#accidental killings

[dropintomanga]

The Accidental Trauma of the Negators (Undead Unluck)

The past few years, the word trauma has been thrown around a lot. Everyone's going through something. While one can argue who is suffering more, there's one thing that's certain - we still don't know how to talk about trauma in a healthy manner that heals everyone involved.

And I see this in the case of the Negators in Yoshifumi Tozuka's Undead Unluck.

Undead Unluck starts off with a young girl named Fuuko Izumo wanting to kill herself after causing a lot of death around her. She curses how unlucky she is until a mysterious person named Andy shows up to save her. Andy is someone who is looking to die as he is living a virtually-immortal existence. He believes Fuuko is the key to dying and decides to drag her on an adventure that would end up joining an organization made up of people with unique powers like themselves called Negators.

The Negators are individuals that have abilities that negate certain rules placed by the God of their world and by beings known as Uma. These abilities usually start with an "Un-" prefix, so Undead and Unluck are on the list. How those abilities are activated can be random, but there's consequences. Once Negators awaken to their power, they end up causing tragedy to those they love and most of the time, they kill them.

I'll talk about 3 Negators in particular.

Fuuko Izumo (Unluck) - Due to her ability to generate extremely bad luck on those she loved the most, her parents were killed in an airplane crash when she was 8 and with them. Three years later, Fuuko kissed her grandfather and he ended up dying some time after

Tatiana (Untouchable) - Her Negator ability activated at the age of 5 and destroyed an entire town as anything near her would be incinerated, including her parents.

Chikara Shigeno (Unmove) - When his Negator ability activated, he accidentally caused his parents to not be able to move by looking directly at them in front a speeding truck. Hence their imminent deaths.

You can guess why I want to talk about those 3 in particular - because they accidentally killed their parents.

In mental health, there have been cases of people living with mental illness who killed their family members. While this may not be shocking to some, it's still harboring to hear and a risque subject to talk about. Years ago, while working the front desk at my local NAMI, I took a phone call from a woman who was looking to inquire about what to do regarding her brother, who killed their parents. She was in tears and I said I understood and transferred her over to the helpline.

I recently listened to two stories about people who accidentally took the lives of others. One story focused on a woman who ran over a homeless person near an expressway. While she was mourning the loss and processing what she did, everyone around her was like "Oh, that person was just an outcast to society. You don't need to mourn them." The woman didn't know how to take that. The second story was about a man who was struggling with alcohol addiction for years. Things came to a head when he killed a small group of family members while drunk driving. While the man is making amends through advocacy work against drunk driving, he can't help but wonder if he will truly be forgiven for what he did.

What's scary is when you accidentally kill someone, it's easy to let the trauma define your entire identity. Fuuko, Tatiana and Chikara were like this before meeting Andy. They were afraid that their powers couldn't help anyone. They felt that they couldn't redeem themselves no matter what. If the 3 of them can't get close to anyone anymore, then so be it.

Thankfully, all three have managed to find ways to cope and grow. Fuuko realizes how much her power can save lives and knows how much her parents loved her. The best thing Fuuko can do was live and protect those she cares about just like her parents once did. Tatiana felt the same after Fuuko befriends her without judgement of her past actions. Chikara admits that his parents want him to live first and foremost while being kind to those who need it.

I will not lie that society will always judge anything violent in a black or white manner. I just wish that those who know they did something devastating are treated with compassion by more than just people similar to them. In Undead Unluck, the Negators only get sympathy from fellow Negators. The God who "blesses" them only sees them as pawns to be played with.

It's okay if you can't forgive yourself as long as you don't fall into total despair. Try to make the world around you a better place. If you can't, then definitely make your inner world a better place. And definitely find a community that you can feel safe and at peace with. This is why I appreciate Undead Unluck and understand why it was made a big deal at Anime NYC in 2023. Community (and some professional help) goes a long way to heal the trauma.

And more importantly, try to honor the victims as best you can. Do good for their sake.

There's absolutely no good card for this at all, but shrinking yourself to the abyss and wanting to die like some Negators have felt is not a good answer to live up to any grave mistakes you made. Do the UN-believable and prove to the awful voice that unfairly blames you that you are so much more than what you did.

If you are or know someone who accidentally hurt or killed someone, the Hyacinth Fellowship is a place to find help and I totally recommend visiting their website at: https://hyacinthfellowship.org/

[mothmothwoth]

Found myself strangely obsessed with Skizz and Lizzie… there are apparently brain chemicals in there

[nerdanel01]

I know it’s not their fault, but Rook thinking they’re disrupting the ritual and instead accidentally unleashing two OP blighted gods is like. Almost Peregrin-Took-waking-the-Balrog levels of tomfoolery.

[fincherly]

my gf was looking through wesker's wiki page (as you do) and sent me this

and i lost my shit bc it just seems like they're looking at him like girls look at a weird bug

[lazylittledragon]

so how about that durge

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[ohposhers]

i am of the firm belief grandma Rosiepuff was a smoke show in her younger years Bruce had to get his heart throb genes SOMEWHERE

[anywhere-anywhere]

magic mountain

[dogb1scuit]

decided to try and make bill cipher from @wolfythewitch 's gravity fowls au and i think it turned out well!!

[siltyriver]

I am such a slut for Danny having supernatural strength and being able to kill someone with a single slap because he’s used to fighting ghosts who are built Sturdy (and literally can’t die, that is very helpful in a sparing partner) so he has to learn such meticulous control when he moves to Gotham where he starts regularly getting into scuffles with humans who think he’s an easy target (he looks like he has the sturdiness of a wet newspaper) and the whole time he’s more stressed about not drawing the Bats attention by being too good or accidentally killing someone so he has to walk that fine line of acting like a scrawny loser and dipping out at his first chance without being clocked as a meta.

Danny, laying on the ground and getting kicked repeatedly by a thug: *tries to angle himself so the guy can kick out a knot in his back*

Danny: *deadpan* oh, ow, stop that hurts, oof

Robin, watching from the rooftop and recognizing the dramatics from the Supers: father there is a meta

Batman, also watching and having flashbacks to Clark’s earlier days: *so so tired and already mentally getting the adoption paperwork ready*

[vebokki]

go go demon gang

[toughbunnyforever]

child menace vs. well of patience

de-age quirk scenarios are always so funny bc little kacchan's such a brat lol

[makanidotdot]

[mouth pressed directly onto the microphone] yes i drew this part of the book again when malfurion frees tyrande from a trap and she's unconscious and fucked up and grody but is otherwise OK and it's the first time he's held her with his physical body in years and he cries bc she's ok and he's a huge baby and it's very sweet

[spacedace]

Thinking about the untapped comedic potential of the Batfam explaining to new hero in Gotham & literal ghost Phantom that they don't kill people.

And Danny, professional menace, responding with "What? You guys have a problem with dead people or something?" In the most serious, insulted voice he can manage just to watch them squirm.

(Jason is having a great time)

[ghost-bxrd]

Just rewatched the scene in Gotham Knights where Dick tries to have a heart-to-heart with Jason on a rooftop and Jason, true to character, shoves him lightly because he doesn’t do emotions, thank you.

And Dick, the dramatic queen, pretends to fall off the roof.

Honestly honey, you out of everyone should know not to scare people with that 😭😂

[tyrannosarahsrex8]

Local dorito tries to scare a depressed wet cat of a man, gets snapped in half

Like. Oh? You don’t want to admit that you killed your dimension? What to Feel Their Fear As They Died? That’s what you get for making Mable sad.