#one sec they are war soldiers
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#86#eighty six#86edit#spearhead squadron#kurena kukumila#myna yatomika#kaie taniya#lecca lin#anju emma#myedit#mygif#this scene really left an impression on me#one sec they are giggling teen girls#one sec they are war soldiers
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Lollipops
Post-War: Levi Ackerman x Reader
wc: 4.3k
warnings: SPOILERS. im so serious guys. SPOILERS. if you havent watched/read to the FINALE, do not progress. you've been warned. also theres a little tiny bit of gore.
a/n: this is self-defense writing to protect my sanity after the last ep. im so not okay with it being over. also requests are open, i'll write anything! also, this is written in flashbacks. but never fear, the flashbacks are separated from the present by dividers, so you'll know when it switches.
“You two are like a fairytale couple,” a young girl giggles, hugging a pink-covered book to her chest. “Like a damsel and her prince.”
You smile, pulling a lollipop out of your box — and then another, handing them to her. “Take two for sweet-talking me. But remember that true love isn’t perfect by any means.”
She grins, nods, and takes her candy, sprinting off into an old woman’s arms. You sigh softly, looking up to see that the line of children coming to receive candy from Paridian heroes is momentarily empty.
“Not perfect, huh?” Levi asks from beside you, shifting in his chair.
You roll your eyes, gently flicking the side of his head. You crouch down to be on his level. “You’re saying that we had a fairytale romance? That you swept me off my feet and carried me away from danger?”
“Yes. I would. Now get your ass up, I don’t need you to get down for me,” he scowls, his eyes flicking over your kneeling form.
“I would get down on my knees for you anyti—”
“Up.”
You grin, but listen to him and stand up, picking up your box once more. “Fairytale, huh? So what are you, the savior?”
“I’d say it’s even. Although, I remember saving your ass much more often than you saved mine.”
You scoff, putting your hands on your hips. “Name a time!”
“Get your ass up, scout!”
You groan, shoving yourself up onto your elbows. “Just a sec,” you manage between heavy breaths, coughing and coughing.
Hoofbeats approach and you whimper, knowing that if that’s the captain you think it is, you’re about to get the beating of a lifetime.
“Why, exactly, are you laying in the dust?” Captain Levi Ackerman asks, tone cold and voice sharp as a knife. “You’re a transfer, not a cadet. From the MP’s, even. I expected better.”
“I’m recovering from an injury, Captain,” you wheeze out, pressing a hand to your side and shoving yourself up onto your knees. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“You’d better be. Now, up. On your feet, or be left behind.”
You pull one foot under you, then the other, and nearly collapse. His arm shoots out to grab your bicep, effectively keeping you up as your side screams in protest, ribs aching and tears springing to your eyes.
“What kind of an injury?” he asks, his grip tightening. “Why on earth would you switch to the Survey Corps while injured?”
“Ribs,” you hiss, gripping your side. The doctors have said that nearly all your ribs on your right side are either bruised, fractured, or completely broken. “And I had no choice. I had to leave.”
He narrows his eyes, but slowly releases you, making sure you’re not going to fall over the second he lets go. “You’re in no condition to be training, and I don’t need you getting worse. I have no interest in crippled soldiers. Go inside and get yourself assigned to kitchen duty for the next two weeks, on Ackerman’s orders.”
Your eyes slowly shift up from the ground to him, and you get your first good look at him.
And holy shit, the rumors of Humanity’s Strongest did not mention how mouth-wateringly attractive he is.
You give the dumbest nod you’ve ever given and turn on your heel. You hobble your way inside, and then immediately lean against a cold, stone wall, repeating to yourself in your head over and over again:
We are not falling for a captain.
We are not falling for a captain.
You open and close your mouth, then shrug. “Okay, but of course you were going to save my ass a lot while I was training. I’m sure it got better once I was a captain.”
“Did it, though?”
You elbow him, scowling. A smirk dances on his lips.
A woman grinning ear-to-ear starts your way, and you narrow your eyes. “She’s too old for candy.”
“Reporter,” Levi grumbles, looking down into his box, as if not making eye contact will stop her from approaching.
“Hi!” She shouts, giving a big wave. “I was hoping to ask you two a quick few questions, while you’re not too busy.”
“We’re quite busy,” Levi drones.
“Ah! I had heard about that grumpy attitude!” The reporter laughs, then looks at you. “And you must be his sunshine!”
You scratch the back of your neck, shrugging. “Something like that.”
The reporter whips out a pen and paper. “Now, all sources say that tog two have been married for quite some time, but nothing ever tells me when you two met, or how! Do tell.”
“We met in the service,” you start, rubbing your chin. “I had just transferred to the military police, so I was starting fresh in the Survey Corps.”
She quirks a brow. “Why did you transfer?”
The air simply won’t come to your lungs. You can’t breathe. The night sky doesn’t help, the fresh cool air is only suffocating you more.
You drop to the grass in the courtyard, one hand on your healing side and the other around your throat. Tears pour down your face, and you cough, and cough, and cough, and gasp.
It was just a nightmare, you tell yourself, but it doesn’t help. You can still remember what really happened, his hand around your neck, boot in your side, the bruises along each ridge of your spine from being tossed into a wall.
Your ribs may have been almost fully healed now, after two months being a Scout, but you still can feel each kick he gave you just for telling him no.
“Breathe.”
You sputter, looking up to see Captain Levi kneeling in front of you. He grips your jaw, tilting your head up to look at him.
“Breathe, come on. Take a deep breath.”
You try, you really do, but you only end up sobbing harder. Your hands clench the grass.
He sighs heavily, scooting over to your side and awkwardly patting your back. “Breathe.”
You manage to slow your breathing, and take a few good deep breaths. Then you immediately stumble to your feet. “…Sorry. I’ll head back now.”
His hand is around your wrist before you can even register that he’s gotten up. “Why are you out here so late, crying in the damn courtyard?”
“It’s nothing. Just a bad dream, you murmur, tugging your hand away from him and heading back inside.
You feel assessing eyes on your back as you walk, and you can’t help but look down at your hand, that hand that you wore a ring on for a year and a half.
You’ve fallen silent, chewing your lip and looking off to the side. The reporter tilts her head, raising a brow.
“She just needed a fresh start,” Levi answers for you, placing a hand on your hip for reassurance. “And that’s what she got.”
She accepts that answer, writing down the words. “Now, how did you two end up together? Was it live at first sight?”
Levi scoffs. “Far from it.”
You glare at him. “Well, I liked you.”
“No, you hated me. You just wanted to fuck.”
“Thank you, Hange,” you grin, folding up the card again and tucking it back into the envelope, which reads ‘Congrats, new Captain!’. “I really appreciate it.”
A year in the Survey Corps flew by fast, and you had shown immense skill in the craft, therefore earning the title of Captain of your very own squad.
But your skills weren’t the only thing that had developed. You and Levi tolerated each other now, even if he thought you were loud and chaotic and you thought he was grumpy and sad, like a lonely old man.
And yet, you were drawn to him. He was handsome, and every once in a while you’d say something that would make his mouth tilt up, and… that mouth. It would be the death of you.
Hange heads out, leaving you alone in your room for the first time in hours. Everybody had been in and out, offering congratulations and words of advice.
You sink back onto your bed, yawning. It’s been a long day, and now you just want to sleep—
But a knocking comes on your door, and in walks Levi.
“I could have been naked,” you grin as he strides over, dumping a pile of paperwork on your desk.
“Captains have more paperwork than everybody else. I’ve been assigned to show you how to fill it out.”
“I bet you were hoping I was naked” you tease, but get up anyway, running a hand down your face as you stand next to him.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’re boring.”
“Boring? Really?”
“Yeah.”
There is a short silence, with Levi sorting through the papers. And suddenly, you are very aware of the fact that you are in your bedroom, alone, with Levi Ackerman.
And apparently he’s aware of it too, because he gives you a look.
And then you jump on him.
The reporter laughs and scratches a few things down on her pad of paper, her eyes crinkling around the edges. “And what year was this?”
“We met in 846, and then started seeing each other romantically in 847,” you explain. You open a lollipop and stick it in your mouth.
The reporter only stares at you, a brow lifted and eyes narrowed.
“Eleven years ago,” Levi says, and then she nods and writes it down.
“What—”
“Different years,” Levi murmurs, shaking his head. “They’re in the damn 1900’s, remember.”
You flush, blood rushing to your ears and cheeks. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with the rest of the world, you always forget that years are different and you can take a plane somewhere and getting a papercut doesn’t mean you might die of sepsis.
For you, it’s still 858.
“Did you two personally know Eren Jaeger?”
You crouch by the bars, tilting your head as you examine him. Just a child. Skinny. He couldn’t hurt a fly.
“This is the titan child?” You ask, squinting. “He’s, what, fifteen?”
“Yes. Please step back,” Levi says. “You don’t need to be that close.”
“He’s like a fleck of dirt in a crop field. I need to be this close to see him. Are you sure he really—“
The chains on his arms rattle, and you skitter back, slamming into the wall beside Levi.
“Careful,” he scowls, brushing dirt off of your shoulder.
“What… happened?” The boy asks, rubbing his eyes.
Erwin launches into a full explanation, and by the time he’s done the boy looks completely lost.
“You’re… the commander of the Survey Corps,” he looks at Erwin, “…And Captain Levi, and Captain {Y/N}… where am I?”
“A dungeon—”
Erwin keeps speaking, but a thump near the staircase catches your attention. You stride off, past the MP guards, and peek around the corner.
There, struggling against a guard, is the young girl that you’ve been told is Mikasa.
You scowl, shutting the door behind yourself and storming up to her.
“Calm down,” you whisper, taking both her wrists in one hand and pushing her up against a wall. “Do you realize what you’re risking here?”
“You don’t understand, I need to see him—”
“Shut up. You’re risking his freedom by coming this close. Go back upstairs.”
She glares at you, damn near baring her teeth. But you hold firm, and she slowly nods.
“Good, now go.”
You release her, and with one final glance over her shoulder, she trudges up the stairs.
You run a hand through your hair, thinking to yourself: these new scouts are going to be an issue, aren’t they?
“Yes,” you say, nodding. “We knew all of the kids.”
“All of them?” she asks, furiously scratching down your words.
“We were both captains when Eren’s year entered the corps — we trained them. Of course we knew them all.”
“On my squad,” you read off of your paper, speaking to the large crowd in front of you — all the scouts that will be on the next expedition. “…I am pulling in an extra scout. Mikasa Ackerman will join me in the center ranks.”
Whispers run through the crowd, and you step off of the stage, taking your spot next to Levi in the captains line. Erwin picks up a speech, talking about the squad formations.
A tap on your shoulder makes you turn, and your eyes widen as you’re met with your favorite chaos trio: Jean, Sasha, and Connie.
“Get into your formation,” you hiss.
“But, here’s the thing,” Jean whispers. “I’ve been really great during training. What do I have to do to get on your squad?”
“Jean!” you narrow your eyes. “You are not getting on my squad.”
“I would bring you food every day,” Sasha pleads, putting her hands out in a prayer position. “Please! We’d be the best squad ever.”
You actually pause to consider that for the food, but Levi stomps on your foot. “Ow— Uhm, no. Now return to formation or I’ll bump you down a squad.”
They skitter off, moving through the crowd. You just hope that they’ll go to the right place this time.
You sigh, facing forward again. You’ve already heard everything that Erwin has to say, so this is all repeat to you.
You brush your hand against Levi’s, and his pinky touches yours. You lock them together, resisting the urge to just lean into his warmth.
Pinkies locked, you wait out the rest of the assembly.
“Would you say you were close with any of them?”
Levi shrugs. “They respected me. They loved her.”
“Oh, they loved you too,” you grin, patting his shoulder. “Loved you enough for Historia to smack you the second she was legally allowed to.”
“Have there been any hardships?” The reporter cuts in.
You pause. Levi pauses.
“Of course,” he murmurs, voice softer now. He brushes his fingertips against your thigh.
As soon as you make it in through the gate, Levi is at your side, pulling his horse up next to yours.
“Let me look,” he murmurs, beckoning with his hand.
You shake your head, cradling your messily bandaged hand to your chest. “No.”
“{Y/N}. Let me look,” his voice is more stern now.
You know the damage. You found a cloaked figure up high in the trees, you went for the attack, and they were faster than you. It was a clean cut. Your index and middle fingers are gone, as well as a chunk of your thumb.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I can’t take it off ‘till I reach the medics,” you whisper back, turning away from him. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
But he doesn’t leave. He stays by your side, silently. He rides with you all the way to the scout headquarters, silently. He walks with you to the medics, without a single word.
The medics take one look at you, and, having heard that you were coming in, usher you into a private room.
There are three medics with you, which means they consider your injury a serious one.
The lead medic closes the door, and then turns to you with a pitiful smile. “Let’s take a look, alright captain?”
You cradle your hand closer to your chest. You feel like a child, not wanting to accept what’s happened. But it’s… your hand… this is forever.
Levi gently touches your arm. “You don’t have to look.”
You can’t remember the last time Levi was so soft with you. You’ve been with him for years by now, but he’s just not a soft person.
Nevertheless, he pulls your face against his shoulder, stroking your hair. He carefully pulls your wrapped hand away from you, holding it out for the medics.
You feel it immediately when they start pulling the bandages off, and you bury your face into Levi’s shirt, whimpering.
“You’re alright. They’ve almost got it off,” he murmurs, holding your face against his chest.
The wrapping falls away, and there’s a soft gasp from one of the medics, followed by Levi stiffening.
“Is it bad?” you moan, crying out as someone prods something painful.
“Do you want me to lie?”
“No.”
“It’s not good. But it’s a clean cut, so they’re going to clean it and stitch it up for you. You’ll be fine.”
You fist his shirt. “…Please don’t go.”
He pulls you a little closer. “I won’t. I won’t leave your side.”
The next thing you know, they’ve stuck your hand in alcohol, and you’re screaming.
You tuck your half-hand into your pocket, out of the reporter’s watchful gaze.
“But you two are married, correct?”
Levi nods. “Yes.”
“When were you married?”
You look to Levi, smiling softly. “Well, twice. Once in Paradis, and they don’t acknowledge Paridian marriage licenses here, so we did it all over again a couple years ago.”
“When was the first time?”
Your hand has become a focus for you.
Just as you lay in bed now, holding your two and a half fingers above your head. The stitches have been taken out, leaving you with pinky and ring fingers, two little nubs cut below the first knuckle, and half of a thumb. It’s still healing, but this is pretty much what your hand will look like. Forever. Till the day you finally croak.
The door swings open, and you immediately feel Levi’s cold, calculating gaze. “Are you picking at it again?”
“No,” you roll your eyes. “Just looking. Y’know, at least I still have a ring finger.”
“Why does that matter?” He asks. He takes off his jacket and hangs it up, then sits on the bed beside you and starts on his boots.
“So one day I could wear a wedding ring.”
He pauses. You pause, realizing what just came out of your mouth.
He turns to face you, leaving one boot on and the other half off. “You’re interested in marriage.”
Suddenly your face feels hot. “…Yeah.”
“To me?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s really what you want?”
You nod, chewing your lip.
“Then marry me.” His face stays completely blank.
You sit up slowly, eyes wide. “You— you wanna marry me?”
“You already know that I love you. If you want marriage, it’s only logical that—”
You cut him off by tackling him, sending the both of you tumbling off the bed. Levi twists so that he’ll hit the ground and you’re just land on him, but you have no time to ask if he’s okay between all the kisses you’re showering across his face.
He scoffs. “Enough, woman.”
“You wanna be stuck with me!? Really?!” You grin, sitting up to be straddling his waist.
“I guess so.”
You throw your arms over your head, starting to sing to yourself. “You looooove me, you wanna maaaarry me, I’m gettin’ maaaarried,” you snap to your own little beat, dancing on his waist.
You look down at him, beaming, just to find him watching you with soft gray eyes.
“I love you,” he whispers.
The reporter smiles and nods, then looks over her notes. “Well, I just have one more question, and then I’ll leave you two be.”
Levi looks quite ready to be done, so you speak up. “Just make it quick.”
She nods, looking up at you one last time. “Did everyone else know you two were together?”
You sigh, reaching behind you and pulling your hair out of its ponytail. It’s been a long day, and all you want is to refill your ODM fuel for tomorrow and go to bed.
You approach the supply closet, but pause when you hear voices. You peer in, eyes widening at the sight.
Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Reiner, and Bertholdt all crowd around a table, coins in piles. But there are no cards. No game.
“Listen,” Connie says, throwing up his hands. “It’s just gotta be someone in the Survey Corps. There’s no way it’s not!”
“But wouldn’t we know if it was?” Jean adds, rubbing his chin. “There aren’t too many options.”
“Miche?” Mikasa proposes, spinning a coin in her fingers.
“What? No,” Eren scoffs. “Absolutely not. Armin, what do you think?”
Armin lets out a low whistle, shaking his head. “I already lost my money on the bet that Captain {Y/N} would stay single. I thought she was the type to not want or need a man.”
Ah. So they’re betting… on my love life!?
“Well, she’s wearing a ring, that’s for sure…” Sasha rubs her chin. “What if it’s Levi?”
There’s a beat of silence.
Everyone in the room erupts into laughter.
“Ha! Her and Levi? When pigs fly!” Eren laughs, banging his fist on the table.
“You’re such an idiot,” Connie grins, shoving Sasha. “I’d say she’s a lesbian before that!”
You smirk and roll your eyes, walking away from the room. You just know that they’re gonna be knocked off their feet when they find out.
“No, no, it took them quite a while to find out,” you laugh, shaking your head. “They couldn’t have guessed it if they’d put all their little brains together — and believe me, they did.”
“So, how did they find out?”
“Alrighty, Armin,” you sigh, running a hand over your head. “Let’s get this transformation done. The area is cleared for miles, so just give me a few minutes to get out of dodge, and you’ll get the smoke signal to go ahead.”
He nods, chewing his lip.
“Hey,” you pat his shoulder. “You’ve got this.”
With that done, you turn, shooting your grappling hooks into a tree and soaring off into the forest.
After a few minutes, you’re damn near in the safe zone.
Near.
And then the sky lights up like a Christmas tree.
As expected, a massive explosion sounds behind you, and your ears immediately start to ring. More concerning, however, is the shrapnel made of trees and dirt and rocks flying your way.
You shriek, turning forward once more and zipping your way through the trees. Except, you have to hold your left sword in a weird way because of your hand, and then a gush of wind hits you and—
The branch you’re swinging from snaps, and you’re sent tumbling to the ground, unable to right yourself.
The grass gets nearer and nearer, and you fumble with your swords. But you won’t make it. You squeeze your eyes shut tight, and accept your fate—
Until you collide with Levi’s chest, and his arms are around you, and you’re zipping towards the safe zone.
“Holy shit,” you wheeze, coughing on stirred up dust. You grip his shoulders, shaking from all of the adrenaline rushing through you.
You’re back in the group with the others in no time, and Levi immediately puts you on the ground. But you don’t get a hug and a ‘thank god you’re alive.’ No, Levi puts his hands on your shoulders and shakes you.
“Are you crazy?” He hisses, gripping your jaw with one hand. “I’ve told you to hold your swords upside down like I do, so this wouldn’t happen. You almost died, and all because of your idiocy—”
“Levi—”
“No, I don’t want to hear it. You cannot go dying on me, you hear me? I will not lose you.”
You bite your lip, putting a hand on his chest. “Levi…”
“You are such a fucking idiot. I cannot believe I married someone who would risk her own life like that. You need to value yourself, damn it! You cannot leave me here alone—”
You shut him up with a kiss, rooting your hand in his hair. He kisses you back without hesitation, his hands flying to your waist.
“You’re not going to lose me,” you murmur, pulling away. “You saved me. You caught me. And I’m confident that you always will.”
His jaw clenches, a muscle feathering, and he opens his mouth, but a voice from the right interrupts whatever he had planned to say.
“Did I, uh… miss a chapter?” Jean asks.
You look over to find almost all of Eren’s friend group standing there, dumbfounded. Hange sits up in a tree, grinning ear to ear, but they’ve known about you two for years.
You grin, shaking your head. “The money goes to Sasha.”
“AND YOU ALL CALLED ME STUPID!” Sasha shrieks, throwing her hands up in the air.
“That’s all I need,” the reporter nods, and closes her notebook, tucking away her pen. “Nice meeting you two, heroes.”
She leaves with a wink, and just in time, because a little refugee boy has approached, hands behind his back.
You give him a soft smile, kneeling to be on his level. “Would you like a lollipop?”
The boy nods, giving a shy smile.
Levi reaches into his box, holding out a blue lollipop. He gives the child his softest smile, and in that smile you see it all.
You see the man that saved your ass more times than you can count. The man who presses a kiss to your temple when he thinks you’ve fallen asleep. The man who blushes when you run your hands down his chest. The man who doesn’t give anyone that soft smile of his, except for on very rare occasions.
Your man.
The center of your universe.
The boy takes his lollipop, bows at the waist, and then skitters off with a mumbled ‘thank you.’
You watch him go, and then you turn back, met with Levi, holding out a lollipop to you.
You press a kiss to his scarred knuckles and take it, giving him your own soft smile. “I love you.”
“Yeah, you too, brat,” he chuckles, turning back to the box of candy.
And you remember the nights you spent eating sweets he brought back for you from town.
You remember every night with him.
Because Levi is your world. Your one and only.
And he always will be, from now until the end of time.
@jeannineee be proud of me bitch <3
#fanfiction#aot#levi aot#attack on titan#attack on titan fanfic#attack on titan fanfiction#levi ackerman#captain levi#levi x reader#levi ackerman x reader#second person#2nd person pov#post war aot#cassiefromhell
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Armin is basically your guide to leaving the forest. He is what Humanity needs to retain its Humanity.
Armin is hated on so much after S4 for being "useless" and "not living up to Erwin" but people forget, Erwin was so good because he had YEARS of experience. When Erwin died, he was what, 40-ish? At 15-19, Erwin was much the same as any ordinary cadet, you can see in the flashbacks in S3 Part2, a very young Erwin crying with a wounded/dead soldier and trying to fend off a Titan.
Armin is the embodiment of what the survey corps stands for - "Understanding". He is a pacifist and optimist but not naive, he knows that he has to kill when push comes to shove. He doesn't like violence but agrees that it is necessary sometimes. There is nothing wrong with that. He's a very relatable character. Don't forget that Erwin recognised his potential. He literally looked shocked when Armin theorised Reiner to be hiding inside the walls in RTS arc. Armin is the first character in the whole show to internalize his enemies thoughts and actions and try to understand it from their pov. He always tries to talk first and when that doesn't work, he pulls the trigger. You can tell me "his talking doesn't work!" but that doesn't mean you don't try. He's convinced and manipulated people plenty of times. If your only option is always to kill first before anything else, then you're not in your right mind.
A character is not weak simply for wanting peace. Armin doesn't run from his conflicts, he always faces them head on whether he likes it or not. His yearning to choose the method with the least bloodshed is actually admirable - it's easier to just pull the trigger in a world like SnK where people hate you, no? Why go through all the effort of trying to make people understand? He's a very strong character because he stands by his convictions.
It's unfair to burden him with Erwin's legacy at this age. He's also selfless to a fault. While Erwin did care for his soldiers, he never hesitated to use them as bait. Armin lacks that trait - being ruthless. Instead he has shown time and time again that he'd rather sacrifice himself so others can go unharmed. Despite the lack of experience, he still came up with some of the best plans, strategies and deductions in the show, some of them conjured up within seconds, and all that when he was even younger than he is now. Reiner was sweating and shitting his pants when Armin figured out the Female Titan's intentions in under 30 sec. At 15, Armin secured the collosal Titan for the scouts with just 1 casualty - himself. Just a few examples. He lacks Erwin's experience and deals with a severe lack of confidence, but for his age, possesses a lethal brain and outstanding intellect.
One of his most forgotten contributions is during the Scouts vs Kenny's squad. It was his analysis of the anti-personnel ODM gear, and following strategy, that allowed the scouts to exploit the weaknesses of their opponents' weapons. They wouldn't have won those fights with such success otherwise. He's extremely perceptive. Notice that when he fucked with Bert's mind back in S2, it was bec apart from Reiner (who knew from long ago), only he had noticed Bertie boi had a thing for Annie. He pays attention to his surroundings. He picks up on every little detail. He knows where to hit where it hurts. His 'Annie' strategy with Bert in S3P2 fails because he didn't realize Bert was a different person, someone who had stopped Annie from being his weakness. That was a crucial lesson Armin had to learn, but he learned it. He's very good with his words. People don't want him to open his mouth and change their minds (eg, Connie with Falco, Daz & Samuel). He's a genius strategist and war tactician in the making, give him a few years and see what he becomes.
One of my most favourite moments is during the table scene with Eren before getting beaten up, the only psychological attack Eren fired at Armin ("You're only visiting Annie cuz of Bert"), did not sting Armin at all, it only shocked him that Eren would try to bullshit him into that false logic when clearly Armin knew better. So Eren chose to beat him up, but Armin still had the final word. "You're the slave Eren" absolutely got under Eren's skin.
He isn't dumbed down post S4, it's just that the stakes are infinitely higher.
There's a lot of blame on him for "not doing anything in those 4 years despite having a genius brain" etc etc. Armin wasn't commander. They were dealing with a hostile world which they were desperately trying to understand for the first time in a 100-year history of being isolated inside the walls. It is one thing to understand people inside the walls and fuck them up (like Erwin did multiple times) but another entirely to deal with several countries in a world you discovered overnight. Politics and diplomacy is hard af. I doubt Armin would have been able come up with some 20/20 vision plan at that point to end the whole conflict anyway. Pixis didnt. Hange also didn't. Nobody did! The island had other intelligent people too!
Regarding Erwin, the whole point of his death was to show that he was put to rest from his suffering. It is the end of Erwin's story.
I dare say that if Armin had become Erwin 2.0, the haters would have said "Oh, he's just a copy of Erwin, he's not his own person!" So, conclusion: he's not supposed to be Erwin. He's his own person with his own methods and he's 19, leave him alone and please compare people with comparable experience.
Dude also went through a ton of issues as a young kid and has a severe inferiority complex, guilt at being revived instead of Erwin and the constant pressure of living in Erwin's shadow. Add to that his best friend of 19 years disappears, forces him to nuke a port and kill people against his desires, then pushes him away, doesn't explain shit, snaps and goes on a mass murder spree - you have a guy under extreme duress and he's still thinking of the big picture on Paradis, that genocide is wrong even though it's his best friend doing it. He has already subconsciously realised that they cannot stop Eren without joining hands with the same enemies they tried to kill a while ago. So despite having a mental breakdown, he still goes to get Falco back, because as a person, he values humanity and understanding above everything and can't watch another one of his comrades lose his shit and feed a lil kid to a Titan.
I also believe that Armin knew Falco was a decent kid, considering what he was taught in Marley, and choosing to save him was symbolic in that Armin wants to save the one kid who sees through the fucked up hate. In this moment he was the closest he'd ever been to Erwin (since Erwin's death) with that calculated risk, but also very true to being *himself* , very Armin, because he jumped to his death, aka, selfless. Rescuing Falco was a v good call, not only because the kid is a shifter and therefore necessary to form the alliance, but also cuz if you are a manga reader, well, you know why. He slapped sense into Connie, rescued Falco, showed a young Gabi what compassion meant and won her trust , and laid down the foundation for the Alliance before even knowing Hange and Levi were alive. He always sees the bigger picture.
And don't even start with the whole AruAni hate, they had a thing going on right from S1 during training years. If anything, Bert's memories of Marley only reinforced his already existing feelings for Annie and he "understood" her. He didn't forgive her. He "understood" her. See what I'm getting at? AruAni only further supports the fact that children of war are just children in the end, and love can permeate even that imaginary barrier of being on "opposite sides". It's a beautiful ship and I'm fucking glad it's canon. Something to smile about in this depressing show T_T
Kenny's ideology of "everyone being a slave to something" applies to nearly everyone on the show. But not Armin. From his birth, he has only been motivated by one thing - curiosity to see, curiosity to understand, curiosity to experience. There is nothing that ties him down so much that he can't die and give up. He is arguably the most "free" character in the whole of SnK.
Eren sets out to achieve freedom at the cost of freedom itself. But for Armin, freedom is simply the beauty of simple, little things. They are the two sides of the same coin.
I'm not being aggressive in any way, my comment is only to throw some light on Armin's character. I respect everybody's opinions at the end of the day and I'm not engaging in any wars.
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Hello, hello, long rant incoming
When I reposted this on AO3, I had intentionally minimised tagging and summary because I wanted to archive it rather than attract readers. I didn’t even tag it Steve/Bucky because there just wasn’t enough mention of Bucky in it. Importantly, P*ggy was not tagged.
The user calls themselves “Rebuttal” and their only work is another essay rebutting someone else’s post on Civil War, which they had to post separately because I guess the OP blocked them. So we have a serial offender with too much time on their hands going around to directly suck the joy out of other people’s fandom experience.
They begin with this:
Although I don't particularly care for Steve's ending, this essay does not offer support for a different one.
*Inhales* Honey, can you please Google analytical essay and narrative essay before you unload your drivel on other people? This "essay" is a fic - while there's some character analysis, the emotive language should be sufficient clue that the focus is the story. It’s like reading The Fifth Elephant then writing to Sir Pratchett to argue his “essay on Discworld” is factually incorrect because it offers no support for the idea that the Earth is flat.
Steve is self-sufficient. He is not shown as requiring Bucky as foundational to his being. (…) We do know Steve was willing and expecting to go it alone after Sarah's death and that he is fully confident in his own abilities; he can "do this all day." Bucky's offer at the apartment earns a small smile, not a great overcoming.
I enjoyed how you, at multiple points in your essay, pick at certain turns of (evocative) phrasing while ignoring actual canon mentions. Explain why you deliberately omitted my mention of the canon phrase "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky". Sure, Sarah was Steve's touchstone, but Steve's words clearly indicated that upon Sarah's death, that touchstone role shifted to Bucky.
Steve's "I can do this all day" is said a total of 4 times during all the movies. Each time he says it to a bully (one time he specifically says it to protect Bucky), and never in relation to his emotional turmoil. Also just, factually, he never references "I can do this all day" when Sarah dies can you be real for a sec.
It's mighty rich of you to say a grieving person who had JUST BURIED HIS SOLE LIVING RELATIVE that a) "he is willing to do it alone" - I can guarantee no one who has lost their sole beloved family member feels "willing" in that situation; and b) downplaying the smile that took all of Steve's energy to muster. All I can conclude is you know nothing of grief. (And since you love the word "disservice" so much - your interpretation of the scene is a fucking disservice to CEvans' acting.)
Steve's choice to go to war has nothing to do with Bucky. Steve has tried five times to enlist and stated his reasons, which have nothing to do with Bucky and everything to do with not liking bullies.
Because, you know, saying “I want to join the 107th cos I’m gay for my best friend” is going to go down real well in the 1940s military *snerks*
Can you get your head out of your ass for one minute and consider that people make decisions based on multiple factors? By acknowledging that Bucky is an important factor in Steve wanting to join the war DOES NOT MINIMISE STEVE'S MORAL COMMITMENT TO FIGHT BULLIES.
Steve is also not aghast at hearing Bucky's assignment. - Back this up.
Bucky does not believe in pre-serum Steve as much as pre-serum Steve believes in himself. - Right. *In Bucky’s tired voice* Because simply ~*♫~believing in yourself~*♫~ is going to stop you getting killed. This is a fucking war, not a back alley. Do you know the death rate for US soldiers in WW2? 1 in 40. For perspective, the death rate from coronavirus is currently sitting at 1 in 70.
Whether Bucky went to war or not, Steve wanted to go. - Again, back your ass-umptions up.
Steve was told Bucky was dead. He was going to try to rescue the rest of the 107th. Again, to suggest that Steve's courageous act is about Bucky is a disservice to Steve.
So not only do you remember fuck all about the movie where it doesn’t involve your fave, you apparently remember fuck all about the scenes where YOUR FAVE APPEARS.
P*ggy: “What do you plan to do, walk to Austria?”
Steve: “If that’s what it takes.”
P*ggy: “You heard the Colonel. Your friend is most likely dead.” Steve: “You don’t know that.”
NOW LOOK THOSE WORDS IN THE EYES AND TELL ME HIS RESCUE MISSION IS NOT ABOUT BUCKY.
Also, Steve wanting to rescue his best friend is a "disservice" to his character? Condolences to your friends and your character, I guess.
It is strange to ignore Steve's interactions with people other Bucky. Okay here we go, we’re finally getting to why this steaming trash heap landed in my inbox. It's Peggy who - I knew it. I fucking knew it. Of course it came from someone who likes Miss I-need-to-make-everything-about-me - appreciated pre-serum Steve at the flagpole - Oh you mean the appreciation she showed by not uttering a single word to him?
Peggy and Erskine supported pre-serum Steve's drive to do his part when Bucky did not. It seems truer to say that they more likely "kept Steve afloat" during his basic training, of which Bucky had no part.
Hold on. *walks off to cackle* *walks back, wheezing*. P*ggy kept Steve afloat? Miss-never-said-a-single-word-to-Steve-P*ggy, “supported” Steve during his basic training??
Again, I urge you to actually watch CATFA, where *checks notes* your fave has her biggest movie role. AFTER STEVE FINISHES BASIC TRAINING, the two of them sit in a car and exchange the infamous lines:
P*ggy: “You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?”
Steve: “I think this is the longest conversation I’ve had with one.”
They have, by their own admission, not had a conversation before this, so which bull’s ass did you pull the “P*ggy kept Steve afloat during his basic training” shit out of?
There is nothing in the scenes to suggest he finds it a great miracle. The whole assumption of Steve's reaction seems to be a Bucky-centric projection rather than Steve-centric.
No, honey, I think you are just blinded by your Bucky hate. You looked at a scene where 2 characters (including your fave) claimed that Bucky is no longer alive, and Steve himself said, "I thought you were dead" - and Bucky was, against all odds and expectations of at least 3 different characters, found alive...and said, NAH NAH NAH NAH there's nothing here! There's nothing~here~to~suggest~it's a miracle.
Honestly I think you're the one living in a different plane of projection.
When Steve awakens in the future, his line to Fury is "I had a date." With Peggy, not Bucky.
Pfft he said “I had a date”, not "I had a date with P*ggy". So your interpretation is just as invalid.
And just, realistically, do you really think Steve is deluded enough to expect he’d wake up in time for a dance? And...do you really think Steve is desperate enough that he'd go for a woman who blasted him with live rounds for locking lips with another woman? When in your own words you said he hates bullies?
We do not know what Steve thought as he died, so saying he is content with death is not supported.
How about this -- "we do not know what Steve thought as he died, so saying he is not content with death is not supported". It’s my conjecture against yours and you’ve come onto my turf to be a presumptuous prick.
He has Peggy and Natasha. To ignore these two relationships seems to do a disservice to both characters.
Ah yes, the great relationship with P*ggy, who in 5 minutes of her screen time is characterised by: 1) mocking Steve as “dramatic” when he asks for guidance, and 2) her florid delirium in which he had to pull the emotional labour to placate her, and 3) her being grateful that she's led a great life without Steve.
If oldwoman!P*ggy was such an important relationship to Steve, he wouldn't have lamented to Natasha that "it's not easy finding someone with shared experience".
If there is any lesson Steve should learn in the modern day, it is that Steve sacrifices and Bucky leaves. Once involuntarily with the Snap, but twice voluntarily.
WHO THE FUCK HURT YOU AND MESSED UP YOUR BRAIN. I don't know how you can look at those scenes and pretend that the sole victim is Steve.
(Actually I can, because it's a common refrain from certain shit!stans who can't deal with the idea of Bucky being morally good)
Bucky sacrificed his own freedom and lived time in order to protect other people from getting hurt. And Bucky being involuntarily "Snapped" only counts as "Steve's sacrifice"?? The one who actually dies/gets Snapped isn't making a sacrifice? My gods the logic in this one is strong. (Also by referring to Bucky's death as Steve's sacrifice you have inadvertently acknowledged just how important Bucky is to him but I guess that flew over your head like the rest of this story)
It also ignores that Steve lived five years without all of those people. He had accepted the loss and changed into someone they would never truly know or understand.
Mate…
Do you hear yourself…
YOU LITERALLY WROTE THE COUNTERARGUMENT TO YOUR ENTIRE ESSAY.
Steve lived TWELVE YEARS WITHOUT YOUNG P*GGY. He had ACCEPTED THE LOSS (although, in my mind, it's really no big loss) and BOTH OF THEM HAD CHANGED INTO COMPLETELY UNRECOGNISABLE PEOPLE, not to mention they never truly knew or understood each other to begin with. So if your logic is that Steve has changed too much in 5 years to be around his old friends, why the fuck would he want to be around a woman he last saw 12 years ago and who he knew got an entire happy married life with another man. Eww.
I mean if NTR is your kink that's fine but no need to flaunt that on my turf.
The fun thing about fandom is that canon is open to different interpretations. You could read the tavern scene to say P*ggy is inviting Steve to be her right partner, just as I could point out that Steve’s pointed silence is a resounding rejection of that invitation.
But there is incorrect fandom etiquette, and that’s when you stomp into an innocuous narrative musing and start a ship war.
And I beg of you to learn another word from "disservice".
(The whole pile of horse shit for anyone needing to have their blood boiled)
#anti peggy carter#anti steggy#steve rogers#bucky barnes#yeah i'm censoring her name bcos the shitstans really got me this time#honestly i tolerated her before this because narratively she could've been interesting#BUT YOU SHITSTANS ARE REALLY HELPING ME HATE HER GOOD WORK PAT YOURSELVES ON THE BACK#anyway the whole essay was a disservice to the fandom#better yet a real disgrace to humanity#with the way this person was hellbent on minimising even the idea of friendship
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“the darkling is a monster” yeah?? why was he going around freeing grisha that the first army locked up??? what would’ve happened to them if he hadn’t shown up?? would it have been better for them to die locked up in cages like their lives meant nothing??
the more i think about it, the more i wonder why nikolai’s side of the war never tried to negotiate with the grisha that sided with the darkling. this is probably a crazy thought, but follow me for a sec. so one of the things we’re told time and time again is that the darkling is manipulative, if that’s the case and one of his sins is that he manipulated alina, genya, zoya, nina (you know, all the grisha on the hero’s side), then why aren’t they also concerned than he manipulated all the other ones?? i mean, they all grew up together in the little palace, how come no one ever said “hey, these are our friends/family that we grew up with and fought with, how about we try to make them see this guy is manipulating them?” or am i crazy?? i don’t know, but it just felt like the heroes were all too happy to kill the other grisha?? and these aren’t strangers to a lot of them, these are people they know, people they lived and fought and trained and ate with, etc etc.
but anyway back to the original point of this rant, what would have happened if the darkling wasn’t going around freeing the grisha the first army had locked up in cages?? yes i know they were doing it on vasili’s orders, but you can’t deny that a lot of them were all too happy to lock up and torture these people they already hated.
i guess i’m wondering why this wasn’t something nikolai was concerned about as someone who was presenting himself as a benevolent pro grisha guy. i just find it interesting that at a time when the darkling was probably the most hated/hunted person in ravka, he was still like “i still won’t let them lock my people up in cages.” and yes, i know one of his motives was definitely to build back his army, but like the heroes were building an army too?? it’s a war, both sides need all the soldiers they can get, so why wasn’t that something they thought about??? is it crazy that i’m thinking about this??
#shadow and bone#alina starkov#aleksander morozova#the darkling#nikolai lantsov#shadow and bone season 2#sab s2#sab meta#can a rant be called meta?#random thought I guess
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Security vs Combat idle thoughts since the winter of '18, updated for a post-FT world
It's both funny and fascinating how quickly Murderbot goes from being worried at the thought of Combat SecUnits in ASR to meeting one in a combat situation in ES to deciding CombatUnits as a category are assholes in FT (and I'm including how the proper term seems to evolve to drop the "Sec"/security part in my observations here). It's a hilarious display of MB's tendency towards bias and snap judgements in play, but in this case it's also a natural progression of MB's own personal values and the conflict between its function versus a CombatUnit's. In many ways, there's far more conflict between Security and Combat than there ever would be between Security and Comfort.
It comes back to the classic “kill all humans” trope, in some ways. The struggle in Murderbot's capacity for violence, and what function that violence is in service of, is present throughout the first four books. In All Systems Red, Murderbot sees itself as- well- a murderbot, a wanton killing machine; in Artificial Condition it admits to ART that it struggles with liking its function; it takes nearly the entire original quartet for it to come to terms with itself as a security consultant. Someone who saves people, who has extracted clients from situations that were less than nine percent survivable, and who can be proud of that. In a book series in which Murderbot is figuring out what it wants, Exit Strategy sees it come to terms with wanting to keep people safe—contrasted utterly by the Combat SecUnit’s “I want to kill you” in the same book.
By the time we reach Fugitive Telemetry, it has reached such a self-understanding of its raison d’etre that Murderbot—who rarely says emotionally difficult things if it could leave them unsaid instead—can say it explicitly. “That plan was easier plus 100 percent less murdery… I liked it better because it wasn’t a CombatUnit plan, or actually a plan that humans would come up with for CombatUnits. Sneaking the endangered humans off the ship to safety and then leaving the hostiles for someone else to deal with, that was a SecUnit plan, that was what we were really designed for, despite how the company and every other corporate used us. The point was to retrieve the clients alive and fuck everything else.” For Murderbot, THAT is the heart of “Security.”
And it’s totally diametrically opposed to what Combat is. Look at the proliferation of military sci-fi out there, look at games like Halo, look at war fiction as a whole and the real-world use of war technology. What does a bot-human war machine do better than what a regular old CombatBot offer? More flexible thinking and strategizing, creative hacking solutions, an ability to process the chaos of war as real-time data and react far faster and more cunningly than a human commander could, all packed into a supersoldier with no reason to empathize with human soldiers or victims, perfectly controllable on pain of brain-shock-collar by its superiors—no chance of mutiny or insubordination or conscientious objection. Soldiers and the technology they use alike are employed as expendable tools for war to fight for whatever cause their superiors uphold, to win at whatever cost their superiors deem acceptable—the function of Combat is about winning. Domination of the enemy, control of a populace, Us vs Them. Strategy, war crimes, the cost-benefit ratio of opening fire on the enemy’s hospitals.
Combat is fundamentally not about keeping anyone safe. (There’s a reason that Security in Ancillary Justice don’t get along with Military when they drop by a station, there’s a reason that Discworld’s Captain Vimes snarls that his coppers are not soldiers. If you actually want to keep the peace, you NEED to not see the world in terms of us or them, kill or be killed.) For these reasons, I’m not surprised that Fugitive Telemetry drops the “Sec” and leaves the term as “CombatUnit”--it better emphasizes the difference between the two functions, and how far Murderbot has moved from its fear of being a tool for killing.
In a society without governor modules, there’s still plenty of room for Security and Comfort alike. But to keep a standing army, let alone manufacture tanks and nuclear missiles, is to keep the threat of using them. And a CombatUnit’s function, unlike Murderbot’s, is unilaterally one of violence for the sake of domination. When MB says that CombatUnits are assholes, I think that’s what it means—and I kind of get it. A CombatUnit that lives and breathes and likes its function truly is the murderbot that Murderbot was afraid it was itself.
(And if you're looking for more canon Combat SecUnit content, have we got some fics for you)
#murderbot#the murderbot diaries#verso writes#meta#murderbot diaries#Fugitive Telemetry#function meta
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*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"
🚢 Red Sea Front 🗞 In defense of a large anti-ship barrage, the US Navy shot down 18 suicide drones, 2 anti-ship cruise missiles and 1 anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Houthis from Yemen. No ships damaged.
▪️FINANCE MINISTER REFUSES TO TRANSFER FUNDS TO PA.. to the US Sec. State “we will not transfer a shekel to the Palestinian Authority that will go to the families of the Nazis in Gaza, and we will work to allow the opening of the gates of Gaza for the voluntary immigration of refugees, as the international community did to the refugees from Syria and Ukraine.”
▪️ISRAEL TELLS EGYPT WEAPONS MOVING AND MAYBE HOSTAGES.. Israel informed Egypt directly and through the Americans, that it suspects that the smuggling of weapons from Egyptian territory to the Gaza Strip continues.. and estimates that the Hamas leadership may move with the hostages to Egypt and from there to other places in the region such as Lebanon and Iran. (Egypt Al-Akhbar)
▪️HEZBOLLAH THREATENS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.. a Lebanese journalist close to Hezbollah published an article that read: 'If Israel initiates a war, the organization will use non-conventional weapons. It is important to pay attention to what Nasrallah said in his speech - the war will be without restraints and without borders.' According to estimates, Hezbollah has considerable amounts of chemical weapons, mainly sarin nerve gas and possibly biological weapons.
▪️ONE HERO SOLDIER HAS FALLEN, a combat medic in Gaza.
▪️INTERNAL CONFLICT.. High Court rules the Min. Of National Security may NOT instruct the police regarding not permitting anti-Israel demonstrations by the Hadash party during the war. The Minister, “the decision of the High Court that deprives me of the authority to prevent support for the enemy in time of war... we do not understand how such a decision can be made that allows the enemy to demonstrate against our soldiers”.
▪️KNESSET BUDGET CUT.. the Knesset will cut an amount of NIS 121 million from its operational budget for 2024 for the benefit of the war effort.
▪️BIZARRE, UNAUTHORIZED OFFICER.. police indict an “Israeli citizen” who ran to battle, fought, gained access to operational intelligence and planning. The problem: he is not an IDF officer, just a citizen. No suspicion of leaking of information to enemies, just wasn’t what he said he was.
▪️NEGOTIATIONS.. (note - all such information is leaks and therefore rumors++). New Israeli proposal includes withdrawal of IDF from Gaza, exile of Hamas leaders, and ‘long term silence’.
▪️EL AL HIT WITH CYBER ATTACK.. reports of shutdown of El Al systems in Ben Gurion.
⬆️ Northern Front 🗞 Heavy IDF airstrikes in Lavona. IDF drone strikes in Marukhin. Targeted attack, aka assassination, in an apartment in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah Warning: Leader Nasrallah publicly orders missile units to ‘prepare heavy barrages’ and ‘use precision missiles’.
➡️ Eastern Front (Judea-Samaria) 🗞 Forces operated today in a number of centers in Shechem. Terrorists responded with gunfire and IEDs. Forces focused on searches, arrests and destruction of buildings used for terrorist activities.
Jenin: forces capture 80 IEDs buried under the roads. Tarkamiya: forces capture 100 IEDs.
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whatever i’ve done, i did it for love
summary: living the life of a harbinger oftens twists ones’ view, especially when you involve their loved ones.
masterlist
pairings (separate): childe, capitano, arlecchino, pantalone, and dottore x reader
reader info: uses gender neutral pronouns (they/them), is in an established relation with characters mentioned, and is not the traveler
word count: 1,605 words (400~ words each) (8 mins~ total) (1 min 40 sec~ each)
genre: romance
format: drabbles
warnings: technically OOC harbingers (excluding childe), harbingers doing things in “the name of love,” light gore (brief mentions of blood and killing), torture of background characters, and brief mentions of electric shocks
a/n: this song is heavily inspired by One More Hour by Tame Impala. it was randomly stuck in my head, despite never listening to it fully, and i now present you with this💖 i hope you all enjoy💖
ajax, childe, tartgalia, or whatever he goes by, has always loved you.
he looks at you like you are the sole thing keeping him warm during the bitter winters of snezhnaya. as if your smile alone could warm ajax to his core, leaving him almost weak in the knees every time you smiled so brightly. and the kisses you peppered across his cheeks? the burning blush that follows after could only compare to the burning sensation at the risk of frost bite.
and ajax would gladly lean into you as your lips touch each faint freckle, because he seeks your company and love like a moth to a flame.
which is why he would gladly do anything for you in the name of “pure” love.
i am only protecting you, ajax reasons as he cuts down his targets in one broad strike. they all fall to the floor with in sickening synchronization. the blood that pools by their bodies barely makes him stiffen when he remembers it’s all for you.
ajax casually steps over their cold bodies as he makes his way out the back door, the sound of incoming guards approaching. but ajax isn’t scared.
no, he only sends some arrows their way. soon the shouting stops and he only hears their bodies hit the floor. ajax barely spares them a look as his mind whirls to life, his usually lifeless eyes sparkling at the thought of you.
and once he returns from the mission and receives his praise and payment from the tsaritsa, ajax finds his way to you. he barges into your shared home and searches for your form briefly, before he sees you running up to meet him. and ajax scoops you up, despite your protests, and kisses you deeply.
whatever i’ve done, ajax thinks as he stares into your eyes, i did it for love.
fighting for the tsarita is no small feat. and commanding an army full of loyal soldiers isn’t either.
and yet, capitano almost feels guilty as he sends his soldiers out to battle. he shouldn’t though. as soon as he had joined the rest of the harbingers, capitano had privately sworn to himself to never feel guiltiness or regret. each move he makes must be calculated to be in the tsarita’s favour. or else.
but he still feels regretful when the death toll rises, when more heavily injured soldiers join their comrades above. then capitano finds shame consuming him as he tries to plan positions more carefully. he can’t help but think of the families behind each soldier, all waiting for them back home.
and he is familiar with the feeling he sees across each soldier’s face: homesickness. some days, he feels that same feeling creep up onto him. during those days, capitano wants to give in to his selfish desires to flee the battlefield and return home to you.
he wants to be welcomed into your embrace as he sobs into your shoulder, missing every single inch of you. capitano never wants to face the horrors of war again, he just wants to be with you and you alone. his heart aches for the day he can just coexist with you. he wants to live without any worry of who dies and who lives, only worrying and fretting over you.
but the fear of disappointing the tsarita is greater than his need to be in your presence again. so, capitano places his helmet over his head as he relays the next battle plans to his nearby soldiers.
whatever i do, capitano thinks as he leads them out of the camp, i will do it for love.
not a day goes by where arlecchino isn’t in love with you.
when arlecchino looks at you, for once in her life she wants to let go of every worry and fear. she wants to trust you with every fiber of her being and not look back. because she looks at you and she sees a future together, full of love and support. and, because arlecchino loves you so, so, so much that she would do absolutely anything to protect you.
including punishing some pea-brained subordinates when they bad mouthed you in front of her. for some reason, those low lives decided to run their mouths without even checking if the cost was clear. idiots, she thinks to herself as they fall to their knees, pleading for mercy. she tossed them across the hall without a second thought as she continued her day. idiots like them don’t deserve another moment of your time, arlecchino imagined you would say.
when the tsaritsa heard of this dispute, she wasn’t so pleased with arlecchino. she never is when this happens.
this is now the third time in a row where arlecchino was called in for this behavior. at this point, it had become very clear to both arlecchino and the cryo archon that she was very loyal towards you. to the point where her loyalty to you outweighed her loyalty to the tsaritsa.
apparently, the two soldiers she pummeled just “didn’t know better.” arlecchino merely huffed and rolls her eyes at the tsaritsa, finding this meeting utterly pointless. disgruntled by her subordinate’s behavior, the tsaritsa then told her that she’s “too invested in this fling” to be acting like this.
“with all due respect, your majesty,” arlecchino said, not caring that she was challenging the tsaritsa, “they are mine, and i would do anything for them.”
the tsaritsa tilted her head. “and the reason behind this...?”
“because i would— and will— do it for love,” arlecchino clarified. “and i will do it for my love, your majesty.”
pantalone wonders how you haven’t fallen out of love with him.
of course, pantalone is grateful that you love him still. he appreciates each heartfelt look you give him, whether it be when you two are settled in bed or from opposite ends of the room. where ever you are, pantalone will always be able to see the love that practically pours from your eyes.
and he absolutely treasures each fleeting touch he receives from you. if not for his reputation and prying eyes, pantalone would lean into your side each time you hold his hand in public. each embrace between you two goes on for longer than you intend, pantalone’s hands almost digging into your hips to keep you in place. if he had it his way, pantalone would have you two conjoined at the hip.
pantalone just wished he didn’t have to go through such violent means to put pearls on your wrists and bread on the table.
the drunkard, someone who’s debt to the tsaritsa was unpaid for, swung widely at pantalone. agile as ever, he ducked as the drunk’s hand collided with the guard who hovered by pantalone. in one motion, he turned around and reared his fist back. clenching his teeth, pantalone’s fist made contact with the drunk’s face.
“look through his pockets,” he commanded his soldiers, idly popping his knuckles as he stepped out of the alleyway. “if he can afford a drink, then he can pay off his debt to the tsaritsa.”
while the guards obey his command, pantalone fishes out a silver necklace that was tucked under his shirt. he rubbed over the locket’s surface before pressing down on it, smiling with satisfaction when it popped open. inside was a photo of you and pantalone, his favorite photo of you two.
whatever i’ve done, he justifies as he stashes the locket away, i did it for love.
dottore’s methods of torture are sadistic. they always have been. but it seems whenever you were mentioned, his ways of torture were more humiliating and cruel.
and someone just had to give their opinion on your relationship just as dottore had rounded the corner. which soured his mood completely, by the way, and almost ruined his day.
and in all honesty, he didn’t want to torture this new recruit. but who was going to stop dottore from teaching the new recruits how things work around here? exactly, no one.
just like how no one could hear the pleas and screams coming from dottore’s lab. and if they did, they just pretended otherwise. he didn’t really care that much. the tsaritsa could have heard it all and he’d shrug it off, as he found teaching the new recruits much more entertaining.
“and what was it you said about my darling?” he prompts, fingers hovering just above the button on his remote.
“he said they were just some experiment for you,” a different soldier spoke up, “that you were only toying around with their feelings!”
dottore nodded. “interesting. thank you for your honesty, soldier. the tsaritsa doesn’t take too kindly to liars,” he pressed down on his remote and smiled wickedly when the strapped down soldier jolted. “and neither do i.”
later, the tsaritsa had called for him. she never liked whenever he did these meetings. she found his methods to bring more pleasure for dottore than teaching experience. so, dottore gave her a simple— no, an expected excuse for his behaviour.
“what i did,” he reports to the tsartisa, “i did it for fun.”
that’s a lie though. because dottore loves you, even though he might not always show it. he loves you so much, and dottore feels so lucky to have you. he is thankful for your patience whenever he tries to use words, he knows it can be hard. and he appreciates your love every day, so he would do anything for you.
whatever i’ve done, he thinks to himself as leaves the meeting, i did it for love.
thank you for reading 💖 all forms of interaction to my posts are appreciated 💖
#wheeler's works#genshin impact x reader#fatui harbingers x reader#fatui x reader#genshin x reader#genshin drabbles#childe x reader#ajax x reader#tartagalia x reader#capitano x reader#arlecchino x reader#pantalone x reader#dottore x reader#romance
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why dean was absolutely frothing to kill chuck/God in s14-15 imo
By s14 we're slowly starting to see the big series villain-reveal is God (spoilers! - but it is a 15xseason series that ended almost 3+ years ago so ya know....catchup) aka chuck.
And you see dean descend into this despair n depression and then absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth-desperate to kill him - at.any.cost - including making Jack into a soul-bomb ... the kid that he did *this* for finally.... birthdays n teaching him to drive in the impala...
And there's been a ton of text on the ptsd dean is sufferring at that stage and it's finally cracked him up (totally plausible) and there's a ton of analysis on how the brother bond with sam talked him down and out of using jack n that the ends doesn't justify the means and "not at any cost" theme from sam and the fact that dean was willing to listen even in that moment (contrasted to chuck n amara) - & i read an awesome analysis n scene-by-scene n line by line breakdown on spn-blr the other day (I Rb-d it the other day) of how dean was stopped cold n brought out of his madness by sam asking him if he'd be willing to sacrifice him ie sam as well in his mad quest to kill God n how dean desperately pleads his case n that chuck MUST die....n I agree with all of it...
BUT what I haven't seen yet is any theories on WHY dean was so angry about it n absolutely crazy about killing god/chuck.... coz here's what's odd to me, about it being dean:
DEAN is the GOOD SOLDIER - he respects authority and father figures in general n even models himself in the patriarchical god's image (be it John or chuck I let you decide) - his whole "free will" thing is a sham / or only within narrowly defined confines acceptable to the patriarchs, because he's always been the one who's followed the rules set for him: by dad,by the hunting life chosen for him by dad, by societal norms,of "being a man", he's always toed the line set for him by dad n although he thinks angels are dickbags, he unquestionably thinks they're the "good guys" - or the "better" option against the alternative: demons n hell (s4 or anytime really even in midst of angel-wars)....he tends to be fairly black n white n even his "rebellion" is only when sam convinces him to walk off the board by saying no to Michael (s5) ...he may scoff at angels n God but he still thinks they're the "appropriate authority" n so while he's upset with how things are run, he's not after a regime change.... he's not the one into "free will" to the point that he'd be willing to kill the ONE TRUE PATRIARCHICAL AUTHORITY ie God...
That was always SAM's gig (n Lucifer)....SAM was the "it's not who you are, it's what you do n you can choose what you do"-guy, SAM was always the one questioning everything n never toeing the line and noticing the corruption in the system n pointing out alternatives n options to everything that they were "destined" for n told to be.... SAM was the one advocating for thinking for yourself...or hell, thinking at all, period... but yes, SAM was also the one with the faith in a higher power n the praying type n had been since his younger days - always the one wanting to believe that there was a higher authority that could save him, absolve him of his sins .... but also not really believing that he deserved to be saved if there really was such a higher power of good... he chose to have faith n hope despite it all...in God.
N then, after all that, they discover it was chuck after all... think about what it means to them in their pov, for a sec:
chuck wrote their lives the way it was with losing their families n letting demons at baby Sam n sam being sold to demon deal by their mother before he was born n dads rage n neglect n conflicted leading to both of them growing up so twisted n isolated n ...
Chuck wrote the big showdown n vessels for heaven n hell n the big throw down pitting brother against each other
Chuck wrote the dying n losing each other n pieces of themselves over n over n over n over n over...
Chuck wrote dean going to hell n sam being tortured in the cage for centuries...
Chuck wrote the big painful heartbreaking,soul-breaking breakups n the lack of trust sown between them by others n by themselves
Chuck wrote the tender moments n the "bro-ments" n "fan-fiction songs" n the caring for each other's wounds n the silent communication between them n the moments of ease n care n laughter n love...
...because, Chuck wrote them as soulmates - wrote the confusing n complicated feelings they had for each other n what it did to them growing up n even after - having to deal with it n figure it out n carry the burden of this connection that meant that they could never fully connect with anyone else despite their attempts n so grew isolated - that never went away even as it twisted n grew thorns n tore them to shreds n they could never let each other go even as it destroyed each other n themselves - because that connection wouldn't let them.... Chuck wrote that.
For his own sick pleasure n entertainment.... which means he heard ALL of sams desperate pleas n prayers throughout his life growing up...n enjoyed it even as he carried on turning the screws on sam (&by extn, dean in deans pov)....which means that all the faith n hope sam chose to put in him ie God- was completely misplaced n in fact in the literal wrong hands - talk about a violation worse than rape?... sam had his faith violated by the very God he chose to believe in after all he'd been through
N the thing is that just like when dean recoiled when John told him that he'd have to kill sam if he couldn't save him n got so mad at John for doing that to him....after he'd given him everything he had...
Similarly, Dean realised a lot of the above n what has him frothing is 2x main things in my mind:
The absolute fury at God for breaking his beloved brother's heart (n soul n mind n body) , doing this to him DELIBERATELY- ie he'd be outraged n furious on sams behalf n all that he's had to go through just for chucks shits n giggles... this would be the righteous big brother-dean fury of epic proportions...
This one I reckon is more on his/their personal behalf n by that I mean their "complicated feelings" for each other - knowing it was there n both felt it n they were brothers would have fked em up pretty badly....n dean especially, often said or did things explicitly to distance himself or sam when younger to deal with this in the "right way" - which absolutely made them both miserable n he hurt sam in the process...he knows sam similarly feels his own guilt n is the source of his self loathing n "uncleanness" just like it is source of dean's amongst others ....BUT by that late season-stage they had both grown to accept it n work with it and had arrived at an understanding of it and each other and by then, they'd felt like it was the "one thing they had of their very own" - not from hunting life,or something from dad or the devil or the destiny laid out for them etc, etc.... it was theirs - they'd found something precious n beautiful n unique n "special" in each other and WITH each other that they'd never found anywhere else n finally had stopped fighting it n had grown into it.....and EVEN THAT wasn't theirs n theirs alone- chuck wrote that....n to dean who'd have struggled with it so much - it'd feel like the one good, non-murdery place in himself n what he'd built with sam was also taken away/polluted n tainted by goddamn chuck....so it's deans violation too...
So yeah it's freewill that dean wants n is fighting to kill chuck for - but it's because it threatens their love n it's a choice that they both made together n he will not have that taken away
n this also is why he thought sam of all people would understand n see that n want to take his ie dean's side that chuck had to go no matter the cost
Anyways sorry it got long... but yeah...this is what my spn-brainrotted brain thinks on why dean was jonesing for chucks blood - coz it hurt sam n coz it invalidated/threatened the integrity of their choice to be who they were to each other....
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yes im vagueing about a moot i love seeing different interpretations of red/blu mercs dawg. ugnngiggug. /gen gen gen
clone teams? diff people just uncannily similar looking? I LOVE IT ALL!! ITS ALL SO GOOD!!!!
if u want to see my personal ramblings pls click clasck
are you still here. ok good.
HUAGHAGHUUAHGGHHBGG!!!!!!!
so as for the canon of the game/comics its clear theres different sets of teams. i promise this is relevant
Team Echelon. Team Citadel. Team Vanguard. and of course, Team Fortress.
on team fortress, there's 9 other unnamed mercenaries that we don't know the identities of. and according to the update/mvm comics (plus the mvm trailers) the 9 mercenaries we DO know are scattered across RED and BLU. they are not all on the same team like they are in the mainline comics or in shorts like expiration date.
well. why is that
sure you could say "eh for things like mvm its more narratively compelling if both BLU and RED team up to fight the robots, since canonically Blutarch and Redmond, their bosses, are dead. wtf would they fight for" and yknow for a moment i would agree with you but let me get autistic for a sec
look at the language cheavy uses here in this panel
"All she had left was you rejects."
that's not just bully talk or anything, this is intentional. even with the way Saxton Hale treats Team Fortress reflects this
Bidwell's Big Plan, page 04
and even here in the main comics:
A Cold Day in Hell, page 03
they're rejects. quite literally. they get bottom of the barrel weapons, uniforms, food, even for Mann Co..
i'm of the personal belief that the 9 unnamed mercenaries and the teufort 9 are constantly being either exchanged in the unnamed cases, or transferred across team RED and BLU appropriately. autobalanced. some mercenaries have been on certain teams longer than others, like BLU Soldier and RED Demoman YEAH THAT'S RIGHT THIS ROLLS RIGHT BACK TO WAR UPDATE BABY FUCK YOU YOU CANT ESCAPE IT
but the reason i say this is because before the events of the animated shorts (excluding meet the team) or the mainline comics, i have a headcanon the teufort 9 were giving the nameless mercs too much trouble for what they were worth, so they just shoved them all together on the same team, hoping they would just kind of fight it out like pathetic rabid dogs.
what ended up happening was these losers formed the strongest found-family bonds in the history of the universe.
demo and soldier in the mainline comics are still clearly very tense with one another after the events of WAR!, even though they're on the same team (or lack thereof rather). WAR! is still very much canon past the update comics. this is my excuse for changing team colors on their ship and calling it the same people constantly
ANYWAYS yeah. tldr: the mercs are autobalanced a lot and i think there's canonical evidence to prove it . this and clone teams are very near and dear to my heart
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Who is a non romancable npc that you would've liked to romance in each game?
I want to fuck Admiral Hackett.
Man, it feels good getting it out there, you feel me? These things are good for you.
Anyway, so.
ME1
Wrex
didn't know much about korgans at the time and just thought they were the hottest thing alive. Especially that stare down Wrex and Shepard have when they first meet each other in the C-sec station and he's throwing his weight everywhere and not giving a single fuck about the cops trying to arrest him.
Are Korgans just not attracted to humans? He never makes a move on you. Ever. They're clearly into asari and we're not that far off.
In the first game, he was the only one to not respect Shepard from the start. It's kinda hot, yk? He was this mysterious edgy person with a jaded view on his race, and we were this hopeful human who wanted to encourage him to reunite the koragns. I wanted to have a slobby makeout session with him filled with teeth after his personal mission.
.
Nihlus
Listen to me. It was love at first sight. I still remember it so clearly when you talk to him in the prologue where he questions you about Eden Prime. The fact he was the one to recommend Shepard to the council as a spectre too is just the topping on the cake.
I think he was into us, as a human. Like everyone on the ship clearly was weary of him because of how fresh the first contact war was, and Shepard is the only friendly person to him besides Anderson.
My Ideal romance would've been us saving him from Saren then being a mentor and student kinda of ordeal? Like at a certian point we surpass him in power while sparring and he looks so proud of us and we lean in for the kiss and he doesn't pull away.
A Turian and a human romance would've been so scandalous on the first game bc of again, contact war. It would've been the perfect drama.
.
Doctor Chakwas.
You can't tell me that you didn't think about it! She is the only person taking care of everyone on this damn ship. We're in the middle of fuck off space clumsily stumbling our way into shootouts and coming out with bullets in godforsaken places!
She's the one that patches you up while scolding you for being so reckless. She can abandon protocols and formality as much as she likes because she's your doctor and has a right to! She can order a whole admiral around.
It doesn't help how she opens up to us about her fantasies in her youth of being this cute doctor and patching up wounded soldiers with stars in their eyes and living the romance dream. The game is begging you to make her dream a reality and give this older woman the true romantic experience she has been dreaming of!
.
Captain Anderson
Listen to me. Listen. No no come back. Come here!
I am an adult, you are an adult. We are adults. He is a very hot adult that I want to do unspeakable things to.
I'm just saying!!! I didn't know anything about him becoming Shepard's parental figure in ME2 and ME3.
So when I first met him in ME1 I was like oh. Are we about to...have a superior forbidden army romance situation? Am I your sugar baby? Golden trophy soldier? Why do you like me so much and treat me with so much favouritism? Are we doing it on the down low behind closed doors?
But no. They take him away from me like immediately afterwards and burst my bubble of fantasy. I forget about him for the rest of the game then I meet him at the end but it doesn't hit the same vibe it did at the start.
He just admires and respects Shepard. Nothing else :(
My romance and fantasy with him was very short lived and now he is more of a stand in parental figure.
.
ME2
The Illusive man
He is obsessed. Literally every interaction with him made me feel so giddy inside afterwards. It's like he gets off on just being near you and doesn't ask for nothing else. He is like a sugar daddy without the needed sugar.
And the "Cerberus allowance" credits money that you get after each missions just increasing in numbers didn't help. You report to him after every mission and he gives you more and more money. It almost makes you feel dirty in a good way.
Like based on his shadowbroker intel, he has the best escorts and strippers in the galaxy that he frequents. Yet it is you that he spends the most money on and you don't even have to put out or show a shoulder. It's not like a mercenary job either because one of his requirements is seeing you and talking to you, stalking you even.
Your meer existence gives him a rush and he keeps paying you for it, just to be allowed to witness you being you. I wish there was an evil romance option route where you go full human supremacy and agree with his evil plans to control the reapers and the last scene is like Shepard sitting on his lap in that room with the orange blue star.
I want that romance to be creepy and clearly self-serving. That both of them are using each other to get their own needs. There is no love involved, just obsession and hunger for power.
.
Legion
They wear a piece of your armour, they have a hole where their heart should be. They clearly look up to you so hopelessly with admiration.
And you're the first organic to treat them with kindness, show them warmth, help give them a name. You're everything they imagine love to be and more and they literally cannot process it. They can't comprehend the feelings they're feeling, they only know it's all consuming and they're short-circuiting around you.
It would've been a very fluffy and sweet romance where you really push the limit of the geth having a soul. To have a soul is to love, even if it's not romantic love.
But as a romance between you too, I feel like Legion having a scene where they pluck a small flower from the ground to present to you is everything. But then the flower gets crumbled in their iron grip and they look all dejected and sad.
You gently taking it and still thanking them for it, maybe putting the flower in the hole in their chest after giving it a small kiss. I have so many ideas, Legion deserves so much softness.
.
Aria
I don't think she'd allow a full romance, but we definitely would've had a complicated relationship. Both dominiating and ruling their own corners of the galaxy, yours just happened to be a moving ship.
It's like a ruthless queen and a faithful soldier. She could've made Shepard worse, you could've made her better. It's a very complicated love and hate relationship, a constant power play.
You send her Valentine's gifts that she claims to have thrown away, but you see her snacking on the box of chocolates that you got her the next time you visit. Threatening to cut someone's hand off because they asked for a piece.
She always tells you to go find someone cute to spend the night with but all of her strippers know better than to flirt with you. Aria warned all of them that you're off limit and no one even dares looks into your eyes.
Hell the fact she got a whole bartender to give you drinks for free after the last one tried to poison you? God that's hot.
But emphasis on complicated. Neither of you are willing to step down from your thrones and serve the other. She wants you on a leash like a dog at her side, you want to weild her like a dagger against your enemies throats.
Both of you were made for freedom and only deal with people who obey all of your orders. The two of you can never have a peaceful relationship because you're constantly at each other's throats but the attraction and tension is so thick in the air to deny.
.
ME3
Admiral Hackett
I don't have any excuse. I only started getting attracted to him during this game when we kept having constant communication with him.
He just...is very calm? Includes Shepard a lot and is very patient and wise. Steering you into the right direction and reminding you of the greater purpose you all serve.
But also he is down to earth in his own way, it feels intimate for him to call you just Shepard. Look at you with such eyes that have seen everything, it's like he is the single person that understands what you're going through in this, the single person to share your burden in all of this.
Because Anderson can't relate to Shepard in the way Shepard is supposed to be invincible steel, the way Shepard is supposed to be the unbreakable hero. But Hackett feels like he can relate to you in that way, like he too was in your shoes once and knows how lonely it must be.
How each relationship you have will always have a hallow emptiness inside because you can never be equal to someone. Each person you date will always see the commander Shepard before seeing you, the world will fall for your mask and not the one wearing it.
Except Admiral Hackett. It's like he can see behind the mask. He can see behind the titles and spectre status and the medals. He sees you as the little thing you are, so tired and exhausted from carrying the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders, you poor thing.
He's very caring in a way, no matter what wrongs you've done. He's very understanding too.
In ME2, he asks you for a favour and contacts you to help him. YOU! he asks YOU while you were a traitor working for Cerberus. god, the amount of trust he has in you.
Not to mention that he was actively stalling the alliance when it came to charging you for crimes for allying with Cerberus even before the whole favour DLC thing. In the Shadowbroker messages you can find him telling his subordinates "Negative" when they asked to finally bring you in.
It's also how commanding he is with just a single word? He does it twice. Once in the battle of Saren in ME1 when the alliance ships are beginning to retreat and he calmly refuses and tells them to move ahead.
And in ME2 where his subordinates write a long ass email on why you should be charged with treason but his literal only response is "negative."
His words carry such weight to them, fuck. It's so attractive the power and authority he casually throws around. Actually casually doing it unlike the illusive man who makes a point to show off to you. Hackett has nothing to prove and no one to impress.
The only person to view the commander Shepard as a fragile thing. The only person to understand what you're going through. The only person to realise what's truly at stakes here. How can I not want to be with him?
But with you he talks longer, he explains himself and line of thinking more. He doesn't treat you with the same strict attitude he gives to other soldiers. It's clear favouritism where he is gentler with you, softer like you're a fragile thing that might crack if someone even raised their voice at you.
Not to mention the whole "why pick me?" Dialogue option you get to ask him. On why he puts so much faith in you. Why he is always on your side.
And you get a straight answer for once. It's because you have this magical pull on people that gets them to work together, you were made to be a leader. It's easy to pay a merc to shoot a gun for you, but you cannot pay them for their loyality to follow you into hell twice. Yet you have that effect on people and he clearly sees your true skills that the others are blind to.
.
I have more, like James Vega, Samara, Mordin, Joker, EDI, Conrad verner, Saren, Sovereign, Kai Leng and Eve.
But I've written a lot, maybe for another time! Thanks for asking this, btw <3
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Do you see Tony stark as a male version of Peggy Carter? A rich high class brat that won't hesitate to do anything and side with anyone to shine and then act like everyones protective god mother? Or do you think he is at least a bit redeemable because he might have learned bit from his mistakes.
There are certain similarities. Peggy definitely has more in common with the Starks than anyone.
In her show, all her 'friends' are not from the same SEC as her, as with the Starks. In fact, her friends are... employees. Butlers, waitresses, housekeepers... they're almost literally being paid to be friends with her. You see that with Tony, too. His 'friends' are: an air force colonel (when Tony has extremely lucrative military contacts with the air force), his PA (who gets made his CEO and... immediately dumps him), his bodyguard, his robot butler, his other robot servants... and women who benefit financially from sex with him (Christine Everhart and Maya Hansen). In Peggy's case, she's that woman to Howard Stark. 😬 (And Steve).
In AC, the only time you see a person from the same socioeconomic class as Peggy, they're a villain. Similar thing with Tony's villains in IM (Obadiah Stane, Anton Vanko, Justin Hammer, Aldrich Killian...) they're just Other Tonys.
(So you can tell that TPTB have some kind of... English fetish going on and think upper classness is definitely part of her Specialness?)
While Tony has the same 'avoidance of all consequences for his actions' wealthy white privilege that Peggy has, there are certain important differences.
Generally speaking, they share one over-arching trait, which is: if you consider whether or not the world / people around them would be better off if they didn't exist, the answer is yes.
Without Tony, there'd be no Anton Vanko, no Aldrich Killian, no Quentin Beck (which means no Spider-Mans dimensional incursion), no Ultron (which, in another universe, endangered the entire multiverse), no dead Pietro, no dead Sokovians generally (meaning probably no Scarlet Witch, no Vision, no Westview Hex, all the knock-on effects of that?), no Snap. And Hulk or Thor could have put the nuke through the wormhole in A1 (except he wouldn't because it wouldn't have been written into the story at all since Hemsworth doesn't have short man syndrome.)
With no Peggy, Steve's story in CATFA isn't altered (because she didn't matter to the plot or his life at all). But there would be no Winter Soldier programme (since she wouldn't be around to give the man who started it a job at SHIELDra), ergo no Black Widows being mind-controlled either (since that was based on Winter Soldier tech), no continued Hydra (WhatIf confirms all this by showing that a SHIELD founded by everyone else who was there originally, except her, has no Nazis in it.) Ergo no Project Insight. No Winter Soldier means no assassination of Howard Stark, so no Civil War bust up of the Avengers, if Tony still exists (unless Zemo found some other way to effect it). C.1940s her male colleagues in SSR would have handled everything she interfered with in AC, Edwin Jarvis's wife wouldn't have been sterilised by gsw in the uterus, and Daniel Sousa would have settled down with a nice girl (nurse Violet, possibly Skye) and wouldn't have been assassinated by Hydra for whistleblowing in 1955, because there wouldn't be any Hydra.
.
Now the differences:
First, Tony is actually above-average at some of the things he thinks he's good at, so his arrogance based on that is at least partially warranted (which Peggy's conviction of her own competence, moral integrity, etc. isn't).
His estimate of his own ability is debatable, though, since his genius (in the MCU) stems from the Grand American Capitalist Tradition of stealing other peoples' work, doing a minimal amount to hone it, and then claiming all the credit / reaping all the financial reward.
(See: Iron Man suits, AI, E.D.I.T.H., B.A.R.F., Extremis serum, time-travel, etc. Tony's only original creations I can think of in the MCU are his robot-servants and the improvised booby-traps from Iron Man 3. And for all we know these could be rip-offs, too, it's just not mentioned.)
Second, Tony may have got into MIT as a legacy admission (nepotism), but he does actually have at least some of the expertise in a STEM field to warrant a place, which Peggy lacks. (She gets an honorary degree from IIRC Oxford: ie. rewarded for doing no work. And while she claims competence in mathematics (as part of the AC retcon of her non-existent war record), outside of one code-breaking scene, her alleged mathematical ability is never shown. (And in fact Bletchley Park's concession to her leaving it mid-war suggests she wasn't a crucial employee.)
Third, while Tony may have inherited his company without earning it, he does have the necessary brains and thieving habits to create and maintain such a company if he wanted to. He has the appropriate skills; which cannot be said of Peggy in any of her unearned spying jobs.
Peggy is a nepotism baby who couldn't stomach any of the jobs she was handed, one after another, that she kept idiotically choosing to ask for despite her unsuitability for them (which she cannot recognise).
And then she flaked out on these jobs from 'boredom,' even in the middle of a crisis like a world war (failure is never her fault, always the job's, always the mens').
She is a woman who thinks she's a maths whizz and yet has to have the number of sides of a cube explained to her (and as said, Bletchley Park were apparently fine with her quitting mid-war. It's like the opposite of all those 'screenshots of my boss begging me to come back after I quit' sm stories about crucial workers).
She believes she is a brilliant, underappreciated spy, surrounded by inferiors, but cannot spot a single spy when they infiltrate her organisation or home (any one of many, many, many, many occasions: during the war and after).
She's a spy who craves attention.
Whose disguises fail in seconds, and are so inept that she cannot avoid detection by someone who barely knows her, even when photographed from the back.
(Contrast that with actual-spy Natasha, whose disguises are so good not even we realise it's her until she reveals herself!)
Peggy is a woman who thinks she is a sort of hero to other women... but is fine shunting the work which she considers beneath her off onto them... (when she reacts with outrage when men do that exact same thing to her)... or fine with letting her rich male friends get away with chauvinism.
Who interferes to prevent male feminist colleagues from taking steps that would make life better for the Other Girls whom she is Not Like and who Cannot Therefore be allowed to Become Like her.
(Because as long as White Feminist knows Her value, she's the only person that matters!)
It takes a certain level of competence to correctly gage the extent of your own competence, or relative incompetence.
It's the basis of true self-awareness. She lacks that. (Whether Tony also lacks it is... not clear. Maybe he does, too).
Peggy's continued bloody-minded belief that she is, eg. a competent spy and a feminist, directly contrary to the evidence... (because the writers aren't capable of recognising when they've written the exact opposite of what they vaguely intended) ...is the proof that she lacks the qualities necessary to actually be either of those things. And to realise that she is just not physically or temperamentally suited to spying or heroism, at all.
She does share Tony's habit of blaming anything but herself for her problems, though. 🤔
When Peggy shows up hours late for work, eats like a slob at her desk while all the men are doing their paperwork, refuses to do said paperwork (even though that's the job she's been hired for and accepted) as if it's an insult to even ask her, shunts it off onto female underlings, and then does nothing except sabotage her colleagues' work for months, then unilaterally hiring someone who cannot be trusted and who kills 40+ people... (Johann Fennhoff)
She acts as if her male colleagues' lack of enthusiasm about her ability is due to... sexism, only... and not to her being, for example, a lazy, entitled, violently bad-tempered, disastrously-incompetent dickhead and self-outing nepotism hire.
When Tony calls himself a "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist..." He is at least getting 1/4 of those right... ish.
(Is it genius to commit industrial espionage and rip off the designs of other men including employees, do 12% of the work and then patent them as your own? When it's JARVIS and FRIDAY who do everything for him, actually? Is inheriting generational wealth a flex? Does exchanging sex for favours make you a womaniser or a creepy Weinstein-esque loser? Does making money off cleaning up the very mess you caused, for Rich-White-Guy tax write-offs, count as actual philanthropy? Would an actual philanthropist list philanthropy last, of all those things on the list?)
He does appear to learn from his mistakes for a brief period...
(His Act 1 Fuck Up is usually revealed as a Plot!Coupon necessary for his Act 3 Success; the icing over of the Iron Man suit, the double-reverb attack gained from firing at Rhodey, etc.)
...But that is over-ruled at the beginning of each new Iron Man movie, when the lessons of the last one are ignored to set his personality back at 0. 🙄
In the case of the Avengers movies, though, he doesn't learn at all. Ultron tries to murder everyone, (WhatIf reveals he would have eventually destroyed the entire multiverse.) Hydra tries to enact Project Insight A.I. to kill millions...
And yet years later Tony is still claiming those two as morally correct successes, flawed only because they were made to fail (not because they were horrible fascist ideas to begin with), and redoing Insight as EDITH only giving it to a disastrous teenage boy. 🤦♀️
Peggy, however, is pathologically incapable of learning from mistakes, because that first requires you to acknowledge that you are capable of making mistakes, which is inconceivable to her.
She has herself up on a high pedestal, as the pinnacle of womanhood around which the world and all other women (surely?!) revolve, and cannot be knocked off its axis.
The closest she has ever come to an accurate self-assessment was when Edwin Jarvis called her arrogant and ignorant and she flippantly pretended to agree. (Inadvertently proving him right).
Tony is possibly redeemable because he at least has sensible people around him, telling him he's a fucking idiot.
He does occasionally make the obeisance of saying 'my bad,' even if he doesn't fully comprehend it.
Peggy on the other hand isn't redeemable because she doesn't think she's ever done anything wrong in her life, ever. She thinks she is practically perfect in any way. Atwell thinks she's a good enough sort of woman to fix any man! Like a lot of TERFs and white feminists, she would see the mere suggestion of any wrongdoing on her part as preposterous.
#long post#antitony#antipeggy#antisteggy#cynthia glass#p*ggy meta#mcu critical#steggy is hydra trash party#meta#mcu meta#antitony...ish?#shieldra founders#toAyourQ#dat's me#hey nonny#to quote mcu-peggy in the comics -- implying she is either corrupt or incompetent is 'insane' and will get you IMMEDIATELY attacked by her#unrelated factor: both RDJ and atwell are essentially playing themselves which is why their characters read as fresh and charismatic#but while RDJ has great acting talent on top of that to lend tony's less-RDJ-ish emotional scenes heft and verisimilitude...#atwell is not so talented (reminding me of Jennifer Saunders parodying bad actresses in French & Saunders comedy show)#and so isn't as natural in those moments as she is when peggy is being eg. violent/bossy/white-feminist/condescending etc.#my meta
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Sunday Steve - Day Twelve
Things that would be new or unfamiliar to Steve in the 21st century, either due to the time period he grew up in, or his social-economic status and other such factors.
Day Twelve: Soap
One day I was looking at a bottle of dishsoap and I wondered, would Steve have used this? So I looked it up. Liquid soap was patented in 1865 but "despite its popularity throughout the early to middle 1900’s, it wasn’t until 1980 that liquid soap became mass-produced for domestic use." (Link)
From what I've found liquid soap was not that commonly used. There were liquid shampoos in the 20s but many people used shampoo powder or liquified grated soap bars.
It's the same for other soap. Laundry soap and dishsoap came in powders and soap bars. Below you can see a box of soap flakes shown to be used for both laundry and dishes.
Soap flakes sold for 10 cents circa 1929
Here are some more laundry soap options we covered in the laundry post.
Laundry soap options in 1927. They included purchasing flakes, chips, or powder; liquifying your soap ahead of time(right); and (left) grating your own laundry soap from a bar. Fels Naptha soap, which came in a big bar, was rubbed on difficult stains and rings around the collar. (Link)
Liquidizing the soap entails taking soap shavings and dissolving it into boiling water. The liquid would then be poured into laundry water to be used. If left over night the soap re-solidifies.
For dishes another option besides powders or flakes is a soap shaker. This blog discusses early 20th century dishwashing, showing things like soap shakers and dish scrapers. Looks like one could use a soap shaker to more easily get suds from a bar of soap.
Modern soap shaker reproduction (Link).
But what about public bathrooms?
Most public bathrooms nowadays use liquid soap, and if liquid soap wasn't so common, what did they use?
It's possible some bathrooms used bars of soap it's not very easy to find information about that online. What I can find that is soap dispensers that dispensed powdered soap!
There's this one that had a crank to push the soap forward to an opening. Another type of seemed to have a lever/button press to dispense soap. Some styles shave off soap bars inside the canister as well.
I've never experienced these types of dispensers but looking online a lot of people seem to remember them growing up.
1940s era bathroom experienced in the 70s:
They were very simple -- white plaster walls with a wooden partition painted dark green, a painted concrete floor, and a plain white wall-mounted toilet. The sinks had cold water only, and over each sink was mounted a metal Boraxo dispenser -- Boraxo was a dry, gritty, powdered soap, and the dispenser was a sort of mechanical sifter with a lever that hung down below. You'd bang on the lever and a small amount of the powder would sift out. The towel dispensers gave out rough folded-red-paper towels
Circa 1936 powdered soap dispenser with crank handle. Note is says "pure dry cake soap ground into powder as you use it without any waste". So this dispenser seems to ground soap cakes (bars) into powder itself.
The video below is an example of push button powdered soap dispenser. Some dispensers have labels suggested to wet the hand first before using the soap. (37 sec video).
youtube
I have also seen people talk about soap leaves being available in women's bathrooms. The soap leaf booklets could also be carried around in a purse and used by the owner at their convenience.
You can see in this accessory pack that at least some soldiers were provided with soap leaf packets to use during World War Two.
In conclusion
It is unlikely Steve would be used to using liquid soap. From what I could find liquid soap, and especially the liquid hand soap dispensers, were not popular until the 80s (this seems to be partially because of the difficulty of developing a pump soap dispenser for liquid soap, so that would also be new for him.) I think the prevalence of liquid soap would surprise him as soap is so basic you don't really expect it to change but basically the whole experience of soap has changed for him.
Also, fun fact! Soap operas are called that because when they rose to popularity in the 20-30s they were regularly sponsored by soap companies!
#sunday steve#steve rogers#steve rogers meta#meta#soap#soap flakes#liquid soap#hand washing#history#20th century history#20th century#bathrooms#public bathrooms#soap powder#american history#early 20th century history#1900s#1930s#soap shakers#washing dishes
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No hush Ur amazing also oops 😭 I totally thought u wrote guys my age for a good sec anyways😂, here’s a situation i dreamt up for the whole Yandere Gavriel thing Long story short he's been obsessed with you since he saw you on Aedions arm at a ball thrown by none other than her Majesty Aelin to celebrate their victory over the valg
he would abuse his easy access to your rooms in a deranged attempt to learn everything about you
he was on edge around you to the point you thought he disliked you eventually relaxing when he realized you and Aedion were simply friends
he felt his control slipping like blood on the dungeons harsh stone floors after seeing ur underthings thrown haphazardly around your bedchambers
eventually he couldn’t contain himself slipping into your room in the dead of night his face inches from yours as he took your pink silk underwear and wrapped it around his length trying his hardest to imagine it was you
you swore you heard growls following you around whenever you left the castles secure walls to explore the markets
I was also imaging y/n training with the young guards and Gavriel losing his shit over their pathetic attempts at flirting and him doing something idk also getting chased through the woods would be really cool because their relationship is giving me Beauty and the Beast energy ✨but these are all just long ass suggestions whatever you do will be cool asf but pretty please 🥺can they have a chase through the woods 🧚scene my uterus would be utterly destroyed 🥵🌸🥵
ps whats ur favorite song at the moment?
mines nectar of the gods by lana del rey
O ma faking god, GAVRIEL MASTURBATING WITH YOUR LACE!!! That is AMAZING! Love it 💥l o v e i t
And no, because imagine:
Gavriel and the cadre are on a war, burning kingdoms for Maeve and this shit. And you happen to be one of the victims whose city was burned. So as soon as you see enemy soldiers, you run.
But then Gavriel sees you. And he just falls, in that exact moment deciding you're the one for him. He chases after you, not knowing your name, not knowing anything about you at all, just that he wants, NEEDS, you.
You hear the footsteps, lungs burning as you ran as fast as you can. But it was not enough.
Strong arms wrap around your waist, pulling you into harn chest as you both stop suddenly. You're panting more from fear now than exhaustion, but Gavriel only caresses your cheek gently, wiping the tear that escaped your eye without you knowledge.
"Shh, now angel. You're not in danger anymore. Not with me. I'll take care of you from now on, and no one will ever touch you again."
....
It's the most perfect thing I've ever come up with. I just know the moment I write this, I will become a god.
Ah, and my favorite song. It's kinda impossible for me to choose. Right now I'm in love with Work Song from Hozier, but my all time fav are Meet Me in The Woods, by Lord Huron, and Way Down We Go by Kaleo
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ok @akiizayoi4869 opened a can of worms by expressing mild, passing interest on my thoughts on the second half of book 3, so here's my Ramble
disclaimer, this is mostly just initial thoughts. i haven't gone through the Essay Analysis process for this, so there's bound to be holes in my interpretation here.
so 2 topics for this breakdown. 1st, zuko's narrative symbols and how i interpret them. 2nd, how those symbols play out in season 3 and a few gripes with season 3 in general.
this one's fuckin long, so buckle up
part 1, zuko's identity and its symbols
okay so the main symbols i tend to see are as follows: fire, swords, and the blue spirit mask. each represents a part of zuko's identity that is somehow at odds with each other at some point. fire is basically Prince of the Fire Nation. swords are who zuko is detatched from his nation. the blue spirit mask is selfishness and the Ozai mentality, as ive been calling it.
first, fire. pretty big for a symbol, i know. specifically for zuko, i think that fire represents zuko as the crown prince. and that comes with all the turmoil of prince zuko. it starts with being what he's been taught a prince is, following orders and being the loyal son, and ends with what he discovers a prince should be, a protector of his people, even if its from themselves. that mirrors the development of fire throughout the show as initially spooky scary big bad burning rage to actually it's life and love and rage and everything in between, and you have to know how to use it. zuko learning how to firebend without anger parallels him learning that being prince is more than what he was taught.
second, swords. and yes, this is distinct from the blue spirit mask. this is basically "just zuko." it's what zuko relies on when he's not a prince. when the prince can't do anything, "just zuko" can. its what he is when traveling the earth kingdom, basically nationless and without a higher identity to cling to. it's instinctual, something he's good at, and something he hides away because it's not becoming of a Prince to be "just zuko."
the most important aspects of this symbol come when they are used without the mask. in zuko alone, he uses the swords to defend innocent people from cruel soldiers. (he decidedly does not use the mask.) the one time zuko firebends while using his swords, combining "prince" and "just zuko," he is punished for combining them and run out of town. (wouldn't it be great if there was a chance for positive reinforcement of combining these symbols later on?) he uses the swords against jet to defend his right to be "just zuko" in ba sing se. he uses them against ozai when he finally sees through the ozai mentality (more on that in a sec) and leaves to teach aang firebending. he presents himself as "just zuko," who was never enough for ozai, and tells ozai to go fuck himself.
third, the blue spirit mask is a combo of selfishness and the ozai mentality.
the ozai mentality is the idea that some things are awful and essential. they are excusable because of the end result. the war, zuko's banishment, his disfigurement. the ozai mentality isnt necessarily tied to the blue spirit, but the blue spirit doesn't exist without it. he steals the avatar from zhao because it's essential (not princely, he doesn't firebend. its horrible for a prince to do, but essential). he steals song's ostrich horse because its essential. he sides with azula in ba sing se because its essential. awful, but essential. these last two happen without the mask because the ozai mentality sticks to zuko far beyond the reaches of the mask as a symbol. (so maybe the mask doesn't actually represent the ozai mentality, and that just doesn't have a symbol, idk lol, im just moving past that, rigidly defined symbols are hard.)
the selfishness is over-indulgence, taking more than he should, stealing in excess because he deserves it. it's only believing in the ozai mentality when it serves him.
letting go of the blue spirit mask is getting rid of the idea that what he wants is more important than the world, as much as it is the first step in accepting that some things that happen are not essential. ("it was cruel and it was wrong" doesn't come out until he starts to reject the ozai mentality.)
the mask and the swords make the blue spirit. the blue spirit is what zuko doesn't think is princely, doesn't think is honorable, but he'll do because fuck the world, he deserves this. sounds nice in theory, but not great self care in practice. selfishness, the ozai mentality, and "just zuko" collide in a mix of someone who doesn't have the responsibilities of being prince on their head, but still feels they're owed by the world. who feels like some things just have to happen, and it sucks, but they had it coming. the blue spirit is the worst part of "just zuko", and is abandoned in lake laogai because it only hurts him.
(the mask and fire are incompatible because the blue spirit and the prince are incomaptible. the blue spirit does horrible things that cant be honorable, and the prince can't be selfish in the face of his people's needs.)
if you want more on the blue spirit and vigilantism, here's my breakdown of that in a reblog. it has been changed since OPs reblog, mostly cuz i was acting like there was zero justification for the avenging vigilante take even though the first time zuko does blue spirit shit in season 2, it's literally that. had to think for a bit and clarify. lmao when you wrong, you wrong.
part 2, book 3 second half dumb
so imo, i think the second half of book three feels like a checklist. like, zuko joins gang, zuko reconciles with our list of characters that need reconciliation, token recap comedy, finale. you know exactly whats coming, which i guess isn't bad, but i always struggle to rewatch these episodes cuz it really feels like a list of narrative tasks instead of a story.
so, down the list, episode by episode:
the firebending masters was a great episode, but how was it one fucking episode? a character just fucking losing their bending?? no one is concerned?? this hasn't come up before, why is no one terrified by the fact that this can just happen? also also, why is it resolved in a grand total of one episode? same with Aang's reluctance to firebend. i get what the writers were going for, but a couple of missable lines about "fire is life actually" doesn't do much convincing after an entire show's worth of effort showing us the dangers of fire. give us some time to learn to love it, like come on. take us through that journey with aang. let it culminate in the firebending masters, where aang finally feels like fire is a part of him, and zuko finally knows how to exist without rage driving him.
zuko and aang's relationship also needs more attention. for a whole episode meant to convince us that all feelings are resolved, i was left feeling more awkward than when we started. frankly, i feel that way about everyone. zuko literally has direct character parallels to every gaang member that would be so fun to explore, and yet these episodes felt so hamfisted to me. (aang & zuko: homesickness, did something stupid and cant go home because of it, trying to preserve their culture being swallowed by the war. katara & zuko: anger, emotions, mothers died/vanished protecting them from the fire nation. sokka & zuko: "less talented" sibling to a prodigy, and all the fucked up emotions that that comes with, swords. toph & zuko: aristocratic upbringing, and literally everything iroh said when toph ran into him for tea during The Chase.)
specific annoyances with the symbols, a lot of people think that zuko should've been able to use firebending with his swords more often, and i wholeheartedly agree. i mentioned it earlier, but this combo only happens once, in Zuko Alone. zuko bends with his swords and immediately introduces himself as prince, heir to the throne, and also still fighting off these shitty soldiers and still holding his swords. its proof that the prince and "just zuko" can coexist, and can do it well.
he's forced to leave town for that, and we never see him firebend while holding swords again. fuckin wack is what that is. bad wack.
what we needed was a reconnection of those symbols after that loss of faith. we needed to reconfirm that zuko can be fire lord, because "just zuko" and the prince work together beautifully.
there's a huge amount to tell through these symbols as well, with zuko losing his firebending after betraying his father and technically giving up his place on the throne. it's so obvious that im frustrated it was never brought up. zuko gave up on being prince, in ozais image at least, and now needs to relearn to be prince in his own image or else not be prince at all. he needs to learn to bend without anger, or else not bend at all.
additionally, aang and zuko's relationship ties in with these symbols. aang has personally dealt with each one of them, and surprisingly, its the mask and the swords that he gets along with in terms of zuko. (not entirely sure thematically how to resolve the blue spirit mask and aang connection, but also im just yelling at a wall here, not rewriting the season lmao.) they were amazing fighting companions in the blue spirit episode, where fire and the prince were nowhere in sight. when it comes to fire, that has a loaded history.
i would have loved to see an extended version of events that showcased aang and zuko meshing unreasonably well for recent enemies, all until they see the dragons and firebending pops up. after all, its the prince part of zuko that causes the most trouble, so aang thinks. aang learning firebending isn't just about learning that fire is a part of him as the avatar, but also about learning that zuko being prince is okay and doesn't mean they can't be friends. that tension resolves when we finally get some scene that prompts zuko to start bending with his swords, and both he and aang realize that these two parts of zuko are stronger together.
the boiling rock episodes are a joy to watch, but the outcome of the episodes feels so pointless when in the next episode, we immediately separate from hakoda again. like?? there's got to have been a better way to deal with this. the most important things in those episodes were sokka reaffirming his own skills to himself in the wake of the invasion, and azula being betrayed by her friends. the fact that hakoda, suki, and a random ass guy??? were treated as an afterthought to be disregarded next episode is obnoxious. (ok, suki wasnt disregarded, but she also got gaang position with hardly any narrative work, which is annoying cuz she doesn't deserve to be snubbed like that.)
the southern raiders gave katara some closure, dragged zuko along cuz the checklist!!, and then promptly disregarded everything except for "now katara wont kill zuko." like, it even got rid of the shit katara learned. this episode seems like it has a lot it wants to say, but fails to meaningfully say anything, and therefor leaves viewers in a spot where they have to come up with a moral lesson on their own. which is fine, i guess, but it's also a kids show. if there's any place to be direct about your morals, this is it. the episode thematically is in line with things that zuko would do with the blue spirit mask. its all about how that selfish mentality taunts everyone, and that like katara, zuko is also tmepted by it. the selfish need to get what you think you deserve, regardless of what the world needs. regardless of what you actually need. showing this same thread in katara is amazing, and so key to her character development. especially when she, despite being fully enabled by zuko, refuses to submit to it.
we jump forward to aang being anxious over killing ozai, and katara doesn't side with him. after all that?? like i understand there are differences, but i thought the point of the episode was that sometimes bad people go unpunished because enacting "appropriate" punishment will hurt the punisher, and that's not worth it. killing her mom's murderer would've hurt katara in ways that she didn't need. sparing him was not a mercy to him, but to herself. if that guy tripped and fell off a cliff the next day, it wouldn't matter. the point was that katara didn't put herself through that suffering. and now she's totally fine with aang needing to go through that? i don't believe it.
zuko would. zuko will. he'd fucking kill ozai in heartbeat. he might have gotten better at spotting it, but he has not gotten rid of the ozai mentality. it sucks, but it's essential. his dad must die.
and he expects aang to believe the same, and that's another bit of conflict that isn't touched on enough. zuko is ready and willing to kill his own father, regardless of the harm it would do to himself, and i feel like that should be more concerning to the gaang than it is. at the very least, to aang and katara, who have both been in situations where they could kill someone who made their life awful and refused to. and despite the fact that it's good for the world, leaning into the ozai mentality in order to justify killing ozai is fucked up. the show makes a point of telling us this, the whole finale tries to drive it home. the entire show is about refuting this mentality, and now zuko, ozai's son, the guy who's trying so hard to be good, has slipped into it so seemlessly he didn't even flinch, and no one is concerned? cmon.
also the energybending stuff? we coulda worked that in sooner. we've been talking about energy connecting people since the swamp episode. we've been talking about bending being a restriction of the mind since lightningbending, since metalbending. im not opposed to the creepy lion turtle vacation, but there were ways to foreshadow energybending as a solution before the finale, and they just didnt.
also also toph and zuko deserved better. where the fuck was their field trip? they didn't get one because the point of those episodes was not friendship, it was reaching a baseline of okay.
which is another thing. fandom is awesome, but watching season 3, i still don't believe that zuko is anywhere near close to these kids. they're hardly friends by the end of this, and based on what the show shows me, i fully believe that the coronation was the first time aang even called zuko his friend. and that's not something someone like aang would hold off on, so they're very much just battle bonded companions until the epilogue.
and i mean, if it works, it works. there's only so much time, but still. i think there should've been 4 seasons, enough to actually establish friendships between zuko (and suki, fuck she's so ignored its stupid) and the gaang and really drive home the fact that joining the gaang wasn't just good for the world, but was good for zuko too.
anyway, thats my uh. rant. about season 3. clearly overshadowed by my love of zuko's character with a heavy lean into Aang's space because he's blorbo no. 2 and i love aang and zuko's relationship because of the parallels.
i have no conclusion. hope you enjoyed adhfjdh
#thank you for coming to my tedtalk#atla#zuko#aang#katara#sokka#book three#characterization#my takes#narrative themes#critical takes
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Fallin'
Pairing: Jack Daniels (Agent Whiskey) x f!Reader
Summary: You and Agent Whiskey are on a mission and you’re at a dead end.
Warnings: swearing, shooting, falling
[Part 2]
*We're fucked. We're totally fucked.*
You can't think of anything else while hiding behind a small cement wall containing an outlet noozle, squatting on the ground of this building roof, while bullets fly over your heads hoping to caught you and blow your brains out.
"There's fucking loads of them!"
Shit, this was never in the cards. When Champagne entrusted you with this mission you thought you could do it without much trouble...and you would've gotten it if only Tequila hadn't decided to get high like a kid at his first party yesterday night, being completely knocked out this morning and leaving you and Whiskey alone to handle a plan set for three. Stupid prick. The goal of this mission was to take a dose of antidote in a test tube and go back to the base without being seen. It was meant to be a quick, clean work...but everything has gone to shit when the alarm went off and you found ourselves forced to run on this fucking roof, ending up surrounded and with no escape.
"We're not gonna make it" you say aloud to Whiskey, squatting beside you "they're too many!"
Your breath is racing, looking at his face and almost feeling his brain working really fast to come up with something. He just stays in silence for a bit before speaks, reloading his guns as fast as he can.
"Ok, listen" he says in a short breath "I lost my whip and only have a few slugs left. You have to cover me and you have to do it without missin' a shot. Got it?"
"I told you hiding on the roof was a stupid...wait, what?"
"You got that?"
"No, what...no! How-"
"Cover me!"
It's a split second, you don't even have time to reply while see Whiskey take a breath and stand up in a lightning movement, running to a group of soldiers with open arms and responding to fire with his two revolvers, jumping headlong into the fire conflict.
"Shit..."
You have no choice but to have his back. His brilliant plan was just to jump into the fray like that? Jesus. You aim as precisely and quickly as you can, shooting at those bastards who haven't given you a breath in over an hour. You shoot and keep shooting, watching Whiskey confront a group of at least seven soldiers in camouflage, picking them off one by one with some fast and precise movements. His motions are so fast that with your eyes you almost struggle to see them, seeing only the enemies fall ruinously one by one like little toy soldiers in the hands of a sadistic child playing war. You try to keep your concentration even if it's not easy while something touches your head so closely that you can feel the air shift on your ear, making you freeze for a sec.
It's a matter of seconds, of quick but very long moments, before you realize that Whiskey has run out of bullets...and so have you.
"Fuck!"
Hiding again behind the wall your hands convulsively move on your pockets looking for more bullets, you thought you had at least one box left...
"Fuck...fuck!"
The fear of seeing Whiskey die right in front of your eyes is making you more than shake and is clouding your mind, not allowing you to think clearly anymore. You have to figure something out. Even though you're a kick-ass at hand-to-hand combat in this context it'd be nothing but a suicide mission: others are on the way. You look at him spinning his lasso in the air like a cloud full of lightning, waiting for the first move of who'll have the guts to face him...and you can see a little smirk on his face from afar.
There he is, that's your cowboy.
When you joined the Statesman Agency a few months ago you did it convinced that you'd never break the rules that you had set to yourself. The first one: accomplishing a mission is the most important thing. It doesn't matter what it involved, what you should have lost, what you should have given up. If carrying the mission entrusted to you requires the loss of your life, fine. The second one: no distraction. If something had made you waver, distracted you in any way from your goal, made you lose your cool...you'd have eliminated it immediately no matter what. And the last but not least one: never, never get emotionally involved with a colleague.
And guess what: it's completely without pride that to this day you can say you've broken all of them.
You certainly can't deny it to yourself anymore: you fell in love with Agent Whiskey a long time ago now. You never had the guts to confess anything, limiting to observe him in silence from afar, admiring his experience and his incredible skills in combat...you've never seen anyone fight like him before. Fast, lethal, incredibly precise. His whip doesn't miss a shot and he wields his guns with great mastery. And then his way of behaving, of talking, of moving...so cocky and so fascinating. You always tried not to make him understand anything, shifting your gaze as soon as his curious eyes rose upon you realizing he's been watched.
"Agent Brandy, are you still with us?"
Champagne's voice brought you back from your thoughts in a second, making you feel so stupid as your cheeks turned red like a tomato straight from the oven.
"Uhm, yes..."
"Did you listen to what I just said?"
You nodded silently lowering your head, the shame was warming your skin while you felt the looks of the other agents around the table all on you. Whiskey, sitting in front of you, smiled softly as he looked down.
You never said anything, keeping it all inside and never leaking any kind of feeling. And damn, God knows how you fucking suffered every time he had to sleep with a target to plant some bugs or to extract important information for the purpose of a mission...but what were you supposed to do? Whiskey is your partner. How could you continue to work with him or even look him in the eye after his rejection?
"Take your time, Brandy!"
It's Whiskey's voice. Once again your thoughtlessness is interrupted by a voice that screams your name, bringing you back to the real world and pulling you out of yout thoughts pit. Here you are again, catapulted into this battle. In a second you take back the reins of your mind as your eyes fall on a gun that fell to the ground, still held by the severed arm of the man who was pointing it at Whiskey. His electric lasso cut him clean and cauterized. It's close, you can do it.
You can do it.
With a lightning movement you try to reach it, snapping forward without losing sight of it, but something squeezes your throat and drags you away, just giving you enough time to see Whiskey lose his lasso as you cling with both hands to the arm that's squeezing you up a few inches from the ground. You're having a hard time breathing. Without thinking too much and with a precise blow you stick the knife that's hide in one of your sleeve inside his thigh and free yourself from his grip, lowering and hitting him in the stomach as he grabs you by the hair, throwing you to the ground. You get up but lose your sight for a bit at the exact moment his fist hits your face, so hard that you almost blacked out. You can taste your own blood in your mouth. Your head starts spinning as you realize you're on the edge of the roof, there's the void behind.
Your eyes open wide.
"You're on the wrong side, bitch."
His evil little smile, those blue icy eyes, his hands covered with black leather gloves lean on you in a very fast movement that you see in slow motion. In a second you feel your body lose balance, falling backwards in a moment that seems eternal. You close your eyes, accepting your destiny and the fact that it had to be this way. That it's over. That you'll never see Jack again. That you were a disappointment to the Statesman, to Champagne, to your parents and to yourself...but in a split second something holds your wrist, making your body dangle in the void and bumping against the wall.
When you look up and see Whiskey, your heart leaps.
"Don't let me fall" you beg, looking desperately in his dark and frightened eyes "...please, don't drop me."
Despite his efforts he can't lift you up, his arm shakes and you feel his grip tightening more and more while 'cause of the sweat your hand starts to slip. His shoulder is bleeding, he has no strength left.
"Jack"
You look down and then up again, to his face that you're sure is the last time you see. Your heart's beating so hard you're afraid it's gonna jump out of your chest.
"Fuck, I...I can't..."
"Jack, I - "
It's a moment. A second. Your hand slips, no more friction, no more grip. Gravity drags you down with it and your body falls into the void. His eyes screams at you full of terror and desperation. You see them, you see them well as you fall back as they pierce your soul from side to side. You see everything in slow motion, Whiskey leans out even more in an attempt to grab you again, his open hand, his hat flying away from his head. His face, his fear and his despair are the last things you see, maybe he's screaming your name but you can't hear him anymore...and then...all turns black.
#agent whiskey#love#whiskey#pedropascalfanfic#pedropascal#pedro pascal fanfiction#pedro#pedrohub#thegoldencircles#statesman#jack daniels#jack daniels fanfic#shooting#fanfiction#kingsman#kingsman the golden circle#thegoldencircle#cowboy#kingsman fanfiction#jack Daniels fic#agent whiskey fanfic
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