#as soon as I've rewatched that fight scene a million times

[saveandreset]

Underverse 0.7 part 2 spoilers!

Just a bunch of pics of my absolute fave

Such good scenes!!!! I've spent waaaay too long screenshotting each scene XD

Heh spooked, ah the little jump sans did XD

Ah brings back lovely memories for him, oof

Also these two!!!! Pointing at the original artstyle! Second for the regular in Aftertale and the first for that fight scene towards the end

Also the family!

And oooooh yes

[thefirstknife]

Crack headcanoodle monday: the Winnower wishes to preserve the state of the game and the status quo. The Gardener is tired of one shape always winning and changes the rules to fundamentally alter the game and give other shapes a chance. Their estranged offspring, Witness, it tired of the endless, pointless cycle of life-death-life-death and wishes to raze the universe of all life so no one suffers anymore. It very much subscribes to the theory of "why live if you die anyway"/"why fight if you will lose anyway". It is soon to be taught a lesson by its creators it is rebelling against.

That's a really cool idea, omg.

I've been thinking about something similar, specifically that the Witness is maybe some sort of manifestation of the Winnower that it needed to place into the game.

Now, literally just now as I rewatched the starting cutscene I remembered something that I first thought of when I saw this scene:

Ghost Fragment: The Traveler 3:

The knife had a million blades.

This lore tab is a recounting of the Collapse from the Traveler's POV. The knife attacked with a million blades and "cut its godly flesh." It also "stole so much more than your body."

Blades would be the Pyramid ships. Their angles in that second image were always so peculiar to me, we don't usually see them like that. The look like blades, perhaps on a spear or arrow. Or a knife.

And well. In Unveiling the Winnower says:

I looked at the gardener.

I looked at my hands.

I discovered the first knife.

When they fought in the Garden, the Winnower "discovered" the first knife, possibly some sort of manifestation of the Witness that it's using to chase down the Gardener. In that sense, your theory is basically there; the Witness would be some type of progeny of the first conflict.

It's really evocative that the only time we've ever seen the Witness physically affect reality around it was when it did the slicening of the Ghost and Guardian and their ships (sliced, like with a knife). As it was passing through a beam of Light. Outside of that, it always appears through shattered glass or speaking through our Ghost. It doesn't do anything; perhaps it can't unless it's being directly affected by the Gardener. It can interact with that for which it was made; the original conflict between Gardener and Winnower. Otherwise, it needs Disciples to do its bidding.

The Witness is obsessed with bringing about the final shape and it believes it can only be done so with what it did; connected the Veil with the Traveler, opened a portal to an unknown dimension and... Currently unknown and characters are hard at work to figure it out. I am most interested in what it told the Traveler:

"The universe makes us all victim and perpetrator of its infinite cruelty. You, more than any, suffer both fates.

And:

"Be free."

I am currently obsessed with this and thinking it could mean that the way to enact the final shape would be to remove the Gardener from the game and effectively restart the universe. By "freeing" the Gardener from the body it used to enter the game (Traveler), and banishing it back to the original dimension it came from (the original metaphorical garden where the Gardener and Winnower fought), the final shape can happen. Originally, before the Gardener's change of rules, the final shape were always the Vex. Perhaps Sol Divisive know what's up. Or the Witness is simply using them and the ultimate goal is revert to a reality without the Gardener's rule and start anew.

Ghosts currently can't feel the Traveler, but the Light isn't gone. The Gardener may have been banished from its body, but its rule is still in effect in the universe. For now. In that sense, the Gardener is the victim of it all, but also the perpetrator, for enabling that rule in the first place.

This is all purely speculation ofc, but I've always wanted some really cool follow up on the Unveiling and the original conflict and possibly an explanation for a few things that are quite strange and are related to a dimension we haven't seen yet. The place outside of time and space, the original garden.

There's so much possibility here. We could be completely wrong or we could be entirely correct. Or a secret third thing (correct in wrong ways, or wrong in correct ways). I don't expect anyone to really guess what's up, but this is currently what's really interesting to think about until we get any sort of confirmation or denial.

[silent-sanctum]

Storytime about Why I Personally Like Jotaro's Character

I think it's safe to assume that 90% of us ocean man simps (and/or the 11k followers of the joot tag) had to have hated the guy in the beginning, only to watch p4 and say "hold on wait a minute I'm feeling sumn" and then go back to p3 and say "oh shit hold up".

'cause when i first started p3, i remember jotaro calling holly a bitch and that led to my first impression of him: "Oh so if jonathan was the gentleman jojo and joseph is the wacky jojo, this is the edgy jojo. I'm sure I won't like him at all with that attitude".

let me tell you... i hate assholes. antagonists. absolute douchebags. the too obnoxious men, and edgy men for the sake of being solely edgy.

and i kind of had the same feeling of him throughout the first few episodes, and then the more the plot went, the more I got to see bits of his subtle heart of gold personality come through and I thought to myself "no way but he's still an asshole, why am i beginning to not hate him at all?"

but I couldn't bring myself to hate the guy when in certain moments he brings up his dorky one-liners, the tiny curl that forms his seldom smiles, his general badassery. So at the very least I now respected the dude by the end of p3.

And then p4 happened.

Oh man. Did 4taro do something because damn, this version of him was what got me simping for the man.

Idk what happened but right at the beginning of ep 1, I see him in that taxi in his white fit and immediately, I disregarded the sudden art change and already vibed with the first scene of jotaro in that moment.

and i was greatly confused to say the least. I've been keenly aware of my tastes in fictional men and so far before joots, they were often very.....

let's just say... "young anime boy" visuals.

LISTEN. Don't ask why Kirito is here; I was still in middle school when he became my fictional crush eye-

anyways-

soon after, even if i was enjoying josuke and his friends in their slice of life shenanigans, i admittedly looked forward for scenes where joot would be in it, got excited when he does something cool and badass, and just appreciate him just vibing silently in the background, probably thinking a million things at once- the murderer, his thesis, the stand arrow, his job etc.

cue to the end, and I really like like jotaro at this point. As in the "holy shit... my new fictional mans?" like.

I was in denial. Because no- Just no??? How did this happen?

Was it because he grew out of his angsty rebellious teen phase, and into this now mature professional, Stand expert, and mentor who's learned how to not be excessively rude while still keeping true to himself as seen in his stoicism, intelligence, and badass nature?

and then to realize he was a DILF in p6?? And a divorced man??? And that he explicitly shows the audience his feelings towards his family for the first time???

Oh man. I was never too into dilfs... but-

So I rewatched p3 scenes again and there I was able to like 3taro as much as 4taro and 6taro. I grew to notice more of his very subtle character amidst the rebellious façade- using that big brain of his in fights, the way he has fun with the crusaders by doing party tricks, the more amount of smiles he does that i failed to notice at first watch, understanding why he shouts at certain women, the utmost care and love he has for his friends and family and how much he'll go through just to keep them safe.

I even grew to love the rugged, buff design of 3taro, which I now admit is kind of a favorite now along with 4taro.

Ultimately, I like jotaro because even though he gives off a very bad first impression, you get to watch his character go through a bunch of events throughout the parts, and see how other bits of his sides and personality surface, develop, and change the more he grows in experience and age.

Idk if it's just me, but I am a sucker for quality character development and jotaro shows exactly that- from being a rebellious delinquent who walled his vulnerabilities behind a rude mask, to a wise mentor-figure who knows better than to be impulsive and rash, to a caring father who'll sacrifice the universe and himself for his only child to live.

holy shit this was l o n g but I needed to get this out of my system because my god, I love this man sm.

and i know i have ranted about this before, but istg, the dudebros be literally seeing jotaro's personality as nothing but a man who's misogynistic and simply punches his enemies to a pulp to solve the issue, without realizng that he has to think of ways of getting closer to the enemy in the first place. Hence why yall shallow mfers think he's a bland protagonist with the emotions of a brick wall smh.

[madraleen]

Attack on Titan - Season 4 A rewatch commentary (because of course I have more things to say) Full manga spoilers (including the ending)

-i love aot, i'm tearing up :') top-notch story, top-notch animation throughout.

-aot only benefits from rewatches. they only add to the greatness

-you know. pre-time skip!eren would never in a million years have responded to falco by asking if the candidate that he doesn't want to see become a warrior is a girl. his mind just wasn't working that way- romantically. another clue that now romance is part of his life (or unrequited love. or whatever he has going on with mikasa, idk)

-aot has SUCH good music

-"declaration of war" is SO. GOOD.

-L I S T E N tho, when warhammer titan asks for eren's last words and he says "now, mikasa"... TECHNICALLY this applies to what his actual last words could have been had he spoken them.

-i wonder. if eren knows the future, is there any point when he's genuinely afraid for his life? isn't it a given that he'll live to do the rumbling? his surprised reactions when attacked must be just that, the instinctual reaction of surprise and the fear of pain, right? not fear for his life. i'd say, and that's totally a theory, that in marley he is actually worried, because he's only just starting to go on the offensive. but he makes it out, gets even more jaded and settled in his plan, and by the time pieck threatens him at gunpoint, he's seasoned enough to know she won't kill him. and then gabi does -technically- kill him, which he didn't foresee at all.

-the nerve of using galliard as a nutcracker, i'll never get over that

-yuki kaji is so good. i'm never gonna stop singing his praises.

-but why did shirtless wonder escape from prison shirtless? aesthetics aside

-little-shit-eren is lying to armin and mikasa through his teeth i cannot.

-eren's eyes in close-up look disdainful and pained at the same time, respect to the animators.

-the EMA restaurant scene always hurts me so much. so much. it legit makes me look forward to the ending for its (soft and low-key) resolution.

-i mean, eren's not lying to gabi, he actually thinks he can save falco by luring out pieck and co. avoiding an altercation would mean no scream, which would mean safe falco and a successfully incomplete rumbling, which would also mean a safe falco.

-i've been thinking, eren didn't expect marley to attack so soon. it wasn't part of the plan. so what was the plan? eren's plan for paradis didn't involve violence. shiganshina was evacuated, and arguably no one within the other walls would have to die - arguably they would have been held back by the yeagerists, had they not had to rush to shiganshina to fight. eren's going along with the wine plan was a safe option, because zeke was never supposed to scream in the first place; there weren't supposed to be titans and marleyans to fight, just a passage to shiganshina on the appointed time. no one on paradis was supposed to get hurt, or if they had to, the casualties were supposed to be minimal. this chaos and disaster was never the plan. "sit tight, shut up and wait until the gang stops me," basically.

-the satisfaction i get every time, when yelena tells titan eren to come out and not fight and he ignores her. so much satisfaction.

-i love how everyone in the main cast has so distinctive personalities. they’re not archetypes, they’re just distinctive people

-the last-ish shot of eren screaming in the op with his hair getting loose still lives rent-free in my head. it's so raw.

-i just find it interesting how eren is struggling so much (reiner is straddling him at the moment), and he still gasps and tells zeke to wait when he's about to scream, he still protects his people (or tries to). he's not unfeeling or indifferent, nor careless.

-("brothers" ep) i'm like "it's okay, you know what happens, you've watched it happen, aot can't hurt you anymore,” but this.fucking.hurts! i suffer!

-HOW DID I JUST NOTICE THAT EREN SEES MIKASA AND ARMIN FROM SCHOOL CASTES IN THE PATHS

-ah yes, grisha hugging the zeke-shaped air with the accuracy of... something. you get the point.

-the most unrealistic thing about aot is mikasa's scarf making it in one piece and seemingly unscathed until her old age.

-interesting how falco stabs himself with a nail to turn into a titan. he doesn't have the experience nor the unrelenting tenacity nor the wrath of the others to just chomp on his hand

-the "his and hers" ep hurts. a lot. (i don't even care what 4x28 is actually called, it's such a his-an'-hers ep)

-cool cool cool, baby eren woke up crying from his dream as he saw older eren being killed by mikasa in his founder form. nice. cool. this is fine. this is. great. sure.

-i really like the aot cast, man. everyone is so well-crafted, there's no weak character in this damn story.

-eren the paths!calls spammer

-on a side note, i don’t understand how some still believe that eren didn’t accomplish anything and that it was all meaningless. he accomplished all of his goals. he wiped out the titans, stopped the titan cycle, ensured long lives for (most of) his friends and peace for paradis for about a century at least, and he got to experience what he considered freedom. mission accomplished.

[firelxdykatara]

I was the anon who sent the ask about cs, and you actually addressed some of the major arguments i've seen - being with hook turned emma from a strong, independent woman into just a love interest, hook pursued emma with no reciprocated feelings, and that he never really redeemed himself. I've also seen arguments that cs is abusive, which i've seen to some extent in anti-kataang posts. i try not to dive too deep into the anti tag for my own sanity but these are some of the main things i've seen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok, sorry, i was just caught up in the euphoria of reminiscing about my captain swan feelings that for a moment there i lived in a world where the Anti CS Brigade didn’t exist. but no, yeah, i know exactly what you’re talking about and honestly i think i just......blocked 90% of it from my mind because so many of those arguments were so vitriolic and widespread but also baseless, like...

gods, ok, here we go. anon you have activated my dormant ouat wordvomit processors and idk if i’ll be able to shut up any time soon but i have A Lot Of Thoughts Here, and also a lot of really bad memories cause ye gods, the ouat shipping wars of the days of yore were vicious.

ANYWAY, like, the vast majority of these arguments came from the ‘swan queen nation’, which is where you can trace a lot of super toxic wlw ship stans back to--just for a little context, but clexa and supercorp both had their roots in swan queen, among other ships, but those are the Big Three i always go back to because what they have in common is ‘the main character of the series is explicitly abused/treated horribly by another woman and for some reason the shippers go nuts over this pairing and will insist the show is queerbaiting them if this specific pairing is not made canon’. and swan queen stans, in particular, had it out for captain swan, because they were incredibly insistent about regina and emma being in love, and naturally the existence of emma’s romantic arc with killian threatened that.

as a result, they quite literally made shit up.

it’s funny (not ‘funny ha ha’ but like funny depressing), because a lot of what they accused CS of is actually shit that happened explicitly on screen with regina and emma. they claimed that emma was no longer strong or independent because she fell in love with killian, while ignoring the fact that she’d become a literal doormat for regina’s many abuses (there are so many things regina did to emma even after her alleged redemption which, if she weren’t being so coddled by the narrative, emma would never have let her get away with--like blaming her for saving the life of a woman regina had murdered in the past, or like telling emma to her face that she wanted to tear killian’s throat out because he managed to come back from the underworld while the man regina loved stayed dead) because, for some reason, they interpreted emma being happy and no longer closed off to the people she loved, choosing to let down the walls she’d built up over a lifetime of trauma as her being ‘reduced to a love interest’ which just did not happen.

like, factually, straight up, emma was every bit as badass while dating killian as she was back in season 1. the only difference is, in season 1 emma didn’t trust anyone, she was closed off, she had a million walls built high around her by trauma, and she wasn’t willing to let anyone in because she believed that if she did then she’d only be traumatized again when they inevitably left. by season 4, when she started officially dating killian, many of those walls had come down, she was happier and healthier, she was falling in love and she was letting herself be in love, she had her parents, her son, the whole town full of people she loved. she was fucking happy, but she wasn’t happy with the right love interest, so swan queen shippers insisted they wanted ‘season 1 emma back’. because they would rather emma be miserable so they could interpret her antagonism with regina as closeted gay pining, than have her dare to be happy with a man and a family that didn’t include regina.

as to the other claims, while hook did make his feelings for emma clear once he realized he felt them, the ball was in her court almost completely. he made comments, told her how he felt, said things like ‘when i win your heart, and i will win it, it will be because you want me’ where the clear emphasis was on emma’s feelings--he believed she had some feeling for him, but he wanted anything between them to be because it was what she wanted. emma initiated every explicitly romantic interaction. killian made a flirty comment, which he was wont to do, and which she could easily have brushed off--instead, she grabbed him by the coat and yanked him into a kiss which lasted far longer than it needed to if all she wanted to do was make a point. (sorry, that scene is just burned into the brain of every CS shipper, i know it literally by heart lmfao) he made it clear that if she wanted him he would be there, but i she didn’t he wasn’t going to push her. he followed her through an entire damn portal into the past because he wanted to help her, because he’d go anywhere for her--to the end of the world, or time--but emma was the one who invited him to dinner with her family. emma was the one who noticed he hadn’t come in yet, and went to see him. emma was the one who kissed him, initiating their relationship.

like @storynightlight said in the replies to the last ask you sent, a majority of the important milestones in killian and emma’s relationship were initiated by emma. she was the one constantly progressing their relationship, it went entirely at her pace in large part because one damaged soul recognizes another, and killian had been through enough trauma in his long (long, long) life to understand that emma needed to work things through on her own terms. he wanted to be part of her life, but it had to be when she was willing to let him in. and he was perfectly content to wait for her to be ready.

as far as the ‘abuse’ claims go, that was honestly just straight up fabrication on the part of swan queen shippers mostly, which is intensely ironic considering the state of emma and regina’s ‘friendship’ for literally the entire damn series. most of them referenced things that happened while emma and killian were enemies (they called their sword fight ‘abuse’, which like.... i’m sorry but two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict having a fight is not abuse, and incidentally that’s an argument that zutara gets hit with too, to this day, clearly words don’t actually mean things anymore), and ignored the fact that killian’s behavior changed as his redemption arc progressed. he didn’t become a good upstanding citizen overnight, but he did feel remorse for his prior bad actions and the harm he caused, he went to great lengths to make up for that harm when and where he could, and he tried to be as good a man as he possibly could in later seasons, even when circumstances (like, oh, gold having possession of his heart and using it to control him, which anti CSers also blamed him for, go figure) made that nearly impossible.

meanwhile, as late as season 6, regina was still blaming emma for everything that went wrong in her life. regina happily browbeat emma about everything she ‘stole’ from her for basically the entire series. regina, in the context of their friendship after her alleged redemption, was constantly verbally and emotionally abusive to emma--and yet that behavior was completely overlooked, or deemed ‘pining’ or some other obvious evidence of romantic feelings, by swan queen shippers who would prefer to claim emma was being abused by her caring and loyal boyfriend who constantly believed in her even when she had trouble believing in herself. (incidentally, it truly is incredibly rich of regina stans (and rumple stans, a lot of them say this too) to claim that killian never redeemed himself, when regina is the one with a vault full of hearts she never returned to their proper owners, and regina is the one who murdered someone emma cared about and never confessed to it, let alone apologized for it; graham died in emma’s arms while regina crushed his heart, and it was never once brought up again. regina got away with it scott free, and it is just one on a list of crimes she literally never expressed even the slightest bit of remorse for, let alone tried to atone for. yet killian is the one who ‘never redeemed himself’ mmhmmm ok sure jan.)

I’M SO SORRY ANON, you probably had no idea the can of Worms you were opening with these asks, but CLEARLY i still have a lot of damn feelings about this fucking show lmfao. THANK YOU THOUGH!!! i haven’t talked about captain swan or even really reminisced much in a while, and i miss them a lot, so it was nice to dive back into my Feelings and remember so much of what i loved about them! i may do a rewatch soon >.> it’s ok if i just skip 4b except the finale and then turn it off immediately after emma and killian’s reunion at the end and pretend the entire show ended there, right????

i hope you’re having a good night! thanks again for the asks <33