#because he might've been very shitty to her but if she finds herself feeling more and more hurt because

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

not to parasocial on main but I Am Worried About Her!

[possessionisamyth]

The status of Chris and Claire's parents are "presumed dead unless stated otherwise", so this is going to be thoughts where I try to build something out of extremely little information and basic life knowledge. Fun way to say this is all complete speculation and rambling.

I don't think Claire would willingly drop going to university to raise Sherry. I think she'd do it because she'd feel like she'd have to not because she wanted to. I also think Leon promising to take care of Sherry so Claire can leave to find her brother was to remove that genuine concern from her shoulders. The age difference isn't big, but Leon is slightly more adult than Claire. He's already finished his education as far as he wanted it to go, hence the whole being a cop thing. He already had an apartment in RC he was going to be in, so he has some kind of credit history. He can legally do things at 21 that Claire can't at 19 in the US. Plus, he probably knows a lot about the law. He could probably figure something out so Sherry gets the proper care once they made it somewhere safe.

Claire, on the other hand, was a fresher adult. She's barely gotten to experience independence before Raccoon City, and her duty to her family is one she's not going to toss away.

I don't know if the Redfields were a military family, but the other reason a lot of people join the military is because they need the money and benefits. Chris joined the air force as young as he was able to. If Chris has been supporting Claire for most of their lives, it's very likely Claire worked super hard to get into college. She's also probably worked twice as hard earning scholarships to help pay for the experience and take as much financial weight off Chris' shoulders as possible. If she was super lucky, she did something that got her a full ride scholarship.

Were she going somewhere mega ultra cheap for her schooling, she would've been living with Chris while she attended a community college in Raccoon City. In the US, going out of city or out of state to attend college can get expensive fast, and you have to live in a dormitory of some kind if you're not lucky to stumble upon cheap housing with/without roommates. She's definitely risked losing most if not all scholarship support she might've received while looking for her brother. She was gone for an entire semester. Some programs have files you can send for emergency situations, so I could see her brother helping her out with serious but feasible excuses to keep her money, but those are still weighed by people who may or may not deem those reasons as acceptable.

I know Sherry is very important to Claire, but I think both Leon and Chris would act as the voice in Claire's ear saying she needs to set herself up better if she wants that responsibility. Chris would be speaking from experience as someone who took care of Claire. Leon would be speaking from the concerned perspective of a friend. It would definitely come off as a "Let the adults take care of it" interpretation at first, but the logic would bleed in next. She saw how much Chris struggled. Leon already has a career in mind he can walk into, even if it's shitty. A degree would get her a better job, which equals more money, which equals less struggling.

The circumstances in which she acquired Sherry weren't ideal or even in the radar of imagination, but she knows she's not in a position to keep her. Not at 19. If Claire dropped everything, what kind of job could she get that could support them? Would an apartment even sign her? What about balancing work with Sherry going to school? What about balancing school and work with Sherry's schooling? What if Annette was right and Sherry wasn't completely healed? What if something happened to her later like it did with Steve? What does putting Leon there add? Another check but with higher bills and another mouth to feed? Who knows!

There's also a lot of angles to play with if Claire does raise Sherry. Does she lose all those scholarships and drop the degree goal to avoid paying out of pocket? Does the government learn about her experience in both RC and Rockfort and decide to leverage her in exchange for paying for everything? Does Leon catch sight of her at his training facility and become devastated knowing the same thing happened to her? Does she lie to Chris about being able to keep those scholarships while working for the government?

Or does she get off scott-free and STILL loses those scholarships to end up working somewhere she can network? Does she still end up at TerraSave due to those connections? How is she minding Sherry now that she has to travel out state or out of country somewhat often? Is she taking her with her and thus making Sherry miss school, or is Sherry staying with a friend or a babysitter? How does this affect Sherry's development? What happens the first time Sherry gets a serious injury only for them both to watch it heal on the way to the hospital? What does Claire do? Where can she take Sherry? Do they walk out of the ambulance like nothing happened?

Or does she never end up at TerraSave or with the government and ends up in a mirror position of where she was when she was a kid? Is she alone raising Sherry with just enough money to pay bills and put food on the table with nothing else? Does she stretch this for as long as she can until Chris finds out? When Chris finds out, does he immediately roll her into the BSAA? How does she adjust? How does Sherry adjust? Do they move out of country?

What about if she keeps all her scholarships? How does she get the apartment? What role does Leon play with financial support since his job was holding Sherry over his head? Is he ever there? How does Claire's schedule clash with Sherry's schedule when she can't delay taking a required class for her degree anymore due to the timing? How late is Sherry stuck at school until Claire finishes the lesson and breaks the speed limit to pick Sherry up? How late is Sherry getting to school if she doesn't take the bus? Is Sherry bullied for it? Who's name is the apartment in? Chris' or Leon's? One of theirs hopefully so that if Claire misses a payment, she's not left in the red.

There's just so much here! There's so much to think about and play with other than, Claire and Leon and Sherry moved in together and everything was fine! What effect does this have on Claire! What happened to her! How does she handle this when she's never been a caretaker before no less a mother! Let's go people!!!!!!!

[aotopmha]

Attack on Titan Chapter 122 Thoughts

This chapter is pretty straight-forward in comparison to the previous ones, but in a deceptive way, where a lot of moments have a bunch of nuance, when they at first glance don't seem to.

Most of the chapter is very thoroughly "show, don't tell", which I can see getting people confused and leave them asking questions, but the key to this is context.

When taking this chapter as more stand-alonish, I feel like it would 100% feel much more obtuse and confusing, but almost every panel calls back to something and the story simply asks you to put the story together based on this. I feel it still definitely leaves some stuff up for potentially varying interpretation, but much less so.

Here's my take on it.

Firstly, the only voice in the whole Ymir flashback is that of King Fritz. Everyone else is silent.

There is much talk about how AoT is this morally gray series and there are certainly many morally gray elements here, but in truth, I'd phrase this idea more in the sense of the story having really well fleshed out antagonists.

It emphasizes humanizing every character, including all those that are presented as shitty people, in a specific way of giving them at least one quality that's if not sympathetic, then at least understandable from the characters' perspectives (this is something Isayama has actually straight-up mentioned to aim to do in interview material).  

Karina is a horrible mother to Reiner, but she is a product of her environment and has never gotten to see outside of the world she lives in.

Alma treats Historia horribly, but her life is in danger because of a powerful man and the society she lives in.

Floch started out as a tactless asshole and has only grown worse, but there are understandable points in what he is saying during various moments in the story.

Gross is straight-up a candidate for the most hateable character in the series, but there is a spelled out, concrete perspective to his evil you kind of understand in a twisted way that also stems from the system he's living under, which often makes for my favorite type of antagonist.

I point this out because I think the first King Fritz is the most straight-forwardly villainous character in the series so far and I think that's fine.

The truth is, sometimes there isn't a "both sides". Sometimes there is a good and evil and in this case, Isayama opted for a powerful man that exploits the weak to further gain power for the evil, which is still a very real evil, but, as said, also pretty straight-forward.

He doesn't develop in any way - he's an abuser to begin with and in a position of power to begin with.

The only sliver of nuance to him is that he's a smart opportunist: he's a powerful man who knows to take advantage of the position he's in to gain even more power.  

You could argue this also comments on power abuse and how a priviledged position and availability of the means to take advantage of others encourages to do so and gain even more power. People are more likely to use a gun when they are given access to it than when not.

But even then, as he says to keep passing down the spines of the Titans, due it being at the cost of the daughters he had with Ymir, whom he already saw as a tool to be used, he most likely doesn't even do it for the good of his people, but his own self-serving desire to preserve his position of power and influence and that way remain important and influental even after his death.

He's more interesting as a vehicle for exploring the social situation he creates than as a individual character.

Him being the only one to talk is thus another neat example of the story making a narrative point through meta elements. Abusers silence and take away people's voices through fear and conditioning and this is exactly what he does and therefore is the only one talking.

In this case, it's even literal, as we see a slave having their tongue cut out. We don't ever see this happen to Ymir, but it's an easy assumption to make that she might've had her tongue cut out, as well, based on what we see done with the other slave.

Regardless of any physical element, though, Ymir simply doesn't go against King Fritz because she doesn't understand she can do so. Her chains are entirely emotional. She seems to have been a slave for most of her life, never getting to see any other perspective regarding herself, so because of the conditioning and indoctrination stemmed from her position as a slave, she believes serving him is her purpose in life:

It's how she is lead to percieve herself that keeps her a slave.

This is interesting to me because this seems to reflect Armin's initial character resolve. The only reason he didn't believe in himself was because of his own, negative, perception of himself. It's through an alternative perspective given through Eren and Mikasa he grew to see himself in a different light. His arc is one of the first arcs in the story that involves a character gaining nuance in their perspective (technically Mikasa has a moment like this before him, but I think Armin's arc fits the comparison better because it very specifically relates to his self-image):

(Chapter 11)

This later also evolves into the Marleyan Eldians' single-mindedness and unawareness of playing into a corrupt system. Neither Ymir nor them simply never get an opportunity to see the world differently/in a more complex light.

In the case of a more typical damsel, the rescue would have had a much more straight-forward and simplistic explanation and through that in my eyes would have been much less interesting and I really appreciate whenever a story understands abuse like this.

Related to this, Eren's speech in this chapter probably makes it one of my favorites.

There are some uncertain connotations to it, as Ymir truly probably is in no good emotional position to make her own decision and Eren ultimately gives her two very specific options to choose from, but I think his words are genuine and the point of the speech still stands.

It's a powerful speech that says everyone is an autonomous person and is not obligated to be bound to anyone:

As said, the elements of a typical damsel in distress story are here, but I think it's more human than just a standard crying girl asking for help situation and on a meta level, the story says that whoever is in a similar situation also has a choice.

As also said, you could tear this into pieces when you focus on a bunch of the technicalities surrounding it, but I think as a general sentiment I really do think it’s incredibly powerful.

I mentioned how this chapter commented on how powerful men exploit women, but I think it's more gender neutral than it might initially seem. I think the general feelings here would work just as well if were Ymir a boy, with the only difference probably being another woman being involved to force him to have children. The story has gendered aspects, but it handles them with not only taste, but also in a way where the general point isn’t gendered, similarly to Mikasa's backstory.

Related to this, I think the final element to look at in relation to Ymir's story specifically is Historia’s pregnancy. I think it made it directly much more harder to make natural.

It felt artificial to begin with, but before this, I was much more open-minded about it.

Okay, since Historia genuinely seems to care for everyone, maybe this could've been somehow spun around her sacrifice being genuine and of her own choosing, but now it's as literal of a representation of history repeating itself as it possiblt could get and whether Historia chose the pregnancy or not, subtextually it will always represent history repeating itself.

The pregnancy has a bunch of potential problems: erasing the gay part of a character (since Historia is the most overtly gay character in the series and this happens after her love interest is killed, it will come across this way even if it's not the intention), contradicting a character's arc, but more than that, at this point, I just don't see anything interesting and unique said through it specifically. All other options where the pregnancy is fake sound much more interesting to me.

If the story finds a way to somehow make the pregnancy work in a interesting way, I'll applaud it, but right now I don't see all that many possibilities in terms of how it could.

This chapter literally calls back to the image of the kind girl Historia saw in the book Frieda showed her that she went against and while this contradiction in her arc already existed just with the reveal of the apparent pregnancy, this now puts a big red exclamation mark on it:

It's so obvious that the story missing this contradiction and not even addressing it would be extremely puzzling (which I do think it will).

More than anything, as if it hadn’t done this as strongly as possible already, this also even further (as it possibly could at this point), fortified the idea that something definitely, most certainly, without a doubt, is up. 

Moving on, though, in the same vein as I said there are points in the real world where good and evil exists, there is actually a truth in history. History is a series of facts interpreted by people and with showing the "real truth" here I think the story dodged a dangerous potential implication about history not being factual.

I think it also fixed some of the potential implications with the historical imagery the story has been using.

Firstly, the Eldian empire was born through the exploitation of the weak. We don't even know if Ymir and all the other slaves were all actually Eldians, so depending how you interpret this, it takes away the potentially historically revisionist perspective of the Jewish analogue race ever being the oppressor. There is no place for "both sides" when it comes to the Jewish parallels because it's one of the most black and white situations in all of history. If nothing else, this element at least makes it clear that the story simply wishes to explore the thematic element of the dynamics between the oppressor and the oppressed the idea of power abuse.

Then, through making the encounter with the parasite creature happenstance and the Titan power not biologically inherent to Eldians, it removes the potential implication of the Jewish analogue being biologically different, therefore being "special" compared to other races, which is not the case with any race.

The element that has been there for the longest in my eyes and I think didn’t even need to be elaborated on because it’s been there and explored so much already and that always removed the possibility of the story (at the very least intentionally) being racist to me, though, is that the story treats all characters from all races the same without ever resorting to using caricatures or excessive stereotyping. The Eldians specifically are the main characters of the story, with there being equally good and evil characters among them.

The key element to racism has always been othering and dehumanization and the story for the most part makes sure that even the characters that are awful people have fleshed out perspectives.

I think what also helps in this chapter specifically is having more of a history-inspired than strictly historical situation, showing it all through a fantasy veil compared to the more direct usage of imagery with Marley and the Marleyan Eldians.

Finally, I really liked the potential Titan lore this chapter presented us.

I think it's really neat how it might potentially connect mythology and biology with the possible inspiration being, both, the prehistoric creature Hallucigenia and the mythological dragon under the roots of the world tree Ygdrassil, Nidhoggr, more than that, though, I really like the potential "nature you scary" element of the Titan origins.

The creature driving a horror story usually either isn't explained or is explained through something like aliens, lovecraftian horror, a human-made catastrophe or an experminent.

In this case there are elements of all of these in here and I think any of these could still be revealed to be the direct origin of the Titan parasite, but I really like the potential "nature you scary" element here because we usually always look outside of our world to find horror because we fear what we don't know, but Earth's own nature has plenty of that, too.

Nature can be really unsettling and horrifying at points and I’d like to see that being taken advantage of more.

Overall, though, I really liked this chapter. I think it might be one of my favorites because of Eren's speech, but I also really enjoyed it for it's "show, don't tell" aspect. Sometimes one image can say much more than a thousand words and I think this chapter did a really solid job with that.