#i also love when people double down on heavily disliking something for no real reasons by joking around that they just like hating things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snkpolls · 3 years

Text

SnK Chapter 135 Poll Results

This month’s poll closed with 2,264 entries. The poll results were compiled by momtaku, /u/_Puppet_, /u/berthototototo, u/staraves

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,980 responses

Volume 34 started off on a high note with “Battle of Heaven and Earth” being our 7th highest rated chapter with an average of 4.61.

Easily the best action based chapter post timeskip

Very action dominated chapter this time. Just pure adrenaline, not many answers. Not complaining though, great chapter!

Best chapter since 122, hype levels were great, pacing was great, just overall great really.

What I loved about this chapter is that this was the first time I REALLY felt the suspense, the kind of suspense where it looks our heroes can not win the fight and all hope is lost. It was a very similar feeling I experienced in the first chapters of Attack on Titan where the fight against Pure Titans always felt like the enemy had the upper hand and our heroes were fighting a losing battle that they could only fight to mitigate the losses as low as possible

A chapter will less talk more fight. It's been a while.

I loved this chapter immensely. For months, this was the first I could finally rate the highest.

We are near the end, oh god, this was a a hell of a journey from 2013 as a manga reader it is for me one of the best manga I have ever read

Everything about this was awesome from bucket girl Ymir to all the previous titan shifters to bird Falco. There was so much I had to wrap my head around, so I’m going to have to read this a couple more times.

So many mysteries I just don’t want it to be rushes uwu and for us to only be getting a chapter per MONTH can you throw us some bones PLEASE

I’m rethinking everything I thought I knew about the manga

We're hanging on a razor's edge between masterpiece and ruin. Whatever happens, please let it be well executed. . .

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE OVERALL MOMENT?

2,001 responses

This chapter was filled with lore, action and great individual character moments but seeing the fantastical forms of titans past brought into the fight was our favorite moment with 31.4% of the total. “Mikasa carrying the whole damn team” was second with 24.7%. The arrival of the flying titan (10.6%), the vision of Bertholt Hoover (10%) and Pieck rushing forward with the bombs (6.9%) round out the top five.

One of my all-time favourites probably, I absolutely loved all the character interactions as well as the amazing new titan designs.

Bert back! Bert back! Bert back!!! <333333

I really did like it, all those previous titans forms are interesting and see that the manga is very soon to end, I can't wait to know the end.

The chapter hasn't changed anything fundamentally but was exited to see OG Ymir

A demonstration of the despair and hopelessness of fighting Ymir

Bird!!! Falco!!! And!!! Ghost!!! Bertholdt!!! YES! YES! YES!

Really liked Jean and Reiners moments this chapter,

Bringing back old titans was really badass and intimidating.

Tentacle porn. That is all.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE COMRADE-RELATED MOMENT? 1,969 responses

With a battle involving Alliance teamwork and some visits from old friends, this chapter had many moments between current and former comrades. The wholesome scene between Jean and Reiner packed with an Armored Titan joke garnered the majority of votes (50.2%), with others favoring Armin’s vision of Bertolt (15.9%), and Annie’s reunion at the end of the chapter (14.1%).

jean saving reiner really moved me i really love these characters and after seeing them fighting it was nice seeing one saving the other. i mean jean had a really good reason to hate reiner and he previously said that he would never forgive him but he did and it was nice

Loved that scene between Jean and Reiner. Jean came a long way since his selfish oppotunistic days: Not letting Reiner fall, even though he really hated him. Actually willing to die. Great character development.

I'm curious to see, what effect this might have on Reiner: I mean he was being called a member of the survey corps again and therefore he was kind of being ""forgiven"".

Jean-Reiner-Bromance!

Connie x Levi canon

Ngl, I felt a great satisfaction as ghost Bertolt looked down on Armin who was suffocating from that giant tongue lmao

at this point I think that the ackertalk is sadly never happening. A missed opportunity.

WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER’S MVP? 1,973 responses

It’s Mikasa nation domination with 52.4% of the vote. There were a lot of great character moments but it’s hard to beat the one who stopped the manga ending prematurely! There was also appreciation for Ymir (12.8%) who brought in some interesting Titan designs and a great fight. 11.8% gave the nod to Falco for swooping in for the last minute save. 6.3% were hyped for Pieck’s no-nonsense charge, and 4.1% liked seeing Levi push himself in battle despite needing another couple of months in bed.

Levi has been severely injured for not even a week, yet he held his own and saved Connie AND Jean. I don't ever want to hear any whiny criticisms about this man ever again.

If Pieck dies we riot

Jean is best

Love Mikasa sm

MIKASA SUPREMACYYY GO BEST GIRL

Loved Reiner and Jean moment as well as Mikasa’s bad assery!

Mikasa was amazing this chapter

Pieck, the only one to make a move against Eren directly while the rest are too much up in their feelings. Best girl moment right there <3

Mikasa was so badass!! Love to see it

Mikasa was the BOMB in this chapter, loved that winged panel of hers.

My God I loved it, Mikasa was so badass, especially in that speech scene with her wings, Falco is best boy, I loved the interactions and everyone saving each other

THE CHAPTER IS TITLED “BATTLE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH”, WHAT DOES THIS REFER TO? 1,942 responses

The most popular interpretation of the title “Battle of Heaven and Earth” seems to be designating Ymir as the Heaven, and the Alliance as the Earth (42.6%), with the reverse of that being the second most popular (27.8%). In third came the idea that it relates to Ymir using the titans of deceased Eldians (20.9%).

A battle that people might die in (Heaven) or survive (Earth)

A battle which has consequences for both Heaven (Paths) and Earth (The World)

The alliance fighting in the heavens while the colossal titans destroy the earth.

It is a reference to Ragnarok.

multiple viable interpretations. the ascended vs descended, the heavenly winged mikasa vs the now devil of all earth ymir, the winged titan against the earthly titans.

Probably a weird take, but it reminds me 131. Eren being in the Heaven as his coping mechanism and Ymir being on the ground (earth)

I’m not sure but it’s in reference to the 4th chapter titled First Battle. Just like last chapter referenced the 5th chapter.

Heaven: Paradis. Earth: beyond the sea.

all of the above- YOU GET SYMBOLIC METAPHORS, AND YOU GET SYMBOLIC METAPHORS

because the battles are in the sky while on earth the colosus step down on earth

***ohhh heaven is a place on earth***

WE’D PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT YMIR WAS UNJUSTIFIABLY FRAMED BY HER PEERS. DOES LEARNING THAT SHE FREED THE PIGS AFFECT HOW YOU VIEW HER? 1,952 responses

Ymir apparently freeing the pigs was an unexpected opening for the chapter. For 34.4% this action meant that Ymir has always been #TeamFreedom. A sizable 18.8% think this relatively minor reveal makes her way more suspicious. Closely following that, 18% think it means nothing at all. It’s just a cool detail that resolved a mystery.

It's trying to say that since Ymir freed the pigs, she created this whole mess which I heavily dislike since it goes against what her character was in 122

When back in 122 everyone was foaming about tHe FuCkInG pIgS, I was rolling my eyes so hard, because to me the pigs were insignificant: it does not matter who set them free, they might have just run away on their own, what matters is that Ymir is the one they blame, which started the whole story. NOW, huh, the pigs might be important, or at least it really might have been Ymir who let them go, set them free. She couldn't get free herself, so she granted freedom to the poor animals.

I always just assumed Ymir set the pigs free, I didn't realize it was something people saw as ambiguous until now…

I wasn't expecting any of that sh*t, and now I'm certain that Ymir is the real baddie here

Peppa Pig is free

WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN YMIR FREEING THE PIGS AND LOOKING DOWN AT THE ALLIANCE? 1,835 responses

The chapter opens with Ymir after freeing the pigs from the pen, but what does this mean? It’s close, but the most popular option is that Ymir is recalling that the last time she prioritised the idea of freedom the suffering was not worth it (29.9%), followed by the assertion there’s no deeper meaning (22.3%). A close third place of votes believe the connection is that Ymir has given up acts of selflessness as she doubles down on the rumbling (21.8%) and an even closer fourth place see it as her looking down on the Alliance as if they were the caged animals (21.4%).

Did she free the pigs out of compassion, or to spite her master? Is the rumbling everything to put the pigs back in the pen, or to get revenge on those who scorned Eldians?

How it started versus where it's ended up. All this torment and death because of something so minuscule because of human cruelty towards each other.

It seems like a parallel between Ymir freeing the pigs and Ymir freeing the past titans.

It shows she's an actor with agency and motivations, whether in her slave-like state or her god-like position

It was her first act of free will, and her routing the scouts it technically her third, so in a way they are parallel actions.

She looks at humans like pigs

She wants freedom, and the only way to obtain it is to kill the alliance

She's still in a cage, represented by the bones of Eren

She has been stewing in everything she has gone through for 2000 years and that might've turned her hateful.

it is possible that after looking at humanity for hundreds of years that she believes that it is not human's nature to be compassionate like her, but to fight each other until no one remains, and she has decided to speed up to what she feels is the inevitable conclusion so that her ghost can be gone for good.

WHY IS YMIR THE ONE ACTIVELY FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE ALLIANCE? 1,919 responses

Armin notes that Ymir seems to be the one in control of the titans, why is this? The large majority at 54.5% believe her to be working side by side with Eren. About ¼, at 24.8% think she’s stepping in for Eren while she’s unconscious, while the minority at 20.7% think she’s overpowered Eren and is the real big bad of the story.

If she really wants the whole humanity to perish, then it means she lost all hope in humanity and is like an empty shell who has never experienced any drop of love. I feel that Ymir doesn't really care about protecting or helping Eren. She just wants to see an empty world - without humans.

The chapter was really well drawn. Also I see lots of new possibilities to happen, as Eren being a slave, Ymir perhaps becoming the final villain. it also makes to recall back to chapter 1 when I see Eren crying in front of Mikasa after some sort of "dream". This makes me think that Eren will eventually come to regret his actions but it's gonna be too late. thus he receives this dream but he is never able to see it through. Quite a sad fate. Although that's just a speculation on my part.

Armin questioning Ymir's role has me hoping for an Armin talk no jutsu with Ymir.

Eren and Ymir are unbeatable

Ymir/Eren are the only ones who can build titans right now. They baited Falco and Annie to return to get all of the 9 shifters near the founder again and they are planning something.

It warmed my heart seeing Ymir protecting her otosan as a thank you for bringing her with him on Take Your Daughters to Work Day 🥺

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO ARMIN BEING FRENCHED BY A TITAN? 1,957 responses

In one of the weirdest moments in recent memory, Armin gets french kissed by a titan of the past. 42% of fans think it makes sense, as it was the only way to stop him from biting himself to transform. 36.1% feel bad for Armin as he’s gotten molested and now this, he just can’t catch a break. 14.2% are scared to ask if this constitutes fanservice, and 7.8% are too grossed out to think about it any longer.

When I wanted a non-Annie pairing for Armin, I wasn't expecting this. Stop harrassing my poor boy.

the chapter has already spawned Armin tentacle hentai and that makes it the best chapter in the whole manga

Armin capture thing was a little weird but makes sense IMO.

I know Armin being captured in that way has a narrative purpose, but that was disturbing in the end and i hate people will/ and are joking about it.

It didn't cross my mind that the frenching was to prevent Armin from transforming until I saw the vote option. Thank you.

WILL THE CANNONS AT FORT SALTA DO BETTER OR WORSE THAN THE BLIMPS? 1,920 responses

Fort Salta’s own forces don’t seem very effective as of yet, with the blimps almost completely failing, and now they turn to three cannons. Not a single respondent thinks they’ll do anything (Not that we gave them the option), though more think they’ll do nothing in red.

Them cannons, it will be effective.

They’ll get hit by the fort’s cannons but they probably won’t be very effective

KARINA SAW THE ARMORED TITAN GET CHOMPED IN FRONT OF HER VERY EYES. HOW WILL THIS AFFECT HER? 1,924 responses

Even though the Plot-Armored Titan escaped death yet again, all Karina saw was her son’s flesh mecha being chomped from afar. 37.3% are finding it hard to care about Karina’s struggle, but of the ones who did have an answer, 31.2% think the purpose of the death fake-out is so she can better appreciate when Reiner is alive and well later. Just under a fifth at 19.3% think she’ll do something rash while thinking her son is dead, unsurprisingly more than the 12.2% who think Karina would do something nice for once.

fuck karina

reiner always manages to escape death

JEAN POINTS OUT THAT THE SPAWNING TITANS ARE NOT MINDLESS. WHAT IS THEIR TRUE NATURE? 1,933 responses

It was a close one, but a plurality of respondents (38.1%) thought that the shifters brought forth by Ymir were the real deal, their souls controlled in death. Or their spirits? Their essences? Their… PATHS GHOSTS? Slightly fewer respondents (36.8%) think they’re just empty clones, Ymir simply not bothering with creating new forms since that would probably take a fuckton more years. 23.7% are somewhere between the two other options – maybe these shifters aren’t really present, but some of their will remains.

The fact that Armin saw Bertolt tells me that a part of the titan's "souls" still exist within them and they're being forced to do Ymir's bidding

The founding titan powers give her complete control over sentient shifters, and the attack titan powers (utilized by the founding titan) lets Ymir reach back in time and utilize the shifter's "essence" (maybe they all had a weird dream they don't remember), and obviously the warhammer titan is what allows them to take form. Beast titan go brrrrr

I have a small theory about souls of past shifters being imprisoned in some paths area or insubconscious mind of current titan shifters.

I’m conflicted between the two first answers but I hope there empty clones

At first, I thought it would be like Zeke's titans in Ragako (the anime showed their weird coordinated dance). But looking at Bertholdt, it seems they're not acting on free will but are still a bit conscious.

If you chomp one, do you get its power?

They are empty vessel's resurrected the only reason Armin saw Bertolt was becuase armin was the holder of the collosal titan! In my opinion of course

They are ghost/ spirits of the past shifter, which have a limited consciousness like zombies

They are moving according to the old users skills, like a saved “data”

They are the ones who volunteered to be in the walls when the Eldians escaped to Paradis. They sympathise with Eren and are fighting for him.

They are the real shifters working with Ymir

We see Bert crying right before we see his titan try to eat Reiner —— maybe he’s being forces by Ymir.

The souls of the previous titan holders can see what is happening though paths but they don't have control over it

Ymir created them via the shifters' own memories respectively. The Beetholdt panel might show hesitation of wanting to grab Reiner for example and emphasizes on the theme of Slavery. How to achieve freedom you must steal freedom (Erwn said he stole the world's freedom to achieve his own) or enslave/oppress someone or a group.

Ymir created them while eren is using them

souls being completely controlled but can be revoked original consciousness back,cringe naruto shit.

Through PATHS all is possible

ISAYAMA WENT ALL OUT WITH TITAN DESIGNS. WHICH ANCIENT TITANS DID YOU MOST ENJOY SEEING? 1,926 responses

The most popular design in Isayama’s titan showcase by a decent margin was the “Faceless Titan” (45.8%), with “The Thing Titan” coming in second (34.4%). In third was the “Minotaur Titan” (32.4%) and narrowly in fourth, the “Mummified Titan” (31.3%). Interestingly, 2/4 of the top designs appear to be previous Warhammer Titans, which is fitting with it being one of the most popular titan designs. Well, except for the one we saw in Ymir’s backstory that had hair. We all agreed that thing was atrocious.

I loved the previous titan shifters.

croco titan best boi

There's a lot of titans missing, so I'll say here that I love the dinosaur titan, the bearded titan and the ghost-like titan as well.

that 'wolverine' titan is actually a deer. It kind of blends in with Reiner's armor but you can see the antlers if you look closely.

always wanted to see ancient titan designs since learning about the inheritance and such, so this is a dream come true for a fanartist

Previously, it was left to our imagination what all these past Titan Shifters looked like, but thanks to this chapter (through the power of PATHS!), we got to see many of them for ourselves. A nice treat from Isayama, but also a mind-blowing one, especially with how they intervened in the fight.

Seeing all these past Titan Shifters appear like that was so interesting to me that it made me analyze each one and try to identify which was an old Jaw Titan, an old Beast Titan, an old Cart Titan, an old Warhammer Titan, and so on, so this chapter also felt like a fun guessing game in that regard!

Adding animals to the mix just feels like a try hard to make them scary. If he wanted them to have some real crazy powers it could've been done better imo, having these many animals just thrown around didn't make sense to me, we already got the beast titan and that bird titan. It's enough animals for me, especially since initially what made titans so scary in the first place was how identical they are to humans, only differing in their mounstrous size.

I never liked the idea of animal titans, it just feels so weird and out of place with no explanation for why or how they are animal-like. That being said, some of the other titan designs were pretty rad.

Show us Kruger's titan though

WHICH RETURNING TITAN DID YOU MOST ENJOY SEEING? 1,925 responses

In a chapter filled with new titans of the past we also saw some classic designs. By far the most hype-inducing one among fans was the Colossal Titan at 66.6%, followed by the War Hammer at 19.6%, Porco’s Jaw at 12.2%, and Marcel’s Jaw at 1.5%.

I loved how the one, true and only OG Colossal Titan of Bertholdt descended upon them like a fucking God

since there was no ""Other"" option in the ""favourite moment"" question, I'll say it here: Marcel's titan was my favourite moment.

Last chapter I was wondering if there'll be "another Beast Titan clone". We end up getting the entire museum lmao

The Colossal Titan, the God of the SnK world, appeared as the judge (while aldo not being himself, ironically) seriously, it was amazing

The Colossal Titan's entrance was like sweet karma, after how the SC murdered Bertold brutally and never cared one bit, they still couldn't get rid of him. SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS kekekek

THERE’S BEEN SOME DEBATE BUT IT SEEMS FRECKLED YMIR WASN’T THERE. IS THIS SIGNIFICANT? 1,900 responses

Ah, the innocent days of our freckled goddess… she may have turned out to be a regular girl, but where was she when our other old friends were running around? There were a couple of Titans who looked a bit like her, but none with both her little gremlin body and her distinctive nose and teeth. Does it matter? 63.8% of you don’t think there’s anything to it. Maybe she’ll be in the next chapter, or maybe Yams forgot her… maybe she’s chilling with Grisha and Kruger. 36.2% think there could be something more to her absence so far.

i hope freckled ymir came back ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

I think it's highkey sus that we didn't see freckled Ymir's titan and that really gives me hope that Historia really will have an important part in the finale since it feels like Yams is saving freckled Ymir for a Historia moment

about freckles... i think her titan was the one that was gonna try and eat reiner/jean. dark hair, thin arms, small facial features.

I feel like her foreground omission isn't a big deal, since we're already two Jaws in, both of whom have more impactful connections to those present.

I want freckled Ymir back

ymir freckles did make an appearance, wasn’t she the titan attacking reiner as he was holding onto jean that mikasa slashed?

I believe Freckeld Ymir's Jaw Titan is shown when Bertholdt's Colossal Titan attempts to eat Reiner. It's very small though so it's hardly noticeable and I can't even confirm that it was indeed her Titan but it seemed like it.

YOU GAVE ME HOPE ABOUT FRECKLED YMIR DAMN YOU and thank you

SINCE ALL THE TITAN OTHER SHIFTERS SUMMONED THIS CHAPTER WERE DECEASED, DOES THIS MEAN ZEKE IS DEAD? 1,953 responses

Ymir summoned titans of the past according to Pieck, does that mean Zeke is of the past now too? The fandom is overall undecided on this one, as about half don’t know, at 48.5%. 32.7% are confident Zeke is still around, and 18.8% take this as confirmation of his death.

Zeke may not be dead, because the beast titan summoned last chapter could be Xavier's beast titan too. Because in one earlier Marley arc chapter, someone mentioned that "The beast titan is the same as ever". Meaning, Xavier's beast titan was also monke.

IF Zeke is alive, it means that Pieck is once again somehow "faking" her defeat and goes for the detonator but then she somehow runs into Zeke. They have a lot of history and too much stuff unresolved between them and because of eren/armin and zeke/pieck dynamics is that those 2 stayed on the founding titan..

I think Zeke and Bertolt are both stuck in paths, unable to properly die. I hope Zeke is just shackled making titans like we saw him in 120. That would be poetic, for the one who hates his Eldian blood so much to be forced to enact the one thing that made him hate himself (the existence of titans).

I just realized that in the last chapter I thought Zeke was there but it was the shot of the Marleyan general saying ""I am sorry""... I was writing about how Zeke cannot be dead, what are you all talking about, he is right there, then went and checked 134. Now I'm just sitting here with no answers at all. Zeke could be anywhere, alive or dead, no clue...

CHEKHOV’S EXPLOSIVES CONTINUE, AND THIS CHAPTER PIECK ENSURED THEY WERE RIGHT NEXT TO EREN. WHO WILL DETONATE THEM? WILL THEY BE EFFECTIVE? 1,121 responses

We asked what you think would come of the explosives that have been built up for eight chapters now, and collated your responses. First, who will detonate them?

Pieck: 182

Mikasa: 140

Armin: 134

Reiner: 99

Gabi: 81

Levi: 71

Connie: 38

Jean: 29

Annie: 23

Falco: 14

Eren: 6

Ymir: 2

Zeke/Onyankopon/Bertholdt: 1

There were also 7 mentions of the cannons that the Marleyans got ready to use this chapter actually coming in handy, and setting off the explosives. It’s also noteworthy that Pieck is thought of more than any other character to be likely to sacrifice her life to get it done. Additionally, many people who put forth Armin detonating them suggested this occurs through his titan transformation igniting them, not just him using the detonator.

In terms of success, 255 said that the explosives would either do nothing or overall be ineffective, with the most commonly given reason being that Eren is not in the nape. 250 said that the explosives will be helpful one way or another, including 7 who said they would end Eren’s life (Most of these involved Mikasa as the detonator). 9 people specified that they hope the bombs don’t do anything, 25 said nobody will detonate them at all, and 2 said it will be effective but will make things worse.

They will play an important role in the Climax, one way or another

warhammer can just throw the explosive after it deals with pieck

His neck is covered with more bones and the blimps didn't hurt them, but the explosives are as close as possible, so I think maybe they could work.

100% those explosives will be used in one way or an other, but i have a feeling that eren is not even there ;)

Annie will likely be able to get close to Pieck, as her titan is very agile and will activate the explosives that will be able to get Eren out of her giant's head

Could be anyone. The way they're set up, they must have some effect.

Could be Jean or Connie and maybe the rumbling will be paused or the Eren's skeleton will collapse as the story continues..

Connie and he will die doing so, doing few damage but someone will be like "hey he gave us a weakness we can exploit"

if they are effective, mikasa but if they arent it will be connie or jean

Doesn’t matter who detonates them it won’t be effective

Eren better pull a Reiner and transfer his consciousness. Isayama introduced that shit on purpose. Peick probably playing dead and will try to detonate to no avail.

Gabi is going to detonate them and save Pieck too. The explosion might help in the fight, but I doubt Eren is in the neck, my bet its Zeke who is in there.

Eren, once all the shifters are dead he will detonate it killing himself and ensuring all titans are reborn in Historias baby, truly freeing ymir and ending the curse of the titans.

Fort Salta Cannons will detonate them. They wont be effective because Eren is hiding in Paradis with the Warhammer Titan power (or he can transfer his consciousness to the rest of his spine in case he really is there).

Levi will detonate them to kill Zeke who is actually the one in the nape

Levi will give up on his dream of killing Zeke and die sacrificing himself to detonate it

Pieck will sacrifice herself to detonate the fuse and when she does she will fall to her doom. She will be content in knowing that it will work. She lits it up and falls at the same time. When shes falling she feels a great sense of acceptance, but all of a sudden Falco swoops in to save her with everyone on his back. As they watch it blow up the body keeps moving for eren was not there to begin with.

I think Ymir will use them against the alliance

Oyankopon drops a flying knee into the plunger in an act of self-sacrifice.

titanfolk: Kaboom?

Isayama: Yes titanfolk, kaboom.

WHY IS ARMIN HAVING THE VISION OF BERTOLT? 1,928 responses

In one of the more confusing panels of this crazy chapter, we see Bertolt standing over Armin. 39.6% believe it to be a fragment of Berthold brought back through the Colossal Ymir summoned, 25.5% think Bertoto has awareness in an afterlife, 25.1% think Armin is having a memory from his predecessor Burrito, and 7.3% think Ymir is just messing with Armin.

Grabbing Armin allowed Ymir to access Bertolt's titan, similar to how they have Zeke captive for his Beast titan

It's some kind of twist that's coming related to the whole predecessor memory stuff.

Some kind of PTSD vision brought on by being put in a Titans mouth

Since this was an ongoing issue how Armin didn't seem to have access to Berth's memories, he'll probably will see some of them soon. And especially the one, where Eren says to Levi that Armin will save humanity, not him. That will give him the last push to do whatever.

The scene with Bertholdt was a direct recall of when Armin woke up after eating him, and seeing him crying in the form of the Colossal Titan's skull and saying "it hurts" in chapter 85. My poor boy :( He was probably suffering from eternal torment in an afterlife/paths related place. Shifters' Hell would be a good word, as Ymir Fritz kinda had the same experience being enslaved for eternity

Him seeing Bertolt for the second time makes me think these two are going to switch places at some point. That being said it's not the end-end for Armin, and Eren is definitely reserving him a seat in whatever path underground there is.

I thought Armin was feeling the despair/hopelessness that Bertolt did while the warriors were undercover in Paradis. The paralyzing dread of the task before him, even though he is the "strongest titan"

Bertolt's individual "soul" still exists as a singular entity, that lives within Paths. Armin as his inheritor has a soul-link to him, can see him, recall his memories and even feel some of his feelings. However his presence here will serve for Armin to make some kind of realisation that will help conclude the battle.

YOUR THOUGHTS ON MIKASA IN THIS CHAPTER? 1,942 responses

We knew Mikasa would likely be chapter MVP but we wanted to give her an extra shoutout for a great chapter. Only 9.1% percent refused to play along. A majority of nearly 60% agreed with all our gushing about her performance, selecting all of the above. Of the individual entries, “Bless those ackergenes” (10.2%), “They were goners without her” (8.8%) and “She was unbelievable” (7.9%) were top selections.

Isayama in November said mikasa character is coming and this chapter felt like the start of it and hoo was this Mikasa's chapter. We have known that Mikasa is one of three main MCs, and isayama had been foreshadowing Mikasa's role in the finale so much. I'm excited to read the final 3 chapters.

goat mikasaaaa

HEAD EMPTY JUST MIKASA SUPREMACy

I LOVE MIKASA

Loving all the Mikasa scenes. It’s about damn time,

Mikasa going "Fuck it. Fight me. All of you, I don't care if you're shifter clones, I'll kick your ass." was a great bit of dark humour and a really well done character beat. If she has to go down she'll go down fighting with pride.

THIS CHAPTER MIKASA FOUGHT TO THE END AFTER LEVI DELEGATED THE ATTACKING ROLE TO HER, A REVERSAL FROM FEMALE TITAN ARC. IS MIKASA HUMANITY'S NEW STRONGEST SOLDIER? 1,940 responses

Levi has always been humanity’s strongest soldier, but this chapter had Mikasa being the only one fighting till the end. This being temporary due to Levi’s worn down body is the consensus, with 49.3% affirming its brief nature while 34.3% venture that Mikasa will one day take on this mantle permanently.13.8% believe she has surpassed even what a healed Levi would be capable of, and 2.7% do not think she’s surpassed him in any way.

I’m glad to see a lot more female empowerment with Mikasa being a major hit in this chapter. I got very worried with the amount of saving Levi had to go through and avoiding near deaths at some points.

Let the Humanity’s Strongest go down like a badass he’s always been, stop making him this pitiful please

LEVI NEEDS IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION HE MIGHT BE HAVING INTERNAL BLEEDING FROM THAT EXPLOSION AND HIS LEG BEING BITTEN MAKES IT EVEN WORSE FUCK

I BELIEVE IN LEVI'S SUPREMACY

Mikasa Ackerman supremacy

that wings really said mikasa is the most freest person now

I’d love it if isayama would stop crippling Levi. I know its to get him out of the fight but cmon

NOW THAT WE SEE IT IN ACTION, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF FALCO’S BIRD TITAN? 1,944 responses

Most fans are behind this controversial development at this point, with 46.8% loving it, and 29.3% not loving it but feeling that it fits in the chapter. 17.4% have changed their mind from negative to positive after seeing it in this chapter, and 6.5% will always hate this.

Falco's titan is amazing. He saved everyone and it's his second transformation, he is goat.

I liked Falco saving the day :) It doesn't matter to me how he learnt to fly and control his titan so fast. Maybe Zeke helped him via sending visions? Or maybe Falco is talented? I don't know and I think we have more important thing to read about

Falco Being able to fly a few hours after Hange's death makes this chapter less good.

The Flying Titan is questionable but everything else are great

the design of Bird Titan is kinda cringe

Porco must be very proud of his son

KIYOMI AND YELENA ARE NOT ON THE FLYING TITAN, ALONG WITH THE AZUMABITO ENGINEERS. ANY PREDICTIONS? 1,911 responses

After Kiyomi forebodingly accepted the risk of the ship sinking that also contained Yelena and the Azumabito engineers two chapters ago, she has not been seen since despite Falco now arriving. The majority of you (70.2%) believe they’re fine, with the ship surviving Falco’s transformation, while just under a quarter (23.2%) believing both drowned on the sinking ship, and a slim minority (6.6%) believe they are with our main crew on the Flying Titan.

Yelena better be okay

I wonder where is yelena

I just want to learn how the rest of the Azumabito family are doing after Falco transformed into the Titan.

ISAYAMA’S DONE IT AGAIN! WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE THROWBACK THIS CHAPTER? 1,936 responses

Isayama loves himself some throwbacks and this chapter was no exception. Mikasa giving a speech reminiscent of her Trost speech was the most popular option at 32.9%, with Armin dreaming of Bertolt crying similar to his dream of the Colossal Titan was a close second at 28.2%. Rounding out the top three was Falco taking a bird form in parallel with the Fort Slava scene we just saw in the anime.

It was like going back to Trost arc amazing wise... It was really a good one full of quotes from previous memorable moments of the series, while reading it i thought "wow, it really is ending

I think it significantly has to do with his memory of the colossal crying after RtS so perhaps it's a near death state experience of his predecessor for Armin

I'm also interested to see what Armin is going to do next. He seems to think back to Erwin whenever he gets himself into a pickle. I'm excited to see how he will use his titan in this battle.

Based on the parallels with Trost the only bomb that's blowing Eren out of his titan is Armin's Colossal Titan.

DO YOU AGREE WITH ANY OF THESE CRITICISMS ABOUT THE CHAPTER? 1,428 responses

No chapter is free from criticism, so we scoured discord, twitter and reddit looking for the most common complaints. The lack of character deaths seemed to be on many minds. “There was too much plot armor” and “Eren and OG Ymir are too OP” were the two options that got over 30%. Grumblings about the flying titan (26.1%) and Mikasa with a winged background (23.9%) were also common selections. I think what’s most telling is that ⅓ of respondents skipped this question entirely indicating that they had no major complaints at all

Everything was going 10/10 until the flying titan came and saved everyone. Another chapter with 0 deaths this late in the story.

I really love that mikasa with wings so much. It means for me she's the hope of humanity.she's ackerman so ymir can't control her... she will have a big roll at the end!

Being able to recreate old Titans is too OP

not too sold on the whole spawning in Titans and a flying bird that just recently got their power swooping in to save everyone

I'm completely sold on the idea of past shifters being summoned. Some people may say it's quite an asspull, but honestly, I've had a little problem with this series, which is that the Coordinate has been teased as the power of God itself but we've never seen that in action, so I'm satisfied. I'm not a big fan of the flying titan (teasing things is not the same as justifiying things) and the lack of character deaths made me think Hanji could have died this chapter, which would've been more meaningful honestly. Still, I'm very happy to say Isayama has surprised me once again.

WAYYYYYYYYYY TOO MUCH PLOT ARMOR

I know people are getting stomped on right now, but was expecting at least someone to die.

I don't mind the flying titan, but I would've liked just another hint that the beast titan can be any animal. The very first one in Ymir's flashback was an ape, could've been a dinosaur or something!

You never wanted to accept that this series was a shounen manga aimed at little boys, did you?

DOES THIS CHAPTER ADD EVIDENCE TO THE THEORY THAT HANGE’S VISION WAS REAL? 1,929 responses

On the poll team, our first step in preparing results is looking for spam. We identify that primarily by looking at timestamps and bursts of entries that choose to answer only a single question in rapid succession. Typically we see this behavior on shippy questions and those involving Gabi, so it’s been puzzling that in the last year the only questions to get significant spam are those involving Hange’s vision. Clearly someone, or maybe a few someones, are very afraid of ghosts.

With the spam entries removed, the Yes’s outweighed the No’s by 54-46 percent on the question of whether or not this chapter added evidence to the theory that Hange’s vision was real.

The ghosts of Eldians past are definitely going to feature in the endgame I think. The shifters are the most important but Hange's vision makes it clear that they're all "alive" in Paths somehow. Let freckled Ymir talk to Historia once more!!

I hate conscious development

I bet Hanji is screaming in the afterlife, wanting to be on top of Falco's titan

HAS THE FOCUS ON BIRDS IN THE ANIME OP/ED ADDED EVIDENCE THAT THE BIRDS IN PREVIOUS CHAPTERS ARE SIGNIFICANT? 1,913 responses

Bird theory (/birds being significant in some large way) has been gaining traction recently in the manga already, and then the anime made a whole ED theme about them and had them in focus in the OP as well. In one of the most one sided poll results in recent memory, almost 90% of the fandom feels this is evidence of birds being significant, while 10.7% say no.

birb

Birb

bird

Bird

bird

birds

DESCRIBE THE CHAPTER IN ONE WORD 1,330 responses

This month’s top 5 chosen words bear a resemblance to last month’s, specifically with 1-3 being in last month’s and 1 & 3 being in the last two months. “Chaos” is one more on the original side for this chapter.

Amazing [96]

Epic [50]

Awesome [48]

Chaos/Good/Great [27]

Cool [26]

And in a shocking turn of events, this question is being used to concoct recipes again? Well, it’s a bit of a stretch, but it doesn’t sound half bad.

Nuts

Lasagna

Goat

Cheesy

Chicken

Bertholdt

Chomp

Juicy

Exquisite

ISAYAMA RECENTLY ESTIMATED THERE IS 1-2% LEFT OF THE STORY. WHAT CHAPTER DO YOU THINK THE MANGA WILL END AT? 1,941 responses

I don’t know why Isayama does it, but he keeps assuring us the end is near. But we’ve guessed the end is near since… oh, RTS? Then Marley? Then when the Rumbling started? Remember when chapter 130 was the max? Don’t worry, the ride will end someday. 35.5% think chapter 139 will be the last, giving the final volume five chapters. 33% are sticking with 138, the classic four chapter volume. 28.7% think we’re strapped in for a little longer at 140+ chapters. 2.5% think we’re wrapping up in just two chapters. And 6 respondents think the next chapter is the last! Gonna guess you’re either hoping for Falco to crash into a tree or you’re just tired of this ride. (Sorry, the ride never ends.)

I'm worried about the pacing. While I was glad to have a glimpse of Bert (and Erwin) again, his appearance is long overdue. Along with a whole bag of other characters who need resolutions. I don't know how Isayama will delegate worthwhile endings to this huge cast and themes in 3-4 chapters.

Each chapter makes me feel there's 3 chapters left (and there has passed more than 3 chapters since I thought that for the first time xd)

Another amazing chapter. I see the story ending at Chapter 139. Three more chapters of action, deaths and twists, and one more epilogue chapter.

There's apparently not much of the series left but this chapter still doesn't feel like we're that near the end :/

I was expecting a lot of people to die this time around, but I guess that'll happen later considering we seem to have one more volume left after this one. That actually raises my hopes a bit on the ending not being as rushed as we were afraid it would be. And the return of the anime on top of that? Man, I'm not ready to say goodbye. :(

I'm worried if Isayama will be able to end every character arc. I mean, we're left with 1 or 2% of manga and there is this quite a lot of things to end. I just hope ending won't be rushed.

...it just added a lot of questions like Yams has to give us 5 chapters for the last volume at this point lol.

dunno how this ends with everyone being satisfied. Estimating that 3 chapters are left we need a conclusion to Reiner, Mikasa and the promised Eren and Armin confrontation. While there's mysteries like Zeke's whereabouts, what's going on w Historia, why can ymir manifest herself in the real world, what did eren mean by saying "you haven't gotten to the part where I eat our old man", Bertholdt shard of him getting spared by Dina and Mikasa's see you later scene. Not to mention an epilogue where if alliance wins we get to see how the world treats the eldians now. Im already losing faith that minor characters might be just cannon fodder and I find myself saying "Its Isayama. one chapter where it feels nothing happened doesn't meant we're getting a rushed ending" too often these days.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,960 responses

It feels like there’s a lot to accomplish with so few chapters remaining. While Eren’s POV is still top on our wishlist (29%), “I don’t care just resolve a mystery, any of them” was the number two (19%). The third most common response was for Armin to come up with a plan (14%). Historia, Zeke and the more specific options all scored in single digits.

We need answers. NOW.

I liked this chapter but I’m getting tired of the mystery. We’ve been lead on for too long and there’s too many loose ends that need to be tied up already.

can we get eren’s pov now

Yes ! More Bertholdt please !!! I missed my big sweaty boy !

Where’s Freckled Ymir!!????!?!???!! Is Pieck okay!?!?!!!?!!

When will Levi die lol

Where armin

What happened to Armin!?? And does peick survive?

WHERE IS MONKE?!

Where the hell is eren?

I hope I can see Eren again

i hope isayama let levi kill zeke before he died , i want him to reunite with erwin and proudly tell him that he accomplish the mission

I just hope that Pieck and Armin are okay :((

i just want armin to be okay

I just want Eren/Mikasa, not all this shit(((

I just want to see Bertolt in the next chapter too

Wonder what is going on inside Ymir's head. Would also love to see Paradis' reaction to the ongoing massacre (if I didn't miss it somehow)

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,811 responses

While Reddit has historically stayed consistent, it’s been incredible to see the rise of Twitter and the fall of Tumblr as a dominant fandom platform. A year ago only 8% selected Twitter as their primary place for Attack on Titan discussion now that number is nearing 50%. Last month it became the most selected platform, surpassing Reddit, and this month proves it was no fluke.

wish i had irl friends who read the manga oof

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER? 526 responses

🧐

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Hentai

10/10 again !!! Isayama knows what he’s doing and I trust him with the ending❤️

2/10

GOOD chapter, definitely some eclipse vibes lol, Armin seemed to have realized Ymir is the one with the power and that they'll have to deal with her sooner or later to stop the rumbling. Next step is realizing Eren is 100% ready to kill him if he needs to. Maybe they'll stop trying to kill poor Zook for no reason now at least.

I loved seeing the alliance get there asses clapped

I hope Eren Yeager doesn’t love anyone from “Attack on Titan”.

But it's weird, I thought best Ymir was in the chapter too? She owes us so much, even more if SnK's afterlife is canon (Hange couldn't have known of Keith's death otherwise). And technically, Zeke could be dead like the others. First I was so bored by his constant plot armor but now...

The titan designs were got tier. Isayama came in clutch with these designs

There are still a lot of mysteries unsolved about the Titans and Eren's whereabouts is unknown. Would love to know more about the Ackerman blood too.

This poll is biased for not including statements against Mikasa and the Alliance.

If ymir creates the bodies of titan shifters, why did she give falco a bird form if she wants to stop them? Not saying it's a plot hole yet, but I hope there's a reason for it.

The title reminds me of the chinese saying of “天人交戰” which literally translates as battle between the heaven and human but means ones inner struggle. Maybe it is referring to eren’s inner struggle of wanting freedom and having to kill everything standing between him and freedom. Idk.

A lot of people have been trying to make sense why we're learning about Ymir freeing the pigs here of all places, but rather than it being evidence that she's some evil mastermind I think it's a representation of how devastating this cycle of hatred has been. In that first scene we see Ymir as a kind and empathetic girl who decides that though she can't free herself, she can still help these simple animals who she saw earlier also wanted to escape. But in the present, after suffering greatly for her kindness and being forced into servitude that lasted for countless years and even into death, we see Ymir not just as willing to commit a brutal omnicide on the rest of the world but as someone who is seemingly enslaving others in the pursuit of that goal - in many ways, she might be repeating the same crimes that were done to her by King Fritz.

After seeing the first episode of the new anime season and how well Mappa delivered on that, I cannot *wait* to see the crazy battle action of this chapter animated.

Armin, as expected, ended up a failure yet again. This is what Bertholdt, Erwin and Hange died for -_-

GIVE 👏 ARMIN 👏 A 👏GODDAMN 👏 BREAK

Armin is beginning to understand this always was about Ymir. After seeing her twice.

I really wish Armin could do something besides being tortured with doubt and getting captured.

BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK BERT IS BACK

can levi die already let this old man reunite with his homies in shingeki no heaven. at this point death is like the only peace and/or freedom anyone can get in this series which is kind of a shitty message

I'm a fan of how fucking OP Eren and Ancestor Ymir, which is honestly how it should be. I never expected The Alliance to stand a chance, and they all got fucking wrecked. I'm completely surprised nobody died, I feel like that'll be changed next chapter, though; unfortunately. My main question is: What the fuck do The Alliance plan to do next without Armin and Pieck? Also, seeing the past shifters was fucking amazing and I didn't expect that shit.

Decent chapter. I gave it a 3/5, because it was a purely action, set-up chapter with not so great action scenes, at least compared to other great fight scenes in the series. Still, we got quite a few nice panels and interesting powers, so i will be looking foreard to the payoff.

eren better be in the next chapter idc 🙄‼️

Eren is trying to kill his friends, Ymir is not controling him, he is FREE. Accept it already.

FALCO WILL EAT EREN LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I need this tension between mikasa and Eren resolved in the following chapters....these two are the only characters regarding whom I'm totally not sure what tf will end up happening to them.

Hange would've loved to see all the different types of titans from bygone times. I wish they were still alive, I miss them.

I can't believe that best boy Bertholdt Hoover, the one true God of Destruction, is back, and as usual, the first thing Isayama does is make him cry. Absolutely incredible. This is all I'll think of this month.

I think the Ymir revelation was huge but other than that it was an anxiety-inducing rollercoaster of will they, won't they (die). Nothing much happened. I feel antsy

I think there is a possibility that eren and ymir brought back the shifters because they agree (mostly) with the rumbling and bert is crying because he knows what he has to do to ensure it

I wonder if Ymir regrets setting those pigs free. It was the act that set her life into further misery. I think it's beautiful but tragic how Eren really gave her back the will to fight.

I'm blown away

I'm honestly shocked at how incredible this story has become. Much like Bertholt I feel like I'm fine with whatever happens, because this whole journey and the world are incredibly cruel. And that does not make it bad by any means, it makes it more meaningful.

I'm not a huge fan of the fight scenes so I'd just like to see a satisfying climax and conclusion to the fight soon. Looking forward to Levi killing Zeke and all the reunions.

I'm really optimistic about Bertholdt possibly coming back, oh gods I hope he comes back.

I'm scared because this chapter didn't progress a lot of the story and we only have 3 or maybe 4 chapters left.

Isayama really got to flex his ability to design terrifying monstrous titans again.

It was an interesting chapter. It really works well if you think about it. Regular humans who are humanity's last hope, the strongest soldiers left are against two literal gods. Of course it will not be easy at all, Ymir summoning all those titans and everyone nearly dying multiple times is proof that you cannot defeat such gods that easily. Very excited for the next chapter to see how everything else plays out.

Maybe Anni can use her female titan powers and attract all of the former titan shifters - so that Mikasa detonates the Bombs.

Mikasa deserves a fuckn BREAK. like God she saw her family get butchered TWICE, first by humans, then by titans and now fckn Eren took away the one family she was desperately trying to protect. If anyone should've gone crazy like Eren it's mikasa. She does seem to be at her wit's end and ready to go above and beyond after saving everyone in this chapter and seeing the harm Ymir/Eren is causing. But since she's always done what she believed in, no matter what she does, I just want Mikasa's character to get some sort of happiness by the end of it. Is that too much to ask :/

Nobody said “The Eagles are coming” bad chapter 0/10. I’m kidding. But in all seriousness I really just want to see the ending already. I’m going to imagine it ends with the remnants of humanity rebuilding and promising to never be turbo-racist ever again while a tired Historia looks on with her baby saying “You are free” or something.

PIECK DONT DIE I LOVE YOU!!!!!

PIECK GREATNESS NEXT EPISODE

Reibert pandering for this chapter. It was a tad too fast but I love the focus on Reiner reacting to the CT attacking him. reiner could ALMOST die of the gayest way possible had Jean not butted in.

Screamed when Annie came on

Sets up for a super exciting finale

spare eren POV crumbs? dunno what this man been thinking since chapter 86

stanning bertholdt hoover isn't just a hobby, it's a lifestyle, a reason to breathe, he's also an art, the first gift you open on xmas, a hug from a loved one, he is everything I have ever wanted, and everything I needed.

hOLY FUCKING SH—

I cant see when or how it'll end

I did NOT expect Armin to get tongue porn'd. It's hilarious to imagine Annie seeing that HAHAHAHAHA

I really miss eren so much...AoT without him...it's long time we didn't see him pls isayama):

I rlly don’t see Ymir the same way and I hope it won’t affect the way I see Eren

I still miss Hange :(

I think Bertholdt was crying because his Titan was forced to attack and eat Reiner, against his own will

I think Connie will be the one to help Levi take down Zeke. Levi will live!!!

I thought it was very good. Not peak AOT but great! There was to many saves before death , reminded me of bleach. Seeing the old Titans was really cool and the action was great also.

I want armin and annie flashback in next chapter

i want EMA meet again):

I want Mikasa to choke Eren with the scarf

I want monke boi back :(

I want more Eren

I want more!!!!!!!

I wanted see Historia

I was really excited to hear we were getting more bertholdt

I was vey hyped because of this chapter and it delivered. During all the chapter i was like "someone's gonna die someone's gonna die" and when Berthold's titan appears and eats reiner's titan I screamed, but that son of a bitch is inmortal hahah.

idc idc come back to save pieck and armin please

It gives the idea of how powerful that titan god is, i think it lives up to Rod's description of titam god and how powerful it felt during Ymir's backstory (her form)

It got really hype when all the past shifters came over but Pieck’s bomb failing could be seen a mile away. Over amazing with some nice moments.

it is really, life and death situation. still, looking forward to this especially the ending. how will aot end? surely, it will be a legacy. a great masterpiece made by isayama-sensei.

it maintains a nice pace

It sucks. Manga went downhill since chap 105. The shit needs to end.

It was a classic high tension action chapter which I loved

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

It was amazing and full of a lot of lore!

It was amazing! I'd say this could be one of the best chapters written! So much action went on to the point where I hope MAPPA has a decent sized budget to animate it all. I'm really eager to see what the next chapter has in store. The main thing I'm looking forward to that wasn't listed here is basically what will happen to Levi. Is he going to survive through all this, or is he going to succumb to his wounds? Is he going to pair up with Zeke to take down Eren? Or is he going to stay on the "sidelines" untill the war is over?

It was fun, but somewhat inconsequential aside from Falco

It was good, i just need some answeres. Ymirs ability was so sudden.

It was great to finally see previous titan shifter forms, especially the beast titans.

It was just overall so epic

It was really great in terms of action but disappointing as well since there was too much plot armour - I was expecting at least one death.

it was really nice before the episode, it's all getting so intense and i didn't expect ymir to go in with a bang like this

It was really nice, all the symbolism, along with Mikasa with the wings was amazing.

it was super crazy

It'll probably be more enjoyable in the anime (if MAPPA even tackles this). Straight battles have never been this manga's strong suit.

Jean, dare to die and I won't love you anymore >:'(

Its up to ho wmany chapters we have left, if we have like 10 it was a very good one, if we have smt like 3 ( that i dont think so ) it was waste of time

Levi is almost certainly dead/dying

Levi might be a ‘slave’ to being a hero but he’s a victim of his own popularity which is preventing Isayama from killing him off. We know he’s not gonna fulfill his promise to Erwin because Levi never gets what he really wants, surprise surprise. But if he keeps getting injured and left out of action he’ll live the rest of his life with nothing but regrets.

levi please don't die

LEVI PLEASE SURVIVE :(

levi u ok buddy

Levi's leg is not daijobu,,, is he even alive

Lol who TF cares about Bert? He killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Eldians alongside Reiner and Annie. I still say he deserved what he got and is not worthy of any kind of sympathy, no matter how many angsty teardrops Isayama draws on his stupid face.

looking forward to seeing it animated.

Lots of weirdness, but still great

man the titan battles were great, seeing all the previous titans fight was pretty awesome seeing the hopelessness form the alliance really showed the reality of it all, now they lost 2 additional titans leaving Eren with 6 and the alliance down to 3

MAPPA gon be hurting

not enough lesbians

Not for the chapter but, All the openings and endings(lyrics and images) of the series have some details of the things we are experiencing with the latest chapters

That being said that Annie scene was pretty cringe. I expected that, but it was so cliché it's ridiculous.

ONLY BERT & PIECK HAVE RIGHTS

overall good! it was alot to process but im on board and excited for the next one

Pls end it Mikasa, you can do it.

Plz yams don't give me hope like this

Professor X vs. Magneto soon

really crazy. You have to admit that Isayama doesn't stop when it comes to creativity.

Really curious about Bertolt apparition

Pretty good. As much as I want the Alliance to win in the end, their utter defeat this chapter felt more realistic, than if they managed to actually do anything.

Really liked Jean and Reiners moments this chapter, overall a good chapter that flew by. Hope quickly turned into desperation but Falcons teams arrival means they got one more chance. Armin capture thing was a little weird but more or less makes sense.

Since the rumbling started, this series has became more dull and predictable. Loads of plot armor, stupid teosts only for shock value and weird pacing are major problems in this arc. Too bad, because the post timeskip portion of this manga up until the rumbling was one of the best pieces of media I had seen. But now I am only expecting the boring cliche shonen ending.

Still hate Annie being back, she can still go.

Still think Mikasa is gonna be the one to either kill Eren or bring him back to his senses somehow

The afterlife thing still hasn't answered and I wanna know how's the corps doing T_T

The Alliance got dumpsterd yet no one died. They'll probably die in all in one chapter.

the art, as usual, was really good

There are still some mysteries to solve and things to do (like EMA final convo, which I don't think will last just 2 or 3 pages) in so little time, I'm kinda worried to be honest.

This chapter is full of plot twists, I didn't even expect the storyline to turn out like this.

This chapter is painfull and more action at the same time and i hope there are still chances that there old happy days will be back

This chapter was actually exciting! And thank goodness Bertolt is finally back!!!!! So many people assumed he was finished and forgotten, but a small group of us knew Isayama wouldn't leave us hanging without his closure. I'm looking forward to learning why we're seeing him now and whatever's going to happen to Armin

This chapter was breathtaking and hard to continue due to the speculations that someone was going to die. I feel like the next few chapters is where things start to get serious if not already. I found it very enjoyable yet nervous at some moments.

This was so crazy and hopeless like it's peak apocalypse even more than rumbling. It's a nightmare I love Isayama

Too many last-seconds saves kinda ruins the tension.

umm it would've been better

Ummm this chapter had too much suspense

uuuuuuuhhh nothing else i guess

Very PogChamp

We are going to get the best manga ending ever.

Nobody is free yet...

MAN WTF IS HAPPENING I READ TBE MANGA BHT HAVENT REREAD IT AND I FORGOT WVERYTHING MAN WTF

#snk polls #snk poll #snk poll results #snk 135 #snk chapter 135

38 notes · View notes

rockcfellers · 4 years

Text

/ let me introduce you to a prized member of our student government , arden rockefeller . this cisfemale virgo has been a student at our institution for seven years and is currently a 21 year old junior. through the halls , she has always reminded me of danielle rose russell , but there is always more than meets the eye , like the fact that she managed to get somene’s admission to cape coral deferred a year for her own benefit . coral cape has made their future just as bright as their smile , i assure you . ʼ ( muse 10 , adri , 19 , cst , she/her )

go on, replace me, when you’re craving something sweeter than the words i left in your mouth, go on and spit me out

NAME — arden olivia rockefeller.

NICKNAMES — n/a?

PRONOUNS — she/her.

AGE & DOB — 21 & august 23, 1998.

PLACE OF BIRTH — new york city, new york.

NATIONALITY — american.

MAJOR — psychology & political science.

EDUCATION — cape coral international school.

CLUBS — student government, unicef campus initiative, and lacrosse.

* background overview !

arden is twins with her brother, neels, both first born to this half of the rockefeller generation (he’s older by several minutes, but she’ll never attest to that) they’ve always been kinda close but never attached at the hip.

you know, i honestly feel like she had a fairly decent? childhood? like nothing was really wrong, just that her parents were always busy and never really gave the attention they should’ve to young children.

she was typically always very bright and cheery to everyone, evoking a “your daughter’s so sweet” from most people she met, which felt like the biggest compliment to her, because it meant that someone thought she was nice even if they disliked the rest of her family for any given reason, kind of like a twisted self worth?

her parents definitely would’ve preferred she did something that seemed more feminine, but arden found a love for kickboxing and later lacrosse, the two sports a great place for her to channel her energy into, letting her mellow out when she’s going through her day to day routine.

arden’s still figuring out how to be both who she’s expected to be and who she wants to be without facing any real repercussions, but hasn’t quite gotten that part down yet.

it was always known she could come to cape coral, considering her family, but she’s lowkey really grateful that she was given the opportunity to study what she wanted where she wanted.

that being said.... she’s still kinda a bitch. i mean, someone she knew from outside of cape coral wanted to applied and had gotten accepted, but arden had worried that they would interfere from her getting idk maybe a spot in the student government or accepted into her research program etc etc, so she talked to her grandfather and had their admission deferred a year so that her studies wouldn’t be affected.

* personality !

okay so,,,she is New so i’m still working out all the kinks but for the most part, she’s just.. neutral

before, she used to be like aggressively happy and cheery and nice. probably to compensate for the fact that everyone around her just seemed so mean.

she’s always hated being seen as weaker than or less than anyone else, which is partially why she’s taken up lacrosse and boxing, much to her grandfather’s distaste.

now she’s more focused on herself and is capable of being able to brush off any kind of comment that comes from people she doesn’t feel like directly affect her, which isn’t a great mentality to have but neither is caring too much about what other people think

the part of her that was very kind and viewed life with a sweet naivety is there, but heavily guarded and buried. she just feels like, it’s not something that’ll do her much good rather than leave her looking a mess or fool when someone takes advantage of it.

she’s like,,,the person that isn’t afraid to knock you down a few pegs but will do so with the sweetest smile on her face to really seal the deal.

she found an interest in politics, actually hating the way things were run but really enjoying finding out why people did and voted and favored the things they did, so she’s double majoring in psychology and political science

she tries to do everything on her own and hates asking for help, like even when she really needs to, but it’s mostly because really needing someone makes her uneasy because she’s always wondering if they’re going to leave her eventually or if they’re just using her or if they really don’t care about her the way she cares for them

that being said, she’s loyal as all hell to her loved ones. like will literally help you get away with murder if you asked her for help, once you’ve reached that point you are absolutely important to her.

* character tropes !

so she’s basically the maiden in the sense that she’s typically overly self confident and finds herself in positions where she’s stuck and needs help, whether it’s being in too many things at once and being too spread out or like in actual danger. arden heavily takes after her parents in the sense that she wants to be wholly capable of taking care of herself, the feeling of being dependent on someone making her uneasy. because of this, she finds herself in situations that could’ve been completely avoided if she had just taken a step off her high horse and admitted or realized she couldn’t do it on her own. the confidence she exhibits today was a learned trait however, arden getting her heartbroken by someone she had really loved taught her how to be comfortable with herself and just be a Badass, but protect the softer side to herself from then on.

* playlist !

wasabi — little mix:

stick like toffee, sip like coffee wake up, change your mind and drop me love to hate me, crazy, shady spit me out like hot wasabi lick me up, I'm sweet and salty mix it up and down my body love to hate me, praise me, shame me either way you talk about me

arden’s a strong believer in the quote by william shakespeare “love me or hate me, both are in my favour. If you love me, i will always be in your heart… if you hate me, i’ll always be in your mind.” she’s really aware of how she can come across as, but is really selective in who she cares to spend time showing her full self to. everyone else and every other opinion gets taken with a grain of salt. she’s definitely had friends that only used her for her name and then dropped her once they were done,she wasted no time moving on.

hold me while you wait — lewis capaldi:

i wish you'd cared a little more (hold me while you wait) i wish you'd told me this before (hold me while you wait) my love, my love, my love, my love won't you stay a while? (hold me while you wait)

a few years ago, she was in a relationship where she had cared a little bit too much about what they thought of her, finding herself seeking their approval for everything, truly believing this person was the sun. she fell hard and fast for them and they took advantage of this and cheated on her, thinking that they would get away with it… and they did for a while. arden tried to excuse it because of how much she loved them, but was starting to feel like she was never going to be good enough for them, but staying with them until things ultimately came to an end, still holding onto the hope that things would change. eventually she realized that she couldn’t keep holding onto that relationship forever and things ended.

winter — relic:

where am i going? i can’t see nothing but the road that’s out in front of me i think it’s snowing

arden’s the worst at multitasking and it shows even in her life. she’s very one track minded and knows what she wants out of it, but only sees one way to get there, so everything that’s the tiniest bit off her track, she gets thrown off completely and needs someone to just nicely push her back in the direction she was headed.

* aesthetics !

candle lights, the breathlessness felt when seeing big city skylines, scrunchies, tart strawberries dipped in sugar, iced coffee in mason jars, long swooping cursive, high-waisted jeans, half opened jewelry boxes, setting a new pen against fresh paper, standing outside during the middle of a sun-shower, tucked in shirts, a hand reaching out to catch you when you fall, golden hour.

* wanted plots !

i’m the worst at coming up with things but,,,,, here’s a few

general friends: honestly some from childhood, some from high school, others from college, give me New friend with the people coming on scholarship, anything

best friends: someone that’s been by her side for years, someone she’d literally trust with her whole life

ride or dies: honestly what it says, maybe like two or three of them that have been through the thick and thin of it but still have a really strong friendship in the end?

confidant: honestly, probably someone she’s close with, but doesn’t see on a regular basis? maybe they just box together from time to time to blow off steam? it helps if they’re not someone she’d see all the time, that way she’s not constantly staring her admission in the face

bad influence: someone who can teach her to let go and get out more, care even less about what others think, especially her parents. even if that’s taking her to parties or drinking/smoking alone in a room

exes ( good, bad, anything in between ): you know the drill, hit me with the good angst. (male, female, nb)

roommate ( probably a cape coral student ): arden doesn’t like needing people but that doesn’t mean she wants to be alone, they probably have a pretty nice place together ngl. i picture it being really cozy and nicely decorated?

hook ups: you also know this drill, sometimes you gotta blow off steam. (male, female, nb)

#capecoral:intro #/. intro

15 notes · View notes

jjmaybankx · 4 years

Text

WHY DO I STILL » STILES STILINSKI » THREE

MASTERLIST

TRAILER

< ONE

< TWO

✧☾✧

She looked down at the book in her hands, squinting so that she could see the words over the glare of the sun hitting it. She sighed, deciding that it would be more annoying to try to get some reading in during Stiles and Scott's lacrosse practice than it would be to listen to Coach yell at the boys. When she looked up, however, she immediately packed her book into her back and broke down into a sprint.

She ran after Scott and Stiles, somehow missing the commotion. The entire team was swarmed around Jackson as Stiles helped Scott get off the field and towards the locker room.

"Stiles?" she called out, panting, seeing her short-haired friend standing outside the locker room with a fire hydrant, breathing heavily.

"Stay," Stiles said to her, so she stopped abruptly. He peeked into the locker room.

"What happened?" she heard Scott asked, and Stiles ventured into the locker room.

Haven took that as a sign that it was safe, and she followed after him. Stiles put the fire hydrant and his lacrosse stick down, and Haven peered in to see Scott on the floor, sweaty and out of breath. Stiles angrily took off his gloves.

"You tried to kill me," he told his best friend, throwing his glove. "It's like I told you before, it's the anger."

Haven leaned against one of the blue lockers as Stiles sat down in front of Scott, crossing her arms as she looked at them.

"Scott, I love you, but you're getting dangerous," she sighed. "It's your pulse rising."

"Exactly," Stiles said. "It's a trigger."

"But that's lacrosse. It's a pretty violent game—"

"Yanno, Kaeden used to say that lacrosse wasn't a real sport—" Haven pitched in, but she stopped when she noticed the glares on the boys' faces.

She murmured as she bobbed her head side to side mockingly.

"Maybe don't mention your asshole ex while I'm talking about how angry Scott turns him into a murderous Scott?" Stiles quipped. "He played baseball. He has no say in saying what is and isn't a real sport. All he did was stand on the outfield for like seven innings not catching a single ball."

"Who's the angry one? Me or you?" Scott asked.

"Anyways," Stiles ignored that comment, shaking his head. "Things are gonna be more violent if you end up killing someone on the field. You can't play Saturday. You're gonna have to get out of the game."

"I'm first line," Scott complained.

Stiles sighed. "Not anymore."

✧☾✧

Haven sat down on her bed, her mom knocking on the door.

"Hey, sweetie," Mrs. Salazar said, coming inside. "This one is a good one."

Her mom laughed, showing her daughter the picture on her phone. Haven groaned, shaking her head as her mom snickered.

"That boy knows how to take the best embarrassing photos," her mom said, letting out a happy sigh as she sat down next to her daughter.

On her phone was another photo from Stiles, documenting Haven getting out of his car to show he had indeed gotten her home safely. She was in the middle of saying something, and somehow looked a bit constipated with the frame Stiles ended up capturing.

"God, I hate him," Haven said.

She looked down at her mom's outfit and she sighed.

"Heading to work?" she asked her.

"Night shift, sweetie," she said.

She had met Scott McCall when they were younger through a mutual friendship their mothers had. They both worked at the Beacon Hills Hospital, which lead to play dates for their kids on the women's days off. Sometimes, only one of the two mothers were able to race to the school to pick up both of the children. With Scott came Stiles.

"Don't stay up all night on the phone with your idiots, and try to get some sleep," Mrs. Salazar said, mocking what her daughter tended to call Stiles and Scott.

As her mother walked to the door, as if on queue, her laptop starting ringing. Her mom let out a chuckle before closing the door and leaving her daughter to her own devices.

She opened her laptop, accepting the incoming group video call from Stiles to her and Scott.

As they talked, Haven and Stiles's eyes zeroed in on Scott's screen. Haven's heart beat quickened at the silhouette of someone standing behind Scott, and Stiles typed out what he and Haven both saw, before Scott got pulled from his seat and pushed into a wall.

✧☾✧

"What do you mean you don't think Derek is a complete psychopath?" Stiles asked Haven as they sat in his car eating Taco Bell during lunch.

Scott had to talk to Coach, so the two snuck off campus because Haven was craving.

She shrugged, stuffing her mouth with a slice of Mexican Pizza.

"I mean that I don't think he's a psychopath," she said, mouth full.

Stiles rolled his eyes at her.

"And how do you not think that?"

"Okay," she said, moving in her seat so she was facing Stiles better. "Scott becomes a werewolf, almost wolves out in front of people on several occasions, and there's hunters that moved back to Beacon Hills, right? So, logically, of course, if the Argents realize the Scott is a werewolf, they'll also realize another wolf is here since they, as you said before, travel in packs. And who else to be back than one of the original werewolves they tried killing a long time ago? The Hales?"

"So... you're saying that Derek is violent with a reason?"

"Yes," she nodded, smiling as it seemed like she was finally getting to him.

Stiles sat back straight in his seat, shaking his head as he took a sip of his drink.

"Yeah, no, he's totally still a psychopath. You just think he's hot."

She nodded at his response, crumpling up a napkin and tossing it at him.

He threw it back, and they went back and forth like that for a few minutes, just laughing like that together.

"This is nice," she stated, earning a concerned look from Stiles. "With everything going on with Scott and being a werewolf, it's nice to feel normal for once. Not like we're living some double lives as the werewolf protection squad."

"Do you ever just wanna leave?" Stiles asked. "Just cut us off and go back to being a normal girl without whatever the hell is going on with Scott?"

"It can't be that bad," she shrugged. "And no. I don't think I'd ever be able to just cut you guys off. You're Stiles, you're my best friend, and Scott, he's—"

"The guy you've had a crush on since the seventh grade?" he finished for her.

She threw the napkin at him again.

"Dork."

"You guys are invited to another outing," Scott said, hopping into Stiles's Jeep with not that much time to scarf down his food.

"I'm sorry, what?" Stiles asked, glancing into the backseat at his best friend while Haven tossed him the bag.

"Tomorrow, after the game. Me, Allison, Lydia, Jackson, and Allison told me to invite you two," he said quickly, opening his food and chewing.

Stiles and Haven shared a look, Haven hiding the look of disgust on her face over hanging out with Allison and Scott at the same time. She hated the fact that he disliked being friends with Allison considering the fact that the girl was surprisingly really nice to her. She was just jealous.

"So... you didn't tell Coach you weren't playing tomorrow?" Stiles asked.

When Scott just looked up at them, Haven shook her head. "You're hopeless, and about to die at the hands of Wolfy McHottie."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"She has the hots for Derek," Stiles sighed, shaking his head as Scott looked ready to puke.

✧☾✧

Haven laughed from the Jeep, watching as Stiles sprinted from the driver's seat into the McCall house, not even knocking. She was surprised with how they just left their front door unlocked all the time, but she shook her head, unbuckling her seatbelt and walking inside nonchalantly.

"What did you find? Where did you find it?" Stiles asked, out of breath as he stormed into Scott's room.

Haven walked in a few minutes later, bouncing on Scott's bed, laying down on his pillows as she watched the boys talk, Scott sitting on the edge of the bed.

"And yes, he's had a lot of Adderall," Haven stated.

"I found something of Derek Hale's," responded Scott.

"Are you kidding? What?"

"There's something buried there there, I could smell."

"That's awesome–I mean, that's terrible, who's blood?" Stiles asked.

"I don't know, but when we do, your dad nails Derek for the murder," Scott said, standing up and pointing to Stiles. "And then you guys both help me figure out how to play lacrosse without changing. Because there's no way I'm not playing that game."

Stiles looked at Haven with a proud smile, and she shook her head with a small smirk at the confidence Scott was having.

"Where are we going?" Haven asked, standing up.

"To the hospital," replied Scott, and she groaned. "What?"

"It's gonna get cold," she said.

She had left her jacket in her locker when it got warm, and had assumed she was going home after Scott's house.

"You can borrow one of mine," the boys said in unison, then looking between one another as Haven looked at them all weird.

"I, uh, have one in the car if you wanna borrow that," Stiles said to her.

"Or you can borrow something in my closet," Scott suggested, shrugging. "Up to you."

Scott walked out of the room before the other two, Stiles looking at her expectantly.

"So, you're gonna wear one of his so you can smell like him, right?" Stiles asked her teasingly.

"Shut up," she said, her cheeks going red as she walked towards him. "I'll wear yours if you're gonna tease me like that."

Stiles was shocked as she walked out of the room without one of Scott's hoodies. Before Allison, she would always jump at the chance to put on an article of Scott's clothing, and Stiles would watch her lovesick eyes as she smiled to herself in the backseat of his Jeep. He wondered how the hell Scott never caught on.

When he got to the car, he saw her standing outside of the backseat with the door open, slipping on his gray and red zip-up hoodie. She got inside at the same time as Stiles did, sticking her tongue out at him as she put on her seat belt.

✧☾✧

The three friends arrived at Beacon Hills hospital. Stiles pointed Scott in the direction of the morgue while Stiles and Haven went to the waiting room. Haven, who was looking down at her phone, bumped into Stiles's back. She looked up to see he was looking at Lydia, who was sitting in one of the blue waiting room chairs.

She watched from behind, where she stood against the nurse's desk, which she found herself doing often, as Stiles leaned a hand against the wall, trying to sound cool as he said, "Hey, Lydia. You probably don't remember me. Um, I sit behind you in Biology."

Lydia twirled her hair in her finger.

"Uh, anyways, I always thought that we just had this kind of conne—" he started, but Lydia looked past him.

She smiled, clapping her hands together, cutting Stiles off. "Haven!"

Stiles frowned, looking behind him at his best friend. She shrugged, but walked forward as Lydia beckoned to her. The strawberry blonde took headphones out of her ear, revealing she actually hadn't heard a word that Stiles was saying.

Then, Lydia looked at Stiles and said, "I do remember you. Buzzcut boy with the Jeep."

She grabbed Haven's hands, saying, "Hey! I haven't been at practice since the party, how have you been? Thinking about it, I didn't really see you guys at the party...?"

Haven looked to Stiles for help, but he just shrugged, not knowing what to say either.

"We went for a bit," Haven said to her. "But then there was a problem with Scott, so..."

"Yeah, Allison said he just left her out of nowhere," Lydia said. "Weird."

"...Yeah," Haven faked smiled.

She sat with Lydia for a bit while Stiles sat in a seat on the other corner of the wall. Lydia stood up when Jackson walked towards them.

"Did he do it?" she asked her boyfriend.

"He said not to make a habit of it, but one cortisone shot won't kill me."

"You should get one right before the game, too," Lydia said. "The pros do it all the time. You want to be a little high school amateur... or do you want to go pro?"

She got close to her boyfriend, kissing him while Haven's eyes widened, averting her eyes awkwardly.

"Bye, Haven," Lydia waved at her as she walked away with her boyfriend.

"Since when did we know her?" Jackson asked her.

"Shut up. I like her," Lydia whispered, but Haven was able to hear her.

Haven got up, going to sit down next to Stiles, who was eyeing Jackson like a hawk.

Scott ripped the newspaper from Stiles, scaring him.

"Oh my God!"

"The scent was the same," stated Scott.

"You sure?" Haven and Stiles asked together.

"Yes."

Stiles sighed. "So he did bury the other half of the body on his property?"

"Which means we have proof that he killed the girl," Scott concluded.

"I say we use it," Stiles said, looking at Haven who was frowning. "Don't give us that look. Wolfy McHottie is a killer, okay?"

"How are we gonna use it?" Scott asked as Stiles walked away.

He turned back around and said, "Tell me something first. Are you doing this because you want to stop Derek, or because you want to play in the game, and he said you couldn't?"

"There are bite marks on the legs, guys. Bite marks," Scott said softly.

"Okay," Stiles nodded. "Okay. Then we're gonna need to drop off Haven at home, and then we're gonna need a shovel."

"Drop me off at home?" Haven exclaimed at the same time Scott said, "Drop her off at home?"

"I love you, and we are not dragging you to a murderer's house to dig up the grave of one of his victims," Stiles stated, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her along. "Because if something bad happens to you, your mom will be throwing me into the morgue."

✧☾✧

She rounded the car, standing next to the driver's side. She put her elbows against the open window, looking at Stiles.

"This isn't fair," she said. "I wanna go with you guys."

"No," he shook his head. "I am keeping you safe."

"Stiles, I can keep her safe. If she wants to come, she should be able to come," Scott intervened.

Stiles rolled his eyes, looking at him and asking, "You comfortable with us bringing Allison?"

"No, of course not."

"There you have it," Stiles said to him, turning back to Haven. "Go inside, Hav. We'll be fine."

She groaned, "Fine."

Stiles waited until she was inside of her house to drive off. Scott was looking at him with a proud smile, and Stiles gave him an irritated, "What?" as a response.

"You have a thing for our best friend, don't you?" Scott smirked.

"What?" Stiles asked, swerving before he got the car back in the right lane.

"You just compared you not wanting her to be in danger to me not wanting Allison, the girl I like, to be in danger," Scott reasoned with him.

"No," Stiles said, shaking his head.

"C'mon, I know you and Haven better than anyone," Scott said, earning a scoff from Stiles.

You obviously know nothing, because if you did, you'd know she's been in love with you since the seventh grade, Stiles thought in his head.

"I like Lydia," Stiles said to him. "As I've had since the third grade."

"If you say so," Scott said, but it was evident that he didn't actually believe Stiles. He then smacked Stiles's shoulder in a friendly matter, adding, "She looks cute in your clothes."

"I will purposely crash this Jeep right now."

✧☾✧

Haven broke down laughing, listening to Stiles replay his conversation with his dad.

"You are the most sarcastic little shit I've ever met," she said, still laughing about his "depends on how you define lying" joke.

"Thanks, that's totally the point of the conversation," he replied to her, shaking his head. "I lost Scott!"

"I'm sure he's fine," she shrugged.

"Oh, so you're not worried that I can't find the love of your life?" Stiles asked her.

She threw one of her pillows at him. "I've gotten over that crush."

"Yeah? When?"

"When Allison started existing in our lives."

"Hav—" he started.

"C'mon," she said, getting off of her bed and grabbing Stiles's duffel bag that was on the floor. "We got a game to get you to."

✧☾✧

Haven sat in the stands next to Mrs. McCall and her own mom, her mother sitting in the middle. Haven laughed when Lydia grabbed Scott and pulled him close, whispering something while Stiles looked at them ridiculously.

"What's wrong with Stiles's face?" Mrs. Salazar asked her daughter, earning a stifled laugh.

"It's permanently stuck like that, I suppose," replied Haven.

Stiles was on the bench when Sheriff Stilinski went to stand behind his son, talking to him. Haven told the two mothers that she'd be right back and jogged over in time to hear the conversation.

"So, you think you'll see any action tonight?"

"Action?" Stiles asked nervously. "Maybe."

Sheriff stood up and looked at the girl approaching, smiling down at her.

"Hi, sweetie," he said.

"Hey, Dad," she smiled back. "My mom and Mrs. McCall are over there."

He nodded and made his way towards the parents of his son's friends. In the time the three had been friends, there was one thing that was a common factor for all of them: they were being raised by one parent. Haven and Scott had mothers while Stiles had his dad. Noah Stilinski had gotten used to the girl nonchalantly calling him dad years ago, understanding that he was the closest she had since her dad passed away when she was a baby.

"Hey," Haven said to Stiles, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind, placing her head on his shoulders to look at the game in front of them. She winced when Scott collided with someone. "Ouch."

"H-hey," Stiles breathed out to her.

"Salazar!" Coach Finstock yelled her name out, both herself and Stiles turning their heads in his direction quickly. "Why in the heck are you on my field?"

"Moral support?" she said with a question mark at the end of her statement.

"Get off!" he said, pointing to the bleachers. "You can canoodle with your bench warmer boyfriend later."

"I'm not her—" Stiles stuttered.

"He's not my—"

"Off my field, Salazar!"

On her way back she saw Allison and Lydia hold up a "We love you Jackson" sign. She glanced over her shoulder at Stiles, both of them mumbling, "Brutal."

The jealousy seemed to make Scott play the best game of his lacrosse career. Everyone in the home bleachers ran onto the field to congratulate the win. Haven ran on looking for Scott, ending up just like Allison as they stood on the field watching him take off in the other direction, towards the woods. When Allison went towards Scott, Haven decided it was best for herself not to go after the rising couple. She frowned, letting out a sigh of disappointment and turning around to find Stiles.

She sat on the bench with him as his dad made a call, her mom sitting on the front row of the bleachers waiting patiently.

"Dad, what's wrong?" Stiles asked him.

Noah just put a finger up, telling his son to wait.

"Let's go find Scott," Stiles whispered to her.

"Allison went after him," Haven whispered back.

"What if he's about to wolf out?" he asked her.

"And what if they're making out?"

"I thought you said you weren't into him anymore."

She glared at him, and he put a hand out for her to take. She huffed, placing her hand in his as they stood up.

"We're uh, gonna go look for Scott," Stiles said to his dad and Mrs. Salazar.

The two parents nodded, and Haven let go of Stiles's hand as they ran towards the locker room.

Stiles went in first, but he dipped back behind the locker, grabbing Haven to block her from going.

"I was correct wasn't I?" she whispered in his ear, listening to the sounds of two people making out.

"Sorry, Hav."

"I gotta get back to my dad," Allison whispered.

She walked near them, waving. "Stiles, Haven."

"Hey, yeah," they chorused hellos to the brunette.

When she left, the two friends ventured back towards Scott, who looked like a lovesick puppy.

"I kissed her," he said, dazed.

"I saw."

"She kissed me."

"Saw that, too," Haven said, and she looked up at Stiles with a smile when he intertwined his hands with hers behind their backs.

"That's pretty good, huh?" Stiles asked Scott, rubbing his thumb on Haven's hand comfortingly.

"I-I-I don't know how, but I controlled it," Scott said happily. "I pulled it back. Maybe I can do this. Maybe it's not that bad."

"Yeah," Stiles said, glancing down at Haven. "We'll talk later, then? Hav and I's parents are outside."

As they turned around to walk away, Scott placed a hand on Stiles's shoulder. "What?"

Stiles sighed. "The, uh, medical examiner looked at the other half of the body we found."

"And?" asked Stiles.

"Well, I'll keep it simple. Medical examiner determines killer of girl to be animal, not human. Derek's human, not animal—"

"And hot," Haven piped in.

"Derek's an ugly human, not animal," Stiles said, "Derek not killer. Derek let out of jail."

"I love the lack of grammar," Haven sassed.

"Are you kidding?"

"No, and here's a bigger kick in the ass. My dad I.D's the dead girl. Both halves. Her name was Laura Hale."

"Hale?"

"Wolfy McHottty's sister," Haven said.

FOUR >

#jjmaybanks;why do i still #stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski fanfiction #stiles stilinski imagine

4 notes · View notes

fantroll-purgatory · 4 years

Photo

@theshieldswordandcrown

I’d like it if you guys could look over my tea man for me! (Art by my friend lythaeriahomestucks. I haven’t made him a sprite yet.

Oofadoofa it’s been a while. Hi I hope your roleplay group is fun!

World: Alternia, but the draft is a lot further off than in canon, because none of my group is interested in roleplaying interstellar space battles or politics, especially considering the amount of setup that would have to go into making deep space believable. Though I think Friendsim’s stated they’re dragged off planet at 9 sweeps, so he’d still have a little time before getting dragged underground anyway.

Name: Oolong Matcha. Yes, they’re both types of tea. It started off as a quick joke, but I’ve grown to love it. Not only is matcha green, like his blood, but he’s a gardener, and really enjoys tea.

Mmmmm I mean joke trolls are famously canon in Homestuck. See: SWIFER EGGMOP or the salt and pepper shaker troll BUTTT mmmm. I feel like naming a character based at least partially on Japanese monks Oolong would deserve some side-eye. But I like the matcha bit! So let’s see…I like him being a gardener since monastic gardens were very much A Thing, and one of the famous still-extant ones is at Rievaulx abbey, so maybe we give him RIVULX, which sounds sufficiently trollish and is obvious enough for someone to get the reference.

Age: 9.69 Sweeps, or 21 Earth years.

Theme/Story: He’s partially themed after monks, specifically Irish and Japanese, which was originally an excuse for his bald head, but ended up influencing his clothing, calm demeanor, and lusus. I was also, oddly, thinking of 4chan – not maniacs like /pol/, but just average people who don’t get out enough, like to chatter about anime or cooking, and generally act like a bit of a dipshit. Fatherhood is definitely a theme with him as well – he’s already a father figure to two other trolls.

Hmmm. I like the broad concept, but I think we can tighten up a little on the “monk” theme by expanding it. Review Goals: General overview, classpecting advice, filling in missing details like fetch modus or lunar sway, etc.

Strife Specibus: He greatly prefers to snipe threats before they reach him, but if he’s forced into melee, he’ll grab a pipe and go berserker nuts. He takes satisfaction in neutralizing threats, especially if he’s protecting someone or something. He’s not averse to talking things out, but dislikes putting others on the line.

Hmm. None of that is a strife specibus, though I suppose you’re going for riflekind and pipekind. Generally void players use fistkind since it’s the absence of a weapon, but if you want to give him another option besides hand-to-hand melee may I suggest poisonkind? He could use something from his garden, like monkshood :3c. Or if you want to give him a melee weapon he could use the sansetsukon per the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which would double as a symbol reminder since he could arrange the segments in a backwards s. Fetch Modus: ;;3;; I have absolutely no idea.

What about a clue modus where the items are obscured but contain details describing them? With the caveat that some of them will have similar color/taste/textures listed. I think this might be fun because there are actually *two* famous detectives with the last name Monk, Adrian Monk and William Monk.

Blood Color: Jade.

That works great, especially with Friendsim’s reveal that many jades are indeed monastic/cloistered.

Lunar Sway: Not sure.

Given that he’s a monk and you have painted him as someone unlikely to cause conflict or rebel against the system, I think he’d be a Prospit dreamer.

Title: Knight of Void, someone who exploits what little secrecy and irrelevance he has for all it’s worth. He was first conceived as a Bard, to fit into a fansession, but I eventually decided it didn’t fit what the character had developed to be.

Symbol and Meaning: I made it up, and it doesn’t have a name. It’s an infinity symbol, broken in the center - like this, but flipped 90 degrees clockwise. I guess it could tie into his aspect by…destroying infinity, I guess, but I really haven’t put that much thought into it.

If we’re going by the EZ, he would be Virittanius, the Deliberate. Which I think fits him quite well! It also looks like a further corruption of the sign you gave him, so I may toy with that a little in the redesign. Handle: I feel like I might have given him a serious handle at one point, but if I did, I forgot it, so for now, it’s oolongMatcha. Just his name. Considering his classpect and desire for secrecy, this makes about as much sense as a rain barrel made out of crackers, but I’m not sure what to give him.

Since his new initials are RM, maybe revenantMyiopsitta. Revenant, of course, to hint at the fact that he’s part of the blood caste most commonly associated with rebirth after death, and Myiopsitta being the genus for two types of parakeet: the cliff parakeet and the monk parakeet. So we have his true identity as well as the unusual nature of his hive, both concealed in plain sight. Quirk: he types in all lower case and likes putting his horns in his emoticons! ’:) Maybe doing it like (:; would make more sense, as it’s his right (our left) horn that’s busted.

I like it! Depending on his redesign you may also want him to uƨe backwardƨ ƨ’ƨ to mimic hiƨ ƨymbol.

Special Abilities: Supreme Dadliness. Jokes aside, he’s a crack shot, even with his impeded vision, and has been successfully flying under the radar his whole life.

If you still want him to be a crack shot even with the changes I suggested above, maybe he uses blowdarts to poison his enemies from afar?

Lusus: His father is a MASSIVE white snake; I was thinking some kind of constrictor. Personality-wise, he’s close to a prototypical 50s dad. He’s a safe haven for his son and those his baby cares about, and is exceedingly patient, to the point of letting a small child fingerpaint on him. He’s also willing to carry Oolong in emergencies, though I’m not really certain that would work in real life, movement-wise.

I feel like the snake can be a little overplayed as a lusus. If we want to give him something similar to a mother grub as a jadeblood, why not a massive butterfly based on the monk/dusky friar? It also gives you the mechanics for how his dadderfly would carry him around in emergencies.

Interests: He used to spend a lot of time alone on the internet - I originally conceptualized him as a very lonely NEET, to the point he had to find his wallet to remember his own name - but has become more adventurous and friendly, spending more time with his girlfriend and friends (and he has friends now!) He’s very proud of his garden and fruit trees, some of which are rare, difficult to grow properly, and/or dangerous (offering more security).

Huh! You don’t explain *how* he goes from isolated to friendly, but I’d hope that gardening is a way for him to reach out to others since it’s a hobby you can commit to on your own but bond with other hobbyists.

Hive: He lives out in the woods by himself, though not so far from other trolls that he can’t take the day to go shopping or see his mate. His hive is surrounded by his garden on all sides, and has a very visible path down the center (making it easy for him to see anyone approaching, and shoot if they’re a threat). Trees surround it, and dangerous plants are strategically placed to make going through his garden unpleasant at best (it also makes weeding a pain, but he thinks it’s worth it). His hive is especially unusual in that the porch is raised up to the second floor with large poles, and you have to use a ladder to get up to it (unless you’re snakedad, in which case you go up the poles). He has a remote so he can let it down from the ground, as well as access to it on the platform, so he can let people up himself. I don’t think the ground level has a door. I’d be happy to submit pictures, if you want.

Feel free to show us pictures, but I like the concept a lot!

Appearance: Tall and rail-thin, excepting his oddly curvy hips. (I figured due to jades being majority female, developing jade males might be exposed to more than the usual amount of estrogen and androgens. Also I’m way more used to drawing women than men and his initial outline was a gal for like ten minutes.) He shaves his head bald. (This is because A) I didn’t want to bother trying to figure out men’s hair - I almost never draw dudes - and B) he’s partially themed after monks, who often shave their heads. I don’t remember why he says he does it.)

…man, I’m gonna take issue with the way you phrased this description. There’s a lot of gender essentialism going on in your explanation there, and given that a number of us mods are trans and nonbinary I feel obligated to point out a few things:

1) Trolls are bugs. They’re not even mammals. They aren’t exposed to androgen or estrogen or any hormone to give them a certain body shape. It is quite heavily implied that when the mother grub gives birth it is to a bunch of larvae.

2) I know that Homestuck lore has given us largely jade girls and one jade trans guy but that’s no reason to assume that jade men are broadly more “feminine” by default in *any* dimension

3) Even if trolls *did* work like humans, it rubs me the wrong way to see someone talking about a man’s “oddly” curvy hips like I’ve got guy friends both trans and cis with wide hips and the only reason to remark on it at all is because We Live In A Society that forcibly genders people in relation to physical characteristics.

…So I am otherwise taking your description at face value. ______ Matcha is tall, rail thin, with curvy hips and a bald head. I will probably add some little fangs, per the Alternian fashion guide.

He wears leggings (unless it’s very hot) and long tunics or robes, usually tan, with his symbol emblazoned on the breast. He goes barefoot if he can. His right (our left) horn is broken, due to an accident in his youth (I think he fell onto something?), amusingly improving his vision, since his unbroken left horn points in front of his left eye, obscuring it somewhat. His face could almost be described as delicate, and his default expression is calm.

I don’t knooooow that tan is a color trolls wear all that often in Alternia, so I will see how I can rework that in the redesign. I get him being barefoot, but I may give it a shot spriting him monk shoes for if he wants to go on an outing. :3c For his broken horn…hm. When we see trolls with physical damage, it is almost always something more significant than just “childhood accident” (see: every troll in Homestuck except Equius who somehow had like 3 simultaneous accidents?). I have an idea for his horns that I will get to in the redesign, and I will probably add a hook to his front horn, both because it’s a jadeblood trait and because it seems suitably horrifying to constantly have a sharp implement millimeters from your eye.

Personality: Oolong is a nice, fatherly young man, well regarded by most he meets. He really really likes tea. He has a beautiful, dangerous mafiosa matesprite in a rustblood named Andora Ingenu, and they adore each other. He’s also taken on the substitute dad role for an adorable young fuschia who lives in the swamp near his forest, Lillie Waters, teaching her how to cook (and keep her tools clean) and rescuing her from other fuschias. He’s very protective of his and his loved ones’ privacy and safety, and spends a LOT of his time in the massive gardens around his hive, of which he’s deservedly proud. He is very good at being sneaky, and sometimes takes the time to run around seeing what he can get away with, especially in the realm of snatching seeds up for his garden. He sells whatever plants he can grow for money, especially fruits and vegetables, but he doesn’t really enjoy sales. He doesn’t put a lot of stock in blood superiority, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s oddly well adjusted for someone who spent most of his life alone.

I like this description! Also looking at his close compatriots, it looks like I can swap the tan in his design for rust or fuchsia. We already see jadebloods wearing a fair amount in the red/burgundy/purple spectrum, so it should fit right in with the others.

Land: I don’t remember if I’ve come up with one. If I did, I feel like it may have heavily wooded areas, dark and tangled and difficult to navigate.

Hmmm. What about Land of Rough and Reflection (LORAR)? Covered in rough terrain, with pools to contemplate oneself. Unbeknownst to your troll, there are switches at the bottom of each lake (deeper than he could ever hope to dive and hold his breath) that must be flipped to drain the lakes and free the consorts from the underwater caves in which they’ve been trapped for generations. His land would initially seem completely empty and without guidance, and it neatly parallels his own situation before he began to socialize.

I hope you like him! :) I’d love to see what you guys think of him.

He’s certainly an interesting troll, and I hope I’ve helped by way of sharpening up on his theme! Let’s move on to the redesign.

Top to bottom as usual!

Hair - I gave him some stubble courtesy of fan-troll (I have never managed a post without plugging fan-troll/tajazzled’s sprite sheet and I’m not gonna stop now)

Horns - I wanted to make his other horn sort of…curve away from his head so it looks like his symbol from above?

Eyes and brows - they didn’t change but big ups to fan-troll for giving me bases to modify!

Mouth - this is a modification of Sollux’s mouth but I gave him lil fangs and a little lower lip definition

Robes - I just modified some of Kanaya’s robes, appropriately enough! I decided to go for a red/pink shade that was between rust and fuchsia so he could fit in while subtly broadcasting his allegiance

Shoes - they’re John’s but with buckles! :B monk shoes

Aaaand that’s about it for my critique! I hope this helped!

-TR

#jadeblood #submission #oolong matcha #oolong #matcha #theshieldswordandcrown #rivulx #rivulx matcha #review #redesign #tr review

4 notes · View notes

mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 5 years

Link

“While they're depicted as happy and in love, there are a lot of details that don't make sense.”

Oh boy I can’t wait to hear this from the pinnacle of comic book journalism that is Screenrant....

20 EVERYTHING ABOUT "ONE MORE DAY"

Okay fair enough

19 THEY HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON

Sense of humour. Study different forms of science. Science and acting are both about making sense of life. Troubled childhoods. Living double lives. Living with guilt over relegating on responsibilities which hurt your family. Immense inner strength. Oh and btw having shit in common isn’t the be all and end all of romantic relationships so shut up.

“It's possible for two people to love each other and not have much in common. ”

That’s what I said.

“At some point, however, a couple needs to have something to build a relationship on.”

And they did see above and add in being one another’s friends, confidants and support group.

“Peter Parker and Mary Jane couldn't be further apart from each other in almost every single way. He's a science geek with a weird sense of humor and no social skills.”

Also heroic, also gult ridden, also responsible, also inner strength, also working class, also lost a parent, also lived a double life....like MJ.

“Meanwhile, MJ is an aspiring model/actress, except for when she's a super successful model/actress.”

Everyone knows model/actress = a personality right.

“In recent years, she's shown a more entrepreneurial side, but that still involved opening a nightclub, the sort of place where Peter doesn't fit in at all. They say opposites attract, but there comes a point where that just becomes nonsensical.”

Yes there is but that point is well beyond the ways in which Peter and MJ are opposite to one another because their traits often balance one another out.

18 THEY GOT TOGETHER WAY TOO SOON AFTER GWEN'S DEMISE

They got together almost 2 years after Gwen died shut up.

“Time in comic books is a funny thing. The Marvel Universe has a sliding timescale, meaning that it's hard to peg down when stories took place in relation to each other. The time that passes in the real world means nothing. That being said, Peter and MJ started dating way too soon after Gwen Stacy's demise.”

Canonically its still 2 years so shut up.

“She lost her life in Amazing Spider-Man #121 (1973) by Gerry Conway and Gil Kane. By the end of the next issue, the seeds were being planted for them to get together. They didn't immediately start dating, but Peter seemed to get over his "one, true love" suspiciously fast”

2 years isn’t too fast and she wasn’t his one true love. Nobody has a one true love.

17 SHE FLIP-FLOPS ON PETE'S LIFE AS SPIDER-MAN

This list is about stuff that doesn’t make sense. Anybody dating a superhero is probably going to flip flop over their own or their loved ones’ lives being potentially endangered by super powered serial killers.

“Look, dating a superhero must be hard. Nobody can blame someone for not wanting to deal with it, or trying to convince a loved one not to risk their life. Also, it can make having a social life impossible. It's understandably frustrating, but at some point, enough is enough.

It seems like Mary Jane can't make up her mind about Peter's life as Spider-Man.”

Obviously she can because she chose to date him, chose to marry him and stayed with him all the time sans stories where she was written as OOC.

She both likes it and dislikes it which makes her compelling and its realistic too. She doesn’t HAVE to make up her mind definitively and every day stay on track with liking or hating it because people flip flop over shit all the time.

Shit Spider-Man himself flip flops about BEING SPIDER-MAN!

“Sometimes she's fully supportive, while other times she wants him to quit. ”

Gee its almost like something as dangerous as a superhero’s life would have lots of factors that impact how you feel depending upon what side of the bed you got up from.

Also she never wanted him to quit outside of when she was OOC. She only once wanted him to remain retired when she was heavily pregnant.

“Considering that she knew Peter was Spider-Man before she even met him, it's time for her to figure out her feelings and make a decision. ”

a) She did, hence they married

b) She doesn’t need to make a decision YOU the individual reader want her to but realistically the character for her own sake doesn’t have to

“They both know he's not going to give up being a hero, so it's time to be grown ups.”

16 THEIR ENGAGEMENT WAS SUPER QUICK

In the history of mankind there have been quicker engagements.

Shit STAN LEE got married super quick, he married his wife Joan of 60 something years literally the day she got divorced.

“In Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987) by David Michelinie, Jim Shooter, and Paul Ryan, Peter Parker married Mary Jane. Behind the scenes, this occurred because Stan Lee wanted Spider-Man to get married in the newspaper comic strip that he was writing at the time. Marvel liked the idea, and decided to have them get married in the comics as well.

The problem was that they were broken up at the time. So, the writers had to quickly bring her back, rekindle the romance, have Peter propose, and then get married.”

This is total fucking bullshit.

Mary Jane had been a mainstay in the titles for over 4 years before the wedding, being the most recurring character sans Spider-Man himself.

Moreover broken up isn’t strictly accurate, Peter and Mj years prior to their wedding had been effectively dating whilst being in denial about it to one another or publicly.

Their romance and love was always there they just weren’t being honest about it until Peter proposed.

Yeah the proposal-wedding was a few issues, but the romantic tension and relationship had been years in the making.

“Anyone that's ever planned a real wedding knows how unrealistic this whole timeline was.”

Yeah unless you were having a quick wedding at city hall with a small ceremony and there was a time skip before and during the final part of the story where they tie the knot.

15 DO THEY HAVE A BABY OR NOT?

“The second Clone Saga that ran during the mid '90s had one of the most confusing endings ever written. Basically, the writers needed to finish Ben Reilly's storyline while also tying up all of Peter's loose ends to make it possible for Peter to become Spider-Man again. One of these plot threads was the fact that Mary Jane was pregnant.

The editors felt that Spider-Man being a dad would age him, so they suggested that Mary Jane not have the baby, after all. However, it was also heavily implied at the time that Norman Osborn had the baby taken away. This storyline was teased for a few years, before ultimately being forgotten about.”

This list is about things that do not make sense. This list is not about things that are merely unresolved.

14 WHY DOES PETER STILL USE THE BLACK SUIT?

“In Amazing Spider-Man #299 (1988) by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane, Venom made his frightening first appearance. Mary Jane thought she saw Peter wearing his black costume, until a mouth formed and turned into a horrific smile. Venom didn't hurt Mary Jane, but the experience was still pretty traumatic for her.

After Spidey defeated the villain, Mary Jane asked him to stop wearing the black costume. This made sense, and Peter happily obliged. Except, he keeps bringing the costume back from time to time.”

Yeah and it’s justified each time.

He brought it back in the 1990s during McFarlane’s run because he needed something stealthy and he discussed this with MJ.

He brought part of it back in the Clone Saga because he had nothing else to wear but it wasn’t the whole suit.

He brought it back during the Mackie run with Larsen because again he had nothing else to wear and MJ was presumed dead at the time anyway.

He wore it again in Back in Black at a time where he wasn’t wearing it in front of MJ and wanted to send a message to criminals that he was now going to be a more violent and scary fucker (it worked).

He wore it again in Brand New Day when he was impersonating Venom and he and MJ were broken up.

He wore it again in ASM #800 when he needed the power boost from the symbiote to beat Red Goblin.

And all this aside, MJ got over her fear of Venom anyway.

So rather than making no sense each individual instance actually did add up.

“Sometimes there's a specific reason, other times he just seems to feel like wearing it. He knows it scares his wife, but apparently Peter likes the way it looks too much to care.”

Not true as I just explained. Peter himself doesn’t even LIKE the suit anymore.

13 HOW SUCCESSFUL IS HER CAREER?

“Not everyone is a fan of Peter and Mary Jane's relationship. While many fans love her, some feel that it's weird for Peter Parker to be married to a supermodel. That can be a valid complaint, but the problem is that Mary Jane has had one of the most inconsistent careers ever.

She's constantly moving between being a struggling model, a highly sought after model, a soap opera actress, and even giving up on show business completely multiple times. It's understandable for careers to have ups and downs, but it seems like the writers can't even decide if she's famous or not.”

Because a model and actresses career and fame can’t fluctuate right?

12 THEY'VE BOTH DEALT WITH TOO MANY STALKERS

WTF is too many exactly when one of you is a famous-semi-famous actress and model and the other is a superhero?

Like shit dude, there are people, a lot of them women, who aren’t famous and can have stalkers.

“In the late '90s, Marvel's first attempt to undo Spider-Man's marriage resulted in Mary Jane getting on a plane which then exploded mid-flight.”

Technically that was not their first attempt.

“For the next year or so, everyone believed she had passed away. Instead, she had been snatched away by a deranged stalker, who caused the explosion so that no one would look for her.

Before that, Mary Jane had to deal with Jonathan Ceaser, who attempted to take her away several times in the early '90s.”

OP misspelled ‘once’ as ‘several times’.

“Even Peter had to deal with his ex girlfriend, Felicia Hardy, dating Flash Thompson just so she could be near him during that same time period. ”

That isn’t a stalker.

“People really need to give these two their privacy.”

Again...not a thing that doesn’t make sense which is the point of the article.

11 THEY BREAK UP CONSTANTLY

constantly

Dictionary result for constantly

/ˈkɒnst(ə)ntli/

adverb

1. continuously over a period of time; always.

Hmmmmmm...doesn’t seem to add up with breaking up:

For the first time in the late 1970s.

Again in Spider-Man vs. Wolverine.

Trial separating (which isn’t a proper break up) in 2001.

Seperating for real in OMD/OMIT

Breaking up again in Superior when it wasn’t even the real Spider-Man. And no her dumping him again twice doesn’t count.

Gee, four break ups across 40+ years = constantly apparently.

“Comic books can't just rely on action, they also need to have drama. One of the most common places writers create drama is in the hero's relationships. It's probably very hard to date a superhero, and it's understandable that not everyone would want to sign up for that ride. At some point, however, enough is enough.”

I’m not saying I’m innocent of lazily repeating the same words and phrases over and over again, but I also don’t get paid to write for a big website.

Also, wtf does enough’s enough even mean?

They broke up a few times, one due to genuine issues, once because of a misunderstanding, once because MJ wasn’t well and Peter was OOC (which doesn’t count) and every other time also because they were both OOC.

“It's hard to feel bad for them when Peter and Mary Jane break up, because they do it all the time. He's always focusing on saving people, she's constantly moving to another part of the country to work on her career. When Mephisto forced them to break-up, he could've just waited a few months and gotten the same result.”

Again all the time and constantly does not = 4 times across 40 years.

Also that wasn’t Mephisto’s endgame but whatever.

10 HOW DID SHE NOT NOTICE OTTO'S MIND IN PETER'S BODY

Hey look, the secod legitimate point on this list. The answer was because bad writing.

9 HOW DO THEY AFFORD THEIR APARTMENTS?

“A common complaint across various forms of fiction is that characters always seem to be able to afford apartments that they shouldn't be able to. For Spider-Man and Mary Jane, however, it's pretty bad. Of course, there are times when Mary Jane's career is going very well, which explains how they can afford a nice apartment.

For the most part, however, Peter is a struggling photographer and she's a struggling model. Somehow, they are consistently able to afford apartments with giant skylights. ”

If this happens across most fiction in ways which aren’t more egregious than anything else (because Joey and Chandler’s apartment is egregious given their jobs) then it’s not worth mentioning on this list.

“Seriously, Tony Stark would struggle to afford some of the places they've lived in over the years.”

He really wouldn’t.

8 PETER WAS SUPER SHALLOW ABOUT MEETING HER

First off he wasn’t super shallow, he was as shallow as you would expect any teenager to be in that situation.

Also, a teenager being shallow. Thats certainly something that doesn’t make sense and belongs on a list entirely about shit that makes no sense.

“In the early stories, Peter could be kind of shallow. Granted, he was a teenager, but he always just seemed interested in dating the prettiest girls. ”

Ugh...no he didn’t. He asked out 3 young women who were all relatively attractive but none of whom were like compared to Hollywood starlets of the era. There was something of an implication that Betty Brant, his high school love, was not as attractive as the more glamorous Liz Allan whom he typically rebuffed in favour of Betty.

Also if we’re playing the ‘its super shallow to just date the hottest people you can’ then Peter and MJ were no worse than one another at those ages.

“Considering that he was always getting bullied and picked on, he should've been more understanding.”

a) Being bullied and picked on isn’t innately going to make you more understanding of anybody

b) Understanding of who? Who was he being inconsiderate towards exactly? He asked out two girls he was attracted to, attraction being an involuntary thing in the first place. He presumed his elderly not hip aunt who described MJ as being a good house wife was going to pick someone unattractive or boring, especially considering that if she was going to be set up with him she probably couldn’t get a date with anyone else. Meaning in his teenage head she must be unattractive

“Then, when he found out that she was beautiful, he was suddenly interested. ”

My God how dare characters as teens be shallow and flawed. It makes no seeeeeeense!

“It turns out, Peter's type was "any girl that looks good, regardless of her interests or personality."”

That’s true which is why he quickly began to turn away from MJ because he found her shallow and preferred Gwen who was seemingly not shallow...

7 WHY DID SHE NEED TO BE SET UP WITH PETER IN THE FIRST PLACE?

...huh?

“Every comic book fan knows the story of how Peter and MJ met. A recurring plot line in early Spider-Man stories was Aunt May constantly trying to set Peter up with her friend's niece. The two didn't actually meet until The Amazing Spider-Man #43 (1966) by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, when Peter opened the door and she said the iconic phrase "face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot!"”

Wow...the degree of incompetence in this paragraph is truly impressive.

First of all it was ASM #42 not #43...how do you fuck that up. More importantly it was with Lee and Romita Senior not Lee and Ditko. SERIOUSLY how do you fuck that up.

“What's weird about this, however, is that Mary Jane was a beautiful and outgoing girl. Peter was busy being Spider-Man, and was considered a nerd by his peers, so it's understandable that he'd need help getting dates. Mary Jane, on the other hand, should have been doing just fine.”

Lets ignore how this was explained in Parallel Lives a story which has a major plot point referenced by the article more than once.

...why is this presumption Mj NEEDED to be set up. Maybe she just agreed as a favour to her aunt.

6 HOW DID SHE KNOW TO SAY THE JACKPOT LINE?

Because she knew she was sexy and could tell by his reaction he didn’t realize that and was taken aback by it.

“Ok, this might seem like a nitpick,”

Why let that bother you now.

“The famous scene where Peter and Mary Jane first meet plays out like this: Peter answers the door, and Mary Jane is standing and delivers the famous line. It's a memorable moment, but it also doesn't make any sense.

Mary Jane never met Peter before this.”

Not formally no, but yes she had and knew what he looked like.

“How did she know she was a "jackpot" for him? Maybe she wasn't his type?”

His reaction spelled it out for her.

“For all she knew, he could have answered the door and been very disappointed. Also, maybe he wouldn't care what she looked like? It was a pretty arrogant thing to say, looking back, and she's lucky it didn't backfire.”

*rolls eyes* oh fuck off.

5 THE REASON SHE CALLS HIM TIGER MAKES NO SENSE

“For years, everyone focused on the "jackpot" part of Mary Jane's famous introduction, but apparently, Peter was focused on a different part. Apparently, he never understood why she called him "tiger," especially because the nickname stuck. In all honesty, it's a good question. Especially during those early years, Peter Parker was anything but a "tiger."

In the original Clone Saga that ran during 1975, Peter actually asked Mary Jane for the reason. It turns out, it's because he's not a tiger and she's just playfully teasing him. That's fine, except why did she say it the first time she met him? How did she know he wasn't a "tiger?"”

a) Because she called everyone that

b) Because Aunt May and Aunt Anna probably told her about him

4 THEY DON'T EVEN TRY TO HIDE KNOWING EACH OTHER

Yeah they do.

“Peter's never been great at keeping a secret identity.”

Yeah that is why hardly anyone knew it before Civil War...

“His entire scheme is that he takes pictures of himself fighting crime as Spider-Man, and then pretends that he's just Spidey's photographer. He's basically telling everyone that he's connected to the wall-crawler in some way.”

Yet it worked so obviously he is good at hiding it.

“Even worse, whenever Spider-Man runs into Mary Jane, they often blatantly talk to each other in public. They always forget to pretend that Mary Jane isn't supposed to know Spider-Man. ”

He talks to lots of people in public and MJ has the easy cover story of knowing/dating Spider-Man’s friend Peter Parker.

“That, or they go way over the top and really awkwardly state that they don't know each other.”

No they don’t.

“At some point, someone's going to notice Spidey flirting with Peter Parker's wife and put two and two together.”

Yet they never have so...

3 HOW DID SHE FIGURE OUT HIS SECRET ID?

“As previously stated, Peter is kind of terrible at keeping a secret identity. ”

As previously stated no he isn’t

“Often times, Peter doesn't even get caught as Spider-Man, people just end up figuring it out.”

Again a lie from the author who didn’t even know Romita Senior isn’t Steve Ditko.

“For example, after dating Peter during the '70s and the '80s, Mary Jane broke up with him, moved away, and then came back to New York. ”

Actually they broke up in the 70s and began dating after she returned in the 80s.

“When she returned, she revealed that she had figured out his secret.

While that made sense, later stories contradicted this. It was eventually revealed that she saw Peter leaving his house dressed as Spider-Man the night Uncle Ben died. So, she didn't figure it out. Obviously, this was a retcon, but the result is that Mary Jane lied to Peter. She didn't figure anything out!”

a) Seeing Peter Parker enter an abandoned house and Spider-Man emerge would count as figuring out his identity

b) She never actually told him directly she figured it out like she was a goddam detective

2 THEY BOTH KEEP HANGING AROUND THEIR EXES

As do most comic book characters...

“Both Peter and Mary Jane had healthy dating lives before marrying one another. There's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, it's strange how they're both constantly hanging around their exes. ”

Or refreshingly healthy...

“Peter still brings Black Cat around constantly, and he and Betty Brant are still very close.”

He dated Betty as a friggin teenager and the author reaffirms he doesn’t understand what constantly means.

“Meanwhile, Mary Jane dated Harry Osborn while they were both in college, and the relationship did not end well for him. Now, years later, everyone is always hanging out together and that's a little strange. Hanging around with your exes typically leads to disaster, and based on how many ex-boyfriends and girlfriends are around, Peter's Spidey-sense should be tingling.”

Or again healthy and an affirmation of a deep bonded friendship that goes beyond personal baggage from when they were young and dumb.

1 GWEN WAS MEANT TO BE PETER'S TRUE LOVE, NOT MJ

Again, not something that doesn’t make sense. In fact it makes less sense for Gwen to be his true love since they were not a great match and true loves are fairy tale bullshit.

“The end of Gwen Stacy is one of the most defining moments in comic book history. Up until that point, the hero saved the girl. Part of what made this story so memorable was that Gwen Stacy was always meant to be Peter's one true love.”

As far as Stan Lee was concerned yes but not everyone else.

Also OTLs are bullshit.

“Her demise rocked his world, and he's still affected by it, even to this day.

That's understandable, but it also strains Peter's relationship with MJ. She's always been understanding, but how many times can she come across him crying over Gwen's picture in the attic before it starts to effect her.”

He has literally never ever done this ever.

“She's constantly being reminded that she might be Peter's second choice.

Again with the misuse of constantly and no she isn’t because Peter has told and shown her she isn’t second best more than once.

And again, not a thing that doesn’t make sense however you slice it.

You what really doesn’t make sense.

This person being paid for this garbage.

#Screenrant #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary jane watson Parker #Dan Slott #Joe Quesada #MJ Watson #Gwen Stacy

29 notes · View notes

istesvioutyet · 6 years

Note

I love your response to the marriage system! Could you maybe tell me more about your qualms with DA’s romance systems? Also do you think Fallout 4’s system is a big improvement? Are there any shortcomings there you’d like to see patched especially with the characters themselves? I’m hoping they’ll expand on dialogue selections again instead of a wheel myself.

Sure! With DA Origins I felt the romances were a little too heavily dependent on gifts, and I’ve never really been a fan of game systems where you just feed items into someone until their personal quest drops out or whatever. It feels more like it belongs in Animal Crossing than an RPG. That said, it does a lot of good things, but at the end of the day the romances do feel a little bit shallow. With DA2, the romances just feel nonexistent in large swaths of the game. I feel like that’s more due to the game’s rushed development cycle than anything else, but it’s still frustrating that your relationship might come up like once or twice in party dialogue, if that, and that outside of the actual romance cutscenes and a slight physical alteration to the character’s costume, the game treats it like it doesn’t exist. I remember being paranoid my very first playthrough that my romance with Isabela had broken or something, until the VERY end of the game when there’s a brief conversation about it. With Inquisition I have a very similar issue in that your relationship just vanishes after a certain point, but this is worsened by the endgame outright cutting you off from dialogue with your companions around Skyhold. Nothing around your keep changes, and you’re left without any interaction whatsoever, which... this is why I like Skyrim’s marriage system so much: You get at least get the impression that you’re living with your spouse. In Inquisition, your love interest stays in whatever far-flung corner of the map they’re always relegated to and you can’t even talk to them about anything. It breaks any semblance of the game world feeling real.

Fallout 4′s companion system definitely feels like a vast improvement. It seems like they took a lot of hints from New Vegas, and that was a great step in the right direction. Companions all have much better-developed personal lives, with likes and dislikes that can change their opinion of you. This is something Bethesda’s never really attempted on this scale, and like... yeah, it definitely can use some improvements, but it’s a great change from past Bethesda games where at most you had to worry about your karma level or current standing as a criminal in whatever town you’re in.

I think ultimately the biggest problems with Fallout 4′s relationship systems come down to having a voiced protagonist. Every line of dialogue takes a chunk out of the game’s budget, so understandably they had to account for that. Dialogue options are thus limited, the interface is reduced, and options for roleplaying and character dynamics go down. Once they settled into a four-option wheel, that caused a MILLION problems in BOTH directions; yes, it sucks to only have four options sometimes because you wish there was more you could say, but also, it causes needless complexity when there doesn’t need to be any. In the past, dialogue has been able to have two, sometimes even one option and it’s been fine! Nobody complained about that, because it only ever happened in really straightforward instances when there really wasn’t much to say or do. But REQUIRING four options just overcomplicates things and makes them needlessly messy. People complain that the dialogue wheel in FO4 was “streamlining,” but in a lot of ways it was literally the opposite. It’s a needlessly-complicated interface.

They’ve implied in the past that having a voiced protagonist didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, so I have a good feeling they’re not going to try that again, and with the amount of race options in TES I’d certainly hope they wouldn’t try it with TES VI just because that would be expensive as HELL for them.

If they double down on making your interactions with the people in the world more expansive, the game will be better for it. Hell, it’ll be even better if they specifically focus on doing it with certain NPCs. I’m fine with not having dialogue with every named character, and I’m fine with having VERY limited options with most townsfolk, shopkeepers, etc. But if they can give us one or two dozen characters with a lot going on in their lives, with complex personalities, and a ton of roleplaying options, it’ll be brilliant. And if they SERIOUSLY reduce the amount of available companions so they can really focus on just a few, that would VASTLY improve the experience.

Also, this might be controversial, but I really want time to freeze when you enter dialogue again. I miss that. The game world continuing to move around you means you miss a lot of opportunities as characters wander away, or it means you have to rush through dialogue or skip it entirely in order to deal with one of the many threats that can pop up at any time, plus it runs through a LOT of in-game time for no reason. These game worlds run at an EXTREMELY fast time frame, in which minutes go by in mere seconds, so conversations with NPCs can easily take up in-game HOURS. That time frame is there for a lot of reasons--to imply a roughly-accurate passage of time as unseen miles are traversed in the wilderness and in cities, to imply that your character is eating and drinking outside of menus, to imply that you’re relieving yourself whenever the need arises, etc.--but I always felt like conversation time was always a part of that. Like, the time moves fast enough that it accounts for the frozen time during conversations. I dunno, this point seems hard to explain and I have no idea if I’m doing it well enough to make any sense

14 notes · View notes

thesummonerofaskr · 6 years

Text

Salt 2: Tharja

Rant under the read more.

Oh Tharja. How I hate thee. Let me count the ways. I was ready to do a rant upon this character back during the Enduring Love gauntlet after she won, the only character to take two wins after multiple gauntlets and prove that people absolutely enjoy psychopaths more then they love to admit. And I mean... I like psychopathic characters to a degree as well. I’m just more aware that if half of these characters I like were real, they would deserve to die in horrible, painful manners. But Tharja... Tharja doesn’t click with me. I don’t find her entertaining. Still, I decided not to do the rant then because I figured it would prove nothing. She took her second win and surely wouldn’t be in another gauntlet for a while, right?

Well now we have Winter Vs. New Years. And since as with any gauntlets they do internal eliminations first, we already have a million people predicting that the final match will come down to Winter!Tharja vs. NewYears!Camilla. And needless to say, while I am loathe to admit it, I do understand the anger and frustration that comes from the fact that the reason these two characters are so popular has less to do with personality and more to do with their physical assets. Because a lot of people who play this game consist of two groups, those groups being prepubescent straight men and prepubescent lesbians who see big tits and immediately rate that character high because “daaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum!” Meanwhile Faye from Shadows of Valentia has a similar personality with a more modest character design, yet notice how many people despise her because she isn’t built like a supermodel. A good number of these people who hate also like Tharja and/or Camilla. You wanna talk about double standards?

Now to be fair I know there are reasons to like Tharja. I like Camilla. And Faye, while cute, doesn’t get a lot of writing outside of her obsession for Alm. But if I had to take any of these girls in real life, it would definitely be Faye because she’s not ready to murder Celica for her man. That being said, though, why do I hate Tharja personally? I like Camilla. I like Henry. I even like Peri. It doesn’t get more problematic then Xander’s literal problematic servant. What’s my beef with Tharja?

Well for starters her personality doesn’t appeal to me. Tharja is dark and broody. She intentionally acts this way because she doesn’t care for social contact and because she feels it is the way a harbinger of death, destruction, and doom is meant to act, heavily contrasted with her fellow Dark Mage in Awakening in Henry whom is upbeat, cheerful, and has a bad joke or pun at the ready even while committing horrible acts of atrocity. Both are morally bankrupt as far as ethics go, but who sounds like the more entertaining character out of the two? Camilla may be as obsessive as Tharja, but she’s also got more charm in her unbridled and unquestionable love for her family as well as her adoration for children and animals. Tharja’s just kinda... dull to me. She’s either dull or scheming. All of her good acts feel forced because it doesn’t seem like the character she is. It’s similar to Peri’s support with Odin. Most of her supports involve her being heavily problematic and being scolded for her practical murder fetish, yet when Odin does it, she’s apparently leading a group designed to rehabilitate the disorderly such as her. I love Peri for being more entertaining, but she’s a psychotic bratty womanchild! Where the fuck did that come from?! But for Tharja, that’s nearly every support she has. The only one where you could see her being that nice is with her stalker crush Robin. Speaking of which...

My second gripe is that it’s never explained why exactly she’s obsessed with Robin. Nor is there any real way to headcanon it either. I once posited it might have something to do with Grima, but was then reminded that Tharja is willing to destroy Grima for Robin, meaning she cares for the man more then the dragon. So why is that so? I don’t know. Nobody does. Compare that to her expy in Fates, Rhajat. Corrin saves Rhajat when she’s a little girl from a life-ending experience. Then they save her again during the Faceless rampage. Rhajat was already smitten the first time, but the second time around sealed her obsession for Corrin. Camilla’s obsession? As she explains in her support with Niles (another popular character whom I despise, go figure), she saw Corrin as a scared, lonely child who now had the entire world against them as a Hoshidan in Nohr. During the Concubine Wars, she was a living weapon against her half-siblings, unloved by her own mother and hunted by her other family until the bloodshed ended and she was able to live peacefully with Xander, Leo, and Elise. She doesn’t want Corrin to feel as alone as she did and so she utterly smothers them with affection. She knows that her other three siblings can handle themselves since they also lived through those bloody times, but Corrin is this sweet, naive person who can’t even murder Hoshidan prisoners on King Garon’s orders. Clearly they need more affection and more time to grow in Camilla’s eyes. Faye doesn’t have as much writing either, but there’s at least enough to headcanon why she’s obsessed with Alm. She might’ve had a regular old crush on Alm as a child, but then Slayde comes to Ram Village ready to kill Kliff, Gray, and Tobin as well as her, though it’s implied in his dialogue and the dialogue of his men that she was also considered a target for rape! Because God knows the women can’t be spared in pre-Tellius Fire Emblem stories.That would naturally be a very traumatic experience that was delayed long enough for Mycen to come save them by Alm acting like this brave hero, charging out and punching Slayde in the face despite the fact that it would’ve cost both him and Celica dearly if Mycen didn’t show when he did. Psychologically speaking, Faye could very well see Alm as an anchoring point, something comforting to her now scarred psyche, and thus that dependency manifested itself into an obsessive desire that causes her to become more and more unhinged when she goes into battle alongside Alm and the others in the name of the Deliverance. But if I keep going on about how much I like Faye and how much I wish she’d gotten more development, we’ll lose the topic completely, so onto the final reason I hate Tharja.

You know what all of these characters I like do that Tharja doesn’t? They respect their children. Camilla loves children. Faye doesn’t have children as far as I know, but I imagine she would love them even if she does disappear for days on end because of that mangled psyche of her’s. Henry and Peri both end up surprisingly good parents despite their usual disturbing behavior. Even Niles, whom I stated above I do not like, is a good father... well as good as a Fates parent can be. Tharja, however? Tharja openly experiments with magic on her daughter. And here’s the thing. We’re not counting the Tharja in the future who went mad with grief and started experimenting on Noire to “make her stronger” or whatever. In Noire’s support with her father, she’s come down with a runny nose and it’s Tharja who cursed her with it. Progressing further reveals that he tried to get her to undo the hex only for her to move it to him as well. Noire gets upset because that was how it was even in the future and thus it seemed to her that nothing was changing, so by their A-Support, her father goes balls to the wall and takes all of Tharja’s cursing implements, which makes Tharja chase him around violently and this... lifts Noire’s spirits because it’s different. I’ve seen people try to defend this by saying “it’ll make Noire stronger,” but that is often used as an excuse by abusers to defend what they do to their children in real life. It hits too close to home and I find it absolutely disgusting that this is used by some of her fans to excuse her actions. A few others have mentioned it should be taken as goofy, but again this is a character who seemingly values tradition over mischief. I doubt that she meant her anger to be taken as if in jest. So as far as I’m concerned, she did it because she knew she could, because she knew Noire had taken it before, and because she figured Noire made an easy guinea pig, making her a shitty mother and a disgusting human being.

I can forgive a psychotic personality in fiction. I can forgive obsessiveness. I can forgive violence, especially since I can be quite an aggressive person myself. I can forgive a lot of things in fiction as long as the characters are entertaining. I don’t expect to make people like Peri or Camilla if they hate them. If either of those two were real, I imagine the former would need to be put to death immediately and the latter put in a psyche ward at least if not put to death as well. But Tharja isn’t just dull, uninteresting, and morally bankrupt. She also represents how disgusting some people will get in order to defend her. You can tell me how disgusting I am for liking Peri because “I’m woobifying a serial murderer,” even though I haven’t called her anything short of disturbed and monstrous, but I won’t try to turn around and convince you that it’s not her fault since her father raised her to kill people and encouraged her as a child to murder her butlers and maids since it made her happy. He should be put to death too, sure, but Peri is far too broken to realistically save and only Fates’ stock writing could even hope to try. I’m not gonna tell you to dislike Tharja if you’re reading this and like her. I only hope you have proper reasons to like her whilst accepting that she isn’t a hero, she isn’t a nice person, and she isn’t morally just in her actions.

Or you could like her because she has big tits, I guess. Seems to be the go-to reason for Tharja/Camilla fans.

#ooc #michele rants #character hate #not gonna tag the character's name #but it is in the title #sorry to all the fans if it shows up regardless

5 notes · View notes

dreadhaus-literature · 5 years

Text

{A/N} The Reality Is...

I’m surprised at myself for coming to talk about this, but it’s been tumbling around in my head all day and I figured...I might as well.

I disabled my OkCupid profile today. Not deactivated, all I’ll have to do is log back in and it’ll reactivate. But I just...I don’t know. It sounds dramatic to say I’ve given up, but today felt pretty final, for me. I mean I’m 30, so anything is possible and I’m not resigning myself to...what I’ve always said--

That I’ll wind up alone.

It’s ironic. I’m a really loving, affectionate person but I’ve never really been able to express that. My most serious relationship was with a person in a different country. I’ve been single for seven years, and while I knew putting myself back out there wouldn’t be easy...I’m trying to find another way to say “I think there’s something wrong with me,” because it sounds so depressing and down on myself and I’m really not. I think my personality’s pretty swell and I know how to take care of someone so I know I’m good in relationships, especially now that I’ve been through some shit and grown and know myself really well. No, what I mean is...there might actually be something wrong with me.

The reason I disabled my profile is because of this reason. I’ve been on OkCupid for a year and a half? And I’ve met a lot of women and tried on a few for a while, but the same thing always happens--they don’t interest me. I find myself mindlessly answering them so they’ll...shut up and stop talking. There’s something wrong when I’m annoyed by seeing I have a notification, lol. Shouldn’t you be excited to hear from someone? Especially a potential partner? But I never am. And I mean...ever. And I know it’s not a new thing, because it even happened with Lyn. It took her a month of doggedly trying to get my attention before I really stopped to talk to her and give her the time of day.

Real people just do not do it for me, lmao. I’ve been ruined by fantasy. I see a fictional character and I turn into--

Men, women, a monstrosity with no discernible gender or features? Doesn’t matter, I’m game.

But real life, something else entirely happens to me and I can’t explain it. I’ve always been extremely hard for people to get close to and it is not for their lack of trying.

I hate to say this because it sounds so full of myself but I have a really easy time with women. Whether it’s my height or what, but women’s attention actually comes really easy to me. I don’t go looking for likes on OkCupid, but I’ve got hundreds of them from women liking me and initiating conversations with me. I’ve got a dating pool, the problem is I am interested in none of them. They try and message me, talk to me, text me, and the same thing happens! Every time! I wind up ghosting them or leaving them on read because I’m annoyed by the conversation or so bored I can’t keep it up anymore.

This last month or so I’ve really just gotten tired of trying this whole thing out. With me moving, I figured this would just be a “run out the clock” situation and I’d just chitchat with the women who message me and when I get to AZ I’d start really trying to date. But I just...dude. This one girl, Amber--there was nothing wrong with her. I mean, zero attraction on my end, she was very average and did nothing for me but I was fine to chat with her--but she started double, triple, quadruple messaging me without getting a response from me inbetween and for as clingy as I can be, if someone tries that shit with me and I’m not interested that amps my annoyance up to a 10 right away. Don’t cling to me if I’m not interested, I will palm your entire face and just...squeeze. And she was hitting on me and I was not at all into it but I’m...nice, so I try not to be rude about it, I thanked her for the compliments and I admit, I fake stuff a lot. I had a girl get after me about it last year, when I tried giving her a chance so I faked a lot of my responses to try and get over my initial disinterest in...literally everyone and she got mad at me about it. And maybe it is fucked up, idk. I just, it feels rude to not reciprocate it, I’d be embarrassed if it was me so I try and be nice. Besides, it’s not anyone else’s fault I’m like this.

And I really can’t explain it. I just, girls jump into messaging me and it’s immediately all, “hey sexy ;)” and tf am I supposed to say to that? I don’t know you, even if you are hot I don’t jump into shit that fast. I just don’t. It takes time to get me to open my shell and until I do there’s not going to be any genuine interest from me. There just isn’t. And I realized very early on if I don’t fake some shit I’ll never get close enough to someone to find out if there’s something there. Lyn was a perfect example. I fell for her hard as fuck but it took me about two months--if I hadn’t faked reciprocating initially it never would have happened. And while she was a mistake...I just don’t know what to do with myself. I literally never feel genuine interest in people. Monica was the last person I openly pursued because I had a genuine interest to want to get to know her and be close to her. I haven’t felt that in 11 fucking years.

So I don’t think it’s entirely wrong to say something IS wrong with me. Normal people don’t have this issue. I see people falling in love and developing crushes at the snap of a finger. I just...don’t. Can’t? Idfk. There’s something about fantasy and how it slips beneath my shell because it’s safe and I know it’s okay because it’s perfect. Reality is a different story.

There were a couple other girls this past month who really...worked my nerves. Angela was one, this polyamory married bisexual with a boyfriend AND a husband, and typically I don’t engage with poly folks on the app. I’m not into poly IRL, too jealous/possessive/insecure for that but she messaged me and seemed pretty chill and like she just wanted to be friends so I started talking to her. Found out pretty fast she was interested in more and probably because I’m tall so she’s thinking she’ll add a butch to her collection of dudes. Which...was never going to happen. She was pushy, too, which I heavily dislike. I don’t give my number out very often, mostly because I like to ghost on people and it’s easier to do on the app than if someone has my number, but she kept asking and asking (despite me explaining it takes me time to give that out) and finally, a little before my birthday, she messaged me all, “Are you ever going to give me your number?”

I was at work and annoyed so I just gave it to her, and I got kinda shitty in my response, told her I’d explained this to her multiple times but since she was so pressed about it, fine. And she tried to backtrack and said it wasn’t a big deal but it was too late by then. She text me a few times and I left her on read a lot, lmao. Told ya, I get annoyed. She talked about herself incessantly and was honestly hard to converse with. After leaving her on read for a while she messaged me on Friday with, “Haven’t heard from you. Life’s sucked for me lately.”

I left her on read and deleted the message and her number. D-o-n-e.

The other girl I’ve been texting is Diane. I actually broke my mold and messaged her first, because I thought she was a cute little dyke and wanted to get to know her. It’s rare I find someone who interests me enough to message first, but I did reach out to her. She lives in OH, so she’s not super close (Angela actually lives in Fort Wayne but I refused to tell her where I live) and we chatted over the app for a while but I found out pretty quick that the same issue that I have with a lot of women I talk to...also afflicts Diane. It was the same issue I had with Angela. It’s the same issue I have with pretty much every living soul I interact with.

Why can’t people do anything other than talk about themselves?

Seriously, it’s like a goddamn epidemic. No one knows how to have a conversation anymore unless they’re talking about themselves. Diane was fine to tell me all about her work, her hobbies, her preferred hairstyle, etc etc, but very rarely asked me about myself. It became very clear very quickly that she was insecure, which I would be fine with, but she went the wrong way with it. See, some of the women I encounter have this issue where they love the compliments and attention I give them...but they won’t return it. Diane was fine to send me selfies (unprompted, I did not ask for them) and wait for me to talk about them or compliment her but she never asked to see me or for any selfies or anything. She wanted me to make her feel better, to make her feel pretty and wanted, but forgot to return the favor. And for as giving as I can be, if the other person only takes...well, that begins to chafe with me after a while.

She’d rarely comment on things I said, and if I’d ask her things like her favorite food or color, she’d tell me but not ask me for mine. It was a cycle of taking and talking about herself and I haven’t deleted her out of my phone but I woke up today to a selfie and a message from her that the selfie was a “present” for me and deleted it immediately, lmao. You need to take several seats if you’re thinking you’re making my day by sending me a picture of your face when we’ve only been talking a couple weeks. And part of it is my fault. I’ve been faking a lot of our conversation because I have to mask my initial disinterest, but Diane and all these other girls don’t do much to try and get beyond my shell. I don’t even think they realize it’s there...I mean that would require them to talk to me about myself rather than spending hours talking about them.

But they’re not the entire problem. Even the ones who genuinely seem interested in me, i still get bored and move on. The best way I can describe it is honestly a general disinterest. People bore me. Part of it might be my trust issues and the fact that I don’t expect anyone to really care. They just want a soundboard to talk about themselves to. I’m bitter and jaded, I don’t do anything to hide that. I also don’t think I should have to change to adapt to this new “me me me” era where no one cares about the person they’re talking to. I just won’t do it.

Part of me wonders if my imagination and fantasy have ruined me for reality and relationships. I expect to feel something for people, something akin to the love I feel for the characters that I am in love with. I want to feel that and I know I can. I felt it with Lyn...and that might be why I thought she and I were really meant to be together. It was the realest love I’d ever felt in a relationship. My whole life I’ve struggled with having this big, squishy, affectionate heart but there’s this hard outer shell people can’t get around or I can’t push down to let people get around (whether lack of attraction or disinterest or distrust) so I sit here, alone. It’s why I genuinely, since high school, have felt I would end up alone. Lyn and I weren’t so different in that I figured I’d just adopt some kids later on in life, or get pregnant on my own through insemination and just skip the relationship. It does make me a little sad, I want...someone, y’know? I get lonely. I want to feel loved and like someone wants me like I want them and I want to get married and share those experiences. Fantasy life is wonderful and I’ll always have it but I still get in bed alone every night. I can’t even remember my last kiss. And that part bums me out, to think I spent my 20′s pretty much alone and if my 30′s go that way then I really will wind up either alone or alone with kids.

Life’s weird. Part of me is okay with it, I am who I am and while I could totally fake a relationship I don’t want to. I don’t know if I’m waiting for some romantic movie lesbian to come into my life and take my breath and heart away at the same time or if that’s just stupid. If real life doesn’t work that way and I need to fix myself to try and find some...semblance of romance and happiness? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me or how to fix it or even if I should. I can’t change how I feel, when interacting with women who are interested in me but I don’t feel anything for any of them. I don’t know who I’m waiting for.

I just hope she finds me.

#{A/N} : personal

0 notes

mrs-sexy-curls · 7 years

Text

“While I’m gone,” Gansey said, pausing, “dream me the world. Something new for every night.”

A dark and eeriee novel about a spark light personality who lit the world on fire. Delicious and dangerous, Ronan Lynch’s character intensity is filled with beauty, fueled by fear and filtered by none. A beautiful, tormented novel that doubles up on its predecessor and warns on the dangers of letting ourselves fall to deep into our dreams, as they start creeping closer into our reality instead.

5/5 Stars Recommendation: If the Raven Boys was a must read, the Dream Thieves is the installment in the Raven Cycle serious that you can not miss! It is exciting, thrilling, broodingly dark and nightmarish, for the heavy character development enthusiasts and danger seeking readers !

Picking up where The Raven Boys left off, we follow the 3rd person POV novel focusing on the eyes of Ronan Lynch, the group’s rage filled and broken seventeen year old. The group’s quest for the Welsh King of myths is going stronger than ever, now favored and driven by an odd, magical forests that spurted in the Virginia Valley, known as Cabeswater. Now tied to Adam— through a bargain where he sacrificed himself and promised to be its hands and its eyes, and to Ronan Who appears to be long acquainted with the forest through the messages he has left for himself scattered around it, in more than one deep and mysterious way.

Despite Adam’s sacrifice to awaken the magical energy line than runs through their town, the Ley line, magic seems to be fluctuating and acting in unstable and unstoppable manners; affecting the psychics of Fox Way, the decaying Noah and whatever curse lays dormant under the ground of Henrietta, Virginia. All while Gansey and Adam must their puzzled gang and Ronan can’t be bothered to act as a decent human being because of the nightmares he keeps bringing to reality with him when he wakes up—

That’s right, just like chainsaw, Ronan is capable of bringing objects, things and people back with him every time he wakes up from a dream. With Gansey gone, he befriends another dangerous Aglionby student Kavinsky who shares his gift and must now face with the consequences of his recklessness, the nightmares of his past, the present that fades between his fingers and the broken future he must fix back together.

Despite the magic of The Raven Boys and its original greatness, The Dream Thieves did not fall in its face in comparison. In fact, because of the engaging story and powerful character portrayal, I wouldn’t feel shy about calling it an improvement from its predecessor. It’s just that good ! This book is heavily character driven, whereas regular YA characters are guided and controlled by the plot and development is based around that, but every single moment with Ronan is worth it. This book is probably one of Stiefvater’s fever dreams about Ronan, drugs and expensive cars and that’s probably what makes it the best thing out there.

Click Read More for the spoilers, kiddos !

The Dream Thieves Summary:

Everyone: Ronan no Ronan: Ronan yes

I love Ronan.

Thoughts on Gansey & Blue:

But the sensible part of Blue, which was usually the only part of her, thought that had more to do with Richard Campbell Gansey III having a nice mouth than with any blossoming romance. Anyway, if fate thought it would tell her who to fall for, fate had another thing coming.

Gansey added, “I would’ve thought you had more muscles. Don’t feminists have big muscles?” Decidedly not in love with him.

Let me explain something I’ve mentioned in the past. I’m a slow burner when it comes to romance. And if there is one thing I sincerely appreciated about this book series is the fact that its romance wasn’t driving the plot—despite the UK cover advertisement—, or even playing a major role in it, so I was expecting feelings to be developed throughout the course of four books.

In fact, while the entire Adam and Blue dynamic developed in this book and the previous book, I was sort of waiting situations where Gansey and Blue found themselves interacting alone and to find a slow connection brewing between them. Because its there, and it exists, but it bothered me the fact I barely got any sort of interaction between them on that regard until After Blue broke up with Adam, supposedly because she at last acknowledged her feelings for Gansey but I had no reason to believe she suddenly had a crush on this man she’s barely interacted with. I found the aforementioned quote to be adorable and endeering, and specially believable. While I know this paragraph doesn’t actually mean Blue dislikes Gansey, there is nothing that would make me thing this girl has anything remotely close to a crush when in the next paragraphs go something like this:

Adam allowed Blue into their circle as well, his eyes meeting hers for a moment.

I’m picking this one, Fate, she thought ferociously. Not Richard Gansey III. You can’t tell me what to do.

I’m sorry, but to then be met with this halfway through the book:

“As they baked in the sunlight, she let herself think it: I have a crush on Richard Gansey.”

Bothered me. For a book that did such a great time expression Ronan’s every thought and emotion so subtly yet clearly, I don’t understand why we couldn’t have had a moment extra to dwelve further into Blue’s state of mind regarding her feelings with Adam and Gansey. Everything was going great in the last book— And while I also did express in the Raven Boys review that I didn’t like Blue and Adam together, it doesn’t mean I don’t want a coherent progressive line from one boy to the other. I’d hate to call it insta-love, but it was rather close. I could say the same from Gansey as well— Since we were treated to the moment Blue realized she was into this boy, I hate not to be able to say the same thing about Gansey. He didn’t seem to like her romantically in the last book, much specially when he did try to set Blue up with Adam, he only seems to mindlessly be following Blue’s feeling because the plot said so.

Nice.

Still, after that entire “How did we even get to their romance” fiasco Blue and Gansey had some absolutely endearing moments. The rest of their interactions were so pure and real, and never failed to tug at my heart. Expecting the silly calls in the middle of the night were nothing but #goals, taking Blue out for a ride at her beck and call when she was upset killed me on the inside, and not to mention the mock kissing they were forced to do. It was lovely and you could feel the pain and need in every sentence.

“Blue wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one. Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps.”

Not to mention Maggie’s prose. Always great, meaningful, and hilarious. Extra points just for these quotes scattered all around the book.

Thoughts on Kavinski:

Boy did Maggie get him right. One of my number one complaints with antagonists, is their general YA formula, empty and pure evil and somehow… That’s what Kavisnky is, but that is his entire character and its performed so well.

Kavinski appears as he harasses Ronan, taunts him into car racing until everything goes fatally wrong and he crashes, wounding himself and wrecking Gansey’s Camaro to the point of no come back. It is then when Kavisnki drags him down deep into his world of dreams, admitting he too can pull out objects from his dreams, and teaches him how to steal from his own dreams with the help of designer drugs.

Roll credits.

Kavisnki is there as a representation of everything Ronan is, and as an offer to be a companion in his fucked up, angry existence. This is where it should get good, right? An offer to be himself, without Gansey to force him into the path of righteousness that Ronan obviously no longer cared for, a friend in his state of self loathing and hatred… And this is perhaps were Ronan’s biggest proof of character development occurs:

The realization he wasn’t like that, and most importantly, that he did not want to be like that. Empty, careless, living a selfish existence to make up for the hole that was carved inside of him and that would eventually lead to his self loathing. Kavinski on the other hand, embraced that fully. He had money, popularity, the best parties and a reputation that reached the other side of the state and anything he could’ve ever wanted at the beck and call of a dream. Kavinski had it all… And that made him empty.

Kavinski’s solution to this could have presumably been reaching out friendships to try reckless and dangerous things like he does with Ronan with someone like Prokopenko, to the point that we eventually learned led to Prokopenko’s death. It didn’t work out, and instead he’s been reaching out to Ronan as he’s finally found someone he can call an equal to him. He wanted to be empty with someone else and after Ronan finally rejects him— rejects the entire lifestyle, rejects the hate he no longer felt for himself— he gives up, deciding to end his meaningless existence. And just like that, lets himself be killed by his own creation in the same way he came into the world: Empty.

Thoughts on Adam:

Hello yes, I need to address him again.

Adam was… Weird, again in this book. Maggie foreshadowed pretty well he was no longer the same person, after all, he just sacrificed a part of himself during the Raven Boys and honestly, it was great. It was a good weird, it was well done and very interesting seeing Adam coping and slowly changing as Cabeswater lived inside of him.

Now here’s the thing though— I really thought Adam was going to become a bad guy. Like I said, I could recognize his struggle and his change, his obvious moodiness and the constant fights with Gansey were at least deeper and complex (added to the ones I absolutely loathed where he’d reproach Gansey trying to be a good friend, even when it turned out it wasn’t even Gansey’s doing)… But I thought he was changing for the worst. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I was enjoying it nonetheless, but I’ll have to charge myself guilty for actually thinking this was going to be the way Maggie pushed Adam out of the way to make way for King Gansey of all things good for Blue.

I was so pleasantly surprised she didn’t and that instead it was simply a complex battle inside of Adam to figure out who he is, like identity is a recurring theme in TCR books, and what Cabeswater and the Raven boys now meant to him, finally independent, finally his own person, finally away from his abusers. For someone who complains about being spoonfed my feelings so much in your average YA formula, I am sadly guilty of really thinking —and kind of looking forwards— Maggie was heading down this path. In the end, I’m just blessed she changed my mind.

One more time though, I had to find myself enjoying Adam more through the eyes of Ronan. Their interactions bless me.

Religious list of amazing things because holy shit:

The Gray Man having a mental debate whether he was capable or not to weave a flower crown for Maura. This is a cold, season hit man guys.

I love the Gray Man so much guys,

Just think about it, Maggie did this great job making a believable antagonist that felt good for her novel and instead made us fall in love in him and root for this man

He even goes through entire life crisis were he can’t get up from bed days at a time, thank you for making him real Maggie??

The Lynch brothers attend church together every Sunday and that is simply beautiful, like its really their last attempt at having a proper family.

Ronan, all of the amount of Ronan.

Adam discovering it wasn’t Gansey who had payed the extra 2.4K of his apartment but instead Ronan and keeping quiet about it, like it had left him confused and speechless. Every mention of Ronan being a ball of sun feels so good and deserved, my heart was pleased every time.

Kavinski’s constantly fucking around with Ronan about being Gansey’s bottom

Kavinski practically confessing to Ronan and killing himself after his rejection, because that was so powerful holy christ-

What are Adam’s interesting thoughts on traveler’s rights?

[Review] The Dream Thieves – Maggie Stiefvater “While I’m gone,” Gansey said, pausing, “dream me the world. Something new for every night.” A dark and eeriee novel about a spark light personality who lit the world on fire.

#2013 YA Books #Book Reviews #Maggie Stiefvater #TDT #The Dream Thieves #The Dream Thieves Review #The Raven Boys #The Raven Boys Review #The Raven Cycle Review #TRC #YA novel

1 note · View note

toomanysinks · 5 years

Text

How far are you willing to go for growth?

There is a deep dilemma facing startup founders that I think just isn’t brought to light often enough. On one hand, almost all (and I do mean almost all) founders are reasonably ethical people. They can be over-optimistic, they can over-promise, they can be inexperienced around management, but at their core, they want to improve the world, build something new, and yes, make (a lot) of money while doing it.

Yet, if you really want to grow fast — so fast that you can go from piddling startup to $1.7 billion valued banking unicorn in less than four years — then there are only so many ways to do that ethically. Or even legally, given that the laws around industries like banking aren’t designed for high growth, but rather sedentary expansion.

Here’s a lesson that I think founders internalize very, very early: growth solves all problems. And it is absolutely, 100% true. Growth absolutely solves all problems. Want to make your next fundraise a cinch? If you grow 5x or 7x year-over-year, watch as dozens of venture firms squabble to get access to that cap table. Want to hire faster and attract better talent? Growing at top speed is an easy way to lock in those people.

And if you think the board acts as a guardrail, you have never seen the giddy excitement of a VC who is seeing their yacht / Napa vineyard / Atherton estate being financed before their very eyes. Boards don’t ask tough questions in periods of high growth, they double down: “do everything to keep this rocket ship shooting for the stratosphere.”

In these situations, it is nearly impossible to balance growth and ethics. You can’t just say, “turn on the money laundering thing again and we will accept 5x instead of 7x” or whatever. The whole organism of the startup has been geared for growth. Hell, even the people not working for the company (but want to) are geared for growth. Every salary bump, equity distribution, performance evaluation, feedback, KPI, and firing is predicated on growth.

Sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you don’t. Uber got away with it, Zenefits did not.

So where does Revolut sit, which I’ve been foreshadowing here? By now, you might have come across the three-part story arc of Revolut, a digital banking service based in London. In part one, Revolut is a fintech darling founded in July 2015 that has since raised $336 million in venture capital within four years at a $1.7 billion valuation according to Crunchbase.

Insane growth, huge market, real product. It’s the best first act for a startup one can possibly hope for.

Then the bad news started hitting hard this week. In act two, we get this Wired exposé by Emiliano Mellino that discusses the atrocious working conditions of the company along with deeply questionable employee interview tactics:

She did a 30-minute job interview over Google Hangouts with the London-based head of business development, Andrius Biceika, and was immediately told she had passed to the next round, which would involve a small test. “The surprise came when I received the task and it asked me to get the company as many clients as possible, with each one depositing €10 into the app,” says Laura.

And using fear to goad performance:

Last spring, CEO Nikolay Storonsky sent an announcement to all staff through the company’s Slack messaging service, saying that any members of staff “with performance rating [sic] ‘significantly below expectations’ will be fired without any negotiation after the review”.

…

Around this time, CEO Nikolay Storonsky gave an interview to Business Insider where he said Revolut’s philosophy was to “get shit done”, a slogan that is emblazoned on the company’s London office walls in bright neon lights. In an echo to what was going on in these calls, Storonsky would go on to say in the interview that the company attracted people that want to grow and “growing is always through pain”.

Well, there is more growth to come, because act three is going to bring a very painful episode for the company. My colleague Jon Russell noted that Revolut’s CFO has resigned in the wake of a Daily Telegraph investigation showing that Revolut had switched off the anti-money-laundering safeguards at the company, because, well, it got in the way of growth.

Let’s be clear: we all love a rapidly-growing startup. We all want to invest or join a winner. But what are we willing to forego to get it? Are we willing to push ethical boundaries? Are we willing to use dark patterns to force those numbers higher? Are we willing to break the law and potentially go to prison? Our love of growth often knows no bounds.

In context, I’m sure Revolut’s decision came easily, but of course, for disinterested observers, the idea that you would switch off the AML system at a banking startup just looks like complete stupidity. Yet, I am not sure I am ready to blame the employees of Revolut (or its leaders frankly) before I place the blame on a culture that demands extreme growth, and dislikes it when the consequences come to bear. You can’t get extreme growth without something breaking. We need to decide which value is more important for us.

Extra Crunch ethics series

Not sure we are going to be able to answer all the questions posed by Revolut, but Extra Crunch will be hosting a series of dialogues around tech ethics in the coming weeks that will try to parse some of the tough challenges that come from technology and startups these days. Stay tuned.

Why fundamental self-interest causes US infrastructure to fall flat on its face

Simon McGill via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Yesterday, DJ Gribbin, a fellow at Brookings and a senior US government infrastructure official, published an op-ed in which he attributes the US’ infrastructure struggles largely to 1) a misunderstanding of federal fund availability, 2) the fragmentation and variability of local infrastructure needs, and 3) misaligned incentives for local politicians and contractors.

Local politicians push heavily for the federal government to cover a portion of their bill, advertising the money as free to their constituents. In reality, investing federal funds is a zero-sum game that requires either more taxation, higher debt, or pulling money from elsewhere. What results are the competitive bid and bureaucratic review processes we discussed earlier this week that ultimately lead to gamesmanship and misinformation.

The federal-local coordination has grown more difficult as projects have become more localized with region-specific needs and benefits, compared to national projects of old like the highway system. Now, executing local developments depends on coordination between federal, state, and local governments, leading to the political pissing contests we all know and love.

In Gribbin’s mind, the biggest flaw in the US’ approach to infrastructure – also raised in our conversation with infrastructure expert Phil Plotch — is the misaligned incentive system that encourages bad behavior from all parties.

The complexity of approval and funding processes causes local politicians to either delay projects as they lobby for federal funding or to “overpromise and underdeliver” on costs and benefits to push a project through.

Similarly, competitive RFP bidding used to reduce cost estimates encourages contractors to similarly overpromise, leading to plan revisions, construction issues, and delays that seem to be inevitable for every major project. Clearly more needs to be done to align the incentives of each of these players.

Software and infrastructure

JayLazarin via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

New York City rail operators grew frustrated this week with the contractors hired to install a new safety system. Fumbled management and failed execution on what was thought to be a simple tech integration have caused multi-year delays, potentially pushing completion past the deadline set by the Federal Railroad Administration for railroads across the country to upgrade their safety systems.

Only about one-tenth of the mandated rails had successfully upgraded their system as of last year as local agencies continue to struggle with designing software and hardware platforms compatible with other trains that may use their lines. That pattern is also found in New York. From the Wall Street Journal article:

The projects have suffered a series of setbacks because of understaffing by the contractors as well as software and hardware failures. Those failures include the recall of antennas that were installed on more than 1,000 rail cars and that were later found to be defective.

“It was a novice error and we did not believe we had hired novices,” MTA board member Susan Metzger said.

The New York project mimics issues plaguing projects throughout the US, where contractors use the “overpromise, underdeliver” strategy to win competitive bids. Add in software incompetence, and you get the mess that New York is facing now.

DC commutes suck more than in NYC and SF, even before Amazon materializes

Richard Sharrocks via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

According to a new data set from Bloomberg, the cost of commuting into Washington D.C. is higher than any other metro in the US. Though density is clearly a factor here, workers in the greater D.C. area face the longest commute time in the country at nearly 80 minutes on average. Bloomberg then derived a “score” for the opportunity cost of commutes based on average annual incomes and average total annual commuting hours per worker, weighted based for other externalities such as how early or late average departures were.

D.C. is in the midst of seriously expanding its Metrorail system but, unsurprisingly, the project has gone far from smoothly. Bloomberg’s findings stress the need for an improved transit system in the region but based on precedent and progress to date it’s unclear if and when the full expansion will be complete and at what ungodly cost.

We’re planning on diving deeper into D.C.’s Metrorail expansion project as we read The Great Society Subway by Zachary Schrag, which just arrived at Extra Crunch HQ this week.

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

To every member of Extra Crunch: thank you. You allow us to get off the ad-laden media churn conveyor belt and spend quality time on amazing ideas, people, and companies. If I can ever be of assistance, hit reply, or send an email to [email protected].

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/how-far-are-you-willing-to-go-for-growth/

0 notes

fmservers · 5 years

Text

How far are you willing to go for growth?

Sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you don’t. Uber got away with it, Zenefits did not.

Insane growth, huge market, real product. It’s the best first act for a startup one can possibly hope for.

And using fear to goad performance:

…

Extra Crunch ethics series

Why fundamental self-interest causes US infrastructure to fall flat on its face

Simon McGill via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Software and infrastructure

JayLazarin via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

“It was a novice error and we did not believe we had hired novices,” MTA board member Susan Metzger said.

DC commutes suck more than in NYC and SF, even before Amazon materializes

Richard Sharrocks via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

We’re planning on diving deeper into D.C.’s Metrorail expansion project as we read The Great Society Subway by Zachary Schrag, which just arrived at Extra Crunch HQ this week.

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

Via Danny Crichton https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

0 notes

distantdreaming · 7 years

Text

close your eyes & realize that we were meant for this

I realize I never post my fics on tumblr, and that’s shit, because I’m missing a large reader base here. So, here we are, let’s see how well-received this is. If it gets notes, I might continue posting both here and AO3.

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Pairings: heavily centralized Iwaoi, side Hanamakki, likely mentions of Daisuga and Kuroken.

Words (so far): 2,733

Summary: Oikawa's bright, loud, confident, and completely full of shit.

Hajime knows he's faking most of his surface personality, and he's also known Oikawa since they were seven years old, so he's not fooled. The pressure is building, Oikawa is cracking, and Hajime's damned if he's gonna let such an incredible boy fall apart on his watch. Even if it means holding Oikawa together himself, he'll do it. He's been in love with the boy for years anyway, and there's nothing like helpless devotion as a motivation to hold on to each other even if the world feels like it’s crumbling to pieces around them.

Title cred to Youth In Revolt. Heavy angst, some triggers, implied/refrenced self-destruction in non-traditional forms. Message for more details.

Just double dare me, and I’ll promise now that I’ll stay. (cred. Waterparks)

It’s funny, really, how little they have in common on the surface.

It’s not as if he wants to be part of some bullshit opposites attract cliché, but he apparently is , because here they are, impossibly different and yet stuck with each other since the age of five. And he’s such, he’s such a fucking cliché, falling for his best friend, the boy next door, the prom king with the perfect fucking hair, and it doesn’t even matter that he knows all of Oikawa’s (many, many) shitty personality traits, many flaws, many imperfections. He’s gone for those stupid curls, and he has been for a long, long time.

Oikawa, for all his ability to read people, has somehow not figured this out yet.

***

For a boy — no, man — with such talent and such skill, Oikawa’s really fucking insecure.

Sure, sure, he’ll adorn himself in smirks and smiles and bravado and crowns, but Hajime knows the way he stays up all night watching, memorizing, analyzing, knows how long he spends practicing, working his body until it’s at the very edge. Hit it ‘til it breaks, and all that shit.

He’s reckless.

He’s ruining his health, putting such strain on his body, and his damn knee is going to actually ruin his career if he’s not careful. Oikawa is aware of this, Hajime thinks, on some level. Still, he’s not stopping, pushing and pushing for perfection that goes against the laws of human nature, and he pushes to be the best captain, the best server, the best setter.

He doesn’t seem to understand that he already is all those things to the boys of Aoba Johsai, he’s already been chosen as captain, they trust him to set, they know his serves are great when they work, and when they’re not, Oikawa’s good enough to keep them rolling forward anyway.

He’s no Ushijima, and he’s no Kenma, no Kageyama, Daichi, Kuroo, though, and Hajime knows he can’t stop comparing himself to every setter, server, and captain he’s ever heard of. He’s constantly ranking himself against everyone else, poking at the flaws he sees until he’s more swiss cheese than man, ripping and pulling at himself to try and make the flaws smaller.

He’s going to fucking ruin his knee, that brace isn’t enough to keep the muscles from tearing if he keeps fucking landing on it as hard as he does.

Hajime can hear the squeak of Oikawa’s shoes against the gym floor as he gets closer, and he sighs. Oikawa and him always walk home together, because if they don’t, Hajime has no guarantee Oikawa will go the fuck home and not stay practicing until he falls apart. Judging by the thumps of volleyballs on the floor, Hajime has to stay and clean the gym — again — and force Oikawa to go shower and change before they can leave.

He toes off his shoes by the door so he doesn’t track any more dirt inside, and he’s been doing sports long enough that the slick-stick of the gym floor doesn’t even remotely bother him when his bare toes settle on it. Sure, it’s gross, but he’s definitely touched grosser.

Oikawa hasn’t even noticed him, tossing the ball up and running, jumping, spike-serving. He misses the bottle he has set up at the other end of the court by only a small increment, but he knows before he lands, so he lands hard.

Hajime sighs, and walks faster, catching Oikawa’s arm as he turns to try again.

Oikawa jumps a little, abruptly facing him with wide eyes, and he moves to pull out of Hajime’s grip.

“No,” Hajime says, closing his hand a little tighter around Oikawa’s forearm. “I’m not letting you go unless you’re going to shower.”

“I’m not done,” Oikawa protests, predictably. “I have to perfect this first.”

“That’s cute,” Hajime says, starting to walk and dragging Oikawa with him. Oikawa stumbles, probably in some kind of childish protest because it is not the first time Hajime has pulled him along, and his height doesn’t mean shit when Hajime’s stronger.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, half whine and half sigh, and it’s a testament to the fact that Hajime has heard every tone his voice makes that he doesn’t glance back or blush, because Oikawa sounds needy and soft. “Iwa-chan, I have to do this. I have to.”

“You really don’t,” Hajime says flatly, continuing to tug him along, and Oikawa lets his step even out even as Hajime feels the frown aimed at the back of his head.

“You’re mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa exclaims, all dramatics and flourishes, and Hajime ignores him because this is what they do. Oikawa pushes and pushes and whines and complains, and Hajime puts up with his shit because someone needs to make sure he’s eating and sleeping and Oikawa sure as fuck isn’t gonna take care of himself. He’s Icarus, and without Hajime holding his dumbass closer to the ground, he’ll melt his wings straight off.

Makki and Mattsun tell Hajime it’s because he’s whipped, and he tells them to fuck off, and they all pretend like Hajime isn’t head over heels for a boy with too many stars in his eyes to focus on something as trivial as unrequited crushes.

This is not to say Oikawa wouldn’t care if he knew; he is many things, but genuinely cruel has never been one of them. Not to Hajime, not to his nephew, not to his sister, never to those who matter. He can come off as mean and conceited and arrogant and a thousand other adjectives that all boil down to big ass head, shitty personality, but he’s so much more when his bravado is pushed aside.

When that fake smile is brushed away, when the peace sign is down and his fangirls are nowhere to be found, when he’s in one of Hajime’s old shirts and his stupid fucking neon alien pajama pants, glasses on and buried in blankets and pillows as he marathons X-Files… that’s when he’s real. That’s when he’s not hiding behind anything, that’s when his walls are down, and that’s when Hajime gets to be closest to him.

This Oikawa, sweaty and tall and limping just slightly, he’s just barely in reach. Hajime’s fingers feel like they’re only just brushing the surface of his skin, like he’s so lost in his fucking head that all he is is cocky jokes and smirks. This is when he’s at his worst, when he’s inches from destroying himself because he feels like he can’t keep going, when Hajime wants to pull him close and fight off everything that ever tries to tell him he is anything but incredible, just the way he is now.

Hajime will draw the reasoning behind this particular attempt and self-destruction later; for now he pushes open the door to the club room and shoves Oikawa in ahead of him. “Go shower,” he says, not even bothering to put any inflection behind his tone.

Oikawa sticks his tongue out, childish and provocative, and Hajime just rolls his eyes, turning around and heading to go pick up all the volleyballs Oikawa has inevitably left at the far end of the court.

Cleaning up after Oikawa is nothing new, and Hajime almost finds it therapeutic at this point. It’s an easy repetition, he’s been spending years cleaning the gym both here at Aobajousai and before at Kitagawa Daiichi, and it’s so familiar he doesn’t need to really think about what he’s doing. Muscle memory will carry him through just fine.

He mops efficiently, absently realizing Oikawa probably hasn’t eaten since lunch, even though it’s nearing nine at night and he’s been practicing for hours. Hajime left practice to tutor an underclassmen, since he’s paid for it and extra money is always handy when Oikawa’s in one of his needy moods, but it meant he’d had to leave Oikawa to his own devices for longer than usual. Makki had work, and Mattsun had familial obligations, and Oikawa was untethered.

He shouldn’t feel responsible that Oikawa, on his own, will hurt himself. He shouldn’t be guilty for having a life of his own, unrelated to Oikawa. And, mostly, he doesn’t, but on nights like these, when Oikawa’s fucking pride gets in the way and he won’t tell anyone that he needs company, needs help, needs anything at all?

It’s frustrating.

He wants to see Oikawa happy, and genuinely happy, not that fake tongue-out winking smile he gives when he’s rehearsed his every movement. He wants to see him able to look in a mirror after waking up in the morning and not cringe away from his reflection, he wants to see Oikawa look back on his performance in a game and be proud of how fucking amazing he is.

He’s putting away the last of the cleaning supplies when Oikawa limps out from the club room, dressed freshly in his well-fitted clothes, damp curls hidden beneath a beanie because he doesn’t bring his blowdryer to school since he’s “ not that vain, Iwa-chan ,” but he still won’t be seen with messy hair. Hajime wants nothing more than to pull off the hat and bury his hands in what he knows are coconut-scented curls, but he doesn’t, because Oikawa will panic about them being in public and appropriate gestures for boys to make.

Hajime really, really dislikes Oikawa’s parents, but that is an issue to dwell on another time.

Now, he pulls his shoes back on and waits for Oikawa to meet him at the door before flicking off the lights and plucking the keys from Oikawa’s hands, locking up behind them. “Ice your knee,” he says, not needing to even ask if it aches.

Oikawa’s mouth twists in a way that is not pretty at all, and so it smooths back out again quickly. “Bossy, Iwa-chan,” he comments, purposefully dismissive. “I’m fine. I don’t need you to mother me.”

“Shittykawa,” Hajime says patiently as he returns the keys into the waiting hand, meeting his eyes levelly. “Ice your fucking knee.”

Oikawa wrinkles his nose and huffs, moving to stride off without him, but he winces as his bad leg hits each step. Hajime, having been expecting this, simply cuts in front of him at the bottom of the stairs and crouches slightly, waiting until Oikawa mumbles about four different curses and insults before climbing onto his back.

He hooks his hands under Oikawa’s thighs and straightens, grateful that he’s such a regular at the gym, because otherwise lifting Oikawa’s lanky ass might have been a problem. As it is, he’s been doing this for years, and the extra weight doesn’t really bother him at all. His knees, after all, are perfectly fine.

Oikawa’s pout is audible in his ear, petulant mumbling and little puffs of breath that tickle his neck. He ignores it as best he can, because if he shivered Oikawa would definitely notice and he’s in no mood to be teased in the way that Oikawa will inevitably latch onto in his current mood. Instead, he sets his jaw and sets off to their street, as he and Oikawa have been next-door neighbors since they were seven years old.

Hajime remembers how he’d looked back then, when he’d still been lighthearted enough to smile at the world. He remembers Oikawa best, though, with those big brown eyes and fluffy curls, round cheeks and short arms and little legs, and fucking grabby hands about everything , so hungry to learn the world by touch.

Now, he has learned to keep his hands to himself for the most part, and he’s withdrawn behind his walls, his smiles and bravado. He’s hiding, really. It’s hard to get close to someone when you’re never really interacting with who they really are, so Oikawa pretends he’s someone else.

Hajime has been around long enough to know him better, though, and through him, Makki and Mattsun have caught enough glimpses to understand that Oikawa is more than he seems on the surface.

They’re on their street when Oikawa loses patience, whining softly. “My knee hurts.”

Hajime snorts. “I know. You overworked it again, even with your brace. That’s why you’re icing it as soon as we get in the door.”

Oikawa’s arms shift a little. “My parents aren’t home,” he says, soft, and, oh.

Okay.

Hajime’s starting to understand why he chose today to self-destruct. His parents have never really been the most supportive, which is a really nice way of saying they specialize in tearing down his already delicate self-esteem and ruining his mental health. If they’ve left him alone for a trip of some kind, it is not without thoroughly tearing him to pieces before they left, in some shitty way of making sure he doesn’t have the confidence to disobey them.

Hajime feels an ache in his jaw from how hard he’s clenching it, so he forces himself to let it relax. “Do you want me to stay with you, or do you want to stay with me?”

Oikawa’s arms shift to more of a hug than a simple grip. “Stay with you. Your mom is nice. She likes me.”

“Everyone likes you,” Hajime grumbles. “You’ve got that kind of face.”

Oikawa positively beams , he can feel it, so he knows he’s said the right thing (not that he had any doubts, he’s known Oikawa way too long). “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”

Hajime has to consciously not smile as he kicks open the gate to his front yard, and Oikawa’s still grinning as he fishes the keys from Hajime’s front pocket (he’s gotten very good at ignoring how that feels over the years) and unlocks the door.

“I’m home, ma! Brought Tooru!” Hajime calls, using Oikawa’s given name because that’s how his mother has always known him.

Predictably, Oikawa flushes a lovely shade of pink and half hides his face when he smiles. Hajime thinks about the least cute thing he can, which ends up being the last time he accidentally walked in on Makki and Mattsun playing intense tonsil hockey.

He represses a shudder and staves off his own blush successfully, grinning as his mom rounds the corner from the living room to greet them, and her attention is warmly directed at Oikawa. She fusses over his knee instantly, because she knows whenever Hajime’s carrying him like this, he’s fucked it up.

“Iwa-chan, your mother is amazing,” Oikawa gushes as Hajime deposits him on the couch and lets go, while his mother is off fetching ice packs and sugary snacks.

“I know,” Hajime says, because he does. He’s so, so grateful he has good parents, a good family, because he knows not everyone does. There’s a beautiful example sitting right in front of him, with lightly flushed cheeks and a slightly crooked beanie and dimples Hajime always wants to poke.

So he does.

Oikawa half-squeals, half-giggles, batting at his hand, and Hajime doesn’t fight the smile that rises on his own face this time. The sound of that laugh is beautiful, because it’s his laugh when he isn’t thinking about making it sound properly boyish and charming. It’s his natural giggle, childlike and gorgeous, just like him.

His mother brings out ice and cookies, and Oikawa gets pampered as his foot is elevated on cushions and a blanket is over his lap as ice is gently wrapped to his knee, and Hajime plops down next to him. Oikawa’s walls are down, and it’s obvious when he immediately tips into Hajime’s side and cuddles up.

Hajime curls an arm around his shoulders, because it’s not like he’s going to deny either of them the comfort of this. His mother had been watching an old sci-fi movie, and it’s got aliens in it, so when she unpauses it Oikawa’s attention is immediately enraptured. Hajime rolls his eyes, and he knows it’s fond, so he steals a cookie off the plate resting on Oikawa’s lap and lets his cheek rest against the soft fabric of Oikawa’s hat.

Tonight will likely be hard, later, because Oikawa’s happiness is mercurial and he will have trouble falling asleep, inevitably, and Hajime will have to coax him into it. Now, though, Oikawa’s got those sparkly eyes on because aliens, and a cute little smile, and he’s warm and safe under Hajime’s arm.

It’s enough. They'll deal with what comes later when it arrives.

#iwaoi fanfiction #iwaoi #haikyuu!!#hq!!!#hq!! fanfiction #my writing #cye&rtwwmft #what a fucking mouthful of a title #but there's a playlist for this fic #and those are lyrics from the title song #anyway have a monster enjoy #i'm trash for these to this was inevitable tbh #apologies to those who had the few minutes of hell dealing with me as i fixed the formatting of this post since the readmore #didn't take at first and i noticed a spelling error IM DONE NOW SORRY

1 note · View note