As someone who only extremely rarely likes to read fanfics with AUs I feel as though I have been seen for the first time.

Ao3 filtering system allows you to filter out or search for very specific things, which is great. BUT I’d sell my soul for an option to save the tags you filter out. For someone who doesn’t like AUs having to filter out coffee shop/high school/royalty/fantasy/whatever au EVERYTIME I go on ao3 to read my bedtime story is honestly exhausting. Like I spend so much time filtering out the stuff I don’t like that I end up too tired to read at all.

I wanted to add to my thoughts on why I don't like Levi choosing to bring back Armin in Midnight Sun since my post about it is getting a bit more attention (especially with @levmada 's argument against it) I've thought more about the issue since.

I STILL need to re-read the manga to the end of "season 3", so my thoughts on specific lines will probably be upcoming, but I can clarify something that really bothers me:

People often talk about Levi choosing to "let Erwin die" as an act of empathy, but to me it just raises the question "why do we have to accept the idea that Erwin is justified in feeling like he deserves to die?"

See, to me this makes it sound like suicide is a good solution to guilt, and that because someone has suicidal thoughts, it's... okay to let them die? (I know this is an issue that gets dicey, and I do support medically-assisted suicide, but that isn't the situation here; Erwin's problem is emotional, not that he's terminally ill or something.)

I know that Armin is also a factor, but of course I don't think that bringing him back because he is less sad about life makes it more justifiable when we then have to consider other factors like what is best for humanity.

People praise Levi for his compassion in letting Erwin die, but it's just another thing that, when I read it, takes me out of the story and into that kind of thinking of "Oh yeah, this is written by Isayama, and he doesn't have the emotional maturity/experience to think of better ways out of this situation" or at the very least he doesn't WANT a better way, because he's already decided that Erwin needed to die for the drama and the plot. Moments like Levi telling Erwin that it's okay to "give up on [his] dream and die" doesn't make me think "Levi is so sympathetic to Erwin, giving him permission to probably die for the cause!" (Something Erwin had been constantly risking anyway, regardless of his goal being "selfish" or not), it just makes me think, "Damn, maybe I don't like Levi as much as I thought, because that's a shitty thing to say" and "Wow, Isayama doesn't know how real people talk to each other." (I also still can't get past the idea of "Erwin needs to give up on his dream, and can die because he's guilt-ridden and suicidal, but Armin's dream of just... seeing the ocean is SO AFFECTING THAT WE CAN'T LET HIM DIE! Didn't you see the scene where Levi overheard Armin talking about how much of a dream he has!?" I know people don't literally say that, but when you break it down, is that not what's happening?)

A sort of TL;DR is just that I think Erwin needed more emotional support, not DEATH—which also goes into an issue I have where I think we are supposed to figure that Erwin, Levi, and Hange are close and would probably talk about personal things but apparently Erwin's guilt didn't come up somehow!? (Even if he didn't tell anyone about his father, I don't think he'd NEED TO to get the problem he's dealing with across)—but I also know that this is starting to get very meta regarding things we don't see and would have to assume, so I'm going to leave it there.

If you're not from Argentina, please read this carefully

I have no words to describe the pain I feel. after 40 years of democracy, my country elected a party whose only goal is to be a colony once again, to sell the country to Elon Musk, to the USA and the UK, to have our sovereignty impugned and erased.

I remember the video of USAmerican congressists calling Argentina an "important asset for the United States". I remember when we told all of you to be vigilant because this was gonna turn into a genocide.

Tomorrow, the Mega DNU (Decree of Necessity and Urgency) is going to overrule most of our constitutional rights, and yesterday the Omnibus Law was presented to congress, including measures that make it illegal to gather in public without permission (state of siege), and make it so that protest is a crime. We will have to pay for the bullets that kill us, and cops will have absolute legal immunity to hunt us.

Word for word, a dictatorship. Fascism.

We've already gone through this many times, but I want to see worldwide protests about this. I want the UN to intervene. I want the world to make noise.

What worries me is this is not an isolated case. With many genocides going on worldwide, if the world fails Argentina, this will be the blueprint for all of the world.

Make no mistake, what happens here will happen everywhere there's natural resources and sovereignty. If not through overt genocide, through an extremely libertarian far right that wins elections by manipulating people, funded by Elon Musk. A second Operation Cóndor.

I guess I basically don't need to make my own post about it in more detail, because you basically just covered it! (Edit: I do still plan to make a post about stuff that wasn't included in the OVA and what was, strangely, ADDED to it that was mostly... complimentary exaggeration.

No need to apologize; I'm so happy to see other people who feel the same way about how butchered the OVA felt and how good the manga is!

While I DO enjoy shipping Erwin and Levi, I don't think it really influences my opinion here. I mean, I think everyone can agree that the characters just plainly make more sense and feel more consistent between the main series and the manga of No Regrets than they do in the OVA.

I'll probably make a more cohesive, thoughtful post on this at some point, but can someone tell me what the hell is up with the ending of the anime version of A Choice With No Regrets being basically a character assassination of Erwin?

In the original VN story he's a little cold (or that's a result of the only available English translation being overly direct in the way it was translated), but in the manga I completely believe in the idea that Levi would WANT to follow Erwin by the end. But for some reason the anime writers decided to make the way Erwin talks to Levi less sympathetic and inspiring, but logical, and more... entirely abusive, and while that's not my only problem with the anime adaptation of that side story, it's the one that bothers me the most, because the manga version genuinely has some of the best characterization for Levi and Erwin in the series.

What Erwin Might Think of The Rumbling

Apparently there are some Attack on Titan fans who think that Erwin would agree with The Rumbling and I wanted to argue against that. I haven’t seen these opinions myself as I tend to steer clear of anyone who has positive things to say about that aspect of the story, or seems suspiciously a little too interested in season 4/post-time-skip Eren, but I have been told of it second-hand. All this tells me is that there are some people who really haven’t paid attention to Erwin’s character, perhaps misunderstanding what is meant by the fact that he is willing to make sacrifices. One interesting counter example to Erwin being involved in something like The Rumbling is that he specifically tells Pixis that he intends to overthrow the king and noble government without killing anyone. And these are the people responsible for the death of his father! He has a potential rationale behind wanting to kill them in return, but this isn’t a part of his goal. Even though Erwin will allow for his own soldiers to die in the line of duty and is willing to gamble with his own life in the same way, his aim is never to do something in the most violent way possible, causing the most amount of casualties; the violence is always a means to an end. (This isn’t to say that his actions are always fully justified, simply that when it comes to fighting other people, Erwin seems averse to choosing to kill if other options are available). By comparison, The Rumbling is not a strategic means to an end, but simply blind vengeance. Eren or Ymir Fritz might justify it by pointing to the discrimination against Eldians suffered throughout the world or the (frankly bizarre and half-baked) excuse that the people of Paradis can be seen as heroes after this for killing Eren, but the mass genocide of 80% of the human population isn’t some kind of justice for Eldians; it’s Eren and Ymir reacting to the world with anger and hate. Ignoring the whole concept of Eren being essentially under the control of Ymir Fritiz (which I think was a horrible misstep; she should’ve just been a historical character who originated the Eldians/Titans and not someone actively controlling things behind the scenes, but I digress) I think that The Rumbling feels like something that it might make sense for Eren himself to do, because he’s a very reactionary young man who never learned how to control his emotions and has a quite black-and-white sense of morality, but Erwin is pretty consistently shown to be the opposite of that. I don’t believe he ever makes a choice purely on emotion, especially not hatred.

I'll probably make a more cohesive, thoughtful post on this at some point, but can someone tell me what the hell is up with the ending of the anime version of A Choice With No Regrets being basically a character assassination of Erwin?

In the original VN story he's a little cold (or that's a result of the only available English translation being overly direct in the way it was translated), but in the manga I completely believe in the idea that Levi would WANT to follow Erwin by the end. But for some reason the anime writers decided to make the way Erwin talks to Levi less sympathetic and inspiring, but logical, and more... entirely abusive, and while that's not my only problem with the anime adaptation of that side story, it's the one that bothers me the most, because the manga version genuinely has some of the best characterization for Levi and Erwin in the series.

Team still upset that Mike is dead

Why Erwin Smith in Season 3 and the Choice in Midnight Sun Doesn't Work.

In Season 3 (excuse me for using “seasons” to mark out the arcs, as I do mean the equivalent time in the manga, it’s just simpler since this problem is spread out between all the arcs in that season), Isayama sets up Erwin’s intense guilt over sending soldiers to their deaths for his goal of wanting to learn the truth of humanity and the titans—dspite it making no sense for him to feel like his goal is selfish, as finding out the origin of the titans is already established to be part of the goal of the Survey Corps. It’s fine for Erwin to feel guilty for making calls that lead to peoples’ deaths, but Isayama seems to write Erwin as though he is objectively in the moral wrong despite the fact that using people to fulfill his personal goal is indistinguishable from if he just took over the Survey Corps and kept doing what they already did. I suppose it might be implied that he encouraged more research about the titans which… is not a bad thing when they fight the titans. Otherwise in the rebellion arc he has Survey Corps soldiers dying for him in fights against the government, but I never got the impression that he was forcing anyone into it under orders.

It feels very out of character for Levi not to choose to save Erwin. Kenny’s line about “everyone being a slave to something” that’s referenced in the moment of that decision doesn’t work because Erwin has not been shown to have a harmful, slavish obsession, just a personal goal that he throws himself into more recently since the opportunity to achieve it has presented itself (Not to mention that Erwin is like… metres away from his goal when this choice is being made, after which point he would no longer “be a slave to it”). Not giving the serum to Erwin does not feel like a choice that Levi, the character, would make given how close he and Erwin are implied to be. Instead, it feels like Levi is making the choice as if he only knows as much about Erwin and Armin as the audience does and is making a choice that could reasonably go either way because WE know both characters roughly as much, or Armin even better than Erwin, really. The problem is that this doesn’t realistically consider Levi’s experiences with each character, which is the choice between a man he’s known for years who changed his life dramatically, who he follows loyally and holds a lot of respect and affection for, and a kid that he’s come to care for in the general way that Levi cares for all the cadets, but he’s only known for like… a year max. It feels like choosing to save Armin is forced upon Levi because Isayama wanted Erwin to die and Armin to live and get the Colossal Titan because he came up with those story beats and was going to shove his way into them somehow.

On that note: Armin is just… I would say objectively the wrong choice. Armin is a character who is shown to be clever and driven (and everyone talks about how smart he is), he’s good at deduction but he’s not a tactician or a leader. He is brought back because Isayama wanted to have him, Mikasa, and Eren once again be crucial to the story at the end of it, not because it makes sense for the Survey Corps to sacrifice their COMMANDER for a cadet who has shown to be worth something, but clearly isn’t a replacement for a man who seems to be the best leader they’ve ever had. I think the choice of Armin could be more valid if Erwin was mentoring him (though still a stretch considering there’s nothing wrong with Erwin [at least nothing worth the mercy killing that Isayama seems to be portraying not using the serum on him as] and he’s only like 35 or something), but he’s not. Armin is only really, functionally important to the Survey Corps because he is close to Eren. Also, while this is probably my least-strong argument against picking Armin, but I feel like if Isayama wanted him to be convincingly still alive at that point, he probably should’ve had Armin a bit further away from Bertholdt’s explosion. That boy isn’t just externally burnt, he should have died like… immediately.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t even dislike Armin, nor do I think that Levi wouldn’t feel a bit of guilt for not saving him, I just hate bad writing that seems to rely so heavily on plot convenience, and I think that this point of the story is where it was really affirmed that things were going to go downhill pretty consistently (barring most of Reiner’s part at the beginning of the Marley arc, but that’s another subject).

P.S. I'm currently reading the manga for this part after having only watched the anime, so I might have more to say later, though I doubt that my opinions on these writing choices will change considering that I don't think the anime cut out SO MUCH that these choices will instead make sense.

Hey— Serious post for a second

The House of Commons in Canada has initiated a petition for a ceasefire in Palestine. Canadian followers and Canadian Tumblr users as a whole— please take a few seconds to stop and sign this.

After you sign, you'll need to confirm your signature through the email you provided on the form. It may not come through immediately, but make sure you do so, or your signature will not count.

Here's the link to the petition.

I have purchased a copy myself! Very excited.

hello! the eruri wedding zine that marcie and i organized in 2021 is finally being reprinted for a limited time only! all the proceeds for this sale will go towards Medical Aid for Palestinians, so if you couldn't grab your copy before, please take your chance now, since this is probably the only time i'll be reprinting it!! 🙏💕

Columbo isn’t literally/canonically autistic, but i think these moments (which were quite common on Columbo) are a much more positive/relatable portrayal of how we autistic folx feel in these kinds of “ohmygod OHMYGOD OHMYGOD” meltdown moments than the special effects horrorshow they do in shows like The Good Doctor, that seem intended to convey how *alien* and *different* our minds are.

with this, Columbo is the protagonist, and the framing and music is meant to make us feel that his reaction is JUSTIFIED and NORMAL and RATIONAL... which, from an autistic perspective? meltdowns certainly are!!! it would be unnatural **NOT** to react in such a way to a sensory overload

but when the character is canonically autistic, the default seems to be to portray our actions as “overreactions”, which is an incredibly neurotypical interpretation...

which is why we need to be represented in hollywood, and other industries!!! outsiders to a community will never get it ***right.*** this applies to any other marginalized community... diversity improves accuracy in decisionmaking, when the decision involves the diverse... and nothing in this world can be guaranteed not to affect or involve the diverse, simply by sheer chance

Well, this post feels more relevant after watching the One Piece live action series. I think that One Piece is already a much stronger story than Attack on Titan with stronger characters overall, but I thought that the live action series did some really wonderful stuff with developing character relationships. Not to mention all they were able to reference and establish ahead of time that the manga ended up putting in later.

I still wouldn't be entirely satisfied if an AoT series kept the "time travel" and Ymir Fritz plots from the end of the series in it, or if they didn't figure out a plausible treatment of Erwin at the end of season 3, but overall the idea of a version of Attack on Titan that is like this, with more attention put into developing the world and showing the relationships between the characters, is exactly what I'd want.

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I never think of WANTING a western live-action version of any anime EXCEPT Attack on Titan. This isn't to discredit animators or the beautiful animation in the series, but that I think the series is such a fount of lost potential and the kind of series that might actually fare better under a modern "western" live-action style of storytelling.

Shonen manga and anime tends to be very plot-heavy and doesn't allow for much in terms of "downtime" because it has to constantly keep up a level of suspense and excitement for week-to-week or month-to-month watchers/readers and also keep up a really strict schedule. Many modern American and European dramas (and excuse me if this is the same in Asian countries and I'm just not familiar), like Breaking Bad or even partially comedic ones like Succession tend towards being more character-focused than "plot-focused". Notably, these examples are aimed at adults while Attack on Titan is aimed at teens, but includes some very mature themes that I think could be better explored in a more mature "genre" of media—not necessarily one that alienates a teen audience, but perhaps one that feels more open to an adult audience when it comes to the maturity of how the various storylines, themes, and characters are approached.

It feels a little strange to accuse Attack on Titan of not being "character-focused", as a lot of the plot is driven by character actions, but what I mean is that it feels very plot-first. For instance, the Royal Government Arc (first arc of season 3) is technically a story largely based on Erwin Smith's actions, but the plot doesn't feel like it effectively grows out of what we have previously seen him do; the political ideas and conflicts exist in the story prior to this plotline, but the amount of information we are given and how immediately relevant it is to the plot feels like a big jump, it isn't gradual enough and we don't get enough of Erwin's perspective throughout to make the revolution not feel very rushed.

To put it simply, if the story was more character-focused, the story beats might feel less jarring and the pacing more even because we could be given some "downtime" from all the action that could provide crucial world-building and character development as well simply by having more scenes of characters talking.

—But then dialogue written by Isayama is often a mess of characters not really sounding like people, which brings up another benefit of having distinctly different writers.

kill yourself ugly hetero female lmao

I really don't know what to say to this except that it's the weakest shit. The most flaccid transphobia.

I just want to encourage any fellow trans people to not be bothered by people like this, because they're not worth your time; they have no power, so don't give them any.

Trans Levi Ackerman and Eruri are canon as far as I'm concerned and you can't convince me otherwise.

I wish Tumblr had more filters like Ao3 does because I'm tired of scrolling through peoples' reader insert shite...

Why Erwin Smith in Season 3 and the Choice in Midnight Sun Doesn't Work.

In Season 3 (excuse me for using “seasons” to mark out the arcs, as I do mean the equivalent time in the manga, it’s just simpler since this problem is spread out between all the arcs in that season), Isayama sets up Erwin’s intense guilt over sending soldiers to their deaths for his goal of wanting to learn the truth of humanity and the titans—dspite it making no sense for him to feel like his goal is selfish, as finding out the origin of the titans is already established to be part of the goal of the Survey Corps. It’s fine for Erwin to feel guilty for making calls that lead to peoples’ deaths, but Isayama seems to write Erwin as though he is objectively in the moral wrong despite the fact that using people to fulfill his personal goal is indistinguishable from if he just took over the Survey Corps and kept doing what they already did. I suppose it might be implied that he encouraged more research about the titans which… is not a bad thing when they fight the titans. Otherwise in the rebellion arc he has Survey Corps soldiers dying for him in fights against the government, but I never got the impression that he was forcing anyone into it under orders.

It feels very out of character for Levi not to choose to save Erwin. Kenny’s line about “everyone being a slave to something” that’s referenced in the moment of that decision doesn’t work because Erwin has not been shown to have a harmful, slavish obsession, just a personal goal that he throws himself into more recently since the opportunity to achieve it has presented itself (Not to mention that Erwin is like… metres away from his goal when this choice is being made, after which point he would no longer “be a slave to it”). Not giving the serum to Erwin does not feel like a choice that Levi, the character, would make given how close he and Erwin are implied to be. Instead, it feels like Levi is making the choice as if he only knows as much about Erwin and Armin as the audience does and is making a choice that could reasonably go either way because WE know both characters roughly as much, or Armin even better than Erwin, really. The problem is that this doesn’t realistically consider Levi’s experiences with each character, which is the choice between a man he’s known for years who changed his life dramatically, who he follows loyally and holds a lot of respect and affection for, and a kid that he’s come to care for in the general way that Levi cares for all the cadets, but he’s only known for like… a year max. It feels like choosing to save Armin is forced upon Levi because Isayama wanted Erwin to die and Armin to live and get the Colossal Titan because he came up with those story beats and was going to shove his way into them somehow.

On that note: Armin is just… I would say objectively the wrong choice. Armin is a character who is shown to be clever and driven (and everyone talks about how smart he is), he’s good at deduction but he’s not a tactician or a leader. He is brought back because Isayama wanted to have him, Mikasa, and Eren once again be crucial to the story at the end of it, not because it makes sense for the Survey Corps to sacrifice their COMMANDER for a cadet who has shown to be worth something, but clearly isn’t a replacement for a man who seems to be the best leader they’ve ever had. I think the choice of Armin could be more valid if Erwin was mentoring him (though still a stretch considering there’s nothing wrong with Erwin [at least nothing worth the mercy killing that Isayama seems to be portraying not using the serum on him as] and he’s only like 35 or something), but he’s not. Armin is only really, functionally important to the Survey Corps because he is close to Eren. Also, while this is probably my least-strong argument against picking Armin, but I feel like if Isayama wanted him to be convincingly still alive at that point, he probably should’ve had Armin a bit further away from Bertholdt’s explosion. That boy isn’t just externally burnt, he should have died like… immediately.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t even dislike Armin, nor do I think that Levi wouldn’t feel a bit of guilt for not saving him, I just hate bad writing that seems to rely so heavily on plot convenience, and I think that this point of the story is where it was really affirmed that things were going to go downhill pretty consistently (barring most of Reiner’s part at the beginning of the Marley arc, but that’s another subject).

P.S. I'm currently reading the manga for this part after having only watched the anime, so I might have more to say later, though I doubt that my opinions on these writing choices will change considering that I don't think the anime cut out SO MUCH that these choices will instead make sense.

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I never think of WANTING a western live-action version of any anime EXCEPT Attack on Titan. This isn't to discredit animators or the beautiful animation in the series, but that I think the series is such a fount of lost potential and the kind of series that might actually fare better under a modern "western" live-action style of storytelling.

Shonen manga and anime tends to be very plot-heavy and doesn't allow for much in terms of "downtime" because it has to constantly keep up a level of suspense and excitement for week-to-week or month-to-month watchers/readers and also keep up a really strict schedule. Many modern American and European dramas (and excuse me if this is the same in Asian countries and I'm just not familiar), like Breaking Bad or even partially comedic ones like Succession tend towards being more character-focused than "plot-focused". Notably, these examples are aimed at adults while Attack on Titan is aimed at teens, but includes some very mature themes that I think could be better explored in a more mature "genre" of media—not necessarily one that alienates a teen audience, but perhaps one that feels more open to an adult audience when it comes to the maturity of how the various storylines, themes, and characters are approached.

It feels a little strange to accuse Attack on Titan of not being "character-focused", as a lot of the plot is driven by character actions, but what I mean is that it feels very plot-first. For instance, the Royal Government Arc (first arc of season 3) is technically a story largely based on Erwin Smith's actions, but the plot doesn't feel like it effectively grows out of what we have previously seen him do; the political ideas and conflicts exist in the story prior to this plotline, but the amount of information we are given and how immediately relevant it is to the plot feels like a big jump, it isn't gradual enough and we don't get enough of Erwin's perspective throughout to make the revolution not feel very rushed.

To put it simply, if the story was more character-focused, the story beats might feel less jarring and the pacing more even because we could be given some "downtime" from all the action that could provide crucial world-building and character development as well simply by having more scenes of characters talking.

—But then dialogue written by Isayama is often a mess of characters not really sounding like people, which brings up another benefit of having distinctly different writers.