#Shardie’s Tale

[theblackdragon-studios]

W. D. “Wings” Gaster Edition

Filled out the 25 Expressions challenge again, this time with one of my AU versions of Gaster from Undertale. This was to practice drawing him again mostly, but it also shows his various expressions as is the challenge.

For more information on this Gaster, go to the Read More below.

Blank version is under the Read More too.

Wings (the nickname given to him by my friend @allykatsart’s OC, Frost) is an AU version of Gaster (or so it is assumed). He comes from an Underswap AU for one of my oldest AUs: Shardie’s Tale.

Shardie’s Tale being the AU story where my OC, Shardie (most of you know her as the protagonist of Ōkamitale probably) ends up in an Undertale universe before the events of the game happen. In it she meets W. D. Gaster and his original science team, and the two become good friends as she comes to learn about the world she is now in and the rules of that world’s people and power.

Once Gaster disappears (falls into his creation and shatters across time and space) Shardie then travels the Underground alone. At one point she meets and befriends the Soul of Kindness (the Green Soul) in that world, journeying with her until she meets her own end which Shardie cannot prevent. So she goes back to wandering the Underground alone until Frisk appears and the time loops begin.

With Frisk’s arrival, strange glitching creatures Shardie calls Corrupts then start popping up. Which Shardie finds only she can destroy and takes up that task, protecting the Underground from the sidelines as Frisk goes about their journey. At one point Shardie then met Tabitha, a half-human/half-Monster with cat features who takes an instant shine to Shardie after the canine creature disposed of another Corrupt. Eventually Shardie then met Tabitha’s older (adult) and more protective sister, Frost who did not like or trust Shardie. If that changes I don’t know.

Later it is revealed Tabitha and Frost have an error in their code. There is a high chance they will disappear from the world when Frisk Resets and not return for many Resets after. (Think Gaster’s Followers and the FUN value effecting their spawn chance. It’s similar to that, I think.)

A lot more happens after…but that’s all the context needed for Wings’ story, which is the Swap version of Shardie’s Tale. Instead of Shardie being the stranger from another world, it’s Gaster, but he isn’t a Shardian. Shardie, in turn, is a full Monster but looks like her usual wolf-creature self just bipedal and a scientist who goes by Dr. Kishimori. Instead of Gaster falling into his creation, Dr. Kishimori falls into hers and Gaster leaves because he has nothing left to stay for when all but Papyrus (and maybe Sans) have forgotten the Royal Scientist.

Gaster then does what Shardie in the other AU did, but I think he would have befriended the Soul of Justice (Yellow Soul) but I don’t know. Either way he eventually also starts killing Corrupts after Chara arrives, then meets Frost (who is the kind, friendly one here) through saving her from one. Unlike Shardie, who is openly against Tabitha tagging along because she (Tabitha, who is a child) will get hurt…Gaster is more reserved and acts like he just doesn’t want her around. She then started calling him Wings because he said his name was “Wing Dings”

Eventually he meets Tabitha as well (who is the guarded, surly one here but still a child…but if you asked Wings he would call Tabitha an annoying brat that asks too many questions.) And that’s it so far. There is more about Wings, but that will actually be revealed in Ōkamitale eventually.

Blank version of meme:

I did not make this, but there isn’t a link to the original anywhere. So posting it with mine.

[uchihauahas]

Arc Retrospective: Trost

Seeing as we’re in the final arc of snk, I’ve decided to do an arc retrospective series! Basically, my aims are to summarise the plot, characters, lore and my thoughts on each arc.

What happens:

Trost technically begins with the graduation of the 104th, but I’m going to tack on the Fall of Wall Maria to this arc, mostly because I don’t know where else to put it.

We are introduced to the Shiganshina Trio, Erwin Smith (who only appears in a groups shot right in the beginning but he’s there nonetheless), Keith Shardis and Eren’s parents, Grisha and Carla Jaeger.

The Colossal and Armoured Titans appear, the gates are breached and Wall Maria falls. Carla gets eaten by the Smiling Titan, and Grisha disappears, leaving the basement key with Eren.

There is a time skip of five years to their graduation ceremony. The Shiganshina Trio joined the Training Corps with the intention of joining the Survey Corps. We’re introduced to the top ten:

1.    Mikasa Ackerman

2.    Reiner Braun

3.    Bertholdt Hoover

4.    Annie Leonhart

5.    Eren Jaeger

6.    Jean Kirschtein

7.    Marco Bodt

8.    Connie Springer

9.    Sasha Braus

10.  Krista Lenz

These soldiers have the privilege of being given the chance to enter the Military Police, in many cases the only way to achieve a greater standard of living.

Armin and Ymir are not in the Top 10.

Jean and Eren argue about joining the Survey Corps. Jean accuses Eren of dragging Mikasa to death with him as Mikasa carries him away from the fight.

The next day, the Colossal Titan appears again, and Trost’s gate is breached. The Colossal Titan vanishes as suddenly as it appears. The 104th trainees are expected to participate in the battle. Eren Jaeger is eaten, along with the rest of his squad, in front of Armin.

Mikasa learns of Eren’s death. She ends up trapped between two titans, when one of them attacks the other and kills it. Armin formulates a plan to take back HQ, which has been overrun by titans and is preventing the trainees from resupplying. HQ is retaken and the trainees are able to climb the wall to safety.

The Rogue Titan collapses in front of some of the 104th members and Eren is exposed at the nape. The Garrison takes Eren under custody. Eren remembers Grisha telling him to go back to the basement to find out the key of the titans and the world they live in.

Commander Pixis arrives and stops the Garrison from executing EMA.

Armin suggests Eren, in his Titan form, pick up a massive boulder in the city and seal it at the gate. Commander Pixis approves the plan, and it’s set into motion. Eren transforms, but then attacks Mikasa and knocks himself out. He sees himself in an idealized version of his childhood home with his family.

Armin arrives and appeals to Eren to wake up. By speaking of the outside world, Eren remembers why he wanted to fight in the first place .He regains consciousness, picks up the boulder and seals the gate.

What we learn:

Shingeki is a tale of mysteries. It’s a narrative where we learn with the characters, all of them, because no one knows what’s happening. There are few characters that dole out information to explain everything, and the ones that do are frustratingly secretive and hold their cards close to their chest. There isn’t any one character in this story with all the answers. This is different to a series like Harry Potter, where we see through the eyes of Harry. Although Harry is new to the wizarding world, he is surrounded by people that are able to teach him, and by proxy us, about the nature of the world he’s just entered.

Shingeki is not like that. There are no Ron Weasleys, Hermione Grangers or Hagrids around to explain how things work. All the characters we see are clueless. No one knows what the Colossal Titan is. No one knows why it appeared, how it appeared or how it vanishes. No one knows where the titans come from or why they eat people. These facts become more despairing as we learn that titans eat people and then throw them back up when there’s no more room to hold them.

How pointless, how utterly devastating.

What we learn, all the characters learn with us.

We learn that this is what they’re facing. Trost Arc is as close to apocalyptic as you can get. Monsters are here, and the lack of a concrete goal on the part of the titans makes them all the more terrifying. They can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with. They’re unpredictable and nigh on indestructible. They have a history of wiping out humanity. This all begs the question of “Why?”, and that is one of the hooks of the series. We read this story with the hope that this question will be answered, and we hope the characters discover this answer.

Isayama was very bold in killing his protagonist off in the first volume as it created a host of possibilities. Tonally, it created despair. It created shock. It created horror. Narratively, it created urgency for the rest of the characters. It made them feel unsafe. Having Eren’s arm and leg bitten off made it all the more convincing. It also gave other characters in the cast a chance to shine. We saw characters working together, working independently from the protagonist and succeeding, something that’s so important to one of the themes of the story in terms of the value of people.

Then we learn that Eren can turn into a Titan, and everything changes. We have the possibility of answers to the origins of the Colossal and Armoured Titans and the pure titans. For the first time, real, tangible hope is introduced. The arc begins with a Titan breaking a wall. It ends with a Titan sealing a wall. The message becomes clear- the Titans, the abnormal, intelligent Titans, are the key to both humanity’s despair and victory. Their fates are intertwined, which becomes relevant much later in the narrative.

The will of the First King is introduced, though at the time we don’t know what it is. Eren attacks Mikasa under the influence of him, and he keeps Eren a prisoner of his own mind by feeding him fantasies of a peaceful world where his family is alive and safe. Eren only breaks it when he’s reminded of what his beliefs for a better world are.

Ackerpower is also introduced. Mikasa breaks the floorboard she was standing on and kills a grown man with a single stab to the heart. This scene comes across as unusual on a first reading, and only much later we find out that there’s a reason behind it.

Characters:

A large focus of this arc is establishing and challenging the ideologies of the future Squad Levi. We see this most prominently in Eren, Jean, Armin and Mikasa.

Eren isn’t shy in declaring his intention to kill all the titans. This is a ridiculous goal, and the narrative calls him out on this through Jean. Their argument plays out as if it’s they’ve argued about the same thing before.

Jean is very clear: he has no wish to fight the titans, nor does he expect anyone to fight the titans for him. He deliberately calls back to the civilian expedition where so many people died. Although it’s framed as selfish, it is here where we first see Jean’s high regard for human lives. He calls Eren out on dragging Mikasa to the Survey Corps. From the shocked look on Eren’s face, we can see that this is something he hadn’t considered.

Eren’s relationship with Mikasa is established, and it’s in this moment that we get the first inklings that they have different ideas of their relationship. It’s news to Eren that Mikasa will follow him into the Survey Corps, whereas everyone else takes it as a given.

Eren tries to dissuade his friends from joining the Survey Corps with him. Armin states he doesn’t want to be a burden and would rather die, which is really the first we see of Armin’s motivations and character.

After Eren dies, Mikasa and Armin’s characters are pushed to the fore, whereas before Eren was very dominating in terms of their dynamic. We learn about why Mikasa’s so devoted to Eren, we learn why Armin wanted to join the Survey Corps. We see these two working together as a team, along with the rest of the trainees. Armin is faced with the reality of being weak in a world that devours even the strong. Jean is faced with the horror of the titans, and realizes that he can’t accept running away from reality as an option anymore. Mikasa realizes her life is precious even without Eren in it.

Reiner’s reactions to the Titan killing the others is inquisitive at first. It’s very clearly a shifter and he knows it, and when he asks he’s calm, logical and inquisitive. When the shifter ends up being one of his friends, he’s very visibly stressed. This is a small but noteworthy cue to his internal struggles that become relevant later in the story.

Commander Pixis is introduced. He is shown to be uncompromising and dedicated to the task.

Thoughts:

What an opener for the story. This arc gets criticized a lot for its pacing, but I feel like the plot pulls the reader’s emotions to-and-fro. Wall Maria falls! New characters introduced! Protagonist dies! HQ is retaken! Eren is a Titan! Many people die! Trost is retaken! It’s all very emotional and action packed, and in my opinion it does a wonderful job of worldbuilding and creating a desperate and bittersweet atmosphere. 

With the bad comes the good. The victory at Trost feels earned. We’re no closer to answers than we are at the beginning, but our plot is slowly starting to take form.

I was very skeptical of Eren being a shifter at first. It was too easy, a power up that was kind of lame. But then the basement, which had been mentioned all the way back before Trost fell, was brought up again, and the set up and planning was there. Eren’s power isn’t a convenient power up, but develops into a small piece of the larger world these characters occupy. Eren being a Titan is the first step to the answers to the questions we all have, and the depiction of this sold me on the idea. Eren only achieves his task because of the characters around him, which is a common theme in shounen, but the portrayal of this is different. It’s shown very clearly that many of the soldiers who fight to protect Eren aren’t sold on the idea of trusting him just yet, and the losses they sustain because of him are high. It’s not a perfect solution by any means, and so feels more real than the power ups that normally appear in these types of narratives.

The series is criticized for being needlessly dark, but I feel like the tone at the end of this arc is primarily hopeful. The image of Eren in Titan form carrying the massive boulder on his shoulders is such an obvious allusion to Atlas, and it’s so effective. As Atlas carried the world on his shoulders, so does Eren. Eren carries the burden of delivering humanity’s first victory, he carries the hope of a future, and it’s seeing that hope realised in Eren that the soldiers are inspired to fight.

The world of Shingeki is fascinating. The 3DMG makes for exciting action and imaginative movement, creating fight scenes where the characters leap off the page. The titans are grotesque and horrifying, dancing in the Uncanny Valley. The characters all had a very busy arc, giving plenty of opportunity for the next one to explore the consequences of this arc and the backstory of the characters involved.

Favourite quote: “Today, humanity won its first victory against the titans.”

Arc MVP: Mikasa and Armin because they were both great here.

Favourite panel:

I can’t choose one so I went with both of these

The image of the Shiganshina Trio looking up at the Colossal Titan’s hand gripping the wall is a sight that could be considered nigh on iconic. Beautifully horrifying in its implications.

Eren carrying the boulder in an homage to Atlas carrying the world is heavy with conceptual subtext so I had to go with this one too. 

If you made it to the end of this, thank you for reading! Let me know your thoughts on this arc and if I’ve left anything out 

[gricecolt]

Confined to Paradise

He always spent the better half of his time at the camp outdoors watching over the young future soldiers fly through the air and made sure that no one fell out of the sky headed for death. Luckily, he never needed to perform such a heroic stunt because most seemed to know exactly what they were doing, even his little brother seemed to be holding his own. Of course, there were always people who seemed to get the hang of the maneuvers faster than others, but instead of keeping a steady focus on Falco, he was interested in watching a lone girl who was quite the master despite only being a trainee. Her name was Mikasa Ackerman, and according to Shardis, she was the brightest student the former commander had ever seen. Colt vaguely recalled meeting her once or twice in the Shiganshina District during his younger years. They never spoke aside from a small occasional thank you when he would chase some bullies off for Armin before she and Eren Jaeger could get there and fight. His brother always had stories of her super strength as they were the same age, but he never quite believed him thinking they were only just a grand over dramatic retelling of a simple story. Though, now that he’s seen her in action, he could say that now he was a believer in the great tales of Superkasa. Her technique was practical and nearly perfect, but while watching he noticed a stiffness in her hips. The rest of her body seemed to be fluid and graceful, and it made the stiffness all the more noticeable. He glanced up at the sky gauging the time and shrugging to himself. Once they were called to attention, he would try to pull her aside and let her know. Right before she went to the girls' barracks, yes, that would be a good time. Shardis should be calling them back soon. Any time now. @saigeburt

[theblackdragon-studios]

Though we didn’t start out on the best of terms...I’m still so glad I met you.

A day-late valentine’s day picture. I’m posting both versions here since I can post multiple pictures at once. The whole thing silently explains the story behind this relationship, but the hint I’ll give: Redeemed villain, and enemies to lovers.

Wing Din and Gaster World AU (c) @allykatsart

Shardie and art (c) @theblackdragonstudios