#Also lmao my mom isn't in season 5 yet no one tell her that he dies 🙏🥰

[winkle-pickers]

Discount Mountie for the character bingo! And I mean the OG Abercrombie one, not the butt chin replacement 🙏

Heh. Heheh. HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE i was SAVING THIS ONE.

BITCH ASS DISCOUNT ABERCROMBIE MODEL MOUNTIE, MY NEMESIS (shakes fist, screaming into the sky)

I'm not even going to say his name. He doesn't deserve one. Also I genuinely can't remember it because I've been calling him Discount Abercrombie Mountie for so long to distinguish him from Forgettable Second Mountie. (What fucking factory do they make these guys in?!?!)

Like OKAY I get they were going for a slap-slap-kiss dynamic between Elizabeth and Discount, but it's just. It's not cute. Elizabeth is an accomplished, kind, brave woman who sticks around in a town full of people who are rude af and does her best to make a difference. Discount Abercrombie lurks around with a pouty look on his face because he apparently has More Important Mountie Things to Do than, idk, his actual job. Notorious for arriving at conflict situations an hour late, looking so awkward on a horse I was genuinely spending a lot of screentime wondering if he was going to fall and die (he does but not until Season 5, wow talk about blue balling me), and tipping his stupid hat in the stupidest way known to man. That hat should be CONFISCATED.

My mom doesn't like it when she texts me to talk about the latest episode and I have only mean things to say about Discount Abercrombie and/or his successor Forgettable Second. Both of them are very popular with moms. So I bite my tongue, and only here can I unleash my rage <3 <3

[tsukidrama]

hi!!

yes the new format is way better! scrolling back and forth was a bit annoying so it's good like that 😊

you're right about onyankopon, he just has less fans and the reasons why aren't really surprising in the anime fandom tbh but he really is a good person, and he and hange make such a good duo!!

okay okay good!! no more scrolling and struggling to remember what's being replied to!

exactly yes!! i also love the fact that Levi and Onyankopon end up still spending time together in the flash forward. i've seen some really sad shit about how they bond because it's all they have left of Hange and it kills my soul on the inside.

omg i love brooklyn nine nine!! i think i missed the reference because i watched the show in dub in my language though, but this was a very funny quote. i forgot to ask but in different chapters in the fic you also make references to some books but i really suck at guessing them, would you mind sharing the book titles?

makes sense! it's such an iconic show 🥺 i think the ending did it justice & i've been trying to get my mom to watch it. Annie and Papa both kind of remind me of Holt in their humor, lmao. Papa would refer to the pets at "Donut the cat" etc and even the way he talks and acts, OMG LIKE THE EPISODE ABOUT WHEN HOLT PLAYED WITH MODEL TRAINS AS A KID — PAPA.

sure! they aren't essential to the plot so i intentionally leave it kinda vague, idk i just don't want to take away from the focus of the story. in COTMC (ch 5) the trilogy of books reader brings out in the barn with her is supposed to be lord of the rings, although that one isn't really significant. no wonder reader couldn't focus, that shit is so long and wordy 😫

in chapter 3, where it talks extensively about the books, those ones are a lot more significant about the two brothers and the evil woman is john steinbeck's east of eden. Annie's childhood favorite (and one of my own favorites from high school) about the axe murderer and redemption, is fyodor dostoevsky's crime and punishment.

tbh i only trust you to fix papa's character lmao

lol. me too...

hehe i'm kinda happy i guessed stuff about the plot 😌 i'm more invested in your fic than in some mangas and books i'm reading right now alskzkz and thinking about next chapter + reiner and pieck is making me ever more excited to read it!! i'm curious to how you write pieck too! she's one of my favourites. and even more curious about chapter 8 because i saw the other ask (which was so nice and interesting to read, i love reading what other people think about the fic too!!) and now i'm a bit scared lmao. by the way do you already have a certain amount of chapters planned?

oh my god WHAt, that's genuinely such a compliment! ahshwkdkel i've been out here writing this shit entirely for myself. i mean i knew people read it and enjoyed it but it's different to hear somebody say that they're genuinely invested in the plot like this?? imsjnahls does that even make sense?? aah i put a stupid amount of effort into this series so thank you soooo much.

i don't want to share TOO much! this is where i get myself into a bit of a conundrum because i totally want to tell you, but i don't want to post it on main yknow?? i will tell you that Pieck and Reiner get very concerned about Annie. they'll show up unprompted trying to check on her, and she basically beats them away with a stick since all she wants is to get some god damn peace and quiet.

i haven't decided the exact number but it'll be somewhere around 20-22 chapters depending on how it all unfolds. i have up until about chapter 10 very well planned out and just loose outlines for the rest.

kinda oversharing rn but i made one of my friends watch first season of aot for the first time and annie quickly became one of her favourite characters and she doesn't even know her whole story yet. i'm very proud to spread the annie agenda lmao

YYYYYEEEESSSSS!!!! i just know that whenever she watched you were right there talking about and hyping up our girl like:

jhfhalk.ehjevi i know i do!! good for you. you're out there doing the good work. now just casually steer her away from the shitty parts of the fandom.

i hope you have a nice day!! - j

you too! have a great Sunday and a good week.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Why do you think Hirst has made most of Aslaug's sons not want to avenge her? I can get Sigurd but I found Hvitserk confusing and Ubbe isn't even going "well it's my duty" anymore if he's teaming up with Lagertha in season 5. Are we meant to think Ivar's desire for revenge is irrational or wrong?

I kind of almost brush aside Sigurd’s refusal to avenge her because it stemmed from completely ooc characterization in 4A, and Hirst’s desire to assassinate Aslaug’s character.  @philomaela has written a lot about this and she knows more about the culture Hirst is (allegedly) writing about than I do, the sagas, etc.  But revenge is supposed to be a big thing not just in the show, but in the character’s culture.  You avenge your murdered parent not because you necessarily loved them or they were a good parent, but because to refuse would be a blight upon your own personal honor.

Plus, Ragnar was a complete and utter asshole who neglected the children and literally was gone for most of their lives either on a raid or... having a meltdown post-France I guess... and everyone felt the need to avenge him.  That’s the honor code they’re talking about; when the other brothers hesitated, it almost made Ivar look more “authentically” like a viking.

And maybe that’s part of the point?  I don’t know if Hirst wants Ivar to be the devil or an antihero or a villain protagonist--and Hirst has always had a confused approach to whether he embraces or condemns the “true viking” thing.  He seems to love Ivar, but there’s also this frame of positivity around characters who choose to embrace Christians and kinda Soft.  Ivar lacks that.  Ivar seems to be all about the old gods, the honor code, the need for vengeance because Those Were Our Parents Like it Or Not.  And It also makes him feel like, to me, the character who is most a part of a time that is not mine, which is what the show is supposed to be going for.  I don’t think that the others brothers’ hesitance over or refusal to pursue vengeance is about that intentionally, but it gives the effect.

Also, another probably unintentional thing is that it enhances the perception of Ivar basically loving his mother and no one else.  I’d argue that Ivar’s relationship with Aslaug is one of his defining characteristics--some people may think it got Oedipal on a visual level, sure, but there hasn’t been any sign to me that adult Ivar had a weird relationship with Aslaug.  He was her favorite, but he seems to love her in as pure a way as he’s loved anyone.  Sure, he worshiped Ragnar and got along with Ubbe at some point, but Aslaug is the only person (besides Floki, who’s functioned kind of like a surrogate father to him) he’s really loved as far as I can tell.

Ultimately, I think Sigurd’s refusal to seek revenge made him look weaker, and it pitted him against Ivar.  It was plot device-y, as most of Hirst’s writing choices are as of late.  Hvitserk...  I don’t know.  Is it because they fell through the ice the one time mommy decided to leave them with a babysitter?  Hvitserk has zero defined character, so it’s hard to tell.  Ubbe was all about revenge at first; he also seemed like the closest of the Ragnarssons to Aslaug, after Ivar.  I feel like his sudden turnaround is largely just a thing so that he’ll be against Ivar too, tbh.  I don’t think it’s coming from a sense-making place lol.  I’ve also speculated that he’ll be getting into bed quite literally with Lagertha, but I can’t yet tell if that’s going to be a genuine alliance or if he’s going to exploit his resemblance to Ragnar and her thwarted love for his father to get in good and MAAAAYBE be the son who kills her.  In a twist.  Right now, the most likely son to kill Lagertha is Ivar or Ubbe imo, but honestly I think my Ubbe theory is way too deep for Hirst and it’ll be something reeeeeally dumb.  Like Bjorn accidentally running her over on a horse or Magnus being like RAGNAR DID FUCK MY MOM AFTER ALL and killing her in a random battle lmao.

Tbh, I don’t know if Hirst sees Ivar as right or not.  I think Ivar’s desire to avenge his mother is so emotionally understandable--if you step back and think about what you would want to do the person who killed the only parent who loved you, the only PERSON who really consistently nurtured you in your life...  You’d want to kill them.  Even if you weren’t a viking.  So from MY perspective I think we’re supposed to sympathize with Ivar and see his love for his mother and his desire for vengeance as one of his emotional cruxes, because otherwise he’s just this bloodthirsty warlord who kills people for shits and giggles and possibly because his dick doesn’t work (FOR NOOOOW).  He’s a much more complex character if we see him as right for wanting to kill his mother’s murderer, and his brothers as these assholes who wimped out and left him to his own devices.  It makes the brothers more interesting too, tbh, because them being The Sane Ones is just... dull.

But again, I don’t know that Hirst is doing this.  Every time I think Hirst is going in a logical direction... he does not.