#only minimal control over. and that makes ot all so complicated. but it matters so much.

[ziracona]

I guess what should be considered with Marie is whether your character starts a relationship with her because of their shared past drawing him back to her, or because he just feels bad for what part of him did to her. I don't know about Marie, but the idea of someone hooking up with me purely out of pity would be awful, worse than a rejection. No one is obligated to start a romance they don't want to soothe someone else's pain. Of course it's all up to you and how you're playing him, godspeed

TuT everyone seems to hear my quandary as “Am I responsible for this girl’s suffering and thus indebted to get with her to make her better.”

That’s really not it at all. I’m not responsible. I didn’t do that shit. And none of this has ever been based on pity. There’s certainly a level of justice to it and what’s right vs wrong in motivation, but fairness and pity ain’t the same at all.

It’s not “Do I have a responsibility to get with Marie?” (Read: do I owe it to her to romance her to make up for what a part of me did?) — its “Do I have a responsibility to get with Marie?” (Read: is this my dead wife?)

There’s a lot to consider. But. Idk why everyone seems to hear my distress as “Should I pretend to be in love with this girl so I can right a cosmic wrong and heal her, because I’m sort of a part of what did it to her and I feel bad?” and it distress me

I’m not a bad person TuT I don’t just think that way.

It’s “If this is a part of me’s dead wife, who he destroyed and abandoned, am I to me Izanagi? And am I Izanagi to her? Because if so, that means she’s my wife. It means I’m a part of the person who abandoned her, but more than that it means I have a chance to be a better me. It means I have a ‘for better or worse’ and even if I don’t remember the me who made that vow, we are the same person, and that matters to me. I take it serious. I wouldn’t abandon my wife. If we are Izanagi and Izanami to each other, that is more important to me than my character’s preferences or former plans. That’s my wife. I have a responsibility to her, and to myself. I have a chance to end the cycle of abuse. I have a chance to save someone. And even if I don’t remember her, and don’t remember making that promise, if we are to each other those two, it doesn’t matter, and it’s my wife memory or no. And I would put everything else aside for that. That isn’t pity. It’s responsibility sure but not in a begrudging way. In a desperately important choice of love. I would chose the spouse a part of me vowed to love over everything, because they’re me even if I can’t remember, and even if I never do. I would love and become who I need to be, because if that’s my wife, it matters, and it will always matter. The question is if I have that responsibility, if I have that bond. Because I don’t know if I am Izanagi to her. And I know my thoughts and my answers, but you can’t tell someone they love you. And I don’t know if I am to her, and if she does, and I don’t know how to know. So I don’t know what to do. It’s about what I want and who I am being tied to a determinate framework, and not having the other half of the equation, and if I have to guess, trying to figure out what the right thing is to do.