#also this isn’t to try and suggest gillion carried that whole fight absolutely not jay and chip also did a big chunk of the

[fizzyorange-v2]

fuck I’ve gotta go to sleep now I have CLASSES but FUCK man lord forgive me for my gillion tidestrider fixation but that moment after the electrodon is dead (mostly at the expense of all gil’s smite and energy) and he’s helped pull chip out of its maw as it explodes and he’s swam to save jay and ollie and alphonse from drowning and he’s teleported or carried them all back to the sinking ship and he manages to use healing on them all despite the fact he’d used basically all his magic up killing the goddamn thing and he himself has only 2 hp remaining and alphonse doesn’t wake up. and alphonse doesn’t wake up.

that moment after the healing works on jay and ollie but alphonse doesn’t fucking wake up and gillion has used all his spell slots to kill the fucking beast and gillion only has 2 hp remaining and the ship gillion carried all of them back to is sinking sinking sinking and the healing isn’t fucking working on alphonse

and so gillion says tell me what’s wrong and i’ll fix it jay (jay what do you really want? and just tell me, so i can fight for it) and gillion will fix this (he will fight for this) he will find a way to heal his crew member tell me what’s wrong and i’ll fix it because surely gillion has broken enough things lately surely this can’t be something else that is beyond repair that gillion can’t fucking fix just like jay’s inventions just like the conch shell just like edyn’s distance-trust-faith in him just like the elder’s blessing and training and his whole damned prophecy it can’t and

so there he is about to start desperately ripping into alphonse’s wiring and then chip stops him.

chip interrupts, chip calls out gil! this ships going down is there something you can do about keeping us afloat—? and it’s this fucking moment. It’s this moment where gillion stands surrounded by his crew, his friends, his family; one of who still needs to be fixed, the others all no more than 5 hp from the brink, 2 of which only still breathing because he found more healing to give after using all of his magic to kill the beast that destroyed half of the ship that they stand on the ship that is home the ship that is still fucking sinking and chip with his single hp asks gillion to help keep them afloat and gillion stammers.

he stammers. this moment. you can see the panic and the stress and how overwhelmed he is how torn into billion directions he is because he’s the one they need to stop the ship from sinking but he’s also the only who can fix this (see: risk himself to “recharge” alphonse (no matter the fact he also only has 2 fucking hp)) and he can’t let alphonse sink either.

and god. this moment where chip asks gil to keep them afloat and gillion stammers and stutters and scrambles and hesitates even just for a few seconds, this moment, you can see played so clearly: it is and shows the true extent of the burden gillion bears. the true weight of the burden crashing down on him as he tries to be strong enough to carry it, to hold it all up, to hold them all up, to make sure no one sinks, to make sure they all stay afloat.

and in this moment as he stammers and doubts and fears i knew already he would fall back into old habits, the only way he was raised and trained, the only way he knows how to save everyone, how to bear it — by immediately sacrificing himself and hoping he’ll finally give give give enough to fix everything.

and who would’ve guessed. he doesn’t hesitate for a second more. off to be the literal conduit to save someone’s life he goes, as the ship keeps sinking sinking sinking behind him.

i hope for everyone’s sake it is enough, of course, because i adore alphonse (and so does every single person in that crew) and the idea of losing him is unbearable. of course i hope this fixes it, of course i hope this is somehow enough to shock the helmsman back to life. but i deeply fear what will happen to gil when one day, inevitably, he just doesn’t have enough to give and he can’t kill the beast in time and he can’t fix everything and he can’t save everyone and no amount of sacrifice is enough.

sometimes you can’t keep everyone afloat at once. sometimes you can’t hold an entire ship together with nothing but strength and will. sometimes you can’t just drown yourself to stop someone else from sinking.