#anyways. yeah.

Turns out it's just dormant. I'm still obsessed with him as I was two years ago.

Here's a video because I can't help but giggle like a madwoman over the voiced line

Marley does not give a single SHIT about Eldians, let alone the warrior candidates when they were kids. Unfortunately for them, the Titan shifters are basically their strongest assets. They have to give the people they despise these insane superpowers to use them as weapons, so if they don't have SOME way of ensuring they will fight for Marley, then they would be fucked. If they gave, say, the Colossal Titan to the wrong person, they would be IMMENSELY screwed because they just armed their greatest enemy with a NUKE.

Loyalty from a young age could only go so far, and we know this, considering that NONE of the Warriors show any real love or loyalty for Marley (quoting Pieck here, "I don't trust Marley, but I do trust those who've fought beside me."). The only one who does show any attachment fully is Gabi, and she's clearly affected by the propaganda she was raised in, with her wanting to be a "good Eldian".

Plus, why WOULD you be loyal to the people who've made you suffer for so long? Especially considering if you get a Titan, you would only have 13 years left to live. You would have NOTHING to lose if you were an orphan or have no one you care for. As such, Marley probably chose candidates that have a solid or grounded attachment to Marley, whether that be actually liking Marley or just having a close family they could use against them.

Which leads me to my next statement: (pulls out an evidence board filled with pictures of Bertholdt) I firmly believe in the idea that if Bertholdt had learned that his father had died or, hell, if his father passed away WAY earlier in the series and only got news of it recently (probably via Zeke or Pieck), he would probably have some hesitation or doubts in regards to his loyalty to Marley. That's right, this is a BERTHOLDT WHAT-IF ANALYSIS. SIT DOWN. NOW.

A theme that appears between the RBA trio and Marcel is that they're all doing it for their family in one way or another. Marcel chose to protect his brother by making Reiner have the Armoured Titan, Annie chose to fight for Marley simply because of her father, and Reiner wanted to get approval and acceptance from his own dad. Their real loyalty and goal seems to connect back to family or people they love, one way or another. I don't think it's farfetched that Bertholdt would question where he stood if he learned his father passed away: Bertholdt was already the most empathetic to Paradis' situation and he's well aware of the fact that no one is doing anything necessarily "wrong", they're just doing what they have to because the world is just that cruel.

Would Bertholdt turn traitor? I think it depends, really. His situation is already fucked as is, and maybe in a better, kinder world, he would get the chance to choose his own path. I think out of everyone, Bertholdt was the one most aware of how fucked everything is: He's the one who brought up the fact they would only have 13 years to live when he was talking with Reiner as kids, and he's the first one out of the three to come to the realization that no one, be it them or the scouts, was in the wrong.

In my mind, he has the highest chance of turning traitor and the only thing really holding him back from pursuing that ideal is the fact that his father is still alive at Marley (as far as he knows), and Reiner and Annie. I do think Bertholdt cares very deeply for all of the Warriors, especially Reiner and Annie, and he would definitely fight for them if he could.

In a better world, maybe if he wasn't burdened by his own mission, Bertholdt could turn traitor. Maybe, if he survived Shiganshina and trusted Reiner to look after himself, he could turn his back on Marley and help the scouts while making sure Annie is still safe and alive.

In a kinder world, Bertholdt would choose not to fight Marley or Paradis, not participating in constant bloodshed where no one wins.

Okay so like. I think the idea of Alex being a nonverbal vampire is REALLY interesting!! Nonverbal vampires is such an interesting idea!!! Especially like with the telepathy/mind gift aspect of iwtv vampires! Mute Alex who communicates only via mind gift is a really interesting idea to play around with, and entirely mute (telepathically & verbally) Alex would ALSO be really interesting!!!

AND ALSO. The Nicki parallels are really interesting too!!! NICKI goes mute after his turning for a while in tvl! That would be a really interesting parallel to explore!!

I. Did not like the singular line of dialogue they gave him in this episode. I thought the autism comment from Daniel was soooo stupid and ableist and felt like the writers just NEEDED to check off all the bigotry boxes it pissed me offfffffff. And then to have Alex speak verbally for the first time since his turning specifically to say "I want to play the concert"????

I have two issues with that line and the first one is that. And this is a big one. It felt kinda. Infantilizing? Specifically the delivery of the line - it feels like a very childish tone and the way Raglan speaks to him too. Idk. It feels like he's being treated like and acting like a child and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to do that with a character who was up to this point (post-turning) nonverbal, especially a nonverbal character who was just moments ago called autistic in a mocking way specifically for being nonverbal. Idk. I didn't rlly like it

i feel like warframe has a big problem with introducing characters that have Zero Setup? it's less of a problem with the older quests, kind of Because they're older and we have development on/of them now but i feel like it's a thing that haunts the quest narratives as a totality as well, just at varying levels of severity

it's really blatant with ryoku and vena in the sense that like. girl/boy (they) what are you Doing here. If you hadn't watched the trailers/promo material i feel like it'd even be easy to miss how they're even related to sirius/orion lol

I don't even need to know like, a Ton about them necessarily i just need some setup around like, motivation or Anything honestly they need to be characters first!! before they do cool stuff!! ideally the cool stuff also is what characterizes them but yknow

they did pretty good with the cast of the Old Peace (which i understand is maybe a bigger quest in general) but idk, constellations a little underbaked in terms of characterization. like. sure it's because of the Doomed Future. Why do I care? why do they care? show me the motivations. it's kind of hard when the foundation of your emotional plotline is ultimately this Thing we don't know shit about and can't even See (i imagine they might want to expand on this in the future, but like, it's okay to give us some glimpses of it now and it'll even build hype for like, a future thing! like, idk hunhow gives us a vision of the utter destruction and ruin of the whatever whatever type shit)

anyways, i did love the scene at the end of the quest with stalker/sorren and his sons eating dinner together and jade kinda/sorta being there, but I'm also a sucker for "what could have been" scenes/narratives. one criticism: that dinner table should have been set for Four!! let Jade have a chair c'mon!!!

Also, I'm really sad that peepaw hunhow has dementia now :( I think it's a fitting closure to his narrative (which, again, would've been more impactful had we been able to see what his sacrifice prevented, but I digress). but boy it really feels like grandpa is going to Die, especially based on some of his voicelines. I do hope that like, given the themes and narratives of family/reconciliation/forgiveness/learning to love going on in warframe that we'll be able to reunite the family at some point... let peepaw see his daughter and son!!!

it's actually so heartbreaking hearing like. what must've been his thoughts before learning to hate the orokin and the whole sentient/orokin war. "Hunhow, Architect of Worlds" and his line where he seems so happy to see people populating the world he created... what we could've had...