#at least not without a highlight compilation like I mentioned above

[bulletbilltime]

Penny in her Day 5 stream saying she wants a highlights view of what everyone is doing on IJWPMMWMF server makes me wish we had a BlueberryTV style episodic highlight reel of their SMP

[marshmellin]

Regarding the Eldar and Sexy Sex | Analysis of the Laws and Customs Among the Eldar within Tolkien's Lore

A.K.A Let the elves be horny. Textually, there is no reason they can't if we're creative.

The concept I am analyzing: An unfinished essay describes the Elven view of marriage vows which cannot be broken. In sum: Some have interpreted this text as saying that Elves can not/will not have sexual activity (“bodily union”) outside marriage.

The concept I have landed on: “Bodily union,” as described in this unpublished text can be interpreted as an intentional act that elven couples choose to perform. The term is not a catch-all for any or all types of sexual contact. In sum: I interpret that Elves can and could engage in a variety of sexual activities without creating marriage vows if they wished.

Below, I have shared how I came to this concept.

Mainly because I like to be canon compliant while letting elves get down.

Welcome to my TedTalk:

First, the facts:

“Laws and Customs Among the Eldar" (LaCE) is an unfinished, unpublished essay written by J.R.R. Tolkien. The notes and draft were published in Morgoth's Ring (Book 10), part of The History of Middle-earth compiled by Christopher Tolkien after his father's death.

LaCE is framed as an account written by Ælfwine, an Anglo-Saxon man. The text provides Ælfwine’s recounted views on various aspects of Elven life — and the BIG drama it creates in The Fandom™ is because of the traditions he recounts regarding marriage and childbirth, particularly. As mentioned above, the document declares that Elves who choose to marry do so once, and that due to their nature they do not commit adultery or even desire "bodily union" outside their marriage vows. Additionally, death itself does not override their vows. Partners will reunite in Valinor after leaving the Halls of Mandos.

AND SO: we must ask ourselves some questions about this Elf Sex document.

View the elf sex document here (it is in opposite of salacious. You may feel less turned on for 2-3 business days after reading it, idk.) Starts on page 289. Another section in the same PDF is the story of Finwë legal-argument-ing his way into bagging yet another unsuspecting baddie.

Let us assume the document is a relatively accurate depiction of Elven customs:

Portions from the text:

“It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete…but it was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, both being unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and the union so joined was alike indissoluble. In days of old, in times of trouble, in flight and exile and wandering, such marriages were often made.” (emphasis mine)

Marsh’s Translation: 1) Witnesses are not needed, only the vows or bodily union. 2) This marriage-on-the-go situation was necessary even though the elves, as a group, agree not to marry in times of strife.….. as a race of beings, they do in fact get down bad enough to fuck and marry on the run while continents sink. Passion is there, ok.

“And the union of bodies in marriage is unique, and no other union resembles it.” (emphasis mine).

Marsh’s translation: Since bodily union in the context of marriage is specifically called out as both unique and highlighted as different from other unions, this suggests or, at the least leaves room for the interpretation, that there are other forms of touch and union that do not fall under this unique label of bodily union or consummation of marriage.

This leads us to the next logical question: what types of touch, connection and sensations (union) can occur between two Eldar that do not rise to the level of consummating marriage/a unique bodily union? Kissing? I can think of several ways to live a life worthy of an Explicit rating on AO3 and still avoid "bodily union" as Tolkien intends. And the Eldar have had a lot longer to think about it than I have.

“Nonetheless among the Eldar, even in Aman, the desire for marriage was not always fulfilled. Love was not always returned; and more than one might desire one other for spouse.” (emphasis mine)

Marsh’s Translation: ^^ romantic tension, baybeeee. Elf romantic triangles and quadrilaterals confirmed! But more seriously, I have several questions: firstly, Finwë how dare you.

Second point related to the above: since elves often do not err in choosing spouses, but two elves can love the same person, this suggests love and marriage =/=. We knew this already, but given the astounding number of random-ass elves who fall in love by sight in glades or meadows, I felt the need to be clear.

Third question re: elven love triangles. It the third unrequited person who isn’t loved in return just like….done with romance? RIP, buddy, your shot at intimacy was brief and sad. OR can they desire another again?

“…the Eldar would beget children only in days of happiness and peace if they could.” (emphasis mine)

Marsh’s Translation: ^^ They try not to marry or have kids during times of strife, cool we get that. But this is an interesting thing to highlight in the 8ish pages of “this is Elves and how they sex” that Ælfwine has room for. The note that they try not to have kids (tenuously) suggests couples may be able to control when they have children. I’m not sure if the elven pull out method is particularly proven (think not. looking at you Fëanor, get OFF her).

Additionally, I would not be surprised if, due to the amount of life force necessary to bring forth an elven child (again, Fëanor, damn, dude) the parents can choose to or choose not to conceive during bodily union within the confines of marriage. However, I want to note this one is a quite the reach on my part. Slogan suggestion: who needs the pill when you have the strength of will?

“They are not easily deceived by their own kind; and their spirits being masters of their bodies, they are seldom swayed by the desires of the body only, but are by nature continent and steadfast. Doubtless they would retain for many ages the power of generation, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases, and the mind turns to other things. The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy, and the ‘days of the children’, as they call them, remain in their memory as the most merry in life; but they have many other powers of body and of mind which their nature urges them to fulfil." (emphasis mine)

Marsh’s Translation: ^^ they’re horny until they have kids and raise them and all. And then, because there truly are only so many positions and kinks to try over thousands of years, they start to pick up a new hobby and are generally less horny.

But does this does equate to, “and then, when the kids leave for Elf State College, all sexual energy dies and couples live in separate rooms until the breaking of the world because one parter has taken up elven embroidery and the other now practices music and they’re simply too busy learning French Knots and the French Horn to fuck? They're sexually repressed because of the embroidery and instruments, you see.”

I say nay. Less horny =/= never horny. Focus on other desires =/= abandonment of all previous desires. Saying elves get it on more during their sometimes 100+ years-long honeymoon period is like….yes. And sometimes, if you squint, you’ll notice that the sky is, in fact, blue. (An aside to this section: The elves who saved Ælfwine’s human butt on the shores of Tol Eressëa and filled him in on how Elves work did mention Finwë in their account, but our Anglodude decided to give us a separate account of that, using this to focus instead on "Noldor Wedding Customs." So apparently avert your gaze from the published account of how Finwë, first High King of the Noldor, married twice while in Valinor, despite one wife’s spirit still residing in the Halls and their marriage still being valid, just because he reeeeaaaaaalllllly desired another wife and to have more kids. Really. Really. Desired. It. So he lit'rally lawyered up in front of Manwë and co. to ask suuuuuuuuper nicely if he could marry this second woman he knows that isn’t his wife. He makes a few relatively odd arguments, and now his ass has two wives via special Valar Approved Adultery. This doesn’t, doesn’t count as something Noldor do -- nah, they don't desire more than one person, it's just that one dude….) Sure, Jan.

Let us consider couplings between the Eldar and other Children of Illúvatar or Ainur NOT discussed in the text:

We know those couplings are rare, but they do exist and lead to children (Hi, Elrond! Hi, Eldarion!). Do parings between Elves and Men/Maiar require vows for marriage, or, like between two Eldar, can “bodily union” alone marry them?

If “bodily union” alone binds the Eldar and the Edain, do the Edain know this/is this information regarding bodily union = vows readily available to all Children of Illúvatar? It would seem odd to not specifically mention that as an outcome to Men -- and yet, we have no other true textual support that the bodily union between Elves results in marriage. Like, if we take this at face value, do drunk one-night stands between a mortal and elf turn into “whoops, all marriage!” 😬

If “bodily union” between the Eldar and Edain does not marry these couples, are there Edain/mortal brothels for elves who are stressed tf out but do not seek marriage or "bodily union." For example, I dunno, maybe someone who happens to be a High King named Gil-galad? Or, perhaps, even, an Ereinion? (Yes. For full information, see my published works).

What about bodily union with an Ainur/Maia and an Elf? Did Thingol and Melian need to take vows? Or was Forest Eye Sex™ enough for them to be wed when they finally hauled their asses out of the enchanted woods and still failed to apologize to Círdan for literally causing him to be abandoned? 👀 Questions continue to abound.

Let us ask if the document is reliable in-universe:

The document is written in-universe by an Anglo-Saxon Man who was not related or married to a member of the Eldar, writing in 800something AD after managing to make his way to Aman. He heard this second-hand from other Elves. His b-day is not even close to the Year of the Trees. As readers, we should consider whether his narration is reliable or not for this reason alone. (“What’s your source? Trust me, bro?”)

Which brings me to my next point:

Unless we see other elven-generated sources or statements supporting his view, his research is unsupported — Oh but wait!! He HAS a source. A group of elves who saved him from a ship wreck shared some facts and he wrote them down after he got back so….about as good as being there, tbh. 😑 There's no way in hell an Elf would lie to a Man or play a joke on the weird dude asking invasive questions about your sacred marriage customs, right?

Let us question the document as it exists in our world:

It was published in “Morgoth’s Ring” (book 10) as part of The History of Middle Earth, Christopher Tolkein notes inaccuracies: “my impression is that my father had not fully planned its structure when he began”. Christopher also notes that it clear the document was written from the perspective of a Man and not a member of the Eldar.

Tolkien was wingin' it and he winged too close to the sun, so to speak.

Tolkien wrote this, but also noted questions in his own margins and some of his own logic is in conflict with other published works of his (Finwë, as always, is the exception of all exceptions along with Fëanor -- menaces, both). While many of the stories that Tolkien tells throughout LOTR about elves involve monogamy, we are not shown the other aspects of elven sexualities or lifecycles in those texts as in this unfinished LaCE text. This work remained unpublished during Tolkien’s time, in part, it would seem from Christopher Tolkien’s view, because the views in this in-universe texts did not fit smoothly into the world and relationships Tolkien had already built. (He didn't have it planned). This document did not come before, Tolkien was backing into it and he still was dissatisfied with it.

Finally, let us be frfr:

We all know Tolkien did not intend for the elves to have smutty, explicit times outside marriage. He likely didn’t plan for any of his characters to experience that within his world outside of a vow.

AO3 did not exist in his time. He didn’t know, folks. He didn’t know what we’d do and what we would write. (Side q: when was the word smut invented?)

^^^ To put a finer point on this that is less of a joke: Tolkien quite likely did not expect derivative works to be created from his universe. From an authorial point of view, he was less likely to view his work as what his narrative choices could or could not allow others to do with their own stories in his world. He rightly focused on whether his ongoing writing choices impacted the validity of his past stories.

If Tolkien chose to change something in his world, he had the final word on it (even if he was wrong with Gil-galad's parentage and I stand on that and so does Christopher amen). He was known for writing and rewriting maps, elven ages tables, parentages, etc to fit his vision as needed and as his fictional universe grew. The LaCE document is a draft and he did not finish it because he did not need the customs finalized for his other works to, well, work — he already wrote most of his elven characters as following this pattern of relationships, even if he did not have a document to define it.

Tolkien was an upper-middle-class Catholic Englishman writing from a personal lens; while his body of work is not a Catholic work, we can not fully ignore the author’s religion when analyzing a story that includes clear in-universe religious systems devised by a devoutly Catholic man. And, to be equally plain, is quite gah-damn clear what a man born in 1892 with JRR’s background, religion and education means to communicate to his audience when he says “bodily union”.….

But language changes. Context changes. Use changes. Meaning changes. AO3 has been invented.

Let. The. Eldar. Be. Horny.

Last Thots:

Many a writer out there *waves arms broadly* working with elves in Tolkien’s universe may feel the need to write them as a pretty straight-laced race of beings: no open lust, no sex outside marriage, unbreakable oaths. These are aspects aligned with the way Tolkien portrays elves, and so many fics featuring some of our faves will pair elves with others who are their betrothed or intended or spouse – a relationship that fits within the shown framework of elven sexuality. Sometimes writers will make some complex (and cool!) rationales to allow characters to move around the “rules”.

Love these fics. LOVE THEM. Give me all the betrothal and intended and sneakylink hijinks you can.

….but don’t keep these lovely people sexually repressed unless you want to. For fun 😉

[peninked]

So I am writing a paper on Classical werewolf elements in Teen Wolf (there are a few!), so as part of my research I'm dwelling a bit into Greek and Latin werewolf folklore. This is what I have written so far...:

Greek and Roman stories of humans transforming into wolves fit only with difficulty in the established categories of ‘werewolf’ that appear in the literature about the supernatural,[1] because they are a range of examples where humans transforming into wolves at will, forcefully, regularly, permanently, and temporarily. Some of the human-wolf transformation stories can be excluded from proper werewolf lore, as they involve witches, sorcerers and herb collectors transforming themselves or other people. These include mentions of Circe turning men into wolves,[2] shamans deep in Scythia who could turn their people into wolves,[3] and witches and herb-collectors like Meroe who could turn whenever they wanted.[4] Similarly, ‘lycanthropy’ was considered to be a medical condition in later medical treatises; a melancholy of sorts that caused those who suffered it to vague at night time around the streets with dogs (and wolves), bumping their shins against tombstones.[5]

However, at least nine stories of true werewolves have come down to us in various forms, and they are a testimony to the rich werewolf folklore of the Classical world.[6] The most famous example nowadays is the story-within-the-story about the soldier in the Satyricon.[7] In this story, Niceros tells during Trimalchio’s dinner how he was travelling with a soldier who, during the night, took off his clothes by a monument in a graveyard, pissed around them, and turned into a wolf while his clothes turned to stone. The most repeated and widely-circulated story in antiquity, nevertheless, is that of Lycaon of Arcadia and the rites associated with the cult of Zeus Lykaios, which will be detailed below.

From these Classical stories about wolf shape-shifters, however, we cannot create a ‘Classical werewolf archetype’ that matches every story. This is, above all, because werewolves belonged in Greek and Latin folklore, and their sole purpose was to be the main focus of a story. Because of this, they were never part of a larger narrative (or an educated one, Lycaon being the main exception), and the werewolf existed in the way and form required by the story it appeared in.[8] We can, however, highlight a handful main characteristics that seem common across these tales.

To start with, Classical werewolves all show a full transformation from human to wolf and vice versa, without it being possible which one is the ‘original’ shape. From this we can infer that these werewolves kept their human sense of self even while in wolf form.[9] This preservation of the human consciousness is key, because werewolves in wolf form must be able to take certain conscious decisions in order to shift back. Discarding their human clothes and recovering themwere essential steps in the transition human-wolf-human, and the same could be said about avoiding human contact or interaction with other humans.[10] Also, the way becoming a werewolf was transmitted was not through a bite or a scratch, but rather by breaking bread with a stranger,[11] something perhaps designed to warn travellers, as a moral to werewolf stories. Lastly, we find that their eyes glow, sometimes with fire, to signify their supernatural essence.[12]

The stories about Lycaon are intrinsically connected with a series of religious rituals that existed in Arcadia and that were focused around the cult of Zeus Lykaios, offerings that included human sacrifices, and rites of passage.[13] These were already discussed in Platonic texts and compiled by Herodotus,[14] but Pliny discusses these rituals and links them to werewolf folklore (fabulae), albeit if simply to underline the gullibility of the Greeks. Pliny and, later, Pausanias, mention how during the ceremonies linked to the temple of Zeus Lykaios, local young men go through a rite of passage in which, after de-robing themselves and making the recommended offerings, they cross a pond from which they emerge as wolves, and they live in that wolf form for years (up to nine), only to return back home as men if they abstain from having contacts with other humans, eating human flesh, or staring into a man’s eyes.[15]

These defining characteristics do not seem to be much, but are already very different from medieval perceptions of the werewolf ―the kind of which are later adapted in nineteenth-century Gothic literature and, from them, to modern fiction.[16] Classical werewolves do not ‘shift’ into wolf-human hybrids, nor do they become senseless monsters; and if they go on killing sprees, it is usually sheep that are the target, not directly other humans.[17] In some aspects they are similar, since werewolves follow deeply-rooted Indo-European tales of the dangers that lie beyond the known space, especially in the forest where wolves dwell, [18] and it is possible that the moon had an effect on their transformation,[19] but the werewolves of Classical folklore fail to match the current expectations of werewolves in fiction.

[1] Ogden (2021) 7, n. 27, citing de Blécourt (2015).

[2] Hom. Od. 10.210.

[3] Hdt. 4.105.2.

[4] E.g.: Apul. Met. 2.22-5; Verg. Ecl. 8-9.

[5] Metzger (2015).

[6] Ogden (2021) 206-7.

[7] Petron. 61-2.

[8] Odgen (2021) 8-9, 210.

[9] Odgen (2021) 7.

[10] Ogden (2021) 82-4.

[11] Petron. 62. Niceros swears he would not share food with the man after finding out he was a werewolf: nec postea cum illo panem gustare potui, non si me occidisses. Cf. Ogden (2021) 99.

[12] Ov. Met. 1.238 idem oculi lucent; cf. Ov. Am. 1.8.15-6, Philostr. VA 4.10.

[13] Odgen (2021) 178-86.

[14] Ps. Plato Min. 315b-c and Hdt. 7.197, as cited by Ogden (2021).

[15] Plin. Nat. 8.80-1; Paus. 8.2.6. Cf. Gordon (2015) 47.

[16] Crossen (2019).

[17] Gordon (2015).

[18] Bernhardt-House (2006) 160.

[19] Odgen (2021) 191-2.

OHH THIS IS SO COOL.

I had never heard of like actual lycanthropy diagnoses?? That’s sick. “Bumping shins against tombstones” what a symptom!!

And the idea of being unable to pin down the archetype by virtue of werewolves being designed however the story needed them to be– so true!! I hadn’t thought about that but it definitely changes how our perceptions of what a werewolf is "supposed" to be.

And the breaking bread story– I understand it serving as a warning, that makes sense, but there’s something very sweet there too. Taking that idea and putting it in a teen wolf lens (how can I not?) it just indicates something more built on community which I love!

Thank you sm for sharing!! :D

[btsandvmin]

Jimin is REALLY REALLY SWEET AND FLIRTY with EVERYONE. Even to his friends outside BTS. But aside from what they said in the song Friends, why do you think what he and Taehyung has is EXTRA special?

I mean, for me personally I think there are a lot of things. Sometimes big and sometimes really really small. I can’t really go through every moment over 7 years to show why I think Vmin is more special. It’s also of course not to be ignored that I have a clear bias for Vmin’s relationship that can affect my perception a lot.

Here is one example where Jimin directly says he doesn’t think the other members will fully understand his and Taehyung’s relationship and why Taehyung cried while reading his letter to Jimin. Of course this is a very personal letter and something just between them, but it’s a moment that shows that Vmin’s bond is something even the two of them has pointed out as something the other members might not fully understand. So, how can we as outsiders even completely understand the weight behind Vmin’s bond?

But if I just put it into a very short list of general reasons without going into detail I really don’t have to say much and you will likely be able to think of several more moments yourself outside the examples I give.

On the top of my head here are some of the reasons I find Vmin special:

They label each other as soulmates, this is one of the closest things you can refer to another person as and they have on top of this used many other expressions to describe their relationship that seem to make it special like Jimin saying “you are more than a best friend, you’re my savior” or similar statments. Especially from Taehyung with his “my one an only best friend” or “I only have you” tweet moments. Something he has stated loudly in front of all the other members, who seemed to just think that it’s obvious that Tae would pick Jimin above anyone else in the group.

Their bias towards each other. Now this is really something that might be my exaggeration, but in a lot of moments it just seems like they give each other a lot of special treatment. From Taehyung seeming biased towards Jimin on his weverse post to Jimin constantly praising Tae for basically doing nothing but excisting. For example how Jimin in Festa 2020 highlighted Tae as the winner of most handsome face even though JK had won the same title more recent than Taehyung. Not to mention for example how they often express a want to sleep together. They seem fine to share with all members, but seem to choose each other if they can and have definitely expressed a want of sharing with each other the most.

They are very emotionally attuned and attentive towards each other. From what I can see for example it seems they use the phrase “I love you” the most amongst the members. Jimin do express it a lot but if you look at compilations I think we likely will find that he says it to Taehyung the most. We also have them noticing each other like how Tae bought the needle and thread for Jimin in Malta.

The other members have many times pointed out how close Vmin are and how special their relationship is. This is BTS who are already super close and like a family coming to say Vmin in particular are even closer. This has been consistant through many years.

Even people outside of the members have often noted on the closeness between Vmin, everything from their own Big Hit staff crying about “Friends” to people who doesn’t know BTS saying they were “all over each other” behind the scenes of filming the ON performance. There are many examples. Basically people often seem to comment on both their physical and emotional closeness.

The songs. I know you asked besides “Friends” but it really can’t be ignored just how much this song says and alligns with other things Vmin has said about each other, like wanting to stay together after BTS. Not to mention we have at least 4 o’clock and Taehyung’s Christmas song as well that show just how much Jimin mean to Taehyung.

Typically romantic gestures towards or with each other. It really happens a lot between Vmin, like sending finger hearts, holding hands for no reason or other things like Jimin giving heart shaped balloons to Taehyung and saying “this is my love for you”. I made a whole post about Vmin acting very similar to the couple in The Notebook (HERE), and there are way more examples even beyond that.

The way they protect and stand up for each other, even Namjoon telling us they have excuses for each other “No way Jimin did this” etc. It’s the way Jimin stayed behind when Tae and Jin had an argument to the point that Jin got annoyed, or how staff called Jimin over when they noticed Taehyung was crying.

How the other members somtimes seem to leave them alone (when Vmin got to be paired up twice in Malta when Tae showed up) and in some cases even give off the feeling like they are intruding (like Hobi when Jimin and Tae are doing roleplay in the kitchen in BV4).

It’s the way Vmin so often express wanting to do things together, sometimes just to do it together. Like Jimin doing the same things he already did in Malta but he wanted to share them with Taehyung. Or how Jimin goes with Tae to horse riding but doesn’t even ride a horse. Or how Tae literally says he won’t do the bungy thing unless Jimin does it at first.

It’s the way they keep saying they will get closer and how they clearly put in so much effort into their relationship. How they stated in 2013 that they were best friends, or in 2016 that they were 100% in closeness and yet keep talking quite often about getting closer or how they “weren’t close yet” when speaking of the past. Mind you that Tae wrote the “I only have you” tweet in 2014 and said before debut that he would love for such a friend like Jimin to debut with him. And yet, here we are, looking over 7 years how they just seem to get closer and closer and now have a song about how strong their relationship is and how they consider each other soulmates.

And on top of that we have the moments that might not be uniqe to them but still show a lot of love and intimacy, like their skinship being very intimate and how much they pay attention to each other in general and give each other compliments or shows appriciation for each other. We know 95z is love, and it can be seen both in their interactions, statements and reactions from other people around them. 

Basically all members obviously has a very strong bond but Vmin have a lot of things they do more often or that seems to indicate they are perhaps even more close than other members. I probably even forgot something, because I just wrote this on the top of my head. And there are just so many things between Vmin that I think makes them special it’s going to be hard to name them all. Of course none of these things have to mean Vmin are a couple, but I do think it shows how important they are to each other and how special their bond is to them and in the eyes of people around them.

Thanks for the ask. I hope you found this a good read because Vmin’s love for each other is honestly so wonderful. Vmin are for sure very special, and no matter what their relationship is I don’t think that can be denied.

[snkpolls]

SnK Chapter 137 Poll Results

This month’s poll results brought to you by: staraves, crunchwrap, momtaku, and Giovata

Important!! This month’s poll is looooooong so click the read more knowing you’ll be scrolling for a long while.

Also new this month, data junkies rejoice! if you’d like to see all 131 pages of write-ins from this month you can. View as doc or pdf

  RATE THE CHAPTER 2,188 Responses

Chapter 137, “Titans”, was one of the most polarizing chapters in recent memory, provoking strong reactions both positive and negative.  When we compiled the results, the chapter averaged 4.09 on a 1-5 scale, which places it 37th out of the 47 chapters we’ve ranked. No matter how you view it, it’s still a solid rating.

it was beautiful!!

While the pacing was somewhat spotty, overall, the chapter was absolutely fantastic and very fulfilling and answered a lot of the things I had wanted answered.

i was surprised by the events and was left crying and speechless

I'm never judging a chapter by leaks again. This was awesome!

Regardless of how good the next two chapters are, they won’t fix this one. 126 was bad, but it was just bad. This is bad and disappointing.

I realised that there are 2 chapters left so I read it peacefully while crying

It was a great setup for the final

I mean, this is complete shit and I've completely given up hope in the ending, but at least the story finally progressed at little this chapter.

i thought it was amazing. sad, yes, but amazing. i loved reading zeke and armin’s conversation in the Paths. i just really hope eren doesn’t die. with all the deaths that’s happened, his is the only one i won’t be able to bare. i already lost my favorite character, sasha, i can’t lose him too.

I had no reason to cry but I did anyways 👍

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 2,169 Responses

Before we get to the MVP results we’d like to make one quick shout out to a past poll. In 135 we asked who would be the one to detonate the explosives. Of the 1,121 responses that month, only 29 people correctly predicted it would be Jean. So while Jean only received 6.8% of the MVP vote for this act, we think those 29 people deserved some acknowledgement.

With Zeke and Armin comprising more than 20 pages of the chapter, it’s no surprise the majority of favorite moments centered around them. “Zeke and Armin’s discussing of the meaning of life” garnered one-fifth of all responses (20.2%), followed by “Zeke seeing the beauty of the world” (14.7%).  “Levi making good on his promise” (14.5%) was the third most selected option. “Armin reminiscing about the happy moments of his past”  was fourth (13.6%). The final option with double digit results was the cliffhanger ending,  “Armin saying goodbye to Eren before exploding” (10.3%).

everything in this chapter was amazing, there's literally nothing that doesn't makes me happy (except Zeke's death, it made me cry-)

Zeke‘s reflection and death are my favorite panels in the manga. It lives rent free in my mind. This is my favorite chapter of the manga so far.

I liked how Isayama had Jean reuse the suicidal blockhead nickname

I loved seeing Levi take a sort of protective, fatherly role when helping Gabi take out the Okapi Titan. And seeing him finally fulfill his promise and vow to Erwin is refreshing and makes me feel happy.

I loved the conversation between Zeke and Armin. Zeke was always nihilistic, he saw life as dry and meaningless. Armin is on the opposite - he found the meaning of life in the little happy moments. He taught Zeke that life isn't only about multiplication , but about higher, happier and more spiritual things, like love, having fun or watching sunsets and sunrises. I'm glad that Zeke found his own meaning of life and understood that there was nothing wrong about him being born on this world and he would do it once again, if he had a chance. We can add their conversation to the list of the best conversations in the manga.

it was a great chapter, and Armin & Zeke's talk was the highlight for me.

i love that scene where levi was protecting gabi from falling off falco's titan

Armin transforming and saying bye to Eren gave me absolute chills.

♡ This chapter has one of the touching scenes on AOT, because of everyone's helos moment, the unexpected character development, the fulfillment of the promise, worthy sacrifices, the reunion of the well known past titan shifters especially helping all the alliances, and the unexpected goodbyes.

  WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER'S MVP? 2,165 Responses

There were two stand-outs in this chapter. Zeke won MVP by an Eldian ass hair at 35.9% of the vote, with Armin a smidge behind at 35.5%. Third place goes to a truly majestic cameo by the Cambrian explosion at 8.4%. Honorable mentions go to the horse in fourth (6.1%), Levi with his head-spinning moves (5.4%), and Reiner (maybe) Helos Braun (4.9%).

I LOVE ZEKEEKEKKEKE

MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN MAJESTIC ARMIN

Not crazy about Armin's "Talk no Jitsu" being the end-all solution but I reluctantly voted him MVP because there is no way in hell the brat who killed Sasha deserves anything like it even without being in only one panel

Zeke and Armin carried the chapter, after Levi and Gabi.

Falco is still best boy

Zoook <3

  WE BID FAREWELL TO THE BEAST TITAN THIS CHAPTER WITH THE DEATH OF ZEKE. LONG-TIME FOLLOWERS OF THE MANGA WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST SKETCH OF THE MYSTERIOUS FIGURE INTRODUCED AS THE ONE HOLDING THE KEY TO THE STORY. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE WAY HE WENT OUT? 2,177 Responses

Looking back at that old sketch, it really does feel like the end of an era. 44.6% of respondents thought Zeke’s end was a good and poetic way to go out. 29% were sad to see him go but were glad he had some agency - even throwing out a last bit of sass at Levi! 12.4% didn’t like how it happened as it was somewhat sudden and maybe not as epic as it could’ve been. 7.6% question if it’s really the end for Zeke quite yet, and 6.4% have no strong opinions about it.

A fitting end for a great character

I think his ending was very poetic but could have been executed much better.

In terms of writing, he was the third best character in the post-time skip section of the story. He deserved a better ending.

funny monke man... I...

10/10 character, one of my all time favourites. In theory, I like the idea of him sacrificing himself to stop Eren, but with the build up he had (mainly the way Grisha said he would save everyone) it was an extremely disappointing death.

I love him and via development. The thing is that the way he was killed was rushed as fuck and kinda killed my enjoyment of his last moments. If worked better, pretty sure I would have cried.

I really liked the way Zeke's character arc ended, and he remains one of my favorite characters in the series.

I'm happy that he appreciated life at the end. I wish he could survive this

He was an incredible character. I'm going to miss the monkey.

i have always loved zeke as a character, his personality and everything about him was just amazing, kinda sad he's gone now but atleast he got an epic death

I have loved Zeke since the beginning and I am so sad he is gone. But thankfully his death was well-done and he went out happily, realizing the true beauty of the world.

I was underwhelmed...I hoped to get much more out of him than what we did. But I guess this is expected when you introduce like 10 new characters and try to cram their entire arcs in less than 30 chapters at the expense of the original protagonists' (I'm not salty...I swear...).

I'm happy that his arc ended the way it did. As the above question said, it was poetic. But more than anything else, it was meaningful.

i dont rlly care bout him before, but when he died i cried. idk why lol 👴

he deserved so much better

I wanted him to die, but not killed by Levi.

He's not dead

I was actually affected more by his final words rather than his death. I think Isayama concluded his character pretty well. Now he can finally play catch in peace.

  HOW HAS YOUR OPINION OF ZEKE CHANGED WITH THIS CHAPTER? 2,164 Responses

47.1% already liked or loved Zeke before this chapter. 22.5% felt much softer towards him after this chapter but not enough to really say they like him. 21.5% enjoyed his chill philosopher side so much they would’ve liked to see more of him after all. Finally, 8.9% were not convinced and still don’t care for him.

I've always found him interesting. I love how his role in the story evolved as time went on. One of the best characters in Attack on Titan.

I mean, when they released his flashbacks as a child, I already started sympathising with him. Also his paths adventure with Eren. But this chapter really solidified it for me. The guy was just a sad boy who wanted love and thought he was doing the right thing.

He was an "end justify the means " person. I don't like him still.

I mean... it was nice to see him realise that he wouldn't mind being born again, but I was still a bit miffed by the fact that he still believed that his euthanasia plan was the way to go (it sort of diluted the impact of the conversation between him and Armin). Also liked that he acknowledged the innocent people he had murdered, so I'd give his character a 6/10.

my rating on him went up a lot, but i do think that it was a bit quick for him to turn

Isayama finally got me to feel for him in the end, but it took a damn long time.

wow he actually almost grew up in his last moments, congrats to him

Probably my favourite character now.

♡ All this time I've been hating Zeke. Call me childish but I do even hate him more to the extent that I wan't him to die a horrible death, just because he gave problems to my fave character Levi. But now that he's changed and gone I feel bad and sad. But I accepted his fate and that he is dead for good.

I've always enjoyed Zeke's character. Ever since picking up the manga after Season 1 what feels like an eternity ago and he's one of my favorite characters. That being said... This chapter made me dislike him a bit.

His character was ruined in a single chapter.

His growth has been interesting to watch. I was somewhat lukewarm on him before this chapter, but his willingness open his mind and accept the life given to him made me appreciate him much more.

I never liked Zeke but at the end I really liked his character development

he’s still a dick

I am a lot more at peace with his character with the development of the recent chapters. I can't say the same for my first impression of him and what he did to Erwin's gang. Still he's a very well written chatacter and I wish he got more moments to bond with Grisha.

I thought something important or something big were gonna happen but then boom he died

I used to hate him but the more get got to know him the more I understood his character. Overall an intresting and well written charcter.... i still hate him tho hahaha but less than before.

I used to hate him but when they showed his past & how he didn’t get love from anyone I started to really like & understand him

I used to hate him tbh but after chapter 137 he turned into one of my favorite characters to bad hes dead 😔

Honestly his story hit me a lot harder than expected, and it was amazing to see him go from totally nihilistic to a little hopeful at his last moments

Honestly I'm just impressed by that long journey. I've don't recall ever changing my opinion on a single character so many times.

I hated him from the beginning for what he did to Mike, and his actions during RtS didn't improve my opinion either. Even his sad backstory didn't influence how I felt about him. And then in chapter 137 a tiny miracle happened, and moments before he died I actually felt something. Sadness. Empathy. Respect, even.  Goodbye Zeke, you were a great character.

  ZEKE’S HAD QUITE A JOURNEY, FROM SCARY MONKE TO MEME MONKE TO SAD MONKE TO ENLIGHTENED MONKE. NOW THAT HE’S GONE, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS, WHETHER POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, ON ZEKE’S CHARACTER AS A WHOLE? 1,199 Responses

We had A LOT of responses to this one - we’ve included as many as possible without the list becoming absurdly long! If you’d like to see all of the write-ins, go back to the top of this document for the full link.

I loved Zekes character. Even as he attacked Paradis Island you could see his methodical viewpoint on their roles in all of this. He always was working the end game and their ability to not be used as pawns. We may not have always agreed with his path and believe me, there were moments I hated him. So many, but he also knew his moment in this time and what his role was. His death was a righteous one and I loved that Levi was able to fulfill his promise.

I thought his character was probably one of the best in the story, with a very well defined beliefs/viewpoint and a bunch of interesting characterwork.

I'll miss the Zook memes

I'm glad he got to understand that the world is beautiful before dying, I was angry because of all the things he did but chapter by chapter I came to realise  how sad his life was, he only had little moments to be happy and be a normal kid/person, I'm not justifying his actions but I'm not judging him either.

I'm going to miss him :/

I love Zeke as a character. He is well written on his own and also has a drastic effect on a lot of characters. I think that Zeke realizing that there are other ways to look at life and his way was not the most convenient one makes the viewer realize that no one is wrong and no one is right. I think his death was pleasing enough and he look liked he didn't have major regrets in life, other than the one he discussed with Armin.

At first he seemed to me a very cruel and conflictive character but he has had a great development and a dignified closing for his unfortunate path

Top 5 best written character

IF ONLY GRISHA THREW A FUCKING BALL AT HIM ONCE IN A WHILE :((((((

A complex and well written and likable however I still can't forgive him after Erwin

A good character, definitely one of the most interesting of SnK.

a good guy(?) at least he's listening

A good written character , loved his arc and how it ended

I think Zeke was one of the only characters that had some understandable motivations.

"Go back, I want to be monke!"

He was a really important character to the whole plot. His presence always influences the story heavily. I am kinda neutral to what to feel about him.

He was a typical Yeager - only the way he believed should be what all the others had to believe too. So I was glad that he turned around in this last chapter of his.

He was a walking meme then and now he is one of the most complex characters in the series, maybe with another father he would have been happy

He was a well defined character, with adequate back-story to understand his perspective. I cannot say he was likeable or relatable though, except from the moments he was showing some kindness to his subordinates.

He was always a good guy

He was always alone

he was always being used and now i’m crying

he was badass but still idiot

He was brainwashed with no good childhood..i feel sorry for him

He was brought up as kid without loves from his own parents until mister Tom ksaver shows him love and take good care of him as if Zeke was his son so there’s no negative thought about him as he need to do what he need to in order to save the world

Isayama once called him the ""key of the story"", and indeed he was : his character arc concluding to a philosophical answer to his existencial angst that brings forward the key statement of the story : the world is cruel but beautiful.

i felt bad for they way he grew up and when he saw how Grisha actually took care of Eren. i enjoyed his character development

I found him to be quite intriguing. His double cross of both Marley and his people with he euthanasia plan was a treat to read.

I get his motivations, and can sympathize, but genocide is rarely the answer.

I love how Zeke has been having his own character arc since Paths with him making peace with Grisha and seeing how beautiful life can be.

I loved Zeke. Not in season 3 but after reading the manga & reading his backstory my thoughts on him changed. I loved the sarcastic & funny moments with him & Levi.

i'm happy with the development he got, but i'm angry that he was suppossed to be 11/10 smart and he made the dumbest decisions ever. like trusting eren, for example.

I'm just sad Zeke is dead(seriously don't know if he's actually dead) but every time, I would always be reminded of Mike, and how Zeke let him die cruelly by the hands of not only a titan, but three of them.

I'm mad that he did betrayed eren, but im happy he got to choose when he died n how his final moments he liked them.

I'm really really glad he found the meaning of life. after being manipulated all his entire life and knowing that the world was cruel from a young age he decided to go thru with his goals even if it meant nothing in the long term to him (like his plan for paradis) but after his talk with armin his character completely changed for me. Now I understand him more and understand his character. I feel bad for him. mega bad

*sigh* , i have no idea 🙃

A guy that has shady goals but finally realized about the beauty of life which makes him sacrifice himself for the better future and people that fights for it. A good character.

A hillarious guy.

A necessary evil, and really sympathetic but still apart of me is glad he kicked the bucket

A perfect antagonist

a perfectly human and complex character. really loved his contribution to the story.

A pretty great character. One of my favorites.

A really well written character in my opinion

A solid character

A tragic character. A guy who never experienced love and ended up feeling "death is his only salvation."

A tragic story, great leader, never got too attached to him though

A very lovable monke, keep thotting it up in PATHS king

He was a badass man  who sacrifies his live for the  good of humanity

He was a character that never experienced parental love thus he wasn't able to cherish the little moments and understand the meaning of life. I have positive thoughts about him, because I am thinking what his character would be If he had a normal life as a kid

He was a good and tragic victim who became a victimizer in his pain

He was a good boi. Savage, cold and calculating, yes. But in my heart, he was a good boi who stayed loyal to his goals untill the end. I'll miss you zeke.

he was a good character while it lasted, i’m not happy nor sad that he’s dead now, but he was very well written

He was a good character. Still don't like him though

He was a good mysterious character that kept me on edge whenever he was on screen. Didnt know whether to trust him or not and I liked that.

He was a great character and I wish we could’ve seen more of him.

He was a great character overall he had a great character development in my opinion as he sided with the scouts. I'll miss him ofc but I'm glad that he got to choose when to die.

he was a great character, helped the story go amazing

A wHoLe AsS MoNkE

He was a major factor in the story without zeke we wouldn’t be where we are now I personally loved his character he was someone that was prepared to die for his beliefs which I can respect although can’t forgive him for killing all they scouts

He was a misunderstood character and by the end more people hopefully got it.(like I did) But he is now dead monke

He was a really entertaining character and I'm going to miss him.

He was a really good character who in my opinion, got great development till his last moments. Specially liked how Levi was so desperate to kill him as the monster who murdered almost all of the SC including Erwin, but he ended up killing just a man.

He was a really good character, he was only manipulated by Marh and his father (bc he wanted his affection)

he was really interesting- his motives especially. i really enjoyed his perspective of growing up in marley and turning his parents in as traitors, his compassion towards eren, his change of heart in the end. stan zeke.

He was set up to be 100IQ genus but was a self-loathing sad boy the whole time.

he was such a smart character i really enjoyed him , he was one of my favorites and will be really sad to see him die but i’m glad that he got to choose how he died

He was the best monke.

He was the bridge between Eren and Grisha. He was dealt a series bad hands :(

He was the perfect foil to Eren’s character ever since we met him.

He was truly important in each Eren, a bit Levi and the story developments.

He was very well written I feel like he deserved better

He was wonderful character, most one I connected with him in all his journey

He went from a mysterious interesting character in s2 to a character that I hated in s3 for what he done. But now in s4 onwards hes become one of my favourite characters second to eren

He's a very sad character, having grown up with so much suppression and suffering, and to believe he and his race are better off dead, which then leads him to become so determined to exact a bleak plan so his race wouldn't have to suffer anymore. I'm glad armin helped him see there's more to life in his final moments :)

He's a very smart boi but we never got to see his ass-wiping technique. Was this chapter the ass-wiping technique?

He's an amazing character.

He's an asshole, but he's funny. A funny asshole.

He's an extremely interesting character. Filled with intricacies and complexities, I think he fulfills the role he's been given perfectly. In my opinion, his arc came to a nice end and throughout the entirety of it, he remained consistent which I can appreciate.

He's been a victim of the world

He's been an interesting character all along. He should have had a bigger role at the end though.

He's confusing as a character. I feel bad for everything he went through but I'm still not a fan of him

He's funny when he plays with his sand idk😭

He's grown quite a lot as a character

He's just tried he's best t save the world tho. I'm sad for him but i think it the best end for him because he sacrificed so much. Just let him rest in peace

He's monke

He's my favorite character since the Marley arc. I found him really interesting and intriguing with all his Zekerets.

He's my favourite character

He's not really a bad guy when you see his past.

He's one of the best characters, also appreciate the recurring abs fanservice.

He's one of the best villains, if not the best villain, in the series, partially because he feels like such a genuine person outside of his horrible plan and how he can be such a lovable goofball.

He's one of the most interesting characters of SNK. Even tho I still don't like him –sorry, Erwin's dead still hurts:(– I think he was an essential figure for Eren's (& SNK's plot) evolution. A really complex man who finally found peace at the end of his life.

He's quite unlikeable at the start but as time goes by I can finally see some clue about his intention

He's so hot holy shit

He's the best brother Isayama could have written for Eren

He’s a bad dude but he’s hot

He’s a great parallel to Eren

he’s always been an insanely cool character. i dislike how nonchalant he was about ragako but i understand why he acted that way.

He’s an important key to the story and without him it wouldn’t have been the same. i didn’t agree with his plan but i understood it, same as eren.

He’s been a great charismatic character that although he caused my fav Erwin death I couldn’t hate him.

He’s been manipulated like all of them, but in the end, he’s not as shitty as Eren.

HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WAS WILD!!!!!!!!! Isayama did an amazing job on delivering him a good end. I’m glad that I got to fully understand his character and know what pushed him to do the things he did and wanted to do. 10/10 character

His character is amazing; i rly liked him and i’m glad he found his peace in the end

His character was great and his plan made more sense

his titan makes me uncomfy but he has good character development, overall i don’t mind him :)

Honestly very complicated and I don’t feel like writing an essay here, but I very strongly disagree with his ideology but I understand his view point and my respect for him has grown a lot through the series to the point where I was even sad to see him go, all in all an amazingly written character. But he also killed Levi’s husband so get wrecked lol

Honestly? It looks like he was better when he was younger, he was way more scary than now. Now he just looks pathetic.

How should I write it.. He was a great brother, I love him. He loves Eren so much, that's why he chooses to die.

I always hated him and still do for all the things he did, but regardless of that I think he's an amazing character.

I always knew he was gonna die.

i always thought his way of thinking was different from others and thats why i enjoyed his chatacter a lot

I don't like him. Yes, he is a well-written character, but I can't like him because of how much harm he has done to levi. levi lost a lot of his own subordinates and friends because of that monkey.

i dont get why he didn't kill himself before and armin had to be there to state the obvious

i dont like him when he betrayed the scouts but now i understand him but i dont really like him. He deserve better when hes child and thats the cause hes doing this thing. So i guess im both okay and not okay with him

He's had an arc

he's just a brainwashed boy just like others at marley . since kid, he did not have the feels of love by his parents and he just seeing mr.ksaver as his only 'father figure' and this makes me sad like how could grisha did thus to him ?! ik grisha really obssess with eldian thingy that time but ignored your child is a big no no ❤ but for now his character have been improved a lot and makes me change my pov thru him so yeah ...

He's just like every other character in SnK: War Criminal with a backstory. What he went through as a child and a teenager creates a soft spot for him; but doesn't justify his killings and the euthanasia plan. I would have liked him to go down in a more grandiose kinda way (seeing his brain games, him just giving up on his life kinda felt lame). Overall, a great character from analytical pov.

Man vanished for the entire final arc to get one chat and Armin and kill himself. Isayama mismanaged him horribly.

maybe if he was shown love, he would've been a decent person.

I liked Zeke's detached approach on humanity, as I completely relate with his philosophy during the conversation with Armin. Even though at first I was repulsed by his sociopathic tendencies (rip Mike) his character definitely stood out. Everything about him felt rational and original, and I still believe his plan was the most logical one. Great character.

I like Zeke, he was represented as a villain but like all the characters, he's the hero of his own story. He was strong, smart, and tried to stop massive killings. I loved his relationship with Levi too (even though he almost killed him) and I loved Levi's expression when he finally killed him. I expected him to die fighting, but I like how he went down.

I liked him as a villain, but I would have much preferred his Joker-esque "watch the whole world burn" instead of yet ANOTHER misunderstood weeaboo

I really liked him and he was my second favorite character after Eren. I think he was very realisticaly written.

I really liked him as a character. He had a really good character arc not only in regard to his background, and his last moments in the physical world was absolutely stunning!!

I really liked his character towards the end, I’m glad he stepped up and helped call the past titan shifters.

I've got mixed feelings towards Zeke. I really hated him at first for the way he killed Mike - which was absolutely horrible. Then for the scouts and Erwin. But in the end we learn that it's like for anybody else: he did things because he had to. I don't hate him anymore, but I still don't love him either. He's written well, but I feel like he could've been written even more better, which is a bit sad. But he still had a great development. Lastly, the only thing left I have to say is : ✨hot monkey✨

love or hate him, zeke added an incredible dynamic to the story and the exploration of his character as well as his back and forth with others was consistently engaging. didn't think i'd say it but i'm gonna miss him

My thoughts are neutral. I think he had no choice in his life- he too was enslaved. Although, it would have been better to see more of his relationship with Tom Ksaver. That seems to be who he really is, and who he really believes himself to be.

One of the worst childhoods in AoT. I could never blame him for what he did with his life afterwards. I still wish he'd get a happier ending.

One, if not the best character in AOT. He’s such a complex, pragmatic character - I’ve loved him since his first appearance. I just wish his ending hadn’t been so anticlimactic... he deserved better.

Pretty good character but his way of chopping eldians dicks off so they don't have children to save the world was less ridiculous then what eren is doing. Eren says Zekes plan is messed up and then goes on to commit genocide like bruh 😒. But whatever atleast the rumbling stopped.

Well I don't like the guy, never did nor did I care about his sob backstory but at least in the end he came to terms with the shit he had done and accepted his dead.

Well rounded arc. Really interesting character. The idea to have the two yeager brothers have such conflicting ways to bring peace is really interesting

Zeke >>>>>>>> Eren.

Zeke abs

Zeke character is seriously much more deeper than we think he is. Not trying to write an essay here, I'll just say that Armin, Eren, Levi, etc have suffered with the loss of their loved ones. Zeke never even had the chance to be loved.

Zeke character was tragic. He just wanted to live a normal life. At the end, he gave up on his dreams and died, just like Erwin.

Zeke could’ve been one of the best characters in the manga if he had more time to shine it felt like he was either the mysterious villain or a pawn in someone else’s game zeke should’ve had way more of an impact on the story and been less of a plot device

ZEKE DESERVED BETTER

Zeke does his job. He a antagonist to our characters. He a well written character. I still will dislike him for the horrible stuff he did. But he got a good end.

Zeke GOAT. I'd personally adopt him so we could be best friends.

Zeke had a good story. One of the best character in AOT

Zeke had a much more humane plan than eren, he lived his whole life being exploited and used and didn’t truly find the beauty in the simplicity of it all until the end, very sad.

Zeke had a pretty decent character development

Zeke went from a 5d chess 200 iq keikaku master to a meme monke and I loved every second of it.

Zeke had a rare, but perfect mix of being intimidating, goofy and pathetic that made him a complete character.  I've been angry at him, laughed at him, and enjoyed everyone moment he was onscreen, whether it him killing others, getting curbstomped by Levi, or his bantering.

  WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT SEEING THE FIRST PAGES, DETAILING LIFE ON EARTH? 2,127 Responses

46.6% were excited to see real creatures of evolutionary history as part of titan lore, while 29.1% were glad to finally see the origins of that mysterious many-legged menace responsible for the world’s troubles. 12.1% aren’t totally sold on the exposition, and 6.2% would’ve preferred the origin story remain more vague. Meanwhile, 6% know who are*really* the masterminds behind it all. *taps head*

HALLUCIGENIA! Who would have thought that the main culprit of everything was just an evolved cambrian worm. Very nice.

This, in my opinion, was the best chapter of ALL the manga so far. My favourite part was the beginning resembling evolution of the real world. Simply amazing.

the "Life" part is confusing. Actually, i want that "Life" things took big part in Titan History, like controlling human, made human (Eldian) become one race for environmental reason, or something, and that "Life" thing has mind, like it could communicate with people....

Is it a coincidence that this chapter released while I was studying the Cambrian Explosion for my college biology class?

  DOES YMIR NOW SIDE WITH THE ALLIANCE? 2,161 Responses

46.3% don’t want to make any more assumptions about Ymir, they just want information first! 36% believe Ymir’s not on anyone’s side and is seeing how things unfold. 12.2% maintain that she’s sticking with Eren, and 5.5% think the alliance has won her over.

Ymir basically tried to make her own version of Instrumentality. I do think we need more elaboration on her perspective so her changing her mind is emphasised. I've been theorising she will betray Eren at some point, but with the lack of POV both on her and Eren's part, it does seem questionable.

I feel like she just didn’t want to be alone anymore. and because she’s the founder she wanted a connection between her and her subjects or her people. it’s understandable why she would help eren with trying to achieve his goal but it also makes sense for her to help the alliance stop eren because she is now free.

  WHAT DID YOU THINK OF PATHS BEING THE RESULT OF YMIR’S DESIRE FOR SAFETY AND CONNECTION? 2,106 Responses

Again, a plurality of 43.9% want to wait for more information from Ymir’s perspective before deciding how they feel about her. 33.6% think the explanation in this chapter made sense and made her more believable in her motives. 15.1% somewhat grudgingly accept that for the role Ymir plays, this’ll do. However, 5% just don’t like it or just don’t think it makes sense.

i have no idea if it makes sense plot-wise but since one of the primary human needs is connection it's believable and touching

I'm surprised because I believed that was the empty, lonely world  created by her subconscious mind or desire for serving the king. Now it looks like it is the world where she feels safe and is waiting for someone to give her what she desires.

Despite the lack of exact origin, this make sense, specially if we see other science fiction war-politic drama, as the first Gundam Series, or Foundation.

Explaining the origin of the spine creature was necessary imo, but I think the origins of the Paths should have been left vague. This explanation is a little weak.

It's sad yet kinda sweet at the same time.

I like this. Ymir best girl

I still don't understand how that shit works

I still wouldv liked it to be the transcendental plane of existence, governed by the source of all life.

I think Paths existed before Ymir, right?

Paths became pretty stupid after Ymir was introduced.

I think she fled, got parasite'd, and that....thing has been in control of the Titans ever since, trapping the mind of a little girl in Paths for 2000 years.  Finally, someone with the Founder was able to contact her and say "You can do whatever you want!" so she just...let him have power, so she could roam freely for a bit.

I thought that we were going to get a different explanation, since PATHS is something supernatural but if Isayama wants that then Im ok with it, remember we are in a story with 16 meters giants, dont expect science explanations here lol

I understand the phrase, but I fail to see why her character turned this way given the hardships she suffered. Indeed, why did she keep obeying King Fritz instead of giving him a lesson?

I want to know why and how it spread to all Eldians instead of just shifters.

It makes sense to me, and it's a good explanation, but I have a feeling that there may be more to it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but she was stuck for so long, that it’s initial purpose has lost meaning.

It would need a lot more explanation. How does the (still-unexplained) tree spine give her the capability to form an alternate supernatural dimension? And why would THIS be the way to form those connections, rather than, say, NOT forming massive monsters to kill people on earth? How does wandering around an endless desert alone forming weapons of mass destruction for thousands of years feel safe and connected? It's flimsy.

it's a cheap excuse as to why paths ex machina exists.

It’s a good explanation, it highlights the tragedy of her story even more

It’s honestly very sad. She is such a lonely character and the fact that she made a place where she could feel connected to others is very heartbreaking. She’s just wanted to feel loved :(

Kinda stupid. Titans are fucking weird creatures anyways and trying to explain them beyond the concept of "magic" and paths ruins it for me.

Makes sense, even Eren has stated that she has been desiring for company and understanding, meaning that she couldn't completly achieve it with the creation of paths

No, Ymir is trapped in paths due to being devoured while controlling the spine creature. Because she was eaten by humans (not turned into titans) she was stuck in the world of paths and to end titans she needs to be freed from that world.

omg i never rlly got that (i was super confused) until after i read this question- cool tho how her desire for that is so great she created a whole ass metaphysical plane wtfff

Paths didn't need to be explained but it's nice that it's connected to Ymir's desires

PATHS is pinnacle Strand-type game.

She choose to be alone in that realm, and she chose to obey the king's will. I can't feel bad for her as much as I did before

Super weird. Seemed like Ymir just kinda appeared in Paths in 122. So it existed before her right?

That definitely explains why Armin was still able to see everything that was going on in the living world. It was especially interesting to learn that all titan shifters never fully die, rather their consciousness is transferred to Paths where they remain in a seemingly dream-like state but can still be awakened to an extent, as we saw Zeke do. I still would like to see Paths destroyed in the end, though, otherwise they'll be stuck there forever and never be able to move on.

The plot with Ymir was just absolutely awful.

There are still way too many questions about her but i'm not interested in it

Though Ymir remains quite an obscure character, I've always been a fan of childhood trauma and how this affects the world they are living in, especially in a fantasy setted world. It adds an interesting level of humanity to the story.

Ymir was surprised when she entered paths in 122. She didn't expect but from what we've seen from 122, we can say that "escaping to a world free of even death" holds the most meaning. I never saw it as her desire for safety, Connection of course is existent though.

she's become a very compelling character and her ideologies are more pronounced, and I really do like how it connects to titan powers and paths. however we still need more explanations on her.

She's the incarnation of a very human feeling, no need to wonder why she became a godess

I just want to hear from her! Everyone else is telling her story and speaking for her, and I really want a moment at the end here for her to lay things out

  ARMIN SHARES A FEW MEMORIES THAT MADE LIFE WORTH LIVING, WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 2,091 Responses

Armin shared some of his sweetest memories with Zeke this chapter. 74.9% most loved the memory of him running with his two dearest friends as leaves fell. 11.8% chose the memory of walking around a marketplace with friends. 6.8% chose the memory of feeding a squirrel at training camp, and 6.5% chose the memory of reading a book on a rainy day. They were all lovely though, weren’t they?

Not afraid to admit that I teared up seeing the panel of EMA running to the tree!

I love the message in this chapter because to me this is the message of AoT in general; life is worth living because of the small, precious memories we make. It's not about a great sense of purpose; just being alive makes someone a valuable human. If this is the final message of Isayama to his fans, I gladly take it.

  WAS ZEKE'S CHANGE OF HEART BELIEVABLE? 2,104 Responses

Grisha once said that Zeke would save his people, and it seems he has fulfilled this role with Armin’s encouragement. Although not without a good dash of nihilism first. 61.4% thought his decision to help Armin was perfectly in character; he just needed to be reminded of his few good memories as motivation. 19.2% did think it was a drastic change on his part, but his changed views were just a part of his character development. 15.9% did not appreciate what seemed like the dreaded Talk no Jutsu in full force.

I honestly loved Zeke’s change. Despite Ymir and Eren Zeke was still the key to this and I liked how it never changed.

It was already foreshadowed but Isayama should had set this up a few chapters ago because the execution makes it seem like Armin just told him “life gud” and he was like “oh shit u right” and then went to die

It was believable enough. Plus, I like that he still mentioned to Xaver that he still believed the euthanasia-plan was the way to go.

It was good thematically but it needed more time and more build up in the execution

It was kind of strange in my opinion but he was tasked by Grisha to stop Eren so what choices did he really have?

He doesn't have a change of heart, he just has a change of action. same motivation and beliefs, just different action he takes.

He had a lot of time to think in Paths, so yeah.

after all those fandom debates about armin using talk no jutsu on eren, we instead saw armin use it on zeke instead (so my answer is both yay, character development!! and nay, a part of me believes ONE pep talk can't COMPLETELY change a person)

As abrupt as the change was I think I do prefer this, rather than him not getting any 'better' and eventually dying without realizing the amount of trouble and hurt his actions caused.

It would be believable if we saw how the PATHS trip with Grisha and Eren affected him, but bad pacing happened

believable, shouldve had its own chapter though

don't know what to think about it

Not at all. I think if he paused and wondered on his own it would've been better. Instead it was made to wank Armin and make yet another determined adult look incompetent.

Rational me: Well at least Monke got to go out with a smile. 2013-16!me: Eren should've been giving the pep talks...I thought he was gonna be the protagonist....wahhh (cue baby crying)

Seems acceptable, just glad he’s gone

eh. it was somewhat believable. he didnt have any reason to continue existing

Happened way too quickly.

I don't know, but here's my opinion. I'd say Zeke finally open his eyes to the truth, and now he wished to do as much as he can to stop Eren before his time comes. I believe that's the reason he exposed himself to Levi, and why he chose to die after calling every titan shifters to help aid Eren's friends stop Eren. Does it make sense?

I dont get how armin convinced him more easily than eren did when theyre the ones with essentially the same endgoal

i love the idea of zeke becoming a "optimistic nihilist" but didn't at all like how rushed it was executed.

I mean, it sure could've been explored more, but we have to take into account that Zeke had been in paths for a long time (maybe for what it felt like millions of years) and by that point he felt hopeless; his dream was no longer going to become a reality, he couldn't change anything and was trapped there forever, then Armin came and gave him a different perspective, he listened and found something of value in it while at the same time not completly discarding Xaver's ideology. I like it!

I mean... it was kind of a change of heart? But he still believed that his euthanasia plan was the way to go (I dislike Ksaver for that very reason; he projected his own self loathing onto Zeke which led to him believing that life isn't precious and just inherently cruel)

I think Armin and him talked for yrs in paths but it only translated to minutes irl

I think it was either rushed to the point where Zeke-once the brainer monke-did a full 180 to give up on himself. I mean yes, character development or whatever, I think it should have been given more time to happen. He just gave up and died kinda feels off-setting considering his cunning/witty character.

I think that he just stopped caring about everything and did what Armin asked him to do.

I enjoyed armin and zeke’s conversation, and think the outcome made sense.

I was against that plot at first. But after reading different opinions, I guess he became hopeless due to his time in the paths. So the nihilist speech wasn't exactly his way of thinking. Otherwise why would he run around for making his euthanization dream come true if he was that hopeless of life. So I think his change of mind was acceptable

It did feel drastic in the moment, but I think if I were to read through the chapters more consecutively, it might make more sense to me

It doesn't make sense that someone as motivated as Zeke would sit passive the whole Rumbling. If he could have done anything to stop Eren, he would have done it before half the world was Rumbled.

Zeke wanted to eugenicize his race. Except Armin said 'look at this leaf, I like living' and he said 'yes you're right life is worth living. I will die for humanity now'. People will joke about this for years to come when they explain attack on titan to their friends.

"The greatest teacher, failure is." - A wise old ghost frog.

This change is fine in principle. It's change from his idea of euthanasia and "better not be born" toward "eventhough life is suffering too, it's worth living". But it was rushed, it would have been more believable if the idea germinated in his mind. So between the Yes and No answer.

What change of heart, he was reminded from what he found happiness in life which he was enjoying subconscioulsy before aka playing catch. An activity he started enjoying as a kid. It was a game, something kids enjoy not a heavy burden of "saving everyone" as Grisha implanted onto him.

yes because before talking to armin, he must have been so lonly in paths for such a long time, after such isolation even one talk can influence a person a lot

Zeke had this change coming - it was built up throughout the Paths chapters. The primary boogeyman figure of his life turned out to be a good man, and he apologised, turning his entire worldview upside down (not counting the whole "Stand, dad" thing) He had an eternity in Paths to process the events of ch120-122 (and maybe his entire life before that) multiple times over. Armin found him at his most vulnerable, betrayed and alone once more. Their debate back and forth, all done with mutual respect, was amazingly written. Armin showed him the way, gave him that one final nudge he needed in the right direction. It's perfectly believable, and fitting.

  IF YOU WERE IN PATHS, WHAT WOULD ARMIN’S LEAF LOOK LIKE TO YOU? 1,124 Responses

Because we love and appreciate every single one of you, this list IS going to be absurdly long. <3

♡ Levi just him.

🦧

20 inch bad dragon dildo

A baseball ⚾️

A basketball

A bed

A berry

A better chapter 137

A better final arc.

A Bible

A black hole

A blanket (don't judge me)

A blue gel pen, maybe? Or a book?

a blue pouch

a book

A book from my ninth grade year

A book I have that's full of messages from friends

A book maybe since I spend most of my times reading books with my beloved one and friends

A book probably

A book? Handphone? Idk

a bottle of black nail polish

a box of spicy chicken nuggets from mcdonalds

a bracelet

A brush

a butterfly

A cake

A camera

A candle

A card from my girlfriend

Cassette-Tape

A cat

A cd

A CD case of cellist yo yo ma

a cellphone ig xjwkxnekdkd jk a book

A cherry blossom / cherry blossom leaf

A chessboard I guess

A childhood toy

a cigarette shared between friends

A cinema ticket

A clarinet

a coffee mug

a coin

A comic book

A computer probably

a concert ticket

A cross

A cross necklace my grandma gifted me when i was like 16 (she died when i was 18 💔)

A crucifix

A crystal

A cup

A cup of coffee

A cup of coffee in a cute mug

A cupcake

A deck of cards

a dick

A dildo

A dildo (joking) a piece of cake

A dinosaur toy.

A doll

a duck

A feather.

A feather..the pretty one..could be bird's feather..

A fish

A fishing rod.

A football balloon

A fountain pen i received when i was younger.

A framed picture of EMA laughing together

A freakin’ leaf, I’m don’t have horrible mental issues like AOT characters.

A friend/family member.

a fucking leaf

A game controller.

A gameboy advance or some curry lol

A girlfriend, because i'm lonely :(

a glass 'potion' bottle

A glove

a gold necklace i got from my parents when i was little

A Good Ending

A good manga series

A good SnK manga chapter

a guitar for sure

A guitar pick

A hair band (symbolizes self development)

A handwritten message from my mother

A harmonica

a hat

A hat I made for a friend

A heart.

a Hot Wheel car

A Jewel

A joint

A joystick

a key

a kpop lightstick idk

A laptop with anime on it probably💀oh or all if my maladaptive daydreaming story notes

a leaf

A leaf as well.

A Leaf because it's a Fucking Leaf

A Lego brick

A Lego figure

A Levi nendoroid

A life

A lightsaber

a little crystal bear

a little red bean

A little rock that I've polished myself with another rock

A little treasure box

A magic the gathering card.

a manette

A Manga (maybe AoT or TG)

a manga panel

A mechanical pencil

A memory

A mobile phone

A mouse

a mouse and keyboard

a movie from blockbuster

A movie ticket

a mushroom

A music Album

A Music player

A necklace

a necklace from an ex

A necklace that my father gave me but it broke

A new Sombra skin (casual). Give her something already!

A Nintendo DS

a noose

a notebook

A notebook filled with my goals and dreams.

a nugget

A paint brush

A pair of googles from my childhood.

A peach

A pen

A pen or quill.

A pen perhaps

A pencil

A perfectly orange looking leaf. Showing that the seasons still go by even after all that misery.

A phone

a photo album

A photo of me and my friends that I keep

a photo of me and my grandpa

A photo shoot, of me and a few my classmates

A photograph of my loved ones

A picture of Hitch's boobs 😔

A picture of me, smiling

A picture of my family

A picture of my friends

a piece of SnK merch or a slice of pizza lmao

a pill

A pinecone

a ping pong racket

A pizza

A Playstation controller

A plush I still have with me since day one. It has gone through a lot with me.

a pokeball

A Pokémon card lol

A Pokemon emerald rom

A Polaroid of me and my friends!

A possible symbol for the final chapter idk tbh

A postcard I got my from my best friend

a potato

a printed photo

A ps4 controller

A PS5

A quill

A reminder of how my life goes ups and downs but still stands up to fight.

A reminder of life and how it can flourish in the most unexpected of places

A Requiem ending

a ring

A rock

A running shoe

A Santa Hat

A screen honestly

a seashell

A sewing kit

a shot of gold tequila with cinnamon sugar and an orange slice. best night of my life.

A slice of pizza bro.

a small feather

A small stuffed toy, a gift from my grandfather when i was 4 years old, not long before he passed

A snk volume with actually good chapters in it.

A soccer ball

A soccer ball.

A spider man figure

A stone with a hole.

A stuffed animal from my childhood maybe, there’s one that still sits somewhere and is a reminder of those peaceful moments of childhood.

A stuffed animal.

A symbol of innocence and life

A table tennis bat

a teacup

a teddy

A thing who link me to my mom or my brothers

a token. A palm sized blue token with W.S engraved on it in white

A toy

A toy bear dhiq

A toy mouse

A toy plane.

a vape

A volume from this manga lmao

A volume of one piece

a wax pen

A whole bed.

A Wii Remote

A wrestling ring or a brush for paint

A xbox 360 controller..

Actually my answer is really dumb but it will surely look like my picture with my friends at a school camp in forest.

African barbecue chicken

Alcohol 👌🏿

Also a leaf because nature holds my best memories.

an actual decent ending for the series, which this isn't

An AoT manga

an apple

An Attack on titan manga, the 26 volume:(

An attack on titan volume

An autumn leaf maybe

An ice cream

An iced coffee

an old axe

An old Bionicle canister: 8536 - Kopaka. It just feels right, y'know?

An onahole

An orange

An snk volume

Anime-original ending for Season 4 part 2

Annie

annies character development before she became uwu waifu

AnR Ending.

Any of my son's toys. He's 2 yrs old. I'm crying right now...

Any small animal representing life

AOT Chapter 137🤣🤣🤣🤣

Aot manga

AoT volume 30

Apple

Armin thinks of it as falling leaves when he and his friends go to a tree

Armin would BE my “leaf”. Tbh, he gave me the strength and love to keep loving. He’s my happy memories.

armin’s leaf to me would look very green, very healthy and full of life.

Armin's corpse

Attack on Titan chapter 139

Attack on Titan's manga books.

Backyard

bald james charles

ball

balloon

Banana

banana for monke

barbie

Baritone Horn

baseball

Basement key tbh, y'all remember back in 2013 when the biggest mystery was "what was in the basement?" then it was revealed in the manga in 2016? Good ol' times when spoilers weren't everywhere 🙄

BASKETBALL

Bed

Bertholdt's redacted

Big fookin anime tiddies

Bill.

Blunt

Bohrok Kohrok

boobs

Books

bottle cap

Brass Ring

brick

Brooch

Brown and like at the beginning of fall

BTS's album

Bunny

Calisthenics ring

Camera

Can't decide

candle

Candy

Cap

Cards

Cat fur because I love my babies ❤

Cat whishker

chalk

chapter 100

Chapter 140

chapters 138 and 139

cheese slice

Chess

Chicken

chicken nugget

Chipotle

Chocy milk

Cicada

Clay

Cocaine

Cock and ball torture from Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia

coffee

Coffee mug

Coming home after school and enjoying the weekend playing football and meeting friends

Complete collection of snk volumes

Computer

condom ??

cooking with my mother, playing basketball with my brothers and sitting with my friends

Cricket ball

Damn, that's a really good question...honestly I don't know.

damn... idk

dog collar

Dont know

doughnut

Doujinshi

dreams, nostalgia, memories

Drugs

Dumbbell

Eh, probably my cat? Or the picture of people I love.

either a book or a phone

either a controller or my gf

Either a football or video game controller

Eren jaeger 😳

Eren or other

eren's abs

eren's schl-

Eren🤤🤤🤤

Erens dick

Erwin

Erwin's arm

Erwin's dick.

Erwin's right arm or levi's right eye

Erwin's smile

Everyone outside the Walls rumbled

exactly the same

Fair

family

Family Picture

Fern frond

First of all, great question :) probably a mini chalkboard with a little calculus equation on it from when I first got into mathematics

Fleshlight

floch

Flower

Food

Football

Football (soccer) ball

Freedom

From episode 1 2000 years ago!?

From the beginning the trees leaf

Fuck Armin

fuck this shit doing here

GABI'S GRUESOME DEATH

Gameboy

GameCube

GameCube controller

Gay porn

GME stonks

golf ball

Green

Green and alive.

Group picture with loved ones

Guitar

Guitar Pick

gun

GURL? I WILL NOT LOOK AT THE LEAF I WILL ONLY LOOK AT ARMIN! SORRY ANNIE!! >_<

Half Life 3

Halo (game)

hamborgar

hamburguer

hange

Harry potter novel

Historia

Historia not being a breeder

historia's soft breasts

Hmm i don't really know

hmmm, maybe a coin

hold four lokos

holidays i spent with my family n friends

homemade cooking? it would be all sandy tho

Honestly I don't know

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe the stylus I lost?

Honey bun

Hope

Hot wings

Humanity

I actually have no idea.

I did not expect such a deep question! You guys made me think for like 10min straight and question all my life. I'd say it would be a T-rex toy

i do not have any core memories. i remember nothing important of my childhood. it's all just a blank page

I don't know honestly. So many good memories, that aren't really connected with objects per se. If I could see sunlight in that sand, it would be that.

I don't know. I don't I would have any

I don't know. I don't think you would get a choice on what it would look like to you.

I don't really know I had a lot of good and importants moments in life but what I'm sure of is that it includes my family

I don't want to sit with Armin

I don’t think I’ve encountered it yet

i dont fcking know its a leaf

I dont know because i think i dont have a thing like that. I would imagine it as my previous house that means a lot to me

I had a little piglet figurine in my childhood that was lost.

I have a scructured settlement and I need cash now

I HAVE NI IDEA buuut i will think about it later ... It's a good questio actually

i have no answer for this 😞

i have no fucking clue

I have no happy memories

I have no idea lmao probably a leaf

I have no idea too much to think about.

i have so many in mind, idk what to choose.

I have to think about it that's a real good question.

I honestly don't even know. I'm probably just like Zeke who is yet to know the real value of living hehe

I need more context.

I still dont know what motivates me the most

I think it will be my favorite books

I think it would be my medals

I think it would look like a rock that I found on the beach.

I think it would look like an origami butterfly made from a business card

I think maybe leaf or flower

I think will be a pencil

I thought i had seen the leaf.is this a theory? wait? i don't see a tree on the path.where do the leaves appear? am i left behind?

I wanna know too

i was shocked tbh. the leaf became the sign that verified that there really is a connection between what happened in the past and now in the future — that the founding titan really knows everything that's going on.

I would see a specific type of pen that has the same name as my best friend

I'm not sure if I have something I'm deeply connected to.

I’m not sure

Ice cream

iced chocolate

Idk :(

idk but it does remind of the tree from the notebook ova

idk lol

idk my phone or sumin

Idk, I have many things that i love, but no clue what's the most important

Idk, i'd have to be there and be reminded

Idk, maybe hope?

Idk, maybe my cat. She's the best.

idk, something related to cartoons

Idk.....BTS album? They’re the reason my life become much brighter

In my eyes, I would have seen a music box.

Interestingly enough, also a baseball

Ironically enough, probably a baseball like Zeke

Is this really important?

Isayama-san UwU

It could be anything to me.

It could be metaphorical by contrasting the real world vs the afterlife, the past and the present, what is gone and what is still here.

It has to be something connected to an important memory of your life, not just an object that you wish you had, right? I think whatever the true answer is would be impossible for me to realise myself just by thinking. It seems like one of those things that you would only realise when it's right in front of you, then it all makes sense.

it remids him of mikasa and eren, when three of them running under the three

It would be a basketball

it would be a pencil

It would be green

it would look like a book

it would look like a dress

It would look like an autobiography book.

It would look like my bracelet I got from my best friend

It would look like Pine Tree

It would look like this chapter, but animated.

It would probably be a Lego set or smth

It would probably be the discord logo lol

it would probably look like this one follower my grandmother would always have in her garden

It's gonna be a long paragraph

It's hard to think about it right now, I would say a stick?

its remind me when they are still happy in the wall

Jean

Just a leaf

just a leaf u know its nothing particular

Just a leaf. but it also shows that freedom to everybody is different; for zeke it was just playing baseball with mr ksaver, and for armin it was running to a tree with eren and mikasa

Just.. leaf

Juul

kassete

Lacrosse ball

Leaf 👁👄👁

Leaf as well

Leaf is fine~

leaf of the tree they ran toward to

leaf?

Legit my cat

Lego brick

Lego star wars the complete saga for the Nintendo wii

letter

levi

Levi Pillow

Levi's plushie

Levi’s butt

Levi’s dumbstruck of an ass- probably a photograph of my closest friends

Levi’s happiness

Life

Life?? Idk

life..ig

Like a comb

Like a leaf

like a stuffed animal

Like Armin

Like goddamn, you think we could get some trees up in here among all this lifeless sand? jfc it's nice to see some greenery. People may suck but it's hard to say nature does

like looking at the past

Listening to music alone in my bed.

lol yikes i have no idea

Looking at a golf ball

Lots of things.

Lube

Man bun Eren

Manga

maybe a book ? idk i don't find anything memorable for now

Maybe a book or sumn.

Maybe a bottle of wine or a beach towel

Maybe a camera? Photo album?

Maybe a Lego brick

maybe a slice of cake, or a flower

Maybe also a leaf...

Maybe AOT manga? IDK lol!

Maybe book or pen

maybe flower

Maybe sad actually I don't understand 😃

meaningful memories

Meat

mf idk i’m dumb asf

Mi pets :(

Microphone

Mikasa

Mikasa body pillow

Mikasa's abs

Mikasa's smile

Mikasa’s ass

mikasas titties

mine probably will look like a paint brush<3

Money

monke

Most likely a pencil

mouse

music lol

Music Sheet

My Books

my bracelet

My cat

My cat or a cup of hot chocolate

My cats

my childhood

my childhood blanket

My childhood stuffed animal Rudi

my computer mouse

My crappy journal

my crush

My diary

My dog

My dog who died years ago, i loved him.

my dog who passed away

My dog's collar

My dog's leash I guess.

My favorite book

my friend's doodle

my friends.

My glasses or a bar of chocolate

My glasses, maybe.

My Grandma's crepes. ♥

My Grandpa (now I regret being too young to know more about his past)

My hard drive

My hedgehog

My iPod touch.

My kindergarten school

my laptop lol my best memory is blasting songs and pass the night without worrying about anything

My late grandma's glasses

my microphone

My mobile phone

my mom's ring

My mom’s cookies

My motorcycle

My notebooks

My old dog

my own damn tears

My paintbrush

My pc

My phone

My phone :)

My phone kek

My phone lol

my phone probably

My phone, with Reddit open, on r/Titanfolk, reading memes and whatever YakiBacki has made recently.

My phone???

My phone. I have a social media addiction.

My plush horse

My poems

My rabbit(s).

My seal plushie

My smartphone

My stuffed animal

My stuffed bunny from childhood😂

My switch

my teddy or some kind of gift offered by my family/friends

My trumpet. I have so many happy memories from marching band, playing with my friends every summer afternoon. I grew and learn so much through playing the trumpet. I gained so many friends and was so happy during the time I was in marching band. It was like my second home. I would give anything to go back to those happy times.

My tv remote

My unfinished new Survey Corps armor...

My wedding ring

My winnie the pooh doll lol.I loved it soooo much when I was a kid

Nami from One Piece

Nerf Guns lol

ngl it would look like a pawn or some random chess piece for me

nice try, dumbledore

nintendo switch

No comment

no I...

No I'm not ready for psychoanalysis at this moment

No idea, a locket probably

no idea, fuck Paths

Not sure honestly

Not sure. Because i havent found the purpose of my life.

Not sure. Is that bad?

Nothing in particular

Nothing to think about

Noting but vibez

obviously a volume of attack on titan

Oh gosh....this is so deep. I don’t know! Maybe a pencil?

oh man i don’t even know

One Piece volume

Orchids

Pain

Paint brush

Pandemic crisis is over

Pen

pencil

Perhaps a ballpen I used. I don't really have anything that reminds me to live in particular.

Perhaps a history book or map

Personally or as a manga reader? As a manga reader, it would be something related to the veterans, who embodied the true spirit of AoT to me

Phone

Phone full of conversations with my old friends.

phone? lol

Photo of my family

photo of my friends or Levi or Erwin 😂😂. Seriously I  haven't thought about meaning of life as deeply as Armin.

Picture of family and friends

Picture of my family and friends

Picture of sunset

pictures

Picutre of me and my parent's

Pie

pie DAHAHAHAHA

Pieck

Pieck's Ass

Pieck's butt

Pieck's Cart Titan AWOOGA

Pitchforks so I can go manifest in front of greedy Kodansha how shitty the writing is.

Pizza

pizza :)

Playing with childhood friends.

plushie from childhood

Pokeball

poop

Potato

Potatoes

pp

Probably a bike

Probably a bird I think

probably a book

probably a box of Girl Scout cookies honestly

Probably a coral, I'm a scuba diver so the ocean is always something that is close to my heart.

Probably a Gamecube controller due to that being my first gaming console I owned/played on.

Probably a gaming mouse lol

Probably a Kanye West album idk

Probably a leaf. His entire philosophy on life is exactly my philosophy on life.

Probably a manga, if anything. Or a Vinyl since I love music.

Probably a pen or paintbrush because I love art

Probably a pencil

Probably a photo

Probably a picture of my best friend

Probably a picture of my family

Probably a picture of someone I lost and cherish.

Probably a pillow.

Probably a small stuffed animal

Probably a Soccer ball

Probably a volume of AoT ffs

probably a wii controller :’)

Probably a wrestling belt or a game controller

probably an ice cream

Probably an old photo of mine

probably attack on titan manga HAHAHA

Probably earbuds!

probably how happy i was back then OMFG yea im lonely now

probably just a leaf. i don’t have anything that special to me that holds any value.

Probably like a lego brick lol.

Probably like the one you see fall 🍂

Probably Mikasa

Probably my dog plushie

Probably my old Nintendo DSi

Probably my phone

Probably one of my cats

Probably one of my childhood lego guys

Probably Pieck, or a pretty gymnastic leotard or even a pretty necklace idk

Probably smarthpone, idk tbh

Probably something important and precious to me. But right now it's probably my phone, but I doubt it exist in Attack On Titan

Probably the pillow (I named it pillow pillow great name i know) that I brought everywhere with me as a child.

probably the same leaf

ps1 controller

Ps2

PS2 controller

Pussy

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong

Re zero all arcs

Re:Zero

Reading new chapters of Attack on Titan every month

Regrets lmao

Reiner

Reiner's ass

Reiner's booty

reiner’s titties

Remembers

revival

Rose pin

roses

Running shoes

s4 by wit

Sand of the beach I used to visit when I was young with my mother and sister

scripture

Sea or a shell

Sea-water

Seriously, a gun.

shackle

Shadis

sheet music

shingeki no kyojin LMAO

Shiranai

shitty symbolism

shoes

Small rabbit statue

Sneakers

SnK manga

SNK manga volumes (lol)

Snk’s ending

Snow

Soccer ball

Some bird species

Some object related to track

Some type of memory. Or resemble a memory??

Something belonging to Erwin

Something from home

something my grandparents had given me! or maybe my mother's necklace

Something that tells you that life is worth living if not for the smallest of moments- I suppose it would be my phone lol.

Something that would symbolize my family.

Spaghetti

starfish

Still not sure yet

Stuffed animal

Sunflower

symbol of life

Symbol of life?

Talarico

Talk No Jutsu

Tea cup

tennis ball

that fucking POMEGRANATE

That life is what we see it to be, zeke wasn't looking for anything so he found nothing there except sand but armin was hopeful so he found whats meaningful for him

That's personal wtf 😂

The admin of aot wiki😳 seriously tho uhm probably a picture of my family or something

The Ao3 front page

The Bible

The first coin I earned myself (like in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck)

The first volume of a niche little series called Shingeki no Kyojin

The Fucking Levi FIGURE THAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR 2 MONTHS

The hope

the HP wand I made from chopstick

the leaf could be the tree Eren, Mikasa and Armin where running from when they were still a kid or the tree Ymir fell into and got the titans power(?)

The leaf to me would look like a ring. My family gives me one every year.

The necklace my mom gave me

The nothingness

The novel I've writing.

The one he had seemed just fine.

The one under the tree, where it all began

The perfect ending, forever trying to live up to your own version it

The scarf

The seashell

The Sony PS5

The spine of Ymir

The tree

The unrevealed Ackerman and Azumabito plot line

The volume 17 manga cover back when things weren't completely terrible

There's still life and hope

This anime/manga bc I’m so attached to it

This caught me off guard. I don't know

This is a very hard question. I think to me it would show dog toys being my dog is the reason I'm still alive

This is probarly really sad but it would be one of the Aot manga books.

This isn't about me, this is about the manga chapter

This manga

This manga. I wouldn't mind being born again... if it meant being able to experience this story for the first time again... So I'll guess I'll thank you, Hajime Isayama.

This question has the same vibe as "what would you see on the mirror if Erised", therefore, I'm not sure

This series

This so hard but probably the ticket from the Twenty One Pilots concert I went to in 2019 (it was my first concert ever and the last one I went to before the pandemic)

This was actually a really nice question ;0;  To me the leaf would look like, there was a day where i drew Gionro it took 8 hours to others it may sound normal but to me I had so much fun drawing and coloring it. Also the first time i got a dog i was so happy for years i really wanted one and later on we ended GETTING ANOTHER dog and even a cat ;0; that was unexpected!!

Tits

To-do list completed

Too me the leaf would look like a soccer ball

Tray

Tulip

uhh, my phone? I don't have much on my life lmao

Um... I don't know to be honest. I mean does this have to be an object ? Can it be something else ?

ur mom

Very colorful, yet simple. I feel like I would be able to tell it’s importance just by the way Armin looks at it.

VHS copy of the 1977 animated Hobbit

vodka

Volleyball

Volume 30 of AoT

vv cool

waifu figure

water

Waterpistol

Weed

Weed pen

Well, damn, I don't know if I have one lol

What

What leaf? That's clearly a kite.

Who knows

Who knows hehe

Who knows lol.

Xbox controller

yam's balls

yo moma

You.

Your mom

youth and innocence

Zeke being alive and well, raised in a loving household

Zeke living

  THERE WERE A LOT OF STEPS TO SAVING ARMIN, WHICH WAS THE BEST PART? 2,058 Responses

There was some much loved teamwork this chapter. 25.9% of respondents enjoyed Mikasa’s relentless pursuit of the Okapi the most, closely followed by 25.7% who were impressed by Gabi’s continuing kill streak. 21.6% were glad to see Armin help to save himself, and 19.9 % were pleased to see Annie break Armin’s fall. Finally, 6.9% of respondents appreciated Connie saving Armin from another round of Okapi tongue action. Though sadly he didn’t get a mention in the comments!

I genuinely really liked the part where Gabi fired a perfect shot, I personally think she isn't as bad as people make her out to be.

Annie catching Armin was 10/10.

it was so cool to see the team work I'd always dreamed it would look like. Also Levi supporting Gabi was so cuute.

  WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE RETURNED SHIFTER MOMENT? 2,044 Responses

While all the returning titans had a moment of action, it was “Bertoldt saving Annie” that was top pic for favorite shifter moment with 40% of the responses. “Porco and Marcel together” was a distant second with 17.3%. “Freckled Ymir saving Reiner” closely followed with 17.1%.

BERTHOLDT IS BACK!!!!! REIBERT REUNION WHEN

Ymir (freckles) is my personal favourite, she could've said one line at least! Same goes for Kruger and Porco. Bringing people back to life is weird, not letting them comment on that is even weirder.

Grisha hit the gym in paths 😳

I genuinely didn't think we were gonna see freckles Ymir again, so that was a very pleasant surprise! I would have also liked for her to have some dialogue, but then again Historia hasn't had any dialogue in the present time either.

  HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SHIFTERS OF THE PAST REGAINING CONTROL OF THEIR TITANS? 2,117 Responses

The passed came back from the past to lend the alliance a hand! Now this moment was a little controversial. 42.5% thought it was awesome seeing our old friends take control of their titans to save their loved ones. 29.9% liked what the scene was going for but thought it needed more setup or foreshadowing. 18.9% were not happy at all to see such a shonen scene in this manga. Hated it, even! Despite the many strong feelings, there was still a group of those (8.7%) who didn’t really have an opinion either way.

I feel considerably less crazy about referring to the rumbling as ""basically Ragnarok"" now that we have dead shifters coming back from Valhalla-paths to fight in the rumblnarok.

While I expected the past shifters to help out the Alliance eventually ever since we saw crying Bertotototo, I thought it was a little rushed and could've used more build-up.

i want more porco and marcel lol

Pieck seeing the Galliard brothers must have been so hard. I can't begin to imagine how she felt. :(

I still don't understand how it is Zeke that brought the titan shifters back since he was busy thinking about his childhood. I kinda didn't like the ressurection ( not exactly ) of the dead titan shifters since it takes away the meaning of death of you are actually able to interact with them.

Kruger, Grisha, and freckles Ymir coming back to help the alliance??? What??? I get the others but not these 3. Either fanservice or something more is happening under the shadows.

This chapter continued to showcase some more of the past Titan Shifters throughout the ages. What was most interesting of the past Titan Shifters that appeared in this chapter to fight the past alliance members was that some of the same Titan Shifters that appeared during Ymir's flashback in Chapter 122 can be seen fighting the Alliance in this chapter.

I thought it was interesting to finally have Freckled Ymir's description of being a mindless titan get touched upon again. She said that it was like a never ending nightmare. All the shifters Ymir and Eren summoned were asleep in that nightmare, until Zeke and Armin were able to wake them up, if only for a brief amount of time. There was a reason we saw Bertolt crying after Armin ate him. And we were only reminded again in Chapter 135 when Armin saw Bertolt crying again. I don't think these shifters gaining some of there consciousness back is an ass pull at all. We were given some bread crumbs to believe that at least dead shifters exist in some way in Paths after death.

  NOW THAT WE HAVE SEEN KSAVER’S TITAN FORM IN ACTION HOW DO YOU RECONCILE HIM SAYING HIS TITAN ISN’T GOOD FOR BATTLE? 2,078 Responses

39.7% thought him saying his titan was useless was just a lie since he wouldn’t be allowed to pursue his interest in science otherwise. 33.6% figured he was telling the truth and his titan didn’t look that useful. 17.4% think that something truly weird like a whale would’ve served that point better (plus, imagine a whale trying to attack the alliance would be hilarious). 9.2% think it’s just an inconsistency (maybe Isayama realised a whale would’ve been *too* funny).

I want MORE OF TOMS GOAT SHEEP BEAST

No I'm not calling him Ksaver, I will die on this hill

  WHY DO YOU THINK WE HAVEN’T SEEN MORE SHIFTERS SIDE WITH THE ALLIANCE? 2,046 Responses

The shifter crew that appeared to join the alliance created some confusion among readers. Why, for instance  was Kruger there but not Frieda? Where was Lara Tybur? What was the deciding factor in whether or not a shifter returned for the battle? The most popular in world explanation was that  “Zeke could only awaken those he’d met before” (33.6%). It very  narrowly edged out the more practical reason “It’s so we only see the shifters the audience is familiar with” (32.1%). 16.9% believed the Founding and Warhammer couldn’t be used because those are Eren’s titans. And 14.1% believed the reason specific titans were brought back was ideological - they where the only ones who would side with the alliance.  

I am a bit disappointed that Kruger and Grisha are fighting for the alliance now. It just doesn't really make sense that the people who helped Eren get to this point would help stop him. I'm hoping that this isn't them acting independently and are just being controlled by someone.

Ymir is the one controlling all the titans. Why the fuck is she making them fighting eachother? The titans fighting was silly

With Kruger and Grisha helping the Alliance, at this rate, Carla will come back from the dead and disown Eren.

Eren Krueger would not help the alliance he would work with Eren him and Eren have done the same thing on different scales Krueger to the end was steadfast that he did the right thing

I have been thinking that what if we see Zeke's resurrected (or whatever thing you may call it) titan fighting alongside the Alliance?

  FINGERSTEIN? 2,074 Responses

A majority of 57.9% are ALL ABOARD the Fingerstein cart train. 27% seem a little perplexed at how this crack ship blew up from only a few panels together. Well - there’s your answer! 15.1% do not approve of Fingerstein.

Isayama goated with the Jeanpiku content tbh as he should

pikujean/fingerstein omg i ship but i ship mikajean also lmao dont @ me 😔🤚🏻

i’m so glad i got fingerstein content after my months of work for it

Fingerstein is the logical shipping of the only two characters with brains still alive.

That image of a horse and cart made me choke

Does jean like pieck or still inti mikasa?

Nice ship tease of Fingerstein from Isayama, Jean and Pieck are both good characters and deserve to be happy. ^^

  HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT LEVI FINALLY FULFILLING HIS VOW TO SLAY THE BEAST TITAN? 2,118 Responses

Last month, Levi seemed prepared to give up on his promise to kill the beast titan and we as a fandom were as well. So congratulations to the 32.5% who correctly predicted that Levi might still make the kill on our 136 poll!

A majority at 52.1% were glad to see Levi get to fulfill his vow to slay the Beast Titan. After the many chapters of build up, it’s no wonder. 26.5% were just shocked he actually did it - seriously, how many years have we watched Levi ruminating over monke? 12.1% were disappointed and had wanted Levi to let it go. Don’t worry friends, fanfiction is always there for your Zevi coffee shop AU needs. 9.3% have nothing to say about it.

Where's the 'YAAAAS QUEEN' option for Levi killing Zeke tbh!!

I can’t believe Levi actually did it.

i saw the page where levi finally kills zeke before reading the chapter and I was upset bc major spoiler + it was v visually striking or whatever, so i was v pleasantly surprised that it still managed to take me by surprise. Levi is so savage !

After beheading Zeke, how would you read Levi's expression?

Anyone referring to Levi killing Zeke as "fanservice" is a loser who probably hates Levi for his popularity. Why should everyone else fight for what they want, while he gets nothing?

On Levi killing Zeke, I feel like that's narratively sloppy and only serves as some shitty ass way to make Levi relevant, since there isn't really much to his character anymore. Zeke brought the Titans back to help stop Eren, so technically he's apart of the alliance, right? So why does only he have to pay for his sins, and not anyone else who have committed genocide, partook in war crimes, or perpetuated animosity and hatred towards the Eldians?

Zeke is really dead? :((( I'm sad

I hoped Levi would give up on his revenge, but I liked how Zeke died.

I really liked this chapter but I still feel like something is up with zekie boi. He doesn't feel done yet

Obsessed with how Levi achieved his goal and wasn't even that happy about it. It was so funny to see people treat his vow as this holy grail he would only be happy and at peace if he gained and yet...wow. Doesn't look like the only thing that would make him happy was killing Zeke for Erwin after all huh? Imagine that.

  WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THE BEAST TITAN POWER NOW THAT ZEKE IS DEAD? 2,052 Responses

A perfect 50% slice of respondents think the Beast Titan is heading straight for Historia’s baby. After all, we haven’t seen any baby inherit any titan in the story; now’s as good a time as any. 37.6% think titan inheritance is done due to the probable end of the curse soon. 5.5% think with Falco being possibly the only titan alive with Zeke’s spinal fluid in him, the titan will be fully inherited by him. And there are many more thoughts on that subject!

Could someone still eat him? How "fresh" does a dead shifter have to be? ???

All this time I was thinking it will randomly go to a newborn eldian baby

back to the founding titan

Eren inherit  the beast titan

floch will be resurrected

Give it to Reiner

Dam. i wanted it to go to levi:))

honestly i don’t know i’m hoping it could be used in case anyone is like about to die yk? but if not i think falco could take it

i am still not sure zeke is dead tho. bet isayama will throw us a curveball like with the serumbowl, when 90% were already attending armin's funeral and then sic! it's erwin who gets the axe

I believe Eren will end the Titan curse and the Titan power will vanish

I believe that the power of the Beast Titan will vanish forever, together with the other titan powers.

i cant answer this, its either historia or falco.

i couldn't say not with Isayams bizzare ideas lmao

I don't think anyone will inherit it before the end of the series, but not necessarily because the curse ends. It's just who gets it will be irrelevant.

I don't think it's going to be important at this point.

I don’t fucking know at this point anymore lol

I dont think it will be adressed

I think zeke may come back, I still don't think he's done yet

im torn between the historia's baby theory where the baby will inherit it or falco will inherit it completely.

Inherited by Historia's baby if Zeke is dead... but that's a big if!

It was already transferred to Falco before Zeke died

It went to a random Eldian baby,  we probably won't get to know who that is by the end of the manga.

It's in a baby in the fort

Might just disappear.

No clue but this is still pretty stupid.

No clue, I just really hope it doesn't go to Historia's baby like a lot of people are theorizing because I'd prefer an ending where she/he is the first child in 2,000 years to be born in a world free of the titan's rule. It just sounds the most fitting to me.

The Beast power is going to pass through paths where Eren and Ymir are at. It's very difficult to predict even though Historia's baby is a nominee for it.

The beast titan will go back to Ymir in paths

The kid is going to transform in  the middle of being delivered, killing Historia in the process.

Since Zeke was fused with Eren's spine-bug-body, it might me transferred to him.

Why is it so sure that historias baby will inherit it? I mean it could be but is there no other Eldian giving birth ?

Ymir is too occupied with the rumbling and titans to send the power to a new beast. It’s be a bit too coincidental if Historia’s child gets it

Zeke convinced Ymir to return Eldia to monke. Everyone is now best titan

  KILLING ZEKE SEEMS TO HAVE STOPPED THE RUMBLING, AS THE ALLIANCE PREDICTED. DOES THIS MAKE SENSE FOR YOU? 2,112 Responses

In our chapter 133 poll we asked if killing Zeke would have any effect on stopping the rumbling and only 4.2% of people thought it would, so we aren’t sure whether to side eye these results or assume a lot of people had a change of heart in the last 4 months.

35.9% agree that Zeke was always the key linking Eren to the full Founder abilities, so his death would put the rumbling on hold. However, just a tiny fraction fewer (35.6%) think we need more info about this, given chapter 122 where Eren convinced Ymir to go with his plan. 16.5% think the halt in the rumbling is just part of a clever ruse by Eren. 12% think chapter 122 made it clear that the Founder’s powers no longer need royal blood, so this development doesn’t make sense.

Outside of killing Eren; Zeke dying seems like the only way the Rumbling could've been stopped. And with all the shows and movies I've seen with the 'leader/controller dies so army stops' it doesn't come across as cheap.

wtf is Eren doing ? If killing Zeke was the way to do it (which is quite weird since royal blood seemed no longer revelant as of 122, but alright, let's admit it), couldn't he have done something to prevent Zeke from leaving paths ????

It was a very confusing chapter. Ymir switching sides and Zeke's death stopping the rumbling made no sense. We need more information.

I really wanna know why the rumbling stopped

  WHAT BEST MATCHES YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE LOTUS IMAGERY? 2,086 Responses

Was it symbolic or aesthetic? Functional or pure cinge? We had to ask about the usually lotus imagery that while beautifully drawn drew scorn from some parts of the fandom. 38.3% called it primarily symbolic, 37.1% saw it as purely aesthetic. 12.8% considered it “annoying Armin worship”, and 7.9% thinking it perhaps there was a functional reason for the character positioning. There where, of course, plenty of write-ins as well...

It looks sick af

In the final moments, Armin gave thanks to everyone around him for lending their strength. A lesser man might have claimed this to be HIS doing, since Armin indirectly triggered the whole turnaround. The humility is genuine and I respect him deeply for it.

xavier holding Armin was kinda cool but not really.

Quite possibly the worst panel in the manga, both in terms of composition (Bert’s hands are not that big) and theme (Kruger wouldn’t side with the alliance)

Something out of a satanic ritual for the crimson king

STAN ARMIN FOR CLEAR SKIN

Stupid Armin wank and the dialogue makes it cringe.

The panel is fine but the dialogue.... good lord, it makes me physically cringe

The positioning is aesthetic and symbolic, but also protective of Armin.

They're protecting Armin

Up until this moment I was so confused by who Xavier was holding. So it was Armin, makes sense, thanks.

This panel remembers me if a panel where ymir had a contract with the devil. I feel like Armin was like the messiah. Im not sure

A great set up to a huge blow to Eren

Aesthetics and function- if there were any of Eren’s goons still active, they could step in before it could get Armin.

agree with points 3 and 4 😭😭😭 please armin gets handed so much shit on a silver platter FOR WHAT

armin best boy don't hear you

ARMIN HELOS

armin king

Armin worship. Not annoying.

BEAUTIFUL INCREDIBLE JUST WOW POWER IF FRIENDSHIP

Its probably one of the best panels in the series, we just need Krueger and grisha motivations to be there

Kinda cheesy but at the same time beautiful

Didn't even realise it was lotus imagery. I thought it was just a cool shot

Don't have a huge opinion, it looks really cool and I bet there can be deeper meaning found in it.

I don’t really know to be honest but I thought the page looked badass

I have no opinion on this except wow grisha chest hair

I loved it! Armin definitely deserved such beautiful imagery. He is trully pure and kind hearted being who wishes for peace.

I think Isayama loves to imagine his panels in a museum or gallery one day.

CONFUSED

i thought it looked lame

I thought this scene was a bit corny

I'm already conflicted by who is standing here so I really don't know what to think.

IT LOOKS LIKE THE DEVIL THEORY.

It would be epic without Armong

It's aesthetic, but it also functions as a way to allow the alliance to escape the blast zone before Armin transforms. These titans protect Armin long enough to get everyone else out.

It's Armin supremacy😭😩

It's just cringe.

It's the GREATEST PANEL IN ALL OF THE MANGA. VIVA ARMIN!!!!

It's WONDERFUL and NECESSARY Armin worship

It’s a beautiful and touching image, but also a bit too much Armin worship.

It’s a reference to Naruto arriving at konoha to fight pain, that’s exactly what Armin is, a Naruto.

Xaver’s titan can be seen as a devil since it’s a Ram, he’s holding armin in his outstretched hands. I think this is what all the Ymir Apple foreshadowing is, Armin is the apple

probably mostly for aesthetic but also knowing isayama it's probably a bit more than that. i think it shows how armin and his ideologies are key. also, "The Lotus flower is regarded in many different cultures, especially in eastern religions, as a symbol of purity, enlightenment, self-regeneration and rebirth. Its characteristics are a perfect analogy for the human condition: even when its roots are in the dirtiest waters, the Lotus produces the most beautiful flower." really fits aot ngl

  WHAT KIND OF BATTLE CAN WE EXPECT AGAINST THE SPINE CREATURE? 2,048 Responses

In yet another detour on the route to actually battling Eren, Reiner was seen wrestling the spine creature in the closing pages of the chapter. What kind of battle can we expect from this new challenger? 32% believe it will be a quick one since Armin will destroy it with his blast. 30.8% are not so optimistic, suggesting weird paths shit will happen first. 20.4% believe Reiner will have his Helos moment killing the creature with a spear. 9.3% selected a surprise Ymir with a steel chair.

Reiner will pierce it using one of the broken Eren bones as a spear like Helos personified

something creepy and disturbing will happen idk

Something creepy and mindblowing, no doubt.

The most powerful creature in aot will die by a single dramatic punch

The Spine creature is indestructible.

There won't be a battle against it.

a dumb one.

Reiner is Thor in Ragnarok fighting Jörmungandr, he is going to kill the creature and finish the Titans Powers, just to die soon after.

Both a battle and some weird Paths shit with Ymir

Reiner will die holding it back

Idk. Just hoping Reiner made it out alive.

Dear lord I have no idea, the only thing I know is Reiner Helos

If we get a fistfight a la Heaven's Feel I will cry tears of joy

It'll be inconsequential compared to Eren returning

It’s not the founding spine. The founding spine is with Eren on Paradis and once the alliance realizes that, it will be too late.

Its already dead, next chapter either Reiner is dead or he has a confrontation with Eren

It will be destroyed by Armin’s transformation

I think the explosion is the best chance for it to die, but I don't know if it'll go down that easy.

I think this is probably it for Reiner. After all he's endured, dying a heroic death would be good, despite me loving his character.

Dunno Reiner's all beat up i don't even know if he can withstand what that big ass spine is going to do

Either by using the warhammer spear to kill it , or some weird paths stuff (Maybe talking to Eren)..

Reiner will fucking die, hopefully

Reiner will keep pushing the spine creature back and tackling it to the ground to do all that he can to prevent it from reconnecting with the Founding Titan's head, and then Armin will land the finishing blow to destroy it thanks to the explosion from the  Colossal Titan's transformation.

Probably another asspull or power of friendship bs.

Punch it like Chris Redfield did with BOULDER

BIRD EAT WORM

Both Reiner and the spine creature will die in the Armong nuke

However way he deals with it, I hope he survives!!!

Can we even expect a battle against it? I was assuming it'd just drop dead sometime lol

who even cares at this point. Whether it is spine-kun or NPC shifters, I am tired of seeing the crew fight mindless opponents.

Why does it care so much about that head? That's not a joke question -- if that body's a Titan, it has options; and if it's a Warhammer construct, the whole thing is a means to an end -- so what does it have to lose?

  WILL REINER ACHIEVE HELOS STATUS BY DEFEATING THE SPINE CREATURE AND/OR EREN? 2,062 Responses

The stage is finally set and we will see if Reiner becomes the hero he once yearned to be. 38.7% of respondents think everyone’s a winner everyone was a part of playing the mythical role of Helos. 32.8% say simply that yes, Reiner will become a Helos figure in defeating the spine thing, or Eren, or both. 15.3% say no, for whatever reason Reiner will not become a new Helos. 13.3% think Reiner has already reached Helos status (the world is still in terrible danger but I like that positivity).

can’t wait to see Helos Reiner!!!

Reiner is my favorite character and I'm really torned between wanting him to die because that'd bring him peace, or wanting him to live to see his mom and take care of Gabi and Falco

I got the bad feeling that even Reiner Helos is going to add to that Mong bullshit somehow. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm hyped for next chapter because it will be the time for us Helos believers to rise, but I'm nervous, because I'm sure that it will come with Reiner's death and I'm not emotionally ready for that.

  IS EREN REALLY DONE, OR IS THERE ANOTHER ACE UP HIS SLEEVE? 2,098 Responses

A pretty solid majority of 62.2% think Eren has more fight left in him. Whaaat, really? Seems out of character. 17.8% think that he’s still in control of the situation, whether he’s dead or alive! 13.4% don’t think he can come back after Armin’s boom, and 6.6% think he may be out of ammo but that Ymir will keep up the fight.

Hope Eren isn't defeated

I think that eren is ready for all of this. Rather hes just die or have another plan but i hope at least the scout know that eren love them and doesnt have other choices.

I am on alliance side but I dont think the fight is over. I want a plot twist and more explanation esp about ymir

Shits an obvious bait lmao. Yams is gonna pull another sneaky on us like he has done since the very beginning. I still haven’t lost faith in Master Yama.

I want Eren to be alive, not because I “like the Rumbling” or because if I’m a Yeagerist (I’m actually pro Alliance), but because I like the story to make literary sense. To me, Eren getting beat in a single chapter after proving that he was incredibly OP was not good writing imo.

If this was genuinely the end, it would have absolute garbage, but every sign points to Eren winning. If you look at the chapter knowing the Avengers have already lost, it's great.

I really don’t think eren is dead. There is no way they would kill him without having any final words

  WITH THE ALLIANCE APPEARING TO HAVE THE UPPERHAND, SOME NEW THEORIES ABOUT EREN HAVE EMERGED. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DO YOU THINK HAVE MERIT? CHECK ALL THAT APPLY. 2,022 Responses

It wouldn’t be Attack on Titan without a host of new theories with each new chapter! We tried to grab the most common ones to see which had the most traction. A whopping 67% believe there is merit to the theories that Eren knew this was going to happen and it’s part of his plan. Nearly 40% are open to the idea that Eren is remote control powering his titan form from Paradis. About 34% are open to the theory that he’ll touch Historia’s baby to restart the rumbling and 24% haven’t discounted a Lelouch ending. Only 14% of the fandom believe it’s game over for Eren.

my theory is he's faking his death to see if peace is truly achievable - If the Marleyans try to kill the Alliance, the Rumbling will inmediately continue.

I'm holding out for Eren being hidden in the skeleton's ass. Don't get mad if your headcannon doesn't come true. Most people will probably enjoy the ending and that's fine.

Eren hiding like a fckin coward while people are trampled and his friends put their lives at risk for their own goals then Eren using a child to trample some more is the most ridiculous theory I've ever seen.

Eren might wake up and continue his path forward somehow

I hope big twist next chapter

i hope Eren doesn’t just pull a lelouch.

I hope Eren Yeager doesn’t die and I also hope he doesn’t love anyone from “Attack on Titan”

Eren's not done but rumbling won't start again.

Grisha will free Eren from the burden of his consequences that he started all those years ago.

Eren could've disabled the titans powers when he wanted but didn't so he's probably realizing somme illumination from his time with Ymir

Eren wants to die at the hands of the alliance

Eren would try to activate the rumbling again  but there could be a "Miscalculation" that could interfere with his goal (i.e... Historia's child probably inheriting the Beast Titan), Hange: "You said "fight" twice, does this mean it's a two round fight?" The rumbling will restart.

He knows everything that’s happening and he said he will keep moving forward so there’s no way he’s finished yet.

he probably WANTS them to stop him, because he can't stop himself, Honestly don't know, I just know he's alive, monke is dead :(

Eren is not in Paradis, if he was the plotline of Mikasa resolution about killing Eren would be wasted completely because it would avoid making Mikasa having to answer the question and develop a bit of character, despite being set up multiple time during this arc.

I think he has something else up his sleeve that probably isnt mentioned here.

There's so many people said that he will touch historia's baby. Idk i'm alliance but the theory make sense.. I hope not yeah..

What if he's done everything because he knew he would be defeated and that it'd bring peace? He's seen everything happen, if I understood correctly, so he knew he'd be defeated at some point. Maybe that'd mean it was all a part of his plan to bring peace, WHT power is plausible but I don't think he is controlling it remotely in Paradis (that would be a joke on him after all his "moving forward" speech and all). I was thinking about Eren doing the hardening like Annie did to save himself and probably have another card up his sleeve.

He still has some last moments to fight on his own at least, if need be

He wanted to be stopped.

He'll try one final thing, only to be stopped by Mikasa&Reiner for good.

He's actually asleep like we've seen in 131 and like we've seen 2 times before. Armin will talk with his child self in order to help him wake up. When he wakes up, he regrets everything.

he's gonna cry and come back. the end.

  EREN AND HISTORIA’S POVS ARE THE BIGGEST MYSTERIES REMAINING. WITH ONLY TWO CHAPTERS LEFT, WHEN DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE THEM?

The fandom has far more confidence in getting Eren POV chapter than Historia’s with most respondents thinking we’ll get Eren’s perspective in the next chapter. Our fingers are crossed too!!

I hope we see Eren and Historia's POV next chapter

I just wanna know when we’ll see erens POV I feel like the alliance win is too good to be true. Feeling like there’s gonna be an upcoming twist

there should be eren's pov even though its just him inside the titan saying ARRRRRGGGGHHHH (LOL)

Im fucking dying to see Historia again my girl needs her POV of this shitshow

What we can still get is a conclusion on Eren's future memories, and possibly closing up the plotholes like why did Grisha give Eren his titans. Unless Isayama forgot. Maybe the reason Eren's POV is hidden from us is a SHOCKING plot twist that he planned for his nakama to destroy Hallucigenia-chan and stop the Rumbling. Because as we all know, Eren's new motto is ""I just keep snoozing forward, until I destroy, like, 50% of my enemies, and then I want to be stopped"".

We neeeeed Eren POV, we have too many questions

I'm really most interested in an eren pov.  I want to know what has been going through his mind this entire time and his opinion on the outcome

  IF THIS IS THE END OF THE FIGHT, WERE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE FINAL BATTLE? 2,106 Responses

If this was the final battle, were you satisfied? For close to 60% of the fandom that answer is yes, with 22.7% saying it surpassed their expectation and 36.6% selecting that while they’d have done some things differently they were satisfied overall.  On the negative end of the spectrum, 21.2% thought there was potential but it was cut short, while 9.5% consider this final battle stupid from start to finish.

I thought the final battle was over very easily, but it’s not a cliche shonen power of friendship win considering thousands of innocent people have already been crushed to death and the political situations with non effected countries will be a mess.

I really hope that wasn't everything

I really hope we get to see Eren have a final moment with the others, specifically with Armin and Mikasa.

We better get one last Reiner Vs Eren fight before this shit ends

It feels too wholesome for a final AOT battle...

It felt a bit too compact. The content could easily be expanded upon to create more impact.

If this is the end of the fight then the ending is pretty dogshit ngl, unless we get Erens titan vs reiner one last time

I really hope Reiner is okay :((

It was strong thematically and the battle was interesting.

Think about all the times a character has delivered their final blow with some snarky, raging or otherwise power-flexing way throughout SNK. When it was Armin’s turn to deliver a finishing blow, he did it with such humble humanity and... dare I say love (no, not ship-wise, just general love and respect for the “other side”). Guys, Armin really SHONE this chapter. Not because he took the spotlight, but because he went forth with love.

  DESCRIBE THE CHAPTER IN ONE WORD 1,436 Responses

Our friend on Twitter, @hooveredbraunie, created a word cloud of responses from each of the 5 ratings from “Rate the Chapter”. We think it’s makes a perfect snapshot of the fandom.

Looking at the list in it’s entirely, yhe top five most chosen words are:

Amazing [71] Good [42] Monke [38] Epic [37] Awesome [28]

  WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 2,115 Responses

Eren. Alive. 36% are hoping the fight isn’t over. Eren talking to someone in his last moments is next with 18.7%. Of the less popular options are Historia (10.4%), Mikasa making her move (8.7%), Levi wondering what to do now that Zeke is gone (8.2% ), and someone, anyone,  in the alliance dying (6.1%).

Help i need answers😔

I HOPE WE CAN SEE EREN

Hange shard when Hange shard when Hange shard when

I just hope eren’s alive

i just hoped to see an alliance death but no

I just wanna see ymir with historia once again

I just want everyone to have a happy ending but that’s nearly impossible now

i just want historia

I'm just waiting for the next chapter for eren to appear

I just want Levi to die. He deserves to rest, god

I just want to see Reiner Bertholdt reunion

I really want Eren to have a final conversation with someone, preferrably Armin or Mikasa but at this point anyone will do.

I JUST WANT LEVI TO REUNITE WITH ERWIN IN SOME WAY IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK

Next chapter better be an Ererei talk istg

If Eren is going to lose can we at least get and alliance character dying? At least one!??

I just want to see in the next chapter if the fight is really over but with the WHT and

Please stay alive Eren T^T

pls don’t end :( i can’t emotionally take it :(

Historia's baby, it might not be yet.

I just need more answers 😅

I JUST WANT THE REST OF THE ALLIANCE STAY ALIVE!!!! AND ALSO EREN!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING PLATFORMS DO YOU USE TO DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,954 Responses

While Twitter (56.1%), Reddit (41.7%), Discord (24.9%), YouTube (20.5%) and Instagram (16.4%) are still the top platforms for discussing Attack on Titan, TikTok (12.5%) , in its debut on the poll, beat out Tumblr (11.2%), Facebook (7.1%) and a whole slew of other platforms.

  ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER? 663 Responses

Hey there!

I’m so scared lol😀

I’m surprised my fav characters are still alive

Is eren and reiner alive?

I'm still hoping that they can have a happy ending. The deserves it after all the fights.

I've heard so many different theories on how this series could end and now that we are on the final chapters almost nothing has gone with my expectations. I was blown out of the water with how this final fight went. With expectations for this series so high its impossible for it to satisfy everyone. But I'm really happy with how everything turned out. A lot of plot threads are being closed up in satisfying ways and I'm content with the character development everyone is getting.

There are a few things I've been disappointed about, like the lack of Eren's point of view. But I'll hold off judgment till the series ends. I think i'll enjoy rereading this section of the story once it's finished. I caught up with the manga around 117 and waiting monthly for these chapters was made everything seem longer that it probably actually was. Overall I'm happy with how everything went.

Zeke sort of reminds me of Johan from monster. both had a messed up asf childhood and life in general. both didn't find pleasures in life at all, like simple pleasures like tea or coffee to life and people. Because they knew for themselves life had no meaning. therefore both of them could do basically whatever they wanted sorta bc life had no meaning to them and was destined to go extinct if that makes sense. To them, their actions were justified bc they had no meaning in life. But armin, this hope in the world, also knew the world was cruel. however he chose to find pleasures in it rather than distrusting it all together. He found hope in his friends and reading and more, even if it meant getting hurt by people. I believe armin will talk. This chapter messed me up man. Zeke used to be my least favorite character cause he was weird but now he's one of my favs. His death was def one of the hardest for me. ugh what a beautiful chapter. I wish they all found meaning in life before.

Where is the scarf?

Just a reminder we haven't had Ackerman immunity to mind wipes become relevant yet! It's time, Mikasa.

what the heck is going on

WHERE IS HISTORIA BABY.

reiner helos gallirei canon zeke supremacy gabi gang hoes mad

Gabi has lots of potential, and it was smart to have her as a character study. I mean, not only do we get the perspective of a brainwashed child of war, but through her, it was shown that it's possible to end all conflicts through forgiveness. She is also a replacement for sasha (sharpshooter). Levi is no shooter, but I hope he takes Gabi, and/or the other war kiddies, under his wing. I hope Levi could find another purpose, and I'm imagining being a trainer/teacher best suites him. He cares a lot and gives good guidance with his experience and wisened words…

Gay Ymir please come back and marry your wife

Honestly, I was always kinda neutral towards Zeke. Never really loved him, never really hated him. Hated what he did to the Scouts and subsequently to Erwin, but that hate really didn't last long. He was just kinda...there for me. He was an interesting character, and brought a lot to the series, but I guess it wasn't until the chapter with him and Eren as they went through his and their father's memories (the BIG chapter) that I started to warm up (?) to him. I don't know, it's hard to explain how I really felt about him overall. I will admit though, that his death, although very sudden with Levi coming out of nowhere lol, was impactful and I think a really poetic end for him. Him finally realizing the true meaning of living, seeing the beauty of their cruel world at the very end, and helping to bring an end to the Rumbling, left a very good impression on me. So, in the end...I liked Zeke. He was a good character.

Zeke and Armin's talk is... decent, I guess. Like everything in the final arc, it suffered from bizarre pacing issues, so while the core of the talk is decent, we essentially have Armin changing Zeke's entire worldview with 1 small speech. Then SUDDENLY DEAD PEOPLE COME BACK TO LIFE LEVI BEHEADS REINER HELOS ARMIN NUKE RUMBLING IS STOPPED... why the hell did we get two fanservice battle chapters just that all this gets stuffed into one?

I want Levi alive. So he can open his dream tea shop. I want him happy

I was happy to see Ksaver's titan, Armin and Zeke's talk moved me, and I'll admit I never thought the spine creature was sentient until this chapter. I'm sad the series is ending. What do I have left to look forward to each month?

Reiner Helos oh shit

I am very disappointed that is all. I feel betrayed to just read shounen battle manga story at the climax of the story. I thought Trost is over. And trost had less of the naruto tropes.

i can only hope that all the characters can live and end with a happy ending, this is ridiculous, but I hope it ends with a happy ending

I can see why some people wouldn't like it but I personal loved it

I can't answer 50% of this, I think my thoughts are unique lmao

I can't believe we are nearing the end... AOT has been with me for years. It has been a steady companion that has asked me to reflect on my morals and convictions. It has presented different points of view to me that I had to engage with. It has helped me shape my views on the world we are living in. I don't think I am ready to say goodbye to AOT yet. But I have to.

i miss eren

I miss monke

I miss zeke

I NEED MORE

I NEED MORE ANSWERS

I need more chapters, man.

I really don't get the hate for it

I really don't like Armin

I realy don't now what iysyama doing

Wish Hanji was still alive

Worst chapter of the entire series. If eren was actually defeated, and being defeated wasn't his intention, this chapter ruined the series and his character.

I sympathize for baby Zeke's struggles and the trauma he had to experience but honestly he ain't special in this manga, everyone has a sad fucking backstory. He was a pathetic little sadist, always puffed up about how Clever™ he was for double-crossing people and yet never seeing the obvious betrayal coming from Eren. I know the justification for that is "aw he cared for his baby brother uwu" but that was what made him so pathetic - for all his posturing about being smart and pragmatic for the Greater Good (which was his justification for the euthanasia plan) he was just as emotional and fallible as all the people he looked down on. His lack of self-awareness and depth of selfishness disgusts me. This ending was too good for him. He died as a martyr and he deserved much, much less. Tbf, for baby Zeke's sake, I am glad he got to see some happy memories of Xaver towards the end, but I thought his death was tasteless and a slap in the face of all the people he murdered before. (*ahem* Mike)

Suddenly grew a soft spot for zeke.

Zeke is honestly such a masterclass in character writing and it is so impressive that Isayama has written so many amazing characters. I started out really hating Zeke for what he did to Miche, and that impression carried for a long, long time, even until it was revealed that he had his own agenda, that he might be playing the long game helping Eldians, I didn't believe it because of what he did to Miche. In fact, it was Eren's cooperation with Zeke that made me turn on Eren post-timeskip. When we got that hint of Zeke backstory, I was actually kind of miffed. Like no way, Isayama, you're not going to make me sympathize with Zeke. Not happening. Yet, after I read the chapter, my thoughts were Grisha is a shit dad. Absolute shit dad. Anyway, I was still glad Eren bested Zeke in Paths, though once the Rumbling activated, I realized that I agreed with Zeke's plan better. So he's really become an interesting character for me, and I was even really excited to see him return at the end of last chapter. I still don't like him very much, but he is incredibly compelling and interesting, and I'm definitely a bit more forgiving of his earlier actions. Miche's death still sucked though.

Zeke is one of the most well written character of all time

Zeke is so fucked up, but he's hilarious and extremely meme-able. He's a tragic, well-written character who committed monstrous acts. If he didn't die here, he should have been locked up for the rest of his life.

Zeke is such a underrated but sad character. He truly taught his plan was the best Eldians. He was brain wash from his own parents and send them into pure titans, while his half brother had a normal childhood. In the end, he sacrificed himself to defeat Eren.

Zeke is super smart and very strong man ; he was defending his own past and his own sadness ; but he lost when he tried to follow his wrong feeling of sympathy toward eren ; he was thinking that he is a victim either from their father; this makes him lost everything he lived for until this moment..

Zeke is very great and one of the most important character to the story, his development also very good, i'll miss him

Zeke jeager was of course the first of the two jeager brothers and surprisingly the first son of Grisha I think as Hajime Isayama presented him it was awesome but I still not sure about his death is he really dead or is there any twist left in the last two chapters but still 🤞🤞 let’s see what is left in the series.

Zeke just wanted the eldians to be free but the way he wanted to make them free was wrong. That’s why I didn’t like him that much. But I think right now I’m sad that he had to die.

Zeke made many decisions in order to achieve his goal of ending the painful cycle of Eldian life, and because of that I feel sorry for him. I feel sad that he felt that he needed to make those decisions, and I’m glad that he was able to finally see the beauty in life at the end.

Zeke's a very interesting character to me. I love the irony of Grisha teaching him how cruel the world is in the hopes that it would radicalize him, only for it to make him wish he was never born. The guy never got the chance to just be a regular kid, except for when he was with Tom Ksaver. Tom acted like a parent should to a child, and as such Zeke ended up following through on Tom's vision rather than Grisha's. He was supposed to save the Eldian people, but came to the conclusion that it would be better if they were wiped out. I'm glad his past was brought up again in 137 where Zeke was contrasted with Armin. Zeke was born into a role with high expectations, compared to Armin who earned his expectations through repeated successes. Armin was able to grow up as the regular kid that Zeke wishes he was. His past traumas also lead him to project his own insecurities, which we can say by his assumption that all Eldians are born to suffer, and in thinking that Eren was brainwashed by Grisha, both of which aren't necessarily true. Overall I'd say Zeke is one of my favorite characters in the series, and I'm just scratching the surface of why I like him so much.

Zeke was used by others in some way, over his entire life. The restorationists goals. Kusaver using him to ease his own guilt. Marley’s military. Eren as well. I can’t help but wonder how he could have turned out if anyone had sincerely given a fuck about his own happiness.

Hate that Historia is continuing to be ignored.

I feel happy that most people are ok, but I just know that it can't last long. I hope they get a fast death at least if it all goes to hell;-;-;

I feel like eren is going to get his full freedom

I feel like it was mega rushed

I feel like people need to chill out quite a bit. Big surprise, the ending does not go according to your theories, who might’ve predicted that? Please take a moment to clear your head of the entitlement you might have accumulated in the last months, sit back and enjoy the rest of the ride. No need to get so angry over every little detail. And if you can’t even do that? You’re free to leave, but please stop spreading hate everywhere, thanks!

I feel like the reaction was so overblown. We have more chapters left, people shouldn’t disown the series now

I haven't cared about the direction this story's been going in since timeskip so I'm just along for the ride

i hope everyone will die at the end

I hope I could get inside that universe

I hope the ending won't be another typical ending like naruto with UMI DA. Whatever it is, I trust in Isayama who is a master in twist somewhat definitely can't wait for the next chapter :)

WTF Cringevangers could defeat him easy like that.. when they fight with yeagerist Annie and Reiner got heavy damage but fight against 9 Titans ? This is too easy to win.. they have not more sacrifice

Yams has done an impressive job tying this work as a whole, in terms of plot, character development, and themes

I hope there's chance for annie and armin being together because i've ship them since season 1 huhu

I hope this isn't a set up for talk-no-jutsu. One thing that set SnK apart from other fantasy/supernatural shonens was the least use of talk-no-jutsu (it was there way early in the manga and anime but still it was least). Overall, I guess when more information/clarification could've been given, we got more talk and a dissatisfying death, I expected more.

I hoped Armin would have escaped PATHS using a big brain plan

I hoped Mikasa would cut Eren out and feed him to Gabi

I just hope eren isn’t dead so that we can get one more plot twist of the series

I want everyone to be happy in the end please

I want levi to be able to tell Eren what he wanted to say to him :))))

it is mostly about zeke and armin but the other characters were also amazing, it is sad to see levi killing zeke with that expression, I'm not sure why but he is like anger to sad. anD MY ARUANI HEART OMGG, ISAYAMA DON'T KILL THEM PLS, JUST ONE COUPLE PLS T_T and additional, we are really not sure where's eren, is he really that head? what might happen next like will he continues the rumbling? who's the father of historia's baby? I hope it will be cleared in the next chapters, Im exciteddd!!

It kinda sucked.

It left a permanent stain on the name of the series, even if the ending is godlike or even if eren wins how the fuck are you going to explain this bullshit that makes zero sense and gives me vibes of a fanfic writer making it?

It left unanswered questions

It left us with more questions than answers, and I hope we get them soon. But it was satisfying overall

i love you isayama🥰😍😘 (pls don’t kill armin or mikasa i cant take this anymore🤣😁🤪🤩)

It makes me question "what will the alliance do next? Is Eren still alive? What happens to Historia?" Next chapter should answer all of that.

It ould have been longer to flesh out each scenario and make it more believable, Zeke's change would be better if a few pages more was used to add more detail to his change. The fight scene should be fine as it is. As for the death of Zeke it needs to be longer, it would have made the audience much more sattisfies, his death is a turning point and it could have played out better if Isayama paid more attention to it. But overall I enjoyed it.

it was absolutely amazing and has a great impact especially on armin, eren and mikasa

It was actually great and I think it's setting up the tone for something big in the next chapter

Truly devastating

u/animew3eb was here

It was all just so rushed and convenient- levi killing zeke like it's nbd, zeke being dead completely stopping their problem, all these random dead people coming back to life it's like - what is this? why rush things this much in the last 3 chapters?  i'm hoping isayama has something up his sleeve but the power of friendship defeating eren's still as of yet unexplained character change has left me super disappointed.

It was amazing as always and still leave me confused on certain parts but that's okay i will understand everything after it ends

It was an alright chapter, about what I really expected, as much as I'd like to I never thought Eren would win and the chapter ended the way I thought it would. With so much negativity surrounding this chapter hopefully the next chapter and the finale will ease people's mind, some people just need to remember this is a Shonen not a Seinen of course the alliance were gonna win.

It was awesome I just hope the last 2 chapters can emphasise this chapter and give it a bit more meaning

It was good definitely unexpected. If next chapter we don't see eren's POV than chapter 137 is bad.

It was good even if cheesy, looking towards 138.

It was good. Had some great moments like Reiner vs the spine creature and Levi fulfilling his promise. Zeke’s ending was really good too. But feel like a lot of potentially pivotal stuff happened with not the best delivery of explaining how/why. This may be revealed more in the final two chapters though so I won’t judge

It was good. The way we got emotions and fight scenes all in one chapter is another peak fiction writing skill from Isayama. As a lot of people think tho, some things shown in the chapter were confusing and kinda out of context, but I guess we'll gonna have all the answers in the last 2 chapters. Ngl, there was some obvious plot armor there in the Alliance side but I think Isayama already gave us enough suffering to ask for more deaths (man, just the thought of how EMA might end after this is more than enough). The ending will definitely define if AOT will go down at the best manga/anime of all time.

It was great! There are a lot of questions unanswered tho

it was great. i got goosebumps but knowing that there are only two chapters left i am really still wondeeing how things would end. knowing a lot of theories are circling on the internet i am also still confused of what will happen next so i am really looking forward on the fina chapters. uuuuuuu i dont want aot to end thoooo 😭

it was kinda confusing but it was really cool

It was kinda lame, I don’t want characters winning through power of friendship.

It was predictable, but the manner in which it was done was very good. I have more mixed feelings for eren since there is a possibility that he is dead.

It was really good, Although I side with eren, it was nice seeing the alliance getting a win

We surprisingly DIDN'T find out about the outcome of the standoff at fort Salta; last month I was sure leaving it as a cliffhanger was a waste of time since it was obvious that they were going to cooperate and aid the Alliance, but now that the Rumbling has been stopped, Maybe the twist next chapter is that the warriors arrive to see their loved ones dead/dying at Marleyan hands?

We're just rehashing the same lessons of previous arcs and we're just supposed to have conveniently forgotten them...both the feeling of powerlessness/futility of living and the message of "true freedom is..." were already covered by Eren himself back in Uprising and then in his convo with Shadis about what Carla wanted for him. Yams are you telling me he didn't learn a thing and we gotta see other people come to the same conclusions? Ok..........

Were in the Endgame now. Eren's seeming death is used to subvert expectations and is from the POV of Armin. He said goodbye to Eren expecting for him to die from the explosion, e does not say it as fact.

What a stupid chapter for my birthday.

While answering a couple questions, this chapter also made me realize that I didn't understand shit :) Maybe once the manga has ended and all my questions are answered, I will finally succeed in understanding this masterpiece.

I'm honestly shocked. I mean, every chapter got me shocked, but DAMN I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S GONNA COME TO AN END SOON WAAAAAAAAAAAH

Again, this this wasn’t enough the full list on write-ins, all 131 pages, are available. View as doc or pdf.

Thanks as always for your support of the community poll <3

[ifishouldvanish]

Font Recs/Typography Tips

@weatheredlaw was looking for some font recs and I was kinda planning on doing a font rec/typography tutorial post thing anyways, so here goes:

(I got carried away!)

1. A NOTE ABOUT ORGANIZING FONTS

Okay so... first of all-- I highly recommend using FontBase to manage your font files (It’s free and it’s available for Mac, Windows, and even Linux). The reason being, that as you install more and more fonts on your computer, the font menu in Photoshop will start to load really slowly. Which gets really frustrating really fast. 

FontBase lets you organize your fonts into neat lil folders and activate/deactivate them as needed with a click, so you can keep the Font Menu Bloat at bay. There’s also a premium version (aptly called ‘Awesome’) that costs $3 a month and has some nifty extra features, but that’s neither her nor there. Yes, I throw three of my hard-earned dollars at them every month.

Also? If you have a work computer and a home computer, you can install FontBase on both systems and point it to a Dropbox or Google Cloud folder so that your font collection always stays in sync across both devices. 👌✨

2. WHERE TO FIND FONTS

Google Fonts So... Google Fonts is technically a webfont CDN, but all of the actual font files are available for free download from their Github repo. Alternatively, you can use FontBase to sync them directly to your computer. Which is nifty.

What I like about the Google Fonts library is 1) there’s some really NICE, high-quality font families available, and 2) it’s easily searchable. 

So pop on over, play with the search filters, and if you find something you like, grab it off the Git Repo or sync it via FontBase.

League of Moveable Type It’s a free, open-source font foundry. How cool is that? The selection is pretty small, but there’s a lot of typographic staples to be found, and the quality is top notch 👌✨

Free Design Resources FDR is a great site for all kinds of design resources, but their font offerings are the most impressive. Particularly, it’s a great place to look for handwriting, script, or any other kind of ‘display’ fonts. 99% of them are demo versions of not-free fonts, but really that just means they don’t include special characters, which lbr you probably don’t need anyway.

Creative Market So as the name suggests, Creative Market is a marketplace for design resources. AKA the stuff ain’t free. HOWEVER, every week, they offer six products for free download-- a mix of fonts, textures, photo packs, etc. So create an account (it’s free) and keep an eye out for the weekly freebies.

Design Cuts This is another site that isn’t really free, though they do have a small selection of free stuff. I figured it’s worth mentioning because a lot of the fonts and textures I use, I buy from here. Every month (or two weeks? Or something?) they compile a bundle of about 20 products (be it typefaces, texture packs, or filters/actions/etc) and offer it at a massive discount (usually $30). Their stuff is always really great quality, so if they release a bundle that feels worthwhile to me, I bite. (As of this writing, they actually have bundle of some textures, fonts, and other assets available for $2)

3. A PRIMER ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF TYPEFACES

So most people are probably already aware of the categories of Serif, Sans Serif, and Display fonts. But you can split Serif and Sans Serifs up into further categories.

Here are four kinds of Serifs: Humanist, Transitional, Modern, and Slab.

The most immediate difference between these types of serifs is the stroke widths.

If you look at the modern/didone serif Bodoni, the horizontal strokes are hairline thin, and the vertical strokes are very thick. Modern/Didone typefaces are characterized by this extreme contrast in their stroke widths, and typically have a perfectly vertical axis (meaning the narrowest parts of the strokes are at the exact top and bottom of the letterform, as illustrated by the green dotted line). These features give them a bold, modern, and stylish feel.

The humanist serif Minion has the least contrast in its stroke widths, and has a diagonal stress (again, see the green dotted line). These features make them easy on the eyes and well-suited for paragraphs of text and small font sizes. Humanist typefaces most closely resemble calligraphy, and thus have an elegant, classic feel.

Transitional serifs are, well... transitional. They have more stroke width contrast than humanist serifs, but not quite enough to be considered modern/didone, and may or may not have an angled stress. Their ‘voice’ is more neutral, academic, and timeless.

Slabs Serifs, as the name suggests, are kinda blocky. The stroke widths are generally very solid and consistent, and the actual serifs (or ‘feet’) are... y’know. Fat blocks. It makes these typefaces feel more casual, more down-to-earth, approachable, and perhaps playful? A lil rebellious, even?

So with that out of the way, here are some different types of Sans Serifs: (There’s a point to all of this, I swear.)

Unlike Humanist Serifs, Humanist Sans Serifs actually have the most contrast in their stroke widths. In the above image, this is most apparent on the lowercase ‘a’. Again, this feature makes humanist sans serifs easy on the eyes and optimal for paragraphs of text. Compared to other sans serifs, they tend to have a more casual and approachable personality.

Transitional Sans Serifs will have little to no stroke width contrast. They maintain their readability at small sizes, and their ‘voice’ is very neutral, which makes them easy to use in a wide variety of designs. There’s a reason Helvetica is the go-to for many a graphic designer: it, along with many other Grotesks/Gothics, almost never feels out of place. They’re the chameleons of fonts. They’re versatile. Invisible. Carbon-neutral.

Geometric Sans Serifs, as the name suggests, are typefaces whose letterforms are based on geometry. O's and C's that are (mostly) perfectly circular, V's, W's and M's with sharp, consistent angles. They generally have very consistent stroke widths, but the harsh angles make them poorly suited to paragraphs of text. They feel modern, technical, and stylish.

4. CHOOSING THE RIGHT FONT

(We are now arriving at the point.)

Here are some questions to ask yourself before choosing a font:

How much text do I have?

If you have a lot of text, you’ll want something that’s easy on the eyes for reading. Aim for things with mild stroke contrasts and favor things with a diagonal axis. Basically, you can’t go wrong with a humanist typeface here-- be it serif or sans serif.

Now, for graphics and gifs, you’ll probably have a lot of text almost... never. But if you’re ever designing something that does (like a magazine spread, or a brochure), it’s something to consider.

How much space do I have?

Let’s say you’re giffing a scene and you gotta cram a long caption onto a tiny 278px wide gif. You could just make the font size super tiny, sure. OR, you could look for a font with a narrow character width. A nice, robust type family will usually include Condensed or even Super and Ultra Condensed versions of the font, which will be much better suited to that purpose.

In these cases, you’ll probably want to avoid geometric sans serifs since those circular forms are very wide, relatively speaking. But some geometric type families (such as Futura) do have Condensed varieties: 

How large or small does the text need to be? (or do I want it to be?)

When your text is large, you can kinda go nuts and do whatever without worrying about anything getting hard to read. But there are two things to consider when you’re using a small font size, be it out of necessity or For the Aesthetique™--

stroke width contrast: At small font sizes, typefaces with consistent stroke widths are going to maintain their readability best-- so steer clear of Modern/Didone serifs, and tread carefully around Transitional Serifs. If you’re itching to use a Serif, you’ll want to look for a humanist/traditional/old style one. If you’re super attached to a modern/didone serif for a design (as I often am) understand you’re gonna have to compromise a bit and use a larger font size for it.

For sans serifs, both Transitional and Modern types will have nice, solid strokes that won’t get lost at small sizes.

x-height: A typeface's x-height refers literally to the height of the lowercase 'x'. But in more practical terms, it's the ratio of the heights of lowercase vs uppercase letters. If you plan on using all caps, this won't matter much (if at all), but if you will be using lowercase letters, a typeface with a more generous x-height will be easier to read at small sizes than a typeface with a small one.

Generally, Transitional/Grotesk/Gothic Sans-serifs will have the most generous x-heights (for example, see Helvetica). But x-heights vary a lot even within subcategories of typefaces, so be mindful of them!

Speaking of all these metrics... one of the things that makes the Premium version of FontBase well worth my $3 a month? The Super Search feature:

I can just... highlight segments of those histogram chart things on the right to filter out fonts that don’t have the contrast, weight, character width, or x-height I’m looking for. Like magic. #blessed

What ‘voice’ do I want to project?

I mentioned earlier how different styles of typefaces have different ‘personalities’. If you’re not sure whether to go with a Humanist or a Transitional Serif, remember that humanist ones tend to feel more elegant, more classic, more intimate. That Transitional ones tend to feel more objective, more confident, more business-like. Which makes more sense for your design?

After you’ve narrowed down your options with the above considerations, then you can start to be really subjective. Follow your heart. Pick whichever one has that certain je ne sais quoi. Or the one that has the ‘Q’ with the coolest tail. The one that just makes you feel a certain kinda way. Because it’s art. It’s design. Have fun with it.

5. SOME OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITE FONTS

So... my taste in typefaces is pretty conservative. I don’t really use handwriting, script, or display fonts. When I do, I tend to use them just the one (1) time and forget about their existence immediately afterward. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Most of these are tried and true Classics you may have already heard of, and some of them might even be default fonts bundled with your operating system. If not, be very careful looking for them, because it would be a terrible, horrible shame if you were to get your hands on one of the many freely available bootlegs of some of these typefaces... :/

With all these lined up together, you can get a better sense of how varied the x-heights can be from one typeface to another. For a particularly stark example, see Mrs Eaves vs Playfair Display, or Montserrat vs Neutra Text.

SooOoOoOoo... that’s a wrap? I guess?

Congratulations 🎉 you now know way more than I’m guessing you wanted to about typography.

[literature-islit]

David Foster Wallace - Mr Squishy (2000)

Yes, this is a post about another short story. Sorry, I guess I just read a lot of them or something. I guess I retract what I said in a previous post, that they are unsexy and unappealing to read. They’re totally okay. You should read more. And, as usual, there’s a bit of a back story as to how I got to this one... 

So, I’ve considered Dave Eggers to be a great writer ever since I read his 2013 novel The Circle (now a major motion picture starring Emma Watson) which portrays the dystopian perils of a Facebook-like company urging everyone towards maximum disclosure. 

what’s on ur mind? Everyone would love to know haha. Keep refreshing the page for more likes and shares and dopamine hits! Don't be left out! Tell everyone what you are thinking - all the time! Help us help you! We just want you to connect....

The Circle is a great book. I was like - man, I’ve got to read more writing by this man. But, the rest of his writing? 

I’ll let everyone battle it out on GoodReads. Some quotes:

it's *so cool* to be post-dave-eggers, and talk about how you didn't really like this book all that much, and it's even cooler to totally hate this book.

I was reading this book and around page 237 (or was it 327?), I figured it out- he's talking to ME. He wrote this book for me. Dave Eggers looked into the future and saw that I would want to read a self-referential, self-satisfying memoir.

I disliked so very much about this book. 

The reviews above are talking about his debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which I... don’t have much to say about. There were good bits. There were incredibly tedious bits. 

I would rate it a solid 3/5

It being pitched as a non-fiction memoir, then using lots of narrative elements that are mostly associated with fiction kind of confused me. I was like - ok, there’s no way this guy actually used his inheritance money to launch a real life street press magazine, and then convinced an actor to fake his own death just for the publicity. 

But he did. 

things u cannot do with social media

And anyway, long story short, kind of fascinated by the idea that in the 90s, at a time before media conglomerates had acquired almost all small press and advertising revenue was at all time lows, and even getting people interested in actually paying money to hold a magazine in their hands and read it was probably the most major barrier to entry to the market; the idea that in the 90s it was fair game and a bunch of college kids could just make a magazine and print it and kind of guerrilla their way into that market, as some kind of genuinely authentic counterculture... wow. I knew I had to try to find out a little more about these types of magazines that Dave Eggers curated and published. 

The 90s

Which brings me to The Best of McSweeney’s, a compilation of some of the best content to be published during the run of McSweeney’s which was yet another magazine thing published and curated and etc by Dave Eggers. 

The whole book is worth a read.

And the stand-out story, Mr Squishy by David Foster Wallace. 

I’m conflicted on how I approach David Foster Wallace’s legacy because he does have  a history of abusive treatment towards women, yet on the whole I feel like his writing is revolutionary and unique, and acts to undermine the dominant paradigm instead of reinforce its ideology. My ambivalence is shared by Electric Lit’s 20 Authors I Don’t Have to Read Because I’ve Dated Men for 16 Years: (”A list like this wouldn’t be complete without DFW, but at the same time his inclusion feels disingenuous, because when it comes to Wallace, I am the literary bro cornering you at a party to ask if you’ve read him and why not. I love DFW’s work in the same over-personal obsessive way this list is meant to mock. Wallace is also an author whose body of work defies the kind of easy summary that can be gleaned from listening to a dude talk at a party about his favorite writer, or applied independent of actual engagement with the writing...”)

BBC Culture considers his magnum opus Infinite Jest to be a cult book that has lost its cool. 

But, if that’s the case, how do you explain Mira Gonzales (in a defiant act of anarchy that would appall even the least-conservative librarian) constructing a pipe out of the book to smoke weed from, BBC? How do you explain that?

Removed from the context of this preceding discussion, however, I regard Mr Squishy as a work of art. 63 pages of DFW’s signature dense prose (the kind of prose that catches you slipping; this is a story to read with your morning coffee, not just before you hit the hay at night) about a marketing focus group for a new Mr Squishy snack, a story that highlights the manipulations of advertising, marketing groups’ ultimate impotence in the face of a brand that knows the kinds of conclusions it wants to have proved, and the way world wide web technology loomed, casting its great shadow over the particular slice of history Wallace is writing in, threatening to rupture the security of the jobs around which people like marketing facilitator Schmidt have based their entire lives. 

This is a story of many layers. 

Many people have already written much better on this story than I could ever dream of. 

Amazing blog interpretation highlighting the multi-layered nature of the narrative (did I mention the narrative has layers?)

570 word sentence highlighted and dissected for its brilliance (don’t let something so ominous as a 570 word sentence deter you, pls)

How are you gonna get yourself a copy of this story to absorb its brilliance, to appreciate the way it delves deeper inside a fake character’s head than other writers make it seem possible to go? I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a PDF flying about on the internet somewhere. You can borrow The Best of McSweeney’s from any library in South Australia. The story also, I believe, can be read in DFW’s short story collection Oblivion. However you find it is not important. What’s important is that you read it. This man does things with words you never knew were possible!

And, yes, I bragged on Instagram about having started to read DFW’s epic Infinite Jest. (Having re-read this blog post I feel the need to clarify that the picture above is not me, nor my hand; I found it on the internet). That was two years ago, and I am still about halfway through the 1079 page tome. It takes time, okay. Time and patience. I am in the (elongated) process of reading it, and anticipate I will finish it soon... 

[vopium]

A Framework for a Healthier YouTube

-by Andrew Cherry

YouTube, the video-sharing platform owned by Google that we all rely on for one reason or another, is routinely cited as one of the top used websites from around the world. There are few other places you can get daily long form vlogs, makeup demonstrations, cooking tutorials, cat video compilations, and television show breakdowns while being a click away from intense political analysis or video tutorials of open heart surgery. Part of the draw of this goliath website is the ever-expanding quantity and variety of videos available to the consumer for “free.” I use the phrase “free” here because while users don’t have to monetarily pay to access video content, there are major drawbacks to the site that end up negatively impacting both content creators and the general viewing public. My goal here as an active user of YouTube is to provide a set of recommendations that I believe would work to push back against some of the more harmful and toxic effects of the site. I hope not to change the fundamental structure of the site or stifle people’s creativity, but rather, I hope that these changes would make the site safer for everybody and work to ensure healthy discourse both online and in real life.

Re-Design the YouTube Algorithm

One of YouTube’s biggest issues is the way that their video recommendation algorithm suggests viewers to watch more and more extreme videos, in what is being called by some as the Alt-Right Pipeline. While the site has evolved to become much more than just a company in a lot of ways, it still strives to make money, and thus, the algorithm suggests similar but more extreme videos knowing that this gradual escalation will keep people actively engaged and generating more ad revenue. This Vox article does a good job of laying out the issue, whereas people start watching conservative YouTubers like Ben Shapiro who himself has explicitly disavowed the alt-right, but then YouTube’s algorithm continues to direct these viewers to further-right videos and cements their radicalization to the far-right over time. While I do see the irony of linking to a YouTube video here to drive my point home, this video titled “The Alt-Right Playbook: How to Radicalize a Normie” takes a pretty comprehensive, step-by-step approach to demonstrating how this radicalization can happen online.

The Vox article above notes how persuasive these extreme YouTube videos can be and even quotes sociologist Zeynep Tufekci in saying that “given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.” Given the long term and deeply alarming implications of that quote, it’s necessary to unpack why the site wields such influence in the minds of its users. I would argue, in terms of Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion, that authority and social validation are the two strongest feelings associated with YouTube’s persuasiveness. With respect to his concept of authority, I argue that YouTubers like Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Joe Rogan become expert authority figures in the minds of their frequent viewers, which then makes these viewers more inclined to check out the videos produced by frequent guests on these shows. These guests, however, are often content creators even further to the right than the original hosts, which compounds with the perceived authority of the YouTube algorithm to push people further down the Alt-Right Pipeline even quicker.

Furthermore, I argue that the YouTube ends up plays on people’s lack of social validation to encourage them to stay on the site longer. This principle explains that as you see people around you doing something, you are more likely to also do that thing in order to fit in. In a time when people around my age are often incredibly anxious and feeling isolated from the world at large, it can be more common for people to latch onto social groups where they feel somewhat understood. One such area is alt-right comment sections on YouTube or by following alt-right YouTubers on Twitter. By deriving their social validation from these circles and by delving deeper into that online bubble, people are more likely to follow the examples set by these online agents, regurgitate their toxic talking points, and influence more people to go down that path.

In order to combat this issue, I recommend that YouTube take a serious look at how their algorithm is designed and make changes accordingly. It should no longer be the sole motive of the algorithm to keep people engaged to drive ad revenue. There should be a team of human moderators involved who understand the dangerous nature of online radicalization and work to prevent it from happening. This is not to say that conservative thinkers should be censored online, but rather to say that YouTube has an outsized influence on modern culture and should be aware of the role their site has played in disseminating fascist ideologies as simply free speech from right wing thinkers.

Make Monetization Practices more Transparent

In the past few years, YouTube has faced extensive criticism for the ways in which they control monetization practices on the site. Content creators who make videos and upload them on the site sometimes come to find that their content had been age-gated, hidden, or simply demonetized. This means that for people who rely on YouTube as their primary source of income, demonetization on popular videos means significantly less money coming in and they are often not provided with any explanation from the company as to why a video was demonetized. This article on The Verge highlights the accompanying problem to larger demonetization issues, which are the arguments that YouTube was automatically demonetizing videos from LGBTQ+ creators simply because of their identities. While they deny these claims, YouTube was also accused of showing anti-gay ads before LGBTQ+ videos, further contributing to the belief that the site says they support these lifestyles but then acts rather differently. It is important to note here as well that even if the videos become remonetized after YouTube reviewers check it out, the creators of the video do not get reimbursed for the money lost in that time frame and these types of practices can work to hide this type of information from the marginalized people who may need it.

Thus, I argue that YouTube needs to make their monetization practices more transparent and provide YouTubers with more in-depth responses after demonetization happens which explain why it happened and how to quickly appeal if they feel it was unjust. If they need to hire more reviewers to engage personally with videos and decide more quickly whether they should be monetized or not, then so be it because the site surely has the money to do so. Not only would this help to retain active YouTubers that are starting to feel sidelined, but it would help to bring in more users because as authors Kraut and Resnick explain on page 199 of Building Successful Online Communities, “Providing potential new members with an accurate and complete picture of what the members’ experience will be once they join increases the fit of those who join.”

Increase Child Protections and Age Restrictions

As mentioned previously above, setting 18+ age restrictions on LGBTQ+ content simply because of the creator’s identity is harmful because it prevents young, questioning individuals from viewing potentially validating and reassuring information that they could not get elsewhere. On the other hand, however, there needs to be a larger effort by the site to ensure that the videos that are allowed in the family/kid friendly side of YouTube are actually safe for children to watch. Last year, Wired reported that they found videos “containing violence against child characters, age-inappropriate sexualisation, Paw Patrol characters attempting suicide and Peppa Pig being tricked into eating bacon” that were discovered by following YouTube’s recommended section or just allowing the site’s autoplay function to do its job.

These horrifying videos would be scarring even to an adult, and I cannot imagine the type of long-term psychological damage that it could inflict upon children without their parents even being aware of what is happening. It is imperative then for YouTube to do a better job of ensuring that the content allowed to be viewed by children is safe for their eyes by improving the age restriction settings and increasing human involvement in the scanning of these videos for child protection. This will have to be done carefully, however, because subjecting people to scanning these types of videos all day long would also likely have negative lasting mental health effects. I would recommend ensuring that the workers have proper mental health services to go along with it and allowing for the rotation of workers in and out of this type of moderation position.

I am not naïve enough to think that these are all simple solutions to such complicated and encompassing problems. Alt-right fascists will not simply disappear if we better regulate YouTube content and fix the radicalization aspects of their recommendation algorithm. Certain videos will most likely always get demonetized or age-restricted even when their creators don’t think its necessary. It can be hard to catch every single disturbing video uploaded to the site when there are over 500 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube every minute. But, it is my hope that these recommendations are taken seriously and at the least, start a conversation about how the site can do better, and at most, can be used as a framework for how YouTube can become a better, more healthy site for all parties.

[jeidafei]

D.Gray-Man Chapter 231 Translation Notes

Hi DGMers! jeidafei from Kougeki Scans here. I’m a total newbie to scanlation and I’ve never made my own note before. However, I’ve read all THREE versions of the DGM translation for reference, (This just goes to show this fandom’s undying love for the subject matter) and noticed some discrepancies between scan groups...

Not to say who is wrong or right, as translators are also humans (unless AI got over its Google Translate phase and take over our jobs someday!) with different experiences and backgrounds, and as such there is no such thing as right or wrong in a translation. 

So, in addition to my translation, I would also like to give readers the opportunity to interpret things freely without the language barrier as well, and maybe share some of my knowledge regarding Japan and the Japanese language accumulated from over a decade of learning Japanese (mostly through D.Gray-Man and Ghibli animes XD) and around three years of living, studying and working full-time in Japan.

1. “生々流転” (seiseiruten or shoujouruten)

The cover art is mind-blowingly beautiful this time. So much so that I’ve been secretly wondering whether Hoshino-sensei spent even more time on the cover than the actual content itself and that’s why we have 20 instead of, like, 40 pages.

Anyway, it also gives us this little conundrum...

@panthaleia has already done a marvelous analysis here and you should check it out! so I won’t be going into details much; I would just like to give you a definition and leave it to your imagination. I admit I’m pretty much stumped by this as it isn’t clear what exactly Hoshino-sensei is referring to by this concept.

Japanese culture and language takes heavy influence from Chinese since ancient times, and there are plenty of these four-letter Chinese idioms in daily use, called 四字熟語 (Yojijukugo), some of which can be challenging for non-native learnersーand even the Japanese themselvesーto fully grasp its concept, considering the wealth of yojijukugo-themed dictionaries and games published in Japan. 

The Japanese definition of 生々流転 goes as follows:

すべての物は絶えず生まれては変化し、移り変わっていくこと。▽「生生」は物が次々と生まれ育つこと。「流転」は物事が止まることなく移り変わっていく意。「生生」は「しょうじょう」とも読む。 (source)

A compilative translation of the above and other versions in the source would be nothing is unchanging; all existence is born, constantly changes (and dies) in a cycle that repeats itself endlessly. The emphasis seems to be put on the term of “constant change” and the “neverending cycle” of all existence, rather than the birth and death of living beings, however, and thus I believe my own and Mangastream’s translation of it as “Circle of Life” may not be comprehensive of what Hoshino-sensei is trying to convey. 

In my opinion, it could either be interpreted literally to mean the cycle and flow of energy and soul-force that Past!Allen had mentioned to Nea all those years ago, or considering the plot of the current chapter it can also refer to the story coming full circle and returning to the point of its birth, by taking Allen back to Eddystone...Edinston...Edinburgh...Edinsーargh dammit I give upーwhere his story began with his meeting with Mana Walker.

Speaking of which...

2. The Town Where Allen Began

Mangastream called it Eddingston. Starbuds called it Edinston. The D.Gray Wikia adopted Edinstown and that’s what I decided to go with for now. 

However, the actual Japanese text is  エディンストン, phonetically E-din-su-ton. Thus, the most phonetically accurate would probably be Starbuds’ Edinston. Edinstown can be transliterated back into Japanese as エディンスタウン, whereas Eddingston would probably be エッディングストン to the Japanese folk (I’ve highlighted the difference in spelling).

There you go! Now y’all can call it whichever way you want! 

3. Why is Allen so alarmed?

Right after Mana said that he draws all those little “I am here”s like a street graffiti punk so God would be able to find him, Allen looked as if he had recalled something significant. Seeing as Allen is about to tell the tale of his beginnings, this would probably be clarified in the next chapter. However, in my opinion, Mana saying “so he would be able to find me” is reminiscent of this sentence back in Reverse: Lost Fragment of Snow:

Back when he still remembers Nea and his purpose of searching for him, Mana was taking every measure to make sure Nea recognizes him, as he now looks different from his 17-year-old self. Sure, Mana might actually be referring to God this time as he said it; we’d never know until the next chapter at the least, but the memory of Mana’s words back at the circus must have been what shook Allen to the core.

4.  はじまり 

The term はじまり (hajimari) or “the beginning” seems to be the central theme in this chapter; appearing on the cover page, the first page and the last page of last chapter, emphasizing the fact that both Allen and the plot has now come full circle and returned to where “Allen” began. 

This cliffhanger freaks me out though, as I couldn’t see how Hoshino-sensei could tell Allen’s story without repeating Reverse: Lost Fragment of Snow, as that is stated to be the story of how Allen came to be:

Anyway, my fear and frustration of waiting-six-months-for-new-developments aside, hajimari is a very popular to the point of cliched concept in Japan, in my opinion. If you go to karaoke in Japan and type in hajimari in the machine, it would come up with a SH*T TON of songs containing hajimari in the song name, with hajimari no uta (The song of beginnings) and hajimari no basho (The place where it all began, which is also mentioned in this chapter) being some of the most repetitive. 

As much as the cherry blossoms are a symbol of Japanese culture, the Japanese people themselves regard the month when the cherry blossoms bloom, April, and the season of Spring, as the marker of new beginnings, of significant turning points in life. The start of school term, start of fiscal year, start of working life and end of childhood, Your Lie in April , etc. all happen in April. 

This phenomenon is especially remarkable in Japan. Being the country of uniformity, virtually every school and workplace throughout the country would start their activities in April. 

In my experience, Japanese aesthetics revolve around the changing seasons and times a lot, and countless pop songs that are released around March-April would sing of the blooming cherry blossoms swaying to the wind and new beginnings for students graduating from high school or university. In the same manner, songs coming out in Winter would feature slower melodies and the distinctive, ringing, Christmas-ey chime from the likes of music boxes, glockenspiels, triangles or celestas, and songs released in Summer would usually be quicker, livelier with lyrics retelling a fun trip to the beach, firework shows and sunshine (－and bikinis, if you’re listening to AKB48!).

To someone who came from a tropical country with three pretty much indistinguishable, unpleasant seasons (Damn-you-Summer, Damn-you-Summer-with-Rain-and-Floods and Damn-you-Summer-with-Three-Days-of-Winter), the beauty of the Japanese seasons and how the Japanese culture and lifestyle intertwine so closely with it has always fascinated and charmed me.

5. The Gratitude Dilemma

In addition to the seiseiruten conundrum, this chapter also throws up some more challenges for translators. One notable example for me being how to accurately capture the essence of this panel:

Both Starbuds and Mangastream worded this bubble very differently, and I won’t say who is the most accurate, but I will explain my choice of wording the best I can (with a few tips to weary Japanese learners along the way, hopefully). The actual Japanese raw is below:

My atrocious highlighting skills aside, we can clearly see the emphasis given to the suffix てあげよう (te-ageyou) here. 

Allen didn’t say it straight out that he’s pitying Kanda or the like, but he’s using the te-ageru form, which means “ [doing something] for your sake” . 

The concept of gratitude is important in a strict, seniority-based society like Japan, and accordingly there are two verb suffixes just to show gratitude: when someone else does a favor for us: te-kureru, and when we receive a favor from someone else: te-morau. 

Yes, there’s a difference. And this is one of the most troublesome head-scratchers and trick-question-subjects for intermediate learners of Japanese taking the JLPT test (and translators of Japanese songs and manga as well), as to make things worse the Japanese usually omits the subject and/or object of the sentence. 

My tip for making sense of this is for te-kureru, the other person must be the subject of the sentence, whereas for te-morau, I/me must be the subject.

Starting to see now why so many of my classmates gave up on Japanese and why so many anime subs/manga translations are sometimes inaccurate? 

We also get another instance here:

(watashi ha kami ni) mitsukete-moraeru you ni would literally mean something along the lines of so (I) could be found by (God) for my sake. I put parentheses here to show you how both the subject and object of this sentence is omitted, and why we must be extremely careful in cases when it is less clear than this who is doing what for whom. To learners, you MUST pay attention to the conjunctions. 

For the sake of convenience and more natural speech I just used so God would be able to find me. 

Back to Black Allen, te-ageru or its more casual/demeaning form te-yaru, on the other hand, is used for when we’re doing a favor for someone’s sake and should be used sparingly/carefully to people of the same status or lower, as it could sound patronizing depending on context. So Allen using it to Kanda is meant to be very cheeky and infuriating, as if he’s trying to emphasize that his giving up is more out of pity/sympathy for Kanda’s hapless persistence than his own being tired of or incapable of escaping.

Because in reality it is just as he personally admitted in the earlier page: he’s got no money and cannot elude the Order without Kanda’s help, and decided to just twiddle his thumbs and wait around for now. 

But food and a man’s pride are everything to Allen...

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed our translations. See you in three months, fellow DGMers! 

[futurefilmsspyingjane]

In Comment to Wayward Winchester’s Video “The Dark Side Of Supernatural Fandom”

Direct quote from my comment on his video.

“(Hey please read this comment because I think it might help with the whole copyright argument!!!!)

(Link To follow along in the Tech Law Journal In it’s entirety. https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107 )

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

So I think you might be getting copyright confused with plagiarism. “Plagiarism is an offense to the author of a work while copyright violations are an offense to the copyright holder. Avoiding plagiarism is about properly apportioned intellectual credit, while copyright is about maintaining revenue streams.”

For instance I’m about to cite where I found this information I quoted (University Library, Copyright VS Plagiarism, researchguides.uic.edu) see how that works?

But let’s discuss the claims made about copyright mentioned in the video in question. (Excuse the change in tone, I actually studied Media Ethics And Law in college) https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/?noapp=1#yt-copyright-four-factors. If you follow this link it will take you directly to YouTubes explanation of “Fair Use” with out all the techno law terminology. Which I’m sure you are already familiar with since you call attention to it in your video description, particularly section 107 of the Tech Law Journal.

Section 107 mentions using material that is under copyright for uses in “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” However if you read the next sentence it gets a wee bit muddy. It then goes on to list requirements that need to be listed on the posting of the content to be considered “fair use”.

“(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.”

So that is exactly what section 107 of the Tech Law Journal states. Next I would like to visit the section above this, section 106, which 107 through 120 is stated to be subject to. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works. I’ll highlight the points that are relevant to this subject for the sake of time”

“Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.” What this means is that the owner of the copyright has the right to police how individuals use their material.”

In relation to using copyrighted content for “Compilations and derivative works” as in altering the content and putting your water mark on it essentially claiming as your own work. Section 103 of the Tech Law Journal details this, which in turn bring us full circle back to section 106 as mentioned previously.

Then since we’re pointing all this out let’s go to the fact that none of the comments in this video are cited properly. Section 106a “Rights of certain authors to attribute and integrity” which is also subject to 107 as well as 106! It goes on about not using the name of another author on a piece of work or visual art he or she did not create along with the limitations on the “destruction or mutilation” of another authors work.

Now discussing plagiarism in relation because it goes hand in hand with copyright, an example would be quoting someone’s words from the internet, printed article or an interview (screenshots of Twitter, texts and Instagram posts) without acknowledging the author(s). Failing to credit and properly cite someone else’s thoughts or ideas when paraphrasing.

And for someone so concerned with another author using a meme they supposedly created and the ethics that should be involving plagiarism, you don’t seem to care to much about other authors concerns in regard to your own use of their content. Assuming that you did indeed copyright this particular video, which legally would not stop anyone from creating similar content, I would point out section 113 which discusses the requirements for removing the content that was used without permission. Which “section 106 shall apply”

“(A) the owner has made a diligent, good faith attempt without success to notify the author of the owner’s intended action affecting the work of visual art, or

(B) the owner did provide such notice in writing and the person so notified failed, within 90 days after receiving such notice, either to remove the work or to pay for its removal.”

Oh and you also can’t quote another person for any reason (especially to “SLANDER” them) unless you cite them in their entirety, meaning giving the source of the original quote so that viewers can fact check, and can be certain you aren’t simply using the best and only words to your advantage.

Probably my personal favorite quote that people love to use when discussing these types of matters is “it’s a free country”. I’m not even going to delve into the political part about how that statement is inaccurate in the most infuriating way possible instead focusing on the governmental definition. The first amendment states. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So really this means that Americans have the right to protest the government without the government shutting them down. This doesn’t mean we all have the right to say what ever we want about anything whenever the time suits us. The first amendment does not permit anyone to “incite actions that would harm others. (e.g. “[S]houting Fire in a crowded theater”] Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). So even though the words that haven’t physically injured another person (to yours or my knowledge) it isn’t freedom of speech, it’s actually harassment, which someone could potentially take you to court for if serious enough.

So let’s think about this; I personally didn’t have much of an opinion on this matter until I watched the video justifying everything that’s happened. I progressively got more and more infuriated while watching. I cringed at all the finger pointing and mud slinging. It breaks me that this fandom is going through this extremely emotional and wrenching time together (which I desperately hoped would bring us all closer together) instead we are at each other’s throats. If ever there was a time that we seriously needed to stand together, it would be now. After the 15th season we are going to be the ones keeping this fandom/family alive, and that’s going to be next to impossible if we can’t stand as a united front. I refuse to let this beautiful entity that is Supernatural fade into obscurity.

I honestly love this family no matter how much we bicker, y’all are honestly one of the most important things in my life, but honestly guys, this is kind of f*cked up.

There is never a good enough reason to disrespect another human being, much less our own family. But honestly if y’all have a problem with another person, come to them with facts not feelings. If they choose to listen then awesome! You worked a problem out in a healthy productive manner and chances are you both feel good about the outcome (ideally). If not, then sh*t at least you tried. But honestly if someone came at you with insults and anger and hate are you going to be likely to listen to what they have to say? I know I sure as h*ll wouldn’t want to.

I doubt anyone is going to read all this but I sure hope so. I’ve been brushing up on the Tech Law Journal for the last 3 or so hours to make this point. But even if no one does, just know that I love you all and please don’t forget to “Always Keep Fighting” luvs! (Jared Padalecki)

P.S. Sorry/not sorry for the essay.”

[entrance01]

Highlighter and Bronzer: Constant Dualities in Makeup Culture

As written by a makeup user

Makeup is highly polarizing subject to the people who wear it, refuse to wear it, and resign to wear it, and speaking honestly? It can get hard to keep a singular, straight thought about it. Personally speaking at least.

A lot of the topics mentioned were usually written separately, and that’s fine. One person posting how makeup praises European features isn’t wrong! Just like another post saying how makeup fetishizes black features/trying to pass as “racially ambiguous” also isn’t wrong! These two separate camps, among the others I will touch on later, can both exist in the same realm. It’s just our job to see both sides and how either and both affect people.

I know this is far from being the first makeup-critical post nor its last, but throughout my years on this hell site, I have stumbled across numerous articles and thoughts. They are all wonderful and are written with more insight than I could ever, but this compilation is (mostly) for me.

Eurocentric Beauty Standards and Modern Black/Brownface

What do we see when we open Instagram or look up makeup artists on Youtube? Most probably the same cut and crease. The same extensive bronzer. The same cut cheekbones. The same C-shaped highlighted area. And you get the point! But what does it mean? Am I just ragging on the go-to, tried and true looks? Well yes. I hate seeing a lack of creativity, but I want to look deeper into what these artists are choosing to accentuate; what they are choosing to accentuate or hide; what they are choosing to do with their natural skin colour.

One tumblr user (that has since left this site) said, you can’t divorce beauty culture from white supremacy. And they were right. A lot of IG/YT tends still uphold whiteness as a kind of ideal! This perpetuation could be as innocent as contouring tutorials telling viewers to give themselves high cheekbones; a small, straight nose; deeper set eyes; “melon seed” jaws; etc., to an industry-wide problem like Snapchat/IG filters lightening skin tones and companies not providing a ful, broad range of foundations and concealers.

It really wasn’t until, like, what? 2017? where Fenty Beauty made a foundation line with a thorough and broad spectrum that covered almost every skin tone. And that is a travesty! What were you telling these women (and men)? “You should be going lighter than your actual skin shade”? But what’s more insidious than that is actually going out and making skin brightening products for women, especially in countries where colorism is more pronounced –like Central and South America and Asia (especially South and Southeast Asia).

The latter is not just an instance of not a lack of representation (and yes, I acknowledge that we ought to see more darker skinned actors and celebrities and so forth) but is something that can affect the livelihoods of people. Without a doubt, people treat you differently if you look a certain way. It becomes easier to navigate through society! Job prospects open up once you fit these standards, even if they are racist; one non-makeup example is how black women are expected to straighten their hair for jobs, have something like 1A to 2C hair, while other manageable hair styles that are more unique to women with 3A-4C hair (box braids, cornrows, etc.) are seen as inappropriate. But at the same time, non-black people go and appropriate these looks.

As tumblr user estoma6mp (now, luzonbleedingheart) mentioned in their (now deleted) post, what is overlining/plumping their lips and taking the styles of black women other than imitating blackness/modernized blackface? Look at Ariana Grande. The Jenners. These parties “tan” and “bronze” to achieve… I think a certain “racial ambiguity” as well as… just stealing the creative thoughts of African American (and also Latinx) women. It’s…. the coveting and commodification of “ethnic” features and styles for the sake of seeming fashionable and clout while also resting comfortably knowing that you can take off all the bronzer at the end of the day.

The Sexualization of Makeup and Children and the Infantilizing of Grown Women

The names of products and shades are undoubtedly important in creating an image and a connection in the minds of consumers. Like, what does “Killawatt” put in your mind, in my mind, other than something super bright and fluorescent like concert lights? But not all makeup will have simple names like “rose” or “peony” for lipsticks. Those don’t have enough edge. It doesn’t sell sex. But should makeup have to sell sex?

As marisatomay said in her post, makeup companies shouldn’t be naming their products after sexual terms. She goes to list names like “climax” and “super orgasm” and puns like “glow job” that may seem far fetched and almost like a strawman, but no. Those are actual names. Just look at the lip gloss selection from NARS’ site: Orgasm, Super Orgasm, First Time, Strip Tease, Triple X, are just a handful of names. There are so much more I’m not mentioning! I wouldn’t be so opposed to this naming convention if it weren’t for the fact that there are plenty of young girls who are looking to makeup as a form of expression.

Now, whether children and young teenagers should be using makeup is another point of debate. If a child wants to play with makeup and draw flowers on their face and add glitter, that’s fine! It’s all in good fun. But the moment you have girls as young as 7 or 8 becoming makeup artists, contouring, beating their faces, making themselves look like they are in their 20s, that’s where things get concerning. Like, we should let children be children and allow them creativity, but creativity with makeup is hard because the line between having fun and feeling like you need to conform to certain looks/have certain knowledge about making yourself look “beautiful” is getting more and more blurred. It’s already terrible to see elementary school children think that they need to look a certain way, wear makeup a certain way to be seen as pretty, but the makeup industry isn’t just exploiting these young girls’ insecurities. They also exploit the girls themselves. When we see brands posting closeup videos of young girls putting on lip gloss, lips parted, it evokes a certain image.

On the other hand, however, I’ve also seen makeup palettes that are very reminiscent of childhood. Saffron-Sugar wrote on her blog, that a lot of makeup also has an “unpleasantly infantilizing tone,” and I agree! Like, which makeup company hasn’t collaborated with Disney? Mermaid, unicorn, faerie, and even dessert themed products are omnipresent. This by itself isn’t that much of an issue –these are cute aesthetics, and I can get behind some of them—but it really patronizes a lot of adult women. These circumstances emphasize certain connotations with regards to (perhaps feigned) girliness.

While I said makeup can sexualize minors and expose them to unwarranted sexual tension, makeup can also sexualize that same young, innocent image in women. It’s the idea of recapturing girlhood and innocence and purity. It’s sickening because it kinda adds this “barely legal” culture –where men wait for girls to turn 18 as if legality is the only thing that differentiates a girl from a woman. And this is disgusting.

Empowerment and Societal Coercion and the Industry that Doesn’t Care

I’m glad to be living in a time and a world where I can speak my thoughts openly and find ways to be myself, but… I think it’s also this individualism that gives us all an overinflated sense of self. It’s difficult to openly criticize our behavior, our actions, as consumers and as people in a capitalistic society because so many of us do take these as personal attacks. As if we were exempt from reflecting on ourselves and have free reign to perpetuate harmful ideology and phenomena.

So…. It was, like, 2012? 2013? Where we got all these “eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man!!” and “blind them with your highlighter!” comments and posts. The idea, if I recall everything correctly, was that… a lot of girls, a lot of women, were emphasizing that they weren’t wearing makeup for anyone else other than themselves. And I think that is a wonder idea. It’s nice that you can make a hobby out of this, but I also know that there are plenty of others who are less than enthused about makeup.

I don’t hate on the women in the above scenario, totally don’t! But they can’t go around yelling how something (especially makeup) is a choice when to many others it isn’t. Plenty of women feel like they need to wear makeup in order to better navigate through society. As a personal anecdote, I know that I have been treated far better as a person the moment I “glowed up” and tried to coordinate outfits better/put on makeup in a more conventionally attractive manner/adhering to certain beauty standards. I know that in some service jobs such as waiting tables, the number of tips a waiter gets can be determined by her makeup. And let’s not even go into mental health professionals and their patients wearing makeup! It’s unrealistic the amount of time women has to spend on our appearances just to be treated like “normal.”

And the thing is, the makeup industry doesn’t care if you’re either woman! These million-dollar companies, founded on the institutional control of how women look and behave, are getting money from both camps. Advertisement will be sprinkled with buzzwords such as “empowering” and “girl boss” but those are empty words when all they want is to bank on these trends and women’s wants and/or insecurities.

 And here’s the part where I struggle to conclude all my thoughts. Like my previous post about art commissions and business, this is nothing more than a rehash of what people before me have said: I just wanted to compile everything in a more accessible post for myself, rather than scroll through my makeup tag on my main blog. But I guess I need to have some form of closure for anybody who has actually stuck around to get here (and thank you for doing so!).

All of the circumstances mentioned are… quite separate from each other all things considered, but they are all part of a larger, more foreboding culture that makes women feel like they need to look a certain way (even if they think they are being unique and creative). Indeed, makeup is a form of expression and creativity for a lot of women, but to just blindly act without any insight on what you are consuming, what you are doing, and why you are doing it, is honestly irresponsible. Like any other part of culture, a part of media (especially social), we need to see who is benefiting from our actions and who is getting hurt.

[spacejunk-tm]

Idk why but for the last few days I have been thinking about how smart Izuku actually is and how he probably could have made it even without OFA. I mean, the kid made it through the first two stages of the sport festival even without using his quirk.. that's pretty impressive. So.. I know it sounds stupid but could you write something about deku's intelligence? Idk a meta, some HCs, a mini fic.. whatever you like! I just want to see my boy being appreciated for his brain and skills! Thank you❤️

Hi! Let’s talk about Izuku Midoriya’s intelligence. 

Now, in this ask you mention how Midoriya could’ve made it without OFA and I agree with you. Midoriya is highly characteristic and rather good at making the best of everything. OFA doesn’t require a high intelligence (actually, All Might nearly picked Mirio who canonically doesn’t score very high on tests and other exams and isn’t incredibly intelligent) so I’m going to very quickly dismiss other theories I’ve seen in the fandom where OFA somehow granted Midoriya his intelligence. 

I’ve talked before about Bakugou’s intelligence and how it started at home. Like most people, Midoriya’s started at home. ( I still don’t have any of my notes from watching/reading BNHA so bear with me please) 

Midoriya’s home we know has stayed almost entirely the same since he was very young. Him being childhood friends with Bakugou because of proximity alone tells me that Midoriya hasn’t gone very far and that his homelife hasn’t really changed in what would be Midoriya’s memory. 

This is the very first image we get of Midoriya’s home and mother (Inko Midoriya.) Inko is shown being a very empathetic, loving, caring mother. She is shown always alone (no father is ever really mentioned in Midoriya’s memory, his father’s name itself is a joke that basically means “he’s really far away”) and she is often shown simply supporting whatever Midoriya is doing...

Inko is a lovely, lovely person but she is not very smart. She is shown having about an average intelligence. What you’d find out of an average person. She has an above average empathy capacity and is very loving and lovely. But she’s not very smart. 

Which plays a lot into how Midoriya uses his own intelligence. Unlike Bakugou, Momo, or Todoroki, Midoriya did not grow up in an environment that enriched what natural potential he had. He is never shown growing up in a place that truly valued his intelligence as a natural talent. 

This was highlighted to me actually in the display of another character’s intelligence: Bakugou’s. 

I’ve said this before but I firmly believe that Bakugou continuously thought that Midoriya was on an equal playing field with him until the world pushed Midoriya down (and enforced Bakugou pushing Midoriya down) enough to the point where Bakugou got very angry with Midoriya for not keeping up despite said pushing down. 

This plays right into the idea that Inko isn’t very smart. Bakugou’s parents were teaching him to read or at least showing him pages of books/things to read at a very young age. Inko wasn’t doing that. It isn’t shown in this panel but it’s clear in the montage that Midoriya could not read when Bakugou could despite that I believe Midoriya had the potential to. They went to the same school, had the same teachers, it leads me to believe that the only thing that separated them was the intelligence of their parents/the richness of their environments. 

This all seems really insignificant but, like Bakugou, everything that happened to Midoriya caused Midoriya’s intelligence to shape around that. Midoriya doesn’t have the connections that Bakugou had, he doesn’t have the same type of intelligence on its face. However, through imitation, Midoriya can get that kind of intelligence. He can get that thought-pattern. And that’s not easy to do. 

Midoriya has what I like to refer to as a compilation intelligence. He’s smart but he doesn’t know the book-talk. Everything that Midoriya does is out of an imitation of someone else (typically Bakugou or All Might). 

He uses his intelligence as a means to an end, he has a lot of emotional intelligence (likely the main thing that Inko gave him unknowingly) but not a lot of “practical” intelligence. This is kinda what makes him a disaster. 

For those that don’t recognize, this is the U.A. Sports Festival’s end of the first challenge. The end of the obstacle race where Midoriya straps himself to a piece of scrap metal he picked up after the robots were destroyed and kept with him, he uses the piece to propel himself off of a bomb to get ahead of Bakugou and Todoroki (and to win first place.) 

This is by far the best example of Midoriya’s intelligence and how it shines. It’s a disaster. It’s messy. It shouldn’t work. It’s crazy. If we were not aware who Midoriya was, he’d look outright like a madman. 

Re-read what I said: he strapped himself to a piece of metal and then set off a bunch of bombs beneath him to travel a few dozen meters. 

That’s mad! Entirely outta nowhere, beyond rationality. I get that Horikoshi goes a bit wishywashy on physics but this is flat out crazy. 

But it’s a great display of Midoriya’s intelligence. He prepares, he keeps things that might be useful later on (there was no way to know what laid ahead but he just picked up a big, heavy piece of metal for the hell of it.) This is learned from what wasn’t given to him and what was. The Midoriya’s were clearly not well-off, they were stable but they weren’t rich. Anyone that’s lived paycheck-to-paycheck kinda knows that there is a sense of “gotta hang onto that” that comes with it, this makes the most out of Midoriya’s resourcefulness as a person. 

He is shown repeatedly hanging onto things and doing things he didn’t need to do just because he thought he might need them later. The idea of foresight is like an after thought to Midoriya. Everyone else is focusing on the current challenge and Midoriya is already three stages ahead and aware that he’s running in blind but he’s gonna grab a slab of metal because it might be handy. 

This foresight is amazing to his intelligence, it allows him to one-up nearly everyone time and time again. He predicts others movements by putting foresight and a high amount of empathy and personality analysis (the notebooks) together. He predicts Mirio’s movements before anyone else is even aware what Mirio was even doing. Midoriya nearly landed a punch on the liquid man. 

Midoriya’s intelligence is messy, it isn’t refined in the slightest. His ability to foresee obstacle and prepare is what keeps saving him. The ability to empathize with others and become apt to anyone (adjusting from the best people in the world to the worst in a few seconds isn’t easy) keeps saving him. It is the saving grace of his intelligence and it will continue to be. 

It’s his strong suit. OFA didn’t give any of this to him, Midoriya would have had all of this without OFA. 

Midoriya’s intelligence revolves around people. It revolves around the long-term use of things rather than an immediate and situational intelligence. However, this can often lead to disaster in the moment and can be dangerous because he isn’t paying attention to said moment. He adjusts very quickly to people and is able to hand out a lot of advice. This isn’t so easy and it requires a lot of fine-tuning that Midoriya isn’t very aware of.

It’s a slow intelligence, it stains very, very slowly but it’s much harder to wash out. You don’t notice it creeping up until you sit back and you’re like “holy shit, he just used a slab of metal and some tiny land mines stacked together to propel himself up and over the competition.” This intelligence is highly useful in what Midoriya is going into but it’s also very dangerous and messy. The show does a good job of showing just how messy it can be and convincing the reader that Midoriya isn’t partly crazy for using his intelligence as he does (though, a lot of smart people can seem kinda crazy if you don’t take them as a whole.) 

Midoriya is great, he’s brilliant, truly. I don’t have the best grip of his intelligence but this is my understanding of where it comes from and how it works. It works by the idea of “What will be next” and he is often caught thinking “what’s going to happen next”. It plays into his empathy well and I think it’s pretty well done. It will continue to be refined again and again to shape to the mold he needs it to be. I don’t think he’ll ever lose the “slightly crazy” aspect of his intelligence (the guy is willing to break his own bones, he doesn’t have a huge sense of self-preservation) so he’ll always be a little out there and his intelligence will sneak up on people. Which can be good! Villains will underestimate him 

[qpgmilan315998-blog]

FLAC And APE To MP3 Conversion Freeware

Begin APE2FLAC Converter. I did try to convert utilizing JRiver, but the best way the recordsdata end up it's a must to spotlight every observe to delete individually. Doesn't appear to be an enormous deal, however after doing 5 cd's and having three of them copy the highlight as an alternative of delete I gave up. I know that is either user error or finicky keyboard but both manner huge quantities of labor versus dbpoweramp that when transformed retains the unique ape recordsdata highlighted for straightforward elimination. As for converting originally did not know and it was all executed. APE is also known as Monkey's Audio, which is a free lossless audio compression format and can cut back the audio dimension to 50% of the unique and protect the earlier high quality on the similar time. However, APE is restricted to be officially supported on Home windows working system and solely few gamers can acknowledge these audio format. In distinction, FLAC is a cross-platform open source and is compatible with extra units and players. What's extra, there is no such thing as a any distinction in audio quality between APE and FLAC so many people are inclined to convert from APE to FLAC for useful playback and large usage. Subsequently, this text goals to introduce three practical methods of converting APE information to FLAC without quality loss. Fre:ac is one other open supply project that has essentially the most choices for converting between audio formats. It includes a number of encoders by default, so you do not have to go and download separate recordsdata for WAV, FLAC, and so forth. The changing APE to FLAC step by step information is offered as blow on your reference. You possibly can shortly invite others to view, download and collaborate on all of the files you want, no electronic mail attachment needed. You possibly can add remote audio recordsdata by way of their direct URL as well as recordsdata stored in your Google Drive account. Edit all metadata prior conversion. Protect all metadata, embedded pictures, and supply folder structure on audio file conversion. As much as sixty four parallel converters for maximum efficiency on multi-core processors. Additionally sometimes but not constantly, if extracting to awav of the mentioned above input files, then the ensuing file is a white noise hiss. FLAC options better compression fee, which is supported by quite a few decoding and ripping applications. While bodily discs are nonetheless common, their usefulness will finally be eclipsed by the convenience of purely digital information: whether which means streaming or software program information stored in your network or within the cloud. As a format FLAC will almost certainly not at all be as common a format as CD and DVD had been in their heydays, nevertheless it's shortly turn into the format of alternative for people who care about sound prime quality. APE is the abbreviation for the Monkey's audio format, which is one of the most popular lossless compressed audio format. FLAC represents free online ape to flac converter Lossless Audio Codec, having some similarities and differences with APE. APE (additionally referred to as Monkey's Audio ) is a lossless audio format like FLAC. Foobar2000 doesn't ship with support to playback APE information. For those who install the patched MAC encoder and decoder for APE files from , this primary step is unnecessary. But you would want to compile it with g++ and yasm your self. Identical goes fortta information, that are also typically used as a substitute ofape.

APE audio format (additionally referred to as the Monkey's audio format) is a well-liked lossless compression format supported by varied Windows-based mostly media players. APE achieves high quality with a 50% file dimension discount in comparison with many popular lossy codecs. Meanwhile, this format allows you to create excellent copies of your CD tracks with zero detriment to sound high quality. As to the downsides of this format, it poses problem encoding as a result of it uses a CPU-intensive compression sample. Another shortcoming is that it's platform-dependent and works on Windows solely.Replace: All2Mp3 has been discontinued, but AudioConverter and Audacity stay alternate options for Mac users to transform FLAC to mp3. to ape converter can batch-convert audio information from one format to a different. With reference to the unique query, if storage means much less you might wish to take into account encoding pace. If each are indistinguishable I might personally go for the fastest encoder. Also look into the parameters the encoders help. Generally you may select a distinct balance between compression and time (I know Flac has one thing like that).With a view to convert APE to different in style audio information, I recommend a versatile and powerful AnyMP4 Video Converter. AnyMP4 Video Converter is a professional APE Converter software program, which may also help convert APE to MP3, FLAC, M4A, AAC, AIFF, WAV, and WMA, and so on. for playback. M4A and MP3 recordsdata to iTunes library. I too have the same downside as you. I spent hours scouring the Web for directions on easy methods to convert my FLAC and APE recordsdata into something I could bring into iTunes. I found some instructions for doing this in Windows, some plugins that I could hack into Quicktime. Each solution I discovered gave the impression to be moderately convoluted.Having used ape for the primary 20,000 files, I'm now encoding with flac because of this. If the folder containing an APE file additionally has a CUE file (it is typically known as (image+.cue)), this system suggests splitting APE to individual tracks. APE to FLAC Converter can trim or cut information, cut up recordsdata, modify video or audio codec, bitrate, channel and extra. button to start changing. I think major drawback is VLC not allow to direct mp3 file convert. You might also have come acrosswv recordsdata - that is wave recordsdata compressed by Wavepak. UI is command line but it surely's fast compared to Monkey's Audio.Once upload completed, converter will redirect a web page to point out the conversion result. I know that this was not requested, but contemplating that one of many causes that this is carried out (at the least that's what I wished to do) is so that the music could be imported into Apple iTunes which doesn't help FLAC. In such case it makes extra sense to transform FLAC to Apple's personal lossless format, m4a. I used this command to transform all of the files within the current folder, whereas retaining comparable file sizes.

[televinita]

Library Triage

Speaking of my incompetence, I managed to accidentally check out an avalanche of super-awesome-looking/hotly anticipated books with fairly restrictive deadlines toward the beginning of a 10-day hell period at work where I had no time to start them. I am almost out of it now, but they are basically all due by or before the end of June and my brain is spinning out trying to fathom how I am going to organize my reading schedule without rushing and ruining the books for myself, SO, time for project Talk It Out Concretely!

(or. you know. even more ramblingly than usual)

Starting with an achievement: Last night I finally had time to finish Fanny Fran Davis’ Everything Must Go, an absolutely delightful romp which was on its final renewal and only a week away from being due. Prior to that I was working on it in 15-minute breaks at work and 1+ minute stoplights on the commute to work. (seriously. thumbs up to its format.)

SO, HIGH ON THAT:

1. A & L Do Summer - Jan Blazanin: This is a book that Goodreads has been recommending to me for 5 years. I always thought it looked cute, but maybe not substantial, so I kept putting it off because it required an ILL request. But next week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is “books to read by the beach,” and I saw this on my recs list again and went, “You know what? This is exactly that kind of book. This is exactly the right time of year to finally read it. I want juvenile cuteness that lets me vicariously be 15 (17 apparently?) again with months of freedom ahead to enjoy in a rural Midwest setting.” I’m struggling with whether to read this or the next book first, but I think this one will go quicker. Due 7/2, like the next two. 

[edit: I waited until the day before it was due, for some reason, but it was everything I wanted it to be!]

2. Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard. Another book GR has been recommending to me for 5 years, another one that needed an ILL request. I figured I’d send away for them both together because of sort of similar themes in girl-bonding and rural locales, though this looks much more serious. It’s  always caught my eye; there’s just something about the "young high schooler latches onto/idolizes Cool Senior High Schooler" concept that appeals to me -- oh, and only JUST NOW did I realize it's by the same author as my beloved Wanderlove! Definitely loving it now. Definitely.

[edit: accurate]

3. Heart-Shaped Hack - Tracey Garvis-Graves: After rereading The Island for the first time in 6 years and remembering how much I loved that romance/had anticipated more work from her, I saw this and immediately went, “I could cast Waige in this.” I am coming to the conclusion that this is untrue, because Mr. Hacker is turning out to be way too cocky for any character I’ve ever liked, but if I re-calibrate my expectations for what is actually being offered, I still feel like I will love this. And if that’s the case...there is a sequel. (which unfortunately would have to come rather far down on this list)

[edit: really should have waited for the sequel in hand! I think it will be better; this was good but rather more, uh, adult-romance-y than I expected so I’d like to at least see them in a higher stakes plot]

4. Going Geek - Charlotte Huang: technically due first, on 6/23 and it’s an ILL so getting it back is tough. BUT I am less interested in it than any of the 3 above, so if I don’t through at least 2 of them first, I’ll let this one go with no remorse. I only requested it because it seemed similar to Life in Outer Space, but that one was wholly satisfying on its own. This does look like a solid YA novel, but it doesn’t have a special hook, and I am up to my ears in Hook Books.

[edit: I made time! Glad I did; it was better than I expected it to be]

5. The Broken Girls - Simone St. James: Not a specific craving right now, but I have been on a wait list since it was released and mentally waiting since November because I love a good thriller with a mystery from the past & an abandoned building -- and then I forgot to suspend my hold and it came in before I was ready. Also due 6/23, and still hotly requested. I am probably gonna lose my shot to read this on time and have to wait another 4-6 weeks, but at least it’s in my home system.

[edit: I made time! Barely took me 10 pages to get addicted; SO WORTH IT.]

6. Learning to Stay - Erin Celello: This popped when I was looking for novels with brain-damaged spouses. I was looking for Waige-related reasons, and with the veteran angle this isn’t going to work for them, but its premise is irresistible to me and I have a suspicion who it’s perfect for: Barbie/Julia (with begrudging thanks for season 3 of Under the Dome for actively showing me what it could look like). Not due until July 8 and will probably delay it until after #7, actually, because I’m having trouble focusing on other ships right now, even ones I adore.

[edit: well done, though I couldn’t keep my characters straight because there was an annoying lot to match up with my original pick, so I kept unintentionally running everything twice.]

7. Shine Shine Shine - Lydia Netzer: All right, full disclosure -- this one is my final, brightest and best attempt to find Walter/Paige (complete with a Ralph!) in a novel. I am setting myself up to fail, in part because the premise includes the idea that the central female character is kind of off in her own way. But like. How else* was I supposed to react to “genius engineer husband whose wife has 'taught him to feel -- helped him translate his intelligence for numbers into a language of emotion‘ + autistic son”???

(*alternate option for how else: I’ve got Happy in my back pocket: As children, the temperamental Sunny and the neglected savant Maxon found an unlikely friendship no one else could understand. Even the ironic name fits!)

This one just got here and I’ll pick it up in a few days. It’s a home system request, but we only have one copy and I already had to wrestle it away from someone who kept it 2 days overdue* so we might tussle again. (*you might be asking yourself why I did that, given the state of this post. I don’t know either. I was in a feverish delirium of reading desire by that point and every book I found online looked more imperative to get immediately than the last, but I was stuck waiting for all of them).

[edit: it was beautiful and I have so many favorite quotes and I cried a lot and it was worth it even if only one character lined up well; the pair won my heart on their own merit.]

8. 45 Pounds (More or Less) - K.A. Barson: a cute YA novel about an overweight girl trying (or at least being pestered by her mother) to lose weight. I’ve been saving it for motivation for when I actually attempt to exercise / not eat like crap this summer. This, like the remaining books, has essentially no due date since no one is likely to request them out from under me even once I return them.

[edit: tossed back unread for the time being. too many shiny new things appeared.]

9. Voracious: a hungry reader cooks her way through great books - Cara Nicoletti: this is either going to help the above plan or hurt it, but it’s such a great premise, especially as someone who once considered starting a side blog devoted to highlighting passages in books that describe great meals. I am not actually sure if I will finish it at all. But I’d like to try. 

[edit: see above.]

10. Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading: this book was mentioned in a review for one of the lesser-known books in it; I forget which one, but it intrigued me because there are TONS of titles in here that aren’t usually mentioned in online lists like this, and I love when people talk about books I have actually loved instead of pretending that Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are the best examples of universal YA literature we can find.

(What’s most likely going to happen is I’m going to read 3 chapters and then wig out about how many I haven’t read and put it back until I have, so I can enjoy the comparisons in our reactions instead of being unduly influenced, but... )

11. Sixteen: short stories by outstanding writers for young adults: Absolutely lowest priority, probably will never get to it, but if I had no other reading responsibilities right now? I would be reading it now. I spotted this when I went to pick up the above, and I don’t even usually like short stories, but this is a compilation of outstanding writers for young adults IN THE 1980S.  And there is a very specific style to young adult books from the 1980s that sometimes, I just absolutely crave. Let me give you more of its description: Stories dealing with teenage concerns, written especially for this collection by well-known authors of young adult novels such as the Mazers [that would be Harry and Norma Fox], M.E. Kerr, Robert Cormier, Bette Greene, and Richard Peck. Biographical sketches for each author are included, as well as follow-up activities for the reader. Me, gesticulating wildly at basically all these names: I KNOW THEM! (as authors, I mean. Once upon a time the library’s teen section was full of their work and I devoured it as voraciously as the newer stuff)

[edit: it was short, so I read it and am glad I did.]

========

AND AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED: THERE ARE STILL MORE I WANT, but I can’t think about them right now.

[hackersandslackers]

Dealing with Dirty Data

Adventures in Excel

In my last post, we discussed how what separates a true analyst (read: technical) from a project manager wearing the mask of an analyst like some Scott Snyder era Joker (I figure that there's a solid overlap between fans of comic books and fans of the real world application of data. Note that this is a study with an N = 1 so it bares no statistical significance, but I have a funny feeling...call it spidey sense). Full disclosure, this post comes mostly out of my inability to sleep in my hotel room in Chicago following a grueling day of doing the very things I discuss in this blog, and preceding a day where I'll have to literally explain my last post to the suits, but perhaps this is the best mindset to begin discussing the myriad ways in which you may encounter dirty data in the wild, and how a savvy analyst may pivot and match their way around it. However, if my prose isn't as on point as you have grown accustomed...blame it on the 4AM haze. Alas, let's begin by discussing the organizational structure of the majority of corporate entities that leverage data to some degree (note, this isn't all corporations...and what does that say about the state of business?) and how, at each step of abstraction in this process that you are from the data, the data gets dirtier and dirtier. Essentially, there's always going to be a group of about 5-10 fewer-than-necessary legitimately skilled data scientists and/or computer programmers/DBAs who are really solid at building and maintaining a database as well as and some sort of compiling language (nowadays, that's probably python, but not exclusively, nor does this matter). However, depending on your industry (unless of course your industry IS data), it's nearly impossible to recruit people who have these skills to the level necessary AND have some familiarity with why this data is needed, and/or the ability to explain how the internal products that they build can be used by an end user. As such, this team has their own project manager(s) who's sole job is to keep these guys from developing a sentient AI that's sole goal is the annihilation of unfolded laundry...when your industry is healthcare. This team should also have at least one analyst who will take the raw code base and do the first step of translation to a more user friendly form. This generally takes shape as either dashboards in a system like Tableau, or if your company has a group of particularly strong data/business analysts (or particularly weak programmers) an interface written in plain(enough) English on a Business Intelligence platform such as Microsoft BI/SAP Business Objects or whatever other system your company utilizes. As a fun little note, this team ALMOST ALWAYS is referred to by some sort of acronym such as QDAR! (Quality data and reporting!) or KMnR! (Knowledge management and reporting!) or Those Fucking Guys (who have something to do with data) (TFG(whstdwd)). On a less fun little note...neither you, nor seemingly ANYONE ELSE will have contact with this team. In light of this information, how do the reports that they build get chosen or who decides how these databases are built? The world may never know. So let's assume the first type of reporting: the Dataratti (which is how I will refer to the acronym defined team described above moving forward) produces dashboards utilizing a tool such as Tableau or Crystal Reports. You may be thinking to yourself: "hey, isn't my job taking the data and putting it in a form where people who are scared by more than two nested groups of parenthesis, and thus this renders my job unnecessary?" The answer to the question is twofold: Yes, and of course not! As mentioned previously, the decision to create these dashboards, the data contained therein, and how you want them to look is decided upon by a mythical creature who has full access and understanding of the data warehouse, AND has full access to and understanding of the stakeholders (AKA, Those Who Sit Above in Shadow ; that's a reference from a famous run of Thor comics that refers to to a mysterious cabal of gods who perpetuate the cycle of Ragnarok in order to subsist upon the energies created by this strife...which as I write this, is an almost disgustingly on-the-nose metaphor for upper management). Now, if you believe that you may be this mythical creature (as I do), I DARE you to apply for a job with this job description, and once you clinch it with the advice from this blog, rapidly realize that your job will involve either one of these job duties or the other. With that digression, even if somehow a useful dashboard for YOU is created, the limitations inherent in these dashboarding tools make one CRUCIAL issue omnipresent: one can only effectively illustrate up to 16 different variables at a time before the system breaks down (for example, Tableau's documentation specifically warns against this). So even if you have the nicest, most illustrative dashboards on the planet from the Dataratti, there is a nearly 100% chance that the information that you actually need will be scattered across 2-3 different dashboards...rendering the nice looking dashboards essentially useless for your purposes, and as previously stated, you have no contact with the Dataratti, nor do you have access to the underlying data from which these dashboards are created. So pop quiz hot shot, what DO you do? Well, mercifully, all of these dashboard tools allow an end user to download a "data dump" (our parlance for "a buncha numbers with headings"). Using Tableau as an example, one can download either a "crosstab" or a text file of the data represented by the dashboard (in both "summary" and "full data" format). Now, just to get the truly gifted in Tableau off my back, yes, the functionality does exist to build in the ability to download the data in the exact format necessary for your needs through a specific combination of custom web server views and Javascript, but... If the users of the dash are exclusively using this function, why do the dashboard at all? And... This forces the developers in the Dataratti to have decent web design skills on top of really high level Tableau skills, and it requires someone to anticipate exactly how the data will be used by the end user by the Dataratti (which is incredibly hard as it's impossible to speak to this department directly, and as previously stated, the lack of this knowledge on their end is the entire reason why my department exists). A few things to note before downloading data from Tableau: You must highlight at least one element of the dashboard before downloading a crosstab. Depending on what kind of dashboard you're working with, you may need to highlight the entirety of one column in order to capture the entirety of your data (click the first element in any column and then scroll down to the bottom of the report...which may be enormously long, hit shift and click the last element in the report) before downloading either the data or the crosstab. If you are downloading a crosstab, be wary, Tableau web server caps how many rows you can download in this method at a time, this can be avoided by downloading the text version of the data (by clicking data as opposed to crosstab). HOWEVER... If you are going the data route, it defaults to summary view. Look over all the headings, and ensure that this covers everything you need, otherwise click "full data" . Interestingly, this still isn't actually the entirety of your data, and continue to check to make sure all of your headings are covered, otherwise, click the display all columns box, and then download all the rows as a text file. Now, repeat these steps until all of the data that you need in your report is contained across these text files (.csv, AKA the Comma Separated Value file type). With all that lunacy completed, you now have several sheets with some common columns, but all with different information; only some of which you need, so what do you think you do? Simple, you use the tools given to you in the previous posts: you lookup on the common factors across the sheets and return the data that you want until you have all the data you need, in the correct order, on one sheet, and then depending on the ask, you may want to pivot that data out in order to summarize the whole mess of data. THIS IS YOUR FINAL PRODUCT well done. Another protip: if you want to reposition data that you've obtained via a lookup, highlight the whole column, hit control+C to copy the data and then hit control+V pause a second (press NOTHING else) and then press control FOLLOWED by V . This takes the values generated by a formula and replaces them with the values obtained. Functionally, this looks exactly the same, but now you can move the data around without affecting or being affected by other data. As explaining only one possible dirty data scenario took over 1500 words, next time, we'll discuss the other most common form of taking the dirty data from the Dataratti and making it useful to you: using business intelligence portals as opposed to dashboards in order to grab the data that you need. Also, if I don't get roasted on a spit for being half asleep for tomorrow's (today's?) meeting, I'll try and write up a companion post with an example of how this works out in practice. In summary, in this post we've learned: How data is generally siloed and sequestered within the corporate environment, leading to a bevy of unnecessary steps on behalf of the analyst in order to distill a functional report for the powers-that-be Two major methods in which data comes from the data team (henceforth known as the Dataratti) to your team: Dashboards and Business Intelligence interfaces, and... Assuming you get data in the form of dashboards, how to take these dashboards, download the underlying data, recombine and manipulate the data, and package it in a way acceptable for your needs. Congrats, you've just learned the crucial skill of the Slice n' Dice ! Quite sleepily, -Snacks

- Max Mileaf

[michaelandy101-blog]

How to Implement & Succeed With Marketing Automation

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/how-to-implement-succeed-with-marketing-automation/

How to Implement & Succeed With Marketing Automation

Emails. Social media posts. PPC campaigns. Wait — another email. Don’t miss that new lead that just downloaded your online course!

The life of a marketer or business owner is busy. Your brain is constantly swirling with ideas, which doesn’t help you get to the bottom of your never-ending task list. Believe me — as both a marketer and business owner, I know how this feels.

In the past 20 or so years, new tools and technology have helped simplify some of these tasks … but this increase has also served to heighten customers’ expectations: Oh, our audience is expecting abandoned cart emails now? Okay, let me add that to the list…

One technology improvement has made marketers’ lives abundantly easier, however — marketing automation. This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of marketing automation, including:

Let’s dive in.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to marketing efforts and tasks that have been automated using software. They are typically triggered by a consumer action, like subscribing to a blog, filling out a form, or making a purchase.

If you’ve ever done some midnight shopping (ahem, like me) and immediately received a confirmation email, you’ve been met with marketing automation. You didn’t think there was a poor guy sitting behind his computer at 1:00 AM waiting for new purchases to come through, did you?

No, that online store likely has some pre-written and scheduled email automations ready to go out when their customers complete certain tasks on their website. We’ll talk more about email marketing automation below.

Other marketing automations include social media, advertising, and SMS marketing automation, as well as internal automations that help you manage and triage marketing tasks.

Marketing automation can help you capture and nurture more (and more qualified) leads. Learn more about how to do this in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Nearly 70% of marketing leaders are currently using a marketing platform. Of those who are automating marketing, 23% are automating their content delivery.

Marketing automations can certainly make life easier, but it shouldn’t replace human touch. As I said in the introduction, a recent increase in technology has been met with increased or changed consumer expectations. Marketing automation is no exception — consumers appreciate the timeliness and thoughtfulness of automation, but they also can also read between the lines of bot-written copy or stale imagery.

Marketing automation should complement your current marketing efforts, not replace them.

What is marketing automation primarily used for?

Marketing automation is primarily used to mechanize and automate otherwise manual marketing tasks like sending emails, posting social media messages, collecting information, and managing internal tasks.

Benefits of Marketing Automation

There are countless benefits of marketing automation. A few I’d like to highlight include:

Efficiency: Wasted time is a marketer’s nightmare. Marketing automation can help you complete repeatable tasks in an efficient and effective manner.

Nurtured leads: It takes a lot of time and energy to effectively nurture every individual lead; however, it’s too important not to. Marketing automation allows you to nurture your leads on a mass scale while still personalizing each lead’s experience with your brand. 70% of the companies report that the most important benefit of automation technology is better-targeted customer communication.

Increased revenue: The more you nurture your leads, the more leads that’ll likely convert to users. Marketing automation can result in increased revenue as more leads become paying customers.

Better reporting: Marketing automation streamlines important marketing tasks and allows you to review and analyze your activity and its results.

Types of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation can take many forms. Let’s unpack the different types of automation and how you can use them in your marketing.

Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is perhaps the most common use case for automation. From welcome emails to post-purchase emails and re-engagement emails, there’s a lot that goes into email marketing. Without email marketing automations and workflows, email would be an otherwise very manual process.

Email automation is typically triggered by time or action. Time-based emails are sent on certain occasions, such as a customer’s birthday (don’t you love those free birthday drinks from Starbucks?) or a holiday (Black Friday discounts, anyone?).

Action-based emails are a bit more involved. These automated emails are triggered by actions taken by a website visitor, lead, or customer who then receives an email or series of emails related to that particular action.

Let’s return to my midnight shopping example. Instead of completing my purchase and receiving the subsequent confirmation email, let’s say I exit the site with items still in my cart—and within 30 minutes, I receive an email reminding me about the forgotten items. This is called an “abandoned cart” email, and many online stores deploy them in hopes that shoppers return and complete their purchases. This is an example of an action-based email marketing automation.

Source

Email automation campaigns are among the top three tactics used by email marketers to improve performance, and email marketing automation has many benefits. The best one (in my opinion) is how it saves precious time and energy by otherwise priceless tasks. Automated emails can help you generate leads and increase revenue, but that doesn’t mean your marketing team has to spend all their time sending and monitoring them. That’s what marketing automation is for.

Learn everything you need to know about email marketing in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Digital Marketing Automation

Although email marketing is a common use case for marketing automation, it’s not the only one. Let’s talk about other forms of digital marketing automation (both external and internal).

Social Media Marketing Automation

Anyone who works in marketing knows how time-intensive social media marketing can be. If you’re going to do it right, you’ve got to do, well, nonstop. Thankfully, marketing automation can help. Tools like HubSpot and Hootsuite allow you to schedule content, set social media monitoring filters, and even automate the response process — although this should never replace genuine, human interaction with your followers and customers.

Advertising Automation

You’ve heard of retargeting, yes? Now … could you imagine having to go into every advertising platform and change the copy, graphics, and timing based on each customer’s individual actions or behavior? Whew, that’d be a lot. Retargeting is an example of advertising automation, as it automatically shifts and smartens its strategy in response to consumer behavior. If a customer visits your website, your retargeting automation will respond by displaying relevant ads on the sites they browse next.

Source

Mobile Marketing Automation

As SMS marketing becomes more popular and effective, companies are adding mobile marketing to their marketing automation tool belts. Like emails, text messages can also be automated and triggered based on time or actions, and they tend to have a higher (and faster) open rate than emails.

CRM with Marketing Automation

Ah, the CRM—a marketer’s best friend. Thankfully, your CRM and marketing automation can go hand-in-hand. A simple update in your database can trigger a whole host of internal tasks, including lead scoring and alerting your sales team to new prospects. You can also use your CRM to trigger email workflows, either based on user data or user actions.

Source

Marketing Automation Software

As a marketer, your marketing technology stack may or may not be your best friend … I know mine sure is.

Do you have a favorite tool or two? Let me guess — a marketing automation software (if you’re currently using one) just crossed your mind.

I don’t blame you. These tools sure make our lives easier and our customers happier. If you’re looking for new tools to add to your list, or you’re wanting to check out marketing automation for the first time, take a look at the marketing automation software tools we’ve compiled in this article. Here are a handful of of my favorites:

HubSpot

The HubSpot CRM, as mentioned above, provides many marketing automation features. As a standalone tool, HubSpot’s marketing automation allows you to automate a variety of tasks, from setting up simple email workflows to building a complex network of rules to target users with tailored emails, live chats, and more.

Drip

Drip specializes in e-commerce marketing automation. It’s mostly used for email marketing and provides email automation workflows, multi-channel marketing, full campaigns, and more.

ManyChat

ManyChat allows you to extend your marketing automation strategy beyond email. Use this tool to build a smart bot to engage with prospects and customers on Facebook Messenger and over SMS. While your marketing automation shouldn’t replace a human touch, ManyChat can help you get the conversation started with prospects — it also captures information from prospects and adds it to your CRM.

Sprout Social

I had to include at least one social media marketing automation tool on this shortlist. Sprout Social can help lighten the load of manual social media tasks — responding to messages, tracking engagement, and measuring audience sentiment. Moreover, Sprout Social provides easy onboarding documentation and resources so you can hit the ground running.

Marketing Automation Strategy

Your marketing automation strategy should vary depending on what tools you use and what goals you set. For example, if you choose to use HubSpot to nurture leads that download a free ebook, your strategy would focus on converting those leads using information relevant to why they perhaps downloaded the ebook—and how your product or service could help meet those needs.

Regardless of your marketing automation strategy, however, make note of these few marketing automation best practices:

Know your audience. You can’t create personalized marketing — whether automated or not — without knowing what your audience’s pain points are and how you can meet them. Build your buyer personas to get to know your audience before building your marketing automation workflows.

Know your customer journey. A key determinant of successful marketing automation is meeting your lead wherever they are. You can’t do this unless you know their journey to become your customer. Map out your customer journey and match your marketing automation to those lead stages.

Review on a regular basis. Although marketing automation is pretty hands-off, it is not a one-and-one strategy. Review your marketing automation workflows on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Your automation should change as your business, products, and customers do.

Check out this blog post for more marketing automation tips.

Automate Your Marketing to Grow Better

Marketing automation may seem like a lot to learn upfront … but imagine what it’ll feel like to kick back and relax once you’ve got everything in place. OK, maybe not relax, but marketing automation will certainly help you shorten that to-do list.

From email marketing to advertising and retargeting to internal tasks, marketing automation can help you save time, energy, and money — and make your customers’ lives easier and happier. It truly is a marketer’s best friend.

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