Can’t stop thinking about how attack on titan is not a romance but how its narrative hinges upon the most devastating love stories I’ve encountered in fiction.

How Ymir and Historia cling to each other under the burden of a crown they didn’t ask for.

How Eren, the definition of an “attack” protagonist does anything and everything for Armin, who shrinks away from violence (despite having to become the embodiment of war).

How Erwin gave Levi the sky, and it is a debt that Levi knows he can never repay.

How subtly yet thoroughly they work Moblit into every scene, a step behind Hanji, cautioning them and supporting them, so that you don’t even notice him until he’s gone.

How Mikasa’s “Akerbond” to Eren goes so much further, so much deeper, because he exhibited such raw, unfettered inhumanity in the name of protecting her when she was a child, when he barely even knew her, and that is all she knows of love.

How Connie feels like he’s lost half of himself with Sasha gone.

How much Carla loved her son.

How much of an impact Marco made on Jean.

How Armin could eat Bertoldt’s love for Annie and have it latch onto his own admiration of her.

How Marlowe thought of Hitch as he was dying.

How Reiner keeps going for the kids he has to mentor.

How Falco put himself between Gabi and danger over and over again.

How violently Sasha’s family mourned but how reverent of her spirit they were to forgive her killer.

Idk man I just think for a show that started off as kids fighting giants and turned into “my war crime is worse than your war crime”, it is driven almost entirely by unique, poignant and thoroughly convincing love stories.