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temmes · 2 years

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little political thoughts

Oh Communism communism communism,born in the huge social contradictions of western countries that having severe manpower shortage problems draining laborers strength and meanwhile,nobles from managerial class were so greedy,milking all the values out of the poor with just a tiny amount out of the profit.those pitiful men with many mouths to feed got nothing to do but united and fought back with senses of unfairness and resentments.

that was why communism always labeled with words “proletariats”, “revolutions” and “sharing evenly”, and that’s why managerial classes in the western world hate it so bad,they have to use their power to talk it down, break it down,just like bullies in schools using their mouths and fists abusing nerds because they know nerds are easy be bulldozed when they are young and weak,and one day nerds will be much better than them.

After all these years of happy meaty feasts nobles are still the same, upscaled managerial class got the largest profits.still in fear of being replaced,still having scarcity thinking,playing zero-sum games.

and the poor still the same too,living little bit better thanks to the technology,but more hatred toward their savior,sensitive and obey to what they see and what they hear through different media governed by the same boss.

It used to be communism when human species started out,the living was harsh,people sticked together,there was no you and i,their minds and bodies worked as a group,they hunted together,farmed together,took one for the team,just like the organs in our body.when they having intercourses they didn’t even mind others jointing the activity because they didn’t have rules in their mind, they were totally careless and raised the offsprings together anyway,moaning during intercourses is probably an age old conditional reflex for inviting more partners result in more manpower to beef up the group .

Rules probably came with selfishness,and selfishness came from the day,when human advanced their skills,domesticated animals successfully,or they found the right plant that could mass produce,in short they had steady food sources that it was good enough,it started to make surpluses.and that made people started to get greedy too,no free sharing anymore,people traded stuffs,satisfied each other’s needs,prostitution showed up.

people made rules and rituals like marriage to tell others,this is his baby mama, his stuffs, only his offsprings could share them.he took care of the fresh water containers,he’s the real chad.

Since then, human species are not making much progress,in terms of spiritual and cultural.i still admire the technology tho.

People nowadays still struggle with problems like “more foooooooood” “I need more stuffs” “i want more labels and fame” “i want to act like a barbarian big muscle big beard big cars and guns,me more testosterone,he week short pee pee.”

I wanted to roast that big topic in the states all about genitals but I’m too chicken to do that,the color topic too.probably one of the way to make lower class to be more busy facing toward the useless aspect.

our humans hardware and software do need some updates to face the modern problems and quests.politic is just one small portion of the whole challenging up hill.the core of the main conflict between different countries hidden in superficial things like materials,it’s the believes and culture, those spirits that divide us.

I know my thoughts are not coherent but hints and meanings scatter in my words.

capitalism started to show its disadvantages,i really don’t want to see our societies end up with another world war,or climate changed disasters so bad that we lost many lives,society collapses,gov is facing challenges,then we have to live in big cyber cities with mainly slums,work hard on technology to had fully automatic mass production to satisfy our basic needs,then we sitting in rainy dirty alleys started to Contemplate and regret that we used to be greedy,chasing dopamine wasting lots of resources for nothing meaningful.maybe at that time we will give up 9 to 5,living for the weekend,and start to do something we always want to do in our life.but that’s too late the punishment has come.

life is short,we all going to die,why waste time on things we don’t want to?Maybe the things we are doing are not neceesary?Maybe we have alternatives to achieve?

#politics

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ibijau · 3 years

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Counterfeit AU pt6 / On AO3

Meng Yao makes himself useful after losing his job, and discovers something unexpected

Names are funny things, Meng Yao thinks as he stares at the sheet of paper in his hand.

Funny things indeed.

After everything that went down in the Hanshi, it's Beastie that saves Meng Yao from himself.

Left to his own devices, he would have either wallowed in misery, or waste time proving to himself that everything that happened wasn't his fault, the way he knows he's done in other lives. But when he comes home after having his past lives thrown into his face and losing a job he loves, Beastie’s mother corners him just as he puts his key into his lock. Her daughter is on school holiday, she explains, and was supposed to be looked after by a friend with children of a similar age. But one of the children came down with something contagious, so the whole plan fell through, and the poor woman now desperately needs help finding someone to look after her daughter.

She’s not asking for Meng Yao to play the babysitter, but he knows so many people, he has so many connections, maybe he could pull a favour somewhere, help her out again.

“I can take care of her for a few days,” Meng Yao offers without thinking. “I’m jobless as of today.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! What happened?”

“My employer died,” Meng Yao replies, which is close enough to the truth. He doesn’t think Nie Huaisang will continue using his Shanzi alias after this, and they’ll never meet again. He might as well be dead. “I don’t plan on looking for a new job right away, so I can babysit for a while, it’s no big deal.”

She tries to insist that he doesn’t need to be doing that, but quickly agrees after some reassurance that Meng Yao doesn’t mind. She looks so relieved she could cry as she says she’ll drop Beastie in the morning. Meng Yao smiles, certain that his mother would be proud of him for doing what’s right.

Having Beastie around is definitely the best choice he could have made. She’s a good kid, but she’s also high energy and needs to be entertained, which means he doesn’t get to think too much about how much he misses Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen.

They watch movies together, as they’ve always done when he picked her up after school. They go for walks to a nearby park, and once to a museum to look at old armours and swords. He buys Beastie a fake sword, though they agree to keep it at his place, since her mother already despairs that she so strongly favours boy’s toys. In fact, Meng Yao ends up just spoiling that little girl, the way he would have loved someone to do for him when he was her age. He even has Nie Huaisang’s console repaired so she can play on it, instead of selling it as he’d intended.

The video games are a big hit with her. She’s particularly in love with the same game Nie Huaisang spent too many hours on, that weird little terraforming thing which Meng Yao can’t see the appeal of. He liked that it made Nie Huaisang happy. He likes that it also makes Beastie happy, and that she’s very careful not to ruin the work previously put into it, focused instead on maintaining it and planting flowers

“It looks like home,” she explains when Meng Yao asks about that, and lifts the console for him to see.

It doesn’t look like a homely place, he thinks, and more like a military fortress right out of a wuxia drama. But Meng Yao doesn’t get to make that remark, because his phone vibrates, demanding his attention. Beastie, sitting crossed legs on some cushion on the floor, goes back to watering virtual flowers, while Meng Yao checks some news from his bank account. A lump sum has been sent to him, a good deal more than his usual salary, coming from an account registered under a name he doesn’t recognise.

It has been a week since he was fired.

Nie Huaisang kept his promise.

It really is over.

Not that Meng Yao really doubted it. Nie Huaisang has many faults but indecision has never been one, though he’s always been good at pretending otherwise. Once his choice is made he toys with expectations but rarely ever changes his mind.

Rarely, of course, isn’t never. Meng Yao, foolishly, hoped to be one of those few exceptions.

Those new zeroes on his bank account feel like a divorce, and he never even got a honeymoon.

That night, Meng Yao allows himself a few hours to wallow in misery, after Beastie went back to her mother. He is only human, and it does feel good to eat take-away in front of a cheesy romance. The film's hero doesn't get the girl, who was dead all along. Meng Yao cries, even though he's seen that movie before.

By morning, he's in control again, and takes Beastie to the park so she can run around in the sun, and scare pigeons with her sword.

Those holidays are all great fun, until Beastie’s mother reminds them that she has homework to do.

Beastie is a clever kid, there’s no doubt about it, but she doesn’t much like doing her homework, least of all when she feels she could be playing. It takes all of Meng Yao’s negotiation skills to get her to even look at her school books, and he almost resorts to bribery to make her pick up a pencil. But she works hard once she starts, and Meng Yao, wanting to encourage her, sits with her at the kitchen table to update his resume. Beastie will go back to class soon, and inactivity just isn’t in his temper.

When Beastie is done with her work, she gets permission to put on whatever movie she likes while Meng Yao checks what she’s done in case it needs correcting.

But when he picks up the sheet of simple maths she’s expected to give her teacher on monday, all Meng Yao sees is her name.

It’s really funny. He knows her name of course, though he hasn’t heard it in a while. Even her mother took up to calling her Beastie after he nicknamed her that. It just fits her so well, that active little girl who prefers trousers over dresses because they're easier to move in and always wants to play at fighting. She’s a real little monster, and Meng Yao loves her like that. She’s just Beastie.

But according to the homework she’s spent the afternoon on, she’s also Nie Mingjue.

It could just be a coincidence. Names are funny like that, they pop up in unexpected places, they get forgotten and reused. Perhaps in another life, Meng Yao would have just dismissed it as a random incident.

In another life, he wouldn’t have been called Meng Yao.

It’s the first time this happens since that first life they all shared. He’s Meng Yao again, Lan Xichen bears his old name too, and now he’s found a Nie Mingjue, hiding right under his nose. A Nie Mingjue who likes fighting, and claims that her toy sword is actually a sabre, and who always insists a lot on things being fair, even when Meng Yao tries to give her the biggest share of a food she likes.

It can’t be a coincidence.

Meng Yao needs to tell someone.

He needs to tell Nie Huaisang.

He tries, of course, and without surprise his former employer’s number has been terminated. He has the same luck trying to send an email. Nie Huaisang might as well never have existed. Meng Yao feels helpless, torn between tears and laughter. After spending centuries looking for his brother, Nie Huaisang just might have lost his chance due to being so damn dramatic. Serves him right, Meng Yao thinks, still bitter about being discarded so easily, and never getting a chance to see if things might work better in this life.

Bitterness doesn’t last. Meng Yao cares about Nie Huaisang, more than he should if he were a little smarter, and he knows how important finding his brother again would be for him. And if Nie Huaisang can’t be directly contacted, there’s always indirect ways.

It’s not that Meng Yao misses Lan Xichen, he tells himself that night, when Beastie is back with his mother and he starts writing a long text message on his phone. Well, it’s not just that, anyway. He does miss Lan Xichen, sweet and funny and so eager when talking about art. But more importantly, Lan Xichen probably has access to Lan Wangji, who clearly must know how to contact Nie Huaisang.

Texting Lan Xichen is a strategic choice.

The way Meng Yao's heart jumps inside his chest when Lan Xichen immediately replies is… it's strategic too. He's just glad that his plan is working.

How have you been? :)

I could have been worse. I've just realised something and I think it concerns you. I've told you about that kid I babysit, haven't I?

Little Beastie? Is she okay? D:

She's Nie Mingjue.

This time, the answer isn't immediate. Meng Yao stares nervously at his phone, wondering if Lan Xichen thinks he's lying, or planning something. Considering their first life, who could blame him?

But after a few minutes, his phone vibrates again.

Sorry, I dropped my phone and couldn't get it back from under the couch. Are you sure?? (⊙ˍ⊙)

It all fits. You could come meet her if you want. But it's him, I'm sure.

Did you tell Nie Huaisang???

I can't contact him. Are you in touch with Lan Wangji? Maybe he can warn him.

I have his number, I just texted him! I'll keep you updated! It's so wonderful if it's da-ge!! Can I really meet him? ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Her*?

I'll send you my address. If you can come tomorrow, she'll be there.

Are you sure? I don't think da-ge would still want me around. (≧﹏ ≦)

Meng Yao gives that question the consideration it deserves. It's not an unfair worry to have, and he'd be wondering the same if he hadn't known Beastie for so long.

I literally killed him, and he killed me. If she had to hate anyone it'd be me, but we get along great. We're no longer the same people we used to be. It's the same for her.

If you're sure, then I'll come! (❁´w`❁)

Meng Yao is very sure indeed.

So Lan Xichen comes.

It's odd to invite someone to his flat. It's a small place, a bit messy, full of trinkets and DVDs that Meng Yao would never admit to owning, not with the image he wants to create. He's always avoided guests. But having Lan Xichen over is as rewarding as it is terrifying. Lan Xichen brought some charming little cakes, as if he's visiting someone important, and he smiles at the sight of a movie poster on the wall, confessing he watched it so often as a teenager that the tape broke one day.

"It's my favourite too!" Beastie exclaims. "Meng-ge has it, you know! Can we watch it now?"

Normally, Meng Yao would point out that it's a little rude to ask that when they have a guest. But he can see that Lan Xichen is nervous and unsure how to act around Nie Mingjue, and maybe a movie will let them all relax.

In the end, they spend a pleasant afternoon, the three of them. Once Lan Xichen stops worrying that the Nie Mingjue of old will appear and shout at him for getting him killed, he starts chatting with Beastie about her favourite movies, what she's learning in school, what she wants to be when she grows up. She's very happy to answer, and very impressed when he explains he's a teacher, even though she's finding it hard to accept that most of his students are fully adult.

And when Beastie is back with her mother, Lan Xichen lingers for a while, tempted by the offer of Meng Yao's favourite takeaway.

“It’s amazing how much like him she is,” Lan Xichen says as they sit on the sofa to wait for the food to arrive. “It’s the first time he reincarnates, you know. At least, Wangji told me they’d never found any trace of him before.”

Guilt shoots through Meng Yao. It’s his fault if Nie Mingjue’s soul was so fractured it took him this long to be reborn. Or at least, it’s the fault of someone he was, once, which is nearly the same, and yet completely different. Meng Yao has learned from living and dying several times, and he’s lucky enough to live in a kinder world than Jin Guangyao did. It helps.

“She’s also different from him, though,” Lan Xichen continues, moving just a little closer, until they’re almost touching.

“We’ll, for starters she’s a kid,” Meng Yao points out, wondering if he should take the other man’s hand. If this had happened before the Hanshi, he would have, but he’s not sure where they stand now.

“It’s not just that. In that first life, I knew da-ge as a child too and he was…” Lan Xichen sighs and makes a vague hand gesture. “He was a lot. Way too serious sometimes. We all were, I suppose, but him most of all. The Nie tended to grow fast, to compensate for dying young. I’m… I’m glad that he gets to properly be a child this time. That she gets to be a child.”

“The world has changed,” Meng Yao says, finding the courage at last to brush his fingers against Lan Xichen’s. “Things aren’t always easy but they’re… easier, I suppose.”

Lan Xichen’s returns that touch, gentle and careful as always. This, too, is easier now than it was back then. It’s not easy, but there’s less pressure to conform, less demands to be good dutiful sons, and just a little more space to be their own people, to make their own choices.

Maybe in their next life they’ll meet again and it’ll be even easier to be like this. But even now, Meng Yao is ready to take the chances that his past self wouldn’t have dared to dream of. He leans toward Lan Xichen, hoping to kiss him, but a knock on the door interrupts them and he jumps to his feet to go get their food. The delivery man looks at him a little funny, but makes no comment. If Meng Yao is half as red as Lan Xichen, he deserves those odd looks.

Nothing happens again that night. The moment has passed, and after eating, Lan Xichen has to go home because he has engagements the day after that he can’t cancel.

It's not a date that night, no more than any of their previous encounters were.

It's not a date then, but next time, when Lan Xichen invites him to a restaurant, Meng Yao is informed in no unclear terms that this is, in fact, a date. They go see a movie after, and Meng Yao gets to kiss one of the two most handsome men in the world.

Life is good.

Life is really good, and yet Meng Yao wants more.

In spite of their efforts, Lan Xichen and him can't get in touch with Nie Huaisang to inform him that his brother has finally reincarnated. Even Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are getting worried. From what they told Lan Xichen they haven't had any contact with him since the day they picked him up at the Hanshi.

"They say he's done that before," Lan Xichen tells him. "They think he'll return in a decade or two, maybe a little longer. Time is hard for immortals, they lose track easily."

That's all very well for them, but Meng Yao doesn't have a few decades to waste, and neither does Nie Mingjue. They're not immortals. One bad illness, a reckless driver, just tripping in the stairs, and it's all over until they reincarnate again, and Meng Yao is done with missed chances.

If he can't directly get in touch with Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao can make a few discreet calls to former buyers, and advise them to get their purchase asserted again, just in case. He makes sure to only contact people who bought legitimate artworks of course. He wants to make a wave, not get in trouble. If Meng Yao knows Nie Huaisang even half as well as he thinks he does, then even in hiding Nie Huaisang will be checking what’s happening in the world of art collectors, and he’ll hear about some of his buyers suddenly becoming fearful of fakes.

It’s a little mean perhaps, when Nie Huaisang is so proud of his counterfeits, but kindness has never been Meng Yao’s greatest quality.

Besides, it works.

One afternoon, when Meng Yao is alone at home, checking a job offer that he’s probably going to reject because he deserves better, there’s a knock on the door. Meng Yao considers ignoring it, but some of his elderly neighbours have been coming to ask for help with their phones or whatever new fancy blender their kids got them to make life easier. Usually, five minutes of easy work means free homemade food for his next meal, which is always a great deal.

When he opens the door, there’s a very old man waiting in the corridor alright, but free food is probably out of the question.

“Well, I’m here,” Nie Huaisang says. “Whatever is going on, it’d better be important.”

#xisangyao #xiyao #sangyao #xisang #counterfeit au #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes

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ghostmartyr · 5 years

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SnK 121 Thoughts

Where’s the clip... someone had to have clipped it. Or I could just not interfere with my tentatively obligatory aesthetic and do this the less fun way. Less fun does indeed sound like me, so

There’s this DragonBall Z Abridged line.

From one of the Bardock specials.

You know. Bardock.

He can see the future.

He has a line about all the conveniences this ability causes his life.

-ahem-

USELESS ASS PSYCHIC POWERS.

Do I even need to write this? Can it just be a chorus of what the fuck over and over? Because sincerely, what the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck what the fuck what the fuuuuuuuuck.

That doesn’t even have a tune. I sort of imagined one in my head, but I’m sort of caught up on how this makes everything worse, better, and changes absolutely nothing because it’s still Eren and Zeke being on the most disastrous family trip this world has ever seen.

Let’s review.

In the way that Angelica reviews Alexander Hamilton’s quality choices in the musical.

So we’ve got Eren, who is basically dying after his epic war games decision (good grief I haven’t even read War Games, but is he Stephanie Brown in this analogy? is that what we’re dealing with? is he somehow both Stephanie Brown and Batman?) that was intending to lead into him holding his brother’s hand.

His head is shot off.

Lest we forget.

Zeke caught it.

Because he’s a Good Big Brother.

That quality pro-genocide big brothering.

Brought to you by Dad.

Yeah so. Zeke and Eren, down memory lane. In an Inception of their own making, only like. Actually Inception. I am going to make this post take nine times longer than it has to because I’m going to keep making pop references instead of dealing with the content.

Inception is a movie where the plot is for a heist team to go in and plant an idea inside someone’s head so that it grows into a genuine change for the world, breaking up a giant monopoly of power and slowing human civilization’s speedy erosion. #Spoilers, I guess.

...The things I bring up in these posts are always keenly relevant, good fuck.

So that we continue to all be caught up, Eren is playing out the part of the first time this is done, where the main character plants an idea in his wife’s head that leads to the destruction of his life and her death.

With his dad playing the part of wife.

Anyway, Zeke and Eren are having an Inception.

In the real world, Zeke is holding his little brother’s decapitated head while Paradis is attacked by Marley (soon to be the entire world) due entirely to Eren and Zeke’s choices. The objective of which, for each of them, was holding hands.

Eren’s aim for that is unknown, while Zeke is shooting for a passive genocide that the narrative is making look like the more reasonable decision based on the fuckery that has become of the unscrewed nuts and bolts inside Eren’s head.

To be clear, neither one is being reasonable.

This is a trash fire of bad decisions.

Where the person rooting for genocide mostly just has the edge of probably being the same person throughout the entire chapter, as well as his life history, while the person with the unknown aims is looking like a really good case of Inside Eren Yeager, Titan Attack You.

That was funnier in my head.

The joke is that the Attack Titan ate Eren.

Is in the process of eating Eren?

Is periodically nomming on Eren.

Results may vary.

V original theory do not steal.

Ahem.

Going back to our plot summary!

Eren and Zeke, being the quality brothers they are, want to hold hands, and being the quality human beings they are, start a massive war of death and trauma on their way to holding hands, then they fail to hold hands because the natural result of the quality of their quality is that Eren’s head got blown off, so they’re settling for Zeke holding Eren’s head.

Eren is presently cast as the clear antagonist, Zeke’s idea is still awful, and they’re locked in an extradimensional space where no one else has the power to point out that their main achievement so far is being useless dumbasses.

On top of a field of bodies.

Boys.

What in the fuck.

Forget what they want to do.

By all evidence, even in the midst of other horrifying details coming to light, all that needed to happen was them making contact. That’s it. Whatever massive plan is ongoing, they just needed to hold hands.

Cue a bunch of people dying. Including probably Eren.

This is a bad plan.

I’m okay with that.

It is still one of the most insanely complicated monuments to a zero sum game that I have ever read, and it becomes very obvious that the reason these characters have Titan powers is because if they didn’t, they would be dead the first chapter they showed up, lacking the good sense to not be dead.

First volume, sorry.

This is not a complaint. I would happily eat mountains of popcorn to the tune of canon agreeing that yes, letting Zeke and Eren come up with their own original ideas is maybe bad. It is hilarious. They are not good at this.

I realize Zeke didn’t have hands back then, but at this point both of you have to be considering that maybe you should have just bumped shoulders on the plane.

I’m sort of on the fence for how to react outside of heavy amusement, though. The downside of Zeke and Eren being so bad at this is that literally nothing is going well. Paradis is on fire again, Marley exists yet remains to let the members of its cast who sort of have morals die shocking deaths, and the fate of the world is being decided in the split second before Eren’s death between two people who should be in charge of absolutely nothing.

The rest of the cast, barring the inevitable reveal of what the fuck Eren’s got up his sleeve, has no power over any of this.

It’s. I guess it’s what you would call appalling.

Yelena’s point of view is really the closest anyone in canon has come to understanding the situation, and boy is that telling. She sees these two men as gods. She believes in their ability to remake the world. All that falls to her is facilitating their union.

She might have her battle lines a bit crossed, but yeah. Once Eren and Zeke make contact, all the rest of the world can do to discover its fate is wait.

That is a key Epic style plot, only it’s drawn out by Eren and Zeke both clearly not being gods. Zeke is a broken child who has made all of his decisions from a belief that the world is too cruel to be worth living in.

Eren is.

...

Eren, I’m coming back to you.

For now, let’s just dub him a disaster.

So you have the storyline of gods clashing while the mortals sit back with bated breath, but the scale of it is stomped all over because mortals who should not be making these decisions are still making them, and neither one seems entirely sane.

Locking Eren and Zeke in a bubble has been a source of grand entertainment, but as a story feature, the idea of these circumstances determining anything is something of a letdown.

Eren’s known for years what he’s wanted to do, and he still ends up with his head shot off while he runs too slow to stop his brother from initiating the death of their people.

Something has to give for this to feel like it matters, because right now the prevailing feeling is that these people should be as far away from power as humanly possible.

The darkness of this story is often, I feel, exaggerated. Sometimes by the author. It is a story where horrific things happen, and are attempted, but the hearts of all the characters we’re invited to sympathize with have always been crystal clear. There has never been a question that Zeke’s plan is wrong. There has never been a question of genocide in all its forms being inexcusable.

Reiner breaks down a wall. Bertolt breaks down a wall. Annie calls monsters to the broken wall.

Thousands of people die because children were handed power and thrown into a situation they had no hopes of understanding.

All three of the traitor kids end up traumatized. Reiner’s mind splits, Bertolt retreats so far into himself he barely engages with the world, and Annie literally crystallizes herself through the desperate desire to make it home.

There is no question that they could have been something besides murderers. They probably all would have preferred that.

This is not a grimdark series where everyone has forgotten what good things look like. Hange can design trains with prisoners of war. Niccolo can learn to care for people he’s been taught to hate. Children can be protected regardless of side.

Where the darkness comes from is not from the absence of light, but the deterioration of faith in that light.

Annie wants to go home. Bertolt and Zeke want it to end. Reiner doesn’t know right and wrong, but he’ll fulfill his duty and extend sympathy to a fellow victim of chaos he’s not equipped to understand.

They stop seeing their fight as something that has true meaning. The most proactive hearts come from Bertolt and Zeke, who share the same mind of simply ending things, not forging a new beginning.

That’s where things get sticky with Eren and Zeke.

This chapter paints Eren in such a dark light it’s hard to hope he succeeds in whatever he’s doing, but Zeke’s wish is still something that can’t be allowed to happen.

The scenario presented is one where the light has gone out, and the person who was counted on the be its champion has lost something essential in his humanity.

Obviously that doesn’t mean this is over, but every time the immediate entertainment of Zeke and Eren being the worst strategists to ever live passes, the question of what’s being fought for here comes up, and there’s no clear answer. Not with this version of Eren.

Cultivated distrust in the protagonist is nothing new, but the extent of this is impressive.

Trying to put this the simplest way I can, for the chapter, I like how this is going.

For the story, the only two people who seem to have power over changing the state of the world are people who should have that power taken away as soon as possible.

If this weren’t all happening while Eren’s head was still falling to the ground, it would bother me less. But as things stand, nothing anyone else is doing has any impact on the story, and Eren and Zeke are impossible to root for.

That it’s probably by design doesn’t do much to make it more palatable.

Leading us into the only part of this post anyone is actually here for.

Eren.

The fuck.

I feel like it’s a fair thing to say that this might not be good.

Outside the usual realm of not good.

Also, now obligatory monthly mention that Eren looks a hell of a lot like Frieda and I want more to be done with that besides the current holder of Frieda’s memories murdering actual Frieda.

He fucking looks like Frieda.

This is why people thought Geographia was a female Eren. Even before his hair choices. Fight me.

As referenced earlier, I think a good chunk of Eren’s problem is that we’re finally dealing with the Attack Titan. Features include an immunity to the First King and the ability to see into the future.

With mixed conclusions about mindless raging.

Funny story about that! Your sons think differently. Have corpses receipts, can verify

...Hell, sorry about your life, Grisha.

(Side note, I’m pretty sure this panel is Frieda. Why? Because Isayama went to the trouble of making one of the long-haired Founders have their ears showing. That is literally the only way I can tell, and even then I’m only sure because Eren comes with a lot more extra shadow this chapter and the very next page.)

Okay, so. Uh.

Here’s where I wonder if I have the right caps for this comparison. I’m pretty sure I don’t yet. This noted time gap brought to you by me typing while I think even though no one reading this would ever know the difference.

The first thing that occurs to me is Mikasa, and cue the rabbit hole about her inheriting the Attack Titan and saying goodbye to Eren in their memories. Add in some bonus flavor about how in Trost, Mikasa’s vocalized motivation for living was being able to remember Eren. The Attack Titan is looking like a very good fit for her.

As for why Mikasa occurs, well!

Note that the key difference in these scenes is that Mikasa is encouraging Eren to transform so fewer of them will die. Eren is encouraging Grisha to transform so the Reiss family absolutely will die.

Sorry, ‘encouraging.’

I feel like I’m more at peace with some of Grisha’s interactions with Eren the last night of his life. As well as the display involved in killing the Reiss family. That’s always been one of the bloodier massacres we’ve played witness to. I passed it off as Grisha being unhinged by how badly everything was going and how it was all his fault, but...

T-tatakae?

-scrolls through images-

Hey so anyone else have fond memories of chapter 63? You know, back when Historia’s allegiance was in question because she was siding with her father and being a very generous-minded child about why Eren was strung up in chains and gagged?

Remember how she got all her memories of Frieda back and glared at Eren even though his father was the one who killed off her beloved older sister, and it was an amusing moment of irrationality in a sea of Historia having a low wisdom score?

Look at her glaring at the last person who deserves to be glared at over the massacre of the only family who treated her kindly!

...

Yikes?

Like, I don’t think she knows, because as tolerant as Historia is of people committing atrocities, Frieda is a sore point, but I think at this point, Isayama probably knew what actually went down with the bloodbath.

Easter eggs. Fun for the whole fandom.

In other fun news, I’ve made the comment several times that one of the sad points of Historia’s situation is Eren is her best friend, given how the story has limited her contact so thoroughly with the other people she cares about.

My brotp has seen better days.

The effect of Historia’s hand coming out of the darkness, Historia herself completely shrouded in the shadows as Eren takes it and discovers the worst moments of his life he hasn’t lived through yet...

Hell, the layout of this chapter is beautiful. All of it, including the very obvious descent into Eren being not quite right.

He’s unlocked the Attack Titan’s powers, and with it, I think a will that is more indomitable than anything Eren the person would have been okay with. Really, I don’t know how much of this is Attack Titan brain sickness, and how much is that Eren already saw himself doing all of this crap, so how bad was doing it one more time?

He’s lived through betraying his friends. He’s killed children. He’s killed the entire family of a friend who saved his life.

What’s doing it twice?

In the grand scheme of all Eren has seen, how bad is anything he’s done recently? Civilians are dead, but bad people are too. People who would hold power the wrong way.

I want to say that Eren’s choices are a result of the Attack Titan having a mind of its own, and between that and the other memories in Eren’s head, his intentions have been corrupted, but that’s mostly me trying to find a way for Eren, as he has been, to survive.

Eren looks at the Reiss family, sees his father hesitating, and takes the lead himself.

The Attack Titan can travel the Paths through time, and Eren, the character most angry about cages, decides that the way things were is the way things should be, even if what happened was wrong.

I realize it’s partly my priorities with the series which keeps the thread of fate so active a plot point in my mind. I’m always going to see Ymir demanding to know why Kristoria’s strength hasn’t turned into trying to change her own fate as a key theme of the series.

Eren had choices.

Maybe something catastrophic would have happened, but nothing forced him to make his father murder the Reisses. Going by his expressions, he’s not entirely okay with it, and the second they step into that cavern he knows that he’s at the hard part...

But he still does it.

He chooses to let the story play out as he knows it instead of allowing his father’s kindness to change the world.

I don’t know what Eren plans to do with the Founder’s power. Evidence points to him still wanting a better world for the people born into it. He disdains Zeke’s plan.

Nothing about this screams that this is what he wants. There’s a person in Eren still, recognizable as the young boy who wrapped a scarf around a cold girl’s neck.

Eren’s eyes are firmly on Mikasa and Armin when he walks his memories of them. He’s ignoring Zeke completely to stare at the warmth of his childhood. That isn’t someone who’s completely lost.

Yet he still pulls the trigger on this.

This isn’t what the Eren we’re familiar with would call freedom; adhering to what happened in the past just because it already happened.

Fight. If you don’t fight, you can’t win.

Zeke isn’t fighting, for all he’s holding back Eren.

Eren’s fighting something, but holding to the path already plotted instead of changing it.

I can’t imagine what Eren saw to push him this far. He’s not happy. He’s not winning. Not even over Zeke. He’s lost the love and confidence of everyone who has ever cared for him

Frieda only transforms after Grisha does. She waits for him. She waits to see if peace wins out.

The Attack Titan, as ever, has other ideas.

Not good ones. Just. You know. Different ones.

In conclusion Eren is a Billie Eilish fan.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 121 #Eren Yeager #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

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