#snk criticism?

[melishade]

I love the way you wrote the latest chapter. It feels less like Eren and Zeke are being judged by gods, and more like the AOT fans are finally giving these two self-righteous idiots a piece of their mind. It's very satisfying!

Despite me liking Attack on Titan, I still have quite a few issues with it, and I've said it quite a few times, either on Ao3 or on this blog. One of the major things being season 4 was rushed and because it was rushed, there were many character moments and build up that Isayama completely missed out on, like the Marleyans and their dynamics or Eren's descent into madness. I think that an extra season would have help a lot of the stuff that Isayama intended for season 4.

That being said:

I've have to really break down, edit and rewrite Primus' interactions with Zeke and Eren multiple times, and I'll elaborate on that in an AOP alternate scene. Primus has also withheld his identity from Eren and Zeke in order to determine their character. If Primus had said that he's Optimus' god, obviously they're going to treat him differently and hide stuff from him, so keeping his origins a secret benefitted him long term. And he was glad that he did considering what he ends up learning about the brothers.

So when Primus does confront them with his identity revealed, he's really just watching them scramble trying to come up with excuses for their plans. Both involve genocide, which he obviously doesn't agree with as a being of creation, which is why Primus removes Zeke's ability to communicate with Ymir, both as a punishment for his crimes, and so he doesn't enact his plan.

Still, Primus does feel pity for Zeke, understands his plight, and considering the other alternative being Eren's plan, he does believe Zeke's plan is the better option. Zeke's plan doesn't kill off the current living Eldians. It just stops them from having children. Which is still a genocide, the Eldian people will die out, but it's a small price to pay for the future of the AOT world. However Primus has seen Zeke show no remorse in his actions when it came to killing for Marley's empire and didn't truly value life and the actual points of living. Zeke's plan simply reflected a deep-seated issue within himself: that he just wanted to die.

However, there's also the issue of Zeke not getting the actual results he wants with his plan, because people are going to be people and will abuse power. From a historical standpoint, I don't think that Zeke's plan would have achieved world peace. It simply would have caused a power vacuum that would have been replaced by another, possibly crueler, power.

Now, I know that people bag on Zeke a lot, and I've done that too, but Zeke has still been dealt a really bad hand, and that is something I have to acknowledge. Zeke's ultimate purpose in living essentially boiled down to wanting to die while also fulfilling Ksaver's plan. But because Primus told and showed him that his future was not possible, he loses any real will to live. At least that's how I saw it, especially since in the main AOT timeline, Zeke didn't really fight his way out of the Paths and made sandcastles until Armin showed up. Zeke had to really be broken down emotionally in order for Primus to consider him a non-threat, and all he had to do was show Zeke the futility of his plans.

Eren however-!

So imagine this from Primus' perspective: you wake up after the war is over and have been revived. You hear a cry from across the universe in an alternate dimension and go searching for it in said alternate dimension. You travel through years worth of memories without having the ability to really interact with the outside world. But then a miracle happens: you meet two humans that can see you completely! One of them is wary of him, but the other is willing to speak with him. He's rather quiet, but he's polite and considerate or Primus' situation. The two even bond for about seven years of searching through Grisha's memories, so much so that Primus even reveals his name to Eren.

But then Primus finds out that Eren had been withholding information that he clearly knew, actively attacked him with he tried to create a peaceful solution, and spoke of his disciple, Optimus, in such a vile and twisted manner even though Optimus wasn't supposed to be here in the first place. And then you find out, through searching through memories, much to the behest of the Primes to not do that, that this teenager not only wants to destroy the world, but kills one of your very first creations in the process.

Obviously, Primus is very pissed off at Eren more than he is at Zeke.

One of the few things that genuinely frustrated me when the final manga chapter of AOT came out was that Eren's friends were still treating him with kindness, respect, and even love, even though he tried to kill them and wiped out 80% of humanity. Eren destroyed the world and put many survivors of the massacre in desolate situations. The anime does improve on this a little bit, with Armin having a much more visceral reaction to being told that 80% of humanity is dead. However, what Eren did was genocide to a massive degree, and it clearly wasn't to protect his friends or even the island. It was for his own selfish gain of fulfilling a wish that never really existed. I implore you to watch this video:

Because it provides a really great breakdown of Eren's overall character which is that his main, selfish, desire, is freedom, and he will do everything and anything to get it. Even if it meant his friends and family got caught in the crossfires, even if he understood the struggles of the Eldians outside of the walls, he rejected all of that in order to fulfill his selfish wish.

And this breakdown really helped me write Eren's interactions with Primus a lot more fluidly. Because Primus has seen the goodness within Eren. He knows the good things that Eren is capable of doing, so he's so confused as to why Eren devolved into madness and death in such a short amount of time in his eyes. Primus brings up the fall of Shinganshina and the death of his mother, but Primus knows deep down that doesn't address the issue of Eren's motivation. He feels as though it is something else. So he brings up his friends, Armin, Mikasa, and Optimus to try and figure out the underlying issue. (I'll also break down the Prime voices in another ask and how each of them, and Primus, react to Eren's answers because that deserves it's own post). But Primus just sees Eren dodging the question, refusing to stand down when it came to the concern and safety of the people he cared about. He justifies his actions as protecting them, but Primus knows that none of them wanted this.

It's only when Primus threatens Eren's freedom that Eren confesses his truth:

“I WON���T LET YOU! THAT FREEDOM IS MINE!” Eren screamed in anger, “AND THE WORLD KEEPS TRYING TO TAKE IT! THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS JUST LIKE HUMANITY IN THE WALLS! THE WORLDS BEYOND IT ARE ALL JUST THE SAME! I HATE IT! WHAT’S THE POINT OF ANY OF IT?! EVERYONE IS JUST SELFISH AND I JUST WANT TO SEE IT GONE!”

Eren just wants to see the world burn and achieve the freedom he so desired as a child, and Primus reacts appropriately by calling him out for his childishness and nearly ends his life over it. Because like the video said, Eren hasn't grown or changed. He's rejected the growth that's he's been confronted with and has always been the same person since season 1.

There's a lot more that I can talk about, and this definitely feels like it's me rambling. I'm certain I did repeat some points. However, I don't mind asks regarding chapter 90 and 91 because I really want to provide my breakdowns even further on the topics and ideas I've had.

[tampire]

Critical Counter in KOF XII / Advance Strike in KOF XV

[shmlnbstrcnd]

If Arcane writers wrote Attack on Titan:

- After his devastating attack on Marley and the battle in Liberio, Eren suddenly ditches his desire for revenge. He adopts Falco and the two live in a hideout together. His friends ask him why he has suddenly become so passive after committing that huge attack. "Eren is dead" he says, and continues playing with bugs with Falco.

- In Season 4, Hange is revealed as the true villain of the show after she goes too far experimenting with Titans. Since mad scientist Hange loves Titans so much, she now thinks that everyone should turn into Titans. She plans to steal the Founding Titan to ascend to godhood and forcefully turn everyone into a hivemind Titan army. Eldians and Marleyans forgive each other and join forces to take down Hange.

- Two episodes before the finale, School Castes AU is made canon and given an entire episode's worth of screentime within the actual show. Mikasa travels to the alternate universe by quantum leaping into the body of her alternate self where she has a romance with Normie Eren.

- Grisha Jaeger's remains were found in the woods after Eren ate him. From his remains, he is revived into a werewolf-Titan hybrid monster. Eren and Zeke join forces to look for him. He attacks them but luckily recognizes them at the last minute. They have a family group hug which Falco joins (Falco is there). Later they take him to Hange to be cured but things go south and Grisha goes crazy again. Falco blows himself up to kill Grisha and save Eren. Unfortunately, Grisha survives. No one mentions Falco again. Eren sacrifices himself by killing Grisha to save Zeke.

- Gabi never has an onscreen arc of realizing she is being used as an indoctrinated tool against her own people. She fights Hange's Titan army while wearing the Warrior Unit uniform. Many Eldian civilians are also convinced to help Marley defeat Hange and they are all given Marleyan soldier uniforms during the final battle. At the end of the show, Gabi is still happily a Warrior soldier. "Are you still in this fight, Gabi?" asks a Marleyan elite. "I am the dirt under your nails," she replies. "Nothing's gonna clean me out."

[clfixationstation]

It drives me a little bit crazy when people insist that Mikasa is obsessed with Eren or unreasonably attached (unhealthily is another question)

a) Eren is the only family she has left and she is terrified of losing him the way she lost everyone else, it's only natural for her to be very protective of him. He is the last piece of the home that was stolen from her as a child TWICE.

b) Eren first appeared to Mikasa as a hero, saving her from being trafficked and giving her the strength to fight for herself and others. Of course she's going to see him in a very good light (until she realizes the horror of his actions in s4 & readjusts her view)

c) Mikasa is quite protective of her other teammates too, especially her other best friend Armin. Remember when she almost killed Levi for him? When she comforted Armin (to the best of her abilities) after he was kidnapped? Intense care for her loved ones, and others as she grows as a person, is just one of her main character traits.

d) I've seen people be angry at Mikasa for not defending Armin during the table scene, but excuse her for being shocked that the person that she's been desperately trying to protect for almost half her life apparently hates her, and that her other best friend, who's known for avoiding fighting, threw the first punch on her behalf.

Of course she doesn't want them to fight

Of course she's going to watch in disbelief, in horror, needing to see just how gone Eren is

Of course she still won't want to kill him at first, won't want to sever her last family tie by her own hand

But she does

Because she isn't obsessed and she isn't selfish

And she still keeps his scarf by her own will (and in defiance of Eren's), in memory of her closest friend and last family

Because she's not a slave to anyone's will

And acting despite all the love she has for Eren, refusing to allow her love to keep her bound - that is what frees Ymir

[sshirakumo]

seven favorite levi scenes to count down to his birthday -> 3/7

episode 22 - defeated

bonus: him being pretty

[rewrite-canon]

tragic/ doomed sibling roulette

[starlight-bread-blog]

Hey look!

The Attack on Titan characters are moving on after the Rumbling and living a happy life!

Wonder what Mikasa's doing...

Ah- wait- didn't she just-

Yeah, yeah, she did. Right. So she'll probably be seen happy later-

Oh. Okay. Got it.

[divinebongwater]

PLEASE DON'T SCROLL PAST!

I am asking that you spread this like wildfire so that this can get in front of the eyes of someone who can help! My partner and I have been struggling for a while and after some apartment damages cost us our food budget for the month, we made the decision to start this gofundme campaign. There's a lot up in the air right now about our life and while we're searching for answers on my own health issues, we're struggling to stay afloat as my symptoms worsen. If you're able to give even $1, it would mean the world to our little family! I know there's a lot of need in the world today and I don't think mine is any greater than others, but I am still in need. Please share and donate if you're able. Thank you so much everyone! https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-matts-journey-towards-health

[https-nae]

Grisha jaeger fancast is Lin Manuel Miranda

[butterfly--empress]

....About that Attack on Titan Series...

Well, well, well......I wasn't going to make this post, but fuck it, we here and I feel like ranting into the goddamn void, it's been a WHILE.

If you enjoyed this series from beginning to end and don't have the emotional maturity to understand that I don't fucking LIKE THIS SHIT. DO NOT REPLY

I don't have patience and I will block you on sight! As we fandom old's say: Don't Like? Don't Fucking Read!

Anyway onto the rant...

it's June 2024 and I finally after so many years, watched this show because it was recommended to me and I brought into the hype because I had NO IDEA just how derisive S4 and the series finale actually was back in the height of it's day.

I had always meant to eventually get around to watching the show and maybe even reading the manga alongside it, but as the years passed, I just never found the urge to pick it up.

And now that I have, after believing the show was great from beginning to end...

GOD, I sure wish I could get back the time I spent watching the entirety of Season 4, that Finale, and feeling utterly annoyed that a writer chose to end their story on such a nonsensical plot.

In fact, I sort of wished I never bothered at all to be quite honest.

The short of it: Seasons 1 to 3>>>>>>Season 4 and that awful ass Finale.

Very unfortunate too. This is just another case of 'great ideas, bad execution'.

And I'm not sorry but the more I think about it, the more I just cannot turn my brain off, suspend my disbelief and gaslight myself into accepting season 4 and that fucking finale as peak writing.

That shit was awful, the fact that seeing the latest interview from the creator himself, just reaffirms how strong the author's intent was when writing this last arc!

It wasn't the fact this was bad on accident, or that the creator ran out of ideas, OR the story got too complicated and complex, OR that he couldn't commit to what he already established in earlier seasons.

If his words are to be taken at face value from that interview:

It's not that this guy is a bad writer, Attack on Titan's last arc's messy writing:

-Plot holes and too many subplots that go nowhere

-Last minute ass-pulls and Deus Ex Machina that make no damn sense.

-Adding time travel-esque powers out of the blue, and it amounts to nothing in the end.

-Never giving an actual satisfying reason why Eren *couldn't defy his fate*.

--We not gonna talk about his mom...

-I'm not gonna bitch about that Ymir subplot about her loving her abusive ass slave master/husband, after what was already established before this point was fine by itself...nope, not going there...

-That god awful confusing asf 4yr time skip. (listen, I don't know NOR do I care at this point, if this time skip was elaborated on in the manga. This was just a poor attempt to hand wave away the obviously inconsistent switch OR lack of development to the characters I followed since ep 1.)

-The stagnation of already established characters we were with since the beginning and basically being replaced by new characters: the MINUTE the Marley characters took center stage, something in me just KNEW, the original crew were being replaced but hoping to GOD I WAS WRONG. --Turns out my gut feeling was correct and it makes me dislike these character more than I already did.

--Yeah, I really did not care AT ALL for the Marley crew. There's just something about shoehorning in new characters that I have no attachment to and telling me, they are now the real protagonists (who get sudden plot armor and make it alive by the end, with no real consequences...in a series that had no qualms about killing just about 90% of the characters I actually gave some fuck about and knew since ep 1 feels very contrived.)

-The unnecessary death of fan favorites that amounted to NOTHING

--I'm not...I'm just going to leave THIS ONE ALONE because I'll be here all fucking DAY and boy I'm doing enough ranting as it is.

~If You Know, You KNOW!~

-I'm not going to rant about the female characters because 1. we'll be here all day, 2. to be fair: most of the characters sort of fell flat regardless of gender anyway. (But I def get that the female cast in particular was done so dirty in the last arc. It's one thing for shounen writers to write one dimensional female characters...you have to be some kind of SPECIAL to create two-dimensional, even three-dimensional female characters only to downgrade them to their lowest common denominator. THE AUDACITY, THE INSULT TO MY FUCKING INTELLIGENCE!)

-I'm not going to bother about the shipping: it's obvious that a certain ship was going to be canon but god, do I really need to bitch about the utter lack of meaningful development to get it from point A to B?

--Then again, maybe it was supposed to be toxic? Lord knows it fits well into the clusterfuck of the last arc of this story.

--Honestly, I was more into a non canon ship that developed thru friendship naturally onscreen anyway, so I have no horse in this race.

-The BIG ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM of mixes messages, that maybe, certain extreme ideologies are correct and justified.

--Yeah, we gonna leave this one alone too...Honestly because this is actually the one thing I don't think was intentional, even if the blatant implications of it are there...and I don't want to make assumptions of the man's politics and what he believes, and his worldview (outside of his personal feelings about himself), I don't know him personally.

--I will however, rant to high hell and I do think he utilized and underutilized the allegory he borrowed from real life history; which led to the unfortunate 'Fantastical Racism' that happens in AoT.

--The slaughtering of poignant thematic themes, period!

--That bad ending (not that it's tragic per se, but just thematically bad).

~~Are you starting to see a pattern??~~

ALL THIS TO SAY:

He didn't WANT to allow his story to progress 'naturally' in the direction it 'wanted to go'.

Isayama didn't want to commit to anything he established. The story is the way it is, because he INTENDED it to be this way.

Eren fails to be a great hero OR antihero (depending on how one sees it) because Isayama doesn't think he, himself is a great person even if others tell him he is. (Ring a Bell?)

And I think it's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. Your time was wasted theory crafting, giving the creator the benefit of doubt, all for him to basically say, because he suffered from a serious case of 'Imposter Syndrome', you are an idiot for ever thinking this story was great, was suppose to be more than it is, and that his success isn't earned because he doesn't feel that way and you have to feel that way too.

The creator wanted a nihilistic, myopic, depressive ending. Worldbuilding, lore, cohesive storytelling be DAMNED, because he let his negative feelings about himself bleed way too much into his work.

He wanted the message if there was one at all: there's no point in putting hope in humans because 'we're all just trash anyway', people will always fight, good people shouldn't sacrifice their lives to help humanity or put any hope into humans evolving to change our ways, so why try to find another way, and maybe 'Hitler was right'.

It gets worse when the creator HIMSELF, out of his OWN MOUTH, stated; if he WANTED TO, he could have given the story a better proper send off. He knows what he wrote, and he knows that the natural, better progression of the story he created would have been better received by the fans and critics alike, if he allowed it to go in that direction, but he didn't want that.

Granted: I'm all for writers doing ultimately what they want with their stories, for better or worse.

But that's not what he wanted. And that's what I take from all of this.

However what pisses me off, is that he should have been HONEST about the story/themes/message he wanted to portray from the start.

I don't have a problem with tragic, depressive tales and it's themes, if it is done right. This was not done right and we know it wasn't, because you can look at past and even present discussions and arguments throughout this fandom and see that people have valid reasons to be very upset. (No one likes for their intelligence to be insulted when the story takes them out of the immersion to the point, that the critical thinking jumps in, and now a person is starting to realize that a lot of writing choices that they ignored before, because the story was still good, are now flaws. Stories don't have to be PERFECT, but once those flaws can't be ignored, people begin to see them as the red flags that they are. We might be hopeful, that these flaws or plot holes will be course corrected at some point, but we will not ignore, when we see the trajectory of a story's plot going downhill to the point of no return. AoT's story went beyond the Point of No Return...ON PURPOSE!)

What grinds my gears about this entire situation is that, we have a creator here, who purposely build up a story, world, characters, and themes that the audience expected would follow through and make sense, given what we have of the story.

Only for the creator to fail spectacularly by trying to fucking subvert the audiences' expectations, and seeming to really not give a damn that it's what he wanted to do from the start.

Despite whatever issues he feels or has about himself, it sours whatever sympathy I may have for the guy, because in a way, what he decided to do of his own free will, seems very jaded and quite narcissistic...

I SAID WTF I SAID

It's the audacity for me.

People were lead on, lied to, and wasted their time for nothing.

Character motivations, deaths, sacrifices, the themes, worldbuilding, all of it, amounted to NOTHING.

We were idiots to put good faith into the author. We were idiots to think, this story was worth it. For some of us, it felt like a slap in the face if you were an original fan since the story's inception and honestly, your resentment for sticking with it til the end for ten plus years for an unsatisfying bullshit finale is very valid.

TL:DR: AoT's ending is trash because the Author wanted it to be trash, and that's really, unfortunately what it all amounts to.

Soo, yeah, I don't think I can really say much more than that.

Man should have just stuck with Keeping It Fucking Simple Simon and just ended the story where literally everybody dies from fighting giant ass flesh eating zombies called titans.

Okay NOW I'M DONE WITH THIS!

Edit: GOD, and here I thought I finally fallen into another great shounen on the same level as FMA:BH after the constant disappointment, that is MHA's last arc.

...Maybe I'm getting too old for anime, at least 'shounen'....idk...anymore

At least Spy x Family can't hurt me...

[bibibbon]

Okay, let's not talk BNHA for now... I just know that you're an AOT fan, too ...

Can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) fav characters from the series? Why love them? And your top 5 fav moments from AOT?

Oh sure anon!

I will keep it short here but my top 5 favourite characters in attack on titan are

Armin alert

Mikasa Ackerman

Eren Yeager

Historia reiss

Hange

My top 5 favourite moments of the series are:

Armin and Eren in the paths

Magath and Keith's deaths (probably my favourite parallels in the series)

Jean and Eren in chapter 137

The meeting between Ymir and Mikasa

Hange's death

[toxbeth]

[innocentimouto]

SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE OF ATTACK ON TITAN

Zeke really spent years and years within the paths thinking things over and Armin spoke with him for a few minutes that got him to change his mind, and he has one sentence of acknowledging how many lives he's killed which means absolutely nothing since so many character within this anime have felt guilt over their actions, even in self-defense.

I wish we got a moment of him thinking about the numerous people he turned into titans in the name of something that Armin just convinced him of wasn't worth it.

Levi killed him so fast got to love him for this great act of service.

[harley-rose25]

just me managing to tie my aot obsession into my startrek obsession again. (To be fair that's really not hard) Also, no a partial rumbling would not save Paradis.

Its crazy to me how anti-rumbling and allience supporters will be like "Eren could've saved Paradis by just destroying the enemy military bases. This is proof that he just wanted to do the rumbling and kill everyone" and their evidence/proof of this is basically because Gabby and Armin said so.

Armin: the guy who fapped to Annie for four years, talking bout "if we just talk" but never actually going out and talking with anyone; Part of Paradis' crew of naive idiots who know basically nothing about the world and just sitting around thinking the perfect non-violent solution will just fall from the sky. And Gabby: a child.

It's giving the same intellectual energy as people who think Vulcans actually cant feel emotions or that they literally cant lie.

[loafl]

Thoughts on Mikasa in the AOT finale

i had fun overall but i enjoy being nit picky so here we go:

mikasa kind of feels like a wasted character, which is really a shame because i like her.

it feels like she had kind of a lack of character development compared to the other two (kind of ended how she started in regards to her relationship to eren which is what largely defined her unfortunately)

and because of the lack of development, it felt unearned that she was the specific person that moved ymir's heart and ended the titans after 2000 years. why were her emotions more significant than any other eldian's for 2000 years?

and dont get me started on the "at least 10 years" line from eren. the only thing that makes that better is the idea that armin was more so just being shown what he emotionally needed to be shown rather than shown the real eren as the guy we knew him as

honestly i thought the friendship between eren and armin was much more touching than eren and mikasa's… thing. eren did so much for armin, wanted to show him freedom outside the walls after the book, he became a titan in the first place because of the resolve he felt activating it while sacrificing his life for armin

meanwhile mikasa, a lot of his actions were in spite of her tbh. she was never for the survey corps. she literally chased him sometimes. it was sweet when he protected them both from the smiling titan ofc, but that didnt really sell me on their relationship from his end

if mikasa got more growth separate from eren or at least reassessing eren then maybe the ymir ending would feel deserved but i kind of doubt it.

i kind of wanted mikasa's loyalty towards eren to be assessed more. i thought her eren-titan-roof-scar was going to be symbolic of how their relationship was a little toxic at times and she'd grow or smth (she's even called out by levi and other characters for her fixation of eren), but ig not. she's literally buried with the scarf and at one point cradling his head (which was admittedly cool, but also so symbolic of their relationship and her stagnated growth)

idk i just felt like a lot of mikasa's growth and outside relationships happened in the beginning (rivalry with annie), but then her character kind of stagnated to be nothing more than a weapon and her dynamic with eren did not grow or change

[starlight-bread-blog]

Mikasa's Obssesion With Eren Wasn't Handled Well

(Spoilers for all of AoT, including the manga).

I'm pretty sure no one is gonna argue that Mikasa's entire arc and personality is centered around Eren, and that's the point. This isn't rocket science. But here's why I still don't like it:

1. Sometimes it feels like the only reason Mikasa thinks her obssesion with Eren is unhealthy because he commited mass genocide. I have no problem with that being her "wake up" moment, but it seems like she never understood that it was a problem to begin with.

2. At the end of arcs like this Mikasa should have a strong sense of self, be her own person and live her own life. So how did the writer choose to conclude Mikasa's arc?

Damn it! I know Mikasa has a great life now with I have no idea who, but why should the concludion of her arc should be in an extra?

+ I have to seriously doubt the conclusion is all that great.

Still all we see is visiting Eren, we should see her on her own. I don't want Mikasa to get a spin off all about her life, I'm saying that in the panels in which we do see her, we should see what her life is like after Eren, since it's her arc.

3. The pacing is terrible. Her arc only kicks in 4 seasons in. Which means, there are 3 whole seasons of Mikasa solely obssesing over Eren.

Mikasa spends 3 seasons having her character centered around Eren, never actually realized that it was unhealthy all this time, only for all of her appearances after the end of her arc to be only about Eren. She never fully gains a self.