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starculler · 6 months

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strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

#young justice #young justice cartoon #batfam #batman #dick grayson #thoughts and headcanons #the heart wrenching inability to cope with the fact that you've lived a fully realized life #you've loved and lost and loved again in the face of every unending tragedy #until you've forcefully carved out this one little safe haven for yourself #only to be thrust back to the beginning of one of your greatest traumas - esp one you're partly responsible for!#gotta love it #anyway i am and always have been obsessed with dick grayson and no one can stop me #the simulation was fake but some psychic bs means real world elements filtered in #cue several children with weird dream-memories of half-lived experiences and a massive sense of deja-vu #when they wade into the superhero world #all i can picture is the spiderman pointing meme but it's the batkids at dick lol #my favorite idea is that once Dick gets his grubby hands on Jason and Tim it's all over from there #he's pulling late nights and researching and scouring facial recognition databases until he finds his kids #(he blurs the lines a lot when it comes to considering them his siblings vs kids #on the one hand they're not super far apart in age bar Damian #on the other he hasn't been a kid in any meaningful way since he was 14 and he very nearly raised half of them in some way #(plus side to an au is that i can space the ages out more as needed compared to the show haha)#jason and cass are firmly siblings close as they are to his age #steph tim and duke fluctuate depending on how in trouble or injured they are #i will die by dick being damian's dad tho lmao #babs is more platonic life partner than sibling but very firmly family regardless #this is the dick grabs on to any shred of family he can with both hands and drags them in kicking and screaming if he has to au

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nebulousfishgills · 1 month

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As much as I love playing embrace Dark Urge runs (discussion in therapy pending), there's something so narratively satisfying about how a Resist Durge playthrough can go once you get to the Bhaal Temple. Your character steps into the ring with Orin, it's intended to be a duel, but odds are you're getting eviscerated pretty quickly. You then switch to one of your other characters in your party and throw an attack, effectively breaking the duel and setting the whole temple upon you.

(Adding a cut because this ended up being longer than I thought)

But, I think it's a very satisfying way to play. Your party members have grown fond of your Durge, seeing them as a friend, a family member, even a lover. They've watched you and your pain over your Urge and what it makes you do or want to do. Maybe you've slipped up once or twice, but you've been trying so hard to be the hero they know you can be, that Faerûn needs. So, when it comes time to finally face your demons and you're getting so horribly hurt in the process, they can't help but rush to your defense. It'll put all of them in danger, but it doesn't matter because they want and need to help you, their ally and companion.

Bonus points if you select your character's romanced companion as the savior/duel interruptor to make it extra delicious. They've fallen in love with you, stayed with you when your Urge craved their blood the most, maybe by this point in the game you've helped put their demons down as well. They see you in pain, a final valiant effort to overcome your Urge against the power of Orin, a whole cult, a god of murder himself. They want to protect you, save you as you saved them.

I'm also fond of the extra beauty of Astarion being your Resist Durge romance since it puts the two of you in very similar situations. Fighting against the will of your masters, finally defeating your demons with your newfound companions' help and being offered the greatest power you could ever fathom... only to deny it, ignore power in favor of your party and your love.

This isn't even mentioning just how goddamn good the Withers resurrecting you cutscene is. This skeleton in your camp with unknown and unfathomable power (also apparently supposed to be Jergal himself if I've done my research properly?) is able to bring you back to life, free of your Urge. The line along the lines of "Bhaal could only destroy what of you that he knew, but because you've grown past your Urge and become your own person, he couldn't destroy that new growth" is just so weirdly powerful narratively. Tav may be a default character for you to create upon making a new save file, but Durge is the canon protagonist and I think that entire scene shows it the best. It's a beautiful secondary climax of the narrative (primary being battling the Netherbrain of course).

And, perhaps it's just an oversight on Larian's part or something that'd be a bit difficult to work into the cutscenes mechanically, but I think that it could only get more impactful if your companions could comfort each other during these moments. Everyone and their mother wishes you could hug Astarion after he kills Cazador, but also imagine your romanced companion cradling your body after Bhaal kills you. It seems just a little odd that they all (meaning your party) kinda just stand around staring at your corpse, especially with how close y'all have gotten.

Idk, I have a lot of thoughts about this section of the game in this particular type of playthrough and some of them are hard to articulate into words. It's just such a damn good narrative peak and can really make you feel things.

I've completed I think two resist Durge runs and just hit this point on my third and it really stuck out to me this time (then again my new antidepressants are kinda fucking with me so that might be playing a role). I left it as my last mission before dealing with the Netherbrain and I think it helped build the anticipation of that moment. Everyone else has been helped by you, and now it's your turn to come into your own. I really felt so connected to my character walking into the temple, feeling like everything has been building to this, that regardless of what happens our suffering will finally end. And you have your party there to help you in your time of greatest need as you've done for them.

There's a reason this game was Game of the Year, the narrative is just so powerful and the replay-ability is just insane. I've beaten this game ten times, heading for my eleventh and it truly just never gets old and never fails to make me feel so many things so strongly.

#we're gonna bypass how i have the withers big naturals mod installed #because it kinda undercuts the moment when withers comes in to resurrect you and he has these massive honkers #i'm a big fan of embrace durges since it's a great way for me to let loose without real world consequence #(my anticipation for patch 7 grows daily of course)#and it's also just fun to be your worst self and create the fucking legion of doom with your party #you'll never beat the sheer power of an evil durge/ascended astarion/dark justiciar shadowheart/minthara team up #I AM FULLY AWARE I AM SINNING WHEN I ASCEND ASTARION AND IT PAINS ME EVERY TIME BUT I LIKE EVIL NARRATIVES SUE ME #but a resist durge run makes me feel so many more things #helping shadowheart with her family helping astarion learn to be his best self free from cazador lifting the shadow curse among other things #plus everything I mentioned in the main post #and then the final crescendo of the score at the end of the epilogue party cutscene is a HUGE chills moment #although i will always be mad that in order to keep gale from ascending you have to make him seek forgiveness from mystra #she should be apologizing to him wtf no wonder i accidentally ascended him so many times him #gale telling her to shove it just MAKES MORE SENSE and is the healthier thing to do but it gets you his fucking bad ending wth #okay i suppose him blowing himself up is his bad ending but whatever #apparently him exploding the netherbrain can get you the win for honor mode and as someone who can't even get through balanced mode #you bet your sweeeeeet ass i'm not above sending gale to blow himself up to avoid a run ending fight if i got that far #honor mode is not about getting the ending you want it's just about completeing it and dude there's no way in hell i'll get close otherwise #i'll shut up now #fishgills speaks #fishgills plays bg3 #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #the dark urge #bg3 durge

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atopvisenyashill · 1 year

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not an f&b aegon ii fan, not a hotd aegon ii fan, but a secret third thing (a fan of the aegon ii that only exists in my mind)

#extreme mommy issues his father figure is his grandfather & a dude who literally cannot stop committing hate crimes deeply upset that he #could have been his older sister’s male wife but his mom said no and now he has to be king #wants to be a good husband to helaena but resents how gentle she is and dependent on his protection wears his hair short bc he resents his #father’s obsession with valyria when westeros is here now and needs him to do more than just acclaim rhaenyra decades ago and aegon #his true love is his dragon and he was never going to live long after sunfyre. the son that actually DID come with fire and blood to save #his mother but it wasn’t enough never enough because he’s the oldest son but he’s also only second born and what is a second born son than #girlson who is functionally useless as anything more than a pawn to his family.#dying miserable and alone without even his mother’s love bc he came for her too late but he CAME FOR HER!!! HE SAVED HER. too bad.#she doesn’t care anymore bc everyone she really loved is dead. dying a pawn and yet the powerful man in westeros.#letting the narrative consume him alive after sunfyre is injured and finds him on dragonstone. he knows he’s doomed when he goes up against #baela. he does it because what else do you do. you’ve gone too far. killed too many. you killed your sister’s children and she killed yours #in return and now you can’t go back. no choice but mutually assured destruction with the only woman who ever saw how dangerous he was and #how desperate for loce he was. once upon a time. he was a baby bouncing in his sister’s lap on the throne. and she was beautiful and tall #and soft and smart and she told him he was beautiful and loved and pointed out every name and held him the way a mother does.#it has to end there. if the narrative eats me and sunfyre alive it has to eat her too. he won’t go down without her.#getting on my soap box #aegon the usurper

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agir1ukn0w · 5 months

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me when I learned that the german govt is also funding Israel

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scattered-winter · 3 months

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every day i kick a rock and bash my head into the wall because i'll never get to go on a big space adventure and become tightly close-knit with my new found family up there <//3

#re lrb..........#i mean realistically if i was in the voltron/quintenary stars universe chances are i would probably NOT be one of the people #going on the space adventure.#i'd be roped into the plot when the aliens invade and earth almost gets destroyed. spoilers for arc 2 btw sorry #but man. child soldierism aside i wish that were me so so so bad #sadly kicks a rock when will EYE have a deep and mystical connection with a giant ancient cat :(#its not even that i want to interact with the main cast bc i dont really i just. wanna be in their position man #i think one of the reasons why voltron grabbed me so hard (among MANY) is how badly i wanted to do what the main characters did #i remember when i was first watching it while it was coming out i would CONSISTENTLY daydream about being launched into space #with a handful of other people and having to fight a war and grow up far away from home and all the suffocating stuff that came with it #and then coming back years later already solidly knowing who i am and being confident in that #so i'd actually be brave enough to be unapologetic about it. and i'd be found family with the people i went to space with also #that parts important #idk man just. i dont like saying i was abused when i was younger because i really dont think it was like that and it isnt even close to #what how people who have really been abused have had to go through #but sometimes i really do wonder. like now that im (mostly) out and able to review everything with an outside perspective #not even getting into the cult survivorism stuff this is JUST family dynamics im talking about here #bc that shit is a whole other can of worms #i think my parents were genuinely doing the best they could with the cards they were dealt but. jesus christ.#i would have given ANYTHING to be able to run away from all that. and throw magic cats into the equation? brother im GONE #anyway this tags ramble has derailed in a MAJOR way. tldr i wanted to be a paladin sooooo fuckign bad bro #like it actually makes me SICK how much i want a lion. red you are my forever girl even if only in my heart <///3 #i still do want to do all that out of principle but its not as desperate now i just really love space and really want a big kitty friend #winter speaks

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kaythefloppa · 1 year

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Oh yay, we have new lions who we’re all definitely going to make prominent characters of in our fanfics. (Starts typing aggressively)

Here’s the link to the video these guys showed up in for anyone wondering.

#The lion king #the lion guard #it’s genuinely euphoric as to how Disney Jr’s acknowleding the Lion Guard even 4 years after it ended #Like not with fourth season or sequel or anything big but with these little things such as a musical video featuring Kion #- and these little lovies #And also the Lion Guard family tree book coming out next month #Now if Disney Jr. would air reruns of the show as a tribute THAT would be another story (wink wink)#I’m too lazy to draw or write so I’ll just post my asspull headcanons about these guys #The one on the far left is Kion’s second cousin on his grandmother’s side (i.e. the granddaughter of one of her nephews we see in a comic)#Bc I’m lazy we’ll just call her Aisha #Also that lioness has whiskers and I’m getting Baliyo flashbacks #The one on the far right is Zuri’s younger brother and in my HC Zuri is Tojo’s daughter #So let’s call this dude Bahari meaning sea blue #The one in the middle I’m going to be very lazy and unoriginal and say that’s Chaka #Who was Simba and Nala’s son in an early draft of Lion King 2 but was cut #Nothing implies that Kion is the last cub these two will have so let’s just say Chaka is Kion’s little brother #- who is 4-5 years younger than him and somewhat secluded from his older siblings’ lives in pursuit of his own adventures [/projection]#Unrelated but I headcanon Kopa to be a literal accident baby born after TLK 2/TLG #so yeah Kion has 2 little bros in my canon #Disney Jr.

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vaugarde · 1 year

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theres something so odd about how team skull is characterized in the anime. like. in the games theyre a nuisance with a sad backstory to them and they take it out through rage, especially guzma. them teaming up with the aether foundation comes across as lusamine manipulating guzma tbh, like hes just a lackey to her

and then in the anime they water down how gross aether was by limiting the crimes to just faba being a dick instead of the entire foundation being complicit, and in return team skull has their backstory ignored for the most part and theyre perfectly willing to gang up on and hurt a six year old cause she told them not to be mean. like yes they were villains in the game but that just feels weird for them

#guzma in particular is. ouch #first off i hate that they went ‘’oh guzma doesn’t understand his goliopsods ability ha ha he just thinks its epic and nothing else’’#when the subtle symbolism of him having a goliopsod considering his motive and backstory is SO good #and it matches his actions in the story too when he starts hiding in ultra space instead of staying with lusamine #cause despite being a big bad boss… hes still that scared weak little kid.#like hes one of the better written antagonists why did you do that to him #yeah i know they couldnt have gotten away with implying his dad beat him like in the games but its weird #how a show so focused on family doesnt seem to care abt guzma having a troubled past at all #idek if he makes a family with team skull cause i cant tell beyond him calling them brothers #it comes across more like he just finds them to be annoying lackeys at certain points #idk maybe ill change my mind during ash vs guzma but i dont like it so far #also why did kiawe’s parents send their 6 year old on a boat to another island unchaperoned #echoed voice #sm lb

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elftwink · 2 months

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have to work on a project today and an unrelated thing happened that just made me so so so so so mad (just some irl personal stuff), which normally derails my entire day because i find it so hard to come out of the angry/upset state and tend to just circle back and obsess over whatever triggered it but! today after 20 minutes of that i had a council meeting about it (<- what i call my decision making process) the outcome of which was putting it aside (!!!) for later when i could actually talk about it and resolve it (!!!) & in the meantime we could just do other stuff.

local man exuberant and jubilated to achieve feats of basic emotional self-regulation and was seen excitedly telling reporters he "never thought this day would come" and began giving a thank you speech to nobody in particular. more on this story as it develops

#good idea generator #more and more i find the most effective way to get things done is to have like. a council discussion in my head about it #my thoughts always feel really noisy especially when im upset & its easier to process what im thinking/feeling #if i imagine it as coming from many different sources with different opinions. rather than contradictory ones from me #bc then i get stressed about the contradictions. council discussion is easy bc you can let everyone say their whole perspective #so everyone gets listened to + then theres space to ask questions like 'is this helping or hurting?'#if you're wondering who 'we/everyone' is. its me. this is probably obvious but i never know what is typical when explaining how i think #or if im explaining it in a way that makes sense and is accurate to whats actually going on up there #arguably i dont think any language is ever truly 'accurate' to whats going on up there #feels like trying to see if other people see the same red as you do. what do you ask? and when you think you know how do you check?#anyway. i like the council because i used to just try to shut down negative or spirally thoughts #and it never worked ever it just made me feel more out of control. whereas now i have to listen to the whole thing #+ try to identify what the underlying fear or need is and try to address THAT #also awhile back i read the handbook for internal family systems therapy which has def influenced how i think of myself #now i have never actually done ifs or spoken to a practising professional so grain of salt and whatever #but i have found it is by far the way that makes the most sense for me personally to think abt myself and try to solve problems internally

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lululeighsworld · 4 months

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decided to play the heirs of fate dlc this weekend (ive been meaning to for awhile; admittedly my knowledge of it all comes from browsing the wiki, and i really wanted to experience the anankos characterization for myself). this isn't even the part i was excited to get to BUT I AM REELING OVER IT..........FOR REASONS I WILL DISCLOSE IN THE TAGS (from part iv: light's sacrifice)

#during shigure's explanation about why there's gaps in the kids' memories my brain IMMEDIATELY flipped to krad's post about whether --#gunter actually remembers how much he loved his family/is the revenge really for them or is it more so for his own satisfaction --#and like. OH MY GOD. IS IT NOT SO UTTERLY CRUEL THAT PERHAPS THE TRANSITION OF HIS REVENGE BEING FOR THEM ---> BEING SO FOR HIM WAS IN --#FACT BY ANANKOS' DESIGN ALL ALONG RATHER THAN JUST AN UNFORTUNATE SIDE EFFECT OF THE POSSESSION..........#gunter honey you may have been more under his thrall than you realized #this would totally align with how he's only able to tell corrin about his family once he's free from the possession. cuz anankos is no --#longer deliberately stealing his memories to make him more willing to act on his behalf.......ough........#of course i still think gunter purposefully indulged in that power from anankos.......latching onto it as an opportunity to exact his --#revenge without really being aware of all the consequences that would coincidence along with that #and of course this is just a lil tidbit for my own self insert lore but if anankos stealing memories is a thing he purposefully does to --#make his victims more malleable that would explain why he would not remember his time in askr or leigh upon returning to the world of --#revelation :''''') and perhaps it would slowly come back to him post game #teehee. having many thoughts. brain exploding. typical behaviour.#once again fates storytelling is fucking exceptional like is it not brilliant that the degenerating dragon who has lived among his people -#far longer than one likely should. and has been scorn by those ppl he so loved as now their memories of him are only full of fear and --#hatred. ends up stealing people's memories to make them more useful in his plan to destroy the world. much like how his own memories have -#been lost to time. and he is a victim to time just like anybody else. OUGH AAAAA MY HEART MY BRAIN IM SO SAD ABOUT FATES AGAIN.#anyways i still gotta play part 5 of the dlc but im saving that for either tonight or tmrw

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year

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No but something I love is how fucking loyal Miklan really is (in Hopes specifically since we don't have enough information in Houses).

At the camp, he takes his job seriously. Very seriously. He doesn't act begrudging or like he's just doing anything by force. As the chapters go on he not only goes from relatively aloof to a full fledged commander (which is great development in that span of chapters btw considering how fast the story has to progress) and one who fights for Faerghus because he wants to (why would he reassure the player that he's going to, literally, hold down the fort? Why doesn't he flee when his life is in immediate danger despite that Dimtiri prefers his allies to flee and save their lives over sacrificing themselves? Why does he like helping citizens who had their lands destroyed by the war, despite being a bandit who used to plunge towns just like those?).

At any time when the Empire was attacking, he could've surrendered and even joined their side because of not liking Faerghus and its people... if he didn't like Faerghus and its people. Also, someone brought this up to me once that Miklan likely has family in the Empire still, because his mother was from the Empire. He had a perfectly good out that wouldn't even necessarily be considered treason to Faerghus, i.e. surrendering and going to the Empire to protect that side of his family.

He doesn't. He dies for Faerghus. It was both a matter of honor due to the fact that he was finally living the life he always should've been and wanted to be respected for that, and also his loyalty that followed in the past's wrongs being righted. No matter what you think of Miklan post disinheritance, he was the heir who was removed because he didn't have a Crest. All over just that, despite that Sylvain having a Crest never meant they didn't still have someone capable of fighting off Sreng invasions.

They had someone able to wield the Lance of Ruin, so why did it matter if he was officially the heir? Miklan felt like his life was stolen from him (and I'm not saying what he did to Sylvain was okay either). Dimitri gave him all of that back and he started to become loyal to Faerghus and its king because Dimitri was giving the chance even the man's own father never gave him from the moment Sylvain was determined to have a Crest.

What happened in his life before Dimitri had him brought to him as soon as he became king is, in a way, almost like it never happened as far as Miklan's behavior. It was obviously there at first, but over time it's like it never happened. That is, if someone met him and didn't know about his past, by chapter 9 they'd never even know he'd had that history. He was the person he would've been years ago if he hadn't been disinherited, which led to the mess that led to him being disowned (and he says he just "left", but Matthias doesn't mince facts. At all. If that had been the case he wouldn't just say he disowned him. He would admit Miklan ran away. That means Miklan claims he left as a means of coping and trying to convince other people that it was his choice and not forced on him).

Miklan became a lot more loyal than he's ever given credit for, both in the game and in the fandom. Gwendal did recognize it, but that's about all we're given.

Gwendal corrected himself when Miklan died, referring to him instead as Sir Miklan instead of the insults he was spewing during their fight which were very clearly pissing Miklan off; but Miklan kept fighting and defending the fort, not just because he wanted to prove Gwendal wrong but because he was here because he was pulled out of his life as a bandit. The people he was defending the fort for were the people who effectively gave him his life back.

Basically, he would've been there in that fort defending it anyway if he had lived the life he should have to begin with. If his value was acknowledged all along, he would've been defending the most important fort in Faerghus all along (if this exact scenario occurred and everything was the same except him being disowned in the first place). He would be there being the commander and fighter he was supposed to be.

Mind you, it was the king himself who gave him that chance, meaning the person who reigns over Faerghus and has the most power to change whatever the hell he wants - including how people with Crests and without are treated. Miklan was part of a fight to better their society and be part of the new generation taking over. Nobody could truly change things unless the king - the top power - had the thought to change them (not saying Lambert thought the political climate was good the way it was, but he clearly had other priorities and it didn't seem to be something weighing on his mind. He may not have even truly noticed the problems and power discrepancies because he was so focused on other things).

However, the moment the king thought to change all that old stuff, Miklan was one of the first people who came to mind, and one of the first people he took action regarding, to integrate into his new army (and he even mentioned completely rearranging his army and whatnot, and then we find out he had Miklan located basically right after becoming king. We had a two year timeskip and Miklan had been there for those two years because of how soon after Dimitri was crowned that he had decided to bring Miklan back and give him another chance).

If the king sought to change things and was taking active action to prove it, that was something Miklan could see and realize was actually going to happen. It wasn't a blind trust - he could see Dimitri was actually doing it. He had a reason to be able to trust him with this.

He was also able to trust the people who were watching over him, i.e. the people Dimitri had making sure he didn't revert back to any sort of banditry. Those people could have easily faked it, made up that he did something and that they had killed him on the spot. Dimitri trusted those people not to do that of course, but those people were not told to bring him to Dimitri if he did anything. They were told to apprehend him and kill him immediately (which is reasonable, given what he'd done in the past, and they wouldn't want to try to wait to get Dimitri over to wherever they were. If Miklan escaped in that time, they'd just have a big problem on their hands).

So that is to say, those people could've just faked it at any point and killed him. They didn't. They, like Dimitri, were willing to give him another chance provided he didn't do anything bad.

The same goes for Felix and everyone else who had qualms about him being allowed into their army. Dimitri explicitly stated if anyone had issues with his appointment as a commander to "by all means" kill him themselves. He literally made it an open option for his friends to just up and kill him if they truly couldn't forgive him (which at that point was more reasonable of a time because the war was still new and people didn't know if they could trust him with this specific appointment yet. By later in the story I don't think it would have been as reasonable for someone to try to kill him after he'd already been proving himself).

In other words, nobody did it. Everyone, literally everyone, backed off and respected Dimitri's decision (and technically Sylvain and Matthias' as well). None of those people, even when given open opportunity, turned a weapon on him. Not one. These people all gave him a chance. These are the same people he died fighting for, and for himself to be able to feel like he was fighting and dying for what he would have to begin with if he hadn't been disinherited - Faerghus and its people.

In the end Miklan was in both rank and heart a top ranking commander of Faerghus and he both appreciated it and knew he appreciated it. He was looking forward to the future Dimitri would bring, basically saying that he thinks Dimitri is a fool ("weak-willed") for it but that he now believes in it too. If anyone wants to try arguing those points, I have receipts as the young folk call them, fresh from Miklan himself about his feelings about it as spoken to Catherine and Shamir!

Miklan fought for the future he was hoping to see, and he died protecting that future. Again, not something he by any means whatsoever had to do. He was tasked with guarding the fortress, but was never told to lay down his life defending it. After years and years of being hateful and angry, he finally had some peace of mind and hope for what he could be. He was loyal to Dimitri in the end because Dimitri was loyal to him - that is, he kept his word and Miklan was able to thrive in Dimitri's society without being a bandit or having to worry about his future because of his status.

Like Dimitri said, the only thing holding him down by that point were his past mistakes. It was up to Miklan to do something about that for himself with the opportunity he was given to fix it. Dimitri said here, fix it, and Miklan said okay, and worked to fix it. For me the saddest part is that he didn't even get enough time to properly fix it and be able to be free of his past. He died for Faerghus though, with his dying words being that he was able to buy them time (to arrive and fight back against the attacking Empire). That's not something someone who holds a resentful grudge would say in their last moments. He was grateful he managed to buy the other fighters time, even though it cost him his life.

hopes was a dumpster fire a whole lot of times but its incorporation of miklan into the plot was not one of them. miklan fire emblem my love you will live on in my heart and in my fics. i am also deeply grateful to hopes for uh i guess hopes-canonizing (hopesonizing???) basically every one of my headcanons about him before the game came out.

#Miklan #Miklan Anschutz Gautier #remember the time i mentioned working on a fic and it was an au and like #i had planned to kill him and glenn off together for the plot? and how i scrapped it bc i got too attached to them?#and i couldn't go through with it when i thought abt sylvain and miklan's could be would be relationship?#that was me on the right track for the rest of my life. even back then i see i had a FEELING #i just KNEW something. funny enough in hopes miklan has a line that's like #pretty close to what i had him say in the fic... so uh my assertions and understandings of his character #were scarily accurate before we had anything but him as an enemy in houses to go by #and what dimitri talked abt post that chapter. uhhh maybe i am a miklan whisperer???#anyway miklan is easily by far the most underrated character in the entirety of hopes #and one of the most underrated characters overall #he has one of the most interesting stories from start to finish (esp in hopes)#how he was a noble family's heir to being disinherited to becoming an angry and hateful child #to growing up like that bc evidently nobody tried to steer him on the right path #to getting disowned only to be disowned for a lol measly for few months or so TOPS in hopes lmao #before being told to come back. in houses he was disowned presumably exactly as long but #dimitri wasn't the top power of faerghus. he couldn't have made the decision he got to make in hopes #so ofc the whole yeehaw lance of ruin thing happened. in hopes' case he was gone that long and just #took a vacation basically and came back and was basically told /B E H A V E/#except everyone was finally trying to steer him in the right direction even if it was SUUUPER fucking late #and he was grown up and set in his ways/behaviors/mannerisms that arose due to his childhood and onward #BUT from there and after being a very spiteful bandit he pulled himself together and was genuinely happier for it #enough to the point of considering himself ''weak willed'' to have started to believe in these visions dimitri has for the future #it makes me sad how he died in ag and like... even outside of ag there was never any hope of that family being whole #they weren't whole from the moment sylvain was determined to have a crest #and they couldn't be whole in houses bc dimitri never had the chance to change anything #then in hopes they could never be whole bc a different gautier dies in every hopes route #my poor fam never even had a chance to be whole again even though they genuinely tried so hard to be ;n; ;n; ;n;

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