#did i tag you selfishly thinking of titanic? of course not! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aspoonofsugar · 5 years ago

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While I don't want Falco to be fed to Mrs. Springer, I take issue with your negatively comparing Jean and Connie against Nicolo or Shadis. Nicolo is an honorary Braus because he dated Sasha, and he has assumed a caring role for the honorary/adopted Braus children. Shadis chose to be the leader of the Trainee Corps and has also assumed care for the trainees. To Jean and Connie, Falco is an enemy cadet and potential Warrior. Both sides use child soldiers. Feeding him to Mrs. Springer (1/3?)

would be entirely just within their world's rules of war. Would you also posthumously condemn Erwin for having fed class after class of recruits to the titans while protecting his friends? Also, I think you're extremely hard on the remaining 104thers by calling them "immature." They're 19, which might be an adult in our world but is still a very young, unfinished adult. They were all child soldiers fighting titans at 15, Mikasa and Armin have additional childhood trauma, and (2/3) Connie of course lost most of his family at 15 and his mom has been a semi-mindless titan for 4 years. IMO they're doing an incredible job trying to process the unprecedented events going on and handle them as best they can. (3/3)

Hey! I felt so disappointed in the 104th this chapter (124). Armin especially. Like, there is so much happening right now but he was more worried about keeping the peace with the warriors. I love Armin but since the time skip I think he's become non complacent maybe? As for Jean and Connie, talking about who to feed Falco to frankly pissed me off tbh. Same anon I know the general consensus in the fandom is that Jean was trying to make sense of the situation, but in my opinion, he was being a hypocrite. Like in chapter 108 he told Mikasa she's wrong for having trust in Eren and wanting to believe in Eren but now jean is the one doing what Mikasa did in 108. He's trying to justify Eren's actions. And Connie, I get his mother was turned into a mindless titan. Its traumatizing but that doesn't justify wanting to feed Falco to his mom. I'm sorry, but I'm ready to see Connie die. I felt so disappointed in the 104th. But I do think Mikasa had the best response. Which was no response at all. She no longer views Eren in an idealized light, so she doesn't justify Eren's actions because she knows eren has f***ed up. Mikasa was rather more concerned about Falco which I liked. I was ranting a little or maybe a lot? Lol. I'm sorry about that.

Hello anons!

I think your two asks can be used to comment each other, so I am answering the two of them together!

In short, I think that it is important to distinguish between two different ways of reading and relating to characters in a work of fiction.

The first one consists into seeing the characters as proper people, so different people would react to them differently according to their moral systems, triggers and personal tastes.

I think that both your reactions are rooted into this approach and you both show how it is possible to react to the same characters in almost opposite ways. I think that both your POVs are valid since the 104th’s actions in the latest chapter can be disappointing, but can also be understood if one considers their psychological state. In short, it is not wrong to be angry at them and it is not wrong to empathize with them.

The second approach is to simply consider them as characters aka as beings who are in a story for a specific reason. If snk were not a narrative, it would be understandable if our main casts simply chose to retire and to live happily. However, since we are in a story, it would be upsetting if Mikasa, Armin or Jean simply chose to leave the army and to work in the country-side, while the rest of the world is going to war. They would simply not be in the main plot anymore and I doubt this is what the readers would want when it comes to them. Similarly, it would have been realistic for Annie to simply stay in her crystal forever, but, since she is a character, readers were expecting her to eventually come out and if she didn’t, it would have been a let down.

My latest metas are talking about the 104th as characters and so I am comparing them to Shadis and to Nicolo not because I think these two are better people than them, but simply because the chapter suggests the comparison. The relationship between adults and children is a very important one throughout the series and the chapter explores it once again. To be more specific, the subplot of Shadis and the trainees and of Gabi, Nicolo and Kaya are clearly paralleled since the story jumps from one to the other. In both cases, there are children who risk to die and they are both saved by a person they hurt/tried to hurt (Shadis and Gabi). Finally Nicolo protects Gabi differently from what he did in the past and he repeats Mr Braus’s quote. That quote is about adults protecting children. Here, Nicolo is giving it a more general spin since he is talking about people in general. However, he is doing so to help Gabi and Kaya to understand their contradictive feelings. In short, he is trying to guide the two kids. This is different from what he did in chapter 111 and it is important because in chapter 112 he claims that he is not a man like Mr Braus is. Here, he is showing that he has grown and has matured and that he is trying to be a better person.

In short, both subplots are meant to show us a reconciliation and this reconciliation involves both adults and children growing into their respective roles.

Now, when it comes to the 104th, the story is asking them to grow up and there is no doubt about it. All in all, snk is a coming of age story where kids grow up and face the complexity of the world. This is made even clearer after the time-skip, since we are shown our main casts as young adults and a new generation has been introduced. In short, the 104th are not the kids of the series anymore and they will have soon to accept newer and more difficult roles. This is why the people from the old generation who have guided the main characters up until now are all slowly dying. We have seen it in this chapter as well with Pixis’s death.

Now, again if snk were real, there would be nothing bad with young teenagers not accepting the role of heroes or of leaders of their people, but snk is a story and so the characters must fulfill their role for it to work.

I would also say that I disagree with the first anon’s comparison between Erwin and Connie.

Erwin kept sacrificing comrades both to fulfill his dream and for the sake of his people. What is more, the series doesn’t completely justify these sacrifices and shows how tragic they were and how Erwin himself felt guilty about them. Erwin’s strategic choices might have been correct, but this didn’t make them easier to accept both by others and by Erwin himself. Finally, the tension of Erwin’s arc was between the ideal image he showed people where he was completely selfless and his true human self who was driven by personal dreams like everyone else. The pain of what he perceived as a contradiction was solved in him finally giving up his dream and choosing the common good over himself. This is what gave Erwin peace.

Connie’s situation is different. He wants to bring back his mother because of personal reasons and not because it is a good strategic choice from which everyone would benefit. If that were what Connie was going for, then it would have been better to accept Jean’s suggestion and to feed Falco to Pixis aka the commander. However, Connie’s wish to have his mother back has nothing to do with the current war and is simply a personal one. Connie acting selfishly is highlihgted also by him leaving his comrades and friends to face the titans alone while he leaves with Falco. Jean, Mikasa and Armin all try to fulfill their duty of soldiers, to save their comrades and to protect the civilians, but Connie simply leaves with a prisoner in order to save a loved one. His behaviour is understandable considering the fact that he has clearly been repressing a lot f negative feelings, but it is clearly not one I would call responsible.

That said, it is interesting to notice that his reasons are perfectly understood by Gabi:

Gabi doesn’t call Connie a monster and understands from where he is coming from because she herself is driven by similar feelings.

In short, I think the narrative is showing understanding for Connie, but his choice is clearly the wrong one and I don’t think he will go through with it.

I would also like to highlight that the current situation with Falco, Connie and Jean reminds me of the serum bowl which is even mentioned in the chapter:

Like back then, the MC have a prisoner they think to sacrifice in order to save another person and they are even fighting about whom they should save.

Jean argues that they should save the commander exactly like Levi, Hange and Floch did back then.

Connie is on the other hand arguing that they should save a loved one, like Mikasa and Eren did. Connie even lashes out at Armin who in the end was the one saved because of Levi’s personal feelings.

What is interesting is that in the serum bowl there was no-one vocing for Bertholdt being saved. At that time, sacrificing an enemy was something everyone had accepted and the problems was simply between making a pragmatic choice or a more personal one. However, right now Armin and probably Mikasa are not happy to kill a child and Gabi has come to bring Falco back. In short, I would not be surprised if the whole conflict around Falco would be solved in what is basically an inversion of the serum bowl. Neither a pragmatic nor a personal choice is made and the enemy is spared.

As far as the second anon is concerned, I have rambled about the 104th in many different asks, so I advise you to check the tag of the current chapter I will put under this ask as well in order to have more thoughts on them.

Thank you for the ask!

#snk #snk 124 #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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dadvans · 8 years ago

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don’t look back in anger (otayuri, 2.5k, teen) ::

[life lesson: if some dumb-dumb actually tags you in a callout post on tumblr and says shitty, baseless things about you, don’t engage them. write petty fic about otabek and yuri as grandpas who live on mars instead!! you’re welcome.]

At age 54, Victor Nikiforov-Katsuki became one of the first successful test subjects for a series of anti-aging surgeries. At 37, he had a knee surgery and received hair plugs, but the first in a series of operations at 54 gave him joints and muscle and organs of someone forever young.

Yuri had grimaced at the holoscreen when the news broke, having seen too much of Victor’s face to last several lifetimes. “I bet he has a robodick too.”

“Yura,” Otabek had said, both fond and resigned from across the dining room table where he was dissecting a grapefruit half.

At age 87, Victor Nikiforov-Katsuki went out in a blaze of glory deep-dicking his husband (“robodick,” confirmed BuzzfeedMars) on a solo flight to their summer home on Venus, when his elbow slipped and he managed to undo the ship’s airlock. Neither he nor Yuuri had looked a day over 40.

Yuri’s let his body age. He’s still in good shape for 82; he does water aerobics with a group of old ladies every Tuesday and Thursday, and the atmosphere on Mars has naturally benefited his bones for the past three decades. But he and Otabek have always been purists otherwise, letting nature take its course with their bodies and never giving into the temptation or philosophy of synthetic body maintenance. There’s a small, petty part of him from his youth that remains, the purest part of himself that celebrates his body as the ultimate defeat of Victor Nikiforov. He revels in his own skin, and in Otabek’s, and the thought that when death comes to them in old age they won’t have cheated it, but earned it somehow. Victor and Yuuri’s parts were supposed to last them until 2089, and by then, who knows. The idea of them fucking their ancient asses all over the goddamn galaxy still stirs something ugly in Yuri.

Until Otabek gets sick. Like, really, really sick. And he keeps getting sick. Bladder infections and kidney infections and pissing blood and choked up catheters and too many nights in the hospital instead of their estate, and suddenly there’s a question that goes unspoken between them.

“You’re killing yourself,” Yuri says finally after their third trip to the ER that month. Otabek had a temperature of 40 degrees and collapsed in their greenhouse.

“Or I’m just dying,” Otabek says. “I’m old.”

“Bullshit,” Yuri says. Otabek still skates sometimes on weekdays when the rink is empty, because he was blessed with superhuman cartilage in his knees and the back of a titan. He just does simple laps to relieve stress while Yuri watches from the stands, long since given up the ice out of self preservation. But Otabek has never had to, because Otabek has always been healthy and strong. There’s nothing else to be said or done, because, “bullshit, you’re not allowed to die.”

“I don’t think that’s how dying works,” Otabek replies. He’s smiling and there’s acceptance in the smile that feels damning.

“Fuck you,” Yuri says. “The doctors have given you dozens of options. There’s-- technology, there’s--there’s--”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that,” Otabek says.

“Don’t let my pride kill you, Christ, Beka,” Yuri says, feeling impossibly young even with his knobbed knuckles and crooked fingers wrapped around Otabek’s own, mindful of the saline drip and hiding the biggest of his liver spots. “If you don’t live through this, I’ll kill you.”

The kidneys have to go. The bladder has to go.

Otabek’s dick has to go.

“It’s fine,” Otabek says after the doctor leaves the room. Their intimacy has suffered recently. Until Otabek’s body started failing him for good, they were still going at it an admirable two to three times a week. It was bragging rights at Yuri’s water aerobics class; Janice and Marta and Ahimsa are all twenty years younger than he is, but still delight in his gossip.

“Your hips can still handle fucking on the stairs?” Marta would ask, and Yuri would preen, his long gone grey hair curling with the heat of the pool around his ears.

Yuri has always deeply loved Otabek’s body, even in old age. He’s loved Otabek’s full chest of hair, the grey curly-cues that gather down his shoulders like shrubbery. He’s loved the wrinkles of Otabek’s ass when Otabek fucks him sideways in the mornings and Yuri reaches behind him for something soft and familiar to hold onto. He’s loved the deep growing cut of Otabek’s philtrum, he’s loved the soft ocean of Otabek’s stomach and the way it curves perfectly against his spine at night. He’s loved Otabek’s cataracts, Otabek’s thick fingernails, Otabek’s shitty liver and bladder, Otabek’s dick that has its own groove inside him.

But Otabek will still be Otabek. It’s always been Otabek’s character and strength that have made Yuri feel strong just standing beside him.

“It’s fine,” Yuri agrees. Otabek will carve new grooves into him. Otabek will not be in pain. Otabek will be ninety and still skating past Yuri in the stands of the skating club while Yuri drinks hot cider and pretends to ignore Otabek in favor of a book he’s read six pages of in the past ten years. Otabek will be alive. Yuri will still get to wrap himself around Otabek at night and press his nose to the wire-stiff hairs at the base of Otabek’s neck and listen to the sharp way Otabek negotiates the prices of fresh fruit and farmed fish at the market on Tuesdays. Yuri will still be able to occupy a comfortable silence where the room feels full and alive just because his feet are resting in Otabek’s lap. Yuri would do anything to keep that selfishly for himself as long as possible. “It’s fine.”

It’s not fine.

The organ transplants--the kidney, the bladder anyway--are all farmed sustainably and are available for Otabek at any time.

The dick however, is not.

“Please, do not say the word--”

“Robodick,” the doctor says anyway. “That’s the direction the market has deemed most profitable in perfecting, so the best technology currently available is the Nikiforov model. At Mr. Altin-Plisetsky’s age, I would be too worried that an organic transplant might not take, as we haven’t perfected the procedure. Going with a Nikiforov model would ensure a much higher success rate. This means his body wouldn’t reject the transplant, and the likelihood of--worst case scenario, death would be much, much lower.”

“Say that name again,” Yuri says. It’s a challenge, not a request. The doctor looks between Otabek in a gown on the table, and Yuri, hands curled over the handle of his cane.

“Would you like me to leave you with literature?” the doctor says, not taking the bait. He hands a thick magazine to Otabek and nods at Yuri. “I can leave you two alone if you need time to discuss the options available.”

As soon as the doctor is out of the room, Yuri snarls, “is that a dick catalogue?”

“That is,” Otabek says, flipping it open to a random page before leaning away from it and fumbling for his reading glasses, “that is exactly what it appears to be.”

“Did he say ‘Nikiforov?’” Yuri asks, lifting his cane to poke gently at Otabek’s hand. Otabek smiles, entertained. It’s the same kind of smile that he used to direct at Yuuri decades and decades ago when they were young, at some banquet or fancy party hosted by Victor and Yuuri, where Otabek would turn to Yuri and mouth, you jealous? against the long curve of Yuri’s neck

Otabek flips a couple dozen pages back in the magazine and adjusts his glasses. He’s trying not to smile too much. “‘Nikiforov -- or N1-kiforov is the prototype model still used today in all of our synthetic penis transplants,’” he reads out loud. “The design and shape of the model are based off of the organic penis belonging to Victor Nikiforov, who--”

“I am not,” Yuri spits out, “not having Victor Nikiforov’s dick inside of me.”

Otabek lets the magazine close around his thumb, bookmarking the page.

“They have to have other models,” Yuri continues.

Otabek frowns, his cheeks cutting deep curves against his mouth like a bulldog, and flips the catalogue back open to read quietly to himself. Yuri can feel the years peel off his own lifetime watching Otabek read.

Eventually, Otabek continues, “‘The N1-kiforov model was eventually chosen as the base model for all synthetic penile transplants, as the feedback regarding use, size, as well as shape concerning the girth and slight curve was favorable for both recipients, as well as sexual partners of all genders.’”

“Are you fucking with me?” Yuri asks, completely serious. “Beka, I need to know: are you fucking with me.”

“I am one-hundred percent not fucking with you,” Otabek replies. “But look-- there are different versions, a lot of luxury attachments--”

“Like what, Beka? A pasta maker? This is your dick, not a fucking KitchenAid,” Yuri does not scream.

Otabek looks at him. Really looks at him. Takes his glasses off and rubs at his temple slowly, and Yuri instantly wishes he could take every word that’s stumbled out of his mouth in the past minute and shove them back in.

They take the dick catalogue home.

They bathe together, quietly. Yuri sits between Otabek’s legs and lets the back of his head rest between where Otabek’s chest has gone soft and droopy and he closes his eyes and tries to forget the day. Otabek won’t let him.

“I need to get a transplant,” he says.

“I know,” Yuri says. “I’m being petulant. I’m in mourning.”

“You’re going to be mourning more than my dick soon if I don’t actually go in for the operation,” Otabek says. He still sounds so kind.

“Shut up,” Yuri says. He hates this. “I know.”

“Is it really so awful, me having Victor’s dick?” Otabek says. “I mean, you never wondered--”

He’s teasing, and Yuri wants to now sink underwater but also drag Otabek with him. “I hate you!”

“You love me,” Otabek says. He says it with such command in his voice that Yuri can do nothing but agree, weak for him with it.

“Yeah,” Yuri says. “I do.”

The series of operations starts less than a month later. Organ transplants are done with such frequency and ease these days that they’re the kind of operation that the lead surgeons will step out of the room during, send their interns in with their rivals to poach new techniques. Yuri pretends that he isn’t nervous, wearing his comfiest pair of sweats and one of Otabek’s winter sweaters in the waiting room. In his decades and decades and decades alive, humanity has still not found a way to make a comfortable hospital chair.

Every time Otabek wakes up, Yuri feels like he’s been suffocating. The slow blink awake makes Yuri’s heart catch in his throat every time.

Each surgery requires additional physical therapy. Otabek is so strong, Yuri thinks for the thirty-thousandth time in his life. He makes it through each one with such ease, it reminds Yuri of the first time he saw Otabek land a quad axel in competition. Invincible, he thinks.

The doctors tell them they can engage in sexual intercourse in a month. Yuri doesn’t know what he’s going to do when that month is up. He doesn’t expect to die before then. Yuri eats a piece of candy a day, does low-impact cardio three times a week, drinks a glass of red wine with dinner, and even if that weren’t enough to ensure some kind of longevity, Yuri is sure to live to 112 out of sheer spite alone.

(Even on their honeymoon in Rome fifty-five years ago, Otabek called him, “my grumpy old man.”)

It’s not like they have to have sex to have a meaningful relationship. It’s not like their relationship has only lasted nearly seven decades because the sex. But Yuri likes the sex. Yuri likes sex with Otabek; the noises he makes, the reminder of him solid and sure at the beginning of the day, the end of it.

Yuri hasn’t been so afraid of something or unsure of anything in a very long time. It sits in his stomach like a stone, and it grows heavier as Otabek gets better. He hates it. It makes him feel nauseous and it makes him feel tired; it makes him feel old.

Finally, Otabek turns to him and says, “we don’t have to, you know.”

And Yuri knows exactly what he’s talking about.

And in that moment, Yuri knows he wants to. As soon as the choice is taken away from him, Yuri knows exactly the decision he would make, and that would be to let Otabek fuck him, even if it were with a synthetic model of Victor Nikiforov’s dick.

“How dare you,” Yuri says. He’s making tea on the stove, slicing up a lemon for Otabek’s while Otabek scrolls through the news on his tablet. How dare Otabek bring it up so casually in the morning, not even daring to look him in the eye. “You don’t get to make this decision for me. You coward.”

Otabek looks up from his tablet and pushes his glasses up his nose, smiling. “Coward?” he asks. “You always tell me I’m the brave one. Even in our wedding vows, you said--”

“I know what I said!” Yuri says, angrily scooping too many spoonfuls of ceylon into loose tea bags. It’s going to come out too strong, bitter, and Yuri will put too much milk in his to hide it and then be sick for the rest of the day. Otabek knows this. “Look, if you want to fuck me, you can go ahead and fuck me. In fact, I would love it if you fucked me. The girls at the gym have been giving me pitying looks and I would love to shut them up.”

The kettle whistles on the stove, and Yuri grabs it huffily. He’s blushing. He’s halfway to 85 and he’s blushing.

“Maybe I was saying we didn’t have to because I don’t want to,” Otabek says. If possible, Yuri’s blush deepens. He turns his back to Otabek and pours the water over the overstuffed tea bags with a steady hand.

“Fine,” he says. He’s sure Otabek is just teasing him now.

“Fine?” Otabek repeats.

“Fine!” Yuri grabs the cool milk pitcher from the counter and, as expected, pours more milk than water into his tea. “Beka, we’ve always-- we knew we weren’t going to be two kids on the back of a motorbike forever. We knew that would end, like we knew competitive skating would end, like we knew music would change and clothes would change and we would change. I’m not going to stop loving you now because something else changed. We’ve always changed together. I don’t care if you have Victor Nikiforov’s dick, or if you don’t want to fuck me anymore, as long as I get to be with you.”

Yuri hears Otabek exhale shaky, the sound of the table creaking as Otabek grips it to help push himself up. Otabek shuffles toward him slow, and then Yuri feels Otabek’s arms circle around his middle; he’s stayed lanky all this time, and Otabek’s stayed robust, and the way he embraces Yuri has stayed so tight, grounding like an anchor.

“Fifteen-year-old Yuri would have never said that,” Otabek says in his ear. His voice is like honey.

“That’s not true. Fifteen-year-old Yuri would have said anything to get you to like him,” Yuri replies, and he feels Otabek press a smile into the crown of his head. “Fifteen-year-old Yuri would have said it, he just wouldn’t have meant it.”

“Do you mean it?” Otabek asks, dry, thin-lipped kisses down the back of his neck.

“Of course, old man,” Yuri replies, turning around. He grabs Otabek’s soft cheeks in his hands, fingers curling into Otabek’s sideburns. When he kisses Otabek, softly, Otabek tastes like the same awful chalky dry toothpaste tabs he’s used for the past thirty years, and a little like sleep. He licks a little into Otabek’s mouth just to be a shit, and Otabek laughs, grabbing at his collar as Yuri pulls back with his tongue out. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not okay with people shipping Otayuri … because I wanna know what made them look at yurio in canon and think ‘i wanna see him older and sexy’”

[REJECTED PROVERB, SOME DIPSHIT ON TUMBLR]

#otayuri #otabek altin #yuri plisetsky #yuri on ice #delaney writes

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