the theme that always resonates me the most in stories is “the world is cruel; therefore I won’t be.”
when a pessimistic, self-destructive character who has been made hard and cynical and bitter by repeated trauma and horror is suddenly put into a situation where they could be like “well, that’s just how it is, life’s a bitch” but they choose not to? When they decide instead they’ll be damned if they don’t die fighting to make their shitty fucking world a little bit less shitty?
When they are yanked into a relationship with someone who is way more hopeful and idealistic than they are, who has not experienced the same suffering, and they think “I’m not going to let them hurt the way I was hurt” even though they may not have ever given a damn about what anyone else was going through before?
That’s just about the most important story there is, if you ask me
