OK. You people want more Roathe posting. I am going to dump thoughts.
The poem. In my eyes he perfectly fits this little poem.
"If I cannot not wanted, then I will be needed. If I cannot be needed, let me be used until there is nothing left of me."
He lets the drifter drag him into situations. He phrases them as deals - you do this for him, he does something for you. Even if he doesn't want what his end of the bargain would be - see that one descendia conversation where if you're not to 21 completions and he'll basically beg you to stop because he knows enough and does not want to know more.
Roathe being a yes-man though he disguises it as bargains, as deals. Roathe breaking down when he doesn't know what he's supposed to do or why you continue to want to help him. Roathe begging you to stop because he realises he's in over his head and doesn't want it. Not knowing quite how to tell you he doesn't want it. Roathe not quite knowing how to explain why. He doesn't know how to accept that he's allowed to be upset and have his own opinions and even phrases it in a way that is almost detached.
Roathe, possibly dissociating when he's overwhelmed, because distancing himself from his emotions is the only way he can keep doing what other people want of him. He wants to be good. To be wanted. To be needed. He needs it like he needs the air he breathes. Trying to take back his agency and convince himself he has a right to be angry and upset and hurt but not sure how to display those feelings without being the way that he always has been. A cold, threatening weapon. Like the blade of his tail he has been honed to a point to be useful. Because what is he if he's not useful. If he's not impressive and ready to do whatever dirty task is requested of him and come back stained in blood and muck.
Maybe he enjoys it. Maybe he enjoys the tasks of violence and tearing things apart - but is that because it's what he wants or what Nitokh and later the Drifter (via the gemini skin) wants of him? Is it the serum, the way the infestation twisted him, making him crave violence? Does he crave it or is it a need or is he just letting himself be USED.
He says he lies to himself. The lie was the weapon he excelled at and he turned it upon himself and "Oh, how I bled" - did he want it.
Roathe standing at the doorway waiting for the drifter to collect him, blood around his claws, blood in his mouth and he cannot shift the metallic tang of regret no matter how many times he bites his own tongue to convince himself it's his own blood he tastes. He is a killing machine and likely hasn't been seen as a person - stay with me - in a while. He wants to just be a person it's why he likes Bird 3. He can just be himself. How much of what we as the player see is just the persona he puts on to try to convince us he is Useful and how much of it is truth? Has he lied to everyone so well he's convinced himself that in order to be worth something to these people he must be sharp and antagonistic. Which isn't the truth at all.
Roathe curled up at night because all he is, is a soldier. Roathe trying to war with that fact that he deserves to be a person and forgiven for the things he did to survive. Roathe not understanding the concept of mutual love - not really. He understands ownership and sex and devotion but love, his hands would shake as the drifter held them softly because he wants so much to prove to them his own devotion that he does not realise it's their way of proving their own. He doesn't know how to be held softly. To be truly tender. To be kissed as not an ask of violence pending but to be kissed out of love. Roathe not understanding the concept of consent because he wants to do whatever it takes to make you want him. To prove he's something worth wanting, because he doesn't believe that he is. Roathe down on his knees clutching the drifter's pants and pleading silently to be something to them and they're looking at him like he's the one who put the stars in the sky for them to discover.
Roathe needs to be useful or he will be disposed of. Fearing for his life now that there is no chance of the kuva saving him. He is not done living it. And at the drop of a hat, if he ceases to be useful, he may no longer have a life to live.
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