#something something in CL raph failed as donnie's protector and leo failed as his guide...

[qoldenskies]

Going crazy thinking about if the curse had chosen one of the other brothers to be inflicted upon (probably not because Donnie’s the one that explicitly fucked with Witchtown tradition however unintentionally but let me dream) and how the other brothers would have been broken down in turn. I feel like it would affect Leo and Donnie the most viscerally because so much of their self worth is based off what they can give to other people—these boys will literally run themselves ragged trying to please everyone around them and then be like “by Talos this can’t be happening” when their own mental and physical health starts to suffer for it, so the curse preying on that….oof. Especially if it was Leo who pretty much already feels worthless next to the rest of his family.

Raph it would probably target by taking advantage of his need to protect everyone or his need to feel like he’s doing the right thing—maybe by forcing him to throw himself into more and more dangerous situations in order to feel like he’s sufficiently “helped” someone, or just preying off of his fears of letting his family down—and then Mikey’s harder for me to pin down, but I imagine something preying on his natural peacemaker tendencies would be a real kick in the teeth.

I am thinking in a most evil way.

ive gotten a few asks about this concept so here's a good time to mention IVE TALKED ABOUT IT HERE!!! :D

i am absolutely certain of how mikey and leo's situations would end, but with raph's i havent been super sure. like with mikey he would figure it out and go fix the problem, and leo's ninpo would break just like donnie's did, but its less related to self-blame and more related to this defensive anger. HE'S tearing away because he fully believes they're horrible and untrustworthy, and he's hidden away every little bit of vulnerability he has. even in healing this would be a problem, because he would have a nasty fight response AND HE WOULD HIDE THE NOSEBLEEDS. knowing the time limit this could be extremely dire!!!

i enjoy exploring the idea that leo was just as susceptible to something like this, although he'd react in the complete opposite way to how donnie did in CL. they'd definitely twin with the "deep down i know i've always deserved it and it was just a matter of time" perspective, though, although i think leo would be very unwilling to admit it. and someone also mentioned the idea of him not believing them when the curse breaks because he'd think its another part of the con (the gaslighting wouldn't be as nasty without leo himself at the helm, so things would be different here!!) which is another layer of owie

the idea of a "leo gets CL'd" au has been bounced around a bit and i always enjoy thinking about it. although rip to all the cool metaphors that are so donnie specific ..... i have no idea how the disaster twins would turn out here because theyre extremely soft in CW forward but donnie being so passive is a huge reason for that, so who knows.