#I have a feeling she'd really like him

[astraerystarr]

[ishgard]

Oh, that's going to take some getting used to... And she's not happy about it.

[asvidema]

executioner hermann and widow elishka

[stylish-fish]

okay last minute deltaposting but i don't think that i've seen many people point out yet. that rouxls' crush on queen seems very extremely fake at least for the most part (and that makes it all the more interesting to me)

to start off, i think he's set off to get into this kind of a relationship right from the start of chapter 2: when you first interact with him in castle town, he immediately asks for you to bring an "evil rulere" to the town and says that something is "lacking" without one. i don't think it's any wonder he thinks that way: i think he considers authority figures (first king in chapter 1, then the lancer fun squad, then queen in chapter 2) an absolute necessity for himself and is too spineless to function without them, so his only way of having any kind of relevance or importance is sucking up to one and hoping it'll get him a fraction of their power (while still being otherwise told what to do by them, obviously). he really doesn't give a shit about who this person with power is at all either: he was 100% willing to side with a tyrant since he got a high-ranking position out of it, and then he was 100% willing to betray said tyrant and side with people the tyrant considered the most morally corrupt beings to exist just because it seemed like he was losing to them. in the start of chapter 2, he obviously misses his time under the king, likely because he held actual (wrongly earned) power and respect back then and everything he does in the chapter is an attempt to get that life back. he's already likely made his plan about how it'll go before he's even set foot in cyber world or met queen: he'll impress the new evil ruler, they'll employ him and he gets to continue his old life without having to change anything. he'll get to be told what to do and say and think by someone else because he's too much of a coward to actually have a brain of his own. it's all set.

also, his behaviour towards queen doesn't necessarily show a lot of genuine, deeply held romantic feelings either. i think his crush kinda comes out of the blue, which was probably the intention: he doesn't interact with queen a single time in cyber world or even see her face (considering he tried to flirt with tasque manager under the assumption she's queen, i think it's safe to say he hadn't seen her up until that point, or at least didn't care about her looks enough to remember her. tasque manager does look like queen though, but he still clearly doesn't know a lot of her features. he also says he doesn't remember what queen looks like in a valentine's day card he sends for her, meaning he had probably forgotten about it by then. i think the refusal to learn about even her looks is consistent enough not to come across as simple forgetfulness, especially when he's supposedly in love with her) but he already declares he's in a relationship with her when he gets back to castle town. he hasn't gotten to know anything about queen's personality, or her ambitions or her interests, i think the only fact he knows about her at that point is the fact that she's the new "evil rulere" he's wanted to serve under ever since the king was overthrown. i think he's in it more out of obligation and the belief that "seducing" queen will get him the title he wants quicker than any actual interest in her character. she'll be the tyrant and he'll be the underling, she'll be his lady and he'll be her servant, she'll be the one commanding and he'll be the one obeying. he's more interested in them both fulfilling the "roles" he's set for them than having an actual equal, healthy relationship where they both care about each other as people.

whenever rouxls talks about the relationship he wants with queen, he also spends more time focusing on himself than ever talking about her. he's as self-centered as can be, so this is of course expected of him. when he's about to fight kris and ralsei in the acid lake, he talks about her like this:

other than calling her "beautious", which may or may not be a fake compliment considering he mistook tasque manager for her before, he absolutely doesn't mention anything about her. instead, he switches immediately to talking about himself and how he'll be rewarded for impressing her. to rouxls, the relationship he wants is clearly about himself. even though he talks more about her in the valentine's day card, it's still clear he's in it for selfish purposes:

his compliment of queen as the "faireste maidene in all of the cyber lande" is immediately revealed as meaningless when he admits he doesn't even remember what she looks like. it's exactly the same kind of empty flattery he's otherwise prone to when things look bad for him or he wants something out of someone: like how he immediately folded over and started complimenting the heroes after being easily defeated by them in chapter 1. it's clear that he's using the flattery as a way to suck up in this card as well: after complimenting queen, he immediately asks to be made her "valentine's lackeye", clearly still seeing a relationship with her as a way to get things and regain his important position rather than build an actual connection.

to me, this is actually the way to think about his "crush" that makes the most canonical sense. he was comedically selfish and self-interested in chapter 1, only acting to benefit himself, and expressing any kind of concern for a single person, lancer, after what i assume was a long-ish time of knowing him (and even then, he complains about him and clearly hesitates before asking how he is). he acts exactly the same way in chapter 2 and once again doesn't offer to help anyone but lancer for reasons other than immediate self-interest (although he does immediately call it "frivolitese" and insists that fighting ralsei and kris for queen's approval is more important). he doesn't show this type of care for queen at all: after he gets defeated by the heroes and has his lower body turned to stone, he joins them to fight against giga queen, even wanting to "take credite" for it despite having been on her side not too long ago. even if he had fallen in love with her (which is dubious considering the short time and the fact he consistently doesn't remember what she looks like) he's still very much the rouxls kaard we know, he doesn't really seem to care about her at all. i don't think he would've been changed by the "power of love" that easily or quickly, especially considering he still acts like his selfish and pathetic self when declaring his supposed love for queen.

in the future, i think one possible bit for him would be him trying to go for every single evil powerful figure we meet in the next chapters and not just being happy with settling for queen. i don't think he cares about queen (or anyone for that matter) enough to dedicate his life to serving her and no one else, he's not really someone trying to follow a righteous knight code or anything and has already shown not to think of betraying her as a big deal. he also seems to have a very shallow view on romance and relationships, and be exactly the kind of guy who thinks he can benefit from trapping himself in the confines of romance and change his relationships on a whim, all that matters being that his partner has power. the way deltarune seems to deal with the more destructive and trapping side of romance is very interesting to me, and i think this guy could potentially fit in too with his view of the ideal world where he has all the power and importance he wants, where he has to care about no one other than himself but where someone, his romantic partner, is still in charge of him because due to his life as a darkner in a world that automatically expects him to fill the role of a servant he can't imagine anything else. he doesn't care who it is that fills that role of his partner because he can always switch them for a more powerful one, so he doesn't really see his evil rulerse of the week as people, at least not yet. that said, i do find his potential relationship with queen interesting too. i just don't think they'd be happy as a romantic couple, this being one of the reasons.

also i wonder what's up with the lamp thing

[bonefall]

There's speculation that Floatshimmer's kits are Graysky's, since one of the kits are silver like him, you know, the dude that was made a warrior when she was a kit.

To be fair, Graysky is ridiculously young as well. He might have been described as being ready to be a warrior at the start of ASC, but he was born in Lost Stars and is only a little over a year old at the end of the last arc.

EVERYONE got hit with the Time Travel Beam... in fact. Funfact: RiverClan actually has always had a weird issue with their allegiance cats aging really fast.

Anyway, digressing. If it does pan out to have Graysky as the father...

Eventually I like the idea of Floatshimmer and Graysky being a couple (their names make me think of bright sunshine on a cloudy day, making the waves of the lake twinkle with light), but absolutely not while they're so young. Both of them need at least another year or so.

(At the earliest, have their kits mid-arc, ideally later.)

That said, I'm still willing to shuffle them both a bit to be closer in age. I'm growing interested in the idea that they're like, the cat equivalent of 18 and 19-ish. Young, dumb, impulsive, ended up with kittens looong before they were ready and it's impacting their relationship negatively.

Still deciding, though.

[qoldenskies]

i feel like out of everyone april would be the worst with self-deprecating humor. the boys have self-esteem issues but they're literally all the types to play up confidence or double down instead of addressing them (raph the least, but he can be pretty stubborn at times), but april's momentum only takes her so far and she is pretty willing to admit defeat if her usual methods dont work. the speed at which she falls back into the idea that she cant do anything right,,, there's probably a point where she jokes about it before it even happens to prepare herself for disappointment, right?

[blluespirit]

ch: zuko and katara setting: post-southern raiders note: very ramble-y and not my best work - mostly vibes but oh well. enjoy! (or don't! im not the boss of u)

Katara realises later that Zuko thought she would kill Yon Rah. He was ready for it, he was waiting for it. She didn't think about the expression on his face once she turned away from first the Southern Raiders commander, and then Yon Rah, but she thinks about it now. Still, he never said anything to her, even when he hung back after she walked away from Yon Rah, trying to resist a temptation to do something, say something - he still didn't say anything.

She wants to ask him what he thinks.

That realisation alone is a strange one. She never thought she'd want to seek out Zuko's genuine opinion on anything, let alone something as personal as this. Still, she knows what Aang would say - that violence was and is never an option - but she doesn't fully accept that. Ozai doesn't deserve to rot in some cell somewhere for the threat of escape to linger over everyone's heads. He deserves nothing. Only the darkness of whatever lies beyond.

Maybe Aang isn't entirely wrong, but sparing Yon Rah also didn't feel good, or right, but the thing is, she's not sure killing him would have felt any better. The more she contemplates it, the more she runs in circles around herself.

Maybe there isn't a right answer. Maybe she needed to do it just to do it at all. To see him cower in front of her and beg for his life. To remove the fear of the monster that killed her mother that settled in the back of her mind and settled there like a stone. He is not scary to her anymore. He is nothing at all.

Katara thinks about Zuko and Aang. What does it say about them that one would do almost anything to stop her, and the other would do almost anything to give her what she needed - even if that meant cold-blooded murder? Zuko let her decide on her own terms - even if he thought she'd go a different path. He still accepted that.

She can't discount that he would've helped her do it if she'd asked. He nearly broke the commander's neck on the ship getting answers from him - all for her.

It leaves her breathless in a way she can't describe; more so that he also seems content to leave this wherever Katara wants to leave it. She's sure he'd never mention it again if she wanted it to be that way.

She eventually finds him skulking out the halls of his old holiday house. There's a gaunt, haunted expression on his face that Katara wants to probe, but she backs out at the last second. His eyes soften when they see her - grateful for the distraction.

The light struggles against the drapes, leaving only tendrils of light to soften an old carpet and harden Zuko's expression. She doesn't give pleasantries.

"Do you think I was wrong?"

She expects him to answer quickly, but he hesitates.

"I think he would have deserved it."

Katara bristles. "So you do think I was wrong."

He frowns, takes his time again.

"I think you did the right thing for you. If you'd killed him, it would just be another thing to haunt you."

The fight dies out of her as quickly as it rose. She stares at him and he returns it.

"If I asked you to help me do it, would you have?"

"I - yes." He looks down at his feet, shuffling. "I've never directly killed someone. But I would have helped you."

She doesn't know how to thank him, or if she even should for such a declaration.

It's a shock to her system - as if being plunged into arctic water - that someone would stand by her in such a way. Not judging, simply carving the path. What Katara decided to do at her destination is her decision alone.

"He -" Katara starts, unable to say his name and Zuko's gaze turns sharp, as if he knows what she will say next. "- may have deserved to die, or deserved to live and suffer. The world does not suffer consequences for my action or inaction."

Zuko breathes deeply. She can feel the heat of fire brewing in his exhalation.

"If Aang can't kill Ozai..." her words soften, but the persistence darkness around them weighs them down anyway.

Zuko leans back slightly, just enough so a strand of light burns his face, igniting old scar tissue in a brilliant orange. His eyes turn to the window.

"He's the Avatar," he says. There's a pain in his voice Katara can't help but notice. "He doesn't have the luxury of choice."

[yuseirra]

Inspired from Memento Mori Oneshots by victarion!

This fic is so good!! It reminds me of why I love shuyuka, it's exactly how I picture them in my head if they get together. Absolutely wholesome and adorable.

other scenes: Ch 1 / Ch 2 / Ch 3 / Ch 19 / Ch 4 / Ch 6,7,8 / Ch 9,11 / Ch 20,21 / Ch.30 / Ch. 16 / Ch 20(again)

[soupmanspeaks]

rip post bite reaper!Michael, you would probably comfort a dying bird on the side of the road

[mars-ipan]

it's pride month of course i'm going to push my transfem komaeda agenda

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

Mmmm Jinx AU where after being taken in by Silco, thinking she's been abandoned by Vi leads to her not latching on to Silco as the most important thing in her life who she must be loyal to above all else, but full on swinging into the direct opposite direction and becoming like Sevika.

[This AU is in part inspired by the idea of Jinx becoming more idealogically like Sevika, but also from OG Jinx's personality.

OG Jinx is a character who's primary drive is her own personal enjoyment and happiness. Which comes from building weapons, causing explosions of all kinds, and pranking Piltoveans.

Jinx doesn't go out looking to kill people, she goes out to to have a good time, and if people happen to die while she's having her good time, then that doesn't really concern her.

Like there's this one quote about OG Jinx that basically boils down to: "If Jinx found a box of firecrackers that had a person sitting on top of it. She'd light the fireworks without even thinking about the person on the box because she was so focused on her excitement about fireworks, that she didn't even notice the person."

OG Jinx has prioritized her own personal enjoyment over everything else, that people potentially dying as a result of whatever she's doing is so completely irrelevant, to the point of her being effectively unable to perceive the potential collateral damage.

It's not even that OG Jinx wants to kill people, or enjoys killing people, it's just that people dying while she's doing what she loves isn't even a linked phenomenon in her brain. Because people (who die) are going to die eventually with or without her actions, so why shouldn't she enjoy herself even if people happen to die while she's doing so.

Jinx's loyalty to Zaun is prioritized in the same way in this AU. People are going to die with or without the revolution happening, so they might as well have the revolution.]

Loyal to the dream of Zaun over any individual leader.

I mean, she still comes to love Silco as a father figure, and he still comes to love her as a daughter, but also much like with Sevika, they're both fully aware that if Jinx ever comes to the conclusion he isn't the person who's the best bet for securing Zaunite independence, she'll abandon his gang and possibly go elsewhere.

Or even more so, if she comes to the conclusion that he's worse for Zaun than he is good, possibly kill him herself.

Which I feel like wouldn't stop him from loving her more than anything else.

I think he'd just consider it another aspect of her that makes her the ideal Zaunite. The ability to put The Cause even before her personal feelings and attachments, something he's still not able to do.

Basically this Jinx thinks of her loyalty to Zaun and her personal love for individuals in her life as entirely disconnected to each other, with Loyalty to Zaun being her default.

Which adds a number of complications to her relationships. Specifically her being totally unafraid to fight to the death against her loved ones without an ounce of remorse, and then thinking of it as a complete non-issue in the aftermath if they both survive.

Like she fully still considers Ekko her friend by the time Vi gets out of jail in this AU. Full on "We try to kill each other on alternating Thursdays, but that's no reason to stop being friends" feelings.

Which also results in her not feeling an ounce of shame in helping him and the Firelights out when it comes to basically anything they do that isn't in direct opposition to SIlco.

I mean, the Firelights are also working towards bettering Zaun just like she (honestly believes) is, they just have different opinions and methods of how to do so from Silco's gang. While also serving different parts of the community.

[And yes, Ekko and the rest of the Firelights have complicated feelings about Jinx in this AU. None of them know where she stands with them.

She'll help them without expectations one day, and then turn around and kill some of them in a confrontation without an ounce of hesitation the next.

Some of them hate her, some have mixed feelings. Others just think she's completely mentally unstable, and shouldn't be trusted considering she seemingly flips between being ally and enemy with no warning.

Ekko's feelings are especially complicated, as you can imagine.]

None of this is to say Jinx doesn't feel just as deeply about the people she loves, as she does in canon. It's just that trauma has convinced her that unequivocal loyalty to an individual vs an idea is a very easy way to be hurt.

Detached logical decision making as a way to avoid being harmed by making emotional mistakes. Which is what she feels is why she failed so much as Powder.

The belief, that she was so obsessed with gaining approval from individuals in her life, she never had a real personal goal to strive towards that she could measure progress and growth to. Resulting in her always feeling like a failure, even when she was doing good, or at least improving.

She's still deeply hurt by Vi choosing Caitlyn over her (as far as she could tell), the Firelights taking Vi, and her accidental killing of Silco while spiraling in the wake of her Shimmer surgery. She's also extremely frustrated by her freak out on the airship where she shoots Eve (pink haired Firelight).

Because she feels like those are instances where she gave into the impulse to emotional over reaction to specific individuals that caused all of Powder's problems.

She was so focused on Vi, and her desire for Vi's approval, that she couldn't fight the Firelights as effectively as she normally would.

She was so focused on Vi seemingly leaving her to go off with Caitlyn that she couldn't focus on fighting Ekko on the Bridge, resulting in her getting far more injured than she normally would have, and nearly not succeeding in getting the crystal back.

She was so triggered by thinking she was seeing Vi on the airship, that she completely lost it and started shooting indiscriminately and caused the job to go south and injured people on her own side.

She was so caught up in her spiral and hallucinations at the tea party, that she shot Silco based entirely on instinctual protective instinct when hearing the hammer being drawn on a gun on her vulnerable loved one, rather than anything intentional on her part. Which she'd previously had always sworn would be the case should it ever come to her killing Silco.

That if Jinx ever killed another of her loved ones, it would be because she knew with certainty it would result in the betterment of Zaun, not because she made a mistake because she was being an over emotional idiot.

I think the only major change from this Jinx's actions in the Season 1 part of the story would be how she went about stealing the Hexgem, and why she did so.

In canon she does so because she failed a job, and felt like she needed to do something big to prove to Silco that she was capable, in order to gain validation from him that she was. Even though he never tells her he doesn't think she's capable, just that she needs to take some time off because she had an episode.

He said "take a mental health day, even if you don't think you need it," and she responded, "so you think I'm a fuck up?!"

In this story. it's more that Jinx is so focused on what she could potentially do with Hextech to help the revolution and Zaun as a whole. That she was already planning to steal some research notes and crystals to get experimenting with it on her own terms, before the job gone south, and the new advancements in Hextech being whispered about for progress day.

Getting her hands on the newest form of Hextech is just her getting lucky.

This also means she doesn't steal it the same way. She doesn't do anything to kill any Enforcers, but she does cause a distraction with what seems to be a box of fire works going off prematurely on "accident".

With her swooping in to steal the notes and hexgem while everyone's busy with trying to contain the panic the fireworks accident is causing to really pay attention to what she's doing.

Which the Enforcers do react to, but everyone but Caitlyn disregards as an accident. As once it's clear that nothing other than a few decorations got ruined and people getting startled came of the fireworks incident.

They're far more concerned with the stealing of hextech that's happened, and Viktor's testimony of a young woman with long blue hair sneaking out of their lab.

With the fireworks incident being dismissed as an accident that's completely unrelated to the burglary of the Hextech lab. Beyond the burglar potentially using it as a convenient opening.

Caitlyn's not convinced, and it's already happened so close to the airship shootout incident, so she still goes down and ends up freeing Vi from Stillwater with some of Jinx's drawings as evidence, from the airship shootout.

Which does mean that her trajectory in the Season 2 part of the story would be a bit different.

She still goes into a depression after Silco's death. Mostly because she feels that she's broken her most important self imposed rule: not killing because of personal feelings about someone, but for The Cause.

She killed Silco not because she felt killing him would make things better, but because she was scared and spiraling and in that vulnerable emotional state, she defaulted to the same way of thinking that had gotten her loved ones killed the last time.

She protected Vi who she loved, and couldn't defend herself, based on gut instinct. And it resulted in the death of another loved one, and the complete destabilization of Zaun.

Now because Jinx is more focused on Zaun than on her personal relation ships, I don't know if she fires on the Council immediately after Silco's death the way she does in canon. I don't really think she would.

I could see her doing it because she's still in the peak of the Shimmer high, which is heightening all her emotions. Driving her to seek revenge on Piltover in her grief. Even though if she could think more clearly, she wouldn't do it, and would instead wait to gather an actual following and doing an organized and planned strike to be the most effective.

But I could also see SIlco's death snapping her back to reality as she sees it. That she simply takes the gem, her guns, and Silco's body and Disappears, vanishing into the night with neither Vi or Caitlyn knowing of the weapon she's built or what she's going to do next.

Which could have interesting repercussions on the story. Considering Piltover's council would to have agreed to Zaunite independence on the conditions of handing over Jinx.

Except the man they made that deal with is now dead, no one (except Sevika) knows where Jinx is to hand her over, and the Undercity is and of itself divided on handing one of their own over to Piltover (to potentially be executed, because of how dangerous Hextech can be, and a lot of the counsel fully thinking Zaunites are inherently dangerous, not to mention thanks to Caitlyn, Jinx is a known weapons builder, so what else do they think she'll do with access to Hextech other than build weapons) in order to gain independence.

I'm sure the chem barons would have no issue handing JInx over, because then they'd be free to divide up territory and completely take over with no one like Silco holding their leash, or PIltover dictating what is and isn't legal on their side of the river in the first place.

Oh the Firelights would be around to oppose them, but they'd never really were able to gain any ground beyond causing problems for Shimmer production.

But I'm not sure how more ordinary people would react.

I mean, in this AU it's pretty well known that Jinx holds the idea of Zaun above anything else, and was willing to help people who weren't affiliated with any specific group, as long as doing so wouldn't harm the independence movement of Zaun.

She's not really shy about expressing that stance, it's just up to everyone else to believe it or not.

Jinx, who would use her high position in Silco's circle to help ordinary Zaunites. Be it from one of the gangs overstepping and trying to start rackets Silco had forbidden, from unjust arrest from Enforcers, or even pointing them in the direction of the Firelights if she thought that was for the best.

Declaring that so long as the help she gave random people didn't harm or slow the march towards independence, helping her fellow Zaunite was helping Zaun, was part of the fight toward an independent Zaun.

She's the Loose Canon, shooting for Zaun and no one else. Loyal to no kingpen or Chembaron, but to The People of Zaun as a whole.

She has a bit of a following even without firing on Piltover or turning the Grey back on them. She's a bit of a living folk hero to some people, especially those she personally helped out of a bad situation, for no reason other than "I could, and doing so doesn't hurt anyone else. So why wouldn't I?"

Not to mention I definitely feel like Jinx would be way more intentionally politically educated in this AU than she is in canon.

JInx as she is in Arcane, never really gave a shit about Zaun's independence beyond what it meant to Silco (and later Isha), and she very obviously never bothered to learn anything about politics. At least nothing Silco didn't force her to learn.

But with Jinx's primary drive being Zaun, I feel like she'd definitely be way more politically minded, and while I do think she would consider turning herself over to Piltover to secure Zaun's independence (in a direct parallel of Vi's willingness to hand herself over to get the Enforcers to leave the Undercity alone to keep her family safe).

I don't think Jinx would actually go through with handing herself over.

Not with the Undercity being actively torn apart by gang disputes in the wake of Silco's death, no way of ensuring Zaun's prosperity after handing herself over, and no way of securing actual tangible betterment of conditions in Zaun even with Zaunite independence.

I mean from what we're told, Piltover's offer of independence was essentially cutting the Undercity loose.

Stopping their dumping of industrial waste into Zaun's water supply, ceasing utilizing of Zaun's air duct and water system for the climate control of Piltover's Hexgate system, release of Zaunites from Stillwater (or at least transfer to Zaunite custody)), and the Kiraman family handing over control of the vents that suppress The Grey over to someone from the Undercity weren't anywhere in that deal from what we're told.

[I don't think everyone on the counsel would have agreed to it if it was, they're all complete capitalists, no matter if some of them value sapient life more than others (Mel, Cassandra) on a conceptual level.

I believe the ones who outright hate Zaunites (which some of them clearly did) would have staunchly opposed if it meant having to alter how they actually approached how they ran their businesses, vs just cutting Zaun loose.

Hell I think those councelors would have gotten even more lax with their business regulations. I mean, Zaun wouldn't have been part of Piltover, and their citizens not their legal responsibility any more.

So why should anyone from Piltover worry about them dying? The trenchers wanted independence and if they can't survive without Piltover's support, how's that anyone's problem but the trenchers?]

It was, if you hand over Jinx, we'll legally make you not our problem any more.

Which I don't think a politically educated Jinx would go for. It would just leave Zaun to the messy power struggle that appeared because of the power vacum caused by Silco's death. None of the Undercity's actual problems would be solved, besides Enforcers no longer being able to harass them.

So the Zaun Piltover conflict would stay more political and less outright invasion than it is in canon as a result.

[minty-bunni]

Okay, but Antoine getting sick or injured and being nursed back to health by Evka would be adorable.

Antoine doing the same for Evka would be cute as well, but I'm specifically picking on Antoine because he has gotten hurt or has greatly concerned his wife in 3/4 of the pair's appearances.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Lucy used to summon Plu a lot more often in the beginning, which is funny since her magic only gets stronger as the story progresses so she wouldn't even notice the power that keeping his gate open would drain from her and yet...

[dent-de-leon]

I remember Taliesin saying something to the effect that he wished the Nein had taken more than just the oracle deck when they searched Molly, and the implication that he was carrying some other interesting trinkets that we never got to explore--

Anyway, please consider: Caleb taking one of Molly's earrings or little horn ornaments before he buries him. Something to remember him by, keep him close. Maybe one of his moon charms, or perhaps even a symbol of the Moonweaver Molly hid. Forbidden in the empire, but dear enough to Molly that Caleb would still risk it--

Caleb wearing one of Tealeaf's earrings when he first sees Lucien--

[qoldenskies]

Is the lamp incident more traumatic than the docks to Donnie?

i mean despite both incidents being violent i'd say they're too drastically different to properly compare, but i kind of started it by saying the ch11 is Up There, so im gonna go with a reluctant yes.

and i'd mostly say that because the whole thing in the hallway is up there is something insanely traumatic too, and he woke up from that resurfacing memory, immediately broke something, and in a daze believed they were going to HURT him for it. and then they started screaming and pounding on the door, and raph broke it down (there are several reasons that would absolutely terrify him to see), and they held him down as he was bleeding out and begging for them to stop. he actually remembers it pretty clearly. it was just as horrible for him as it was for everyone else.

the moment on the docks was very brief, enough for him to be able to get back up and continue to keep fighting. in the moment he was only shaken and winded, it only set in afterwards how close he was to death as he looked back on it. it was so big to him because it was the first time he really confronted this fear head-on (well, it was mentioned in CL that he had existential terror very young, he didn't handle it well when he realized he was mortal cause a lot of people have that moment when we're kids. but the docks makes him confront how that relates to crime-fighting and the perpetual danger they're in now. it made it all feel so real) it influences a lot of how he acts in CL because of his shame for being traumatized-- it's more about the realization of the danger he was in overall, and how fragile his life actually was, not a particular fear of the shredder or belief he was going to be hurt exactly like that again.

at least in the whole three day fight, he knew he had his brothers to lean on. it was terrifying but he knew he had people in his corner that could defend him when he couldn't defend himself-- even when he had passing doubts (bpd moment, theyre inevitable) it was easy to rationalize it away. but when it comes to almost everything that happens in cc? he was alone. and even if he wasnt, and they were trying to help, he barely processed it. and when everything with the lamp happened he only thought they were breaking down his door to kill him.

[earl-grey-crow]

season three of the way home and I'm back on my nonsense