#but at least old people don't pretend to be tech literate............

[0utrenoir]

i know 99.5% of people will just glance at a pretty picture and reblog it without thinking twice about it. but can't you see there is not mastery there? no brush strokes, no human hand holding the pen. aren't you entranced enough to zoom in and look at the details? That's right, there are none, because when you look closely everything turns to undefined goop. aren't you furious? you are being lied to. no emotion brought this image together. it is woven with nothing but copyright infringement and pixel soup.

[companylust]

@companywrath

After dear old dad had said, "No, Maliwan can't continue to allocate its funds to a seemingly neverending war with Atlas, you couldn't even crush one upstart CEO and I don't support your destiny to be with the love of your life, you're still somehow my least favorite child and you're literally only competing with memories at this point" (or at least, that's how Katagawa heard it), Katagawa was seemingly out of options. He had to lay low for awhile and tend to his wounds. The physical healed quickly, but the emotional... That took longer.

He spent a lot of time alone. He neglected his duties as an executive, delegating enough of it away that it looked like he was still doing something. He broke a lot of pleasure spheres. He tried not to keep an eye on Rhys, telling himself he should move on. That lasted for about twelve hours before it was late at night, the pleasure sphere by itself wasn't doing it, and he knew Rhys' face looking so vulnerable and soft and sweet while he slept was only a few clicks of the ECHO eye away.

After that broke down, Katagawa's addiction was back in full force. He revisited every old interview Rhys had ever done. He reminded himself of all the reasons he loved Rhys. He watched him constantly, day and night, wondering what it would be like if Rhys were dead, and came to one firm conclusion: It was better that he hadn't killed Rhys. Katagawa had just been mad, that was all. They could work things out.

That was the mindset Katagawa was in when it happened.

Of course he'd heard the news that Handsome Jack was back. Everyone in the six galaxies was talking about it. He revealed himself as seemingly back from the dead and immediately took over Hyperion again. The Maliwan board had an emergency meeting immediately after the news broke to discuss how the company would handle Hyperion going forward. Because of this and other stressors, Junior was keeping a feed of Rhys on his ECHO-eye basically 24/7.

He was watching Rhys's office when Jack came in. When... that happened.

What the hell was a dead man doing fucking Rhys?

Katagawa saw red. He jacked off about it constantly for days. He killed a lot of subordinates. Nothing was making it better. He needed answers. He knew any interactions with the CEO claiming to be Handsome Jack should be run past the Board first, but he didn't care. He was doing this.

Under his father's nose, Katagawa used Maliwan's vast resources to find where Jack slept at night. It was a turbomansion on a private Hyperion controlled planet, heavily protected. No big teams were getting in. Luckily, Katagawa was well-versed in slipping past security.

Jack's security was better than Rhys's, but eventually, slowly and so carefully, Katagawa made his way inside. He stood over Handsome Jack laying in his bed, or at least the impostor successfully pretending to be him. The man who had ruled the most profitable company in the universe and killed countless people doing it. The very same man Katagawa had watched on the security footage fucking the only person who mattered in this shithole world.

In repose, he was vulnerable. Everyone was. People looked gentle in their sleep. When Katagawa came close enough to see his face, he realized, of course, Jack didn't sleep in the mask. His bare face was revealed for Katagawa's eager eyes. If this was the real Handsome Jack, Katagawa was now in rare company, one of the few people to see what secret Jack kept behind the mask.

But he wasn't here to wonder at his big nasty scar. He was here to get answers about Rhys. He drew his katana--the most advanced Maliwan tech, with a mononuclear edge that could easily cleave Jack's head off his shoulders. Katagawa held the sharp side to Jack's throat.

"Tell me what you have to do with Rhys."

[weebsinstash]

Ok but like imagine singer reader who’s like the star of a show but is underscovered so like one day after working a shift for Val she goes to her room and starts singing and Val overhears it from the cam and mic and every demon seeing is just screaming for more

I've thought of like, hypothetical scenarios where "Reader is helping clean a set as a janitor as a second job or is help cleaning the strip club after close (i don't think it actually closes though, like conceptually) and Valentino catches you signing and bopping your hips because no one is around so you're getting sassy with it"

Like I think I mentioned it before but imagine Reader just being like "just collab with other artists or industries or just like sponsor a talent for something else and then bring them to porn later, more people will want to fuck a celebrity turned sex worker over just a sex worker outright, it's the purity culture of it or whatever" and Val is just "k bet" and decides to make you some kind of test subject or like, he discovers your secret career or maybe you have a sms account where you're blowing up for songs and dance covers or whatever and he decides to kind of like, see what happens if maybe he promotes you a little more. Like his boyfriend literally basically runs the tech and media world of the Pride Ring, it would be very easy to arrange you a TV spot or some kind of performance where he could sort of test, ok you think you're such hot shit, let's see you walk the walk. Also lowkey I just straight up see them doing insider trading shit, buying stocks in companies or your label or whatever before they know youre going to drop a song or do a certain sponsorship and Valentino is like "oh this is actually pretty lucrative, tf 😳"

You know how celebrities and public figures will like deliberately have PR stunts where they pretend to date for publicity and shit. Imagine Valentino tries to do that with you and realizes oh wait shit you know what I'm too possessive for this shit actually 😜 or he even, decides he himself will be the "celebrity" you're publicly dating like lmao the articles and photos of you two together drop and it starts rumors and people are responding with that one image of the hamster and the banana and he's like "hmmm business opportunity while I can simultaneously be a creep maybe? 🤔" like he leans in, maybe even being publicly flirtatious and such, doing things he knows will get clicks and articles, like suddenly he's getting you really fixed up to hang out at clubs together and be some sort of weird power couple and also like, depending on your public persona maybe he's using the absurdity of the pairing to gain attention, like if you're a sweet peppy popstar and you're a little shy and then there's. Him. No extra commentary needed lol. Like you know how certain headlines male you go "no way" and you just have to read and see for yourself? He capitalizes on that. He IS a businessman after all

Also god yeah I still occasionally think of that one "readers room is an old set they don't use for whatever reason and it has hidden cameras someone turns on" because of all the different routes for that. Like imagine you're toiling away as a server and you find out about the livestreams and one night you're pissed and he's getting under your skin and you start being a brat and then whenever he basically starts threatening you, you hit him with "oh, well, if im such a stupid bitch I guess I can get another place to live and ruin your little livestreams right? Or what if I just walked into my room and stared directly at the camera and let everyone know that I know they're watching which will INSTANTLY lose you at least half the viewership because they get off on knowing I don't know I'm being watched?" And it just shuts him right up as you basically tell him you're not going to pay rent anymore and you're going to use your wages on things you want for yourself and he can just deduct your rent from all the money he makes from the livestreams

Like I just sit and think of ways Reader could fuck with him or try and turn around this creepy situation to her benefit. Like you're in your room and you know you're sitting at an angle where no one can see your phone and you're occasionally maybe even browsing the chat of your own livestream and you see username [mod] mothpimp repeatedly being a creep and you know it's him so you just text him something like "oh you can say I got a nice ass in a chat room but be a bitch to my face?" And like THIS is how you tell him you know. Or like, something you already do a lot is talk aloud and so you just say shit out loud to make the stream laugh at him or mock him and shit. Like you roll your eyes and 'slam your phone down' "Valentino is such a cunt. Acting like he's hot shit and He's That Bitch when he's got literally no ass, cake nonexistent"

Because think about it, if you aren't happy or at least calm, your streams suffer. Yeah the hard-core fans will notice changes in your demeanor, or, like, maybe reader kind of adapts to this like lowkey traumatic situation and becomes completely desensitized to being watched in her room because maybe it starts having legitimate benefits, besides all the consequences. I imagine realistically it would be very difficult to keep anyone from letting you know about the livestreams and I've even considered Valentino not letting you have a phone or certain tech so that you quite literally cannot find out you're online without your knowledge, but, I mean, for fictional stories you can do anything. It's My sleepover and I get to pick the movie and I like the idea of Reader becoming like actually semi famous over this shit because it's like, yeah perverts are watching but maybe some people start watching you because they think you seem nice or maybe they share a hobby with you and some people are like getting legitimately parasocial, like developing that one mental illness where someone believes a celebrity or artist or singer is performing specifically for them and confessing their love for them" which actually now that I think about it that's a Villain!Present Mic fic idea I started a draft for ages ago

But yeah like, maybe Reader even forces Valentino's hand to give her a decent or even substantial wage on the argument that, you being able to buy shit and like entertainment stuff gives you more to do in your room, and thus, more content for the streams, and like, he seems like a tightwad who barely pays his employees shit but like, he's also A Total Weirdo Himself and he's curious/eager to see what all you would do because, bruh if an employee hadn't began livestreaming your room he probably would have just watched the streams privately. I've also considered, for this concept and also just in general, imagine stumbling on Valentino's phone left open or he's got some hot pink laptop he leaves open or like maybe you're even in his house (like the gang was in the limo and he stopped at his house to grab something and everyone is briefly inside) and you just discover he's got, um, a suspicious amount of materials of you saved. Screenshots, photos, I've even be like "what if Valentino was openly indifferent and maybe even rude as fuck to the Reader but it's a fucking lie and he's a tsundere and he leaves his phone open one day and you find it and there's just like tons and tons of videos where he just came in your room while you were sleeping and just watched you apparently"

And, also ok, to be horny on main like, his eyes glow in the dark and shit and imagine going to sleep in like shorts or something and during your sleep you just kind of roll around and wind up over the covers or partially exposed and he can just walk up and, take his finger and just part the crotch of your shorts and underwear. just looks at/photographs/drools over the sight of your pussy like a creep. you eventually snap out of sleep with his mouth between your thighs and all you can see is the glowing pink in the darkness as you basically wake up with an orgasm, like 🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵 and of course he still needs to get off too and, well, since you're awake now and everything, and already so dripping wet for him---

[notnatawree]

drafting: us v. them; on my relations w the 1% - feb 3, 2023

us. us poor people. us lower class folks. us people that've used government programs to survive, and live paycheck to paycheck. us that look "out of place" and wear michael kors purses. we have this weird foreign, often ambiguous understanding of what the illusive 1% is. we might have one token "rich" family member who started a business and owns a big nice house. or maybe we passed people sitting in these massive seats on the way to the back of the plane, that is, if we've ever even been on a plane at all. there's a dissonance. we don't understand them; they don't understand us. and we all go our merry ways, not understanding each other and invoking our own biases against the opposite group. it should be the duty of the rich to understand the poor, but that's a different story.

you see, the 1% is illusive. and i didn't deal with them period until i got to college. in my hometown, we'd venture off to neighboring "wealthier" areas, and complain about how privileged our peers in these places were. we'd have to work after school or on the weekends— sweating all day, cleaning literal feces from bathrooms, for all but $10/hour while our wealthy peers would be able to go out with friends, focus on hobbies / academics / extracurriculars, and build a better future for themselves while they sustain on the family dollar. it's a vicious fucking cycle.

i met my roommate off a facebook housing group. she lived in a privileged town in the bay area, one that my crowd growing up knew as nothing more than where the illusive 1% lives. i didn't know she came from a rich family until several weeks of knowing, and while not admittedly, you can tell by the lack of awareness on surviving on a new grad salary (a decent one, at that), comments about certain aspects of her lifestyle, designer bags, & most upsettingly to someone who desperately wants a better life— the ability to max out her retirement to get a company match while her lifestyle is still partially funded by her parents.

it's upsetting to watch someone make the same as you, but will continue to build significantly more wealth than you in the long run simply because of that family foundation. i want that for my kids, but cycles exist for a reason— you don't choose which one you're born into, and you have little autonomy in where you end up. pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is bullshit and everyone knows it.

the last few guys i've dated have all come from wealthy families. i blame pretty privilege and the curse of being slim thick after major weight loss. the first wealthy guy i dated was sophomore year of college; his family had old money from oil in mexico. he lived in a beautiful, ginormous house. and spent his college years having fun at a school that he did not have to work very hard to get into.

the next boy was medium wealthy. his dad was early in tech and they lived in a pretty big house on a lake in northern idaho. he was career oriented and disciplined; i at least admired that. the next one's dad worked in the white house and has a wikipedia page. the current one is neighbors with a member of the US royal family.

it's exhausting. i don't know that i deliberately seek this. i think it's just kinda what my dating pool looks like as a conventionally attractive girl that went to a decently prestigious university. they probably think i'm one of them. and i have had this habit in dating these guys to let my identity slide under the surface. i never let them know me or anything about me; i reveal very little. so much so that i fear all of these guys that i've dated have absolutely no clue who i am.

i'm at a point where i don't know what to do. i've tried hiding my background. i've tried to pretend like i get it. i've tried to find these people relatable. i don't. i like them, sure. but there's a disconnect that is irreparable. I'll never know them like their rich friends know them. I'll never know what vacationing in Italy is like with a rich family. I'll never know what ravaging through your mom's closet and finding a treasure trove of vintage designer feels like. I'll never know the comfort that I'll be well off when I'm older. I'll never know what it feels like to dream of something like a magnificent wedding abroad, and actually truly believe that dream will come true. Everything I feel, I feel with doubt. Everything I want, I feel I don't deserve. I work hard, but it still never feels like enough. I want community, but I don't know which one to belong to. It's tuff.

to be cont

[bartletforamerica]

How the Bartlet Administration Reacts to COVID-19

Abbey: is not taking any chances. After losing the fight to get the President to retreat to the farm or Camp David, she gets him to agree to limit himself to the oval office and the residence, with as few in person meetings as possible. Even before they’ve pulled together a White House task force, she’s made sure that everything is being disinfected and that her entire schedule is either canceled or made virtual. Her staff is the first to be working from home (and oh boy does she scold if she finds out any of them did something she thinks is foolish), with most of the rest of the White House staff following shortly after. She makes it her mission to do PSAs on what people should be doing and even does a virtual Sesame Street collaboration to teach kids how to wash their hands.

Zoey: Is not super pleased to be stuck in the Residence 24/7. She’s doing classes from her bedroom, so yay to not having to get out of bed early, but she can tell people are super disappointed that her camera is set up so that she has only a blank wall behind her [it turns out the secret service is very touchy about where you take video calls]. She also gets officially hired and given a security clearance for the sole fact that she’s one of the only people allowed to be near her dad who is tech-literate. She ends up doing some of her reading on the couch in his office so that she's on hand for when he's supposed to be skyping with the senior staff and can't figure out what link to click. She spends a lot of time worrying about Ellie, who helping do research about the virus, and texting her friends.

The President: is not happy to be closed up away from people. He also thinks that Abbey is overreacting where he's concerned. He misses actually getting to be around the younger staff. He and Zoey do a cooking from home video at C.J.'s suggestion, so that the country can see he's alive and to encourage people to not go out. They make chili and fight over whether it needs more cumin or oregano while Abbey records it and pipes in from behind the camera. The country is treated to a history of chili and a diplomatic incident nearly happens because apparently Mexicans deny having any association with it, even though most food historians say it has Mexican roots. The flaming debate doesn't stop a second episode at Thanksgiving where the country is treated to the history of the yam and all the secret spices that go into the President's stuffing. A large portion of the country gives him flack for putting Oysters in his stuffing. [In a small bedroom in an Illinois apartment a woman finally figures out why Joe Bethersonsen sounded so familiar.]

Leo: moved into the Residence because there was no way he was going to talk the President off ledges via skype for however long this lasted. He can only do so much. Zoey helps him learn to use Skype and he finds himself missing Margaret desperately even when he spends most of the day with a computer dedicated to having her on Skype so he can turn to it and ask her questions. She insists he get exercise and eat healthy (something he thinks she’s collaborating with the first lady on behind his back—they say very similar things much of the time). He skypes with Mallory on Sunday mornings over breakfast in his room and they pretend they’re at a hotel having a fancy brunch.

Charlie: is not particularly happy. He got sent home with everyone else because he’s not particularly necessary to have on hand if the president isn’t going anywhere. He’s still getting paid and he does do some work (the most important bit being hanging out on the phone with the president so he can ramble about history so Zoey can get her own reading done, Leo can browbeat the staff, and the first lady can do her own job) but he’s been ordered by the president and first lady to focus on getting extra school done while he can.

Donna: started freaking out the first day there was a rumor of a new disease in China. Then the White House shut down and even senior staff got sent home unless they absolutely needed to be in the building (basically just C.J. and some of her staff). And her roommate (not the one she'd really liked, who had a cat, but one she hopes is only temporary) works for a GOP congressman who thinks the whole thing is a hoax and bans masks in his office, so Donna is not at all happy and spends time she should be working cleaning things her roommate touches and that's sixty percent of how she ends up living with Josh.

Josh: is struggling with not being allowed to leave the house on pain of the first lady taking him to task (something about his lungs and the bullet). Even when he was putting his nose to the grindstone to make it through college and law school, he liked being around people while he studied, so he was usually in the library or a cafe rather than his room. He works best when he can bounce ideas off people and take in new ideas. When he was grounded after surgery it absolutely sucked and that was why he drove everyone crazy calling them all the time. Yeah he was bored, but he was also lonely. Plus he's not the best with technology. He very nearly went on national tv with his boxers showing, if not for Donna skyping him beforehand and making sure he fixed the camera. Between needing not to be alone and needing his assistant to be able to actually help him, the invite for Donna to stay with him slips out when she's complaining about her roommate. She shows up two hours later with two suitcases of clothes and two suitcases with pasta, toilet paper, and flour.

Donna and Josh: are handling the pandemic much better now that they're together. Josh can bounce ideas off Donna without it tying up his phone line. And she can listen in on his calls to the various members of congress about the stimulus package that they're working on. It's an even better look at Josh's job than she had before, and while it makes some of her work harder to focus on, she feels like she understands some things better than she ever has before. Josh even starts listening to her about how to sway certain congressmembers to their side. When they're not working, Donna forces Josh to cook with her so they're not entirely subsisting on delivery. They tried making bread and managed to spill half a bag of flour on the floor in the process but they ate all of it, even though it tasted pretty bland. Josh finally got Donna into baseball when it came back. Toby spit out his beer when he was on speakerphone with them and he heard Donna accurately yelling at the Mets for screwing up. Donna wears Josh's clothes more than her own, since she doesn't have to be on camera most of the time. They're platonically sharing a bed because they haven't found a convertible sofa for his living room that they like, they say, and it doesn't make sense for one of them to sleep on the couch, which they say has a spring that makes it uncomfortable to sleep on, even though Donna lounges on it all day with no problem. They are absolutely not dating and so they tell all their friends.

C.J.: spends five minutes laughing every time she gets off the phone with Josh or Donna. She loves her friends but god they're so completely in denial. It does, however, give her a much needed break. Her job has always involved a lot of people and knowing what venue to meet them in to ensure that she gets or passes on the information she needs. COVID protocols mean no more one-on-one meetings with journalists in her office, no more gaggles following her through the halls. The press corps were not happy when they moved all briefings outside and insisted on face masks and shields in addition to everyone sitting six feet apart. She gets asked about the president's health at least once a day and they start doing weekly waving from the balconies just so the press corps can get footage of him, healthy and shouting down to Danny and some of the others. Someone makes a cartoon of the president in the tower, with Abbey as his dragon keeper and though no one is willing to justify a cartoon with a comment, privately C.J. thinks it's accurate. She's always admired Abbey's fierce protectiveness of her family, even when she doesn't agree with every way it expresses itself or when it interferes with C.J.'s job. She has to come up with new ways to push the White House agenda (keep the economy afloat, stay home, no, don't listen to the GOP governors or those running for the primary, those ideas are not good, go the fuck home and stop having parties) and while some work, others bomb. It would help if everyone would stay on message and not screw up.

Sam: would like to make it clear that he did not know how many people would be at that gathering. He thought he was going for an outdoor meal with just a few old friends who could help raise money for the democratic party, not a fifty-person birthday party. The media fallout nearly gets him fired. Instead he gets yelled at by C.J., then by the First Lady. Mallory even sends him a card about how stupid he was. He's pretty sure that having Donna around is the only reason that Josh hasn't made the same mistake by now. It had to have been a toss up as to which of the two of them would screw up. Sam just isn't lucky enough to have a Donna (Sam is very happy that Josh has a Donna, Sam just wants Josh to realize that he talks about Donna the same way most men talk about their wives, because it's really hard not to respond to "why do I put up with finding her hair clogging the shower drain" with "because you love her and can't live without her, stupid"). He instead has adopted a cat for company. It tries to scratch him every time he tries to pet it. Sam spends his days trying to find a way to say "fuck the economy until we've beaten the virus" in a way that is palatable to the American people while trying to remind Toby that they can't actually say that outright. This is not an easy task.

Toby: would like to tell most of the American public to shut up, stay indoors for two months, pretty much nobody excepted, and if you don't, then you get tossed out to sea. He's come within an inch of telling anti-mask people they deserve to get sick on the record and is strongly advocating that the federal government figure out a way to mandate that every person in the country, minus those with legitimate medical exceptions, get the vaccine as soon as possible. He is also about to get evicted because it turns out his neighbors do not appreciate having rubber balls bounced against the walls for hours on end. Apparently, the thud is rather annoying. He worries about everyone, though this is delivered brusquely. Out of everyone he's taking the new work from home situation the best. No one can pop in to distract him, or comment on his eating habits. And if he doesn't want to talk to someone, he can always turn his phone to silent and pretend not to have seen they called. He's not pleased the Yankees lost to the Rays (necessitating rooting for either the Dodgers or the Rays, one of which beat his team and the other which betrayed New York), but he can at least take solace in the fact that the Mets didn't even make the playoffs.

[hopeymchope]

hey, sorry to barge into your inbox despite being a total stranger (and feel free to respond to this privately if you want) but i came across some of your s/n/k critical posts and i just wanted to say i agree SO much. and i wanted to thank you for vocalizing this opinion because i know both i and some others agree with you. i've personally felt that everything after chapter 80 was a mistake (because i thought the whole serum fight over erwin vs armin was pretty fuckin stupid too) and it's kinda funny (i guess) to see the ending 100% validate my opinion completely. i can't believe every character was done this dirty for the sake of a very poorly constructed "both sides are bad" scenario that was also in VERY poor taste considering the explicit allegories to n*zi germany and a literal race war. like what's up with the jews - sorry, the "eldians" - once ruling the entire world via a bloodthirsty empire and also being inhuman creatures? gee, that sure doesn't sound like every antisemitic conspiracy theory i've ever heard. and way to rationalize oppression, too. the entire point of an oppression narrative is supposed to be "hey, the oppressor's prejudices have no rational basis and are literally mistreating this oppressed group due to their own selfishness and cruelty," not "oh btw marley's fear/hatred of eldians kinda makes sense considering eldians once enslaved the entire planet and can turn into giant man-eating monsters." is*yama SERIOUSLY should've just stuck to writing glorified vore lmao.

and while all the characters were either killed, turned into plot devices, or both, it hurts that EMA and the main protag himself suffered this treatment as well. i still think pre-timeskip eren is utterly irreconciliable with post-timeskip eren and the fact that both fans and the author himself try to make it seem like "hey he was ALWAYS a batshit crazy psychopath from the start!" is sort of pathetic to watch. like yeah, lemme just ignore the first 80 chapters of character development for this guy. or lemme pretend that the author didn't spend the significant majority of the decade making eren the most empathetic character in the entire series. or let me also pretend that eren killing those human traffickers to save a 9 year old girl from being a child sex slave is somehow evidence/foreshadowing/etc of him eventually growing up to destroy 80% of the planet. like, what? not to mention he even rebuked himself for recklessly killing those two men like that in chapter 17...so am i supposed to ignore that too?? and don't even get me started on the "eren went insane and accidentally caused his mom's death." bro. BRO. i've watched the entirety of game of thrones yet i STILL have never seen this level of "edgy plot twist for shock value with no benefit or relevance to the story whatsoever" in any media to exist.

well anyway...sorry for ranting in your inbox like this LMAO i really just wanted to tell you that i agree with your opinions about both the series ending and the series as a whole. i doubt i'll ever engage with this cursed manga ever again but at least pre-chapter 80 s/n/k will always be a thing and i can pretend they all got reincarnated into a modern AU where eren and mikasa are happily married and living with their bff armin in a nice condo or something. they alternate between visiting carla and grisha or mikasa's family on weekends. yeah that sounds pretty good. if you made it this far then kudos to you and thank you for reading lol

Thanks a ton for the kind words of commiseration. It feels like there’s a plurality of people who are unhappy, sure... but it comes off as still being a minority, and even among that minority, it seems like most people are still fine with most of the timeskip so long as they stuck the landing. But I think they were much too far off-course pretty fast after the Timeskip started to really correct it very well. It was possible, but the writing was on the wall. The intentions were already clear pretty early on after the skip. 

That said, I try to keep this Tumblr mostly positive and DR-focused, yet I still absolutely had to rant about SNK 139. The more I thought about it, the more I disliked it... and this comes from someone who was already unhappy for a while, obviously, so. Yeah. Of course I was gonna dislike it on some level, but I thought it’d at least provide closure to the Timeskip arc, even if I do think the Timeskip arc feels at odds with everything else the series was for 3/4 of its run.

And HOLY SHIT I literally forgot about the Eldians’ history of apparently being horrible, vicious rulers of a sinister empire. You know why? Because I NEVER BELIEVED IT. I was so 100% certain that it was going to be outed as bullshit propaganda from Marley that I never once thought it was plausible, so I just... pushed it out of my mind as soon as I read it. After all, all that kind of talk about the arch-conspiracy of Jews has always been total bullshit from anti-semetic monsters, so why would I put any stock in this kind of talk being applied to the Jewish race of Attack on Titan? 

But now, at the end of the story... yup, I guess he never DID go back on that! So it was fucking true?! The Jewish people in this WWII analogy were apparently an evil master race at one point?! Oh. OHHHHH. Go fuck yourself with a shovel for that one, Isayama. 

And yeah, Eren... god, what a sad story. He becomes unrecognizable as the same character thanks to the Timeskip, the new characterization is never explained or justified retroactively - it’s just opposite day now, forever - and he dies accomplishing nothing. I don’t know what to say, except I do know how much I loved that character and this series before things went south. I didn’t even mind the backstory for the Titans and the horrible story of Eldians in Marley... because it seemed so obvious that it was setting up a battle against a hateful, technologically advanced foe that was beyond the darkness of anything they’d fought before, y’know? Marley, as it was set up in the flashbacks before the Timeskip, is Nazi Germany if the Nazis had tech and scientific horrors and numbers far beyond what the Allies had. And nobody EVER feels bad for killing Nazis, so this was obviously going to be a final battle to destroy the Marleyan military, with Zeke likely to serve as a Final Boss who has totally 100% bought the propaganda and who hated everything Eren stood for. It was all RIGHT THERE. Maybe it was just too easy to tell that story, because instead, Zeke is suddenly supposed to be a gray character (very hard to accept given his backstory), and we end with the “uwu both sides were bad bc war is hell” message that is really pretty fucked up, as you already correctly pointed out.