#they're mentally ill but they have eachother

[dagwmeno]

ummmmmm some killer x dust would be awesom..

Ding ding food is served!! Eat up!!

[dan9a-00]

I need more posts about how similar kim dokja and aventurine are oughhh I'm gonna explodeeeee

[eclaire-went-bam]

nobody in the group chat acknowledged what i said abt the crazy thing that happened today i'm cutting them all off because they're worthless to me & i'm too good to need any menials.

[bewby]

the urge to be seen so badly but also terrified of being perceived because you're always on edge because you are so convinced everyone will turn around to reject you anyway ALL The time because you're inherently annoying and unlikable 👍🏻👍🏻 i hate living like this i hate being so afraid of being judged for everything i hate knowing people see me but i also want to be seen so badly because i want friends and i want to be happy and not lonely. my brain is aboutto fucking explode oh my God

[abandonedblogignoreit]

My family after telling me my whole life I'd make a terrible parent and managing to bring up in every conversation why they think LGBTQ people should not be allowed children when I say that mayhaps I do not want kids

[quacktities]

I feel like the appeal of C! Quackbur (to me at least) is just how versatile it is as a ship and the range it has.

You want a subtle rivals to lovers, mutual pinning and longing but one of them is repressing his own feelings because he hates himself too much to let someone get attached to him ship dynamic with a political backdrop? You want longing gazes, knowing looks and the unspoken truth that, maybe, just maybe this relationship and understanding between them goes deeper than either of them let on or want to admit? BOOM. Lmanburg election arc Quackbur!

You want all of that but with more tension, high stakes, mental illness, a very "forbidden romance" vibe with an enemies that have been in love with eachother for a long time but can now finally be on the same side and possibly act on their feelings dynamic (but theyre doomed by the narrative so it was never going to work out. Or maybe it will, who knows. Maybe this time they find solace in eachother. Maybe this time Quackity stops him before its too late. Maybe this time it doesnt end in flames. Who knows. Its up to you really, if you keep telling the story over and over again, maybe this time they get their happy ending here and it doesnt have to be a tragedy. Your choice really). Pogtopia era C! Quackbur!

You want fucked up grief and angst and reminiscing on the past and being haunted by what could have been? You want seeing the spectre of your dead friend (if he was truly your old enemy, why does he feel like a past lover to you) and wondering if maybe he remembers everything you both went through the same way you do and if maybe his heart aches when he sees you the same way yours aches when you see him but you know he isn't the same and you'll never see the old verison of him ever again... but hes here... as a ghost.. and that has to be worth something right. (Is it a miracle you can still see him or are you forever being tormented by what you can never have?). BOOM, Butcher arc C! Quackity and Ghostbur (or Aftermath C! Quackbur as I call them)

You want all of that, but hey. What if we brought back the guy. What if it didn't have to end in death? What if they could reunite and speak again after everything? Would they even get along? You want the culmination of years of pinning, grief, hurt, and mutual obsession? Do they truly love each other, or have they fallen in love with the idealised verisons of each other they have in their own heads? Maybe this time, they'll actually get their shit together and talk. There really isn't anything stopping them now, other than themselves and each other. Maybe C! Quackity finally finds someone who respects him, is dedicated to him, and can engage with him on the same intellectual level in C! Wilbur. Maybe C! Wilbur finally finds someone who makes him feel human and can challenge him and his more self-destructive behaviours while still loving him in C! Quackity. Maybe this time, they get to understand each other, and they get to heal. Maybe this time, it's not too late, and sure, they dont have the healthiest relationship, but they're working on it, and they're okay for once. Just this once. Maybe. Or maybe you don't want that. Maybe it is too late for them. Maybe they'll never have what they once had, and they're both left with bitter hatred and longing for the past that grows weaker by the day as the rose tinted filter starts to fade. Maybe they make each other worse. Maybe the closest they ever get to being close to each other is by hurting each other. Maybe the only times they hold hands are when they're catching each other's bloody fists. Maybe they're both too far gone now. Maybe they've hurt each other too much to ever be vulnerable with each other. Maybe it's just too late for them. Maybe it was never meant to be. You want a joker card ship dynamic that can either end in healing and a happy ending or in an even more fucked up tragedy? Or both! Why not. BOOM. Post revival C! Quackbur

[superkooku]

I see it as a personal theory but it saddens me that Maomao's parents didn't really love eachother but instead wanted something to gain from it, both resulting terribly for them.

In worse it had an impact on their own child, with her not really being showing emotions, especially viewing love in a negative light. Not to blame her growing up in a environment where women are mere objects for men to desire.

That's a sad but interesting take. And honestly, it's pretty realist too considering Maomao's life isn't a fairytale. Though I see it in a different way. A different taste of tragedy.

(rant incoming)

To me, Lakan and Fengxian made some form of bond, at least friends with benefits.

We see Lakan's POV. Him literally crying and going towards Fengxian even if she's sick proves that he loved her. She's the only one (with Maomao) whose face he can see, her playing partner in go and shogi (they share hobbies, which is a great way to create bonds imo).

We see him running in the rain, begging to see her, his desperation when he sees the letters and the fingers. It's pretty clear to me he loves her.

It's more ambiguous on Fengxian's side, as we don't get her inner monologue, but she seems to have missed him too. Though their reunion is shown through rose-tinted glasses, as she never recovered from syphilis in reality. Just Lakan's imagination.

So I'd have less trouble believing she didn't fully love him but I think he's pretty much smitten (I'll watch the series again soon, to refresh my memories).

They're also a parallel to the couple from episode 4, the concubine who faked her (mental) illness to go with the man she loved, trapped in a world where she'd only be a pretty object.

Though I agree with the fact that both had something to gain, especially in the beginning, and as the feelings changed, none of them were able to communicate correctly.

Fengxian was known to be a very proud woman after all. And Lakan likes strategy and twisted games. So they're both terrible at communication and then he's sent in foreign land and she's pregnant. It's too late.

I completely agree about what you said on Maomao, though. The environment she grew up in, especially before Luomen picked her up, was terrible for a child.

She ended up very reserved, taking any emotional display as putting too much attention on herself, something detrimental.

Because of her upbringing, she refuses to be sold by the madam because she knows what to expect. She still has nightmares of her mother cutting her fingers, puts fake freckles to seem uglier. She knows how dirty men can be, she saw lust, STDs, assassination attempts, poverty.

What an awful childhood.

And I COMPLETELY understand why someone like Jinshi makes her uncomfortable. She doesn't like the attention and just wants to live quietly with her passion as an apothecary. And he's clingy as hell, like in that honey scene.

I firmly believe that if he learns to leave her alone, she'll warm up to him faster, because she won't associate him with lecherous men anymore.

It's fortunate Maomao had Luomen as a positive father figure and Meimei/Pairin/Joka as "motherly sisters". She wasn't alone in this terrible world.

[patheticwhimpering]

This is going to be our only post on syscourse, because we think it's important.

STOP SENDING EACHOTHER DEATH THREATS. Holy shit.

It doesn't matter if you think they're an "ableist faker" or a "fascist sysmed". Most of the people on here are mentally ill teenagers, you are going to get somebody seriously hurt.

There's a way to have these discussions without asking for somebody's death. I think a lot of people on here need to take a break from social media.

[kroosluvr]

hi!! as a fellow royal trio-truther ive been ADORING and loving your posts so much <3 you mentioned that you've like mentally re-wired shusumi so i was curious if you had a list of head-canons for how they develop in the game/post-game!! Im super curious to hear (: also any head-canons for the akesumi dynamic would be great bc I hate how little the game developed them together !!!

OMGGGGGGGGG HAYYYYYYYYYY ok so. first. look at this (idr if i posted this here already but if i did look again heh..)

ok now ill actually talk under the cut

note that some of this is headcanon territory bc i just be frolicking at this point

some backstory i fell in love w sumi as soon as her art was revealed i was like omfg peak design PEAKKKKKK i love her so much so i was really excited abt her but i feel like there were so many loose ends w her confidant and namely her crush on protag sometimes doing her a disservice (it turned ppl off from her (understandable bc i also dislike when writers make a female character out to be dependent on a male character) but also made other ppl weird abt her in the same breath....... shivers. people who overly-romanticize/sexualize mentally ill characters (especially girls/women) freak me out sorry

anyway that put me off frm p5 fandom for a hot minute. BUT regardless. i think people often focus on like "shy cute sadgirl kouhai crush-on-protag" for her which on top of atlus's.......mediocre handling of her also does her character a disservice... shes so multilayered!! she houses such insane convoluted levels of distress and fear and anger and reluctance and most of all STUBBORNNESS. i think her headstrong personality is not really emphasized in fandom but i can totally see it (maybe its just me but).

ok moving on to my shsm delusions i think to turn sumire's canon crush on its head i want to make them doomed to never get together. i think 3rd semester is so tense and high-emotion that royal trio are so deeply intertwined w each other:

like they all are mildly-to-a-lot suicidal so they hold onto each other so tightly to make sure none of them spirals and does anything bad. i think in the end they just want the other two to be Okay, even if they themself doesn't. if the other two are ok, then it's all good.

ok back to shsm LMAO i think seeing their relationship as like an odd high-emotion situation makes sense. they love each other, obviously, and provide each other comfort, but the idea of a relationship slips thru their fingers like water. is that right...? is that how it is? like i said up there they just crumble under the weight of their own love. tldr theyre in no place to "date" each other........ but they have their "almost." they're inseparable, they love spending time with each other, but knowing in the back of their heads that it won't last, and they'll have to leave it be one day. "sometimes when i really love someone i leave them alone forever." peak shsm to me. "let's run away together - but what if it's not enough? what if all of this fear and sadness still stays? i take a man down to the river and he throws away his sadness but hes still left with his hands, he's still left with the river (paraphrased richard siken). peak shsm to me. i think they try to treat eachother so softly and gently that it fucks it all up, actually. peak shsm to me. it's not codependency in the sense that theyre not trying to save each other - they're just trying to salvage out some love from it all. all of these terrible things that happened: there's still love, right? there's still love. but the pain can't all be sifted out, and everything still hurts. but they still love. (they just don't date or even talk to each other much after graduating and i think they talk to akechi but to each other its suddenly COMPLICATED. i hate these guys)

ironically i think if you throw akechi in the mix it stabilizes out and i think shuakesumi could totally have a happy married ending. but shsm as a pair i dont see endgame for them. peak for me is that theyre in love and then they spend the rest of their lives trying to forget each other (they don't)

(If this sounds ridiculous and stupid im sorry. i just like shoving too-many-emotions onto my favs sometimes (a lot of the time))

IN REGARDS TO AKESUMI i think my latest 2 comics describe how i feel abt them pretty well!!! link 1 and link 2. actually i think akesumi's friendship is a great way for me to explore how i see/portray/feel about sumire, because i see them as way more similar than the game pays attention to. they're both stuck in their ways: sumire in her cowardice, hiding from the incident and refusing to move on, and akechi entrenched in his own traumas and feeling like he doesn't deserve more than that. their self-hatred manifests in two opposite ways but its very similar at the core. they both like. have no fucking clue what they're doing in terms of handling their pasts so that's why i think them working together to get around their own respective traumas is so fascinating: akechi is terrible at it, pushing sumire too far, but at the same time that perspective is something that she needs. meanwhile, her sensitive and observant personality shows akechi that like, you can have This too: a soft, good love. to have someone care about you unconditionally, so gently. you deserve that, too. yeah i can explode my head off now

i did not proofread this.

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Mental Illness In Relationships

Shipping Dynamic: Weirdo x Weirdo

I really like when characters exist outside of the typical standard for how they should think and act but in a way that is self-destructive. Basically, less "quirky" and more "mentally ill".

For an example, i'll use my characters Jukka and Yuuma

Yuuma is a hyper-emotional mess of a human being who deals with severe mood swings and hallucinations due to a mixture of pre-existing conditions and overwhelming stress

Jukka is a character whose obsession with acting is also a coping mechanism for the fact that they can't really feel strong emotions except when they're talking about their interest in acting. Someone who has never felt fully accustomed to his own skin

p.s I highly relate to Jukka (except for the acting obsession) so be kind to him :3

And they both love each other. And this love doesn't help them totally overcome their trauma.

Yes, having a support system does encourage them to gain more friends, go to therapy, and improve themselves but Jukka still has naturally not strong emotions. Yuuma still deals with mental illness.

They help each other cope when they're able to.

They fight when their heightened experiences shape their perspectives.

What I love about this dynamic is the fact that their love isn't built on "needing eachother" but more on "I feel accepted when I'm around you" and "whenever I am truly strange, you are strange with me".

It's that type of bonding that i've only ever experience once in my life and I still think back on it.

Ps. let's give a warm welcome to our newest mutual/follower : @12-cluh

[thatsthewrongwallcraig]

babe, first of all, I hope you doing well 🥰 and second, but not least important, i'll do love if write some toxic fluffy whith jack, where, after a argument, she hurts or puts herself in dangerous just to get revenge, but nothing really serius happens to her, they reconizing they're not in a helth reletionship, but they gonna try to be better for eachother, you also can add some smut if you like, but this is not part of the request. hope you liked the idea, but if you don't, let me know

xoxo

My dearest anon...this is a lot of things but not exactly fluffy and I'm sorry if I went too hard on it but toxic Jack Thurlow had me short circuiting 😵‍💫😵‍💫

The Pain Remains

Summary: This time you really lost the plot for good and now all you can do is to clean up your act.

Pairing: Jack Thurlow x fem!Reader

Word Count: ~1.6k

Content Warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT! 18+!, Grim Dark Smut, Active Self Harm, Jealousy, Borderline Very Toxic Relationship, Two Idiots In Love Trying To Do Better, It's Very Mentally Ill In Here, Mutual Substance Abuse, Very Shitty Coping Mechanisms, Strong Hints Towards Sex Addiction, Mentions Of Public Sex, Angsty As Fuck, Positive Ending, Tho 🙆🏻‍♀️!

A/N: I know, this is a rather heavy one and if anyone of you feels the need to talk to someone: My DMs are always open. Don't hesitate to reach out!🖤

Tagging The Squad:

@crypticsewerslut @quicksilversg1rl @cc-luvr @icarus-star @milaeth @roryculkinsgf @roryculkinsbf @spookyorchid @arch1viste @whoareyoi @angelsanarchy @b4sementgrl @blueberrypancakesworld

If the past is just dust

Then the future could be our dream

If all we have is now, this eternity

Ignite my satisfaction, engulf me

- The Pain Remains I By Lorna Shore

Before you even really woke up, you were forced to acknowledge the raging hangover headache in your head. With eyes closed shut, you turned to the side, your hand haphazardly roaming over the silhouette of Jack's body, looking for a glimpse of comforting body heat or just anything to get your racing mind to shut up for a second.

How did you get into bed? At what time did you fall onto the mattress next to him?

You had no clue about any of that as you pressed your body against his back, the pungent aftertaste of cheap rum still lingering heavily on your tongue.

"Fucking hell…" You groaned into the nape of his neck, your nose buried deep in his curly, brown hair and yet you could still smell the remnants of last night's pot extravaganza all throughout the bedroom.

What in the everloving fuck had the two of you been up to last night? With relentlessly firing synapses and painfully overdriven neurons you searched your mind for answers, a flicker of a memory, at this point anything, really.

You couldn't help yourself but to let your face contort into various tortured grimaces as the rest of your body slowly came to. Your stomach felt horribly fucked and in dire need for something solid, although the mere thought of food alone had you nearly gagging. No, you needed something else to take the edge off before you even so much as got out of bed.

Whilst inhaling deep, unsteady breaths, you soaked in the calming smell of Jack's body; a mixture of pheromone-loaded sweat, musky deodorant and soft hints of vanilla coke.

Vanilla coke spiked with cheap rum. Your stomach dropped and turned in every possible direction at the reminder. Nearly every weekend played out in the same shit show again and again: Booze to kill the anxiety, weed to elevate your spirit and nearly deranged amounts of sex to eradicate and simply drown out every last painful sentiment that could possibly be felt.

On that notion your lips curled up into a crooked smile whilst your reader fingertips grazed down your boyfriends gently rising and falling again chest, gingerly drawing a circle or two around his navel before eventually tapping down to the waistband of his black and gray checkered shorts, a throbbing case of morning wood straining against the fabric already. Sucking your bottom lip between your teeth in a low gasp, you simply indulged yourself and allowed your hand to slip right past the waistband, fingers wrapping themselves around Jack's girth tenderly.

"Goddamn minx!" Jack hissed into the darkened bedroom and involuntarily jutted his hips against your hand.

"Want me to stop?" You whispered into the soft skin of his shoulder before biting down on it teasingly.

"No, please.", His voice was raspy enough to give you a broad idea about how much the two of you must've smoked last night, "I'm equal parts hungover and horny as fuck."

"Yeah, I thought so." You snickered while you started fisting his cock, generously smearing the pre-cum all over the sensitive tip to not stroke him sore with a dry palm.

"You're a fucking menace, you know that?" Jack stuttered, choking back a breathy moan while rocking is lap in quick rolls, practically fucking himself into your grip.

"Says the lunatic who'll take every and any given chance to fumble me in public? Finger fucking me in the cinema, really?" With a mischievous grin spreading all across your face, you fondly remembered that happening a few days ago.

"C'mon, you enjoyed that, cumming all over the seat like you did." Jack shot right back at you.

"Fair enough." You agreed, tightening the grip around his hard on slightly to drag a shaky sigh from his lips.

"Fuck, you know I can't last long that early into the day." Jack practically whined out, his hips thrusting harshly against your hand while you jerked him off.

"Oh, poor, little Jack." Your playfully mocking voice got lost in the glossy curls of his hair as you felt his entire body turning stiff against your torso.

"Say that again… please!" Jack was clearly about to come undone, needing that little push of humiliation to push past the threshold.

"Oh, you sick fuck.", You sneered into his ear, the tip of your nose hardly touching its shell, "Poor, little Jack Thurlow creaming his boxers just after a few minutes already, huh?"

"Good god, fuck, you're so mean!" It cascaded out of his mouth in a guttural moan as he rutted against your hand in a few last, shaky thrusts before white-hot ropes of cum ruined his boxers and your hand alike.

The milky fluid spouted all over your fingers and eventually down your wrist, causing a very sudden, sharp pinch of simmering pain.

"What the hell?!" You hissed and withdrew your hands from Jack's crotch, raising it up for the both of you to stare right at the scene of the crime.

"What…" Jack mumbled under his breath, his eyes going wide in shock.

Thin yet vigorous cuts thrown all over your wrist, bright red with inflammation and laced with a milky layer of Jack's cum, laughing right in your face about the current state of your mental health.

"What…no…NO!" Your voice flailed and trembled as you stared at your wrist with thrashing disbelief.

"I was clean for a year! This…this isn't happening, no!" A dull pang of pain shot right through your dehydrated head as you basically jumped off the mattress and stumbled towards the bathroom, nearly tripping over scattered clothing and a glass bong.

Unbridled waves of shame and disgusting rippled through your system as a supernova of blacked-out memories decided to implode inside your head. You'd been pissed last night, even furious with Jack about something…yeah..fuck..a call. Was it call? Yeah, of course, a call from is ex-fiancé Cleo, that fucking cunt. Dumped him because she couldn't handle Jack the way you could and now trying to patch things up again. Stupid twat.

"Hey, wait!" You heard Jack calling out to you from behind, coming right after you.

Your out of control body fell against the door frame of the bathroom as you hurried towards the sink, yanking at the faucet for icy cold water to cascade over your violated wrist. It stung and you winced at the sharp pain.

"Are you okay? What the hell happened!?" Jack huffed, only stopping in steps as he was right behind you, making his presence known by cupping your jittery frame with his body, his chin resting on your shoulder as his slender hands wrapped themselves around yours under the running faucet.

His thumb ghosted over the cuts, gently washing himself off of your sore skin.

"Obviously not, asshole!" It shot right out of you and you regretted it immediately.

"Hey, watch that mouth! Right now is not the time for that." He mumbled into the crook of your neck.

"Fuck, sorry… I really lost the plot this time, huh?" Your voice was but a meak whimper.

"Maybe, but I got you. This is a temporary setback, yes, but not the end of the world, you hear me?" His tone rendered soft as he tried to calm you down.

"The cuts are shallow and if we take good care of them they'll heal without leaving a single scar. It'll be okay, yeah?" By now the water numbed your wrist out to the point that you didn't feel his thumb wiping you clean anymore.

"Uh-huh…I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for being such a fucking psycho, Jack." The shame and self-loathing doubled down on you, dragging you into an inevitable breakdown.

"Stop that right there! You're not a psycho and I don't love you any less, you understand?", He pressed himself to you as impossibly close as he could, "A little slip up like that won't scare me. I'll go through that hell right here with you, I promise. I'll never go anywhere and just leave you like that."

Everything inside of you came falling down, every painful emotion amped up by the raging hangover that ruled over your shaking muscles and you just let yourself fall against Jack in eventual defeat.

"I got you and we'll handle that together!"

[sliipppy]

Warning this is a mindelsss rant and its all my thoughts slabbed into a post bc I've been re-reading the holy trinity (Batman and Robin 2009, Red Robin 2009, and Batgirl 2009)

2009 is actually the best era of batman comics for me. Like batman 2009, red Robin 2009, and Batgirl 2009 are all such bangers and it's crazy to me that it took Bruce dying for the batfamily to truly flourish but hell it WORKS. Like they're not perfect, and I have my gripes with grant morrision but I feel that comics were just really good and it will forever make me sad that these comics (especially red robin) ended so terribly because of n52. Dick and Damian make such a good batman and robin. It's fresh, it's interesting, and I loved watching their relationship grow. They even got some good Jason stuff in there. Red Robin 2009 is phenomenal and just a great character study of Tim. Batgirl 2009 introduced Steph as Batgirl and is probably my favorite DC series ever. Ironically, I think these series suffer a bit when it's revealed Bruce is alive and comes back and what not (I'm not too big a fan of batman inc but idk if that's just me.)

So dc. What I propose is that you kill off Bruce. Again. Since apparently it works really well.

kidding. That would be redundant considering he just died. Basically I'm asking for more batfamily centered stories that show that they are messy. I feel like the batfamily is too perfect nowadays. They aren't flawed. They don't fight. 2009 showed just how fucked up and mentally ill these characters were like they were oftentimes shitty to eachother but they still loved eachother ITS WHAT MADE THEM SO GOOD

I miss it sm n52 I'll forever hate you

[itgr]

ITGR and the Aromantic and Asexual Spectrum

aka a long, pretentious, non coherent, semi analytical ramble I took a month to make about ITGR and how aspec coded it feels to me. Brought to you by someone who re read the series three times in the last nine months

I was originally going to write about how aspec coded every character feels individually in reference to this post but then I realised, I've always found that ITGR as a general narrative and comic had aspec vibes and I couldn't pin point why until recently. So I wrote this analysis (?) dissecting different patterns I noticed with characters and the general narrative themes and why it just feels aspec to me.

Obligatory disclaimers and preface: I will be using "aspec" as a shorthand term for both the aromantic and asexual spectrums (I will use "acespec" when talking about the asexual spectrum and "arospec" when talking about the aromantic spectrum specifically). I'm not trying to claim any of this was intentional on the part of Grave or trying to speculate that Grave is secretly aspec. I know a lot of the things I view as aspec coding could be explained away by a character's trauma or implied mental illness but I'm going to be largely viewing things through an aspec specific lens for the sake of this specific analysis (also aspec people can have mental illnesses or trauma that can feed into eachother and that doesn't take away from the fact they're aspec or vice versa).

This is all just a very aspec centered interpretation of ITGR and I'm not trying to claim it's the "correct" or "only" way to interpret the comic (also i will be sprinkling in aspec headcanons here and there and you will just have to deal with that, sorry <- some characters dont have specific orientations that come to mind for me. they're just somewhere on the ace/aro spectrums/hj). Some of this is based on 'evidence' in the text or like narrative implications and framing and the other half is based on vibes/hj and, I can not stress this enough, just because I headcanon a character with a specific label doesn't mean I think the character would ever use that label or even know what that label is. It's more about finding a term I think generally describes how I interpret that character as experiencing attraction

Word count: 4869

Part 1 : ITGR and the Performative Nature of Love and Attraction

Idk, there's just something about the way love and attraction are represented in this comic that feels aspec? Unlike a lot of other stories, I've read, ITGR kind of portrays love and attraction in such a detached manner I can't quite describe, especially early on. Love's ironically not romanticised and is either portrayed as something fucked up or as something performative with some exceptions (more on those later). Let's start with the examples in which attraction is portrayed as performative, starting with the most obvious example: Satan.

Satan spends most of his time, taunting and toying with his reapers in a number of ways with various levels of flirtation, with Scarlet being the one he flirts with the most. He makes a lot of passes and allusions to love with her because he likes toying with her and is really possessive over her. In some scenes, especially early on, he comes across more like a jealous ex-boyfriend than he does a boss. The way Satan acts around Scarlet and Brook is so interesting because I honestly dont believe Satan actually wants to be worshipped or that he has any attraction to Scarlet. He's just a bored million year old being who's trying to have fun, and he's doing whatever he thinks will make them uncomfortable because that's fun to him. This becomes more apparent with the fact that the only time we ever see him be uncomfortable is in Episode 94 when he's meeting with Ashe. Ashe (at this point) is someone who practically worships him and treats Satan how he implies he wants Scarlet or Brook to treat him. And he hates it.

Its so interesting that when Satan's given something he has been implied to "want" this whole time, he absolutely hates it and is uncomfortable. Which signals to me that he doesn’t flirt with Scarlet or mess around with Brook because he genuinely wants them to submit or because he actually wants Scarlet to fall for him. He does it because he enjoys the fun of getting reactions out of people and he likes being entertained. He likes the chase but I don't think he'd be happy long term if they ever actually completely submitted and did everything he claims he wanted. Something about the way Satan does sexual and romantic coded things in a performative way without actually wanting anything feels so aspec coded to me (diversity loses! the worst person you know is acespec and aromantic coded!).

The other most obvious example to me is Azrael (I have a separate already semi written ramble about the general queer coding in Azrael's character, but that's for another day). He's probably the other only character in ITGR that is as openly flirty as Satan and despite that, all of his scenes flirting with people just convinces me he's not interested in the people he flirts with😭. All his scenes flirting with Celeste and Bernadette feel performative and hollow because of the fact that he doesn't seem to be genuinely interested in them romantically or sexually. He knows how and when Celeste and Bernadette are going to die and I think flirting with them is either a way for him to either please them and make them happy before they die or a way for him to entertain himself or both. Like his interactions don't read to me as "Oh guy flirting with women because he wants to date them/have sex with them because he thinks they're hot." They read to me as "guy who wants to have such much fun as he can and explore as many possibilities as he can with people he knows are going to die." His entire date with Celeste was essentially a way for him to learn more about her and almost 'test' the extent of her loyalty to God because he was curious. When Bernadette dies, there's no romantic element to him comforting her at all, despite the fact he spent so much of their interactions flirting with her.

The only other person we ever see him 'flirt' with is the princess from his time being alive and even there, at no point do we get any narration of how he feels about her or any comments about having feelings for her. It's heavily implied he was only being romantic with her by agreeing to marry her because he wanted her to have one good thing before she died so her death wouldn't be as painful. I have a theory/interpretation that to Azrael, there's an inherent relation between flirting and death and that he only flirts with people if he knows when they'll die (even if the flirting isn't genuine on his part). This idea is supported by the fact that post season 4 and Nyra destroying his ability to see the future and how she'll die, he doesn't flirt with her at all (which also more evidence that his interest in her was never genuine). Anyways, because of the performative nature of his flirtation with different characters, he's aspec coded to me (and he likes men but that's for another ramble).

I think the other example of a character expressing attraction only to reveal romance/sex isn't what they're after is surprisingly Wrynn? I have less compelling case for her compared to the others but I find it interesting that it would have been very easy to just make her in love with Ashe in a conventional romantic and sexual way but no. She doesn't want to date him. She wants to go back to being one with him (something something love as consumption but we don't have time for that). Episode 182 sets them in such a specific way (by giving them a lot of romantic and sexual tension and also an almost kiss) but even then, the reason she's doing all of that is so he can eat her and they go back to sharing a body because that's probably what an ideal relationship is like to her. I guess to me, having a character have so many signifiers of conventional allo (aka not aspec) attraction only to reveal they're actually not after sex or conventional romance and more into their own unconventional form of romance (if you can call it that) feels very aspec to me.

I've just noticed this consistent pattern with characters performing acts to signify attraction only to subvert that but either implicitly or explicitly showing that sex or romance isn't what they're after and it'd be one thing if it was one character (i'd still argue that this hypothetically character would be aspec but it'd be an isolated case) but the consistent pattern is borderline fascinating to me? It just creates such an interesting narrative and almost world? In a lot of media, romance and sex are just considered normal or expected but here, in ITGR, they're really not. Characters can perform attraction but that doesn't take away from the fact that more often than not, they're usually interested in something else and I dont know, I've always found it interesting.

Part 2: ITGR and the Horror of Attraction

I feel like a lot of media treats romantic relationships and attraction as generally good things that can be fucked up but usually when it is, it's framed an isolated event and I find it interesting how ITGR highlights a lot of the more fucked up aspects in romance and relationships. ITGR doesn't frame love as something inherently good or benevolent and I think there's something about that just feels aspec to me. I'm not trying to say romance or sex are inherently bad or fucked up. I just think that, like with anything, there is a certain amount of horror that can be drawn from and created from the concepts of attraction and I feel like the potential horror of romantic relationships (not necessarily even abusive relationships. Just the horror that can be drawn from the concept of being in a romantic/sexual relationship or being in love), or the ways love can be warped and turned into something terrifying is something that stands out more to aspec people than allo people if that makes sense.

I feel like ITGR frames love and attraction as something capable of being bad and hurting people as much as anything else. Jordan, the first sinner Scarlet ever kills, uses romantic flirtation as a weapon to lure women and kill them. It highlights the darker flipside of flirting and how flirting, something very common in romantic and sexual situations which is usually seen as positive or alluring, can be used to lower someone's guard and commit harm and violence. The reversal of using something romantic/sexual that is usually used to make characters look cool or charismatic only to use it highlights how dangerous it can be in a specific context has aspec undertones to me.

Another example is how ITGR deconstructs parts of the tsundere trope in Chase's past in Episode 15 and showcases the darker aspects of being in love. Here, love isn't framed as a good and positive emotion, it's framed as something fucked up that can leave you vulnerable to abusive and harmful situations because of the ways it can make you idealise someone which can make you blind to their abusive behaviour. I find it interesting how ITGR deconstructs some parts of the tsundere trope (aka a trope where a character acts cold and hostile to their love interest but gradually opens up) by showing how someone who is constantly mean and demeaning and physically abusive to you can be harmful. I find it interesting specifically because I feel like tsundere characters' hostile actions are sometimes justified by people using the fact they're in love, which implies that just because they're in love, it justifies them hurting someone, therefore framing love as a benevolent force that can excuse certain bad actions as long as they're for the sake of love. (BTW I feel like saying: I don't think the tsundere trope is a bad character trope. I think it depends on the execution and just find the way ITGR handles it to be interesting T-T). In this episode, ITGR instead implicitly claims that love can't justify bad actions, which further its grander treatment of viewing love as an emotion as any other, instead of putting it on a pedestal or treating it with extra importance like a lot of other media.

I think the other main example of ITGR highlighting a fucked up side to the concept of love is Liam's entire character. Liam's spiral after he realises Ana is dead is both terrifying and tragic. Liam killing an innocent man so he can be with her takes something that in some contexts would be seen as romantic (the fact that someone would be willing to go to such great lengths for someone they love) and twists it to an extreme to highlight how terrifying it is that love can be so all consuming that it warps someone's values and makes them do terrible things in the name of love. I feel less strongly about this but I also feel like there's something mildly horrifying about the fact that he's willing to do this for someone might not returns his feelings. Something about him assuming they were meant to be, despite never asking her, kinda also hits that "love as something horrific" horror spot but I feel like that's a weaker point.

ITGR just consistently frames love like another other emotion that has the capacity to do harm and in contrast to the way most media places extra importance or goodness on love and relationships, ITGR views it in a very detached perspective that feels very aspec to me and I hoped I managed to express that idea with these examples.

Part 3: ITGR and OOPS! THE MAIN COUPLE'S REALLY QUEERPLATONIC AND ASPEC (coded)!

Okay so up to this point, you might be thinking "Wait, what about Scarlet and Chase? They're the main characters and they're in love and are explicitly sexually attracted to each other" and to that, I say "Well yes, but no, but yes"/lh. I'm going to preface this by saying that this is probably going to be the most incomprehensible and hard to explain part of this analysis (?). When I said there's a few exceptions to ITGR framing love as something performative or fucked up, they're one of the main examples (I WROTE THIS BEFORE VER AND EVERETTE OOPS). Chase and Scarlet's romantic and sexual feelings for eachother are framed positively and tragically, you're supposed to be rooting for these two little doomed by the narrative dorks. That being said, they're both aspec as fuck 😭 sorry, not sorry, the aspec agenda doesn't end I'm afraid. I'll start with Scarlet because my interpretation of her is a lot more based on tangible evidence (while Chase is half based on vibes tbh/hj). She reads to me as demisexual and some flavour of arospec (greyromantic or even demiromantic). I think it's largely the fact she doesnt really seem to experience sexual attraction towards anyone, including Chase, until way later on. You could argue it didn't even start appearing until after she left the 9th layer (so it took her 25+ years to start experiencing sexual attraction towards someone she has romantic (?) feelings for). I know that you could probably argue that it's a trauma thing but that doesn't take away from the interpretation (demisexual people can have trauma and still be demisexual).

I feel less strongly about her being greyromantic but I still feel like that's another possible interpretation. It's mostly because I can't really see her being attracted to anyone? I think I know why scarlets orientation is hard for me to pin down. I think it's because I can't really imagine her being interested in men or women?? Like, I'd make sapphic jokes about her but I honestly just don't think she'd be interested in women. Or men. Honestly I feel like she's not attracted to any gender. If she ever is "attracted" to someone it's because they're someone who gets close to her and she's grown an attachment to them. Like she'd still be in love with chase if he was a girl. But also, I don't think she's attracted to any specific gender or any gender in general but also has the capacity to like any gender and I feel like calling her pan just doesn't fit so. Um. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed my unlabelled Scarlet side tangent. All of that being said, her not really feeling attraction for anyone except one person and it has to be someone she's formed a pre existing strong bond with…. Yeah. Need I say more/hj. (The unlabelled demisexual arospec Scarlet agenda is real)

Now onto Chase, also known as the vibe check. I'm going to be honest, something about him screams aromantic allosexual to me in a way I can barely convey. I think it's maybe the way when he talks about his ex, he talks about how hot she is, instead of talking about what parts of her personality attracted him to her. Also, I might be projecting but something about him canonically having a lot of failed relationships also just kind of contributes to the aroallo vibes I get (I'm not saying every aroallo person is going to inherently have dysfunctional relationships but I am saying it's not an uncommon experience for aromantic people to have a lot of past relationships that didn't work out due to "something" feeling off. Gestures). There's also the fact that while Scarlet takes a while to show any overt signs of physical or sexual attraction towards him (I was gonna say, this is except for her blushing when she sees him shirtless in Episode 13 but I went back and no she doesn't so demi Scarlet is so real), he does it a lot sooner than her and I don't know, there's something about how his feelings for her derive more from the fact he sees her as his equal or even above him while he struggles with human connection and attachment with most people and how his expression of romantic love isn't really conventional which feels very aromantic and queerplatonic to me. I guess I've always interpreted Chase having queerplatonic feelings for Scarlet that are romantic adjacent (Not saying all queerplatonic relationships are the same as romantic relationships, it heavily depends on the people in the relationship and how they feel and I just think Chase seems like a romance favourable aromantic person who'd label their queerplatonic feelings as romantic <- I don't think any of these characters know what the aromantic spectrum is, much less what queerplatonic relationships are. I just feel like, if we wanted to be technically, Chase's feelings for Scarlet, to me, aren't really romantic but I think he'd feel comfortable labelling them as such. I hope that made sense). To be fair, in a comic where like, over the half the main cast is heavily coded with at least one cluster b personality disorder/hj (I might make a post of how many characters in this comic have cluster b coded traits or symptoms as someone with two cluster b disorder but that's for another day), it makes sense that a lot of the connections and attachments characters make feel unconventional because a lot of these characters have issues related to attachment but even that, I'd argue that doesn't take away from the aspec reading.

Ever since I started reading ITGR back when season one and two were coming out, I'll never forget just. Not seeing the romance between Scarlet and Chase at all and being jumpscared when it became overtly canon because there was always something about their romance that felt, for lack of a better word, empty (NOT IN A BAD WAY) to me? And I just couldn't articulate what it was about their interactions and romance that felt so off and unconventional to me until now. I think it's partially also because of the way all their romantic scenes pre the season three finale focus more on affirming how much they care about and are attached to eachother as people, rather than how "in love" they are? And also the way their main forms of affection is hugs or physical touch and there's not really any "OMG O////O ARE WE ABOUT TO KISS???/!??@?@?" moment. Even in Episode 42, when we get a bit of a kiss tease, there's not blushing on either of their ends and Chase is talking more about how much he cares about her as a person and how much he's come to respect her and how even he, someone who in a way views himself as superior to most people and tries to position himself as someone worthy of deciding what's just and what isn't, has come to view her the ultimate judgement and he respects that (THAT WAS MORE INTIMATE THAN ANY LOVE CONFESSION BUT WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT). And even when he says he wants to see her in the eyes when she kills him, it's more about wanting to see her as a person before she dies. There's love there but it feels different than romantic love to me. Like, it's so intimate and unconventional and something about how we're four seasons in and they haven't kissed yet and the way their entire relationship is written and the way they express love and attachment to eachother has major queerplatonic undertones to me.

There's just something about how the main romance in this comic has a surprising lack of emphasis on romance. Anyways, I love my little murderous aspec people in a romantic QPR/lh.

Part 4: ITGR and The Aromantic One and the One That Wasn't (aka ITGR and the Devastation of Amatanormativity)

Amatanormativity is the common belief and societal assumption that everyone desires to be in a monogamous romantic and sexual relationship and marriage and it has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people but aspec people specifically (it's similar to heteronormativity and gay people). There are two examples of ITGR critiquing amatanormativity and highlighting how much pain it can cause, one indirect and one direct. Critiques and depictions of the harm amatanormativity causes are generally hard to find in most media and are mostly confined to media explicitly centered around aspec people and that's why it's actually surprising to me that (while I don't think it was intentional at all), on top of all the aspec undertones ITGR has, it also directly and indirectly critiques a societal expectation that inherently hurts and deeply affects aspec people.

I'm actually surprised I made it this long without talking about Brook at all. That being said, there's actually one character I need to talk about before I talk about him: Ana. Despite Brook being the explicit and more blatantly canon example of an aromantic character, Ana's backstory indirectly represents a common issue aspec people face. I know it's later revealed by Liam in Episode 48 that the man Ana married was a man she hadn't met prior but I still think there's a way to interpret her backstory through an aspec lense (Misogyny definitely has a part to play in Ana's backstory but I don't think misogyny being a factor takes away from an aspec interpretation of it and vice versa). There's just something quintessentially aspec to me about Ana's horrified face in episode 11 when we see her and her fiance as she remarks that she "didn't feel anything".

Her entire life fell apart because her abusive parents pushed amatanormativity onto her. It's the way she literally tries to tell them she doesn't want to get married or have children (implying she was happy being single and pursing her writing career) and they dismiss her and call her stupid and tell her that every woman wants to get married. They dismiss the notation anyone (any woman specifically) could be happy without marriage, or a relationship. Ana decides to do what they say and I know it's never explicitly shown but I think she wanted to believe they were right and that she'd develop feelings for her husband and be happy eventually if she just conformed and did what they said. It's possible she could have felt like she was wrong (or. broken/hj) and that she wanted to believe that marriage would "fix" her and make her happy (because society and amatanormativity consistently pushes the idea that marriage = happiness) and that would explain the horror in her face when she realised she didn't feel anything. It's also further supported by her line "Where was that happiness I was promised?". Her parents, society and amatanormativity literally kept telling her that she couldn't be happy if she stayed single and childless and sold her the idea that getting married would fix her and make her happy and that destroyed her life and, regardless of if Ana was supposed to represent an aspec struggle, it still stands as indirect commentary on how amatanormativity can hurt people who don't want to be married (or in relationships) (semi related but I personally headcanon Ana as aroace or arospec asexual ^^).

And with that said, let's move onto the only actually canonically aspec character in this comic: Brook, who's canonically aromantic. Also Brook being aromantic is canon regardless of it's explicitly said or not. I could go on a whole tangent about queer representation and the double standards between other queer rep and aspec rep when it comes to needing authorial intent to be seen as "real" rep but the short of it is that Brook's aromantic, not only because he said he's not interested in romantic relationships but because, on a fundamental level, he doesn't understand what romantic feelings are like and how they work. He's confused by the concept of romantic feelings, because he doesn't feel them. I don't think there's another way to interpret that. He's literally textbook aromantic. I'm not saying that trauma hasn't maybe influenced that and vice versa but you can be aromantic and have cptsd. I also feel the need to debunk the idea that Brook's time as reaper "made him detached from romantic love so he's not really aromantic" because that doesn't make sense. Yes, Brook's time as a reaper probably made him even more detached from human connections than he already was but there is no indication that he felt romantic feelings before being a reaper. He quite literally shows no interest in romance at any point in the comic, even before he died (also, again, while his lack of general ambition in anything could be interpreted as the product of some kind of neurodivergency or mental disorder, but that doesn't mean he can't also be aromantic). The fact he doesn't understand romance to begin with heavily implies he's never experienced it and doesn't experience romantic feelings in general, hence that he's aromantic.

Now that that's established, I want to talk about how ITGR depicts the feeling of isolation that can sometimes come with being aromantic, which in itself is kind of caused by amatanormativity. There's several scenes in the comic (Episode 176 being the most obvious example) where Brook laments getting attached to Chase and Scarlet because they're in love (well. Wellllllll, adajcent anyway/hj) and he feels like he'll never mean as much to them as they mean to eachother. He feels like because he's not romantically with either of them, he'll never the first priority to them (I personally headcanon as Brook having mild queerplatonic feelings for Scarlet but its not relevant right now and we don't have time for that). I feel like it's very common for aromantic people to feel isolated as a lot of their friends gets into relationships and because of how romantic relationships are seen as "superior" and it's nice of ITGR to represent that in a way. I feel like we do sometimes get canonically aspec characters in media but usually, if they're not the main main character, we don't really get much about how being aspec affects their lives and relationships? Or what their specific relationship to being aspec is? I feel like a lot of media ignores the complexities of being aspec which is why I really love Brook as a canonically aromantic character. While in most media, the aspecness of a character is more of a footnote and is usually treated as a label that's simply slapped onto a character, Brook's aromanticism doesn't exist in isolation and it directly ties back to several parts of his characters. It informs some of his feelings and thoughts. It feels like something tangible. I think it says a lot about how the writing that Brook is written so much like an aromantic character and his struggles with not feeling romantic attraction are treated with complexity that I genuinely forgot it's not explicitly ever said he is aromantic. I don't know, I really like him as aromantic rep.

Part 5: Bonus Headcanons + Conclusion

I didn't have any specific sections to put these headcanons in so I'm just going to through a bunch out there. Ashe is so greyromantic and greysexual to me. Like he definitely had feelings for the wife he's implied to have had when he was alive but I like to think he doesn't really feel attraction outside of that one specific person. Nyra screams arospec asexual lesbian to me. That's it. Send post. Need I say more? (I'm never getting over how her date with Azrael just convinced me that neither of them are attracted to the other's gender/lh). Oddly enough, I don't have that many headcanons about Bernadette. I'd say she could be ace? Vibes anyway. Scarlet's unnamed childhood best friend is so aroallo to me (vibe checked). I wrote a lot of this before Ver and Everette's interactions were revealed so you can either interpret them as the token allos or they can be acespec as a treat/hj.

With all of that done, thank you to anyone who actually read this whole thing. I am so sorry I'm insane/lh. I hope you enjoyed hearing out this interpretation. I feel like this analysis (?) has finally allowed me to be able to articulate why ITGR has always read to me as an aspec heavy piece of media despite only one character being canonically aspec, it's a combination of several things but mostly just the way the comic views love in such a detached and unglamourised way compared to a lot of other media. Love and attraction are still in the comic but the forms of love we see are unconventional. It kind of creates a world where genuine love and attraction aren't really the default, like out of the most openly flirty characters in the comic, most of them have ulterior motive and their flirty is performative and I find that so interesting. I don't think this is necessarily the only way to interpret a lot of the characters and themes but I hope I've opened your eyes to the aspec ITGR reading ^^

[g0ingb4tty]

Hi random SpookyMonth rant incoming but i HATE the way Dexter's character is seen/portrayed and mischaracterized in the SM fandom (I've mainly seen it on TikTok), but the fandom waters down his complexity to "silly smol bean autism murder boi" and that's just... no.

Dexter is canonically a mentally ill murderer with a LITERAL ADDICTION to killing and will spiral if he doesn't kill something within a certain period of time (as seen in episode 4 Deadly Smiles where he posessed the kids' Happy Fella doll and tries to kill them)

He CANONICALLY became an exterminator so he would have a constant supply of creatures to kill and yet the fandom just waters him down to a "silly innocent twink" and it pisses me the fuck off.

Whenever a fandom gets ahold of a complex character, especially a mentally ill or "crazy" one, that just so happens to be a bit silly or act quirky, the character's lore immediately gets erased or watered down in fanon to where they're just some playful innocent guy who just so happens to kill people. It happened in the Creepypasta fandom too, and they're also doing it to Bob in a way but it's to a much worse degree with Dexter.

Sr. Pelo describes Dexter's character as just a bad person trying not to get worse, and even calls him a "sicko"

No, he wouldn't cry over a movie, no he wouldn't cling to Bob's or whoever the hell you ship him with's shoulder 24/7 and whine whenever he's alone. (These are all real things I've seen said about him)

(Speaking of him being shipped with Bob, they canonically dislike eachother lol)

And what really bothers me about these types of fanon, is yeah, they do it with almost every character in one way or another, but it's always the ones that are MEANT to be bad people, to be almost, or completely unredeemable. They have their complexity stripped away from them.

Take "ticci" Toby Rogers, he was abused by his father, he was bullied in school for having Tourette's Syndrome, watched his sister, the only person who cared for him (other than his mom) die in a car crash, then spiraled and killed his dad. The Creepypasta fandom waters him down to some innocent uwu waffle loving boy, and that's just... taking away from the entire story.

They're doing the same with Dexter too, like, actually look into the lore, you don't even have to do much reading between the lines when watching the show to see that he's literally DERANGED.

What these fanons are doing is just taking the character's name, design, (sometimes they even change how they look beyond recognition too :/) and just making a new character with it. It makes me so mad.

I could apply this to a gazillion different fanbases, like how I used Creepypasta as an example, but Spooky Month is my hyperfixation and I hold CANON Dexter very near and dear to me because he's a comfort character for me and I can see myself in him and it just INFURIATES ME seeing how they misportray him, I go looking for fanarts/fanfics/any fanworks of him and it's all just mischaracterized and it makes me physically cringe every time i see it. UUUYYHNMJHHGBBBHHH

[wholesome-cryptid]

I would absolutely love to read that if you posted it ^^

OKAY BIG GRIMSLEY HEADCANON POST

IM NORMAL ABOUT GRIMSLEY I SWEAR I SWEAR

-Okay so a lot of this directly ties to my boyfriend @plushegutzz's oc Blaine and their lore so be prepared to see their name a lot. Also I'm not gonna include Bug in this because as much as I love her she's mostly just a silly little fankid i have for fun domestic fluff stuff so she doesn't really have a concrete timeline. Anyway i'll try my best to go through this chronologically.-

TWs for: gambling and gambling addiction, trauma, vague references to childhood abuse, Grimsley just generally being severely mentally ill

Grimsley Gore (birth name Gabriel Gore) was born into a wealthy Unovian family alongside his twin brother Garry. Being born into a rich family the two brothers had a lot of really strong expectations placed onto them from a very young age, with the two basically expected to be perfect all the time. Because of this stress growing up the two brothers developed a very strong bond as they really only felt like they had each other.

The mother of the Gore household was a very controlling and manipulative figure putting a lot of pressure onto the twins to be perfectly behaved golden children. Their father meanwhile was very emotionally distant towards his family and the rare times he did interact with his two sons he was generally pretty abusive. Growing up Grimsley/Gabriel tries his best to keep the uglier side of his home life away from public eyes, instead bragging to his friends about how cool and spoiled he is instead.

Grimsley's first pokémon was his Liepard (nicknamed Violet) who he met at around 8 years old, he spotted a wild Purrlion with an injured foot wandering his family's estate and immediately dropped everything to go check on the kitty. He got in a lot of trouble with his mother for doing so as his outfit ended up covered in dirt during his rescue of the pokémon but he was mostly just excited over having a pokemon of his own. He ended up nursing Violet back to help and it caused the two to develop a very close bond. Even as an adult Grimsley is super attached to his Liepard and basically treats her like his baby.

It's shortly after catching Violet that Grimsley meets Blaine A. Platinum the child of another wealthy Unova family with the twos parents pairing the two together in hopes of them getting married in adulthood. Both children absolutely hate this idea and don't initially get along with each other, but after a while of being forced to spend time together they start to realize that they're stuck in similar situations of shitty home lives and form a friendship over their shared struggle.

During his teen years Grimsley views his life as “going pretty good” in his eyes, he's still dealing with an actively abusive home life but he's kind of repressing all of his emotions about that. Instead he's clinging onto the bonds he formed with Blaine and his brother Garry. His dynamic with his brother is very “we've only got eachother” meanwhile he and Blaine are in this mess of “kinda dating but also kinda not dating we're 16 years old and it's complicated.” and both relationships are kinda overly dependent on Grimsley's end. Overall during this point of his life Grimsley just kinda acts like a spoiled brat rich kid who's better than everybody else because it's easier for him to accept than look inwards and try and process the trauma he very clearly is struggling with. (Grimsley spends a large chunk of his life running away from his trauma.)

Grimsley putting all his emotional stability on two people unsurprisingly ends up shooting him in the foot as his life kinda ends up falling apart at 19 years old. It starts with Blaine, They've personally had enough of the stress of their home life and now that they're an adult they're planning to run away and had been hoping that Grimsley would join them. Unfortunately Grimsley can't bring himself to abandon the only life he's ever known, a part of him knows deep down that he's not happy in his current situation but he can't bring himself to admit that. His life with his rich family being the only sense of stability he knows and he turns Blaine down. This turns into a huge fight between the two with Blaine basically accusing him of choosing his spoiled rich kid life over them and storms off.

Unsurprisingly, Grimsley takes Blaine leaving very badly with his emotions about the situation eventually starting to turn bitter with him viewing it as though Blaine abandoned him.

Things only get worse for poor Grims as not too long after he loses his brother too. Unlike Grimsley, Garry has been processing his emotions about their home life and also has decided he doesn't want to put up with it anymore. He informs Grimsley that he's intending to move away to Paldea to be with his fiancé, and much like Blaine offers his brother resources to get out himself but Grimsley isn't in the headspace to hear it and denies all of it feeling like his brother is abandoning him too.

Needless to say, Grimsley is in a pretty bad headspace at this point due to losing the two people he put all of his emotional stability into. (Even if it was a large part his own fault and refusal to process his emotional issues that caused him to lose them.) And things only get worse when his family falls into debt.

Grimsley's father was a gambler, it was a well known fact even if everyone in the family pretended it wasn't, and the kinds of casinos he was associating himself with weren't exactly the most legal ones. His father found himself owing quite a lot of money to Team Rocket causing the family to go bankrupt.

This all just sent Grimsley into a mental spiral with him basically having a full on episode. Not being able to let go of the spoiled rich life he was living because it was his only sense of stability was the reason he had lost his connections with Blaine and Garry in the first place and now he didn't even have that. Gambling was the reason he had lost everything, and in his state of mental instability he rationalized that gambling would be the thing to get his life back. It was during this episode that he decided to abandon his birth name is Gabriel and start going by Grimsley feeling as though he needed to abandon the “pathetic” person he used to be and reinvent himself.

Thrusting himself into casinos run by Team Rocket didn't exactly go well for Grimsley, with him getting roughed up for lacking proper funds on more than one occasion. But it was enough to get Grimsley addicted to the thrill of gambling. The rush of adrenaline it gave him distracted him from all the bad things going around in his he was already trying so hard to repress, it was something to make him feel ALIVE in his depressive state.

Still though hanging around these shady casinos and just getting pushed deeper into debt wasn't doing much good for him, and the only reason he was able to escape falling deeper into the organization was him meeting Nanu. Nanu was still working for the international police at this point and had been working undercover on a job related to Team Rocket and pretty quickly noticed that Grimsley was out of place. He gave him an out noticing that he actually had some really impressive pokémon battling skills and put him down the route of becoming a professional dark type pokémon trainer.

It didn't take Grimsley too long to rise up as an up and coming pokémon trainer and he definitely loved the attention and success that came with being a big name trainer. Eventually he ended up grabbing the attention of the champion of the region Alder, who saw potential in him to be successful as an Elite Four trainer and wanted to train him for the job.

His dynamic with Alder was, complicated, with Alder being a very mentorly almost father-like figure which made Grimsley and his repressed daddy issues panic. This only being furthered by Grimsley being close in age to Alder’s actual children and Alder being very aware of the fact that Grimsley was a very troubled young man who needed guidance. Grimsley did still accept the offer of the Elite Four job from Alder and did let him help out when it came to improving his pokémon battling, he did end up telling Alder to “watch it old timer” more than a couple times when it came to his personal life.

Despite his current success Grimsley still kept his gambling habits from before though and the thrill seeking that came from it although he was spending his time at more legal casinos this time. It was spending his time going out gambling that he found himself bumping into Blaine of all people again.

The two reuniting was fully by chance, Blaine finding a very hungover Grimsley passed out next to a casino with his Liepard Violet protectively coiled around him. Blaine was still fairly upset about their fight from a couple years ago at this point but could also tell that Grimsley wasn't exactly in a great state at the moment and decided to make sure he got home safe because a part of them still cared a lot for him. The two ended up catching up and while things were still very awkward between the two they decided to try and be friends to some degree again.

It was through Blaine that Grimsley ended up befriending Burgh as well, with Blaine having befriended the man through their shared passion for art. Grimsley being deathly afraid of bugs from a very young age wasn't the biggest fan of Burgh’s choice in type speciality he thought the man was fun to hang around with and so he had no choice but to put up with it, especially since Burgh was determined to help Grimsley get over his fears.

Burgh found Grimsley rather endearing in general, in fact he found himself kind of crushing on the man. Blaine, rather heavily protested this crush, pointing out that Grimsley was rather obviously very emotionally unavailable. But Burgh couldn't really help it, he could tell that underneath all the facade he put on all the time he had a softer side underneath it all and he just needed help getting it all out.

For once in his life Grimsley found himself genuinely doing pretty good, he was successful in his job in the Elite Four, he had friends in his life that genuinely cared about him, he was even starting to reconnect with his brother and get to know his nephew Giacomo (the young Giacomo really looking up to his uncle.) Unfortunately for Grimsley having people that genuinely loved and cared about him in his adulthood meant that he couldn't keep getting away with an unchecked gambling addiction and repressing all his negative emotions and pretending they didn't exist anymore. He had people that wanted him to get better and he basically got dragged kicking and screaming into therapy and working through his issues by Blaine, Garry, Alder and Burgh.

Grimsley hated working through his big pile of traumas and mental issues at first, it made him feel vulnerable and exposed and he didn't like that. But slowly over time he started to make progress and allow himself to be emotionally open with other people and starts dating Burgh during this time with the man encouraging him to be more open to being his genuine self. He also is a bit more willing to accept Alder as a father figure at this point. (Also diversity win! Grimsley realizes he's nonbinary at this point! yay! This is why you'll occasionally see me talk about headcanoning Grimsley as Bigender and using He/She/Any pronouns.) He even starts allowing people to call him Gabriel again on rare occasions, although this permission is really only given to Burgh, Blaine and Garry it's a huge sign of progress for him.

He eventually fully talks his emotions out with Blaine as hard as that is for him to do, and the two of them finally get over the fight they had all those years ago and start dating as well because I think Grimsley deserves two partners actually.

Aloan Grimsley is him taking a much needed mental health vacation after everything he's been through and allowing himself some rest and relaxation. Besides what's better than surfing on a Sharpedo in order to cope with your repressed emotional issues? He chose to hang out in Alola due to his previous connection with Nanu.

My version of Grimsley is just generally very special to me and is something that is very very dear to me so hopefully y'all enjoyed this big wall of text as well haha! i do have some vague additional headcanons but those aren't as heavily fleshed out and i wanted to just include the fully concrete stuff!!!

[morroodle]

How I feel about various Morro relationships:

I'm bored and I wanna ramble. I headcannon morro as aroace (definitely not me projecting) and don't really care for shipping him but there are some I don't mind, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on various pairings both platonic and romantic (and some qprs)

Morro and Lloyd (green cousins)

Platonic: yes yes green cousins my beloved they mean so much to me

Morro and Kai (destiny duo)

Platonic: is it really platonic if they hate eachother? God they would be hilarious together. Theyre both little shits and they would bounce off eachother so well

Romantic: I kinda love it. Theyre just,,, "you should be addicted to shutting the fuck up" "you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" and it's so funny. I like it more casually, as a background or light thing, not so much serious

Qpr: they would never

Morro and Cole (ghost duo/sandstorm)

Platonic: they would be very chill friends. Morro helps Cole with ghost things, Cole helps Morro with being alive and they bond over music. Morro isn't cuddly but sometimes he needs Cole to squish him back into his body

Romantic: yea ok. I think it would be sweet and very similar to their friendship

Qpr: oh yea now that's the good shit. Gimme gimme. I am mentally ill.

Morro and Zane (blizzard?)

Platonic: yea ok. I think they could be friends in a very chill way (pun not intended), and morro would love once zane becomes more sassy. They cook together :D

Romantic: ehhhhh??? I don't see it but if it happened to be in a fic I wouldn't care

Qpr: same as romantic

Morro and Jay (storm duo?)

Platonic: not so much a friendship as it is morro constantly terrorizing Jay. Jay loves showing morro new modern stuff but morro is too much of a little shit for that

Romantic: they would never

Qpr: no

Morro and Nya (wojira duo)

Platonic: yes absolutely I love them dearly. They are besties your honor

Romantic: no

Qpr: no

Morro and Pixal (I don't think they have a duo name)

Platonic: yes absolutely. Kinda similar vibes to him and Nya. Morro is absolutely invited to girls night

Romantic: no why

Qpr: again no

Morro and Wu

Your honor that's his dad

Morro and Garm

There's so much potention for fun shenanigans AND emotions. Wu's his dad and Garm's his uncle. Garm absolutely snuck him cookies when he was little

Morro and Harumi (I think they have a duo name but I don't know it)

Platonic: hell yea hating Lloyd besties. They would get along so well when they're both evil and they would slay so much

Romantic: hard no

Qpr: I don't see it

Morro and Echo (citrus)

Platonic: sure. I really like how it's done in the fic too weird to live too rare to die. Echo is wholesome and morro is not.

Romantic: honestly don't care for it. I don't mind it and there's definitely yummy art but I don't know where this paring came from

Qpr: maybe? I feel like they could cuddle

Morro and Benthomar (Seabreeze)

Platonic: similar to echo? Except I understand it less I think. Again no idea where this pairing came from

Romantic: again similar to echo except I think I like it a little more

Qpr: I don't really see it but my mind could be changed

I think that's all the main ones? Idk if I think of more I wanna talk about I'll add on. In conclusion ghost duo qpr my beloved