#here’ I did in fact interpret that as her saying either I’m going to die here right fucking now or like. this could very well be where I en
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Ok but playing nitw as someone who’s taking medical leave from college for mental health stuff is really just sitting there the whole time like
#id in alt#ok but seriously they said ‘and here’s the capitalism metaphor that eats people who can’t be productive by capatilistic standards <3 does#that maybe seem relevant to you as a college dropout who can’t hold down a job due to mental health issues <3#like shit man yeah??? it does???? do I look like someone with the energy to be evasive about these things.#Christ I might be misinterpeting but when mae was having her cosmic horror moment w/the metaphor in question and was all ‘I’m going to die#here’ I did in fact interpret that as her saying either I’m going to die here right fucking now or like. this could very well be where I en#up if i find myself unable to perform productivity in the way that these people want me to. Like it's a matter of justification and if#these people are out here doing shit like THIS than they can probably justify literally anything to themselves. anyways#nitw#night in the woods#mae borowski#tacit rambles
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I love how much of FSN is because of the choices of other people that came before the characters, and I wonder if there’s anything to say about that and the fact that the people that fight in the series are Heroic Spirits from long in the past.
Like, you have Shirou who’s dealing with the legacy that his father left to him, the ideals of Kiritsugu, and what he chooses to do with that ideal.
You have Rin, who is constantly trying to live up to what is expected of her as a magus, how that leads to her closing off her emotions.
And because of those closed off emotions, Sakura comes to think Rin hates her, Rin is so closed off, and she never shows her feelings, which in turn leads to Sakura interpreting this as Rin hating her.
And I feel like it’s easy to argue that Sakura only went down such a dark path in Heaven’s Feel because of that. If Rin was more emotionally open, somehow showed her love for Sakura in a way she could recognize, I think Sakura wouldn’t have lost herself.
I’m not blaming Rin here, though. I’m blaming the mage psychology that she was raised on, that Tokiomi raised her on. Rin definitely needed to grow past that, but it’s not her fault she turned out so emotionally constipated, a lot of it is based on how she was raised.
And Sakura isn’t to blame for misinterpreting, either. What Zouken did to her, basically taking away any kind of hope or happiness from her, that’s not going to leave you in a good state. So I feel like it’s natural she’d view Rin’s actions in a negative light if she’s in a negative state of mind.
Then there’s how Illya is doomed to die because of the actions of the Einzbern family, the actions that people long dead decided on. Not to mention how they got her to believe Kiritsugu abandoned her, leading her antagonism and hatred towards Shirou at the start.
Like, everything that happens in FSN happens because of the actions of the three families. Both in the case of creating the war itself, and in the case of what they told their children, how they treated them.
And all the families are essentially gone, they’re completely gone and don’t have to deal with the fallout of their actions, leaving it all to their kids to deal with.
I mean, Kirei is there fucking shit up, too. But he’s just kind of an added bonus.
#zack reads vn#zack reads fsn#fate stay night#shirou emiya#sakura matou#illyasviel von einzbern#rin tohsaka#zack talks fate
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What role do you think the Eye has in the LN world? Since in ur languages hc, u mentioned The Lords having a connection to the Eye which allows them to speak the language of the kids-so what exactly do you think the Eye is?
I think the Eye is a sort of Eldritch Abomination that’s responsible for why the world is how it is.
Like look at the Pale City. There’s a ton of evidence that it used to be an actual, normal city. No transmission or monsters or anything. The best proof right now is the fact that it’s decaying in the first place. The Viewers and various non-Transmission-based Monsters (The Teacher, Doctor, ETC) that inhabit the city are completely unable to keep the city functioning, letting it crumble around them. But the fact that the city exists in the first place must mean that there was a time when this wasn’t the case. When humans were able to build it properly.
Even when you take into account that the Transmission’s takeover wasn’t an instant thing and people slowly became more addicted over time (evidenced by the fact that the Lady lived there at some point and left once the Transmission started spreading, meaning that it wasn’t just an instant takeover), there’s still signs throughout the world that there was something here before.
In my interpretation of things, the world was normal at some point in the past, with humans living perfectly normal lives. (Based on evidence found in all 3 games, especially LN2, we can safely say that this would have been around the late 1940s, shortly after WW2)
However, even then, the Eye was still slightly influencing things, evident from things like toy building blocks, bottles and other various things found across the games having the symbol of the Eye on them. Many of these objects WERE made AFTER the world went to shit, but many were also made BEFORE. Point is, the Eye wasn’t physically present or able to truly affect things in a meaningful way, but it did have an (albeit very small) affect on the world.
Then around 1948 (the latest that the timeline could possibly take place in), the Eye showed up physically and threw everything into hell. Adults became monsters, reality warped in various locations (which is why The Nest has really weird gravity AND why the Lady chooses to live and raise her child there) and the world became what it is today.
This is a long response so I’m putting the rest under a cut
Because of the Eye, No adult remembers what the world was like before, believing that it was always like this. Children remembered at first, but those children grew up, replaced by new children that only remembered this new world.
Lords like the Broadcaster, Lady, Ferryman, North Wind and several other powerful adults that rule over various other locations made deals with the Eye either before the apocalypse or when it first showed up. After all, the exact amount of sanity and intelligence that an adult retains in this world isn’t always the same, so some were able to maintain some semblance of sanity and make a deal.
The Lady made a deal for eternal youth, and the Eye replaced her soul with an artificial one that cannot die of old age, but must consume the lifeforce of others to keep going, but did not give her a way to keep herself young on top of the immortality, instead providing her with the resources needed to learn powerful magic and having her figure that out on her own (eventually resulting in the Lady’s Pretender Ritual).
The Broadcaster made a deal with the Eye and in return the Eye built the Signal Tower, but did not provide a way to keep it permanently powered, instead informing the Broadcaster that his power source was out there somewhere and he’d need to go out and find it, eventually resulting in the Broadcaster finding Mono and creating the Loop.
What exactly the Ferryman made a deal for and what he got is unknown, but given how he can mess with the North Wind without fear, he definitely made a deal and is on par with the other Lords.
The North Wind did not make a deal, but was instead directly created by the Eye and sent off to cause chaos. He’s equally as powerful as a Lord, so he’s considered to be one.
For all of them, the Eye provided sanity, intelligence and humanity above all other adults (which is why they can speak Child (aka English) along with the warped Eye-Speak that adults normally use), in return for worship and souls. The Lady consumes souls to stay alive, the Broadcaster’s tower eventually consumes the souls of the Viewers that watch it, leaving behind only the clothes, The Ferryman doesn’t seem to have his own method of soul collecting, but works with other Lords to increase THEIR output of souls (for example, working with the Lady to bring Children to the Nest and Maw) and the North Wind rips across the wilderness reducing anything they touch to bones, stealing their souls in the process.
However, the Eye has one weakness. Two actually. Well. Not actually weaknesses, but more things it simply can’t affect.
One is children, who are immune to the Eye’s corruption and are basically the cockroaches of the Eye’s world. Children in the Little Nightmares Universe aren’t born naturally (with exceptions made for the Lady’s various children), but instead just appear in places where no one is looking. They just spawn in as babies with basic knowledge on how to walk, feed themselves and talk (in very basic words at first, but they learn more over time), with a heavy feeling of “Adults Bad” in their minds. Siblings appear right next to each other with the intrinsic knowledge that they’re siblings.
However, while the Eye can’t corrupt them, the world sometimes does affect them.
For example, rarely, children can be born with powers. Known children born with their powers include The Refugee Boy, The Humpback Girl, Mono, The Pretender and all previous mask wearers, as they were also pretenders.
The powers children can have is usually somewhat based on where they appear. For example:
The Refugee Boy was born in an area where the North Wind is a frequent presence, and he was born with a natural resistance (but not immunity) to the North Wind, which resulted in the North Wind and Ferryman making a bet on who could take him first.
Mono was born in the Pale City, and was born with the ability to control the Transmission that makes it so dangerous. This is why the Broadcaster seeks him out, as Mono’s ability that he was born with makes him the ideal power source for the Signal Tower.
The Pretender is the Lady’s daughter, and she inherited her shadow powers (although lacks the ability to properly control them).
Mono’s case is particularly noteworthy, as his Signal Powers that he was naturally born with are nearly identical to the powers that the Broadcaster had to make a deal with the Eye to get. There are some slight differences though, as the Broadcaster’s powers are far stronger, but Mono’s powers are more broad, with Mono being able to travel through Radios and Telephones (although he is unaware that he can do this) while the Broadcaster is limited to TVs.
And then there’s the dreams that children have.
Many child dreams are prophetic, showing glimpses of events that are likely to happen in the near future. This isn’t limited to children with powers either, as RCG has a prophetic dream at the beginning of VLN and RK has one at the beginning of his DLC.
These dreams aren’t 100% reliable, as they only show or reference events that are likely to happen (not 100% GOING to happen), there’s a good chance that the child won’t remember their dreams at all and not all child dreams are prophetic in the first place, but it’s still a thing that can happen.
When children grow up, they slowly lose this immunity, losing their ability to speak the language of children, their occasional prophetic dreams, their ability to be nice to children, etc, until they’re just regular, monstrous adults.
The second weakness is one that all magic creatures in this world have: Obsidian. I’ve got a whole other headcanon post on it, but just know that the Eye is too powerful to be directly harmed by Obsidian, but it also can’t affect obsidian in any way, being unable to corrupt, warp or destroy it.
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sab episode 6 liveblog attempt #2: it went better this time!
previous liveblogs for those interested
I’m still upset about this whole “Baghra is fine with him dying” thing. that opening scene just hit me so hard. I legit had a whole cry about it on Tuesday. I think the unexpectedness of it is what made it so bad. bc I went into this like “yeah I know he’s gonna die, but that’s fine, as long as it’s done well. I love a good tragedy.” and then Baghra was like “I’m also fine with him dying” and it was so cruel and I cried!
I’m adding this bullet point retroactively with the context of the full episode: I think it........ isn’t as bad with the full context? but based on that one scene, I was like they’re doing WHAT???
because the thing is, even though she doesn’t always do a good JOB of it, I do fundamentally believe there is love there between them. and “saving him” is her Primary Motivation in the books, Alina is much more... tangential to her. and so based on that opening, if they made a choice to change she loves him, what does that say to the audience? what does that say about what they WANT the audience to think? “look at this guy. he’s so horrible, his own mother doesn’t even love him”??
you know really got me about that conversation? not the “his mother doesn’t even love him.” it’s that “his mother loved him in the books, and what if we took it away.” she loved him. she’s supposed to love him. and they took that away. they took it away, because they can’t allow ANYONE to love him. not even his mother. and that’s why I had a sob about it on Tuesday.
anyway, proceeding with the episode instead of my reflections:
“MY HEART CAN BEAT ONCE AGAIN”?????????????? I’M SORRY. I’M SORRY WHAT. DOMINIKOLAI CANON???????????????? is it?? the same?? dominik??? is this Childhood Friend dominik??????? did I just get fucking canonical dominikolai content????? OH GOD IT IS THAT DOMINIK. IT IS CHILDHOOD FRIEND DOMINIK. OH GOD. OH GOD. BRACE FOR FUCKING TRAGEDY AND HEARTBREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!
me at the 2 minute mark: I hate this show and this franchise I’m breaking up with you. me at the 3 minute mark: I love you I forgive you I’m taking you back.
how, in three minutes, have we run the full gamut from “something so cruel I had to turn my TV off and cry” to “something so unexpectedly delightful that I’m sitting here in a totally different state of shock”
I. cannot. fucking believe. that DOMINIK is in this season?????? a minor character who appears solely in a flashback for like 5 pages in king of scars???? HE’S HERE? IN FRONT OF ME? ABOUT TO BREAK MY FUCKING HEART????? and with Just As Much Homoeroticism as in the book??? thank youuuuuuu!!!!
Wylan is so fucking cute. just PASSIVE AGGRESSIVELY saying butterfly facts.
Jesper and his mom I’m gonna cry ;_;
I still prefer the way Baghra’s character is framed in the books, but Zoe Wanamaker is SO captivating to watch. I could watch her monologue all day. She’s REALLY good, she’s just so magnetic. she’s also really hot
I realize this is a level of intentionality/nuance that I don’t think any writer for this franchise’s canon has ever achieved, but “surely it was an accident” “what does it matter” about Baghra’s sister explains……. actually quite a lot about Baghra’s view of the Fold. because all this time, she’s been blaming him for the Fold and we’ve all been going “but you were THERE, you KNOW it wasn’t intentional, you KNOW the circumstances!” and I think Baghra… transferring that feeling of “well I got blamed for my accidents, so YOU don’t get to have accidents either” makes. a lot of sense from a character point of view? and I don’t agree with canon on “Baghra’s blameless, Aleksander deserves no sympathy” and I don’t agree with fandom on “Baghra deserves no sympathy, Aleksander’s blameless,” because my Interpretation Of Choice has always been that they’re just two of the Most Traumatized people in Ravka (and traumatized By Ravka Itself) and fundamentally neither of them can really function because of it
I realize my view here is fundamentally a little skewed but my reaction to him just flattening an entire settlement was “oooooh, VERY cool use of the Cut!” look, I’m sorry, bite and chomp and kill, my man. you’ve got a lot of lived experience telling you that you’ll be hated even if you dON’T do anything wrong, so might as well Fuck Shit Up if you’re doomed to be vilified anyway
“You gain clarity” I love that this man continues to act like he’s So Very Rational Right Now, and not that he is actually being absolutely decimated by a broken dam of 800-years of ignored trauma smacking him in the face. sir I know a very nice man named Ben Barnes who has recently expressed interest in being your therapist, I think you should take him up on the offer. that might offer some clarity, actually
characters having drug-induced visions of their deepest fears or most personal memories is a trope that I love EVERY single time. will also accept injury- or illness/fever-induced. this trope has NEVER missed. hell yes external circumstances allowing a level of vulnerability we wouldn’t otherwise get
oh I see, these are Relevant Poison-Eating Butterflies
LETTING JESPER HAVE SERIOUS MOMENTS AND DEPTH, MY BELOVED !!!
“She was wrong” “She was right. Have you not been paying attention?” ALRIGHT. FINE. WIN ME BACK OVER WITH BAGHRA’S DEEP CYNICISM. I just think. that a fundamental part of her character. is that she’s even more jaded than Aleksander. this has always been true.
see, I like Mal so much more as The Sacrificial Lamb. I like him much more as Alina’s Lionheart. rather than the two books he spent being Alina’s obstacle and stumbling block, then abruptly pivoting too little too late into the sacrifice guy. but NOW I care, because I didn’t have to suffer through His Dickhead Phase. because it IS actually consistent with how he’s always been and it actually hits emotionally the way it was meant to
I’m very happy for you Kanej fandom, they’re giving you guys real good content this season
oh I thought the butterflies were gonna purify the air, I didn’t think they’d be snacktime butterflies
“IF YOU SAY SO” okay well, Tolsper mommy kink was not on my bingo card
oh PAPA ILYA, THAT’S FUCKED UP OF YOU. you made her watch you build a coffin for someone you knew wasn’t dead????? Morozova family remains the MOST FUCKED UP people in Ravka. none of them had a CHANCE.
the reason Aleksander is currently wreaking havoc on the Ravkan countryside is because he never had a child he could perpetuate the cycle of violence onto like the rest of his family. Aleksander, in his therapy session with Dr. Ben Barnes, MD, MPH, “actually, in many ways, I see Ravka as my child.” Ben, scribbling furiously: uh huh, uh huh, that explains a lot, I think we might want to examine some of the parenting styles you’ve learned.
Mal being the firebird seemed like a really stupid plot twist in the book, but it doesn’t feel like a stupid plot twist here? it feels really organic actually, whereas in the books it just felt insane. I don’t know if it’s just that I knew it was coming, but it definitely feels like a foregone conclusion we were building towards—instead of a very abrupt left-hand turn. they did a good job laying that groundwork all along
OKAY, THIS IS THE MOST DEEPLY COOL USE OF BATTLE DURAST-ING THAT I’VE EVER SEEN. FANDOM HAS BEEN SAYING IT FOR AGES HAVEN’T WE? DURASTS SHOULD BE FUCKING TERRIFYING IN BATTLE, WHY ARE THEY JUST INVENTING SHIT, THEY’D BE A NIGHTMARE WHEN UNLEASHED ANYWHERE NEAR METAL WEAPONS!!!
can we show demon in the wood instead of just referencing it vaguely. can we show it. (because, here is the thing, the short story is excellent, the graphic novel is excellent, but it’s all extracanon material that only the most die-hard interested fans look at. it’s so integral and it really needs to be IN the mainline canon instead of just hovering outside it. I KNOW YOU COULDN’T FILM IT LAST SEASON LIKE YOU PLANNED BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO TRAUMATIZE A CHILD BY DROWNING HIM, I RESPECT YOUR COMMITMENT TO WORKPLACE SAFETY ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG ACTORS, but now that we’ve managed Kaz’s drowning backstory effectively, I think we can find a way to drown Aleksander too. to the dunk tank with ye, emo boys!)
SEE! THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS HOW YOU BUILD THAT GRISHA CAN DO THINGS SIMILAR TO OTHER ORDERS. NOT WHATEVER KING OF SCARS THOUGHT IT WAS DOING. of cOURSE someone proficient with metal can do things that look like heartrending, because she’s focusing on metal IN the body. I don’t know what the fuck king of scars was doing when it tried to executed that concept by going “btw did you know you can do all other grisha orders?” “oh shit, no kidding? wow would you look at that, I can.” LIKE, YES OF COURSE ZOYA SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO FIRE AND WATER, BECAUSE THERE’S OXYGEN INVOLVED IN BOTH. but why did king of scars NEVER present it from that angle?? yes I am still mad about that very shitty execution of a very cool concept!! thank you, show, thank you.
Morozovas remain the Most Fucked Up Family In Ravka. I don’t know what my feelings are about how that played out, I’m sure I’ll dissect it later, but on the upfront I’m just walloped by how fucking GOOD Ben and Zoe are as actors. I don’t know if it recontextualizes my beef with Those Accursed First Two Minutes or not. maybe not entirely, but maybe more than I expected based on the warning Kara gave me about there being More In That Vein? I DON’T KNOW, MOSTLY JUST WALLOPED BY THEM BEING TWO TALENTED ACTORS, WILL PARSE MY EMOTIONS AT A LATER DATE
KAZ GOING AFTER THE BELOVED RELATIVE WHILE EVERYONE ELSE FIGHTS IT OUT, brilliant, A+, such a Kaz move
ohhhhhhhhhh we have MORE living Saints, okay! it’s not just the weirdos in the sandcastle netherworld that I still don’t understand!
I do appreciate the way we’re framing the whole “living too long does really fuck you up though.” also why am I suddenly so fucking invested in this love story of Immortal Woman and Her Very Geriatric Mortal Lover She Still Loves So Deeply. why is this fucking decimating me emotionally.
when she said “that sounds like Ravka’s problem,” I REALLY expected her to say “that sounds like Aleksander.” just based on how all the other immortal Grisha know each other and have beef with each other.
i’M WEH ABOUT THAT SCENE WITH HER AND JESPER TOO
“all I wanted in the world was just to tell you about it” oh noooooooooooooo <3 <3 <3
alright fINE. look, I’m not a zoyalai because I’m bitter about rule of wolves prioritizing a ship over a character arc, and about how I don’t actually think leigh did a good job writing a pair that SHOULD have worked bc she forgot to include bi-directional emotional intimacy. but zoya being like “love is fake, fight for ravka,” I’m like ALRIGHT FUCKIGN FINE. if you’re conceptualizing love through the lens of ravka, you’re a well matched pair. put it on the list as another thing that show can pull off better than the book did
“there are those who drown us, and those who pull us out” I would like to take a moment to get back to my earlier point about Aleksander’s early adolescent trauma that involved drowning. I would like us to take a moment to return to that. and I would like to take this opportunity to say that no one ever pulled him out. thank you, that is all.
oh wait no I just realized this means I’ll never get my Baghra Nikolai brotp. pour one out for “brotp: wretched boy.” POUR ONE OUT FOR “go someplace you’re wanted” “that’s hardly limiting.”
I will say. one thing I appreciate. alina’s the only character still calling him “kirigan” instead of “the darkling.” (cause, the thing is, here’s the thing. it was a TITLE in the book, it was about CLAIMING POWER AND STATUS, it was his own deliberate choice to call himself the darkling and claim that title. in the show? it’s just….. kind of a slur???? it doesn’t convey power, it conveys—frankly—prejudice)
kudos to the acting, kudos to the writing, here’s me having feelings about malina. not like, a TON, but SOME and that’s A FEAT. also mal’s speech about “wish we could have waited for marriage” is a lot better now that he hasn’t canonically been whoring around the first army. also a lot better now that I didn’t have to read the phrase “dry as an onion” in a sex scene, leigh. I can’t forgive that, leigh. they did a very good job making this work
OKAY, ON THE WHOLE. EVEN THOUGH I DID HAVE A BIG CRY ON TUESDAY, I feel better about the overall context? it was just a REALLY rough opening, especially because it was coming on the heels of an episode I was already feeling iffy about? (ep 5 was written by That One Writer Who’s Talked Shit About Hating The Darkling tho, so that. explains why it seemed like it was written by no-nuance teens on twitter tbh) and I sort of feared this episode was going to continue on a similar trajectory, but I think it. worked a lot better than I was initially fearing. THE FEARS WERE JUSTIFIED BASED ON PAST PRECEDENT, I THINK, but on the whole I’m feeling a lot better about this episode than I expected to when I sat down to try again
#episode 6 verdict (minutes 2–60): I'm feeling a lot better about it than I expected I would#the beginning just.......... unexpectedly gutted me very hard#grishaverse#shadow and bone#sab liveblog
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Don’t Believe Naomi Part 2
Ok so another Naomi conspiracy theory (see Part 1 here).
We found in Season 13 from a suddenly resurrected Naomi that there were only a handful of angels left in heaven. They never explained why that is (other than no new angels were being made--as if angels would spontaneously die off in a couple of years as long as no new ones are being made. Angels are immortal unless killed). And it doesn’t make sense at all.
Sure, angel numbers were reduced through the two civil wars and the fall in Season 6 and Season 9. But there was supposed to be numerous angels to start with. Based on this interpretation of the bible there were at least 100 million angels created. So ‘thousands” killed by Castiel would be an insignificant fraction. But let’s say we don’t know what the starting number is for the show, then let’s look at the next evidence, the fall. Judging from the extent of “world wide meteor shower” there were at least tens of millions of angels who fell (I can give quantitative analysis but I’m sure nobody’s interested). According to Malachi some of them died but he gave a few names not at all mentioning “millions died”, and he certainly would have if that were the case. Then, at the end of Season 9 there were still “armies” of angels. In season 11 there were enough angels to send a collective smiting that significantly weakened Amara who was as powerful as God--without a single archangel among them, that’s gotta have come out of numerous angels. Nothing else significant really happened on a big scale to angels after that. So what could have caused this drastic eradication of angels (at least thousands, possibly millions) by Season 13? Was there a pandemic in heaven? Did a meteor hit? How was it that nobody heard about it? Wouldn’t there be at least some screams on angel radio?
I don’t believe it. Eight to eleven angels can maintain an entire heaven? Considering how easily they could be killed by humans and demons in the show, they don’t have that much power. I think Naomi was still behind it all; another of her gas-lighting schemes to control heaven.
In fact, I believe Naomi had far more power in heaven the entire time than we were made to see. It was implied (or maybe they even directly stated? I’m not sure) that she was doing this mind-control business at the order of the archangels. But it seem very out of character to me for either Michael or Raphael to operate this way. They are both haughty, self-assured in their own righteousness. They may be tyrants but I don’t see them as having interest or patience for shadow operations.
No, I believe Naomi was the real power behind heaven all this time. She was God’s agent all along. Possibly the archangels knew but because it is God’s will they did not question it and ceded this underground power to Naomi. We know God manipulated everything for the story to go the way he wanted. Naomi would be one key method he used to manipulate what roles angels have to play in his story. She may have been taken offline for the Metatron story arc to play out; but then when God was bored with the angels (as was demonstrated when Amara tried to move him with their adoration and he just blew them off), he brings out his ace in the sleeve again and Naomi finds new ways to corrupt and reduce heaven.
She put up this tragic noble image who only wants to save heaven to disarm Castiel’s distrust and hostility and it worked like a charm; and also by playing up the dire situation she made a dig at Castiel’s guilt by implying his earlier actions devastated heaven so much that it spontaneously deteriorated somehow to this terminal state. Cas was too willing to believe in the enormity of his past crimes to question it.
So where were the angels? Did Naomi wipe all their minds and lock them up, reducing them to nothing but batteries to run heaven? Maybe the flickering lights were not the signs of low power, but signs of the pain and struggle of those enslaved angels?
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I’m going to talk about Kenny and Levi’s relationship because I was reminded of a panel (and for fun).
///spoilers for season 3 of aot; mention of abortion
I will never ever get over this panel when Kenny was talking to grandpa Ackerman about Kuchel. Obviously it’s very much up to audience interpretation / headcanon what kind of relationship Kenny had with his sister, but the fact that she’s apparently his ‘little’ sister makes me think he protected her so much when they were growing up - considering the type of man kenny is (was) it couldn’t have been a great upbringing, and he clearly cares a lot about her.
He ‘finally’ found her, meaning he’s been searching for a long time. His head is bowed and his hands are stuffed in his pockets even though his legs are spread apart - attempting to look cocky and put-together as always, but he’s still devastated.
He didn’t want that life for her, I think that’s that obvious (though there’s nothing wrong with sex work), and especially in the Underground. And she’s pregnant from one of her customers.
The reason I think Kenny would’ve suggested she got an abortion is because the Underground is no place to grow up (he would definitely know a thing or two about that), and in general the world is a terrible, cruel place; no place to raise a child, anyway.
I think it’s very interesting that we see how he felt about the baby (Levi) before he was born, and then takes him in when he visits again a couple years later and sees firsthand that Kuchel’s passed away. Kenny definitely didn’t visit in that span of years - they would’ve recognized each other - so i think he accepted the life Kuchel had chose but was too torn up over what life it was up until he found Levi.
Now Kenny is on the verge of death, and Levi’s found him. I think it’s very important to pay attention to Levi’s word choice here: “Why did you leave me?”
Why did you leave me? Not ‘Why did you leave?’ Not ‘Why did you go?’ or ‘Why didn’t you stay?’. Levi is speaking very personally when he asks this, and as a character he’s always careful with what he chooses to say. Kenny’s abandonment of him has always cut deeply for Levi.
He’s not bitter either - he looks agonized. For years he never knew why Kenny abandoned him; in an official interview, it’s revealed that Levi very much looked up to Kenny and valued his praise for his strength. When he left, he had to ask himself why he even possessed it if Kenny up and abandoned him anyway? He must’ve been left heartbroken.
And when Kenny does admit he wasn’t a good father figure, that he wasn’t good enough, and exposes that error in his character, I imagine that really touched Levi. He doesn’t have much self-worth at all placed anywhere but in his capability to fight, and even then he loses almost everyone he cares for.
So it wasn’t the case that Levi couldn’t live up to Kenny’s expectations, he did: he trusted Levi enough that he could survive on his own, he trained him to be strong.
He learns that Kenny isn’t on some pedestal either, but that they’re the same in many ways - they just took different paths in life. Levi also wasn’t left totally alone in this world - they’re related by blood - but he only learns that in Kenny’s final moments.
Especially in the second panel he looks teared-up, emotional, like he’s about to cry.
I don’t think it’s recognized nearly enough the impact Kenny had on Levi as a person. Levi escaped the Underground and survived in it for so many years because of Kenny’s kindness that day he found him. Even though he’s cruel, and he was once a serial killer, he still couldn’t let Levi, an extension of sister, die there in that room. I’m sure Levi internalized that kindness (besides the extent his mother’s love influenced him) and that’s a large part why he became the man he is.
They really see each other eye-to-eye in this moment despite having been on opposing sides of the fight. Kenny is far from a perfect parental figure, let alone a perfect man, and in this moment he admits it; he passes the serum on to Levi and gives up his dream of ultimate power.
#another levi character analysis who coulda guessed i had it in me /s#attack on titan#levi ackerman#kenny ackerman#character analysis#snk#aot levi#aot#captain levi#captain levi ackerman#snk levi#levi attack on titan#levi ackermann
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bad romance
+ pairing: levi ackerman x reader
+ genres and warnings: friends with benefits au, friends to lovers au (well i guess that’s open for interpretation lmao), modern au—college au?, explicit smut, mentioned/implied virginity
+ summary: friends with benefits with your best friend since middle school is probably a bad idea. friends with benefits with your best friend since middle school who you’ve also been in love with for the past seven years—all for the purpose of her gaining ‘experience’ so she’s not nervous to do it with some other guy she has a crush on—is probably a really bad idea. levi ackerman is not known to make great decisions.
+ word count: 3.5k
+ notes: truth be told, i don’t even know if i like this; i took this from an outline/draft of a series i’d planned but know i’ll never complete. it’s kind of unedited too heh, also if you’re a minor pls do not interact
Levi doesn’t think anything of it when he finds you on his doorstep on a rainy Saturday evening. It’s very much like you to show up unannounced and attempt to drag him into whatever activity you want to do that day. He’s fairly certain that Hange picked that up from you. Someone should tell her that it doesn’t work so well unless it’s you tugging on his arm sleeve and interrupting his otherwise peaceful evening.
So, for a while, everything is normal. You make fun of him for his use of, admittedly overpriced, organic butter when he toasts you a bagel; he makes jabs at you shuffling around his apartment like a semi-wet chihuahua, and all is right with the world.
Until it’s not. Because half-way into whatever stand-up comedy Netflix special you’d persuaded him into watching with you, Levi’s had enough of your nervous ticking. He doesn’t know if you think that he wouldn’t notice, but he does. And he knows it’s not the result of you still being wet or cold from the rain, seeing as you’ve long since dried off and warmed up.
You’re focused on the show (ironically, focused to a point of distraction), you’ve been twiddling your fingers since it started, and you’ve been fidgety since you stepped foot into his house. Quite frankly, he finds it insulting that you think he wouldn’t know something’s up by now.
So, he bends his knee, turns his body towards yours, lifts his elbow to rest atop the edge of the soft, and presses his cheek into his palm: “Alright, spit it out.”
“Huh?—What do you mean?” You look at him with wide, startled eyes. He looks back at you with unamused, expecting ones.
You crack a nervous smile, attempting to laugh off his command as incredulous, but instead, your voice comes out in what sounds like a pathetic attempt to cover up a lie—probably because it is, “What? Can’t I spend sometime with my favorite, surly psychology student?”
Levi scoffs at your batting eyelashes. The look he throws you seems to do the trick as you drop your facade with a sigh and shift yourself to face him on the couch too, your bent knees almost touching.
“Alright, fine, you got me,” you sigh, hands resting in your lap, “You, um... you know how you said you’d help me with, like, uh... sex and stuff?”
Levi raises an eyebrow. Of course he does. He watches as your eyes dart around the room waiting for his response. It’s cute as heck, and if the topic of conversation at hand weren’t about to get so compromising, he’d have probably teased you about it.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well… okay, so, you remember Jean, right? The guy I told you about?”
Levi hums. Yeah, he remembers Jean, but only because you can’t seem to shutup about him, not because he’s particularly memorable otherwise. He seems to be kind of a prick and a huge idiot, if you asked Levi; but, that’s kind of his default impression of most people.
“Jean and I hung out yesterday, and it was normal, you know? We just talked and ordered food and watched a movie,” you rub your palms along the fabric of your yoga pants—another nervous tick he’s been observing, “I don’t know if it was a date or not, because he didn’t say it was, and I don’t want to assume, but Marco keeps saying it was, and that Jean wants to actually ask me out.”
Levi blinks. “And?”
“And if he does ask me out—or even if he just… I don’t know, wants to try something the next time we hang out, I don’t want to look like a complete idiot!”
He refrains from letting a noticeable grimace take over his features; and washes away the unsettling feeling in his stomach with a nonchalant comment, “I doubt he’ll try anything on your first date.”
“But what if it’s not a date! People hang out just to hook up all the time.”
“I thought you wanted to date him?” Levi questions, but his it comes out as more of a deadpan statement.
“I do,” you answer, your response a little delayed and drawn out, “But, I wouldn’t mind just sleeping with him, either.”
“Bold statement from someone who’s never slept with anyone before.”
“Have I told you today that you’re an asshole?” you roll your eyes at him, “Come on, Levi, you know what it’s like to just want someone, but not want them, don’t you? You’ve had one night stands before.”
That’s true, Levi knows it, but it’s different. He wasn’t actively seeking advice from his friends about how to pursue and potentially please his one night stands because none of that mattered—well, the pleasing part, probably, but not the pursuit, or the feelings that came with it. Besides, Levi hasn’t felt the desire for any of that in a long time.
“That’s not the same,” he responds, trying to dismiss the muddy feelings crawling up his throat, “Look, if your Jean guy gets horny when you’re hanging out, just make out with him—make him jizz his pants or something.”
“That’s terrible advice,” you frown, “Plus, he’s probably done that with a million other girls.”
“Probably. Sex tends to repeat a few basic actions here and there.”
“For a psychology student, you sure are a terrible makeshift therapist, do you know that?”
“That’s not even the kind of psychology I study, never mind that I never asked to be your therapist.”
Levi takes great amusement in your huffing and the frustrated pout settling into your features, though he does his best to not let his own smile shine through. It’s probably futile; you can probably see through his facade, anyways.
“I just don’t want to bore him, Levi.”
Any trace of his smile vanishes as those words leave your mouth. Levi doesn’t retain much about this Jean guy you keep going on about, and he doesn’t care to in all honesty—but maybe if he did, he could understand why you’re so hellbent on pleasing the kid.
Levi doesn’t like it, not one single bit. His own feelings for you aside, he doesn’t like how Jean has managed to worm his way into your head and make you think that he’s deserving of any kind of affection from you, whether it be platonic, romantic, or sexual. Because he isn’t; Levi might not know him, but he knows that much.
Still, he sympathizes with you. He understands the pressure of navigating dating and hookup culture, especially in a university setting; never mind the additional expectations set on you as a girl. It’s shitty, all of it; the stupid feelings, the sense of uncertainty, the dumb-ass college pricks. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of that.
“You won’t,” is Levi’s simpler response, “Just don’t crush his dick in the process.”
“I wouldn’t do that, fuck you.”
“I’m just saying, you’ve never been the most coordinated person in the world,” he taunts, “If that’s what you came here today to ask me to help you with, it’s fine.”
“Really?—I mean, okay, I know we said that’s okay, and stuff, but I didn’t know if—well I don’t know what’s on the table or not? I do want to do that with you, but I also wanted to know if we could do… more? But I didn’t want to ask for too much and make you uncomfortable! Do we need a lesson-plan of sorts, because I can make—”
“You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Stalling,” Levi tells you, “You know, how when you get all nervous and ramble, then run out of breath or things to say, then get super quiet, and let the conversation die and be awkward again.”
You throw daggers his way with your eyes, and Levi has the audacity to smirk. “Forgive me, it’s not every day I ask my best friend if I can suck his dick for practice.”
“You can,” Levi replies, a little too nonchalant for the situation at hand, “If you want. I don’t mind. As for a lesson plan, that’s weird as shit, so don’t do that.”
“Really? I can?” you question again, an ironic child-like glimmer of joy in your eyes.
Levi chuckles lowly at your enthusiasm—your appreciation is so genuine, he finds it nothing short of adorable. And oddly enough, he’s a little turned on by it, too.
“Yeah,” he nods his head shallowly, “You can.”
You still have that gleam in your eyes, but Levi can feel the hesitation creeping up on you, and offers his guidance before he loses you to a shell of yourself. He shifts over to you just a bit, loosely holding your right wrist in his grip; holding eye-contact, he carefully pulls you up to stand in front of him.
“You can start,” he says, slowly tugging on your wrist, “By getting on your knees and taking off my pants.”
By the time he’s finished speaking, you’re already kneeling in front of him, and the sight is already enough to have Levi semi-hard in his pants; an almost embarrassed flush washing over his body as he comes to terms with the fact that he’s thought about this visual more times than he cares to ever admit.
You fumble with the zipper of his jeans, pulling them, along with his boxers to pool around his ankles. Your actions are careful and calculated, but you seem comfortable—maybe not with your skills, but with Levi.
His eyes stay glued on you, when you finally hold his length with a single hand, the other resting hot on his thigh. He leans over again, this time to rest a comforting hand on the back of your neck, eager to wash away any remains of your nervous resolve.
“Start slow,” he instructs, feeling your thumb swipe along the head, “Just move your hand up and down a bit, like—ah, yeah, like that.”
You seem follow his words carefully, focusing on the way his dick jerks in your hand. Levi observes you carefully and mentally notes that while he’d have liked it, not making out with you before this was probably the right call—he’d probably have creamed his jeans before this could have begun.
“You can grip it harder,” he tells you. You listen, applying slightly more pressure to your grasp; and it makes Levi groan, short, but strangled, above you.
“Okay?” you question, the genuine concern in your voice enough to make Levi’s gaze soften.
“Yeah, that’s—you’re doing good,” he says, rubbing his thumb against the nape of your neck habitually, “Twist your hand a little when you go up, you can—fuck, okay, yeah, that, like that.”
You snap your head up to look at him when he lets a moan slip through; nothing but pure enthusiasm and satisfaction dancing in your eyes. Levi grits his teeth when you do it again, your thumb sliding over the tip when you reach the top of his dick, and, Christ, you’ve got to stop looking at him like that.
You work your way into a steady rhythm, letting Levi’s moans guide your movements. You feel him harden to full length under your touch; and when he does, you move your hand faster, twisting your wrist around the length and squeezing just a pinch harder at the tip, without instruction.
He watches through lidded eyes, using his thumb to press lightly into the back of your neck. You move your free hand from his thighs, eager to add it to the mix, but Levi freezes.
“Nuh uh,” he shakes his head.
It prompts you to stop your actions, tilt your head and look up at him, and Levi doesn’t think he’s ever seen something so sinful. Your complete focus on him, neck craned obediently, eyes twinkling under your lashes; your position makes him want to kiss you or choke you or something in between.
“What—did I do something wrong?” you ask with wide and innocent eyes that make Levi feel bad for worrying you, yet send an erotic pulse throughout his body.
“Not at all,” he reassures you, fingers treading into the hair at your nape.
He’s setting himself up for failure, and he knows it, too—because, really, who agrees to teach a friend how to suck dick? Having you on your knees in front him, crane into his touch, and keen to all his desires, does nothing to mask the painful fire in the pit of his stomach.
It’s stupid to be this hungry, this possessive over you when he knows you come to him in hopes to learning how to please another man. But one, precious thought is enough to cloud over all of that, enough to put that sadistic smirk back on his face.
“You said you wanted to give me a blowjob, right?” he questions, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth at the shallow nod of your head, “Okay. Open your mouth for me, yeah?”
He barely pushes the tip past your lips when your head dips forward, tongue peeking out to lick the very top. Levi sucks in sharp air between his teeth, relaxing into the couch when your head bobs further, enclosing the tip of his dick in your mouth.
“Fuck,” he groans, voice hoarse when his hardened cock rests against the velvet wet of your tongue, “That’s it—just keep going, like that.”
He watches intensely as your head bobs onto him. It’s hot and wet and so much more than he’d imagined it would be; and he’s not too shy to admit he’s imagined this with you. He moves his hand to brush away the flyaways of your hair, smoothing them back and tangling his fingers at the back of your head. He carefully guides your movements.
It’s slow and steady, and normally, it’d take him a while to cum like this, but with the visual of having you on your knees for him, Levi can feel a faint warmth of his orgasm already beginning to bubble inside of him.
“This is okay, right?” you pull back, a thin line of spit trailing from your mouth.
“Yes, yes,” he answers immediately, unaware of his tightening grasp on your hair.
With a shy smile, you continue, taking more of him this time and carefully gauging his reactions. You move your head further down, testing your own limits, until you feel like you’re choking. You pull back again, with an embarrassed cough.
“Don’t push yourself,” he says softly, rubbing soothing circles into your neck with his fingers, “Guys can’t actually tell the difference between a regular blowjob and being deep throated, no need to choke yourself.”
“Wait, really?” you ask, resting you bum against your heels.
“You seem so surprised.”
“That’s just so… disappointing,” you crinkle your nose, “Men and porn make deep-throating seem like the end all be all of giving head.”
Levi chuckles in genuine amusement, “Well, it’s not, trust me. If any guy insists on being deep-throated just to cum, he’s a fucking liar. He’s getting off on the submission, not the actual feeling.”
“The submission?”
“Getting someone to be willing to listen to them, telling them what to do, how to please them,” he shrugs, “Makes you feel like you’re in control.”
“And that… that works?”
“Yeah,” Levi says, “But, judging by the tone of your voice, and how willing you were to suck my dick three seconds ago, I’d say the idea of being dominant doesn’t really appeal to you.”
You scrunch your nose again, “Does it appeal to you?”
Levi pauses, thinking over his answer, before giving you a simple, “Yeah. Most of the time.”
“Oh,” you hum, “I… I don’t think I’d like that. I think I’d rather be told what to do, seeing as I don’t really know what I’m doing, anyways.”
“Ironic, considering you’ve never once listened anything I tell you do.”
“I was listening when you told me how to suck your dick,” you correct him, “You seemed to enjoy that.”
Levi pauses with a raised eyebrow. You don’t seem to back down, that matter-of-fact smirk on your face still mocking him. He leans over slowly, using his right hand to guide your head closer to him, and uses his left hand to grab your jaw between his fingers.
“You can be such a fucking brat, you know that,” he all but whispers, pursing your lips together in his hold, “Since you like listening to me so much, then shut up, and we can finish what you started.”
You blink, staring at him with a wide-eyed expression. He’s right that under any other circumstance you’d probably run your mouth off about him telling you what to do. But something about the way he knows what he wants and tells how he wants it makes you listen without an argument.
You nod, slowly wrapping your lips around the tip again, and bobbing along his length. Levi’s breath hitches when you hollow your cheeks slightly, a rough hand pressing down on the back of your neck.
“You’re really—god, okay, you’re good at this, you know,” Levi praises you, letting his right hand resume its position at the back of your neck.
If you had any doubts before about being submissive, the look on Levi’s face seemed to have wiped them away. Watching him throw his head back, his fingers gripping at your nape, his cock in your mouth—pleasing him seemed to be enough to please you, too.
“I wanna make you cum, Levi,” you voice your thoughts, letting a hand lazily jerk him off in the mean time, “Tell me what I have to do to make you cum.”
“If you keep going, I’ll cum,” he answers too quickly, a groan slipping through his words, “Trust me.”
“Come on, Levi,” you push, rolling your thumb over the slit of his dick. It makes him inhale sharply; you’re getting a little too good at that; at all of this. “Can—I mean, do you wanna cum in my mouth?”
“Shit, shit. Don’t say shit like that,” he curses, blunt nails raking and scraping at your scalp, “You don’t have to—I can just—”
“I want you to,” you tell him earnestly, “Please?”
Fuck, he was pretty fucking certain he’d told you to stop saying shit like that. Levi bites the inside of his cheek, paces himself; uses both of his hands to hold your head gently, while you use yours to wrap around his cock.
He grunts with a shake, and rolls his hips up, pushing himself further into your mouth, but not so much as to hurt you. It’s soon after that hot strophes of cum wet your tongue, and Levi lets you lazily jerk him off until you’ve milked his orgasm.
The room is silent save for his low moans and the squeaking of his thighs against the leather couch. When he’s finished, he slouches back, looking at you through hooded eyes, sweaty and panting, when you close your mouth and swallow.
You use your fingers to collect any remaining cum from his softening cock, and hum contented as you put your fingers in your mouth. Levi locks eyes with you again, cheeks flushed as you pull your digits out of your mouth, and he has to grip at his own thigh to gain the self-control to not get hard again.
You’re going to be the fucking death of him some day.
He shakes his head when you move backwards with a cute smile and pulls his boxers up, then his pants as best his can, not bothering to zip them up. When he’s done, you stand to your feet then straddle him on the couch, laughing lowly at his post-orgasm haze.
He doesn’t think twice about the way your hands clasp at the back of his neck, or the way his find their way to rest on your hips. You grab ahold of his jaw with both hands, holding his face in place. He thinks you’re going to lean in, but you don’t; just stay like that, your eyes roaming his glassy eyes.
“Are you gonna kiss me or just stare at me all day?” he questions, lips pulled into a knowing grin.
“Can I?” your question makes him frown in confusion, “Dunno, I heard some guys don’t like that after getting head.”
“Bunch a fuckin pussies,” he grumbles, leaning forward to close the gap between your mouths. He can feel you smile into it, and mimics your grin when you begin to press short, repeated kisses against his lips.
“You’re the best, you know that?”
He laughs when you continue to press quick kisses on his lips. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
You kiss him on the cheek, wet and dramatic. “Love you, Levi.”
Your face is right in front of his, but he averts his gaze, a different kind go warmth spreading throughout his chest when you flash a smile at him. He lets you kiss him again, longer this time, but still slow and sweet. He likes the feeling of you resting against him, affection lingering on your tongue when you kiss him.
It’s dangerous, but he likes the way you spark a fire in him. Sweet or sinful, it makes him feel boneless, wanted, loved.
Levi leans forward, rubbing his hands up your sides, and captures your lips in another languid kiss before pulling away to peck the corner of your mouth. “Love you, too.”
And he means it of course, but if Levi thought he had it bad before, he’s in deep shit now.
#aot x reader#snk x reader#levi x reader#levi ackerman x reader#aot imagines#snk imagines#aot fanfiction#levi ackerman smut#levi ackerman fluff#eren x reader
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One of my favorite narrative choices/interpretations in twdg is how tied together Clementine’s “death” scene and Lee’s death are. Yeah sure, there are the obvious visual parallels but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.
For the longest time, I was one of the people who always shot Lee, y’know? It just makes sense, you can’t let Lee become a walker, it’s so much more tragic for Clementine to be the one to put him down. Clearly shooting him is the right answer. After all, the player percentages don’t lie.
But then years passed and I eventually played the other route where I asked Clementine to leave Lee, and I am no longer one of those people.
Don’t get me wrong. Both endings make me cry. They’re powerful in different ways, but there’s something about the way that leaving Lee to turn into a walker can affect an interpretation of TFS and Clementine as a character.
[note: this turned into a bit of a Clementine character analysis and it’s long and I’m sorry that this is the way I am]
Y’see, having played through the series as much as I have, I’ve grown to love this narrative that you can build leading back to this choice and the ways it stuck with Clementine over the years, and subsequently affects the way she raises AJ.
When you ask Clementine to leave Lee, he gets the chance to give her a little more advice and it get progressively heavy:
Lee: You can leave me. It's okay.
Clementine: You'll be just like them.
Lee: It's okay. It won't be me.
Clementine: Lee...
Lee: Clem, it's time to go. You gotta get out of here.
Clementine: You can come with me.
Lee: No, honey, I can't. It's okay.
Clementine: Please?
Lee: You have to go, now.
Clementine: Maybe...maybe...I shouldn't let you turn.
Lee: I don't want you to have to do that.
From here, you have a set of options that allows Lee to explain why she shouldn’t shoot him: Shooting people changes you and Lee doesn’t want Clem to get used to that, she can remember him alive as her last memory of him rather than her shooting him, she should save the bullet, or the noise will draw more attention than it’s worth.
After that, depending on your choices, he’ll further explain himself. I usually get:
Lee: Pulling the trigger of a gun and ending a life, Clem...you feel yourself lose something every time. The first time, the most. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to.
Clementine: I'll go. I'll...leave you. I'll go as fast as I can.
Lee: And as safe as you can. Always be safe.
Lee is barely breathing at this point, he can’t keep his eyes open, he looks like he’s on the verge of turning into a walker at any moment. Clementine, gun her in her little hands, turns to him and one last time, asks him not to go.
Like… the whole scene is more than enough to make you teary eyed.
There are a lot of reasons for making this choice, most of which you’re allowed to explain through Lee. Some people have a more logical take on this by saying that it doesn’t matter if Lee turns or not, Clementine isn’t in danger with him chained up, therefore she doesn’t have to waste a bullet in killing him. That bullet might be the difference between life and death in the future.
Then there’s a more emotional approach of not wanting Clementine to be the one to have to kill Lee, forever traumatizing her even further after everything she went through with the stranger and her parents. Lee can’t ask her to do that, he can’t force this little girl to kill him just so that he won’t turn into a walker. It’ll change her.
I like to think it’s all of the above. Lee’s made sure that he can’t get to her, she’s armed and knows how to protect herself, and he cares more about her having an extra bullet that could save her life rather than wasting it on him when no matter what, death is inevitable for him. It’s like what he says about Larry if you tried to save him:
“It's like with Larry, honey. He was goin', one way or another. But at that moment I couldn't do more violence. You have to be careful about that. It'll consume you.”
She shouldn’t do that if she doesn’t have to. Lee has no idea what’s going to happen after he dies, if he’ll just be dead and gone or if part of him will remain as a walker, or something else. He reassures her that the walker left in his place won’t actually be him, but no one actually knows that. Yet, that doesn’t matter, he cares more about Clementine than himself at this point.
But what does this choice do to Clementine?
Sure, she doesn’t have to live with the fact that she killed the man who swore to protect her, even after she was indirectly responsible for him getting bitten in the first place. He asked her to leave him there, to let him become a monster, to leave before she could see him like that. He makes sure she knows that this was the right thing, the best thing for everyone, and I do think she believed him, or at least want to, in that moment. Underneath her grief and stress of the worst day of her life, she at least had Lee’s last words to her and his reassurance that she’s going to make it through this.
But then we move onto the other seasons, and Clementine isn’t the little girl she was in the first season. Season two is pretty much summed up with: “Clementine does ANYTHING and gets punished for it.”
She goes through so much shit in S2. You can try to make all the morally good choices you want and Clementine will still end up getting slapped around, people she grows to care about fall dead all around her, and she gets a lot of blame for it. She’s forced to kill a dog that attacks her, Kenny lashes out at her more than once, blaming her for Sarita’s death no matter what you do, she can’t save Sarah, she couldn’t save Luke, everything is falling apart and by the end, everyone’s fucking dead with the exception of either Jane or Kenny, depending on you choices.
Clementine carries all this shit with her, like Kenny and Bonnie telling her that just because she’s a little girl, she thinks she can get people killed and it’s okay since she’s sorry. Of course she’s going to internalize all of it and bring it back to Lee. She has conversations with Kenny where she’ll open up about how it was her fault he died. Kenny, for all his faults, will usually try to reassure her that it wasn’t.... but then pulls the shit he does so y’know... mixed messages that help no one.
But by the end of it, no matter what ending you get, little newborn AJ is left in Clementine’s care.
From all of this, we know that Clementine tends to blame herself for the deaths of those she cares about, which is traced back to Lee. It’s when we get to ANF that her tune changes a bit. She’s jaded, bitter, selfish, and Lee was right..... all of this violence did change her.
I mean, she just fucking shoots the guy who traded her bad bullets, and while she didn’t mean to... she still pointed a loaded gun at his head and pulled the trigger, something Lee taught her to never do unless she had to. Then, she wants Javi to cover for her, to lie... and if you don’t, because hey murder and lying bad, she gets upset and tries to make Javi feel like an asshole for telling the truth rather than validating her actions.
When I say ANF Clementine is my least favorite, it’s because her behavior, while it makes sense, is so frustrating and unbearable at times. It making sense doesn’t excuse it.
She steals, lies, pulls several Kennys where she gets pissy when you don’t do what she wants you to, is willing to assist in Lingard’s death if it benefits her without even considering any other options or what a dark place he’s in, and she’s at a point where she just assumes everyone around her will inevitably die or leave her. That’s just what happens, that’s why she’s alone, and as a means of coping, she tries to spin it this way to alleviate some of the pain she’s had thrown at her for years.
Now, ANF Clementine isn’t all bad, she has a lot of redeeming moments where the Clem I knew in the past two seasons will shine through. You as Javi can help her grow and get onto a better path than the one she was goin’ down. She makes friends with Gabe, which is important since as far as we know, she hasn’t had a friend close to her age since Sarah. She has hope again after David tells her AJ survived, and she has more than just survival on her mind.
It’s just.... it’s sad to think that she’s at a point where she seems to have momentarily forgotten Lee’s final words to her. And when I think about it..... this behavior would almost make more sense if she DID shoot Lee, y’know? But in this timeline we’re discussing, she didn’t, she left him to turn and he gave his reasons for why he wanted that... but she still ended up this way. Nothing he could say or do could’ve prevented that.
But at the end of ANF, Clementine has one goal: get AJ back.
Through all of this, through ANF and before the events of TFS... I truly believe that Clementine lost herself.
She’s forgotten a lot of the things Lee taught her, she’s forgotten about her parents in the sense of “what would they think if they saw me now,” she’s overwhelmed with all that bad that those good things, that hope she had, has been put on the backburner.
She’s been forced to live in a world that’s cruel to you no matter if you’re “good” or “bad”, and that can put you into that selfish mindset where you tend to just disregard everyone you don’t have any emotional connection to, and even then, people you’re close to will get the same treatment, whether intentional or not. It’s unflattering, unlikable, and the only reason more people don’t see that is because it’s Clementine.
It gets to a point where she has a few different paths she can go on, and right now, she’s on a destructive one.
I think through knowing the Garcia’s, she was put on a better path but she’s still lost. She’s hyper focused on getting AJ back. Nothing else matters, nothing will stand in her way, and that leads to a breaking point in her character.
So...the McCarroll Ranch flashback is a thing.
The varying interpretations of this scene are interesting to discuss.
Some will say Clementine was continuing her extremely selfish and destructive behavior when she found the ranch in flames and was willing to commit more murder in order to get AJ back, even if it meant traumatizing him with the death of his caretaker, and if she had shown up earlier before they were under attack, who knows how far she would’ve gone to take him away.
Others say no, that Clementine found the ranch compromised, she was acting in self-defense when she shot Eddie and AJ’s caretaker, Helen. It was either her or Clementine, as Helen was pulling a gun out when she spotted Clem, who reacted accordingly. If she hadn’t shown up, perhaps AJ wouldn’t be alive right now. We don’t know.
For me, it’s a bit of both. She finds the ranch and panics because yeah, it’s on fire and there are assholes running around, shooting the place up. She holds Eddie at gunpoint, demanding to know where the kids are. He thinks she’s another asshole raider and even tells her that he’s not gonna let her take a kid, and she kills him. She doesn’t try to explain herself, she just demands the info and kills him. It’s not great, but yeah, he would've hurt her if she didn’t kill him.
Then, she hears Helen talking to AJ, who is in the locker. I don’t know why she didn’t say anything. There isn’t an option to. Maybe she thought silence was the more peaceful route, or it would give her an upper hand. But, then Helen hears here and panics, pulls out a gun, and Clementine shoots her.
This is the moment.
She shoots this woman in the children’s room, and after examining her body, realizes that she was the one caring for AJ. Clementine is looking over this woman, and you get pieces of her thoughts like-
“She was taking care of him”
“I had no choice”
“I’m sorry”
Then, Clementine finally gets what she’s longed for- she has AJ back... and he’s covered in blood, sobbing, terrified of her. She coaxes him out of the locker and he sees his caretaker dead on the floor.
This scene, with Clementine looking at the body, walking through rubble and fire to put AJ in the car, he’s staring up at her with this unfamiliar look in his eyes.... and she stops for a second...
I truly feel like this is the moment where Clementine is suddenly hit by everything all at once, and she’s actually questioning, “Oh god..... who am I? How did I get here and what have I done?”
She did all of this for AJ, and now she has him, so it was worth it, right? Everything she did was a necessary evil and it was worth it... right?
... but imagine if Clementine did inject Lingard, killing him. She assisted in a man's death to get here. Was taking his life necessary? If you know how the choices work, then no, it’s not. But Clementine doesn’t know that.
If you stopped her, then she still gunned down several people to stand where she is. She’s has left AJ so wounded by killing Helen, and while we know she didn’t have a choice in the moment, AJ doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t even recognize Clementine and she can see that in the way he looks at her.
“Pulling the trigger of a gun and ending a life, Clem...you feel yourself lose something every time.....”
TFS is where I think Clementine has found herself again and that’s why she’s more balanced and likable, and there are more references to Lee and her parents.... yeah, I know it’s mostly the writers doing it for fanservice and to make us cry, but I’m choosing to look at it in the narrative rather than with that intention.
Clementine has AJ back, she’s been raising him the best way she can, she’s taught him to use a gun since he needs to protect himself, and Lee taught her when she was little, too. She’s taught him to read, taught him survival techniques she’s picked up, all that. She’s also more playful with him, she smiles more. She’s not a bitter 13-year-old like in ANF. Survival and safety is #1 and her attitude is mostly serious, but she isn’t afraid to tease or be a little silly.
But here’s the deal..... usually when I replay the series, I’ll leave Lee to turn but I’ll have Clementine tell AJ that if she ever gets bit, he’ll shoot her.
“What?” I hear you say. “But... haven’t you been rambling on and on about how murder bad and how leaving Lee was better because she didn’t have to live with the fact that she killed him?? but you want AJ to?? CJ you make no sense!”
I know that, but allow me to elaborate. Remember, this is all my interpretation after years of replaying this series. This is the narrative I find most enjoyable. This is my Clementine and the way I interpret her.
So, Clementine listens to Lee and leaves him to turn into a walker. He tells her that it won’t be him, he’ll be dead and gone, save the bullet. Yeah, yeah, I already covered this. But remember my “what does this do to Clementine?” question?
I swingin’ back to it because I didn’t really answer it directly, now did I? It’s basically followed up with another question: What if Clementine comes to regret leaving Lee instead of shooting him?
She herself even says that maybe she shouldn’t let him turn, and he tells her he doesn’t want her to have to do that. She listened to him, and left him behind to turn into one of the monsters that tore their world apart. She’s lived with the fact that she’s the reason Lee was bitten, that he died.... but there was always another thing that pricked needles into her guilt: Lee’s a walker. He’s going to spend the rest of eternity as a walker handcuffed to a heater. There is the big possibility that no one will ever find him, will never kill this walker version of him.
Was that the right thing to do?
I don’t know about you, but the walker debate is kinda fun to explore, and oh boy, do they try to explore it in TFS.
It’s easy for us to be like “Nope, there is nothing to walkers because they’re dead. Nothing human is left behind. Leaving Lee is fine.”
…but then I have to ask, why did most people shoot him when the episode released? Why do people still pick that option? You don’t want Lee to be a walker, but at the same time, it’s actually fine because nothing about him would be left behind?
Is it because you couldn’t handle seeing him as a walker and didn’t know if the ending would show it or not? It doesn’t, you know that now. Were you afraid he would hurt anyone else? Well, you chained him up. He’s not going anywhere. He’s no longer a threat.
So why do so many people still choose to shoot Lee and insist it’s the right choice even if by this logic, it doesn’t matter if he’s a walker because it’s not him? Save the bullet, don’t put Clementine through that, right?
Maybe you just like the way the tragedy plays out when Clementine shoots him, and that’s perfectly fine. Maybe you don’t believe there’s more to walkers, but still pick this because how can you not? It’s Lee! He can’t become a walker.
Again, I feel you. My reasons for always shooting him in the past were that. It’s Lee, he can’t become a walker. I can’t do that to him. I love him, and that would be wrong.
But that’s the thing... I believe we’re not the only ones having this debate. Clementine is having this internal debate within herself at different points over the series, but it’s especially prominent in TFS.
Lee asked her to leave him, but was that really the right thing to do? He took care of her, saved her life and taught her to survive, and after he was bitten, she left him to turn into a monster. He didn’t deserve that, but his final wish was for her to leave. Should she have shot him anyway, ignoring his wishes? Would that have been worse? Disrespectful? Is it okay to ignore his wish if you think he’s wrong and you think you know what’s best?
What if there is a part of him still inside that walker form? There’s no way to know that. What if she condemned a part of him to cruel fate because she didn’t shoot him? What if he’s truly gone and she’s worrying herself over nothing? What if she had shot him and needed that bullet later, or what if the noise drew attention?
...What about her parents? They were walkers, too... roaming the street together... are they suffering, too? Or are they truly gone?
I believe this is what lead to her decision to tell AJ that if she ever gets bitten, he should shoot her. All of these thoughts and regrets can resurface depending on your choices, like in the dorms at the beginning of ep2.
AJ: You told me your friend Lee became a monster. But you didn't kill him... because he wasn't a threat. Is that why you didn't kill him?
Clementine: He didn't want me to. He said it would change me forever. But I know he...
AJ: He became a monster. Do you wish you did?
Clementine: Yeah.... Every day.
Or, alternatively:
Clementine: How can you ask me that? What you did is completely different.
AJ: I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to make you mad, at all.
Clementine: .....I...I can still hear him. Telling me not to do it.
AJ: I said I'm sorry.
Clementine: ...I still hear it, sometimes.
and yeah, yeah, I know that this isn’t canon for everyone. Reminder that this is my Clementine interpretation and it’ll probably differ from yours, hence why we’re going over these specific choices.
Looking at these responses, Clementine admits that she wishes she had shot Lee, that even though he told her that it would change her and she shouldn’t have to... she still left him to die alone and change. Maybe she doesn’t even fully understand WHY he asked her to do that... why didn’t he ask her to shoot him? Did he think she couldn’t? Even though he kept telling her that she had it in her to defend herself? Wasn’t he scared of what would happen afterward? What if Lee was so sick and out of it due to the bite that he wasn’t thinking right?
Again, all these kinds of questions could possibly run through her mind, which in turn affects her choice with AJ. She doesn’t want him to go through what she did, to regret letting her turn into another monster. It’ll change him to shoot her, but it’ll also change him to let her turn.... maybe shooting her is the lesser of two evils.
The thing about Clementine is that she’s not a perfect teacher, she doesn’t have all the answers, and all of her experiences reflect in the choices she makes with AJ. She’s trying her best. She loves AJ, he’s her family and she wants what’s best for him. She wants him to be strong, to be a better survivor who can take care of himself if something ever happened to her. But, she’s doesn’t know everything, and she forgets that yeah, AJ’s a kid... and so is she. She’s not some thirty something who has all this world experience and can always make logical decisions in every situation, and neither was Lee.
AJ sees this towards the end of the season when he starts questioning her.
AJ: I always listened to Clem. Always. But...I've been thinking more. I don't know if she's right every time.
So while she truly believes that this is the best thing... she also won’t take AJ himself into account. Well, she does but she fails to ask him what he wants, what he thinks, and when he starts questioning her, she becomes defensive and makes him promise that he’ll shoot her even though he’s saying he doesn’t want to.
Which leads me to two particular scenes that I think reopen the wounds and reaffirm Clementine’s thoughts and fears. We’ll start with the obvious one: James.
I know it’s easy to just call James and his dumb walkers crazy, that walkers aren’t people, yada yada. But for fun, let’s indulge him for a moment. James is a fascinating character study with the way he’s come to view walkers, and he eventually shares these beliefs with Clementine when she asks him for help, and when you leave Lee to turn, you get this conversation:
James: They used them as a weapon. I do this...to protect them. I know it sounds strange. But that's why I brought you here. To see them as I do. As people.
Clementine: As...people?
James: Well, not people, exactly. But... Something in between. Part of us is still in there. Deep down. So few of us die anymore. We turn. Not dead, not alive.
Clementine: God, I hope that's not true. That sounds like Hell.
James: To you, maybe. I think it seems...peaceful.
AJ: Do you really think there's people inside of monsters?
James: Somewhere, yes. Think about it this way... Has someone you cared about turned?
Clementine doesn’t respond.
AJ: Clem's friend, Lee. She let him... but wishes she didn’t.
James: Do you really think...there's nothing left of who he was?
Here’s where my Clementine will remain silent, as you can either agree or disagree with him which doesn’t feel right for her, in this case. Though a little annoying that James takes your silence personally and won’t talk about Charlie later BUT that’s a topic for another ramble.
Anyway, Clementine doesn’t want to think about this. She’s thought about it enough, let it eat away at her longer than she should’ve, and now James is here asking her if she truly believes there’s nothing left inside the walker Lee became? She doesn’t have time to reflect on this, she has to get James’ help to save her friends.
However, I believe this conversation stuck with her, and that’s why she gets more defensive when AJ brings up the idea that if Clem gets bit, then she should bite him, too. Like.... No, absolutely not, AJ. That’s not what we agreed on to do if she gets bit. He’ll shoot her.
Clementine: AJ, we've talked about this. A lot. If I get bit, you know what has to happen.
AJ: I don't want to talk about this anymore.
Clementine: But you brought it up, so we're going to.
AJ: It does something weird to my stomach. Like I'm gonna get the dookies.
Clementine: AJ, I need to know you remember what we talked about. What you're supposed to do if it happens. Listen to me. If I get bit, you'll...?
AJ doesn’t respond.
Clementine: Shoot--
AJ: No! No, I'm not gonna do that.
Clementine: AJ, you promised.
AJ: I don't care. I'm not gonna shoot you! If you get bit, I'd want you to bite me, too.
Clementine: What? You don't mean that.
AJ: I don't want to be alone. Please don't be mad. I can't live with you not with me, Clem. I know we've talked about it. So much. But don't make me.
And like.... here’s an interesting thing if Clementine doubles down on this:
Clementine: Alvin Junior, if you have a gun, you shoot me. If you don't, you use your knife. No knife, a rock to the head. As many times as you have to.
AJ: I said I don't wanna!
Clementine: I don't care what you said. You will do it.
AJ: I don't care what you say!
Clementine: Goddamn it, AJ! You can't break promises.
Like jesus. She is once again so blinded by what she believes is right and what is the best option for AJ that she’s not even thinking about the fact that she’s telling him that yeah, if you have no other options, bash my face in with a rock! Holy shit, Clementine! She isn’t understanding a big thing here, the thing that factored into why Lee told her to leave him.
Of course, there are less harsh responses but I find that one particularly interesting.
Now, lemme explore the other scene: Abel.
So, the beginning of ep3 has Clementine and AJ talking to a tied up Abel about where the raiders took our friends. But it doesn’t take long before Abel starts spitting up blood and panicking that something’s wrong.
Abel: Shit... I never wanted things to end like this. Everything...it all got out of hand. Now look at me. I'm a fucking mess.
AJ: Will he turn?
Abel: No! ...My...my whole life, everything I ever got, I got with my own two hands and...and my will. For my body to turn on me...to take control... I'll tell you where to find Lilly. Just promise you won't let me turn. I'm begging you.
Look, I hate Abel, he sucks..... but I also really like him as an antagonistic character and what they did with him here.
So, we have Abel here begging for them to make sure he doesn’t turn... because Abel believes that letting some turn is cruel, he’ll even admit that he believes there are people inside of walkers and that’s why you put a bullet in them, no one deserves to be a walker.
Abel: You wouldn't do it...you wouldn't let me become...one of those things. What if they...what if they can feel it...when they turn?!
And after he gives you the info-
Abel: You got what you wanted. Please, don't let me become one of those things. Please... I don't want to turn...
Do keep in mind that this happens before the James scene, too. Clementine’s already got this on her mind when she meets up with him and the barn scene plays out.... but this whole thing with Abel is a lot. You can be cruel and torture him or you can play nice, or you can do a bit of both.
And by the way, if you let him turn, it reeeally fucks with AJ. So that’s fun.
Now not only is Clementine trying to work out a plan to get her friends back and trying to protect AJ and all that, but she’s also dealing with these thoughts and ideas presented by Abel and James..... and like, yeah I know the Lee dream sequence was intended for fanservice and to make us cry.... but I dunno, kinda funny timing that she would have a dream about Lee that night after going through both of those events in the same day as well as doing prep to infiltrate the boat.
While I love the dream sequence and this interpretation I’m talking about probably wasn’t all that intentional given that this would've been the perfect moment to explore or even hint at it but they don’t.... but it’s fine, it’s perfectly logical that she’s more worried about her friends who are still alive rather than if she did the right thing with Lee.
I think it’s time I move onto the actual bitten Clementine stuff before this turns into a novel sooo.... Clementine gets bit after she and AJ get separated from Louis/Violet/Tenn. She’s bitten on her wounded leg, and after all the chaos of getting away from walkers and climbing up to safety... Clementine just lies there for a bit.
And you can feel it, y’know? She and AJ knew what happened, but Clementine still has to confirm it... and when she pulls away part of her boot to reveal the bite... she lets out a deep breath and says she got bit..... but they gotta keep moving forward. No time, gotta get up, gotta keep moving, gotta get AJ to safety. Nothing else matters.
So they walk. They walk until it’s morning and Clementine starts to look awful... and I think most of us took this opportunity to tell AJ she loves him.
Then all hell breaks loose, they’re surrounded by walkers and have to hide out in James’ walker barn, but Clementine’s too weak to fight. This is when the game starts to have us take control of AJ, switching us between the two as Clementine shoots walkers and AJ shuts the doors.
Until Clementine runs out of ammo.
The walkers are locked out, they’re catching their breath... and now they have a whole new problem to deal with. Clementine’s bitten, and AJ, similar to how little Clementine was, tells Clementine she needs to try to get up and leave with him.
Clementine: Good job, AJ. You did it.
AJ: Now what?
Clementine: You need to find a way out of here.
AJ: We can climb up there. The monsters can't reach us up there. Let's go. Easy climb. C'mon. Please...try. You can't give up! You can't give up! I need you! I need you...
She can’t get up.
Clementine: I'm so sorry, kiddo. This is just what happens sometimes.
AJ: But...but it wasn't supposed to happen to you!
Sigh.... now here it is. This is another big moment in Clementine’s character that changes everything. It’s that moment at McCarroll Ranch again- it all hits her at once.
Clementine: I need to make sure you remember.
AJ: Remember what?
Clementine: The rules. What's number one?
AJ: Never...never go alone. So...so I can't leave. Not without you.
Clementine: AJ...
AJ: It's your rule!
Clementine: You won't be alone. Not for long. Get back to the school.
AJ: I don't know how.
Clementine: Sure you do. One of the first things I ever taught you. You need to make sure they can't smell you. So... grab that axe.
She’s dying, she’s going to die and leave AJ behind.
Clementine: Next rule: what do we do when the monsters come?
AJ: Clem...
Clementine: AJ...
AJ: Shoot them in the head.
Clementine: Got any more ammo?
AJ: There isn't any more.
Clementine: Okay, then. Fuck. And...the last rule?
AJ: I want to stay. With you. I know what will happen. And...and I don't care. I don't want to go. I just want to sit next to you and...and stay. Like that monster couple, from the train station. No one would hurt us. Just...sitting. Forever.
Clementine: I don't want you to leave, either.
AJ: Then don't make me!
Clementine: But it's not about what I want. It's about what you need. And you need to go.
AJ: Okay, Clem. Okay.
Clementine: Last rule.
AJ: No...
Clementine: What do we do if I get bit? ....Are you gonna make me say it?
And this is Clementine truly realizes, understands for the first time why Lee made the choice he did... why he asked her to leave him.
Clementine: Just leave.
AJ: I can't let you turn into a monster.
Clementine: You have to.
AJ: But before, you said...
Clementine: I know. But now that we're here... My heart is saying something else.
She finally gets it.
When Lee said she’s in his shoes now...? She IS in his shoes finally understanding a part of their situation years ago that she never could. For years, she questioned how he could ask her to leave him, WHY he did. She questioned if she did the right thing, regretted listening to him.... but now that they’re here and she’s presented with the same choice Lee was... she understands why her reasons for asking AJ to shoot her if she gets bitten were skewed, that what she thought was preventively protecting him from more hurt was only doing more damage. He’s already taken a life, and just like Lee said, he’s losing a part of himself every time he does it, and if she told him to shoot Lilly, too? and if he shot Tenn?
What is killing Clementine with an axe going to do to AJ?
What is leaving Clementine to become a walker going to do to him?
What is the right thing to do?
Well, for Clementine, her answer is to ask him to leave. She knows she told him differently, but that was when this scenario was merely a “what if?” Now it’s happening and she sees the errors in her thinking, and no matter what happens now, she’s going to die. Maybe she’ll feel it, like Abel said. Maybe James is right and she’ll spend the rest of her undead life alone in this barn. Maybe nothing will happen. It doesn’t matter.
But... we all know, AJ has another solution up his sleeve that Clementine never considered.
He turns to leave her... and then turns back around and disobeys her wishes... and chops off her bitten leg.
And she fucking survives.
Clementine survives her walker bite.
AJ did what little Clementine back in s1 couldn’t do... he didn’t listen to her, and this time, it worked in their favor.
Clementine: When we were in the barn, you didn't listen to me. And if you had...I'd be dead. You'll have to be strong for the both of us.
AJ: You made it so I can. So...thank you. For everything.
Clementine: You're welcome. For everything.
Clementine still has a lot of things to work though, especially now that she only has one leg. She can’t move around the way she could before, she has to completely relearn how to walk on crutches, possibly a peg leg. She gets to sit down and breathe, rely on others and do some reflection on who she is and come to terms with all the pain she suffered, and grow from there.
Now that she understands why Lee did what he did, she can take a step in the right direction of forgiving herself, to atone for all the mistakes she’s made and the people she’s hurt.
She has a boyfriend/girlfriend/friends there at her side to listen and love her, she has AJ, she has her lovable pupper Rosie, and she has a home... for the first time since she was little, she has a home and she can find herself again. Keep movin’ forward.
This is my favorite line of choices, my favorite way to interpret the connection between Lee and Clementine’s scenes, and how I view Clementine’s growth and understanding as a character in TFS. There are so many ways for it all to play out, no Clementine is the same between players, and I dunno I just... I find the whole thing so compelling.
Clementine is such a fun character to discuss, to compare interpretations of, and I’m sorry for such a long post but this is another thing I’ve wanted to throw out there for a while. Now that I’m done, I’m gonna go make some tea and chill out.
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Survivor
Jiang Cheng is bone deep exhausted and the only thought on his mind is to finally get some sleep. He has endured his siblings fawning over him and healers from two different Sects checking him over even though he told them all again and again that he’s fine and now he just wants to sleep.
It’s been a long, long day.
The tiniest bit of tension seeps out of his shoulders when his tent comes into view and he releases a breath of relief when he finally steps into it, only for him to whip out Zidian when he realizes that there’s someone in here with him.
“It’s just me,” Nie Mingjue says, his hands raised, but staying right where he is and Jiang Cheng slumps.
“Don’t fucking do shit like that,” he snaps at him, because he’s tired and cranky and Nie Mingjue really should know better.
They are at war. You simply don’t sneak up on anyone but especially not on someone who has been ambushed that same day.
“What are you doing here?” Jiang Cheng wants to know as Nie Mingjue walks up to him.
“I was worried about you,” Nie Mingjue admits as he pulls Jiang Cheng into a hug and Jiang Cheng immediately melts into him.
It’s a good place to be, exhaustion be damned, and they stay like that for a long time.
“’m tired,” Jiang Cheng finally slurs out and he feels Nie Mingjue nod.
“We’ll get you to bed,” he says and gently pushes Jiang Cheng towards his bed. “Are you hurt?” he asks and Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.
“Shouldn’t you know? I seem to recall that besides my healers some other healers were there as well. I would think they reported back to their Sect Leader.”
He’s not really mad, despite the bite in his tone, but he nevertheless enjoys it when Nie Mingjue blushes slightly.
“I was worried,” he repeats, his tone defensive, and Jiang Cheng can’t deny that something warm and tingly unfurls in his chest.
“I was worried, too,” Jiang Cheng admits, because while he couldn’t say this to his siblings, he thinks that maybe he can tell Nie Mingjue about it.
He will understand.
“There was a moment where I thought—I was very worried,” Jiang Cheng whispers, and he tenses when he remembers the fight, the screams, the panic, the blood. So much blood.
It wasn’t his first fight, wasn’t even his fifth or tenth one, but it has never been this close.
“But you got them all out, right?” Nie Mingjue asks, coming up behind Jiang Cheng, hugging him to his chest.
“The healers are not sure if two of them will make it through the night,” Jiang Cheng chokes out and Nie Mingjue presses a kiss to his head.
“But you got them out. That’s what matters for now. You got all of them out of there alive. Now it’s up to them. But you gave them a chance. You’re a survivor,” Nie Mingjue lowly tells him and Jiang Cheng spins around in his arms to bury his face in his neck.
“It doesn’t feel like something I should be proud of,” he mutters. “They caught us off guard.”
“And you fought and you won. You made it out and they didn’t. That’s all that matters,” Nie Mingjue says again and Jiang Cheng notes the slight tremor in his voice.
When he pulls back to give Nie Mingjue a questioningly look he is completely caught off guard by the soft look on Nie Mingjue’s face.
“I was so worried,” he says, for the third time that evening and Jiang Cheng can’t help it, he simply has to pull him in for a kiss.
He was worried, too. Worried and terrified and angry and exhausted. But he knew he had to fight or they would all die, and so he fought as hard as he never did before.
And now he’s crashing.
“I need to sleep,” Jiang Cheng says when they part and it earns him a kiss to his cheekbone.
“Then we’ll sleep,” Nie Mingjue decides and swiftly gets Jiang Cheng out of his outer robe, before he strips himself.
Normally, this would lead to very fun activities, but Jiang Cheng is so tired he can barely even appreciate the fact that Nie Mingjue is mostly undressed in his own tent, and so he simply climbs into bed.
Nie Mingjue is right behind him and as soon as they laid down, he pulls Jiang Cheng into his chest again.
“I’m so glad you came back,” Nie Mingjue whispers into his hair and Jiang Cheng turns around again so that he can curl into Nie Mingjue’s chest.
“Me too,” Jiang Cheng says, pressing small kisses to every part of Nie Mingjue that he can reach.
Nie Mingjue presses kiss after kiss to his head and Jiang Cheng is exhausted enough that he almost immediately drifts off.
“I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost you,” Nie Mingjue whispers, so quiet that Jiang Cheng almost misses it and his last conscious thought is that this doesn’t sound like they are just fuck-buddies anymore.
He falls asleep with a smile.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng knows what Nie Mingjue is going to say before he even opens his mouth. He can see it in his eyes, can see it in the way Nie Mingjue makes even more of an effort to stay straight and come off as stern, makes an effort to keep himself closed off and away from Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng isn’t quite sure when it happened but over the last few weeks he learned to read Nie Mingjue.
And what he reads now is going to break Jiang Cheng’s heart, he just knows it.
“I think we should end it here,” Nie Mingjue says, and despite how predictable it is, despite the fact that he expected this, Jiang Cheng’s world feels like it’s going to shatter.
“I see,” he still gives back despite how he’s working his jaw in an effort to not beg Nie Mingjue to not do this.
He will not beg anyone. And especially not Nie Mingjue when he so clearly doesn’t want Jiang Cheng anymore.
They both deserve better than that.
“It was a war fling. It happens, but it also ends,” Nie Mingjue goes on and even though Jiang Cheng promised himself he would be calm he can’t do it.
Not when Nie Mingjue sounds like this didn’t mean anything at all to him.
“I said I see,” he snaps at Nie Mingjue who falls silent. “I’m not stupid, and I’m not deaf. I heard you the first time.”
“Oh,” Nie Mingjue says but then he nods. “We’ll be fellow Sect Leaders then, and nothing more.”
“It’s not like you would have had time for me anyway, what with your two new brothers and all,” Jiang Cheng bitterly says and he tries very hard not to think about the fact that he had hoped for a bond with Nie Mingjue himself.
A very different one than Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen now have with him but it’s very clear that that is never going to happen now.
Yunmeng Jiang will have to fend for themselves going on, just like they always did.
“I wish you the best,” Jiang Cheng forces himself to say before Nie Mingjue can say something to that, even though he feels like crying or screaming or both.
“If you need something—” Nie Mingjue starts, but Jiang Cheng cuts him off.
“Thank you for the kind offer, Sect Leader Nie,” he presses out, overly stiff and formal, and he forces himself into a bow. “Goodbye.”
He turns around without waiting for a response from Nie Mingjue and he has to clench his jaw to keep back the tears.
Jiang Cheng thought that they had a good thing, despite how it was first formed out of mutual terror of the war and grief for their lost people and pent up energy from the fights. He thought they had made something more of it, something that allowed for soft touches and sweet promises, but clearly he had been wrong. Naive and wrong, like always, Jiang Cheng scoffs at himself, because of course he would interpret something more into this when all it was to Nie Mingjue was a convenience.
And going on, Nie Mingjue won’t have much time for conveniences anymore, not with how he’s the hero of this war and with the new bonds he’ll have to form.
But it’s fine, it’s fine. Jiang Cheng will just—he’ll just go on, like he did numerous times already.
If not even the death of his whole world could break him then a broken heart should be nothing.
It will be fine.
~*~*~
“Did something happen?” Jiang Yanli asks him when he sits down for dinner, clearly reading Jiang Cheng’s bad temper but Jiang Cheng really isn’t in the mood to lay out his stupid heartbreak to his sister, however understanding she would be.
It’s still too fresh.
“Where’s Wei Wuxian?” he instead snaps out, because he’s missing again and Jiang Cheng might have tolerated it when they were still at war, but that’s over now and Wei Wuxian will have to fall back into his role as Jiang Cheng’s second in command.
No more running off on his own.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Wei Wuxian calls out, lazily strolling into the room as if he has all the time in the world and it does nothing to lift Jiang Cheng’s mood.
“Where have you been?” he demands to know but Wei Wuxian only gives him that infuriating smile as he twirls his flute.
Jiang Cheng is too tired to even berate him over the lack of his sword.
“Here and there,” he gives back and Jiang Yanli hides her giggle behind her sleeve.
“And Lan Wangji?” she coyly asks and Jiang Cheng has to watch as his brother goes all suspiciously shifty.
“Ah, shijie, don’t be mean now. You know how nagging and annoying Lan Zhan can be,” Wei Wuxian says, but he doesn’t deny that he was with him.
And that’s enough for Jiang Cheng.
He will not have Lan Wangji of all people ruin his brother’s strenuous reputation any more.
“I am expecting a proper courtship,” Jiang Cheng says, effectively cutting whatever Wei Wuxian was about to say next off and Jiang Cheng can’t deny that he has to bite back a laugh when Wei Wuxian stares with wide eyes at him.
“A what now?” he repeats, because clearly his hearing took a turn for the worse and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“A proper courtship. I will not let Lan Wangji disrespect you like this. Either he is serious about this or he can stop right now.”
“But—Lan Zhan and I—what are you even talking about?” Wei Wuxian asks, trying to laugh his confusion off and Jiang Cheng frowns.
“Is he not serious about you?” he wonders, ready to get up and beat some sense into Lan Wangji, but Jiang Yanli’s hand on his arm stops him.
“A-Xian, is he not serious about you or are you not serious about him?” she asks and Jiang Cheng frowns, because that’s not even a possibility he entertained.
Wei Wuxian has been running after Lan Wangji since their time in the Cloud Recesses; if he wasn’t serious about him, he would have stopped long ago like he did with all his other infatuations.
“No one is serious about anyone!” Wei Wuxian exclaims all of a sudden and Jiang Cheng’s eyes go wide.
“Oh,” he breathes out, because he didn’t consider that they had a thing like he and Nie Mingjue did. “I see.”
“I don’t! Why would you even—it’s not like—no one is serious about this, right?” Wei Wuxian asks and his voice is suddenly very quiet and he looks pleadingly between Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng.
“A-Xian, it is rather obvious that Lan Wangji seems to be in love with you,” Jiang Yanli carefully says. “And going by your behaviour we just thought you are, too? Which clearly is fine, it’s just—A-Cheng is right. There should be a proper courtship.”
Wei Wuxian can’t seem to find his words at that, because he keeps staring at them, but finally Jiang Yanli’s words seem to have hit him.
Wei Wuxian gasps and slaps his hand over his mouth, as tears fill his eyes.
“I love him,” he whispers and Jiang Cheng can do nothing but stare incredulously at him.
“You didn’t know? How the hell could you not know, with how you’re running after him?”
“And he loves me?” Wei Wuxian goes on, as if he didn’t hear Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng wants to snap at him that the fact that Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian is even more obvious but he bites his tongue at the last moment.
He also thought that Nie Mingjue felt more for him than he clearly did, so maybe he isn’t in any position to judge here.
“Of course he loves you,” Jiang Yanli softly says and Jiang Cheng is not prepared for the blinding smile that breaks out on Wei Wuxian’s face.
He didn’t realize it before, but it’s been a long time since Wei Wuxian smiled like this.
One more reason to break Lan Wangji’s entire body, should he hurt Wei Wuxian.
“I have to go,” Wei Wuxian rushes out, already moving and Jiang Cheng doesn’t even have the heart to stop him.
“A courtship!” he still yells after him, because it’s important and Wei Wuxian is liable to forget.
“What an idiot,” he mutters once Wei Wuxian is gone and Jiang Yanli laughs.
“Blinded by love, is what he is,” she gives back with a wistful sigh and Jiang Cheng turns towards her.
If they already are at the topic—
“What about you and the pe—Jin Zixuan?” he wants to know.
Jiang Cheng will probably never like Jin Zixuan, especially not after the last stunt he pulled, but Jiang Yanli always had a soft spot for him and if she still wants to pursue a relationship with him, then Jiang Cheng will support her in this.
“It’s fine, A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli says with a smile but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
He’s tired of Jiang Yanli always doing what’s best for everyone else.
“It’s not. It never was. Just tell me what you really want,” he insists and Jiang Yanli falls silent for a long moment.
“I always liked him,” she finally admits and while Jiang Cheng still wants to punch Jin Zixuan in the face, if this is what his sister wants then he’ll make it happen.
“But not like this. Not if he doesn’t like me back. I don’t want to be—” she bites back her words, but Jiang Cheng still knows what she wanted to say.
It would be disrespectful to the dead though.
“I understand. We’ll do nothing for now, then. If he should show that he has a spine and actually knows how to appreciate you, we can talk about it,” Jiang Cheng decides and is not prepared for the proud look Jiang Yanli throws him.
“You’ve grown so much, A-Cheng,” she softly says and cups his cheek in her hand. “But you should have someone at your side as well.”
“I have you and Wei Wuxian,” he immediately gives back, even though he’s sure that’s not quite what Jiang Yanli means.
“Don’t misunderstand me on purpose,” she gently chides him. “You know what I mean. You should have someone you love and who loves you in return.”
It hits a little bit too close, with how recently Nie Mingjue told him to break it off, and Jiang Cheng jerks his head away from her because he can’t quite hide the bitter twist of his mouth.
“Don’t,” he begs his sister, because he’s not ready to talk about this, not ready to admit that he thought he had that already.
“What about Nie Mingjue?” his sister relentlessly goes on. “I thought it looked like there was something between you. You’ve been meeting frequently.”
“You thought wrong,” he snaps at her and then immediately feels bad when she flinches at his angry tone. “You thought wrong,” he says again, much quieter this time and understanding washes over her face.
“Oh, A-Cheng, I’m sorry,” she says and pulls him into a hug.
Jiang Cheng promised himself that he wouldn’t cry over Nie Mingjue—he needs to be strong and composed for his people—but he can’t remember those reasons when he’s safely in his sister’s arms.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng doesn’t see Wei Wuxian until the next morning, but he has Lan Wangji in tow, who does propose a proper courtship between him and Wei Wuxian, so Jiang Cheng chalks that off as a success.
He allows Lan Wangji to court his right hand man, of course, mostly because he truly wants to see Wei Wuxian happy, but also because it means the Lan Sect can’t quite openly go against them. Jiang Cheng will take any little advantage he can get.
He hates that he has to see Nie Mingjue at the banquet that evening, but he somehow manages a polite bow, before he turns away from him and then he tries to not look at him all night.
It’s harder than it should be and when Jin Guangshan gets up to say something unpleasant, Jiang Cheng is almost grateful for it.
He re-evaluates that when Jin Guangshan brings up a new betrothal between Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Jiang Cheng is glad he talked about this with his sister just yesterday, because he feels so much better shutting Jin Guangshan down now, especially when he can announce Wei Wuxian’s and Lan Wangji’s courtship in the same moment.
That, at least, gets Jin Guangshan to shut up for a while.
Jiang Cheng pretends he doesn’t see the small smile on Nie Mingjue’s face, because it doesn’t only hurt, it also brings out something bitter and mean in Jiang Cheng.
He turns away before the sneer can make it to his face. It does nothing to hide his pain, though.
~*~*~
When Wei Wuxian comes across Wen Qing, he has enough trust in Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng to ask for help before he blows up in everyone’s faces.
Jiang Cheng can’t bring himself to accept them into Yunmeng Jiang, no matter how sorry he is about it and how he can’t quite meet Wen Qing’s eyes when he tells them that, but Lan Wangji promises that he’ll settle them in Gusu Lan, since no one trusts Jin Guangshan when he tells them he can take care of them.
Jiang Cheng didn’t even dare to ask Nie Mingjue for help, and he excuses that with the fact that Lan Wangji offered and that Wei Wuxian was due for a stay there anyway.
He can help them get settled before he and Lan Wangji return to Lotus Pier and it will all work out fine.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng can’t quite hide his surprise when Jin Zixuan is led into the conference room.
“What are you doing here?” Jiang Cheng snaps at him, because he’s not really over how this guy treated his sister and even her reassuring presence at his side does nothing to help calm him down.
“I’m here to—” Jin Zixuan starts and then trails off, his eyes apparently caught by Jiang Yanli.
“Apologise, I hope,” Jiang Cheng finishes for him, because that is the only reason he will excuse his unannounced visit.
“That, yes. And make amends. And—maybe start new?” Jin Zixuan awkwardly finishes and Jiang Cheng raises his eyebrows.
“You want to start new with my sister,” he warningly says, barely believing the gall this guy has.
“If the lady wants it, of course,” Jin Zixuan hastily adds, falling into a deep bow and it allows Jiang Cheng to roll his eyes as Jiang Yanli tries to swallow her giggles.
“A-Cheng,” she says when Jiang Cheng leaves Jin Zixuan in the bow for longer than is really necessary, but he can’t help it.
That guy made his sister cry. He can grovel for a while.
“A-jie,” he questioningly asks, but of course she’s already on her way to Jin Zixuan to ease him out of his bow.
“Where’s your entourage?” she asks him but Jin Zixuan just shakes his head, going bright red in the face.
“There’s only Mianmian,” he tells them and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes again.
“Did you at least leave a letter at home?” he wants to know, because he’s not keen on having the Jin Sect accuse him of stealing Jin Zixuan away.
“I left it in my mother’s room. She should have read it by now,” Jin Zixuan gives back and Jiang Cheng sighs.
It’s clear that Jiang Yanli wants to give him another chance and as long as he behaves Jiang Cheng is willing to give that to his sister.
“Fine. You can stay. But if you even so much as stick one toe out of line, you’re gone again,” he promises him and Jin Zixuan’s hair flies, he’s nodding so hard.
Jiang Cheng just hopes that he’ll do better this time around. His sister deserves some happiness, too.
~*~*~
When Lan Wangji writes him that he and Wei Wuxian are on their way to Lotus Pier, bringing Wen Qing and Wen Ning, dread settles in Jiang Cheng’s gut.
The letter speaks of something urgent, something they have to discuss, something Jiang Cheng needs to know, and he’s not looking forward to that conversation no matter what it is.
It turns out his instinct was right when he learns about Wei Wuxian’s core—his own now—and demonic cultivation and how it’s killing Wei Wuxian and how it could all still blow up in their faces.
That conversation rivals the one he had with Nie Mingjue in terms in how desperately he wants to forget it, but he pushes through anyway.
He has to figure out how to help his brother.
~*~*~
It’s almost to the day a year after the end of the Sunshot Campaign when Nie Huaisang arrives in Lotus Pier, with little fanfare and without anyone accompanying him.
It puts Jiang Cheng on edge, despite Wei Wuxian’s reminder that they all used to be friends.
He thinks he’s proven right when Nie Huaisang asks for a private audience, with just Jiang Cheng.
“Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang greets him and Jiang Cheng let’s the bitterness get the better of him.
“That’s Jiang-zhongzhu to you,” he snaps out and immediately feels bad when Nie Huaisang flicks his fan open in a defensive motion.
“I am not my brother,” Nie Huaisang presses out before he sighs. “I hoped we are still friends,” he adds and it’s enough to make Jiang Cheng feel guilty.
“We are,” he gives back with a sigh of his own. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” Jiang Cheng apologizes and then invites Nie Huaisang to sit down with him.
“You’re stressed,” Nie Huaisang observes and Jiang Cheng snorts.
“I don’t have that many relations with the Nie’s,” Jiang Cheng gives back and Nie Huaisang winces.
“Yeah, that’s my brother’s fault,” he says and gives Jiang Cheng a meaningful look.
So he knows what they had. Great.
“What brings you here, Huaisang?” Jiang Cheng wants to know, though he can already tell that he’s not going to like it much.
“I’m here because of my brother,” Nie Huaisang says and immediately proves Jiang Cheng right.
“I don’t talk to Nie-zhongzhu, in case you didn’t notice,” Jiang Cheng snaps out and Nie Huaisang laughs lightly.
“Oh, I definitely noticed. I especially noticed that you two stopped talking right after we won the war. He wouldn’t tell me why, though, until a few days ago.”
“It’s not that hard to figure out, Huaisang. He didn’t like me enough to keep talking to me,” Jiang Cheng says with a shrug and he doesn’t even care that he sounds bitter.
He is bitter. Let Nie Huaisang know, what does he care.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Nie Huaisang says and hides behind his fan again. “Though it’s what he said to me as well. It’s a lie though.”
That makes Jiang Cheng freeze.
“What?”
“It’s a lie. He wouldn’t tell me the real reason until a few days ago, when he suffered a qi deviation. Not enough to kill him or even seriously injure him, but. It was still bad,” Nie Huaisang lowly says and Jiang Cheng can’t help the worry in his gut.
He wishes he could have just forgotten Nie Mingjue, could have found someone else to give all these feelings to, but he still wakes up more nights than not, searching for someone in his bed who is no longer there and hasn’t been for longer than he could ever be found in Jiang Cheng’s bed in the first place.
Sometimes he scoffs at himself for how ridiculous it is to keep wishing for something that was just such a brief moment in his life, but he can’t help it.
He loves Nie Mingjue, still, and it hurts. It never stopped.
“How is he?” Jiang Cheng forces himself to ask, because he can’t even imagine anything happening to Nie Mingjue or it will drive him insane.
“Not too well. Shaken, like we all are,” Nie Huaisang admits. “But it brought out some truths. He’s dying, Wanyin. He’s dying and he knew it a year ago. It’s the reason he broke up with you.”
Jiang Cheng blinks a few times because that is just too much information at once. His stomach drops when he registers that Nie Mingjue is apparently dying but his heart picks up when he thinks about how Nie Huaisang refers to their split as a break up.
“We never were enough to actually break up,” Jiang Cheng forces out, because he needs to make that clear right away.
“Yes, you were,” Nie Huaisang gives back without hesitation. “My brother loved you, I could see it back then and I can see it still. He’s still heartbroken, but he thinks he did you a favour. He has accepted that he’s going to die.”
That doesn’t sound right. He hasn’t seen or spoken to Nie Mingjue in a year now, but he doesn’t strike him as someone who would simply accept death as the inevitable outcome.
“Why would he?”
“It’s a family thing and no one could find a solution yet. Er-ge is trying with musical cultivation but I’m not sure how well that’s going. But Wanyin, please, that’s not—we can talk about this later. Did you hear what else I said? He loves you.”
Jiang Cheng did actually hear that, he just doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with that, even though his heart is telling him very clearly what to do.
“I heard you,” he whispers, though it’s still hard to believe.
Nie Mingjue didn’t look like he loved him when he told him they should end it.
“What are you going to do about it?” Nie Huaisang wants to know and Jiang Cheng huffs out a disbelieving laugh.
“Are you here because I you think I can help your brother?”
“Well—” Nie Huaisang drawls out but then he shakes his head when Jiang Cheng throws him a look. “Not only, okay? Yes, if you are inclined to help, that would be great, I don’t actually want da-ge to die. But I also just want him to be happy, no matter if you can help or not. I didn’t know why he broke up with you but now I do and it’s just so—so stupid! And I’ve been talking to Wei Wuxian a bit and Jin Zixuan too, and they said you don’t seem to be happy or looking for someone else and I just thought you both deserved to be happy.”
Jiang Cheng can do nothing but gape at him, because he didn’t actually think Nie Huaisang cared that much but it seems he was wrong.
“He—loves me still?” Jiang Cheng manages to ask and his heart does a funny thing when Nie Huaisang nods.
“What about you?” Nie Huaisang lowly asks and Jiang Cheng can’t meet his eyes.
He never admitted it before, not to his siblings and certainly not to Nie Mingjue, and it feels wrong to do so to Nie Huaisang now.
“I’ll come back with you,” he says instead of a real answer, but it seems like it’s answer enough anyway, because Nie Huaisang beams at him.
“I knew it,” he whispers but Jiang Cheng can’t find it in him to be mad at him for assuming.
Not if Nie Huaisang is assuming the truth.
~*~*~
“What are you doing here?” Nie Mingjue gruffly asks when Nie Huaisang pushes Jiang Cheng into his private room.
Jiang Cheng takes a moment to glare at the now closed door, but then he turns around to Nie Mingjue. Nie Huaisang has warned him, but Jiang Cheng is still surprised how shitty Nie Mingjue looks; he lost weight and there are circle under his eyes that weren’t even present during the war, when none of them got any good sleep, ever.
It really must eat away at him.
“I’m here to help,” Jiang Cheng says and before he can add that he’s here for maybe something more, too, Nie Mingjue abruptly turns away from him.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Nie Mingjue shortly tells him but Jiang Cheng will not be so easily brushed off.
“Bullshit,” he says and it startles Nie Mingjue enough to turn around to him.
“Excuse me?”
“I said bullshit, you heard me quite well,” Jiang Cheng repeats and angrily crosses his arms in front of his chest.
It’s not the first time since the war that he has seen Nie Mingjue, but it’s the first time that they are speaking like this and Jiang Cheng is more nervous than he would like to admit.
“Oh? And what are you going to do that my Sect hasn’t yet tried, huh?” Nie Mingjue bitingly asks, but Jiang Cheng isn’t fazed by that.
“We found a way to deal with Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation. We found a way to restore a destroyed core. I think we can find a solution for your qi deviation problem,” Jiang Cheng gives back, matching Nie Mingjue in tone and he has to admit he enjoys the dumb-founded look on his face.
“You did what?” Nie Mingjue breathes out. “Restoring a core is impossible.”
“So is transplanting a core but here I am, core and all. I think between Wen Qing’s genius, Wei Wuxian’s unorthodox thinking and my stubbornness, we can make it work.”
“You have a transplanted core?” Nie Mingjue asks, frown on his face but Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“That’s not important right now. What’s important is that we can most likely help you.”
“Most likely,” Nie Mingjue tonelessly gives back.
“Do not be like that,” Jiang Cheng warns him. “Do not reject this opportunity just because it might not work. There’s more chance that it will.”
“But you can’t promise it,” Nie Mingjue says and it sounds so final, as if he’s already made his peace with dying.
Jiang Cheng would even believe it if he wouldn’t look so haunted.
“No one can promise that and yet we still go out on night hunts,” he gives back, because he will not allow Nie Mingjue to reject this chance.
“That’s different,” Nie Mingjue says but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“It’s not,” he says but he can see how Nie Mingjue closes himself off. “Do you really want Nie Huaisang to watch you die without even trying?”
That brings Nie Mingjue up short.
“You talked to Huaisang.”
“Yes. And he had some interesting things to say, besides the fact that you have qi deviations,” Jiang Cheng says and now the nerves settle back in.
It’s one thing to have Nie Huaisang tell him that Nie Mingjue still loves him. It’s another to confront Nie Mingjue about it.
“That little rascal,” Nie Mingjue mutters under his breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he then says louder and Jiang Cheng stomach drops, though he doesn’t allow it to crush him, not like the last time they talked.
He likes to think he has grown as a person.
“Doesn’t it?”
“I am dying. You already lost so much. I’m not going to add to that,” Nie Mingjue says, though he can’t quite meet Jiang Cheng’s eyes as he does.
Jiang Cheng can even see where he’s coming from, but it doesn’t change the fact that Nie Mingjue broke his heart a year ago.
“You could have just been honest,” Jiang Cheng lowly says. “And you could let me help now.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What if we—try, all of it, and it doesn’t work?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng can see how scared he truly is.
“Then at least we tried,” Jiang Cheng says and he decides to be brave and bold and he simply steps forwards and hugs Nie Mingjue. “At least I know I tried everything I could. At least we’ll have however long the tries will give us. It’s better than nothing, than knowing we could have done something—could have been something—but didn’t dare to take that step.”
Nie Mingjue is completely rigid in his arms but Jiang Cheng is not going to let him go so easily. He believed Nie Mingjue’s lies once; he’s not going to do it again.
“Let us try,” Jiang Cheng whispers after a long moment and Nie Mingjue slumps in his arms.
“I didn’t think you’d—I wasn’t very nice,” Nie Mingjue admits and Jiang Cheng has to snort at that, because it’s a bit of an understatement.
“You broke my heart,” Jiang Cheng admits and he can feel how Nie Mingjue jerks. “It—never really mended, either. I could never forget you. I still want—” he takes a deep breath.
He didn’t realize being honest would be so difficult.
“I still love you,” he forces out, because he will not let them walk away without being honest to each other this time.
The words barely left his mouth when Nie Mingjue’s arms come up around him and crush him to his chest.
“I’m so sorry for what I said back then,” Nie Mingjue mumbles into his hair and Jiang Cheng’s knees go a little bit weak when he realizes what this means.
What Nie Mingjue feels for him.
“It hurt,” Jiang Cheng admits and Nie Mingjue makes a pained noise. “I see now why you did it, back then, even though I truly don’t like it or think it was the right decision,” Jiang Cheng says and he frowns when Nie Mingjue pushes him away.
His face goes soft when Nie Mingjue cups his cheek in his hand.
“You’ve grown so much,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng flushes when he hears the awe in his voice. “And I love you,” Nie Mingjue tells him, before he leans in for a kiss.
Jiang Cheng falls into it—he didn’t realize how much he truly missed Nie Mingjue—but it ends all too soon.
“I will accept your help,” Nie Mingjue mumbles against his lips and Jiang Cheng huffs out a laugh.
“You better accept my courtship too, you buffoon, because I’ll not let you get away a second time,” he decides and watches as Nie Mingjue blinks at him.
“We don’t know if you can find a solution,” he cautiously says but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter if we do or don’t,” he tells him, even though just the thought of Nie Mingjue dying is almost killing him. “I want this with you, regardless of that.”
“You’re always so much stronger than I give you credit for,” Nie Mingjue mumbles and rests their foreheads together.
“You better remember that,” Jiang Cheng warns him, because if he has to he will out-stubborn death itself for Nie Mingjue.
“I promise,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng believes him.
And now that they managed to take this step, Jiang Cheng is going to make Nie Mingjue live long enough to grow tired of him.
(It never happens; they both cultivate to immortality and Nie Mingjue regularly teases Jiang Cheng that he’s still waiting for the day when he gets tired of his husband, his heart, his entire world. Jiang Cheng never really learns to handle that and he never grows out of his blush.)
Jin Zixuan courts the hell out of Jiang Yanli and decides to stay in Lotus Pier and marry in instead, since Jin Guangyao is such a perfect heir anyways. It curbs Jin Guangyao's more murderous urges. Mianmian accompanies Wangxian to the Wen establishment in Gusu and never quite leaves again before she becomes the Second Lady Wen. Wangxian still adopt A-Yuan. Xuanli still get A-Ling.
Everyone lives and no one dies because I said so.
Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!
#bt writes#mingcheng#the untamed#mdzs#canon divergence#break up#temporary though#getting back together#love confessions#meddling brothers#core reveal#fix-it#everyone post sunshot campaign lives#hurt/comfort#fluff
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why do i feel like even if tae is the one who's injured AND caught between stem koo and senior oc's tension, jungkook would STILL be the one who's crying
cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D
there's fINALLY some sort of peace and redemption between them
taehyung has never been indirectly involved in a palpable situation like this
the last time he was involved in anything remotely close to this, it had something to do with his field trip in second grade
whew god that was a rEALLY pressuring experience for him
it was a split vote to whether they should go to a strawberry field or a newly-opened futuristic kid-friendly interactive dinosaur museum SLASH theme park!!!!!!!
then taehyung picked the strawberry farm that was about 70% dirt
tae's put into a situation again and he doesn't know how to act lmao
"y'okay sweetheart? what's your relation to them?" the kind nurse that's obviously the maternal figure of the emergency ward asks him as she assesses him, a bit of a queue before he could get his leg patched up
he is beyond glad that she asked :D
tae's here to get his leg casted and entertain himself for the meantime!!! his fun isn't exactly correlated to that brooding fucking stem nerd's definition of it!!!
taehyung points to you directly, a cheeky grin on his face as you tilt your head in alert from your seat beside him
"she's my girlfriend!"
you chuckle at his playfulness and even the nurse does so with how proud he sounded, about to scribble it down on her clipboard when someone clearly sounds panicked about it
"she's not his girlfriend," jungkook rises from his slouched position on his seat, wide eyes fixated on the nurse as he shakes his head, trying to make her believe him
it isn't true!!!! that's misinformation!!! that's a crime!!!!
tae snaps his fingers, solemnly shaking his head
"right, my bad!! the two of us aren't in a relationship. actually, the three-..."
god oW
jungkook can't help but whack the back of taehyung's head, their boundary from being semi-strangers in your year you see like twice a day now crossing into semi-friends who aren't reserved with each other jUST because of kook's smack
that's a silent understanding, basically
tae smacks jungkook right back, only stopping on bickering when you intentionally clang your watch on the bedframe to spook them, exiting from the curtain so you could talk with the nurse
being caught in the middle of things cOULD really be fun!!! tae should get involved more often
"so tHIS is why you were outside y/n's dorm when i gave yoongi the cookies!!"
"... you know?"
kook freezes at the possibility that for some way he can't think of, taehyung somehow knows what happened between the two of you
was that why he just hAPPENED to drop by cookies when he was talking with yoongi??
yeah uhm not really
"no. i just know that yoongi hung you out to dry," he snorts because as he recalls it, jungkook looked as pale as a ghost
he didn't really plan to arrive at that time either!!! taehyung just wanted to knock on your door and hopefully drop you his treats then he'll be off his way
he didn't exactly expect to walk in on yoongi looking like he's gonna deck jungkook if only he hadn't yelled out his senior's name
see? it's like the universe just wants taehyung to be at the right places at the wrong times in order for them to eventually fall into place
okay he kinda did take a major L for having his ankle busted but that only means that you and jungkook (even if he doesn't know anything) better make up!!!
“is it bad that i wanted yoongi to punch me that time?” jungkook wonders out loud and he almost wishes he hadn’t, getting an immediate reaction of agreement
“i’ll fill in for him!!” tae half-jokes, getting yet another smack to his shoulder and at that rate, they’d be brothers by tomorrow lmao
“anyways,” he sighs as he leans back to his pillow, keeping his foot elevated. technically, this isn’t his business at all, but what could he do?? he’s sort-of-involved now and jungkook looks like he’s gonna cry out of all people, “you just want yoongi to deck you because that’d absolve you of your guilt.”
kook sighs at that, gripping his hair to keep himself from crying
“but i already know i’m guilty. not only with yoongi, but y/n especially!!”
he whistles at that, getting a mental image with your fists balled because he’s hung around enough practices to photograph all of you for the school paper, knowing that you dO pack a lot of power
“so them decking you is the only way you would feel guiltless?”
jungkook shifts at that, murmuring his answer to the question he’s got thrown
“w-well getting my apology accepted by them would be much appreciated.”
taehyung practically spoon-feeds the answer jungkook need to hear, shrugging carelessly as he watches the boy’s turmoil
god what does he dO?? this is his first interaction with you ever since the incident and he doesn’t know how to act
of all places and scenarios, it just hAD to be in the hospital because stoopid taehyung here decided to run to you while in the rain
as if on cue do you return to the curtained area with a nurse, forms between your fingers
“time to get your x-ray done, tae,” you almost sing-song to him in cheer, being relieved that things were picking up faster than you intended it to
you pat him on the head in an attempt at affection, oblivious to the curious glances that jungkook gives you while he assists the nurse in transferring taehyung to the wheelchair
it’s not until the curtain closes again and taehyung’s gone that you move, hand outstretched to give something to jungkook
.... which is just his share of taehyung’s forms that he needed to fill out so you could get on faster
the two of you are sitting beside each other, chairs close but not exactly close, clipboard in hand and taehyung’s phone at the middle edge of the hospital bed so you could copy his information
jungkook kNOWS he should be focusing on writing tae’s blood type right now, but the spur of the moment nudges him on entirely
"i'm sorry. i'm so, so sorry."
he squeaks and he has to breathe out after that
well there it goes :-)
you knew that the day wouldn’t have finished without jungkook’s input, having avoided him long enough that you didn’t know what to feel
were you expecting an apology from him??? uhm not exactly
are you commending him for apologizing??? not at all!! thanking someone for apologizing over what they’ve done to you in the first place is just a new low
“i know i can’t take back what i said now, but i truly didn’t mean it. i-i was just so confused but — b-but i’m not making excuses!! what i did was beyond shitty of me.”
oh hold on a second
that’s the first time you heard jungkook cuss
you wring your hands as you try to absorb his apology as much as possible without feeling awkward
ok you’re not as good for tHIS type of confrontation
it’s not the first time you’ve been wronged but this is perhaps the first time someone owned up to their wrong and apologize for it face-to-face
,,,,,, and not just because yoongi gave them a piece of his mind
yoongi likes fighting battles for you at times, even if you don’t necessarily ask him to
you appreciate it, but you kNOW he did not get jungkook off the hook so easily!!!!
you honestly thought that with his temper, he would’ve punched jungkook even if it was gonna make you mad
“it’s totally up to you if you don’t want to forgive me, b-but i figured i could die trying, y’know? you can reject me a couple hundred times and i’ll retry a couple thousand.”
jungkook adds and it makes the corner of your mouth raise in the tiniest most miniscule way
he knows that not only does he need to apologize with words, he also nEEDS to make it up to you with his actions!!! that’s why he plans on-
you pause your writing on the form, the act of you doing so making him freeze all the same as you try to carry on with speaking as inaudible as possible
"well you know now. i like you, that was my fault," you offer in response to his apology, coughing when you realize your mistake. "i liked you, i mean."
ok he deserved that
jungkook knows you probably figured out the hyeji situation already through yoongi, cutting his explanations down because you don’t even wanna hear her name
was it the truth? do you really not like jungkook anymore?
....
......
.........
you simmer in the own silence you’ve created, only being broken when jungkook shyly murmurs
"can't you like me some more?"
you snort at what seemed to be his playful suggestion, chuckling to yourself
jungkook was only hALF-kidding and he bows his head in embarrassment over your reaction, the pen in his hand feeling extremely light with how his hand’s trembling
you resume your writing wordlessly, not even daring to look at your right because jungkook’s trying to make himself as small as possible too
the words are just dying to fall out from his mouth, an unhinged trap he could no longer regulate when it comes to you
"you're loveable. extremely loveable."
jungkook says out of nowhere and you falter at writing taehyung’s supposed food allergies, a quiet curiosity to your words
"how would you know that?"
there’s no thought process behind it as he speaks surely this time, only taking the slightest bit of courage to look at you from the corner of his eye
"because it's you."
,,,,,
HOW are you supposed to react to that,,,
the curtains peek open and a grinning taehyung on a wheelchair estatically waves his hand
you and jungkook split from each other even if you haven’t been that close enough immediately, thankful for the welcome interruption
tae outstretches his arms for you to hoist him up the bed and you agree instantly, oblivious to the fact that he’s sticking his tongue out to jungkook who’s giving him a mean glare for his playfulness
his x-rays are all finished and he’s just waiting for the doc to come and interpret them (even if it’s beyond obvious that his ankle’s broken!!!!) so he could get on with wrapping his leg with a cast
jungkook takes this as a chance to rise up from his seat, snatching the opportunities he can within the timeframe
"what do you guys want from the cafeteria?"
tae beams at that, grateful because fINALLY someone’s asked him
"ooh!! i want-"
"what would you like, y/n?"
jungkook continues as he effectively interrupts taehyung who’s squinting and looks beyond offended ay the moment
his motive is buying <3 you <3 dinner!! not mr. ankle-breaker over here
you catch on to what he’s trying to do immediately, rolling your eyes with a hint of amusement when you plop back to your chair
“i'll have what taehyung wants.”
huh....
so he has no choice then but to ask,.,.,
jungkook clears his throat, his lips curved to a smile but his eyes looking the furthest thing from friendly
"what would you like,,,, taehyung?"
the boy pretend to be deep in thought just to waste kook’s time even more, even throwing in the humming to sell the idea
he’s been humming for half a minute now
“pasta. i want pasta. like, the most expensive pasta they have,” he nods at the amazement he has for himself, sneaking a look to a narrow-eyed jungkook
“c’mon, kook. think about y/n. she’s getting what i’m getting!!”
jungkook’s eyes instantly become brighter, realization sweeping over his features as he tries to hurry because you might be hungry at this point
“right, of course!! i’ll even get dessert :D”
well wasn’t tHAT easy hee-hee
hey maybe getting your ankle busted does lead to better things!!!
jungkook’s never been more excited to pay for overpriced pasta in cash (!!!) and carry up multiple paper bags of food and drinks on the stairs because the elevator’s taking too long
he’s only slightly confused when he walks to your spot that taehyung wasn’t there, even kinda being relieved actually
tae was whisked away for the second and final time to have his leg wrapped up, leaving you and jungkook alone once again
“that looks expensive.”
you remark the moment you see the fancy paper bags, bringing your wallet out to atleast take out a few bills that you think would cover the cost for this hospital dinner
jungkook incessantly shakes his head no, instead making you sit in place so he could turn the area to be a cozy dinner place as best as he could
"i mean it. i'm gonna make it up to you, i swear."
he speaks sometime in the middle of your silent meal, waiting for the time that it’d feel more sincere and not a little forced
ya know he didn’t want to make it seem that buying overpriced dinners correspond to him making it up to you!!!!
"i know."
you answer truthfully because you might have saw this coming, knowing in the back of your head that you wouldn’t put put it past jungkook to be sincere
you hear a noise of surprise when you reply, jungkook immediately putting his hand inside the pocket of his hoodie to fish out something
“your eyedrops, by the way. i meant to give it back to you earlier.”
your eyes skim on the dainty-looking handmade origami box on jungkook’s palm, a fond look he could atleast distinguish
you take it from him nonetheless, unaware at the multiple layers you have yet to know inside said box
“i can always buy a new one.”
he shakes his head at that, scrunching his nose as he mindlessly pokes at the chicken
he thinks back to what he put inside that might’ve been the reason why he didn’t just buy you a new stock in the first place
“i like giving back.”
giving back as in returing feelings too or whatever maybe!!!!! just maybe
he waves you off when you thank him for giving it back, his next words becoming a little weighted on your mind
"open it up when you feel like it. it's up to you."
that was that then
okay maybe not
you’re almost finished with your dinner and you know that you’re about to come home anyway, getting a text from tae that he’s done being wrapped up and is just waiting for his reminders now
why not say what you want to anyway??
"thank you for the lunchbox yesterday, by the way."
jungkook’s the one who’s caught off-guard this time, choking on his rice briefly before questioning you wITHOUT looking pathetic
"h-how did you know it was me??"
your hand only skims to the right of him, having to slightly lean against him to get what you need
it’s tae's record that jungkook had to fill up
you’ve just realized it a little while ago when jungkook was downstairs buying from the cafeteria, the distinct way of how he writes his A’s and curves his Y’s being embedded into your mind
:)
"because it's you."
#REDEMPTION ARC BABIEEEE FEEDBACK PLS AND THANK U WHAT DO YOU WANNA SEE NEXT UPDATE#stem koo#jungkook imagine#jungkook oneshot#jungkook oneshots#jungkook au#jungkook drabble#jungkook x reader#jungkook x y/n#jungkook fic#jungkook college au#jungkook fluff#jungkook angst
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Iron Lord Saladin Forge
Season of the Lost dropped some major lore about Saladin and I love every piece of it so I will make a huge post detailing stuff about and what's important.
The lore is on Iron Banner armour which you can see in-game when you go to the armour section. The lore is the same on each class so it doesn't matter which one you read. It's in the order of how armour is set, so helmet -> arm piece -> chest piece -> leg piece -> class item. There's some extras on Iron banner weapons that I'll add as well.
The rest under the cut due to length and also spoilers!
I'll link to the Hunter gear because I'm a dirty Hunter main and I read it from there and that's what I have open because I couldn't remember the names for other two classes, but the lore is the same on all of them. The set is called Iron Forerunner.
We haven't really had any substantial Saladin lore in D2 besides few lore pieces from Chosen and Splicer. Not nearly enough I think, especially since he wasn't properly introduced in D2 at all and it was kinda assumed that everyone would know about him from the Rise of Iron expansion in D1. He had plenty of voice lines, but with no real context. His voice lines in Season of the Chosen were interesting, but also made a lot of people think he's a bad person and a warmongering coward who sat on his butt during the Red War and was then preaching action for action's sake.
The situation is obviously more complex, but I've always said that it's Bungie fault for not explaining more about him prior to his involvement in the Season of the Chosen. Well, now we got some really interesting information at last!
Anyway, helmet first!
Flavour text:
"Some know the legend. We threw ourselves on the blades of tyranny so others may live free." —Lord Saladin
This is referencing the Iron Lords' fight against the Warlords in the Dark Age. Saladin is heavily influenced by his time in the Dark Age. It seems like some really old Guardians never get over the trauma of living through that (Drifter is another example).
Side note: this could also be referencing the battle against SIVA since Rasputin is also known as "The Tyrant." It's not fully relevant tho, as Saladin was equally affected by both periods in his life.
This first entry details something we don't really think about when it comes to Guardians: death. It's a temporary thing with them so it doesn't really matter. But Saladin recounts how he remembers his deaths and how each one felt. Despite the fact that he will be brought back, the pain and struggle of dying are very real. There is also the associated trauma of the realisation that you will go through this over and over and over:
He laughed when his Ghost reassembled him. Then, he cried.
It's not something mentioned often, and definitely wasn't a point raised with Saladin. It gives some context to how seriously he takes combat, training and the lives of his fellow Guardians.
Saladin remembers the day he stopped counting deaths. "Something about you is different," Jolder had said, and put her hand on his.
This explains that his worldview of the role of Lightbearers changed the moment he was invited to become an Iron Lord. It's also important to remember that he loved Lady Jolder very much (in whichever way you want to interpret it) and that watching her make the choice to die a final death has had a heavy impact on him.
Saladin remembers all this and more when he looks at the Crow. He feels rage form a hot pit in his belly when Osiris tells him about the young Lightbearer's suffering at the hands of his fellow Guardians. Osiris asks him if he can keep a secret.
"I don't like secrets," Saladin says, and that's the end of it.
Saladin doesn't really say this during Chosen and his interactions with Crow, but it's evident from this that he cares deeply about the young Light who suffered in ways Saladin only remembers people suffering during the Dark Age. It's also important to note that the Osiris he speaks to here is Savathun. Saladin seems to be uniquely unaffected by Savathun's schemes. This will repeat itself again later.
Second, arms piece.
Flavour text:
"Some know the legend. We were forged in the fires of a burning world." —Lord Saladin
Same thing as before. Referencing the post-Collapse Dark Age. The lore tab details a really tragic story of the Iron Lords burying bodies, including the implication of Saladin burying the body of a child. He recalls that these people were victims of Fallen Raiders.
"It's a vicious circle," Efrideet had said as she tied off a funeral shroud with great care. Saladin remembers the bundle being very small. "One day, I'm going to break it."
Saladin remembers how easily the body fit in his arms, how light it felt as he laid it in the grave. He remembers, with shame, pretending not to hear Efrideet's words so he wouldn't need to respond to them.
He remembers not having anything kind to say.
He obviously regrets not having a stronger stance on this in the past. Where Efrideet seems to have always been keen on ending the cycle of violence, he clearly thought differently and is now ashamed of it. This transitions into more about his relation to Crow:
Saladin remembers all this and more whenever the Crow talks back to him. Sometimes, he bites down on the inside of his cheek. Sometimes, he looks up to find his Ghost focused on him with a knowing look.
He doesn't say anything to his Ghost either.
Because Crow was saying things that reminded him of Efrideet. Breaking the cycles of violence, extending a friendly hand, not treating everyone like an enemy. It's evident that this turmoil is still inside of him as someone who spent most of his time fighting for survival, only to be told by those younger than him that there's a way out of that war. It's a very common struggle of people dealing with trauma and specifically PTSD to not be able to imagine and/or live in a world of peace and to outright reject the possibility of peace ever existing. Saladin is very clearly dealing with that and here, we see it from his own POV: despite sometimes being harsh to Crow, there were times when he chose to say nothing because deep down he knows that Crow is right. Accepting that is a long process though.
Third, chest piece.
Flavour text:
"Some know the legend. We rose from the ashes of a dying world to save humanity from itself." —Lord Saladin
Same again, but this is an interesting way to phrase it. He's talking about humanity being a danger to itself, not about any external threat. Ultimately, the Traveler's gift was the first thing that harmed humanity post-Collapse, despite later being the thing that saved it.
This leads into Saladin's thoughts on the Red War, something we've been sorely missing for a very long time.
Saladin remembers losing his connection to the Light. He remembers thinking that the Traveler must have discovered his most secret doubts; the darkest thoughts he shared with no one—not even his Ghost. He remembers the strange sense of relief that had washed over him until his radio crackled to life just moments later.
His deepest secret? Probably that Light is a burden. When he lost the connection to the Light, he specifically thought it had only happened to him and then felt relief. Freedom from the eternal war he has to keep waging. I'm sure he feels incredible shame for thinking it would be better to just lose the Light and die a final death, but alas, he is bound by duty. Especially a Titan's duty.
He stands there thinking about it for a while before finally deciding to embrace that duty. And now we know what he was doing during the Red War:
"Saladin," his Ghost said again, and Saladin remembers moving. He remembers clutching his radio and rallying survivors—those strong enough to make the journey—to the Iron Temple.
It's been abbreviated as him "sitting out" the Red War because he didn't fight. Of course it was strange that the last remaining active Iron Lord did not show up to the City to fight alongside all the others, both Guardians and ordinary humans. That Lord Saladin, someone who endured so many hardships and fought so many battles since the Dark Age, hasn't come to help humanity in its time of greatest need.
But now this hits different. He didn't fight, yes. He couldn't. Losing the Light wasn't just something that made him scared (like all Lightbearers): it was something that made him scared of how he might actually enjoy dying a glorious final death. To end the trauma and the memories of all the horrors he's been through. So instead of throwing himself into a reckless death, he chose to stay in the Iron Temple and protect survivors.
So yeah, he didn't fight, but he did something equally important. The Iron Temple is an extremely well protected fortress that's very difficult to reach and breach, so any survivor he gathered was perfectly safe there until the Red War ended. Sometimes "sitting out" is more noble than fighting.
Saladin remembers all this and more whenever the Crow challenges him on his cowardice during the Red War. He wants to break the young Guardian's back to teach him a lesson about what it's like to feel helpless, but something stops him.
He remembers hearing stories about the Crow's life on the Shore before he arrived at the Tower, and does not raise a hand against him.
The lore entry ends with telling us that Saladin was clearly very agitated about Crow's teasing. But in the end, he remembered what Crow has been through and realised that Crow already knows what it's like to feel helpless. He did not need a reminder and Saladin decided to take the teasing without a response. It truly frames some of those voice lines in a different light, knowing this background.
Fourth, leg piece!
Flavour text:
"Some know the legend. We crossed a burning world with sword in hand, bringing justice and blood." —Lord Saladin
Once more, we are told that Saladin was mostly forged (eheh) through his experience in the Dark Age.
The lore page details a bittersweet memory Saladin has of him with his fellow Iron Lords and friends enjoying some good time over a meal and song.
He remembers Radegast asking him to sing the song taught to them by the people of the blacksmith's village, but agreeing only when Jolder and Perun promised to join in. Their voices rose like wolves in the night and were so raw by morning that none of them could speak.
This is honestly heartbreaking. Saladin being this happy and free to sing and enjoy himself: compared to how he is now. But even with that, he has retained the need to do it again sometimes, if he ever finds people to be comfortable around.
Saladin remembers all this and more when Zavala tells him Amanda has taken the Crow out to drink in the City's streets. He wonders what song they'll sing, if it's anything like the one he's heard everyone humming lately—even though he hasn't tried it himself.
I love how he projects his past joy onto the two young people and wonders if they'll do the same as he did once. Here we also get another hint about Saladin apparently not being affected by Savathun's viral chant. It might be a point relevant in the future.
Finally, class item!
Flavour text:
"Some know the legend. We crushed the Warlords beneath our heel so that they may never rise again." —Lord Saladin
Nothing new here. Just Saladin recounting how hard they went against the Warlords.
The rest is a very poignant lore page that details the relationship between Saladin and Zavala. Zavala studied under Saladin who was his mentor and it's been repeated often that Saladin has retained a "soft spot" for him.
Saladin remembers the first time he met Zavala. He remembers thinking that the Awoken had regal bearing like the stags he once hunted on the Steppes. His shoulders were broad, and his chin held high. When he moved, he did so with the strength and purposeful deliberation of someone with the power to determine his own place in the world.
"You'll never have a son," his Ghost had said, "but it isn't too late for you to take an apprentice."
I love when non-Awoken describe Awoken, there's always something ethereal about it. But I'm mostly putting this part here because of what Saladin's Ghost says.
First, I am incredibly soft for older Guardians adopting younger ones as kids and teaching them. Easily my favourite dynamic ever. Saladin seeing Zavala as a son makes me cry a thousand tears.
And second, is this finally a full confirmation that Guardians cannot bear children? It's kind of a strange place to put it, but it seems to be the implication. It makes sense they wouldn't be able to, but it's also nice to have some direct lore information about it in case it pops up as a question. I'm sorry if this ruins anyone's fics.
Saladin remembers their sparring matches. He remembers how Zavala always got back on his feet, no matter how many times Saladin put him down. He remembers refusing to offer the younger Lightbearer a hand up. Until the day Zavala finally bested him in combat.
He remembers lying flat on his back, left shoulder dislocated and ribs shattered, a strange pressure on his chest that made it difficult to breathe.
"Finish it," Saladin had commanded because that was the way of things. His Ghost would revive him.
Saying nothing, Zavala hauled him to his feet instead.
I love how this is placed at the end, paralleling the beginning of Saladin remembering his deaths and the pain of dying. But instead of "finishing it," Zavala pulls him back up. It's definitely something Saladin hasn't experienced before, especially not before becoming an Iron Lord, when all of his deaths were just gruesome ends to a struggle. Then seconds after, he'd be back up. He took the revival for granted, until Zavala offered him the alternative. Again, an interesting perspective about something we don't usually think about much. I do wonder how Saladin healed afterwards though.
Saladin remembers all this and more when his former apprentice calls him into his office and tells him about the face behind the Crow's mask. Zavala says he knows that Saladin doesn't like secrets; that it's unfair to ask him to keep one of this magnitude, but there will come a time when the Crow needs someone—the way Zavala needed Saladin.
"You never needed anyone," Saladin insists.
Zavala only smiles.
This page ends with the two bonding again. Despite their differences and disagreements, there's mutual respect between the mentor and the apprentice. The father and the son.
And Saladin thinks Zavala never needed him, but that is obviously not true and Zavala tells him so. He also tells him that Crow, and implied Guardians like him, will need the same guidance.
It gives us a full circle back to Saladin's musings about his purpose as a Guardian and Lightbearer. He may have doubted his place in the world before, but seeing as he's still here with us and actively participating and helping; training us through Iron Banner, helping with the Eliksni, refusing to side against the Vanguard despite the difference in opinion, now serving as Zavala's ambassador for the Cabal and easily bonding with someone he would've considered an enemy not long ago...
I think Saladin knows his place. He's one of the strongest Lightbearers and most principled among them. He is not swayed by lies and deceptions, he does not abide by them and speaks plainly. He has deeply rooted beliefs in justice and he will not compromise himself, even if it means conceding his position to make peace with a former enemy when that enemy proves their worth, honesty and good intentions to him.
He is a Guardian.
He is an Iron Lord.
#destiny 2#lord saladin#lore vibing#long post#more iron lord lore bungie please?#iron temple as a social space?#please?#anyway i love this new lore about him so much#i wish we had it before people formed some crude opinions about him#but hopefully this can retroactively clear certain things up
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Buriko-Senpai! This is such a wonderful blog to read, and I love your art so much! It's so nice to see other traditional artists out there! What's your thoughts on the demon slayer marks and their affects after Muzan's defeat? Do you think they're a purely physical effect, or a supernatural curse like Ubuyashiki's? It seems like in the latter case it would be lifted? In Tanjiro's status report, he mentions wanting everyone to be happy "when he's gone", and hints of preparation for the future...
Thank you for the kind words on my art! (≧◡≦) Glad to know people like the style, I like the feel of trad art both for the final product and how the pen feels in my hand, haha~. I love all the additional possibilities in digital art, but will leave that to the people who are good at it. Glad you find my blog a good read too, because we’ve got another lengthy read ahead.
As for the mark and whether it works in a purely physical sense or a curse sense, I'm ok thinking of it in either way, depending on its purposes in post-canon fanwork (but of course, you can do whatever you want in fanwork totally inventing the mark or completely ignoring it too). As Gotouge never states exactly what becomes of Tanjiro, Giyuu, and Sanemi, I don’t feel we can declare it working one way or another.
We'll consider it from both angles, but in general, I think canon evidence leans toward an avoidable physical impact. Even that, however, leaves room for interpretation on strict "25" might be or not.
If we approach the curse direction first, the worldbuilding surrounding the Ubuyashiki curse gives a lot of framework for the mark being a curse. The second fanbook even gives us more circumstance and age-related perimeters that seem very arbitrary, like how only one male will survive each generation and how the daughters will also die young by sudden illness or accident if they don’t marry out. As the curse is tied to Muzan’s/demons existence, it is completely lifted once Muzan is eradicated, but Kiriya still anticipates dying in his 20’s and does not feel relieved that it’s gone until he’s in his 30’s. This would put Giyuu and Sanemi in their 50’s if they’re still around, and with their own curses effectively gone, they’d probably have spent the past couple decades insisting to Kiriya that he can relax.
If the rebound of the mark is a supernatural curse, there are a couple other things that make sense about this to me, in the light of cosmic justice at play in this universe. First, it’s a general rule in a lot of philosophies and other works of fiction that to gain something powerful, you must pay the price and sacrifice something. Second, the Ubuyashiki family is cursed to carry the sins of one of its members until they can stop that demon member. While Demon Slayers may not necessarily be carrying the sins of demons, we see demon marks at play in this series first, though its effects are not clear until we see how Nezuko is stronger when her vines appear. A Demon Slayer also gaining extra strength like this is, perhaps, taboo.
As for the mark being a purely physical effect, I think the emphasis on physical effects of the mark (especially how in Chapter 129 Muichiro analyzes its effects on body temperature and the heart), and how throughout the manga it is continually stressed that the Demon Slayers are mere humans even if Breath helps them push the natural limits of human ability, lend to a more physical interpretation that in order to push so far past normal limits, it has to borrow against the natural human lifespan. This is how the characters in-universe also interpret its effects.
If we look more into what Muichiro says:
Muichiro: The anger was too strong for me to have any handle on my emotions. I believe that in that moment, my heartrate exceeded 200 beats, and my body felt as hot as though it was burning. My temperature would had measured at least 39 degrees or more.
Shinobu: !? Could you move like that? That would be life-threatening.
Muichiro: Right. That’s why I think it’s a matter of falling into one category or another. Whether you die or survive that moment is what determines whether a mark will appear or not.
Amane: A heartrate of over 200, and why a temperature of 39 degrees?
Muichiro: That’s because when I was received treatment at Kocho-san’s place I was running a fever. When my temperature was taken, the thermometer read 39 degrees. At the time I would have been said to have a mark appear, my body was just as feverish.
(For reference, according to searching with the same terms used in the original text, your top heartrate is 220 minus your age, making Muichiro's 206 beats per minute. The average for someone in their 20's is 120~140, somewhat hard exercise would put it at 150, and hard exercise puts it at 170, according to the Borg scale. Normal body temperature in Celsius is 37 degrees; while 39 C = 102.2 F.)
If we look back at when Tanjiro is first facing off against Daki, he considers how he gets more power out of Hinokami Kagura than from Water Breathing because it suits his body better, but he is not yet physically capable of the switch between them. As he psyches himself out in Chapter 77, we see that he has physically been trying to prepare himself for this, and he’s shouting at himself to set his heart ablaze. Clearly, Tanjiro is leaning into that advice from Rengoku-san, and if he’s on his way to getting the mark, he’s been taking that advice somewhat literally.
In Chapter 78, as he purposely raises his own temperature to fight the side effects of switching to Hinokami Kagura, we get a flashback that Kiyo-chan was very worried that Tanjiro was running a temperature of 38 degrees (100.4 F) for three days, but Tanjiro begged her not to tell Shinobu yet because he felt fine in that sustained feverish state, and was able to put more power into Hinokami Kagura that way. (This may also be part of why the mark seems to have a different effect on Sun Breath users, as their body draws from this power in a more sustained way.)
We can probably think of most of the other Breath Users who attained the mark as having gotten it in a similar way to Muichiro. In a fit of high emotion and desperate battle, their body pulled from its natural reserves, and similar to a human and/or demon being exposed to lots of Muzan’s cells all at once and either dying or quickly adapting, they attained a mark and relied on that temporary extra burst of strength. While it either happens or doesn’t happen for the others (Muichiro plainly states he was unaware of a mark’s appearance) based on being the flow of tense battle, Himejima seemed to have gained enough ability that he could choose when he wanted to tap into that power.
When we’re first left not knowing what else Amane told the Pillars, Himejima openly wonders what would happen in his case (seeing as he is over the age of 25). In the third light novel, we get a brief scene of Himejima pulling Muichiro aside after that meeting to ask if he’s alright with this, since he’s just found out that he has no chance already of living a long life. Muichiro is fine and wonders about Himejima, who is also fine with this. They both are willing to do whatever it takes to fight Upper Moons and know their survival has never been assured. Himejima goes on to say similar things to Kokushibo in Chapters 169 and 170, when we the readers are finally told about the limited life expectancy. The two of them both sort of expect Himejima to drop dead that night because of his limited stores to draw from. Himejima would had preferred to not raise his temperature so much until facing Muzan (seeing as he knows he’ll be racing against time), but knows he has no choice but to start while facing Kokushibo. Kokushibo is somewhat impressed with his control of getting a mark and his preparation to die, and he finds it a waste of Himejima’s ability and likewise is like, “why not preserve your flesh as a demon” because, as we find out in Kokushibo’s flashbacks in Chapter 178, this was part of what motivated him to accept Muzan’s blood. He couldn’t handle the frustration of his polished techniques being wiped out by a short life span, especially since it would mean he was soon out of time to match or best Yoriichi. If we go back to that conversation between Himejima and Kokushibo, Kokushibo loses his cool (hahaha, that feels like a bit of a pun here) the moment Himejima is like, “there was one exception to the rule though, wasn’t there?”
I suspect that Yoriichi was the exception partly due to Sun Breathing being a more perfected, sustained form of pushing the limits of human capability, and Yoriichi being born naturally perfect at it, so his body didn’t need to scramble looking for extras sources of power like hastily (or slowly) borrowing against his lifespan. What’s very interesting about Kokushibo is that he also regularly sustained his mark, so perhaps it’s possible he could had lived past 25?
Here's what really key: We also don’t know about these early marked users.
Did they regularly sustain their marks, or did they only show up regularly when they battled demons, repeatedly borrowing against their future lifespan?
Or was it a one-off thing for each of them, like it was for Giyuu and Sanemi?
It’s possible that even if Giyuu and Sanemi are doomed to shorter lives, since they both only had the marks for relatively short periods of time on a single night, they might well exceed 25 years. The fact that Gotouge gave them descendants (as opposed to only implied reincarnations), and because they are both characters generally written as dense in the ways of love and close personal relationships, that sort of implies they needed some time before leaving behind offspring, and I hear a lot of voices in the fandom displeased with the idea of them leaving children behind when they know they won't be around to raise them. Since we don't know any canon details on this, let's cut the boys some slack and say they took a chance on being happy. After all, all their time in the Corp already teaches them tomorrow is never assured.
Side note while we’re on the Sanemi topic, he attains his mark right after Himejima brings his own forth (because Himejima is a badass who can just be like, “ok, now”). While he comments to Himejima what a good idea it was to do Pillar Training so he could attain that powerful state, it’s also possible that being in the presence of someone who already had one was part of what triggered Sanemi’s body to access that state as well. The nature of the mark’s spread from person to person is another tick in the “supernatural curse” box if people like that interpretation more.
Let’s take a look back at Tanjiro, though.
Tanjiro, our special Hinokami Kagura boy, was already a special case for his own knowledge of Sun Breathing (however imperfect), and his own sustained mark (though as Genya notes in Chapter 134, it tends to transform slowly, and as Tanjiro remarks in response to Shinjuro’s comments in Chapter 81, his mark was not something he was born with like the original Sun Breath user was, it was but a childhood injury which took on a different shape when he was injured at the Final Selection). While Amane cites him as the one who started the trickle of marks appearing again, we know in the Pleasure Quarter arc than Tanjiro was been unknowingly training himself to make the mark appear, like the Pillars later tried to do in training.
Tanjiro also, however, has the very unique experience of undergoing repeated cruel and unusual suffering in battle against Muzan, basically dying, turning into a demon with more of Muzan’s cells than any other demon in history, and turning human again with man-made medicine all in the span of about two hours.
We can’t really compare Tanjiro’s case to Giyuu’s and Sanemi’s very easily. Besides the slightly different nature of his mark (which Muzan says will still kill him anyway if he becomes human again, but whether he says that based on a cosmic rule or historical precident, we don't know), we simply don’t know all the details of how Tanjiro's flesh has been affected by everything that happened to him in that two hour period.
It seems safe to say that becoming a demon is what saved his life since it rebuilt his flesh and supercharged life back into him, but since he wasn’t a demon long enough to have fully integrated those new cells, the entirely reconstructed parts of him (his left arm and right eye) are essentially lifeless. However, there may still be some amount of reclaiming that his body did during his demon minutes, for the whole right side of his face should be paralyzed (yet he can still use it expressively), and there was probably internal damage throughout his entire body and other various injuries (like stabbing himself) which were repaired enough for him to survive.
Had he been a demon longer (long enough that his body with Muzan’s memories likely would had broken down the medicine Kanao gave him), my guess is that he would had fully integrated these body parts, like how Nezuko gets to keep her legs despite all the times they were blown or chopped off.
But we also know that Tanjiro had to take a few months to recover (his visitors looked like they waited the whole three months before getting permission to see him), and that his condition allows him to live and work, but he generally is in a weakened state. Again, rather than only having borrowed (on multiple occasions) against his own lifespan, we don't know the extent of the damage and repair he's undergone.
While he’s got 25 as a historical benchmark to anticipate, and as you mention, he does seem to fully anticipate that early demise, his case is so unique that it could go in any direction. Tanjiro might live longer than 25, as this would give him time to pass on Hinokami Kagura to at least his eldest son, but like Tanjuro, he’d probably have a pretty weak constitution for the rest of his dwindling life.
But also worth noting, the phrase is that they die by at least age 25. That means some of the Warring States era swordsmen probably died before that age. (｡•́︿•̀｡) I don't feel this is likely for Tanjiro, Giyuu, and Sanemi, but it is worth noting as a possibility.
#kny fandom theories and meta#kamado tanjirou#kamado tanjiro#tomioka giyuu#tomioka giyu#shinazugawa sanemi#himejima gyomei#himejima gyoumei#tokitou muichirou#tokito muichiro#tsugikuni yoriichi#kokushibo#kokushibou#kimetsu no yaiba#demon slayer
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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 1
I said a long ways back that I thought the switch from Angel to Spike as Buffy’s primary love interest represented an interesting evolution in the show’s attitude towards—and interrogation of—romanticism, and I finally felt like expanding on what I meant by that. This is very long, very meandering, and not terribly academic or well-edited, but I hope there’s something of interest in it nonetheless. It is about 20,000 words in total, and will discuss, in more or less chronological order, the arc of the show’s attitude towards romanticism as it is embodied in Spike, Angel, Buffy and Buffy’s relationships with both of them. I was going to release it as one long post, but because it’s so long, I figured a series of posts might be more readable. Here’s the first one.
*
“When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons
Both Spike and Angel are at once capital-R Romantic figures, and lower-case romantic interests, and in both cases that Romantic/romantic duality is what makes them such effective avatars for ideas around romanticism. In the case of Angel, the show is aware from the beginning that he is very much a Romantic idea of something. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth” Buffy describes him as “dark” and “gorgeous”, evoking the “tall, dark and handsome” cliche. He’s mysterious. He gives her a necklace and his coat, gestures out of high school romance fiction.* In “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” Giles lampshades the romance of him: “A vampire in love with a Slayer. It’s rather poetic, in a maudlin sort of way.” Initially, Angel is basically designed to be a teenage girl fantasy, and it’s no coincidence that his successors like Edward Cullen or Stefan Salvatore conform to similar tropes.
*(Think of how five seasons later, a vampire will give Dawn his letterman jacket in “All the Way”. It’s hard not to read as a deliberate echo of Angel’s gift in season one. Once again, a vampire makes romantic gestures towards a high school version of “Buffy”, and later turns on her. But more on this much later in the series.)
The difference between Angel and those other, more typical Supernatural Romance love interests however, is that the show ultimately attempts to subvert the romance of him. As part of its commentary on Gothic themes, season two makes Angel more Romantic than ever (the Claddagh, the tormented past), and makes the romance between him and Buffy central to the story in a way it wasn’t in season one. And then, of course, the season tears it all apart. The first time we learn what Angel did to Drusilla it’s horrifying, but still somehow abstract. Something that seems more like it’s meant to contribute to Angel’s dangerous, Byronic image. As in, something to make him more Romantic. And then suddenly it becomes real. Suddenly, it’s something that Angel could do to Buffy, or the people Buffy cares about. It turns out that his darkly romantic aura was not just an aura, but genuinely dark all along.
In turn, Angel’s devastating transformation is a metaphor for broader disillusionment about romantic ideas. It’s less to me about a “guy going bad after sex”, and more about what it means and feels like to have the scales fall from one’s eyes in that sort of situation. As Buffy copes with the fallout of Angel’s transformation, and later is forced to kill him, I see it as being about the tragedy of having to see the world in ways that are less simple, easy, or pretty as one gets older. As Buffy and Giles say in “Lie To Me”:
BUFFY: Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.
GILES: I believe that's called growing up.
For more on this, I recommend this livejournal post on “Lie To Me”, which goes into great depth on the way season two frames stories as pretty lies that one needs to look beneath, and how Buffy’s romanticization of Angel symbolizes that.
The whole arc of the season is Buffy’s failure to see the danger presented by Angel. In this opening scene that danger is foreshadowed. More to the point for this essay, Angel goes on to lie to Buffy about having encountered Drusilla. He doesn’t want Buffy to know about the nature of Angelus – which means that his first inclination is to mask the danger he presents to Buffy. This is one episode after Halloween, where Buffy’s romantic fantasies about what Angel wants (a damsel) nearly get her killed. Nor is she completely over those fantasies, as she notes that the mystery woman talking to Angel had a pretty old-fashioned dress. So against the backdrop of Buffy’s fantasies about her dark and mysterious boyfriend we have the truth about what he is, which is quite horrifying.
Season three then takes this to another level, by not just pointing out the darkness of the romance of Angel, but in fact puncturing his romantic image. Instead of emphasizing his dangerousness, as season two did, season three emphasizes his adulthood. It emphasizes the way that Angel is someone Buffy sees in secret, or away from her friends. He’s not integrated with her teenage, high school life, and doesn’t fit with the peppy, high school movie aesthetic that characterizes a lot of season three. By doing this, the writing indicates that at this point in their lives, Buffy and Angel are ultimately incompatible and holding each other back. Regardless of however much they might care for each other, Angel can’t fully appreciate her teenage longings like dances, and college, and having a boyfriend. And Buffy can’t fully appreciate his adult need to find himself on his own terms. By the end of season three, Angel is less of a shadowy, tragic figure, and more just an adult man who needs to finally grow up a bit.
Season three also starts making jokes where the punchline is that Angel isn’t living up to the romantic aesthetic he embodied in seasons one and two. In “Helpless”, for example, he and Buffy have an exchange where he waxes sincerely about wanting to “keep [her heart] safe, to warm it with [his own]” and although Buffy says the sentiment is beautiful, a second later she deadpans: “Or taken literally, incredibly gross.” To which Angel replies, “I was just thinking that, too.” Or in “Graduation Day, Part 1”, Angel trips on a doorway instead of making a silent entrance and Buffy again deadpans: “Stealthy.” Angel’s romance slips at moments when Buffy herself is feeling weak, either because she has lost her Slayer powers, or she’s investigating the scene of her sister Slayer’s crime. Her Romantic Slayer half is betraying her, and her romantic girlish half is feeling insecure. This is echoed by the reminder that Angel is no longer a straightforward fantasy man--or a terrifying, larger-than-life villain--but a guy who is sometimes both verbally and physically inelegant.
(Notice how one of the few times season two makes similar jokes about Angel it’s in “Lie to Me”, the very same episode that begins to peel off the layers of deceptions and unknowns about him. Angel slumps around Willow’s bedroom and jokes about “honing [his] brooding skills”, he insists that the vampire wannabes know nothing about vampires right before a guy walks by wearing his exact outfit, and Xander runs color commentary, saying “you’re not wrong” after each of Ford’s observations. In “Lie to Me” one of Angel’s hidden faces is his dangerousness, yes. But another hidden face is simply his human awkwardness.)
There’s an interesting Slayage piece by Elizabeth Gilliland that discusses the idea of Angel as a Gothic double for Buffy, specifically connecting him to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. It argues that Angel’s split identities represent Buffy’s fears that her human and Slayer halves are irreconcilable, and she cannot fully control either half. In season three, the fact that Buffy and Angel must continuously resist a loss of control with each other, and are treated as romantically incompatible, reflects this fear.
In Season Three, replete with various factors in Buffy’s life that threaten to put her role as Slayer and girl into imbalance once more [...] Angel once again returns [...]. The season culminates in an attempted attack on Buffy’s classmates during graduation, which essentially forces her to “out” herself to her community and combine her roles as Slayer and daughter, classmate, and friend for the first time publicly (“Graduation Day: Part 2” 3.22). The worst has happened: her secret has been revealed, the entire school knows about both of her personas, and she has not only survived, but emerged with a stronger sense of self [...] Buffy has conquered her first Gothic fear, and proven to herself that she can not only exercise control over both dualities of her persona, but allow them to peacefully co-exist. Thus, Angel’s continuing struggle with Angelus can no longer act as her shadow, and he literally and metaphorically leaves her to continue the rest of her journey.
It’s an interpretation I mostly agree with, and see a lot of evidence for. But in keeping with the focus of this series, I think you could also read Angel as embodying a duality between the romantic and the unromantic. In this view, Buffy’s struggle between her human and her Slayer halves is not just a struggle between personas, but a struggle to see the world correctly. In season one, it’s not Angel that revives Buffy in “Prophecy Girl”, because Angel is a vampire trope just like the Master. He cannot help her, because he is exactly the kind of traditional romantic concept--like a candle-lit cavern, an ancient Nosferatu-looking vampire, or a Chosen Hero duty--that Buffy is trying to escape. In season two, loss of control is specifically associated with passion, romance, and romanticism. Buffy’s human half longs for the romantic, but her Slayer half, and Angel’s vampire half, prove that sometimes the romantic is something dangerous and violent. The fact that Buffy’s Slayer identity and Angel’s Angelus identity both end up being outed by the end of the season (especially to Joyce, a figure of Buffy’s human home life), echoes Buffy’s loss of innocence. Season three then continues this suspicion of passion. Buffy fears that like Faith, enjoying the violence and power and desire of being a Slayer, means that she will go down a dark path. She also fears that indulging in her sexual and romantic desire for Angel will unleash Angelus. To some extent, these fears are even borne out, given that her love for Angel results in her attempted murder of Faith, and near death at Angel’s hands. But to some extent they also aren’t, given that she, Faith and Angel all live.
To me, what really gets resolved at the end of season three is not quite the issue of Buffy’s human and Slayer halves, given that Buffy will continue to struggle with that duality until the end of the show. Rather, what gets resolved is the need for binaries. Binaries are romantic things. When Giles gives his speech to Buffy at the end of “Lie To Me”, it is the language of binaries that he uses:
GILES: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
BUFFY: Liar.
In season three, Buffy thinks she must resist both Faith and Angel. She thinks she can only be either a human girl or a Slayer leader. Many plots in season three have to do with the danger of binaries, whether that’s the witch-hunting parents in “Gingerbread”, Willow dealing with her vampire self in “Doppelgangland”, the various alter-egos in “Beauty and the Beasts”, or Cordy choosing a Buffy-less world in “The Wish”. And no character in the Buffyverse embodies the concept of binaries so starkly as Angel does. Thus by the end of season three, Buffy collapses the binaries within herself by merging the human and Slayer parts of her life, as Gilliland observes, and taking on Faith’s traits. She acknowledges her shadow by kissing her tenderly on the forehead, and bids farewell to the illusions and binaries that Angel embodies. Buffy is leaving that part of her life behind, and starting a new chapter where she can no longer split either the world, or herself, into any one thing or another.
part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id
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[ Memories of the discarded. ]
I’ve been holding onto these but uhhoohogh it’s time for some awkward headcanons again!
Today’s session brought to you by: tentative thoughts centering the Mantis Child.
(In which for me, she was born pre-traitor arc.)
With mutual respect and consent came her^TM, but it was an ultimately loveless cause. Nothing more than a simple bond between two strong(?) mantids. Well. That said, he’s not a bastard and had taken due care of both partner and child when the time came (where the sisters had also doted and loved her).
I will add that while he did betray his tribe at some point for various reasons while still keeping enough of his mind, she had the choice to either stay or go. Feeling it wrong to do otherwise, she had reluctantly left with him and the defectors on her own volition. In part to see it through, and in knowing and being warned that the associations would be... gray, so to speak, if she did stay.
So she couldn’t really be considered part of them anymore after choosing beasts over the village.
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(...and the phrasing is the Traitors’ Child, rather than Traitor’s.)
Thereby, I enjoy implying that the mantises are fairly cool-knit with each other internally — at least up to an extent, or perhaps in some idea that any offspring of a Lord would be considered part of the tribe/everyone’s.
In turn. Though she did not take the infection like the outcasts had (they respected her will, at least — it was more than enough that she came with them anyhow), they treated her just like how they did when they were not traitors: as if she were their own.
And it’s quite the fun thought, really, to imagine her tiredly and quietly watching her kin slowly accept more of this sweetly foul thing and be more aggressive than they normally would be. Though they held familiarity and a degree of kindness in the initial phase of their exile, she still felt an uncomfortable uncertainty she couldn’t place. Where interactions grew a bit more sternly, hinted with resentment at the existing reminder that they all chose to take the infection even when the Daughter held on her own (albeit not without struggle).
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It’s equally fun to imagine that as soon as she died, they started their downhill collapse into the unhinge.
Rather than have her die at her own father’s hands by some whacky rage/misunderstanding, I like to think that at some point they kind of... well, being influenced by the Radiance, I’d like to think that their disdain for anything regarding Hallownest intensified, resulting in them defiling and ransacking the gardens of the Queen since Man She’s Right There (and if not that, then just a hint of a whisper directing them to said area that so happened to be her domain) and their thoughts had grown more swayed.
So she didn’t have to accompany any battle, really, and she especially had some conflict when her own lover admitted her allegiance to Hallownest and here she was trying to keep things under wraps. But she still remembered how fondly she was treated, and so came the feeling of obligation to go.
One thing led to another, and she fell by Dryya’s nail, quickly noticed by the Traitor Lord after she was thrown to the side like she were any other mantid that had clashed with the fiercely loyal protector. And she does remember the brief tell in passing from the other knight, “Che’ found fondest affection for a mantis, different.” Remembered after hearing the roar that halted their fight, where the Lord swung back one of his own kin when they did not seem well enough to heed the order out of both insanity and rage.
The traitor tribe had a screaming headache that they were to kill and continue onwards, but their Lord held on enough to deny them of that. Had managed to get across to the despicable knight following lies that he would — will — bury their beloved Daughter before returning to conclude. It was in no way advantageous to say this and actually follow through in a brief retreat, but he did brush off the hint of appreciation that her corpse wasn’t outright dismembered (somehow).
So right after they could complete said burial in a place they suspected to be most frequented by her (and perhaps another) alongside the surface precaution of thorns, well...ya know. They lost their reminder, their reason; at that point, it was easier to mentally influence the traitor tribe with all the nonsense that came along with the infection. Hallucinations, loudening suggestions, muddled thoughts, the works.
They are led to believe at this point there was no going back and that their tribe would certainly not take them back, so they gave in entirely and lost rationality where not even the Lord himself could remember where the grave they made was at some point (aside from a memory that it’s within these very gardens).
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(Miscellaneous | Mantis Lords)
I’d like to also think that the sisters had kept some sort of tabs on the traitor tribe, though they did not directly see to them. A group of scouts here, a hunt to check there; they at least had a vague understanding of where the mantid and beasts had taken territory to.
Concerning the grave, I would like to assume that they do know, but as for how they know... I’d want to say either by word or by an unfortunately-timed and poor impression of meeting Ze’mer, stuck in mourning. It isn’t as if all of the Lords could go and see it, so it’d be a rather one-by-one basis just to acknowledge the fact, if at all.
Also I double-like to think that they could demolish the fourth throne entirely if they so wanted to, but they kept it to serve as a reminder of failure/what could come to their tribe (and in an unspoken yet vain hope). Fun memories/regrets for the whole kin! :D
or something. um
okay listen I already said my interpretations might be a bit too indulgent on the family-loving side, but I hope that makes sense enough? haha ooohg...
I just want a bit of happiness here and there before it turns outright Bad. I figure the dude’s got good intent and lots of thought behind his decision(?) in being infected rather than the straight up “you know what’s sexy? strength. alright. i think i’m going to go batshit now.” and while I love, I would also spontaneously combust at the thought of him killing his daughter (at least for my interpretations), especially if it’s over just somethin’ small like “you love a NOT-A-MANTIS?!” due to that one outsider-honor dream dialogue from a mantis warrior makin’ me wonder otherwise.
(for that my thoughts is more Ze’mer: the Hallowed-of-nest Knight? -> Radiance as Infectious Influence: “Oh. That bug sucks. You hate Hallownest? That bug’s going to totally leave your daughter to rot.”)
I can explain about this stuff more but maybe... maybe I leave that for another post before I babble on hsdflkhj
#;;lastborn#;;daughter#;;firstborn#[ errr. at least in art. hm. though not necessarily ]#;;art#;;a heart forged into nail#|| 2021#\\#[ if I had the time I'd rather just write a weird one-shot but oh well here's this spill ]#[ I have considered alternatives but bah ]
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I'm just thinking about what you've said in the past about Zuko's morals in The Southern Raiders and what bugs me the most is that Zuko could have easily been Yon Rha. Yon Rha's big sin, as far as Zuko knows when he makes his proposal (before Katara tells him the whole story), was raiding the Southern Water Tribe in a manner which lead to someone's death, and Zuko raided both Kyoshi Island and the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko would be an acceptable target for vengeance under his own standards.
:'D very fair point of view, Anon. I've always focused on another angle with this particular problem, namely the fact that Zuko's traumatic Agni Kai happens because he was trying to defend soldiers from being used as bait, slain in battle as though their lives were meaningless... and then he's offering Katara his assistance with killing a soldier if that's the only way to become her friend. There's such a profound incompatibility between both ideas, such a massive rift in reasoning, that I can't help but wonder if Ozai, intentionally or not, actually taught Zuko through their Agni Kai that the lives of their people aren't worth anything after all.
In general, that episode's plot is just... very questionable. I understand these kids are jaded, they've seen pleeenty of ugly stuff and even done some ugly stuff themselves, but the core of the problem with Zuko, back in the day, was that his violent pursuit of the Avatar caused lots of trouble and nobody liked him because he was being a selfish ass who wanted to fulfill the Fire Lord's orders at all costs :'D so... as blind as Katara may be over anything to do with Kya, it baffles me that neither Sokka nor Aang would step up to tell Zuko that this sort of ridiculous reasoning, impulsive behavior and willingness to resort to violence is EXACTLY what made him an asshole during the months he chased them, and that changing sides without changing those violent impulses doesn't amount to jackshit. I'd honestly prefer it if Katara were the one to tell him as much, because then she'd have the bonus of telling Zuko: "That's funny, because this sort of BS is precisely why I can't trust you!" and Zuko would be at an even bigger loss than before :'D but of course, when emotions are involved, Katara loses sight of reality and common sense, it's true...
Looking at it the way you do, just imagine if Yon Rha had told Katara "Oh. Sorry. Nice to see you again!" the way Zuko does with Suki :'D I'm pretty sure she would've actually killed the guy without even hesitating.
It's not to say that Zuko has objectively murdered anyone with the particular cruelty Yon Rha killed Kya: as far as we know, he didn't. We do know, however, that he's imprisoned people in nightmarish conditions (something even his sister cannot be said to have done), as he does in LOK, conditions bad enough that one of those prisoners (who, arguably, wasn't in the worst of conditions) said he'd rather die than return to that imprisonment. So, however "deserved" the Red Lotus's imprisonment might have been, dehydrating a waterbender and freezing a firebender for well over a decade sounds like one hell of an act of cruelty, which says he's perfectly capable of cruelty, all the same as Yon Rha was, and Zuko can't even say he's following someone's orders: he's the one who chooses to do this, plain and simple. So cruelty is NOT beyond Zuko. He can be harsh and nasty whenever it suits him. Despite what he'd have the audience believe, he isn't truly the poster child of peace and kindness :')
As you've said, Zuko caused lots of damage with his careless actions back in Book 1, actions that could have certainly cost lives if this show had been written to be grittier and darker than it was.
As a careless, casual example, here's the typical, boring old trope of "there's a kid in danger and the hero swoops in to save them!" (and there's poor Sokka on the background too ;_;). That ship just comes into shore, breaks all the ice it cares to, and it could have cost at least the two lives of those in the scene here (and who knows how many more that we aren't seeing). Is this not the same as attacking someone deliberately, with killer intent? Sure, it's not, but the ultimate outcome would be the same: someone's died, and it's your fault. And if you're a good person, you would feel bad about it. In fact, you might not even be able to think of yourself as a good person if anyone's death can be pinned on you.
Again, we don't know for sure that his actions cost any lives, but that they could have speaks for itself. That he was once part of the Fire Nation killer machine, that he was a tool to his father (even if not one he particularly cared for), should have made him all the more willing to understand that soldiers are as brainwashed as he was. No, this isn't to defend Yon Rha by any means, he was indeed a piece of shit... but Zuko doesn't even wait to meet him to confirm this. He's ready to help Katara kill a guy who, for all he knows, could have spent his whole life repenting for his actions (yes, we know that's not the case, but if the show had wanted to give us more nuance in the Fire Nation army, it could have been). Zuko doesn't even hesitate, and he even eggs on Katara until she finally decides she's not going to do it -- then he proceeds to badger Aang non-stop about how he MUST kill Ozai, funny how that goes. Which allows the interpretation that Zuko didn't learn anything at all from the Southern Raiders adventure.
In the end, if Zuko's actions cost any lives whatsoever (like, I don't know, maybe lives of the people whose food he stole in the Earth Kingdom (: what, me still being salty about this in the year of 2021? Noooo waaaaay...), you're quite right to say that it'd be fine, as far as his own philosophies are concerned, for Zuko to be executed by the injured party. It'd only be fair, right? Yet I guess that's the beauty of Zuko being Zuko: fairness isn't part of it. Justice? I don't think he's actually familiar with the concept. His sister made lots of mistakes, same as he did, but has he attempted to help her find her way, same as he was helped? Has he given her another chance? The answer is nope. Chit Sang is a convicted murderer who claims he didn't do the crime he was put in jail for: Zuko doesn't even bother asking any questions about who he is, or trying to get to the bottom of this problem. He's fine with getting the guy out of prison without first confirming whether his story checks out or not. Even back in The Blue Spirit, when he was "under" Ozai's thumb, and Ozai's priorities should have been his own, he decides that it's more important for him to capture Aang himself, and somehow the show spins that situation into "hey, Zuko's not that bad :>" when... everyone knows he's not setting him free out of any selflessness on his part, in fact, it's the entire opposite.
So yeah, more sketchy Zuko things that remain unresolved, unaddressed and go ignored all the time. Again, things that don't make much sense with the character he's supposed to be. And as usual, it's stuff we're supposed to shrug off or make a thousand excuses for in order to always find a way to see Zuko as a perfectly good person, when, as I've said before, being good takes efforts Zuko often didn't bother making, not before his "change of heart", not afterwards either.
#anon#welp I guess my Zuko posts have been doin' the rounds#:'D#and no they never are about the things I like about him#... which...#... do I like anything about him?#O_O#well that answers that LOL
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The way Dazai protects Atsushi
When we imagine someone who is protective, mostly it is a person who bursts into a fit of rage or someone who heroically and willingly throws away their own life if it means to protect others. A good example for this would be Kunikida’s actions on several occasions. Dazai is less a person to obviously show rage or to heroically throw himself in front of someone.
Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care at all, it’s quite the contrary. And it’s sometimes very subtle and tricky, because he always has plans within plans and tries to achieve several goals with a single plan.
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I will only focus here on Dazai’s actions that solely have to do with Atsushi. I’m not going to bring up every single hidden agenda or goal Dazai is also trying to achieve.
In addition, this post has been tagged as #Dazatsu just to be safe. But of course it can be read from a platonic POV.
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Beware: Spoilers starting from chapter 83 and for 55 Minutes!
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How Dazai gets Atsushi into the ADA
Dazai practically tricked and then it may seem like he pressured Atsushi into joining the ADA, even after Atsushi already said that he doesn’t want to join:
The reason for Atsushi’s refusal was not that he didn’t want to join, because he just simply didn’t want to join. But because he lacks the self-confidence in taking a task like this. He doesn’t believe in himself and his abilities and thinks he isn’t fit for the job. This lack of self-confidence together with the fact that Atsushi constantly gets pushed by either people around him or his circumstances to keep relying on himself rather than others runs like a red string through his story.
Dazai on the other hand sees a great potential in Atsushi. In the moment where Atsushi saved him from drowning, he already planned to team him up with Akutagawa. Not only because of their abilities and their compatibility in battle. But because Atsushi would be the person to “teach Akutagawa how to put that sword away”. In other words: to value life. Which is something that Dazai wasn’t able to teach Akutagawa (I covered this in another meta and won’t explain it here any further).
Another reason is that the things Dazai states above are simply the truth: If Atsushi doesn’t join, then there is nothing the ADA can do to help him (or it would be much harder and complicated for them). He needs to do everything a normal adult in society has to do, which is harder for Atsushi than other people, since he has been abruptly kicked out of his orphanage without any further help or assistance. Not to mention that he is perceived as a monster and not in control of his own ability, and therefore a wanted criminal and dangerous ability user. This could lead Atsushi in either getting killed or falling into the hands of other shady organizations who have far worse intentions for him. Saying the above is less Dazai trying to manipulate Atsushi and more him just telling what would happen and to be realistic.
Having Atsushi join the ADA for Dazai does not only help Atsushi to live a safer life and make it easier for Dazai to keep an eye out for him, but also to give Atsushi the chance to safe other people in the progress.
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The Entrance Exam
Since Atsushi refused there was no way for Dazai to have him join the ADA the easy way and then only later testing if he really was worthy of being a true member. Just like it has been the case with Dazai’s entrance exam (Dazai freely joined the ADA after being recommended and was perceived as a new member immediately. Only during his first case with Kunikida was he secretly being tested of being worthy, which he succeeded). Therefore, a plan under a pretext was needed in order to test Atsushi and convince him to join.
During the ADA’s meeting for planning Atsushi’s entrance exam (which is told in the first part of the ‘Untold Story of the ADA’ novel) Dazai anticipated that Atsushi would either convince the bomber (played by Tanizaki) or somehow defuse the bomb himself. Neither of his predictions happened, instead Atsushi was willing to sacrifice himself so that he could protect others. This selfless action honestly surprised Dazai, which not many people are able to achieve, because he always predicts their actions:
Since it’s been hinted by Dazai that he already lost other people close to him in his life, even before Ango’s betrayal and Odasaku’s death, Atsushi’s action probably could’ve served as a trigger for him. He had to realize that there is a possibility that Atsushi would sacrifice himself to protect others. Especially since he doesn’t deem his own life as worthy and has been told many times to be useless and to “just die in a ditch somewhere.”
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“Stalking” Higuchi
Dazai immediately recognized Higuchi to be a PM member and that she’s contacting the ADA under disguise for ulterior motives. The scene with Higuchi is a good example that Dazai does many things which either annoys other people (flirting with her) or are seen as him just being lazy and/or fooling around (listening to music and singing), while in reality he is already following a hidden plan.
Flirting with Higuchi distracts her and everyone else from Dazai slipping a wiretap in her jacket. It helps him to let everyone just act naturally without the possibility of revealing anything by accident. Furthermore, it makes people underestimate Dazai, because for everyone else he was just fooling around.
Due to the reason that the PM contacted the ADA under disguise as soon as Atsushi was their new member could have been already suspicious for Dazai, suspecting that it has something to do with Atsushi and was not just a regular attack on the ADA. Later on, this gets confirmed when it’s been stated that The Guild set a bounty on Atsushi for some reason.
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Is Dazai following Atsushi around?
When Atsushi accompanies Ranpo on his murder case Dazai surprisingly shows up:
This meeting could be just a coincidence, of course. After all it’s just Dazai fooling around again (or in this case, trying to commit suicide again). But since the case with Higuchi has shown that Dazai loves to pretend to do something else, when he in reality is following a hidden agenda, it might be that he showed up there on purpose. Maybe just to see how Atsushi was faring and to eventually intervene if something serious would happen (like he did when Atsushi and Akutagawa were fighting for the first time). Especially with the PM on Atsushi’s tail now.
In chapter 84 it has been revealed that Dazai indeed does have an eye on Atsushi. When he can’t do that himself anymore, he makes sure to ask Akutagawa to keep an eye on him instead:
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Going far for Atsushi’s sake
After getting to know about the bounty, Dazai lets himself get captured by the PM on purpose, without informing any other ADA members, and stays inside the prison until seemingly a right time draws near. He is willing to do this, even though he knows full well that he is perceived as a traitor and that certain people will not welcome him with open arms.
When Chuuya mentions that he suspects that Dazai must be here for a certain reason, Dazai then states that he does all of this mostly for Atsushi. He even goes so far as to provoke a second punch in the face from Akutagawa, by belittling him in saying that Atsushi is a better subordinate than him, after Akutagawa threatens to kill Atsushi.
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Probably the most visible scene where Dazai openly shows anger and shock towards someone hurting Atsushi (or hurting someone he cares about in general) is during the incident with Q:
He doesn’t act like this again the second time when Atsushi brings him the doll to nullify Q’s ability, even though the whole city is in chaos. He’s also less concerned about Naomi and Haruno in that moment and more focused on Atsushi during this. Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care at all for others, knowing that Naomi and Haruno are able to handle their situation (which is confirmed by them later). But it also shows that Atsushi is his main priority.
Throughout the story Atsushi slowly notices this himself. At first he is hesitant to believe that he is Dazai’s “most trusted subordinate” and worries that Dazai might be mad with him should he go overboard with something (e.g. during 55 Minutes when he was able to surprise Dazai who was hiding in the trash can).
He only ever claims to have Dazai’s trust, if it means to provoke Akutagawa (which he does for a different reason, but I’m not going to expand on this here). Later, he even wonders how Dazai would react/look if Akutagawa came back with the news of him having died:
Which means that Atsushi’s former mentality of people not caring should he die gets replaced by having someone actually be mad/sad about this.
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Hiding his “dark side”
It may not be that visible in the anime, since some scenes are either left out or interpreted for the sake of jokes. But the manga makes it clear that Dazai struggles with guilt because of his own past (e.g. when Atsushi asks the other ADA members what they’ve done before joining the ADA, aside from everyone else Dazai looks away. This suggests that this question and the closely related memories of it are uncomfortable for him. Another example is his reaction when he asks Kyouka how many people she has killed).
Dazai is well aware that he can’t hide his past from Atsushi forever and that he sooner or later will find out. This is then almost immediately revealed to him by Akutagawa.
However Dazai still tries to hide his “dark side” from Atsushi. Apparently, he doesn’t want him to see that he’s capable of being cruel or that Atsushi may become too aware of anything that could reveal more of Dazai’s past and the things he has done. During certain situations Dazai purposefully doesn’t let Atsushi go or stay with him:
1.) When he pushed Atsushi out of the room to “interrogate” Kouyou:
2.) When he pretended to need to use the bathroom, because he knew they were being followed:
3.) When he meets Ango:
(Even Kouyou comments on how Dazai lets Atsushi out of certain business.)
The reasons for this may be that he’s afraid to reveal this “dark side” of him to Atsushi and that he doesn’t want to drag him into the business of the underworld. It could also be that he’s afraid that Atsushi might see him in a different light and that he’ll turn deprecating towards him. As of now Atsushi doesn’t know the full extent of Dazai’s past and actions. But due the fact that he’s aware that Dazai was a former PM member (an executive even), he must also be aware that some answers will be frightening. Furthermore, he must also already have some ideas about Dazai’s past.
Throughout the story Atsushi has been shown to be sympathetic with different characters, trying to understand their actions or the reason that drives them. Even when these characters fought against or tried to kill him in the past (Kyouka, Lucy, Akutagawa, Fitzgerald, Sigma). Therefore, I doubt that Atsushi will see Dazai in a different/negative light, should his past be fully revealed. But this is something Dazai may not anticipate, since he doesn’t see himself as a good person and as someone worthy of redemption.
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Dazai believes in Atsushi
Dazai has an overwhelming believe in Atsushi and his abilities. He reassures and compliments him from the very beginning:
“Nice, Atsushi. You’re like a real detective already! It’s such a joy to see you grow up so fast!” [After being send back in time] “Ha-ha-ha! I never thought you’d be able to scare me like that! You’ve grown Atsushi!” – 55 Minutes
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“Oooh!” Dazai squealed in excitement. “Look at you, Atsushi! Impressive!” – 55 Minutes
Contrary to Atsushi, who struggles to acknowledge his own self-worth and has little to no faith in his own abilities.
This is the reason why Dazai sometimes pushes Atsushi (not only literally but also figuratively) to do things on his own, whenever he realizes that Atsushi is hesitating. He’s throwing him in at the deep, in order for Atsushi to learn more self-confidence:
He sends him on several missions alone (e.g. sneaking into the Moby Dick) or with other people (e.g. Akutagawa), because he knows that Atsushi is able to do this, even without him:
“[…] It’s up to you to prove the detective agency’s innocence and set us free. You can do it, right?” Atsushi knew – Dazai only asked people if they could do it when he was certain they could. – 55 Minutes
Atsushi’s actions get firmly planned into Dazai’s predictions, knowing that he will choose the right decision:
This great believe in Atsushi gets also noticed by other people (e.g. Mark Twain and Akutagawa):
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In return
Dazai’s positive influence on Atsushi also has a positive effect on his psyche: The headmaster’s voice and image inside his mind – the person who always drags him down, tells him to be useless and that he will “not make it” – slowly gets replaced by Dazai’s voice and image – the person who cheers him up and tells him to believe in himself:
It’s no doubt that Dazai was the person who helped Atsushi to live a better life and he is perceived as “the man who saved me” by Atsushi himself. For this reason and his self-confidence Atsushi admires Dazai and is grateful to him.
But on the other hand, Atsushi was also willing to save Dazai despite his dire situation. Not only does Atsushi put Dazai on a pedestal, it is also Dazai who puts Atsushi on a pedestal and who sees him as the person able to help, protect and maybe even change others.
#Dazatsu#Dazushi#Osamu Dazai#Atsushi Nakajima#osamu dazai bsd#atsushi nakajima bsd#Bungou Stray Dogs#BSD#Dazai x Atsushi#my metas#bsd meta
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