Steve “can You Please Hold This For Me While I Go Risk My Life” Harrington & Eddie “for Your

I hope more of his art is shown or continues to be a running gag in the show cause the thought of him having his little stack of crayons in his room and coloring away, IS SO FUNNY AND GOOFY

some more incorrect quotes

Hey so I don’t have a bunch of example writings to show because I’m too self conscious to share them BUT I love writing and I’ll take a crack at any requests (especially Eddie requests rn iykyk) someone wants to send me. I’ve been writing short fics for like 4 years so I promise it won’t be horrible lmao

I feel like I don't have the spoons for this, nor the understanding of real-life PTSD enough to explore it, but I feel like it's worth examining Jayce's arc for signs of PTSD. Much has been made of the canonical mental illnesses and PTSD of characters like Jinx, and I've mentioned that I think Jayce might have generalized clinical anxiety, but I think it's worth looking at how much of his behavior might be PTSD related even before he goes to the Anomaly future.

Some possible places I'd look:

Jayce has been getting fed paranoia by Marcus and by the tension that is being deliberately ratcheted up by Silco and Jinx. Yes, he says awful, bigoted things to Viktor on the bridge, but it is worth pointing out that he's not saying this in a vacuum, there are people in proximity to him deliberately stoking his paranoia and that of the city for their own ends, literally Marcus is gaslighting him actively by telling him the Firelights are responsible and the best way to keep people safe is shut down the bridge.

The fight in the Shimmer Factory gets more wild to me every time I watch. Jayce should not be there for so many reasons but one of them is Jayce is not a fighter. I think his video game counterpart sort of obscures this, but unlike Vi who has spent her whole life fighting AND in prison for years, Jayce has never, ever wielded that hammer before. He didn't even have it until the day before! And suddenly he's up against the Shimmer-infused berserkers who are some of the toughest fighters in the whole show. He almost gets his head cut off, if not for features he built into the hammer like weightlessness and the shield, he'd be dead, and then he makes what I call the, "Jayce is Making Bad Decisions" Face (I need to make a gifset of this face btw, he makes it a couple times, also while resurrecting Viktor).

Ok I might make fun of the Jayce is Making Bad Decisions face, BUT on a serious note, it's clear the Fortiche animators are doing a superb job showing someone who has gone into "Adrenaline Mode". REAL fighters do not want adrenaline. Adrenaline fucks up your reaction times and makes you shaky and turns off your higher brain functions. I've been in a fight when fear adrenaline kicks in and you just start wildly swinging to get people away from you and that is exactly what happened when Jayce's face got scrunched up and he started shooting wildly, he just wanted to stop the threat because he's never fought before, unlike Vi. And then he kills a kid and the triumph of his first fight against an uncomplicated enemy just dies and btw, never returns except in that moment fighting more Shimmer berserkers and Renni but those are clear self defense and there's no triumph in it.

BRO gets HIT BY A ROCKET, has a pure panic response leaving living people who need his help in the chamber to save Viktor, and he doesn't go back as far as we know.

Ok so the things that me, as not an expert would be curious to note as possible PTSD responses would be:

Jayce not leaving the lab after the attack except 1) to go to the funeral (where he's attacked AGAIN) 2) to comfort Caitlyn after Mel basically tells him to, 3) to make weapons for Caitlyn's team specifically to keep a small group of people safe, not arm an entire army. Besides that, it looks like he spends all his time holed up in the lab, even after Viktor is gone, because that's his safe space and I think I read once that PTSD has a way of shrinking your world down to just the people and places you trust.

Dragging that hammer around with him in the Anomaly future. Look, Jayce is a city boy, he has no survival instincts, but it wasn't just a bad idea because it broke his leg, it was actively detrimental to his chances of survival because lugging an anvil around drained him of water and calories. Bro had a lot less chance of survival with it, but he thought he was surrounded by zombies (he wasn't, they're all dead and they're all controlled by Viktor, we learn he was never in danger, though I don't blame him for that). But that could also be a PTSD response, his actual emotional support hammer.

Clamming up and not talking to Mel about what happened because she's not in his circle of trust anymore, it's more or less shrunk down to just Viktor (once he can save him) and Cait, maybe.

Ok as usual this got longer than I intended by just... some things that are in my mind right now.

Alastor in the last episode be like:

and then.... "this place reeks of death, there's a chill in the air-"

btw I used this as reference

my fav thing about sunrise on the reaping was when haymitch was like yeah caeser i'm a lone wolf 😏 i'm with the newcomers but i'm not WITH the newcomers, yknow? they call me a rascal. a rebel against the gamemasters. I scored a ONE and that is a THREAT. you do not want to mess with me 🙅

cut to him with like 20 kids following him around like ducklings, him hiding in his t-shirt, him letting a bunny guide him to safety because it reminded him of his girlfriend, and him making nightlights out of potatoes.

currently very much hyperfixating on MHA, so please send requests for that ty :)

One thing I absolutely love about Astarion’s redemption arc is the complexity of his relationship with the figure of the hero.

Astarion is a vampire, a monster, and also a victim (as well as, in a way, a perpetrator, due to his forced obedience to Cazador). He is the first person in desperate need of a hero to save him and the last person suited for the role of a hero.

He prayed to every god for salvation, even for death, and even that was denied to him. He resents heroes and the powerful, and when confronted with the idea that both have a duty to protect the weak, he scornfully responds that no, they’ve done a terrible job—that in 200 years, no one saved him from torture, and that it was the mind flayers, other monsters, who finally freed him. And that, in reality, the powerful only use their strength to bend others to their will and serve their own selfish interests. It’s in this same conversation that Astarion declares his desire to be better than Cazador—stronger, more powerful—though the player likely meant kinder, more noble.

Yet, despite everything he says, despite his disapproval of every heroic action taken in Act 1, Astarion is irreversibly drawn to the figure of the hero. First and foremost, he seeks their protection, though still through the warped lens of his past under Cazador’s cruel talons. Secondly, he is extremely sensitive to kindness, understanding, acceptance—to being treated like a person, just as a true hero would treat him.

And then, this is something I particularly noticed while playing as Karlach—Astarion is fascinated by Wyll, who is, in many ways, the quintessential hero of the party. He even admits that if he had to choose one of them to feed on, it would be Wyll, because he is sweet and righteous, just. Which is a contradiction, because the very traits that draw Astarion to him are the same ones that make him want to drain him dry. Love and hate, all in one.

With this in mind, even the conversation after meeting Aurelia and Leon takes on a deeper meaning. The player sees something in Astarion, but he still refuses to recognize it, to admit it, and rightfully says he can’t be what we see in him—a good person, a righteous, understanding, even heroic figure. And yet, the player sees through him…

And it’s breathtaking when, during the ritual, just before stabbing Cazador, Astarion says those very same words: "You're right. I can be better than him." But this time, he doesn’t mean stronger or more powerful. No, this time, he means it exactly as it was first presented to him and so bitterly rejected. And he means it with all his heart.

And in doing so, in freeing all his siblings and all the poor souls imprisoned there, Astarion commits a truly heroic act. He does for others what he once desperately hoped for himself, what he prayed for—becoming the hero he needed. Because at the same time, he is freeing himself—from his chains, from his narrow worldview that saw everything in terms of power and dominance. For the first time, he is free to live outside of the path that someone else forced upon him.

And that’s exactly why, in my opinion, the next morning, it’s right to tell him that yes, we were the heroes who stood by his side, but we only gave him a push. Because, in the end, he saved himself.

He is the hero he had been waiting for centuries!

And that thought makes my heart race! ❤️

THIS WAS GOING TO BE HIS YEAR!!!

Your telling me that this face didn’t get to graduate?