#NO REGRETS!!! I LOVE THIS HEADCANON EVEN IF ITS EATING AWAY AT MY MENTAL PSYCHE BC THE DELUSIONS GO HARD

[tojisun]

THE SKULL HELMET?? GOD THIS IS SO BIKER!SIMON

[drifloonz]

Hi! I'm usually not one to send asks all that often, but what the heck. I'm kinda curious about your thoughts on something too since I've seen a lot of differing opinions.

Steven. Obviously Miki's accident and Missingno annihilated his sanity, but I feel like Mike's ghost also haunts him. Not in a malicious way, but just by existing. He just really wants to understand why Steven had to do that to him but whenever he attempts to reach out Steven flips due to guilt. I've seen someone's headcanon where Steven is this cold-hearted bastard who never cared about Mike, even as kids, and idk. It just doesn't sit right with me. Nothing wrong with it I'm just wondering how many other people share that sentiment vs Steven feeling immense guilt at being so blinded by rage that he'd murder his own brother and basically sell his soul.

Sorry if this is too much, I tend to ramble 😅

HI!! you were my actual first ask but i didn't see this one at first until i was writing the other one and out of the corner of my eye saw this and went "wait a minute." funny how that happens.

ANYWAYS i can definitely do that for you and ALSO do not apologize i ramble so much as well its fine. this'll be so long i apologize so im putting most of it under a read more !

cw for Bad mental health, strangling/murder obviously, and also some suicidal ideation ( which is warned for in the paragraph its shown in ).

i think steven just sort of like... blocks it off and tries to forget everything about that ever happened, but obviously, you cant forget that stuff that easily. it haunts him but he tries to push it as far back to his head as he can and he tries to forget SOOO hard... he's in intense denial. i like the art of him immediately regretting it but i think he'd just stare at mikes corpse for a few minutes and then just be like. scarred by the imagery, and it'd make him breathe heavily and make his eyes widen in regret and he'd just keep staring for a few minutes. but he'd just run away afterward and it just burns into his mind sometimes, making him remember and regret it.

as someone with mental illness of Horribly Bad amounts, when someone you trust like that betrays you or you believe them to betray you ( which, its the ladder for steven and mike, mike obviously didn't intend to kill miki whether or not you believe he initiated the trade with slightly malicious/selfish intent or not ) it does bad damage to your psyche. especially when the murder of someone you care for is involved, which makes the thinking in steven's brain go "oh mike murdered miki. intentionally or not he's the reason she's dead." and then that makes him very upset towards mike mixed with someone he sorta looked up to betray him like that. he just regressed hard and went thru a depressive spiral for a whole year, having the thing he most loved taken away from him so suddenly almost entirely without his control, and then he got so tired of bottling it up he snapped ( lol ) and killed mike.

suicidal thoughts cw for this paragraph: and also during the 1 year without miki, steven obviously went through a major depressive episode and a sort of downwards spiral that just got worse and worse, and i don't think he wanted to get better. this is heavy but i sort of think he just hoped neglecting his self-care would eventually kill him and reunite him with his miki again, which is all he wanted. he didn't eat much if at all and he just sat in front of miki's grave, sometimes for days. he made a bed out of his misery, because it felt comfortable in a morbid way. if he died, he'd reunite with her, because at that point he didn't know anything could bring her back and all he wanted was her. it felt better than just... getting over it, or trying to. people convinced him to take better care of himself, but he still barely did anything past his necessities. this didn't help his mental state at all, as you can probably tell, which also fueled his hatred towards mike after the incident more and more. he made himself suffer this much due to an accident he caused, and he used that as further reasoning to dislike him, even though that was all self-inflicted.

i also like to think they didn't hate each other genuinely before this - mike never genuinely hated steven, but steven after the incident probably had Many complex feelings towards mike, mostly negative. but before the incident, they definitely had arguments and spats, and sometimes one would say something that would genuinely hurt the other ( usually steven did this to mike more than viceversa imo but both happened ) which both of them also probably bottled up and didnt talk about a lot ( although mike'd definitely apologize if he ever went too far - steven, i feel like would be too guilty and nervous to apologize ) which also sort of exploded in steven's face after miki died in front of him. those 3 things mixing together did not make a good combo for him.

the interp of missingno needing souls or steven at least thinking it does is fun but i like to think it never did and steven was just going through a horrendous downward spiral, and he went back home bc... where else would he go, he'd still have to pack the rest of his stuff to leave if he intended to, and seeing mike so vulnerable flipped a switch in steven's mind and made him just go [ steven voice ] "You know what would be funny?" ( worst way to describe that but u get it ). this can also arguably be missingnos influence or missingno possessing steven, which i feel is more plausible then it needing a sacrifice. but i think it just probably inserts or pushes forward steven's intrusive and aggressive thoughts, which i like to believe he always had especially after the incident, but never this bad. and then he just did it bc the thoughts wouldn't leave him alone and his mind convinced himself into it. even though he already had miki and didn't need to do that, it felt... fitting, to him. it was satisfying for a moment, especially because i like the interpretation that his mind warped mikes dying expression into him looking like he's laughing at steven ( explaining his hyplull sprites when hes being strangled being so weird ), until his mind realized the damage he just did, seeing mikes glazed over expression that was very much not smiling or laughing, and he went "oh. shit" in his head probably. his mind couldn't even comprehend what he just did. it'd take a lot of processing, and he didn't even want to process any of that, so after staring for a bit he just walked away from the scene and escaped to never be seen again.

i also like the interpretation that steven thought mike didn't actually care that much about miki dying or even did the trading thing on purpose - he clearly didn't kill her on purpose, but steven was so blinded by his own muddled emotions and rage and he needed an outlet, someone to blame, so he couldn't see it any other way and CONVINCED himself that mike did that on purpose. also because admittedly in canon mike saying that he needed a charizard implies he already had a charmeleon but thats muddy territory and probably just slightly a plot hole. but if that was the case i bet steven was like "... just evolve the charmeleon?" "but that'd take too looooong!" or something like that. mike is impatient as hell fr fr mans got adhd

if you want a good take on this and havent already, read faulty on ao3 . i hate ao3 for various reasons and only go there when im Parched for content. but goddamn that fic has the best characterization of the two imo, especially of this dynamic of them specifically along with their other relationships ( namely daisy and reds relationship to steven and mike too ) - steven even sometimes goes through like being slightly better around mike and then it all drops when he realizes she died for nothing, and mike didnt even finish the dex. fucking phenomenal fic tbh i love this characterization of them sm. a lot of this summarizes how i think they'd both act after the incident

____

as for the haunting... yeaaa. i think steven's just way too scarred and confused and scared to even allow mike to properly reach out, if steven even realizes it. i like to think he's paranoid and overthinks so he probably goes "oh god what if its mike" and then woopsy daisy! It is mike. and he just tries to pretend its nothing so bad and to ignore and avoid him because he's scared and confused and it makes him think far too long about his emotions on the situation that he was intentionally bottling up and pushing to the back of his head.

he also probably would think mike would try to revenge kill him because that's just how he thinks he himself would react if mike did that to him. Which makes him regret things further. he sleeps less due to this, usually on the defensive even though mike has no intent to harm him. i don't think mike ever had any room in his heart to ever hate steven. he's just confused or slightly upset at worst at anything steven's said or done to him... mike probably doesn't even really blame him, but he does just hope he's ok and prob lets out a sigh of relief when he finds steven, who is still a mess going through many things, and also murderous now, but he's still alive! which is a win in mikes book i guess!

he probably just tries to pretend mike isn't actually there or actively get rid of him, or he wouldn't even notice mike is haunting him in the first place, depending on how obvious the signs of the haunting are. his house is already sort of run down and haunted as fuck anyways, but in the back of his head he knows somethings off.

i also ... like the interp that steven took all of mikes team bc nobody was there to care for them anymore. so maybe when steven notices he sends out mikes blastoise or some of his other party members and hopes to god mike leaves him alone to go bother his own pokemon who he hasn't seen for years. after all, he basically never let mikes mons out of their ball, and even considered donating them all to professor oak or something ( probably just.. leaving the pokeballs out infront of the lab one day ) but that felt wrong, so he always kept them on hand. sometimes feeding them and not much else. mike probably had a ghost type ( gengar ) who can conveniently probably see him, and mike definitely would try to communicate to steven further through said ghost type. and he'd just be like. "gdi why did i send out the ghost type" in his mind.

miki can definitely see mikes ghost. mike is also like "OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU. WAIT YOUR ALIVE????" in his head, but he quickly gets used to it. he has no idea what the hell a missingno is or how/why she's alive but he just stops questioning it. they sometimes share a glance and nod. mike will sometimes avert his gaze from her due to guilt though. miki doesn't seem to care or hold resent, probably because imo 'M ( however you want to spell Missingno Miki ) isn't actually miki. it's missingno sort of possessing, haunting, or keeping miki's dead corpse alive, but her soul is no longer there anymore. at least most of it Isn't there. due to that she's a lot more emotionless. even if miki's soul was in there though, she would not hold genuine resent. if miki's soul was in there she'd probably be scared of steven ( specifically yk S!3V3N ) tbh

i definitely think steven has hallucinations sometimes, usually of miki or mikes corpses, usually much more horrifying looking than they actually were, so this doesn't help!

steven overall is just on the fence and regrets it all but doesn't even wanna think abt or interact w mike but if he somehow became more okay with it, he might start leaving mike notes or something. or talking to himself, assuming mike might overhear. small steps like that. and maybe if mike is able to sometimes steven just passes out on the couch or smth and mike covers him in a blanket while hes asleep and stevens just like. "That was not there when I fell asleep." in his head. stuff like that.

also mike might switch the tv channels or just Project an image onto it somehow. and steven just. squints at it. i think it'd be nice if they eventually got used to eachothers presence again and just silently hung around eachother. mike really wants to look after steven after seeing the state he's in and how much he didn't really help steven effectively when mike was alive. for an example probably, like, nudging the bathroom door open and turning on the bathwater and trying to make steven take a mfing bath and practice self care for once and steven just begrudgingly sighs and goes to do it since he might as well. and mike just walks away and is very smug about it. he Will make his little brother practice self care again and he's made that his personal goal. steven walking into the kitchen and seeing various pots and pans floating around along with a mess on the floor ( mikes getting used to his levitation powers still </3 ) and he just squints his eyes and leaves and comes back and theres a meal on the counter

steven making pancakes and he just holds out a plate for mike and he just takes it. and steven just sees the plate floating and goes "yea thats about what i expected" or smth. its cute, Although i cant see that happening very easily unfortunately </3 steven is very broken and very much Not wanting to think abt mike. so itd take very long for him to warm back up or even be ok with him possibly existing arnd him. but this'd prob happen eventually if mike is persistent, and by god, is mike persistent. its what got him into this mess in the first place.

i can write so much abt these depressed ex champions fr!!! anyways thank you for reading sorry for writing so much words. i hope this feeds you enough content for the next winter. i hope literally any of this made sense bc i just sorta typed my thought processes until it looked legible - wispy