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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

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Well, it’s not quite a master’s thesis, but this is (the first of) a series of posts on why Catra and Adora are the best love story in the history of kids TV animation and maybe the greatest love story in the history of TV. This may in some ways be faint praise - romance on TV is generally not very good compared with books or movies. Often it’s just some will they/won’t they sexual tension that is defused by getting characters together and re-heightened by breaking them up. TV is full of nearly shark jumping pointless dramas like Sam and Diane (Cheers, holy fuck am I dating myself, though that was technically before my time), Ross and Rachel (Friends, which was no Cheers) etc, but also some less annoying couples like Ben and Leslie (Parks and Rec) or Amy and Jake (Bk99) who are mostly just kind of cute and fun. Other shows, like the X-Files, teased viewers for years with unresolved sexual tension. In kids shows most romances are, appropriate for their target viewers, mild, sweet relationships based more on self-conscious flirting and blushing than on complex and conflicted feelings or deep passions - which is pretty realistic when the characters are young teens or even mid-teens. Some of these relationships are really well done - Finn and Flame Princess, Dipper and Pacifica (yeah I ship them), the early stages of Katara and Aang (before the showrunners imbued this childhood crush with cosmic significance), Steven and Connie, etc. Catra and Adora, though, are different. Their love story is not a side plot or a sub plot, it’s the heart of the show. It isn’t a childhood crush, it’s a very messy and passionate relationship between two young adults. She-Ra is an emotionally complex lesbian romance just as much as it is a thrilling action/adventure show. Everything about their relationship is baked into the show’s plot, its themes, hell even its musical score. The dramatic tension between Catra and Adora is not the result of stretching out a flirtation for ratings, but a coherent dramatic arc that runs through the entire show. As Noelle said, he made Catradora so central that execs couldn’t take it out without ruining the show. And the show is better for it. In this series of posts I’m going to try to show why, as well as showing why She-Ra is such a fantastic love story.

First off, let’s talk about how Catra and Adora’s character arcs are foils for each other, and how they come together and apart through the series. This is actually a post that I’ve been working on for a while but I keep summarizing the show rather than cutting to the chase, so I’m not going to recite many plot points so much as sketch out what’s going on with the dramatic structure at the time. But also, let’s talk about what each character’s arc is saying, and how they are commenting on each other. Spoiler alert: Catra’s arc is a subversion and critique of stories of empowerment through ruthless self-assertion and revenge, while Adora’s arc is a subversion and critique of chosen one narratives and stories of self-denial and self-transcendence.

When the show starts, Adora and Catra are shown as rivals and friends - their first scene starts the recurring motif of them reaching out for each other as one of them dangles above an abyss, as well as establishing their flirtatious banter and easy camaraderie. We quickly learn that these two young women plan to conquer the world together. These scenes and later flashbacks show Catra and Adora as deeply enmeshed in each others lives, to the point where neither of them (but especially Catra) have clear identities outside of one another. There is so much genuine love on both sides before Adora leaves, but also resentment, envy and fear, especially on Catra’s side, as well as a protectiveness on Adora’s side that deprives Catra of her autonomy. They are both being abused by Shadow Weaver - Catra physically and emotionally, Adora emotionally. It wouldn’t be too much to say that Shadow Weaver holds Catra hostage to control Adora (this is why critiques that Adora abandoned Catra to be abused are actually kind of messed up, since they accept Shadow Weaver’s premise that Adora is responsible for what Shadow Weaver does to Catra). In addition, Catra and Adora actually see the world incredibly differently. Adora already sees the world in terms of right, wrong and her destiny to right wrongs - this is why it’s important for her to accept the Horde’s obvious lies - she couldn’t keep living if she didn’t. Catra, on the other hand, sees the world solely in terms of survival and personal loyalty - everything for her is about preserving herself and the person she cares about - Adora.

Then, when Adora finds the sword, she leaves because it’s the right thing to do. Catra doesn’t even have a concept of ‘the right thing to do’ being something she should care about, or perhaps, something she can care about as an irredeemably evil, awful fuck-up. So at Thaymor neither one understands where the other is coming from, and Catra and Adora begin to part. This is the first turning point in their relationship. Adora chooses duty over what she desires, Catra chooses to protect herself (such as she sees it) and nurse her sense of betrayal and abandonment.

Their relationship until Promise is a kind of weird Frenemy thing that is fascinating to watch and sold me on the show. Neither one wants to fully admit to themselves that the other is now their enemy, neither one has given up on changing the other’s mind. Each is furious at the other, and desperate to see her again at the same time. There’s a lot of heartache and just as much sexual tension, especially at Princess Prom. Both of them come alive when they fight each other (more about that in a later post). But they’re already growing apart - Adora embracing her destiny as She-Ra, Catra rising in the ranks for the Horde. Adora now has the purpose she always wanted, plus other friends and a sense of being chosen to do something great, while Catra now has power - the means to protect herself from people like Shadow Weaver as well as the vindication she had always been denied, and even the opportunity to beat Shadow Weaver at her own game.

The next turning point is Promise. Holy fuck, this episode. It’s an episode that is even more heartbreaking after you’ve watched the show because you know just how much worse things are going to get, and yet, it’s a necessary part of both of their character arcs. Even through season 1 Catra and Adora had remained very much enmeshed in each others lives in an increasingly fucked up way as they grew apart but refused to turn away from each other. Even though they aren’t -exactly- a romantic couple (Adora doesn’t recognize and acknowledge her feelings until the last episode of Season 5), Season 1 of She-Ra is one of the worst breakups I have seen on TV. As I said in a couple of previous posts, this is the kind of shit that the Mountain Goats write songs about. Everything that was poisoning their love for each other even before episode 1 bubbles to the surface and combines with them fighting on opposite sides of the war to make a truly fucked up situation. In the end, it’s Catra that makes the choice to turn away from Adora. This isn’t a -good- decision. It’s spiteful, and destructive, and based on an outright deluded understanding of their relationship (inspired by Light Hope’s manipulations and her own issues), but it’s in some ways a necessary decision. Catra has been so wrapped up in Adora for so long that she isn’t going to be able to figure out who -she- is without cutting Adora out of her life. And the same is true of Adora.

But each of them do this in about the worst way possible. Catra embraces destruction, ambition, manipulation and outright cruelty, turning the tactics of her abusers against them and against everyone around her. She first triumphs over Shadow Weaver and manipulates Entrapta into trying to corrupt Etheria itself. Meanwhile Adora ‘lets go’ and commits herself to the self-denying mantle of She-Ra. Over the next several seasons, their respective paths will nearly lead both Catra and Adora to their deaths (in the Season 4 finale).

For the next season (counting season 2 and 3 as one) Catra and Adora are still closely linked, but as enemies. Still, there’s more than enough flirtation between them (that ‘Hey Catra’ in the first episode of Season 2 is something else), and especially on Adora’s side we see her hold back with Catra, and often take responsibility for the harm Catra inflicts, just like she had when they were kids. Yet they still drift apart - after facing off every other episode in Season 1, they spend less and less time on screen together through season 2 and 3. Catra continues her ascent to power and descent into villainy while Adora becomes more of a stressed out mess as she takes the fate of the world and the wellbeing of everyone she cares about on her admittedly broad shoulders. Catra’s one moment of vulnerability is rewarded by Shadow Weaver’s betrayal and her exile, then Catra triumphs in ruthless badass fashion through sheer desperation and aggression. In the Crimson Wastes, we see Catra at her most independent, and she almost seems happy. But once Adora shows up and Catra hears about Shadow Weaver, she’s sucked back into the worst of her resentments, and she makes very clear that being happy is less important to her than making sure Adora is miserable.

This changes everything. Catra completely breaks with reality and tries to kill Adora, herself and the world rather than lose to Adora and Shadow Weaver (I do think it’s important to remember that she does that after Shadow Weaver nearly kills her). Catra betrays everyone around her when she exiles Entrapta, threatens Scopria and lies to Hordak. Then she flips the switch. When Adora tries to fix things, Catra fights to her own death to make sure that the world disintegrates with her. For her part, Adora fights first to understand what is wrong with the world and then to fix it. Finally she tells Catra that destroying the world is her choice and she has to live with it, decks her, and then sees her off with a death glare once the portal is closed. With this, Adora writes Catra off even if, as she says later, she never never hated her. By doing that, Adora casts off the guilt that had dogged her and takes responsibility for her own life rather than someone else’s - this is actually a huge step for her, and one that will become more important in Season 4.

Season 4 is in many ways the nadir of their relationship. They only see each other once during the entire season, in Fluterrina, when Adora tries to blast Catra, much to the latter’s shock. There’s a sense in that scene that Catra is trying to have the same flirtatious enmity she used to have with Adora, and Adora is having none of it. Catra almost seems hurt by this, which is an early hint at how isolated Catra is beginning to feel. Catra spends the rest of the season at her highest and lowest. On the one hand she spends most of 12 episodes winning by every standard she has ever claimed to care about, besting Hordak himself in single combat and making herself co-ruler of the Horde and coming within a day’s march of ending the Rebellion. In many ways it is the ultimate empowerment fantasy - the abused young woman has defeated her abusers, showed up everyone who doubted her and forced everyone to respect her. But I think it’s striking that the show starts with her and Adora dreaming of conquering the world together and in Season 4 Catra nearly succeeds in conquering it alone, almost like she was trying to live out her old shared fantasy while proving she didn’t need her former best friend.

At the same time, Catra is clearly miserable. She’s always been unhappy, but in Season 4 we see her completely isolated and lying to herself and everyone who will listen in a desperate attempt to justify her actions. Turning the tactics of Hordak and Shadow Weaver against them to gain power and then against Scorpia and Entrapta to maintain it haven’t vindicated Catra, they’ve made her more and more alone as Entrapta is exiled and Scorpia drifts away. Meanwhile Catra reaches out to Double Trouble, and her interactions with them reek of a kind of desperate desire to have someone in her life (the feeling of their interaction is of an unhealthy casual relationship where one partner becomes emotionally invested and the other takes advantage of that while denying the other the closeness they desire). As people leave her, one after the other, it becomes clearer and clearer that Catra doesn’t want power at all - she wants connection, friendship, love, and power is a very poor replacement. As I said in my long Catra rant, Season 4 is both her ‘Walter White as a Catgirl’ season and the beginning of her redemption. Everything comes to head when Sparkles destroys everything Catra has tried to achieve, Double Trouble delivers those harsh truths and Horde Prime shows up and makes it all irrelevant, just highlighting how futile all her struggles and sacrifices and crimes have been.

Meanwhile Adora spends Season 4 becoming her own her and her own woman. After telling off Catra, she grows more and more disillusioned with Light Hope and critical of Glimmer (though the latter has more than a shade of her old habit of taking responsibility for others - Adora’s development is not linear). She’s gained the courage and confidence to strike out her own path, not just follow a destiny. At the season’s end she once again breaks with her best friend to do what is right, and discards the destiny that she was being prepared for. But in this case she isn’t chasing one packaged destiny for another, instead she’s making her own choice and literally shattering the thing that she thought gave her life purpose. It’s badass, and heartbreaking, and along with decking Catra and jumping after Catra into the abyss (see below) it’s the perfect Adora moment.

In many ways Season 5 starts with Catra and Adora farther apart than they have ever been. They aren’t even enemies anymore, they’re completely out of each other’s lives. And both Catra and Adora are lost at the beginning of Season 5 - Catra is useless and alone on Prime’s ship, completely defeated despite ostensibly being on the winning side, and she goes through the motions of her normal plotting without any particular conviction and none of her normal flair. Meanwhile Adora is even more miserable and self-destructive than usual, throwing herself at Horde Bots and working herself until she drops of exhaustion. In a very real way they both stay lost until they have a chance to help the other. Catra takes responsibility for what she’s done and what she can do, saves Glimmer (at least partly for Adora’s sake), apologizes to Adora, and sacrifices herself. Adora only seems to come alive when she decides to turn around, face Prime, and save the cat. And when she does, Catra and Adora’s arcs, which had separated so completely in season 4, come crashing back together to end the series.

Adora during Save the Cat is such a contrast with the uncertain, hesitant and self-destructive wreck we’ve seen so far in Season 5. This is possibly her craziest plan in 3 years of mostly cazy plans, but she never wavers or questions herself. Even when Chipped Catra appears and we see Adora’s heart break while we watch, Adora doesn’t back down or relent. She keeps at it even as the tears stream down her face. She fights better trying to save Catra without She-Ra’s powers than she fought at the Battle of Bright Moon with them. Catra’s just about as desperate - we see her cry and plead, and now is probably as good a time to any to point out how amazing a job both VAs did throughout the show, but especially in this episode, and how good a job the board artists did.

Seeing each other for the first time in a year, and only the second time since Catra blew everything up, Catra and Adora are probably the rawest and least restrained we’ve ever seen them. There’s barely any banter, no bravado, and no pretense that they are anything other than two women who desperately need each other (Prime doesn’t help with ‘You broke my heart’.) Then Catra is flung to her death, Adora jumps after her, breaks both her legs in the fall (we see her crawl to Catra, as though she couldn’t walk) and becomes the real She-Ra. It’s such a triumphant and deeply queer moment seeing a woman transformed into a warrior goddess to protect the woman she loves, and it’s the reason that, as dark as it is, Save the Cat is my Comfort Food episode.

Let’s not sleep on Taking Control, though. This episode is like a microcosm of what this show does best, especially the A plot with Catra and Adora. Catra’s reversion to lashing out at everyone and her refusal to be open to Adora shows just how much of a struggle this whole ‘being good and trying to connect to people’ thing is. Catra’s outburst gives Adora a chance to stand up for herself and refuse to be Catra’s punching bag, while also not trying to control her. Adora’s ultimatum gives Catra a chance to reach out to Adora (quite literally), and allow herself to be vulnerable. In this episode, we see just how far Catra and Adora have come since the messed up stew of their relationship in Season 1. Adora lets Catra be responsible for her own actions; Catra lets herself be vulnerable to Adora and takes responsibility for her actions. They’re both better people and better friends and better partners than they were, and the show has shown this in a strikingly nuanced and realistic way.

The important thing to note in the next few episodes of Season 5 isn’t just how much closer Catra and Adora get to each other and how much they flirt (So much. So much, y’all) but just how -happy- they are. We see both of them transformed in the other’s presence. Basically, since they’ve parted, both Catra and Adora have been defined in no small part by how miserable they often are. They have both had their triumphs and their lighter moments, but there’s been a sense of melancholy dogging both Catra and Adora since episode 1. And now that they’re together again, that lifts, somewhat. Catra’s verbal barbs have lost their venom, and she can openly show how much she cares for Adora and even Bow and Glimmer. She’s still herself - snarky, cynical, somewhat devious - but she’s not engaged in a self-destructive zero-sum struggle with everyone around her. Meanwhile Adora has spent 4 seasons being a neurotic and sometimes nearly joyless mess who takes responsibility for everything and often doesn’t let herself enjoy anything other than the odd BFS group hug (exceptions include trying to uh...impress Huntara and reveling with the butterfly ladies of Elberron in Flutterina). Around Catra, though, she’s a cocky, swaggering jock who gives as good as she gets. It’s a side of Adora we’ve only seen hints of before, and one that’s so much more confident and joyful even as the world is ending around her. Apart, Catra had tried to protect and vindicate herself with power and conquest, while Adora had tried to forget herself in duty and sacrifice. Together, they can be themselves again. This dynamic is crucial to the show’s portrayal of Catra and Adora’s romance because it doesn’t just show how much they love each other, but how they’re -good- for each other now that they’ve grown as people, and that they are so much better than they were when they were apart.

Until Shadow Weaver shows up. Their old abuser reintroduces tensions but even then things are different than they were. Now Catra isn’t just resentful of how Shadow Weaver prefers Adora - she’s protective of Adora, which is clearest in Failsafe when she calls Shadow Weaver out for being willing to sacrifice Adora. And while Adora takes the Failsafe, it isn’t to follow her destiny or because she has a death wish - it’s because she loves her friends, and she is the only one who has any hope of doing this and living (though Catra’s suggestion that Shadow Weaver take it is a good one). And finally, when Catra leaves Adora, it isn’t because she hates Adora, nor, despite what she says, is it because she really thinks that Adora chose Shadow Weaver. At least, not exactly. It’s because Catra loves Adora, and can admit that to herself, and can’t stay around and watch the woman she loves sacrifice herself rather than choosing Catra. Before Catra leaves, she asks Adora ‘What do you want?” It’s a question that echoes Shadow Weaver’s speech in Episode 1: ‘isn’t this what you always wanted since you could want anything?’ As much as Adora has grown as a person, and defined herself and stood up for what she thinks is right, she still has never answered that question - it’s never been ‘what do I want’ but ‘what do I have to do?’ and that’s how Adora answers Catra’s question. This is Adora’s last gasp as a self-transcending hero, letting go of what she wants (not that she ever dared articulate what that was) in order to do what must be done. And it nearly kills her and dooms the universe, because Adora can’t be the hero that she needs to be by being anyone less than herself.

But it’s losing Catra that inspires Adora to tell off Shadow Weaver for good (not that she’d ever really warmed to her after season 1). And it’s love for Adora that inspires Catra to stand up to Shadow Weaver and demand that she do the right thing. In both cases, Catra and Adora aren’t just standing up to their abuser, but holding her to account for the harm she’s caused, and it’s the love that they have for each other that inspires them to do this. In Catra’s case in particular her refusal to let Shadow Weaver weasel out of finding Adora is a much greater triumph over Shadow Weaver than beating her up and breaking her mask in Season 1 - it’s proof not so much to Shadow Weaver but to Catra herself that Catra really is better than this and that she deserves better than this. It’s not turning her abuser’s tactics against her, but truly holding her to a moral standard and demanding that she do the right thing.

And then there’s Catra and Adora together at the heart. Catra has already come back for Adora and stayed to the end, choosing to die with her even if she can’t share a life together (not out of some death wish, but because Adora needs her). And Adora, who’s been avoiding answering the question for three fucking years, finally let’s herself want Catra when Catra finally confesses her love (breaking the last of her self-protective shields) and asks Adora to stay -for her-. And by admitting what she wants, Adora can truly be at peace with herself and be the hero she needs to be, lesbianism saves the universe, The End.

So anyway, that’s how Catra and Adora’s stories are woven together and how they compliment and comment on each other. Narrativiely, Adora and Catra start together, come apart, find something of themselves, and truly find themselves and each other when they are reunited. Thematically, they are critiquing seemingly opposing narrative tropes - empowerment narratives and narratives of self sacrifice. But by showing the flaws in both types of story and showing how neither self-seeking empowerment nor self-negating self sacrifice can actually make us happy, She-Ra asks and answers more profound questions than most prestige dramas for adults do. I’ll get into how the show sells the idea that the power of love can bring us happiness (and save the world) in a future post. But next up, I’m going to celebrate just how much Catra and Adora’s relationship revels in ambiguity, complexity and contradiction and so tells a grown up love story in a kid’s show.

#she ra #she ra spoilers #she ra adora #spop #catradora #she ra netflix #she ra and the princesses of power #goat ship #long #meta

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bubblegumbeech · 3 years

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Bee’s 2021 Fic Review

I was inspired by @floralflowerpower to join the Phandom this year with the event Invisobang.

Stole the format from @aj-itated and @kawaiijohn

Works: 51

Danny Phantom Works: 49

Other Works: 2

Crossovers: 5

Word Count: 202,837

Events: Invisobang | Phic Phight | Dannymay | EctoberHaunt

Here’s my fics/series cause I cant do all of them as separate fics I’d die.

Lost Memories and How to Find Them (Phic Phight and Ectober) 3 work Series | Gen, Wc: 13,969, T+ | Danny wakes up from a coma, luckily his parents are there since he doesn’t seem to have many memories. And the ones that he does have? Well they don’t make any sense...

Haunted Towers and Hidden Truths (Phic Phight) Fic | Gen, Wc: 7,262, G | After everything Danny and his friends have been through, sneaking into the haunted clock tower that's been a constant presence in Danny's dreams should be a cakewalk.

A Darker Age (Phic Phight and Ectober) 3 work Series | Dark Ages, Wc: 28,002, T+ | Pariah was chosen because he was the Ideal King. He was powerful, fearsome, and Duty-bound. It was a shame what happened next.

Exploring the Zone (Phic Phight, Dannymay, and Ectober) 13 work Series | Minor Dark Ages, Lost Time, Wc: 12,882, T+ | Even the Ghost Zone has its cryptids, stories of beings that sound fascinating but can't be real, at least not with any sort of proof. So how did Danny find one accidentally?! (Some crossover fics)

Housewife (Dannymay) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 3,539, M | Fluff <3 (With the caveat that this description is sarcastic. Please head the tags.)

What use is a Memory Compared to a Future? (Dannymay) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 2,028, T+ | He doesn't know who he is, but he sure as hell knows what he wants.

Wish Away (Dannymay) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 404, G | She made a portal.

Distracted (Dannymay) Fic | Implied Dark Ages, Wc: 314, G | It happens sometimes, when he looks at the stars.

A Collection of Things (Dannymay and Ectober) 2 work Series | Dark Ages and Lost Time, Wc 3,233, T+ | Would you heed a mother's warning? For how long?

Closer (Dannymay) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 313, T+ | Gravity doesn't work on ghosts, the inevitable pull that you can't escape no matter how hard you try nor how long you attempt to put it off. Clockwork though, has an inkling of what it might be like, a human caught in earth's gravity.

Conversation (Dannymay) Fic | Gen, Wc: 69, G | What is a core but a ghost's foundation?

Can you Not (Dannymay) Fic | Gen, Wc: 754, G | Human's have a bad habit of not understanding boundaries

Fairytales aren't real (Dannymay and Ectober) 3 work Series | Dark Ages, Wc 4,453, T+ | Clockwork kept an eye on the time throughout the dance, he'd wanted it to last as long as possible while still giving him time to flee. (A Collection of retold Fairytales)

Birthmarks (Dannymay) Fic | Gen, Wc: 256, T+ | Every ghost has a scar

SPR and Co (Invisobang and Ectober) 2 work Series | Gen, Wc: 47,671 M | Danny and Jazz are visiting Japan to work on Jazz's thesis, "The Psychology Behind the Paranormal and Those most likely to Experience Prolonged or Repeated Interactions" Mai, for her part, is excited to finally not be the child of the group. Danny? He's just trying to not get exorcised. (Ghost Hunt and Danny Phantom Crossover)

The Librarian's Trick (Ectober) Fic | implied Dark Ages, Wc: 2,455 G | Five times Wes tried to prove Cassius Dark was a ghost and the one time he still couldn’t prove it because he’s a modern day Cassandra and his life sucks.

All that Glitters is Nothing to You (Ectober) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 1,204 G | Pariah wants to get a gift for Clockwork. In general Pariah fashion.

Are You the Abyss or Are You Lost in It? (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 6,515 T+ | Sung Jinwoo finds the place between. (Solo Leveling and Danny Phantom Crossover)

Two's a crowd (Ectober) Fic | Amethyst Ocean, Wc: 605 T+ | Something's wrong with Sam.

A Different Deck (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 1,011 G | These cards were different, Constantine had been pretty sure of that. They were certainly creepy. (DC comics and Danny Phantom Crossover)

Dinner Date (Ectober) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 243 G | Pariah visits often, Clockwork rather wishes he'd be left alone.

Last Song (Ectober) Fic | Amethyst Ocean, Wc: 280 T+ | It's an ancient Tradition, but Sam's grandmother would probably be mad that Sam beat her to it.

Pieces of Time (Phic Phight and Ectober) Fic | Lost Time and Background Dark Ages, Wc: 8,901 T+ | Some questions don't have answers, some answers aren't worth having and some make you wonder where the truth is being hidden. Danny asks Clockwork a question, now, what about the answer?

Real or Myth? (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 379, G | Sometimes Sam and Tucker ask Danny what legends they know are real. It's starting to get a bit out of control.

Beyond (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 306, G | Sometimes, he dreams of the sky...

Monthly Routine (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 421, G | Every month its the same thing. Danny’s starting to think he got the shorter end of the stick.

A Repeating Mistake (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 3,037, T+ | She had to save him. She had to. It was the only reason she got up in the mornings, to fix her mistake. Based off the Manhwa "If you Touch my Little Brother, you're all Dead" for the "They knew Each Other while alive" AU

Secret Keeper (Ectober) Fic | Gen, Wc: 501, G | Sam and Tucker aren't allowed to have plans before consulting with Danny anymore...

Reach for the Stars, and Pluck Them from the Sky (Ectober) Fic | Dark Ages, Wc: 11,584, E | It's only fair, that if Pariah was going to dedicate himself entirely to his Goddess, that his Goddess should look only at him. Right?

Non DP Fics

Beneath Different Stars (Star Wars) Fic | The Mandalorian/Corin The Stormtrooper, Wc: 2,962 of 38,981, T+ | A role-reversal that has Dynn Jaren, a stormtrooper with an attitude problem running away with a stolen asset. And Corin, a Mandalorian bounty hunter that’s supposed to be hunting him down for the good of his clan. Except, what happens when the “asset” isn’t what he thought it was? And the “stormtrooper” he was chasing packs a bit of a punch?

Beaten Heart (The Magnus Archives) Fic | Gen, Wc: 1,265, M | You won't tell anyone right? What Carra did? I don't think I could forgive myself if anyone found out about it from me...

#Bumble thoughts #Bee's writing #Danny phantom #Issa me! Bee!

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hamliet · 4 years

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Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls and It Dies...

Or, why I am pretty optimistic about the fates of Jean, Connie, Gabi, and all titanized people this chapter, which is also an excuse for me to talk about SnK’s allusions to Russian literature.

There are strikingly parallel ideas The Brothers Karamazov and Attack on Titan, as well as parallel plot points and imagery to the point where if it isn’t deliberate, it’s uncanny. (NB: before people yell at me about comparing a Japanese and Russian work, Isayama has used Russian names since the start of SnK--Shiganshina is a Russian name.) In particular, there are narrative allusions to a portion of the novel known as “The Grand Inquisitor,” which is a short story within a novel. The central thesis of “The Grand Inquisitor” is as follows:

nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom.

This parable is told within the story by Ivan Karamazov, a character whose intellectuality is his gift and his curse. He tells his brother Alyosha that the motivation for creating this parable is precisely the evils done to children (oh look, a major SnK theme) and specifically cites an example which was unfortunately taken from real life in Russia and which Isayama has an uncanny parallel:

I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them? That's a question I can't answer... If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? ... if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old...

... How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? ... What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? ... I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. ... too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it... It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.”

The actual parable of “The Grand Inquisitor” is Ivan’s answer to Alyosha’s question about Ivan’s lines above. Ivan tells a story about how freedom is actually what dooms humanity: it is the curse. (Alyosha does not believe this.) Jesus comes back to earth and is promptly arrested, because his existence and return threaten the wellbeing of society. To be happy, one cannot be free, but one or two strong people in society should be free and bear the burden for everyone else (you can see the parallels to King Fritz/the Reisses).

Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering... all his life he loved humanity, and suddenly his eyes were opened, and he saw that it is no great moral blessedness to attain perfection and freedom, if at the same time one gains the conviction that millions of God's creatures have been created as a mockery, that they will never be capable of using their freedom...

This is SnK’s thesis: to be free, there will be suffering. It is part of human nature, and yet to not have it is to be lost. But SnK, despite its explorations of human darkness and monstrosity, has a higher view of humanity than does Ivan. SnK’s view is more alongside Alyosha’s, who says what is honestly the truth about not just the Reisses, but Eren now:

"Who are these keepers of the mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves for the happiness of mankind? .... It's simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination—something like a universal serfdom with them as masters—that's all they stand for.”

Mikasa is akin to the Christ figure in the story, akin to Alyosha: Christ is constantly asked to speak, asked to act, and he does not until the very last moment, when he kisses the Grand Inquisitor on the lips. After the story is over, Alyosha then does likewise to Ivan.

Not to mention when Alyosha worries about Ivan’s mental state, he then answers with this:

“Listen, Alyosha,” Ivan began in a resolute voice, “if I am really able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you. It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan't lose my desire for life yet.”

A simple leaf can save a life. A leaf can save the world. A leaf, grown from a tree that started as a seed falling to the ground, dead, only to grow life from that death. Alyosha himself notes SnK’s central thesis of chapter 137 in the (very long) novel’s final pages:

...some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.

There’s a lot more to this, but this is the epigraph to The Brothers Karamazov, the central thesis of the entire novel:

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." -John 12:24

Suffering can grow great fruit in an individual life, and by giving something up, by even death, something beautiful can come. Through cruelty, you can find life.

This is not just a long-running theme in SnK, but a pattern in its plot. Often those who surrender then receive exactly what they had surrendered (but admittedly, not always, like Erwin).

Mikasa accepted Eren’s loss, and got him back.

Mikasa let Armin go, and got him back.

Falco gave up hope of survival, and got another chance:

Hange was going to die alone, feeling guilty for having failed her comrades, but saw everyone again, and they told her well done:

Historia gave up being free, but now we know she will be.

Levi gave up on his revenge, and then got it. Annie thought she would never see her dad again, but she did. For Mikasa, accepting that she has to kill the boy she loves coincides not just with her acceptance of her love, but with the acceptance and knowledge that he loves her:

It always comes with sacrifice, increasingly hard sacrifice, but usually the seeds that are dropped grow and bloom.

This chapter, everyone surrendered their hearts. They let their dreams fall to the ground, and I honestly think the story will allow it to plant life. Yes, the world as a whole is saved and that is enough to make thematic sense, but it works even better if the very people who were titanized this chapter also bloom again. They chose to trust Mikasa, Levi, Falco, and Pieck to finish the task.

The characters giving up their lives only to get them back make sense, and give Mikasa’s sacrifice of Eren. For Mikasa, Eren was her world, and she gave it up when she had lost everyone else. She had nothing left, and she still did it. I would hope she’d be narratively rewarded beyond just the world being saved, because Mikasa has always been motivated by her personal relationships.

Moving on from Mikasa: Connie’s mom has been kept alive and the concept of turning mindless titans back to humans was already brought up specifically in relation to her:

Connie giving up on his mother a dozenish chapters ago only to get her back now--not through sacrificing a child, but through saving the entire world--would fit the themes and patterns of SnK.

Thirdly, Gabi should not die. She’s Eren with positive development, and cannot meet the same end. Even people who are skeptical of every titan being saved seem to agree that she’ll be fine. It’s possible she’s the only one saved, but imo, not likely.

See, the only shifter characters who are going to have the option of self-sacrifice are Falco and maaaaaybe Armin. The others look like they’re about to die right here and now, never mind choosing someone to save: the mindless titans are ripping at their napes. Armin also looks to be in bad shape.

Yet Armin cannot narratively commit suicide; two chapters ago he was still screaming at himself for being useless and thinking he would be better off dead. He’s already tried the heroic sacrifice, too, so why would it work this time around? It does not work for his arc. Falco dying for Gabi was the plan without any freedom from the titan curse; it’s more powerful if ending the curse changes things, rather than forcing him to make the same choice that Reiner has always been trying to make: a heroic suicide. It could happen; it’s just not as narratively strong.

As for whether the worldbuilding rules, we know that mindless titans are not truly dead nor entirely mindless; they just don’t have freedom. Ymir’s case of getting herself back after decades shows that they aren’t quite dead or absorbed. They still have consciousness that can be awoken; Ymir described it as being in a long “nightmare.” Dina still went looking for Grisha. Connie’s mom remembered and recognized Connie, telling him “welcome home.” There is plenty of evidence that there are parts of these people that are still in there even if they are forced to become monsters (oh hey, it’s an Eren parallel; he was conscious of it and had choices while mindless titans do not, but the parallel remains).

#snk 138 #snk meta #aot 138 #aot meta #mikasa ackerman #eremika #eren jaeger #armin arlert #the brothers karamazov #gabi braun #connie springer #jean kirchstein #ymir #falco grice #galco #reiner braun #annie leonhart #levi ackerman #historia reiss

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ofherlionheart · 3 years

Note

zukka + 6? 😌

send me a prompt! || 6. "I want you to be a part of my future."

[edit: yeah this is boo chronicles ‘verse but y’all already knew that lol]

It’s a stunning spring day of clear skies and rustling green leaves, and Zuko’s stuck in a library for it. From the page in front of him, Butler’s words rise up and swirl meaninglessly into the air, as they have been every few minutes for the last hour. Zuko sighs and slouches to the left to find the straw of his lukewarm, no-ice cold brew with his tongue, taking a sip even though his body stopped responding to caffeine a few days ago.

Finals week is as annoying to suffer through the seventh time as it was the first time.

There’s a thunk on the end of Zuko’s desk, and he startles, nearly smacking his coffee across his work.

“Do you rotate every couple hours to make sure you’re getting enough sunlight?” Sokka asks.

Zuko safely relocates his coffee and eyes the box that Sokka’s dropped onto his desk. “I’m not a houseplant.”

“Really? You should take advantage of having legs, then.”

Zuko snorts. He can tell Sokka’s also a bit fried by finals week—especially since this is his eighth and final one, coinciding with a research thesis—because his quips are’t nearly as witty as they can be. “What’s in the box?” he asks.

“See for yourself,” Sokka replies, popping open the top flaps.

Zuko rolls his chair closer to peek inside. Immediately, he recognizes the soft leather casing, but he still reaches in to lift an edge and confirm that what he already knows is there is actually there. And, yes, there’s the soft glint of metal that Zuko expected.

“Why did you bring these to the library?” Zuko asks.

They’re knives. Not just any knives, but Sokka’s kitchen knives, a finely crafted and extremely expensive full set meant for the head chef of a high-end restaurant, not a college student who mostly makes stir fry and curry. Zuko’s a little obsessed with Sokka’s knives, not only because they’re objectively far superior to Zuko’s cheap, off-brand shit from the corner store, but also because they have a great story: when Sokka’s grandmother left her shitty ex-husband, she also walked out the door with Pakku’s gorgeous knife set, which she passed down to Sokka the year he left for college. Sokka, of course, promptly named them The Stabby Girls.

Sokka grabs a chair from an unoccupied table and drags it over to the side of Zuko’s desk, long legs sprawling enough when he sits for his foot to knock against Zuko’s ankle. “Decided to start packing early, since I’m leaving right after commencement,” he says. “Also, I’m avoiding thesis edits.”

“Uh-huh.” Zuko’s glad the final draft of his thesis was due a month ago.

“And as much as I love The Stabby Girls, it doesn’t make much sense to take them roadtripping.”

He starts playing with the edge of one of Zuko’s notepads, an idle movement to match the unhurried way he’s working through his explanation. Zuko wonders why Sokka’s still been popping up in his day-to-day the last couple weeks. Sure, they’re good friends by this point, but there’s only finals week, and then Sokka’s going to graduate and leave for this “epic roadtrip of epic proportions.” After that, who knows where in the world he’ll land for grad school. If there’s such thing as an organic ending to a friendship—which Zuko absolutely believes exists, seeing as he’s never really stayed friends with someone after they’ve been absent from his immediate day-to-day for longer than a year—this ending is the perfect example.

“I thought about asking Katara to take them, but she once tried to put Mama Stabby in the dishwasher, so that’s a no,” Sokka continues. “And then I realized there’s only one person I really trust to take care of The Girls, and that’s you.”

Zuko blinks. “You don’t want The Stabby Girls?”

“I mean, I want them back. But it doesn’t make sense to leave them in my car when I’m backpacking.”

Which, yes, Zuko understands, but … “You’re leaving them with me?’

Sokka nods, looking at him easily while still messing around with the notepad, as if this is all just very normal. “Yeah,” he says. It sounds a little bit like Obviously. “I’m planning on seeing you again. I want you to be a part of my future.”

“Oh.”

At that, an amused smile curls Sokka’s lips. “Oh?” he echoes.

“No,” Zuko splutters, though he doesn’t know what he’s negating. “I just …”

He really doesn’t know how to put words to the tumble of emotions that’s suddenly roiling around his gut, but he thinks it has something to do with declaring permanence—no, not permanence. Constancy? Continuity? Some sense of promise applied to a future that seems anything but certain. Legible? Visible?

Zuko needs to give his brain a break. “Have you had lunch?”

He pulls the box with The Stabby Girls closer to him, and he must be imagining the different twitch in Sokka’s cheek. “Not yet,” he answers.

“Let’s grab some.” Zuko stands, shutting his laptop and tucking The Girls under an arm. “I don’t think we should keep a box of knives in the library for that long, either.”

Sokka nods, heaving to his feat. “We can drop off The Girls at yours and then swing by Sullivan for food?”

Sullivan Street is a bit further out than Zuko was thinking, but hell, apparently Sokka’s regularly thinking about them way further out than he is. “Sounds good,” Zuko says and falls into step with his friend, cradling the box of knives against his chest.

#ask game #mine #atla #ik it's an abrupt ending but i've been sitting on this for what feels like weeks lol oops #sorry friend i do love you i just unfortunately have work #this was fun!! ty for the ask <3 #the boo chronicles

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kpop-cakepops · 3 years

Note

I will gladly read any Wonwoo fluff you would give us be it snuggle donation or otherwise! But if I can be more specific in requesting, how about a missed connection sort of thing? Like the reader and Wonwoo have similar circles of friends who think they’d hit it off, but somehow they just never manage to be at the same events, but then they end up meeting separate from their friends and do hit it off, only to be a couple before their friends even know they’ve met? If that’s too specific, totally do whatever you want with the idea. Welcome to Wonwoo brain domination (my friend incepted my mind last year too and it’s been all Wonwoo all of the time since!)

omg this is actually such a good prompt?!?!?!!? What the hell?! Thank you anon!!!

So this one actually took way longer than expected because I knew what I wanted to do but I didn't know how to not make it confusing? So the best I could do was use time skips in this one, anything in italics are flashbacks.... I HOPE IT'S NOT CONFUSING! Anyhow, I had so much fun writing this! Enjoy! (PS. I didn't edit so excuse any grammar mistakes LOLz)

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 1,863

Meant To Be// Jeon WonwooXfem!Reader

"There he is again... I wonder if he's single." your older sister said as she struggled to keep your baby nephew from running away from the bench the two of you were sitting at.

"Probably not," you told her as you bit into your popsicle. "He's handsome. Probably has a bunch of girls lining up to get his number"

"He's playing video games at a park, I seriously doubt that" your sister added.

"I think it's kinda cute. At least he comes out because he wants to" you looked over at your sister who was now too busy chasing after your little nephew to even listen to you. "Aaaaand I was talking to myself. Cool."

You huffed and looked over at the man sat two benches over. He seemed to be having fun on his Nintendo switch and you were sure you weren't having fun babysitting your sister while she tried to babysit her own son... so you took matters into your own hands and walked yourself over to the man.

"Hey, mind if I sit here?" You asked.

The stranger looked up from his game and moved to the side making space for you to sit down. He didn't talk at all but didn't show himself to be rude either. You took the chance to take out your own console.

"What are you playing?" You asked.

He turned around and looked at your hands, his eyes widening a little but the look of surprise was replaced by a smile almost instantly. "Super Smash Bros."

You didn't know what you expected his voice to sound like, but it certainly hadn't been the deep tone you had just received. "Damn, nice voice" you blurted.

He let out a laugh, "what's your name?"

"I'm y/n" you introduced yourself putting your hand out to shake his, "and you?"

He took your hand cautiously, "I'm Wonwoo"

***

"How does this dress look?" You asked as you twirled in front of your now boyfriend of 3 months, Wonwoo.

He smiled approvingly, "baby you look just as amazing as you did in the last dress. You really don't have to worry too much about impressing my friends, they're all a bunch of idiots."

"Well, yes, but... what if they don't like me? I'm the reason you refused all those blind dates they kept setting you up on." You told him.

"And I'm the reason you refused yours, the time will come when I have to meet your friends, too. I promise you there's no reason for us to be worried." He pulled you close and kissed the top of your head.

"I'm just excited to finally meet your friends," you told him. "I want to make a good impression."

"The way you make me smile should be impressive enough, no?" He brushed a strand of your hair behind your ear.

"Getting a little cheesy there, aren't we?" You poked his stomach and pulled away. "Anyways. We should get going or we're going to be late!"

***

"You should come up. Some of my friends are still up there. We could hang out" said Wonwoo as he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. His tall frame rocking back and forth as he watched you wistfully.

"I really wish I could, but I actually have to go back to work in a bit. I just didn't want for your birthday gift to get to your hands after your special day" You shyly admitted. He held his hand to the necklace that was now hanging from his neck. The pendant hanging from it depicting the Smash ball from the game's logo. Something about him immediately putting the necklace on making your heart race.

"I really wish you could stay, but I guess, you'll just have to make it up to me some other day." He said.

You reached out your pinky and he wrapped his own with yours. "I promise" You told him.

He smiled and you waited expectantly for his nose to scrunch up like you'd learned it would in the last 4 months of knowing the guy. It was weird how after fighting off cheesy romance and dates, you ended up developing a crush on some random guy you'd met at the park.

The both of you stood there for a moment, pinkies linked together as you let the sparks envelope you both. It was obvious you liked each other, however, neither of you seemed to know who should make the first move... nor did you know when.

***

You and Wonwoo arrived at the large hotel his friends had told him to meet them at. A shiver ran down your spine making you take a nervous deep breath. Your boyfriend grinned at your cuteness and squeezed your hand softly before guiding you towards the entrance.

"Oh, God... Maybe I should've brought a gift?" You grumbled as you followed Wonwoo into the hotel. A sudden feeling of guilt taking over you as you remember your own friend, Jihoon, was having a graduation dinner that you couldn't go to because of this. You'd managed to drop off a gift for him days before, but it still bugged you. Jihoon was one of your closest friends after all.

"Honey, it's totally fine. I promise Jihoon won't mind that you didn't bring him a gift" he assured you as he held the door of the fancy restaurant open for you.

"Wait, what did you say?" You asked as you stopped in your tracks. Your boyfriend shooting you a confused look.

"Y-N?"

***

"I don't know, I think my favorite has to be biographies. I'm just nosy" you laughed, Wonwoo following along.

"Hmmm, I mean, biographies are nice, but I've been into humanities lately. It's interesting" He shrugged and licked at his ice cream cone happily. "I used to hate it in high school but I think as I grew up a grew more interested in the way people live... outside of just myself."

"Wow..." you mused.

"What? Was that sexy?" he joked.

You shook your head, "No, you're such a nerd" You teased.

"Hey!" he quipped bumping his shoulder into yours.

"Watch it! I almost dropped my ice cream cone!" Your attempt to seem angry failed by the big smile on your face. It seemed that was all you did around Wonwoo anyways. Smile.

"What flavor is that?" he asked as he eyed your cone curiously.

You put the cone up to his lips, "Butter pecan" You didn't know what exactly you were expecting when you put the cone up to his lips, 75% of you had thought he'd playfully push your hand away while calling it a grandma flavor as he usually did, while the resting 25% of you thought he'd just ignore it and keep walking... but both assumptions were wrong. Wonwoo grabbed your hand with his free one holding the cone in place before getting a taste. It was absolutely insane how much that made your heart race. "Hey! what was that all about?"

"I want to get a taste... but I can't... taste it... maybe I should-" He froze mid-sentence. Wonwoo was nervous. His face was a deep pink as he eyed you closely.

"W-Wonwoo. Are you trying to kiss me right now?" You asked. You wanted to scream and run away but you also wanted to stick around and see if he would.

"I was supposed to be at a blind date today" He admitted.

"Me too," you told him.

"But all I could think of was you" He continued.

"Me too," you agreed once again.

"Y/N, I like you."

***

"What the hell is going on here?" Jihoon's face was twisted in confusion as he stared between the two of you.

"You know each other?" Asked Wonwoo.

Jihoon blinked hurriedly before finding his voice again, "Uh, I think I should be the one asking you that!"

"My head is about to explode" You murmured.

"Yah, Jihoon, Dokyeom just spilled- Oh, Y/N? What are you doing here... with Wonwoo?" Yet another one of your best friends walked out of the restaurant, Jeongyeon's large eyes looking at you and your boyfriend with the same confused expression as Jihoon.

"They got here together," Jihoon announced.

"You two know each other?" Asked Jeongyeon.

"Yeah, Wonwoo's my boyfriend"

"Yeah... we're dating" Wonwoo agreed.

"WHAT?!"

***

"Y/N, pleaseeeeee? I promise you're going to love this guy. He is such a sweet person, he will literally blow you away, and he's handsome! Did I mention he's handsome?!" Jeongyeon's hands were clasped together in front of her chest. It was once a month that she begged for you to go on a blind date with that guy she always talked about, but you shook your head.

"No."

"Why not?! What is it this time!?" Your pretty friend exclaimed as she crossed her arms across her chest.'I have a boyfriend now' You thought, a small smile coming to your lips at the thought of Wonwoo.

"I'm not interested in dating Jjeong. Please, can't we just let it go?" you asked with a soft huff. "We have better things to do anyway. Come on, why don't you let me take a look at your thesis so far."

Jeongyeon huffed and started to pull out her laptop from her book bag. "I can't wait till you meet him. You're gonna regret it"

***

"Wait, pause... so you mean to tell me that we spent ALL THOSE MONTHS trying to set the two of you up... only for you two to meet at a random park and fall in love?!" Soonyoung was being his usual dramatic self again as he glared at you two from across the table.

"I mean, we didn't fall in love right off the bat... but yes. You could say that" Wonwoo answered.

"Wow! I just got chills. I JUST GOT CHILLS!" Dokyeom added as he dramatically hugged himself.

"I just don't understand why neither of you guys told us you were dating! Like... How did we miss it? Where did you hide each other?" Asked Jisoo with a confused frown.

"We didn't. We were friends for about 4 months before we started dating. I even went to drop off his gift at his apartment on his birthday."

"The necklace! I knew I'd seen it somewhere!" Seungcheol exclaimed with wide eyes. "You sent me a picture of the thing and asked if you should get it black or purple!"

"I also asked you for tips on how to confess to a girl over ice cream and got me laughed at." Wonwoo huffed under his breath.

You laughed and shook your head. "You were right, Woo. Your friends are indeed a bunch of idiots"

"Wow... You guys are meant to be. You guys are seriously meant to be. There is no doubt in my mind. I guess when soulmates are meant to meet, they will." chirped Jihoon who kept picking at his plate. "Now that that's all out, I'd like to take a moment to talk about how if Y/N hadn't been dating Wonwoo, she would have missed my graduation dinner for a man. What have you got to say for yourself, traitor?"

"Uh..."

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savagetrickster · 4 years

Text

Stay with Me | BNHA

request: Hi! Can I request a scenario where Bakugou thought that reader was starting to lose interest, but in reality reader is just really busy and doesn’t realize she’s treating baku differently and Bakugou confronting her about it then it ends with some fluff fluff. 💖 p.s luv ur work

anime | character: bnha | bakugou katsuki x reader

word count: 1949

themes/warnings: soft!bakugou, insecure bakugou, college AU

a/n: sorry for not posting a fic in such a long time, I’ve been SO busy. so anyway, okay I kinda went little off-track and ended up writing the way it is shown below but i hope you’ll still enjoy reading this, though i have to say I’m not really fond of how it turned out. this fic has not been beta-ed so pardon me if you find any cringey error.

The city of Musutafu moved as sluggishly as possible for a city of its size and caliber. It was one of those days when the moon was mostly hidden behind the clouds.

Kirishima let his eyes roam the street outside. The inhabitants of the boulevard were constantly on the move despite being a Saturday; it was a startling contrast to the cafe they sat in where a comfortable nonchalance clung to every aspect of the little business.

The slow, sleepy music playing from the speakers.

The casual yet practiced movements of the baristas as they prepared the orders.

The lazy, idling manners in the way the customers brought their cups to their lips. Carrying every bit of thoughtlessness and indifference in their actions.

Well, almost everyone but them.

A perplexed frown pinched between Kirishima’s brows as he turned his gaze away from the window beside them.

Bakugou Katsuki had been sulking at the window ever since he plopped into the seat across him.

He had been sitting in brooding silence for what felt like fifteen minutes and the expression on his face hadn’t changed. If there were any at all, it was only that his scowl grew bigger.

“As much as I like hanging out with you, I have to say this is getting a little…weird.”

Kirishima briefly flitted to the counter to see curious eyes on them, “My colleagues are starting to think we’re dating.”

Tonight was the fourth time Bakugou had come to find him right as he was knocking off from his part-time job this week.

“Who gives a fuck about what they think?” Bakugou muttered gruffly, finally looking away from the outside.

Kirishima had known him ever since they met in middle school to know the scowl on Bakugou’s face was…well, his default expression.

Long enough for him to tell at one glance that the scowl he’d been seeing on Bakugou’s face was different. This one seemed to come right out from the depth of his fierce vermilion eyes — Bakugou was upset.

And it was about you.

No matter how hard Bakugou tried to hide how much he was a sucker for you, Kirishima could always tell.

Even though they had matured into college students, Bakugou was still the same stubborn guy who wasn’t the most comfortable displaying his affections openly.

Mere mentions of you would soften the scowl on his face, and the rough edge in his voice. It was easy for anyone else to miss the difference but it was obvious to Kirishima.

His grumpy complaints about how clingy and touchy you are were one of their common topics in their conversations. The annoyance scowling in his eyes when he did was always subtly soft and warm.

But something changed, as Bakugou had mentioned, in the recent two weeks.

Nights in his dormitory room were spent alone. He was so used to falling asleep and waking up, to the sight of you curling up right next to him.

The last time he saw you were from afar, watching you rushing off to somewhere.

Dates with you, even as simple as a meal in the cafeteria was scarce.

Your replies to his texts were late and sometimes curt. The usual ‘good morning’ and ‘goodnight’ from you, if you didn’t spend the night with him, were no longer…usual.

Sometimes his messages to you would be left hanging for days before you replied.

The tone when Bakugou was telling him about all these strange distances between them was nonchalant, but the scowl on his face told Kirishima a different story.

Kirishima tried to think of something to say, but all he could think of in the end was the same thing he’d been saying ever since Bakugou shared this with him.

“Stop worrying man, she’s probably just busy?”

Bakugou’s face carried a carefully blanked expression as he raised his eyes to meet Kirishima’s.

“…Or maybe she’s losing interest in me.”

His arm was tucked between his pillow and his head as his other held his phone to his face. Vermilion eyes stared blankly at the quiet chatroom he shared with you, particularly fixated on your last reply to him.

Two days ago.

The gloom hung over his gaze these days were like the dreary seasons of dull, gray monsoons.

The hopeful morning sun filtering into his room through the wooden window blinds above him was a startling contrast, and so was the lively laughter ringing out from the basketball court somewhere near the dormitory blocks.

Probably some idiots shoving snow at each others’ faces, Bakugou thought seethingly as he clicked his tongue in annoyance at a particular spike of volume in the ruckus downstairs.

It was Saturday and the morning was already—

His eyes flitted to the time written in the corner of his screen.

— halfway to noon.

A quiet sigh left him.

Like on Saturdays, he should be on the way to meet you for your usual brunch. Except things weren’t quite ‘usual’ anymore.

Bakugou released another sigh as he let his phone fall away from his face along with his raised arm, landing on the bed under him with a muffled ‘plop’.

His forehead ridged with a scowl. Just how did he fuck things up?

His memories sifted through the times he called you names and how you would still smile back at him like he was your whole world as if he didn’t just call you an idiot, a nerd, or a moron.

A bitter taste of guilt entered his mouth.

Maybe he shouldn’t have assumed that you knew he was feeling affectionate when he did?

Perhaps you’ve grown sick of him? And realized that you didn’t need a shitty boyfriend who called you insulting names or would shrug off your affections as if they were annoyances.

His jaw clenched to his gritted teeth as a frustrated hiss slipped from him.

Shit, maybe he did fuck up afterall. Fucked up big time.

And he was probably going to lose you. Everything that made you…you.

The way you smiled at him with a loving, bright glint in your eyes as if he was the one who put the stars in the sky.

The sweet kisses you love to plant on his lips and forehead.

How your hand would hold onto his — small but warm with your love.

Bakugou felt his throat swell with the presence of forming tears as his heart twinged in his chest.

The idea of losing all that spurred a rush of panic in him.

Bakugou shot off his bed, put on the nearest shirt and jeans he could grab, and hurried out of his room.

The first place Bakugou thought to look for you was your dormitory but his worst fear made him hesitate at your door, with a hand hovering over its handle.

In fact, he’d thought about doing this for the past two weeks but the wisps of doubts whispering nasty things wouldn’t let him.

His jaw clenched to his gritted teeth.

What if there was someone else—

Bakugou shoved the unfinished thought aside; it was unbearable to even think about that possibility.

His scowling gaze snapped to his hesitating hand and his lips instantly curled into a sneer to a spark of irritation within.

What was with him? He was starting to remind himself of Deku, hesitating outside doors with twiddling thumbs like a wimp.

He was Bakugou Katsuki and he should be announcing his arrival by bursting through one.

Man, you thought you could finally enjoy a good night’s sleep after countless of sleepless nights.

But no…nope.

The heater just had to break down at an ungodly hour when you were still trudging through the last thesis for your project and you could find no other alternative places to work on them.

Bakugou came across your mind but again, it was crazy late or more accurately, early to budge into your boyfriend’s room.

Like every other night, you’d been tirelessly working on it so you could finally submit the project you’d been assigned since two weeks ago.

It was the infamous final year project you’ve dreaded ever since you heard about it from your senior — dubbed as ‘the project from hell’.

And indeed, it was a project from hell. It seemed to suck out your very soul. The exhaustion weighing you down like lead ran bone deep, that even lifting your head off your pillow was such a struggle.

With a broken heater sitting uselessly in your room, you’d spent the whole night wrapped in your blanket, with the lingering winter chill prickling at your skin.

So you couldn’t help sighing at the sudden warmth enveloping your body after spending the night shivering away under your blanket at the mercy of the dropping temperature.

Your arms found their way around the heat source.

You didn’t see the tender curl of his lips when you sighed blissfully and nuzzled into his chest or the softening glint in the usual fierce edge held in his vermilion eyes.

It was like nestling inside a warm cocoon that…

— awareness seeping into your groggy senses pried your eyes open.

…breathed.

What or rather who greeted you lifted you right out of your morning grogginess and struck you with an overwhelming barrage of emotions.

“…Ka-Katsuki!” You missed him so much.

Along with how the shadows and sunlight filtering in from behind you fell across and highlighted his chiseled profile, there was something about the way his intense eyes looked down at you with his head leaning against an arm.

This sight gave your heart a fluttery squeeze.

You weren’t sure why Bakugou looked so strikingly handsome like this — maybe it was because you haven’t seen him for awhile?

“When did you come in here?” Words started pouring out of your mouth.

You’ve always wanted to vent and rant about the dumb project to Bakugou so there was too much you wanted to say,

“Oh my god, you’ve no idea how much busy I was these few weeks-” but the brooding look that hadn’t left Bakugou stopped you.”…Katsuki?”

You’d never seen Bakugou look this down before, and it didn’t sit right with you.

You hesitated but asked anyway.“…What’s wrong?”

The cloud that fell over his eyes told you that something was definitely wrong.

“…I’m sorry, (Name).”

You grew concerned as you tried to understand his unreadable demeanor. “What’s this about— ”

“Are you losing interest in me?”

Your next breath was caught in your throat at his strange question and the only thing you could do was blurt out a —“What?”

You watch him exhale carefully with a bewildered look.

Bakugou didn’t even care how he looked to you now.

“Look, I know I’m a huge fuck-up as a boyfriend and you probably think I don’t care about our relationship cause I act like I don’t.”

There was so much to say, so much guilt brimming inside him.

“But shit, I do care.”

He was desperate.

He didn’t want to lose you. He couldn’t. He loved you but he was an idiot for not showing that to you.

So he needed to let you know now.

His hand on your waist pulled you up to him and his eyes were pinned on yours.

Your mouth opened, then snapped close at the silent, blazing gleam in his gaze.

Your voice had fled at the way he stared at you.

Longing and heavy with remorse.

“Stay with me,” His lips brushed lightly across yours as his voice cracked with an aching need.” …please.”

He kissed you and the world fell away.

#bakugou katsuki #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugou imagine #mha bakugou #bakugou x reader #bnha bakugou #bnha x reader #katsuki bakugo imagine #bnha katsuki x reader

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saby-chan · 3 years

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Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search.

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show? "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

Saby out.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #atla comics #zuko #azula #ozai #ursa #fire siblings #the promise #the search #atla rant

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zigtheeortega · 3 years

Text

come back to me

pairing | colt x mc

word count | 5.3k

warnings | blood, guns, bullets, wounds, and a mention of death. there’s a section of the fic where mc gets shot when a job goes awry – it’s used in a hurt/comfort scenario, but be warned that it’s in there! lmk if i need to use any other tags!

tags | @raleighcarrera, @pixeljazzy, @senatorraines, @jaxmatsuo, @rodappreciationweek

author’s note | i’ve never written a colt fic before, so i wanted to take a crack at a slowburn colt au – this fic takes place over the span of about ten-ish years (fifteen-ish total since the events of book one). i’m not the biggest colt expert so i hope i did him justice!

•─────────────────•

“If you ever ask me to do this much ass kissing again, I’m divorcing you.”

Colt flung himself onto the bed, still fully clothed, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Oh, stop being dramatic,” Raquel laughed, reaching back to unzip herself, the soft fabric of her sundress sliding down her body and onto the floor.

He hummed from his place on the bed, neck craning to watch her as she changed into her pajamas.

“Stop distracting me from being annoyed,” he grumbled, letting his head fall back, his gaze trained on the ceiling.

“Are you actually mad at me or are you just complaining to hear yourself talk?” She asked, but before he could respond she’d climbed on top of him, wrapping him in a koala hug, nestling her head under his chin.

Naturally, he hugged her back, his arms snaking around her waist.

He shrugged. “I’m not mad at you.”

She giggled into his chest, sending tremors up his body, the warmest kind. “You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you married me,” he kissed the top of her head. “You’re too good for me.”

Raquel pushed herself up till they were nose to nose, giving him a pointed look. “I haven’t been too good for anyone since we were kids.” She pressed a quick kiss on his lips, intending to pull away, but he gripped her chin before she could, kissing her deeply.

He’d never get tired of that… and he’d never get tired of her.

For the longest time, he thought it was too far-fetched to expect he’d find someone willing to stick around through all of his bullshit, much less someone who’d legally binded herself to him.

He was still in awe with how it played out.

He’d returned to Los Angeles dangerously too soon after their run in with The Brotherhood. Incidentally enough, he was laying low on high alert for so long… but nothing came of it.

Maybe they’d been arrested, maybe they’d gotten justice, or maybe they just moved on to terrorize another city. He’d always assumed it was the latter.

Rebuilding his father’s autoshop was painful, no matter how deep he tried to shove those feelings down.

Colt’s vision for his father’s crumbling empire wasn’t one that came into focus for him for years.

Five years after The Brotherhood incident, all he had to show for it was a struggling auto shop with a few criminal employees who barely knew how to hotwire a car.

It seemed like there were no hills in sight, only cavernous valleys.

Five years after The Brotherhood incident, the death of his father, and the end of the Mercy Park Crew, she came into focus.

Raquel stepped into the garage, heels clacking against the dirty concrete, her gait determined.

He watched her from his tiny office, peering through the blinds as she glided confidently across the auto shop and up to his door.

She rapped her knuckles against it a few times, a little too heavy handedly.

There’s no way she’s really here, he thought, shaking his head. No fucking way.

He debated whether or not to let her in – the last time a Kaneko opened their doors to her, they nearly ruined her life.

He twisted the knob and yanked it open anyways, an insult bubbling up his throat. After all these years, he figured he’d be relieved to see her, but the tiny sliver of relief was easily overshadowed by his knee jerk reaction of annoyance and shock.

There was a small part of him that was excited, but not enough to warrant being nice to her.

When he came face to face with her for the first time, she spoke first. “Hi, Mr. Kaneko. I’d like to apply for a bookkeeping job.”

He blinked when she shoved a thick manila folder in his hands. “I think my qualifications speak for themselves.”

He thumbs the edges of the papers, flipping through her resume and the thick Master’s thesis. She’s too fucking smart to be back here.

Before anyone in the shop could see, he tugged her arm till she was inside, all but slamming the door behind her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

She ripped her arm from his grasp, brows furrowed. “I’m here to work.”

“Don’t you get how dangerous it is for you to be here or are you just stupid?” He all but spat, slapping the folder onto his desk.

“If I’m stupid that makes you just as much of an idiot as me,” she countered, crossing her arms firmly. “I know the risks.”

“You can’t be dumb enough to think I’d take that risk, though,” he rolled his eyes, plopping into the chair at his desk.

She laughed – actually laughed – at him, covering her mouth. “Forgive me for that.”

He cocked a brow at her, waiting for her to continue.

“I went to school with pretentious male academics for five years, Colt. Whatever you’re gonna say to me has already been said, and it won’t hurt my feelings.”

He leans forward, flipping to her resume, tearing it off the top. “Let’s see, here. Langston college, yeah, I remember that. Graduated with honors? Predictable to do that three times in a row, don’t you think?”

She laughed again. “That’s a new one. I’ll have to log that under my favorite insults.”

“Well, I have loads. You’re giving me lots of material, Miss Olvera,” he mocked her, going back to skimming her resume.

Truthfully, he was trying to scare her away by being mean, and it wasn’t working. He didn’t want to dig too deep, though, because he wasn’t that evil.

He liked the girl – hell, if he didn’t like her, would he be bending over backwards to make her hate him purely for her safety?

“I can’t pay you well. I’m still rebuilding, and we’re barely breaking even. We’ve been sticking to straight work till I can manage to rebuild our reputation and relationships with buyers.”

She nodded. “I completely understand, and I don’t mind.”

“What, are you gonna ask me for a place to stay next?” He grumbled, rolling his eyes.

He was lying if he didn’t feel a little something stir in his stomach at the possibility of her staying in his apartment above the shop.

“No, I’m alright.”

“You came back to L.A. and you immediately have a place to stay? You’re lying.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line, she shook her head. “I’m back at my dad’s house.”

“What? There’s no fucking way I’m letting you work here if you’re living with a cop –”

“He passed away last year,” she chewed her lip, trying to keep her face neutral. “He had a heart attack in the middle of the night. Couldn’t get to the phone in time.

“Thankfully, he had a will set in place soon after mom died,” she shrugged. “I got the house, so I’m good.”

His fists clenched at his side. He’d already taken it too far without even meaning to.

“Sorry to hear that.”

She scoffed, a single forced laugh bursting from her lips. “You don’t have to respect him in front of me to save face or whatever. Your feelings about my dad don’t affect me.”

He nodded once, and the room descended into silence. He took the time to actually read her resume that time around, finding himself genuinely impressed with what she’d accomplished.

What he wanted to ask was “Why the fuck did you come back here?” but instead, what came out was, “You’re sure you can handle this?”

“I’m sure.”

She said those words with such conviction that he never had to ask again.

Raquel cuddled up to him, her breathing evening out. He hadn’t realized they’d gone that long without speaking.

He didn’t mind it though. He didn’t care as long as she was with him.

She stirred in her sleep, nearly rolling off of him, so he took that as his cue to tuck her in.

When she was settled under the covers, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and stepped out onto the deck.

The beach house they’d rented was a hundred feet from the shore, the waves grating against the sand creating the perfect white noise.

Perfect for sleeping, he mused, thinking about how quickly Raquel fell asleep in his arms, watching the water crash and retreat, push and pull over and over.

That same back and forth was what eventually brought him and Raquel together. They butted heads constantly, but had the same view on lots of decisions. They’d finish each other’s sentences and the crew would give each other knowing looks that he ignored.

A year in, she finally broke down. Not purposefully, and certainly not with the intent of him finding her curled into a sobbing mess outside of the garage.

“Hey what the hell, Raquel? It’s dangerous out here,” he called as he jogged up to her crumpled form.

He didn’t notice she was crying until he’d crouched down to check the injuries he thought she’d have.

She shielded her face with one hand and used the other to wave him away. “Just go.”

“I’m not leaving until you’re safe.”

It wasn’t even meant to be romantic. He’d do it for the rest of his crew since they’d grown so close.

There wasn’t a possibility of anything happening between them, or so he thought at the time. And what she admitted to him that night sealed their fate for years.

He’d managed to help her inside to his office, pulling back his worn office chair for her to collapse into.

A short “You okay?” Was all he could manage. He was new to this wellness check stuff and it didn’t come naturally to him.

But he knew as a leader, he had to do a lot more than just telling people what to do. Even if they split without a word in a week’s time, they were still a working machine that needed a little elbow grease every once in a while.

Even in the dim lamp light he could tell her eyes were red rimmed.

“I don’t think you want to hear my explanation as to why I’m not,” she laughed humorlessly, using the sleeve of her shirt to scrub the streak of makeup under her eye.

“I’m not good at this comforting shit, but I’ve got ears and I’ve gotten pretty good at using them,” he joked, sliding into the rickety folding chair in front of the desk.

She shrugged, flinging her hands up. “You’re gonna make fun of me –”

“– I won’t –”

“– You will, Colt. I know you and you’re gonna scoff the minute I take a breath.”

He couldn’t hold back the small smile at that.

“Well, yeah, but you don’t have to take it to heart.”

She sniffled, laughing. “You’re hard to ignore.”

“So are you, hard ass. Tell me what’s wrong.”

The sigh that came from her was labored, struggled, like she was about to drop heavy weights onto the floor of the office.

“Today’s the one year anniversary since I started working for you.”

He cocked a brow. “That’s it?”

“If you’d just let me explain then you’d know,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re already sucking at being a good listener.”

He held his hands up in surrender, leaning back into his chair. “Sorry.”

“My whole game plan was to figure out how to make myself useful. It’s why I got my Masters in accounting in the first place. I wanted to have my solid place in the crew, you know? Like I earned my spot.”

He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“I just had this stupid fairytale idea in my head about coming back to L.A. and none of that’s come true.”

“Well, what was it? Anything I can do?” He asked.

Raquel sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. She shook her head in response, taking a few deep breaths till she could finish.

“I wanted our old crew back. I… thought Logan would be back here by now, or looking for me at the very least,” she rubbed her temples, closing her eyes. “I waited five years to come back here and I’ve barely lasted one year in L.A. without him.”

He couldn’t help but flex his hand in and out of a fist a couple times as she spoke.

Yeah, it was true he didn’t care for Logan that much, but she liked him. Loved him, even.

If she was this dedicated to him six years later and he still hadn’t tried finding her, he didn’t deserve her.

“So it’s about Logan?” He asked with zero judgement, and she could tell.

She nodded, sniffling again. “Maybe I’ve just deluded myself into thinking we meant more to each other, but I’m still in love with him and I don’t know when that’s going to end for me.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he did what he thought was best.

He stood up, taking a couple steps till he was close enough to lay his palm on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb gently across the fabric.

She laid her hand on his thumb, holding it in place, as the sobs shook her body.

After that, he tried his hardest to keep her from crying. Which entailed leaving Logan’s name out of things.

Colt abandoned his shirt and shoes at the back door and hopped off the deck, landing softly on the sand. He took his time walking towards the water, gaze transfixed on the moon, which was at its peak in the sky.

He always thought the fact that the sea and moon were interlinked was kind of peculiar. The moon, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away, had just enough power to pull the waves in the right direction.

He thought of Raquel like his moon far too often. The minute he was in her gravitational pull, he found himself wanting to follow her – to let her take the reins – and that was rare.

The first time he knew it was the beginning of the end with her was when a job went south.

Three years after she broke down about wanting the old crew back, they got a taste of the old violence.

One of their crew members, Isaac, had said for weeks that he had a weird gut feeling about that job in particular. Colt waved him off, reminding him that he’d value proof over superstition anyday.

In short, they were ambushed – nothing out of the ordinary in terms of their day to day risk.

What Colt wasn’t expecting, however, was for Raquel to be the one who got hurt.

They were cornered by the masked group, and before their crewmember Aly could grab her gun and shoot, one of them fired, the cracking sound of the gunshot echoing off the concrete flooring of the rundown parking garage.

Raquel’s pained groan followed immediately after.

Colt’s heart stopped when he saw the fabric of her jeans turning a deep deep maroon, the blood spreading faster than he could process what’d happened.

Her eyes fluttered and she stumbled to her knees, crying out as she knelt, bending her legs, one of which had been freshly torn through with a bullet.

“Don’t let them get away –” he shouted, flinging his arm in the direction of the fleeing criminals. He knelt down to scoop Raquel’s crumpled form into his arms. “Isaac, stay here.”

Isaac froze, nodding. “Anything you need, boss.”

“Drop me off at the shop so I can patch her up. I have to stop the bleeding.”

Colt’s voice was calm and even, but inside he was at his breaking point. He sat in the backseat of the car with Raquel strewn across his lap, the color draining from her face with each passing minute.

His palm was firmly pressed against her calf to halt the bleeding. He was thankful that the adrenaline was numbing the pain till they could make it to the shop.

She’d wince every time he adjusted his slippery grip, instinctively turning her head into the crook of his neck. That didn’t cross his mind till much later.

When she attempted talking once or twice, he furiously shushed her each time. “Save your energy. You’ll need it.”

When Isaac skidded to a stop in the garage, Colt tossed his keys Isaac’s way. “Take my car and get out of the city for a few days. Lay low. I’ll clean this one up and it’ll be good as new when you come back.”

Isaac nodded, brows furrowed. “I should’ve… I knew it was gonna go south but I should’ve tried to convince you again –”

Colt held up a hand. “You were right, and I should’ve trusted your gut instinct, and I will from now on. This is solely on me. Don’t blame yourself.”

He nodded, hopping out of the car, sliding into Colt’s convertible, and disappearing into the night.

He’d managed to get Raquel into the apartment and onto the worn leather couch in the office – she was pale and clammy, flitting in and out of being fully aware of what was going on.

“Colt… I can clean up my leg, just… just give me a second to catch my breath,” she said, her eyes drooping closed.

“Absolutely not. Give me a second. I’m trying to find the goddamn gauze but I don’t see it anywhere –”

He was glad his back was turned, because he was shaking in terror and rage in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

The first aid kit clattered out of his hands and onto the desk, and he cursed, gripping the side of the desk till his knuckles were bright white and screaming at him to let go.

“Colt…” she whispered. “I’ll be fine. I’m just hurting.”

He dragged a chair to her side, propping her ankle up against his knee before getting to work cutting a thin line up the outer seam of her jeans. The blood trickled onto his own leg, saturating the denim of his pant leg immediately.

“Are you gonna ignore me the whole time you work on my leg?” She joked, wincing. “Fuck –”

The scissors were close to the wound, and he tried his best to stretch it away from it before cutting further.

“Sorry,” he murmured, grabbing two rags and dousing it in hydrogen peroxide. He rolled up the second one, handing it to Raquel.

She sighed shakily before stuffing it into her mouth, digging her fingers into the cracked leather of the couch.

She nodded once, giving him the sign to get it over with.

The second the damp rag touched her bloodied skin, she panted through her nose, eyes screwed shut.

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.” He grunted, grimacing as her thigh bucked against his hand, despite him trying to hold her in place.

When he touched the wound, she screamed, devolving into choked, muffled sobs.

He’d made a vow to make sure she never cried over Logan again, and instead he’d broken his promise by putting her in direct danger over and over and over again.

There was no reason for her to accompany them on jobs – she knew the risk, and didn’t care, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t stop her from coming.

No matter how hard he tried, he was always the reason she was getting hurt.

“This is all my fault,” he said, when he’d finished cleaning her wound. “I should’ve never let you come along to our trades.”

She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, a couple stray tears still glistening across her temples. “I wanted to be a part of this. Like you said to Isaac, you can’t blame yourself for this.”

“I don’t care what you say, alright? It was my fucking fault and you should’ve never been a part of this life.”

“Colt.”

He glanced up, barely able to meet her gaze.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, I’ve been a part of this life for nearly ten years now. I’m almost thirty. You’re closer to thirty than me. I know what I’ve gotten myself into, and I’m sticking by you regardless of the risk on my life.”

She slipped a clammy hand over his, which still held her thigh firmly in place. “If I lose my life on a job, I don’t regret it at all. I’d never regret meeting you.”

She took a labored breath, laying back against the armrest. “That took a lot out of me.”

Colt shook his head. “Stop talking. You need your energy.”

Raquel rolled her eyes. “I try being nice to you and you ignore it every time.”

“I just don’t know what the fuck to say to that. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that, huh?” He asked incredulously.

She blinked, her eyes narrowing. “I just got fucking shot, and you’re cursing at me while asking me to be your therapist? Am I hearing that right?”

He picked up his bloodied hands from her leg and threw them up in the air. “I have a lot going on in my head right now, and I’m not trying to fight you or get you to be my fuckin’ therapist, alright? I’m just confused.” He was barely below a shout, his chest heaving when he was done.

“I can’t read your mind, Colt. I’m kind of delirious with blood loss right now, so the least you can do is not yell at me and ask me politely to slate this conversation for later,” she said firmly, wincing while she shifted on the couch.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” he panted, shrugging his stained black thermal off. He tossed it to the side, revealing his equally as bloodied white tee.

He slipped that shirt off, too, tearing the shirt into long strips.

Raquel watched him, her brown eyed gaze one of both confusion and something more he couldn’t place and didn’t care to think about.

Wordlessly, he plopped back down, tying the shredded strips above the wound on her calf, fingertips grazing her skin as delicately as he could manage.

He let his hands linger for a bit too long, staring at the open wound on her leg.

Daring a look her way, Colt caught her watching him with a soft gaze, one that he hadn’t earned.

“You’re not mad at me for being there tonight… you’re mad at yourself for not protecting me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded once.

“You’re hoping that this makes me want to leave, because you won’t ask me yourself. You don’t want me to leave.”

He nodded again, glancing away from her.

After a long silence and avoidance of turning her way, she spoke first.

“You’re worried I don’t feel the same.”

He froze, dropping his hands from her leg. She was right, but if he admitted to it and she still didn’t feel the same, then what was he risking all this shit for?

Why was he still clinging onto the hope that she’d feel the same if nine years of pining was seconds away from being thrown out the window?

Mustering up his remaining courage, he nodded one last time.

And when he looked at her that time, she was beaming. Through the excruciating pain, she was smiling.

He broke first, scooting to the edge of his chair to get as close as he could. “What?”

“It’s funny that you were worried we weren’t on the same page. I think we might’ve been for a long time,” she laughed, hoarse and weak, but it was still her laugh that he loved so much.

“What do you mean?”

And then she said the words that he’d desperately needed to hear for nearly a decade.

“I came for Logan but I stayed for you.”

Once Raquel admitted that to him, he was all in. Completely committed, never faltering.

Their first kiss was anything but, the sensation one of nine years of pent up feelings from Colt’s end, and years of her own. Their first kiss was more of a sealant of their future (and their fate).

Their first kiss was everything Colt had dreamed of.

He kissed her like she was air and he was drowning and she was filling his lungs to the brim, her warmth spreading from his insides out.

She didn’t pull away after the first one, and neither did he.

For who knew how long, he was on his knees next to the bloodied couch, cupping her face with his palms, and kissing her like he had a decade of missed opportunities to make up for.

After that, they were inseparable.

And he never doubted her devotion to him again.

They fell into a routine of working at the shop together during the day and into the late hours of the night after everyone had left, before stumbling upstairs into Colt’s apartment, lips locked, hands roaming.

And she drove him to every job from then on, easily evading cops and maneuvering the underbelly of L.A. like it was second nature.

Colt waded into the warm water, barely feeling it as it lapped at his ankles, calves, thighs.

When he was waist deep, he opted to float on his back, using the opportunity to revel in the star littered sky. One he didn’t get to see too often in the heavily light polluted sky of Los Angeles. Was this really the same sky he’d lived under all these years?

He didn’t really plan on marrying Raquel.

It was never in the sleazy way where he was going to leave her the second he got what he wanted – he was content being with her. Living with her. Kissing her. Loving her.

But he didn’t think he needed to go through the motions because that’s supposedly what people in love did. He figured it was enough to spend his life with her without doing all the extra shit.

She brought it up first, nearly four years later.

At that point, he moved into her father’s house with her – they’d crash in Colt’s old apartment above the shop if they were too tired to drive home.

They were curled up on the old futon in his room, huddling under the blankets, and she was curled against his side, drawing circles through his short tuft of chest hair.

“We should get married.”

“Hmm?” He asked, in a haze, nearly drifting off to sleep before she’d spoken.

“You heard me.”

“You really wanna?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve always wanted to get married, even when I was a little girl.”

He kissed the top of her head, squeezing her closer.

“You’ve always been a daydreamer then,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I used to dig up my old Easter dresses and strut into the living room asking my Dad to walk me down the aisle.”

“And did he?”

She laughed, lifting her head to get a good look at him. “Yep. Walked me right down the hallway and back to my room to change me out of my clothes.”

Her face fell a bit despite the fond memory. “I think I care more about it now because I know my parents won’t be there. It feels like if I don’t get married, I’m breaking a promise, as dumb as that sounds.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t sound dumb at all, sweetheart. I don’t care what we do as long as it makes you happy.”

She smiled, leaning in to press a soft kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

Wrapping her up in a hug, he kisses her back with fervor, echoing her sentiment in the form of mumbling against her lips. I love you.

Roughly a year later, they opted for a quick courthouse wedding and a honeymoon that consisted of staying in bed all day and ordering food to build back the calories they’d burned.

Around that time, Raquel reconnected with some of her only living relatives on her Dad’s side. She’d gotten close to a few of her distant cousins, and they convinced her to have a small ceremony for their family in Belize.

And fifteen years after he’d met Raquel, on the cusp of spring and summer, he married her again in front of an intimate crowd and kissed her like it was their first time.

He’d complained about having to ass kiss her judgemental old relatives, but he didn’t really mind. Seeing her in a white dress, beaming like it was the best day of her life, was enough to make any issue nothing but a minor annoyance.

“Hey!”

Colt swirled his arms in the water till he was upright again, grinning when he noticed the bright red lines on her face – she’d clearly just woken up.

“Hey, sweetheart. You sleep okay?”

“Come back to bed,” she asked, pointing at the back door of their beach house.

He tipped his chin at her. “You come out here.”

She rolled her eyes, before tearing off her nightgown, running towards the water at full speed, no hesitation.

He caught her in his arms, letting her wrap her legs comfortably around his waist while he waded out to deeper waters.

“Ugh. I was having a good dream, too, until I realized the bed was empty,” she grumbled, looping her arms tighter around his neck.

“Sorry about that. I promise next time I’ll wake you up before I head out.”

She nodded, content with his answer.

They were both chest deep in the water, faces close, the soft rays from the moon the only light they had.

“Why’d you bring me out here, Colt?” She murmured, eyes flitting to his lips, which were upturned in a soft smile.

“I was just thinking. This spring makes fifteen years since I met you.”

She hugged him, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “And only, like, six years since we came to our senses.”

He laughed heartily, squeezing her tighter around the waist. “You’re right.”

“Remember when we jumped off the cliff together?” He asked.

“Yeah, of course. It was the first time I ever felt a spark with you,” she grinned. “Took a long time for it to turn into a flame, though.”

“That was the first time I knew I loved you,” he admitted. “I wanted to kiss you so badly and I kicked myself in the ass for years for not trying –”

She cut him off with a passionate kiss, her tongue slipping into his mouth almost as soon as his mouth moved in tandem with hers. It was the sloppy, unplanned kiss he’d envisioned for that day.

“I think everything worked out for the better. I’m not sure we were ready for each other back then,” she said honestly, her forehead pressed against his.

“We needed to grow a little bit before falling in love, huh? You’re so smart,” he said, voice low, pressing another kiss to her lips.

“Yeah, and now we’ve got the rest of our lives.”

She was right (like she always was), and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge in his chest like he’d felt many times before.

He’d waited that damn long for her, so he was going to savor the rest of their life together as much as he could.

#playchoices #choices rod #rodaw #rodtimecapsule #colt kaneko #colt kaneko x mc #jade writes choices fics #cw: injury #cw: guns #cw: blood #tw wounds #tw injury

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (17/17)

Summary: “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Link to cross-postings: AO3

The most difficult part for Levi was picking the best place to read.

His first choice was the oval. It was almost summer though and Levi was familiar enough with the timeline to know training must have started already. The last thing he wanted to do was run into old teammates and be forced to maintain some inkling of a conversation.

His second choice was the library. And it wasn’t a bad choice. For a while, Levi had settled on one of the desks at the corner of the library, far from cramming students or students looking for a convenient place to cool off. Seats on the corner didn’t have wide windows though and the artificial light and the artificial chill of the room had turned out to be distracting.

It was only a few pages in did Levi realize, he would have preferred some green around him and the heat of late spring wasn’t so bad. He started to wonder why he had even considered reading indoors in the first place.

He had ended up wasting a good fifteen minutes only to fall back to where he had parted ways with Hange anyway.

In front of the science building.

Hange was inside one of the empty classrooms defending her final thesis. Levi sat on one of the benches to the corner of the building, closing his eyes tight as if that would have been enough to make out the voices inside the building.

Others came to watch and he was sure of that. He had seen Erwin on the way in. Nanaba and Mike had waved at him, asking if he’d be coming inside.

Levi decided against it long before and maybe Hange would have preferred it that way too. After all, she must have left him that particular manuscript before entering the building for a reason. He read the title page, neatly printed in a very much readable and professional font.

Although it had looked like one with the thick cover and the hard binding, as soon as Levi opened the first page, the small title on the upper left had him speechless yet very much convinced.

It wasn’t her thesis manuscript.

To: Captain Levi

Captain Levi. How long had it been since he heard that name and that title? Hange had called him that months before. He had remembered writing about him. The words on the page, Hange's voice, Kuchel’s voice and his own voice all mentioning those same two words in succession had happened, he was sure of that much.

The circumstances though with each memory had blurred into each other one by one and he liked to attribute it to his hermit tendencies the succeeding months after his injury.

Life had been different since then. He had gone back to face to face classes. He had been working on his thesis. Hange had been working on her own thesis too. And they were both just too busy trying to graduate on time given the chaos of the first semester.

He stared at the title page for a few more seconds pondering that chaos, possibly trying to reach for something behind that haze to no avail. The only thing he was able to grasp then had been a bout of nostalgia.

And the nostalgia was more than enough to get him in the mood to read. He chalked up the small stint in the library to a test run and started again from the beginning.

Hange Zoe was born to a rich family within the Walls of Wall Sina…

Hange had taken great pains to describe everything from the cobblestone streets to the crystal-like bricks that lined the walls of the elegant buildings. The bricks shone with a unique glint and that alone had been enough for Hange to waste one paragraph on it.

She then used up another few paragraphs talking about the stifling life within the walls and her own curious nature.

If there’s something you don’t understand, go out and learn to understand it.

Living within the walls wasn’t in her nature so she ran away. She joined the survey corps. She was drawn to the outside world, drawn to titans.

So she became a researcher.

Levi didn’t notice it at first. Although his brain had been able to partition those few early events on the timeline, eventually the words started to shift, blur into one another and he found himself scanning through the paragraphs much quicker than usual.

He knew that much about squad leader Hange Zoe. He knew she hyper fixated on titans. He didn’t need vivid descriptions of Sonny and Bean nor did he need detailed descriptions of the outside world, the guns, the war or even her theories on the rumbling.

She had already told him everything then in the forest. She had told it to him back then in the office. Before he even knew it himself, he was flipping through the pages much faster. Suddenly his mind was pushing him to look out for certain things as he read.

There was something else he was looking for, between the lines of the descriptive narrations of Hange Zoe’s life.

“Maybe we should just live here together right Levi?”

Levi found the quote three pages before the back cover, towards the upper left of the page. He found himself running his left hand up to the corner of the page, slipping that corner between his two fingers, pressing on the ink on paper, just to make sure it wouldn’t so easily smudge with touch. Maybe it might even disappear like some sort of an illusion.

He just had to make sure it was real.

Hange’s exposition on sceneries was exhaustive. They were clear and vivid and they covered everything to the most granular bits of the large painting in his mind. If Levi closed his eyes, he was sure he would see the forest then.

Although Hange’s descriptions were detailed, comprehensive, enough to paint easy pictures in his head, they were far from introspective.

She had taken great pains to describe the darkness, the crackling campfire and the rough gashes of his face but she didn’t talk much about how it felt. Maybe it was up to the reader to contemplate them.

So Levi filled in the blanks, he filled the spaces between the lines with emotions, musings, ponderings. He couldn’t be too sure yet whether they were his or hers though, so he trudged on aimlessly as he read.

Everything happened in fast forward from there. Although Hange never left his side when she could, she was still fighting, suddenly she was strategizing.

Of course she would, she was a commander. He was just an injured soldier.

There was another quote, towards the last page on the upper right and Levi found himself running his pointer finger through it and he pressed on it hard, hard enough to crumple the pages of that corner. He ran his nail through it leaving a noticeable crease before he closed the binder and took a deep breath.

Dedicate your heart.

Just like every other page, there was no introspection into the character that made Hange Zoe, only words, more words then vivid descriptions of everything that happened after.

He didn’t need white spaces between the lines to figure it out for himself. Even if the pages had all been black, save for the words and the emotions they evoked, he felt it then like a weight.

But he shook it off, opened the book once again and continued to read.

Hange flew up. She fought titan after titan. And the fight had ended with her burning up in the air with the one last quote below.

“Titans really are incredible.”

Levi had half the mind to close the book again there, except that time, with no intention of reopening it. If he didn’t hyper fixate on that last sentence towards the end of the page, towards Commander Hange Zoe’s last words, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed the faded grey at the back of the last paragraph.

It was particularly noticeable on the white, between the lines of paragraphs. Once again Levi played with the creases just to make sure he hadn’t missed it. It was the last page, he was sure.

There was something written on the other side of the page. As much as it had ached to read on, Levi willed himself to flip the page.

It was empty, a blank white page. Fortunately, Levi was desperate enough to stare at it a little longer and he soon realized, he was focused on the center, somehow he had expected to find some sort of resolution there.

Hange had left the last line towards the upper left corner.

See you later Hange. Watch over us. Next to it was a shabbily drawn airplane and unlike all the other pages, it was smudged. The ink had blotted, sending light streaks of gray towards the right in such a predictable manner, Levi could almost imagine the way she had held the crease of the corner between her finger tips.

Once again, he shifted the weight of the page, moving his thumb and his pointer to that corner, reproducing the motions of how she must have messed up something so simple. It was easy to imagine and Levi found himself smiling.

Below it, towards the lower part of the page, he saw it. It was written with the same gel pen that bled through the other side of the page.

There were so many things I wanted to tell you but I never got the chance.

“Then why didn’t you say it? You had ten pages to say it.” Hell, you had five years to say it.

The next line read as if Hange had already predicted what he was going to say next.

I was the commander. You were the captain. We had a war to fight.

But you know, I thought when everything ends, once we retire I could let you know.

In a moment of dissonance, Levi started to wonder who those words were for. For all he knew, he could have been telling her the same thing.

Even if you don’t remember, I hope you at least felt it.

Please remember. Even if I wasn’t able to tell you anything, even if I couldn’t stay by your side.

I was watching you until the end.

Commander Hange Zoe

“Commander Hange Zoe,” Levi said it out loud a second time. Those words were ambrosia to his lips and he probably mouthed it a few more times as he stared at the blue sky above him.

Levi let his shoulders fall and he looked back down at the binder. He didn’t even notice he had closed it. “There were so many things I wanted to tell you too.”

You said it already. Commander Hange heard you. The answer came as a whisper. A quiet whisper that blew into his ear, caressing his neck.

And it had him jumping on his seat. “What the fuck Hange.”

“Are you done being sad already?”

“Why would I be sad?”

“Because Commander Hange Zoe died and you were staring at the sky like this for a good few minutes.” Hange let her head fall back playfully and Levi could have sworn he didn’t look like that. When she looked back at him a second later, she gave a knowing smile, an almost mocking smile.

That was enough to get Levi a little abrasive. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was watching you,” Hange said. “You looked like you were concentrating so…”

“I was.”

“So I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“You could have announced your presence like a normal person at least, maybe drop a greeting?”

“I had to look for you and you weren’t answering your phone then I got impatient.” Hange seemed unperturbed. “Come on, I’m treating you guys out to dinner.”

Levi opened his phone to see an hour had passed since he last checked the time and beneath it five missed calls, all from Hange. On the upper right of his phone, the silent mode sign flashed like some sort of reminder. “I was in the library so I had to put my phone on silent.” Those words in defense of his actions were instinctive. Soon, as Hange looked back gesturing for him to follow her, he started to realize that maybe that defense was useless.

“Okay Levi,” Hange said. Her tone was reminiscent of a know-it-all. Her pace was insultingly slow. Levi found himself angrily quickening his pace to catch up to her.

Hange’s pace was at least slow enough that even with his recovering leg, he found it easy to catch up. The moment Levi walked past her, he felt familiar arms on his shoulder. They weighed on him and in a way, they had prevented him from overtaking her.

He had no intention of doing so anyway. “How was your defense?” Levi asked. It was an easy question to start with.

“Better late than never but I’m getting a diploma.”

“Late? You’re graduating with all of us.”

“I’m the last one among my batchmates who presented.”

“Believe me, I’m more amazed that you managed to get something out even after redoing your thesis three times.”

“I should thank Kuchel, it was her sources which got me here. I’ll probably send her a copy of my thesis as a thank you. You think she’ll appreciate that?”

“She probably will. Something to help her pass the time when she goes on leave.”

“Leave?”

“In our last session, she told me she’s expecting.”

“Oooh? A baby?”

“She ended up opening up to me about it after our session. She was pretty nervous about having a child for a while and recently, she managed to get over that fear.”

“I guess we all had something to deal with…” Hange said as she pulled him towards the gate. “You think we’ll get to meet the kid one day. I’d love to see Kuchel as a mother.”

“She’ll be a great mother…” Somehow, Levi knew it. He only had to look back at her words, her refined tone and the way she easily shifted between professional and motherly to be almost jealous of the child growing in her womb.

Hange gave him a toothy grin. “Let’s visit her together?”

“Why not?”

The conversation died as they turned the corner of one of the buildings along the path, a corner that opened up to a large courtyard and beyond it the gate of their university.

“Wait, where are we going?” Levi asked,

“I told you, I’m treating you guys out.” Hange answered matter-of-factly.

“Where Hange?”

“We’re having grilled meat.”

“Hange? For the third time… Where?” Levi asked.

It wasn’t Hange who had ended up answering the question. By the gate, Moblit and Nifa were waiting and they looked like they had been waiting a while. Nifa was tapping her feet impatiently while Moblit had seemed genuinely concerned.

“You guys okay? You looked like you were fighting,” Moblit said as he approached them.

“Where are we eating?” Levi asked.

“The Korean grill just a few blocks away.” Moblit said.

Levi didn’t need any more clarification from there. They were all from the same university and the restaurants around the area were a common language among them.

“That’s how you answer a question Hange,” Levi muttered coldly.

“Well, I didn’t think the location was important. I was leading you there already anyway,” Hange responding mirroring that same cold tone with her own. She went ahead and put one arm around Moblit muttering unintelligible words save for the quick congratulations at the start.

“Congratulations?” Levi asked.

“He got nominated for best thesis and everyone's pretty convinced he’s gonna win it,” Nifa answered. She had fallen back behind the two and matched Levi’s pace.

Moblit eventually raised his voice, loud enough for even Levi to hear. “No No… That was your data Hange and it was your idea. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“Still…” Hange’s voice trailed off. She was far enough, her voice was garbled enough that with that few feet distance, her words were unintelligible. Her smile though was very much still perceptible, a genuine golden smile.

“Levi, you agree right?”

Levi looked towards the voice, Moblit’s voice. “Agree with what?”

“If Hange had submitted her thesis early, she could have won ri---.”

“Moblit, stop downplaying your nomination.” Hange interrupted, giving him a strong push n the back.

Moblit wobbled and held onto Hange’s shirt to keep his balance “But it was a good thesis right?” He asked as soon as he recovered. He looked at Levi expectantly.

It was only then did Levi realize, despite the five months together, he never really thought too much to ask what her thesis had been about. With his own hectic schedule, his physical therapy sessions, his sessions with Shela, maybe it just never peaked his interest. He was starting to feel guilty at such a reminder and before he knew it, he was finding excuses for it.

She spent a lot of the past few months cooped up in her room if not in class, save for the few moments when she would accompany to therapy sessions or to meet with Shela.

His thoughts flew back to the document she had shared with him.

To: Levi Ackerman.

And if that document was half as good as her thesis, he was sure she did well. So he returned Moblit’s approval with one of his own. “It was a good thesis,” Levi said. “But don’t downplay yours. You won fair and square.”

That was all there was to it. Hange didn’t win. But she didn’t seem to mind either. Hange had snuck what looked to be a grateful smile and she continued to playfully poke at Moblit then, probably whispering inside jokes, reminiscing about their life before.

Her mood was unwavering all the way until the restaurant

It turned out Mike and Nanaba were in the restaurant already and they only joined Hange at glomping Moblit for his nomination. The four childhood friends created a world of their own in the restaurant, a world full of inside jokes, long gone memories and maybe even discussions on future plans.

Levi deemed it appropriate to sit on a chair at the edge of their long table and just quietly listen.

Mike was selected for the national team.

Nanaba wanted to go back to minor league volleyball after college.

Moblit was going to medical school

And Nifa, who had joined their conversation then, was going to take masters.

Hange’s plans were either long-awaited or they were intentionally avoided. He couldn’t tell.

By the time the question came, it had come as a casual question by Moblit who had always been sensitive with the way he phrased things so his intention had been something Levi couldn’t read either.

Before Hange could open her mouth though, Nifa chimed in greeting. “Doctor Erwin!”

“Sorry I’m late. We were discussing the nominees,’ Erwin said.

And the topic shifted from there, even before Levi could get answers.

Erwin never spilled who the winner was, but it was apparent in his gaze that shifted to the side and the smile that curled up his lips that it was one of them. By the time Hange had started being too vocal about it, Erwin had spilled more than enough for the students to guess for themselves.

“You’re free anytime next week for an awarding ceremony right?” Erwin asked.

“Anytime sir! Thank you for this opportunity.”

Erwin shook his head. “You wrote a great thesis. It was well deserved. Will you be inviting Elijah?”

“I think I should treat him out, I’ve wasted a lot of his time this past year... He’s been pretty busy training with the national team though… But I’ll talk to him.”

Their long table was already a conglomerate of conversations and Levi struggled to keep up.

Somewhere between conversations, the charcoal had been added to the grills, the sides were served and Levi found himself listening intently to Erwin and Moblit’s exchange in particular while he played with the spinach on his plate.

Elijah swept the high jump. He swept the other events. He came out winning the Most Valuable Player Award for the High Jump. And he recently started training with the national team.

The Olympics isn’t a far off dream at this point. It’s probably just another step for him.

Moblit had shown up for the first training and he had started to describe Elijah’s skill with the bar then. His coordination with the take off food, his wide penultimate stride.

He was using lingo most track and field athletes wouldn’t have thought twice to use and Levi had used and heard them more times than he had counted through the years. Having not thought about high jumping in months, listening to such a conversation peppered with such words that used to be home for him, seemed surreal.

So surreal that for a second, Levi lost his grip on a reality. Enough to not have noticed the waitress who served the drink in front of him

It was a short and stout glass. The contents looked particularly ---almost dangerously--- colorful and the red stick on the side was enough for Levi to deduce what exactly it was. To confirm it, he took one sniff.

“Nanaba, why the hell did you order alcohol?” Hange asked.

“It’s a celebration right? We should be drinking. Cheers!” She raised her cup up to no one in particular.

Moblit and Nifa had been nice enough to join albeit a little uncomfortably. Levi found himself making eye contact with Erwin who was still slowly mixing the cup in front of him, seeming unsure of what exactly happened.

Hange seemed flustered. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with us drinking but more people are coming and---”

“Sorry we’re late Hange!”

Armin? That was Armin’s voice. But it wasn’t just Armin, tailing behind him were several other very familiar people.

Armin continued. “None of us wanted to go alone…”

Of course none of them would want to go alone, they were high school students and around them were a group of college students and a college professor.

A group of high school students among college students. Levi noted. He eyed the cocktail glass in front of him then. Was that what Hange was worried about? Levi found himself downing his cup a little quicker.

“Blame Connie here, He was the one wasting his time on extra batting practice until god knows what time,” Jean said as he followed behind Armin.

“Shut up Jean. At least Armin didn’t have to cover my subway fee.”

“I just didn’t have change on me.”

“Calm down you two, you’re eating here for free.” Historia went in between the two, and walked up to Hange who had stood up to guide them to their seats. “I could pay for my share.”

“No, no. I set aside money for this. I just wanted to express my thanks for the past few months and I wanted to meet you guys again. I hope we can keep in touch even after...” Hange pulled Historia to the side and Levi couldn’t make out the rest of their conversation.

So he focused elsewhere.

“Is this… unlimited?” It was Sasha who spoke up that time. It was great timing that the moment Sasha had come in, the first plates of meat were starting to be served on the table. Expectedly, she had been the first one to sit and she started cooking on her end.

“Yes it is,” Levi answered

“No way… Right after a long day of training? Is this heaven…” Sasha could have been tearing up at that moment. She had been too focused on the meat so Levi couldn’t confirm it for himself but the crack on her voice had been evidence enough.

Hange squeezed herself among the high school students who had settled on the nearby seats. “No no… This is a thank you for helping me with my thesis. I got some good data from you guys so really, thank you for taking the time to fill out those forms and dealing with all my messages and calls,” Hange said.

“You didn’t have to. You did more than enough for us.” Jean sat in front of Levi towards the edge of the table. “You helped me fix my dunking position.”

“Ah Jean, you mentioned last time, you’d be going abroad for college. Will you?”

Jean grinned. “Basketball isn’t too big of a sport here so I thought of going somewhere where I can go pro. I got a full ride in a pretty good university.”

“Jean! Congratulations!” Their side of the table had exploded into other conversations.

They were all going to colleges, some abroad, some local. Levi had turned to their side, ready to passively listen for details. He was starting to get invested in their plans too.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Mikasa Ackerman. He instantly recognized her voice. “Ah sorry, I didn’t notice you there.” Levi said.

Mikasa remained standing. She stared at Levi expectantly and pointed to the seat next to him. “So, I can sit here?”

“Go ahead.” Levi scooched over on the bench. He eyed the filled cocktail glass next to Mikasa and pushed it casually towards himself. The last thing he wanted to do then was enable a minor.

Mikasa didn’t seem to notice the drink at leats.. “I talked to Elijah,” she said as she started placing meat in the grill... “He welcomed me during my first training.”

“Didn’t he move on from collegiate jumping already?”

“He had some free time. We had a long talk about prospects after college. I’m guessing coach put him up to it. Some extra persuasion points maybe?”

“You’re not gonna change your mind.”

“I don’t plan on changing my mind. I submitted my documents, signed the contract and I’ll probably be moving to the dorm next week so I’ll be nearer to the oval.” Mikasa paused to eat an egg roll.

“To think you were so against it before.”

Mikasa shrugged. “I guess it’s just easier now since Eren’s starting to prepare for entrance exams. I’m actually convinced he’s gonna be fine. He’s been taking review classes and he’s been studying a lot outside the classes too.”

“Entrance exams of Paradis University?”

“That’s his first choice,” Mikasa said. “Are you still staying in the dorm? Maybe we could go through drills together on off-days and you could give me a few pointers.”

“I’ll be in the dorm for a week more or so... I’m not exactly sure.”

“You’re gonna wait for Hange?”

Is it obvious? Levi avoided her gaze then, looking back at his empty plate. He soon realized he hadn’t even started cooking himself. So he dropped a few slabs of meat on the grill in front of him to feign at least some disconnect. “Maybe,” he answered.

“It would be nice to get a few pointers from you,” Mikasa said. “You really were one of the best jumpers out there.”

“I won’t be able to demonstrate a jump if that’s what you’re expecting. Besides Hange is much better at giving pointers. She’s a lot more observant than I am.”

“I’m sure there are things you can teach me that Hange can’t. I wanna improve my vertical jump. And maybe try some of the other events as well.”

“This is a complete 180 from you months ago..”

“I’m stuck training twice a day. I barely get to talk to Eren and Armin. So I ended up finding happiness in just jumping… And I thought to myself, might as well make some jumping goals for myself right?”

“So what’s your goal?”

“I wanna beat your high jump record. Even Elijah hasn’t beaten that yet,” Mikasa said.

“That’s some character development,” Levi mumbled.

Mikasa ignored it though or maybe she didn’t hear it. Levi never really figured out how loud he had said it. “.. And the only person who can teach me how to beat your record is you.”

***

Levi had eaten too little and had drank a little too much. But he would rather not have told anyone that.

So he had made the journey to the rooftop of the restaurant alone. There was a toilet conveniently by the staircase where he had ended up dry heaving on the bowl. A few dry heaves and a few sets of stairs later, he found himself sitting back on the metal wired fence that lined the roof.

Just long enough to get my bearings. Levi reassured himself as he leaned further in.

As time passed though, he managed to convince himself that maybe he could stay there long enough to just wait for everyone to leave. The last thing he would have wanted to do was puke on anyone on the way down.

He checked his clock. 9:30pm. Most college students wouldn’t even be leaving for the party yet at that time. His strict athlete schedule meant he never was a normal college student though.

He graduated college already anyway. With that realization, Levi was a little more merciful towards himself. So he rode out the high of his inebriation. He counted out the stars above him, treating it as some sort of countdown to sobriety.

It probably wouldn’t work. After the tenth star, his head was still pounding, the stars were starting to show signs of blending amongst one another and he could feel his face warming up.

He was starting to feel the beginnings of dry heaving—or possibly wet heaving—again. Unable to sit up any longer, he lay on his side.

He didn't know how long he had lain there, waiting for the pounding to subside before he heard footsteps. His first instinct had been to force himself to sit up. His mind though was quick to recognize those footsteps, that natural mix of fast, loud and even as they made their way up the stairs and somehow, he ended up relaxing instead on the cold concrete floor.

How many times had he searched for those footsteps before?

“Hey, you know you’re lucky we’re here on a weekday during off season. If this were a weekend, the rooftop probably would have been full and they would have kicked you out already.”

“How’s everyone?” Levi asked. He kept his question to two words but the amount of syllables he had to pronounce then only garbled it.

“They left already,” Hange slid back on the metal fence and leaned back on it. “It’s just you and me now.”

“Okay,” Levi said. He would have wanted to say more. The pounding headache only made something so simple as speaking, a game of Russian Roulette and he didn’t want to figure out which word had the bullet, and which word could have him throwing up on Hange then.

“It’s just you and me,” Hange repeated.

You said that already. Levi would have wanted to say. Instead he kept his own response at a hum of understanding. She should interpret that as a yes at least.

“You don’t wanna talk? Or are you just too drunk?”

Levi didn’t respond.

“Didn’t you just have two cups?”

Levi raised up three fingers. He wasn’t exactly sure how many at that point. But he was sure it felt like more than two.

“Okay, that still isn’t enough to be deadass drunk you know.” Hange seemed impatient. And maybe a little disappointed.

So Levi took one risk. “Just keep talking. I’m listening.” Maybe that had been enough to get some bile up his throat. It had done more than enough to aggravate the pounding in his head and he found himself leaning on Hange’s shoulder.

As she held him closer, her hand gently guided him deeper onto her shoulder. Within seconds, Levi found he had rested his head on her lap and was staring up at the sky above.

The night was clear, the stars were shining and Levi was counting the stars again, a little ticked that he had lost his pattern and his train of thought of a few minutes ago. He was starting from the top again and he could have sworn the stars were constantly moving. There was no way he would have been able to guess which line of stars he had already counted.

“Hey, talk to me.” Hange only made the ordeal of counting stars worse. Her big head of all things was obscuring the view of the patterns he was starting to form as he counted.

Get out, I’m counting stars. That’s what he would have wanted to say then.

Hange could have heard it. Or maybe she didn’t. She bent a little more forward, so unnaturally, Levi could have sworn she had done it out of spite. She stared at him with wide eyes, her lips curled up into a playful smile. “Let’s talk Levi, one more hour and they’re gonna close. Besides the view here is nice, it’s breezy and…”

“And?”

“You’re probably too drunk to move now. We’re gonna have to get a taxi home.”

“Later,” Levi mumbled as he turned on his side and buried his face into Hange’s polo which smelled unavoidably like beef. He would have complained then if his head wasn’t pounding and if it didn’t dawn on him then, he probably smelled worse.

“Okay, Wanna talk about my work?”

“Thesis?”

“That… and, the binder I gave you, the one with the stories.”

“What about it?” There was a lot to talk about. But it wasn’t like there was much Levi could have contributed then but one to two syllable answers.

“What did you think?”

“Good.”

Hange pouted. “No, not about the quality. How did it make you feel?”

“Good.”

“Okay, how did Commander Hange’s death make you feel?” Hange had taken pains to pronounce the word death a little more clearly than everything else. Enough for Levi to almost think throwing up on her would be a good idea.

So he took another risk. “If you had so much more to say, why didn’t you say it?” Levi asked. His voice would naturally slur so he willed himself to enunciate every syllable even if it could make him look like an idiot in the process.

“That’s what Commander Hange should have been asking Levi,” Hange said.

“Captain Levi didn’t wanna let Commander Hange sacrifice herself. It was obvious.”

“No it wasn’t.” Hange shook her head, quickly enough to get even Levi dizzy. “You wrote something before, right? Your descriptions of everything were incredibly vivid, like I remembered the views, the appearance of the titans, the way you weaved words together but you know half the time, I couldn’t even be sure of what Captain Levi was thinking.”

“That’s how it felt reading your work. Squad leader Hange, Commander Hange… all they described were titans.”

“But Commander Hange explicitly said she wanted to live with Captain Levi. It was obvious too,” Hange said.

And for a second, maybe they were engaged in some mental sparring, a game of tug of war. Levi was still a little too incapacitated, he couldn’t take the initiative.

So Hange spoke up, loud and clear. “I thought being with each other, doing all that was enough of a love letter. Did they need words? A mad declaration of love?”

“Maybe, no one can be too sure unless somebody says something right?”

“Hange was the commander. Levi was the captain. With the war going on, I don’t think they could have left their post right. They couldn’t be too selfish. I think the commander was planning to wait until retirement to say it.”

“Retirement never came.”

“We’re both retired now,” Hange said. “I’m done with this whole academic stint. You’re done with your whole athletic stint. We have the time to make it work for Commander Hange and for Captain Levi right?”

“Are you saying we’re Captain Levi and Commander Hange?”

“My dreams tell me yes.”

“Dreams huh? That’s pretty objective.”

“Hey, I think I did enough research on this to make a theory about it. It was part of my thesis.”

“And you do realize you’ve never told me what your thesis was about?”

“Sorry about that…”

“So you knew? I always thought I was an asshole for not asking.”

“You asked a few times, not directly, but I think maybe you wanted to go in that direction,” Hange said. “And I admit, I ended up digressing every time.”

“Why?”

“I guess I wasn’t too comfortable telling you yet. I was writing my thesis side by side with that story and ever since I got serious about it, after a few dreams, after that night in the hospital, I wanted the memories to be as raw as possible, untainted by whatever story Captain Levi told me before. It was Commander Hange’s story, not Captain Levi’s. So I guess that’s why I wanted to avoid discussion on it.”

“Thesis is done. The book is done. You can talk about it now.”

“You're gonna get bored. So I’ll just read out the title.”

Hange twisted towards her side, jostling Levi in the process and Levi had to bite his lip not to aggravate the dull headache then. He heard the sound of a zipper and the sound of books pushed against one another.

After what felt like a lot more than a few seconds, it stopped. Hange opened the book, she turned on the flashlight of her phone.

The glare was sudden and for a good few seconds the glare of the light could have been right on him. Maybe that was what had made it particularly painful for Levi then.

He buried his face further into Hange’s shirt and let out a taut curse.

“Sorry,” Hange whispered, seeming distracted. After flipping through the pages for a few seconds longer, she read it out loud. “Nature and Nurture as Determinants of Athletic Potential, A Case Study on High Performing Athletes… Okay you know, maybe I was a little biased towards ‘nature,’’ she added cheekily.

“Why nature?”

“Dreams… Past life. What if… You’re Captain Levi and I’m Commander Hange Zoe. Right? We have the evidence. Captain Levi was humanity’s strongest and he was really good with fighting in the air... Commander Hange Zoe liked strategy and research... And the fact that we had the same dreams?” Hange trailed off.

Levi was in no state to respond.

So Hange continued. “You wrote a lot Levi and maybe you’ll write it again. But I can swear, from what I remember about your works, and what I remember from mine, They’re the same story. And Kuchel had something similar right? What if past lives are real?”

“I don’t think you’re wrong..”

Hange pulled another book from her bag then.

Under the dim starry night, Levi made out the thin binder, the one he had read that afternoon. She started to flip through the pages, much faster as if she memorized the exact page and maybe the exact position where the paragraph was.

“Maybe we should just live here together, right Levi?” Hange read out loud.

If we keep running and hiding, what will that get us… I know you’re not able to stay out of the action. Those words echoed clearly in Levi’s mind then. Captain Levi was still alive inside him and he was whispering.

Clear enough to convince Levi. Maybe past lives are real. Levi thought to himself. He was in another life then, circumstances were different so he changed the script a bit, a script fit for soon-to-be graduates Hange Zoe and Levi Ackerman.

“Where to, Hange Zoe? What’s the game plan?” Levi asked.

“What’s the game plan of an academic washout…” Hange asked. “Well first things first, thank my parents for their grad gift, you know, the money to pay for the all you can eat beef… I’ll probably get a full time job, save up money then decide if I wanna go to med school again but at this point, I might just be better off pursuing a research track.”

“Didn’t Commander Hange wanna study plants?”

“She did,” Hange said. “And you know maybe she’ll get the chance now. Didn’t Captain Levi wanna own a tea shop?”

“I think that’s a viable career option for an athletic washout. The Olympics and the national team are out of my plate anyway.”

“So what? Teashop and research?”

“Teashop and research.”

“Well first things first, we’re gonna have to save right? My parents and I have been reconciling our differences lately already but I don’t wanna borrow too much money so our best option would be to get a place outside the city? You think we’d be able to afford that?”

Levi forced a slight nod. “Maybe a place with lots of green. You’d probably enjoy the trees and you’ll find lots to study during your days off. The commute to work is gonna be a bitch though.”

“We’ll find a job nearby or we’ll make it work. Just long enough to figure things out.”

Figure things out… The conversation died then. But maybe it did because Hange had started to do a little more research then, he saw in the glare in her glasses, the natural green over the white background.

Was she researching houses? Levi asked silently. It wasn’t worth asking anyway. They had only a few weeks before their contract ends and they’d be forced to vacate the dorms. Maybe it was a good idea to search much earlier.

So Levi endured the bright glare of the screen and searched for the beauty in the green glare on the white screen on Hange’s glasses then, and maybe he found it underneath in her eyes that seemed to be smiling.

If eyes could smile… No, they were definitely smiling.

“I’m sorry, we’re gonna have to ask you to leave. The restaurant is closing soon.”

Just like that, the moment was broken.

“We’re going down. Just give us a few minutes to fix our stuff.”

“Let’s go, Levi?”

“I would've wanted to stay here a little longer. It feels like a dream. I feel like Captain Levi here.”

“Because you are Captain Levi,” Hange said as she started to stuff the books back into her bag.

“Alright, Commander Hange.”

Hange chuckled. “You seem very disappointed.”

“Do I?” Levi couldn’t really tell the face he was making there. Hange’s face wasn’t the clearest either under the dark light. So he considered the possibility that she could be right. He might have been disappointed.

“Fine, I’ll give you something to dream about,” Hange said slyly. “You know, if Commander Hange Zoe wasn’t fighting a war, there was something else she probably would have done.”

“Wha--?” Before Levi could even complete the question, she had answered it herself.

She answered it with a quick peck. Or at least it should have been a quick peck.

With Levi’s mouth half open then, it morphed into something else in that split second, lasting a little longer. Their lips locked, their tongues touched and it had taken a few seconds longer to let go.

It probably could have taken a minute, an hour or even an eternity longer and Levi wouldn't have minded.

He continued to replay it in his head again and again as Hange helped him up, slung his one arm over hers. His surroundings changed, from the starry rooftop, the restaurant interior then the taxi on the way home.

And it ended with the sofa of the dorm lobby, the wooden ceiling and Hange leaning on him on the sofa.

He was still thinking about it then. In the silence, in the peace even with the changing surroundings, he had been on cloud nine the whole time.

He was convinced, Captain Levi wouldn't have minded that eternity either. Hell, he probably would have loved it.

***

There was a hiking trail near their house. Luckily it wasn’t too steep.

So Levi deemed himself well enough to brave it. It had been almost a year since his surgery, six months since the last tear and most days, as long as he wore his knee brace, his knee wouldn’t give out on him.

Unbuckling happened. Swelling happened. The dull aches never left. Levi had learned to just live with it, ride through the worst days.

It was as if his knee knew then that that day in particular was special. Or maybe Levi had chosen that day because his knee was feeling better. That day, Hange was notably freer and on the days leading up to autumn, it was only gonna getting colder and colder and he didn’t wanna have to wait another year to hike.

“Just tell me if anything hurts,” Hange said as they made the almost perilous journey up the hill.

The steeper it got, the harder it would be on his knees. He noted that, it would get worse particularly on the way down.

It was still far from the steep incline in the reserve Hange had brought him to more than a year ago.

There was a peak that overlooked the small town they had settled in. The incline, the climb albeit longer, was friendlier for his aching muscles and his bum knee.

Levi was counting his blessings. So through the worst of the dull aches, the worst of the pains as they climbed up, Levi gritted his teeth and clocked it as ‘bearable at least,’ not worth a complaint.

Hange probably could tell though. He didn’t figure out by her eyes since he kept walking behind her. She hadn’t been particularly pushy either. He had figured it out for himself when she started talking, and she never stopped.

“How’s Petra?”

“She’s working towards a PT Certificate.”

“How’s Isabel?”

“I heard she’s starting her third year of high school already?”

“And Farland?”

How do you even know them?

“I visited Erwin a lot in his office in the hospital you know. And I talked to them.”

But it hadn’t been just that. Hange had an emotional investment extending far beyond that. He slowed his pace, appreciating her seemingly interested voice then. With that, Levi was reminded, they were Commander Hange’s friends too.

So he continued to answer questions as they came. They were a good distraction from the specter of exhaustion that loomed over him.

And soon, he took the reins. "So how's Moblit?" It had only felt natural to ask too.

"He's in his first year of med school...How's Mikasa?"

"Her first college competition is next month.”

Conversations shifted quickly from topic to topic, person to person before dying somewhere at the peak when they attributed the death of such to speechlessness at the view before him or just utter exhaustion.

Levi knew it was neither of it and he became sure of it as Hange guided him to the bench that overlooked the rolling hills behind them.

She kept one hand over his knee. "Your knee did a good job not swelling."

"Even if it does, I won’t regret it. I wanted to do this for a while."

"Is this because you couldn't join me up the peak last year?"

"Probably," Levi said. He turned to her. "You didn’t get to the top then right?"

“No, I didn’t. I went back down as quickly as I could when I heard you scream my name.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what came over me. But Levi knew, so he kept that last part to himself. “You know, maybe I am doing this for you. You still wanna fly right?"

"Yeah, I do. Even if I remember everything then, after writing everything out… Sure I know how it ends for Commander Hange Zoe but... I still wanna fly. Maybe because I just wanna enjoy the freedom that comes with it.”

"Then I guess we made a good choice." Levi grabbed his backpack from behind him and unzipped it. "I wanted to give this to you. And I thought you might enjoy reading it in a place with lots of sky."

He had binded it the same way and he had titled it similarly.

It looked like Hange knew what it was. "Levi… is this…" Her wide eyes looked far from confused.

"After reading your work, I started dreaming about Captain Levi again so I rewrote the story I made a year ago. It's not a perfect copy but I think I remembered enough to maybe get you immersed again in his thoughts."

Hange didn't reply but Levi didn't mind.

In a way, she had responded, through whispers, murmurs and the grin on her face as she looked through the file. "To Commander Hange? Yours truly, Captain Levi?" Hange asked, a little louder and clearer than her murmurs. She wanted to be listened to.

"Are you laughing? That's the same thing you wrote at the top in your own file,” Levi said. “I guess you can say, it's Captain Levi's love letter to Commander Hange."

“A love letter huh? All I’m reading here are long drawn out descriptions of humanity’s strongest soldier fighting titans…” Hange chuckled. “And maybe some mentions of Commander Hange Zoe.”

“Captain Levi was with Commander Hange a lot right?” It was a shoddy reply. Still, an inkling of pride had Levi clinging on to that comment.

"Do you notice that neither of us actually wrote something introspective. It’s like they never could tell what the other was thinking. Captain Levi was too obsessed with fighting, Commander Hange was too obsessed with Titans."

"Those were how my dreams were."

"That's how they were for me too."

"But if you look over there, towards the last page, you'd find it. I wrote 'dedicate your heart' right? Captain Levi didn't want you to leave"

"I remember that and if you looked towards the end of my work you'd see I wrote... Commander Hange wanted to live with you."

Levi had a copy of it on his phone so he opened up, did a quick search and highlighted the text.

Maybe we should just live here together, right Levi?

For a second they sat in silence. Levi was too busy finding a reason for the tens of thousands of words worth of exposition all for one sentence. Maybe Hange was doing similarly.

Hange spoke up once again, only confirming it for herself. "Commander Hange and Captain Levi really took each other for granted huh?”

"They had a war to fight. They couldn't be too intimate could they?"

“So instead of just explicitly saying I love you through a love letter, they decide to send each other memories of a past life and we’re left to decode it for ourselves?”

“Captain Levi was never really the type to say he loves someone. And I’m guessing Commander Hange wasn’t the type either.”

“Or maybe... They were too scared to think about it to admit it was love, but somehow the reader just knows.” Hange suggested. She turned to Levi then, eyeing his phone.” It wasn’t just in the ‘live together’ part right? I’m sure you felt it in the letter? With every mention of Captain Levi… Toward the end, he never left her side and she never his side too right?”

Levi nodded slowly, gripping his phone a little tighter. “I felt it and every time I reread it, it only got stronger." And how many times had he reread it since she first gave it to him months ago?

“You know Levi, even since last year, the first time I read it, I felt it for myself and I really thought they would have kissed. And maybe if Commander Hange died they would have.” Hange cocked her head to one side. “So none of us needed reflection or introspection huh? I guess the descriptions on titans and technology made some great padding to the love letter.”

“Don’t you think it just made everything more complicated? For us?”

“Maybe it did. But I like to think this long drawn out puzzle just makes everything deeper, worth remembering. Think about it, just mentioning someone again and again, just quietly assuming that someone would be there by your side forever, not thinking too much of it but just casually thinking ‘I wouldn’t mind if they were there forever.’ And when the prospect of losing them comes up, that refusal to let go...the regrets that follow... I think those run deeper than any flowery declaration of love." Hange waved the binder in front of him. "I like this. It’s better than any love letter I could have gotten.”

“Two idiots just writing stories about their tragic past lives and exchanging it," Levi mumbled that first part to himself. He turned to Hange. "I enjoyed the process of writing these ‘love letters’," Levi said. "Did you?"

Hange nodded. “It wasn’t all happiness for sure but overall, I’m enjoying the writing process and I'm enjoying where the dreams brought me. It’s not where I expected to be a year ago but hey, who says life should be following the path we set for it,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And I should be saying the same to you. I’m not the Olympics. I’m not the national track and field team but you don’t mind right? Being stuck with me? Writing love letters like that?”

“Hey, instead of going to medical school, you’re here living with me in some small house near some hiking trail. We’re both on nine to five jobs saving up money until god knows when. It’s a far cry from what our teammates and blockmates are doing.”

“But you know if I didn’t drop the other theses, I don’t think I would have written this much about you.”

“And if I didn’t get injured, I wouldn’t have written. I’d probably be training with the national team now.”

And we wouldn’t be here. Somehow, Levi knew she was thinking about it too. From his peripherals, he saw, Hange had leaned back on the bench and had let her head fall back. She was staring at the sky above her.

He followed suit.

There was something about the sky at the top of the hill. It was a light yet mesmerizing blue that endlessly stretched above him. There were no buildings, no trees, or no highlands framing such a view. The sky looked free.

And for the first time in months, Levi felt like he was flying again.

But he didn’t want to fly alone. Levi dropped one hand along that very small gap between them.

It looked like Hange had taken that as a sign to reciprocate.

Levi looked to his hand, cradled against hers and up at her face to see that she still wasn’t looking down. In fact she held her head back further, propped her glasses on her forehead, and continued to stare at the blue sky above.

The blue sky reflected on Hange’s hazel eyes and it manifested in streams of color Levi couldn’t have even imagined as ever been producible by blue and brown. He wanted to catch her gaze then.

So he spoke up. “It wasn’t easy to accept it at first but I’m happy where we are. I’m not regretting anything and you know, there’s something liberating about failing---” Levi shook his head almost instantly as if what he had just said dawned on him then. “Actually wait, I think I phrased it wrong. This probably sounds weird.”

Hange continued to stare at the sky. “No, I think I get it,” she said. “Failing is embarrassing, it fucking hurts and for a while it feels like life stops. But when you fail enough times, failure starts to feel like a friend. And when you fail a few more times, you stop chasing and that’s the liberation you’re talking about right? There’s something liberating about accepting failure as just something that happens and just riding through that downward spiral before picking yourself up again." Hange held the booklet over her and reopened it. “I’m happy where I am now too, post-downward spiral.”

Levi could only watch and listen as she whispered unintelligible sentences to herself, grinning at the pages. He wondered which scenes she was reading through then.

“Well, it’s time for both of us to regroup then. We can't just keep feeling sorry for ourselves right?” Hange added as she stood up. “I have my research. You have your tea shop to work on. We better start hiking now or I don’t think we’ll make it back before sun down.”

“I would have wanted to enjoy this view a little longer.”

“Then we schedule another hike. We endure the uphill battle, we enjoy the peak then we deal with the downward spiral. That’s how it’s always been anyway.” She stuffed the booklet on her backpack and pulled him up from the bench.

“Yeah, we’re both used to it anyway,” Levi joked. He felt Hange’s hand behind him as he looked down at the decline. Only looking at it then did it dawn on him, hiking backwards, the downward spiral which followed the euphoria at the peak could be almost comparable to hell for his knees.

“Hey, I’ll go first. If you feel like you’re losing your balance, just grip my shoulder harder. Besides we can look for a gentler slope on the way down. We just have to get past this one.”

“We won’t be able to get down if we don’t deal with this huh?”

“We won’t,” Hange said. “I know it’s bad for your knees… but if you walk at an angle, it will reduce pressure. I’ll cover for you.” She clutched his hand, went ahead and guided his hand towards her shoulder.

Levi took it as a sign to grip..

“Just relax," Hange said.

It was easier said than done. Levi waited for his legs to start screaming then. The dull aches were ubiquitous, the buckling and unbuckling of his knees were a discomfort he had learned to just ride through and he was sure, he wouldn’t be hiking for another few months after that.

Even before the slope had gradually morphed into something gentler, Hange had started talking again as if she knew once again that it could ease them the whole ordeal of hiking downwards.

“Remember that teashop, the one just a ten minute walk away from our apartment, you wanna check it out?” Hange asked.

There was only one teashop near their place and Levi was quick to recognize it. “I’ve been going there everyday after work.”

“Without me?”

“Where do you think I buy the teabags and the coffee beans that never seem to run out?" Levi asked. He had taken great care to say the word 'coffee' in particular. It was Hange who went through bags of them too quickly that it was almost impossible to not frequent the cafe.

“Fine, I won’t complain. Tell me about it then, any regulars? Anything notable?”

“There are two kids who live nearby and they hang out there a lot. A brunette and a blond. Falco and Gabi.” Those names had been easy to remember. Yet as he imagined those two kids in the cafe, as he recalled their minimal interactions, he started to wonder if they ever really did introduce themselves.

“Those are familiar names," Hange commented.

“And there’s a pilot who hangs out there but mostly on weekends. His name is Onya--”

“Onyakopon?”

“So you’ve met them before?”

“No, just seems familiar.”

“So what, are you gonna tell me you’ve dreamed of them?”

“Maybe I did.”

Somehow, that had taken a weight of his shoulders then and it had started to become easier to admit on his end. “To be honest, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dream of them too.”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 3 years

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Part 5 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Guardians

Helloooo! Did you think I was done? No!

My PhD thesis chapters were approved last week, so have some celebratory meta. I haven't seen the latest Season 4 episodes, so do forgive me for not being up to date.

Welcome to the next part of my analysis of the basic concepts of Miraculous Ladybug. Today we are talking about Master Fu, Order of the Guardians and how little everything here makes sense. I highly recommend reading previous parts to fully understand this one, but I'll try to quote most parts of earlier posts.

Order of the Guardians

Order is an international and ancient organisation (New York Special showed us the guardian from North America and he was dressed like Su Han). Presumably, Miraculous jewels were created by these people. Guardians are responsible for the preservation of jewels and knowledge about them. They also distribute Miraculouses to worthy people around the world to combat mostly magical threats, but sometimes jewels are used against normal threats too. It's implied that Master Fu used Miraculouses during WW2 when he was in Paris. Perhaps he performed some spywork with Marianne, but the magical nature of his interferences was discovered and he was forced to flee, before returning to France many decades later.

Why does the Order need so many people to take care of a 3 Miracle Boxes? If its only purpose is to preserve knowledge, keep magical secrets and distribute Miraculous jewels then wouldn't it be more logical to have Master-Apprentice system? It's much easier to keep magic knowledge a secret and train a few people in martial arts than doing the same in the self-sufficient temple full of people, keeping in mind that a good part of them are teenagers and children, who are bad at keeping secrets. Also a single person can travel around the world much easier to give out Miraculouses. Imagine that we have a few active guardians traveling the world with Boxes. What do other people at the temple do in the meantime? They teach the next generation about the powers of each Miraculous and Mirakung Fu, but besides that?

Master-Apprentice system gives us more personal conflict between Fu and his mentor and makes his relationship with Marinette and Adrien more nuanced. In this scenario Fu accidentally caused the death of his Master at 14 because he wasn't careful. It makes sense for him to take on only 1 or 2 students if this is how things were done with Miraculous Guardians. This Wang Fu is very cautious and protective, he spent the majority of his life afraid of hurting someone else and never took an apprentice as a result. But now he is ready to try again, since he is not getting any younger and he likes these 2 kids. He wants them to succeed. Maybe Master Fu, becomes the father figure for Adrien in this situation and a guide for Marinette. Just think about it. This way writers avoid the need to develop all these extra characters (Su Han) and traditions related to the Order. All inconsistencies I mentioned before and later in this post are gone now! Hell, even memory loss and the changing of the Miracle Box shape could make more sense. We also raise the stakes post-amnesia, if it happens of course (the whole Season 3 finale didn't make sense, so stay tuned for my next meta). Marinette and Adrien are on their own now, there's no one who can give them answers. It's very fun scenario, which has potential to be brilliant. Any thoughts on that?

The existence of Order of the Guardians is not quite a secret, at least it wasn't in XIX century China. Master Fu in "Feast" says that guardianship was considered "a great honor". It implies that people who lived close to the temple of the Order knew about Miraculouses and what exactly guardians did for the greater good.

The existence of other Miracle Boxes around the world makes sense from a real-life perspective. Writers have the ability to create many stories set in the same universe and use them for merchandise and an almost unlimited amount of content. Judging by the unholy amount of specials in production, this is exactly what the creators are going to do. It probably won't go down well, but who knows?

However, it doesn't work in our main story. The main conflict is Paris-centred. Gabriel's motivations revolve around Emilie's resurrection and Season 4 gives us more reasons to suspect that Adrien's mom wasn't as wonderful as everyone says. Hawkmoth still remains the main villain of the show and most likely it's going to stay that way. There's no point in moving the main story to different places for the sake of introducing more Miracle Boxes from around the world. Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't needed to fight something halfway across the world unless Hawkmoth also changes locations.

LB and CN are centrepieces of this franchise. They brought success and money to ZAG. Creators constantly need to remind the audience that this new piece of media with new characters who will never be mentioned again is connected to Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Writers have to come up with reasons to include our heroic duo into the story even if makes no sense.

New York Special had to introduce American Heroes whose names rarely come up in the fandom because people stopped caring about them or their stories shortly after the release of the Special. I barely saw any content dedicated to them. In order to bring LB and CN into the story, you have to include Hawkmoth too. Gabriel suddenly needs to get his hands on the Eagle Miraculous and goes to USA. Marinette and Adrien suddenly have a class trip to New York. Unfortunately, their presence in this story is required only to expand the world of Miraculous and attract fans of the show, so that they could keep an eye on new content related to newly introduced characters.

In the end, it's not their story. Events of the special don't affect main story of the show and the development of the love square is merely an illusion, because Adrien and Marinette are no closer than before. In season 4 LB and CN are growing apart and their test of trust in NY Special doesn't matter. Perhaps, some people don't see it that way and it's their right, but I find it hard to see NYS as a valid contribution to canon. I mean, even people in large portion of the fandom state in the tags on AO3 that "specials are not canon", "specials didn't happen" or "ignores both specials". It speaks volumes about continuity and preferences of your fandom.

Shanghai Special didn't give us more information about the Order, which is located in China, history of Miraculous jewels. We still don't know much about how Gabriel and Emilie found Peacock and Butterfly. Maybe, Marinette's family had connections to Miraculous jewels. Maybe, Adrien does some snooping and discovers research his parents made while Gabriel is away. All of these are relevant to the main story. However, we got something much different in the end.

Marinette chases Adrien across the globe and they make new friends. Fey becomes Ladydragon and now has a direct contact with Marinette through her uncle. Gabriel's desire to get his hands on the Prodigious comes out of nowhere. Apparently, he had been planning this trip for years, presumably even before Adrien was born. It probably happened at the same time as Agrestes found 2 Miraculouses. He bought bracelet-key (which is also a Miraculous apparently, but its Kwami is a Guardian of the Prodigious and they existed separately for a very long time - and let us not dwell on this mess) from some shady mafia boss, who can easily find out just who Gabriel really is (fashion designer billionaire) and use this information to blackmail him. This Special didn't answer important questions, but it gave us a new superhero character.

The real question is whether Miraculous as a project will survive long enough for writers to create content for every minor character they introduced in all specials. This is only a beginning after all.

Miraculous is not a global show and it can't be globalised in a way that makes sense, at least with Ladybug and Chat Noir in the centre of action. Case closed.

Mirakung Fu

I liked the idea of Mirakung Fu introduced in "Furious Fu". It makes sense and things rarely do in this show. Miraculous grants its holder superhuman strength, stamina, endurance and ability to fight. This means that essentially transformed heroes are guided by magic in combat. There's nothing personal in the way Miraculous holders fight. You can predict their moves and learn how to fight this magic guidance, which is what Su Han does.

However, if the holder has any special training, skills or knows any martial art in their civilian life then they become more dangerous opponents during transformation because now their fighting is a mix of magical moves and their personal knowledge, tricks and style. Therefore, Adrien and Kagami as skilful fencers have more chances of winning against someone who knows Mirakung Fu than Marinette, for example.

Memory loss

At the end of season 3, we find out several things:

apparently, now Miracle Box can change appearance to suit its guardian;

when Guardian passes down the Miracle Box to someone else, they lose memories not only about everything related to Miraculous, but also about pretty much everything in their life (Fu doesn't recognise Marianne, instead he experiences the love at first sight)

Master Fu trains Marinette to be the proper holder and next Guardian off-screen. He says that her training as the holder is complete in "Feast" and wants her to become the next Guardian. Fu told her lots of things, and yet, he never mentioned the fact that he would lose his memory after relinquishing the box, nor the fact that Marinette would lose her memory afterwards. She finds out about this from Wayzz after the battle with Miracle Queen and the letter that Master Fu gave her. That's not proper training! How on Earth do you forget to mention this memory loss? How?

Master Fu's amnesia is a convenient plot device that removes him from the narrative almost completely. That's mostly all there is to it. Why? Because it doesn't make sense.

Fu was around 7 or 8 when he started his training. The disaster at the temple happened when he was 14. He stated that his training was never complete, which means that he never passed any magical ritual, never swore an oath or was bound by some kind of spell that made him subjected to the rule of memory loss.

Miracle Boxes belonged to the order, not Fu. Their design reflected their country of origin because these Miraculous were made and kept in China. They were just standing there on the shelves not magically bound to anyone in particular. When Feast attacked, monks just tossed Wang Fu the miracle box and grimoire. No one at the temple lost their memory after Fu took the box with him (Su Han is the proof). Su Han not only remembers Fu and his mistake but everything that happened that fateful day as well. In "Furious Fu" Marinette explains Su Han that Master Fu lost his memory in the very first conversation they have. However, after Ladybug and Chat Noir fight Su Han on the roof and escape with the Miracle Box, the latter searches for Fu and attempts to take his staff from him. In this scene, Su Han acts like Fu knows very well what is going on and who he is.

Su Han should be aware of the memory loss rule as the Celestial Guardian. He remarks on the different shape of the Mother Miracle Box and calls her "incorrect", which means that Su Han should have been able to easily tell that previous Guardian lost his memory and the Miracle Box is now bound to someone else. But he doesn't say anything. Moreover, since Su Han is supposed to know about amnesia, he seemed awfully chill about forcing this 14-year-old girl in front of him to give up the box and her memories. Hell, Chat Noir wasn't on board with this. But we get zero reaction from Su Han.

During the first conversation between Marinette and Su Han, he doesn't ignore what she is trying to say, instead he actively comments on every word. Even if Su Han didn't listen when Marinette told him about Fu's memory loss, than he still should be able to understand that Fu doesn't recognise him, because of common sense and the "incorrect" shape of the box. But nothing of the sort happens. Because writers apparently forgot that "memory loss" is supposed to be known to everyone in the Order. On-screen it looks like Su Han is not aware of the "amnesia rule".

"Furious Fu" makes the concept of memory loss a plothole no matter how you look at it. Just like "Timetagger" and "Chat Blanc", as well as "Kwamibuster" this episode is not consistent within itself. It does not surprise me, however.

Grimoire and Guardian Staffs

Let's talk about the Miraculous Grimoire. Good things first.

There are no illustrations of Miraculouses in camouflage. Kwami can't read its contents, only guardians can. Certain elements are written in riddles as an additional precaution. The book contains only the information people have learned so far, which means that Miraculouses have more unexplored potential ("Mr. Pigeon 72"). It describes powers of each Miraculous, provides information about weapons, has instructions for potions that don't make sense (see previous parts).

Unfortunately, everything is about to go downhill from here.

Guardians are taught how to read the writing in this book. They can read it just like people learn to read texts in a different language. This means that one can read Grimoire like any other book (you don't need to consult some guide to decode each letter or word). Master Fu proclaimed Marinette an almost fully trained Guardian. He should have taught her how to read the Grimoire then (he doesn't know the code very well, but he knew enough to understand the general meaning and content of the book according to "Collector"). He didn't. We don't know why. He shows her powers of every Miraculous but doesn't teach her the code.

Master Fu knows that Grimoire now belongs to Gabriel Agreste. He knows that it's dangerous for someone else to have it. If they knew how to read the Grimoire, they could discover all secrets of Miraculouses and harm Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes. It's very important to keep the information about the code top secret because Fu is not the only one with the source material.

What does he do then? Master Fu proceeds to write a French translation of Grimoire for Marinette, a translation that he doesn't even need. He carries it with him at all times on a tablet (without any precautions) just like the Miracle box after "Feast". Naturally, it means that in "Miracle Queen", Gabriel and Nathalie easily managed to get their hands on the tablet and Miracle Box. It allows the plot to happen, sure. But it doesn't make any sense.

"Furious Fu" created another curious plot hole. It will probably be ignored, of course. Su Han has a staff with a magical compass that allows him to find any Miracle box, but not the Miraculous jewels for some reason. How does the staff work? Can it locate the box without the Miraculous? If yes, then it seems useless. What's the point in the ability to locate an empty box? If it can locate the box only with the Miraculous jewels inside, it implies that the staff can track the location of every Miraculous too. So, Su Han could just locate the Butterfly and Peacock without any problem. But he talks about reassigning Ladybug and Black Cat to adults and defeating Hawkmoth like locating the Butterfly is not possible. This situation makes the Guardian Staff a simple plot device that creates plot holes and its only purpose is to explain how Su Han found Marinette.

Also, I have a few more words to say about this. Master Fu had a Guardian Staff that was never mentioned before. I wonder why? That's because the staff didn't exist before "Furious Fu" was written. Writers just went: "Do you know what would be cool? If Fu's cane was really a secret Guardian Staff with a compass all along that he decided to keep even after he lost his memory? It would make people wonder whether Master Fu is faking amnesia, and everyone will definitely call him an awful mentor after this even though we kind of tried to make him a good and responsible person."

Fu didn't give it to Marinette and didn't mention it to her. Why? When he gave up his memory, he should have written about this in his letter at least. Why did he decide to keep it? He can't use it anyway now.

Please note how in the flashbacks Fu didn't take any staff with him when he escaped the temple. Su Han seemed to know how Fu's staff looked like. It means that Master Fu didn't make this staff himself, because it belonged to the Order.

Su Han wasn't even surprised that Marinette didn't have the staff as the current Guardian. Was she not supposed to have it? He never questioned the fact that the former Guardian without memories has the staff. Su Han actually returns this staff to Fu after he is deakumatized and Fu acts like they have never met before. Why did Su Han gave the staff back when he knows what it is and to whom it should belong (to him or to Marinette as the current Guardian)? The staff is useless in the hands of the civilian. Does Marianne know about its secret? We'll probably never find out, unfortunately.

Guardian Staff of Master Fu has a compass too and therefore this also makes it a plot device, just like Su Han's staff.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous analysis #miraculous meta #ml meta #ml analysis #miraculous critical #miraculous ladybug critical #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #mt of lb and cn #miraculous guardian #miraculous order of guardians #master fu #miraculous master fu #wang fu #miraculous su han

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floweryavenue · 3 years

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Ugh, so, I don't even know if anyone is actually gonna read this, and I'm not really the one who would participate in fandom very actively (I was always a passive observer, liking other's people content), but the stuff with the leaks of the extra 8 pages of snk ending has been really bothering me for the last few days, and I really need to get a few things off my chest.

I really wanted to wait till 9th June to form my full thoughts. However, since basically all pages have leaked anyway and quite a reliable source confirmed there is basically no additional context to them whatsoever, I decided I might as well write this anyway and vent somewhere to clear my head so I can finally move on with my life to focus on other things I like and with other important irl stuff. Moreover, since Tumblr seems like a reasonably safe space to do so (comparing to one hell of a Twitter...) I might as well do it here. So, let's go.

So, basically, my main problem with those pages is simply that... you just don't do that. No. You don't release an ending, make people think it's really the end, then say you're gonna release a few additional pages that won't change anything but simply clarify some things, and then, two months later, release these pages indeed but not only they don't actually clarify anything, but in fact, create even more plot holes. Furthermore, as a cherry on top, they change the ending quite completely. If those pages had been included in the original release, most people, myself included, would've moved on by now. But noooo, make us go through this hell again. Great :))))

And as for the content of those pages, well... I can't help but feel they really did quite a disservice to Mikasa, one of my favourite female characters ever. My biggest problem isn't even that she 'moved on' (whatever that means at this point, coz I feel like fandom has been successfully managing to butcher that term ever since 139 has dropped) and started a family on her own because I'm fully aware that falling in love again after you first love died is an entirely normal thing irl. But ffs, we're not talking about irl here; we're talking about snk and Mikasa. And the thing that MAINLY bothers me, is the way it has been presented.

I'm not going to delve into the husband's possible identities, 1) I'm not interested at all in participating in any ship wars, 2) because we don't even get to see his face and sources say we indeed don't get any direct confirmation in that regard. Not that this matters anyway, because we get presented with Mikasa on the one hand staring her own family, but on the other, still continuing to visit Eren's grave repeatedly throughout her life and in the end, getting buried with a scarf on, her dearest remembrance of Eren, and maybe even getting buried next to him (even tho, the latter is still not 100% confirmed, bcs here sources are contradictory, but judging by the general mood of those pages, I'd not be surprised at all if it turns out to be the case).

That makes me think the whole family-stuff was used only to present the passage of time and the fact that Mikasa never fully got over Eren, bcs we don't see the family in any other context besides the visits to the grave. And that leads me to my other question - was introducing the family really NECESSARY, then? Couldn't Mikasa simply visit the grave with Armin, and maybe even with Armin, Annie and their kids? Idk about you, but that would make 100% more sense to me. Also, don't get me even started, how much in the wrong way it rubs me that Mikasa, the character who, as we know, always deeply cared about others, even strangers (Gabi, etc.), would just drag her husband, her children and grandchildren to the grave of her first love on which she had written 'my most beloved, my dear'? Do I really need to elaborate on how WEIRD that is?

But I guess that's on me for believing a male author would write a satisfactory conclusion to the main female character (not Mikasa touring around Hizuru, not Mikasa playing with kids at the orphanage, no! Forced family plot, instead! Take that!)

As of Eremika, aka my most cherished paring ever since 2014... I guess the only good thing in that mess is that at least it doesn't invalidate them. If anything, it validates them even more, because the stuff I've mentioned earlier prove their love was eternal and Mikasa never truly got over it. So, all in all, I'm gonna still cherish them forever. There are still many unexplored aspects of their bond, so I believe we, as a community, have a big room to explore (pls, I'm begging you, explore with me all the possibilities of their four years in the cottage in the mountains, I swear, that sh!t has so much potential it's unbelievable).

As of Paradis getting destroyed, well, that leaves me bitter, even though after doing some thinking, that really might be the least out of place thing in those pages. At least according to sources, it happens when Mikasa is already dead, so at least Eren's wish of giving his friends long, secure lives came true. However, that would be it.

And as of titan's power still being there and some kid apparently finding the source of it... this just screams 'sequel-baiting', AND I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT. That's it.

To end my definitely too long rambling, I just wanna say, I really would have liked to wait till 9th June to publish my thoughts, but as I've said, those last few days have been driving me crazy and I really wanted just to get all of it off my chest and move on. I want for now to just focus on my irl things, like working on my master's thesis and other stuff giving me joy, like Eurovision next week coming back after 2-years-absence due to pandemic. Eurovision is one of the few things that I love, and I intend on fully enjoying it next week, not sulking on those leaks too much. And if by some completely unexpected miracle I get pleasantly surprised on 9th June (even tho I truly doubt it at this point) - that would be only a win for me, I guess.

Anyway, please remember, all that I have written here is ONLY MY OPINION, and if you disagree with anything, that's valid, you're completely entitled to that. I'm not publishing this to argue with anybody, only to clear my head. That's it.

If anyone has read this too long personal rant of mine - thank you, I'm kissing you on the forehead right now.

Oh, and remember - EREMIKA IS CANON. And always will be (no, that one is not up for discussion).

Also, we have that official High School AU, and Eren right now is quietly snoozing on Mikasa's shoulder during another Twilight marathon she made him to take part in, and Armin and Annie are dissing people together on reddit while bonding over their pretentious taste in music. That's canon, Isayama told me after I had phoned him to ask wtf.

PS To think I was almost sure those extra pages will be about Mikasa's reunion with the rest of the alliance... I guess it's time to put that clown make up on.

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thejollyroger-writer · 3 years

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THE WASTELAND - HOME (15/15)

Some triggers: this story is rated TEEN, mostly for violence. It takes place during wartime, and some of the characters go through some violence and torture. If you need more information about this, please just message me!

SUMMARY: In a world that has been saturated in war for as long as anyone can remember, Emma Swan has rebuilt her life as far away from the chaos as possible, opening her own maternity hospital after spending too many years in makeshift battlefield aid stations. But one night, a bloodied and battered soldier finds her hospital trying to get away from an enemy with a penchant for torture and a personal vendetta against him. With the help of Emma’s childhood friend Prince David and a motley collection of humans and magic-wielders, the quest to save Killian Jones’ life from the poison used by the enemy takes them to places even beyond the known world.

A/N: Can you believe it? This story is COMPLETE, which feels surreal and ethereal in unexplainable ways. I've literally been writing this story longer than it took me to write my masters' thesis -- though, needing to write my masters' thesis is most of the reason it has taken me this long. Thank you all for sticking around through it all, if you've been here since the beginning -- and if you've hopped on somewhere along the way, you're just as important to me. Thank you, all. Enjoy the last chapter.

Start from the Beginning // Also on AO3!

For a long, drawn-out moment, nothing happens. Emma can feel the beating of her heart in her stomach and fears that something has gone wrong, attempting to use her unhoned magic for too big a task too quickly.

And then, she feels her feet shift on uneven ground and she dares to open her eyes.

Sand.

They're on the shore. Everyone is on the shore, Belle still tending to Will's wounded shoulder and Mary Margaret comforting David, his pain obvious on his face. Killian releases her hand, rushing to the prince's side with his canteen at the ready. The water doesn't heal David as quickly as it did Killian, but as he swallows the few sips he was given, his expression grows relieved and the tendrils of poison retract across his exposed chest before disappearing from the site of the wound. It's not nearly as climactic as Killian's healing was (Emma refuses to think about why that might be) but she still feels a weight lifted from her chest as all traces of the poison disappear, leaving only a small cut on his side where the arrow nicked him.

Killian and Mary Margaret simultaneously sigh an audible breath of relief, her petite form almost comically small as she leans into Killian's shoulder.

"Let's get off this bloody island," Killian says, allowing only a moment's pause before he helps Dave to his feet — though his words are practically forgotten as the forest begins to groan and grumble, trees snapping, cracking, falling to the ground behind them.

And they watch as four, five, six boys move through the treeline, all dressed in rags and covered in dirt.

"The Lost Boys!" Wendy cries, rushing towards them.

"Please take us home with you, Wendy," the one who looks to be the oldest begs, terror obvious on his face, as on all of their faces.

She turns to look at David. "Without Pan's magic, the island will disappear, and the boys will die."

David shakes his head. "I have no argument."

"What about what Pan told your brothers? That only the amount who arrived can leave?" Regina's voice is heavy with worry. None of them want to leave the boys behind, but if it means that no one will make it home, it's a much heavier question.

But Belle is the one to answer. "With Pan defeated, the island holds no power. Even if it wanted to stop us from leaving, it is no longer able."

The oldest boy knits his eyebrows. "Does that mean—" he starts, but is silenced by a deafening thump as another large tree hits the ground, this one not far from the shore and sending a tremor under their feet.

"Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger," Killian says with a smile, gesturing for the boys to lead the way to the waterline and aboard the ship.

"Rufio, where's Felix?" Wendy asks, walking beside the oldest of the boys.

But the boy shakes his head. "He's always been the most dedicated to Pan and here longer than the rest of us, you know that. He said he would rather die here with Neverland than become a traitor."

"Oh, Felix," she breathes, but it does not keep her or the other boys from boarding.

As the rest of them move towards the ship, Emma moves to stand beside Killian, who is waiting to go last as the captain does. He pats Robin on the shoulder, the pain of losing Graham sinking in once more as his body is carried onto the ship. “Take him below decks. Merlin can show you where to find what you’ll need to wrap him.” Robin just nods.

"We did it, Swan," he breathes, reaching down to squeeze her hand. "How do you feel?"

"It's almost surreal," she replies, lifting his hand so she can look at his arm. She still barely believes it, would not have believed the way the water healed him if she hadn't seen it herself — and she still had trouble understanding how easily he was healed by her magic, even after learning of their connection, their destiny.

She still doesn't want to believe it, really. Everyone is so sure that it's about them, that they were prophesied ages ago to go on this journey, to save each other. She's not denying their connection, not anymore, but she still struggles to believe that they were destined to be together because some ancient seer decided it was supposed to be so.

"Let's go home," he says finally, gesturing for Emma to follow Robin and Regina onto the Jolly Roger.��

Home. He's not even sure where home is anymore. For years, it was in the Northern Mountains, then with Dave and his band of followers after returning from Neverland. He's been ready for a new home for a while, he realizes, following Emma onto his ship. With her, he hopes. Hell, he's never wanted anything as much as he has wanted to be with her. They're destined to be together, but all he wants to do is kiss her, find all the things that make her happy and never stop giving them to her. He wants to wake up beside her, learn the way her golden waves look in the morning sun, the way she takes her coffee. If it means working beside her in the hospital, doing everything he can to help her while hopefully keeping them from harm — hell, he'll work in a maternity hospital. For her. He would do anything for her.

They leave the island behind quickly, the Lost Boys, Wendy, and a fully-healed Will watching it crumble, leaving behind nothing but a pile of ash and a cloud of dirt that covers the horizon.

Killian doesn't turn back. Some of the others peer over their shoulders but Killian seems to be the only one fully content leaving the island behind without a second thought — but, then again, he is the only one among them to have experienced it twice, to have it take multiple people he loves from him, even if it brought others together.

He thinks of Graham, being prepared belowdecks for burial at sea once they're out of the wretched Neverland waters; he thinks of Milah, who sacrificed so much, who hid her true identity from a world she felt so unsafe in, gone forever in the pile of rubble and debris.

Liam. He thinks of his brother, releasing the helm to feel the large ring hanging from his neck between his fingers. He left Liam behind in Neverland twice, never able to give him the burial at sea he always wanted. Well, he thinks, turning his head to glance behind him, if the entire island crumbles into the sea, then Liam is finally laid to rest as he would have wanted.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to look back," Merlin says from the spot he has found against the railing, only using the basest of his powers to move the ship along the waters until they take to the sky.

"I wasn't going to," he confesses, looking down at the ring once more. "But then I thought of Liam, and the burial at sea he deserved and never got."

"Well, the whole damned island got a burial at sea, and that sure as hell included him."

Killian nods, managing a smile. "That's what I thought, too."

They travel along the water for a few hours, pausing around dusk to bid their final farewells to Graham before taking to the sky. The sun sinks below the horizon, and Killian turns to the same star charts they used on the journey there to guide them home, though this time Emma takes part in all of it: helping Merlin and Belle fly the ship, learning the stars that they use to guide them back to the Northern Mountains. He has always felt at peace behind the helm of this ship, even when it was his brother's; having Emma beside him, his chest pressed against her back as he points over her shoulder towards the stars, is the most at home he has ever felt, and he wishes — on the stars that guide them home, on any good luck charm he has ever known, praying to the gods who have seemed to answer him a lot lately — that it's not a feeling that disappears.

The journey back isn’t as celebratory as expected from a group of people who have evaded what they all believed would be certain death. David and Mary Margaret spend most of the trip in the lieutenant’s quarters, Mary Margaret finding the sleep that evaded her the last few days, the two of them taking turns caring for the other. Merlin and Belle spend the return trip just as they did the journey there, guiding the ship through the air, though when Emma is feeling at her strongest, she attempts to assist them. (The rest of the crew does not fail to notice how Will spends much of his time sitting against the railing near wherever Belle has stationed herself, eating what seems to be a never ending supply of apples and chocolate and other types of random snacks and reading the books spread across his lap, even though he was never known to be a voracious reader before.) Similarly, after being comforted by her after Graham’s burial, Robin and Regina spend most of their time together, a pairing of sensible pantsuits and olive green attire that none of them saw coming.

Wendy and the Lost Boys spend most of their time gaping at the views over the railing, trying their hardest not to get airsick to avoid ridicule, filling their stomachs with each of Merlin and Belle’s smorgasbords as if they have never seen that much food in their life — Killian doesn’t let himself think about how long they may have been in Neverland, just how long it has been since their last decent meal, and he is happy to be the one to offer it to them.

"What are we going to do with them?" Mary Margaret asks Emma one night as she sits with her on the deck, picking at the half-eaten sandwich on the plate in her lap.

"With who?"

She points to the boys, throwing small rocks and food scraps off the deck of the ship and laughing as they disappear into the clouds below them.

"I guess we're going to—" she starts, but then realizes that she has no idea how to finish the sentence and leans closer to her friend. "What are we going to do with them?"

It's a thought that never even crossed her mind. She's been so worried about returning to the life she had, possibly even learning to include Killian in the chaos of running the hospital, that she never stopped to think about the people whose lives have been upended because of their trip. Who knows how long the boys have been stuck on Neverland, how long it has been since they were taken from their families — if they ever had them in the first place. Emma remembers the long nights on the streets of the Gale when she wished she were anywhere else,praying to whichever of the gods was listening to give her a place to belong. That's what Pan did for these boys in his own wretched way, she realizes.

“Who knows how long they were stuck on that island. I doubt many of them have thought about what they would do if they ever returned.”

But Emma shakes her head, remembering the nights she stared up at the stars and wondered what her life could be like if she were in any other situation. “I can assure you that some of them have thought about it.” She doesn’t mean for her voice to be that soft, to make the hurt so apparent in her words. She tries not to play the orphan card, especially around Mary Margaret, whose empathy is so strong Emma sometimes thinks she fully understands the heartbreak she tries her hardest to hide even though she only recently lost her father and sees her mother as often as her and David’s schedule allows.

Mary Margaret just nods, taking a bite of her sandwich. “I suppose we could start by talking to them.”

Emma can’t help but laugh, thinking of how she would have responded in their place — which, she supposes, is exactly what David did, granting her a new life in the infirmary. She wonders if any of them have discovered their powers, or if they would simply hide, dormant, for the years they spend without aging in Neverland. “We should wait until morning, though,” she comments, watching as one of the younger boys lets out a big yawn across the deck. When she turns back to Mary Margaret, she is stifling a yawn of her own. “Looks like it’s your bedtime, too,” she adds with a soft laugh.

“I’m just so tired all the time. Is this all that pregnancy is?”

“I have no firsthand experience to share, but from what I’ve heard, yeah, that’s a big part of it.”

“Someday, Emma,” Mary Margaret comments, and it’s a thought that hits her like a truck. Sure, she’s spent years in the maternity hospital, helping other women bring babies into this world, but having one of her own was never a thought that crossed her mind. Is that what she wants? Could she even bring a child into a world so full of violence and terror and the exact things they’ve been battling for the last few weeks, not to mention the War that has affected every facet of the world for longer than anyone can remember.

It’s at least not a thought that she needs to focus on right now.

“Hey, love,” Killian says, thankfully pulling her out of the depths of her own mind as he approaches them from across the deck. “We’re going to begin the descent back to the water soon. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks, Killian,” she replies, offering him a soft smile, which he answers with a soft kiss to her cheek.

“I’m going to bed, then,” Mary Margaret says, one hand on her stomach as she reaches out to squeeze Emma’s hand with the other, then moves across the deck to the stairs.

“I can’t wait to be on the water again,” Killian says after a moment of silence, leaning back against the railing, and she steps into his arms.

“Why is that?”

“There’s just something calming about it, something that’s not there in the sky or even on the land. The moment the hull hits the water, I just feel… peace.” She hums, resting her forehead against his shoulder. “It’s not just the ocean, either, though. Graham always laughed at me when I would go stand in the rain, or sometimes stay in the shower for longer than I meant to.”

Emma leans back to look up at him, gears turning in her head. Rain. Showers. The ocean. The way his body reacted to the pool on Dead Man’s Peak. Water. “Killian,” she whispers, then cups her hand between them, creating a small pool of water in her palm. “Can you… move this?”

He looks first at her, then at her hands, his dark brows furrowed low on his forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, love.”

“Was your mother one of the merfolk?”

This makes his eyebrows jump towards his hairline, bright eyes wide. “Pardon?”

“Your mother,” she repeats. “I know she passed when you were young, but what do you know about her? Was she a mermaid?”

“No. No, that’s… that’s crazy,” he whispers, staring down at the water in her palm, slowly dripping through her fingers onto the deck between his worn boots.

“Can you just try? For me?” Remembering how her magic reacted to his touch, she reaches her free hand out and rests it on his hip.

He nods, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows hard. “What do I need to do?”

“Think about what you want it to do. Close your eyes. Feel it.”

“What do I want it to do?”

With a soft chuckle, she turns her eyes up to his, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. Just… anything.”

He nods, but stays silent, holding up his hand in the space between them as he squeezes his eyes shut. Somehow, Emma can feel what he’s thinking, imagines the small sphere of water rising above her hand before it happens — but then it’s there, right before her eyes, hovering above her palm.

"Bloody hell," he mumbles, his eyes darting to meet hers for a moment instead of staring at the sphere. "And you're… this isn't you?"

"No," she whispers, picturing it falling back to her hand just to make sure — but it stays there, hovering a few inches above her palm.

“Of the merfolk,” he whispers, the sphere splashing back down into Emma’s hands. “I never even imagined.”

“I’ve known for a very long time,” Merlin quips from behind them, his eyes closed but obviously paying attention to them.

“For real? And you never thought to tell me?”

He shrugs. “It was not my secret to share.”

“Why did I not learn about it sooner?”

Emma gasps, pulling Killian’s gaze back to her, and Merlin laughs, finally opening his eyes. “So you figured it out, then?”

“The Prophecy,” she whispers, barely believing the words as she says them. “Their strengths will finally be revealed. That’s the line, right?”

Merlin nods.

“Not just my strength, but both of ours. He needed… me. Us.”

It’s another piece of the puzzle that fits a little too well, that makes it hard to deny that they are the ones from the prophecy, brought together by destiny. A chill runs down her spine as Killian’s jaw drops, realizing exactly what her words meant.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles. “I need… sorry, love,” he mumbles, backing away from her to go and stand by himself, looking out over the moonlit water as the ship makes its descent.

Emma’s heart drops and she crosses her arms, leaning back until her hips hit the railing behind her. Is it too much for him, now? The man that confessed his love for her in a cave, who has believed in their connection since the first he heard of it? She understands needing space — she would be a hypocrite if she claimed she didn’t — but she still feels a heaviness in her chest, and icy pain in her heart as she thinks of the worst-case scenario: Killian turning away from her just as she realizes she is ready to be with him. When she feels her lip quiver, she pulls it up between her teeth, turning her back to where Killian is standing and taking a few steps away from him. Part of her wants to disappear belowdecks, curl up in her hammock and hide from her feelings, as alone as she has ever been. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tries to take herself somewhere else: counting the supplies in the basement of her hospital, walking along the well-known trails by her house — the very house that she dreamt of sharing with Killian not too long ago. She shakes that thought away and tries again, this time in the palace gardens where she learned most of what she knows about plants, about healing. Then she’s in the hallway, aiding David in a meeting with his advisors, focusing on the echoing of her boots on the stone floors and not the fears running through her mind.

Across the deck, Killian turns to look at her, trying to organize the thoughts jumbled in his brain. A merfolk. He has learned so much over the last few weeks, about the world, his friends, his enemies — himself, more than anything else. He has tasted death and felt true grief, witnessed unexplainable things, traveled to places he has spent more than a decade trying to forget. Every step was harder than the previous, pushing himself harder and farther than he thought he was capable — and for every step, she has been there, healing him inside and out, stitching together his wounds and piecing together the remains of his broken heart. Why is this so difficult for him to grasp, given all of the other impossible things he has witnessed since Emma Swan entered his life? Water has always calmed him, healed him, given him a sanctuary in times when he had no others, the same way Emma became his sanctuary.

He loves her, he realizes, not for the first time, though the thought still threatens to knock him off his feet. He loves her in ways he never knew were possible, more than he ever imagined being able to love someone, loves her in a way that fills the deepest parts of him, dark spaces that hold his regrets and his fears and the few things he has allowed himself to dream about. And there is nothing, no feeling that can compare to the warmth that washes over him when she holds his hand, when she smiles at him. His mind separated the two, his powers and his love for Emma, but he realizes now, in this moment, turning away from the water to find her, that they are not two separate things. His powers only exist because of his love for her, and though the time they have spent together is only the first drop in the ocean of the rest of their lives, he wants to look back on his life overwhelmed by the memories they create together, better because of the other.

Then, he notices the pain on her face, her eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip pulled between her teeth, and her arms wrapped around her knees as she sits alone by the railing — alone, exactly where he left her. He crosses quickly, his footsteps hard against the wooden planks, and kneels in front of her, carefully reaching out to brush his fingers against her hand.

“Emma?” he whispers, but it is not loud enough to break through the wall that has formed around her, protecting her from whatever kind of hurt she feared he was leaving her with. Leaving her, he realizes. That’s what she fears, more than anything else. Is that what she thinks he is doing? “Emma, love, I’m sorry.” This time, his voice is a bit louder, his fingers a bit firmer on her hand, and her eyes open, a runaway tear falling down her cheek.

“What?” She raises her hand to wipe her cheek, but Killian beats her to it.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, covering her hand with his once more. “I shouldn’t have — walking away from you like that, it was unfair. I don’t want you to think…” he clears his throat, trying his best to smile at her through his stuttering before starting again. “I’m here, love. With you. That’s not going to change.”

“Promise?” she whispers, unable to control the quivering of her lip, and he learns more about her with that single word than the rest of their journey. The both have dark pasts, Emma’s even more than his own, and the traumas that they have endured have left pieces of them broken, pieces that may never be fixed, but pieces that perhaps can be soothed, especially when the darkness rears its head.

None of the words that come to mind are good enough. He nods. Laughs, thankfully answered with a smile of her own. And then leans into her, holding himself up against the railing to keep from crashing into her as he finds her lips with his own. It’s the best promise he can give her, and when she reaches up and slides her fingers through his hair, her other hand tightening around the collar of his jacket, he can’t help but laugh against her lips, mumbling the words that have been waiting on the tip of his tongue for the right moment.

“I love you, Emma,” he says, and she resituates them so they are laying beside each other on the deck, pulling herself into him in ways his previous wounds never would have allowed.

“I love you,” she repeats with a giggle of her own, her lips finding his again as the ship touches down on the water, lurching against the surface.

They’re back. The real world — Nephylisis, the Gale, the War. The Wasteland. But they have each other.

Anything is possible.

TAGS: @shireness-says @cssns @kmomof4 @thisonesatellite @teamhook @darkcolinodonorgasm @cocohook38 @ultraluckycatnd @facesiousbutton82 @hollyethecurious @stahlop @tiganasummertree @angellifedeath @pepperpottss @mariakov81 @scientificapricot @kday426 @xarandomdreamx @ohmightydevviepuu @xhookswenchx @nikkiemms @carpedzem @superchocovian @resident-of-storybrooke @snowbellewells @courtorderedcake @captain-emmajones @killian-whump @officerrogers @killianjonesownsmyheart1 @captainkillianswanjones – want to be added or removed? let me know!

#the wasteland #my writing #wordsbymeganmichael #cssns #cssns 2020 #my fic #captain swan #cs ff #cs fic #ouat ff #fantasy au #if you made it this far and found yourself in the tags please know there is a secret epilogue #but i'm not changing the chapter count #its already written in my head it just needs to come out

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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