#like i understand being confused by characters' motivations but 'why didn't they just fly on the eagles? the hobbits are such idiots lmfao'

[leatherbookmark]

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honestly all this shit just looks like those people want to, idk, ascertain in front of everyone that they're both Normal and Smarter, and it feels really weird to see on a website full of self-proclaimed freaks obsessed with yearning, fucked up dynamics, hand in unlovable hand etc. what do they need the fucked up dynamics for? to point out that they're fucked up and weird, and that normal people don't do that? stop embarrassing yourself and let stories move you like a normal fucking person

[thewebcomicsreview]

What are your thoughts on Gunnerkrigg's current chapter? Something feels very strange while reading, but I can't quite put my finger on what - I saw the earlier anon question about Gunnerkrigg in general, but would it be possible to get your take on this particular chapter? Thank you!

So, this revelation is meant to answer the long-standing question of why the weather's never changed near the shore, and-

Wait, no, not that shore.

That's the shore of the Lake. Gunnerkrigg Court has the ocean on one side and an artificial lake on the other side. And on the third side was the River Annan, with the long and now-solved mystery of the ghost on the shore. So the Court has three unrelated mysterious shores. But I can imagine why people are confused about the weather on the shore never changing being a plot point when the only mysterious shore we've ever encountered in the comic, the one that's connected to Omega which is the latest Big Mystery, is one where it mysteriously rains a lot. But Aata is talking about the Ocean Shore, and we've never seen it rain in the Ocean. Granted, there's been one (1) Ocean chapter, but at least it's true that the weather mysteriously never ch-

Okay, but that's not the shore, that's the Ocean itself. It's rained on the Ocean and it's rained on the shore but it's never rained near the Ocean Shore. All right? Anthony said that somewhere, and we saw the shore in Chapter 49

Look, there's....there's foreshadowing that it's not a normal ocean! And, yeah, there's also foreshadowing that rain's coming with those dark clouds back there but, y'know. We never see them move.

It all actually makes me think of Homestuck, of all things. There's a ton of stuff in Acts 1-4 setting up the idea of the Game Prompt/Narrator as a malevolent force that the kids are being controlled by, which would make "the kids escape the story" a logical and satisfying ending. But it's mostly dropped in Act 5 in favor of trolls and gods and other stuff that made the comic more popular, and completely dropped for most of Act 6, to the point where when Hussie said "Time to cut the bullshit and resolve the main tension of the comic" the audience was deeply invested in the bullshit and barely remembered the supposed main tension, and the ending was widely hated.

Gunnerkrigg Court is similar. Haven't you ever wondered how the Court has so much space? No, not really. We never really got a great sense of how large the Court was. It seemed to be the side of a small city, which is pretty big for a school but hardly, like, some impossible mystery, especially when it was revealed that the Court "grew" from the seed Bismuth and thus they didn't need to spend zillions of dollars building everything. Especially since the Court's location was so vague. It's not the kind of thing you wonder about, it's the kind of thing you suspend your disbelief over. Especially since Kat is a scientist who made a remote control flying drone and thus needed to know distances accurately and she never wondered about it.

It feels like this comic was originally going to have Annie and Kat solve the mysteries of the Court and then Tom realized he forgot to have them actually do that so now they're getting all the revelations just told to them by Aata and Arizona, who have no actual motivation for sharing all this information besides "Enh, why not".

And it's hard for me to get invested because the Court's Evil Plan has nothing at all to do with the plot! Robot is the most interesting antagonist in the comic, easily, and the robots are the thing the comic's built the most intrigue over. Loup is a lame and terrible replacement for Coyote, but at least he's a malevolent force actually threatening the characters, and is even slowly getting more interesting with this Jerrick thing. I still don't understand why Annie and Kat even care what the Court is doing. This entire chapter could be Aata's revelations about his favorite bagels, and it'd be no less relevant and actually develop a character slightly.

This whole chapter feels less like shocking revelations and more like exposition, like it's building to the court's plan getting wrecked or something. It's an infodump. This entire Star Ocean Til The End of Time subplot is a massive, unending infodump with no real reason to care about it.

[hisclockworkservants]

have you read/seen/are you planning to watch the sandman? i feel like some of the characters would work really well in your art style

 I watched it! And I actually read some of the comics a long time ago. (Alas my favourite one is not covered by the show...)

It was pretty good! I really love the opening visuals in the first episode, all the credits are also great. Tho I feel like the comics are better at conveying some of the scenes in the first arc tho, some of the scenes just feels less than grand despite the effects.

Also Dream came off as a huge jerk in the show? I did not feel like that at all when reading the comics about essentially the same plot. He just felt otherworldly and above humanity, but still kind, instead of whatever the show is trying to do. I get that they are doing the character development thing, but the development seems to sometimes just go back on itself. Not super consistent.

Unfortuntely I'm not super motivated to draw it. Like my art inspiration is kind of a bit seperate from whether I like the media or not. I even sometimes drew SCP I downvoted just because I like the visual enough. While a lot of the times, I didn't feel motivated to draw fanart of shows and movie even if I like them a lot.

I think part of it is because there are already so many great visuals? I drew SCP and TMA stuff a whole bunch because neither are super specific in visual stuff and I have all these blanks to fill. Or maybe not, because there are books I like but don't want to draw stuff about.

I dunno, my drawing motivation is just not super consistent, and I don't really understand why either.

Also some other rants about the show that may contain spoilers (about both the show and the comics):

These are just some rants, I still like the show in general.

I wish the dream effects are better. Like, there are some amazing scenes, but mostly I feel like the dreams have not been used super well. Corinthian’s teeth eyes could really do better too, it’s kind of hard to see instead of being horrifying.

They got rid of the waking up from a nightmare but turns out you are still in a nightmare endless loop thing! That one got me super scared back when I was reading the comic... and I was expecting it too... they just got rid of it.

The ending of the Doctor Destiny arc is kind of lame too? (...I know he’s not called that in this but I was a DC comics fan XD) The build up is great I like the complicated relationship between mother and son, and his interaction with the driver. But there’s so much build up and it just ends.

My favorite characters would be Lucienne, Hob Gadling and Gilbert XD Oh Gault is pretty cool too (tho those butterfly wings fly super awardly...)

Death is great but I’m sort of already expecting her cause of the comics, so there’s less of an impact.

I’m kind of super confused about the end scene with Lucifer actually, while I did not read all the comics, I kind of remember Lucifer giving away the key to hell to Dream, instead of like, wanting to bring him down to his knees or something.

Another thing is that, the weird stressing on human thing. Like they keep saying it was human’s existence that created them, but like, in the comics I specifically remember Dream appearing as a cat to cats... you know, in their dreams. It’s just weird...

[blushing-titan]

Eren as a father and Ymir as a mother motives theory never made sense. They were represented as emotionally stunned children in paths doing the Rumbling, not as adults. Ymir never cared about her children, she doomed them to suffer after her VERY SHITTY AND SELFISH CHOICE TO DIE because her abuser didn't return her "love". That was clear before Eren revealed it. She saved him and abandoned her children. She never gave a single fuck about them. She was always looking at HIM. (1)

For his part, Eren reverted to a child, talked about the sights with Armin which foreshadowed his motivation was mixed with his mental fuckery and timeless perspective. Dina and bird twist were foreshadowed via memory shards earlier. Krueger went on a rant about protecting Armin and Mikasa (and the "others") to Grisha. We've always known who Eren prioritized above all. Last chapter offered no twists, only confirmations. The story was always about EMA, Historia never had a place in the climax.

Hi! Thank you very much for writing 😀 I put my reply under the cut, so people who scroll down while searching tags don’t have problems with my long post (...because I feel like, unfortunetely, it’s gonna be another stream of conciousness from me, sorry about that 😅)

I really like your take on the "emotionally stunned children in paths" imaginery - I fully agree that it's a nicely-done symbolism!

To me, the whole Ymir sacrificed herself because of her unrequited love was not at all as clear and obvious as you say - especially before Eren revealed it. I still have a lot of problems with this plot twist, and how Ymir's feelings towards Fritz were portrayed in the end.

With the amount of abuse and mistreatment the king put her through, many fans tried to come up with different theories as to why Ymir kept on serving him. The way I interpreted it, after seeing her tortured expression over and over in many panels, was that she stayed by his side because of fear and emotional damages. With the way she was living, I was not surprised that she sacrificed herself, too - I thought that she honestly had enough, which added to the tradgedy of how she still couldn't find peace after that, and kept on being enslaved in paths.

I saw many takes and theories on her motives, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone betting on she was actually in love before ch. 139. I probably didn't search good enough, but again - with what I saw in the manga, I would have never bet on that either. My point is - before ch. 139 (...and after it too, in my opinion) Ymir was a walking mystery with unclear motives, so there were a lot of theories. Therefore, I disagree that the "parents" theory could never work - it obviously doesn’t work now, after ch. 139, but before that, her motivation could be anything really. I still wish it was something else, because what we got was too vague and problematic, in my opinion. 

I simply dislike Ymir's conclusion. I feel like there was so much potential in her backstory and motives + a few different ways to tie it back with different plotpoints and characters in the end to make it more meaningful, but what we got was a brief: She was in love with the person who abused her, I know it sounds unbelievable but I couldn't look deeper into her heart, so we have to take it as it is.

In general - I can't brush it off, but to me it feels like Ymir's end goal was rushed, not explored properly, and almost pulled out of nowhere. Unfortunately, I feel the same about Mikasa's involvement in lifting the titan's curse. Don't get me wrong - I'm not at all against her becoming the hero. Quite the opposite, I was rooting for her since the beginning, and hoped to see her develop and have a big moment, but this...this honestly also felt pulled out of nowhere and, in my eyes, didn't do Mikasa justice at all. I wish there was more proper build-up and foreshadowing done so I (...and, from what I've seen, a huge portion of fans) wouldn't feel that way, but here we are.

As for the Eren/Armin conversation, I like how they got to "see" the world together, even though just as a visualisation in the paths. My problem is the [...] Eren reverted to a child, talked about the sights with Armin which foreshadowed his motivation was mixed with his mental fuckery and timeless perspective part. Again, this should have been forshadowed (...and developed in general!) much sooner - not in the final chapter, right before we learn about this controversial motivation of his.

Instead, for many chapters, we were lead to believe that Eren was acting with his original goals and personal motivations in mind; that he had some character developement which caused him to start thinking his actions through, stop acting so impulsively - and finally, that he had a plan in mind, or at least was acting out of his own free will.

If you've never seen him in this light and his motivation/behaviour seemed in character in the last chapter to you - that's fine, all power to you! But if such a big portion of the fanbase felt otherwise (me included), then it means that there were some writing issues that led to this.

The Dina situation should have been explored more, as well. It's a huuuge plot twist, which puts our MC's motovations in an entirely new light, and creates quite a few additional plot-related questions. The way we're shown the situation: Berthold couldn't die just yet, so Eren directed Dina somewhere else, which ended up being his house.

...why not anywhere else? He could literally send her back outside the wall. On top of that - did he seriously sacrifice his mother in favour of his friends? I'd really like more information on this, but the topic is cut basically as soon as it appears. I find it especially unnatural, considering the way further dialogue goes:

Eren tells Armin about how he caused his mother's demise. Armin makes a terrified face, but drops the topic, smiles and casually proceeds with: "Let's go, Eren" - like his friend didn't just reveal one of the most controversial plot twist in the series. No, who'd want to hear an elaboration on that - better talk about Mikasa, so instead we get the entire (in my eyes - really forced) Eremika-themed talk. The priorities...

About the bird thing...if I remember correctly, there were three shards revolving around this theme. Two of them just show birds flying, one of them shows Falco from bird’s perpective. Sure, now that we know that some random bird in the end pecked on Mikasa's scarf, we can kiiiiiind of connect it to the Falco's shard...but honestly, why was Eren's soul transferred into some random bird after his death? On top of that, a bird that was already existing in the world while he was still alive, as a human...did that bird’s conciousness just go poof! one day, for Eren to take the vacant spot? Should we also look for other deceased titan shifters in barns or birdhouses? 😅 I can’t believe I’m overthinking it this hard...😆

That's some three-eyed-parasitic-jeager stuff, for sure.

Jokes aside, I guess what I'm trying to say is that foreshadowing is fun and great, but it should go hand in hand with proper developement - and, in my opinion, the examples above kinda lack it (...ok, I'd let the "bird Eren" thing slide because whatever, I don't feel the need to be that serious about it, it could stay ambigous in my opinion - but I'd definitely want some more closure as for the Dina situation or Ymir’s motivations and inner thoughts)

I've always said that Armin and Mikasa were two of Eren's closest friends - or, even more, the only people he considered family. I've also never believed that he would ever willingly sacrifice them, as some people theorized (...though guess what, now that I know what happened to his mother, I have to rethink my reasoning). I understand that EMA are the main characters, and was expecting that the story's conclusion will be tied to them somehow, but definitely not at the expense of logical character and story developement (...and sorry - to me the ending just felt that way).

As for Historia: if she was never supposed to be important in the end, then, in my eyes, it's a very poorly guided plotline that only led to unecessary drama in the fanbase. Why make her situation look sus with things such us:

Incorrect conception date,

The emphasis on how she didn't marry the father of her baby (...only to reveal in ch. 139 that she, in fact, did that),

The mysterious, cloaked figure observing her talking to the farmer,

The whole talk with Eren in ch. 130, and Eren thinking back to it while talking with Zeke.

All the Historia/Ymir parallels.

Seriously, what was the point? It would be so easy to simply make the situation clear. Why not just make Historia admit to Eren in ch. 131: "yes, I'm already pregnant with the farmer's baby - I did it to save myself."? Why not cut the bs with the "she didn't marry him" - because, in all honesty, what did that information bring into the story, aside from confusion and "misunderstanding" - and just make them married, instead? Even better - why not have at least one panel showing Historia and farmer being at least somehow affectionate with each other? Why not let go of all this retconned stuff and use these panels for shelling out other plotpoints?

The theories didn't come out of nowhere - they were based on what was shown in the manga. People wouldn't be disappointed with Historia's conclusion if it was never implied that she was still somehow important. We may argue about it back and forth, but the truth is - when so many people collectively "misunderstand" a certain plotline to this extent, then it means there had to be some storytelling issues that led them to this - simple as that.

To sum it up, I'm happy that you enjoyed the chapter and found it logical and satisfying. I absolutely don't want to take that away from you, or make you change your mind, but I also can't help the fact that I don't see it in the same light as you. You say that the final chapter offered no twists, only confirmations - to me, it was pretty much the opposite. Still, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts, and sorry it took me so long to reply! Hope you're having a nice day 😄