#thinking abt the madness of isolation and finally finding a sameness in someone and the madness that comes with that

[sangre]

there's a curse comes with a kiss / the bite that binds, the gift that gives.

[edwardsvirginity]

au where edward has aro’s powers and aro has his

read more bc this got looonnnggg

How Edward’s life would be different:

his power starts out just in his palms (like kate’s did, my hc for canon!aro too) and he makes no effort to expand it

actually he just straight up hates his power bc duh, he’s edward (”it’s a curse,” he says dramatically, whenever anyone asks him abt it)

he realizes he has it fairly quickly when right after waking up from being turned he touches carlisle and immediately knows everything

but since he touches carlisle pre-esme carlisle’s outlook is still pretty bleak

edward is 10,000x more emo and angsty

super nihilistic bc whenever he does read someone’s whole life it becomes clear to him that there’s no real order to anything or narrative guiding ppl’s lives so like... we all out here, suffering eternally

(tbh he’s deeply impacted by having touched carlisle first and absorbs carlisle’s pre-esme deep despair, loneliness, and nihilism, which colors his whole vampire life from the beginning)

he wears gloves all the time bc he hates touching ppl bc it’s an invasion of their privacy and mentally fucks him up

he tried to do the “kill bad ppl” thing like in canon in order to restore a personal sense of justice and order to the universe buuuuuuutttt it didn’t last long bc he had to touch ppl to eat them and it became abundantly clear that people are complex and not easily sorted into good/bad boxes, and it’s hard to condemn someone to die when you know their entire life

edward is deeeeeeeeppppllyy empathetic as a result of his gift. he’s also TERRIBLE at making decisions

he resisted going to HS with the others for a really long time bc he was afraid of accidentally touching someone

the only person he touches regularly is alice bc she worries abt him being touch-starved and lonely, and she insists. edward is ok with it bc alice is legit super optimistic and listening to her thoughts is really soothing/healing, and he has her consent. plus, it’s cool/useful to be able to see her visions. edward starts pushing his gift’s limits/expanding it in order to try and access alice’s memories from when she was human, as a gift to her

the rest of the vamps in the house fucking makes him even more emo than in canon bc he thinks he can never bang someone bc it would mean touching them all the time and he couldn’t condemn someone to an eternity without privacy, and no one would ever consent to that

edward hates himself bc he feels like his gift is unethical and he’s a monster for having it and invading ppl’s privacy the way he does

he does occasionally touch ppl for really important reasons... if the cullens are worried abt someone being a threat to their family, or carlisle is trying to save someone’s life but doesn’t know what’s wrong with them

edward’s gift is kinda a secret in the vampire world, only the cullens and denalis know

despite the fact that edward is emo abt being a vampire, he’s intensely grateful he was turned by carlisle, the original vegetarian vampire, bc edward would have HAD to become a vegetarian due to being unable to kill ppl bc of his gift and it would have sucked for him to be alone, the first vegetarian vampire

alice is always trying to encourage edward to touch ppl bc she thinks it will make him less emo. her theory is that he’s mostly only touched ppl with really sad lives and outlooks and that if he understood the fullness of most ppl’s lives he might be less nihilistic

another part of his gift edward works on with alice is turning his gift “off” even when ppl are touching his hands, and being able to root through ppl’s memories and only see what he’s looking for so it’s less invasive

alice encourages edward to wear his gloves less often to school so he can practice controlling his power, on teenagers, whose lives are shorter and less sad and therefore less mentally upsetting for edward

@ang3lba3 had this brilliant idea of edward touching bella while his gloves are off and being Shook af. i can’t stop thinking abt bella almost getting hit by the van on a day edward didn’t wear his gloves, edward bracing himself and rescuing her, then being overwhelmed when he can’t hear anything from her, thinking he’s finally “broken the curse” of his gift, going home and touching someone and Oh Shit It’s Not Gone It’s Just Her

edward is like. kind of obsessed with touching bella. he’s very tactile from the very beginning. holding hands with her is just incredibly blissful for him

throughout the series edward works on refining his gift to be more tolerable. it’s like his lil project. bella makes him want to try

edward is p reluctant to turn bella into a vampire bc he’s never met any vampires with happy lives or satisfying personal narratives/growth. he thinks all vampires just #suffer in the endless void for all eternity. humans have much clearer stages of life, growth, beginnings and endings that make them more fulfilled. (or so edward claims)

post bd edward would be able to pick specific thoughts out of someone’s head without seeing their whole life, and bella would work on her shield so she can deliberately send specific thoughts TO edward, and so with both of them concentrating really hard (at first), they could have mental conversations while touching, v similar to canon post-bd (except in this version bella has more control and edward is v specific to only find the thoughts she’s sending him)

tbh if edward ever manages to figure out his gift fully, he’d make a rlly good vampire therapist, bc he could isolate traumatizing memories (that ppl may not even consciously remember) and have a good perspective on how that’s affected their lives and how they can work towards recovery. since he himself would have to learn rigid mental compartmentalization in order to stay sane with that many lives in his head, he could teach ppl how to work thru a traumatic incident and then mentally shelve it once they’re done. also, some ppl define trauma as an inability to form a coherent personal narrative, which edward could also help with, bc he can identify patterns and similarities across a person’s entire life that the person themselves may have forgotten or overlooked

anyway, this version of edward is much more gloomy to begin with but would also undergo significantly more extensive character growth, which i think would be a really cool story

How Aro’s life would be different:

still volturi

still king of the vampire world

however killing other vamps/enforcing the law includes much more torture and interrogation bc aro can only hear what they’re thinking abt at the time

he has much less absolute power over other member’s of the volturi bc they can hide things from them by not thinking abt them around him, but at the same time, aro is more feared bc his gift is more omnipresent

aro is hella paranoid and keeps the most important members of the guard within his gift’s range at almost all times

as a result the volturi are much more mobile bc aro insists on going on most outings/executions

aro likes to keep his absolute range a secret to keep ppl on their toes and reinforce their fear of him

aro collects mental gifts in order to be omniscient and is constantly looking for power-amplifying vampires. so instead of focusing on recruiting vamps with physical gifts like strength or fighting, he looks for vamps like eleazar (&alice and jasper) who can sense things he can’t, as being able to read their thoughts allows him their gift by proxy

he’s constantly suspicious ppl are hiding things from him

i think this aro would just be a lot more vicious and violent in general

less useful in battle tho, bc he can’t know the opposition’s entire strategy, and while he can know if someone’s about to attack him, it doesn’t really help him keep anyone else from being attacked

i think this aro would be generally very twitchy and bizzaro, constantly responding to ppl’s thoughts instead of their words, lowkey always overwhelmed by what everyone’s thinking + his suspicions+ his own schemes, less of a shut-in and therefore more overwhelmed by a ton of thoughts. all the other vamps would think him slightly unhinged, talking to the air somewhat nonsensically all the time, visually emotionally reacting to other ppl’s thoughts (but just looking startled or angry at nothing), never having a predictable mood. 

as a result, there would be more of an underground resistance to the volturi, and his general hold on power is less absolute. (and he’s very aware of how unstable his position of power is, which makes him crazier)

he keeps trying to expand his mental range but the REAL problem is not distance but that he can only handle hearing a certain number of ppl’s thoughts at once. unlike edward, who was forced into hearing a ton of ppl’s thoughts all the time from the very start in order to pretend to be human, and who didn’t much care abt most ppl’s thoughts, aro is never forced to live in a city and get acclimated, and he cares deeply abt what ppl are thinking bc he’s a paranoid schemer, so each person’s mind requires a lot more concentration. 

sometimes aro gets reeallll mad when ppl talk out loud bc it interrupts his mindreading concentration. yet another reason why the rest of the volturi is both terrified of him but also think he’s insane

also more unhinged from hearing ppl die all. the. time. in canon he listens to ppl’s whole lives but obvs doesn’t listen while he kills them, why would he, whereas in this au he’s forced to listen everyone’s thoughts as he kills them (or eats them!) and it is one of the things that pushes him towards insanity. (canon edward doesn’t have this problem bc he kills significantly fewer ppl than aro and also obvs doesn’t feed on humans)

ALSO more unhinged bc canon!edward refines his gift so he can “turn down” other ppl’s thoughts or mute them/stop listening, whereas in this au aro is so obsessed with power he never even tries to develop that skill bc he wants to know what everyone is thinking always, so he has no regulation ability. he keeps trying to expand his power in stupid ways (like making the range bigger) without actually trying to regulate it in ways that improve his mental health or sanity

honestly in this au aro is just significantly more insane, but less powerful, both of which make him more dangerous bc he’s more desperate

how them having each other’s powers changes the larger plot:

honestly idk

i’ll think abt it

my brain isn’t working anymore u guys figure it out

[vinilsoup]

ok so this is a vent post caus is 2am and i woke up in pain, and im sad. Under the read more bc probably will be negative

My whole life has been a big mess. My parents were old and had an overly anxious kid (me), my mom had depression and treated me as an equal and not as a fucking child and i didnt have maturity to deal with her problems, and i started showing signs of depression really early. But instead of getting me into theraphy they put me into meds, and they always blamed me for my bad behaviator once I hit like 10 yo but like they only listened to me and my problems if i made a big deal abt it otherwise it was brushed off. They always complained to me that people said I was spoiled and it was true and somehow it was my fault and not theirs. I always felt that if I never had been born they would be happier, bc I only caused trouble and didn’t exactly knew what I did wrong. If they were in a good mood, they wouldn’t even be mad, but if I did the same thing in a bad day it was suddently a big deal.

That would have been enought to traumatize me for a long time, but idk i guess i pissed off some god or something in a past life bc I literally had to see my mother suffer a long and painful death at a hospital when I was 14. I was very close to her and the only reason I didn’t started trying to kill myself earlier is bc she was able to calm me down always, not sure how. From her death foward my life goes to complete shit. Had only one person i was able to get close to after that, and it was a pretty toxic friendship for both of us(nowadays its my best friend but i cant deny the bad past). I was also very very lonely, didnt get along with my father bc my mom used to paint him as a monster to me and i still believed that and ended up blaming him for her death which i feel really bad abt bc he was literelly depressed after her death. He told me multiple times I was the reason he was still alive, the worst part is that my mom used to say the same thing for me while I was growing up. So when she died I literally felt I had no reason to be alive anymore. 

Oh yeah and I was born into the mormon church lmao and when my mom died i started to slowly stop going to the church activities and they got mad at me bc of it like ???? when I decided to stop going, the bishop came into my house without calling, just showed at the door, and told me even if I kept following the church rules,I would still not get to heaven bc I wasn’t going every sunday.  I had told him before that i still believed it but I didn’t feel like going anymore bc I got home depressed every time I stepped into that church. After that, I wasnt able to pray for about a year bc i was terrified god would tell me to go back to the church and i didn’t want that to happen. I felt like I was going to go to hell if god was real, bc i really used to believe the mormon shit.

When things started to get better, when me and my dad started getting along and I had finally found good doctors to help me with my suicidal tendendcies (I literally tried to kill myself every month for like 2 years), my dad died. I had just turned 18. I have several issues because of trauma. I can’t trust people, I always think they’re with me bc I agree with everything and people will hate me if I don’t. I still have a lot of trouble with sexual themes bc of the mormon, i feel like i can’t slight inconvenience people or they will hate me, i feel responsable for other people hapiness, and still am not able to find I reason I want to live, I always think to live for other people, I care too much about what other people think, I’m overly sensitive, I can’t stand up for myself without feeling I’m wrong, and usually I have a panic attack if I have to stabilish boundaries with someone who disrespects me. I don’t know how to fix this. I’m trying, but its so hard to not be afraid of other people.

The good part is that I stopped trying to kill myself every month, but it still happens ocasionally. But its still very hard to me to believe things will get better, like from the beginning my life wasnt easy, and it only got harder, I absolutely still feel like my mental illness is my fault and I’m not trying hard enought to ‘beat it”. Its just so unfair, I am not able to be dependable on other people bc i feel like i can’t, i feel like i can’t be a burden and i always isolate myself. I’ve been in quarantine completely alone the last 5 months, and don’t have money to go see my family, and they seem like they don’t want me to go see them anyway. I live far from all my friends. I know this is a very bad thing but sometimes my friends tell me about their problems and I can’t take it seriously after all I’ve been thought. I try to, bc  i know what is like to not have you problems be taken seriously bc people think its not a big deal. Im very sensitive and never had my feelings taken seriously.

Like, Im supposed to believe it gets better?? It was always been hard, and I havent been able to actually enjoy life. Life was always painful and unkind to me. I had a friend who said he enjoyed life and I remember thinking he was insane, I didn’t understand, I thought life was shitty to everyone, but then I saw it wasn’t. Some people are happy. Some people don’t even have big problems. I never saw that friend of mine complain about anything. I feel bad about it bc i remember getting genuinely angry abt it, and I shouldnt be angry that other people have a good life, but I genuinely don’t understand why some people are so happy and in the other hand some people are so miserable. And I know I don’t have it that bad. It could be worse.

I’ve been dealing with my mental health my whole life, but most of the time I feel like I’m too broken to be fixed. That I never will have a life that makes me feel that being alive is worth it, because to me being alive feels like a sacrifice, it always felt. I’m scared, what if I’m never able to move foward? I don’t know if I have the strenght to fix by myself everything I have been throught. Ever since I was a kid I always said that I didn’t asked to be born and it stands to this day. I still feel responsible for my unhapiness, but I didnt ask to be me. I feel like if i was another person, id be able to deal better with all of this. 

I know its a very negative point of view, but right now its how i feel. I’m just tired, very tired.