#but like always it left a lot of unanswered questions!!!😅😅😅

[mikyapixie]

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I just read the final chapter of Eden's Zero & I loved it!!!Honestly made me tear up!!!I'm gonna miss this manga!!!Probably as much as I missRave Master!!!

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[sersi]

Your gifs are always so beautiful! And the quality is top notch as usual. I still don't understand if Sersi knew Ikaris was saying goodbye to her in that moment and that he was going to kill himself, or if he was just leaving her again? Her reaction seems so calm, she still loves him apparently yet she doesn't try to say something to stop him. He sure did horrible things, but Eternals were ready to forgive Sprite or, at least, they were sympathetic to her. Chloe was talking how no one is truly bad there and that she is partly team Ikaris... I don't know, but I don't get this scene. Only Sprite seemed upset, the rest didn't really care. I guess I just wanted more family feelings from them, even to Ikaris, they were together for so long after all.

Hi anon! My take on that scene (and to an extent the entirety of Ikaris and Sersi's interactions in the modern day) is actually quite specific and (I think) quite different than your own. To me, that scene is the final resolution of a century long break-up and, for Sersi, the moment she finally gets closure.

The lack of closure produced by Ikaris leaving Sersi without explanation or warning is a recurring force in the movie. The first real introduction to their relationship--Sersi’s conversation with Dane after the Deviant attack--gives the audience the basics: how long they were together, the fact that Ikaris left her, and, crucially, Sersi's declaration that "I moved on."

In a lot of ways, Sersi has moved on--she has made a life for herself, is in a new relationship, and seems open to the notion of being in love with Dane. Yet, she is clearly still haunted by this unanswered question of why Ikaris left. These emotions are likely brought even closer to the forefront by her first one on one interaction with Ikaris in the present (the scene in her apartment post-Deviant attack), where Ikaris apologizes for (but does not explain) that abandonment.

In the forest--after they've spent one, if not two (they had to get from London to South Dakota somehow and given that they are driving a car to Ajak's house, I suspect that Ikaris may not be capable of carrying two people and flying at the same time 😅) flights together and have gotten comfortable with each other again--Sersi directly asks Ikaris why he left. And once again, Sersi doesn't get her answer. (Before getting snatched up by that Deviant, Ikaris seemed potentially ready to give her more of an answer, but I don't think he was ready to fully tell her the truth).

And then, after the attack and Gilgamesh’s death, their focus is largely consumed by finding the remaining Eternals and (for Sersi) finding a way to stop or delay the emergence. Their next one on one scene is consumed by this: Ikaris tells Sersi that he’s in love with her (present tense!!!) but also, for the first time, makes the sheer depth of the ideological gulf between them clear. And then obviously the emergence starts, Ikaris reveals that he knew all along, and declares that he is willing to kill every single one of them in order to protect it.

That heel turn on the Domo gives Sersi most of the answers she’s been waiting a century for: Ikaris reveals that he has known since they left Babylon, that he never wanted her to know the truth of their mission, and, in his most emotionally revealing dialogue, the pain that knowledge of the emergence and his decision to keep it a secret from her caused him. (“I wanted you to leave this world in peace.”, “Ajak told me everything when we left Babylon.”, “Do you think it was easy to live with the truth? To know that one day all this would end? To keep on lying to you?”). Yet, in this same moment, Ikaris gives Sersi new reasons to doubt the truths of their past relationship: in addition to his declaration (backed up by his attack on Makkari) that he is willing to kill his fellow Eternals to protect the emergence, he also admits to killing to Ajak and largely brushes aside Sersi’s repeated statements about Ajak’s love for him.

Afterwards, Sersi is nearly paralyzed by grief, betrayal, and doubt. While she overcomes this and, over the course of the beach battle, finally settles into who she has become, rather than who she once was, she is still carrying the emotional wounds of believing (due to both words and actions) that the man she spent thousands of years with is willing to kill her in defense of a system she finds archaic and violent.

It is only when Ikaris confronts Sersi on the emerging Tiamut--a moment in which Sersi clearly assumes she will die--and he cannot bring himself to kill her that all the puzzle pieces really settle into place. Ikaris and Sersi have known each other for seven thousand years (that they can remember) and, with everything that has transpired and been revealed over the past few days, I think, for the first time in thousands of years, they both fully understand who the other is. When Ikaris says “I’m sorry” and Sersi responds “I know”, it, to me, is, much more than Chloé slipping in a Star Wars callback. To me, it’s all that really needed to be or could be said in that moment. 

Sersi isn’t sorry. She did what she thought was right and it’s far too soon for the mixed emotions that come into play in her exchange with Kingo at the end. Ikaris is sorry, but I don’t really think it’s just for killing Ajak or lying to Sersi or Gil’s death or trying to kill Druig or trying to kill Sersi. I think he’s also sorry for his inability to stop Sersi. Ikaris spent thousands of years loving her and their mission to serve Arishem, and while his love for Sersi ultimately won out, I don’t think that’s something he’s at peace with at all.

In this moment, Ikaris and Sersi are in dramatically different emotional places--Ikaris is in turmoil and Sersi, for the first time in a very long time, is at peace. And with the benefit of thousands of years together and a week in which every Eternal was forced to recognize the ways in which they had changed, I think Sersi knows that, in that moment, there is nothing she can do to fix or change or stop Ikaris. She can’t absolve him of what he did (and I wouldn’t assume that she would want to do that either). She can’t undo what she just did. And while there is love there, I think they both understand that they can never be exactly what they once were. So, Sersi simply watches Ikaris leave her, for a second time, because there is no action she can take that will change anything. And after having already lost, grieved, and moved on from Ikaris once before without any understanding of why, whatever she feels in that moment is, I think, less visceral because of it.

Now, as for everyone else, I think their reactions to Ikaris’ trip into the sun are shaped by two main factors: one, their pre-existing relationships with/feelings about Ikaris and two, Ikaris’ actions over the past week. Except for Sprite and Sersi, most of the Eternals on that beach have a at least marginally antagonistic relationship with Ikaris before any of the events of the third act. Druig’s interactions with Ikaris, both in the Aztec flashback scene and in the commune in the modern day, are openly hostile. Phastos, as evidenced by Ikaris’ saying Phastos has called him worse during the Superman exchange and Phasto’s entire speech/exchange with Ikaris on the beach, has some pre-existing and likely longstanding issues with him as well. We don’t get any flashbacks that really let us pinpoint when this all started, but between “I’ve been wanting to clip your wings for a long time” and “You always did underestimate her”, I lean towards thinking these issues were bubbling under the surface well before the Eternals all split up. Thena is harder to pin down, but her 🤔 expression during the Ikersi wedding reaction shot has always made me feel like she was at least a tiny bit mixed on Ikaris by that time. (Also the fact that Gil does not let Ikaris breathe for a SECOND in their modern-day interactions and, regardless of whether you read them as romantic or just besties, that is Thena’s partner). So, of the Eternals on that beach, the only one I don’t think had issues with Ikaris beforehand is Makkari.

And Makkari is definitely the biggest testament to the second thing shaping reactions to Ikaris’ death: all the shit he pulled over the last week. He admitted to killing Ajak, something that even Druig, who had plenty of issues with Ajak, is shown to be upset over. He was indirectly responsible for Gilgamesh’s death, something that Thena, while having reached her own moment of peace in the aftermath of killing Kro, would not have forgotten. And he attempted to kill Druig, which Makkari did not appreciate and tried to kill Ikaris over.

So, while I don’t think the Eternals were necessarily happy about what Ikaris did at the end, I do think that their emotions regarding his death were deeply complicated and that, with everything else that has happened, it was not really the predominate emotional force in that moment. They’ve just stopped the birth of a Celestial and saved the world, something they never thought they would or could do. They’ve lost, in the past week, multiple members of their team/family when no one had died in the previous seven thousand years. And they joined together, mentally, with each other and with Tiamut. There’s just so much to process and settle in that whatever they feel about Ikaris is, for the moment, not able to fully break through or take center stage. It would certainly have to at some point--this is someone they’ve known for thousands of years and someone that they’ve all had a range of experiences with--but I think it might take hours, if not days, for that to really happen. (And while I would love a full multi-week-long cut of Eternals, I get why that sort of “many hours later on the beach” or “everyone on the repaired Domo while we fly to North Dakota” moment is not going to make it into the script).

The Eternals shown to have the closest/most positive relationships with Ikaris are Sersi, Sprite, and Kingo. I’ve already talked about Sersi, but I would add that, alongside whatever grief she feels over Ikaris, there is also “I killed a Celestial”, so she too has a ton going on emotionally. Kingo, who was tremendously loyal to Ikaris and at least agreed with him on the subject of the emergence, isn’t there at all and when we next see him, it is weeks later, so probably past whatever initial grief he felt.

By the end, Sprite is the Eternal with the least complicated emotions regarding Ikaris. She loves him, she agreed with him about the emergence (albeit for reasons more tied to her frustration and dissatisfaction with her life on Earth than any sort of fundamental faith in Arishem and the Celestials), and, while not knowing of Ikaris and Sersi’s final exchange, likely shares the regret he expressed in that moment. So, while probably the least emotionally settled Eternal in that beach scene, her grief over Ikaris is, I think, much less complicated than everyone else’s and thus much more immediate and visible.

Families can be really complicated, and, in my opinion, the issue of forgiveness and the treatment of Sprite vs. Ikaris is wrapped up in that. Sprite was not necessarily beloved by all of her fellow Eternals, but, unlike Ikaris, it may be easier for the Eternals to have sympathy for her because of the increasingly obvious cruelty of how Arishem made her and because the scope of what she did was much smaller. She tried to kill Sersi, but one, didn’t succeed, and two, it was made clear that Sersi forgave her pretty much immediately after she appeared on that beach. (Obviously, Ikaris never showed up on that beach, so it can’t really be said how different the Eternals reaction would have been to him. I don’t really think it would have been positive simply because of the scope and recency of everything that’s he done. But I also think that you would have seen a much wider and more visible range of reactions from the Eternals had he returned).

So, I guess after far more words than you probably ever expected anon, I recognize your desire for more of an obvious or straightforward sense of family in the immediately post-emergence/beach scene parts of the movie and understand how, given Chloé’s comments on Ikaris, the reaction to Ikaris’ death could be unsatisfying. However, as I’ve tried to explain above, it works for me because the relationships and factors at play in those final parts of the movie leave the surviving Eternals with very complicated emotions regarding Ikaris. This is an experience that I think a lot of Eternals fans can relate to, but one where I think there is a crucial difference between us and the Eternals as characters. As viewers, we are purview to a lot of information the surviving Eternals don’t have. We get to see Ikaris after he kills Ajak. We get to rewatch the movie and start to notice all those moments where Ikaris is clearly tormented by what he has done and what he has committed to do. We get to see Ikaris realize that he simply cannot bring himself to kill Sersi. And, most crucially, for us, this is fiction--the emergence is a thought experiment, albeit a somewhat emotional one for anyone attached to MCU characters who live on Earth. So, while I get why Chloé finds her allegiances shifting day to day and why she hopes that viewers will find it to be a similarly complex situation, I don’t think that the Eternals, as characters, can be expected to share that same complexity of thought, especially in the immediate aftermath.

[ladyofthenoodle]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

thanks @emsylcatac for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

sixteen!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

86,713... wonder if i can make it to 100k by the end of the year!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

just miraculous ladybug. tbh i never thought i would write fic until joining this fandom. i still don't know if i'll ever write for anything else!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

unsurprisingly, my most popular fics are the standalone lovesquare fics

our hands would not be taught to hold another's

Me, My Best Friend, and Her Cat

full exposure

and say you want me

an uncurtain discovery

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

yes, i try to respond to all of them! sometimes a bit late, i've definitely got some unanswered in my inbox because sometimes i have to choose between writing or answering comments, and i figure if someone likes my fic enough to comment they'd rather have the next chapter. but i always respond eventually because i really appreciate every comment and i want to show that appreciation, even if i'm not always great at taking compliments. seriously all of my commentors rock and people who take the time to write comments on every chapter are the backbone of fandom.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

coin operated boy is my angstiest fic, full stop. it does have an unofficial crack sequel, but the fic itself ends on an angsty cliffhanger. i don't like sad endings so i want to write a more serious continuation one day but it's on indefinite hiatus until i have the emotional energy for that.

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

hm, probably our hands would not be taught to hold another's? that's a harder question but since that one has the fluffy epilogue i think it would be the happiest

8. Do you write crossovers? If yes, what’s the craziest thing you’ve written?

nope

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yeah, someone i met on a discord server really disliked me to the point that after i'd blocked him on tumblr and left the server, he went after me on ao3.

i think that's the only real hate i've gotten though? some people did assume our hands would not be taught to hold another's was salt early on so i ended up changing the summary (i wrote the summary before i was made aware adrien losing the ring was a big salt trope so i went back to make it clear that wasn't the plan at all)

10. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

no, i get embarrassed writing kisses. my face gets all red every time. i'm just not strong enough to write smut yet

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i am aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

nope. i would love to because it sounds fun! but also stressful because my writing style is kinda chaotic and idk how coordinating would go

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

i'd have to say lovesquare since it's the first ship i've ever been invested in enough to actually start writing

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

like i said in question 6, i'd like to go back coin operated boy eventually but idk if/when that will happen

16. What’s your writing strengths?

grammar? 😅 idk really. i write a lot for work and i wrote a lot during school so i feel pretty confident with basic writing mechanics and clarity, but fiction wise i'm not sure? characterization, probably?

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

description is really hard for me, especially describing like objects and settings and stuff. i really wish i could add more poetry and beauty and richness to the world my characters are inhabiting. i always have to remind myself they aren't just chilling out in a blank void and that they should interact with physical objects.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

i avoid it. i don't speak any other languages and it seems silly to run a sentence through google translate just so the reader can put it through again - i'd rather just say the character was speaking whatever language if i need. i might make an exception for words that don't have direct translations but it hasn't really come up yet.

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

still just this one

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

ohhhhh, saving the hardest for last. i'm probably the most proud of our hands would not be taught to hold another's, since i really didn't think i was capable of writing a long multichaptered story until i actually did it there. i reread it recently and i can see my growth as a writer from the first chapter to the final one too, which is neat.

tagging @kasienda, @miabrown007, and @marrys-dream-world