y as he closes the chests and hides them behind hanging vines. “They could, they could look at the map and see.”

“Nah. Cellbit made sure that the place shows up like a natural cave in maps, and our stuff is scattered enough. They won’t find it, unless they zoom the fuck in and spend five minutes checking every single cave in the area. We’re good.” Cellbit’s smart, so fucking smart, Philza Minecraft is so fucking proud right now. “How’s the food situation?”

The Argentinian smirks. “Bastante bien. Zanahorias y pan, suficiente para un día o dos.”

“He says we got carrots and bread, enough for a day or two,” Foolish pipes up, and Phil is so fucking glad he and Cellbit are here to make up for the lack of their usual translators, left behind outside of Hell. “Soooo, technically, we shouldn’t need to commit self-cannibalism today. Unless you’re down for some medium-rare chicken breast.”

“Not a chicken, you fucker,” Baghera yells out from afar. “And you don’t medium rare chicken, you want to catch salmonelle?”

“I can’t!” the shark-totem boasts with a flash of razor-sharp teeth. “Iron stomach! Comes with being part-totem.”

“Please don’t actually immolate yourselves,” Phil rolls his eyes, washing his hands in clean water (at least they have that, thank fuck) before plopping down in front of the campfire. How they haven’t suffocated in smoke with fire in a closed up space is beyond them, but maybe they have and he’s just dreaming all of this. Wouldn’t be the first time his mind fucks with his perception of reality. “We can’t make beds, so if you die you’ll just spawn right into Bad and the other’s hands. We don’t want that, you don’t want that.”

“I really don’t,” Cellbit says, his bulky frame appearing from behind a stalagmite. His jacket is strapped around his waist, for now clean of blood, cat-like eyes gleaming in the dim light. It’s the most clear-headed Phil’s seen him yet. “The elevator’s done by the way, shouldn’t show up on the map.”

“And the sound?” Carré checks, ever-vigilant and detail-oriented. Cellbit shrugs and grins, exposing sharp fangs. “Haven’t figured that one out yet. But it doesn’t matter for now, since none of us are going out. Fuck today, right?”

“Fuck today!” Jaiden woops, jumping down the scaffolding to admire her handiwork — a great frieze depicting all six of them in bright, darkening red, all donning masks of course. “We’re going all moleman up in this shit.”

“Holy fuck,” Foolish laughs, bark-like, clapping enthusiastically at the display. “Oh, oh, I almost want the others to find our base just so we can see their reaction.”

“Oh my god, that would be so fucking funny. They expect an iron farm and crops everywhere, and they get the gas mask and blood cult.”

“I finished!” Baghera pops her head out from behind the wall, waving at them with her beak stretched into a ducky smile. “Come see, come see!”

Baghera has built them a nest. An honest-to-god, proper nest, and Philza could cry actually. “Where did you even get all this stuff?” Cellbit whistles, impressed, patting the comfy-looking amalgamation of moss and large leaves and colourful strips of cloth. Baghera smiles. “I have my ways,” she faux-whispers, and everyone knows that her ‘ways’ just amounts to wandering around getting lost until she spots something of interest. Which seems to always work out for her somehow, to be fair.

Phil can spot feathers woven into it here and there, pale yellow and white and blue and black. “So that’s why you wanted those,” Jaiden oooh's, thinking back to their first preening session back at their old base. Baghera nods, the feathers on her neck puffed up in excitement. “Yes, exactly. I thought it would be nice, for a nest. Do you guys like it?” she preens, and the others cheer her on because yes, it’s great Baghz, oh we so fuckin' do. The duck glances at Philza, wings ruffling, and she croons out inquisitively. happy? proud? The crow cocks his head, yesyes’s back at her, because he does like it — it’s plush and colorful and just the right size for all of them to huddle, and her face lights up with joy. “Yes! I’m glad,” she laughs, adjusting a stray piece of cloth near the center. “You wanna add something in it?”

Cellbit donates his jacket, all rips and tears and darker areas where blood used to soak the fabric. Jaiden weaves in some flowers she found the day before while Charlie, now back to his not-too-goopy self, shoves pieces of glowing stone into glass vials filled with slime to make his own version of lava lamps that he places strategically around their new resting place. (“Now there’s pieces of me watching over us at night!” “That’s so gross, I love it.”). Phil unties a ribbon from his robes and lets Carré wrap it around a few emeralds to hang them up above the nest, like some sort of mobile. Cellbit in particular eyes it with rapt fascination, the moving glint on the polished surface of the gems making his pupils expand and his fingers twitch. “Check this shit out,” Foolish boasts as he burns through stacks and stacks of strings to form a tightly-knitted blanket, the other cheering him on as he does and throwing in different dyes in no particular order or pattern. “Eso Foolish!” Carré shouts, everyone else joining him, accents and all.

Baghera is choking on barely-repressed sobs by the end of it, a crack in her ‘I’m fine’ mask. “I wanted to make a nest, with my kids,” she confesses, trapped between five other bodies as they all sit inside. There’s dark tear tracks on her face, still dusty from working on the cave earlier. “With Pomme, and Dapper.” Her hand fiddles with the little charms around her wrist, crudely-shaped pieces of wood shaped like an apple and a tophat, attached to a red ribbon. “I miss them.”

(She misses her kids, she misses her brother, she misses her best friend and father of her son. And she knows that Bad and her briefly talked the day before, that he spared her after she pulled her puppy eyes on him. He still loves her, she knows, and she still loves him. But it still hurts to know he won’t hesitate to drive a sword through her body next time.)

Day Four goes by slowly, punctuated by the occasional death message from Gay Ninjas or Soulfire, and many, manyrequests for red team to ‘come out and die already’. They ignore it all, too busy feeding the fire and tearing their voices out singing, Slime and Baghera being the menaces they are and outlasting everyone else, although Cellbit and Carré put up quite the fight. The Argentinian, usually fairly withdrawn, gradually opens up and cracks them up with perfectly-timed quips and easy smiles. Baghera asks him for PvP tips, just so she can not immediately die whenever another team raids them, and they spar with sticks while everyone cheers her on. “You’re one of us Carré,” Jaiden woops, pulling him into a side-hug and gently batting at his back with a wing. “I don’t care that those ears and tail are fake, you’re one of us freaks.”

“Honorary hybrid, nice!” Foolish nods. “He already barks perfectly.”

“Cats don’t bark, asshole,” Cellbit pipes up, and Phil wheezes with laughter because oh, he just wasn’t denying it anymore, was he? “Speaking from experience I take it?”

“Shut up dad,” the Brazilian sputters, but he’s smiling, and the crow rolls his eyes at the nickname. “Dadza!” Baghera quacks, her feathery tail wiggling in amusement. “Please don’t go and buy milk though. Don’t be Kameto,” she pleads, and Phil almost falls over losing it. He loves these little shits.

Slime decides to climb up a pile of scaffolding as the evening approaches (which they can only tell from the comms, because no outside light reaches them deep underground) and raises his arms towards the gem-encrusted ceiling of their new home, belting out an improvised sermon with his karaoke-destroyed vocal cords. He speaks of masks and sins, of death-touched angels and base instincts, of the beauty of caves and the song of Mother Earth, eyes wide and shining with fervour behind his thick glasses. They all listen and cheer when his speech warrants it, the flames casting eerie shadows onto the walls as they all start dancing to a music only they can hear.

Foolish, Jaiden, Baghera and Charlie’s eyes all start to flicker green-violet as they start smiling a little too wide, laugh a little too brokenly, and Cellbit has to quell Phil’s sudden concern with a tired smile. “It’s like your Death-touch, Phil,” he explains, referring to the strange wither effect Phil’s attacks had gained recently, whenever things got… intense. “Entity stuff.”

“Enigma do Chaos!” Charlie yells, and barely avoids the rock Cellbit throws at him. “Bitch!”

"They’re okay, just… four Chaos-bound together can be a lot when they start syncing up like this. Just be ready to throw water on them if they get too crazy, or something.”

“Can I choose my entity, when we get home?” Carré asks, and Cellbit looks like Christmas just came early. “Sure man, holy shit. Please do.”

“Oh he’s Chaos for sure,” Jaiden laughs, gesturing at Carré who’s just starting doing Casualonas in the empty air, undeterred by their intense cackling — Baghera and Charlie are now dancing together, and it’s wild and uncoordinated, almost a fight. “Now if Felps logs on we can have a party.”

“Oh, meu deus,” Cellbit winces. “No no, we can’t have six Chaos players on at the same time, we’ll actually blow up this place and die.” Foolish yells out a high-pitched yeaaaaah! at that and starts barking again, and it’s all over, everyone else putting their masks on and barking at the metaphorical moon until they all end up on the floor, dizzy and sweaty and twitching with remnant giggles.

“Where’d the blanket go?” Charlie slurs out, blindly feeling out the soft ground in search of it. His glasses have fallen at some point earlier, and he can’t be bothered to look for them even though he can’t see shit. Baghera and Jaiden have passed out already, huddled together against the edge of the nest, Jaiden’s larger wings around the both of them. Foolish takes a break in his own nesting to throw it at him. “Thanks dude.”

“Get yourself into a burrito,” Cellbit orders, fiddling with his trusty knife at the center of the nest. “Your codified bits leech off heat like crazy.”

“Es fresco,” Carré confirms, poking at Slime’s uncorrupted arm. His finger dips into greenish skin, not quite going in, but close. “¿Por eso te llamas así? Like, popsicle.”

“Oh, I’m sorry mister Living Heater,” the slime hybrid scoffs, but there’s no heat to it — literally and figuratively. “Get your ass over here and cuddle me dammit.”

“Still married, Slime.”

“Hey— hey now, I know I’ve got a bit of a reputation, alright? But this cave is cold and damp, and I very much fuck with that usually, but my timer’s about to run out and send me into fuckin’— Sleepytime Junction, and this place is throwing me all out of whack and you run the warmest out of all of us I want me a heat pack, slash p. P means platonic, if you didn’t know.”

Cellbit’s hindbrain does a little jolt at the word. Pack, it whispers, a hum-buzz making his brain a little stupid. He glances at the others, at Jaiden with her head cushioned against Baghera’s chest fluff, Foolish curling up against her back with a tired sigh. He sees Phil right behind them, propped up against the moss and out cold as well — not because he chose to, but because his timer ran out earlier when he was trying to wrangle everyone into not drawing dicks and vulvas on the walls. His body had swayed as the device strapped to his wrist buzzed ominously, sending targeted jolts of electricity up his nervous system and into his hypothalamus to force him into unconsciousness. Carré had caught him, fortunately, saving him from one killer headache next morning.

“...Fine,” Cellbit relents, discarding his knife outside the nest before shuffling over to the others. Charlie flashes him a triumphant smile and plops down next to Baghera, who stirs with a quiet croon as the slime hybrid runs his non-code hand through her left wing, straightening out some feathers stuck in an awkward angle. Carré settles a little to the side, happy to be close to everyone but still needing a little more personal space than the rest of them, and the detective lets Charlie lean into his side with a click-chrrr noise he cannot parse. Cellbit blinks, replies with a hesitant mrrrp. Carré makes a terrible and inaccurate meowing noise and the Brazilian hisses at him for it. “Just wanted to feel included, pendejo!” the human laughs, and it’s bittersweet. (He misses Roier.)

Cellbit sighs, body sinking into the plush bottom of the nest (their, theirs. Pack-flock.) Charlie seizes slightly as his comm goes off with a little beep-beep as it reaches zero, and he goes limp against him. He blinks, staring out at the emeralds slowly spinning above them and resisting the urge to bat at them, play, play, hunt! “No hunting today,” he reminds himself with a whisper.

He looks higher, at the small blue and purple gems jutting out of the dark stone ceiling. They are gleaming in the orange light of the dying fire, like a pale imitation of stars in the night sky. His eyes trace their constellations anyway (a capybara. a duck. a sword. a boat.), mindlessly matching his own breathing with the sounds of his team’s soft exhales, in. Out. In. Charlie glitches, just a little bit, a garbled whine escaping his throat. Cellbit loops an arm around him to pull him closer, a very quiet purr rattling his chest, and the hybrid settles. He feels the edge of Jaiden and Baghera's wings against his hair, Phil’s hip digging into his shoulder. He hears Foolish snoring, he hears Carré’s toss-and-turn because he’s a restless sleeper, that one.

And he can smell them all, their comforting presence, hidden underneath the scent of blood and grime (they really need to take a bath tomorrow, or his nose will start to itch). The scent of them, each one distinct and unique and burned into his memory-hindbrain.

Seasalt and gold, and the subtle tang of divinity. 

Ozone-void, bone, and the honey-tar of nightshade. 

Steel and wool, thick and scratchy in his nose. 

Apples and moss, fresh snow. 

Quartz and poppies, the smell of the sky before rainfall. 

And closest to him, slime, and the electric tingle of a thunderstorm on his tongue. Tongue he has to keep firmly in his mouth before he does something stupid, like trying to groom his sleeping friend’s mop of dirty blonde hair. (Curse this place, exacerbating their mob instincts like this.)

He hears his timer go off, a spike of startled anxiety. Then he relaxes, his brain buzzing with sleep, sleep, and the world melts into cotton-soft, warm darkness.

Tomorrow is another day. And today… today was okay.

[melesmee]

yk while we're talking about cody and juvie's relationships with losers. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW JUVIE FELT AFTER THE END OF EPISODE 20.

like yeah. mini had been lying and manipulating cody since grd but. imagine being juvie. you've just found out that mini has been here the entire time. ofc you have to get over the shock of "holy shit mini has been here the entire time" but that eventually makes way for "okay, maybe things can go back to the way they were before". even more so now that gma is mostly out of the picture.

and then CODY finds out and just completely loses it. like, just completely drops the whole average thing that he's been unshakably commited to for weeks now and suddenly everything is the same as it was before. do you any idea how pissed juvie probably is. like, they're probably not gonna be able to think too hard about it considering there's more urgent cody-related problems at hand but.

(also sidenote, mini getting an entire episode dedicated to confronting and accepting her past and then almost immediately having all her fears realized is so fucked up)

RIGHT ITS CRRAAZZZYYY

like. haircuts are so symbolic in general. and juvie has more symbolism tied to it bcs MINI gave them the hair tie!!! they grew their hair out specifically to honor mini’s memory !! but like. now mini’s back. and they’re…..moving on, i guess? not from loving mini necessarily, but…..it’s been years. they’ve both grown and changed as people. juvie losing their hair (and more importantly, the hair tie) symbolizes kind of like. a new beginning for the two of them. juvie’s done mourning !! they’re ready to get to know the person mini’s become :)

vs cody!! his initial reaction is ‘omg mini’s alive’ and the relief. all the guilt and self torture he’s put himself through for years lifts a little because mini’s alive!!!! she’s not dead and it’s not his fault!!! and the hypothetical scene that plays as codys reaction is like. they both could’ve done things better. they both could’ve avoided hurting each other, but they didn’t. mini left and cody basically let her. and this is where they are now. they’re…..different people. cody’s gotten better through his relationship with pb. he has a better understanding of being a loser, and he’s opened up to someone about his trauma for. probably the first time ever.

meanwhile, mini has been so obsessed with clinging to the past and recreating her childhood, but without the things she didn’t like. she wanted juvie, cody and herself to hang out in chill haven forever, with no status difference or overbearing grandma to ruin it!! she’s obsessed with things staying exactly as they were back then. she doesn’t really account for juvie and cody growing up, and she doesn’t really even realize how much SHE has changed, either.

and that’s when the rejection hits!!! cody’s changed!! he doesn’t want godhood, he’s not sure if he ever really did!! and after EVERYTHING mini put him through- everything she’s put pb through? pb’s not even a part of this! mini dragged in some random loser to be part of her selfish scheme, and the heartbreak they both suffered was HER fault!! she was gonna send pb to the void after all this! isn’t that fucked up? he’s literally a tool to her, to make her idealized world!! so cody snaps!!! he shows that hey! people CAN change! i might have failed you all those years ago, but i will NOT fail pb. i won’t lose him like i lost you.

and i think juvie understands that. i don’t really think they’d be mad at cody for being so angry, as much as they love mini. i mean, this is what they’ve been trying to get him to do for weeks now, man. stand up for something. take some GODDAMN control of his life. of course they’d be concerned for mini, because she’s not being malicious, but like….how could they be mad at cody? he finally did it.

idk. basically it’s what delusional sorikus want kingdom hearts to be (im delusional sorikus :3)

[littleashesefall]

This but also celebrities are people too. You can have s strong opinion and not want to post it or just throw it out- yea even against horrendous things. Also, it could be a mental health thing where "i won't post at length about things that spending too much time considering will put me in a headspace that will trigger or induce trauma" which personally for me, although I'm not a celebrity, is why I have things like "Russia, war, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine " all under tag blocks. I go to tumblr to cope with things that at times feel like I just can't cope with and seeing horrific bloody pictures, or angry rants sometimes being violently anti Semitic or anti Muslim will fuck me up mentally. So I protect myself. No I don't have thousands of followers like a celeb but if I did does that mean I'm suddenly not allowed to self care? Will me posting my outrage stop these things from happening any more than someone posting anti abortion outrage will stop abortion? (Although I'm 100 pro choice and abortion rights are all but dead but it wasn't because of celebrity posts it was because people with money and power in government).

Then there is the whole job aspect. There hundreds of celebrities who were petrified of speaking out about abuse they endured because it would end their careers and no career means no food, no shelter, no clothes. Yes, it's 100% important to stand with members who.have been abused and to step up and say Me Too and thank God eventually that movement came to be but it doesn't mean they should be put down or judged of they were too afraid to step forward. For whatever reason, be it a physical threat of violence like what P Diddy did to his victims or due to being black listed and ending their livelihood.

Not everyone can be a physical soldier, so some advocate and protest. It doesn't make them less than. Not everyone can protest and advocate safely so they do what they can in secret or in silence (like the members who joined the SS during WW2 to help as many Jews from the inside as possible without arousing suspicions), it doesn't make them less than. Some people can't do anything but not fall apart and kill themselves over a world that feels like its perpetually going to shit and that's okay too. It doesn't mean they don't see or they don't care. If we all judged less (and trust me my ass judges too, so I'm not all the way up on this soap box) maybe things would get a little better? At least some of the time.

Loving the new counterpoint that not only is posting activism, not posting is complicity. Why doesn't everyone with any fame or internet presence immediately release a lengthy but perfectly-worded statement telling us where they stand on every issue? Is it because they're evil??? It must be because they're evil

And then the usual answer is "they don't post online very much". Which is all very suspicious, don't they know everything of importance is done by posts on social media now

[onmymasa22]

מה רציתי להגיד.

הייתי ממש רגישה נראה לי אתמול פשוט מזה שאמרת שזה משו שכולם עושים נכנסתי לסוג של שוק, ולהיות 100 אחוז כנה, שאר השיחה פשוט נסיתי להחזיק את עצמי לא לבכות. שזה קשור אלי.

אבל עכשיו אקלתי את מה שאמרת, כן התחלתי עם זה, כן החומר מעניין אותי מהמקום ש

הייתי במקום אומרת ופונה לכל הכיתה "כל כמה שנים, מישהי עושה קורי אכביש עם דבק חם"

הייתי אומרת

"מאיפה באת עם החומר הזה. כי קורה שסטודנתים בונים קורי אכביש מדבק אבל

, יש ימים שאנשים אומרים לי דברים ואני יכולה לקחת את זה מעוד בטוב. ביום הזה קצת הייתי בשוק מ

My dream

An art degree

A trauma informed yoga instructor

Emt

Work with old people with mental health issues

I want to work with old people being an emt

I want to

Start doing yoga. Do trauma informed yoga.

Start doing yoga

See if i like it

If i like it i can do it im the summer

Pronouns: likes/ pizza

I met someone that to talk to them is just a soft place to land. I just want to be a soft spot for him. His eyes are just magical.

Can i just say this without sounding weird. I like how we hugged long enough for me beathe out. Because to me thats a safeness feeling. The scrunch of my nose after because i cant do the eye contact from so close. I really can just look in his eyes for a while. I want a picture of his eyes. I want dreams about his eyes.

And if you call at 4am, too sad to even say hello, i will listen to your silence until you fall asleep

Waiting to be "ready" will crush dreams and rob the world of your creative power

Do it now. Do it wrong. Then do it again. Better.

And he found himself questioning if the reason she loved the rain so much was because she didn't want to cry alone

Hey, you could always be addicted to cocaine

Youre not hehind in life. Theres no timetable that we all must follow. Its made up. 7 billion ppl camt do everything in the same order. Whats early? Whats late? Compaired to who? Dont beat yourself up for where you are. Its YOUR schedule and everything is right on time.

When you finally learn that a persons behavior has more to do with their own internal struggle than it ever had to do with you, you learn grace

She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to noone. Sje spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims.

I was never addicted to one thing, i was addicted to filling a void within myself with things other than my own love

Womanhood is about wearing a big coat and saying fuck this

One day you will wake up refreshed, drink coffee and be able to read a book the same way you did

Thats how old souls are made. By how many sunsets theyve seen, hugs theyve given, hearts theyve healed, and people theyve loved. Juansen dizon

Patiently the night waits for the moon and loves whatever face she happems to show. Yeah, i love you kind of like that.

I hope you live louder. I hope you laugh more. I hope you sing at the top of your lungs. I hope you drive with the windows down and let the wind rustle through your hair. I hope you hug. I hope you kiss. I hope you surround yourself with people who make you feel alive.

30.11.24

U know what i want

I want a picture of my future husband

I want to know if my life worked out

If i found my movie like lovestory with someone better than my wildest dreams

I want to know if my funeral will have lots of people

Whether people who neber liked me will lie and say we were friends

I want to know if my parents will be proud of me

I want to know if ill travel to different countries, see black sand beaches and pink sand beaches

If ill let being self concious keep me from doing things

If ill make a difference in the world

If i mattered

If whether my grate grandchildren will be decent people

I want to know how i will die and at what stage.

If ill be happy with the way my life turned out

I want a picture of my life twenty years from now

How wrinkly my face will get

Really i wish someone could give a percentage of how much i did versus how much i let being self conscious stop me from things i should have been able to do. Not about stuff like climbing a mountain, but more like being a wacko or saying something to make someone laugh, to make someone feel included, to make someone feel good about themselves

I kind of want to talk about my relationship with gd. What trauma does do my relationship with gd and the ppl around me. That the biggest thing i can talk about

I also have a need for trees. For gan eden. To create a happy place for me and other people. To get a version of perfect, the perfect day, perfect weather, perfect look. Its a weird feeling- perfect. Im someone who can love sitting outside on a friday drinking coffee, but after ten minutes there im done. I can want to go to tge kotel or the beach and after like ten minutes ditting there, i want to leave cuz i dont know what to do with the feeling after the initial happiness settles.

My life is pulled between who i am in chicago and who i am here and being an adult but being a kid and being religious and being part of the whole world and being girly and being wild and the combination of a lot of things is me. Talking about torah but also talking about drugs. Im the product of loys of different cultures but i dont think i fit but with ppl who are also searching. My dad really connects to the 70s style and my mom connects to college in the 80s in new york and i was born in the late 70s.

I feel like like the pulling is from opposing stuff within me. Spiritual and material, life and death.

[96percentdone]

In Defense of Tearer

Character writing, not the uncountable crimes

AI:TSF Nirvana Initiative is a very divisive game, for many reasons, some of which I’ve discussed before even. With its twists and split storytelling, and a horrible no spoilers policy that leaves fans of the first game with no connective tissue that respects the time they spent with those characters in the first game, it was destined for controversy, no matter how many good ideas and interesting characters it contained. And make no mistake, Nirvana Initiative has many interesting, even consistently well executed ideas. There are some things in Nirvana Initiative that I think are better than they ever were in the first game, like the serial killer at the center of it all.

Apparently, Tearer is controversial. Some think he is lesser than Saito. Less presence. Weaker. Uninteresting. Irrelevant. They think his only purpose is to provide a motive for Amame, who is actually the interesting culprit. But I believe all of that is incorrect. It misunderstands what makes Saito compelling, what makes Amame compelling, and most importantly, for my purposes, why fucking Tearer fucking rules. Tearer is critical to the fundamental nature of not just AINI’s plot, but it’s themes; he is essential to the conversation about love, determinism, and trauma and without him this game is weak and flavorless, and all the other things you like about it would be worse. Under the cut.

Part Zero: S**TO

AITSF is about love. It’s in the title. Water is wet. But for the sake of drawing clearer parallels, let’s actually talk about Sejima Saito.

Saito cannot feel love or happiness from anything from murder, because of a brain disorder, or more accurately, he would have been able to if even one person loved him to begin with. I say this because Date exists within the same body, and he’s able to get by on medication. Because people cared about Date, and wanted him to be happy; they loved him. But Sejima Sou, the world’s worst man, does not care about Saito. His son killed animals, and he did nothing. His son killed his mistress, and he covered it up, but didn’t look into the root issue. He doesn’t care. On a literal level, Saito cannot feel love because of a brain disorder, but on a thematic level, he cannot feel it because no one ever offered it to him. He does not know what it is. (From this perspective, you could say that Saito is a victim of ableism and not only just. A problematic trope, although like it’s all definitely like still here)

And the sad thing is, Saito does not know what love is, he cannot understand it, yet he still wants it from his father! He’s on record saying this is why he killed Manaka because she stole him away. Sejima does not care about him, and he recognizes that, and it bothers him. He wants what he cannot have, so he kills instead. He has to rip that which his father loves away from him. That’s why killing her makes him happy! Are you seeing the bigger picture? The dopamine rush from killing is just the literal read; Saito derives pleasure from murder because he is ripping love away from others, a thing he wants but thinks he cannot have.

Saito switches into several different bodies that do not have the same brain disorder that his did, but this doesn’t make him understand love, because the problem isn’t actually the brain disorder. It’s that at this point, he has gone so long without ever being loved, without ever knowing what love is, with wanting it but never being allowed to have it, that he absolutely refuses to conceive of a version of himself where he could be happy and capable of it. He looks at Date, in his body, who is happy, and living a life full of love, with people who care about him, and its incomprehensible to him. That should not be possible. Date is using that body wrong because to be Saito is to be without love.

Saito has defined himself as loveless, as someone who could only ever be happy when he’s making everyone as miserable as he is. Sejima did not love him, and did not support him, but even once Saito became an adult with the resources and wealth that name possesses, he did not seek out happiness elsewhere, away from the people who failed him. When he gets second chances in different bodies, he does not seek out love, no matter how false it may be. Instead he uses whatever love someone might have for whoever used to live in that body as a tool to carry out his ends, because he is determined to stay as he is. He was not loved, so he will never be loved, and so no one else should ever be either.

This is how Saito is used in the narrative of the first game. In a story where love saves and redeems, about the connections we make with others no matter how fleeting, and the strength it gives us to pull through, the antagonist is someone who was denied it, and because he was denied it is now determined to destroy it for everyone else.

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, by talking about Saito, let’s move to the main event.

Part One: Forsaken | Child

Carrying on the thematic torch, we get to AINI, and like with any sequel, the discussion about love has shifted. To simplify things, the discussion in the first game is “love good not loving bad.” Characters you’re meant to like are filled with love to give and are loved in return, characters who aren’t well...aren’t. It is good to love. I agree. But AINI takes this theme a step further: who/what do you love, and how? What does love mean to you?

This question shows up at multiple points. Komeji loves his family so dearly, but his pursuit of his dream he loves just as much keeps putting them in danger and costs him his wife and later his life. Shouma struggles to admit he loves his father, constantly fighting with him, until it is too late, and he’s gone, and there is nowhere for this love to go. At the cathedral Ryuki has to pick between Date and Tama: who does he love more? I could go on like this (we will get to Amame), but this all comes back to one source: Tearer. So, who does Tearer love, and how? What does love mean to him?

Tearer loves one person: his ‘mother’, Shigure Tokiko, the world’s worst woman. (I promise we’ll get to Amame when we fucking get there.) Like Saito, he is desperate for the approval and love of his parent, something he too does not get, but there are several fundamental differences. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that while Sejima Sou is Saito’s literal father, and has not legally forfeit his parentage over him no matter how garbage and bereft of love he may be, Shigure Tokiko is not Tearer’s mother in any sense of the word. She did not give birth to him, she didn’t adopt him, she does not raise him with love or compassion—no. She and her partner/ex Horadori Chikara (the world’s other worst man) kidnapped him and keep him trapped in the fucking basement so they can harvest his fucking organs and body parts for their biological son they gave up but actually love, Furue Jin.

And as obvious as saying that might be, it’s actually pretty critical to begin here. Both of these environments are loveless. Sejima is implicitly neglectful, and I don’t like need to tell you what’s wrong with what Shigure and Horadori are doing, yet the results are fundamentally different. There are two reasons for this. The first is that Saito was always a Sejima, and his life began in a house without love, thus he never knew it in the first place, Tearer was once a little boy not unlike any other, happy, innocent, loved up until the day he was kidnapped. For a brief moment, he knew what love was, and that will always matter.

And this difference leads to the second, which is far more interesting to me. Saito decided that if he could not have love then no one could, that he would destroy every instance of it within his grasp with his bare hands out of spite purely because he could not have it and never knew it, and never once attempted to know it himself. But every single thing Tearer does is all in the name of love. He wants the world to laud him as a hero and savior, to recognize him as important. He does not care that he killed Komeji, or that he is going to kill billions of others, because from his point of view, he believes he is bringing them to true freedom. An act of service for humanity at large. This, as warped as it may be, is a version of love, and a request for reciprocation. He is obviously wrong to think like this, even if he himself cannot understand or comprehend it, but even if he somehow did, it’s secondary to his real motive, which again is for his ‘mother,’ who he loves more than anyone else in the world.

Everything he does, with the exception of trying to convince Amame of his totally based and epic gamer plan to wipe out all human life that also involved murdering her dad, is for her. That plan he came up with is based on her beliefs about the world that he dedicated himself to because she taught them to him, and he is devoted to her without question. Shigure may say that Naix is more scientific than a cult, and is thus better than whatever Horadori is doing, but Tearer is their #1 worshipper, and that is because he adores her. He wants to prove her beliefs correct, to brings everyone to Moksha, because yes everyone will love him and worship him as a hero obviously and his endless pain and torment will end and be retconned into having not happened, but mostly because it would make her happy to be right, and if he makes her happy, then surely she will love him in return, right?

Nonentity Incognito is a somnium about Tearer’s absolute desperation for Shigure to love him in the same way she loves Jin. He wants to be her son. He cries to be let out, somebody, “MOM HELP ME,” but she won’t, and no one else will. They take his ideas, his work, his organs, his skin—everything from him, while they leave him locked in a rusty cell in a basement with a door that cannot open from the inside, and yet he still cries from the bottom of his heart “I love you so much! Why won’t you love me? Why, mom, why?” But he knows exactly why she won’t. Because Shigure loves Jin, or at least she did at one point (she doesn’t anymore care much anymore given she’s all for Tearer’s plan that killed him). As much as he screams and cries and begs, she will never love him. She never has loved him. To her, he was just a child with the right DNA that could be used to save the kid that mattered to her. When asked if Tearer is her son, even when he is right there, she does not answer; the silence speaks for itself. Nothing he does will ever make her love him. He will never be her son, no matter how much he wants to be.

Some may wonder then, with this level of horrific abuse, why would he even want to? Especially since he hates Horadori and Jin for his torment, something that is no secret and is clearly illustrated within and outside his somnium. I mean he explicitly picks both of them as targets because he hates them that much. Horadori only tortures him, and Jin gets not only what Horadori takes but Shigure’s love, the one thing he wants, but why does he want it? Why does he want her love?

Part Two: Damned | Destiny

Shigure Tokiko has given Tearer exactly one thing. Not freedom, not remorse, not even a half-hearted apology, no she didn’t give him anything for his sake, but she did give him something. She taught him about her shitty cult ideology. Shigure believes the world is a simulation. Nothing is real, so there is no pain, and no sorrow, and no unhappiness if we just leave this false prison. She promises him that if he follows her, they can leave this fake world together, where true happiness, paradise, lies. . She does not tell him this because she feels sorry for him, it’s not for him, but because his obvious suffering is a confrontation of her guilt. He is in constant agony because they steal his literal body from him and keep him trapped in a dingy prison in the basement living off preserved food in a broken refrigerator, and if his torture is real, then she is culpable for it. It is her fault he suffers, so it cannot be real. This world where something this horrific happened, where she is enabling and partaking in something this cruel because she loved her son she gave up, Furue Jin—she cannot accept it. She promises him a world where he does not feel pain, and she does not feel guilt.

This obviously is just like shitty, and evil, which yeah, she runs a cult and kidnapped a child, of course she is shitty and evil, but he would not see it that way. To him, an orphan kidnapped overnight who routinely has had his organs taken from him by one of his abductors for another child who gets to be loved (or at least receives some approximation of it) instead, this manipulative bullshit looks like kindness. He’s so young. They took him when he was only six, and now this woman is promising him she can take him to a world where not only will he not be in pain anymore, but it will have never happened.

No one comes for him. He cannot escape. Even if he could somehow get the door open, they’ve taken enough of his lungs he has trouble breathing when he sleeps, so imagine every other physical challenge he could face in a body they routinely steal from. Of course, he clings onto her promises, her teachings; He has to believe her. What choice does he have? He just wants it not to hurt anymore! He is trapped in a cell, and she is telling him that they can leave it if they leave this world behind. He can be free. He doesn’t have to hurt. He will never hurt again. What she has to offer him is insincere, it is not helpful, and it is not even truly for his benefit (they even steal his work for Naix, insane, cant have shit in horaken), but who else is there to offer him anything? Shigure Tokiko does not and will never love him; she will never view him as her son. At most she sees him as a brilliant tool to further her agenda, a convenience as well as an organ donor, but he cannot leave. He is their prisoner, trapped, so her self-self-serving ‘kindness’ is the only thing he has.

They don’t let him go outside, cause obviously their unwilling organ donator can’t escape, and he’s only allowed to learn and do the things they think would be useful to them, (quantum mechanics, molecular biology, electrical engineering, Naix’ fucking teachings, etc), he has no friends or actual family, he’s lost his name, he’s lost half his face and body—what does he have that is his own? What can he have that is his own? What choices can he make that are truly his, when he has so little freedom? What else can he do?

This is where determinism comes into play. Because Nirvana Initiative is not just about love, it is about choices, and how those things often intersect and tie together: the things you do for those you love, the things you do to get it, how far you’re willing to go in its name. Tearer was willing to end the world in the name of Shigure Tokiko, because he loves her. He loves her because he has no choice but to love her, because in the situation they put him in he can make no choices at all.

When Horadori Chikara and Shigure Tokiko made that decision to abduct the child with the right DNA to save their son from his half body tumors, they sealed that child’s fate. Their love, however warped it may be, damned him into being Tearer.

Regrettably for literally everyone besides Shigure, this means he kills people, takes people hostage, blows up a building, tries to commit world genocide, dresses like a clown, and all in all just kind of sucks and posts cringe 24/7. My poor little meow meow lmao. He is the principal antagonist of the game, even if he turns out to be fucking dead for half of it. This is in part, of course, because this fucking unhinged maniac has no hobbies outside of Zero Escape and vaporwave and designed all of his plans to work with or without him being alive, but like Saito in the first game, Tearer is also representative of an idea. You may have already figured out what purpose he serves already, but if not, I think it’ll become much clearer once we talk about how he affects the story as the antagonist.

Talking about every single detail in AINI would take too long and waste a lot of time, especially since not everything that happens in the game is ties back to the HB case (hence some of the controversy), so our purposes we will focus on the characters most affected by Tearer: Ryuki Kuruto and Doi Amame. Ryuki first!

Part Three:  Fractured | Mind

Now, to be completely fair, ya boi Ryuki was already going the fuck through it before the half body incident even started. Ryuki’s became a psyncer because of a childish sense of justice he cannot let go of because of the horrifying way he lost his twin brother, who was hit by a truck in pursuit of a criminal and half of his body was crushed beyond recognition. It was his brother with the heroic dreams, Ryuki is just carrying the torch. While the localization uses a reference to My Hero Academia, in the original Japanese, his catchphrase is an Anpanman reference, a superhero show for small children. He wants to do good, he wants to be a hero, to help people, but those naïve ideals can be easily twisted by his trauma and his grief, most notably into a profound hatred of criminals.

So, imagine you’re Ryuki, it’s the time of year your brother died, and now there’s a serial killer going around killing people by leaving half bodies: how do you think that’s going to go? And yeah! It goes like shit! He makes mistake after mistake after mistake, he’s constantly dissociating, memory lapses, he’s vibrating with anticipating waiting for Tama to give him the okay to kill some guys he thinks are tied to the incident, Ryuki shoots an unarmed civilian because he thinks they might be Tearer! He cannot separate his trauma from the case! And frankly, how could he be expected to?

I am not going to lie to you and pretend that Tearer designed the half body incident to trigger Ryuki’s personal issues deliberately. He didn’t. That guy doesn’t go outside lmao. But like Ryuki’s brother, Tearer too has been halved, and so he halves Horadori and Jin as punishment for what has happened to him. What is his catharsis is Ryuki’s trigger, and this inevitably leads Ryuki right into his grasp to be used, where the real shitshow begins.

Tearer has sabotaged Tama. He will kill her if Ryuki does not do what he wants, and what he wants is for Ryuki to kill Date and deal with any other minor nuisances in the meantime. And Ryuki shoots Bibi with a stun bullet, even if it worsens Bibi’s heart condition, because he loves Tama. He cannot bear Tama being destroyed, no matter how much Bibi screams at him, no matter how much she hates him.

He is under Tearer’s thrall up through to the cathedral, and he has one job. Shoot Date. Shoot Date, and Kizuna and Tama and everyone else in the cathedral gets to live! Seems easy, right? Even Date says he should shoot him. But despite this. Despite everything, despite all that is at stake, he can’t. Ryuki cannot shoot Date. It is the guilt of having shot Bibi, yes, but he loves Date. How could he ever shoot him? How can Tearer ask him to choose between the two people he loves more than anyone else in the world? How could he ever make this choice?

He can’t, so Tearer makes it for him, because Tearer has been making his decisions for him ever since he took Tama prisoner. He blows up the cathedral, and Mizuki loses her eye, and Kizuna is paralyzes, and Date is ‘killed,’ and Ryuki never moves on from this. He spends the next six years drinking into oblivion, his PTSD worsening, unable to forgive, unable to forget, unable to move forward. When ‘Jin’s other half’ drops he throws himself back into the case, still a wreck, still hallucinating, still having manic and dissociative episodes, to the point he doesn’t even seem to know what year it is, often interacting with others like it is 2020.

You might remember he caught TC-Perge, the bioweapon Tearer had Horadori Institute make, but the literal elements of a text are never just literal. When Ryuki dissociates or he hallucinates, it comes in the form of glitches to the matrix. Tearer believes in simulation theory, because of Shigure. She and Horadori kept him imprisoned, and she taught him the world itself is a fake they must escape from. For him, this virus is an escape attempt, but like how cutting people in half is cathartic for him but triggering for Ryuki, TC-PERGE is his prison.

Tearer is dead, but it is what remains of him haunts. It lingers, it possesses, and it does not let Ryuki forget or move forward. Ryuki is stuck in place, in February 2020 during the Half-Body Incident, because since it kept triggering him he ended up trapped, forced to do the bidding of the one that reminds him most of his trauma against those he loves most. He is trapped in the time Tearer stripped his agency from him, used his love against him, and that love is now his cage. It has transformed into guilt.

Who do you love, and how? What does love mean to you? Ryuki loved his brother, to the point that he choose to live the live he should have had, to uphold his ideals of justice. For Ryuki, love is grief is trauma. It is a list of reasons for him to hate himself. Tearer only adds to that list. He puts Ryuki in the same place he is, unable to move, clinging on to your own self destruction. For Tearer, it is the Nirvana Initiative, and for Ryuki, it’s the alcoholism, and the self-loathing, and the belief he has to solve and fix it all himself or die trying because it is the only way he can possibly atone. He takes a bullet for Date, even after he gets the pep talk from them and told they forgive him, and the only way he can atone is by working together to move forward. It seems only by taking it does he find his way out.

Ryuki gets cured. He will heal from his gunshot wound. Tama is free from Tearer’s clutches, and Date is fucking fine, and Ryuki will be okay. There was a way out of this hellish nightmare Tearer put him in, and it did not involve making the villains and himself pay forever indefinitely, it involved forgiveness. It involved accepting the love offered to you, because it should not be a prison, but freedom.  

But the other person was not so lucky.

Part Four: Choose | Correctly

Okay to just take care of this, Tearer thinks he’s thinks he’s in love with Amame, but what’s actually happening is he hasn’t like seen a human woman who isn’t his ‘mom’ for like two decades, and his maturity levels are out of wack cause of the human experimentation prison cell thing, so his hormones are just going crazy. I have nothing further to say about this aspect. It’s just sad, and a little gross, and it’s not interesting. We’re moving on.

Determinism and causality already haunt Amame before Tearer kills her father. Doi Amame is a girl split in two. Every decision presented to her, every choice she makes is logged deep within her heart and kept perfectly preserved in bubbles, and sometimes she takes them out and rotates them, let’s the light distort their colors into something new. What if she stayed with her father during the divorce? What if she worked a different job? Less hours? Part of her is always in the past, ruminating on what could have been if only she had done something different, maybe it would have been better. In that sense, she and Ryuki have a lot in common, and it’s also why Ryuki should have been the protagonist full time, but this is not that essay.

We will briefly have to talk about Komeji, the king of bad decisions. If there were ever a reason for Amame to be constantly thinking about the consequences of her actions, it would be looking at her dad and going “Jesus Christ.” He loves family dearly, but he consistently makes short-sighted decisions that sound great in the moment, but get him and the people he loves further in hot water. This is why he thought it was a great idea to blackmail the serial killer with the body he found and stole, cause he was wasted, and hey it’ll get him money which he can pay the loan sharks with and then his kids will be safe right?  WRONG. SO WRONG DUDE. Guy was a hot mess, and he pays for it with his life.

It because of that Amame and Tearer meet. Amame hides Furue Jin’s left half in the freezer in Brahman, and she shows up at Studio Dvaita just in time for Tearer to be finishing up arranging her father’s corpse, although she does not know it’s his at first. Their fates are now inexorably intertwined. “I met the person of my destiny.” Amame discovers her father in the body-bag.

While Tearer develops a bunch of fantasies about her over the course of six years, because what else is he going to fucking do I guess, Amame grieves and mourns. Her pile of capsuled choices only grows with every minute of every day, and she spends more time looking at them. Thinking about them. Wondering which choice was the correct one. Maybe she should have stayed with her father. Maybe she should have told the truth and worked less hours to come home early. Maybe she should have comforted him when Furue Jin’s body dropped on Face to Faith, because she knew he needed it. Could she have saved him then? Would he still be alive now? Yes, Komeji was a hot mess, but he was her dad! She loved him! And now he’s gone, forever.

Maybe she could have made peace with that, had her encounters with Tearer ended there. While it would never be fair, or right, knowledge that Komeji never made good choices, and that it was another bad choice that lead him to Tearer could be made peace with. With a lack of specifics about what Tearer was even trying to do before or after her father got involved with his plans, she could fill in the blanks herself, tell herself similar stories like the what ifs she conjures because there are no answers to her questions. But that is not what fate has in store for her.

Amame gets a phone call from Tearer. He wants to meet with her, because he is convinced, for reasons we will get to in a second, that she will understand him. And Amame, although she knows she hates him, knows she cannot forgive him for what he has done to her father, knows she is plagued by the decisions she has made that she can never undo, she does not call the police. She does not tell anyone. She accepts his offer, and she goes. She just wants to know what he has to say, right? She just wants answers. Only that. Then she’ll leave. Finally, an explanation for why her father was killed.

And she gets it!  And it’s the worst explanation she’s ever heard in her entire life! Simulation? Moksha? Nirvana Initiative? What the fuck is he talking about? Her dad died for this? She asks him if he remembers what happened on February 13th, 2020, the day her dad was murdered. She is trying to gauge if he remembers what he did to her father, if he even cares at all. And all he has to say is “That was the fateful day I met you.” Her father? He doesn’t matter. Komeji died because he needed a body to put at Misetan since Jin’s other half was never returned, and Tearer considers this entire thing a performance and a game. It wasn’t personal, like Horadori, or Furue Jin. It meant next to nothing to him. Her father died for no reason. He just moves on! He laughs! He’s blathers on maniacally about his plans to destroy all life on earth in the name of liberation or whatever, right in front of a woman whose dad he killed that he doesn’t remember or consider important!

He thinks she thinks this is super based, and that he’s like the smartest guy ever, and that he’s going to save the day, and that it’s an honor she is getting the chance to work with him, that she is considered intelligent and special enough to know about their ideals. Why does he think this? Is he delusional? Has he lost his mind? Well, yes, obviously, that happened like ages ago when they started stealing his organs and trapped him in the basement, but there’s another layer. Shigure Tokiko does not love him, but she only ever validated him when he supported her cult ideology, and his other relationships do not exist. She is his only frame of reference. He wishes to connect with Amame because he wishes to connect with another human being and be understood, and Amame was there, but he only knows how to do that through this shitty cult he is thoroughly indoctrinated in to the point he kills people and plans genocide for it, and with all that in mind, the result is inevitable.

It was bold of him to turn his back to her. She was never going to understand him. Enda Amame knocks him out with a wrench, drags him to the slicer, and kills him in the same way he killed her father. Another decision she can never take back. But she was not alone. Shigure saw her kill him, and now she is under her thrall. She has to move not just his body, but hers, or else her secret will get out. So she helps Shigure with her plan, to keep her secret, and lives the next couple of days quiet and somber, lost in her what ifs and her grief. She cannot bear this weight much longer. Not just her loss, or the weight of the secret she now keeps, but the ever-mounting regrets that began years ago.

“I did what was best for me! I don’t care if people attack me for it, I have no regrets! I have no regrets!” Amame cries at the end of Nightmare Irreconcilable, a Somnium that plays through each of her regrets, and the things she could have done instead. She wants so desperately to believe this, because while she can imagine going to see Komeji instead of Iris, or picking him in the divorce, she can’t picture not killing Tearer, even though her regrets all lead her to that point. Even though killing him did not bring her father back, but just took her away from her brother, and Gen, and her other best friends.

When Tearer calls Amame “the person of his destiny,” he is correct, but not for the reason he thinks he is. Before him, Amame’s life is full of people who love her, and of people who love her in return. Yes, her father is a mess, and the divorce was hard, but she’s okay. She has support, and she’s kind and self-sacrificing and a little eccentric, but that just makes her lovable. The choices she makes matter but they are not a fixation of hers. The world is open. She is free.

But that day in Dvaita, the world starts to close up. She is still loved, and she still loves people, and she’s still gentle and eccentric, but she’s starting to close off. Her dad’s decisions lead to the slicer. What does that mean for her? Was the world always so small? He’s gone, and there are no answers, just a hole that will never heal, no matter how much people love her, or how much she loves in return. The pathways for her get narrower and narrower and narrower, leading her directly to that dingy cell that seals her fate. And just like the man she killed that was trapped down there, she too is treated as another disposable tool by Shigure Tokiko, and is currently trapped in a cell, not unlike where he used to be.  

To talk about Tearer is to talk about Amame because to talk about Amame is to talk about Tearer. They are direct responses to one another. Tearer was damned into being so at age six. His ability to choose, to love, to decide were all taken from him when he was stolen from that orphanage. And this monstrous cruelty contaminates everything it touches. Tearer desperately tries to escape to a world where his trauma never happened because it is all that he is, and like him she fixates on imagined possibilities where things are better, because the pain of her loss is too much to bear.

The world was available to Amame, until it was infected by him, by what he had no choice but to become. He killed her father, and although the world was still available to her, she was still free, she could not see it. All she saw was the past she could not undo, the family she lost forever, and the man who was to blame. For that one moment, Amame threw out all the love the world still had to offer her because she hated him more, and immediately regretted it. It’s the cycle of cruelty, of abuse, of trauma.

Conclusion: Trauma | Symbolism

This is why Tearer fucking rules, more than anything else. He is the embodiment of trauma, the breathing symbol of thematic horror the cast is trying to overcome. That’s why half his body is literally fucking chitin, a visual representation of the wounds that do not heal. That’s why his personality is entirely formed by the horrific experiences he had at the hands of Horadori and Shigure, and why everything he does is motivated by that experience, down to his fucking name! He was literally trapped because when you’re traumatized it often feels like you cannot move from where you are. He clings to Shigure and her idealogy because she stands for nihilism. She promises all those that enter her grasp that this world is meaningless and the only real way to find happiness is by ending it all: a death wish. He never leaves the narrative, even after he’s killed, and killing him cannot defeat him, just perpetuates the cycle. Amame only comes out of that even more traumatized, more guilt-ridden and horrified, it adds to her trauma. Trauma is not something you kill. His plan to kill everyone is to make people destroy themselves from the inside out, by ruining their minds so they cannot interact with one another without inevitably causing pain.

The only way to stop him is through unity and attempting to mend bridges, by process the things that hurt you instead of bottling them up. Accept the love that people give you. Embrace the opportunities that the world still has to offer.

Bonus: Somezuki Uru

You must have one question left. How come in this entire essay, I never once called him by his real name? I even pretended for a second he lost it forever somehow. Well, that’s because…Tearer is an idea, isn’t he? He is entirely shaped by the horrors forced upon him. Like I just said, he is trauma. We don’t know anything about Somezuki Uru, other than he was orphan, a normal boy, and honestly based on knowledge of Sejima’s cursed dick and balls, his brilliance in technical achievement as Tearer is probably an indicator of something significant going on in his brain that just isn’t to the same degree as cancer or the oxytocin deficiency. My money is on autism (source: autistic). Everything else we get is shaped by the horrors, and I just talked about those at length. But if I still have you here…

It is 1996, and tucked into his bed at Aioen orphanage, Uru wonders what tomorrow may bring? Rain or sunshine? Outside the open window, the moon that hangs high in the half-clouded sky has no clear answers. The breeze smells wet. Maybe it’ll rain after all. Didn’t Mr. Chieda get that new game for the computer….? That might be fun to try. He yawns. The breeze smells dry again, but he’ll worry about it tomorrow. This great big world full of possibilities isn’t going anywhere.

I hope the world you live in right now is kind to you. Thank you for reading this.

[futurama]

Ok then what are your headcanons for Dave? Do you think he's friend with/talks to Dirk or nah? Also I love your fat Dave.

THANK YOU FOR ASKING lets fucking do this

first things first hell yeah dave is fat. personally i think if you imagine dave as a fat guy while reading homestuck it makes the experience twenty times better and is guaranteed to make you love him more. bro did wonders starving him as a child but in these present times you will rarely ever see dave without a little snack nearby, the man loves to indulge in whatever he can get his hands on and keep him busy

keep him busy in what ways? <-- thats you asking me to elaborate and i will oblige happily ^_^ one of THE traits of a strider is to have trauma and obviously dave is riddled with it quite disgustingly if you ask me, and while time heals all wounds i do think that dave would prefer to keep busy with one thing or another so not to be left alone too long with his thoughts. growing up under bros watchful shades has left dave very depressed and very paranoid (cameras around the apartment, being ambushed, etc etc) which leads me into the physical part of his trauma

its kind of funny to think of a world where dave ISNT physically disabled from getting his ass beat every day for 13 years. i dont think bro would be one to hold back from breaking a bone or two or seven during those vital years of growth and he definitely wouldnt be willing to take dave to a hospital because...hes bro strider...why the hell would he. the most hed do is try to set straight whatever needed to be set and wrap it tight and send dave on his way which ultimately leads to dave having quite a few painful fucked up limbs - which brings the cane into the picture! wahoo! walking can be very painful for dave and he prefers to use his cane when hes doing it, and if youre ever out with him youd better be prepared to sit down every now and then so the poor guy can catch a break

ok moving on....i do think dirk and dave talk. again very funny to think of a world where they drift apart or dont get along after their initial meeting in the comic because while it started out rough (obviously. duh! why wouldnt it) they were both smart and understanding enough to talk things out friendship style and made it clear that they care for one another on a level they dont consider their other friends to be on. and i dont mean that in a "they value each other over anyone else now" type of friendship i just know that with them its different and dare i say special. i think dave dumped everything bro had done to him on dirk in a fit of emotion but the way dirk handled it was better than any of the beta kids had (they really dropped the ball on that) and for once in his life dave felt listened to. and im not neglecting the conversations he had with rose, but i do think that when he talked to her it felt more like he was being observed under a microscope rather than being heard. i have a lot to say about how dirk and dave feel for one another but ill spare you the reading and say...they are best friends, and they love each other

i like to think that after the events of homestuck that dave, after being miserable in the game and then being cooped up on the meteor, would absolutely go off to live on his own. i dont believe hed isolate himself completely but i do think hed just be....exhausted. i know he loves his friends and he would visit them from time to time, but i know after everything hed end up spending a good chunk of time with dirk

god what else. im such a fan of albino dave, and i think of him as intersex, which coincidentally go hand in hand under chimerism, theoretically. hes bisexual, and has a very healthy amount of autism and adhd. overall i think dave has had some rough patches but grows up to be sweeter than hed like to let on. ill spare you anymore reading and end it there, thanks for asking again! ^_^

[welfare-debutante]

His long dark eyelashes rest so perfectly against the smooth plain of his cheek, beautiful to me but not to himself. His fluttery, often-frustrsted hands are at rest, beautiful too, thin and long fingered, capable and romantic, like a piano player or a poet, and

the poetry he writes is perfect to me, too, in the way that car crashes and motor cycle accidents are perfect, and somehow just as thrilling to read as it was to car-crash my car again and again before i knew him.

Our hearts are dark together, pressed close through our chests, like twins in a womb, mirroring trauma and love and vicious rage and retaliation and pain and more love and pure sex.

With no rules, we would destroy one another. Or we would survive one another and get better, quit being junkie skum fux and live a normal life together, and heal somehow from all the awful, soul-ruining shit that made us how we are, the shit that makes us perfect for each other, with a sense of massive, life-shattering gravity pulling us closer together until a kind of singilarity occurs.

The twitch and ache for closeness, the agony of yearning so completely for the other person. Comfort is telling myself that he was there with me this whole time: the frailty of getting sick and almost dying, the frailty of being vulnerable in front of someone despite knowing they could irrepairably damage you by you just trusting them with ur nakedness.

How i have cried. How i longed for him. Its the way i knew him in my mind beofre i ever met him, how i wished for him all those years i was alone alone alone, especially alone with other people, the way emptiness hurt so bad that i had to let it out, make it into an image on my skin. I love every single slice and scratch that ever marched across his skin, each one is a demarcation of a singular moment that hurt, just like my tattoos, but rendered in scar tissue...

We are inverted negatives of each other, incomplete without the other, and how it made me cry to realize that id never been a complete person until he fit up against me like an answer to my whole life's questioning, like a puzzle piece that has only one interlocking piece that reveals a new and beautiful picture: all the possibility of the world suddenly seen in startling clarity, like telling the truth for the first fucking time. Oh, i thought, you stupid, stupid girl- SO this is what love feels like, real visceral, in the flesh amd bone. I want to give him life but my body rebels, rejects my want, wont fulfill my wishes. In this i would have the opportunity to grow and become the version of myself that i was always waiting to become- a refugee from an alternate dimension, a pirate with no gold and no wind fuckin sail with, wasted years rotting and falling away, shedding all that pain of not being together. It agonizes me that he was there all along, a familar stranger i would come to love so dearly that it sucks the breath out of my chest.

[the-cult-of-russo]

gotta know how u think billy would be as a dad with his kids :D

I had so many requests for Dad!Billy headcanons 😭

I hope you're ready for this chaotic ramble.

Please remember this is my Billy I'm writing

-

You know those parents who take like a million pictures of their kid and show them to everyone? The kind that talks about their kid nonstop to anyone who'll listen? Their family, friends, the poor random old lady at the store that just wants to buy some damn milk.

That's Billy.

He's such an unbelievably proud parent, his pride for his kids knows no bounds. It doesn't even need to be some kind of milestone worth celebrating, everything his kid does makes him proud. You better believe when his baby has an explosive crap and ruins their clothes, he's boasting about it the next day to Frank and the guys at Anvil.

-

He's incredibly protective. Murder is a possibility if his kids in danger. He wants nothing more than to keep his kids safe. If they're being bullied, it takes all of his willpower to stop himself from kicking the kids ass for doing that to his kid. He's not above picking a fight with the bullies dad though if they don't get their little shit head in check and also making it known to the principle that this shit won't fly with him.

~

"Mr Russo, I don't think you understand how serious this is. Your son broke a kids nose," the principle mutters with a glare.

Billy tilts his head, regarding the teacher with those unsettling eyes that has the old man squirming in his seat.

"You’re damn right he did," Billy replies seriously, a proud tone to his voice. His dark eyes cut to his left where his son is, practically his double. As Billy smirks, unable to help himself, his son wears the same one although he's lowering his head to hide his amusement.

"We don't tolerate that behaviour here, Mr Russo," the principle huffs. Billy's eyes harden then as his eyes narrow, sitting forward in his chair just the right amount to be imposing. The second the man leans back he knows it worked.

"You know what I don't tolerate? My kid bein' bullied. You assholes won't do shit to stop it, so I say let the little fucker get a taste of his own medicine. Serves him right for messin' with a Russo," he smirks wickedly.

~

He teaches them self defence, wanting them to be able to look after themselves if it ever came down to it. Naturally, for their 16th birthday, they're gifted with a big ass knife.

-

Billy as a dad is so stupidly soft.

We all remember the scene from the show, right? Where he's in the hospital with his mom and he says;

"Maybe you did me a solid, you know? I mean, the way I see it, you want weak kids, give 'em everything. But if you... if you want 'em strong... treat 'em hard."

When he has a kid of his own he realises just what utter garbage this is. The idea of all the shit he's been through making him into the tough son of a bitch he is today is born from trauma that he still hasn't dealt with. The way his brain tries to rationalise what he went though. To make it make sense instead of it being so goddamn senseless.

But if he's honest, more than he'd like to admit, he finds himself wondering just what his life would have been like if he grew up in a loving home. What it would be like to feel wanted and cared for. To rise to the top being helped and cheered on by others instead of clawing his way there with bloodied and dirty fingers, the weight of the world bearing down on him as he's beat down at every turn.

He never wants his kids to feel that way. Not even a fraction of how unloved and unwanted he felt. He does everything in his power to make sure they know just how much he cares about them. There's literally nothing he wouldn't do for his kids. They could turn up at home one day and confess to a murder and Billy wouldn't hesitate to ask where the body is so he can handle it for them.

-

Billy is ridiculously sentimental when it comes to his kids. Drawings go up on the fridge and when a new one takes its place, the old one goes into a box of many others that he can't seem to ever throw away. He has multiple pictures of his kids at his office, even some framed cute drawings they did for him. He's kept all the mementos from the pregnancy, birth and onwards. They're his little treasures.

-

Billy is super supportive of everything his kids do. He makes sure they get a good education but he never pushes them to do something they don't want to do. Despite the large college fund he's got for them, if they choose not to go to college, he doesn't pressure them. Instead, whatever hopes and dreams they have, he does everything in his power to support and help them. Whether that's moral and emotional support, money or even breaking a few jaws of people standing in their way.

-

Let's look a little bit at how he is throughout some of the ages of his kid.

Billy with a baby is a sight to behold. No one has ever seen Lieutenant William Russo so goddamn soft. Once he's got hold of his baby, you've got no chance of getting them back off him. You'd have to fight him. He adores holding his little one close, soaking them in. He's constantly holding them no matter what he's doing and baby carriers and wraps are a godsend to him. You'd heard about them from a friend and told Billy and you better believe by the time the baby's born that he's an expert on all things baby wearing. He's a perfectionist and carrying a baby wrong can be dangerous. He makes sure he knows how to do it right.

Just as he has little affectionate touches for you, he has the same for his baby. His large hand stroking their tiny head and little hair. His finger stroking their chubby little cheek. He's a tactile person and touch is grounding for him. It soothes him to do so with his baby and reassures him they're really there and that they're okay.

He's super attentive. Of course he works a lot but as soon as he becomes a dad, he doesn't stay late anymore and makes sure to have days off. The second he comes home, he's making a beeline for his baby, scooping them up with a grin. He loves to read to them, something that continues as they grow up. His weekends used to be restful or if he was feeling like a masochist, he'd work from home. But now weekends are his time to shine. By the time you wake up on a Saturday morning, he's already up with the baby, making you breakfast as he's got the baby attached to him via baby carrier.

As his baby grows into a toddler, each milestone makes him tearful and full of pride. He kisses any booboos that happen and he's constantly playing with his child. He has a pretty silly side to him that most don't get to see. Making his kid laugh and smile brings him the greatest joy.

He loves taking his toddler to the office with him. Everyone dotes on his kid and treats them like royalty.

When they turn into a small child, he watches with a proud smile and amusement as his kid wants to fight with his men, watching them 'beat' the shit out of them. The guys at Anvil are more than happy to very dramatically go down, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree when the tiny Russo grins smugly at their 'win'.

Their first day at school and Billy's a mess. It's such a turning point and he doesn't know how to deal with how fast their growing up. But every achievement at school, even minor ones, and he's showering them with praise.

He encourages them to work hard and as soft as he might be, he is still the boss. He makes sure they do their homework and don't fall behind on their studies.

One thing Billy loves is teaching his kids stuff. Whether that's mundane stuff to help with school or teaching them shit he knows like survivalist things, because you can never be too prepared, right? He loves helping them with school projects and answering any questions they might have about one of the many things he's knowledgeable about.

When his kids moves onto those hard teenage years, the ones where everything feels so dramatic and world ending, he's a little tougher when it calls for it. Billy is no novice to rebellion, he has a rebellious streak of his own and marches to the beat of his own drum half the time. He respects that. What he doesn't respect or tolerate is behaviour that's going to fuck his kid over in the long run or self sabotage. He will be firm and a hard ass if he needs to be to keep his kids on a path where they don't get hurt or ruin their life.

Billy has a zero tolerance policy on drugs. After the shit with his mother, he won't budge on this. If he finds out his kid is dabbling in drugs, they're grounded until they're old enough to move out.

-

No matter what age his kids are, Billy loves them immensely. He wants to be the father he wished he'd had growing up and he pours all of his anguish and pain from his upbringing into it. Channeling it into the purest form of love for his kids. To break the curse that had hold of him. He won't perpetuate the cycle.

Being a father brings him a sense of completeness and peace he didn't think was possible for him to achieve. It fills the void that's been eating away at his soul from his lack of love as a child and he loves every second of being a parent. Even the hard moments.

-

Bonus:

The Russo's and the Castle's go on monthly camping trips together. Billy loves the outdoors, the mild survivalist feelings he gets from it without the real danger. He loves taking his kids there, teaching them everything. In his role as dad and uncle, he sits around the camp fire at night, the light of the flames dancing along his face as he very theatrically tells the kids a spooky story.

You and his kids are his immediate family but the Castle's are his family too. So he really loves it when you all get to spend time together like that.

[marjansmarwani]

there ain’t a language for the things I feel

4.8k || ao3

In the wake of a tragedy, the firehouse family tries to move on and pick up the pieces while holding onto hope that seems to slip further and further away.

But nothing's over until it's over and they're going to pick up all the pieces and put them back together, just in case. ----- Day 9 of @911lonestarangstweek: Free Choice

Me getting this done and up just at the end of angst week? More likely than you’d think.

Several people read parts of this as I was working, but @moviegeek03 needs a special thanks for helping me with some of the specifics 💜

--------------

The house at the end of the street looked like all the others. 

Its blue siding blended in perfectly with its companions on the quiet residential street and as Judd pulled into the familiar driveway, nothing looked amiss. From the outside, it looked like nothing had happened. From where they stood, everything was fine and this was just a normal day and an average visit. Right now they could be heading to game night or dinner. They could be stopping by to say hello, popping by unannounced as they so often did. But the minute they opened the door that illusion would shatter and they’d have to face the grim reality waiting for them, so they all hovered at the edge of the front walk by some unspoken agreement as they allowed themselves to avoid this for just a few moments longer. 

But ignorance couldn’t last forever so eventually, they moved forward. 

It was Paul that made the first move, pulling out his keys and selecting the correct one as he approached the door. He slid the key into the lock without a word, all eyes on him as he turned it, pushing open the door to reveal the scene beyond it. There was another moment of collective hesitation on the threshold before Judd stepped forward, grabbing the yellow crime scene tape and pulling it down so they could enter their friends’ living room - or at least, what was left of it. 

The once familiar space was unrecognizable as the furniture lay in shambles; splinters of each piece scattered across the room. If they hadn’t known where they were they never would have recognized the space. Nancy toed at the remains of a chair, shifting aside the debris with her foot only to reveal the dark red stain on the floor underneath. She turned away and let the pieces fall back into it.

They had just left the hospital, they had all seen the end result of this destruction. They had already known how bad it could be. Seeing it in this familiar context though? It drove it all home in the most unapologetic way. Nancy in particular was no stranger to the sight of blood, but seeing it in your friends’ home, knowing it belonged to one of them? That was something else entirely and no amount of professional detachment could make this okay. She turned away from the stain - ignoring the sound of glass crunching under her shoe from the shattered picture frames strewn across the floor - beside her to find Paul fingering an indent in the wall with a grim expression. When he felt her looking he met her gaze. 

“Knife mark,” he said by way of explanation, his eyes roaming the rest of the walls. “Several of them, by the looks of it.” 

Somehow the silence in the room seemed to grow even heavier in the wake of Paul’s words as they all took in the destruction and the damage and the fact that their friends had nearly died in their own home; that they still might, even now. 

The silence was finally broken by Judd, his typical drawl much harsher than usual as it sliced through the quiet and dismay that filled the room. 

“What the fuck happened here?” he demanded to the room at large, but he got no response. It was the same question they all had and as of yet, there were no answers. Only fear, pain, and a desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, this was as bad as it got. That maybe by some miracle their friends would pull through this, would survive this senseless act of violence. 

That somehow TK and Carlos would be okay, because the alternative was too awful to consider.  

---------

Marjan had been wrapping up practice when she got the call. It was Mateo on the other line, his shaking voice informing her that he was driving Captain Strand to St. David’s because he had been in the kitchen with the older man and Buttercup when he had been informed. 

It was what he had said next that had sent her crashing back down onto the bench, skates in hand and concerned expressions trained on her as she tried her best to not absolutely shatter at the edge of the roller rink. 

Nancy was at her sister’s, rolling her eyes at the antics of her nephews as she stirred the sauce on the stove and her sister gossiped about their Aunt Susan and her much younger boyfriend when her phone rang. Then she was out the door, the spoon abandoned on the counter with a shouted apology to her sister as she grabbed her coat and keys and tried to hide how much her hands were shaking as she reached for the doorknob and stepped out into the chilly Austin night. At least, she reasoned as she hurried to her car, if anyone did notice the way she trembled they would assume it was the cold — they didn’t have to know it was because it felt like her world was fraying at the seams. 

Paul had been on a date and he felt bad for leaving her at the restaurant, he really did, but there was no other option. He knew his mother would string him up if she ever heard he had done something so rude to any of his dates, but he also had a feeling that in this case even Cynthia Stickland would allow him this one. Maybe he should have taken her home first but she had assured him it was fine and he knew that he couldn’t have handled the wait. He knew that every moment he was driving in the opposite direction of the hospital would weigh on him, that he would crack under the strain and that was not second date territory. So he returned to the table after he ended his call, voice tight as he made his hurried apologies and she assured him that no, it was fine, that she hoped everything turned out okay. 

He had somehow managed a smile as he turned away and he thanked her for her sentiments, even if he didn’t share just how desperately he wished they came true. 

Judd had been getting their daughter ready for her evening bath when Grace had appeared in the doorway with his phone in her hand and eyes full of fear. He had taken the phone from her and sat heavily on the edge of the tub as Mateo quietly explained what had happened, and where they would be. Grace had already scooped up little Charlotte and merely shook her head when he looked at her. 

“You need to go, Judd,” she said softly, squeezing their little girl close as she spoke, “go be with them, and keep me posted. Tell them I’ll be praying.” 

And there was so much Judd wanted to say to that, so many thoughts in his head and so many feelings fighting for dominance that in the end, he said nothing. He simply stood on shaking legs and leaned forward to press a kiss to each of his girls, pausing for another moment to hold them both close before he stepped around them, grabbing his coat and heading out into the night. 

As he climbed into his truck he tried to tell himself that it would all be okay, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. 

----------

“I talked to Mitchell before we left,” Marjan finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence filling the room. “She said that APD is done processing, so we can do whatever we want with...what’s left.” 

Paul looked up, pulling his gaze from where it had settled on a dark stain on the throw rug. “Did she say if they have any leads? Or even an idea of what happened?” 

She shook her head sadly, “No. There’s not much they can go on. None of the neighbors saw anything and all the blood...well, it won’t help to find their attackers, apparently. As for what happened, apparently they have some theories, but we won’t really know anything until one of them wakes up.” 

“If they wake up,” Nancy added, voice harsh and quiet as she looked at the destruction around them. She didn’t want to be a pessimist, but the others didn’t know. They knew it was bad, but they hadn’t gotten the rundown from one of the trauma nurses on duty. They didn’t have the medical training to know that what they had been through; that the injuries they had weren’t the kind you always recovered from. 

That they could just as easily be fatal, given the chance. 

Nobody chastised her for being pessimistic. They simply moved on, nobody willing to dwell on the questions they didn’t have answers to and the fears that they did. 

“We should still get this cleaned up,” Mateo said eventually, “so when they get home it looks like nothing happened.” 

His words were full of a certainty Nancy wished she felt, but no one countered him either. They all wanted him to be right, Nancy knew and she understood. She wanted him to be right too; she wanted that more than anything. 

So she took off her jacket and laid it across the ledge by the front door before pushing up her sleeves heading towards the kitchen. 

“I’ll grab some garbage bags,” she called over her shoulder. “Once we’ve cleaned up all the stuff we can’t save we’ll have a better idea of what we’re working with.” 

Noises of agreement followed her out of the room and as she pulled open the cupboard under the sink where she knew they stashed the cleaning supplies she allowed herself a moment to embrace Mateo’s unshakable optimism. They would get their home cleaned up so they had somewhere to come home to. They would get it back to normal so it looked like their home and not the nightmare they had walked into. 

They would put everything back together so maybe, just maybe, someday when she closed her eyes she would see how it had been before, and not the scene of destruction they had walked into today. 

------------

“What happened?” Marjan demanded as she stepped into the waiting room, softening when she saw the faces before her all full of the same fear and panic she was feeling. 

“We don’t know,” Captain Strand said eventually with a small, helpless shrug. “Nobody knows. One of their neighbors was walking their dog when she saw the door open. She said something didn’t feel right so she went to check, and she found them.” 

He didn’t provide any other details, didn’t specify how they were found and that more than anything filled her with dread.   

“Gabriel is trying to get answers,” another voice shared, this one soft and thick. Marjan looked over to see Carlos’s mother in the seat beside the captain, her face pale and eyes full of worry, “I think maybe he thinks it’ll be easier to process if we know. Or maybe he just needs something else to focus on. Either way, he doesn’t seem to be having much luck.” 

Marjan followed the older woman’s nod to a figure in the corner, speaking into his phone as he turned his hat over and over in his free hand as his foot tapped against the floor. Even from here his distress was palpable; the fear and worry etched clearly into every inch of his face. It made her wonder once again what had happened. She may have only known Gabriel Reyes for a short period of time and not very well at all, but she knew him well enough to know that whatever had happened was bad. Gabriel Reyes loved his son, she didn’t doubt that. But the man was a Texas Ranger; he had spent a lifetime seeing unthinkable things. Yet here he was, clearly shaken to his very core. For something to have affected him this much...the very idea left a cold feeling of dread seeping through her core. 

“Do we at least know how they are?” she questioned again, voice quieter in the face of all the hurt and fear encompassing them. 

It was Tommy who spoke this time, the paramedic captain’s voice tight with barely concealed pain and worry, “They’re alive, and that’s something.” 

The way she said it made Marjan wonder what she knew and what she wasn’t saying. She wanted to push, she wanted to demand answers. She wanted to know what had happened to her friends; to two of the people that had become family to her. 

But it was clear they were all in the same boat, that none of these people knew any more than she did and that they all cared just as much. So she swallowed her questions and sank into the empty seat beside Mateo, glancing around at the others as she did. In some ways this was horrifyingly familiar but in others, it felt so different. Every other time they had at least known what had brought them here and what they were facing. This unknown entity; the uncertainty hung heavy in the air around them and it made her queasy. The questions mixed with her fear, leaving an unpleasant taste in her mouth. But there were no answers to be had and, even if there were, they wouldn’t help. 

She sighed and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair as she accepted the inevitable: there was nothing she could do but wait, and hope for the best.   

---------

People had always asked Paul why he wasn’t a cop, given his propensity to solve puzzles and spot patterns. There were the obvious answers, of course: that the police force was less than tolerant generally speaking, that the very institution wasn’t something Paul thought he could really take a part in. 

Then there was the less obvious but just as true reason: Paul wanted to help people, but he didn’t want to watch them suffer. He wanted to help people to escape the worst moments of their lives, not pick up the pieces after. Firefighters got to do that, cops didn’t.  

In that regard, he had a lot of respect for Carlos. How he could do that and still maintain a modicum of sanity and compassion was beyond Paul, but he truly admired him for it. Which, somehow, made this even worse. 

Paul already knew that he didn’t have crime scene investigation in him, that hadn’t been a question. But he couldn’t stop himself from trying to put together the pieces as he stood amongst the destruction of his friends’ living room. He couldn’t stop himself from seeing the patterns, from hypothesizing how each bit of damage was caused; on how each bit of blood was spilled. It filled his head with unwanted images the moments as it happened; of what they must have been through. 

He had never hated his skills more than he did at this moment. He didn’t want to see this, to imagine what might have happened. He didn’t want to move aside some of the debris to find some blood and wonder whose it was. He didn’t want to dwell on the idea of two of his closest friends suffering; being brutally attacked in their own home. A place that had felt safe, that had almost been a second home to Paul. But that illusion of safety had been shattered and now it just felt like an awful reminder, and he would give anything to be able to look at it objectively. 

A part of him wanted to keep going, to keep trying to solve the puzzle before him. It would help, a voice in his mind said, it could bring whoever did this to justice. 

And that was tempting. He did want to see whoever had done this pay for what they did. But he also knew that it wouldn’t actually change anything. Carlos and TK would still be hurt, the rest of their family would still be suffering. 

------

Home invasion. 

That was the reigning theory now. It was a home invasion gone terribly, horrifically wrong. They didn’t know whether they had been home from the start or if they had interrupted it; they didn’t know if it was random or if it was something that had been planned; if they had been targeted. They didn’t know anything, and Paul hated not knowing things.  

This was one of those things, someone had said. One of those random acts of violence with no real motive or explanation. Realistically, Paul knew they happened. He just couldn’t understand how it had happened to his friends. He had never put too much stock in the idea of fate - he firmly believed that everyone made their own choices in life - but he couldn’t help but wonder why them. Why did TK and Carlos - two people who had given so much of themselves to help others each and every day - deserve to have so much suffering? 

Eventually, they did find the culprit, or culprits, as they soon discovered when one of them tried to use TK’s credit card to pay at a gas station only a few miles from their house, but having the answers didn’t make it make any more sense.  

Paul had already known that catching their attacker wouldn’t make everything magically better, but he hadn’t imagined it would make anything worse. But as the detective on the case explained, he found he was wrong. Apparently, according to the one who would talk, he and his buddies had broken into an empty home. It was early evening and the lights were off so they had figured it was a good enough target. But they had been interrupted, he said, when two men had entered the house and caught them in the act. They had all been high, he admitted, so the details were fuzzy, but he knew that one of their group tended to have a particularly violent streak and that that night, he couldn’t be reasoned with. 

It was him who had used the knife, their informer clarified, but another had helped. He had thought the two men who had come in were dead by the time he had gotten his buddies to stop, he had admitted quietly, so he had pulled them out of the house as fast as he could and had never looked back. 

The room was so silent when the detective finished speaking that you could have heard a pin drop. The sound of Nancy’s chair scraping against the floor as she stood and rushed out of the room cut through the space like a gunshot and it was all Paul could do to simply breathe. Slowly the others reacted too, as Judd started swearing up and down and Marjan rose to follow Nancy, her own eyes moist but her back straight as she strode out of the room. He heard his Captain and Ranger Reyes asking questions but for once, Paul managed to shut that part of himself off. 

There was no making sense of this, he decided, so the best thing he could do was focus on helping them move forward instead; assuming that they got that chance. 

-----------

Mateo was pretty sure he had developed a stress response to the sight of Ikea furniture.  

It always seemed to appear in the aftermath of a tragedy, and he had seen it too many times in the past few years. After the condo fire, after his house blew up, and now as they set about replacing some of the furniture that had once stood in TK and Carlos’s living room.  

Maybe it should be a good thing, he reasoned. The furniture came with the rebuilding, after all. 

It had come when TK and Carlos had first bought this place and needed a couple of staple pieces quickly. They would buy real furniture soon, Carlos vowed, but until they could get around to it, some cheap and easy pieces would do. Mateo wondered if they had ever gotten around to it. He kind of hoped they hadn’t. 

“Man I hope they appreciate this,” Paul said as he flipped through the convoluted instructions for the bookshelf. 

“Of course they will.” Nancy countered from the other side of the room. “If they know what’s good for them.” 

The light and optimistic banter was a change from the days before. The others seemed more hopeful now, readier to believe the best of the situation. Mateo supposed he had himself to thank for it, he was the one that had insisted from the start that they would be okay, after all. 

But the thing is, he’s not so sure he even believes it anymore. 

As the others’ optimism grows, his own seems to fade. It’s been too long, a voice whispered in his mind. If they aren’t okay by now, they never will be again. 

It’s a thought that keeps returning and as many times as he shoves it aside, as he pushes it back; it just keeps coming and coming and coming. Mateo has always been the optimist. He has always been the one to think the best of everyone except himself. He had always believed that everything would work out. 

But he’s tired. There have been so many times and so many nights spent hoping when everyone else was doubting. There have been so many times when the worst should have happened but didn’t, by some miracle. And Mateo was okay with the idea of miracles - he had been raised Catholic, after all. But he couldn’t help but think they were running out, and that was something he wasn’t ready to face. 

So he shoved it back again and plastered on a smile as he sorted through the packaging to find the piece Paul was describing. Mateo Chavez was an optimist, he reminded himself. And optimists didn’t give up on their friends. 

No matter how bad things might look. 

----------

From the moment Grace had handed him his phone time had seemed to slow. 

It was the waiting, Judd thought, that made it drag on. All the hours sitting in the waiting room; the sleepless nights spent dreading a phone call to say that the worst had happened. They moved forward and they moved on because they had to, but every moment seemed to stretch as they grew further and further from a time when everything was fine and closer to the moment that could change everything. 

Hope seemed to ebb and flow as time marched on and optimism came in spikes. But it wears on them all and Judd wished time could just go back to normal, that this could all be over. 

But then he thinks of what “over” might mean, and he backtracks. 

For a while it seemed that maybe one of them had better odds than the other. That while one of them might pull through, the other might not. No one really talked about it; what that might mean for the one. They all loved them both and to have either of them with them would be a blessing, Judd didn’t doubt that for a moment. It was what they all wanted more than anything. 

But he was also in love, and he knew that those two had the same kind of love that he and Gracie did: all consuming, bright, deep love that wrapped you to another for the rest of time. To truly be one half of a whole. And - it was a thought he kept to himself, of course - he couldn’t help but think that the only thing crueler than losing them both was for one of them to lose the other. He couldn’t imagine facing that and he didn’t want to see anyone else have to go through it either. He knew people did - hell, Tommy was proof enough of that - but if he could he would do anything to spare them the pain of that. 

So he prays, more than he has in years. If there were ever a time to test the strength of his healing faith, it was now. 

And then, by some miracle, the news finally comes. 

He and the others are standing in their living room, taking in the newly repaired space. There isn’t a trace of the destruction they had found when they had first arrived and stepped past the crime scene tape to see the horror within what had been their friends’ home. It now looks almost as it did before: a warm, safe space they had all spent many nights in. A welcoming place that felt a bit like home. 

The walls had been repaired and repainted, the floors had been cleaned, the furniture had been repaired or replaced. The pictures had been rehung in new, undamaged frames and all their various knick-knacks and tchotchkes were sitting in their usual spots. The only thing missing now was TK and Carlos. 

It was Nancy’s phone that rang, her voice that cut through the room as she asked Tommy what had happened. It was the sight of her collapsing into one of the chairs that drew their attention and stole all their breath. And when she looked up at them, it was her smile and tear-filled eyes that let them know they could breathe again as she said the words they had all been waiting to hear: “They’re going to be okay.” 

And then time picked up again and as the others let out sounds of celebration and Paul picked up Marjan to spin her around, Judd simply smiled. 

They’re okay, a voice in his head repeated, everything will be fine now. 

And for once, Judd actually believed it.  

----------

It’s all TK can do not to roll his eyes as his dad insists on helping him out of the back seat of Andrea’s car. 

“Dad,” he said evenly, “I can walk, you know.” 

“Humor me,” his dad retorted in an unimpressed tone. 

TK opened his mouth to argue again but a soft laugh from beside him stole his attention instead. 

“Don’t even bother,” Carlos told him, “believe me, I’ve tried.” 

Somewhere between Carlos’s words and the warmth in his eyes TK found he couldn’t argue so he nodded and Owen shook his head, mystified. 

“I will never understand how you do that. If it were anyone else we would still be having this argument into next week.”  

Carlos simply shrugged modestly but TK spoke up as they headed up the walkway to their front door, “It’s just one of his many talents.” 

Owen looked beside him to Garbiel with an exaggerated roll of his eyes as Andrea let out a light laugh from behind them. Carlos gave TK a pointed look but it was only met with a grin, and his attention was so devoted to his boyfriend that he almost didn’t notice the small crowd in their living room until they were already there. From there he was forced to do a double-take. His memories of that night were hazy, at best. It was a jumble of pain and fear and worry for Carlos as he watched him being attacked through heavy eyes. His recollection may be less than clear, but he is certain their home had been left in shambles. 

Yet here they were, standing in a living room that might just be cleaner than they had left before heading to dinner all those nights ago; before they had come home to find strangers ransacking their home and TK couldn’t understand it. 

He looked back to Carlos who looked just as confused as he was before glancing over at the group in the center of the room; his team, their family. 

The question must have been clear on his face because Nancy scoffed. 

“What?” she demanded, “Did you really think we were just going to let you come home to that mess? It’s like you don’t even know us.” 

And TK didn’t have the words to respond to that. Instead, he simply glanced back at Carlos to see the love and gratitude he was feeling reflected in his warm brown eyes before he looked back at the others. He gave them a smile and when Judd moved forward to pull him into a hug, he went willingly, savoring the comfort and love that was emanating from every inch of this space filled by these people. 

Someday, when the shock wore off and they were a little stronger, they would find the words to tell them how much it meant. But for now he hugged them all a little tighter and a little longer, and let his whispered thank-yous suffice. They had a long road ahead of them and being okay would take time. But he knew now with more certainty than he ever had before that as long as they had these people, they would always be okay. 

[rextasywrites]

Eternity and the blink of an eye - Jill Valentine x Chris Redfield

Mia’s words echoed through Chris’ mind as his thoughts took a down spiral. He wasn’t a hero. He was a washed up 40-something wannabe superman who couldn’t save the one man he had sworn to protect. There was nothing he could do right! Nothing. Everytime Chris tried to do the right thing, someone had to suffer and die.

Jill finds out that Chris isn't doing well after the events of RE Village. She comes to visit him and old feelings and trauma break out

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Survivor Guilt, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Mental Health Issues        

    The first time Chris had to deal with survivor’s guilt, it was straight after the Spencer Mansion incident. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat. All he saw were the faces of the dead S.T.A.R members, giving their lives so Chris could try to get out of this haunted house. All the blood, the gore, things that kept him awake at night.

 Over the years, Chris became better at dealing with these situations. As he drowned another shot of whiskey, he thought that ‘hey, he made it out alive, and the dead people would want him to enjoy his life and not waste it!’. Too bad his way of enjoying life boiled down to hunting B.O.W., coming home for just enough time to deal with his growing PTSD before being sent out to fuck knows where he’d have to kill more.

 But after everything that happened in Romania…

 Jill caught wind of the operation, of the whole Mother Miranda affair only after Chris had left. Trying to piece together what was going on turned out to be harder than she expected, but she couldn’t leave her best friend hanging like this! And judging by the files she had read in his office, it was a surprise that Chris was still able to leave the house without breaking down. Time was passing fast, and Jill booked the next plane ticket to Romania despite her doctor telling her not to leave the country. Ah fuck it, she had enough meds to last her a month, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

 *

 “You are a hero, Chris.”

 Mia’s words echoed through Chris’ mind as his thoughts took a down spiral. He wasn’t a hero. He was a washed up 40-something wannabe superman who couldn’t save the one man he had sworn to protect. There was nothing he could do right! Nothing. Everytime Chris tried to do the right thing, someone had to suffer and die.

 As the voices and faces haunted his thoughts and dreams, Chris tried everything to push them away. Drinking alcohol until the world became a blurry mess and he would wake up on the floor of his home. On other days he’d work out until he reached pure exhaustion. Working ways past his limits until he was vomiting his guts out and falling asleep by the toilet. At least he got super jacked like this. ‘No pain, no gain’, as they said, and Chris had to chuckle as he spit the toothpaste into the sink, trying to get rid of the acid taste in his mouth.

 But the voices wouldn’t stop.

 *

 The journey to Chris took Jill over a day. Arriving in Bucharest, she used some old techniques Enrico had taught her so many years ago. Cracking a car was easier than she remembered! The address of the place Chris stayed at had been printed on files in his office, and Jill had taken a sneaky picture as she typed the info into her phone, and off to the mountains of Romania she was. The silent journey was accompanied by the radio, filling the car with songs she had never heard before. A stop at a deserted gas station brought her closer to the local cuisine and how far she could get with English only.

 The snow was slowly melting along the road, waking up the flora from its winter sleep. Little patches of green poked through the snow, making sure everyone knew the seasons would change soon. Don’t ask me why the seasons change, it’s always been that way and it will always be, Jill thought, just how some things always stay the same - like war.

 Hours passed and the journey did not want to end. The closer Jill came to Chris’ destination, the further he seemed away. Would he even remember her after all this time? They did stay in touch, yes, but Chris had been a busy bee while Jill had to focus on herself first. The rehab and therapy after a certain incident took years, injuries cracking back open, both physical and mental wounds. And the wounds she couldn’t tend with gauze and rubbing alcohol turned out to be the worst ones.

 Finally.

 The small home Chris seemed to reside in was...unspectacular. From the outside it seemed like a family was living there, with some childrens’ toys by the wall, kept away from the snow. The path to the road was shovelled free and a car was parked there too. Jill parked ‘her’ car close by and walked the rest of the way to this strange place. Has Chris a family here? What happened in all those years? But there was never a family mentioned?

 Jill took a deep breath as she rang on the doorbell. Fear and anxiety were words not worthy of the feelings she was experiencing at this very moment. The goosebumps all over her body weren’t caused by the cold, and her stomach jumped around in her belly. Oh no, it was pure terror of what’s about to happen in the next few seconds.

 But nothing happened.

 Jill rang one more time. And another time. And again. But nothing and no one moved in the house.

 With a frown so big it could be seen from space, Jill decided to make her way around the house, maybe she could catch a glimpse of what was going on. The garden surrounding the house was untouched, only a few tracks left behind from animals littered the otherwise perfect surface. That one was from a deer, the other one from a rabbit. But the other ones? Jill couldn’t identify them, so she focused back on her goal - finding Chris.

 One window let her see right into the kitchen and a tiny bit into the living room too. Jill didn’t know a lot, she often joked, and loved being a bit of a silly duck sometimes. But if there was something she knew for sure then the arm she spotted on the kitchen table was Chris’ arm, and this giant goofball had fallen asleep by the table! What an idiot, Jill laughed, and this very image made memories flood back into her brain, an eight car pile up on memory lane.

 *

 “Come on, one more drink ain’t gonna kill you!”, Barry laughed as he raised his half empty beer glass. The S.T.A.R.s team had decided to go out for drinks after their final training for the week had been completed. Rebecca was already sleeping in her seat, a handful of drinks had knocked out the youngest member of the team who was now peacefully drooling onto herself in her drunken sleep. Richard and Brad babbled about their girlfriends and how much they loved them, showing each other the pictures they kept with themselves in their wallets.

 “Hey Albert”, Chris gave the head of the team a drunken grin before drowning another mouthful of his beer, a gesture which made Wesker roll his eyes heavily at Chris. “I bet you can’t drink your whole bottle in under a minute...I bet you 50 dollars.”, he smirked as he reached into his pocket, waving the green banknote under Wesker’s nose. Earning another eye roll from his boss, Wesker obviously grabbed his bottle to show this green-nosed rookie what he was made out of!

 “Drink drink drink!”, the other members of S.T.A.R had caught up on Chris’ idea, hyping up their leader as he chugged down the whole bottle he had with him - and it was not a small one! By the time Wesker was done, small coughs from all the liquids inside of him escaped him - but he did it! Under a minute!

 “You know what, Albert? I can do this too! Watch me…”

 And the hangover both Wesker and Chris had to nurse the day after was the worst one in their lives.

 *

 Over the years, Jill had let her hair grow out. She liked the blonde more than she previously anticipated, and decided to keep it the way it was. This caused her to stack up on hair ties and bobby pins, not knowing if they’d ever come in handy. But this was another thing she was taught a long time ago - how to crack a door open with a bobby pin. Upon confirming that Chris was the person in the house, Jill found another door in where no one could see her entering - the door from the balcony. She grabbed a pin from her hair, inserting it into the lock of the balcony door. A few twists...a little bit of wiggling… and the door jumped open, much to Jill’s delight.

 A few cracks along the way and Jill stood inside of the small house. It was warm, and from the kitchen came a comforting smell of homemade food, making her stomach growl dangerously loud. Jill patted her stomach with a chuckle before moving towards the sleeping Chris. With her new POV she was sure that it was him, and not to spook him too much, she sat on the other side of the table, gently tapping on it. “Earth to Chris, Earth to Chris, you here?”, she asked gently.

 At first, Chris didn’t move an inch. Only more aggressive knocks from Jill made him stir in his sleep, opening his eyes with a groan. The sunlight caught him by surprise so he had to rub his eyes before he could even take in what was happening or who was with him in the room. “What the fuck…”, Chris muttered, but then his eyes fell on Jill.

 Over the years, Jill had changed so much. Not a lot was left from the 20-something girl going into the Spencer Mansion so many years ago. The wrinkles, the permanent limp she couldn’t get rid of even with therapy so she sometimes had to use a cane, the scars on her body and heart, Jill was able to trace them all back to the beginning. And in Chris’ eyes, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But the fact that she was sitting in front of him now wasn’t getting into his brain, thinking she might have been another one of his hallucinations, caused by the many men and women he had failed over the years. But had he failed Jill?

 “Hey Chris.”, and all Jill could do was smile.

 *

 Jill listened to every word Chris told her. Days, weeks, months, years, they all melted together in one big clusterfuck as Chris told his story. How they found out about the Baker house, how he found Ethan, how he swore to protect him and Mia, and in this same breath Rose too. “She is like a daughter to me too, you know?”, Chris sighed as he grabbed his wallet from his jacket, showing Jill a few pictures of little Rose in there. But there was something that caught Jill’s attention…

 “Didn’t you say she was born in 2020? How can she be a toddler already?”, Jill frowned and Chris put the pictures away again. “While we do not know exactly how the viruses act together, they cause her to age rapidly, just like Eveline. For now we have an antidote for her which makes her age two years every single year instead of more. But she won’t age as quickly as Eveline, who went from child to elder in three years without her medicine. We are trying our best to make her life normal but it will never be.”

 “Where have I heard that before?”, Jill chuckled. During her long recovery, Chris visited her nearly every day, and he had promised Jill over and over that he’d try to get her back to normal, despite her being another orgy of various viruses and injuries. Chris was always there to pick her up, even from her darkest places, and now it was her time to shine for him.

 *

 “And now?”, Jill asked, her eyes focused on the starry night sky, making her feel so small and yet so big. The S.T.A.Rs team had just finished their last training session for the day and had the evening off. Chris and Jill, the lovebirds of the group, decided to head for a walk which ended on top of a small hill with Jill sitting between Chris’ legs. The night was warm and filled with the sounds of various insects trying to find a mate, another sounds coming from deep inside the forest.

 “What do you mean?”, Chris looked down to his girlfriend, the sparkling inside of his eyes rivaling the stars in the sky. “Our lives. We are soon done with training. What do you think is going to happen?”, Jill replied, obviously hinting at their future and what could be the outcome of their time together.

 Chris laughed at her question, a soft laugh, just how soft he felt towards the woman in his arms, “Oh, you have questions! Who knows! Maybe we’ll die tomorrow! Maybe we’ll be superheroes like Superman or Batman in a few years! Maybe we’ll rot in the same retirement together! Nobody knows!”, and for this answer, Jill lightly slapped Chris’ thigh, which in return made him chuckle even more.

 “Don’t laugh at me! I am worried! And I wanna stay with you forever!”

 “Oh Jill, I can’t think of anything I’d want more than to stay with you forever.”

 *

 And now, more than 20 years later, they were back together. It felt like both an eternity and the blink of an eye to them. All the pain was forgotten, all the scars were undone. Chris carried Jill upstairs into his room, the pain from her legs and driving for so long had become unimaginable. He tucked her in, giving her some of his own painkillers, then settling next to her. For a moment, Chris believed he was 22 again with no fear of life and always a quick joke on his lips. How life changed, how the world changed. But for once, Chris felt at peace with his actions and his choices. He couldn’t undo the past, only try to work on a better future for the people he loves.

 Waking up without a hangover had become a rare event in Chris’ life. Instead, he was used to the pounding in his head, the dry mouth from snoring all night long, the upset stomach he’d nurse with some bread and butter. Waking up with someone in his arms hadn’t happened since Chris last had Jill with him. In the meanwhile, all the years spent away from someone who felt like home... Nothing felt right in these moments, nothing there to fill the void inside of his heart. But the blonde hair on his chest felt so right, felt so normal, the familiar feeling bubbling up in his chest. As if nothing had ever happened, as if the world wasn’t out there to get him. A Groundhog Day made worth by his love for Jill.

[phantomrose96]

Oof, which scenes of yours stick to mind. Bakugo getting his memories back and having a breakdown after he's set free; Deku's son talking to Inko and her sadly confirming Deku barely even visits her anymore; All Might gently chastising Deku for immediately wanting to give AfO to his (he thinks) now-quirkless son; the girl from the Candy Hair Saga piledriving the MC and accidentally restoring his memories causing him to reach out to her again; the seamstress seeing tiny child Edward for the 1/2

2/2 first time; the superheroine realizing the person who's mentoring her is setting up a bike theft and the boy who swallows fire buried on a burning building; Momo the skeleton with a giant plate of food she'll never finish. I have a visual memory so I'm cheating a bit, but your writing has a way of painting horrible pictures that sear the mind's-eye. Great work. I'd put a thumbs-up emoji here if I were on mobile

(fanfic ask meme)

man oh man oh man alright

Bakugo getting his memories back and having a breakdown after he's set free

(King)

tbh King might be my favorite of my bnha fanfictions. it's one of those fics where the implications kept building while I was writing it.

Also! In the earliest draft of King, Bakugou kind of just remembers everything from the start and the audience is walked through the flashback while he's sitting at the police station in the first scene. As I tinkered more with the fic, I realized it was more interesting to keep that part vague at first, let Bakugou's memories be partially repressed by the trauma, and then written-over as the lawyers grill into him the Right Version Of Events.

And that I could then fill the audience in properly at the exact moment Bakugou learns he's been let off the hook

Deku's son talking to Inko and her sadly confirming Deku barely even visits her anymore; All Might gently chastising Deku for immediately wanting to give AfO to his (he thinks) now-quirkless son

(Origin of a Non-Hero)

(I'm still really glad when people bring up OoaNH because that was the first substantial thing I wrote after a very long distancing myself from writing and I kinda thought it was a complete mess when posting it.)

When I was figuring out what to do with this story, I was struggling with the ending. For a while I thought the last scene would be a confrontation between Shiki and Deku. I even tried drafting that. But I couldn't come up with anything satisfying. To have Deku apologize and make up with Shiki as an ending didn't make sense, since the fic established how one-time "I'm sorry"s don't fix the issues being explored. But to have Shiki reject the apology? Anything I came up with felt too bitter to end on...

So I realized the way I wanted to end the piece didn't have any actual confrontation between Deku and Shiki at all. Instead I broke it up. Have Shiki and Inko together, with Shiki asking if he's in the wrong for wishing he could have just had normal parents who were proud of him, to Inko who would understand this more than anyone. And have Deku and All Might together, with Deku asking if he'd failed his son, to All Might would who understand this better than anyone.

the girl from the Candy Hair Saga piledriving the MC and accidentally restoring his memories causing him to reach out to her again

(Candy Hair Saga)

THAT was so fun! For a couple reasons! When I first made the post I was kind of just messing around and the "villain" who was targeting the background-characters-turned-main-character could be anyone. The moment I realized the exact way to tie everything together, with the reveal of the villain, I was like hopping out of my chair.

AND it was extra fun because the whole thing is a joking exploration of cliches and tropes, so for the memories and flashbacks? I just went full ham with the cheesiest, tropiest, backstoriest execution of that and it's frankly REALLY fun to indulge in that without worrying "am i being cliche? am i being unoriginal?" this was just like doesnt matter babey, we're TRYING to be a cliche.

the seamstress seeing tiny child Edward for the first time;

(See Them Buried)

(I'm still delightfully surprised with how much attention See Them Buried has gotten. I was expecting very little at all for an OC-centric fic.)

I think I'd been thinking about how all the "youre the fullmetal alchemist but youre so small" remarks might NOT have just been short-jabs and very well might have been people from an outside perspective seeing Ed and being like "this is a CHILD. why is he a soldier?" and anyway I have feelings about that.

the superheroine realizing the person who's mentoring her is setting up a bike theft and the boy who swallows fire buried on a burning building;

(Hero Syndrome)

Back on my brand of "wouldnt it be fucked up if" bnha fics. So the fire boy's story was actually the first one of the three I came up with. Just thinking about how the BNHA world's hero worship almost definitely encourages reckless acts of heroism, and what happens when that goes wrong, and what happens if those acts were inspired by a big-name hero? (which led to me coining the plot twist that's revealed at the end)

Then I got to thinking about the other messages Deku receives in canon, which work out great for him, but could easily go south for people not as lucky. and well what happens to society if those get mass projected...

Momo the skeleton with a giant plate of food she'll never finish.

(Branding the Hero)

The funny thing about Branding the Hero is it was kind of a passive-aggressive response to the whole "Momo's costume has to be that way because of her quirk!" argument. Like, "yeah? yeah is that so? we REALLY care about 'the way her quirk works'? we REALLY are just concerned with 'making sure her quirk works to the best of its ability'? let's fucking talk about that then"

And then the implications just got worse the deeper I dug.

[donotpercieveme123]

madahika for the ship game <3

Thank you sm for asking about madahika! I could talk about them forever!

1. What made you ship it?

I wanted to explore Madara's relationship with the clan and I wanted him to have important and complicated relationships outside of Hashirama or Izuna. Hikaku initially started out as a personification of the clan as a whole, the how and why they came to treat Madara like that leading up to and after Izuna's death. (Also the way Hikaku is written in WASS and Tangle definitely effected how I characterise him and how that would therefore shape his relationship with Madara). Also I love when characters are good but so bad for each and no longer on the same page about anything, and when it's toxic because one character is dismissive and takes the other for granted, and they in turn grow to hate and resent them for it, and their actions as a whole, when they would have once done anything for them. Especially if they have so much shared history and trauma, especially around the same person they both loved more than anything (Izuna in this case, who at times and in a lot of ways was probably even closer or more compatible with Hikaku than with Madara).

Anyway grief and anger and resentment and love that hurts but never goes away. Two people coming together then falling apart and still returning to each other over and over to torture themselves and each other, to feel some of that old intimacy that they can never have again because there's no way to fix it and they feel like they have no one else left anymore. Then the abandonment afterwards and all the complicated feelings Hikaku has about that, especially after Hashirama kills him, and how he has to learn to live with it or to heal and move on. Also hate sex, and the whole leader/ attendant dynamic👀

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

Aside from everything I mentioned, I really also like how their personalities fit, or rather don't fit, together. Hikaku being the poised and collected one who's far too uptight and needs to chill tf out before he has a stroke over not being able to micro manage everything constantly. Also him being a good leader because he has a good grasp of politics, can delegate, and can better understand the experiences, fears and needs of the clan because he is 'one of the people' in the way Madara has never been or could never understand. (The clan turning to Hikaku as a result and the feeling of betrayal on Madara's end). Also Hikaku having to essentially clean up after Madara because he only ever considers the larger picture and kind of just paternalisticly does what he thinks is right with poor regard for how it might affect 'average' people.

Hikaku trying to metaphorically keep Madara on a leash, but Madara also being the more dominant one in the dynamic because of his personality and the power imbalance. Also passive agressive (and low key high key emotionally abusive) Hikaku who carries grudges to the grave, and emotionally distant, hot and cold Madara who's far too distracted and self centred to notice how he's using and hurting him. They're so fucking toxic and divorced and they don't deserve each other but they so do and its fun to watch them suffer and drag each other back down if the other looks like they might leave or start to heal without them. NO CHILDREN BY THE MOUNTAIN GOATS that sums up a lot of what I love about their dynamic!!

I also love that they were once a team, who yh had their disagreements, but they were healthy and supportive and they made each other better. The same traits that became reasons for frustration were once what made them work well together. And they have a world of tender amd bittersweet memories that they can't let go of even after they all turn sour (especially since a lot of them are perfectly recorded with the sharingan). In a happier (most likely a modern AU) where their circumstances were different and they had healthy support systems outside of each other they would work best as platonic life partners who have sex because intimacy.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don't think anyone has opinions of them AT ALL, nothing I say would be unpopular lmao. But they only work in a romantic setting if it's unrequited and toxic and they hate each other, or if Hikaku is silently and painfully pushing it down and trying to be content with his companionship (and the sex), because Madara fancies himself in love with Hashirama (or he's at least almost entirely too fixated on him and the dream he represents but feels like he can't have). And Hikaku knows, oh he knows! And he hates Hashirama more than anyone for that and multiple other valid reasons I'm not gonna get into cuz this is already far too long). Which leads me to: its most (or really only) interesting if Hashirama is indirectly involved and has been involved in their relationship since the river. (Bonus if Hashirama has no clue about any of it; Madara possibly being in love with him, his relationship with Hikaku, and Hikaku hating his guts lol).

[evilvarric666-archive]

that post about self sacrifice narratives made me think of how da accidentally goes a step further and ends up (in part) being a cautionary tale about self sacrifice, or rather showing people the other side of self sacrifice and the ugly side of the glorification of martyrdom. like im not going to mention it all, but take dao as an example. the figure of the warden/hero necessarily originates from sacrifice (except in the brosca origin where brosca's life was already permeated by sacrifice, and the figure of the warden is born not from sacrifice or tragedy, but from both this sense of chance or destiny, rage and revenge, which is VERY interesting to me but i dont want to go off topic), and the game seems to constantly insist on the idea of glorifying sacrifice "for a good cause". this is not alarming to the audience, because its something constantly seen in other similar mainstream narratives: the someone sacrifices themselves for the greater good and everyone is better off because of that sacrifice. because a narrative that shows the good and virtuous side of sacrifice for a greater purpose is useful, so why would they bother to explore how inhuman it is to ask someone to give up their life, how painful it is to resign oneself to misery so others can live. they never make you think about the person behind the act, they take advantage of the distance of the audience, they dehumanize the figure of the martyr to make them perfect and virtuous to further a certain narrative, and they focus on showing the "bigger picture" to promote a certain message. but there are instances where the game tries to show the player some hidden cracks in that particular "self sacrifice is noble act" ideology. the issue is that they are fairly easy to ignore. we can choose to ignore the fucked up-ness behind the deaths of the recruits during the joining because they happened to further a greater cause. we can ignore the grief of the families that have lost loved ones in battle because thats what happens during war and there's nothing anyone can do about it. we distance ourselves from the grief and misery of martyrdom by glorifying the heroes that sacrifice everything, distance ourselves from the messed up inhuman nature of the idea of asking a person to sacrifice their life in exchange for the lives of others, because we're playing a game, we truly don't risk anything, and we dont have to give up our lives, so its easy for us to mantain this idea of "sacrifice=good" and even easier to get influenced to carry that idea into real life and see it as a virtue. to think only of the heroic part. but if we choose to go through with the dark ritual, the game instantly turns the tables on us, gets personal, and forces us to pay attention to the misery and pain, the unfairness and the helplessness, the mutual suffering that self sacrifice truly entails, using the only person we can't completely help or "save": morrigan(1/2)

(putting the rest under a readmore bc it's long but OH MY GOD?)

(2/3) For someone like morrigan who's had to fight tooth and nail all her life just to survive in a wild and hostile environment with not a word of kindness or a helping hand ever being offered to her, for someone like morrigan who had to learn that she could trust no one but herself ever, that the world was a cruel savage place and the only way to survive it was to be just as cruel, cunning and manipulative, that was certain that love and friendship were illnesses experienced by fools who were looking for a quick death or betrayal or worse, that fully believed that having power over everyone acquired through any means so that she couldnt be hurt or taken advantage of was the only important thing in life, for someone like morrigan who finally got the chance to make her seemingly impossible dreams come true and also be in a relatively safe position for the first time in her life, who finally got to experience love and care from others and mutual companionship, friendship and selflessness, and finally was part of a real "family" for the first time in her life, to give up ALL THAT and her own freedom simply for the sake of another person, without getting any real reward or benefit from it, when she could've just thrown everyone under the bus like she'd been taught all her life and lived safely the way she'd ALWAYS wanted? thats messed up and painful to experience, and made even more painful by the knowledge that the warden can only watch, because nothing they say will make her not sacrifice herself. and she'd be the perfect martyr, the perfect example of the virtue in sacrifice if only the whole thing was seen from a distance, if it wasnt for the warden/player getting to see firsthand and personal how terrifying, fucked up and unfair the whole situation is, for both them who are on the receiving end and for morrigan, but mainly for morrigan. morrigan, whose life has been nothing short of miserable, choosing to give up and destroy her own dreams, choosing the prospecy of misery and loneliness, choosing to be far away from the world she loves, choosing to GIVE UP HER LIFE IN THEIR WORLD to let someone she loves live happily and safely, even despite all the pain and grief that separation and sacrifice cause in her heart. she gives up EVERYTHING WILLFULLY for ANOTHER PERSON'S SAKE, she puts the life of another before her own in the most absolute and painful of ways, going aganist every painful lesson in her life, solely because of love.

(3/3) theres just no bigger sacrifice than what she did. to not only go aganist everything youve been taught and completely believed all your life, but also to sacrifice yourself and decide to face the idea of not death, but the idea of a life of pain and loneliness again, a life with little to no benefits for which you had to give up everything you wanted, a life that includes the terrifying reality of having to give birth to and raise a child, alone, with all the trauma morrigan has surrounding the idea of that particular experience, just for the sake of another person that only offered you love and friendship for a short moment in your life? it's the biggest declaration of love for another being that could ever be made, and it's the most messed up thing ever because it speaks volumes about how starved morrigan was, how messed up her love is for her to consider that one chance given to her by another person, that hand extended towards her, that moment of friendship, love and kindness, worthy of sacrificing ten years of her life and her dreams for. how little she must care for herself if she gave up so much for the first person that extended kindness to her for a short time. and it's painful because it goes both ways, because sacrifices always do, because it's unforgettable and it stays with the warden forever, not only because of the emotional bond they have with morrigan, but because now they have a literal bond between them. the warden now has to keep living a life they took from morrigan, and with the grief of not having morrigan around. they can no longer live for themselves. every day alive is a reminder that someone else gave up their time so the warden could have it. someone else is not seeing the world just to let the warden see it. someone else is alone, while the warden gets to be around people. and the sacrifice is mutual in the end, because the pain is mutual, because the love was mutual. the warden doesnt get to see morrigan, and can only keep this life and the memories, the love and the grief, and the undying hope as a reminder that someday they might meet again. but its mostly grief, and learning how to live with it, with all the love they can't give, and how to carry it gracefully.