#honestly i love the parallels between family members in this tbh i didn't even realize

[creatorbiaze]

OC regrets / thoughts / dark moments below cut ~

Vizerxa is an Omen Of Death.

The Grim Reaper herself. A living shadow, and the bringer of disaster. She brought the downfall of her kingdom, caused her best friend's death, and if it wasn't for her, Lucidi (her older sister) wouldn't have erased herself from everyone's memories and vanished. Vizerxa hates herself because of it.

The Gods themselves abandoned her.

All her life, she'd looked up to the Ancients, worshipping them like every Pantheon. Her Kingdom follows Nocte, Ancient Deity of Darkness, and she gave all of her faith to the Pantheon. In return, they caused Fractal (mother)'s neglect and hatred of her, and openly & directly abandoned her because of something that didn't even happen yet, and wouldn't have happened if they didn't desert her.

She could have stopped it all.

Clara, her best friend, died a painful death because she was the only thing keeping Vizerxa from joining Light Song. Clara was her guardian angel, her guiding light, and she died for Vizerxa without even knowing it. Vizerxa could have stopped the Genesis Experiments, and saved the child she knew was suffering, but she had to keep her alliance to Light Song to gain power. She could have just avoided Light Song entirely, and she wouldn't be dead. Amist Memoriam wouldn't have fallen. Lucidi and Videns would be happy. She knows that her want for power ruined everything, and now that she has it... she can never unsee the blood on her hands.

Star Seer knows when everyone he loves will die.

Every day, at all times, he has to watch the sand slowly drip through the hourglasses, powerless to save or even comfort them. Forever helplessly watching everyone slip away, again and again. every new cycle of the Pantheons, every replacement, they're never the same to him. He sees his old friends in new faces, in the mannerisms of them all, and he hates it with every fiber of his being.

He knows the answers and solutions, but no one Listens.

He's accurately predicted major events, changes, and even Light Song's fall, but no one listens. What's the point of being the God of Prophecy if no one will follow his advice? They could save themselves if they just tried. In his eyes, the blood stains his hands. He warned them, and yet he still failed.

Amatus just wants Light Song back.

He doesn't care that Light Song was a tyrant, he wants her back. He follows Vizerxa out of obligation and hides it perfectly, but he misses her dearly. Vizerxa's vision of peace ruins everything for Amatus. He may be fiercely loyal, but Light Song always was and always will be his idol.

He lost everything in the Final Battle.

In all honesty, Amatus loved Light Song. He wanted to be by her side and take over Salha, plunging the world into chaos and emerging victorious. They would have succeeded, if Vizerxa didn't weaken her and kill her, ending the battle with the Celestial Pantheon. He lost all of his reasons to live when she took over the Fallen, bringing peace. Now, he stays only because there's nowhere else to go, and he's sure the Bringer of Death will end up causing something even worse... she's Vizerxa, after all...

Aella wants her freedom back.

She lost everything when Light Song beat her. Her crew's dead, she lost an eye, and worst of all... She's tied to the land again, far away from the ocean she NEEDS to explore to thrive. She feels lost and broken when she's on land, and hates being high up on the cliff the Bright Palace is on. She wants the sea back. the dangerous water that stretches on forever. her crew that she loved and lead happily. Her voice echoing for miles, drawing in unsuspecting ships...

She misses her 'family'.

Her crew may have only followed her because the only other option was death, but... she held them very highly. They were family to her. She was the Queen of the Seas, and they were her followers. Light Song took everything from her. She may have re-met a blood-related family member, but... it's not the same. She hates every gradual rotation of her Crew, having to replace members as they die from old age considering how long she's been on the sea, but somehow... losing all of them at once is worse.

Videns doesn't, and will never, care.

Videns doesn't understand empathy or sympathy. she doesn't understand good or evil. And honestly? She doesn't give a shit. Her cruelty is learned from the Fallen, and to her it's completely normal. she's never physically harmed anyone, anyway, and her mental torture is easily reversible. Why does everyone care so much about it?

All she cares about is her family being safe.

She wants Lucidi back. She wants her blood related parents back again. She wants to meet her father for real, and get along with her half-siblings. she knows Genesis is her sister from their shared father's side, and she knows her biological mother, but... the Ventuses refuse to acknowledge her as blood family, and her mother wants nothing to do with her. Vizerxa is all she has.

Genesis is in constant agony.

She was the youngest at death, having lost her life at 8 years old due to Light Song perfecting Deathclaw Acid. The Genesis Experiments were a major thing that made many doubt Light Song. The acid still runs through her veins hundreds of years later, eating her away and putting her constantly on the verge of death. She has to syphon power from her surroundings just to stay alive, and keep her regeneration fast enough to undo further damage. it's a living hell at all times.

She wants her family back together.

Her father vanished when she was young, Praelia (mother) died for her and Nox, Clara vanished for hundreds of years, Nox left the Fallen... Genesis lost everything in her life, and she just wants a chance at the happy family she never got. The Family she never gets in any timeline, considering she was supposed to die even sooner than she did.

[makiema]

For SNK Positivity Week Day 1 : Character Positivity Day ||

Zeke Jaeger : A Character Sketch

This is going to be a long rant in appreciation of Zeke's amazing character arc. He's not really my favorite character but the reason why I picked him for the character positivity day is because his character is often misunderstood and he gets a lot of unjustified hate. I did that too at one point; tbh I hated him with a passion but I'd grow out of it and even begin to feel for him eventually.

First off, let's run a background check on him. He was obviously neglected as a kid. His eyes speaks volumes here in this panel.

At the age of five, when all a kid looks for is love and care, his parents imposed the responsibility of the whole world on his shoulders. At an age when a child has a hard time spelling correctly, he was expected to infiltrate the government, fight for his brethren, become a double agent and what not. The psychological toll on a child who faces negligence and abuse at home is unimaginable. Paralleling that with stats of recent times, it's seen that bullies often come from abusive families. That's how psychology works. Once you've been victimized, you'll project that on others. That is exactly what happened with Zeke. The reason why he appeared so sadistic was because someone else put through hell before. The reason why he failed to love and empathize was because he himself was denied feelings of warmth and love. A child learns to emulate what he has learned from his parents. Can you really blame him for failing in the beginning?

But then, as the story of his life progressed, a more humane side of his character was developed with the coming of Xaver. Xaver was the first person to show Zeke parental affection. His contribution in shaping up Zeke's fundamental character is noteworthy. Even though he gave Zeke the love that he needed, his influence was not at all something appreciable, something better than before. If Grisha and Dina had wrongly used their son to meet their own selfish needs, Xaver was the shrewder one who showed affection on the surface only to permanently mould Zeke into becoming a pessimistic, merciless individual who had little to no respect for human lives. Zeke already bore the scars of his past; Xaver rather than inspiring him and guiding him decided to gaslight him into somehow believing that his whole life is a mistake and the same goes for all Eldians.

Imagine prevailing upon a teenager, whose personality is just developing, an idea that horrifying. If you sugarcoat the idea of genocide and instill that in a teenager, what do you even expect him to believe in? Drawing from our world, this was a tactic employed largely by Hitler in Germany. The only reason so many young people voluntarily took part in genocide was because they were spoon fed terrible ideas and convinced of false righteousness by their most trusted ones (often members of the family). The people we look up to for guidance are our parents and then comes our instructors. Zeke was unfortunate when it came to both. His instructor was the one who made murderous ideas seem okay to him. He's not at fault; he was only a teenager looking up at an older person for guidance and perspective.

So from there on we see how Zeke actually becomes a double agent serving in the Marleyan army. He has nothing to lose. He wrecks whole towns but deep inside he feels nothing. This lies in direct contrast with Eren who had an upbringing full of love and warmth. Remember how Eren couldn't accept even one soldier's death whatever be the cause? Again, both the character arcs follow the basic lines of human psychology. Environment, circumstances, influence -everything goes in the making of a person. However, this is true only until a certain point. You cannot forever be a product of your surroundings so once pubescence is reached, you're expected to make your own choices. Levi asking Eren to make a choice has a great significance in his life. It makes him responsible for himself. Similarlyen Zeke met Eren, he also made a choice - a choice to love someone. For the first time, he actually learned to love; for the first time he honestly wants someome to believe him and he feels like he understands Eren. Zeke realizes that he shares a common ground with someone and seeks solace in him. He's just a forlorn character seeking love and understanding.

He did love his grandparents before and also loved Xaver, of course, but that was more of being loved and then returning it. When it came to Eren, he made a choice of giving love to his sibling in spite of knowing his true intentions. His victim complex immediately assumed that Eren was also a victim of parental abuse and he chose to take care of him like a big brother. He never once doubted Eren. Even for someone as cold and sadistic as him, even for someone who had just murdered hundreds of SC members without a second thought, love existed; and with this a possibility of redemption; a hope of adopting a new perspective at life - one that is not inspired from hate, abuse, negligence or pessimism. From this point onwards, Zeke's character arc takes an interesting turn.

Ever since he met Eren and got to talk to him, we've seen him trying desperately to protect Eren. He's a product of negligence and he believes Xaver saved him. Therefore, he wants to save someone he loves too. He loves his brother and Eren is the only one who matters to him. He'd go to any extent to protect him. Hence the "Onii-chan is here" in the ending of Chapter 117.

He is adorable and his love for Eren is exemplary sibling love. It can be even compared to the likes of Itachi, Ace, Lelouch and Tanjirou - the famous big brothers in the animanga history. In 118, he knows Colt feels the same way but Xaver took away the feeling of empathy from a young, naive Zeke and so he goes on ahead with the Scream. Is it his fault ? No, not really. He was never accustomed with the meaning of life. He was a child growing up amidst war and devastation who looked up to a wretched cynical figure as his father. How can we expect someone to attach significance to life when all he was made to believe was that he is somehow at fault just for being born?

This directly contrasts how Eren was made to believe that he's special just because he was born in this world. The contrast between the brothers is never so eminent as in here, in this astonishingly different approach towards life.

There is a quote in Banana Fish that goes like: "You cannot be loved unless you love"

Ever since Zeke took it upon himself to save Eren, to shower him with love and affection, he showed us a more humane side of him ; a side I'm sure even he didn't believe he had in him before he came across his brother. He opened a portal to a kinder world when he learned to love. He was a sad, unfortunate creature unloving and unloved for most of his life. But now that he has so much love in his heart, even at the moment of betrayal, he gets to know how being loved feels like.

I cannot even begin to elaborate on the shock and the disillusionment that Zeke had to face when he learned the truth- that Eren was the one who manipulated Grisha and not the other way round. The good thing that came out of this was that Zeke learned that he was genuinely valued by his father and that he trusted him to stop Eren. However, Eren ruins it perfectly when he throws salt on Zeke's open wound.

Of course, years of negligence cannot be forgotten and/ or forgiven at the expense of one tiny moment and Zeke is hesitant to call Grisha 'dad' at times

but at least he knows now that Grisha regrets his wrongs and that he loves him. Isayama had granted Zeke what he was long due, when Grisha confessed to him. Zeke's love for Eren is so pure, so selfless. Even when Eren says he had only used Zeke, even when he is rude and nasty with him, Zeke is convinced that it is all because of Grisha's brainwashing. He is so upset when he learns of Eren's betrayal in this panel.

Of course, Zeke's love for Eren seems to be leading him to nowhere and this is sort of payback for all his crimes but at least, with Chapter 121, it can be said that Zeke Jaeger is no longer a tragic unloved character. He was loved by his father and he more than deserved to know this. His character arc is churned out wonderfully. He began as a villainous character but then Isayama gave us a glimpse of how tragic his story is; from there on Zeke's character evolved and his development reached its peak with his sincere and genuine love for Eren. Gradually his sad arc that made him to be a pitiful unloved creature is resolved with a confession of love from the most desirable person, not to forget that this new found love also came with Grisha's faith that Zeke would be able to stop Eren. He saw how in the impending future Zeke's plan will fail but even so he still has faith that he's going to stop Eren.

-×××-

Wow this became longer than I expected it to be. But I have been getting a lot of feelings for Zeke recently and I felt like I had to highlight him for the character positivity day because he is so misinterpreted in the fandom. I really hope people forgive him because basically nobody is evil by choice, it's the effect arising from cumulative traumatizing experiences as a child.