cruilsummer

[cruilsummer]

the curse of freedom vs ymir's curse

Last night I finished attack on titan - it was something i had been dreading and postponing for a while, having received a few spoilers from the manga and seen mixed reactions from fans.

I'm not here to judge wether it was good or bad, or to make huge analysis of it as a finale - after all, i'm still digesting and understanding where i stand regarding that.

However, while watching these last chapters, I felt really close to Eren's character. It's funny, because he is purposefully pushing everyone away from him, and for most of the season, we barely see him. He is hiding not only from his friends, enemies and from everyone in between, but also from the watcher. And weirdly enough, that's when I got time to really think about him - and specially after the finale, i felt like sharing some of those thoughts.

When we think of young Eren, the child we are first introduced to, we know that freedom is a very important part of his character. He wants to see the world, to know the truth, to go beyond. He's also obstinate, vengeful and stubborn. Eren is a great main character not because he is the most powerful, the smartest or most skilled, but because he has a personality that is intersting to watch. He is flawed, he is human. And even after getting it wrong multiple times and not being the best, somehow he is magnetic enough to keep the best, wisest and most skilled around - either to protect him of protect others from him.

Jean Paul Sartre says that humanity has the curse of freedom - a burden. It makes us responsable for our choices, making it both a gift and a curse. I kept thinking about it the entire time I was watching this last part of the anime.

Because freedom has always been a key element to Eren's character. Both literally - the freedom of being away from the walls and seeing the world, and figuratively - the freedom of making his own choices, deciding who to trust, fighting for what he thought was fair...

And the worst thing that could happen to him, happens: he is the titan that bares the memories from everyone who has been in that position before. From the moment the touches Historia's hand on, he can't go back - now past, present and future coexist, and his choices don't feel like his anymore - it's just fate.

It's Ymir's curse robbing him from the humanity's curse.

He sees the outcome and knows it cannot be changed. It's impacting because, being Eren, he will try to change it. It's who he is: stubborn, obstinate, vengeful. Obsessed with justice, obsessed with freedom. But now he can't. His entire life he felt in charge, deciding his own destiny based on his perceptions of justice, his bonds, his story. But now he is not so sure - how much was already decided? How much was like that because of the ones that came before? And how does one just keeps living like that, not only questioning everything, but also being aware of all those different memories that used to constitute very different people? But how different can they be, if they all share the same memories?

That's the beginning of the end for him. And he knows that reaching the sea doesn't mean he is free, like he used to believe. He knows that killing every titan won't make him free either, and killing everyone outside Paradis won't either. He's lost his freedom, his gift.

On the other hand, we have Mikasa. Eren tells her that (just like him), she is not free. Her every action to protect him, her love for him, is just the Ackerman's curse. And that's where he gets it wrong. Because Mikasa is free. And it's a burden and a curse for her, unlike for Eren, because it would be easier if she didn't have to choose between saving the world and saving her best friend, the love of her life.

Parallel, Ymir's love for the King kept her hostage, wasn't healthy, made her unable to stop what became her curse, what would haunt all Eldians.

Mikasa loves Eren - and not because of her clan's curse. It's hard to explain what exactly makes us love - we simply do. But to make a long story short, and in an oversimplification, she loves him because of everything they lived together and because she knows him. And her love could be like Ymir's, and keep her hostage too. For the most part of the show, fans made fun of Mikasa for her love, called her a simp, said it made her weaker. But she was the one who killed Eren, because she knew that it was the right thing, even if it was the hard thing. She knew there was no other way. And, deep down, she knew that it was not Eren anymore - and at least she could be the one to, at last, free him. Give him what he had been seeking his entire life.

And that act alone is what touches Ymir and frees her as well. It's not Eren's death. It's Eren's death by Mikasa's hand. It's knowing that love can coexist with all sorts of mixed feelings, and that the freedom that comes with our condition as humans sometimes means that we make choices not only based on our love, and not only because they're easy.

Staying is easier because it means not changing anything - and it feels like no choice was made. We trick ourselves into thinking that leaving, changing and doing the hard things are the only decisions, because they imply movement. But staying is also a choice. Not changing is also a choice. That's our curse: living with the outcome of everything we chose to do and everything we chose not to do. Owning up and taking responsability for staying and for leaving. For hesitating or killing.

And don't get me wrong: it is not easy. As humans, we also have the burden of emotions, mixed feelings, traumas. Ymir's choice - and her love - were so complicated that they paralyzed her. And it was seeing that Mikasa's love was so equally deep that ultimately it made her move to do the right thing what moved Ymir too. And she could finally let go, even if it was the hard choice - because she had Mikasa's example.

Mikasa didn't stop loving Eren just because she killed him. She hadn't stopped loving him when he was terrible to her. She never loved him because of the Ackerman's curse - when the curses ended, she kept the scarf. She loved him when she mourned, and loved him even when she was ready to move on, and she died loving him still - altought love can change troughout somebody's life.

Setting Eren free, she sat Ymir free. And that made all Eldians free - well, as free as one can be, still bearing the burden of humanity. The ending shows exactly that: we can't control what people do with their freedom: what wars are started, whos justice empears, which cycles are repeated. But we can control what we do with our freedom, our choices.

And, just like it was Ymir's curse that ended Eren's freedom, it was humanity's curse, Mikasa's freedom, that ended Ymir’s curse.

#attack on titan #snk #snk spoilers #aot #mikasa ackerman #character analysis #attack on titan finale #eren yeager #eren jaeger #ymir #curse #ymirs curse #freedom #shingeki no kyojin

[cruilsummer]

rip bram stoker you would have loved using the word “cunty” to describe the weird sisters

[cruilsummer]

I'm here for @re-dracula being the literary editor that Bram Stoker so dearly needed

No, Jonathan wasn't in Renfield's room when he said that...

Well, that letter from the estate agent couldn't possibly have arrived before Jonathan asked it to be sent, now could it?!

[cruilsummer]

1989 (TAYLOR'S VERSION) moodboard ! - 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊

‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎♡˚.⊹ 𓅮 it's a new sound track

‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎let's dance to this beat 𓅮 ⊹.˚♡

[cruilsummer]

Random things I did not know about Dracula until now

- it has a bunch of guys all in love with the same girl but they’re not petty or love triangle-y about it, and they join forces to try and save her because they’re good dudes and genuinely care about her whether she’s with them or not

- LUCY IS A SWEETHEART AND I WANT TO SAVE HER. And on that note, where are the Lucy books??? Are authors sleeping on Lucy to write all the Dracula/Mina stuff? I mean - I get it. But LUCY. Give that girl a happy ending or something because oh dear heavens I’m not going to handle what I suspect is coming for her asjfsjk.

- Lucy and Mina’s friendship is all that is good and wonderful

- WOLVES THROUGH WINDOWS

- Van Helsing is everything

- THERE IS A COWBOY

[cruilsummer]

[cruilsummer]

As someone who did not keep up with dracula daily last year and has been worried about the whereabouts of friend Jonathan for over a month it is absolutely buckwild to learn that he has been in a hospital in Budapest raving mad about blood and demons and also winning over the hearts of various nuns with his sweet demeanor and charm

Somehow completely unexpected and also exactly where he should be

[cruilsummer]

[cruilsummer]

Meanwhile, at The Daily Graph

Editor: Hey, I heard there was a commotion with a ship crashing into the shore last night - you mind writing up a little blurb on that? No more than five hundred words?

Correspondent: I've already written over two thousand words.

Editor: ...

Correspondent: There was a dog.

Editor: Print it!

[cruilsummer]

I never needed anything more

Sylvia Plath- Abridged Journals // my august corn field // @diarygirls // my golden summer // Mary Oliver - The Pond // another photo of mine // @nobodysflower // unknown // @fortuneaday // Keaton St. James - September Affirmation (Don’t Be Afraid)

[cruilsummer]

whispers of "are you sure?" // "never have i ever before."

[cruilsummer]

29 days since we last heard from our good friend Jonathan Harker.

0 days since we lost more men on the Demeter.

[cruilsummer]

There goes the cutest woman this town has ever seen.

[cruilsummer]

THIS IS MY COMING OF AGE: Creation & Control in The Good Witch

[cruilsummer]

i want to shake those two little Victorian girl bitchs hands who faked the pictures of themselves playing with fairies and thank them for paving the way.

[cruilsummer]

inside my brain

[cruilsummer]

i have seen 3 different takes IN A ROW of xenk from the dnd movie OBVIOUSLY representing:

the DM's friend who wanted to bring his high level character in to play for one session

an NPC the DM realized was OP and couldn't let stay with the party

the one friend in the group whose schedule is never open, so the one time they actually make it they get to do all the coolest bits to make up for that

and none of these are wrong.