doing some tags!!!! feels good

so, for starters

runedwriting i am working on the assumption that cloud remembers EVERYTHING about the memory stuff, but has made no indication to sephiroth in game that he does and has been keeping his distance

i also decided that the story about 'luca' is going to be from a children's storybook that actually doesn't get off the west continent where nibelheim is very often, so it's kind of a local thing

'luca' is a silver-white nibel wolf, who is shunned by the pack for sticking out like a sore thumb. the pack tells him that he's an eyesore and a threat to hunting because he can't blend in and chase him out

luca wanders around almost starving until he finds a little chocobo chick; the mother was killed and eaten but the baby hid, but now it's also starving. it'll make an easy dinner for luca, but instead of killing it luca had respect for its ability to blend into its surroundings, something he could never do

so he takes care of it and protects it and it grows up to be a fucking HUGE bird

one day a dragon comes off the mountain and into the nibel wolf territory and begins eating everything, causing the pack to starve

the pack tries to go after the chocobo luca's been living with and luca protects it, but when it looks like luca's going to die from his wounds the chocobo ends up kicking up a huge fuss, attracting the dragon, then pulling luca up onto its back and running away while the dragon eats the wolves

and the end, lesson of the story is that predators will eat anything if they're hungry enough, prey animals aren't always helpless, and maybe if you're nice to people they'll kill your old toxic family for you

oh thats cute

kill him actually

yeah kill him

sonicsora just Kill him

sjdlkds

Unfortunately, Spider-Man usually doesn't kill

Damn pesky moral code

puts donnie in a green goblin mask

do it, leo will film it

please cc copy to cjjbabygirl

lmao for any future tags along the "go to therapy or I'm telling april" line I should say the thing april's gonan say donnie should do for her is to GO TO THERAPY

that said leo is also taking note of this line
both to use against donnie and also to find ways to safeguard it being used on himself

ksdjlfdas

LMFOUAFSF IT IS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE

IT'S SO EFFECTIVE

Peter accidentally found the short cut he never knew existed

that's a brother argument right there

peter official BIL with the most ornery of turdles

He accepts his fate, but also gives Donnie a hard time back

He's learning

meanwhile april like z

"you know this whole conversation is public right"

he forgor

i am late to bed but i am caught up to today for the first time in two months

you are amazing!!

sneep so good

go sleeep

(also she ain't sayin a word)

there are a couple things to tag into but DANG..... maybe a bitch will top level

I look forward to moar tag later, and the shenanigans that follow

hours later it is an excellent story!! .. and definitely not one sephiroth ever heard..I should find an excuse to ask

probably he has not heard any children's stories at all.

it's an appropriate life lesson "get someone to convince a dragon to eat your family"

LMCFSS BOLIN

don: yeah this big lug i almost ran over in my car is gonna let me take his blood. medically. not bc of a car accident. yeah he's ok i guess but otherwise w/e, im not a fan of these bending ppl, toph was such a little bastard, so
bolin: don't geniuses have projects? can you tell me about them?
don: Actually, he should have more civil rights than most people

OH YEAH fontech IE the therapy sessions...obv gonna thread out the first meeting but since it's been a while...... entirely my fault......can we establish a general idea of what they've looked like since then?

i figure cad would clock donnie as having sky high titanium walls that even he might not be aware of right off the bat

oh 100%

i also don't know anything about cad beyond what we've threaded but i assume he would be like "ok.....getting to the vulnerability for this kid is going to take a while, so....i will work on getting him to trust/like me first"?? or am i off base

prrrrobably um. i'll have to think it over, donnie is probably the worst/most resistant he'll ever have come across as far as known canon goes. i think a primary focus is for him to try and work on stubbornness and the whole "i am the only one who knows anything/the smartest/etc"

is cad more the kind of person to try and change a stubborn person's mind, or to try and work in their worldview first?

like uhh, more like. "i know you think you're right but you're wrong" in a very gentle way, or more like "i see what you're saying, can you explain to me how your world works?"

worldview, generally. he asks simple questions but the type that makes someone sit and think

ok ok that helps me understand more

bc like. cad is high wisdom low int. donnie is high int low wisdom. they are polar opposites. and cad can be like ok im obviously not as smart as you. but i know a lot of things about people you probably don't. we're smart in different ways. basically everyone has a different expertise than you, so how is it that you know better than everyone exactly

right

im working rn but during lunch and after work i can see if i can find a few examples of the therapy/counselling shit he does in canon that might help us both

yeah im at work too so i might vanish also but brain worm entered so im gonna yap it out

i think with don its that when it comes to his feelings specifically, it's not that he thinks he knows himself or how he feels better than everybody else; i think it's more that he knows he DOESN'T understand himself or how emotions work, so he tends to write it off as not important to him. so what if he's sad sometimes. that shit goes away after a while

so things with staying power (like ptsd) are far, far beyond his capabilities to handle.

like, he has enough EQ to know that there is something very, very wrong with him bc the sad/scared/angry isn't getting fixed, but because he has 0 tools on how to deal with it, he takes the Papa approach of fixing your environment and avoiding it otherwise

but he full up will admit that april knows his feelings better than he does and somehow knows how to make him feel better when he can't do it himself through external means (eat/drink, dubsyep, violence), so he is aware to some degree that he's stepping directly into unknown waters here

cad has REALLY good emotional instincts and a mad good ability to read people, so it's entirely possible that as things went on he could make some solid guesses on how donnie felt or is feeling too

like D&D has an insight check skill and hes hella buffed on it

i don't think he'd be rude or dismissive to cad like "lmao ur a fake doctor and what you do doesnt work"; partially bc april WILL kill him but mostly because he's like sure, ok. mikey loves that talking shit bc that works for him. i am obviously different and it won't work on me from a stranger, only april can read me so we are just wasting everybody's time

Read People power is 200%

and then cad goes mmhm yes of course. you must really miss your father's guidance and donnie goes

cad: do you miss having your father around as a safety net? that must be very unsettling for you
don:

after the first few 20+ insight checks don will be like "ok so i guess ur psychic or smth. what is my fav color" and cad goes......purple, kiddo and don goes WHO TOLD- oh ha I'm wearing it. Well! i very you can't guess my favorite drink!

cad: i don't think so, but i know that tea i put out is not to your tastes
don:

kind of hilarious how with all the spells cad has he doesnt have a darn thing for mind reading

i will need to be extra diligent about putting physical and environmental cues in my narrative stuff for cad when we thread bc donnie cannot lie but he is unintentionally a HUGE liar

cad also has Zone of Truth and i so wish that was a likely route but cad wouldnt force it lmao

yeah i can see how that would not go over well in therapy sessions

yeahhh thats for interrogation. it just delights me so

oh you have trouble with lying? cool you're incapable of it. go

i wonder how it would work on someone who isn't aware they're "lying" 🤔 like, if someone goes "I'm not depressed" because they genuinely don't think they are, but in reality they just haven't realized it, how would they be compelled to answer??

now im curious /looks up spell

oh yeah it uhhh

it can't FORCE an answer, but you're compelled to tell the truth

cad is from 5e, right

ye

it's not a total catch all (it's only level 2) but it prevents deliberate lies. so its pretty good for evasion since if someone is being evasive, even if ZoT doesn't catch someone cad's insight usually can

luckily donnie can't be compelled to shut the fuck up LMAO so if he was in the Zone (😏) he'll still answer

i don't know what would be funnier, don being like "haha I'm scared all the time...... what" or don being like "i don't think it's that bad I'm pretty sure I'm just a little paranoid???" and cad internally being like dear god he believes that......why am i not charging for this again

LMAO

Caduceus Talks to Fjord about faith and familyheres a lil example of how he has these talks with ppl

actually if cad was like "can we try something? I'll cast a spell zone of truth; it'll make both of us answer truthfully, so we can ask each other questions and know we can trust what the other person says" donnie would absolutely go for it 🤔 i mean he'd go "lmao magic??? ok but jsyk only my mom can do real actual magic, go ahead tho"

yeah its optional to just agree to fail the save and accept the spell! cad never really lies anyway so thats the most likely thing he'd try if he noticed donnie dancing around answers hed suggest that

this is very informative for how cad communicates but hearing that skyrim music took me out 😭 girl i spent too long in that accursed game

lmaooo yeah matt uses a playlist with all sorts of music. skyrim is a classic...

Fjord and Caduceus commune with the Wild Motherthis one's longer but its really good with how he just. talks in general with this stuff

you're right they are POLAR opposites LMAO

i think it would be wonderful if they could end up learning from each other

it would be very neat

ahhh maybe i'll keep him a little longer lmfao

HEH

im also asking bc i wanted to see if they could get to a point where donnie would go into cad's inbox like "my little brother is here safe but I'm still not sleeping. which is obviously incorrect" with the unasked request of 'please help me fix this idk what I'm doing'

i did still need him and sorey to meet so i will try to get sorey post up tonight 🤔

yeah 100% hit him up. and ill tag sorey also

How Caduceus Clay Saved The Mighty Neinok last one but this is a really good summary with a bunch of excellent quotes and explains how he does his shit super well. and ill circle back to everything you said and think.

theres a section of that video where he talks about trent and how cad handles him and the mention of them being opposites (INT versus WIS) made me go YEAH THAT (except trent is evil and donnie is not, its just a way of thinking about certain things logically)

is that the one where he goes like, EMPATHIZE over and over?

NO but that is to trent lmfao. but that part is trent invites them all to dinner and he was caleb's abusive former master and spends the ENTIRE dinner going on and on about his methods and how cool and powerful he is (tbh i forget a lot of what he said but cad was super quiet throughout) and cad gives him a lil farewell monologue that is like

the NICEST way of going "you're wrong and a very pathetic old man who will die alone"

and it made trent so bad he teleport rage-quit

*mad

LMAO

basically everyone lost their minds about how good it was and after cad's like THAT WAS TASTY AS SHIT

the nicest man secretly vindictive to evil people

i do have concerns tho; i don't know the trent char so i assume he's just a bastard thru and thru, but im nervous that don's low empathy might uhhh come off very badly to someone as highly empathetic as cad

oh no no. it wasnt trent's lack of empathy but his entire demeanor was legit supervillain degree. it'd be like comparing donnie to avengers-era loki. hes a psycho

OHHH ohh ok

cad can recognize low empathy. they dont always get along (nott in his party is pretty low empathy and they're not FRIENDS but he knows shes not a bad person)

i mean fuck she KILLED cad lmfao he still thinks shes ok

DANG DUDE

like donnie can come across as an uncaring asshole but the fact that rue loves him is enough for cad to go "theres something to this kid so lets see where it goes"

he trusts rue's judgment

and april also gave him some insight

right right right

and also donnie ISNT evil, hes a hot mess but cad can work with that

ive been doing a lot of research into low/high empathy especially how it relates to neurodivergence lately

i don't like to play donnie like HE'S AUTISTIC!!! HEY EVERYBODY JUST SO YOU KNOW I PLAY HIM ON THE SPECTRUM. HEY SO HE'S AUTISTIC because that's just bad writing, but it is helpful when trying to understand his personality

eats this delicious plurk

yeah it's helpful in the background even if its not said explicitly in tags and such

also bc i don't want to fall into the opposite trap of infantilizing him BECAUSE he's low-emp and/or bc he's on the spectrum. "uwu poor baby just doesn't understand cues don't you feel so badly for him" no because being low empathy isn't the same as being unable to love

i think being empathetic is conflated to being kind/full of love, ERRONEOUSLY

thats kinda what casey was trying for with the coding language analysis lmao

donnie has a pretty different love language but with people he doesnt care for he doesnt really bother much, whereas family and such get attention/thought?

empathy is literally just being able to identify with or understand someone else's feelings in a particular situation, without being explicitly told or bearing witness to like, a screaming sobbing fit or smth. empathy can sometimes influence action afterwards but not always

even if you see donnie not caring abt someone else's problems in canon, he still goes along with whatever his brothers/april decides, even if he thinks its dumb or doesn't make sense. in fact most of the time he does it without complaint

i had him mention this to rue once but i think donnie is very aware of his difficulties with empathizing and as such has elected to take cues from his family in those matters, but he specifically said to rue that he's worried that his family doesn't think he loves them very much

not that he's worried he doesnt love him very much or as much; he's worried THEY think he doesn't love them much

he knows he's different and comes off as rude or standoffish and while he doesn't want to change himself to "fix" those things (bc he is of the opinion they don't need fixing and personally i agree), he does worry how it affects his relationships

all very valid

if all or any of this came up cad would point out that worrying about this sort of thing is a sign of love, and ask if he's checked w/ them how they feel and/or what they see as signs of love from him to them

eg. if he says "do you know i love you" and they go "yes" and he asks "how can you tell" or some variant, what would their answer be

so while he's not an intentionally cruel person or an asshole (unless he's doing it on purpose to be antagonistic), a lot of times not automatically empathizing with someone can be seen as such. tbh its probs very lucky they grew up isolated from society bc society really chews up low-empathy autistic ppl and spits them back out

cad is all about open communication. if donnie needs guidelines and reassurance, the best course of action is to give him some tips on how to communicate to get the emotional answers he might be seeking

ngl if cad said that don would be the most he was all session

cad would really see that low wis stat in effect

-2 sometimes

cad, thinking: i wonder if its this simple
cad: have you tried asking them up front if they know how you feel
don: no, why
cad: so that YOU know
don:

lmfao right

and if the answer is like, "idk we just know" that can lead to a line of questioning like ok how do OTHER people show you they love you, and he can compile a checklist and see what options could mesh with his own comfort level

cad: you said you used to dislike peter? how did that change
don: i found out he has anxiety and me stating what I'm thinking clarifies for him so he doesn't get nervous
cad: do you think that might work for casey?
don: no he said he doesnt have anxiety
cad: but maybe he still wants to know for clarity
don:

eg. rue is shown and shows love with like, handholds and kisses and hugs and maybe donnie is not always comfy with that!! tactile! too much touching! but sometimes he can hold their hand and rue feels love by not being alone so maybe he can go to their house more and like, write his code shit in their sewing room

actually might

oops

oh yeah but they've talked about that first, don is just a dumb stupid kid who forgets how useful EXTREMELY FRANK DISCUSSION can be. he's also very literal and frank to the point of perceived rudeness with rue sometimes

might be interesting to discuss- one of cads way of showing love is also gift giving, its a huge part of how he serves the world and those around him. but his gifts focus more on serving the other person, but sometimes in canon donnies "gifts" are more self serving

like "i don't want to hug thanks o/" which might hurt someone's feelings, but rue at this point is just like "ok darling do u want cookies"

ohhh you mean the shock collar right

yeah i kind of hate that but i figure anybody can be an asshole

so something to explore could be like, ok what sort of gifts are you giving to show love, eg (as an example i know but cad would need to be told) you built an arm for leo, its helped him, but youre also trying to figure out making an eye for raph but he doesnt seem to want it? is it for you or for him et

etc

like, he made the turtle tank. thats a great gift for EVERYONE

well

he made the chainstick for casey! why did he do that. self exploration for gifts and what he was thinking at the time would be good

idr who but donnie was talking to someone about making things to do a better apology so it HAS been on his mind

"i only have 3 more cups" THAT'S CUTE CAD

idk what the fuck he's been doing with his cups, 7 people used to live in that house

maybe after everyone left his drug lily bender got him smashing pottery

2 were used for paintbrushes and got stained when he had an art frenzy one day on BIG shrooms

its so funny in context, you don't find out until like 2 years later but when the 3 cup comment happened, he got super fucking high LAST NIGHT and hallucinated the campaign's endgame plot

oh my god

i think what also could be interesting is cad grew up with an incredibly healthy attitude about death and goodbyes and donnie doesnt know how to let go of anybody ever

very. VERY much so

look.

okay, so

fontech sorry im in a zakkura mood but like. "Lore, to be precise! It even says so on a small metal plaque, attached near the firing mechanism: "Connection is one's true ammunition." Find a fellow Star Child and start chatting! The more meaningful the conversation, the grander the magic ball one may blast at the pirates with the cannons."

cloud and zack like "i can't live without you anymore" and they kiss and then they fire cannons at another sky pirate ship......................cloud hates thirteen and he's missing aerith so much it's like he's bleeding every day but. he has zack and zack has him. and fighting sky pirates is. very so cool

agreed yes

(also im planning to toss mikleo on there somewhere bc if i do the weapon regain they can finally get that fuCKING BOW)

oh sorey is also ABSOLUTELY there i'm tryna think of a TL

IT'S PIRATES??? THAT'S SO FIRE??????

RIGHT they were just talking about that

....like 3 months ago WHATEVER CLOSE ENOUGH

and they can do some gay shit (armatize) and more gay shit (fend off a pirate attack)

i can do a TL for us prolly ive got 3 days off and you were doin a sorey post right

i was gonna but it's not time sensitive so i MIGHT hold off idk

follow ur dreams

me with zack and cloud: look they're so cute with each other
also me: but what if they were a little fucked up about each other also

ok but consider this, it is /also/ super cute when someone goes absolutely feral over their so

that's the sephiroth player talking

(but i also agree)

in my defense my sephiroth doesn't have a SO but . also, maybe

if he did he would be feral about them 24/7

evidence: all of canon

it's true. laser focus.

IT BEGINS..... sonicsora

sorry to folks for being so late with tag-ins but i finally did it!!!!!

fontech btw if you wanted to do a mikleo thread for FM lmk. i don't think i'll TL with sorey after all, so i'm going to try and get his post up tomorrow

casey will cut you if u mess with sensei

and ok ill think about it. i woukd like to mess with pirates and get the bow

what if brains and brawn was painful

fontech: LMAO honestly maybe casey should be uhhh below deck bc donnie is going to shove him and yell and be furious but probably not punch him? but definitely say shit that casey would throw him over the railing for

lmao probably yeah

ayo fontech i think this is ready for cad to jump in if u want! Kayjayyy if u want to be like "no asshole it isn't ready"

oh i didnt know it was happening sure

i posted it but kj if youd rather get somethin else in and go first we can scoot order

oh no that's fine!

april will be there just a lil bit to introduce them and then go and sit on the front steps or whatever lmao

also LMFAO I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT EXPECT ANY DIFFERENT FROM YOU EGG

cad will give her full freedom to raid his kitchen for drinks and snacks

what a nice cad he is

its the least appropriate nickname

brains and brawn IS painful capable of so much joy yet so much struggle. 10/10 siblings

hey fontech is it ok if i assume casey helped sorey with something techy for his post?

of course! he said he would give lessons so feel free to assume he understood as much or as little as you like

tyyyyy

hey Kayjayyy im goin off on this sorey tag to katie re: the memory share thread i hope that's ok

if any of it is like "no...that's wrong" please lmk and i'll fix

dude no that's perfect thank you for having to come up with creative ways of sayign "look at this rioting city" lmao

stopping me from having*

girl i looked at maps of bath for that

i street viewed that shit

it's beautiful

LMFAO

in a horrific chaos sort of way

katie: well at least that church collapsed, silver lining

LMVAOUDS

i assume they're in a cave that is kinda close to part of it but overlooks most of the city, idk

i didn't look that closely at the map tbh

it's memory shared terrain it can come out where it pleases

NICE

me: i'm so fucking normal about sormik

also me

THEY'RE FUCKING SOULMATES

BANGS POTS, IT'S CANON

sorey wants mikleo to come inside of him so badly

BUT JOKES ASIDE THEY'RE TWO HALVES OF THE SAME SPIRIT

all he ahd to do was ask

NOT LITERALLY BUT THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE

might as well!!!

ough augh ugh /minecraft dying noises

hoo boy

this emotional violence cannot stand

you are??? just as much a perpetrator

legit

self defense

LMAO ARE U KIDDING

SCREAAAAMMMM comatoseroses DONNIE IS IN HIS SHELL

..wow that's brotherly love right there donnie. even if you were a worm.

LAUGHS

were donnie not the very brother being insulted raph would have punched him for insulting his brother,, such is the twist of fate

i mean he could do that anyway but

he crunches donnie into his shell like a purple fanta soder can and puts him in the bath tub

YOU SOAK IN THERE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID

????

straps donnie into a baby bjorn I WANNA HEAR A HUNDRED AFFIRMATIONS

everybody: isn't that the guy who kidnapped like a dozen people
raph, covering donnie's ears: hes working thru some stuff

how april slept through that I have no idea

unless he came to see her first in which case she's just like put the pillow over her head and is like "I am deaf suddenly. also donnie stop making me feel ill"

awoken by sledgehammer to sledgehammer communication 😞

just gets mayhem to teleport her down to the lair to sleep instead lmao bye losers

casey downstairs banging the ceiling with a broom

Hamato family cannot be chill as always

april just has mayhem teleport them both outside like WE HAVE NEIGHBORS

LMFAO

I mean if you ever want to feel free to have a mayhem turn up and drop them in some annoying place because HE'S trying to sleep

Kayjayyy: i did in fact do that

comatoseroses: the visual of raph furiously rock gardening and screaming as donnie slowly sinks mid-lake like is so good for me

they're in timeout

raph got his ass good, raph was winning the fight and then they got dropped in a lake

why do this to raph

who needs a win. he has had it so Rough

I DID IN FACT NOTICE me cackling over that tag at 5am this morning

katie gonna drop his ass in the exact same lake probably clearly its' now Donnie's Timeout Zone

this is donnie's bad boy corner. you stay down there for an hour. naughty

katie drops him in and hears him screaming from a distance THE SAME LAKE???!!!!

HAHAHA

Get lake'd, naughty turtle boy

DW...... where are the email notifs for my tags coming in...........

we just dont know dot gif

gnaws on dw. gimme. gib to egg

pixie app posted, now to see if i can wrangle some don tags in between bouts of work

eyo re: survival thread, casey's taking donnie to exile so it's forest/swamp not desert!

OH i thought they were stickin in cruel summer, my b

i go fix

exile is meaner and it doubles as forcing casey to go back there and also survive its where raph died soooo

WE AINT GONNA HALFASS THIS i feel like casey knows donnie wouldn't be scared of the desert monsters

UH OH IF THEY COME ACROSS WHERE RAPH DIED....UH OH that will be fun to play out with the changes in their relationship dynamic

UH OH it's almost like i thought about this ahead of time

UH OH!!!!!!!

YAYYYY FUN THREADS

casey's goal is to get through swamp of sorrows to the encantado. day trip through misery to happy river zone. hopefully without getting killed or killing each other

do you think he would have briefed donnie on that before he arrived 🤔

he'd have given a rough outline and a place to meet and left the rest up to donnie to see how he prepares. i guess we could have discussed this before ksdggdf sorry lmao. (i dont think it really changes anything but)

it doesn't!! I'm just interested

his planning is not super detailed because survival isnt always a thing you can plan for in advance, so this is a fair middle ground

i figure casey wouldve gone "were going in here for a few days, meet me here at time" and that's it

precisely

don is learning to adapt, not METICULOUSLY PLAN. he got that second part down to a fault

yeah he definitely knows advanced planning lmaooo

time to learn how to deal with UNPLEASANT SURPRISE

swamp of sorrows also has the more or less required side effect of talking about shit to survive

LMAO welcome 2 folkmore

thas just walkin down tha street babey

klsfjsd right...