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nanfrost · 3 months

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A dive into Vertin's core aspect of her character and it's impact through the story: Part 1

This would be a character analysis with mix of speculations, headcannons and eventually just straight up heading to fanfiction levels territory, so if you were expecting a more cannon analysis, you have been warned.

With that said however, for those who are still interested, welcome to my insanity! This was something that I have been working with a friend of mine who you may or may not know as @acesw for the past week, and we are finally satisfied with it enough to post it! A lot of the ideas that are present in this came from them, while I offer my own interpretations and expanding on those very ideas through my writing. Without them, this analysis likely will have never come to fruition, so I can't be thankful enough for having them go on this journey with me, and also to just have as a good friend. Go check them out, they have really neat ideas and is a genuinely creative and artful person!

Now with that outta the way, time for the main event you are have been waiting for, our one and only beloved Timekeeper herself, and the emotional roller coaster that we have prepared for her. Please do enjoy.

Background context:

Vertin is an incredibly interesting and compelling character in many ways. Her ability to care for other people to a great extent whether she knows them for long or not. Her compassion for everyone around her, her empathy, her willingness to open her heart and listen to others when it matters. All these traits make up who Vertin is as a character and is a large part of why so many people fall in love with her and the story; to not only see more of her but to see where her story will go.

However, there is one part of her character that stands out the most to us, a core aspect of her character that makes up most, if not all her major decisions in the story up until this point, and will be the main subject of this entire analysis.

And that is Vertin's incredible sense of selflessness.

From going out of her way to save Regulus and not let her be forced to be taken in by the Foundation. Her attempts at getting through to Schneider, to understanding and showing her immense compassion even in the heat of moments. Choosing to stay behind in the Walden to fend off the Manus while the others escaped, and most crucial of all, her conscious decision to bury all her trauma inside herself to prevent others from worrying about her. Hell, even her entire motive and drive to seek the truth about the Storm and a way to stop it stems from her desire for freedom and the future of everyone.

All of this is in some way driven by Vertin's selfless nature, always prioritizing the sake of others above herself, to the point of risking her own life if it means she could protect those around her.

She's someone who will go out of her way to connect with others, even when knowing that the pain of losing them will never fade away, to give them comfort and help them if she can no matter what.

It is an incredibly beautiful part of what makes Vertin such a compelling, lovable, and admirable character and person, but at the same time, it also represents Vertin's biggest issue about herself.

That Vertin isn’t just selfless, she is selfless to a fault.

Vertin will prioritize saving everyone above herself, or rather, she would prioritize and save everyone but herself. For Vertin intrinsically has no sense of self-value nor self-worth; in other words, she has no self identity, for her entire life is valued based on other people, not herself. This can bring a lot of self-conflict, as well as possibly even harming others when reaching a point where every step taken is crucial.

And this serious of posts will detail and explore this aspect of her, its ramifications upon the character, and to not only show the ugliest and most painful parts of it, but to also show a path that Vertin might possibly take in the story to confront this part of herself somehow. In other words: welcome to Vertin's suffering builds character arc.

What can we tell from canon?

Where do we start seeing the decision making? We already start seeing them in the first 2 chapters. In summary:

Chapter 1 - Vertin continuously is left with decisions that she has to make on the fly, starting from deciding to try to see if Regulus can survive the storm and choosing to stay behind the Walden and risk getting harmed by the Manus Vindictae for the sake of her team as well as helping Schneider.

Chapter 2 - Vertin finds herself having to choose between keeping her silence and “joining” the Manus, and when she initially refuses, Arcana has her answer questions that bring unsatisfactory answers, leading her to harm Schneider. But when she does say she’ll join, she is first tasked and eventually manipulated to “kill” her.

Now, that’s all fine and dandy and does communicate that she is a very altruistic person and a selfless individual, but how is any of that bad or problematic? How does that correlate to her not having any sense of self-worth? Chapter 1’s ending is the first instance we get to see just how far Vertin’s selflessness goes, by her decision of staying behind to grant Sonetto and the others time to escape. Because of Vertin’s sacrificial play, Druvis and the majority of Manus didn’t pursue Sonetto's crew as aggressive as they would have, giving them time to properly make their runaway. Not only that, but both her and Schneider were kept alive, albeit captive.

There, Vertin’s selflessness is shown in a good light, being an admirable trait of hers that was crucial in progressing the story. This is the only instance in the story so far that has highlighted this trait of hers in a positive light, which is then contrasted by what happens in chapter 2.

Here, that aspect of hers that so far has been so boldly displayed as a good thing; saving Regulus and her team, is now flipped on its head, showing us that sometimes, being selfless simply isn't enough.

Vertin was put into a situation where she needed to make a choice, to either join Manus or reject their offer. When she chose the latter, Schneider was put into danger. And as each question Arcana asked piled on to her and the pressure started to rise further, Vertin went back on her words, choosing to stay with them.

This is so she could ensure Schneider’s survival, a selfless choice she makes for the sake of a person she had barely known. It was also here where Vertin’s naivety blinds her of the situation she was in.

That no matter what she chose, Schneider wasn't going to make it out of this.

Schneider had already betrayed them, but even before that, she never truly believed in them in the first place, only soaking up to them for her own personal goals. She was the one who lied to Manus about her identity, to pretend to play along with them until she bided her time, and now she was captured right in their hands.

It doesn’t take much for one to come to the conclusion that Schneider was a dead woman walking.

Yet, Vertin did not see this. For her view of the world even at this point was too naive, warped by her own perception and belief. A belief that by giving herself up, by throwing her own agency away will somehow lead to other people’s lives improving. That somehow, someway, by disregarding her own safety, the safety of others will be secured.

Vertin is living in a highly warped perception of the world, thinking and believing that if she alone suffers, no one else has to.

Green Oranges serves as a reality check to Vertin, albeit one that Vertin was unfortunately in too much emotional distress to properly realised.

However, it’s important to note that the game was rigged from the start. Regardless of what Vertin would have chosen, Schneider was going to “die” there either way. So although we witnessed the consequences of Vertin’s selfless choice, it would be unfair to call it her fault. So for now, this chapter only serves as a warning to Vertin.

That even if her selflessness is admirable and has paid the way to many good results, her complete lack of care for herself is not, and is leading her to believe in a false image of the world. A flaw that she will continue to neglect until it becomes far too late to remedy.

Chapter 3 and 4 are the harder ones to allocate, mostly because Vertin isn’t the main focus and rarely appears in the story at all except for flashbacks or dreams. But it still serves a very important role in giving us another facet of this character trait that Vertin exhibits.

That this selflessness of hers doesn’t just affect her, but also the relationships she has with the people around her, and specifically, her crew and Sonetto.

We were told that before Vertin was put to sleep, she had acted relatively the same as she always was, carrying out her duties until she was forced to be sedated and put into the coma we saw her at the start of Chapter 3. We knew that Vertin had set up plans in the form of Lilya and the bill she made with Madam Z, but this was something that wouldn’t be known by us or the other characters until much later.

For the entirety of her time spent before the events of 3 and 4, Vertin kept herself closed off, ensuring that she wouldn’t worry her new friends and even more so, Sonetto. But as a consequence, this results in nobody truly knowing what Vertin was thinking or trying to do prior to going comatose.

Sonetto, Vertin’s closest companion, someone who knows Vertin the longest and has been with her the most, wasn’t even privy to what Vertin’s plans were. She was left struggling to figure out what she should do to help Vertin, while also battling her own inner turmoil.

Druvis, Sotheby, Regulus, APPle, all of them were also victims of this. They had no idea what Vertin was planning, nor was even given any hints; they were left to their own devices and in turn, the influence of the Foundation. Vertin may have tried to help them by not getting them involved with the Foundation matters, but this ironically only led to them being drawn into the organisation because of their desire of wanting to help Vertin.

If Madam Z hadn’t come in to give Druvis the push she needed, Constantine likely would have gotten things to go her way. If it wasn’t for the collective efforts of Z and Vertin’s crew and so many others, Vertin likely wouldn’t have been freed.

These two chapters showcase the loyalty and trust that her friends have in Vertin, but it also highlights the issue of Vertin always trying to hide things away, to always keep herself emotionally closed. Even if she had good intentions, it still led to less than favourable outcomes that could have very well ended badly for all of them had things gone differently.

With that, we have gotten a rough understanding of Vertin’s character up until this point. Vertin’s selflessness can be an good thing to posses, but because of her disregard of her own well-being and her naive belief that only she needs to make sacrifices for the good of everyone, it is ultimately an unhealthy outlet for Vertin’s way of coping with her trauma. Not just internally, but externally as well.

From here on, I will be diving into my own personal headcanon of where the direction of the story might go, with the purpose of having Vertin’s character be pushed slowly towards a breaking point that will force her to confront this very part of herself, and perhaps, come out learning something from it all.

Speculation: Vertin’s breaking point

Before we get into it however, there is one thing that must be noted here so that the events that will transpire would make more sense.

That being how exactly could the story push Vertin’s character to her limit, when she herself is a naturally strong and composed person? It’s quite simple really, in fact, the answer was already given to us all the way back in Chapter 2.

Vertin’s one crucial weakness that even she might not even realise, that being her overwhelming compassion for those she cares about.

Throughout chapter 1 and 2, we have seen how Vertin deals with stress. How she is able to mentally process the situation around her in a logical and composed manner, allowing her to come to the best possible solution in a short time without letting her emotions run rampant.

And during her confrontation with Arcana, she continues to showcase her composure when faced with a difficult situation and choices. That is until Arcana began to shift her hostility towards Schneider, and we start to see the cracks forming at her surface.

Vertin is capable of dealing with high stress situations, however, when that situation involves other people, especially those she has come to know or care about, this mask of calmness starts to slip as she reveals how she truly feels.

That Vertin cares too much to see other people get hurt, knowing she can do something about it.

But this wasn’t enough, Vertin might be faltering, but she still tries to keep a calm level head, even when each question gets more and more personal for her. But it was okay, so long as she answered truthfully and picked their side, things will “somehow” work out.

This dream is then shattered by Arcana’s mission given to her; to kill the girl she had chosen to save by throwing her agency away.

Here, the mask falters even more as Vertin slips further into emotional distress. This is the rare time, and really one of the only times you get to see Vertin raise her voice, far from her monotone voice she always has. It was getting to her.

This is then exacerbated from her shooting Schneider. Even if it was not by choice, Vertin was still the one who pulled the trigger, the one that held the gun against Schneider, and the one that killed her; a girl who she had come to care a great deal about in such a short time.

Here, the mask completely falls as Vertin expresses just how much this breaks her heart. The only instance in the game where Vertin ever shed a tear for something or someone.

So it’s clear now that the biggest strength to her character that Vertin has; her love and compassion for others, is also her biggest weakness. A weakness that can be exploited and used to push Vertin past and even beyond her breaking point.

So let’s do just that.

The narrative will go like this: Vertin and her crew are tasked on an important mission of some kind, where they are given more control and permission to decide and do more so long as Vertin is the one making those choices. This puts Vertin into a position of power much higher than she usually assumes, which will first add a layer of stress over her as she carries out her mission.

Then, the story will sprinkle in a variety of different decisions that Vertin has to make, some big and some small. All of them have some kind of effect on the people around her or their situation. This further adds stress to the girl, now having to juggle the responsibilities of making the difficult choices and decisions that no one else can, because she was their leader, the one assigned to do the job.

At first, things do start to look better as her crew tries their best to assist her, and the situation starts to look more promising. It would be here where a wrench would be thrown, completely sending the whole mission into disarray.

Something completely unexpected occurs, causing chaos and mayhem to follow suit. Vertin tries to assert the situation and find a way to stabilise the people, her crew doing their best to help. However, in their task of ensuring the situation doesn’t derail any further, her crew subsequently split off from her, leaving the girl alone to her own devices.

Here, we begin the start of Vertin’s downfall.

Now without her crew or Sonetto’s help, Vertin is now forced into a situation where she needs to continuously make quick and decisive actions on the fly, all to ensure that things are kept as stable as possible. This leads to her going out and helping as many people as she can, trying to resolve as many issues as possible by herself so that others can focus on their safety.

However, not every situation can be resolved peacefully nor gracefully.

Gradually, Vertin is faced with more and more difficult choices, ones that require her to choose one side or the other with escalating stakes and tension. No matter what she chooses however, people still get hurt, lives are still put in danger. And Vertin, being the girl that she is, can’t bear to see it happen.

So she tries to find ways to choose both, to save both parties so long as she can help it. Even if it meant having to risk her own safety, Vertin cannot bear to choose one and let the others perish. She can’t allow that to happen.

So she gives herself up to the task of saving people. To abandon her own safety and subsequently her own agency in order to ensure that others will live. So that everyone can make it out even if she doesn’t.

If only she is the casualty in all this, it is the result that Vertin can accept, a result that Vertin can be at peace with.

What she doesn’t realise, or perhaps she isn’t willing to see is that she’s forcing herself into a corner. By placing so much emphasis on saving, by abandoning her own safety and subsequently her own position of power, Vertin has left a chain of command with no real leader, and the situation starts falling into chaos.

But she can’t see it, Vertin isn’t able to recognize this because she’s so intensely focused on the people around her who are suffering right that moment. Her composure is slipping, as she watches as people’s lives are being destroyed and perished rapidly before her eyes, and she can’t seem to make it better no matter how far she keeps going. This only furthers her careless act of selflessness, forgoing more and more of her own life until it was the last thing on her mind.

Eventually, things reach a boiling point where Vertin, alone, is faced with an obstacle that directly threatens her life and countless others. She now faces a choice, whether to prioritise her own safety over the lives of dozens of people, some strangers, some whose faces have grown familiar to her, or throw her life away again with the blinding hope that things will work out.

If she chooses to run, choose to save herself, Vertin can never live with herself. For a girl like her, who has made it her life to save anyone she can, and so running away can never be an option for her. So naturally, without a second thought, Vertin chooses to throw her life away in exchange of saving everyone’s lives.

A decision that will haunt the girl for the rest of her life.

By the time Vertin awakes, she finds that she is still alive, unscathed at that. But only a moment passes before Vertin notices the countless bodies of those that died, and the destruction that was wrought about around her. At first, she was confused, then the memories started to flood in.

The memories of the moment she chose to throw her life away, chose to give herself up for the sake of others. And in that instance, someone did the same for her, pushing her out of death’s way as they sacrificed themselves for her. Someone she personally knew and cared about.

In the end, Vertin faces the result of her sacrifice; nothing but lifeless corpses, an utter wasteland filled with bodies with no souls left in them; and she alone survives.

But she might as well be dead, life completely leaving her quickly dulling eyes, a single thought consuming her mind.

This was her fault.

She chose to give her life away, to disregard her own leadership, her role and her worth all for the sake of others.

Because she was too selfless, too kind to ever let herself bear the guilt and burden of letting innocent people die when she could have saved them. And she thought that by sacrificing herself, she can do just that.

She never accounted for the fact that someone would save her.

That someone would prioritise her life over countless others, to choose to sacrifice themselves for someone like her. To give their life for Vertin.

Vertin kneels, her arms and hands shaking as her eyes froze still. She can’t bear to look at the scene before her, her stomach rising to her chest.

For she has finally seen the reality of the world around her, finally acknowledges something she has willingly and selfishly ignored for all this time.

Vertin has always had some level of survivor's guilt within her. Starting from the breakaway incident, Vertin had likely always felt how unfair and cruel it was that only she got to live, when she was the one that was responsible for leading them here.

Sure, the kids went with her because they desired the same thing, but it was she who led them, she who gave them the spark of desire to want to venture out, and because of her, they were all gone.

Vertin has been carrying that guilt ever since, always masking it under layers and layers of self-imposed composure; a way to protect herself from the pain of the past, but as a way to stop people from getting too close to her, because she is afraid that something similar might happen again if that was the case. That if she were to let people know her, to get to care about her, that they too will suffer because of their involvements with her.

But Vertin was too kind, too good, too compassionate. Even when she emotionally distances herself from others, people still flock to her because they see just how kind she is.

Because even when she doesn’t show it, the girl cared enough to go out of her way to save them, so of course they would be grateful to her, of course they would feel immense gratitude and appreciation for her. Of course they would choose her as their leader and follow her.

And of course, one of them would throw their life away to save hers.

Vertin had abandoned all self-importance or self-value, believing that she, the lone survivor of a terrible tragedy, the one who shouldn’t have lived for the sins that she had committed; deserved no such thing. That someone like her should not dare to believe she had value, when all she had done was cause death to those she cared about. That was what she had believed in, what she had convinced herself to believe in.

Because of that, she ignored the signs. She ignored the warnings given to her by others, the warning that if she keeps going down this path of self-annihilation, that eventually she will be met with a fate much worse than death.

In her selfless attempt to save everyone and everything, she had selfishly taken away the people’s chance to save her. To save the girl who had suffered far too much and who had helped even more, even when she can’t see past her own warped perception of herself.

And now she is facing the consequences of that. She is now looking at the results of her blindness, the carnage that was her willful ignorance to herself and to others, and the irony of being the only one left alive through it all once more.

In the past, she was an unwilling player on a chess board designed for her to lose. Now, she was the girl who gave up her own King for the all her pieces, and in return, she lost everything.

Vertin facing this, her composure long since lost, finally breaks.

She slumps onto the floor, her body and mind utterly overwhelmed with every facet of emotions she could conjure within the darkest pit of her stomach, all while drenched in the blood of the people she was supposed to save.

The blood of people who knew her, who admired and respected her, who cared for her, who saw her as a friend, who saw her as family. All of them suffered at her hands, at her own selfish choice to forsake her life because she saw no other way; because she perceived that there was no other way.

And she can't bear all that guilt. All the pain and unprocessed trauma she had buried inside her now finally comes bubbling out of her, completely suffocating the girl. That lack of self-value that she harbours now replaced with unending resentment and pure unbridled self-hatred. Something she had always carried inside her that only got worse over time, and now, it finally had an excuse to be let out.

An existence that had done nothing but wrought pain and death to everyone it ever cared about. An existence that so readily throws its life away at the slightest of inconvenience, never caring about what others think about them, for they were too blinded in their own suicidal nature to ever think that they deserved to be cared about.

Vertin truly believes that she does not deserve to be cared about. She truly believes that she is the worst of the worst, an willfully ignorant murderer, so blinded by their own vision of the world that they refuse to see the reality as what it is. And now, they're paying their just price for it, a price they should have paid long ago.

Vertin knew better than anyone, that she was nothing but a murderer.

Part 2

#reverse 1999 #re1999 #r1999 #vertin #writing #speculation #borderline fanfiction #speculative fiction #angst #extreme angst #vertin's one long tiring day #oh Vertin my sweet rainy child #suffering builds so much character #oh god this is too much suffering for one sweet girl to go through #unhealthy way of coping with trauma #even more trauma #it gets dark very quickly #alternative timeline #headcannons

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