#initially her role in the narrative was to *die* lol

[gailynovelry]

Re-reading Heralds of Rhimn to bolster myself into working on Starlit Prince again (always works), and I just involuntarily let out a raspy little "hiiiii" when Atevia first showed up in the narrative, gods damnit.

[zoe-oneesama]

I wonder if maybe Emilie's "main character syndrome" made her think nothing bad would happen to her from using the Peacock Miraculous because she thought she'd have plot armour, like "Well, it's never going to happen to me!" And maybe she didn't just use the Butterfly Miraculous instead because it's for giving powers to other people and not yourself (unless you exploit loopholes like Gabriel did).

Initially, but when The Signs started happening, SL Emilie accepted her new role: Tragic Heroine. What misfortune that she has to die, that her husband and son and totally not girlfriend have to mourn her for the rest of their lives, what an unavoidable series of circumstances that have led her to haunt the narrative forever. Who'd have thought that this story was a bittersweet poetic tragedy?

lol the idea of people Moving On never crossed her mind.

[oodlyenough]

more arcane s2 thoughts in no particular order. this is pretty negative. woops

Cait, Vi, Caitvi

despite being what initially got me watching to begin with caitvi just never ended up being my primary interest with this show, so going into s2 it wasn't like I had very well formulated expectations or hopes. I think if I had I would maybe feel disappointed? They had some nice moments, they got the kiss and the sex scene, they're clearly endgame, etc, and that's nice, but it also felt like their relationship was so ... never really the star of the show or focus of the story to the extent I expected it to be. Did they even get a big fight-together battle-couple moment in the last ep, I don't think so? I didn't find the resolution to their Act 1 breakup especially good, I think Caitlyn owed Vi an apology and Vi deserved to be angry for longer than ten seconds.

I generally feel across both seasons that Vi's pain and trauma is rarely given as much weight as other characters', I was pretty underwhelmed by Caitlyn's dictator arc after being extremely interested in it at the end of act 1...

I dunno. I hope their stans liked it and are satisfied getting to see them kiss and have sex and be together and I wouldn't downplay the significance of The Couple in Arcane being a lesbian couple. But I wasn't personally very compelled or moved by it.

Jinx

Like the above I'm not a Jinx academic by any means but I think if I were I would be frustrated by how cyclical her arc was in season 2. And no, having Silco show up to be like "it's a cycle" doesn't really justify the narrative interludes. Isha is a hard sell of a character for me because I don't ... generally want little kid characters around ... and I found Jinx (basically) looking straight into the camera to say "gee you are just like me, Powder, when I was a little kid, which reminds me of being Powder, is this how Silco felt, is this how Vi felt" to be hamfisted. But some of the scenes with the two of 'em and Sevika were cute ... only for Isha to die and Jinx to be depressed, again, and then come through the other side, again, and then "die", again. Like if we wanted to deal with depressed Jinx we started off s2 that way...

I've seen other posts by Jinx fans that articulate much better the ways in which she goes from the driving plot force in s1 and main autonomous actor to just kind of being wafted around by plot in season 2 so I won't repeat them. But I think they are right. I also question the way her mental illness was portrayed -- or rather wasn't... -- in season 2. Powder in the AU showing no sign of illness (despite baby Powder in the main timeline already having some of that going on, pre-Vander death)... I mean, sure, she's got a support system etc in that world, and one can argue we don't spend enough time with AU Powder to necessarily see it, but combined with the Isha stuff it just kind of felt like a weird message.

Sevika

I love Sevika, one of my faves from s1. I was so excited she seemed to get a bigger role in act 1 and then in the first ep of act 2. And then she never spoke again. What the hell man... like damn... really?????!? Not a WORD in act 3? I'm sure this was some of the stuff they trimmed to get that finale down to 50 minutes but god that sucks, so much, in ways a wordless shot of her in the council chamber can't really resolve. Which leads me to

Piltover-Zaun

I have to admit I don't think the class politics in s1 are as good as they were reported to be, so I didn't have high hopes, but MAN is Piltover going "hey we need cannon fodder <3 thanks" not... a reasonable resolution... especially after an indeterminate time of Piltover being EVEN MORE oppressive with Caitlyn enforcing martial law. It was sooooooooo ridiculous. Also, lol @ the show acting like hextech is solely responsible for the suffering of the undercity. If only Vi, Jayce and Viktor weren't around we'd have a equitable utopia. Sure Jan.

Sky

One of the most offensively written female characters I've seen in recent media. A spectacular, zero-effort failure from the writers. What a horrible decision to write this poor girl, a Black woman no less, and give her absolutely no characterization outside of an unrequited crush on a gay white man. In season 1 I could forgive most of it because a show like Arcane needs redshirts and it's just unfortunate they made this particular redshirt a young Black woman. There are so many other complex and developed women in the show, I thought, they can afford to have some minor ones who aren't.

But oh my god season 2. The ghost hallucination which they never even clarify as being "really" Sky or just being the Hexcore or just being his own imagination of guilt because neither the show nor Viktor give enough of a fuck to explain fhglakhdglh. Even posthumously she barely has any dialogue except to reference off-screen conversations with Viktor we never see them have and then die again. "No you won't" ?????? It is ridiculous that they wrote this.

[ananke-xiii]

More on the power of resurrection as the "apple of discord": Chuck vs Billie.

In Chuck's mind Death is not a problem because he controls space and time... he's actually right. I mean, he's definitely shitting his pants at this point but he has never respected Death enough to be worried about her (and his narrative shows just that since Death dies four times in SPN lol).

Chuck manipulates space and time and he's clearly pro resurrection. In his world people can resurrect either through demon deals or magic. Or if he says so, obvs. There always seems to be a price to pay for this, though, because Chuck is obviously the type of god that likes human suffering "for the plot".

Amara in all her "evillness" has a different point of view on the matter, for her resurrection is a gift. Which is still problematic ("what you are regarding as a gift is a problem for you to solve") but offers a new perspective: no deal, no magic, you need it? You get it.

Then there's Jack whose command of the power is still wobbly but shows all the potential to disrupt Chuck's narrative. His take on resurrection is closer to Amara: he doesn't know it but it's his desire to see Dean getting what he wants that sparkled life back into Castiel. You want it? You get it. Dangerous.

Billie, on the other hand, is NOT part of Chuck's family, so to speak. She's very ambivalent about rules: she doesn't like it when others bend them but she really enjoys being the one who bends them. Her initial affiliation and perhaps romantic connection with Crowley while many reapers "sided" with Castiel in s9 tells us that she has her own specific ideas about basically everything.

When she becomes Death, she doesn't want humans performing resurrection spells because she wants to be the one who decides who lives and who dies, thus taking on a role that is not hers to take.

S14 shows us her hypocrisy brillantly: Dean wants to die but she says that he will live; Rowena wants Crowley back (to which she should have, perhaps, been amenable as per above) but she says NO. She hides herself behind the "death books" or whatever they're called and the "natural order" for whatever it means in SPN but Rowena calls her out: it isn't fair.

And she's right. Billie ignores Rowena, doesn't care about reapers dying (she even kills one herself) and only shows up because Rowena held Sam hostage and planned on killing him.

What Billie wants, though, is very much in tune with her role as Death: she wants things "as they were", heaven and hell, humans back on the "normal" timeline, "everything in its place and a place for everything" type of mentality. She wants something she can't have in a world where God, who controls time and space, keeps changing the plot.

A mentality that clearly contrasts with her s11 rebellious streak where she would have loved to toss a Winchester into the Empty, reap God and ultimately fucking harvest the Veil for souls! THAT girl had 99 problems but being conservative was not one of them.

So why does she change? Well, becoming Death would do that to a girl but I don't think that's it. I think she kinda likes it, to be honest.

No, my conclusion is based on what she can't stop repeating at least once per season: Castiel stabbed her in the back. Billie is holding a massive grudge that she very wrongly takes on Dean. Well, maybe not so "wrongly" per se since we know why Cas acts like he does, but when she blames Dean for being chaos incarnate and a disruptor of order she's sooo off target.

If there is one character who wants order and "everything in its place and a place for everything" is Dean Winchester.

No, there is one disruptor in SPN and it's Castiel. And HE stabbed her in the back.

And his resurrection (via Jack) is what should have tipped Chuck off (as I've been trying to demonstrate with all these yappings about cas and resurrection).

Basically Chuck's mortal enemy is Jack who bestows or revokes resurrections as he pleases. But he doesn't see him. Billie's mortal enemy is Castiel, creator of cosmic consequences that dismantle the coveted "balance". And she doesn't see him. Like snakes in the grass.

[zalrb]

Hey! so what did you think about Claire on the bear? I've seen some people call her a mary sue, a mpdg, a pick me which feels a bit much to me lol. I generally agree w people who say that she wasn't fleshed out and felt out of place bc of how carmy viewed her. My only thing is she never felt like an ER Doctor. Her career was supposed to be equally demanding so it should've affected their relationship in some small way at least but she kinda just seemed available for him at any given moment.

One of them I can see an argument for, the other two no. So before I get into the one I can see an argument for, I really need people to understand that these terms actually mean something. They're not blanket descriptors for female characters who annoy you and while we're at it, just for initiumseries, I'm going to add for the record that there aren't male versions of pick mes and manic pixie dream girls because these stock characters (or in the case of a pick me, viewpoints,) are rooted in misogyny

A Pick Me is specific

A Mary Sue is specific

Mary Sue stories—the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm-wrestling [...] She saves the day by her wit and ability, and, if we are lucky, has the good grace to die at the end [...]

Like even Nathan Rabin who coined the term MPDG apologized for doing so because it keeps being misused:

I feel deeply weird, if not downright ashamed, at having created a cliché that has been trotted out again and again in an infinite Internet feedback loop. I understand how someone could read the A.V. Club list of Manic Pixie Dream Girls and be offended by the assertion that a character they deeply love and have an enduring affection for, whether it’s Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall or Katharine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby,” is nothing more than a representation of a sexist trope or some sad dude’s regressive fantasy.

It doesn't make sense that a character as nuanced and unforgettable as Annie Hall could exist solely to cheer up Alvy Singer. As Kazan has noted, Allen based a lot of Annie Hall on Diane Keaton, who, as far as I know, is a real person and not a ridiculous male fantasy.

From what I can recall, nothing about Claire is "Pick-Meish" or "Mary Sueish", she explains that when they were kids and a girl broke her arm, everyone was freaked out except for her because she wanted to understand the injury, that is not Pick Me-ish.

This is Claire

not this

The fact that she has six months left on her residency doesn't make her a Mary Sue.

Now with regards to being an MPDG, these are the characteristics of one:

That day in 2007, I remember watching "Elizabethtown" and being distracted by the preposterousness of its heroine, Claire. Dunst's psychotically bubbly stewardess seemed to belong in some magical, otherworldly realm -- hence the "pixie" -- offering up her phone number to strangers and drawing whimsical maps to help her man find his way. And as Dunst cavorted across the screen, I thought also of Natalie Portman in "Garden State," a similarly carefree nymphet who is the accessory to Zach Braff's character development. It's an archetype, I realized, that taps into a particular male fantasy: of being saved from depression and ennui by a fantasy woman who sweeps in like a glittery breeze to save you from yourself, then disappears once her work is done.

She isn't quite the "pixie" part of the trope, I don't think she's whimsical enough for that, instead I would say she's the "insufferable female lead in an indie" trope (love this!)

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because she does kind of just appear or sweep in to Carmy's life and has this history with him

and instead of giving Carmy her number, she asks for his, therefore the narrative places the onus of initial pursuit on her

she's been carrying this torch for him since they were kids

and her role is to be someone in his life that makes him feel good, that takes his feelings into consideration,

that gives him peace

that urges him out of his shell

that shows him another way he can be and feel outside of the restaurant

while we basically know nothing about her outside of that role.

What makes this iteration more complex than others is not Claire, it's not that she's a fully fleshed out character and we see more than a glimpse of her life and it's not that we get to know about her personally because we don't really, what we get is this

which just goes back round to Carmy and his complicated relationship with food and cooking anyway

the subversion lies with Carmy and how he needs to heal and still has a lot of unprocessed trauma that doesn't go away because Claire entered his life, the show shits all over the typical outcome of the MPDG coming into the male protagonist's life and making it all better.

I'm not saying that they did that purposefully as in they're trying to say something about MPDG, like I don't think the show purposefully framed her as one or views her as one, I think they just wanted to show how deep-rooted generational trauma is and how it presents itself and how it affects your current relationships and it ended up being subverting an MPDG-esque trope for the male protagonist.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, I haven't slept and it's like 5 AM lmao.

[scienter]

I didn't think that my excitement for Wind and Truth could be any higher, but Chapters 5 & 6 raised it quite a bit. It also put me at ease (for now).

Who the fuck is the author of Knights of Wind and Truth? I initially thought it was either Szeth or Kaladin but the chapter 5 & 6 epigraphs pretty much ruled that out. At this point, I have no idea who's writing it.

Chapter 5:

“It was the day when a set of parents had, for the first time, wanted her.”

🥹 Aww. I sometimes forget that the Kholins are Shallan's in-laws. lol

Shallan can glimpse into the Spiritual realm? Hmm. Interesting. I wonder if this power is limited to her/Lightweavers or if it's something other radiant orders (e.g., Bondsmiths) can do too . . .

Chapter 6:

“Wearing a Kholin blue uniform with his glyphs on the back: the tower and the crown.”

Like everyone else, I immediately thought of “He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear!” death rattle from the Way of Kings. Because other than foreshadowing, why would Brandon bring up such a random object/moment from the first book? It must be significant, right?

A moment later . . .

Dalinar held out the sheet to Kaladin. “I will not force this upon you, Kaladin. But I will ask, because I must. Will you be our heir?”

More evidence that the death rattle theory is correct!! 😁

I've wanted the death rattle theory to be true because (1) it fits Kaladin's narrative arc, (2) this plot will challenge Kaladin beyond the battlefield, and (3) it could mean that Kaladin survives Wind and Truth.

I am so down for this development. I hope Kaladin accepts this because it'll take his character in a new direction, which I think he needs at this point. After five books, I think it's time for Kaladin be something other than a soldier. He needs new challenges and a new role. I am excited for Therapist-King Kaladin to take center stage.

Of course, this raises the question of wtf would happen to Dalinar and Navani? I've always thought that Dalinar will lose the contest of Champions and Wind and Truth will have a dark cliffhanger much like The Empire Strikes Back. The protagonists aren't going to succeed/defeat the villain five books into a ten-book series. I think it's reasonable to conclude that Dalinar will lose and become a fused. I don't think Navani will die either because she's the one reasonable for Towerlight working in Urithiru. I think Navani will be so overcome with grief that she'll forfeit her claim to the crown and let Kaladin lead.

Nonetheless, I do think someone or multiple characters will die by the end of this book. There are too many death flags in these early chapters. I don't know who though. This chapter gives me hope that it's not Kaladin though. 🥺

I know there's more going on in this chapter (Szeth & Syl), but I'm still processing Dalinar asking Kaladin to be his heir. It's huge. And I've wanted it for a long time.

Oh, I almost forgot! Someone on Reddit pointed out that Kaladin's chapter icon is a spear with the Kholin banner (source). So Kaladin's chapter icon is a literally picture of a tower, a crown, and a spear! More evidence that the Kaladin death rattle theory is correct! 😊

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

BFCD Reviews by Nesha: Skin of the Sea

Usually, I don’t do these for books, because I generally liveblog a book while I’m listening to it, but with Skin of the Sea, much like with Wings of Ebony, I wasn’t really able to do it that way. I started, but eventually couldn’t post my thoughts in the process. For one thing, I couldn’t figure out if I was enjoying the story, and for another thing, there was heavy content material that I had to try to prepare myself to sort through.

Now that the book is behind me, I think I will process everything I remember from it. Spoilers ahead, so only read if you’ve read the book or don’t care about spoilers. Also highly recommended that if you don’t know me or don’t like me not to read, because all of this is just my opinion and only like... loved ones care about that and know how I am.

This book had so much that I loved so deeply, but I didn’t love this book. I loved the world building and I love stories with Orishas. I appreciated all of the African lore and African history in the story and I’m overall grateful for having heard this story because, its like she hoped for in her afterthoughts - I want to learn more about all the things that were written about.

As for the story itself, while well-written, STILL wasn’t written for me, and it had less to do with the structure or style and more to do with the emotional area. I don’t like for a story to make me this sad, and it did. It regularly and almost the entire way through made me sad. I don’t like that. I got depression. Lol. I don’t need more to upset me.

Like, I detached myself from slave narratives years ago, and a lot of the fantasy books by Black authors still at least touch on it, because it was such a portion of our history that it still affects us and for me... that is more than enough. This story was set around the time when they started snatching up the ancestors, and while the story wasn’t ABOUT that, there was enough focus on it at the beginning to start me off on the wrong foot. So, I had a rough and slow start, because I had to keep preparing myself to try.

Then, the pacing was slow in parts and while Simidele is SUCH a relatable and (to me) a likable character, it felt like at no point in the story did she have some type of light. Everything that she was doing was setting her up for this huge sacrifice and sacrifice makes me sad. I don’t want to see Black girls, human nor mermaid sacrifice anything at all, ever. But, if I gotta, I at least want them to gain something for self. 

For even the world, Idc idc... I don’t want Black girls saving everything. BUT - IF IF HAVE TO, because, I AM reading a story with a Black female protagonist, like... GIVE her something for herself. 

Certainly, I know that it isn’t the ending of The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid was the first fairy tale to ever make me depressed, so I get it, that it is a reimagining of that story and so the Black girl wasn’t going to have a happy ending. I just felt so beaten down already by all of the hardships of the journey and her having like... not even a little bit of joy, unless you count the pining for somebody she knew she couldn’t have as a positive (I don’t). And the fact that it’s much longer than the original The Little Mermaid makes it more hurtful. 

I’m not even huge on romantic love for a story. It wasn’t because she didn’t get her romance. That don’t hardly matter to me at any rate, and the overall story was SO MUCH MORE important than some dude, which... I know there’s a lot of cute lil’ interpretations of The Little Mermaid that try to reinvent her to be this role model who wanted to step out of her father’s control... but like... that’s simply a new spin. The Little Mermaid initially was about this mermaid who was willing to die to be with this man, and even the Disney one relied heavily on the idea of her tie to the world being related to a man!

SO. Compared to actual Little Mermaid canon-wise... Simidele at least doesn’t straight up kill herself because she couldn’t be with a man, and she didn’t get some kind of deal at the end that let her BE with the man either. They chose a more strong Black woman route and she made a big decision to try to fix a mistake that she made (and I appreciated that her mistake wasn’t something tied to being thirsty)...

But. It. Was. Just. Still. So. Sad...

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have been as sad IF she had just died at the end, despite that being one of the things from my childhood that made me cry over a book. So... I believe that this is a super good book. It was well written and you can tell Sis knows her shit, but SISTER, t’was not for Nesha. I would give this book all the stars for whatever categories, but I personally didn’t enjoy how sad I was the entire time and how even though the world was safe, I still felt like it wasn’t a happy ending. 

She was a tragic hero, and I was heartbroken.

If you are here and can stand sad things, I think it's an interesting take on The Little Mermaid, a beautiful world depicted in Africa with Black characters, and a lovely selection of characters, mythological creatures and figures from West African cultures. Very beautiful world.

I will support the author and reblog things about the book. I just... it hurt for me.

[sir-adamus]

Maybe it's cuz I'm feeling more optimistic about Neo's role in V9 but it's honestly refreshing to see more people open about her role extending more than just "villain." Like while she's def gonna start off as an antagonist come V9, I do think that she'll develop from this and at least team up with the heroes to get out of the island. And like you said, it's definitely something she needs b/c Roman, the only positive influence in her life is dead and Cinder was just awful to her (1/2)

silly-fly said:

IDK I guess like, I've seen two different takes on Neo's role in V9 being either "Redemption Arc" or "Main Antagonist who's totally gonna die" and at the latter, like... I've seen reasons like, "She's sadistic and enjoys being bad" which on one hand I can sort of understand, but then I remembered Vegeta's redemption arc in DBZ lol. I feel like the whole, "She's gonna die" part is b/c people think her being a last minute addition gives her a major death flag which... *looks at her now* nah (2/2)

yeah the thing with Neo is like i said in that last ask is that she’s in a position where it’s not a case of morality but a case of how she’s treated

Neo’s a third party villain with no stake in the main conflict and her whole beef is entirely personal - which is why it’s easy to get her in a position narratively where she ends up on the good guys side, not because she’s gonna start caring about the major conflict, but because a scenario where she winds up getting attached to the heroes after a truce of convenience so they can get back to Remnant simply because they treat her well is easily set-up here (plus it’s not like they had a hard time getting along with Emerald after the initial frosty reception; they’re willing to bury the hatchet and work with her once it’s clear she’s not gonna betray them)

so really it’s less a redemption arc and more “former villain becomes weird uncle” and “token evil teammate” tropes; Neo’s motivations being rooted in personal attachment to someone who treated her well when she had nothing means the same could happen again; she lost that one thing that made her world brighter but now she’s found more and she wants to hold onto that, kinda thing - yeah, she’s probably not gonna make any moral turn and can still be a little shit but she’s fiercely loyal to those she cares about, and sometimes that’s enough

[norgestan]

crisana, norandro, jorgeva and amira x dani

ha, anon just wanted all the canon couples. fair enough!

CRISANA:

see, skam s3 is my favorite season of all time, but it has never been because of the love story. isak's story hits in a lot of sensitive places for me, and isak was also the first main character i encountered that was my age. i have a really special connection to him for that reason. on the other hand... i enjoy evak for what it is, but i never saw a future for their relationship after the season ended. in a lot of ways, isak's season ended just as their relationship started, a trope that i've never liked because how am i supposed to think that they will last? how am i supposed to know how they will work as a couple? it's just, ugh.

i had similar thoughts about crisana when i watched s2, except that the love confession scene and cris as a character made it even harder to get into the couple. moreover, the way people brush other characters' roles and presence on other seasons because they're so caught up on cris and joana is like... blegh. like it makes me forget that they're actually a well-written couple at times. because imo, og they never did anything really interesting with evak once they got together. but eskam........ oh, dear eskam.

there's something so beautiful about thinking of all the girls, the teenagers that will grow up watching a relationship like theirs on popular media. their entire subplot (??? can i even call it that) in s4 is proof of how GREAT of a relationship they turned out to be. like, i just wanna SCREAM thinking about it because, how is it possible that eskam saw evak and said "we're gonna make this SO good and we'll take our time and then tie it up in an incredibly satisfying and emotional way" and then did exactly that!!!!!! the way they respect each other, communicate, genuinely try to get to each other without dumb miscommunication. the way they understand each other and lift each other up! the way joana knew how to recognize cris' intelligence when everyone was telling her she's dumb, the way cris knows how to make joana feel worth it and show her affection in such a selfless, loving way. their last scene on joana's pov in s4 was the first time i cried during that season, just because it was all wrapped up so beautifully. because eskam understood that although the appeal of their relationship comes from the soulmate status of every evak couple, they had to also put in serious work to make it all work and they also managed to get that across with grounded drama, and also a hopeful message for people struggling with mental disorders. like AAAAAAAAAAAAA god what a great couple they are. maybe i'm too much of an eskam bootlicker but they're genuinely the best evak there is. i'll die on this hill. i'm so happy young wlw get to watch them as a guideline of what they should expect of a relationship.

NORANDRO: already done :)

JORGEVA:

i mean... it's eskam's fault, without a doubt. i love what eskam did with them in s1: the change of pacing, the way they created jorge, the little story changes to make it more nuanced, i think come together in a pretty satisfying way to show a teenage romance with no real support to last for more than a while. i don’t think eskam fully got the gist of what jonas was supposed to be, but it’s for the better if we think of the message in season 1. for that reason, jorge is like the one jonas who i really wouldn’t mind coming back to his eva. so why don’t i like them?

the answer is simply that i don’t enjoy their trope and i don’t think eskam made a real case of eva and jorge getting back together. they work well as friends, sure, and it’s clear as day that jorge still has feelings for eva, sure. but like, what tells me that they’re just ready to go all in again? eva goes through a really great arc and i would definitely agree she’s in a good place to be in a relationship again, but we know NOTHING about jorge’s journey. he’s just, silently pining on eva and that’s it. i do think it’s sweet and the hints of their lost romance throughout the show are wholesome, but there’s just nothing more to it. jorge and eva work AMAZINGLY as friends! i don’t see why they should push a romantic endgame for them. in my head, eva kissing jorge at that party was just a mesh of the excitement of a new era, the nostalgia of ending highschool, the high of being on this place with someone she really cares about, stuff like that, but it just ends there, and it’s great that way. nothing about eva’s character really led to her aching to be in a relationship again, and for me it feels right to end things with her being single and surrounded by great friends.

MAYBE if eskam had devoted some time showing us their progress and romantic potential instead of trying to convince us that kasim was a real, compelling character. maybe. lol.

DAMIRA:

(god, i don’t know how long this will be LOL)

i have. so many thought about this fucking pairing. let’s see what we can do LOL. the thing about damira is that i don’t think it’s a pairing that eskam had in mind when they laid out the first two seasons. the little hints of a friendship/childhood crush that happened during cris’ season really got the fandom and they quickly became the most popular non-canon ship in the show, so that’s where i think eskam said “okay, let’s run with this”. but it’s just...... meh. like i can tell that relationships like crisana were carefully crafted (well implemented in nora’s season, greatly wrapped up in amira’s season) but i cannot say the same for dani and amira. it’s almost like virihugo, where they just started giving each other Eyes on the middle of season 3, out of NOWHERE. it just feels forced to me and so i never really felt anything for the couple in question... like, for starters, i think nora and miquel were WAY more shippable than those two, strictly talking about their setup.

if you ever saw any of my posts during s4 then you should know how i actually feel about how they developed their romance (check my anti damira tag for more?) and i don’t wanna go through all those specific points again... but damira is not only an infuriating romance, but also a bad pairing in a narrative setting. like, damira clearly exists to answer amira’s questions about how would the future of a romance with a white guy would be, right? does she get an answer? no she fucking doesn’t, their final clip is like “after all these weeks, we still have no idea so we’re gonna cut things short, go back to our initial dynamic, and wait to see if amira any of us change our minds <3″. so like, even in that sense damira is a HUGE waste of time, and just like everything that happens to amira during her season it has no lasting impacts on her character or her settings.

and personally, i love couples where they’re both equal, and communicate at last, and both make great efforts to change so the relationship can flourish. this is why i offer so much praise to norandro and crisana, where in the first couple both character go through tremendous character growth and work through their problems individually before getting together, and in the second couple they show them clashing and fighting just to display their resolutions and show how willing they are to actually talk to each other and keep their relationship stable. dani and amira, on the other hand.... blegh. eskam wants me to think dani is a knight in shining armor for liking amira but that’s all he ever does. he doesn’t defend her in front of his friends, he doesn’t make efforts to get to know her and her world, he doesn’t communicate his real feelings to her, and the one time he did he humiliated her in public. like, idk, like, even MIQUEL explicitly defended nora when his roommates berated her for not drinking alcohol LOL.

at the end of the day the problem with damira is that it completely misses the point of yousana and its target audience. making yousef a white guy is not necessarily a bad choice if you implement it well (which eskam didn’t do btw), but you have to take into account that sana’s season exists to make a primarily white christian-raised audience relate and stand up for the muslim characters in the show. when the lazier partner of the main couple who makes zero efforts to work on the relationship happens to be white, it just means people will be sympathetic of him, and nor amira - and that’s exactly what happened in the show. people either thought amira was being too harsh by laying conditions for dani before they even began dating and making sure he respected her boundaries, or just wanted all the drama to go away soon so amira could kiss dani by the end of the season. so like, yeah. terrible stuff.

i would’ve liked damira’s impact on the season and amira’s journey a lot more if it had been about a one sided childhood crush from amira’s part. i thought their friendship was charming up to s3, and i simply hate that dani is literally in no way an older brother figure for the girl squad, since it’s a dynamic that’s lacking in the show and it would be a nice way to make dani be some sort of non-creepy eskild for the girl squad (but noooo, his only interactions w the gs are hooking up with eva and dating amira. smh). it would’ve been fun to have amira intimately dealing with those feelings just to learn a lesson by the end of it, at the time that she also falls for her muslim love interest - which is actually the isak/jonas/even dynamic when you think about it, also something that eskam didn’t really do with cris’ season. but also, all of this would mean that eskam had to do the good writing thing for s4, which they kinda forgot to do throughout the entirety of the season so, yeah.

[kabookiii]

AOT- Eren is a tragic character

Earlier this week I was talking to my hairstylist. She is an anime only fan but surprisingly she doesn’t mind getting spoiled. On the contrary, she would ask me to spoil her (she doesn’t like to read) so I’m guessing that's why lol. Anyways, her questions to me were why is Eren so extreme and so evil? Why didn’t he try the diplomatic route? *Disclaimer these are my personal opinions and interpretations of events in the story. * I will incorporate chapter 138 in case you haven’t read it. 

Eren has always been a protector of the weak and has love for his friends and family since day 1. He fought to save Mikasa when he was just a 9 year old kid- Eren is a fighter against injustice and that is why we love him or used to for those that no longer do. In my opinion, Eren lost his freedom to follow his selfish desires the moment he kissed Historia’s hand and learned of future and past events. Why did he lose his freedom? Eren is no longer ignorant so he cannot turn a blind eye. Now that he knows, he has a responsibility to uphold- with great power comes great responsibility. Eren cannot afford the luxury to think only about himself so he has to take into account others well being (Paradis Island) because the world is more complex and grand and the small island is small compared to the outside. Armin himself tells Eren that he is a slave to freedom- ironically his pursuit of freedom actually shackled him. It is easy to forget that Eren was just a little boy living a regular life with Mikasa and his family until tragedy struck. The perceived battle was between titan and human but once they exterminated the last titan they would be free right? Then everyone will live happily ever after? Wrong.  When Eren, Armin and Mikasa reached the ocean- which used to represent freedom- Eren was the only one who didn’t feel joy because he knew the world was more complex and cruel than he could ever imagine- they weren’t really free to have a place in the world for the world rebuked them.  When the last titan residing outside the walls was killed in Paradis Island, the Eldians lost their protection from the outside world- they became defenseless. 

Before Eren sets out to Marley, Eren does try for the diplomatic route to play out. However, their only ally Hizuru doesn't want to help them unless they are able to “demonstrate” they can activate the rumbling and if the Eldians can ensure that the royal family will continue to inherit the beast titan- royal blood is needed to activate the rumbling and someone else not being of royal blood needs to have the founding titan- vicious cycle will continue. Hizuru won’t help for free as they want something in return- how the real world works- no such thing as a free meal so they want the island’s natural resources. Eren gets upset about having to sacrifice Historia- rob her of her freedom to become breeding livestock- as a way to achieve peace is against Eren’s core values. The real question is would Marley and the rest of the world be open to have diplomatic talks? So Eren left Paradis Island to find out (my assumption). The answer is no which was proven by Willam Tybur as he gathered world leaders when he declared war on Paradis Island. Seeing Reinier’s, Bertholdt’s, Annie’s and Gabi’s initial reaction in their animosity against Eldians and strong allegiance to Marley (they were just kids btw) do you think adults would be more open minded? I believe not and the adults proved it. Eren did not attack Marley until after William Tybur declared war so war could no longer be avoided as it was already started by his words. If anything William Tybur destroyed any chance of diplomacy when he gathered the world leaders against Paradis Island- William spoke the truth about what happened with King Fritz but then he continued the narrative that Paradis Island had to be destroyed. Eren knew Marley had to be attacked first if Paradis Island had any chance to survive as Marley had most of the Titans and advance weapons/technology so Eren did what he had to do to protect his home as there was no real chance for diplomacy which was to attack. War is cruel and innocent lives are lost- that is the reality. 

It’s off topic but until now I do not think Gabi is just like Eren. Gabi (raised in loving family) from day 1 knew about being discriminated by being an Eldian, Marley conquering other countries (starting war) and knew how big and vast the world is and she chose to be a warrior to be a “Good Eldian” and killed other people for the sake of Marley yes she changes later as she gains knowledge and is open to accept a different perspective but that doesn't change the fact that Gabi murdered people in cold blood for the sake of Marley and it proves how dangerous restricted/controlled education and society can be.  Young Eren was born in a protected environment (loving family) but he is forced to grow up when his family is destroyed (housed ruined, mom killed and dad leaves him) then Eren came to learn how corrupt the government is (the one found inside the walls and outside), humans are the most cruel (start wars for power example Marley) and most discriminatory (segregating Eldians but still using their power what sees in Marley) thus Eren chose to become a “Bad Eldian” to destroy all oppression and corrupt institutions to obtain freedom for his loved ones. Based on chapter 138, in the end Eren may not ever have true happiness and be allowed to follow what his heart truly desires such as falling in love and being with his loved ones. Eren knew he could live out his remaining days with Mikasa and die a peaceful death but he chose not to because the world would remain the same- nothing would change. He gave up and destroyed any possibility of finding happiness and being allowed to remain/fight along his friends by solely attacking Marley first and telling Mikasa he hated her. Levi, Hange and others lost trust in him and Mikasa was heartbroken. When Eren talks to himself in the mirror and says “fight” multiple times I think it’s because he has to reinforce his commitment to play out the role of the villain for if he doesn’t fight then his friends won’t live nor be truly free. He asks Hange if she has any ideas but she doesn’t. No one has the power and knowledge that Eren possesses so he is the only one able to bring drastic change so Eren has a heavy burden to carry. Chapter 138 proves that Mikasa was not a slave to Ackerman blood and her feelings for Eren were true. Oddly, by killing Eren, Mikasa is the one who set him free of the burden he carried on his shoulders and she proved to him that her love was real. If Eren is truly dead then Mikasa is the last person he sees before he dies- the person he always loved. Tragic ending for their relationship. A tragic fate for Eren. The rumbling is cruel and devastating yet even in real history, events that are extremely cruel have occurred- using atomic weapons to end World War II (later using diplomacy to bring the world together),  placing people in concentration camps and segregating, the government brainwashing civilians in order to carry out genocide (holocaust). As extreme as AOT appears, sadly humans most of the times won’t accept or be willing to bring change until major, cruel, painful and drastic events take place that force humans to self-reflect.

[dangan-meme-palace]

I'd like that person to elaborate on how kaede would have been a great influence for shuichi or even maki. the more time goes on the more I feel like I'm the only one person in the fandom who wants both of them to live. and who thinks kaede can help with shuichi's arc. maybe we share opinions on that and I feel so alone with my takes I'm withering away here lol. tech if it happens that you like them both alive too you need to tell us about it, though if you don't like it, it's alright :)

On one hand I want them both to die to save them from the writers, but in a perfect world where the writers can be trusted to write I would like them to be co-protags. Whatever synergy they were having in Chapter 1 was really nice and if the story had stayed like that I think I would have really enjoyed it.

Below is how I would reimagine V3 for the sake of Kaede's survival if you're interested in an answer beyond just this ^^

Kaede and Shuichi: Co-tag Duo!

Kaede's ruthless optimismTM could be tempered by Shuichi's deductive reasoning and vice versa. It's only when he became Kaito's friend that Shuichi lost his (much needed) edge and he became more of a problem than a protag, but if Kaede were there he wouldn't become friends with Kaito in the first place so that's a problem solved.

I do think that if they were going to be co-protags, co-tags if you will, that Shuichi would need to be able to assert his opinions a bit more. One interaction where I think that he did this well was when Shuichi was trying to tell Kaede about the possibility of a traitor and she initially defaulted to her optimism before he calmly and logically explained it to her and managed to convince her of the possibility.

I think that having a man be the calm, logical one while the woman is the irrational, emotional one is a Bit (very) cliched and kinda bullshit, but working off of their characters that's really the best I got. The dynamic between Makoto and Kyoko is like the exact reverse of this so just think of a role reversal for those two if you need help imagining what my version of our co-tag duo would be like dynamic-wise, although I don't think Shuichi would be quite as cold and that Kaede would still be solid like Kyoko while Shuichi would remain weak like Makoto.

(Chapter 1 is the best example of this dynamic that I can give you but it's also the only example I can give you...)

Gameplay-wise I would have liked the option to pick either of them as my player character and play as that one throughout the game, then replay it as the other one to see how differently they saw things from one another in their internal monologues and seperate bonus events (FTEs, LHEs, SMEs) with the others and maybe some seperate hidden events as well. That makes the game a whole lot bigger, provides more content, and gives it better replayability than the original.

Maki and Kaede

I don't think Kaede and Maki would get along very well in the canon killing game, so I disagreed with that. Maki seemed to not like Kaede very much, which in turn made Kaede feel upset and guilty. That's not entirely a bad thing though, because the more Kaede's natural choices are tempered by outside factors the better.

Rather than having Maki be helped by Kaede I think Kaede should be inadvertently helped by Maki's remarks, with Maki becoming more like a fed-up babysitter (or in Maki's case, an Ultimate Caregiver) who points out the obvious to people like Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko (who all have moments where their emotions blind them to the truth) with no remorse instead of becoming a waifu prop.

I don't think she would be very chummy without her canonical character arc, but narratively not only do I think her arc wasn't necessary, I think she could have done a lot more if she were left alone or only had a small development

(okay you're all idiots, but you're my idiots, now for the love of christ stop trying to set shit on fire!!)

Maki works very well as a logical force because she's established as blunt and unafraid of telling people exactly what she thinks of them and their stupid ideas (until the writers scrap all that for waifu propism). Plus, since murder, especially sneaky murder, is literally her business of course she would be more informed than the rest about it, which gives her a reasonably good authority to tell people like Kaede off. (Think Byakuya but better and less holier-than-thou)

I don't see a good reason to take any of that away from her when it would work so well with her character to just leave her be. Her arc with Kaito kinda feels like a downgrade compared to what she could of been as I'm envisioning it. I mean, it's always been a downgrade, but especially when I think about how her character pre-development wouldn't have made the same mistakes as Maki post-development (like ch5, which was almost completely her fault)

Kaito, Kaede, and Maki

Kaito wouldn't and shouldn't be changed as a character, but only because if I were writing V3 I would want to use him as an example of what Kaede needs to try not to become, a reason for her to change and an example of what Not to do. I would want people to look at Kaito and go "oh shit Kaede could have been like that if she hadn't had a character arc about Not being like that" and appreciate Kaede and her growth even more for not ending up like him or repeating his mistakes.

Instead of having Kaito be a supporting character that acts like he's borderline the hidden protagonist of V3, he would end up being a well-intentioned antagonist. Accidentally causing problems like he does in canon, but this time we point out that these problems are, in fact, problems and that they are, in fact, his fault and use Kaede as a way to show what he could have done better and Kaito as a way to show what Kaede could have done worse.

+ maybe we throw in some verbal dressing downs from Maki because I think she would be the perfect antithesis of Kaito and that it's a shame she wasn't utilized as such in the game. If Kaede's role is "Kaito but Better" because she had people to help guide her in the right direction and Listening to them was her much needed point of growth (as the complete narrative rejection of Kaito's more self-centered approach) then Maki would be "The Opposite of Kaito" and point out all of his flaws from the other side/point of view.

Sometimes it takes one to know one, but other times having someone around with a completely different worldview and mindset point things out can make all the difference, and while Kaito wouldn't listen, Kaede would be listening (even if it wasn't always directed at her specifically) because she recognizes Kaito's flaws in herself and genuinely wants to improve herself (for her own sake and the sake of everyone's survival) by purging those flaws from herself. Self-improvement Queen!

I also think he should die. He needs to cause a bit of tension and conflict as the antag, but since we are trying to prove that Kaito is Bad and that his thinking is Dangerous, all of that previous conflict needs to come to a head with Kaito facing the consequences of his own actions and getting his comeuppance. This should also be the start of Kaede's final stages of development as this would be her ultimate proof that she Cannot keep acting the same way she did before (which was like Kaito) and that she definitely has to change for the better before something happens to her or someone she cares about.

I think this would be an organic character motivation for her development that would also shine a light on the dire consequences of the killing game and raise the stakes a bit, especially because this could've been Kaede if she had done things differently.

Conclusion

If I can't have Kaede and Shuichi remain the way they were in Chapter 1 I'd rather not have them at all, but if I could have them like that + a change in narrative direction then I'd really fucking enjoy it over what we got.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 70 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 170 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 167 responses

This episode received good ratings, though it wasn’t as hype as previous episodes have been. We presume this is likely due to the primary focus on Gabi and Falco over the Survey Corps/Warriors. Overall, though, the episode was solid for most respondents. 

Beautiful😍✨

MAPPAGOAT 

Its pretty good

Alright for what it was.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING GABI AND FALCO MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 167 responses

The majority of the most favored Gabi/Falco moments from the episode were in the second half, starting with Gabi’s unfortunate encounter with the horse with 29.9% of the vote. Behind that is Kaya and Gabi’s argument about why Kaya’s mom had to die with 27.5% of the vote. At 21.6%, Kaya remembering Sasha was favored and at 13.2% was Kaya taking Gabi and Falco to her old home. 

Gabi's character is so real. LOVED her and Kaya's argument; the va's went all out & it made me cry

Why do ask us what our favorite Gabi/Falco moment was without the option "I don't have one?" Falco's cool and all but Gabi's story has literally been nothing but a drag to me from start to finish

Would have chosen the horse thing for my favorite moment but went with Kaya remembering Sasha instead. At this point so close to the end of the manga I'd rather focus more on moments with characters I enjoy than obsessing with a character I utterly despise having some misfortune (to put it mildly)

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS FOCUSING ON OTHER CHARACTERS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 168 responses

This pie chart was a bit more colorful than the previous one, with the largest piece going to Mikasa’s headache with her flashback to the night Eren saved her (26.2%). Behind that moment, 16.7% most enjoyed Hange confronting Floch and Co. about their involvement in leaking information about Eren, 16.1% favored seeing Hange remembering Sannes’ warning. 14.9% liked seeing Mikasa and Louise’s brief conversation in the dungeon and 13.1% liked the moment with Magath and the Warriors discussing their retaliation. 

GIVE HANGE A BREAK </3

WHICH FLASHBACK HAD THE MOST EMOTIONAL IMPACT FOR YOU? 169 responses

Nearly half of respondents were most touched by the moment at the end of the episode where Kaya talks about Sasha saving her and says she wishes to become a person like her. 29.6% got most emotional over seeing the flashback to the night Eren saved Mikasa, and 18.3% were most impacted by Hange remembering Sannes’ warning.

RATE JEAN’S OUTFIT 169 responses

Jean doesn’t do anything in this episode really, but he sure did come dressed in, erm, a unique outfit. Overall most people were neutral or felt that he needs to up his fashion game. Although 34.3% altogether ranked on the higher end, feeling he’s a total fashion icon. We’re questioning the legitimacy of these claims or whether they were just being sarcastic for the fun of it. lol

WHO WERE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT TO SEE SHIRTLESS? 159 responses

Eren thirst won out on this question, with 70.4% being most excited to see his half naked body in the previous episode. Though Reiner stans came through for him in their support of his shirtless moment this week with nearly 30% of the vote (and commentary).

Poundtown

More half naked Reiner thx

My only disappointment is that the shirtless reiner scene wasn't longer.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE AN EXCUSE TO TALK TO YELENA? 169 responses

When asked if respondents would like an excuse to have a conversation with our chaotic bae Yelena, 40.2% said they would absolutely love a reason to talk to her. 29% aren’t sure if they would want to or not, while 16.6% were a solid “no.” 14.2% didn’t care about this question. 

Yelena is hot

AS ALWAYS, WE’RE GONNA ABOUT CUTS. MAPPA LEFT OUT FALCO’S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT NOT BEING THE RIGHT TIME TO TELL GABI HE DELIVERED EREN’S LETTERS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

There was a brief moment in the manga after Gabi’s misfortune with the horse where Falco thinks to himself about how he’s not yet ready to tell Gabi about his involvement in Eren’s attack on Liberio. 35.8% had completely forgotten this was a thing at all, while 24.2% felt it would have been a nice thing to keep, although ultimately unneeded. 20.6% feel it wasn’t a big deal since he tells her later anyway, and 9.7% feel that this thought of his will come up at a later time. 

I honestly forgot about it but it would have been really cool to see his thoughts in a better way, if that makes sense.

MAPPA ALSO CUT THE BEGINNING OF PIXIS AND YELENA’S CONVERSATION WHERE HE ASKS HER ABOUT HER CELL, TO WHICH SHE RESPONDS IT WOULD HAVE A BETTER VIEW WITHOUT THE BARS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

Though a small detail, a few lines were cut from Pixis and Yelena’s conversation as well. 42.4% feel that it was unneeded and feel ok with the cut. 23% thought it wasn’t necessary to begin with, and 20.6% had completely forgotten about this as well. A handful didn’t care or feel saddened by less Yelena content. 

Maybe the actress wouldn’t come in to say one line l idk

I knew something was missing

HOW DOES IT FEEL GETTING TO RELIVE GABI’S EARLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AGAIN? 167 responses

We get to reexperience Gabi’s evolution from a perpetuator of Marleyan propaganda to someone who learns to “understand Reiner’s feelings” and see that those she was taught to hate are just like her. 25.1% of respondents feel unbothered by her initial resistance to see things any other way as they know where her arc is headed. 22.2% were never annoyed by this facet of her character to begin with and are totally enjoying the ride. 15% love her but can’t help but feel frustrated by these early moments of her development. 13.8% have always felt annoyed by her character and so their feelings remain unchanged, and 10.8% simply stated that they had forgotten just how annoyed they felt by her at all in the early portion of this arc. 

It's annoying AF but looking back/knowing what I know now makes me more empathetic to her storyline. She still annoying AF rn, though.

Back then I was just antsy to get back to the other plot lines. But I’m enjoying this a LOT more this time around.

It's a mix of painful and Gabi I love you but you need sense knocked into you, ya know?

Always hated her, always will, nothing the anime does changes my hatred of her

To quote Eren, "I always hated you".

I feel bad for her, she doesn't deserve this

She’s so annoying but I found Eren just as annoying in the beginning and I grew into loving the character. The get the reasons for her character but boy yams really made her so fucking annoying

Gabi Braun Must Die

HOW DO YOU THINK GABI’S BELIEFS WOULD HAVE DEVELOPED HAD SHE BEEN THE ONE TO MEET EREN INSTEAD OF FALCO? 168 responses

The majority has spoken. 54.8% feel that if Gabi had been the one to encounter Eren at the hospital, her views would have mostly remained the same, as opposed to Falco who was probably a better person to put into that role narratively speaking. 24.4% don’t want to say for sure as there is no way we will ever know, and 14.3% feel that she would have had her views altered to a slight degree, but would still not have been as empathetic to Eren as Falco was.

DID KAYA TALKING ABOUT WANTING TO BE LIKE SASHA HAVE MORE EMOTIONAL IMPACT ON YOU WHEN INITIALLY READING IT IN THE MANGA, OR IN THE ANIME? 168 responses

Overall, the anime had a profound effect on the emotions of the audience. 36.9% state that they were equally impacted in both mediums, though if a side was chosen, 32.7% felt that the anime made the scene more impactful, versus only 19% who thought that Isayama nailed it better in the manga. Only 11.3% were unaffected by this scene in either medium.

PORCO AND PIECK GOT ADDED DIALOGUE IN THE ENDING SCENE, ARGUING THAT THEY MUST RETRIEVE GABI AND FALCO DUE TO THEM BEING VALUABLE WARRIOR CANDIDATES, AND THAT IT WOULD TAKE YEARS TO RETRAIN A NEW BATCH. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS INCLUSION? 167 responses

MAPPA included dialogue of Porco and Pieck vouching for saving Gabi and Falco ASAP, arguing that they should get them for the sake of the warrior program and that losing their talent would be a blow, and it would take ages to train up new warrior candidates. This is most likely just their excuse to appeal to Magath while wanting to save Gabi and Falco because they care about them. 41.9% felt that their commentary added more depth to the situation and the urgency to retaliate against Paradis and get Gabi and Falco back. 28.1% were simply content to get more content of them. 18% weren’t super excited about it, just stating that it was alright, while 9.6% just felt “meh” about the addition. 

I like how they all piled on about the need to take immediate action

I want to say I enjoyed it and it added depth but thinking about it longer makes it sound like they only care about rescuing them only because their valuable warrior candidates. Like, it makes it seem like they don't actually care that much about them, even if I know that's not the case. LOL 

Any extra scene with Pieck is much appreciated!!

made me sad that they only see them as soldiers and not kids that need saving.

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 165 responses

The vast majority (65.5%) of manga readers are most excited to see Zackley blowing up in the anime (bye bye, poop machine!). At a distant second was seeing Eren his cell at 22.4%. Only 7.3% are looking forward to seeing Mikasa and Armin pleading with Zackley to see Eren, and Yelena and Pixis got minimal love. 

My memory is not working well, did Wit showed Zackleys poop machine or was it supposed to be shown in the next episode?

WE GOT CONFIRMATION THAT EPISODE 16 OF THIS SEASON IS GOING TO END ON CHAPTER 116. THOUGHTS? 159 responses

The plurality of respondents (42.8%) seemed a bit disappointed, but had no problem accepting this cliffhanger. 27% seemed rather displeased, but nonetheless were also understanding of MAPPA’s decision. In contrast, 10.7% looked back to the Promotional Video (which had content from up 122) and expressed their PAIN. 8.2% actually wanted the season to end on this cliffhanger, so they were rather pleased instead. We also received a lot of write-ins.  

There absolutely needs to be season part 2, i don't accept any early endings

I am... not sure yet.

As long as it means less cut content lmao

Don't really care much where it's gonna end. I just hope the pacing is good.

i read it ages ago idek which chapter 116 is

I want people to stop complaining about the trailer “lying to them”.  Also my anime only gf is going to be very frustrated with where episode 16 ends.

I thought it would end with 122 according to the preview and it would have been, IMO one of the best cliff hanger ever since all the logic of the plot turns around with revelation about Eren path shenangians. However, I think it's really fine since it allowed MAPPA to take its time to show us the story without making to much choices or compromise. It also means longer s4 part2 if there's one.

I dare you to stop at chapter 114 and fluster up all Levi fans

I am going to die waiting for Paths. 

I need to recheck chapter 116 I forgot about almost everything happened after ema encounter in 112 :D

I don't care as long as they all cover it eventually.

Chapter 119 would have been a better end, but well, I'm gradually learning to lower my expectations for this season

I just roll with whatever they give me xD only fearing Hange's farewell </3

:((((

both 122 and 116 are okay for me tbh

It's all fine to me

Someone explain this whole "ending on chapter 116" thing please

It should've been 117 :/

I was hoping for 119, but I get why they picked 116

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING FOR AS A CONTINUATION? 169 responses

In a nearly unanimous vote, the large majority of respondents feel that the series is best wrapped up with a “part 2” of the final season over the potential for MAPPA to conclude things as a movie (or as movies). Hopefully we’ll have an answer from MAPPA on this front at the end of this run. :)

Another season or movie series works as long as they keep to the source material

I’m happy with either. 

I really really reeeeeeally hope it's not movies. I do not want movies! It would take literal years for fans outside of Japan to get a proper conclusion to the series. Last time people waited years for a season so many people stopped caring, moved on and the popularity took a huge hit it never recovered from. I'm worried that due to Demon Slayer's success they're gonna get greedy but SNK movies wouldn't even make a fraction of what Demon Slayer made. That series is a behemoth over there, it's insane. And I love SNK but Evangelion it is not, and people aren't going to wait and will lose interest. Just please, NO MOVIES!

Final Season Part 2 BUT with lots of time to adapt it

part two but don't call it part two XD.... let's stay in a hiatus for an anime season or 2. or more i don't care , i hope they have enough time to make the amazing job they are doing right now :) 

Series Spin-Off after Final Season Part 2 !!

A movie would be super sick but unrealistic

Whatever MAPPA decides is best

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

The scenery is a 10/10

gabi braun and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad island vacation. 

Gabi sucks

All hail the Eldian Empire

I thought it was overall really good and funny because of the scenes where falco and gabi were just arguing,, it didn’t have much blood and all but I still really liked it!

I never noticed this in the manga, but seeing gabi constantly almost give them away and falco anxiously making up excuses felt like watching reiner and bert again 😂 

Gabbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! Kaya MVP btw.

Bless MAPPA for delivering on the shirtless scenes after we got robbed in Season 3. lol :p But seriously, this episode's scenery was gorgeous.

It was like the calm before the storm that's about to come with the next episode. Episode 71 will be when everything starts to violently turn

people should understand Gabi's character even more

I think Falco was very cute the whole time

Gabi beating that guard was way more brutal in the anime, but the scene of her slapping Lisa's hand away was badly done here.

It was a bit boring, but it was needed for character development

One thing I noticed about this episode is how heavily it featured female characters being influenced by other female characters/female characters in general (Louise and Mikasa; Kaya and Sasha; Kaya and Gabi; arguably Hange depending on how you identify them) which was a nice reminder that of the fact that AOT isn't one of those shows that falls heavily in the 'one token girl' dynamic. Isayama worked to include a wide variety of female characters with very differing outlooks, which clash occasionally, without it ever being about romance. 

Like most of this season (except episodes 1 and 7 maybe), I appreciate Mappa's work but that's all. I'm sad, disappointed, and I guess it's a good thing this season will end on chapter 116. Let's hope they will have enough time to adapt Part 2 and make it legendary, because this first part is good at best. Also, I totally forgot how annoying Gabi was back then. I really like her now, but geez, she was awful this episode.

Felt good to see Gabi get horsebite all over again. Can't wait to see how MAPPA extends Nicolo punching her lol

cool episode, i’m looking forward to seeing more of gabi’s development in the future episodes :))

The horror of mikasa's newly resignified memory... PERFECT. i was fearing they would use wit's romanticized scene... which worked just fine in the first season BUT NOT NOW! because the whole connotation of the memory is different. ALSO! the scenery was insane! 

Horse for President!

Damn, MAPPA's killing it on the scenery this episode. I really enjoyed the animation as well as the plot and voice acting.

In spite of the animation quality I had to give it an obligatory 1 because it was a Gabi episode, and anything involving Gabi automatically decreases the overall quality of the story

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 156 responses

Thank you again to everyone who participated!

[ryuumarsart]

My Evil!Pink AU. This is an old headcanon, now AU, from around the time "The Trial" came out. It was mostly me ignoring all the signs that Rose was Pink Diamond and shamelessly making Peridot the main character lol. This is centered around my old belief that Yellow Diamond was the one who shattered Pink...but in self-defense. I predicted (correctly) that Pink suffered abuse from the other Diamonds, being constantly put down and punished for her child-like nature. After a long fight for her own colony and to finally have a chance to prove herself, she does get one. And it goes terribly. She initially wants to give the colony a little more freedom to run itself, wanting to distance herself from the other Diamonds. However, the others don't approve of this method and forced her to double down on her control. This led to a growing sense of discontent channeled by one of her own creations, a Rose Quartz who she trusted and has now turned against her. This rebellion is yet another failure by Pink and one that she cannot fix on her own, leading to Yellow . Yellow does not hide her disappointment of Pink and openly chastises her in front of her own court. Blue meanwhile guilt trips Pink and emotionally manipulates her along the lines of "Why do you do this to us?" and "You wanted this. I should have seen that you weren't ready, but you insisted." Being in the middle of a WAR, Pink encounters a large amount of trauma, such as an instance where a fringe group of the rebellion attempted to assassinate her and she started becoming paranoid, expecting an attack at any time. Pink's resentment of others and cynicism grew, especially that of Yellow. She was increasingly violent on the battlefield, even brutally shattering a large fusion (which definitely reminded her of Yellow), contributing to Garnet's view of Pink as a merciless monster. She eventually comes to the conclusion that she wouldn't have to feel so ashamed, feel so fearful if Yellow wasn't there. If Yellow was shattered by the rebellion, they would finally retreat and the other Diamonds would retaliate against the rebellion rather than blaming her. (Some very flawed reasoning but it fits canon Pink's terrible life choices lol) In a similar way as described in The Trial, Pink leads Yellow away from others and attempts to shatter her, but Yellow easily overpowers her and accidentally shatters her. Pink states that "You didn't even hesitate?" showing how convinced she is that Yellow hates her. Yellow feels intense grief and guilt for this, but doesn't want to taint Blue's memory of the precious, young Pink. She places the blame on Rose, who accepts and runs with this narrative for her cause (who may still be morally grey as she witnessed the ordeal and did nothing to stop it). And White is there I guess?? At the time of this headcanon, I thought White was the fusion of Pink, Blue, and Yellow so she doesn't have a big role. Pink goes to the afterlife, which is a gray wasteland (see above) where gems who have unfinished business in the living world wander with holes where their gems would be. If their unfinished business gets resolved, they disappear, moving on. Meanwhile on Earth, everything goes as normal except Lapis has been training Peridot to use her metal powers. I mean, they're both telekinetic powers so they should work similarly. Plus, Lapidot is my heart and soul so I'll take any excuse for them to be closer (it's canon in this AU). Peridot wants to go on missions with the others, but keeps being swept aside due to her physical weakness and inexperience with her powers. However at some point (maybe after the Rubies and them go to the moon??) a group of Homeworld gems come to either as a Jasper rescue team 2.0 or as retribution for stuff Steven does in space. Garnet decides to bring everyone on board to defend Earth, including Peridot and Lapis. I haven't decided what gems actually show up but maybe some more quartz gems?? Either way, the threat is big enough for the team that Garnet seems visibly concerned. They win the fight, but at a cost. Peridot sacrifices herself in battle and is shattered. Having built a friendship with the entire team, her death absolutely wrecks everyone. Steven desperately tries to heal her, but fails. In her grief, Lapis almost shatters the Homeworld gems, but Steven stops her. She falls into a deep depression and refuses to leave the barn, instead spending her days holding onto Peridot's shards. Amethyst confronts Garnet about how this evaded her future vision and why she would bring Peridot if she would die. Garnet snaps and says "If I didn't bring them, it would have been one of us!" Amethyst becomes furious and yells that Peridot is one of them. She and Pearl give her the cold shoulder and refuse to hear her out. (This is mostly because I feel like Garnet never has a moment where she messes up and everyone is mad at her. She's always right and that made her boring to me) Steven later learns that Garnet saw that if she didn't bring Lapis and Peridot, it was almost impossible to win the fight without someone being shattered. However, if they came, there was more of a chance of losing no one, but their lives would be at risk. She had a hard choice to make, and it didn't work out. There would be a whole arc of everyone confronting their grief and comforting each other. In the end, Garnet is forgiven and Lapis decides to move into the temple, becoming closer to main cast. She literally lets go of Peridot, putting her shards with the other bubbled gems. In the last part of the arc, Steven visits Peridot's bubble and recalls how much of an impact she had and tells her to not worry, everyone will be okay. Also, he opens up about his guilt of not being able to bring her back. However, it seems like there are fewer shards and the pieces have gotten bigger. He attributes this to denial and looking for something that isn't there. Nonetheless, he visits again a few days later and realizes that it wasn't denial, the gem is being put back together. Peridot's gem still has large cracks filled in by his healing tears, but it is pretty much healed. He and the other gems pop her bubble, but something goes wrong when she tries to reform. Chunks of her body are missing, most notably half of her face. She can't walk or move as well as before, but everyone is overjoyed to have her back. She is also missing some memories from the cracks in her gem. Lapis is extremely protective of her and will not let her so much as walk without her there. Amethyst, on the other hand, wants to go back to having fun and going on missions. Peridot forces a compromise where she can go out to the barn and the town, but only with escorts. She tests if her metal powers still work by trying to lift a can. Unbeknownst to her at first, she accidentally lifts most of the barn. Her powers are greatly heightened, but to an almost uncontrollable level. Eventually she convinces the other gems to let her on a mission to the strawberry battlefield to retrieve more weapons or something. Upon arriving, she immediately has a terrible seizure, yelling "Please STOP!!" and "Please! One at a time!". She is brought back into the afterlife, where many gems are clamoring for her attention to resolve their unfinished business. After calming down the crowd, she speaks to a gem who was shattered on the battlefield, but whose shards were never found. Peridot awakens and point the gems to the hidden shards, giving peace to the shattered gem. She soon realizes how much of a curse this connection to the afterlife is as she cannot go into a battlefield without tons of gems asking for peace and overwhelming her, or hold a conversation with Pearl or Garnet without them asking about a past loved one. She even learns that Rose did this once before, but the gem she healed was so miserable that she had to keep it bubbled...yayyy. It becomes much worse when Pink finds her. Peridot had been successfully fighting off the other shattered gems trying to control her, but Pink is too strong for her. Pink is able to possess her, using Peridot's body to finally live again, to the horror of the other gems. Pink introduces herself to Steven and the others and claims that she was wrongly killed. After all, she was only doing what the other diamonds were telling her to do. She had to fight against the rebellion. Even if she ruled over the colony and fought in the war, did that mean she deserved to die? Surely the least Steven could do to right his mother's wrongs would to bring her back to life and finally get the diamonds to leave Earth alone. The other gems of course don't trust her and don't want to bring another diamond into the world; even Peridot objects, feeling like there was a reason that the other gems in the afterlife feared her. Pink senses Steven's hesitation and repeatedly takes over Peridot's body, torturing her day by day while insisting that she is only doing what she must to reunite with her family. Peridot insists that he shouldn't do this for her sake and that she doesn't matter; she definitely says at some point that "Some things are better left dead, Steven!!". This isn't enough though as Steven caves in and meets with the diamonds. Pink possesses Peridot to talk with them, verbally torturing Yellow and insisting that she tell Blue "what she did". Yellow deflects and tries to convince Blue not to bring her back, but unable to persuade her without also revealing the truth. Steven heals Pink, but her gem was even more shattered than Peridot's, causing her form to be more mangled and distorted. Also, her powers are much stronger and she doesn't hesitate to fight Yellow. However, she overestimated her ability and the diamonds escape. Pink regains her old armies (including the Jaspers and Rose Quartzes) and tries to turn the other diamond's gems against them. (This is where things get messy as I haven't completely thought them through) Pink isolates Yellow and surprises her, killing her quickly and "not hesitating, just like you". White and Blue try to reason with her, but to no avail. Pink's armies overwhelm them and they are both shattered. Pink declares herself sole ruler of the gem empire, but is stopped as she feels herself losing control. The other diamonds fight her from the afterlife to take over her body and force her to shatter herself. The war is finally over, but the colonies are left to recover with no leaders and the aftermath of Pink's rule. The crystal gems and the rebels throughout the universe have to work to reform gem society and fix the damage the diamonds have done. Or something like that. tl;dr Pink was traumatized by the gem war and tried to kill Yellow, but Yellow shattered her instead. Pink blackmails Steven from the afterlife into bringing her back to life and letting her get revenge by using Peridot, who was shattered and healed. All the diamonds end up dying and the universe is freed from their tyranny.

[oodlyenough]

life is strange true colours review

the non spoilery part: i LOVED this game, my personal fave game this year and the first franchise entry since the original that has really resonated with or moved me.

it's a life is strange game through and through, so if you don't like slice of life episodes or bonding with NPCs, it's not gonna be for you. but if you like the franchise, or even if you liked the first game but haven't been interested in/liked the other two instalments, i recommend giving this one a chance. i think it got closer to figuring out the formula while still doing something new and interesting.

more detailed spoilers and opinions:

alex

holy shit i love alex? bisexual chad... my darling... i'm gonna be real, a lot of the trailers and promo for this game made me worried she'd be kind of a dull wallflower Soft Girl character, but she's not! she's so funny, and even parts of her characterization i initially thought were maybe a bit of a stretch ended up making sense as i learned more about her. she stole the show. i straight up forgot how much loving the protag helps enjoyment of these kinds of games lmao ... finally a reason to click on everything in the room: to hear what alex will say about it.

i thought her backstory exploration in ep 5 especially was wonderful and emotive and great. broke my heart and explained so much about her :( baby girl

plot/choices

i loved the mystery. i don't think it was quite as Mysterious as the mystery in lis1, but that was okay, i was still invested in solving it. i also got invested enough in the NPCs around the town to make all the exploration bits really fun. i loved eavesdropping on the sagas of the random NPCs like bald man and ice cream couple... just fun little touches and narratives to follow that i enjoyed.

i really appreciated this script not being afraid to shy away from some messier emotions, even if in some cases i wish we spent more time on them. for example: alex feeling a bit jealous of the other people in town that got to know gabe better than her/spend more time with him than she did. or charlotte hating ethan!!! my jaw dropped, i thought that was so good, what a messy but realistic response.

I'm not entirely sure what all the ramifications of different choices are at this point, fresh off my first play. i ended up getting only part of the council to stand with me (eleanor & duckie) while losing pike and charlotte.

i do wish we saw a bit more fallout or exploration of what taking away emotion DOES. i took charlotte's anger, and obviously it meant she didn't stand up for me in the council meeting, but where does she go from there? does she like... ever return to feeling emotions lmao... I also think we probably should've had the opportunity to do that another time, instead of just 2 isolated events -- I think Diane would've been a good candidate.

the romance

i romanced steph, ofc, but i was surprised during the game how drawn i was to ryan too -- i really liked that Drama of him being the one who cut Gabe free, as well as later the drama of him being Jed's son. UNTIL HE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME... that made me mad lmfao, i have to learn what to do to make him believe me before i play a Ryan route bc i'll kill him lmfao.

the steph/alex romance was sweet... it didn't really, like, Consume Me as a ship, but by the end of the game I was still "aww"ing at their moments in the flashforward. steph was more rounded and flawed than i thought she might be, which i really appreciated! i was worried they'd just make her perfect idealized gf, but she has a bit of a temper and is kind of tempestuous and stuff... liked it. loved her standing up for alex so fiercely and immediately at the council meeting <3 and my main reservation about her in ep 4 was that i wanted alex to stay in haven, so when she offered to stay i was thrilled LOL

one semi-complaint i had was that something i loved so much about lis1 was how max and chloe's relationship was central to the entire game and story, it wasn't some extra thing on the side, it WAS the game... whereas here, the romance routes, especially steph's, felt like sidequests. I wish they'd found a way to incorporate those relationships a bit more into the main goings-on. I also wanted to spend more time with either romance option to feel like I knew them better -- splitting the time between Steph and Ryan means that I came away feeling like I didn't get quite as much of either of them as I would've liked, vs spending almost the entire game with Chloe lol.

however, this ended up not really bothering me too much because I DID really like the core mystery and themes, the exploration of grief and Emotion, etc.

other characters

considering everyone knew going into the game that gabe was going to die, i was impressed with how they did it, and how they managed to get me attached to gabe in a mere single episode. it's a tall order to introduce a character designed to die, who your audience KNOWS is going to die, and still make them work.

i thought this supporting cast was ... maybe the strongest in the franchise? or at least, they created scenarios where i felt invested in multiple people in the town, and was genuinely trying to build decent relationships with most of them. duckie cracked me tf up, i liked eleanor and riley, even diane and jeb were good for their roles. (fuck pike. i signed ur stupid thing and left your emotions alone and you still won't do shit? ACAB!!!) the choice to stay in haven or leave was a little harder than i expected honestly, considering how quickly i let arcadia bay burn to the ground lmfao.

gameplay/etc

also i know the whole internet has been dunking on "empathy" as a super power since the game was announced, and i get that it sounds corny and looks corny in the trailers, but i thought how they did it was really cool. i wish they'd branded it "Mindreading" more than empathy tbh because a lot of the cooler elements of it are more along those lines... using her power to manipulate people, potentially taking people's emotions away and what that does to them... very interesting imo!

i really liked the memory feature!!! cool way to give us character exposition and inform the story while encouraging exploration. finally a collectible that like, expands the story, instead of chloe drawing butts on the wall and sean taking 10 years to draw something.

it's definitely the most evolved-feeling LIS game, which it should be, given it's the newest. graphics looked really nice, loved getting to see the characters actually emote, even if there are still some scenes that were a lil comically blank-faced -- usually NPCs. i actually noticed this with Jed the most, which in retrospect maybe was somewhat intentional?

i had a number of visual glitches, nothing major but a little silly, like T-posing Alex, npcs t-posing in the windows, etc. i'm sure they'll get patched out soon.

anyway... i rly liked this game, i'm excited for the steph dlc and finally feel like i have reason to be optimistic about future LIS instalments. hooray!

[cosmicangst]

sorry to join in on the anons, but do you think kougami still has that protective hound instinct for akane? if so, how do you think this would affect their current jobs and relationships? how do you think akane would deal with it?

no need to apologize! love the questions

i definitely think so. and i don’t think it’s him being patronizing or underestimating her (though she might initially view it as such). it’s a natural instinct he has towards people he cares about and people he finds kinship with or responsibility towards. it goes hand in hand with his fear of futility and losing someone under his care that was in his power to save.

actually it’d be really interesting if that ever came up as a point of contention between them. akane at this point is playing her own game and her own self-preservation kind of goes secondary to her ideals and larger goals (of which i’m still like ??? on but im assuming they’re altruistic and for the good of humanity. whatever it is, she was willing to be imprisoned for it)

and to go on a tangent here: like idk if it’s just me but a lot of kou’s appearances after pp1 has kind of muddled what his canonical characterization is. but because of how little respect i have for sticking strictly to canon, how i interpret it at least is that he aspires to being a champion, to being someone who can plan for the future. he values justice and individualism and had he known about sibyl, i could imagine him going to that server room and destroying everything lmao however, that’s in theory.

in practice, he’s very much like joel from the last of us. if you don’t know that game, joel is a morally flexible survivalist who is extremely ride-or-die to a select few, even to the detriment of the rest.

the course of the wider world is a nice abstraction confined to his books and maybe his younger self or a version of him that lived in a different time period would be exactly like akane who acts with a bigger picture in mind. she had a great hand in reminding him the value of being a free-thinking detective who keeps the people’s interests at heart but his view is still not as overarching as hers. kou is concerned with what’s immediate and within reach. he is concerned with the problems happening in front of him and what’s happening at this moment.

if there is injustice happening in front of him, he’ll take a stand but he won’t make a point to take the next step of that. i interpreted his role as a revolutionary in the psycho pass movie as less of a thing he aimed for and more of something he fell into and didn’t necessarily plan on keeping as his primary motivation. so he will fight for a cause he deems righteous but he will prioritize what he needs to do and the concerns of his inner circle before the concerns of random citizen #53.

this is not to say that he doesn’t care about hurting people or doesn’t aspire to high ideals but if we’re really being honest, given an absolute one-way choice between a cause and akane’s life, he’d choose her without hesitation. he wouldn’t even flinch. even if she resents him for it, he’d make that choice.

so as to how that would affect their jobs and how akane would deal with that? im not certain. i think there’s a lot of unknowns about where they stand not just with each other but in the narrative of psycho pass as a whole. what i do know is that they are two firm-minded individuals who will rarely, if ever, budge when they set their minds to it. much as i would love to see them earnestly court each other, i am a little more interested in seeing how they will confront each other during an irrevocable point of conflict neither can afford to compromise on. i think that’s where their relationship will change the most

also it’d just be very funny to see the others’ reactions to these two dignified powerhouses dealing with their differences and romantic foibles. vulnerability is such a necessary but clumsy thing, isn’t it lol

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 16: Mr. Robot 4x01

So I have finally gotten to S4 of Mr. Robot. I saw the finale (on the night it aired) but I haven’t seen anything else from the season.

A few quick thoughts (because I’m tired, and I still stubbornly kinda want to try to read before bed).

That was a really tense episode! Like I was basically just a clenched fist the whole time, until about the last ten minutes when I started losing interest a little. (Obviously Elliot isn’t going to die with 12 episodes to go so no real suspense there.)

I could write a whole dissertation about Angela’s death. Like, I knew she died, but not the circumstances. And I knew it would happen roughly when it did but I was still... I kept trying to find a familiar rhythm to the scene but there wasn’t one and that just upped the tension a lot. I mean this is as a compliment. For example, at the moment when Angela stops and she and Price start talking as if she were basically already dead, I thought there was going to be one of those secret injury reveals, somehow. The inevitability was just so strong. But then I realized later that she was seeing the goons; she wasn’t literally injured but she knew there was no way out. Even if she ran or begged--not that she’d do either.

Another thing that that scene did was keep the mystery of the secret project open because I was all ready at the end of S3 to be like “well I guess it was a con the whole time whomp whomp whomp no time travel.” BUT now in context it turns out the whole scene would have been a lie, that Price was only trying to get her to stop thinking about and potentially poking at the project by saying it was a delusion, and so we’re left with as little understanding of it as before!

It is of course fake but the finale makes more sense to me now.

My mom and I were discussing it a little and I don’t think there was any way Angela was leaving that conversation. I think Price might have believed he could save her but that whiterose’s plan was always to kill her. I don’t buy this whole ‘Angela died because she was threatening whiterose’ thing because like... she wasn’t threatening her until that conversation. Before she was picked up in the van, she was completely devoted to whiterose and her vision. My mom made the point that Angela was so out of her mind by then that her very instability was a liability and I can see how that would be true...but her biggest character trait besides paranoia was extreme devotion to whiterose so if whiterose’s concern was protecting herself and her project, why would she purposefully rock that boat? why would she try to shake the loyalty of the unstable person, making her more unstable and less reliable? You have to assume, given that Price was wearing the wire, that nearly everything he said was scripted by whiterose. Maybe not the specific words, but the general gist. whiterose crafted and orchestrated that scene, from beginning to end.

Watching it today, it felt like a test of sorts. A test for Price specifically. And upon reflection, a test he was set up to lose.

My reading: Angela was initially a problem for whiterose because she was poking around at the plant. So to neutralize her--with a bonus of annoying Philip--whiterose captured and brainwashed her. But from then on, the threat she posed was gone, and everything was just about Price, with maybe a bonus of an extra pawn at ECorp. Angela was useful for the Cyber Bombings, but certainly not irreplaceable in that role. Plus, the bombings themselves were about Price! And wrecking her, making her the mess she was by the end of the season, was an extra dig at him: look what I did to this person you seem to like so much. But at that point, Angela is at best, useless, and at worst, a liability because of her instability. So whiterose sets Price up as if he had a chance to save her, but ultimately always knew that she would get rid of Angela at this time. That’s what I think.

I do wonder... exactly how whiterose put Price in this scenario. That’s not exactly clear to me, unless it’s just supposed to be, she owns him and always has.

Anyway, in non-Angela thoughts. I feel like this season is a bit of a reset in ways. Or a simplifying of the remaining story. Like, S2 and S3 were the direct aftermath of S1 but now a lot of that story seems to be resolved. The 5/9 hacks were effectively “undone,” the economy is rebounding, characters are back in familiar roles: Tyrell at ECorp as if he hadn’t spent the last 2 seasons a terrorist on the run; Darlene alone and a bit of a mess, as if she’d never been the co-leader of a revolution; absolutely no sign of fsociety at all; Elliot back at his crusading. We even see Allsafe again!

So now that we’ve basically made peace with ECorp, roughly, and finished the fsociety and 5/9 story basically completely, as far as I can tell, and killed off almost every major character save Elliot, Darlene, Tyrell, and Dom, and the two big villains Price and whiterose, the narrative can become a simpler tale of hacker versus hacker, rather than a complex story of various factions and the effects of their machinations not just on each other but on society. Now it’s all about whiterose and Elliot--or this particular personality, at least. whiterose wants her secret project. Elliot wants to take whiterose down. And it’s Christmas. I think this is very smart and I’m excited for the rest of the season.

A few small thoughts: I did not get that Dom was home for the holidays (DUH) so my first thought was actually that she’d quit the FBI. That wouldn’t be very good mole behavior of her lol. Also the reveal of the not-lesbian as actually a Dark Army minion was SO GOOD. Chilling.

Gary Busey’s son looks so much like him. I was trying to place him the whole time, because he looked familiar but also not.. and then I was like oh duh. Family resemblance.

The reveal of Elliot on the train and Mr. Robot as just something he was imagining as he watched the station through security cameras was amazing!

I also liked the way he pivoted out of the conversation with Darlene and then let Mr. Robot take over. Although I didn’t totally get when his physical body moved, or why Darlene continued to look straight ahead if he did move to the couch when Elliot did.

There were times when I really felt like I could see how the Hacker was a personality specifically (even though I continue referring to him as “Elliot” lol). His purpose is to protect and to do these projects, go on these crusades, and that’s what he’s doing again.

...And I think that’s finally it! Excited for some potential Alderson sibling interaction in the next ep, and more Dom!