#cus riz basically never taking stress would be so busted

[the-cooler-newton]

man there's something so fantastic about the combination of Riz's reliable talent mechanic and Riz being able to take stress for his friends.

Like this boy has spent his whole life stressed. He has molded himself into someone who gets perfect grades and balances all the things happening in his life and never lets a plate drop, because that's who he needs to be. If he isn't, he lets his mother down, or risks losing his friends, or he doesn't get a scholarship and can't go to college. He is so comfortable under the familiar weight of his own stress that he mechanically responds to it differently.

But. When it's someone else's ass on the line, when it's his friends, when it's Kristen's presidential campaign or Gorgug's artificer class... then it gets to him. He stresses about them in a way that he doesn't stress about himself. Stressing about them weighs on him more concretely, it puts disadvantage on his rolls, it builds up in his heart and in his head. But he does it anyway because of course he does.

They mean more to him than anything.