#Let him find the Existence

[ironunderstands]

ACHERON AND DR. RATIO HAVE THE EXACT SAME PHILOSOPHY IM GONNA BITE SOMEONE

‼️2.2 spoilers‼️

If you are like me, when you got to Acheron’s conversation with the trailblazer in front of the manifestation of IX, you tried to resist over tables BECAUSE AAAAAAAUGHH WHAT DO YOU MEAN

Look, LIKE JUST LOOK

This is part of Ratios conversation with Screwllum in the 1.6 questline:

PAY ATTENTION TO THE LAST ONE BECAUSE

GUESS WHO ECHOES IT WHEN WE TALK TO HER IN 2.2:

IS THIS NOT THE SAME? ARE THEY NOT SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING? THAT YOU SHOULD GIVE PEOPLE THE TOOLS TO HELP THEMSELVES, THEN LEAVE THEM ALONE SO THEY CAN SAVE THEMSELVES AND FORGE THEIR OWN FUTURE? THAT THEY BOTH BELIEVE THAT WHEN PEOPLE ARE LEFT ALONE TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES DO THEY SHOW THEIR TRUE STRENGTH?!?

Like this lines especially are just AAAAGHH literal bar for bar repeating one another

SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD DOCTOR AS THE SAME OUTLOOK ON HUMANITY AS A LITERAL EMANATOR OF NIHILITY?!?!

An emanator of Nihility WHO SHOULD’NT EXIST

An emanator of Nihility looking to kill IX and find the Existence on the other side of them.

AND HIS VIEWS ARE CREEPILY SIMILAR TO HERS?

Fuck it, Ratio isn’t just accidentally striding the path of Nihility.

He’s accidentally striding the path of Existence.

Nous be damned the reason why this man was never acknowledged by the Erudition is because he’s striding a Path so starkly different to it that the person who resembles him the most shouldn’t even be there either.

No wonder his in game path is Hunt instead of Erudtion, if he’s this similar to Acheron than her singleminded drive to end IX mirrors that of his to spread knowledge (following how Hunt works in gameplay, a lot more like Vengance in lore).

Please please please Hoyo I’m begging on hands and knees for this to be intentional, and for you to do SOMETHING, SOMETHING WITH THIS PLOTPOINT.

Ratio figured out Dormancy somehow, all of his character stories are told from the POV of other people, so we barely know anything about his past, he’s from a planet we don’t know of yet, AND NOW WE HAVE TO CONTEND WITH THIS??

I NEED ANSWERS I NEED EXPLANATIONS I NEED SOMETHING PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING. LET HIS LORE AND FUTURE OUT OF THE BOX PLEASE

“I bet they are going to pull an Alhaitham with him”

NO, NO THEY AREN’T. PLEASE TELL ME THEY AREN’T. I know it’s coping, but the mystery around Alhaitham got cleared away when we got his character stories, but Ratio’s character stories only make him more confusing. We have more questions instead of answers and with the 2.2 update I will spontaneously combust if we never get them BECAUSE WHAT DO YOU MEAN AAAAAAA

TLDR: let the Ratio lore out of the box and Hoyoverse pls pls PLEASE let him meet Acheron 

[s0fter-sin]

trans!soap taking his baby and running away from his rich abusive husband

(cw angst, financial abuse, single threat of child abuse, single mention of transphobia)

he's owned soap for years, since he was a teenager; paid for his medication and all his surgeries and tied them so deeply, soap’s lost hope of ever getting away. he gets even worse when soap falls pregnant. he was always controlling; blowing up at him if he spent too long out of the house or did something without telling him. but he becomes utterly possessive during the pregnancy

soap knows it has nothing to do with his safety or the baby's

he knows he sees his baby as an investment; another being he can control and hold over him

he gets worse and worse but there’s nothing soap can do. there's been nothing he can do for a long time. then a few months after the baby is born, soap doesn’t watch his tone closely enough and his husband threatens to drop his baby in punishment for it

soap doesn't think. he doesn't plan

he takes his baby and runs

he sneaks out of the servant's quarters of the sterile mansion he's been forced to live in for almost a decade and walks down the street without a backwards glance; his baby the only thing in his arms. he knows all of his husband's cars have trackers, all of them in his name since he never lets soap drive or go anywhere by himself, so he walks far enough to be out of view of the mansion's cameras and steals one. it doesn't have a car seat and all he can do is clutch his baby to his chest as he drives

he doesn't know where he's going beyond away

he doesn't know what he's going to do; he doesn't have any money, no supplies for his baby, he doesn't even have water for himself so he can reliably breastfeed him. he's terrified his husband will find them; he’s always felt omniscient, always everywhere and seeing everything he did. if he didn’t have eyes somewhere, he paid someone who did and they always dutifully reported back to him

soap just keeps his eyes forward. just keeps driving and driving, lost to the road and numb until the low gas light pops up on the dash and it all hits him at once

he turns into a gas station he can't pay for, in a car he stole, and parks behind it and his baby immediately starts getting fussy

he can't even call him by his name sometimes; too afraid to get attached, too afraid to lose him. as if he doesn’t love him more than life itself

even throughout his pregnancy, as happy as he was to finally have a baby, he didn't know if he could carry to term and that fear just let his husband dig his claws in even deeper; paying for extra scans he could never hope to pay for, favours on top of favours so he would aways owe him and isn’t he such a loving husband? taking soap in when his parents kicked him out for being trans, looking after him for all these years? you can’t even take care of yourself john, you’d still be a woman without me, john, what is this tantrum about john-

soap tugs his shirt up to let his baby feed, drops his head back and cries

he can't stop it; wails loud and uncontrolled, chest heaving with his sobs enough that it sways his baby, occasionally breaking his latch and he can't even do this right-

he can't save him

a light knock sounds on the window and soap flinches, curling over his baby to protect him from his huband's cruel hands

but it's not his husband outside the window

soap blinks tears from his eyes and looks at the large stranger standing beside the car. a neck gaiter covers his mouth and it should be off-putting… but something about him stops the feeling in its tracks. the stranger takes a half-step back and lifts a chilled and sealed water bottle, pressing it towards the window

soap quickly swipes his face clean and rolls down the window. "sorry 'bout that," he apologises with a choked laugh, the careful front he’s built over the years cracked and bleeding

the stranger gives a dismissive but somehow not diminishing shrug. "long day?" he asks

"could say that," he gives a shrug of his own and pats his baby's back as he makes a disgruntled noise, unconsciously swaying him

he politely keeps his gaze up on his face. "looks like you could use a break."

soap's breath hitches, anxiously darting his tongue out over his bottom lip. "could say that," he repeats uselessly and takes the water with a quiet “thanks,”; his throat dry and screaming for it after crying so hard

the stranger hums, watching him down the bottle and soap doesn’t notice his eyes drifting to the backseat and footwell of the passenger side. doesn’t notice the slight tension in his fists at what he sees. "how long you been runnin', lad?"

soap freezes, the water settling in his stomach like a stone. he swallows thickly and the bottle falls from his lips

"not long enough."

the stranger just nods, looking idly back down the highway

"you know, this place is connected to a garage,” he starts, nodding back to a building attached to the station without taking his eyes off the road. “lotta people drift through 'ere on road trips; too many to keep track.”

soap frowns slightly, shifting his hold on his baby

“funny thing is, plenty of 'em just abandon their car when they break down. like yours,” he adds and finally turns back to him with a pointed look. “got a whole junkyard of 'em. just rustin' away. be pretty easy to convince me to trade ya one."

soap’s mouth parts in a gasp as he realises just what the stranger’s saying. "how easy?" he whispers

he shrugs and even with his face hidden beneath the gaiter, he doesn’t feel afraid. "i'd say this car'd be a good deal. would blend right in with the rest of ‘em; no one’d ever notice it. what say i take it off your hands?"

soap's breath shudders out of him, his whole body going limp with relief. his baby's eyes fall shut with a satisfied hum and for the first time he can remember, he feels the gentle touch of hope

"i think we can work something out."

🧼💀

ghost owns the service station soap pulled into. he wanted something quiet and isolated after he retired and you can’t get much quieter than a backwoods servo surrounded by forest. he hasn’t had anyone pull in in days so he’s quick to notice soap’s car. he’s also quick to notice soap's subsequent breakdown in one of the cameras. the sight of him crying, desperately clutching a baby like they’re all he has left in the world, is so familiar he felt sick with it

he knows someone running when he sees it

if he didn't check on him, if this lad disappeared one day and the baby along with him, he'd never forgive himself. the lad doesn't even have a baby bag or car seat with him, and the personalised sticker on the back window of a lady and a dog is a dead giveaway that the car is stolen

but the lad is terrified. and when he startled him, he didn't turn. didn’t lift his arms to protect himself. no

he covered his baby

like he was afraid he'd be hurt

that's enough for ghost

🧼💀

i'd wanna set this in the 80's or 90's, just to make it even harder for soap to get away from his husband. he's a trans man with a newborn; he has no one to run to and no resources to help him. his husband's bought and paid for everything for him since he was 17; a few whirlwind weeks of unbelievable dates and extravagant gifts and he was living in his mansion, getting married the day after his 18th birthday. he thought it was love. thought he was being looked after and cared for the way he’s always wanted

he was in pain and alone and naive enough to believe the first person who came along and promised to make it better. nothing's in his name, not his insurance or his meds, he doesn’t have a bank account or savings; other than a birth certificate, nothing even ties him to his baby. his husband could take his world away from him with a snap of his fingers and he made sure soap always knew it

he never had a chance of getting away

but ghost is ex-military

he doesn’t know the lad’s story, doesn’t know the details of what he’s running from. he doesn’t need to know

he decided he was helping him the second he pulled into his service station

[aroaceleovaldez]

yknow, I am amused that solangelo fanon was so tunnel-vision in like 2014 that in the midst of crawling through literally every time Will had popped up in the series prior, somehow the ONE singular instance of Will referencing something that the fandom did absolutely nothing with was the thing Rick then decided to draw out into being a major character trait for Will.

Like. Nico eats McDonalds once and it becomes a huge fanon thing, but Will references Star Trek and the fandom doesn't make a peep until Rick explicitly canonizes that he's a huge sci fi nerd. and Rick doesn't even keep it consistent! He changes it so Will is a Star Wars nerd instead of Star Trek. smh 😔 /lh

[nemesisfall]

obligatory pokemon au time!!

[kmpshitposter]

Flycatcher sketchdump

beloved orange frog guy from fables comic/the wolf among us game

bbbonus

[kingofanemptyworld]

hey you know what would be fun? a fic where the Royal Guard follows through with their plans to make Ichigo the new Soul King and Grimmjow promptly loses his shit because what the actual fuck Ichigo has already given these people literally everything, twice, and this is how they repay him? recruits Nel and Harribel and Urahara and Yoruichi (after Nel sits on him for a while because Jesus Christ Grimmjow you can’t storm Soul Society by yourself no matter how much you’ve powered up) and it’s the Ryoka Invasion all over again except with pissed off arrancar instead. I just think it would be neat

[minnesota-fats]

Alright! Danny is dimension hopping and fines the dc universe or he was sent to the past to do something and ends up helping the hero’s with something.

Danny introduces himself cuz omg more hero’s!!! He explains that he isn’t from that dimension or timeline so his identity doesn’t matter.

Danny eventually goes back to his time/dimension leaving a Danny shaped whole and people miss him.

Eventually someone decided to look Danny up for shits and giggles cuz they miss him or something only to find Danny pre accident and ghost shenanigans. (Or just regular civilian Danny living his best life and not half dead)

What do they do?

What does the justice league, young justice, teen titans, etc. do when they find an alternate version of their friend (or crush depending on whatever the visualizer wants)?

Like I feel the internal conflict to be fascinating!

Like the moral dilemma of either just going to make friends and drag him away from a normal life or leave him be to live his life? Or leave him be to die a horrible painful way or intervene and risk the proper flow of time?

[linka-from-captain-planet]

already seeing "ugh male Rook with Neve in the trailer... that's a LESBIAN" posts on twitter and I'm beating them with a big stick that says "you can HEADCANON whatever you want about anything ever but your HEADCANON is factually incorrect and if it chaps your ass even a little bit when anyone up to and including the literal creators of the character disagrees with your HEADCANON then that's fully a you problem and you should consider developing coping skills about it rather than contributing to this fandom's legendary hostility by policing (even in a manner you'll claim was "joking" when someone stands up for themselvs) people who are only enjoying their own playthrough, headcanon, or ship" and by stick I do mean the block button

[astraystayyh]

happy birthday to my hyune. hyunjin who wrote a poem about stay’s eyes and how they shine brighter than any stars. hyunjin who paints old couples because he believes love should be eternal. hyunjin who needs to be chased off the stage by staff because he wants to greet stays longer. hyunjin who always reassures stays that they have a long time left together. hyunjin who reads poetry before bed. hyunjin who writes about love so beautifully as if he is the embodiment of it. hyunjin who says he wants to remain strong as to not hurt stays. hyunjin who says you need to practice with your 200% to show 100%. hyunjin who loves reading books. hyunjin who always tells stays to eat well. hyunjin who wears his heart on his sleeve. hyunjin who started a stay counseling center to listen to stay’s problems. hyunjin who wrote if love is everything, then there is nothing left for me. hyunjin who trained really hard because he refused to be just a pretty face. hyunjin who said that he loves easily, gets hurt easily, regrets easily then repeats the process because isn’t that what life is about. hyunjin who said that the wounds caused by humans are also healed by humans. hyunjin who remains hopeful and loving despite it all. hyunjin who eats with his eyes closed. hyunjin who loves going to art museums. hyunjin who said that there isnt a team that loves each other as much as skz does. hyunjin who said that there should always be a Stray kids before his name. hyunjin who loves so freely and who i love. you grew up so well my hyune 💓 please be happy forever.

[aro-in-danyl]

S1E9 TimeTravel AU - Jayce enlists Jinx to blow up the HexGates. Cait and Vi bond over their siblings going crazy. Silco is tired.

Ekko arrives a bit earlier just as Jayce is shooting Viktor in the chest. Jayce gets sent back in time somehow from the combined power of the Z-Drive and the Commune's collective death.

Jayce's consciousness rockets back in time and splices with his younger self just as he's finished 'negotiating' with Silco. Still reeling from his Arcane induced-trauma and killing his partner as well as who knows how many people by proxy, he arrives half feral and about 99.7% convinced he's either hallucinating or in Runeterra's version of Hell.

Jayce, canonically suicidal, Talis comes to the conclusion that he needs to blow up the Hex Gates and that the resulting explosions will either jar him out of his hallucination or finally put him out his misery and let him join Viktor.

Unfortunately, after months spent in isolation in an apocalyptic future, Jayce has gained an unfortunate habit of talking to himself as he figures out problems.

And Silco has been standing there the whole time.

Silco reiterates that he's not going to give up Jinx and Jayce just goes 'I don't give a fuck about her anymore' and attempts to leave.

Silco is absolutely befuddled by Jayce's complete personality change, but refuses to show it. After raising Jinx, he's learned a few methods for bringing people back from the edge. And considering his investment in getting access to the Hex Gates, he is very unwilling to let Jayce just walk away.

Especially when Jayce mentions he's supposed to be dead.

----

Silco convinces Jayce he'll need an explosions expert and that he'd never be able to blow up all the Hex Gates by himself. Jayce holds resentment for Jinx blowing up his partner and pseudo-sister's mom but had calmed down enough to realize that if he was in the past, it would be better to be close to Jinx and prevent history from repeating itself.

Cue Silco and Sevika having to wrangle Arcane-ified Jayce and Shimmered Jinx and prevent them both from causing Hexplosions.

Jayce, dis-illusioned with the Council, decides it would be faster to just pull a Viktor and 'not ask for permission' before destroying Hextech. He tells Silco that if he's willing to help destroy the Hex Gates, he'll give him his nation of Zaun -- and pardon Jinx.

---

Elsewhere, in Piltover, Viktor has collapsed in the lab and entered a coma. There's a strange pattern on his chest and back. Almost as if he'd been shot with a very powerful energy blast from a very large hammer. But no injury, it was as if it had already been healed.

---

When Jinx kidnaps Cait and Vi, Jayce is the one to ask her to spare Cait and let her leave. But also, the one to stop Cait from shooting Jinx.

"Stand down, Sprout."

"What are you doing! She's killed people Jayce."

"So have I. And I need her." Jayce is still suffering hallucinations and time-travel-induced jetlag, so in the tense moment he forget when he is and admits to killing Salo and blowing a hole through Viktor's chest.

Caitlyn is more shocked by the latter, "You-you killed Viktor?" She liked Viktor as a friend, they got along despite their differences. "Why? Why would you do that!"

Jayce, dissociating and in complete sincerity, "Because I needed to save him."

Following that insane response, Jayce slowly walks toward Cait with a pleading look in his eye, "Jinx is going to help me destroy HexTech and then we can save everyone. And then I can focus on curing Viktor!"

Cait looks into Jayce's -her brother's- eyes and understands Vi a little bit more, her desperation to see the good in Jinx.

Caitlyn can see her brother in this stranger's eyes, but he feels miles away. She has no idea how she's going to reach him.

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[onceinawhilemoon]

sure, sherry. your brother would just let M walk free after he literally checked every single box under Ways to Antagonize Mycroft Holmes by: killing his agents, actively fucking with intelligence and national security operations, being a literal threat to the nation, and committing the cardinal sin of stalking and threatening to hurt an overprotective mama bear’s cub (aka YOU), a crime easily punished by imprisonment, death, or worse (see: otto richter). but sure… 

[skunkes]

i loooove when ocs unrealized development makes them feel like real people like no i dont know whether talon is genuinely attracted to women after years of both clinging to them for safety and years of putting them onto that untouchable idealized Perfect Protector Pedestal that must remain untainted by any bad experiences, so he doesn't even try to Be With any. He doesn't know either

[canisalbus]

I remember Machete has tiny feet, but exactly what size shoes does he wear?

.

[superbat-lmao]

Jason’s comms aren’t working when he gets to the thick of the fight. Tim is facing off against some sort of discredited scientist with a fancy gun that shoots energy instead of bullets. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

The night of a fucking Arkham breakout.

Just his luck.

So Jason jumps into the fight until another fight basically crashes into them.

Jason is hiding behind cover and trying to find a clear shot when he hears it. The laughter.

He’d been doing better, controlling the pit, but suddenly it feels like green floodlights have been turned on and his vision is swirling. Someone is shouting but he can’t hear them over the kill kill kill.

There’s a sudden silence and Jason finally has a second to realize that’s not a good thing and when he looks back at the fight from behind cover he realizes that discredited crazy scientist is holding Tim with the ray gun pressed to his head and Bruce and Dick are trying to talk him down while the Joker is out cold at their feet. Nightwing is restraining him but clearly doesn’t want to take his eyes off the man holding a gun to Red Robin’s head.

Batman appears to be speaking to the man as quiet and calmly as possible. Which is of course when Mr. Discredited spots Jason and tenses all over, trying to back away.

Jason stands, but stays where he is.

Batman and Nightwing seem shocked to see him, given how they both went still when he entered their periphery, and he realizes that he’s only in a domino and Tim must’ve been too busy to convey much over the comms.

Without his vocoder, Jason asks in the closest approximation of his old Robin voice, “What’s the gun even do?”

The guy turns towards him and Jason hopes Batman is able to get closer if he’s serving as the distraction. It’s been a while since he’s tried to act out this narrative, and never while fighting down the odd echoes in his head telling him the Joker is right there and chanting kill kill kill kill.

“It’s a permanent solution! It will fix everything! If I could just prove -“

“Hey man, if you’re looking for someone to use a permanent solution on, we got a spare rogue right here? Why pick one of the Bats?”

“It’s not about them! I didn’t,” he seems to finally realize who Nightwing is restraining and says, “Jesus is that the fucking Joker?”

Alright, so Jason’s finding himself hoping the guy is better at science than his observational skills, or whatever skill level allows Tim to walk away and not end up all glowy and gone.

“Yeah man, seriously. What do you have against the Bats and not the rogues?”

“Well it’s not like I had access to Arkham! But now that you say it-“

Batman was surging forward but the gun was no longer aimed at Red Robin. The body that Nightwing had restrained was engulfed in a flash of light and then gone.

The gun was out of the man’s hands and Red Robin was stumbling towards Nightwing. Jason felt numb. Maybe he was smiling. He had no clue what his face looked like.

“What the fuck were you thinking? Do you know what you just did?”

“What? The Joker’s dead and gone - permanent solution. What’s wrong with that?”

“Hood, if you’d fucking heard Oracle over comms you’d know the man was experimenting with dimension travel! Now we have to go retrieve the fucking Joker!”

“Oh shit.”

***

In a different warehouse, in a different universe, Bruce Wayne stands alone in a room lit by a single bulb. There’s a man tied to a chair in front of him covered in blood. There are teeth on the ground.

A bloodied and stumbling man covered in white paint and an exaggerated smile flashes into the room. He’s looking about, trying to get a grasp on his surroundings. He sees Wayne and grins.

“Hello, Brucie. Fancy seeing you here!”

“How did you make it past my guards?”

“What? Oh, you’d have to ask the Bats. Seen any ultra-serious assholes in spandex come through here? Anyways, what’re you up to? Beating a man to death?”

“Getting one to talk. As I’m assuming I’ll have to make you do in a moment. Nightwing!”

The last part was a shouted order and a smiling Dick Grayson came into the room moving with the grace of a shark, fluid and predatory.

“We’ve got unexpected company. Maybe a witness. Could you take him?”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

“Nightwing? Are you telling me Nightwing is Dick Grayson? Where the hell am I?”

“You know his name?”

“Where I’m from Nightwing is one of the Bats.”

At the blank look the men’s faces he adds, “You know, the fucking vigilantes of Gotham. Running around pretending to be heroes. Batman? Nightwing? The other little birdies?”

Bruce Wayne goes rigid at the mention of others.

“What other birds?”

“Oh you know, Robin! There’s been at least three more of those goddamn brats since I killed the second one. And what a pleasure it will be to-“

He’s cut off by Dick Grayson grabbing him under the collar and hauling him off his feet.

“You ever had a crazy like this before, Boss?”

There was something cold and calculating on Bruce’s face.

“No. But I think I have an idea of where he came from. Could you pass me your piece?”

One of Dick’s hands reached behind him and removed the gun he had secured.

“You’re telling me that where you’re from you killed Robin?”

All he got was a wheeze as a response. There was a frantic look in the man’s eyes.

“Well, how fortunate you’re here now.”

There was a single, silenced, shot.

“Can you handle the body? I’m almost done here. Then we can go find the boys and update them. Take a blood sample before you’re done.”

“Sure thing. See you back at the manor.”

“Be safe, son.”

[toddtakefive]

thinking about todd and his resolve toward… not quite isolation, but being alone in a room full of people again. he goes along to the study room to sit on his own and do his homework, he sits at the poets table and follows along with what’s being said while keeping quiet, he goes to the meetings at all but doesn’t necessarily contribute (in fact, if you watch him when cameron is telling the story ‘from camp in sixth grade’, you can see that he recognizes it before any of the other poets but doesn’t voice it until they all have). he’s not alone, necessarily, if you want to get technical about it, he’s just lonely, and he’s generally okay with that. he doesn’t have friends and that’s fine, he doesn’t participate in class and that’s fine, he doesn’t have a relationship with his family and that’s fine—he could live without any real connection and he’d have been, more or less, fine.

the thing about when he says “i can take care of myself just fine!” is that he isn’t really wrong, you can infer that he’s been doing it his entire life anyway, it’s that ‘taking care of yourself’ isn’t the same thing as really living or being happy. todd’s an introvert, certainly, and even as he gets closer to the group he defaults to sitting quietly in the background, but he’s also denying himself community out of fear not introversion. todd isn’t friendless because he’s an introvert, although that definitely plays a part, he’s friendless because he pushes anyone that might want his company away. if anyone has every wanted for his attention in the first place. (neil’s unwavering interest in him is unique (even when it comes to the rest of the poets, who are fine with todd coming along and joining the group, but aren’t really hellbent on him being there in the beginning) and his refusal to accept it is a direct result of being so lonely growing up.)

there’s obviously something to be said about the implications of his parents neglect, and the more than likely fact that he grew up friendless, and how those both play a part in in him being so skilled at dodging social interaction/being so avoidant of it, but by the time we see him in the movie he’s all but accepted his fate as being alone his entire life. he’s already accepted being the family disappointment, and he’s already accepted he’ll never amount to anything, and he obviously doesn’t like it, but he’d have managed living with that knowledge without the confirmation that it was all wrong. would he have been miserable? almost certainly. but he’d have managed. he’d done it for that long already, anyhow.