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basket-of-radiants · 8 months

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Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement.

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different.

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world.

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

#i'm going to be super nice and not put this post in any of the respective character tags #you're so welcome #i don't even know what to tag this as no one actually blocks ''long post''#i could tag it as discourse but my discourse tag is usually reserved for moash posting #also i genuinely am happy to read discussion about any of these points #i can't guarantee i'll reply to all of it but i welcome good faith disagreements (or agreements i suppose.)#except for my points about gavilar #try to argue with me there and i will make fun of you sorry #i should fully reactivate this blog but JUST for gavilar posting #preemptive faq response - q: why is this so long please put this under a cut. a: it's literally your fault for following me.

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bonebrokebuddy · 2 years

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Choked on my soul reading your wip thing booster gold being a Tiktok star I beg of you to elaborate

okokok. this is the lighthearted section of a fic concept that deals with the potential political impact and position Booster would have gained & lost as a result of him trying to get the most attention possible. But it backfires, causing him to lose most of his notoriety & alienating the fanbase he previously had. Thus landing him in the position where he is generally in the comics of desperately trying to regain the fame and status he once had & trying to make up for the lost money via so many fucking brand deals.

Because to me, that shit is fascinating and it would also be hilarious to see Booster as a "was been" famous influencer and highlighting his antics when he was in full popularity vs where he ended up after it all went down, would be very interesting. So if you want to know more about that side of this idea, please feel free to send in another ask about it!

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Do you think Booster Gold would be great or horrible at social media/TikTok? Because the guy is from the future. He most likely has a sense of humor that is very different from modern standards & knows about centuries of media and pop culture references that do not exist yet. He’s from the 25th century. That’s four centuries of time for humor, language, and entertainment to evolve. But do you think Booster Gold would be great or terrible at social media/TikTok with his future sense of humor that’s riddled with slang, pop culture references, and idiots or sayings referencing events that have not happened yet? Because I think he would make a fuck ton of trends & be very notable online. Mainly because he’d deliberately copy online viral hits that haven't happened yet and essentially is stealing ideas from people in the future. Because he’d absolutely do that to gain notoriety. And people would be fascinated with this weird dude online who simultaneously knows Jack And Shit about literally any modern media but somehow has the most advanced humor online. He’s constantly referring to things that don’t exist and his little robot behind him chirps up that “that film was made in the 23rd century, it hasn’t been made yet.” The younger generation would be fascinated by this superhero. I also bet the fucking merch line he would have would be either the blandest corporate thing ever made by a team he hired or he'd make it a gimmick of slapping a specific logo of his face on everything he owned to the point where it became a meme and people demanded merch of the shitty design. There would also be about a bajillion different plushie versions of Skeets though and I would totally buy all of them if I could. And here's the thing. Humans Love to see other humans fumble through things that we perceive as common knowledge because it's charming and funny the way they mess up, misunderstand how something works, and are delighted when they finally get the hang of it or find out how it actually works. Sure, it's fun to watch someone who is really good at something. But I also think it's very fun to watch someone who has zero fucking clue what they are doing and are trying their best to find it out as they go.

There would absolutely be a compilation of all the times Booster was super excited after he found out that something very mundane existed: "Guys, I have wonderful news. I just found out that the Cavendish banana isn't extinct yet due to them being genetically selected to grow seedless so much that new plants could not be grown as there are no seeds and the existing plants got slowly being destroyed by a parasite! I forgot that they still were around in the early 21st century! So I'm going to try one for the first time!" Michael Jon Carter, aka Booster Gold, aka @/GoldstarNotBoosterGold then directly proceeded to bring the unpeeled banana up to his mouth and bite directly into it.

He then proceeded to eat the entire banana in this fashion, his face visibly scrunching in distaste with every bite, very clearly not enjoying this endeavor. When he was done he looked off into the distance for a moment, compiling his next words, "Hm, honestly not bad. Kind of bland but I really wish the skin wasn't so tough. Makes sense that 21st-century fruits would be more of a hassle to eat. But overall, I'd give it a 5/10." Needless to say, the three-minute-long video became viral overnight and he became quickly well known online for saving people and being a hero, making bizarre TikToks with his sense of humor from the future, giving out free merch with a horribly compressed image of his face on it, and for trying out food, activities, media, video games, and etc. from the past and reviewing them.

And here’s the thing. Booster Gold is Not super subtle about wanting to be famous/get popular but like, that makes him actually more liked. At first this causes people to flood his comments and media with negative responses about how he’s “not a real hero” if he doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart via comparing him to figures like Superman and how he’s a fraud hero.

His response gets plastered all over every news site imaginable. (oh god now I'm imagining what YouTube apology videos would be like in the 25th century)

He responds very directly that “Yes. I am doing this for the fame and money.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“It seems kind of weird to assume that nobody has an ulterior motive when being a hero. Some heroes help people out of the goodness of their heart but that’s an unrealistic standard to place on heroes. I’m constantly putting myself into danger and could die any mission. Is that not enough to prove that I’m a hero? Why do I also have to have this weird high moral standard that is super unreasonable?”

“Also, people seem to forget, this is my job.”

“I do not have another one. Making online content is how I get my money. I don’t get paid by the government or the Justice League. Just by what I earn from my videos and streams. Plus, everything is so outdated that the effort of adapting to what a “normal” job in the 21st century is like would take forever. And yall seem to forget this a lot, but having a normal job would mean I would not be able to help anyone between 9-5. I need the flexibility that an online job like this gives me so I can help as many people as possible as I can without having to worry about being fired because I had to fix a time rift and had already used up all my sick days.”

“People criticize me for heavily promoting my merch and gaming the algorithm but people seem to not realize. Heroing is expensive. You think repairing technology from the future is easy with such outdated equipment?”

“Sourcing materials that don’t have synthetic equivalents yet is not cheap.”

“People don’t seem to understand how much money goes into maintaining equipment or the constant medical bills.”

“I have to promote it hard and keep my views up or else I won’t be able to help people anymore. I can’t help people if I can’t pay rent.”

“But hopefully I’ll be able to get enough money to make a company to have other’s take over the job for me so I can retire. That’s just how businesses work. “

“But, I will say that the 21st century has been so cool and it’s been so fun to been to be able to experience things I would have never been able to when I’m from and I wanted to share my experiences with other people even if they don’t really understand where I’m coming from. It’s been very nice to be able to get paid by people who like my videos and are entertained by me fumbling through what it’s like living in the 21st century. “

“But while I like helping people, is it really too much to ask to be paid for my job? This is not the first time I’ve expressed my reason to travel back in time to become a hero was to be able to start his own company and eventually retire. Is it not enough that I’m still a hero? I could just quit that and make making content my full time job? Did you ever think of that? I could just stop being a hero because I now can make rent. But I still put on the suit and help fight bad guys because I want to do good. I also don’t think it’s inhuman for me to want to be acknowledged that I did something good. People are selfish creatures. I deserve to want for people to acknowledge that I looked really cool after defeating a villain! I don’t think that’s too unreasonable.”

“Anyways, make sure to like, subscribe, and ring that bell!”

“My Twitter and Instagram is BoosterGold. Go follow me on Tiktok and Twitch at GoldstarNotBoosterGold. My second channel is BusterGold”

“And make sure to check out the new merch drop on Friday! You guys have been asking for a Skeets plushie and its almost here!”

“Booster Gold, signing off from the future!“

From then on after the video, he just amps it up and is super direct that he’s doing this as his job and for the sole purpose to make money & get more well known.

Like he’ll open up a tiktok or youtube video occasionally with “this is trending and you know me, I’m always ready to cash in on those views” and “I’m not usually a horror guy, but I’ve been seeing a lot of people play this game and you all think its fun to watch me shit my pants. But at least the ad revenue will let me buy a new pair”.

It actually ends up having people like him more (there are definitely still some critics don’t get me wrong). But people see him as incredibly human. His obnoxious branding becomes a meme and just something to expect of Booster. But despite that, he’s genuinely a good guy and will drop everything if he sees someone in need.

He’s much more relatable and human than the other god-like beings in the JL. He has videos of him talking about money struggles and rambling about how damn expensive it is to fix equipment that’s four centuries out of date and people relate and laugh at his frustration.

Other videos about him contain him complaining about his medical bills (in the future the US has a Single-Payer healthcare system and the Medical Insurance industry is abolished. and the history books didn't accurately emphasize how much of a pain in the ass it was) and setting stream goals to pay off bills. He talks about things that people never heard heroes talk about before from their perspective:

- A stream where Booster cleans out the food in the fridge after being off-world for a month and now all his food has gone bad.

- Booster asking for advice how to grocery shop because nearly all of the brands that make the snacks and foods he wants, haven’t been founded yet. And asking advice on what prices for food is normal because the difference in inflation

- Booster asking questions about modern etiquette to his followers because those have definitely changed over 4 centuries.

- “Guys how the fuck do you navigate anything online? The layout of all of them is fucking awful! Has that law about standardizing format to cancel subscriptions not been made yet? Because it sure as hell seems like it!”

- A tweet of Booster in the hospital with about a bajillion things attached to him posing with a thumbs up with the caption “I might’ve broken all of my bones but at least they didn’t touch my handsome face”

- The first few times Booster mentions going to physical therapy or doing PT exercises his fanbase goes “Holy shit, I never realized superheroes would have to go to PT after getting injured.” Like, they saw heroes getting injured but it didn’t click in their heads that those injuries would have actual repercussions. To the viewers, it seemed like the heroes always bounced back. And they’re just now realizing that that’s not the case, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes

- “Dealing with Batman is Just as scary as you’d think. The guy gives me the creeps” (Bruce has 100% worked with booster about spreading rumors about Batman to keep up his reputation so Anything that Michael says about him can only be about confirming rumors that support his reputation or pre-approved stories about Batman being intimidating even outside of fights. Booster does once say that there’s a betting pool in the JL if Bats is a vampire and Bruce was not happy that it wasn’t cleared with him before but it’s been easier to fight goons recently as they’ve been reaching for holy water rather than guns first. Bruce then decides to have Booster keep up these rumors as long as they are actually cleared with him so Bruce can have a firm control over the Batman vampire mythos.)

- “Does Batman go to PT? Pfft, I’ve seen the guy bounce back from every injury he’s ever had with inhuman speed. I swear, it’s like he gets a bullet wound or stabbed and is completely fine the next day!”

- “Oh yeah, Superman is just as nice as everyone says he is! He overheard me talking to Flash once about how I couldn’t find a soldering iron fine enough to fix some of my more intricate gear and he said I can ask anytime if I needed him to use his laser vision to fix my stuff! He’s great.”

- Booster talking about fighting time monsters and being kinda sad that no one can actually see the amount of effort it takes to deal with those issues because if he’s done everything right, there should be no trace anything happened at all.

But his streams can also reveal some of the more… undesirable parts of becoming a hero, namely the gruesome injures, trauma, and seeing friends get brutally injured:

And people realize this through Booster accidentally trauma dumping to his audience and them going “oh shit, I knew doing hero work isn’t easy but this guy needs a fucking therapist”:

- Briefly mentions how weird it was to hold in his guts in after getting injured really badly during a fight.

- (warning there’s a description of a burnt corpse so skip this if you don’t like that): “The dishes have been piling up lately guys. I keep meaning to get to it but it’s just - you remember those burning apartments I had to sort though last week? The, uh, slightly grainy and squishy texture of the food under my fingers keeps reminding me of sorting through those houses and I just haven’t been able to get to it.”

“ I was sorting through the debris, looking for potential causes of the fire. One of the walls was gone and you could see the metal pipes melted into a weird shape, it was kinda cool.”

“But uh, I went to shift what I thought was a burnt piece of furniture out of the way. And when I grabbed it, it like, gave away? sort of? I thought it was going to be burnt wood but the first few layers of the outside crumbled under my touch and flaked away, the non-burnt part way on the inside was still kinda squishy.”

“It, uh- it, turned out to be someone’s arm.”

“The firemen said the person must’ve been crushed under the falling wall and didn’t escape in time. And they just lied there, charred nearly to the bone.”

“The texture just reminds me of that happening and I haven’t been able to do dishes or eat anything with my hands in a while.”

“But anyways guys! I think I’m going to get Beetle to do them when he comes over tomorrow!” (The sudden whiplash of tone definitely gets viewers very concerned because that Cannot be healthy)

——

I also enjoy the concept that people mercilessly bully him online (but with no real ill intent, think Jerma’s fanbase type of bullying and memeing the shit out of the man)

Ted Kord is absolutely a fan favorite. At first he was often visibly in the backgrounds of Michael’s videos all suited up. Then he was the supervisor and behind-the-camera context giver to Booster for the more stupid stunts he did for internet attention and answered questions Booster had about media he reacted to by filling in the meaning of what he was being shown.

People Loved their dynamic and sure enough Booster capitalized the shit out of it by pulling Ted into his videos and having Blue Beetle be the voice of reason & the comedic contrast of “guy who knows how to do things” vs “guy who has no fucking clue what he’s doing. Their “High INT, High STR, Low WIS, Low CHA ” & “High CHA (with permanent disadvantage), High STR, Low WIS, & Low INT” relationship is much loved online.

—

But at the same time, he could also accidentally be the cause of many technological breakthroughs in the 21st century because common knowledge to him would be so absolutely foreign to us as that’s centuries of advancement in the fields of technology, science, engineering, and math between current day and the 25th century. I’d like to imagine he corrects a physics equation with one made in the 23th century that was common knowledge for him, but not so much for the modern century physicist. And now he’s in the media focus for being a superhero influencer online who somehow caused a breakthrough in physics. With the intent of becoming a superhero with the sole purpose of gaining fame & money to eventually form a corporation based around himself to make a comfortable living.

#bones replies #bones writes #dc #booster gold #justice league #blue beetle #ted kord #booster gold and blue beetle are super good bros I love them so much #booster would absolutley gain a dedicated fanbase thats well known for putting the guys face on fucking everything #he would either get a jerma like fanbase or would get like 13 year old gamer nerds and there would be no inbetween #long post #i can’t figure out how to put ‘read more’ on mobile so sorry folks

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biconickyoshi · 27 days

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Energy bending was one of the best decision imo, because we can see the evolution of the 4 elements with it

By evolution of the four elements, do you mean what we see in LoK with how bending worked in Avatar Wan’s time (with the lion turtles using energybending to give people bending)? Or are you referring to the subclasses of bending like metalbending, lighting, spirit projection, bloodbending, etc.?

I personally think there’s a lot of potential with energybending that hasn’t yet been explored. Like is it possible for an energybending Avatar to give nonbenders bending? I don’t know if this has been confirmed or denied yet. Like obviously it can restore bending that has been taken away, but I’ve always theorized that it can’t give nonbenders bending abilities unless the nonbender had latent genes for some type of bending.

This also connects to my theory as to why certain people got airbending post-Harmonic Convergence - I firmly believe that those who got it had airbender ancestry (Bumi getting airbending adds a lot of fuel to this theory due to being a direct descendant of Aang). If both this and my energybending theory are true, that means that prior to Harmonic Convergence, Korra or Aang could have been able to unlock bending abilities in nonbenders.

This also would solve the problem of Aang feeling obligated to have biological children to pass on airbending, because he could just attempt to unlock airbending in worthy Air Acolytes… that would definitely be interesting to explore in the future of my AU.

#asks #sorry this reply ended up being super long lmao #atla #energybending #avatar the last airbender #lok #legend of korra

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insurged · 4 months

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one liner starter call? maybe? (ᵔ◡ᵔ)

#because i literally can't write long things right now #my head hurts so bad LMFAO #i apologize i haven't been here i've been sick #i am getting better though :3c #and i do want to write things but i don't think i can do #long replies at the moment sorry >_<#i'm sorry if you're waiting for asks or starters from me #but if you want to start some interactions right now :eye emoji:#you can either pick the muse or i can pick for you if you don't specify it's all good #* ⟢ 𝐎𝐎𝐂 ━ ( clench your asshole super tight & scream it from your heart )

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coollyinterferes · 2 months

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"Back by unpopular demand:"

"Us!"

#[*trips and falls to the ground like that one pepe frog meme but dramatically explodes into a million pieces instead* hi hi]#[i'll start by apologizing and thanking y'all for your patience bc wheew its been almost 2 months since my last post holy shittt]#[mental health along with intrusive thoughts and stuff have been absolute ass and still are right now]#[not gonna go into much detail bc i'm dealing with tons of bad stuff and negativity but yeah]#[at this point i aint even going to say 'im back!' bc everytime i do some even more terrible shit happens irl so naw]#[i also can't promise thread replies today bc i already know i'll likely not be able to finish any]#[but i will try to at least start working on some of them ;v;]#[other than that please feel free to send in stuff if you wish!]#[i haven't been around in so long that i feel completely rusty and out of the loop rn]#[but i think i'll start with the few asks i was unable to get to last time]#[if you guys who sent them see this: i'm sorry for the super looooong wait and thank you so much for your patience!!! <3]#[hope everyone's having a lovely day/night!!! <3]#;ic #(?#;ooc #(??#[the world will never truly know *x files music plays*]

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aletheialed · 3 months

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Edgeworth doesn't know how Wright does it.

Being a defense attorney is an... utterly thankless job. He's thought to himself on more than one occasion over the past few days that he needs to give Phoenix more credit for everything he does, because he's certainly been seeing him in a new light as of late. It's not like Edgeworth hasn't always been impressed by him, though. To him, Wright is...

...Well. That's a topic for another day. At least Edgeworth's back to acting as a prosecutor again now, and everything's finally settling down. Though whenever he thinks of the danger that Wright was in just a few days ago, almost losing his life... it makes Edgeworth's stomach twist in anxiety, and he can only remind himself that what he should be feeling now isn't fear, but relief.

There is... one other thing, though. Something that's been creeping up on his thoughts, that he's constantly forced to think about even when he desperately wants to pretend it's not there. And that... is the topic of the supernatural. Starting with the moment when he was given the magatama, and ending with him being witness to an honest-to-god spirit channeling... Edgeworth didn't really have the time or opportunity to be shocked back then, but when he thinks about it all now, sometimes it feels like his whole world is being turned upside-down.

Perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but... how else can he describe the feeling of realizing that that everything he thought he knew about the world - how it works, what's possible and impossible - has been a lie? On top of that, it feels like his mind keeps drifting back to the topic even more than it should be, as of late... it's frustrating, and though he won't admit it to himself - there's something more there, too. A kind of fear buried deep inside him. A strange sense of something being unearthed. It's... as if the moment he took that magatama, something awakened inside him that he can't yet understand...

...What ridiculous notions.

"Wright. You know, you really should be resting." While Edgeworth knows that Phoenix was given the all-clear from the hospital a while back, he can't help but say it anyway. "I've had a hard enough time adjusting myself. You're not still carrying that magatama around, are you?"

@lawbnd ( starter! )

#ic #lawbnd #v. mainverse.#c. edgeworth.#THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE NGL......... most fun i've had with a starter in a while honestly #i'm super hyped for this thread!! thank you so much for indulging my dumb supernatural verse concepts ;ww;#and i'm sorry this ended up so long ajsdkjfdfj; no need to match lengths of course.#i'll try and get to the other edgeworth + trucy reply i owe you soon too!

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aralisj · 11 months

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You are the first person I found that also sees autistic trades in Carmy.

Last year after the first season (I loved it so much! I watched it 3 times & some episodes even more often) I even came back to tumblr just for this series, I needed more content!

I saw so much of myself in Carmy, I never before saw a character so much like myself (although I'm a woman, from Europe & not good at anything at all).

All his struggles with other humans, it was like looking into a mirror, seeing myself.

So I got a psychological evaluation for my anxiety and other stuff. After some research I thought maybe I'm autistic. Getting officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder with autistic traits. I still have the feeling I'm autistic and at the same time I feel like an imposter for feeling that way.

Carmy is such a people pleaser, so unaware of how other people see him, his bursts of anger, his fidgeting with the spoon, wearing the same kind of clothes, him not understanding other people except in regards to food. Him getting used and abused by other people (NY chef, his mother and brother, even Richie but with him the punches at least back & does not only take it, take it and take it). Other people have to point out that his relationship with Claire makes her most likely his girlfriend, that reminds me so much of myself when I had to ask my sister if my boyfriend had shown interest in me because I could not say for sure.

And maybe I'm just projecting, but for me it looks like he never looks other people into the eyes just with Sydney (yes I do ship them but I do not mean it like that) and Richie. Maybe it's just me but I do not like to look into the eyes of people I do not know at all/well, it's hard work to do. But it's easier with people I know for longer and I feel safe with. I still let my eyes wander to be able to concentrate better but it's easier to look directly into their eyes. At least I think I'm better with them. Or it's the camera angles fault XD.

In regards to friends, do you think all the connection he does have in the culinary world see him as a friend but he himself does not recognizes them as friendships. For example Luca?

Sorry this is kind of long and I'm rambling. A long text just to say yes I see it too. :)

I had a very similar experience with the show. I watched season 1 twice and I think I'm due for a rewatch quite soon.

During my first watch I didn't really see the autistic traits per se but I definitely related to him. Especially when he talks about routines and being good but completely burnt out at the same time - that was my experience at school.

I started looking into getting professionally diagnosed right about the time when I rewatched and I realized his experience echoed mine especially in the ASD related stuff. I made a post about it, and I believe it really resonated with some people within the autistic community, not just as a headcanon.

I feel you, I haven't gotten my official diagnosis because tests are very expensive. Plus, I'm a woman and I have been masking all my life, so it's hard to get a psychiatrist to believe that you are actually struggling. Maybe there's some overlap with avoidant personality because my psychiatrist has mentioned it a number of times, and it would make sense for Carmy to develop a disorder as a result of his family trauma.

And yes, a lot of his "quirks", the things that make him seem high strung and shy, could also be signs of ASD. I hadn't noticed that he's literally wearing the same clothes all the time but you're absolutely right. The Claire storyline really shows that he doesn't know how to navigate relationships and needs it spelled out by someone else (and honestly, same). He's concerned with being "shitty" but doesn't know when he's being perceived as that and so he asks Sydney to be his gage (my sister is mine)

I think you're right about the eyelines, and I guess it makes sense in the kitchen, since there's always something to do, you can talk with people without looking them in the eye, or taking breaks in between. I like talking while I'm walking or in the car, no eye contact 👌👌👌

You make a good point that he isn't particularly aware of who is his friend and who isn't. When Claire called him and told him that Fak said he was his best friend, Carmy took a second to process and then agreed. He has no idea. And I think that also plays a part in being used by other people - if he doesn't know what friendship or a healthy family relationship looks like, he's going to take it all like that's normal, which is not great

I do believe that Luca and Chef Terry would consider him a friend. They took in one of Carmy's staff, no questions asked, just believing in his judgement. Especially Chef Terry talks about him with a certain fondness that feels very sweet. With Luca, they probably had a more competitive, sort of brotherly thing going on but they ended in good enough terms? I don't know, I'm just guessing.

Thank you for such a thoughtful and generous message! I believed that I would get backlash when I first posted about my feelings on this subject but everyone has been very kind and supportive (not everyone agrees but no one has been rude and I count that as a win lol)

I hope you have better luck getting a diagnosis, and that you get to navigate this chaotic world as easily as possible 💜

#my reply is super long too sorry about that #the bear #the bear fx #carmy berzatto #replies #outofmemory #💜💜💜#the bear meta #autistic carmy

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moongothic · 4 months

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So what are your thoughts on the potential Sandman/Dreams connection between Crocodile and Joy Boy/Nika/Luffy?

I remembered how the Sandman is a character associated with dreams/sleep and suddenly my mind ran wild with the idea.

You know we all like to speculate about Logia Awakenings but could you imagine if Sand Sand Awakening gave Crocodile the ability to put people to sleep or some shit

You know it's funny, despite people calling Crocodile "sandman" pretty often in the fandom I never even thought about that. Whether the fairytale character could actually reflect in Crocodile somehow

I guess it kind of depends on which version of the fairytale you go with though? Like growing up the version I knew of the character was just the cutesy version of a silly little guy who blows magic dust/sand into your eyes that puts you to sleep (the German stopmotion version in specific), and like, if Crocodad Real I'm sure you could get a cute twist out of that (something about Crocodile wanting to protect his son's dreams by any means nececary)

But there's also like, less wholesome versions of the Sandman character, where instead of helping kids sleep, the Sandman punishes children for not going to bed like they're supposed to by stealing their eyes with the sand. And. Well ain't that fucked up. And while it's not quite the same, you could see this in Crocodile too althought in reverse; instead of punishing a child for not dreaming, he attempted to punish a "dreaming child" by "waking him up" into a harsh, cold reality where dreams don't come true.

I'm not sure if Crocodile was meant to be like, intentionally partially inspired by the Sandman- like it's possible considdering he's already like, such an amalgam of characters/etc to begin with (like you got Wagnas from Romancing SaGa 2, Sobek from Egyptian mythology, I'm sure Captain Hook is in there somewhere, Toyotama Hime from Japanese mythology could be there too if Crocodad Real, so like. Sure we could throw the Sandman into the mix too, why the fuck not), but it's definitely not a huge part of the character, at least right now. Like depending on where the plot goes, it could become like a part of his character, who knows, time will tell But in that same sense, I don't quite see how that would tie into/pay off of the God of Liberation. Which also depends on if it's Good Sandman or Bad Sandman- like if it's the Bad Sandman then Luffy liberated people from someone who was stealing/ruining people's dreams (of rain and prosperity, freedom). If it's the Good Sandman then... IDK the Protector of Dreams brought the God of Liberation into the world? I'm sure that's symbolic of something

I dunno, I think it could be an interesting connection but it doesn't put my brain into overdrive with ideas unfortunately

#Moon posting #Asks #OP Meta #Sorry I took so long to get to these I had such a sudden influx of asks and some of them were only gonna be relevant for so long #(Like the most recent asks about chapter 1106. Usually don't skip asks in line but y'know. I only had a week before those became moot)#And then I had to stop procrastinating on work and I can so easily get super lost in thought while replying to these #But point is! I'm gonna try to get through the asks in my inbox finally! Aaaaa

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halfagone · 1 year

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It’s Goku’s signature attack from Dragon Ball, but that was only a spur of a moment thing so you don’t have to write that out, lol.

I was actually thinking of adding DC into the equation? So like, the JL suddenly learn about the situation in Paris and decide to send someone and ask Marinette and Adrien if they need a mentor, imagine their surprise when they regale the league of tales of a hero they’ve never heard of who’s supposedly some legendary god level hero, and then that suprised is doubled when they find out he’s also a teenager!? Shenanigans ensue from there. What do you think?

Yes, I did get that answered, glad someone explained that to me! But still good to know. I think the main issue with adding DC is that you have to include a lot more lore into the equation. Like how DC hadn't heard about this before when other heroes have been to Paris (Tim Drake, for example, went to Paris once and was trained by Lady Shiva and defeated a foe named King Snake). Of course, the JL would have had to find out about the Paris Situation at this point, but it would still need to be explained why they're on just hearing about it. I am unfortunately at a loss for how the direction would go, but I can imagine that there are a lot of hijinks this could cause. Maybe the JL heroes just kinda nod along and then privately they try to ransack all their information and research options to find out more information. It could even be that they know about Phantom! But they're thinking of Danny/Phantom in a different perspective. Like, say, they know Phantom as this go-lucky hero from Amity Park, not this OP bastard that could down the equivalent of demi-gods! There are a lot of funs ways you could go about this.

#halfagone replies #dp x dc x mlb #sorry this one isn't super long #i had my mind set on dp x mlb #and i would have to reorganize my brain to fit dc #XDD

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siphoklansan · 10 months

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Thought cause of your asks... it be funny to imagine what kinda animal Carol would look like to other people, given you said Anan sees people as animals... So little horns and eyes of curiousity work on her. Just thoughts I doodle this for funsies.

Anan thinks it’s rude of him to stare too long- and even comparing Carol to an animal at that!

He does admit that deers are cute, though♡︎

#twst oc #twisted wonderland #༄siphok-chatters༄#☂︎︎siphok-museum☂︎︎#Anan Atthakornmetha༆#AAAAAA IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE DRAWN ANAN #THANK YOU FOR THIS #AND SO SORRY FOR REPLYING LATE—#(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)#so happy i’d get to draw this thooo #carol’s super cute!!

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hopeformankind · 10 months

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Open Starter.

Every kingdom, in itself, needed a man that could be considered a Devil.

A man that could send people to their deaths, carry the weight of unending casualties on their shoulders and still press on without falter. A man that could dig his nails into the very goal he fought for and never let go, not once, for anything else-- a man that could do everything necessary to keep clinging to it.

A kingdom needed a Devil that wore the skin of a human to be able to make the toughest choices that no one would dare make-- it was an ideal situation to have everybody come back alive... but it was never realistic. What was needed was realism, not falsities and lies that could lead to so many being killed just to try to reach that ideal scenario. The Walls, with his Wings of Freedom slathered in the crimson of the lost soldiers, had Commander Erwin Smith of the Survey Corps.

Erwin Smith was a man that many considered to be untouchable and downright unstoppable. He was the one who made the Long-Distance Scouting Formation. He was the one who knew of a possible traitor in their ranks and someone that, too, wore human skin just as he did to slaughter his soldiers. He was the one who continued their advance against the Armored and Colossal Titans to get Eren Jaeger back, the one that exposed the corruption of the nobility and the false King on the throne, the one that executed their plans to kill Rod Reiss's deformed Titan, the one that led their mission to retake Shiganshina.

But, it was at Shiganshina that this all had devolved into insanity.

Young recruits led to die against the Beast Titan, whole squadrons pelted with speeding rocks and the air turning red from the blood mist, dust and smoke and even remnants of flames pluming upward to the cloudy skies as the hot steam of the Colossal Titan, houses completely displaced and left as mere scraps in the remnants of the District. So many casualties. So many screams.

He was a man many wouldn't consider human-- a man who hid his humanity deep down to make the choices that many wouldn't dare try, locked up his emotions and held them tight if it meant using his logic and rationale to calculate what they could of every scenario. And many would say he was a betting man, gambling the lives of everybody as if they were mere pawns-- but he wasn't a man who toyed with the flames of life as if he were God. He wasn't a man that hid behind his soldiers, no. He would always lead the charge-- no matter what, on his white steed as his eyes as solid as ice would survey everything of their situation and guess on what needed to be done next. Despite Erwin's own feelings of himself, he wasn't truly a con-man.

Perhaps he tricked himself into believing his goal was to fight for Humanity-- perhaps he'd lied to himself and believed he lied to others, but when it came to the graduation ceremony and the very end, he spoke the truth to the best of his ability. Casualty rates were high. There was the biggest chance that none of your friends, nor you, would make it back alive. And yet, for some reason, people still joined their cause. And in the end, Erwin refused to let his soldiers die alone-- he joined them right to the very end, and was the first to be struck and trampled in his charge under the hooves of many as he was left lying in the mud. He held not just his own dreams to such level of importance, but the dreams of the collective as a whole. Their faces were still etched into his mind-- and in this moment, as Erwin Smith lied on the bed he'd been originally laid to rest upon by Hange and Levi, he still remembered all of them.

No human should've been able to survive anything like that-- a speeding rock to the body would kill anybody, and it should've killed Erwin. But, for some reason, a Scout that still believed in him that survived the charge had let him live. Maybe it was out of desperation-- maybe it was out of Floch's explanation of what they needed: a Devil, to help lead them, or even out of genuine loyalty to Erwin-- either way, the Commander, left in that abandoned home in Shiganshina was alive. Barely conscious... but alive. Alive, raging against the dying of the light and continuing to keep his nails buried deep in the emptiness of his old cause to try to scavenge for something new.

Only someone as mad as Erwin would try to find the Commander-- the sounds of footsteps creaked through the old home as Erwin's body barely twitched when hearing it. With all of that blood loss, how his guts nearly fell out of him, any man would be left comatose if they somehow miraculously lived, but even so, he still heard things-- the calls of birds, the wind rushing past the buildings-- many things, so this new sound of footsteps going through the abandoned house was easily noticed despite his catatonic state. Erwin's fingers twitched on his chest, his eyes moving in his head as if to try to pinpoint those footsteps, figure out who they belonged to.

Someone had come for him for some reason or another. Perhaps to pay respects-- though he couldn't understand why, with everything he'd done. The bodies of those in his suicide charge had long since decomposed by this time, outside Wall Maria, and those killed by the Colossal Titan were no doubt left as remnants of ashes and soot within the Walls. Maybe Humanity did succeed... but at what cost?

The door creaked open, and the Commander could only brace himself for whoever would enter. His fate was in their hands.

#[ i believe in those who believe in themselves | open starter . ]#//ANYONE CAN REPLY!!!!!#//im SO sorry this is long i just got SUPER inspired and BHUAWH #ask to tag tw #death tw #mass death tw #blood tw #injury tw #graphic injury tw #coma tw #comatose tw #violence tw #long post tw

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