#all because had a moment of human connection

[saphire-makesart]

Interesting!

I won’t be going as deep in this but I find this interpretation interesting as compared to my own

I do definitely agree that mage viktor was trying to solve the timelines like a rubix cube that he desperately wanted, nay, needed to find a timeline that he both got his time with Jayce and also didn’t destroy the world

I often find myself considering the other possibilities given in just split second moments within arcane that could easily have formed other timelines. I think there’s likely so many that mage Viktor couldn’t have possibly even gotten to all of them, I wonder how many he did, how many lead to the same exact result. How many did he make worse on accident? How many did he go to after Jayce? Did he simply cease to exist after that?

Did any Viktors become Machine herald on their own? After finding Jayce moments too late?

I have a slightly different interpretation of the hexcore I think it had some influence over him, like.. like a manipulative force, but he could choose to go against it. I think it did want to spread, that was its goal, grow, spread, control. That’s what it wanted. Like an overgrown weed.

But I think he still had literal autonomy. I don’t know if I would describe it as arrogance, I think there might be a better word, but maybe I just typically imagine that word as something that it isn’t. I think he’s highly intelligent and has been let down by many many people, it’s likely some form of confirmation bias that he believes no one else knows better due to the amount of times he’s been failed. Even on an intellectual standpoint.

Especially the.. wanting to prove it to himself and solve it? I mean I really wouldn’t describe that as arrogant. It doesn’t fit

Selfish that he wants to keep trying even though he’s dooming timelines? Yeah. But not arrogant for wanting to solve it, it’s just his nature and I mean who wants to live with the idea that there’s no possible timeline they can have what they’re basically destined to and always wanted that doesn’t lead to mass casualty when their original goal was helping people?

On the hexcore corrupted future hell dimension thing I think part of his reasoning is he needed Jayce to be really really out of it for him to be willing to do what he needed to do. And also give him perspective to Viktor? Maybe? That may have been on accident

I feel he likely tried with other Jayce’s before. Maybe even the same Jayce? We don’t really know.

I personally think Viktor is deeply empathetic and also horrible at perspective taking, he uses his own experiences, with what he’s seen his evidence it makes sense to remove things like pain both mental and physical and remove autonomic thoughts because that creates pain because conflict creates pain and if everyone is connected they all understand eachother so they’ll never hurt ever again and the perfect body never degrades and never breaks and never hurts because that’s been his experience in a body it’s been filled with pain and hurt and degradation OF COURSE he’d want to remove that from everyone

He NEVER actually wanted to hurt everyone or completely remove humanity he just didn’t consider that far or likely didn’t know the result and by the time he did he was so disconnected it didn’t matter anymore.

I do think that he definitely valued Jayce and his time with him over the other goal though

I think a large part of arcane is unforeseen circumstances and unforeseen consequences

It’s part of that disjointed connectedness everything is connected but no one can possibly see all of those connections .

I think mage Viktors timeline must’ve been different earlier on too because he doesn’t have the machine heralds second formed body the one with the split face.

What is Mage Viktor doing?

So it turns out I do have a take on what's going on with Mage Viktor, why he's messing with timelines in the way he is, and what he hoped to achieve by bringing Jayce to the torment nexus dimension and then sending him back to his own timeline armed with facial hair, trauma, and the ruthless determination to somehow stop his own Viktor.

Of course this is just my own reading; there are many ways you can interpret the reveals of the final episode. But it's become my preferred reading because it makes Mage Viktor come off as absolutely BATSHIT. The apotheosis of all Viktor's best and worst qualities. As he would be.

First we gotta lay out some fundamental principles about how I understand Viktor that will inform this reading.

Viktor was never being controlled by the Hexcore. This deserves its own whole meta, but tl;dr, I think it is directly antithetical to the core themes of the show to think that Viktor wasn't making his own decisions all through s2.

Over and over again in Arcane, we see characters become "monsters" and do monstrous things, and every time the thematic point is that this is still the person you love. When Vi says that her sister is dead because she is Jinx now and when Jayce says "my partner died in this room" THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. The person they love is different now but they're still in there and they can still be reached.

Viktor is transformed by something terrible happening to him (like many characters in the show!) but all his decisions are still his own and to me they seem like perfectly consistent--if extreme--extensions of what we know about him as a character before he gets a Hexcore heart.

So my analysis starts with the premise that Mage Viktor is not trying to free his past self from an outside influence. He's trying to hack his own character traits to make a different version of himself do what he wants.

Viktor is BOTH genuinely altruistic and compassionate AND deeply arrogant. This is such a banger combination and I think turning down the dial on either trait makes Viktor less interesting. I think Mage Viktor has genuine remorse about what he did in his timeline and he is, fundamentally, trying to find a way he could have stopped himself from killing everyone (within certain constraints; we'll get to that). When Jayce is able to show main timeline Herald Viktor his memories of what Viktor is about to do to their world, the first thing Viktor sees is not dead Jayce, or himself left alone in an empty world. It's all the ordinary people who are going to die terrified because of him.

I do not think any version of Viktor wanted this result. But Viktor is so convinced he is always right that his arrogance carries him right past the point of no return before he realizes oh actually I haven't freed everybody I have killed them.

So I do think Mage Viktor is trying to find a timeline where this doesn't happen, but he is not timeline-hopping in order to preemptively stop other versions of himself from making the same mistake. If he wanted to do that, he would just leave all the many many timelines where Jayce dies in a blizzard as a child alone. No Jayce who grows up obsessed with magic, goes around Academy rules to get the hex crystals, invents Hextech and gives Viktor the power to fuck everything up. Easy peasy.

But no. Instead, Viktor is actively going into other timelines and changing them at the point where Jayce would have died.

He is doing things that appear to make the sequence of events that leads to his world-ending magic blast WAY MORE LIKELY. And that's because...

Viktor is obsessively selfish when it comes to Jayce.

Mage Viktor wants to find a timeline where he doesn't doom the world but not at the expense of meeting Jayce and spending years doing science with him.

If the goal was only to prevent Jayce from dying in the blizzard, he could have done it quietly, waiting for Jayce to collapse in the snow and then transporting him to the base of the mountain, leaving before Jayce had any idea who saved him. Instead he makes SUCH A DRAMATIC PRODUCTION of it that Jayce remembers and can repeat the steps of the action years later, well enough that he actually produces a working spell from a barely-tested Hextech prototype. Mage Viktor wants that shit burned into baby Jayce's brain. He wants to make sure he fundamentally alters the arc of Jayce's life, bending it into a trajectory that collides with his own.

Viktor also (as far as we see) doesn't go the route of going back in time and killing his younger self, or steering the course of his own life along a path where he never meets Jayce. He doesn't even go for a timeline where he and Jayce meet each other but they don't invent Hextech. Now maybe it's the case that some time before our Jayce arrives in his timeline, Mage Viktor tried all that, and has figured out that none of those options work. (Maybe in some of those timelines Jayce is the one who goes Machine Herald, and there's no partner there to talk him off the ledge of ending the world.) But I think it's also possible that, now that he's gotten the experience in one timeline of spending years with Jayce making once-in-a-generation scientific breakthroughs together (which I truly believe is just as important a part of their relationship to Viktor as any romantic or sexual element might be)...he can't bear to deny any version of himself the chance of having that--even if the price is the rest of the world. Because a world where Jayce isn't his partner isn't a world worth saving.

So what I think Mage Viktor is doing is sitting there with his stubborn engineer brain and the husk of his dead soulmate, fiddling with the timelines like a Rubik's cube, going Not meeting Jayce CANNOT be the only option. There MUST be a timeline where Jayce and I meet each other and entangle our lives in an alarmingly codependent way AND we dodge the apocalypse at the last minute, I don't end up killing him, and we do not doom the world together. And I'm going to fucking find it.

So he's been hitting timeline after timeline, trying to find the combination of factors where everything works. He is not trying to preemptively save every timeline from himself, he is trying to prove to himself that meeting the love of his life doesn't doom the entire fucking world. It's devotion that is SO PROFOUNDLY SELFISH that he is willing to doom timeline after timeline, but driven by someone with enough compassion and pride that he doesn't want the guilt and shame of knowing he can only have this one life-changing thing if he ruins everything else for everyone, and enough arrogance to still look at this as a problem he must be smart enough to solve.

At some point in this process, I think he also figures out that Jayce is the only person who has any chance of reasoning with any version of himself. I think it's worth paying attention to the exact wording of his "in all timelines, in all possibilities" speech, because it's not just a love confession (although it is that).

"I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit. In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this."

And while this is some hella romantic cosmic soulmate level shit, it is also Viktor saying I need you, because you are the only person I have ever trusted enough to save me from myself.

It's the Hexcore promise all over again. Viktor knew he couldn't destroy his own creation. I read this not as Viktor being physically unable to destroy it because the Hexcore had some power over him, but not having the will to destroy it. Because this huge leap in Hextech technology was his big breakthrough and not (as I think he saw it) him supporting Jayce's dream. He knew he couldn't do it. So he asked Jayce to do it for him. Please, save me from my own pride, my desire to leave a legacy. I can't do it on my own.

It's a huge extension of trust, for Viktor to admit such a need. And now he's doing it again when the stakes are MUCH MUCH higher. I need you, because you are the only person who can show me the horror of what I am about to do and have me believe it.

Of course, the deep irony is that really the only person Viktor trusts to tell him he is wrong is HIMSELF FROM THE FUTURE. Astral plane Machine Herald Viktor is standing right behind Jayce, watching Jayce's memory of Mage Viktor telling him what the consequences of his actions will be, and that is the moment the horror sinks in and cracks him fully out of his machine shell.

But of course Jayce is the only person he would ever trust enough to carry such a message (from himself!!) to somewhere close enough to reach him.

It's not clear exactly how much of a detailed plan Mage Viktor has when he sends Jayce back to the main timeline, or how much of that plan he shares with Jayce. But I think he has figured out some broad strokes which affect how Jayce behaves.

(1) Jayce has to immediately go and kill commune Viktor. Squishing Salo is maybe a bonus side quest, but Jayce doesn't even take time to fucking shower before he heads for the commune. (I would love to see the part of the conversation where Mage Viktor is like yeah you know that pit you just climbed out of? Yeah the first thing you gotta do is go right back in there, all the way to the bottom, and find me looking like ethereal cyborg Jesus and blast a fucking hole through my chest.) Maybe this is because if Jayce waits around at all, commune Viktor finds a way to get to him and he folds and joins the cult. Maybe this is because there are just fewer variables involved in forcing Viktor to speedrun his own villain arc by Jayce repeatedly turning him down in one "perfect" form after another. Maybe Mage Viktor knows himself well enough to realize "yeah if you say no to me even ONE TIME but ESPECIALLY when you are HOT and SUFFERING I will go fucking apeshit and we can use that to our advantage."

(2) I think Mage Viktor has realized that he can only be stopped at the very very VERY last minute. He has to be able to see the direct line between what he is about to do right now and the arcane-blasted hell world he's about to create. Otherwise his ego will get in the way and tell him he is smart enough to figure out a way to somehow not kill everybody. Yeah Mage Viktor fucked that one up obviously, but I, main timeline Viktor, will be smart enough and well-intentioned enough when the time comes to simply not do that. I think this is why, for example, Jayce doesn't go to the commune trying to get Viktor to see the error of his ways. It won't work until it is allllmost too late.

Main timeline Viktor stops literally seconds before the point of no return. The arcane corruption spikes that we see everywhere in Mage Viktor's world are already starting to appear.

I think Mage Viktor knows that Jayce has to let him get right up to the edge, close enough to be looking over into the abyss, before he'll be able to pull him back.

But he knows Jayce can do that. That's what they do for each other, right?

This is why I think it was always the plan for Jayce to fight him all the way to the top of the Hexgate, and then surrender. Jayce has to survive until the end of the fight, and maybe for magical physics reasons he has to wait until Viktor sends the anomaly into the sky above the Hexgate. But once they get to the top of the Hexgate tower he stops trying to fight Viktor altogether. Maybe Mage Viktor told him exactly when it had to happen or maybe he just realizes this is the exact same place where he died in Mage Viktor's world; this is his last chance. But in any case, Jayce lands on the top of the Hexgate on his knees and he doesn't try to get up.

He waits, and when he senses Viktor behind him he doesn't try to fight or run away.

I think he knows, either because Mage Viktor told him or through his own intuition, that he has to let Viktor pull him into the astral plane if he wants a chance at reaching him.

How exactly he was going to get through to him and/or get close enough to share the memories before Viktor assimilated him...ehhhh I don't know if either of them had that figured out. The "you were never broken" part of Jayce's speech, while important from a character perspective...very crucially DOES NOT WORK. IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. Viktor is assimilating Jayce the whole time. You can see Jayce's astral body changing from the unique version that's still him (like his hands on the left, when he first enters the astral plane--which still look more or less human even though Viktor has already erased "imperfections" like the scrapes and cuts from his time in the pit and the arcane corruption that's spreading up and down his arm from where the rune is embedded) into a featureless gold blob like the other assimilated people.

You can watch the gold light creeping up his body steadily during those lines until it reaches his eyes.

The ONLY thing that stops this timeline from ending the same way Mage Viktor's does...is EKKO.

I think you can make the case that Mage Viktor sent Ekko to the no-Hextech timeline intentionally. But it is such a complex chain of causality for Ekko to get to the point where he's chucking a time machine at Herald Viktor's face that there is no way anyone--even a remorseful demigod with lots of time on his hands--could control every possible factor.

However elaborate Mage Viktor's plan was, and however determined Jayce was to keep his promise to him, it all would have failed if not for factors outside their control and random fucking chance.

Arcane is FULL of near-misses and what-could-have-beens and characters who are trying their best to do something getting knocked off course by consequences they never could have foreseen. Season 2 in particular introduces a persistent thread of chaos and the sense that even events that have understandable root causes are now spiraling out of characters' control. So it feels fitting that such a moment factors into the show's ending.

This is Jayce right before Ekko blasts through spacetime right above Viktor's head.

Yeah that guy was cooked.

The only thing that stops Jayce from being assimilated is Ekko breaking time to throw the Z drive at Viktor's face.

Which startles Viktor enough that he takes his hand off Jayce's head in the physical realm (ETA at first I thought it looked like he did, but upon closer rewatch I don't think their physical connection ever breaks; the assimilation link in the astral plane does though), and also breaks a piece of his machine mask off in the astral realm.

As he always does when one of his "perfect" bodies gets damaged, Viktor withdraws and tried to hide, enough that he lets go of the assimilation connection with Jayce.

Jayce starts to regain his own identity/autonomy.

And he gets a do-over. Exactly the same way Ekko used the Z drive to get a do-over with Jinx when he was trying to talk her out of suicide. Jayce gets another chance, and that's when he goes for "all I want is my partner back" and "because I promised you." Which works.

Mage Viktor's plan, I think, was for Jayce to help main timeline Viktor realize what he was doing before it was too late, and then give him the runestone, which allows him to release all the minds/souls that are connected to him before this becomes some runaway chain reaction of arcane power that swallows everything around him. (How the runestone does this exactly, and how the anomalies play into it, is stuff I am still thinking about. But tbh I am less concerned with the details of made-up magic physics than I am with the character beats.) Mage Viktor had accepted that main timeline Viktor was probably going to die in this process and he'd made peace with it. That's what "should" have happened anyway, if Viktor never found a way to forestall his illness, right? As long as this Viktor got to spend the best years of his life with his Jayce, it was okay.

I don't think Mage Viktor ever expected Jayce to stay there until the end. His goal was to save the world and spare Jayce from himself. And why would he plan otherwise? We know why Jayce stays, but Mage Viktor never got that part of the story. He schlorped up his own Jayce's consciousness with everyone else and maybe he only understood the depths of what Jayce felt for him in the moment that he was killing him. And main timeline Viktor certainly does not expect Jayce to stay. He's shocked when he realizes Jayce has no intention of leaving. No, that wasn't part of any master plan. That part was all Jayce.

[specialagentartemis]

The moment I stepped through the hatch, I was hit with the smell of the air. Preservation Station smelled exactly the same as it did when I left to go on that stupid water planet survey almost a whole year ago now: clean, well-recycled, but also kind of like plants and dirt. 

I was back. I’d never come back anywhere before.

It was just the Preservation Station embarkation/disembarkation bay. Ordinary, old but well-kept, everything kind of scruffy. The art display on the far wall was different, a statue of nothing in particular that glittered under the light, but it was so Preservation. The station feed recognized my feed credentials right away, and connecting was effortless. I did, and immediately received a :) through the feed from Jollybaby. I tapped an acknowledgement but did not send an amusement sigil back.

And all of my humans were crowding around to greet me. 

I’d considered not telling any of them that I was coming back today, and then I’d considered only telling Dr. Mensah. I mean, technically I was required to notify Dr. Mensah, still being my guardian and all, but I don’t think Senior Indah would get on my ass if I spent a day or two in my own quarters first. They’d all find out soon enough, and I knew that most if not all of them (it was all of them) would be waiting on the station as soon as my ship was announced approaching.

But it had been an entire Mihiran/New Tideland school year cycle since I’d seen some of them, and longer than that for others. And, after that time spent with ART’s crew and students, it was weird, I wanted to see them.

So I had sent a message buoy before getting on an ordinary transport back to Preservation (well, from Mihira to UplandGateway One to Port FreeCommerce which sucked to be back through THERE again, by the way, but I was only stopping over very briefly and that didn’t count, and then to Preservation, which is why I took ordinary transports and not ART because the trip was a pain and ART had a job to do and couldn’t justify the time away to administration) so I fully expected them to be here, and of course they were. 

I didn’t expect them to look different. 

There was more gray in Mensah’s hair, and more lines around her eyes. She looked tired, and it was a weird thing to see. Volescu was rounder in both his face and his body, and in contrast to Mensah, he looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. Bharadwaj was sitting in a wheelchair, though she also had her telescoping cane attached to the back so I guess she still used that sometimes. Ratthi’s hair was longer now, and Arada’s was pink. Overse’s midsection was distended in a way that looked concerning but I think actually meant she was pregnant. (I’d never actually seen that in real life, but it was a popular plot on serials.) Pin-Lee and Gurathin looked basically the same as they had when I left, though Gurathin had changed the gender marker in her feed profile.

It’s not like I didn’t know humans aged and changed. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon has been running for 17 seasons. A lot of the actors are older and look different than they did in seasons 1 and 2. Some have more hair and some have less, and various cast members and/or characters have gotten injuries, gotten pregnant, gotten older, gotten augments, changed their hairstyles or gender markers. But that’s a serial. It was… different, to see that in my humans. Maybe it was just different knowing that I had known them long enough to see that there were any changes. Or that I’d been away long enough for them to have changed while I was gone and couldn’t see them. I’ve never been around the same group of humans for long enough to see that, before. I’ve never paid close enough attention to any individual human to notice that anyway. And obviously when a contract ended I never saw any given humans again. But my humans were changing over time while I was away, and I knew them long enough—and was away long enough—that to see the changes was startling. 

But the way Arada smiled and bounced on her feet in excitement when she saw me was the same. The way Ratthi waved hello to the drone that zipped over to him was the same. The way Pin-Lee stood, the way Bharadwaj tilted her head, the way Gurathin rested her hand on her shoulder bag was the same. And the way the tension left Mensah’s shoulders when she walked up to greet me—that was the same, too.

It’s been true for a while, but I’m still not used to humans feeling relieved and happy to see me. 

“SecUnit!” Mensah said. (They weren’t all mobbing me at once even though I could tell it was taking a valiant effort on some of their parts. Arada’s clasped hands in front of her definitely indicated that she was trying /so/ hard to not run and hug me, and I was grateful for that.) Mensah stepped up to me and she looked so open, so happy. “It’s great to see you again. I’m glad you’re safe and everything’s gone well.”

“We only did one actually dangerous anti-corporate espionage run,” I said. “Most of the time was data analysis, distance hacking, legal stuff, and ART being really enthusiastic to teach human adolescents about space.”

Mensah laughed. Volescu said, “Well, that can be almost as harrowing. Teaching freshmen is always an adventure.”

“I’m glad you wanted to spend term break here, then!” Arada added.

“No, this is third term now,” I said. “I don’t have a lot to do on ordinary semester-in-space terms, it turns out. Term break is when the stuff we’re not actually supposed to talk about without NDAs happen.”

Pin-Lee snorted. “Well, glad we’re more interesting than mapping the same nebula again with a new group of teenagers.”

“Oh come on,” Ratthi said. “I’m sure there’s got to be something worthwhile here that’s not just avoiding freshmen again! But I’d love to hear about how the non-classified semester went. What working for the university is like over there. And a lot has happened over the past year here too.”

I wondered if I looked different at all. SecUnits don’t really grow and change the way humans do. 

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

[martinblackwoodhaterfan]

Non-hateful Martin rant on the Martin hate account??? I bet yall didn't see this one coming. Under the cut for length

Martin, like literally every other TMA character, is morally grey. He thinks of himself as a "good guy", sure, but that's exactly why he isn't all that "good"- it means he will support everyone who agrees with him, and look down on people who, according to his perception of 'good' and 'evil', are on the "bad" side. This way of viewing things, that categorizing everything into "right" and "wrong" and putting himself on the "right" side no matter what, is in certain situations both a strength and a flaw of Martin's.

He has his moments: he's shown to be very helpful and caring, his uncomplicated way of viewing everything means he will fiercely protect his friends no matter what, just like he did when Jon was accused of murder and when he defended Jon's odd behaviour to Tim; but this simplistic way of thinking means he can be unintentionally cruel and harmful to those around him even when he has their best interest in mind: in season 5 him being very vocal and harsh in his hatred for avatars caused him to be also (subconsciously? Or purposefully?) cruel to Jon, whom he claimed he dearly loved.

But the vast majority of his fans don't allow him to be actually, consequentially fucked up. Most fan posts talking about him repeat a variation of "Martin is my fucked up pookie!" Why do you think that? "Cause he wants avatars to die haha! He's so sneaky, everyone thought he was a softie but he craves violence! He's such a cunning manipulator! Go my bloodthirsty king, he deserves a gun!"

First of all, that's not really what happenned, but I'm not here to quote canon to you. Second of all, this isn't at all what I had in mind when making this post. You see, all the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph are perfectly "excusable". It's fiction, so the severity of the character's actions do not matter, and on top of that the emotional aspect of fantasy murder and violence is foreign to the audience. You're not gonna be personally affected if your blorbo kills off a bunch of no-name characters in the story they're in. You know the act is theoretically "bad" and whatever, but it's not real, it's a reocurring event in this particular podcast, and the story itself treats it lightly, so why should you care?

My issue is that Martin has a lot of everyday-ish, human flaws that hit way closer to home, but are almost never acknowledged by his fanbase. I don't care that he wants to kill, that's really nothing new considering how all the other characters are. I care about his personality and canon characterization. I care about the ways in which his behaviour impacted other characters in the story, and I care about the fact that these effect were not always positive. Martin fans are eager to accept that he was okay with murder, but they never acknowledge him being passive-aggressive, or toxic, or selfish, or close-minded. Those characteristics aren't all he is, and they obviously aren't his defining traits, but they are a significant part of him as a whole. If you choose to ignore them, then all you're left with is a stereotypical "soft cute cinammon roll" with Martin's name and foggy aesthetics slapped on it. No connection to canon whatsoever. He's essentially become an empty shell.

His problem is that he chooses to ignore things that make him uncomfortable because he's scared of the responsibility that comes with acknowledging them. He feels like he should stand up for himself but he hates himself at the same time, so it results in him pushing away everyone he cares for and then blaming himself while not changing his behaviour, because he finds comfort in loneliness, because it's what he's familiar with. Because it's always been like this for him, and he doesn't have the strength to actually change something for once. It's easier for him to maintain surface level relationships with people and not let them get close enough to form an opinion on him other than "he's a nice guy who tries his best I guess".

He himself said that offering tea as a blanket solution for people's problems is easier than actually getting to the root of the issue. If he just makes that person some tea, technically it does nothing good but they can't blame him for not helping. The whole let-me-bring-you-some-tea thing was Martin avoiding serious conversations while maintaining his image as a kind and helpful guy.

He can sympathize but not empathize, he relates to things that he personally experienced before but can't really put himself in another person's shoes. He can be very hardworking and responsible, but he can also be childish and avoidant, especially when it would mean he has to take responsibility for something. He has a very strong sense of justice, but his morals are based on a very childish perception of the world around him - "cops are supposed to be good, avatars are supposed to be bad" - he separates the world into "good" and "bad" categories without accepting the possibility of exceptions to that rule - you're either with him or against him, you're either good or bad; he doesn't allow the possibility that it depends.

All of those biases and his childishness and his internal conflicts and his season 5 assholery make him equally interesting and unbearably annoying and that's highkey awesome. Even if I don't like the season 5 development and think it's shallow I can still acknowledge that it has potential. But you people focus only on his depression and self esteem issues and pity him like he's a little child. Baby that man can live on his own just fine lmao. Everyone in this podcast is depressed you just find his experience deserving more pity than all the others cause you relate to him as an introvert with a shitty parent. Let him be inexcusably messed up let him be awful let him be flawed in other ways than "poor depressed bean filled with self-hate aww". Jon isn't the only one who's fucked up. Martin didn't match his freak but he nearly surpassed him in personal problems and I'm sick and tired of people portraying him as Jon's selfless pure-hearted savior. Where's my canonical toxic codependence?????

[crazy-pages]

Also though, I really like how Andor doesn't separate not bothering to try to redeem fascists, and the power of solidarity and mutual bonds.

Because despite how intense and moving Luthen's speech about sacrificing everything was, and how critical his work was, the story is also clear that he was *wrong*.

That scene at the beginning of season 2 where Cassian talks to the Imperial pilot who turned Rebel and helped him get in to their facility, where he refuses to abide by the protocol of her not seeing his face, where he refuses to treat her as a disposable cog in the machine and cares about her emotions and her feelings? That is one of the most important scenes in the entire series.

Because yes, operational security is important. But scared panicked people who are committing literally their first act of insurrection ever and are sure they're going to be caught and killed, to the point they are clearly having a full on breakdown panic attack, are also not good for operational security. And while Luthen would have almost certainly marked her for disposal as an unreliable asset, Cassian actually solves the problem. Which is that she's scared and alone and doesn't have any human connections to the resistance, and knowing the Empire and its military, probably doesn't have any human connections at all. He reaches out and connects with her on a human level and it solves problems.

Meanwhile Luthen gets the most critical information of the entire resistance a full year fucking late specifically because of that scene where he pontificates about sacrificing everything. That specific scene, which I have seen way too many people identify as aspirational, is literally the specific reason that the rebellion gets information about the Death Star a full year fucking late *after* the Ghorman Massacre. Because if you do the math about the timeline, Luthen's contact Lonni already had a copy of the access key he needed to get the Death Star plans at the moment he was asking Luthen to get him out. The key he later said he never told Luthen about specifically because he was afraid Luthen would force him to use it and jeopardize him and his family. A key which he definitely would have told Luthen about if Luthen had promised to extract him and protect him in that moment.

Instead Luthen fails to make that human connection and rants about his own sacrifices. While his deep cover spy looks on in despair as the only person in the world who connect him to the resistance rants about his own problems right before telling Lonni to fuck off and fall in line. And then to top it off, once Luthen does learn about the Death Star, rather than giving Lonni directions on how to reach out to one of Luthen's contacts for safety and passage off world for his family, he kills him! An act which denies some extremely critical redundancy for this very precious information, and also prevented Lonni from giving crucial verifying information to the rebellion to assuage their concerns about the veracity of the information.

Andor does an absolutely fantastic job holding two truths simultaneously. That you don't beat fascism by playing nice with fascists. And that failing to extend compassion and make human connections makes for a brittle resistance with fewer points of infiltration, but far more points of failure.

Another area where Andor deserves more praise is by repeatedly showing the audience that the "moral high ground" approach only gets you so far.

The protagonists cannot afford to stop and decide whether the weirdo corporate officer, or the plant ISB driver can be somehow redeemed. Realistically, when the boot of imperial oppression is trying to crush or silence all dissenting voices, it becomes necessary to make painful choices and sacrifices. It is refreshing to see a show that confronts you with the fact that you simply can't save them all with the power of love and friendship; not when there is this much at stake.

I can't help but praise the show for balancing a full spectrum of characters who range from highly idealistic like Mon and Organa to those undeterred by losses and high costs like Luthen and Saw. And yet despite their differences and approaches each of their efforts contributes a vital part to their common cause.

[soulsforsales]

"The Ghost Between Us"

Here: Chapter 01

(Pairings: Jason Todd x reader)

(Warnings: angst, angst, angst, talks of death (i guess?)

(Notes: ik i totally changed the layout of the fic cos i got lazy also this chapter was supposed to be tiny and i was gonna end the fic with this but looks like there will be yet another chapter teehee:3 this is really rushed so apologies in advance!)

Inspired by the song "Wildflower" by Billie Eilish

"I wanted to see you."

You stand before the crappy apartment. Your phone clutched in your palm and your heart in your throat.

You don’t know what you were thinking when you planned this out in your head. Part of you knows this is wrong. Part of you always knows it’s wrong.

You’re with Dick now. He’s amazing. He’s calm, kind, gentle and he loves you. God knows he does.

Yet here you are, about to reopen a wound that refuses to heal. About to dig a grave hoping to find something other than haunted memories and ghosts.

You re-read the address on your phone. The address Tim gave to you.

You planned it all out. You hate yourself for it. But you needed to see him again. Just once. Nothing else seemed to matter except the way your heartstrings pushed and pulled until you felt like you were going to throw up.

Because Jason was out there. Alone. Hurt. Aching. And you couldn’t bear that. After all, you’re always weak when it comes to him.

You visited the Manor when you were sure it would be occupied by no one else but Tim.

You found him in the Cave, nose deep in some new case about drug dealers and human traffickers. You’d asked him about Jason. How he was, where he was living, what he was doing. If he had made any efforts to connect with the family at all.

Tim had stared at you for the most part. His boyish features twisted into an expression of sympathy and hurt. He didn’t know what to tell you. You knew enough already and yet here you were, with red rimmed eyes and trembling fingers, asking about him.

Tim knew you were with Dick now. He thought you were happy. He thought you were okay. Maybe he was wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time. So Tim had done what made sense to him. He gave you Jason’s location. He was tracking the Red Hood ever since he stepped foot in Gotham anyway.

It all felt surreal to him. But Tim was always mature beyond his age. He understood the grief, the pain, the hope—that maybe Jason was back. Maybe the boy they all lost was back.

Tim didn’t blame them for hoping. Just like he didn’t blame you.

The chilly wind makes your hair blow. It is nearly winter now, and the weather is colder than you expected. You tug your jacket tighter around yourself before raising your fist to the door.

You knock quickly. Twice. Eyes shut like you were ripping off a bandage. The faster it happens, the sooner it ends.

But this is going to be nothing like ripping a bandage off an old wound. This is going to feel like carving stitches—you will feel every bit of pain like you do when the needle slices through your skin.

This is going to be slow, painful, and everything you hadn’t let yourself hope for in a long, long time.

You stand there for a moment. Your heart racing and your mind contemplating turning away and forgetting this ever happened. But before you can make haste on that thought, the door opens and your heart nearly stops.

Because there at the door stands… him.

Jason.

He looks nothing like the boy you remember: bright blue eyes that reminded you of the waves hitting the beach under sunlight, a lopsided, boyish grin teasing his expression, the way he would melt when you tucked his soft dark curls behind his ear.

No. Jason looks different.

He is taller. So much taller. You have to tilt your chin up to look at his face. His eyes aren’t blue anymore. Neither are they bright. They look like emerald stones, otherworldly yet dim as if someone snuffed the light right out of his chest.

Maybe that’s exactly what they did.

He looks older, too. Young and soft features, replaced with hardened and sharp ones. The kind of face that has seen things. He’s grown into his muscles. He’s… large. A huge man. There’s a white tuft curling over his forehead, standing out in the mess of his dark curls—those being the only thing that hasn’t changed.

Your eyes catch at the scar on his jaw, the one that travels up his cheekbone. Your heart drops.

What happened to him?

Jason has been staring at you the same way you’ve been staring at him.

It’s not until the wind flows again that you realise you’re bound to say something. And out of everything you could’ve said. You settle on this:

“Jason.” It’s not even a word. More like a breathless whisper leaving your lips. Your eyes wet from seeing him again.

Your knees almost give out when he blinks down at you. A flicker of something flashes in his glowy green eyes for a second before it dies again.

“Hey.”

His voice. God, even his voice is different. And yet, the way your heart picks up a beat. The way it feels like it might jump out of your chest is all the same.

Jason lets you in. The place is different from what you imagined. It's warm, with a worn-out couch in the centre, a small table littered with books, files, and weapons of all sorts. A leather jacket is slung over a chair near the kitchen island. There's takeout on the counter, the cabinet doors are barely holding on, and the tap leaks constantly.

It's not good, but it's not as bad as you were expecting.

You awkwardly stand in the middle of the living room for a few minutes. Jason's behind you, hands in his pockets. A sweatshirt hangs loosely on his frame.

You don't notice the red helmet sitting on a console table until it catches the light streaming in through an ajar window.

The Red Hood's helmet.

You swallow the lump in your throat before turning to Jason, palms gripping the strap of your handbag. You part your lips to speak, but Jason beats you to it.

"Why are you here?" His voice is low, but the steel in it makes your chest ache.

"I wanted to see you." Your lips work before your mind does, the truth spilling out of you now that he's standing right here. You want to say more. You want to say, "you look beautiful." You want to say, "I thought I'd never see you again."

Jason crosses his arms, his gaze doesn't waver from you, but it's not the same. He doesn't look at you like he used to, like you're the only reason he comes back night after night. Like he loves you. Or loved you, once.

He looks at you like you're a stranger. Like you're nothing but a bad memory that left a bitter taste in his mouth.

You can't blame him, but it still hurts.

"Did Bruce send you?" Jason asks, crossing his arms. You notice how intimidating he looks like this: Jaw clenched, eyes stormy and narrowed. You can't help but imagine how scary he must look when he dons that helmet at night.

You blink at his question, stepping forward. "No. No... no one sent me, Jason."

You watch a muscle jump in his jaw. You aren't sure if it's because of your words or if he's just... angry.

"Then why are you here?"

You take another step. "Because I wanted to—"

"Bullshit." Jason snarls

You don't flinch when he snaps. You just move until you're close enough that you have to crane your neck to look at him, then, slowly, almost like you're afraid of breaking him further, you bring a palm to cup his jaw. Jason freezes under your touch, but he doesn't pull away. You feel the jagged scar on his cheek against the soft flesh of your palm.

"I am not one of them." You whisper, voice breaking.

Jason looks at you then. Really looks at you. Like he's only now realising that it's you, standing before him. He almost leans into your touch, almost presses his forehead to yours, almost wraps his arms around you.

But he pushes those thoughts down before they can even surface.

Jason's bitter scoff breaks the silence. "How's Dick?" He asks, fingers wrapping around your wrist to push it down.

You blink the tears from your eyes. "Jason..."

"I heard. I'm not mad." Jason says, stepping back like he doesn't trust himself with the closeness you're providing. It's the truth, mostly. He isn't mad. He wasn't expecting you to mourn his loss for the rest of your life. He just wasn't expecting you to move on... so quickly. And move on with him.

Jason's not mad. He's hurt. For a long time, he was sure he didn't have a heart anymore, but from how much it's hurting right now, he must've been wrong.

You nod, hand falling to your side. Your fingers twitch, and you can't meet his eyes.

"I..." You swallow, wiping your face with your jacket sleeve. You don't know what to say to make this right, you don't know if you even can. But you know you don't want to leave yet.

"You look older." Jason manages, letting himself look at you.

You huff through your nose, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. Something in Jason's chest tugs at watching you do that. "You too."

You pause, but before the silence can stretch, you speak again. "Everyone... they-they said you're different now. Darker... I don't—“

"They're right."

You stare at him, eyes wide. "That's not—"

"I am not the same." Jason runs a hand through his hair, messing the curls further, "Nothing really is, is it?"

You wince at the hurt in his voice, finding yourself at a loss for words. This time, the silence stretches painfully. The only sound in the apartment is the leaking of the broken tap. Somewhere across the street, an engine roars.

"Are you happy?" Jason asks quietly, after what feels like minutes.

You look at him with tears. Your throat constricts around the words you truly want to say, your heart begs you to erase the distance and fall into his arms.

But Jason's question pushes you back to reality. Your reality. A sore reminder of who you are now. Of what you chose.

You suck in a sharp breath. "He's... he's good."

Jason nods, eyes on the ground like he's just as scared of falling apart as you are. "Yeah. He's... better." The better choice, after all. You deserve that. Jason wants to say it, but the words feel like lead in his mouth.

You nod, biting your lip to stop it from trembling. You wonder if Jason noticed how you didn't say yes.

You wonder if he noticed that you might belong to someone else, but your heart still screams his name in an echo only you can hear.

You wonder if he noticed that you love him so much, your bones might break from carrying it any longer.

You wonder if he knows that you're so painfully his, you couldn't be anyone else's if you tried.

—

tagging: @velli-writes @violetswritingg @oliveyougently

Thank you for reading! Love y'all<3

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the Occasion of the Day of Ukrainian Statehood

Dear Ukrainians!

On July 15, we mark an important day. The Day of our Statehood.

The Day of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus–Ukraine. This day is about connection. About every stage of our statehood and about the bond that unites dozens of generations: those who lived in this land a thousand years ago and those who live here today.

A bridge through time, standing on three unshakable pillars: Ukrainians were here, Ukrainians are here, Ukrainians will be here.

And on this land, life always triumphs. Values and our character prevail – the best in our people, who, despite war, tears, and pain, have preserved their humanity, and who protect one another, which means they protect their state.

And this is proven by thousands of our fates, thousands of our stories of what we have lived through, of what each heart carries, whoever you are: a warrior, a teacher, a musician, a drone engineer, or the President.

These are stories of our days, nights, and mornings. Of the night on the contact line, described by a serviceman: "They’re pressing. Swarming from all directions. We’re holding. And you – hold on too. We are reading the news about the shelling of peaceful cities. What can I say… This is a war that affects every one of us. And may God grant peace to us all."

And this post, late at night in the subway, is being read by a young mother holding her little daughter. And the little girl looks around so attentively, as if trying to remember it all, to one day tell her children about these nights in the subway, about this peak of the human spirit.

When a grandfather inflates a mattress for his three grandchildren, gently tucks them in with a blanket, and hears: "Grandpa, and a cartoon?" And as he pulls out the tablet, he says: "Of course, Cossacks, how could we skip the cartoon?"

And not far away, people are settling close together in sleeping bags on a hard floor, but with just as hard a resolve within: the resolve to overcome this night. And on nights like this – on platforms, in parking lots, shelters, corridors, and bathrooms – phone screens flicker with dozens of alerts: "Incoming." "Air defense is at work." "Stay in shelters."

And we stay – so that we can remain Ukrainians, in our own state, on our own land. So that we can see the sun rise and, despite everything, say to each other: “Good morning!”

And we always have faith that this moment will come. Just as it always has – through the centuries, in Rus, at the Sich, in every era. No matter who the enemy was or where they came from, no hostile force has ever survived on this land or taken root here. And Ukraine endures. It remains itself.

And the morning always comes.

And though you might want to sleep a little longer, you find the strength to rise. You text your loved ones, and you are happy to know everything’s fine. You read another post from that same warrior: "Attack repelled! Got a couple of hours to catch our breath." And someone else writes: "We urgently need a few things…" You chip in for the fundraiser and step outside.

And on that morning, walking through the city, your city, you see your people all around. You see faces and eyes that, despite everything, still hold life.

You see cafés opening despite everything, transport running despite everything.

And you understand: the state is its people – their strength, resilience, sincerity, their light.

At bus stops, in traffic jams, in the morning coffee queue, when everyone is slowing down a bit because they had only a few hours of sleep. But everyone knows this and treats those around them with such understanding and warmth. Their fellow Ukrainians, who have held on for 1,238 days.

And each of those days, we overcome together. United – through action, through help, through support, by lifting each other up – and, of course, by sharing a laugh. Sometimes, because we can’t do without it.

And when the ladies from municipal services are planting flowers in the park, you hear them say: “Let that ‘rusnia’ choke — it’s summer here, and everything’s got to be beautiful!”

And every such night is the night of resilience, every such morning is the morning of unity, when life triumphs nonetheless; they reveal who we truly are.

We often hear from partners, "How do your people pull it off? Such fortitude, such endurance, such inner steel…" They say, “It’s a phenomenon of the Ukrainian people.”

Yes, those are kind words to hear. However, today, Ukrainians are holding on not for that, not for the loud accolades directed at us. We are simply people defending our home. And we cannot do otherwise – because we do not want otherwise. We do not want Russia here. That is the whole truth.

And everything Ukraine lives through each day is not routine. It is a great cause, carried by you. The heroes at the front. Those holding the line. Those intercepting missiles and “shaheds” every night. Those extinguishing fires, those clearing rubble. And every citizen who has endured throughout this difficult time.

I thank you. Millions of Ukrainians. Millions of characters, who together form our state. Our nation, our history, and our path from the Baptism of Rus–Ukraine to this very day. To the Day of our Statehood – and to the wisdom of every generation that helps us hold on, believe in ourselves, believe in Ukraine, and believe that we will succeed.

Because Ukrainians were here, Ukrainians are here, Ukrainians will be here.

Happy Statehood Day, fellow citizens!

Happy Day of the Baptism of Rus–Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

[swampndn]

It's honestly crazy how badly I (we) need human connection and intimacy.

[cosmiicchaoss]

a piece for my art history class [tags for info]

[lyxchen]

Spoilers for Squid Game season 3. Please don't read if you haven't watched the full season yet!!

"Does Gi-hun still have faith in humanity?" YES!! He does!!! And he didn't even have to tell us that he does. Squid Game in general is a show where characters don't talk that much. They are not defined by what they say but they are very much defined by what they do. And Gi-hun still had faith in humanity and it's shown to us so clearly through his actions. I'm so so sure about this and let me tell you why. It's because he saved Jun-hee's baby. A baby that is not a fully formed person yet. This is a baby. She doesn't really have a personality yet and she can't form any opinions. So why is Gi-hun saving this baby so obviously confirmation that he still has faith in humanity? Because he trusts that this baby can grow up to be a good person. I mean it's such a widely talked about thing. Are humans inherintly evil? Can they be born a bad person? And Gi-hun's answer is no. He believes that a baby born into the most horrific situation, a baby treated like an object, like a source of entertainment, a baby that was seen as expendable by multiple people.. Gi-hun believes that that baby is worth dying for because he believes in the good that exists within that baby. The humanity of it. A baby that is only a few days old and Gi-hun trusts that it will have the chance to grow up into a good person. Gi-hun's faith in humanity is still there. Hell, it's even shown when he doesn't kill the other players at night. It's not that he couldn't do it because he is incapable of killing people who he thinks deserve it (we know he is capable of that because of Dae-ho). It's that he doesn't kill them because in his eyes they still don't deserve death!! Because he sees the humanity in them!!! He sees Sae-byeok who tells him "You are not that kind of person." And he realizes that she's right. He isn't the kind of person who ignores the humanity in people because they've done bad things. This moment is when he sees humanity in himself again. So I think this show actually makes it perfectly clear that Gi-hun still has faith in humanity. In-ho cries when he sees that Gi-hun doesn't kill the other players for multiple reasons (I'll make a post about that too at some point) but I do believe that one of those reasons is that he just got his answer. And then that answer just gets reinforced when Gi-hun trusts in the humanity of a new born child so much that he sacrifices himself for it in hopes that this child will one day make the world a better place

(Btw just to clarify I don't think Gi-hun actually killed Dae-ho because in his eyes Dae-ho deserved it. I think Gi-hun projected his own guilt and shame onto Dae-ho so much that he killed him in place of killing himself. Gi-hun thinks that he himself deserves to die and when he finds out what happened with Dae-ho he projects that feeling onto Dae-ho. Gi-hun thinks by killing Dae-ho he can kill the part of himself that feels guilty for Jung-bae and everybody else's death. But when he does kill him and it doesn't change anything for him, that's when he tries to kill himself because he realizes that instead of his own guilt he has just killed part of his own humanity)

[maldupay]

people are of course free to feel how they want about things regarding isat and what parts of the story/characters/gameplay etc they like and dislike.. Hell i sure have things i dislike along with all my love for the game. but i feel like a lot of the grievances i've seen about the artbook are just taking something that's clearly a joke too seriously, in an extra content book that's just meant to show some behind the scenes and creators thoughts. Like komaeda's in this book ok lets chill out

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[annihilatius]

The reason why I hate interacting with fandoms especially on Tumblr and AO3 is because I have this insecurity where I feel intimidated by people I think are smarter than me (probably the mental illnesses) and when it comes to mature game series' with layered complex subjects and issues in the canon material y'know like Bioshock it feels like nearly EVERYONE is smarter than me so I just stay in my own little hole where I don't feel like I have to compete to be the most "right" with others. When it comes to characters or subjects I don't give a shit about it doesn't make me feel anything because I didn't have any particular opinion on it anyway so theres no room for me to feel like I'm wrong, but when it comes to characters I am passionate about and someone else imposes on it with an idea I've never even considered my brain immediately goes into "Are You Challenging Me" mode.

This isn't meant to be a vent post it's just me rambling because I'm stressed and I also don't expect anyone to relate to this but ... hell idk. I know it's just fandom it's not real none of this matters in judging someones intellect, but I guess it's because I hate feeling like I'm stupid yet I can't shake this feeling that I'll never be smart. And anytime I feel like I finally said something remarkable or insightful someone butts in with something I wish I had thought of first. I want to be smart I want to be someone other people look up to and consider the ideas of but I never will be because my ideas are shit. Am I just a bad storywriter? Because anytime I try to make my own original story or add onto one that already exists, I completely fumble it and end up abandoning it either out of loss of motivation or realizing it's a lost cause. I'd like to write something good someday that invites a new idea to people's heads that they didn't consider before but I'm so uncreative that I don't feel like I'll ever get anywhere. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING I have all of these unrelated parts that I WANT to do something with but I don't know how to feasibly stick them together and everyone does it so easily

[muddiedfoxglove]

.

[lulu2992]

The first kiss 💕

In the hours that followed the meeting at the 8-Bit Pizza Bar, the news of John being alive reached everyone’s ears in Hope County… including Joseph’s who contacted the Junior Deputy the instant he knew, late in the evening, and requested to see the little brother he thought he had lost. He and Taylor agreed on a truce and that he would visit them the next day. Approximately 24 hours later, she anxiously drove to his compound to pick him up, but his calm demeanor and the fact he apparently trusted her enough to get into her car alone surprised her. When Joseph was finally reunited with John (who had insisted he needed a shirt for the occasion), he hugged him tightly, and Taylor decided to wait outside so they could talk in private in the small bunker she now called home. The Father came out of it moments later, visibly relieved, and told her John would only return to his Family the next morning because there was “no rush” and, that way, they could “sort everything out”.

The Deputy was a bit confused but, as it happened, “sort everything out” they did.

I had 11 “old” drawings to post and this is the 6th one; I’m getting there! My computer says this file is exactly one year old today :)

[wilder-fangirl]

story in the tags

the unbreakable connection between me and a song I heard in a fanvid over ten years ago

[massivechildtidalwave]

Its a terrifying scene. The camera angle revealing parts of a science lab straight out of hell. Kitchen knifes and scalpels lay dripping on a table.

On the dissection table- because thats all it could be- lays a small child. Small but noticable gills on the neck, the occasional fleck of scales and webbed fingers mark them as merfolk.

Viewers watch on in horror as the table is bloodied. A steady incision made in the left leg. The Justice League had been contacted but there was no indication they would make it in time to help.

A large Bang! went off in the background of the video, clearly catching the duo off guard. The man turned to his (wife?) with a weird moniter in his hands going off the charts and with an excited yelp they both took off running up the steps that were just barely in frame behind them.

A few long moments later, two teens sneak into the lab. The boy rushed over to unchain their parents 'test subject' while the girl kept watch.

Freshly released limbs had bloody wounds rubbed into the pinned down areas and quiet whispers of empathy were only just picked up by the audio. One of the viewers pointed out that the boy himself had scars in similar places.

The boy picked up the kid and the trio quickly slipped away out of camera view. Soft thuds mark their escape from the house, seemingly unaware of the Livestream their parents were apparently trying to make.

--------------------------

The story makes international news and leaves everyone on high alert. Government agencies scramble to prove they had no connection to the couple, the GIW undergos mass arrest when their names Maddie and Jack Fenton come up on their payroll. A channel is made to document any sightings of the kids.

The first one is posted after a day. It's security footage from a fast food restaruant. Four teens- the two from before plus a goth and someone named ''Tucker''- along with the comparitively tiny Mer sit in a booth. ''Tucker'' and "Sam'' argue about possible dietary restriction before seemingly ordering one of everything. There is soup, and a burger, the largest cup filled with water they could find in the back, chicken tenders and salad.

When the server goes to deliver everything, the four watch them like hawks, understandable given the previous day.

(Did any of them even know Half the world knew what went down? )

(Did any of them know how Aquaman was taking the news of one of his subjects being injured like that? )

( Did any of them realize that their choice to protect the kid was one of the main reasons war hadn't been declared yet on the human race?)

Jasmine is heard softly encouraging the tiny Mer to eat something, anything and eventually the soup is downed and apparently liked enough that she gets up to order more.

Right before they leave, while under the relative safety of a roof, they swap the bandages wrapped around most of the kids leg and arms and slowly tell them about future plans despite the fact that they probably can't understand the language.

(Jasmine points at a laptop screen filled with a view of the ocean. "We" she circles the group with her pinky "are going there to get you home." The atlantian can't speak english but the way their eyes light up and they relax further into Sams side shows they understand the basic message)

(The sight- of the child definitely scared but trusting them enough to get so close- helps calm the atlantians with access to the internet. Somewhere Aquaman finds himself able to breathe slightly easier.)