#post is muted cause some people can't act like human beings

[maranull]

hey fromsoft. hey. hi. hello. HEY. would you like to explain to me? how is Radahn not only alive, but younger? not even asking about that other golden bullshit hovering around him, just this simple ask. how. is. radahn. alive. and. younger.

?

[pazodetrasalba]

Plain Spoken - or Plain Thought (2)

Dear Caroline:

Thinking some more about this post of yours, what comes to mind is the traditional is-ought problem, the difference between descriptive statements (x is y, x has property y) and prescriptive statements (x ought to be doing y), and their possible overlap. Like, some areas are clearly descriptive, like a big chunk of purest science, and others are clearly normative, like how people should behave in certain social, contextual situations. What happens in the middle of the Venn Diagram?

As we mentioned yesterday, fiction is an interesting case, where we are playing with a scenario and characters that aren't 'real' (and therefore, theoretically at least, exempt from any moral issues beyond the hypothetical), but we have this capacity of acting -and feeling- as if the people were real, and to get annoyed when they do what we didn't expect from them. This can come from identification with characters and situations and/or from an exporting of one's moral framework to the fictional world and our investment in certain feelings and expectation on its denizens. Even if the suffering for characters is a muted, quasi-simulated one, it can still cause pain and unease - I find myself feeling really squirming when reading some stories, even if some rational part of me is saying 'hey, this is not real! These situations don't exist! And even if they did, you know this character has plot armor as is not going to be gruesomely murdered in the next chapter'. Also, the fictional framework allows us to be more judgmental: characters and situations are simpler than in reality, we generally get a God's eye view, there is no price or complications from censuring a perceived bad behavior.

In the real-life, social situations you talk about, I think it would be fair game to say that you can't just adopt a descriptive stance - I mean, you can do it, but people would still fairly expect you to also go a bit beyond that, and I don't feel this is unfair of them. I'd guess that in the contextual framing of the A - B interaction you talk about, it is reasonable to suppose that A is expecting some reasonable behavior from B. Rather than just explaining the why, or why not, perhaps a more productive way here would be to start with an intro of the sort 'I know you expect B to do x, and in its social context, it is not an unreasonable expectation, but all the evidence I have about B clearly shows that s/he is not a person that is going to abide by those social expectations, and it is counterproductive for you to believe otherwise. This is not to be construed as a sanction of B's rule-breaking, and neither would a list of quasi-objective reasons I can construct to explain why I think B is acting in such a way'. Well, yes, this a mouthful, but so much of what humans say comes with a big set of background information and caveats that we usually take for granted. But when we are acting outside the expected framing, we are expected to make it clearly known and to avoid what all this was about - you being annoyed because A wanted 'emotional support and confirmation of B's wrongdoing' and your framework was 'trying to objectively and factually describe the reason's of someone's actions, or lack thereof.

Back to the Venn Diagram imagery, you can have some friends from which you expect subjective empathy and support (this is the de facto default setting) , and perhaps other friends from whom you expect a rational and dispassionate appraisal of situations, and maybe you want a combination of both (in different situations?) Or maybe you were in a moment in your life that you only felt a need for the latter? I find this hard to fathom.

[takanova12]

The fuss around chapter 130.

I saw that people are going with three possibilites for historia.

She got pregnant with eren.

She got pregnant with the farmer.

The pregnancy is fake.

Before I dive in, I would like to say that I am writing this post to address concerns that I have surrounding the pregnancy and not about historia as a character. I don't know her intentions or thoughts on the matter. As an advocate of eremika, this post is to help me and possibly others like me to know that if eren were to be with anyone, it would only be mikasa and even then there's no happy ending.

1. She got pregnant with eren.

First, let's assume she did. If so then why? For love? No. They never talk about feelings for each other. No one has ever teased them about each other, as the narrative has been constantly doing with both eren and mikasa. Eren and historia have a connection, an understanding based on their past. It's friendship, more like what eren shared with armin (when they both wanted to see the ocean) but later on, their dreams changed, hence their friendship changed too.

Let's assume now it was for love. What did it accomplish? Eren wanted to exterminate all life outside paradise prior to meeting historia and he is still following on the same path. So, nothing has changed! It serves no purpose.

Eren said he can't respond to mikasa's feelings because he will die soon. He didn't say " it's not like that or anything. Instead his response was, is there even a point? I will die soon, so I want them to continue living peacefully.

Why would he bring a child with historia who was portrayed in a romantic light with ymir? What purpose would it accomplish? It would literally be aganist what he wanted for historia and his loved ones.

Why did eren go to see historia in first place? Because he just wanted to see her out of love? No. He went to warn her about the MP's. To protect her. To tell her to stay quite until he accomplishes his plan.

Is it odd for eren to protect people? Nope. He couldn't even bring himself to hurt annie, so why in the world would he not want to protect historia.

The awkward panel positioning in my opinion was done deliberately to cast confusion. But when has isayama not done that? He had mikasa acting jealous towards annie and questioning eren about it, which led people to believe eren had romantic feelings for annie, and eren couldn't even understand what mikasa was implying. More so, even very later on in the story, eren was still portrayed as clueless about romance (104th and marco×hitch). So, clearly he never had romantic feelings for annie.

Also, sidenote ever since the idea of eren being possibly aware of romance was introduced in the story, it has always been in connection with Mikasa.

When they meet what do they talk about? Historia is grateful for eren's protection but what is eren fixated on ? Protecting historia, ridding the world of hatred, ending cycle of breeding and scarificing royals.

Does eren tell her anything he hasn't already told someone like floch? Eren didn't tell historia about his plan, because she is special to him (she is special no doubt, all his friends are). Eren told historia to protect her, but also because she could have been the only hurdle in his plan. The people who are special to eren never knew what eren was doing because he couldn't burden them with this gruesome decision. For the people who are special to him, he wants to make the world a safer place, so they can continue living peacefully. His words not mine.

Not saying cause of that historia is not special to him, she is, but because of her position as a royal she poses a threat to his plan. He had to burden her with the knowledge of his plan to both protect her and ensure he gets to do what he has always wanted to do. He wanted to ask her to stay quite until he is done.

Not even once in eren's memories, there has been an image of a tender moment with historia. Basically if he was the father, there will be something special about her or, kruger would have mentioned her name too. She wouldn't have been absent from the story for so long, like there would have been something to suggest otherwise? A tender moment like eren staring at young him wrapping scarf around mikasa. Why did eren tell mikasa he hates her? Why be so harsh to her? What are you so afraid of eren? That she might get hurt? That she might follow you to your death?

2. She got pregnant with the farmer.

I think this is the most likely scenario. A friend shared a twitter post with me by the user, eren 130 mute, and this 👇 aligns with my thoughts about the situation quite well.

Pregnancy with the farmer, showcases how distraughting her situation is. It is not be romanticized. Her situation is sad and desperate. They are truly talking about eradicting all humans outside paradise. It is a sad and horrible situation as is portrayed by both eren's expression and her's. Right after eren tells her about his plan, she becones distressed and ever since he annouced his plan to her, she has been wearing that gloomy expression.

3. She is faking the pregnancy

I don't think that's plausible. If the pregnancy was fake, firstly when Nile talks about it, historia wouldn't be shown sad in it. According to nile, queen can choose her own partner,so there's no reason for her to look so depressed in his imagination. His words don't correspond with the imagery that's shown. Why does she look depressed then? Because it is actually her real situation. She is truly not okay with this all.

Secondly, if the MP's are planning to feed zeke to her, won't they make sure in ever possible way that she is pregnant or not?

Faking the pregnancy sounds good in theory but it also doesn't serve any purpose. If faking the pregnancy was an actual thing, we could have never been shown historia, not given an explanation on who the father is. Instead we got all of that, what we didn't get is why she got pregnant? This chapter it seems like when eren reminded her of the time she saved him by being the worst girl, she proposes to have a baby. Why did she do it will become obvious when we get her pov.

And isn't this her?

Fake bump again?

Are we talking about snk or a soap opera?

And in snk, everyone is currently distraught and placed in horrifying situations, so why would historia be spared? Why would eren be spared? Mikasa, armin, jean, connie, hange, levi, annie, pieck, reiner, gabi and falco are all suffering. Why would these two be exempt of it?

Why would there be a happy ending for people collaborating on genocide? (Idk what historia's motives are as she did protest aganist the idea, but later dropped the resistance, refused to contact the survey corps or anyone about it just like eren asked? I know there's an explanation for it when we get her pov but I hope it's a good explanation). So, granted the confusion and lack of historia's pov, for now let's consider only eren and floch as supporters of genocide. I will go with my gut and say that she was probably trying to stop eren in her own way, like some plan she had? Clearly and sadly it didn't work.

What kind of message would isayama be sending then? If someone who is commiting genocide gets a happy ending, what would be the message of this story then? He is not just commiting genocide, but along the way hurting people who have always been there for him.

Let's see if official translation changes anything.

Thank you for reading.

Edited: I would also like to add that the odd panel positioning might be isayama being his usual trolling self. For instance, with chapter 112, he introduced the idea of ackerbond and same chapter showed mikasa slamming armin, due to which there was widespread belief that mikasa is not free and indeed eren hates her. (That was partially addressed this chapter. Again not completely, because it has to be left for EM meeting. It has to be handled gradually, because if eren is suddenly and directly shown to feel love for mikasa, it won't feel natural. There has to be some drama and mystery left, otherwise people lose interest).

Mikasa slamming armin on the table was meant to throw us off, it was meant to create confusion. It consolidated the views of people who were already looking a reason to discredit eren and mikasa's bond. Isayama did that on purpose, to throw us for a loop. It had people debating for so long that mikasa really does protect him due to some bond.

We are not supposed to go off based on one cherry-picked moment. We have to go back and see what the character's are about, where they are they headed, how consistent and inconsistent the information is, what the story has told us so far and where it's going..

[whats-the-story-tc]

21st of April, 2020

"The One with the Fairy Tale"

(Pssst! If I were you, I'd read this post first before starting this new one!)

I cannot believe this is my life.

A couple minutes before the 8 AM rush hour, a Google Classroom notification from V arrived. Then another. Someone likes a spam, I thought, before opening the first one.

Sigh of relief. It was only the essay I'd already sent her. On to the next one, the detailed info on what we were covering today. The play on the table is both figuratively and literally a fairy tale. V, pretty critical of the play and its character work itself, made sure to bring one particular monologue to our attention, which tackles a rather difficult topic in a pretty simple play about love and longing — human mortality. "(It's my particular favourite, too, but don't let that influence you.)" She wrote after explaining what it was. The last paragraph though, now that was something else. "For those of you interested in an A level (here you imagine me looking at certain people)" she began, and my eyes widened as I read it. Sure, there are literature buffs in both classes, but... I can't help but think it was first and foremost an indirect to me. I mean, I'm probably the biggest nerd out of all of us, and she's always looking at me anyways... I want to dream big and say she wanted me to see it most. I mean, it's a link to an incredibly long essay. The situation speaks for itself.

"Look at this silence," V said as she entered our server at around 11 AM. Once she was here, we (as in all of us) started chatting about the break and quarantine. "It has been Sunday for two months." I declared, V immediately continuing the thought: "That part of Sunday, no less, where the line between the previous week and the next one blurs." Couldn't have said it better myself.

As V spoke about the story, I just leaned back on my bed, letting myself get immersed in the explanation and the sound of her voice while trying to imagine everything. After a while, it all started sounding like the plot of Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute — especially when V said that our protagonists, a human boy and a fairy girl, both had companions of the same sex along the way. And as soon as she said those companions are actually married, I waited for her to take a tiny break in speaking and said "How surprising." According to Bookworm Friend, she laughed, but I couldn't hear it clearly because someone made a noise. Then she said "Obviously..." and basically shaded the whole plot line, though I don't remember the rest of the sentence. And guess what she brought up immediately? That's right. The Magic Flute. I was floored! "That's what I was thinking, too!" I chimed in immediately. She took the words out of my mouth! And, soon as I said that, I got a text from Bandana Friend.

BanF: "Wow the twinning"

It's official, folks. Even from a distance, V and I are sharing a braincell.

Serious shit went down in class, including pointing out some... very suggestive imagery that caught us all off-guard because the thing she mentioned isn't inherently suggestive, but okay, V, you do you. (Obviously, I'm not going into detail here, nor sharing the conversation Bandana Friend and I had here because... this is simply not the platform.)

But what I can share is a really funny bit that caused a bit of a pandemonium in the separate class chat none of our teachers are in. You see, about half an hour into class, The Boyfriend sneezes with what is probably the volume of a medium-sized family house collapsing. About five seconds of absolute comical silence follows, then we just hear V saying "Sorry. I'm sorry." before carrying on. All this caused quite the stir, featuring texts like:

BanF: "The whole house just quaked"

and

Classmate: "Jesus who was this 😂😂"

Classmate: "Tell me it wasn't [V]"

S: "No, her man"

Classmate: "Good heavens I thought it was her 😂😂"

and

S: "I laughed so hard that I thank God I was on mute"

So yeah. That's on that. Bit later, with the words mentioned here, V ended class, and there I was, on Cloud 9, dancing around my room and humming Disney songs from the sudden serotonin charge. That was probably the moment I decided to read the play V spoke about. You see, she didn't assign it because the wording is quite difficult (the text is quite old) and students usually struggle with it, but she said that we wouldn't lose anything by reading it, if we wanted to. And thus it happened that I sat down on my balcony at around 5 PM with the first chapter open on my phone, ready to read.

I knew she'd be right. I trust her opinion and my reading comprehension skill suffers at the stake of my absolute inability to concentrate for longer than 10 seconds. But guys. Some of the longer sections I had to go over at least three times before I understood what was going on! An hour or so must've passed when I read the last line of the first chapter, and the butterflies in my stomach took flight. It was time to text V about it. It was my original plan, anyway. Figure out how right she was, then tell her about it. I was already incredibly nervous, trying to stick to what I'd planned on writing. My fingers typed on autopilot and as soon as I was done, I could barely believe I was actually going through with this. But alas, you only live once, carpe that fucking diem. One big breath. Two biiiiig breaths.

Send.

S: "Well, Miss, I'm not saying you were right about the text of [the play], but I've only read Chapter 1 and I'm already doubting if I even speak [my native tongue]... 😅"

I immediately tossed the phone on my bed and ran away panicking. What will she say? How will she react to seeing it's me again? What does she think? Am I funny enough? Am I bothering her? When will she reply?

Half a minute later (!!!), I see the icon of The Platform That Shall Not Be Named on my screen. No. No. No. Nonononononono. I picked the phone up and unlocked it with a shaking hand. I was not prepared for what I was about to read.

V: "Hahaha, well, babydoll...You do. You're just not used to [the old-timey wording]."

I only had the time to sink to my knees, eyes wide, lips agape, when the next message followed.

V: "Though, once you're already through it, I'm curious about your opinion on the play's stageability. 😄 (given such a word exists)"

You bet your asses all air left my lungs. Not only did she call me babydoll again, now in a way that I could forever remind myself of it, but she basically just prompted another conversation! She wants to talk to me again! And I'll have you reminded, V's basically trusting my judgement based on the scriptbook I showed her at the dawn of time, that she'd never actually seen in action! I wonder what I did to earn all this trust...

S: "I'll see at the end and tell you :)"

V: "Alright :))"

Then, all brave from the double smiley, I had a really stupid and impulsive thought. (Don't yell.) Me being the little shit that I am, I googled stageability and took a screenshot of no results having been found. I took a screenshot, cropped it and sent it to V, my head being completely empty as I did. I acted purely from gut feeling.

S: "Tough luck this time, it seems😄"

V: "i thought so!"

(I can only hope she took it as a joke. But, the way I know her, she probably understood. Still, the me of right now, exactly two days and two minutes later, wouldn't do it.)

And this is where it ended. This is where I ended. My hands, my legs, even my lips were trembling as I tried to process the sudden load of emotion overcoming me. What did I just do. What did we do. What happened here. All this just echoed in my head, and I went ahead and texted every friend I wanted to tell in all caps.

BanF: "WOAAHHHH"

BanF: "you guys have really warmed up to each other"

Even now, as I was typing, I got the chills just thinking about this conversation. If it wasn't for the 'Miss' and my use of formal pronouns in the very first text, it would've just felt like two friends, who happen to both love literature, talking. And this really warms my heart, because there's this fantastic woman, who I genuinely think is one of the best influences on my life and... she just likes me for me. She immediately answers when she can, comes off genuinely happy to talk to me, prompts another thing I can tell her about and all but tells me that my opinion matters to her. Because this is her. I'm almost convinced that I will never hear her outright say that she likes me or she's proud of me, but, should I have any doubts, she does everything to let me know. I just misunderstand her sometimes, not knowing where to look.

When I tell you all this still doesn't feel real...

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]