🐢Love 🐢Me 🐢Some🐢ROTTMNT

I want to start this off with that I'm not going to speculate on the types of abuse or severity Enjin suffered. This is moreso a thread to explore how abuse and how you are or are not supported afterwards can alter you as a person. Everyone is welcome to their theories but I won't be engaging or entertaining them here right now because it isnt necessarily relevant to what I want to talk about. Please don't take this as me saying you're wrong for doing so, though!

I'd like to start with how Alto fundamentally did the right thing by establishing a connection with Enjin and then taking him somewhere reliable rather than having Enjin travel with him. To me this looks like Alto understood that what Enjin needed to recover from his circumstances was a sense of stability and community.

He would have never gotten that with Alto even if he wanted to stay with Alto. As a child carrying a significant amount of guilt about what happened and also as one who had a fair amount of suicidal ideation/risk having Alto as his sole support could have broken him.

This guilt he feels is common with children who experience abuse, it's a control factor. Blaming yourself is an indicator of shame but it is also places blame in a place that it is ultimately handleable.

This is likely why Enjin thought he had to be punished through self-slaughter. However, I also want to point out that this also comes from what I believe to be a core of intense empathy. Looking at how he speaks it's clear he thinks he deserves his abuse as punishment for how his perceived wrongdoings hurt his friends. He was a child. He tried to fix things and in his naivety he led his friends to suffering, and even though he is blameless as a child he carries that with him for putting trust into an adult who should not have hurt him.

Despite all of this, we still see him display a resolute kindness for others. His desire to protect others, care for others, and provide for the needs of others is shown to be a direct motivator and this core value is not lost in the wake of his abuse either. I think that in leaving him with the Stilzas, the stability Alto granted him along with a newfound sense of identity apart from his trauma led Enjin to be able to cultivate and mature this part of himself instead of risking regression.

He is very emotionally intelligent as a child and finding community support likely depthened this sense in him to what we see in him in adulthood. His ability to connect with others is innate but in how he overcame his trauma and the support he received let it grow into something that directly changes the lives around him.

This is his sixth sense. I believe he already shows great capacity to move beyond what discomforts he still has. We already see this growth in the way he speaks to Rudo, who is a very complicated and troubled child, and how he recruited Riyo and Zanka. He is actively taking what he learned from Alto's gift, which is value in stability and community, and applying it to the Cleaners and everyone he touches. This is Enjin's power actualized.

It would have always been there regardless of his trauma but his trauma has given him a unique perspective and the ability to connect with these kids on a deeper level, not through just sympathy, but empathy, and finding personable relatability in their trauma as well.

Enjin is the touchstone of Akuta and beyond and the hardships he faced, while no child should ever face them, prepared him to take this role. In a way I think it is destined for him to fill this role for these kids. Regardless of the specific role, he is family to them. He builds the family he never had out of people who need him the way he needs them.

THEY ALL SAID HE WAS USELESS. A FRAUD. THEY CALLED HIM BAITMAN. BUT I NEVER FUCKING DOUBTED HIM FOR A SECOND. ENJIN YOU ARE THE GOAT. THE GOOAAATTTT!!!!!