Hi!! I really like Jumpy’s nightmare. But how did everyone die? Is Jumpy okay? Does Jumpy wake up?
Thank youuu I'm so glad to hear! I hope I can present more about it in the future, in some way shape or form :]
Question 1: How did everyone die?
Everyone's deaths are based off of real perils in the show and, by extension, situations First Squad have been in and have remained as unresolved trauma in the depths of Jumpy's mind. The deaths are also supposed to symbolize something for the specific character that experienced that death. Sonia died from being crushed, Ray died as a result of several battle-related injuries, Lin Chung died from drowning, and No Hands died from falling from a large height. Jumpy's nightmare self, who I named "Stu" for simplicity, implies a gruesome fate of being cooked and turned into rabbit stew. You can interpret what those mean for yourself :]c
Question 2: Is Jumpy okay?
He is in a much more dangerous position than he realizes. Before Jumpy was trapped in his nightmare, he had some trauma from previous missions beginning to bubble under the surfaces of his mind. This is ALSO true of the rest of the First Squad heroes—everyone at Big Green, really—but it's unspoken. Their missions are a normal part of life, so why act like they're any different... right?
Jumpy's nightmare is a result of unchecked trauma from war which occured over the course of years. He's forced to realize in this nightmare the truth of how scary these events were—how scary the war STILL IS. Unfortunately, in this setting, it's one of the worst possible ways to be forced to endure this.
And with Jumpy's imagination powers... he has yet to realize how dangerous this dream really is. If he doesn't navigate carefully, he might actually find himself physically hurt... or worse.
Question 3: Does Jumpy wake up?
In two of the endings I have come up with in my head—the truest endings in my opinion—Jumpy has survived the nightmare and awoke to his friends close by him. He is frightened but he is safe. All of them are. He is home. Jumpy will fight another day, and he will vocalize his fears from here on out. And he'll be there for his friends too, to protect them physically but also check in on them mentally.
In several other, potential endings, he meets a bad end at the hands of one of the figures in his dream. In some cases, at the hands of his own undead "teammates."
Jumpy does not wake up in these endings.
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I hope this answers your questions! I have definitive plans for how the au/one-shot plays out, but I like to keep certain things subtle and open for interpretation. Thank you so much for your interest in the au :D
