#HOWEVER because this post is so bleak here’s a reminder that he does make peace with his sexuality eventually!!!

[fuckspn]

wrote a whole long post about dean’s relationship to his queerness and then deleted it because i couldn’t put it better than: there is a word i know. but i can’t say it. i can’t think it. i’ll just keep drawing horses

[penrose-quinn]

I know that Shizuka won't ever ever consent to having a child with Muzan anymore, but what happens if she gets pregnant or she actually wants a child? How will both of them, as a "family", as "husband and wife", care for the child? Homeschool or school? Will the child feed with them? How will Muzan take care of the child, and how will Shizuka take care of the child?

Interestingly, I considered making an instalment for this one, but I didn't go through with it because it would've been too depressing and just unapologetically grimdark. The series itself is already dark, but in this AU, things just get way, waaay worse. Anyway, this is a long post and tw for mentions of emotional/psychological abuse.

How will both of them, as a "family", as "husband and wife", care for the child?

Here’s some context about Shizuka first: 

She has always had an unusually soft side for children. She'll never show it, but she does. Something about their youth and innocence reminds her of what she can never have anymore, and because of that, she doesn't want a child to endure what she had to go through. But the thing is with Shizuka, she goes about it in such a bleak and twisted way, thinking they might as well die in peace than go through all that suffering while they're still alive, especially if said child has no hope for the future. It's a very depraved expression of how she cares, but her empathy (or what she believes to be empathy, at least) is so distorted and drenched in bloodlust because being a man-eating demon does that.

Shizuka would've been a distant mother, stuck in her own world that she might come off as reserved and cold. She is in a way, but that doesn't mean she doesn't care for her child. 

However, there are some contradictions with Shizuka, wherein she contemplates on not really wanting the child, to being too afraid to care for the child, to reliving her old trauma from her last labor and the loss of that first child, to distancing herself because she knows she'll never be the mother it deserves and perhaps even ruminating on killing the child too. It’s a vicious cycle, really. She knows she's a monster and she doesn't want to breed another one. 

Though because of the same reasons, there are some moments she comes off a bit overprotective of the child from Muzan, but she tries not to show it too much because she's aware he wants to see her be attached to that child because he could use that to keep her closer to him. Keep her to his side forever.

On the other hand, Muzan will never be his own child's father. By that I mean he doesn't really care for it as his child, but more of as an extension of himself. He's actually good with children, and while he doesn't like them all that much, he's good at manipulating them.

If they had a child, he'd be doing the same thing: doting, praising, and even showing signs of paternal affection for it. Though he doesn't love it. This child is only an extension of himself so he might as well take care of what belongs to him. It needs to realize that it must be on his side and must uphold its purpose in keeping Shizuka close.  

But that doesn't mean Muzan doesn't have his own contradictions. If the child wants to cling to its mother, he's still divided between letting it and keeping it away from her because he's still possessive of her himself. He doesn't want this child to overstep its boundaries when it comes to her because she can only ever be his. There are times he will go so far as to establish those boundaries and I'll spare you the details for this because it's as appalling and territorial as it gets. Muzan . . . is Muzan and he has no bounds with his cruelty.

Homeschool or school? 

Depends, really. If the child can withstand the sun, then school. If it can’t, then homeschool. Muzan values education, and to him, exposure to the outside world is a good thing. Shizuka just wants the child to learn many things and to have that freedom that there is a world outside theirs.  

Will the child feed with them? 

Yep. 

How will Muzan take care of the child, and how will Shizuka take care of the child?

In their own way. Both of which would be considered dysfunctional and abusive. 

[innenofutari]

On Goro Akechi’s morals and forgiveness (character analysis, but also just a very rambly post)

Akechi is… a very interesting character, I have no doubt about this. Also my favorite of course, if you hadn’t figured that out yet by this giant text you’re about to read (sorry). I have a lot I want to talk about in regards to him since he is so intriguing and we actually don’t have that much info about how his thought process works so it leaves a lot of room for speculation.

In any case, in this meta in specific I’m going to be talking about Akechi’s...morality(?), forgiveness and his relationship with regret. I’m not sure if that’s the best word to define this but I’ll roll with it for now. I’ll try to be fair and talk about things as I personally see them, it’s totally fine if you don’t share my views! Now, onto the actual meta.

Starting off, as people are obviously aware, Akechi is a morally gray character, a darker shade of, but he’s a sympathetic and tragic character nonetheless. That much is undeniable, he was written to be sympathetic, even if I’d argue Atlus did a pretty poor job of it in Vanilla (he was still my favorite ever since then though lol) but he’s reached his true potential in Royal, which makes me immensely happy to see. I get so unbelievably happy whenever I see people saying Royal changed their perception of him and started to like him more! But even then, there are a lot of people who just can’t forgive him for what he did, and that’s only natural. I personally think that, if you don’t try to sympathize with Akechi and truly, truly try to understand his mind and history, you’re doing him a huge disservice. But, forgiveness is something that everyone is free to think and decide if he deserves it or not. In Akechi’s case, I feel like forgiveness is something much more personal to the player, and this shows between the Phantom Thieves too.

There is a visual novel I hold very close to my heart called Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (which I’ll be quoting relentlessly throughout this entire post) that illustrates what I think better than I could put into words, so I’ll be quoting that scene with a few tweaks for better context:

“You said you understood the culprit’s motive.”

“...Yes.”

“Is that motive… a satisfying explanation for why they’d [commit murder]?!”

“Who knows. That’s for you to decide. Even if I say it’s satisfying, that doesn’t mean it will satisfy you. …You have to decide that for yourself.”

I really like this. It reminds me a lot of Akechi’s situation. I firmly believe that this has no “objective”, “most correct” answer to, just your personal feelings, which are the most important. I, as a player, do forgive Akechi, I want him to have a happy ending, another chance at life, manage to live happily with Akira and have some fun for once. That’s what “forgiveness” means to me in this situation, but while some people may empathize with Akechi, they still can’t forgive him. They think he should stay forever in jail or die since he cannot be redeemed in any way in their eyes. Where do I wanna go with this endless blabbering you ask, and I respond, I just want to try and see Akechi’s actions through two different lenses.

Well, I personally don’t like downplaying the crimes he committed and dumbing it down to “he was being manipulated” because, even if this is not false, it is not entirely correct either. Akechi is so fun to speculate about because he’s a character who is always clashing against himself in various ways as if he was in a constant state of internal turmoil, and this is not very different.

Akechi himself made the choice to go to Shido. It is extremely unlikely that he didn’t know he was going to be using his new powers for murder. He may have been very young, but despite the fact that he was a child forced to mature prematurely, he knew exactly which type of person Shido was. When he walked into that deal he was aware of the consequences and had fully made peace with the fact that he’d be taking another person’s life. Now, I’m not saying that Shido never manipulated him because he did, but not with that particular choice. 

This alone tells plenty about Akechi’s morals. I believe that Akechi indeed has some level of empathy for other people, but I sincerely doubt he feels especially bad about the Okumura-like people he had to kill. He might feel bad for the family of the victims or just feel nauseated with himself, however, he doesn’t regret a thing. As if he had grown numb to it. ...Until a certain point, that is, but I’ll talk about that later.

I would also like to elaborate further on Akechi’s continuous conflict with himself, and this particular piece of Maruki’s confidant immediately reminded me of this:

He’s talking about Akira here, but isn’t it interesting to note that Akechi’s internalized and externalized realities are, in contrast to Akira’s, the farthest they could possibly be from each other? His sense of justice, childlike desire to be loved and seen as a hero, in contrast to the cold-blooded murderer he had become? It’s like there are two people fighting it out inside of Akechi’s brain (lol) which must cause him a lot of distress. I don’t believe that Robin Hood is a ruse or that his Detective Prince façade is entirely fake. The way I see it, they are his ideal, which he strayed so far away from he lost grasp of who he himself is.

In my opinion, Akechi has never cared about fame the slightest bit, he used all of that as an opportunity to act out the person he wished he was, just and virtuous, while still being the feral murderer and bloodstained person he is today. These are two integral parts of him that he has never known how to reconcile. It’s interesting to note that in the third semester he was the one who since the beginning advocated firmly to return to the harsh reality but he had spent the entire game living in the comforting “detective prince” dream he made for himself until the engine room scene happened. 

With the third semester context, the engine room becomes so interesting because that scene is akin to Sumire finding out she’s not Kasumi. It’s a cold bucket of water thrown straight to Akechi’s face and telling him to wake up from this lie he made to comfort himself and face reality: he is no hero. Despite the fact that he is, too, a victim, he is simultaneously a murderer who perpetuated with the cycle of his father’s aggressions and he cannot escape that fact. Worse, he was being manipulated all along and his revenge plan and arguably his only reason to live AND justification for his actions was completely crushed.

Once again, this Umineko scene illustrates what I think Akechi’s situation up until that point was like:

Akechi rationalized every awful, inexcusable thing he did as, “It’s for my revenge’s sake” and ran with it. He was incredibly blinded by his hate and ignored the weight of the consequences of his actions up until that point where everything came crashing down right in front of his eyes. There is no excuse and no justification for that.

However, Akechi was also abused himself. There is no excuse for what he did, but is getting back at the person who took everything from him so reprehensible a thought? Is wanting justice against someone who essentially ruined your life not understandable? Many people like to say “cool motive still murder” or things of the like, but I’m asking you again to put yourself in his shoes.

Yet AGAIN with a Umineko screencap:

I played this the other day and one of the first things I thought of was Akechi. A lot of people draw parallels between Akechi and Adachi, but that’s just so damn wrong and make me lose my hair so much and become completely bald because that couldn’t be farther from the truth and I’m gently asking you to reconsider. In the pic above, Adachi would fit the “homicidal maniac” mentioned to a T, and while Akechi is by absolutely no means free of guilt and much less a stellar person, his crimes were moved completely by his heart. 

For the people who use his choice to become Shido’s hitman to say Akechi does not deserve any kind of forgiveness and that he’s a murderous maniac, I ask you to at least think of what state of mind he was at that moment. Think very hard about it, imagine how completely bleak life must have looked like then, to the point that he risked everything on murder.

This is nothing more than my speculation, but I believe Akechi’s thought process at that moment was something along the lines of, “I have nothing to lose since my (current) life is completely meaningless". It was as if he had reached such a numb state he chose to forgo all his morals and humanity in pursuit of at least one thing that would give his life meaning, that being his hate for Shido, which I also think was the only emotion he ever truly understood well ever since his mom passed.

Since Akechi is all about conflicting emotions though, I would also like to remind you how vulnerable Akechi really is to any kind of affection. His “childlikeness” that Robin Hood represents was, by all accounts, still there. Akechi has a desperate need to be loved while simultaneously putting up walls and wearing masks, making it extremely difficult to have any kind of meaningful relationship. This is something that Shido thoroughly takes advantage of, too.

That’s also why one of his lines to Akira hit so much harder for me, following this reasoning. “If only we had met a few years earlier,” expresses many emotions at once. If Akechi had known something other than misery and hatred during that period of his life he would not have latched so thoroughly to that revenge plan. Akechi simply had nothing to lose, since he had nothing at all.

I mentioned earlier that Akechi doesn’t regret a thing, which I still think it’s true. Before he had met Akira, he truly did not regret a thing, but meeting Akira caused him a lot of strife because not only Akira is a person whose whole existence flaunts everything Akechi could have had if he hadn’t fallen into fate’s trap, but Akechi also experiences happiness through his connection with Akira. Hanging out and talking to him truly makes him happy, and it’s something more genuine than he’s ever known. Yet, it’s too late, because his choices were already set in stone and he had already pulled the trigger with no way to take any of the bullets back.

That’s why Akechi is so confusing, so controversial and sometimes uncomfortable to think about. There is no clear line between good or bad, he just is something in the middle. Akechi is both a person who ruined a lot of people’s lives with no regard whatsoever to the consequences but also a victim rebelling and retaliating against the person who took everything from him and made his life a living hell. That’s why it’s so hard for not only some players to form opinions about him but also downright uncomfortable for the Phantom Thieves to think about. There is no objectively best answer for what he deserves. It just doesn’t exist. Should he spend the rest of his life in jail, or dead, because his crimes were inexcusable? Or should he be given another chance at life to learn to be happy? It’s entirely subjective, and that’s why he’s so great to think or discuss about. 

Aaand that’s it, I’m grateful you read so far, hope I didn’t piss anyone off, also not gonna pretend this wasn’t very self indulgent because of the amount of times I quoted Umineko in it. Anyways, thank you!

SIDE NOTE: I didn’t write this recently, it had been sitting on my drafts for some months now and I found it again today and decided to just release it into the wild because why not? I think this was meant to be much longer than it is and to elaborate more eloquently on a lot of points I brought up (like the PT with Akechi) but alas, I lost the train of thought and so it Perished.

[cultho]

Dororo Epilogue/Post-ending Standalone episode

*WARNING: SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!!*

So I watched the ending and I had a lot of feelings about it, and I came up with a few ideas for a standalone post-episode to explore some concepts I would like to see from the show. Fyi, the pronouns I use for Dororo vary by situation, with a preference for he/him (my headcanon is Dororo is pretty genderfluid!).

About a year after Hyakkimaru went to find himself, aka end of the series (but before the timeskip where Dororo’s hair is long), the episode opens with opens with Hyakkimaru, feeling more at peace with himself, returning to the village Dororo was developing via dad's Harry Potter level of inheritance.

Dororo, who now basically rules this village despite being a literal 9 year old, hears word from his fellow villagers that a wandering stranger with a sword was spotted helping one of the rice farmers because their horse got caught in a ditch (or anything else of that nature). Of course, Dororo immediately comes running, and barrels straight into Hyakkimaru for the sibling reunion hug we deserve.

Then Dororo punches Hyakki on the arm and gives him a hard time for leaving for a whole year without even a ‘goodbye,’ asks 'So what made you decide to come back after a whole year, huh, punk?’

In response, Hyakki pulls out a small, worn, pouch and Dororo says 'woah - Mio’s rice seeds? I thought you would’ve planted them by now already.’

With a little smile, Hyakki goes 'I thought about doing that, but then I remembered you were close with her too, so you have as much of a right to these seeds… so I decided to wait until we could plant them together.’ 

The rest follows as one expects it to -  Dororo teases him for becoming an even bigger softie, and they set off back to the village to grab some farm tools who Hyakki the place, as the camera pans up until the brilliant blue sky fills the frame. That chapter of their lives ends the same way it began, with Hyakkimaru and Dororo - the latter chatting up a storm while the former quietly appreciates - side by side, wandering where they must. 

Then the camera pans back down, and where before there was bare paddy, the field is now golden and thriving (same as it was in the show's ending). After a half decade timeskip, Dororo is 15-16 to Hyakki’s 21-22, and the rest of the episode follows them dealing with a demon terrorizing their village, who turns out to be Daigo’s butthurt evil spirit. I don’t have a specific plot, but here are concepts that I’d love to see explored.

First, Grown up badass Dororo running her town, being like her own Alexander Hamilton, except not only does this Alexander Hamilton know finances, how to run a sovereign state, how to outsmart any opponent, rouse even the most downtrodden souls to action with just a few words, she also kicks major butt from training with her big bro. Shoutout to that one post that inspired the idea that her dad's Big Boy genes kicked in during puberty so she’s actually like... as tall as Hyakki. Maybe even an inch taller. She says to anyone who asks that her bro can 'die mad about it’ but they both know that he’s just happy she grew up big and strong. 

She totally runs the town and everyone adores/massively respects her; her city takes in the refugees, the poor, the women and children, the diseased, etc, because, in her words, screw samurai and screw their wars. They absorbed Daigo’a old land after offering food, shelter, and jobs to the survivors, thus their town became a pretty respectably sized settlement.

Now, the key to all this - since they don't want to rely on samurai for their power - is the money, right? So Dororo’s power is her knowledge of the treasures secret location (and all the other badass things about her, but I digress). Imagine at some point a small gang of newer villaghers got the bright idea to try and stalk her during one of her mysterious night trips out (she calls them a way to satisfy her wanderlust, but they’re a cover for her sailing to the treasure's location to grab some cash), and they only get as far as spying her enter the docks before their plan goes to heck when they get accosted by Dororo's more loyal villagers who saw them sneaking. ‘Oh sh*t,’ they’re thinking, Dororo sauntering over to them, ‘Oh sh*t, shes got a big sword, oh man oh sh*t this is the end for me - '

But Dororo’s been there before, at the end of her rope and desperate for any edge to survive, she understands how these guys think, and if there’s one thing she’s stubborn to death about it’s that she does NOT run her town like the samurai. Instead, she talks them out of their misdoing and helps them find an honest living, Tales of Ba Sing Se Uncle Iroh style, (except with more volume and verbal threats).

Another concept with Dororo is when Dororo dresses to look like a guy when he and Hyakki take a couple horses and venture into a nearby city (for whatever plot reason), similar to how he did when he was a lot younger.

It’s not fully a secret, but only the older residents of her city know about Dororo’s 'crossdressing' habit, and are accepting of it.

Dororo mentions that while he’s in no way ashamed of presenting female, it often feels more freeing to present male, especially when they're out adventuring - less questions and stares from strangers, etc. Dororo also just likes presenting as male! This way, he identifies with both genders at different times. (It goes without saying Hyakki does his best to use the right pronouns, he never had a strict concept of gender - re: Jukai is the best mom, so it never struck him as odd.)

As for the actual villain of the episode, when she first hears of the Jerk Dad Demon attacking the farms on the outskirts of the village, she only thinks ‘it's just another demon, time to gather the crew and kill this thing-’

It doesn’t go so easily, as the demon’s exceptional strength proves to draw out the confrontation, and it even ends up escaping the first time.

The first to figure it out was Hyakki - he’s most familiar with Daigo’s wrath and the foul creature reeks of the old man. However, everything happened so fast and he sort of… neglected to inform Dororo. When she does find out, they have a short confrontation about it in classic Bickering Siblings Style. It’s understandable that she’s slightly miffed the demonic incarnation of his own awful dad, yes that one, is who they’re fighting and he didn’t bother letting her know.

Hyakki, who, even after a decade of having his voice back, isn't that great at communication/vocalizing his more complex thoughts and working through conflicts with words and thus often comes off as awkward or silently stoic: 'You were busy... and I thought you figured by yourself already?’

Things escalate when the other villagers overhear, and they almost start a riot; angry shouts accusing him of being the reason the demon attacks their settlement from the all the tired men and women, haggard from fending off attacks of not only the demon but also rival bandits and clans who want to take advantage of the city’s time of hardship. Of course, Dororo gets everyone back in lineright before the crowd got to deciding to sacrifice Hyakkimaru, reminding them to focus on the real enemy instead of turning on eachother - but the situation was incredibly bleak. With everyone on edge partially, it was easy to use Hyakki as a scapegoat due to his pacifist tendencies and his stoic nature coming across as almost cowardice.

He taught Dororo how to fight and that's pretty much all the fighting he's done since he came back to plant Mio’s rice, he’s reluctant to pick up the blade again. But the moment a demon shows up he runs off on his own, risking life and limb to confront it head on. Combined with his character’s less than stellar communication skills, it frustrates Dororo in the 'he leaves for a year and doesnt even text me when he's going’ kinda way’ - she's frustrated when he continually refuses to understand that they're family, and at the end of they day theyre kind of all the other has left. So he needs to get it together better and tell her when he’s about to go off and do reckless nonsense. His behavior also presents an interesting dichotomy as Hyakki also struggles with trying to be emotionally detached (lose worldly desires, etc.) and pacifist in the face of attacks from both demon and humans, so he needs to reconcile fighting with the others against attacking clans and risking a redescent into the demon like madness of his teenage years or standing by non violent means of supporting his comrades while facing expectations that he should do more. He wants to atone for his past sins badly and help those who are still living best he can - but how? 

(And also make friends other than literally just Dororo.)

Dororo's arc is about her struggles to do the right thing as a leader - it is a lot, to run a whole city. Recent events have caused more deaths amidst her city than ever before, and moral questions about what to do with captured enemy survivors feed doubt into her mind if one day she’ll turn out as bad as the samurai, and how to continue on after having led people in battles that resulted in their deaths.

P.s. I also entertained the idea of Hyakki’s journey to find himself taking much longer, and so the first time Dororo sees him again ever since he got his eyes back is when she's 20, there's rain pouring from the dark sky as her men are carrying lamps around, accounting for the dead and defeated in a latest skirmish with a small rival band that was trying to access her city the non-peaceful way.

At first her men bring her hyakkimaru, thinking he was with the enemy (he happened to be in the wrong place, wrong time. He simply heard of a group heading to a big place that sounded an awful lot like somewhere he would find Dororo - and followed them).

And from the business end of her sword he's on his knees looking up when she goes 'nah. I know him. This bastard's got hell to answer for, but he's not our enemy.’

Events are more or less the same from there, but filled with way more tension and drama here since Hyakki basically dropped off the face of the earth for 10 ish years and Do’s mad about that because, again, he didn't even say 'bye'. So much has changed, but what hasn't changed is Dororo’s anikki's inability to grasp that if one day he went off without telling her and then died, she would have literally no idea where/when/how that was, she would never know if he was alive or dead, and the idea of living in that limbo would terrify anyone. The story being about them learning to come together again, only at the end do they plant Mio’s rice field together.

I ended up trying to flesh the first idea out more because Do & Hyakki’s relationship is all about the things that don't need to be said; that these two will always be there for the other without needing to be asked. The backbone of their relationship was built up as one that didn’t need explicit affirmation because it was already so ingrained to their characters it would be a disservice to them and a waste of time to contrive an entire plot trying to create unnecessary drama between them.

But then again... drama = satisfying character growth, so perhaps it could go either way! Let me know what you think! 

Thank you for reading all this way :) I also posted second part to this of other thoughts I had while pondering why I felt the need to write a standalone epilogue.

Bonus: these gems I had in the rough draft that unfortunately had to get cut:

“But it’s harder to kill bc jerk dad demon is a jerk”

“Dororo's like 'u mean to tell me ur punk bitch biological male progenitor's demonized soul is attacking our fields??? “

“they take down the big bad dad dude daigo”

“Dororo: - pshffyeahh, ur pissy pissfaced pissbaby dad”

[aion-rsa]

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 9 Review: Brave Volunteers

https://ift.tt/2MMruLT

This Attack on Titan review contains spoilers.

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 9

“Welcome to Paradis Island…”

Attack on Titan’s final season has expertly played with the viewers’ expectations, but “Brave Volunteers” feels like the most atypical episode of what’s been an extremely unpredictable season. 

On one level, an episode that’s largely set in the past and is almost entirely designed as an expository device shouldn’t be a very satisfying installment of Attack on Titan. The anime has done episodes like this before, but it actually feels appropriate for it to pump its breaks a little and take stock of everything that’s happened so far now that the season has passed the halfway point. 

This may technically be one of the “least best” episodes of this season, but it still works a lot better than something like this should. “Brave Volunteers” shows confidence build up in multiple characters as they become optimistic about the future, but in reality this episode is a study about just how much these characters don’t know, which is a stark realization that goes double for the audience. 

The final moments of Attack on Titan’s previous installment set up so many jarring twists and altered relationship dynamics. The audience is confused, much like Falco and Gabi are when they see Zeke working alongside the Eldians. It’s a major indication that the entire first half of this season has been a much more complicated plan than what’s initially been indicated and “Brave Volunteers” finally provides some helpful answers before the series takes another major turn towards its apocalyptic endgame. 

Some people may lament how much of “Brave Volunteers” is spent looking back at the past. However, this choice is excusable because it narratively works much better than if this material played out in chronological order at the start of the season and the audience were clued in to Eren’s plan. The season is stronger by essentially making the audience an unofficial Marleyan. “Brave Volunteers” is full of answers, but it still feels like there’s a lot to this plan that’s being kept in the dark to everyone.

The crux of “Brave Volunteers” comes down to Eldia’s invasion of Paradis Island and the unlikely arrangement that they enter with Zeke and a determined soldier named Yelena. A tense parley takes place between these factions and the Eldian and Marleyans reluctantly decide to pool their resources together to take on the larger threat of Paradis and the Founding Titan. There’s a lot to digest as Attack on Titan breezes through its plan and there are some enlightening glimpses into strategy, like how Eren wants Armin to tap into Bertholdt’s memories as a way to learn of their enemy’s plan and gain the advantage over them. Everyone is still planning multiple moves ahead in this metaphorical match of monster chess. 

Read more

TV

Attack on Titan: “No One is Safe” in Final Season, Stars Say

By Daniel Kurland

The secret alliances between Zeke, Levi, Eren, and Yelena are major turning points, but the biggest twist in “Brave Volunteers” is reserved for its ending. It turns out that Armin’s captive audience through this engrossing story is none other than Annie Leonhart, which is a major revelation that throws more significant players into the final chapter of this war.

The flashback nature of “Brave Volunteers” thankfully gives the audience a little more time with Sasha. It’s very fulfilling to see her in her element again, but it also makes every moment with Sasha incredibly bittersweet considering where things end. Her funeral is a rough scene, but it’s also an important moment for everyone to catch their breath after moving non-stop for so many episodes and not allowing themselves the opportunity to grieve. The pain of Niccolo, a completely new character, is proof of how much Sasha made a difference to those around her. At least she got to taste lobster before she went out.

A lot of this episode is constructed around characters slowly letting down their guards to strangers, whether it’s intentional or otherwise. The twisted “welcome wagon” skit that Hange engages in with the soldiers on Paradis Island is treated like an affable icebreaker as these characters broach new territory. However, from the point of view of these strangers it’s a gesture that paralyzes them in fear; not unlike the way a soldier may tease a prisoner of war or how a predator plays with their food before consumption. 

It’s another jarring reminder that this is a milestone event that’s depicted for the Eldian Warriors, but it’s also a momentous occasion for the people on the other side of this attack, yet for completely different and more harrowing reasons. Every episode from this season contains playful actions that are intentionally meant to be double-sided depending on from which side of this war they’re being considered.

The most dangerous example of this is present with Yelena, a ruthless and obsessed figure that’s determined for Eren to recognize his greatness. In the present it seems very likely that Eren has developed a God complex where he believes that everything that he does is justified and the necessary means to an end. Those kinds of feelings don’t just develop on their own and it wouldn’t be surprising if Yelena is the one that continually bolsters up Eren’s ego to the point that he’s beyond viewing himself as anything other than perfect. It’s a dangerous echo chamber of delusion for Eren. There’s already a very palpable sense of tension that accompanies everything that Yelena does. 

Yelena proves that she’s already willing to kill for Eren, but it’s enlightening to hear her explain her reverence towards seeing Zeke’s Beast Titan for the first time. She reveres the monster as a God. Yelena displays a fascinating perspective towards Titans that hasn’t been examined in the past, but makes so much sense in regards to how lost and disillusioned individuals will sometimes praise weapons of destruction. 

Yelena’s devotion to Eren also allows “Brave Volunteers” to dig deeper into where Eren’s head  is currently at and how much of his humanity he’s lost in the three years building up to the attack on Marley. They’re brief moments, but Eren appears to be getting numb towards death as he focuses more on the good that he’ll cause once all of this is over. He’s consumed over how the world views him and his kind as devils and he’s determined to either prove them right, or completely wipe them out so that there’s no one left to harbor these disparaging thoughts.

Read more

TV

Upcoming Anime 2021: New and Returning Series to Watch

By Daniel Kurland

TV

How to Watch Anime Online: The Best Legal Anime Streaming Options

By Daniel Kurland

These concerns over Eren grow greater while he innocently trains alongside Armin and Mikasa. It’s comforting to see these three together, but there’s an unspoken animosity that’s formed. Even Armin laments how he feels like he has no idea who Eren is anymore. It’s seriously chilling when Eren calmly talks about his Rumbling plan while he fires off rounds at the range. He’s completely hollow in the moment and Armin and Mikasa can sense it. 

Some powerful words that come out of Eren in this episode is how, “We can’t win if we don’t fight.” This philosophy may be true on some level, but what’s ultimately important is who is fighting whom, and over what. Eren’s bleak message radically contradicts what Willy Tybur preached during his final moments at the Liberio Festival: the only way that this war can be won and that peace can be achieved is if everyone works together. Eren has used his power to work together and build an army that intimidates the world into submission. He manages to take Tybur’s speech and weaponize it in a way that only further proves his point. 

Attack on Titan’s future is definitely going to feature more individuals working together, but it seems like it will be under duress and through Eren’s increasingly tyrannical rule rather than a mutual appreciation to fix the world. Oddly, it’s Onyankopon’s words that “Everybody exists because somebody wanted us to exist” that are unintentionally profound and speak to how everyone should be looking for ways to come together to do more good, not evil.

“Brave Volunteers” is a dense and necessary episode that leaves Attack on Titan in an exciting position as serious dissent begins to crop up around Eren. However, now everyone is too deep into this plan to abandon ship. It leaves the Eldians in rewarding territory and even though they now have more power than ever before there are much more fundamental problems that begin to arise. 

Eren is increasingly comfortable to embrace the devil role that the world has been all too eager to label them with rather than fight the narrative and prove that the only monsters here are the antiquated rules that the public has clung to in fear. The opening credits have been telling the audience since the very first episode of this season: You are the real enemy. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

This empty threat suddenly feels crushingly authentic for the first time.

The post Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 9 Review: Brave Volunteers appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2LsI2Ie

[woodworkingpastor]

Come, thou long-expected Jesus Haggai 2:1-9 Second Sunday of Advent, 2019

Lighting the second Advent candle 

Kris Tilley-Lubbs, Gavin and Graeme Robinson

Come, thou long-expected Jesus! Born to set thy people free,

from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art,

dear desire of ev’ry nation, joy of ev’ry longing heart.

We light this second Advent candle as a sign of our persistent faith that Jesus’ all-sufficient merit we will know the peace of God.

We rejoice—even as we wait and work—in anticipation of Godly things yet to be revealed.

A friend of mine once stopped by the Post Office in his town so that he could mail a package.  It happened to be late in the afternoon, about 30 minutes before the Post Office was set to close on that day.  So my friend went into the Post Office and took his place at the end of the line.  After a few minutes, it was his turn at the desk, and having lived in that town for a long time, he was acquainted with the person who was waiting on him.  

It was obvious to my friend that the Postmaster was having a bad day, so my friend, trying to cheer him up, said, “Well, just hang in there; it’s not long until you’re done,” to which the Postmaster replied. “Yes indeed!  23 days!”

It was clear that the Postmaster was measuring time in a very different way from my friend.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus

You’ve noted that our hymn focus for this Sunday is the Advent hymn Come, thou long-expected Jesus.  This one reference from the end of verse one—dear desire of ev’ry nation—takes us to the Old Testament book of Haggai for context.

This little Old Testament book—just 2 chapters and 37 verses long—is highly unusual among the minor prophets in the Bible.  A bit of orientation is helpful:

The major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) are so named because their length would essentially fill an entire scroll.

The minor prophets (the next 13) are so named not because they are less important but because combined they fit on a scroll.  These cover a several hundred-year period.

All of the prophetic books relate to the historical books of the Old Testament, generally providing spiritual commentary on the historical accounts of those books.  What is challenging about the prophets—especially the minor prophets—is that it can often be difficult to fit them in to the storyline.  Knowing specifically what they’re critiquing is often a challenge.

What makes Haggai such a unique part of the Bible is that it is so datable. It slides into the Biblical story between Ezra 5:1 and 5:2, telling of the time 66 years after the destruction of Jerusalem when the people have been allowed to return home from exile and begin rebuilding their city after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians.

This was a interesting generation of people. Some of the people in Haggai’s congregation had never been to Jerusalem before; they had been born in exile. Some of the people were old enough to remember what it had looked like before.  Some of the people had never left or had moved in at some point along the way.  But all of these people have a task given to them by God: rebuild the Temple.

But things look quite bleak.  The time reference is actually a double clue to how bleak things are:

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month. The people are indicating time by a foreign monarch. If you think about it for a minute, you can probably imagine why this is significant.  They aren’t powerful enough to measure time by their own leaders.  It would analogous to those bumper stickers you see from time to time that have the date of the next Presidential inauguration on them, or people who get upset when they are out in public and see instructions written in both English and Spanish.  All of that does make a statement about the times in which we live.

By our calendar, this is October 17, 520 bce.

Significantly, however, it is the sixth day of the seven day “festival of booths,” the time when the people were to live and eat outside their homes as a way of commemorating the Exodus from Egypt.

So let’s put this together:  Haggai speaks to the people in real time, about real things. (All the prophets do; only this time we can see it.) This is not a generic “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” and not a promise about “a better day” somewhere down the road.  On a date we can measure, into circumstances we can understand, God gives Haggai some words to say to people who are trying to rebuild the temple while celebrating the Exodus from Egypt when the recent “second Exodus” from Egypt that they had been promised in seems like a scam.

The people are trying to rebuild their lives and determine where God is in the midst of this.  But they are tired and discouraged; and it doesn’t help that the generation of people who remembered what the old temple looked like all those years ago are hanging around, criticizing the younger generation on how puny their efforts seem. And if you read Ezra chapters 1-4, you can almost hear these persons saying, “back in my day, we had a real Temple.”

But their celebration is a reminder of God’s constancy and generosity. “Those people who left Egypt didn’t look all that remarkable, either. But look what God did for them.  Can you imagine what God might do for you?”

This is why the date is so helpful for us to understand.  Yes, Darius’ decrees govern their lives.  But so does the festival they are celebrating, a festival to God’s faithfulness. And so the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai on this 17th day of October, 520 bce, encouraging the people to keep building the temple.

It was no great secret that the current building project was different from that of former times.  But the people were in a different place: they had neither the money nor the power nor the workforce to build a temple like their old one.  But that wasn’t the point.

The point was, first, that God was with them just as certainly as God had been with their ancestors during the construction of the first temple, and at all other times in between.  God’s presence did not depend on how big a temple they could build. God called them to be faithful where they are, not where others had been. They certainly had reasons to be discouraged; no one would question that.  But they also had a great heritage to look back upon, a long history of understanding God’s faithfulness as they continued building this temple for future generations.

Haggai’s message still calls us to remember God’s faithfulness in the past but live in the present and build for the future, so that we and those who come after us will know the peace of God.

The point was, second, that God was coming to fill this house, and it would be glorious.  “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.”  What are we more interested in—having something big to show for God, or having God’s presence fill our lives?  

It is this second promise that is the connection to this week’s hymn, Come, thou long expected Jesus.  The phrase “desire of all nations” shows up in several Advent hymns—it is in O Come, O Come, Immanuel as well.

In context, this promise likely has a very practical, earthly meaning.  When the people had been taken into captivity in Babylon, the silver and gold from the temple had been plundered.  But God would see to it that the temple would be restored to its glory by the return of those precious things.

But Christians have seen something else in this phrase: the promise of the Savior. In these lyrics by Charles Wesley, the last line of verse 1 contains the reference from Haggai 2:7, “dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.” It’s not certain, but this may be an illusion to the popular saying of Blaise Pascal that, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every person that cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator.”  Jesus is the one who has come to reunite us in relationship with our Father in heaven.

Charles Wesley was also thinking about the difficult plight of children in England during this era as he wrote this hymn, being well aware of the great class divides that existed among people. Living in a monarchy, he was aware that the odds of being born a king were infinitesimal, and yet, here was Jesus “born a child and yet a king” who would one day “raise us to [His] glorious throne” where we would know the shalom of Christ promised in Haggai 2:9.  It is that promise that makes this a beloved Advent hymn, reminding us of Jesus’s work in our own lives.

Our calling

It is the job of every generation to measure time and commitment by what God is doing in their lives, not in the lives of something else.  Like the Postmaster in my friend’s hometown, we so easily forget our calling when we compare ourselves to other generations. But we are ultimately not called to live in the past. We are called to be in relationship with Jesus now, serving him in the time in which we have, as we wait for Jesus to either call us home or come again.