#attack on asks

[sixpennydame]

AoT Ask Game

Which division of the military would you join? (Garrison, Scouts, Military Police)

Whose squad would you most want to join?

Which skill would your comrades appreciate most about you? (Physical strength, instincts, proficiency with ODM gear..)?

Soldier, warrior or a secret third thing?

Who is your ride or die ally? The one you’d kill for?

How would you die? Spare no gory details.

If you were a Marley Titan warrior, which one would you be?

If you could create a new type of titan, what would its name and power be?

Of all the 104th training corps, who would be your bestie?

What would Keith Shadis say about your ability to be a survey corps cadet?

Where do you imagine yourself after the battle of Heaven and Earth?

Would you rather sign up to the Jaegerists or the Alliance? Why?

BONUS ROUND: Oh no, you’ve been turned into a titan!

13. Which AoT character is good enough to eat?

14. Someone has a vial of serum! Would you rather accept shifter powers and only live for 13 years or remain as a titan forever?

[ghostmartyr]

I don’t really think Ymir went back on anything her arc built up to, I think her goal was to live a life that she could be proud of, and by saving r&b she followed her principles. It’s tragic but that’s the irony of Ymir, she always wanted to be selfish but couldn’t escape her nature of being a good person. Historia on the other hand…yeah her arc is fucking infuriating

I'm breaking my own commitment to not dip my toes into this, because impulse control what impulse control.

Here's my starting point problem with that:

Ymir does not save Reiner and Bertolt.

At best, her actions get them a pat on the head by their oppressors. They continue to live out being child soldiers for a society that considers them devils. Bertolt dies in their service almost immediately after. Reiner is a suicidal mess whose will to live is bound up in other child soldiers he's responsible for.

No one is saved.

That's a fair tragedy, with someone trying to repay a debt only for it to amount to nothing because the cycles they're all caught up in are larger than any one personal act of altruism. Even trying to good can't undo the harm of systemic cruelty. It's a valid plot for a story like this.

Except Ymir is one of the few characters who realizes how fucked the world is. She's a better person than she ever wants to be, because being good gets you jack shit and she knows that -- but she can't help but lend people the hand she was never given. On its face, that makes her a good candidate for a hopeless sacrifice that saves no one.

The core problem is that, again, Ymir knows how fucked the world is.

You’re going to kill yourself, the ultimate act of submission. Is that how much you want to please the people who treated you like a nuisance?! Ymir, Chapter 40

Ymir kills herself for Reiner and Bertolt, providing the people who left her with decades of living a nightmare a weapon.

Doing stupid shit to help Reiner and Bertolt out tracks. If they hadn't shown up, she'd still be in that nightmare, and she killed their friend.

But she specifically kills herself in a way that aids people who violated her, who will continue to abuse Reiner and Bertolt, and continue to launch offensives that put Historia's life at risk. Ymir has the knowledge to understand that she's not saving anyone from anything here.

There are many potential layers of story that could have been approached with this, but the bottom line for me is that Ymir's most solid convictions are all ignored when she goes with Reiner and Bertolt. There are facets you can examine to make it make sense, just as there are all kinds of things you can examine with Historia's reversal of her arc. It's always a tragedy when someone fails their principles so stunningly. It's the Bad End coming as was dreaded.

It's just that the story does not examine any of it. It's taken as a given that Ymir goes through with this, leaving us with Ymir killing herself for people who hate her in order to give Reiner and Bertolt a temporary reprieve that only condemns them to a familiar suffering.

Even then, you could make a case for characters doing stupid things if the story at least admitted that it was a ridiculously bad idea on all fronts. Our protagonist's arc is built on that. Eren makes bad choice after bad choice after bad choice and every character in his vicinity rightly goes "what." Characters can utterly fail the best of themselves and it can still be a compelling story.

With Ymir, there simply is no story. She chooses to die, and it's taken as inevitable that a character who is so anti-fate and so anti-dickheads would die in a way that benefits a "fate" she rejected and a bunch of dickheads.

Ymir kills herself, and it makes Marley happy and saves no one. She knows enough about the world to understand that.

I do not personally think that the story should get credit for tragic irony that amounts to "what if everything went to hell" without actually bothering to come up with a why for everything going to hell.

Eren's a tragic disaster; Ymir's a dropped thread.

[angelanimedesaray]

Howdyyy! <3 Im asking for questions 5, 8, and 9!

5. Well, besides Levi, he doesn't even have to ask, I'm right there, lol but BESIDES the obvious answer of Levi, it would be Hange! <3

8. Oh boy, this is the one that I was eyeing that I knew would take me a while to come up with. And what I came up with is...a bit weird? Bear with me lol

So...Just to be ✨️Fancy✨️We'll call it the Panacea Titan (Panacea: A solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases) Healing Titan didn't jive right when Titans have innate healing abilities, and I've always found Panacea fun to say since I discovered the word playing Dragon Age 2, so I'm using it lol

Now, abilities, you know how Titans have that yucky saliva sack goo that people they bite but don't swallow get stored in (I.e. Eren stored by Annie, Historia stored by Ymir). This Panacea Titan has the ability to heal others, but they have to store them in their mouth in that saliva until they're healed--something in the saliva regenerates/rejuvinates them. A quick lick would heal the more minor of wounds, but if you're in dire straights, you're going in the mouth. In order to make sure that the person they're healing has the time to do so, the Titan has the ability to anchor into the ground and curl up, exposing only the thicker hardened skin and forming a protective shell around themselves and whoever is in their mouth being healed. They have thick layers at their nape that can only be taken out by thunderspears or the jaw that's meant to protect them from being eaten while healing someone.

Their teeth tends to be sharper and can rend flesh very easily, and the titan is quite flexible, meant to give them the tools to reach and aquire allies in dangerous predicaments so they can defend and heal them.

........After i got this idea, i was immediately thinking of how hard Levi would NOPE out of anything to do with that XD XD XD

9. Sasha. Definately Sasha. And probably Armin, honestly. Two wildly different energies and you know, who I'm with probably depends on my own energy lol I joke that I'm either shy and reserved and keep to myself low energy or broken beyond maxed out dial raw energy that cannot be contained, there is no in between lol.

[attack-on-bnha]

ohohoh for the ask game thingy can I ask #22!!!! and #3 :3

hello there! of course you can :)))

for number 22, actually yes. i used to collect stones and i keep the nicest ones in my room. i just like the way they can have such interesting patterns.

and for 3, y e s. i love pasta, it's most of what i eat.

i hope you have a great day !!

[sixpennydame]

ooooh! I like this AOT game! What about 1 - 5??

Hiii! I'm so glad you like it!

Since I've already answered 1, 2, and 3, I'll go ahead and answer 4 and 5:

4. Soldier, warrior or a secret third thing?

Does simple townsperson count? Or spy? Maybe a spy who is pretending to be a simple townsperson??

5. Who is your ride or die ally? The one you’d kill for?

I mean, of course I have to say Levi. I'd like to think he'd do the same for me.

Attack on Ask Game!

[sixpennydame]

Sé, loving the ask game you and Terra came up with! So fun.

Could I ask #2 & 8, pretty please? 😇

Hi Flo! Hopefully this will be a fun way to make some connections. Thanks for playing!

2. Whose squad would you most want to join?

Hmmm...maybe Mike? He seems like a good squad leader to work under.

8. If you could create a new type of titan, what would its name and power be?

The Nap Titan, able to sleep anywhere, anytime.

Go on...Attack me with an ask!

[ghostmartyr]

Hi, I know you don't comment on SNK anymore, but could you say what you think of the attitude of some fans who practically created a "cult" to Isayama and his writing and didn't accept criticism of the work, but now that the end was bad they started to have more of a "critical look"?

Hiya.

Ah, Anon. Anon. You're preying on my weakness of enjoying discussion of fan behaviors. Deeply unfair, that.

For whatever it's worth, even before I stopped reading, I spent several years actively keeping out of fandom spaces. The things I've heard about how extremely people have reacted to the series or Isayama himself are largely hearsay, it's just that some of the hearsay has enough backing for me to believe that it's probably some version of the truth.

What I'm saying is I can't speak to this fandom's specific behavior, but the general attitude?

When you love anything passionately, you want to believe the best of it. My personal bias is that stories create an even more extreme version of that passion, because stories are ideas. When you love a person, or something more external, the thing is constantly providing you with insight of its own agency. You don't control it, and you've got to negotiate with whatever the force is on its own terms for things to progress.

A story, though? Even if it's written by someone else, it's ours, in a very intimate way. We can sometimes remember to pay lip service to the author, and compliment their work, but we're the ones interacting with the story. We're the ones who transform it from ink into something real. We're the ones who spend so much time with it, loving it. All us. All ours, ours, ours.

Saying that is frowned upon, because no, it's not. You do not individually own a story by someone else. You individually own the version of that story that lives in your heart. Within yourself, that memory and that relationship is yours.

That distinction is important, but it gets lost very quickly in fandom spaces. There's an urge to say that the thing that is yours is objectively the most real version of the story going on. It isn't enough to have a personal relationship with a thing, you have to be right. You protect your relationship with the thing by shouting, loudly, over and over, how right you are, and superimpose your version over the thing itself. And because you are a reasonable person who understands that of course this story doesn't belong to you, that turns into effusive praise of the author, who is honoring your vision.

But inevitably, the story splits, and you're reminded that the story does not belong to you. This person is not creating your vision, they're creating theirs.

How dare they ruin your story.

Heartbreak doesn't tend to leave behind the nicest version of ourselves. Plenty of finales lead fans into criticizing aspects of the story they've never said a word against, because those things were before it proved traitorous and hurt them so. But after? Grace and mercy have left the building. Time to burn it to the ground.

(That's much easier than feeling hurt in the midst of acknowledging that the world isn't made for you alone.)

[ghostmartyr]

I think you don't think the damage you cause by insisting it's cannon Historia had romantic feeling for Ymir. She didn't get a chance to fucking say it. She COULD very well had romantic feelings, but I think you should consider that we have to say or demonstrate it ourselves not just it's true because YOU see it. I had people tell me how I love my friend because I'm gay when it should have been ME to say. It takes away our self determination and imho that's what Historia needs and you forget it.

Reading comprehension is not the same as people in the real world making assumptions about a relationship they are not in.

Historia Reiss is not a real human being. She is a fictional character, and the rules of basic courtesy that say examining her feelings and making judgment calls about what her actions indicate is overstepping boundaries do not apply.

I repeatedly state that Historia’s romantic feelings for Ymir are canon because fandom’s favorite hobby is saying they aren’t.

A character having a hysterical meltdown over the girl who says she wants to marry her leaving is not how you portray a one-sided romance. A character crying over a letter that regrets them missing out on marriage is not how you portray a one-sided romance.

When one character is explicitly stated to have feelings for another, and the other has a level of devotion that mirrors that perfectly, the romantic read of their relationship is intended to be a narrative fact.

Historia plainly states that she’s not sure why it is Ymir has the effect she does on her. Historia not understanding her feelings does not give fandom a green light to plead illiteracy whenever the concept of her romantically loving another girl comes up.

If a full confession is what is required for a character’s feelings to be understood as canon, Ymir’s feelings for Historia shouldn’t be eligible either.

She never says she’s in love. Each marriage proposal is a clear joke to lighten the mood. It fails the basic criteria that is weaponized at every turn to overlook Historia’s entire relationship with Ymir. By that measure, Ymir’s feelings are just as much a fanon invention as you’re claiming Historia’s are.

But no one tries that argument with Ymir. Because through the context of her actions, her feelings are plainly established.

Historia demonstrates her feelings the same way.

Ymir and Historia’s relationship is built on mutuality, and that extends into romance. There is never a point where it’s established that one is operating on a different level of emotion. They are, from the moment of their introduction, presented as a pair with a dynamic that means they will both jump into hell for each other, and then they do.

Arguing that one of them feels differently is inventing a new branch of the dynamic out of thin air.

I apologize if this comes across as me dismissing your life experiences, and I hope whatever trouble other people give you regarding your personal relationships doesn’t continue. But fictional relationships are not the same as ones between two human people. The entire concept of fictional analysis begins with the understanding that this is fiction, and it can be understood and judged in a way that a person can’t. The situations presented in this ask are not equivalent, and with respect, I do not appreciate being told to consider them so.

Historia Reiss is a fictional character. How people in the real world treat her story says something about our world that I believe should be acknowledged and examined.

That starts with pointing out how eagerly people dismiss this pretty blonde girl’s feelings for another girl.