#* narrative / micah.

[saulweissberg]

monday, august 26th, 2024 at 8:03 am.

* 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey * 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey * 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey * 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Micah, where are you? Why is your desk cleaned out? SAUL: And why did you leave chocolates telling Berenice to fuck off?

monday, august 26th, 2024 at 11:30 am.

* 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey * 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Micah, why aren't you answering me? SAUL: Where are you???? SAUL: Are you okay? Where are you?

monday, august 26th, 2024 at 5:07 pm.

* 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey * 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Zevi Micah Weissberg SAUL: Answer your fucking phone SAUL: I'm serious, Micah. Where the fuck are you? SAUL: Are you seriously not going to answer me? SAUL: What about your finals next week? Are you coming back for them? You're so close to finishing law school, Mikey. You just have a little bit more to go, why wouldn't you stay?

monday, august 26th, 2024 at 11:47 pm.

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: I'm sorry, Micah. SAUL: I love you, son. Please just call me back. Let me know you're not dead in a ditch somewhere.

tuesday, august 27th, 2024 at 9:23 am.

* 📞 incoming phone call to Mikey

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Micah. Are you back in Manhattan? Please let me know. SAUL: Marmalade misses you SAUL: [IMG ATTACHMENT]

tuesday, august 27th, 2024 at 7:58 pm.

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Please call me back SAUL: Are you okay? I'm really worried.

wednesday, august 28th, 2024 at 4:31 pm.

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: Zevi Micah. You're really starting to piss me off. SAUL: Can you at least go see Eliana or Uncle Levi and let them know you're okay? They're worried about you too. Especially Bubbe

friday, august 30th, 2024 at 10:14 pm.

* 💬 incoming text message to Mikey

SAUL: You're welcome back any time. I'll be here when you want to talk. SAUL: I love you. You're my son and I'll always love you. SAUL: Call me some time, okay?

and with that last message, saul finally stopped trying.

@bloodbuzzfm

[lukeskqwalker]

I'm replaying rdr2 rn and usually I leave every micah mission for the last possible moment just so that I can have as much time with him gone as possible. this time I didn't. doing that made me notice that Micah????? Tried??? To get more people to like him?? Arthur included?

Im not saying that in a "aw poor guy" kind of way. It's very obvious that it's slimy. The girls he wants to like him for obvious reasons. Anyone who's not white he Doesn't do this to and is actively antagonistic towards. But Micah tries to get Arthur to like him in the same way he gets Dutch to like him. He tries to talk to Arthur friendly MULTIPLE times, and every time arthur (rightfully) shuts him down. He showers him in compliments and thanks and good job opportunities. He even donates pretty decent money to the camp funds. Not as often as other people, but when he donates it's like 10 dollars as opposed to other peoples 1 dollar. (Funnily enough, I noticed this bc I always donate 10 dollars at a time no matter how much money I have, just so I'm not harassed for not donating in 4 days when the last time I donated 1000.) It's only after arthur shuts him down so often that Micah tries to get rid of him.

But here's the thing. Micah is shitty towards the people arthur loves, and that's a deal breaker for him no matter how much micah tries to butter him up. Charles and lenny are both people that Arthur shows massive respect and appreciation for. They work hard, don't escalate situations in a way that endangers the gang, and they don't consider some lives as fundamentally above others. and micah, who does none of those things, is just a racist asshole towards them. Arthur feels a responsibility towards the girls, and micah harasses them. EVERY time you talk to one of the girls after micah does, arthur asks them to let him know if they want him to do anything about it. (I actually have no idea what he's like towards Tilly, as I've never had an interaction between the two, but I highly doubt it would be good.) He's creepy towards jack, but I'm genuinely not sure if he's like that from the start or only after arthur had turned him down so much. AND: hosea doesn't like him. Hilariously I think that alone would be enough for arthur to hate him as well.

Funnily enough, all this combined makes me think of Dutch more than anyone else. For Arthur, fucking with the people he loves is a deal breaker. For Dutch, it's not. At least, it's not until it's too late for anyone to be saved, Dutch himself included.

[agropuff]

the crane wives making me think about my ocs

What if I died.

[jvzebel-x]

(a love story in five parts:)

"You could do anything to me, and I'd let you. ... Tell me you love me, at least. Please. I need to know somebody does."

"I always think of a passage from the Symposium, this allegory about people who started off as two halves of a whole, but then something cut them apart and they spend their whole lives looking for the other half so they can fit themselves back together. And that's how it feels. It hurts. It's like I lost you before I was born."

"I know why you fuck me like you wish you could kill me. I know everything that gets you off, you can't help but show me. There's no part of you that I can't see."

"Because it wasn't as if they'd never hurt each other before-- between them, it was a kind of tenderness, writing themselves onto each other's bodies with every mark they left. It was a promise: I'm here, I've always been here. Pain was a necessary consequence, but that was all it was."

"All they were-- all they had ever been-- was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun."

x. "These Violent Delights", Micah Nemerever

[rhinoyo]

hey cos!! what are your favorite rune factory games in order :0!! im super curious!! have a nice day!!!

helloooo!!! <3 oou thank you so much for the question.. <333

of the ones i’ve completed in full — 4 is my favorite, followed by 3, and then 5! <3

including the ones i’ve just played enough to have an opinion — it’d be 4, 3, oceans, 2, 5 :> <3

[griefbringers]

i swear i'm gonna fix everything. / for Johnny !!!

"I don't think you are," says the dream, very gently. "You didn't break anything to begin with. Not every burden is yours."

There's music in the air; a sweet, summer melody that comes from everywhere and nowhere, or maybe from deep within the chest of the warm-eyed creature at Micah's side. They know, without needing to ask, that this creature's name is Johnny. He feels like an old friend, perhaps; someone they might have known in another life.

Somehow, this place is familiar, but it's hard to tell what it really looks like. It's just warm, and the warmth is everywhere, over and around and inside xem, and they are outdoors and indoors all at once. Long grass, gold in the sunlight; laundry hanging on a line. A sense of peace. Xe could stay here forever, or just for as long as xe wanted.

"There's nothing to fix," the dream tells Micah again, hand on its shoulder. His voice--it is his music in the air. "Least of all you. I think some of the others would like to hear that more often, and I think it would sound better coming from you."

When the Starwake System wakes, the dream they've had fades as fast as any sunrise.

[littlebigplanet]

red dead is filed under games that are fun to play for about ten minutes before i start being tormented by visions

[saulweissberg-archive]

availability / @micahweissberg setting / frederick's farm, april 13th, late evening before closing.

he thought he saw a ghost. well, not a ghost, since his son wasn’t fucking dead (as far as he knew, at least). perhaps a mirage was a better word. a hallucination. all those words made more sense than micah gideon weissberg actually being there, in providence peak. almost two thousand miles away from new york city where, saul believed, his son was living. it had to be an image his mind conjured up. there was absolutely no way micah was there. though they didn’t communicate as often as they should have, saul doubted there was any universe where his son would come to providence peak and not announce his presence. in the very least, shoot off a quick ‘dad, i’m in town, let’s get dinner’ text. was he really such a piece of shit father that micah would travel all this way and not say anything? why would he ever come to providence peak, anyway?

saul caught a glimpse of a man that looked very much like micah, and at first, tried to ignore the urge to follow after him. he just wanted confirmation that he was going crazy. departing from his friends, saul pushed past the crowd exiting the farm and jogged lightly to catch up to the man that looked suspiciously like his son from the back. it couldn’t be… “micah!” saul called out, cupping his hands around his mouth so the sound would travel over the noisy crowd. he kept pushing through until he was just a few feet away. “micah?” he called again, stretching his hand out to grab the man on the shoulder. “mikey! is that you?”

[bookkats]

Transfiguration, Feb 19

February 19Transfiguration:Matthew 16:24-17:8Psalm 41:7-10Suggested Micah 6:8 (again)Psalm 46:10The Kingdom of Heaven is Like God Shading Godself, for humans to perceive Call to WorshipGod calls us, the deep from the deepGod your magnificence is too great for usGod you are changed from glory, into glorySo you come to us, human, and walk with usTeach us again, todayCome let us walk with God Call…

[stevethomasonposts]

How to Live in Light of Coming Destruction in Luke and Micah | Visual Resources for Both Lectionaries This Week

How to Live in Light of Coming Destruction in Luke and Micah | Visual Resources for Both Lectionaries This Week

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[verdemoun]

Fun fact, Kieran may have been originally supposed to live longer, at least judging by his many unused voice lines (found on YouTube) and a longer hairstyle which I actually think looks better for him (found on rdr wiki of cut content). Maybe he was supposed to go to Guarma? The voice lines to me suggested going on hunting missions with him but I’m not too sure.

spoilers. obviously

fun fact i have listened to the 2+ hours of Kieran's cut voice lines so many times even my housemates know it and groan when they walk in and i'm listening to it. Did you know one of his cut voice lines for a near miss in a shootout is 'whoo, nearly took my head off!' to foreshadow his eventual demise? And he has several variations of lines telling Arthur to rest with the gentlest tone suggesting he would have been one of the few characters to show concern for Arthur's illness in later chapters? And slightly less relevant but there is a cut interaction in where he asks Jack to sneak him some food only for Arthur to threaten to kill him BUT CALLING HIMSELF UNCLE KIERAN???

screenshots by cad5150

About Guarma, all but confirmed. Here is one of his cut outfits, which I think very obviously suits the vibe of what most of the gang wore in Guarma like compare it to Micah's Guarma outfit in particular. Additionally he has this hood as an outfit accessory: some people think it was intended that when he rides into camp Horsemen Apocalypse there's a moment of the hood being taken off and then the characters having a much more visceral reaction to his eyes being gauged out but personally I think it makes way more sense that he was meant to be in Banking, the Old American Art 'replacing' Sean as an extra gun. Which would have been really cool because I would have loved a conversation where they bring up they're a gun short and it spiral into more reflection on how they're not just a gun short, they're a man down, they lost the 'joy in their lives' Sean Macguire and they were still hurting instead of just NEVER MENTIONING HIM AGAIN other than a few rare character lines.

Side tangent also his scarf is different in his guarma outfit which is it's own essay because if you're going off the blue high honor red low honor theory this so strong implies we could have seen some really cool character development. looking at what the gang were wearing in banking and then in guarma there's no obvious explanation as to where he got it. how cute would it have been if we got a scene where mary-beth gifted him a scarf?? but the also terrifying implication that we might see kieran become less high honour good boy blorbo to someone a bit more morally ambiguous?

I think the question really is how he would have fit in in Guarma, which of course we will never know and considering how much cut content there is about Guarma. Like everyone else in Guarma makes sense: Dutch's descent into immorality being so clear even Arthur questions it, Bill being the one trusted to look after Javier following his rescue, supporting their friendship in rdr1, Micah reaffirming his position as an actual piece of shit in his lines responding to Hosea and Lenny's deaths and complete lack of empathy. Maybe a kieran who is slightly more ruthless and active in shootouts in guarma but also shows compassion for arthur as arthur gets sick? Maybe the attack on Hanging Dog Ranch was meant to be more a revenge for Kieran's death assuming he was taken and killed similarly to his death in chapter 4 (given how much much foreshadowing there is for his death), but just another misery in chapter 6 that hits harder because we have more time to grow attached and see him develop?

Except. Except then we get to cut outfit kieran.

first. hellooooo sailor. but who is this man. who is this man who looks older. and wears a very, very low honour red scarf. and is obviously dressed still as an outlaw, and didn't go live a happy life with mary-beth. is it. is it possible. kieran was not always meant to be doomed by the narrative??

is it possible we would have seen kieran become more loyal to dutch and micah, true to his army abandoning, gang jumping, choosing to ride with the o'driscolls rather than die, immediately 'loyal' to the vdls despite torture because being alone meant certain death, coward nature? or would he have just been a character john could encounter in the epilogue? perhaps shaken by knowing arthur, as one of his very, very few friends, died trying to be a better person and abandoned any effort to be more than an outlaw?

but. but kieran. shirt all buttoned up. scarf on. thick coat. hair slightly feral and wild. why does it looked like you're all dressed up for the cold, buddy? like- like you might have been hiding out up mount hagen.

[saulweissberg]

availability / @bloodbuzzfm setting / bubbe edna's house (and saul's childhood home), bridgeport, connecticut. timeline / saturday, august 10th, 2024 at 4:35 pm before the annual country club end-of-season soirée.

he hadn’t given micah much of a choice. not really. saul hadn’t threatened his son or demanded that he come along to his grandmother’s house, but he made it nearly impossible for micah to refuse. saul bought a plane ticket in advance, set to fly out a few days after saul himself would be returning to the east coast, so micah couldn’t say he didn’t have the money to buy a ticket (as if saul would ever tell him about a family event and then not offer to pay for fucking anything!). then, he heaped on lots of guilt. he reminded micah that he hadn’t seen his cousins in months and his bubbe was almost eighty—which horrified saul to think about after losing his father so young and edna would’ve protested, proclaiming that she felt like she was in her prime and didn’t need anyone to fuss over her—so he better get in as much time with her as he could before the inevitable happened. 

by some sort of miracle, it had worked! micah had joined the weissbergs for the annual country club party that edna perlmutter weissberg insisted on her children attending since she was made the chairwoman over forty years ago. though she had officially retired ten years ago, it was clear to all members of the club that edna still had influence on the board, and she’d be damned if the biggest party of the season—a farewell celebration of summer!—would be missed by her children. or her grandchildren. there were of course many other events and parties that the club held, but summer had been his father’s favorite season, so this annual holiday for his immediate family had become a tradition shortly after the elder gideon died. saul was ecstatic to have his son join them, not only because he, as much as terry and micah thought he didn’t, valued all the time he could get with him, but it was also a relief not to hear edna and levi give him shit for not bringing micah along with him all weekend.

it was just a few hours before they were all supposed to head out to the club. edna was in the kitchen, attempting to help her personal chef finish up her famous lemon bars that she brought to every club party since reagan was in office, and the sounds of meatloaf’s bat out of hell album floated up the stairs and followed saul down the hallway to his old bedroom. levi had been sent out on a errand to pick up some last minute items for the party, while eliana had joined her grandmother in the kitchen, evidently singing along to the cd playing (because edna refused to use some new fangled app on her cellular device when she had a perfectly good cd collection!) from what saul could hear as he moved further down the hall. young gideon had taken his laptop to the backyard and forbid anyone from bothering him as he ‘pondered his sophomore novel and where the story would take him’ which was really code for he didn’t have a second idea for a book and his agent was getting increasingly frustrated with him. that just left micah.

whenever he came back to his mother’s house, the very house in which saul and levi had grown up in, he always insisted on sleeping in the guest room. his childhood bedroom held too many memories for him to comfortably sleep, much too easy for him to fall deep into his memories of his father or get distracted by a box full of mementoes from high school that would keep him reminiscing until the early hours of the morning. saul and levi had shared a room until they were twelve, insisting on sleeping in the same room until suddenly it was imperative that they have their own spaces and they would absolutely just die if they were forced to share a room any longer. even then, the twins often spent all their time together, only parting at bedtime… unless they were locked into some petty fight over a girl or who ate the last bag of pizzarias chips, but their arguments barely lasted a whole day and they were back to being best friends by morning. after saul left for college, though, he had trouble staying in his childhood bedroom without some eerie sense of malaise overwhelming him. like it was a reminder that he would never be a kid again, and he had done a mighty job of fucking up the kid he did go on to have.

a kid he fucked up in a room that made him feel like a kid. the closer he got to his bedroom door, the more his heart started to thud within. the moment he approached the door, he felt faint, forcing himself to bring his fist up to knock on the door. “mikey?” saul called, voice shakier than he wanted. he pushed the door open and stuck his head into the gap between it and the frame.

his childhood room was revealed to him the more he pushed the door open; edna frequently redecorated other areas in the house, but when it came to her sons' respective bedrooms, she hadn't touched a thing since they both left for college. it was a shrine to saul's long ago youth. the pixies poster he bought at a basement pub concert in boston during junior year of high school still hung over his bed; a promotional picture of tom cruise in risky business cut out of a magazine was still taped to the mirror above his dresser; framed pictures of the young saul with various family members and friends were placed about the room; even his star war figurines that he hadn't touched since he was in middle school were lined up on a bookcase in the far corner. he would never be a child again and this room was just mocking him, rubbing salt into the wound of aging.

saul gulped before speaking. “are you going to be ready in a bit? the party doesn’t start until six but bubbe insists on being there early. make sure it’s all set up to standard.” and by that, he meant edna’s standards. g-d forbid they pass out philly cheesesteak potato skins like last year!

[brujahinaskirt]

I love rdr2 for the little things--like how sleeping arrangements over time reflect narrative arcs and interpersonal decay (or bloom).

Just a really quick observation:

The most obvious and important sleeping change, I would argue, involves the Marstons. At the start of the game, John has abandoned and disavowed Abigail & Jack; they sleep on the ground in a flimsy shelter while he, the returning golden boy, sleeps in a bed under a comfortable tent. John's tent arguably affords the most privacy in the game, and this makes sense early on, when he's trying to maintain a distance between himself and everyone around him (especially his family, including Arthur). In Shady Belle, John has welcomed Abigail and Jack into his bedroom, and -- notably -- he sleeps on the floor this time. It's as much a signal of John's growth as a person who is allowing himself to be a little more reachable as it is a sign of his fledgling sense of regret and apology (for abandoning them in the first place), and it is a sign of him warming to the idea of Abigail and Jack as his family. But it doesn't happen all at once; Abigail and John still refuse to sleep beside one another. In the epilogue, as they actively attempt to rebuild their lives together, John and Abigail finally sleep side-by-side as a couple.

I read someone once point out that Uncle transitions from sleeping all over the camp, wherever he happens to pass out, to sleeping directly behind Arthur's tent in Beaver Hollow. This was so cleverly observed. What a powerful sign of the overall degradation of the character of the gang as Uncle (the character most representative of optimism and comfort) begins to fear for his safety and future enough to take physical shelter behind Arthur. What a note of confidence and clarity re: the true person Arthur is beneath the air of danger he has worn like a job title and a suit of armor. (I hunted for that original post to no avail; if it was yours, please let me know so I can link back to it!)

Molly & Dutch and the sliding divide. We start off with a present but muzzled level of friction between these two. Molly sleeps on the only bed in Dutch's lavish tent; Dutch sleeps beside her but... sitting up (haha okay very healthy)... because there's no room for Dutch and Molly. Later, Dutch commandeers the master bedroom at Shady Belle while Molly drunkenly collapses in an isolated place, usually by the kitchen window, blasted with light (see: truth) but far removed from the others, a reflection of her self-isolation and detachment from the gang and anyone who might be able to help her.

Dutch's tent gradually drifts farther away from the center of camp, at its maximum distance in Beaver Hollow. Micah, Cleet, and Joe linger closest to Dutch at this point, noticeably even more so than Javier and Bill.

The slow pull-apart of The Girls. Similar to Molly, after Sean's death, Karen can increasingly be found slumped over drunk in various locations at the periphery, semi-conscious. This is never more apparent than the Beaver Hollow era. Meanwhile, Mary-Beth and Tilly remain sleeping tightly next to one another, not far from Sadie.

God only knows where Micah sleeps.

(Might come back and expand this more later! But that's all she wrote, rushed, for now.)

[amrass]

RDR2 headcanon: Micah Bell kills his brother Amos in 1907

I think the family who Micah and his gang invade the home of and murder is Amos and his family. 

The crime is mentioned twice: in a 1907 newspaper, and by Cleet before John or Sadie kills him. The family includes a husband, a wife and daughters, like Amos' does, revealed through Micah's speeches, a knife game, and the letter from Amos in Shady Belle. (Shady Bells, both of them lol, being shrouded in mystery. I'll try to unveil them a little).

In the letter, Amos rejects Micah and tells him to stay far away or he'll kill him. "I have daughters, as you know". Micah must know his brother's address as this letter is a reply, but how does Micah know about his nieces? Did he visit? Did he stake out Amos' ranch, before he was spotted? (That must've been an intense moment). The letter can be found randomly as if thrown away, so it must've upset him, who is usually secretive. He is also swears he remember threats.

Is 1800s Micah capable of killing his own brother? Idk. But in the 1900s, I think he's unhinged enough to do it, especially if his O'Driscoll-like gang members join in. Amos is a failed Bell and a loose end, and he witnessed a weakness on Micah's part, in the letter.

For Micah hope is weakness, a belief that was softened and then solidified when he was in the Van der Linde Gang. I think he joined unconsciously wanting a family, consciously wanting money (the Blackwater score, Dutch's bounty, the gang funds…). Maybe Dutch let him join as as a pet project, testing his mentoring skills on a man rougher than a street kid (and if Micah can soften or settle down, so can Dutch?). Between chapter 1-4 of RDR Micah gets a sliver of hope and reaches out to Amos. But the reconciliation with the old family, the new family, and the money all go to hell. He likely ratted after Guarma, but I'm unsure if he were going to give the Pinkertons, Dutch. As a young man, Micah chose his father over Amos, like he chooses Dutch over Arthur or any other gang / family members. When Dutch rejects him, he screams in frustration. The money is seemingly not enough. I think he changes after this, going from bad to worse. And at his worst, he's probably capable of spilling his own blood. Maybe he feels like he's killing Amos on his father's behalf, like he killed "traitors" on Dutch's. (Daddy issues deluxe edition).

Micah and Amos can be read as a dark mirror to Arthur and John. Both Amos and John abandon their lawless lifestyle – and their brothers – to become lawful sheep ranchers. But where John lives on thanks to Arthur's involvement, it makes narratively sense to me that Micah's involvement does the opposite, ending his remaining family. In canon, John is also killed in the end, after a few years of lawful living. Amos might've been equally unable to escape. Especially with a brother like Micah.

Sorry if I got any details wrong. Special thanks to @zanazirafanfic and @the--end-is--nigh , who chatted about this with me months ago, offering their insights. I've been seeing a lot of cool Micah Bell and RDR theories lately, so I'd thought I'd share one of mine.

[everybody-loves-purdy]

With a bit of inference, Moth Flight’s Vision is an accidental tragedy about generational trauma.

Moth Flight’s Vision is a book which tries to justify the medicine cat abstinence rule, and it fails at this. This is mainly due to the exceptional circumstances Moth Flight was in when she gave up her kits. And obviously you have the fact she was a very young mother with four children in a time before a nursery system and when Moth Flight herself was also navigating being the first ever medicine cat. But I want to bring up another aspect of Moth Flight’s Vision that heavily influences our titular character’s decision to give up her children and bar all medicine cats from ever having mates or kits: Trauma.

And I want to stress that at no point so I think the Erins wanted to make this a story about trauma. But boy did they accidentally make a pretty compelling story about generational trauma. You need to squint a little though but trust me, it’s there. Accidentally put in the narrative like some of the best stuff in warrior cats often is.

So the trauma I am referring two comes from two cats in her life, her mother Wind Runner/ Windstar and her mate Micah.

So if we start with the former, Wind Runner at the start of Moth Flight’s Vision is very critical of Moth Flight. She has no patience for Moth Flight getting distracted and her lack of hunting skill, and voices how she dislikes Moth Flight’s lack of prey contribution to the clan, and frequently insults her and makes snide remarks to her. Such as you can see in just this one example.

All this leaves Moth Flight feeling inferior and feeling like she is wrong.

All this cumulates in an argument in which Wind Runner lists how irresponsible she believes Moth Flight to be tells Moth Flight she is a danger to her clan. And Moth Flight believes her, and runs away.

Now after this once Moth Flight returns as a medicine cat we don’t really get anything like this from Wind Runner again but the damage is done. Now here’s where the inference has to start coming in a bit. Who wouldn’t be left with a complex after this? Who wouldn’t be left with the need to prove themselves however they can? Moth Flight certainly sets out to please Wind Runner and prove she can be useful to her clan in the early part of the book when she’s receiving this abuse. So why would it just evaporate later when she actually finds something she’s good at and can be of great use to her clan doing? Just put a pin in that for a moment.

Also while we’re talking about Wind Runner; Moth Flight has a conversation with her dead siblings about how she wishes she could please Wind Runmer, which leads to her dead siblings saying that the reason Wind Runner is so harsh towards Moth Flight is because of the trauma she experienced when she lost her kits. Wind Runner’s trauma is ultimately what is causing her to inflict trauma onto Moth Flight.

And now we move onto the second inflicter of trauma in Moth Flight’s life: Micah. Don’t worry, unlike Wind Runner, Micah didn’t inflict any trauma on Moth Flight through his own actions. Unless you count dying in a tragic accident right in front of Moth Flight. In which case yeah, his actions did inflict trauma on her. At least it was an accident.

Micah’s death deeply traumatises Moth Flight. She cannot bear to be in WindClan due to it, she lives in ShadowClan for a moon, avoiding going home due to her grief, and then only travels back once she realises she is pregnant, and decides she wants to be with kin.

The stage is set. The Erins have a young cat set up about to have four kittens that she’s going to give away and change the medicine cat code forever. What they do not realise is that the trauma they have influenced on this character can most definitely be inferred to have an effect on her actions surrounding her children from this point forward, ultimately being perceived as a large push as to why she gives them up.

The book wants us to believe that she gives up her kittens because it is just inherently impossible to be a medicine cat and have mates and children. Which isn’t true as cats such as Leafpool and Yellowfang have since proven wrong. And obviously there are the exceptional circumstances Moth Flight herself has been subjected to during this period. But her trauma can also be perceived to pay a huge part in her feeling like she cannot balance her duties and her children.

To start off with. The first moon of her kits life is fine. Moth Flight steps back from medicine cat duties and lets the very knowledgeable Reed Tail take primary healer duties for the clan. The book skips over the first moon with her kits and therefore we can assume nothing important happens, and no issues come from Moth Flight raising her kits for this first moon. Moth Flight does reflect that how she did on occasion try and do checkups but her kits always called her away. And here, while Moth Flight is reflecting on this, we get this paragraph:

So here we learn two things:

She feels ready to stop having Reed Tail help her when her kits are a moon and a half (6 weeks) old.

Moth Flight does not want to let go of her kits for any amount of time. She equates Slate saying that she can leave the kits for short periods to them not having a mother figure in their lives. And she thinks her kits can only receive adequate love from her.

So with point 1, Moth Flight’s kittens are still little babies. And she feels that she should go back to being a full time medicine cat when they’re still that young despite having Reed Tail to hold the fort, and dismissing him as her helper entirely after this point. And here I’m going to bring back the idea of inference. I feel that this could stem from Wind Runner’s abuse at the start of the book. Wind Runner left her daughter feeling so compelled to be useful to her clan that she’s throwing herself back into her work far too early in order to keep her mother happy and be of use to the clan in the only way Moth Flight feels she can be. Is any of this written in the book? Hell no. But I feel that you can absolutely infer that Moth Flight’s drive to get back to work so soon is due to the lasting trauma and insecurities her mother had imposed on her.

Point 2 is a lot to unpack and here, and this is a point that comes up again, how Moth Flight feels compelled to take care of her kits personally rather than hand them off to babysitters due to their lack of a living father.

So if we use some of that inference here, we can infer that Micah’s death has left Moth Flight insecure about leaving her children alone. She feels that she is the only one who can properly take care of them in her clan. And, undoubtedly by accident, this idea comes back. There are two incidents with her leaving her kits to be babysat and irresponsible babysitting causes the kits to get hurt. The first is where she goes to a gathering and Rocky encourages three of the kits to climb a rock but tells the fourth she’s not ready. So the very next day she climbs the rock. She falls, she gets hurt. And not once does Moth Flight get angry at Rocky for encouraging her children to climb a big rock, oh no, she blames herself.

There isn’t one second where she thinks about how it’s Rocky’s fault this situation arose. She entirely blames herself for it, and the situation is never even discussed with Rocky.

And then something similar happens later on. Storm Pelt is supposed to be watching the kits while Moth Flight goes to RiverClan. And then all four kits end up following her and one of them falls in the river. She doesn’t blame Storm Pelt for any of this. She doesn’t have a single word of blame to say to him about him allowing all four of her children to follow her to RiverClan. And from that we can infer (even though again, the book doesn’t say) she feels the blame lies with herself. This inference can be strengthened given that this is the incident which causes her to feel she should give up her kits.

On top of her feeling wholly responsible for her kits at all times no matter who is looking after them, the main other way they distract her from her medicine cat duties is when she suddenly becomes paranoid that some horrible tragedy has befallen them while she isn’t watching them. And I think all of this paranoia and heightened sense of responsibility regarding her kits all comes down to Micah.

He died traumatically in front of her eyes. She feels extra protective of her children because they no longer have a father. And we can infer that her paranoia of them meeting a gruesome fate has come from her witnessing the painful death of her beloved Micah.

And where does this leave us? All this trauma stemming from both her mother and beloved? Well, Moth Flight decrees that medicine cats must not have mates or kits. She then inflicts trauma onto her own children by separating them and forcing them all to live apart. The trauma that Wind Runner and Moth Flight experienced can now be inferred to have trickled down to both Moth Flight’s kits, and many, many medicine cats for decades to come. The book wants you to believe this is because kits can distract from medicine cat duties, that they can pull a medicine cat away from important duties. But that only happens in Moth Flight’s Vision due to poor babysitters or mainly Moth Flight becoming paranoid that her kits are going to die horribly like their father once they’re out of her sight.

Is this all a stretch? Absolutely. I have no doubt this was absolutely not the intention of the Erins at all. But in the words of Todd Chavez:

Isn’t the point of art less what people put into it and more of what people get out of it?

And thats what I get out of Moth Flight’s Vision. A story about how tragic trauma can be, not only for an individual, but also for others if it becomes generational.

[1899sbiggestbabygirl]

I want to expand on this idea in the future:

Dutch Van der Linde is the perfect analogy for the white saviour.

He presents himself as someone who believes in equality; however, he uses his progressive stand views as long as it's rewarded with praise, his support is very minimal (basically not being overtly racist) and receives praise over it, but is willing to overlook racism if it benefits him ( him letting Micah stay in the gang), his views are literally based on a privileged man pretending to understand the oppressed (Evelyn Miller, Lenny calls him out on this), he pretends to care and empathize with the structures of oppression but is very willing to exploit them anyways (the whole thing with the wapiti tribe).

at his core I think Dutch would see himself as a saviour -but the narrative itself shows who he really is, and what every white saviour at its core is: A fake hero.

Sure, Dutch's saviour complex and manipulation is evident with all characters, but to pretend that race or ethnicity doesn't hold a big role in how these dynamics work (especially on the time period) would be willful ignorance.