ahhhh i'm glad to hear that! in all honesty, i'm very picky about what versions of hal & ollie i actually like and the characterisation i go for tends to be exclusively 1966 - 2001 and 1969 - 1995 respectively because it's only until then that they were written as complex & compelling characters. most of my thoughts on their dynamic can honestly be summarized by denny o'neil's intro to gl/ga or my own impromptu analysis of the way class dynamics play into their relationship but if i really had to put a name to it i think what appeals to me is the recurring motif of the good old days

halollie isn't a matter of what is but What Could Have Been and all the friendship fallen to the wayside & missed opportunities housed in those couple words. they shared the unrepeatable experience of having been young together and while i don't think ollie necessarily opened hal's eyes to the injustice of the world (see: above. he's well aware), i think he did make hal aware of certain things about himself that he'd never considered before and it's precisely the personal nature of this revelation that ultimately led to the two of them never being on the same page past the road trip -- hal is always trying to recapture some shade of those days together & ollie thinks there's nothing at all that warrants going back to

in the nineties, the tragedy even deepens! throughout mike grell's green arrow it's alluded to or we're outright told that hal's just a phone call away but ollie never makes the leap and beyond a half-hearted camping trip that's much more about dealing with ollie's alcoholism than anything else (ga #20), the next time they see each other hal's already lost everything and ollie fails to care right up until he finds himself to be the one that has to kill hal & all those years apart come crashing down on him

this isn't to say it's all doom & gloom, i firmly believe something happened between them on that initial road trip and when it was good it was really good but it's the culmination of all this and just how often hal acts like he's lived through brokeback mountain while it was just business as usual for ollie that really makes it for me

(acw #635)

As much as i love annie she’s arguably much crueler than them too lmao people conveniently like to ignore the way she killed those scouts in her arc

deep thoughts now, he def resents john at the beginning of the game because he’s a deadbeat dad and wasting the chance that arthur never got to have with isaac

oh yeah for sure,, like arthur isnt one to sulk about the hand he was dealt but he clearly resents john for treating jack like crap when arthur had no real choice in getting to raise his own son what with his loyalty to dutch and isaac being killed. thats probably why he makes such an effort with jack, taking him out fishing, bringing him his lost book and candy, and giving abigail money to get jack new clothes. tbh I think its possible that  john never even ever knew about isaac,, I feel like arthur would’ve kept that close to himself. 

this isnt deep but is he a blond or a light brunette??? I really cant tell lsnbshsjkaka

Heck yeah!!! Sorry for the late response.

First impression: Probably obvious enough, he was one of my onset eternal favourites. If ANY of you knew me from my second blog (ivypoop or matthewilliams ring a bell?) then you’ll know how important he was to me. My buddy Sam tried to spoil Chapter 42 (reveal) for me as I started up the anime (he... never even read the manga so IDK how he knew) but it literally did not detract my opinion from him at all. If anything it made his meagre presence in S1 all the more poignant. I love what the anime did with Chapter 16 (BEAR convo). Basically he was one of the characters I could relate to the most. Loved him now, love him today. Nothing or no one could take that away from me I don’t think.

Impression now: I’ve pretty much covered my general impression of him so I’ll talk about his current presence in the manga. So, like, I was completely right? His story’s not over yet, and I’ve known that from the onset. People who thought otherwise are kinda disparaging Yam’s skill as a writer. Since his death, he’s taken a very sparse yet very sort of ‘haunting’ role through Reiner’s flashbacks and general expo. We’ll be getting into it more soon as the plot keeps rolling on, and I’m very excited to see his story come to a conclusion, hopefully alongside a few others.

Favourite moment: I’d say Chapter 78 (confrontation), but a part of me understands that it was a direct parallel of Chapter 49 and was meant to depict a ‘front’. In that case, I’d have to move forward and backward a tad and say a toss between his two fatal weaknesses in Return - his leaping out of the barrel to help Reiner in early Chapter 78, or his completely losing all sense of perspective as he watched Armin throw his life away, leaving him completely open for Eren’s attack. Both scenes make me very sad, but they betray a raw human side to Bert that contrasts with basically every other character in the manga and endears me to him so much.

Idea for a story: Changing tack from the medieval shit this time - I’m writing an outrun-style fic for him at the moment called Everyone’s Running! Modern AU thing where he’s sort of dealing with the fallout of shooting (and yet, failing to kill) someone with incriminating evidence that could put Reiner, already imprisoned, on death row. He sort-of joins forces with Eren and Annie. There’s some gangs and shit. It’s really fun to write.

Unpopular opinion: He didn’t reciprocate Reiner’s feelings. Also probably unpopular that I don’t think his death was bad or contrived or anything in any way. Seemed like the natural progression, and I knew his side of the story wouldn’t stop there. I think a lot of people didn’t assume that, which is where all the initial bad sentiment for it came from.

Favourite relationship: Beyond my self-indulgent ass rarepair, I can’t think of anyone else other than Reiner romantically.

Ignore the haters lmao... Honestly tho ppl need to stop complaining isayama definitely had to uncover this stuff first before we could move on with the plot, its basic storytelling 101