#STOP BEING MEAN TO THE DEPRESSED 14 YEAR OLD

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

if I see one more person, especially if its someone who doesn't even like cursed child, say some DUMB SHIT like 'alBuS aCTeD LikE a BrAT fOr nO rEAsOn' I'm gonna be facing murder charges CAUSE I STFG🥊🤼‍♂️💥‼️🥊🤼‍♂️💥💥🥊💥🤼‍♂️‼️

[alilaro]

I have some Thoughts on Evangelion, and I'm hyperfixating right now, so here's a massive info-dump on it. Thank you and I'm sorry.

(trigger warnings for: child abuse, child death, gore mention, pedophilia, mental health, depression, suicide, and potentially more.)

———————————————→

So, my take on the End Of Evangelion is like a 'Worst Timeline AU.' So what would've happened if Shinji had given into the crippling (justified) trauma and deepest depression of an abused, manipulated, and unfathomably damaged child soldier.

The way Misato constantly screams at him throughout the entire series to 'be a man' and pressures him to get into the EVA and fight literal biblical, kaiju-like angels.

The pressure of trying and failing to get a crumb of praise or approval from his neglectful and spiteful father.

The way people (and fans, tbh) get upset with him for constantly changing his mind. How if he doesn't pilot the EVA, either he or his friends could die. The pressure every adult puts on him. Or again, the absolute cosmic terror of just seeing—let alone having to murder these angels.

Of course, he quits all the time, he's 14. He's a child. An average adult with all the combat training in the world would easily do the same.

Yet he comes back again and again, because of the guilt, the self-loathing, the manipulation of the adults around him—

(who can have all the greatest intentions in the world, "the greater good", etc etc, and it doesn't change a goddamn thing that they are putting these children into death machines and treating it like if they dont do it they are selfish and worthless)

—that if he doesn't do it, his friends will do it and either they or others will die if it's not him.

Like, the point isn't that he can't make up his mind: it's the fact that even if he "gives up", he still keeps coming back, and putting himself before others, despite the grief, despite the pain, despite the trauma

A fourteen-year-old child refuses to stop getting up and trying. Which I feel is symbolic of the whole shows entire meaning, no matter how dark things are, how much you hurt, how much others hurt you, how you feel like nothing, and you want it all to just stop—the pain, the memories, the guilt, the crushing weight of complete utter depression—even as the darkest envelops you and holds you tight, you feel like you can never escape: there is ALWAYS a way out of it.

It's fucking hard, you will lose yourself in it, you will hurt so, so much—but eventually you can find your way out. Through time, through loved ones, through therapy, and more. It's never too late or someone is too far gone in their own despair that they can't be saved and brought back.

And that's not even mentioning the other children. Fans enjoy Asuka more than Shinji because she's got that quick, snappy, high-energy personality. She's overly proud and stubborn, and she loves to fight in her EVA. And Rei, she's the shy quiet girl (a Kuudere, even (didnt like writing that)) designed to be mysterious, and to speculate over. Who is she? Why is she so calm? Does she have a personality behind that demeanor?

But, just like Shinji, they are all child soldiers, and like him, they are products of trauma and manipulation by adults.

Rei, was made in a fool-hearted attempt to bring back Shinji's mother, Yui Ikari, by combining her remains with Lilith. What they got was Rei. An assimilation of Yui, Lilith, Eva, all combining into Rei Ayanami.

Her creators obviously had attachments to her, both having loved Yui before her death, and Gendo Ikari almost took her on as a daughter-like figure (Rei being the name he would've given to his child Shinji, if he had been born a girl,) and revoltingly even more than that.

But as the theme of the series goes, good intentions from adults mean very little, and often act as nothing more than an excuse for creating/doing inconceivably monstrous acts.

She is of course used as an EVA pilot, being able to manipulate her form into a 14-year-old. She is used as a tool. She is replaceable. She knows this. She has no desires because no one has ever cared enough about Rei as her own person to let her think for herself, asked her what she wants, her likes, her dreams, her fears.

Rei's entire existence at this point is to serve, and in an eerie way, the only thing she wants is to serve Gendo, because he's shown her the only breadcrumbs of "compassion" she's ever known.

And then Shinji comes along. Shinji has no idea what she is, only that she is another EVA pilot like himself. He speaks to her as he would anyone else. He cares about her, and her well-being as another person. Actual true compassion.

In episode 06, when Rei is hurt and thought to have died by Shinji, he pries open the hatch to her EVA, ignoring the scalding heat that burns his hands to do so. He finds her alive and cries, and she smiles for him.

This scene is an exact parallel that takes place before with Rei and Gendo (Shinji's father.) He pries open the hatch, scalding his hands too, and finds her alive inside. It's identical except for one thing: Compassion.

Shinji fights to free and help Rei, and when he sees her alive, he is overcome with relief that she, Rei, is alive. He is in tears, he tells her she isn't nothing, implying her life is worth something and people care about her.

When Gendo does it, he does it like a man trying to save a valuable asset. He sees she's okay, and mutters 'I see', and that's the end of it.

Again, in episode 23, when Rei actually dies and is replaced; she is confronted by herself (the Meta Rei, the Rei in her purest, most godly self. A combination of all her sense of beings,) and realizes that she is feeling, she is lonely, she is suffering, and for the first time she cries, and asks herself if this just for her love of Gendo, before sacrificing herself in death to save everyone—specifically shinji.

She is replaced by her many clones, but this time she regains some of her memories, her feelings, her anger, and she is more human now, less vessel, more soul. She is Rei.

In the End of Evangelion, we see the depths of Gendo's depravity. He wants his wife, Yui, back as she was, of course. But in the meanwhile, there's Rei. Rei who is part Yui—a substitute. He touches her breast, an attempt to merge with her, and moves his hand down further to rest between her hips, inside her.

Rei is as much his daughter figure and a child, as she is a part of his own wife, and arises from this: an Oedipus Complex. Gendo treats her as a disposable tool, yet holds Yui at his highest priority. She is his to do with as she likes. How many times has he used her like this? How many times has he committed these atrocities with this child behind closed doors?

Amongst everything else Rei is, she is also a victim of pedophilia.

And in her final moments, while he attempts to merge with Rei in a delusional attempt to bring back Yui, Rei becomes her own being. Rei puts her foot down and says no. She's had enough.

"I will not be a puppet for you to control."

She takes the hand of Adam, fully merges with Lilith, and becomes a God.

And what does she do with all that power? She takes it all, and gives it to Shinji. The one person that ever consistently showed her care and compassion, showed her love. Made her realize she is her own person, gives her the strength to realize her worth and refuse Gendo Ikari, and choose her own path.

Her choice can be argued as good or bad, both. But in the end it was REI's choice, and no one elses.

Asuka uses her anger and her fighting as a means to cope with a barbaric childhood. Her mother, Kyoko, underwent a Contact Experiment when Asuka would have been ~5 years old.

Kyoko survived, but lost her mind completely, thinking her real daughter was actually a doll, and leaving Asuka completely neglected by her mother, all whilst begging and trying to convince her that SHE was her real daughter, not some doll she clung to.

Meanwhile, her father was completely unaffected by this, and even had moved on with another woman (An affair that had been going on before Kyoko fell apart completely, the woman being Kyoto's doctor, that she knew about, and took place in their own home while both mother and daughter were present.) Throwing himself back into his own life with this new woman, and job, Asuka was left with nothing.

Asuka's mother finally snaps and plans her own suicide. She invites Asuka, and with nothing else and wanting nothing more than to be acknowledged by anyone, agrees to take their lives together.

As if all of this isn't bad enough, as a final blow, Asuka's mother takes her own life without Asuka, leaving a five-year-old CHILD to find her mother hanging lifelessly, betrayed and alone again.

Her entire personality isn't because she's 'cool' or 'bossy', its an unfathomably traumatized child, constantly in pain and unable to trust anyone, because she has been taught as an infant that she can not rely on the people meant to care for her, because her parents taught her that in the most brutal and disturbing way possible.

There's even reference to her trying to repeat her mother's suicide after disappearing from the fight, only to be found gravely injured and withering away in a bathtub.

She fights so hard to be independent because she refuses to let herself be hurt and abandoned again.

At the End of Evangelion, even when she is screaming and crying, bleeding to death after being speared through the eye, losing power, and being cannibalized alive in her EVA, she is still so desperate, so angry, that she refuses to die, swearing vengeance on her enemies through dying rattled breaths, and it isn't until she is bombarded with blades that she finally succumbs. And at the hands of NERV.

Again, she, and every single EVA pilot, is only 14 years old.

tldr: The series is about child trauma, children being turned into soldiers, the failings of adults around them, and the tragically brutal and real aftermath of the wreaks of havoc that would have on a child.

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

A Sweet Mishap - Chapter 14

Pairing - Jensen Ackles x Reader 

A/N: I just want to start by thanking everyone for all the love on this story so far. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list. This chapter is a little heavier (as is the story going forward, but I'll include potential triggers for each chapter as relevant), so please read the TW below and only read on if you feel comfortable doing so.

Potential Trigger Warnings: mentions of sex, masturbation and nudity, depression, suicidal thoughts

A Sweet Mishap Masterlist | Main Masterlist

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It’s well past midday by the time I open my eyes and my head is still throbbing. In hindsight, those extra few rounds with the groomsmen after the ball drop were probably a bad idea. At the same time though, that was the only thing that stopped me buckling and messaging Jensen and coming clean about everything and literally begging him to take me back. It’s been days since we last spoke, so I know he’s probably already halfway to moving onto the next project and likely hasn’t given me a second thought since, so I strive to do the same. It’s officially a new year, and I’m determined to stick to my resolutions.

Avoiding my phone, I decide to take along soak in the tub after washing off my smudged makeup from last night. I start running the water and add in an old rose-scented bathbomb Stella gave me for my birthday last year. As I start scrubbing off the makeup the silence gets to me and I give in, going back into my room to retrieve my phone. Any resolve I had managed to build up crumbles when I see the message waiting for me since last night.

Happy New Year, Y/N I hope the bachelorette party went well

Those few words are all it takes to break down the dam I had been building. I can’t believe that after everything I said he still cared enough to message. A little spark of hope burns in my heart at the thought that he was thinking of me when I was thinking of him. Yet he chose to message me, while I got drunk to push him from my mind. The guilt extinguishes the spark of hope. 

I take my phone with me as I shut off the water, strip and slide into the pink bubbles. I let out a contented groan as the hot water instantly relaxes me. But just as I relax, a voice startles me.

“Y/N? Are you ok? Y/N?”

I stare at my phone in disbelief as I see the name on the screen. I brace myself before answering. “Jensen? Hi…”

“Oh thank God. You’re ok. I just hope my second instinct isn’t right then…Not that it’s any of my business…”

“What are you talking about?”

“The sound you made when I answered…you’re either in trouble or having sex…So, which is it?”

“You think I’m having sex and haven’t hung up yet? What do you take me for?”

“You’d be surprised how many people talk through sex, I think it’s some sort of kink. But I really hope you’re not.”

“I’m not having sex…but I am naked…” I say before I can stop myself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that…”

“So, you were masturbating then…”

“It’s none of your business! Why are you so interested? We broke up remember?”

“I didn’t know we dated?”

“You know what I mean…”

“Then why’d you call me?”

“It was an accident…But I’m glad I did. We really do need to talk.”

“Maybe I should let you get dressed first…or finish what you were doing…”

“I wasn’t-Forget it. Why’s it matter anyway? You can’t see me.”

“I guess…I’d love to talk, I just need to get past that last comment…” He goes silent for a moment and then continues. “I also need you to be honest with me. I really like you Y/N. So, I guess I just need to know where you stand.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Jens…I’m in a messy place at the moment. I want to let you in, but I’m scared of bringing you down, letting you down and just not being enough…”

“I can take care of myself. I’m more worried about what it would do to you…the photos and shit online is bad enough. If we date we’ll eventually get found out and all that will just get worse for you. The fans are protective of Dean Winchester and by default me…But, those boys that made you feel like you’re not enough, they didn’t deserve you. But I promise if you let me, I’ll treat you like you deserve.” 

I splash my free-hand through the water while I consider his words. “How about for now we just keep talking? We’re in different states anyway, and soon it’ll be different countries…”

“Just friends? Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know, Jens. I’m a mess…And I don’t want to force you into exclusivity when I don’t know…”

“You’re not forcing me, I want this. Honestly, I want more. But most relationships start as friendships, so we can take it slow if that’s better for you. But I need to know if you’re friend-zoning me, cause I…”

“I’m not friend-zoning you indefinitely…Maybe…I don’t know…I just need to get my own life under control first. Stop dreaming and actually…” in an attempt to distract myself from the depressing thoughts, I change the subject. “You know…I do still need a date for my best friend’s wedding…”

“Great! Send me the invite.”

“Jensen…I know you can’t…It’s okay. Plus, that negates our deal of staying out of public and taking things slow. Forget I said anything. It was stupid. That’s the stupid dreaming I’m talking about. I need to start being more realistic…But I struggle when it comes to you…”

“Hey, hey…It’s not stupid to not want to go to an event like that alone. Let me worry about what’s realistic and possible. Just send me the invitation. I may not be able to come, but just trust me. Give me a chance. Please. Also, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming…we’re performers, we play make believe for a living.”

“Okay…I’ll send it to you once I get out of the bath.”

“Bath! Right, that’s why you’re naked…actually that doesn’t help at all. Y/N, Darlin’, I really want to be a gentleman here, but you gotta stop reminding me that you’re naked right now. I'm still just a man.” The lonely, sex-deprived part of me wants nothing more than to hit the video call button and have what I hope would be amazing phone sex with him, but the rational part of my brain stops me. He sighs and then cuts back in, “I’d love to hear more about your dreams and how you’re gonna make them come true.”

“It doesn’t matter…They’re just pipe dreams. It’s time to grow up. Get a responsible nine to five and actually get ahead of bills and become someone reliable. Someone that’s worth…”

“Worth what, darlin’? Worth not cheating on? Worth being around? You don’t need a boring nine to five that you hate to be worth anything. I promise you real passion is way more sexy.”

“If that were true…” I sigh, “I’m sorry. As I said, I’m just not in a good place right now. I’m sorry for bringing down the mood. Forget I said anything. I should go.”

“Y/N, darlin’. Just wait a second.”

“What Jens?”

“Talk to me. This is what I mean, I want to be someone you can talk to about this stuff. I want to listen and support you. I can do that as a friend or a potential partner…if you’ll let me.”

“Jensen…I don’t know…You don’t need to listen to my depressing thoughts. You have such a perfect life, I don’t wanna bring you down. I have heavy baggage, you don’t want it!”

“That’s for me to decide! I can help carry your baggage or help you unload it for good. Put it on me, I can take it! Let me be your packhorse.”

“No…You deserve better…”

“Tell me, Y/N, what exactly do I deserve? Tell me more about my perfect life! Since you seem to know so much about my life, tell me! What’s so good about it? What do I deserve that you’re not?”

I shake my head. Tears slip down my cheeks mixing with the luke-warm water as I shrink at the sound of him raising his voice at me. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called you, I’m sorry I ruined your day. I’m…I’m just sorry…” I hang up and drop my phone on the mat beside the tub. I pull my head underwater, staying there until my lungs burn for air and then I stay there a little longer. I think about how no one would know or even care if I stayed under right now. Glimpses of my exes’ faces spring to mind and it seems plausible. I let out any remaining air in my lungs. Nick’s words echo back to me. I stay under. My chest burns. And then I see my parents' faces from the day I left home–the second time–and Stella in her wedding dress that she hasn’t had a chance to show off yet, and finally Jensen’s green eyes and bright smile. I break the surface, gasping desperately to fill my lungs with air. I sob uncontrollably at how guilty and pathetic I feel.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Taglist: @stoneyggirl2 @hobby27, @n-o-p-e-never, @deansimpalababy,

@winchesterwild78, @kr804573

[lyco-riis]

I've been thinking about it and I think the reason why such a vocal part of the fandom has been twisting the ending of MHA into such a negative thing is because the concept of being content with one's situation is something they don't take into consideration. Or not properly, at least.

The story has always put an emphasis on how much Izuku wanted to be a hero and I guess that's why it's so difficult for people to grasp that... his goals/wishes might have changed. Quite a few years passed between the final war and the end of the manga. It's more than feasible that his wish has changed or adapted in that time. And overall, his desire to help people still remains the core aspect of his goals. Being a teacher is a great way to achieve that—he had the experience, the skills and the personality for it, too. Plus, as someone who had a not so great school experience (middle school), he understands well how to help the students.

That said, the one thing that seems to bother a part of the fandom the most is that they think the manga paints him in a position where he just accepted the teacher position and his life, because of the loss of his quirk and thus is forcing himself to be content with the outcome.

That's honestly a really depressing way to view the ending. It's also wrong.

I'm not going pretend losing OFA didn't make him reconsider things—that's a big, sudden change, after all. But like, Midoriya Izuku is literally written as one of the most stubborn characters ever. He wouldn't have quit and packed it up just because of that. Maybe middle school!Izuku would have, but the final war!Izuku is different, he has a lot more confidence, knowledge and experience. He has grown as person and I doubt losing OFA would have truly stopped him.

I feel like it's wrong to even consider him becoming a teacher as him stoping being a hero. Overall, the Izuku during the finale has one big difference compared to the one from the beginning—he's content/confident about being quirkless. It's not really something that's holding him back anymore, that's making him falter. I don't think people realize it even though Hori kind of spelt it out. But 14-year-old Izuku let his quirklessness hold him back. It's obvious in the way he searched for validation in others (the rooftop scene with All Might). Meanwhile, during the finale chapter, it's very obvious that it's not really something holding him back. He's the one to reassure a kid that he can be a hero—because Izuku has been, still is, a hero. Because now as adult he simply knows it's possible. He doesn't need the validation of others and the lack of a quirk is not something that will hinder him.

I think this is a very important point to understand about his character, because I believe it... puts his job as teacher into a whole new light.

A large part of the fandom read the scenes where he talks about his former classmates and his loneliness with Aizawa and somehow created a misconception about the situation in their head.

They see this scene and so on as proof that Izuku isn't content with his job. As mentioned, I think, people don't really understand what being content with one's situation actually means. Feelings of what-ifs and loneliness and other stuff like that are normal, even if you are truly content with something—as long as they don't appear in an excessive amount. Even if you truly love your current job, there might still be times you're going to think, 'What if I chose that other job...' But as long as you don't think like that constantly, it's not regret. The loneliness comment isn't meant to be proof that he's unhappy with the situation. It's natural to feel lonely once in a while, especially if everyone's busy with packed schedules and you can't meet up until, like, two months pass. Missing people is normal, y'all. That doesn't mean Izuku has been abandoned by anyone.

(That whole debate about 1-A abandoning him is so ridiculous, because anyone who's ever had a job, knows it's damn tough to find time to meet up with people because you can't always have off at the same time and weekends aren't a guarantee either. Plus, that doesn't count how expensive meeting up can get when you don't live near each other. Also, I've seen someone say, Hori should just have not done that part based on reality then because it's a manga about heroes with superpowers—are you serious? If Hori has always done one thing in his writing, it's that he still made the world of MHA somewhat realistic despite the superpowers. The kids school life, the discrimination, the job aspect of the hero industry as well the entertainment aspect—of course, he was going to keep it realistic. Anything else wouldn't even make sense. Being a hero is supposed to be a demanding job. If they all had constantly time to hang, that would be questionable too.)

It's also baffling me that the concept of Izuku shifting his goal from being a hero on-field to training future heroes as teachers is so unbelievable to a part of the fandom. If you ask me it makes perfectly sense. Izuku wants to save people, to help people. Training future heroes is an indirect way to do so... But also a direct way. You can't tell me his whole story with Shigaraki didn't make him think about his situation. You can't tell me, he completely forgot about his time during middle school.

Y'know, considering he had such questionable teachers in middle school and then such great ones in high school (seriously, Aizawa and All Might did a lot), it wouldn't be surprising if he realized that he might be capable of helping the students, even if it's just to reassure them that everything's going to be fine and stuff like that.

I'm not saying he completely gave up on being an on-field hero (the ending with the suit is a clear indicator on where he stands there), but acting like he's miserable as teacher and hates it and is unable to shift his goals and dreams, is a disservice of his character, in my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, this was building up over the days.

[swiftsdelucaa]

❛ 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒐𝒕𝒔 ❜

𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: Andrew DeLuca x reader ♡

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: I mean, what can we say about two idiots in love? Things become always so complicated

𝘼/𝙣: Fuck the block writing, finally this girl is avaible to post fics again :)

"Okay, listen to me, I'm your boss, so you don't have to do anything stupid or wrong, otherwise your faults will go to me, and I honestly don't want to bother with your troubles or take responsibility as if you were children" you kept walking in the corridors of the hospital while the group of interns followed you running like a herd. "In this hospital you are totally useless, your job is just to follow orders and respect the rules, understood?" you turned towards them stopping suddenly and causing some of them to collide.

"If you don't follow the rules you will not only be fired, but the chief of surgery and I will also be able to kill you with our own hands" you looked at them crossing your arms, and one of them chuckled.

"I'm sorry, this make you laugh?" you looked at the boy rather menacingly.

"Absolutely no ma'am"

"Don't call me ma'am, I feel old"

"Sure ma'a- emh- doctor l/n" you huffed before turning towards the counter. You still felt all those eyes directed at you, so you turned around again.

"What are you waiting for? Go!" they all split up going to different parts like they were scared puppies. It was so satisfying.

Thinking that next year you'd be an attending made you so proud, you worked so hard to get this far, and now you were also the chief resident.

"Wow, you're scary" you heard a voice coming from next to you, and when you looked up you saw Andrew smiling at you.

"Really?"

“No” he chuckled earning a pat on the arm from you.

"Oh hey why don't you go back three years so I can boss you around like those idiots" you suggested sarcastically.

"I think I'm ok like this, but I was joking, you deserved this work Y/n" you smiled at him looking down, meeting his eyes would make you feel like a 14 year old girl, and it was so stupid.

Okay here's the situation, you're in love with Andrew, and for quite a while, but you've never been able to figure out how he felt about you. When Andrew started working here you were already in your second year, but you immediately became friends, you were always there for each other. And recently, these strange or tense moments were starting to build up between you.

So there were two possibilities: either he is an idiot and he didn't realize that you fell in love with him, which is very unlikely because many people have understood it, or you are both idiots who love each other and will never intend to to come forward. Those are very depressing options.

"Anyway since I'm starving I'm going to get something to eat, see you later" he greeted you before disappearing and you simply reciprocated, returning to focus again on your work.

Later, after rescheduling all the interns' rosters, you ran to the elevator to prepare for an intervention with Meredith. Andrew entered before the doors closed.

"Hey" he greeted you a little surprised to see you.

"Are you with Gray too?" you asked him.

"Yes, for a surgery, are you too?"

"Yeah" you smiled at him as he nodded and raised his eyebrows. In the meantime, you were just wait for the elevator to arrive.

"Y/n..."

"What?" you turn around having heard him call you.

"Would you like to go out some time... me and you?" you chuckled at his question.

"You mean a date?" you looked at him with a smile, deep down quite happy with what you had just heard. The last time he tried to ask you out was for dinner, but it ended up being ruined by Arizona, and the rest of the night was spent by all three of you watching a movie.

"Well, if you wanna see it like this... it's ok for me" he leaned closer as he continued to speak, until your eyes met. You stayed like that for a while, you felt his hands lightly touching your hips, but it was all over as soon as the doors opened.

It wasn't your floor yet, but someone else came in.

"Hey!" it was incredibly her, again, Arizona.

"Hi..." you gave her a forced smile. It had suddenly become so embarrassing. Then the doors reopened and you and Andrew ran out together towards the hall so as not to be late.

The surgery was going perfectly, I mean, every surgery with Meredith Gray is good. Sometimes she asked you a few questions, but nothing you couldn't answer. But sometimes you hesitates before speaking, because of Andrew. Yeah well, he did that thing with the gaze, the one where he stares at you intensely, and since he was right in front of you it was very distracting. But you managed to handle it to the end.

Now you were left alone at the sinks while you finished cleaning yourselves.

There was silence, the patient had already been taken back to the post-op. It was just you and him.

You were so tired to waiting and those stupid attempts gone wrong, before he started to say something to break the silence, you had a stimulus, it was just all you wanted and needed. You turned to him, getting closer to kiss him. Your lips finally meeting his, it felt so good. Then you stopped to look at him. He just smiled at you, putting his hands on your cheeks to bring you closer and kiss you again, this time more intensely. You just enjoyed that moment, you were just happy to know that the feeling was mutual.

Yes, that was the second option.

[ididit-allofit-foryou]

RIP to my friend nixie. they stopped watching SPN after season 11. and asked about the finale. i wanted to immortalize what i sent (which includes a recap of seasons 12-15 so they would Understand.) so. read on if you wish, this monstrosity is going under the cut lol

so. in season 12 lucifer possesses the president of the united states (dont worry about it) & impregnates one of the president's staff members who was banging the president behind closed doors, republican Kelly Kline. through a series of events, cas winds up being the Adoptive Father. kid is born, but he had opened a rift to a different alternate universe the show so eloquently named 'apocalypse world'. it is a world where sam & dean were never born. through Another series of events, team free will PLUS mary winchester (yeah shes back from the dead, amara brought her back, dont worry about it lol) & cas tries to kill lucifer. he thinks he did, comes back through , and hes like there for .02 seconds before lucifer pops through & stabs cas. cas dies. mary beats up lucifer with angel brass knuckles or whatever & they fall through the rift & it closes. they are trapped there. at this exact moment, jack kline (kelly kline & lucifer/mr. president's baby) is being born. sam runs into the house to Check On That. dean however, falls to his knees next to cas's body & looks up desperately to the sky. (the cw said Not to read into this. it means Nothing. destiel who?!) also kelly died in child birth. bc spn Hates women.

thats the end of season 12.

season 13, we have jack. he popped out a fully fledged like. 19? 20? 21 year old?? bc his mom said he would have to Grow Up Fast. dean wraps cas's body in a curtain. alone. and is like crying & devastated. the bois and jack burn cas's body & dean looks like he wants to off himself (& he tries to in like. the next episode but Death brings him back). (also sorry im sooo bad at summary lol). we have the Widower Arc where dean bargains with a silent god to bring back cas, but Nothing. and dean is just fucking depressed as all shit. suddenly! cas is back!! BECAUSE jack heard dean yelling at sam about how its jacks fault cas is dead bc when jack was a fetus he showed cas a Vision of how he could bring Paradise On Earth if they allowed him to live (they wanted to kill him bc. like. Spawn Of Satan & all that). so jack uses his Powers™️ & brings cas back from the dead! yay!! a lot of other shit happens & the Empty (which is like. the Entity that encases all the angels & demons when they die, & where cas was when he was dead) Does Not Like that cas escaped. so, it wants to take jack to get back at cas. cas is like 'no fuck off thats my son lets make a deal. take me back instead' & the empty is like 'ok bitch 2 can play that game. i WILL take you. but ONLY when you experience a Moment Of True Happiness™️'. & cas is like 'bet.' bc! hes a depressed mf & figures it would take a Miracle to make him Truly Happy. (pls keep this in mind, its a surprise tool for later). ummm so yeah season 13.

season 14 had like. ANOTHER fucking michael/lucifer arc but it was Stupid. dean said yes to michael like the angels wanted in season fucking 4 & 5. & i dont Totally remember the plot but like. dean has michael trapped in a box in his mind & wants them to?? fucking?? put him in a warded coffin & chunk it in the ocean?? so michael will never hurt the world again?? also--its like. AU michael. and also mary is okay, & we get AU bobby & AU charlie & a lot of shit happens. anyway.

season 15: we get the Divorcr Arc™️!! dean & cas fight!! bc guess what? jack accidentally killed mary!! (yes! she died AGAIN!!) bc! he didnt know how to control his powers! & dean blames cas! so cas Leaves in a big dramatic breakup scene. we also find out that god (aka chuck) has been like. controlling Everything?? & free will Doesnt Exist?? & dean has a crisis & we get cas saying 'dean, you asked what about all of this is real. We Are.' (which we were apparently sooo crazy to read into!!) & also!? chuck brings back ALL the monsters salmon dean ever killed?? and rowena sacrifices herself to save the world! but! dont worry! she is now thenQueen Of Hell™️ & fucking THRIVING! anyway, season progresses, we get purgatory 2.0 and dean & cas are separated & dean lITERALLY GETS DOWN ON HIS OLD MAN KNEES TO PRAY TO CAS AND APOLOGIZE AND SAY HE FORGIVES HIM!! & then. a bit later. chuck starts poofing away Everyone On Earth bc he wants to destroy the multiverse. and also? death wants to kill dean i forget why. oh yeah! i think he stole her Death Book or whatever to try and see how to kill god. anyway. we have episode 15x18. Thee Episode of All Time. it starts with AU charlie and her gf. they are making eggs and vibing and all of a sudden her gf goes Poof. then sams gf Eileen goes Poof. so they round up as many friends as they can & put them in a warded place but they all go Poof. so sam is with the friends when this happens & also jack. and dean & cas have gone to the bunker to Fight Death. and. so. get ready for this. death shows up. she (yeah billie the reaper became death btw. long story) she starts to like. squeeze deans heart to kill him with magic. cas helps dean run through the bunker away from her. they get to the dungeon. death is literally banging on the door which cas had cut his palm to ward with a sigil of his blood with a knife he pulled from deans back pocket. (again: he cut his palm--another Surprise Tool For Later). deans like 'im so sorry man, we should have stayed with sam. shes gonna get in here, and shes gonna kill you, then shes gonna kill me' & cas is like 'well theres one thing strong enough to stop her' & he starts telling dean about the deal he made to save jack (yep, he never told him). and he says 'i always wondered what would break that curse. but i think i know now' & he. he fucking. he starts a speech about how he knows how dean sees himself, as a killer, a monster, daddys blunt instrument driven by anger, just like his enemies see him. BUT cas says dean is Not that. he says dean is 'the most caring man, the most loving man on earth' & deans like freaking out & is like 'why are you telling me all this? why does this sound like a goodbye??' & cas says, crying, but smiling, 'because it is' & then!! cas!! says !! 'i love you' !!!!!!!!! &&&&& death breaks down the door!! && the empty is materializing behind dean! & dean says 'dont do this cas!' & cas grabs deans LEFT SHOULDER WITH HIS BLOODY PALM! & says 'goodbye dean' & shoves him out of the way!! & the empty grabs cas!! && death!! & takes them away!!!!!! && dean is like!! freaking the fuck out sitting on the flooor with tears in his eyes!! && we cut to like. a bit later. hes Still there, crying, head in his hands, as his phone rings on the floor--its sam. end of the world, sam is calling, & he doesnt answer. we end the episode to deans crying. LIKE FUCK!!!!

15x19: they defeat god. jack like. absorbed him?? & he became god?? & then fucked off to do godly duties!? and did Not bring cas back????

(there are Theories that Chuck Won &thats why the next episode is so fucked and i Have To Agree)

15x20: okok. i fucking HATE THIS FUCKINGEPISDORNFMDNFNDNFNDBDND

anyway. so. cas is Not in the episode. at All. we have sam & dean? driving??? & there are like at LEAST 2 very Bad montages of random scenes that dont even make sense. sam & dean go to a pie eating festival. sam shoves pie in deans face. they Thengo on a case. its vampires. theres a vamp from like. season 2?? who was a minor charachter?? but they brought her back?? why??? idk. and. so. dean gets impaled on a rusty rebar nail during the fight scene in thr barn. he gives sam a long ass speech. they ?? touch foreheads for some reason??? && dean wont let sam get help??? & sam is like 'if cas were here...' & deans like 'yeah well he isnt.' like??? && then deAN FUCKING DIES??? && GOES TO HEAVEN??? && BOBBY IS THERE??? AND APPARENLY FUCKING ABUSIVE ASS JOHN LIVES DOWN THE ROAD??? && dean asks bobby 'so jack did all this?' (as in revamping heaven so people can be all together instead of separate like it used to be) & bobbys like 'well, cas helped' & then dean smiles, then goes?? & rides his car!?? bc his car is in heaven????? && we just see him driving interspersed with clips of sam on earth, burning deans body, and grieving dean, and later sam gets a blurry wife, we dont see who she is, and he has a son?? and he named him dean!? whixh we know bc the kid has on overalls that say 'dean' on them??? & then sam gets old and sits in the impala & cries while wearing a wig that looks like its from fucking party city?? then sam is on his death bed and his son is there?? && theres all these pictures around him of himsefl and dean & mary & john but?? no wife!? ans also!!? noone else like their friends?? & then sam dies & carry on my wayward son plays for like the second time in the episode. and we see dean on a bridge in heaven, he finally stopped driving & is staring off into the distance. and then he hears something behind him & smiles & we all thought 'CAS???' but NO its fuckingSAM somehow young again like whendean died?? & theylike. hug. and then it pans out & all the cast & crew are there?? and they say thank you to us for watching?? and then ?? its over?????? like Awhta thWHAT THE FUCK

[strideofpride]

Okay I can't stop thinking about the Barbie ending. Cause like as absolutely hilarious it was (the whole theater howled) it also is the perfect button for the theme of the movie, coming out of girlhood into womanhood. (this is going to be a very cis reading because, well, Greta is cis and was clearly drawing on her own cis experiences - terfs do not interact)

The first thing Barbie experiences in the real world is being catcalled and objectified, which reminds me a lot of a passage from Tina Fey's book. She talks about how she went to this women's conference when she was working on Mean Girls and they were asked how they knew they were becoming a woman. And pretty much every single one said it was when some dude said something gross to them out of a passing car. It's such a universal experience to get catcalled at 13-14-15 year's old, when your body is only just developing. And that's what Barbie also experiences first.

Then there's the scene where the Mattel men (and they're all men of course) try to put her back in the box. The shot of her hands being strapped down was so unsettling to me and I think that was Greta's intention. Maybe this is a huge reach but it almost felt like it was a metaphor for sexual assault. And I don't think it's a universal experience to be sexual assaulted, especially as a teenager, but I do think it's unfortunately still pretty common.

Then she gets back to Barbieland and has to confront the patriarchy head on, has to learn how to deal in this world catered towards men, has to learn how to develop a sense of self even though she's become depressed by the state of things. Depressed by the fact that she's changing and she doesn't know how to stop it. The "I'm not pretty anymore" moment is played for laughs cause the narrator rightfully calls out that this is an insane line to come out of Margot Robbie's mouth. But I think it speaks to going through puberty, to not feeling like you're at home in your own body anymore (hell this is the same scene where we see the Growing Up Skipper doll, a doll who's breasts can grow and shrink at her human's will - talk about body horror).

And because this is a movie centered on the hero's journey, Barbie and friends are able to get the patriarchy out of Barbieland and work towards a more equal future, but the real next step in Barbie's individual journey is seeing her creator (and this is where the gender swapped Adam/Eve myth of creation stuff really comes into full force but that's a whole other post altogether) who in a lot of ways is just Barbie's mother ("mothers stand still so daughters can look back and see how far they come" !!!!!). It's her mother figure that gets Barbie through that transition from girlhood into womanhood, who assures her that while things might not be perfect, it's still worth experiencing. (And of course there's the theme of mortality as well, that what makes the human experience special is that it's not infinite)

So that final button of Barbie going to the gynecologist for the first time is actually just the completion of her arc. I saw some people being like "I thought she was going to a job interview!" and I think that was absolutely an intentional misdirect, but I don't think her going to a job interview would've hit as hard. (For a lot of reasons, but the main one is it's a very capitalistic idea that you become an adult when you start to generate your own wealth) It had to be her going to the gynecologist, something only adults usually experience, not children. She's no longer a girl anymore, she is a woman.

[knackeredforever]

So with the owl house ending I thought I should admit something on tumblr, the fact that kikimora is unironically one of my favourite characters in the show.

She’s such a pathetic angry gremlin women that does in order:

•Becomes basically the secretary to the emperor of her whole world.

•Starts beef with a literal 16 year old child despite being a grown ass women because she thinks said child is getting better treatment from the emperor than her (he’s not).

•Attempts to murder said child on multiple occasions including using a fucking dragon.

•becomes ultra paranoid of literally fucking everything because she thinks the child is trying to steal her position (he’s not).

•upon failing all her missions due to her aforementioned Child obsession gets demoted and then balls her eyes out while she gets comforted by a different 14 year old child who try’s to redeem her and kiki then basically temporarily joins the resistance against her former boss but then immediately does an Italy and switches sides again because boomer poison ivy told her she was getting a promotion (the promotion is not dying).

•Becomes depressed and a caffeine addict.

•Depression cured as she is given a mech suit by the parenting antichrist immediately turns back to her favourite pastime attempting to murder children.

•kidnaps who she thinks is the 16 year old she’s been trying to murder but is actually the 14 year old who tried to redeem her but before she finds out her boss tells her to kill herself now.

•In the pit of corpses of clones of the 16 year old she’s been trying to murder unknowingly tells the god that her boss has been pretending to be able to understand that her boss threw the walkie talky he uses to communicate with a different elder god into said corpse pit.

•Said elder god is unleashed starting the literal apocalypse meaning she is partially responsible.

Season 3 for the future spoilers in the next bits so if you haven’t watched it yet stop reading now:

•While the literal apocalypse is going on she dresses herself and her mech suit like children and sneaks into a school (SERIOUSLY WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING SHE DO INVOLVE CHILDREN SHE IS AN ADULT) and convinces angry lesbian school bully whose crush ran away with a girl from another dimension to help her rule the school so they can start their new empire( this plan somehow works for months) then the main characters come back and she decides the best course of action is too drug them and throw them in the ultragore nest.

•She then try’s to murder the SAME children with the SAME mech suit however is stopped by the only thing that she’s never faced before, a person over the age of 18 also known as gods gift to parenting who critical bonks her on the head by throwing a baseball bat at her and mispronouncing her name.

•The last we see of her in the episode is she is attacked by a horde of angry kids including the angry lesbian she coerced into helping her and if that’s how kikicumfuckororororora dies it would be a fitting end.

And that’s the end of my summary while everyone else is obsessing and overanalysing Luz,hunter,amity,Eda or belos you know actually good characters here I am obsessed with the 4ft tall pathetic sad child endangering gremlin who is unintentionally one of the funniest written villains in any peace of media I’ve ever seen I fucking love this character so much yes I know I’m probably the only one who thinks this shut up I’ve written way too much and should just stop now.

[anamoon63]

From this moment on I go into busy mode again, but I didn't want to leave without wishing all my mutuals and all simblrs in general a very Happy New Year 2024 and dedicate some words I have been meaning to say to you but hadn't found the time or the appropriate way to do it.

I'll start by saying to all of you who had a hard time in 2023, those who went through depression, physical and/or mental health problems, family problems, marital problems, work problems, problems with your children, with your partners, with your parents or grandparents. To all those who in some way suffered or were hurt in the year that is ending -and assuming that all of us here, or most of us, are storytellers-, my advice is: don't stop writing, ever. Keep doing it through it all, through the good times as well as the bad; write even if the tears well up in your eyes and fall on the keyboard. Just write!

Writing heals, cures and consoles, because it is what we do and because there is no better way to get out all that we carry inside, be it sad or happy. I went through the long night of depression myself and I can say with all certainty that writing was what pulled me through, and that although it may not seem so, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's never as dark as when it's about to dawn. I suffered from depression since 2006 and for many years; around that time I started a novel that took me 14 years to write. Through all that time, I slowly healed, and by the time I finished, I was free of all the demons that drove me to write that particular story in the first place.

Okay, enough of me, I want to tell my mutuals, that I love what you write/create, and I really enjoy your work, be it stories or gameplay; and not only those who write, but also those who make custom content, mods, those who create any kind of art, those who take beautiful pictures, those who share memes or funny things about their pets. All of you, know that I read you every day and I take you with me everywhere I go, because you are so talented, creative, funny and interesting.

I don't always have the courage to comment on your posts, be it about sims or personal, for different reasons, mainly because of language barriers, because as you know, English is not my native language, and sometimes I don't have my translator at hand to confirm that what I am writing is correct, or if there is a spelling or grammar mistake or a typo in there; also because of my social awkwardness, as I am a rather shy and introverted person; and the fact that I'm an old simmer, cause believe me, compared to many of you I am old, and this makes me afraid of saying something out of place, out of time, or of being politically incorrect. This may sound silly, but I was born and raised in a time where people thought and acted very differently, even in my early years of sims on the internet, everything was way different than it is now. Well, those are the reasons why I don't always comment, but the fact is that I read you, I like what you do, what you write, I'm in love with your characters -who are already part of my sim-universe-; your stories capture my imagination, intrigue me, interest me, amuse me and, above all, teach me, because I've learned a lot from you, talented creatures, in the time I've been reading your work.

Anyway, I got off my chest what I've been wanting to tell you for days now. I also want to thank you for all your likes, comments, questions, messages, and in general for all the love I received from you this year, it's amazing. I never expected so much in just one year, really. So, thank you, both to those who have been following me for a long time, and have stayed with me and my chaotic stories, and to the new followers, Sims 3 and Sims 4, I thank you all.

Well, this was already very long, sorry for the rambling, lol, I wish each and every one of you a very Happy New Year, may all your dreams and plans become a beautiful reality in the year that begins, because, believe me, some dreams do come true, I had the joy of confirming it right at the end of this year.

That's all, a big hug and a very, very happy 2024 everyone! 🤗❤️🎇

[shouts-into-the-void]

One of my most hated fanfic trends is where that pre-Despair treatment by his classmates is depicted as totally okay and not them being unreasonable. It's especially noticeable in RP blogs or Hinanami fics. They'll often depict his behavior in the second half of Chapter 4 as his default characterization, and have him spend every waking second going after the Reserve Course students and doing nothing else.

Which not only ignores the context of him having been mindwiped, having his first impression of the Reserve Course being the discovery that they apparently destroyed Hope's Peak, and the real source of his anger and depression being the discovery that the class are all terrorists (while being left in the dark about the brainwashing). But it kind of misses the entire point of the whole "talented vs non-talented" theme to have the locally mentally ill kid be the sole cause of the conflict.

Like I'm not against the idea of going against canon, and depicting the rest of the class trying to give him a fair shake. I think there's plenty of friendship interaction potential between him and a number of the class (e.g. Sonia, Imposter, Mahiru, etc.). But to retroactively pretend like they were being completely fair to him and he just brought the ostracism on himself is bullshit.

I think a lot of people also miss the fact that the reason Nagito is so outright antagonistic to Hajime about being a Reserve Course Student is because he feels betrayed. He feels a kinship with Hajime due to their mutual love of Hopes Peak, the two were the closest before everyone turned on him, and he's canonically in love with him. So to find out that Hajime is actually not only talentless, but responsible for destroying the academy they both love and plunging the world into despair?

That's not to say all the rudeness is only because of anger, Nagito's actual personality is actually kind of just like that because he has a God Complex and is more intelligent than all of his peers. Any time he breaks character or looks down on someone, he is kind of a bitch, but more in a "I'm smarter than you, please stop arguing with me when you have no idea what you're talking about" way.

I really do wish people would lean into the potential relationships he has with the rest of the cast more. I don't think there's any way Chisa would have let them keep mistreating him, and I was annoyed that her attempt to explain his actions to the class (which actually did get through to them!) got glossed over in favor of the "Everybody hates Nagito" gag.

Some thoughts on potential relationships:

I personally hc him as besties with Sonia post-canon. Not only because she's the most forgiving, because I feel like the fandom makes her do a lot of emotional labor, but I think they would have similar tastes in novels and I think Sonia's own eccentricities would mean that she isn't as off-put by his weird behavior.

I don't think he would be close with Mahiru, because as much as she's caring and doesn't want him hurt, she's also just very judgemental and I think her tendency to verbally attack people would negatively impact his recovery. I think they would get along, but until she learns how to get past her trauma with her dad and stop letting her friends commit crimes, I think it's at a respectful distance.

While Mikan and Nagito are MLM/WLW Hostility™ I do also think they're friends. They like to bitch at each other, but if anyone dares insult the other they Will Destroy Them. I have always thought of them as working quite closely together during the tragedy for whatever reason, it just seems right in my brain?

I also feel like people miss the wild potential of Nagito just adopting Monica. Like, he raises her from like 10 years old until she's a teenager (I'm assuming she's like 14-15 in the anime?), Monica finally gets someone to actually take care of her instead of abusing and abandoning her, and I'm supposed to believe that they just never speak again? Also Nagito saving and caring for this child after spending his childhood an orphan who was put into dangerous situations a lot is a really great parallel.

I like to think he and Akane do a lot of their recovery at the same time because they're both pretty wasted away by the time they wake up, and they bond little by little. They celebrate when one of them moves up a weight class, but Akane recovers faster so by the end Nagito has to remind her not to break his ribs when she hugs him in joy.

Nekomaru is very helpful in coaching him through his physical recovery due to understanding the limitations of a severe health condition and his experience as a team manager. There's definitely a lot of encouragement on Nekomaru's end because a lot of physical therapy can be embarrassing when things that theoretically should be easy aren't. Basically: Akane, Nekomaru, and Nagito all end up as unlikely gym buddies?

Those are just some of my thoughts and headcanons, absolutely take or leave any of that.

[mayaswiterblog]

SKIN (2024)

This is a short horror story.

Word count: 1,780

Warning: body horror, body & social insecurities (pls let me know if I missed any triggers that I should add!)

Scene 1: Morning Bathroom 

A 14-year-old girl is staring at the mirror in her bathroom. Her skin looks wrinkly, and her eyes look horribly drowsy as if she never had slept in her entire life. The eyelids drooped over her eyes and the corners of her mouth also showed signs of saggy skin. 

The girl reached towards her face and pressed at her cheek, moving the skin around and seeing how wrinkles increased on one side and decreased on the other. Her nails also looked brittle and needed care. 

The teenager sighed deeply as she dropped her arm to her side, swinging lightly.  

“This skin needs regular care, I need to maintain it every morning,” thought the girl as she reached for her skincare lotions and creams. It was a routine for her; the moment she wakes up and takes a sip of water, the next thing she does after getting up from bed is not brushing her teeth or her hair, or changing her clothes, but to take care of her skin first and foremost.  

This morning though she changed her clothes first before taking care of her skin, an act she regretted later and had to pull her shirt and long skirt up to better reach her skin. Looks like that day was not her day. She even forgot to put on her contact lenses. 

After thoroughly cleaning, washing and applying lotions on her skin, she gave a good smack on her now puffy cheeks. Her cheeks and lips looked more plum and had a rosy tint, her eyes were open and clear like glass, and the skin on her body was firmer and had a nice healthy glow. The girl smiled at herself in the mirror, tilting her face to the side while her palms were still pressed on her cheeks, spreading the fingers. 

“Hmm, who knew that taking care of your appearance can be this rewarding? To get along with people you have to look appealing and not... gross...” the teenager said out loud first in girlish cheer but then her voice trailed into sadness. Her skin was special and required a lot of care than other people, and the thought of being avoided and even bullied because of her wrinkly skin made her a tad depressed. 

Then she shook her head by literally shaking it from side to side followed by slapping her cheeks several times. She psyched herself up and stomped her feet, it was her own ritual to motivate herself in the mornings. Now she took care of her nails, she already brushed her hair and teeth, and then she’d have her breakfast. 

Scene 2: School 

The girl was sitting at her desk and propping her head with her hand, daydreaming and mentally preparing for the class. Some of her classmates approached her and greeted her, having a light chat with smiles. The girl enjoyed this kind of interaction, she wasn’t ready for more meaningful relationships at the moment but soon she was thinking of going out more and experiencing life more bravely. She won’t let her skin stop her from living a life like a proper human being, to be happy. 

As the group of her classmates left for their desks, one of the friends stayed and leaned on the girl’s desk, pressing her cheek on her folder armed that she placed on the desk, looking at her with a wide and pleasant smile. 

“Your eyes look different today, Kaleah,” she then made a small gesture by extending her index finger from under her chin, pointing at the girl. Kaleah, the girl, winced at the remark and made a sharp inhale. She blinked several times and then made an apologetic expression, scratching her cheek sheepishly. Her friend grinned even more at the reaction and then waved at her reassuringly, she won’t tell anyone about it. 

“I... I seem to forget... to wear my lenses...” the embarrassed girl tried to explain, to which her classmate laughed but immediately suppressed it with her palm. 

“Do you mean to tell me that you usually wear coloured contact lenses? Oh my GOD, Leah! You’re a rebel!” now her friend almost guffawed but managed to cackle instead to have mercy on her friend. Kaleah began blushing and shook her classmate’s shoulder to take this more seriously and stop making a scene. 

“Mikala! Please... c-cut it out...” the girl pleaded with a hushed voice. She’s clearly not used to attracting attention, be it good or bad. 

“Okay, okay!” Mikala, her classmate and friend, wiped her tear from the corner of her eye while waving at her friend, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I just couldn’t help but to think that you’re a sleeper, a shy rebel... ha-ha!” then she cleared her throat and added with more neutral tone, to show care towards her friend, “but it’s kinda strange how simple contact lenses can affect your eye colours, yours are usually dark brown but now they look as clear as ocean water! Who knew such small things could make such a big difference,” now Mikala was pondering in a pose of a thinking statue. 

During the class, Kaleah tried to avoid direct eye contact and even read a book to the class by placing it directly in front of her nose. Some classmates giggled at her theatrics, but the teacher didn’t mind, which was a major relief to our poor girl. 

When the class ended, Kaleah immediately went to the bathroom to check her eyes. How did she miss that in the morning? Maybe she was so focused on making sure her skin was looking good that she forgot about everything else on her body? Compared to her skin, everything else was so minor that she forgot to pay attention.  

Kaleah sighed at her reflection in the girl’s bathroom. Her eyes did indeed look like a pair of glasses of water. It won’t be surprising if teachers asked questions but so far no one but her friend Mikala noticed. 

The girl straightened her back and gathered her resolve; she will make sure to behave normally and slyly avoid direct eye contact. It shouldn’t be hard since she knew that she was known for her shy character. It should go well. 

But then one thought crossed her mind: 

“I should have told her that I put on the wrong contact lenses instead” 

As soon as she realised that fact, she facepalmed and her face winced in frustration and pain. Now Mikala knows her real eye colour... 

But at least now she had a good excuse for her extraordinary eye colour.

Scene 3: Afternoon Homecoming 

Finally reaching home, Kaleah sighed deeply with great relief. 

No more presenting herself to people so she could live a normal life, no more light make-up to make her skin look livelier, and no more stress. But despite all that, she liked how she looked, and she liked chatting with people, just in moderation. 

“Finally... Home, sweet home, I can shed my skin off again,” her face bore an odd expression, she was happy, but that joy seemed unnatural to a human mind. Her eyes glowed with extraordinary bliss and her coy smile curled up with more vigour.  

Kaleah turned her front door lights on, they were old and dimmed but it was enough for her to see. In fact, she didn’t need much light, but she did it for practice. 

She slowly moved towards her bathroom, as if consciously moving her legs one by one and swaying her upper body from side to side in a mesmerizing way. Once she reached her bathroom, Kaleah casually gazed at her myriad of skincare items. 

Lotions were potions, powders were flours, creams and moisturizers were ointments, and everything smelled nice and enchanting. 

Kaleah outstretched her left arm and admired it, she eyed her upper arm, then the nook of her elbow, then the wrist and finally the fingertips. She wiggled her fingers just slightly to get a better feel of it. 

Then the skin on her fingertips started to peel off and curled like banana peels, carefully as if cut by a first-class chef. Her skin peeled to her elbows, and they flapped down like fringed sleeves. The same happened to her legs, stopping by her knees.  

The skin around her chest also started to peel off, dividing from the middle and opening like a jumper with a zipper, from top down. The peeling skin stopped by her hips and hung down like a skirt. The same thing happened on her face, the incision was in the middle of her face and the skin peeled down to her collarbone and now it looked like a fancy flesh collar. 

Beneath all that skin was another skin that was a colour of dark night with blue hues. Her nails... sorry, you can’t even call them nails; her dangerously red and crooked claws were long and sharp. 

And “Kaleah’s” shedding didn’t just stop there. Her eyes were also peeling as if her eyeballs had several layers and they opened one by one like eyelids. Beneath the third layer were hiding blood-red eyes with blue-like clear water irises, and two pupils were in the shape of four-pointed stars. 

As her transformation finished, she let out a satisfied sigh, thus revealing her sharp teeth, toxic blue tongue and the insides of her mouth looked like fuchsia.  

“It’s been almost two months, and no one suspected me even a tiny bit, which is a relief,” the creature mulled aloud while toying with her snack, a dead rat. The rat wasn’t just found dead randomly, “Kaleah” hunted it and dried it to eat as a snack. She wasn’t fussy about food, but she loved flesh, especially dried and seasoned. 

After examining her snack and playfully twirling it around her claws, she popped the dead animal into her toothy mouth. For a second it looked like she grew an extra row of teeth. “Kaleah” took her time to savour her snack with a satisfying hum.  

“One day,” she turned her upper body to face the poster that hung next to the bed, her eyes glowed with intent, “I will find my own Lilo,” and then she clawed at the wall, next to the face of a girl in the poster, slowly drawing down with creaky noise. 

As soon as the claws reached the edge of the bed, the creature spun to face the front door, directly at you, reader, and then she sat on her bed without the help of her arms. 

“Kaleah” was casually looking towards your way, reader, hugging her knee with her one arm, eyes glowing red like warning lights.   

Could you be what she is seeking?

[liveontelevision]

TV!

(Hazbin Hotel OC/Sona!)

This is TV! TV is a nickname (cuz it's similar to my real name) and I haven't decided on a full name just yet. Here's her backstory and some other info!

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She started as a Hellaverse Persona, but as I went on with the design, I wanted to give her a more unique backstory that's only mildly inspired by my personal life.

She's been through hella conceptual changes i'll probably post a lil' timeline of her progress as a character at some point :)

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Life:

TV was forced into adulthood from a young age. Her parents kicked her out or she may have lost them in some tragic accident, but to add to that she really had no extended family she could contact. She immediately found work locally and didn't return to school to maintain a somewhat livable wage.

Looking back, she always felt like some higher power cursed her. After her hometown had caught onto the fact that she was a 14-year-old lying about her age, who was also working multiple jobs that she really wasn't meant to, she just kept going.

Her next move was to do it all again the next town over. Means of travel really just boiled down to using spare change for buses or walking. My god, she walked everywhere, the poor thing. Rain or Shine. Essentially living on the streets, finding a new place to sleep every night, she managed to abuse this horrid cycle. It took a while, but she did manage to support herself enough to stay put in a small town for a while. Finally settling into a routine, she lived in a cardboard box of an apartment. But hey, it's the first time she's slept on a mattress in years. She also got a waitress job at a retro 50s-style diner. And no matter how frilly the uniform or how short the skirt, she was smart enough to milk every last dime out of her tables. This usually involved letting gentlemen getting a little too handsy, but hey. She had bills to pay. She got used to the constant flirting and finally achieved a more regular routine, but her mind was still broken. She went through phases of depression, having days where she simply couldn't leave her bed, or refused to return home. When she tried to recall what went on during that day, it was simply TV static in her memories, as if she just went into autopilot. These didn't happen often after she got into an average lifestyle, but this ended up being her downfall. Just a few days before her 20th birthday, she took her own life.

(TW: Self Harm/Suicide Depicted)

After a long day of handsy customers, who didn't really tip as well as they should, TV dropped to the floor of her studio apartment, her back against the door. She receded into the same apartment that's getting a rent increase she simply can't afford.

She avoided looking into the mirror as much as she could. Every time it happened, she would get sucked in, her eyes scanning over every flaw. Her bags under her eyes and the large coffee stain down her apron. Her shoes that were nearly worn through and her hair that reeked of cheap coffee and bacon. Tonight, coming home to another red envelope taped to her door, she couldn't mask the exhaustion any longer. Finally managing to rise to her feet, she went on and plopped her purse down onto the counter, rummaging inside and looking for who knows what. She lets out a yelp and slowly pulls out the knife from the kitchen's diner that you had grabbed at some point. When did she grab that? She tried to recall her shift that she just finished, but she must've gone into static mode, again. What made her think she needed this knife? She felt a wave of exhaustion hitting her hard, but she attempted to get ready for bed anyway. She undressed to try and wash the day away, but stopped in her tracks at the mirror. She looked her mostly nude body up and down, stopping at her thighs. Her skin really was beautiful, it's a shame that it's tainted by numerous scars, some fresh, some just barely healed. She clenched her fists to her bust, only drawing her eyes to the scars that laid upon her wrists as well. She went into her autopilot state. Turning her head to look out the bathroom door, she sees her bag and the dirty kitchen knife she smuggled home subconsciously nearby. After that, her mind fell into a pit of static.

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Death:

It felt like waking up from a restless's night sleep, so when she sat up to find herself in the middle of some street instead of her bed, she was perplexed. What managed to get her up and moving was the honking of an approaching van coming full speed in her direction. She scrambled to her feet, just barely avoiding the headlights with a swift leap. When she stood up, she realized how her body didn't ache how it usually does. Her feet weren't wobbly, and her neck and back weren't as stiff as they usually were. Looking back to where she awoke, it startled her how easily she was able to jump such a distance. Finally taking the time to absorb her surroundings, she simply kept walking down these city streets. It was large, and the neon signs and lights were almost too much for her doe eyes to adjust to. She'd really only seen cities like this on postcards, even with all the moving around she had to do in life.

While walking past the store front of an incredibly tall skyscraper, that she couldn't see the top of even if she tried, she saw a collage of screens. One of them had just gone out, drawing her eyes to the sight of televison static. Suddenly, the events of the previous night came back to her.

She died. And this must be Hell? She assumed so, taking a look at the demonic figures walking around her and the giant pentagram stamped onto the sky above her.

In what cruel world does a girl struggling for an easier life deserve to be hellbound?

Continuing her suddenly staggered walk, she was almost immediately stopped at another store front, her reflection catching her eye. For some reason, she appeared in Hell wearing her work uniform. What kind of cruel joke - Were those antlers..? She took a moment to process her new animalistic features. Her skin had a peachfuzz feel to it, and despite the rosiness in her cheeks, her skin looked grey. She yanked at the rabbit ears that trailed down her bust, then reached up to tug at the small antlers, jolting her head in the process. Giving a quick spin, she finally noticed - Oh, you've got to be kidding me - a small little tuft of a tail coming from her backside. She pulled open her mouth next, examining her suddenly rounded front teeth. She had become some kind of Jackalope Demon. A realization that this was her life now suddenly hit. Or her afterlife, at least.

She kept on walking, ignoring any propositions and dodging any troubles to the best of her ability. After a good hike, she found herself on the outskirts of the city, the air somehow clearer. Or as clear as it could be for Hell's standards. A much smaller tower compared to the ones she'd walked by, sat alone at the top of the hill. She recognized it! There were multiple flyers scattered throughout the city with its picture plastered on it. She didn't read into them too much, but did take note of the advertisement because it mentioned free rooms. And any sort of bed sounded like Heaven right now.

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(Aaand then she goes through a bunch of redemption shenanigans n' falls in loooove or something)

Hope you like her :)) give her some luv

[packsvlog]

1, 6, 7, 9, 14, 18, 21, 24, 30, 32, 40

emy, love, i got too excited and started babbling .ᐟ ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🪷་༘

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

morbid as it is, i believe my depression and anxiety are the two major factors, specially this last few months, it’s getting difficult as of late, but fortunately i have the third thing, which is love. i might have problems with loving my own life, but i love others and it makes worth living. there are greater things expecting me, so i keep being this optimistic, gentle and try hard person.

what’s the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

the best thing, without a doubt, it’s this whole community of strangers that follow me, likes my stuff and interact with it. any time i see a comment it turns into fuel for my writing, and therefore i keep making more and more non stopping. the worst part for me, would be my strong desire to keep getting better than what i was yesterday, so i burn my brains and my eyes with editing a new theme every night, writing until my fingers and arms go numb and the feeling of believing no one likes it. i had a talk with another creator this week, about this fear of never growing or making people hate what i do, it’s silly, but it has been plaguing me for a few weeks now.

what scares you the most and why?

be stuck. i have many goals, had always been a wanderer in my own mind, creating the life of my dreams, and it petrifies me the idea to never conquer them. to see myself in the future living something i did not plan or created, to be unhappy and grey, makes me very very scared.

tell a story about your childhood.

i don’t remember much of it, so i’ll tell you this one from before my birth. my mother was on her way to clip her tubes, and found out she was pregnant with not only me, but a boy as well, her biggest dream. she then decided to trick my older sibling, saying if the baby is a girl, my sibling can pick the name, if is a boy then she will. i guess whatever divine creature in the sky didn’t enjoyed her lying to a six years old, and then i ended up “eating” my twin. any opportunity, my mom tells this story and she says “you ate my boy!!”. sukuna aah story.

what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do?

to live by myself, actually. not in a house setting way, i actually mean i fear doing things by myself, i avoid wasting my money with me or going out alone. i thrive on having company, that’s why i like to interact with people.

do you believe in ghosts and/or aliens?

yes for both! all the woman in my family could be considered mediums, specially my mom. we have always been followed by weird things. we have lived in three houses, the first one had a weird atmosphere to it, in the dark. the second one was were i grow up, constant nightmares, one person died and showed up demonically to two people, it scares me to be anywhere there, to look somewhere for too long and know you will see something. my current house, though, it’s fucking creepy as well and unfortunately i’m the most affected one. i’ve seen a girl on my siblings bed, something white jumping towards me, a black shadow following me, sounds of chains, screaming, footsteps and yet, the second one scares me the most. for aliens i believe in them, astronomy is my favorite thing in the world, my dad and i use our telescopes to see the astros and keep saying “you see that? that’s an ovni, for sure.”

are you a spiritual person?

i don’t know, my parents have never imposed religion on me, so i learned for myself. have always believed in the universe, i studied lots of religion and when i found all those similarities i started to believe that there is something that is behind all of this, and it presents itself for others with different names and faces.

what’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

i’m proud of mini me, she was really pure and really smart. i learned english by myself when i was seven years old, i learned of astronomy, arrows and bows, of the history of the world, to write and to read and to talk freely of what i think. gosh, she was amazing.

what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier?

as of later, you guys. anytime i see an ask, a comment, a follower, serotonin is released. and also music, to sing and dance when the emotions are too much. my favorite song is a nova vida, by carter burwell.

how many tabs do you have open right now?

110 on safari and if asking about apps, it’s 6.

any bad habits?

bed rotting, and i used to smke, but it’s been a long time, yay!

[knigaworm-dot-com]

Rambling Review: Phenomena (1985)

WARNING! ALL THE SPOILERS ARE HERE!

Jennifer Connelly is so stunningly beautiful and very talented for such a young age! I love her hair, among other things. And not even Dario Argento's silliness can ruin her soft and calming presence. Let's see how she does here, but I do have high hopes for her. For the movie, not so much. We've already had our first death scene, and it was as stupid and funny as I've come to expect from Argento. Still have no idea why he's considered to be a horror movie director, and a great one at that. Is it only because of Suspiria?...

Donald Pleasence is an international treasure! I'm not proud that I wasn't able to remember his name at first, or even the name of his Halloween character... Shame! But that's fine, I remember the famous quote, and that's what counts.

In the meantime, the movie is not even that funny, mostly just boring. And I have no idea what's going on. But I'm fine with just watching the beauty that is Jennifer Connelly. And the calm vibe is nice. I need to get my nerves back together, after the washing machine freakout. 

Why are we so comfortably sexualising 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly? Yes, I know it's 1985, but still, teenagers were not legal back then, not even in Italy. Of course, what do I expect from Dario Argento who spent many movies sexualising his own daughter?...

Btw, is this classified as a horror movie based on how horrifically boring and slow it is?

I'm sure that many people find the use of songs in Argento's films cool, but I just find it absurd. The random rock songs in the middle of mundane and boring scenes are overkill. It doesn't add any action to the movie, rather it emphasises how boring the movie is.

Why are these Swiss bitches bullying Jennifer Connelly?! Going through her personal notes and everything, and the headmistress is fully supporting and participating in it. This escalated quickly... Jennifer will be better off moving in with Donald Pleasance and the adorable monkey. And look at her, being so graceful, telling the mean girls that she loves them while having the insects swarm the place. And now the Bitchmistress is having Jennifer committed to a mental hospital?! That is unacceptable! 

Overall, poor Jennifer suffers a lot of abuse in this movie. It's kind of setting the tone for her future career where most of her movies aren't happy ones. Almost drowning in a corpse-infested swamp-pool has got to be up there with the worst indecencies suffered by an actor while filming. It's impressive that this experience didn't stop her from continuing to act in depressing movies. 

[rouge-fauna]

rsd is both common in adhd and autism also disliking self diagnosed people is weird. Not sure if you are aware of this but the dsm-5 is flawed for instance until 2014, professional psychologists and psychiatrists believed adhd couldn’t even be diagnosed if someone had autism and vice versa, psychologists didn’t believe dyscalculia was a thing. There was no need to imply that someone with an official autism and adhd diagnosis was misinformed. I dealt with being called slurs for years, I don’t rlly mind if people nowadays find adhd and autism as a silly fun thing because when I was a kid, I was hated for being autistic and autism was never talked about except in a neg way. The silly memes about it are by autistics themselves. And, it’s a good thing that more people are figuring out traits connected to autism and adhd that psychologists hadn’t figured out yet till recent. Autism or adhd is not a one size fits all, it’s different for everyone that has either, or both a fact that even psychologists will agree with.

[context]

I mean no profession is perfect, I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 20, despite seeing various therapists and stuff since I was 14, so especially psychology as everyone’s brain is different. But I have to base my information from somewhere and I’d rather trust more scholarly sources with years of research and experience, and real people who work in the field, then just any old information on the internet. But anyways, and no shade to self diagnosis either, I’m so happy if people can find some answers and community and stuff like that. What I’m concerned about is what has happened to OCD and ADD and things taken to the point of a stereotype norm, with Autism just becoming anyone who has an obsession with something obscure, ADHD becoming anyone who can’t focus, Anxiety Disorders becoming anyone who’s stressed… etc. And that concern is based on my real life friend telling me about how her friends are scrolling through tik toc and relating to something from some video and diagnosing themselves. And as someone who has been working on my mental health for almost a decade, struggling to get through life, it feels very trivializing for someone to say oh because they like anime they are autistic (that was what one of her friends thought). Or it becoming they are dealing with anxiety and stress they have an anxiety disorder or because they are depressed they have depression. Because anxiety disorder for me means multiple anxiety attacks a week, depression for me means struggling to get out of bed, autism to me means working everyday in professional clothes at the office is torture, adhd to me means trying to do one thing then starting five others and completing none of them or just struggling to stay awake - just some really really broad strokes of things… For someone to say they deal with anxiety when they are just stressed about a test, doesn’t feel very good when I’m trying not to have another anxiety attack… like yes mental illness looks different, the brain is different in everyone and I’m glad we are continuing to grow and build our knowledge. What I worry about is our struggle becoming glossed over, as someone who for almost my entire life has had it invalidated… and like I also said in my statement, it wasn’t really an opinion or take or stance, just an observation I had recently.

It sounds like you’ve had it rough, I’m sorry people have been cruel to you and I’m happy to know that society becoming more open and such has helped you. I can totally see why. For me, on the opposite end, I was told my whole life that I was not enough, that I needed to just get over it, that I just needed to stop being sad or negative, to stop being dramatic… etc I was told it was a failure of me as a person when as it turns out there was actually a lot of factors out of my control the whole time. So that’s where I’m coming from, I think both sides and things can be true. And I am blessed to have been diagnosed in a time when I am not surrounded by cruel kids and when society is becoming more educated in it.

Of course, I want other people to find that same peace, but I also don’t want us to flip the other way and be like well if everyone is autistic then your struggles aren’t real. Hopefully that makes sense. I don’t mean to hate or judge self diagnosis, I’m actually more so encouraging of it, as I have suggested to multiple friends that they should investigate and see if they find it to be true. But I do hope people do due diligence when doing so if that makes sense. And that’s from a place that, again, has seen this happen.

Per usual both things can be true. And of course mental illness looks different in people, I mean I wasn’t diagnosed till I was older and even my doctors disagreed at first, then now I often get people shocked when I tell them. So trust me this is not be trying to say it looks the same by any means.

As far as RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) goes, I talked to the therapists I know about it and none of them heard about it, so as far as I can tell it isn’t a recognized diagnosis. Now that doesn’t mean it isn’t real or the experiences of people claiming RSD aren’t real, that’s more so me saying that to me RSD doesn’t need to be a diagnosis or term because I’m pretty sure a lot of people feel the same way about rejection, especially neurodivergent people who have faced so much. It’s not me saying the struggle isn’t real, I certainly qualify, it’s me saying that it’s more so a symptom of a larger issue and one that doesn’t seem to to me to be extreme or unreasonable if that makes sense. If not, that’s fine I’m no psychologist so I’m not going to argue about it. This is just my perspective and fears. I think there a some good point on either end and like all things it’s complicated.

[philliamwrites]

SWYAATL 15: Dear Comrade

Pairings: Eren Jaeger x fem! Reader

Warnings: alcohol, young adults being horknee, depression at the end

Summary: “Yeah, I am. I’m glad I found you.” You mumble the last bit, plucking the leftover flowers from your dress until you hold the branch of the forget-me-not between your fingers. “And even though we’ll go our separate ways next week, I’m glad we’re friends. It’s weird … you’re someone I don’t want to forget, Eren Jaeger.” You offer him the flower. His eyes, now a dark green, are nothing like the soft blue—they’re different in so many ways, but you like them. Eren takes the flowers from you, looks at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it, and settles for putting it in your hair, behind your ear. “I won’t just disappear, you know,” he says, an exasperated tone swinging in his voice as though he’s talking to a three-year-old that’s still struggling with object permanence.

Notes: [01] || [14] | [16]

Words: 9k

A/N: Here we go, folks. Arc 1 of the story is over. I've already started working on Arc 2, and I've already noticed how fast-paced it is compared to what I've written until now. That being said, I can't tell when updates will resume, but I'll take a break from uploading for AoT for the time being. Once I'm back in the new year, I hope I can bring you a more regular upload schedule, but no promises.

Thank you everyone who's been on this ride for me, I can't thank you enough. Especially for the overwhelming love people show for Emil (I'm so surprised there are only asks about him on Tumblr than on the other AoT characters).

15: Dear Comrade

Commander Erwin Smith is a tall, impressive man. You’ve grown used to a handful of the other boys looming over you, but nobody manages to quite tower as Erwin does, making you feel small and insignificant even though you’re supposed to be the most important figure tonight. He’s wearing a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows. With arms the size of logs and shoulders wider than the Walls, nobody dares to stand in his way.

It immediately sobers you up. Now you wish you’d at least worn a jacket or something.

He gives you an elegant, curtsy bow, offering his broad-palmed hand on which a wooden chip rests. “Might I ask for this dance, Maienkoenigin?”

“Uhm”, you say very intelligently. Sir, yes, Sir, is what you should have said. Instead, you blurt, “Should you be out here at all?”

Erwin doesn’t appear bothered by your question—then again, you think more is needed to throw the Commander of the Survey Corps off balance than a skimpy dressed, tipsy woman just fresh out of Cadet Corps.

“Should I and my men not be allowed to join the revelries from time to time?” he asks in return.

You can feel your face ablaze with shame. “I—I’m sorry, Sir, I didn’t mean to, Sir.”

Erwin chuckles. “At ease,” he says. “I must admit, I am out here not only for pleasure. I came to have a first look at the cadets. The Survey Corps is always on the lookout for promising new recruits.” He waits patiently for you to finally settle your hand in his, and turns his head to see which song the band strikes up next. On the other side of the plaza, the two string musicians each begin playing different songs, stop, and laugh at their error. When they bow their instruments this time, there’s harmony and the crowd moves in tandem; amongst all the other faces, you spot Marco spinning Mina, and over there is Ymir forcing another tankard of beer down Christa’s throat. It makes you giggle; you want nothing more than to join you friends on the other side of the plaza and dance with Mina and Marco and kiss them both, and find Jean and tell him how much he means to you and how glad you are that he is part of your life—oh, and the Shiganshina three, the Golden Trio, there’s so much you need to tell them, especially Eren, oh Eren—

“I imagine everyone must be excited about graduation,” Erwin says, easily spinning you out of the path of a boisterous couple kicking up their legs in every direction, and successfully yanking your thoughts away from your friends and back to him. “Has anyone voiced their interest in joining the Scouts?”

Your thoughts go right back to Eren, who burns so bright it blinds you whenever he speaks about the Scouts. Mikasa will follow him, of course. There is little you imagine she wouldn’t do for him. And where Mikasa and Eren go, Armin follows. You feel as though with those three alone, the Scouts are about to obtain a whole squad.

“Some,” you say, and try hard not to flinch when Erwin places his hand at the small of your back, leading you through the crowd. He’s an experienced dancer, and you wonder if that’s a hiring requisition for superior ranks. “Though opinions are split, and not in the Scout’s favour.”

You feel Erwin’s gaze on you. Maybe you shouldn’t have said that. But then he gives a small, crooked smile, and says, “When is it ever? That doesn’t stop us from doing what we have to do.”

“What’s it like?” Your voice is so quiet, you doubt he hears your words. “The outside?”

Erwin is quiet for a moment. Even though his hands don’t stop to guide you for a moment, he feels as though his mind is far away. In the end, he settles for, “There’s still so much I don’t know,” but he speaks it in a whisper as though they are meant for him alone.

The dance goes on and on; everything spins so fast: the music, the laughter, the warmth from living people. Girls and women spin in circles, their hair—black, brown, scarlet, and metal gold—flows like banners in the wind, and amidst them, silver flashes like a shiny coin. Like the moonlight flashing between dark clouds and illuminating the endless, dark night.

You trip over your own feet, staring in that direction. The only reason you don’t fall is because Erwin catches your arm in time, steadying you. “Is everything alright?” he asks, but it seems very far away. You tear away from him and dive into the crowd in search of what you’ve seen—who you have seen, because there is no mistake that only one person wears hair woven from silver starlight.

Dizzy and disorientated, you dart through the crowd towards the fountain, shouldering people aside, using your knees and elbows as weapons. Cheers and calls follow you which you ignore—you want to be invisible to them all, to throw away the crown and run back to the meadow, run across it barefoot hand in hand with—

The band’s song haunts you; the melody, their voices—it is the only thing that you can hear while running towards him.

 

O let the earth a-tumble, love, And humble you withal, Keep running. It’s up to you now, Up to you now, love to

Love run, love run For all the things you’ve done Run for all the things that drum Run for all those pages thumbed

Love run, love run For all the things we wished we’d done Run from all you know that’s coming Run to show that love’s worth running to.

 

When you emerge from the crowd, panting and with your heart trying to break free from your chest, no one with silver hair is waiting for you on the other side. It shouldn’t surprise you, yet you only realise now how much you’ve hoped, how much you’ve depended on the possibility that somehow, by the smallest chance, Emil would appear and surprise you. It feels as though you are losing him all over again—you are an open wound that you have no idea how to close. Tears burn behind your eyes, suddenly the emotions are so overwhelming you feel like you’re drowning in them.

You need to leave. As fast, as far away as you can until you can breathe again, until it doesn’t feel as though you are missing one of your limbs.

You turn and dash towards a narrow side alley—and bump into a solid, hard back. Before you can mumble an apology, a very familiar voice brightens the dark pit in your chest.

“Hey, what’s up?” Eren asks.

You tip your head back to look up at him. Eren used to be your height when you started out in the Cadet Corps, but now he looms over you, almost a whole head taller. Something about seeing him right now takes the wind out of your sails—you’ve searched for a haven and while you haven’t arrived where you want to be, maybe you’ve arrived where you need to be.

“I—I’m okay. I’m okay now,” you respond finally, unable to look away from Eren’s face. He dips his chin a little, as if sensing there is more you’re about to say, but when nothing comes, he gives you a crooked smile and turns to disappear back into the crowd. Something about the sight of his broad shoulders retreating closes up your throat, wedges sharp needles into your mouth.

“Stay,” you say, catching his wrist, feeling his hot skin. Eren stops, turns slowly. “Don’t leave. Please.”

He looks up from your hand to your face and studies it; studies your face for the answers to the questions flickering in his eyes. They pierce through you, hook right under your skin. Usually, you’d hate to lie bare and vulnerable before someone, but it’s different with Eren. Until recently, there was only one person whose thoughts you cared to know—what they thought about you, specifically. Now, Eren has become that person.

Slowly, Eren reaches for your hand and untangles it from his shirt. Your heart drops to the bottom of your stomach, but before you can say anything or move away, he takes your hand and leads you away from the feast through narrow alleyways, hidden away from prying eyes. It’s quiet here, and deeply dark. A few couples have sought that secrecy and are together now, joined at the lips, pressed close against the walls. Another song has begun, but slower.

Eren slows only when you reach the gates leading outside Trost District. He leads you off the path to where the grass fields stretch like silver patches under the moonlight. Immediately, you notice how much easier breathing is out here in this quiet, calm place. You take off your flower crown and drop it behind a crate, and hope you will never have to wear a crown again.

You find an empty spot down by the riverbank and sink down into the grass, the earth still warm from the day’s sunlight. You’re surprised. For the loud mouth Eren is, he can be quiet when it matters. The only light source comes from a big campfire people have put up near the water. It casts Eren in a warm glow that softens the planes of his face. He looks younger—like on the day you met on the first day of training when his eyes looked big for his face. His eyelashes are still stupidly long, stupidly dark—curving like the crescent moon above your heads. Light stubble runs along his sharp jaw. You wonder how his skin would feel to the touch.

You’re certain Eren is aware of your eyes on him, but he keeps staring ahead unblinkingly, waiting for you to fill the silence. He’s putting your back against a wall like that. You don’t know how much longer you can run. From him, from yourself—always towards the past as though Time itself slows to let you play, stealing the hours and turning the night into day.

You let your hands roam over the soft grass, and feel your fingers stumble over leaves and petals.

An idea blossoms.

You pluck the flowers from the ground and begin to weave a crown.

“You know, this means affection and admiration,” you say and show Eren a purple-crowned dianthus. He blinks. “And this,” you continue, presenting a lilac aster right under his nose, “means I will remember you.” You pick up the next flower. “This is Forget-Me-Not.”

“Let me guess,” Eren says. “Don’t forget me?”

“So smart.”

He grins. This grin makes something deep inside you unfurl, like a petal opening up its secrets to the sun.

You return to your craft, fumbling with thin stems and fragile pallets that break off and tear under your touch. Eren watches you struggle for a good minute. When he speaks, the amusement in his voice is like soft wind grazing through leaves. “Need help?”

“I’m good, I’m just—” The stems unweave and slip through your fingers like seams coming unknitted. The sweet smell of crushed petals fills the night. Nothing you do makes the crown hold—and then you realise why.

You let the flowers fall into your lap and blink at them, feeling your eyes grow heavy. “He never showed me.”

Eren tilts his head towards you.

“He never taught me,” you repeat, a quiver to your voice, “how to make flower crowns.”

Eren clears his voice. “Who…?”

“Emil!” You stretch out your hand, showing off his ring, grinning. The crimson sphere flashes almost threateningly like spilt blood.

Eren is quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on your slender finger and the ring. “I’ve heard you mention him,” he finally says, turning his head away. His side profile seems suddenly like a stranger’s, sharp and uninviting. “Who is he?”

“My fiancée,” you announce proudly.

He turns his head so fast and sharp in your direction, you hear a bone crack in his neck.

“You’re engaged?” he asks, but there is a very unfamiliar, un-Eren like tone to his voice that makes you look at him.

You don’t think Eren has ever looked at you like this. As though you are a glass of water and he is dying of thirst, but unable to reach you. As though you are the only patch of cool, green grass in a never-ending stretch of parched, grey land. You have only seen yearning on Eren’s face when he talks about killing all Titans and going outside the Walls. It makes you feel as though you are an exposed nerve, tender and raw to the slightest touch. If Eren would reach out right now and put his fingers to your skin, surely you would combust.

His eyes seem to reach deep into you, hooking into the words buried deep in your chest, and yanking them out painfully.

“He’s dead,” you say quietly, your grin slowly fading. “I think … otherwise, he would be here. With me.”

Eren’s voice is barely audible. “Was it in Shiganshina?”

You nod, and nod, and keep nodding, feeling a thick lump in your throat. You bring your knees up to your chest, your hands wedged in the fabrics of your dress to keep them warm. Only when Eren puts his jacket around your shoulders, you notice your body is shaking, but the moment his warm knuckles brush your collarbones, the cold inside your body dissipates. The fabric is warm from his skin, the collar smells like him. You duck your head, trying to bury yourself inside his jacket.

“You know, not one day passes where I don’t miss him so much it feels that I might die,” you say, quietly, more to yourself than to him. “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt something like this.”

Eren holds your stare. If the silence is bait, you don’t take it. You inhale, slowly. You smell food and the riverbed: mud and spice, with the slight after-taste of human pollution. And sweetness; ripe flowers ready to harvest for bees and insects.

“My Mom,” he finally says after a long moment. He stretches out his long legs, then reconsiders and pulls his knees back up to his chest, mirroring your position. “I saw my Mom die five years ago and the first days after that were like hell.”

You nod. You know what that feels like. Glancing over at Eren, you think about taking his hand and squeezing it—to show that he is not alone in that grief, that you know his pain. But when you look at his hand, you find it already balled into a tight fist by his side.

Weirdly enough, it makes you smile. Of course Eren would not allow himself to break. Instead, he steels his grief into rage, into desperation, into resolve.

“We’ve lost … so much … we’re trapped like fucking cattle ready for slaughter.” Eren forces a deep, shuddering breath inside his lungs. You can see the veins along his arms stand out, and suddenly your mouth goes very dry. “I can’t live like this. Nobody should live like this.”

“You have big dreams, Eren.” You bump into his side, feeling his strong arms hard like walls against yours. He doesn’t budge. “Maybe you’ll set us all free one day.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but you see the corners of his mouth twitch. “If we ever bring down the Walls, I’ll definitely line up to throw a dynamite or two.”

“And then? What then?” It is a strange feeling, talking about a future you know won’t exist, but there is a quiet place in your heart that tries to imagine a life with no Titans, with no boundaries. It would look like a small Haven of trees, brushes hung heavy with glossy berries, red and purple and black, and small trees hung with oddly-shaped fruits you’ve never seen before and that would be home—you take a sharp breath in. Gone is the smell of green, of living and growing things, of dirt and the roots that grow in dirt, and as you blink away the picture that’s fading behind your closed lids, slipping from your mind even though you have no idea where it has come from in the first place, you hear Eren still talking: “… and after Armin and I see the ocean, I don’t know. We’ll explore the world. Find all the places in Armin’s book he always talks about. And then … I’ll pee in every major body of water on earth?”

“Oh my God.”

“You asked.” Eren bumps back into your side and you nearly topple over. When you straighten yourself, he’s looking at you curiously. Whatever he sees must satisfy him because he turns away, smiling to himself.

“What?” you ask.

“I see you’re feeling better.”

The question surprises you enough that you need two takes to open your mouth and give a response. And then you understand, he’s been trying to cheer you up. Nothing outlandish. Still, it’s like a died-out ember in your chest rekindles a fire.

“Yeah, I am. I’m glad I found you.” You mumble the last bit, plucking the leftover flowers from your dress until you hold the branch of the forget-me-not between your fingers. “And even though we’ll go our separate ways next week, I’m glad we’re friends. It’s weird … you’re someone I don’t want to forget, Eren Jaeger.”

 You offer him the flower. His eyes, now a dark green, are nothing like the soft blue—they’re different in so many ways, but you like them. Eren takes the flowers from you, looks at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it, and settles for putting it in your hair, behind your ear.

“I won’t just disappear, you know,” he says, an exasperated tone swinging in his voice as though he’s talking to a three-year-old that’s still struggling with object permanence. “After graduation, whenever our old Corps meets, I’ll annoy the shit out of you. Don’t think you can slack off in sparring just because I’m not there to kick your ass.”

“Last time I checked, I kicked your ass.”

Eren throws up his hands. “Because Mikasa was distracting me!”

You wave his excuses away, then stave off a yawn. The feast doesn’t show any signs of stopping yet, but you know the second your head hits the pillow, you’ll be out cold. Which is exactly why you lie down in the soft grass, looking up at the vast starry sky above you.

“If you fall asleep, I’ll leave you here, you know,” you hear Eren say, your eyes already closed.

“No, you won’t,” you say, and just to be sure, you hook your fingers around one of his belt loops. Something suspicious like a snort comes from Eren, but his warm presence beside you remains until you fall asleep, dreaming of juniper berry bushes and trees greener than any you’ve known.

 

The land is bare of grass, of plants, of life. It is a vast, never-ending wasteland of rolling sand hills where every grain twinkles like little stars no matter which direction you turn. It is an alien, strange place that feels familiar at the same time. You’ve been here before, but something is missing. Someone.

His name lies on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t remember the feel or sound of it. Sometimes, you think you see someone standing on the horizon, but when you catch up, that person is gone like a mirage. The frustration builds, the taste filling your mouth with copper. When your eyes spy the person once more, you decide to call out: “Er—”

“You see someone more interesting than me?” asks Emil by your side.

You blink, dazzled, and when he offers you his hand, you take it. It feels the same as all those years ago, but nothing about him is the same. Or is it? You close your eyes for just a moment, and he smiles at you, his boyish face still young and round. “There’s no one more interesting than you,” you say, because that is the truth. “It’s just this place. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Sandy hills and a never-ending starry sky stretch before you to all sides. There’s something else, something very bright and very big, but whenever you try to look at it, it disappears, and you wonder if maybe you’re just imagining it.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” says a voice that isn’t Emil’s. You find that Emil has disappeared, and you are now standing with Eren. It’s the same game: he looks different and at the same time he doesn’t. Older, but also still how you remember him.

“Where’s Emil?” you ask, turning. You see Mikasa with Armin, and Jean who is holding a sleeping Marco in his arms, brushing away ink-black curls from his forehead. Something about Marco seems strange though, as if half of his side is turning into sand.

“What are you talking about?” Eren says. “This place is for the living.” His hands are cool on yours, and you are aware of them in a way you have not been of Emil’s as he turns you away from Marco’s sight.

You narrow your eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

He leans close. You can feel his lips against your ear. They are not cool at all. “Wake up, [Name],” he whispers. “Wake up. Wake up.”

 

You bolt upright in bed, gasping, hair plastered to your neck with cold sweat. Your wrists are held in a hard grip; you try to pull away, then realise who is restraining you. “Eren?”

“Yeah.” He’s sitting on the edge of the bed—how have you gotten into a bed?—looking tousled and half-awake, with early-morning hair and sleepy eyes.

“Let go of me.”

“Sorry.” His fingers slip from your wrists. “You tried to hit me the second I said your name.”

“I’m a little jumpy, I guess.” You glance around. You’re in a small bedroom furnished with dark wood. By the quality of the faint light coming in through the half-open window, you guess it’s dawn, or just after. Your uniform-jacket hangs neatly folded across the back of a chair. “How did I get here? I don’t remember…”

“You fell asleep right next to me.” Eren sounds amused. “Mikasa helped me get you to bed. She also changed your clothes. Thought you’d be more comfortable here than on the cold ground.”

“Wow. I don’t remember anything.” You run your hands over your face, feeling your swollen cheeks from a long, deep slumber. Maybe you’ve had more alcohol than you’d expected. “What time is it, anyway?”

“About five.”

“In the morning?” You glare at him. “You’d better have a good reason for waking me up.”

“Why?” Eren asks, leaning back on his heels, grinning. For some reason this is the exact moment your brain notices you and Eren are sitting on the same bed, and you are very close to each other. He must have changed his clothes before waking you up—gone is the rumpled black sweatshirt and in its stead Eren is wearing a simple white military shirt. “Were you having a good dream?”

You can still feel cold sand between your toes, see stars twinkle before your eyes. You think there were certain people in your dream, people you knew, but the details are blurry. “I don’t remember.”

He stands up. “We’ve got our rifle rehearsal, remember? Shadis sent me to kick your ass out of bed. Actually, Jean offered to wake you up, but since it’s five in the morning, I figured you’d be less cranky if you had something nicer to look at than his horseface.”

“Meaning you?”

Eren’s grin grows tenfold. “What else?”

You throw a pillow after him, but Eren is already up and about, and out of the door before you can grab something else.

Just for a moment, you consider falling back into your bed and pretend the next couple of days don’t exist. Somewhere on the other side of the compound you hear Shadis’ roars, and decide to get up pretty quickly.

Twenty minutes later, everyone stands ready. Rifle in hand, half of them visibly fighting their hangover, the rehearsal goes as smoothly as planned: Sasha stumbles twice, and Samuel and Connie go down with her. For a moment, Shadis looks like he doesn’t want to say anything, but then he simply states you’d be all dead if those rifles were loaded, and proceeds to procure a bucket of water to douse them like filthy street cats.

It gives you a small break where you set out to find Jean. Compared to three years ago when around four hundred soldiers enlisted, only half of that number remains today. Many of them are foreign faces, and you doubt you’ll ever find friendship in any of them since your group has pretty much remained the same ever since the first weeks of trainee days.

On the other side of the plaza you spot Mikasa and Eren. She’s plucking at his clothes, which he is invisibly annoyed about, but it is a different type of annoyed than when he’s around Jean—it seems more long suffering while endearing at the same time, and for a moment you can’t help but just stare at them and realise for the first time that they look good together. They’ve known each other since childhood, and Mikasa is rarely apart from Eren. You wonder what that would be like, to know him in and out and say things that make him laugh, make him blush—just like Mikasa is doing right now, but then from this distance you see her mouth from something that looks like your name and you stare even harder until she must feel you staring like a physical presence and turns.

Catching Mikasa’s eyes, you grow even more convinced that they are discussing you, that Mikasa can read you like a book, can see through to your very soul, and is telling Eren all your secrets. As if you are shouting this aloud, Eren turns at that very moment and looks at you, breaking into an elated smile as he waves his rifle dramatically in the air, and you smile back, waving yours in return, and receive a clap to the back of your head from Shadis for your troubles. As you rub your head in pain, you see Eren laughing in delight, and that alone makes it all worth the trouble.

“Bam,” comes Jean’s voice from your side. When you turn, you see him lower his rifle. “I just shot you.”

Changing the rifle from your left to right shoulder, you follow him back to your positions to restart the rehearsal. “You know I’d come back and haunt your ass. And don’t point it at people, it’s rude.”

You can practically hear Jean rolling his eyes when he says, “Whatever.”

Back in your line, you follow the steps and march in tandem with everyone else. In front of you, Jean continues quietly enough for only you to hear, “We practised rifle handling for this one thing; what a waste of time. It’s not like we’ll ever use them against other people.”

“I guess they’re just making sure to cover the whole syllabus. I don’t like thinking about having to point that at someone else.”

“You sure as hell won’t have to,” Jean says, whipping around, bringing the rifle across his chest to his other shoulder. You do the exact same, staring up at the back of Reiner’s head. From the stiffness of his broad shoulders, you can see he’s very tense. Maybe he’s taking this rehearsal a little too seriously.

You only get the last bit of Jean’s sentence because he unobtrusively pokes you in the back with the end of his rifle. “From what I’ve heard about the MP, you’ll have your occasional thug but actual casualties are very rare.”

“Seven more days,” you whisper back. “Will you be okay without me? Who’s going to pull your ass out of trouble?”

“I’m pretty sure Marco’s got that covered.” Jean turns his head, probably on the lookout for the culprit in question. You go very still, but from the lack of Jean going on, you’re pretty sure Marco has still not found a good time to talk to Jean.

“You know, there’s still time to reconsider,” you say in just the moment the rehearsal reaches the stage where your fake rifles go off and make a deafening bang noise.

Jean turns his head, the ‘Huh?’ clearlywritten on his face.

You pretend you didn’t say anything. Maybe things are progressing the way they are for a reason.

 

From the 344 recruits who started out at the very beginning, only 218 graduated.

On the evening Shadis announces the Top Ten trainees, nobody is surprised to see the ten best lining up before your instructor. You feel immensely proud that both Jean and Marco have managed to hold their ground. But to you, standing in the back between Mina and Armin feels right.

All you care about is the celebration that’s right after that—the last evening you’ll spend with the majority of your friends before everyone heads off. Understandably so, Jean’s constant reminder to ‘not enter the boys’ barracks after’ gets more and more frustrating.

“Why?” you say through a mouth full of steamed potatoes. “Are you guys comparing dick sizes?”

Someone who listens in on the table across from you chokes on their spit.

“We want to have a guy’s night, what’s so unusual about it? You girls do … whatever you girls do. Have a pillow fight or whatever. But don’t come into our barracks, got it?”

True to the nature of your friendship, obviously you barge into the boys’ barracks after the graduation celebration is over. And what timing you have. Swinging the door wide open, you enter at the exact moment Jean declares proudly that in a life or death scenario, he’d totally be down for a threesome with you and Marco.

You freeze. Everyone in the room freezes. Marco unsuccessfully hides the bottle of booze behind his back. It tips over and he shrieks as red liquid spills across the wooden floor. Multiple boys boo at him, and you realise they’re all drunk.

Jean raises his eyes to yours, and you trade a look that feels like a dare. Somehow, you can’t really take a hold of what expression to make—it ranges from confusion to slight disgust to mild interest at how exactly the logistics of such a scenario would look.

Realising there’s only one thing you can do right here, right now, you take a step back and close the door again, willing to forget this ever happened. Three steps is all you’re able to make before the door flies open again, rough hands grab you and manhandle you back into the room.

“You better not tell anyone we got booze here, or I’m gonna dunk your head inside a latrine,” Daz hisses. He’s the opposite of intimidating at any given moment, but now, wobbling on both feet while pointing a shaky finger at you, even a newly born puppy has more bark to it.

You discreetly swipe away the cool spit he’s graciously sprayed over your cheek.

“So, that’s the reason girls are not allowed?” you say, putting on your best Ida-performance to show how disappointed you are. “You’re going to hoard all that and don’t invite us?”

Across the room, Samuel shrugs. “The more people know, the easier Shadis might catch wind of what we’re doing here.”

“Yeah, he’ll skin us alive.”

“I think,” you say, very slowly, “we should get everyone in here and have a final blast before tomorrow.” That didn’t get the reaction you’ve expected, but it is met with less resistance than before. “And we can also,” you add, wiggling your eyebrows, “maybe play some games? Make it exciting.”

Not ten minutes later, the boys’ barracks is cramped. Every open space around the low centre table has been taken by someone as they sit huddled together, shoulder pressed against shoulder. You’ve organised more tankards from the kitchen, and now you’re sipping from the sweet meed Daz has organised somehow. After asking him for the third time and him refusing to explain, you’ve given up and accepted this might remain the greatest secret of Cadet Time.

“So, what games did’ya have in mind?” Samuel asks after the initial excitement has settled down while everyone is nursing their drink. You can feel Jean’s body pressing against your side, clearly interested in what you’ll come up with.

“I got these,” you declare, and present a dozen wooden skewers you’ve helped yourself to, “so we can play the King’s Game.”

A couple “Oooh”s and “Aaah”s later, everyone who wants to participate has settled around the table. Since it was your idea, you can be Queen first, and you’re not here to hold hostages. While swirling the mead in your tankard, your first order is, “Number 3 has to give number 5 a kiss on the cheek.”

When Connie and Samuel rise at the same time, the rest giggles and whistles, but the boys don’t back down. Alcohol is always a nice confidence booster, so Connie makes a big show of smacking a wet smooch onto Samuel’s cheek, earning them a round of applause for that.

“Okay, my turn.” Connie downs the rest of his beverage, then smacks his lips. “I want number 4 to give number 1 a piggy back ride.”

Reiner stirs, showing his skewer with a number 1 carved into the wood. When Christa climbs to her feet, wobbly like a flagpole swaying in harsh wind, the room erupts with laughter.

“I can do it,” she mumbles to herself, her usual pale face a canvas of red—the culprit of it sitting right next to her and cackling like a maniac. Over the last years, Ymir has perfected the art of getting Christa drunk before anyone can notice and stop her. It’s quite funny to her until Reiner offers to give Christa a piggyback instead, and all Hell breaks loose.

Next to you, Jean scoffs. “Like animals,” he says, but when you look up at him, he has a goofy smile on his face. You can’t say how much mead he’s had until his glassy eyes drop down to you and he leans into your space, arching over you until your shoulders touch.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he mumbles, his breath soft against your cheek. You feel the pinprick of tears at the back of your eyes and blink against them. He can’t pull that shit the night before you go your separate ways.

Before you can reply, someone is tugging at your sleeve. When you turn, somehow magically a new skewer with a new number has manifested in your hand.

“Seven’s gotta sit on Nine’s lap,” Sasha whispers conspiratorially. She points at you, then across the table, where Eren is looking at you with a very weird expression. “By the King’s order.”

You whip your head around and find Reiner grinning at you. Jean’s presence immediately vanishes when he leans away, looking sickly pale all of a sudden when he stares somewhere else, his jaw held tightly shut as if he’s just bitten into glass.

This is a bad idea, without a doubt—but the other, much louder part of your brain thinks challenge accepted.

You crawl over to Eren who eyes you as though he’s just waiting for the hidden dagger to slash forward and cut him open, and throw one leg over his lap. Good balance so far. You sit more on his knees than on his thighs, which is enough for the first round of whistles and unnecessary remarks from your comrades. Eren has found a very interesting spot somewhere behind your shoulder that demands his complete, undisturbed attention.

“Kids, you gotta do it properly,” Reiner says, and with a slap to your back, he pushes you flush against Eren’s hips. You choke on your spit. Eren yelps.

Reiner grins. “Exactly like that.”

“Okay, okay, we get it.” You try to weasel some space between you and Eren’s pelvis, but the only place of leverage is his arms. It’s different from hand-to-hand-combat practice where touching bodies is inevitable and you’re too occupied thinking about ways to bring your opponent down than worry about girls and boys accidentally touching where they shouldn’t. But this is deliberate, and now that your hands cling to his arms to regain your balance, you notice the strong chord of muscles tensing under his shirt. His solid thighs easily holding your weight. You don’t doubt if his shirt would lift slightly, the sight of firm abs would greet you.

“Don’t move,” he hisses, grabbing onto your thighs to prevent you from squirming. It gets the desired effect, immediately shutting you up, freezing you on the spot. It also does something weird to your body. You want to close your legs, pretend modesty is a thing that you guys still do around here, but you don’t have to be a genius to understand friction is the last thing Eren needs, and that’s why he’s got an iron grip around your thighs.

Why are so many people cramped up in this tiny room, it’s so fucking hot in here. You still don’t meet Eren’s eyes. You’re close enough to feel him breathing, feel the heat radiating off his body. Not knowing what to do with your hands, they just fumble needlessly in front of you, your fingers curling into the hem of your shirt to do something. Someone laughs really loud at the back of the room.

Eren clears his throat quietly. “Nervous?”

Finally, your eyes meet. His seem darker than usual, a deeper green like a lush forest dancing to strong wind picking up before a storm. This close, you could count every single one of his long lashes.

“Why would I be?” You lean back slightly, but the friction is enough to make Eren tighten his grip around your thighs. You can feel his nails dig into your skin through the fabric of your trousers. “If anything, I get the feeling you’re the one who can’t keep up, Jaeger.”

Eren executes an eye roll that must give him a spectacular view of the inside of his skull. No wonder Jean can’t keep his cool. Or maybe it’s just an Eren-thing, infuriating those around him. A match to an explosive barrel.

You’ll give him one.

“Nervous?” you ask with a mean grin that furrows Eren’s eyebrows in question for a second. Then you roll your hips against his once but hard enough for him to feel the heat between your legs. His expression is priceless, absolutely dumbfounded and stupid and laughter rises in your throat—

Eren throws you off his lap, already on his legs and charging out of the cabin into the cool night. Thankfully most of the other cadets are too busy whooping at Sasha drinking loads of beer from an improvised funnel Connie and Samuel are holding up for her. Only Mikasa has paid attention, and is now rushing after Eren while you return back to Jean’s side. He nibbles on a dried cracker and barely spares you a glance.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Jean asks. He sounds impatient, and when he snaps his jaw shut on the cracker, it reminds you of a guillotine slamming down.

“What’s wrong with your face?” you snap back.

“No, I mean if you’ve got a fever or something, go to bed.”

“Just eat your damn crackers, Jean.”

You try to hide your burning face behind your arms, knees bent up to your chin—a small ball of embarrassment because who could have thought your little joke on Eren would backfire so bad. In that split of a second before he threw you off, his neck and face completely flushed an angry red, Eren looked absolutely ready to devour you. Desire is a dangerous look on him.

From across the room, you catch Reiner’s eyes. Mischief glints in them as he raises his cup in mock salute to you, presenting himself to be the true pyromaniac all along.

 

❀❀❀

 

“I’m going to escape these Walls. That’s my dream. Mankind hasn’t been wiped out yet. We deserve to be out there; we are free. We were born into this world to see it.”

When you turned, expecting to see Eren because you so clearly remember him saying those exact words at the graduation ceremony, you saw Emil sitting by your side instead. His eyes were closed, his long, pale lashes resting against his high cheekbones. You remembered how often he said that word, but you didn’t fully understand what he meant.

“What is freedom?” you asked, burrowing your bare toes into the warm soil.

Emil kept his eyes closed. He picked a flower and placed it on his lips. You’d never wished so hard in your life to be able to turn into a flower. He was lying next to you, his fingers resting interwoven on his chest. “It means to do and feel what you want without anyone holding you back or stopping you.”

“That sounds great.” You looked out at the riverbed. It seemed to sparkle more than usual today. “We could get there, one day. It doesn’t sound all that hard.”

“You think?” Emil opened his eyes and looked up at you. His eyes twinkled just like the river. “Look around. All these flowers. Who do they belong to?”

“Hm … nobody? Everyone!”

“Fair enough. Then, pick one that you really like.”

When you looked around, searching for forget-me-not, you spotted a nine-petalled, white flower stretching its small head towards you. “This one,” you said, pointing at it.

Emil made a small sound at the back of his throat. When you turned to him, he was already staring somewhere else, but he looked as though he’d swallowed something sharp. He bent over and ripped the flower out of the ground. “This,” he said, “is my flower now. Even though you really want it. What will you do now?”

“Ask you nicely to give it to me. Because I know you will.”

Emil smiled at that. “Pretend I am not someone nice. Pretend I am someone who is a bad person.”

“Not you.” Your reply came immediately. “Not ever.”

“Then, Marianne,” he continued, and like you knew he would, he put the flower behind your ear, brushing his knuckles along your cheek. “If it were Marianne who took what you wanted, what would you do?”

You pulled a face. “Leave her, I guess. She can have it. But I’d be very sad.”

“Exactly. She is free to do what she wants, and what she wants is to take this flower. And even though you want it too, only stealing it back from her would make you happy. Because you as well are free to do what you want.”

Your head spun from the possibilities. Emil squeezed your hand. “And what if…,” he continued in a voice that was utterly unfamiliar to you, “…what if what you want is to hurt others?”

“It’s wrong.”

Emil chuckled. “Says who?”

“It’s … it’s common sense,” you tried to argue, but it sounded weak and naive even to your own ears.

“Common sense dictates we do not kill, we do not steal. Did you know there are people living underground who have never seen the sky? Who are not allowed to come up here and enjoy the fresh air? Enjoy the feeling of the sun. They kill and steal to survive. Is that still wrong? To do what you need to do to survive?”

You grew very silent. Listening to Emil, he almost seemed like a different person.

“Look at these walls.” Emil looked up. The warmth in his eyes disappeared. “We want to go outside, see the world. But we can’t. Because there are Titans outside. Because there are enemies outside these Walls. It’s unfair, isn’t it?”

“But these Walls protect us,” you shot back. “Without them, Titans would come in and eat us.”

“I suppose that is true. Sometimes, I just wonder … if they as well simply do not have a choice.”

“Which means…” you said slowly, realisation dawning, “Titans … aren’t free?”

The corner of Emil’s mouth pulled up in a rueful smile. His eyes were almost sorrowful. “I suppose … if they feel anything at all.”

“You’re always on top of those things, Emil,” you marvelled, squeezing his hand back. “You’re kind and so full of sympathy for everyone and everything. See, that’s why you could never be a bad person.”

The warmth returned to his eyes, lightening them up to the colour of the early morning sky. “If you say so, then it must be true.”

Before you could forget it, feeling the soft petals of the flower tickling your cheek, you asked, “By the way, what flower is this? I always see it on you.”

And for the first time since you had known him, Emil lied to you: “I don’t know.”

 

❀❀❀

 

You have a feeling the headache pounding at the back of your head the next morning isn’t solely because of the booze escapade the night before. Your body doesn’t feel as weary and heavy as the day after May Day a week ago, this type of lethargy is a different kind. You pin it on the upcoming events later in the day, and focus on your current task organising everything for the cannon maintenance at the top of Wall Rose.

Marco has been quietly helping you with that for some time. The creases on his forehead run deeper than the canyons cutting into the earth south of Wall Rose. Everything points to the source of his concern being Jean, currently occupied checking the gas stock for the cylinders, still, you ask the million coins question: “Have you spoken to Jean yet?”

As though he’s been waiting for you to ask that, his reply comes immediately: “I’ll talk to him later. After the preparations. I asked him to wait for me in the backyard at HQ. Before we head off to Sina.” He shrugs. “Or maybe we won’t head off. I’m not sure how to tackle that exactly.”

You think of how much value Jean puts into Marco’s opinion; how he eats up Marco’s words right up like a starving man.

“I don’t think it matters how. You got this. He’ll listen if it’s you, Marco.”

Marco stays silent. He clears his throat when he notices you staring at him, and gives you a wry smile. “We’re talking about Jean here. He can be as stubborn as you.”

“I could beat him up for you. Make him listen.”

The wry smile turns into a full-blown grin. He puts a little more enthusiasm into helping you secure the crates with ropes onto the wooden platform that lifts you up to the top of the Outer Wall. You like this Marco better than the sombre one. You continue working like that for some time until everything is loaded onto the platform and you give Marco the sign to turn on the mechanism that lifts you up.

“You ever wonder,” he says suddenly, thumb resting on the button. When he looks at you, it feels a little as though he’s seeing through you. “… if what we want and what we need are different things?”

You wait for him to continue when you realise he doesn’t mean it as a rhetorical question. “I think it’s enough sometimes to settle for what we want. We might never know what we need.”

“Maybe,” sighs Marco. “But what if the moment is there all of a sudden and you have to make a decision?” He kneads the back of his neck, then shakes his head like a puppy shaking water off its fur, trying to disperse his thoughts. “I’m talking nonsense, sorry. Today is hard enough on most of us. I’ll see you later for the distribution banquet.” He doesn’t give you a chance to respond and presses the button. With a jolt, the platform rises, and you hold onto a crate, watching as Marco grows smaller and smaller. He salutes up to you by putting two fingers to his temple. You wave back, trying to swallow around the lump in your throat.

Maybe that was his try at convincing you to change your path as well. It would be great, staying together like this for the next few years until it is time to discharge. But somehow you doubt it would be that easy to convince Jean otherwise, and you’ve already made yourself acquainted with Trost’s Garrison unit and its captain, Hannes. Of course, now that you won’t see him for some time, you find a better answer for Marco’s question: That sometimes, you settle for what you can get. That you can’t have it all.

On top of the wall, Connie is the first to greet you. “We got worried you two bailed on us,” he says, immediately tackling the ropes and disentangling them from the crates. The rest of the group is already maintaining the canons and cleaning them up. Whoever was on duty to supervise you, they’re nowhere in sight.

“Sorry, we lost track of time chatting.” You help him carry the necessary instruments and tools. When Mina sees you, her face lights up and she says something to Thomas. He looks over and grins. Sasha looks over and grins, too. It feels as though they’re all in on a conspiracy and you’re the only one left out, radiating a fervent energy that is like a flame jumping from source to source.

“What’s up with everyone?” you ask Connie.

He drops a crate, ignoring the rattling inside it and dusts himself down. “They’re just excited ‘cause Sasha swiped some meat from the pantry.”

“She did?” You rivet your eyes on her until she notices your stare. Holding your hand up in an OK-sign, she grins and throws a hand up in return. Mina squeaks—and maybe that is a little too much excitement for something as simple as that, which should have given you reason to wonder. Connie sniffs indiscreetly. “Oh, and we’re all gonna join the Scouts.”

You drop your hand and stare at him. “You’re joking.”

“Nuh-uh. I guess Eren’s little speech yesterday left an impression on us all.” He shrugs, as though a decision like that is not worth the hustle. You want to take him by his shoulders and smack his head against a wall. By divine intervention or just honed survival instinct, he decides just then to join the others and leave to your crisis.

They must think you’ll join the Survey Corps as well. But this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. You don’t just decide something like that in the spur of the moment. “What if the moment is there all of a sudden and you have to make a decision?” You wonder if Marco is in on this, and it’s all a huge conspiracy.

You take a step forward to set things right, and maybe give Mina a good shake to remind her this isn’t what you two agreed upon, this isn’t what you two wanted—

The sight is breathtaking.

It is your second time on top of the wall. Cadets are usually allowed only after their graduation because Shadis doesn’t trust you not to kill yourself by stumbling off the edge. Maybe it’s the final step for him to recognise his fledglings have grown into hunting birds capable of soaring through the skies and every year he pushes that as far away as possible.

The sight never ceases to amaze you. All along the horizon, mountains rise and fall in full splendid, covered with forests and cut through my glistening lakes and rivers. Giant, stark-white clouds rise behind them and paint the blue horizon with a severe beauty that has you shuddering with the realisation how close you are to the sky.

This is it. The sight Emil has always dreamt of, that he had longed to see for himself. The endless world; to leave the small cage and see the big world. The thought makes your heart race with wonder and excitement and fear—all after just seeing the possibility.

What if, what if, what if … what we want and what we need are different things?

“Hey, be careful.” Eren’s voice is like an anchor pulling you back to the present. You haven’t noticed him approaching, but now he’s standing close to you.

When you look at him, you blink until the sting at the back of your eyes disappears. “The wind’s really something up here, huh,” you say, rubbing your eyes dry.

Eren’s jaw works for a moment before he turns and takes the world in. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “It’s something.”

It feels like no more words are needed. He gets it.

“You have to tell me,” you mumble. “What you’ll find beyond the horizon. Okay? Whenever you leave to kick Titans’ asses, you have to come back and tell me.”

Eren turns to you. The wind tears at his hair, but he stands firmly. Nothing can throw him off. “Of course I’ll come back,” he says like it’s nothing. He doesn’t know what this promise untethers inside you. Your knees wobble. It feels as though you have peeled back every layer of your hopes and fears and dreams and laid them bare before him. The weight of your heart seems to tear you apart with the words that you wish you could say. And for a time there is timelessness; endless stillness that holds the picture that is you two standing at the edge of the world stretching across the horizon when overhead, lightning in the sky turns the world white and summons the Destroyer of Worlds.

As you stare into the eyes of the Colossal Titan, stomach roiling with panic, you can’t help but notice, distantly, how human its eyes seem.

A/N: Today’s The Amazing Devil’s song I’m shoving down your throats: Not Yet / Love Run (Reprise)

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