#resets

AAA A ACTUALLY DIGITAL ART WORK WOW

Bear with me guys this one was rough and I was low key just like eh it’s good enough I haven’t drawn anything digital since like February so I’m a wee bit rusty

i'm thinking of incorporating the concept of time resets into it, like, they die, then by sheer will, they come back, back to a moment before they died, (maybe a different story actually lmao), but think of loading a previous game file because your current route sucks, like you made the wrong decision and you wanna try again, fix it, find the best ending

i want to see how many times reader has to die until it starts weighing on them, and other characters start noticing just how reckless they've become, imagine how disturbing it is to watch someone you care about act like dying is the least of their problems

constantly, happily throwing themselves into danger

i wanna see like at some point when an outcome they never wanted to happen happens, they instinctively reach for a knife, a weapon, anything to kill themselves with because they can just "start" again, go back before, choose a better option, make a different decision

the act of killing oneself is a serious thing.

killing yourself is hard. a very difficult thing to do. sometimes your survival instincts override that desire to die. sometimes you stay despite.

and the reader, you, growing so numb to it you think it's the easier option rather than moving forwards and accepting the situation as is, highlighting just how far you've fallen, how far you've deteriorated, like all your experiences building up but you can't think of anything better, you're permanently locked on that goal you've set for yourself, "save neteyam" "save him"

lol you can tell im not a big fan of big sudden trauma, like if someone died, this character is traumatized now, not to negate the fact that someone dying is traumatizing, but i like trauma that piles up, less like a truck that runs you over, more like crushing pressure that wears you down overtime, makes you think you can keep moving, crawl yourself out but it keeps you stuck, the pay off is more satisfying that way imho (i just realized this is literally houseki no kuni's influence on me)

i think i just like psychological horror but anyway ahsdfjhsajf

like imagine neteyam still dies no matter what action the reader takes, and reader keeps having to kill themselves to go back and i wonder if it numbs them, because the whole reason they're even on pandora in the first place is to save him, or at least that's what they think so, like this intrinsic desire to make things better becomes your hubris, and you think the universe, whatever it is that put you here is just playing with you at this point, torturing you

doomed by the narrative? doomed by fate? idk.

imagine another failed route, neteyam dies again, they're on the rock, with the family, neytiri's cries in the background and their mind just goes static, maybe a mix of grief, frustration

you're lwk losing your mind, spiraling; why is nothing working, what's the point of me being here, why do i keep failing, i don't understand, i don't understand, why does he keep dying, i made a different choice this time, the plan was perfect, what went wrong? i don't get it. i'm so tired. how many more times do i have to do this, i don't want to do this anymore---

and absentmindedly you're reaching for your gun, a knife, your own face blank as your vision blurs at the edges, staring at neteyam's dead body, and you're pressing the blade into your skin, or fingers on the trigger slowly pulling it back

this has happened before, you killing yourself right there, the world going dark and you wake up back to when he's still alive, where everything's fine and alright before it all goes wrong

but god, why won't anything change? why is it so hard to stop it from going all wrong?

this time something's different, someone notices what you're doing

maybe kiri, lo'ak, or jake, his attention snapping on you, and he's grabbing your arm, stopping you, bewilderment clear as day on his face; "what the fuck is wrong with you?"

and for the first time, something surprises you; this never happened before

yes im just basically making a crackfic atp but thats like the whole reason i write, self-indulgence, writing about concepts i find interesting

ADDITIONALLY ADDITIONALLY, what if, it turns out, the only way to save him is to sacrifice yourself

the only way to stop him from dying, is if you die in his stead

your existence in their universe, someone who first saw it as a work of fiction, is a form of imbalance, you're not "wrong" but you're not supposed to be there either

because the universe works in mysterious ways, and I'm a firm believer in there being balance and the universe always doing it's best to correct any forms of imbalance, either slow, or sudden

and there's always a price for everything, you can't take and take, you have to give

"This story is a tragedy because it didn't have to end this way." vs "This story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way"