(soulmates AU: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)
When Eddie Munson was almost fifteen, his soulmark showed up overnight.
Oh fuck oh god oh fuck oh god he’d thought in a loop, horrified eyes stuck on a wrist thrust as far away from himself as his gangly limbs could manage.
All year, the hope had been growing and growing in him that he’d dodged a bullet. Turns out it was just a little slow.
Because, see, when Eddie Munson was almost eight, he asked his mom why can’t we just go away somewhere, like—like, just us, and Sarah Munson kissed his head and said your daddy’s my soulmate, baby. It’s gonna be okay.
And then because he was a little shit who routinely broke his mom’s heart, he tore himself out of her arms and yelled if you loved me he wouldn’t be your soulmate, which didn’t even make sense to himself at any point, he’d just been hopping mad with nowhere to put it except a woman who had only ever done her best to love him.
He didn’t blame her at all when he got sent to live with Wayne, pretty soon after that. Not, like, the next morning or even the next month, but close enough that when he got told he was going, it all sort of made sense in his eight-year-old mind. It all connected.
When his fourteenth birthday came and went without the heavy hand of destiny landing on his wrist, he’d slowly started to relax. He’d gotten all wound up worrying about it, the whole year he was twelve, concocting increasingly elaborate scenarios in his mind: a popular girl who would sneer resentfully at him for the rest of their lives, or maybe some bizarro girl version of Eddie who would hate him even more.
Sometimes, guiltily, he’d wondered what would happen if it wasn’t a girl’s name at all. He’d never even heard of anything like that happening, but he’d been starting to get the feeling that if there was ever going to be a freak of nature like that, it just might be him.
As much as the thought of getting chained to a girl for life was starting to make him feel like running and hiding and clawing off all his skin, the thought of getting a name that wasn’t a girl’s name—that would be so much worse. Sure, he couldn’t picture any girl who’d be pleased to have his name on her, but some guy who had to bear Eddie’s chicken-scratch scrawled across his wrist like the mark of Cain? He’s pretty sure people have gotten put in the ground for less. The week before he turned thirteen, he had three nightmares in a row about it.
Maybe it should’ve been some kind of relief to see SANDY FOWLER, who could be a girl but honestly probably wasn’t, someone he hadn't even ever met and couldn’t guess anything about. A reprieve from having to know for sure either way: as close to a blank canvas as anyone like him could get. A million-to-one shot. Instead, he'd just felt the fear in his gut curdle and turn to a cold kind of fury.
Fuck this, he’d thought, and reached for the beat-up Bic on his bedside table.
———
People get real weird about it, especially once he gets it covered up all the way instead of just stabbing ink into his skin any which way, driven by nauseous determination to fuck it up any way he could.
When Wayne had come home that day and seen Eddie on the bathroom floor, covered in blood and ink and the snotty tears he couldn’t hold back after a while, he'd yelled at Eddie for the first time in Eddie’s life.
He hadn't kicked Eddie out afterwards, though Eddie’d still slept with his backpack tucked under his bed for weeks, just in case. Instead, Wayne had asked around awkwardly, and one of his old trucking buddies had known a guy called Frank out in Ohio who ran a side business for desperate folks.
Frank had made some kind of face when he saw what Eddie had done; nodded at Wayne and said, "You did good bringing him here."
Wayne had just nodded back in that taciturn way he got around strangers sometimes, and helped Eddie up into the chair.
He'd gone back one more time when he was eighteen, just to get it patched up and smoothed out again. Frank hadn't recognized him at first with his fresh new metalhead look and the way he'd been shooting up like a weed. They'd joked about covering his whole arm eventually, and Eddie thought maybe it wouldn't even be a joke in another few years. He's not in a rush. He feels a kind of vicious, candy-sweet relief when he looks at his arm now, so everything else is just a bonus.
But yeah, people do get real weird about it. He’s pretty sure some of them think he never had any kind of name under there, that he’s just a poser who wants to act all badass like he’s rejecting something he never had, but the joke’s on them because Eddie really fucking wishes that were the case. The ones who do think he has a name probably think it’s covered in Sharpie or something, like Eddie gets up early every single morning to reapply the felt-tip for shock value.
It’s not a huge shock when Steve Harrington gets a little squeamish about the whole thing. It’s maybe a little surprising that Steve hasn’t heard the rumors about it already, but he guesses they’ve moved in pretty different circles.
Every time they’re in the same room now, Eddie’s got a mental timer ticking away until Steve’s eyes drop down to his wrist. He’s pretty sure Steve doesn’t even know it’s happening, most of the time.
Of course he knows about the Nancy Wheeler thing. Everyone fucking knows about the Nancy Wheeler thing. Steve hadn’t been shy about it at any point; it’s not all that common to meet your soulmate real young, so it had been pretty big news in the halls of Hawkins High. It was bigger news when Wheeler dumped him very publicly and, it seemed, very permanently.
Eddie hadn’t cared so much until that point. Sure, it was a little unusual, but who gave a rat’s ass? You could see that kind of thing in any insipidly brainless rom-com you liked. The break-up, though. He’d never have guessed that Wheeler had the big brass balls to pull that kind of thing. And shacking up with creepy weirdo Jonathan Byers like that—there had to be some real juicy story there. He’d even heard some of the adults around Hawkins talking about it, like it was actual news or something.
The whole thing makes a lot more sense when Nancy finally gets around to telling him about it. He’s kind of a captive audience at first, just blearily nodding along as she perches on the chair by his hospital bed and nervously, haltingly fills the silence when he’s too hazy to contribute much to the conversation.
She ends up telling him a lot of stuff that he’s not a hundred percent sure she meant to say, or at least he’s not a hundred percent sure she meant to say it to someone who’d actually hear her.
“I liked him,” she says. “I did. I’m positive. I wasn’t being forced into it, or anything like that. I liked him so much. I wasn’t…I wasn’t lying when I said I loved him.”
Eddie’s only mostly awake at that point, but he sees her press the heel of her palm into her eyes and take a deep breath. “I wasn’t lying. Not on purpose. God, I don’t know. Maybe I was lying. I didn’t think I was when I said it, anyway, and that’s—that must count for something, right?”
She laughs a little. “You’re not even awake, and I’m having a complete breakdown at you.”
With a truly herculean effort, Eddie rouses himself to make some kind of acknowledging noise.
She flinches a little in her chair, so she really must’ve thought he was out. “Oh! Eddie, um—are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“S’okay,” he manages. “You can—keep talking. If you want.”
Nancy pauses and looks at him, pursing her mouth in that prissy, thoughtful way. “Okay,” she says at last. “I will.”
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geniunely not trying to put words in ur mouth im geniunely asking: what do you actually like about persona 5? from all ur rants im just wondering why you didnt drop the game bc it seems (again, im not trying to put words in ur mouth) that it simply not for you? i geniunely have not felt any of the issues you bring up outside of the writing ones and i cannot tell if i'm just easily pleased and not good at discerning what a good game is or we simply have dif things we enjoy in a video game. i hate getting tone across text but im asking out of geniune curiosity im not trying to attack your opinion (;-;)
Nah, i dont feel like ur attacking me, and I hope u dont feel the same when u see my complaints! Lmao. In my defense, I am replaying the game for the first time after completing my first file back in 2020, so alot of the faults i kinda shrugged off in my first playthrough are now glaringly in my face now that I no longer have the confusion and interest in learning the main story to keep me occupied. The game is clunky all the way through, and at some times, even frustratingly so.
But despite that, i do like this game. Alot! Its probably one of my top games ever if im being honest!
This ended up way longer than I intended, so im putting it under a readmore to keep the post short on dashboards
If i had to describe what I liked about the game in the simplest way imaginable…I think I would say, I like how the game makes me feel :) I like the music. I like the vibe. I like the immersion from city to city, and I like the premise! I like the characters and I like the connections you make with these characters! As im replaying this game, i am most excited to see Akira and his comments about the world :) i like hearing everyones voices, I like their little interactions in Mementos, and I like seeing them fight!
P5 is the first game I played in the series; its the game that introduced me to SMT in the first place! And it (smt) is a series that my longtime best friend LOVES and never thought hed be able to share with me! It is a game i keep very near to my heart; it has influenced me in ways i did not think would happen in the short couple of years since i first finished it. It genuinely keeps me awake some nights thinking about the world this game has created, and I think that is a testament to the impact its had, be it good or bad.
The joke about wishing theyd make a persona game that was Good is that despite all of its numerous flaws, the games manage to snatch your attention and pull you in anyway. Imagine if they made a game that had all of those things that i mentioned I loved, but done Right and executed Properly?? Where I got to have a story that made sense and didnt need to be spoonfed to me (in like an HOUR of dialogue and scenes; an HOUR!), and characters that talked and bonded beyond the tiny snippets of interaction theyre allowed to have in mementos? Combat that let me use PERSONAS i liked instead of BUILDS that stop me from getting instakilled throughout the entirety of the endgame, and a Persona building mechanic that didnt feel like I was shooting in the dark looking for possible fusions that end up not even being useful in the endgame.
Ive mentioned it before, but I complain so much bc I have seen what a good p5 game looks like, and its Strikers almost to a T. Combat is still your typical warriors-esque style combat, but it is at least different from the turn based strategy of the main game. Characters talk to each other freely, they hang out and comfort each other in a way that feels more connected that the base game. Strikers implements the ability to see ALL possible fusions with ALL registered personas, not just the ones in your Stock, so you can fuse easily without having yo consult a guide. The story feels like it makes SENSE with antagonists that feel morally grey and sympathetic. Genuinely, alot of the complaints for p5 I had were almost immediately rectified in this game.
But please also know that the praises I sing for this game is only bc of the groundwork laid by p5 and the world it created. Thats what I like about this game, that it had such a captivating premise and cast of characters, that a DIFFERENT company was able to hit the ground running with them. P5 had alot happening in that game, but i think what it had most was potential. The effort put into this game is astronomical, and the possible connections you can outright MISS if u arent paying attention was worth the money and time to implement; even if it meant that it could be considered a waste of resources to higher ups.
Books and games and part time jobs???!! Silly little cutscenes that add nothing to the game PLOTwise, but define and flesh out the personality of your protagonist. There was alot of love put into this game, and its evident by the fact that we have NOT seen a new persona game released; they bank on existing titles bc they are unwilling to make a game like this from scratch again. They dont want to ‘waste’ resources on good voice acting and a complex, overarching story; they dont want to waste money on scenes a player may never see, on routes a player may never get to experience. Making a game that gives u even the slightest bit of freedom means more money in programming and detailing that freedom. This has been an issue for a WHILE, and its a miracle that the gaming landscape had space for a colossal title like p5!
I complain bc I want better, and I do not think that is inherently at odds with my love of this game. In b4 im told to get good; ive played on hard and tested out merciless (its NOT fun, im making godbuilds again and its boring 😞). Its not the most accessible turnbased rpg; theres no colorblind modes, and the affinity system is convoluted and overwhelming. Combo moves are hard to keep track of and it can be incredibly frustrating to see your turns being skipped or seeing characters take extreme technical damage without understanding WHY it happened. The fact that they KNEW the game was desperate for qol improvements by the time royal came out, and instead of updating the base game to have those improvements too, they just pushed the royal edition out for people to play instead. It sucks! Customers and fans deserve better than being forced to shell out money for a game they already played !
As the gaming climate gets more and more hostile and unbearable, I think it is good to look at your games critically, and understand why products come out subpar. Persona 5 is a fun game that has a nice cast and an interesting premise, but it is ultimately tied down by its refusal to build on existing building blocks regarding its combat, and it insists on having insulting and downright out of character dialogue and scenes to appease the audience its designed to be targeted to. It is easy to forget sometimes that queer ppl are infact NOT the prime target of these games, its cishet gamer bros from aged 16 to 40 who will laugh at homophobic comments, who drool over a 16 yr old girl with a 16 yr old mindset and a grown womans body, who need to be placated with constant sexual comments to deal with a convoluted story that will inevitably make zero sense until its laid out for you before the literal end of the game.
Its bad. Its good. Its so shallow and its unbelievable that they thought having the plot twist make ZERO sense until they showed CUTSCENES of YOUR character discussing Goro and his connections to the metaverse for endgame SHOCK VALUE was more important than just having your team be smart and piece it together over time. Its shit. Its literally amazing. It let you FUCK your teacher ??????????????what the FUCK. They also let me shoot a god in the face w the best looking ult persona in the world so i can ignore that shit. And ultimately that is how i got through the game. Lol.
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