#Or do another poll to let you guys vote on who goes second and then after that who goes third

[somegrumpynerd]

I'm down for any option honestly, just whatever you guys think would be fun!

...Hypothetically

[ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff]

Relief (Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x Reader) Smut

Summary: It's the end of another mission, and you're ready to unwind with your new favourite destresser - casual sex with Soap.

AN: Thanks again to everyone who voted in the poll. I'm tempted to do another for the fics I've got drafted. My third favourite white guy on COD is finally on my blog ayyy.

If you wanna request a fic, check out my guidelines before sending one in! Also, if you wanna be tagged in any future fics, let me know!

Content warnings: Smut (18+ only, minors DNI), fuck-buddies in love trope, Reader is AFAB and gender neutral

Masterlist // AO3 Version

With a sigh, your head tilted back against the door you were pressed into. A half-surprised huff escaped next, since your body hadn’t left an impression in the wood – not unlike how Soap’s fingers were likely etched in bruises on your thighs from where he was holding you. He didn’t normally hold onto you so tightly, so desperately. But you let him anyway.

His nose leant above your shoulder. His chest caught its breath in deep sluggish drags, the glow of his skin pressed to yours whilst you did the same.

“You gonna put me down?” You huffed.

“Maybe. Quite like you like this.”

Of course he did. That’s why you’d barely made it out of briefing and not at all on his bed. Soap adjusted his grip and lifted your legs’ grip a little higher up his waist, which caught you off-guard and a moan slipped out.

You gave him a little taunt: “I know sex is a work-out but that doesn’t mean you can start deadlifting me whilst your cock’s still inside me.”

“Damn,” and Soap lifted his head up to look in your eyes with that laddish smirk and smug stare, “There goes my routine I was planning for tomorrow. Hey-” His brow creased as you attempted to lower one of your legs, his hand squeezing the meat of your thigh, “- I meant it. I like you like this.”

“This isn’t exactly helping the pain,” You said, referring to the mildest of injuries you’d ever gotten on a mission – a massive bruise behind your left shoulder.

Instantly, and with you still in his arms, Soap walked you over to his bed. His open hand cradled your hair as he lowered himself onto the sheets, then flopped back ungracefully. You on the other hand remained sat upright on his cock; your head tilted to the side as you watched Soap fidget against the pillow.

“You alright down there?”

Putting his hands behind his head, Soap winked, “Perfect. The view’s fantastic.”

Those random “clench to the music” videos on TikTok had been preparing you for this moment. You squeezed around his cock and Soap’s self-assured chuckles were stolen away. Tilting your head playfully at him, you watched him grunting beneath you.

Soap’s brows shot up his forehead as he opened up those bashful blue eyes, “Oh, that’s how you wanna play?”

His body beneath you shuffled as he planted his heels besides his buttocks. Your grin remained etched on your face as he thrust up into you. The first time, you could hold in your groans. The second time, your lips were pressed together as you lowered your elbows either side of his head.

“One Earthshattering Soap Special coming up?”

“Fuckin’ minx.”

It was so hard to kiss him properly when he wouldn’t stop making you smile, moan, whisper how good he made you feel. His shameless stare flitted between your face twisted in overstimulation and your hand rubbing at yourself to chase down your next orgasm. Each thrust was bordering on painful, the perfect distraction for your greedy body.

At the moment your orgasm wiped across you, you didn’t have to hold back a scream. All energy left was trained on those laboured breaths snatched between your mouth and Soap’s, both agape and brushing awkwardly as you greedily rutted into one another for more until the waves faded to ripples then to contented hums. His nose slotted to yours as you lifted your chest an inch from him.

“Was it intentional?”

“What’d’you mean?”

“Soap Special. Coming up,” you repeated, your laughter coming out hushed as you grappled with Soap’s shoulders to stay vertical.

“No, can’t be on my a-game with dirty jokes whilst your cunt squeezing the life out of me,” and Soap gripped your hips tighter. “And I can’t have done a good enough job if you can still think properly.”

“I recover fast. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

And you fell over into his chest, flopping your entire weight on him as you copied how he’d squashed you between himself and the door – but at least he had the luxury of it being a mattress on his back this time.

His arms curled protectively around you, keeping you pressed to him whilst he kissed you stupid, quite literally. You sighed dreamily; your hand tangled in his mohawk.

“You need a haircut,” you mumbled into his mouth. “Just a trim. Sides are getting long.”

“Warmin’ up to it, are you?”

“I will say it’s convenient for holding onto.”

Soap snorted, half your body sinking on his chest’s sudden exhale. Your fist squeezed in his hair once more before freeing him and pushing you away from him. When a flash of bliss from your cunt caught you off guard, and a short moan shot out of you, you waited for Soap to tease you about it. But he did no such thing whilst you climbed off his cock. Just looked at you with a close-lipped smile and his hand stroked up and down your bicep.

“Stay,” He hummed as you twisted around and swung your legs off the edge of his bunk.

“I can’t.”

“You can.” It was said with sincerity, not his usual sarcasm.

So you tried to include a sense of warning in your retort, “Soap.” But it just came across as sardonic and you waited for Soap to take advantage of it.

Instead, he sat up and wrapped himself against you. Feigning annoyance, you pushed his rising torso down into the bed.

You tried again, “We do this routine every time. It’s getting boring.”

Soap bounced right back up, “Boring’s not how I’d describe it.” To support his point, you endured listening to his kisses smacking against your skin, sending light-headed chills with each new contact. Soft vibrations from his throat tickled your shoulder’s slope.  

“You’re practically purring,” You said, hiding how uneven your words were in a half-laugh.

“Course. I’m the cat who got the cream.”

“Fucking hell,” You huffed, still smiling as you pulled up your underwear.

Your trousers were halfway up your legs when you pushed him away again but, this time, Soap stayed firm. He didn’t even move an inch under the light pressure of your palm.

“Don’t go. Please, Y/N.”

“First name basis when you’re not inside me? Must be real serious,” you parroted with a half-decent Scottish accent, though you didn’t miss how his begging affected you.

You turned to him now your trousers were done up. Your smile dropped; the “but” lingered on your lips as it saw Soap’s expression. You’d seen this man in pain, furious, over the moon, in bliss. But this was the most open, the most vulnerable, you’d seen him. Wide eyes peered at you in the low-lit room, letting you see directly through into his mind and its unsettled state, framed in that five o’clock shadow that had sprouted on his cheeks during the mission. It aged him. It made him look as weary as he felt.

His final plea of “I don’t wanna be alone, not tonight” uprooted the core of what this whole deal was about: stress relief. Soap still had stress that needed relieving, only it wasn’t with the usual fuck and funnies that you were used to.

You’d turned to him initially because you wanted to not think. Soap was wonderful at distracting; he always unwound you so easily, grounding you with his quips and that gorgeous drawl he spoke in. Perhaps you’d been neglecting him. Or perhaps you were leaning into this arrangement too much. The latter occupied your mind more. Were you getting in too deep?

“I need the toilet,” you whispered. Your eyes dragged up from the quiver that crossed his bottom lip and you finished buckling your belt on the other side of his bedroom door.

You were somewhat certain of why you were treating Soap’s request like a confession of love, because, in a way, it was. Admitting you need help that can only be given by a certain someone, that’s trust beyond the bond forged on the battlefield. And cuddling? Kissing you goodnight? His open expression you caught him wearing before he snuck in a quip? All things that had come before this night that had added up to support your conclusion.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t thought about it before – leaning into the romantic side you’d already been sharing with each other. In fact, a bystander would probably call out how the only thing missing from your relationship was that very label.

A fear of commitment wasn’t what was preventing you. But the paperwork alone would be a pain in the arse. Then there were the comments other people would make. Although not from Ghost or Gaz, besides some light ribbing. Price probably wouldn’t have much to say either. That risk of getting caught leaving Soap’s room, it hadn’t even crossed your mind as you left him tonight.

You were still silently pondering as you squatted on the toilet, completing your post-hook-up routine. Soap’s forlorn face was one you didn’t think you could recover from with a good night’s sleep. Facing him tomorrow at breakfast, sparring, trusting each other on the job and in the gym, it seemed the longer you left this the worse it would get.

Soap was facing away from the bedroom door for a split second before he sat up to face the sliver of light from the hallway, his body shrouded in your silhouette. He didn’t speak. He just watched as you closed the door, undressed, and returned to his side. There wasn’t a lot of room in the bed, so he turned back on his side and you embraced him around his middle, his soft skin pitted over muscles and under scars.

“I woulda agreed to stay if you removed all your bravado quicker,” you whispered.

“I’ll remember that next time.” And he squeezed your hand in his.

The temptation to joke about his hair again crept in your throat alongside the tickle in your nose that it had caused, but now didn’t feel like the time. You stored it away for next time – there was always a ‘next time’ – and instead, between his shoulder blades, where the muscles folded in a neat crease down his spine, you pressed a kiss.

[eartheats]

TEAM NEO FLARE PLANS PT. 2 (electric mommalu)

HELLO ONCE AGAIN, this is Sable, the player behind Ren and entirely too many others! We're getting closer to the date of the real meat of this plot getting started, so I figured I'd put out some feelers again just to see who still wants to take part/who else would wanna join in! This is a plot that is open to anyone who wants to partake; as long as I don't have you blocked in one manner or another, feel free to jump on in.

This plot is going to be pretty damn high stakes, and while part one of this plot is going to be the worst of it (cws for that: mind control, abusive mother behavior (emotional), murder of an adult, kidnapping of multiple adults, attempted kidnapping of a teenager, violence against a teenager), the second part will be very player determined! Though it will have some cws by default; namely endangerment of a child/teenager, the murder of two adults, the mentioned mind control of one of the admins, and a fair bit of violence. Though if you do wanna do something to your character, ask me first and I'll see what I can do. :|b And as a fair warning: part one has to be at least partially a scripted loss for the good guys, and I'm not willing to budge on this, and I would prefer minimal legendary/overpowered stuff interacting with this plot. I'm going to try not to godmod, and I'm going to ask for the same from y'all.

But anyway! I'm going to put this poll up first, since it'll be the main thing that decides when things are gonna happen. This is for part one of the plot, so feel free to vote which timeframe would be good! Other details below~ (also sorry for the pings in advance! i will need to check with peeps to see statuses on stuff)

Anywho! Let's go into the basics.

Part 1.1 of this plot is going to kickstart with Madison and Jacques being on the blog and leaving some little ciphers that are optional elements to be solved; mostly just letters and the like that Noriko exchanged with Lysandre at one point. The real meat of this will be taking place on one of the dates to be voted on, where Mads/Jacques will be getting kidnapped by Iori, a character who's been spying in Zapapico for Noriko for a while. She'll take over Ren's blog for the day for questioning and the like, and Ren will likely be reacting on Carmine's blog (along with the girl in question) while this all goes down, which is going to prompt Ren to escape BBA to save their friends, with the help of Millie/@porygonlover2009! Carmine will also be fleeing the academy, though shortly after Ren to try and tail them. This IS going to result in Millie herself being a boss encounter to fight against for anyone who wants to tail further, and while no pushover, she will try to prevent anyone from going after them and will need to be beaten. This much can be handwaved if needed!

Part 1.2 is where shit gets SPICY, and will take place on the voted upon date. This'll be taking place at the ruins of Cinnabar Island, where Ren and Carmine are going to meet Noriko, Camille, Iori, and a bunch of Neo Flare grunts. Try as Ren and Carmine might, they're going to get beaten both figuratively and literally, and will need some backup. Keep in mind: this is a scripted loss. If solely for Ren to fall under Noriko's thrall and kick the next leg of the plot under way. Carmine's own kidnapping is influenceable, but if I recall right, this'll be taken care of by the girlfriend, so help here will be appreciated to prevent anything from happening to anyone else who partakes!

From there, part 1 comes to a close, and we enter part 2: Neo Flare tries to end the world. I've actually got a blog getting set up (@team-neo-flare), but I want to encourage people to find them, and y'all are free to bring different skills to the table to do so! While Noriko is an amazing hacker and very good at keeping her location a secret, I fully intend to let people counter hack her or find where she's currently holed up, and this is the part where everyone can go as ham as they want.

There will be a few major fights in part 2: primarily, three against the admins of Team Neo Flare (Camille, Lotus, and Iori), and one final battle against Noriko and the Yveltal that she's kidnapped to do her bidding! I do have ways to help fudge a win for the good guys, but all in all, I'm leaving it very much up to y'all on how the story ends. :3b This leg of the plot will take place anywhere from October to December, depending on how my IRL job affects my energy, and while I'm hoping to get it done before the beginning of the new year, I can extend this out as much as needed.

So anyway! That about covers it. Here, I'll be outlying what I need here, and this'll be where the pings for the previous post will happen:

Part 1.1: Purely optional engagement, but if anyone wants to fuck around and help with the ciphers explicitly! Feel free to let me know and I'll see how I can make this fun. :3b partakers: ???

Part 1.2: This one I'm going to ask to be a smaller group, but I want a small group of people to help try and get Ren/Carmine back! There will be evidence left behind that can be picked up and carried into part 2 of the plan, that can also be used to help investigate matters. partakers: afaik, @elite-amarys is handling Carmine saving, @professor-amaryllis is trying to get their kid back, maybe some others! i would love others. (i think @bee-bee-kyuu too but i've also forgotten guh) also @caoimhe-from-hoenn!

Part 2: I want moles into Noriko's operations, and I'd love to have partakers in all of the fights. These are influenceable, and can even result in the admins defecting, but I wanna see what y'all end up doing! These'll be split up for my own sanity and probably separated out into days/battles handwaved if needed:

moles: Tatiana (npc), @electricalfire (iirc!), others? investigators: ???

vs. Iori: ??? vs. Lotus: professor amaryllis, others? vs. Camille: ???

vs. Noriko/Yveltal: ...probs going to be everyone and their mum but like. iron crown is here for npc backup as well as tatiana.

at any rate!!! that should about cover it, there's one last leg of the plot that'll happen once ren is freed and everything happens that will solely be a brief dive into drama stakes territory, but this is the primary meat of it!

and now comes the pings! i won't be pinging anyone more than once just for courtesy's sake, but! feel free to lemme know if y'all still want involvement or not!

@little-guys-pokemon-central @goindownswingn

aaaaaaand that should about cover it, i will be around to answer questions tonight and tomorrow after work but brainmeats. need a rest. @_@;;

[fandoomrants]

Ok, so as much as the Hunger Games scare and unnerve me as a concept, I really want to learn so many things about how they played out through the years...

Let's start with the first games ever. I wonder how long they took and what happened, who was the victor ofc, I think that in this exact case, all tributes had more or less equal chances as they didn't know what to expect, but most importantly, how did everyone else die? Did anyone actually kill another tribute, or the arena finished them? Because we already saw what's going on in the 10th games and tbh, yes, there was a group that was ready to kill and all but most of them were just scared and didn't want to kill/hurt. But they got to watch 9 games before that and already had an idea what was to be expected. And also, this arena didn't seem that easy to control as the ones in the 74th and 75th so what happened during the first games?

Then there's the First Quarter Quell. It's been a while since I read the books and I don't remember seeing in the movies but it goes around the fandom that the twist there was people from the districts voted for who goes in? How crazy is that? Tbh, if I have to number the wickedness of these quells, I'd say this is the worst, followed by the victors entering again in the 75th, and then maybe the most... Mild would be the Second where it was double tributes. Because yeah, double the trubutes is awful but... they're all endangered and 23 or 47 lost lives is... when it comes to having large number of victims, somewhat not that crazy. And only victors entering again is also so crazy and twisted, like, look at them, they're all mostly mentally or phisically damged but imagine being chosen not in some large poll with numerous other names in it but because people choose you?! Like, neighbours, people that know you actually looked at you and decided "Yes, they'll be the ones doomed this time." How did this one even go?? I've already discussed this with friends and we were trying to decide if some of the districts chose the ones most likely to win, or just the ones they disliked for one reason or another. But come on, it's crazy. Though, this might be eventually how the idea of Careers appeared. But I also wanna know the victor of these games because just imagine winning games in which people you know put you in? How do you get back and live... Not a normal life but some kind of life and you just know people you interract on a daily basis send you to your death.

And then, of course like most people in this fandom, I want to know more about the games of the victors we've seen. We have some of them discussed and shown in bigger details but still, maybe just a little more information and details about how exactly these games played out wouldn't hurt...

I just said earlier how the Second Quarter Quell was maybe the most okay-ish when it comes to the twist but this doesn't make it less tragic. And we first see Haymitch when he's older and he's... Well, a total wreck, dealing with alcoholism and all of that and you just wonder how this guy even won?! And then we later learn how he won and what led him to become the way he is now but still, it's pretty crazy that he won when there were not 23 but 47 other people. And yes, he "cheated the system" but I don't really think he was the first one. As I've seen people pointing out, so did Lucy Gray and so did Katniss and Peeta. And I believe others also found a way to just... Survive. And as I sae in an earlier post, who was his mentor? I think there wasn't one. And there were surely Careers in these games too. Wasn't the last girl he was left with a Career? So, this guy from District 12 managed to win a game where there were double tributes without a mentor even. And then he just keeps suffering and honestly, I absolutely understand him. Honestly, I think for all he went through, alcoholism is an understandable thing, I probably would have just commited a suicide or sth. And the more I think about it, the more I think the real reason he was punished and had his whole family killed wasn't because he "cheated" but because he was someone who was extremely unlikely to win and yet he did and this is what really made lots of people angry. He wasn't an "interesting" tribute.

And speaking of "interesting", here comes Finnick. Yet another victor who we know most of the details about but still. He's famous for winning sg only 14. Was he a Career? Was he just unfortunate? And his whole story with Annie. Did they know each other before her games? Did they fall before or after that? Was she a Career? I've seen lots of people commenting on it and how she might have been, even though she developed problems after that. Likee, it's one thing to prepare for the games and a whole another to actually be there. Yet this only makes me think that if this was the case, they probably became a thing after the games. I just can't imagine him knowing what it means to be a victor (him, of all people!), and actually supporting her decision to take part.

And on the topic of Careers, I really want to know how this became a thing. I have to admit, I somewhat see the logic of children starting to prepare and train for the worst but I can't fully wrap my mind around the idea of someone volunteering for the games knowing fully well that they have a very big chance of dying. No matter what, there's is only one victor always (with one excpetion but we know how bad this played out in the end) so to enter willingly games where you just know there are others who have trained for? And one of them is also from your district and you've most likely trained together?? What's going onn?

And how some of the tributes would form packs. I actually want to see how games like this one played out. Haymitch and the girl from 12 (I know her name but I won't spell it right) broke theirs because they didn't want to kill each other in the end but there surely must have been games where this was the case in the end. A group of people who had been hunting down the others together would have been the only survivors in the end and they must have had to kill each other eventually. How do you even kill someone who was your ally and you had each others' backs until this moment??

And I also wonder how many people had won similarly to how Foxface got close to winning. By just avoiding the others and survivng. And were they punished for it later too?

Also, when and how did the victors become public and famous figures? We saw Lucy Gray after her games back in 12, continuing her life almost as before (though we see this through Snow's eyes so I don't claim she didn't have a hard time, it's just that she was left unbothered, mostly). Then, the 11th Games is when the Victor's Village first became a thing. And the tours? Everything else? The way the victors would be used by the Capitol for the rest of their lives? When did this become a thing? I can't help but think this must be just another form of punishment that was implemented there. They survive yet they suffer for it in other ways.

I just really need answers and these are only some things on top of my head now, I might add to the list later...

If anyone is interested in indulging and discussing these or something else, feel free to DM me..

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - Jingle Bell Rock

Voiceplay weren't originally planning to release any proper full-length video for December last year (2023), just a Mini or two, as they were busy in November due to a special performance with the band Chicago. They asked their Patrons for song suggestions for Minis, and then put the three most popular suggestions into a poll for people to vote on. Jingle Bell Rock won out with 55% of the votes, but then a Patron provided a suggestion of doing it "Mean Girls style". Initially the guys were confused, (as was I when I first read the video title when the Premiere appeared) - was there some different musical styling that they weren't aware of? But they soon realised that "Mean Girls style" was referring to the iconic dance scene from the 2004 movie. And so, on the 16th of December, 2023, we got a proper video, not just a Mini, with plenty of absurdity and "Voiceplay brand of dumb", courtesy of Layne! (Layne was in charge of both the arrangement and the video, and is also co-credited for creative direction along with Tony).

Now please don't kill me, but I've never actually watched Mean Girls (*GASP*). However, I know a fair bit about it just from it being popular on Tumblr and the internet in general, and I know this specific scene in the movie quite well, as my dad and I would watch the clip of it every year in December. I have also rewatched the original scene before starting this post, because I'm gonna be doing screenshot comparisons! For one thing, this isn't a super long video, so I'm not worried about image limit, and for another, VoicePlay put a lot of effort into recreating this scene as closely as possible (albeit with some, er, aesthetic alterations 😜), so I wanna prove it, because why not!

Anyway, that's a fair bit of introductory stuff already, so I'll leave my other notes/commentary/thoughts for during the actual video talk bit. Let's get into this!

Making a shot from this little opening bit as the thumbnail was one heck of a choice ngl. Maybe they couldn't be bothered finding a better shot from the video, or maybe they just wanted to keep most of the video as a surprise for viewers, idk, but I was so confused from the thumbnail-title combo when the premiere appeared!😂

Also if you don't already know from the video description, this was all filmed on Tony's iPhone! (Doesn't mean it was all handheld though - tripods/stands for phones exist!). It was because VoicePlay were without a cameraguy for like 2-3 months, because their old one moved states.

So instead of doing any sort of "sexy santa/santa's helper" costumes like in the original, Layne decided that he and the others would be dressing up as characters from Christmas movies! Cesar as Buddy The Elf (perfect casting and also gets off easiest in the outfit department, lol), Layne as The Grinch, Geoff as Oogie Boogie (duh), and Eli as Santa/Sandy

(Also fun fact: the Oogie Boogie costume is the same one that Tony wore for his very brief appearance in VoicePlay's Kidnap The Sandy Claws video! (Also it's pretty hot to wear apparently, and Geoff had to tie his hair back to get the head/hood fitted properly, before he ended up asking for a wig cap, rip))

Also if you don't know the original scene, the original line after "but I'm always on your left!" is "that was when there were three of us, and now the tallest go in the middle", but here, the tallest (Layne/Grinchy and Geoff/Oogie Boogie) already are in the middle, so it's switched out for "now the fat one goes in the middle" (also watch for Eli's/Santa's quick surprised reaction to that line, lol)

(Also not a visual thing, but if you haven't picked up on it already, the announcer doing the "please welcome to the stage" bit is also Layne)

I know I didn't mention it in all my rambling at the start, but yes, shoutout to Adriana Arellano who is also in this video! (And blonde now!). This is her fifth full-length collaboration with the group, and second for a Christmas video! (Third if you count the Frozen 2 Medley).

Also do you recognise the set? Again? I'll say more later, but those curtains were almost definitely added in post-production I'll tell ya that!

Can't recreate the OG scene without an audience, and so we haveone! That just happens to also include the VoicePlay guys themselves! (Geoff must've been sharing his cloning machine around! 😜😆

Huldra has a video on her channel I believe saying who's who in the audience here, but they're also all credited in the description, so I'll list them here for you!

Standing up at the back: Michelle Arellano (Adriana's mum)

Back row: Eli, Ashley Jacobson (Eli's wife), Asher Jacobson (the baby that Ashley is holding; Eli's new son who was born in November last year!), Eileen McCarthy (don't know who she is), and Gayle Stein (Layne's mum).

Middle row: Franchezca Buiser (in shadow behind Cesar) (production assistant for Kathy/VoicePlay), Cyndi Stein (the blonde one behind Layne) (Layne's wife), Christina Arellano (Adriana's sister), and Adriana

And of course in the front row: Cesar, Layne, Kathy, and Geoff!

(Oh and "The Grinch" waving to Layne and him waving back (in the O.G. scene it's Gretchen waving to Jason) was definitely a cute touch)

Cyndi absolutely killed it playing Amy Poehler's part in the scene here, but wow already the similarities are stronger than I realized!

Totally the same picture! 🤣

So long as everyone had a good time, amirite? 😁

Pfft, Geoff acting shocked/scandalised, as if he hasn't done more than that in his Way Down video! 😆

Cesar is having the best time, and we love that for him honestly <3

Cyndi also really got into it! Stan! (She and Layne really are perfect for each other huh - same energies!)

Not a recreation of any bit in the original, but I love the little moment of Eileen and Gayle looking at each other in what can at best be called "great shock/surprise" 😂

Firstly, I love how they managed to include Ariana as a lead singer while still keeping with the original "plotline", by having a 'reveal' that Adriana was just lip-syncing to the boombox track, (still her vocals of course), which is revealed when it gets kicked and starts glitching.

Second of all, I love Cesar's attitude of "when in doubt, Remain Cute". Iconic 😂👌

Lol rip, had to happen! (And in the BTS video, they actually kinda show how this bit was done!)

Somehow I feel like Cyndi had the most fun out of anyone in this video shoot 😝

At this point I might as well make note of something you'd be forgiven for not immediately realizing - or perhaps not at all! And that is the fact that they're not actually on a stage! They made it look like one with the use of clever directions and camera anglings for the audience shots, but yeah no that's the same set VoicePlay used in 2022 for Christmas Don't Be Late, and the same set Geoff used that same year for Way Down, and it's totally flat! No stage!

And that's about all I have to say for Jingle Bell Rock actually! (No I'm not including the end bit - I do have some standards! 😂). That brings us up to date with VoicePlay's Christmas videos, but we're not even halfway into my 12 Days of Christmas In July miniseries! Next up, a couple of bonus VoicePlay Visuals posts, and then we'll be jumping over to Geoff's solo stuff! See you again soon!

[nani-nonny]

Between You and Me and Him (BYMH) - Peepaw Babygirl Ultimate edition

Let’s drag DMD back in here again, same setup and everything, the kids are being distracted with some number coloring sheets, but let’s also drag in the other Nonny Peepaws. Everyone can stand but let’s give the man of the hour the same metal chair, solely because we don’t have the money to give everyone a seat. (We blame DMD because he doesn’t bring in money due to losing just about every poll he’s in.)

So, DMD, welcome back! How does it feel to be back on the chair?

DMD:

He settles into his seat, the metal groaning under his weight as he tries to get comfortable. He rubs his carapace as he asks, “When will we get better chairs?”

When you bring home a win—now, answer the question.

DMD:

He raises a brow but answers nonetheless, an unamused tone to his voice, “I don’t know why or how I keep getting pulled into these polls—or tournaments? Are the kids up to this? Well, whatever these polls are the kids keep getting disappointed, but they don’t stop cheering me on.”

Do you know what this poll is about?

DMD:

He leans to the side, a curious expression growing on his face before he answers, “Not really, no. I asked the kids what it is but they just laughed—except for Leon. The little guy seems to be embarrassed, so I’m not counting on getting answers from him. I asked Junior, but the kids won’t tell him either.”

Great, let’s ask the other F!Leos what they think about the poll!

DMD:

He unclips the microphone and hands it to the nearest Leo, which happens to be Reunion, but asks, “Aren’t you going to tell me what is a babyg—?”

So, thoughts about the poll?

Reunion:

Reunion rubs his chin as he thinks to himself and says, “I think it’s hilarious, but I’m only laughing because the kids are laughing. I have a hunch on what a babygirl is, but I don’t think I’m right. That, and I don’t want to tell DMD if what I think it’s about is right.” He leans over and hands the mic to LCD who backs away. Reunion grabs LCD by the carapace and shoves the mic in LCD’s hand.

LCD:

LCD looks between the mic in his hand and DMD whose eyes narrow when they make eye contact. He quickly looks away, his eyes avoiding contact with anyone and says, “I’m leaving.”

DMD, stop threatening LCD we need the content. You promised a temporary truce.

WDS:

“If it helps, DMD wears aprons in the kitchen and writes a message for each of his kids,” WDS mentions after snatching the microphone from LCD who scurries to the back corner.

DMD:

His face flushes for a brief second before it goes away and he asks, “I only did that one time, and how do you know that?”

Anymore?

WDS:

“He doesn’t wear the same apron every time, he has seven he switches for everyday of the week and some extra for different holidays.”

DMD jumps from his seat, arm aiming for WDS’s hand who dodged and hands the mic to the kids.

Mikey grabs the mic and holds it close to every kid on the ground coloring. A smile crawls on his face seeing Lil Leon’s embarrassed expression but the kids all say (except Lil Leon):

“Vote DMD on the Peepaw Babygirl Ultimate!”

DMD doesn’t know what’s going on but he’s got some spirit.

Don’t upset the kids by giving DMD another loss, lol. They’re trying their damnedest and made cute paper fans with DMD’s face.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

I understand what you’re trying to do with quality control, but it is starting to feel weird when you clearly have characters who a significant minority are voting up as queer and you’re questioning if the characters are queer enough.

I know that characters and people are two different cases, and I can quietly remove myself here, but I’m having a lot of fun when I’m not being ambushed with more arbitrary standards about what queer can and can’t look like, so I wanted to try an ask first.

I understand not wanting a character who isn’t explicitly queer to win, but it’s honestly upsetting to have my dash keep being interrupted with rules lawyering about what counts as queer and what doesn’t. Do you think you could maybe make note of the possible issues and just discuss them together if they win instead of discussing it every time another character turns up “questionable”? I’m otherwise really enjoying your tournament

I mean that is what I’m trying to do? Like there’s only two characters so far (out of 204 in the competition) who have been brought up after the polls went live, and like … four total posts I’ve made about it tops? Five, I guess, including this one. One asking for clarification on the question being asked in the first place, one kind of agreeing to that because again I haven’t read, and then one for each character saying it’s just something we will come back to as needed because there was some push back and I don’t really want to debate it before it’s even an actual issue as I can’t do anything during the first round anyway since it's already up. I don’t want the people pointing it out to feel ignored and for it to evolve into a discourse in the notes because it goes unaddressed. So I answered them on the second character same as the first to say let’s come back to this if it progresses past round one.

I’m questioning not if they’re “queer enough” though. We've got a wide variety of character from all over the gender/sexuality/romantic orientation spectrum. I'm not trying to gatekeep what counts as queerness. But when I do ask for quality control I am asking if it’s even canon at all that they are queer inside the text of the book. Not 'queer enough', just are they queer in canon, point blank. The rules did state canon is a requirement, but I can’t read every book submitted to check that. Sometimes I’ll know things aren’t correct, like in the ship tournament someone submitted Sam/Frodo (which is an example of what I mean. It’s not that they “aren’t queer enough” it’s that they just straight up are not stated to be queer, as much as we as fans might enjoy the idea that they are and there might be some subtext we can take from their devotion, it’s not in the pages so it does not count), but if I don’t know I have to pitch it towards you guys. And I let A Lot of characters in, so I won’t know a lot of them. For these two characters in particular I can’t make a judgement call on my own as I haven’t read the book, which is why it's getting talked about. (Although again, as I said, I'm really not trying to debate their eligibility at this time. If they win it'll be something to bring up before round two, but as of now we aren't debating it) I put up a list ahead of the polls of the characters submitted that I had already thinned out a bit with characters I knew didn't qualify and passed the question off to my followers to try and get all of that out of the way before the actual competition starts to avoid things like this, (because as you said, now that the competition is started people are voting for them, because people like these characters, so it's obviously not ideal for a debate to be breaking out now after it's up about their eligibility in the competition) but the polls are obvi getting more attention than a long list so I’m getting some new questions now.

I want everyone to be having fun, and i'm sorry if this is detracting from that for you, but again when it's characters I don't know that people are bringing up I have to actually ask about it or else it doesn't really seem fair

[eskawrites]

cfdau secret lore!

y'all voted for secret lore from the celebrity fake dating au notes on the valentine's day poll, so here ya go! these are notes i wrote up between finishing the base fic and starting the nancy pov

there's some random thoughts on side characters and such:

Chrissy knew who Robin was. She thought she looked kinda familiar in the bar, but with the low lights and the crowd and the fact that she was also drunk she didn’t think about it too much. But somewhere between leaving and getting to Chrissy’s apartment she finds out Robin’s name, and it all sort of clicks into place.

She doesn’t want to do anything to make Robin uncomfortable, so she sort of tries to get her to admit it or at least realize Chrissy knows, but she’s drunk and Robin is too so it kind of ends up being something like “So what do you do for a living, Robin?” and Robin shakes her head and says don’t worry about it. So, Chrissy doesn’t. She doesn’t tell a soul—not even her closest friends—and she and Robin never see each other again. But she does read the interview when it comes out, and she sends a letter to Robin telling her she’s happy for her and hopes she can find peace and happiness.

-

Vickie sees the interview, too. She’s in a bad relationship at the time, sticking around with an asshole guy because he’s one of the few people who has ever known she’s bi and accepted her for it. Well, it’s not really acceptance, but he hasn’t dumped her or asked for a threesome yet, so she supposes this is probably as good as she’ll ever get. She thinks, sometimes, about what happened to Robin last spring. She knows that could’ve easily been her. She tells herself she’s content to just stick with what she has, thinks she’s selfish for wanting anything more.

But then the interview comes out. She hears about it on the news when she’s out with her boyfriend and his friends, and they all make awful comments about it. Vickie nods along with them, but the next time she’s alone, she rushes to buy a copy to see it for herself. She reads it three times in a row. Starts crying halfway through her first read. She thinks about Robin—she’s thought about her a lot, actually, over the years. Thinks about her loving Vickie like it’s the last chance she’ll ever get. Thinks about the gentle, resigned way she let Vickie break her heart. Thinks about all the rumors and awful tabloids she’s seen about her since that spring in Ireland. But she lingers on the ending, on the way Robin talks about healing, and she decides she deserves it, too.

She breaks up with her boyfriend and spends time on her own. Goes to a couple gay bars for the first time in her life. Learns to accept herself wholly and truly. Finds happiness the way that Robin did, and for the first time since she was 18, she can look back on that year and smile.

-

Erica moved to NYC shortly after high school and started her own business. She’s not in the fic because 1) she never trauma bonded with the party so she doesn’t hang out with them and 2) she’s one of New York’s most successful businesswomen, so she’s very very busy. But she does live with Lucas for a few months when she first moves to the city, which is the early 90s, kind of just before Steve and Robin reunite with Max and Dustin. As a result, Erica knows the younger party members a bit, and she and Max are pretty close, but her and Robin never really met.

-

Dustin and Suzie are the first of the group to get married. Will meets his future husband at their wedding.

-

Nancy and Robin go on another trip upstate a few months after they go public with their relationship. It’s very much a ‘third time’s the charm’ kind of thing. The first weekend getaway Robin is still pretending to be in love with Steve. The second weekend getaway they pretend is completely platonic. On the third, everyone knows exactly what’s up. And if that four-day weekend ends up lasting two weeks, well, no one says anything.

-

i also have an entire section of notes titled 'marriage drabbles' that i don't want to post too much of because i'm still undecided on whether i'll actually turn it into something one day. but for now here are a couple excerpts:

If you’re not counting Robin and Steve—and none of them do these days—Dustin is the first of the Erathia cast to get married.

He tells Steve first, but Robin is the one he asks to help him pick out a ring and set up the proposal. Suzie says yes, of course, and it’s all perfectly romantic and adorably cliché.

They have a fantasy-themed wedding. Dustin tells them the venue looks like Rivendell, with beautiful arches and delicate, hanging greenery and an abundance of natural light. A year later, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Will drag the entire group to see The Fellowship of the Ring, and Robin is amazed to find that, yeah, the elf city looks a lot like Dustin’s wedding.

Suzie walks down the aisle to the song from Princess Bride. Dustin cries when he sees her. Steve cries when Dustin cries. Robin does, too, but Nancy sneaks her a tissue and no one else notices.

-

Mike and El are next. It’s a quiet affair, close family and friends. Neither Mike nor El stress about any of the details, though Mrs. Wheeler frets over both of them for a solid month leading up to the wedding.

Max is the maid of honor. Nancy is a bridesmaid, too, which means Robin spends the ceremony sitting beside Steve, trying not to stare at her.

They’re especially affectionate at the reception. Mike calls them gross. El calls them sweet. Mrs. Wheeler kisses Robin’s hair and asks them when their turn will be. Robin stammers and blushes while Nancy watches her, fond and amused, the most beautiful thing Robin has ever seen.

[amakumos]

twizzle into my heart — nishimura riki (teaser)

twizzle into my heart is out now! read here ^_^

synopsis. Falling in love when your sport is your top priority is hard, and nobody knows this better than you and Nishimura Riki. You two tried to make it work, but things didn't end up like you both wanted it to. But, when you and Riki cross paths again 4 years later at 4 Continents, old feelings resurface, and you find that Nishimura Riki comes twizzling straight into your heart once again.

genre. angst, fluff, exes to friends to lovers, slowburn (?), figure skating au

pairing. figure skater! riki x pairs figure skater fem! reader

warnings. swearing, mentions of injury, riki is 21, reader is 21, and both compete for japan. set during the 2026/2027 figure skating season.

word count. 20-30k (est.) teaser is 1.6k words

author’s note. yun comes back again with another! figure skating fic. r we surprised… no because i already teased this😭😭 anyways this was the one that was voted the most on the poll so here it is!! i hope u guys enjoy this little teaser and if you’re interested the taglist is open so just shoot me an ask ^_^

Riki puts his skate guards on, sitting down on the bench next to Taki. “Oh, and before I forget to ask you, do you wanna go to lunch with the rest of us? The whole 4CC team is going, with the exception of Sakura and Fuma, ‘cause they’re practising.”

Riki shrugs, taking off his skates to change into his regular sports shoes. “Sure. Where are we going?”

“Kazuha found this nice restaurant nearby the arena,” Yuma chimes in. He puts his skates into his bag, standing up to wait for the two other boys to finish putting their skates away. “Let’s leave our bags in the locker room and go. I think Kazuha, Mina and Yuta are already there.”

“I’m going to get changed.” Riki says, getting up from the bench and heading towards the changing room. He’s sweating after practice, and he’d much rather go out in fresh clothes than wear what he’s got on now. Taki and Yuma follow him not long after, and Riki changes into a black hoodie and a pair of jeans, spraying some cologne on as well.

He brushes his bangs out of his eyes as he takes his wallet and phone out of his bag, shoving them into his pockets. “You ready?” he asks Yuma and Taki, who have also changed. The two boys nod, and they all head out of the changing room.

“Where’s the restaurant again?” Taki asks Yuma, who’s got the location entered into the GPS on his phone. “A five minute walk from here.” Taki replies, and he walks in the direction of where the GPS tells him to go, and the two boys follow him.

Soon enough, the three boys arrive at the restaurant, telling the front of house staff Kazuha’s name, since she was the one who booked. The staff member takes them to their table, and Riki greets everyone before sitting down next to Taki.

But, when he turns his head, he sees Keiji sitting just one seat away from him, with the one next to Riki being empty.

“Hey, who joined us?”

Riki knows exactly who that voice belongs to, and he turns his head slowly to meet eyes with you.

Everyone at the table immediately goes silent as you and Riki stare at each other for a few seconds, neither of you moving. Riki lets out a shaky breath as he looks at you — he hasn’t really seen you at all since the breakup.

“Hey.” You’re the first to speak.

Riki gulps. “Hey.”

You awkwardly slide into your seat next to Riki, and he sees Yuta wiggling his eyebrows at him, and Riki makes a mental note to send him a text message with many middle finger emojis later.

You haven’t seen Riki in a long time. He’s grown taller, way taller than you last saw him, and he’s now got dyed blonde streaks in his dark hair. It looks good on him — he looks good. As Riki talks to the others, you can’t help but stare at him. There’s a couple silver necklaces he’s wearing around his neck, and you’re sitting close enough to him to realise that he’s still wearing the cologne that you had recommended to him years ago.

“So…” Kazuha starts. “How’s Bisco?”

Riki’s eyes light up at the mention of his dog, and Hitomi notices that there’s a fond smile on your lips when you hear him talk about Bisco. After all, you did frequent Riki’s house when you two were together, and had formed a close bond with Bisco.

Riki never told you (and doesn’t plan on telling you) but after your breakup, Bisco would often sit by the door, waiting to see if you’d show up.

And you never did.

“Good,” Riki says. “I’ll go back home to see him after the competition. I try to go back as much as I can since it’s only a 4 hour train ride from Nagoya to Okayama, but — training kinda steals most of the time I have.”

“Oh, so you found out Bisco’s gender now?” you ask, absentmindedly — you don’t realise the words slip past your lips until Riki replies. “Uh, yeah. Konon told me, actually.” he chuckles awkwardly.

The tension between you and Riki is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. You didn’t think that seeing him would be this awkward, since you two had ended things amicably — but now that you’re seeing him for the first time after the breakup, you really don’t know what to say to him.

“Awks.” Taki whispers into Riki’s ear, and Riki rolls his eyes, nudging him on the arm. “Ow,” Taki says dramatically, clutching the spot where Riki had elbowed him. “That really hurt.”

“Sure it did.”

The lunch goes well for the most part, with Mina catching you and Riki sneaking glances at each other when one of you isn’t looking. There’s a sneaky grin on her lips as she watches the scene play out before her. You’re awkwardly taking a sip of your tea, whilst Riki is trying to do everything in his power to stop himself from trying to steal another glance at you. “They should talk.” Mina whispers into Kazuha’s ear.

“Keiji, practice is in an hour.” you tell your partner, and he checks the time. “Shit, right. Um, guys, we’ll have to leave soon for the official practice.” Keiji announces to the group, and Yuma nods.

“Let’s just all leave, then. We’re all done with eating.” Yuma says, and Riki nods. Riki stands up, looking at the time on his phone as you catch a glimpse of his lockscreen, and it’s of Bisco having Riki’s Worlds gold medal hung around his neck.

A smile spreads across your lips as you catch sight of the photo. “That’s cute.”

Once again, the words slip out before you realise you say them. “Sorry. Caught sight of your lockscreen.” you say, and Riki shrugs.

“It’s alright.” he says, and you two just stand there awkwardly, looking at each other — you both don’t even realise that everyone’s gone to the cashier to pay (even if they all did it purposely just to get you two to talk in private.)

“So… how have you been?” you ask, attempting to start a conversation. “I’m good. Just training a lot… you know how I am,” Riki says, and you nod. “How about you? How’s Canada?”

“Oh, it’s nice there. Really cold in the winter.” you say. “Colder than Japan?” he asks, and you nod. “Sometimes. Oh, and I forgot to say — congrats on gold at Worlds last year. You did really great.”

Riki smiles at you. It’s a smile that you didn’t know you missed until you saw it again. “Thanks. I saw you there, I think — just didn’t get a chance to say hi. I’ve seen you at many competitions, briefly, actually. Just… the opportunity never came up.”

“Yeah. I saw you too. I was in the bleachers, actually. Umm… yeah, you did really great. You’ve come so far. Super proud of you.” you say, offering him a smile. “We haven’t talked in so long. How long has it been?”

“4 years, I think.” Riki replies.

“Right. 4 years… 4 Continents.” you quip, and Riki tilts his head, looking at you with an amused smile.

“Good one.”

You know it wasn’t really a good one. More of a lame joke, compared to the ones that you had told him before when you two were dating.

“Thanks.” you say, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “We should probably… go. They’re all gone.” you say, and Riki nods.

“Right. Yeah. Don't leave anything behind.” he says, not forgetting about your terrible habit of losing things often. He’ll never forget the day when you nearly forgot your skate bag in the bus that you two were riding on to get to the rink — thank god he was there to remind you to pick it up.

“Yeah. I won’t.” you say, checking the table once more. Riki remembering that about you makes you feel a little bit happy, somehow. To you, it shows that he didn’t really forget about you, despite not having seen or talked to you for 4 years.

You follow Riki as you two both make your way towards the cashier, Taki looking at Riki expectantly. “So… did you guys kiss?”

“What the fuck?” Riki asks his friend. “You think I’m going to see my ex girlfriend after 4 years and after maybe a… 5 minute conversation, we’re going to kiss?”

“You’re unpredictable. And you two also broke up in less than 5 minutes, so… yeah. Maybe.”

“You’re insane, Taki.”

“Are you guys going to go back to the hotel?” Sakura asks Riki, Yuma and Taki. The men’s single skating practices were officially done for the day — meaning Riki could just go back to his hotel room, flop onto the bed and sleep.

“Uh… yeah. Probably.” Yuma says. “Do you guys have any plans?”

“I’m going to watch the pairs practice.” Kazuha pipes up. “You guys are more than welcome to tag along so we can watch (Name), Keiji, Mina and Yuta if you’d like.”

“Might go take a shower before I come join you.” Taki says, and Yuma nods in agreement. “Yeah. And I’m sure Riki would love to tag along as well.” he says, and Riki knows that Yuma’s just enunciating the word ‘love’ to piss him off.

“Yeah, I’ll come.” he says.

“Nice,” Keiji says. “See you later.”

The group splits up, with Riki, Taki and Yuma walking back to the hotel, and Kazuha, Mina, Yuta, Keiji and you heading to the arena. But before Riki gets far away enough, you call out his name.

“Hey, Riki?”

The boy turns his head to look at you.

“It was nice seeing you again.”

You leave before he can respond.

[soothinglee]

PART TWO | JEALOUSY IN BEDWARS

warning: poop jokes, cursing, alot of twiiter + imessage pics, bad writing.

suv3 or suve is y/ns' online name! you can change it :) (sue-vay)

a/n: I'm slowly finding a good and intriguing way to write this, bare with me. Next chapter will be longer, more speaking with quackity/other members of the smp, its not planned out but time will tell. let me know how I did!

series m.list | previous - next

A couple more minutes go by without a response, suve rolls their eyes, looks at their camera and shrugs. "I tried chat," they leaned over to the open refrigerator to get a monster. "he's grumpy in the morning, its like getting a toddler out of bed. But I offered him a tenner and he took it so we'll see."

she returned back to their game, running around the hypixel lobby trying to choose what they wanted to play. "prop hunt or bed wars?" they ask, moving their icon to both games.

"um mods, could you run a poll-?" the sound of their phone ringing cuts them off. "what?"

they pick it up and the name at the top reads 'cream'. without thinking any further they press answer.

"suve what the hell do you want?" a rough voice answers.

"I wanted you to join-" she looks down from the computer screen to see dreams nose in the camera, "WHY DID YOU FACETIME ME?" she shouts covering up the phone camera.

he laughs, "you wanted me to join stream, so I did." he responds nonchalantly.

"I could've been showing chat my phone and they would've seen your ginormous snout."

his eyes widen "oh, 'gi-nor-mous'," he breaks it up, singing the word. "that's a big word, even for you."

they roll their eyes and flip him off under the table so the stream wouldn't see, "shut up, join discord."

he pouts, his morning voice gruff and muffled "do I have too?"

"do you still want that gifted young man?"

he nods and salutes, "sir yes sir." and hangs up.

"freaking nerd." on their stream she tries to keep the cursing to a minimum after a angry parent @'d them on twitter saying that their child shouldn't be watching something so profound. They were a grown ass adult, it wasn't her fault that the kid was watching them. But for the sake of any of her younger viewers they thought it would be best to just stop.

"you never offered me a 'tenner', to join vc." a voice rang out, but it wasn't dreams.

"hello..?" she replied unsure of who had joined. Opening up discord the only other person in vc besides her was quackity.

"hello suve!" the chat gets faster. "I just wanted to tell you that you should check twitter."

"oh god, what happened now?"

"two words, dream. beef."

she chuckles and opens her notifications, dream had tagged her in a post. "I swear one day this man is going to make me go crazy."

“I tried defending you, did’ya see?” He comments after a couple of seconds, watching her face contort through the stream.

“yeah…” she mumbles liking a couple more tweets before yelling at dream to join vc through text. “my knight in shinning..Twitter.” She giggles and brushes the loose strand of hair from her face. "what the hell is wrong with calla..?"

he laughs and on the poll he votes ‘bedwars’, “if you end up playing bedwars could I join?”

she looks up for a second, “yeah of course, you don’t have to ask.” the poll had been finalized and bedwars won by 30%. “you guys love to see me suffer,” they sigh. “alright q join, I’ll add you to my party. I just messaged Dream to hurry up.”

“okay! what is he doing anyway? taking a dump?”

the ‘user joined’ sound goes off and dream coughs, “sorry I had to use the bathroom.”

Quackity pauses and y/n snickers, “quackity don’t.”

“..it was a two, wasn’t it?”

“QUACKITY!”

“YOU ARE DIGUSTING,” dream shouts “that is none of your concern!”

“WASN’T IT.” He repeats slapping the arm rest of his chair, y/n shouts a ‘I can’t breathe!’ and dream curses under his breath.

“yeah.”

Quackity laughs so hard that he falls out of his chair and shouts “oh shit!” and it sends y/n into another fit of laughter.

“Oh my god!” She gasps grasping onto the desk, “I can’t breathe, I need my inhaler!”

“okay calm down,” dream chuckles shaking his head “it’s not that funny,”

y/n lets out a breath and sighs, wiping the tears from their eyes. “it kinda is.”

“ANYWAY,” dream starts changing the subject “what are you doing?”

“me and quackity were planning on playing bedwars, wanna join?”

quackity grunts “I kinda just wanted to play with just the two of us.”

y/n raises a brow “oh?”

“okay, I can wait a couple of rounds.”

“no.”

“no?”

“quackity, me and you can play together later, Dream can play with us for right now.”

“but-“ quackity pouts, he closes out of the stream and gets out of the waiting room on hypixel.

“but nothing, Dream accept my invite.”

➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳

taglist;

@kusuinko

@angelicaschuyler-church

lmk if you want to be added to the taglist!

[greaterspawnislands]

lead me into the light | emerald duo platonic soulmates

For all the years he has lived, Phil has lived without a soulmate, and as a result, without color. And he's perfectly fine with that.

Then he touches down on a battlefield for fun, and meets the eyes of a total stranger.

And as the world goes from monochromatic to full of color and more beauty than he had ever imagined, Phil knows that everything is going to change.

(But a mortal's life is only so short, after all.)

|||

My twitter account voted a series of polls to decide what fic I was gonna write, and they decided on an emerald duo platonic soulmates au fic that was angst with a happy ending ! Link will be in the notes, but here’s a bit of the start to get you into it!

|||

There are a few constants that Phil holds in his life, has always held, and will always hold.

The first, the most glaring, is the centuries that stretch far back in his past and the ones that he approaches in the present. It is the fact that he cannot die from old age or from hunger or from thirst, that it is only by injury that he could possibly be taken down for good.

The second is his lifestyle. Always a traveler, never with a permanent home. For fear of being targeted, or not wanting to cause that kind of disturbance, and because Phil truly desires to wander the world on his own terms, he travels. Visits every city and explores every nook and cranny of it as it changes over the months and years and decades. He visits fields where he spilled blood and watches others spill blood in that very spot a few years later. He carves out temporary places, favored nooks to fish in and well-loved corners of libraries or especially nice inns, but he never lingers around others who might question his unaging face.

And the third is the grayscale in which he sees the world, shades of black and white and everything in between, the only hues he’ll ever lay eyes upon.

(Soulmates are rare. They are not a common thing, they are often considered blessings by the gods to live your life devoid of color, the trials and tribulations to find your other half.)

(Phil has met quite a few gods, in his time of wandering. That’s just straight bullshit.)

He’s lived decades upon decades without a soulmate, and is perfectly content to keep living without one. Where others find agony in not being able to separate the color of the leaves in autumn, Phil has long since made his peace in seeking out the beauty of the world in other ways. The speckled patterns of a newborn fawn in spring. Waves darkening the shade of the sand upon an ocean. The way his lover’s hair seemed to melt into the endless night sky.

(Gods are exempt from the concept of soulmates, and Death had no answers for Phil when he asked her why he had been cursed to live like this, nor could she bring his sight into full color, even with all her otherworldly abilities.)

(“Maybe there is someone out there,” she said to him one night as he rested against her shoulder, looking up at the star-studded sky from where they sat within the earth. “And you just haven’t found them yet.”)

(“I don’t think I need to find anyone else, honestly,” he replied, turning to look at her. She was a thousand times more dazzling than any sky could behold on its own. “You’re all I need, I’m not letting this kind of stuff stop me from living my life any longer.”)

Their visits were infrequent, but time means nothing to a god and a human whose chances of death are slim as long as he keeps himself out of trouble.

Phil’s wings flare out as he touches down on a battlefield stained with darker shades of gray, determined to find go and find some trouble, if only because this past year has been incredibly boring otherwise.

“My name is Philza,” he introduces himself to the general of the army, hand raising in a salute that had definitely been appropriate last time he was on a battlefield, and he doesn’t really care much whether it still holds up. He takes his hat off as well, holding the striped material against his chest. “And I’m here to help, if you’ll have me.”

His reputation, that of the Angel of Death, precedes him. For all his intentions to keep away from sticking around civilians as they aged, wars and skirmishes would always be an exception.

It was a secret sort of thrill, to throw himself into the fray of a conflict he would hardly remember by the next one. To release the fearlity that he kept tightly wound up inside him, to splatter blood on a blade and sink arrow after arrow through the eyes of assailants. Nevertheless, the legends of his help follow him wherever he goes, and the look of relief on the general’s face says enough on that matter.

A night’s rest later, he’s led across the loosely set up encampment to one of the larger tents. As he walks, Phil tips his head up to gaze at the sky. There was no smooth texture, instead fuzzy clouds crowd the sky, and Phil tilts his head, noting the approaching rain.

Once inside the tent, the general nods at him, speaking before Phil can even courteously extend a greeting.

“We’re going to have you take command of the Red Snakes force, over here.” The general indicates to the map spread out on the table between them, pointing to a marker that Phil notices has a small symbol carved into it. It’s a small squiggle, barely noticeable, but it stands out against the other symbols carved into the various markers that Phil gathers to represent the different sub-forces that this general is commanding.

It’s helpful primarily, though no one knows of his own color-absence, he does appreciate the carved symbols. As an afterthought, it’s interesting. He wonders who else is color-absent this high up in the commanding forces. A rare thing, to be sure, not that he’ll bother to interact with them for that reason. He’s here to help spill some blood, not hear some poor sap moan about how they feel they’ll die on the battlefield before meeting their soulmate.

Phil’s eyes snap from the squiggly symbol back to the general’s words, tuning in mid-sentence. He’s definitely missed some information that was probably crucial, but he’ll get somebody else to relay it to him later. For now—

“Your co-commander already knows this, of course, but I figured I would inform you separately so you were up to date on our intel before you began discussing the best course of action.”

“Sorry, my who?” Phil blurts, brow furrowing, heart sinking a little.

“You’ll be co-leading this group, at least for now.”

Phil lightly bites the inside of his cheek to keep his face schooled appropriately. He knows what this is. It’s a nicely phrased term to cover up the fact that he’s being babysat because they don’t trust him with their armies, so they’ve appointed another commander to watch over him.

On one hand, it’s fucking annoying to be watched like that. On the other hand, that does mean Phil can totally push all the actual commanding duties off to the other guy while he buggers off to do what he pleases. Maybe this won’t be too bad after all, honestly, it depends whether he gets some kind of suck up as a co-commander or not.

“Commander Technoblade has shown great leadership prowess in recent skirmishes, so it was determined that he could take up control of a new force until your support and guidance,” the general continues, and Phil’s heart sinks further.

Oh, gods, they think he’s some kind of trainer, some kind of mentor to a kid who’s been handed too much responsibility for his age and will die in a week. Not this shit again. “Sounds great,” he lies through his teeth. “When do I meet him?”

There’s a soft knocking against the flap of the tent, and the general lifts a hand. “That’ll be him. You can come in, Technoblade.”

“Yes sir,” a deep voice intones. There a shuffling of fabric just as Phil turns to greet whoever this guy is, and—

And his vision explodes with—

Everything is so bright, even brighter than the white gleam of the sun in his eyes. Phil blinks furiously as what he’s certain is color blooms across his vision, spreading outward until there’s nowhere he can look to escape from the blinding, unfamiliar hues. Gone is the subtle change of shade between the grass at his feet and the canvas walls of the tent. They’re two entirely different colors now, unrecognizable in this state.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: UPDATE

The original post can be read here, I wrote it a day before George Floyd was murdered, and the political landscape has shifted SO MUCH since then.

There are 13 questions that define which party will win the presidential election based on how well the incumbent and challenging parties have fared over the last four years.  The incumbent party needs 8 out of 13 to be true to win, while the challengers need 6 or more to be false.  As of May 25, it stood, in order of severity

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

Almost certainly false

Probably false

Maybe false

Unclear

Maybe

Maybe true

True as of right now

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Biden and Trump both has 3 solid keys in their field, with three more teetering on either side, and one tossup in the middle.  It was anybody’s game, though Biden had a slight edge because he only needs 6 to Trump’s 8.

Not everything has changed in the last week, but just enough to solidify some of the less certain keys

Party Mandate:  After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.  FALSE (Democrats won more in 2018 than Republicans won in 2014)

Contest:  There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. TRUE (Donald Trump faces no real challengers)

Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.  TRUE (barring the coronavirus, or a heart attack brought on by all the fast food he eats, Donald Trump will be the nominee this November)

Third party:  There is no significant third party or independent campaign. TRUE (Amash has dropped out, and the Libertarians have nominated a nobody who chose an even smaller nobody as her running mate.  But then again, the election is 5 months away, which in 2020-months is approximately 9000 years away; a lot can change between now and then.  I mean, just 5 months ago the coronavirus hadn’t spread outside of China yet.  Maybe a conservative spoiler will gain traction.  Maybe some disillusioned republicans will rally behind a write-in candidate.  Maybe an asteroid hits and we all have to move underground and evolve into C.H.U.D.s to survive.  Anything goes in 2020.  Blow on them dice, LUCK BE A LADY)

Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.  FALSE (The Great Shutdown, the second once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse in less than 15 years. We’re only four months into it right now; things are going to get so much worse before they get better.)

Long-term economy:  Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.  Almost Certainly False (Unemployment continues to rise at record breaking levels. Civil unrest is widespread in all 50 states, several territories, and even international cities in solidarity with the cause.  The pandemic is far from over, and we are on the verge of a second wave..  There’s no chance in hell the economy will grow this year.  2020 is the Spiders Georg of years; it is a statistical outlier, it’s so low it’ll bring down the rest of the whole term, wiping out all growth since 2017.  I mean, Republicans wanted trump to run the country like one of his businesses, and he’s giving them exactly what they wanted.  This is his MO; run it into the ground, declare bankruptcy, don’t pay anyone, move onto your next failed project.  Same shit as always)

Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.Unclear  (He hasn’t kept many of his campaign promies, but he has enriched himself and his colleagues, abusing the power of the executive for personal gain, which is a pretty major change.  This key will come down to the Supreme Court decisions on his tax returns; if they decide in favor of the president, they are saying that he doesn’t have to obey subpoenas anymore, expanding the powers of the president and getting rid of legislative oversight, checks and balances; this would be a HUGE policy change akin to declaring him a king, as it would mean he is no long capable of being held accountable for anything.  If they decide against him though, a lot of skeletons will come bursting out of his closet, which may or may not damage him politically.  Let’s be honest, they won’t.   Nothing ever does.  The tax returns could reveal that he has been paying a Russian company called “WE MEDDLE, YOU WIN, GUARANTEE” for thirty years, and he and his cronies will still spin it as a positive thing.  Nothing ever hurts this guy, so I wonder why he even gives a shit about hiding his taxes anymore.  All we know is that he has to be hiding something BIG if he’s going this far to try and cover it up,  Could this take him down?  Probably not, but fingers crossed.)

Social unrest:  There is no sustained social unrest during the term.  FALSE  (I made this post before the George Floyd protests began, but there’s no ambiguity about it now.   The cracks in the system have been expanding for years, and now the dam has finally burst.  And rightfully so; riots are the language of the unheard.  My only concerns are that if the protests continue into November, a bunch of republican lawmakers are gonna use it as an excuse to stop people from voting. ”Curfew begins at 8PM, anyone still in line at their polling places will be arrested and/or shot”)

Scandal:  The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.  FALSE (there’s only so much you an handle before you drop all pretenses and say “this is no longer subjective, this is objectively scandalous.”  Everything they do is designed to get as big a reaction as possible, they pick the objectively worst people and take the objectively worst positions on everything because they’re trying to stoke controversy.  Russia, Ukraine, carrots and potatoes.  The real meat are all the domestic scandal.  Turning off the White House lights and hunkering in a safe space underneath it like  PUNK ASS BITCH?  Mobilizing the National Guard around the country?  Teargassing protestors so he can pose with a Bible he’s never read in front of a church he’s never attended, holding it up like it’s some annoying obligation of his, “see? See, I like the Bible. Look, I’m holding it up.  Why would I be holding it up if I didn’t just LOOOOOVE it?  Can everybody see?  I’m holding it out at arms length and waving it back and forth just to make sure all the cameras know, I want then to get a good shot of it. I will shortly give it to an aide and be taken home in my limo, at which point I will forget the Bible exists because my brain is turning to jelly and I’ve lost the concept of object permanence.”)

Foreign/military failure:  The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. Maybe (on the one hand, Iran didn’t retaliate when we killed their general, but on the other hand we retreated out of Syria, let thousands of ISIS fighters go, and aided the Turks in a Kurdish genocide.  The tit-for-tat sanctions against China threatened to crash the global economy, but then the coronavirus came in and did that all by itself, so it’s unclear whether we’ve “failed” or simply “not succeeded.”)

Foreign/military success:  The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. Maybe false? (for the same reason as above, it is hard to judge what is or isn’t a success.  USMCA is unpopular and small potatoes.  The North Korean talks are all show with no substance; Kim will never get rid of his nukes.   We’re still caught up in W’s endless wars, and I don’t see an end in sight, so I’d say this is definitely not a success. I have no doubt in my mind the October Surprise is gonna be another bombing in Iran to kill the ayatollah. The Iran War will start on November 3, same day as the election, there will be the first draft since Vietnam, a bunch of POCs will be forced into the military as cannon fodder; it’ll be a bloodbath for both sides)

Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.  FALSE (Trump is revered as the Second Coming of Christ by his base, but they make up less than 40% of the total country; other Republicans tolerate him at best, and all Democrats hate him. He has never had majority approval, he will never go down with the likes of the universally beloved Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts.  The most surprising thing of the last six months has got to be the emergence of the Lincoln Project, a coalition of Republicans who have finally grown spines, guts, and balls to stand up against trump and actively campaign against him.  He doesn’t have total party control anymore, the Republicans are eroding, though to be fair the Democrats eroded a long time ago; the Republicans are a crumbling cairn, longstanding but now weakened and in danger of falling over, while the Democrats are a nice gravel walkway that everyone steps on and complains about even though the walkway is a nice addition to the park; it really ties the negative space together, linking the tennis courts with the pull-up bars.  I’ve lost the thread of this analogy)

Challenger charisma:  The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.  TRUE (Joe Biden is the Walter Mondale of Al Gores.  Republicans hate him,  even though he’s a moderate an would almost certainly try to reach across the aisle to compromise with them.  Which is exactly why about half of Democrats don’t really like him; he’s too moderate and would work with Republicans.  He’s old and senile, he keeps making gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, and doesn’t seem to know how the game is played anymore.  Someone needs to find Grampa a nice home so he can retire and talk to his nurse about how he used to get into fist fights with ne’er-do-wells, “buncha malarkey, I tell ya”)

This gives us, from best to worst:

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

Almost Certainly False

Maybe false

unclear

Maybe

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Incumbent Trumps needs 8 true to win.  Challenger Biden needs 6 false to win.

Biden definitely has 5, he only needs 1 more to claim it, and there are two good keys that are leaning heavily in his favor; trump’s long-term economy is in the tank, and he hasn’t had any victories overseas.  Biden has this one in the bag [don’t grow complacent, there’s still plenty of fuckery to be had from here to November]

Trumps would need to flip four keys to win, only one of which leans in his favor, one is unclear, and two are in Biden’s court.  The economy is in ruins, he hasn’t set up any real domestic Trump Doctrine, and the military has neither succeeded nor failed in any meaningful way these last four years.  He’s going into November with a major disadvantage, perhaps the only time in his life he has ever not had an advantage.

But then again, there’s always the possibility that it could be a 2000/2016 repeat, where Biden wins the popular vote but Trump ekes by with the electoral college victory yet again.  This model doesn’t take that into account because the popular vote winner almost always wins the EC too.

Trump is not more popular today than he was 4 years ago.  He’s never had majority approval.  While his base loves him more now than ever, they represent a minority of voters, and pretty much everyone else hates him.  Anyone who was on the fence in 2016 is definitively over the fence in 2020.  If he “wins,” it’s not going to be a 1972/1984 blowout, that’s just not gonna happen, too many states hate him too much.  It will be very close; I will not rule out the possibility of a 269-269 tie in the electoral college, triggering a contingent election where the House of Representatives has to pick the president.  Democrats have a majority in the House right now, but in contingent elections they don’t vote as 435 individuals, they vote as 50 state blocs; even though there are more Democrats than Republicans, they’re packed together into as few states as possible, giving Republicans over 26 stateside majorities, enough to ensure they would pick Trump in a contingent election.

It’s a bullshit system, and I pray it doesn’t come to that.

[thelazyhermits]

New Test Subjects

After seeing how many votes the Kirishima & Tetsutetsu pair got in the poll, I decided to write a drabble with the pair. I’m gonna tag @mandsand whose idea inspired me to write this. Thank you for your help! <3 Also, there are references here to another drabble which you can find here, but you don’t have to read it for this one to make sense. 

I hope y’all enjoy it! ^-^

I think I just made a grave mistake.

In your defense, this wasn’t your idea. You even tried to avoid this outcome, but unfortunately, it was completely out of your hands.

It all started when Hatsume called you over to the support studio one day after school, requesting that you help her try out some of her babies. Naturally, you were reluctant considering your past experiences with trial runs of her inventions, but telling her no has always been a hard thing for you.

As a result, after making sure the 1-A students would look after Eri while you were gone, you soon found yourself heading to the support studio. On the way there, you passed Kirishima and Tetsutetsu who were having some kind of manliness training. Honestly, you had no idea what exactly that meant, but since they looked like they were enjoying themselves, you decided not to question it. 

Your original intention was to greet the boys before resuming your trek to the support studio. However, your plans quickly changed once the boys found out where you were heading.

After hearing that you were going to help Hatsume with her inventions, the two hero course students immediately volunteered to come along to help much to your surprise. Apparently, after hearing about Hatsume’s past trial runs, the boys thought it would be great training to help her test out her inventions.

Naturally, you were hesitant to go along with the idea since you knew they’d basically be volunteering themselves to be Hatsume’s test subjects. While it’s true they have the perfect Quirks to protect themselves from the usual explosions caused by her inventions, you still couldn’t help but worry about them.

Still, in the end, you allowed Kirishima and Tetsutetsu to tag along, knowing they’d eventually come see Hatsume anyway. You figured you might as well make sure you were there for the first meeting to make sure the pink haired girl didn’t get too crazy with her trial runs.

Unsurprisingly, Hatsume was absolutely ecstatic about having new test subjects. She immediately began pulling out more inventions to test since her original goal was just to get you to work with one invention.

Just as you feared, the support student didn’t hesitate to pull out the more combat-oriented inventions. It was obvious she wanted to test the fire power of her babies against the hero course students’ Quirks. 

That’s why you’re currently on the sidelines watching the boys enthusiastically take on the attacks from all of Hatsume’s inventions head on. You make a mental reminder to question Power Loader later about the large amount of dangerous weapons the support student currently has at her disposal. You were understandably concerned when she said she made them for fun when you questioned her about them earlier. 

At this point, considering how much the three students are enjoying themselves, the only thing you can really do is make sure things don’t go too far. That’s why you make sure they take breaks in between trial runs so the boys don’t needlessly wear themselves out. 

It’s near the end of one of those breaks that Hatsume brings out a familiar-looking drone which immediately puts you on edge. Seeing your tense expression, the pink haired girl grins, “Don’t worry, Fortune Teller-san! What happened last time won’t happen again since it’s programmed to just attack you. I won’t be losing control of it, I promise!”

You give her a deadpan look. “If you think I’m going to relax after hearing that it’ll only target me, you’re wrong. I’d rather not have to deal with being chased by that thing again. It was not at all fun the first time.”

Kirishima hits his fist against his open palm. “I got an idea! Just leave everything to me and Tetsutetsu, Sensei! We’ll protect you!”

Tetsutetsu rams his fists together. “I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m with you, bro! Let’s do this!”

As the boys share a manly fist bump, you stare at them with obvious confusion. “Hold on. What are you-”

Before you can finish that sentence, Kirishima suddenly pulls you into a bridal carry, surprising you. Seeing your wide eyed expression, he grins, “Be sure to keep your head down, Sensei!”

After saying that, the redhead takes off into a sprint while a laughing Tetsutetsu runs after him. Hatsume grins as she quickly sends the drone after them.

As laser beams rain down on you and the boys, you immediately realize what your student’s plan is. Since the drone is programmed to chase you, you need to be on the move for it to be tested.

However, since you were reluctant to test out the device considering what happened last time, Kirishima thought it’d be good training to have him and Tetsutetsu use their Quirks to protect you from the drone’s laser beam attacks. Either the redhead will use his Quirk to shield you, or the grey haired boy will use his so he can intercept the attacks.

All in all, it’s a pretty solid training session for them since they have to constantly use their Quirks. Not only that, they get to practice using their Quirks to protect someone else which is always beneficial for a hero.

Of course, that doesn’t make this situation any less crazy. The fact that the boys keep grinning and laughing while releasing loud battle cries makes it even more ridiculous. 

Well, at least, they’re having a good time, and thanks to them, you don’t have to worry about running for your life from the crazy drone which is another bonus. So, it’s hard for you to criticize your student’s idea since you definitely prefer this trial run over the one you had with Hatsume last time.

Just as you think that, Hatsume cheerfully shouts, “Phase One complete! Now, let’s head to Phase Two!”

You immediately get a bad feeling after hearing those words. “What is Phase Two?”

Your question is soon answered when several drones identical to the first one appear in the air, completely surrounding you and the hero course students. When you see them, your jaw drops. “Hatsume, what the hell?! Are you trying to kill us?!”

Tetsutetsu grins as he sizes up his new opponents. “Don’t worry, Sensei! We totally got this! Right, Kirishima?!”

Kirishima dons a similar grin. “Right! We won’t let any attacks hit you, Sensei!”

True to their word, the boys manage to continuously block all the attacks aimed your way despite how numerous they are. The redhead takes the job of shielding you with his body while the grey haired student starts punching as many laser beam attacks as he can in order to deflect them.

It’s honestly really impressive how well they’re doing. Even though you’re sure they must be exhausted, considering how long this trial run has been going on, they’re just as enthusiastic as ever. Their grins haven’t faltered one bit--a fact that you greatly admire since you’ve always thought that a hero’s smile was one of their most important features. 

The one downside of this situation is that you’re not really contributing to this situation. It doesn’t seem right for you to allow your students to do all the work, so you decide to lend a hand and put an end to this crazy trial run.

Grinning, you activate your Quirk, allowing you to foresee the drones’ movements. Once you see how they’ll react, you pull out your water gun and fire at some of the drones during the brief moment they stop their attacks so they can recharge. 

As you predicted, the drones are able to dodge like the original one. However, it looks like Hatsume hasn’t had the drones practice this feature while in a group since, when they attempt to move out of the way, the drones end up crashing into other drones, causing several of them to explode upon contact.

While Hatsume cries out in dismay, Tetsutetsu pumps his fist into the air. “That was so awesome! Nice shot, Sensei!”

Your grin grows as you repeat your earlier actions and successfully take out more of the drones. Meanwhile, Kirishima’s eyes sparkle with admiration. “So manly!”

After ruffling his hair, you pull out your sunglasses and put them on before deactivating your Quirk. Thankfully, the headache isn’t too bad since you weren’t using your Quirk for very long. “Couldn’t let you boys have all the fun. I left you guys some drones if you wanna take a crack at them.”

Both boys exchange a look before grinning. “Hell yeah!”

Since there are only a few drones left, protecting you becomes much less difficult for the hero course students. As a result, Kirishima is free to set you down, so he and Tetsutetsu can take turns playing offense and defense.

While they’re having fun with the remaining drones, you look over at Hatsume and see her pouting. “Sorry, Hatsume, but you brought this upon yourself. You were just asking for us to fight back.”

A few seconds later, the pink haired girl’s pout fades, replaced with a bright grin. “It’s fine! This just proves that my babies still have room for improvement! Thank you for pointing out what I still need to work on, Fortune Teller-san!”

As expected of Hatsume, she bounces back quickly. It’ll take a lot to keep her down. At least, the trial run was successful in showing her what she needed to work on. 

The sounds of two loud battle cries have you returning your attention to the hero course students who are cheering after having taken out the last of the drones. You smile as you clap your hands. “Good job, boys. Very well done.”

Kirishima beams as he walks over to where you’re currently standing. “Thanks, Sensei! I’m really glad me and Tetsutetsu decided to come along today! This was great training! I hope you’ll take us along the next time Hatsume invites you over for more trial runs!”

Tetsutetsu nods as he grins, “I feel the same way as Kirishima! It’s been awhile since I last got this excited about after school training! My heart’s totally on fire right now!”

A grinning Hatsume gives them a thumbs-up. “Just come to the support studio whenever you want more training! I’ll be happy to put you to work for the sake of my babies!”

Shaking your head, you give the students an amused look. “Well, considering how today’s training went, I think things should be fine. Just be sure to not overdo it and don’t get too crazy, alright?”

Both boys quickly nod their heads while Hatsume excitedly rubs her hands together. “This is going to be great! Now, I have a good reason to start building the robots I recently finished blueprints for!”

While Kirishima and Tetsutetsu cheer at the news, obviously excited about their future opponents, your face pales. 

Yeah, this was definitely a mistake.

[louiserandom]

The MadaTobi adventure has been chosen...

AND IT’S SOULMATES EXCAHNGING POWERS WOOOHOOOO (purple and green are the same option i just edited the form like a dumbass)

However, I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion THAT I WANNA WRITE ALL THESE FREAKIN PROMPTS or at least a couple more, so after this CYOA ends, I might just tackle the rest :D Thank you ALL so much for voting! I seriously didn’t expect this much feedback and I’ll do my best to deliver :3 *sends you all hugs, positivity and rays of sunshine during these trying times and hopes that each one of you is safe* Hopefully the story will provide some fun and distraction from the grim anxiety <3

Now, I couldn’t resist writing the first part before Camp Nano started so I’ll be posting the chapter a bit later today once I’m all done with work stuff :3 And as always, a few more notes on the rest of the survey questions~ 

Thank you for enabling my thotty side. Again ehehehehe

AND OH LOOK AT THESE VOTES FOR THE ADDITIONAL PROMPTS EH

+ Virgin Tobirama knows everything about sex; semi-feral tobirama who spends too much time with his summons; Hate to Love; A+ banter, maybe 1 combined w/ secret relationship; shameless Izuna - oh, 3 of these are definitely gonna be in the story ;)

Now, fair warning: it will be long because my brain made me add this huge plot and Zetsu’s fuckery to the mix which will result in his gruesome elimination from existence sorry for spoilers lmao and because I’m hopeless, expect some bijuu shenanigans as well👀👀👀 Granted, some of the plot points and tropes are going to be revealed in the story; like, Tobirama’s obliviousness level and the exact level of Hashirama’s over-protectiveness will depend on your choices :3 Hope y’all have fun with me!

And below the cut, comment responses <3 I’ve had to group some because I’ve got so little time right now but will hopefully be able to answer every question separately as time goes. Again, THANK YOU all for voting!!!

I would really like both options two and four, any chance? This all sounds incredible I am super excited thank you!

The third option also sounds good

I like Plot II and III too actually as well

I wish I could pick all of the story options ;)

I love your work and am so excited for this! I had so much trouble choosing answers in the poll because everything sounds so good!

Chose option I but strongly hesitated with option II cause it could be so funny.

All of these plots sound so awesome!!! It was super hard to pick one.

Argh! Why is choosing so hard? I want at least one of every option in every combination imaginable. That said, I chose plot 2 for the hilarious potential of put upon Tobirama with a sharingan but plot 1 was a very close contestant. I can't wait to see what you cook up. It's gonna be so great! - oz

DUDES ALL YOUR COMMENTS AND MY OWN EXCITEMENT ABOUT THESE PROMPTS MADE ME WANNA WRITE THEM ALL, FUCK IT!!! I definitely want option 4, it’s peak hilarity, tho I wonder if it would work more as a story proper, not a CYOA (I can think of a few interesting conflicts and choices in that verse tho, so we’ll see). But I do love option 1 as well; option 3 may be a little overdone? But basically, just lemme finish this one, try my best to deliver and then put the rest of the plots to another vote <3

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

p.s. Oz, you’re as always too kind <3

It would be funny if Tobirama was hilariously confident and actually decent at flirting with a flailing Madara but was actually a virgin. Like just completely and utterly shamelessly saying something like, 'yh I'm a virgin so you better make this good. I've got a lot to learn ;)' And of course Madara flails :D

THANK YOU. YES. THIS XD (Tobi would, wouldn’t he. And he very likely will, in this fic ;)

He is the dumbest Bitch alive with Tobi and Hashi running for second place. Bitch should have gotten some Senju dick to calm tf down.

No comments, only applause. You know what’s up

The fandom thanks you for doing God's work ;)

My insecure ass thanks you for your kind words <3

Hurt Tobi to show how protective Madara can be

Bold of you to assume I won’t hurt both of them and have them build each other back up again (lmao ignore my dramatic ass, as I said, nothing but light angst haha. But still some pain because plot said so :o)

Both being stupidly weak when it comes to kids

YEPPPPP YOU’RE READING MY MIND :D CAN’T WAIT TO WRITE THOSE SCENES

CLEARLY. Hashirama, Mito, Touka, and Izuna should all be one giant poly pile. 👀 Also it was impossible for me not to pick the option with Kurama. I love that grumpy asshole fox and I have... So many... Headcanons for him.....

HashiMitoTouIzu poly pile *stares* this... this.... MAYBE NOT IN THIS FIC BUT I WOULD LIKE TO TACKLE THIS IDEA AT SOME POINT LMAO THAT WOULD BE AWESOME :D (will maybe try to write a fic with them for camp nano ehehe)

Also, although ultimately, option 2 was chosen…. I couldn’t resist and added the possibility of Kurama appearing, I love his grumpy ass too much :D (Altho this will depend on the votes👀)

Maybe a child, adopted (kagami) or mpreg

Hmmm, no mpreg, just in this particular fic, but lots of interactions with children ;)

Wasn't he already? ://

ALWAYS

Madara is clearly the dumbest (Hashi is a close second)

YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH DEAR READER, I’M GLAD YOU SEE THE LIGHT

(Personally, I think Hashirama is the dumbest founder lol) But could you maybe make Tobirama and Izuna actually get along? They don’t have to be friends but just no active animosity. Maybe. You obviously don’t have to— would probably love it either way— but ‘tis my request

I may have to write that thesis about Madara’s dumbassery after all lol, be sure that I will convince you

And oh yeah, they definitely get along, don’t worry! Writing Tobirama and Izuna’s friendship warms my heart :3

I love flaily Mads and oblivious Tobes

WHO DOESN’T :D

Madara is not dumb, just a dumbass ^^ Also, bringing in Tobi's sensing is always a YES from me!

Nooooo HE DUMB AND A DUMBASS HOW BOUT THAT XD ehehe oh there’s gonna be a lot of sensing fuckery in the chosen option so I hope you enjoy! :3

At some point please let Mito and Tobirama befriend Kurama 'cause they're all powerful sassy bitches that will bitch slap you into your place and they all put the ultimate smack down on meddling Elders who've teamed up with Zetsu?

Although option 2 has been chosen… Kurama may appear in the story *shifty eyes* AND mf Zetsu lmao I need to kill that bitch. He’ll know pain^-^

Hashirama should be a smiling sociopath a la Symbol of Subjugation style. He knows there's something wrong but, hey, he wants to see his precious all happy :)

Oh, I considered that actually, I adore that fic! But imo it works better with a couple of other plots so I may consider writing him that way for a future CYOA :3 

I can already tell that this is gonna be one hell of a ride and I can’t wait!

Hell yeah go forth you funky lil author, you got this :D

Na

Nope nope I have non good luck

Luv ya <3

AHHHHHH YESSS I AM READY

Have fun

Thank you so much guys! <3 I’M EXCITED AS FUCK AND I CANNOT WAIT TO START :D

[echoeternally]

If Another Pair Survives Together...

Balancing the votes between various combinations of remaining options in the Hero’s Second Wind poll will bring them into the next story together. Those potential scenes are found on this page!

Brief descriptions and scene titles will be included below!

Fair warning: There is some content dealing with death below as well.

Second warning: This post is long to depict several developing scenes!

... ... ... ... ...

Alakazam & Politoed

Taking some time to adjust along the mountainside, Alakazam attempts to bond with Politoed by reading a story, but...

...

“Oh, this reminds me of an old legend that I read a while back,” recalled Alakazam. “It was the one about the two dragons.”

“Those two that were always together even though they were like opposites in a few ways?”

“Yes! Ah, I thought I was the only one that still knew about that.” Alakazam chuckled. “It was such a lovely story, there were a few versions, a few different pairs of dragons, but they…” He hesitated as his eyes twitched. “Uh, they were sometimes…”

“…It’s usually stories about them becoming lovers, in spite of the opposite natures, right?” Politoed waited as Alakazam faced him. “…Alakazam?”

“Sorry, it, ah…we just both enjoyed…” A tear slipped from his eye. “It…”

Politoed waited a moment, as another tear cascaded from Alakazam, and then a few more started to come out. He got up as Alakazam turned, and they hugged as he sobbed into Politoed, still patting him.

... ... ...

Shaping Up A Magic Knight

Alakazam offers to tutor Politoed with dabbling into magic, which the curious latter is somewhat hesitant about.

...

“I don’t know if magic is really my thing, Alakazam.” Politoed scratched at his head. “My brother was always the stronger between us, sure, but I still think that I’m capable enough relying on my natural abilities.”

“Well, you’re certainly not learning with that attitude,” muttered Alakazam.

“Don’t we have enough magicians on the team?” Politoed placed his hand on his hip. “There’s Delphox, even if he is blind. Then we’ve got Gardevoir, Lilligant, Froslass, Mewtwo, and you.” He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s much of a need for me to join those ranks.”

“You do realize that you could become incredibly more powerful if you could combine physical efforts with magical ones, correct?”

“Like Lucario?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But he’s not really that invincible.” Politoed gazed down at the tome in his hands. “I just don’t know about this…”

“It is entirely your choice,” relented Alakazam. “Perhaps I’m trying to overcompensate, but I do truly believe that you would be a capable candidate for such combinations.” He lowered his eyes. “It’s certainly a unique avenue to explore.”

“Don’t really need that anymore,” mumbled Politoed.

“Sorry, that’s not how I meant it.” Alakazam sighed. “It’s just that not many knights do get such an opportunity to pull this off. Just…think it over a little more, when you have a chance.”

He strolled away from Politoed, who watched him for a moment, and then returned his attention to the tome.

... ... ...

Machamp & Poliwrath

Completing an early trial battle against rivals, Machamp and Poliwrath celebrate their win for a moment. Neither is good for comforting.

...

“Ha!” Machamp placed his lower hands on his hips and beamed. “Tough battle, but nothing that the two Empire powerhouses can’t handle!”

“You know it!” Poliwrath smacked Machamp’s back. “You and me, tough as they come!”

“Yeah, together for…ever…”

Poliwrath watched as Machamp slouched. “…That something you two—?”

“It was a little phrase we had,” murmured Machamp, hastily rubbing at his eyes. “Since we were kids, we always brought it up, and the way his face lit up whenever we brought it up, I just…he was so happy, and I, uh…sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Poliwrath patted Machamp’s lower arm. “It’s not like I’m any better off. We’re managing, we just need…more time…”

“Maybe a lot more…”

“…Probably, yeah…”

... ... ...

Enchanting Performances

Poliwrath and Machamp join Greninja and Chesnaught in their review of majestic performances between competing artists, including their friends.

...

“These performers are great!” Poliwrath rubbed his hands together. “Tonight’s been fantastic, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so!” Machamp slumped back in his chair. “I feel like I’d appreciate more styles if I studied up more on cultures and less on legends.”

“It’s not just the dancers, though they are amazing!” Poliwrath chuckled. “Lilligant, I was expecting. Him? Definitely not.”

“Tell me about it!” I grinned as I turned to Greninja nudging him at the other table. “Someone definitely enjoyed that one for sure.”

“How about the singers?” Poliwrath drummed on the table. “Primarina, I was expecting him to be as flawless as he was. But that Leavanny? Who knew she had that kind of a voice in her, huh?”

“She did that entirely without her band,” agreed Machamp. “…Did anyone else cry from that song? I feel kind of silly if only I did.”

“No way, I was bawling,” piped up Poliwrath. “That emotion was too overwhelming for me!”

“It makes sense why she…um.” Machamp and Poliwrath watched me as I glanced aside. “Uh, don’t worry about that.”

... ... ...

Poliwrath & Alakazam 

After traveling up the first leg of the mountains journey, Alakazam thanks Poliwrath for his help, and comforts him when it goes sideways.

...

“You know, the lake up here reminded me that I don’t think I got the chance to thank you properly.” Alakazam smiled at Poliwrath. “Your quick thinking got me out from the water so swiftly, and I barely processed what had even happened the whole while.”

“Ah, I was just panicking a bit,” admitted Poliwrath. “Saw someone in the water scrambling a bit, so I just wanted to make sure you didn’t drown or anything!”

“In spite of being around water so long, if I hadn’t been careful, I could have.” Alakazam laughed. “Can you imagine? That would’ve been dreadful.” He sighed and smiled to Poliwrath. “So, thank you again for pulling me out.”

“Nah, no worries.” Poliwrath rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t much trouble, you’re light enough, though heavier than I was expecting.”

“Really?” Alakazam rubbed at his arm. “I think that’s a first.”

“Oh, no, sorry, that was stupid of me.” Poliwrath clutched at his head. “I just meant, you know, you were heavier than who I was…expecting…”

“…Ah.”

“Can’t believe how much of an ass I am,” grumbled Poliwrath. “Alakazam, I’m sorry, that wasn’t called for.”

“Missing your brother is as normal as a sunset, Poliwrath,” insisted Alakazam. “My heart aches over Machamp, so I understand.”

“Yeah, but it’s…I just…” Poliwrath slouched. “…I didn’t think I’d ever miss him the way that I do now, you know? He was just always there, so I never…I never…”

He jumped as Alakazam gently placed his hand over Poliwrath’s arm. He twisted to him, and Alakazam nodded, softly smiling. Tears welled up in Poliwrath’s eyes and he hastily brushed them away.

... ... ...

Teleportation Troubles

In the middle of a trial, Poliwrath struggles to regain his bearings after Alakazam warps them around a bit.

...

“Hang on.”

Alakazam placed his hand behind Poliwrath and they disappeared in a flash. Another one flickered from behind me, and I spun back to them.

“Ugh…” Poliwrath shuddered. “How do you do that all the time?”

“What? It’s a quick warp.” Alakazam folded his arms. “Don’t tell me you get motion sickness. You swim!”

“It’s not the motion, but that felt weird for me…” He looked at Alakazam, and then to me. “Neither of you seriously feel anything with that?”

“Well, I can sink into shadows and travel in this weird space that lets me quietly approach enemies,” I reasoned. “Plus, ninjas do a lot of vanishing acts all of the time…so, no.”

“And it’s literally second nature for me,” reminded Alakazam.

“Ooh, you guys are weird…”

“You’re one to talk, Mister Mouthless.”

“It’s right here!” Poliwrath pointed at his body, but I just blinked at him. I turned to Alakazam, who shrugged his shoulders. “Aw, come on!”

... ... ...

Politoed & Machamp

Surviving an early mountains trial mishap, Machamp thanks Politoed for his rescue, but this stirs memories for the frog.

...

“Can’t believe I almost drowned out there again,” joked Machamp. “Thanks a bundle for rescuing me a second time, Politoed!”

“Ah, you know, we’re natural-born swimmers.” Politoed laughed as Machamp grinned at him.

“You Water Types make it look so easy, but I do know how to swim too,” teased Machamp. “Grew up around water like anyone else in the Empire!”

“Sure, we all learned swimming, luckily for Empoleon.” Politoed tapped at his cheek. “Makes me wonder what he’d do with someone that couldn’t swim.” He sighed. “You know, Poliwrath used to help me out a lot when we first started. I don’t think I’d be as capable in the water without him.”

“No?”

“Maybe at some point, but…” Politoed sank down. “…Maybe I’m not as much of a natural as I claimed.” He looked to Machamp, who reached over to him. “He was such an ass when we were, you know how, back home, but…when we were young, and I was scared at first, because I had a bad experience with water very early on, but he was so patient and he…he…”

“He was with you whenever you needed him,” finished Machamp, and he lightly rubbed Politoed’s head.

“…Yeah…” Politoed heaved. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on without him…”

“It takes time, but we’ll get there,” assured Machamp. “Remember, you’re not alone.”

“Right, of course.” Politoed smiled to Machamp, picking himself back up. “Thank you.”

... ... ...

Making a Mighty Bouncer

As they continue to climb and deal with the mountains, Machamp decides to try a different kind of confidence booster for Politoed.

...

“There’s got to be a way that we can climb up there.”

“If we can’t climb or fly, how about we just have someone bounce?” Machamp glanced to Politoed, who jumped up.

“Me? Bounce that high?” He shook his head. “Are you crazy?”

“Come on, you can make that!” Machamp crouched down and cupped his lower hands together. “Here, I’ll even give you a boost!”

“No way!” Politoed winced. “You throw hard and far!”

“Right, you combine that with your bounce, and that’ll help you soar further up!” Machamp rubbed his head. “Unless you’re too scared, I guess.”

“What was that?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Nah, just thinking that you’re too, ah, timid for it?” Machamp shrugged his shoulders and lifted his upper arms. “But, it’s fine. We can think of--”

“Just shut up and get ready to throw me,” grumbled Politoed, to Machamp’s delight.

... ... ... ... ...

(Remember, these are scenes in development. However, this is what you can look forward to, should the vote tallies of two additional options be close enough together! See if you can get their combined return for the stories!)

(Head back to the poll here!)

(Still not sure or want to read more? Check back here!)

[snkpolls]

SnK Chapter 124 Poll Results

The chapter 124 poll closed with 2,065 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

This month’s poll team: @erensjaegerbombs @momtaku, _Puppet_ ,  @shifter-lines and @ladymoe6​

  RATE THE CHAPTER 1,926 Responses

Fours and fives still dominate but there’s no denying that this chapter lacked the hype we’ve seen recently. “Thaw” had the lowest number of 5’s this year, performing similarly to the Zeke-centric flashback chapter in 114, “Sole Salvation”. (There’s a pun to made here about us “warming up to Thaw” but sadly I am not smart enough to make it.)

The Chapter of Necessary Filler & the Obligatory Cliffhanger

I love that Isayama isn't rushing everything and is actually focusing on little details and small interactions between characters. He really isn't glorifying an "apocalyptical scenario" just for the sake of destruction in itself or shock value.

This chapter felt like a nostalgia trip, but I wasn't in for the ride.

This chapter was a breath of fresh air ngl. These past chapters were mostly full of either a flashback, monologue or just having two characters talking in a realm where nothing happens and time is frozen, but, at last, the plot is moving foward in the real world too. Not only it contained long gone titan action, but also great character development/moments as well. I missed this.

The leaks didn't give this chapter justice

A weaker chapter overall, I hope all this buildup will be well spent in the next chapter.

I actually loved everything about this chapter, I can't believe Isayama finally gave me a reason to kind of like Gabi. I'm sure she'll do something to immediately change that…

Isayama-sensei is the best, each chapter is a 10/10 for me. I do agree that this chapter is not as great as as the last 5, but it's still great. This year is impossible to choose the Top 5 Best Chapters of SNK

It was good, but I was hoping for a crazier year closure.

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT?

1,995 Responses

There were many great moments in this chapter, but Annie’s highly anticipated return to the active plot takes up the largest amount of votes! Other notable moments were: Shadis taking command, Armin realizing Annie’s crystal must have unhardened, the 104th discussing Eren, and Jean’s salty reaction to Floch’s continued survival.

A N N I E is BAAAAAAACK!!!

as someone too invested in the gabi-nicolo-braus plot thread by i love sasha i am absolutely Fed with that excellent "get out of the forest" talk. thank u for the good food nicolo

It's great to see the other 104th members discuss about Eren's actions. At least we got a glimpse on what they think about Eren's plan.

For once I'm gonna forgive Isayama for putting off Levi and Hange. I FEEL BLESSED TO HAVE ANNIE BACK ON MY BIRTH MONTH!!! BEST PRESENT EVER

I like the parallels to Trost, especially the part with the thunder spears sort of mirroring the thing with the guns and the elevator from S1

  WHO WAS THIS CHAPTERS MVP? 1,988 Responses

Despite the influx of negative commentary, 38.2% of respondents agree that Gabi’s persistence to save Falco and reconciliation with Kaya earned her the MVP title this month. The strongest contenders were Shadis and Jean.

Annie saved this chapter from the Gabi / Kaya focus

Connie- the underrated suffer boi

Gabi best girl!

I am proud of Jean for taking charge, he acted like a real commander.

Reiner Best character 😔👌

SHADIS IS THE MVP AND I LOVE HIM

  WHICH CHARACTER WERE YOU MOST DISAPPOINTED WITH? 1,998 Responses

“None of the above” was a popular suggestion (25.2%) but Connie edged that choice out by a percentage point (26.3%) . At least you guys listen when the evening news says that stealing children is bad.

Silly of you to ask us which character we're most disappointed with. We're always disappointed with Floch in every panel he shows up in

it's good to have a connie development, but I was a little sad about his attitude

I'm not so much disappointed with Connie in this moment as I am with the direction his character arc has gone lately in general. I miss when he was fun instead of angry all the time.

I think everyone is acting super irrational. Eren is going to destroy the world but all the SC are "accepting" of it. I think deep down they are all horrified and in a completely insane mental state causing irrational decisions and thoughts such as Jean being okay with genocide.

I understand that Connie is desperate to find a comfort after all the ppl he lost, but I'm still extremely disappointed in him for wanting to murder a child. Not just Connie tho, the same goes for Jean and Armin. Armin didn't say "Let's not kill a freaking child" he just objected because he didn't want to provoke Reiner and Pieck.

  WHAT DID YOU THINK OF REINER’S ROLE THIS CHAPTER? 1,889 Responses

Reiner takes a back seat this chapter, and just barely over half of the fandom believe he deserves that nap after all he’s been through.  Another quarter, at 25.8% are wishing he could just die at this point, for better or worse.

"Enough already. Just sleep." - Reiner to Eren in 117

Can Reiner pick an opinion and stick with it for .2 seconds. he's like hardcore ready to kick ass and then immediately turns around and is ready to die again

Game over man

He's cute. End of the story.

I think it was bizarre that Gabi just let him fall asleep and left him in an enemy territory where he could be captured or eaten by a mindless titan

I understand him being tired an all, but sleeping in the middle of a warzone and at the start of the apocalypse???

Helos needs his rest and good dreams of Bert

I think it is set up for his future death : saving Falco by being eaten by Connie's mom (he was there with Connie in Ragako village)

Madlad goes to sleep instead of dying

Man literally too tired to die

There were certainly worse ways than "passed out from exhaustion" that he could've been written out of the chapter. At least we know his current status this way, unlike a certain duo...

He need some milk

Reiner votes for “Can’t he just die already?”

  WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE EREN PARALLEL IN GABI AT THE MIRROR? 1,869 Responses

Gabi’s design is based on Eren, and she’s had similarities and parallels to him in the past, what does the parallel in this chapter mean stacked on top of all of that?  About 70% say it’s to further emphasize how similar she is to him at her core.  12.7% don’t think it was an intentional parallel to that Eren scene, 7.7% say she’s going to receive his titan, and a solid 1% wrote in the eloquent thesis of “Fuck Gabi.”

A bit too on the nose

Both have the common factor of determination and the desire to fight to save someone else. "Fight, fight" = "Like I'd give up" In Eren's case, his scene in the mirror is portrayed in a darker, more aggressive environment, he must fight to save his loved ones, but for this goal he must destroy everything. On the other hand, Gabi shows a more heroic/pure attitude, the light is predominant, and his words refer to the desire to fight to save Falco without taking this violence path unlike Ere

Eren cant copyright this hairstyle

How dare she stand where he stood.

I didn't like any parallels that include Gabi. Not this one, and most certainly not the one with Sasha.

It definitely foreshadows something, but I don't think it's that she'll inherit his titan. I think she's going to be the one to end this madness and break the cycle. Unlike Eren, who fights for freedom both for himself and his loved ones, Gabi will fight for peace and equality: a different kind of freedom.

It symbolizes Gabi's character arc starting to go in the opposite direction of Eren, rather than showing them being similar.

It symbolizes Gabi's change in motivation to do anything to save her friends. Just as Eren's motivation in the mirror scene really marked the moment he turned genocidal to protect his friends.

  DO YOU AGREE WITH JEAN’S CONCLUSION THAT EREN IS DOING WHAT HE’S DOING TO PROTECT THOSE HE LOVES? 1,950 Responses

Jean believes he’s figured out why Eren’s doing what he’s doing, does the fandom agree?  The large majority think that’s at least a part of it, as 40.8% think it’s solely that goal in mind, and another 53.5% believe it stemmed from that desire but has evolved and become more complex.  3.3% of fans don’t believe that’s where his motivation stems from at all.

But if that's his goal it still doesn't explain chapter 112

EREN is doing it to protect his friends. YMIR wants vengeance and bloodshed.

I agree, because I really don’t know what else could have been done. The Eldians were hated all over the world and Talk-No-Justu is a folly.

I don't know what to think. At first, Jean seems to be in denial (like most of the 104th), but perhaps it's his way of realizing things. No, Eren must love them a lot, there's absolutely no way that his genocide is unjustified. Right...? Wait…

I think he's being pragmatic and analytical. Like a real leader. Something I expected from Armin. However Armin has strokes of genius during critical times so I'm expecting something.

In a breaking bad way, yes

Yes, although I believe Eren's old and complex relationship with the idea of freedom also plays a big part in this situation.

No, because he isn't doing anything about the mindless titans and treated his friends like trash. I didn't see any kind of concern while they were in danger. I think he's more eager to set his ideals into action.

  WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO WHAT TO DO WITH FALCO? 1,958 Responses

Another serumbowl type discussion arises, yay!!...?  The vast majority, at a combined 81.4% don’t want to feed Falco to anyone, and just want to wrap him up and not start any more conflict.  11.6% think he should be fed to a known titan such as Pixis, and only 4.3% side with Connie’s reaction of feeding him to his own Mama Springer.

Falco is too important. He and Connie will probably have an arc.

Feed him to Floch, jaw titan always dies stupidly and Floch never dies so it should cancel out

Feed him to Levi that way we get jaw Levi and his hand back.

Feed Zeke to Connie's mom instead and take Falco somewhere safe

I don’t have anything against Falco personally, but it makes since to feed him to someone else

I like Falco, but Connie has lost far more than anyone outside the Walls. If feeding Falco to Connie's mom gives Connie some semblance of peace, so be it

NILE !

In a perfect world Connie can have the satisfaction of feeding ZEKE to his mother. Kinda proud that I predicted the “Connie tried to revive his mom” plot point but I think the fact that it’s falco means that Connie fails

There's no right answer here, but I can't imagine any mother would be able to live with the fact that she ate someone else's child in order to live again, so that's probably the worst option.

Well, logically speaking, Falco should probably be fed to Pixis. But my heart calls out for me to wrap him in a blanket.

  WHAT DID YOU THINK OF CONNIE SEEMINGLY SNAPPING ON THE OTHERS AND INSISTING FALCO BE FED TO HIS MOTHER? 1,947 Responses

Understanding prevaled with close to 80% of the fandom selecting “I don’t agree with his actions but I wholeheartedly sympathize with his reasoning”. Only 13% indicated that they were disappointed with him.

Falco's a kid, man! You don't cross that line!

Connie, if your mom needs a kidney transplant, you don't just shank another person to steal their kidneys. Just saying.

Connie has been pushed to his limit. He needs a nap and a minute to cry.

Although Connie is not thinking clearly, I'm glad they're not blindly hating on him like some have been doing for Eren.

Connie's break is truly amazing to me. The guy was always so good and chill and dedicated before these hard times. To see him at his breaking point, horrified by everything that is happening and overwhelmed by the situation, and thus reverting into single-minded dedication to one fundamental goal - saving his mother. It's tragic to see him like this and it's probably not the best "logical" action, but it makes complete sense that he'd do this. He's sick of this clusterfuck. He has a ticket to save his mom and he's gonna take it. Poor Falco though, of course.

I didn't see it coming, but it's not like it's unthinkable. When the world collapses we often want to run back to our mama.

I disagreed with him, but I thinks his feelings are understandable and, also, I liked a lot that he pointed out 104's hypocrisy. The serum drama is coming back to bite their asses.

I understand he wants to see his mom again but does he really want to give her the cruel fate of becoming a titan shifter?

I understand his reasoning, but this is literally the WORST possible time to cause an internal crisis

I'm sad for him & deeply uncomfortable by it.

I’m mad at Connie only because he straight up abandoned his duty to pacify the Titan situation.  He left Jean, Mikasa, and Armin to take care of it without him. Lucky Shadis was there to help.

  REGARDLESS OF YOUR VIEWS ON CONNIE’S ACTIONS, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIM FINALLY GETTING SOME TIME IN THE SPOTLIGHT? 1,946 Responses

More than half the fandom was happy to see him speak his mind and get some character development (53.3%). 16% were absolutely thrilled. Those who don’t care, and those whose disappointment over how he returned soured the moment came in at 10%... I’m willing to bet at least one of those votes is because he doesn’t have a new hair style.

Going to the dark side doesn't suit the former sunshine called Connie.

My man has been in the story since the beginning. He is well overdue for an arc.

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

But why FALCO? He's the ONLY character outside the Walls I actually LIKE!

Finally we get to see him say something about his mother. Yeah, maybe he's not one of the most important charcters overall, but what he lived through when he saw his mom on that roof finally deserves some thoughts and emotions. Connie was on the margin of the story for way too long, and I'm happy we get to see him talk about how he feels.

Glad he’s doing stuff but he’s 100% going to die

I haven't really liked his development. He's, altho understandably, just an angry dude that can't help himself from getting overcome by his emotions. Not a good look.

I really liked his whole "Eren's crossed the line", now he's making the same mistake. A bitter irony, but does Isayama have time for that?

I'm really disappointed in Connie's "friends" for basically telling him to "chill out, you can't save your mother because we need to make our enemies happy". Hell no to that, I completely sympathize with Connie far more than his "friends" especially since Armin is being the world's biggest hypocrite

It's good because it now opens up the possibility of Connie finally getting his revenge on Zeke

My Boi Connie deserves his own plot-line, so I'm really excited

  TITAN ACTION! BUT OF THE PURE AND AVERAGE VARIETY INSTEAD OF COLOSSALS, WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT AS THE FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER? 1,936 Responses

A chapter in the endgame that’s almost reminiscent of the defense of Trost with respect to mindless titan action and defending a base.  Despite many other happenings such as the rumbling going on currently, 46% were totally fine with the focus on mindless titan action and thought it was written well, whereas 35.6% enjoyed it, but wished there was a bit more beyond checking that box.  10.8% wanted a larger focus on the titans in the rumbling, and 5.5% would have preferred a focus shift away from Shiganshina entirely.

I love the fact that shows how prepared and easy fighting mindless titans is for them now. When the titans attacked Trost they were hopeless and Jean was the one frozen in fear. Now we get to see him clear up the titans with ease.

I think showing smaller happenings before the big reveal of Eren's titan and the effects of the rumbling are important buildup.

I would have rather focused on what's happening to Pieck and the others near the wall.

I didn't feel that was the focus, but either way, I liked it.

I wish more would’ve happened outside of it BUT it’s important to show them being dealt with otherwise readers would be like “wait, what about all those people who turned into titans?” So not the best, but necessary.

I'm not crazy about fighting scenes, I prefer the ones where they discuss stuff, but these were really emotional with Shadis and Pixis and everything. Like, it wasn't even so much about fighting itself, for me at least, but about Shadis uniting people again and Armin setting Pixis free finally.

I wish the chapter had explored the idea of Titans appearing now that the Military has begun using weapons which are more effective against humans than Titans. I had thought that the reappearance of Titans would do much more damage since the Military is no longer equipped to handle such threats.

Reminds me of the Trost arc and I love it, but it will probably end up being the last time we see pure titans as this much of a threat.

I love the Season 1-esque fan service. How this series has evolved.

I just wished they didn't have to kill their comrades...C'mon this poll question is so heartless wth?

  AFTER EREN GAINED THE FOUNDER, WHY WHERE THE MINDLESS TITANS STILL ATTACKING THE SOLDIERS? 1,944 Responses

Nearly half of the fandom are giving Eren the benefit of the doubt that he simply cannot control the titans, rather than not caring about them or using them. Although many believe that he’s too focused on other things to concern himself with them, and many others feel certain that mindless titans attacking the soldiers is part of his greater plan.

3 times it was mentioned that Eren/Zeke can't control the Titans, I think someone else is controlling them. Possibly Ymir, maybe we'll see Eren getting betrayed.

Eren can't control the mindless Titans because they're Zeke's Titans

It's highly likely the Founding Titan's power and control over Pure Titans has a collective effect of sorts. That is, it can turn Pure Titans back into humans, but if it did, it would happen to ALL Pure Titans, not just a specific group of them. It's possible that is how the Fritz royalty used the Pure Titans while maintaining the Eldian population during ancient times. Here, if Eren were to use that aspect of the Founding Titan's power, both the Military Branch Officer Titans AND the Wall Titans would be turned back into humans. Right now, Eren is bent on using the Wall Titans to flatten the World, so he most likely does not want to use the power of the Founding Titan to turn all the Pure Titans in Shingashina + Connie's mom into humans; otherwise, the Wall Titans would turn into humans again too, and that would ruin his rumbling plan.

Regarding Eren and the mindless titans, control issues aside, I just don't think he cares.

  WHAT WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE TITAN KILL THIS CHAPTER? 1,968 Responses

In a chapter full of titan action, several titan kills stood out as both awesome and tear jerking.  Just over half of respondents, at 51.6%, most remember Armin taking out Pixis after thanking him for his service to the cause.  In a very narrow battle for second place, Keith Shadis sowing the recruits how it’s done won out over Gabi taking a cue from Sasha and saving Kaya.

All of them were pretty darn cool

Gabi's and Mikasa's tie for me

Hard to choose, they're all good

I didn't find any of them memorable if I May be honest

Can I choose all? Because I am.

It's a tie between Shadis arriving to save the recruits, Gabi saving Kayo from the Nile Titan, and Armin killing the Pixis Titan. If I was forced to pick, I'd say Armin's scene because of his sorrowful dialogue upon seeing Pixis as a Pure Titan and the flashback to one of Pixis's earliest highlights when he believed in Armin and Eren shortly after they first met.

Literally all of them what kind of sadistic question is this how could I possibly choose

Loved all the kills!!!

ALL OF THE ABOVE

  THERE WAS A LOT OF DEBATE AS THIS CHAPTER WAS COMING OUT ABOUT GABI, AT THIS POINT DO YOU LIKE HER AS A CHARACTER IN THE STORY? 1,985 Responses

Nearly two-thirds of of the fandom currently enjoy Gabi’s overall character, despite what their first impressions may have been (65.1%) . Though there are still many who have yet to warm up to her, if they ever do (34.9%).

Gabi is beginning to grow on me enough I feel neutral about her.

Gabi is a LITTLE more favorable to me, but I still hate her and I wish she never existed. She can never earn forgiveness for Sasha.

gabi is good you guys are just mean

  WHICH THOUGHT BEST MATCHED HOW YOU CURRENTLY FEEL ABOUT GABI? 1,977 Responses

One of the most controversial characters in the story is of course Gabi Braun, but what do fans truly think of her?  Almost half, at 45.9% don’t profess love for her character from the mountains, but understand why she’s important to the story.  In contrast, 19.6% firmly believe the story would be better off if she never existed, and 17.6% want to see even more of her in the upcoming chapters.  16.9% just think she’s been in the spotlight a little bit too much.

Fuck Gabi, Eren will always be better, not this carbon copy Mary Sue

gabi fucking GANG

Such a great chapter! I’m glad that the Gabi hate is stopping now.

Don't know why are people surprised about Gabi. Her closure with the Braus family is something I figured was gonna happen eventually. Guess Isayama wanted to get that out of the way early.

Of course my opinion of Gabi is unchanged. I still hate her no matter how much "development" she gets.

Gabi is a super uninteresting character to me

i really liked gabi’s character development in this chapter, especially since i was previously a gabi hater.

She is the new MC now. Upgrade.

I see why Gabi exists but she’s just such a forced character. The parallel between her and Sasha was so forced and just felt wrong. Don’t care about her killing Sasha her character is just a forced rehash of eren.

I'm disappointed in her as she is becoming more likeable

Gabi's character development finally completed in a brilliant way

Like Eren, she's fighting for people she cares about, even if she's wrong/vicious with her methods.

I’m tired of Gabi

Really wish we wouldn't have Gabi shoved down our throats, she's not a good character, let alone person

I'm really proud of Gabi and how far she's come from her original POV. I'm really hoping that this influences Eren and I really hope Falco and Gabi get to reunite.

yams wants us to like her more

She has the same motivations as Eren once had, to save the world, basically.

I will admit Gabi has gone through a lot of development. But that doesn't mean I have to like her. I still hate her, and I will NEVER EVER forgive her for what she did to Sasha.

Gabi's haters being mad is so funny. My girl truly shined this chapter, I love her even more.

Gabi.... I feel like I would absolutely hate being around her irl but I guess I do appreciate her as a character in the story.

Never wanted to kill a child so badly in my existence

Death to Gabi Braun!

I don't hate Gabi enough to want her dead, but "too much spotlight" is the understatement of the year, especially when there is still a lot that has yet to be resolved with the main characters

She just wants to protecc

I love Gabi but she gets too much screen time at this point in the story. I want to see Historia and hopefully Eren later.

I LOVE GABI SO MUCH SHE IS THE BEST GIRL

I like Gabster. Gabi Gang Gabi Gang

Me no likey bad bad

  NOW THAT ALL OF THE ORIGINAL BRANCH HEADS ARE GONE, WHO SHOULD BE IN CHARGE OF THE PARADIS MILITARY? 1,955 Responses

The head of all of Paradisian government, Darius Zackly, went out with a bang, and now we’ve lost the interim head Pixis, as well as Nile Dok.  Who’s going to pick up the torch?  There’s a big three that seem to have emerged as popular choices, with Jean winning out, Hange coming in second, and Shadis taking up third.  

A combination of several people noted above.

Hanji+SC Armin+Garrison Jean+MP

Anyone but Floch

Jean. He's the only one that can view the Rumbling objectively and not rule it out as bad because their enemies are destroyed

Armin for strategy, Jean for leadership, Hanji for progress

Daz

Shadis should take over, but only untill Jean can get a little more experience leading.

As long as they agree Marley needs to be wiped out for the sake of Paradis, I'm okay with any leader that accepts that responsibility

Definitely not Hange. She wanted to make peace with Marley. Not leadership worthy at all.

Rico ;-;

Hange may be commander, but they are unfit for taking on as the head of the military. Same goes for Keith, though in this chapter he shows courage by stepping up to push the trainees to fight, I doubt he is willing to go back into a similar position as he was before as the Survey Corp's commander. Among the candidates, Armin may seem like a promising candidate, but aside from his proven intellect, just like Hange both do not possess the level of prowess of leading all three branches (four if count the training squad)of the military. More I think about it the "best" candidate in this list may surprisingly be Jean, but so far he hasnt been giving me the impression as someone who can take on such a massive role.

Erwin

  WHY DID FLOCH ARREST THE VOLUNTEERS? 1,903 Responses

The fandom is fairly divided on Floch’s motives, with a three-way split that comes close to being even. The highest amount of respondents feel he is arresting the Volunteers because he doesn’t trust them based on past actions. In the middle, people feel that he doesn’t want to be associated with any non-Eldian people. And in third place, people felt that he doesn’t trust Yelena specifically, and is taking her group down with her.

As far as I've seen, Floch is on Eren's side, not Zeke's. So that would make Yelena, who hasn't heard about her boss and the euthanasia plan, dangerous as fuck. Even with that, Floch's following his own principles. He has different reasons than Eren, but he just needs the "devil" figure to project his own will.

He always knew Yelena and Zeke's intentions because of Eren, and now he's arresting them to prevent more trouble caused by them. I think Eren "trusts" and is working with Flcoh more than the fandom expect.

Because they conspired to sterilize/euthanize the Paradisians.

He's a completely inconsistent character whose personality and character motivations change at the drop of a hat in order to create conflict in the story.

He thinks Yelena can take over his position of the best Yeager fanboy and he can't have that.

He was never really on their side at all! Just like how Eren saw them - they were a means to an end, a useful tool but a dangerous one that could never really be trusted. Now that Eren has made his intentions clear and the ideological split is visible, he's fully turning on them and suppressing them from potentially pursuing their own agendas further.

There’s not enough room on Paradis for both of those eccentric hair cuts

  GABI AND ARMIN BOTH SEEM INTERESTED IN PUTTING ASIDE THEIR DIFFERENCES: WILL THE SURVEY CORPS AND WARRIORS TEAM UP? 1,928 Responses

After having been warring factions since the beginning, will the warriors and Survey Corps finally team up as one?  62.9% feel a team up will happen, but not everyone from both sides will want to be involved, and a solid 30% believe a full team up is in the cards.  Only 5.8% don’t feel that it’s possible at this point.

Any cooperation will be a compromise, so maybe?

At this point I really don't know. Their passivity disappointed me fully this chapter. They need their TRUE leaders who are MIA at the moment.

I hope it happens but I think Armin is acting under Bert's influence

I hope not, it sounds lame.

i think maybe they will be forced to work together to stop the titans because they are attacking both sides.

It's the ideal scenario I suppose

Only until the Rumbling stops. After that, the SC needs to dispose of all the remaining Warriors to end the war for good.

PLEASE MAYBE REINER WILL GET SOME CLOSURE OUT OF IT

Probably but it’s waaay to cliché. Please don’t Isayama

They'll team up to stop Eren, if that works they'll be enemies once again

Yes and Yes! I've been saying this for months: warriors and SC are going to have to work together. Magath is going to play a role in this too.

  ANNIE!! THOUGHTS: 1,948 Responses

91 chapters.  91 Months.  7 and a half years.  Longer than we were with the characters pre-timeskip.  Annie has been in a crystal, but now she's free!  33.4% think she came back at the perfect time and Isayama has nailed his writing once again.  18.4% are excited for her return, but don’t feel there’s much time left in the story for the wait to be worth it.  15.7% aren’t worshippers at her crystal, and so aren’t too hyped out of their minds.  29% however: A N N I E

akueeoekskfnfjyfjekqwiruuri MY GIRL IS BACK BITCHES, AND I NEED POST-AWAKENING MIKANNIE FANFICTION NOW

glad she's back but the plot has nothing for her to do anymore

How he brought her back makes perfect sense and I love it. If she chose to come out at this time rather than being forced, it would have been awkward and forced to be honest. But Eren taking away all hardening is the best way to bring her back AFTER SEVEN FUCKING YEARS.

glad to have her back but sceptical of her importance

go back into hibernation

Good in-story reason, great writing, but waited far too long. Not sure if she will even be relevent for the remainder of the story that already has a lot of loose ends.

Hentannie

I am not hyped because it took too long and the series has gone too far down a path I can no longer follow.

I DID MY WAITING! TWELVE YEARS OF IT! IN AZKABAN!

I don't know what Annie can do at this point of the story that will make her return worthwhile

I don’t think Isayama and his editors would allow her to be brought back for a poor plot point/reason, so I’m curious to see what role she’ll have.

I wasn't too concerned about Annie at this point in the story but I'm glad that her return makes sense with the events currently taking place and I'm interested to see what Isayama has planned for her.

I'm no fan of her so I'm not excited at all, but I assume she'll drive the plot somewhere soon.

She's got a lot of catching up to do. Concerned it won't be handled well.

The reasoning is sound, and I am glad that Isayama thought that part through, but we have a limited number of pages left, so I am worried about how this will play out.

Took too long so it ended up being very 'meh' for me, but congratulations Annie-stans, have a drink tonight

Should've been way sooner, her potential as a character feels wasted since we're almost done now. All she'll have time to do is get caught up on what happened and then have a couple reunions.

I honestly have no idea what Isayama plans to do with her but I’m just GLAD SHES FINALLY FUCKING BACK!!!! MY BABY GIRL IS BACK!!!!

  ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT WHAT ANNIE WILL DO NEXT? 675 Responses

Annie will have a run-in with Hitch, get things explained and head towards the main conflict.

Dare I say it, Assist With Armin’s Talk No Jutsu with Eren

"Run"

Definitely try to get to her dad.

Try to find her warrior friends

Determine her situation and act accordingly

She won't be too surprised at what Eren's become. She remarked how when the "good guys" take power, then it's all over to Marlowe in Season 1.

A girl can dream of her and Pieck being badasses.

All the titan shifters will come together (location-wise), it seem like a flag? Since all the shifter's powers is a part of Ymir herself, having them close might have significant meaning.

ANNIETHING

Be traumatized by manga spoilers? Wonder wtf happened?? Try to find Reiner??

Annie will join Eren.

Not give a shit about anything apart from Papa Leonhardt

Annie will play a huge role in stopping Eren, in some way.

be a badass like usual and FEMALE TITAN ACTION?????

Change her clothes because why is she wet

umm take a shower lol

Character development and teaming up against Ereh

I think Hitch will be the one to find her - she was in charge of guarding the crystal. I think she'll be too weak to fight right now though, so I'm worried that she's just going to be used as a Titan Shifter snack :(

Somehow affect Eren's mindset. Not sure exactly how.

Go kiss Armin pls

I'm hoping for Armin to transform into the Colossal Titan. Annie will see this thinking it's Bertoldt, and then have a good character moment upon finding out that Armin ate him.

Her endgame is to at least partially counteract the rumbling with her scream ability.

Confused --> Shocked --> Mad --> or all at the same time. Anyway, she will probably meet up with Armin and the gang and they will explain the shit situation to her and somehow they will come up with a plan or smth.

I think she’ll be forgotten about for a few chapters then show up in the battle. It’ll be interesting to see what side she takes at that point. I’m sure someone will conveniently fill her in on the last few years.

She's a wild card, but the last we saw her she wanted to get back home. I'm sure she will be invested in saving the world from annihilation.

She is FAR away right now. I think dealing with Annie is a good wind-down after all this World-ending stuff has been dealt with, like when they save the Shire after defeating Sauron

Crystallize

Yeet to Marley and die with her papa.

Annie's first move will be to find a toilet sure she must be dying for a pee like

  HOW HAS YOUR OPINION ON THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS CHANGED?

Shadis, Jean and Gabi are the big winners in the opinion poll this month with the majority selecting “More Favorable” reaction to them. Shadis had 1379 respondents selecting “more favorable”, Jean had 1076 and Gabi came in third with 980. Fighting titans so soon after surviving a bear attack is impressive, so I’m not surprised with these results. At the other end of the spectrum, Connie (542) and Floch (496) had the most number of “Less Favorable” selections. While the good outweighed the bad, Gabi again proved to be polarizing with 432 people choosing “Less Favorable” despite her positive development this month.

  FAVORITE NEW TITAN DESIGN? 1,926 Responses

Isayama’s nods to his television viewing habits continue with the appearance of the “Better Call Saul” titan. Our appreciation of Isayama’s sense of humor continues with more than 50% of us selecting it as “Favorite New Titan Design” (51.5%). Pixis was a distance second with close to a quarter choosing his titan form (23.7%) as their favorite.

Still laughing over the Saul Titan. Good ol' slippin' Jimmy

the Better call Saul titan looks more like Bolsonaro (Brazil's president)

one last hurrah to the Pure Titan mayhem the series was originally known for, and witnessing the tragic end to Nile and Pixis

  WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,926 Responses

The three elements of the story which have been absent for months, or even years, take the top overall votes for what the fandom would like to see next. 33.6% are dying to see present-day Levi and Hange again. 24.1% are still eager to get Historia’s perspective. 23.6% are still hoping to one day see Eren’s inner thoughts.

All I want for Christmas....Is Historias POV

I'm missing Connies adventure on the 'What are you hoping to see next chapter?' question.

Bitch give me Levi. It’s been more than half a year.

I literally only care about the 104th characters so the more of them we can see next chapter the better

Give me more Eren action pleaseee

So why is Annie pov not an option for next chapter?

I have waited for 7 years, finally, Annie is back. I wanna see more of her story and  character development. I cant wait to see her conversation with Hitch and Armin!

Please Isayama give me more good Shadis content

I really want to see Eren's full complete titan. Issayama, stop blueballing us please!

I would actually like to know more about that spine creature that is evidently the source of Titans.

Is there a Kiyomi option?

  WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,843 Responses

With close to 200,000 members it’s no surprise that Reddit continues to dominate the discussion field (47.7%), followed distantly by Tumblr (15.5%), Real Life (9.8%) and Discord (6.7%). Amazingly, 9% don’t discuss it at all. This month, FIVE of you said Snapchat, up from four last month, so while there’s still technically a possibility that you guys are actually forming some weird snapchat cult and this isn’t an elaborate psyop, I’m still not convinced. But regardless of where you discuss the series, or if you even do, we truly appreciate your participation in the chapter poll!

  ADDITIONAL COMMENTS? 416 Responses

OMG! Okay, it's happening! Everybody stay calm! Annie! Annie! Annie!

Annie got crystalized in chapter 33, and now she's out, 91 chapters later. Since 12 chapters are published in a year, we have been waiting for her (not including flasbacks and her just chilling in the crystal) 7 years and 7 months. I salute all the diehard Annie fans, you had a long wait.

Once again I have marked my calendar. May 9, 2012 - December 5, 2019. After 7 excruciating years our queen is FINALLY awake. This deserves a new record for longest amount of time a character has been comatose in real life. Thank GOD it's finally over I still can't believe it.

I'm a big fan of all of the smaller storylines coming together, hoping for everything to be wrapped up nicely and characters from different factions (i.e Hange, Annie, Historia) all coming together to address the rumbling.

It felt a little like a breather chapter, despite all the action. It was nice to slow down and get some character development for everyone.

“Everyone has a devil in them” is a great message. Hope they all team up and stop Eren. Very curious about what Annie will do!

The parallels to Trost arc were nice, but I felt like the endgame was finally amping up only to be put on hold.

Great chapter! I like Pathland, and the flashback with Levi and Hanji was great, but it was a relief to get some current time action. Gabi is best girl, Armin just went up by leaps and bounds in my book, and Annie is back!! So excited for the next chapter…

Great one ! The fear from the mindless titans in back, like in Trost. Many side characters development/deaths (Nile, Pixis, Shadis, Kaya, Nicolo, Gabi, Annie, Connie, Jean...). So much good stuff, I almost forgot about the rumbling going on !!

Amazing. If Isayama maintains this quality til the end, then this will be one of my favorite series, of any media, ever.

I'm wondering what Annie can realistically do at this point. Sure she beat Eren before but now he's in another level.

Guess we don't have to deal with the genocidal jock for a while

REINER HELOS BRAUN WILL SAVE THE WORLD (after his power nap)

ANNNIIEEEEE; Shadis' comeback was wonderful. I hope he can make up for the loss of Pixis and Erwin and such. He has great potential and he's a well developed character. Jean is asking the real questions, but the showdown between him and Floch is about to go down.

I said previously that if Floch survives I wanted my money back. But you know what? I'll take my refund in Annie store credit. Thanks for that bright spot, Isayama!  Also: this chapter pointed out how many good people in the world will suffer if Eren succeeds. And I felt as frustrated with the remnants of the 104th as Gabi. Nicolo and Shadis became my unexpected heroes this chapter.

Is Zeke still alive? Is he still controlling the mindless titans?

Floch didn’t do anything particularly bad this chapter but every time I have to see his face my opinion of him becomes less favorable. When Jean said “so you lived...” I FELT that disappointment lol.

I love the Braun siblings interaction in this chap. And Nicole's "we'll try to get out of the forest" sends chills. I think that's one of the point ISTM is trying to get across.

Does Connie realise that if his mother was given one of the nine titan powers she would be made to fight? Getting one of the titan powers is very much a curse not a blessing (especially with the Jaw titan)

At this point the Eren/Gabi parallels are feeling a little overdone and forced.

If Gabi receives Eren’s Titan it will be the stupidest most disappointing thing to happen in this- no all of manga! Besides, what is the damn point of her “paralleling” Eren anyways? But the Sasha paralleling was even more gnarly YUCK!

It's true that the people of Paradis will benefit from this shit, but I highly disagree with any justification when it comes to Eren's horrible actions. GENOCIDE IS NEVER THE OPTION. I think Jean is disappointed too but he's trying his best to rationalize the crap Eren's carrying out for he still doesn't want to believe his friend is committing genocide. I expect he comes back to his senses soon otherwise I no longer will appreciate him as a character.

That "who are you most disappointed" will sadly be filled with Armin hate tbh. And in the end he was just wanting to avoid unnecessary conflict... tbh Anyone hating on Connie, Gabi and Armin doesn't seems to know how humans emotion work in helpless situations...

What Yams is doing to Connie is further proof he is ruining his main characters (the good ones) to make room for his precious Marley characters (the crappy ones)

Connie's regression and frustration was more and more visible since Sasha died. He's lost everyone close to him. I am happy to see him finally snap at Armin and go his own way. This was foreshadowed for a while now.

I hope Isayama sensei doesn't forget to include World Millitary's raid in the action. They already mention in some previous chapter by Zeke.

Quantity-wise, the chapter wasn't centered around Gabi, okay. But. BUT. Gabi got quite a few powerful scenes, very Gabi-centric scenes, and I'm not happy about that. I don't see how and why the fandom so easily forgave her for what she's done. Isayama drawing parallels between Gabi and Sasha was insulting and distasteful.

It is highly likely that this is the last time we are going to see Pure Titan mayhem in the series now that the Rumbling is taking place, so I think it was great to that focus in this chapter. I thought it was handled well, especially with Shadis's scenes, the parallel of the new recruits seeing the Pure Titans peaking through the hole of the fortress tower much like a similar scene in the Trost arc, the tragedy of seeing Pixis and Nile (two of the last remaining head honchos of the military not counting Hange and Shadis) as Pure Titans and getting killed off for good, and how characters like Armin and Jean fought those Pure Titans.  

WARMASTER FLOCKE, TO LEAD THE ARMIES OF ELDIA TO VICTORY! Haha no I guess not. I'm torn between Flocke, Jean, Eren, and Shadis. All could be good picks but all outcomes would have different implications on the story and what it means. I guess if I had to pick, it'll be Shadis or Eren for now and then perhaps Jean later when things have settled and they've grown up more.

I honestly can't keep up with how many faces Floch has.

With how the pacing is handled there's no way this is ending in 6 chapters. The real climax is Eren having to go against his friends because there's no way in hell Mikasa is allowing him to genocide kids

As heartbreaking as this chapter has been, I already had my hopes destroyed when 119 was released. Today has been the confirmation for two awesome characters, who fell because of the non-veteran rule. I don't know why I still hope to see Keith staying alive, but at least we got an awesome moment of his.

Characters are being balanced relatively well. Isayama's got a lot of characters and plot threads to deal with, and while Levi, Hange and Historia are getting less focus than I would like, I think he's doing a pretty good job of keeping each character relevant and giving them all some good arcs/ moments

Everything (except for Gabi scenes) was perfect for me!

Eww Gabi-focused chapter…

I simply hate how cowardy the 104th is acting. It's clear they're only fighting in their own interest and are just pulling excuses after excuses for supporting Eren. At least Floch is honest about it.

Man, the 104th always been the group I care the less in the story, but this chapter they're being so annoying (apart from Mikasa). Well, I can forgive Connie because of everything he went through, but Jean... why are you saying this ""there was no other choice, eren is protecting us"" bs ? Nice of you to be complicit of mass genocide. (Yes, I know his face shows he's conflicted, but he still sides with eren) Also Armin... at least he's horrified at what's Eren's doing but when he said that if they don't kill Falco there would be no conflict with the warriors since Marley will be gone....that's just dumb. Their home and families are going to be destroyed, but ok Armin, go off. And getting into another serumbowl situation, with one of my fave uncounscious while the SC decides who will eat him... I don't like it. (I don't think Falco will be eaten tho, the whole thing raised many death flags on Connie)

Great chap, Isayama seems to finally give closure to certain plot parts. End is near.

Here's a crazy idea: feed GABI to Connie's mom instead of Falco, there would be nowhere near as much arguing with that

Highlights that people can rise above their conditions to become better people, offering a counterargument that humanity should be wiped out.

I don't get why the story pacing was disrupted so much. Why build up to a climatic cliffhanger with the rumbling, only to basically ignore it for the entire following chapter?

I honestly wonder if titan shifting still works as it used to. I'm afraid of seeing Falco get eaten for nothing. Honestly I'm worried about Falco dying for nothing while people right over him as a pawn in general.

Quite interesting chapter. Had fun with it. Much, much slower paced than expected almost. But then again we need time to cover all this stuff. And I'm happy it all took place in the current rather than another flashback. Not really a fan of the Gabi stuff but it is what it is. The other character developments were quite nice. Reiner literally just falling asleep tho lol. Overall I guess I wouldn't say it's a "big" chapter but it is necessary to bridge what came before with whatever comes next. And at long last Annie is back, so that's GLORIOUS.

I hope Annie will have such a big role she gets repaid for the all years she's been gone😞

I hope Isayama uses the slowdown in the pace to better sell the scale of the rumbling, we already see part of that by hoe Eren's dino titan still isnt complete, even after all this time

I love how the story is progressing.The next chapter is always something I personally don't expect and it's always exciting. The hype at the beginning/end of the month is unreal. As for the chapter itself, it's always refreshing to see Jean's perspective on Eren's plans because I love his interpretations on him. #TEAMJAEGER

i love my waifu annie i missed her so much

I love you Connie and I'm sure your mom is nice and all but Falco is a precious bean who needs to be protected.

I really hated the Gabi-Sasha and Gabi-Eren parallels. I also still think Gabi was never needed in this story, in fact I don’t know how I’ll be able to stomach season 4. Ugh, the first half will be completely and utterly Gabified. Gabi in color and motion plus speaking, YUCK!  Anyways I hope that the next chapter will have an update on Hange, Levi, and Historia. And maybe Floch getting punched by Shadis that would be the Cherry on top.

It was an average chapter, not bad but nowhere near as good as the previous ones. Plus I'd appreciate if other characters, outside of Gabi, had more spotlight. Her arc and development is done, give more development and screentime to other characters such as Mikasa please.

Just being disappointed. The pacing is very slow. Also the main cast's reactions were too passive. I hated it.

Just great. Just great. The drawings were incredible and the plot just keeps getting better.

Less Gabi, more Historia!

Levi and Hange better return in some way, shape, or form, or Yam's is in for it.

Levi is the new Annie

Love getting to see thoughts from many different characters and where they stand. A lot of them are still left behind trying to rationalise things to make it emotionally palatable, or simply stuck not being able to accept the reality, whereas Gabi has kind of gone ahead and realised there's evil on both sides, and she's willing to kill Eren or work with him if she can best protect the people she cares about (eventually probably not just her friends and family either, but the outside Eldians as a whole).

My baby is back!!!!!!!! I wanna see more of ANNIE!!!!!!

Nicolo talking to Kaya and Gabi was cringey af. Did they really do back to that derpy forest analogy? If this series ends with them holding hands and singing around a campfire imma legit be so disappointed. I need me my Rumbling!

This chapter felt like a nostalgia trip, but I wasn't in for the ride. It was a mess of short catching-up moments when I just want to pick Eren's brain. I want to see Levi and Hange alive or hear what Annie and Historia think about the events, but at the moment I don't care about even those storylines. I just want to know what the relationship between Ymir and Eren is now that the walls came down.

The first panel being Mr. Leonhart was a pretty strong indicator to me that Annie would be released in the last panel, and it was. I felt that to be extremly poetic, and the timing is good too. Another wildcard in the plot. Excellent.

Compared to the previous chapter, this one turned out to be very disappointing. I was excited to see the rumbling and getting a glimpse of Eren’s thoughts and feelings. But instead I got Reiner going to sleep, Gabi being paralleled to Eren (again) and Sasha, the 104th busy arguing over what to do with Falco instead of, you know, focusing on THE RUMBLING

Good chapter, but if S4 is the final season and airs Autumn 2020, and with a monthly release, curious as to how isayama might tie up these "last minute" plot threads such as the new developments with Connie and Falco.

What else can I say except it's amazing and it was worth the wait

Where is Levi damnit