#i think its the fact they showed us a timeskip that made that last scene hit because we know its been a while but still to us its been like | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yamatossideboob · 2 months ago

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ONE PIECE 1125 Spoilers!!

This week's cowerings from behind the sofa:

iirc thats the carpenter (?) who's the spit of another guy from pre-timeskip, that everyone assumed was the earlier guy which made Oda feel the need to clarify. aw man I hope he's found. Hi Yamato!!!

I feel like the Egghead Arc proper has ended as of last chapter, this to me is firmly in the inter-arc section of the OP cycle.

I'm gonna pretend that Lucci is convinced he *did* kill Stussy, he just doesn't know that this story is written by Eiichiro Oda.

So, during the Onigashima raid part of Wano, I was watching a GLR video, and he pointed out a writing device that Oda uses to subtly guide the reader's mind while they read a chapter, which is again used here: this scene where the vice-admirals are afraid of punishment from Saturn, and where he uses Haki to kill (?) Doberman, is here to get the ideas of PUNISHING FAILURE and ELDER POWER into our heads, so that the more important event that comes in a few pages isn't completely out of nowhere. It's micro-foreshadowing! It's subtle enough that your mind is primed for the next development without being alerted into expecting it. AND FUCK WAS I NOT EXPECTING IT

Also ykw that 200 YEARS AGO caption does the same thing, reminding us how not fucking human the Elders and Imu are. Putting the B in subtle, our Oda.

I hope we find out more about what happened with Emet that day. Did someone else who had the Nika Fruit activate Emet, or was it leftover juice from the Joyboy days?

a lesser appreciator would seeth and cry at York doing a stupid thing like this when she's already more or less won. I, however, benighted and worldly as I am, understand well that one can be equal parts genius and buffoon at the same time 😏

man Oda is just really laying on the fake-out deaths this chapter huh. I feel no need to revise this statement to anticipate future developments, not at all.

i've already said as much, but the fact that the Satellites are digital and robot in nature makes the fake-out easier to forgive. At least Edison & co surviving allows for this new little twist on the gameboard to occur, so now we have yet another Vegapunk causing anti-WG havoc later. And we'll see the Weatheria geezers again!

man I cannot wait for this entire wretched class to be extinguished.

goddddddddddddddd. As soon as Garling showed up I knew it would be serious business. Just HOW serious I did not yet know...

my brain was SCRAMBLING for a split second reading this, trying to remember which Elder was S&D Dept. I thought it was Mars immediately bc he's visibly shook, but then I realised NAH SATURN IS COOKED ISNT HE

Being less facetious, the quickly mounting dread I felt reading this sequence was something I hadn't felt since seeing Saturn transform for the first time earlier this year. How time flies...

This is genuinely terrifying, and fascinating for its story implications later on.

Like, what do we know now? That no one, NO ONE, is safe from Imu, that even Stars can die (heh), that the Elders' diabolical powers are far more transactional than expected, and that even this power has constraints? Much to think about!!

Plus, the vice-admirals must surely have less faith in their exalted leaders, after Doberman's maybe death, and witnessing one dying from a Faustian bargain gone fucked up. This plus Akainu's frustrations with the Celestial Dragons... I think patience with World Nobles will soon reach its limit...

and FIGARLAND FUCKING GARLING!!! This makes his late-game intro make so much more sense now, if he was going to be this big a player in due time. Even the knowledge that a character exists can lead to speculation, and this fandom can be clever indeed. Saving Garling only for when necessary made this twist hit as hard as it did... Oda fucking blindsided us babes. Kudos.

Also yeah I'm not even going to joke here, Saturn is DEAD. I'm glad Oda got those earlier fake-outs out of the way earlier, this helped this demise hit harder too lmfao. and fuck, what a way to remind us what a threat Imu really is, I was chilled by this.

ykw it makes sense that the Vegas had spare parts laying around. I hate this though bc when me and my OP bestie was discussing this chapter, she accused me of wanting to "Scrooge McDuck dive into a pile of headless robotiddy York torsos", and I was furious bc she was completely right lads.

Koala taking notes, gwan gerl use that literacy

I love that the RA are taking this new information so seriously, and considering the possibilities in such a clearheaded manner. I need these guys to make a big splash in the final war, and most of GET READY EVERYONE BECAUSE MONEY D. DRAGON IS FINALLY ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING! MAYBE!

No but fr things are going to get worse before they get better and its going to hurt, bc Oda's writing this and we're about to see old locations and past friends duke it out for whatever scraps they can muster before FLOOD 2 FLOOD HARDER hits. This won't be pretty friends 😥

But that's a problem for the next arc, as now we'll probably do a quick round robin and see how everyone else is doing before we commit to Elbaf. New chapter in 7 days! See ye all there nakama! 💪✖️

#op spoilers #live from ohara #ELECTRIFYING chapter good heavens

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mtdthoughts · 8 months ago

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The Twins' Relationship Pt. 14 (Migi & Dali Analysis)

This is Part 14 of the discussion of the twins' relationship and its evolution throughout the story.

Click here to return to the top of the thread (Part 1)

Note that I will use scenes from both the anime and manga wherever I see fit, and of course spoilers are discussed.

This post will be about the second half of Episode 13, i.e. the timeskip, which shows the evolved relationship of the twins. This will also be the second-to-last post in this thread (finally!).

The first we see of the twins after the ending sequence is a casual interaction where Dali explains Migi's art.

This scene made me remember the scene in Episode 7 where Dali laughed at Migi's drawing of Sali/Sally, and it's pretty heartwarming seeing Dali being proud of his younger brother. On top of that, Migi follows it up with "As expected of Dali" ("Sasuga Dali"), which is another nod to the fact that Migi has always looked up to his smarter older brother. Yet, their relationship is nothing like it was before, where Migi no longer feels constrained by his older brother, and Dali no longer lies to his younger brother. It's quite refreshing to see.

Next, we see them making a cherry pie together, which is a clear callback to the first time they do it together in Episode 1.

Notice the similarities and differences here. Dali takes command as he always has, yet he no longer wraps his arms as tightly around Migi as he has before, which shows that he's now no longer controlling towards his younger brother.

Then, when Eiji was about to arrive, Migi desperately pleaded with his brother to dress up as Sali, which undoubtedly would have humiliated him.

Of course, the twins have changed from before, as Dali once again reluctantly accepts a request from Migi after a desperate plea.

This is yet another callback to the scene in Episode 10 when Migi asked Dali to make a silly face for Eiji, and it just shows how much the twins have changed. Dali was willing to put up with this ridiculous request, and Migi has grown more forward towards Dali, as both his request and his usage of "omae" (お前) towards Dali have proven that whatever fear Migi had towards his older brother has completely vanished (and only love remains).

Eiji coming back to enjoy cherry pie with everyone and to visit Metry's grave with the twins serves as a neat conclusion to the revenge plotline.

The twins were both pleased that their triplet brother was finally able to accept his own happiness and atonement for killing Reiko, though notice that Dali was the only one who said "Right" when Eiji said that his mother (Reiko) wasn't here. This could be interpreted as Dali accepting accountability for his involvement of the series of events that led to this, though Migi stands side-by-side with his brother, as if sharing his responsibility.

Finally, in the last scene of the series, the twins decided to separate and live different lives, though they promise each other that they'll always remain connected.

This scene was yet another callback, this time to the aquarium date back in Episode 4. This time, Dali left for a faraway school, yet unlike before, it didn't quite feel like Dali leaving Migi behind as he's done before (e.g. for revenge). If it were the old Migi and Dali, they would have never separated, and the very prospect of it would have left them in tears. But because they're no longer their former insecure selves, and because they finally found love and acceptance from family, friends, and most importantly each other, they could now be confident that their bond will endure, no matter how far they are.

I also it was rather interesting that the twins didn't exchange any words as Dali left. This is a headcanon of mine, but I think that they've definitely cried it out some time before Dali left, and what was shown was in the story was them after getting over the fact. I might incorporate this headcanon in the next fanfic I write, if it does get written...

Anyway, that concludes this post, and in the next and final part, I'll wrap up this whole thread with a neat little bow by summarizing everything.

#migi and dali #migi to dali #analysis

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dangerousstrawberryshark · 3 years ago

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Just Accept it! (READ THE DAMN DISCLAIMER!)

A/N: Hello, my 🍓Little Strawberries🍓! I'm back with another fic for you! Couldn't find a better pic

Pairing: Yandere Henry Cavill x Trans male reader; Tyler Hoechlin x trans male reader. (mentioned)

Rating: MATURE

Warnings: Male Pregnancy, use of drugs, kidnapping, no consent. (what you expect? This yandere)

Word count: 3560

Summary: It started out with acting, then it went to stalking, and it went to him kidnapping you. And it ended with you spending the rest of your life with him.

I hope you enjoy this! Sorry if it's bad! And sorry for any errors that are found!

If you like what I write, how about check out my masterlist?

Keys:

E/c: Eye color

H/c: Hair Color

H/l: Hair length

S/c: Skin color

Y/a: Your age. (Pick an appropriate age)

DISCLAIMER!: THIS IS MY FIRST TIME WRITING TRANS MALE READER. I'M SORRY IF ANYTHING OFFENDS ANYONE.

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DISCLAIMER: I MEAN NO OFFENSE, DISRESPECT, OR HARM TO ANY OF THESE CELEBRITIES! THIS IS JUST FICTION.

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MINORS DNI. FEMALE READERS… I’LL ALLOW YOU TO READ MY FICS BUT DO NOT FETISHIZE ANY OF MY STORIES

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Henry was currently waiting for this someone to come. 'I wonder who it could be.' he thought to myself. We were going to start acting in the new TV show, Superman & Lois.

(Okay, I know that Tyler stars in this, but I'm just going to switch him out with Henry and play as Lois. You can change the name)

He then sees some guy, who looks small and innocent. You had h/l and beautiful, most dazzling e/c. His s/c looked smooth and soft like a freshly made bed. (?)

He looked to be Y/a. You looked so ethereal, a walking sex god. The source of men's sexual desire. He was so sexy and hot- 'Wait- what am I thinking? I'm not gay- I have a beautiful girlfriend, I need to stop thinking like this.'

Henry sees you approach me. "Hi! I'm assuming your Henry right?" you questioned, tilting your head. "Y-yeah- I'm Henry! N-nice to m-meet you!" Henry sturred over my words.

'Shit, why am I nervous around him? What is he doing to me?' Henry then heard a little chuckle. 'His laugh- AAGGHH!'

"Well, nice to meet you, Henry, I'm M/N!" you gave your hand out, Henry hesitantly shook it. 'His hands are rough and large!' you thought.

(Sorry, but I'll be using M/N.)

'His hands are so soft, like a baby's skin! I just wanna hold it forever-' Henry said to himself before pulling back. He didn't realize he had a rough grip on your hand.

"Ah- sorry about that," Henry said scratching his head out of embarrassment. "It's okay!" you gave your famous smile. Henry blushed.

'Why is this happening?! What is he doing to me!' Henry's mind was going all over the place, he was having a gay panic. 'What's wrong with this guy? I thought he was supposed to be calm and collected?'

You had no idea what was going on with him. "Well- I gotta go..." you said, backing away slowly before going to someone and starting a conversation with them. Hoping it won't be as awkward or weird

Henry just stared as you walked. He didn't notice that his hands were twitching. You could feel his stare piercing through your head. Such a dark and dominant stare.

'Maybe, he's just staring at something that so happens to be in my direction!' you said to yourself.

(No you dumb shit!)

"OKAY! Everyone, we're gonna be starting soon. Everyone to your stations and gets ready!" The director yelled. "Take M/N and Henry to their dressing rooms."

"Okay, sir. Come on!" They grabbed you and Henry to get dressed and ready.

They put on Henry's iconic Superman suit and they dressed you as Lois or the male equivalent of her. You looked at Henry and blushed a little. 'If I wasn't married to my husband, I would've gone for him. But he's straight.'

You looked away so Henry wouldn't notice but he did. 'He was blushing... AT ME- STOP IT!' Henry then glared at you. You noticed his glare and looked away. He didn't mean to glare.

"Okay, everyone get to your positions! Do you two know your lines?" The director asks looking back and forth. You both nodded your heads. "Okay, go on the scene and be ready!"

Once you both got there and got in position, the director yells, "ACTION!"

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TIMESKIP (END OF THE SCENE)

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(I don't know what they be doing at the studio.)

"Hey- Uh... M/n!" Henry called out. You turned to face Henry, "Mh?" Henry looked at you trying to get the words out. "Uh... You have something to say?"

"Uh- well." Henry scratching his head. "I'm sorry... for glaring at you earlier today." He was now blushing hard while grinning.

You looked at him confused about what he was talking about. Then you remembered earlier. "Oh-, Its okay Henry! I know you didn't mean it." you smiled at him, reassuring him that it was okay.

You were about to continue, but you got a call. You looked at the caller ID. "Hubby😘" is calling, your husband was calling. "I got to take this call." you then walked away to a private location.

Henry was curious so he followed you. He knows this is eavesdropping, but he wants to know, "what was so important about a phone call?"

Apparently, he took too long but he heard this. "I love you too." Henry left before you could spot him. 'He loves someone? Why do I care if he is in love with someone?'

"I'm gonna have to go! Bye Henry!" You then left leaving Henry behind to think about what was happening.

'What are you doing to me M/n? I never felt this way before.'

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TIMESKIP (6 months)

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You and Henry have been acquaintances for 6 months. Henry's feelings for you grew and grew but there wasn't that ultimate trigger that would finally set the bomb off.

Until now and later on today. (so two ultimate triggers.)

You wrapped your arms around Clark's neck. You were shorter than, so all you saw was his muscular chest. Clark then wrapped his arms around your waist, looking into your beautiful e/c.

Alarms were going off in Henry's mind as he pulls you closer to him. 'This is actually happening.' M/n smells so nice like fresh lavenders.

Your lips then met Clarks. You tilted your head a little to the side to have better access. Though his nose was kind of in the way. You closed your eyes as you fully gave in.

'He tastes so sweet like chocolate and strawberries.' (You eating my children?) Henry was getting real intimate with the kiss.

(Was that a good kissing scene? I have never seen the TV show)

"CUT!" you pulled back before walking away to get a drink. Henry was still in a daze. Your lips were so soft and delicious, he wants more. Henry never felt like this when kissed his girlfriend.

In fact, he was getting disgusted by her touch and only wants you to touch him. Hell, sometimes you made him hard and he would imagine having sex with you while having sex with her...

He was about to approach you before he heard that... voice. "BABE!" his girlfriend... Henry then felt two arms wrapped around him and a small kiss on his lips.

Henry felt like he wanna puke. It wasn't like the kiss he had with you- even though it was just acting but it was real to him- but he had to act like he enjoyed it. "HI! You must be Henry's wife, right?"

You intervene in their conversation. "Yes, I'm Henry's wife- well girlfriend! My name is Natalie Viscuso! You must be M/n? I'm a big fan of you!"

You and Natalie kept talking and getting along. Henry was just watching, he was getting angry and jealous. After about 30 minutes, Natalie went back to Henry.

"Sorry about that, I got carried away. How about me and you have some fun when we get home?" Henry just nodded his head without giving an expression.

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TIMESKIP (5 hours later. At Henry's home)

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(I know that Henry's real-life GF/Wife is a good lady. Remember, this is fiction)

"A-ahh! H-henry... you f-feel so good! Y-your... dick is... s-so BIG!" Natalie moaned as she rode Henry's cock.

Henry didn't seem to enjoy it, not one bit. He pushed- not too hard - Natalie off of him. "Why did you stop?" she said confused, Henry was getting dressed.

Henry didn't pay attention to her and just walked out.

The next morning, the news of Henry's and Natalie's break up spread like wildfire. Nobody understood why he broke up with her, they were doing just fine.

Henry didn't feel upset. While walking around last night, he began to think how you made him feel feelings he has never felt before.

He likes how you touch him- even though you didn't mean to. He likes your soft lips- even though you two were acting. He feels disgusted whenever he was with Natalie. Angry and jealousy surge through his veins whenever you talked with someone that wasn't him.

Henry now accepted that he likes you.

When you got the news of them breaking up, you were shocked. "Henry are you okay? I heard you and Natalie broke up," you asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Henry replied, nonchalantly. "You don't seem upset about it..." Henry just stared at you with his deep, dark eyes. 'What's wrong with him?'

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TIMESKIP (3 MONTHS)

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You've been waiting months to tell Henry something very important. You were nervous, scared, and... paranoid.

During the 3 months of waiting, you feel like you were being watched. Wherever you gom even in your own room.

You told Henry about it -since he was a close friend- and he told you not to worry about it saying, "You're just paranoid, it something you shouldn't worry about."

But you still kept your guard up. You made to look around and if you see someone looking suspicious. But tomorrow, you were going to come out to him.

You arrived at a... Dunkin Donuts (?) and ordered some donuts and coffee and took a seat by the window. You looked out to see some people walking by. There was a car that had black tinted windows, you couldn't see who was inside.

You pulled your phone to text Henry to come and talk with him. But that wasn't necessary, Henry walked and turned in your direction. "Hey, M/n!"

'How did he know I was here? Or was it a coincidence?' you thought. Then you felt a rough hand on your shoulder. "Mind if I sit here?" you shake your head.

Henry took his seat and ordered some food and coffee. 'It's too crowded here.' While seating there, you could feel stares and glances. You just ignored them.

Henry stared at you with love in his eyes, taking in all your features. Then he notices something on your finger, 'Is that a ring? IS HE ENGAGED? Or..... is he MARRIED!'

Rage was running through his veins but he had to calm himself down or you'll notice.

You had enough of his staring and break the silence. "I need to tell you something but it can't be here." that snapped Henry out of his daze. "What do you need to about?"

"It's something personal and it can't be here." You said getting up, and stressing your muscles, and heading out the door. Henry nodded his head before getting up and following you out.

As you two were walking, just taking in the fresh air and sounds of cars driving by. "So, what did you want to talk about?" Henry turned to you.

"Well... I hope you don't look at me differently..." you said looking down at the ground. "I'll never look at you differently bab- M/n."

You took a deep breath. "I'm trans..." you said quietly but Henry still heard you. "Oh... just because you're trans doesn't change what I see in you. You're still a man," Henry said putting his hand on your shoulder.

You smiled at him before jumping onto him. Henry wrapped his arms around you. He wanted to stay like this forever, you just in his arms feeling your warm, heat against him.

But sadly, you pulled away. "Thank you! Thank you!" you're glad Henry accepted you.

But Henry knew you were trans. Remember how you feel like you were being watched? Well, that was all Henry, he would watch you play with yourself. He would masturbate to this, he was quite turned on about this discovery.

'I'll accept whoever you are baby.'

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TIMESKIP (1 week)

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It's been one week since the whole coming out thing and Henry was gathering the confidence to ask you out. But today is the day.

Henry got a text saying, "Meet me at the park." so naturally he did. He didn't spot you at first until he recognizes your h/c. Then it's at that time he notices someone else there.

This bastard had his arms wrapped around you, and he gave small kisses on your lips. Henry's right eye twitched as he watched the display right in front of him.

'Who the hell is he?!? Is HE the one that M/n married?' he snapped out of it when you called his name to come over.

"I'm glad you came Henry! This is my husband, Tyler Hoechlin. Tyler, this is Henry, one of my friends!" you said with a smile. 'So, that means his name is M/n Hoechlin.'

Tyler gave his hand out and Henry shook it. Henry had a rough grip on his hand, squeezing it. And he just glared at him. "Well, let's go!"

Henry just glared at Tyler the whole time. 'M/N should ONLY have my last name! I should be the one with him!' Tyler notices how Henry was glaring at him the whole time. But he wasn't fazed by it.

'I'm gonna find a way to get rid of you! Or I could just take M/n?'

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TIMESKIP (3 DAYS)

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It had been 3 days since Henry met your husband, and he wasn't happy at all. Today he wants to hang out with you, and talk about something. Henry called your phone and waited for you to pick it up.

Meanwhile... (This is my first shot at writing smut with TMR.)

"A-ahh! d-daddy... your c-cock... is so... b-big!" you moaned as rode Tyler like your life depended on it. "Fuck, you're so wet and warm for me, M/n. Your tight little pussy feels amazing!" Tyler groaned as he thrust further into you.

Tyler sees that your phone is vibrating, 'Henry?' Tyler smirked, he knew that Henry was glaring at him with hate and stared at you with love. 'This will teach him who my baby boy belongs to.'

"Be a good boy for daddy and answer the phone." Tyler handed you the phone, you took a look at the caller and noticed it was Henry calling. "D-daddy... I-i can't do... it with y-you- thrusting... i-into me!"

Tyler stopped his thrusts but as you answered his call, he thrust right back into you. "A-ah!"

"Hey, M/n! Are you okay?" Henry questioned. "Y-yeah... I'm okay..." Tyler stopped thrusting, you could his cock pulsing and twitching inside you.

"You're little pussy is wet for me. You like it when I rub you here?" Tyler then began to rub your small dick. You tried to not moan out loud.

But Henry could tell, that you were moaning. And he was angry and just hanged up. "H-hello?... I think he... h-hung up." "Now, I can fuck you!" And he went back to banging you.

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TIMESKIP (5 DAYS)

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5 days after the little event, Henry hasn't called you. You tried calling him and seeing what's wrong, but he never answered.

Tyler kept telling you to not worry about him. Meanwhile, Henry was just in his room masturbating to a picture of yours and mutters, "You belong to me... Tyler and your's relationship is fake! We kissed, we held each other, and so many other things."

The acting seems to make Henry delusional, cause he believed it was all real and that you meant it. He has to find a way to make you his and he just how to do it.

There was a party coming up. You and Tyler would both be attending.

You and Tyler both arrived at the party. People were drinking, dancing, and doing other weird things. "I'm gonna go get a drink." Tyler nodded his head.

He went over to a table and sat down. Tyler wasn't the type to get a drink. Meanwhile, Henry kept his eyes on you. 'This is going to be a fun night!' You thought.

But this will turn out to be the worst night you'll ever have.

Had a few drinks, you were trying to find Tyler in the crowd but couldn't find him. You didn't feel the vibration in your phone, "I'll be waiting for you in the car."

As you were walking around, you felt yourself being pushed up against a wall. "Oh... *HIc* T-Tyler... I didn't *Hic* know you could be *Hic* this rough."

Henry pinned you against the wall and crash his lips against yours. Sweet but tasted like alcohol. 'Since when did Tyler become all muscular' Then you felt a needle pierce through your neck and injecting you with some kind of drug.

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TIMESKIP (After the party.)

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You woke up with a massive headache. Your mind is still blurry but after a few moments later you could see properly. You noticed a cup of water and headache pills by it. You took it.

Then, you realized, this isn't your room and that you were wearing a bunny outfit! 'What the fuck? Where am I?!' Then you began to feel hot and needy.

Your pussy was leaking and clenching around nothing. Your small dick was aching to be touched. "Is my little bunny awake?" A deep husky voice said.

You turned in its direction to notice that it was Henry?! But your mind was getting clouded with lust and want. "H-Henry...?"

"Shh, baby. Daddies here." Henry said getting closer to you and pulling you to his lap. Your hands were now on his shirtless chest, feeling his hairy pecs.

"Where's... T-Tyler?" you questioned, bad mistake. Henry smacked one of your cheeks. "DON'T EVER MENTION HIS NAME! YOU BELONG TO ME! FORGET ABOUT HIM!"

You were getting turned on. It must be the drug he gave you, cause you don't like it someone yells at you. "You're leaking so much slick? You want daddy to help you?"

Before you could respond, Henry pushed you down onto the couch and you could feel his meaty cock at your front entrance. "Your little pussy is leaking so much, you don't know how much you turn me on."

Henry lubes his cock with your slick before pushing in. "F-fuck! You're so tight! I guess Tyler didn't fuck you that good." Henry groaned as he pushed all the way in you.

He let you adjust a little before thrusting back into you. "You're so wet, tight, and warm. Better than my ex!" Henry groaned as he feels you tightening around him.

His hand then went down to stroke your cock. "A-ah!" you moaned as you tried to turn your face away. "You're close? Me too!" you could feel Henry thrust into your womb.

He was hitting your pleasure spot tip-on. "M-mmhh!" Your body clenched before convulsing beneath him. Your muscles twitched around his cock.

"Fuck, you came! I'm close! You'll look so beautiful swollen with my kids. The thought of spending the rest of my life with you just makes me wanna cum!"

You could feel his cock burst inside you. Feeling you up with his cum. "Get pregnant from this!" He stayed inside you before collapsing onto your smaller body.

He was leaving love marks. "You belong to me now, M/n..."

«⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕»

TIMESKIP (DECADE LATER)

«⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕»

It has been a decade since you were taken away. A decade being with a monster- who you looked up to before. He had taken you away from others.

You were in the kitchen cooking some waiting for him to come home. "PAPA! When is daddy coming home?" your oldest child said playing with his lego spaceship.

"He'll be home soon. How about go play with your siblings?" they nodded their head before heading to their room. You gave birth to Henry's children, when you had O/C/N, you promised that you'll take them far away from this monster.

You looked at the ring. It was no longer Tyler's ring but Henry's. Just as you said Henry, two strong muscular arms wrapped around your waist.

"How is my beautiful husband doing?" you tried pushing him away but it didn't work.

"Just accept it, M/n. You'll never escape me, and you don't want anything bad to happen to your- no- OUR kids? Right?" tears began to pour out your eyes.

"No. Please don't hurt them... they're just kids, they did nothing wrong." you cried trying to not alarm them.

"Then just accept your fate. You've been resisting for 10 years, it's no use. No one will ever find you." Henry whispered into your ear.

"Just accept it."

THE END

«⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕»

A/N: I hope this was good! I'm sorry if anything is incorrect. Do you like my new format? Anyways, bye my 🍓Little Strawberries🍓!

#x trans male reader #trans male reader #x male reader #male reader #henry cavill x male reader #yandere henry cavill x trans male reader #henry cavill x trans male reader #henry cavill imagine #yandere henry cavill x male reader #yandere henry cavill imagine #yandere henry cavill #male pregnancy #I'm sorry of this offends anyone

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splatmastr · 3 years ago

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Seijoh 4 as Camboys

This thought has plagued a dear friend and I for a while so I wrote some drabbles for each of the boys. These are NSFW Timeskip!Seijoh4 drabbles. Minors DNI!

Oikawa Toru Uses toys. On steam and off. Doesn’t do audios. He’s “too busy”. Does this man love to show off his perfect dick? Yes, absolutely. This man was not born yesterday and knows exactly how to milk any and every opportunity thrown at him. “Everytime I make one of you Princes/Princesses cum that is another dollar that you have to donate. If I am working this hard to push out to all you horny fucks, then I need to start reaping the benefits.” He always has a shit eating grin on his face. He complains about so much especially for streams. Another attention seeking fucker. “Ugh. This always hurts my wrist when I use it. I wish there was someone here with me that I can use to get off. A warm body/mouth. Not my hand or this toy.” The chat. DECEASED. Gone and blows up instantly and that is what he likes to see. He is also vocal. Not as much as Makki, I think Makki is the most vocal and Iwa is least. “I wish there was someone here to help me clean up all this cum. Lick it all off of my body and hands.” Playing a very much woah is me act. Again, just to see the chat blow up with people saying that it can be them. His videos are not as personalized as Makki, but he is more dominant in them because the live audience isn’t there. “I can practically hear how wet you are from me and it hasn’t even been a couple minutes. My cock is barely out of my pants and I bet you have already came once havent you angels?” Right before he cums he just is always, “If you came with me at the same time angels, thats an extra five dollars” (ooof he def knows his audience)

Hanamaki Takahiro Uses toys. For sure. Just fleshlights, but only for audios. When he is streaming or making videos, its just all him. He loves the compliments he gets on his body, especially his dick, so he has it all out for everyone. Makki is very vocal. VERY. “I thought you all liked the way I stroke myself. If the stream keeps as silent as this I might just end it early and call a friend to help me finish.” Again, UNAPOLOGETIC for attention. This fucker will be mid strokes to read the comments AND calling them out! “Oh, we have a few kittens that think that they can handle all of me. HA. You all are too cute. I haven’t met someone who has been able to yet, but I enjoy the challenge.” His VIDEOS. Bitch. Similar to where he degrades, but to the audience as a whole. “I bet you all have been waiting all day for this. To be sitting in your dark room to watch me cum.” Like does this bitch have cameras? He makes GREAT personalized content. Like he gots that shit down! Makki does just come with those one liners “GOD. I wish you were here to help me with this. His audios are just like if him and the listener were dating and he sent a video clip.

Matsukawa Issei Ocassional use of toys. Not too many times has he used toys. Mattsun is (perfect), no he is just always so calm and steady. Does he get to the point of aggression that Iwa does? Of course he does, but its a slow build. I also see Mattsun, aside from Iwa, having a good mixture of SFW and NSFW. Well, I think this man starts with SFW, but it eventually turns into NSFW. This man starts agonizingly slow. I also, just think, (IMO) that he loves to edge and overstim himself. He just wants to push the limits of his body. (And boy does he do it well). For No Nut November, he would stream everyday or every week and read a book. People loved it. So much so that when he, inevitably, lost NNN, people still requested that he read on stream. He took this opportunity to read fanfics on steam and see if he can last without touching himself. I also think that some graveyard shift streams are just him talking about his day, possibly just a vibe stream with some music. Mattsun does audios where he is just sexily talking to us horny bitches early in the morning. Groggy voice, morning wood and just super slow strokes to start the day. ( Why can’t he be real?!?). Please. In his audios he for sure is describing scenes of being with a girl in the morning. Really any scenario. He is now a fan fic consumer so he knows how to set a scene.

Iwaizumi Hajime Doesn’t use toys. Just hands. Not very vocal. Grunts, heavy breathing. Very aggressive. Does Not address all the viewers, “Babes”, when the stream is NSFW. BUT when he films his videos he does address them. “GOD. I better not be this hard for no reason babes. At least donate something on my next stream if you get off to this one. Unghe- C-Close. Ghagh- Cumming! Ugh i hate the mess jerking off always makes. But I needed that so much babes, you have no idea.” Kind of just abruptly stops after that as his dick starts to soften. Kinda insecure about the fact that he has a following, so avoids the “babes ”while in the heat of the moment. Sort of like if you received a video just for yourself. His NSFW streams are top tier. (IMO). He just gets on already slowly pumping his hardening cock, still in his gym clothes. Gym shorts and boxers only pulled midthigh. Just enough for his veiny cock to be out. “Hey babes. Sorry I started without you, but to make it up I won’t go so fast today. Hopefully you can make it through the whole thing with me.” (Jeez I am red with just writing that). This man is the biggest tease in his videos, again making it seem like they were made specifically for yourself, just so degrading. “I bet you couldn’t help but touch yourself. Getting off to me letting off steam from the gym. Dirty babes.” Always ends his videos or streams with “ Stay hydrated sluts”. (I love him so much).

#seijoh 4 #haikyu smut #oikawa torū #hq hanamaki #hq matsukawa #hq iwaizumi #drabbles #haikyuu #oikawa smut #hanamaki smut #matsukawa smut #iwaizumi smut

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joestarsecrettecnique · 4 years ago

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I am so very sick and tired of the toxicity that’s been poisoning the snk fandom as of the last couple years. I gave myself time to digest the ending and my feelings on it, before embarking in a journey to debunk many misconceptions and critiques I’ve seen floating in the fandom.

By the way, by no means I think this ending is perfect. I think this is textbook execution by Isayama to tie together every loose end left behind in an orderly manner, and I think that it was a bit rushed and oversimplified. I would’ve wanted more of Eren and Armin’s conversation, more of the squad realizing what his true goal had been, and some narrative choices I don’t 100% agree with. But still, what I saw in other fans’ critiques post 139 frankly appalled me, so I feel the need to make this. Also, this obviously are my own interpretations, I am not Isayama himself lol

“Ew, so Eren did pull a Lelouch after all”

No, Eren did not pull a Lelouch. While his action and the final result may seem similar, I find very different nuances between the two. Lelouch wanted for the whole world to be united in fighting against him, and thus he made himself the world’s greatest enemy. His will to turn himself into a monster was selfless. Eren didn’t give a damn about the world, he had no noble intentions whatsoever. He said it in chapter 122, his goal was to protect Paradis and, more specifically, his closest friends. He turned himself into a monster, killed 80% of human population, and endangered the lives of those very friends he wanted to protect, so that by stopping him, those friends could be safe. Eren had no intentions to break out of the cycle of hatred or unite the world against himself, he just wanted to give his friends a chance to survive, and that is not selfless, it’s selfish. Eren’s goal was incredibly selfish, and biased, and driven by his feelings instead of rationality. Nothing like Lelouch!

Now this, this I myself am not the greatest fan of. I feel like it makes that great scene in chapter 122 loose a bit of its strength, Ymir obeying the king for 2000 years just because she loved him. Honestly, I always thought there was a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on, but I didn’t think it would be the only reason. However, like it or not, it’s undeniable that it makes perfect sense in the narrative that aot has always strived to tell. Love has been a theme strongly woven in the story, and it also draws a great parallel between Karl Fritz/Ymir and Eren/Mikasa. Ymir was a slave to her love for King Fritz, just like Mikasa was a slave to her love for Eren, in that she struggled to accept reality until the very end despite the atrocities that Eren committed. Ymir stayed bound by her love for King Fritz, until she saw Mikasa break from her own poisoned love, aknwoledge it, and kill Eren despite of it, or maybe because of it. Only Ymir knows that one, heh. But the point is, Mikasa showed Ymir that she could break free of a toxic love, she was that someone that Ymir had been waiting for to finally free her of her burden.

“What? But that makes no sense!”

Now, on my first read, I simply thought that Eren had ordered Dina to avoid eating Berthold, and that he had made her walk down that road unaware that his mother was trapped (because we know that the Attack Titan’s future memories aren’t infallible, there are still gaps), killing her indirectly. I’ve since then read some theories stating that Eren willingly killed his own mum in orther to give kid himself a reason to feel enough hatred to kickstart the whole story. Honestly, I like this version maybe more! But let me explain to you why this is not a plothole, like many people think. In this same chapter, we have Eren explaining how the Founder’s power works in synergy with the Attack’s: “There’s no past or future, they all exist at once”. This means that time travel in aot doesn’t work in a manner where Eren extracts himself from time and space, and from a separate realm he operates on the past. The way I understood it, the mechanics works kind of like Tokyo Revengers’ time travel. MInd you, I only watched episode one, so my understanding might be jackshit.

Spoilers for Tokyo Revengers’ episode one. In the show, the main character loses consciousness and finds himself reliving his past. He interacts with someone in this “new” past, and when he wakes up again in the present, past events had been over-written by the changes he made. I think this is how aot timetravel works, with the exception that, since past and future (and present, of course) all happen at once, side by side, there is no old past to be rewritten, neither a future to return to, and present Eren wouldn’t be aware of the changes that his future self would make. It creates sort of a time paradox, yes, in the sense that there’s a loop where present Eren’s mom has been eaten because future Eren, in the future, operated on the past by causing past Eren’s mom to be eaten, but all these Erens are one and the same, as all timelines exist at once.

“Boo-hoo they ruined Eren’s character, he’s such a wimp!”

I have to confess (isn’t this appalling, that this is a thing that I have to confess, what the actual fuck), I am an Eren stan. I absolutely do not consider myself a Jaegerist, I think Eren’s option was better than Zeke’s, yes, but it was morally wrong and awful and he absolutely was not only in the wrong, but also if he wasn’t dead I’d want him to be punished for his crimes. I didn’t particularly enjoy him pre-timeskip, and I started to like him because I found his evolution fascinating. I wanted to understand his motives, what was going on in his head, he was a puzzle that I wanted to solve. Maybe because I’m a psychologist, who knows. Anyways, if you’re an Eren stan only because he acted like a chad and now you cry his character was ruined, I’m sorry to say, you never understood him. Eren was not a god, he was not a strategist playing 5d chess with perfect rationality, Eren was the same he has always been. He was a young man spun along by his passions. Eren feels things with burning intensity, he lets himself be driven by his emotions. He almost flattened the world because he was disappointed that he and his friends weren’t the only human beings inhabiting it, for fuck’s sake, he’s always been irrational, selfish, and immature. Of course he doesn’t wanna die, of course he want’s to live with all of them. You really expected a 15 year old hot-headed brat to become Thanos after he suddenly found out he killed his own mum and all his dreams had been crushed? Of course he felt conflicted, of course he suffered, of course he wanted to live, “because he was born in this world”. Honestly, when I read his meltdown, I felt relieved that his character hadn’t been turned on its head, it was heartbreaking to see that he really was the same brat he’d always been, that he’d tried to steel himself to do horrible shit for his friends’ sake and that he felt bad about it! It made me appreciate his character a lot more, I felt nostalgic towards the times when I was irritated by his screaming and pouting. Suffice to say, this is also my answer to all those people that believe his internal monologue to convince himself the Rumbling was what he really wanted were bullshit since he “pulled a Lelouch”. How can it be bullshit? Maybe he planned to be stopped, but he also said that he thought he would’ve still done it if they hadn’t. He also said that killing a majority of the population was something that he wanted to do, not a byproduct of the alliance not stopping him early enough, because with the world’s militaries in shambles Paradis would’ve had time to prepare accordingly. Anyways, of course he needed to convince himself to do this awful thing even if he knew he wasn’t gonna succeed completely, can you imagine how horrible it would be to know your only chance is to kill thousands?

I also maybe think it was because of the spine centipede thingy? When Eren says “I don’t know why I did it, I wanted to, I had to”, he gets this faraway look on his face and we get a zoom in on one of his eyes, which is drawn very interestingly and kinda looks like the Reiss’ eyes when they were bound by the War Renounce Pact? So maybe it was also the centipede’s drive to survive and multiplicate that forced Eren to do the Rumbling so that its life wouldn’t be endangered. I don’t know how much I like this, I feel like it takes some agency away from Eren and also makes it feel like he’s not as responsible for the genocide he committed that we initially though, which mhhh maybe not, let’s have him take full responsibility for this. As I said, I’m not defending Isayama blindly, I do have some issues myself with what went down.

“What the fuck, did he say thank you for the genocide?”

Guys c’mon, this is like,, reading comprehension. Yes, it was poorly worded and a bit rushed, but by now you should have full context to make an educated guess on the fact that no, he didn’t thank him for committing a genocide what the fuck you guys. Armin started bringing up the idea that maybe they should have Eren eaten because he was doing morally questionable things ever since the Marley Arc, which for manga readers was like what, 2018? Isayama has been showing for three years how not okay Armin was with Eren’s actions, how could it make sense for him to thank him for a genocide? You see some poorly worded stuff, and your first instinct is to ignore eleven years’ worth of consistent characterization to jump to the worst interpretation possible? Let’s go over this sentences and reconstruct what they mean.

“Eren, thank you. You became a mass murdere for our sake. I won’t let this error go to waste”. Armin recognizes that Eren had no other choice, but does not condone it. He clearly calls it an error, which feels like an euphemism but for all we know the japanese original term used could’ve been harsher. Point is, he clearly states he think what Eren did was wrong. But he recognizes that Eren’s awful doing opened up a path for Paradis to break out of the cycle of hatred. Not a certainty, but an opportunity. He thanks Eren for giving them this chance, and promises not to waste it, even if it was born out of an atrocity. He thanks Eren for sacrificing himself for their sake, even if he doesn’t agree with the fruit of his labor, so to speak. He’s thanking Eren for the opportunity that his actions gave them, not for the actions themselves! Where the hell do you read “thank you for the genocide” guys, sheesh. I’m mad at y’all.

“How could Eren send MIkasa memories if she’s an Ackerman and an Asian, and their memories can’t be manipulated by the Founder? I call plothole!”

Now, here we’re going into speculation territory, so you’ve been warned. I don’t think that that information they gave us was true, about Ackermans being immune to memory manipulation. We know at least that the clan is in some way subject to the Founder’s power, or Mikasa and Levi wouldn’t have been called in the Paths by Eren multiple times. Stories never being entirely true or false, or relativity, better said, has been a strong theme in the story, we know this by Marley’s and Eldia’s different accounts of history compared to the actual Ymir backstory we got. So who’s to say that the belief that Ackermans aren’t manipulable is the truth? Maybe they’re just hard to control, not impossible. We know that by the Founder’s ability Eren experienced past and future happening simultaneously, so he could’ve very well been trying to send those memories into Mikasa’s head ever since the beginning of the story, only just succeeding in chapter 138. It would at least explain Ackerman’s headaches as Eren trying to manipulate their memories and failing. Of course, we’d need Levi side of thing to know for certain, as he had headaches too and we weren’t shown in the chapter if Eren spoke to him in paths like he did with the rest of the squad. We know he didn’t talk to Pieck, but he even went and spoke to Annie who he basically hadn’t seen since Stohess, so I hope he spoke to Levi too. Who knows, maybe he even spoke with Hanji, but she died before she could remember. I wish we were shown that, honestly, I’m sad that it was skipped, especially after Levi said in an earlier chapter that “there was so much he wanted to tell Eren”. Fingers crossed for the anime to expand on it.

“So Historia’s pregnancy was useless”

What? No, it wasn’t useless! Eren told her to get pregnant to save her life, so that she wouldn’t be turned into the Beast Titan. If she became the Beast Titan, then Eren would’ve had to enact the plan with her instead of Zeke, and yeah, Ymir brought the power of the titans with her, so theoretically Titan Shifter Historia would’ve had her time limit removed, but we saw that the only way for the Alliance to stop the Rumbling was killing Zeke, so Historia would’ve had to die. Useless to say, when Eren talked to her about his plan, she was very vocally against it, so I don’t think she would’ve helped Eren with his plan. It was Zeke or nothing, and the only way for Zeke to keep his titan was for Historia to be unable to be turned, hence the pregnancy. Did y’all read the same thing I read? Anyways, she could’ve definitely been handled better, but she wasn’t necessary to the plot anymore, and her being removed from it in such a way was sad, yes, but it made sense.

“They massacred Reiner!”

Yeah, can’t really say anything about this. I definitely understand the sentiment behind this scene, which I appreciate. It’s to show that thanks to his Titan being removed and the times of peace approaching, Reiner was finally able to shed the weight he bore on his shoulders and “regress” to his more carefree persona he had when he thought he was a soldier, instead of a warrior. I am very happy for him, and I think it’s a nice conclusion to his arc, that he’s finally happy, but it could’ve been portrayed in a less comic relief-y way. It just sledgehammers all his characterization. Feels surreal that we saw him attempt suicide a couple month ago in the anime and now he’s sniffing Historia’s handwriting.

Guys, this absolutely sends me. There are people who unironically believe Eren actually reincarnated in a bird? Guys. It makes no sense, it violates every rule that Isayama established for his universe’s power system. How could he even reincarnate in a bird? Guys, c’mon, this is symbolical! Birds have been heavily used in aot to portray freedom, and this is a nice, poetic, symbolic way to show that Eren who lived his whole life chasing freedom and never actually got it, is finally free, like a bird, now that he’s dead. It’s also a pretty explicit nod to Odin, I think. Aot is heavily inspired by Norse Mithology, and I think there were some pretty clear parallels between Eren and Odin/Loki in the later arcs of the story. Eren has been shown to “communicate” through birds like with Falco in chapter 81, or with Armin in chapter 131. Emphasis on “communicate” because again, this is symbolic, I don’t think he actually spoke through the birds, he simply talked to them via paths, but birds are associated with Eren’s character (see also the wings of freedom, y’know?) and the shots were framed so to give the impression that he was talking through the birds, but he wasn’t. Symbolism. Anyway, I really think they were supposed to be a nod to Odin’s crows.

Aaaaand that should be it! Even though I most definitely forgot some other criticism on the chapter, it’s crazy the amount of negativity floating around. Hope I didn’t bore you!

#attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk #snk manga #aot manga #aot spoilers #chapter 139 #aot ending #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #aot 139

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snkpolls · 4 years ago

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SnK Episode 69 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 200 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

RATE THE EPISODE 193 responses

The anime continues on with it’s hot streak, with episode 69 receiving only 1 vote in the negative direction. The vast majority were very pleased with this episode.

this time the pacing felt quite weird, specially with how they managed the flashbacks. sorry mappa, but for the first time i feel like this was a 7/10 episode

nice i guess.

Beautifully done

It was great especially the confession part hahah

I love MAPPA's takes on the series so far!

Overall, very good episode. MAPPA is doing a great job.

i liked it!

A little iffy but still solid.

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE PRESENT TIME WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 194 responses

There were many significant moments in this episode, so we opted to divvy up the options. For favorite moments during the present time, Eren’s harsh tone with Hange garnered the highest amount of votes at 34.5%. Not far behind, 26.3% most enjoyed watching the 104th talk about Eren and what happened in Marley. Behind those two scenes were Hange asking Eren why he was talking to himself in the mirror (12.4%), and getting the small zevi crumbs at the end of the episode (8.2%).

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE KIYOMI FLASHBACK WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 192 responses

For the flashback where the Survey Corps meets Kiyomi, nearly half of the fandom (43.2%) were ecstatic to finally see the scene between Historia and Mikasa animated. 24% most enjoyed Eren’s rejection of Zeke’s plan in Historia’s defense. 14.6% were immersed in Hange’s dismay at considering making Historia continue the cycle of children eating their parents, and 12.5% were thrilled to finally see Mikasa reveal her tattoo to Kiyomi.

Tfw you think MAPPA cut Kiyomi’s drooling scene due to tv lag and later you find out the scene was changed to something equivalent: O__O

5head pixis made me laugh

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE RAILROAD FLASHBACK WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 193 responses

Eren’s confession at the end of the railroad flashback took the most attention from fans, with 41.5% enjoying that portion the most. 20.2% enjoyed the 104th all discussing who is most suited to inherit Eren’s titan. 19.2% got a kick out of seeing smol Armin chasing around smol Sasha, and 13% were happy to see Levi (and his annoyance that everyone is taller than him).

Armin's :o face was just adorable! Had forgotten it from the manga

MIKASA REVEALS THE AZUMABITO CLAN SYMBOL AS A TATTOO ON THE TOP OF HER WRIST. THIS IS A RETCON FROM SEASON 1 WHEN WIT REPLACED THE BRANDING WITH EMBROIDERY INSTEAD. THOUGH THE TATTOO IS WHAT’S FAITHFUL TO THE MANGA (MIKASA’S MANGA COUNTERPART HAS ALWAYS HAD THIS), WAS THIS A GOOD DECISION ON MAPPA’S PART? 192 responses

When it comes to the tattoo retcon, opinions seem to be relatively mixed. 22.9% of respondents felt that the retcon was a good move, because they feel that faithfulness to the source material is the most important thing in an adaptation. 21.9% felt it was a mixed situation, because they appreciate faithfulness to the manga, but also prefer for things to have proper continuity. 20.8% agreed that it was a good move, but mainly because the embroidery was “lame and forgettable” anyway. At smaller percentages, 16.1% felt that it wasn’t really a big deal either way since the family symbol was acknowledged regardless, and 9.4% didn’t care at all.

Mix of 3 and last point

Yes because faithfulness to the source material is important and I don't think the existence of the embroidery means that the branding didn't also exist.

No: continuity issues in the anime, but Yes: the embroidery thing was stupid.

1) we never saw the embroidery being kept by mikasa 2) kiyomi could have thought they just found it and stole it from the shogun's descendants' tombs or something. we as manga readers know mikasa is truly a descendant of the shogun, but anime onlies would have thought it could be possible for kiyomi not to trust them. so a tattoo is the best choice

Yes, MAPPA made a good decision. The anime onlies probably don't even remember the embroidery thing anyway.

Bruh, if I hadn't read the manga, I would've forgotten the Mikasa mom scene.

Options one and two.

HYPOTHETICALLY, IF ONE OF THE 104TH WERE TO INHERIT EREN’S TITAN POWER, WHO DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THE BEST OPTION? 191 responses

The notable majority of respondents feel that Jean would have been the best candidate to inherit Eren’s titan. At a distant second, people would opt for Armin to inherit Eren’s titans (perhaps because he is already a titan anyway). The rest of the characters were relatively evenly chosen.

WHICH “SHIPPY” MOMENT FROM THE EPISODE WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 193 responses

This piechart turned out to be very colorful. Nearly a quarter of respondents couldn’t choose just one moment, so they voted for “all of them.” Behind that, 14.5% most enjoyed the scene where Eren showed determination to ensure Historia wouldn’t have to be sacrificed, 13.5% swooned over Eren and Mikasa’s blushy glances at each other, and 11.9% most enjoyed Connie and Sasha’s increasingly awkward conversation about who’s the bigger idiot.

I loved the Erehisu moments

sasha and connie <3<3<3

Erehisu canon

MAPPA DIDN’T INCLUDE THE PART OF THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ZEKE AND KIYOMI WHERE ZEKE EXPLAINS HIS PARENTAGE, WHY HE SOLD THEM OUT, AND CLAIMS THAT HE’S THE “TRUE ELDIAN RESTORATIONIST.” THOUGHTS? 192 responses

The conversation between Zeke and Kiyomi got shaved down quite a bit, losing the claim of Zeke being “the true Eldian restorationist.” 30.7% aren’t sweating about it and feel it’s something that will be included in a later episode. 27.6% feel that it’s removal isn’t a big deal. 18.7%, on the other hand, feel that losing that moment watered down Zeke’s characterization and would have preferred its inclusion. 8.9% don’t care.

I feel it will be brought up next episode

I think leaving it out makes the moment with ksaver telling him to sacrifice his parents more impactful to the anime onlies.

they may have prepared an anime original scene where this is explained, probably at some point. this chapter was loaded with tons of info

I think everything zeke is going to be saved for his big flashback after losing to levi

Maybe they'll include it at the part where Zeke has his flashbacks when he was injured by Levi.

MAPPA ALSO LEFT OUT THE PART OF THE 104TH’S CONVERSATION WHERE ARMIN THEORIZES THAT EREN WOULD BE IN CONTROL OF THE COORDINATE ONCE HE AND ZEKE MAKE CONTACT. THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT? 185 responses

Another dialogue that was axed this episode was Armin brainstorming about who would be in control of the Founding Titan if Eren and Zeke make contact with each other. 35.7% (a small jump from the previous question) feel that this, again, will be included in a later episode. 28.1% feel that its inclusion wasn’t wholly necessary. 18.4% feel that this fact was already obvious anyway, so it doesn’t matter. 10.4% feel that the anime will get to that point so quickly that the exposition isn’t necessary to begin with.

Armin's motives don't necessarily change either way so I'm fine with the cut. I do hope it's mentioned later on though.

Every episode is only 25 minutes long, so some parts of dialogues need to be removed.

I honestly think they're going to retcon this so zeke's reverse uno in chap 120 doesn't seem so wild

I do understand that they need to make cuts (and there's still to many manga chapters to fit in the rest of the season) but that one was really important bc they might not explain it fully later on

If they animate Zeke's backstory, it will be there. It would've been nice to show Armin still using his brain though.

DO YOU THINK EREN SEEMED MORE INTIMIDATING IN THE MANGA OR THE ANIME? 191 responses

Manbun Eren was introduced as being intimidating, cold, and generally mean. His outburst at Hange was the first of many examples of this behavior as he lashed out at them for having no good ideas. 65.4% of respondents felt that MAPPA did a much better job at portraying Eren as a much more intimidating figure than Isayama did.

IN RETROSPECT, DO YOU FEEL THAT EREN WAS TOO HARSH ON HANGE? 190 responses

Almost a total opposite from the previous pie graph, 66.3% of respondents felt that Eren was much too harsh on Hange, given the circumstances and their dwindling options.

DO YOU THINK THAT, EVEN AFTER READING CHAPTER 123, PARADIS COULD HAVE FOUND ANOTHER WAY TO RESOLVE THEIR ISSUES THAN THE PATH THAT EREN TOOK? 191 responses

One of the constant questions in the manga since the timeskip is “could there been another way?” 59.7% think it’s just a solid maybe, and that there’s no longer any way to know that now that Eren has stripped Paradis of all their options. 23.6% feel that the rumbling was the inevitable outcome against a world that would never give them a chance. 14.1% feel the opposite, however, and believe there was always another way, and that Eren didn’t give them enough time to figure it out.

I wonder what would happen if eren talked about his future memories

There is always another way than violence. The problem is that no one on Paradis was able to find it.

Maybe we will find out in the last 2 chapters, this might be correlated to a possible "the mist" ending that Isayama originally planned

Who even knows? All I know is that there was too much distrust, secrecy and mystery for anyone to get anything done before shit hit the fan and now here we are. I also think it was a huge mistake to keep Eren so isolated.

There's no good way and never only on path but eren choose one who solve the problem

WE’RE GONNA ASK THIS… WHO IS THE FATHER? 196 responses

The never ending debate of who the father of Historia’s child hasn’t slowed down since the introduction of her pregnancy, though the question has ultimately boiled down to whether the child is Eren’s or not. Only 33.2% of respondents seem to think so. 28.1% presumably feel that it’s not Eren, but are overall tired of this debate in general. 21.4% are firm in their stance that it’s the farmer. 13.8% just wish it had anything to do with Ymir and nothing to do with the other options.

I’m tired of this whole damn debate... but it's the farmer

LEVI SEEMED MORE VISIBLY IRRITATED ABOUT HOW TALL THE 104TH HAVE GOTTEN IN THE ANIME. THOUGHTS? 192 responses

MAPPA animated this scene with their own take and made Levi more irritable in the anime adaptation than he appeared to be in the manga. Generally, half of respondents felt that both ways were effective and funny. 25.5% seem to enjoy MAPPA’s rendition of it more, while 18.2% prefer the original manga portrayal of Levi’s grievances.

THE TRAIN SCENE WHERE EREN CONFESSES TO HIS FRIENDS IS TREASURED BY MUCH OF THE FANDOM. DID MAPPA DO IT JUSTICE? 193 responses

For fans of the 104th in particular, this scene has felt like it’s taken 84 years to finally be animated. And very few were disappointed, with 56.5% stating that the scene was cute and they are content with it, and another 36.8% showing a little more enthusiasm, feeling that it was more beautifully done than they ever could have imagined. A handful felt it could have been better, but was still good, or just didn’t care. No one agreed that the scene was ruined.

DARK!CONNIE RETURNS! WHO DID HIM BETTER? 190 responses

Another highly anticipated moment… the return of Dark!Connie! MAPPA didn’t quite hit the mark on this one, with Connie’s aura in the manga still being much more preferable to manga readers than the way MAPPA portrayed him in the anime.

WHEN CHAPTER 108 WAS PUBLISHED, READERS WERE ASKED IF EREN STILL PRIORITIZED HIS FRIENDS. AT THAT TIME, THE MAJORITY BELIEVED THAT HE DID, ALTHOUGH THE LARGER HALF OF THAT MAJORITY FELT IT WAS TO A LESSER DEGREE THAN BEFORE THE TIMESKIP. WE’D LIKE TO ASK AGAIN, DO YOU THINK THAT EREN ULTIMATELY TOOK THIS PATH OF DESTRUCTION BECAUSE HE PRIORITIZES HIS FRIENDS? 190 responses

Overall, the majority of the fanbase believe that Eren’s actions are generally in the interest of his friends and their lifespan, though to varying degrees (38.4% feel he prioritizes them wholly above all else, while 34.7% feel that he prioritizes them, but to a lesser degree than he used to). 21.1% still think that Eren’s contradictory actions make it hard to come to a solid conclusion on this front. A handful feel that Eren has abandoned them completely and only cares about himself and his own freedom at this point.

I want to believe that hes prioritizing his friends, but too many of his actions contradict that, like forcing them into the battle in liberio and sending titans after the alliance

Eren wasn't able to save his mother and this fact still torments him. I think that his friends matter to him a lot, but there is something darker in him what causes all the mess he is doing.

He’s selfish and doing whatever he wants.

DO YOU THINK IT’S POSSIBLE THAT EREN PUSHED HIS FRIENDS TO THE FRONT LINES BECAUSE HE ALREADY SAW IN HIS FUTURE MEMORIES THAT THEY WOULD STOP HIM, THUS KNOWING THEY WOULD NOT DIE? 188 responses

When chapter 108 was published, we hadn’t yet learned that Eren saw memories of the future and so we couldn’t speculate on such a thing. Now that we can, we thought we would ask. 42.6% believe that regardless of whether Eren saw his friends in those memories or not, Mikasa is correct in her belief that Eren simply trusted them to survive. 33% feel that he already knew that they would survive, which is the only reason why he dragged them to Liberio in the first place. 18.6% don’t want to say either way, and a small percentage believe Eren had no way of knowing about the fate of his friends.

He said "I HOPE they will have happy long lives". It means he didn't see much.

WILL WE SEE THE WARRIORS + MAGATH AND COLT NEXT EPISODE? 187 responses

With things shuffled around, we still have yet to see the Warriors recuperating and planning their next move. Half of the fandom feel that MAPPA was waiting to put the focus back on Gabi and Falco before giving us this moment. 32.1% aren’t sure if we will get it in episode 70 or not. 14.4% think it’s something that will come later, and a tiny fraction think it will be cut entirely.

Need my warriors back

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 193 responses

The largest percentage (48.2%) went to the scene with Hange confronting Floch and the Yeagerists, though it is edged out by both of Gabi and Falco’s preview scenes combined (42% for the visit to the Blouse’s, and 9.8% for their scuffle at the river).

Can't care less about to gabi and falco, it's the final season cut the filler please.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

I miss Sasha

No thoughts, anxiety only.

Hope to see the cut scenes in the next episode

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm not so hyped for this season anymore. Sure, I'll still watch all the episodes no matter what, and I don't think Mappa is doing a bad job. But it's just a good adaptation. For the anime-onlys, I'm sure it's great because they're discovering the story we already know, but for me, this season doesn't add much to the manga. I probably had too high expectations for this season... (I'm also watching/reading Jujustsu Kaisen from Mappa and I don't have that feeling at all, so I'm pretty conflicted)

The episode was fine but I had a feeling that it was going a little too fast. However, I'm not complaining because I overally liked it. I could finally see adult Historia. She looks different than her manga counterpart. In the manga she was more mysterious and mature, while in the anime she still has cute baby face. I think that the moment between her and Mikasa was sweet. I feel kinda tired of the whole "who is the father" theories. I think that people waste their energy on fights and debates. If I wasn't part of the fandom, I wouldn't even think of Eren having a child with Historia. They never had romantic relationship and their last conversation was far away from being loving. Eren is an amotional mess. He has never mentioned the child in his POV, he says that his friends and Paradis are the most important, so I will be surprised if all of sudden he turns to be a father.

The lightning around eren when angry at hange was amazing addition (I think it's new) and historias situation feels more real in the anime. (ps: hail ponytail mikasa is bea)

Did a great job imo, but I don't think it's possible to make it anywhere near 122 at this point

Scenes were great as usual. The pacing was a little bit jarring though. I don't know how anime-onlys will take it since we do have different perspectives given our forehand knowledge of the events.

Where's shirtless Reiner??

Good episode, can’t wait for Gabi and Falco’s realization next episode

I wish everything from the manga could fit into the episode or that the episodes were longer.

There's really no where else I could've put this so I'll just put it here......lol. I feel like it's not as obvious in the anime how much longer Jean's hair has gotten sometimes (specifically during the railroad scene here) and I wish that wasn't the case.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 180 responses

Thank you to everyone who participated!

#snk poll #snk polls #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot #snk s4 #snk spoilers

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cosmicheromp3 · 5 years ago

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let’s talk about snowbirds don’t fly for a second, shall we: the arc where roy’s addiction was first introduced, and how it actually affected the relationship between roy and ollie.

people’s perception of snowbirds don’t fly and the events surrounding it is so... weird, to the point where it often makes me wonder whether they’ve actually read the comic (and roy’s appearances right after, but i realize those might be less known) or whether they’re just going off a few very specific panels and inaccurate recounts – usually from people that will twist anything in their favour to call ollie a bad guy.

because, if you pieced together what most people seem to think happened – and this is what i was expecting to find once i decided to read it myself –, in snowbirds we should see: roy, not yet an adult and still under the active care of ollie, starts using drugs, and oliver’s so caught up in himself and negligent that he doesn’t notice what’s happening. when he finally finds out, he lashes out, hits roy and kicks him out of the house, leaving roy without a home. this makes their relationship crumble, and roy starts hating ollie because of it. they don’t speak to each other, and leave in awful terms.

and... in many aspects, that’s so far from the events you'll see if you actually go read green lantern #85 (snowbirds don’t fly) and #86 (they say it’ll kill me... but then won’t say when!). i’m assuming a lot of misconceptions happen because of a) writers with a grudge against ollie who retroactively, and unfairly, painted him in a bad light, and people took this at face value, and b) retcons that came with the new 52 reboot – but, i'll be honest, i don’t care enough to go read that mess even for this post. in general, i’m pretty sure we all agree that we ignore out of character comics; let’s not make roy and ollie the exception to that, yeah?

first i want to get something out of the way, that i feel like i need to mention even though there’s probably people that have talked about it better than i could. when we analyze this comic we should keep in mind that the characters in the story were meant to fill specific roles for the sort of... PSA comic that dc was trying to make, and in the 70s, at that. considering this, both roy and ollie are plot devices.

the creative team behind the story (o’neil and adams) have said that they chose roy to be the average “good” teen who fell into drugs – as a way to say “this could happen to anyone, even to this reputable superhero”. ollie was the caring but imperfect parent who missed the signs – not abusive but distant at the moment, he was meant to be more like a nudge to parents to pay closer attention. it was written to play as a sort of “this could happen to the best of us” situation. and in that context, ollie is made to react in a way that is at most "not ideal" for the standards of its time: he hits roy, and denies to himself that roy’s addiction is a real problem that needs to be dealt with delicately. this is used to send the message of “don’t react like this”.

that isn’t exactly the point of this post, and i don’t want to downplay the harm ollie did with his reaction or absolve him of any blame. the point of this post is: people seem to think that’s where the storyline ended, that was ollie’s final reaction, and those are the terms in which ollie and roy parted; which is just not true.

instead, ollie hitting roy happens in the very first page of green lantern #86 – we have an entire issue in which ollie is faced with his initial reaction and made to confront his mistake (which is more than we can say for, um, other father superheroes that have hit their children. i won’t name names.) the only moment you could read as him “kicking roy out” – which is the phrasing i’ve seen applied to this – happens the very next page, where ollie tells roy to “get out”.

the thing is, roy was not living with ollie at the moment. there was nowhere that ollie could kick him out from. “get out” means just that: get out of this room (and ollie didn’t intend anything more than that with his words.) the comic makes a point of stressing that roy is, by that point, independent, and old enough to be living without a guardian.

ollie, right after roy leaves, thinks: “but he shouldn’t need attention–at his age”. ollie is in the wrong here because of his close-minded view of addiction and because he’s not considering that, though a legal adult, roy is still young and needs care, but it still shows that roy was largely on his own by then. ollie’s reaction is definitively negative and a rejection, but can’t in any way be seen as “kicking roy out”, because it isn’t. (note, also, how ollie’s first thought is that he failed roy, but his denial and stubbornness get in the way and he shifts the blame. he’ll eventually have to get over this and change.)

we see that ollie plays the role of the father that reacts poorly, and he is directly contrasted with the adults who do take responsibility for roy – hal at first, and dinah after, are the ones who play the role of “this is how you should react.”

hal finds roy without knowing what happened between him and ollie, and his first reaction is to take roy to a doctor; he immediately recognizes that what roy needs is help – and will later say so to ollie. when roy refuses, saying he wants to kick the addiction on his own – to prove himself to ollie, because even though he doesn’t think ollie was right he still values his opinion and their relationship, but i’d say there’s something he’s trying to prove to himself, too –, hal recognizes that he doesn’t know anything about drug withdrawal or addiction, and he’s receptive to roy, asking him questions and listening without judgement.

so he takes roy to dinah, who is the one that (very kindly, might i add, because dinah and roy weren’t that close at the time) cares for roy while he goes cold turkey. roy, possibly rather unrealistically, though i’m no expert, kicks the addiction in the span of a few pages. before the ending of this arc, roy has already gone clean.

there’s a one week timeskip there, where we assume that out of the characters featured in this story, roy only interacts with dinah, and ollie’s been with hal. then, before the conclusion of this story, roy is given a place to confront ollie and call him out for his mistakes. roy calls him out for turning his back on him, and he gets to tell him – and show him, punching him in a scene where it’s implied that ollie completely deserves it, unlike the opposite situation that this issue started with – about the pain he’s been in. we are given, in text, a moment where roy can express to ollie what he’s been going through, what he did wrong, and how it affected him.

(this is a moment where the intentions of the comic are very clear, not only because roy practically turns to the camera to deliver the PSA, but also because of the wording: roy told ollie that he turned his back on him, and in the same page he talks about society turning its back on drug addicts, same wording twice. ollie and roy are both meant to represent something other than just themselves, even if this happened in continuity and ended up affecting their characters in the long run.)

and ollie – unlike in that first page, now ollie is shown to listen and understand. he’s not in the same place or mindset he was in when everything started. in the beginning, ollie thought that there must be something inherently bad about a person who does drugs, in a reflection of society’s – and parents’ – views of the issue. and that shows in his initial denial and reaction: ‘how could my son, who’s a good person, do this?’ then, in this scene, when roy tells him he beat the addiction, he answers “good boy” – roy immediately rejects this notion, and emphasizes that there’s more to it than his own goodness: what’s important is the help he received, namely from hal and dinah, and a caring environment. ollie, at the very least, begins to understand this, and in doing so understands very clearly what he needs to change about their relationship if he wants roy back.

this means that ollie starts undergoing character development in this one issue alone. the thing about ollie, in regards to his relationship with roy, is that he has made mistakes and the narrative acknowledges it; but, when well written, he realizes and admits it, making a point of learning from his mistakes. roy knows that ollie has fucked up, too, and doesn’t let him off the hook for it, but he also recognizes that he makes an effort to be better. especially after snowbirds, this informs their relationship a lot.

by the end of the issue they’re not hugging, and roy is leaving on his own, but that’s completely of his own accord. and these are the last panels in the entire issue:

the whole original comic, but mostly these panels specifically, is what makes me wonder about people’s perception of these events, and the misconceptions i previously mentioned – because i really am confused as to how you could reconcile these two opposite readings. unless, you know... people are speaking without ever touching the original comic. (i don’t want to blame anyone for not reading older comics, but please, if you’re gonna speak, especially if it’s to shit on a character or call them abusive the way people do with ollie, do it in an informed way.)

so, right after the events of snowbirds, because roy was allowed to speak up and ollie was made to listen, at least as much as can be expected through his stubbornness, they’re in much better terms than people usually think. if you look at roy’s chronology, he interacts with ollie in his next few appearances (barring the teen titans ones), teaming up as they normally would, with the one difference being the emphasis that’s put into the fact that roy has grown away from ollie – in the same way as any young adult would grow away from a parent. there’s also roy’s resentment for ollie’s actions, but this resentment is portrayed as deserved and it doesn’t turn their interactions into something negative. it’s still clear that they both care for each other, and there’s certainly no hate.

[from action comics #436/2]

this first one takes place a few months after roy goes his own way. roy is in the middle of working a case when ollie gets involved, and they work on it together. green lantern #100/2 is their next appearance and has a similar plot, this time with dinah working with them as well. in both of these, they still work well together, are able to communicate in action and have each other’s backs.

in the action comics issue, ollie insists that roy is still welcome by his side, and that he should still feel free to ask for help whenever he needs it. roy refuses in the way that’s shown in the panels above – saying that he needs to “be a loner for a while” and build a life of his own (though it’s not an exact parallel, because ollie is ollie and takes “loner” to a whole other level, the wording here reminds me of the way ollie tends to leave on his own whenever he feels like he needs to find himself). you’ll see that these interactions aren’t hostile at all – quite the opposite.

world’s finest #251/3 might be the one where their interactions are the most tense, and that’s mostly just in the end. when they’re done with the usual superhero team-up, ollie shows willingness to talk to roy:

“i can’t help out. roy’s back, and, well– we’ve got a lot of talking to do.” through these issues, we realize that ollie has learned: his previous mistake was not paying enough attention to roy, and not showing him that he could always count on ollie (both in noticing roy’s addiction, but also before, in not taking enough care so roy wouldn’t get to that point). he tries to make up for it every chance he has, but it’s always on roy’s terms. everyone is aware that ollie is the one who was in the wrong, and it’s up to roy to forgive him or not, but no one ever pressures roy to do so. when roy doesn’t want to stay and talk, ollie accepts it.

ollie atones again and again, and their relationship isn’t magically fixed and they don’t go back to being close without effort – effort which rightfully has to be done, again, mostly on ollie’s part. but they never, ever go so far as to hate each other.

then, in green arrow (1988) #75, ollie feels so bad about what happened between them, about the way he screwed up, he essentially says to roy that he wouldn’t fault him for wanting to shoot him. “so go ahead. god knows, you’ve got plenty of reason.” roy has been brainwashed here; he breaks through it because of ollie’s words.

and, after this whole ordeal is done, this is how they part ways:

by this point, roy already has lian and a life of his own. he’s gone back to being speedy and then arsenal, he’s in the titans again and he will become a renowned hero in his own right. he might have forgiven ollie a long time ago, but now that he has found himself – like he set off to do at first – he seems more prepared to make amends and see where he stands with him (maybe i’m attributing more consistency among these issues, that happen years apart, than we should actually give them credit for, but i can’t help trying to find the common themes.)

after these, which are the most immediate interactions after snowbirds, we have multiple instances of them being close again. it’s in every small moment they have together, really, but off the top of my head, a couple that are illustrative for their relationship are green arrow: the archer’s quest and justice league of america (2006) #7, even though they don’t directly interact in this last one. i was gonna include panels from both, but this is getting long enough; i urge you to read them, especially if you followed along reading the issues i’ve mentioned, because they’re great. what i am gonna include, cause it’s amazing, is this panel from justice league of america wedding special.

in my opinion, these misconceptions around ollie and roy not only are a disservice to their characters but also mean that people are missing out on what i think is a really interesting relationship. it’s almost rare to see a relationship evolve in a way that feels so organic in comics, not only because the interpersonal conflict here is shown to have real, tangible consequences but also because the characters are allowed to grow in a way that is gradual and natural and even satisfying.

ollie and roy's relationship might have never been the exact same after snowbirds – but which father-son relationship stays the same after the son grows up? and i think it's a testament to the strength of their bond that without ever ignoring these events (because, as i’ve shown, they’re very much acknowledged again and again) they not only never stop loving each other, but are also able to keep building something meaningful going forward.

#roy harper #ollie queen #green arrow #dc #dc meta #drug mention //#long post //#i was gonna put this under a read more but u know what. i'm not gonna give u the option to scroll past this. you are forced to read it #not really but u know hgsdhghsj #you'll notice how many times they call each other dad/son in these panels and that wasn't even intentional #not to keep comparing this to u know who but u know who could never

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linkspooky · 5 years ago

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See You Later, Eren

With all the time travel shenanigans lately we still have not got an explanation for the first scene in the manga, despite these chapters having already been connected to the present day (to you, 2000 years from now, from you, 2000 years ago). Due to the structure of the final arc paralelling the first arc, I believe that the meaning of Mikasa’s words will be revealed in either the final chapter, or the penultimate chapters leading up to the final. In other words these are Mikasa’s first words to Eren in the manga, and they will also be her last. Because these are the words she’ll say to him right after she kills him.

EXPLANATION UNDER THE CUT.

1. Mikasa and Eren

There’s a reason that I believe it will be Mikasa to deal the final blow that stops Eren, that puts him down before he destroys the world and not Armin even though Armin is the “hero” of the story. The reason is Mikasa’s arc has always centered around Eren in a way that Armin’s hasn’t. Armin will always care more about the world then Eren, because he has things he believes in besides fighting the titans and survivings, he has dreams and the ability to see the greater picture.

Armin’s role also isn’t to grow into someone like Eren or Mikasa who can take the big titan down all by themselves. In fact, him acting like this with Bertolt is something that while it won them the battle almost got himself killed.

It’s actually not that much of a change to his core character for Armin to sacrifice himself and fight head on with his own hands. In fact, he’s even willing to do this around people he considered his past friends. He was the one to expose Annie and suspect her first. The only real significant change is that Armin will have to break his denial over who Eren is, but if the choice was between Eren and the whole world from the start Armin would have always chosen the world over Eren. Armin’s not supposed to grow into a hero in the same sense that Eren and Mikasa want to be, by fighting things head on himself. He’s always been set up to become a demon like Erwin, that is make choices that will get other people killed and have confidence and live with those choices rather than constantly waffling and second guessing his chioces.

Armin has regressed to his worst traits, that is letting his low self esteem constantly make him question his own decisions. At his worst he’s afraid to choose anything, because he doesn’t even want to decide, because deciding makes him responsible for the people he lost as a result of his decision. Armin killing Eren in a physical fight won’t really fix any of that. What he needs to do is lead, not attempt to do everything himself, or sacrifice himself so he’ll be the only one hurt. He’s the hero of the story, but he also needs to grow into a demon in a sense.

Whereas, Mikasa’s arc has always centered around Eren for better or worse. Armin would choose the world over Eren, Mikasa would choose Eren over the world.

To phrase this in terms of “Wants and Needs” which is one of the most basic ways to express the central tenets of a characters arc. Usually a character starts the story wanting something, only to get denied what they want and realize instead what it is they need. Or sometimes a character is given what they want, only to have it cause them to regress because it’s not what they need.

Eren wants to stop being a person and exist for the idea of freedom. What he needs is to learn to be a person and accept the love of the people around him and see them as their own individual people too. In that sense, Eren is given what he wants after the timeskip, he’s powerful and cunning enough that he finally can win almost every fight he enters, takes other people’s agency rather than having his own taken, and powerful enough to stand up on his own and he becomes the major mover of the world rather than being moved by it, however that also means he severely regresses as a person and loses what he needs, his friends who used to surround him.

What Mikasa wants is to always be close to Eren and never be separated from him. What she needs is to be her own person. This is set up as early as the Trost arc, and no Mikasa is not being slow in her character development because literally every single character is regressing to the major problem set up in the Trost arc, Eren wants to fight alone, Armin has no confidence in himself, Mikasa has to learn how to live even without Eren.

Mikasa wants to live for the sake of Eren, to live vicariously through Eren as he was the one who showed her that the world was beautiful but that’s not living. Mikasa’s want has been denied to her again and again throughout the story.

Ironically the reason Mikasa is so capable, the reason she is strong and confident in ways Eren just couldn’t be at the start of the manga was because she never made any decisions for herself, and therefore never struggled with her choices or her decisions. It’s easy to do things if you say you’re doing them for the sake of others and therefore never have to hesitate. Mikasa believes the person who gives her a place to live in the world is Eren, and therefore she cannot survive without him. All of the beauty of the world and all of its ugliness are all tied up in Eren.

Eren and Mikasa’s relationship is beautifully complex. It’s not just onesided on Mikasa’s part, they are both codependent to each other in a way. The current Mikasa and Eren would not exist without one another because they have always relied on each other to survive. The thing is, while Eren always runs off, he’s always subconsciously relied on Mikasa to follow him and cover his back. He rebuffs her and pushes her away, but Eren also knows that she’ll chase him. From eren picking fights with bullies only to have Mikasa cover his back, to Eren ambushing Marley and knowing Mikasa would show up and save him and trusting her to do that when he started losing the battle fighting on his own.

Eren loves and needs Mikasa to see himself as a person. She has always been the relationship that connects himself to his own humanity. Mikasa not only humanizes him, but she’s also the only one that can make him second guess his actions and what becoming the enemy of the world means he can’t be a human or by Mikasa’s side anymore. Mikasa makes him realize his own desires to be loved and accepted for the weak coward that he is, rather than having to be someone strong who always fights alone. However, at the same time Eren also resents Mikasa for making him feel this way, for making him feel so human. He hates that he always has to rely on someone, that he always has to be around her because it makes him feel inferior. I would say the resentment is mutual too on Mikasa’s part, as much as she loves him there’s a lot of negative emotions built up. She resents him for always running away from her, for not giving her what she wants.

At the same time Eren is the person who first showed Mikasa there was warmth in the world, and treated her like a human when she was about to be sold by slavers. Mikasa wraps up all her personhood in Eren, but at the same time that makes her see Eren less and less as a person and more as a symbol. Which is why she can’t ever come to term with her feelings, she’s so afraid of losing their current relationship she can’t risk any change at all, even if it would be a positive one with her feelings being returned. It’s almost like Mikasa doesn’t want Eren to love her back in the same sense, because she doesn’t need it in her own mind, not really, she’s always been content loving him at a distance. Loving the idea of Eren has been enough to motivate her up until now.

But if Mikasa does not live on as a person, for her own sake and not Eren’s she can’t love him properly. She can’t really love him as a person separate from her unless she first takes that step back and realizes. Mikasa is so confused about her own feelings because she doesn’t want to think about them, doesn’t want to experience them, she just wants to feel for Eren, not herself. But that stands in the way of what she wants to do which is love Eren and be loved. What she’s wanted ever since the day he wrapped that scarf around her was the genuine human connection that that scarf represents.

It’s something that she realized all the way back in Trost, that she has to find a way to live without Eren. That’s what she needs. However, Mikasa doesn’t want to. Which becomes the source of her regression.

Which is why the decision to kill Eren is so central to the development that she needs to go through. It’s even been set up by several different foreshadowing. One, Eren calls MIkasa a slave and the only way for slave to be liberated is by killing their masters, the people who seek to control them. Which is what Eren is doing right now, robbing her of her own agency and not letting her make decisions in the name of protecting her.

Eren is the one who called her a slave. Eren is the one who will die, freeing her. The breaking of their relationship is so necessary for Mikasa as a character that she’s already completely reevaluated the way she views things just from being separated from Eren. Mikasa, the one who wanted to believe in Eren the most is the also the first one to realize how misplaced her feelings for Eren were.

This is exactly where her arc is taking her, realizing Eren is not the person he thought she was. Mikasa is coming the closest to realizing that Eren’s true form and that she has been seeing a different side of him all along.

Which is why Mikasa has been reevaluating and remembering the first scene where they met. Their relationship is written so the begnnings and ends parallel one another.

Eren showed her two things, the first being his violent murder of the two men attempting to enslave her, and the second being the beautiful connection. The world is ugly, and yet beautiful. This time Mikasa is having her agency stolen again, but not by slavers, but rather by the boy who once rescued her. This time Eren has taken the place of the slavers, trying to steal away from freedom of others for his own goals.

Therefore, to free herself Mikasa needs to do what Eren encouraged her to do in the scene. To take the knife, and fight back, fight for her own freedom by killing the enemy in front of her. Even if this time the enemy is the person she loves. No, because she loves him she must be his enemy. The scene is a reversal of their first meeting, instead of being the helpless girl Mikasa must take knife in hand and show Eren the cruelty of the world and also it’s beauty.

2. An Ugly, yet Beautiful Relationship

The story has always framed Mikasa’s love for Eren as a complex thing. Despite it being the source of her strength, it is also, something that denies her from accomplishing what she needs to. Mikasa always fails in critical moments with consequences because of how she rushes after Eren. She cannot stop Annie from kidnapping him and it results in Levi getting hurt, she fails to stop Reiner and Bertolt from taking him. Mikasa’s desire to put Eren before everything else in the world is something the story consistently denies her and that leads to her failure. Her codependency with Eren, has never been a good thing and always is framed as a flaw. As beautiful as the connection between them is, it’s also ugly. It’s a metaphor for the pain, but also the comfort of all human connection itself. Mikasa’s desire is to connect, Armin’s is the world, Eren’s is freedom from everything.

The same way what Eren wants is naive, a freedom that means he’s allowed to do absolutely everything and he’s so strong he has total control over everything and therefore never has to lose another person again, Mikasa is just as naive. What she wants is a connection that will never hurt her, and never fray or break. The reason the red scarf represents the red string is because it’s just as naive, it’s a fantasy about being destined to be with another person and always be by their side, and always following them no matter where they go or how you are separated. Mikasa’s desire is to be always tied to another person, but that comes at the cost of being her own person.

That’s why the idea that her love for Eren is not her own, but rather a product of being an Acerkman shakes her so much. Because Mikasa deep down knows she needs to love Eren as a person, and also needs her feelings to be her real, and owned by her alone. Even when she was on the brink of death she realized that if she died, the memory of Eren would not be able to live on with her.

Which is why Mikasa parallels Levi so heavily, because Levi also had to make this choice as well. He had to be confronted with who Erwin was as a person, the good and the bad and choose to let him die instead of continuing to be by his side.

The only way Levi could ever understand Erwin such an important person to him was not by forever being by his side, but instead telling him to die and continue to live on in Levi’s memory.

Levi lost the person most important to him, but he also gained understanding for who that person truly was. He was finally able to reconcile his feelings for him. Levi finally saw Erwin as a person, and not just a demon he had to rely on. He also realized that everyone was actively making him into a demon and denying him as a person, and Erwin himself was responding by diminishing his own personhood.

Erwin is given solace and allowed to die as his own person, rather than having to continue to be the devil. Which also, parallels Eren’s own situation greatly because Eren WANTS to become the devil because at this point he believes it’s the only way for him to protect his friends. He no longer allows himself to be his own person the same way Erwin did, and no longer lets himself be loved as a person.

The reason the only deaths in the series that are shown to be freeing are Erwin and Kenny’s is because they literally spent their entire lives NOT BEING PEOPLE, the same way that Eren is trying so hard to deny himself as a person right now. The only choice they get really is the choice of death, because they made all their other choices for the sake of other people.

Which is where we return to Eren once more. Eren denies himself as a person and wants to become a devil, a special existence that can hold the fate of the world in his hands, but at the same time he needs, craves, to be loved as a person. To be accepted for the weak person he is rather than the strong person he pretends to be. Which is why Mikasa sees this moment as so cirtical.

It’s entirely possible that Eren had made up his own mind at this point, that he was already going to commit to the plan, but the reason Mikasa believes this to be the critical juncture where the path split off is because what Eren is asking here. He’s asking her specifically, do you love me as a person? or do you love me out of obligation? The one person who loves him as a person, Eren is having doubts and is trying to reconfirm his humanity in the face of everything he is about to throw away to become a devil.

The same way Mikasa bases her entire personhood around Eren, Eren’s humanity and his connection to the beauty of the world has always been in Mikasa’s hands. She has always represented the connections he needs, but the one he denies himself.

Which is why Mikasa sees this as the critical point, regardless of whether or not what she had said would have made a different. Because Mikasa realizes now, all along she wasn’t seeing Eren as a person. Wasn’t loving him as a person. Which prevented her from truly loving him or acting on his feelings.

The only way Mikasa can love Eren as a person is to be his enemy, to confront him for what he is now, and what she realizes he’s been all along. She has to confront the ugliest side of Eren, instead of only looking at the beauty of their bond.

Both Eren and Mikasa are blind now. Eren has forgotten about the beauty of the world that Mikasa represents, and Mikasa has forgotten until just now about the ugly and violence of the world that Eren represents by only focusing on the beauty, which is why they need a confrontation with each other to be able to see both.

Mikasa needs to remember Eren violently murdering those slavers like they were not even human beings and the fact he went out of his way to kill people. Eren needs to rembmer the action of himself wrapping the scarf around Mikasa and how that connection did more to save her than his violence for her sake ever did.

3. See You Later Eren

This is going to be a short conclusion to my post, and also offer a prediction. Why do I think “See you later” is going to be said after Mikasa kills Eren. For two reasons, one Mikasa has been the one to deal the final blow on two of Eren’s biggest foils, Annie and Reiner, and this is also exactly how she says goodbye to them before killing them.

Mikasa fights two Eren foils. Armin takes down Bertolt. Armin’s enemy is himself. Mikasa’s enemy has always been Eren, which is why choosing to oppose him, and therefore choosing her own personhood is so central to her arc.

As established by Eren, the Ackerman’s are connected to and can open the paths in the same way that the royal family, and those connected to the control coordinate are. Which is why I believe, in conjunction with Mikasa’s literally directly stating that she could have chosen to take a different path that after killing Eren, the two of them will be dragged into the paths the same way Zeke was with Eren after Eren lost his head.

That by killing him first Mikasa will show Eren the ugliness of the world, it’s violence, but at the same time she will be the one to comfort him and give himself peace and reassurance that while he was alive he was loved as a human. Which is what she needs to do to become her own person, because all along she has asserted that her strength is not hers alone, but Eren, her decisions are not hers alone but done for the sake of Eren.

Mikasa has to tell Eren once again that there is a kind boy still inside of him, he’s still the one who promised to wrap the scarf around her, and helped her out when she was cold. But the only way for her to do that is by finally confronting his ugliness and letting go of him.

Mikasa will kill Eren, but then in the paths remind him of the beauty of the world he tried so hard to destroy. Allowing Eren to die as himself, as a person who was loved instead of the enemy of the world. Allowing Mikasa to finally love Eren as a person like she’s always wanted to rather than loving the idea of him. Eren will die but Mikasa will finally be able to live on as her own person.

Which is what Eren should truly desire ultimately. The freedom of the ones he loves. Their happiness. Even if he can’t be around in their lives. Mikasa’s last words for him are “See you Later” not “Goodbye” because even if Eren is no longer in her life, she’ll be able to see him again, her love for him, her memories for him will not disappear but rather continue on in the world even after his death.

#aot meta #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #levi ackerman #attack on titan meta #shingeki no kyojin meta #eremika #the paths #snk 123 #aot 134

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takaraphoenix · 4 years ago

Note

Hi! May I ask why you dislike the Shadowhunters finale?

You may ask, I am going to try and answer, but you’re asking me to unearth long-buried memories there. So let’s see how much I can still piece together; the big things for sure, the little things I may have forgotten.

And because this is 4k long, a quick TL;DR/table of content:

the plot and resolution were messy

the show forgot that Clary is its protagonist

Jace Herondale deserved better too

Everything (else) wrong with the flashforward (Maia also deserved better)

Magnus and Alec’s love ended racism and homophobia

1. The Plot and Resolution Were Messy

I still think that the whole Glorious/Heavenly Fire plot was... a mess. The Heavenly Fire was born from the Soul Sword, but somehow they used ScienceTM to reate an antidote for being a Downworlder with it and then when the whole thing explodes, it gets embedded within Isabelle, but instead of killing Isabelle with its intense powers, it grands her the ability to explode Lilith and literally destroy all of hell. What the fuck was that. Nothing about that was... satisfying, or felt like it was really set up anywhere. I mean, I sure didn’t see it coming that Isabelle is the war-ending hero in this tale. That role is usually reserved to the protagonist.

But instead of ending the war or destroying Edom because she has super angelic blood, Clary’s role was to... hug her brother to death with angel-wings she created. What was even happening in that scene. To this day, I don’t understand what was going on there. I mean, she literally hugged him to death. How weird was that. And how unnecessary.

Honestly, I... I didn’t want Clary to be the one to kill Jonathan? He’s her brother. She already killed her father. Sure, they’re The Villains, but... that shit still gets to you, especially since she spent so long hoping against hope that there’s good in Jonathan? To then make her the one killing him.

I think Jace should have killed Jonathan for good, not Clary. Because she doesn’t deserve that burden of having killed her brother, even after all the bad shit he’s done.

And the method of killing was just dumb. I mean, I can not stretch it enough just how dumb it was that she hugged him to death. Not just because it’s as stupid as it sounds, but also because she literally got a warning from the Angel.

The Angel came to her (wow, now that all the action is done, they decide to communicate, awesome...) and warned her that if she keeps creating runes, she will be punished.

There was no need to create a new rune for this. She didn’t have to. Just stab him. You like stabbing things, girl. Stab him to death, or - as I’d have preferred - leave the stabbing him to someone else. Heck, I’d have preferred if Isabelle killed Jonathan via hug because left-over Heavenly Fire embedded in her, that’d have made more sense. But... there was no need to create a new, weirdly specific rune that gave her wings so that if she hugged him, they’d... I have no idea... killed him somehow with their pure godly goodness or whatever.

(Seriously, Isabelle’s Heavenly Fire powers would have made more sense, if we’re operating under the pretense that regular stabbing wouldn’t have been enough at this point, which I am not entirely buying because Alec exploded a higher demon by shooting him in the face.)

Before we get to the part about the Angel’s threat, I’d like to point out the finale’s biggest flaw.

2. The Show Forgot That Clary is Its Protagonist

Clary Fray is the protagonist of this story. The main main character. This was her story, above all else. All others are only secondary characters to her. I would argue that in the hierarchy of characters, Jace also stands above the others (but still second to Clary), because he is just as personally interwoven with all of this as Valentine’s son and the other half of the Jonathan experiment.

But the show temporarily forgot that. Part of that is the above mentioned wish from me that Clary should have destroyed Edom (if we have to destroy hell, which I do think was unnecessarily stupid and should have just been sealed off). I mean, that was the big show-down.

I do think that, to pay off the way the story was set out, Clary should have been the one to get the big finish of destroying Edom and Jace should have gotten the revenge and satisfaction of killing Jonathan, in a last ultimate showdown of who’s the better JC.

I already reasoned why I didn’t particularly like seeing Clary kill Jonathan and why I thought the method of killing him was stupid, but one more thing comes into play there.

By hilling Jon the way she did, she provoked the Angel into doing as he threatened. She is your protagonist and you’re punishing her for saving the world.

I mean seriously, Clary just helped save the world and she just used her powers to kill off a really big enemy. And instead of rewarding her for her services - since she did this shit for the Angels - she gets punished for it.

We spent this three years journey (for us; three months for her. I really can’t stress enough how bad the condensed timeline is, all around) following Clary.

She already suffered so much. But she kept powering through it and she was really finding her place there. She was finally training, she got her Angelic rune to accept her into this society, she was making friends, she was making plans. That little conversation between her and Isabelle about becoming parabatai? That was awesome. Like, something I hadn’t realized I needed until they said it. That was great, really.

And then they just took her memories away. They took their protagonist and just... left her stranded on the streets with no memories at all about the past three months of her life.

And then we timeskip - and I’ll get into the non-Clary related timeskip issues after the Clary-section of this post, so let’s focus on hers for now.

Luke is off in Brazil fucking Maryse, instead of being in New York with his daughter. This show’s always done a half-assed job with that relationship. They often name-dropped a “dad” or “daughter” there, but only when it served a plot-purpose of sorts; they rarely gave us some genuine bonding moments between them and I think that was a fault throughout the show, but this ending was just completely fucking that dynamic over.

Luke was cured from being a werewolf. And instead of choosing the mundie life that he’s pretended to lead for the past 18 years, he decides to not just go back to the Clave, who mistreated him and to whom he technically should still be a wanted terrorist for having been a Circle member (you know, the thing Maryse got deruned for). And, ship aside, the fact that Luke chose to go with his new girlfriend somewhere far off instead of staying with his daughter? Still feels like character assassination for me, quite frankly.

What, she’s not allowed to remember the Shadow World. Great that Luke is no longer a werewolf and has to associate with the pack anymore! Great timing that he’s now a Shadowhunter, something you can apparently really easily pretend not to be if you look at Jocelyn. Or, hey, actually he should have been deruned for his past crimes, which would be even more convenient because then he would get to actually live a mundie life, with his daughter.

I mean, seriously, how did that past year that is so conveniently skipped, even go? She was out in the streets, alone. How much did she even remember? Her name? The things prior to the last three months? How was anything explained to her, who did the explaining? What does she think happened to her mom, to Luke, to Simon? Because they were a part of her life before all of this.

I think the memory-wipe in itself does Clary a disservice because it erases her entire journey, but the very least they could have done if memory-wiping her would have been to give her a happy ending. To show her living a good mundie life with Luke.

But the memory-wipe wasn’t about Clary. That’s where the “the show forgot she’s the protagonist” comes into play again. Not only did they punish their protagonist for doing the protagonist-y thing of saving the day; they... they essentially fridged her.

I don’t know a non-dead term for fridging, but for all intends and purposes, she was fridged. She lost her memories, not as a part of her own plot, she lost them for Jace’s Man Pain.

That was the framing device the show chose.

They could have made Clary’s memory-loss about Clary; shown us how she adjusted to the new life, or even as mentioned before given her a happy ending there, in the mundie world. They could have shown us her suffering about this.

Instead, it’s framed around Jace. Jace, sparring with Simon, being called out for still pining after Clary. A whole-ass year and Jace is still hung up on Clary, still regularly checking in on Clary, still stalking her, still sad, still suffering. He pines from afar as he watches Clary’s art show. And when she suddenly remembers his name, it is framed as a happy moment for him.

Her suffering served a man.

They really took their female protagonist and decided, in the finale, to make her suffer, for the sake of her male love interest. That would be absolutely gross if she was just the love interest of the male protagonist, but she is the protagonist and they turned her into a plot-device.

And it didn’t even stick. I assume the memory-wipe was an idea hatched prior to the show being cancelled. She is memory-wiped and we go into hiatus and next season, we have Jace and the others chase after her and bring back her memories. Would still be shit and do Clary a disservice, but at least it’d have like... a purpose.

There was no purpose to the memory-wipe as it happened. It lasted literally 2 minutes screen-time before Jace’s sad puppy-dog eyes triggered Clary’s memories again and look, her brain didn’t melt! She got to remember him.

So what was even the point of that memory-wipe...? Clary wasted a whole year of her life in total isolation, thinking everyone she loved was dead, when in reality her memories could have safely been brought back at any time.

The Angel punishing the protagonist for doing protagonist-y things would have already been a dick-move, but this? This was the Angel playing a cruel prank on Clary, really. And what was the point of that...? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Nothing is gained from the memory-wipe. The finale would have been improved by simply not including the memory-wipe. Literally just, have her have a good time at the party, be happy. And include her in the flashforward as being parabatai with Isabelle and being happy. The pay-off the protagonist of your show would have deserved at the end of said show.

3. Jace Herondale Deserved Better Too

As I mentioned in Clary’s section, Clary being essentially be fridged like that would have been a shit move even if she was just the love-interest to the actual protagonist. But Jace isn’t the protagonist. He’s one of the main characters and I’d argue the second most important one but that stands to debate I suppose because I have favorite-character-bias there. It can definitely not be argued that he is not the primary protagonist, because that’s Clary.

But Clary had to suffer for his man pain.

And honestly, my AO3 track-record shows how much I love seeing Jace suffer, but even I think this was absolutely useless and unnecessary.

In the past three months of Jace’s life, he:

learned his father didn’t die but was a (still alive) wanted terrorist

spent weeks thinking the girl he had a crush on was his sister

was abducted by his father and tortured for five days straight

thought his mother (Jocelyn) wanted to kill him

nearly got mauled by Maia “kill first, ask questions later” Roberts

got thrown into prison after being freed

where he was then tortured by his boss

tried to commit suicide through the Soul Sword in the City of Bones (1)

thought his mother (Jocelyn) wanted to kill him

was harrassed in his own home to the point of willingly moving out

thought his mother (Jocelyn) was dead and mourned her

was abandoned by 3/5th of his adopted family (but they said sorry afterward so people forgive them *snorts*)

tried to commit suicide through the Soul Sword thinking he could destroy it (2)

tried to commit suicide through letting Simon drink him dry (3)

learned his father wasn’t his biological father but a mad scientist who killed Jace’s parents and cut him out of his mother’s womb

was literally killed by his own father. I mean he died. He actually died

was possessed by Lilith for weeks and in that time

killed multiple mundies without any control over his body

repeatedly killed the people he loved inside his mind-prison

was sexually assaulted by Lilith

actually killed his own grandmother and only living relative due to toe possession

learned that there’s mental illness running in his family and that his mom actually committed suicide

They crammed all that trauma into three months and at no point did they actually allow Jace to process any of that. Nope, instead of letting him process, or just stopping to beat him down, they decided to make him suffer some more at the end.

The ending he deserved would have been a fucking therapy session, not “my girlfriend doesn’t remember me so I’ll be sad and pine for a year :(”.

Made even worse by the decision to move Alec onto another continent. I appreciate that little bonding moment between Jace and Simon, I really do, but the fact that his parabatai was just... off living his best life, somewhere else, while Jace was suffering like this? That didn’t sit right with me at all and really goes against what that parabatai bond is supposed to mean.

My boy tried to commit suicide three times and actually died once in those three months. But instead of a rewarding ending that somehow... gives them all something good to end on, they took Clary away from him for a whole year - a vital year, the year after the war, the time he should have spent on healing himself and dealing with his trauma. Reducing his character to sad, heart-broken boyfriend instead of finally letting him heal.

And for what? Clary immediately regained her memories when she saw him; all of this additional suffering served no purpose at all aside from “they both suffered for a year lol”. Stupid and unnecessary and especially after the excessive torture they put Jace through, he really deserved better than to have his “one year later” moment be “uh actually you totally wasted that year pining from afar, coulda just talked to her at any moment lol”.

4. Everything (Else) Wrong With the Flashforward

This is going to recap a lot of the things peppered into the other points, but it needs to be put into one sub-point too, because the sum of things in this flashforward is just bullshit.

The memory-wipe that is magically undone by Jace’s sad puppy-dog eyes and thus served absolutely no purpose.

Showing the “a year later” but not how Clary got there; what her journey to that point in life even was.

Luke happily joining the Clave again after everything and deliberately abandoning Clary to frolick at the beaches in Brazil.

Bat and Maia. Those are the only new things I have to add here, because... wow. Bat had a total screentime - I mean, total of this entire show - of under 10 minutes. I’d wager more close to 5, really. There was no build-up here, because the show was so busy side-lining Maia after they promoted Alisha to main cast - which in itself was just ridiculous; you promote her and instead of giving her character more to do and a prominent storyline, you just feature the return of her ex and then basically write her off the show for a while. She just... up and left for multiple months after becoming the Alpha, leaving the pack kind of... leaderless. And then she’s just back again and now she is with Bat, which didn’t even feel much like a deserved happy ending considering they never really established their dynamic - or Bat’s character - much.

Quite honestly, with the way this show had messed around with romance, I think the show should have gone non-canon and kept Simon and Maia together through to the end, because while season 1 set Simon and Isabelle up really well, season 2 kinda forgot about that again and 3B had to rush that back in again for the sake of endgame.

Maia’s final scene wasn’t a pay-off, because the show forgot to give her the set-up for it. They never showed her become the Alpha, they never showed her be the Alpha, so seeing her there in charge didn’t feel like much. They never showed her and Bat develop much more than an acquantanceship, much less fall in love, so her being with him in the end felt more like a consolation prize.

And, in theory, you could argue that, well, she’s not the protagonist so you can’t flesh all that really out. But then the show even put more focus onto their little non-canon Luke/Maryse romance than they did on the Bat/Maia canon romance. She deserved to have a proper build-up to make her ending be a worthy pay-off

Then there’s Alec and Magnus, but they get sub-point 5 so we’ll get back to them later.

5. Magnus and Alec’s Love Ended Racism and Homophobia

To drive home how much their ending bothered me, I have to go back some.

Shadowhunters are inherently homophobic and racist; that is what this show told us rather early on already. They’re homophobic and they’re very racist against Downworlders.

The show claimed that and they clumsily tried to show that, at times, but... they put zero effort into doing something to change that and still want to reap the glory for making them change their ways. And it’s... pathetic, bad writing and genuinely offensive to anyone who’s ever actually dealt with someone homophobic and/or racist before.

I’m a white lesbian, so I’ll not pretend that it’s up to me to speak to the way the show handled the racism subplot; many fans, who are people of color themselves and can speak to this much better than I ever could, have addressed that in more detail in the past.

But it’d be wrong not to mention it here too, because... they really dropped the ball on this plotline centered around a huge real world issue. They set the Shadowhunters up as racists but here we are, only one year later and not only did they allow a Downworlder to live in their super holy city (which they were forbidden from entering only a year ago; they only got to live in the wild, also explicitely stated to be rogue and wild werewolves, more beast than man), they appointed Magnus the High Warlock. Not only did they “end racism” within a year, they also got Magnus a high-ranking political position. Really?

I’ll focus more on the homophobia here, because I can speak more to that. And I do think that the two issues run relatively parallel in how they were handled. (Because they were both not handled.)

Alec’s still deep in the closet when we start the show. Then he agrees to a political marriage to a Good WomanTM, just to publicly come out, in front of his bosses and everyone he works with. Which, I still think was horribly handled, but I digress.

He was in the closet for a reason. Because of the Shadowhunters’ inherent homophobia. Which the show then just... kind of... forgot.

Alec is never shown to face homophobia. Alec is never shown to actually speak up and do something to help other gays.

But the show still thinks to deserve a pat on the back, and gives it to itself via Andrew Underhill praising Alec for all he has done for gay people. By... what, exactly? Kissing Magnus in public?

Same for Aline, who is so deep in the closet when we first meet her, she can’t even dare say it in anything but a whisper even while being with the only person she ever confided in about her sexuality, but a month later, during Magnus and Alec’s wedding, she can dance and laugh and kiss her girlfriend in public.

The show really pretends that The Power Of LoveTM ended homophobia, because, I don’t know, the Clave looked at Alec and Magnus and shipped it so they were now okay with all gays I guess??

That’s bullshit. You didn’t have to set up this society as inherently homophobic; if you’d just done that, the way it progressed would have been fine. But if you make them inherently homophobic, you don’t get to do... nothing.

Alec is an openly gay man. He’d have gotten shit from his coworkers. He certainly wouldn’t have gotten all of those promotions in such a short time!

No one speaks up against him being appointed head of the Institute - even though someone really should have, not even just because he’s gay but also because he’s a Lightwood and we started this whole fucking mess of playing musical chairs with the position of head because the Clave wanted to take it away from the Lightwoods! But also because he’s gay. And dating a Downworlder, just to remind you of the inherent racism again.

He’s offered the position of consul within a month of having been head - a position he only got through nepotism to begin with. Consul. That... That’s a high-ranking political position.

And in the flashfoward, only one year after, he is... he is the Inquistor.

They really pretend that this gay man came out as gay, ended homophobia and racism with the power of love and then, within a year’s time climbed onto the highest possible political positon.

Just, imagine that in the real world. During the height of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and when interracial relationships are far from socially accepted, this guy just comes out as gay, never does any activism aside from actively being gay, gets married to this man of color (and it’s very peculiar that the majority of Downworlders also make up the majority of characters of color) and then the guy becomes president of the United States within a year.

The narrative the show chose belittles the actual struggle oppressed minorities have been fighting for decades and centuries, because it claims the pay-off of having ended the oppression, without ever actually showing the struggle and fight. It makes it look like, well, if the right queer interracial couple kissed in public, then people would see how silly their racism and homophobia were and just stop being racist and homophobic.

The show did not earn that ending. The show didn’t earn the pat on the back from Underhill to Alec, the show didn’t earn that out and proud wedding inside the Institute, the show didn’t earn that Underhill/Lorenzo and Aline/Helen open, happy, uncaring dancing during said wedding, the show didn’t earn Inquisitor Alec and the show didn’t earn High Warlock of Alicante Magnus.

Because the show didn’t put in the work to earn that.

#Shadowhunters #Shadowhunters Critical #Anonymous

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theseerasures · 5 years ago

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Frozen 2 Reaction Post

surprisebitch.gif

this is 5000% because i don’t wanna do other stuff, but is it not poetic justice that i should come back to the tumbls for Frozen 2: Elsa Runs Away Some More

i’m gonna prologue this by saying that by and large i enjoyed the film tremendously; of course since this is 2019 i would have enjoyed anything that didn’t end with Elsa committing nonsensical war crimes before being put down like Old Yeller or pulling a no-homo to transcend time and space (that’s right, i’m hip enough to know about TWO of the biggest media fiascos this year, you jelly?), but the film was enjoyable even beyond that, mostly in how it affirmed my own opinions about the universe

HOWEVER, there were also huge problems that really have to be addressed, and we’re gonna start with those

cut for length and a truly immense amount of spoilers

things i didn’t like:

so the Iduna being Sami All Along thing was, um. bad! it was bad, and really reads like the team trying to cover their asses after the blowback from the first movie. why was it such a big deal for ~a Northuldran to love an Arendellian~ when Arendelle was 100% at fault in the conflict? were the spirits just like “oh the indigenous tribe that has cared for us and lived alongside us for centuries are fine i guess but OH LOOK the whitest among them just made googly eyes at the son of the guy who wants to colonize and enslave us, let’s root for those crazy kids and make their firstborn the avatar”

making Iduna a White Sami and leaning on the excuse that in real life the Sami people are linguistic and ethnically diverse and some of them can pass as white would have been fine if they didn’t EXPLICITLY RACIALIZE EVERY OTHER TRIBE MEMBER ON SCREEN. come on guys, just admit you liked Last Samurai but knew that that exact premise wouldn’t fly anymore

why couldn’t it be just a nice person who saved Agnar? why did we get yet another version of the old Pocahontas fetish?

why did Iduna being Northuldran REMAIN such a big deal to the point that she never told her kids about it and she and Agnar had to tell separate but equal bedtime stories about the same event??

whew i’m so glad this all happened so Elsa, the whitest non-anthropomorphic-snowman character in the movie, could save those savage natives with spears! They Needed Her Guidance

the songs this time mostly...felt like they didn’t really want this movie to be a musical but were contractually obligated to write songs for Disney until the heat death of the universe

case in point: Some Things Never Change was going for the Happily Ever After vibe that the Steven Universe movie had, but it...didn’t really feel earned. we obviously needed a place-setter song, but it didn’t really establish anything about what the characters have been up to or what might be still bothering them, because apparently everything is great! this worked for Steven Universe because it came off of five SEASONS of character development, but Elsa’s last big character revelation that we the audience saw was “wow guess i’m not the worst scum on earth after all.” the timeskip can only do so much, is what i’m saying

Kristoff got NOTHING to work with. i’m not like, horribly broken up about it since i know they had to keep it tight for the kids, but fucking OLAF got a heavier arc than he did, and it feels like a missed opportunity that they didn’t link HIS backstory to the Northuldrans, what with him being orphaned/abandoned/raised by trolls already set up. it doesn’t have to siphon into the White Savior main story at all, just have--i dunno, a few more scenes with the Northuldrans and him realizing that he’s probably descended from refugees who got cut off from the forest

the proposal thing was cute until i realized that they were going to just hit the same beats over and over again with each scene. it should have been resolved in act 1 instead of Kristoff disappearing for half the movie and then tacking on the proposal at the very end. not every subplot has to be stretched out to the end! in this case i feel like stretching it out actually REGRESSED aspects of Kristanna, since it relied on Anna misreading so many signals that it strained believability even for Anna. we’re supposed to think they’ve NEVER talked about this, despite having dated for 3 years and consistently trading off on being the most Extra person in the room?

the confirmation that Olaf’s fingers can wiggle will haunt my dreams

me when the stone giants interrupted Elsa’s conversation with Honeymaren: yOU COCKBLOCKERS

i find myself growing increasingly weary of the now token Disney Wink at Camera, and Elsa rolling her eyes and her past self doing Let It Go was probably the apex of that particular antipathy. showing that you’re so Over the song that made you billions in a movie that you’re shilling to the EXACT SAME CROWD is the most obnoxious humble-flex i can think of

as much as i liked Elsa jumping into the Pit of Past Misdeeds and freezing to death, i think the scene happened waaaaaayyyy too fast, especially if you compare it to how long it took for Anna in the first movie. she’s not really given any time to process what’s happening, and it kind of lessens the emotional impact.

Olaf is gone!! he’s gone, i miss him so much!! i cry myself to sleep!!!! OLAFFFFFFF!!! false. i do not miss him

i distinctly recall liking Olaf just fine in the first movie and actually found him tolerable here too, but wow i was not happy when they resurrected him, even though i knew it was a sure thing

maybe it’s because NOTHING had consequences in the end and even Arendelle, the place that all the characters have been treating like a thoroughfare for two movies, had to get saved at the last second!! Arendelle the place??? we were supposed to care enough about that to want it to be saved?? it’s not the fucking GALACTICA guys! there weren’t even any people left in the town! it’s bizarre that they tried to go so hard in the reparations route and then swerved at the last second. let Arendelle drown you cowards! let the Northuldrans offer help in solidarity if you really wanted the “bridge between worlds” angle, but come the fuck on! didn’t something like this happen with Life Is Strange already?

why didn’t Elsa go to her sister’s coronation is it just like a thing now for her to miss the major life events of her family members

the statues they unveiled at the end were horrifying

things i liked:

a lowkey thing that i’ve always appreciated about the first movie was its willingness to Go There when it came to depicting well intentioned parents who are still mired in various character flaws and wound their kids deeply, so it was nice to see that return and get expanded with parents who had Lives separate from their kids which made them That Way, and the consequences of those Lives often come back to influence subsequent generations no matter how much they try to keep it contained. it’s a good, logical extension from what happened with Elsa in the first movie.

and it’s another Steven Universe vibe, but they can go further with it faster because Elsa and Anna are the hegemony in this movie. they’re the history-makers, so their family drama very easily becomes political, and the lessons they pick up from family memories immediately end up changing the fantasy history landscape. it’s dope

baby Anna’s lil feetsies

Anna wanted to marry everyone and Elsa thought kissing was gross

everyone does feel palpably older! the first movie had a very teen feel insofar as everything was We Have to Do This or We Will All Die Immediately, but this time around all the characters feel much more comfortable in their own skin throughout the movie

everyone getting more than two outfits and all wearing pants

the revelation after so many headcanons of Elsa being a ruthless pragmatist, Elsa always being two steps ahead politically, Elsa being a literal and metaphorical chessmaster that Elsa is...actually just kind of spacey and weird was for me extremely welcome. i think part of this was done in service of Anna becoming queen at the end, but it makes sense. “attack it with ice powers” and “run away” are still pretty much the only two strings to Elsa’s bow. this is not to say that she was a bad queen, or that she didn’t try her damndest to be a fair and just ruler--when it comes down to it i think Elsa still knows more Facts about how to rule a kingdom than Anna ever will, it’s just that she’s also horribly averse to conflict and “pacing in place while blaming herself” is pretty much the extent of her productivity under serious pressure.

what sets Elsa apart (other than the ice powers) isn’t that she’s prodigiously talented, but that she’s kindhearted and extremely sensitive to the emotions and fates of others. (she’s the one who asks what happened to the spirits when Agnar is done with his half of the story.) she agonized over hurting Anna one way vs. hurting Anna another way for THIRTEEN YEARS and still couldn’t make up her mind until she was literally backed into a corner, and even that decision was “run away but FARTHER.” Anna wanting to reconcile with Elsa even after thirteen years wasn’t just because Anna’s love eclipses all; Elsa also left that door open for her, because she could never be quite as ruthless or even SELFLESS as to send her sister away for good. (”then leave! actually jk i’ll leave instead”)

but Anna wasn’t ever the exception for Elsa, either. Anna wasn’t the only corner of Elsa’s heart that she left open--Elsa’s like that with EVERYONE, even people she just met, or disembodied voices in the wild. Elsa can never do quite as many Right Things as she thinks she should, she can never be quite as driven, as strong, as single-minded as she thinks she needs to be, to fully commit to making decisions for other people. she feels too deeply and wants too much, even after all those years of trying to scour herself out with a lathe. it’s what ruins and saves her.

Anna and Elsa being horrible at charades in diametrically opposite ways was the most life affirming thing to happen to me this year

Elsa couldn’t act out ice

the two of them had MULTIPLE conversations with each other that didn’t immediately result in mortal peril!!! what a world guys

Into the Unknown fucking slaps but i’m now REALLY confused about the diegesis of the songs in this movie. i’d assumed they were all happening in story, what with the Voice and the multiple references to Let It Go, but Elsa literally bays at the moon in the middle of the night here and no one woke up??? maybe they’re all just really heavy sleepers who knows

or maybe the staff just take it in stride at this point--oh, Her Majesty is singing and crying again

Kristoff and Anna CANONICALLY FUCK, and not even in the typical cartoon “look they have kids, they canonically fuck” way in the “hey my sister and her snowchild that we’re all coparenting together are asleep on the sled, shall we fuck a mere three feet away without even putting up a divider or something” way

gotta give Jen Lee kudos for making the “Elsa has ice powers because she’s the fifth spirit” retcon make thematic sense. the most obvious way to go about this WOULD have been the avatar direction, but Elsa isn’t the union of the four elements but the union of the spirits and humanity, which is to say that she witnesses them and keeps their memories, bringing them to life and solidifying them with her powers. she’s obviously the best person for the job, since y’know. she spent thirteen years on one memory alone.

wait does this mean Elsa is basically the Resurrection Stone?? buhhhh i don’t wanna think about it

of course Anna’s sword just came from her grabbing it from an ice statue i don’t know what else i expected

i laughed at both of Olaf’s reenactments i don’t know what to tell you

i feel...Some Kinda Way about the discourse saying that Mattias being black is problematic because it suggests black collusion in indigenous genocide, but it’s not my place to comment on that, so i’ll just say that it was a pleasure to see Sterling K. Brown having fun in a role instead of his usual gravitas and misery

Elsa first making eye contact with the icemander, or Two Feral Creatures Recognize Each Other As Such--i can’t believe i thought Hiccup would be the weirdest horse girl i’d ever encounter in fiction when it’s OBVIOUSLY Elsa

ELSA COULDN’T ACT OUT ICE

what a novel concept to have Elsa charging forward while Anna tries to pull her back, telling her to slow down, that she’s climbing too high

appreciated the subtle seeding they did of Anna’s political savvy, what with her actually talking to the lost Arendellian soldiers and restraining herself from making outlandish promises to everyone she meets

Kristoff made a friend!

Elsa met one (1) girl that wasn’t her sister and immediately decided she had to live in the woods forever

Tribe Leader Lady’s reaction to Kristoff’s proposal

can’t believe Lost in the Woods invented cinema and music videos

the sisters at the shipwreck is hands down the best scene in the entire movie, aided by the drastically different palette they used to color this scene--all grays, browns, and blacks, even the surrounding environment, like Agnar and Iduna’s despair polluted the whole landscape. Elsa and Anna look horribly out of place here, like they can’t possibly be real in a world that looks like this.

it really snuck up on me how much this scene is a pivot for both of their characters: Anna’s instinct here is to look forward, to find clues that will point them to the next step; Elsa’s instinct is toward grief and, after the reveal, self-blame. for all her growth there’s still a part of Elsa that sees her existence as the catastrophe that keeps hurling the wreckage of the world at her feet. it’s something that i don’t think she’ll ever be able to completely move past.

Elsa, looking at Anna like she’s the only real thing in the world as Anna tells her that she believes in her, more than anyone or anything

“i just don’t want you dying trying to be everything for everyone else!” jesus fucking CHRIST guys

Olaf’s growing up crisis was mostly just...kinda there for me, but i will say the cut to his horrified expression when Anna said the word “dying” really did get to me

Anna switching between a Formal Court hairstyle and an Athleisure hairstyle is Bi Representation, Elsa getting increasingly more disheveled over two movies is Lesbian Representation

do i Get horse movies now

Elsa happy crying when she sees her mother in the cave made ME incredibly happy--her face is so much more dynamic this time around!

i wanna make fun of her for her stupid Dance Dance Revolution ice magic during Show Yourself but honestly..........fucking superb you funky little lesbian

aw Elsa you stood up to...an ice hallucination of your racist grandpa! in another three years (six years in production) you might be ready for Thanksgiving dinner

Elsa in the last movie: i’m never going back, the past is in the past!!!!

Elsa in this movie: brb gotta go hurl myself into a Pit of Past Misdeeds and turn myself into one of the embodied memories

Anna immediately understanding what went down at the forest before and that even if she wasn’t directly complicit in the violence she benefits from it every day, deciding to rip down Imperialism Dam without hesitation

The Next Right Thing didn’t really do it for me musically but as a core concept for Anna’s character and ethos it fucking ROCKS (pun obviously intended). i was so worried going in that they wouldn’t know what to do with Anna after the first movie other than give her powers, but instead we got confirmation that this IS her superpower: her ability to forge ahead with whatever life has given her has ALWAYS been her greatest strength.

this also explains why she felt so aimless and intent on protecting Elsa and nothing else before this point; Anna isn’t interested in delving deeply into the past, not when every other member of her family was consumed by it. with this she’s finally able to convert memory into action, and she shines.

(of course she couldn’t have GOTTEN to this point if Elsa hadn’t been so convinced that the past was worth pursuing, confirming my belief that the two of them share exactly one brain cell)

OBVIOUSLY action for Anna translates into “make myself bait for stone giants and STAND ON THE VERY DAM I WANT THEM TO RIP APART” Anna you fucking walnut

Anna threw the first brick at Imperialism Dam, actually

the understated moment when Kristoff just pushes aside his own insecurities and just asks Anna what she needs

the shot of Elsa falling into the water after she’s thawed nearly did me in

Elsa horseback riding over the water is. wow it’s the gayest thing i’ve ever seen

Anna’s coronation outfit made me kinda wistful. she looks so grown up! she looks like her mother

(i mean she always looks like her mother they literally have the same face but whatever you know what i mean)

me on my deathbed: eLSA COuldN’T aCT oUt ICE

stray observations:

is Arendelle just a tourist town where one day the guy who owned the largest house was like “this is a KINGDOM NOW I’M THE KING” and the 50 other townies who lived there were just too polite to argue

i mean it’d explain why the queen, her heir, and the heir’s consort could just waltz out of there for a week long trip and leAVE THE TROLLS IN CHARGE

when they first started getting chummy with the Northuldrans i lost my god damn mind and was like “are they gonna give Kristoff a boyfriend and Anna a girlfriend what’s happening”

is it required that female Disney protagonists have to go to a blue tinted place to realize that the magic answer was in them all along now the same exact thing happened to Moana and Rey

Elsa’s ice creations are confirmed to fade away if she dies, which...is a confirmation we needed i guess

why didn’t Mattias and Yelana fall in love to make the Chosen One instead, they had chemistry

(i mean. i know why)

i hope Anna got to yell at Elsa for at least five minutes and maybe slug her for pulling that “i’m going to Mordor alone!!!” bullshit

for a second at the end i was like “are they gonna do the HTTYD thing where we flash forward to ten years later and Anna and Kristoff take their kids to visit Elsa IS KRISTOFF GONNA GROW A DAD BEARD” but no we just had lesbian wind and origami instead

whatever your take on the movie i think we can all agree that the scene where Olaf calls the Irish “a plague on this planet which is slowly rotting it down to the rind and which must be excised” was NOT okay

#'wow i wonder how many words this post is--actually maybe i don't wanna know'#frozen 2 #disney #helen writes meta

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shinneth · 5 years ago

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SUF as a whole just left me with an empty feeling.

I feel you there, anon. In Dreams aside, I could take or leave the rest of this series (and in most cases, leaning well towards the latter sentiment).

But I guess that’s to be expected when 90% of SUF focused squarely on Steven’s PTSD and need for therapy and the many, many red flags shown as early on as the beginning that signaled his eventual breakdown to where he ended up in the climax.

Especially with the fanbase itself constantly screeching that Steven needs therapy, Steven has PTSD, Steven’s gonna corrupt, et cetera… like, it was all laid on far too thick. So when we got to Growing Pains, it really didn’t move me like it did so many others because it came off as such a “No shit, Sherlock” moment for me when Priyanka finally addressed the underlying issues the show itself really didn’t even bother trying to be subtle about.

Don’t get me wrong; a lot of people who have suffered (or are presently suffering) from the same problems as Steven irl have been helped a lot by these kinds of episodes, and I do appreciate that.

But from my personal standpoint, yeah… I knew from the start that Steven’s underlying issues alone were not gonna be enough to sustain a full series, and sure enough, it wasn’t. We got to see some bits here and there with the other characters, but we also had a few choice characters be really shitty people in season 5 that never got properly addressed before it concluded, and with the timeskip in SUF, all of that just got handwaved off as “dealt with offscreen”, which is the laziest BS ever.

And worst of all, at the end, they really didn’t stick the landing well at all. I’ll at least say SUF’s resolution wasn’t the mega levels of offensively terrible as Change Your Mind - but then again, it’s hard to out-do giving totalitarian space dictators with countless lives lost under their watch a fucking FACE-TURN out of nowhere.

Like, really, the Diamonds’ presence (White especially) in SUF actively made my viewing experience even worse towards the end. Yes, I should be glad they’re establishing that the Diamonds are at least starting to use their powers for good and rebuild some of the lives they ruined.

But, y’know… doesn’t change the fact that they’re all responsible for multiple counts of global genocide. Like, any living creatures native to their colony planets? They’re still fucking gone. And the Diamonds themselves just come off VERY unnatural as “nice” guys - and in many cases, they’re even creepier now than they were as villains. Good god, White’s blubbering in the climax was fucking insufferable, though.

Partially I think this comes from SU being a “kids show” so there’s this pressing need to end things as cleanly as possible. I’m more miffed that in the end, Steven still got pretty much everything he wanted.

They had some admittedly good set-ups to Steven’s growth, like having him accept that people grow up, change, and move on with their lives. We see the clear evidence that Steven’s got an unhealthy clinginess towards his human friends - and Connie’s no exception.

And considering they took the time to establish that:

Connie has friends other than Steven. She gets along with them just fine, so it’s not like she’s totally lonely or isolated without him.

Connie is ambitious with many goals and aspirations when it comes to her education and potential career paths. She’s shown to have put a lot of thought into her options and at no point comes off as feeling pressured by her parents or friends into this.

Connie knows she has to work hard and often to achieve her dreams, and despite that rigid lifestyle, it doesn’t seem to bother her in the least. That would imply she really wants to reach these goals she set for herself, whether or not Steven’s in the picture at all.

Connie and Steven’s dynamic is a far cry from how it was when they started out in the original series. You can tell Steven has no clue what Connie’s talking about when it comes to her goals and just plays along, pretending he understands anything coming out of her mouth.

Connie, despite what her speech would lead you to believe, has been every bit as insufferably dense as the gems in SUF when it comes to Steven’s issues. In Bismuth Casual, Steven’s very specifically-worded concerns were misconstrued as a fear of skating (or his inability to, whatever) - and in the end, they just became Stevonnie rather than properly talked things through. You know, something PERIDOT 100% did in the prior episode.

Connie is very firm about wanting to live her life as herself. She’s not against being Stevonnie from time to time, but like hell does she want to be Stevonnie for the long term.

Connie knows marrying in general at her age is a stupid-stupid-stupid idea, even if it is Steven. And considering her well-established commitment to her studies and reaching her lofty goals, Connie - at least at the time - seemed to know a relationship with anyone just wasn’t in the cards for her at this point in her life. There’s no need to rush that shit, and she won’t compromise her life just to give her needy friend this thing he wants that he doesn’t even fully understand truly is.

Or, you know… just have Connie backpedal hard on a good chunk of that and date Steven so that he won’t become a monster again. I’m mostly kidding with that - but by kissing his monstrous self and that triggering his restoration, then soon later we see that even though Steven and Connie can only have a long-distance relationship at best, she’s dating him right now anyway even though this needlessly makes her life way more complicated than it needed to be - like seriously, how can I not take that as Canon Connverse being founded on the condition of “Okay, if it’ll keep you from losing your shit, going pink, and turning into a monster, I’ll date you”?!

And in the end it yet again gives Steven more-or-less exactly what he wants, even if it isn’t something he really needs.

I’m glad Rebecca clarified that Steven would still visit Beach City often, because I had a very hard time buying him just traveling by himself on the road. And maybe it would have worked better if he was just doing it short-term to “find himself” or something along those lines, but nope! They’re basically saying this is what Steven wants to do.

And honestly, even that is dampened with his clearly-stated intention of visiting Connie way more than he intends to visit the gems. Even though Connie’s gonna be busy. With college.

This just… wasn’t a good ending. It had plenty of good moments - his goodbye to Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot especially was very well-executed and the closest this finale came to drawing out any real emotion out of me. I loved the scene of Steven giving Greg his room; that was adorable. The last meeting with Tsundere Jasper was amusing.

But everything else… ehhh.

I mean, what can we really take from this season that I haven’t already outlined? The biggest takeaways were the plot points everyone saw coming a mile away that weren’t even executed all that well.

In Dreams, as great at is was, might as well have not even happened - because what really carried over from that episode through to the end? Even though Peridot was the only one who got through to Steven, legitimately comforted him and addressed his fears, and the episode for once ended with Steven being happy with no underlying concerns about his problems - immediately he’s back to being awkward and depressed and frustrated by Bismuth Casual.

And I get that shit like trauma shouldn’t be resolved so easily, but for what In Dreams accomplished, I expected there to at least be a semblance of progress. Steven’s known since that episode he can hang out with Peridot and talk to her about whatever without needing a reason to do it, but he never ever takes her up on that again.

So again, what was the point?

You really get the impression that the quality of writing took a backseat just to emphasize the symbolism of an issue people commonly have, but SUF’s execution stretched my suspension of disbelief far beyond its limits.

And nothing stretched that farther than Connie’s insufferable fucking speech in I Am My Monster; that pretty much completely made In Dreams feel like it never really happened in SUF’s continuity.

In some ways, I just prefer to believe In Dreams was just a dream itself. An AU offshoot in SUF itself. Considering it’s so ridiculously good compared to the other nineteen episodes and by far the most pure and wholesome, maybe that’s the best way to see it.

In Dreams was too good for its own series. That’s literally the only thing I personally took from SUF as a whole (at least in terms of lasting impact).

So yeah, I guess for only one episode of twenty to really hit me in the feels, “empty” is an apt way to describe the series, anon.

Seriously, if I didn’t have my own massive SU-AU to mess around in and do things properly, this probably would have upset me more.

Instead, I just chuckle at Rebecca’s Monster Steven and raise her to what I’m putting my version of Steven through in my current story. Where I’m pulling all the stops to make other characters matter even though the stars are undoubtedly Peridot and Steven.

And I’m actually making actions yield serious, lasting consequences.

(yeah, part of me wishes Jasper wasn’t revived - or alternatively, have Steven accidentally shatter White Diamond instead of Jasper since he came awfully close in canon

or even better, shatter Jasper and revive her, then accidentally shatter White and not be able to revive her since Steven used up ALL that diamond essence on Jasper…

yeah I’m kind of a monster)

Your pain is mutually felt, anon. So I’ll prescribe you endless refills of better-written and better-executed SU fanon to heal the emptiness SUF left inside you.

#answered asks #nice anons #steven universe future #suf finale #steven universe

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lyrebirdswrites · 5 years ago

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Haikyuu: Where To From Here?

Okay, so I’ve calmed down enough now to finally put together some coherent thoughts about chapter 369.

First of all: there’s no need to panic, or to jump to conclusions! At this point, we have very little information. Here are the only concrete, confirmed facts we know for certain are true about the twist at the end of the chapter:

- an unspecified number of years have passed (above is the official Shonen jump translation, fan translations state ‘several’ years have passed)

- the story will be focusing on Brazil for the foreseeable future

- the composition of the manga strip places emphasis on a young man riding a bike - he’s a character of importance.

That’s it. That’s the only information we have. We don’t know how long the story will spend in Brazil. We don’t know for sure if the guy on the bike is Hinata - the hair is different, he appears taller, and we definitely did not see his face - and furthermore we don’t know if any characters we’re already familiar with are in Brazil at all. Heck, we don’t even know if this bike riding guy plays volleyball!

(I think it’s safe to assume he does, considering the nature of this manga, but the point is, we are not operating on an abundance of information here. Nothing is confirmed.)

I understand why this might seem like the worst possible direction for the narrative to take, especially when it feels like it came out of nowhere. Haikyuu, at its heart, has always been a series about people. Watching them grow, watching them become stronger and more skilled, watching them learn to love and rely on each other. Seeing Karasuno face up to impossible odds and achieve victory is so gratifying only because they do it together, as a team. Seeing Karasuno confront defeat and mourn a loss is so fulfilling only because they refuse to let it hold them back, and because they support and inspire each other through the good times and the bad. For a series that relies so heavily on the bonds between characters, it is jarring to see the relationships which we’ve invested in jeapordised by such an abrupt change in location and time. It’s just like Kageyama said:

We all wanted to go further with Karasuno. But here’s the thing: at it’s heart, Haikyuu has always been a series about people. The people of Karasuno, in particular. And I highly doubt that Furudate is going to throw away all that character development that they carefully cultivated over years in order to follow the story of some strangers on the other side of the planet. It’s not consistent with the themes the narrative presented to us over almost 400 chapters, and it’s not consistent with the meticulous way in which Furudate has built up the trajectory of these characters.

So I would posit that it’s very unlikely we’ve seen the last of Karasuno. That’s why the third year’s graduation was rushed. That’s why we didn’t get a proper end to the spring tournament. That’s why it wasn’t necessary for Hinata to be present at the dinner and to hear the emotional speeches. And that’s why there are so many loose ends, like the extremely skilled players from Kageyama’s national camp that Karasuno never really interacted with, or the occasional mention of scouting for university and national teams. This was never intended to be a permanent goodbye, so there was no need to wrap everything up in a neat little bow and create the perfect nostalgic ending. Their story isn’t over yet!

Honestly, I don’t think this twist is a death scentence for the manga. In fact, I think it could be just what haikyuu needs to launch into something even greater than what we’ve seen so far. Think about it: the first chapter of Haikyuu was published in February 2012, and right now at the end of 2019, 7 years later, we’ve only just seen the end of hinata’s first ever spring tournament. At this rate, it would be decades before Hinata ever graduated high school. With a time skip, we don’t have to rehash the same tournaments and face off against the same teams over and over and over in real time. As much as I would love to see Hinata become a senpai and watch him develop into a formidable third year volleyball player, I think it would be really hard to keep the story from becoming stale or feeling derivative of itself if Furudate attempted to follow Hinata’s story in real time, tracking his development as he attends the same competitions and fights the same schools while each single match takes dozens upon dozens of chapters. Also, if we’re not following the day to day experiences of Hinata in high school, then there’s no need to push the third years who’ve just graduated out of the story. Not just for Karasuno, but for all the other teams we love. If the focus is no longer on high school volleyball, then the manga is much more free to continue including the third years or even to have them play on the same team as our favourite first years. Olympics, anyone? There are so many exciting directions the story could take from here, and I can’t wait to see it.

So if their story isn’t over, then... what the heck is happening now? Like I said, we really have no idea what could happen next because there are so few details to work off of. The next few chapters should give us a clearer idea, if we can be patient enough to wait for them. But looking back through the manga can give us a few clues too. There are already some posts pointing this out, but it’s clear that Furudate has been planning this a long time based on forshadowing within the manga itself:

There’s Brazil, right there! In reference to people who are going to meet and change the world. Or more specifically, members of a volleyball team who meet, and push each other to greater heights, and eventually challenge the national (international? world?) stage. While Karasuno have been getting stronger, the narrative is pretty explicitly hinting that another team in Brazil is doing the same thing. I think we’re about to meet them.

At first I was worried we’d never see Karasuno or the Japanese volleyball players again, or at least not for a long time. But right from the start, Furudate told us they were never planning to confine these characters to high school or even to Japan.

Here, Kageyama asks Hinata to keep up with him not just in high school, but in the long term. To play with him not just at the Spring Interhigh, but beyond the very best of the national level and on a worldwide stage. Their partnership and rivalry was the foundation of this story from chapter 1, and the manga won’t end until they either face off against one another and prove who is the better player in an official world tournament - or until they become world champions on the same team. That was the premise set out at the start of the manga, and that’s the promise which needs to be fulfilled for it to end. Taking into account all the character development Hinata and Kageyama have experienced in order to become an amazing duo instead of eternal rivals, I’d say the second option is the most likely. They’ve come a long way from those first few panels, and Kageyama admitting he wanted to go even further with Karasuno proves he’s long past the be-the-best do-it-alone mindset which triggered this scene.

(it’s possible that the bike riding guy is Hinata on the Brazil team, and that Kageyama will be his ultimate opponent. But I don’t see why the bike rider guy’s face would be hidden if that was the big twist. Showing Hinata in Brazil has more shock value than showing a stranger in Brazil, and imo 369 was definitely attempting to shock! I think Hinata and Kageyama are more of a team now than they’ve ever been, and it seems unlikely that the narrative will backtrack and make them rivals again without another round of long-term character development in that direction. It wouldn’t all be hidden in a timeskip and a flashback or two.)

If Kageyama, Hinata, and other beloved characters are playing on the world stage, they need teams to play against. Haikyuu has always been known for having highly developed rivals - you can’t help but empathise with and cheer on the other team, every time. So what we’re seeing here isn’t the end of Karasuno, but rather the introduction of Hinata and Kageyama’s new competition. We’re gonna be reading about international volleyball tournaments between countries, and no team is going to be one-dimensional, nor are they going to exist only within the competition arena. It looks like we’re going to be spending a lot of time with these rival teams, or at the very least with the Brazil team. More time than we spent with Nekoma or Fukurodani. We’re gonna watch them grow and learn to rely on each other the same way we did with Karasuno, the same way we fell in love with all the high school teams - and then, we’ll watch them go head to head in a competition more epic than anything we’ve seen in Haikyuu to date.

Of course, that’s just speculation. I could be totally wrong. But at the end of the day, I trust Furudate to write a good story. For seven years they’ve composed Haikyuu, a manga that has made me laugh, made me cry, and has taught me some pretty valuable lessons about facing adversity and dealing with defeat. It’s been with me throughout my own high school years and beyond, even as I’ve grown and changed as a person, and never once has the story genuinely let me down. I have absolute faith that whatever comes next will be just as good, so long as we approach it with an open heart.

#hq!#haikyuu #haikyuu 369 #haikyuu spoilers #hinata shouyou #kageyama tobio #karasuno

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improbablecarny · 5 years ago

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Okay so here’s my Netflix Witcher Season 2 Predictions & Speculations

Don’t place any bets on these these. I’m rambling and asking questions more than answering them. But that’s the fun part, anyway.

Putting these behind a cut because of spoiler potential and because I don’t want to subject your eyes to my rambling any more than necessary

What we know:

Season 2 will have a more linear timeline

Eight episodes, again

It will cover content from Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, The Last Wish and maybe Sword of Destiny?

There are four major threads to the plot of the books, here.

Who is Rience? Who is he working for?

What is going on with the Brotherhood?

What's Nilfgaard up to and how are the other kingdoms feeling about that whole thing?

What is Ciri’s deal and how does she fit into all of the above?

What the S2 opener will be, I’m not sure, but I have two ideas, with caveats:

Yen saves Jaskier from Rience. It’s a strong scene and sets up a lot of the season’s intrigue right away - the issue is that it skips over the aftermath of Sodden Hill, and I feel like we’re going to spend a bit more time with Yen before she gets back to the point where she’s stabbing dudes and saving bards.

Geralt visits Codringher and Fenn. I know, that scene is jumping WAY ahead, and by this point in the books Geralt has already encountered Rience -- however, I think it may work to establish C&F earlier, and have Geralt immediately employing them to spread misinfo about Ciri’s “death”. I think we could still set up Rience a little here -- ask if the name means anything to him, it doesn’t, they don’t know much either but they’ve Heard Rumours, etc. Also honestly I just REALLY love the atmosphere of that scene and think it would be a very eye-catching, moody opener.

In fact, both of these could conceivably happen in the same episode. The tricky part for me is not knowing how much of a timeskip they’ll add between seasons and how they’re going to handle Yen’s reappearance. Is she going to wake up in an infirmary somewhere and get an immediate exposition dump from Tissaia? Is she going to spend some time wandering through an interdimensional hell zone? Are we going to see that all in the present or will it be done through flashback?

How Season 2 will end, though, I have a much better sense of: all four major plotlines converge when it’s revealed that Vilgefortz is pulling the strings and Aretuza goes bananas in a strikingly obvious Season Finale sort of way. We get a lovely cliffhanger where Vilgefortz kicks Geralt’s ass before Triss saves him by shoving him through a portal, Ciri kicks Cahir’s ass and jumps through a shittier portal, Yen disappears again, and Jaskier is forced to leave on his own, again. I love pain and being in it! Of course the finer details there are all subject to change but the big picture climax is that Vilgefortz is naughty and oops, war.

So that’s the bread, where’s the rest of the sandwich?

With news that Nivellen and Vereena have been cast, we know we’re getting an adaptation A Grain of Truth from The Last Wish. I suspect Geralt and Ciri will be stumbling upon that spooky mansion on the way to Kaer Morhen, but that’s about as far as I can think on that one. But will any of the other shorts pop up?

A Shard of Ice and Sword of Destiny have been essentially nullified by choices made by the show so far, so I think they’re safely out of the game (though A Shard of Ice sets up the Wild Hunt so presumably that will still need to be worked in somewhere)

I would LOVE to see Eternal Flame adapted because it is my exact sense of humour, and A Little Sacrifice has a great mood and freaky fish people. Both of them would be very interesting places to deal with Geralt and Jaskier’s spat -- a conflict not present in the books, but its presence in the show casts some of the events of the book in an interesting light. The primary issue I’m having is trying to figure out how to get them to fit into the timeline/trajectory of the ongoing plot (and my secondary issue is that the stuff with Essa was weird as hell, though I think it could be smoothed over).

Speaking of Jaskier, I’m quite interested in where they’re going to take his character, since the books (up to this point) didn’t really give him much of an arc, but Lauren Hissrich has noted that we’ll see more of his serious side and his struggle with what he really wants. To me, that sounds suggestive of giving him more of a role in the espionage story, and through that, better establishing his fear and guilt over his perceived inability to adequately help Geralt and Ciri without putting them in jeopardy, all while still dealing with their falling out. He’s loyal, but he’s hurt, and he’s in a precarious position that he doesn’t really know how to handle.

The introduction of the falling out sets this storyline up into three nice beats. The first one was in the infamous episode 6, where Geralt tells him to hit the road, breaking hearts around the world. Jumping into the books, the second beat would be during the mage mash, where Geralt once again demands that Jaskier leaves -- this time, though, for his own safety. And then we get the third beat, in Brokilon forest (hopeful button for the end of S2 or moody opener to S3? Both work imo), when Geralt tries to get Jaskier to leave Brokilon, and Jaskier puts his foot down and says no. That seems like a place to aim for, and once again, make everyone cry.

The aforementioned shorts would be a great place to let that arc marinate, though the exact details are still something I’m mulling over. (Honestly I really just want big city shapeshifter shenanigans because LISTEN... listen. It’s good) More importantly, though... what kinda music is he gonna bring us next season?

Yen’s plotline is running through muddier waters for me on account of the books rarely dipping into her perspective, but she’ll no doubt be involved in trying to suss out what’s going on with the mages. She allegedly has a scene with Francesca somewhere, and Istredd and Stregobor are returning (despite being absent at this point in the books) so presumably they will also cause problems. There are a lot of different directions they can go with her here, as I touched on briefly earlier wrt the fallout from Sodden Hill, but a lot of it might have to be spun wholecloth in a way I’m not so sure I can make any truly educated assumptions about. How is Geralt going to find out she’s still alive? How is he going to re-initiate contact with her? We’ll surely get some ripe emotional conflict as her, Triss, Sabrina and Tissaia deal with the conspiracy in very different ways. Too many viable answers and none that I’m going to place any bets on but am still, of course, excited for.

Cahir is another complete wildcard for me. I haven’t seen enough of him in the books thus far to make super accurate predictions but “gets horsejacked and ass-kicked by Ciri and then yelled at by Geralt until he faints” is quite a ways away from “slaughters an entire tavern in a fit of paranoid rage” (I get the impression Show!Cahir is also much older than his book counterpart). I can’t imagine it’d make much sense in the long run for them to have actually combined he and Rience’s characters, but I almost wonder if that’s what’s going on. Presumably, Fringilla will play a part in whatever he’s up to.

The Temple is in an odd place. No mention or setup of it so far so I wonder if it’s been excised entirely for streamlining purposes. Ciri goes from studying the blade in Kaer Morhen to studying magic in Aretuza without the complication of a third location (also for magic study) in between?

Yarpen’s return more or less also confirms that the subplot with the dummy cargo from Blood of Elves will occur in some form or another, likely as a means of establishing the Squirrels.

And here’s some incomplete and assorted tentpole book scenes (that I haven’t already addressed) that we’ll likely get in some form:

Several Ciri training montages (insert Jaskier cover of Eye of the Tiger here)

Ciri parent trapping Geralt and Yennefer

Geralt vs the river monster vs Rience’s dudes

Geralt and Philippa vs Rience and more of his dudes

Basically any of the points where Ciri goes into a trance, plus the incident with the wyvern

Introductions for Emhyr, Dijkstra, and Philippa

It goes without saying but a lot of forethought has been put into the Netflix adaptation, despite some fanboy bellyaching. There were many points where, reading the books, I found myself reacting emotionally based on things that had only been set up in the show -- from Ciri and Yen’s relationship and their approach to magic, to Geralt and Jaskier’s reconciliation, to Vilgefortz’s turn, most of the changes made by the show are really there to further reinforce events from the books. And boy, are there events to be had.

In conclusion,

#the witcher #witcherposting #thoughts welcome

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i-just-like-commenting · 5 years ago

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The Witcher review

When I first read critics’ reviews of this show, they seemed to fall into two camps: non-fantasy fans who dismissed it as nonsense, and fantasy fans who said it got good but took a while to get there. Knowing I was a fantasy fan, I figured I might be in the latter camp, and started watching it. Casually at first, one episode a day, taking a break for Christmas…and then about halfway through I was hooked and marathoned the rest of the series. I genuinely liked this series…but it has problems, and I can see why it lost a lot of non-fantasy fans from the outset. Let’s get the bad out of the way first so I can gush about the good.

Barriers of Entry

Most TV viewers are not fantasy readers. Those of us who are may regret that, but it’s not a genre that everyone gets into, and it has its own storytelling quirks that can be off-putting to newcomers. This is why, for all that it failed in later seasons, Game of Thrones did well for general viewers in its early seasons. The small bit of fantasy hinted at isn’t all that different from the zombie films people are used to, and the rest feels mostly like period piece drama. Magic only gets introduced gradually, with an explanation of what it is and how it works as it’s introduced. Also, there’s a map.

The Witcher doesn’t have any of that scaffolding. It is full high fantasy, magic-heavy, thick in world-building from the very instant it opens. It explains very little about anything; by the end of season 1 I don’t know what Cirilla’s powers are, how Witchers are made, or what the Conjunction of the Spheres is that gets repeatedly mentioned. Now, as a fantasy reader I’m used to this; ideas and supernatural mysteries get introduced and not explained until later because the characters in-universe understand the and don’t need an explanation. All I need to know is that Cirilla has some dangerous power that Nilfgaard wants, that Witchers are made and not born, and that the Conjunction is an important thing that happened in the past that may be relevant in the future. Presumably all will be made clear in time.

But I really would’ve liked a map. Up until the penultimate episode we’ve no idea of what this place looks like, how everything is connected to each other. It makes the stakes of Nilfgaard’s invasion harder to fathom. How big are they as a kingdom? How at risk are the Northern Kingdoms? How many Northern Kingdoms are there? A few map shots in the first episode as Calanthe prepares for war, a few more as the series progresses, all of that would have helped situate the story and have it feel more grounded spatially.

As for temporally…

Timeline Shenanigans

I have no problem with this series choosing to have three different timelines for its three different characters that don’t meet up in the “present” until the final episode. Certainly there have been excellent series that have done this in the past (N.K. Jemisin’s Fifth Season comes to mind). But time stamps would’ve been really nice. Let the first episode play out as it does, but when we jump back to Ciri for the last time, have a heading that says “30 years later,” confirming to the audience what they suspect from some throwaway lines about Calanthe, that this is taking place much earlier than Ciri’s scenes. Do the same when Yennefer is introduced, keep updating how far along we are with Geralt’s story, not just to clarify the timeline but to also build suspense as the viewers realize that the plotlines are catching up to each other.

However that wouldn’t fix all the problems inherent to the time-jumping. Between episodes 5 and 6 we find out, for example, that Yennefer and Geralt have met several times already and are pretty heavily involved with each other. It works well enough because the actors are very good, but it’s a bit “oh, really?” when you find that out.

Likewise, I have no idea how long Jaskier has been around having an obvious crush on annoying Geralt; is it months? Years? I think it’s years, because that’s the same time frame for Geralt and Yennefer’s hookups, but maybe it wasn’t that long? And how long did Yennefer’s education take? When did her immortality kick in? How much time passed between Geralt and Yennefer breaking up and Geralt deciding to seek out Ciri? Was it right before? Years later? How old is Jaskier supposed to be at this point? Was Yennefer’s joke about crow lines an indication he’s approaching middle age? Time stamps!

This show is really lucky it had as good a cast as it did to carry it through these narrative issues.

Special Effects

The elves, hedgehog people, and fauns all look…bad. Like, almost Halloween costume bad. Don’t know what else to say. The other effects were really good, so they stuck out.

But now let’s talk about how this series rocked:

Have I mentioned this cast is fantastic?

So my interest in Henry Cavill may have been less than high-minded, but he is in fact absolutely fantastic in this. The show also walks that fine line with “jerk with a heart of gold” characters where it explains their dickishness without excusing it. We understand that with the life he’s led and the discrimination he’s faced why Geralt is cold and aloof, but we also see how being that way destroys his relationships with people he cares for, especially in episode 6. And Cavill manages to convey perfectly how, at the moment he sees Ciri, Geralt realizes that his whole life has been leading up to him taking on this role as protector and guardian. He needs someone to need him, even if that terrifies him.

And then there’s Anya Chalotra as Yennefer who you might call a deuteragonist since she doesn’t show up until the second episode and isn’t the title character, but honestly the show is as much about her as it is about Geralt. You start with her as an abused child with a spinal deformity who thinks she’s unimportant and worthless. You have her trying to conform herself to the purposes others give her, literally changing her body to meet their expectations, failing, flailing about trying to find a purpose, and then in the final episode landing on the grim realization that she is the only one who can protect all the Northern Kingdoms. It’s an excellent arc, even with the timeskips sometimes making it not as smooth a one as it might have been. Again we have Anya Chalotra to thank for making it work in spite of the narrative missteps.

Even Freya Allen, though she doesn’t get much to do plotwise, does a great job portraying the internality of Ciri’s journey this season, as she slowly realizes her beloved grandmother may have, in fact, been terrible – but that this doesn’t justify what was done to them.

Relationships you can root for

Two broken and emotionally distant people learning to break down their barriers and be vulnerable to each other? Sign me up, nothing is hotter. I really like Geralt and Yennefer, and I honestly hope they find common purpose together next season and realize that, wish or no wish, they’re good for each other and should try to work it out.

But Jaskier and Geralt’s relationship is honestly great, too. While I don’t think they’re sexually interested in each other and therefore this counts more as a “bromance,” I also hate the term “bromance” and prefer to just say that their unacknowledged but obvious affection for each other is charming. I’m guessing Jaskier will come back later? Maybe he was just in the short stories they use here, but that would be a shame.

The soundtrack “slaps” – that’s the term young people are using, right?

While “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” is attaining meme status and so many Youtube listens that it threatens to break into Billboard’s charts, let’s not forget how all the music in this series is so good. Like, literally, even if you can’t get into the show at all because of its other problems, check out this score, it’s amazing. It is incredibly frustrating that it’s not up on Spotify yet, though a few tracks are available on Youtube.

Its total embrace of being a fantasy series

And here we come back round to the beginning of my review. While Game of Thrones did well in its early seasons by easing its audience into its fantasy setting, as seasons went on it seemed progressively more and more embarrassed that it had to be a fantasy story. The Stark children’s warg powers are forgotten, prophecies are removed, the House of the Undying is reduced to like one room, bye-bye krakens and any kind of water magic, Euron’s just a pirate now, and who is this Lady Stoneheart you speak of? They even dispensed with the big final threat of the White Walkers as quickly and unceremoniously as possible, just so they could get back to the politics.

The Witcher, on the other hand, is a fantasy series from its first frame to its last and loves it. There’s monsters and magic everywhere, Destiny sets everything up to follow fairy tale rules, and humans share the world with multiple other sentient species. It does not apologize for this, and it has a very lived-in feel to it that many magic-heavy universes fail to achieve. You believe that this is a world where the supernatural is natural, where people have seen and lived alongside magic their whole lives. We see how magic is integrated into combat, healing, and politics, and it’s all believable in spite of how unbelievable it is. It makes it refreshingly fun and escapist without feeling completely divorced from reality.

So overall, I recommend the series while really wishing they’d structured it more clearly and accessibly. And had better makeup effects because ugh.

#the witcher #review

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