Jayce Enduring A Symbolic Rendition Of Viktor's Trauma Is So Painful And So, So Clever.

I FIND IT SO FUNNY THAT I MADE THIS BEFORE THE TUMBLR SEXYMAN COMPETITION

"Stop bombing Gaza"

Train graffiti in Rome

YES I LOVE THEM BOTH SM!! they had sm chemistry towards the end

I have so many thoughts (and feels) about Jean and Reiner’s relationship, but I find them hard to put into words.

Anyway, what strikes me the most about them, is the fact that they both started off as rather minor, but well fleshed out side characters (instant faves), who eventually underwent tremendous changes and, at least for me, set the tone for the entire story.

Reiner’s shift from the toughest solider around to the most vulnerable victim of war, and Jean’s shift from a self-absorbed asshole to the most caring and selfless leader, tie in very well with how their own bond was shaped in the grand finale.

What can I say, Jean is Jean because of Marco’s death. So, when he tells Reiner he’ll never forgive him, he can’t forgive him, this is what Reiner surely expects to hear, just like the rest of us.

But then, the moment Jean realizes why Reiner did what he did, and that their motivations are exactly the same, Jean backtracks on what he said — does not forget (because it's still about Marco to a great extent), but does forgive, if you ask me.

Jean then proceeds to be visibly alarmed whenever Reiner is in any kind of danger and comes to his rescue time after time. And Reiner? Well, he is still the same suicidal man who has for a long time considered himself to be the biggest piece of shit, unworthy of anyone’s forgiveness. And here comes the best friend of the man he helped to murder, the one that should despise him the most, and shows him that Reiner’s life is important to him. Jean doesn’t spend the final battle shouting Conny’s name like a maniac or worrying about Mikasa (as if she needs that, ha) — he instead focuses on Reiner, because he gets him now and because he regrets dealing damage to the man who has been already damaged enough.

In the final chapters Jean’s mission, aside from the obvious one, is to keep Reiner alive.

So, Jean shows Reiner how much he cares. He single-handedly saves him from the Colossal Titan. Tells him he is still one of them.

Once Reiner realizes Jean really means what he says, something shifts. It must be strange for Reiner, to acknowledge this kind of concern for his person — taking into consideration not only their rocky past, but also the contrast between his own mother and Jean. One telling him he is only as valuable as his Titan power. The other telling him to stop transforming because he's afraid Reiner will get hurt again.

From that specific moment shared with Jean, Reiner no longer seems as much resigned to his fate. On the contrary, he’s focused and determined. And to shamelessly quote Gojo Satoru (hehe), he knows that dying to win and risking death to win are two completely different things.

(and Jean continues to worry)

What I’m getting at is that along the way, Reiner and Jean have become the hidden heart of the story. Together, they shifted from the sidelines to the very center of the action.

Even if they are just one piece of the puzzle, drowning in the bigger picture that are Eren, Mikasa and Armin, Jean and Reiner are the ones that, quite possibly, have the most to say about humanity itself in the AOT universe. They are the bridge between the two sides of that war.

Isayama’s decision to pair them up for the final showdown and to continue placing them next to each other in almost every following panel is a very nice touch. (They are his faves too, after all)

Not to mention this cover variant:

One of them is a child turned into a weapon of mass destruction. The other almost a toy soldier in the grand scheme of things.

It's good they managed to save each other.

WWWAAAAA

what if

What actually happened to Jayce and Viktor in the end? And why didn’t Ekko’s Z-drive destroy everything within its blast radius?

TL;DR: the only timeline that could have worked was the one where Viktor gives Jayce the Acceleration rune, where Ekko invents the Z-drive, and where Jayce saves Viktor and gets his partner back.

Something we’ve seen pointed out is that the world rune that worked in this timeline was the Acceleration rune, which has the function of transportation through time and space. 

Ekko’s Z-drive was built by inverting Jayce’s Acceleration rune (this is important later).

We know from his experiments that the limit for reversing time is only 4 seconds. Any further back and it causes catastrophic harm to his surroundings. It’s implied that the further he overextends his Z-drive, the more disastrous the damage and radius of effect.

In the final battle against Viktor, we see Ekko overextend his Z-drive far beyond 4 seconds. Then, he yeets it at Viktor, whose mask is shattered from the impact.

We know that turning back time beyond 4 seconds causes catastrophic destruction of the surrounding areas: Jayce and Viktor, and perhaps countless others should have been caught up in the blast. But instead, we see something different:

Time stands still for a moment, courtesy of the boy who shattered time. 

Now things happen all in a manner of seconds: In the astral plane, we see Viktor comment on the anomaly that Ekko has created.

It’s something that Viktor as smart as he is, couldn’t have conceived— leave it to Ekko (and lest I forget, Heimerdinger and alt-Jinx) to show them all up.

This is debatable, but I firmly believe that Viktor with his awareness of all time and space, could have escaped or even survived the explosion.

It’s only Jayce, the only person who could show him what he showed him, that gets through to him in the end and convinces him to give up his Glorious Evolution.

"In all timelines, only you can show me this". Ekko is the catalyst but Jayce was the key.

Jayce returns the Acceleration rune to Viktor which kicks off a chain of events. The souls under Viktor’s control are freed from his grasp. Back in the real world, and back to the explosion, we see the following happening almost simultaneously: 

The blast from the Z-drive extends from Viktor’s reach to Jayce’s

The Acceleration rune embedded in Jayce’s wrist starts to glow from being activated by Jayce and Viktor in the astral plane

Jayce and Viktor are absorbed into the gem and the gemstone blips out of existence 

Recall that the Z-drive was created through an inversion of the Acceleration rune. To multiply something by its inverse, is to divide it by itself. The Acceleration rune multiplied by the Inversed Acceleration rune, cancels out the effect of the other: nullifying both the anomaly from the Z-drive but also the rune.

This explains why there was no larger explosion. Viktor and Jayce (who chose to stay) sacrificed themselves and took themselves out of the equation. Jayce and Viktor were the anomalies— just like the Z-drive should not have existed, neither should have Hextech.

Through all the timelines and permutations of runes that Viktor tried, the only combination that could have worked was in the timeline with the Acceleration rune. It couldn’t have worked if it was any other rune, if Ekko had never invented the Z-drive, or if Jayce had never convinced Viktor to give up his path of destruction, and got his partner back.

In short: Boy Savior saves the day; Love Wins

The Jojo Band 💜

fanart by @/pixelnovak, musical arrangement by @/ursowo.

Villains when the online article, How to be a successful villain, says “don’t develop any romantic feelings for your nemesis”

"The most talented duo in the public safety devil hunter division!"

he did in fact not come back

Newsflash: Chuuya cares for Dazai

This can be sort of counted as a part two of my analysis talking about Dazai's care for Chuuya. In this post I will be focusing on Chuuya's feelings and care towards Dazai, hope you enjoy! :)

Chuuya Nakahara is a very expressive character, therefore, it is logical to believe that his feelings towards Dazai are easy to grasp, which is true. But just because we can understand Chuuya's feelings easier does not make them any less complex.

This is going to sound much harsher than I intend it to but Chuuya's hatred towards Dazai is defiently more genuine and prominent than Dazai's "hatred" towards Chuuya. Fellow Soukoku shipper reading this, I know this hurts but bare with me!

Dazai's "hatred" for Chuuya is truly not as strong. Don't get me wrong, there are some aspects that Chuuya has that Dazai finds annoying, but he doesn't truly hate him. Chuuya is one of the first people that Dazai ever actually started to harvest genuine care for. Chuuya was also one of the reasons Dazai wanted to continue living in Fiftheen, not to mention how Chuuya was basically Dazai's drive to continue living and fighting in Stormbringer. I think that Dazai's reasoning to "hate" Chuuya is because of the sole reason that Chuuya was indirectly making Dazai bring out aspects of himself that he has never shown or even knew he had before. I believe that another reason Dazai could "hate" Chuuya is because of how loyal he is to the pm, which could be seen as ironic considering the fact that Chuuya's loyalty was exactly what drew Dazai in back when they were 15.

As much as I hate to admit it, Chuuya does "hate" Dazai. He even resents the idea of being associated with Dazai. The reason for this is simple: he hates what Dazai Osamu represents. Everyone in the port mafia saw Dazai as inhuman, even Dazai himself doesn't see himself as human, and Chuuya desperately wants to be seen as human. So he proyects his own anger and fear of not being human onto Dazai. Another reason Chuuya could hate Dazai is because of how Dazai, a biological human— rejects his own humanity. Something that Chuuya craves so bad.

The reason as to why I say that Chuuya's hate can be considered stronger than Dazai's is because both of these characters strive for one thing: Humanity.

Dazai sees Chuuya as a human. During Stormbringer he doesn't even doubts Chuuya's humanity even after Chuuya's sketchy background and orgins. Dazai even likes to drop small hints to Chuuya that he is human.

This pannel represents their view for each other very well. Dazai says "im human too, you know?" he says the word "too", emphazasing on the fact that he is also calling Chuuya human. And what is Chuuya's response to that? "Nobody would believe that shit." So... Is Chuuya talking about himself or about Dazai here? I would say both, on one side this can be seen as Chuuya insulting Dazai. But if we look at the bigger picture and also Dazai's choice of words, Chuuya is actually saying that its hard to believe that he himself is human. But at the end of the day, he is just proyecting his insecurities and anger towards Dazai like he always does, but this time it was an insult that hurts both of them.

Chuuya "hated" Dazai. Back when both of them were in the pm, Chuuya acted like he didn't give two shits about Dazai. During the times we've seen these two when they were in the pm, Dazai's care for Chuuya was 10x more evident than Chuuya's care for Dazai. Chuuya's behavior towards Dazai is much more crude and vulgar, but that does not mean that Chuuya doesn't care for Dazai, infact Chuuya cares a whole lot for him. Back then, Chuuya did not want to accept it. He did not want to accept that he cared for the person who he wanted to see as "inhuman" so badly.

Even though Chuuya "hated" him when they were in the pm, he felt close to Dazai, he felt so close to him to the point he truly trusts him with corruption and with battle strategies.

Chuuya defiently held a lot of care for Dazai in the pm but he never took the time to think or even realize his care. I would like to say that Chuuya's care was instincitve. Chuuya never hesitates to save Dazai, there was never an ulterior motive to save him, he just dives in without a question.

My favorite example to show when it comes to Chuuya's instinctive care will always be in stormbringer, code 4:

"So that's how it is..." Dazai said as he stared back at the black lump with a stern expression on his face.

Cracks appeared on the ground. Something that looked like the head of a reptile pooked out of the lump.

"Watch out!" Chuuya jumped to the side by manipulating gravity and grabbed Dazai, rolling over to the woods.

Chuuya did not even think twice of pulling Dazai away from harm. Chuuya didn't hesitate at all. The reason for that is simple, he cares. He just doesn't want to accept it nor acknowledge it.

Another perfect example of Chuuya's care when they were back in the pm is the whole microscope situation in the dragon head conflict. Its quite funny how a minute before realizing Dazai's plan, Chuuya told Mori how Dazai is better off dead, but the moment he realize that there was a chance to get Dazai and his own friends out of Shibusawa's mess, he did not overthink it at all and quickly goes over to help Dazai.

So my point is Chuuya was so focused on his own self-proyecting towards Dazai to even realize he cares for him. But that all changes the night Dazai leaves the pm.

The next think I will be discussing about is something that I have talked about on my last previous posts, so if you want a more detailed explanation about this you can go read them. (for some reason I can't link my own posts but they aren't hard to find!)

But anyways, Chuuya has lost so many significant people in his life, he's either been betrayed by them or they die. Dazai has been such a constant person in Chuuya's life and I believe that Chuuya didn't really acknowledge that, maybe he did realize in some sort of subconcious level, hence why he always is instinctively protective over Dazai when he's in real danger.

It was actually Dazai's departure when it hit Chuuya that he indeed does care for Dazai. It was the moment when he realized how wierd it feels to have that one person who stuck with you since you first entered the pm to suddendly disappear.

I think everyone in this fandom can agree that Chuuya was hurt by Dazai leaving without any explanation, even Asagiri confirmed this in the afterwards of stormbringer by saying that Chuuya's feelings towards Dazai leaving the pm haven't been fully revealed yet, and I think its pretty evident by Chuuya's expression when he mentions Dazai's departure, he wasn't happy about it at all.

It was Dazai's departure that wierdly enough strenghtened Soukoku's bond from Chuuya's end. Sure, Chuuya holds a lot of grudge and resentment towards Dazai for leaving, but Dazai has also been the only person in his life who was able to leave and come back, and not only just "come back" but both of them also managed to mantain the same partnership and bond they've shared for years.

When they see each other in the basement, Chuuya chooses to let him go. He could've restrained him to give Dazai a harder time, especially if we consider the fact that Dazai literally "betrayed" the pm– betraying Chuuya to an extension. But Chuuya lets him go, because he doesn't want him to actually die.

Chuuya could've also shown a way stronger resolve when it came to fighting Dazai in the basement, but he doesn't. He lets Dazai "harass" him back. He even goes as far as to humilate himself to make Dazai laugh.

There was literally no reason whatsoever for Chuuya to do this. It was just a sublte bonding moment between the two.

In the lovecraft battle, Chuuya was being so open about his trust for Dazai. These two always have this "actions speaks louder than words" thing going on but I think that Dazai really needed that reassurence, Dazai needed that reassurence that Chuuya still trusts him even after leaving him, he needed that reassurence that Chuuya trusts him.

Back when both were in the pm days, Chuuya would've never said this outloud. Ever. But now that he actually realized how important Dazai is to him so he can't help but say it out loud, to show that vulnerable side of him. Even when he believes that theres a posibility Dazai doesn't care back.

I literally love this "light punch to the chest" gesture, its so subtle yet so sweet. Showing us how although they both are in opossing sides now, they will always find a way to keep their partnership and bond. This little punch screams "I still see you as a partner and that's not changing you idiot" and I love that so much.

And then of course, we can talk about Dead Apple and how much trust Chuuya puts into Dazai and his strategies. We even have Chuuya admiting to trusting his vitality and craftiness. Chuuya trusts Dazai so much to the point he used corruption with the faith that Dazai will nullify it, even when everyone deemed Dazai dead.

These two truly treasure each other and especially their feelings towards each other. It's so intimate, it's so familiar and it's so bittersweet.