#without ppl treating is like some silly little fandom
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truly believe andreil would be miserable and unfulfilled without each other ANYWAYYY tell me about ur hcs for andreil as people and also their relationship :P
ur so right. Also HELLO I loveyou oh my gawd. How dare you invite me to infodump.!!!!! I hVe many thoughts of them bcuz aftg (particularly Andreil + Jean) is my spinterest and also my other spinterests (a prominent one being queer Stuff) influence how I view them too?? So I have a lot of queer, self-indulgent headcanons for them that I don't think a lot of other ppl in the fandom understand but :3c whatevz
First of all. I PASSIONATELY believe they are t4t and butch4femme. Let me just explain my identity headcanons for them: Andrew is a (soft?) butch(4femme) bear/cub, agenderflux + gender apathetic trans man, gay man (ofc), and I see him as greyromantic/demiromantic too. I FIRMLY believe he has BPD, possibly BPD with ASPD traits. Neil is a butchy femme otter, genderfluid (genderfaunet specific) trans man, he/she, unlabelled achillean, demisexual (ofc) but also demiromantic, greysexual, greyromantic, and maybe nebularomantic/sexual too. I also lowkey like foxgender + catgender for him. I think he also has BPD, and autism. WHEW!!!!
I like the idea that Allison specifically helped Neil discover his femme identity :3c like, he took interest in her makeup and feminine fashion, and she helped him explore that. This is dear to me. I am very big into Neil wearing long skirts and feminine clothing, makeup, gold jewellery, and I think Andrew fucks w some eyeliner and silver jewellery too, and maybe the occasional dark coloured long skirt >:3 . I love the idea of Andrew being goth or having a style like that, but I'm not personally part of those subcultures so idk much about them!
With their relationship..... I am big into them being cuddlers & gentle & cute with each other. Obviously, they will never be a "typical" affectionate couple bcuz of their trauma & PTSD, but I like to think of them (especially Andrew) learning the gentleness of non-sexual intimacy & touch w each other, and I think they feel a love so strongly for each other, it changes them, allows them to understand softness and gentleness in their own ways.
I think Neil constantly buys Andrew sweet little treats, Andrew constantly wears Neil's clothing & buys Neil gifts (especially fox related things), they subtly but intentionally match clothing or accessory items. I am big into the idea Andrew loves to read too, IDC!!!! I KNOW that man enjoys curling up w some blankets and hot chocolate by a fire readinf some books. Gay ass. & I think Neil loves silly little movies & tv shows and has hobbies like knitting/crocheting or some other silly gay ass shit.!!! I think they are v possessive of each other (my BPD projection here, I fear). I do not think they ever get married or kids, but I think Aaron & Katelyn have kids and they are the weird uncles.!!! The "I love you" thing, I have no strong thoughts on – I can see Neil saying it, not so much Andrew. Honestly I dont like to think of them being separated post-canon on different teams bcuz I am DEEPLY attached to the foxes and their dynamic and it makes me PANIC to think of Andrew not beinf on the same team as Neil, or the foxes beinf separated in general, so I cannot give many thoughts on that.😭 I also love thinking abt them in all sorts of AUs, my fav beinf a fantasy AU where Neil is a runaway prince and Andrew is a skilled knight recruited to find him >:3 I am not creative enough to have a whole built story around that in my mind, but it's a dynamic I love thinking about. Also them in a zombie apocalypse AU.....<3 perfection. I also love thinking abt a more developed Neil & Jean friendship, and an Andrew & Jean friendship too!! Bcuz I LOVE Jean.
I probably have so much more I could say, just little silly headcanons & the such, but I HAVE YAPPED SO BAD!!!!!!! It's just an autistic mess in my brain when it comes to Andreil oh maii gawd. I feel like I have no cool meaningful headcanons its just entirely stupid silly self-indulgent shit (I project onto them So bad. If u couldnt tell.) but YKNOW! Thank you for askinf me questions though bcux I love love talking abt my special interests and aftg YAYYY!!!!! :33333 sorry for the yapfest. Blinks.
#why did I write a 5 page essay ohmy lord#showinf them this in my autism evaluation#butch4femme andreil#asks#💬
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Yeah, I haven't run into ANYTHING in fandom that even approaches the fucking vitriol I saw in the AGA. I was in Homestuck fandom, I have witnessed some of the depths of dsmp fandom. Nothing fucking compares to loving Gwen during the AGA period.
So like. Here's the thing. you had to be braced for ANY fic you read that wasn't explicitly pro-Gwen to be unexpectedly VIRULENTLY anti-Gwen. I'm talking violent rape and/or torture would just... happen to her, without any warning, because this was before universal "warning for sexual assault" was essentially a given.
If you have not loved a character and literally walked on tiptoes through fandom for years, because at any turn you could run into people who were otherwise awesome and interesting putting forth scenarios where that character was LITERALLY RAPED TO DEATH, you have not "loved a character fandom hates". And to be fair, I'm very glad. That is not an experience I would wish on anyone. But what I'm saying is that hating a beloved fandom character is, at most, deeply annoying. It does not run the risk of immediate sexual assault triggers bc of how ppl are treating that character.
I understand OP probably didn't intend this to be EXTREMELY FRAUGHT, but like. you could read a random relatively fluffy jack/ianto m/m fic that had NOTHIGN to do with Gwen, and Gwen would be BRUTALLY RAPED AND/OR MURDERED in the BACKGROUND, for literally NO reason, just because "fuck Gwen", and no one would say shit about it.
I'm glad fandom's different these days, even if only a little, but to compare "liking a character fandom hates" to "hating a character fandom likes" when this is a thing that's happened TO DEEP EXTREMES over the last decade or two? ....silly. There is not a comparison. it will ALWAYS be worse to love a character fandom hates. bc if you're on the other side, you can just write your own fucking fic that doesn't include that character and NOT READ FICS THAT FEATURE THAT CHARACTER.
Literally if you hate a generally beloved character, are you just incapable of not clicking links? What is wrong with you? Just don't fucking engage with the fandom for that character. But if you love a widely-hated character, that is... most of your fandom. so apparently fuck you.
Ok guys. My sister-in-law and I had a conversation and now I need to know what y’all think.
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❤️ ;)
(ANYWAYS IM ALSO GOING TO COMPLIMENT Y O U, I think you are hilarious, and work so hard to make such amazing things for this fandom. You are incredibly smart, and I adore talking about good and bad books with you. Also creating whole backstories for characters who get one second of screen time (praise king Jeremiah 🗽) you are genuinely such a good and kindhearted person, who knows how to make everyone laugh :D you also have some of the swankiest glee opinions (even if you are a ‘tell me something good gcv’ apologist) anyways I’m so glad to have you as a friend and ilysm :D💖💖💖).
AGSJSJS MEGAN TYSM YOURE SO SWEET ILY MORE
there’s so many things to say about you. your sense of humor and kindness are probably the most distinguishable things about you. it’s like your goal is to make sure everyone is always happy and comfortable right where they are, which makes me aim to do the same. you go out of your way to make sure that you’re treating ppl well and i just love that sm about you. your puns are also top tier. i will never be able to thank you enough for picking apart your pun brain last quarter when i had to create titles for my papers.
how you’re able to read any book and find humor in it is honestly so inspiring. literally changed the way that i read books. absolute icon behavior
ALSO outside of puns, your brain is so hilarious. you complimented me on creating a backstory for a character who only got one scene but that wouldn’t have happened without you!!!! the noah jeremiah cinematic universe is like your child. and the same goes for kurtbastian being furries. you’re able to make a whole world out of a silly little concept and it always turns out hilarious
you’re one of my best friends and i think every part of you is sososo amazing. you’re one of the sweetest ppl to ever exist and i feel so fortunate to have gotten to know you 🥺💖
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For a long, long time, I’ve felt that I will never be okay. I still think that this is the best it will ever be, and I’m trying so hard to convince myself that being numb is better than feeling everything.
We don’t know each other, but your energy, in fact, the energy of most people in this fandom is so contagious that it distracts me sometimes from all the emptiness and all the pain and despair.
And I thank you deeply for that.
***Trigger warning for: mental health struggles and discussions of depression!! I tagged it but i’m also saying it here just to be safe! ***
Hello anon! ☺️
First of all, thank you so much for the message! I’m extremely glad to know that myself and this fandom have been able to bring you some comfort and distraction!! It means a lot to know that i’ve been able to help you in any small way and please feel free to talk to me through asks or private messages any time!!!
I’m very sorry that you are going through that and having so many difficult feelings! I usually don’t talk in depth about my own mental health difficulties here, but i’ve had an ongoing struggle with depression for most of my life. Currently i’m in a good place with it and am doing very well with my current medication, but i had a very dark time last year when things got incredibly hard.
I might be projecting in assuming your feelings relate to depression, but i always prefer to treat mental health discussions too seriously than risk treating them not seriously enough. I can’t bear the thought of not helping someone i could have helped so i’ll do my best to help you here (which might be more than you asked for oops so i’m very sorry if i’m intruding)
I definitely understand where those feelings can come from and i am sending you very strong wishes that it gets better for you soon!! Please try not to lose hope that things will get better! I know how difficult that can be to believe sometimes but holding on to that can be a way to keep yourself from giving up which is one of the most dangerous things for us to do when we feel like that!! For me personally, even the make believe version of a better life was something i could mentally escape to when reality got too hard and the wish to make it my reality was what eventually got me to try again once i was mentally able to
I wish i could give you some actual advice, but i don’t know your personal situation and i don’t want to be condescending or accidentally suggest something that might be impossible for you or too far from your reality because i know that can do more harm than good! So instead of actual advice, i will be giving you some general advice that i think can be applied without too much context of particular case to case situations!!
1. Reach out for help, companionship and comfort! I know this can be impossible for some ppl to get in their real lives, but what you just did by sending me this ask is a very valid version of doing this online!! I myself am incredibly glad to know you felt comfortable talking to me and i want you to know that you can keep sending me asks or come talk to me on private messages if you want! In fact, the only reason i’m not sending you a private message right now is the fact that since this came anonymously so i don’t know who you are so that i can message you! But really, i’m always open to talk to anyone who wants to and this is specially directed to ppl with these sort of feeling who want to talk to someone who has been there too!!
2. Cling to the things that bring you any form of happiness! And i mean this even in the smallest of ways. If all you can do in terms of enjoyment is think about a character you like, then do that!! Every small inch of happiness you can get is valid and important and that goes from actually performing some type of fun activity to just thinking about something that brings you comfort. Any and all little sparks of happiness are important and can help your brain to get back in a place where it wants enjoyment and is capable of actively doing things to allow you happiness! ***Trigger warning for thoughts of suicide, pls skip ahead to the next number/paragraph if this might be triggering for you*** This may sound silly, i know, but it worked for me. In a very bad time in my teenage depression (back when i was 15 and absolutely hopeless) i convinced myself to just live long enough til the release of the last book in my favorite series, because that was the last thing i wanted out of life and the only thing i looked forward too. And that extra time i bought myself meant everything because i managed to get better and get help in the meantime and by the time that “deadline” came up i remember crying thinking of how much better i had gotten and how thankful i was that i managed to trick my brain to give me long enough to do it! That might have been easier to do for me than it would be for most ppl because of my other mental health issues so it came down to a mental battle between my hyperfixation and my depression and thankfully the hyperfixation won than one!! But i still recommend trying it even if that’s not your case!
3. Get specialized help! I know not everyone can get it but i NEED to point out that this is the most important thing here!!! I am no mental health expert and everything i’m saying here has to do with my personal experience and absolutely nothing can replace the advice of an actual trained expert! It would be extremely irresponsible of me not to say that!! I know not everyone can afford therapy or has the real life conditions to even go to therapy, so I researched some free and online options and while i only searched them now and recommend doing a deeper search if you want to use them, i will be linking here the best options i found!! Even if you are just having those feelings but don’t think you are actually depressed, i still recommend trying therapy! I am a firm believer that everyone should go to therapy regardless of having mental health difficulties or not, just like everyone should go to the doctor to make sure they are healthy and stay that way! Like i said, i researched these options now and i’m not familiar with them so i recommend looking them up further but i know even the effort of looking things up can be too much sometimes which is why i decided to do it for you! Anyway here are the best options i found:
- https://www.therapyroute.com/article/helplines-suicide-hotlines-and-crisis-lines-from-around-the-world - this site has gathered hotlines from around the world that can help! I am not particularly comfortable talking on the phone so if you feel that way too, the next options are all online! But if you would be comfortable on the phone, this site seems to have pretty much every country i could think of and they are organized alphabetically!!
- https://www.7cups.com/ - i think this is a good option if you don’t feel ready for therapy! It provides a 24/7 online and free chat with peers that have gone through the same struggles and trained listeners! The site also has payed therapy session options, but the next two links have free and online therapy options as well!!
- https://therapyaid.org/ - this site has payed sessions but it works with a basis of volunteers and it seems like they also have free therapy options!!
- https://www.doctorondemand.com/?correlationId=4080af72-413b-4e83-a34c-f413215781f4 - this site/app connects you with doctors, including mental health experts and from what i gathered it can be a good option if you need to get medication prescriptions like maybe antidepressants! Of course, that would depend on the doctor’s evaluation but the appointments seem to be free as well!!
I’m sorry if this has nothing to do with your situation anon or if i read way too much into your words, but i recognize reflected in your feelings a lot of what i myself tend to feel when i’m relapsing into my own depression!! I apologize if this was unrelated to your case, but i felt like i couldn’t ignore this chance to help ppl like me and even if it isn’t your case, this might help others, so i did my best with the information i got!! A lot of times ppl don’t get the help they need because others underestimate their struggles and i couldn’t risk making that mistake here!
Either way, i’m incredibly glad that me and the fandom have been helping you and cheering you up in any way!! And i am always open to talk either through asks or private messages!!
Thank you so much for reaching out and giving me a chance to help others just as i’ve been helped when i needed it!! I’m wishing you all the best ☺️
#i might have just projected and ran with it#but i always prefer to be safe yk?#anyway this is both ok and ENCOURAGED to reblog if you feel like it might help ppl#i honestly did my best giving advice based on my experience while also keeping it in a no money or family suppor needed basis#it is encouraged also to add your own advices to it if you want to!!#mental health#mental health advice#mental health and disorders#depression#depression advice#depression trigger warning#depression tw#mental health trigger warning#mental health tw
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SnK Chapter 124 Poll Results
The chapter 124 poll closed with 2,065 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!
This month’s poll team: @erensjaegerbombs @momtaku, _Puppet_ , @shifter-lines and @ladymoe6
RATE THE CHAPTER 1,926 Responses
Fours and fives still dominate but there’s no denying that this chapter lacked the hype we’ve seen recently. “Thaw” had the lowest number of 5’s this year, performing similarly to the Zeke-centric flashback chapter in 114, “Sole Salvation”. (There’s a pun to made here about us “warming up to Thaw” but sadly I am not smart enough to make it.)
The Chapter of Necessary Filler & the Obligatory Cliffhanger
I love that Isayama isn't rushing everything and is actually focusing on little details and small interactions between characters. He really isn't glorifying an "apocalyptical scenario" just for the sake of destruction in itself or shock value.
This chapter felt like a nostalgia trip, but I wasn't in for the ride.
This chapter was a breath of fresh air ngl. These past chapters were mostly full of either a flashback, monologue or just having two characters talking in a realm where nothing happens and time is frozen, but, at last, the plot is moving foward in the real world too. Not only it contained long gone titan action, but also great character development/moments as well. I missed this.
The leaks didn't give this chapter justice
A weaker chapter overall, I hope all this buildup will be well spent in the next chapter.
I actually loved everything about this chapter, I can't believe Isayama finally gave me a reason to kind of like Gabi. I'm sure she'll do something to immediately change that…
Isayama-sensei is the best, each chapter is a 10/10 for me. I do agree that this chapter is not as great as as the last 5, but it's still great. This year is impossible to choose the Top 5 Best Chapters of SNK
It was good, but I was hoping for a crazier year closure.
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT?
1,995 Responses
There were many great moments in this chapter, but Annie’s highly anticipated return to the active plot takes up the largest amount of votes! Other notable moments were: Shadis taking command, Armin realizing Annie’s crystal must have unhardened, the 104th discussing Eren, and Jean’s salty reaction to Floch’s continued survival.
A N N I E is BAAAAAAACK!!!
as someone too invested in the gabi-nicolo-braus plot thread by i love sasha i am absolutely Fed with that excellent "get out of the forest" talk. thank u for the good food nicolo
It's great to see the other 104th members discuss about Eren's actions. At least we got a glimpse on what they think about Eren's plan.
For once I'm gonna forgive Isayama for putting off Levi and Hange. I FEEL BLESSED TO HAVE ANNIE BACK ON MY BIRTH MONTH!!! BEST PRESENT EVER
I like the parallels to Trost, especially the part with the thunder spears sort of mirroring the thing with the guns and the elevator from S1
WHO WAS THIS CHAPTERS MVP? 1,988 Responses
Despite the influx of negative commentary, 38.2% of respondents agree that Gabi’s persistence to save Falco and reconciliation with Kaya earned her the MVP title this month. The strongest contenders were Shadis and Jean.
Annie saved this chapter from the Gabi / Kaya focus
Connie- the underrated suffer boi
Gabi best girl!
I am proud of Jean for taking charge, he acted like a real commander.
Reiner Best character 😔👌
SHADIS IS THE MVP AND I LOVE HIM
WHICH CHARACTER WERE YOU MOST DISAPPOINTED WITH? 1,998 Responses
“None of the above” was a popular suggestion (25.2%) but Connie edged that choice out by a percentage point (26.3%) . At least you guys listen when the evening news says that stealing children is bad.
Silly of you to ask us which character we're most disappointed with. We're always disappointed with Floch in every panel he shows up in
it's good to have a connie development, but I was a little sad about his attitude
I'm not so much disappointed with Connie in this moment as I am with the direction his character arc has gone lately in general. I miss when he was fun instead of angry all the time.
I think everyone is acting super irrational. Eren is going to destroy the world but all the SC are "accepting" of it. I think deep down they are all horrified and in a completely insane mental state causing irrational decisions and thoughts such as Jean being okay with genocide.
I understand that Connie is desperate to find a comfort after all the ppl he lost, but I'm still extremely disappointed in him for wanting to murder a child. Not just Connie tho, the same goes for Jean and Armin. Armin didn't say "Let's not kill a freaking child" he just objected because he didn't want to provoke Reiner and Pieck.
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF REINER’S ROLE THIS CHAPTER? 1,889 Responses
Reiner takes a back seat this chapter, and just barely over half of the fandom believe he deserves that nap after all he’s been through. Another quarter, at 25.8% are wishing he could just die at this point, for better or worse.
"Enough already. Just sleep." - Reiner to Eren in 117
Can Reiner pick an opinion and stick with it for .2 seconds. he's like hardcore ready to kick ass and then immediately turns around and is ready to die again
Game over man
He's cute. End of the story.
I think it was bizarre that Gabi just let him fall asleep and left him in an enemy territory where he could be captured or eaten by a mindless titan
I understand him being tired an all, but sleeping in the middle of a warzone and at the start of the apocalypse???
Helos needs his rest and good dreams of Bert
I think it is set up for his future death : saving Falco by being eaten by Connie's mom (he was there with Connie in Ragako village)
Madlad goes to sleep instead of dying
Man literally too tired to die
There were certainly worse ways than "passed out from exhaustion" that he could've been written out of the chapter. At least we know his current status this way, unlike a certain duo...
He need some milk
Reiner votes for “Can’t he just die already?”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE EREN PARALLEL IN GABI AT THE MIRROR? 1,869 Responses
Gabi’s design is based on Eren, and she’s had similarities and parallels to him in the past, what does the parallel in this chapter mean stacked on top of all of that? About 70% say it’s to further emphasize how similar she is to him at her core. 12.7% don’t think it was an intentional parallel to that Eren scene, 7.7% say she’s going to receive his titan, and a solid 1% wrote in the eloquent thesis of “Fuck Gabi.”
A bit too on the nose
Both have the common factor of determination and the desire to fight to save someone else. "Fight, fight" = "Like I'd give up" In Eren's case, his scene in the mirror is portrayed in a darker, more aggressive environment, he must fight to save his loved ones, but for this goal he must destroy everything. On the other hand, Gabi shows a more heroic/pure attitude, the light is predominant, and his words refer to the desire to fight to save Falco without taking this violence path unlike Ere
Eren cant copyright this hairstyle
How dare she stand where he stood.
I didn't like any parallels that include Gabi. Not this one, and most certainly not the one with Sasha.
It definitely foreshadows something, but I don't think it's that she'll inherit his titan. I think she's going to be the one to end this madness and break the cycle. Unlike Eren, who fights for freedom both for himself and his loved ones, Gabi will fight for peace and equality: a different kind of freedom.
It symbolizes Gabi's character arc starting to go in the opposite direction of Eren, rather than showing them being similar.
It symbolizes Gabi's change in motivation to do anything to save her friends. Just as Eren's motivation in the mirror scene really marked the moment he turned genocidal to protect his friends.
DO YOU AGREE WITH JEAN’S CONCLUSION THAT EREN IS DOING WHAT HE’S DOING TO PROTECT THOSE HE LOVES? 1,950 Responses
Jean believes he’s figured out why Eren’s doing what he’s doing, does the fandom agree? The large majority think that’s at least a part of it, as 40.8% think it’s solely that goal in mind, and another 53.5% believe it stemmed from that desire but has evolved and become more complex. 3.3% of fans don’t believe that’s where his motivation stems from at all.
But if that's his goal it still doesn't explain chapter 112
EREN is doing it to protect his friends. YMIR wants vengeance and bloodshed.
I agree, because I really don’t know what else could have been done. The Eldians were hated all over the world and Talk-No-Justu is a folly.
I don't know what to think. At first, Jean seems to be in denial (like most of the 104th), but perhaps it's his way of realizing things. No, Eren must love them a lot, there's absolutely no way that his genocide is unjustified. Right...? Wait…
I think he's being pragmatic and analytical. Like a real leader. Something I expected from Armin. However Armin has strokes of genius during critical times so I'm expecting something.
In a breaking bad way, yes
Yes, although I believe Eren's old and complex relationship with the idea of freedom also plays a big part in this situation.
No, because he isn't doing anything about the mindless titans and treated his friends like trash. I didn't see any kind of concern while they were in danger. I think he's more eager to set his ideals into action.
WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO WHAT TO DO WITH FALCO? 1,958 Responses
Another serumbowl type discussion arises, yay!!...? The vast majority, at a combined 81.4% don’t want to feed Falco to anyone, and just want to wrap him up and not start any more conflict. 11.6% think he should be fed to a known titan such as Pixis, and only 4.3% side with Connie’s reaction of feeding him to his own Mama Springer.
Falco is too important. He and Connie will probably have an arc.
Feed him to Floch, jaw titan always dies stupidly and Floch never dies so it should cancel out
Feed him to Levi that way we get jaw Levi and his hand back.
Feed Zeke to Connie's mom instead and take Falco somewhere safe
I don’t have anything against Falco personally, but it makes since to feed him to someone else
I like Falco, but Connie has lost far more than anyone outside the Walls. If feeding Falco to Connie's mom gives Connie some semblance of peace, so be it
NILE !
In a perfect world Connie can have the satisfaction of feeding ZEKE to his mother. Kinda proud that I predicted the “Connie tried to revive his mom” plot point but I think the fact that it’s falco means that Connie fails
There's no right answer here, but I can't imagine any mother would be able to live with the fact that she ate someone else's child in order to live again, so that's probably the worst option.
Well, logically speaking, Falco should probably be fed to Pixis. But my heart calls out for me to wrap him in a blanket.
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF CONNIE SEEMINGLY SNAPPING ON THE OTHERS AND INSISTING FALCO BE FED TO HIS MOTHER? 1,947 Responses
Understanding prevaled with close to 80% of the fandom selecting “I don’t agree with his actions but I wholeheartedly sympathize with his reasoning”. Only 13% indicated that they were disappointed with him.
Falco's a kid, man! You don't cross that line!
Connie, if your mom needs a kidney transplant, you don't just shank another person to steal their kidneys. Just saying.
Connie has been pushed to his limit. He needs a nap and a minute to cry.
Although Connie is not thinking clearly, I'm glad they're not blindly hating on him like some have been doing for Eren.
Connie's break is truly amazing to me. The guy was always so good and chill and dedicated before these hard times. To see him at his breaking point, horrified by everything that is happening and overwhelmed by the situation, and thus reverting into single-minded dedication to one fundamental goal - saving his mother. It's tragic to see him like this and it's probably not the best "logical" action, but it makes complete sense that he'd do this. He's sick of this clusterfuck. He has a ticket to save his mom and he's gonna take it. Poor Falco though, of course.
I didn't see it coming, but it's not like it's unthinkable. When the world collapses we often want to run back to our mama.
I disagreed with him, but I thinks his feelings are understandable and, also, I liked a lot that he pointed out 104's hypocrisy. The serum drama is coming back to bite their asses.
I understand he wants to see his mom again but does he really want to give her the cruel fate of becoming a titan shifter?
I understand his reasoning, but this is literally the WORST possible time to cause an internal crisis
I'm sad for him & deeply uncomfortable by it.
I’m mad at Connie only because he straight up abandoned his duty to pacify the Titan situation. He left Jean, Mikasa, and Armin to take care of it without him. Lucky Shadis was there to help.
REGARDLESS OF YOUR VIEWS ON CONNIE’S ACTIONS, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIM FINALLY GETTING SOME TIME IN THE SPOTLIGHT? 1,946 Responses
More than half the fandom was happy to see him speak his mind and get some character development (53.3%). 16% were absolutely thrilled. Those who don’t care, and those whose disappointment over how he returned soured the moment came in at 10%... I’m willing to bet at least one of those votes is because he doesn’t have a new hair style.
Going to the dark side doesn't suit the former sunshine called Connie.
My man has been in the story since the beginning. He is well overdue for an arc.
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
But why FALCO? He's the ONLY character outside the Walls I actually LIKE!
Finally we get to see him say something about his mother. Yeah, maybe he's not one of the most important charcters overall, but what he lived through when he saw his mom on that roof finally deserves some thoughts and emotions. Connie was on the margin of the story for way too long, and I'm happy we get to see him talk about how he feels.
Glad he’s doing stuff but he’s 100% going to die
I haven't really liked his development. He's, altho understandably, just an angry dude that can't help himself from getting overcome by his emotions. Not a good look.
I really liked his whole "Eren's crossed the line", now he's making the same mistake. A bitter irony, but does Isayama have time for that?
I'm really disappointed in Connie's "friends" for basically telling him to "chill out, you can't save your mother because we need to make our enemies happy". Hell no to that, I completely sympathize with Connie far more than his "friends" especially since Armin is being the world's biggest hypocrite
It's good because it now opens up the possibility of Connie finally getting his revenge on Zeke
My Boi Connie deserves his own plot-line, so I'm really excited
TITAN ACTION! BUT OF THE PURE AND AVERAGE VARIETY INSTEAD OF COLOSSALS, WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT AS THE FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER? 1,936 Responses
A chapter in the endgame that’s almost reminiscent of the defense of Trost with respect to mindless titan action and defending a base. Despite many other happenings such as the rumbling going on currently, 46% were totally fine with the focus on mindless titan action and thought it was written well, whereas 35.6% enjoyed it, but wished there was a bit more beyond checking that box. 10.8% wanted a larger focus on the titans in the rumbling, and 5.5% would have preferred a focus shift away from Shiganshina entirely.
I love the fact that shows how prepared and easy fighting mindless titans is for them now. When the titans attacked Trost they were hopeless and Jean was the one frozen in fear. Now we get to see him clear up the titans with ease.
I think showing smaller happenings before the big reveal of Eren's titan and the effects of the rumbling are important buildup.
I would have rather focused on what's happening to Pieck and the others near the wall.
I didn't feel that was the focus, but either way, I liked it.
I wish more would’ve happened outside of it BUT it’s important to show them being dealt with otherwise readers would be like “wait, what about all those people who turned into titans?” So not the best, but necessary.
I'm not crazy about fighting scenes, I prefer the ones where they discuss stuff, but these were really emotional with Shadis and Pixis and everything. Like, it wasn't even so much about fighting itself, for me at least, but about Shadis uniting people again and Armin setting Pixis free finally.
I wish the chapter had explored the idea of Titans appearing now that the Military has begun using weapons which are more effective against humans than Titans. I had thought that the reappearance of Titans would do much more damage since the Military is no longer equipped to handle such threats.
Reminds me of the Trost arc and I love it, but it will probably end up being the last time we see pure titans as this much of a threat.
I love the Season 1-esque fan service. How this series has evolved.
I just wished they didn't have to kill their comrades...C'mon this poll question is so heartless wth?
AFTER EREN GAINED THE FOUNDER, WHY WHERE THE MINDLESS TITANS STILL ATTACKING THE SOLDIERS? 1,944 Responses
Nearly half of the fandom are giving Eren the benefit of the doubt that he simply cannot control the titans, rather than not caring about them or using them. Although many believe that he’s too focused on other things to concern himself with them, and many others feel certain that mindless titans attacking the soldiers is part of his greater plan.
3 times it was mentioned that Eren/Zeke can't control the Titans, I think someone else is controlling them. Possibly Ymir, maybe we'll see Eren getting betrayed.
Eren can't control the mindless Titans because they're Zeke's Titans
It's highly likely the Founding Titan's power and control over Pure Titans has a collective effect of sorts. That is, it can turn Pure Titans back into humans, but if it did, it would happen to ALL Pure Titans, not just a specific group of them. It's possible that is how the Fritz royalty used the Pure Titans while maintaining the Eldian population during ancient times. Here, if Eren were to use that aspect of the Founding Titan's power, both the Military Branch Officer Titans AND the Wall Titans would be turned back into humans. Right now, Eren is bent on using the Wall Titans to flatten the World, so he most likely does not want to use the power of the Founding Titan to turn all the Pure Titans in Shingashina + Connie's mom into humans; otherwise, the Wall Titans would turn into humans again too, and that would ruin his rumbling plan.
Regarding Eren and the mindless titans, control issues aside, I just don't think he cares.
WHAT WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE TITAN KILL THIS CHAPTER? 1,968 Responses
In a chapter full of titan action, several titan kills stood out as both awesome and tear jerking. Just over half of respondents, at 51.6%, most remember Armin taking out Pixis after thanking him for his service to the cause. In a very narrow battle for second place, Keith Shadis sowing the recruits how it’s done won out over Gabi taking a cue from Sasha and saving Kaya.
All of them were pretty darn cool
Gabi's and Mikasa's tie for me
Hard to choose, they're all good
I didn't find any of them memorable if I May be honest
Can I choose all? Because I am.
It's a tie between Shadis arriving to save the recruits, Gabi saving Kayo from the Nile Titan, and Armin killing the Pixis Titan. If I was forced to pick, I'd say Armin's scene because of his sorrowful dialogue upon seeing Pixis as a Pure Titan and the flashback to one of Pixis's earliest highlights when he believed in Armin and Eren shortly after they first met.
Literally all of them what kind of sadistic question is this how could I possibly choose
Loved all the kills!!!
ALL OF THE ABOVE
THERE WAS A LOT OF DEBATE AS THIS CHAPTER WAS COMING OUT ABOUT GABI, AT THIS POINT DO YOU LIKE HER AS A CHARACTER IN THE STORY? 1,985 Responses
Nearly two-thirds of of the fandom currently enjoy Gabi’s overall character, despite what their first impressions may have been (65.1%) . Though there are still many who have yet to warm up to her, if they ever do (34.9%).
Gabi is beginning to grow on me enough I feel neutral about her.
Gabi is a LITTLE more favorable to me, but I still hate her and I wish she never existed. She can never earn forgiveness for Sasha.
gabi is good you guys are just mean
WHICH THOUGHT BEST MATCHED HOW YOU CURRENTLY FEEL ABOUT GABI? 1,977 Responses
One of the most controversial characters in the story is of course Gabi Braun, but what do fans truly think of her? Almost half, at 45.9% don’t profess love for her character from the mountains, but understand why she’s important to the story. In contrast, 19.6% firmly believe the story would be better off if she never existed, and 17.6% want to see even more of her in the upcoming chapters. 16.9% just think she’s been in the spotlight a little bit too much.
Fuck Gabi, Eren will always be better, not this carbon copy Mary Sue
gabi fucking GANG
Such a great chapter! I’m glad that the Gabi hate is stopping now.
Don't know why are people surprised about Gabi. Her closure with the Braus family is something I figured was gonna happen eventually. Guess Isayama wanted to get that out of the way early.
Of course my opinion of Gabi is unchanged. I still hate her no matter how much "development" she gets.
Gabi is a super uninteresting character to me
i really liked gabi’s character development in this chapter, especially since i was previously a gabi hater.
She is the new MC now. Upgrade.
I see why Gabi exists but she’s just such a forced character. The parallel between her and Sasha was so forced and just felt wrong. Don’t care about her killing Sasha her character is just a forced rehash of eren.
I'm disappointed in her as she is becoming more likeable
Gabi's character development finally completed in a brilliant way
Like Eren, she's fighting for people she cares about, even if she's wrong/vicious with her methods.
I’m tired of Gabi
Really wish we wouldn't have Gabi shoved down our throats, she's not a good character, let alone person
I'm really proud of Gabi and how far she's come from her original POV. I'm really hoping that this influences Eren and I really hope Falco and Gabi get to reunite.
yams wants us to like her more
She has the same motivations as Eren once had, to save the world, basically.
I will admit Gabi has gone through a lot of development. But that doesn't mean I have to like her. I still hate her, and I will NEVER EVER forgive her for what she did to Sasha.
Gabi's haters being mad is so funny. My girl truly shined this chapter, I love her even more.
Gabi.... I feel like I would absolutely hate being around her irl but I guess I do appreciate her as a character in the story.
Never wanted to kill a child so badly in my existence
Death to Gabi Braun!
I don't hate Gabi enough to want her dead, but "too much spotlight" is the understatement of the year, especially when there is still a lot that has yet to be resolved with the main characters
She just wants to protecc
I love Gabi but she gets too much screen time at this point in the story. I want to see Historia and hopefully Eren later.
I LOVE GABI SO MUCH SHE IS THE BEST GIRL
I like Gabster. Gabi Gang Gabi Gang
Me no likey bad bad
NOW THAT ALL OF THE ORIGINAL BRANCH HEADS ARE GONE, WHO SHOULD BE IN CHARGE OF THE PARADIS MILITARY? 1,955 Responses
The head of all of Paradisian government, Darius Zackly, went out with a bang, and now we’ve lost the interim head Pixis, as well as Nile Dok. Who’s going to pick up the torch? There’s a big three that seem to have emerged as popular choices, with Jean winning out, Hange coming in second, and Shadis taking up third.
A combination of several people noted above.
Hanji+SC Armin+Garrison Jean+MP
Anyone but Floch
Jean. He's the only one that can view the Rumbling objectively and not rule it out as bad because their enemies are destroyed
Armin for strategy, Jean for leadership, Hanji for progress
Daz
Shadis should take over, but only untill Jean can get a little more experience leading.
As long as they agree Marley needs to be wiped out for the sake of Paradis, I'm okay with any leader that accepts that responsibility
Definitely not Hange. She wanted to make peace with Marley. Not leadership worthy at all.
Rico ;-;
Hange may be commander, but they are unfit for taking on as the head of the military. Same goes for Keith, though in this chapter he shows courage by stepping up to push the trainees to fight, I doubt he is willing to go back into a similar position as he was before as the Survey Corp's commander. Among the candidates, Armin may seem like a promising candidate, but aside from his proven intellect, just like Hange both do not possess the level of prowess of leading all three branches (four if count the training squad)of the military. More I think about it the "best" candidate in this list may surprisingly be Jean, but so far he hasnt been giving me the impression as someone who can take on such a massive role.
Erwin
WHY DID FLOCH ARREST THE VOLUNTEERS? 1,903 Responses
The fandom is fairly divided on Floch’s motives, with a three-way split that comes close to being even. The highest amount of respondents feel he is arresting the Volunteers because he doesn’t trust them based on past actions. In the middle, people feel that he doesn’t want to be associated with any non-Eldian people. And in third place, people felt that he doesn’t trust Yelena specifically, and is taking her group down with her.
As far as I've seen, Floch is on Eren's side, not Zeke's. So that would make Yelena, who hasn't heard about her boss and the euthanasia plan, dangerous as fuck. Even with that, Floch's following his own principles. He has different reasons than Eren, but he just needs the "devil" figure to project his own will.
He always knew Yelena and Zeke's intentions because of Eren, and now he's arresting them to prevent more trouble caused by them. I think Eren "trusts" and is working with Flcoh more than the fandom expect.
Because they conspired to sterilize/euthanize the Paradisians.
He's a completely inconsistent character whose personality and character motivations change at the drop of a hat in order to create conflict in the story.
He thinks Yelena can take over his position of the best Yeager fanboy and he can't have that.
He was never really on their side at all! Just like how Eren saw them - they were a means to an end, a useful tool but a dangerous one that could never really be trusted. Now that Eren has made his intentions clear and the ideological split is visible, he's fully turning on them and suppressing them from potentially pursuing their own agendas further.
There’s not enough room on Paradis for both of those eccentric hair cuts
GABI AND ARMIN BOTH SEEM INTERESTED IN PUTTING ASIDE THEIR DIFFERENCES: WILL THE SURVEY CORPS AND WARRIORS TEAM UP? 1,928 Responses
After having been warring factions since the beginning, will the warriors and Survey Corps finally team up as one? 62.9% feel a team up will happen, but not everyone from both sides will want to be involved, and a solid 30% believe a full team up is in the cards. Only 5.8% don’t feel that it’s possible at this point.
Any cooperation will be a compromise, so maybe?
At this point I really don't know. Their passivity disappointed me fully this chapter. They need their TRUE leaders who are MIA at the moment.
I hope it happens but I think Armin is acting under Bert's influence
I hope not, it sounds lame.
i think maybe they will be forced to work together to stop the titans because they are attacking both sides.
It's the ideal scenario I suppose
Only until the Rumbling stops. After that, the SC needs to dispose of all the remaining Warriors to end the war for good.
PLEASE MAYBE REINER WILL GET SOME CLOSURE OUT OF IT
Probably but it’s waaay to cliché. Please don’t Isayama
They'll team up to stop Eren, if that works they'll be enemies once again
Yes and Yes! I've been saying this for months: warriors and SC are going to have to work together. Magath is going to play a role in this too.
ANNIE!! THOUGHTS: 1,948 Responses
91 chapters. 91 Months. 7 and a half years. Longer than we were with the characters pre-timeskip. Annie has been in a crystal, but now she's free! 33.4% think she came back at the perfect time and Isayama has nailed his writing once again. 18.4% are excited for her return, but don’t feel there’s much time left in the story for the wait to be worth it. 15.7% aren’t worshippers at her crystal, and so aren’t too hyped out of their minds. 29% however: A N N I E
akueeoekskfnfjyfjekqwiruuri MY GIRL IS BACK BITCHES, AND I NEED POST-AWAKENING MIKANNIE FANFICTION NOW
glad she's back but the plot has nothing for her to do anymore
How he brought her back makes perfect sense and I love it. If she chose to come out at this time rather than being forced, it would have been awkward and forced to be honest. But Eren taking away all hardening is the best way to bring her back AFTER SEVEN FUCKING YEARS.
glad to have her back but sceptical of her importance
go back into hibernation
Good in-story reason, great writing, but waited far too long. Not sure if she will even be relevent for the remainder of the story that already has a lot of loose ends.
Hentannie
I am not hyped because it took too long and the series has gone too far down a path I can no longer follow.
I DID MY WAITING! TWELVE YEARS OF IT! IN AZKABAN!
I don't know what Annie can do at this point of the story that will make her return worthwhile
I don’t think Isayama and his editors would allow her to be brought back for a poor plot point/reason, so I’m curious to see what role she’ll have.
I wasn't too concerned about Annie at this point in the story but I'm glad that her return makes sense with the events currently taking place and I'm interested to see what Isayama has planned for her.
I'm no fan of her so I'm not excited at all, but I assume she'll drive the plot somewhere soon.
She's got a lot of catching up to do. Concerned it won't be handled well.
The reasoning is sound, and I am glad that Isayama thought that part through, but we have a limited number of pages left, so I am worried about how this will play out.
Took too long so it ended up being very 'meh' for me, but congratulations Annie-stans, have a drink tonight
Should've been way sooner, her potential as a character feels wasted since we're almost done now. All she'll have time to do is get caught up on what happened and then have a couple reunions.
I honestly have no idea what Isayama plans to do with her but I’m just GLAD SHES FINALLY FUCKING BACK!!!! MY BABY GIRL IS BACK!!!!
ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT WHAT ANNIE WILL DO NEXT? 675 Responses
Annie will have a run-in with Hitch, get things explained and head towards the main conflict.
Dare I say it, Assist With Armin’s Talk No Jutsu with Eren
"Run"
Definitely try to get to her dad.
Try to find her warrior friends
Determine her situation and act accordingly
She won't be too surprised at what Eren's become. She remarked how when the "good guys" take power, then it's all over to Marlowe in Season 1.
A girl can dream of her and Pieck being badasses.
All the titan shifters will come together (location-wise), it seem like a flag? Since all the shifter's powers is a part of Ymir herself, having them close might have significant meaning.
ANNIETHING
Be traumatized by manga spoilers? Wonder wtf happened?? Try to find Reiner??
Annie will join Eren.
Not give a shit about anything apart from Papa Leonhardt
Annie will play a huge role in stopping Eren, in some way.
be a badass like usual and FEMALE TITAN ACTION?????
Change her clothes because why is she wet
umm take a shower lol
Character development and teaming up against Ereh
I think Hitch will be the one to find her - she was in charge of guarding the crystal. I think she'll be too weak to fight right now though, so I'm worried that she's just going to be used as a Titan Shifter snack :(
Somehow affect Eren's mindset. Not sure exactly how.
Go kiss Armin pls
I'm hoping for Armin to transform into the Colossal Titan. Annie will see this thinking it's Bertoldt, and then have a good character moment upon finding out that Armin ate him.
Her endgame is to at least partially counteract the rumbling with her scream ability.
Confused --> Shocked --> Mad --> or all at the same time. Anyway, she will probably meet up with Armin and the gang and they will explain the shit situation to her and somehow they will come up with a plan or smth.
I think she’ll be forgotten about for a few chapters then show up in the battle. It’ll be interesting to see what side she takes at that point. I’m sure someone will conveniently fill her in on the last few years.
She's a wild card, but the last we saw her she wanted to get back home. I'm sure she will be invested in saving the world from annihilation.
She is FAR away right now. I think dealing with Annie is a good wind-down after all this World-ending stuff has been dealt with, like when they save the Shire after defeating Sauron
Crystallize
Yeet to Marley and die with her papa.
Annie's first move will be to find a toilet sure she must be dying for a pee like
HOW HAS YOUR OPINION ON THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS CHANGED?
Shadis, Jean and Gabi are the big winners in the opinion poll this month with the majority selecting “More Favorable” reaction to them. Shadis had 1379 respondents selecting “more favorable”, Jean had 1076 and Gabi came in third with 980. Fighting titans so soon after surviving a bear attack is impressive, so I’m not surprised with these results. At the other end of the spectrum, Connie (542) and Floch (496) had the most number of “Less Favorable” selections. While the good outweighed the bad, Gabi again proved to be polarizing with 432 people choosing “Less Favorable” despite her positive development this month.
FAVORITE NEW TITAN DESIGN? 1,926 Responses
Isayama’s nods to his television viewing habits continue with the appearance of the “Better Call Saul” titan. Our appreciation of Isayama’s sense of humor continues with more than 50% of us selecting it as “Favorite New Titan Design” (51.5%). Pixis was a distance second with close to a quarter choosing his titan form (23.7%) as their favorite.
Still laughing over the Saul Titan. Good ol' slippin' Jimmy
the Better call Saul titan looks more like Bolsonaro (Brazil's president)
one last hurrah to the Pure Titan mayhem the series was originally known for, and witnessing the tragic end to Nile and Pixis
WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,926 Responses
The three elements of the story which have been absent for months, or even years, take the top overall votes for what the fandom would like to see next. 33.6% are dying to see present-day Levi and Hange again. 24.1% are still eager to get Historia’s perspective. 23.6% are still hoping to one day see Eren’s inner thoughts.
All I want for Christmas....Is Historias POV
I'm missing Connies adventure on the 'What are you hoping to see next chapter?' question.
Bitch give me Levi. It’s been more than half a year.
I literally only care about the 104th characters so the more of them we can see next chapter the better
Give me more Eren action pleaseee
So why is Annie pov not an option for next chapter?
I have waited for 7 years, finally, Annie is back. I wanna see more of her story and character development. I cant wait to see her conversation with Hitch and Armin!
Please Isayama give me more good Shadis content
I really want to see Eren's full complete titan. Issayama, stop blueballing us please!
I would actually like to know more about that spine creature that is evidently the source of Titans.
Is there a Kiyomi option?
WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,843 Responses
With close to 200,000 members it’s no surprise that Reddit continues to dominate the discussion field (47.7%), followed distantly by Tumblr (15.5%), Real Life (9.8%) and Discord (6.7%). Amazingly, 9% don’t discuss it at all. This month, FIVE of you said Snapchat, up from four last month, so while there’s still technically a possibility that you guys are actually forming some weird snapchat cult and this isn’t an elaborate psyop, I’m still not convinced. But regardless of where you discuss the series, or if you even do, we truly appreciate your participation in the chapter poll!
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS? 416 Responses
OMG! Okay, it's happening! Everybody stay calm! Annie! Annie! Annie!
Annie got crystalized in chapter 33, and now she's out, 91 chapters later. Since 12 chapters are published in a year, we have been waiting for her (not including flasbacks and her just chilling in the crystal) 7 years and 7 months. I salute all the diehard Annie fans, you had a long wait.
Once again I have marked my calendar. May 9, 2012 - December 5, 2019. After 7 excruciating years our queen is FINALLY awake. This deserves a new record for longest amount of time a character has been comatose in real life. Thank GOD it's finally over I still can't believe it.
I'm a big fan of all of the smaller storylines coming together, hoping for everything to be wrapped up nicely and characters from different factions (i.e Hange, Annie, Historia) all coming together to address the rumbling.
It felt a little like a breather chapter, despite all the action. It was nice to slow down and get some character development for everyone.
“Everyone has a devil in them” is a great message. Hope they all team up and stop Eren. Very curious about what Annie will do!
The parallels to Trost arc were nice, but I felt like the endgame was finally amping up only to be put on hold.
Great chapter! I like Pathland, and the flashback with Levi and Hanji was great, but it was a relief to get some current time action. Gabi is best girl, Armin just went up by leaps and bounds in my book, and Annie is back!! So excited for the next chapter…
Great one ! The fear from the mindless titans in back, like in Trost. Many side characters development/deaths (Nile, Pixis, Shadis, Kaya, Nicolo, Gabi, Annie, Connie, Jean...). So much good stuff, I almost forgot about the rumbling going on !!
Amazing. If Isayama maintains this quality til the end, then this will be one of my favorite series, of any media, ever.
I'm wondering what Annie can realistically do at this point. Sure she beat Eren before but now he's in another level.
Guess we don't have to deal with the genocidal jock for a while
REINER HELOS BRAUN WILL SAVE THE WORLD (after his power nap)
ANNNIIEEEEE; Shadis' comeback was wonderful. I hope he can make up for the loss of Pixis and Erwin and such. He has great potential and he's a well developed character. Jean is asking the real questions, but the showdown between him and Floch is about to go down.
I said previously that if Floch survives I wanted my money back. But you know what? I'll take my refund in Annie store credit. Thanks for that bright spot, Isayama! Also: this chapter pointed out how many good people in the world will suffer if Eren succeeds. And I felt as frustrated with the remnants of the 104th as Gabi. Nicolo and Shadis became my unexpected heroes this chapter.
Is Zeke still alive? Is he still controlling the mindless titans?
Floch didn’t do anything particularly bad this chapter but every time I have to see his face my opinion of him becomes less favorable. When Jean said “so you lived...” I FELT that disappointment lol.
I love the Braun siblings interaction in this chap. And Nicole's "we'll try to get out of the forest" sends chills. I think that's one of the point ISTM is trying to get across.
Does Connie realise that if his mother was given one of the nine titan powers she would be made to fight? Getting one of the titan powers is very much a curse not a blessing (especially with the Jaw titan)
At this point the Eren/Gabi parallels are feeling a little overdone and forced.
If Gabi receives Eren’s Titan it will be the stupidest most disappointing thing to happen in this- no all of manga! Besides, what is the damn point of her “paralleling” Eren anyways? But the Sasha paralleling was even more gnarly YUCK!
It's true that the people of Paradis will benefit from this shit, but I highly disagree with any justification when it comes to Eren's horrible actions. GENOCIDE IS NEVER THE OPTION. I think Jean is disappointed too but he's trying his best to rationalize the crap Eren's carrying out for he still doesn't want to believe his friend is committing genocide. I expect he comes back to his senses soon otherwise I no longer will appreciate him as a character.
That "who are you most disappointed" will sadly be filled with Armin hate tbh. And in the end he was just wanting to avoid unnecessary conflict... tbh Anyone hating on Connie, Gabi and Armin doesn't seems to know how humans emotion work in helpless situations...
What Yams is doing to Connie is further proof he is ruining his main characters (the good ones) to make room for his precious Marley characters (the crappy ones)
Connie's regression and frustration was more and more visible since Sasha died. He's lost everyone close to him. I am happy to see him finally snap at Armin and go his own way. This was foreshadowed for a while now.
I hope Isayama sensei doesn't forget to include World Millitary's raid in the action. They already mention in some previous chapter by Zeke.
Quantity-wise, the chapter wasn't centered around Gabi, okay. But. BUT. Gabi got quite a few powerful scenes, very Gabi-centric scenes, and I'm not happy about that. I don't see how and why the fandom so easily forgave her for what she's done. Isayama drawing parallels between Gabi and Sasha was insulting and distasteful.
It is highly likely that this is the last time we are going to see Pure Titan mayhem in the series now that the Rumbling is taking place, so I think it was great to that focus in this chapter. I thought it was handled well, especially with Shadis's scenes, the parallel of the new recruits seeing the Pure Titans peaking through the hole of the fortress tower much like a similar scene in the Trost arc, the tragedy of seeing Pixis and Nile (two of the last remaining head honchos of the military not counting Hange and Shadis) as Pure Titans and getting killed off for good, and how characters like Armin and Jean fought those Pure Titans.
WARMASTER FLOCKE, TO LEAD THE ARMIES OF ELDIA TO VICTORY! Haha no I guess not. I'm torn between Flocke, Jean, Eren, and Shadis. All could be good picks but all outcomes would have different implications on the story and what it means. I guess if I had to pick, it'll be Shadis or Eren for now and then perhaps Jean later when things have settled and they've grown up more.
I honestly can't keep up with how many faces Floch has.
With how the pacing is handled there's no way this is ending in 6 chapters. The real climax is Eren having to go against his friends because there's no way in hell Mikasa is allowing him to genocide kids
As heartbreaking as this chapter has been, I already had my hopes destroyed when 119 was released. Today has been the confirmation for two awesome characters, who fell because of the non-veteran rule. I don't know why I still hope to see Keith staying alive, but at least we got an awesome moment of his.
Characters are being balanced relatively well. Isayama's got a lot of characters and plot threads to deal with, and while Levi, Hange and Historia are getting less focus than I would like, I think he's doing a pretty good job of keeping each character relevant and giving them all some good arcs/ moments
Everything (except for Gabi scenes) was perfect for me!
Eww Gabi-focused chapter…
I simply hate how cowardy the 104th is acting. It's clear they're only fighting in their own interest and are just pulling excuses after excuses for supporting Eren. At least Floch is honest about it.
Man, the 104th always been the group I care the less in the story, but this chapter they're being so annoying (apart from Mikasa). Well, I can forgive Connie because of everything he went through, but Jean... why are you saying this ""there was no other choice, eren is protecting us"" bs ? Nice of you to be complicit of mass genocide. (Yes, I know his face shows he's conflicted, but he still sides with eren) Also Armin... at least he's horrified at what's Eren's doing but when he said that if they don't kill Falco there would be no conflict with the warriors since Marley will be gone....that's just dumb. Their home and families are going to be destroyed, but ok Armin, go off. And getting into another serumbowl situation, with one of my fave uncounscious while the SC decides who will eat him... I don't like it. (I don't think Falco will be eaten tho, the whole thing raised many death flags on Connie)
Great chap, Isayama seems to finally give closure to certain plot parts. End is near.
Here's a crazy idea: feed GABI to Connie's mom instead of Falco, there would be nowhere near as much arguing with that
Highlights that people can rise above their conditions to become better people, offering a counterargument that humanity should be wiped out.
I don't get why the story pacing was disrupted so much. Why build up to a climatic cliffhanger with the rumbling, only to basically ignore it for the entire following chapter?
I honestly wonder if titan shifting still works as it used to. I'm afraid of seeing Falco get eaten for nothing. Honestly I'm worried about Falco dying for nothing while people right over him as a pawn in general.
Quite interesting chapter. Had fun with it. Much, much slower paced than expected almost. But then again we need time to cover all this stuff. And I'm happy it all took place in the current rather than another flashback. Not really a fan of the Gabi stuff but it is what it is. The other character developments were quite nice. Reiner literally just falling asleep tho lol. Overall I guess I wouldn't say it's a "big" chapter but it is necessary to bridge what came before with whatever comes next. And at long last Annie is back, so that's GLORIOUS.
I hope Annie will have such a big role she gets repaid for the all years she's been gone😞
I hope Isayama uses the slowdown in the pace to better sell the scale of the rumbling, we already see part of that by hoe Eren's dino titan still isnt complete, even after all this time
I love how the story is progressing.The next chapter is always something I personally don't expect and it's always exciting. The hype at the beginning/end of the month is unreal. As for the chapter itself, it's always refreshing to see Jean's perspective on Eren's plans because I love his interpretations on him. #TEAMJAEGER
i love my waifu annie i missed her so much
I love you Connie and I'm sure your mom is nice and all but Falco is a precious bean who needs to be protected.
I really hated the Gabi-Sasha and Gabi-Eren parallels. I also still think Gabi was never needed in this story, in fact I don’t know how I’ll be able to stomach season 4. Ugh, the first half will be completely and utterly Gabified. Gabi in color and motion plus speaking, YUCK! Anyways I hope that the next chapter will have an update on Hange, Levi, and Historia. And maybe Floch getting punched by Shadis that would be the Cherry on top.
It was an average chapter, not bad but nowhere near as good as the previous ones. Plus I'd appreciate if other characters, outside of Gabi, had more spotlight. Her arc and development is done, give more development and screentime to other characters such as Mikasa please.
Just being disappointed. The pacing is very slow. Also the main cast's reactions were too passive. I hated it.
Just great. Just great. The drawings were incredible and the plot just keeps getting better.
Less Gabi, more Historia!
Levi and Hange better return in some way, shape, or form, or Yam's is in for it.
Levi is the new Annie
Love getting to see thoughts from many different characters and where they stand. A lot of them are still left behind trying to rationalise things to make it emotionally palatable, or simply stuck not being able to accept the reality, whereas Gabi has kind of gone ahead and realised there's evil on both sides, and she's willing to kill Eren or work with him if she can best protect the people she cares about (eventually probably not just her friends and family either, but the outside Eldians as a whole).
My baby is back!!!!!!!! I wanna see more of ANNIE!!!!!!
Nicolo talking to Kaya and Gabi was cringey af. Did they really do back to that derpy forest analogy? If this series ends with them holding hands and singing around a campfire imma legit be so disappointed. I need me my Rumbling!
This chapter felt like a nostalgia trip, but I wasn't in for the ride. It was a mess of short catching-up moments when I just want to pick Eren's brain. I want to see Levi and Hange alive or hear what Annie and Historia think about the events, but at the moment I don't care about even those storylines. I just want to know what the relationship between Ymir and Eren is now that the walls came down.
The first panel being Mr. Leonhart was a pretty strong indicator to me that Annie would be released in the last panel, and it was. I felt that to be extremly poetic, and the timing is good too. Another wildcard in the plot. Excellent.
Compared to the previous chapter, this one turned out to be very disappointing. I was excited to see the rumbling and getting a glimpse of Eren’s thoughts and feelings. But instead I got Reiner going to sleep, Gabi being paralleled to Eren (again) and Sasha, the 104th busy arguing over what to do with Falco instead of, you know, focusing on THE RUMBLING
Good chapter, but if S4 is the final season and airs Autumn 2020, and with a monthly release, curious as to how isayama might tie up these "last minute" plot threads such as the new developments with Connie and Falco.
What else can I say except it's amazing and it was worth the wait
Where is Levi damnit
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I'm curious for your thoughts on this subject. I dislike the way antis use the term "yaoi" and "fujoshi" since I feel like these terms were created to mean specific things (in Japanese culture) and antis often apply it without considering differences between slash and yaoi. Also, I dislike the way they use yaoi to pretty much mean fetishizing mlm/content, and fujoshi as fetishizing women since both terms are from Japan and I feel weird seeing these terms associated with fetishizing.
I also am really bothered by the way English fandom has adopted genre words from Japan to mean ‘the worst version of [x]/fans of [x]’. it feels like a form of looking down anything coming from Japan/Japanese culture and treating Japanese culture as the source of these ‘worst versions’.
(a lot of what follows is from light research I’ve done over the years and personal experience. It’s my opinion and experiences rather than a closely researched and heavily sourced essay.)
I think the reason for this weird English-speaking take is two-fold:
Americans/western culture interprets the Japanese subgenre ‘yaoi’ and its Japanese creators & fans through the lens of American/western culture and finds them wanting
the reinterpretation of the concept of ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ in American/western culture and the unfortunate associations created as a result
Without going into historical depth, any western - particularly American - interaction with Japanese culture is an unequal one. Besides the ignominious end of WWII, the American army was the means of forcing Japan to reopen their borders in the 1850′s. And frankly: western culture has been obsessed with Japanese culture (and other East Asian cultures) for literal centuries. and we’ve been taking their cool shit and appropriating and bastardizing it for just as long.[$]
the way that the words ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ are being treated now is, in my opinion, an extension of this.
(this post was heavily updated on August 2-3rd, 2018, to add a lot more about the word ‘fujoshi’: it originally focused more on ‘yaoi’. huge thanks to blogs like @rottenboysclub, @oh-suketora, and @satans-tiddies for all the information they’ve put out on tumblr about these words.[%] )
American understanding of yaoi in Japan & its Japanese fans
Americans don’t understand yaoi or fujoshi in their original Japanese context, but we belittle and denigrate it as if we do.
BL (Boy’s Love) and its subgenre ‘yaoi’ seem to have a similar relationship to Japanese fans as ‘slashfic’ and mlm fiction does to American fans. But that doesn’t mean we understand yaoi/BL in the context of Japanese culture or that we interact with yaoi/BL the same way Japanese fans do. Same for the word ‘fujoshi’ - a term that seems to have been coined in a derogatory context but was ‘reclaimed’ by the very female-aligned fans that it was meant to denigrate. (but more on ‘fujoshi’ later.)
In Japan, the word ‘yaoi’ is more equivalent to a Japanese acronym for the English ‘pwp’ (plot? what plot?) than a word referring to mlm. Like ‘pwp’ in its original usage, ‘yaoi’ indicates a fanwork or small-time/one-shot original work (doujinshi) that has little to no plot and/or focuses almost exclusively on the sex part of a fictional ship, though ‘yaoi’ is specifically applied to mlm-focused ‘plotless’ fanworks*.
(*it’s worth noting that - as mentioned in the wiki link above - the word ‘yaoi’ does not, on its own, have a meaning attached to BL. it has more to do with who adopted the acronym for common use: specifically, BL doujin writers.)
‘yaoi’ has fallen out of use in Japanese fan circles. ‘BL’ - ‘boy’s love’ - is the word which is more of an umbrella term for mlm in the way ‘slash’ is in English-speaking fandom, covering everything from explicit sex to soft pre-romance hand-holding. however, ‘yaoi’ was the word that became known as the Japanese-equivalent mlm fan genre to ‘slash’ in English-speaking circles, which had the unfortunate effect of leading English-speaking animanga fans to compare only the most tropey, explicit mlm content from Japanese fandom against all varieties of mlm ‘slash’ content from English-speaking fandom.
This was comparing apples to oranges; a more equivalent Western fandom comparison to Japanese ‘yaoi’ would probably be silly oneshot crackfic and kinkmeme fics. But the misapprehension was already in place and only got worse as some of the tropes of the explicit versions of yaoi genre doujinshi became increasingly known - the ‘seme’ (’top’) and ‘uke’ (’bottom’) and their supposedly male/female-like roles, the ‘rapey’ tendency to show the uke as crying and reluctant under an aggressive seme, etc.
These kinds of tropes don’t sit well with a modern American audience. And Japanese bl fans have had their own conversations about whether bl/yaoi is harmful to or supportive of Japanese gay culture (and long before Western / English-speaking fandom circles were having them, at least in a widespread way.)
But Americans are ill-equipped to judge the situation from the sidelines. To provide a few examples of things we generally don’t have cultural context on to truly understand yaoi (BL, tbh) and its Japanese fans:
LGBTQ+ culture in Japan
the Japanese flavor of gender essentialism
social and societal pressures on Japanese people, particularly women (trans, cis, and intersex) & nb ppl who identify as femme-aligned
what it means to be ‘feminine’ in Japan
strongly gendered roles in the bedroom (sex in Japan)
Without knowing all this, how can we understand why yaoi (or BL) is constructed the way it is? how can we understand what draws people to it, or how it sits with Japanese LGBTQ people?
But because many yaoi tropes don’t sit well with Americans in the context of our own culture and increasing openness to LGBT+/queer people, and because we’ve given yaoi a false equivalence with a western genre of fiction that has a much wider range of subject and form, we’re apt to look down on yaoi as ‘bad mlm’ and on its ‘fujoshi’ fans as genuinely ‘rotten women’.
The international reinterpretation of ‘yaoi’ & international yaoi fans
the other way the word ‘yaoi’ is used by many people in fandom-centric tumblr - anti and non-anti alike - is in reference to how Americans/Western fans ‘initially’ interacted with Japanese-sourced mlm (’initially’ being when yaoi became well-known enough for a noticeable interaction to appear in American/western geek subculture).
Manga and anime had a popularity boom in the US around 2003/2004 thanks to improving internet speeds and the 24-hour cartoon channel Cartoon Network looking for fresh animated content to air. Media companies caught on and a glut of manga and anime were officially licensed, translated, and sold overseas.
As the popularity of Japanese media grew, the word ‘yaoi’ became more popular and widely used in fandom circles, usually as a substitute for ‘slash’ or ‘gay’ (fictional mlm) when the source material for the fannish subject was Japanese in origin. I think this hit its peak around 2006-2007; at that time many teenage and young adult anime fans (primarily female/femme) who enjoyed slashfic/mlm fic called themselves ‘yaoi fans’.
Why was ‘yaoi’ so popular in America/western culture? and why did its fans get such an awful reputation over time?
as for popularity, here’s a few aspects:
Just another word for ‘slash’ - it wasn’t so much that yaoi as a publishing genre was popular as that there were a lot anime fans in fandom using the word ‘yaoi’ for their mlm fan content instead of the word ‘slash’. (and it still is used this way in some circles.)
male-attracted teen’s first fanservice - because of the size of the boom and the comparative diffidence of American marketers to young (male-attracted) people, a young anime fan’s first published media experience with the sexual ‘female gaze’ directed towards men was more likely to be sourced in Japanese BL content.
American gaze on Japanese male companionship - manga geared towards young men / perceived men in Japan (such as Shonen Jump titles) features a lot of male companionship and tight bonds of friendship. So does American media, but American male culture rarely allows men to touch one another in friendly ways (any gentle touch from a cis man is treated as expressing sexual interest). Japanese male friendship culture lacks this physical distance. Guess how it was interpreted, and guess what kind of effect it had on American anime/manga fandom.
relatedly, this LGBT/queer read on Japanese-sourced masc-centric content, plus the willingness of works aimed towards femme audiences to present all-but-canon mlm relationships, probably functioned as a poor man’s substitute for the lack of LGBT representation in American media in some cases.
and some reasons for the terrible reputation ‘yaoi fans’ garnered:
American ‘yaoi fans’ in the mid-2000′s were mostly teenage girls/femme-aligned young people, and it is an American pastime to shit on teenage girls for being teenagers and girls at the same time.
10 years on, those teenage girls are young adults in their 20′s looking back on their younger selves with embarrassed disgust. That is: the word ‘yaoi’ started to garner its sour taste in the 2010′s because that’s when most of the teenagers of the 2000′s outgrew that particular flavor of immaturity.
a lack of LGBT/queer culture awareness and education in America. Yaoi or slash fanworks may have been Baby’s First Gay Content. It also might have been the entire extent of their knowledge about non-straight anything because America had by no means the same level of LGBT/queer visibility that it does now and certainly didn’t (doesn’t) educate about it. people said and did some awful stuff out of sheer ignorance and lack of thought.
fandom got better about it because resources improved and visibility increased, which was itself in some measure because of the popularity of mlm fiction in fandom circles leading to people doing more research and queer fans educating those who knew less. BL wasn’t necessarily intended as queer rep, but it did act as a gateway to queer culture for people who discovered things about themselves through BL.
socially inappropriate behavior of many, many kinds - including those who refused to separate fiction and reality and treated real mlm like live fanservice (‘omg real life yaoi!’). But as an icon of ‘yaoi fan in the 2000′s cringe culture’, perhaps nothing is so prominent and well-known as the ‘yaoi paddle’.
why is the yaoi paddle so illustrative and iconic? Well - the paddles were sold at anime conventions as a silly novelty item. Anime convention attendees tended (and still tend) to skew young, particularly compared to other nerdy social gatherings. And as you would expect of a bunch of (a) overexcited young people (b) relatively lacking in supervision and (c ) surrounded by things liable to raise their excitement levels even more, they did a lot of foolish things when handed wooden oars that were easy to swing around and hit people with.
At about the same time that anime fandom was truly exploding in size and the yaoi paddle craze was hitting its peak, the internet was juuust about bandwidth friendly enough to allow people to take videos and upload them to this awesome new site ‘youtube’.
I’d say ‘you can imagine what kinds of videos people uploaded’ but you don’t have to imagine. you can see for yourself. The human interest news articles practically wrote themselves. And while yaoi paddles were quickly banned from conventions and their popularity dropped almost as fast, it was an impression to linger. particularly, IMO, combined with other invasive social behaviors that were somewhat more tolerated at anime conventions back then: ‘glomping’, ‘free hugs!’ signs, awkwardly following relative strangers around conventions as nominal ‘friends’, cosplayers publicly ‘making out’ as ‘fanservice’, etc.*
so this is the image of the ‘yaoi fan’ today - a young, white American cis girl at an anime convention in 2007, lacking self-restraint, social grace, and the ability to distinguish fiction from reality. and though this image has little to do with the original Japanese concept, we use the Japanese word to conjure it.
*these behaviors weren’t limited to young female / perceived female ‘yaoi fans’ by any means, but partially because of yaoi paddles, ‘cringe culture’ and ‘yaoi fangirls’ were inexorably linked to one another.
International (mis)use of ‘Fujoshi’: a Brief History
In contrast with ‘yaoi’, the word ‘fujoshi’ has a comparatively short history in American culture. It had a brief rise to popularity in the early- to mid- 2010′s, but for the past year or two it has been heavily invoked by the (so to speak) ‘fandom police’ as an invective against (perceived) women who ship fictional mlm and/or create explicit fictional mlm fanworks.
‘fujoshi’ ( 腐女子 ) is a compound word composed of the kanji/hanzi for ‘rotten’/’fermented’ (腐) and ‘woman’ (女子 ) and is a homonym with an old Japanese word for ‘respectable woman’ (婦女子 ). It was coined on 2ch (a Japanese text board popular with men) to insult (perceived) female fans who ‘queered’ media content written for & centered around men: re-imagining (canon straight) male characters as queer/gay/bi, shipping them with one another, and discussing/creating explicit, sexual work around those ships. (sound familiar?)
In its original insulting context, a ‘fujoshi’ was woman who was no longer a desirable marriage partner because of her interest in BL. She had ruined herself by marinating in sexual fantasies - and not even normal sexual fantasies about having sex with a man herself. Instead, she had fantasies about men having sex with men! Not only had a fujoshi woman lost her cute naivete and innocence: she’d also turned into a sexual deviant. She was fermented, overripe, disgusting, undesirable.
I don’t know how long this meaning had any clout, because Japanese BL fans - BL fans from all over Asia, in fact - embraced the ‘fujoshi’ label. to me, the implication of the ‘fujoshi’ reclamation reads like a giant, queer ‘fuck you’ to the kind of dudebros who hated them: ‘you find me undesirable because i like gay/queer content? That’s hilarious, because I never wanted you in the first place.’
And to this day (mid-2018), 'fu’/ 腐, ’fujo’/ 腐女, and its varieties (腐男子, 腐人, etc) have positive connotations in kanji/hanzi-using fandom circles.
The word ‘fujoshi’ reached English-speaking Western fandom eventually (I want to say in the late 2000′s/early 2010′s). It came to us already reclaimed and was picked up as a positive self-label. In those earlier days, Western fandom called themselves ‘fujoshi’ in a way much more similar to how Eastern fandom still uses it:
It’s not my job to please you.
I’m allowed to enjoy taboo things like queer fanworks, headcanoning canon straight male characters as gay, and sexually explicit content.
If you think that makes me gross, then fine: i’m gross. your opinion doesn’t hurt me. in fact, I embrace it.
(now go away and let me ship.)
this connotation of ‘fujoshi’ enjoyed a brief period of popularity. There was a fandom ‘sweet spot’ for slash in 2011-2012: shifts in public opinion meant shipping gay ships wasn’t utterly taboo anymore and AO3 was a safe space for sharing slashfic. ‘Fujoshi’ came to semi-replace ‘yaoi fan’ in the English lexicon, at this time, becoming synonymous with ‘ships gay ships in animanga fandoms’, with the added bonus of partially shedding the connotation of loving old yaoi doujin tropes in one’s slashfic.
But in the last few years - starting in around 2014/2015, I want to say - there was a shift in the attitude towards shipping mlm here on tumblr.
mlm fans who are seen as women - whether they are or not - are increasingly told that shipping fictional slash ships or creating fictional content about men in love with/having sex with men is terrible. mlm shippers/fanwork creators who aren’t mlm themselves - especially perceived-female mlm shippers/fanwork creators - are apparent no different from the ‘yaoi fangirl’ stereotype above: the 2007 cis white socially awkward fangirl, holding a yaoi paddle and screaming with excitement about real life yaoi!!! whenever two real gay men kiss.
the word ‘fujoshi’ - still tied to the English-speaking concept of ‘yaoi’ by both words being Japanese in origin and related to mlm fan content - was about to get unreclaimed with a vengeance … by American/Western fans with hardly a drop of knowledge about Japanese culture, fandom, or language.
And it’s been every bit as ugly as you can imagine.
‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ on tumblr today (mid-2018)
fandom on tumblr, deeply into policing everyone’s fannish interests in the name of social awareness, invokes ‘yaoi’ in a two-fold way:
‘yaoi’ as a doujinshi subgenre in Japan: featuring fictional mlm in sexual situations for titillation written by Japanese women (& femme-identifying nb people) for Japanese women (& femme-identifying nb people), and the distasteful feelings American/western culture bears towards its tropes as being unacceptably unrealistic and ‘backwards’ by modern progressive American standards.
‘yaoi’ as ‘cringe culture’: an imperialistic American/western read on Japanese media content + exposure to Japanese BL, blending unfavorably with a lack of education on real LGBT/queer culture, a lack of alternative LGBT/queer media representation, and teenagers being teenagers
Tumblr fandom police, feeling that ‘fujoshi’ was equally bad as ‘yaoi’ by dint of being adopted as a label by animanga slashfic fans & as another Japanese word relating to mlm shipping, proceeded to co-opt, redefine, and ‘un-claim’ the word ‘fujoshi’:
‘fujoshi’, but literally. having gotten wind of the literal meaning of the word ‘fujoshi’, but completely lacking the context under which the word was created, invoked, and reclaimed, fandom policers designated their own negative meaning for ‘rotten girl’. ‘fujoshi’ means ‘straight girl that’s rotten because she fetishizes gay men!’ fandom policers say - even though that has literally nothing to do with ‘fujoshi’ in its proper context.
telling East Asian fujoshi they can’t call themselves fujoshi. having decided the word ‘fujoshi’ is tied to being homophobic (by ‘fetishizing’ gay romance), and that its derogatory of women because they rely on their own re-take on the literal, negative meaning, American fandom policers start attacking East Asian fans that proudly call themselves fujoshi. (I wish I was joking.)
In summary, English-speaking fans are using their own twisted, ill-informed, and imperialistic treatment and understanding of Japanese concepts to turn those words into pejoratives for use in petty ship wars.
(And when you put it like that it kind of starts to look a little … well … racist.)
[%] This post was never intended as an exhaustive resource - as noted at the beginning of the post, it was based on my absorbed knowledge from being in animanga fandom as an American for many years - but thanks to the blogs I listed, who have a much more thorough knowledge of kanji / hanzi-using fan spaces such as Japan/China/Taiwan, Korea (in part), etc, I learned a lot about the current usage of ‘yaoi’ (or lack thereof) in Japan & how fujoshi was adopted as a popular label over the last 9 months.
If you’re ever looking for more information on these topics, I would especially point you to @rottenboysclub, as their blog is focused on educating English-speaking fandom on Japanese queer/LGBT+ and fandom terminology.
[$] regarding western tendency to appropriate Japanese culture - Japan is eager to export the unique aspects of their culture. but how many times have you seen an English article with titles like ‘10 Reasons Why Japan is So Weird’ or ‘25 Weird Things About Japan that will make you say ‘buy why?’’ (the literacy rate in Japan being nearly 100% is #3 on this list). and okay - Japanese culture is remarkably different from American culture. But this ‘Japan is so weird’ talk is often accompanied by a tone of mild superiority.
consider how we treat Japanese cultural products such as movies. The recent Death Note debacle is only the latest in a long string of this kind of nonsense (though thank goodness it’s getting the reputation it deserves.) Remember The Ring? American remake of Ringu. And of course there’s dozens of other examples of Americans buying or taking things from its original Japanese context and trying to make it ‘better’ for a mainstream American audience, even though the American audience liked the original Japanese product just fine. (Dragonball Z comes to mind.)
(On the flip side you have ‘weaboos/weebs’, the contemporary word for ‘Japanophiles’, putting Japanese culture on a pedestal, which is not any better, and disgust with ‘weebs’ tends to be extended to the aspects of Japanese culture they worship.)
#racism in fandom#this is an americentric post#yaoi as a trope#in defense of fujoshi#in defense of freedom to fandom#animanga fandom#fandom history#TEH HOT YAOIZ
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this is just me writing about me and laras long gay metal gear fanfic
this is pretty silly but I'm like so nervous about posting the last chapter of the fanfic I've been working on with Lara for the past no joke almost two and a half years because it's like a silly really trope-y fanfic about a bad video game series but like, I've Grown A Lot during the process of writing it and my life has changed so drastically in so many ways during the process. It's taken two and a half years because the further we get in the editing process the more I drag my heels -- it's been like four months since we posted the penultimate chapter and the final chapter doesn't even need that much editing (just a lot of me regretting putting ppl texting each other in it)
ok im putting in a read more because predictably i went on forever.
But it's weird, actually finishing something this long. And it's weird because I'm proud of it but it's like, a fan fiction, but I'm legit proud of it. And it's weird because like --- I write achronologically so parts of the last chapter I wrote over two years ago. The very last scene is one of the parts that's like, survived pretty much intact through the nine or ten different massive google docs we have. And parts of the last chapter are legitimately extremely important to me in a personal way and it's a fan fiction that's just 60k bad homestuck jokes and bad xfiles jokes and self indulgent recursive meta fiction. It's a story I continuously feel silly about because it's like, nice. I try very hard to make it a kind story, tho I gravitate by nature to being as grimdark as possible because if you write nice things about things you like then people know your vulnerabilities and thus how to destroy you etc.
and also these awful video game characters are Important to me and Lara and I have a very particular vision of them that I think is different from a lot of peoples perception of them -- i of course simultaneously believe that 1. i am totally right about all of my interpretations and they are the most correct and 2. these are fictional characters that don’t exist as real people so many different interpretations of the characters are equally valid. so this whole fanfic is like, me pitching our iterations of these characters to other people, like, “hey. . . what if just, like, what if we all just sort of chilled out a little here, and thought up like, some nice stuff.” and that’s important to me.
and the fact that the characters i’m writing are able to form like, a healthy adult relationship --- that’s really really important to me, because like, not a lot of what i would consider healthy adult communicative supportive romantic relationships are portrayed in like, anything i read? certainly not in a lot of fanfic, certainly not in a lot of metal gear fanfic. which okay partially is because like half the protagonists in metal gear are awful people and the other half are written i would say “with dubious quality” by their original creators. but partially i have some Huge Issues with a lot of things. . . centered around metal gear. . . because i think there’s shit in metal gear that’s fun and interesting but there’s a lot of shit that like, we should all maybe just go ahead and consign to the trash heap. but that’s neither here nor there.
anyway, a lot of writing this was also kind of figuring out what a healthy adult romantic relationship was, while also situating that in the context of like, other important friendships. i struggled a lot with not falling into some of the pitfalls i think fics like this (one centered around the main m/m couple in the fandom but one that also attempts to include a lot of female characters -- we’ll call it “the rosemary problem” and ya’ll probably will know what i mean) fall into, and i don’t think i always succeeded, but i think we did okay. i don’t want to get into like Too Much Stuff about why that was so important to me at this particular point in my life because i have a huge difficulty like, sharing personal info about myself that i think reveals Weakness or something Silly, but yeah. i’ll probably end up writing about that anyway because i love to hear myself talk.
literally like three of you have read our fanfic so this is a lot of bloviating about something i’ve spent way more time thinking about than like anyone else ever (save Lara), and so like, talking about what i wish i’d done better and what i’m really proud of in it isn’t like, really going to mean anything and i’m going to instead just make an insufferably long author’s note at the end of the final chapter. i do feel Deeply Silly about something thats not original fiction being this Important to me and something that i treat this seriously, but i’m incapable of creating things without taking them very seriously, i put the exact same amount of effort into fanfic as i ever have into like, writing original fiction. and it’s important, and i created it with someone that i love so very very very much, and it’s a thing we made together so it’s always going to be very special to me, and i cannot fucking believe i put so many things that i’m going to have to format in the last chapter, thanks past me.
#its just like a lot of me talking vaguely about a fanfic that like five of you know about#and about metal gear which is bad#i stopped myself from turning it into an essay about metal gear tho so lets all be proud of me#lara is the light of my life and without them the whole thing would have had all the joy sucked from it#///#mgs#its the konami code
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Baby Reacts to: “Voltron Legendary Defender”
I’m not familiar with either of the show’s previous incarnations but from what I’ve heard they completely overhauled the characters anyways - supposedly Pidge was once an annoying tagalong kid (and a boy), Keith was a standard issue “hot-blooded mecha pilot”, Shiro was not there, or killed of in the first storyarc, and Allura was a completely different character with a wholly different design, more of a ‘princess classic’ with the looks & personality to macth, supposedly they redesigned her to make her more alien & then threw in the skintone as a hommage to her voice actress. In any case only the name is the same.
I’ve seen some clips and it seems they had a much more outwardly fantasy-aesthetic going on with carriages & period costume, sort of more like Star Wars or Sailor Moon, whereas the newest version seems roughly Star Craft esque in terms of their particular blend of Magitek.
Otherwise it’s pretty straighforward: Evil Empire, Ancient Artifacts, Giant Robots, Space Fights, timefrozen hightech city left behind by the precursors etc.
The evil empire has a renegate splinter faction but that too isn’t so exceptional (though welcome), the BoM reminded me somewhat of the Tok’Ra from Stargate in their reclusive, slow-to-act approach in that they have tons of futuristic tech but limited ressources & had to be won over first & there still being a lot of mutual distrust on both sides, at least at first.
Rare in this day and age (and very refreshingly IMHO) the show unapologetically sticks to the basic genre & tropes without falling over its own feet trying to be clever & meta - sure, they evened out the gender ratio a bit & made the structure of the battles less monotonous but we’re not beaten over the head with any of these things/fit them in naturally & the show never seems like it has something to prove & just lets its story be a straightforward giant robots & explosions kinda thing.
It helps that the artwork is great.
The best summary of my general impression is that I’ll pobably tune in for season 3. My favorite character so far would be Keith closely followed by Pidge, and Shiro, but AFAIK everyone likes Shiro? I’m prolly b/c I’ve heard it’s terrible (The Umbridge effect is probably in full force...) also I’ve been told there’s a trailer out and I’d rather see season 3 unspoiled.
Clearly there needs to be some payoff for Shiro grooming Keith as a potential sucessor but I’m hoping that after a few drama-filled episodes, they all go rescue Shiro from wherever he’s gotten to, Keith hands him back his helmet and they all go home together. I mean, he just got his own Bayard. It’s unclear what happened to him in any case, perhaps he was absorben Evangelion style.
That said one of the show’s strenghts is the clear aversion of the “annoying comedic sidekick” even though it has many characters that has could theoritically fit that description - They try their best to give each of the characters something to do & various skills & likeable traits - Like you get why each of them is there and why they’re our heroes - they also took the time to make sure everyone got a few character establishing moment in the first episode (Shiro’s arrival, Pidge & Keith were already on their own quests by their own means, Hunk & Lance served as the PoV characters etc) and throughout the show they try to bring out everyone’s personalities through reaction shots etc. Like, ALL of them are awesome.
Also apparently this fandom has brutal shipping wars? Some ppl I was sitting next to kept cracking jokes about how [random yaoi pair] was obvliously into each other and after a while it got annoying through sheer persistence.
I don’t think the show as a whole is going for that like if there was going to be a decent/central romantic subplot they’d have introduced it by now they seem to be content to simply be an action show & there’s not much content like that at all except for the occassional teasing for the sake of humor & Lance’s flirting (which is really more there to exposition his being a bit of a showoff) - the most that will come out of it is that when we see some epilogue telling us what became of everyone, Lance will be shown to have found a girlfriend after returning home to his mom & impressing his siblings with his heroic stories.
To begin with they seem to be going for a different vibe with the main characters, with how all of them (including Allura) refer to each other as “family” or “brothers” all the time like I get the impression we’re supposed to interpret them more as simply comerades or quasi-siblings with Shiro as the big brother and Coran as the kooky uncle.
Like I hate it when ppl dismiss already existing romantic subplots as “uneccesary”, “silly” or “pandering” but at the same time it’s not like every show needs to have one or like it immediately needs an explanation when one character doesn’t get a love interest(that they must be gay, ace etc... nothing wrong with those type of characters, or headcanon, but “we’re not doing romance genre RN/ the characters are busy fighting a war” should be a sufficient explanation in and of itself whatever the characters’ orientations are.)
General Character Impressions:
Their secret seems to be rolling with the basic tropes but connecting them into an interesting structre, so it comes off neither overly in your face nor one dimensional.
Lance - ‘Average Joe Relatable PoV character’ except they made him not-boring by making him the snarky/funny one & giving (he’s got ice powers & is the designated long range fighter, both very cool powers, pun not intended but retroactively appreciated) as well as drawing logical consequences (He’s the most attached to earth because of his relatively ‘normal’ background & wants to prove himself because it seems he was the midle child among numerous siblings, hence the rivalry with the local ace pilot.) Sorta calls to mind the likes of Kyon from Haruhi or Sokka from Avatar.
Hunk - For once the “all around nice heart of the group with the more intuitive, roundabout type of reasoning” isn’t the token girl but I’m glad that role’s still there because niceness & group cohesion is a valid attribute. The “nice person” is typically the healer or magic user but making them the defensive fighter makes just as much sense, especially with his personality as the more cautions common sense-y one who becomes committed to the mission through the desire to protect innocents.
Pidge - The “secretly a girl” thing is kinda trite but it makes sense as a reference to the original and they still eschewed the tropes by how she was badass well before & doesn’t get treated any different afterwards - The plot twist is more that she’s related to the scientists from the prologue. Otherwise another potential spirit animal of mine, VERY relatable in ways I can’t count, fro the nerdy reactions all the way to the short stubby arms XD I’m also grateful that they didn’t give us that trite old “nature vs science” contrast but instead portrayed these as connected. It’s like Kensuke from Evangelion, except as a girl & she actually got to be a pilot.
Keith - The Rival Character. Second-best fighter of the paladins, sort of a ‘larger-than-life’ superhumanly good ace pilot, to Lance’s ongoing chagrin (and indeed he turns out to be part warrior alien), also, predictably, the local cynic. Seems to have the least ties to earth/ have been looking for a purpose in life anyways. Not quite a ‘stoic number two’ though - He’d probably like to be but he absolutely doesn’t really know when to shelf it, hence his being highly suceptible to Lance’s provocations & flunking out because of a “discipline issue” despite his aparent talent.
Shiro - Former Ace Pilot & personal hero for both Lance & Keith. Got alien abducted & subjected to the full repertoire (gladiator fights, experimented on, augmented etc.) & is understandeably still rather shook from it. Serious disciplined military type & natural leader, hence ends up taking over almost immediately wheen stranded with a bunch of ragtag space cadet rejects and, as a result, becomes everyone’s beloved big brother figure./mentor. Supposedly just as loved by the fandom? Actually still pretty young, he just looks mature in comparison to the others but he’s not above getting in a snowfight.
Allura - There’s the “sweet princess classic”, the “fierce alien warrior princess” and the “glittery plot magic princess” and in Allura’s case they seem to have been thrown in a blender & put together in such a fashion as to make a more complicated character - She’s certainly fierce, somewhat agressive, suspicious & hellbent on her mission but she also has the diplomatic grace one would expect of a royal & ultimately she does have a sweet side (hinted at early on with her adorable animal companions) - The basic gist of it is that she’s a regular teenage girl somewhere, but has been trained for asskicking & diplomacy all her life, & now she’s the last survivor & feels the pressure to carry on her father’s torch & stop the evil empire so she affects a comanding presence most of the time.
Also there seems to be some meme about calling her a racist (Ugh tumblr) ? This seems to me as one of this stuations where people want complex characters but cannot handle it if they’re not perfect or fitting into easy boxes.
The whole point of her is that she comes from a different time & culture with it’s conlicts outside of the human character’s PoVs. Like point me at any angry alien princess who is NOT suspicious. Both being unfrozen and heck, even Zarkon’s betrayal are still relatively recent for her, and in the end she was just kinda avoiding Keith (granted, in what must’ve been a confusing uncertain time for him) more than actively being mean and she came through on her own & apologized. Like, it was just like Hunk said: She just needed processing time, something she’s been afforded preciously little of at any point ever, I mean she goes straight from realizing everyone she ever knew (except Coran) is dead to launching an offensive.
Bonus: I shall attempt to MBTI the bunch
(In Order of certainty)
Hunk - most obvious ISFJ to ever SiFe
Allura - ESTJ
Pidge - INTP
Keith - ISTP or possibly ISFP, certainly Se-aux tho. One the one hand he uses Fi-ish language in places (”If I don’t do this, I’ll never find out who I am...”) on the other hand he tends to prioritize the mission & is the most cynical/pragmatic of the bunch & tends to be stoic & objective unless provoked (”The rest of the universe has families too.” “Yeah but can we afford to rescue the princess?”) - His relative reactiveness when provoked is sufficiently accounted for by Se.
Zarkon - ESTJ
Shiro - ISTJ (though his instant commanding presence makes me doubt the I somewhat that said politician/leader ISTJs do happen. He seems to have been serious & dilligent even before all the trauma tho.)
Lance - ESFJ or possibly Se-dom, ESxx for sure tho.
Coran - Clearly has Si and Ne but not sure in which order. If I had to guess I’d say he’s either a very dutiful ENFP or a very quirky ISTJ.
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i’ve been free of the sh*rlock fandom for many blissful years now and i try not to like, write things on this useless blog of mine but i’ve seen more reactionary anger to the season four finale than i was expecting so i feel compelled to Share My Thoughts regardless of whether or not anyone wants to hear them. full disclosure: i am not a fan of j*hnlock or the conspiracy movement it has inspired so you may not want to read this if you are.
i guess the major thing for me is.........confusion. shipping holmes/watson i wholeheartedly understand, of course, there’s a long and beautiful history of doing it and i’ve always adored the ambiguous queerness of the Canon’s holmes and how that’s been adapted or not adapted in the thousands of films/tv shows/pastiches/etc that have followed it. what i dont?? fucking understand??? is the people who genuinely thought it would become canon, on bbc sh*rlock (2010) OF ALL FUCKING THINGS????
i’m pretty damn far from being a “casual” viewer of the show, it was my primary fandom for several years and i was once-upon-a-midnight-fuckin-dreary completely consumed by my love for it. so as someone for whom that is true but who, unlike most fandom people for whom it is true, has not been sucked into the J*hnlock Meta Echo Chamber, i feel pretty confident in my assertion that there has been really very little in the series itself to suggest a romantic john/sh*rlock endgame. sure, their relationship is at the center of the show and they ofc have been shown to care for each other deeply and enduringly, as holmeses and watsons always do....and, sure, there are without question lines and moments that could be read as revealing a romantic undercurrent to their devotion to each other (particularly on sh*rlock’s end, i think). but that there was a legitimate conspiracy movement convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt that they were going to explicitly get bbc’s sh*rlock and john making out onscreen...i just do not get it, and do not see it, and yes i’ve read the metas, and no they did not convince me and i’m not entirely sure how they convinced anyone but whatever, it’s fine, that’s not the point.
like, for example, i keep seeing people shocked that after the ~EXPLICIT TEXTUAL GAYNESS~ of the lying detective they couldn’t believe the final problem would follow. and i’m just like??? huh? you mean, the hug? the one that happened in the context of a) john mourning his dead wife who he clearly loved very genuinely and b) john hearing sh*rlock receive a text from irene adler and urging him, quite explicitly, to go fuck her and telling him he’d be an idiot not to?? that explicit textual gayness?? WHAT? (i know the Conspiracy People have composed all these half-assed metas about how irene isn’t Really A Character and is just a mirror for sh*rlock or a symbol of his desire to bone john or something, but, lol no offense but fuck that misogynistic bullshit that treats every woman on the show as a literal empty signifier only sitting there to reflect something about sh*rlock and/or john. it’s just not a good reading or a valid interpretation and it’s so sexist i don’t even know where to start lmao. john genuinely wants sh*rlock to find the love of A Good Woman bc he is a hetero and well, the worst, and there was nothing about that scene that felt like a lead-up to the two men in it falling in love like ohhh my god. oh my god.)
and like ok, i got off course there, but how did ANYONE expect a different outcome after this interview, in which gatiss and moffat both told you all in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that they had no romance planned and in fact seemed incredibly miffed by the refusal to be believed when they said that?? gatiss literally says that there is no conspiracy and that even tho they lie about some things in interviews they are not lying about this. and look, i don’t want to defend them, i think the writers of this show are assholes and bigoted in ways they can’t see, but how anyone could accuse them of “baiting them into thinking j*hnlock would be endgame” when they’ve been saying it won’t be the case (often in unnecessarily rude and offensive terms) for literal YEARS??? i don’t get it. I REALLY DON’T. and no, gatiss doesn’t Owe you a holmes/watson relationship just because he’s a gay man himself lmao and when he’s expressed his feelings on the matter countless, countless times. you all chose not to believe him, for whatever reason, so i mean i’m sorry if some of you are hurting but i’m also feeling very congratulationsyouplayedyourself.jpeg about the whole thing.
which brings me to my last major point really, which is: WHY WOULD YOU WANT THESE HORRIBLE PEOPLE TO BE THE ONES TO DELIVER YOU YOUR QUEER REPRESENTATION?? moffat in particular is just, UGH, i mean, for fuck’s sake, the man wrote an adaptation of a scandal in bohemia where irene identified herself as a lesbian and yet, in the very same episode, fell in love with sh*rlock to such an all-consuming degree that she Lost Her Head and made a silly mistake in their game and got humiliated in defeat. like, what kind of lesbophobic, misogynistic fucking NONSENSE that btw completely deviates from the plot of the actual story in which she beats holmes’ ass and flees away into the night, victorious and safe. that’s the writer you thought was orchestrating a queer endgame for his beloved sh*rlock holmes???? that’s the writer you wanted orchestrating a queer endgame for his beloved sh*rlock holmes?? l o l....ok. that’s not even taking into account all the nasty things he’s said in interviews, like how sh*rlock is ofc not interested in men and ofc he’s not asexual bc asexual people are BORING, sh*rlock is just a latent straight man repressing his urge to bone women!! maybe he’ll marry mrs. hudson in the end tho!! lmao. i....cannot.
and i guess i’m also irritated by this guilting wave on my dash, like i’m obligated to feel sympathy for all these shippers who get duped, or whatever. like, look, even putting my personal feelings about the j*hnlock fandom aside (YOUR SMUG ASSES MADE THE FANDOM LIVES OF ALL RAREPAIR SHIPPERS HELL FOR YEARS, YOU ASSHOLES), after going through what, say, the 100 did to lexa, i’m just.....having a hard time feeling sympathy, i am sorry. oh, your two favorite characters get to live happily together raising a baby in 221b in a scenario that leaves them ripe and open for no end of headcanon and fic that can be totally canon-compliant? boooooo frickin hoooo. HEARTBREAKING.
i realize this probably is like, rude and condescending and invalidating or whatever and well what can i tell u, i’m a rude bitch, but i am tiiiired of reading all these posts like this is the biggest slight against the lgbtqa+ community in media history. it’s not. yeah, you should all be expecting better from your media, for sure. but you should not have been expecting better from this shitpile of a show, which has proven its disregard for women, racial/ethnic minorities, and queer ppl for seasons upon seasons now. it’s 2017, and the tv landscape still isn’t great but there are so many shows out there with actual canonical lgbtqa+ characters that you can be looking to for the representation you want, deserve, etc.
sh*rlock isn’t the queer love story you all wanted it to be, and if i’m not empathetic abt that it’s bc i’m SO DAMN RELIEVED that’s the case, bc it and most of the people involved in its production are hmm, what’s the word.....THE. DAMN. WORST.
#sherlock bbc //#look i put this behind a read more and am not tagging it w anything and attempted to censor anything that might make it come up in searches#so don't @ me with any anger unless it's like a constructive piece of dialogue please#MYTHOUGHTSONTHEBULLSHIT.JPEG
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