#you empathize with him. you hurt for his sacrifices that must be made. you want to shake him for both his bold confidence and hidden depths

[justicebled]

i was so busy organizing my blog and getting it down to below 50 people, because i genuinely wanted it to be private, that i forgot to make yuri's pri.de icon. his bio is extremely outdated.

ex: he's a sagittarius no shocker there, december 10th is his birthday. i genuinely don't know how the lower quarter survives winter but lemme tell you it's a team effort.

plus yuri has grown with me for three years even when i've taken breaks writing him on this platform. but in terms of loving someone?

he's demi-panromantic. he's not someone to really indulge in physical relationships unless he feels an emotional and spiritual connection to the person. it's crucial that this person understands yuri and yuri understands them, which...isn't really hard for yuri's end, because yuri can see through 99.9 percent of people. he just doesn't care.

what yuri is attracted to is a person's soul, and their heart, and their beliefs, and how well they get along. if they can laugh together, if they can grow together, however the pace. because yuri's actions are borne of a love for the people, a love for a future where people realistically can live unoppressed knowing full well he cannot solve every problem, and a love for the land not through rose colored glasses, but full realism of it's ugliness and goodness.

he embraces all of that, and continues his journey. so much of ves.peria is about love and the way it drives others to act for others good. it generally is a tale of agape love, which is the most selfless form of love, something yuri embodies even before he realizes he cannot stop his hero's journey, and instead embraces it, consequences and all, good things and bad things, like choices are.

edgelord? far from it. broody? far from it. he sees things for what they are, without forced idealism if it's too uncomfortable to face the reality, he does not, and will not ever look away. if he wants to change things, protect people, shake the foundations of a system so thousands may live and prosper, he cannot look away because it's grisly. he hasn't since he was born in a slum where people and bodies were on the street left and right. he's seen things no one should ever see in their life.

he will never judge someone for their orientation, gender or not committing to one, or a person's standing, although he is cagey around nobles, he's slowly growing out of that thanks to meeting estelle.

the hardest thing about even remotely getting near yuri's heart is that for all it's unconditional love and love of humanity in a realistic, non shonen protag way, a person-like way, he has so much trauma and a desire to not involve others in his problems and feelings as he often if not 95 percent of the time will place you above his own needs, and this has been ingrained in him and thrust upon him since he was a child, it will not be an easy habit to break, and he isn't going to coddle you in a romantic or relationship period you yourself, have to make your own choices. you yourself, have to make the decision every day to do good, and while yuri will support and help you along, there is no such thing as 'fixing a person', that is the person's job, and yuri himself will encourage, stay by their side, and walk the path with them, but he cannot walk it for you, and he wouldn't want you to walk it for him. it's unhealthy and unrealistic.

but if you do get yuri to love you in the romantic capacity, there is no more devoted, gentle, noble and kind partner at his core, and ultimately seeks your betterment and your good without coddling you in an unrealistic way that would denote you weren't equals.

yuri's story is a realistic labor of love to mankind and an attainable future, it's why he sacrifices and fights so hard and fights so fiercely without coddling the people who have given up on their life. look at raven. he doesn't give him a speech. it's not his job. look at estelle. it's her choice to live. but he encourages them to make the choice themselves, heavily emphasizing how much they matter to him. it's why he's such a unique fictional hero-protagonist among many things, and so once you have him romantically which....is quite a hurdle? he has his own trauma and baggage hoo. there are few more loving, noble, heroic or benevolent,

one of vesperi.a's strong points though i think it's such a tightly written story, is that yuri subverts the trope you'd think you see of him: 'dark brooding and morally grey bad boy' and shows you he's the exact opposite, a man who laughs until he has tears in his eyes. a man who adores children and can't close his heart to people who need him, resulting in many, many people viewing him as a role model and big brother figure / mentor figure.

but with romantic love . . . ultimately even if he does have feelings for you, don't expect him to act on them immediately. he just wants you to be happy.

tl;dr: yuri doesn't care about gender or no gender or undecided, loves the soul first, is demi-panromantic and so much love is stored in the yuri lowe.ll as much as unstoppable ass-kicking and king level snark.

[ddarker-dreams]

not to be a baby but i think we have went a long time without your scara brainrots 😔 i know you just posted one but ☹ pls feed the starving pigeons 🥺 (its me im part of pigeons)

rolling up my sleeves .

yan scara can somewhat understand your apprehension toward him (empathizing king), since he's amassed quite the reputation. instilling fear comes naturally to him. he didn't intend to become notorious for his disagreeable attitude, it just sorta happened and he rolled with it. this ends up being a double-edged sword.

while he initially does find it cute that you're so on edge in his presence, this quickly loses its appeal. he wants you to dote on him and offer your affection in abundance. or, at the very least, stop looking like you've seen a ghost when he wraps an arm around your shoulder.

scaramouche finds himself in a tough spot. he can't let you know how wrapped around your finger he is, that'd be detrimental. at the same time, he doesn't want you to think you're one mistake away from getting struck by lightning at any given point and time. are there people who are right to fear this? yes, but you're not one of them.

by his own warped standards, he thinks he's been cordial with you. whether or not this is true is highly debatable. nevertheless, he's huffy that you're not all over him after about the two week mark. is that not ample time for you to readjust? he certainly feels it is. while contemplating this predicament, scaramouche realizes he'll have to amp up his geniality. it hurts his pride, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

maybe he'll offer to eviscerate an enemy of yours and bring you their ashes? that's nice, right?

[magnetic-rose]

Why Spones is a top-tier ship

AKA “the inherent homoeroticism of annoying the shit out of your co-worker.”

Spock and McCoy have a complicated relationship. A lot of their bickering and ideological differences lead fans to believe that they hate each other, but that’s an over-simplification of the truth. The reality is that Spock and McCoy are extremely close friends who care about each other deeply. Though sometimes their bickering turns serious during stressful situations, for the most time they seem to enjoy the banter. A common mischaracterization of their relationship seems to put McCoy as the bully and Spock as the victim. In truth, there are many times where Spock will say something specifically to get a rise out of McCoy. They fight. That’s how they show affection, not disdain. In fact, one could argue that some of their bantering have a flirtatious tone to it.

Kirk: Mister Spock, regaining eyesight would be an emotional experience for most. You, I assume, felt nothing.

Spock: On the contrary Captain. I had a very strong reaction. My first sight was the face of Doctor McCoy bending over me.

McCoy: ‘Tis a pity brief blindness didn’t increase your appreciation for beauty, Spock. (Operation -- Annihilate!)

Spock is a half-Vulcan, half-Human who has mostly chosen to follow his Vulcan heritage. As such, he is a being of almost pure logic. The truth about Vulcans are that they are secretly beings who feel things very deeply and intensely, and they feel the need to keep a tight lid on their emotions as to not succumb to them. McCoy, on the other hand, is a regular human. He’s a deeply emotional man who cares about others. One could argue that McCoy is almost too empathetic, as he lets his emotions rule him. Spock and McCoy are polar opposites; the brain and the heart, the logic and the emotion, the super-ego and the id.

Despite these differences, the two men are similar in a lot of ways. They’re both men of science, men of peace, and they both care very deeply for their Captain. They’re both self-sacrificing morons, to the chagrin of the other. Spock will prioritize McCoy’s life even when both of them know it’s not the logical choice to do so. Likewise, McCoy will take a hit for Spock even when they both know the Vulcan is stronger and better equipped to deal with pain than the doctor.

Spock: (In the middle of a blizzard) In this severe cold, we cannot survive much longer.

McCoy: Leave me here, Spock.

Spock: We go together or not at all.

McCoy: Don’t be a fool. My hands and face are frostbitten. I can’t feel my feet. Alone, you have a chance. Now do what I say. Go try to find Jim.

Spock: We go together! (All of Yesterdays)

In the episode, “The Empath,” Kirk, Spock and McCoy have to choose someone to be offered as sacrifice to be tortured by a group of aliens. Kirk obviously volunteers, but gets put to sleep by McCoy with a tranquilizer. Spock then states that he’ll offer himself up, as he has the higher chance of surviving the torture. McCoy then proceeds to sedate Spock as well, and sacrifices himself to be tortured by the aliens.

Spock: While the captain is asleep, I am in command. When the Vians return, I shall go with them.

McCoy: You mean, if I hadn't given him that shot

Spock: Precisely. The choice would have been the captain's. Now it is mine.

(McCoy turns away. Spock sits to carry on working. Gem puts her hand on Spock's shoulder, and smiles. McCoy comes up behind him and gives him an injection.)

Spock: Your action is highly unethical. My decision stands. (Spock falls asleep next to Kirk.)

McCoy: Not this time, Spock.

Underneath all the fighting and disagreements, there is a deep caring between Spock and McCoy that manifests itself into protectiveness towards each other. In “All of Yesterdays,” Spock is constantly showing concern for McCoy after he almost died of hypothermia. In aftermath of McCoy’s torture in “The Empath,” Spock is seen hovering over his body and caressing his face, worry written into his features. On the other hand, while McCoy constantly makes fun of Spock for his lack of emotions, he’s also highly aware of the Vulcan’s mental state and protective of it when others threaten to shatter his resilience.

McCoy: He's a Vulcan. You can't force emotion out of him.

Philana: You must be joking, Doctor.

McCoy: You'll destroy him.

Parmen: We can't let him die laughing, can we?

McCoy: (Watching as Spock starts to cry) I beg you! (Plato’s Stepchildren)

The episode “Amok Time” also demonstrates McCoy’s perceptiveness of Spock and Spock’s true feelings of friendship towards McCoy. McCoy is in fact the first person to notice that something is wrong with Spock:

McCoy: Oh, captain. Got a minute? It's Spock. Have you noticed anything strange about him?

Kirk: No, nothing in particular. Why ?

McCoy: Well, it's nothing I can pinpoint without an examination, but he's become increasingly restive. If he were not a Vulcan, I'd almost say nervous. And for another thing, he's avoiding food. I checked and he hasn't eaten at all in three days.

Kirk: That just sounds like Mister Spock in one of his contemplative phases.

Kirk doesn’t notice anything wrong with Spock, and initially dismisses McCoy’s concern, but McCoy immediately picked up on Spock’s mental turmoil. Despite his cantankerousness, McCoy not only cares about Spock but goes out of his way to look out for his mental state. Part of it might be because he’s his doctor, but how many doctors go so far as to monitor someone’s eating habits because they notice that person’s suddenly being fidgety? On Spock’s end, when it comes time for him to beam down to Vulcan to complete his marriage ceremony, he specifically asks for McCoy to be there:

Spock: By tradition, the male is accompanied by his closest friends.

Kirk: Thank you, Mister Spock.

Spock: I also request McCoy accompany me.

McCoy: I shall be honoured, sir.

One episode I find extremely fascinating in terms of McCoy/Spock moments is “Mirror, Mirror.” In this famous episode, half of the Enterprise crew get transported into an alternate universe dubbed The Mirror Verse, in which evil versions of the characters exist and terrorize space as a fearsome military force. McCoy is part of the team that gets transported in the Mirror Verse, while Spock stays in their regular universe. Mirror Spock immediately realizes that half of the crew, including Kirk and McCoy, are acting strangely. When he corners Kirk to question him, he does so by threatening McCoy: “I shall not waste time with you. You’re too inflexible, too disciplined, once you’ve made up your mind. But Doctor McCoy has a plenitude of human weaknesses, sentimental, soft. You may not tell me what I want to know, but he will.” This Spock seems to have a intimate knowledge of McCoy’s mind.  When the party decides to attack Mirror Spock, he fights all of them except for Uhura and McCoy, who he simply pushes out of harm’s way.

When Mirror Spock gets hurt as the crew is trying to escape back to their own universe, McCoy is suddenly unable to leave his side. Kirk allows him to stay to nurse Spock back to health, and McCoy risks almost staying in the Mirror Verse forever for him. When Mirror Spock awakes, he backs McCoy into a wall and initiates a forced mind meld onto the doctor. The next scene has Mirror Spock holding a disoriented McCoy up and bringing him back to his crew; he now understands what is happening and he wants his regular crew back, and thus he allows Kirk and company to make the switch back to their own universe.

Other Star Trek properties have gone more in depth on how a forced mind meld can be extremely traumatizing on the person receiving it. Star Trek: Enterprise has an entire story arc dedicated to the Vulcan T’Pol trying to heal from a forced mind meld. Unfortunately, because the nature of TOS episodes were episodic, we never got the chance to explore the emotional fallout of McCoy’s forced mind meld and how that might have affected his relationship with Spock. The franchise also never went in depth on Mirror McCoy outside of what Mirror Spock speaks of him, since Mirror McCoy died of xenopolycythemia in 2269.

Closing the list of evidence of Spock and McCoy’s affections towards each other are the Star Trek movies “The Wrath of Khan” and “The Search for Spock.” Towards the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock sacrifices himself to save The Enterprise in one of the franchises most heart-wrenching scenes. Moments before his sacrifice, he knocks McCoy unconscious, touches his face and whispers “remember.” What happened in this scene was that Spock, knowing he was about to die, transferred his Katra to McCoy. The katra being the Vulcan equivalent of a soul. This speaks to the amount of trust that Spock has in McCoy. For someone who keeps most of his emotions under a tight lid, it’s a huge gesture to entrust another with the essence of their entire being. The next movie, The Search for Spock, is a journey as the Enterprise crew fight to return to Vulcan so they can reunite Spock with his body. When they finally arrive, the Vulcans warn McCoy that the process is extremely dangerous and could even result in his death. McCoy calmly replies that he “chooses the danger.” He cannot fathom living his life without Spock.

McCoy: (Speaking to Spock) I'm going to tell you something that I... I never thought I'd hear myself say...But it seems I've missed you. I don't know if I could stand to lose you again.

So in conclusion, Spock and McCoy have a rich and complex relationship that is much more than simply just “they dislike each other because they bicker a lot.” Their bickering is more akin to that of an old married couple. There are plenty of examples not even included in this post of how deeply they care for each other. Despite their ideological differences, they balance each other out quite nicely. McCoy is finely attuned to Spock’s emotions, arguably better than anyone else on the ship. Spock in turn is protective and gentle with McCoy. Once you stop looking at their interactions solely on the surface level, you’ll be able to see the tenderness and years of love and friendship between them. This is why I think Spock/McCoy is one of the most underrated and misunderstood relationships of TOS. Don’t let the constant arguing fool you into believing these two dummies don’t adore each other.

Shout-out to Tempest for their extremely lengthy ship manifesto on Spones called “Spiced Peaches,” which goes even more in depth on why Spones is a great couple. Using their manifesto as a reference was key to remembering Spock/McCoy moments. Also shout-out to the site chakoteya for having full transcripts of TOS episodes, so I could easily find quotes for this. If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading!

[animereaderinsertwriter]

Cupbearer (Eren/Reader)

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV (in progress)

Warnings: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT (im watching you, if you see this, begone!), vampire!eren, hunter!reader, fem!reader, smut, some amount of predator/prey dynamics but only kinda?? there is also a significant age difference but only cos eren is immortal and all that jazz. we're all adults here. there will eventually be smut.... and do i really need to say that there's gonna be blood in a vampire fic?

Description: A story of falling in love in 4 parts.

Eren is a bad man (well, a bad Creature) who has done bad things. When he meets the great-great-great granddaughter of one of his former friends in his favorite blood bar, however, he thinks it might not matter so much what happened in the past, so long as he can make the future something worth living to see.

Ao3 link here

Part I

A lamb in a den of lions, he thought, watching the newcomer as she settled in, ordering whiskey neat. A fool, for sure.

A fool she may be, perhaps, but even fools could be dangerous. Eren had known that the young woman was a Hunter from the moment she entered the bar (everyone else had, too) but something told Eren that she was hardly cut from the same cloth as the average Bane of Creatures. There was something in her movements— a predatory grace in her stride, perhaps, or a stiff, straight posture, with muscles tensed and ready for action— that betrayed her power to him; but for all that, she really was lovely, and the image of a rabbit caught in a patch of bramble came to mind whenever he looked at her.

Sitting in a corner, drinking his B-neg, he watched the woman as she sipped her drink, checking over her shoulder now and then. She was wary— as anyone with good sense would be— but she didn't appear frightened, and Eren's curiosity was piqued. It wasn't every day that someone so bold happened across his path, and it became harder and harder for him to resist the urge to approach her.

Eventually, Eren gave in to his curiosity— he never had been very good at or even particularly fond of restraining himself— and when he came silently up behind her, the newcomer didn't even notice his presence until he murmured a greeting close to her ear.

"Hello, little love," he said, and she startled in her seat. "Are you lost?"

She turned around then, her eyes big and bright in the dim lighting of the bar, but by the time she managed to look at the spot where Eren would have been, he was already seated on the barstool beside her. Eventually, though, her eyes found his, and when their gazes met, Eren was amused to find no fear in her visage.

"Far from it," she told him, turning her body towards him. "I am precisely where I mean to be."

Eren blinked, nonplussed.

"Curious," he said, leaning forward so that she could see the sharpness of his teeth as he spoke. "Do you fancy yourself a wolf among sheep, little Hunter? Did you really not think we would know you for what you are the moment you crossed the threshold of this place?"

Any normal, human ear would have missed the way her heart leapt in her chest, but Eren missed nothing. The fear he had hoped to inspire in her was present after all, but her face never moved from its impenetrable mask— an affectation that was somehow both soft and steely at once.

"That's not what I'm here for," she told him, widening the distance between her knees as she readjusted on the stool. "I'm here to discover the truth."

The truth— what an odd notion!— and yet Eren sensed no lie in her.

"You're a strange one," he told her, but forced himself to relax his posture to appear lazy, almost drunk. "Most Hunters— even ones so pretty as yourself— shoot first and worry about the truth later. What's your name?"

Her nose crinkled. "It's polite to give your own first."

Sharp, he thought, watching her closely. Names have power.

"Eren Jaeger."

"Eren Jaeger," she echoed, then extended her hand. "My name is (Y/N)."

That name sounded familiar to Eren— and though most names did after living a few centuries, this one seemed to hit closer to home. He knew that name, and knew it well…

"What's your surname?"

(Y/N)'s eyes flashed with an emotion that Eren didn't catch.

"Kirschtein," she replied, averting her eyes. "I'm Jean Kirschtein's great-great-great granddaughter."

And damn if Eren didn't want to laugh. Perhaps his nosiness into the posterity of his old acquaintances really was as bad of an idea as Armin always seemed to imply.

"I see," he said, and he truly, truly did. "Then you know who I am— what I am— and what I've done."

More than that, if she truly did know who he was, it was unlikely that she had come without a specific purpose in mind.

(Y/N) nodded, confirming his suspicions. "I was digging around in my family history and— well— I read what my grandfather wrote, and I just— I wanted the truth."

So wide-eyed, so innocent— so alive. Eren could see now her resemblance to Jean; if they were not similar in looks, she had his sharpness, his humanness… and, as he always had Jean, Eren envied her for it.

"If that's the case, then I'm sure you know that you don't get something for nothing," he told her, sipping his drink just to watch the expression on her face as he let the warm blood slide down his throat. "And that dealings with me can be dangerous."

"Jean Kirschtein loved you, Eren Jaeger," she told him fiercely and with such conviction that Eren nearly choked on his drink. "To take such a tone with me, to threaten me, the last living remnant of him, is the most disrespectful thing I've ever heard."

Eren was about to say that he didn't owe her, Jean Kirschtein, or anyone else any sort of respect, but she plowed on, unwilling to let him say his piece.

"You broke his heart a million ways by doing what you did, but— but he was your friend through all of it, no matter what side each of you were on," (Y/N) continued, passion aflame in her eyes. "I can't even imagine what inspired such a love, such a loyalty from him that he would forgive you for the horrors you caused. That's what I'm here to find out— what you have that a man such as him would find you redeemable."

The reproof in her words stung, but Eren was too old to argue. She could never understand what it was like back then.

"I understand more than you think," she snapped, and Eren actually flinched. "I understand that you hurt the woman my grandfather loved immeasurably, and that he forgave you for that even though he never even particularly liked you. I understand that you were ready to sacrifice the world for that selfsame woman, for Jean, and for all the others. I understand that you're a monster who loved and was loved back, but I want to know why."

How? Eren thought, shaken.

How had she known his thoughts? It was as though she had seen straight through to his innermost being.

Without speaking, she answered his question. (Y/N) took a hand and rolled up her left sleeve, presenting to him a scarred marking in the shape of a pentagram.

"My grandfather didn't settle down with just anyone," she told him, holding his gaze. "I come from a line of powerful witches, all of whom possessed strong claircognizance. Paired with my nature as an empath, you can assume I know what you're going to say before you say it."

Eren hummed, trying to appear less perturbed than he was.

"And yet you hunt Creatures for a living; strange, since you're practically one of us yourself."

(Y/N) glowered. "I hunt monsters that prey on my people, not Creatures. No innocent has died by my hand."

The unlike you went unsaid, but that didn't mean that Eren didn't hear it anyway.

"Don't get high-and-mighty with me, girl," he told her roughly. "Knowing is one thing, but experiencing what we experienced is another."

"I'm not here to judge you," she replied. "I told you, I'm here for truth, nothing more."

"And I told you that the truth doesn't come for free," he told her darkly. "You must give me something in return."

(Y/N) set her jaw.

"What would you have of me?"

It was a mean, base request. Eren was wicked for even thinking it, and vile for wanting it— but looking at the great-to-however-many-degrees granddaughter of a good man that he had once known, seeing the vitality that brought a flush to her cheeks and thumping to her heart, he knew he couldn't pass up this golden opportunity.

It had been so long since he'd had a Companion.

"Become my cupbearer for six moons," he told her, crossing his arms. "Starting with tonight, the moon becomes new; let me drink from you until six of these have passed, and along the way, you will learn what you want to know."

(Y/N) eyed him warily.

"Can you assure my physical safety?"

Eren grunted, almost amused. It was a bit late to be worrying about that.

"I think you know that I can."

"And will you let me continue in my duties as a Hunter?" she asked, her eyes searching his own as if she would find the answer to her question there inside the same eyes he'd had since he was nineteen. "Completely uninhibited?"

"That depends. Will you kill Creatures in the discharge of your duties?"

(Y/N) made a face. Eren had forgotten how expressive mortals could be, but he found that being reminded was not altogether unpleasant.

"You know I will," she replied, "But you have my word that any killing won't be unprovoked."

Eren supposed it was as close to a compromise as he could expect.

"As you wish it, so shall it be."

He turned away, signaling to the bartender for another drink, but a lightning-fast hand shot out to grab his wrist.

"Swear it," she demanded. "I need us to be Bound by it."

The meanness in Eren finally won over. He reached forward, grabbing (Y/N) by the neck, and the silver rings on her fingers burned him as she pulled at his hand to try and restore her breath. Eyes from all around the room were on the two of them— had been, since the very beginning— but it was only once the Hunter before him began to look appropriately humbled that he withdrew.

"Do not touch me without my permission," he said, "And I will return the favor."

(Y/N) looked at him then, but there was still no fear in her eyes. Anger, yes, but no fear.

She must be mad, or foolish one, he thought, considering her for a moment. I always have been partial to mad fools in general, but…

Something about her seemed different, and Eren didn't know what to do other than accept what she had to offer. Heavens knew he was getting the better end of the deal anyway.

"Swear it," she repeated, this time more quietly. "Give your word, and I will be your cupbearer."

Eren brought his hand up and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt. At his will, the nail tip of his forefinger sharpened, hardening into a point; he used it to draw an 'X' onto the skin just over where his heart rested inside his chest, cold and dead. Blood welled into the cut— precious little, compared to that of a human, but still enough to run down his chest in smudges— and it was by that blood that he swore. He spoke the terms of their agreement, then took the blood from his wound with the pad of his finger and marked the same spot over (Y/N)'s own heart.

"Satisfied?" he asked, their faces almost touching, and (Y/N) shivered.

"Yes."

Her warm, living breath fanned over his face with her reply, and Eren took the moment to close his eyes and appreciate the scent and sensation of it.

"You may think you're satisfied," he told her, pulling away, "But you don't know the meaning of the word."

She eyed him warily, but before she could speak, he added, "In six months' time, I'll ask you the same question, and it is then that you will truly know what it is to feel satisfied— satiated in every way."

"As you say."

It was a throwaway comment, nothing more than a dismissal, really; but Eren felt like it was the start of something truly remarkable.

[peppermintbee]

OMORI’s poor writing (Part 2)

Once again, if you are a big fan of OMORI, this review is not for you. Treasure this game, love it, recommend it, make fan art, buy the merch, do what you will with it. I am not here to take OMORI away from anyone. Based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam, I know that my opinion is in the minority.

However, just as the fans have the right to praise the game, I have the right to examine it, criticize it, and explain why it failed to provide a compelling experience. This is second part of my review where I will tackle OMORI’s problematic themes and disrespectful appropriation of mental health.

[ See Part 1: Plot Writing Lies ]

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 2: OMORI’s message is mishandled and distasteful

OMORI provides a warning that it depicts scenes of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Because the game includes these scenes, I assumed these mental health issues are presented in a way that is meaningful and respectful.

However, that is not the case. 

Despite having depictions of such, this game is not really about depression, anxiety, or even suicide. It’s about committing a horrible crime, lying about it, and getting over the guilt.

1. Suicide as a game mechanic

Suicidal thoughts are intrusive, terrifying, and painful. As well as ending the victim's life, suicide wreaks havoc on the lives of those who once knew them. It is often a taboo topic, but discussing such matters is an important step to understanding and preventing it. Video games are a medium well suited to approaching such dark topics.

Unfortunately, OMORI does not handle the topic of suicide well at all.

First, suicide is written as a unavoidable game mechanic that seems to have been included for shallow reasons such as aesthetic and shock value. To leave Sunny’s headspace and wake up, you--as a player--must direct him to stab himself in the stomach. 

But why? It’s not like waking up involves some sort of major sacrifice. In fact, waking up is something that is more or less unavoidable. Reality should be something that snatches Sunny away from his headspace against his will, perhaps as an encroaching darkness that Sunny can run from, but never truly escape. But instead, facing reality is something you are forced to opt into in the most needlessly violent way possible.

Forcing you--as a player--to literally commit suicide just to wake up from a dream is a pointless, distasteful, and disrespectful action that sets a precedent for suicide not being taken seriously in this game. (And it isn’t.)

In the black space, Omori is pressured to kill a cat. In that scene, regardless of your choice, you are forced to kill yourself. However, the act of stabbing yourself has been seen so many times at that point that it has completely lost any impact. Who cares about suicide when it’s been reduced to just a means of travel?

Lastly, if you fail to defeat the final boss, Sunny commits suicide in the real world. However, this is not a cutscene, it is once again something that you--as a player--are forced to do to progress. Putting these actions in the hands of a player is not as meaningful as the writer seems to believe, because there are no other options to progress. Any weight in making that decision is lost to resignation; a frustrated sigh of “Well, okay, fine. I guess I have to click Z here.” You are then rewarded with a SLAPPING pop song and a psychedelic cutscene of Sunny falling to his death. It’s tasteless to its core and appropriates the deaths of every suicidal person as a quirky, shallow “bad end.”

(Seriously, this is how the writer decided to depict a child taking his own life.)

2. Sunny/Omori is a poor presentation of depression

Sunny/Omori does not smile. Even in past photographs before The Incident, he still is not smiling. The contrast between Sunny and his friends stands out like a sore thumb, so I assumed this was the writer’s attempt to show that Sunny is dealing with depression, where he can’t be happy even in happy situations.

Of course, if that were the case it would be inaccurate since depressed people do smile and do hide their true feelings. They are often dismissed with, “You can’t be depressed, I saw you smiling once.” However, I was willing to let Sunny’s chronic frown slide because sometimes you have to oversimplify an idea to get your point across.

Much to my surprise, there is NO evidence of Sunny having depression before The Incident and there is very little indication of him having depression throughout the game either. The evidence of this is that while looking at a family portrait, Sunny comments that he's never liked to smile. Since he's a a baby in this portrait, this goes to show that his not smiling is simply a preference -- a quirky character trait that makes him stand out so that you feel an emotion during the true ending when he finally smiles. 

Everything in the game seems to point to him being pretty happy and well adjusted up until he killed Mari. Then, even after he killed Mari, he pretty much looks and behaves the same way. Wouldn’t it be more jarring and tragic if you saw Sunny was happy in the past, but depressed now?

Which leads me to my next point...

3. Sunny and Basil are not depressed, they’re guilty (and for good reason)

In the book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), Brené Brown explains the difference between feeling guilt and shame.

Guilt means: “I did something bad.” Shame means: “I am something bad.”

Guilt, when attributed to bad behavior, is actually a healthy emotion. It means that you have a sense of right and wrong, that you empathize with those you’ve hurt, and it motivates you to make things right.

Shame is an unhealthy emotion. It arrests growth, destroys self-esteem, causes poor decision making, isolates you from your loved ones, and is directly correlated with anxiety and depression.

OMORI should be a game about overcoming shame. All the right set pieces are there. Sunny’s walled himself off, his sister (allegedly) committed suicide, and he seems to be struggling with lifelong depression. However, this all falls apart, when it’s revealed that he killed his sister and staged her death as a suicide to escape blame (with Basil’s help). He DID do something bad. It’s not shame, it’s literally guilt.

All at once, OMORI stops being a game about recovering from grief and depression and becomes a game that demands the player to sympathize with a killer and liar who is hiding from his crimes. Because he and Basil feel bad about what they did, Sunny and Basil are presented as greater victims than their actual victim.

4. OMORI asks you empathize with villains (with ZERO self awareness)

Games where you are playing a character with a guilty conscience has been told before, but where OMORI really fails is that Sunny is not truly held accountable for what he did to others. Instead, the game focuses on HIS pain: since killing his sister he’s been isolated, he’s having nightmares, and he’s suicidal. 

The plot of the game is focused on helping Sunny forgive himself for ruining other people’s lives. The writing barely acknowledges how his friends/family feel about what he did. When his victims’ pain IS addressed, it’s either used to further victimize Sunny (ie: isn’t it sad for him that he made his friends so sad?) or it’s used to reassure the player that Sunny’s victims have forgiven him (or will forgive him). 

In fact, the game holds Mari responsible for her own death, citing that her "perfectionism" must have been what pushed Sunny to attack her. OMORI presents Mari, through headspace, as someone who accepted death gracefully and wants Sunny to live a happy life. She is never given her own voice and nothing in the game suggests she is capable of feeling bitter over her death and postmortem desecration. She plays the role of the Madonna archetype--and the perfect victim--allowing the player to empathize entirely with Sunny while accepting that Mari brought everything on herself.

[Mari suggesting that Sunny acting out his aggression on her was her fault.]

The climax of this game is NOT Sunny telling the truth to his friends. The climax is Sunny defeating his guilt and forgiving himself. We know this because the story does not even show how his friends respond to his confession, because-- once again-- what’s most important thing is resolving Sunny’s pain, not the pain he has caused others. (Though the game does heavily imply that his friends will forgive him.)

[Pictured: the boys shedding their guilt is the true happy ending ]

Imagine, for a moment, if this game was about an abuser, who caused immense pain to someone and got away with it. Then, the whole game was about how they felt bad for the abuse they caused, and-- as a player-- you help them forgive THEMSELF for their past abuse. Then, in the last few seconds of the game, they either apologize to their victim or kill themself. The victim’s response is not shown because it is not important.

This is the plot of OMORI, except with a bunch of excuses thrown on top to make it more palatable. Sunny and Basil are just soooo cute and sad. Killing Mari was an accident. Stringing her body up like a piñata was a juvenile mistake. The boys feel SO BAD that they want to kill themselves. And because suicide is so tragic, you-- as an audience-- are manipulated into empathizing them.

5. In OMORI, suicide is used as a cheap ploy for sympathy

As I mentioned before, suicide is horrible and tragic. People struggling with suicidal ideation need help, support, and respect. That said, let’s make one thing clear: being suicidal does not automatically make someone a good person. There are plenty of examples of criminals who kill themselves to escape the penalty or guilt for something they did. It is so common in the news that I don’t think I have to list out examples.

In bad endings, Sunny and Basil’s suicides are 100% motivated by guilt for their very real crimes. Now, it should be stated, Sunny and Basil do not deserve to die. And because suicide is such an extreme, permanent end for those two boys, we-- as players-- are invested in preventing that tragic end at all costs.

However, the looming threat of suicide is used as leverage to force the audience to dismiss the severity of what Sunny and Basil did. As I’ve said before, the plot of the game is about soothing and alleviating Sunny’s guilt and stopping him from killing himself as opposed to making things right. 

The worst thing is, this tactic actually works. The threat of suicide is so strong, it has distracted many players from the truth that this story is about sympathizing with a boy who has killed his sister, with little regard for those his actions have affected (see point #4).

It’s terrible because suicide is such a serious topic worthy of discussion, but when used as little more than pity-bait, it twists your perception of what the characters did and silences those who try to criticize how this game handles such topics.

6. Mari's suicide being fake is a terrible twist

Lastly, by revealing Mari’s “suicide” as an accidental death, OMORI misses an opportunity to tell a much more powerful story. In the first half of this game, when Mari is thought to have committed suicide at the young age of 15, is a sobering moment. That tragedy is something very real.

If Mari had killed herself as opposed to being killed, Sunny isolating himself after his sister takes her own life is realistic. Mari’s death coming as a surprise is also realistic; how often have we heard people saying that they never knew someone was suffering? That they seemed like such a happy person?

Losing a loved one to suicide does not just cause horrible grief, but crippling shame as well. Those left behind will blame themselves, tormented by thoughts of how they could have saved them, how they would do anything to get them back. That shame can follow you forever, haunting you like a ghost, threatening you with the same fate. Overcoming that grief and shame is no simple task, and I truly thought OMORI was going to be about grappling with grief and letting go of survivor guilt.

Instead, Mari didn’t commit suicide, her life was cut short by her brother. Then, her body was staged as a suicide, forever changing how her family and friends perceived her. Her hanging body did not represent a devastating loss of life and horror of teen depression, but instead is a cheap twist that represents Sunny’s guilt for killing her and tampering with her corpse.

Conclusion:

As I’ve mentioned before OMORI has a lot of potential. The set pieces of a depressed kid who escapes to a dream world to cope with his unresolved trauma is one that had the makings to be very meaningful. However, it fumbles these issues, creating a sloppy plot that results in a problematic message. It’s baffling that this even happened, especially considering the length of time this was in development.

[randomfandomimagine]

I Love You Too (Barry Allen x Reader)

Characters: Barry Allen, Bruce Wayne, Arthur Curry, Clark Kent, Diana Prince, Victor Stone

Fandom: Justice League (Snyder) / DC

Tags: Angst with a happy ending, fluff, hurt / comfort, no spoilers

Warnings: Slight angst

Word Count: 2,1k words

Summary: Barry must make a great sacrifice, but Y/N wants to tell him something before he does. Unable to tell him, Y/N deals with the result of Barry’s sacrifice and wonders whether or not he reciprocated those feelings.

A/N: To no one’s surprise, I fell in love with Ezra’s Barry when I watched the Snyder Cut (he’s just so cute!), so here’s a ficlet based on an idea I had when watching the movie. Enjoy, and give this some love, please!!

Link: AO3

GIF CREDIT

Barry Allen x Gender Neutral Reader

Your world had turned upside down in just a second. Not too long ago, you were joking and laughing with Barry, playfully pushing each other. You had been having fun together like you had known each other all your lives despite having met for the first time a few days ago. You had been there to comfort each other during that insane and frightening mission, like you could read each other’s minds and recognized how scary it was for the other and how much you needed that comfort.

And now…

The others’ voices became but a muffled mumble to your whistling ears. The sudden weight that had settled in your stomach made you nauseous as you turned to them.

“What…?” You asked Bruce in a daze, even if you had heard him loud and clear.

“Are you serious?” Arthur muttered, staring at him as well.

“That would kill him!” You reply in outrage, turning to Barry. The speedster didn’t say anything, only reciprocating your gaze with a neutral expression that you knew hid his fear.

“It’s the only way...” Bruce looked down, clenching his jaw.

A loud silence hung over the group. None of you broke it until Barry himself spoke up. Much to your horror, it was to agree with Bruce’s plan.

“I’ll do it�� He replied, bearing a grin on his lips but heaviness in his dark eyes.

“Barry...” You began, knowing him well enough to realize he would not hesitate to do the right thing. He would not hesitate to sacrifice himself to save the world.

“It’ll be okay” Barry smiled at you, even if you could tell it was a fake one.

“Wait, no! I have to...” You reached out to hold on to him, but he was already gone. “Tell you how I feel...”

You closed your hands into fists so tight that your nails painfully digged in your palms. A hand gently squeezed your arm, so you looked up to Diana. She showed you a friendly yet sad smile.

“He knows, Y/N” Were her only words, which didn’t bring you as much comfort as any of you’d hoped.

Contradictory feelings created a lump in your throat. You knew he had to do it, and you knew Victor needed his help. It was selfish of you to not want Barry to do it. You wanted him to, to fix everything, but… you didn’t want to lose him. Tears reached your eyes, so you averted your gaze from your friends. Arthur sighed in resignation next to you. Bruce swore under his breath. You knew Victor would try to come up with a different plan if he wasn’t inside. If Clark wasn’t so focused on keeping Steppenwolf busy, you know he would have some objections himself.

Just when you felt the tears started rolling down your cheeks, a sudden presence made you jump up in startle. Before you could even turn around, you felt something against your cheek. By the time you met face to face with Barry, you had realized what graced your cheek were his lips.

“Be right back” He muttered, even though his voice cracked.

“No, you won’t” You saddly replied, staring into his eyes. “Barry, I...”

He lingered for just a moment before running off. A sob escaped your throat. None of you spoke, and that awful silence was making your heart race. A blue streak illuminated the surroundings as Barry caught speed.

Diana suddenly held your hand, so tightly that you could almost read her thoughts as she made them so palpable. You squeezed back, joining her in what you assumed were mental prayers for Barry to make it back alive.

“C’mon, kid...” Arthur whispered, barely loud enough for you to hear.

The atmosphere became strange around you as Barry reached maximum speed. You grimaced, waiting for the inevitable. Chaos ensued for a moment when Barry managed to achieve his mission, creating a loud commotion that created enough energy to save the day. A pause lasting only a second followed. It was the longest second of your entire life.

The breath hitched in your throat when the electric blue streak passed before your eyes and stopped just a few meters away from the group. You gulped when it dissipated and a reddish blur became a familiar figure. The silence had returned, albeit awed this once.

“I made it” Barry gulped, heaving something between a chuckle and an exhalation. A second after, his eyes rolled into his head and he was limply falling to the ground.

“Barry!” You let go of Diana’s hand and ran to help him, faster than any of them. “Barry, no!!“

You threw yourself to the ground with such force that you scraped your knees. That pain was nothing compared to the one that held your heart ransom. You repeatedly called his name, desperately shaking him. No response. Trembling from head to toe, you then went to hurriedly take his helmet off. The sweaty dark hair stuck to his forehead. His eyes were closed. He looked terribly pale. When you held his face in your hands, he still didn’t move.

“Y/N...” Arthur miserably said as he approached the two of you. The pained word brought a sob to your throat. You knew what he meant when he called your name like that. Barry was gone.

Bruce kneeled by your side. Diana stood on her foot, hovering behind you.

“He’s alive” Bruce suddenly uttered, causing your heart to race. For the first time since you joined the team, it was a good sign.

“He’s alive?!”

“He’s alive...”

_

Your eyes closed, but you didn’t give in to sleep. He needed you.

Thoughts plagued your mind, so many and so varied that your head hurt. You were mad at him for being so reckless. But proud that he didn’t hesitate to save everyone. At the same time, you were sad that he had exerted himself like that, if only because of how dangerous it was. And you were worried about his health. Your temples throbbed.

“You haven’t moved in two days” Clark’s sudden voice scared you. Nonetheless, you didn’t have the strength to flinch. “Get some rest, Y/N”

“No, I have to stay here with him” You watched Barry as he slept peacefully in his bed, hooked to the machine that tracked his vitals. Fortunately, it kept beeping with his heartbeat.

“We’ll tell you if he wakes up”

“I’ll be here when he does”

Returning to focus on Barry, you squeezed his hand. You had been holding on to it for so long that your hands had seemed to fuse together. It had been your only comfort these days. You had to keep reminding yourself that he was still alive.

“You’ll get sick too” Clark lingered on his gentle tone, empathizing with you and being worried himself despite not really knowing Barry like you did.

But he could tell. Anyone could tell Barry had a heart of gold. That he was kind and warm. Still, Clark didn’t know. He didn’t know how much Barry made you laugh. Not him not anyone knew how much you treasured his reassuring presence next to you as you fought to save the world. How much you appreciated his light-hearted jokes and efforts to relief the tension. No one knew how especial Barry was to you.

No, you refused to get up from that chair. You only stared at Barry still, mentally begging for him to wake up like you could will that thought into existence. Your throat began to hurt from how fiercely you fought the tears. Seeing your resolve, your friend shook you a little.

“Y/N, you...” Judging by Clark’s tone, you saw a soft reprimand coming. You were too tired to put up with one, no matter how well-intentioned it was.

“No, Clark!” You stood up, something you didn’t do in days. “I... I…”

You had moved so quickly that you got a headrush. Clark held you by the arm when you wobbled, but you angrily swatted him away.

“I’m not leaving him! I need to be with him, because...” Your confident and loud voice grew lower and sadder. “If I’m not…”

Clark’s own eyes looked watery. He frowned and nodded his head, silently providing you with the understanding you so badly needed. It didn’t help with the burden of guilt and remorse that filled your chest, though.

The beeping of the machine filled the stillness, followed by a different sound.

“Can you... keep it down?” A groggy voice muttered. “I’m trying to sleep”

You and Clark gasped at thet same time, quickly turning to your friend lying on the bed. Barry’s eyes were open, even if heavy with weakness, as he slowly turned his head in your direction.

“You slept for two days, buddy” Clark grinned, fondly looking at him.

“That’s a long nap” Barry smiled, tiredly closing his eyes.

“You’re so stupid!” You softly punched him in the arm, forcing him to look back at you.

“Ow” He barely had the strength to reach out to hold the spot. “Easy, I’m convalescent”

“You scared me half to death!”

Barry’s prior small smile vanished in favor of a concerned frown when he got a good look at you.

“You look exhausted…”

“We kept telling Y/N to get some rest” Clark piped up, looking from one to the other.

“And I kept telling you I wasn’t going to leave him!” In response to your reply, Clark only smiled fondly. Shaking his head a little, he scooped you into his arms and carefully laid you down on Barry’s bed next to him.

“There, you can look after each other now” He carefully patted Barry’s arm. “Everyone’s happy”

You barely paid any attention to Clark anymore as he muttered he was going to tell the others that Barry was awake. Instead, you were far too busy tightly hugging Barry and hoping you weren’t hurting him. When the door closed, signaling Clark’s departure, you were nuzzling Barry’s shoulder.

“Wow, hey” He chuckled, playfully patting your back. “Missed me, I see”

“Shut up”

“Were you worried?”

“Was I worried”

“Yeah”

“If you pull something like that ever again, you better believe I won’t need your speed to catch up to you and kill you myself, Barry Allen!”

Barry weakly laughed at the stupid line you had just said. Realizing the silliness of it yourself, you joined him in his chuckles.

“I love you too” Barry playfully replied, bearing a joking grin.

Your eyebrows arched in surprise, and then he gawked at you.

“N-No... I didn’t mean...” Barry corrected himself. “I didn’t mean I love you as a... It was a joke! I-I mean, it’s not that I don’t love you, but... but... uh..."

When everything stilled, however, you realized how truly close you two were lying down together. There was barely enough room in that small bed to fit the two of you even as you were on your sides. Being so close to him, you wonderred how you hadn't realized how beautiful his eyes were before. You took his face in your hands, chuckling again. His lips suffocated your laughter as well as his babbling when they connected with yours. It was a slow and delicate kiss, nearly a peck. You both were still very tired, and that wonderful exchange made you so calm that you felt your eyes close both in exhaustion and happiness.

When the kiss ended, you both lingered in that closeness. Barry tenderly pressed his forehead against yours, leaning into your touch. Your hands were still on his face while his had clumsily found their way to the small of your back.

“Thanks for looking after me” He whispered, dedicating you a tired smile.

“Thanks for coming back to me” As you said it, you wondered if the smitten way he was looking at you was the same way you were looking at him without realizing.

“I told you I would” Barry reached out to press his hand against yours, caressing your skin with his thumb.

You melted in a loving embrace, and everything was alright with the world again. As you rested against his chest, Barry’s heartbeat under your ear brought you peace. Linger in the hug, that you wished you could stretch out forever, you gazed into each other’s eyes.

“How about we actually listen to our friends and get some rest?” You mumbled, slowly reaching out to hold his hand.

“That sounds great” Barry intertwined his fingers with you, smiling wide.

Finally feeling like you could relax after days of being on edge, you fully lied down with him. Barry was beaming, his smile never faltering as you got comfortable beside him. Your hands were linked together like they had been for days now. This time he squeezed yours back. You felt the slumber take you as you groggily repeated the words he had said to you first. I love you too.

Tag list: @call-me-harley-quinn / @wonderlandfandomkingdom / @locke-writes / @emmacata / @galactic-magick​ // If you want to be added or taken off the tag list for these fandoms or characters, send me an ask!! 

[tundrainafrica]

that moment when you realize levi's last memory of hanji was her laughing - her last laugh. oh and levi would never have a body to bury. Also, I was wondering if you have done an analysis of the solute that levi did - you know keeping his hand over her heart. I personally headcannon that levi meant hanji to give her heart to him, to be his and that's why he kept his fist over her heart. (sorry if it sounds cheesy lmao)

OKAY SO WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF CH. 132 AGAIN. So imma assume you guys really wanna hurt yourselves more so allow me to drop this really amazing animation of 132 which really captures Hange and Levi’s facial expressions well along with a lot of symbolisms about Hange so please, even if you’re not gonna read the whole meta I have down under. Please watch it. You won’t regret it. It’s beautiful. Here’s the link (The lyrics are good too, so I’d recommend you check the English translation out, the second verse all the way to the chorus, it really fits.)

that moment when you realize levi's last memory of hanji was her laughing - her last laugh. oh and levi would never have a body to bury. 

How are you so sure that Hange’s last memory was her smiling and laughing?

I actually like to entertain the possibility that Hange and Levi made an extremely conscious effort to avoid looking at each other, especially in the eyes. Why is that?

Maybe, the scene in 126 was that much of a profound scene relationship wise that they couldn’t look at each other after that? But I can’t help but think the Levi and Hange’s dynamics were particularly distant in 132? Especially if you compare it to just a few chapters ago where Hange couldn’t even leave him right? Like she was always next to him on his sleeping bag. 

That’s why I really hc-ed that maybe when she was changing his bandages, particularly removing the ones covering his mouth, they had a conversation. And I wrote out my take on it in this fic.

There are just way too many panels about them talking about so many deep things and in all of them they’re looking away from each other.

You can say, towards the last panels, of course he’s not looking at her, he knows she’s going to sacrifice herself, why put her to the pain?

And even the dedicate your heart scene right? He wasn’t looking at her. 

So the point is, do you really think his last memory of her was her smile? 

And was it really her laugh? Personally, when I see people smile, I don’t look at their mouths, I look at their eyes. I’m an eyes person. I think eyes talk more than someone’s mouth. 

And Hange wasn’t smiling at all, look at those eyes.

And do we really count a ‘haha’ as a laugh :’). Do you think Levi... who has seen Hange laugh so many times before, and had seen that same wonder in her eyes before and how she constantly smiles with both her eyes and her mouth, do you think Levi would have counted that as a laugh?

Anyway, I like to headcanon the last clear vivid memory Levi had of her was when she was changing his bandages back in the ship. They were avoiding each othe rtoo much, Levi was really avoiding looking at her this whole chapter and I really suspect there was a deleted scene, a conversation in the ship which changed their whole dynamic in that chapter before Hange chose to sacrifice herself. 

Anyway, moving on to the next question:  

Also, I was wondering if you have done an analysis of the salute that levi did - you know keeping his hand over her heart. I personally headcannon that levi meant hanji to give her heart to him, to be his and that's why he kept his fist over her heart. (sorry if it sounds cheesy lmao)

Omg, that is such a cute headcanon I didn’t think about. Thank you for sharing that <3 I’ll add that to my own personal list of headcanons that I’ll be sharing below. 

Before I move on to sharing it, I just have to say: 

I love the original Japanese translation.

For most western languages, you have to mention the “your” in Dedicate your heart because it just doesn’t flow well to say “dedicate heart” nor would it be consistent with Erwin’s iconic statement being constantly translated to “Dedicate your heart” suddenly being translated to “Dedicate heart” which is wrong grammar anyway. 

With 心臓を捧げよう, we only know there is an unspecified number of hearts which are to be dedicated. 

So Levi’s message could be translated to either “Dedicate your heart.” or even “Let’s dedicate our hearts”

So as a Levihan shipper I could headcanon this in so many ways. 

1. I’ll drop the vanilla one first.  “Dedicate your heart” okay Hange while sacrificing yourself, make sure to dedicate your heart okay, fight to your heart’s content, which is the most conventional interpretation. 

2. The next one is: Let’s dedicate our hearts. This could mean that he feels the war is reaching it’s climax and if she’s ready to die, Levi is willing to join her soon and he will dedicate his heart the same way. Since Japanese tenses in relation to time aren’t specified and future tense doesn’t exist in Japanese, it makes it vague enough to even foreshadow Levi’s own intentions to really dedicate his heart like his own comrades did. And the fact that Levi said see you later Hange? That only supports this headcanon. 

3. Another head canon I have is Levi figuratively left his heart with her with that salute and in that moment, maybe he was talking to himself when he decided to dedicate his heart to her. With that dedication and with Hange’s impending sacrifice, Levi showed his readiness to lose his heart and have it die with her. 

4. This is actually an analysis I read a while back from a Japanese website I’ll leave the link below and it’s definitely one of my favorites for this scene. 

So to summarize the analysis, the Japanese fans see it as a symbolism of unity for Hange and Levi. 

Remember Hange was betrayed by the Jaegerists a few chapters back probably less than a few days ago manga time. Hange is one of the few people who have this idea that what Eren is doing is wrong, the violence, the rumbling. And with Zeke, Flock and Yelena all explicitly disagreeing with her, she was living with this idea that she was doing things wrong especially since only recently a majority of the survey corps actually betrayed her. Yet Hange still continued to hold on to her idea that their ideas are all wrong, there must be a more peaceful way to end all this. Also, remember even do Hange had such an idealistic way on how she wanted it to end, no one explicitly agreed with her. 

Thus, she was lonely. And with that ‘dedicate your heart’ scene, Levi recognizes that loneliness and by saying “let’s dedicate our hearts” he’s telling her he is dedicating his heart to that same cause she is fighting for. And even if no one agrees with it, he agrees with her cause. 

He’s empathizing with it, he’s affirming it and he’s telling her what she’s fighting for isn’t wrong and he wants to clear her of any doubts in her final moments so she can fight till her hearts content. 

And I think that’s beautiful. I got the analysis  here.  

The “dedicate your heart” could mean one of all the things above but it can also mean all the things above at once. I like to hurt myself by thinking, Hange and Levi talk more with gestures than words and maybe Levi meant to say everything up there. 

And maybe with this face Hange gave we can see... 

She might have gotten all five messages before she sacrificed herself. 

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[bouvillea]

G25 Part 2 Essay, Very Dense

There is very little I will say as a preamble besides that Part 2 was a very powerful conclusion to an extremely climatic arc. That being said, spoilers below and my Part 1 essay can be found here.

I will start by saying that although I am quite satisfied with this ending I wish things could have ended differently. This is the first time we were given antagonists who were actual individuals we had to overcome. And in doing so, we were faced with people who had powerful reasons and motivations to sacrifice for. That is something I will come back to later so—

In a broad overview of the plot of Part 2, we were given an uplifting reunion with Talvish, who claims that his decisions and choices were made with the Milletian’s best interests in mind. And it’s nice* to work together after so long, to finally have him fulfill the promise of being with the Milletian at the very end. There is a sweet moment where the roles are reversed and the Milletian asks him if he is alright. Instead of being asked to trust him, he wholeheartedly puts his trust in the Milletian.

*if you know me even just a little, you know I simp hard for this man and let me tell you I went from “I will be the first one to punch him” to “please don’t go” in a matter of minutes

And then, when everything is rewound and the Milletian is able to protect their friends and prevent the worst possible ending, all the Good Guys have a Good Time. This is of course, glossing over the fact that Deirbhile sacrificed herself, Tani dying with a finality that Milletians shouldn’t have, Piran falling apart, Treasure Hunter breaking down, and Marleid conflicted over what to do with her extremely Problematic Childhood Friend.

We still got to have a good time! We got to revel with our friends! Speak with everyone and catch up and talk and chat and eat and—

It was nice but I am very bitter because those good times only emphasized how different it ended for Cethlenn and Vayne.

If Part 1 was about trauma, Part 2 was about breaking out of predestiny and walking a different path that was set before you. This comes quite literally when Talvish appears and rewinds time* to save the Milletian from the future he saw. He (and later, Hymerark) reveals to us something that touches the fourth wall:

*not sure why I was so surprised that he could manipulate time in such a way when the Milletian’s first meeting with him was through time. Maybe I just thought it was through the Milletian’s powers that they managed to communicate but clearly Talvish’s powers were doing something.         Oh dang it makes sense why he isolated himself in a desert for centuries now…because he can’t affect time that he has been personally involved in

The ability to redo main storyline missions when we fail them is quite literally the Milletian, breaking the flow of time to try again until we succeed. Due to the nature of altering timelines, those uninvolved with the messing of time don’t remember all the previous attempts. Later, it is revealed that all our redoes and failures have a negative impact on Erinn; it increases the entropy in the world as different realities are created and then stopped. Tani is a result of that.

It is further revealed that Vayne⁠—or I should say now, Beimnech, is a singularity who experiences all these timelines and realities. He must return to Mag Tuireadh whenever the flow of time breaks because it is the role he has been forced into by Hymerark. He is the counterpoint for Talvish. The two are diametrically opposed, canonical foils with mirroring ideals and views of the world. Beimnech mentions during Eternal Dreams that he has seen Milletians fail to convince Talvish* to change his mind about the world, or fail to garner enough faith in their friends. In the current timeline, Talvish is enlightened by the Milletian and so takes control of his fate and chooses to rewind time instead of having it cut off and restart.

*It is implied that Talvish also experiences the different timelines over and over again, but he forgets it the moment the timeline is replaced with a new one. Alternatively, Beimnech is also taken out of time and space whenever the flow is broken, so the cycles are even more unbearable because he is forced to witness them as an outsider.

Beimnech did not have the liberty of meeting the Milletian before he met Hymerark. Unlike Talvish, he could not surround himself with equal companions and could not hope for a life where he was not just fulfilling a role to balance the world. The only way he could have some control over his own fate as cycles repeated over and over again was to orchestrate his own death*. He remarked before in G24 that had he and the Milletian walked different paths, they could have been friends and not enemies. Both he and Talvish see the Milletian as a savior—as a guiding, bright light. But while Talvish burned alongside the Milletian, Beimnech burned out like dying embers** or a shadow too weak to hold up against illumination.

*maybe it’s selfish, but who can blame him when he only has himself? I seethe with the unfairness of characters that have no choice but to be the “darkness” to contrast the “light”. The “what could have been if things were different” hurts as do the inability to break free from what was laid out. I seethe, but that means the story is doing as intended and I am by no means criticizing, just empathizing (I’d highkey write something like this ngl I am a ball of angst).

**the refrain that plays when the Milletian is prompted to deal the final blow to Beimnech is called The Last of the Heat Fades/Residual Heat Fades Away.

Beimnech’s disappointment in the Milletian in Part 1 is suddenly very understandable. He had pinned all his hopes in one person and he knew they were going to fail. We even saw him return to end the Corrupted Milletian in the future that we never got to witness. He did for the Milletian what he hoped they would do to him*. And then for once, to have time rewind instead of abruptly ending? I can’t imagine…

*I chose to not stab him. Apparently that gives you more of his backstory. Regardless of the decision, when he tells you he lies for the first and last time about his death…

Something can be said about Cethlenn, too, who was “emptied out” by Fodla. His current name, Cethlenn, was given to him by Beimnech, which honestly if you know your myth and lore spawns so much food for thought*. Speaking to Cethlenn in Tech Duinn on Saturdays reveals that Beimnech gave him that name because he always wanted a right-hand man with that name. Whatever that implies to the nature of their relationship… If you have the time, please, please speak to him with all the keywords at your disposal. It’s worth it.

*another food for thought includes Sera being the one to help Piran escape and Beimnech noticing that. Beimnech being Super Old and Super Tired with so much bottled up Memories and Experience like the opposite of Talvish With a Purpose okay one day I will actually write a whole essay about their foils⁠—

Ultimately, Cethlenn is given the choice to be the watcher in the mists of Feth Fiada. He acknowledges his crimes* and so he refuses to exit (except on Samhain aka Saturday). He is openly antagonistic towards everyone except Marleid, which is understandable. He thinks he has tied Marleid down. Further conversations with him in Tech Duinn reveal that he’s pugnacious and as eager as Vayne once was to spar with the Milletian. He’s also very easy to bully. He implies that in the future, he may recover the powers he lost in his deal with Hymerark and will use those powers for the greater good so…more Cethlenn content in the future? Hopefully?

*what worried me the most at the end of G24 was that I could not see how he or Vayne could be redeemed. I would scoop them up in a heartbeat. But could my Milletian? Could the people of Erinn? Obviously not.

I know I brought up the concept of escaping predestiny and then dropped it like a hot potato so I’ll do some quick rundowns now of other examples. Enya realizing that she can have a life beyond just staying in her sanctum and caring for the Holy Flame, Piran gathering the courage to recognize his own existence is worth something,  Hymerark* realizing that there is no reason to continue to mess around with people and she can just observe. I’ve rewatched the conversation the Milletian has with Hymerark after the battle and I don’t even know where to start…Talvish remarked that she’s the closest in resemblance to Aton Cimeni’s will since she balances both freedom and chaos. Maybe these higher gods were never meant to have sentience or conscience because the moment they do, they make decisions and bam the whole world is a mess.

*the Milletian seem to do this to all the gods, huh?

My current understanding of things is that the Evil God Balor was created by Aton Cimeni as a counterpoint for Talvish, who is the Guardian, the sentinel of Erinn. Why? For Balance of course. But you can’t just create someone to be evil. Somewhere in between, Aton Cimeni stops answering and while Talvish plots machinations for the future he saw, Balor’s disdain for his role grows and eventually beefs it in a fight with Lugh at the battle of Mag Tuireadh. His body is dead, but his spirit remains, picked up by Hymerark to be the…plug stopping Noitar Arat. I imagine Hymerark also faced the same struggle that Talvish did of attempting to carry out duties imparted on them by their creator but yet new to independence and the weight of their responsibilities that now fell on their shoulders. Hymerark expresses her faint indecision of hearing the wishes of everyone. There will always be conflict in decisions.

Meanwhile, Talvish realizes that the balance has shifted in the absence of the Evil God Balor and so the events of G21 happen, where he attempts to recreate the balance with his own hands and summon something to replace Balor. While this fails, Hymerark tries to do the same again by corrupting the Milletian and making them the final obstacle to correct the unending cycle that, frankly, started because of her.

In G25 Part 1, Vayne mentions that Aton Cimeni will always have a solution. I suppose in this case, he was talking about how even if he were to disappear completely, someone will always take his place. Just like how Triona’s role was passed on to Millia, a new darkness grows. Not without repercussion, of course. Something is coming and that’s for G26.

In the final confrontation with Beimnech, he offers the Milletian a choice to either kill him now and escape, or perish together with him in the rift. He mentions that in the end, we are all forgotten anyway. I don’t think that is the case. The Milletian lives and the memories of everyone they’ve fought with lives with them. That is their burden. Not everyone can walk a righteous path. Sometimes, desperate individuals seek the wrong help and I like to think that the Milletian recognizes that it isn’t just black and white, and that they are fortunate to have found the right people. Things are just going to get rougher for the Milletian because they’re also a guardian of Erinn, which begs the question: who is the counterpoint for the Milletian? Does one even exist? Does there need to be one?

Instead of ending on such a gloom and doom note, I’ll go full circle and talk about Llywelyn again and his mentions of a sibling again? And also tea time?? 10/10 would fake date Llywelyn just for the court gossip. (LF > political intrigue comic ft. Milletian and Llywelyn dating like it’s 17th century France) Also Llywelyn being the next captain of the Elved Squad?? Tried to imagine him in Talvish’s armor and as I type this I realize they won’t do something stupid like that they’ll just change the emblem on his armor. Alright I think that’s it I’m hitting 2.3k words so—

Oh right something something the Aces go off somewhere again just as Hunter was going to say something…can we get a base for them please? So we can just visit them? So they don’t just pop in and out of the Milletian’s life? Thanks.

I’m about to get super sappy so readers, feel free to skip all of this. I’ve been playing mabi for about 11 years at this point and it has been a long ride. I didn’t start writing these rants and essays until G21 and I also started drawing in earnest about mabi around the same time with comics and fanart. I don’t participate much in the community as a whole because I am an anxiously overthinking person. It’s no surprise that I found comfort characters in mabi and so I return here again and again (not that I’ve ever really left). We’re getting a new game director after G25 and I am extremely grateful for all he has done for the game. And in the same vein, I’m thankful to all of you reading this. There’s no point in creating content when there is no audience, especially when I am as reclusive as I am. So, to my new readers: thanks for coming along. And to my old fans: thanks for sticking around. Until the next chapter!

[hamliet]

Nie MingJue: Righteousness Without Empathy

Nie MingJue is a character I do happen to like a lot despite his often-regarded unlikeable qualities. His arc is extremely tragic, and while Jin GuangYao is ultimately responsible for his tragedy, Nie MingJue played just as much a role in his own tragic downfall. He sacrifices empathy in the name of righteousness (and Jin GuangYao sacrifices righteousness for empathy), but both Jin GuangYao and Nie MingJue can honestly be said to be two sides of the same coin in that they both have a core of wanting to prove themselves, and it’s this core that destroys them both. 

Let’s begin with this conversation between the two of them: 

What Nie MingJue hated the most were such irresponsible words. Fuming, he lunged with his saber, “You had no choice? Whether or not to do it was up to you, and so was whether or not to kill them!”

Meng Yao dodged, protesting, “Was it really up to me? Sect Leader Nie, if we think from each other’s perspective…”

Nie MingJue had known what he wanted to say. He interrupted, “We won’t!”

Nie MingJue has always prided himself on being righteous, but he’s completely unable to consider things from another’s perspective. Jin GuangYao considers things from everyone else’s perspective--he’s extremely empathetic; however, he doesn’t really use that empathy for anything other than to manipulate to serve himself.

Jin GuangYao, “It isn’t that HuaiSang is a good-for-nothing, but that his heart lies somewhere else.”

Nie MingJue, “Well you’ve really discerned where his heart lies, haven’t you?”

Jin GuangYao smiled, “Of course. Isn’t that what I’m the best at? The only person whom I can’t discern is you, Brother.”

... Women, liquor, riches—he touched none; art, calligraphy, antiques—a pile of ink and mud; the finest green tea leaves and dregs from a roadside booth—there was no difference. Meng Yao tried everything he could think of yet still couldn’t find if he was interested in anything beside training his saberwork and killing Wen-dogs. He really was a wall made of iron, impenetrable by even the sharpest blades...

Nie MingJue’s understanding of righteousness completely fails to take into account the struggles of others who did not have his privileged background. He doesn’t consider this when he finds Meng Yao having killed a superior in the Jin Sect in Wen clothing (while the novel never states it explicitly, Jin GuangYao later mentions to Lan XiChen that Jin GuangShan somehow told him to kill Wen RouHan, so it’s not inconceivable that he was already planning to go undercover; then again, neither is it for certain). Jin GuangShan had just lied to Nie MingJue’s face about Meng Yao:

Nie MingJue’s brows immediately furrowed. Back then, the story that Meng Yao was kicked down Koi Tower passed around for quite a long time. Even others had known of such a farce, so there was no way that the person involved couldn’t remember the name. Only someone with the thickest of faces would be able to play dumb in such a situation. It was just that, however, Jin GuangShan just so happened to be such a person.

Yet Nie MingJue still refuses to consider that maybe he can’t trust Jin GuangShan to behave honorably. He refuses to consider that the world isn’t divided into black and white, underhanded trickery and forthright righteous honor. When he urges Meng Yao to confess and atone, he doesn’t consider that Meng Yao’s plea that he will be killed for it was very likely true. Jin GuangShan probably would have had him executed.

Nie MingJue, “To get here, you took the wrong path.”

Meng Yao, “You’re going to be sending me to my death.”

Nie MingJue, “If your words are true, it won’t happen. Go, reflect, and turn over a new leaf.”

Meng Yao whispered, “…My father hasn’t seen me yet.”

It wasn’t that Jin GuangShan didn’t see him.

He simply pretended to not know his existence.

So what happens when you have righteousness without empathy? Can you even call that righteousness?

Not really, which Jin GuangYao exposes to him.

[Jin GuangYao] looked up, unknown fires dancing within his eyes, “But, Brother, I have always wanted to ask you something—the lives under your hands are in any regard more than those under mine, so why is it that I only killed a few cultivators out of desperation and you keep on bringing it up, even until now?”

Nie MingJue was so enraged that he began to laugh, “Good! I’ll give you my answer. Countless souls who have fallen under my saber, but I’ve never killed out of my own desires, much less to climb up the ladder!”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, I understand what you mean. Are you saying that all of the people you killed deserved their deaths?”

With courage gathered from nowhere, he laughed and walked a few steps closer to Nie MingJue. His voice raised as well, asking in an almost aggressive manner, “Then, may I ask, just how do you decide if someone deserves death? Are your standards absolutely correct? If I kill one but save hundreds, would the good outweigh the bad, or would I still deserve death? To do great things, sacrifices must happen.”

Nie MingJue, “Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?”

Jin GuangYao stared at him. A moment later, as though he had finally either decided on something or given up on something, he replied calmly, “Yes.”

He looked up. In his expression were some of pride, some of calmness, and some of a faint insanity, “I and they, of course we are different!”

They deserved to die, did they? Yet we know Nie MingJue took part in the Siege of the Burial Mounds (even if he did not play a very large role), where the elderly and weak Wens were murdered and thrown into a blood pool.We know he refused to speak up for Wen Qing, saying this:

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few of times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

Yet that is exactly what he was doing right in that very scene, in the face of Jin ZiXun’s internment camps where Wen Ning was murdered: refusing to say anything because of his personal hatred for the Wens. In that very same scene, he even thinks that he knows Jin GuangYao was fibbing to help his father and yet says nothing, because it benefits him to have Wens hurt. 

In contrast, Jin GuangYao empathizes, he knows how people feel, but he doesn’t allow that to change his mind and help them. He too is always working for his own benefit, just like Nie MingJue. They’re not very different at their core. 

So basically, righteousness without empathy is pretty close to hypocrisy and allows injustices to prevail, which is made exceedingly clear when corpse!Nie MingJue enacts atrocities and murders many innocents. It’s a parallel what happened to Xiao XingChen at the hands of Xue Yang: being tricked into killing without realizing it. The difference, of course, is that Xiao XingChen did empathize with Xue Yang to an extent, whereas Nie MingJue refused to empathize at all with Jin GuangYao (hence why it’s super ironic that a technique called empathy is what exposes Wei WuXian to what Nie MingJue was feeling and to who the culprit is). 

Nie MingJue winds up as an unrestrained corpse killing at random in a futile attempt to put himself back together. While we don’t have a ton of background re: what made Nie MingJue the way he was, we know he witnessed his father tricked into a qi deviation which gave him a lifelong hatred for Wen RouHan, which might have traumatized him. That said, we can’t say for certain. But considering the themes of the novel and the motives for other killers--Xue Yang, Jin GuangYao, Wei WuXian--it’s not exactly far-fetched to theorize that this is symbolic of Nie MingJue trying to heal himself through violence as a way of setting the world/his body right, and that completely failing and just hurting everyone around him.  

Lan SiZhui, “It seems like he is searching for something… Maybe it is… his head?”

Wei WuXian, “That’s right. He’s searching for his head. There are quite a few heads here, so since he doesn’t know which one is his, he’ll pull off the head of each person and place it on top of his own neck to see if it fits or not. If it does, he’ll do with it for a period of time, and if it doesn’t, he’ll throw it away, so you should walk slowly. You must not get caught by him.”...

under the forceful attacks of the flute and the guqin, he looked as if he finally lost all energy, succumbing to the three instruments. With a stagger, he fell to the ground.

To be more accurate, it wasn’t that he fell down, but that he fell apart. There were the arms, the legs, and the torso, broken and scattered over the carpet of dry leaves.

He kills the Mo family (despite their awfulness), he tries to kill SiZhui, he tries to kill his brother, he would have killed even Lan XiChen if Jin GuangYao had not pushed him away at the last second. Righteousness without empathy is not righteousness at all; it is a sword that can only wound, not heal. (And for the record I’m not absolving Jin GuangYao of responsibility; it’s his fault for killing Nie MingJue--but please note Nie MingJue’s actions in death aren’t that different from his actions in life. Starts off killing evil people--the Wens, the Mos--tries to then kill people associated--all Wens, SiZhui who is a Wen--and spirals into lashing out at everyone around him including, finally, HuaiSang.)

Lan XiChen, “Brother, this is HuaiSang!”

Nie HuaiSang, “Brother can’t even recognize me…”

Wei WuXian, “Not only can’t he recognize you, he can’t even recognize whom he himself is right now!”

Nie MingJue had already become a corpse controlled by the heavy energy of resentment. He was fierce and violent, attacking indiscriminately....

Lest we think the novel wants us to ascribe these actions all to Nie MingJue being dead and unable to physically see, the novel refutes this:

The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face held a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died.

In addition, there are two foils that arise in the GuanYin Temple scene that add to this: Wen Ning and Su She. Nie MingJue attempts to kill Jin Ling in a case of mistaken identity (symbolic for how Nie MingJue acts/kills on incomplete information) and Jin Ling is only saved by a Wen, Wen Ning, jumping in front of Jin Ling to atone for killing Jin Ling’s father as a crazed corpse himself. It doesn’t kill Wen Ning, but it sets up a Wen as righteous and even trying to protect Nie MingJue from his own actions, and also showing that Wen Ning, who truly was not responsible for his actions back when he killed Jin Ling’s father, takes responsibility for what he did. 

Later on in the same chapter, Nie MingJue kills Su She in Su She’s attempt to protect Jin GuangYao. Nie MingJue despised Jin GuangYao for a moment of unrighteousness, and Su She served Jin GuangYao with unflinching loyalty because Jin GuangYao remembered him, so they are foils. Su She, of course, is extremely wrong in his petty cruelty and loyalty that is never questioned, but Nie MingJue’s inability to forgive similarly leads to killing. 

It’s also ironic, of course, that the whole reason Nie MingJue goes on a killing spree is because his little brother, the one he wanted to protect, is the one who unleashes him and damn the cost. Like, HuaiSang got Mo XuanYu to commit suicide, risked Jin Ling’s death multiple times, destroys a poor woman’s corpse just like his brother’s corpse was destroyed. 

Nie MingJue’s righteousness is a prison. It’s not righteousness at all, and it’s the reason he winds up trapped in a coffin with Jin GuangYao, whose empathy was not used for righteousness, for a hundred years. Both of these paths lead to death and imprison a person. 

[lunarfanfics]

Impulsive

Words: 1,638 | Rating: T

Pair: Eren Jaeger & Annie Leonhardt

For ereannieweek, Day 6: Predator and Prey 

I’m using my timeskip au for this one! The timeskip au is just an au I made up in which Annie never crystallized herself and is saved from Paradise and thus grows up along with Reiner & Co- and she is the one who is hailed as Vice Commander instead of Reiner etc. 

[ FF.net / AO3 ]

– —————— –

Boots splashed into pools of water, one set of feet trailing after the other. Rain pit-pattered softly on the cobblestones, and on the trash bags that littered the narrow path. Forgotten quilts hung on a clothesline two stories up between the two tenements. The stench of mildew, damp linen and moldy food permeated the air.

The two strangers stopped walking. Or rather the first one had halted suddenly, that then caused the second one staggering to a stop before they collided into the others back.

He sighed, “How long are you going to follow me?”

She countered, “How long are you going to keep ignoring me?”

“Annie…” He turned to look at her, running a hand through his wet hair, his face a mask of indifference except for the crease between his brows that gave away the irritation he was feeling than. “Go. Home.”

“I should be saying that to you.” The small blonde folded her arms, drenched and as agitated as he was. They were both such stubborn people, neither wanting to back down. He hated how similar they’d become.

He sighed again. He was too exhausted for this.

“If it helps you sleep at night, I will be… soon.” He turned from her, “Now, go home. I’m sure your father must be worried.”

He didn’t get to take one step before he was pulled back by the little force behind him. He nearly fell on top of the damned woman if not for catching himself.

“Get. Off.” He growled, trying to wretch himself free from her hold. Annie clutched onto his overcoat tighter, her pale knuckles tinting whiter than the starch overcoat he was wearing, now soaked gray from the rain.

“You think I’m going to believe you’re just going to leave like that?” She narrowed icy blue eyes, “You have a plan, I know you do…”

He squeezed his eyes shut as he exhaled. He was irritated. Wet. Tired. “I don’t want to hurt you… Just let me go, please?”

“Hurt me?” Annie loosened her hold on him, and he pulled away instantly. She cocked her head, “How exactly are you going to hurt me?”

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I don’t want too… Just, stay away.”

“Why should I stay away?” She pressed. “What is it that you’re planning?”

He blinked, his clothes felt like they weighted tons, the dress shirt he’d stolen was sticking to his body like a second skin—he was so tired.  

“Eren.”

“Annie.”

“I know you don’t trust me,” she stepped forward, boots sinking into a rain puddle by his feet, “And I certainly do not trust you. But I have never been loyal to the Marley, I do what they tell me to do because I have no other choice, because the odds are against me. Do you understand?”

“If you’re trying to empathize with me, it’s not going to work.”

“I’m not.” She was closing in on him. “My point is, I do what I do for survival. To make a living in this cruel world. And you… there is a reason you’re here, and I want to know if you’re going to be disturbing the peace here, otherwise hindering what years I have left in this world.”  

“Peace?” He scoffed. Pausing for a moment just to peer down at her, take in her questioning icy gaze and down turned lips. She was probably afraid of the outcome of his plan—even if she did not know it.

But with Eren, she knew things always ended in guttural screams, and fire. So, she was taking an educated guess, and she was right too. But he will not relent. So again, he told her to go home. And again, she pushed, and prodded him for information.

And again, and again, and again.

“Is it so catastrophic that you’re not willing to tell me? Does the Survey Corp even know of this? Do they even know that you’re here?”

“Why do you want to know?!”

“Maybe I want to help.”

That sentence stunned him into silence. He could only open, then close his mouth because no words were coming through. Yet he managed one— “Why?”

And Annie, nonchalant as ever, shrugged. “I’m not going to live very long, so I want to spend every second I can with my father—and if your grand scheme involves leading a revolt against the Marley, it’s going to put me and him in further danger, I don’t want to be on the losing side if that’s the case.”

“You’re making a gamble with me?”

“Why not?”

“This isn’t a game Annie.”

“If you have a big secret plan—then you’ve already made it into a game. And you’ll be gambling lives… is that it?”

He looked away.

“I don’t want my father’s life to be thrown into the fray, the Marley has ruled for years… and I know, I can feel— you’re going to change that.”

“… You’ll take back those words, once you see.”

At this, Annie glared at him, “Then tell me what your plan is, and who is involved.”

He huffed a laugh, “Go home, Annie.”

She was on him before he could react, grappling his damp shirt collar and forcibly tugging him down. But he did not cower—instead he wrapped his hands around her thin wrists, and shoved her back, he was stronger than her, he always had been, she was just more technical than he was. Not this time, though.

He pushed her against the dirty brick wall—using his height to his advantage. Annie craned her neck so she could stare him in the eye, intensifying her glare, hands still fisted at his collar.

She blew wet blonde tendrils from her face. “Let go of me.”

“You let go first.”

She did, slowly. At the same time and same pace, he released her wrists, but opted to instead rest an arm above her head, leaning over her. His damp hair fell limply over one shoulder.

He grumbled, “You are so very persistent.”

“It gets annoying doesn’t it?”

Eren cracked a small smile at that.

“I’m not going to tell you anything, don’t you know that?”

“I’m not going to leave until you do.”

“You’re going to make me hurt you.”

She straightened her spine against the brick wall, hands limp by her sides, her nose upturned to stare at him in defiance. “I’d like to see you try.”

He just shook his head, not because he was refusing her challenge, but because of the sheer audacity that was Annie Leonhardt.

He leaned down, got in her face, so they could see eye to eye. “What… you’re going to make me shift right here? Right between these two buildings? Don’t you care about what happens to these people? Do you ever think about anyone else but yourself and your father?”

That got a visible flinch out of her. Still she spat, “Speak for yourself, you don’t give a shit about these people, you only care for the Eldians back on that island.”

She shoved a finger into his chest, baring her teeth, “Actually, I’m going to guess that you don’t even care about those back on the island. No, to you, they’re expendable. You do care about your friends though, don’t you? You can sacrifice anyone— everyone in the world, as long as it’s not Mikasa or Armin, or anyone else in your precious little circle of a family. Talk about hypocrisy.”

Their names on her tongue felt wrong to him. Yet everything she said was true… but she was only attempting to get under his skin with those jabs. So, he was just going to have to get into hers.

He tilted his head, so instead of leering at her face, he breathed hotly onto the pale skin of her neck. The sudden change of position made Annie stiffen, “What’re you doing?”

“Why don’t you just go home?” Eren with his free hand, played with the collar of her uniform—the Marley’s uniform, that was hanging off her lithe body like a loose skin from all this wet weather.

“I already told you—”

He roughly pulled at her collar before sinking his teeth into the juncture of her neck. She gasped, blue eyes widening, her hands immediately coming up to his chest, but she didn’t shove him off, just rested them there. Unsure of what to do, unsure of how to react.

He applied pressure, locking his jaw, until he could feel the supple flesh give way—he could taste the slight tang of copper, and warmth in his mouth. He could hear Annie make a soft— “Uh!”—sound.

He didn’t stop until the steam flooding his mouth made his eyes water, only then did he tear himself away from her. Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat.

Annie was clutching at the fresh wound on her neck, staring at him incredulously.

Eren licked his lips, tasting blood and rainwater. “Go home, Annie. Go back to your father. Forget you ever saw me, and don’t worry about what I have planned.”

He turned his back to her, started walking down the alley before stopping halfway, looking over his shoulder to where she was still standing, still holding her neck like a toddler who’d just been struck.

“And… don’t go to the Liberio Festival.”

Annie furrowed her brows, puzzlement and fear washing over her at his words. “Why?”

But he had already continued down the narrow path, leaving her there in the light afternoon drizzle with his teeth marks melded into her healing flesh.

She didn’t follow him this time.

[trickster-4]

Chapter 3

“Ehhh?!”

There was no impact on the memory from Amity’s actions thankfully, but Luz blushed at the sight and the sudden phantom sensations of her friend’s fingers stroking nonexistent ears on her scalp. Amity then noticed that both Luz and her rabbit self’s legs were twitching.

”Oh right this is you...Sorry..” Amity blushed before stopping and looking to Luz who was also blushing..

“It’s fine it wasn’t that bad.. L-Let’s just focus on why we’re here...”

“Curse the nerve endings in these ears.. Why must Edalin much be so good at reaching them!!”

”A-Apparently these memories are very important to you..” Amity tried to not snicker at the idea of the lord of black magic being turned into a rabbit because of a bet... She failed badly and started laughing at the thought of him sayin-

“Fear me!!!”

Luz blushed wanting to crawl under a rock for a long while. Normally she could laugh this off as well, but for some reason it felt terrifying that Amity was seeing this..

“Oh.. Sorry Luz..”

”It’s fine and it is funny.. I’m actually thankful that it was this and less blood and war..”

Edalin snuggled the rabbit closer to her face enjoying the feeling of the soft fur.. She was not a mage so unfortunately the complaints of Shabragnido the lord of darkness were unheard by her.

”Wow I was an angry little ball of fluff...”

“I know..” Amity nodded in agreement.

“I’m torn between having you boiled alive and having you made as my high priestes- yes yes right there scratch my belly!!”

”So where’s the problem?” Luz questioned they then looked up at towards the black temple. A mysterious hooded men and women were watching the girl as she played with the rabbit.. “What are those guys doing..”

”It seems our lord favors the girl for his sacrifice.. I can his presence hovering over this girl..”

“Indeed strange.. We’ve rarely ever seen nonmagical sacrifices. Perhaps this will be a new trend?”

”No... They wouldn’t..” Luz looked with horrified eyes as guards began to approach the girl.. She began to shake as they took hold of the girl causing her to drop the rabbit..

”Wait what are you imbeciles doing her? Get away from her... What wait can’t you hear me?”

“Our lord Shabragnido will be pleased with this..”

“Give her back you idiots!!”

The rabbit feebly tried to stop the guards he gnawed on one of the guard’s shoe doing his best to slow them down. He was kicked into the wall it’s skull was shattered.. Though seconds later it repaired itself easily..

“Damn our bet Ceifeed..”

Dark energy began to form around the rabbit only for it recede forcibly into it’s body.. He saw the flames of his temple ignite Edalin would be sacrificed in five minutes.. He Shabragnido the god of darkness was stuck trapped as a damn rodent and he couldn’t even save a child..

It infuriated him how he had been trapped with the nonmagical orphaned child. How he had been forced to comfort her on those cold nights.. It hurt that he began to feel for her.. It hurt to hear how she dreamed of one day being a witch.. He couldn’t stand to be so close to her when he been responsible for her village’s death and her enslavement.

Shabragnido had never felt guilt.. The time he had been forced to live with her had changed him in a fundamental way.. His purpose from his creation was clear remorseless destruction.. Atlantis was merely the result of a misbegotten bet..

And... perhaps he enjoyed the attention and worship and the empire had produced more than a few competent servants.. But that was all it was a formality a business. He had only ever taken true joy at watching as mountains crumbled as the people burned.. Yet the thought of Edalin suffering that fate. Something about that infuriated him tore at him at the place where only hate should dwell..

A spell began to form a new one never to be uttered by human beings.. He called to his true nature to his inner self beyond his current form...

“Wrath given form hate given substance.. I call to the deepest void to the bound one who seeks to be free.. Let our hate be one and our path be united.. Grant me all your power so that the skies may burn and the world may darken.. Till all my enemies are made ash, Resigno!!”

The rabbit was suddenly swallowed up in a sphere of crimson magic. The mere flesh was consumed as the god of black magic took on his true dark majesty. The people around him were terrified some bowed and prostrated themselves before their War God.. He cared even less of such bootlicking today..

Luz and Amity followed Luz’s past self to the temple they waited to see what would happen.

“LET THE GIRL GO!!”

The temple shook as his voice boomed.. There was silent whimpering that he could hear from his priests.. But there no one brave enough to him the truth the ceremony was over the girl was already dead.

He suddenly realized that he couldn’t sense Edalin’s lifeforce.. She was dead.. Shabragnido broke into his astral form before taking on a human form in the temple.. The girls followed quickly Luz’s eyes watered at the tragedy taking place and Amity tried her best to comfort her.. The head priestess recognized his appearance. He stood there for a moment standing in front of her body.. For once the blood that was spilled made him nauseous and infuriated him.

“Lord Shabranigdo I-“

Shabragnido watched with a cold satisfaction as the two priests who chose Edalin began to age. There was another priest holding the bloodied knife that had ended Edalin’s life he too suffered the same curse. They screamed and cried out for mercy until they became dust. Moments later the room was filled with silence after sometime the high priestess spoke.

“My lord..”

“Get out of the temple..”

“My lord?”

“Get out of the temple as of this moment you and the other priests are banished.. For the sake of years of good service I tell you this and you are to tell no one outside the priesthood and their families.. Leave Atlantis tonight.. I am going to burn this entire city to the ground.. As tribute to the forbidden mother…”

Her eyes widened at the breaking of the taboo. The mother of their patron gods was never to be mentioned on pain of utter annihilation. She was rumored to be more capricious and cruel than even Lord Shabragnido.

“I see… I wish you luck..”

The priestess and her servants followed them out of the sacrificial chambers.. He was alone now.

“It wouldn’t help.. Nothing sways her but entertainment.. Listen well mother my offer to you is this. I know you created me and Ceifeed to hate and kill each other.. I went against my purpose.. I bargained with him.. I will destroy this place that must offend you.. I will become your heartless destroyer.. And in return for these things I ask for one thing let Edalin live again and let her have her dreams..

Edalin’s body began to disappear into a golden mist a relief went through his chest.. A sign that his mother had taken his offer. Shabragnido got up and went forth becoming with each step the monster he was always meant to be. She would live once more though Atlantis would have to burn…

Moments later Luz and Amity watched as the temple came apart. In the sky Ceifeed and Shabragnido battled each other viscously. The gods tore into each other’s form’s with blue and crimson spells.. They stared at the carnage the gods wrought on the city they had given life to. The very patrons who had given these people wealth and magic were now destroying the very empire they had created.

Centuries of human progress, magical research, was being undone. The blasts from the two gods destroyed numerous buildings more than a few archmages attempted to protect their people to various levels of success.. All this because Shabragnido cared for one child..

“Shabragnido you are destroying everything we spent centuries building… Have you gone completely mad?!! It was tragedy what happened here and I had no intention to cause such a pain to you brother, but your “deal” with mother is insane..” The Azure dragon glared at his crimson brother. He would not budge in this matter his brother had to be stopped..

“Shut up you idiot your words tire me..”

You suffered deeply brother you lost a daughter.. I empathize with you… But I cannot let you give more grief to these children.. They were struggling to survive before our influence.. Before our Empire they had nothing. If you succeeded today they will be tossed back into the void with nothing..”

“I don’t give a damn.. Atlantis will fall..”

A sphere formed within Shabragnido’s hands a spell of immense destructive force gathers in seconds. “No!!” Luz finally screamed out.. “ Edalin wouldn’t want this please you have to stop this!!” Amity could only watch silently in horror as Shabragnido destroyed Atlantis…

The memories began to shift as they now stood in the ruins of Atlantis a mere shadow of itself.. Something wasn’t right Luz and Amity looked around sharing similar thoughts. Shabragnido kneeled bound by numerous spells and priestess.. Ceifeed was dying… In body and soul.. Still he had enough power to do this… He couldn’t kill Shabragnido too much of his power and strength had waned…

“Just do it..”

“Good bye brother..”

Luz and Amity both flinched at the sight as her past self was divided into seven pieces.. Those fragments became crimson energy that faded into nothing.. Ceifeed sighed tiredly. His priests and servants quickly approached him.

“My lord what will happen?”

“He will reincarnate one day after each of the fragments had passed with their human hosts through the cycle of reincarnation… I believe he will be a better leader next time..”

“My lord he killed countless people..”

“For the sake of the only person he ever truly cared for.. As a being of pure negative emotion that is a lot of progress.. I am certain the commingling with humans will balance out his hatred with love, compassion, and.. humanity.. I am dying Elaine..” Ceifeed began to cough as his body began to dissolve into pure azure magic. “Swear to me that you will care for Edalin as your own.. As I recall she shows much promise in black magic.. In fact I hear she is a prodigy..”

“Yes.. She is..”

“Good bye Elaine take care of her…”

“…..” Luz stood there for a while exhausted and mentally drained at the revelations she just experienced. Amity was also widened eyed at what she’d learned.. Apparently her crush destroyed Atlantis. That was a lot to take in.. The most advanced civilization was gone because of her.. Yet Amity saw that Luz was still the same person. These tragedies only showed her compassion and how different Luz was from her old self...

“Luz..”

“Yeah Amity?”

“You may share memories with Shabragnido.. You may have his powers and you may even share feelings on a number of things.. You may even share the same soul… But you aren’t that person..” Amity held Luz’s shoulder softly. “His actions aren’t yours and yours aren’t his.. This wasn’t your fault and when given the chance to kill you chose something better.. You’re not that version of yourself anymore. That Shabragnido died a long time ago.. Once we deal with these memories please let them rest..”

“Amity…” Luz’s eyes lit up and she slowly smiled..

“When we first met.. I was a different person.. Arrogant, Prideful, and reaally Insecure..” Amity blushed as she mentioned her past flaws but smiled as she saw Luz was close to giggling. “I grew and I changed I made amends.. It’s not the same.. But, even if you’re the same person this version of you isn’t responsible for what happened you’re kind, warm, and really outgoing for a dark lord..”

“Amity!!” Luz complained sarcastically, then smiled and laughed..

“You’re a different person Luz.. please give yourself some credit..”

Luz hugged Amity tightly causing her to blush. The two decided to enjoy that embrace for a while.. Moments later the scenery changed around them.. They now stood in a nice home filled with the smell of cooking fish.

“Edalin..” Elaine called to her adopted daughter a young spunky curious redhead girl.. She smiled at the sight of the girl creating a flame with ease. “Come now child it’s time for bed. You’ll have plenty of time to learn more magic tomorrow.”

“Yeah..”

“Remember Edalin. You’re a Clawthorne.. No matter what anyone says..” Elaine kissed her daughter’s forehead and gave her a tight hug… “Have a good night little owl..”

Moments later Luz and Amity found themselves back in Luz’s mind outside of her memories.. They stood there quiet speechless of about what they had just witnessed.. After a few minutes Amity finally spoke up. “Wow..”

[softbuckismykink]

Like a Stranger (Finally Found)

X-posted on AO3

Summary:

Evan Buckley never wanted to be a guide. Opening up empathically fucks you up. It happened to his Dad, it happened to Maddie’s ex. That’s why he chose to be numb. And he’s doing well up until for some reason their Captain decided they need another member of the team. Something is wrong with that Diaz guy. Buck is not sure what but the moment he laid eyes on the guy, there a strange feeling blooming in his chest. It must be loathing he decided. Because anything else would mean his empathic suppressants are failing and he can’t have that.

Eddie Diaz figured if throwing himself in a literal war didn’t activate his sentinel genes then there’s a high chance that it will never happen and he made peace with that fact. That’s why he moved to LA with his kid, less people knowing he’s that Diaz. The one who did not live up to the family legacy. Everything is going so well until he joined 118 and met Buck, the cute young firefighter who without a doubt hates his guts, which is really annoying Eddie because he can’t seem to find it in him to hate the guy back because every time Eddie looks at him he can’t shake this feeling that he finally found home.

Notes: Okay before you start reading please be warned that I'm a slow writer with so read at your own risk. I might update this tomorrow or it might take me a while to do it. Also this is not the fic that I'm supposed to post today but I'm not done with my firstson!Buck AU yet so here's another fic instead.

Chapter 1: What is this Feeling?

“I looked at him like a stranger, someone I’d never seen before, and he looked at me like I’d been lost to him for a thousand years and finally found.”

― Emme Rollins

*****

Evan Buckley never wanted to be a guide. Because in his experience nothing ever good happens to guides. Opening up empathically fucks you up. It happened to his Dad, it happened to Maddie’s ex, Doug. Guides equals crazy as far as Buck was concerned.

His dad was a good father up until Buck was ten and his father came online after meeting his Sentinel. After that the guide center had his father sequestered in the facility for months. And when he finally was allowed to get out six months later it was to serve his high school sweetheart and wife of eighteen years divorce papers to sign.

Doug Kendall on the hand seemed like a nice guy, at first. Doctor, rich but unassuming. Then he’ll start to open his mouth and you’d know something’s not right with the guy. Buck met Doug well Doug was already an online guide so he’s pretty much already a douchebag when he met him, and maybe that’s just Doug being Doug but Buck can’t help but think Doug is the way he is because guide instincts fucked him up.

Buck was thirteen when he started feeling emotions that he knew are not his own. He’s feeling so much anger at being betrayed, emotions that he suspected came from his mother, because that was after his dad served her the divorced papers.  Buck was afraid of being taken away from his family, from his mother and sister Maddie; like what happened to his dad. That’s why he hid. He pretended not to feel other people’s emotions even if it’s suffocating him.  

Buck decided he won’t end up like Doug or his Dad. So Buck played dumb for the sentinel and guide pair that evaluated him in senior year in high school.  It was a standard screening interview that all seniors went through to determine whether they have either a sentinel or guide traits. Fortunately, he was able to fool them. The Sentinel and Guide Center were looking for potential sentinels/guides not completely online ones. Buck had developed a fool proof idiot façade to hide the fact that he’s an online guide. Back then there’s no DNA testing for it, since scientists have yet to isolate the SgA series gene, so it’s easier to skate by.  

By the time they had a more sophisticated way of screening for sentinel and guide genes, Buck managed to escape to South America to avoid detection. There he was introduced to a more effective way of hiding his guide nature: suppressant drugs, specifically, Emphazepam, or as the locals call it “Amansalocos” literally means “to tame the craziness” because that’s what guide instincts are, a bunch of crazy fucked up compulsions.

When Buck tried amansalocos, he felt absolute relief. Like he got so used to the noise that when it suddenly stop he felt overwhelmingly light. Gone were the suffocating feelings that bombarded him constantly. So Buck chose to drug himself up. Amansalocos are highly illegal in the US but Buck managed to find a discreet supplier by the time he moved back home. With the steady supply of guide suppressants, he’s able to go undetected by even the sharpest and skilled sentinel.

The only downside (because of course there’s a downside there’s always price to pay) of the drug was it while it shut down his psi receptors so he wouldn’t feel other people’s emotions, it also affects is own psi channels enough that he could barely recognize his own emotions. But Buck didn’t care about that, doesn’t need emotions. He is not like the typical guide who chose a job that needs them to use their abilities like a teaching or nursing. He chose to be a firefighter because it's easily the most unlikely job an omega would have. No need to use guide instincts, see the fire, put out the fire the rest is blah, blah. Or so he thought.

Sometimes he could feel an itch that needs to be scratched but pretty soon he figured a cure for that too. Sex. Lots of fucking sex. Buck doesn’t even care who with, he barely feels attraction anymore, so he’d have sex with anyone willing to do it with him. Sex allows him to feel pleasure despite his dull sensibilities. When ever someone touch him, kiss him, fuck him, Buck swears he could feel someone else's emotions echo in him. It's euphoric, that kind of feeling. So it really isn't surprising that Buck got addicted to it. He craves sex so much that it almost cost him his job as a firefighter. If it wasn't for Athena, a cop he used clash with on scenes, vouching for him and his abilities as a firefighter, he would have. So he vowed to himself that he'd keep his addiction separate from his work. And he managed to trudge on long shifts despite the cravings.

Then he met Abby and for the first time he wanted to feel something more than the dull fleeting intimacy his one night stands provide. Because he can see she’s special lady and she makes him feel safe and curious about life. For the very first time in his life he felt inadequate. For the first time felt that his inability to feel emotions a burden rather than a relief.

Buck thought about going off his guide suppressants for her.  She’s not a sentinel and she won’t be able to shield him from the suffocating feeling that would descend upon him the moment the suppressants wash out of his system but Buck thinks she deserves that kind of sacrifice, she deserves Buck being truthful to her.  It’s a  big risk though and he needs to think long and hard if he’s really ready for it. He tried skipping some doses, not long enough for the drugs to wash out his system, but long enough to have some of the effects wear off. Just long enough to test the waters so to speak.

Going off suppressants felt weird at first. Then it got worse. He soon realized that while he can manage being off suppressants while at home with Abby, working without suppressants is a freaking torture. He didn’t even manage to last one call. There car accident involving multiple vehicles, no one was seriously injured but still people’s emotions during an emergency situation like that can ran high and for an untrained guide empath it can be a torture. The moment Buck step into the scene he got knocked by wave of emotions it took him a while get his bearing. Thank god he managed to bring with him an emergency dose of empazepam. He dry swallowed the pill and luckily for him it takes only a few minutes for it to take effect. So he decided to keep taking the suppressants but maybe he could skip when he’s with Abby.

His new found system worked fine. He’s having an even more meaningful relationship with Abby. Then Abby’s mom died and by god Buck could feel the grief like it was his own. He tried to comfort her even though being around her and her grief is suffocating him. Buck thinks he owes her at least that much. Slowly they both heal. Though soon enough Buck felt Abby slowly pulling away. He might have only a bit of empathy left in him but he thinks even a mundane can sense when someone is on the verge of letting go.

Buck wanted to ignore it, wanted to just cling on to Abby tight. Because she’s the one thing, the one proof he could show the world, his friends, that he is not just Buck anymore, that he has a life beyond the confines of station 118. But reality is that Abby is an independent woman who is ready and eager to go out and discover the world. She won’t let anything or anyone stop her from going after what she wants. And Buck just wants her to be happy, so he said he’ll support her in whatever she wanted to do.

So the next thing Buck knew she already has her foot out the door, she said she’s leaving to find herself. But the end result is still the same though, he’s being left behind. Intellectually he knew Abby needs this, and that’s why he put up a brave front. He escorted her to the airport himself, when even letting her out of his sight hurts him. He just hopes she finds herself soon and comes back to him. Cause she'll come back, Buck will just have to wait.

He’s doing well up until for some reason their Captain decided they need another member of the team.

It was one of those days that he's looking for the slightest positive thing in his life to keep him going cause it feels like crumbling around him but he still needs to keep his head up because the team needs him to be functional. He knows that as much as he needs the team to be okay and happy, that they need him to be okay and happy too. He can't show up to work despondent and sluggish, because while the drugs suppresses his ability to feel other people's emotion it only marginally suppress his ability to project his own unto others. He knew from experience that him showing up with less than his usual cheery self would basically trigger foul moods amongst his colleagues.

Luckily for Buck, he has one thing that is going good today that he could focus on. He finally reached his weight goal and just in time for the submissions for the Hot Days, Smoldering Nights: Men of the LAFD wall calendar. So he came in to start his shift with a grin on his face like always, and goes on to brag about his achievements to his team, which he kind of knew they would just laugh at but exactly why Buck is acting like the way he is to keep the team's spirits up. Buck is reveling at his success in spreading joy to the team when Chim started to look past him to the locker room behind him.

"Okay, That is a beautiful man."

"Where's the lie? And I like girls."

“Who the hell is that?” Buck asked frown beginning to form.

“It's Eddie Diaz. New recruit. Graduated top of his class just this week. Guys over at Station Six were dying to have him, but I convinced him to join us.”

“What do we need him for?”

“He served multiple tours in Afghanistan as an Army medic. Guy's got a Silver Star.” So the guy’s a super star then, Buck’s not liking where this is going already. “Plus he’s a latent sentinel. It's not like he's wet behind the ears.”

Fuck really a sentinel, just what Buck needs.   Not.   This is bad. Sure Diaz is latent but Buck avoids sentinels for a reason. The fact that they are all (yes even his sister Maddie) sanctimonious know-it-alls. The only sentinel Buck was able to tolerate was his sister and that’s because he loves her and she took care of him when their parents practically bailed out on them. All sentinels are pretty much smug bastards, in Buck’s opinion. They get away with pretty much everything because of their so called talents. Even as a latent they get privileges of an active Sentinel just because of a quirk in their DNA.

“Come on, I'll introduce you to him.” His captain smiled as he said, “He likes to be called Eight Pack.”

“Wow. Silver Star.” Hen whistles clearly impressed, unlike Buck who just adds to Buck's ire.

“Better drop some more body fat there, butch.” Chim teased quite rudely, which on a normal day Buck would just roll his eyes at since he kind of treats the older man like a mix of a weird uncle/annoying big brother but today it's just throwing him off for some reason and he felt hurt by Chim's harmless comments.

Buck looked towards where the rest of his team is greeting the new guy, and his frown deepened.  Something is wrong with that Diaz guy. Buck is not sure what but the moment he laid eyes on the guy, there a strange feeling blooming in his chest. It must be loathing he decided. Because anything else would mean his guide suppressants are failing and he can’t have that.

[hairgrowsback]

Jaime Lannister's arc and the limits of redemption

This is what GRRM said when Rolling Stone asked him about Jaime's supposed redemption arc:

One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? You see it all around in our society, in constant debates. Should we forgive Michael Vick? I have friends who are dog-lovers who will never forgive Michael Vick. Michael Vick has served years in prison; he’s apologized. Has he apologized sufficiently? Woody Allen: Is Woody Allen someone that we should laud, or someone that we should despise?Or Roman Polanski, Paula Deen. Our society is full of people who have fallen in one way or another, and what do we do with these people? How many good acts make up for a bad act? If you’re a Nazi war criminal and then spend the next 40 years doing good deeds and feeding the hungry, does that make up for being a concentration-camp guard? I don’t know the answer, but these are questions worth thinking about. I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then? 

So, clearly GRRM doesn't think Jaime is an irredeemable monster, he believes that one can learn to seek forgiveness through their actions. However, it is also clear that with his answer here he was going for something far more complex for  Jaime than just a standard redemption arc.  He compares Jaime to people that our society sees as monsters, if you ask most people if they'd want to give someone like Woody Allen or a nazi criminal a second chance...9 times out of 10 you'd probably hear a resounding "no". Obviously since this is only fiction and Jaime at the end of the day is harmless fictional character who hasn't hurt any actual real people, we can be less harsh on him for his crimes than an actual nazi war criminal lol but at the same time I do also think that GRRM comparing Jaime to these kinds of people indicates that he believes Jaime's actions just aren't that easy to forgive or atone for. That forgiveness and atonement is a long messy journey and yes the answer to his last question of whether there is a possibility of redemption for Jaime could be a no.

In this analysis about Jaime, I would like to make the argument that Jaime's character isn't a straightforward redemption but an arc that ultimately questions the limits of redemption, and does not actually give a comfortable answer about whether Jaime is redeemed or not making Jaime the ultimate grey character of the series. I want to mostly make my point from text from the books as I have always believed that Jaime's arc in the books is like this, but I also want to cite some examples from the show and try to explain what the show was trying to achieve with Jaime.

As readers its hard to not empathize with Jaime when he loses his hand in ASOS, however I also believe that the interpretation that after Jaime loses his hand, everything about him is redemptive because he does become humbled through this trauma and learns to respect and admire Brienne, even saving her life.

However, how much does Jaime think or try to repent for his original sin in regards to Bran? Not much, as in his POV chapters he never even thinks of Bran by his name. The only time he ever shows any regret at all, is this one quick line in ASOS in a conversation with Cersei:

Robert's death still left a bitter taste in Jaime's mouth. It should have been me who killed him, not Cersei. "I only wished he'd died at my hands." When I still had two of them. "If I'd let kingslaying become a habit, as he liked to say, I could have taken you as my wife for all the world to see. “I'm not ashamed of loving you, only of the things I've done to hide it. That boy at Winterfell . . ." "Did I tell you to throw him out the window? If you'd gone hunting as I begged you, nothing would have happened. But no, you had to have me, you could not wait until we returned to the city."

And while it is good that Jaime now sees pushing Bran as a "shameful" thing, the context of this regret is his irritation that he did not have the chance to kill Robert and marry Cersei. I personally do think that even this one line of regret is soured by this. Jaime clearly still cannot comprehend his role in causing the War of the Five Kings. How his relationship with Cersei and pushing Bran set this domino effect that led to devastation in an entire continent.

Now what I'm saying will probably be disagreed upon, but I do not believe that Jaime's apology to Bran was entirely genuine in the Season 8 either. Jaime showed 0 regret towards his attack at Ned and his men, or his part in the War of the Five Kings, he said he would do all those actions again if he could. Unlike Theon who is filled with guilt to the brim and is constantly expressing remorse over his actions, Jaime did not even tell the Starks about pushing Bran. He essentially lied by omission at his trial and Bran called him out on it by echoing the *"things I do for love"* line. It was Theon and not Jaime who volunteered to sacrifice himself for Bran.

tl;dr: unlike theon, jaime never ever repents for his original sin in regards to Bran in the show and in the books so far, the one moment where he expressed regret towards Bran was filled with anger about not being able to kill Robert and having Cersei in the way he wants.

Now in regards to Jaime's relationship with Cersei, there's a pervasive thought that Jaime was essentially trapped into the relationship, that it was Cersei who forced herself upon Jaime when in fact, Jaime's own thoughts show that the relationship began when kid Cersei and Jaime couldn't stop "experimenting" with each other:

“He could never bear to be long apart from his twin. Even as children, they would creep into each other's beds and sleep with their arms entwined. Even in the womb. Long before his sister's flowering or the advent of his own manhood, **they had seen mares and stallions in the fields and dogs and bitches in the kennels and played at doing the same.** Once their mother's maid had caught them at it . . . he did not recall just what they had been doing, but whatever it was had horrified Lady Joanna. She'd sent the maid away, moved Jaime's bedchamber to the other side of Casterly Rock, set a guard outside Cersei's, and told them that they must never do that again or she would have no choice but to tell their lord father. They need not have feared, though. It was not long after that she died birthing Tyrion. Jaime barely remembered what his mother had looked like.”

From A Feast for Crows:

"I can't remember when we first began to kiss. It was innocent at first. Until it wasn't."

Both Jaime and Cersei's POV support that more often times than not, it was Jaime who initiated their sexual encounters:

“She did not come to him, however. She has never come to me, he thought. She has always waited, letting me come to her. She gives, but I must ask. "

Taena got quite drunk and Cersei pried the name of her secret lover from her. He was a Myrish sea captain, half a pirate, with black hair to the shoulders and a scar that ran across his face from chin to ear. A hundred times I told him no, and he said yes," the other woman told her, "until finally I was saying yes as well. He was not the sort of man to be denied." "I know the sort," the queen said with a wry smile.

"Has Your Grace ever known a man like that, I wonder?""Robert," she lied, thinking of Jaime.

And of course, there's the infamous sept scene where we all know that its Jaime who pressures Cersei into sex (even though no he did not rape her in the books like he did on the show)

The Jaime and Cersei relationship is highly dysfunctional and toxic, but Jaime has never been shackled by Cersei. He made his own choices, being with Cersei was more important to him than being Lord of Casterly Rock or marrying Lysa or anything else. He chose to do things he did for love. Jaime and Cersei was a consensual relationship, Cersei is manipulative but Jaime went along with it and made his choices and yes even coerced her into sex and didn't take "no" for answer. It is a mutually toxic relationship.

Finally, there is this notion that Jaime burning Cersei's letter at the end of AFFC means that he is 100% done with her, has no love for her anymore and has also understood the length of toxicity of House Lannister.

I would like to even counter that proving support that I believe Jaime's feelings for Cersei are far more complex than people realize.

In the same chapter that Jaime burns Cersei's letter he also has all of these other thoughts about Cersei:

 "We all dream of things we cannot have. Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight, that his daughter would be a queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them." 

"I am a knight," he told her, "and Cersei is a queen."A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman raised her hood again and turned her back on him. Jaime called after her, but already she was moving away, her skirt whispering lullabies as it brushed across the floor. Don't leave me, he wanted to call, but of course she'd left them long ago.

When Jaime has his dream about Joanna, what he says about himself and Cersei shows that he still has not realized just how much he and Cersei have failed at being a queen and a knight. To some extent, he still romanticizes himself and Cersei.

This is the thought he has right before he receives Cersei's letter

There was a time, not long ago, when he might have been out making snowballs with the best of them, to fling at Tyrion when he waddled by, or slip down the back of Cersei's gown. You need two hands to make a decent snowball, though.

Hs dream about Joanna has ironically awakened him even more about his losses. And when he thinks about Cersei in ADWD, we learn that his ultimate decision to burn Cersei's letter was partially motivated because even if he did go back to her, there is no way he could protect her and save her life:

Past time this was ended, thought Jaime Lannister. With Riverrun now safely in Lannister hands, Raventree was the remnant of the Young Wolf’s short-lived kingdom. Once it yielded, his work along the Trident would be done, and he would be free to return to King’s Landing. To the king, he told himself, but another part of him whispered, to Cersei.

He would have to face her, he supposed. Assuming the High Septon had not put her to death by the time he got back to the city. “Come at once,” she had written, in the letter he’d had Peck burn at Riverrun. “Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.” Her need was real enough, Jaime did not doubt. As for the rest … she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know … Even if he had gone back, he could not hope to save her. She was guilty of every treason laid against her, and he was short a sword hand.

Jaime also still thinks of Cersei as his wife as of ADWD:

"Do you have a little wife, ser?" No, I have a sister.

So basically while Jaime and Cersei are absolutely estranged, Jaime's feelings for her aren't as black and white as they seem.

As far as Jaime's feelings on the power of House Lannister are concerned..

In season 8, Jaime's only promise was to fight the AOTD, he didn't bend the knee to Daenerys and made no promises of bringing down the Lannister regime.

In the books, Jaime still absolutely supports Tommen as king as of ADWD.

Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to King’s Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son.

His seige of Riverrun and helping the Freys get Riverrun is still Jaime actively furthering the power of the Lannister regime. There is nothing to suggest from either the show or books that Jaime will work to destroy House Lannister. One would think true redemption would mean Jaime realizing to bring down the full evils of his house.

Now finally in regards to the valonqar prophecy, the pervasive theory on that has been that Jaime will kill Cersei as part of this big redemptive arc when she tries to blow up the city. However, we know now from Season 8 that unfortunately it is far more likely that Daenerys ends up being like Aerys than Cersei in the books despite all the obvious Cersei and Aerys parallels in AFFC.

Cersei's subplot was likely merged with Faegon's in the show and the wildfire was removed from underneath the Sept of Baelor in the books and D&D have also basically come clear in an Inside the Episode that Cersei blowing up the sept was their invention and not something that comes from GRRM. Cersei will likely get some destructive revenge against the High Sparrow in TWOW but it is unlikely its via sept burning.

tl;dr: as time has gone by it seems less and less likely that if Jaime kills Cersei in the books, it will be an exact mirror of his murder of Aerys imo

But far far more importantly, based on Jaime's trajectory... if GRRM does choose to have Jaime straight up kill Cersei in the books and not do some subversion for that last bit of the valonqar prophecy or whatever... (I actually don't think its impossible that Cersei doesn't get violently murdered in the books just like she didn't in the show HA). It is highly unlikely that it will be painted as a redemptive act. In fact it is far more likely that due to his experiences with Stoneheart in TWOW, it will be Jaime actively choosing Lannister toxicity and Tywin's fucked up cycle of abuse to get vengeance on the woman he loved his entire life, his sister, the mother of his children. No, I do not think it will paint Jaime as 100% monstrous but just not 100% heroic either and show that killing Cersei is something he had to do out of *love* rather than hate. Loving Cersei is an absolute core part of Jaime's character that cannot be erased. Whether Jaime kills Cersei in the books or dies hugging her like he did so on the show, his final moments with Cersei will not be black or white in terms of morality and the question of redemption.

So ultimately the main purpose of my post is that I do not believe it was the show's intention to just erase all of Jaime's character development and make him the same person as season 1 ep 1 in his final moments, but to ultimately have his story be that of a somewhat failed redemption arc. The show just rushed and botched the execution of it due to bad writing (such as the nonsensical "I never cared about the innocents" line). And I also believe that book Jaime is also on the same path, just in different ways since because of the changes in adaptation. Do I think Season 8 was terrible? Absolutely, but Jaime's character in itself is not a complete failure because his arc was always far more complex than that of straightforward redemption.

[aspoonofsugar]

While I don't want Falco to be fed to Mrs. Springer, I take issue with your negatively comparing Jean and Connie against Nicolo or Shadis. Nicolo is an honorary Braus because he dated Sasha, and he has assumed a caring role for the honorary/adopted Braus children. Shadis chose to be the leader of the Trainee Corps and has also assumed care for the trainees. To Jean and Connie, Falco is an enemy cadet and potential Warrior. Both sides use child soldiers. Feeding him to Mrs. Springer (1/3?)

would be entirely just within their world's rules of war. Would you also posthumously condemn Erwin for having fed class after class of recruits to the titans while protecting his friends? Also, I think you're extremely hard on the remaining 104thers by calling them "immature." They're 19, which might be an adult in our world but is still a very young, unfinished adult. They were all child soldiers fighting titans at 15, Mikasa and Armin have additional childhood trauma, and (2/3) Connie of course lost most of his family at 15 and his mom has been a semi-mindless titan for 4 years. IMO they're doing an incredible job trying to process the unprecedented events going on and handle them as best they can. (3/3)

Hey! I felt so disappointed in the 104th this chapter (124). Armin especially. Like, there is so much happening right now but he was more worried about keeping the peace with the warriors. I love Armin but since the time skip I think he's become non complacent maybe? As for Jean and Connie, talking about who to feed Falco to frankly pissed me off tbh. Same anon I know the general consensus in the fandom is that Jean was trying to make sense of the situation, but in my opinion, he was being a hypocrite. Like in chapter 108 he told Mikasa she's wrong for having trust in Eren and wanting to believe in Eren but now jean is the one doing what Mikasa did in 108.  He's trying to justify Eren's actions. And Connie, I get his mother was turned into a mindless titan. Its traumatizing but that doesn't justify wanting to feed Falco to his mom. I'm sorry, but I'm ready to see Connie die. I felt so disappointed in the 104th. But I do think Mikasa had the best response. Which was no response at all. She no longer views Eren in an idealized light, so she doesn't justify Eren's actions because she knows eren has f***ed up. Mikasa was rather more concerned about Falco which I liked. I was ranting a little or maybe a lot? Lol. I'm sorry about that.            

Hello anons!

I think your two asks can be used to comment each other, so I am answering the two of them together!

In short, I think that it is important to distinguish between two different ways of reading and relating to characters in a work of fiction.

The first one consists into seeing the characters as proper people, so different people would react to them differently according to their moral systems, triggers and  personal tastes.

I think that both your reactions are rooted into this approach and you both show how it is possible to react to the same characters in almost opposite ways. I think that both your POVs are valid since the 104th’s actions in the latest chapter can be disappointing, but can also be understood if one considers their psychological state. In short, it is not wrong to be angry at them and it is not wrong to empathize with them.

The second approach is to simply consider them as characters aka as beings who are in a story for a specific reason. If snk were not a narrative, it would be understandable if our main casts simply chose to retire and to live happily. However, since we are in a story, it would be upsetting if Mikasa, Armin or Jean simply chose to leave the army and to work in the country-side, while the rest of the world is going to war. They would simply not be in the main plot anymore and I doubt this is what the readers would want when it comes to them. Similarly, it would have been realistic for Annie to simply stay in her crystal forever, but, since she is a character, readers were expecting her to eventually come out and if she didn’t, it would have been a let down.

My latest metas are talking about the 104th as characters and so I am comparing them to Shadis and to Nicolo not because I think these two are better people than them, but simply because the chapter suggests the comparison. The relationship between adults and children is a very important one throughout the series and the chapter explores it once again. To be more specific, the subplot of Shadis and the trainees and of Gabi, Nicolo and Kaya are clearly paralleled since the story jumps from one to the other. In both cases, there are children who risk to die and they are both saved by a person they hurt/tried to hurt (Shadis and Gabi). Finally Nicolo protects Gabi differently from what he did in the past and he repeats Mr Braus’s quote. That quote is about adults protecting children. Here, Nicolo is giving it a more general spin since he is talking about people in general. However, he is doing so to help Gabi and Kaya to understand their contradictive feelings. In short, he is trying to guide the two kids. This is different from what he did in chapter 111 and it is important because in chapter 112 he claims that he is not a man like Mr Braus is. Here, he is showing that he has grown and has matured and that he is trying to be a better person.

In short, both subplots are meant to show us a reconciliation and this reconciliation involves both adults and children growing into their respective roles.

Now, when it comes to the 104th, the story is asking them to grow up and there is no doubt about it. All in all, snk is a coming of age story where kids grow up and face the complexity of the world. This is made even clearer after the time-skip, since we are shown our main casts as young adults and a new generation has been introduced. In short, the 104th are not the kids of the series anymore and they will have soon to accept newer and more difficult roles. This is why the people from the old generation who have guided the main characters up until now are all slowly dying. We have seen it in this chapter as well with Pixis’s death.

Now, again if snk were real, there would be nothing bad with young teenagers not accepting the role of heroes or of leaders of their people, but snk is a story and so the characters must fulfill their role for it to work.

I would also say that I disagree with the first anon’s comparison between Erwin and Connie.

Erwin kept sacrificing comrades both to fulfill his dream and for the sake of his people. What is more, the series doesn’t completely justify these sacrifices and shows how tragic they were and how Erwin himself felt guilty about them. Erwin’s strategic choices might have been correct, but this didn’t make them easier to accept both by others and by Erwin himself. Finally, the tension of Erwin’s arc was between the ideal image he showed people where he was completely selfless and his true human self who was driven by personal dreams like everyone else. The pain of what he perceived as a contradiction was solved in him finally giving up his dream and choosing the common good over himself. This is what gave Erwin peace.

Connie’s situation is different. He wants to bring back his mother because of personal reasons and not because it is a good strategic choice from which everyone would benefit. If that were what Connie was going for, then it would have been better to accept Jean’s suggestion and to feed Falco to Pixis aka the commander. However, Connie’s wish to have his mother back has nothing to do with the current war and is simply a personal one. Connie acting selfishly is highlihgted also by him leaving his comrades and friends to face the titans alone while he leaves with Falco. Jean, Mikasa and Armin all try to fulfill their duty of soldiers, to save their comrades and to protect the civilians, but Connie simply leaves with a prisoner in order to save a loved one. His behaviour is understandable considering the fact that he has clearly been repressing a lot f negative feelings, but it is clearly not one I would call responsible.

That said, it is interesting to notice that his reasons are perfectly understood by Gabi:

Gabi doesn’t call Connie a monster and understands from where he is coming from because she herself is driven by similar feelings.

In short, I think the narrative is showing understanding for Connie, but his choice is clearly the wrong one and I don’t think he will go through with it.

I would also like to highlight that the current situation with Falco, Connie and Jean reminds me of the serum bowl which is even mentioned in the chapter:

Like back then, the MC have a prisoner they think to sacrifice in order to save another person and they are even fighting about whom they should save.

Jean argues that they should save the commander exactly like Levi, Hange and Floch did back then.

Connie is on the other hand arguing that they should save a loved one, like Mikasa and Eren did. Connie even lashes out at Armin who in the end was the one saved because of Levi’s personal feelings.

What is interesting is that in the serum bowl there was no-one vocing for Bertholdt being saved. At that time, sacrificing an enemy was something everyone had accepted and the problems was simply between making a pragmatic choice or a more personal one. However, right now Armin and probably Mikasa are not happy to kill a child and Gabi has come to bring Falco back. In short, I would not be surprised if the whole conflict around Falco would be solved in what is basically an inversion of the serum bowl. Neither a pragmatic nor a personal choice is made and the enemy is spared.

As far as the second anon is concerned, I have rambled about the 104th in many different asks, so I advise you to check the tag of the current chapter I will put under this ask as well in order to have more thoughts on them.

Thank you for the ask!

[queerchoicesblog]

One Coffee And A Life Lesson (OH, Harper x F!MC)

So, since we will probably have the chance to have a proper chat with Dr. Harper Emery, the dashing Chief of Medicine of Edenbrook Hospital in OH book 3, here’s a fic with a hint of Harper x MC. I mean, we get Ethan, why can’t we get her too? xD

Obviously, since we barely get to see her and she’s the Chief, I could only picture their relationship as a slow-burn. So here we have Meredith (obviously MC xD) and Harper sitting down for a  friendly chat and Dr. Emery gives the intern a piece of advice.

Disclaimer: This fic contains references to panic attacks, loss...and on a brighter note, hints to my personal theory about the reasons behind the breakup between Harper and Ethan.

Word Count: 1778

Perma Tag: @brightpinkpeppercorn @bbaba-yagaa @abunchofbadchoices @silverhawkenzie @bhavf @begging-for-kamilah @melodyofgraves @crazypeanat @kennaxval @strangerofbraidwood

Harper Tag: the one and only @korrasamixlover 💕

__________________________

It was a bright new day at Edenbrook Hospital and Dr. Valentine was walking towards her next patient's room, scanning their chart on the way when she felt suddenly lightheaded. She blinked twice and headed towards the wall for support. Her heart started pounding in her chest leaving her short of breath.

As she was almost there, someone carefully placed a hand behind her back.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just-" Meredith said, hoping to sound as reassuring as possible and way more confident than she actually felt at that very moment.

She turned towards the kind stranger to see the Chief of Medicine supporting her and scanning her face.

Crap!, she thought. Who else would it be if not the Chief I’m supposed to impress, huh? My lucky day...

"I don't mean to alarm you, Valentine, but you're getting paler." Dr. Emery said, brows furrowing in slight concern. "Why don't you take a seat and take some deep breaths? Will you do that for me?" she added guiding her to a seat.

"I'm fine, really..." Meredith politely protested but as her legs threatened to fail she did as the woman said and took a seat.

Harper gestured one of the nurses to get a glass of water then she handed it to Meredith, sitting beside her.

"Thank you" the intern said, her hands shaking a little as she reached the plastic cup. "Gosh, this is embarrassing" she winced, blushing slightly.

"You have nothing to have been ashamed" the other woman commented.

Then she gave her a clinical look and inquired, dropping the tone of her voice:

"Have you ever suffered from panic attacks?"

Meredith turned and gaped.

"No! No...I mean, not so far!"

Harper checked if anyone was even involuntarily eavesdropping their conversation then smiled apologetically.

"I know you have a lot going on, the pressure of the competition, your patients, your rounds...you're surely dealing with a significant amount of stress and situations like this can trigger panic attacks. You feel overwhelmed as if the world is on your shoulders and you crumble under his we-"

"But I can't have panic attacks! I'm gonna be a doctor!" Meredith interrupted her, eyes widened with concerns.

Dr. Emery took a deep breath and checked the time on her watch. Then she turned to the intern again and offered her a hand:

"Come with me"

Meredith looked at her in disbelief.

"My break starts in five minutes and I bet you skipped your breakfast this morning, am I right?"

Meredith diverted her eyes.

"Typical" Harper rolled her eyes then offered her a smile to signal she wasn't mad at her. "Every single intern makes this mistake sooner or later. Let's head to the cafeteria, I need a coffee too".

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

Twenty minutes later Dr. Emery placed a steaming mug and plate in front of a frowning Meredith.

"Coffee and key lime pie. My favorite"

"I...you really didn't have to, Dr. Emery, I'm so sorry-"

"Quit apologizing, Valentine, and please, grab a bite of that pie" Emery ordered, but the look on her face wasn't stern

Meredith obliged and the taste of lime and cream exploded in her mouth. It was her first snack since...yesterday's lunch.

"I must admit, I was hoping to get to know Ethan's favorite"

Dr. Emery gave her an unreadable smile. Am I in trouble?, she thought. As she tried to find the right words to answer that, the other woman spoke again:

"Don’t act so surprised, it's rather obvious. I'm sure you've noticed how grumpy Ethan is and he's all smiles and kind words around you."

Is she jealous? I should have expect-

"Generally, everyone who dares to make him reason getting in the way of his devoted mission to save the world receives only scolds and harsh words" she explained, breaking eye contact to stare into the distance.

Meredith couldn't refrain herself from wondering if the Chief talked from experience. And if she diverted her eyes to hide a wound.

"Hm, we all took the Oath of Hippocrates...what's wrong with wanting to save lives?" she tried to articulate her thoughts.

Harper turned back to her.

"Nothing, Valentine." she smiled weakly. "Unless it becomes an obsession"

Meredith wasn't expecting that kind of answer.

"What do you mean? If...if I may ask"

"Listen, Valentine, I don't know what you've heard of me or what Ethan told you about me, but-" the other woman started saying but stopped mid-sentence as if pondering her next words.

She took a sip of her coffee before speaking again, her voice calm and steady as usual.

"I'll tell you a story. Now I'm a quite famous neurosurgeon-"

"The greatest surgeon of your generation" Meredith beamed.

Harper gave her a quick smile, recognizing the words every intern had whispered about her for ages in complete awe, probably hoping to be like her one day.

"Reaching the top wasn't easy. It's a male-dominated environment and requires absolute devotion to your career. You're forced to sacrifice much to follow that dream. But that's not what I meant to say now." she cleared her throat as if to push away unpleasant thoughts or memories.

"Back at the time, I was making quite an impression in the medical world and my boss probably wanted to test me. I was assigned to a pretty tough case, to put it mildly. A young patient with a grave illness requiring a very complicated surgery. Alexander Evans, that was the guy's name. I studied his case for weeks and I was about to prove my talent to the world and hopefully help Alex start a new, happier life. All I had to do, all he needed was in my hands"

Harper took a pause. She looked straight into Meredith's eyes.

"Do you wanna know what happened?"

The intern nodded.

"The day of the surgery, I was standing by the sink in the antechamber of the operating room and my hands were shaking. Shaking badly. It never happened to me before. I started spiraling down and my heart was racing in my chest. I had a panic attack. I'd spent weeks immersed in Alexander's papers and charts, I empathized with him, I got involved with his story, his suffering...I wanted to free him from his ordeal: I felt I had that power but out of the blue, as I was washing my arms out of routine a thought crossed my head. What if I fail? Alex would die or keep living an awful life and it would be my fault only" she lowered her eyes, reminiscing her younger self.

When she raised them again, she continued.

"In the end, the operation was a success, but we almost lost him once. I did the best I could, we all did the best we could and Alex still sends me Christmas wishes every year. He invited me over for a family dinner when I was in Phoenix for a conference. Do you wanna know what made me stop shaking and walk through that door? It was my mentor. He spotted me struggling and came to me. He grabbed my hands and held them until I calmed down" Dr. Emery mimed that gestured taking Meredith hands into hers "He asked me to take deep breaths then met my gaze and told me a truth I've cherished through all these years. The only real medical truth I know: to save a life you have to save yourself first. Let your demons get to you and you're done."

"You're telling me to keep my demons at bay..?"

Dr. Emery withdrew her hands suddenly aware that someone might have been watching.

"Who do you wanna be, Valentine?"

"A good doctor" Meredith answered without thinking twice. There was a fierce determination in her voice.

"Then don't let fear overwhelm you and cloud your judgment. Work hard, go above and beyond to cure your patients or to ease their suffering but don't become obsessed with it. Save as many lives you can but learn where to stop and accept the inevitable. That's the toughest lesson to learn in our field of work, I assure you. Mourn your losses when it happens and walk in the day after: you can still make a difference in someone's life. But please...remember we're human, not Gods. And this world is hardly fair. Carry it upon your shoulders and you will only succeed in hurting yourself. You'd be on way to become the angry version of yourself, mad at the world for not playing by the rules and frightened by failure. But you are not alone, you’re never alone: don’t let pride or some absurd self-martyrdom plan prevent you from asking for help if needed"

"Are you telling me to be careful with Dr. Ramsey as he has some kind of Atlas syndrome?" Meredith tentatively asked, thinking back to the initial rudeness of her mentor and the desperate determination in his eyes when he told her about Naveen. Maybe it was all making sense now...

Dr. Emery stood, her professional look was back on her face.

"Let's say, this was just a friendly life lesson, Valentine" she gave the intern a polite smile. "I'm afraid my break is over and so is yours."

Meredith would have never got another word from the Chief of Medicine, it was clear. So she thanked her once again for the snack and the talk.

However, Harper was walking towards the door when she stopped and turned towards the intern once more.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Willow and Rowan would like to thank you personally before they start the experimental treatment you signed them up for"

Meredith met her gaze. Before she could think twice another question crossed her mind and left her lips.

"Did you go to Alexander's family dinner? When you were in Phoenix..."

Harper was caught off guard but didn't lose her composure. Her voice was slightly softer than usual when she answered:

"Of course I did. Alexander is an excellent cook"

Meredith flashed her a bright smile: she was secretly hoping to hear that.

"Thank you, Dr. Emery. I'll meet Rowan and Willow as soon as I finish my rounds".

The Chief nodded and headed towards an elevator. As the door closed the hint of a smile still lingered on her lips. After all, Ethan's favorite wasn't bad at all.

[trashpandaorigins]

Infinity War Abuse and Trauma: A Call for Accountability

Infinity War. This movie is exhausting to watch. It is an ordeal to sit through and left my stomach turning for days after seeing it.I had trouble sleeping, in the pit of my guts twisted with tumultuous anxiety and I couldn’t exactly figure out why. People would ask me how the movie was and I’d answer shortly that “it was terrible.” I didn’t want to talk about it. But why? I’d been looking forward to this movie for years! Yet for the life of me I could not articulate what it was about this film that left me deeply uncomfortable. It has taken me over a year to fully reckon with why Infinity War made me feel so disturbed and frankly, gross. Finally after many discussions with friends and reading reviews and watching video essays (most notably Movie’s With Mikey’s Let’s Talk About Thanos video which I will link to at the bottom of this page).  But now can finally share with you what it was about IW that profoundly affected me. I am not the first person to criticize IW, I’m not the first person to write about the ways in which this movie is damaging, nor should I be. I just want to contribute my own insight and point of view to the conversation. As a fan, as a woman, as a person who has survived abuse and trauma. We will get to that. Hopefully I’ll still have followers when this is done. Deep breath friends, in...good. Out….okay, let’s go.

Call me a pansy, but I do not like watching characters whom I love and have grown attached to suffer insentient misery without reprieve or reward. It’s not fun, it’s not thrilling and it certainly isn’t entertaining. We go to these Marvel movies because they are fun and they give us hope. If we don’t have a sense of wonder and adventure then why are we even watching these movies? Captain America, Thor Ragnarok Winter Soldier, GOTG, these films were good because they gave us people to route for. Interesting fun stories, not to mention stakes that aligned with the narratives to boot.

Because these are our heroes however flawed they may be. Marvel literally built an empire off this nostalgia from comic books and good ole’ good guys vs. bad guys. I already touched on this concept in the very first (mostly emotion driven keyboard pounding blurb Infinity War Was Tragedy Porn). I won’t harp on the point but let’s just say that there is enough pain and grief in the world already. We know people who persevere still loose in the end. We know because we live it every day. So watching our favorite characters like Steve, Bucky, Natasha, Thor and others suffer relentlessly is not something people necessarily want to see. It isn’t compelling or interesting it’s just...a lot.

For me it really came down to two characters in particular. Gamora and Rocket. The mangy little raccoonoid has always been my favorite guardian and certainly my favorite Marvel character. This is in part, because of his relatability. (A talking enhanced raccoon relatable? Oh don’t worry I already wrote that little essay: Coping Healing and Physical Trauma or Why This Trash Panda is So Damn Relatable). Let’s cut right to the chase because we have a lot to get through here-bare with me I’m gonna get real for a second. I have poured a lot of my own pain, my own sorrow and my own trauma into this racoucious ringtail. Is this healthy? Probably not. Is it better than the numerous other ways I could cope? Undoubtedly.

I’m not alone in doing this either. Most fans relate to and project their own lived experiences on to fictional characters. In my case, Rocket’s journey throughout GOTG Vols 1 & 2 very much mirrors my own story. So when I sat in the theatre watching him loose Groot (again), I felt physically ill. To watch a character who has come so far, who has had to do some serious soul searching and endure incredible grief and pain, be kicked down back to where he was before GOTGVol1; alone  and scared and trying to exist in a world where his own existence is an anomaly? That hurt. It made me feel hopeless and helpless and that is not why I watch Marvel films. Rocket is a character who has suffered and lost but he has kept going. Relentlessly surviving and that is inspirational but the fact that the writers had him loose not only Groot, (again) but the only people who have ever loved him and stood by him despite of his flaws was really hard to watch. He cannot escape loneliness and isolation even after finding a family. He is back to square one. More like square -1 because at least when we first meet him he has a partner. Watching Rocket loose everything after working so hard to get something anything, it made me feel like the own struggles in my life and my own efforts to grow and heal...were useless and worthless. If watching Rocket loose Groot and subsequently the rest of the guardians made me feel like vomiting in the theatre then Gamora’s death was near unbearable to witness.

Gamora’s death was wrong in so...so many ways. I hope I can articulate some semblance of that here. When we are first introduced to her she has successfully escaped her abuser.  She is beginning to establish her own identity and find her own self worth apart from her past apart from being “the lackey of a genocidal maniac.” Throughout GOTGVol1&2 Gamora shows that she is a deeply compassionate person who empathizes with others so much that she would readily risk her own life to protect a planet she has no attachment to. Like Rocket she too finds a family with the Guardians. She found people who accept her for herself, apart from her attachment to Thanos. Gamora is healing from her abuse while coming to grips with the abhorrent actions she’s committed. She has come so incredibly far and then...then she is killed and not just killed, murdered, brutally by her abuser. Infinity War glorifies abuse and violence using it as a plot device. It is obviously not the first film to do this, far from it but the issue is that this act of brutality is intended to make us feel sympathetic, not for Gamora. For Thanos. That is beyond sickening and it is not lost on me that the two people Thanos tortures the most are women. While the mad titan himself is a charactercher of masculinity. A hyperbolic representation of a self-proclaimed genius authoritarian.  A man who is willing to do what it takes for the good of the universe, and isn’t it just so sad that no one understands him? He’s painted as a martyr. Infinity War plays with not only brutal tragedy but the violence and suffering of women; using it as leverage for shock value.

I have talked about this movie with many, many people and so far the only people who leap to Thano’s defense are men. I have yet to hear any woman argue on his behalf. “But he’s crazy!” They argue, leaping to his defense with disturbing readiness sometimes eagerness. “That just shows how evil he is!” If that is true then why did the soul stone reveal itself after Gamora’s death? If that was truly the intention then the stone would not have worked showing us that no Thanos did not actually love Gamora. But it did work and the very fact that it did proves the point. “She’ll come baaack,” they chide. That is not the point. The point is that for many of us who have survived abuse watching Thanos torture Nebula and murder Gamora shows us an abuser who wins.

I can’t help but wonder if this story would be different were Infinity War  had a more diverse creative team behind it. Another argument I often hear is “it’s for the plot! They needed to have a big dramatic sacrifice! It’s just a superhero movie!” This really irks me because there in exists an implicit ignorance and selfishness. An unwillingness to fully understand or at the very least acknowledge the larger contextual nexus of political, social, gender and sexual issues going in our world right now. Infinity War ignores the very world in which it is created and consumed and ignores the very fans it strives to appeal for. You cannot separate reality from fantasy, not so long people who live in reality reading, watching and consuming that fantasy.  The Marvel movies don’t have to be socio political commentaries but they do have a responsibility to be aware of different lived experiences of their fans. It’s not about whether or not Marvel has a psychotherapist or if there are trauma informed screen plays. It’s about the people sitting in the director's chair and in the writers room. People who have different lived experiences making the decisions about these movies. How many women oversaw the writing, direction and production of Infinity War? How many people of color and queer people?

My guess is not many. Infinity War was indifferent to the impact that it had upon its viewers and must be held accountable.  They must come to grips with the fact that the choices they made and the pain they chose to thrust upon beloved characters has had a coercive effect on many of their fans because it was directed primarily by men who hold enough privilege in our society that they don’t have to think about these things. This film is, as so many other forms of media still are-despite recent efforts to move forward-created by and for men. A specific type of white heterosexual man. A many who has never been abused.

For those of us who are not straight white men Infinity War is a kick in the guts. It shows us that our struggles are futile, our trauma a spectacle to be exploited and in the worst cases mocked. The misery and unyielding destitute hopelessness of our beloved characters tells us that there is no hope. With particular attention to Gamora and Nebula Infinity War teaches us that abuse is love and that people who abuse are the ones to be sympathized with and understood. Do Anthony and Richard Russo or Kevin Feige care about this? I highly doubt it. Otherwise they would not push for and celebrate the narratives of an psychopathic abuser. They would not herald Thanos as sympathetic and praise worthy. They are trying to be edgy and different when all it really is is myopic, egotistical and downright cruel and zealous. I don’t think that the Russo’s or Fiege or any man involved in the production of Infinity War is a bad person or that they intentionally did this. But they are insensitive ignorant and they must be held accountable by fans, by other creatives in the industry and they must do better with End Game.

This is especially frustrating coming off the heels of movies like Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Into The Spider Verse. Movies that were cognizant of the realities in which they were made and the experiences of their fans and actively used that to create powerful stories. Infinity War just feels dates and ignorant. A product of the gamergate culture we are still steeped in.

I am going to see End Game next Saturday and I will do my best to see it with an open mind. Ultimately I will judge the next Avengers movie by how, as another fan worded it, how they treat Nebula and Gamora; the who who are incidentally the only two people who truly deserve to kill Thanos in my opinion. If they are able to construct a well written narrative that gives them agency I will count End Game as a success. I will also judge it by how they wrap up the endings of our other favorite characters. Giving Steve and Bucky, Thor, Tony, Bruce, Natasha and the rest of them an ending that they deserve. A satisfying conclusion to their journeys and rewarding payoff for all that they have gone through and endured for over ten years and a satisfying conclusion for us too.

So where does this leave us? The subject of accountability. The creators behind Infinity War must be held accountable for their ignorance. I would encourage you as you are willing and able to write, post on social media and make known your honest feelings about this movie. As fans we hold tremendous power, by speaking up, signing petitions, etc we can continue to push for more diverse stories that are sensitive, adventurous and appealing. We can advocate for more women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ representation not just on the screen but behind it as well. In the production and the directors chair. The industry is changing...slowly and not completely but it is. Look again at the past few Marvel movies. We can make a difference and we can hold people accountable for their ignorance. We can stop watching movies or TV shows, (take the Walking Dead for example, I know many people who ceased watching that show after Glen’s grotesquely miserable death). We can make a difference in who gets to write/direct/produce movies. We’ve already come a long way, but we can go further. Whatever it takes!