You ever think about many peices of media have zero women and thats just perfectly normal but if a peice of media has an all female cast people get... like that? Women should be allowed to kill over this btw
It's not for lack of trying. People need to understand that, in the end, money speaks. If you want to see more of something, don't spend your energy attacking what exists. Support what you want to flourish.
Audiences aren't rejecting female-led stories. They've embraced them for decades. What people reject are hollow imitations, half-baked rehashes of beloved stories that feel less like genuine creative visions and more like boxes being checked. When representation is treated as an obligation instead of an inspiration, it risks feeling like an afterthought rather than something worthy of celebration.
What people truly want are compelling stories, memorable characters, and worlds worth investing in. They've shown that time and again through their support of shows like The Golden Girls, Gilmore Girls, Derry Girls, Broad City, Orange Is the New Black, Big Little Lies, Desperate Housewives, Pretty Little Liars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Yellowjackets, The Power, Xena: Warrior Princess, Wynonna Earp, Orphan Black, Sailor Moon, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, K-On!, Sex and the City, GLOW, Dead to Me, Good Girls, The L Word, Rizzoli & Isles, Killing Eve, Fleabag, Girls, We Are Lady Parts, A League of Their Own, Call the Midwife, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Anne with an E, Dollface, 2 Broke Girls, Gossip Girl, The Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet/Vicious, Paper Girls, The Wilds, Hart of Dixie, Queen Sugar, Reba, Hot in Cleveland, One Day at a Time, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Younger, The Bold Type, Firefly Lane, Workin' Moms, and Girls5eva.
The lesson isn't that audiences won't support women-led stories. The lesson is that audiences will always support great stories. Make something honest, something excellent, something unforgettable, and people will follow.
Everything is slipping. I've become numb, and I struggle to let people in, let them love me, because I've been burned too many times. Thrown away.
I feel like life is slipping past me and I'm missing it. Missing genuine connections with people who love me. Not because I don't want to let them in, but because somewhere along the way I became numb.
Escapism. Obsessing over hobbies. Doom scrolling. Filling every empty space with things that don't matter.
I don't know what to do. So I keep busy. Keep moving forward.
It hits me at night. Sometimes I cry.
I miss people.
I miss moments.
I hate that everything is temporary.
It's so hard to live in the present. I'm either longing for what's behind me or worrying about what's ahead of me.
And while I'm looking in both directions, the life happening right now keeps slipping through my fingers.
Thereâs something about how people talk about female characters in video games that just annoys the daylights out of me.
Make a male character and itâs normal. Maybe people like him, maybe they donât, and thatâs it.
Make a female character and suddenly it turns into this whole thing where everyone has an opinion and half of them are angry for completely different reasons.
It feels like female characters canât just exist without getting turned into a debate.
If sheâs attractive or stylized, people jump straight to âoversexualized.â Then the same list always shows up. 2B, Tifa, Tracer, Lara Croft, Eve from Stellar Blade, most of Marvel Rivals, whatever the current example is... And then the conversation stops being about the actual character and turns into people arguing about intent, or calling developers creepy, or saying the game is designed for âgooners.â It just spirals immediately.
If she isnât designed to fit that same standard of attractiveness, then she gets called ugly, âwoke,â âugly modern design,â all of that. Aloy gets used as the example constantly, even when nothing about her character actually supports that criticism.
So there is no real winning. Itâs either âtoo sexualizedâ or ânot attractive enough,â and both sides act like the character design is a problem that needs correcting instead of just⊠a design choice.
And yeah, there are exceptions. Resident Evil gets brought up a lot for a reason. But even then, it doesnât really stop. People will still mod characters, heaven forbid your main character wear enough clothing.
What annoys me is how little of this has anything to do with the actual game. Itâs barely ever about gameplay or writing or personality. Itâs just people projecting whatever argument they already want to have onto a character model.
I like playing female characters. Sometimes I prefer it. Itâs just a nice change from the usual default.
But it feels like weâre stuck in this loop where female character design is either treated like itâs catering to the wrong crowd or failing some invisible standard, there seems to be little to no middle ground.
It just feels like people canât talk about and enjoy female characters normally anymore.
MY TOP 10 ANIME OF ALL TIME (until I change this again in two weeks đ)
I swear ranking anime gets harder every year. Iâve watched around 50 anime at this point and there are SO many that could deserve a spot here depending on the day. Some emotionally destroyed me, some became comfort shows, some completely changed how I look at storytelling, and some just have characters and worlds I never wanted to leave.
Honestly, the difference between a lot of these rankings is tiny. One week I want to move JJK higher because the fights are insane, then I remember how hard 86 hit emotionally, then Solo Leveling shows up with pure hype and ruins everything again. So this isnât really an âobjective best animeâ list. These are just the anime that have stayed in my brain and heart the longest.
#10 â Frieren
Frieren is one of the quietest anime Iâve watched, but somehow also one of the most emotionally powerful. It doesnât rely on constant chaos or nonstop action to keep your attention. Instead it focuses on time, memory, loss, friendship, and what it means to realize too late how important people were to you. The emotional weight sneaks up on you slowly.
What I love most is how reflective it feels. The world is beautiful, peaceful, and melancholic all at once. The smaller moments matter just as much as the big fantasy battles. Watching Frieren slowly learn how to emotionally connect with people after centuries of distance feels incredibly human. Itâs one of those anime that just sits with you afterward.
#9 â Dandadan
Dandadan feels like complete nonsense in the best possible way. Aliens, ghosts, romance, horror, absurd comedy, emotional backstories, insane animation â this show somehow combines all of it without falling apart. Science SARU absolutely went insane animating this series and every episode feels alive.
What surprised me most is how much I ended up genuinely caring about the characters. Beneath all the insanity, the relationships actually feel sincere. The emotional scenes hit harder than I expected from a show involving turbo grandmas and alien chaos. Itâs one of the most energetic anime Iâve watched in years.
#8 â Vivy: Fluorite Eyeâs Song
Vivy is criminally underrated. It somehow packs incredible sci-fi storytelling, gorgeous animation, emotional character moments, and amazing music into a relatively short series. The soundtrack alone elevates so many scenes into something unforgettable.
Thereâs also this constant bittersweet loneliness running through the entire story that really affected me emotionally. The show feels hopeful and tragic at the same time. Every major arc leaves some kind of emotional scar behind, and the ending hit me way harder than I expected. Itâs one of those anime I think about randomly months later.
#7 â Hunter x Hunter
Hunter x Hunter is one of the most fascinating anime Iâve watched because of how dramatically it evolves. It starts off feeling adventurous and fun, almost deceptively simple, and then slowly transforms into something psychologically darker and way more emotionally intense than you expect.
The writing is what really makes it elite for me. The power system is brilliant, the strategy matters, and fights are rarely about who simply punches harder. And then thereâs the Chimera Ant arc, which honestly changed the way I looked at anime storytelling entirely. Gonâs character arc especially is one of the most disturbing and tragic downward spirals Iâve seen.
#6 â Witch Hat Atelier
This anime is climbing my rankings unbelievably fast. Even unfinished, it already feels special in a way thatâs hard to explain. The worldbuilding and magic system immediately hooked me, but the atmosphere is what completely sold me. It feels whimsical, mysterious, emotional, and slightly melancholic all at once.
The art style is also genuinely stunning. Every frame feels handcrafted. It reminds me why fantasy worlds feel magical in the first place. Thereâs a warmth and wonder here that a lot of fantasy anime lose while trying too hard to be dark or edgy. If this keeps delivering emotionally, it could honestly climb even higher.
#5 â NieR: Automata Ver1.1a
The original NieR: Automata already meant a lot to me, so I was nervous about the anime adaptation. Somehow the anime still managed to become one of my favorite anime experiences anyway. The atmosphere alone is unbelievable. The music, the existential themes, the loneliness, the tragedy â everything about it feels emotionally heavy in the best way.
What really makes NieR special for me is how philosophical it feels without losing its emotional core. It asks huge questions about identity, purpose, consciousness, and what makes life meaningful, but it never forgets the human side of those ideas. Some anime entertain you while you watch them. NieR stays in your brain afterward.
Honorable Mentions (because this list physically hurt to make):
My Hero Academia â one of the most lovable casts in anime and still some of the hypest moments ever.
Demon Slayer â ufotable animation is honestly ridiculous and the emotional moments hit harder than people give it credit for.
Solo Leveling â pure hype injected directly into my bloodstream.
Death Note â still one of the greatest first watches in anime history.
86 â genuinely beautiful and emotionally devastating.
One Punch Man, Chainsaw Man, Hellâs Paradise, Sword Art Online, Spy x Family, and honestly probably several more Iâm forgetting right now.
#4 â Spy x Family
This is one of my biggest comfort anime. I love darker and more intense stories, but Spy x Family is the kind of show I can put on anytime and immediately enjoy. The Forgers are such a lovable fake family that you almost forget theyâre all hiding ridiculous secrets from each other. Anya alone instantly became one of my favorite anime characters.
What really makes the show special is the balance. It mixes comedy, action, wholesome family moments, and emotional sincerity almost perfectly. Underneath all the humor, itâs really about broken people slowly becoming a real family without fully realizing it yet. Itâs warm without feeling shallow.
#3 â Kaguya-sama: Love is War
I never expected a romcom to end up this high on my list, but Kaguya-sama is genuinely one of the funniest anime Iâve ever seen while ALSO somehow becoming one of the most emotionally satisfying. The narrator is legendary, the comedy timing is perfect, and every character feels ridiculously entertaining.
But what pushed it into all-time territory for me is how much heart it has underneath the comedy. Over time the characters slowly let down their emotional walls and the relationships become genuinely meaningful. By the later seasons I was fully emotionally invested. Also the openings are absurdly good.
#2 â Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
FMAB is still probably the closest thing Iâve seen to a âperfectâ anime. Itâs one of the few long-running series where almost every character matters, every arc contributes something meaningful, and the ending actually delivers. Brotherhood somehow keeps getting stronger as it goes instead of falling apart near the finish.
I also love how balanced it is tonally. It can go from hilarious to heartbreaking in seconds without feeling jarring. The themes about sacrifice, humanity, forgiveness, and the value of life never feel forced. Even after all these years, this is still the anime I recommend first when someone asks for a show that does everything well.
#1 â Attack on Titan
Nothing has matched the overall experience of Attack on Titan for me. The scale of the story, the tension, the mysteries, the music, the emotional devastation, the constant feeling that humanity is barely surviving â it just felt bigger than every other anime Iâd watched. There were so many episodes where I genuinely just sat there afterward trying to process what happened.
And honestly, the more time passes, the more impressive it becomes. The amount of foreshadowing is insane. Early scenes completely change meaning later once you understand the full story. It balances action, horror, politics, philosophy, tragedy, and character writing at an unbelievably high level. There are anime I love for comfort or vibes or specific characters, but Attack on Titan is the one that felt like witnessing an entire era of storytelling unfold.
Ask me again in six months and this ranking will probably change again đ
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
"That inch was everything. That inch was the boundary they had kept intact for years through sheer stubbornness and pride. The line they pretended was professional.
He could stop it. He should stop it.
He could turn around and say, enough. He could step out, dripping paint and water, and accept the humiliation of being the only one who couldnât handle something so simple.
He did not move.
Hangeâs fingers dragged soap across his skin, and she did not stop either."
- excerpt from chapter 6.
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Hange Zoë
Characters: Levi Ackerman, Hange Zoë, Erwin Smith, Petra Ral, Keith Shadis, Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert, Annie Leonhart, Sasha Blouse, Niccolo (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Additional Tags: Modern Era, Crack Treated Seriously, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Touch-Starved, Unwanted Emotional Intimacy, Weaponized Wellness Retreat, There Was Only One Bed, Angst and Romance, emotional smut, Sensual but Not Anatomical, Rating Increased After Chapter 4, originally Teen, now Mature, Sexual Tension So Thick You Can Measure It, This Retreat Violated Several Ethical Guidelines, Sexual Tension Documented In Real Time, I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE, This Retreat Should Be Investigated, Humanity cannot defeat the enemy unless we face the truth., If you donât sacrifice something, you canât change anything, High Thread Count Linen, Water is wet, And So is Hange
Summary:
Levi and Hange are professionally competent, personally incompatible, and forcibly enrolled in an all-inclusive ârelational retreatâ by their deeply unbothered boss, Erwin. What is meant to be a simple team-building exercise quickly becomes a study in enemies-to-lovers escalation, forced proximity, and wellness-industry overreach, complete with invasive bonding exercises, shared spaces, and food that is far too emotionally targeted. Neither of them is prepared for the consequences. Especially not Levi.
A Survival RPG Challenge for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
CORE PHILOSOPHY
You are not a chosen hero guided by divine power. You are a lone wanderer surviving the wilds of Hyrule. Every decision matters. Every fight has risk. Every journey must be planned out.
I wanted a reason to come back to Hyrule that actually felt different. It's not just harder, but more alive. A world where I can completely immerse myself.
At some point, things like the hoverbike start to feel like a shortcut that takes more away than it gives. You skip the roads, the danger, the planning. This is the opposite of that. No easy outs. If you want to get somewhere, you have to actually go there.
This turns the game into more of a survival RPG. You plan your routes, manage your supplies, and think twice before every fight. The goal is not to punish you. It is to make the world feel real again and to make every journey matter.
Note: This mode is extremely challenging, but not impossible. Areas that normally rely on the paraglider require more thought, preparation, and creativity. I considered allowing it, but the instinct to rely on it is too strong. Removing it forces a different kind of play, one where movement, like everything else, has to be earned.
Allowing it would also require adding layers of extra rules just to keep it in check, which goes against the spirit of this challenge. The goal is clarity and discipline, not complexity.
Play like the world is real. Plan your journeys, respect the danger, accept what you can't control, and take the long way there.
---
CORE RULES
No paraglider
No Skyview Towers
No fast travel
No optimized flying machines (e.g., hoverbike)
No healing during combat
You must sleep each night
Morning Fate Roll (after sleeping; see Survival Rules below)
Must seek shelter during storms
Only eat at campfires or in towns (no eating during combat)
You may carry up to 10 meals and elixirs
Must choose and follow a class
Death carries consequences (see Death System below)
No Amiibos
---
CLASS SYSTEM (CHOOSE ONE)
Your class defines your combat identity. You must follow its restrictions at all times.
đĄïžKnight
Allowed: Swords, shields, heavy armor
Restricted: Bows (utility only)
Armor: Heavy armor preferred (high defense sets encouraged)
Playstyle: Defensive, durable, disciplined
đč Ranger
Allowed: Bows, spears, light weapons
Restricted: Heavy weapons
Armor: Light armor only (mobility and stealth focused)
Playstyle: Agile, ranged, survivalist
đȘ Barbarian
Allowed: Two-handed weapons only
Restricted: Shields
Armor: Limited (no high-defense sets preferred)
Playstyle: High risk, high damage
đź Mystic
Allowed: Rods, elemental weapons, wands/staves
Restricted: Strong melee weapons
Armor: No heavy armor (focus on utility or elemental sets)
Armor: Light or utility armor only (no high-defense sets)
Playstyle: Engineering solutions, indirect combat
---
LEVELING SYSTEM
Every 4 Shrines = 1 Level Up
At each level up, choose ONE:
+1 Heart
+1 Stamina Upgrade
Unlock a Perk
---
PERK SYSTEM
You begin with no perks. Each perk represents growth and adaptation.
Available General Perks:
Field Medic - You may heal once during combat per encounter
Stormwalker - You no longer need to seek shelter during storms
Weapon Mastery - Expand your class to allow one additional weapon type not already allowed by your class (cannot be a restricted weapon type, may only be taken once)
Survivor - You may eat outside campfires (not during combat)
Nightwalker - You may travel through the night but must sleep before the next nightfall.
Wayfarer - You may use fast travel once per Blood Moon
Second Chance - Upon death, you may keep your equipped items once per Blood Moon
Pack Rat - Increase your meal carry limit by +5
---
Class Specific Perks (only available for your class):
đĄïž KNIGHT PERKS
Battle Recovery - You gain an additional combat heal per encounter (2 total if you have Field Medic)
Hold the Line - Ignore storm + night restrictions during active combat scenarios
đč RANGER PERKS
Trail Rations - You may eat uncooked foods freely while traveling, even in dangerous situations.
Silent Journey - You may travel at night if you remain undetected/avoid combat
đȘ BARBARIAN PERKS
Unchained - You may heal freely during combat only while below 3 hearts
Death Defied - First death of the day has no penalty
đź MYSTIC PERKS
Arcane Flow - You may craft elixirs outside proper cooking locations
Arcane Sustenance - You may consume elixirs anywhere
âïž ARTIFICER PERKS
Auto-Builder - Freely use Autobuild
Engineered Endurance - Ignore storm and night restrictions while operating a Zonai device
---
SURVIVAL RULES
Food can only be consumed:
At campfires
In towns
Cooking:
Must be done at campfires or proper cooking locations
Cannot cook freely in unsafe conditions
Weather:
Must seek shelter during storms (unless perked)
Night:
Must sleep each night
Morning Fate Roll (after sleeping): Each morning, roll 1d6 to determine your condition for the day:
1 â Hunted: Avoid combat; -2 to death rolls
2 â Lightened: Lose 1 meal; -1 to death rolls
3â4 â Ready: No change
5 â Fortified: +1 to death rolls and your next meal counts as 2
6 â Blessed: +2 to death rolls and you may reroll one die today
---
DEATH SYSTEM
Choose your preferred difficulty:
Wounded Soul (Recommended)
â ïž DEATH ROLL When you die, roll 1d6 to determine your penalty
1 â Broken: Drop all equipped weapons; must return to a town or stable and rest
2 â Shattered: Drop 5 weapons; must find a place to rest
3 â Wounded: Drop 3 weapons; avoid unnecessary combat
4â5 â Scarred: Drop 1 weapon; no rest required
6 â Spared: Fate Saves You, no penalty
---
Ironman Mode (Hardcore)
Death = full restart
---
OPTIONAL IMMERSION RULES
Follow roads when traveling long distances
Only change armor in safe locations
Keep and care for a horse (if it dies, itâs gone)
---
WIN CONDITIONS
Choose one win condition below, roll 1d6 to decide at random, or complete them all. Treat it as your characterâs story and let the path evolve as you go.
âïž 1. Demon Kingâs Fall
End the threat consuming Hyrule
Defeat a major overworld boss (Gleeok or Lynel)
Defeat Ganondorf
đ° 2. Savior of Hyrule
Unite the regions and restore balance
Complete all 4 Regional Phenomena temples
Obtain the Master Sword
đ 3. Into the Abyss
Face the darkness beneath the world
Activate 60 Lightroots
Defeat at least 1 major Depths boss (Frox, Lynel, etc.)
âïž 4. Child of the Sky
Uncover the secrets above Hyrule
Complete all 25 Sky Shrines
Complete at least 2 major sky questlines
đż 5. Seeker of Trials
Walk the path of endurance and discovery
Complete 40 Surface Shrines
Solve at least 10 shrine quests (not just found shrines)
đĄïž 6. Forged in Survival
Become a warrior shaped by hardship
Max stamina
Fully upgrade 2 armor sets
Defeat 3 high-tier enemies (Lynel, Gleeok, etc.)
---
FINAL NOTE
This is about slowing down and playing with intention. You start limited and exposed, and over time you grow stronger by learning the world, not by bypassing it. It may seem counterintuitive to limit yourself, but a philosophy built on immersion, player choice, and creative problem solving brings the experience to life in a different way.
Are you ready for your next great adventure in Hyrule?
I put together a list of Levihan fics Iâve read and loved (in no particular order), and I really wanted to share it because these authors deserve the recognition.Â
This is only a small glimpse of whatâs out there, but each story carries something special. Revisiting them brought back every emotion I felt the first time I read them, and that kind of impact is worth sharing.Â
If youâre looking for Levihan content, these are absolutely worth your time.
I also realized I havenât been reading nearly as much since I started writing my own fics, which feels like a loss on my part. So Iâm planning to spend more time exploring newer stories and updating this list as I go.
Recommendations are welcomed and encouraged!
Canon Era (Canon Compliant and AU)
âWe are all fools in love.â â Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
đż A Simple Choice by just_quintessentially_me
đż Once More, With Feeling by LadyEny
đżStuck in the Haze by ClassesAndSwords
đż Just, For Now by preening
đż All of Me by MannaTea
đż The Titan Tracker by KayEver
đż Our True Paradise by GlassesAndSwords
đż Young Monster by FC2000
đż Swim by queenkiller
đż The Secret Society of the Children of the Forest by RedChestnut
đż At the Coastline of Memories by fanmoose12
đż Shit Talk by Jarchetype
đż Abnormal by absolutebearings (now orphaned)
đż Darling Iâm Right Here by Dontatmethanks2
đż Things You Said at 1:00 AM by ZangeHoe
đż Catch My Breath by CardineCardine
đż Four-Eyes by elmundodeflor
đż Aftermath by just_quintessentially_me
đż Ghost of You by Jarchetype
đż Peaches and Honey by urvenicebitch
đż She Would Never Know by LadyEny
đż We Have an Arrangement by sleeping_sun
đż A Little Help Goes a Long Way by revolutionrose
đż The River in the Rain by GlassesAndSwords
đż Promise by BronzeQuill
đż In a Name by PocketLynt
đż The Devil You Know by fanmoose12
đż Iced the Bruises on Your Back by adedicatedheart
đż The Pull of the Sand, the Sea, and Your Smile by PocketLynt
đż I Will Not Die (Iâll Wait Here For You) by Etagirl
đż Mosquito Bites by Jarchetype
đż Couldnât Help But Ask (You to Say it All Again) by adedicatedheart
đż Love Grows (Where My Four-Eyes Goes) by purelily
đż Ghost of You by Jarchetype
đż The Experiment (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) by KakashiSensei
đż A Mind Flower by Hange_4Ever
Modern AU
âI have loved you in many forms, in many times, in life after life, in age after age forever.â â Rabindranath Tagore
đż On the Nature of Duty by LadyEny
đż No Retreat by boostrapped_leitmotif
đż Catch Me if You Can by fanmoose12
đż Business as Usual (LeviHan) by OtakuGeekyReader
đż Later, Levi by RaiUlrikka
đż Clueless by Satsuki92
đż The Things We Donât Say by autumndory
đż âTwas the Night Before the Rumbling by bootstrapped_leitmotif
đż Findings by Noixdepapaye
đż Lessons by Satsuki92
đż Terrible Things by someonestolemyshoes
đż Yellow. By ariadneamare
đż Worth a Thousand Words by someonestolemyshoes
đż BMO series by LittleLasagne
đż Meant to Last Forever by LadyEny
đż License to Science (And Kill) by just_quintessentially_me
đż Lovebug by TundrainAfrica
đż The Unbridled Party by xtreamlibertea
đż Somewhere Only We Know by someonestolemyshoes
đż Until Another Thursday Evening by pinkweirdsunsets
đż Free-Falling by djmarinizela
đż A Tale of Two Slaves by TundrainAfrica
đż Eat Your Heart Out Series by Dontatmethanks2
đż Fake It, Until You Fall for It by StoriesOfAOT
đż Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures by Sleepyheadven
Miscellaneous AU's
âWhatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.â â Emily BrontĂ«, Wuthering Heights
đż A Dangerous Game by just_quintessentially_me
đż Darkling by Nakimochiku
đż Ploughfields by FC2000
đż Tales From the Ackerman Estate by bluemallow
đż In Your Light by lady_kalila
đż Across The Glass by hazyhyk
đż The Moon is Dark by alteirkay
đż Real Love by LadyEny
Ongoing/Unfinished
âThere is no real ending. Itâs just the place where you stop the story.â â Frank Herbert
đż The Scent & Taste of Love by JumpingUpToTheSky (First part finished. Second part ongoing)
đż Midnight Is a Terrible Time for Feelings by JarkaGinger
đż Attack on Titan by Jane Austen by bootstrapped_leitmotif
People talk a lot about generational trauma in stuff like Encanto and Moana. Families carrying pain they didnât choose, trying to hold themselves together under it.
Thatâs real. Iâm not pushing back on that.
I just think thereâs another side people donât really want to touch.
What do you do if you come from the other side of that history?
Not the people who did the damage, but the ones who show up later and realize, âsomething in my story is tied to that.â You didnât choose it. You donât agree with it. But you canât pretend itâs not there either.
And it feels like the default answer people land on (whether they say it out loud or not) is: then you carry it. Not just awareness. Not just responsibility in a healthy sense. But something closer to inherited guilt. Like youâre supposed to absorb a punishment that isnât actually tied to your own actions.
The problem is, that doesnât resolve anything. It just shifts the direction of the same weight.
Now itâs still âus vs them,â just with the labels swapped.
Thatâs why Attack on Titan feels so uncomfortable if you really sit with it.
It doesnât just show oppression, it shows what happens when entire identities are built on what came before you. Eldians arenât just people in that world. Theyâre treated as a conclusion thatâs already been reached. The judgment comes first, and then people spend their whole lives either trying to live under it or fight against it.
And even the ones who try to do something different donât get a clean lane.
Some of them try to prove theyâre âgood.â Some of them accept the hatred and turn it inward. Some of them eventually decide none of it matters and lean into the role they were given anyway.
None of those options actually fix the root issue.
Because if the framework is still âyou are responsible for what your ancestors did,â then all youâve done is make sure the conflict never runs out of fuel.
At that point itâs not about justice. Itâs about maintaining a structure where someone always has to carry the weight of the past in a way that keeps the hostility active.
And the longer that goes on, the harder it is for anyone to step outside of it without being seen as a traitor to their side or a fraud to the other.
So you end up stuck.
Thatâs the part I think people donât like sitting in. Because it forces a question that doesnât have a clean, emotional answer:
If someone didnât choose the past, what do we actually expect from them?
Awareness? Yes. Honesty? Yes. A willingness to do better than what came before? Absolutely.
But if the expectation quietly becomes âyou need to pay for it,â then weâre not solving anything. Weâre just deciding who has to hold the weight next.
And thatâs exactly the loop Attack on Titan keeps circling.
Nobody really escapes it. They just move through different positions inside it.
So if thereâs any way out at all, it probably starts with rejecting the idea that inherited identity should function as a moral sentence.
Otherwise, weâre not changing the pattern.
Weâre just keeping it intact and calling it something else.