one of the things about having an unstable parent is that it can so easily ruin your future. you want to get out, but getting out takes having agency. it takes the resume and the grades and the stellar community service history.
but you have to choose your battles. you know if you sign up for an after-school activity, it'll be okay for a while, so long as the activity is parent-approved and god-fearing. over time, like all things, it will become an argument (i can't keep carting your ass to these things) or a weapon (talk to me like that again, see if you get to go to practice). sometimes, if you love the thing, it's worth it. but you also know better than to love something: that's how they get you. if you ever actually want something, it will always be the center of their attention. they will never stop threatening you with it. telling you of course i'm a good parent, i came to all of those stupid events.
you learn to balance yourself perfectly. you can either have a social life or you can have hobbies. both of these things will be under constant scrutiny. you spend too much time with her, you should be at home with family is equally paired with you're acting like this because you're addicted to what's on that goddamn screen. you cannot ever actually win, so everything falls within a barter system that you calculate before entering: do you want to learn how to drive? if so, you'll need to give up asking for a new laptop, even though yours died. maybe you can work on a computer at the library. of course, that would mean you'd be allowed to go to the library, which would mean something else has to bleed. nothing ever actually comes free.
and that bitter, horrible irony: you could be literally following their orders and it still isn't pretty. they tell you to get a job; they hate that your job keeps you late and gives you access to actual money. they tell you to do better in school; they say no child of mine needs a tutor. they want you to stop being so morose, don't you know there are people who are really suffering - but they revile the idea you might actually need therapy.
you didn't survive that fall the way other people would. you've seen other people scramble and get their way out, however they could. maybe you were made too-soft: the answer didn't come to you easily. it wasn't quick. it was brutal and nasty. some people even asked you why didn't you just work hard and escape during school? and you felt your head spinning. why didn't you? (they control your financial aid. they control your loan status. they love having that kind of thing). maybe in another life you got diagnosed sooner and got the meds you needed to actually focus and got attention from the right teachers who helped you clear hurdles to get up out of here - but for now? here?
the effort of trying. the effort of not-dying. that kind of effort was absolutely agonizing.
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Generic Protagonist Masterpost
Part I: Contains Intro, SWSH run, General Worldbuilding
Part II: Contains PLA Run (Hisui Arc), non-plot-posts that I like
Part III (You Are Here)
Contains: the aRRRc, Ultra Flare Finale, Paldea(?)
The aRRRc (Reunions, Redemptions, and Reminders)
UPDATED REFERENCE SHEET
reference of guzma's aprons lol
Part 1: Hiding in Po Town
Title Card
time travel has left me a sad and lonely man
normal times at the shady house: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 3.5, plumeria outfit ref, part 3.75, part 3.8
cyrus and his little buddy
getting over it challenge level impossible: part 4, part 5
GUEST COMIC (NOT CANON BUT LOOK AT IT)
before he returns there's a bit: part 1, part 2
gee it's great to be back home: part 1, part 2, vidya meme
Part 2: Taking Care of Business
they say you can never go home again.
only semi-related; maybe they're right...
(In the meantime 1) (Flashback in the meantime)
Sycamore time!
E....
Part 3: Well Well Well, If It Isn't Mr. Consequences!
GET SLAMMED IDIOT!!!!!!
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Your moirail likes to touch you.
It's another symptom of his damage, really, all the pitiful, cracked bullshit about him wrapped up in the needy, hungry way he strokes your hair or your horns or takes daring, glancing reach-arounds to brush a hand over your back. Trolls are tough as chitin and claws, and you don't give a shit about your aberrant mutant blood, you're a troll through and through.
You shouldn't like to be touched. You don't.
But Gamzee does. And you, for some godforsaken reason, are infected with some kind of disease that makes you tolerate him.
It's cold tonight, and you can tell as soon as you wake up because Gamzee's curled around you like a grub, face buried in the back of your neck and hands rubbing absently up and down your belly. You have the slime set pretty warm, but not warm enough, apparently. When you move to get untangled, Gamzee grumbles and groans and reels you in even harder, nuzzling behind your ear.
You're a troll, you don't care about being touched. But you also can't get away. So you settle, and grumpily let him pet sleepily at your face, your chest, your neck. The slight, rough scrape of the pads on his palms and then the prickling, controlled threat of his claws.
You don't need to be touched. You don't need anybody for anything. A troll is an island. A troll doesn't give a shit. A troll doesn't get frustrated and irritable if they have to go a few weeks without their moirail touching them, so you don't. You don't.
You don't realize you're purring until he starts purring too. The tips of his claws trail across the curve of your thoracic cage, prickle and knead at you like you're some kind of wriggler comfort object, and you try to choke down the rusty rumble in your thorax and can't make it happen.
Gamzee mumbles, "Best friend, beats every miracle on the sand, sea and sky how sweet you turn for me touching you," and curls around you a little tighter, bites harmlessly at the side of your neck and the nape, where the hair trails off down your posture column. For a second all of his claws and his fangs press just hard enough to catch you still, breath hitching--then his palms smooth past the place his claws pricked at you, and he nuzzles his bare cheek against the mark of his teeth, and you're purring even louder, melting into warm, stupid shivers.
You understand what he actually said a second later, and are immediately, breathlessly indignant.
"I'm, you, fuck you," you retort, which is far from your best work, but in your defense your moirail is a soft embarrassment of a troll and he won't stop touching you, bundling you up into the curve of his freakishly long body, petting the line of one of your thighs, kneading a tense muscle there, going back to rubbing the place your purr hums at the base of your thoracic cage. "I'm humoring you, dipshit, because apparently you fucked up too many cartwheels when you were a wriggler and sloshed most of your panmatter out of your ears."
Gamzee gives a rattling, huffing chirr of amusement, melting into an actual laugh when you growl at him. "If you say so, brother," he says, soothed amiable, and nips at the back of your neck again, where he's definitely going to leave a really obvious mark for all of your chucklefuck hatefriends to hoot about.
"You're embarrassing both of us."
"Aww, motherfucker, that right?"
"You're-- It's not a-- What do you fucking think I am, some kind of--of touch-dependent mammal, huddling in its shitty brood-den with all its wriggling, hairless birth-pupas--"
Gamzee's snickering at you again. "I bet mammals don't purr so nice, best friend."
"Fuck you," you say again, with feeling, and twist half-heartedly at his grip again. He clicks his fangs, a disappointed little noise, and just holds you tighter, tight enough it aches just a little. Tight like it doesn't matter what you are or what you want, or what you don't want to want. He's not letting you go.
You don't like it. You don't, you don't, you don't. A good troll wouldn't. You don't.
He's mumbling some kind of highblood benediction into your hair, some nightmarish honking thing about being anointed in the wicked elixir and the stardust in your eyes. But his claws come to your face, a huge, cool frond wrapped all the way around to cup your cheek, and when his thumbclaw rests on your lip it's just heavy enough to shut you the fuck up, just light enough you know he's not going to hurt you. Just threatening enough to send a thrilling pale shiver through your palms and down your spine, and safe like you can only be like this.
"Little motherfucker gets so fucking hungry for it when he's lonely," Gamzee murmurs, and presses a little harder when you try to open your mouth to argue. "Nah-ah-ah, best friend, shoosh. Shhhh. You're so motherfucking warm, and look at you all soft all over, like clouds or some shit... Lemme all get my feel on. Get a good motherfucking grab-around at you going."
You bite his finger in revenge, a whole lot gentler than you could considering how tough highblood skin is. He laughs at you and then moves all in a rush, pins you into a tight little ball with your arms at your sides and your knees to your chest and dunks you in the sopor, bringing you up growling and squirming.
"What the fuck was that for?!"
"Shooshing," he says, and pats your face again with a stupid-sounding splap-splap noise. "Rowdy little motherfucker's gotta chill the fuck down. And hey, check it out."
His hands find both of your horns, and he combs the sopor through your hair with delicate clawtips and then rubs the sopor at the roots of your horns, right where thin skin gives way to the slight velvet at the bases.
The cool pressure feels completely different combined with the humming, numb-sensitive tingle of sopor, and you're immediately rendered hopelessly, humiliatingly compliant. You melt like a frozen beverage block at high noon in the desert. You make a noise you would murder any of your enemies or friends for hearing. You croon like a pupa who just discovered cotton candy. You'll fucking savage him if he stops.
"...'S real motherfucking sweet how you like it," he says again, peacefully, and this time you feel way too damn good to make yourself argue.
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Just a quick thought but.
Considdering the WG created the Shichibukai System with the idea of having them be "pirates who crush other pirates"...
Okay so we unfortunately don't know when Moria joined the Shichibukai, if that was pre-Kaidou Clash or post-Kaidou Clash, info which would be very useful here but 🤷♂️. However we do know that Crocodile joined the Shichibukai before his clash with Whitebeard-- which is interesting, because Crocodile proceeded to get his ass kicked, but still retained his position.
Keep in mind, the only reason the Government didn't get rid of Moria the second he lost to Luffy (a menace but still a rookie) was because they knew they needed every man they had available for the incoming war with Whitebeard. Had it not been for that they would've replaced Moria immidiately, and hey, they then did proceed to do that right after the war was over. So the fact they not only kept Crocodile despite getting his ass kicked, but kept him around for like 20~ish years is a bit wild
And that just makes me wonder...
Is it possible the World Government could've ordered some of their newly recruited Shichibukai back in the day to go and try to take down the Yonkou on the WG's behalf?
Again, if we knew more about Moria here this would actually be easier to speculate about but since we don't know about his timeline, there's no way to fully tell for sure (btw yes his Wiki page claims he became a Shichibukai after fighting Kaidou, but since that was "revealed" in a trivia book, I would take it with a massive grain of salt)
But if the Yonkou Dethroning Attempts were orders from the WG, it'd actually explain the general attitude amongst the Shichibukai to not actually follow orders from the Government, since there'd be two whole survivors to tell the tale why you don't follow the Government's orders. (Which would also reframe why the Government Really Wanted Kuma to follow every single order given to him)
It'd also reframe Crocodile's anger at the Government a little (since I'm sure the WG didn't give a shit about what had actually happened to him), as well as Moria's fury when Kuma showed up at Thriller Bark and Moria learned that the WG was assuming he was going to lose to the Strawhats, requiring back-up
It would also explain why Crocodile got to keep his position despite his defeat, because while Crocodile might've failed, they could still see him as useful as he had survived a clash against The Most Powerful Man In The World (same for Moria if he did go fight Kaidou under the Government's orders)
And man... Like the Shichibukai were framed as "Government bootlicking losers who had abandoned their pirating spirit" when they were first introduced, but as time has gone we have seen that some people took the position for protection. Hancock for to protect her people, Jinbei for the Sun Pirates to get pardoned... And with Kuma, it's just blackmail.
It really would be sad if Crocodile (and maybe Moria too) got essentially groomed into the position as young pirates, given all these promises of things they'd be allowed to do/given if they follow orders, only to realize the Government sees them as nothing more than tools
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