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ishaslife · 9 months

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Astarion has been breaking my poor heart.

This post will contain spoilers for the game and Astarion's romance/backstory. Before anyone comes at me, I want to say that you are the main character, you are supposed to change the fates and behaviours of your characters, especially if you are romancing them. It's a video game, that's kind of the point.

This post is extremely long and I apologise.

This analysis is based off my playthrough.

(*) means check notes at the bottom of the post.

I wasn't expecting to like him as much as I do. Don't get me wrong, I really liked him during EA and I thought he was funny, charming, flirty with a dark past and all that was just a means to cover his trauma but since the full game has come out and we've gotten to know more of him, it truly breaks my heart to see and know what he has been through. My sister and I were watching his reactions to be being rejected, being told that Tav only wants sex and forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do, it is truly heart-wrenching.

Many people expected Astarion to be this "I am so sexual and my romance will mostly be sex, also I will betray you the first chance I get." and it couldn't be further from the truth. Astarion is extremely loyal, and yes he has that air of flambouncy to him, will often make japes and say evil things but most of the time, it is just a facade. It's his shield in a way, he has been treated with utter cruelty for two hundred years of his life and now that he finally has some control over himself, he doesn't wish to be hurt again.

I don't think Astarion is ever completely evil, even in the beginning. He just wants to have fun and enjoy life after so many years of slavery. He likes it when you are snarky, say mean shit to people for fun but, he doesn't like to see innocents get hurt, and he doesn't support fighting for people who don't fight for themselves. Yes, he will support some of your evil decisions but they will lead to a bad ending, for you and your characters. It'll make Astarion wallow more in his greed and he'll lose the little humanity he has left. He doesn't really have a clear sense of direction in the beginning of the game as he's just found freedom and obviously wants to live life to the fullest, being evil comes naturally to him, it's instinct as its what he's been doing for two centuries.

This is my assumption since we don't know his actual age but since he's an elf who was well-respected in society, had a pretty prestigious job and was rich enough to be corrupt. I'd assume he was at least 70-100 years old before he was turned into a spawn. (EDIT - in a recent post by @deluxetrashqueen I saw the translation of the dates of birth and death on his tombstone:

"Astarion Ancunin

229-268 DR" to which he adds, "458DR - "

which shows that he was only 39 at the time of his death, which explains his emotional immaturity for an elf.) My point being, I believe he has been a spawn for longer than he's ever been a regular person. He has spent the longer part of his life doing evil things for an evil man, that was what his life was on a daily basis with Cazador. And his former work experience probably helped, he likely learnt pretty quick how much he took for granted as a living person and the harshness of his master, peers and people he seduced made him harsh and unforgiving in return.

Once you start getting close to him, you start to learn that he is only mean to people because of how life has treated him. In his romance, he says "no one ever looked out for me, no one ever said a kind word to me. You're the only one, no one is like that." Astarion starts to see, because of you that there is kindness in the world, and he finds kindness in you. Especially after his quest, as much as he'd hate to admit it, he also sees friends in your other companions as they do in him. By the end of Act 2, he starts to get more soft towards you and the decisions you make, often even disapproving of evil decisions. People often tend to forget that a lot of Astarion's evil personality is a front, it is not who he truly is.

These points will be better explained individually so I will talk about some themes.

Power: power plays a big part in his entire storyline. In the beginning, he wants to harness the powers of the tadpole to become powerful and at first, you think that it's simply because he's an evil character and he wants power for the sake of having it. Then later, he wishes to take over the power of the ascendant but mostly only to spite Cazador and take something important from him, not fully realising the true power of the rite.

As he slowly starts opening up to you, he tells you "the mind flayers tore me from that place" and you realise that its the tadpole that let's him walk in the sun, do things a vampire or spawn would never be able to, you learn that he hates being a vampire because he can't even remember what he looks like. He seeks power outside because he has had no power over himself for about two centuries, he thinks that having this power will fulfill his needs but it won't, we know it won't because in truth he only needs to reclaim his autonomy, physical and mental. Of course Astarion would never truly admit to this for a long while, even when he's romanced. I personally really love his good romance arc where he doesn't have sex with you, not because he dislikes you or doesn't want you but because, as he says "any kind of intimacy was something I performed to lure people back for him. While I know things between us are different... being with someone still feels tainted. It brings up all those feelings of disgust and loathing." He has spent 200 years or so bowing to Cazador's whims, done things to people he didn't want to do and I assume since it's heavily hinted at, were very sexual in nature. In a relationship, he simply wants to be seen as a person and I think that's really sad because that's how low the bar is for him.

In the ending of his quest, you can persuade him and tell him that going forth with the ritual won't set him free even if he thinks it will and I agree. If he's a slave to Cazador now, later he'd be a slave to power and greed. Just look at Cazador, despite being one of the most powerful beings in existence, he still wanted more power. That kind of greed and hunger never ends and Astarion would lose himself and who he has become while he was with us. Yes, it makes him walk in the sun again and do things a regular vampire can't but at what cost? 7,000 lives and his humanity. He would never be able to enjoy this "freedom" because he'll only strive to seek more power. In his ascendant ending, he becomes everything he's ever hated about Cazador, the cycle repeats itself, from Vellioth to Cazador and from Cazador to Astarion. And it will never end. Astarion even refuses to turn you into a vampire and wishes to keep you only as a spawn. With an insight check, you can learn that he thinks you're degrading yourself and he doesn't care. He now sees you as something to own, something to possess, not love. All his good qualities, wants and needs get twisted. Astarion truly only needs to feel like a person again but he doesn't fully realise this until you show it to him, through good deeds and actions, through simple acts of kindness. As he says in his "good" ending "I've been dead in the ground enough. It's time to try living again. With all that life has to offer."

Safety: Astarion wants to feel safe. He is so scared of being found by Cazador, he knows he's looking for him and the only thing giving him some form of safety from Cazador is the tadpole so of course he wants to harness its powers that is until he finds out it'll turn him into another kind of monster, a mind flayer. He doesn't wish to lose himself and his freedom again hence is vehemently against taking on the tadpole's powers but he doesn't stop you because that is of course, your decision to make. He says "if such power would please you, darling, I won't stop you. But do be careful, I want you to remain you." Now the only thing left that can properly give him his freedom is Cazador's death and he wants to kill him himself which I think is perfectly acceptable, Cazador deserves to die and if it is by Astarion's hands, all the better. But, in his romance, he makes it clear that he's doing it for safety, and he tells himself that he wants to take the power of the rite for safety as well because in truth, he is terrified of being powerless again. He does want revenge yes, but he also wants to keep you and himself safe from Cazador, even in the dungeon, if you run an insight check, the narrator tells you that he is losing his mind because of the power that's on offer and the smell of blood in the air. It's almost as if to say "he's losing his mind, please stop him before he forgets who he is." Astarion NEEDS your guidance*, eventually he even thanks you for 'saving him from himself.' In his good ending, he sees that in taking the power, he would be no better than Cazador and would become everything he's ever hated about him, and inflict on others what his former master inflicted on him, starting with you. His ascendant ending is honestly a very sad ending for his character, all that growth, change and development you bring to him throughout your journey just gone down the drain as he becomes an unfeeling, evil, narcissistic arsehole who only craves for more power. In his good ending, he will be safe, with you and with the friends he has made along the way. He is proud of himself and so is everyone else, it offers him a kind of friendship that's afforded to very few in the D&D world, especially a vampire/spawn whose very existence is hated. It is a bond based on trust, loyalty and to a degree, even love instead of fear like in the ascendant ending.

Abandonment and Fear: Astarion is driven by fear but he also knows facing Cazador is inevitable and something he needs to face rather than avoid. Even if he isn't outright seeking it (but he does seek it) I think he is braver than he likes to think and he definitely has some anti-hero traits. He likes the tadpole because it helped him get away from Cazador's authority and he enjoys bending others to his will since it makes him feel more powerful compared to how he's felt the past two centuries. But if you choose to not do the same, he doesn't really care. He doesn't except it of you nor is he disappointed (since he neither approves or disapproves. He only disapproves helping people who didn't ask or didn't want to be helped) he only gives a snarky comment or two about what he would've done instead and follows you anyway. He realises you're a good person. If you indulge too much however, I would argue that he agrees simply because he doesn't want you to turn against him. Perhaps he believes that you can turn on him and kill him as easily as you killed the tieflings or other innocents. He probably thinks it's easier to turn a good person evil than an evil person, good (tbh he wouldn't be entirely wrong.) And making bad choices does negatively affect his character of course but I just thought I'd put that out there as I think it's very likely for him to do so. He is definitely extremely paranoid, he hardly ever says how he truly feels out loud but when you break up with him (it's so heartbreaking omg) he says "I was beginning to think someone truly wanted me. I shouldn't have deluded myself." and "From the start, I was rather counting the hours until it was going to end. Midnight chimes, eh?" As heartbreaking as it is, the latter line shows how terrified he was of being abandoned or only be used for his body, he kept obessesively worrying that Tav would leave him after he bore his heart out to them. There's another bit of dialogue in Act 1 where he is trying his lines with you to get you to sleep with him a second time and you can say no which he is fine with but if you outright reject him there, meaning "I never want to see you like that again" he gets extremely sad: "Well, excuse me while I die of a broken heart. [slight chuckle] In all honesty, it's a shame. That time was special to me. I've gotten on my back 10,000 times or more and forgotten half of them. But you, I'll remember. [long pause] Have a fine evening... dear." Mind you, this is after you've only slept with him once. His dialogue makes it seem like he was already catching feelings for you, and not realising that himself until this happens. Seeing this made me realise that you're the first person he's slept with of his own volition, even if it was to seduce you. For the longest time, I think Astarion doesn't even want to believe you'll like him as something more than someone to sleep with, he hopes you might as his rejection line says so but astarion is nothing if not careful and well, paranoid.

That's why he's so shocked when you choose to not let him bite Araj at Moonrise even if it gave you something powerful in return. He sees that you chose his comfort over a genuinely useful commodity. Biting people or using his vampire, well, anything makes him extremely uncomfortable since it reminds him of things he needed to do for Cazador. If he bites her, it makes him feel like being a slave again, but bending to your will and wishes instead of his former master's. He realises he doesn't know how to say no. Which is another thing he says if you wish to pursue only a sexual relationship with him. He feels played.

Freedom: this is probably the main theme to his character arc. He wants to be free, not only from his master but also free to make right decisions and make decisions for himself, something he hasn't been able to do for years. This is why respecting his decision to not sleep with you is important to him, he doesn't feel comfortable being physically close to someone in a sexual way as it makes him doubt the person's true intentions and feelings and of course, makes him feel loathsome and disgusted with himself. He needs that time where you just connect as people to really see that you are in fact genuine and he wouldn't be hurt if he trusted you or gave you his heart. Towards the end of the game, he is still quite ruthless, but mostly only towards people who do wrong and are criminals. Astarion has a very strong set of ideals, he believes that people who do wrong deserve to die no matter the crime. I don't think this is entirely true, every crime deserves a different punishment but most criminals, those who do severe wrong and still get away with it, do deserve to die but this is just my opinion of course. He is ruthless towards bad people because that's how people have been to him, at least Cazador and I wouldn't be surprised if he was treated badly during his sexual encounters with strangers while working for him.

Why I think the Ascendant ending is a tragic ending for Astarion's character and for you.

I won't lie, there are some aspects of ascended Astarion that are pretty hot and I'm a sucker for (pun absolutely intended) powerful, gothic vampires but this ending comes at the cost of way too much. One simply being: Astarion isn't Astarion anymore. All his snarkiness, playful nature and strange innocence is gone. In his ascendant ending, that is, when he takes the power of the Rite of Ascension for himself by carving the same rune on Cazador's back that's on his own, Astarion loses himself. In D&D lore, full vampires are unfeeling, ruthless and have all their good traits twisted into something more malignant and evil. If Astarion loved you, that love turns into possession, if he cared for you, it turns into obsession. He doesn't truly care anymore... as a vampire, he is manipulating you and telling you things you want to hear instead of what he's actually feeling. He never truly got that moment of catharsis by killing Cazador as he does in his spawn ending. That simple bliss of killing the man that enslaved him and worse all these years; he never gets to experience that because he ends up using Cazador for the same power Cazador killed Vellioth for in the past, albeit worse. It's a never-ending cycle. And if he turns you into his spawn, you will go through the same fate Astarion went through and probably turn on him the same way he turned on Cazador. He has absolutely no sympathy for you or for anyone that is not him, in fact he feels almost disgusted by you because he thinks you're degrading yourself in front of him. There is a conversation between him and if you refuse to become his spawn, and I think it sums up his character perfectly as a vampire, it goes like this:

(choosing different options will have different dialogues but they more or less lead to him saying the same thing.)

ASTARION: Just so you know, I have everything I've ever wanted. Everything lies ahead. I can see my path to a waking dream. From the Crimson Palace, I will govern day and night. Create a city of spawn who bow before me, cast a fog over the world for my children.

TAV: But the Palace halls will be lonely.

ASTARION: You'll be lonelier than I. Very soon I will discover how to call my legions of wolves, become a sea of mist, run wrongside-up on roofs. [laughs] Everything vampires do best.

You could have, too. [sniggers] What a waste.

TAV: You don't really have anything at all.

ASTARION: I can take anything I want. I should've made you a spawn just to teach you that.

And there we have it, that last bit of dialogue shows how Astarion is now everything he hated about his own master. He is Cazador's literal and spiritual successor, he thinks you need to be punished for rejecting him. He doesn't feel for you anymore, at least not in a human way. He has become someone else entirely, for the worst. His drive for taking the power of the rite was to be able to walk in the sun again but as a full vampire, he wants to "dominate it (the world) until the sun melts and give ourselves over to the night."

Astarion NEEDS change, he needs to see that the world can be a kinder place than the one he's lived in this whole time. Just a bit of care and love with him goes a long way. In his spawn ending, he comes to realise that you gave him his life back even if it was as a spawn because that is true freedom. He is free from his master, and greed & power which was in the disguise of safety. He may never be able to walk in the sun, but he is free to make his own decisions that are driven by his choices. One of them being; wanting and loving you, living a full life with you, whatever that may entail.

If you went into the game thinking that Astarion will betray you no matter what then giving him the ascendant ending brings your fears to life. Astarion doesn't learn anything, by making him a full vampire, you basically tell him that he can only be powerful and worth something if he has super vampire powers, and in turn, you lose everything too. Astarion may have gained unparralled strength but now he has no need of you, you gave him everything he wanted and nothing he needed so now he can do whatever he wants with you because you are lesser than him, literally, he is much stronger than you are and his power will only grow as he discovers more of it. He tries to manipulate you into turning you into a spawn. A dialogue being:

TAV: After everything you went through with Cazador, you're going to make me a spawn?

ASTARION: Oh that was completely different, I'd never hurt you. I love you. That's what you've been waiting to hear, isn't it? That's what you want?

Which just shows you how he's only saying "I love you" because that's what you want to hear, so you agree to becoming his spawn. He doesn't mean it, it doesn't really have any feeling behind it whatsoever. And if he turns you into a spawn, you have basically lost everything. Because he is obsessive over you, he'll never let you go and since now he is properly evil, he likely won't turn you into a vampire either, even if he says he will.

This is just my take on the ending though, I think we can all agree the ascendant ending is the evil ending for his character, even if it is an ending you prefer. I'm not trying to hate on anyone who does like this ending, only stating that I think it is meant to be evil and I personally don't like it.

CONCLUSION

Once you get to truly know Astarion, he's a pretty decent guy. I can't speak much for people who didn't romance him, I'm not entirely sure how his non-romance route plays out. The good conclusion of his quest is so wholesome, where he says he feels "truly, honestly free" and tells you "you saved me from myself. This is a gift, you know, thank you. I won't forget it." getting full circle to the first time you let him bite you (the only time in my case.) It shows so much character development and pure joy in the way he thanks you (it doesn't need to be said but props to Neil Newbon for bringing the character to life.) He will always be a spawn and yet, he feels like "anything and everything is possible" because of you and the choices you made with him, you believed in him when he didn't believe in himself, you showed him that he is enough just the way he is and he doesn't need to become a full vampire to be strong and powerful. Astarion comes out of his finale, a much more positive person, who actually cares even if he won't show it and the best part is, he always keeps that tiny streak of evil and mischief within him. He hasn't lost sight of himself, he's just less spiteful now and feels free to actually enjoy life rather than constantly being scared of what might happen to him. He finds trust and happiness in you and it makes him happy that you find the same within him. You are his home and he hopes he is yours.

I understand that my analysis may not be perfect and my interpretation of the character may be different from someone else's but that's fine, he is a video game character that can be played so many ways and people can go around it however they like, interpret his character however they wish. This is just what I think.

NOTES

'Astarion needs your guidance.' - no, this is not gaslight-y. Astarion is a deeply troubled character and clearly finds it hard to differentiate between right and wrong. He often asks for your input and what you think by Act 2 which isn't a bad thing, he's asking for help and I think that shows how far he's come. In the final scene of his quest, he is overcome by the promise of power and the safety it would've provided which would've consumed him as it did Cazador, Astarion admits to this himself too later on once he can think clearly and is in a more positive mindset. There is nothing wrong with guiding your partner towards something that will eventually be better for their growth as a person in the long run.

#astarion analysis #forgotten realms #astarion and tav #astarion x tav #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #astarion bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion baldur's gate 3 #astarion baldurs gate #astarion x mc #tav x astarion #astarion romance #bg3 #astarion #astarion baldur's gate

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randomlonelymusician · 11 months

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Lacey's Petshop Theory/Analysis (So Far)

So Lacey's Petshop dropped a couple of hours ago, and here's my thoughts so far after watching the video twice and doing some rough transcriptions.

Illegible text transcriptions HERE.

Warnings for disturbing imagery, abuse, blood, and animal death. Also spoilers.

So here's my overall takeaway from this entry:

There are two stories going on. The story of Lacey, who represents Rocio Yani (Lacey Game's cofounder), and the story of how the games came to be. They're very heavily connected, but not everything we're shown in the Lacey games is exactly what happened to Rocio.

In Lacey's Petshop, Lacey's uncle kills her dog. After years of abuse from him and him killing this one bit of happiness she has in her life, she kills him. She hides his remains under the bed, and is afraid to leave the room after this.

Lacey seems to be a sort of stand-in for Rocio, who has clearly suffered similar abuse. There are two directions that Rocio's connection to the "bad versions" of the Lacey games could go: they were vent pieces to she could express her trauma, or she is literally connected to the games, living out a 2000s-esque life while her trauma seeps through in the bad endings.

Now, for further explanations.

I think it's pretty evident that Lacey's uncle killed her dog. With how she constantly mentions him "taking her angel away", and how the dog's face appears while a mutilated leg/bloody eye flash on screen.

The motifs connecting the image of the dog to animal death and distress go even further:

I believe that Lacey killed her uncle after this mostly due to how images of a mangled/rotting foot and a bloody eye when she is talking about how "he is still under the bed" and that she "can't leave"

The lines about her not being able to leave also could imply some sort of guilt. The mirror scene could also reinforce this, since she sees horribly distorted versions of herself.

I also don't think every game is a direct representation of her trauma, since the timeline get a little messy if they are. Especially Lacey's Wardrobe. That's the one that sticks out as different from Lacey's Diner and Lacey's Petshop, which both focus on the abuse from her uncle. Both Lacey's Diner and Petshop do both show that she killed him, with in Lacey's diner she is cooking him and her trauma into the food and serving it to others (a representation of what what is doing with the games, maybe?"

BONUS NOTE: After you click the... substance on the left, it shows this image, which features Rocio's name.

As for what's happening in the real world. I'm actually going to go with the theory that Rocio is literally connected to the game as Lacey, and that's why there's bad endings that didn't used to be there. Everyone in the story remembers how they used to play Lacey games, and never seem to remember anything disturbing. But now that Rocio is connected to the game, her trauma is infecting it.

I think that her being connected to the wires is more literal than some may take it.

Forming a bit of a timeline, Laceygames.com / Yaniasogames started in 2004, and from the interview with Grace Asop confirms that they parted ways in 2010. This means that the "infections" were more recent, which is why no one has been discovering them until now.

Lacey / Rosio just wanted to have a normal life, so she connected herself to 2000s-esque flash games to make that a reality. But her past traumas ended up seeping into those games, creating the grotesque imagery that we now know.

I think that's all I have so far. Here are my favorite screencaps from this episode that I didn't get to use:

If anyone has any comments, ideas, or additions, please add them! This series has brought me back into the analog horror community, and it's really fun to discuss!

#lacey's flash games #lacey flash games #lacey games #lacey's petshop #lacey's pet shop #lacey's diner #lacey's wardrobe

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alessiathepirate · 1 year

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Scream

REFLECTION: Stu Macher x fem!reader; Billy Loomis x fem!reader

Summary: As she looks around the shrine, she can't help but reflect on how she has become who she is...

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistake I made while I wrote this short story.

This is the craziest thing I've ever written... I hope you'll enjoy reading it :)

Warnings: SPOILERS! (for mainly Scream 1, 5 and 6), unhealthy relationships, mental instability, blood, violence, referenced death

•••

Walking around the shrine and examining the collection of sold evidence made her realize that she is walking down memory lane. The knives, the clothes and the memories of the people who once owned them were all parts of her life; were all parts of her actions and then the consequences of those which made her into who she is today.

She wasn't the only one thinking that. It was enough to look at everyone else's expression to know they too were overcome by memories. They were all parts of the still ongoing franchise, they are still playing their parts in it, even if nowadays they have new friends to either suspect or worry about.

The most interesting and with that scariest part of the shrine was the costumes. All of them thoughtfully put to place, still holding the blood and DNA of both victim and killer.

That was the aspect she seemed interested in. Walking up towards it, ignoring the others' voices got her to a whole another world.

Nothing else, but her and the costume, her and her memories, her and her reflection on the glass.

'Billy Loomis' was carved into the cabinet where the glass ended, making the whole thing look like a trophy. It was one perhaps, but not without its pair. She never understood how only one was thought about as the original, when clearly two should've been put behind that glass.

Looking at the costume and then at the knife while she could see her reflection, let some pushed away memories up to the surface.

They were either memories from 1996 or the years before that and even though she should've thought about them as the lies and as the worst memories of her life, she liked those - maybe a bit too much. Even though everyone except the psychos out there thought about Woodsboro and about Billy Loomis and Stu Macher as a very dark part of a long timeline, she couldn't agree with them. She accepted that they are right. Murders aren't acceptable, threats aren't acceptable... But other than her moral code nothing else in her wanted to see that.

She didn't want to see that, because 1996 was the best year of her life - and the years before that held her happiest memories.

She remembered how she befriended the boys - Billy and Stu - and how through them she got to know Sidney, Tatum and Randy. But even though she liked all of them, her relationship with the two boys was stronger than others.

"I thought you invited me over to study." she remembered herself saying on a winter day after she arrived at Stu's place. Even now thinking about is, she still wanted to laugh at how quickly they took her backback and helped her take off her coat.

"Yes, but this is more important than some sappy project about Romeo and Juliet." Stu explained after he threw her backpack next to the coat hanger, stopping her from picking it up. He then put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her towards the living room.

"You mean the Hamlet. We have to make the project about the Hamlet. Sidney has to make one about Romeo and Juliet."

"Whatever! We can do that later, but now look at what we've got for you."

She looked at Billy with a smile. He held a video tape in his hands.

"What's that?" she asked with a small giggle, because Stu put his whole bodyweight on her as he hugged her and they almost fell.

"We'll have a movie night. We never had one with you so now it's time to make up for the lost time."

"All right, you've got me." she chuckled after she got out of Stu's grip, because he started to tickle her. "What are we watching?"

"You said you've never seen Halloween-"

"So let me guess, we are watching Halloween?"

They did. And they most definitely haven't done any schoolwork that day. They just sat on the couch with her in the middle. She had some popcorn in her lap. Her back was pushed against Stu's shoulder while her legs were stretched out across Billy's thighs.

And the amout of information she recieved... They used this and that for blood, they did this scene like this, that actor can be seen in another horror movies as well... It wasn't annoying at all. In fact she hadn't had more fun watching Halloween since that day.

The only problem they had was the fact that she wasn't scared - at all.

"What, you want me to climb on top of you in fear?" she joked and threw a piece of popcorn at Stu after she saw his expression and deduced the things he wanted to say. "Besides it's pretty hard to get scared if I have to sit between two experts who spoil everything."

She wanted to say that they were friends. And they were, she knew they thought about her as a friend at the start as well. Even though later she understood that that day they just wanted to test her and her fears. They wanted to see her reactions to know if she's really who they thought she was.

But later there started to be one issue in that friendship. Friends don't kiss. They don't make out or cuddle like couples do.

God, how awful she felt! She couldn't look Sidney or Tatum in the eye for weeks, and she had to avoid the boys for a while.

Her first ever kiss happened between her and Stu. It was very close to the end of a school year and his parents were away again. She had that strange feeling in her chest that said she's letting him down if she lets him be alone in that house. So she went there and baked some cookies with him to make sure he's happy - even though she's never seen him make the smallest frown.

And then it just happened.

First they joked around, made a mess in the kitchen and were about the start cleaning when he leaned in and kissed her.

Her first reaction was to freeze and just stand there in shock. But later she kissed back and held onto his shoulders, fearing she'll fall.

She didn't.

Her waist just touched the kitchen counter.

Thinking about it still made her stomach feel empty, her throat dry and her cheeks red. It was the softest kiss she's ever shared with anyone. She never imagined Stu to be able to kiss someone softly, but it seemed like she was wrong.

"This- isn't right." she said after the kiss ended and the sudden guilt overtook her. "You are dating Tatum. She's my friend. This isn't-"

"Why can't it be right if it feels good?"

She left his house that afternoon in a hurry, afraid to look back, knowing that if she did she'd go back in a heartbeat.

Kissing Billy Loomis was a whole another dimension. She knew he knew about what happened; she later realized he used that knowledge to weaken her and get what he wants.

He climbed through her window one evening and after she let him in, he started some small talk with her about movies. He didn't ask her about Stu or about the kiss, he just talked about the smallest things possible.

"Are you okay?" he later asked, after she answered with short sentences.

"Yeah."

"You're a horrible liar." he said with a smirk. "I can tell. I've known you far too long."

And that sentence alone made her tell him everything. And after he comforted her and hugged her, he ran his fingers along her cheek and then her hair. She looked up at him with a slight blush.

"Can I kiss you?"

That evening she had her second kiss with Billy Loomis, knowing she's the worst friend in existence.

It was a lot of back and forth from then on, until everything seemed to get back on track... Until the murders started to happen.

And during those days when the attacks happened, when she wasn't comfortable staying home alone they weakened her. During those moments they started to form a weird understanding - they are friends, but with something else... They had some great movie nights, they hugged more than usual. She started to feel happy, living in denial.

And then at that party the reveal happened. The reveal that changed everything. She still remembered the blood, the way Randy was lying on the ground. The house she knew like the back of her hand became something unknown and scary. She remembered how scared Sidney was, she remembered the betrayal she felt when she had to look the boys she loved in the eye.

It was like she was in a movie they were explaining all those times. Almost everything felt familiar yet surprising. The twist was right, the corn syrup was from Carrie, the 'we all go a little mad sometimes' line was known by her... She knew everything yet she was still surprised.

But the way they spoke to her, the way they touched her or hugged her with that wicked grin on their faces was something soft. Something what felt comfortable and good.

And then...

"-final girl." her eyes became teary as she looked at Billy who still kept Sidney at the counter with the knife. She was thankful she didn't have to look at the edge of it. "Every horror movie needs a final girl. Remember when we explained it to you darling?"

She did.

"Well guess what, you got that role in our movie."

And she understood. She understood why they watched all those scary movies with her, why they explained all the production secrects...

But making her partake in it also meant they were sure she'd never snitch them out. And as she watched them she realized she wouldn't.

"Are you okay?" she got back to reality as a hand touched her shoulder.

"Yeah. I am. I just- remembered something." she answered as Sam, the daughter of Billy Loomis stood next to her, looking at the costume as well.

"You knew him, right?"

"Yes." she answered, not daring to tell the whole story behind that knew.

They stood there next to each other as she thought about Stu and Billy again. The blood after they stabbed the other was gushing from the wounds. And as they raised the knife again and again she saw her reflection on the bloody iron. Her reflection what was full of worry, but the fear was completely missing.

"Do you ever think about him?" Sam asked making her consider what she should reply.

"Sometimes, but it's more like a them. You can't have any memories of one of them without the other."

"They went crazy and stabbed you... I guess it really is hard to think about just one of them. Or about anything happy with them."

" 'We all go a little mad sometimes.' " she quoted, but after realizing Sam doesn't know the meaning of the sentence, she continued: "I still have some happy memories, you know. They played their roles quite well."

She touched the right part of her stomach, where the scar was still visible. The wound she got from them wasn't deep. They made sure it wasn't. But it still hurt, no matter how much Stu hugged her.

Looking at the costume behind the glass made her realize how much she misses them. No matter what they've done, what they made her into, she still loved them. They had a special kind of connection. She was their final girl - that part of the plan worked out flawlessly.

Sam opened the cabinet and she examined her expressions with a raised eyebrow.

"We need a weapon. For defense." she explained and took the still bloody knife.

"You aren't like him, you know. At all." she said, looking at the way Sam is holding the weapon as she took the handle of the cabinet and pushed Sam back a little.

She took a deep breath before she slammed the glass door shut, almost being unable to hide a smile at the sound of glass breaking. She looked at her reflection one last time as it broke to millions of tiny pieces.

Sam jumped a little and she could already hear Gale calling out from behind her.

Moments later she was hugged as different people muttered 'it's okay's. They thought it was an accident, it was completely accidental.

It wasn't. She just doesn't like injustice.

Gale was hugging her. She didn't know the truth, nor did Sidney or Kirby. Sometimes she thought maybe Randy has been the only one who suspected something.

She hid her feelings well and she burried the fact that she wanted Billy and Stu to succeed deep in herself.

As she looked at Ethan Landry above Gale's shoulder she noticed the slight headtilt and curious smile he couldn't hide. He turned towards detective Bailey for only a second, but it was enough for her to know the truth.

Their eyes met.

She tried not to smile as she acknowledged that they are now sharing each others secrets. After all: it takes one to know one.

#scream #scream x reader #billy loomis #stu macher #billy loomis x reader #billy loomis x fem!reader #stu macher x reader #stu macher x fem!reader #billy loomis x stu macher x reader #randy meeks #gale weathers #sidney prescott #tatum riley #samantha carpenter #ethan landry #detective bailey #kirby reed

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fl3shm4id3n · 1 year

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𝓑𝓮𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓪𝓷 𝓣𝔀𝓲𝓷 𝓸𝓯 𝓚𝓲𝓻𝓲 𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓸𝓷

Tw: mentions of death, C-section, spoilers, bullying, I’m no scientist so I just looked up some things.

Author’s note: idk why, but I just been thinking about this scenario. Sorry if It felt short and lazy, I’ll turn this into a fic if you guys want.

It was a shocking discovery when they had found out that Grace along with her avatar were expecting a baby. At the same time.

They had to keep Grace’s body alive in order to have the baby develop then later when it was time, just like her Avatar, her human body was brain-dead.

When the time came, they had to perform a C-sections on Grace’s human body. That how you and Kiri were born, she was born a Na’vi while you were born human. You were born born in the exact same time, so there is no who is older than who.

Kiri had the typical na’vi features, black hair, yellow eyes, and blue skin. You had your mother’s hair, eyes and facial features. One thing that you both shared was your mother’s smile.

One time when you were little, you were just fed up in being in the lab, so you just walked outside without an exomask, without a care.

Norm nearly had a heart attack when he saw you step outside without a mask, but to his surprised when he saw that you weren’t suffocating. You were breathing just fine, this confused Max, he has never witnessed anything like that.

Jake and Neytiri didn’t mind you, since you were a part of both Grace and Kiri, you were considered family. They saw you as their other child but from a different world.

Kiri grew up with the rest of the clan, while you grew up in the Lab. Even though you were both were from different worlds, you were both still twins.

When she’d go to the lab to visit your mother, you’d both sit and watch her video monologues as well.

When in the lab Kiri would always mention how you looked just like your mother. You’d mention to her that she looked just like her Avatar.

You were given some of Grace’s clothes that were laying around. You’d be walking around the lab wearing over sized shirts. As a birthday gift, you had given Kiri Grace’s Harvard university shirt. You saw it on a picture, you thought that it would suit Kiri.

You never really could explain why, but like your sister had a strange connection with the forest, when you’d out with your sister in the woods, you both would end up falling asleep on the grass while you both talked about your connections.

While in the lab, you’d study whatever research your mother had left behind and share it with Kiri, your sister was also interested on whatever research done by your mother.

When you found out that your sister had to leave, Kiri did not want to leave without you, she managed to convince both Jake and Neytiri that you had to come with them. In all honesty, without each other you felt incomplete.

You rode with Kiri on her banshee when you left, you and Kiri were in tears. You both had left your home, but it was for the family and the people’s safety.

When you arrived, the whole family got judged for being from the forest but you got the biggest attention due to being the only human with them, you hated when they called your sister not a real na’vi while you were called a demon.

But they aloud you to stay, with the condition that you all had to adapt to their lifestyle including yourself.

Once settled in, the next day your lessons had began, you and Kiri had got distracted with the sea life while the others did their thing. It was fascinating seeing underwater animals. You had read books and watched videos about the sea on earth, but you never would of witness a see in Pandora.

After lessons, you and Kiri were together, looking down at the sand, it was weird but it was very fascinating seeing sand this close, but you were interrupted by Ao’nung and his friends. You’ve seen them during lessons but never interacted with them.

They began to harass you both, her for having five fingers and you for being a demon. You already knew that you were different, but you hated when it was pointed out.

You both tried to leave, but were cornered, then Lo’ak came to defend the both of you, it didn’t really work until you saw that Neteyam was coming. He warned Ao’nung and his group to back off but of course they did not listened. When your backs had turned, they had called your whole family freaks, then Lo’ak had a plan, and shit got bad.

Now both Lo’ak and Neteyam were in a fight, you and Kiri had tried to stop it, but nothing work. All you both could do is laugh due to one screaming about Lo’ak grabbing his ear, his scream had turned into a whine, it was hilarious.

After that, you and Kiri had a talked, you basically let out everything that you both had been feeling, how you both hated being different then everyone else. What she felt, you also felt. Once you had let everything out, you just hugged one another and stayed like that for a while.

You felt as if you let go of her, she’s vanish and you may never see her again. You both had made a promise that you both will always have one another.

#avatar the way of water #avatar 2022 #atwow #avatar x reader #avatar x you #avatar x y/n #atwow x reader #Kiri #kiri sully #Avatar Kiri #platonic #sully family #sully family x reader #sister reader #twin reader #daughter reader #platonic relationships #atwow headcanons #aphrodite's writing

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annalyticall · 10 months

Text

Thoughts on Attack on Titan

Me being 10 years late to things, I was recently convinced to watch Attack on Titan and I ended up binge-watching the entire anime (and reading the final manga chapters) these last two weeks. I had purposefully been dragging my feet about watching this show since I had heard so much controversy surrounding it; that it was sexist, pro-fascist, pro-nazi, pro-imperialist, pro-propaganda, and heavily anti-Semitic. All pretty good reasons to stay away from something, I think.

But then I saw a video about how the criticisms leveraged against it were not quite so black-and-white, and how the show was more complex than those labels gave it credit for. Admittedly, that piqued my interest. I want to come to my own conclusions about the media I consume, so I decided to watch it with an open mind and a discerning eye.

And boy did I discern... a lot.

I am recording my very very lengthy opinions about Attack on Titan and its manga ending under the cut, mostly so that if anyone asks how I feel about certain things portrayed in the show, I can reference them to this post. Here's a quick table of contents:

The Themes

The Good

The Bad

The Problems

The Characters

Conclusion (and why Jean is the best character you can't change my mind)

Anime and Manga spoilers ahead.

The Themes

Attack on Titan tackles a lot of different themes throughout the course of the story. Possibly too many. Right now, I'm listing the big ones I noticed here because I will be referencing back to them later. Also note I am stating these themes as they are presented in the text, not as my own personal beliefs.

The human desire to create meaning in life and death. Does dying for a cause give life meaning? If the cause is hopeless, would dying for that cause be in vain? Is it enough to know that the living will continue your legacy after death? Does honoring the dead give their life meaning? Is the gift of life itself meaningless if not used to ensure humanity's ongoing survival? Is it enough to simply exist? Characters that most embody this theme: Zeke, Eren, Armin, Jean, Levi, Hange, Erwin, Historia, Ymir (of the Cadets), Marlow.

Everyone is shackled to a dream. Does the desire to fulfill a dream make you a slave to it? Will devoting your life to a dream of freedom make you paradoxically a slave to the very ideal? Will the hope of achieving a dream drive people to do terrible things they never would have otherwise? Is true freedom in the ability to let go of a long-held dream? Characters that most embody this theme: Erwin, Eren, Levi, Kenny, Armin, Jean.

The corrupting power of love and loyalty. Similar to an enslaving dream, will blind devotion to someone (in a romantic, platonic, subordinate, or familial relationship) drive that person to do terrible things just to be with them or make them happy? How far can that love go? Is blind devotion even love? Is it wise to love if it creates fatal weakness? Characters that most embody this theme: Mikasa, Armin, Eren, Zeke, Annie, Reiner, Falco, Historia, Ymir (of the Cadets), Ymir (The Founder).

The cycle of violence is endless. As long as more than one person is alive on Earth, there will always be conflict. Is it worth fighting to break the cycle when the cycle is inevitable? Is it necessary to perpetuate the cycle in order to survive in a world that forces violence? Is humanity worthy of saving if saving it demands the loss of one's own humanity? Characters that most embody this theme: Erwin, Eren, Armin, Reiner, Jean, Floch, Hange, Levi.

The pursuit of truth and wonder are the driving forces behind humanity's ability to work together. Propaganda and the obstruction of truth might work to pacify the populace short-term but will always be defeated once people put in the effort to truly understand others and the world they live in. The promise of discovery and truth are invaluable sources of hope and ingenuity. Characters that most embody this theme: Hange, Armin, Erwin.

People are people. Everyone is capable of great evil or great kindness, regardless of what nation, class, or race they were born into. Everyone has strengths and everyone has weaknesses. Everyone is influenced by their own hopes and dreams. The recognition of these innate similarities is crucial for forgiveness and acceptance across boundaries. Characters that most embody this theme: Reiner, Jean, Eren, Armin, Sasha, Gabi, Falco.

There is no accurate measure of good and evil. Being a "good person" is subjective, based more on personal goals and cultural ideals than on a base standard for "good." When faced with a difficult decision, perhaps it is best to choose whatever option will cause the least regret, a measure that is unique to everyone depending on an individual's values and on unknown outcomes. Live a life you can be proud of. Characters that most embody this theme: Armin, Annie, Levi, Jean, Eren, Reiner, Gabi, Ymir (of the Cadets), Historia

As you might have noticed, I chose to summarize many of these themes in a list of questions, and for good reason: oftentimes, the theme is raising a question but is almost never interested in giving it a straightforward answer. Instead, AOT will often raise a question, and over the course of the story, you get to come to your own conclusions depending on how the characters act. For example, I listed Jean as a character that embodies "meaning in life and death." Does Jean give Marco's death meaning by honoring his memory and values each time he's faced with a moral dilemma? That's up for the audience (and Jean) to decide.

Compared to other shonen that tackles similar themes and questions, this freedom of interpretation was novel for me, and for the most part, I loved it. Fullmetal Alchemist is the only other shonen I can think of that I've seen that touches on similar subject matter, but the tone of FMA is not nearly as dark, bleak, or ambiguous. While I also love FMA, the world of AOT is much more harrowing to navigate, and I found it exhilarating to have my preconceptions of its world challenged at every turn. Such a thematic approach felt grounded since real life is also not so easy to navigate. Unfortunately, this also has a glaring downside, which I will discuss in my "The Problems" section.

The Good

The first 3 seasons and almost everything that entails. To be quite honest I have very little to criticize about this show before the basement reveal. The pacing is almost perfect and I was always on the edge of my seat wanting to know more. The mysteries are intriguing and, upon slowly getting more and more answers, the narrative either only raised more tantalizing questions or completely recontextualized previous scenes, constantly giving the show new breath. The action is exciting, the stakes are heart-poundingly high, the losses are devastating, and the gore is graphic and stomach-churning but I think it necessary to absorb the horrifying and hopeless nature of the setting, which serves to heighten the few victories the characters actually do get to experience. There also isn't much of The Problems yet in these seasons.

The music. The soundtrack is undoubtedly one of the best aspects of this show and is quality throughout.

Animation. While I prefer the fluid and expressive animation of the first three seasons compared to MAPPA's comparatively stiffer animation of the final season, MAPPA still gave plenty of jaw-dropping sequences for the most impactful moments.

A tragic, queer, CANON romance. The fact that Ymir is canonically lesbian is amazing to me if only because I haven't watched a shonen yet where one of the main cast is actually lesbian, let alone has a significant portion of screen time devoted to establishing her unambiguous feelings for another woman who also reciprocates her feelings. AND THEN their romance ends tragically in-universe not because it's gay but because of narrative circumstances that were simply beyond their control or understanding. "My only regret is not marrying you." How romantic is that?

Female character design. Specifically all the big noses. As a big-nose-haver it makes me happy to see women have big noses and still being seen as pretty. That, paired with the fact that women are hardly ever sexualized and are often portrayed just as strong if not stronger than the men was nice to see after being exposed to so many infantilizing and sexualizing shonen tropes. That said, there could have been more diversity in body shape and skin tone.

The setting (of Paradis). I am going to stress here that I strictly like the world-building of Paradis, which is the main setting of the first three seasons. Marley and the rest of the world after Season 3? I'll get into that later.

Erwin vs. Armin. I consider Levi's decision to save Armin over Erwin to be the true thematic climax of this story, and I thought it was exceptionally well done. I've seen endless arguments about whether or not saving Armin was the right choice, so I'll throw in my two cents: if you think Levi should have saved Erwin, you are Missing The Point. In this moment, Levi, a character who fights for the greater good but is not quite as pragmatic as Erwin and who has a deep hope for humanity's future but is not quite as idealistic as Armin must make an emotional choice here, not a tactical one. Maybe saving Erwin might have been better for the Scouts, but the truth is Erwin was selfish, and Levi had already come to terms with this when he told his old commander to "give up on your dream and charge to your death." Armin, on the other hand, had a pure and selfless dream about the world outside the walls, and that is what Levi decided to value for humanity's future. That is the symbolic meaning of that decision, not whether or not Erwin would have been a tactically better commander.

It is enough to simply exist. Manga spoilers for the final chapters ahead. I said this was a question raised by one of the main themes of the story, "Is it enough to simply exist?", and I was pleasantly surprised that the ending gave it an answer through the conversation Armin has with Zeke. After so much deliberation about genocide, sterilization, war, the inherent and unbreakable cycle of violence, and so many other depressing themes surrounding the depraved nature of humanity, having the main takeaway for the series be "we were put on this Earth simply to enjoy it and to enjoy each other" was a cathartic release. I know I'm probably going to cry when that bit is animated.

The Bad

The frustrating thing that is Eren Yeager. I suppose this is biased but I really do not gel with Eren. Even in his Season 1-3 era I did not like him and his one-track angry boy mind, only ever finding him tolerable during the Uprising arc when he got a healthy dose of humility which he immediately ruined with his pitiful self-flagellation in the midst of a dire titan battle but I digress. This characterization does make a whole lot more sense though when he enters Season 4, when all of his personality traits are only slightly twisted in order to make him the villain, ala Walter White. Didn't make him any less frustrating.

The frustrating thing that is Mikasa Ackerman. She started out great. Then Eren turned into a titan for the first time and things quickly went downhill. After that, it seems like her character was retroactively changed from being the stoic and protective older sister to being the blindingly devoted and fussy love interest. I might have been okay with it if she had ANY other defining character traits, or hell, even any relationships outside of Eren and Armin. Manga spoilers, but she doesn't even have a strong relationship with Jean, who she apparently marries in the epilogue. Between Eren and Mikasa being two of the three main characters, I unfortunately felt very little towards them which was a not-so-small problem in my enjoyment of the series.

The humor is... fine. I get it, a show as dark as Attack on Titan probably shouldn't try to be funny, nor would I expect it to be. Still, the few attempts at humor it did have fell flat for me, especially when a lot of it leaned on Sasha's potato and meat gags (and a really uncomfortable torture gag after the Uprising Arc? Hey, what was that about? That was kinda fucked up, right?) Now that I think about it, the hardest I ever laughed while watching this show was when Reiner nonchalantly tells Eren that he and Bertolt are the Armor and Colossal Titans simply because I wasn't expecting the biggest bombshell reveal of the story thus far to be so casually dropped like that.

The Titan mechanics got so fucking convoluted. Don't get me wrong I love a good mystery and I don't necessarily mind the supernatural time-warping twists that the Titan storyline took up to a point. It's just that the story kept adding so many conditions to Titan powers and lore that it was getting hard to keep track of it all. Okay, so the Colossal Titan will create an unavoidable nuke during transformation even though it clearly didn't do that at the raid on Trost, sure. Okay, so Reiner can survive a fatal injury to his person as long as he manages to transfer his consciousness to the Titan body first, sure. Okay, so Eren can't awaken the Founding Titan's ability unless he's in contact with someone of royal blood, sure. Okay, so the Founding Titan's abilities can alter the biology of all Eldians, and also control all Titans, and also deactivate all Titan hardening, and also impose the will of the king onto all its future royal successors, but it's somehow NOT the Titan with the power to see the future? Sure? Okay, so Falco inherited the Jaw Titan, but because he was originally turned with Zeke's spinal fluid, he ALSO inherited aspects of the Beast Titan even though Zeke is still the Beast Titan and it's never been established that the spinal fluid used for the original Titan transformation affected the inheritance of Titan shifter abilities? Why not, at this point.

Uprising Arc and its overly simplistic military coup. I didn't dislike the arc as a whole, but it was a very lengthy detour from the main objectives the series was already on track for and added to the repetition of Eren getting kidnapped. Additionally, I thought the coup to overthrow the old government was too... easy? It was really only made up of two setups: one to expose the corruption of some random military police guy to the press and turn public opinion in favor of the Scouts, and one to expose the government's selfishness to the military commanders enough to convince them to depose their current leaders and pardon the Scouts. Then the Scouts essentially say "Hey Historia here just killed a Titan and has royal blood (trust us) so she's going to be the queen now. Please ignore the fact she is also a Scout and therefore could easily be a puppet queen for the military branch that was until very recently public enemy number one" and everyone just kinda accepts this. I don't know, it didn't do much to sell me on realism in a world that had done so up until that point.

Wow, the stakes are getting pretty high, I wonder if... WAIT, 80%?! That was kind of my reaction to the whole manga finale. I don't mind high stakes, but when we're talking about the horrific genocide of 80% of humanity at the hands of our main character, uh, that scale is a little hard to grasp. This also feeds into The Problems, which I'll get into later, but all in all, I think after a certain point the story just got too big for me to stay believably invested in what was actually happening.

Endgame plot thread irrelevance (especially for the female characters). Why did Historia get a whole story arc just to be sidelined and pregnant for the whole rest of the story? What happened to Yelena? What happened to Mikasa's relationship with the Azumabito clan? What's the deal with Ymir? So many things were rushed at the end that it was disappointing to see so much setup for very little payoff. Unfortunately, the female characters seemed to get the brunt of this.

The Problems

Okay, so this section is basically why I made this post to begin with. I want to address all of the criticisms I've seen for Attack on Titan and give my honest opinion on them because, yes, I do think it's more complex than I've seen people give it credit for, but neither is it free of harmful interpretations either.

On the topic of being Pro-Imperialist, Pro-Nazi, Pro-Facsist, and Pro-Propaganda: Attack on Titan is positioned against all these things. Just because a media depicts something doesn't mean it's condoning or endorsing it. Imperialism, fascism, and propaganda are all present in the story but are very often forces that the main characters must fight against. It might not go as far as to say "military bad" but it definitely says "war bad, genocide bad, euthanasia bad, blind devotion to one's country bad" and a whole host of other issues that it does not depict in a favorable light. Now, the viewpoints of the mangaka might be in question, and I can't say much about the way he supposedly views Imperialist Japan. I'm just saying, in the context of the show, I don't see an unquestioning approval of imperialism being portrayed here.

On the topic of Sexism: eh, maybe. It feels weird to be so nonchalant about that but to be honest, it's not prevalent enough to stand out compared to other shonen. Female characters might not always see fully fleshed-out arcs, but neither are they handled in a way I would deem sexist other than the very strange exception of Mikasa's one-sided obsession with Eren somehow mirroring the "love" a child bride sex slave had for her abuser 2000 years ago. That said, strong characters like Annie, Ymir (of the Cadets), and Gabi manage to have fairly compelling motivations and growth while also being love interests. There's really no fan service to speak of, and some of them even get to be gay. So, you know, I'll take it.

On the topic of Anti-Semitism (Disclaimer: I am not Jewish): yeahhhhhhh... so, up until the end of Season 3, I was confused about this claim. I mean, there were Titans, mindless man-eating monsters that could resemble the blood libel spread about Jewish people, but I thought it was a bit of a stretch. Besides, while the walled city is evidently based on 19th-century Germany, there isn't really a divide between the people who live there and the people who can turn into Titans; given the right conditions, any human character in the show could potentially turn into a Titan, so I didn't see the problem. If anything, I thought it was just a modified take on the zombie apocalypse genre.

Then the basement reveal happened, where it's revealed the walled city we had been following the last 3 seasons wasn't actually the last bastion of humanity as both the audience and the cast once believed; it is actually an island where distinct people called Eldians fled to escape the persecution they faced for their unique ability to turn into Titans. Turns out the rest of the world is populated by many diverse cultures who all hate the Eldians for their ancient Titan-enabled crimes against humanity. The Eldians who aren't trapped on the island of Paradis live in the gated ghettos of the Nazi-Germany-coded nation of Marley and are forced to wear star-embroidered armbands to denote their subhuman status.

Okay. Yikes, I thought. But I still gave it a chance, because as I mentioned before, just because something is depicted in media doesn't mean it's being supported or condoned. I was hoping that, at some point, the claim that Eldians committed atrocities with the Titans or the claim that only Eldians can turn into Titans would be proven wrong. Neither of these hopes came to fruition. It's revealed that Eldians did a lot of good with their Titan powers, true, but they also waged endless warfare in the name of a King that enslaved them. So, while they weren't really to blame, they certainly did commit the crimes that earned the world's ire.

This is a problem. If the imagery of the armbands and the WW2 ghettos were never involved, perhaps I could give the story the benefit of the doubt and see the Eldians as a fictional race created for the purpose of illustrating the cycle of violence and the need to relate to each other as humans first. But the problem is, they are very explicitly compared to Jewish people, thus insinuating, whether intentionally or not, that Jewish people do have these monstrous qualities and did commit crimes that earned them the oppression they continue to face when in reality, they did nothing to deserve it.

As an additional "yikes," there's also the questionable existence of the Tyber family, the only Eldian family in Marley allowed to have wealth and political influence. It's revealed that the Tybers have essentially been pulling Marley's strings the whole time, which... wow, really doesn't do much for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Jewish people are actually in control of everything, huh. Thankfully, the Tyber storyline is short-lived, but then there's the Yeagerists, a fascist Eldian party that wants to counter-genocide the entire world before it can genocide Eldians. Triple yikes. Let's throw in Zeke's plan for forced sterilization against his own people for a solid quadruple yikes.

However, there are also important distinctions to make between Eldians and Jewish people that are in the story's favor. While the Eldian people of Marley are mistreated and considered subhuman, Marley still puts in the effort to brainwash them into thinking they are the "good" Eldians in order to earn their unconditional loyalty and turn them into frontline soldiers in their war to conquer other nations and the island of Paradis, something that doesn't really mirror Nazi Germany and gives us a reason to sympathize with the Eldians who were once the "bad guys" of Season 1-3. There's also the fact that 95% of the show's main cast IS Eldian, and up until the basement reveal we've only known them as human. Everything until that point has essentially served to make us identify with Eldians more than anyone else. While the rest of the world may dehumanize them, we the audience react negatively to any mention of them being less than human because we've only ever seen them fight to survive in a world where they thought they were humanity's last hope. We want to see them make it out of this alive.

And here's where my internal conflict with the show lies; it would be so much better if it cut out the WW2 imagery. Sure, there would still be plenty of subtext that could lead people to compare Eldians to Jewish people, but it wouldn't be so distractingly obvious and spur additional real-world comparisons where there aren't any. The sudden jump to 20th-century Germany is also somewhat jarring and I wouldn't have minded if Marley was based more on just another nation of the same era rather than a 100-year jump forward of the same setting (though it does make in-universe sense, what with Paradis being 100 years behind technologically but I digress). Basically, I think a LOT of the story's problems with probably-unintentional-but-still-present anti-semitism could have been avoided if the war and race allegories weren't given the same tact and grace as a David Cage game.

But now that brings me to what I think is Attack on Titan's fatal flaw: thematic ambiguity. "But Anna," you may say, "you said the freedom of interpretation is what you loved about its themes." You're right, I did say that. I still do. But ambiguity is a double-edged sword: it gives the audience freedom to derive unique meaning from the text and connect with it in deep, personal ways, but on the other hand, if a theme is too ambiguous, the author runs the risk of either telling a meaningless story or telling a story that conveys an unintended meaning. I think an author must have SOME intention with a theme if it is to be included, and must provide some sort of guide (usually with a character or two) to point the audience in the right direction. I'll give an example of what I mean for both instances in Attack on Titan.

For an example of a well-executed ambiguous theme, I'll turn to the question "Is humanity worthy of saving if saving it demands the loss of one's own humanity?" that I listed under the "cycle of violence" umbrella. Specifically, this question is raised after the Battle of Stonhess, where Erwin allows a Titan battle to rage in the middle of a populated area for the slim chance he could capture Annie alive and extract information from her. This decision cost hundreds of innocent lives, and worse of all, Annie was of little use to him. Erwin stands behind his decision for the greater good and Armin rationalizes the battle as a net gain, but Jean presents Armin with a counterargument: "If it's that easy to let the fight turn us all into monsters, maybe we don't deserve to win." Still, we aren't given an outright answer to who's right and who's wrong here. Instead, the guide we are given is in the way ideologically-opposed characters like Erwin and Jean are treated by the story: Jean maintains his humanity, minimizes civilian casualties whenever possible, and in the end, is left with few regrets. Erwin, on the other hand, feels the weight of all the lives he callously sacrificed in the name of a "greater good," which we learn was perhaps more selfish than he let on. Upon resigning himself to death, he laments all the innocents who died at his command. It is through these characters that we learn who, ultimately, was in the right, and what that theme is trying to tell us (also coincidentally applying to the theme "live a life you can be proud of.")

For an example of a poorly-executed ambiguous theme, I'll turn to the question "Is it necessary to perpetuate the cycle of violence in order to survive in a world that forces violence?" that I also listed under the "cycle of violence" umbrella. This question is perhaps no more apparent than when the main characters are faced with the terrific power of the Rumbling, basically a Titan-powered WMD Eren uses to preemptively wipe out humanity before it can inevitably attack Paradis. While many characters deliberate the ethics of this, there are two characters who have starkly different viewpoints: we have Floch, a Yeagerist who is in full-hearted support of the attack and is uninterested in saving human lives if they are not Paradis Eldians, and we have Hange, who despite being a Paradis Eldian beats an impassioned fist against a table and delivers the rather on-the-nose line "Genocide is wrong!"

So who's right? Well, anyone with any sort of media literary sense will say "Hange, obviously." Because Hange is portrayed as a good person (usually) and Floch is portrayed as a villain (usually). The problem is both these characters fight valiantly in the name of their cause and incidentally die in the same scene while imparting their wishes to the heroes for how they want the world to be. Anyone watching who harbors even a fraction of Floch's nationalism might see that and say, "Floch was in the right. He righteously died for his country and he almost won against an impossible enemy." There's also the problem that Hange does not give an alternative answer to the Rumbling and even admits they don't have one, they just know the Rumbling is wrong, which doesn't do anything to add to the theme in question. Unfortunately, the Rumbling is presented as the only reliable line of self-defense for Paradis, as it's already established that diplomacy has almost no chance of working and that the only other plan is, of all things, sterilizing the Eldian people to appease the world that wants them dead with as little bloodshed as possible. What would have been the only other recourse, the order of a partial Rumbling to wipe out the world's military bases, is immediately taken off the table when it's revealed Eren never had any intention of doing that. Therefore, the story doesn't give us any answer to this question at all, since the characters never get to find an alternate solution for themselves and are forced to simply stop the Rumbling before it can kill too many people despite the risk of dying in the process or play along with Eren's predetermined plan. For a story so bent on saying "genocide is wrong" it does a weirdly good job of presenting it as a survival tactic.

Now, I wouldn't normally have that much of a problem if a story fumbled a theme or two. Not everything has to land perfectly. That said, Attack on Titan NEEDED to deliver these themes clearer than it did, because of one major reason: it was dealing with questions involving fascism, genocide, war, and eugenics. You should not casually raise these issues as a backdrop to a theme that can't be delivered on, because then you run the risk of attracting people who very much are pro-fascist, pro-genocide, pro-war, and pro-eugenics and will blatantly misinterpret everything in the text in order to warp it and fit their worldview (a risk I think FMA managed to avoid by being very blunt with where it stood on those same issues). On the flip side, you'll also repel people who otherwise might have loved the story because at some point they heard someone say "Oh yeah Attack on Titan is awesome, the Yeagerists are cool and I agree with the main character's plan for genocide," and rightfully be put off from that. Then they'll turn around and tell the next person, "Hey, don't watch that, I heard it's pro-fascist and pro-genocide," and that person will go "Oh thanks I didn't know that, I'll stay away from it," and that person will be me for the last ten years.

The Characters

Eren and Mikasa: I'm lumping these two together because I already talked about them at length, but I will say, for being the two main characters on which the finale hinged, I think they were both too simplistic to fully deliver on any of the complex themes they represented. Hell, when listing all the themes each character embodied, I only listed Mikasa under one of them, which is not great for a deuteragonist. Not only that, but Mikasa didn't even really deliver on her one theme: she broke the Titan curse by "letting go of her enslaving love for Eren," but did she really? She kissed and then absconded with his decapitated head to give him a proper burial, then returned each year to his grave with Jean and her family (who remained faceless) to leave a flower behind for him. I get it, he was important to her as a childhood friend and that alone means she should try to remember him despite the monster he turned into, but the framing of this suggests she never really let go of him and was shackled to his memory even as she tried to move on.

Armin: The thing about Armin is that while I ultimately think he's the heart of the story and the main driving force for good (as evidenced by the fact he's the only character I listed under ALL the themes I mentioned earlier), he also reads more like a symbol than a character. That's fine, a character doesn't need to go through an arc to be good, but for me, personally, a character in this kind of setting needs some form of growth for me to form an attachment to them. I'm not just talking about how Armin steadily grows okay with murder because that still doesn't do much to change his rosy outlook on life. The most excited I ever got about Armin's development was when he manipulated Bertholdt into thinking Annie was being tortured because holy shit that's kinda dark for Armin and I thought maybe his strategic mindset was going to start getting the better of his morals, but then that's never really touched on again. It's because I was never quite sure what the rhyme or reason was behind his actions that I found myself disconnected from him as a character, despite being inspired by him as a symbol.

Jean: My favorite character and a sorely underrated one at that. Won't say anything more about him here because I'm dedicating it to the Conclusion.

Levi: Second favorite character. Back when Attack on Titan's popularity was at its peak, I would see Levi on my dash all the time and I would roll my eyes thinking he was just another brooding anime bad boy the girls were fawning over. But I get it now. Yeah, he can brood, and yeah, he can be a bad boy as an ex-criminal who is no stranger to violence, but most of all he's compassionate. He cares deeply about the lives of his comrades and almost never values the "greater good" when decisions are left up to him. Granted, I think he becomes a little one-note after the Erwin vs Armin choice when he resolves that his only motivation from now on will be killing Zeke, but you know, after everything Zeke put him through, I think he earned it.

Hange: Third favorite character. They injected much-needed energy and sincerity into the story right from the start, and they only became more complex as the story went on and circumstances forced more and more responsibility onto them. I'm also glad that, while they are a good and moral character, they also don't mull over hard decisions that a veteran soldier probably wouldn't mull over. If worse comes to worst, they know they may have to resort to torture or violence to protect their comrades and the pursuit of truth. Still, they almost never push this any further than necessary, unlike Erwin before them.

Reiner: Fourth favorite character. I had basically no opinion on Reiner until Season 2 when he pushed Connie out of the way of a Titan's mouth and I thought "he's kinda cool." And then so so so much happens after that. I almost never knew how to feel about him. Is he the bad guy? He's killed so many people, he has to be. But then, why do I still like him? Why do I feel so bad for him? Season 4 only added to those mixed feelings, showing him to be suicidal and suffering from PTSD after all the violence he inflicted when he was just a child soldier. I think most of the themes about "people are people" is best illustrated in Reiner, and how he is able to overcome the pain of life through his dedication to the next generation and to the former friends he had hurt in the past.

Ymir (of the Cadets): Fifth favorite character. Like Reiner, I didn't really have any opinion on her until Season 2. While her contribution to the story is brief, it did a whole lot. Her backstory is technically our first introduction to a world outside the walls which also introduced a whole new mystery. Also, her love for Historia was probably the most genuine example of romantic love I can point to in the entire story, and the most emotionally touching one at that. She's also the one who introduces the theme "live a life you can be proud of" verbatim, which proves to be important for everyone.

Sasha and Connie: Truth is, I don't really have any favorites after Ymir, and how I feel about everyone else is some variation on neutral (except Floch). As for Sasha and Connie, I'm throwing them in the same bucket of "likable-enough comic-relief characters that have some semblance of a character arc but not nearly enough to justify their screentime." People might hate me for this, but I actually think Sasha contributed more to the narrative when she was dead than she did when she was alive. That doesn't mean I wasn't sad when she died, though.

Erwin: People might hate me for this too, but I think Erwin is overrated. I think many dudebro fans see him as the peak representation of heroic masculinity, as an unflinching and at times ruthless commander who takes charge and shows no weakness. That is not true. It's revealed Erwin does have a weakness, a selfish drive to redeem his father's suspicions about the outside world, a drive that makes him fear his own premature death, in the end. True, that drive has paved the way for the Scouts to clear impossible hurdles but also has it led to many senseless and brutal deaths that the story does not intend to justify. Erwin is flawed, incredibly so, and I wish more people could see that.

Historia: I had no opinion of her in Seasons 1-2, even during the love story she had with Ymir. It wasn't until the Uprising arc that she grew on me, as she started to mature beyond her "Disney princess" persona that had previously seemed so out of place in a story like this. That said, after she got pregnant in Season 4, I was disappointed to see that there wasn't much of a point to her character anymore despite being the literal queen.

Annie: I wanted to like Annie. I wanted so badly to like Annie. That's really only for aesthetic reasons because when the show was at its peak I saw her on my dash and fell in love with her as a fellow short blonde girl with a big nose and a name that starts with Ann. After getting to know her character... well, I don't dislike her. I think she served her role in the story well enough. She's just fairly simple once you learn her motivation, and she's hard to get attached to if you don't like emotionally-constipated characters.

Bertholdt: Oh, Berry. Unfortunately, every feeling I could have had for him I already felt 5x more for Reiner, so Berry became rather redundant. Also, his constant stare unnerved me. I did feel bad when he died though. RIP Berry.

Marlow: He didn't have a huge part in the story, but I think he was significant if only for one moment: the second before his death when he thinks of Hitch. Here we are given an everyman who wanted to rise to his calling and dedicate himself to the greater good, who was so driven by ideals and politics that he bravely gave his life for the cause he believed was right, but just before he meets his end, it's revealed to him that what he really wanted was a life with the girl he only just realized he loved. I think that one moment tragically encapsulated the main message of the story; we are here simply to enjoy life and enjoy each other.

Gabi: Again, people might hate me for this, but I liked Gabi. I think she did a good job of being a mirror of what Eren could have been had he been born in Marley, and/or if he had learned to sympathize enough with the enemy to have given up on his revenge plan. She went through a lot of horrors to get the growth she did, and I don't really understand the vitriol some fans have for her, even considering the fact she killed Sasha since killing Sasha and then learning that doing that was a bad thing through the kindness of Sasha's family was kind of the point. Also, as if Eren wouldn't have done the same thing in her shoes. She's a brainwashed child soldier, come on.

Falco: It was a breath of fresh air to have, like, one genuinely nice good kid for once. He's a necessary addition to Gabi's arc I think, since he's the one that keeps her grounded and helps her realize that the Paradis Eldians are not evil. His Jaw/Beast Titan powers are OP though.

Zeke: Hated him throughout all of Season 3 besides only knowing him as the Beast Titan. Season 4 rolled around and I did start to sympathize with him given his upbringing and the way his brother Eren used him after thinking he finally had a family he could be close with. I still didn't feel all that bad when bad things happened to him though, given the things he's willing to do to impose a sterilization "solution" to his own people.

Pieck: Getting into "they're fine but don't add much to the story" territory here. She's smart and has a sleepy-girl charm about her, I guess. She also has that one cool moment where she points to Eren as the enemy, but as far as her relationship with the main characters goes, she basically has none, which makes it hard for me to get invested in her.

Onyankopon, Yelena, Magath, and Kiyomi: Lumping all these characters together as the notable non-Eldians with their own agendas. I had no strong opinion on any of them. Onyankopon was cool, but I thought Magath changed his stance on Paradis too easily in the end, and Yelena and Kiyomi barely contributed anything that couldn't have been done by some other character. Their true purpose was really just to establish that there were different cultures outside of Paradis.

Floch: Saved the best for last. And by best, I mean worst. He's the anti-Jean, if you will; the everyman who, when faced with dire circumstances, turns to brutality and strength rather than humanity and compassion. It's fitting, I think, that he's the one who not only advocates saving Erwin, Jean's ideological opposite ("We need a devil!") but he's also the one who tempts Jean into a character regression since he's a representation of what Jean could have become if he stayed what he was like early Season 1. Other than that, he's a cupcake-head fascist whose dumb face I got tired of looking at even before he become a fascist. I just fucking hate Floch, man.

Every other character I either don't have anything much to say about, like Grisha, Shaddis, Pixis, Rod Reiss, and Hitch, or they died too early for me to say much about, like Porco, Petra, and Marco (although I did love Marco and I was incredibly sad when he died).

Conclusion (and why Jean is the best character you can't change my mind)

So, to take my thesis-length thoughts and distill them into one coherent sentence, my overall feeling on Attack on Titan is this: it's a well-paced, well-constructed story that is consistently engaging and thought-provoking about real-world issues, but is ultimately held back by its final act where the scale and allegory become too big and clunky for the story to properly handle. Many things that were so well set up in the previous three seasons sadly unravel at the finish line. That said, that doesn't mean there is no meaningful or worthwhile conclusion to be had in Attack on Titan; I think it still had a stronger finish than, say, HBO's Game of Thrones. I connected with it in a deep way that I haven't connected to any other piece of media lately besides maybe when I played Dragon Age last year, another story that raised thought-provoking themes about real-world issues but with admittedly clunky allegory. Most notably, though, I think my enjoyment of Attack on Titan was highly dependent on one character in particular, a character who acted as a reliable anchor point to come back to whenever the bigger ideas got away from the story.

Here's where Jean comes in. While Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are essentially mouthpieces and figureheads for the much-too-big themes they represent and are somewhat washed out as characters because of it, Jean delivers on all his themes perfectly while maintaining his believability as a character. In this world, he is basically just some guy; despite being talented, he's not as driven as Eren, he's not as strong as Mikasa, and he's not as idealistic as Armin. Jean himself recognizes all these things, but he also recognizes how their strengths also come with weaknesses that he can make up for. He sees Eren as cool but also suicidally reckless, he sees Mikasa as capable but also overly-dependent, he sees Armin as brilliant but also in need of a backbone. He then steps up to fill those deficiencies; to answer Eren's recklessness, he does everything he can to preserve his own life so that he can continue to serve others; to answer Mikasa's dependency on Eren, he makes his own decisions and creates strategies to get everyone out of trouble, not just Eren; to answer Armin's cowardice, he steps up and relays Armin's genius plans but with a stronger sense of leadership and authority.

But he wasn't always like this, and that's the most important part; Jean started as a selfish, cowardly, and entitled asshole. Floch says this outright. The only thing early Season 1 Jean cared about was securing his place in the top 10 and choosing a position among the Miltary Police where he could live the rest of his life in peace and luxury, the rest of the cadets be damned. I think this is a pitfall a lot of people in the real world can fall into: in a highly competitive and individualistic society, people have little incentive not to step on others in order to achieve a better life for themselves, and this is the very pitfall Jean nearly falls into. It's a relatable flaw, as little as people might want to admit it.

Yet, among all of Jean's negative pre-Trost qualities, he has two that can be seen as positive: his keen perception and his blunt honesty. Marco tells him as much. After the first battle in Trost, Jean, despite his reluctance to take up responsibility, sees opportunities to get his fellow cadets to safety and uses his insight into their strengths and weaknesses to guide as many of them as he can since he's the only one at the time who can take up leadership. Afterward, Marco tells him he makes a good leader not because he's strong, but because he knows what it means to be weak. He is able to lead because he doesn't delude himself with false hopes or illusions of grandeur; he knows exactly what is at stake and what hurdles everyone needs to overcome in order to have a chance at both winning and surviving. Jean is humbled and inspired by this, realizing that he would better serve in a field where he could potentially save lives instead of wasting his talents in the Military Police where he would have nothing to apply himself for.

But his real call to action is Marco's death. After losing his one true friend, Jean resolves to give up his dream of the Military Police and dedicate himself to the Scouts, where he can live up to the potential Marco always saw in him. If we are to take the theme of "true freedom is the ability to give up a long-held dream" to heart, then Jean is actually one of the first characters to achieve true freedom in this story. That doesn't mean it was easy. Freedom comes with the burden of responsibility, and his decision to join the Scouts isn't framed as triumphant or inspiring but instead as terrifying and traumatic. But that's another aspect of real life I think is captured by Jean's character: the decision to become a better person is not always easy, and it often requires a continual and conscious effort to push comfort zones, overcome bad habits, and step into the terrifying unknown, but you still have to do it.

While Jean does change for the better because of this decision (a change even his fellow cadets take notice of), his battle to grow as a person is never over. When faced with life-or-death situations as a Scout, he overcomes his cowardice to leap into action and save others whenever he knows he can. When faced with the selfishness of the Military Police, he is reassured by the knowledge that his decision not to join them saved him from that ignorant mindset. When faced with the consequences of "the greater good," he questions what it means for humanity if serving a grand purpose means they should turn a blind eye to the innocent. When faced with the prospect of having to kill other humans, he grapples with the morality of murder and what it means if he can't pull the trigger to save his friends. When faced with the crowning of Historia, he voices his concern against authority that they're forcing her into another role after she had just fought to reclaim her own identity from her father. When faced with the temptation to regress, ignore genocide, and settle for the easy life he always wanted in his youth, he resists the urge to fall back onto his dream and continues fighting even when it's the hardest thing he could ever do. When faced with the revelation that Reiner killed his friend Marco, he briefly gives into his resentment and anger but later works past it and admits there are more similarities between them than there are differences. When faced with no other choice but to stop the Rumbling, he's the first to bring Mikasa to the painful but necessary realization that they must kill their friend Eren in order to save countless innocent lives, as much as he doesn't want to do that.

Over and over again, Jean is presented with a moral dilemma, and over and over again, Jean chooses to come out of it as a better person despite it all. Because he achieved the freedom to choose who he wants to be so early in the story, the rest of his arc is a revelation that such freedom comes with constant and painful doubt. Yet, Jean never shies away from exploring the moral ambiguity of his world and the actions it makes him take. Because he is perceptive and honest, he's quick to question everything that is presented to him and never takes any one person's perspective as the only undeniable truth. Questioning life at every turn isn't easy either; it takes effort and courage and vigilance, and even when that way of life wears away at Jean, he does it anyway. If he doesn't, he'll end up just like the pitiful and ignorant Military Police he could have easily become. To me, that arc is so much more relatable than any other arc presented in this story. This is the very real struggle of a regular guy navigating a complicated world of war, eugenics, nationalism, and genocide, and is just trying to make it out as a decent person in the middle of it all. Really, isn't that all any of us are?

I think it's also telling that Floch tempts Jean to join the Yeagerists not with the argument that Eren and his plan for genocide is right, because deep down I think he knows Jean would have never agreed with that. Instead, he tempts him with the promise of comfort and a life free of resistance. I think that's the most revealing truth of all: Jean, the representation of humanity and its struggle with its own morality would never have gone along with genocide just for the sake of it. I think most people are too decent to think genocide is in any way justified when it's framed that way. Instead, Jean is only tempted by how the decision to join the Yeagerists and turn a blind eye would affect him and his own life, reframing the problem as a self-preserving one and retroactively justifying the Rumbling not as what is right but as what is futile for any one person to try to stop. That, I think, reflects the true struggle of humanity, the struggle to sacrifice your own self-interest whenever it conflicts with the need to help others.

While other characters like Mikasa, Eren, and Armin are more or less the same character at the end of the story as they are in the beginning, Jean is in a perpetual state of change, which means he also acts as a terrific mirror and foil for so many characters throughout the story depending on what stage of character development he's in. He starts as a foil to Eren, someone who harbors just as much hot-headed ego as Jean, but unlike Jean has all the conviction to back it up. As Jean grows, he continues to foil Eren by proving conviction can not only be gained but can be reigned in and redirected to be used as a force to do good instead of a force for destructive revenge. He then mirrors Armin, a character who is just as thoughtful and questioning as Jean but isn't as weighed down by selfish desires, but neither does that give much weight to Armin's moral dilemmas when he chooses to do the less moral thing than Jean does in his shoes. Jean and Armin eventually learn to work together, combining their respective strengths and weaknesses to become effective leaders in tandem. Interestingly, I learned that Armin and Jean were originally written to be the same character but were separated to reflect two different sides of humanity, perhaps to illustrate humanity's desire to reach outside the walls through Armin and humanity's struggle to resist the comfort of the walls through Jean. While I think that it was a good decision to separate them in the end, I also think that it robbed Armin of Jean's character development and robbed Jean of Armin's plot relevance. Then, of course, there's Jean's mirror for Floch, but I already touched on that in Floch's character summary so I won't retread it here.

But perhaps my favorite foil of Jean's is Reiner. More than Eren or Armin, Jean is inherently connected to Reiner through the death of Marco. While Reiner is positioned in Season 4 to also be a mirror for Eren, I think Reiner's similar loss of his friend Marcel (a friend who, unlike what Marco did for Jean, did the opposite of inspire Reiner by admitting that Reiner was never actually good enough for the role he got and only earned it by Marcel's intervention to protect his brother) positions Reiner as a more apt foil to Jean instead. Reiner is sent on a trajectory where he only clings harder to his dreams of becoming a hero for Marley, winning the affection of his mother and father, and proving himself worthy of his role, never willing to let those dreams go in the face of Marcel's death unlike Jean had done after losing Marco. Because he clings to this dream so dearly, he kills many innocent people to achieve it, again displaying the polar opposite mindset of Jean who fights instead to save innocent lives. But Reiner isn't without a heart, and eventually, the weight of his sins burdens him. How does he deal with it? Not by questioning or confronting reality like Jean does, but by compartmentalizing himself and rationalizing his actions through the use of multiple personas, essentially denying responsibility for his sins and avoiding the painful self-reflection he must undergo to accept accountability for what he's done.

Reiner is only able to truly self-reflect when he returns to Marley, where the reconciliation of who he is catches up with him and drives him to become suicidal, but neither is he deluded by the dream he once clung to anymore. Now that he's accepted responsibility, he joins up with Jean's group, admits he killed Marco, and accepts the brutal punishment Jean has for him. It's only after this moment that Jean makes the realization that they're the same because they are now. They've both undergone a change and while it took them in many different directions, in the end, they've come to the same point; despite their respective sins or lack thereof, they're both fighting to become better people than who they once were. And in the finale, it is Jean who reassures Reiner that he is and will always be a Scout because he's fighting to save humanity, just like they had sworn to do as youths. Jean never forgot what it was they were fighting for, and because of that, I think Jean earns his place as the true moral compass of the series.

Wow, this really got away from me; Do you love the color of the Attack on Titan thoughts post? Anyways, if you managed to read all of this, I'm flattered you stuck around to entertain all my ramblings on a series that is basically over after a decade-long run that I was too late to jump on. With all my thoughts out of the way, I'm going to go reblog some Jean posts now, because he's the best character and no, you can't change my mind.

#oh this is so long i am so so sorry #it's as my sister called it: do you love the color of the attack on titan thoughts post #just beware when clicking on the read more #anna watches attack on titan

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pluckysidekick · 10 months

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We’re heading into the home stretch! Good news - we’re getting a 20 second trailer for the finale! Thank you to the CW18 Milwaukee for promoting Nancy Drew while corporate was busy cancelling failed imports and promoting golf.

Now, I know some folks have been spoiled *ahem* by the leaked transcript for 412. I have not and will not be partaking - I like my spoilers vague, and I prefer to watch the episode in whole with actors and sets and special effects and music and all the things. But I did spend some time this weekend thinking about what would happen next - and debating it with @likestosolvethepuzzle (whose latest fic you must read), who encouraged me to post this analysis that I primarily wrote over weekend before the transcript leaked.

So read on if you’re interested in my unspoiled take (well except for the usual BTS photos I’ve hoarded from filming, the trailers, and hints on social media from the fine professionals who made the show).

Rewinding back to Episode 8, Nancy sends Ace on his way with the curse jar to go fishing with his father. He complains, but she tells him to go make “messy” memories with Thom (clearly she’s thinking of how she wished she could have more with Kate). Thom apologizes that the captain canceled, Ace drops the jar which lights up and sets off a little wave, and they get wet but no other harm is done. Ace calls Nancy from the Marina - note the establishing shot is Horseshoe Bay, not the Yacht Club or the Claw, so he’s sitting in the parking lot of a different marina, presumably where the fishing boat is docked.

Ace and Nancy have their phone call, and we now know Nancy goes to erase a sin 26 minutes later. The only think she knows is that she saw flames before Ryan rescued her from Jonas Glass, but she believes she and Ace were responsible for Jane Doe’s death.

A few other tidbits that could be clues or red herrings - when Jane Doe was found charred beyond recognition, it was noted that it was in the woods near the coastline. When the ghost tells Ace that she stayed because he said he didn’t want to leave her, she then says no one had ever talked to her or about her that way before. The ghost is also insistent that no one ask her how she died.

OK. A few weird things. The captain canceling but Ace and Thom still going ahead is weird. Why would the captain allow it? Who’s piloting that sort of large-ish boat? And why did the jar make any kind of blip at all, and yet the wave was small enough they only got wet?

We have BTS of what appears to be Thom in the water:

And we had a video from applebanannapear (Ace’s stand-in) of a marina/boat yard with Florence parked nearby, and he’s standing next to someone who looks like she could be Nancy’s stand-in:

These to me look like scenes of the forgotten events of that night, erased by the Sin Eater.

So what I think could have gone down (speculation ahead):

What if the captain of the fishing boat didn’t cancel and was on the boat with Ace and Thom? And Jane Doe could be the captain? She could be lonely and even flirted with Ace, who we know is also lonely - they may even have a moment.

When Ace drops the curse jar, it actually flames up and breaks, and causes a much bigger commotion - maybe even a whirlpool not unlike the ghost’s whirlwind from 411. Then the boat catches on fire. They all jump or are thrown into the water. Ace is able to fish Thom out, but the captain is lost - she gets caught in the flames before drowning.

Ace and Thom eventually make it back to shore. Ace calls Nancy in a panic. She comes immediately. They fight, but Nancy insists on going to the Black Door. Ace may have dropped the curse jar, but Nancy gave it to him and pushed him to go fishing with his dad. The death was accidental but Ace feels guilty - he’s completely torn up with grief. This is the person who would rather die than let Nancy give Daniel West the list.

Thom’s part - I am less certain (and of course all of this is speculation). He’s a semi-retired cop, so he’d want to call it in. Ace would probably be charged with setting the boat on fire - he did drop the jar that caused the boat to catch on fire. Thom might have even fought with him about the jar when he finds out what Ace is doing, causing it to break.

Nancy takes matters into her own hands and goes to the Black Door - she loves Ace, and feels responsible- she won’t let him suffer. She’s miserable, doing something she never thought she’d do - but she does it for Ace. They may even have an angry almost love confession - but it falls short of triggering the curse, because the Sin Eater only erases the memories of everyone involved. It doesn’t negate the sin itself, and Ace is still alive.

And why is the ghost drawn to Ace? They actually made a connection before she died, and her charred body washed up on shore near the woods. He may have made her feel safe on that boat before the accident. He may have “caught” the curse (as many have theorized), and that’s why he can hear and see and even touch her. And her claim of her hair wrapping around her mouth, feeling cold, and the sky disappearing are consistent with burning and then drowning. And she doesn’t want Ace or Nancy to ask her how she died because it’s too painful, and perhaps because she doesn’t want Ace to suffer with the knowledge.

I believe the Drew Crew will find out what really happened in this episode - Henry Zaga posted photos and reels from Capilano Lake. I believe this is the reservoir location, and they are able to use the poisoned water to help Nancy remember the sin and reverse the memory wipe.

Speaking of Henry, Tristan is certainly back in this episode. He posted from the woods and a few locations. I was leaning toward this being him as well in director Kristin Lehman’s monitor - although it could also be Ace.

So we know from the two stills we got for this episode that we’ll see Ace and Nancy together plenty. But boy Ace does not look happy - he doesn’t want to give up his ghost I suspect. I know we all expect them to break the curse, but from Ace’s POV he and Nancy are separated forever. Cannot wait to see it all unfold (pain and all). Celine, the writer of this episode, reminded us that there will be heartbreak and there will be truth. She also shared a devastating playlist I’ve had on repeat - “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” is killing me. As much as we all want Nace together and loving, I’m expecting a journey through fire here (literally) before we get our HEA next week (cause we will).

I’m super intrigued by how Nancy and Tristan will interact - are they still romantically inclined? Or was Tristan almost biting her as the Sin Eater a mood killer? And what did Nashua mean about them walking the path many times before? Reincarnation seems to be a theme this season. @flythesail and @reviewdiaries have written excellent analyses about what it could mean.

We’ll also get a Spring Festival on the beach (which they filmed in the snow), and the return of Red and Birdie (according to IMDB). I don’t have room to post it, but one of our favorite crew members Sangalicious had an IG story at the time that referred to the festival. Geraldine Chu also posted from the snowy location - looking forward to Birdie and Jesse together again. The beach they filmed at is the same one from the bucket ceremony - is there a supernatural confrontation, or perhaps something between the believers and non-believers of the supernatural?

From the trailer, we see Nancy waking up (perhaps with her memories returning?), and the Crew recoiling in horror in the Yacht Club basement:

We also glimpsed who most of us think is Tristan confronting the figurehead of the Endeavor in the same location (yes I analyzed Henry and Alex’s cheekbones):

Are Tristan and the figurehead connected - and is Nancy too (read @flythesail’s analysis for more on that)?

Finally, I’ve been debating if the Claw baby shower Riley shared a glimpse of is actually in this episode and not the finale as we see George and Nick in the wardrobe from this (412) episode’s stills. Jen Vestuto said it’s not what we think it is - of course we all assume it’s Carson and Jean’s baby since her awkward confession. Could it be Ryan and Red’s instead? Or did she mean it wasn’t for a Nace baby? Is there something timey whimey going on since not that much time has elapsed (or has it?) and it really is in the finale? Is Jean’s unborn child a potential next Sin Eater (yikes!)? We’ll find out soon! See you on the other side.

#nancy drew #nancy drew cw #nace #ace [redacted]#nancy drew season 4 #nancy drew spoilers #author: pluckysidekick

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astralexpressarchives · 8 months

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The Sedition Timeline Theory: Imprisoned Version

I have spent way too many hours thinking about this video game, especially the High Cloud Quintet and the Sedition. For that reason, I'd like to make a post outlining the sequence of events that I currently believe is quite likely based on my interpretation of the evidence available as of now, Oct 7 2023.

This post will be using spoilers from the leaked Jingliu Character Stories.

Before the Sedition

1800 Years ago, Jingliu's home ship Cangcheng was devoured by the Incarnosphere revived by Shuhu.

In the dark sky, the demonic planet named Rahu was wailing and singing, descending upon everyone with mountain ridges and continents ablaze. On the streets, people were screaming. They struggled and rolled on the ground in the apocalyptic despair, allowing golden vines to sprout and grow feverishly their every orifice. She watched everything, unable to move. Her organs felt like they were boiling. Something suddenly burst out of her Core Esse like a ripe wheat grain about to erupt out of its casing and swell till infinity. However, the mountains crashing into her face made her recall that she was nothing but an insect, about to die from a tiny press of an Emanator's fingertip. In that spit moment before death claimed her, she grabbed the only flax next to her. A sword, 3 feet and 7 inches in length, weighing about 7 pounds.

Note here that the sword is actually the training sword given to her by her master earlier in the passage.

A short time afterwards, Jingliu is arrogant and is bested by an opponent in a war and rescued by her master. She blames the sword and she and her master have this conversation:

I don't want to learn the sword anymore. It's... useless." "Useless? It's pretty useful in my hands. It is the wielder who was useless." "..." "If you don't learn the sword, what do you want to learn? The alchemical arrows on the pilots' starskiffs? The blazing fire flung by divine crossbows? Or... The artillery of the Zhuming Xianzhou? Such instruments would also be enough to destroy that demonic planet. You want to learn about them? Fine. Those things can kill the enemy without even from beyond visual sight.""...I just don't understand why you insist on teaching me the sword!?" "From the general to the smallest pawn, every Cloud Knight starts by learning the sword. "The various constructs provided by the Artisanship Commission can certainly kill the enemy for you, but those deeds are to the merit of the material rather than the person. If there comes a day that the quivers run empty, that the starskiffs crash, that the aurumatons freeze — Who will protect you and I, then? Who will protect the Xianzhou? "Hold this sword. Remember, only when Cloud Knights wielding swords stride upon the battlefield themselves is humanity fighting our own war. We will demonstrate our victory to those inhuman abominations with our blood and ability instead of letting ingenia do the work for us!"

Take special note of how her master brings up "Who will protect you and I" in her explanation. I believe this is drawing a direct parallel to DH:IL 3 and setting her master up to sacrifice herself when everything is going wrong.

Just prior to the formation of the High Cloud Quintet, Baiheng is acting as an ambassador to Zhuming to request reinforcements. Here, she meets Yingxing when he is a young teenager and experiences visions from the 'ball of light rays.' From Views of the Universe from a Starskiff: The Xianzhou Zhuming:

Every ray of light from the "sun" is beating, as if undergoing intense turbulence. Or rather, like a raging suppression since ancient times, gnarling and gnashing as it tries to fight through to my consciousness. In an instant, a flood of scenes well up and rampage through my mind, like a book flipping pages in the wind: — A "tree" with no boundaries suspended from the heavens, piercing the starry sky. — A vacuum, inside which ships spew forth brilliant beams like fireflies chasing fire, flocking to fluctuating flesh. There are even winged humanoids, wings outstretched... — I hear the howl of a Cloud Knight and a starskiff moments before crashing down, "Defend the Xianzhou!" "Victory to the Cloud Knights!"... — A colossal aurumaton, towering hundreds of feet high as it stalks and strides, stretching out cold metal arms to interact with a giant gelatinous beast of meat, teeth, and countless eyeballs. — In the sky stand radiant warriors, holding spears and longbows radiating fiery death. Their every gene has been sculpted and filtered to grant them a strength and beauty surpassing that of even modern Xianzhou people. — Even more terrifying is that their bodies are covered in an unnatural flame, as if embodying their innermost courage and rage. They charge one-by-one, over and over into the formless void, never to return... "...Take this oath, and keep it forever!" the rays of light roared, leaving the ears ringing. "Everyone! Steel yourselves — and don't look directly at the Flint Emperor!"

These visions are about Lan the Hunt's battle against Muldrasil and the Wingweavers. Note that this is the battle where he utilized the Heliobi "sun" powers from the Flint Emperor to destroy the Arbor. You can read about his story in Annotations from Ode to Reignbow Path.

Sometime around year 7279, about 800 years ago, Jingliu forms the High Cloud Quintet (Yes, she is already 1000 years old at this point.)

In the first battle that the HCQ fought (or earlier), Dan Feng sealed a maddened and frenzied dragon within the Arbor as per DH:IL Character Story One:

He dreamed he was standing before a sacrificial altar, dancing and chanting. However, the songs and gestures were mere facades. The light emanating from his eyes and the storm roiling in his blood were the true forces at play. Casually, he wove the misty and foggy tide in Scalegorge Waterscape, sealing the maddened and frenzied "dragon" into the propagating giant tree. As the echoing roar streamed up into the heavens and dissipated, Scalegorge Waterscape will continue its peace for centuries more, and his duty was over. The ceremony ended, and he turned to look behind him. In the blink of an eye, the stairs he had stepped down from had become full of standing dignitaries with draconic horns and dressed like royalty. As if they were mirages in a mirror, each of them turned and their sleeves swirled with the motion, ready to leave one after another in a meticulously calculated arrangement. Innumerable, they formed a staircase to the sky, stretching into the never-ending spatial void. The faces of all these people would greet him every morning in his dressing mirror — That was his face. No, it was the face of the primordial, the original, the very first high elder. He smiled bitterly and covered his face with his palm, as if ascertaining whether he could tear off this mask and return it to its true owner. He could not.

Note the presence of all of his "ancestors" as well as the mists and fog. The storm was 'roiling in his blood' and I think this is literal because his blood is most likely the ancient Vidyadhara water.

DH:IL 2 We see how Dan Feng is forced to be. His duty is to destroy and be detached from empathy. His dragon heart speaks of insignificance yet his human heart aches for all those who have died.

The devastated borisins began to flee. He knew it was time to carry out the duty entrusted to him. So he let go — letting his consciousness disappear in storms and hails, letting thunder roar for him, letting tsunamis rage for him. He floated on top of clouds, watching the enemies getting swallowed by the watery abyss, and watching the land behind him. Many humans, Vidyadhara, and Foxians were eternally left there, unable to lay their eyes upon their home ever again. The dragon heart told him that it was but a small speck of dust brushed away from the world. Wars come with a price, but life will always thrive once more — the Vidyadhara are not the only branch of Long's Scions. However, his human heart ached for those comrades who, like him, had warm flesh and blood, and for those mortals who might have lived longer but now could return home nevermore.

During one of these wars, Jingliu's master dies. In Jingliu Character Story Part 3:

She doesn't have a master anymore. The woman in the military uniform perished on the battlefield and can instruct her no longer. Nor does she need a master anymore. She knows everything there is to know about swords. They are a part of her body. They are the intake and release of her breath as she walks and sleep. People call her the Transcendent Flash, the pinnacle of swordmasters, a once-in-ten-century hero. However, she knows that her sword is still not enough to "cut down the star in the sky" — Even if she is holding the greatest sword in all the Xianzhou...

Here she is mourning her master's passing and realizing that even the greatest swords are not enough to protect what you care about. I strongly believe Jingliu's master died as the last line of defense in a self-sacrifice to let Jingliu and others survive. The death of her master is the first 'wake up call' for Jingliu that she isn't enough yet.

The Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae

I think it starts with a war vs Shuhu because of this Vidyadhara Egg:

You gently tap on the shell of the Vidyadhara egg. It shakes nervously, and the scales on the shell open and close slightly to warn and drive you away. It used to be one of the guards in charge of watching the Ambrosial Arbor in Scalegorge Waterscape. For centuries, the ancient tree had been quiet as though it was in a deep slumber. Taking measurements of the tree every day with its comrades bored it to death. Who would have thought that the Ambrosial Arbor would wake up on that fateful day? Gigantic waves have swept it and its comrades away. In an urgent voice, it asks you about its comrades, but you have no answer.

I think Shuhu may have found a way to awaken the Arbor. Yueyuan also makes mentions of Denizens of the Abundance causing havoc in the Scalegorge before the sedition:

Hmph, first there was the bloody conflict against the Denizens of Abundance. Then the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae almost shook the Ambrosial Arbor to its core...

They won the war.

From DH:IL 3:

He dreamed that he parted the ocean's waters and came to the palace ruin depths, burying the remnants of his old friend's hallowed blood, or creating a new life that had not been seen for millennia — or, perhaps, those two actions were one and the same, an unattainable desire that could not be carried out for long years in the past, a final straw that broke the gargantuan dragon's back. The craftsman was covered in blood and wounds as he guarded the dragon with a sword in his hand. He urged himself to commit to the decision. "Shuhu is dead... we won, but how many more victories can we manage to achieve? How many more prices like this must we pay?" "Look, the Ambrosial Arbor still stands. So long as it is alive, the monsters... they can come back again and again. The war of the Xianzhou natives, Foxians, and Vidyadhara against the abominations will never end." "Yes, none of us are special! Each of us has only one life, sacrificing for this, dying for that... it's all our own choices. Just like how she chose to save you and Jingliu... just like how she chose to let more people live on!" War, and the lives that expired in the war, were living beings just like him. He shut his eyes wearily, remembering their faces, and made up his mind. "If there's a chance... we will also choose to let her and more people live on. We, the Vidyadhara, have our own way of salvation. I can give it a try."

I believe here that the old friend's hallowed blood is the special water blood of the dead Vidyadhara, the Azure Dragon, Long, or some combination. Creating a new life that has not been seen for millennia refers to the creation of a new Dragon life from the remnants of the dead dragon life that was unable to properly rebirth. Note that Vidyadhara MUST return to the sacred sea in order to form their shells and go through the hatching rebirth.

Yingxing talking about the prices we must pay is a callback to DH:IL 2 where he ponders the price of war, all the lives that are lost. This is especially devastating for Vidyadhara who cannot reproduce. Yingxing identifies that the Arbor is the cause of all the problems. I believe here that Dan Feng is planning to destroy the Arbor.

As previously mentioned, I believe the unnamed woman who died for 'You and Jingliu' is Jingliu's master.

Like an out-of-body experience, like a dream within a dream, he returned to the moment before his sense of self disappeared. With a cold and emotionless mind, he observed himself turning into a dragon, entangled and fighting claw-and-fangs against that bulb of shapeshifting shadow of flesh and blood. In an illusion seen on the verge of death, the emissary of the god showed him an unsettling, beautiful scene — the stars pulsated and sang hymns like red blood cells, and the universe descended into an abyss of flesh and desires. The dragon heart beat to its limit, raising its fangs, breath, and fury — however, no matter how mighty it was, a "lifeform" cannot defy the true body of god of life's envoy.

Note the presence of Yingxing still in the picture as the dragon transformation takes place. This indicates that the transformation is a continuation of the previous scene and NOT a flashback to a prior scene. His sense of self is disappearing because he is merging with the azure dragon. I would also like to note that the CN word here for Life is closer to the 'path of life/fate' meaning than the state of being alive.

...Until a starskiff ran everything through like an arrow shaft. He saw that girl crawling out of the ruins with great difficulty, lifting a "sun" of absolute darkness in her hand. In that fleeting eternity, he saw her hand disappear, saw her face disappear, and saw HER disappear — That item had ground everything around it into the finest dust and dragged them into a vortex of raw power, including that girl. A tuft of hair and a few drops of blood fell to the floor as evidence of her existence. Those were the only traces she left.

This is where Baiheng blew herself up. Note the use of the "sun" callback to Lan's story. I believe she was paralleling his story and attacking the arbor. Her explosion is likely the reason that the Arbor was so stumpy before the stellaron was inserted into it, causing new growth, in the current era. (The above picture is definitely after Lan shot it because the Vidyadhara did not appear on the Xianzhou until around year 4800 vs Lan's Muldrasil war in about 3400).

You gently touch the surface of the eggshell, and a searing and intense impact bursts out and surges right into your head through your fingertips. A hoarse and deep voice lingers by your ears. You see a heart with odd burn marks on its dry and withered surface. The fire in the distance is burning ferociously in an attempt to devour everything. A figure pulls another figure into their arms despite the danger. In the chaos, you hear some indistinct cries that also sound like the whispering between lovers. You think about the burnt elixir crucible that once tore the darkness apart. But now, not a single trace of light is in sight. You look down at the egg and finally notice it is not stained by the ash from the crucible, but just some dew that is somehow scorching hot.

This Vidyadhara egg mentions the elixir crucible, which is in close proximity to the Arbor. The elixir crucible relies on the water to function, so Dan Feng's spells may have caused it to cease functioning correctly and it was caught on fire in the attack. It talks about the fires in the distance and the figure that pulls another figure into their arms despite the danger - I think this could be referring to Dan Feng finding an injured Yingxing who was injured in the aftermath. It also talks about a heart with odd burn marks on it dry and withered surface - Dragon Heart Theory real? It's more likely than you think.

From here, I think Dan Feng is likely arrested by the 10 Lords Commission and sent to nice jail:

Those who are familiar with my previous post will know more about why I believe this is the location of the sedition. Note the presence of Preceptor Taoran and Oppenheimer - these character identities are confirmed in the description of the myriad trailer.

With Dan Feng locked up underneath the Scalegorge, Preceptors, specifically Preceptor Suguang, begin their angry letters to Jing Yuan who is now the general.

With the great calamity quelled, the voracious enemy subdued, and the treacherous rebels expelled, the Luofu has once again returned to peace. What a joyous day this is. My people have suffered much in this crisis. The wounded include 12 Preceptors, 253 Pearlkeepers, and 116 alchemists and healers. There are 1285 who have completely perished in this disaster, and over 3000 are still missing. While we lament these losses, we dared not forget our duty. Since the time of the High Elder Yubie, the Vidyadhara of the Luofu have shouldered the duty of keeping watch over the Ambrosial Arbor. However, when the disaster struck and the seals were loosened, all the elites of my people could not return it to its previous form. Therefore, we beseech the Six Charioteers to ask the Ten-Lords Commission to return the sinner Dan Feng to us, let him restore the seals, and mete out his punishment at a later time.

The mentions of the loosened seal are also interesting because in current times, Yueyuan tells us this about the sedition:

Then the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae almost shook the Ambrosial Arbor to its core...

Note that other language translation have 'shook to the core' closer translated to 'uprooted.'

Somehow, I think the Preceptors arranged for the creation of a new High Elder to replace Dan Feng whose fate was unknown to them.

It begins with Dan Feng drinking in the power of the moon and breaking free of his chains. This moon likely contains Long or the Azure dragon in an moon egg (a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion which is a major inspiration for Hoyo). You can also see Long turn into a moon egg at the beginning of the myriad trailer, so the idea is definitely there.

This event is what brings about the Half-Draconic abomination.

Jingliu brings the cloud knights into the mountain realm:

I do explain why this hole in the clouds is the entrance of the mountain realm in my previous post but it's also reaffirmed in the picture on the sheath:

Also note how the hole in the sky is upside down relative to the moon and the birds flying - this is because the mountain realm is a reflected space as shown in this image inside the Exalting Sanctum's Realm-Keeping Commission building:

Next is the events from Jingliu Character Story Part 4.

Note Yingxing's black hair, implying he is definitely immortal or at least de-aged by this point.

She gasps, barely holding her wounded body together. Far away, deeper in the delve, there came the anguished roar of a dragon, as if a cry seeking deliverance. She watches as the arrogant craftsman falls into mud, and walks up to him like a wraith. "I should kill you first... but you will have your own torment to bear for all eternity..." She points the broken sword at the high elder. "Impossible. The Preceptors said... The blood of my race and the soul of my ancestor should have created another high elder. All this... It shouldn't be like this." "If your death can return everything to how it was, I would do it... But you need to tell me that dragon's weak point right now. "The top of its head..." The half-draconic abomination swims through the air in blasts of lightning. Its body, enough to swallow the very horizon, sunders yet another floating isle. Its wails are loud as the clamors of a thousand swords clashing. She feels her Core Esse boiling, like a ripe wheat grain about to erupt out of its casing and swell eternally. She sees herself trapped in childhood nightmares again. The ominous planet is swallowing her overhead, and she, but an insect, cannot even struggle. The woman tears off a spread of black silk from the edge of her skirt and covers her eyes. The thunder strikes. She leaps up with her sword towards the draconic abomination. In an illusion that feels half like a dream and half like reality, she feels her flesh has finally transcended its limits and has started to disintegrate. There are restraints binding her like strings, tightly wrapped around her limbs and organs, slicing apart her final shreds of self-consciousness bit by bit. Suddenly, she hears those words: "I will cut down even the stars in the sky." At that moment, she finally grasped the sword she had been seeking all this time. It is a sword that can transcend all restrictions. It is a sword she had been familiar with for years. It is not forged from any ordinary iron, but condensed from a shaft of sharp ice. It glows with a dim light, as if it is a strand of moonlight held in the wielder's hand. A sword, 3 feet and 7 inches in length, and weighs nothing.

From a Vidyadhara Egg:

You hear furious roars coming from the Vidyadhara egg and move your ears closer to hear better. A thunderous sound explodes from the mouth of an abomination, and fills up the Scalegorge Waterscape delve as if a thousand swords had clashed together. Every one of your bones rattle from the deafening sound. The abomination falls to the ground with a loud thud. You try your best to steady yourself before examining the abomination. Its semi-draconic head bears long whiskers and flowing beastly fur. You stare into its mercury-like eyes, sensing a hint of fear within them. You think of running away, but there is nowhere to go. The temperature in the air drops all of a sudden, as a shadow drifts past at a speed so fast that it only leaves behind a misty trail. A woman lands on top of the abominable dragon’s head. Her palms hold a ray of frosty light that she stabs downward. In a split second, you see the black veil covering her eyes falling off. Her lips move slightly, and you can faintly hear her utter the word "Sorry." That is not your imagination, as she is also apologizing to you. The next second, ice waves as sharp as knives start spreading like transient flowers in the air, freezing everything they come into contact with, including you.

At some point during the sedition, Dan Feng's own guard refused to betray Dan Feng and was killed:

You touch the shell of the Vidyadhara egg lightly and experience a heartbreaking sensation. Resistant to your touch, the Vidyadhara in the egg is reluctant to leave his memory behind and refuses to believe that his highly respected master has committed the grave sin of rebellion. Roaring, he holds his sword high and charges at the Cloud Knights again and again. He can see his peers whom he used to trust, and the Preceptors whom he used to respect clearly. Their despicable faces are etched in his mind forever. He does not wish to forget. "We… will never betray Master Dan Feng!" Together with the last remaining high elder guards, he braces himself to face the incoming arrows and darkness.

Dan Feng is arrested again and placed in a higher security prison with pins to suppress his power:

From DH:IL 4:

He dreamed of the Dracocatena Nails being staked into his body, and chains of corallium winding around him to hang him in midair in the Shackling Prison. He dreamed the elders coming and going to interrogate him about the truth of the Arcanum and the whereabouts of the dragon heart. He did not speak. He dreamed of the Judges coming before him to read their decision and wanting to sentence him to death. He did not speak.

After the Judges want to sentence him to death - like, proper death and not the rebirth kind of death - Venti intervenes. From An Appeal from the Vidyadhara:

According to the deal between the Alliance and Caelorum Venti of the Yaoqing, the sinner Dan Feng was to be spared from death and instead suffer the punishment of molting rebirth. After that, according to Vidyadhara customs, Dan Feng should have been regarded as a new being and his sins forgiven.

Jing Yuan brought him the news of his verdict (DH:IL 4):

He dreamed of the white-haired Cloud Knight Lieutenant coming to visit him and bringing him news of the Lieutenant's negotiations. The Vidyadhara did not permit him to die, nor did they permit him to leave. He did not speak.

In Oblation Obtained, Order Ordained, Jing Yuan explains this:

Do you know something? When Dan Feng committed his great crime, the Ten-Lords Commission advocated strongly for him to be destroyed. The Vidyadhara, on the other hand, were split evenly in their favor and disfavor of the motion. Haha, the dragon transmutation inheritance was not intact, after all. The senior Vidyadhara hated you, yet did not dare to kill you. The Vidyadhara were under great pressure. In order to placate the Ten-Lords and Sky-Faring Commissions, they performed an exuviation charm on Dan Feng against his will. Still, they ensured that the charm contained a flaw, thinking that this would fool the Ten-Lords Commission. Hmph, the senior Vidyadhara were sure of their scheme, but you cannot hide fire with paper.

After a few centuries living as Dan Heng in the Shackling Prison, Jing Yuan arranges for him to be freed:

Brighter than the Sun Lightcone:

From birth, all that ever lay before him was but a lightless dungeon. To this darkness, irrelevant sins bound him… irrelevant memories engulfed him. He writhed, gasping for breath with every fiber of his being, attempting to clasp a sliver of light in this fathomless ocean. Until the day the general stepped into the lightless depths of this prison, he beheld a radiance shining brighter than the sun – the gaze of a young man.

The Vidyadhara Preceptors, specifically Preceptor Shaoying, were angry about Jing Yuan arranging for Dan Heng to be exiled rather than kept eternally imprisoned. From An Appeal from the Vidyadhara:

I was alarmed to learn that you had signed an exile order to permanently cast out the sinner Dan Feng from the Luofu. Wherefore do you place the reputation of the Luofu's Vidyadhara with this order, general?

However, the Ten-Lords Commission detained him under the guise of educating the young man, while keeping him prisoner in truth. We have endured this for so long due to the truly astounding nature of his sin. Were he not to suffer for some days within the Shackling Prison, the multitudes of Luofu residents would not be appeased in their anger. However, general, you have arbitrarily terminated his sentence and decided to exile Dan Feng. Was this a consensus reached after a discussion with the Six Charioteers? And was this sent to the marshal to be confirmed? If your action stemmed from your past friendship with Dan Feng, then we regret to inform you that we cannot accept such a sentimental gesture. Us Preceptors will appeal to the Alliance and inform the other four High Elders, and we will seek to have you retract this order.

"The Vidyadhara handed us thousands of letters of appeal during the past few centuries... and this one has the harshest wording. They are running out of patience." — Qingzu "The exile was approved by the Ten-Lords Commission. Since Dan Feng had already been reborn and his sins are to be forgotten, why won't the Preceptors allow him to leave this troubled place...? Interesting."

A few more interesting notes

The preceptor assembly chronicle fragment gives some insight into the mentality of three of the preceptors. It more or less says that without Dan Feng (or a High Elder in general) around they seem to be in agreement about ruling as a council, which it can be assumed they were doing up until the creation of the Bloomborn Scion which I discuss in this post.

There is a Vidyadhara Elegy: Insight on "Six Charioteers Adjudicating the Imbibitor Lunae document that is questionable in it's reliability but gives decent insight into the attitudes of the Dan Feng loyalists at the time. They seem to believe that he was strongly rebelling against the Six Charioteers to a point of begging Lan to destroy the Xianzhou.

Another interesting note is that, so far at least, Jingliu's crime is unknown. She was not marastruck until the was already arrested a year after the sedition. As far as we know, she was still an honored person at the time of slaying the half-draconic abomination. It's not clear what she did but her crime was severe enough to get her name removed from the public record. And considering Dan Feng did NOT get his name removed as far as we know, her crime was most likely very severe especially considering how much she could probably get away with because she was the honored sword champion and hero of the Xianzhou.

We also don't know how Yingxing became 'exiled.' He was definitely tortured by Jingliu leading up to his exile, but Yingxing's name is still honored on the Xianzhou so his crimes were never severe enough to get his name removed from the record. It's unclear how the left the Xianzhou and how he lost his memories. Because he had black hair and was unkillable at the time of still defending Dan Feng in Jingliu 4, it can safely be assumed that the process of becoming immortal did not automatically make him lose his memories.

Dan Feng's crimes did NOT include the crime of involuntary immortalization implying that he did not make anyone immortal who was not already willing. This means he did not make Yingxing immortal against his will and he likely did not attempt to resurrect or convert a dead friend into an immortal race.

Anyways this post is very long and I've probably forgotten something but I'll also most likely make an updated version when we get more information. There are a few very possible variations of this timeline but this is the one that currently makes the most sense to me.

#honkai star rail #dan heng #high cloud quintet #the sedition of imbibitor lunae #jingliu #baiheng #jing yuan #hsr lore #dan feng #yingxing

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horrorisunknowntoyou · 2 years

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BROTHERS REACTION TO VOICE ACTRESS / ACTOR MC CHARACTER'S DEATH SCENES.

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(Brothers x mc)

Part 1 - Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan ( SORRY IF THEIR OOC )

Genre - fluff and angst.

TW// death and description of violence and injury etc.

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I was very much inspired by clips of The Walking dead season 1 ending and other media. And i thought it'll be fun writing their reaction to seeing or hearing their mc " dying. "

Also spoilers for that as I used that as reference for Lucifer's part.

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You told your boyfriend about your job and roles you did in the human realm. Since he was fascinated by the work you did, and having your D.D.D on you. You decided to show him some clips or videos of your characters in which they watch how your character dies in the end.

LUCIFER

What was originally supposed to be you and him quietly conversing while he was doing his work. Ended with him forgetting his paperwork and watching a playthrough of a game in which MC voice acted in. He was quietly watching the video with you leaning beside him on his desk.

He was so absorbed into the media, usually he scoffed at this stuff as this was more leviathan's thing. However since it involved you , his interest was peaked.

The game he was watching was some sort of survival game in which you voiced the mentor. And they have to survive some virus he assumes, but as times progressed he noticed how the character you voiced was getting sicker and sicker. But trying their best to keep the child character happy and healthy and learn to live in this cruel world.

Then the infamous scene where all the players cried happens. After a brutal attack and being barricaded your character finally collapsed to the horror of the child.

" Honey…I don't think I can go further on…you're gonna have to do what you have to do…" *gasping* " I know you're scared, I am too…but…I know you can live on without me…" *coughs*

" No…no! (Characters name) you can't go…please…don't leave me alone…"

"Sweet pea…listen to me, you have to shoot me or else I might hurt you…you have to keep going..I'm too weak , and they got me good back there…as long as you're safe and healthy I'll be at peace."

The child character looks at them, crying as they stand up cocking the gun, recounting happy moments together. Even when dying your character tries to comfort them.

"It's okay…it's okay…I'll be okay… stay high and look for the others. And always keep moving…I love you kiddo…"

BANG

Screen went black and all that could be heard was a child's cry.

After some silence, the old memories and nostalgia of listening to your younger voice and your co workers made you smile. However, you didn't notice but while distracted by fond old memories. Lucifer had to look away at the end, he didn't want to let you know. Especially with his pride how much he was holding back tears, he was avoiding eye contact with you. Because his eyes were getting glossy, he knows it's fictional and he knows you didn't die in real life. But god it hurted so much hearing how hurt and tired you sounded. Eventually he couldn't hold it in and cried softly. His gloved hand hid his face embarrassed that it got him this emotional.

" Aw luci, it's okay..I'm okay " you gently say, wrapping your arms around him. Kissing his cheek and comforting him until he calms down. Once calm even with his face red and tear stain he looks at you so sternly.

" Mc, please…never show me that again.."

MAMMON

You two were talking about things you have been in. Like Mammon has done modeling , perfume ads, things of that matter. And you told him that you were in a movie much to his surprise.

You played as the love interest for a film (but you didn't tell him, it ended on a dark, sad note. )

You actually had a copy of the movie on deck and played it for him in the living room since he wouldn't stop bothering you to show him it.

At first he was really grumpy and jealous over the male lead making comments throughout. But secretly he was really into the movie and curious how it ends.

Midway through the movie, it foreshadows your character's death. Mainly with the symbolism of flowers in the background of your room.

Yellow hyacinth , red roses , lilacs , forget me nots, petunias etc.

While watching he noticed another girl, slowly getting involved with the main cast. She was there from the beginning but he didn't know what was going on. That was until that girl asked your character to hang out somewhere.

He was highly suspicious of what was going to happen but he didn't expect the girl to force you into the ground and begin stabbing you to death.

"How dare you take (love interest) he was mine since middle school! And suddenly he loves you!? That's not fair! That's not fair!"

You scream in pain, crying trying to defend yourself. Injuring your hands and coughing out blood. " P-please stop! I'll s-stop dating (love interest) please! I don't wanna die…please! I thought we were friends! "

The girl kept stabbing you , her hatred and jealousy was very clear.

You begged for your life, till the end.

"I'm s-sorry…I'm…" you took your last breath as your eyes rolled back clouded.

Mammon sat there in silence…pausing the movie, he didn't want to watch it any further. He then stood up and walked over to you pulling you into a tight hug , as you felt water droplets onto your shoulder.

" Human…I love ya…but promise me…never again…"

After that, you mysteriously lost the movie and mammon haven't left your side for a week. Completely ignoring his brothers and clinging onto you.

He was completely protective of you and would hiss at any one getting close to you. Especially women who looked similar to your characters killer from the film.

LEVIATHAN

You were in Levi's room watching some obscure long tilted anime. You thought it sounded really familiar and then you remembered that you voice acted in the English dub of it.

" Levi , Levi! Wait, we should watched it in dub, I actually voiced the space prince's sibling. "

He was so shook

"Ehhhh?! Really mc?! Your the prince's sibling! I had no idea you voiced acted!"

You nodded, embarrassed by it " I totally forgot about it. It was like the first role I did. I thought I did so bad in it…like there is a whole dedicated fan group for this anime.."

" Don't tell me what happens! I wanna see it!"

So you spent the rest of the day watching the series, around season 2 the finale. The prince was trapped with thier sibling..by then it was revealed that your companions betrayed you. And Levi was practically fuming at this point. Your character sounded so sad and disappointed it broke his heart.

But then it got worse.

" Prince Saturn…it's over! The kingdom will be ours…with your death…you will be nothing more…then a memory…" The prince looked behind him noticing only one escape pod left. Looking back at the hologram " I can't give up now! The zodiacs need their prince! I can't possibly throw the towel in! "

" It's not as if you have a choice prince the space shuttle is blowing up, you know that…only one of you will survive.."

Leviathan had his face Infront of the TV. Biting hard into a pillow practically ripping it apart. " I can't believe their using the prince's good nature to pick over him or his sibling knowing he'll pick his sibling." You watch him growl at the TV , knowing what's happening next. Oh boy��

Your character look into the distance, seeing the debris and explosion coming near. You looked back at your brother deciding what you must do, for the future of kingdom and your older brother. " Saturn…look at me…I love you so much…I'm sorry what I'm about to do…" you pushed the prince into the escape pod. "(Your character name?)..."

"Forgive me brother! You always protect me from others now it's my turn to save you. Live a happy life! Save our kingdom and become king.!"

Leviathan practically scream at the revelation " MC NOOOO"

You pressed the button as your brother screamed In horror …the hologram glitching behind you…as you cried loudly " Im sorry…I failed you brother…but atleast..I was useful in the end…" You closed your eyes as explosions engulf you killing your character off.

Leviathan was so hurt, your character just died! And they were his favorite , no wonder when he search up the series there was so much fanart of the prince's sibling. He was so emotional that he was in demon form crying his eyes out.

"M-mc!" He practically sobbed into your chest clinging onto you, his tail wrapped around you protectively. " Y-you died..and you s-sounded so sad! How dare t-they kill off your character!!!"

You literally had to calm him down and give him kisses. " Levi, baby…this is season 2 you have the movies and other seasons! But if you like…we can take a break and cuddle and watch a cute shojo anime or ruri-chan to make you feel better." He nodded to the latter option as he buried his head into your chest.

" Okay baby. " You kissed ontop of his head , rubbing his back gently. "

Also he definitely bought merch of your character and make you sign in. ( And totally not brag about it in Devildom equivalent of twitch/reddit.)

( Lol, I'm sorry if this isn't good I tried my best.)

#obey me brothers react to #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me scenarios #obey me x gender neutral reader #obey me x mc #obey me

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13eyond13 · 1 year

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my online fandom experience in 2007-2008:

-First learned about Death Note by randomly seeing L in an AMV on Youtube in late 2007 and being intrigued by how he looked. Have never watched an anime in my life but wanting to know more about this emo lookin' dude. Found some website where I could stream it, immediately getting spoiled for his death by somebody in the comments on episode 1 (the 2000s was RAMPANT with gleeful spoiler trolls, these were the days of people driving by Harry Potter midnight grand opening lineups for the new books to scream SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE type shit)

-Binge-watched the whole show in a couple of days. Immediately haunted by the "what if"s of Lawlight and start reading fanfiction.net fics about it. Wrote a gushing review on a fanfic and start talking in emails with the writer who writes back to me. I think at the time the most popular Lawlight fic on the site was Poison Apple by RobinRocks (which I didn't read, because I didn't like reading AUs back then, nor did I like the idea of mixing Death Note with Disney princess imagery... my absolute fave fic was Coexistence is Boredom by sakurazukamori6, which was still being updated at the time)

-The Another Note novel and the How to Read 13 were already out, so most of the stuff the fans know now about the characters was already known and being used in the fan stuff by then. I bought the entire manga set at my local bookstore and read the first five volumes of it, but not the rest (because back then I was one of the people who lost a lot of interest in the plot once L was dead)

-Got invited to follow a popular fanfic writer's Death Note LiveJournal where people are doing most of the things you see them doing here, analysis and shipping and fic and memes. However a lot of the journals and communities were private and accessible by invite only, so I only ever saw stuff there as it was filtered through the journal of that one welcoming fandom friend I made

-Got into random private email conversations with the odd fan once I start posting my own fics on ff.net (I wrote one of the very first Beyond Birthday fics). At some point I remember a girl who called herself diane-chan from somewhere in South America emailing me a doujinshi she had scanlated (I think it was called Taikutsu by Balgus REC) and emailing some pics and penpal like letters back and forth. Connecting with other fans was a very slow and individual-like experience compared to something like connecting over social media is now. There wasn't much of anything like online group chats taking place in real-time, per se. I suppose MAYBE you could create one on MSN Messenger or something, but the experience of being in a fandom in general online was just much more fragmented and based on personal individual relationships, I think. Unless you were meeting up with people in person at conventions or something...

-Ships didn't have ship names like Lawlight back then! It was either called L/Light or Light/L, because whichever name came first in the pair indicated who you liked as the top (or the "seme;" people would often say "seme" or "uke "rather than top or bottom back then). They were treated almost like two totally different ships, and you definitely had to tag your fics accordingly or else people would get mad (I am very glad that ship names now exist)

-Omegaverse didn't exist back then either! That was a whole new world I had to get familiar with once I got back into this fandom around 2016 lol (and I still have never really fully got onboard tbh)

-Watched the occasional fan videos on YouTube, often things like Windows Movie Maker slideshows set to music with fanart of the characters or cosplays and the like

-It used to be REALLY hard for me to find clips of the show to use or edit or anything like that. The English dub still wasn't out yet anywhere I could watch it when i was into the show in 2008, but I remember hearing L and Light's English voice clips and thinking that L's was great and Light's was a bit cringe in comparison to the Japanese one. I wanted to watch it again but I didn't want to have to have an internet connection at all times to watch it, so I bought some shitty ripped illegal DVD of the Japanese dub on eBay from China, and it came with extremely lolworthy broken English subtitles (stuff like Light reading that passage out loud in class and the subtitles saying "the wisdom of the sheepus"... that one is burned into my brain)

-Trying to connect with other fans in person about it was not really possible for me where I lived? Being into anime was considered extremely cringe at my school at the time. And other people I knew who had watched or read Death Note either simply weren't that interested in it anymore to the same degree, or were usually straight dudebros who were only into it so far as to think about which character was smarter than which

ANYWAY I say all this just to reminisce, and I will always enjoy how easy it is to connect and share the content with the other fans like it is nowadays, because I remember the days when that was much more difficult hahaha

#p #vintage fandom shit

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banjomelodies · 7 months

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Spoilers (since I recently rewatched Scaras videos and saw comments about the Nameless Child) (+unintentional Ei rant)

I remember seeing a lot of people question Scaramouches whole thing about holding a grudge on a dying child, but, honestly, as an immortal being that was still learning for the most part at the time, I think it makes sense. He mentions in his character stories that he wasn't aware a human could deteriorate and pass on in a single night. To him, he believed he had so much more time. They had made promises, he cared for that child, showed him the home that once imprisoned him. And if you really think about it.. he didn't really witness death like this until now. He never saw Niwas body, and I don't know if he ever actually saw the bodies of the various workers in Tatarasuna when they finally passed away, as he also mentions that he didn't expect to be flooded with a negative emotion upon witnessing death (though granted, his relationship with the Nameless Child would obviously be drastically different than the random acquaintances of Tatarasuna, so there's just a chance that he really didn't get hit by heavy emotions).

All that he was aware of was that he was alone again. Ei abandoned him, and he only knew that Niwa supposedly ran away and left him alone, and then the child he treated as family left him too. Grief forms in so many different ways, and anger at things around you, or the person who is deceased, can be a common part of it. There's anger at being abandoned, anger about how life suddenly changed.. so many different factors go into it. And instead of being able to handle that anger in better ways, he found himself burning down a building, and attempting to off himself in the flames, and when he lived and tried to keep going with a newfound fear and hatred towards humans who only ever broke his expectations, or had the potential of only hurting him more, he landed in a group that took advantage of and fed that anger.

Scaramouche never had the chance to properly grieve or figure out how to handle emotions that were still new to him at the time. Him having a grudge on Niwa, Ei, and The Nameless Child makes sense, as it's all he knew. There was never anyone there who actually tried to properly help him. In his brain, he was abandoned again, and again, and again, and it eventually just spiraled into a hatred for other people.

I know a lot of people don't usually go for the "I'm going to try to analyze the characters emotions!" route when watching videos about things like this, since, obviously, why would you. But, there are legitimate reasons as to why Scaramouche would be mad at someone for dying, and it's a sucky situation all the way through. But the best thing is, he probably finally got over the anger he had on Niwa and The Nameless Child upon becoming The Wanderer (I don't care what anyone says he doesn't owe Ei any forgiveness - Her situation was straight-up just child abandonment. Which, yeah, sure, she was doing it because she didn't want to control him, and wanted him to live his own life without her interference, but you couldn't just like.. leave him a note explaining that? Check on him once in a while? Hell, even drop him off in civilization that'd love and care for him? You imprisoned him for who knows how long in a domain that probably just felt mind-numbing as everything was always the same until he was finally broken free from it. You say you didn't want to interfere with his life, but then threw him into a situation where his life would've sucked and been non-existent as he could only just stare at walls and trees. Unless she was just gunning on humans to break him out to give him an actual meaningful life, considering he didn't have his strength at the time. But this isn't a Raiden Ei being a shitty mom rant post, so uh!!)

Ignoring my Ei rant for a second. I hope this was. A decent read. Despite how short it is. I always loved analyzing Scaramouche as a character, so making posts about his backstory is very fun.

#genshin impact #scaramouche #wanderer genshin impact #wanderer #I don't really know what else to do for tags but #I still find it interesting that Scaramouche did genuinely view the Pavilion as a 'prison'. He calls it that multiple times.#he considers it home #but he also fully recognizes the fact he was not there of his own will. and that he was in fact locked away #(correction: i actually think he only refers to it as a prison once my bad)#(i don't want to delete all my tags to correct it)

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glon-morski · 3 months

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FF7 Rebirth Ending Interpretation

Well. That game sure was a ride, huh?

As stated above, I’ll be talking about my interpretations of the ending. Please note that I’m writing this about two weeks after the game came out (for future reference). Obviously, spoilers for the entire game ahead/under the cut.

The main question of the ending if, of course, rather obvious: did Aerith die or not?

Cloud sees her alive and well, but the rest of the party doesn’t and is grieving her death. With how Cloud was set up since Remake and especially throughout Rebirth to be the one with hallucinations and delusions, one would think the answer to the question of “what is truth, what is fiction?” should be obvious, right? But… what if it’s not as clear-cut as the most obvious answer? What if Cloud is the one who sees reality and not his teammates? What if we have (finally, for some) left the “original world” of the OG behind and are now 100% in a different world, similarly to how Remake dangled that option in our face more subtly?

Yes, you read that right. My personal belief is that Aerith didn’t actually die, at least not in the world we see in the ending scene. There is a world where she died, of course. The world of the OG. But this is not the world we get to see at the end of Rebirth, and possibly not the one we will play in Part 3.

Hear me out.

1) The framing of Aerith’s death.

In many other “ending explanation/interpretation/theory” videos I watched on YouTube these past few days, everyone always comments on how we’re “teased” with Aerith surviving before ultimately seeing her die. But in none of them did I see anyone comment or talk about the way this vision of a death is brought about. It’s not the the first thing we see. It’s not that we see her live and then get a fade-to-black or fade-to-white like in other parts of the game. No. Instead, the shift is done in a very telling, very specific manner: the static that indicates Jenova’s interference with what is being remembered or perceived. Whichever of the two is the truth, Jenova is making Cloud (and us) see the other option. It’s not a glimpse at what was or what could have been. It’s all Jenova.

So, having established that, why do I think Jenova is fabricating the vision of Aerith’s death, and not her survival? Well, let’s look a bit closer at both the framing and how Jenova’s interference is portrayed through most of the game.

A) The “mechanism” of Jenova’s memory and perception editing

We’ve seen Jenova (also referred to as Mimic for the particular ability to copy a person’s memories) interfere with Cloud’s memories and his perception of reality many times throughout both games. In Remake, this was mostly in cases when:

- Jenova had to edit memories in the background so Cloud’s fake persona was still believable, for example in the very first chapter where he went “I’ve never been to a reactor like this before” because “the layout depends on when a reactor was built”.

- Jenova interfered with Cloud’s immediate perception to block some things out, primarily any mention of Zack.

- Sephiroth appeared before Cloud.

In Rebirth, it goes a bit further than that. We see Jenova edit Cloud’s memories in real time in Nibelheim when he first remembers Zack. We see Jenova ensuring he doesn’t see Tifa’s scar when she shows it to him a second time in Gongaga, with the implication that his memory of seeing it in Kalm has also been altered, only for everything to be edited back once Tifa falls into the mako. And of course, there are again the appearances of Sephiroth, as well as the frantic editing going on in the ending itself (very reminiscent of Nibelheim, might I add).

Of note here is how it’s all portrayed, which is what I mean by “mechanism”. There might be some discrepancies between Remake and Rebirth as Cloud’s situation changes, but throughout Rebirth itself, there is one definite consistency to every time Jenova messes with Cloud’s mind, be it his memories or his immediate perception. Namely, that we as the player first get a look at reality (whether obvious, brief, or much earlier in the game in the case of Tifa’s scar) before the editing kicks in and we see Jenova interfering, if not outright seeing how it changes Cloud’s memories or perception. In a lot of cases, we also see reality againafter the interference is over, to further drive home that Cloud is seeing things the other characters are not.

Why is this important? Because assuming the ending doesn’t pull a (rather random) deviation from that set-up, the first thing we saw was Cloud managing to save Aerith before the camera zoomed in on the clean blade. Only then did Jenova’s interference start. Looking at it from how it worked for the rest of the game, Jenova was attempting to alter Cloud’s perception and see blood where there was none, rather than the opposite.

B) The general framing of the scene

Setting aside whether we see reality first and the lie second or the other way around purely from an “it’s been like this the rest of the game” assumption, there is another thing. Namely, Jenova’s interference was only ever present in regards to Cloud. He was the one whose memories were tampered with, he was the one who didn’t always see things as they actually were, he’s the one who can (and sometimes is) controlled by Jenova/Sephiroth. But in the ending, there’s one interesting detail that I think warrants consideration.

When the rest of the party is allowed to enter the City of the Ancients and come running, it is after the first bout of Jenova’s interference ends. After Aerith tells Cloud that “it’s okay” and he’s relieved because she actually looks fine after all.

The first shot we get of the two as the others arrive is this one.

We can argue until we’re all blue in the face if the dark spot under Aerith in this shot is blood or just a shadow, though I do agree it looks a whole lot like blood. Still, we can tell that that spot aside, there is no blood anywhere else. There are no dark spots on Aerith herself (on her hand), or on Masamune. And then an interesting thing happens as the camera swoops in on Tifa as if to tell us “this is a PoV change, we see what she’s seeing now”. Which makes sense. Throughout Rebirth, Tifa has been set up as the main person who can notice when Cloud is being weird, or when his memories are weird, which was also pretty much the case in the OG. She’s the one we, the players, are supposed to trust when Cloud is acting off or remembering things she thinks are odd. Unlike Cloud, she’s not affected by Jenova. She sees the truth.

Except when she doesn’t. The thing is, we get the camera swooping in on her to indicate the PoV change to her… and then the following shots are full of Jenova’s interference all over again, shifting between seeing blood and not seeing any. However, Tifa’s (and Barrets) reactions make it clear what it is they actually see: Aerith, dying or already dead.

Question: if Aerith dying is reality, why is there a Jenova static effect in what Tifa sees? Just to throw us off? To confuse us?

Maybe so, but honestly, it feels a little odd to throw it in if Jenova wasn’t actually manipulating someone’s perception. And those of us who played the OG know very well that Jenova’s ability to make people see something else than reality isn’t limited to those who have her biological material in them. Otherwise, she never could have fooled the Cetra.

And there is another thing: the last scene with Rufus and “Glenn”, who turns out to be nothing but a Shadow of Sephiroth.

Rufus has never been in contact with Jenova. He doesn’t have her biological material in him. But he has been made to see Glenn (and then briefly Sephiroth) in the place of a simple Shadow of Sephiroth (or Sephiroth Clone, as they were called in the OG localization). This feels like the game reminding us – or letting those who never played the OG know – that Jenova indeed isn’t limited to Cloud in fucking up in their perception.

But wait. There’s an issue here, isn’t there? After all, even after the fight and after Sephiroth is gone from the City of the Ancients, Cloud is still the only one who can see Aerith just fine. The others don’t see her at all and still think her dead. If it’s indeed their perception being messed with and not Cloud’s, why is it not lifting? Any other time Jenova tried fucking with Cloud, he saw the truth eventually. Well, let’s look a bit closer at what we, and the characters, know of Jenova’s abilities, shall we?

2) Jenova’s Abilities and Limitations

I’ll be pulling mostly from Rebirth here (since Sephiroth and the Cetra so kindly gave us so much Jenova lore), but also a little bit from the OG regarding details I believe to be important even if they have yet to come up properly in the Remake trilogy, as well as CC(R) as a source of additional proof where necessary.

Jenova’s abilities are, to be frank, a terrifying combo. To summarize, it can

- appear as someone else, usually taking the form of a deceased whom its current victim used to know

- edit someone’s immediate perception of the things around them in real time (which is probably how the implied shapeshifting actually works, but as far as I know there’s no hard confirmation on that; not that it really matters for this meta)

- copy someone’s memories (a form of mind reading, I guess)

- edit its own DNA and memories (or the memories of a host some of its biological material is stuck in)

- a form of telepathy where it can put images/thoughts in people’s heads (as evidenced by Sephiroth, Cloud, and also strongly implied through Angeal and possibly Genesis in CC(R))

- furthermore, these abilities aren’t restricted to Jenova as a “complex lifeform”, but can be used and called upon even when it it’s in scattered pieces as small singular cells.

So, in short, we’re talking about an intelligent life-form capable of mind-altering/affecting abilities with possibly full on shapeshifting to top it all off (not that Jenova needs it), and with every single piece of it capable of using those abilities on its own. Of note here is that the players know all this (and even then only those who played the OG; newcomers can certainly guess at some of those abilities because they’ve been shown in action, but they haven’t had them explained in detail). The characters, on the other hand? All they got is what Sephiroth told them of Jenova’s abilities on the ship to Costa del Sol.

“They say she’s a monster. That she can peer inside you - into the very depths of your soul. That she can become those you hate. Those you fear. Those you love. And they call her… Jenova.”

He tells them about the mind-reading. He tells them about the “shape-shifting” which we, the players, know could work in two ways. He certainly doesn’t mention the ability she has of putting thoughts in your head or visions in your mind, altering your perception of things, though. Which is why Cloud thinks these things happen to him because of Degradation instead. It’s the only explanation he (or anyone else in the party) have.

There are also some limitations to Jenova’s powers (thank God for that, right? LOL). For one thing, distance. Jenova doesn’t seem able to affect someone without being in their close vicinity or, alternatively, having someone with its biological material in the vicinity of the manipulated person. This, of course, doesn’t apply to someone who already has Jenova’s biological material inside them, because they’re as close to the source as they can get.

The second limitation is rather more interesting, but also requires a little more assumption and, like the shapeshifting, can go two ways.

Any time we see Sephiroth, it is quickly revealed that it’s actually a Shadow of Sephiroth instead whom Cloud and the party perceived as Sephiroth (or whom Rufus perceived as Glenn). This implies one of two things:

a) Jenova can’t make people hallucinate something “from thin air”. By that I mean, Jenova can’t create a hallucination of a whole-ass person acting all normal if there is nothing but air in reality. It needs a base to build off of. That’s why, in Rebirth, whenever Cloud sees Sephiroth, it’s in actuality a Black Robe. Or

b) Jenova could create a hallucination from thin air, but chooses not to because of a different limitation: it can trick the eyes and ears, but not the sense of touch.

If it’s the first one, then the Aerith Cloud sees cannot be a fake created by Jenova because Jenova wouldn’t be able to make Cloud hallucinate her. In which case, if she’s not real, then Cloud is hallucinating her all by herself. Which, sure, is possible, but it definitely creates very big narrative problems in that it indicates a mental break the likes of which Cloud didn’t have in the OG, and for good reason. While he has more then enough reasons to be messed up and traumatized, most of Cloud’s serious mental issues in the OG were all created by Jenova. His hallucinations, his fake personality, his uncertainty of whether or not he was ever a real person… all because of Jenova messing with his memories and Sephiroth exploiting that and manipulating him. Which means the source wasn’t Cloud’s own mind, but an eldritch abomination from space. And as such, the problem could largely be fixed by just “doing something to set him straight”, which in the OG was what the Lifestream Sequence accomplished.

If Cloud is now hallucinating Aerith without Jenova’s input because he can’t face her death, then that’s an entirely different ball game and I cannot see it being satisfactorily resolved without Cloud having to be benched and someone else taking over and finishing things. Which, granted, happens for a time in the OG as well while Cloud is mako poisoned in Mideel, but it’s not nearly for a long enough time for Cloud to recover from a mental break such a this. That would take years. And unless he passes the “main character and hero of the story” baton to someone else, it ain’t happening.

I don’t know about you, but that wouldn’t just be a letdown for me, it would be downright insulting and dismissive of mental illnesses in a way in which FFVII never was.

Okay, so let’s say Cloud hasn’t completely broken down mentally and hasn’t started hallucinating Aerith all by himself. Let’s also say that Jenova isn’t making him hallucinate her from thin air. So, she’s real. That still leaves us with one glaring problem.

Why can’t the others see her?

Well… there is one last thing Jenova can do that I haven’t mentioned yet. Something Remake has exploited and very vaguely teased.

Jenova can warp one’s perception so they don’t see or hear someone who is actually there.

This ability comes the most prominently to the front in the OG when the party visits the Northern Cave and shortly before Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia again. During that scene, Tifa yells and yells at Cloud to not do it, but what she says is no longer in the typical speech bubble, but rather almost like a narrator voice over the screen. One of her questions at that point is “you can’t hear my voice?”

No. Cloud can’t. And in fact, none of the other characters in the scene act like they see or hear Tifa at all.

Rebirth hasn’t really touched on this ability yet. But Remake has alluded to it several times when Cloud saw Sephiroth (who was likely a Shadow of Sephiroth again), and then nothing and no one at all. In one scene, when Cloud, Barret and Tifa are on the way to Aerith’s house after the Platefall, we even get a direct comparison when Cloud sees Sephiroth, and then we get to see through Tifa that there is seemingly no one there.And then, there is the scene in the Drum, where Cloud is experiencing another Jenova episode and Tifa slowly approaches him. We see there is no one on the walkway up ahead. Then we get a close-up of Tifa and Cloud as she asks him if he’s okay before looking ahead again, and her eyes grow wide. Because suddenly, Sephiroth is there.

It’s subtle, but it is a hint at that particular part of Jenova’s perception-manipulating abilities, I believe.

It doesn’t help that in Rebirth’s final scene, Aerith doesn’t even really try to talk to anyone but Cloud. She doeslay a hand on Nanaki’s shoulder and he does acknowledge it, but is it a case of him sensing her spirit, or him feeling her physical touch but still being unable to see her? Both are equally possible, but I think you don’t need me to tell you which one I believe is happening.

But wait. I said myself that one of Jenova’s limits regarding mind manipulation seems to be distance. If so, how can the rest of the party still not see Aerith after Sephiroth and Jenova are gone?

Well, we’ve already established that Jenova can manipulate someone – anyone – and that she doesn’t need to be whole to do that. A fragment of her is enough. That’s why it can constantly play with Cloud’s mind whenever. Because he does have her cells (or Sephiroth’s cells) inside him. And here’s the thing: by the end of Rebirth, he’s, in my opinion, more than close enough to a Shadow of Sephiroth to be the “conduit” for Jenova to manipulate the others. He was basically completely taken over for most of the Temple of the Ancients, for one thing, something that was made painfully obvious when you still controlled Aerith rather than him when the group reunited (something that didn’t happen at any other point of any other character), and then when you played him going after Aerith and the Black Materia after the Temple’s collapsed. If you try to not go after her and pull the joystick back, Cloud starts shifting and contorting very much like a Shadow of Sephiroth that is being pulled towards a given destination. The only real difference between Cloud and them would be that he’s not as Degraded – not in body and not in mind – and so he isn’t fully lost or at the “I can only slowly shuffle forward” stage.Alternatively, of course, there can also be a Shadow of Sephiroth somewhere close by without the party knowing, but that demands a little more suspension of disbelief and, at least to me, feels like reaching.

3) A Different World

All right, so I think I’ve established why it’s possible for Aerith to still be alive. That leaves one last part of my claim still to be discussed: that we’re in a different world at the end of Rebirth than at its beginning.

Let’s go back to the framing of the scene again. If you look at the exact moment when Cloud breaks free of the Whispers and parries Sephiroth’s blade, we see a brief flash of a “rainbow” before Sephiroth is pushed back. From that point onwards, up until Cloud catches Aerith in his arms as she falls, the entire altar is circled not just by Sephiroth’s Black Whispers (which quickly leave), but also this rainbow glow.This glow is the effect Rebirth uses to show a creation of a different world. A different possibility. A fork in the timeline. We’ve seen it multiple times with Zack, as obvious as in this scene and far more subtle, whenever he made a choice. The most blatant example that comes to mind is the scene where he was picking the left or the right tunnels to go to either Hojo or Biggs.

There is one thing to note, though: whenever this effect made an appearance to indicate that “multiple possibilities have been created”, we didn’t immediately jump between them. We followed the first choice made and remained in the same world. When Zack chose to go to Hojo, we saw the possibility being created that he went to Biggs instead, but the next scene of him we got was still at the Shinra Building where he wanted to meet with Hojo. What’s more, we didn’t see multiple approaches of that (like Zack trying to go in through the front vs Zack trying to enter through the parking lot like the party did – and nobody can tell me there’s no way he didn’t at least think of the option). We see him facing a platoon at the main entrance. We see him confront them. And then we get a “fade-to-white” that… kinda seems to indicate the end of that particular story. Only then do we see the Pug-Stamp world where Zack went to Biggs, and only after that do we see the third option where he went to neither and visited the church to make up his mind instead.

What this means is that when Cloud saved Aerith, he created a fork in the road, a new world, and going by other obvious instances of this, there is little reason for us – or the story – to randomly jump off the road he just created to another alternative. So by pure logic, we should be in the world where Aerith survived.

4) The “problems” such a twist would create

Now, time to hit the most controversial issue. If Aerith actually survived like I believe, I can already imagine the havoc most of the fandom will raise. “But her death is iconic! It must happen! She can’t cast Holy without dying! She can’t save the Planet from the Lifestream if she’s not in it! She can’t stop Meteor!”

To those people I say: kindly shut up and listen for a spell.

Aerith’s death in the OG is indeed iconic… but most of the reason it hit so hard in the OG was because it was so unexpected. That’s a feeling that could never have been replicated in Rebirth, because everybody and their mother seems to know by now that Aerith died in the OG. Everyone was waiting for this moment to see how it would play out. Very few are the exceptions who don’t know. But as for everything else… I’m sorry to burst your nostalgic bubble, but it’s not true. Any of it.

Aerith did not need to die to cast Holy. Holy was already cast and Sephiroth could hold it back by sheer will alone. Aerith dying did not make Holy stronger or anything of the sort. It was not the price for casting Holy, either. If it was, Sephiroth wouldn’t have even needed to impale her.

Aerith also doesn’t need to die to command the Lifestream, something which we see far more reinforced in Rebirth than we did in the OG. She’s using the Lifestream just fine in the Temple to shape it as she needs it, after all. Sure, she first needs to learn how to do it, because she never had the chance to learn before, but she absolutely can do it without being dead. There is no reason to think she’ll need to die to use the Lifestream to stop meteor in this case. What she does need is to learn how to do it.

I hate to have to remind people of this, but in the OG, the whole “point” of Aerith’s death was that it was senseless. It had no narrative meaning. It was no noble sacrifice; it was not something that “needed to happen for the greater good”. It happened, yes, and the remaining characters grieved her, but had she survived, the story’s narrative would not have changed one iota. The emotional impact of her death would be gone because she wouldn’t be dead, sure, but outside of that emotional hit, her death did nothing to advance the story in terms of narrative. It gave the party an additional reason to want to stop Sephiroth, but it’s not like they needed another push, either. Most of the fandom seems to have convinced themselves that she needed to die, and I assume it was a form of coping with the unexpected loss given that she is a fictional character in a story that very typically would paint an MCD as something that was “necessary for the greater good”, but that is not the case here. And that was the whole point.

So, those worries people have about her casting Holy or stopping Meteor? Yup, still possible with her alive. Her survival does not actually doom the Planet.

5) The Narrative Purpose of Having Aerith Live

Finally, one last thing you might be wondering about: narratively speaking, what is the point of having Aerith survive, but have most of the party not be aware of it? Why would Jenova/Sephiroth want that? If Aerith’s death is one big mindfuck created by Jenova, how is Cloud of all people immune to it this time? And why does she stay alone at the City of the Ancients to "pray"?

Well, what Sephiroth wants is basically for Cloud to not trust his companions and vice versa. He wants him isolated and susceptible to his manipulations. He wants to have him as his puppet to use and torment. What can I say? The man is obsessed.

His first attempt at breaking Cloud was, as in the OG, by killing Aerith. When that failed, he tried to have him believe Aerith died anyway.

Except at the end of Rebirth, Cloud is very determined to not believe one word Sephiroth says. And this is important because as powerful as Jenova is, its power and influence can be overcome if one’s willpower, one’s sense of who they are, one’s heart (one’s kokoro, a word that’s often translated as “heart” from Japanese, but the concept of which encompasses all those other things as well) is strong enough. And Cloud does have the potential to be strong enough to overcome it. He does in the OG. It’s a big part of how he ultimately recovers his true self. The problem is, the way Rebirth portrays it at the end, Cloud is in this odd space where he’s on one hand supremely vulnerable to Sephiroth’s and Jenova’s manipulations, and on the other hand begins to tap into that true strength of his that allows him to overcome Jenova.

So what I think happened is that Jenova tried to make Cloud see Aerith as dead, but when she reached out and spoke to him, he broke free of that control and suppressed Jenova’s ability to twist his own perception of things, but not Jenova’s ability to affect others because he doesn’t even know about it. That’s why, for a short moment, we see things as they are again. We see Aerith being fine.

And then the others arrive and Jenova basically flips the coin and starts manipulating them. The end result of which will be the same… if not potentially worse, depending on how things go.

Think about it. Rebirth set Cloud up as the unreliable narrator even better and more poignantly than the OG did. Furthermore, after her first dip in the Lifestream and remembering the whole thing with climbing Mt Nibel as kids, but not experiencing a revisit of any other memories, Tifa has little reason to doubt her recollection of Nibelheim. Especially since Cloud’s recollection changed to partially fit hers once he remembered Zack. Tifa, and the rest of the party, are far more likely to believe their own eyes and Tifa’s version of the past should she speak up than Cloud’s at this point. None of them have any reason to believe they are suddenly the ones seeing things.

Cloud himself is also far more aware of how unreliable his memory is. So if confronted with something he and Tifa remember (or saw) differently, who is he more likely to believe?

This can all further play into Sephiroth’s attempt to convince him that he’s merely a puppet. That nothing he thinks or remembers or believes is real. And the thing is, Sephiroth (whom Cloud resists supremely now) doesn’t even have to do a single thing. The party will do it for him, because I can’t imagine them notaddressing the fact that they believe Aerith died, yet Cloud acts like nothing is wrong.

And who can ever correct them or anything? There’s only two things that could help: one, the Lifestream Sequence as per the OG so Cloud can piece himself together. Or, alternatively, the one person who can confirm that there is some truth to Cloud’s recollection of Nibelheim and that he was indeed there even if Tifa has no clue about it: Zack.

Of course, Zack is in a different world altogether, so him playing this kind of major role is up in the air and very dependent on the exact inner workings of the multiverse created here. I have plenty of thoughts on that, too, but that’s for another time.

Either way, this sets up Cloud to be isolated from the party all by his own and the party’s doing. And you know what this seems to fit? Cait Sith’s fortune from all the way back in chapter 8 of Rebirth.

Yes, yes that fortune.

The fortune that spoke of a “last minute twist” and how Cloud “would lose what he cherished most”.

Those who watched Advent Children know what it is that the real Cloud cherishes most: everything. “There is not a thing I don’t cherish!” And right now, even though Aerith survived, it does seem like he’s set up to lose it all unless something is done.

As for Aerith staying behind, consider this: unlike in the OG, we don't awaken in Gongaga a few days after everything at the Temple. Aerith hasn't been gone for at least a day. We don't have to waste time going after her by figuring out we have to go to Bone Village (factor in Tiny Bronco voyage time here), we don't have to lose time mining for a Lunar Harp. The party enters the Sleeping Forest at the same time as her, but then just "loses her in the fog". When Cloud wakes up, he sees the Whispers and guides them the right way.

Unlike in the OG, we don't get to the City of the Ancients at least one day after Aerith, if not more. We get there a couple hours after her at most, if even that. In fact, when Cloud approaches her, we hear her start praying. Unlike in the OG, there is every chance she didn't finish casting Holy - had barely even started - by the time Sephiroth interrupts and quite literally crashes the party.

Setting Holy aside (because Cloud could very well find some sort of excuse to stick around until she finished, especially given how the rest of the party were reluctant to leave because of grief and the fact that the Tiny Bronco needed fixing for flight), we could also assume she's staying behind to "pray" as in "to learn to control the Lifestream better" - something that's clearly established in the Temple of the Ancients that she needs guidance in, and gets it from the Lifestream itself. Finally, this Aerith has a working White Materia, which seems to have some connection with her future memories... if not downright with a "post-OG Aerith" who already exists in the Lifestream, just like we suspect there is a "post-OG/AC Sephiroth" who's pulling Cloud's strings.

Some explanations seem more farfetched than others, I'll give you that, but there can be reasons found for why she stays behind even if she isn't, in fact, dead.

And with that, I believe I said everything I had to say on this particular subject. I hope you enjoyed reading :)

#FF7 Rebirth #FF7 Rebirth Ending #FF7 Rebirth Spoilers #Ending Interpretation #Meta Analysis #Glon's meta wordvomit

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