Forgive, Not Forget – a Cells at Work fanfiction

 

Hurray, I have a new fanfiction!

If you have visited my blog in the past, you probably know that sometimes, on very rare occasions and when I experience emotional turmoil, I write fanfiction.

All my fics are on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antinael/pseuds/Antinael/works

I just finished a fanfiction for a relatively small fandom: for the Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou anime. The fanfiction is called “Forgive, Not Forget”.

Cells at Work, Japanese Hataraku Saibou, is a two season anime (first season ran in 2018 and second season in 2021) in which the characters are anthropomorphic personifications of the cells of our body (red blood cells, white blood cells, normal cells, fucked up cells etc.)

If you saw the 2001 movie “Osmosis Jones”, you get the idea, they are very similar, only Cells at Work takes a bit more dramatic turn.

I won’t get into much detail, just want to write a few words about “Forgive, Not Forget”. To be clear, one of the main characters of the fanfic is the fucked up cell.

One of the themes I tackle is rehabilitation. In real life, some people do horrible things and are sent to jail, for good reason! But if some of them can and are willing to change their ways, shouldn’t society give them a chance? Ok, so someone did a horrible thing and goes to jail. Later, it is proven that they are both able and willing to integrate in society and work for the wellbeing of society. Not only this, but the benefit their work brings to society exceeds the costs society spends for their rehabilitation. Under these circumstances, shouldn’t society give them a chance?

Another theme I tackle, yet only briefly, is the influence of childhood, upbringing and trauma on the future adult. Let’s assume that two identical humans are raised in totally different environments: one traumatizing, the other encouraging, understanding and full of love. Will they not be very different from each other, even if they are genetically identical?

This anime, especially the problematic character starring in it, gave me all sorts of troubling thoughts, just when my life was in a somewhat balanced phase. For example, if someone does something really bad, everyone is happy they are sent behind bars. But few of us ask themselves: what if how society treated the defendants pushed the latter to do what they did? What if we, even though we hate to admit it, contributed to what the defendants became? Sad thought to have.

            If you like Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou and don’t have anything against controversial problematic characters, you might like “Forgive, Not Forget”!