#youve repaid the favour now

[suckinitup]

ir read thsi earlier and i keep trying to reread to respond but theyre. theyre so. waauaghg. whgagahgah. gbg.

Hi here to ask nhw quastion again :3 ik ashe and the wards have Problems once ashe gets detrickstered because theyre all triggering each other and dying horribly and messily and its miserable but ! microphone emoji. do you have thoughts about how that would work specifically between virion and ashe

- @suckinitup

(also ik i havent rbed the other thing yet so yee the suck tag works for now akdhskdh i am Between Internet Names atm. and ofc i chose a url thats hard to nickname 😔)

HI!! GOD. YEAH MAN. YEAH I FUCKING DO. literally their dynamic post trickster is something i think about so much. awesome question to ask me. augh. okay. bullet pointing this for now bcos i'm on my phone....

>post-muse ashe & virion have a shared understanding of both.... enacting & witnessing close violence? in a way that nobody else really does. dakota and wibby have been through some fucked up shit!!! they have seen and been victim of and done some incredibly awful things. of course they have. they still don't understand it on as personal a level as virion does-- virion, hiding and watching his family die one by one, virion, killing capes with their own powers. (whenever i think abt virion's stint as a vigilante i think abt taylor saying it's more personal to kill a cape with her power than with a gun. perhaps it's even more personal to kill a cape with their own powers.) the intimacy of violence & the feeling of being nothing except a vessel for it & not being really sure who or what you even are anymore is something that. ashe struggles so much with, & virion Gets. he isn't, like... sympathetic? they're not wailing and crying and virion isn't pitying him. he's just... easier to talk to, sometimes. he isn't.... loudly emotional. he gets it.

>virion also is very quiet and always moves deliberately and with intention. he is like..... as opposite the trickster as possible, in terms of physicality. this-- ashe is triggered easily. wibby's eternal taut vibrating anxious energy, dakota's quick movements n loudness & such... the body language there is. similar, sometimes. it's bad when he catches it out of the corner of his eye, or feels it behind him. virion is absolutely nothing like the trickster. it's calming just being around him. (well. when you're someone he likes.) & being able to relax that constant tension that ashe still has. leading into:

>ashe doesn't touch his hair for weeks, months, maybe, after he gets back. because of. obvious reasons. (i don't remember if an actual post got made abt it but we came to the conclusion that while the trickster loves styling ashe's hair & playing with it like doll hair he does Not have the commitment or attention span for taking care of long hair. frequently he makes him do that part himself. drops his control every so often & throws him a brush & is like. clean it. ashe getting jerked back to awareness sitting very very very scared and alone and small and brushing dried blood and meat out of his hair & braiding it with shaking fingers knowing that he's only lucid as long as it takes to do this. every time it happens he's in a different place and wearing something different.) so like.... when he gets back. he has a really hard time taking care of his own hair. and also obviously a very hard time letting anyone else touch it. it gets tangled and matted and greasy & he's ashamed of it & can't do anything about it & can't bring himself to cut it off and lose one more thing that brought him joy to the trickster. it's virion who eventually helps him with it. it takes so long-- both of them sitting fully dressed in the shower for hours, ashe trying so hard not to shake apart virion going through most of a bottle of conditioner to carefully tease the knots out. virion who doesn't like talking a lot and is always quiet trying to keep up a soft running one-sided conversation the whole time so ashe knows who's behind him. (they tried mirrors and mirrors didn't go well. the trickster had a lot of mirrors.) u know. it doesn't get done in a day or even a couple weeks & sometimes virion accidentally brushes the shell of an ear or the base of his neck in a way that sets off bad sensory memory & they have to take a panicking badly break.

>re: their Problems specifically. another reason why they click like this post-muse is because. virion isn't worried about him hurting him. he and ashe are on a level playing field, when it comes to powers. like, obviously he doesn't. think. anything would happen. & ashe absolutely refuses to use his power anyway. but there's an equality there that lets ashe breathe a little easier too. and muse never hurt imprint the way that he did will or dakota. so virion's hangups when it comes to ashe are 1. he fucking Looks Like Muse. even though his body language is different and he looks like a different person with his hair back down in loose black layers & he doesn't have those orange threads around him. virion sol most paranoid guy alive. he tenses seeing him out of the corner of his eye sometimes & wakes up to see the silver mess of his hair spilling out from under the covers (u know ashe sleeps 100% under the blankets. how is he breathing under there.) & has to breath slowly for a couple minutes and watch the rise and fall of the ashe blanket lump's breath and run through every scenario in which this is muse under the comforter and not ashe and why and how it's incredibly unlikely that this would be muse etc. 2. he is afraid that. ashe/muse will hurt william and dakota. it's irrational. he's spent the past year afraid that muse will hurt william and dakota. he's paralyzed sometimes because he thinks if i leave the room and i leave will and ashe alone in there i'll come back and he'll be dead. & then also especially in the first couple months back there were. a handful of instances when virion was startled and caught off guard and ashe is up against the wall with an arm across his throat or caught in a lock before either of them realize. & it is bad for Both of them because holy shit ashe is panicking and frozen and not breathing at being manhandled like that and he's going to blame himself for this so badly in an hour because obviously it's his fault and he should have known better and of course he's a threat to them. & of course virion has to drop the grip and run away and lock himself in the bathroom out of horror because holy shit he almost just hurt ashe he almost just killed him. he would have killed him. (he wouldn't have.) he hurt him.etc etc. etc.

>ashe knows how v thinks abt him sometimes & understands it & it doesn't make him feel Very miserable because he does get it.but it makes him a little miserable sometimes. but virion's still the one who bumps their hands together so he can copy his power and float the remote over. before the trickster, ashe used to play games on his switch on the couch & virion would sit on the couch back and watch him (v hasn't really played games since his trigger event. all the ones he used to like are covered in the Ooze now.) & it would be their weird quiet bonding thing. and now virion's the one who sits near ashe on the couch and starts up animal crossing & ashe watches him play. (it takes a while for him to get his fine motor control back. he's shaky.)

>givingthis one its own bullet point because it's important post-muse ashe has a really fucking big mental block w/ using his power. he's terrified to he refuses to he Will Not. he doesn't want to hurt anyone again. virion keeps stealing his power & using it for the same shit he always uses (mundane daily little tasks) in a very pointed look. see? it's not inherently evil. it's okay. i'm not feeling threatened by what u can do right now. see? way.