...There was a point at which I thought I understood familial love. I’ve had to... rethink what I knew ever since Madarame’s machinations came to light.
I still find myself questioning which of his actions were done out of love and which were done for the sake of his own selfish whims. I don’t think I’ll ever truly know.
And what I thought of romantic love is even more limited than that, I’ve come to find. It is ever perplexing.
What I can say for sure, though... is that love, real, genuine love, is... warm. Comforting.
Loving someone, whether platonic or romantically, means knowing you can turn to them in a time of crisis. That you can rely on them when you need help with something, whether that’s comforting or a specific task.
And it’s knowing that they can count on you when they’re in crisis.
↻ - something that my muse would redo if they could
Send Me Stuff
Ha... where do I even start?
...I wish that I could... redo some of the things I said and did when I still lived with Madarame. There were many times where I was far from kind to my fellow students, simply because they dared to disagree with the terrible things he did.
I spent so long defending him, because I was convinced he was a good person. If I had had the fortitude to simply acknowledge what was wrong, perhaps I...
No matter. It’s all in the past, and there’s no point dwelling on it.
Yusuke's hands shook and his heart pounded as he leaned against Goro on the bed. He felt Goro's hand running along his back, gently trying to coax him down from his frantic state. Funny, he hadn't felt like this in months.
"I-I need to finish..."
"You will," Goro reassured him, pressing a kiss to his head. "Just not today. You need a break."
You need a break. The words echoed around Yusuke's skull in a cacophony of noise, tumbling around with the wordless panic flooding his body. He couldn't articulate why he was so stressed, but he knew. He knew.
Sleepless nights spent painting, painting, painting, frantically rushing to finish before the deadline. Madarame looming behind him, sometimes physically, sometimes not, urging him to keep going, keep working until he passed out at his easel. Days where he barely ate or drank, even though his body sorely needed it. Driven not by love of art, but by the fear of losing everything; his home, his friends, his father's love mentor's patronage.
Goro pressed a cool cup of water into Yusuke's hands, snapping him out of his head for a moment. Yusuke stared stupidly into it for a moment, mind refusing to let him just take a sip. He needed to keep working, needed to finish this painting before the deadline. His entire future depended on it.
Goro's arm around his waist, however, reminded him of where he was. He was at home, in his dorm room, easel set up a little ways away. Ah... he remembered snapping at Goro a few moments ago, when he'd interrupted to hand him something to eat. Yusuke suddenly realized his hands were freezing, and it wasn't because of how cold the water was.
Yusuke slumped against Goro with a sigh, raising the cup to his lips and beginning to sip. By the time he lowered the cup again he'd already drained about half of it.
"I'm sorry," Yusuke whispered. "My behavior was uncalled for."
"You're right, it was," Goro replied. Yusuke couldn't help but laugh at his unexpected bluntness. "But it tipped me off that something was wrong. So I can't say I'm entirely upset."
Goro slipped a hand under Yusuke's chin, angling his head a bit so he could plant a kiss on his cheek. Yusuke shut his eyes, a smile crossing his face. He still felt shaky, but Goro's presence was at least helping him combat the overwhelming sense of impending doom.
"I'm here now. You're going to be alright."
Yusuke sighed, finally feeling the tension leave his muscles. He hadn't realized how tense he was to begin with.
Trauma: What kind of past trauma would your muse be contending with in the town?
Silent Hill Calls
HOO BOY. Goro has a laundry list of trauma, Silent Hill would have a fucking field day with him.
The first thing I'd thought of when it came to trauma (okay more like second thing) was his mother's death, though... to be fair he doesn't seem like it bothers him much anymore? It probably was a bigger factor in his life when he was first effectively orphaned and shoved into foster care, but in game he never really seems to have much of a reaction when he talks about it.
Of course, while her death on its own probably wouldn't show up much, the effects of her death sure as hell would. Abandonment and betrayal would probably be a strong theme. Any allies he acquires while making his way through would be just as quick to abandon ship, or forced to abandon him by circumstances outside their control. Or he'd be forced to betray them himself. Especially lookalikes of Sae and Akira...
There'd be a lot of areas that would resemble pieces of ships, maybe dilapidated and unstable. Places where he'd be forced to hold his breath for an uncomfortably long period of time, maybe having to swim somewhere—and run the risk of drowning if he's not fast enough. Lots of scattered imagery of things getting impaled in the chest or head, an Akira lookalike who keeps dying (sometimes by Goro's hand, sometimes not, but Goro finds it distressing regardless).
And then, of course, there'd be the looming specter of Shido. Maybe Goro would keep seeing things that remind him of the man, or maybe he keeps getting messages from Shido telling him where to go and what to do—or else. Depending on how charitable Silent Hill decides to be, he might actually be able to tell Shido to fuck off without consequences.
Papyrus owed his friends a lot, really. Without Pip and Clover, or Dread, Brio, and Roan, he'd probably still be depressed and miserable and in pain. He'd be, well... broken, still.
He knew he wasn't "fixed," of course. He still had a long way to go. But he felt so much better these days, now that his body and mind had been repaired a bit, and his brothers knew about the resets that were constantly going on. It was nice to no longer feel alone and isolated.
But he was also angry. Angry at Temmie for the resets, angry at Undyne for the experiments she inflicted on him. He wanted them both to stop. But he couldn't risk telling Temmie anything, because what if he used that against him? And Undyne... every time he told her to stop, she'd get reset and forget everything. Papyrus was tired of telling her to stop. So he'd given up on trying.
But the anger wouldn't go away. He'd suppressed it for a long time (or maybe he'd just gotten so depressed that he couldn't muster up the will to feel it). Now that he wasn't as tired all the time, it was starting to boil and churn deep within his soul. He tried to keep it in check as best as he could, but it was only a matter of time before it came out.
"Hey, Papyrus!" Undyne said cheerfully, holding out a cup of something fizzy. "I got you some soda!"
"i don't really like soda, undyne," Papyrus replied, glancing up from the machinery he was working on.
"Come on, it's not that bad!" Undyne held the cup a little closer, fortunately within full view of his one working eye. It was some sort of muddy brown color and even had the consistency of carbonated mud. "Try it, you'll love it!"
Papyrus had a bad feeling in his nonexistent gut. Whenever she got like this, it usually meant she was planning on pulling something on him. Probably trying to test some new concoction out on him.
Papyrus shook his head and held up a hand.
"no, thanks," he said. "i'm not that thirsty."
"You sure?" Undyne said, tilting her head a little bit. "How long have you been working on this, anyway?"
Before Papyrus could give an answer, his phone alarm went off. He dug it out and hit stop, before holding up the phone to her.
"about an hour, nyeh heh heh," he said. "but now it's time for a scheduled break."
Undyne huffed, head fins going flat in mild irritation. Crafty boy. Until an idea occurred to her, of course, causing her to grin.
"Oh! This is the perfect time to grab a refreshing drink, don't you think?" she said. "Good thing I have something right here!"
She shoved the cup into his hands before he had a chance to protest.
"Go on, give it a try!" she said, gesturing to him.
"i'm not sure," he said. "i think i'll go get—"
He felt his legs lock up and glanced down to see himself emitting a green glow. Of course. Undyne had pinned him in place with green soul magic. Yep, this was definitely a poor excuse for an experiment.
He glanced from the sludgy, fizzy drink in his hands back up to Undyne. He felt a little lurch in his soul as he was suddenly reminded of the countless other times she had pulled this exact trick on him before. She just stared at him expectantly, completely oblivious to the rising anger in his soul.
With an irritated huff, he decided to get this over with and just chug the entire thing at once. He regretted this strategy almost immediately. He doubled over, just managing to get the cup out of his face before he vomited the brown stuff back up again, along with a heaping helping of black void goop.
"wh... whAT DID YOU DO?!" Papyrus gasped out. He shuddered and coughed again, expelling more void goop all over the floor. Undyne backed up, her head frills unfurling in alarm as the gunk spread.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Papyrus shouted, lifting his head and glaring at her. More void goop dripped from his broken eye socket, while a blue and green light rapidly flickered in his other one.
"I-I just," Undyne stammered, "I was just trying to find out what... what would happen if I combined multiple trait extracts—"
"WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME?!" Papyrus said. His angry tirade was cut off by another bout of vomiting. There was a puddle of black all over the floor now, just slowly spreading everywhere.
"I, well, I didn't..." Undyne kept backing away from the puddle, eyes widening as it dawned on her that maybe she did something really wrong. "I-I'm sorry..."
Papyrus couldn't give a reply as he hurled up another bit of goop, which didn't even make a sound as it splattered against the ground. He took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to steady himself on his shaking arms.
"h... hate... you..." he managed to gasp out.
"I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't..." Undyne glanced from him to the puddle between them. She took a deep breath and gingerly stepped through the puddle, reaching out and gripping his arms to help him to his feet. But he shrugged her arms off, shoving himself to his feet and taking a swaying step back.
"l... leave... alone."
And with that, he disappeared, leaving Undyne alone to ponder the magnitude of what she'd just done to her own friend. Even if she wasn't entirely sure why she suddenly felt a sense of deja vu about this whole encounter.
i mean, we’re supposed to be best friends, right? that’s how this is supposed to work. brian and his undyne get to blow stuff up in the lab together all the time, don and his undyne spar and beat the crap out of each other, roan and his undyne cook together...
why can’t we have something like them why are you like this i hate y
best friends are supposed to help each other and take care of each other. so... so why does the same person who keeps feeding me awful potions that make me sick, who injects me with weird stuff, who... who experiments on me and hurts me and does awful stuff...
why did you have to be the one who helped me get over my agoraphobia? why did you have to be so patient and understanding and. and fun? i just wanna blow stuff up in the lab with you, or build cool stuff or just! watch more over the top weird anime stuff!!!
i wish i could just tell you you’re hurting me and have it stick, like the first time around. but.
but your dumb experiment with determination took that away from me. from us. i’ll have to tell you over and over and over and over and i’m tired. i don’t want to have to keep telling you i just want you to stop it. to stop it and go back to being fun to be around. instead of making me scared of what’s going to happen this time when i set foot in the lab. instead of making me scared to tell anyone that you’re still pulling this shit because i don’t want you to get hurt. because i don’t want anyone else to get hurt.
...geez. it all comes back to those experiments, doesn’t it? ‘cause you started really ramping up the bullshit around then. or maybe you were always like this and i just. didn’t notice it ‘cause i’m an idiot who just desperately wants friends. i don’t know. i really don’t.
