#he's had some more experience plotting against vampires tho I guess. considering the whole “we need a plan” thing with the group but they | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whetstonefires · 6 years

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d gray man liveblog part 4! (part 1)(part 2)(part 3)

No but seriously, Cyril Camelot is the English Foreign Minister and just staged an assassination attempt on himself for an excuse to declare war on the people he just spent a while negotiating an agreement with.

Why? In what way does this benefit the Noahs?

(...why is the name of the country censored, I feel like hoshino-san just didn’t want to try to come up with a plausible European country for England to go to war with in 18-mumblety.)

I mean Bookman says tragedy breeds akuma in his analysis, but they took Japan while it was so emphatically not at war that it had zero foreign relations at all; war is clearly not necessary for the Earl’s bargains to go through apace.

Cyril kind of looks like he just does this shit for fun.

...”the evil man who made the world his enemy” is a fascinating choice of words, Tykki Mik, I really wonder very hard about you.

And you’re right, when he’s not wearing his balloon costume, and talking normally, and buying flowers from little girls, he looks normal! Weird how that works.

Question: is that umbrella he declined so he could walk in the rain Lero? Does Lero have to share the Earl with other umbrellas outside of official monster business, or disguise himself as a normal bumpershoot when out in public? Is that servant another disguised akuma, or a normal person who has no idea?

...it’s probably an akuma.

YAY KRORY WAKE UP!

why so many chain. it’s not like he lost track of who his enemies were in that last fight, even when he was made of blood. rude to chain.

aw he cry. he cry! ;_; he cry for his friends!

this is the kind of sad boy i like. he can be annoying but not in, you know, a murdery way.

holy shit creepy ghost girl?! i...logically must have read this part before but i don’t remember it, damn i was bingeing like a mad thing.

where...where did the poison come from. why is Krory’s arm sticking out like that. what is going on.

Why Are The Order So Bad.

aaaaand cut to the kind of random hijinks that seem intended to lift the mood but tbh they’re kind of too grim in their own right.

lmao alternately this is an excuse to draw kanda and lavi as chibis and Allen with long hair.

If it’s not because of structural damage, why are they moving to a new base? No one’s said anything about the new headquarters being any more secure against frickin’ teleportation. Maybe the Pope just wants the Order distracted with moving chores?

(I like referring to the higher-ups at the Vatican as the Pope; I realize we have no actual evidence the actual Pope even knows any of this is happening, but if hoshino is gonna be having people shout that other people are ‘property of the Pope’ i’m gonna use the word Pope as often as I can get away with because

1) it makes the whole thing more ridiculous b) it emphasizes the European Gothic Via Japan vibe going on here which is at least 20% of the entertainment value and thirdly, ‘Pope’ is fun to say.)

Oh, right, Allen’s ongoing identity crisis! (it only gets worse from here, kid)

The bosses were logically correct to make Cross Marian do his ‘report to Vatican and be responsible’ part before giving him the pay-off of ‘allowed to talk to Allen’ because otherwise he’d just fuck off but damn it’s hard on the kid, being left hanging.

I absolutely do not believe for one second this business with Mana’s past and secret motives was planned before the series started, but that’s honestly for the best; it’s more wrenching when we didn’t have any more reason than Allen to suspect something was off.

...i like when nice clowns adopt people tho... :o(

not telling the brass or their stooge about your creepy extra reflection was a Good Call.

yes link really truly allen is a good kid who is not plotting evil shit. sheesh.

more Potion Accident gags, i’m sorry, i can’t keep up with your taste in mood whiplash and i never liked most slapstick anyway. the bunny ears are. strange.

...never mind who made the ‘talk like a cat’ potion, who packed that box Miranda spilled; that is such an absurd chaotic collection of items organize your shit people. eesh.

Lmao everyone’s #1 creepy ghost theory is, Komui Playing A Dumb Prank.

...okay, Allen’s reaction as the Matron gnaws on his arm, and the fact that everyone’s first assumption is that Allen has annoyed this very sensible woman to the point that she is communicating via teeth, manages to be funny but noooooo, why would you, not Awesome Shoes Lady after she made it through the Level 4 Akuma attack unscathed, come onnnnnn.

okay, uhhh...contagious vampirism zombie thing...lmao everyone gets worried about matron when she bites Miranda, everyone is super embarrassed when Miranda bites Noise, this is just some impressive Not Realizing Shit’s Fucked guys.

okay, zombie horde of various survivors of all the recent massacres.

uh, if this weren’t being dropped at a time of total emotional exhaustion, it would work better. it’s already working better the second time around for the fact that i took a break after the last arc.

considering it comes out monthly and we had a Noah interlude, it probably worked in the original context just fine, but daaaaaamn did this storyline piss me off the first time, all i even remember about it is the rage.

:D Lenalee rescued Tiny Kanda. Who for some reason can interpret her ‘nyah’ sounds.

...how is a stimulant drug contagious via biting.

i remember the first time i read this i naturally assumed the biting disease was derived from Krory. that still would have made more sense.

robot eats notebook, lol...bickering...”my pride won’t allow me to become a zombie” yes allen excellent logic you weirdo.

okay i’m done checking back in when slightly less stupid shit starts happening....

okay never mind the robot’s fireworks blew Allen through a wall, where Krory was suffering in chains, and then the blanket spontaneously combusted, and then there was somebody with an axe...

...and then Allen wakes up and is informed he was knocked out and concludes Krory’s situation was a dream oh come on.

krory is at the door! but being creepy! the robot refuses to open the door out of self-preservation! allen seduces the robot into risking its life!

...

‘this is nostalgic’ with the hero face on i can’t.

okay, so it was Krory, who apparently swallowed the entire bottle of poison, lid included? for some reason?

oh great there’s a parasitic zombie ghost thing riding Reever and sticking its face out his stomach. horror! nope, now played for laughs.

aaaand suddenly veering back into pathos. bonus info about evil human experiments!

...aaaaaand touching bonding moment for the Lees. Aww.

Not only is Komui protective and self-sacrificing, when he isn’t being psychopathic, he has absolved Lenalee of his having sacrificed his entire life to watch over her after she was kidnapped into this.

then a stupid gag! and the ghost does a creepy jealous possession thing! and meanwhile everything is on fire.

et cetera, mood whiplash back and forth at least once every other page...komui starts reciting from memory the names of every single person killed in the Order’s human experiments...

...i don’t think the names are intended as an additional gag, but most of them are fairly odd and many downright improbable, though none truly syllable-mashing outrageous. I’m rather fond of Asia Smet and Oona Boelyn.

a page and a half of heart-rending pathos, and then the robot falls off the ceiling with a huge syringe of ‘vaccine’ it synthesized from Krory’s blood because he was the first infected by the...stimulant...egad, that’s not how any of that works.

and then, and then...anyway then everyone was zombies and the boss from China came in off-panel and fixed everything, as you do.

i truly hate you hoshino katsura, all the more for the fact that i genuinely loved about 15% of that parade of neck-wrenching bullshit.

anyway! that’s all over and done with, we are now on a boat being cute, because allen is using the stolen teleportation Ark that only he can drive to open a door between the old Castle headquarters and this...uh...cave? that they’re moving into.

...oh hey Shadow Of Allen (XIV) is now sporting wings remarkably like the ones Krory had during his drugged vampire zombie freak-out. i bet that means nothing whatsoever.

man whenever Leverrierererererer turns up i hallucinate ominous music. smug assholish ominous music. slimier sounding than the Imperial March, you know?

that’s not just my biases, hoshino-san lights the panels very effectively to create that effect. egad, he’s going to be in command??? is that why the move, because it was easier to undermine komui’s authority if he was removed from his entrenched power base?

...we just covered last chapter that that castle was a leverrier family fortress originally tho. huh.

excessively creepy secret Pope police involved in isolating and depowering Allen.

also lol that is very Japanese-style religious magic going on, that is not what a Catholic ritual binding would look like at all. not that they have as much settled precedent, their demon-fighting standards run much more toward ‘make it go away.’

aw shit komui’s right there and he can’t do shit, best he can get is a promise that ‘if Allen is a good child’ he won’t die.

flashback! aw man allen the first lesson mana ever taught you was to make peace with the dead and let them lie. should’ve listened.

...man allen was a grouchy brat. i wonder what color his hair was, before it went white. haha apparently he acquired his adoptive dad by running away from the circus with him.

pfffffft little allen hated clowns, that achieves the level of actual irony...welp, suicide joke.

aw shit mana was too burned out on grief to cry for his dog but allen could, for the doggie that licked his hand once. imma cry now.

whoa actual conversation with Cross Marian! under the supervision of papal ninjas (known as Crow) within a magic cage of paper. and wow! an actual answer to a question! unprecedented!

...it isn’t labeled which of these kids was Mana and which was (the most recent incarnation of??) the Fourteenth but imma hazard a guess that the one with hair that matches little Allen’s is not Mana.

oh also Adam Puddinghead killed the 14th, i don’t think we officially knew that until now? or maybe it came up when he blew up Edo i don’t recall.

oh my god i was definitely bingeing too hard last time; by the time Cross Marian started referring to the 14th in the second person to Allen my capacity to be astonished or distressed was burned right the fuck out. i was just like ‘yeah yeah figured get on with it.’

it’s actually a pretty dramatic scene, but it’s weird to be getting this shit in straightforward exposition after all this absence of any information at all.

wait “the human implanted with” ... “the host for his revival” ... i can’t tell if Cross Marian is referring to whatever the normal noah transfer process is or some way 14 found of circumventing that.

ohhhhhh man this title page has tiny clown Allen and it is the cutest shit ever.

did i ever tell you guys one time when my mom was two and a half, she had her stage debut as the cutest little pigtailed clown? and she ran onstage toward her daddy just like they’d practiced and the whole audience burst into delighted laughter.

and Tiny!Mom turned to look at them in appalled horror, and u-turned right back around and ran offstage again.

no one had successfully communicated to her she was going to be laughed at by a bunch of strangers. possibly they didn’t expect a toddler to mind.

oh sure Cross Marian, tell the kid the horrifying truth about himself and his dad in the most overdramatic way possible, in front of witnesses, and then when he dissociates in horror just beat the shit out of him until he resets.

the amount of playing abuse for laughs in this series is one of the many emotional strains that led me to drop it the first time.

it’s honestly a contest sometimes who i currently hate most, Marian, you or Labradorito or the Earl. Ech.

‘no idea’ tch. but if you’re saying he implanted his memories into Allen before he died, then...the Earl caught up with the 14th really recently, then?! How long were he and Mana on the run? I totally forgot these details, wow. i suspect some of them will turn out to be false.

...why the fuck are you saying it like this? bastard.

wow CM you almost look spooked by the fact that allen cares more about the possibility that his dad never actually loved him than the prospect of having his mind eaten.

maybe he’d care more about the mind-eating if the 14th was the Earl’s ally instead of planning to use allen as a weapon to kill him? allen is already using himself as a weapon to kill the Earl.

oop, way to get him back on target! “what if i told you you’ll kill the people you care about?”

aaaand cut.

that was like ten chapters’ worth of blather, i need to get more efficient.

#catching up with d. grey man #d gray man #allen walker #d gray man spoilers #oooold ones but hey #abuse of power #idiocy #this writing style is PUNISHMENT #and ceasing to read was SELF-CARE #yet i persist #i am stronger than the me of a decade ago #stg #hoc est meum

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sacks-of-kittans · 4 years

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Its funny that you love Black Eagles when there is in game evidence to support the fact that they don’t belong together. Petra is more or less a prisoner of war, Caspar flat out says he doesn’t like Edelgard and his character development is stronger in other routes. Ferdinand has every reason in the world to oppose Edelgard and Dorothea is just there for fan service because she’s not even plot relevant. The only believable relationships in BE are Hubert/Edelgard and Caspar/Lindhardt 1/2.

Still, you DO have a point about Dimitri’s unhinged state and how Byleth really isn’t that helpful. However, Byleth is not the only reason why Dimitri snaps out of it. Then again, that doesn’t seem like something someone just snaps out of. Lol 2/2. I’m not attacking your opinion, i do wanna know why you like BE so much tho.

—-

Gonna be honest didn’t hardcore listen to much of the game when playing in BE route and blue lions made me wanna skip it. Not finished with golden dear yet.

The whole “lol I’m not attacking you for you opinion” wasn’t the best worded cause like you shit on BE knowing it was my fav house. Chill. You could have just said “can you expand on why you like BE”

Reason why I like most characters in Black Eagles.

Dorthea is more than fan service, she has depression, is a singer, helps out with war efforts (so it says in her history card post time skip) and her supports are a fun read. She’s upfront she want to marry rich and who can blame a girl when the game tells you the limited options for girls in the game. You can be a knight, singer, merchant, Mercerary, but if you’re a noble woman, no way in hell youre allowed to take over the last name and territory. (I can only assume since Mercedes/Ingrid are expected to be married off, Annette I don’t read too much of her but I don’t think she ever takes over her uncles land, and every other noble girl I don’t think takes over their family name either) so I assume women have it rough. Whose to blame her for wanting a relaxed life, she’s lived through a lot before the game starts. She also has a connection to Manuela which is fun. Dorthea’s first or second line of losing her undershirt doesn’t really her for the fan service thing, but she talks about her worries of war and fighting wondering what the hell she got into joining this school. I really liked her paralpug with Ingrid because she’s got some interesting friendships supports (with Edelgard too and Petra) Bernie I guess too. Yeah the plot would be the same if she was in the game or not but that’s a majority of the cast.

I liked Edelgard the same reason I like sonic adventure 2. You get to see the villian for a majority of the routes of the game and think wow she’s kinda like Shadow there hedgehog. She was forced in the some pretty grim situations and now is still being used. However she’s fighting for her own ideals. Now remember I skimmed the game because I’m not gonna get too deep in something when I have other things going on in my life. I don’t care if she’s a hundred percent right or wrong it’s not real life. She got experimented on her whole childhood and people though she had any sort of power before going to school. From what I understand Edelgard a grudge towards the church puts too much pressure on nobles having crests because the dragon people are the reason for crests? I don’t know I don’t care Edelgard’s got enough charm to charm me into her schemes. She genuinely like Byleth, wants to impress them, and is a little socially awkward but pushing through it. Her character seems real/likable even though the game developers didn’t put much thought in her route, that all went to Blue Lions. She wants to impress Byleth constantly because she doesn’t know what it’s like having friends because Huebert was kinda forced to be her friend. She wants to tear apart outdated traditions and even though she’s apart of it she’s gonna take the lead, and willing to leave her role as emperor once the war is done. She has a right to be pissed and even though her war gets a lot of fictional people killed, this conflict would boil over one way or another. The western church revolts, I bet more people are sick of Rhea than the game leads on, Edelgard had the guts to revolt and had an army prepared. I know a lot a people are like “boohoo she lost 11 siblings” but she probably knew there were more people affected, considering she meets Lythesia and her family was heavily affected by that. She can only speak on the behalf of her dead siblings tho. Yeah there was a problem with their society, but she didn’t make that problem the main thing, it was the church’s leadership she also had a issue with. The church basically rules over the land but not much is done. Edelgard gets to see Sylavains family disown their older son for not having a crest, Mercedes adopted and hopes to marry rich because she has a crest, lythesia and her family tragedy for CRESt drama, Marianne and Mercedes having basically the same thing, crests crests crests them and the church are the enemies. Lowkey theory so quick. Since the empire is the first country of Serios got its divine name from Sothis or Rhea I bet only the royal empire family knew the church turned into dragons in theory. She’s got backstory, she’s got her morals, she’s a complete character. Dimitri has backstory but loses his mind for awhile. I love Claude, but we don’t know much of his backstory and the game developers keep sprinkling new things after the games release (the name drop) Yuri I don’t much about

Caspar I’m just learning to like, after a couple routes. Yeah I thought it was funny when he flat out said he didn’t like Edelgard. I don’t know if he’s stronger in other routes (plot wise) because in Blue lions his aunt sneaks in the ranks and he doesn’t do much. He does have a convo with Randolph if he faces him. I get he gets a paralpug with Mercedes if he is in another route but I don’t know how it helps him plot wise. You kill the death knight but I still don’t know death knights complete importance yet (yeah he’s Mercedes brother) I don’t expect everyone to love Edelgard even her own class you know like real life. Idk if other schools have that but most people don’t really care about their class president/class rep. You’re allowed to oraganize events but so help me god if you ask me to put more team spirit In I will tell you to back off, you know that kinda relationship. I like Caspar cause he’s funny when I give his supports a chance.

Yes Petra is a prisoner of war so the situation gotta suck, and a main reason she asks Brigid to help the empire is to probably get the country’s freedom...and at the end doesn’t it? I lowkey forget. Yeah it sucks, but Edelgard’s evil uncle is more or less running the country and when Edelgard takes power Shes got a war to focus on and probably needs Brigid’s help so free their country/hostages isn’t her biggest concern. Ferdinas tells Petra she can go home if she wants before the war offically starts, but Petra does wanna stay and fight. I like that she has the outsider perspective because if they only had one other country not ruled by the church it’d be weird. She’s a strong unit to use. It seems like the other BE house treats her fairly well and she doesn’t seem to be super depressed or isolated considering the hard challanges she’s facing before the start of the game. She’s a nice fun strong character.

Other than the lords, the lords have 2 people, a retainer/no official retainer (Hilda) and a noble that opposes the lord (Lornz, Felix, Ferdinand)

Hubert evil vampire man who sometimes listen to Edelgard it’s realistic. You think great leaders have everyone listening to them all the time, you’re hella wrong, the people the leader works with will oppose leader ideas and do what they find best. It happens all the time. Just look at managers and assistant managers, they tell you two different things all the time. But he still does like and respect Edelgard. Even though his support with Byleth is mainly Edelgard based his other supports make fun of him for being so creepy looking so that’s fun. He’s like a toned down Tharja, yeah he still kills people but he’s got a couple more topic to talk about.

Ferdinand has a complicated relationship to Edlegard which is interesting. Before she declares war he wants to be better than her in every way and she lowkey beats him. He believes in the nobility while she’s plotting against it, but knows Ferdinand has the merit. If he stays with the empire he wants to see the world be based on merit, and wants to be better than Edelgard but by her side. If he leaves it’s because his father who was involed with experimenting on children and didn’t something during a revolt of Hrem? Gets kicked out the empire and later killed. He didn’t know the dark past of his father and probably didn’t get the chance to learn. The way I see Ferdinand is that whether he learns about his father influences whether he stays or not, because I bet Edelgard explains to him secretly why his father would oppose Edelgard becoming emperor . He’s a bright ray of sunshine that updates his values throughout some supports and that’s what happens when you grow up. You find out your parents may have done some messed up things and change yourself based on that sometimes. I saw Edelgard and Ferdinand as two neighborhood kids who use to hate each other, then they grow apart and one wants to keep the relationship going so they keep the rivalry going on, but then joins them on the bigger and better things together.

You’re right their relationships aren’t believable before the time at school but given time they spend at school yeah I see it. Petra makes the best out of a bad situation, the nobles would wanna know why Dorthea doesn’t like them so much but wants to marry them. Caspar acts like a majority of people I know and they have friends but ain’t afraid to say F off I’m busy. Hubert gets to be a vampire and has freedom to be his own person while being Edelgard’s retainer. Ferdinand relationship with Edelgard is believeable to me, I’ve had different experiences than you. Linhart and Bernie, didn’t really listen to much what they had to say, just wanted to play some maps at that point.

The writers didn’t really make Byleth helpful, and if I was truly Byleth I would have been like “you know what go and try to kill a heavily guarded emperor I don’t care anymore even parts of your country is pretending you’re dead” because christ it was hard listening to that for like 4-6chapters. I still don’t completely understand the Duscur stuff, did war break out when the king and queen were killed in the land of Duscur, the queen planned it but still got killed and then war broke out and they sent the traumatized prince/king to go fight in it and watch his friend Glen die? He was like 10 when the war happened? Like I know he’s suffering but his character really went from I’m a nice young man with morals and can be easily tricked to murder is the only thing on the brain. Byleth didn’t really have many dialoug choices to deal with Dimitri. I know he’s unhinged but I would have lost faith to re hinge him and let what happens happen.

He snaps back after Felix’s dad dies and tells him some stuff and then gets stabbed by Flèche. I didn’t really care because I didn’t know Dimitri was gonna to have a new emotions and at that point I just wanted it finished.

Tbh the writers probably didn’t put much effort into Edelgard route and all their brain power went to BL. BL everyone knew each other before school started. Mercedes and Annette (lowkey Lornz in that group too) Ingrid, Felix, Sylvain, and Dimitri and Dedue. Ashe is the only odd ball out. And two BL characters get plot relevant chapters not just paralpugs, so the writers were really trying hard for BL

BE most of the nobles of that house probably all heard each other’s names mostly once of twice but didn’t really interact before that. The route is shorter than BL by like 6 chapters I think (BE was like 18 and BL was 24?? I think) so the writers probably weren’t thinking what they were putting down when making the route because be real here they were looking for money but to me their characters were more interesting.

Short answer I liked BE the most because I liked the lord and most of the house. Yeah the writing wasn’t the best, but I can enjoy it for what it was.

#fire emblem #ask #anon

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