raul tejada. another character where it's hard to decide what direction to lead him in.
i personally like to imagine creating a safe(r) place for him 2 settle where he can provide for people and feel a sense of community and worth. he clearly cares about people under all that detachment !
Hi! Greek theology nerd here! I'm about to make this even more soul crushing for everyone. I'm sorry, in advance.
Anteros was written about by Plato, stating:
When he is with the lover, both cease from their pain, but when he is away then he longs as he is longed for, and has love's image, Anteros (love against love) lodging in his breast, which he calls and believes to be not love but friendship only, and his desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he wants to see him, touch him, kiss him, embrace him, and probably not long afterwards his desire is accomplished.
When he is with the lover, both cease from their pain
When Stone and Ivo are together, there's stabilization that happens. They're still messed up, but they're better messed up together. Stone feels like he belongs. Ivo feels admired and needed.
but when he is away then he longs as he is longed for
Stone pining for Ivo for almost a full year while running the Mean Bean, drawing his face in lattes, making Austrian goat milk drinks every day. He’s suffering the absence. He can't move on. Robotnik makes Stone in the giant boulder he carries on the Mushroom Planet.
and has love's image, Anteros (love against love) lodging in his breast, which he calls and believes to be not love but friendship only
Robotnik thinks that no one could love him and that this is only loyalty and devotion.
he wants to see him, touch him, kiss him, embrace him
Anytime in the movies that some touches Stone, Robotnik gets violent and then touches Stone in that area, reclaiming him.
and probably not long afterwards his desire is accomplished
Robotnik's final message in the third movie.
The entirety of stobotnik is actually the Anteros story, which is 100% why the statue would be there. It's him seeing the story finish.
concepts for post S3 agent stone that I don't have time to expand too much upon, but I thought I'd throw the ideas out there
accidentally wrote a fucking dissertation about them below ('don't have time to expand upon' my ass)
an echo of what I yearn for (I fear I may one day forget the guilt)
this agent is just MARINATING in the sorrow.
I think immediately after rob explodes, he just stands at the foot of Anteros and watches. he just stares at the debris and light until dawn comes and people start asking him what he's doing, and then he gets overwhelmed and runs back to the dock where he dragged himself out of the ocean, where the sight of the sunken crab shakes him out of his ennui and he goes into Productive Agent Mode, spending the next bulk of his time hauling the crab out of the river and salvaging what he can (one of the local hardware stores is repeatedly visited by a dripping wet man with strands of moss and algae streaked across his clothes and a strangely high budget). anything that can't be saved would be scrapped for parts, but at this point in the timeline, he's not ready to do that yet so it just gets piled in a corner on the crab. the crab still functions fine, it just couldn't resist that much water pressure shoving it out of its hiding place. he manages to get to a safehouse where he parks the crab nearby, assembles any remaining badniks and tech that has smaller repairs he could feasibly do, and goes inside, and he's met with a lab that's exactly the same as the rest of ivo's secret labs. it's so familiar and yet he's never been here before - he's never had to be here before. and he knew this, he knows that ivo prefers a certain style of lab and that all of his secret bunkers are designed exactly the same minus some changes to adapt to the environment, and he knew exactly what was going to be on the other side of the door, and yet when faced with it, he can't handle it. he silently shuffles to ivo's desk (the bigger one with all the screens above it, obviously), gently placing each piece of tech down, before he goes to the badnik charging station and slots in the few that remain. then, he finds himself back at ivo's desk, a coffee in hand, and he puts it down, trembling lightly. and then he goes and sits on the couch, where in front of it there's a small, fold-out table where he'd usually put his laptop. and then he lies down. and for the next while, he only gets up from the couch 5 times a day - to bring the doctor a fresh latte.
to be clear, he still occasionally feeds himself and stuff during this period, but I think he wouldn't even really remember that if you asked him what he did that day, he'd just tell you about when he'd brought the doctor his coffee. I don't think he'd be able to change out of his grimy sewer clothes either - feels too much like moving on. his phone and his watch both die - he doesn't bother to charge them. nobody who's worth listening to will call, anyways.
I think he stays catatonic like this for a full week or so, and then he transitions to a slightly more active but still very depressed schedule. he starts fixing the crab - so he can pick up the doctor smoothly, once he comes back. he fixes and polishes all the badniks, so they're in perfect condition for when their creator returns. he changes and showers and shaves and eats and exercises, so he'll be in top form to pick up ivo whenever he returns. he charges his phone and his watch, sends one message to ivo ("Awaiting orders, sir.") and then puts them away (still on him, just in case) because he can't really bear to look at them for too long.
his motorcycle + his motorcycle gear are put away in a storage room. accessible, but not too close.
his control gloves are gently shut away in the back of the bottom drawer of a cabinet. he won't need those.
he does all the repairs he can, he reinforces the security, he remotely recalls all the doctors tech, and he makes coffee.
and when he's done, he breaks. he spends hours staring, eyes bloodshot and dry, at the final livestream footage on any number of different screens, scanning every pixel for any clue for where he might've been able to slip away, far away and safe from the explosion. any sign of shadow, teleporting in to suddenly whisk him away, or a protective pod suddenly bursting from a ground and sealing around him, or fuck, even gun agents, swooping in to arrest him and put him in their secret space prison, because at least that means there was someone to take away.
he finds nothing he hasn't seen before. he watches the ark around the doctor explode, over and over and over and over. he watches the red of his coat be swallowed by the angry red-orange that suddenly subsumes the entire lens before glitching and going to black - the last thing the badnik that filmed him saw.
he rewinds. he watches. his own heart is ripped out, again and again and again.
and he finds nothing.
he doesn't have any of the jackets he actually wore, the one from the emerald era having been patchworked into a new coat which had been abandoned on the ship and exchanged for the suit from ivo's grandfather, both of which were now dust scattered across space.
but he has ivo's robe, left behind in the crab. he hangs that on the back of ivo's chair.
he makes a new suit, based on the one Ivo was wearing at the end, because Ivo seemed to like it a lot when presented with it. he doesn't need to open the footage for reference - he can see every frame perfectly when he closes his eyes.
but he does it anyways - just to tear himself apart all over again.
he washes and irons the robe and turns it into a lining for the suit, and when he's done, he folds it neatly and leaves it on ivo's chair. for when he comes back.
he catches up on and records every season of la ultima pasion. he doesn't really care for it.
he rewatches it until he can recite every line verbatim.
after that, on nights of weakness, he finds himself unfolding the jacket, burrowing himself in it, the sleeves too long and the shoulders a little wider than his, and he curls up on the couch and stares at a nonspecific spot on the floor.
nights of weakness turn into most nights. eventually, he's just wearing it all the time. his hair has grown longer and unkempt, greasy from a lack of upkeep. he shaves his head, keeping his hair cropped short. he leaves a little mustache when he trims his beard. he thinks maybe it'll be funny.
a shaky chuckle escapes his throat when he looks at himself. his heart clenches.
he looks ridiculous.
he keeps the mustache.
he takes the control gloves out of their dusty spot in a bottom drawer. they were one of ivo's old pairs, unnecessary once he upgraded to new ones, and he'd trusted stone enough to give him a way to access his holoscreens.
they're too big for him. he keeps them on, though. the thin fabric of them surrounding his hands and the familiar technology at his fingertips is comforting, somehow.
he doesn't use the motorcycle anymore - he doesn't need it, really, and for some reason his legs get shaky when he tries to ride it. but he keeps it safe, just in case.
he still brings coffee to ivo's desk every day, five times a day, before he sits in his spot on the couch (never ivo's chair) and stares at nothing until the coffees gone cold.
and then he waits.
I think he occupies his time by raiding gun bases for any trace of rob's technology or blueprints or anything, but he never builds them. that's not his place - he's only allowed to do minor repairs and maintenance.
ANYHOW in comparison I think the other stone is angry where this stone was sad. I might make a full design for him but I also might not.
it's never too late (I'll tear the world asunder to find what I seek)
unlike the other stone, the second one refuses to comfort himself by using rob's things because he thinks it's disrespectful to him. he's saving all of that stuff for when he finds him and brings him back. this guy's got much more potential for unhinged behaviour. the second his ass gets the crab at a safe house, he's using all of his aggregate knowledge from being ivo's assistant and raiding gun bases for materials and equipment and blueprints (very loudly and with lots of explosives). he's got like 5 different search and rescue plans active, running between creating a space ship to a teleporter to a portal to another dimension to a cloning machine. he confronts sonic and shadow as soon as he's sure he's able to face them without getting very very upset (he doesn't actually blame them, but he's got a lot of bitterness and anger and he blames them a little for not being able to save Ivo (although he knows logically they couldn't really)). he doesn't start with threats (he knows sonic and his friends are usually more amenable to friendship) but he's not above making them should he be denied his information. he makes the metal sonics to search for Ivo in space and everywhere else. he still brings coffee to ivo's desk. (he couldn't fathom the idea of not doing it - it feels too much like giving up.)
and he's GREYING because he's so fucking STRESSED because he's like maybe if I stay busy enough I'll forget how hollow I feel without him. PSYCH! the grief never gets any smaller!!!!!
anyways if you actually read all of that holy shit I'm sorry. idk why I wrote so much. I don't really have time for this actually cus I'm in college which is why I was only meant to toss the ideas out and run o(-(
izzy806
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
titsay
origamiaround
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
