#meta

[fictionalmenmistress]

I haven't seen anyone else talk about it, so I wanted to share that Logan's rant monologue insulting Wade in the Honda Odyssey, before Wade decides to beat him up and they ~fight~ all night... that so clearly to me, was Logan projecting. It started as a tempered rant to cope with how annoyed and pent up he was, with the heat of everything and with Wade's muchness that makes him, him, but the longer he went on, the more he started ranting and exposing himself in the process.

"THE XMEN REJECTED YOU, AND THEY'LL TAKE FUCKING ANYONE!!!" That was my first hit, that he was referring to himself. He sees himself so lowly, so failed, that's canonical to the film. And canonically, he didn't even quite originally feel worthy or want to be with the XMEN. Didn't feel like there was a place for him there, a place for him anywhere. One of his biggest healings was Professor X not giving up on helping him believe that he deserved to be there, was wanted, was worthy, was a good guy. That's canon to his character. So we know he was speaking about himself. He was chewing Wade out, but he was also talking and focusing moreso on what upset him about himself. (He sees himself as just any jo shmo, when he IS literally THE X MAN ㅠㅠ)

He was seeing himself in Wade, how he "can't even save a relationship with a gd stripper", (he sees himself as not able to save anything either, and he's angry for that more than anything else he's angry or annoyed at) projecting SO HARD as he pieced together saying it out loud, that Wade was exactly like him. Logan hated himself for not saving anything. For being a "loser", a "failure", for all of the same reasons he was lashing out at Wade for. He was so angry and annoyed by Wade reminding him of himself, because he related to him. Wade was his reflection, in his eyes, calling him out so loudly with his own behaviors. And he hated himself. He deeply was suffering with that hatred for himself, and as a result, he lashed out on Wade when really he was chewing out himself, inside, admitting it.

"God's CRUELEST JOKE, IS THAT YOU *WONT* DIE ALONE. BECAUSE YOU! CANT! DIE! SO THE REST OF US HAVE TO SUFFER YOU THE REST OF OUR EXISTENCE!" (something along that.)

He didn't know for sure that Wade can't die. He picked up on that Wade can't be killed. Logan is the one who can't die. They are two flipped sides of the same immortal power coin. When he finished his screaming at him, and everyone was silent at how cruel and shocking the confrontation and his words were, I was sinking with a very empathetically whispered "oh, Logan..." Because I felt his misery. I immediately picked up on him really talking about himself, and I think that was genius and layered. I was upset for how awful that was to say to Wade, heartbroken for Wade taking that to heart, and I was heartbroken that Logan was saying that because he believes that about himself. Because they are, oddly, a lot alike. Very compatible.

This scene here:

I read that Hugh said that Ryan wrote that. He's brilliant with these films. It was so genius. I really needed to share this and bring this thought, meta, analysis to light. For all of us to have.

Is Logan mad at God's "cruel joke" of his immortality, yet ability to feel so much pain through it still? Yes. He punched the roof in rage, because it's not fair. Venting his own pain. He sees his powers, his own and Wade's too, empathetically, as their curse. The curse of being the one who lives, and the guilt with that. The one who can't die. The one who lives, who is forced to live, while everyone who "deserves to live" dies. And WILL die, around them.

"And You can't die. That's on all of US!" Logan says, clearly referring to himself living forever... And "us" being the people HE loved. He saw himself as a burden for existing with them, for them. He deflected that onto Wade, as if the people in Wade's life must feel that way too, but didn't really mean that. He meant it about himself. Logan believes he was a burden on the people he loves, the people he lost. That's probably why he left too, and didn't come back when they called out for him to. He distanced himself to protect them, and protect himself from that fear of rejection that he feels is so imminent, and them not having him, is the one element that led to none of them surviving without him. He was always the key. He was always wanted, and he was always important and needed. He just couldn't ever believe that.

Man, that's why it became so personal for Logan too, when he was shown Wade's photograph of his family. Because HE had a family, and he would do anything now to save them. Just like Wade. He held that photograph all night, he went and got it when it fell out of the car, he kept looking at it. It became personal for him, when he identified with it. That Honda scene really was their turning point of everything. That's when Logan cared with everything. He got it. Wade is the him he couldn't be. But now he can.

I dropped some heat with this one.

Extra little personal context/thought notes: Maybe I just spotted it because I have a natural knack for psychology, I'm hyperobservant, highly empathetic and deeply feeling, and I'm also years experienced of my parents and whole family treating me the same exact toxic lashout way almost every other day. That's a workweek for me to see through toxic lashout anger BS. These are not my gifs!!! They were created by another amazing account. I will refind their @ and tag them!! >>> It's @landoslastnerve ! Thank you friend! 🤍

Also wanted to include someone's tags from those gifs:

.

[soppybitorag]

The Captain as Man, Mirror, and Medals.....

a 🚨Red Lever🚨 meta on The Captain appearing in a mirror (and a cracked one at that) in the opening credits of Ghosts and what that could mean in the context of s5e5 and beyond :-D

What do mirrors symbolise?

Briefly, they outer vs. inner perception; who we are vs. what we let people see/want people to perceive us as. Mirrors Cannot Lie, and thusly expose our reality. Reflections are often said to be a persons True Soul, an idea across many early civilisations. It wasn't reflected light rays hitting your eyeballs, it was you seeing your Soul.

But also, we are 'mirroring' people when we copy them, appearing unoriginal and inauthentic.

Captain as Portrait and Mirror -

Now, ghosts can't see their reflections or be captured on camera/film. We don't see Captain looking *into* the mirror, just what is shown to us: the outer self/controlled perception. Also, the way he is framed makes it look like a portrait, something signifying power, virtue, and importance.

What we *see* is a middle-aged man of supposed stature, with a collection of earned medals (reflected, they'd be the right way round, which they aren't irl).

A soldier.

A Truth, as Mirrors Can't Lie.

Portraits can be twisted, however, such as The Picture of Dorian Gray. In it, Dorian's portrait grows more grotesque because of his sins and vices, whilst retaining his external beauty over many, many years.

Captain, likewise, is forever going to look the age he died, much like how Dorian is forever the age of when he got the portrait made. (Not saying they're similar in personality or really any deeper than that, just thought it note worthy.)

It'd be remiss to forget that in the opening creds, Robin is next to the mirror, flickering a lamp.

He is litterally shedding light on the mirror, implying a deeper meaning/more to be understood about what's there. There's also the fact that the mirror is cracked (cracked? definitely distorted).

Cracked Mirror Symbolism -

Cracked Mirrors can be seen as a form of deception: if distorted they can warp the image presented (even when we expect the truth from them), making things appear closer than they actually are (a common occurance in fairytales, for example), or taller/bigger/wider/fractured.

Some people believe broken mirrors weaken the spirit of a departed person. Oscar Wilde famously used this belief to mark a characters' death in, you guessed it, Dorian Gray.

It's worth noting that Dorian Gray is also the story that led to Wilde's imprisonment for homosexuality.

Cracked Mirrors are notably bad luck in many cultures, too. Romans believed that Gods observed them through mirrors, so breaking them was severing that connection, thusly having the Gods curse you with bad luck.

Ultimately, cracked mirrors present a fractured sense of self, where the inner and the outer are at odds with one another, or there is discontent in one or the other. Perhaps both.

What does this mean for Captain?

Well, we *see* a man of stature/inportance with war medals. Virtuous.

In actuality, the medals were always forever out of his grasp (making things look closer than they are) as he never left Britain, as much as he maybe would have liked to. He stole the medals to deceive the Veterans by façading (being inauthentic/copying/mirroring) as one of them, but bad luck had him put them on clearly wrong to all but him. If he had a mirror, he could've fixed it.

He was most likely one of the lowest ranking people in that room, in a house he once had control over, but no longer did.

Those actions directly led to his death, where he forever is entrapped with and condemned to wear unearned medals.

Of course, he most likely wanted to be perceived as integral/noble by people, but he just wasn't. He thinks himself a coward, wearing a mask, and forever will be. It's no wonder that in his purgatory/button house afterlife, he elects to seek control over how people see him. He's just The Captain.

some extra things I wanna throw in here

Captain died looking into Havers' eyes. He could probably see his own reflection at his end. But at least it was in the eyes of someone who truly knew him and loved him. For him. Told him as much. Because Mirrors Can't Lie.

Also, one way to rid yourself of the bad luck caused by breaking a mirror is, apparently, touching a tombstone with one of the shards and burying it deep down innthe ground where spirits can't find it, at nighttime.

So here are some completely random images.

[fandom-reblog-central]

Fandom (dpxdc) Thought 2.5:

Context: Halfa!Jason Todd, ghosts communicate through emotions, liminals can do it to a lesser extent

Jason unknowingly keeps trying to push emotions to his family, not realizing he’s trying to communicate. With his family’s awkward outward reactions combined with the lack of response to his core, he feels isolated. Even thought it’s an accident on both ends, it has an effect on him.

To make it a bit worse, the batfam is liminal with all the death in the family and Lazarus exposure. They accidentally reject the emotional conversation from Jason’s core, so neither party knows why Jason is so on edge, but they don’t push for answers.

Danny (bad reveal, good reveal, literally Just Vibing in Gotham—whatever works) hears Damian’s core humming or trying to trill/chirp, and of course he has to help the sick liminal/baby-halfa core. With a LOT of bonding, Danny gets Damian to drink some healthy ectoplasm, and he feels a lot better. He even brings Jason over, knowing the connection to the Pit was stronger in his older brother and wanting to extend an olive branch after the… everything.

Once Jason starts feeling better and Frostbite is brought into the conversation, Damian realizes he can’t hide this from Bruce forever. And, with how many people in his family—hell, his contact list—had been exposed to the Lazarus pit, or gotten caught up in time shenanigans, or had been killed, it was best everyone knew. With Danny’s only request being “say I’m a meta instead of a ghost,” Damian goes to his father’s study.

(Forgive the ooc/awkwardness I don’t normally write fanfic lmao)

Damian entered Bruce’s study. “Father. I have something to inform you of. We have made a terrible mistake with Jason.”

Bruce’s train of thought pauses at hearing his youngest call Jason “Jason” instead of “Todd.” He looks up from his WE paperwork. “What is it, chum? Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“We are both well, Father. It is…” He grimaced and visibly tensed. “You have to promise to not be angry with me.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at hearing his youngest say such a “childish” phrase. “I will do my best. I’ll at least let you finish talking first.”

He knew this was the right thing to say when Damian relaxed slightly. Therapy was a wonder.

“Um…”

Oh. Oh no. Damian Al-Ghul-Wayne was not one for uncertainty—especially not in a conversation he started.

“Go on, lad, I’m listening,” Bruce said in as gentle a tone as he could (without getting too patronizing for his proud little Robin).

“I met a meta of a ghostly nature. He assessed that there was Lazarus Water in my body, and when he replaced it—“

“He what.”

“You said you’d let me finish.”

Bruce pulled out a notepad, jotting down bullet points to return to.

[Pit in Damian?? REPLACED?? Unknown ghost meta]

“Once he replaced it with the healthy alternative, I found…” He swallowed. “I found that I could more easily accept and show love. My time in the League played a part, of course. However, the Lazarus Pit had an effect on me as well, latching onto my desire to be worthy of a place here. I essentially have a rudimentary organ that runs on and communicates via emotion. Jason does as well, and his is stronger than mine. We have unknowingly been rejecting this more emotional form of communication, making him feel unaccepted and misunderstood.”

[emotional organ??? Accidental rejection? Possible to learn emotion communication?]

Damian shifted his weight under his father’s intense and worried Interrogation Glare™️. “Now that we know the problem, and are attempting to rectify it, we feel much better. Due to everyone around us being exposed to death, the Pit, or time travel, Jason, the meta, and myself thought it best if everyone was made aware. Our meta friend has a doctor who has specialized in this organ and the culture surrounding it for decades. He can apparently better help us manage our health alongside a regular physician.”

[meta doctor. Contact… everyone]

Bruce set his pen down and didn’t move for a few moments. “Are you finished?”

Damian nodded. “Are you angry?”

Bruce let out a long breath, closing his eyes. “I can never tell. Fear and rage feel a lot alike when it comes to protecting my family and my city. You’ve gone against a lot of my training, which displeases me, but I still love you, and I always will. We’ll see what your punishment is when I get more details. I don’t want to punish you for good outcomes, but the methods are important, especially in our work and at your age—“

“You can stop now, Father. I understand now what Drake means when he says he doesn’t know how to respond to the sincerity therapy has given you. I’ll gather the family for a debrief.”

Bruce opened his eyes to see his youngest wincing a little at the emotional vulnerability, but something else caught his attention.

His son’s green eyes faded to blue.

[radioactive-earthshine]

Political Thriller AUs..... where the Arranged Marriages are more lethal than the cyanide-laced donuts. How are you feeling around this AU?

10/10

Arranged Marriage AUs or Betrothal AUs are sort of a weakness of mine particularly when the author is wise enough to include more of the political reasons behind the union rather than "force my idiots to fall in love" which is the common path a lot of these AUs take. It's not a BAD direction and I do sometimes want to see End Game of my idiots falling in love but that's not necessarily what's important.

It's the why, what is this world, what are the stakes, what's going to be broken if one, or both REFUSE, do they have other people they want to marry etc.

There's a lot you can do with these AUs other than "teehee they had no choice but to fall in love"

As for who I would do this to I have a Konbart one pingponging in my head that the concept is Krypton never was destroyed, Tomar-Re managed to stabilize the planet and save them all, but Jor El sent Clark to Earth anyway because he was certain it was going to happen, and the fallout afterwards was a lot of political upheaval and he was caught in the crossfire and was murdered (possibly by Dru). Things unfold more or less identically except Clark finds out where he is from, that they are all alive, has his own adventures there as a adopted child meeting the bio fam and their culture some 25 years later, meets his mom who did manage to survive the post-near-apocalyptic event. He has a lot of inner struggles of 'what is home' and knows in his heart it is with the Kents and his mom knows this too.

Eventually Kon comes along, but he's created on Krypton, not on Earth, as a sort of co-opt project between planets. Krypton wanted a way to try to genetically engineer Kryptonians to be able to have their powers AND live in any environment regardless if they have a red sun. Earth was needed because Krypton does not have as advanced of knowledge on genetic manipulation as Earth does, and use with the Earth Metagene was something even their own geneticists were curious about. The only way they were able to do this was cooperation between planetary governments. Kon was a secret side project that when exposed blew up because 1.) they used Kal's dna 2.) they were successful and 3.) they have a fucking clone running around and Krypton had actively BANNED cloning due to the last time they dabbled it and it ended badly.

Clark finds out about this clone and storms there like WTF - It's a mess. There's back and forth bs on what to do with him - some politicians are just 'kill it' but most are 'well no hold up, he actually has some intriguing abilities, we can use this!' Meanwhile Clark is just - 'sort this out, now, or I'm taking him to Earth.'

So they agree, he is an El, so he is released to Lara to protect and raise. Lara by now has high status (for now) and power under her so while critics might grumble, there is nothing they can do less they be shot off to the Phantom Zone.

Things settle down, but only so much.

Earth starts becoming a bigger presence in the interstellar community, Krypton is ever paranoid that Kal on Earth with an endless supply of Metas is a threat to them and so tensions begin to rise.

Some of the more warmongering Kryptonians want to conquer Earth, its conditions are ripe for them to be as their ancestors should have been under a young sun, and humans are soft and need help from aliens and only a spare few of their own kind are even worthy their grace as something approximating equal (metas, Amazons etc).

Clark knows if he just evacs Kon and Lara from the growing tensions on Krypton it would send a message to various Kryptonian politicians that Earth just may be that shady after all and Clark really is plotting against them so he works with his mother to try to find a solution. What would make the tension lesson so diplomacy talks could go positively.

Lara suggests an arranged marriage, because nothing makes Kryptonian's more excited than the prospect of legally bound by blood and law cooperation.

Clark says no before he even hears who or why. Lara persists and explains that while he, who was raised among people that do not partake in arranged marriages, and he who has a very singular mindset of what a marriage should be, arranged marriages are common among Krypton and nothing will show the wide majority of their people that Earth is willing to be neighbors and allies than by participating in one of their most time honored traditions.

Clark relents, and asks who. It is Kon. He has to think about it because that's his little brother. After much self reflection and dismantling his initial responses to the suggestion he relents that it is not a bad idea.

The hard part is deciding who would be a good match for Kon - but the fact that any gender is open for consideration makes things easier. After weighing all the options they have, and getting a lot of "wtf no!" Bart is suggested partly as a joke by [redacted].

Fucking Bartimus. At first he is written off as absolutely NOT eligible due to his more or less canon impulses but out of all the suggestions between metas and Amazons and Atlanteans Bart is the one who is in a position best suited to protect himself against literally everything. No one can touch him unless he wants to be touched. He's also from prominent Hero Family and has a name for himself on Earth as Impulse so it's not as if he's really ineligible.

So they agree.

Bart's not happy about this AT ALL and he thinks they chose him just to get rid of him because this takes place just little while after Max vanishes and he's feeling like he's being yanked around (he is 18 though, he just had longer with Max) and he's had so little control of his life this is just one other thing he has to deal with. Wally tries to explain but he does it badly so he pisses him off even more. Iris explains and he's beyond listening at this point. It takes Helen letting him rant at her and talking through things for him to come down that maybe they really don't HATE HIM.

So he shows up and lets Clark explain it and he, after thinking about it for 2 seconds (for Bart he was going back and forth for about 20 minutes though) agrees that this will be interesting and might just be the right thing to do - and because no one else will I guess it should be him.

Kon meanwhile wasn't taking the whole thing seriously enough because he didn't honestly think it would happen.

He was wrong when Lara told him they found him a husband. Cue record scratch, glass shatters and a cat yowls sound effect. Cue panic. Cue the last 5 years of being totally out of control of his life and being yanked around by anyone and everyone as a political pawn exploding.

It takes a long time for Lara to calm him down but she has a tough job because everything that Kon is freaked out about is TRUE. She reminds him that this good for him and their people, that she too was from an arranged marriage, and that the match they secured for him was a good one and it is for the good of everyone and, dickishly, what would Kal do?

So Kon is sort of guilt bullied into it even though he agreed to it in the first place (very quickly and was just like 'hey just so long as they're hot!') and knew it was happening but he didn't think it would actually happen.

Seeing Bart's picture does dispel some of his anxiety, he is cute, he's attracted to him, he has a nice bod, super speed sound pretty neat and he knows Clark wouldn't choose someone who was creepy.

Little does he know Clark didn't even choose Bart at all at first and Bart wasn't even an option until everyone said NO.

So there they are, both initially GRRRRRR about the whole thing not because of the other but because of the situation. Kon feels like he just a tool to be used, and Bart feels like everyone just wants him gone even if everyone has done everything to explain that's not the case and they believe in him. Bart's older and wiser to know that if they really did believe in him, he would have been up for consideration at the start instead of [redacted].

Overall the stakes are pretty basic - get married just to open the door to start a meaningful conversation. Not even to STOP a conflict, just to hopefully get communication better. If either Kon or Bart balk on it it has the potential to exacerbate tensions between Earth and Krypton though Earth has more to lose.

In the end Kon and Bart do find love.

And that's what I have for this Arranged Marriage AU on my spreadsheet that MAY or may not ever be written, and as always some details may just change entirely.

Send me a fanfic/media trope or theme and I'll rate and tell you what I might do with it or something.

[edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

im high pls dont make me name my batjokes meta

this post may be implicit/common knowledge, but having not seen much discourse around the mechanics of batjokes' dynamic compels me to catalog. there's sm to unpack here, so excuse lapses in structure or flow.

first off and most importantly, joker's battle with bruce is an existential one, he wants to justify himself in the eyes of his maker, his reshaper, whose perpetual control and prowling enabled, and ultimately exposed, the failure of his veneer of heroism and ability/adeptness, and birthed a distillation of that failure. the failure to circumvent criminality and violence, continually indulging retaliative brutality and unresolved anger, edging catharsis in assuming a protective and dominant role as to compensate for his loss and pantomime vicarious past reclamation and authority. constantly stagnant, incessantly unfulfilled, an everlasting outburst if you will, addressing not his material conditions but feeding his metaphysical ones. joker moulds himself around bruce's worldview, concerning himself with the salvation eternally eluding bruce, achievable through the violence that birthed batman and reinvented joker in turn.

this is a dialectical affliction, one desperate in nature, to validate that he wasn’t a mistake, a deviancy, to prove that a singular, perhaps seemingly insignificant element can transform anyone, unchain them, and joker refuses alternatives because batman forever dances, is forever chained by both his insistence on normalcy, but also his neglect of it. joker wants foremost, to matter to his creator, to break perfunctory monotony and elicit true understanding and oneness, have his existence be purposeful and intentioned, proving himself worthy, the one that finally cracks the elusive figure and chiefly, achieves ordainment in the eyes of his saviour — embrace, his personhood returned to his creator’s hands as to ascend batman into godhood, inextricably coalescing them.

it’s a labour of love, devotion, joker truly loves THe BaTmaN, bleeds and lives and offers up gothamite sacrifices as to resuscitate his vacancy, bless him with unadulterated purpose, validate the meaningless of the earthly. ultimately, batjokes are cyclical, that: from ash you were birthed and to ash you shall return, sh1t. what confuses that however, is how dialectical they are (as aforementioned), they embody a yin & yang dynamic after all. however, ultimately, joker wants to birth the batman who laughs [like when you think about it — batman realizing joker's philosophy and transcending humanity], to eliminate bruce's restraint and contradictory morality as to, ironically, create a pure, militant reaper encompassing gotham's brutality and abandon. joker is fighting for gotham's soul in more ways than one, on the physical level — crippling its normative function, inundating it with senseless violence, and on a metaphysical level, fighting for its symbol of order and constraint, someone who arose as an abstract embodiment of gotham's institutional enforcement, a distillation of authoritative fear, gotham’s punitive restrictiveness, the abstraction of otherworldly, insurmountable power, an inverted reflection of the very thing bruce is and was unable to overcome, aiming to strip them of their defences as to coax their primality, a violent denuding as to be sculpted anew, the same enlightenment he was afforded. to be broken so thoroughly that you become pure. to shatter pretence and baptize gotham, or its seemingly intractable moral paragon, in hedonistic freedom, uniting them with his gory rebirth. and joker, with this hedonistic perspective, recognizes that capacity in batman, recognizes it as his truth as one who was born from that brutality and violence and continues to endure it, seeing it as the purest form of expression and the underlying nature of existence.

he glamorizes his own death at the hands of the one who rebirthed him bc it will rebirth his creator in turn, allowing him to fully embody his godhood. it will afford the joker true meaning — once again my metas coming back to the struggle for existence but universal themes gonna universe [with the melody] — however, bc of the dialectics of batjokes, the struggle is a testament to their bond, it’s a seduction, a courtship, its authenticity and potency dictated by scale and intensity (aka their Stockholm is mad), the commitment to enduring joker’s forcible conversions, and foremost, to joker martyring himself to batman’s perpetual aggrieved ministrations, the irony in trying to fix someone through cruelty, conflict everlasting in one’s subjugating machinations. the more joker seizes, the further his cost sinks. bruce becomes steadily entrapped with and by the one person who can never leave him, the magnitude of those around him continually strained against the joker, the onus to humanize a sadistic, inhumane murderer forever ballooning. joker’s mortality, his humanity becoming further pathologized, his undying ceaselessness a type of consolation, a mark on bruce’s own consciousness, to save the one person forever bound to him, justifying his heroism and the incongruity between them, the fundamentalist moral dividing them: do not kill. batman's consideration, thusly, is birthed from a deep resentment, the flagellation of abstinence, maintaining the one thing delineating human from unfeeling instrument [of violence]. that resentment festering into a neurotic sort of dependency, joker acting as his NorthStar of morality, subsuming his sense of self, entrancing and ensnaring him. without the joker, batman is slowly cannibalized, unable to exist. whatever, i’m tired. this better be good enough cause its going up either way.

to conclude, this song [pay for it by jeff and the mindful selfless chastites]

encompasses batjokes perfectly. the eternal struggle, the damned position and conundrum batjokes find themselves saddled with, their respective lives being their sort of penance, an inability to ever truly connect without eliminating the other, love transmorphed into a twisted, destructive passion disinterested in its untainted iteration and consequently further estranging them.

(there was another song too but i forgor 🤷🏿‍♂️ [AN: not bc i was high, i could not conceive of this high)

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

LXC and JGY anon - I was just wondering which of Jgy's crimes LXC knew about pre-guanyin scene, from where he said something along the lines of "I knew you had done some things but I trusted you had your reasons." I'm not sure that his wen torturer shenanigans or killing that one captain were even mention-worthy given the circumstances and LXC clearly didn't know about anything revealed during wangxian's investigation, so what questionable/immoral deeds was LXC referring to?

Hello there! Glad this one came through!

In regards to when he had said he knew Jin Guangyao had committed questionable things, I assume he was speaking of when Jin Guangyao had been caught by Nie Mingjue for killing his Jin Commander. He had found them both in the middle of their fight after all when Nie Mingjue was close to killing Jin Guangyao as it was.

He had even asked for Nie Mingjue to not hurt him, as Hi Guangyao must have had a reason for it all. Which of course is what made Nie Mingjue storm away finally as, Lan Xichen stopping him is what probably saved Jin Guangyao, and even during this Lan Xichen n is unsure of his own self, yet due to his passivity, does not ask for anything further from either man.

I also believe it is aa you had said, with his time as Wen Ruohan's personal torturer, it was assumed after all by the world as a whole, he had only done all of this as a way to undermine the Wens. Which, while true, was another show of Jin Guangyao sneaking his way into places that would make him profit from the outcome of either side. If Wen Ruohan won, well, he would still have a defined role with the Wens and a well off position without being exposed as a traitor. If his plan of sabotage and covertness worked, he'd be called a hero for his role of killing Wen Ruohan. As was depicted in his own murals he commissioned.

There was also the death of Jin Rusong which due to Jin Guangyao's apparent "grief" it was not questioned heavily when Jin Guangyao took out an opposing Clan against him. Each of these instances of conveniences, in Jin Guangyao's favor to garner pity, still had something strange about them that Lan Xichen ignores.

He is able to straddle that line of "doing the questionable for the seemingly good". As Wei Wuxian points out, he would not have believed his schemes either if it weren't for seeing it all first hand in empathy. And one of the largest pitfalls of this, is that thanks to empathy not being clouded by the "point of view" of who owns those memories, Wei Wuxian is able to become the omniscient narrator of events previously. A nice little meta twist on what it means for the "unreliable" theme that the plot pokes at and readers fall into themselves.

[cimmeriana]

I don't think people realize that even as Bhaal's Dark Urge, Melinoe was actually very sad and suffered from anxious-avoidant attachment type.

She still does now, it's just a little more easy to spot because she's been wiped clean of Bhaal's brainwashing.

Melinoe has always just wanted to be loved, respected, and wanted. She's honestly so much like her sister Orin, except Lina was able to break out of that brainwashing.

I was talking to @lordgortrash about this and, frankly, Lina's relationship with Gortash was a huge turning point for her because it was the first time she was actually given respect and had autonomy, the first time she was regarded as Melinoe rather than The Dark Urge of the High Priestess of Bhaal's Temple or the Chosen of Bhaal.

Lina actually has a very malleable mind in where she takes her social and moral queues from the people around her, which is especially true post-amnesia. Dark Urge Lina was as intense and morally bankrupt and unhinged as she was because Bhaal isolated her and brainwashed her. His grip on her started cracking when she became exposed to others, and especially once she started spending massive amounts of time with Gortash to constructive their massive plot.

I go more in depth in this in my meta, but yeah.

Melinoe comes off as just very carefree, sexual, sexual, and playful - which is true - but she's also very anxious and lonely with a desperate desire to connect to others, to be accepted, and to belong.

She's constantly looking for people to fill the void in her that her mother and her father Bhaal created because they were incapable of genuinely loving a daughter the way that a daughter needs to be loved by her parents.

Which is why she can be so theatrical and so hyper-flirtatious and hyper-sexual and hyper-playful.

At the end of the day, Melinoe wants people to pay attention to her and really see her, and for that to be good enough for her to be worthy of love.

[queen-scribbles]

🟡 Yellow- What is something your OC wants but knows they can never have? How does it feel to never get this specific desire?⚪️ White- When was a moment in your OC's life that they felt the most vulnerable and exposed? Were they alone or surrounded? 🪩 Disco Ball- What was an achievement that your OC felt worthy of celebrating? Was it a personal victory or a big impact on everyone around them? for Ody, please :)

Oh, these are good ones for her. (Also, sorry for the delayed reply)

🟡 Yellow- What is something your OC wants but knows they can never have? How does it feel to never get this specific desire?

I mean, aside from Chance, which is the obvious answer, future peace. I touched on this a little in the KotFE 12 meta, but Ody is convinced she missed her one opening to walk away from this responsibility. Chance offered, after Ziost. Both of them retire from their government positions and go do their own thing together. She said no bc she was mid-hunt for Vitiate and needed Sith Intelligence's resources. Which led to the Wild Space Expedition. Which led to being Outlander/Alliance Commander. It's too late now, she's stuck in this position of responsibility in the spotlight and can't just walk away any more. She is never going to get to "just do her own thing", with Chance(bc he's dead) or on her own(bc she's too public now). I think she went through the five stages of grief over that dream concurrent with grieving him.(KotFE 10-16 was a rough patch for my girl) She's come to terms with it, but there's still this sense of melancholy resignation whenever the thought crosses her mind.

⚪️ White- When was a moment in your OC's life that they felt the most vulnerable and exposed? Were they alone or surrounded?

Toward the end of chapter 2 in the class story. She knows about the mind control. She knows Kothe and Hunter will both use it. She's taken steps to break free, but has to wait for the IX serum to do its work, there's nothing she can do but play along in the meantime. They can make her do anything they want and she can't stop them and she can't tell any of her crew about the details of it, so she's in this on her own even surrounded by people she mostly trusts. On top of that, she's coming to terms with the fact the Empire doesn't care about her. The Empire she's bled for, lied for, killed for, dedicated her life to protecting, will punish her for being too good at her job. (Also, Chance, the person who seemed most sympathetic to her situation a) is gone and b) still used her keyword.) Intensely vulnerable feeling, those two things going on at the same time.

🪩 Disco Ball- What was an achievement that your OC felt worthy of celebrating? Was it a personal victory or a big impact on everyone around them?

When she finished her Intelligence training. Her family is... well-established in Kaasian society; her mother's an opera singer and her dad's just below the Minister of Defense(I feel like there's a specific title I'm blanking on😅), her older brother's in the military. So it was very much a carrying on the family tradition moment, like Elara. It was a more personal victory bc obviously you don't make a big deal out of your new spies. Kinda ruins their ability to be covert.

OC Asks

[monstersqueen]

anyway the way i see things, no one was trying to get odasaku killed in dark era. that was just a by product of each of the three organizations' plan :

mimic and gide want to die. They want to find a worthy enemy. Having found him (odasaku), they need to convince him to kill them.

the special division wants to protect yokohama. for that they need someone to take down mimic. the mafia is their only choice.

mori wants to protect the mafia. for that he needs something from the special divsion, in exchange he will take down mimic. after inviting mimic. (odasaku's fighting and dying is apparently an additional bonus, but i haven't figured out what he gains from that; i think it's more that odasaku, refusing to kill, is of no worth to th mafia, so him dying is no loss compared to the gain of the Permit)

None of those are 'yeah let's go kill this random mafia member'. Odasaku is of no consequences to any of them. What they need is ODasaku killing Gide. If he dies in the process then. *shrugs*

...if you look at it this way, the outcome was inevitable, when all three organizations involved have the same goal : odasaku killing gide.

You know what's interesting though ? despite that, odasaku doesn't cross mimic's path until ango is captured. I posit that ango does have an agenda and a plan during dark era, and it is : protect his friends, which he intends to accomplish by using his position as a triple agent to make damn sur odasaku stays the fuck away from mimic. He's no hindered by mori yet, because mori doesn't have yet the cards he wants before mimic is dealt with. Mori wants mimic dealt with, but not before he gets the permit.

But the timing works, doesn't it ? until mimic finds out ango is a mafia spy, odasaku doesn't go anywhere near them. he's shot by mimic ; that goes with 'ango is a mimic spy'; he ends up nearly blown up in their hideouts on 'no, ango was spying on mimic for the mafia', and meet gide when he and dazai have to get accept the 'ango was spying on the mafia for someoene else (the government)' thing, and the final combat with gide happens after dazai and odasaku confirms ango's identity as a triple agent.

In short, as ango's triple spying is progessively exposed, odasaku and gide/mimic's paths start crossing more and more closely. I kinda like the hyposthesis that ango went 'to hell with makign odasaku fight gide and die in the process. i'm making sure they don't meet' and then mori leaked his identity to mimic and started the whole thing, taking away from him what control he had so inevitably odasaku end up fighting gide.

anyway at a meta level it means that odasku's fight against gide becomes more and more certain as the buraiha trio progressively dissolves. So, you know. At a meta level. it is ango's betrayal that killed odasaku.

(meanwhile odasaku has an agenda; it's saving ango - which he manages - and helping dazai - which he manages too - and a few otehr things - helping the kids, becoming a writer, etc - which he doesn't)

(so does dazai - it's also 'protect my friends' and his plan is 'figure out what's going on and who needs protecting from whom' and he fail just like ango because he figures it out too late)

[tidefated]

TideFated Comprehensive Timeline

This post is primarily for my own personal reference on this blog ( meaning I would appreciate it if it were not reblogged, and also that it may contradict information found elsewhere ) so that I can stop acting like time is a wobbly thing that doesn’t exist. It covers major plot points/happenings of all the fandoms on this blog in one place, as well as some relevant real-life events for a sense of scale/scope, and is liable to be expanded upon over time, as presently it only covers the bare skeletal minimum. Note that for all PotC dates I have chosen to follow the timeline set by @oceanfoamed [x]. 

1665 ― Armando Salazar is born

1696 ― Henry Avery makes a deal with Nassau's governor, Sir Nicholas Trott, enabling the beginning of the ‘pirate issue’ on Providence Island. [historical]

1683 ― Honjô Souma ( Joji ) is born.

1686 ― Cutler Beckett is born.

1709 ― Armando Salazar sails into the Devil’s Triangle.

1714-1715 ― PotC: The Price of Freedom

1715 ― Black Sails: S1-S3

1715-1716 ― Black Sails: S4

1729 ― PotC: Curse of the Black Pearl

1730 ― PotC: Dead Man’s Chest

1730-1731 ― PotC: At World’s End

1750 ― PotC: On Stranger Tides

1750 ― Edward Pellew is born

1752 ― PotC: Dead Men Tell No Tales

1754-1763 ― French and Indian War. [historical]

1767 ― William Bush is born

1775-1783 ― American Revolutionary War. [historical]

1793-1794 ― Hornblower: The Even Chance

1794-1795 ― Hornblower: Examination for Lieutenant

1795-1798 ― Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil

1798( August 03 ) ― Under the command of Admiral Nelson, the British fleet destroys the French navy in the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon’s army is cut off from supplies and communication. [historical]

1798-1801 ― Hornblower: Frogs and Lobsters

1801-1802 ― Hornblower: Mutiny/Retribution

1803-1815 ― Napoleonic Wars. [historical]

1803-1804 ― Hornblower: Loyalty 

1804 ― Hornblower: Duty 

[ferrousstars]

On LeFou and The Gay™

Meta 

When the film came out, there was an over-all negative response to LeFou’s LGBTQ status as advertised by Disney, and the purpose of this post is to address that discourse & establish my thoughts so as to not have to address it on this blog again at any point.

While I do believe that we were promised more than we were given ( “An explicitly gay moment” which was little more than two men dancing ) , I do not think this makes LeFou bad representation. Subtext makes a plot good, makes it dimensional, and honestly, LeFou couldn’t have been gayer if he’d danced around in a rainbow tu-tu, rather than a pink ribbon, and waved a pride flag. I think people are too focused on the promise/outcome issue and not the fact that throughout the entire movie LeFou was very blatantly queer.

The other issue people seem to take is that LeFou, in the 1991 animated film, was nothing but a dopey sidekick and the butt of a queer joke at best, and extending that assumption of him to the 2017 live action film. This is a very incorrect approach? All of the characters have seen an improvement in their development in this film(backstories, motivation, conflict, etc), and LeFou is no exception, meaning that the argument that he is bad representation because he’s “just a dopey sidekick” is null.

TL;DR - I’m not saying we’ve reached the peak of representation perfection in LeFou, and I’m definitely not saying Disney didn’t set us up for disappointment, but LeFou was as good a piece of representation as we could expect from a film whose primary focus was a heterosexual romance.

[tidehearted]

Important Information: Salazar’s Curse

I must, once again, insist that my disclaimer be heeded- my interpretation of Armando is based strictly off film canon- which I have also altered, and at times chosen to ignore. Should this be a problem for you, I ask that you kindly block his tags or unfollow. The novelization holds no bearing on the version of Armando Salazar or the crew of the Silent Mary, nor does any form of fanon.

Covered in this headcanon you will find information about who Armando was prior to the curse, what it made him into, and the specifics of its effects and rules. With all that said, on to the actual meat of this writing.

Before the Curse

Prior to sailing into the Devil’s Triangle and becoming trapped by the curse, Armando held the rank of Capitán de Navío, and Capitán of one of the most powerful ships in the Armada of Spain. He was a determined, and unyielding man, with a singular focus on eliminating pirates. The ferocious hatred that drove this goal was brought on by events of his youth, the witnessing of the brutal murder of his father by a band of pirates who flew a red flag, and the knowledge that his grandfather- a merchant- had suffered a similar fate.

Though he was considered something of a hero to many of the people in Spain- particularly to merchants and others who had lost goods or loved ones to pirates, in the navy Armando was considered something of a dark horse- he was among the few who had risen so far without much in the way of politics ( for in fact he abhorred politics and held a distaste for academia, preferring instead to focus on martial skill and taking action ), and though his efficiency earned him much respect, his impatience, temper, and single-minded focus were the bane of many of his superiors and equals.

The Crew

Armando held the full respect of his crew- and in life he would never have abandoned them. The Silent Mary sailed into many dangers, but she did so because her crew was, hands down, the best there was. Her crew was hand-chosen by Armando and so was comprised of only the most dedicated, the most disciplined and the most skillful of men, who had served together for years by the time the Silent Mary sailed into the Devil’s Triangle. The loyalty between Capitán and crew was unshakable, and so too was the efficiency and dedication- and this is what made them so deadly that they could take on a fleet of ten pirate ships alone and come out victorious, were it not for the ingenuity of Jack Sparrow. In fact, together the crew had taken on similar situations many times, and come out on top.

The Triangle and the Source of the Curse

Canon has not given us much to work with on the subject of the Devil’s Triangle or the curse, and much of what has been given is inconsistent with earlier work, or simply doesn’t make much sense, so I have chosen to create a more sensible lore around it.

The Devil’s triangle was a dangerous outcropping of rock, seemingly in the middle of the caribbean sea. In fact it had long stood, the result of shifts in tectonic plates forcing the rocky floor up above the water level, atop a long-dormant underwater volcano. Rumours surrounded the strange outcropping- which was deadly for unskilled crews to navigate, for the dark water disguised many hidden dangers, and the cave roof was unstable, which often saw large stalactites falling onto and even through unsuspecting ships.

Rumours circulated that it was many things- the birthplace of the devil, or a secret hideaway of his. That it was inhabited by a trio of wretched sea hags who tended a vile demon, and fed to it unsuspecting sailors. That the rocks themselves had once been mighty ships of centuries past, since turned to stone.

But for all the rumours, none came quite close to the truth. For in fact the triangle was more a passive container of massive energies, simply waiting for the right trigger. It had, for many centuries, been the site of many a dark rite performed, and many a curse, and it was the remnants of such spells that laid the groundwork for what would become Salazar’s Curse.

For the curse was, in fact, enacted by Armando and his crew, by their own oaths, sworn before every voyage, never to die until their task was complete, and the sea was free of pirates. And it was this oath, combined with the desperation of the men, and Armando’s own pure rage and burning hatred at the moment of his death which preserved them all precisely as they were in that moment.This is NOT a known fact, however- and even the most skilled of witches would be hard-pressed to determine it without witnessing the advent of it themselves. The true origin of the curse is shrouded in mystery to most, including Armando and the crew.

The Curse and its Effects

The curse took effect at the precise moment of death for each member of the crew of the Silent Mary, beginning with Armando- meaning there are, indeed, some men who did not rise, as they died before him. Each man is preserved exactly as he was when he died, and animated only by his own will to live. The men with the weakest wills faded quickly- becoming true shades of their former selves, while those whose wills burned brighter retained a sense of self. Those who lost themselves were but as the ship- hollow shells, while those who did not were shadows of the men they once were- insubstantial, but alive so much as they could be.

Other than keeping their bodies animated with power beyond their reckoning, the curse did these men no services. It did nothing to block out the pain or the agony they felt in death- every man whose body was torn to shreds by the explosion of the gunpowder upon the ship has felt that agony every second of every day that has passed since.

What this means for Armando in particular ( AKA a catalogue of Armando’s injuries at death ):

The cause of Armando’s death was the explosion which hit him while he was underwater, destroying his skill and rather literally blowing his brains out of his head. This actually does affect his ability to process thoughts- there will be a full breakdown on this in another headcanon, but the short version is that while the curse keeps Armando’s spirit alive and functioning, it does not preserve his mind quite as well, and this leads to some major differences in thought process, behaviour, and understanding.

Both of his legs were shattered in the explosion as he fell from the ship, leading to the limping gait we see in the film.

Armando suffers severe internal bleeding, as the force of the explosion also shattered his spine, and crushed his organs- this is what causes the black substance his blood has become in his half-life to well up in his throat and pour from his mouth, at times, particularly when he exerts himself, as his blood and organs are getting squished around in a show of exactly why one ought to remain still when injured so severely.

He was also underwater at the moment of his death, though he did not have the time to drown, this is reflected in the way that everything about him seems to float, as though he is still beneath the waves.

Those affected by the curse were also granted certain abilities as supernatural entities, and those abilities are listed below:

The full crew was granted an immediate understanding of their situation, upon awakening- once their spirits had settled and begun to register that they were not simply alive and in excruciating pain.

Walking on water. This is less in defiance of gravity and more because they are, in essence, a part of the water. There is a certain lack of logic to it, which at once feels logical- and thus going forward this will be referred to as ‘ghost physics’.

Passing through solid objects. This one is tricky- the men all exist on the same plane, and thus cannot pass through one another, or through the Silent Mary- in fact, they even walk upon seemingly nothing where her lower decks used to be. The longer an object has been at sea, the more ‘real’ the curse considers it- in this case, it is assumed the bars which held the young Turner had been replaced recently, and thus not exposed to the sea for long. As they were at sea, they did no harm, but they did not count as fully ‘real’, and so with focus, Armando and his men were able to step through them as if they were not there.

Possession. This ability came with a number of stipulations.

Only a living human could be possessed.

Only those of the greatest will could possess a human- meaning there were perhaps four men in total aboard the Silent Mary who could successfully possess a body.

Once possessing a body, it could not be exited, through any means but the will or power of a  greater being, such as Calypso/Tia Dalma, or the Trident, which is an extension of Poseidon himself.

The spirit would remain trapped within the body even after it died, and unlike their ghost bodies, this one would decay, and eventually become useless- leaving the spirit an entirely immobilized observer.

Attempted possession also ran the risk of being overpowered and consumed, if the owner of the body held a stronger will than the spirit possessing it.

The final stipulation was that the spirit would not be freed of their pain- though the body lived, their soul was still dead, and no true feeling could be brought to it from a living body which was not their own.

Breaking the Curse

For the sake of a more logical plot, I have chosen to adjust the exact parameters for the breaking of the curse. There are, in total, four possible ways for Armando and his crew to be freed, in varying capacities. 

The first is the only one of which they are aware, and that is that the object of hatred must reach what the curse understands as their lowest point. It has nothing to do with the compass itself, so much as the situation required to cause one to betray it, for the compass itself has no ties to the Devil’s triangle, and therefore no ties to the curse. This will break apart the triangle and unleash the men as shades upon the seas to find and destroy the target of their hate.

The second is for the triangle itself to be destroyed- however this would require a force of violence only possessed by extreme natural disasters, at the time- though an inordinate amount of explosives may do the same. This is because the triangle itself houses the power of the curse. This will set the men free upon the seas as shades, though their direction may falter more than if the curse is affected by the object of their hate.

The third is the breaking of the trident, which will return all the men to their former states, as the same action would do to all suffering under a curse of the sea.

The fourth is by a power of the sea higher than the curse- such as Calypso/Tia Dalma. Such a being could put whatever stipulation they pleased, however most likely this would result in the breaking of the triangle and the return of the men to their former state.

[djrenard]

Titans East (a post-Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths team):

Thoughts: Operating out of Nightwing’s bunkers on the East Coast, a small community of Titans protect the most vulnerable as they gather around millionaire philanthropist Dick Grayson’s Haven outreach in urban centers. I’d love to see the We Are Robin kids again, The Movement, The Green Team, and Gotham Academy alumni. The Terror Titans and their meta-human fighting rings would present worthy conflict for the team.

Bunker (Miguel Barragan) will take the psychological barriers that he’s internalized and literally throw them in your face, brick by brick. He defines his own barriers, makes them true…and then tears them down when he gets bored.

The Signal: Duke Thomas just knows what he needs to be doing; exposing injustice, inconsistencies, and lies; shining a light on what others might overlook.

Bolt (Alinta) sprints away from her trauma filled past. Ever looking forward and never quite settled, she throws herself into her new identity before properly dealing with the betrayals of her past.

Blue Jay II (Jack Abrams): His father (Jay Abrams) is an avian, size-changing, multiversal traveler. His mother is a deserter of the Thanagarian special forces. Together they’re an unlikely couple who found love and hid it away in the heart of America.

Indigo (Brainiac 8): For the fourth time she has pieced herself back together. This time however, she chooses to exercise her creator’s hold over her in the process. Will it take? Can she be trusted? Yeah. She’s actually a pretty decent person.

Red Devil (Eddie Bloomberg) chose to change his physical form to better match how he felt on the inside, and he has zero patience for the shame you lobe his way. He does have a sense of humor about it though.

Chlorophyll Kid (Ral Benem) is a joke in the future, the 31st century to be exact, but he’s willing to put in the work to change that opinion. While searching for other plant elementals to guide him and to grow his power, he instead finds a whole community willing to nurture him.

Stitch sees the wider view of things, how it all comes together…but how do they fit into that grand design?

[theggning]

Perfect timing for me to ask you this: what's your thoughts/opinions on Deacon?

It's always a good time to ask me to tl;dr, friendo, I love never shutting up, ever.

Ah, Deacon. The man of mystery, the liar, the Railroad's number one agent (though he'd rather you not believe it.) Everybody's favorite egg in shades. I really like Deacon. He's hilarious, handy in a fight, his voice acting is phenomenally fun, and has a lot of wise things to say about the lies people tell you to make you act in their interest.

Of course, Deacon's main character trait and personality is that he lies constantly. He is, admirably, upfront about the fact that he's a liar, and doesn't expect anyone to trust him. Sometimes his lies are clearly meant to be a joke. Sometimes they're a test, to teach the Sole Survivor a lesson about spycraft. But when it comes down to it, Deacon doesn't lie about important things, or things that will get someone in danger. He lies, with varying degrees of believability, so that when he *needs* to lie, nobody will know whether or not to believe him. He disguises himself, often poorly, so that when he *needs* to disappear, nobody will spot him.

But the thing Deacon lies about the most is himself. As with all the Railroad agents, his name is a pseudonym. He lies about being a synth (he isn't) and going places and seeing things. He lies about escapades he's been on and missions he's run. Even his appearance is a lie, as he admits he undergoes surgeries to change his face every so often. Every one of his affinity conversations ends with a charisma check revealing that he was lying.

And lies are all that you get from Deacon, until you reach his final affinity conversation. There, Deacon, unusually emotional and distraught, confesses that in his youth, he was a member of a gang called the University Point Deathclaws-- a hate group that targeted synths. After a particularly brutal murder turned Deacon away from the gang, he met and married a woman named Barbara. But years later, his old gang showed up at their doorstep and murdered Barbara-- as it turned out, Barbara was unknowingly a synth. Deacon proceeded to butcher every one of his former friends-- and impressed by his prowess and believing him to be sympathetic to the cause, he was then recruited by the Railroad.

If you believe that this story, too, is a lie, then we're left scraping for a motive or a baseline or just, anything we can actually use to pin Deacon down as more than a fleeting shadow.

People much more eloquent than me have dissected this reveal and all of their points are good and sourced, and they will do a much better job of it than I could, but in short, I do believe Deacon is telling the truth about his past. Everything from the acting to the expressions on his face to terrible things he confesses about himself point to real, genuine heartache under his usual glibness, and it also provides us a motive, one magical golden key that unlocks the most important facet of Deacon:

This man hates himself.

Deacon absolutely fucking hates himself. He hates his past, he hates his choices, he hates how he used to behave and believe, he hates what it did to the woman he loved. He views his service to the Railroad as atonement, that he also doesn't deserve and never will. Not only does the Railroad necessitate secrecy, making up lies, changing his face, turning himself into a mystery, but it also allows Deacon to pretend to be anybody else but himself (as MacCready ice burns him in one of their exchanges.) He fears that if anyone finds out the truth about him, spots even a small sliver of his real self, they will hate him as much as Deacon does. And he'll deserve it. The only future Deacon sees for himself is to die in service of the Railroad, in service of freeing the synths that he used to hate and victimize, in service of an organization he feels he's completely unworthy of belonging to.

This, I'm sorry to say to his fans, is the actual characterization/meta reason why Deacon isn't romanceable. Deacon hates himself so much that he's unwilling to let anyone know who he really is. He only barely feels comfortable exposing part of his past to the Sole Survivor at the end of the affinity conversations-- a romance would require letting someone in further than that, and Deacon not only refuses, but feels like he doesn't deserve it. Like, I cannot stress enough that in a canon full of companions struggling with self-image and varying degrees of hating themselves, Deacon is the undisputed Grand Champion of hating himself. He has a LONG way to go to finding even the slightest bit of worthiness in himself.

And that's really the sad and poignant part of Deacon. We can believe Deacon is a fun and likable guy with good intentions and a good cause. We can believe that a person can change at heart, can try to make up for their mistakes by doing good things. (I believe it!) But the tricky part is making Deacon believe it-- a man so thoroughly sunk in his own self-hatred that he truly doesn't believe he deserves to be forgiven.

Well, that was kind of a downer, so I'll rattle off some other fun facts about Deacon to close this out...

Deacon seems to be very well-read, with an interest in pre-War literature. OR MAYBE HE'S LYING?!

He is, however, very likely the same person as John D., a Railroad agent mentioned in Desdemona's terminal who came up with the dead drop system, the pyramid structure of secrecy, was the only survivor of an earlier Institute raid on Railroad HQ, and was also instrumental in rebuilding the organization. This raid took place in 2266, over 20 years before the game starts, so it's actually very likely that Deacon is in his 40s or even his 50s.

We all know Deacon (poorly) follows Sole through the early parts of the main quest, but he's been following them a lot longer than that. Deacon discovered the Institute's apparent interest in Vault 111 and theorized there was something inside that they wanted. This led Deacon to stakeout Vault 111, where he apparently sat and watched the doors for some time until the Sole Survivor emerged. (You can find his spot in the trees on a hillside overlooking the Vault doors. There's a chair, a few bottles of water, a sun shade, and the Railsign for "ally" carved nearby.)

And stolen verbatim from the wiki:

At one point in 2275, Deacon was kicked out of HQ by former leader Pinky Thompson because he was "sick of the lying, face-changing son of a bitch," after Deacon had spent a month as a ghoul, which "freaked a lot of people out."

[bigbadredpanda]

Helloo, would it be a possible interpretation that the ideals and mindset that wwx follows is close to the religion and practice of Taoism?

Hello! That’s a fascinating question and I wish I had more knowledge to delve deeper on the subject but I’m a bit more familiar with the philosophy/spirituality part of Taoism than with its religious practices and rites. As always, anyone is welcome to add to the discussion or correct me if I misconstrue something, this is a vast topic and I’m just an interested layperson!

Xianxia in itself is a literary genre rife with references to Taoism: the pursuit of immortality, the internal alchemy to form a golden core, the Taoist exorcisms to drive out evil spirits, Taoist incantations and talismans, etc... But that does not necessarily make cultivators Taoists.

At the heart of Taoism is the philosophy of espousing harmony with nature, with the self, with the Tao. It’s about simplicity, spontaneity, non-attachment to worldly desires. In the introduction of my copy of the Zhuangzi (庄子), one of the main Taoist texts, the translator chooses the hero Yu the Great to epitomise the “going with the flow instead of fighting against the current” attitude dear to Taoists. Yu the Great is a legendary figure whose father, Kun, was tasked by the emperor Shun to protect the country from floods. Kun built barrages and dykes that held momentarily the waters in check but they ended up bursting, causing a flood even more devastating. The emperor banished Kun and entrusted the son, Yu the Great, with the same mission. Yu the Great succeeded by digging canals to help the course of water and let it flow to the sea. Yu the Great is referenced several times in the Zhuangzi and, interestingly, Wei Wuxian himself takes him as a model when he challenges Lan Qiren in the classroom and sows the seeds of what would become the foundation of his demonic cultivation:

魏无羡道：“横竖有些东西度化无用，何不加以利用？大禹治水亦知，堵为下策，疏为上策。镇压即为堵，岂非下策……”

Wei Wuxian said, “Anyway, there are some things that cannot be liberated so why not make use of them? Yu the Great who controlled the waters knew that building barrages to block was ineffective and dredging canals to reroute was the superior method. Suppression counts as blocking, wouldn’t is also be considered ineffective...” (ch.14)

The carefree and unfettered part of Wei Wuxian’s nature does fit Taoist ideals, you even have the opposition of the more Confucian-oriented Gusu Lan Sect and its rigid abidance with rules and ethics. However, Wei Wuxian is at odds with a key concept of Taoism: the principle of non-action (无为 wuwei). It’s not passivity or laziness, it’s letting nature runs its course, letting things fall into place. Wei Wuxian is very much shown to be assertive, even wilful, when his mind and heart are set on one thing. He does not hesitate to take matters into his own hands and jump into action. That’s especially true of his younger self who would rebel instead of do nothing, his older and wiser self after he is reborn is a bit more circumspect and knows when to speak out and when to hold his peace. Non-action is seen as the guiding principle of an ideal ruler, without the interference of government meddling, the state would (hypothetically) flourish on its own. I’ve seen some good meta on both the Chinese and the English-speaking sides of the fandom that makes good arguments that it’s actually Lan Xichen who personifies best this concept (x). Speaking of other characters from MDZS that parallel Taoist parables, Nie Huaisang reminds of the good-for-nothing tree which is praised by Zhuangzi. Because it bears no fruit, no one tore its branches to strip the fruits from them, because its wood is of poor quality, no carpenters cut it down. It is left alone and it is able to live long.

The Tao Te Ching (道德经, Daodejing) expounds three basic virtues called the Three Treasures (三宝): compassion (慈), frugality (俭) and humility (不敢为天下先, lit. ‘daring not to put oneself before others’ or ‘daring not to be first in the world’). The first two are for sure among Wei Wuxian’s qualities but the last one is more contentious, not because he is arrogant or boastful but because he dares setting himself apart. The following analysis in from a commentary of the Taoist text:

The third treasure, daring not be at the world's front, is the Taoist way to avoid premature death. To be at the world's front is to expose oneself, to render oneself vulnerable to the world's destructive forces, while to remain behind and to be humble is to allow oneself time to fully ripen and bear fruit. This is a treasure whose secret spring is the fear of losing one's life before one's time. This fear of death, out of a love for life, is indeed the key to Taoist wisdom. (Ellen M. Chen) 

Wei Wuxian did not hesitate to ‘expose himself’ by being willing to be the first practitioner of demonic cultivation and in the end his downfall was at the hands of ‘the world’s destructive forces’, warmongering rumours and bloodthirsty hostility. Wei Wuxian is also not subject to fear of death, there are a few quotes that exemplify his carefree, devil-may-care mindset:

使我徒有身后名不如即时一杯酒。

Better have a cup of wine here and now rather than leave behind a posthumous good name. (ch.75 & Wei Wuxian’s CQL character song Qu Jin Chen Qing)

The quotation above comes from A New Account of the Tales of the World (世说新语), a collection of various anecdotes that was compiled in the 5th century, fittingly it’s from the “The Free and Unrestrained” (任诞) section.

生前哪管身后事，浪得几日是几日。

Why care about what happens after death while one is alive? Better live life to the utmost while one can. (ch.16)

I’m not sure if this one is a literary citation or not as I haven’t been able to track down a quote with this exact wording but it was very reminiscent to me to a chapter of the Liezi (列子), another Taoist text, attributes the following thoughts to the hedonist philosopher Yang Zhu:

One hundred years is the limit of a long life. Not one in a thousand ever attains it. Suppose there is one such person. Infancy and feeble old age take almost half of his time. Rest during sleep at night and what is wasted during the waking hours in the daytime take almost half of that. Pain and sickness, sorrow and suffering, death (of relatives) and worry and fear take almost half of the rest. In the ten and some years that is left, I reckon, there is not one moment in which we can be happy, at ease without worry. This being the case, what is life for? What pleasure is there? For beauty and abundance, that is all. For music and sex, that is all. But the desire for beauty and abundance cannot always be satisfied, and music and sex cannot always be enjoyed. Besides, we are prohibited by punishment and exhorted by rewards, pushed by fame and checked by law. We busily strive for the empty praise which is only temporary, and seek extra glory that would come after death. Being alone ourselves, we pay great care to what our ears hear and what our eyes see, and are much concerned with what is right or wrong for our bodies and minds. Thus we lose the great happiness of the present and cannot give ourselves free rein for a single moment. What is the difference between that and many chains and double prisons?

"Men of great antiquity knew that life meant to be temporarily present and death meant to be temporarily away. Therefore they acted as they pleased and did not turn away from what they naturally desired. They would not give up what could amuse their own persons at the time. Therefore they were not exhorted by fame. They roamed as their nature directed and would not be at odds with anything. They did not care for a name after death and therefore punishment never touched them. They took no heed of fame, being ahead or being behind, or the span of life."

The myriad creatures are different in life but the same in death. In life they may be worthy or stupid, honorable or humble. This is where they differ. In death they all stink, rot, disintegrate, and disappear. This is where they are the same. [...] The man of virtue and the sage die; the wicked and the stupid also die. In life they were Yao and Shun [sage-emperors]; in death they are rotten bones. In life they were Jie and Zhou [wicked kings]; in death they are rotten bones. Thus they all became rotten bones just the same. Who knows their difference? Let us enjoy our present life. Why should we worry about what comes after death?” (A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Wing-tsit Chan)

It’s quite a long extract so I highlighted the most relevant parts that echo Wei Wuxian’s ideas and in particular his motto in life:

是非在己，毁誉由人，得失不论 。

Right and wrong are decided by oneself, praise and condemnation depend on others, gains and losses are insignificant. (ch.75)

This is for me the defining quote of the novel that encapsulates the overarching theme of the story. This sentence is so popular that it’s the go-to quote on Wei Wuxian-related merch and it also features on the cover of the book in simplified Chinese.

We find in the Yang Zhu chapter of the Liezi the same ‘carpe diem’ attitude, the nonchalance about death, the disregard of social conventions and the futility of reputation. Nevertheless, Yang Zhu does not exactly have a place with other Taoist thinkers as he promotes acting in self-interest, a form of ethical egotism that does not take heed of other people’s benefit. The translator from the extract above calls it ‘negative Taoism’. As we are well aware, Wei Wuxian has a much more benevolent and altruistic outlook:

我娘说过的，你要记着别人对你的好，不要去记你对别人的好。人心里不要装那么多东西，这样才会快活自在。

My mom said that you should remember the kindness you received from others and not the kindness you gave. That's the only way to find happiness and be free as the heart can only carry so much. (ch.113)

Wei Wuxian’s life philosophy is about remembering the good you've been granted and keep giving without expecting anything in return. If you let yourself to be fettered by bad memories, if you dwell on the past, negative feelings like anger and envy will take roots in your heart. It takes great courage and integrity to be able to move on from painful experiences without holding grudges and retain the ability to greet the future with a smile.

These themes remind me of the lyrics of the song Enlightenment (悟) from the film Shaolin,《新少林寺》, it’s a moving song that draws a lot from Buddhist influences:

为何君视而不见 规矩定方圆

Why do you look without seeing and let conventions decide the rules?

悟性 悟觉 悟空 心甘情愿

I open my heart, coming to my senses and awakening to emptiness

放下 颠倒梦想 放下云烟

Let go of your confused dreams, let go of the things fleeting like mist

放下 空欲色 放下悬念

Let go of idleness, desire, pleasure, let go of the trouble weighting your heart

多一物 却添了 太多危险

One thing more adds too much danger

少一物 贪嗔痴 会少一点

One thing less and vices will be alleviated [lit. ‘greed, aversion, delusion’, the Three Poisons in Buddhism]

唯有 心无挂碍 成就大愿

Only with a heart without worries can your wishes be accomplished

唯有 心无故 妙不可言

There is no greater marvel than an unburdened heart

This ended up to be such a long-winded and maybe inconclusive answer but to me, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, have all deeply shaped Chinese customs, ideas and culture with sometimes no clear boundaries where one begins and the other ends. Wei Wuxian’s ideals, his free-spiritedness and his probity, are reflected in these different schools of thoughts and spiritual currents but there is not a single all-encompassing one that matches him to a tee. In the end, what perhaps defines him best is his name that befits his nature, Wei Ying, the guileless innocence of a child, someone who can cheerfully go through life with a clear conscience and an unburdened heart.

[helena-thessaloniki]

Hi Helena! Big fan of your writing here🥺♥️ Your rivamika fics are my safe space 😭 (if you have time to answer) i’d love to know when you first started shipping them, why, and what made you continue to love this ship (or anything else to do with your journey as an RM shipper)? i love your characterisation of both levi and mikasa individually, but even more so, your portrayal of their dynamic as a couple, which is why i wanted to ask so badly ☺️ x

Hey anon! Oh woah, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, oh god, you probably shouldn't have handed me the mic. heh 😅

I’m afraid to look at the word count of this response, I’m sure it’s much more than you bargained for, but I appreciate the question and enjoyed thinking through my response (: Most importantly, I’m so glad you find my stories as a safe space. It’s really an honor. Thank you for sharing with me 🖤🖤

TL; DR As a longtime reader, writer and lover of stories and story-telling, by being someone who pays attention to how stories are crafted and deliberately developed from beginning to end, I sincerely thought Isayama was setting up rivamika as an endgame relationship. So, I read into and interpreted meaning out of ALL their interactions and became deeply invested.

I don’t necessarily ship them cause of the parallels, age gap, enemies to lover trope, height difference, or some of those common reasons and/or kinks. I’m more basic and boring than that. I love the concept of them coming together as though it’s inevitable.

They both are unbelievably strong, selfless, and have suffered so much loss— so, no one else could truly understand them as well as they can understand each other. They both probably would have always settled for a stable, simple life, and been alone and lonely even without realizing it— instead, they find each other, and realize what it means to actually no longer be alone, to do more than just survive. It’s this understated bond, as opposed to a dramatic and passionate romance, that I envision in them and that I love so much.

Then, the passion, heat, the romantic "spark"— I think that’s an added bonus, the cherry on top, the perfect final puzzle piece. They’re both so physically capable, can speak through their actions, and don’t show much need or capacity for emotional/ verbal communication, so the ability to connect with each other through physical intimacy and mind-blowing sex seems like another given.

Still, at the end of the day, for me it comes back to their ability to fully depend on each other, to the inevitability. Not like some soulmate trope where they 'have no choice' in it, but like the stars aligned to prove it's right. How each of them have only one other person on the whole planet who could see and understand them, to be on par with them, to make them realize there’s more to life than settling and surviving, and they happen to find it in each other.

You asked, I rambled 😅 Here’s a breakdown of my thought process in my rivamika journey. For those who make it to the end or want to skip to the end, I'll finish with the excerpt of the very first rivamika scene I felt compelled to to write.

I've tried before to re-watch and remember the exact scenes, exact moments, that initially captured my full attention, but I guess it was all of them, the gradual and cumulative compilation of their earliest interactions.

Mikasa always appearing cool and indifferent, and paying no attention whatsoever to others fawning over, like Jean initially falling for her, but then her strongly reacting over Levi in the courtroom showed how uniquely capable he was at getting under her skin.

Of course, the scene in the forest chasing the Female Titan was a critical one. I think of that as the first time both Levi and Mikasa were truly able to see the other's strength, mental and physical. And for them, orphans and trauma survivors who have suffered extensive loss, I think that seeing strength in another person made them feel less alone. Less alone in a deep, quiet but cataclysm, life-altering sort of way, even if not a romantic one. Like they didn't know it was something they didn't have, something they didn't expect to get from life, but then found it with each other.

(Even when we found out Levi was an Ackerman, I was disappointed if it meant they were immediate relatives, but willing to accept it wouldn't be a romantic end to loneliness, it would be a familial end to loneliness. But... the author never explored that. Not once.)

In that forest scene, manga and anime, the way that Levi pauses to really look and see Mikasa and think about who she is, what she’s gone through, and how strong and dedicated she is now— that was a defining moment. It was also a visual demonstration of Levi breaking character, from aloof and ruthless, to considering and curious. I thought Yams was showing both of them do that on purpose.

Then, Levi getting hurt because of Mikasa in that scene felt like another clue. Sure, it was while saving Eren, and sure, it could have been meant to humanize super-soldier Levi, or sure, it could have been another aspect of how Mikasa rushing into things over Eren ends up hurting other people that later changes in her character development, but it felt like a very pointed statement about Mikasa being a vulnerability for Levi. And that's swoon-worthy, right? Most of us have been exposed to and conditioned by stories about how special and romantic it is to be the one and only girl who can make an otherwise disinterested or unattainable guy actually pay attention to her, and so admittedly I fall right for it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty, but the opening of season 3 felt like confirmation. When Levi figures out Kenny's behind things and entrusts Mikasa with instructions to share with the others, instructions about fighting people instead of titans that ultimately everyone else besides her struggles with, and when Mikasa lets Levi hold her back from chasing after Eren, her most important way of trusting and having faith in Levi, I honestly took that as cues from the author that rivamika was endgame. I let myself get truly invested from then on. That’s that understated bond I was referring to. To me, that unspoken but undeniable trust is the most important dynamic.

Seeing them fight together or fight similarly has always been fun and powerful and fulfilling.

I'm newer to the snk club. I was originally an anime-only fan and started watching in fall 2019, I think. I wasn't on tumblr, twitter, or anything else to see fandom discourse. So, I didn't know that the rooftop scene of Mikasa fighting Levi over the serum was such a staple for our ship until much later. I love the scene just like many do for all the reasons we do, but I don't think the actual scene was pivotal for me, so much as it's aftermath. I thought it represented two things.

One, it was an important marker in Levi's characterization. Hands-down one of the most striking scenes to me is the one where Levi is in the alley, somber and alone, listening in on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa talking together. It artfully shows his longing for hope and connection. So, when Levi chose Armin for the serum, that represented Levi choosing hope. And when Mikasa ultimately gave up fighting Levi and didn't choose Armin, which Armin finds out about later on, I see that as an important marker in Mikasa's development. It puts a wedge between her and Armin/Eren [Armin, because he knows she would have let him die, and Eren, because Armin is too special to him and he couldn't look at her the same way after realizing she would have let him die]. That distance between her and her childhood friends is one I don't think could ever be healed completely, one of those painful lessons in growing up. By doing that, it then also puts a distance in Mikasa's own childhood self to her current self. I thought that matured her and separated her out in a way that was another clue toward eventual rivamika developments.

That's a whole other conversation on Mikasa, but I’ll stay on track. Her love for Armin was absolutely authentic and fierce, but at the end of the day, at the core of her being, she chose survival over hope. Meanwhile, Levi chose hope over survival. To me, that was soft, fertile ground for the reasons why eventually, if/when Mikasa found hope and chose hope, that could directly tie together with her inevitably in coming together with Levi. Again, less butterflies and fireworks, but more natural and in a way that was just a given.

I wrote Beyond the Walls before reading the manga from the Marley Arc and on, so that's why most of that story is her journey into embracing that hope. *manga spoilers* There's a lot of meta, criticism and talk about Mikasa's silent, off-screen and subtle style of character development in the Marley Arc and afterward. I won't go down that road, I'm still processing the end of the manga to be honest, but I think it's fair to say she does eventually end up choosing hope over survival when she lets go of Eren and saves humanity instead. I love the “Stay with Me” line and think it’s perfect; a simple but profound display of trust and their deep-rooted bond in a really understated way. *end manga spoilers*

Here's something I always wanted to talk about in full but haven't. It honestly reads to me like Yams was building toward rivamika, and didn’t do anything to stop that until too late. There are tools authors can use to ensure we stop shipping a pair or start shipping a new one; love triangles are commonly used in every artistic medium and we’ve all been persuaded by these tools. But Yams didn’t use these tools to make sure readers didn’t feel convinced by rivamika. For all the reasons I listed above, more I'm forgetting, and for the following:

If he wanted us to think they were family and it would be incest, he should have added in a conversation between them realizing they were (close) family and that they weren't the only ones left in their biological family like they thought. But he didn't.

If he wanted us to think it was completely inappropriate between a child-and-adult and student-and-teacher, then he could have done something to ensure Mikasa looked childish or Levi looked older, but no. They barely look ten years apart. I do think it's unacceptable and that there's a power imbalance between a child-and-adult relationship regardless of that, and that there can't be true consent when one is a superior and another a subordinate, so I personally age-up Mikasa in my head and try to handle his position of power responsibly in my writings... but the point being, by the end of canon, there's no inappropriate or non-consensual romance between them, yet there's a lot of history and chemistry that could naturally lead to an age-appropriate and consensual relationship. If Yams didn't want us to think so, he could have made it more clear that there were reasons it wouldn't happen.

The only thing that makes sense to me is the author planned on rivamika endgame but was shamed/pressured out of it (either internally or due to others) OR that the author somehow accidentally created such vibrant chemistry and an incredible dynamic between them. Like, he didn't put enough convincing substance of eremika in, didn't make Levi look old enough, didn’t have one of them do something unforgivable in the other’s eyes, etc. Those are some of those tools he could have used. Romance was never a key component in snk. And since we now know Yams planned or needed eremika endgame for sake of plot and the conclusion of the manga, I personally think he didn't know what to do with the riveting rivamika substance and chemistry being much more convincing to readers. Once he had them so well built-up, maybe the only option he felt he had was to just stop putting the characters together. We get little-to-no rivamika interaction, platonic or practical, after season 3 all the way up until the very end. But there was so much of it beforehand ?? So, it simply doesn't make sense. I think the author just straight-up cut any and all interactions out between them because it was too convincing and moving, more convincing and substantial than eremika. But, as the end of canon shows, we needed to have some eremika buy-in. It's messy writing and unskilled in the romance department, but considering for how long and how complicated snk has been in a creative process and how lackluster the eremika romance (the main and apparently pivotal romance) is developed, I think it’s plausible to say the author effed up.

As far as writing fanfiction goes, there's just so much room to explore them. In canon, we aren't given enough insight into their individual perspectives, let alone their dynamic together, so it feels like a blank canvas to work from. I think that's part of why I love to write them, and also why I don't necessarily read much of them. When I first started shipping them while watching the anime, I read a few of the classics that were canon-verse, but I haven’t really read much since. For me, exploring and discovering them as a writer is the most fun. (It's one of the reasons Naruto and Harry Potter have such large fanfiction collections. There's so much world-building and so many characters, but there's also so much left to the imagination.)

In general, I'm drawn to strong characters, especially women, who are multidimensional enough to be real, vulnerable and soft. Mikasa is the pinnacle of that. I don’t necessarily like to write about her love or infatuation with Eren, but I do respect and admire and consider it integral to her character and her amazing capacity to love. We can have strong, kickass women who falter when it comes to love but are still considered strong for it. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and Mikasa is a beautiful example of that.

And Levi is strong, but real and vulnerable too; he’s honestly a fantastically developed character, from Petra explaining to Eren in the beginning how he’s not the amazing hero he’s painted to be to the public, to how Levi genuinely cares for Erwin and others and chooses hope despite all he’s suffered.

The end of the manga wrecked me a bit. Kind of like Games of Thrones. You have something that was so epic and well-done for so long, a rushed ending that isn't immediately sensical and isn't fulfilling is hard to stomach. Eventually, I'll move on from the denial of that and process what I think and feel about it. The whole reason we have fanfiction is to expand on canon, but it's made me put rivamika on the back burner until I figure it out. So I'm a little less hyper-fixated on the pairing right now even though interacting with you all and asks like this remind me what brought me here in the first place. 😊

To conclude, I’ll share that the very first rivamika content I wrote was a compilation of moments I thought could be inserted into season 3. These are still moments I plan to edit and publish one day. For anyone that actually read this far, I’ll put a rough and unedited excerpt of the first scene I ever wrote about them.

Thank you again anon 🖤😊

BEGIN EXCERPT [after the rooftop fight for the serum, immediately following the ceremony where Eren touched Historia by kissing her hand]:

Part of her was embarrassed at such a flagrant act of disobedience to a superior, especially to one who saved her and countless others' lives in the past. But mostly, she was anguished by the situation Captain Levi put her in once he revoked the serum meant to save Armin and planned to use it on Commander Erwin instead. Her current ostracization and self-loathing was not entirely her own fault. Anger she felt toward herself was just as easy to wield against him.

It must have shown in the grit of her teeth or defiant tone, because he turned to look at her, more aloof than curious.

Like a flint struck to steel, it ignited the fury she felt toward him.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just killed you,” she answered him at last, piercing him with eyes darker than the night.

He wasn’t concerned. “You’re good, but not that good.”

Her hands fell to her side, fists clenched as she stood with a single, fluid movement. Before she could let loose a threat, he sighed.

“What’s the problem, Ackerman?” He was dismissive, his shoulders relaxed and posture loose.

The fire too furious to contain, she went sailing for him with the same speed from the battlefield. Her fingers already curled, she tightened her grasp as she swung her fist into his gods-damned apathetic face.

Levi wasn’t unprepared. He easily side-stepped her, then snatched her wrist to steal her momentum. Though he tried to toss her aside, she was no less fast; Mikasa dug her heel in and spun, her other arm shoving hard into his chest.

Too graceful to stumble, Levi used the chance to hook her second arm too. He caged both her wrists in a grip so strong, she was sure it bruised her bones. Still, he only looked at her warily, almost bored.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful? I chose Armin.” If his reminder was meant to ease her anger, it had the opposite effect.

Fury and desperation gifted her additional strength. She shoved into his chest hard. Levi shifted backward, nearly forced into loosening his grip; within that split second of an opening, Mikasa slammed her elbow into his chin, rocking his head backward.

“You did,” she seethed, but as fast as the fire inside her exploded, it was doused. Her next words came out broken and damp. “But I didn’t.”

Levi remained stern and otherwise unmoving as he attempted to flex his jaw through the spasm of pain. As the momentum of the fight died down, he loosened his hold on her wrists and evaluated her distraught frame.

Mikasa immediately released her own hands and turned away from him, eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed as she focused on the stars ahead. Admitting the harsh words aloud hurt her far more than any injury she could inflict onto him.

Not only was Armin one of the only friends she had, but he’d been a steadfast one throughout almost all she could remember of her life. After the trauma of her childhood, it was Eren and Armin who embraced her, whom she learned to love. Now, though, there was a wedge between her and Armin she was not sure could ever be removed. What was worse, as deplorable and selfish as she knew it proved her to be, was the painful wedge it now put between her and Eren too.

Once again, she found Levi standing at the peripheral of her sight, close enough to see but far enough to be a blur at the edge of her watery vision.

“You almost killed me.” Levi repeated his earlier words, but he said them with an odd bite, torn between frustration and patience. “You would have killed me to save him.”

Too late, Mikasa realized he hadn’t meant these words as an accusation, but an odd form of validation. She bit her bottom lip, teeth puncturing too hard; the tang of metal was sharp on her tongue when she swallowed blood.

“You thought about letting your closest friend die,” Levi said quietly, tiredly. “But I did let mine die. I left him for dead, when I could have saved him.”

Mikasa was startled from her selfish reverie, for the first time acknowledging the sacrifice he made on that fateful afternoon. She’d been too absorbed in her own relief, and then, her own regrets to consider what the decision had done to him.

For a brief moment, she considered turning to face him, but the stark reality of the matter made her refrain. How could she feel pity for his loss, when his loss enabled her gain? An uncomfortable knot tightened in her stomach.

“Tch,” Levi sighed. He was only one notch less taciturn, but for him, that was soft. “You’ll live with your guilt, and I’ll live with mine.”

His words granted Mikasa’s tears the permission to spill. She buried her face further into her scarf, both hands trembling at the worn threads. As quietly as he arrived onto the roof, Levi disappeared from it.

.

.

It was rare for him to indulge in alcohol or celebrations, but Erwin’s absence felt more tangible than his presence ever did. Levi distracted himself with the chaos of the few remaining Scouts that Erwin had died entrusting his legacy to, and attempted to drown the pain with whatever drink Connie Springer shoved into his hands.

He found Hanji with their ale long-forgotten about on the table as they half-stood from their seat, frantic while explaining some morbid experiment in great, vivid detail to an unsuspecting and slightly horrified MP officer.

Though Levi wordlessly took the seat beside them, Hanji paused their rant to slap him hard on the back, an enthusiastic greeting flying from their drunken lips. The MP took this chance to excuse himself, a pathetic attempt at politeness, but Hanji either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

“Ah, Levi,” they smiled at his drink, though it didn’t entirely reach their one eye. “Where you been?”

Levi didn’t answer. “You know, shitty-glasses, you’re even more unbearable about your experiments when you’re drunk.”

Hanji waved dismissively and reached for their ale. Years spent in battle and command together had gifted both of them with an eased familiarity, and sometimes, genuine friendship. In the same manner he ignored their question, Hanji ignored his lack of response and went on with their original inquiry.

“Careful, Captain,” Hanji warned lightly. “Now that there’s far fewer Scouts, you having a favorite might cause some division.”

Even though Hanji meant the words, there was a glint of mischief that twinkled in their remaining eye.

“It’s not favoritism,” Levi countered bluntly, turning his vision toward the young man on the far side of the room. “Eren is simply the best chance that we have in this war.”

Hanji laughed as if he’d made a joke and Levi looked back to stare at them, unable to be surprised at their quirks or oddities any longer, but still a touch curious about what spurned this current demonstration.

“I wasn’t talking about Eren,” Hanji said at last, a pointed nod toward his injured chin.

Levi blinked. He didn’t realize he was nursing his injury with the hand not on his drink. As though it were too hot to touch, Levi dropped his hand.

Hanji was not judgmental, nor inquisitive. In a war-torn life of losing too many cadets entrusted to him, the fact that Levi found a soldier with the strength and skill to remain safe was not only rare, but worth special attention. Still, it made him too lenient.

“Sometimes I think you’d let her get away with murder,” Hanji chided halfheartedly.

When he thought of Erwin dead in his grasp, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he already had.