All right, itās been 5 or so months since I last posted here.Ā
The long and short of it is that SnK wasnāt the only reason I left this blog. Real life/work stress was a big part of it on top of SnKās clumsy handling of delicate subject matter and the SnK fandomās overwhelming insistence that the author of SnK was a genius (and I was the dumbass who just Wasnāt Looking Closely Enough to Realize It).Ā
It was just too much to deal with all at once.Ā
Yāall know my stance on how fiction can and does affect reality, so letās not go there. The issue I have was that all of these negative things wadded themselves up into a giant hateful ball in my mind. This blog, and the fact that its very foundation was almost entirely based on being an SnK blog...made me feel gross and ugly. Look, I donāt think itās silly to be disappointed or put off by something youāve been thinking about and dissecting and having fun with for literal years of your life. Itās been something like 4.5 years Iāve been following this series! Iām upset that something I thought might do a 180 and be great...ended up feeling bad to me. Itās hard to see something with potential lambaste itself like this, especially when Iāve spent four and a half years following it and defending it.
You are free to disagree. I totally understand that some of you adore the series for the good parts, or you ignore the hateful things; maybe youāre just here to see how it ends. I can respect that.
But I literally canāt exist without being critical. I know a lot of my followers resented my posts because it makes them feel stupid or weird for liking the things that I criticized. I tried to stop being negative (because constant negativity is a downer), but it was hard to exist in a fandom space where I felt I couldnāt say my piece any longer without putting off people who followed me.
But hey, after a break... I feel a lot better! I think Iāve come to terms with wanting to like a series/a world/characters/whatever, but struggling to because of fandom opinion and my personal discomfort, not to mention the frustration and uncertainty of the series itself.
SnK isnāt any different than Harry Potter or RK or Twilight or any other series where the author turned out to be shitty or misinformed or just generally an idiot.Ā
If my salt makes you uncomfortable or uneasy, this is goodbye. I had fun here! I enjoyed interacting with you guys, talking characters and meta with you. It was lovely. But if reading my meta and posts makes you feel bad about yourself or uneasy or just awful? Itās okay to break ties. Sometimes itās necessary and I want you to take care of you; have a good one!
For those of you who would like to follow my new blog, the url is @mannatea.Ā
Please view this blog as an archive. I hope some of you will still find it useful. :)
I don't even know if you're going to get this but I just wanted to say thank you. I asked some pretty dorky questions and you were always patient and explained things to me. You made me a better thank and I will always be grateful for that. God bless and take care brilliant you.
i wasnāt going to publish this bUT i think i need to because everyone seems to be getting the wrong idea about why this blog is in defunct status. itās not because of an anon! what i meant byĀ āmade me think twice about deletingā was that a certain anon sent me a message asking me to please nOT delete (my tags had a comment in them about possibly deleting this blog), and because of that i gave it a second thought and decided it wouldnāt be fair to delete all of the meta and everything.
that said, if i do end up stealing this url for my new blog in the future, iāll change this one. it would make everything here more difficult to find (typing in a different url and everything) but at least the material would still be here. iām undecided on this at this particular time, though.
also, @ anon, i enjoy getting those dorky questions, so thank you for sending them. ā„
sorry for the spam of the defunct post, i think itāll be posting twice more before it stops.
Hello I am sorry to hear that you lost interest on snk, but after reading yout post, I can understand and before that I dindt even consider the possibility that there are ones who got offended by this jew~eldian paralell, but now I think i get it. I am sorry that things turned out like this, but pleas dont delete your blog and your older metas and analisises because they are gold, and I dont think that I am the only one who thinks so. Thank you Have a nice day
you are the only reason this blog wonāt be deleted.
attack on titan is not worth caring about and i am deeply disturbed by its existence. not because of the vore. not because of the gore. but because i am caught up with the manga and know where it goes.
and here is my personal advice: if attack on titan is your big thing and you are not caught up on the manga, justā¦start looking at other series. try. you might not be completely crushed by the things that end up happening but
not worth it. it is not worth it to care deeply about or defend, there is not really any defending the horrible things it doesā¦do not feel the need to defend it because you love it. please examine it critically if you are caught up and just accept that horrible awful terrible fucking decisions were made. i will not be a ball of anger at anyone who still is entertained but
do not defend it. there is no way to defend writing a story about shocking horrible violent vore for the sake of shock and horror and having it be about what it is
season 2 is coming out and if you watch it pleaseā¦do not keep your hopes up for the rest of the series even if the season is well-made. i have no idea how far it will animate this time but i have reason to doubt that the entire manga will be animated or that it will be animated faithfully.
and i sure fucking hope it does not, or that at least it does and it gets enough backlash to open up conversationā¦
And Iām done with people trying to tell me Iām ālooking too deeplyā into it or like, ānot looking deeply enough.ā
So hey, for a lit analysis major, which the fuck is it? It canāt be both!Ā
Sorry but this series isnāt inventive and shit. Itās not. It literally just took history, mashed it up in a giant spitwad, and slapped it down on paper and yāall think Iām gonna sit here and be like,Ā āWOW ISAYAMA IS A GENIUS THIS IS SO SMART.ā This isnāt even subtle? Itās in your face.Ā
These arenāt even PARALLELS to Jewish people: they AREĀ Jewish people. So cut it with theĀ āIsayama is so cleverā bullshit. Or,Ā āItās not antisemitic because itās painted in a bad light in the series!ā Uh huh. I loved the added angle that these fictional Jews are being oppressed by other nations because they were historically the oppressors. Which was, yāknow, something pulled straight out of the Bible and not something people were actively saying during the Holocaust. What a great additional angle for Isayama to use!!! WOW!! GENIUS! Fuck off with that nonsense.
Like I said, these arenāt even parallels. Eldians are straight up Jewish. Theyāre drawn like Jewish caricatures in the background frames, they wear the armbands. You can praise hisĀ āhistorical accuracyā all you like but his storytelling skills have so far been terrible and SnK is a fantasy world where thereās no such thing as historical accuracy.
Shall we go back and talk about how he wrote about Zackly forcing a man to eat his own shit through a tube connected from his ass to his mouth? Shall we? Yeah, heās such a genius!! You know that plot isnāt going to go anywhere, isnāt going to mean anything. You know it and I know it and letās stop pretending that SnK has to be a brilliant series to keep our flickering attention spans focused. Bullshit. Itās trash, itās always been trash, and like, sorry that all those years we spent hoping itād be better ended up feeling fuckinā wasted.
Again, donāt fuckinā tell me Iām too stupid to look deeply enough while also telling me Iām looking too much into it. It isnāt both. Itās not even deep. Itās RIGht theRe. The fuckinā author copied history word for word re: Jewish people. THIS SHIT AINāT A FUCKIN PARALLEL. IT JUST IS. IT IS WHAT IT IS. Eldians are Jewish! And this is like,Ā āthe Holocaust, but if the Jews were capable of fighting back.āĀ āBut also they have to fight each other in really bold literal ways.ā
Nah, fuck it. Iām out. Iāve spent literal years of my life waiting for this series to prove it was actually interesting and worth following even when other people said,Ā āHey, that series is kind of bad.ā No, I donāt think itās fair to take a quote Isayama said like five years ago and use it as currentĀ āevidenceā but thereās plenty of weird shit in the manga that skeeves me out and makes me feel like heās been here from the start for horror and gore and shock value to exist LITERALLY just for those reasons. Thereās nothing deeper there and there never will be. This isnāt an enlightened series with an incredibly talented author at the helm.
Iām tired of trying to convince myself that this series is worth my time or anyone elseās. Like look, yāall kNOW ME. Iāve been in this fandom FOR LITERAL YEARS. Iām not some hater jumping on theĀ āfuck SnKā bandwagon. Stop trying to tell me IāmĀ āmissing the pointā lmao WHAT FUCKING POINT? There is no point.
okay so...this is what i have always meant by saying,Ā āhey, you should be critical of the things you consume!āĀ ācause from its onset this has made me deeply uncomfortable and the fact that it has not changed, or gotten better, or even given me an ending that might be happy...has made me lose interest.
look, in the hands of a powerful storyteller, this could be an amazing story. this could be an overarching commentary on the holocaust---one that is positive, not vile.
but like, itās hard to imagine thatās coming. i've been hoping for a long time that the narrating characters would be provenĀ as unreliable so that we might learn that the āhistoryā of the titans was skewed in favor of theĀ āwinnersā--marley--and not actual, factual truth. iāve believed this to be an ideal story twist, circumstances considered.
but what iām seeing isĀ āhey these people are oppressed, theyāre clearly jewish people, and actually thereās a legitimate reason to fear them...cause you know...they turn into monsters.ā
yeah okay marley turns them into monsters. maybe marleyās lying about being immune to it. maybe marleyās immunity will become a plot point later--as in, maybe weāll find out that it was a lie all along, and that these people can become theĀ āsame kind of monsterā as the eldians.
but i doubt it. i doubt it, and i fear this series is going to end on a note that i find distasteful or insulting. i canāt say it will or wonāt. i donāt know. but i fear it.Ā i donāt think this series is amazing. i think it started off pretty intriguing and is now the Fictional Holocaust Show, with no end in sight. iām not sayin you canāt write about the holocaust; but i question its use here in a shounen manga. one aboutĀ āgrey moralityā and so much wwi and wwii imagery that itās clearly a fictional holocaust??? like...cāmon. itās creepy because too much of it is real and used here for...what????? why?Ā
iām not saying that...i wonāt read this series anymore. but itās on thin fuckinā ice as far as iām concerned. isayama took a series that started out kind of interesting and had to take from real life horrors to make this terrifying? had to draw OBVIOUS parallels between jewish people and monSTERS?? what the fuck. what the fuck?
this has been bothering me for months. years maybe. i donāt know.Ā in the last few months i think itās driven me away from this series. i mean ffs i canāt get over the fact that isayama has all this biblical shit in here and like...it feels like heās using it to be antisemitic. is this commentary about how actual real-life jews oppressed nations by conquering them in the OT? or what? what is it. why give us a narrative where these obviously jewish characters are oppressed by the entire world with a perceived reason. like a legitimate reason to be afraid of someone, of a people. they turn into 50ft tall fucking man eating monsters!! i just???? fuck it. iām pretty much here stRICTLY to see if he does anything to surprise me in a pleasant way. but let me tell you something: iām not going to be even a little surprised if nothing good comes of it. if this series ends and itās still about haha...jewish people oppressed...haha...no light at the end of the tunnel. despair for them. most dead. or, as many have speculated from the start, they all die. to you, two-thousand years from now: hey we were a nation, until we were wiped out.
aNYWAY this has been bothering me for a long time. iām sorry my thoughts are scattered. iām still upset about it. this is why iāve been deleting most asks about snk or brushing them off.
attack on titan is not worth caring about and i am deeply disturbed by its existence. not because of the vore. not because of the gore. but because i am caught up with the manga and know where it goes.
and here is my personal advice: if attack on titan is your big thing and you are not caught up on the manga, justā¦start looking at other series. try. you might not be completely crushed by the things that end up happening but
not worth it. it is not worth it to care deeply about or defend, there is not really any defending the horrible things it doesā¦do not feel the need to defend it because you love it. please examine it critically if you are caught up and just accept that horrible awful terrible fucking decisions were made. i will not be a ball of anger at anyone who still is entertained but
do not defend it. there is no way to defend writing a story about shocking horrible violent vore for the sake of shock and horror and having it be about what it is
season 2 is coming out and if you watch it pleaseā¦do not keep your hopes up for the rest of the series even if the season is well-made. i have no idea how far it will animate this time but i have reason to doubt that the entire manga will be animated or that it will be animated faithfully.
and i sure fucking hope it does not, or that at least it does and it gets enough backlash to open up conversationā¦
āGrief, Iāve learned, is really love. Itās all the love you want to give but cannot give. The more you loved someone, the more you grieve. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes and in that part of your chest that gets empty and hollow feeling. The happiness of love turns to sadness when unspent. Grief is just love with no place to go.ā
If youāre the mood for a feelgood movie but doesnāt quite know what to watch, please consider watching Furlough (2018).
It tells the story of a rookie correction officer who has the opportunity to become a full-time employee if she agrees to take an inmate to visit her dying mother.
I kept expecting some gut-wrenching drama or something Badā¢ to happen, but it never came. Itās just a pretty easygoing movie with moments that will make you laugh.
(Plus, youāll get to see Tessa Thompson in adorableĀ kitty pajamas!)
Iād recommend watching the movie without checking out the trailer so no moment of it will be spoiled for you, butĀ if youāre the kind of person who hasĀ to watch trailers to decide if itāll be worth your time (no judgement!), here it is:
Ojisama to Neko:Ā āFukumaru-chanā
[Original comic can be found on Twitter HERE]
I donāt know if my heart could take working in a pet store, taking care of animals and seeing them go like thatā¦ ah, Iām too sentimental. Maybe thatās why I prefer a profession where I can work with animals that have already been dead for millions of years.
As a side note, I actually laughed while translating this- I translated it asĀ āgentlemanā because that seemed most appropriate in-context, but the word that the clerk actually used for Ojisama isĀ āikemen,ā which refers to a āladiesā manā or a generally handsome/charming guy. I love that even in-universe, everyone loves Ojisama.
PLEASE SUPPORT THE ORIGINAL ARTIST ON TWITTER AND PIXIV. VOLUME ONE OF THE OFFICIAL MANGA CAN BE PURCHASED ON AMAZON HERE.