#not to steal your thunder or anything but like. isnt it crazy that we know the sounds of some dinosaurs???

[famderfries]

i did not just go type "100 cool dinosaur facts" into google to impress u just now🧍

BDJAVDIWVNBSBS,,,, 💕💕💕💕

#im listenin ⁉️⁉️ #apollo answers shit #not to steal your thunder or anything but like. isnt it crazy that we know the sounds of some dinosaurs??? #we know the noise of a Parasaurolophus because people made a model of the crest on its head (a hollow nasal passage) and blowing air in???? #and i havent fact checked this but obviously tRexes didnt roar. probably no dinosaurs did #their closest modern relatives are birds and some reptiles and roaring is a mammal thing but APPARENTLY (big fat grain of salt) #APPARENTLY they would have made like. a rumbling sound so deep at times that we wouldnt be able to hear it. you would feel it tho :) #Quetzas are so cool too. Quetzacoatlus (i think i spelled it right?) was a pteradon (so not a dinosaur but lived around the same time as- #cretaceous dinosaurs like T Rex and Triceratops) #that grew up to roughly the height of a giraffe with wingspan of about 33 feet/10.something meters #what also makes them look even bigger was their diet #they often fed on Magyarosaurus which were some of the smallest ever sauropods at a height of under 2 meters/6 and a half feet tall* #*sauropods are the long necked dinosaurs. The biggest dinosaur ever belonged to the sauropod group and yet magyarosaurs were barely the- #height of an average person #gushing rn #there was a lot of confusion about sauropods for a while because it wwas hard to tell whether 2 differnt ones (i believe bronto and apato)- #were actually the same species or not. the main evidence from what i remember was that there was less variation between the skulls than- #modern day girrafes. but i think they were eventually decided they were individual #because of like leg structure and that #dinosaur talk #anyway. i like dinosaurs #faves

[windstorm64]

Attack on Discourse I Guess

I swear to god if I see one more post on tumblr dot com saying that Attack on Titan is “pro-fascism” or “pro-imperialism” I’m gonna lose my freaking...

*deep breath*

Listen, I absolutely want people to be critical of the media they consume, especially from Japan. Due to their role in WW2 and their glorification of past military actions from their conservative side, there’s a lot of Japanese media that contains themes and imagery that would (ideally) not at all fly in the west. Sometimes it’s harmless, being simply misguided, other times it’s bad, containing some pretty horrific subtext regardless of the author's actual intention. Attack on Titan absolutely does contain themes of imperialism, xenophobia, propaganda, extreme nationalism, and more. But the all important distinction here is that Attack on Titan does it

with.

a.

purpose.

It’s NOT condoning them. Just like how Lolita isn’t promoting pedophilia, or the clockwork orange isnt promoting whatever the heck that movie is about, simply having these themes present in your story does not mean they are being condoned.

Do I blame people for not understanding that at first? No. AoT takes its sweet time when developing its themes, and is constantly overturning what you thought you knew about its worldviews. That’s just the kind of story it is. It will go incredibly into detail about a plethora of opposing views, some being downright deplorable, and takes extra care to make them all look inviting and sweet. You don’t realize it at the time, but what seems to be the only right answer at the time is secretly ushering in the worst that man can muster. That’s how it is in real life. That’s how these evils get into real society; “with thunderous applause”. The difference here is that AoT, even if it takes 100 chapters to do so, slowly but surely will overturn all these themes and let the right way show itself over the course of the series. It doesn’t hold your hand, it doesn’t sugarcoat it, and I’ll even admit that I was a little nervous during some parts over what exactly the author was trying to say, but every single time Isayama chose to let the reader decide what was right in the moment, until AoT’s own in-universe marketplace of ideas eventually worked as intended and snuffed out the unsavory.

Does that mean you personally have to enjoy seeing it? No. The marketplace of ideas approach often does not work in real life (punching nazis is good) and seeing it used in fiction might not be your cup of tea.

Does that mean I think all of its themes are handled well or tactfully? Absolutely not. There are some stories that I think are handled VERY poorly, with the redemption of Magath’s character, for example, being downright horrendous. But those aren’t the complaints I hear from you people. All I hear are the same tired arguments that have been countered in-universe time and time again.

You think the survey corps are an allegory promoting imperialism? Then you’ll love the part where the real villains are revealed to be actual greedy governments invading foreign lands to oppress and murder the populace and steal valuable resources. And how the main characters, in-turn to learning that there’s more people out there in the world, switch their goals from expanding their territory to understanding and allying with the outside population.

The titans represent xenophobia? Then you’ll love the internal conflicts of the main cast when they realize that the titans are just like them, and the constant struggle thereafter against the prejudiced countries outside the walls who seek to punish them for their ethnicity.

Nationalism? Propaganda? The story has just spent the better part of 2 arcs displaying just how evil, dangerous, and reality-warping these things can be.

Fascism? Y’all’s favorite arc would probably be the one where the main cast literally overthrows their own corrupt fascist government because it was, in fact, fascist and corrupt.

German influences glorify nazism? Germany does not equal nazi. The author is clearly a fan of all parts of German history, and is a fan of war memorabilia in general (which admittedly becomes pretty risky when looking through the lens of conservative Japan’s notoriously glorified WW2 outlook), but nothing about it supports Nazism, or any of their ideals. Misguided? Perhaps, I can’t say I’m a fan. But it doesn’t denote anything about the author's character that we can reasonably glean. Eventually the true villains of Aot were given clear similarities to Nazis, clarifying Isayama's true moral priorities.

And before any of y’all start trying to point out what the author said in the past- I KNOW what the author has said. Or rather, what he was rumored to have said. But even if the rumors are true, and that shitty ignorant take on Twitter about Japan and Korea was from him, it's 100% the kind of thing that can be called out and learned from. The tweet was like, what? 10 years ago? Maybe more? Even if it was him he has clearly been educated on the deeper implications of his statement, as evidenced by the way these themes are handled in his story. Attack on Titan directly condemns eugenics on multiple occasions. It tackles it in a surprisingly on-the-nose way too, compared to how the series handled its serious themes prior to that point.

That's why I WANT y’all to be critical of the media you intake. So you CAN call out the glorification of unsavory themes and bring them to the attention of those in charge of them. Because that’s how people learn and grow. That’s how you create an educated populace that understands the implications of the things they create. I am 110% convinced that all these themes were tackled in AoT BECAUSE of all the criticism he got in the past. 10 years is a long time, and we are still getting new developments to this day that challenge the themes introduced in the first couple of chapters. Whether or not these themes were planned to be tackled from the start, or were introduced later on after being called out, is something we’ll probably never know. But please do yourselves a favor and learn what the heck you’re talking about, and the context around it, before going off for years about misguided claims. Don’t cheapen words that should be reserved for the most grievous of behaviors when you really just want to make a point.

Attack on Titan is a brutal nuanced story that shows off the worst that humanity has to offer, and how hard it is to do the right thing in a world where the right thing doesn’t always work. But taking an honest, elongated approach to exploring how these themes interact with humanity and society is NOT the same as promoting it. If you like your stories more black and white, where the good and bad of real world themes are more clearly defined as opposed to AoT’s more nihilistic and gray approach to morality, then by all means go enjoy that other story. I’m not trying to convince anyone to like it. I’m not expecting everyone to enjoy seeing these themes shoved in your face every installment. And I’m certainly not expecting anyone to understand all of this right away, hell I’m constantly arguing with dudebro AoT fans on reddit who are SURPRISED that Armin and the Alliance are taking an anti-genocide stance. And somehow I’m the crazy one for seeing this plot line coming for literal years. There’s simply just a lot more to this story than you can understand at a glance, and I implore anyone who thinks that’s they can simplify the real world themes dealt with here in such a menial way to seriously reconsider.

You are welcome to dislike Attack on Titan. You are more than welcome to criticize it’s possible mismanagement of sensitive real world themes. I am not so enamored by Isayama’s writing to expect a young manga artist to be the forefront of knowledge on such complicated, disturbing topics. But please, cut it out with the crazy claims. I’ve been hearing these things for so many years and it’s all the same. AoT has risen to become one of the most popular anime/manga of the current era. If the story was really as deplorable as you claim it would not have become as popular as it has been. The fans aren’t stupid (well, not all of them. Together, we can beat the reddit dudebros and save the world). This didn’t happen by mistake. The fans aren’t ignorant of the messages it’s sending. Attack on Titan is just... good! Even if I can’t get you to agree with me on that, at least look at it honestly for what it is, and what it’s trying to be. It’s really, really, not at all what you think, or what other tumblr users are trying to get you to believe.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot #snk #eren yeager #armin arlert #snk anime #aot anime #snk manga #aot manga #discourse #fascism #imperialism #genocide