#i can forgive them changing/adding some scenes and dialogue because it helps understand the world + plot better

[sugar-cookys]

the only issue i have with the my happy marriage anime is the redesign of these three

[kaisa-ryo]

Sukuna Ryōmen NSFW Alphabet

Warning: English isn't my native language!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

A = Aftercare (What he likes after sex)

Lie on your back with your arms crossed under your head. Most of the time, Sukuna looks up at the ceiling and thinks about something; sometimes he talks to himself, asks himself if he really loves you or pretends to love you. But when you start to cuddle up to him, he looks at your sweet sleeping face and, smiling for some reason, gently squeezes your hand, which rests on his chest, and snuggles up to you.

B = Body part (His favorite body part)

At first you thought he was joking when you said he liked your whole body. But he was not joking. From the outside, he really admires your whole body, because for him you are the most perfect specimen in the world, and he was simply mesmerized by your perfection. Perhaps it will surprise you, but you began to realize your sexual attraction only with him. Before him, you had no idea how good you are. Yes, there were those types who said that your eyes should be mesmerizing and your hair should be long. Or that you must have big lips. Naturally, for a long time you considered your appearance as your biggest flaw. But against the will of fate, as in a typical love story, one possessive brute appeared and made you love yourself. You haven't confessed to him yet that you are grateful to him for teaching him to love yourself. And even if every day he notices some flaws in you, you still don't listen to him, because you know that he still likes your body, it's just that such an egoist has a habit of influencing you and the people around you.

C = Cum (Everything about sperm)

Anywhere, as long as it is your body.

Yes, inside, too, is no less horny, but hell, you seem so spoiled and dirty in his eyes when you are covered in his cum. He will not let you go to the shower right away, because he wants your body to be more saturated with his scent. And he doesn't care that you are indignant, that you are uncomfortable. If he needs it, he will do it.

D = Dirty secret

Public sex.

Sukuna moans at the thought of how he is leaning you as much as possible against the panoramic window so that everyone can see how you wriggle and groan. You feel his tense flesh, watch how he digs more and more into your buttocks, and feel how his penis, increasing in size more and more, pierces your pussy. It seems as if in the whole universe there is nothing but his rhythmic movements inside you. Everything else: people outside the window, cars, barking dogs - nothing compared to this powerful electrical discharge that escapes from your body at that moment.

E = Experience

It was several times before you. Only now, none of them wanted to start a relationship with him. As, in principle, he is. Yes, baby, sex without obligation is still in fashion. You yourself can no longer remember why it was you who decided to take such a brave step - to meet with the curse, and even with their king. Probably because even behind the veil of selfishness and dependence on power, you could see in him one pitiful, but still a drop of humanity. Naturally, Sukuna did not disregard this and even imbued with your enthusiasm. And this splinter is still amazed that you have not left him yet.

F = Favorite position

His most favorite is missionary and doggy style with a squeeze of your wrists over your head. So he can do whatever he wants: change speed, pace, bite, and you cannot stop him or push him away.

G = Goofy (Serious at this moment?)

No.

During the process, he can throw something dirty and humiliating. Can slap, bite or hit. He cannot stand it when it is quiet and only spanking and your moans are heard. He needs to create a whole performance, whatever, just to fill the room with something passionate other than silence.

H = Hair (Is the hair okay?)

Not at all.

The king of curses does not see the need for this at all. If you're uncomfortable with giving a blowjob, he doesn't care. He's not going to waste time making you comfortable. Only throws a short "bear with it." But one day you still managed to persuade him to at least try, smirking him with cute eyes. Then he “limped” for a long time and was angry with you, because it was as if his skin had been ripped off below him, and now everything became sensitive. You laughed at him until everything grew back again, and Sukuna vowed that he would never shave his pubic hair again.

I = Intimacy (Romance)

Oh, he has a problem with that. But don't be in a hurry to despair, he just started to learn!

Most recently, he stopped making a grimace of disgust after kissing you on the cheek or kissing the back of his hand. There were some compromises - now he began to inhale your scent into all his lungs. Then you asked why and why, and received in response what he liked, how you smelled, adding that for all the time that he was on Earth, he had never felt such a unique and intoxicating scent. Not to say that it did not bother you at all, then you really felt a pleasant feeling of goosebumps.

He has no money for gifts, but if you try, he can take you to any place. If you want - to the forest, if you want - to an amusement park, if you want - to a park of culture and rest, if you want - to a museum. In general, such a good guide. Lazy and does not immediately agree, but still a guide.

You push him to all these (however, there is no one else), forcing him to watch dramas, musicals, family comedies, throwing fleeting glances at him when the romantic scene begins. He will cast a second glance at you and guess your goal, sighing in disgust and rolling his eyes.

J = Jack off (masturbation)

It happened a couple of times. That same dirty secret.

To be honest, he didn't react in any way when you caught him doing it in the middle of the day. Unless he just wanted you to "help him." You rolled your eyes and slammed the door, leaving for another room. He grinned maliciously with such a predictable reaction. He was sure that you wanted it, it was just that you didn't have the courage.

K = Kink

If you only knew how languidly he sighs when you give yourself pleasure. Especially if you do it for him. The way you do it turns all his ideas about sex upside down. How you moan when you play with your nipples and stick thin fingers into your hole - it makes his mind melt in an ocean of pleasure. How he fidgets, waiting for your orgasm when you start kissing him. How do you hold his shoulders, snuggling up to him so that he can feel all your hidden virtues. He asks for more and more. And then suddenly he sharply grabs the hair and digs his lips hard into your mouth. He has very strong arms, it seems that even a pinch of effort, and your head will be ripped off. Yes, power and the elements of BDSM are also on his list of favorite things about sex, as are bites or wet sucks.

L = Location (Favorite places to have sex)

To be honest, he has no preference.

If he wants to fuck you on the kitchen table, he will. If he wants to fuck you on the couch, he will. In the laundry, he'll do it. It's no secret for you that he would not mind trying a couple more places and he will never get tired of coming up with new ones.

M = Motivation

He likes it when you suddenly start to dominate or suddenly rub against his cock.

He realizes that he has a competitor and this idea turns him on as hell. Sukuna naturally loves to compete, and you also add fuel to the fire. Naturally, he will not give in, because you are still a pitiful person in comparison with him, and your power must be defended. Therefore, do not be surprised if he begins to act more efficiently than usual in order to assert his own greatness. And Sukuna will try to show you how small and insignificant you are, unlike him.

N = No (Which will not do)

Greed and the desire to completely control the process, of course, is what he aspires to, but when he sees you suppressed and constrained by some thought coming directly from your subconscious, it worries him much more. Such vulnerability literally tears him apart. Under the pressure of circumstances, he turns, in a sense, into an evil, but caring mother. The king of curses first looks at you, as if expecting your gaze on him. Realizing that this is useless, he starts the dialogue first:

— Well, what is different?

Now you didn't want to answer him. I didn't even want to see him. This is not the first time he has shown waywardness. It started to exhaust you in order. The thoughts in your head were dark and your voice sounded cold and indifferent. I thought that it would be better to kiss you or touch you tenderly, but his hands at that moment were too persistent. It infuriated, but it was already impossible to leave. And he did not stop talking to you.

— Sor..m.. - the words from his lips sounded somehow strange. He seemed to have eaten the last syllable.

— What? - you responded.

— Sorrmm...!

— I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.

— Forgive me already, fucked up!

He rolled his eyes after you started either laughing or crying (you laughed and he realized it almost immediately).

O = Oral (Likes to receive or to give)

Receive. Definitely.

What else can you expect from a cursed spirit like him? He will definitely make sure that the blowjob is the longest process in sex for him. Moreover, he will do this persistently: winding your hair around your hand, forcing you to swallow the penis as deeply as possible, so that later as deeply as possible and finish. He doesn't care if you gag, cough or provoke a gag reflex. Sukuna insists that you have to endure, adding "for my sake" with feigned tenderness. You have no choice but to succumb to his pressure. After all, if you do not do this, do not expect that he will please you.

P = Pace

Very lively.

There is hardly a second when you can completely relax. He will hammer into you like a jackhammer, dig his nails into the skin, leaving red streaks on it, and whisper something viciously at the same time. In order to somehow soften these moments, you intensely squint and succumb to his tricks, allowing you to lull your vigilance and give an outlet to the accumulated tension. But you still feel a growing wave of excitement inside you. And Sukuna knows it, as if he reads your thoughts.

Q = Quickie

Immediately starts high. And if because of this you end up quickly, he will require a second round, then a third, and so it will continue until he gets tired of it. Your sex play can last for hours. His "come on, I know that you are already at the limit" will be repeated so often that you will not even be able to think about anything other than orgasm. And he fucking loves it.

R = Risk (Ready to experiment)

Always ready.

You have such compelling requests almost every day. You refuse the majority, because they sound too crazy, but he does not despair and continues to whisper details in your ear, if you nevertheless agreed. And this is, surprisingly, really a working method.

Did the baby suddenly want sex on the roof? Why not!?

On the director's desk? Oh, how can you refuse when you ask him so sweetly, moaning into the phone speaker and squeezing around the air, instead of which there should be yours and only your Sukuna.

S = Stamina

Fuck with him until the morning? Easy! If you are free all weekend, he will definitely find time for you to have fun (if you understand what I mean).

T = Toys

Bad attitude. It's just bad.

— This crap can't take and replace my dick like this! — shouted the King of curses, — Or do you think that she will be better!?

— No, that's not what I mean! — you yelled, — I just suggest you try.

— In that case, I'm against it.

He turned around and left.

You rarely managed to convince him, and this time he was seriously opposed to it. Well, if you want to try them, then you have to do it alone in secret from him.

U = Unfair (Does he like to tease)

It is already difficult to remember at least one sex in which he would not tease you.

Yes! God yes! He knows that you want him at any time of the day or night. Every minute ... He knows all this and feels as if it is a part of him, as if he was destined to constantly touch, squeeze, lick and caress you. Feelings are heightened more if you tell him this directly. For this, he is ready for almost anything. He is ready to give up and just melt between your legs. His skin is so sensitive to your touch that every movement of yours creates desire in him. And an ordinary "dirty slut" excites both of you no less than any other intimate intimacy.

V = Volume (How loud is it)

Loud.

The kisses that descend on your goose bump, lower and lower, turn into a marathon of moans and screams. Whichever of you tries to sound quiet, at times like this it becomes useless. Sometimes you even thought that Sukuna just wanted to shout you down. Such thoughts make you smile involuntarily.

— Why are you smiling? Are these days over?

W = Wild card (Random headcanon)

One neighbor lives next to you. Kind and friendly. Every day, there is a new gift for you - a cake, a cookie, or even a garden gnome. In general, he loves you very much and is constantly interested in when you will marry.

One night you were especially noisy: the bed was reeling back and forth, its back was banging against the wall, and you were screaming with pleasure so that the glass trembled. In general, it is not clear how the house sustained both of you, but you woke up in the morning as if you had slept for a whole month.

You were lying around, unable to even pick up your phone or go to the toilet. And then there was a knock on the door.

You quickly pulled on your panties, threw a robe over your naked body and with small steps ran to open the door. There was a neighbor at the door. It turned out that she had heard the noise from your house all night and decided that they were burglars or worse. The morning head, with difficulty digesting information, finally woke up and at that very second you felt so ashamed that you winced and closed your eyes.

— The guy and I had a fight a little. But it's okay. Rampaging is the norm for him.

She was a little taken aback by this answer.

— Was it me who was on the rampage? — There was a hoarse voice from behind, — Yes, you rode on me like a stallion! Although, to be honest, I liked such a filly...

The neighbor stares at Sukuna, dumbfounded.

You wanted to put it in a blender right now.

X = X-ray (What's under the clothes)

20 cm. During erection ± 2.5

Y = Yearning (How high is the sex drive)

As stated earlier, Sukuna is not good at compliments or gifts. And he himself constantly claims that this is not necessary at all. He acts on the following principle: good for you, good for him, then everything is fine and nothing else is needed. You want something romantic, not depraved. Sometimes he gets bored with his reproaches and requests to spend the evening in bed again. One gets the feeling that he is not capable of anything else.

Sukuna wants to change for you. Listens attentively when you say anything about the human world. What are the customs, countries, traditions, sights. He remembered everything that you said to him and remembers, too, what you tell to this day. He wants to prove that you were not mistaken by discerning humanity in him, towards which no one ever dared even look. She looks at other men, studies gestures and tries to repeat them. Now you do not understand this, but one day you will realize it, and you will love him like you never did before.

± 8/10

Z = Zzz (How quickly falls asleep)

He does not fall asleep and does not sleep. And he goes to his tomb and sits on the throne while thoughts of you visit him. The more he thinks, the more he wants to touch you. Take it and never let it go Any philosopher would say that you are the same as all people. She is as ordinary as millions of others, with her weirdness and naive dreams. Anyone would say, but definitely not him. He doesn't care if you’re ordinary or not, but he wouldn’t date you if he thought the same way. Even if you don’t live a thousand years like him, you’re ready to give you half of your life force, just to die with you.

He doesn't like such thoughts. They don't like the fact that you tied him to yourself, just once you smiled sweetly. He gets angry and screams that he allowed himself to get too carried away by you, and everything around, the whole world is just a pitiful soap bubble, which does not exist even in such a seemingly huge format as your most human soul of all.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

[emachinescat]

Way Back Wednesday #1

Welcome to Way Back Wednesday! Every Wednesday, I am delving into my past as a fanfic writer and reflecting on and sharing one of my stories… starting from the very beginning, 16 years ago, when I was a 14-year-old kid discovering her love for fandom. ❤️

Today’s story is…

An Unlikely Team

American Dragon: Jake Long & Kim Possible

Summary: Monkey Fist and Huntsman have teamed up in order to defeat their respective foes. With Monkey Ninjas, goblins, dragons, nacos, spy gear, magic potion, secrets, regrets, and tears, no one is going to escape from this situation without changing somehow.

Rating: G

Chapters: 18 | Words: 12,353

Year Published: 2005 | My age: 14

Relationships: Jake Long/Rose | Huntsgirl | Characters: Jake Long, Ron Stoppable, Kim Possible, Monkey Fist, Huntsman, Rose | Huntsgirl, Lao Shi, Fu Dog

AO3 Tags: Crossover, Suspense, Humor

My reflections on and "review" of the story are after the break! :)

Oh, wow. It was an adventure coming back to this story! It marked a lot of firsts for me - my first crossover, my first story above 10k words, my first chapter fic. I don't remember a whole lot about my writing process back then, or about the circumstances of writing this story. I was 14, and a lot has happened since then. I do remember that I was still coming off the review-high from my first story, and that I had no idea what I was doing, not really. And it kind of shows.

I guess I should go ahead and say that this story, like the last one, isn't bad. I mean, the plot, if a bit simple and contrived, makes sense and moves along fairly well, and the characters (except for Rose, but we'll get to her in a minute) are pretty well portrayed, and grammatically, there were no glaring errors that I could see. It was interesting enough; it has been probably a decade or more since I last opened this story, but it still managed to hold my attention well enough, I suppose. It has some very positive reviews (and some critical ones), so I must have done something right.

But I've got to go over the issues with this story. Most of them I think are just hilarious. I'd been writing since I was five, but I was new to this kind of storytelling and still trying to find my voice as a writer. Once again, it shows.

Okay, so first, there's the plot itself - super simple, very contrived, and kind of weird. Huntsman and Monkey Fist team up so that M can help H capture and unmask the American Dragon, and in return, H will give M a talisman that will "undoubtedly" make him the Ultimate Monkey Master? Sure, seems legit, I guess.

Then there's the fact that I had to end every chapter - or nearly every chapter - with a cliffhanger, even if it didn't warrant one. I was dying laughing because most chapters would end with a character saying something hopeful to another character, but then muttering under their breath something grim and suspenseful. For example: "'Let us go. Jake's life is depending on us. He is alive for now...' and then he added almost inaudibly, 'but not for long...'" It's hilarious, and I wish I could remember if I was trying to be edgy or just ensure readers would come back, or if I thought being ominous was a hallmark of good writing. Also, the chapters were overall very short. I think I just wrote however much I felt like writing and then posted. Of course, I was having to post between school and the Boys & Girls Club where my mom worked (and being grounded, like a lot), so I guess I just wrote what and when I could.

Some of the dialogue's a bit clunky, and I had a weird thing with time limits. They capture Jake, and then they have to send Huntsgirl out to get a potion that will make him human because they forgot (???) this very important part of the plan for some reason. She says something along the lines of, "My Huntstick will transport me to the magical black market almost instantly. I'll be back within an hour." That doesn't add up, unless she's going to spend an hour haggling with the seller. Then she gets back, amps up the whole evil villain plot, and then adds, "Oh, yeah, it'll take 30 minutes for this potion to take effect." So she and the baddies just stand there for half an hour watching Jake slowly turn from dragon to human. Then when he's been poisoned (another weird plot contrivance), Lao Shi says, "If we don't give him the antidote in 30 seconds, he'll die!" I suppose I did set the scene, whether intentionally or not, by having a clock ticking in the background, but the way that all of the characters seem to have such an acute knowledge and understanding of time is just weird to me.

The only aspect of this story to actually bother me is the disservice I did to Rose's character. In the show, she's portrayed as a pretty strong protagonist-by-day/antagonist-by-night, but in my story, she's pitiful. I don't know if I just consumed a lot of media with weak female characters or what, but it's super cringey how emotional and weak she's portrayed as once she finds out the truth about Jake. She cries, which is fine, but then girlfriend just up and faints! She cries some more, begs Jake to forgive her, acting like she'll never be able to live with herself or forgive herself if he doesn't, then gets mad at him when he needs a little time to process that the girl he has a crush on is also the girl who's been trying to kill him. Then as soon as he apologizes for... being traumatized, I guess? she turns around and starts spouting off stuff about never being able to forgive herself if he'd died or something. I apologize most deeply to her character.

Oh, I just realized I haven't really discussed the Kim Possible side of things, mostly because it's pretty cut and dry. Those characters all seemed to be, well, in character. I especially feel I had Ron down to a T. It was also really funny the way I had Huntsman and Monkey Fist constantly arguing even through their alliance. The fight scenes, with Kim and with Jake, are very minimal. They're usually one step above just saying, "They fought." On that note, there's not a whole lot of detail or description, but a lot of dialogue. I definitely could have expanded more on the world to make the crossover feel more complete.

All that (mostly light-hearted) criticism aside, it was fun to get to go back and read this, and if you think you'd be interested, be my guest. It's a cute little read, and important to me because it marked the second step in my fan-fiction journey.

Next week, we'll be taking a look at one of the cringiest things I've ever written - yikes!

[snkpolls]

SnK Chapter 133 Results

The chapter poll closed with 1456 responses. This month’s poll results brought to you by /u/berthototototo ,u/staraves, u/_Puppet_, @shifter-lines​ and @momtaku​

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,365 responses

Nearly 80% of the fandom rated chapter 133 as good or great. In comparison with most SnK chapters, that’s on the low side. Since this was yet another set up chapter it’s possible that the fandom is waiting to see what payoff there will be before they throw their full support behind the developments introduced this month.

lmao good chapter but wtf

It's the best paced chapter since the rumbling began.

All I can say is I can't wait for the next chapter.

Great start to the end

There were a lot of contrived moments here on the first read but I'm hopeful things will play out in an unexpected way.

One of the better recent chapters, felt well paced and most of the dialogue and events seemed logical and fitting. Nice to see one more location added to the AOT world before the end.

I’ve been doing polls for almost 30 chapters now, this is the first where I have no chapter rating, I need to see how all this plays out before I decide if I love it or hate it.

All of this self-reflection is annoying. Though that feeling is just more because of the fact that waiting a whole month for another ‘these hands have killed’ chapter is not exciting when we are so close do the end and I just want to see the ending already.

Average as fuck, the intention is good but the execution is not it, and the dialogues feel very forced and repetitive.

Not good at connecting the narrative plot points 'cause there's...hundreds of them at this point but I'm here for the character interactions and to see just what the hell that "See you, Eren" from the beginning actually meant

Good but I worry about the pacing, some of this should have came earlier, will wait to see what comes from it.

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT 1,379 responses

Looks like a lot of people were glad to see that this conflict will not be resolved with a little heart-to-heart (34.9%). People also loved seeing child Eren being spooky with his new pal Ymir (18.8%). 11% liked seeing Eren’s friends reach out to him – or at least try.  9.4% liked Levi, because Levi. Connie, Jean, and Reiner sharing a moment of understanding warmed 8.6% of your hearts. 5.6% were happy to see Falco and Gabi brainstorming, and seeing Mr. Leonhart being a badass was the favorite moment for 3.6%.

I don’t know how it didn’t come up in this survey that Levi called Armin COMMANDER. That was my favorite moment by far. I also enjoyed the confirmation of Levi still caring about Eren. He always uses Zeke as a scapegoat. I somewhat feel bad for monke.

Isayama yeeting the Talk no Jutsu trope was my favorite moment!

I CAN"T BELIEVE THAT FLYING TITAN IS CANON LIKE HOLY SHIT

It was tough for me to decide a favorite moment from this chapter because every scene in this one was awesome. That's how fantastic of a chapter it was! I guess the only issue for me is the possibility of the Flying Titan actually becoming a reality when it felt too good to be true, but looking back, I think there was some foreshadowing to this becoming a reality.

God bless Isayama for the flying titan reveal

Favourite part was child Eren and Ymir standing in the paths.

Kiyomi being willing to die and sink with the ship actually hit me harder than I expected

Levi being the smollest husband is my favorite.

The gang forgiving RBA makes my heart weep with both melancholy and joy

  WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER’S MVP 1,363 responses

Kiyomi and Eren are similar shades of green in this chart but I assure you it was Eren’s ranting about freedom (39.8%) and not Kiyomi’s talk of sacrifice and atonement (1%) that granted Eren this month’s MVP. Armin (18.9%), Mr. Leonhardt (9.5%), Falco (6.2%) and Levi (5.7%) are the other visible pieces of the pie.

#TEAMEREN

ANNIE IS THE BEST GIRL!

EREN IS A GENEROUS GOD

Falco is a good boy

Proud of armin for not backing out from commander role🤩

I love every time Eren shows up nowadays, other characters are getting a little worrying tho, Its starting to seem like alot of them have outlived their usefulness to the story and are just repeating stuff until their deaths.

Reiner handsome. That is all.

eren is just a cool badass

  WILL ONYANKOPON ACTUALLY MANAGE TO GET THE PLANE TO EREN WITHOUT ISSUE, OR WILL THE HALF-CAPACITY FUEL TANK BECOME A RELEVANT POINT? 1,363 responses

Because Isayama has made clear that details as small as which direction Grisha is looking while leaving the house can’t go unquestioned in this manga, we asked about the fuel tank which is at half-capacity thanks to Floch, and whether or not it will present problems for those on board. A strong plurality, at 44.2% of you, think that they’ll run out of fuel, but it won’t be a massive hindrance. In second place, with almost exactly half of the votes as the first answer, 22.2% of you think Onyankopon will use the plan in some sort of suicidal attack, and just under 20% think the fuel tank will be a major roadblock in some other way. Lastly, ~14% of voters said they’ll make it just fine despite the damage. I admire your optimism.

I hope in vain that Onyankopon doesn't die. He won't even get to go to PATHS if he does.

  THE TALK WITH EREN FINALLY HAPPENED… SORT OF. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBE YOUR THOUGHTS? 1,371 responses

Multiple select charts aren’t the prettiest but we like to think they do a good job of showcasing what the fandom thinks on a topic. While none of the options this month reached any sort of consensus, they do provide a snapshot of what we want and expect from Eren.  

Of the items offered, only “I’m glad Eren was firm and there will likely be no Talk no Jutsu” reached 50%. The other more popular choice were “I’m surprised Eren reached out to them instead of the other way around” (41%), “THAT PATHS STUFF IS STILL SO COOL” (38.8%) and “I’m glad so many were able to talk to him and it wasn’t just EMA” (33%).

The more negative options, ‘Eren was unnecessarily cruel, his friends deserve better”(13.8%), “I’m mad that Eren is letting them fight him. It’s like he wants to lose” (10.6% ) and “I don’t like Eren dismissing the possibility of talking” (8.1%) received only a fraction of support.

it looks like Eren is committed to HIS path, which backs his friends into a really tough corner. I can't say I'm surprised; we've seen it coming since they got to the ocean, we just didn't want to believe it.

Paths do be lit tho

I really wish Eren would stop the rumbling. He had done more than enough.

Eren's speech, didn't feel like him talking. It was way too typical, he used his catchphrases way too many times. This could be done on purpose for an in-story actual reason, but if it wasn't, i'm not a fan of it. The alliance talking about the colossal being able to defeat eren, makes me think armin won't be able to. I think Armin and Reiner still don't understand Eren's intentions, i fully think he does not want to be stopped. Eren is going to try to kill all of them.

I love Eren dialogues. I just loved the chapter and paths scene so much. Quality character development!!

Feel sad about Erens "catch me if you can" - I wish that the alliance will work together with Eren ....

Thank god for no talk no jutsu

he's been allowing them to use their titan powers, even against the Yeagerists who were supposed to defend their country. That means Eren doesn't dise with his friends, but doesn't side with his own supporters. Yeah, Eren's a dick.

  WHOSE WORDS TO EREN DID YOU ENJOY THE MOST? 1,366 responses

The attempts at talking to Eren were almost a character rorschach test as each individual brought up what was closest to their hearts in an effort to stop the rumbling. While none of their pleas impacted Eren, we were curious which one the fandom enjoyed most. Levi’s promise of an ass kicking (32.5%) was the favorite, distantly followed by Mikasa’s more impassioned “Let us share your burdens” (24.9%).

Levi beeing sassy again - awsome

Mikasa saying she wants Eren to share his sins with her may be a hint for what's to come. I think she won't be able to let go of Eren and turn against the alliance to protect him.

Levi is hilarious

Honestly, the alliance have been so clueless that even Eren himself had to spare a moment for them, explicitly telling them that talking is never an option with Eren ‘I must always fight’ Yeager.

Look man, I'm an Eremika shipper and all but I really wish Mikasa didn't go on her usual "I'm here for you Eren" spiel in paths. It felt a little forced, and this would've been a good arc to have some more upfront and major changes as to how Mikasa sees Eren, but to get that usual "100% devotion" Mikasa that we've seen all series after we got signs that she's changed how she sees Eren was kind of disappointing.

I knew that the alliance talking to Eren won't work

Everyone is all sad while trying to convince Eren to stop the rumbling, and there's Levi cracking up jokes 😂 

  EREN PREEMPTIVELY TOLD THE ALLIANCE TO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH HIM AND TO ATTACK HIM WITH THE INTENT OF KILLING HIM. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 1,357 responses

It seems to be another month of Isayama dangling Eren’s motivations in front of us, though this time we got some substance in the form of some surprising words to the alliance. The most popular interpretation is the straightforward one (30.1%), that it’s as Eren says and he is genuine in not wanting to step on his friends’ freedom. Up next is people who support Reiner’s hypothesis of Eren wanting somebody to stop him (21.2%), with decreasingly popular choices being Eren wants to be killed only after the rumbling is complete (15.5%), he’s just continuing his daily “freedom” spiel (12.4%), and he’s confident in the alliance’s inability to stop him (11.6%). Many opted for the write in option to share their original theories (5.6%).

Seemed like a cry for help to me.

Im convinced that he wants to be stopped, he just doesn’t realize it yet.

Inconsistent character writing lol

Eren loves his friends, so much that he is unleashing the Rumbling, but he only cares about them on a physical level. He wants them to stay alive, no matter how they are mentally.

Eren is in the darkest part of his mind and wants to die. However, his obession with freedom is strong, so he keeps moving foward and won't allow his friends to just kill him without fight.

He wants the alliance to challenge fate, as he thinks the destruction of the world is inevitable

I believe that Eren does want to win but doesn’t want to live with the guilt, but I just felt this moment was too forced, and honestly a little bit cringe, just didn’t feel like something Eren would say

It wasn't Eren talking

No idea, not even sure it's really Eren talking

There are only a few possibilities that make sense: Reiner is right and he wants them to kill him, Ymir is controlling the PATHS and trying to imitate Eren but doesn't quite understand that his concept of freedom is hypocritical, OR Eren only sees restriction of freedom enforced through PATHS as being truly taking away their freedom, like he thinks it's alright to manipulate, gaslight, beat and imprison his friends using his own voice and hands, but using the Founder is somehow too far.

it’s all a part of his plan even tho the fandom hates it. Just wait for it guys ;)

Eren wants the world to see that the Eldians they hate are saving them from the rumbling

If allaiance kills eren then the world will respect eldians more

Zero Requiem

I don't like the Lelouch scenario, it is contrary to what Eren's character really is. I believe there is more to this because why say it now, when he could have said it before ? There has been many holes with what he's doing.

Lelouch ending

LELOUCH LELOUCH LELOUCH

It means he values freedom over safety... which makes him look like a hypocrite because a lot of times he had no problem taking their freedom from them lol

hes hypcritical asf, getting to decide who can be free or not when he that literally was bothered by that himself. I think it was very selfish

Eren has become crazy had this point and his reasoning doesn't make sense, he's trying to dodge reality

Eren is just trying to define, create, and justify his own version of “freedom” because he can’t let go of his childish way of looking at the world. Letting his friends have their “freedom” almost feels like a cheap necessity he had to toss into his homemade definition of freedom.

Eren is a fucking narcissist, a hypocrite.

Eren is dumb

Eren is just doing what he has to do.

Eren's cool as fuck

He's literally giving them the choice to do what they want. The freedom of will. It's up to them to decide if they want to stop him by force or not. At the end of the day, Eren is already firmly set on doing what's necessary for Paradis.

If they want to die trying to stop the rumbling, they are free to do so. But, he wants them to know that negotiating is useless

Reiner is wrong, Eren doesn't want to be stopped because the Cringevengers are trying to take away his freedom to destroy his enemies

  EREN IS DEPICTED AS A CHILD, AND WITH THE SAME SHADED EYES AS YMIR ONCE DID. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING EXPLANATIONS DO YOU BELIEVE? 1,339 responses

Child Eren appears again in this chapter, but now resembling Ymir even more. About half of the fandom thinks that the shaded out eyes is a sign of loss of free will. The other popular option, at 42.1% is that they’re depicted at the age they first got their titan powers. The idea that their eyes symbolize ignorance and that their child form symbolizes immaturity each got about 16%, and 10.5% of fans think Yams drew it this way just to look cool.

Alliance POV. They cannot understand Eren/Ymir, therefore their eyes (=windows to the soul) are obscured. Note that Ymir's eyes gradually got clearer from Eren's POV as he humanized her.

Carla died when Eren was still a child. He never healed from this traumatic experience, his child-self is still strongly suffering, that why he appeared as a child. I believe that the child next to Ymir is the darkest part of Eren's soul.

child self image is reflective of eren entering a state of naivety so as to bear the pain and gravity of the rumbling which he has caused  

I think it symbolizes a kinda immature concept of freedom

"Slaves don't need two eye balls". Eren is a slave to freedom.

shaded eyes represent being blinded by their desire for freedom & child-like state represents their innocence even if deemed to be something more

The are the ages of their greatest trauma

Adult Eren couldn't live with the guilt so he's letting child Eren carry the weight.

Both of them are doing everything for the sake of others, at the moment they aren't even thinking about themselves. EREN wants the people he loves and cares about to live a happy life and for that he is ready to sacrifice himself.

Bert had shaded eyes when talking to Armin too. I think it means the character is going to do questionable actions but in a mysterious manner. If that makes sense…

Bertold had the same shaded eyes when he was acting as the villain in rts. Same for Eren/Ymir here. Like Bertold, he is willing to kill his friends

Eren could have split his psyche similar to Reiner did with Marco. He is so distraught from his actions that he is using his child self's willpower to continue moving forward.

What about that parasite thing that attached to Ymir in the tree? What if that's the big bad of the series, and has taken over Eren?

The eyes are closed because they are tapped into the Yggdrasil network and are looking at what is happening in the real world through an inner eye.

  YMIR APPEARS TO BE ALIGNED WITH EREN. WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS? 1,329 responses

Ymir and Eren standing side by side was quite the sight to behold, but what does it mean? The large majority at 55.9% believe it indicates that they’re on the same side wanting the rumbling. 19.2% believe Eren to be a pawn to her now, 15.6% think it’s the other way around, and 9.3% think she’s on his side but is having doubts about her allegiance.

Corrupted by the Eren’s idea of freedom (Ymir’s freedom was taken from her); Child Eren is a prisoner of Adult Eren’s future actions.

Eren is taking Ymir's place as the lord of the Paths. Like Ymir, after he dies, he will live on in the Paths.

I low key think Eren is kinda being controlled by Ymir/ conflicting with her

Eren is now like Ymir, enslaved in Paths to something bigger

Ymir started controlling Eren when he was a child

Ymir and Eren are tied together now. One is definitely being influenced by the inner emotions of the other (possibly Ymir's years of resentment for her life since we saw Eren "sleeping" at the end of one of the previous chapters with the birds)

Eren as a child symbolises regression, immaturity and narrow-mindedness. Eren refuses to be an adult (aka making compromises, listening to others…) and enslaves himself to the simplistic ideology he had as a child. Ymir was a literal slave who never managed to emancipate herself despite her power. I think the parallel between the two is to make Eren's state of mind more explicit than it already was in 131.

EY is cute and canon

  EREN SAYS ALL THAT’S LEFT IS TO FIGHT. WHO IN THE APPROACHING BATTLE WOULD HE BE WILLING TO KILL? 1,333 responses

Eren’s willingness to kill his own friends has been a topic of debate ever since the two sides separated, and this chapter pushed that question further. People seem to think Eren would hesitate the most with Mikasa and Armin, and hesitate the least with Pieck and Reiner, with the others falling into various middle positions, as the chart shows. The requisite to avoid Eren’s hit list seems to unsurprisingly be a pre-existing bond with him, with some leeway being given to children. Except for Gabi, it seems, but we all know how Eren fondly refers to her as “that brat”.

Eren has accepted that he will kill his friends, and wants to get it over with

Eren explicitly said "If someone tries to take my freedom, I won't hesitate to take theirs". That was in private to Zeke, so I don't doubt for a minute he will kill anyone in the Cringevengers he needs to in order to achieve it.

He is willing to kill them and I can't wait when some of the 104th will die already

Eren kill Armin already please

If Falco dies, I cries.

  IF NEITHER SIDE STEPS DOWN, EREN SAYS THEY’LL COLLIDE. WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN THE BATTLE? 1,349 responses

The time to make your bets is here! As the long-awaited battle between the alliance and Eren approaches, the audience is almost evenly divided on what they think the outcome will be. If this poll counts for anything, the alliance are projected as the victors (50.6%), narrowly edging out (by only 15 votes) the believers in Eren as the winner (49.4%). Whether you attribute the neck-and-neck result to the unpredictability of the setup, or simply too many clearly incorrect people from the opposing side to yours, is up to you.

The alliance will win GG WP

The alliance have 1 skilled warrior , 2 skilled former SC soldiers , 5 Titan shifters and 2 Ackermans but I still thinking that they can't defeat Eren or Ymir .

th Eldian empire will win in the end and the outside world will get what it deserves...I hope

Eren naturally shouldn’t be able to be stopped. He’s way too powerful.

I appreciate the fact that Commander Armin definitely has no tangible plan and it was the SC part manifesting their death throes for a peaceful end. Still I can't help but cringe and not feel anything at their attempt.

don’t think it’s a win/lose situation between eren and alliance, both with win and lose in some way and there will be some 3rd option

I can't wait to see the alliance-Eren fight. I just can't wait

Isayama's writing with his asshole. Whoever side gets to win, we lose.

  LEVI RETURNED FROM PATHS WITH MORE FINGERS THAN HE STARTED WITH. IS THIS A MISTAKE? 1,342 responses

We’ve seen Isayama make mistakes that the fandom took too far before, is this the case again? In an incredibly close vote, 51.5% think it is just a mistake, while the other half at 48.5% are convinced Isayama slipped in this plot development.

I've been saying this for years but Levi getting his fingers back from the Paths was definitely intentional and I'm sure the relationship between Ackermans and the Paths are going to be a major plot point. And after 132 I'm wondering if the 'afterlife' aspect will prove important too.

Is it just me or has Annie been going through a growth spurt lately? Either that or Isayama's artwork is getting sloppy. Not to even mention Levi's fingers…

This was quite a chapter. So many things that could happen especially with the flying titan. And then levi possibly having his fingers back. Then learning annie’s titan power. I heard aot will have a bad ending but i hope the the alliance will win.

Levi is being healed by the coordenate. Ackerman's blood is "half titan" so he must have recovered because of that just like titans do.

  WHICH COMMANDER HAD A BETTER TITAN DRAWING? 1,352 responses

Can Armin live up to Erwin? While he’s asking himself that, the fandom has decided that in the drawing department he has not. Erwin’s (in?)famous turkey titan drawing ate up 61.2% of the votes compared to Armin’s drawing from this chapter at 38.8%.

none of this would have happened if my goat erwin was still alive

  IF EREN IS INDEED STOPPED BY SOMEONE, WHETHER IT BE KILLING HIM OR INHERITING HIS TITANS, WHO MAKES THE MOST SENSE FOR THIS ROLE? 1,349 responses

The bets are on Mikasa being the one to stop Eren and/or inherit his burdens at 30.2%. Her words to Eren this chapter could definitely be foreboding in hindsight. Armin, leader of the uphill battle against Eren, is the runner-up at 26.5%. 18.6% think the answer is no one – presumably because Eren will either wipe ‘em all out, or be the one to decide his own fate. 13.5% think Reiner will be the one, he is the same as Eren after all. But everyone is the same nowadays, so who knows?

We then have Gabi (4.3%), Falco (2%), and Zeke, Jean, and Levi tied (1.5%). Annie follows with a tiny fraction (0.4%), and Pieck, the ultimate underdog, has the fewest votes at 2, or 0.1%.

...Hang on, aren’t we missing someone? Yes – even below Pieck, there is the underdog of underdogs: literally nobody thinks Connie will be the one to end it all. Will he ever be considered a real main character? :’(

I'm leaning towards Mikasa.

It feels like there was a lot of foreshadowing for Reiner to go head-to-head with Eren one final time.

Can't wait for Gabi to eat Eren.

  WILL LEVI KILL ZEKE? 1,322 responses

It’s been over 4 years both in and out of world since Levi vowed to kill Zeke. Will he end up doing it after all this time? The majority of fans think he will, at 54.8%. 18.5% think he’ll die before completing his goal, and 14.2% think he’ll reassess the situation and his goal of killing Zeke.

Both will die fighting each other

He may kill him and realise it was pointless, both as revenge and to stop the rumbling. Or possibly he'll be prevented from using violence as a solution this time. No forgiveness though.

He will defeat him but die just after killing him

He will fulfill his promise to Erwin but he'll die soon after

I do think he will but I don't think it's about Erwin's promise anymore

He will prioritize stopping Eren over killing Zeke

Please don't kill monke. Let him redeem himself first. Monke to save the world!

He won't necessarily forgive Zeke, but he will take pity on his sad state of affairs, but more importantly realise stopping the rumbling is more important than his petty revenge.

I predict Levi will kill Zeke, but it will be some kind of suicidal attack that will get him killed in the process.

Zeke will die but not by Levi's hand

He'll be forced to team up with him to save the world. But won't forgive him.

Nah, characters never get what they want, plus I don't see a real fight between them, that would be repetitive and too predictable and Zeke is probably too distressed/depressed over what happened in paths. And that would be really boring if Levi killed him tbh.

No, Because Zeke is already dead

I can’t believe the Beast Titan could be any animal they wanted, including a T-Rex, and that boring jackass picked a monkey. As if he wasn’t enough of a loser.

HOW CORRECT ARE ARMIN AND LEVI IN THINKING THE RUMBLING CAN BE STOPPED BY KILLING ZEKE? 1,343 responses

Levi suggests to the alliance that instead of ending Eren’s life to stop the rumbling, they could opt to kill the man previously called the key to the Founder, Zeke. Only 4.2% of people agree that this would help in stopping the rumbling, with the most popular response at 41.8% being it would fail due to Eren having full control of the Founder. The belief that Zeke’s death would have alternatively disastrous consequences is also popular, with 27.8% thinking Ymir’s presence would allow the titans’ advancement to continue, and 26.2% expecting the lack of command over the titans would render them mindless, but still functioning.

killing zeke probably won’t solve anything since the rumbling has already started, it might make a difference since eren isn’t royal but i think it’s just too late, and I really don’t want zeke to get killed

They'll find either that Zeke is already dead and was only needed alive for a moment to begin the rumbling, or that his continued existence is still necessary for defeating Eren somehow.

Everyone's talking about "stop Eren using Zeke," and here I am remembering "Zeke, stop Eren."

How is killing Zeke going to solve what Eren is doing? The poor guy just wanted to achieve his dream of eliminating all pp’s and instead he has to bear the burden of the destruction of the whole world.

Killing Zeke instead of Eren would be an emotional cop out for the Alliance. I hope that won't become the case, because that would make the ending of this manga super dissatisfying.

  WHICH WHOLESOME MOMENT BETWEEN COMRADES DID YOU LIKE THE MOST? 1,334 responses

In such dire times, wholesome moments really are appreciated. 43.5% loves seeing Annie recall her 104th days the most, while 28.3% appreciated Connie accepting comfort from Reiner. The rest of you were split pretty closely between Gabi and Falco being adorbs together and Armin emulating Hange in his interactions with Onyankopon.

Annie's flashbacks of the Warriors I rly liked, Reiner smugly looking at Bertholdt was rly heartwarming...

It is very heart-warming how close the surviving members of the 104th still feel to each other after all said and done, including Eren.

the 104 got some understanding /closure for previous actions, so that's nice

Gabi and falco should have listened to Annie when she told them to take care of the charcoal, instead of ruining the chapter, and spewing some nonsense

WHICH OVERUSED PHRASE FROM THIS CHAPTER ARE YOU MOST TIRED OF? 1,315 responses

Isayama sure is hammering home certain themes and character motivations; is it too much?  29.1% are tired of hearing everyone scream EREH, which is most often attributed to Mikasa, but it branched out this chapter to all his friends. 22.3% got bored of everyone being the same as each other; because when everyone’s the same, no one is. 19.5% are tired of every other word out of Eren’s mouth being freedom, 16.4% want Levi to get an original thought, and 12.7% want Eren to shut up about his other catchphrase and just stay put for one second.

Muh ereh

I LOVE YOU EREN KEEP MOVING FORWARD 4EVER

"The dialogue between Jean, Reiner, and Connie couldn’t have been worse. It felt like a bunch of stock phrases, “we’re the same”, “traitor”, etc.

Can't remember who said this and where but Eren does love his friends, it's just that he only cares about their physical well-being. ""You are free to do as I see fit.""

Ereh: Reiner, I am the same as you. I know that my enemies are the same but I have no choice because Society™

Rainah: No, you are wrong. I had a choice, but I attacked the walls because I was selfish and because I wanted to.

Ereh: Damn bro, same. Time to commit war crimes!

Man, each time I feel like the 104 can't be more annoying... I can't stand their whining about ereh, how they don't wan't to kill him and that ereh is just misguided, let's talk, please come back uwu.

The forced ""We're the same"" bullshit is really getting on my nerves. Reiner broke a wall with the goal of committing a genocide against innocent civilians. Jean and Connie killed a few soldiers with the goal of STOPPING a genocide against innocent civilians. No, these actions are not the same, and I'm sick of Isayama trying to make us think that they are. Now, I can forgive it because it seems like he's just going for a "Jean, Connie and Reiner all murdered former comrades and are racked with guilt because of it" comparison, which I'm fine with, but we're on thin ice here with the moral reductionism.

"We're the same". I'm sorry, are they suggesting the 104th and Warriors are ANYTHING alike? the 104th are victims of circumstance who were forced to make terrible choices. The Warriors willingly slaughtered hundreds of thousands. The Warriors are horrendous monsters beyond redemption, and it's insulting of Connie to say they're the same as those inhuman creatures.

even tho I liked that Connie and Jean acknowledge their similarities with the Warriors, they are still not the same, the Warriors were brainwashed coerced children when they started their crimes, the 104th were adults in high positions when they killed innocents and they enabled Eren to do the Rumbling by ignoring the signs, while RBA almost from the start fought to prevent the Rumbling.

The chapter's named Sinners, Isayama called feeding a person to a titan a sin right as chapter 84 came out, and EAMJC killing Bert still hasn't been addressed under these circumstances? They're saying they are the same as the warriors which isn't true in any capacity and I hope they fall on their ass soon to realise they are not at all the same.

Eren saying freedom all the time has been cringe since the EMA table confrontation.

  WHAT WILL FALCO’S FLYING TITAN BE USED FOR? 1,335 responses

The most popular two options, at roughly a third each, are that Falco will come in clutch at the final battle, and that he’ll save them when the plane starts to falter.

Carrying the Eldian evacuees to safety but remember there are also Marleyans there. A titan saving Marleyans, by its own will, will all help for the final peace treaties  

Either taking Annie, Gabi, Yelena, and Kiyomi off the boat and picking up the Alliance in case the Flying Boat runs out of fuel at any point, or carrying the Eldians from Liberio to safety in case there are no airships left at Fort Salta to escort them.

What's the point of Annie going off if she's just going to join back a chapter later after more aruani flashbacks?

I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IN THAT

Eren is baiting him with that "scenery" because he needs to have the 9 titans to end the Ymir's curse

Fly gabi to the founding Titan to snipe eren

I get a feeling that he is the one who may inherit Eren's titans. What would be the point of giving him the titan powers, if he doesn't have any bigger role to play? Falco is somehow opposite to Eren, so if the power of the FT and AT are given to such pure boy like him, the future of the world might become brighter.

I thought the dialogue hinted more at Annie eating Falco's spinal fluid and gaining wings. Also I think it will be funny if Falco's memories are not from the previous Beast Titan but is actually the "Scenery" (it looks suspiciously similar)

Transporting Annie, Gabi and Falco where needed for the plot.

I wonder if Annie mentioning eating birds meant anything, or if it was just another poor attempt at humour by Isayama?

He'll transform thinking he can fly, find out he can't, the ship will sink and that's how Isayama will kill the characters on the ship

He'll fly far away on a different planet and start a new colony. Oh wait there is atmosphere. Whatever paths will lend him some cheat codes :P

  THE PLOT POINTS HINTED AT IN THIS CHAPTER HAVE SPARKED SOME BACKLASH. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT EACH ONE?

So many revelations! The most controversial ones are Falco potentially becoming a flying titan, him getting Zeke’s memories, and the Female Titan powers; though more people are ok with each of these than not. Eren letting his friends continue to use titan powers, and the Beast Titan being multiple animals are the most accepted developments.

The idea of a flying titan is forceful and too convenient. I wonder how Isayama will draw it and not make it look like something odd.

The flying titan thing is the dumbest and most forced thing in snk I've seen. It feels like something from a fanfic and just seems so out of place. It's so sudden and forced. There are other things that seem really rushed in this chapter too. Like the bits about Annie's titan etc.

Lol at people calling anything about this “forced”. AoT fans pretend they’re a lot smarter than they actually are.

The stuff about Female titan and flying titans and memories being distributed was maybe a bit too conveniently delivered in the very end of the whole series, but tbh it's still plausible in-universe. I take it as a sign that Isayama knows what he wants and he wants to do the ending justice, not just get it out there as soon as possible with as little work as possible."

I'm glad the Falco can fly because it means the rest of the alliance can join the final battle and him flying was well built up. What I think should have been set up better is this power coming specifically from the Beast Titan. All past users we have seen of it was a monkey and we're just being told it could be other animals now?

some things (like zeke's beast memories, female titan abilities, flying titan, warrior families being alive) were so convenient, but I'm not too mad about it

Someone had thought about the beast titan animal theory before, since there was a giant horse at those old "paintings" that tell the story about eldia in marley's perspective, it is in chapter 87 i think, when grisha's parents are lecturing him.

The falco thing is too forced. The beast titan being any animal isn’t that forced but it should’ve been revealed waaay before, not in the same chapter as this whole falco flying thing.

I fully expected the Liberio Eldians to be alive, but was not expecting them to be en route to Fort Salta.

I don't like how plot convenient it is that the Eldian evacuees from Liberio are heading for Fort Salta just like Eren with his rumbling titans, the Alliance fighters on the flying boat, and now apparently the boat crew as well.

I always thought that suggested all the forms that titan could take. In retrospect it feels obvious -- Yams, you practically telegraphed that by naming the kid Falco in the first place.

What do you mean it's stupid that Galliard cured world hunger by creating bacon with his Titan form? His name is PORCO

since when could the Female Titan copy other powers? Did I just miss that? Because it just comes across as a convenient way to get Falco, Gabi, and Annie to the final battle.

annie will eat a boat and tranform into a boat titan AND KILL EREN WITH HER BOATNESS.

  WHICH TRAIN MOMENT DID YOU ENJOY THE MOST? 1,332 responses

After being implied in 125, we get to see the Liberio evacuees on the run. As set up in that chapter, 44.8% were most happy to see Mr. Leonhart continuing to be a boss, while 33.6% were most hyped for another great double spread of the rumbling, as we’ve gotten for the last 4 chapters. Mr. Finger and the Brauns' concern for the children came in after that, followed by Karina and the Grices.

Papa Leonhart is a true badass. It wasn’t said if Bertolt’s mother was still alive, and the lack of Galliard parents/zeke’s grandparents was interesting- how the only warrior/cadet families shown were ones with a child that the readers know is still living.

Go Mr Leonhart we stan

I can’t believe karina is still alive

While having all the warriors' family (expect for the Yeagers) be there is forced and not natural, I'm really hoping that Falco gets to reunite with his parents.  He's so precious that he deserves that.  If the other parents die then so be it as long as I can have a Grice family reunion.

The approaching rumbling has pretty much lost its impact as a visual image because Isayama has overused it to death.

I liked the new character in the train

This chapter was a beautiful demonstration that ANNIE GOT ALL HER GUTS FROM MR. LEONHART THAT BADASS JUST REFUSED TO DIE AND FORCED THE MARLEYAN SOLDIERS TO GET TO THAT TRAIN WHAT A LEGEND

  WILL THE BLIMP BOMBERS BE EFFECTIVE AT ALL? 1,348 responses

The chapter ended on the cliffhanger of the blimp bombers approaching Eren, but will it be worth the wait? The Majority, at about 75% think they will take out a few colossals but nothing to write home about, 19.7% think Eren will wipe them out without a second thought, and 5.6% think they will help deal a decisive blow.

I think The bombs on the plane , The colossal Titan nuke ability and the blimps won't do any kind of damage to Eren .

the blimps Will be destroyed by founding titan eren using his thorn on his spine

I'm itching to see eren finally take some sort of action against marley's bombers :D

I’m wondering if Isayama is going to flip the script a bit and showcase how the advancing technology is gaining the upper hand over titans, and cut Eren off in his tracks abruptly/make him change his tactic. Or, if it’ll just be the catalyst for the alliance to stop him after they witness it has no major affect on the titans.

I'm not sure about the direction of the final battle but everything's colliding at Fort Salta one way or another. I'm curious about this volume's cliffhanger."

  DESCRIBE THE CHAPTER IN ONE WORD 855 responses

Continuing with the theme of underwhelming reception, the responses to this were, at least compared to others months’, very low in quantity and disparity between the top words. The 5 most chosen words for this chapter, quantity and average rating included, are:

Setup/Set-up [32 ; 3.91] Amazing [28 ; 4.79] Freedom [25 ; 4.20] Awesome [19 ; 4.84] Paths [19 ; 4.16]

Honorable mentions (because they all had the same or only one less amount of picks) include Ereh, Interesting, Great and Pain.

  WHAT CHAPTER DO YOU THINK THE MANGA WILL END AT? 1,337 responses

Since Isayama’s self-appointed deadline of 2020 likely failed to stick, we’ve decided to revive this monthly question. The last time we asked, the majority of respondents chose 138 as the final chapter, which remains the most popular option now, though now losing a majority (39.5%), with 140+ (20.9%) and 139 (21.3%) hot on its tail. Perhaps it has something to do with the shared opinion that this chapter is one of setup, but it’s safe to say most of us are unconvinced this is ending anytime soon.

I think that the manga will end at chapter 138 or 139, and so 133 has to be the last "transition" chapter before the climax (end of volume 33/beginning of the last volume)

I think the story is going to end either at 138 or 139.

it will be over in a few months and both like Eren and Yams, we will finally be free.

I just hope Iseyama doesn’t rush to end this before the end of the year. 138 is the minimum

Idc at this point i just want it to end now it feels like it's stalling

I CANT WAIT FOR CHAPTERS 134+ TO COME OUT

im sad its ending :(

  WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,366 responses

Wow this was close!! We have a lot of hopes for next month’s volume closer. Of the options we presented, “The alliance finally taking action against Eren” (23.1%), “ZOOK WHERE ARE YOU” (22.1%) and “I’m always down for more Eren Jaeger” (20.9%) created a tight three way race. Historia’s return to the story was a distant fourth (12%).

I'm really curious about Zeke's whereabouts, I'm sure he will play another big role from now on

I’m just confused about Eren’s motivations and desires at this point.

Love the thought of a flying titan

levi better kill zeke next chapter!!!

Pls bring back historia

I just want to see Historia. Please I miss her lesbian greatness. Please I'm tired.

Next chapter is gonna be crazy

where is monke??

Isayama has something up his sleeves and I’m scared for the next chapter lol

Just let Levi kill Zeke already

Kiyomi backstory when?

One thought, the same as after every chapter, who's gonna bite the dust next ?

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING PLATFORMS DO YOU USE TO DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,274 responses

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  ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER? 365 responses

WOW, something something the japanese fans are not happy copypasta

The rumbing started some time ago and our heroes should get hungry in a little bit, will they be able to call pizza? Or something? Because it'd be very sad if they had to die without dinner :(

If Falco's cloud memories end up being child-Eren's view from last chapter, that would be incredible. So many characters will seemingly play an important role now that I have no idea what will happen next.

Reiner keeps thinking that the dialogue is about their guilt and since they are the same, then Eren wants to kill himself. But one of Eren's main statements is that he keeps moving forward despite everything (and he thinks Reiner is the same). I think Reiner's ""Eren wants us to fight him because he wants to die"" will be proven wrong, and he'll come to the correct conclusion in the end.

it's frustrating seeing eren continue the rumbling for the sake of his friends when it's not what his friends want

It's good but it could freak me out

it's honestly making me feel more hopeless...

Connie Reiner conversation was perfect to bring up his late best friend Bertholdt, but I guess they forget again and pretend they never killed him brutally, and he just got thanosed one day lmao

i'm really enjoying annie's development. she's went from one of my least cared about characters to one of my favourites just from her development with armin and reiner alone. really looking forward to how isayama will finish her arc.

Eren is gonna be defeated by the power of friendship and the power of the scarf he gave to boring Mikasa and also by two kids who should honestly be dead by now but somehow are still alive in this mess anyways boring chapter i don’t care what happen anymore I just want to this to end

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a Falco should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The Falco, of course, flies anyway because Yams don't care what nerds think is impossible.

I don't mind the "inconsistencies", because most of what people are complaining about is just nitpicking that doesn't have much of anything to do with the story being told. I just hope that we're done with setup and can finally get to the final battle next chapter.

Everybody in this chapter was admitting their sins, but Bert still wasn't mentioned when so far he's the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to Reiner / AMJC. They watched Armin devour Bert and felt nothing about it, they participated in a terrorist attack against Liberio and threw a party instead/didn't protest against it, but the moment they betrayed their countries and slaughtered their comrades, suddenly they're evil sinners. It really feels iffy as shit.

Eren should finish what he started, I actually support him, I do understand his anger, his past anger, and everything that has been done to the Paradis Island. The only way to stop the exterior world’s way they think about them, is killing them all (or nearly), otherwise it’s never going to stop. It would be too much of a childish way of actually allowing the alliance to stop him knowing that he’s really REALLY powerful.

I don't get why people are having so much backlash about Eren allowing the Alliance to kill him, it's not a goad of "come get me", it would be hypocritical of him to take away their powers to stop him when he preaches about freedom, because then he'd just want PERSONAL freedom when want he truly wants it freedom for everybody especially Eldians.

@ isayama as a yumihisu shipper stop the Ymir smelling Historia's hair gag it isn't funny :/

I just think Eren doesn't detour from his character cause he's persistent on continuing the rumbling, having his own definition of freedom while he also doesn't take away his friends' power to fight him. It's just kinda frustrating that Eren is so blinded by his concept of freedom and chose this path.

People who think Eren will complete the rumbling are in heavy denial.

I kinda hope that we get to see Hizuru at least once. I also believe that Mikasa deserves to know the truth about her Ackerman blood and that it does not make her a slave in any way. More than anything though I just wanna see her character done justice in this final arc so that people will finally quit complaining about her always being "Eren-obsessed." She is without a doubt one of the most misunderstood characters in the entire series.

I liked the Paths stuff. But I'm bored of the cringe 104th, Isayama please give back Bertholdt I wanna see him, Paths is the perfect opportunity T-T

I maintain that Eren allowing his friends to fight him and potentially die because FREEDOM is fucking weird and OOC because he had no problem taking their freedom away in 112. He lied to their faces (same chapter he stated that ignorance=slavery) and locked them in prison. He also couldn't stand losing anyone close to him for most of the manga (serumbowl, hiding info about Historia, etc.), even if it went against Paradis, and so far nothing states that he suddenly and consciously changed his mind on that. If there is no explanation for his sudden change in behavior then parts of his character just went down the drain for the sake of covering up a plothole (that could easily be resolved by just saying that the founder can't control the shifters......)

I read some theories of Hange come back as a Titan Shifter. The parallel of both Ackermans put their fist on Eren and Hange before they died. Eren came back to life again as Attack Titan after that. There are also similarities between Hange and Xavier, both do research on titans, wearing glasses and I wonder if we would find out who is this person that Zeke could trust, as Xavier mentioned. We've seen Hange almost died 3 times, during the battle with Bertholdt and Reiner revelation, the crystal underground with Kenny's team and Bertbomb. Hange managed to come back again and again. Maybe I'm just being hopeful here (crying again) but I respect if Isayama sensei really killed Hange for good. But but but.. T^T

I'm beyond sick of the alliance. If they win at this point Isayama has officially destroyed his own manga.

No Hanji = nothing to smile neither to hope for in this chapter. I hate Eren for not even reacting to her death.

Isayama's doing a terrible job with the Alliance. I have many reasons to want the rumbling to be stopped, but if I forget for one second that Armin's my fave charac., I need to ask WTH?? Characters say one thing while the narrative says another. Yo, every damn chapter they've been feeling guilty and shitty, yet their constant regretting says they're good people. The heroic sacrifices say they're good people. The refusing to bring the kid although the kid can fckin fly says they're good people. This is more complex than calling an oldman with a career built in genocide HERO then calling these lost as fuck teens SINNERS. Repetition won't make me buy it. Btw, I'm not taking proJeCtiNg five chapters from the end. I refuse to believe these characters are at the same. damn. mindspace as 10 chapters ago. Nah. Losing or winning, this finale should feel dignifying, not pathetic. I'm desperate here. :(

I'm tired of Eren and the alliance. My feelings are with Levi's promise, nothing else. What comes after that (if Levi is able to kill Zeke) it would be interesting (and amazing, I'm sure) conceptually, I will love to read it, but my heart is with our midget. He deserves to rest.

Also Levi...I get why he's still ""muh kill monke"", it makes sense with his character... But that doesn't mean it's not annoying.

I REALLY enjoyed this one

Can't believe that flying titan was a sort of joke since the Marley arc, but now it's a thing uh.

More evidence that freckled Ymir may be alive.

where bert

where IS ZEKE

Where Monke?

Ymir distorting the space and keeping Mikasa, Armin, Connie and Jean away from Eren makes me think she's controlling him.

YOU ARE FREE

There was so much information given to us this chapter. The reveal of the possibility of Falco flying and the possible death of Zeke.

There were some alright points to this chapter but for the most point, it seemed like so many things were forced, the most ridiculous points of this chapter for me were the warrior families living, and Falco deciding he can fly simply because he had a dream

This chapter (like all the others and the others to come) made me cry. 😔

This chapter made sense. Too much sense. All the plot points we’d been expecting like Falco being able to fly, Eren bringing the alliance into Paths to tell them they have to kill him if they want to stop the rumbling, and the folks from Liberio surviving, were all present. I think Isayama is about to throw some wild curveballs and ruin our whole careers

Something's wrong with Eren

Thanks Isym for ruining Armin and make him Annie's waifu

Nice, a little boring but also not disappointed

The alliance was so annoying this chapter. Reiner projecting his pathetic suicidal thoughts into Eren was just absolute cringe. Then Jean and Connie actually saying they’re the same as the guys who killed their friends and families just made me damn near bust a vein. Then Pieck was just being a passive aggressive bitch. I was hoping that at least the 104th would make it out alive but now I straight up want Eren to kill them all. They’re just flat out insufferable, incompetent traitors at this point.

Pieck passive aggressively roasting Armin felt good

Levi is sexy take the bandages off his face and let me see the scar

Levi's really fed up. he doesn't care anymore about eren he just wanted to kill zeke. But I do agree that by killing Zeke, maybe the rumbling will end.

People thinking that Eren became a slave are speedreaders

For me, the Rumbling represents Eren’s own death drive. He’s killing others and wants do die in the process or afterwards. And his talk to the alliance is what his "if you don't fight you don't win" ideology boils down to. Blind, narrow-minded kid!Eren doesn't really see any other outcome other than him completing the Rumbling (aka "winning") or getting killed by his friends before he can complete it. I (heavily) suspect Isayama is going for a third option though.

This arc has highlighted Eren's internal contradictions regarding freedom. We have him forcing his friends to fight, imprisoning them, beating them, gaslighting them about their own free will, but most of all forcing the rumbling onto them, which completely takes away their agency to choose their own fate. I would be disappointed if Isayama has dropped this consistent pattern of Eren contradicting his own ideals of freedom, just to rectify his mistake of making Eren too overpowered due to rule of cool (something I initially feared), so I'm hoping the true reason has to do with Ymir taking the reins and speaking for Eren.

Eren can't help what he wants and believes in and he can't stop his convictions to move foreword, but at the same time he recognises his friends own free will and different convictions and has decided that both sides will never be able to give up their own convinces or meet at a middle ground and has decided to just let things play out.

Eren is resigned to his fate to rumble the world, but he will not command his friends to do anything. He is willing to die by their hands.    

Eren prizes freedom above all else. If someone uses their freedom to try to kill him, he wouldn't mind

Eren isn't sure if he's right so he wants them to have the chance to stop him if they feel so strongly

Sooo due to the Warhammer nutcracker incident, does that mean Falco has a portion of the Warhammer, or something?

Spectacular chapter completely closing the possibility of dialogue between Eren and Aliance. It's good to see that Eren remains firm with his actions and hasn't changed his psychology of freedom out of the blue. Although many people think that Eren wants to die, I'm sure that he will fight against the Alliance to survive and carry out his plan to destroy humanity.

Still a Beruani shipper...and...OMF ANNIE IS THE 2ND SASHA SHE WANTS TO EAT GIVE MY BABY FOOD

Still feels like buildup ready for the final showdown already

Telling the story as if the alliance stands a chance, or has anything close to a complete picture of Eren, is still dumb

historia pov when

Honestly I think everything about Annie is forced and she never should have come back.

Hope Jean survives 💯

Hope will reveal historia's baby connection to the series

I believe in Isayama

I believe that Annie got the ability to harden by eating part of Reiner, I think by revealing her ability yams intends to lay foundation for Annie getting wings as well and joining falco in the sky fuck ya

I hope Annie's father dies in front of her

I hope any inconsistencies in Eren's character get clarified later.

I hope more is discussed about Historias child

I hope My beloved Eren kills levi and armin

I just can’t wait a pray that MAPPA don’t fail us💀

I don't know man why the fuck does a flying titan exist

AC130 INBOUND, wait, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT BIRD THING AND WHY DOES IT HAVE BOMBS IN ITS HANDS

Isayama is a hack

isayama never misses

isayama the goat, incredible as usual

[hireath24]

Everything wrong with ACOFAS: A Rant Part Three

Disclaimer: This is part three and will continue from pages 97 to 150. Part one can be found here. Part Two can be found here. Part four can be found here. These page numbers come from the UK paperback edition of A Court of Frost and Starlight. This is my own opinion of the book - the writing, the grammar, the characters, etc. I won’t be commenting on anything that may have been plagiarized or that has been ripped off from the history of other cultures as SJM has a tendency to do. If you disagree with my opinions, I’m sorry and hope you see the error in your ways.

Page 99: Saying ‘wine will make you feel better’ really gives off the wrong impression when this is a book targeted at young kids. I mean, it’s written for the YA genre which is typically categorized for ages 12 and up. 

Page 101: I’m so fed up of people talking badly about Nesta. Having Amren say ‘That’s if she shows up sober’ when she has walked in to see Feyre, Cassian and Azriel all drinking wine? Feyre and Cassian being ‘drunk’? Double standard! Unfair! 

Page 102: So Elain managed to become a seer with the cauldron, right? So… Are there other people - sorry, Fae - who are seers? Why does the cauldron affect people in different ways? 

Page 107: Amren was turned into a High Fae in the last book, which means that she no longer has to drink blood as food. But why did she ever have to drink blood? I don’t think it was ever explained. Why?

Page 108: Elain asks Amren if she could have taken on a male form and Amren replies with ‘Before, in my other form, I was neither. I simply was.’ Was that supposed to be SJM’s cheap shot at adding some gender diversity? Because I would have loved to see Amren be this non-binary power house asexual dragon but who has time for that but she uses she/her pronouns throughout the entire series and this is the only mention of her being able to switch between genders. 

Page 112: ‘…A few drunk revelers spotted us and fell silent. Felt Rhys’s power, perhaps my own as well, and found somewhere else to be for a while.’ Why would they want to find somewhere else to be as soon as their High Lord and High Lady show up? Why are they showing fear at the feeling of their power? Aren’t Feyre and Rhys supposed to be the good guys? This reads a lot like the people of Velaris are scared of them…

Page 115: ‘Gentlemales’ GENTLEMALES. GENTLEMALES. GENTLE FUCKING MALES?!?!?!?!

Page 116: ‘Indeed, some people were turning our way.’ This is just… This word is useless in general but in this book? I don’t think it was edited properly. 

Page 118: ‘A scene. This was about to become a scene in the worst way.’ SJM does this quite a lot in this book. These little two sentences where she says something and then expands on that something. It was used twice before already and I didn’t write it down because I thought it was just a writing choice but… it’s a poor one. It feels like a way to get the word count up somehow and, quite frankly, it’s bad writing.

  Page 118: Feyre is annoyed that Nesta is asking for her to pay her rent? How else does she suppose that Nesta should pay for her rent? She had a home that was taken from her back in the human world (that was taken from her because of Feyre, mind you) and all she asks is that Feyre pay her rent because she doesn’t have a job in fairy land? That seems pretty reasonable. Feyre shouldn’t be mad. 

Page 121: ‘But those were her deaths to claim.’ Why does everything have to be paid with death? I think it would be a lot more empowering if Mor would meet with those who wronged her, say something about them and her and just walk out of their lives entirely? SJM should start preaching forgiveness a little bit more but, hey, that’s just my opinion. Plus, this is really making Rhys seem like a bad ruler. Wanting to kill his enemies? No. 

Page 122: ‘Keir is coming soon, isn’t he.’ Yeah, no, this wasn’t edited. 

Page 122: ‘When.’ 

Page 125: ‘Az has a list of kingdoms most likely to cross the line.’ I’m wondering why the Night Court is in charge? Why does Rhysand get to decide which kingdoms and courts cross the line? Why does he get to decide where the line is? 

Page 126: As I said for Page 118, Rhysand says: ‘Tempting. So damn tempting to tell…’ See what I mean? 

Page 126: If Rhysand deals with conflict by fighting fire with fire, then his court is going to fall apart. Why is he allowed to get away with attacking Tamlin the way he did? What are the basic rules of the court - any of the courts? Surely the people wouldn’t want an insufficient ruler so do they get a say in it? WHY ARE THE HIGH LORDS ALLOWED TO ACT LIKE BLOODTHIRSTY BEASTS?! 

Page 126: ‘Too long. She’d been cooped up within the borders of this court for too long.’ Wow, once you tune into it…

Page 127: I really want to make one thing clear. Not every piece of dialogue has to have a tag attached to it. Sometimes things work much better if you just use ‘I said’ or ‘he/she/they said.’ At least then it would mean less lines such as this ‘I laughed again. ‘Certainly not Amren. Not if we want peace,’ I added.’

Page 127: Also, Rhysand ‘want(s) peace’? Bullshit. Not seven paragraphs ago did he laugh about Mor wanting Tamlin dead and a page ago he was tempted to tell ‘the High Lord of Autumn that his eldest son coveted his throne.’ Do not think for one second that Rhys is a level headed ruler. SJM has a tendency to tell us that he is rather than show it. 

Page 128: ‘…Even the wine I’d returned home to drink couldn’t dull.’ Teaching young, impressionable people that alcohol might solve some of your problems. Great. And what - Feyre can say this but Nesta can’t drink? 

Page 129: ‘Decadent - it felt decadent…’ I really wished I had never picked up on this.

Page 129: Feyre keeps complaining about the amount of work she has to do but here she is shopping with Elain? When her people are scared, heartbroken, without a home and in mourning after the war?

  Page 129: ‘So different. This place was so different…’ ON THE SAME FUCKING PAGE?!??!

Page 131: So I guess that nobody ever told SJM that a character description goes beyond eye colour, hair colour and clothes? 

Page 133: ‘I might ease that grief, make the pain less.’ Feyre’s powers allow her to do that? When, why, how and fucking what?

Page 134: ‘I was lucky - so tremendously lucky.’ 

Page 134: Rhys was dead and he was brought back to life, right? It wasn’t like with Feyre’s death where she was still slightly conscious because she could hear what was going on, no. No, with Rhysand’s death, he really was dead. But he was brought back to life and somehow… feels nothing from this? I would love to see if there are times where his body becomes slightly misty and ghostlike, if his veins turn black under his skin because they had stopped working during that brief moment of death. I would have loved to see something other than just him feeling a little bit tired!

Page 134: ‘How.’ 

Page 135: I’s very clear to me that, for whatever reason, SJM wanted Feyre to be able to paint but she has no idea how to write about it. Whilst Feyre is painting, we only read about her need to create and what the end result looks like. Even during her process we hear nothing about light and perspective and I’m not a painter but there’s a true science behind it. And where is she getting the paints from? Rhys was able to give her some with his magic but from where?

  Page 138: It disgusts me that Feyre thinks that she can solve the people of the Night Court’s problems by teaching them how to paint. These people went through a war! And before that it was Under the Mountain! Painting and creating art in general can help with recovery from mental illness and trauma and PTSD and depression and everything else, but there comes a point where therapy is needed. Memorials are needed, ceremonies are needed. How are people supposed to paint what they feel when they can’t understand what they feel? It’s bullshit and, really, quite a childish thing to even suggest. How is this a ruler? 

Page 139: Why do jigsaw puzzles exist. Why are they called jigsaw puzzles. SJM is not a high fantasy writer. 

Page 140: ‘Good thing indeed.’ You guys know how I feel about this word by now, right? 

Page 140: ‘Indeed, each seemed like a different decade.’ So the fashion changes with time, does it? Great! Tell me more. Tell me why and how and when. Also, indeed.

Page 143: ‘The females bring their jewellery. I bring my weapons.’ But Cassian is a feminist, right? Yeah, no, guys, it’s alright. He’s a feminist, it’s all fine. 

Page 146: ‘You being too drunk to climb the stairs last night.’ I’m really not okay with the amount of casual drinking in this book - and not only that but the way it’s treated. Nesta is shamed for it, Feyre mentions that even wine can’t help her, Rhys makes jokes about his friends being drunk. It sends a really bad message. 

Page 147: ‘Illyrian baby indeed.’ 

Page 147: I’ve said this before but someone should really tell SJM that every scene in a book should further the plot. This has been three pages of bickering, useless drivel about a bed being too small for Cassian and cheap jokes about alcohol. The entire thing could be cut and the story wouldn’t change. 

Page 148: ‘Indeed, as Feyre emerged from the kitchen hallway…’

Page 148: ‘Strange - so strange to see…’

Page 149: ‘Indeed.’

Page 150: ‘Mor was instantly on her feet, offering - insisting on wine.’ This is just teaching kids that you need alcohol to be able to have a good time! Which isn’t true in the slightest! And it’s wrong on so many levels - especially insisting that everyone has wine! Peer pressure?? SJM deals with sensitive issues so badly (see what I said in another post about Rhysand and sexual assault) that it’s… It’s hard. Yikes.

[otp-armada]

I am not looking forward to these flashbacks. 

To date, we’ve had four onscreen kisses shared between Bellamy and Echo with additional, smaller moments of other forms of intimacy. I’d rather the show refrain from adding more tally marks to the count. 

If humans were gifted with the capacity for purging unwanted memories, then all this discomfort would be a moot point. I suppose there’s always alcohol as a fallback option, but not even the prospect of temporary amnesia is worth destroying my liver. Turning to alcohol to drown my B/E-related sorrows would probably qualify more as self-harm than self-help.

I’d much prefer to cut directly to an imminent breakup scene without the pomp and circumstance of an agonized Echo’s trip down memory lane. 

If anything, supplying us with visual evidence on how happy they were together is an even sadder remark on the state of B/E’s fragility, knowing it took 0.001 seconds for the mere mention of Clarke’s name to bring it all to ruin. No collection of past happy moments shared on the Ring erases the fractures in their relationship that occur between them afterward, originating with the revelation of a still-living Clarke. I'd be an absolute fool to believe otherwise. 

But if Jason deems a tour of their greatest hits as necessary to the story, I trust his judgment. Showing us B/E's origins as their romantic relationship begins to fall apart in real-time brings it full circle, and it lends gravitas to the story he's telling with Echo. With this particular arc, the bigger picture is still Echo's evolution. It's not about B/E.  

Once season 7 started, there was a visible shift in how Jason utilized B/E.  Whereas seasons 5 and 6 primarily used B/E as the third leg in a love triangle designed to keep a pining Bellarke apart, season 7 uses their master-spy dynamic to bolster Echo's development almost exclusively. Post-season 6, Bellarke is so primed to get together, one honest admission of mutual feelings without Echo as an obstacle and BOOM. Canon couple. 

Echo has a more extensive role than girl-to-be-dumped, and I'm not upset over it. She gets to stand up as a character after the majority of her life has been marked by slavery for her crown, and I'm not upset over it. As indemnification for the loss of her relationship, this orphan-turned-soldier is finding her place in a supportive, loving family while developing a sense of identity and independence, and I'm not upset over it.

I would’ve preferred Jason found a way to take her on this path without B/E remaining intact this far into the final season and theoretically for the foreseeable episodes. I would always choose to end them sooner rather than later, given a choice. But I understand why Jason didn't. 

Echo can’t very well outgrow a master-spy complex if there is no master to her spy. And as much as I hate it, the romantic aspect of B/E is a believable, convenient tool to keep this complex in place until her story comes to fruition. Would Echo act so extremely in service to a recent ex-boyfriend who left her for another woman? Probably not. As far as I can tell, the pinnacle of her arc is the moment she realizes she has to break free from Bellamy. So narrative structure demands B/E stay together, however technically, long enough for her to break those chains. 

I was initially excited about the flashbacks, if only because I took them as a sign of an impending breakup. But the timing doesn't pan out. Aside from the logistics of Echo and Bellamy presumably on separate worlds, and with her thinking him dead, we've only just reached the point where Echo might start to ask herself those hard questions she's been avoiding. She must have noticed a change in her relationship. Between Psychosis!Emori, B/E's 6x04 fight, and Anomaly!Roan, she's had enough cause for doubt. But I think she's suppressed any urge to reflect upon it for a number of reasons. Love. Continued hope they'll last. War. A mission to save him. It took a lot of meticulous maneuvering to corner Echo to this point. Now that we're here, I don't think Jason would pull a reverse Uno card in a 40-minute episode. It seems more likely that he will let her continue to stew in her emotions. Either she'll keep sinking until she hits rock bottom, or she'll start learning how to swim. 

Jason could always prove me wrong. And if I am, I'd never be happier for him to do so. If I'm not? It's at times like this when I am reminded of the resolution I made at the end of season 6- rest easy in the comfort of knowing B/E will meet its inevitable end but do not try to speculate when that might be. Attempting to discern the specifics of "when" brings one only misery. 

Jason’s signature sometimes-too-fast, other-times-too-slow pacing, is often liable to tempt one into ripping their own hair out. That being said, I’ve seen enough of this show to trust in his ability to tell a damn good story. Faith in his competency for the craft just requires on our part, the patience of a saint. 

If nothing else, it isn’t my story to tell, so I’ll just have to suck it up and find a way to deal with any disappointments I may feel. Or I can try to find the value within the story told. It's a better alternative than to be left bitter. No promises, though.

Maybe Echo’s actions against the Disciples aren’t reprehensible, considering the people she’s killing are those complicit in kidnapping and torturing her people. But Orlando was a good, honorable man whose naïveté convinced him to play for the wrong team, yet helped our heroes when he didn’t have to. Not unlike Shaw, whom Echo sold to Diyoza to fulfill her mission. But I assume “We are not his people” is residual mistrust leftover from Ryker’s betrayal of her. She miscalculated the feelings of one possible defector before, she won’t make the same mistake twice. 

If she was able to save Bellamy in the end, I’m sure she’d be able to justify the spilled blood it took to get there. But Orlando suffered at her hands for nothing, and she may not be overly concerned with morality, but she cares for the people she grows close to. Unless the episode proves otherwise, I’d like to think Orlando’s fate will weigh heavily on her. 

They may not have been close. But five years in close quarters with only a few people akin to friends for comfort, it'd be hard not to feel the slightest bit attached.

Those of us who believe in Bellarke know Echo is the third-party obstacle in a love triangle. But what is far more interesting is the role she played in the seasons-long Blake siblings struggle. 

Echo was persona non grata to both siblings following her and Octavia's mountaintop fight. Six years later, she highlights the difference in the siblings' maturities. Whereas Bellamy has learned to embrace empathy and forgiveness with open arms, Octavia is cold and unyielding. On a more personal note, B/E represents Octavia's persistent unwillingness to respect Bellamy as his own person, with needs and wants independent of her. 

After her soul searching on Skyring, I thought she had buried the hatchet, as per her lack of vitriol in her 6x12 conversation with Bellamy, and enthusiastically joining forces with Echo in 6x13. Maybe she did. But Octavia has also proven herself an unreliable narrator, and Hope feels indignation on her aunt's behalf. Whatever the case, there's a reason why the dialogue keeps referencing Echo and Octavia's hostile history. And I think it's building to a head in 7x07. 

I think mutual love for Bellamy is healing the divide between them when Echo is at her most fractured. She's isolated from Bellamy and the rest of Spacekru. Left in pain and seeking retribution as Octavia did, which, as we know, is where it all went wrong for the latter. Octavia, more than most, is in the best position to empathize with what Echo is currently feeling and how pain can destroy her if she lets it consume her. 

If Octavia can remind Echo she's not alone, if a former enemy can convince her she belongs and welcome her with open arms- as her brother did before her- it might do well in healing some broken piece inside of her. And it would be a roundabout display of Octavia's newfound maturity. This is good for both of them. This spiral she is in will require her to look inward. Since her fixation with Bellamy is partly what landed her in this mess, absolution cannot come from him. She can only find it in herself if she wants it. But I'd be glad if Octavia can help see her through it. This is what I mean about seeking value in the story told. We're so concerned about Octavia calling Echo family, about the possibility of it legitimizing B/E, it doesn't occur to us that it's about the characters themselves. And B/E is only a vehicle used to bring us there. It's easier to see when not consumed by automatic seething rage, as typical of our fellow Bellarke compatriots, for anything remotely associated with Echo.

If my heart and mind weren’t chanting “BELLARKEBELLARKEBELLARKE,” there’s a good chance I’d be able to better appreciate the complexities B/E gives to the development of the four characters it directly impacts. 

Our side of fandom has made lots of accusations about B/E since 5x01. It’s a forgettable, physical relationship worth little to Bellamy. B/E is unhealthy for reasons x, y, and z. We generate a different example in every episode. Click slideshow for more details. But the fact of the matter is, much of this isn't true. Until Echo went postal, B/E wasn’t unhealthy. Bellamy just had a greater love for Clarke. Up until their ending scene in 6x04, there was nothing they couldn’t come back from together, if both committed themselves fully, no more walls. It's not a particularly popular train of thought among us, but Jason absolutely could've written B/E as an endgame pairing. And all it would take to deliver a final killing blow is the inclusion of a single damning scene.

We can gripe over the length of time they've stayed together. But, in spite of what most people think about every new B/E development and Bellarke separation, Jason has never actually dropped an ax on Bellarke. Hope persists.

Jason is responsible for the development of dozens of characters, major plots, and dozens of smaller subplots. But our fandom reduced the story chiefly to Bellarke's romance. Our villains are those who stand in their way. Namely Echo, the only outside love interest to be an official obstacle. We fashioned Echo as our enemy. In lieu of removing her from the narrative (which is not in our power to do), we've done everything within our purview to diminish her. If Jason won't treat B/E and Echo as the jokes we know they are, we'll do it ourselves. Minimizing her role in the story makes it a hell of a lot easier to erase a character we'd rather didn't exist for our preferred ship to advance.

Lord knows how many times we've claimed she has no story. That absent relevance or substantial bearing, she's there simply because Jason is partial to her for some elusive reason. But the reality is, we never looked for her story because we wanted to be able to claim its inexistence. We wanted to be able to say she's frivolous to the story, and by extension, to Bellamy. We want to be able to dismantle B/E when it appears Jason doesn't. Except he is and has been doing so since day one. 

Months ago, on a whim, when I was feeling benevolent towards Echo, I wrote a long post HERE giving her the benefit of the doubt, and I said:

In the grand scheme of the story, I think this is the purpose Echo serves, to represent the part that says, “We’re all human. No matter what tribe we belong to, we fight for the same reasons. We love the same way. When you leave allegiances aside, when you see someone for who they are at their core, an enemy today can become a friend tomorrow.”

True peace, a series-long running theme for our heroes, begins with embracing former outsiders like Echo and Emori. Easy to lose sight of this when focused on ship wars. 

It is perfectly acceptable not to love all the components of a story. It is understandable to focus your attention on those select segments you find appealing. But a tunnel-visioned mindset lands you in trouble when you become resentful at the reminders that a story is a composite of more moving pieces than just the parts you like. And when you forget that screentime allotted to developing those pieces ahead of what you favor is permissible. Everything on a show has its time, all in due course. 

On the other hand, B/E shippers overinflate their ship's significance. They take canon and twist it to say, "Look at how strong B/E is, Bellarke could never. B/E is endgame, and Blorkes are delusional." Their conclusion of an epic love is another bias-based fandom interpretation that doesn’t hold water, either. 

I think the reality of B/E lies somewhere in a muddled middle of these two extremes. 

One last point, and I'll get off my soapbox. Despite what the melodramatic diatribe in my opening paragraph suggests, B/E is never as atrocious as fandom makes them out to be. Greater fandom treats anything remotely associated with B/E as the next great catastrophe. And as it turns out, it never really is.  

 Tagging @sometimesrosy, because I think, after years of combating opinions you don’t agree with, it might be a refreshing change of pace to know some of us do have more balanced views regarding B/E. If I do say so myself.

[ofravensandgenesis]

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Two

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including graphic violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse mention, neglect, dark backstories, swearing, mention of self harm/religiously-themed-self-harm, drug use, etc. Spoilers naturally, for both Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn. Part 02 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part three here.]

— Joseph —

Proceeding chronologically by descending age, we next have Joseph, the middle child of the lot. It can be interpreted that he mirrors his own trauma with the Voice being Utterly Unhelpful over the course of his entire life aside from telling him about the Collapse and such. He shows up in one of each of the Heralds’ individual series of scenes, primarily to address the Deputy to tell them about their supposed choice/sacrifice/gift/etc laid before them, watching but not helping to stop the suffering of the unwilling prisoners as Hudson mentions when you first find her in the bunker after defeating John. A transcription of Hudson’s relevant dialogue during The Quality of Mercy mission to get her and other prisoners out of the bunker post-John-boss-fight:

“All...all because of him! Him. That fucking...fucking piece of shit!” [throws the picture of Joseph on the ground, shattering the glass in the frame. Crouching over it, continues,] “He would come down here and he would just stand there...and watch. We were begging for mercy and he would just...fucking...watch.” [trails off into despairing laughter.] Joseph, just watching Hudson and others be tortured and tormented, instead of stepping in to help. In the idea consideration of the Seeds all inflicting similar suffering upon the unwilling victims, this would potentially parallel the scene where Joseph heard the Voice later on in life while being mugged—and further beaten up for not having any money on him. While being mugged he grew angry at the Voice, blaming it for all his troubles. Then the Voice spoke to him again, and Joseph had his revelation, the clarity of “purpose” that came from the vision of the Collapse, and what ultimately led him to becoming the Father. In the blaming of the Voice for everything that’s gone wrong in his own life, Joseph could be mirroring that perceived chain of responsibility with permitting the Heralds to take some people and kill others, mirroring the death of his wife. Mirroring the perception that all is according to what Joseph perceives as God’s plan, and thus those the Project takes are meant to live, per their own creed, and by “divinely” granted right to decide, as granted by Joseph from the Voice, and granted to the Heralds by Joseph. As Joseph said in the second scene with Jacob, “The Lord gives...and the Lord takes.” So too could that parallel in meaning with the Project (the Father) gives, and the Project (and so too the Father) takes. His darkest action in his backstory might also be echoed in how he permits the Project members to murder and torment the various people of Hope County in an echo of Joseph’s perception of the seeming randomness still attributed to “a divine plan” that ends some lives and spares others. His permitting of the atrocities against the civilians of the county feeds very well into the other Seeds’ behaviors, and that of their followers in allowing them to behave in a chaotic but in his eyes purposeful way. Perhaps Joseph’s line about “returning to the angels we once were,” includes a great deal of darkness, destruction and violence in the nature of angels in his vision of his utopic garden. Perhaps it is relabeling the grotesque actions of the Project as just and right because of divine mandate, the way the Judge is broken and brainwashed to believe come the time of Far Cry New Dawn. Transcribed from A Scribbled Note found in the bunker while seeking Joseph’s book in FCND: You know. You know best. God tells you. If I listen to you, it’s good, and right, and I can help, and I can save people, and make it right, and everything will be okay. If I judge as your judge the judgement is right and just, the judgement is God’s Word. I see now. I am so sorry. Please give me a mask I am afraid. No one can know me. Please let me be reborn like the world, cleansed of all sin and new, and I will fight to cleanse the sin. Thank you Joseph thank you Father. But as we see in the end, and in meeting Joseph for the first time in the flesh in FCND as the Captain, Joseph admits to being wrong. In the end he crumbles as his belief in all of the suffering being worthwhile and for a greater purpose is brought to ruin with the betrayal from his own blood, and the burning of New Eden. He had gone so far to try to be right, that to be wrong was his undoing because it meant he had done evil for no reason other than a misleading belief of his, whether or not the Voice spoke to him at all. Leaving him alive to scream at the unresponsive Voice once more brings him full circle, emphasizing his initial traumatic theme, among other possible themes such as the fate of Cain for kin slaying to wander the earth thereafter, marked so that no one can harm him both for slaying his brother Abel, and for not asking God for forgiveness or seeking absolution for his sins—in Joseph’s case, not asking for God to forgive him due to the cardinal sin of believing himself to be beyond forgiveness. Sparing him is in a way a final slap in the face for Joseph thematically speaking by emphasizing that he is wrong about what justice is, his interpretation of “God’s word,” and more or less everything he’s believed up to that point. (No shade thrown at anyone who shoots him though, the game presents you with a choice and it’s valid to pick either one.)

— John —

So thematically speaking, both John and Faith I would posit are more straight forward in their parallels within this particular discussion compared to the two elder Seed brothers. As he narrates to us the viewers, the Deputy, and Hudson during the Confession scene, John’s method is drawn directly from the torture and torment that his adopted parents the Duncans inflicted upon him when he was young. From their fixation on seeking out sin in a young John, we get the Confession John demands of his followers. The torment and pain that goes into that is once again John inflicting the pain he went through to get people to the same moment of clarity his siblings all achieved through suffering. “I wasn’t scared, I was...clear.” As John puts it in the Confession scene. All of the Seeds could be said to be trying to impart that moment of “understanding” their point of view thusly. John’s probably the most openly and morbidly enthusiastic about the matter, speaking about it most directly out of the four.

This would tie in nicely with the “we love you and we will take you” and the “In the end you will thank us” slogans and graffiti we see here and there, including in John’s bunker. Both are very aggressive and unhealthy potential echoes of the Duncans adopting John and “teaching him the power of Yes” (ie beating the tar out of him and not giving him the option to say “no” with said option being respected.) The flaying may have come about as an evolution from self flagellation/whipping/flogging in order to earn the Duncans’ approval—which also potentially feeds into the possibility of John having some scars on his back and perhaps other locations on his body, such as the shoulders. After the Duncans died (through either natural or unnatural means depending on your headcanon), John either started or was already living a rock n’ roll lifestyle. Further speculation of themes and underlying motivations for John could include the following: Was he ashamed of his scars, as part of his self-loathing that’s mentioned in the Book of Joseph? Perhaps part of the rock and roll life style was that if he and his partner(s) were all high, maybe no one would notice or comment on them. It would also feed into living the lie of being “John Duncan” as John and Joseph may have seen it. Perhaps he was ashamed that his skin bore such obvious marks of his suffering, inflicted by his own hand and by the Duncans in one way or another. Perhaps transcending that shame is part of his whole “courage” trip. Perhaps that’s why he likes to scar and flay others, so that he’s not the only one with the marks. Maybe it makes him feel more “normal” by inflicting his version of normalcy on others to make it a more widespread experience—though that can be said of all the Seed family. For John in particular though, Sloth could be said to be his original sin in the sense of spiritual abandonment of self-cultivation, healing from his trauma, etc in running from his self-hatred and how his past overshadows his present day reality into the foreseeable future, but perhaps Joseph meant a different one rather than Sloth when he spoke to John at the Baptism scene. Perhaps it is Envy. Envy of the people who have not yet truly, deeply suffered through his idea of torment for their “actual” sins as he perceives sin. Envy of the people who won’t know the suffering and torment he endured for false sins—the ones who don’t “understand.” Envy of the people who don’t “care” about these matters that have shaped his entire world view and life whether he wanted them to or not—echoed in how he also inflicts them on people, willingly or not. That could feed into Wrath by inflicting harm on others, too, for added sinning-points. But that could feed right back into his supposed original sin of Sloth in the spiritual sense, since it could be said he’s seeking to change the world in a harmful fashion instead of seeking how to induce positive change in his own attitude from within. Which really just makes Joseph seem like he’s giving cryptic mystic-on-a-mountain-stereotype advice of “don’t take the dark path young padawan” instead of reining John’s activities in and actually telling John how to fix it...which mirrors Joseph’s relationship with the Voice again, and how the Voice effectively does not seem to offer moral guidance when Joseph goes full ham with the cult’s actions, pre-Reaping, during the Reaping, and after. Then we have Joseph’s recorded phone message to John, left at the Seed Ranch outpost: “After all the atonements, all the confessions, all that you’ve done for me and Eden’s Gate, it’s not enough, is it John? Cast away your past. You need to open up your heart. You need to see that there is more love all around you. All the pain and suffering you spread will not help us in the long run. These actions will only feed the sin inside you. It will grow stronger,  it will convince you to do wicked things. Those you scar too deeply, they will heal. They will become the carriers of your sin. They will spread that sin to others. I’ve seen your death in a vision. You are destined to be slayed by your own sin. It will come back around in a new form. It’s only a matter of when. I’ve seen you die young. I’ve seen you die old. The difference between the two outcomes is how much love you let into your heart. I want to see you become an old man in the paradise we prepared for. I love you brother. I love you.” One other thing Joseph points out in his phone message he sent to John is “Those you scar too deeply, they will heal. They will become carriers of your sin,” which very much echoes John becoming the abuser, as the Duncans were to him. Most ironically would be that Joseph’s lines are also applicable to Joseph’s own self with this possible interpretation of thematic motive and choices, among other interpretations. This also is likely sending mixed messages despite Joseph’s words being more positively-tagged in the words of brotherly love and all that, if Joseph’s idea of morality is skewed via labeling as stated above. I personally find this message and Joseph’s...inaction as the cult leader to be very conflicting. On the one hand, it sounds like a clear acknowledgement that Joseph is aware that morally, John’s actions are fucked up, dark, and bad objectively. This would easily be extended to Joseph also understanding that all of the dark things the Heralds do are indeed dark and fucked up, since he is arguably very aware of what all the Heralds are up to. So if he knows, why does he do nothing to stop or to guide the Project and its Heralds onto a better path? It could be a messy nuance that he knows it is wrong, but doesn’t know how to do better as of yet in the actual mechanics of the situation while still achieving their goals. Not having a better answer, as it were, despite knowing logically there must be a better way. But conflicting as it may be, it does fit if Joseph is perhaps unconsciously choosing to act as “the Voice” metaphorically (and literally) to the Heralds and his followers. Basically, “you’re doing it wrong, go do it right” without really giving clear orders tailored-to-the-individual’s-psychology as to how, so as to get them to successfully want and start moving past their trauma. They have all internalized and recreated their past suffering, so...Joseph telling John to cast away his past is both hypocritical and ultimately unhelpfully vague in this interpretation of them. Another potential additional theme for John is that his actions may tie back to his past as an addict—presuming he’s largely off of all the more heavy hitting addictive substances and has curtailed the obvious overindulgence-behaviors (but may still drink in more restrained fashion, iirc I think he had alcohol in the form of whiskey at the Seed Ranch? Weed isn’t being counted in this case,) it might be that underneath it all he’s still got those base patterns of high-chasing from his addictions but in a new form. Another possible option that Joseph is referring to as John’s sin is rather his continued addiction behaviors, via the “it’s not enough, is it John?” noted earlier in the phone call message. That line from Joseph could be interpreted as noting how chasing highs can be an essentially endless pursuit with no real clear ending, where there’s no such thing as enough. This would fall neatly into Sloth within the theme John has for classifying people’s sins. In this case, it could be the new addiction to getting people to say Yes. An addiction to the thrill of victory, of learning things about others that no one else knows about—a power trip. The sheer exhilaration John has with getting that Yes from Nick, and flaying the man? The way he needs a moment to clean up and catch his breath before moving on to the Deputy’s Atonement (it’s also great pacing for the scene imo.) The way John says Wrath is the Deputy’s sin? Maybe Wrath for John is one of the most addicting highs of the sins, anger and violence fueled by the adrenaline rush and power over others’ lives, to end them as the Deputy so chooses. As John says shortly after the Deputy escaping the bunker in the Confession sequence, "Your sin consumes you. Blinds you to all the harm you inflict. It allows you to dispense of human life so easily. Have you ever given so much as a second thought to killing?” Combining that with John‘s earlier comment during the Confession:  “But it was Joseph who showed me just how selfish I was being. Always receiving. Always taking. The best gift isn’t the one you get, it’s the one you give, and giving takes courage. The courage to own your sin. To etch it on to your flesh and carry its burden and when you have endured—when you have truly begun to atone—to cut it out like a cancer and display it for all to see. My God that’s courage.” It could be interpreted that John is projecting his addictive tendencies onto the Deputy, an addiction to Wrath as it were. To killing. To violence. Addicted, without consideration of the people it hurts, much like how more severe addiction cases might drive a person to partake in similar veins of behaviors with violence, theft, etc (but obviously less high in the body count department since this is an FPS game.) Perhaps John’s world view also includes seeing all people outside the Project as being addicted to their sins. Perhaps what John thinks as owning his sin is to admit to his addictive tendencies and trying to turn it towards purposes that are “for the good of the Project and others.” Joseph apparently doesn’t agree, and could indeed be looking at it as John still chasing the newest high in another form as theorized earlier. Maybe Joseph recognizes some form of John’s behavior from his time working at a psychiatric hospital—that’d be dark, now wouldn’t it. A possibility though, mayhap. Of course there’s also the option of “Why not both” interpretations of the Envy and Sloth ideas, to add even more nuanced layers to John’s motivations. Whichever it is of those options in this particular examination, it does all tie in to John repeating his experiences as a theme for how he brainwashes and tortures people in his indoctrination process. It is perhaps a tad ironic that John might still have underlying themes of addiction though, given that Faith’s method of brainwashing is very heavily drug-based with the Bliss, with a hearty heaping addition of emotional manipulation. Perhaps that’s part of a possible motivation of John not liking Faith much given the little dig he has for her via the line also during the Confession mission, “In the east...well. Let’s just say too much Bliss can go to one’s head. Faith created her “Angels” but she never did treat them all that well...” This line is certainly part of the basis forming John’s animosity in A Cold and Broken Hallelujah towards Faith. If anything, it creates a very interesting line of contrast between John and Faith, and perhaps it is a matter of John hating something about Faith that he hates about himself. [Link to part one here.] [Link to part three here.]

[blackbatpurplecat]

My Thoughts on Batman: Hush (the animated movie)

The story arc Batman: Hush from 2002 was one of the first Batman comics I have ever read and it quickly became one of my all time favorites. I would have given everything to get an animated movie based on it!

Then the adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke came out and changed everything.

I had to take a closer look at recent DC animated movies and realized their glorious days had been over for a long time. I stopped wishing for an animated movie. One came out anyway. So was I wrong? Was this another loveless adaptation with stiff animation and unnecessary changes?

Right at the start, we see a closeup of Gordon’s hand and he’s wearing his wedding ring on his middle finger so... yup, I’m sure DC invested a lot of money in the film’s production...

I’m gonna assume we all know the comic’s story. We know about BatCat giving their love a try, that Bruce reveals his identity to Selina, that Catwoman pushes Lois Lane off the Daily Planet to help Supes break free from Ivy’s control, how Bruce’s childhood friend Thomas Elliot is killed, how Clayface is mimicking Jason Todd which triggers Batman, that the new villain called Hush actually is Thomas Elliot who had teamed up with Riddler, that Riddler knows who Batman is, and that Batman breaks up with Catwoman because he’s still having trust issues.

Let’s just say the arc is PACKED with story and characters so it shouldn’t be hard to make a movie out of it, right? Sure, I was expecting some changes because of its packed-ness. Not every single subplot and every single character would make the cut, I get it. However, I still wasn’t prepared for what DC turned the story into.

So what were some of those changes and what did I think of them:

- replace Killer Croc with Bane. alright, more people know Bane, it’s fine - replace Huntress with Batgirl. ugggggh, okayyy... more people know Batgirl. I feel bad that this choice removed Oracle’s existence but okay. she had one scene, you already had the character design from that godawful Killing Joke movie and not enough budget to make Huntress, I can see past this - cut Leslie Thompkins. hmmm yessss okay, she wasn’t that essential to the story, alright, I can live with it - cut the entire involvement of the League of Assassins. I’m not the biggest fan of Ra’s al Ghul and co. so I didn’t mind that they reduced it to one cameo of Lady Shiva. HOWEVER she is the world’s best fighter! WHY NOT SHOW HER FIGHTING?! she could have been so much better but they chose to waste her for exposition purposes - make Amanda Waller skinny. yes, they once again turned the baddest bitch into a skinny woman because we can’t have fat people in a Batman movie, no one wants to fuck a fat Waller or jerk it over a fat Waller -__- just get over yourselves, DC you assholes! - Robin was cut entirely. wow. just wow. why do DC hate Robin so much? I don’t get it! - the shit stain rape result popped up in one scene for absolutely no purpose except for poorly establishing a fucked up “continuity” between all recent DC animated movies. something NO ONE in the fucking world wants or needs. just kill that little shit, he serves no purpose, he was annoying as fuck, he wasn’t even created when the original story came out, fuck him, delete him, stop shoe horning him into every Batman-related thing, he’s useless - cut the entire Jason Todd part. again, why the Robin hate?! it was one of the most emotional parts of the story, why cut it?! - cut the BatCat scenes in the cave, including Alfred telling Selina that he thinks the world of her. no words except for “what a disappointment” - change the entire ending and make it worse. S I G H

So Thomas Elliot was just a red herring for everyone who’s read the comics. Instead of Hush having a personal connection to Bruce and having more complex reasons to kill him, we get Riddler who wants to kill him just because he can. Cool. But seriously, who thought that this would make a satisfying ending?!

Kidnap Catwoman, make her the damsel in distress, have Batman come save her, and kill the bad guy - sounds like a quality script to me...

But apart from the poorly written ending, I have a major problem with what the movie focuses on: the Batman x Catwoman romance.

A huge reason why I love the comic is the BatCat relationship. It’s the first time, Batman kisses Catwoman back, it’s Bruce willingly revealing his secret to Selina to include her in his ENTIRE life and trust her with his life. We see them work together really well, we see how Selina loves Bruce but also doesn’t give up her independence. She’s willing to be by his side but won’t turn into his sidekick or change into a to him more “convenient” version of herself. And most importantly, she understands and appreciates and loves Bruce for his moral code.

DC being DC, they of course only half-ass their biggest romance.

While I did enjoy the added BatCat footage like Bruce and Selina in bed (I LoVeD that Selina sounded like they had just had the wildest most erotic experience ever while she was still wearing a shirt and he was wearing his boxers and both Selina and Bruce looked stiff as boards o_O ), having breakfast together, sharing kisses, taking down thugs together, and just the entire pacing indicated that their relationship grew over a longer time period in comparison to the comic, the movie fucked up essential points which I won’t forgive.

Catwoman was portrayed as a murderous, reckless villain. There’s no way around it. It was HER who threw Lois off a building and Bats chided her for it (IN THE COMICS IT WAS HIS IDEA), he has to hold her back from scratching up a bad guy’s face, she cuts the line holding Riddler so he falls to his death (CATWOMAN ACTIVELY KILLS HERE), and in the end, she angrily accuses Bruce of being absolutely insane because he has a moral code to keep himself from becoming what he’s fighting against.

What the flying fuck?!

That ending pissed me off SO MUCH! In the comic’s story arc, Batman breaks it off due to trust issues and it did seem a bit rushed and irrational just to re-establish the comics’ status quo of “Batman has to be single” but it’s a SO MUCH BETTER REASON than what the movie gives us! Catwoman has no problem with killing (one of the reasons I hate Nolan’s interpretation of her) and doesn’t understand Bruce AT ALL, she doesn’t get him as a person, she doesn’t understand that he wants to SAVE and PROTECT. He sums it up quite well, if there’s a chance to save someone, he has to at least try. That’s the hopeful Bruce we rarely see because DC fanboys are all about grim gritty edgy brutal.

And then they part on “maybe we’ll see things the same someday” a.k.a. Catwoman hopes that Batman will someday have NO problem with killing. Fuck. You.

So in this movie, Selina was a reckless murderess, a damsel in distress, and of course willing to change herself for a man and not for herself. Big round of applause for shitting on Catwoman.

Alright, done with my rant on story-related shit. What else was there?

Yes, the additional BatCat scenes were nice as well as the interaction between Catwoman and Nightwing. Just Nightwing in general was awesome. A true BatCat shipper.

The dialogues were bad. Best example is the post-sex one.

I can’t say much about the music, it was so bland that I have already forgotten it.

The animation ranged from nice to fucking bad. They had clearly put more effort into the fighting scenes when the movements were fluid and smooth - and then you get back to stiff, dead characters and nothing moves on them except their mouths. I couldn’t help but compare the shots to the comic’s pages: Superman and Poison Ivy, Joker on the trashcan, the big BatCat kiss - they all looked fucking ICONIC in the books but so boring and bland in the movie, with a color palette that covered mostly black and gray. There was absolutely nothing memorable about the adaptation’s look and style.

(also: yes, we totally needed ivy kissing catwoman so all the fanboys have jerk material again and harley quinn’s costume reveals her shoulders now? what a mUcH nEeDeEd change to the costume, yes, well done)

Also the pacing was weird, there were SO many awkward pauses in-between dialogues. I cringed way too often watching this.

Which brings me to the voice-acting. Did DC have so little faith in one of their most iconic stories that they didn’t even bother to get Conroy + Hamill? I guess so. Once Upon a Time star Jennifer Morrison did a great job at being Catwoman, her voice was a really good choice! Also Sean Maher as Nightwing was a riot. Jason Spisak was a surprisingly good Joker as well as Hynden Walch as Harley Quinn - but how do you cast Tara Strong and NOT give her Harley?!

The biggest dud however was Jason O’Mara again. He has no range at all, he keeps his voice as monotonous as possible ALL THE FRICKING TIME. There’s no Bruce Wayne voice, no Batman voice, he just grumbles everything without any emotions behind it.

Well, I guess that was it. I could go into more detail about every single thing they changed but I think this review is long enough as it is already. ;)

Would I recommend the animated adaptation of Batman: Hush? Maybe. To me, it was an expected letdown because DC’s animated movies are almost on the same very low level of the live-action movies nowadays, so if you’d ask me “should I watch it?”, I’d say “if you like BatCat, yes BUT read the comic first and don’t expect too much from the movie.”

[luckydicekirby]

fic commentary meme: your favorite part of white collar podcast fic, OR the hallucination scene(s) from bathymetry, orrrrr any part of I Really Am Your Color but that seems less likely

SHOCKINGLY i’m sure, hallucinations from bathymetry wins : P I love a good hallucination/dream sequence! A fact about me I’m sure we’re all unaware of. (My favorite bit of the white collar fic is of course everything El says; I have nothing productive to say about I Really Am Your Color other than ‘damn, still can’t believe that lipstick scene’.)

So this whole Brigmore segment/the back half of chapter 4 was added to the outline really late, because initially what I had written down was like. “They solve the attempted murder plot somehow” and that turned out not to be helpful! So I was like okay there’s a witch, so they must be at Brigmore, whatever, and then that ended up tying in really well with being able to poke at the central problem of Billie being unable to move on from her past. And so the blunt force way of getting at this was to have her LITERALLY confront their past and then handwave it with magic! And I really wanted an excuse to write Delilah.

Also this is way more interesting than doing my job and thus got long, oops. From Chapter 4 of Bathymetry.

“You should run,” says a voice from behind her, muffled.

Billie turns around. There’s a woman there wearing Billie’s old Whaler uniform, mask included. She’s a lot more solid that Billie’s visions usually are. Once Billie focuses on her, she doesn’t disappear. “You should run,” she says again, in Billie’s voice. “Before it’s too late. Before you get tangled up in something else you don’t understand.” 

“I’m not going to abandon her.” She’s talking to a ghost, but she can’t quite stop herself. Billie steps forward. She wonders what she would feel, if she reached out.

lol I actually FORGOT that this bit starts with Billie talking to her past self. obviously, I love it when people talk to their past selves. Mineshaft 2.txt baybee

Anyway part of what I wanted to accomplish on a character level while we were here was Billie very pointedly choosing not to run away--to no longer be the version of herself that would. So, the unsubtle way of doing that is just...having that version of herself explicitly tell her to do it! Externalizing internal conflict for fun and profit.

In my outline this whole scene is written as: “B: maybe has a Think about running away but like. She Isn’t Gonna--lol does Past Fake Memory Billie try to tell her to. OR fake memory delilah. Anyway she literally tells her past to fuck off, and...runs into Thackeray menacing C and O? And hard cut” so if you’ve ever wondered how elegant my outlines are: they aren’t. 

“You think I’m stupid,” says her ghost. “You think I let Delilah lead me around by the nose. Maybe I am. Maybe I did. But do you seriously think you’re any better? Please. You’ve been following around the fucking Empress like a puppy. She’s just a reckless, spoiled kid, and you look at her like she’s going to save you from yourself. That’s who we are now?”

Emily-Delilah comparisons are a fun way to make Billie really upset! Sometimes you’re in love with a woman whose mom you helped kill and who is also the niece of your Terrible Ex, And That’s Fine. Also, there’s something very ouch about your past self saying, disdainfully, oh, you think I’m stupid, don’t you?

“Shut up.” Billie steps forward, gets in her own face. It’s not very satisfying.

The ghost snorts. “We always were a sucker for a pretty face. Admit it. You haven’t changed at all. This is who we’ll always be.”

I think we can only assume that Billie making bad choices because a girl is pretty is canon.

“Say that to my fucking face,” Billie says, and the ghost laughs, and laughs, and takes off the mask. Except when she does, she isn’t Billie any longer.

In some universe where I had restraint, I would have Billie have to deal with EITHER her past self or Delilah, but not both. However, restraint is for suckers.

“Little Billie Lurk, lost without her master,” says Delilah, and she looks more real than Billie’s ghost ever could. 

Writing Delilah dialogue is VERY fun. I really like the cadence of the first line here.

Delilah never looked like she belonged in the real world. She was like what Billie imagined the Void would be like, long before she ever set foot there. Otherworldly and regal and terrifying. “So convinced that you’ve changed. What would Daud say? Oh, that’s right. He doesn’t say anything anymore. You left him in the Void. You didn’t even bother to do the one thing he’d asked of you in fifteen years. 

And of course my other fav thing to do in this fic, bring Daud up so I can be mean about him! And have Billie deal with her guilt about him/decide not to be like him, I guess. But mostly to be mean. 

The both of you were always pathetic, trying so hard to wash away the blood on your hands. You haven’t figured out that it always ends in blood. You’ll never learn that lesson if you don’t let the Kaldwin girl go.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Billie says. “It’s a choice. It’s always a choice.”

This also leans into one of the themes of this fic aka “what I think doto was about”, that you can’t blame other people for your own choices, and that at some point you have to admit that murder isn’t gonna solve your problems. (or more poetically, breaking cycles of violence.)

Delilah steps forward, reaching out to cup Billie’s cheek. Emily touched her there earlier today, and Billie leaned into it, and now she’s somewhere in this house, and Billie has to find her—

Ah yes, the romantic face touch! Also, Billie snapping out of the hallucination a little bit by thinking/worrying about Emily here is important--the need to save Emily is the way she leads herself out of being figuratively and literally stuck in the past. Because that’s romantic, to me personally.

“I thought about asking you to join us,” Delilah says, thumb running across Billie’s cheek. “I would have if you hadn’t taken the first ship out, getting away from this place as fast as you could. Even after you betrayed me to Daud. There was always something about you. That fire in your eyes. Ambition and longing and the knowledge that you were owed more than the hand you’d been dealt. Maybe it’s the same thing Emily sees in you.”

“Now you’re really just trying to piss me off.” Billie barely even thought about it, but the twin-bladed knife is back in her hands. 

Delilah laughs. “You think you’re strong enough to kill me now? I don’t think so. You put on such a good show, Billie, but I know you’ve always been weak.”

Delilah explicitly laying out the idea that turning away from violence makes you weak, so that Billie can immediately refute it.

Her grip tightens on the knife.

She wants to make Delilah bleed. That’s what this knife was meant for. 

There’s some sort of throughline about the twin-bladed knife being a symbol of the aforementioned cycles of violence that is a little weak because I only decided to do it like, 2/3 of the way through the story, but that’s why Billie giving it to Emily ends up being a big deal in the next few chapters. Had I edited this story all at once instead of in chunks, I would’ve gone back and laid some groundwork for it earlier.

That’s what it wanted to do to the Outsider, but the Outsider didn’t deserve it. Delilah does. Delilah deserves everything Billie can give her. Delilah tried to kill Emily twice, and the first time Billie didn’t even know, didn’t even think to try to stop her. There’s still time for her to make up for that.

Billie really WANTS to fight her but...

Delilah’s form flickers, and for a moment, Billie can see the empty manor behind her. 

“Well?” Delilah demands.

Delilah’s gone. Emily made sure of it. And Emily didn’t kill her: she’s always been clever enough to find the ways to give people what they deserve without spilling their blood. 

(low chaos is hot, apparently!)

And she’s going to get a bullet between the eyes if Billie doesn’t find her soon.

“I don’t have time for this,” Billie says. She shrugs off Delilah’s ghost, and turns away.

...she deliberately chooses to focus on the present/Emily instead of the past. Romance! Character development! Yeah! Anyway, this is pretty much the point of the scene--Billie choosing not to, say, do what Daud might have done, and try to get revenge on someone who isn’t even there. I actually had a hard time writing the scenes later where she gets together with Emily, because these were the emotional beats I was planning to hit and then I did them early and had to find new ones.

“She’ll never forgive you,” Delilah says. The same crooning voice she always had, because she isn’t here anymore. She’s gone. Billie’s never going to see her again.

Billie vaults over a banister and doesn’t look back. 

Void, she hates this fucking house. The place echoes, and her eyes keep trying to lie to her, and she is so sick and tired of shit like this. She thought it would be over when she dealt with the Outsider, but it’s never really over, is it. There will always be bad people, but Billie isn’t at their mercy anymore. And she’ll die before she lets Emily be, either. 

And this is a deliberate echo of a doto line-- “you’ve always been at the mercy of bad people, haven’t you?”, which Billie says about the Outsider when she finds his body in the void. I love the doto thing of drawing parallels between Billie and the Outsider and so I do it a lot in this fic. Thackery and Flint being an Overseer and a witch is kind of an attempt to draw this parallel out further--they were at the mercy of bad people too.

[kiss-my-freckle]

Families, biological and chosen, both central to the series.  

“This is about the children.” - Ranko Zamani, 1x1

I was gonna do a gif set for Guillermo Rizal, but Cooper’s conversation with Liz at the end of the episode offered too much bounce back and required my added input about the scenes themselves and their dialogues. 

Forewarning - this is a lengthy post. 

Tom, Liz, and Agnes: Chosen family.  

Liz [6x20]: Before we had Agnes, I thought Tom and I were gonna adopt, that family had nothing to do with biology.

Pointing out the fact that Agnes’ foreshadow with the unicorn first came with this bit of conversation. A storyline that’s been brewing since season three.

And because it’s been brewing since then, I’d like to point out Red’s dialogues because they support an issue of paternity where Agnes is concerned. 

"We" is an ambiguous pronoun.

In 3x12, we had these dialogues.

Red: I assume Tom is the father. Liz: I haven’t told him. Uh. He’s still figuring his life out.

In 3x14, we had these dialogues.

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby?

In 3x16, we had these dialogues.

Red: How are you feeling? Liz: We’ve decided to keep the baby. Red: We? Liz: I’ve accepted Tom’s proposal. We’re gonna get married. Red: Right.

For someone like Red, with his previous dialogues and knowledge of how adoption works, his question of "we" offers two scenarios. Either he suspected Liz was in a relationship with someone other than Tom, or suspected someone else to be the father of Agnes. To assume Tom is the father, and be told Tom wants Liz to keep the baby, it's an obvious "we." Or is it?

Back to Red’s 3x14 dialogue. 

Cooper [6x20]: The parents of Rizal’s children. No one would blame them for walking away from those kids.

The non-biological, chosen family. 

Ressler: According to the report, the two of you are not genetically related to your daughter. Ben Mitchell: What? Sara Mitchell: No. Ressler: I’m sorry, but we ran the test several times. - Liz: It isn’t just you. Neither you nor the Mitchells are biologically related to either of the girls. Mark Walker: You’re telling us what - that we got some other couple’s eggs by mistake?

Opposite parallel. Because Tom isn’t the father of Agnes. 

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby? 

Pushing us to Red’s dialogue in 3x17.

The focus to Liz’s baby bump was purposeful. 

Red: You were wrong about him once. What makes you so sure you’re not wrong this time? Do you really want your child to pay the price for that mistake for the rest of his or her life?

Liz: I am attempting to build a life with [the father of my child.] A normal life with two parents who love one another. With everything you know about me, can’t you see that? Can’t you see how important that is to me? To my child?

The father of her child is back at the church.

The foreshadow of danger to come. 

In the context of Brimley's dialogue, he was speaking of parent and child. 

Brimley [6x20]: So much for making this a family business. Hand it over. Hood, hive, the works. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Nothing hurts so bad as when a child disappoints. Like being impaled by a unicorn.

This means Agnes will be impaling Liz with a "disappointment" unicorn. 

Back to 3x17 and its dialogues. 

Liz: What am I doing? Cooper: You’re trusting Tom. Taking a leap of faith. One you know could end in disappointment. But it’s because you love him.

“So much for making this a family business.”

Liz and Red.

Tom and Scottie. 

“Family. Business.”

Back to Cooper’s conversation, which bounces back heavy. 

Challenges. 

Cooper [6x20]: Every family has challenges. God knows yours with Reddington has more than most. 

Cooper [3x17]: Now, each choice brings with it blessings as well as hardships. Choosing a partner means choosing that person’s life to become your life. Their joy becomes your joy, as do their burdens.

Walking away.

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will. And not because you can’t. Because you don’t want to. Because in spite of his -

Tom [3x17]: But there are things that I did, and - and - and I might be done with those things, but I can’t promise you that those things are done with me. And I can’t promise you that it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or next week or - or five years from now. And I would understand, frankly, if you didn’t want to deal with any of -

Faith.  Cooper [6x20]: In spite of everything, he’s committed to you, he loves you, and he has faith in you. And I think you have the same for him.

Cooper [3x17]: You’re trusting Tom. Taking a leap of faith. One you know could end in disappointment. But it’s because you love him.

Furthered by Mr. Kaplan’s dialogue, which offers a double interpretation. 

Kate [4x18]: Please, do what your mother never had the courage to do until it was too late. Walk away from Raymond.

Again, “walking away.”

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will.

Red is not the real Raymond Reddington, he’s Katarina Rostova. Kate’s bit of dialogue places Tom at the center despite its double interpretation. 

Please, do what your mother never had the courage to do until it was too late. Walk away from Raymond. (herself)

The danger of oneself, furthered by Kate’s dialogue in 3x23. 

Kate: I didn’t betray you. I did what I’ve always done - protected you - this time, from yourself.

Furthered even more by Red’s dialogue in 5x9.

Liz: I killed some men. Doesn’t matter that they were bad. That it was them or me. What matters is that I did it and I was good at it. And I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Red: You will. One of these nights you will. It’s just a matter of when. Liz: Maybe. Later. After I’ve crossed the abyss. But from the side I’m on now, all that matters is that I’m healed and I’m back. And I’m coming for Tom’s killers. Like I said, I couldn’t keep my promise. Can you forgive me? Red: Yes. Will you be able to forgive yourself?

The second interpretation, its very context. Raymond wasn’t Katarina’s parent, he was her lover. Again, placing Tom at the very center. I could list any number of times Red warned Liz about Tom, but I won’t. I’ll just take it back to 4x17. 

Red: As I feared would happen, elements from Katarina’s past are circling Elizabeth like a pack of wolves in the night. I put Tom Keen in her life to keep an eye on her, and he married her. Kate: This isn’t about Tom Keen. It’s about your need for control. Red: Indeed. I need to control the danger to Elizabeth. I’ve built a vast criminal network predicated on that very principal. It’s time to live up to my mission statement.

Kate will be wrong about Tom. 

Red, Liz, and Agnes: Biological family. 

Agnes’ foreshadow with the unicorn continued in Liz’s scene with Red. Her conversation with Cooper bounces back to their 4x22 motel scene. 

Liz [6x20]: Family? Is that what we are? I’m not so sure.

Liz [4x22]: But anger and fear and a certain amount of hatred are all normal in a family. And that’s what we are.

“Means” Several dialogues for this bit, I’ll just be adding two. 

Liz [6x20]: I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, and, uh - I don’t think I know what “family” even means.

Liz [5x1]: Well, you are my father and - Oh, my God, that sentence and all that it means.

Ilya: It is a mystery, right? So, we give them the answer. Katarina: What does that mean?

Bloodlines. Again, back to 4x22. 

Liz: Before we had Agnes, I thought Tom and I were gonna adopt, that family had nothing to do with biology. Cooper: If this case taught us anything, it’s that it doesn’t. Family isn’t about bloodlines. 

Liz [4x22]: Why didn’t you just tell me who you were? Why keep it a secret? Come into my life, give up everything, go broke trying to protect me, and not tell me you’re my -

Liz [4x22]: I’m angry at you, at who I am, at the fact that I want to help you despite everything you’ve done to me and to yourself.

Everything Red’s done to himself. Katarina “becoming Reddington.”

Liz [4x22]: What was it you said? A father who’s a career criminal [and a mother who died of weakness and shame.]

Add in their Bloodstream soundtrack for bloodlines. 

♪ Wake up and look me in the eyes again ♪ 

Windows to the soul. That’s why they often do close-ups of Red’s eyes. Why he wears special glasses to avoid the retinal scan at the airport in 3x21.  ♪ I need to feel your hand upon my face ♪

Red [1x14]: I can - I can still smell the nape of her neck, [feel her little fingers on my cheek], her whisper in my ear.

♪ And then the silence surrounds you ♪

The silence of secrets. The silence Liz found when she was seeking answers about her mother back in season two. The Sound of Silence soundtrack in 5x8 only adding to that. 

♪ Two minds and all the places they have been ♪

Two minds. Their Never Tear Us Apart soundtrack in 6x19.  “Two worlds collided.” Raymond and Katarina. 

♪ I think I might’ve inhaled you ♪

Red [3x1]: She’s as much a part of you as the air you breathe.

Furthered by Liz’s dialogue. 

Liz [6x20]: You won’t stay angry with me. I know you think you will, but you won’t. Parents don’t stay angry with their children. Or their grandchildren. And that’s who you are to us. It doesn’t matter who you were. This is who you are and who you’ll always be.

It doesn’t matter who Red was. He can change his face, but not his DNA. He’ll always be Liz’s biological parent and Agnes’ biological grandparent. 

Back to Cooper’s dialogue. 

Challenges. 

Cooper [6x20]: Every family has challenges. God knows yours with Reddington has more than most.   

Liz [4x18]: Finding out truths about who you really are is never easy.

Walking away. 

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will. 

Liz [4x22]: Walk away? Are you serious? How can you be so smart and so clueless? Yes, I’m terrified. I’m angry. I’m angry at you, at who I am, at the fact that I want to help you despite everything you’ve done to me and to yourself. But anger and fear and a certain amount of hatred are all normal in a family. And that’s what we are. And I’m not gonna walk away from that.   Faith. 

Cooper [6x20]: And not because you can’t. Because you don’t want to. Because in spite of his - In spite of everything, he’s committed to you, he loves you, and he has faith in you. And I think you have the same for him.

Red [4x6]: I just wanted to thank you for trusting me, trusting the plan. I understand what a - a leap of faith it must have been.

“Not really, considering what was at stake.” - Liz, 4x6

Tom [5x8]: Could we just put a stake in it? You go first. Who’s in the suitcase?

Back to that danger foreshadowed. 

Liz [6x20]: I left Agnes with Scottie because I was afraid of who you were. But I’m not anymore. Scottie won’t have to train Agnes. Because Agnes won’t be with her. I’m bringing her home.

“Training” Agnes. 

Liz [5x9]: She loves Cheerios, and Thomas the Train in the morning.

Kat [6x22]: Scottie wanted me to tell you she’ll bring over the rest of her things in the morning.

Liz believing Red is Ilya. That’s the issue. 

Stranger: And she believed him? Red: She did. So much so that she’s decided it’s safe to bring her daughter home.

Ilya is of danger to Agnes.

Red: I want this done before Masha’s daughter comes home.

That’s why he wants it done before she comes home. 

Red: Your mother was not as bad as - If she were here, I’m sure she’d tell you she made so many mistakes. She was scared and uncertain and just trying to do the best she could. Bring Agnes home, Elizabeth. Liz: If there’s any risk - Red: There isn’t. Bring her home.

Katarina isn’t of danger. Ilya is. That’s why there’s no danger to Masha. Also why Red went to Paris. "Raymond” is Katarina, "Katarina” is Ilya. This falls to Tom’s side of Agnes’ family tree - while adding in the issue of paternity. This will break Liz’s second memory wipe wide open. The first tap of my Tom-Domino theory. Liz finding out Tom isn’t the father of Agnes will most certainly cause her to question who is and why she can’t remember having sex with him. I also believe this will tie in Red’s plan with Dr. Stark, as I believe he was planning to donate to Agnes. 

Agnes’ paternity issue taking us back to Kirk’s arc. 

Kirk, Liz, and Agnes: Chosen family. 

Tying in both chosen and biological with Rederina and Keenler baby.

Liz [4x7]: The test results showed something else. I’m not your daughter.

Kirk [4x8]: Mistake? It wasn’t a mistake. No. It was altered by Reddington.

He’s right. They were altered by Reddington, who is Katarina. 

Kirk: I had proof that she was my daughter. A DNA test. Red: You saw what Katarina wanted you to see.

Fabrications. 

Liz: You know, I really believed he was my father. Red: You had every reason to.

Liz had every reason to believe Kirk was her father. Memories at the Summer Palace. Kirk’s marriage to her mother. A fabricated DNA report. 

Because of Krilov, memories are just as easy to fabricate as DNA reports. That’s why Liz has every reason to believe Tom is the father of Agnes.

Silver linings. Hope in dark clouds. Because a storm is coming.

♪ And everyone thinks I dodged a bullet But I think I shot the gun ♪

The chosen family. Keenler baby.

Kirk [4x8] -

Liz: Kirk? Red: Gone. Liz: Dead? Red: Gone.

Tom [3x14] -

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby?

Guillermo Rizal [6x20] -

Cooper: The parents of Rizal’s children. No one would blame them for walking away from those kids. 

The biological family. Rederina. 

Kirk [4x8] -

Red: Yes, Elizabeth is my daughter.

Tom [4x8 & 6x19] -

Tom: So it worked? Red: Yes.

Imposter Red: Yes. It worked.

Guillermo Rizal [6x20] -

Liz: You won’t stay angry with me. I know you think you will, but you won’t. Parents don’t stay angry with their children. Or their grandchildren. And that’s who you are to us. It doesn’t matter who you were. This is who you are and who you’ll always be.

Secret accounts.

Katarina & Raymond.

Katarina: Don’t you understand? He was my asset. I’d been siphoning intel off of him for years. You don’t think we had plans in place to destroy him if he ever found out that he was sleeping with the enemy? Ilya: Of course they did. Katarina: Money in secret accounts. Paper trails of payoffs. Passports in safety-deposit boxes - evidence that I didn’t steal his secrets, but that he shared them with me. Ilya: Alternate history.

The Travel Agency. 

Liz: After the accident, somehow, somewhere, there was a slip-up, and she picked up on it. - Eleanor: I was at the bank, trying to figure out how to keep up with the medical bills - your medical bills - when the bank manager asked me why I hadn’t dipped into your personal account. Calvin: What account? Eleanor, I don’t understand. Eleanor: That’s exactly what I said. - Liz: She stumbled onto his finances. - Eleanor: I was able to connect the dots by following the money. Your travels were like a map.

Tom & Liz. 

[Medical bills]

Liz: Do you know what Tom was talking about? When he said he figured it out? Red: Tom was a man of [many truths]. Which of those he was going to divulge, I can’t say.

Insert Dr. Krilov. 

Impalement, disappointment.

Katarina & Masha.

Red: But I let my hopes convince me that - you’d never betray me like that.

Samar & Aram.

[The Keenler-Saram/Liz-Samar parallel] 

Ressler: She’s alive, but she went a long time without oxygen. I mean, that was after she was somehow impaled. Cooper: Did they say how long she would be on a respirator? Ressler: All they said was that she can’t breathe on her own. And they don’t know if she ever will.

Red: What I really can’t get is how you used Agent Mojtabai, how you manipulated him into telling you about Samar’s condition. He told you so as to protect her, but because of you, he has to live with the fact that he betrayed her, that his words put a target on her back, that he is the reason that they will never be together again. Aram trusted you, and because of that trust, his life has been devastated.

Liz & Agnes. 

Being impaled by a unicorn. 

Liz: Anxious isn’t really the right word. It’s more like heightened. Like, I can feel every breath. I’m not used to that.

[“All they said was that she can’t breathe on her own.”]

With Ressler by her side, she’s not breathing on her own. 

Soundtrack. The Lumineers, This Must Be The Place.

The lyrics were written by David Byrne of Talking Heads.

Family & Home. 

♪ I'm just an animal looking for a home and Share the same space for a minute or two And you love me till my heart stops Love me till I'm dead ♪

For the chosen family of Tom, Liz, and Agnes.

Tom: I never knew my parents either. I think that’s what made Liz and I work. You know, it was the first time either of us felt like ... family.

Tom: Just go to the house. Meet me there, and when it’s safe, babe, I’m gonna explain everything.

For the biological family of Red, Liz, and Agnes.

Red: When I look at you, that’s what I see. I see my way home. 

Masha: When are you coming home? Katarina: It’s gonna take a while. Mama has some work to do.

[vaguely-concerned]

Let’s Read Victory of Eagles; the Prepare to Cry About William Laurence Edition

earlier temeraire let’s reads (yes I’m sticking with it)

- oh man starting with temeraire’s pov is such a good call, I don’t know if I could take getting plunged straight into laurence’s misery without some (very slight) levity first 

- lol and also crey @ laurence gently reminding these young guys how to keep him prisoner 

- temeraire on his way to revolutionize dragon politics after one damn month... I’m so proud ;___; on the other hand him thinking laurence is dead is... nope not processing this laurence is fine let’s not worry about it

- SURPRISE THARKAY! BEST KIND OF SURPRISE 

looool he just keeps coming to get laurence and finding him embroiled in some fresh catastrophe... I’m sorry ur bro is in another castle/war camp/ship wreck/prison tharkay you’re a champ for tracking him down again and again

- He has a new birb!!! good stuff. this part of them walking through the quiet ruined town is really striking too

- laurence feels like he can be just himself for the first time in months huh... cool cool cool

- “You and Temeraire would be welcome in other parts of the world. You may recall there is some semblance of civilization,” he added dryly, “in a few places, beyond the borders of England.”

fsdakhfdasdfsaflj a) I love him so much b) I  g u e s s  Tharkay kind of just asked Laurence to run away with him in his low-key sardonic way... super triple extra cool cool cool extremely admirable even if he and everyone else in the world knows it to be doomed 

resting his hand on his shoulder because he knows Laurence is gonna be Laurence about this... yeah okay just punch me in the heart

- tfw the guy you sort of have a thing for is determined to get himself killed for a government you feel exactly zero personal loyalty to and now you have to watch his back 🙄

- lol laurence is like ‘I’m not gonna start a fistfight’ 

five minutes later: granby pulls laurence out of a fistfight he started because someone talked shit about his dragon

- aw demane and sipho! good boys bein’ good boys 

- temeraire reciting principia mathematica to himself and changing his voice so he can pretend it’s laurence reading to him... that is under the belt naomi novik that is just mean

(all the funnier/more heartbreaking for knowing laurence has no fucking idea what he’s reading out loud when it comes to that book and would never have touched it if temeraire didn’t love it so much)

- “Oh,” Temeraire said, and sat back on his haunches. He was not quite sure what to say. “I am very sorry?” he offered, uncertainly. He supposed it must be very unpleasant to be a coward.

fjfjghfgj how is he so darling

- tbh perscitia is very much me when it comes to fighting; I too am small and slow and cripplingly overly aware of all the ways things can go wrong which everyone seems happy to overlook

- as a professional tharkay spotter: he is in fact present in the proceedings right now, he arrived at the same time as granby and had one (1) line of dialogue! I am not sure why everyone’s talking about this napoleon fella instead of specifying to me what precise dragon he hitched a ride with or what kind of babysitter arrangement he has put in place for his birb but y’know I’ll take what I can get

(there is a peculiar sort of satisfaction in getting reeeeaaal attached to a side character; this reminds me a lot of being nine and scrupulously scanning every page of a harry potter book for mentions of sirius, no matter how peripheral or inconsequential) 

- all of temeraire’s dragons are pure gold tbh, I especially like majestatis and his laconic competency (I may have a type)

- temeraire not getting why laurence isn’t responding to him quite as he should and laurence basically getting his affairs in order... William Laurence if you break both our hearts I will never fucking forgive you this is my stern voice

- adding a second (and tonally very different) pov is such a genius move at this point in the story; it really breathes new life into everything. 

- lady allendale is the real mvp, you can really see a lot of laurence’s good sides in a straight line from her to him

- oooooooooooooooooooooh roland dropping some truth bombs on laurence for being so very very honorable and so very very dumb

thank you jane I guess at least he’s pretty

- having to read laurence trying to convince all the people who love him to basically let him kill himself is extremely upsetting and I Do Not Care for it

- temeraire absent-mindedly putting ‘coming up with some way to let laurence live as long as me’ on his ‘to do’ list is Everything

but also he doesn’t even realize how wrong things are with his captain and I want to curl up in a ball. no bb no one is going to take him but he’s halfway through taking himself out :(

(I will say that there’s something about laurence’s incredible inflexibility and self loathing that is very relatable, which is probably why I’m so mad at him and also so scared for him. incidentally one of hanzo’s traits I really identify with. anyway onwards)

- ah of course granby was kidnapped I was wondering when something bad would happen to him in this book

- “You are not obliged -- ” Laurence began.

“No,” Tharkay agreed civilly, with one raised brow, and Laurence bowed and left it there. 

fdsfdklsalkjhfkjasdhfjkadshdsfhksdfjakh how... how can anyone be so impossibly lovely and so sarcastic in one word... my heart feels so full

but also ow b/c I think tharkay does see the state laurence is in and it must be extremely stressful to look out for all the swords your bro is determined to throw himself on 

- oF ALL THE DOORSTEPS IN ALL OF LONDON THEY HAD TO END UP AT LAURENCE’S EX’S how many mirrors has this poor man broken to end up here 

- oh uh wow I think I just murdered woolvey’s shitty racist ass with my mind I never even knew I had the power

- Tharkay seeming to suss out the whole Situation here at a glance... *prayer hands emoji*

-  Tharkay shook his head, and when Laurence looked at him said quietly: “It must be difficult to follow an officer of public repute, in the affections of a woman who loves courage.”

...

“My reputation is hardly one any sensible man would covet.”

“It does not name you a coward,” Tharkay said. “Whatever has Bertram Woolvey done?”

as observed completely impartially except for that one awful enormous crush he is developing lol

- oh no... woolvey died... this is... terrible.... *insert ‘shocked’ captain kirk reaction image here*

okay it does put edith in a genuinely awful situation, which super sucks. everything around her is like the one part of laurence’s self loathing that is sort of justified: he’s been making her life so much harder for so long. first she had to worry about her not-even-husband-yet getting lost at sea and he seems pretty emotionally distant, for all that he can be sweet, then he adopts a dragon and she is SUCH AN AFTERTHOUGHT to him in that process (because, as I have discussed earlier, william laurence should just not ask people to marry him b/c he never. actually. means. it. he just thinks he should I think)

and then, after finally disentangling herself emotionally from that she manages to marry a dude who’s a twit, but a twit who by all appearances treats her well and she’s happy -- and then Laurence shows up for three fucking hours and her HUSBAND IS SHOT DEAD 

most of laurence’s guilt is the useless self-flagellation of depression, but in this one case I’m a bit more ‘yeah okay valid bro’

- Laurence’s tendency to describe, in minute detail, what some dude is wearing even under the most dire of circumstances is so endearing. (also he barely ever does it with women; usually it’s like ‘and she was wearing idk a dress?’ lol)

- laurence’s superpower is inspiring people’s affection and loyalty and then wondering why they’re all not cool with him throwing himself off a cliff

- is tharkay like basically a scottish lord on his dad’s side and has been fucked over by either the system or the rest of his family. are you fucking kidding me jfksadflsadfj

- oh. oh okay that’s the king that’s super extra salt in the wound for our golden boy :I

- NOOOOOOOOOOO TEMERAIRE THINKS LAURENCE MIGHT BE ANGRY WITH HIM!!!!!! LAURENCE YOU BEAUTIFUL USELESS DUMBASS PLEASE SNAP OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSION LONG ENOUGH TO TELL YOUR DRAGON SON YOU’RE NOT ANGRY WITH HIM OR SO HELP ME I’LL... CRY AT YOU I GUESS

- okay so this is all very bleak and... borderline war crime-y and laurence is clearly In A Bad Way but also demane has just put every scrap of clothing he could find on his little brother, who now can barely walk for all the layers but is presumably nice and warm, and my heart is doing strange things in my chest

- “Laurence, what are you doing?” 

*ELMO SURROUNDED IN FLAMES GIF* MY BOY THARKAY BEING THE REAL MVP ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

this whole scene is so brief but so good fkdslahfaklsdhfaskld laurence literally slipping back out of dissociation and noticing the smells and sounds around him again... this is So Much, tharkay you fucking miracle of a man  

- there is something incredibly interesting about how laurence is just viscerally terrified by the things tharkay seems to represent to him -- that’s at least twice now that he’s thought straight out, in pretty much the same words, that tharkay’s way of living seems achingly lonely and untethered and frightening to him. (the first time is in black powder war, just as he’s about to give the offer of friendship that tharkay seems equal parts confused and touched by lol) laurence has this intense need to be part of something bigger than himself and doesn’t trust himself to know what’s right (...even tho he’ll historically still occasionally go off and do The Right Thing despite orders anyway because he’s a beautiful idiot), while tharkay obviously puts freedom and autonomy faaaar above any of that (understandably, from his background lol) 

and still it’s exactly this dude who woke laurence up to himself again and reminded him who he really is. this is the man he knew he’d be ‘sorrier to lose than yet I know’ and gooooddamn if he wasn’t right about that. I’m not ready to be coherent about it yet but uh wow this is A Lot

- the way novik writes laurence dissociating is. a bit too close to home, I’m not thrilled about this haha 

- LAURENCE IS TALKING TO HIS DRAGON SON AGAIN AND I CAN FINALLY BREATHE THANK YOU THARKAY

- also let me specify that tharkay coming in and ending laurence’s breakdown by just showing him that he, y’know. doesn’t have to commit borderline war crimes if he doesn’t want to is... yeah. when he’s like ‘yeah no bro I like you and all but this is fucked up I’m out’ and Laurence slowly puts the pieces together and goes ‘...that... is an option? F U C K’  is the Good Stuff (I’m being flippant about it but also I really mean it lol)  

- temeraire is giving the french uniforms the side eye for being boring and admiring the kilts... god bless him, focusing on the real things on the eve of battle

- gOD lien is so fucking COOL, celestial who actually knows wtf she’s doing OP pls nerf

ETA: also I’ve looked up some spoilers for the rest of this series (b/c there’s a couple of characters now who I’m so attached to that if they die I don’t even fucking care anymore lol), and apparently they never get to fight lien/meet her for too long again and can I just say... What The Fuck, why would you come up with such a compelling antagonist and not use her???  

- Tharkay, straight(hah)-faced: yeah I’m coming with you to australia on this prison ship nbd just curious about it that’s all 

Laurence, blinking back tears, barely getting the words out: cool bro 

(I think laurence has been like. crying or on the verge of crying in every single scene he and tharkay have been alone in this entire book. tharkay saw laurence through an ugly ugly divorce (with the government of england if not the land) and is still going with him to fucking australia. that’s how you know it’s love tbh, he’s done for)

also for the meme: AND THEY WERE SHIPMATES! OH MY GOD THEY WERE SHIPMATES!

ALSO also: tharkay getting granby a drink fdsafjsalkdjfh best boy, best friend 

- not connected to anything but I do appreciate that laurence is a rare extremely extroverted protagonist. he just really needs people around him and sort of wilts when he’s isolated, whether by circumstance or his own Stuff.  

- Oh man I really liked this one! the pacing worked better than the last one, the dual pov really shook things up, the new dragon characters were cool and Laurence had a lot of character development that has been in the cards since book 1, even if it was really upsetting while it happened. and Tharkay was there a lot, which is the surest way to my heart at this point, to be fair.