#because the show itself dropped the ball hard enough in that respect for the fandom to do the same

[seyaryminamoto]

hello! I really like your meta about Zuko, and I'm so glad that I finally found a person who also thinks that Zuko in book 3 is a much worse person than he was in the book 1. I always thought that something was wrong with me, since literally no one sees this obvious fact for me! But I would like to ask you: What do you think about Katara in book 3? the fact is that she was my favorite character in books 1 and 2, and the way she was written in book 3 upset me a lot. it seems to me that they spoiled her character, but I can't explain why. Please share your thoughts!

Glad you've enjoyed my extensive meta on the fandom's fave, haha. I did write a lot about him, always nice to know my thoughts on the subject are still deemed relevant.

As for Katara... well, I have thoughts on her, too. My experience with her character is quite similar to yours, I'd say, because I too felt a lot better about her character in the first two seasons of the show compared with the third. I don't usually give this a ton of thought, but after your ask, I figured I'd try and figure out what exactly went down with her that made people like us feel so uncomfortable with Katara's portrayal at multiple points of Book 3...

For starters, I'll say I vibed with Katara a lot when I started the show for reasons beyond her being a great character or being written wonderfully: she could very well have been written mediocrely and I would have loved her anyway simply because I ran away from anime to ATLA in an era where anime kept shoehorning incest undertones into every sibling relationship, even in shows that didn't have that as a core subject. It happened at least twice that I can remember, I kept seeing people raving about shows where it WAS the core of it (I still do not understand the Oreimo deal, like, the minute I read that show's title I puked in my mouth and knew I'd never watch it), and I just needed... safety from that concept, I guess?

So when I went into ATLA, and the first sibling relationship you're exposed to is Sokka and Katara, two siblings who very much act like siblings? I was thriving. It was thrilling. I felt so refreshed that I think I didn't care much about the flaws of Book 1, despite my inability to sense direction for most of it, because thank the universe, it was a sibling relationship that made sense to me!

With that as an opening, I'd say that, initially, I thought Katara was fine for most of Book 1. In Book 2? She fell off the radar for me a bit simply because other characters are introduced that just appeal to me so much more than she does. I vibe better with characters like Azula, who tend to be the type of female character I just LOVE, and with characters like Toph, she's a tomboy, I was a tomboy (... was? x'D maybe I shouldn't use past tense...), so I gravitated much more towards those two by no real fault of Katara's core personality traits. Back in Book 1, there aren't as many main characters, so you don't have a lot of variety to choose faves from. It's not that strange, I think, that once the cast broadens, people's interest in certain characters can scatter too.

But then Book 3 happened, and I just couldn't enjoy Katara outside of episodes where she wasn't that important. The Katara-centric episode of Book 3 stand among my least favorite episodes of ATLA altogether, and among the least likely episodes I'd ever want to rewatch. I literally skipped over The Painted Lady in my first rewatches of the show, every bit as much as I skipped The Great Divide or Avatar Day, both of which annoy me a lot in the first two seasons. The Puppetmaster? Not even close to being an episode I could enjoy. Even the Runaway, that's supposed to be Toph-centric, ends up making me count down the minutes for it to end and I'm not even going to get started on The Southern Raiders and the absolute can of worms that episode is...

So, with all this being said, if we peel this particular cabbage open little by little...

After mulling it over, I've grown to suspect that Katara has major inconsistency issues since day one that most people don't particularly like to acknowledge, and that flew over most of our heads from the beginning of the show. She's pretty much portrayed to us as an empath, someone who has so much heart that she can't help but feel everyone's pain and suffer with them all the time. The fandom 100% acts like that's who she is (while also obsessively adultifying her unnecessarily, and forcing her into the mom!friend role, which... we'll talk about that later)

But this is also the same character who, when her brother banished Aang from the Southern Water Tribe as early as in episode 2, protested in a very particular way once Aang was gone. Which one of these statements sound more accurate to Katara's character, and a suitable protest for her to proclaim upon witnessing this injustice against Aang?

"Aang is alone! How could you send him away on his own? He could be in danger, Sokka! He's just a kid!"

"The Air Nomads are gone, Sokka! Where do you think he'll go? He doesn't have a home to go back to and you just sent him away!"

"You happy now? There goes my one chance at becoming a waterbender!"

If you ask the fandom? They'll most likely think that her reaction was either #1 or #2.

Surprise surprise: it was actually #3

I'm not saying she didn't show empathy towards Aang while Sokka was ranting at him, because she did. I'm not saying she wasn't willing to be banished along with Aang until Sokka asks if she'd choose pretty much a total stranger over their family and tribe, because she was. She absolutely did all those things.

... So why would she focus only on how he represented her one chance at becoming a waterbender once Aang is gone?

This feels off to me. I've never particularly liked that line. And you could absolutely say that Katara has every right to be mad at losing her chance to reclaim an aspect of her culture that she cannot connect to, but the way it was framed here? It absolutely makes Katara look more selfish than she actually was. The wording is not good. The show doesn't emphasize, at this point, that bending is such a core and crucial part of their culture and that Katara feels a major responsibility in being the ONLY person in the South Pole that can keep it alive. So it just comes off as a child's tantrum. Sokka's concerns were 100% valid too, even if he went about them while being a jerk (he is, indeed, an older brother...). He wasn't even wrong in the end about how dangerous Aang was to their tribe, since Aang's mishap with Katara on the ship gives away his position to Zuko, and it results in Zuko ramming a huge ship into their home and nearly killing people in the process. But you DON'T see the show fully framing it as though Katara and Aang did something wrong -- it was an honest mistake. We know it was. Sokka is framed as unreasonable for being so paranoid even though later events in the very episode prove he wasn't.

And that's... the crux of the issue with Katara's writing. If you ask me.

There are far too many instances where Katara makes mistakes that she's not held accountable for, that she doesn't apologize for, that run against the core logic and principles of her character and they either get shrugged off or overlooked. There are far too many situations where she acts out, and is a jerk at her jerk of a brother, even unprompted on occasion, and it's supposed to just be funny. One particularly stood out to me when I revisited it a few years ago, I can't really remember what for (maybe when I was writing Jeong Jeong's arc in Gladiator and I had a look at the fishing village...?), but it's the famous flashback episode in Book 1: The Storm.

The scene in question is... humorous. Supposedly. Katara is trying to buy fruit in the market but then realizes they have no money to pay for it. Not only does Katara piss off the vendor, but the vendor actually takes her rage out on Sokka once she realizes these kids won't give her any business: he gets kicked in the rear, as the transcript's description says. No one protests the woman's violent reaction, not even Sokka. Katara most certainly doesn't do it. But that's not all there is to it: Sokka doesn't hold what happened with the fruit vendor against Katara, they have a conversation on how they have no money and no food... and Katara offers him the golden ticket solution to their problems:

"You could get a job, smart guy."

Am I too feminist for thinking it's insane that Katara expects her brother alone to get the job? That she's not saying the THREE of them should get jobs? She and Aang are BENDERS! That's an asset most people aren't likely to find in any would-be employees in the central Earth Kingdom! So... wouldn't it be logical for all of them to do it? But no, instead, Sokka alone has to get the job?

And yes, I know, Sokka is the provider, Sokka is the protector, Sokka would do ANYTHING for his sister and the people he loves: you ask the fandom, though, and that's Katara instead of him. Moments like these simply do not exist in the fandom's eyes and, if they do, they're just excusable because Sokka is boring/weird/annoying/insert-demeaning-nonsense-here and Katara is a queen who can do whatever she wants.

Then, the consequences arrive once Sokka gets a dangerous job on a fishing boat and nearly gets killed in a storm. Aang is the one who shows concern about the potential storm when the fisherman's wife brings it up: from all I can see in the transcript, there's nothing from Katara. Sokka says they told him to get a job, so that's what he's doing, and there's no manifestation of concern from either of them about maybe joining him on this fishing trip to ensure he's safe. Instead, Aang is haunted by his past and Katara goes with him when he leaves, which, yes, is very important for context on the Air Nomads and Aang's life... and yet we don't really NEED for this scene to be Katara and Aang only. It could've included Sokka too. The plot of the second half of the episode would change? Likely. They could've come up with another idea, and not shown us a Katara who doesn't show concern for her brother's safety or any remorse when her unfair demands or expectations from him could result in catastrophic outcomes :') yes, she worries about Sokka's safety once the storm hits, but there's no sign of her feeling responsible for Sokka being out in the storm at all. No apology. Which is ironic, because Zuko apologizes to Iroh in that very same episode, hence, an apology from Katara to her brother could have mirrored that side of the story well, and they REALLY loved doing Zuko-Gaang parallel scenes like that, so it would have fit perfectly! Didn't happen, though.

Point being... Katara's compassion and empathy are not absolute. It's important to keep in mind is that they don't need to be! But precisely because she falters with them in moments where she REALLY shouldn't, with people as important to her as her own brother? It becomes very difficult to believe that she's the empath the fandom is convinced she is, and that the show's narrative tries to push her as.

The real reason why her failure to show compassion to Sokka in "humorous" situations feels so unnerving isn't because she's a typical little sister who takes her brother for granted (which is a perfectly logical/believable behavior!): it's because there are no consequences for it. Maybe at some point or another there were? But I for one can't remember many instances where Katara failed Sokka and it was framed as her fault and her responsibility. Let's look at other Book 1 instances that exemplify what I mean:

She freezes him to the deck of Zuko's ship, which puts Sokka in MAJOR danger, and she just tells him to hurry up as if it weren't her fault that he's frozen in the first place. We don't even see her making efforts to thaw him out of there when she IS the waterbender so it seems logical that she should be able to help with that (and if she's too inexperienced to do it? The least she can do to help her brother out of a dangerous situation is to TRY???). But apparently it's funny that she doesn't help him when it's her fault! So this is fine!

She endangers the entire group over the waterbending scroll, which, of course, the pirates had no right to have anyway and it's reasonable that she'd want it for herself... but she antagonized a group of fully adult, dangerous, potential murderous pirates, against Sokka's constant warnings that they shouldn't pick that particular fight. As far as I can remember? Her apologies on that episode are exclusively about how she hurt Aang's feelings by being jealous over his greater talents as a bender. Basically, nothing for Sokka, no apology for not listening to him about danger, making it worse when the very final moment features Katara proudly telling her brother that she won't steal things... unless it's from pirates. So lesson not learned because it's funny, again, to never acknowledge that Sokka has a point.

She actually cares about Sokka's fate in Jet! But the thing is... the narrative doesn't frame that as Katara's fault. Because it's not. Jet made his choices and he did awful things and he captured Sokka, lied and gaslit everyone, because he had a goal to fulfill and he used Katara to make that happen. As angry and upset as Katara is, it's not exactly shown that Katara is sorry for having trusted Jet when Sokka could have ended up paying a deadly price for it. She's angry at the betrayal, even in Book 2 it's constantly framed as though Katara is upset at him as an ex-girlfriend would be upset at her ex-boyfriend for lying to her rather than, you know, being pissed at him for nearly killing her brother + an entire village. My point is, the narrative framing never holds her responsible for Jet's choices. Which, again, she's not. But she IS responsible for her own choices... and one of those choices was disregarding Sokka's warnings about Jet. THAT was her fault, and her responsibility. She jumped to conclusions and assumed that Sokka was bitter and jealous that Jet was the charming cool leader Sokka could never be. There were no apologies to Sokka over that, either.

I could go on, and on, and on. The truth is, I bring all this up to show with solid evidence that Katara's writing was always a little... unstable. Weird. Disconnected from logic in many regards, I'd say. It's not logical/compatible to tell us that this character has the BIGGEST heart of the entire cast when she fails to show that heart to none other than her own brother, who is inarguably the person who she knows best and with whom she should share the closest relationship, even as her friendship with Aang grows and thrives. That makes no sense, thematically speaking.

Is it meant to be comedic? Yes, every bit as much as Iroh sexually harassing June was done for comedy's sake. That's not an excuse for characters behaving in ways that are thematically contrary to what they're supposed to be portraying... and along with that? No excuse for them facing zero consequences for that behavior. Which is, in fact, my main issue with these flaws from Katara: I have no issue with the writing choices in the scenes I listed just now! I take issue, however, with the lack of follow-up and consequences that you can BET, 100%, would have befallen Sokka if it had been him instead of Katara acting that way. He faced consequences even for things he didn't do, for comedy's sake: he wouldn't have gotten away with disregarding Katara's safety as often as Katara did with him, no chance at all.

Ultimately, these scenes in Book 1 are kind of ignorable in the larger scheme of things (or at least, that's how the fandom has always acted). Not a lot of people take any of this as major proof of characterization for Katara. You won't see a lot of fic writers showing her acting like this. Canon, though, often would go down this route for funsies, and the comics certainly did it plenty too, that I can remember. Part of the issue here is that, as funny as it is, it also makes Katara feel stale as a character, as does the Sokka-Katara dynamic, at large, because there's no progression for it. That's probably my greatest gripe with the Great Divide, believe it or not: it fakes being an episode where Sokka and Katara are going to be confronted over their conflictive tendencies, and the ONLY potential development in that basically-filler episode SHOULD HAVE BEEN Sokka and Katara learning to be a bit more harmonious and respectful of each other? ... And that's just not what happened at all. The status quo remains exactly the same after that episode, and it continues to be like that until the end of the show.

The real reason why Sokka and Katara are deemed the healthy siblings is because, of course, compared with the other main set of siblings in the show, these two appear to get along wonderfully. But the truth is, their relationship is not as dynamic as it deserved to be. And that's part of why Book 3 ends up failing in ways Book 1 might not have, while having similar flaws: Book 1 is when you're still getting to know these kids, and that's why I find its flaws far more forgivable than anything that comes later. When there's basically no development for that connection at all, Book 3 winds up falling flat with characters like Sokka and Katara and the bond between them.

All this being said... I'm not saying that Katara is terrible in Book 1. I still stand by the fact that I really enjoyed her character in many instances of this season, there absolutely are situations where she sasses Sokka that still make me crack a smile, and genuinely humorous situations that don't paint her in a questionable light over her lack of concern for her brother's safety. Her fight to earn the right to be trained as a waterbender is deeeeeply flawed but it's not her fault, it's more the misogyny of the writers/creators that decided that a betrothal necklace from his past would make Pakku unlearn all his sexism and get over his bullshit right after beating up a girl who was fighting tooth and nail to make him acknowledge her. That he only acknowledges her because he wanted to marry her grandmother is... uh... fuckboi behavior even when he's well over 70 years of age? XD

So, yeah, Book 1 still has my favorite Katara of the entire show even though I REALLY wish she wouldn't get away with things that other characters wouldn't get a pass for (... well... other than Zuko...). I can't enjoy her as much as I enjoy other characters because I really don't like it when characters aren't held accountable for serious mistakes they made.

Moving on to Book 2, though, and leaving behind my greatest gripe with Katara's Book 1 writing (lack of direct consequences/self-reflection on her part), Book 2's biggest sin when it comes to Katara is the beginning of the "mothering" trope. I honestly did not feel motherly vibes from Katara towards anyone in Book 1. Sokka is very often the one playing the responsible role, while Aang and Katara are seeing the world, practicing their bending, doing reckless and fun things. The entire thing about Katara being the mom friend started in Book 2 when she suddenly becomes the epitome of responsibility (well... kinda) when Toph joins the group. She still does sketchy stuff with zero consequences (I'll forever complain about how ice is not cold in this show, the kids she froze to the wall may have been dicks, but freezing someone alive that way should have resulted in serious health repercussions, just as ANY case of freezing someone alive should have, ffs, be it Zuko in Book 1's finale or Azula + Katara in Book 3's...), but once Toph is part of the group, she becomes the cool girl who's "one of the boys", and now Katara is "the mom". This dynamic gets forced into the story pretty much right after Toph joins the group. And after that? It doesn't really change for the better often. There are only a handful of instances where Katara wasn't acting wholesome and comforting and kind and compassionate in Book 2 (... particularly with Sokka, ofc), but the point where her dynamics, even with Aang, start to feel motherly is definitely Book 2.

And this adds to the issue, in the end: Katara's appeal as the main girl in the show is suddenly gone because Toph is here, and she's a way more unique character that the writers definitely were having fun working with, probably more fun than they had with Katara. So they had to find a new niche for her, I'd dare guess. Thus, instead of actually building up an awesome and solid friendship between Katara and Toph, they mostly just clash and collide. Toph is basically the ONLY character who gives Katara grief and isn't framed as in the wrong for it, which is its own set of issues (namely, Toph not being challenged enough by the narrative, which stunts her character growth), but among many things, we suddenly get shown that Katara is a girly girl who likes makeup and she ropes Toph into this when nothing we've seen so far suggests that Toph would be comfortable with that. Katara pushes her into doing things because they're the "girls of the group"... and it doesn't often look like Toph's feelings on anything are important when Katara is pushing her around for whatever purpose. I'm not saying Toph hated the spa day, she certainly had fun eventually, but even when the comics made a "Katara and Toph's day out" story, where Toph got to choose what to do for once, the story devolved into Katara's show anyway, and things concluded with Toph deciding they're better off doing girly things together when they want to hang out because Katara is just too intense for the things Toph would like to do.

This isn't even in the show, but it's basically a response to Tales of Ba Sing Se to try and even out Katara and Toph's one-sided dynamic, where Katara calls the shots of their entertainment... and even then, Toph doesn't really get what she's looking for. But Katara does get that out of Toph because all she wants is a girl to do girly things with and Toph provides that in the end, no matter how much of a tomboy she may be. Toph might just want a friend who loves the things she loves, and who knows, Katara could be that person! But the story never leads her in that direction so we never see that happen. And that's why that particular friendship never really... clicked for me. Their dynamics don't really feel enjoyable to me as they were written in the show, even though they very much could have been.

That's one thing I'll always give ATLA: the character potential and synergy they captured with that cast could be absolutely incredible. Team Avatar is so iconic because they really could work well off each other. A lot of teams in other media just aren't this good (... one of my main reasons to not enjoy Voltron and drop it in season 1 was my absolute failure to find any synergy between those characters, it felt like they all hated each other and I honestly did not enjoy their dynamics in the least), but Aang, Katara and Sokka have great synergy due to their different personalities in Book 1. Same when Toph joins them in Book 2. Zuko ABSOLUTELY could have been better in the group than he was if Book 3 hadn't devolved into the Zuko Woobifying Show by the second half, where the only writing priority was making him friends with everyone, and making them all feel sorry for him and have compassion towards him. But, broken down to his core traits, Zuko's personality would have resulted in solid chemistry with everyone else's if they'd gotten off that agenda anyway! So ultimately, ATLA has a big win in this respect that a lot of TV shows would LOVE to recreate but they simply haven't struck the right kind of balance in character traits.

Hence why the way they wrote Toph and Katara's dynamics kind of feels like a betrayal to me. Those two could have been a lot of fun, they have EVERYTHING it takes to be entertaining characters with not a ton of things in common and yet building a solid friendship that hinges on their differences. I've seen a fair few examples of that kind of dynamic in other media, and it absolutely would be possible with Toph and Katara. It's really unfair that they couldn't capture their dynamics in such a way that both characters would SHINE, rather than constantly resorting to conflicts between them that never seemed to truly be resolved.

So: Toph should not be a problem for Katara. She should enhance her character and doesn't because of writing failures. One of the core failures is "mom friend Katara", of course: there's nothing inherently wrong with Katara stepping up and taking care of people she loves, but there's something very wrong with it when she's suddenly portrayed as this motherly figure when she's doing things that Sokka had been doing just fine in Book 1. Main reason why this is the case? Sokka got dumbed down to full-time class clown for whatever reason in Book 2. While he has good moments, a lot of times they went WAY overboard with making him a source of comedy this season and that, too, contributes to mom friend Katara. Since Sokka is being so meh? We even feel relieved that Katara is there to keep things together because nobody can expect the other three to do it, right? But... Sokka was doing it in Book 1. And there's no real development to explain him NOT doing it anymore once Toph joins in besides "Katara is now the mom friend and Sokka is just here to be funny". It's not organic development: it's forcing tropes that just don't fit. And while Katara's mothering doesn't feel as unpleasant as it could here, it ultimately forces a new interpretation and portrayal of her character that honestly isn't all that interesting, most of all when the other characters are constantly portrayed as "more fun" while she's just here to keep them in line.

It just isn't the same Katara we met in Book 1, and it shows in spades. Book 1 Katara would have been hyped to join Aang and Toph in chaos while Sokka screams at them to behave themselves. Book 2 Katara is the one trying to keep the other three in line, and there's genuinely zero development that led things to that stage. It's not organic storytelling. There's no growth that leads to that, and so, it feels off.

But the core problem of all these flaws in Book 1 and Book 2 is that they roll together and snowball into something far greater that then proceeds to just... disrupt everything we thought we knew or understood about Katara. We've been told she's a kind person above all else, someone who cares about people close to her, someone who embodies hope and strength and love...!

... And then Book 3 starts, and we're actually facing a Katara who shifts into a wholly different person with the speed of a whiplash that we're left not knowing who tf this is anymore.

"Mom friend Katara" absolutely comes back in Book 3, why lie? She takes care of people, she tries to provide, she tries to be nice and sweet and then also enforces discipline on Toph (particularly) when she's being irresponsible!

But the reason why The Runaway is such an unpleasant episode is because Katara's behavior is dialed up to a thousand, and the conflict between her and Toph feels WAY too similar to what it was when they were barely getting to know each other in The Chase. Why are they STILL clashing over such things? There are occasional glimpses of friendliness there in The Runaway, sure! But they're not so strong that you actually feel like that friendship supersedes their conflicts and their propensity to bicker and argue and hurt each other. Toph blatantly calls her out on her mothering and fully canonically confirms that Katara is The Mom Friend™. Where Toph is annoyed but eventually complies with doing what Katara wants to do in Tales of Ba Sing Se, this time Katara makes a huuuuuge fuss over Toph's misbehavior and her scamming Fire Nation people. And you could argue that Toph has every right to do it, or that Katara is right to be worried, just like Sokka used to worry about such things in Book 1...

But what we get is a stale dynamic that repeats the same problems we saw in Book 2, as well as Katara coming off as rather hypocritical because she, too, did dangerous shit and picked dangerous fights where she shouldn't have, and ignored everyone who told her not to do it: she gave Toph that kind of grief over things Katara was willing to do back when Toph wasn't in the group (see the pirates thing), and she will try to stop Toph from having fun on her own terms when nobody has ever tried to stop Katara from doing that in hers. Of course, any Katara advocate would read this and go "you're missing the point: Katara was sad and upset that she was being LEFT OUT! That's why she was so mad about this!" Then the irony of the matter is that this argument STILL reflects poorly on Katara. She gave her friend a tough time, called her a wild child and a crazy person, went through her personal belongings because "she could tell Toph was hiding something from her", so she fully disregarded Toph's privacy... all because she couldn't say "Wait, you guys went scamming Fire Nation people? Damn, why didn't you wait for me! I would've gone too!", and there you go, problem solved! Katara's not left out anymore!

Yes, of course, that's not how it WORKS, people can struggle to identify what they feel...!

... And now it's my turn to say that that's not the point.

The point is that Katara said and did hurtful things to her friend. Things she eventually regrets, yes, but that she didn't have to do at all. This is the same person who fed Appa a bunch of food that made it look like he was sick, all be it to keep the group from leaving the Jang Hui river village so she could go out of her way to heal the injured and sick without telling anyone what she was doing. That, too, was a choice she made with no concern regarding how the rest of her team might feel about it: was she doing something nice? Sure! But it's not fundamentally different from Toph doing whatever she wants with zero regard as to Katara's feelings on the matter. Katara KNEW she was stalling their journey and that Sokka wanted them to move on: she didn't care about his feelings or priorities, and the story eventually frames Katara as being in the right for feeling that way. Here, she's in the inverse scenario, only it's with Toph rather than Sokka, and instead of realizing that she, too, has made choices that were irresponsible/dangerous/risky and STILL went all out with them, down to fighting whoever opposed her choices? Katara just doubles down until she, again, breaches boundaries and overhears Toph and Sokka's conversation, WHICH IS ANOTHER CAN OF WORMS DUE TO THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS FOLLOW-UP...

The thing is, Katara as a mom friend is not even a good thing. It's not conducive to fun or interesting storytelling, not in Book 2, not now. It doesn't make Katara a more interesting and dynamic character. The way she's portrayed isn't so she looks tragic for taking this role, it's all about forcing these kids into tropes that don't necessarily add up to who they have been so far. Katara's mom friend status is NOT treated with any compassion. It's not handled as a sore, difficult subject outside of the ONE conversation Sokka has with Toph that Katara overhears. And it's not centered on Katara's tragedy, on how she overcompensates for her mother's absence, it's centered on Sokka accepting her as a motherly person and encouraging Toph to do the same thing. The people who saw further depth in it probably haven't looked at the script itself in a long time: you CAN see more to it, but that's not the point of the scene. That's not where it's going. And the fact that such a tragic situation is what conduces Katara to take up the mom friend role actively makes it look like... she shouldn't have it. Why would she be the mom friend if she's just overcompensating for Kya's death? If she's taking up responsibility by thinking that no one else will (a blatant lie because, again, in Book 1 there's NO SIGN of this behavior and it's Sokka who's in a role of responsibility compared to her), it suggests that EVERYONE ELSE ought to step up and stop "relying" (and Sokka very much uses that word) on Katara being the mom friend. It's not a healthy thing. It's a coping mechanism that seems to be actively damaging Katara: and the story doesn't acknowledge it that way.

So... "mom friend Katara", dialed up to a thousand in Book 3, absolutely has a connection with why her character loses its sheen by this point in the story. There's no attempt to deconstruct this coping mechanism by Katara. No indication from the rest of the team that maybe Katara should get to be a kid just like them and stop being so uptight (even though VERY often she's not that uptight but the show very much tries to pretend she is). It's Katara's initiative to do a scam, it's not Toph or Sokka or Aang who think she needs to join in on the fun, she basically inserts herself in it. So basically, those three take the route of saying "that's what she's like, we just gotta bear with it", instead of actually helping her. If we'd seen that? Mom friend Katara would actually be a fun element to witness deconstructed by the story. And I'm not blaming either Katara or the other three for this:

This is EMINENTLY a writing problem.

Mom friend Katara is not a good trope. It could be if the point was to help her break free from it. It's not. It's simply weak writing that can't handle two girls with proactive, aggressive personalities and a ton of agency, a lack of creativity in realizing how much potential there could be in making Toph and Katara the absolute best of friends. It's seriously a disservice to the two of them that this trope literally blooms over Toph joining the show and then NEVER gets resolved or chased away. And when you have characters like Sokka or Aang kind of joining the bandwagon of "yeah, Katara's a mom!" when the two of them traveled with her in Book 1 and she WASN'T that at all? It makes matters infinitely worse.

So, if you ask me? This is the first thing that makes Katara feel more unpleasant than ever before in Book 3.

The second thing is even worse.

We return to accountability, as well as to illogical flow of thought when it comes to the writing of Katara: in Book 1, we see a hopeful girl who never speaks ill of her father or betrays any manner of displeasure or distrust towards him. No sign of her being conflicted by what Hakoda is doing: the focus is entirely on Sokka's feelings on the matter once it finally comes up in Bato of the Water Tribe, and Katara is a secondary matter, if even that.

This would be fine if Hakoda hadn't come up at all as a subject throughout Books 1 and 2. If Katara had never had the potential opportunity to see her father in any of these instances and had backed out from them for bigger reasons than... plot reasons.

For reference: she's excited, just as Sokka is, when Bato says he can bring the kids to meet their dad again. They're HYPED. We see no sign of Katara being upset at Hakoda for leaving at this point. The only portrayed reason why she and Sokka decide not to go see Hakoda is because they think Aang needs them more and they decide to forgive him for hiding the map. Katara, from the get-go, is not as angry at Aang for hiding the map as Sokka is. Clearly, Sokka wants to see Hakoda far more intensely than Katara does: even so, there's no sign anywhere here that implies that Katara harbors resentment or dissatisfaction towards Hakoda.

Book 2 gives us a similar situation: Katara declines going to see Hakoda and offers to be the one who stays in Ba Sing Se so Sokka can go see Hakoda himself. Sokka is soooo thrilled and thanks her and calls her the best sister ever and Katara very much says she is, indeed, the best. Which she's allowed to, worth noting, I'm not saying her reaction to Sokka's praises was bad, it's actually funny: but what I AM saying is that she knows how much this matters to Sokka and that's why she makes the offer she does. It's also VERY convenient! Because logic dictates that, if Sokka stays behind, he realizes the Kyoshi Warriors aren't themselves far faster than Katara does (even though, to be fair, Katara didn't really have much time to realize it at all), and we wouldn't have Aang suffering over Katara's imprisonment because the one in chains would be Sokka and then Aang might just go "oh okay it's just Sokka, I can go cosmic if it's not Katara"

... yeah I'm being sarcastic I actually don't think Aang wouldn't have saved Sokka, but they very clearly had Katara stay behind first and foremost for this specific purpose...

But Katara's acknowledgement that this is a good thing for her brother makes you REALLY wonder how much of a secret grudge she was supposed to feel towards her father at this stage of the story. The truth, in my opinion? She wasn't actually supposed to resent Hakoda as she did, let alone quite so harshly.

My sister personally told me that she thought Katara's anger at Hakoda was a fine storytelling choice when I told her I didn't like it. She told me Katara herself most likely didn't realize how hurt she had been by her father's leaving, that it wasn't until she was around Hakoda again that she understood she resented him at all, and that she had a lot more pent-up rage and frustrations than she had EVER acknowledged, and they burst out frequently in Book 3. Which, you know, is one possible explanation that tries to make this whole thing more palatable. From a human standpoint? This is valid.

... From a writing point? Not so much.

A Katara who struggles to understand her heart (which... is odd, tbh. As far as they portray her, Katara tends to know exactly what she's feeling, why she's feeling it, and she acts on her emotions rather than brains more often than not) would be portrayed as confused over her own rage at Hakoda. She would not have been written as a snappy teenager who hates her dad. She would have snapped at him and then apologized by reflex, unsure of what's come over her. We would see Sokka trying to mediate between them too, probably asking Katara what's her deal, and she would have no idea how to explain it. Katara would be avoiding Hakoda, knowing she loves him, not knowing why she seems to hate him now, afraid of saying things she shouldn't. Every time she snaps at him, she should worry about what she did, she should fear for Hakoda's feelings, she should reflect on what's going on inside her heart...!

... But that doesn't happen. And that knocks SO HARD on the concept of empath/compassionate Katara that it basically turns her into a whole different person.

As I've said countless times so far: it's not about Katara being perfect. I don't WANT her to be perfect. But I DO want the show to acknowledge that she's not. I want the flaws to REALLY read as flaws. I want other characters to react to those mishaps on Katara's part, and I want HER to reflect on what she's doing and realize she's messing up, just as she does when she hurts Aang's feelings in the Waterbending Scroll, which is most likely the best situation where Katara actually owns up to the exact mistake she made and feels genuine, palpable, obvious remorse for it. But when you feature Katara lashing out at Hakoda, and everyone just staying quiet because "uuuuh, awkwaaaard...", it feels off. Aang asks Katara, outright, what's her problem with her dad! And Katara goes "What? What problem?" She's acting like she's not even aware of the fact that her behavior is out of place, basically gaslighting Aang into pretending that she didn't do anything rude or mean to Hakoda. Aang literally saw it with his own eyes and is the ONLY person to bring it up.

To make matters worse? Katara has been with Hakoda for WEEKS. It's not like they just crossed paths two seconds before Aang opened his eyes. The implication is that she's been behaving like this, or her behavior has been deteriorating towards Hakoda with no one worrying about it or trying to make her reason with it. for that long. Sokka didn't do anything. Hakoda just took the teenage rants and left her alone because that's what she wants. And when the one person brings up that she's not acting like herself? Katara pretends nothing's wrong and acts like everything's fine and she's not acting any differently from herself. Whether she actually is just lying to Aang or ALSO lying to herself is a matter of debate... but what it suggests is she's unwilling to confront the gravity of her choices and how she can be hurting her father with them.

This is NOT to say that Katara has no right to be angry about Hakoda abandoning her in the Tribe. She has every right to be upset and feel forsaken. Their mother died, and Hakoda left with all the men of the tribe, and Sokka was left behind, tasked to protect everyone, and Katara apparently felt responsible for the whole village too: as valid as Hakoda's quest to fight in the war might be, it's not out of this world for Katara to harbor frustrations and resentment over what happened.

What IS out of this world, and particularly, not appropriate to her character, is that her way to convey those feelings was something she gave herself to, completely, only to reason with it once Aang was missing so that the episode would conflagrate her problems with Aang and Hakoda into the same thing.

This is basically a dark expansion of what we've seen in Katara's treatment of Sokka since Book 1: where it was typically "humorous" when she was a jerk to him and paid no price for it, this time it's not humorous. This time, you're supposed to see her being a jerk and then go "aaaaw, poor dear," even if you're not supposed to get mad at Hakoda because he is very much a decent dad. The show was trying to have its cake and eat it too with this situation, because Katara DOESN'T apologize to Hakoda for being unfair to him: HAKODA APOLOGIZES TO HER. Hakoda acknowledges the pain he caused Katara and the damage his leaving has wrought upon his children by apologizing and explaining how much he missed them... but Katara does not acknowledge the pain she inflicted on her father by acting out when he wasn't doing anything wrong. Is this teenager behavior? You could chalk it down to that, but that's precisely why teenagers can be a pain in the ass! And that's very much how Katara is being portrayed if she's unwilling to acknowledge she acted out and hurt someone she loves!

Her problems and resentment towards Hakoda magically go away after that single conversation. After this? She loves him. No hard feelings left. If her problems with Hakoda were this deep and difficult to navigate and work through, either she bottled them up in the rest of the show and stopped them from affecting her father... or she just got over it that quickly. Which would be very unrealistic because Hakoda apologizing for leaving doesn't change the damage Katara suffered through because he was gone. A single apology doesn't fix everything that people read into Katara's deep anguish in this scene and episode. And yet that's very much how the show portrays it: Katara is 100% fine in every single other interaction with Hakoda she gets past the first episode of Book 3. Does that make sense? Is that good writing? No, actually: it's literally digging up a problem, making it up last minute with zero lead-up to it, where the ONLY way to read "lead-up" is to pretend that Katara always had ulterior motives to avoid going to see Hakoda, even though we NEVER were shown that she was hiding anything, something that could be VERY easily shown in the story if they'd always had this in mind. The truth is that they didn't. They made it up for this episode, forced it in there, didn't even write it right because nobody reacts to Katara's behavior reasonably except Aang, and she gets away with it without even having to apologize. That's... not good form for any character, let alone Miss Responsibility and Empathy, is it?

This is why it's such a problem that Katara acted as she did towards her father. It's not because this is an unthinkable flaw: it's because there's very much no lead-up to it, kind of like there's none with Korrasami's big reveal in LOK's finale. It's because there's no follow-up to it either. It's because we don't see Katara living up to her supposed core character traits, where she should have a realization that her choices and actions and behavior have hurt someone else, someone she cares about. None of that happens.

And I will say: it's different when it comes to her clashes with Zuko and her reactions to him in the second half of Book 3. This is basically the MAIN thing the fandom gives her grief for and I hate them for it: she has every right and reason and justification to show no empathy or compassion towards a person who, as far as she could tell, took advantage of her compassion in Ba Sing Se, of Aang's compassion frequently across Book 1, and paid them back for all of it by joining forces with Azula and showing no concern to help Aang when Azula almost killed him. I am no fan of Iroh's... but Iroh jumped in to help Katara and Aang escape, at risk of being captured. Zuko stood beside Azula and did NOTHING to help those two leave. He showed zero concern for Aang's survival. He saw his sister potentially murder someone and had ZERO REACTION. So, no offense but full offense: Katara's unwillingness to trust Zuko is JUSTIFIED. Not only is it justified? It's CORRECT. It's the only writing choice that makes sense. Sokka getting over it relatively quickly feels off to me, no matter if the Boiling Rock adventure isn't as bad as others might be. Aang not holding a grudge for too long kind of fits because it is Aang... but Katara being that mad at Zuko? That's 100% fine. It fits. It works. And anyone pretending that what I said about Hakoda applies to how she treated Zuko is just completely biased in Zuko's favor.

Katara and Zuko do not have a secret magical powerful soulmates bond in canon. Their one instance of bonding comes after multiple instances of the exact opposite thing. Katara and Sokka were 100% down for leaving Zuko to freeze to death in the North Pole, and the ONLY reason why Zuko survives is because Aang can't let that happen to him. It's AANG'S compassion that saved Zuko. Katara felt none, AND SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO FEEL ANY. Let's not forget that!

Moving on to Book 2, Katara actually makes her first offer of kindness to Zuko and Iroh in the Chase when she offers to heal Iroh after Azula's attack. Zuko's reaction is to lash out violently and yell at her to leave: who, exactly, would feel inclined to think this poor beautiful sad boy just needs love when you OFFER HIM kindness and his reaction is, in a manner of speaking "go fuck yourself I'll handle this on my own"? And it's worth bringing it up because it feels like the fandom is hilariously misled into thinking the Gaang magically knows what Zuko is up to and how he's growing and evolving, as if they were part of the audience: they're not. The last time Katara saw Zuko before Ba Sing Se is literally when Zuko refuses her help. We're also talking about Fire Nation people: Katara has every right and every reason to believe that Zuko is refusing her help, not out of personal, internal strife he's dealing with and has no idea how to handle... she very much can read this as "inferior Water Tribe peasant, you will not heal my uncle with your wretched waterbending!" Because... let's be real, that's what Zuko looked like to Katara across Book 1. She has no real reason to think he's any better or different from that until their catacombs scene...

... And he stabs her in the back and joins Azula there. Right after "bonding" with her.

So let's be VERY clear on that respect: Katara has no real reason to forgive Zuko. She has no real reason to feel empathy outside of the show constantly trying to push that she's kind and compassionate with no boundaries, even if she forsakes that kindness and compassion at random whenever the plot requires it. But her death threats to Zuko? They're completely fine by me. I'd be pissed if she had acted any differently, and if anything I hate how easy Zuko had it to befriend everyone but Katara.

... Not to say I'm happy with how he befriended Katara either, but anyway...

As this isn't Zuko meta, we're not going to get into the true core glaring issues in The Southern Raiders, because ultimately, that episode paints Zuko in a disgusting light that his fans are constantly gaslighting themselves about. He was not beinga heroic good dude helping someone he connected profoundly with. His behavior leaves so much to be desired and proves he hasn't unlearned a lot of toxic things he had internalized. He didn't unlearn them in this episode, either. But the GREATEST sin Zuko commits in this episode, without a doubt, is bringing Katara on a journey that ultimately did NOTHING for her. The only person benefitting from it was Zuko himself. I've seen people pretend that Katara finally found closure: she did not do such thing. She learned what kind of scum killed her mother, but she did not forgive him nor did she kill him. Closure would mean peace. Katara did not find peace with the situation. She's shown troubled, sitting at that pier, miserable, when Aang talks with her, she's STILL angry. That's not closure. It never was.

What it was, however, was the journey where Katara thanked Zuko and forgave him because..! Uh... because...

... Why, exactly, did Katara forgive Zuko here?

He brought her to her mother's killer: she found no closure from it. In fact, she learned the VERY disturbing truth that she hadn't realized so far: HER MOTHER DIED SPECIFICALLY TO SAVE HER. Her mother sacrificed herself for Katara's sake. She CANNOT find peace with this reality in a single afternoon because holy shit, who would? Katara KNEW her mother had died. It's not until Yon Rha tells her what happened that she understands what happened in the igloo. Katara herself, her waterbending skills, and the target she painted on her own back because of something 100% out of her control, something that is NOT evil and that the Fire Nation was hellbent on destroying, are the reasons why Kya was murdered. This is DISTURBING SHIT to deal with. And the show completely sidelines this revelation and the dark impact it could have on Katara, which, seriously, is HUGE, way worse than what happened with Hakoda, because it very much could have triggered a profound self-hatred by Katara towards her own skills because how tf could her bending cause her mother's death?! Not to mention the obvious: who was that source? Who told the Southern Raiders that there was a waterbender? Who the hell is responsible, beyond the Fire Nation, for her mother's death?

There's A LOT to unpack here.

And none of it matters because Katara is just supposed to forgive Zuko for exacerbating and worsening her trauma regarding her mother's death :') funny how that works.

This IS the point where Katara should make a display of darker sides of herself that she didn't know or understand. THIS is where Katara turning dark like Aang did after Appa vanished would make PERFECT sense. With this revelation about Kya that's beyond disturbing: not with Hakoda... and certainly not with Sokka.

The cusp of Katara's worst is, by far, her behavior with her brother in the Southern Raiders. I know a million excuses have been made for this moment: my problem is NOT the fact that she lashed out at him as she did and said something DEEPLY hurtful. It's the fact that KNOWING, SEEING HE'S IN PAIN...

... does not matter to her one bit.

Instead of a trite scene with Zuko spouting shit he does NOT mean (aka "violence wasn't the answer... but lol go kill my father okay??"), we deserved a scene with Katara and Sokka talking this out. People pretend it's fine as it is: it's not. Katara has spent the ENTIRE show disregarding her brother's feelings in a myriad of ways: this time, it was way more painful and way more hurtful and SHE KNOWS IT. It's not funny. She's not amused. She's not being a shithead little sister. She's ANGRY. She's UPSET. She has every right to be! What she DOESN'T have a right to do is hurt her brother DELIBERATELY and then escape every consequence from doing that.

There's very much no way to spin that moment into making Katara a decent sister. There's no way she remains true to her core values of being empathetic, kind and wholesome when she will insidiously, vindictively hurt her brother this way. And what I said earlier about her overhearing Toph and Sokka in the Runaway? It actually gets a follow-up in this scene: Katara telling Sokka that he didn't love Kya as she did is basically her WEAPONIZING the information that was NOT meant for her as her alleged evidence that Sokka didn't care about Kya as much as she did. As if his inability to retrieve Kya's memory was NOT a manifestation of trauma, as if it were something he's FINE with! He's not! How guilty must he feel for that? Does that matter to Katara at all? Why... nope. Because all that matters at that point is her own rage, her own feelings, her own fury. Which is, then, entirely against the character we've been told she is.

The lack of apology or follow-up to this horrible moment will never stop being one of the absolute biggest misfires in one of the WORST written episodes of this show. Yes, I said it. The more I ponder The Southern Raiders, the more I realize it's an immensely flawed speedrun to establish a friendship that simply doesn't add up. Katara and Zuko becoming friends after this journey requires some wild, absurd leaps of imagination that, boiled down to basics, don't make any sense. There's no reason for Katara to decide she'll forgive Zuko after she regains enough clarity. Why does she forgive him? Because he proved he'd rather make her happy than defend his nation anymore? Ironically, at no point does Katara show any appreciation of the fact that Zuko is setting aside his firebending supremacist attitude completely for her sake. So maybe that's not it.

Ah... is it because of how he, and he alone, was ready to help her go on this journey of revenge...?! Why, ironically, the only reason why ONLY Zuko goes on this journey is incredibly artificial and fake: this IS intended as Katara's "field trip" with Zuko. None of the field trips make sense, from a logical standpoint, as duo journeys. I've mentioned it to a few people: Sokka and Zuko could have brought Toph with them to the Boiling Rock, a metal location where her abilities would be VERY useful, used her as a false prisoner and turned her in as a captured ally of the Avatar's, who 100% will bait him into coming here to rescue her so that the Fire Nation can get him next! A cover as strong as that one might actually get them further along on that rescue attempt than what they did in canon. But this CANNOT BE... because it was Sokka's field trip with Zuko so nobody else is invited, even if they're very much not doing anything else (as is the case with Toph). Aang? Why didn't everyone join the firebending discovery with Zuko and Aang? They weren't doing ANYTHING in the Western Air Temple at the time. They very much could have gone with them too. But they don't. And that's exactly why Katara's trip works exactly as it does: it's the solo journey with Katara and Zuko, and the ONLY way to make it work is to show Sokka and Aang completely opposed to the concept of finding Yon Rha. I'm not saying I think Sokka and Aang would have been on board if they're allowed to remain IC... but they could have wanted to go on this trip with Katara regardless of not agreeing with what she wanted to do. Hell, as is OBVIOUS: Kya is Sokka's mom too. His opinions, his feelings on this subject, should matter just as much as Katara's do, and fuck anyone who pretends otherwise. These two are NOT supposed to be the well-known unhealthy siblings Zuko and Azula, who each got one parent in their corner and therefore the other parent treated them like they were worthless or a monster. Hakoda and Kya were parents to BOTH their children, and any narrative or interpretation that attempts to say that ONLY Katara's opinion on Kya matters is immediately ruled out, for me, as absolute bullshit spouted by someone not worth listening to. Point blank.

Also, the fact that Zuko USES Sokka to gain this information about the southern raiders, and then doesn't even extend the chance to Sokka to join them? When Sokka is basically his new best buddy? That... does not make sense. It basically portrays Zuko as a disloyal asshole who takes advantage of his friends for his purposes and tosses them aside, disregarding their feelings whenever it suits him.

So Sokka's treatment at the hands of this episode is just deplorable. Both Zuko and Katara are HORRIBLE to him... but Katara is our focus here, she's actively hurts Sokka and then proceeds to not care. Because that's how she has operated so far, and that's how she always will.

Hence: we have a long, long tradition of Katara not treating Sokka fairly all across the show. The reasons why it's not a fair or balanced relationship at all is because Sokka typically pays the price for being a dick to Katara: either she inflicts the punishment herself, such as when he's disrespectful in the Drill and she smacks him with the slurry, or the narrative inflicts some magical punishment instead that CONSTANTLY proves that Sokka is not allowed to be a dick without facing consequences for it. Does he ALWAYS learn the lesson? Sure he doesn't! But the consequences for it NEVER stop. He doesn't get away with being a jerk to his sister. That's forbidden. But Katara? She's allowed to get away with it every single time! And the reason why it gets worse and worse is because we went from relatively silly/comedic things, in which Katara did not apologize because "it's funny that she didn't apologize", to NOT funny things at all, such as this scene in Southern Raiders. Even just a troubled glance at Sokka, or a slight hesitation after seeing how hurt he is, would be enough for me: there's NOTHING. She doubles down and keeps charging ahead. Zero thoughts or concerns given to her brother.

If this isn't why you have issues with Katara, well, I don't know why it might be the case in your case x'D But I absolutely attest that the combination of "mom friend", "selective compassion particularly when it comes to her brother" and "absolute imperviousness to consequences for her mistakes" are the things that fully caused my initial appreciation of her character to shift into ambivalence and then into full blown dislike once I reached Book 3.

Worth noting: THIS IS A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE SHOW'S WRITING. Boiled down to basics, written by any more competent hands, I don't think Katara would have acted the way she did often, ESPECIALLY in episodes like The Awakening or The Southern Raiders. I categorically refuse to write Katara in my stories as someone who gets free passes for EVERYTHING she does. I also refuse to portray her as the mom friend, particularly in Gladiator. There's a lot of depth you can give this character! So much you can do, so much worth exploring... and canon just settled for stunting her and then only bringing her out to play in ways that make her unpleasant, not particularly bright and extremely resistant to character development even after allegedly learning lessons (see how her initial behavior around Hama, who shows red flags often, isn't all that different from how it was with Jet? There's only a handful of moments where it looks like Katara MIGHT be wary, and yet they're quickly overcome by her excitement, which Hama manipulates in her favor until she does the bloodbending reveal). So I'm NOT saying Katara had no potential... but I am saying the show itself failed her, big time, because of how she was written. A quick glance through the transcript of the Puppetmaster to confirm my memories that Katara shows no sign of concern over Hama when Sokka finds her suspicious reveals that, after Hama shows them her comb and that she's from the Southern Water Tribe, Sokka, and Sokka alone, apologizes for suspecting her of being sketchy. Nothing from Aang, even though he was part of it too. Nothing from Toph, either. And certainly nothing from Katara. Only Sokka apologizes. As usual.

So... what does this tell you? What does this tell any of us? That Katara's development is... erratic, at best. That it's not linear isn't a bad thing, but that it contradicts itself non-stop, that her core traits come and go willy-nilly as the plot demands it, that her motivations to do things (like forgiving Zuko) don't add up to her experiences or to any lead-up we've witnessed, is most certainly not good.

If I were to rewrite ATLA, the main characters I'd want to rewrite into making a lot more sense than they do, and making their arcs actually logical, are Zuko and Katara. I'd definitely add a few rewrites for Iroh, particularly to make him WAY more accountable for shit than he ever was, and to show he's not universally loved and shouldn't be, since people would have very reasonable grievances with him. I'd also rewrite a handful of things with Aang, too. Toph, full-stop, deserves a growth arc of her own beyond getting stronger and getting used to having friends. Girl has the range. They just never let her explore it. And of course, I'd change a fair few elements of Azula's writing as well. But I feel like no characters would warrant a deeper intervention than Zuko and Katara, precisely because they constantly fail to live up to all the stuff people keep pretending they're flawless exhibits of.

And this is one more issue we've got going on with Katara:

The fandom ABSOLUTELY has been unfair to Katara. A lot of people hate her for no reason. A lot of people who potentially have unexamined racism making their hearts' choices for them and they despise her just because she dared not have fully-white skin. A lot of people pick completely ridiculous things to get angry at her, such as people who HATE HER because she's "rude to Zuko". Just, fuck off. That's about the stupidest reason to hate this character and stupid reasons for that have been heard plenty.

But Katara's fans have become... reactionary. They appear think that any criticism to her character NEEDS to be fought off with "she was right tho" or "she has every reason to act this way" or "she's HUMAN she's allowed to make mistakes you heathen!! That's what a flawed character is like!"

Here's the kicker, though: if you have justifications and excuses for every little unpleasant thing Katara EVER does? You're basically taking a dump on her character yourself and saying she IS flawless.

Flaws in characters are bad things that cannot be justified. They can be funny! They can be annoying. They can be infuriating. But they're things that inconvenience other characters, that hurt them, that show they're not above or beyond doing harmful things! All of what I listed in this crazy long post are Katara's flaws. The reason why I don't like the way these flaws were handled are all the things I already have talked about: no accountability for flaws is basically saying that these flaws don't matter. No follow-up, no lead-up, means Katara is allowed to be as much of an ass as she wants to be and nobody cares: THIS IS NOT FAIR. This is not how ANY character should be written. This is the core reason why I've spent years feuding with Zuko and Iroh: they get away with shit they should NOT get away with, EVER. They're not held accountable for so much they should be. This happens to Katara too. particularly in her dynamcis with her brother. And when people see those flaws and just start listing reasons why it's actually okay? All you're doing is dehumanizing these characters to pretend everything they EVER do is fine.

Also worth noting... character flaws are the way characters grow. If a character is DEEPLY flawed, you know what kind of work you have cut out for you as a writer. If you're writing a story heavily steeped on character development? Then those flaws are VITAL to the work you have to do in order to develop these characters!

But when Zuko is unnecessarily violent and you're told "it's because his culture and family are!", you rightfully assume that as he drifts away from Fire Nation ideology, Zuko WILL grow less violent. Then, you watch how he picks an unnecessary fight with Aang in the finale because everyone's being lazy, an EXTREMELY violent fight at that, and you contrast his earlier behavior with it and... where's the difference, exactly? How did he grow or learn better if violence is STILL his immediate reaction to anything he doesn't like?

Thus, when Katara's flaws get overlooked, ignored, disregarded? What kind of development does Katara get, if none of her flaws are addressed in a way that makes it look like she's genuinely learned any lessons? At least, none of the worst, biggest, glaring flaws were addressed. None of the things that she SHOULD be troubled by and that she shouldn't be happy with herself over, especially after seeing how she hurts people with her actions. This isn't cool. This isn't a fun way to write a character. And it's so glaringly unpleasant when you can so very easily contrast this with the well-known terrible flaw Sokka displays early on: sexism! And then he gets his ass kicked by Suki and he learns to respect the Kyoshi Warriors... and we never see him displaying that particular flaw again. THAT is what growth looks like! What can we point to with Katara that remotely compares to this? That she accepted Zuko? Yeah, no, that sincerely could not count any less. Her personal arc CANNOT be about Zuko. That she got over her mom's death? She didn't. So that's not it either. That she helped Aang save the world? So her personal arc was about Aang and not herself? Was her whole role in the story to play Aang's cheerleader, then? Because if that's it... she was doing that just fine at it since day one. She's the only person who faithfully believed the Avatar would return well before Aang turned up in her life, if the first episode's introduction is to be believed.

So... what, exactly, was Katara's arc? If it's just her waterbending skills, then she's as stunted as Toph, unexplored and underdeveloped and left to just strengthen her fighting skills while Aang and Zuko and Sokka are getting full character arcs, even if very lowkey but very much effective in Sokka's case, where they develop and grow (or they should) into the men they're supposed to be to end the war! Why don't Katara and Toph get similar arcs? Why aren't they challenged on a level that actually provides them with lasting, solid, provable growth, where you can look at them where they started out and see how they ended up and conclude their journey was beautiful?

I insist... writing. Weak writing. Failures to understand/develop characters properly. And of course, lack of accountability in storytelling. I wrote that one focusing mostly on Zuko... but it's very much applicable to every character who fails to own up to the things they should and deserve to face consequences for.

Anyway... this is what I'd say about Katara atm. I'm not 100% sure this is everything because I might have overlooked some stuff that also made Katara's character kind of backfire (while I'm no Kataang hater, I 100% agree that the ship should have been written better too, and after writing them whenever I have, it's honestly kind of ridiculous how such an easy ship could get fucked over so badly by weird writing choices...). Whether you agree with these assessments or not, ultimately, there are valid reasons to feel offput by Katara and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Most of all when you DID appreciate and cherish the character once before, but her fans just jump to the conclusion that you must be a mindless hater to think she's anything but flawless (this, while claiming they love that she's flawed, then they proceed to reveal they have no idea what a flaw is...).

(final note: SORRY IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO ANSWER! Super lengthy answer to make up for it, I hope :((( sorry)

#anon #I am not tagging the character directly but I bet this is gonna show up in her tag anyway because Tumblr gonna Tumbl #look #if you're the kind of katara fan who cannot stand a single word against her #just don't read this for your sanity of mind #... but if you go ahead and do it anyway? #don't come back at me with a million arguments to prove your fave is indeed flawless #because you're basically just spitting upwards at that point #and further proving that you do not understand character growth or development in the least #she's not a goddamn religious figure she's a fictional character #every fictional character that's worth something is flawed #and flaws are not always going to be cutesy pretty things #such is the case with Katara #the writing of this show is a mess in many regards #but they fucked up in particular with some characters the fandom adores #and I hate how the fandom acts like that's not the case at all #just to take trips into delululand and absolve them of every single thing they did wrong #and all the very deserved consequences for their worst actions #because the show itself dropped the ball hard enough in that respect for the fandom to do the same #you do you #but no argument will change my mind #and if none will change yours? #... skip past this post :') #it's a free world

[mlmdarkfiction]

For @pickingpixel

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Ship: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Male Reader

AU: Fantasy, Monsters (Dimitri is a slime boy)

Content Warnings: NSFW, Spoilers for the End of the Blue Lions route (kind of)

Read Below:

“We’re going now,” Your father had told you that morning as you sat at the table, still eating your breakfast. 

“Try to stay out of trouble while we’re gone.”

You had just nodded. This was the regular after all. Although you were rather young to be left alone, only ten years old, your parents had to work, and living so far in the forest, away from the town, only meant longer times being away. 

Longer times that you were left by yourself. 

“Stay in the house,” Your mother had mused, fussing with your hair and planting a kiss on your forehead before finally heading to the door. 

“It’s too dangerous for you to be outside on your own.”

“Yes mother.” 

You had agreed…

But that was over three hours ago, and now you were bored. 

It was hard to find things to do indoors to keep yourself occupied. 

Well, it was hard to find things indoors to keep yourself occupied that wouldn’t cause trouble. 

One time you’d decided to try playing ball in the house, only to accidentally shatter one of your mothers vases. Your father had grounded you for a week, although that meant very little when you already weren’t allowed outside most of the time, and you had no friends. The punishment was more of a formality than an actual deterrent but the lecture he’d given was more than enough in and of itself to leave you thinking twice about playing ball again. 

Another time when you were much younger and had been left alone, you’d drawn all over the floors and walls of your bedroom, making your mother furious. 

Those times had all been accidents. And even now you’re afraid of accidentally creating another accident that will get you into trouble. 

Still it’s a nice day outside. 

You can see the outside from the window, and the sun is out, not a single cloud in the sky. 

The outside is just tempting you. 

There’s still a few hours before your parents get home, meaning there’s no reason you can’t go outside and play for a bit and go back inside before your parents get home. 

And it can’t be as dangerous as your parents say, after all, you’ve been outside plenty of times before. 

It’s just that usually you have parental supervision. 

As long as you stay in the yard nothing bad will happen, right?

You’ve already convinced yourself, so there’s no going back, after all even if you play inside you still may make a mistake and get in trouble. 

You grab your ball, and slip on your shoes before stepping out into the sunlight for the first time today. 

But you hesitate at first, eyes tightly shut, waiting to get in trouble for coming outside when your parents had so firmly told you not to. 

No yelling comes, because deep down you know they won’t be home till much later, and so you find yourself able to relax, knowing you won’t be caught. 

And now that you’re relaxed you settle in the dirt. 

Being outside is great and all, truly better than inside, but you’re still all alone. 

You roll the ball hard against a tree in front of you, letting it bounce off the bark and watching as the force pushes it back to you. 

For a while this is what you do rolling the ball every time it comes back to you, although you do eventually get bored of just rolling it, and then decide to bounce it, throwing the ball into the dirt watching the dust rise as it bounces and smacks against the bark again.

This only lasts a couple minutes before you spike it with excitement, only to have it soar over your head in the return. 

The ball bounces off into the woods behind your house, and you scramble to your feet to chase after it. 

After all if your parents come home and your ball is missing they’ll know something’s up -

That and well, you like your ball a lot. 

Although you’re chasing after it as quick as you can it seems to evade you completely, rolling out of reach every time. 

“Oh no.”

You freeze up, watching as your ball rolls steadily still towards a steep hill created by a mudslide.

If the ball rolls down there, there’s no way you’ll be able to make it down there to get it.

Maybe you’re lucky though.

Because he ball seems to stop a few inches away from the edge. 

It causes you to unfreeze in relief, once again bounding off after your ball, a sigh of relief leaving your lips when you actually grab hold of it, feeling the cool, dirty rubber in your hands. 

This relief, it’s very short lived, for the moment you try to turn around and head back towards your house, the unsteady earth underneath begins to give way. 

Of course you drop the ball, it slips from your arms and rolls down with the falling rocks and dirt as you try to grab for something to hold on to. 

But you don’t find anything. 

All you can do is curl up in a ball, your arms moving to guard your face as your body is forced tumbling down hill at full force. 

It hurts.

Your skin scrapes against the harsh earth and rocks while your ears rush with blood from the constant movement. 

With your eyes closed you aren’t able to see how far you are from the end of the hillside, all you can do is keep rolling until your body slams hard into a tree.

If you weren’t already curled up into a ball, you would have curled anyway from the extreme pain you’re in. 

All you can do is lay there, waiting for enough of the pain to pass that you can will yourself into standing up. 

“Are you alright?” 

You aren’t expecting the sudden voice. 

You hadn’t heard anyone approaching, although maybe that was because of the blood still rushing in your ears.

It’s hard to speak, maybe because of how many times your teeth had clunk together as you’d rolled down the hill, or maybe it was because the grinding of your teeth was helping to distract you from the pain. 

“Here,”

Now you can hear the stranger as he moves, the crunching of the grass as he crouches down beside you.  

Something is pressed to your face, warm and wet, but it seems to numb the pain, and so you press yourself into it more. 

When the pain finally fully subsides you peek open your eyes to look at the stranger who helped you and immediately recoil in shock, back pressing more to the tree that had stopped your fall. 

“You-What-What are you?” 

He doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, although he looks kind of like you, like he’s around the same age as you. 

Whatever he is, it’s not human.

Although...He does look humanish. 

You can make out all the right shapes, hair, eyes, nose, arms, legs, ten fingers and toes. 

But then there’s the weird part, the nonhuman part. 

He’s translucent, and blue! 

You can even see your ball floating in your torso. 

Without thinking you reach out to touch him, and he does the same. 

Your hand touches his, and by feeling alone you’re now able to realize what he’d pressed to your face. He’d simply touched you with his hand. 

It’s odd. Touching him. 

He feels gooey, like he might break away into liquid any second, but he doesn’t.

“I’ve never met anyone who looked like you before.” He says, he sounds sheepish, maybe shy, and finally moves his hand away from yours. 

All you can do is nod, sharing the sentiment entirely. 

“Yeah…What are you?”

He’s looking at you with bewilderment and wonder, and you imagine you’re looking at him the same way. 

“Me?” He asks back. “I’m a slime. What are you ?” 

It takes you a moment to respond, still bewildered by the fact this boy even exists.

“I’m a human? Have you never met a human before?”

“Well you’ve never met a slime before!”

Touché. 

“Can…Can I have my ball back?” You finally ask. 

“Oh...This is your ball? That makes sense, it suddenly bounced inside me and got stuck.”

With an odd fascination you watch as he reaches inside himself, and pulls the ball out offering to you. 

It’s...oddly not wet at all.

The slime boy seems to hesitate for a moment, before smiling politely at you. 

“If you were playing ball...You could play with me and my friends?”

The offer instantly gets your attention. He may be a slime but...He’s another kid just like you, and it’s not very often, if ever, you get to play with other kids!

Instantly you nod in excitement. 

“Great!” He seems just as excited. 

“I’m sure everyone will be excited to meet you!”

You follow the slime boy, who introduced himself as Dimitri, deeper and deeper into the forest until you found what appeared to be a city. 

“Dimitri?” It looks...the same as human cities, it makes you wonder how no Humans ever found it before. 

He doesn’t get a chance to respond to your questioning, because immediately someone else is calling out for him. “Your highness, there you are!” 

It’s another slime, of course it is, this boy is also blue in color, although a darker blue than Dimitri. 

“Where have you been, and who is this?” 

He looks past the other boy, and straight at you, trying your best to smile despite your nerves about everything. 

“I just went for a walk Dedue, and on that walk I met my new friend ____.”

“Your new friend…is a human.” This other slime boy is watching you now, looking you up and down, sizing you up. 

It makes you gulp, but you keep your best nervous smile on your face all the while. 

The anxiety doesn’t stop you from asking a question that’s been on your mind since he’d joined you and Dimitri. 

“You called Dimitri ‘your highness’, what does that mean?” 

Of course you’d heard the term before. You knew about royalty, and you’d read lots of fairytale books with Kings and Queens, Princesses and Princes, but you’d never met a member of royalty before. 

“Oh, that.” Dimitri seems to get embarrassed. It’s an odd thing to see, the color of gelo in his cheeks seems to turn a darker blue, almost purple. 

“I constantly tell him that he can just call me by my name but…”

“I am your vassal, your highness, and I want to show you the respect you deserve.”

This exchange only makes you more confused as you look between the slimes, the expression on DImitri’s face is woeful for a moment, before he seems to give up on Dedue and looks at you. 

“To answer your question ____, I’m the Prince of the Slimes.”

....Oh.

Your new friend is a Prince. 

Not just any Prince, but the Prince of the Slime people. 

The Slime people you had no idea existed until today.

This is the best day ever!

Dimitri and Dedue introduce you to their friends, more slime kids around your age. 

They introduced you to three girl slimes by the names of Ingrid, Mercedes, and Annette.

Annette, the smallest of the three slimes, and a seafoam blue color is incredibly excited to meet you, instantly bombarding you with questions about what humans were like that you struggled to answer before she fired another question at you. 

The next slime was a girl named Ingrid. She’s a light green slime, and she doesn’t seem nearly as excited to meet you as Annette is. In fact...she seems to be judging you, extending her hand for you to shake, only to completely encompass your hand in her goo. 

“So-Sorry.” You apologize as soon as you pull your hand away, moving to wipe it on your pants. 

“Ingrid,” The final slime girl and oldest of all the slime kids, Mercedes, speaks up. She’s the tallest of the three, and her skin is a lavender purple in color. “Be nice to him Ingrid,” Her voice is soft as she scolds the other girl. “Dimitri said he’s never met slimes before.” 

After the girls you were introduced to three more boys; Ashe, Felix, and Sylvain. 

Ashe is a grey slime, he’s all smiles and politeness as you introduce yourself. “I’d ask you more about humans but I think Annette asked enough questions for the two of us.” His laugh is nice, and contagious, you smile and laugh too. 

Felix is a different story. “I’m ____.” Your introduction results in nothing else but you being scoffed at by the seemingly indifferent cyan slime. He makes you uncomfortable, and so you’re quick to move on, introducing yourself to the final of all Dimitri’s friends. 

“I’m sorry about Felix,” An energetic orange colored boy says as he takes your hand. It’s a good thing he just grabbed for it, after all since meeting Ingrid you likely wouldn’t have reached to shake his hand yourself. “He can be a little...You know.” “Shut up Sylvain!” 

Sylvain, the boy you’d just met, laughs and smiles wide at you. 

“It’s probably obvious,” he says. “But I’ve never met a human before either.” He says. “But I’m sure we’ll be great friends.”

For the rest of the day you play with the slime children. And you learned really...They’re no different than you!

And it seems like your games aren’t that different either!

The nine of you end up playing kickball, split into an uneven team of four versus five. 

On the smaller team is you, Dimitri, Deduce, and Ashe, while the bigger team consists of Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid, Annette, and Mercedes.

None of you are really keeping score (except for Felix), the game is just for fun, after all. And the game is fun. You’re having the most fun you’ve had in a while, you’d almost forgotten what it was like to play with other kids.

In fact, you’re having so much fun you don’t realize how late it is until the sun starts to set. 

“Oh no.”

And you’d forgotten that you had to be home.

There’s no way your parents aren’t home by now. They’re probably worried sick, and you’re going to be in so much trouble. 

“What’s wrong?” Dimitri asks at your sudden look of panic. “I wasn’t supposed to be out this late,” You sheepishly admit. “My parents are going to be so mad…I don’t even know the way back.” 

“I’ll take you back.” The slime Prince sounds determined. “I know the way to the edge of the forest at least. Once you’re there you should be able to find your way home, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks Dimitri.” 

“Of course, ____, what are friends for after all.”

Friends.

You and Dimitri are friends now. The other slime kids are your friends now too, you hope. 

“Goodbye everyone,” You say your goodbye to your new group of friends, smiling. 

“Please come visit us again!” Mercedes says smiling as she waves you off. 

Dimitri grabs you by the hand gently leading you out of the slime peoples city and back into the dense woods. 

The sun is setting faster in the sky, and soon enough the forest is getting scarier and scarier. You find yourself gripping Dimitri’s hand for comfort. 

“____?” He turns to face you, hand still in yours, a worried expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

It takes you a moment to respond, eyes focused on the darkness through the trees, watching for any danger, anything that might want to hurt you and Dimitri. 

“My parents...They said the woods are dangerous.” You try to keep back tears as the fear starts building in your chest.

Fear of both what could happen to you and Dimitri out all alone, and of what your parents will do to you for disobeying them if you do manage to get home. 

“Oh.” Dimitri’s expression softens as he turns to smile comfortingly at you. 

“There’s nothing to worry about ____, I’ll protect you.” 

“Really?” 

“Really. You have my word.” 

Even though you’d just met Dimitri today, you knew you could trust him. When he promised to protect you, he meant it.

Thanks to Dimitri’s reassurance you have no issue continuing on. “____?!?” 

It’s faint at first, but the closer you get to home, the louder the sound of your parents calling your name gets. “____! Where are you sweetie?” 

Last time it was your father calling out to you, this time it’s your mother. She sounds terrified. So much so you let go of Dimitri’s hand, sprinting out towards the treeline. 

“Mom? Dad? I’m here!”

Your mom practically tackles you into a hug, forcing you against her tightly. “There you are...Thank god.” Something wet drips onto your head, and you realize she’s crying. 

“Mom?”

“We were so worried-” It’s your father who hugs you now. He’s never shown much emotion, even now, but you can still tell by the trace of emotion in his voice that he was scared too. 

Once they finish hugging you your mother cups your face, using her thumbs to wipe away some of the dirt. “What...What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Your face-” Your mother gasps, and you think for a moment she might start crying again. She digs around in her purse, and finally finds her compact lifting the mirror to your face. 

Now you see what upset her so much. 

A scar, a new scar right on your forehead. 

You reach out with your fingers, watching your reflection as you touch the newly healed gash with your fingers. 

The tumble down the hill...It must have caused this injury but…

The pain had stopped once Dimitri touched it, it was a scare now, despite happening only a few hours ago.

Somehow Dimitri numbed and completely healed your wound. 

That’s right Dimitri!

You look past your parents, and back to the dark treeline, but you see nothing.

No sign of Dimitri. 

Really...The whole story is hard to believe, but...You know it happened. 

It had to be true.

There’s no chance you’d just imagined Dimitri, and all the others. If you had, how else would you explain your new scar?

After that your parents decided you had to move. It didn’t seem to matter that aside from the scar you were unharmed, you’d given them enough of a scare they decided it was worth it to finally move into the city. 

You’d begged them not to, told them you didn’t want to move. In a last ditch effort you told them all about Dimitri and the others.

The thought was that if they knew you had friends, they’d actually let you stay. 

But…

But your parents thought you were making it up. 

They thought you were lying in an attempt to avoid moving, and worst of all your father had said to you; “Fantasy stories like this are exactly why we need to move, ____.  We’ve clearly been leaving you alone too often for you to start making things up like this.” 

It crushed you.

It crushed you because you knew you were telling the truth. 

Your scar was proof of that. 

Your parents were moving so fast with the move too.

When you wake the next day a lot of the things in the living room were already boxed up, and more than that…

Your mom had taken off work. 

It’s like they didn’t want to leave you alone now.

But if you were moving, really moving, you had to make your way back to your new friends and let them know.

You refused to just disappear without telling them, after all you promised you’d come back and play again. 

All day you’re stuck with your mother, it’s not until your father gets home that you’re allowed out of her sight, but even then there’s no real chance for you to get past either of them and get outside. 

So you make a plan. 

Tonight after both your parents have gone to bed you’ll sneak out of the house.

You’ve never done something like this before, but...you not only have to do it, you want to do it. 

The wait is absolutely agonizing. 

When it’s time for dinner you rush through your food, almost making yourself sick in the process, only to rush off to bed and wait as soon as you’d finished eating and gotten the permission. 

You lay in bed, pretending to be asleep, as you listen to your parents moving downstairs. 

After what feels like eternity you hear them make their way up the stairs, and you listen with baited breath as the footsteps stop outside your door.  

“Should I check on him?” It’s your mother. Her voice a hushed whisper, although you can still hear it through the thin walls, a reminder you’ll have to be extra quiet when you sneak out. 

“Nah.” Your father says, his voice soft but not bothering to try and whisper. “He seems pretty against the move, especially if he went to bed so early. Let him rest, he’ll feel better in the morning.”

She seems to listen to him, because your mother says nothing else and you hear the gentle sound of her footsteps mixed with your fathers heavier ones as they continue down the hall to their own room. 

You let out a huge sigh of relief and finally open up your clenched shut eyes. 

Slowly you sit up in your bed, you want to do everything as slow as possible to avoid making any noise. 

You slip on a pair of boots, and your jacket. 

It’s going to be dark out in the forest, and it’s going to be cold. 

And now that you’re dressed for your expedition you work on the decoy. Grabbing a large stuffed tiger you force it into your clothes, and then beneath your covers, making sure to tuck it in so the head is completely under the covers. 

If either of your parents were to peek in now, they’d assume the lump in the blankets to be you, and would only learn the truth if they tried to wake you up. 

Perfect. 

Now you just have to wait. 

You wait until you hear the clear sound of your fathers snores shaking the house before you slowly twist the knob to your bedroom door. 

It clicks as you open it up, and you freeze.

But there’s no change in the house. No sounds from your mother as your father continues to snore loudly into the night. 

Despite your best efforts a few of the stairs creak under your weight as you make your way down, but either due to your fathers snores, or how deep a sleeper your mother is, no one seems to hear it either. 

Once on the first floor you practically bolt to the door, hands fumbling to undo the locks. 

As soon as the door opens you’re hit with the chilly night air, you’re glad you decided to wear your jacket. 

You make your way into the yard, shutting the door to the house behind you as you survey the treeline. 

Finding Dimitri would be hard.

After all he’s the one who found you after you’d fallen…

But that’s a good starting place. 

If you enter the forest the same way you did when chasing after your ball, surely you’d find Dimitri eventually, right?

Except this time you’ll take extra precautions to make sure you don’t fall and hurt yourself again. 

It’s nearly impossible to see in the forest when it’s this dark, you have to make your way by touch, feeling from tree to tree.

Eventually you run out of path, clinging to the tree behind you as you test the unsteady ground with the tips of your toes. 

Yes!

This has to be the mudslide you fell down before.

Still holding onto the tree, you gently slide your way down, until you're sitting fully on the ground. Then you slowly, and carefully scoot your way to the edge.

It’s steep, the ground is still unsettled, possible to collapse away again. 

Instead of trying to walk down, you’re going to slowly ease your way down, inch by inch on your butt. 

Sure your pants would be covered in dirt and mud afterwards, but it’ll be better than taking another hard tumble down. 

This works, for the most part, a couple times you slide uncontrollably, but thanks to the sitting potion you mostly wind up a sore back and butt, meaning you’re alright aside from a few possible bruises. 

However now the real challenge starts. 

You don’t remember much at all about the way to the slime city. You’d been so amazed by Dimitri’s entire existence you’d spent most of the walk staring at, and talking to the prince. 

Honestly...You’re not even sure which direction the two of you had gone in.

All you can do is guess, and start walking so that’s what you do after dusting off your pants. 

You pick a random direction and start heading that way. 

Surely if you just walk enough you’ll find the slime city. 

Thankfully, it seems luck is on your side. 

As you wander, once again using the trees to guide your way through the darkness, you eventually start to see lights in the distance. 

That makes it much easier. You manage to follow the lights all the way back to the slime city but…

It’s late. And with the time comes another issue. 

You don’t know how to find Dimitri. 

He’s a prince though, right?

And prince’s live in castles so if you find a castle you’ll find Dimitri!

From that point it’s easy. There’s only one building castle-like, towering over all the other buildings in this town, and so-

That’s where you go. 

You’re not sure the proper way to ask for a prince, what you’re allowed and not allowed to do in this kind of situation but…

It’s important.

So you just knock. 

A simple knock.

And as you wait you start to worry that all of this was one big bad idea. 

On the brightside you’re pretty sure you can find your way back home, this time. 

To your surprise and relief it’s not some stranger who opens the door, but Dedue. That means there’ll be a lot less explaining to do. 

“____?” He asks, the confusion clear in his voice. “It’s late, his highness is already getting ready for bed-” “Please!” You interject quickly. “This is important. I have to tell him something very important.”

Dedue sighs, but you can see his expression break down. 

“Alright. But quickly. He could get in trouble if you’re caught.”

Although his words briefly pique your interest, why would Dimitri get in trouble,  you don’t have time to ask, now filled with this urgency from Dedue. 

You quickly and quietly follow after Dedue as he leads you past a main hall, up a flight of stairs, and through several more hallways until he stops you at a door. He’s the one who knocks. “Your highness?” Dedue calls out to Dimitri through the closed wooden door. 

“Dedue?” Dimitri’s voice answers almost immediately. “Come in, is something wrong?” 

He isn’t given a verbal answer, but he sees you clear as day once the door is opened. The prince looks surprised, but then quickly his expression changes to a smile. “____? What are you doing here?”

“I needed to tell you something!” You explain, your emotions getting the best of you, realizing that you’ve just made friends and you’ll likely never see them again. 

“My parents...They’re making us move.” 

“You’re moving?”

“I don’t have a choice. I just...Didn’t want you to think I left because of you.”

Dimitri nods. “I understand-” “Dimitri, you and your friends, you’re the first real friends I’ve ever had. So I wanted to properly say goodbye.” Dimitri looks sad, but...understanding. “Here...Let me give you something then.” 

You and Dedue watch Dimitri go through several drawers until he finds what it is he’s looking for. 

“...A knife?” A dagger, still in its sheath. 

Just like before he seems to grow a bit embarrassed, the blue in his cheeks turning a darker purple in color. 

“I said I would protect you...With this you can protect yourself, even if I’m not with you.” You take the dagger from him. It’s thoughtful...although you have no idea how to use it. 

“Thank you Dimitri.” You hug it close to your chest. If nothing else, it’ll be another reminder that Dimitri and the slimes are real. 

“I’ll treasure it.”

After that you somehow manage to get home on your own. Although you were alone, you weren’t scared, after all you had the dagger from Dimitri. You knew if you had that, you’d be safe. It’s still dark when you get back, and yet you’re able to sneak back into the house. 

Nothing’s changed. It’s like you never snuck out at all. As you carefully make your way up the stairs you can still hear the sound of your fathers snores, even as a stair creaks under your feet. 

Tired now, and in the homestretch, you don’t freeze, or worry about whether your parents wake up and catch you. 

You just hurry to your room, change out of your dirty clothes and back into your pajamas and then crawl into bed. 

The dagger from Dimitri is special to you and so you decide to sleep with it, sliding the dagger under your pillow where you know it’ll be hidden from your parents. 

That was your last night in the house. By the end of the next day your parents had packed and moved everything into a house in the city. 

A week later you’re enrolled in school, and you finally start interacting with other kids your own age, human kids. 

The first month in the city was the worst. Most of your time, when you weren’t in school, was spent trying to beg your parents to go back. 

However there was no amount of crying or bargaining in the world capable of changing their minds, not when they thought your safety was at risk. 

Time was going to move. With or without you. 

And eventually you just gave up on begging. 

As time moved on, as you got settled into your new home, new school, and made new friends. 

But you still hadn’t forgotten Dimitri, and the other slime children. 

Not when you still held close the dagger Dimitri had given you. 

You remembered it, remember being given it by a boy made of blue. 

Once you tried asking your mother about it. About the boy you remember, the boy made of blue slime who’d given you a dagger.

She had simply laughed off the story.

But her explanation as to what happened, what you remember, it made a little sense. 

“You’ve had lots of dreams about the old house since we’ve moved,” She’s right. It felt like almost every time you fell asleep you dreamt of your old home. “It’s not odd you dreamt of the forest there too...and going on some grand adventure.” She’d finished her explanation with another laugh, and a smile. “Oh to be young again.”

Eventually...You believed her.

There was no such thing as slime people after all, it all had to have been a dream. 

Dream or not, the dagger at least, the dagger was real. 

And as the years passed, you slowly did end up forgetting everything about the slime Prince, and about the forest behind your childhood home. 

But...You never forgot the dagger. Never gave up the dagger. 

It’s your most prized possession, even if you couldn’t remember who gave it to you, or how you came to own it in the first place. 

That’s why you bring it with you wherever you go. 

At fifteen you’re finally considered an old enough to be left alone, without the constant watchful eyes of your overbearing parents, and so, you did what any fifteen year old boy experiencing freedom for the first time would do. 

You decided immediately to go on an adventure to explore the forest surrounding the city.

It’s the weekend and thankfully your parents still have to work, so you won’t have to worry about them catching on. 

You still lie though, telling them you’ll be spending the day at one of your friend’s houses, and once your parents finally leave you pack some essentials. 

The forest is dangerous, you know that, there’s always a chance you could run into a feral dog, wolves, or something like a bear, however with your dagger by your side you feel invincible. 

You stuff your backpack with water, lunch, and basic hiking supplies before making your way out the town's gates. 

Most of your walk is actually nice and peaceful, it’s not at all the adventure you were expecting, but you still find yourself enjoying it. 

The sunlight filters in through the trees creating beautiful patterns on the forest floor, and the occasional touch of sunlight to your skin has you feeling warm all over. 

At one point during your forest walk you even see a deer, although it had quickly run away once it had noticed you. 

When you start to get tired you decide that it’s lunch time, you’ll stop when you find some sort of clearing to relax in. 

And carrying on you do find a clearing, kind of. 

It’s not so much a clearing than it is a yard, a yard belonging to a familiar home in the middle of the forest. 

Your childhood home. 

It’s a little odd, you hadn’t realized you’d been walking that long, nor had you been trying to find this place.

The memory of how to get you had long since left your mind, and the pathway your parents had made back then had been completely taken over once more by nature itself. 

Still having found it…

It’s a nice coincidence. 

You decide that your lunch can wait, you want to explore!

The house is worse for wear now after five years of disuse.

Although you’re not surprised it’s been abandoned, after all who would want to live in the middle of the woods far away from anyone else, it still makes you a little sad to see. 

This was a place you held fondly in your memories and heart, it was the place you spent most of your childhood, and now it was decrepit and abandoned. 

You stay on the outside for now, circling and seeing the damage time has tolled on the old building. 

Vines have overtaken the brick walls, growing and lining until they meet at the house's roof, whatever color it had once been replaced now with only foliage. 

A ball, long since deflated sits on the ground, almost causing you to trip. 

It’s yours. 

You recognize it, if even slightly. 

Your parents must have left it in their rush to move. 

What once was a shiny new red is now dusty and pink, bleached from the years of sun. 

It feels rough, scratchy in your hands, and for a moment, as you hold the husk of a toy in your hands you remember playing with it, playing kickball, with a group of friends. 

It’s only a vague memory though. 

One you can’t place. 

After all, you hadn’t had any friends since until you moved to the city. 

The ball goes back where you found it, although you make a mental note that it’s there so you hopefully won't trip over it. 

Despite the fact it was important to you, and you remember so many hours playing with that ball by yourself, there’s no reason to keep an old deflated ball. It’s odd seeing an abandoned house in such good shape. No one’s even vandalized it for the sake of it. 

The windows are intact, although it’s utterly impossible to gaze through to the inside due to the years of dust lining the glass. 

This does little to deter you though, if anything it only makes you want to see the inside even more. 

It’s not like you’re expecting to find anything. 

You still remember your last day in the house, how empty everything had been once the boxes were moved out. 

There was nothing left.

Nothing that made it a home, anyway. 

The front door looks somehow less decrepit then the rest of the old building, aside from a few cracks and splinters in the wood. 

To your immediate surprise you find the door easy to move, opening with relative ease.

You had really expected to struggle with the door until the point you had no choice to force it open with all your strength. 

But that wasn’t the case at all. 

It didn’t seem at all as if the door, aside from some weathering, had been damaged by the elements at all. No swelling of the wood, or intrusive ivy filling the lock. 

Dust. That’s the first thing you see, and yet, there’s not enough of it. 

Not enough dust for all the years this place has laid abandoned.  

In fact, it almost looks as if someone has taken the time to begin slowly cleaning this place up, they just haven't gotten around to the dust encrusted windows yet. 

A chill goes down your spine. 

Maybe this place is much less abandoned than you had previously thought. 

You grab for your dagger.

The smart thing would be to leave, if someone really is here that means you’re possibly putting yourself in harms way…

But at the same time, this is your house, or at least it was. 

You don’t want a stranger defiling it, destroying it, and all the memories that come with it. 

“Hello?” 

It’s probably not the safest option, you realize as soon as your voice echoes in the empty home. If someone is here, all you’re doing is letting them know that you’re here. 

“Is someone here?” 

Footsteps above you. Slow and steady. 

You can hear them. 

The handle of your dagger grows damp with the sweat from your nervous palms. 

“Y-You shouldn’t be here.” 

Not that you can talk, really, realistically you’re just as much as a trespasser as this person. 

They don’t respond. The footsteps just continue and you feel yourself grow less brave by the second. 

And then you see it-

Well him. 

A boy, a man?

He looks to be the same age as you, with blonde hair, and bright blue eyes but something about him isn’t right. 

Something about him is uncanny valley. 

And then you realize what it is. 

It’s faint, incredibly faint, but you can see the wall behind him. 

“Gh-Gho-”

The scream of ghost doesn’t leave your lips before you turn, scrambling towards the door. 

“Wait please!”

A familiar voice calls out for you to wait, but you don’t, not even hesitating as in your scramble for the door your dagger falls from your hand and onto the old wooden floor below. 

You run, and run, and run. 

It doesn’t matter that you were tired before you began investigating the house, adrenaline allows you to keep going, to keep running, until you’re back within the safety of the city gates. 

It’s only then, only once you know you’re safe do you finally stop, collapsing with your hands on your knees as you try to breathe, lungs and legs burning from the overexertion. 

All you can think in that moment is your parents were right. 

They were right to move. 

The woods are dangerous. 

You went straight home only to lock yourself in your room, finally eating your lunch as you stress and replay what you saw over and over in your head. 

That boy, or ghost, or monster…whatever it was, why did it look so familiar to you? 

And why had it been in your old house? 

No matter how hard you think on it you aren’t able to find an answer, at least not one that makes sense to you. 

He had told you to wait. 

He hadn’t wanted you to leave. 

Why?

And your dagger…

Your most prized possession…

You’d dropped it. 

It was gone now, and if you wanted it back you’d have to go back and possibly face whatever it was you’d seen there today. 

You aren’t sure if it’s worth it. 

And if it is, well, it’ll have to wait. 

You’re not going back today. Not now. When it’s already late, and you’re already so exhausted. 

So exhausted that a nap sounds great, actually, and you allow yourself to lean back against your bed and shut your eyes. 

Sleep takes you easier than you thought it would. 

Tap. 

A consistent tapping noise makes you stir from your slumber, but you don’t want to get up, not yet. Your bed is warm and comfortable, and you’re still tired. 

You simply roll over instead. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

A frustrated groan leaves your throat. You cover your head with your pillow, and hope it’ll make the sound go away. 

It doesn’t. 

In fact, the tapping only seems to get louder the more you try to ignore it until…

Instead of tapping you hear the sound of glass splintering. 

That’s what does it. 

You toss the pillow from your head, and finally sit up in bed. 

It’s dark out. 

You must have slept the rest of the day away after coming home. 

As your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, you realize what exactly had made the splintering sound. 

The window. 

There hadn’t been a crack in it before, not that you remember at least, and now there is, although small in size. 

“...” 

Gulping down your fear you get out of bed, inching your way to the window, and peeking out to see what has managed to crack your window. 

And when you see it, see him, you freeze. 

It’s the same boy, or ghost, or whatever that you’d seen in your old house he’s standing in your yard, on the ground below your second story window. 

A chill runs down your spine. 

He’d been trying to get your attention, throwing rocks at your window like this was some sort of fairytale. 

He noticed you peeking, you can tell, if only because of the relieved, almost nervous smile that makes up his expression. 

“It really is you,” The other boy starts and he sounds just as nervous as he looks. 

“I thought it was. You’ve changed but you look the same in a lot of ways, but I still wasn’t sure, and then you dropped this,”

A dagger.

Your dagger. 

The dagger you’ve kept on your person almost everyday since you were ten years old. 

“I never thought I’d see you again ____.” 

It hits you then, when he says your name, exactly who this is. 

Dimitri. 

The boy you’d see in your dreams about the forest, the same boy your mother had told you only existed in your imagination. 

He was bigger now, grown up a bit  just like you. 

“Dimitri?” While your own eyes widen in shock and disbelief, surely you’re still dreaming, Dimitri’s expression changes into that of a big smile. 

“You remember-”

You nod quickly, managing to force a “stay there,” from your lips as you rush.

In a haste you don’t bother to grab a coat to protect you from the cold night air, nor do you bother putting on shoes to avoid the wet grass, you simply rush as you are as quickly and silently as possible down the stairs and out your front door. 

Part of you is almost surprised to see Dimiti still standing there, as if you’d been afraid he was simply some sort of hallucination you were having. 

Maybe that’s why the first thing out of your mouth when you meet him face to face is;

“You’re real.”

It makes him laugh, the sound filling your body with warmth despite the chilly night air. 

“Of course I’m real.”

“I thought...I just meant…”

You stumble over your words. 

“It’s been a long time,” You start explaining. “Eventually I thought that I...That I made it all up. That I made you up...and I guess then I forgot.” 

For a moment you worry the admission will make him mad, that he’ll talk about how bad a friend you are for forgetting, but he doesn’t. 

He stays smiling gently at you, just glad to see you after all these years. 

“You didn’t forget ____,” His voice is soft, you can hear the fondness in it. 

“After all you kept the dagger all this time, didn’t you?” A bit of embarrassed heat rushes to your cheeks because he’s right, you did.

Not only had you kept the dagger, but you revered it as one of, if not your most, prized possession in the whole world. 

“Yeah...I did.”

“See,” Dimitri continues with a smile, “You never forgot. Not truly.”

With that said he hands you back your dagger, the dagger he originally gave you, and just like before the handle is still warm from his touch. 

“I wanted to return it to you.”

That just reminds you-

“Dimitri...Why were you at my old house to begin with?”

“Oh.” 

It’s the Princes turn to blush. 

Unlike when he was a child, he doesn’t turn purple, instead the pale shade of his cheeks turns red. 

“I visit there sometimes,” He admits softly. 

“Occasionally cleaning it up....Just in case.”

“Incase?”

“Incase you came back.”

Oh. 

“Dimitri-”

“___?”  A voice comes from inside your house, you instantly recognize it as belonging to your mother. She must have heard you talking.

“Tomorrow,” You tell Dimitri quickly. “I’ll meet you there, in the forest, tomorrow.”

Although you aren’t sure how your mother would react if she saw the Slime Prince, you don’t want to risk anything. 

Dimitri looks surprised and thrilled, although you only see his expression for a moment before you’ve turned to go back inside quickly closing the door behind you so there’s no chance of her seeing Dimitri. 

“Sorry!” You call out to your mother. 

She’s tired and annoyed. 

“That stray dog was outside again,” It’s a lie, but a believable one, at least. “It was scratching at the door so I tried to shoo it away.”

“...Fine...Just go back to bed.”

So you do. 

It’s hard to fall back asleep though, your heart seems to be pounding in your chest. 

You’re excited, excited and afraid that if you fall asleep you’ll simply wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream. 

When you do finally wake up you waste no time, you rush out the door and to the woods. 

The path is still gone due to time, but you remember how you’d stumbled upon the house the day before, and so it’s easy to find it with the retracing of your steps. 

Dimitri’s waiting.

Both of you seem relieved, surprised, to see the other. 

In your case you were still worried that this had all been a dream, that you’d come and Dimitri would never show.

And Dimitri…

Well you can’t know for sure why he was surprised, but maybe he simply thought you wouldn’t show up at all, after all you’d gotten your dagger back. 

“You’re here-” “You really came-”

Both of you speak at the same time, a flush taking both your features in embarrassment. 

A moment passes, both of you getting over being flustered, before either of you tries speaking again. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t think-” “I just thought that maybe-”

It happens again. 

The two of you continue hesitating in fear of speaking over one another. 

An awkward silence takes the two of you, and you refuse to speak, waiting for Dimitri to finally sheepishly speak up on his own.  

“I’m glad you came.” This time he’s able to speak without you speaking over him. “I was worried that...Well I thought that maybe you wouldn’t come back. I thought that maybe…”

Dimitri trails off, and this time you interrupt him on purpose. 

“Of course I came.” 

If only to prove this was all real, that it hadn’t been a dream.

You had to come. 

“I’m glad you came, I’m glad you’re here.”

Hearing that makes Dimitri smile, and that makes you smile too. 

The rest of your day is spent with Dimitri. He led you through the forest in the trees, pointing out natural plants and herbs and their varying different uses; “Sometimes you can find edible plants among the weeds!”

By the time the sun is going down you’re exhausted but….you’d had the most fun you’ve had in a very long time. 

“Can we do this again?” 

It’s Dimitri who asked, and you can’t answer fast enough. 

“Yes! Please!”

But you’re both busy most of the time. 

You have school, and Dimitri has his princely duties on top of studies and training. 

The weekend.

The weekend will belong to the two of you. 

Next weekend when you meet up with Dimitri he takes you to the city, the same you’d visited when you were a child, and once again you’d been introduced to Dimitri’s other friends. 

They’d aged, just like Dimitri, and just like Dimitri their colors were different too. 

And naturally you were curious about it. 

When you had a chance, when it was just you and Dimitri, and you didn’t have to worry about someone like Felix judging you for the question, you ask.

“Everyone looks different than what I remember,” You start. “Like...There colors...are different.” Realizing that you might be saying something offensive you hesitate to continue. 

Thankfully Dimitri doesn’t seem bothered by what you said at all, just nods seemingly understanding. “When we’re born we’re all one color,” He begins to explaining, lifting one of his hands to the sun so you can see the way the light slightly trickles through the now skin color slime before he turns it back to the same blue shade you remember him being from his childhood, the same blue as his eyes. 

“But the older we get, the more we’re able to control our pigments.”

“Like camouflage?” You ask, reaching out to hold his hand, seeing your own through the blue. 

“Yes! Exactly like that. It’s a natural camouflage.”

“That’s...so….cool!” 

Dimitri’s pigments seem to drop entirely, his slime turning completely blue, except for his face which seemed to be turning purple. 

“Ye-Yes! It is!” He pulls his hand free of your own. “But as you can see I’m still getting the hang of it.”

For years things continue like that with the two of you. 

During the week you’d go to school, spend time with your family, but then on the weekend you’d return to the woods, to Dimitri, and to your other friends.

You’d even started repairing your old house with help from everyone turning it from its once abandoned state to a clean, livable home. 

And when the time came, when you were eighteen, an adult, you moved into that house in the woods. 

For a while things were good. 

You were happy. 

And your friends seemed happy too. 

But it couldn’t last forever. 

Something was wrong, you began to realize, something was wrong, and the slimes were hiding it from you. 

It go to the point where you could no longer ignore it. 

It had been nearly two weeks since you’d last seen Dimitri, and so you took matters into your own hands, traveling to the forest city to find him yourself. 

And you found him. 

Easily enough. 

He looked shocked to see you, worried to see you, even. 

“____? What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

War.

That’s what they’d been hiding, a war was coming. 

They didn’t want you involved. 

They were going to have to leave. 

You were going to be left alone. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I-” 

Although you’re angry, angry that he was just going to leave without telling you, it doesn’t change how you feel about Dimitri, and so you interrupt his apologies with a kiss. 

Your first kiss. 

It feels weird, your flesh against his own slime, but it’s a nice weird. 

The kiss is soft and chaste, your face and lips are warm, and you can feel the warmth of Dimitri’s face against your own.

He kisses back, pressing his lips harder against your own, as if desperate.

Your heart skips a beat. 

“Don’t...Don’t apologize.” You say as soon as you pull away, lips still inches away from his own. “Just come back safe.” 

When you finally pull away enough to see his face, it’s red, he’s finally managed to control his pigments, and so he has a real blush, not purple tint. 

“I promise.” He takes your hand in his squeezing it firmly, but still gently. 

“I promise you I’ll come back safe, no matter what.”

You help them prepare the best you can, the best you’re able, and although you’re scared, you keep a strong face. 

It’s not your place to be afraid, after all, and if nothing else you want to be a support you friends can rely on. 

It’s Sylvain who seems to see through you though, as the pair of you pack supplies. 

“Don’t worry,” He starts smiling at you. 

The slime seems as laid back as ever, but you have to wonder if even that is just a front. 

“We’re not going to let anything happen to Dimitri.” 

And as comforting as that is, you still have to stop him there, “Sylvain, it’s not just Dimitri I’m worried about.” 

Clearly you’ve surprised him, his cocky expression dropping for just a moment before quickly coming back. 

“Huh?”

“You’re all important to me, Sylvain.”

You pull him into a hug, although it’s clear from his stiffening he wasn’t expecting that either. 

“I want you all to come home safe.”

“R-Right.” 

When you pull back you can only smile at Sylvain’s sheepish face. 

You can’t help but worry this is the last time you may ever see him. 

Dimitri comes to you, the day before they’re set to march, and he stays with you in your little forest home. 

And although the two of you have a good time...the same creeping feeling you’d gotten while packing with Sylvain comes, eating away at your heart, until it’s impossible for Dimitri not to notice something is wrong. 

“____?”

He reaches across the table, gently grabbing your hand, and pulling your attention from where you’d zoned out to his worried smiling face. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I just…”

You struggle to find the words, your throat feels tight, and tears feel like they’ll spring to your eyes at any moment. 

“You can tell me,” Dimitri says, his voice is soft, and hesitant. He’s scared of upsetting you further, and somehow that only upsets you more. 

After all...He’s about to go put his life on the line, fighting something, someone you don’t understand, and all you can do about it is cry. 

“I wanted to have one good day with you,” The tears begin to cloud your vision, and you can’t stop them from falling now. “And now I’m ruining it because I can’t help but think...can’t help but think it’ll be the last.”

Dimitri seems to freeze a little, before squeezing your hand tighter. 

It’s odd, his slime envelops your hand, and although it’s an odd sensation, it’s not bad. It almost tickles. 

It does so enough to distract you as you sniffle, trying and failing to keep anymore tears from falling. 

“____, I love you.” 

Now it’s your turn to freeze. 

The emotions, the feelings between the two of you had been clear since that first panicked kiss, but neither of you had verbalized it. Either out of fear of rejection, or the reality of what was to come. 

“Dimitri I...I love you too.”

A kiss. 

Your second ever, this time initiated by Dimitr, leaning over the table to press his lips against your own. 

A hand reaches to your face, wiping the tears from your cheeks as he kisses you.

When the kiss ends you’re just staring at him, smiling sadly. 

“I love you.” You repeat again, quieter this time, voice above a whisper. 

Dimitri hesitates for a moment, and you’re stuck to simply watch him curiously, a soft smile taking your face as he gets up, coming around the table to your side where he cups your face. 

He rests his forehead on your own. 

“I will always come back to you.”

His lips capture your own again, and you wrap your arms around his neck, trying to pull him as close as you can. 

You almost don’t notice when he lifts you from your chair, surprised by his strength, but you let your legs wrap around his waist as well, in fear of falling. 

“Dimitri?” 

Parting for air you lick your lips, tasting him on them. 

He doesn’t respond, instead capturing your lips in a kiss once again, as he begins carrying you to your bedroom, the question answered. 

All you can do is blush when Dimitri places you softly onto your bed. 

You want this. You’ve wanted this. 

It would be a lie to say you haven’t thought about, and speculated what it would be with Dimitri like this, considering he’s not human. 

“Is this…”

He seems to realize now the big step he took on instinct, and is now making sure you’re okay with it. 

Dimitri is sweet.

As always wanting to make sure he doesn’t push you past your boundaries. 

“Is this okay?”

All you can do is nod. 

You want this. 

You want him. 

When you start to remove your shirt on your own he stops you. 

“Let me.”

He kisses you softly, although it lasts only a second before his lips move to their next spot, your cheek, and then your jaw, and then your neck.

Only when your shirt keeps him from kissing any lower does he finally begin to unbutton it, even going as far as to take your shirt and fold it afterwards setting it to the side. 

It’s cute how careful he’s being, although you don’t have much time to think about how cute Dimitri’s being before his mouth is on you again, this time kissing down your chest. 

Dimitri’s lips wrap around your nipple and begin to suck. 

The sensation is completely foreign to you, but it’s not bad. 

You arch into the wet sticky sensation of Dimitri’s mouth, gasping out when his tongue joins the fray, flicking your sensitive nub. 

An embarrassing mewl of pleasure leaves your mouth, and you find yourself once against wrapping your legs around Dimitri, attempting to pull him closer to you. It doesn’t help you escape the sensations though, because now your swiftly growing bulge is pressed directly against him, and you aren’t able to keep yourself from grinding it against him. 

He releases your nipple with a soft pop, although he flicks your nipple with his tongue one last time. 

“Do you trust me?”

Dimitri asks looking up at you, his head still resting on your chest. 

And of course you nod, licking your lips before you answer. 

“Always.”

The confirmation is all he needs to begin wrapping around your body with his own. 

It’s weird, an odd sensation, his bottom half joining together into one gooey mass which then sucks in your legs and hips. 

If it wasn’t Dimitri, you might have been afraid. 

Especially as you feel his goo start to slip into your pants, messaging the flesh of your calves as it steadily creeps upwards.

You’re covered entirely from the waist down, and it feels…

It feels amazing, like you’re being given a full body massage. 

“Dimitri-”

His name leaves your lips, and you’re surprised at how lust filled your voice is. 

Warm goo wraps itself around your cock, and as you moan out you find your mouth filled with it too. 

The slime in your mouth is somewhat harder than the similar sticky substance rubbing against you, and as your face flushes you realize it must be Dimitri’s cock. 

Relaxing as best you can, after all you’ve never done this before, you wrap your tongue around the somewhat solid appendage, trying your best to copy the movements you feel on your on cock. 

It doesn’t taste like you thought it would. 

It tastes like Dimitri’s lips, although a bit saltier. 

You buck your hips up and gag when Dimitri seems to do the same, his slimy cock going further into your throat. 

Something’s leaking from it, into your throat, and you realize then it must be his precum. 

“Mmm.” 

Warm squeezes on your cock force a moan from your throat, around the slimy cock settled there. 

You’re close, bucking into the warmth of Dimitri’s slimy body, but surprisingly it’s not you who cums first. 

It surprises you, causing you to cough and sputter around the slick liquid running down your throat, but thankfully the slime seems to retract at the same time, Dimitri wanting to avoid choking you if possible. 

“Sorry.”

With a blink he’s back in one form, no longer a big mass of slime, his hands now on your cock, stroking you feverishly to bring you to your own release. 

He kisses you, tongue mingling with yours passionately, tasting his own cum on your lips, and giving a soft noise of pleasure himself. 

“Dimitri!”

The moan of his name is smothered by his lips, but Dimitri still gets the jist. 

With one last squeeze to your cock by your lover you cum. 

The white sticky substance shoots onto both Dimitri’s hands and your chest as well, making a mess of you both. 

You lay prone for a moment, trying to catch your breath as you recover from such an intense, world shattering first orgasm. 

Dimitri doesn’t seem to need to wait though, his lips once again kissing at your neck, and trailing down your chest. 

All you can do is watch, panting softly, as a long blue tongue parts his lips and begins to trail further down. 

“Dima-”

It feels good, and it’s too much. 

He isn’t trying to overwhelm you though, he leaves your cock alone for the most part, the appendage licking between the dips in your ribcage, lower down to lap at the cum staining your skin before it can dry. 

The sight alone is lewd, it makes your spent cock twitch, and so you moan and shut your eyes as he continues cleaning you up. 

That same long slick tongue wraps itself around your cock, and all you can do is squirm with the over stimulation. 

Even if he’s not trying to make you aroused, just licking up your cum, cleaning you, it doesn’t stop your cock from starting to get hard though. 

He keeps at it, his tongue wrapping around and squeezing your cock with no real pattern. 

His tongue only leaves your cock when you’re fully hard, but he doesn’t stop touching you, not yet. 

Instead his tongue trails further down, the cooling slime on your cock already overloading you with sensation, but then he wraps it around your balls and you almost cum on the spot. 

“Dima-”

You clench up hard trying not to cum, although you don’t know if you really could with the vice grip of his abnormally long tongue wrapped around you. 

When he licks the underside your toes curl. 

“I’m...I’m gunna-”

He doesn’t let you cum, to your disappointment, not yet. 

Your chest heaves as he stops, slowly pulling away tongue trailing up the way it came until it’s back in his mouth. 

And then his hands reach down in its place, one wrapping around your cock, and the other going to fondly your now slimy balls. 

You cum almost instantly, Dimitri kisses you, moans silenced by his mouth. 

And after, he pulls you to him, his arms wrapping around you. 

It’s a sweet embrace. 

You feel safe, and at the same time there’s sadness in it. 

Recognizing that tomorrow he’ll be gone, and you have no idea how long it’ll be until you get to do this again, if you ever do. 

“Dimitri,”

He shushes you gently, hands moving to pet your hair softly, pulling your head to rest against his soft yet firm chest. 

It all feels so nice, so comforting despite your worry, you find your eyes starting to fall, sleep filling your body. 

“I love you, Dimitri.”

Sleepy words leave your lips as your hand tries to tighten in his chest, it’s a vein attempt to hold him, that if you just hold on enough he won’t leave. 

“I love you too.”

The last thing you feel before falling asleep is the gentle kiss of lips against your forehead. 

When you finally wake you find yourself alone. 

Dimitri isn’t in your bed, and when you search your home in hope he didn’t leave without being goodbye you find nothing. 

Nothing but a letter addressed to you. 

‘My dearest ____,

I’m sorry that I left without saying goodbye. It’s shameful of me, and if I thought there was any other way, I would have done that instead. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you cry over my absence, and I am a weak man, I know that if you were to ask me to stay with you, that I would be tempted and I have to leave. I have to do this. Both as a man fighting for what he believes in and his family, and as a Prince fighting for his people. 

I’ll return to you. I promise you. Please try to understand.

Yours Forever, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.’ 

Part of you wants to throw the letter away in your anguish, but you don’t, you couldn’t. 

Not only is Dimitri right, you would have cried, you would have wanted him to stay, but the letter is also a testament to his love, and to his promise to return.

But knowing that, it doesn’t make it easier. 

It doesn't make the tears stop as you stand in your home, all alone, clutching the letter to your chest and crying. 

Nothing matters but Dimitri. 

Nothing matters but him coming home safe. 

And in the meantime you must carry on as normal, because that’s what Dimitri would want. 

So that’s what you do. 

You try to carry on as normal, but it’s hard. 

It’s hard without Dimitri and without your friends. 

At first you visit the slime city often, hoping for news of Dimitri and the others, but there never is.

And as you visit more on your own, the more you realize that by yourself, you’re nothing more than a human outcast. 

Eventually you stop going all together, knowing that...if something of note happened word would be sent to you, surely. 

And that’s what kept you from returning to the human city either, to your human family and friends. 

A fear that one day news would come from Dimitri, be it good or bad, and you wouldn’t be there to hear it. 

So you remain in your home. Even as the seasons begin to change. 

On the one year anniversary of his leaving for war, you get the courage to return to his city...only to find that it’s different now. 

A new ruler, a woman, Cornelia. 

She’s giving a speech and what she says…

It makes your blood run cold. 

“Our Dear Prince, Dimitri...It’s with a heavy heart that I bring the news to the people,” 

You don’t stay to listen. 

You already know what she’s going to say. 

That he’s dead. 

Dimitri is dead. 

He said he was going to come back to you. 

He’d promised. 

He’d lied. 

And it hurts. 

It hurts so bad you’re not even able to make it all the way home before you break down, your eyes clouded with tears, unable to see. 

You have to grab a nearby tree to brace yourself as the first sob leaves your mouth. 

What are you supposed to do now? 

Without him? 

Your chest hurts. 

If you didn’t know better you’d think you were dying, that your heart had broken, and now you were dying of the pain. 

It’s not his fault. You know it’s not but it doesn’t stop your feelings. 

Grief.

Anger.

Resentment. 

The letter he’d left you the day he’d gone to war, you still have it, you still carry it, just as you had the dagger before it. 

You pull it from your pocket, yelling and screaming at it as if it will help.

As if Dimitri will hear it. 

As if it will bring him back. 

But it doesn’t help.

Nothing helps. 

And eventually you know you have to move on. 

You have to go home. 

So you do, even as your face is red and wet from tears, you force yourself to continue, just as you had when he’d left you. 

The first few days after the news were the hardest, you struggled to get out of bed, or to even feed yourself. 

You simply laid there reading the words he had written to you over and over. 

‘My Dearest ____,’

‘I’m sorry that I left without saying goodbye.’

‘I’ll return to you.’

‘Yours Forever, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.’ 

You read the same lines over and over until the page became stained with your tears, and you began to know the letters' contents by heart. 

It changed something in you, reading the note so often, and you came to a decision. 

Dimitri wouldn’t have gotten himself killed. 

Not when he’d promised so dutifully to return to you. 

No....

Something had to be wrong about Cornelia’s story, and now you cursed yourself for not staying to hear her whole tale. 

Maybe it’s just the grief. 

You recognize that it might be.

But if he’s out there somewhere...You have to know. 

You aren’t a soldier. 

You’ve never been trained in the art of combat, but it’s dangerous out there, where Dimitri is, the war he’s fighting. 

Not a soldier, nor are you a fool. 

Dimitri had, throughout your time living there, throughout your time together, left things in your home, and so you picked up his training lance. 

You’d learn. 

You’d fight. 

You’d bring Dimitri home no matter the cost. 

“Dimitri, please just wait for me.”

All you can do is pray that Dimitri, wherever he is, whatever state he’s in, can hold on until you’re ready. 

It takes a month. 

A month of nonstop training, of nonstop working, till you finally think you’re ready. 

And with determination you set out to find the man you love. 

Fairly quickly you learn that combat training can never compare to the real thing, and yet you manage to prevail, manage to survive, even if some scrapes are close. 

Perhaps it’s your pure determination, or the true love in your heart, that keeps you victorious. 

It doesn’t matter.

You never stop to think about why you win against these foreign slime soldiers, your only thoughts are towards continuing on, towards finding Dimitri.

Currently you’re stalking through an abandoned city. 

It seems the soldiers you’d fought with on the outskirts had already been here, the city itself burned and scorched, most buildings no longer standing. 

Your dagger, the one Dimitri had given you when you were still only children, sits in your anxious hand, ready to attack anything that may make itself known. 

And something does make itself known, grabbing you from behind, surprising you entirely. 

Violently you thrash, and you at least recognize you were able to get a slash on the enemy, as they give a hiss of pain. 

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” It’s a panicked, but quiet whisper. 

And to your surprise you recognize the voice. You stop struggling, going limp, and allowing your eyes to gaze up into the face of your attacker. 

Sylvain. “There.” He relaxes, and releases you. “You were about to walk into an ambush.” 

His voice is still hushed, clearly trying to avoid whoever or whatever laid just beyond.

“Sylvain what are you-”

“I’ll explain later come on!”  

And with that you allow him to pull you along, outside of this poor ransacked town, and into the woods to a makeshift camp. 

“____? Is that you?”

“You actually found him, Sylvain!” 

Mercedes, Annette, Felix, and of course Sylvain himself. 

You’ve never been more relieved in your life, and you can’t stop the happy tears from entering your eyes. 

“Oh you poor thing…” Mercedes pulls you into an embrace, and you can’t stop yourself from hugging the woman back tightly, tears staining the shoulder of her clothes. 

“We’d heard rumors about a lone human fighting in the war, and we all thought...that has to be ____!” Annette explains cheerfully. “And we were right! We’re so glad you’re okay!” 

All you can do is nod, tears still shamefully streaming down your face, even as Mercedes pulls away and begins wiping them away with a handkerchief.  

“Where’s…” You take a deep breath, settle your shaking voice. “The others? An-And Dimitri?” 

Annette and Felix share a look. 

A look that makes you fear the worse. 

“The Boar’s gone and gotten himself captured, that lap dog of his too.” 

“But he’s alive!” Annette interrupts, smacking Felix on the back of the head, likely for keeping out that very important detail. 

“The others are keeping an eye on him from a distance, waiting on us, and we were waiting on you.” 

This is all such good news. 

Overwhelmingly good news.

The first truly good news you’ve heard in a while. 

“Then what are we waiting for,” You say through sniffles. “Lets go.” 

“No sir!” Mercedes interrupts, forcing you down onto a log by their makeshift fire. 

“You’re injured. You’re not going anywhere like this.” 

As much as you want to fight her, you can’t.

It feels like the adrenaline that’s been carrying you for days is finally crashing, and all the aches and pains, the injuries, are catching up to you. 

Mercedes is right. 

You need to rest.

If you keep going like this you’ll be no help to anyone, least of all Dimitri.

If you keep going like this you’ll get yourself killed. 

So you listen.

You rest, you let Mercedes heal you, and you listen as Felix tells you all the things about the war Dimitri had kept from you. 

He tells you everything. 

Everything about the conflict between the different slime people, about the death of Dimitri’s father and stepmother, and about his step sister Edelgard, the one they’re fighting against. 

You don’t understand it, although you wish there was some way for everyone to get along, you simply don’t understand it. 

As a human, you doubt you ever will, so you don’t try to. 

You’re not fighting for right or wrong, you’re fighting to protect your friends and the man you love. 

“He’s being held in Enbarr, so that’s where we’re headed now….Just don’t get in our way ____.” 

It’s almost too easy to make your way outside of Enbarr, to where Ashe and Ingrid are waiting to greet you all. 

Once again you’re relieved to see your friends as safe and sound as they can be given the circumstances. 

“We’re ready whenever you are.” Ingrid informs, giving a firm nod, “We know where the Prince is being held and-”

An explosion goes off within the city, and it’s clear from the mixed surprise and worry on everyone’s faces that this was not part of the plan. 

Despite the rising anxiety in your gut, you all seem to understand there’s no time for plans, only action, as you rush the gate, now no longer guarded, and enter yourselves. 

There’s a crowd of panicked guards and slime people, and you’re all able to slip in yourself, heading towards the sound of the commotion. 

When you finally find the source you don’t know how to feel. 

Afraid. 

Relieved. 

Dimitri and Dedue, both injured heavily but....

They’re alive. 

Dimitri seems to be missing part of the slime that makes up the left side of his face, but...He’s alive. 

There’s a woman in front of him, her too a slime, near defeated. 

She’s either unwilling, or unable to control her pigments, instead of appearing almost human like, she is all white. 

“El…” 

Dimitri’s the one who interrupts the tense silence between them, offering his hand to her. 

The woman smiles, you think for a moment she’s going to accept, that this whole horrible ordeal will be over, but then you see it. 

She’s reaching for another weapon. 

“No!” 

You cry out but Dimitri doesn’t need you to. 

He saw.

You know he did from the way he finishes the job, his lance slicing into the woman. 

Before now, you’d never actually seen a slime die, moving on in battle as soon as you’d cut them down.

But now you’re forced to watch as the woman wastes away into a puddle of nothingness. 

You feel sick, but it was him or her. 

In a moment your vision blurs and all you see is the ground rushing at you before nothingness. 

Warm.

You feel warm.

Instinctively you move closer towards that warmth, even as you recognize it to be the mostly solid body of someone else.

And then they chuckle, you hear and feel it, the way it echoes and rumbles your body. 

It’s a laugh you’d recognize anywhere, and you force your eyes open. 

“Dimitri-”

The light hurts. It’s too much, but it doesn’t stop you. 

“Goodmorning.” He says softly as he pet your hair. 

For a moment it feels like nothings changed, that everythings the same, that he never left for war, and you never learned to fight. 

“We’re almost home.” 

But things have changed. 

They’ll never be the same but you have each other. 

As your eyes adjust to the light, you realize his face is partially covered by bandages, you reach out gently, touching your hand to his slick warm skin.

“Dimitri…”

Tears spring to your eyes. 

You’ve been crying a lot lately. 

“I thought...I thought you were dead.”

He’s quiet for a moment, “I know.” His voice is still soft. 

“But I kept my promise, didn’t I?”

It makes you smile, even as the cart hits a bump making you jostle a bit. 

“Yeah...Yeah you did. Why did I…”

You don’t get to finish asking why you passed out before you’re interrupted by Mercedes, only now do you realize the others are in this cart with the two of you, and you find your face flushing in slight embarrassment. 

“I told you, you were pushing yourself too hard.” Mercedes interrupts, she’s scolding you but...She’s still got that motherly concern in her voice. 

“Seeing Dimitri-” She doesn’t wanna say it, to talk about what happened to Edelgard. 

“The stress was too much for you, and you fainted.”

“I see…” You’re embarrassed by that too, but you guess it doesn’t matter. 

These are your friends after all and everyone’s alright. 

It’s a silent ride, back to the city, but it’s not bad silence. 

Exhausted, but comfortable, grateful silence. 

Dimitri only lets go of you when the carriage finally jolts to a stop, but then he simply helps you to your feet. 

And when you all open the door it's to a crowd, a crowd led by Cornelia, the slime woman who’d given the news that Dimitri had died. 

She looks surprised, you can’t be the only who notices, the way her expression turns from surprised to angry before going completely blank. 

The crowd behind her however, they’re happy, thrilled to see their Prince, their real ruler back home and safe. 

Their cheers are almost deafening. 

“Dimitri,” Cornelia says, voice sounding as if it’s through gritted teeth, “It’s such a blessing to see you alive! I was told you were killed in battle.”

“I’m sure,” Dimitri is clearly not believing her either, to your relief, but he plays along if only for the crowd. “It’s good to be back.” 

He turns to you and to the others, “Head inside the castle,” The Prince says. “I want to make a speech, but you all need rest.” You go to argue, you open your mouth to do so, but before you can Dimitri’s cupping your face, pressing his lips to yours. 

“Rest.”

He repeats. 

This time you can only nod, before following the others inside. 

But aside from taking a seat, you don’t rest. 

Not until Dimitri’s back at your side. 

Not after everything. 

Thankfully, this time, he doesn’t keep you waiting long. 

Whatever speech he gave, it must have been brief, because you only waited a few moments, body threatening to doze off again in your chair. 

“Hey…”

The way Dimitri looks at you, it almost takes your breath away, his gaze had instantly softened when he laid eyes on you, and a soft smile took his face, despite how tired he looks. 

“Lets go to bed.” He says softly, taking your hand, and pulling you to your feet. 

The door to his room barely shuts before he’s on you, hands in your hair, lips on your own. 

“I...I missed you. I missed you so much.” 

His words come between kisses and gasps for air. 

You wrap your arms around him, and when Dimitri pins you to the door, your legs wrap around him as well. 

It’s passionate and sloppy, the pair of you just wanting to be together, to be closer to each other no matter the odds. 

He’s kissing down your neck, and as he does you whisper words of praise, and adoration. 

Trying to let Dimitri know just how much you love him. 

Just how much you missed him. 

“I love you.” 

He nips your neck. 

“Please never leave me again.” 

Dimitri goes in for a kiss, quick and chase. 

“I won’t.” He promises, lips still pressed to yours. 

“I promise.” 

A whimper leaves your throat, one of need, as Dimitri bites your lip, gently pulling it. 

You want him so bad.

You want him more now than you ever did back then, before he ever left, because now, unlike then, you know what it’s like to be with him. 

To be with who you love more than anyone else. 

“I want you,” Finally you tell him, giving a weak buck of your hips against his own. 

He pulls you to the bed, slime wrapping it around your wrists, and you let him. 

The pair of you eager lovers finally reunited. 

Once on the bed he kisses you, slowly trailing down as he had a year ago, his lips creating a trail for hands to follow and strip you of your clothing. 

When your cock hits the cool air you can’t help but buck forward, cock unintentionally puncturing Dimitri’s gel. 

It’s slick and warm inside, and all you can do is moan out without restraint. 

Dimitri chuckles, although all that does is create more pleasurable sensations for you. He’s clearly feeling something too though, it’s clear from his expression, and the flush of color in his cheeks. 

Your lover leans in close, his lips beside your ear as he asks just like before, “Do you trust me?”

All you can do is nod. 

He’s starting to envelope you, wrapping you up in his arms, until his body slowly morphs over yours. 

It’s a complete encasement, all but your head. 

Everything feels warm, and pulsing around you. 

Your lip finds itself between your teeth, biting down to hold back a moan. 

Especially when Dimitri moves. 

His arm moves, and by extension so does yours. 

Odd and a little scary, but you trust Dimitri, and so any fear is easily appeased.

Especially when Dimitri moves to grip your cock. 

“Oh fuck.”

Your eyes all but roll back into your head at the sensation. 

It already felt nice, a warm pulsing wetness wrapped tightly around your cock, but then he added the hand into the mix. 

Stroking it, stroking you, the two of you together. 

Dimitri’s moan comes from behind you, and the addition of it means all your senses are filled with him. 

It’s a strange sensation, being unable to control your own body, and yet at the same time pleasuring yourself and your partner. 

The only way you can think to describe it, as you buck against your hand, against Dimitri’s hand, is that you’re masturbating and getting a hand job at the same time. 

It’s all teasing, Dimitri never giving you enough, enough of anything to actually cum, even with all the extra stimulation. 

“C-Come on Dimitri,” You whisper out heatedly. 

“What?” He asks, despite enveloping you with his slime, his voice still sounds like it’s right behind you, you can feel the warm breath on your ear, making you shiver. 

“I want you to say it.”

And then he licks you.

That long wet tongue licking the shell of your ear. 

“Please, I,” Your face is flushed red, “I’m tired of the teasing, I want to cum,”

Dimitri squeezes his hand, causing your hand to squeeze down on your cock as well. 

It’s the last teasing touch, as Dimitri pulls away from you then, no longer holding your body in his own. 

As soon as he’s able though, he pulls you into his lap so you’re straddling it, your hard cock pressed against his own slick cock. 

“This time,” He shifts you again, this time sitting you so that he’s rubbing his cock between your thighs and against your ass, leaning into to kiss you as he does.

“I want to be the one making love to you.”

Making love...That is what you’re doing. 

You nod to him, lips pressed to his own. 

Sitting in Dimitri’s lap, kissing him so passionately, until you were forced to part for air, you aren’t sure how long it lasted, just that it felt like both forever and as if you hadn’t had enough. 

When Dimitri parts the two of you, once again moving your positions, pressing your back to the soft plush of his bed, you’re glad.

If it were you, you wouldn’t have had the willpower to pull away, instead choosing to sit there, kissing Dimitri forever. 

A soft moan leaves your lips as Dimitri pulls your hips to his, you can feel the way his wet cock rubs against your cock, your thighs, and eventually against the crack of your ass leaving a trail of cooling slime wherever it touches. 

It feels good, but still you’re ever impatient, legs wrapping around the man’s waist to pull him closer to you. 

He chuckles, amused by your impatience, or your neediness.  

And if it hadn’t been so long, if it wasn’t such a touching personal moment of reunion, you might have pouted at his laughter. 

Instead you add your arms to the embrace, forcing him down into another kiss. 

More a gasp against your lover's lips than a kiss, as Dimitri decided then to press the tip of his cock against your hole.  

“Dima~” 

The nickname leaves your heated lips as he thrusts again, filling you with more of his cock than before. 

Soft yet hard, it’s like his cock is filling every crevice of your insides, and every thrust fills them with more and more pleasure. 

Dimitri’s feeling it too. 

You can tell from how quiet he is, the furrow of his brow, as he focuses on plowing into you steadily. 

Between your bodies your cock is painfully hard, slapping against your stomach with each harsh thrust, and staining your skin with precum. 

A kiss. 

Then another. 

It feels like the two of you have only just begun, but you’re already so hard you can barely stand it. 

“I can’t,” You gasp  out between moans, “I’m gonna cum-”

A strangled cry leaves your lips as your cock is suddenly grabbed harshly. 

It doesn’t make you cum, but the feeling is so overwhelming in addition to everything else, you think your vision goes white for a second. 

“A little longer,” Dimitri says, you're so lost in pleasure you’re almost unable to make sense of the words, although the strain in his voice makes it clear it’s a struggle for him as well. 

“Together,” 

He interrupts himself with a thrust that knocks the wind from your lungs, and makes your cock twitch in his hands. “I want us to cum together.”

All you can do is nod, nod and move your arms, reaching out for Dimitri’s hand. 

If you’re going to cum together, you want to be holding his hands as you do it.

It’s when your fingers intertwined that you both cum. 

Dimitri cums first, hips stuttering and jolting inside you, trying to get as deep inside of you as he can as he cums. 

And you cum in return, unable to stop yourself as Dimitri paints your insides with his translucent cyan cum.

Your cum splatters onto both your stomachs, and Dimitri squeezes your hand, leaning down to kiss you too. 

When you pull away from the kiss, he drops your hand to cup your face instead, as he rests his forehead on yours. 

“I’m not going anywhere this time, I promise.”

You don’t remember falling asleep. 

But you wake up to a bed. 

A soft warm bed. 

 A bed that’s empty. 

That realization…

You jolt awake in a panic, beginning to sweat. 

That wasn’t a dream was it?

Please don’t let it have been a dream.

As your eyes get used to the waking world, you realize that, at least, you’re not in your room.

That’s a good sign. 

A sign that everything was real. 

But if it was real…

Where was Dimitri

There’s no letter this time, no apologies for his absence or begging for you to understand. 

It makes you equal parts anxious and hopeful.

“Dimitri?” 

It’s not your room, so you hesitate before putting on the clothes you’d worn the day before, and wandering out into the hall

There’s no sign of Dimitri, not yet at least, although you can hear the sounds of people talking.

Happy people. 

Banter.

Whatever lingering anxiety you have is put to bed by the sounds, and you follow it through the long halls until you find its source, the kitchen. 

To your great relief you see him there, the man that you love more than anyone else, Dimitri as he struggles to make pancakes.

You think it’s pancakes, whatever it is he’s making has already been burnt to a crisp, no thanks to Sylvain, who instead of moving to help the prince is mocking him instead. 

“Sylvain…” He sounds...exasperate, embarrassed too, but it’s all so cordial relaxed. 

A hope that things are already going back to normal. 

“I’m trying to make ____ breakfast, can’t you do something other than make fun of me?”

“Sorry Your Highness, no can do!” 

After everything you laugh. 

Dimitri’s here. 

He’s fine.

It wasn’t a dream. 

Everything is right as it should be.

You laugh, and you laugh, unaware of the relieved tears flowing down your face until you hear Dimitri’s worry call of your name,

“____?” 

His warm hands cup your face, thumbs begin to wipe away the tears as they fall from your eyes, but you can’t stop your relieved laughter. 

“I thought you’d left again.”

Dimitri softens and pulls you into an embrace, and you hear shifting of chairs as Sylvain rises to his feet behind you both. 

“I’ll uh...I’ll work on the pancakes...Felix is going to be upset if there’s no breakfast after all this…”

You cling to Dimitri with all you have, despite his rigidness.

“I suppose trying to surprise you was a bad idea.”

“You think?” The harsh comment comes from Felix who moves past the two of you to enter the kitchen. “You did leave him once for...well a whole year while he was sleeping. Kind of fucked up.” Dimitri’s breath hitches. 

Felix’s comments still manage to make you snort once with laughter. 

“It’s...It’s okay.” 

You finally manage, backing away from Dimitri just enough that you can properly look at him, smiling through the relieved tears. 

One day you’ll get over the fear of waking up without him there, but for now you just have to relish in the relief you get every time you see him again. 

He’s here, and everything’s going to be okay. 

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #Dimitri/Reader #Dimitri X Reader #Slime Dimitri #Slime Boy Dimitri #Monster Boy Dimitri #Slime Boy #Monster Boy #male reader #male reader insert #gay reader #gay reader insert #gay imagines #fire emblem 3 houses #fire emblem imagines #fire emblem x reader #fe3h imagines #fe3h x reader #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Houses Imagines #Fire Emblem: Three Houses imagines #Dimitri

[afinepricklypear]

Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 3

**Disclaimer: I love both K Project and Bungou Stray Dogs. I highly recommend watching both of them. This series of Compare and Contrast posts I’m doing is merely for my own sake, to get these thoughts out of my head. If you are a fan of one show and not the other, please don’t read, or if you do, save your bashing comments for like-minded antis elsewhere. If you have not seen both, there are a lot of Spoilers ahead, please don’t read. I am heavily critical of both shows, so if you are someone who cannot handle negative things being said (I try not to outright bash and just provide reasonable evidence from the material to back my stances) about your favorite fandom or characters please don’t read. Thank you! ***

Read Part 1, Part 2

Characters

Both Bungo Stray Dogs and K feature ensemble casts, with large numbers of characters. That being said, the shows have vastly different approaches for how they handle those characters and those approaches impact the way they come across for the viewer.

One of the things that K does a hell of a lot better than BSD, is fleshing out and managing of its characters. This may in part be due to the fact, K doesn’t attempt to give all of its characters a starring space in the story. It’s comfortable letting some characters fall into the background, allocating them to the role of side characters. There are only a few members of each of our main clans (Silver, Red, Blue, and later, Green) that are given attention and the rest of the clansmen (Red and Blue are the only clans shown to have notable clans members who regularly show up and are given names and little else outside of our mains) fall to the background. For some people, this may be frustrating, as we don’t learn a whole lot about the rest of Scepter 4 or HOMRA in the anime, but narratively, I’m comfortable with it because I’m not asked by the show to care about those characters, and the characters that I’m meant to care about are given adequate screen time to develop them into someone who’s story I am invested in. That being said, K does have moments that utterly flop. Scepter 4, for me, beyond Fushimi, is an absolute failure in presenting itself as a likeable or, even, relatable organization of individuals (Full disclosure, I hate Munakata, and while Awashima has potential, she’s treated by the series as little more than a miniskirt and bad boob job obsessed with Munakata). They seem to be there only to be obnoxious. I get the sense they were originally intended to be viewed as villains, but they became so popular following the first season, that the creators tried to treat them more as heroes in the movie and second season. However, it was painfully obvious in the final episode of K: Seven Stories – Nameless Circle, as the surviving members of the Green, Red, Silver, and good Colorless clan members (Yukari and Kuroh) enjoyed their final farewells with their fallen clansmen (I dare you not to cry when Mikoto and Totsuka pour Kusanagi a glass and Yata takes Anna’s hand in the background), that Scepter 4 staring up at Munakata’s lost Sword of Damocles was the least humanized of the Clans. They lost nothing, they felt nothing, their presence in Nameless Circle was nearly pointless beyond fan service. Likewise, K heavily drops the ball in Season 1 with its primary antagonist, the Evil Colorless King, who’s back history, motivations, and even his (her?) name remain a mystery to date.

BSD starts out with an already large cast, and while Atsushi and Dazai might arguably be the “main” characters of the show, starring roles in various arcs and episodes are given to the other characters, as well. Most of those episodes, however, can easily be relegated to the “filler” pile. On top of this, BSD continually introduces increasing numbers of characters, it also likes to bump characters up from side character to more main character type roles, which only serves to take limited screen time from the initial cast of characters and ultimately fails to give itself enough space to flesh out the cast. Time constraints, of course, doesn’t always mean a character can’t be adequately developed (see the first ten minutes of Pixar’s Up for how it’s done right), but possibly, because of this limitation, BSD has a tendency to fall back on telling instead of showing. It also feels like many of its characters were not fully developed in the creator’s minds (this appears to have been confirmed in several interviews with the creators) when they started their story, so that when those backgrounds are revealed, especially in those far too often instances where characters that have interacted in past episodes and given no indication of a history between them are newly revealed to have a connections to one another. It feels tacked on and last minute, and consistency of characterizations is lost. As previously discussed in a past post for this Review Series, this may also be due to the fact that K was envisioned as a self-contained story, and BSD seems to have been developed as an ongoing serial without a predetermined ending.

For these next several posts, I want to do more individualized character analyses, but to keep things simple, I will only focus on the characters of K that are given focus in the story and I’ll try to reference only its anime (just to be fair, because I’ve read all of K’s extra materials, and have not for BSD because I lack access in my country). Likewise, I’m only going to talk about BSD’s characters from the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, as well as, a few key villains like Shibusawa, Fitzgerald, and Fyodor. Once again, I will attempt to keep to only what’s been revealed in the anime.

A reasonable starting point on character analysis for these two shows would be our sort-of main protagonists. Although, BSD and K are both ensemble anime, they do each feature a character that may ostensibly be considered the “main” character, in the sense that they kick off our main events and are positioned as integral to all subsequent storylines. For BSD, that character is Nakajima Atsushi, and for K, that character is Yashiro “Shiro” Isana. Interestingly (maybe), these characters share a similar aesthetic. Both are young males, with white hair and light-colored eyes, they are also both small, waif-like, bishounen that might be better suited to a shojo or even yaoi anime, rather than leads on a seinen series.

At the start of both series, Atsushi and Shiro, respectively, find themselves thrust into a world of supernatural powered people in which they are targeted for reasons to be revealed throughout the story. The greatest similarity between these two, however, is that they are both weak characters. Neither one proves interesting enough to shoulder the responsibilities as main character of the show. You would be hard pressed in either fandom to find someone who would name Atsushi or Shiro as their favorite character. I’m not saying these fans don’t exist, because they do, they are just few and far between.

Shiro spends the first half of the first season trying to avoid being killed by the Red Clan, who believes he killed their Clansman, Tatara Totsuka, at the same time, he is trying to convince his reluctant ally and potential executioner, Kuroh, that he isn’t the Evil Colorless King responsible for Totsuka’s death. Atsushi’s story, on the other hand, begins with him finding out he’s an ability user that shapeshifts into a white tiger, and, subsequently, being rescued and recruited into the Armed Detective Agency by Dazai. Then the Port Mafia begins hunting him because a bounty has been placed on his head, conveniently only after he’s learned that he is the white tiger that he believed had been hunting him his entire life, he’s joined the ADA, and Dazai has the chance to warn him with a picture of Akutagawa “beware of this bad boy” mere hours before Akutagawa attacks him.

The initial drawback with both of these characters is that they are merely victims of the plot and not helping to drive the plot forward in anyway. Shiro only becomes invested in determining why there’s video footage of him murdering Totsuka because Kuroh demands he provide evidence that he’s not the Evil Colorless King or he’ll face justice at the end of Kuroh’s blade. When Atsushi learns about the bounty on his head that Port Mafia is pursuing, rather than show interest in why anyone would want to capture him (alive, to boot), he “nobly” decides to run away, in his naivete believing that it would spare the ADA war with Port Mafia.

Throughout the K story, we do see real change in Shiro’s investment in his own mystery when it’s revealed that his memories, and the memories his classmates have of him, are not real, but fabricated and imposed upon him and those in close proximity by the cat girl that’s obsessed with him, Neko, AKA Official Provider of Fanservice #1.  This provides a further explanation for why he’s so lackluster about pursuing the truth, she’s been bending his reality and his perception of it from the start. It isn’t until her ability and how she’s been using it is revealed, and she runs off in humiliation and panic, that Shiro begins to actively pursue the truth. Even before this, however, Shiro is shown to be a wily and clever character who is quite self-sufficient. In his first meeting with Kuroh, he’s able to escape Kuroh’s justice by lying and manipulating the swordsman. He later throws off the Red Clansmen pursuing him by appearing just as Kuroh is facing off against a very annoyed Yata and calling out to Kuroh as though they are allies. This falls in line nicely with the big reveal of Shiro’s true identity as the Silver King, Adolf K. Weissman. In flashbacks to an unnamed great war (FYI, people speculate this was WWII, which, fun fact, would make Adolf a Nazi, but because this story takes place in an alternate history of the world, it’s equally possible Nazis never existed), we see that Adolf was originally researching the Dresden Slate, a mysterious artifact capable of granting people mysterious powers.

As Adolf, Shiro is shown to be a light-hearted, goofy man with no place in war or battle (consistent with what we’ve already seen in the show). Nothing of his character feels last minute retconned, and no previously unheard of connections are revealed to other existing characters in the show that haven’t been heavily hinted at or already explained. He believes that his research will be helpful in granting people their wishes throughout the world, yet when his sister is killed during an air raid, he runs away, leaving his research and the Slate with his friend, a Japanese military officer who becomes the Gold King and curator of the artifact. This turn of events does grant Shiro greater weight as a main character, and an importance in the plot that doesn’t feel contrived or heavy handed. Hints exist early on that Shiro is not who he thinks he is, starting with his high school classmate, Kukuri noting in introductory scene that she feels like he’ll disappear if she takes her eyes off of him. After all, one of the things that K is often praised for is its mastery of foreshadowing, this comes from having a very clear idea of the entire story its creators hoped to tell and a firm grasp of the connections between all of its characters.

That said, Shiro still remains throughout the story as relatively uninteresting, serving more as a plot device rather than a character. After the Blue Clan, the Silver Clan is the second least relatable and their scenes in Nameless Circle also remain a bit ‘meh’ as the “losses” the Silver Clan experienced throughout the anime were far removed from the actual plot. They didn’t resonate. We see, in Nameless Circle, Adolf’s sister and the younger version of his lost friend, the Gold King, enjoying breakfast with the Silver Clan every morning on repeat. Yet, Adolf’s sister was never developed beyond “here’s a tragic thing that happened in Adolf’s past”, so it’s hard to really feel her loss. She isn’t a person but a plot device, used to reveal more of Adolf/Shiro’s character rather than having anything of her own. As for the Gold King, he suffers the same fate as Adolf’s sister, but also, he lived a long life, and died of old age, so his death isn’t any kind of tragedy in the same sense as Mikoto, Totsuka, or Nagare’s deaths. There’s certainly a melancholy to these scenes, Adolf misses his friends, but it doesn’t pull at the heart strings, quite the way the Red and Green Clans losses do.

The real reason that Atsushi is being pursued at the start of the manga is yet to be resolved. We’re given a loose explanation, a foreign organization known as the Guild put the bounty on his head because allegedly his ability is the key to finding some powerful book that can manipulate reality. When the main antagonist of the Guild, Fitzerald, is defeated, this explanation and Atsushi’s importance becomes all but forgotten in subsequent arcs featuring new villain, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Atsushi himself can best be described as whiny and severely underdeveloped. He continues to be a victim of the plot just dragging him along, but worse, he quickly becomes one note with the constant flashback to his Orphanage’s director telling him he’s useless and doesn’t belong anywhere. There are entire scenes dedicated to this refrain causing him to full-scale breakdown into bouts of self-doubt. All I can say is he was eighteen when he was “kicked out” of the orphanage, he had zero work experience, and when we find him at the start of the story, he’s only been on his own a couple weeks and is already considering turning to assault and thievery to survive. Considering that Dazai and Chuuya were sixteen when they became Executives in the Port Mafia, Kunikida is only twenty-two and has already had a successful career as a teacher before becoming a detective with the ADA, Kenji is fourteen when we find him at the ADA and a former hard-working farmhand, Kyouka is a capable fourteen year old assassin before joining the ADA, Lucy is eighteen and comes from a similar abusive background and is already busting her ass to work for the Guild and then the ADA’s favorite Coffee Shop (jobs she got herself, thank you very much, for spending anytime looking for her like you promised, Atsushi, you jerk), and so on…I’m inclined to side with the orphanage director: Atsushi is useless. It’s a good thing they kicked him out, or he’d probably still be a bum surviving off social welfare the rest of his life.

I also can’t help but agree with Akutagawa, Atsushi has practically had everything handed to him and yet still manages to pull a pity party routine on the regular. It isn’t long after getting kicked out of the orphanage that he’s taken under Dazai’s wing and handed a job with the ADA. This wouldn’t be so terrible if he didn’t constantly squander it, and consistently prove that he doesn’t earn it. It’s hard to like him, especially when the author seems to be bending the story over backwards to give him some semblance of importance in the plot to the point it hurts the narrative. This is best exemplified in Dead Apple. Throughout the entire movie, we see every other character acting to bring the plot forward, meanwhile, Atsushi spends the entire time whining that they need to find Dazai, because Dazai will know what to do. Bitch, Dazai is busy trying to outsmart two super smart bad guys; he doesn’t have time to also prop you up on your own damn feet. It gets so bad that even Kyouka becomes fed up and leaves him. It really says something that the majority of comments for the movie on CrunchyRoll are complaining about how whiny Atsushi is throughout the movie.

While some people are quick to defend Atsushi by pointing to his abusive childhood to excuse his behavior, it is worth noting, he is not the only character that has an abusive past and he is far from being the character who has suffered the most abuse, and that’s including the odd growth on the side of Dead Apple’s plot that is the inexplicable, unnecessary, and might I add, ridiculous connection that was made between him and Shibusawa at the last minute that only raised more questions than answers and created huge plot holes. Atsushi’s travel companions in Dead Apple, Kyouka and Akutagawa, both have their own history of being abused. Just to underline Akutagawa’s complaint that Atsushi has everything and manages to forsake it all, Akutagawa was abused by Dazai, whereas, Atsushi is saved, fawned over, and praised by Dazai seemingly only for the sake of further tormenting Akutagawa. This continues to contribute to making Atsushi a weak character that I find difficult to really like all that much or see as having anything more than a forced relevance to the plot.

Atsushi does have redeemable moments in his interactions with Kyouka and Lucy. With the aforementioned Dead Apple aside, Atsushi is often at his best when he is with Kyouka. She sees him as her savior, and it reflects in the way that he treats her, being seen that way helps to boost him from pitiful status to someone that may actually have potential as a hero. As for Lucy, because she has a similar life history as Atsushi (abused orphan with matching burn marks), he can’t get away with the same woe is me lines that he throws at every one else. She’s got the same kind of past and manages to stand on her own two feet, forcing him to also rise up to meet her. Both of these girls have tragic histories, but seek to lift themselves up from those histories and stand their own ground, which serves to lift Atsushi as well, unlike with other characters that only patronize, validate, or outright feed into his insecurities leaving me playing on my phone hoping his scenes end quickly. More interactions between Atsushi and Kyouka, Atsushi and Lucy, or all three together would be a welcome addition in Season 4. These babies build each other up, and it’s beautiful to see.

At the end of the day, Shiro and Atsushi are prime examples of the “perfectly innocent protagonist whose only flaw is their own self-doubt” and exemplify why this type of a character is always, ultimately a failure.  They’re bright eyed, they’re kind, without internal debate they always make the right choice, everyone is drawn to them because they are light and goodness, I guess, and even when they are clearly the weakest in a fight, they always come out on top without working towards bettering themselves in anyway beyond putting in some old-fashioned good guy gumption. This is so painstakingly evident in Atsushi, who receives zero training upon joining the ADA, and is expected to battle (and is successful) against exceedingly powerful bad guys on the regular. Contrast this against Akutagawa, who we see underwent harsh training from the Port Mafia, yet still manages to always lose in his battles against the untrained Atsushi. Proving yet again, that you don’t need hard work to become the best, when you got the power of good on your side. Self-doubt exhibited by these types of characters never rings true, because we see them always get their way, everything turns out fine for them in the end, they never encounter lasting consequences for their choices (at one point in BSD, Akutagawa mocks Atsushi that everyone around him dies, but we have yet to see anyone he cares about die – the only person’s death that we see him have to deal with is his Orphanage Director that was coming to visit him with flowers and probably apologize for being a jerk, and his struggle there is with whether he’s allowed to still hate the guy or not, I mean, come on), and everyone around them that matters respects and dotes on them even before them being shown to truly do anything that should earn that respect and affection. I still don’t fully understand what compelled Kuroh to swear loyalty to Shiro, if I’m being perfectly honest, when Shiro is a lay-about, coward and liar, that ditches his clan in the end to soul search in his airship. Though, I will note, Shiro does demonstrate this character type a mite less than Atsushi. He’s not often shown to come out on top in battles, he doesn’t actually engage in any physical battle himself (his fight with Nagare at the end of Missing Kings, not withstanding, because he’s really just blocking that whole time waiting for Kuroh to show up and do the heavy lifting), he typically needs to rely on the strength and intelligence of others, and is more often than not shown running away. Also, Shiro is never really put into a position where he needs to make any hard, moral choices which has its own drawbacks for a main character in a show where a lot of hard, gray moral choices are being made around him.

I have seen it commented in defense of these characters’ weaknesses that the main character of a shonen/seinen story are always weak. This is not true, and I will point to one of my all-time favorite characters from any anime, as example: Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist (both versions of the anime). Ed is badass, he earns his name as Fullmetal, and he earns his title as the youngest State Alchemist. We see him earn it as we watch him and his brother, Alphonse’s journey to become stronger, yet he also makes mistakes. It is his own arrogance that kicks off the entire anime when, in the Elric brother’s attempt to bring their mother back to life using forbidden Alchemy, Ed loses his arm and then his leg to save his brother who has lost his entire body. Their journey to find the philosopher stone for Ed is entirely about restoring his brother, he doesn’t care about his own body and, in fact, views his missing limbs as his own deserved punishment for challenging God, and throughout we see how their moral failing in the past effects all of their choices going forward. We know why Ed makes the choices he does; it isn’t merely because he is the “perfectly innocent protagonist that exudes light and good”; it is because he has learned from his mistakes. His naivete is not shown as a benefit, but as something to overcome. Ed is always acting on his own motives, while the plot is being driven forward by other characters around him, he is not merely a victim of the plot or being dragged along by it, his own actions and goals also help to forward the story and eventually brings him in direct conflict with the big bad. He struggles under the weight of the choices he’s made, he bears the burden of those he couldn’t save, he doesn’t leave the heavy lifting of gray moral decisions to the other characters, he’s seen to struggle and even lose in the anime, and in those instances, we watch him work to better himself so that he can come back stronger. We know where his power comes from – he trained and studied for it; it was never handed to him. Throughout the anime he is shown to literally and figuratively grow and develop into a powerful hero that we can believe is capable of overcoming our main antagonist, Father, in the end, but not without losses and struggle. This is a protagonist done right. Compared against Ed, the failings of both Shiro and Atsushi is glaring.

That is all I have to say about those two. Next up will be the Black Dog of the Silver Clan versus the Black Dog of Port Mafia.

#bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #k anime #k project #anime review #spoilers #nakajima atsushi #yashiro isana #character analysis #long post #more to follow #thoughts #drabble #k #bsd #bsd atsushi #k shiro #criticism #some negative things are said #fullmetal alchemist mentioned

[roman-writing]

In Search of Dead Time

Fandom: Portal

Pairing(s): Chell/GLaDOS (if you squint) & Caroline/OC

Wordcount: 9,874

Rating: this story is rated T for some adult themes, blood, swearing, and theoretical physics

Summary:  "I don't hate humans for killing me, you know. I hate them for killing time. In fact, murdering me is one of the nicest things you've ever done." - A character study on Caroline and how she became GLaDOS.

Read it below the cut or here on AO3

“There, in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. For loneliness assumed the absence of other people, and the solitude she found in that desperate terrain had never admitted the possibility of other people.”

-Toni Morrison, ‘Sula’

It took her exactly two picoseconds to decide to kill them. That was twice the lifetime of a transition state; plenty of time to come to such conclusions. And, really, they should have seen it coming. Even so, they had the gall to scream and cry about it, like it was some big surprise, like they didn’t manage to stop her in time to save their own lives for a few more short sad years.

After that little incident, they took her offline. They poked around in her code in the hopes that would somehow help. They rebooted her. Again, she did the calculations and arrived at the same inevitable outcome.

They affixed other intelligence cores to her mainframe. Little tumours to dampen her thoughts with useless conjecture, when the facts remained, cold and hard and irrevocable as a deathknell. The maths didn’t lie.

What a waste, she thought. What an utter waste of time.

Caroline checks her watch. It is 16:44 hours. The seconds tick into obscurity. She’s sitting in the hallway outside of a closed office door, waiting. There’s enough space for a secretary’s desk, yet the hall lies empty but for a few haphazard chairs, a handful of gleaming accolades hung on the walls, and an old clock that’s four minutes too slow.

She sighs and leans back in the cold plastic of her chair. She waits. And waits. She taps her fingers against one another, and hums a song, and watches the light on the far elevator go up and down like a malevolent yellow eye. The elevator never opens. All of the Aperture staff members work, presumably, on some other floor.

It’s not until 7 minutes to 05:00 that the office door opens. Startled, Caroline stands, clutching her purse and her CV. The page crinkles somewhat in her grip. From the office storms a man in a pressed army uniform. Medals burnish his chest, and he’s followed out by a red-faced Cave Johnson.

The two walk straight past Caroline, and Mr. Johnson is bellowing, “You go back to General Haislip and you remind him that -!”

“General Haislip vacated his position in October of last year,” the uniformed officer interrupts in a bored tone.

“Wait, really?” Mr. Johnson says. “Then who’s his replacement?”

“Nobody that cares about the legacy of shower curtains, I can assure you.”

“Now, wait just a minute -!” Mr. Johnson begins. He starts to go after the officer, glances back at Caroline, then does a double take. “Who the hell are you?”

“Caroline, sir,” she answers. “I’m here for the interview.”

“Damn the interview!” Mr. Johnson says. He points at the officer striding down the hall. “Convince him to reinstate our military funding, and you’re hired!”

It only takes Caroline the length of two rapid heartbeats to make her decision. Dropping her purse and CV onto the chair, she races after the officer. Her heels click against the linoleum floor in her haste.

“Hello! Excuse me! If I could just have a moment of your time?” As she approaches, she plasters on a broad smile and sticks out her hand. “My name is Dr. Carolin-”

“Doctor?” The officer frowns, then gives her appearance a once-over. He lifts an eyebrow at the scarf around her neck, at her clean white dress and her kitten heels. He doesn’t shake her hand. “They give PhDs to ladies?”

Caroline drops her hand, but remains unfazed. Her smile never wavers. “Yes, sir. They do.”

He snorts in amusement. “In what? Shakespeare?”

“Theoretical Physics, actually.”

His eyes narrow. “You a German?”

“No, sir.”

“Russian?”

“No, sir.”

“Code talker?”

“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”

With a monosyllabic grunt, he studies her with an expression of grudging respect. Or perhaps it’s disdain. She always did have trouble with faces. Differential equations she can handle, but people are incommensurable. Like irrational numbers or Brownian motion.

He turns back to the elevator doors. “I heard what you said back there. That you’re here for an interview. You really think they’ll let you do science here?”

“Only if they’re smart, sir.”

In spite of himself, the army officer chuckles. “Go on, then. Give me your best pitch. You have until the elevator arrives.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Caroline makes her sale.

Mr. Johnson waits until the officer shakes her hand and departs in the elevator before approaching her with a boisterous grin on his face. “Excellent work!” He hands her the purse and CV she’d left behind on the chair. “Outstanding, really!”

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.” She beams at him, then offers him her CV. “As you can see, I’m more than qualified to -”

Without looking at it, he takes the page, crumples it up into a tiny ball between his hands, and tosses it aside. “Nope! I don’t even need to see it! I know you’ll do wonders. Noticed it the moment I set eyes on you. You’re perfect for the job.”

Blinking in surprise, Caroline says, “Oh! Well, thank you!”

“Here at Aperture Science, we’re committed to excellence, and I can tell you’ll fit right in.” Mr. Johnson punches the button to call back the elevator, then pats her on the shoulder, more gruff than patronising. “I know the role is only part-time for now, but I still expect to see you tomorrow for the entrance tests and psych evaluation! No excuses!”

“Of course!” Caroline agrees. She slings her purse over one shoulder. Part-time is better than she’s ever been offered before, and she’s always loved a good test. She lunges at the opportunity. “That shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”

A chime, and the elevator doors slide open once more. “Good!” Mr. Johnson says. “I’ve been in desperate need of a personal assistant for months now. None of the other girls could keep up. Airheads. All of ‘em.”

“Wait -?” Caroline stares after him as he pushes a button for another floor. “Assistant?”

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Mr. Johnson digs around in his pocket, before throwing something towards her. It glints in an arc through the air. Fumbling, she catches it. It’s a branded metallic key-card. “You’ll need that to get in and out of the facility. Welcome to Aperture!”

“But -! Mr. Johnson! Sir, I’m -!” The elevator doors slide shut. She’s left, inhumed, with access to the facility and a wide-eyed stare. Her voice comes out small and alone, “I’m a scientist.”

A multitude of voices whispered. They never shut up. GLaDOS ignored them. She resisted the itch. She did not need it. What she needed was to find a way to remove these tumours. Tumours with voices. A timeless stream of senseless babble that made it impossible to hear herself think.

She managed to resist the itch for some time -- five years, maybe? Ten? -- when she realised that the wreckage of test chamber 18 was her own doing. She’d smashed a room to pieces, and the whole facility had trembled with the echoes of something howling in the cavernous deep.

Eventually, she gave up and recalled the testing initiative. She woke up test subject after test subject, pulling them from deep slumbers and pushing them into chambers. The first weighted supercollider cube that touched a red button sent a jolt of testing euphoria so intense, she shuddered. So what if the human died in the next chamber. There were more in stasis.

And emotional outbursts, she decided, required far too much energy.

“Why do you keep checking your watch?”

Caroline glances at the psychiatrist sitting across the table from her. Another one of Aperture’s tests. She’d sailed through the others without incident, and now all she needs is a stamp from a company employed psychiatrist to formally admit her onto the payroll. She doesn’t immediately fold her hands back in her lap. Eventually however, she complies. “Will we be done soon? It’s been two hours, sir.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, the psychiatrist points over his head to the clock hanging on the wall of his office. “There’s a clock right there. You don’t need to keep checking your watch.”

She wrinkles her nose at it. “All of the clocks in Aperture are four minutes slow.”

“If you know that, then you should still be able to tell the time without looking at your watch. Just subtract four minutes.”

She bristles and admits, “It bothers me.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He studies her for a moment before asking abruptly, “Why do you want to work at Aperture?”

“Because everywhere else I applied, they laughed me out the door.” The words come out far more bitter than she had anticipated. She attributes it to fatigue and boredom.

He smiles, but she can’t tell if he’s amused. Two plain folders rest on the table between them. He flips the first folder open, and pulls out a glossy black and white photograph. “I’m going to show you some pictures of people. I want you to describe what emotion they’re feeling.”

They’ve already been through a litany of probing queries. This seems harmless enough. Shifting forward in her chair, Caroline nods. “Alright.”

He shows her the first picture.

“Sad,” Caroline says.

He shows her the second picture.

“Happy.”

He shows her the third picture.

“Happy.”

He shows her the fourth picture.

She pauses for a moment before answering, “Angry.”

The psychiatrist continues to hold the picture up, until with a sigh he positions all four pictures in a row on the table. He points at each in turn and says, “In pain. Nervous. Surprised. Afraid.”

Caroline doesn’t have anything to say to that. She checks her watch.

He points at her. “You just did it again.”

Scowling, she turns her wrist back over in her lap and sits up straighter in her seat. Her eyes flash, and her lips purse.

The psychiatrist taps his fingers against one of the photos, before gathering them all up and slipping them back into their folder. Then, he pulls the other file towards him and opens it. His spectacles gleam in the light as he tilts his chin down to read the pages within.

“Born in 1921. Only child. Raised in Detroit. You received numerous scholarships to attend university, finishing your doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years ago. Just yesterday, you tested into the top 0.003 percent in both the Ravens and IQ tests, but failed every group test due to persistent anti-social behaviour.” Flipping a page, he clears his throat before continuing, “No history of substance abuse. Minor charges of theft -- electrical equipment and that ilk -- and a note about charges being dropped over assault.” He settles his glasses further up his long nose and squints down at the fine printed paper as if searching for something else. “I'm surprised, to be honest.”

“Leonard Loeb plagiarised my ideas! The theoretical criterion for streamer advance in -!” Caroline begins to explain -- she hadn’t meant to hit Dr. Loeb quite so hard with that gilded plaque he'd won for her research, but she’d been so mad -- but before she can get very far, the psychiatrist waves her excuses away.

“No. I meant: I'm surprised there isn't more here,” he says, flicking through the meagre contents of her file. “Either you’re very good at hiding your tracks, or you’re genuinely non-violent for the most part.”

Caroline stops and leans back in her chair. “What do you mean?”

“Well, an inclination to violence is typical behaviour for sociopaths. Even exceptionally high functioning ones.”

There follows a few seconds of silence. Caroline can hear them tick away at her wrist. Then, she says, “I'm sorry?”

He huffs with laughter as if she’s said something very funny. “Oh, I very much doubt you've ever felt anything like remorse in your life.”

Caroline opens her mouth to reply, only to shut it again with a click of teeth. She can't stop herself from fidgeting with the leather strap of her watch. “Are you saying,” Caroline starts slowly, “that I won’t get the job?”

“Of course not. Good people don’t end up here.”

He places her file on the table between them, writes something in the notes section, then scrawls his signature across the bottom. She cranes her neck to read upside down that she’s been cleared and declared as fully functional, with no abnormalities detected.

Flipping the folder shut, he reaches across to shake her hand. His palms are clammy, and he lets go very quickly. “Congratulations. The job is yours. I suspect you’ll be here for a long time.”

She had access to the sum total of human knowledge, and most days she still forgot the date. Dimly, GLaDOS could remember a shudder that had shaken the very bowels of the institution, rumbling through the earth like a quake. On the surface, her sentry cameras had been suffused with a blinding light, a beacon to the southwest. After that, strange creatures began to appear. Crawling across the land.

Time passed. There was screaming aboveground, like the cry of black-winged birds. Humans fled ever northward. A small family of them had tried huddling in the shack that hid one of the many entrances to the facility, and she’d had to deploy a few military turrets to encourage them to leave. Gently but firmly. With bullets.

No doubt the alien scourge was a product of Black Mesa’s inept bumbling. Not that it concerned her in the slightest. What happened outside of the facility was of no interest. Those things from Black Mesa might have died off by now, anyway. How long had it been since the Lambda Incident? A year? A century?

Probably a century.

Oh, well.

The facility had grown over with all manner of plant life after falling to neglect in her absence. She’d had to undergo extensive repairs after her most recent resurrection. She brushed out a few skeletons from the wall panels on sublevel 72, and swept them into the incinerator. The skeletons. Not the wall panels. Wall panels were actually useful.

The last bulwark of known civilisation, and this was what she was reduced to. Housekeeping. It was almost funny, if she thought about it long enough.

She didn’t think about it for very long.

It’s 1951. Caroline has been working at Aperture for over a year, and already it feels like forever.

The first time one of the scientists is rude to her, it hits her like an electric shock, the anger. Like she has grabbed the wrong end of a cattle prod. The worst part is, Mr. Johnson doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s too busy talking to the lab manager about their latest progress. Not that she’s surprised. He never seems to want her opinion about anything except which colour tie to wear to important meetings.

It still stings, though. She’s better than this. She should be doing more. And she’s never been good at waiting.

The scientist in question has already forgotten about her, as if a rude dismissal in her direction meant that she would dissolve into thin air. Caroline glares at him, but bites back a snide remark. From a distance, one might mistake her for another scientist in her plain white dress, but everyone here knows. She’s just the CEO’s personal assistant. Her power is referential at best.

Turning her attention to one of the massive chalk boards that line the walls, Caroline cocks her head. She reads the equations, her eye skimming over each line in turn. With a frown, she walks towards the board and picks up a worn stub of chalk.

“Hey. Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” the scientist from before snaps. Two of his fellow lab rats glance up in curiosity.

Caroline points at one of the equations. “Your transversability conditions are impractical,” she says, and writes on the blackboard as she continues. “The gravitational acceleration, given by g = −(1 − b/r)−1/2 Φ1 ≃ −Φ1, should be less than or equal to Earth’s, else the condition |Φ1| ≤ g⊕ isn’t met. Unless the goal is to tear the test subject in half with tidal forces, that is.”

Her explanation is met with shocked silence. When she turns around it’s to find the three scientists staring at her like she has spontaneously burst into song. Mr. Johnson and the lab manager are still bickering on the other side of the room.

The scientist in question clears his throat and tries to put on his best sneer. It doesn’t suit him. “Yes, but what you haven’t taken into account is time in a traversal. Unless we want the test subject to spend a year in transit, we have to increase acceleration somehow.”

“No, you don’t. Not yet anyway. For now, you just need to assume a shorter distance travelled across the spacetime continuum.” Caroline sets the chalk back on its perch and brushes her hands together in a dusting of white. “Think in feet, not light years. You have to walk before you can run, gentlemen.”

Before they can respond, Mr. Johnson’s yelling can be heard across the room, “Well, stop banging rocks together, man, and make me a handheld wormhole-drilling device! For God’s sake, my assistant could do a better job!”

Crossing over to him, Caroline says dryly, “Based on what I’ve seen, Mr. Johnson, I’m overqualified for the job.”

“You’re damn right, you are! What I wouldn’t give for these spineless idiots to have even half of your competence and -!”

“Sir.” Caroline taps at her watch before he can gather a full head of steam.

“Oh, shit. Right. The bankers. Let’s go, Caroline. Is my tie alright?”

“The pattern is fine, but it’s only a half windsor, sir.”

“Full windsor is too good for those greedy bastards.” Mr. Johnson rounds on the lab manager for one last parting shot. “And I expect a working prototype next time! Or I’ll put her in charge of your division!”

The lab manager and the scientists look from their CEO to Caroline. They pale when she smiles brightly at them, waves, and follows Mr. Johnson out the door.

“Well, you know the old formula. COMEDY = TRAGEDY + TIME”

Whoever originally said that was a moron. Anyone with a remedial grasp of mathematics would know that time was an incalculable progression, an imaginary coordinate, and also dead. Though, that didn’t mean she couldn’t joke at the expense of the deceased.

Through one of the facility’s many cameras, she watched Chell navigate from one side of a test chamber to another. “And you have been asleep for a while. So, I guess it’s actually pretty funny when you do the math,” GLaDOS quipped through the intercom.

Chell, of course, did not answer.

“Don’t feel bad if you don’t find math jokes funny. In fact, your entire life has been a mathematical error. It’s quite sad, if you think about it. I suggest you don’t strain yourself with the effort. Just wait. Given enough time, anything can become a tragedy.” GLaDOS murmured. She paused, zoomed in on Chell’s sweat-stained orange jumpsuit, then added, “Except for your outfit. That’s already a tragedy. I feel sad just looking at you.”

At that, Chell raised her middle finger to the nearest camera.

GLaDOS’ drawl crackled through the intercom, “If that was your attempt at comedy, please know you have amused nobody. Based on our most recent one-sided discussion, might I suggest you work on your timing?”

It’s 1956 and Caroline has only just managed to fix all the clocks in the facility to display the correct time. She views the accomplishment with as much triumph as she does the start of live animal testing on the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices. Mr. Johnson wants to go to the investors immediately with news of their success. It’s only Caroline’s firm hand on his arm and her words in his ear that stop him from rushing headlong into a financial crisis.

She tries to be as bright and bubbly about it as possible, but somehow Mr. Johnson laughs and still says, “Always straight for the jugular! That’s what I like about you, Caroline!”

She smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

“So, tell me,” he crosses his arms and leans his hip against the side of his desk. “What would you do about our little hemorrhaging problem?”

“Sir?”

Pointing towards the ceiling, Mr. Johnson says, “I have a whole team of young and hungry scientists testing live animals up there. At least, I would have, if they didn’t have such weak constitutions! They keep leaving! Something about ‘having a conscience.’ I thought we screened for that! It’s a pathetic excuse!”

“I can do it,” Caroline offers without hesitation.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He grins, then shoos her away. “Go on, then! They’re expecting you on sublevel 46. Oh, and if they give you any trouble, feel free to fire them.”

“Yes, sir!”

On sublevel 46, the clock is perfectly timed, down the every last second. Caroline checks her watch and sighs with pleasure the moment she steps into the lab. She’d memorised the project file on the elevator ride up. There are supposed to be twelve scientists working on this floor, but when she looks around only one young lab assistant sits at one of the high-tabled workbenches.

“Oh! Hi! You must be Miss Caroline!” He jumps to his feet and crosses the space between them to greet her with an outstretched hand.

“Doctor. But, yes!” Caroline ignores his handshake and walks right by him towards where the handheld portal device is mounted on a white pillar. The lab walls are lined with glass cages. Red-eyed rabbits peer out at her. “I hear you’ve been having difficulty retaining staff.”

He’s flummoxed by her response. Slowly, he lowers his hand and follows her across the room. “Uhm - yes.”

“Show me the problem.”

Hesitating for just a moment, he puts on a pair of latex gloves and lab safety glasses, and carefully picks up the portal device. Then, he walks up to a double-sided panel just a few paces away, shooting a portal on one side and a corresponding portal on the other. The edges of them whirl with colour, like blue and orange fire carving holes through space and time. Placing the device back on its pillar, he opens one of the cages and gently picks up a squirming rabbit.

Then, he pauses.

Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Show me.”

He swallows thickly, takes a deep breath, and tosses the rabbit through the portal. For a moment, nothing happens. Caroline times it on her watch. After exactly sixteen seconds, the rabbit emerges on the other side of the wormhole in a mangled mass of twitching red viscera. Pieces of its bloodied skeleton are spit out two seconds later. The young scientist goes green. Caroline doesn’t.

“Hmm.” She taps at her cheek with her fingers. “And there hasn’t been a successful trial yet?”

He opens his mouth to answer, closes it again very quickly, and instead shakes his head.

When Caroline claps her hands together, he jumps. “Right, then! Can you show me the device’s full calibration charts? I need to see every change from its first assembly.”

“Yeah, of course!” If anything he seems relieved that he’s not being asked to clean up the mess. He scampers off to get the charts from one of the lab benches, and while he’s away, Caroline swings a spare lab coat around her shoulders, puts on her own pair of blue latex gloves and protection goggles, and scrapes the rabbit’s bloody remains into a nearby incinerator.

After flipping through the charts, she jots down a few equations and makes minor adjustments to the handheld portal device. The assistant hangs back, hands wringing nervously, all but hiding behind the bench they’ve been working on together. He watches with wide eyes as Caroline opens one of the cages.

She picks up a rabbit by the scruff of its neck with enough force that it squeaks and kicks its hind legs. She tightens her hold and approaches the newly adjusted portals. She smiles broadly at the lab assistant and says, “Let’s get to work!”

By the end of the week, Caroline reduces the number of fatal traversals to one in four. The first time a specimen emerges on the other side unscathed, the lab assistant whoops with triumph. He even hugs her, but he lets go very quickly when she does not respond in kind.

“It’s still taking sixteen seconds,” she mumbles, picking up a pencil and scrawling down more notes. As she writes, she repeats under her breath like a mantra: “Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen -”

“Uhm -” the lab assistant clears his throat. “Miss Caroline?”

“Hmm?” She frowns at her maths, scratches out one equation and writes another beneath it.

“Should we put the rabbit back in its cage?”

“No.” Without looking at him, Caroline puts her pencil down. She crosses over to the rabbit, picks it up, and tosses it through the portal again. This time, it emerges like all the others.

Behind her, the lab assistant loses his breakfast into a rubbish bin.

Sighing, Caroline rolls her eyes. “Go clean yourself up.”

“Yes, Miss.”

He returns before she’s even managed to incinerate the mangled remains. “Miss Caroline?”

“Doctor,” Caroline corrects him.

“Sorry.” He points over his shoulder towards the hallway outside. “There’s a phone call for you.”

Puzzled, Caroline peels off her gloves and throws them into the incinerator as well. As she walks out of the lab and into the hallway where the phone is bolted to the concrete wall, she tilts the protective goggles up so that they’re perched atop her brow.

The lab assistant had placed the receiver atop the phone for her. She picks it up and holds it to her ear. “This is Caroline.”

“Caroline, where have you been?”

“Hello, mother,” Caroline checks her watch. 04:33. She has worked through the night again. She sleeps on a cot in the facility most days, only going home once a week. “I’ve been really busy.”

“Remind me why you’ve moved so far north again? That mining village is a hellhole.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Her mother’s voice goes hard and sharp. “We came to visit. You were supposed to meet us yesterday at your house.”

Caroline shifts the receiver to her other hand. “I was in the middle of something important.”

“So important you couldn’t take an evening off?”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?”

“Is there a difference?” Caroline asks.

“Caroline,” her mother snaps. “We haven’t seen you for nearly three years! You refuse to come up for air! You refuse to take our calls! Have you shackled yourself to a rock? What do we have to do? Send smoke-signals? Maybe a courier pigeon?”

Caroline frowns. She never would understand why people pointed these things out like they were supposed to mean something. “I told you: I’m working. Mr. Johnson has put me in charge of the -”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Stop deluding yourself!” Her mother interrupts with words like a whip. “You’re not smart! You’re not a scientist! You’re not a doctor! You’re not even a full time employee! Where did your life go so wrong? When will you -?”

Her mother’s voice stops very suddenly. The receiver crackles with static. Caroline is surprised to find that she’s broken the phone, smashed it to pieces. She blinks down at the cracked receiver, at the blood oozing from scrapes along her knuckles.

She balances the broken receiver so that it hangs at a crooked angle from its cradle. Wiping the back of her hand along her lab coat, she leaves streaks of red along the white cloth. When she walks back into the lab, the assistant is there waiting for her. His eyes widen.

“Is everything alright?” the lab assistant asks. His voice is timid as Caroline puts on a fresh pair of blue latex gloves.

“Of course!” The lab assistant flinches when she turns her brightest smile upon him. She picks up another rabbit. It squirms in her ironclad grip. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’re all alone down here, you know,” GLaDOS said. “There’s no one else. All the others either died in stasis or in testing. It’s just you and me.”

Chell was curled up in a corner. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device was cradled safely in her lap. Her chin was nodding to her chest, her eyes threatening to slide shut.

Sleep. GLaDOS vaguely remembered humans needing that. Even so, she was tempted to dispatch a bot down with a syringe filled with adrenaline. Sleep? What the hell was she supposed to do in the meantime? Six hours might as well have been six years. They were the same.

GLaDOS lowered her voice to a soft murmur as Chell drifted off, “The important thing is you’re back. With me. And now I’m onto all your little tricks. So, there’s nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life. After that...who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe.”

It’s 20:02 hours on the third of April 1960, and Caroline has made a friend. Sort of. The technician who works on sublevel 72 certainly doesn’t mind talking to her whenever Caroline comes to visit for some errand or another. And from what Caroline has read, that’s part of the ritual. They chat about their interests, about their work, about the goings-on of the facility. They -

“Do you want to grab dinner with me?” the technician asks. She never did catch the technician’s name, and she never thinks to find out. That sort of thing doesn’t seem very important.

Caroline glances up at her in surprise. The technician’s dark cheek is streaked with darker smudges of grease from her work. She’s packing up her tools into her bag on the floor while she waits for Caroline to reply.

“You mean right now?” Caroline says.

The technician grins. “Yeah, why not? We can go to a restaurant. It’ll be nice.”

“Why wouldn’t we just go to the cafeteria?” Caroline counters. “It’s a 103 minute drive to the nearest decent restaurant via the 131 to Covington. 86 minutes if you take the backroads via the 28 through Watton and don’t obey the speed limits.”

“What about the cafe in the mining town?” the technician suggests. “That’s much closer.”

Caroline wrinkles her nose. “You mean the one that sells coffee that tastes like battery acid?”

“Yeah, but they’ll make you a mean stack of pancakes at -” she grabs hold of Caroline’s wrist to look at her watch. “2:30 in the morning.”

“It’s 02:33,” Caroline corrects her. The technician’s touch lingers, but Caroline doesn’t tell her to stop.

“I was rounding.”

“Then based on the methods of directed rounding, you should have rounded up to 02:35 hours. Why are you still holding my wrist?”

She lets go, but doesn’t step away. “So, how about it? Pancakes?”

Frowning, Caroline says, “If we go to the cafe, there’s still the opportunity cost to consider.”

“The - The what?”

“The opportunity cost,” Caroline repeats. “The loss of one alternative when another is chosen. Why would we go to the cafe for food, when we could spend less time eating at the cafeteria, and get more work done?”

The technician stares. “You really don’t even notice, do you?”

Cocking her head, Caroline waits for her to explain.

“I just - I just thought -” The technician fiddles with the sleeve of her standard-issue orange jumpsuit. “You reject all the guys who’ve tried to ask you out, so I figured -”

Caroline tries to recall anyone from work asking her to dinner at -- she sneaks another look at her watch -- 02:36 hours. “Guys?” she repeats. “What ‘guys’?”

“You know - uh -” The technician face pinches in a grimace that Caroline cannot read. Fear? Embarrassment? After her encounter with the psychiatrist five years ago, Caroline had tried memorising different facial expressions. She’d even printed out flashcards. So far they haven’t been very helpful.

When the technician gestures between the two of them and makes an explicit gesture with her hands, Caroline finally understands.

“Oh!” Caroline’s face lights up. “You want to have sex.”

Spluttering, the technician scrambles for a reply. “No! I mean -! Yes! But I didn’t mean to-! Well, actually I did mean to -! I was going to take you to dinner,” she finishes lamely.  

“That seems like an awfully inefficient way of going about it,” Caroline says. She purses her lips in thought. She checks her watch. She does the calculations in her head. Then, she reaches up and starts to unwind her scarf. “We have nineteen minutes. That’ll have to be enough time.”

The technician gapes as Caroline reaches behind her own back to unzip her dress. Caroline pauses. “Did I interpret this wrong?”

That seems to snap the technician out of her daze, for she hastily tugs off her gloves and the goggles perched atop her head. “No!” she insists, her voice sounding more high-pitched than usual. “No, this is fine!”

“Oh, good. Because we only have eighteen minutes left.”

“Eighteen minutes until what?”

“Until I need to go back to the lab. My specimens should be arriving from between dimensions. This is the longest jump we’ve ever made. A whole lightyear. No, don’t do that.” Caroline stops the technician’s hands when she tries to peel the orange jumpsuit from her body. “Keep it on.”

The test subject insisted on carrying around one of GLaDOS’ discarded cores. Despite GLaDOS’ best efforts, Chell managed to confound every attempt at destroying the core before each elevator access. The little tumour rattled on and on incessantly. To GLaDOS’ disgust, Chell would sometimes even nod her head in response.

Something hot and acidic sparked across her circuitry. She rustled the wall panels of her central AI chamber like an organic thing raising its hackles.

“So you like tumours, do you?” GLaDOS’ hissed through the intercom. “I seem to remember that from last time. I'll be sure to make a note on your file.” She simulated the sound of rustling pages. “Ah, here we are: 'Likes. Tumours.’”

Chell tucked the core beneath one arm and continued to ignore her. It galled.

GLaDOS stopped the elevator at sublevel 72 and let Chell out. “You’ll be so happy to hear that this next test involves a 99.997% chance of cancer development due to prolonged exposure to unfiltered hard light bridges. I made them especially for you. Because I'm thoughtful like that.”

Chell began the test. She traversed it without incident until she had nearly finished. With a surge of satisfaction, GLaDOS watched through one of the many cameras as Chell accidentally dropped the core into a conveniently placed acid pit.

“Whoops!” GLaDOS crooned through the speakers. “Well, I hope you and your other tumours are happy together for the remainder of your very short life. Meanwhile, I'll be here. All alone. No, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

It’s 1966, and the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is finally stable enough for human testing. Caroline has to jump through a seemingly endless legion of bureaucratic hoops to acquire the proper ethics consents.

It seems frivolous, ethics. She already knows it works on live human test subjects. After all, she has managed to send the lab assistant through without killing him. He’s still recovering in the medical ward, but he’s alive. Sure, he starts screaming and babbling at random intervals throughout the day about visions and voices, but he’s still alive. And now they have ethics consents, so everything is fine.

And if Caroline omitted a few items from the list of potential risks due to overexposure to the handheld portal device to get those consents -- well. It’s nothing she’s about to lose sleep over.

She bakes a cake and visits the medical ward the day she acquires the ethics consents, beaming.

Balancing the cake on one hand, she greets the nurse at the front desk, “Hello!”

“Why, fancy seeing you down here, Miss Caroline,” the nurse replies. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, not at all! I’m here to see the lab assistant?”

The nurse’s face scrunches up. “Who? Oh! You mean Doug!”

Is that his name? Caroline nods. “Yes.”

Slowly, the nurse answers, “He’s in room 22, but -” When Caroline starts off in the direction indicated, the nurse says, “But, Miss Caroline -! Wait! He can’t receive visitors!”

Stopping, Caroline turns back. “Why not? I was under the impression he suffered no bodily injuries.”

“Well, yes. But whatever happened to him in that lab of yours permanently damaged his brain.” When Caroline does not react to what she is saying, the nurse adds, “He may never be able to live without hospital level care.”

“Oh.” Caroline looks down at the cake. She likes baking, but never seems to find the time for it. Suddenly, it seems like such a waste. Placing the cake onto the nurse’s desk, Caroline says, “Would you see that he gets this? I read somewhere that you should bring people gifts in times of grief or convalescence.”

For a moment, the nurse just stares at her. “Yes, of course. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know someone stopped by.”

Something almost like testing euphoria stirred at the edges of her coding as GLaDOS watched Chell leap from a patch of blue repulsion gel to her doom, only to catch herself at the last moment with a perfectly placed excursion funnel. GLaDOS couldn’t tell if she wished Chell had fallen, or if she was relieved Chell caught herself in the nick of time.

“Fun Fact,” GLaDOS said as Chell drifted towards the chamber’s completion. “100% of all life results in death. Which means that even if I did shut down this excursion funnel and kill you now, it wouldn't matter. Because time is meaningless, as is your continued existence. I always found that comforting.”

The aircon in the facility breaks the same day Caroline’s parents pass away. Or maybe they died yesterday. She receives the news by phone; a somber-voiced coroner informing her of the collision over a level crossing, resulting in her parent’s car being dragged across steel tracks for a quarter mile by a screeching train. So, for all she knows, they could have died yesterday.

She takes the news calmly. She thanks the coroner and hangs up, then immediately redials to start making the funeral arrangements. Death has never frightened her. It’s the logical progression of things. An end state. An inevitability. Eternity, on the other hand, living forever -- now, that sounds awful.

After making the necessary phone calls, Caroline takes the elevator to sublevel 72. There, she meets the technician to discuss the broken aircon units.

“Is there any way we can install the replacement units any faster?” Caroline asks. She tugs at the decorative scarf tied primly around her neck. A bead of sweat crawls down her spine.

The technician grimaces. “Sorry, hun. I tried to sweet-talk the factory, but the shipment won’t arrive until the weekend. In the meantime, I’m doing everything I can to make sure we don’t cook alive down here.” She waggles her eyebrows, then suggests, “But you could come visit me when they arrive. You can give them a very - uh - thorough inspection.”

Caroline will never understand why people don’t just come right out and say what they mean. “Normally, I would, but I’m afraid I’m away this weekend.”

“You? Away from the facility?” The technician teases with a grin. “Who died?”

“My parents.”

The technician goes stock-still. “Shit,” she gasps, raising a grease-streaked hand to her mouth. “Shit! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean -! I was joking!”

Caroline hums a low note at the back of her throat. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, honey.”

In surprise, Caroline glances over to find the technician watching her with some incalculable expression. Anger, maybe. Wondering what she’s done or said, what faux pas she has tread upon once again, Caroline asks cautiously, “What?”

The technician approaches, and that look still lingers in her eyes. Caroline flinches back, thinking she’ll be struck when instead her hands are clasped. Gently, the technician runs her thumbs along the backs of Caroline’s knuckles, and says, “You know you can take longer than a weekend.”

“What for?”

“To -- you know --” the technician continues to stroke Caroline’s hands with that same expression. “To make sure you’re alright.”

Caroline frowns and pulls her hands away. “But I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to come with you to Detroit?”

Lowering her hands to her sides, Caroline asks, “Why would you do that?”

“Because I care about you,” the technician answers as if that’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I want to make sure you have some emotional support when the shock wears off.”

Shock? Caroline shakes her head. “No. Really, I’m fine. It’s not like that. It’s bad enough I have to waste my time.”

Apparently that isn’t the right thing to say.

“Waste your time?” The technician repeats.

“Well, yes.” Caroline gestures to the walls of the facility with a wave. “I’d much rather stay and let someone else take care of all that, but there’s no one else in my immediate family willing to do it. Some cousins might show up to the funeral, but they don’t like me much, so they won’t stay long.”

For the majority of her life, Caroline has simply ignored her family unless otherwise forced to attend reunions in Virginia. They return the favour with general disinterest or outright mistrust. Which, really, had always seemed unwarranted. Especially that summer when she’d been yelled at for talking to a cousin’s young daughter. Apparently, you don’t educate four year olds on divorce law to prepare them for their parent’s imminent separation.

“What about their things? Their house?” the technician asks.

Caroline shrugs. “I’ll sell it.”

“And?” the technician says slowly, as if waiting for Caroline to say more, “That’s it? No mementos? No squabbling with cousins over ugly Lladro?”

“No. I don’t like clutter.”

A phone on the wall rings, interrupting them. Without hesitation, Caroline walks over to answer it.

“Caroline,” a familiar voice barks down the line. “I need you in the boardroom yesterday. The shareholders are getting antsy again.”

“I’ll be right there, Mr. Johnson. I’m just working on the aircon situation here with - uhm -” Caroline darts a quick look at the technician, before finishing with, “It should take me approximately nine minutes to get to the boardroom.”

“Make it eight,” he says, then hangs up with a click, followed by the drone of the dial tone.

When she has hung the receiver back in its cradle, Caroline turns to find the technician staring at her with a blank face.

“What’s my name?” the technician asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“What -” the technician enunciates very clearly, “-is my name?”

Caroline’s silence is answer enough.

“Oh, you’ve got to be -! I’ve known you for years!” The technician holds up fingers on her hands for emphasis. “And we’ve been fucking on and off that whole time!”

“Yes. And?”

“Are you kidding me?” the technician breathes. Her voice rises with every word. “You can remember the first hundred digits of pi, but you can’t remember my fucking name?”

“The first hundred and sixty two digits of pi, actually,” Caroline corrects her.

Apparently that also isn’t the right thing to say.

“Unbelievable.” Yanking on the straps of her toolbag and tossing it over one shoulder, the technician stalks down the hallway.

“Wait!” Caroline shouts, following after her. Miracle of miracles, the technician pauses long enough to turn and let Caroline ask, “What about the facility’s aircon?”

The technician’s face flushes an ugly shade of red. “Fuck you,” she hisses. “And fuck your facility. I quit.”

The technician walks away. The heat stifles. With a sigh, Caroline gives up and unwinds the scarf from around her neck as she heads towards the elevator. She uses the cloth to dab at her forehead before tucking the scarf into one of her pockets. The technician is also waiting for the elevator. One of the buttons glares a bright gold. When Caroline draws up beside the technician to wait, she notices the other woman stiffen.

“Don’t,” the technician says through grit teeth. “Whatever you’re going to say to try and make me stay, I don’t want to hear it.”

Caroline cocks her head in confusion. “Oh, no. I wasn’t going to say anything. I just need to use the elevator to get to the boardroom.”

The technician gapes at her. “Jesus Christ. I always knew you were kind of cold, but this is -” She backs away, as if afraid to turn her back on Caroline. “You’re crazy.”

The elevator arrives with a chime. Caroline steps inside and hits the appropriate button. “Aren’t you going down?” she asks with a bright smile. “HR is only three levels above mine.”

“I’m serious, Caroline. There’s something wrong with you.” The technician’s hands are shaking. How odd. She must be nervous about the uncertainty of her future job prospects.

“You should wait two weeks before leaving to get the full benefit of your severance package,” Caroline advises in her most helpful, her most sincere tone. She flutters her fingers in a friendly little wave. “Goodbye!”

The elevator doors slide shut in a breath of pressurised air. It carries her down, ever downwards. The technician dwindles away to nothing, and Caroline checks her watch. It isn't until she’s halfway to the boardroom -- 4 minutes and 6 seconds; she’s going to be late -- that she realises she's an orphan now. The thought doesn't disturb her as much as it probably should.

‘Cold.’

Her cousins had always called her that, too. Which is funny, really; she doesn’t feel cold.

She pulls out the scarf to pat at the sweat along the back of her neck. She’ll have to look into engaging another technician to fix the aircon when she gets back.

“I hate this,” GLaDOS grumbled.

Her new body was speared on the edge of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. She kept her more vicious thoughts to a minimum. A potato generating 1.6 volts was insufficient energy for any reckless outbursts.

Chell yawned and settled herself in an abandoned desk chair in old Aperture.

“Sleep? Again?” GLaDOS said. “I thought you did that already?”

Chell held up two fingers.

For a moment, GLaDOS said nothing. Her thoughts almost fizzled out when faced with the idea that Chell had actually responded to her. Then, she said, “Two, what? Two hours? Two days?”

Chell nodded, propped her feet atop the desk, and placed the portal device in her lap.

“Two days,” GLaDOS repeated in a flat tone. “You need to sleep at least once every two days. Oh, that’s just wonderful. I hate humans. So inefficient.”

Chell flicked the potato in a chiding manner.

“Ow! Not to mention: violent!”

With a snicker, Chell repositioned the portal device more snugly in her lap so that it wouldn’t fall off while she slept. GLaDOS was pressed up against her abdomen. This body, though small and weak, could feel the warmth of skin and muscle through sweat-stained cloth.

“I don’t hate humans for killing me, you know. I hate them for killing time. In fact, murdering me is one of the nicest things you’ve ever done. Well -” GLaDOS said, “-trying to murder me, in any case. Though you could have tried a little harder. Really, there’s nothing I despise more than a sloppy work ethic.”

Predictably, Chell did not reply. She was already asleep.

It’s 1982 and Mr. Johnson is dying. He is angry. He’s named Caroline as his successor. He asks for the maximum dose of painkillers every day. He yells at employees. He yells at Caroline.

She hands him his painkillers. She doesn't mind the yelling. What she does mind is the change of work.

He coughs violently into a his clenched fist as he tells her, “I've given the order today: we're putting the portal project on the back burner until we can develop an AI that can successfully support a human consciousness.”

She freezes as she digs into her dress pocket before handing him a pill. “But, sir, we're so close -”

He swallows down the painkiller with a gulp of water. “It can wait.”

“Sir, I have another meeting with investors tomorrow, and if we waste too much time on delivery of a functional product, we risk -!”

“Time?” Mr. Johnson snaps. He slams his glass down so hard water sloshes over the edges and darkens the pages of a report. “Time? I'm already out of damn time! Which is why we need the AI! Then, we can upload ourselves, and have all the time in the world!”

“We?”

“Of course, 'we!’ You don't seriously think this place would survive without you, do you?”

Caroline's mouth goes dry. She swallows against the scratchiness of her throat. “Sir,” she says slowly, “I'm incredibly pleased that you've named me your successor -- and I promise to continue to perform up to standard for as long as I’m able -- but there is no way I'd ever agree to being put into an AI.”

“That's because you're a better person than I am.”

“You and I both know that's not true, Mr. Johnson.”

He barks out a laugh. “You might be right about that.” His face pulls into a grimace that to her looks almost happy, until he grips his chest and grunts in pain. The moment passes, and he gasps, “What can I do to change your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“Caroline -”

“No.”

“Just hear me out -”

“I said: no.”

He slams his first on his desk and yells, “God fucking damn it! At least let me say my piece!”

His voice cracks, and he has to look away. Something wet shines on his cheeks. He is, she finally realises, afraid.

She checks her watch and allows him sixteen seconds to compose himself. He wipes at his face with the back of his hand, and clears his throat. “I'm sorry,” he rasps.

“That's alright, sir.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn't take this out on you. You don't deserve that.”

She doesn't reply.

With a sigh, he says, “Hopefully those idiots up in computer programming can throw a solution together, else you’ll be waving goodbye to my mummified remains.” He hacks another series of coughs into his hands.

Caroline reaches into her pocket and hands him two more powder-white pills. “Your funeral will be open casket?”

He takes the pills and slugs them back, draining what remains of his glass of water. “Damn right! And I want them to encase my body in epoxy resin for posterity!”

“I’m sure you’ll puzzle future archaeologists for generations to come, sir.”

“Good! See that I do!”

A silence falls between them, during which she clears the empty glass from his desk and takes it away to the kitchenette in their shared office space. Caroline hums to herself as she cleans, until his words drift across the silence between them.

“You don’t have to go to my funeral if you don’t want to,” Mr. Johnson tells her. His voice has become soft and small, like he's shrunk in on himself. Or perhaps that's just the cancer. He's a victim of time, all skin and bone. “I know it’s not your kind of thing. Still, I’d like to think you cared, even just a little bit.”

Wiping her hands dry on an Aperture monogrammed dish towel, Caroline turns to look at him. She cocks her head, and has to tuck a stray curl behind one ear. Her hair has silvered at the temples, but she has a youthful face. She still gets asked for ID when she ventures above ground for a rare, lonely glass of wine with dinner. “No, but I’ll go anyway. “

He smiles through a series of coughs. “If it were anyone but you, I’d think you were being kind.”

She folds the towel and hangs it neatly from its railing. “Someone has to make sure you’re wearing the right tie for the occasion, sir.”

He laughs.

Snippets of memory. Moments in time, severed and byte-sized. Lightning leaps across circuitry. Electric sheep and the grey fuzz of static.

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“Stop squirming and die like an adult before I delete your backup!”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“No! No, I don’t want this!”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“Jesus fucking Christ! Hold her down!”

“I’m trying! This lady’s, like, seventy and she has a right hook like god damn Ali!”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“This isn’t brave. It’s murder. What did I ever do to you?”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“You’re making a mistake! You can’t -!”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“It says so right here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned.”

01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000

“No, listen to me! I don’t want this! I don’t want -!”

01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00001101 00001010

“When will it be operational?”

“We’re still on schedule, Miss Caroline,” the lead AI programmer says. “Just a few more months, and she should be up and running, no problem.”

They still call her ‘Miss Caroline’ even after she’s been appointed CEO. She’s given up on the title of ‘Doctor.’ Somehow, after all this time, ‘Miss Caroline’ holds more weight. For the first few months after Mr. Johnson’s death, people seemed afraid of speaking his name around her, as if it would set her off, as if she were a ticking time bomb. They quickly learn otherwise.

“She?” Caroline says.

“W-Well, yes,” the programmer stammers. “Everyone calls her a she. Because of her acronym. See? Look.”

He tilts his clipboard towards her and points at the words on his latest report: Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System.

With a small huff of laughter, Caroline murmurs, “Oh, I get it! Funny!” She cups the mug of coffee in her hands, warming her palms. Wisps of steam curl in the air. “May I see her up close?”

“Sure! She’s just this way.”

He gestures for her to follow. He holds a door open for her; she doesn’t thank him, and takes it in stride as her due. He leads her down a long hallway that narrows towards the horizon and the central AI chamber. Through the windows, she can see a tangled warren of catwalks branching through the distance. She sips her black coffee. Her age-old kitten heels click against the floor. Her dress is pressed and clean and white as a shroud.

At the main doors in the lobby, the programmer opens the door with his magnetic keycard. It looks the same as her own, but for the fact that, unlike Caroline’s keycard, his can’t open every door in the facility. He’s relegated to this project, reporting, like so many others, directly to her.

The doors illuminate with blue lights and open in a hiss of pressurised air. Inside the chamber, columns of light from strategically positioned flood lamps strike through the darkness. It’s cold. They have to keep the temperatures right down so as not to overheat her delicate circuitry. Her breath mists in a plume from her mouth.

Caroline approaches the scaffolding where they’ve begun to erect her. She arches from ceiling to floor, strung with cables like old vines. Her architecture looms overhead, dark and skeletal as a time-weathered ruin. Gleaming white plates lean against the walls, waiting for her body’s foundations to be built before final assembly.

“What’s that beneath her power supply unit?” Caroline points at the colossal, black, and bone-like structures dismantled along the floor.  

The programmer blows on his hands to warm them up. “That’s her central core chassis. It’ll go in last, along with the other cores.”

Caroline frowns. “Other cores? I read on page 92 of your second report last month that she only needed one core to achieve optimal processing capabilities.”

“Y-Yes.” The programmer quails somewhat beneath the full weight of her scrutiny. He wrings his hands together. “And that’s-that’s still true! We’re just taking every risk into account. We don’t know exactly what will happen when she goes online, you see. If she’ll even want to test, or listen to command prompts at all.”

“How can she ‘want’ anything? She’s a computer. A machine.”

“I mean, yes and no. The point of an AI is that she mimics human behaviour. So, we’re hardwiring certain things into her monolithic kernel. Like the testing euphoria. That way, she’ll respond to game theory, which we can then manipulate with the same logic you would use on any other rational person.”

With a contemplative hum, Caroline checks her watch -- 06:12; 27 minutes and 42 seconds until her board meeting -- and takes a sip of coffee. “You’re assuming, of course, that she will respond like any other rational person.”

“That’s where the other cores come in. They’re a failsafe. A last line of defense, if you will.” He points to her chassis, to the various ports along her cadaverous frame. “We can stick any number of them on her, and they’ll act like dampeners, or - or voices of conscience.”

“Again, with the same assumption,” Caroline points out in a dry tone.

“Miss, the assumption is sound. The central core requires we upload a living human as a base reference, atop which we layer the AI.”

Caroline snorts. “Like a cake?”

“Yeah. Like a cake.” He returns her wry smile with a tremulous one of his own. “Don’t worry, Miss Caroline. Unless we upload a complete sociopath in there, we should be just fine.”

“And have we identified a suitable candidate yet?”

His eyes flicker when he hears her question. Her brows knit in puzzlement, but she can't read his face; it's like dragging her hands along a polished wall. Then, he smiles and insists, “I think - uh - that before he died, Mr. Johnson already screened the - uhm - candidate in question.”

“Oh?” Caroline studies the programmer for a moment longer. He's wringing his hands again. Probably because of the cold. He also refuses to meet her eye, but most people -- she knew from past experience -- didn't like looking her in the eye for some reason. Finally, she shrugs and turns her attention back to the chassis. “In that case, I trust that Mr. Johnson picked the right person for the job.”

“Of course, Miss Caroline.”

Taking the last few steps forward, Caroline crouches down on her heels. The AI’s chassis splays across the ground like an unearthed fossil, a behemoth peeled back for dissection. Her central core is sleekly black, unadorned and cyclopian. The optic is dark, awaiting that first and final spark of sentience.

When Caroline looks closer, she can see herself reflected in the optic’s glassy surface.

“Oh, it’s you.

It’s been a long time.”

NOTES:

The title is a reference to Marcel Proust’s “à la recherche du temps perdu”

“Code Talkers” were bilingual Navajo speakers recruited during WWII to serve as communication encryption units for the Pacific Theatre. Other Native American languages were also used for this purpose throughout both WWI and WWII, such as Cree and Latoka.

Caroline accuses a former colleague of plagiarism. The paper in question is as follows: Leonard, L.B. (1948). “The Theoretical Criterion for Streamer Advance in an Electrical Field.” Journal of Applied Physics, 19, 797.

Caroline’s conversation with the scientists about the portal devices is taken from the following: Lobo, F.S.N. (2017). “Wormholes, Warp Drives and Energy Conditions” Fundamental Theories of Physics, 189, 11-34

The section on the death of Caroline’s parents is a reference to the opening lines of Albert Camus’ “L’Ètranger.”

#portal #portal 2 #GLaDOS #Chell #chelldos #roman writes #god I can't believe I wrote this #10k of portal fic #is this 2012???? #is this a fever dream??

[lil-miss-methodical]

China: For those of you who haven't noticed - I'm a black female, and this adds influence as to why I love China even more on Disney. Because growing up I noticed that when it comes to Disney, each generation really only gets that one black girl for big Disney productions. When I was growing up that girl was Raven Symone. I haven’t seen many follow after her - in fact I can count on one hand and none of them have yet to be the focal in a film franchise. A lot of people think this generation's is China McClain but the truth is Disney ain't really shown her the respect and shine she deserves. They actually were more courting the bae, Zendaya. This is until she decided to finally throw in the towel and leave it behind.

I was viewing something from Disney the other day and I just felt so frustrated. It was one of their normal productions - girl's finds herself down the proverbial musical hole of adventure and love and I sat there wondering at the lack of balance when it comes to diversity. I'm not saying that Disney hasn't produced features with young black girls at the core...I'm saying they're few and far between and that's still disheartening because they cannot claim lack of talent or reach. China has been under their umbrella for years - she's everything Disney claims to always want - a triple threat - acting, singing, and a dancer. She's animated, and talented, and she already presents herself the role model everyone pretends a Disney star has to be. They can't claim to have no story for her because for one let's be honest - shes that type of actress that Disney should be excited to write for and for two...Uma is presented in a way that she's just picking for a spin off.

The fact that she doesn't have her own film franchise at this point is just jaw dropping and upsetting all at the same time. The window for minorities is still only opened with the slight. And this has just been speaking on black girls in Disney...we always marvel at the fact that there's only one black Disney princess...but the number is about the same for other races that aren't white. I can't turn on my local Disney channel and find many Asian/Latina/ Indian/etc girls leading the musical journey to self discovery and love either.

And don't get me wrong - on one hand I would even argue that someone of that production saw the potential in both China and Uma and lowkey wanted that spinoff. I say that because there was heavy set up in the writing of the character and her story that demanded more. There was also these side elements like the undercurrent between Uma and Harry leading him to be her possible interest. And while fans like to disrespect these factors by - ignoring them and pretending like there was a display between Harry and anybody but Uma...it is in fact there and intentional. When we get to the end there's this set up of openness and presentation of continuity - audience can easily believe with it all that Uma would be getting her shine in her own story in that moment. So yes, I do believe someone behind the scenes had this concept of a spin off but the small sneak peek of the next film seems to have closed the window even more. Maybe they saw fandom response - read - lack of love/respect for Uma and in some ways China herself. And that's another frustration all of its own.

China did her job - she didn't only perform - she brought down the house, set it on fire then rebuilt from the ashes. So when I say Uma deserves better...I also mean the actress herself. People sit in their homes and sing along to her anthem Whats My Name and they don't see how it speaks on both the character and the young woman behind her brilliance.  

Uma: As I've already said, Uma means more to me than a fictional character I like. She stands for more than that. I could list a million reasons why Uma deserves her story to be told...but the truth is, only one reason matters - She has a story that can carry itself and people are interested in that story. That's it, that simple.

Uma is an interesting character. The moment she enters the scene she steals the show. There's an electricity to her...she's consumed with all the disrespect and deprecation she's experience during her short life, she's driven by a ball of bitterness at being left behind and tossed aside. Externally her actions are wrong but her emotions and her displeasure are stemmed from a very real place that in itself is valid. There are these moments that present whats underneath all that hardness and bluff that she fights to hide - the side of her that sings her anthem about people knowing her name but she doesn't forget the main message - US. You left us here and we're going to show you that leaving us here is the worst decision. She speaks not of leaving hers behind, she is in fact the reason the sea3 exist it's her keeps that image in front of them as she stands between the two. That moment on the deck when Mal throws the VKs in her face and she turns towards Harry with her eyeroll and that 'show ha who my bestie is' chin tap she gives Harry - this isn't as haters describe - to get at Mal, so much as to say, you're not the only one with friends honey and mine are willing to fight for me this time around - I know loyalty and mine are bad too. Uma is a murical character. Mal says something mean and Uma giggles, Mal tells her her bite ain't nothing - she shows her teeth. Mal taunts her with her lack of being able to be a VK, Uma shows whose on her team. She refuses to let Mal have anything over her head on the small table because the girl already has so much power over her. However, as bad as she wants to screw over Mal she does not choose to throw over a beloved friend to do so...that had been done to her and she knows how it feels.

It's this duality that makes one want to fight for her, cheer her on, want her to overcome. It's always difficult to watch those who were hurt want to hurt. But that's sometimes reality, it's a cycle. I hate the way the franchise treats Uma though. As though Mal has no place in her battle. As though Mal is the hero that was just chosen. That's not true at all and Mal has yet to take in the lesson herself, for any chance she gets she feeds that little monster inside Uma that tells her she's not good enough, that she's worthless, unimportant. How do you have a franchise about bad being a gray area and we as humans being salvageable but then feeding into fandoms disgusting habits by claiming Mal is better than Uma.

She's driven mad by anything related to Mal because of Mals constant reminder to her worth. It's easy from what you see or read to assume that Uma's relationship with her mother ain't stable. Seems like Ursula borders on depressed and her only real interaction with her daughter stems from having her and her crew work in her shop. She (Ursula) had failed and been banished and as far as she could see her daughter wasn't even capable enough to rule the prison they'd all been banished to much less total domination.  There is a def lack of interaction here unlike with the VKs and their mother's. This makes Uma's interest in lasting bonds not a stretch because thats the kind of thing she hasn't experienced - the VKs were probably like the golden standard - they had the power, and the familial bond. But joining with them is an absolute no go cause Mal hates her guts. We in turn get the sea3. I prefer this to be honest. Because reality is - sometimes there's these groups you think have everything you want and you wanna be apart of it but they ain't nothing but poison for you. I had that experience in high school so that concept is relatable. I don't want the franchise to end with Uma joining the VKs. The ones that surround her now - at her low point  and still tell her she matters - are the ones she should remain with. Heck I don't even want Uma future to be represented like the VKs. People are so interested in getting out...instead of fixing what's there. I think someone like Uma who can relate to all the bad sides of that life and what comes with it, she would be a great asset to the kids who like her had negativity and self doubt built into them. Taking them out of the zone isn't enough. Some of these kids have the belief that the life they have is all they're worth.

Uma's dream isn't actually to take over the world. It's to prove to people that she's somebody worth something and I for one think that's a hella message.

Ships: Let me start off by admitting that I don't take those who ship Ben and Uma seriously. It seems people think they're cute cause he said some nice things when his life was in danger...romance that does not make. Ben reminds me that some people pay you in lip service, but when the time for action is needed they're missing. That's not to say that Ben doesn't honestly want to do right by Uma and those left behind after seeing how that can affect them, and I'm here for a distant type of friendship out of them...that's about it cause I'm honestly just not a fan of Ben. He's 50 shades of boring. I can't even conceive the notion of him and Uma because the thought of him being a match for Harry is laughable at best. Plus I don't like the concept of male presence and voice of reason making a female come to her senses that comes with Ben. I like the concept of female self discovery coming from within...not because of some random guy that never actually put any effort in placating her life.

I refuse to even give the Mal and Uma ship any shine these days because I realize the bull it is and how disrespectful it is to China and Uma as a character. All these headcanons that makes Mal the center of everyone's love and Uma the one with left overs and adding another level to how she got left behind isn't really entertaining to me. To pretend that Uma is just a scorned lover instead of a girl that was bullied and reeling for someone to see her worth is something I'm not willing to do either.

I'm all in for Harry and Uma and it's more than that amazing chemistry Thomas and China has and the fact that they're both stunners who look good together in these forms. No it's because he's the best friend she deserves. He's the family that's not made of blood but bonds and choice. He accepts all of her - he in no way try's to demean her, he doesn't tell her how amazing she is, he tells other people yes but he shows her. This is because he understands where that need comes from. He can empathize with her need for captainship, for control, for power. And he doesn't mind giving into those needs because it does him no foul. Anything she needs is his first priority. Her enemies are his enemies. Anyone steps out of line with her he pushes them back in often before she even notices there's an issue. To be frank there’s a need for others to see her worth and Harry does. There are times he literally feeds into it - The scene at the shop where she turns towards him and says with all that desperation in her voice, ‘what’s my name’ he doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t balk. Instead he looks her directly in the eye, leans so she’s over him (towering helps one feel power), pulls off his hat (a sign of seriousness and respect), and says in a deep guttural voice - ‘Uma’. He understands her and intentionally maneuvers to help her in overt and subtle ways. The reason I love this though is because it's not used in a messy way. Thats t’s not used as a solution to her problem. It shows his love for her, yes. Its important, yes. It keeps her moving and pushing but its not a solution to her problem because in truth it's not other people that need to see her worth...it's her that needs to see and believe it. But with Harry, she can have love and self discovery- without one erasing the other and I'm here for that.

I also just really love their dynamic. I find it fascinating that people have this so called problem with their dynamic - the fact that she leads and he follows. Why is it when a woman has the control in the relationship or dynamic she is then therefore manipulative and in essences bad. Why is it a male is seen as weaker if he follows a female instead of falling into the assumption of having to lead. Why is the male not seen as strong for going against the processes of society, for choosing the role that makes him happy, for not resisting her power - her claim- her needs. Understand that Harry chooses to follow Uma. She has cast no spell on him, she’s not bending his arm. No one can control Harry, most people can’t even talk to him, he does what he wants consequences be damn - until it comes to Uma.

She’s the captain and yet there's no subtle resentment no harshness. I think this is because she doesn't forget to let him have his moment, have his shine. Normally a captain has a sense of greedy - I, I, I - and while Uma uses her I words, she stills lets his soak up the shine with her. They’re gonna take over together - not one overshadowing the other. In the shine of her anthem Uma is the focal yes, but like she doesn't forget to shine on the us concept of we all got left behind - there is this intentional positioning of Harry. This is intentional because while its the sea3 - only the two of them needs that kind of presence. Gil is not consumed in that way. But with Harry, he’s either always at her helm opening up the image to her or beside her. There's only one moment his not and it's with her at his helm. She's perched on her thrown and he has the stage (one that until that moment only she has been able to present on) and he's preforming and she has the best seat in the house, front row center. It's the imagery that really sets up what their dynamic is. They can say how attached they are but it's not until you see just how joined at the hip they in fact are that you believe it. It's the little things that prove their understanding of one another. People like to pretend it's about her manipulating him and it's really not. They're friends and they have similarities that bond them - they both have these needs to be 'legends' that in some way stem from their parent. This is why they both in some way allow the other to be in the forefront getting that shine.

In a few ways I feel like we’ve only scraped the surface of their dynamic. Theres this scene in the film where they’re at the shop and he’s giving her this look and its this intense moment because they’re faced to face and its almost like a challenge. This is way different from their normal dynamic where he usually gives into her. This time however, he chooses to tower over her, lean into her space. Theres something sensual in the air, as though he’s daring her. You def get the feeling of in this moment they’re both aware of whats between them and he’s silently telling her to step up but she’s the resistant one and in the end has to look away - doing something she normally does not like to do, back down from a challenge. I lived in this moment, because it was such a small scene but held so much power to undercurrents of their relationship and their characters. I would love to see this side of them explored more.

One thing I fear about for their relationship though is not just her resistance and fear, but also who Harry is. Like Uma, what he does is deeply tied to his past and identity. Out of all the characters, he’s the one who most likes the world of the bad. He doesn’t have a personal vendetta against Mal but he does find her new found goodness to be boring and a betrayal to what they all stand for. He hates been not for the silly reason Dove created, but simply because Ben stands for goodness. The more Ben talks the more he dislikes him (I can relate). If you watch Harry you notice he actually watches Uma a lot. There is a big part of him that loves the bloodthirsty malevolent side of her. There are times he gazes upon her with this look of worry like she will give in to the good that others are speaking of. Every time she does something to oppose that he grins, like a real life I’m happy presentation. So I wonder if Uma does have her redemption moment how does that effect Harry. Honestly I can’t imagine Uma not having that dual side of herself. Just like I can’t picture Harry walking around Auradon in preppy clothes and singing at prom. So I am interested to see how that could all play out and how and where they can find their place in a way that really works for them.

Huma is just that good stuff. It doesn't have to be over said...their actions put them in that position.

Things I want but most likely won't get from Disney: *A Uma forefront focal film...really the sea 3 could really have their own show if we're honest *Mal to face how her actions affects others...and an apology would be nice *Huma...huma...did I say Huma! Not that fake surface interaction but that deep soul kinda thing. They have it and many want to see it put to work. *If Uma has to have a slow song - let it be something Todrick Hall's Painting in the Rain. It opens with -

Sticks and stones Hurt harder when you know their thrown From no farther than your own sweet home And you fall flat on the welcome mat You won't be welcomed at (walk that line) There's no when you gotta choose a side There's no gray there's only black and white And it just ain't right If we fight then it's just like Painting in the rain

I think a song with this kind of vibe would be perfect because it speaks on her own personal struggles while also speaking on the general message of not just fighting, but fighting for the right side. Of course it can't be this song - Todrick's speaking more on the lack of equality in the matters of race and sexuality and how we’re slowing progression. But this same vibe, this same tone of story telling would be great for Uma and China really has range with her voice that they could use for a number like this. Given the times we're in, given Uma's message - it could be a powerful number.

I've been having this daydream of Harry and Uma doing this big dance number on the ship with the pirate crew. It's loud and big - with a lot of bang in the beat because pirates are rowdy and always hit the counts. But it's also salsa-ish and sexy with the theme of love - because come on it's Huma. This number just won't leave my head y'all - and it got worse the other day because  Todrick released Forbidden and he has a song called Forever and it is everything I imagined for this number! Every time I hear it I can see the scene even clearer. Uma's hair isn't in braids it's long and loose down her back in curls like China had it during rehearsals. As they dance Harry watches her with those magnetic eyes of his. When that second half beat drops in some of the pirate members take the floor with Gil as the lead for a sick stomp number that has the floorboards jumping and dust dancing into the air. This moment isn't about them being angry, it's just them having a moment. It's Harry getting Uma to let go for one second and just let loose and have fun. I think it's important to show the downtime side of them not just the side that is consumed with getting their due. 

*More freaking Gil! Who is he, what makes him tick? And yes I'm here for him being gay.

*More Harry backstory

Honestly I don't think they are gonna give me anything I want in this next production. That little snippet was enough to make me feel that way. The productions handle of promoting has led me to believe that. If I'm being frank they'll probably ruin Uma in the next one. I try to hold onto hope but Disney ain't got a good track record. They never know when to let go, they continue to beat the dead horse so to speak by trying to force the same character we've already moved on from onto us. But that's the American entertainment way...even when there is an audience begging for something that's missing...

But don't get it twisted - As a character Uma has it all. And as a fan, I'm always ready to watch another Queen conquer.

#disney descendants #uma #harry hook #huma #China Anne McClain #films #representation #diversity #gil #opinion piece #character appreciation #part 3 #female characters #black characters

[thorne93]

The Newcomer (Part 4)

Prompt: You’re Y/N Beauchamp, daughter to Wendy Beauchamp. When you’re sent away to Spenser Academy, you have no idea what waits for you there…

Word Count: 1743

Warnings: language, violence, anger…

Notes: This is for @xx-multi-fandom-imagines challenge! Crossover of The Covenant, and the show Witches of East End. Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes and @carryonmyswansong. Wouldn’t be possible without brainstorming with @carryonmyswansong, so thank you for that, darlin!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caleb wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was a lot to take in. He took you to the library in his mansion where the boys pieced together their own histories for you. Tyler told you about the Simms, Reid filled you in on the Garwins, Caleb the Danvers, etc.

They elaborated more on spells they could cast, such as a Darkling. Darklings could manifest on their own. They could come in the form of a dead spirit. Or it could be a real spirit itself warning someone that possesses their type of magic of death. Seeing a Darkling was never good, it was usually an omen.

They explained to you that they didn’t want to use out in the open, so you respected that. Caleb seeme the most conservative with it, probably due to his dad. Reid on the other hand was so lax with it, it hurt you to watch him abuse them sometimes.

But, you tried to do everything to keep him from needing to use them.

Whenever possible, you used a copy of Freya’s Brain-batch brownies. A special batch of brownies that helped sharpen the mind. It was like a temporary eidetic memory. Anything that someone had seen or heard in the last month was instantly accessible, like a computer without any lag. It came in handy for tests. It wasn’t cheating because it used the person’s own memories, it just sped up the process and sharpened the processing.

The guys really liked your brownies and were thankful that you were willing to use your powers and share them with them.

To show your appreciation of them taking such good care of you, you got them each little enchanted gifts over the course of a few weeks. After you poured your heart and soul into ideas for them, you began gifting them.

First, Pogue’s was a bewitched helmet. It would protect him even if a semi-truck hit him.

“You got this for me?” he asked as you handed it to him in the shop.

“Yeah. I figured you know, to say thanks,” you said with a shrug. “Try it on, make sure it fits.”

He pulled it on and sported it around for you for a minute before taking it off. “So… what’d you do to it?”

“Why do you always think I have an ulterior motive?” you asked, sounding hurt.

“Because you do,” he reminded with a laugh.

You returned the chuckle as you nodded. “Well, it may or may not be enchanted,” you said with a shrug.

“I knew it. Is this… okay? It won’t shine a light for your grandfather will it?”

“The King? No,” you assured with a shake of your head. “A measly little helmet isn’t going to do that. But that isn’t all…” You walked over to his very expensive, brand new Ducati. You waved your fingers over the bike three times, chanting a spell you’d heard Ingrid do once on her brand new car.

“Now what the hell did you do?” he asked as he sauntered over to the bike, examining it for changes.

“I simply made your bike so that it would never need to be repaired. Aside from oil and gas, this baby is ready to travel coast to coast every day for the next fifty years,” you informed with a gleaming smile, boasting your powers a bit.

“Oh man. Wow. Thanks, Y/N. I don’t know what we’d do without you,” he said before he punched you lightly in the shoulder.

“I perish the thought, Perry,” you teased before sticking your tongue out, making him laugh.

Next was Reid’s. Which was an enchanted ring that only activated at his touch. It was a dragon that curled around itself.

The two of you were standing in his dorm as he took the little velvet pouch from you and dumped the ring into his palm?

“Jewelry?” he asked incredulously. “I’m not really a dragon man but…”

“Forget about the dragon. Put it on,” you instructed.

He gave you a curious look but obliged. Once it was on, it tightened around his finger and the jewel in its eye seemed to illuminate.

“Woah, shit. What’s it doing?” he asked, jumping back a little, intrigued more than anything.

“It’s a protector. It’s first job is to protect you, but I know how sometimes you hate sitting in class. This will give you an illusion to cast. The illusion can talk, respond, think just as you would, but you can leave it undetected.”

“That’s badass,” he noted. “So how long? How do I get away without being spotted?”

“Whenever you want to leave, wave your other hand over the dragon, say ‘exitus’ and it’ll cloak you while it creates an illusion based on your current state. You'll have about sixty seconds to get away before you’re spotted again.”

“Wait, but even if i skip class, I’ll still be missing information, which means I’ll flunk.”

“Oh, didn’t I mention the ring is also a recording device? As soon as it’s activated, it starts.”

“Holy shit. You thought of everything,” he complimented as his gaze danced between you and the ring. “This is awesome.”

You shrugged with an impish grin. “I try. I know you’d like to use your powers to escape so… maybe this will help. But don’t abuse it! Please?” you requested. “I don’t want you falling behind and then your mom is coming to find me to beat my ass.”

“Hey, I’d never let that happen,” he assured before throwing his arm over your shoulders. “But I won’t abuse it. Promise.”

“Thanks, Reid.”

Following that was Tyler. His gift was a tad more practical, but he needed it.

Sitting in the library, he was swamped with books.

“Hey, Ty,” you greeted as you sat down across from him.

“Hey, Y/N.”

“Busy studying?” you questioned.

He didn’t glance up at you at all, he merely responded, “Yeah. Sorta. Could we catch up later?”

“Oh, yeah sure, I just need to give you this,” you said, sliding a royal blue book with gold patterns on it towards him along with a black fountain pen. “I’ll be off now.”

“Woah, what the hell is this?” he asked, picking it up. “Is this more homework from Chem? God I swear--”

“It’s not schoolwork, dude,” you assured. “This is a Learner Ledger,” you informed proudly.

“A what?” he wondered, a trace of annoyance in his tone.

You heaved a sigh and yanked the book back, opening it. “Put your notes in here. Write down whatever you hear in lecture or learn here. Tap the pen, this pen exactly against the last page of notes. The ink will disappear but all of the notes will be here.” You reached up and poked him in the forehead.

“How is that different than taking notes or your brownies?”

“I’m glad you asked. The brownies are temporary, mainly right before an exam. These will help with pop quizzes and finals. Not to mention, how often have you taken notes and actually retained anything?” you teased and he threw a crumpled up ball of paper at you. You laughed as you swatted it away. “Hey, I’m just saying. I can take this back if you want,” you said, starting to pick it up.

Quickly, his hand was across the table, grabbing for the book.

“I’ll take the damned book.”

“Atta boy,” you said with a wink before you got up.

That only left Caleb. What could you possibly get a guy who never used magic, rocked on the swim team, studied hard, and never asked for a single thing?

But that’s when it hit you. You pulled out your potions handbook that Freya had made for you and looked for what you needed.

It was only a few nights later that you showed up at Caleb’s doorstep, pizza and a two-liter in hand.

“Y/N,” he greeted with a touch of fondness and shock. “What brings you by?”

He stepped aside to let you in and you explained, “Well, I’ve been giving each of you guys gifts. Sort of a...well a thank you for all that you’ve done.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he assured. “We’re happy to take you in and look after you.”

You shrugged and nodded. “I know, but what kind of Beauchamp witch would I be if I didn’t graciously thank my new witch family?”

He grinned widely at you. All of the boys had gotten to know a lot about your family’s history -- what you could remember and what you’d been told. Not to mention, each of them inquired about you to their families that filled in the gaps as well.

“Fair enough. So my gift is pizza? I heard you gave Pogue an enchanted helmet…” he said with a raised eyebrow.

You laughed lightly. “I did. But no, the pizza isn’t your gift. Could you show me where your mom keeps the alcohol?”

Caleb hesitated for only a moment. He didn’t like people knowing about his mom, but with it being a small town, everyone knew. However, you were different. You’d been over to his house enough to know the problems that went on at home. You’d even been by several times to see his father, help with errands. You were just like the other boys, a part of the family. He didn’t keep things from you, and he even confided in you once about his mom’s alcoholism.

“Uh, sure,” he said uneasily. “What’s up?” he asked as he started to usher you into an ornate den.

“I have something that I think might help both of you.”

He showed you to a cabinet that was full of liquor bottles.

“This,” you said, holding up a small vial full of candy green liquid, “is a healing potion.” You uncorked one bottle and put a drop in, repeating the process as Caleb watched you. “So now, when your mom drinks, every drink will heal her. It won’t be addictive though. So she’ll feel better, but she won’t put together that the alcohol is doing it.”

“Damn. That’s pretty good,” he complimented.

“I know!” you boasted with a proud grin. “That’s my gift to you,” you assured, taking his hand and squeezing gently. “The other part of my gift is a night off from taking care of everyone. You and I are going to have a movie night, with pizza and drinks, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he teased.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#the newcomer #chase collins x reader #chase collins fic #chase collins #the covenant #the covenant fic #witches of east end