Man You Know That One Trope Where The Enemy Comes To The Protag's House (or Vice Versa) When They're

man you know that one trope where the enemy comes to the protag's house (or vice versa) when they're hurt and is like "i didnt know where else to go"

i fuckin love that like. unconscious draw dynamic with shizaya where only when they're not in their right mind (probably from blood loss or sleep deprivation) do they start to unconsciously seek each other out

like they'll just start walking and not really know where they're going but they find themselves at each others' houses and by the time they realize where they are, the other one's already opened the door and is frozen

or like. shizuo doesnt even realize he's trailing izaya's scent until he runs into izaya himself, or izaya doesnt realize he's headed to ikebukuro until the train comes to a stop and he's like oh. huh

shizuo's walking around idly when he catches a glimpse of izaya bleeding as he runs away and izaya's thinking that he can't get caught by shizuo right now because shizuo will definitely hurt him, but shizuo chases after izaya anyway and he's not even sure why because it's not anger clouding his actions anymore but something else (concern?? nooo it couldnt be)

shizuo's always been better at sensing izaya through raw instinct than izaya is at sensing him but when izaya's tired enough to let go of some of his repressed emotions and constantly-running brain he finds that his instinct carries him to shizuo as well

like. just the magnetic force between them. i need more of it the flavor is so good because sometimes they dont even want it to be there. izaya comes to shizuo and he's like fuck. i need to go home and sleep off this fucking bullet wound why am i HERE WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME

or shizuo gets a bad feeling out of nowhere and he's like damn the flea must be getting stabbed in an alley somewhere. dont care (he sets out on a walk a few minutes later and if he unconsciously starts checking alleyways that's no one's business but his own) (he doesn't actually find izaya dying in an alleyway but he does find a gang looking for him and maaaybe he roughs them up bit)

so insane over how subconscious their attachment to each other is please give me more fics about it lest i write them myself because this post already contains like 5 different fanfic plots

Now thinking of the other times Odysseus just... dotes on Telemachus. Like when they first meet, he just kisses his boy on his cheek. Then when Telemachus accidentally leaves the door to the armory open, Odysseus is just- "It's fine (even though it'll totally kill us HAHAHAHA... daddy's got this-)" AND THEN. That time this one suitor begged him for mercy and Odysseus mercilessly kills him. Then another guy also tries to beg, but then, Telemachus was like- "Oh, don't kill him, he was nice to me." and Odysseus was like- "Ok, I'll spare him cause my baby boy says so." and Telemachus is just- "Oh yea, don't kill this one other guy too cause he was also nice to me- er- unless he already got killed or something-" and Odysseus is all- "Sure baby boy."- no questions asked.

Honestly I can see why people would feel off at the fact that Odysseus questioned his father at first when they reunited when people look at it at face value, but if you actually read and look into his character and the story it makes perfect sense as to why. The reasoning?

Trust issues, a boat full of it

Odysseus hardly trusts anyone at this point. I mean hell when he went to Ithaca and finally arrived there he thought Athena, the goddess, the one who personally trained him and watched over him since he was young, was lying and tricking him because the poor man is so traumatized he feels like it is all another trap for him.

Then he sees his father, who he hasn't seen in 20 years, and doesn't know if he can even trust his own father anymore. He doesn't trust his own father anymore. That's not something that warrants rage and anger, that's something to be genuinely concerned about that someone can be so traumatized to the point that they can't even trust their own family. Odysseus couldn't tell if he really was his father or if it was another bs situation being pulled on him by the gods that messed with him for 10 full years.

And when he finally revealed himself to his father? He hugged him, he hugged him tightly and comforted him. Probably one of the only times in a long while that Odysseus has felt comfortable enough to hug anybody. This moment, this special moment between the two, is the moment where Odysseus has fully reconnected to his home for good.

So if anyone even tries to say that Odysseus was bad to his parents or that he didn't care about them you will be catching these hands and book 16 of Homer's Odyssey because clearly you don't understand that a huge part of Odysseus's character is loving and caring for his family above everything else.

out of all the izaya alternates, i think my favorite and the most interesting one (tho i Am biased) is hachimenroppi

and like, its just interesting to think how you could take this theoretical character- and what if roppi was the same as izaya on the surface, but also not?

he does the same things but with different motives behind it- rather than izaya, who worries about nonexistence, roppi worries most about legacy and importance, hence he does want to cause the three way gang war and die in it, but as a way to ensure that he's going to be remembered for a long, long time. and unlike izaya, roppi DOES call this act a suicide- he doesnt shy away from the concrpt of death. he finds humans stupid, annoying, and beneath him- which is why he toys with them! he likes to see the silly, irrational ways humans deal with stimuli, as opposed to himself, whos totallly logical and rational all the time. toooooootally.

izaya, i think, embodies anxiety- his whole arc, at its core, stems from thanatophobia. when someone pokes a hole in his armor, he tries to either forget about or rationalize it. his leitmotif is LITERALLY called "he's such a coward that he can laugh." roppi is commonly portrayed as misanthropic and suicidal- so he clearly embodies depression as a contrast to izaya. but that doesnt mean they DONT have traits of the other! izaya is well aware of his own anxiety, but denies his own lonliness and possible suicidality. it would be very interesting if roppi was well aware of his depression, but denied his anxiois traits.

and then itd be super cool if they met somehow- perhaps a suicide pact? who knows!!! idk lmao just some thoughts

I can't remember the specifics of when Izaya started getting access to the underground but I'm guessing it was pretty young for normal standards...actually given the common trend of gang warfare maybe not. But I feel like he got a little more deep into it than any of the colour gang leaders did. Like didn't he get recruited by Kine?

Anyway, given that and his apparent brilliantness its no wonder so little was done about his delinquency. Even his fights with Shizuo. Like imagine being a teacher for him, and trying to inforce the rules, only to have the knowledge that some yakuza guy has got this kids back for whatever reason. "Oil barrels? I don't see no oil barrels?"

On one hand, no wonder he comes off as a little bratty, but can you blame him? You try being a teenage guardian to two younger sisters. I can see why he might have signed up for an easy route too. I know his parents might have sent him money, but how much of that would really help him? He's a student, if something else came along that allowed him to afford a babysitter I wouldn't blame him for taking the deal.

And imagine growing up where some of the only adults in your life were criminals.

There are so many things that tie into how fucked up he is.

Shizaya week 2022 Day 3: there was only one bed

...and they spend all the night fighting over it. At the end, any of them slept on it.