2:19 am.

(repost)

Levi kisses your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Your collarbone.

“I love you.”

Your throat.

“I love you.”

Coming up to face you again, your hand immediately reaches for his cheek. He leans down, kisses every teary pearl on your face away, but they only keep coming. He kisses your eyes, kisses under them, feeling your tears soak his trembling lips.

“We’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna be fine.” It seems like he’s trying to reassure himself along with you, and it also seems like he’s doing a poor job of keeping his own tears in check. There is a lump in his throat, his eyes sting bad, he’s afraid he’ll crack at any given moment. “I trust you, baby. I trust you. We’ll make it out just fine.”

The pair of you were supposed to be sound asleep, preserving every possible ounce of energy for the attack on Marley beginning in only a few hours, but sleep remains a stranger to the Survey Corps on nights before their inevitable march to their possible death.

Eyes open or closed, every cadet, every soldier, everyone that carries the burden of the wings of freedom on their backs lay awake in their beds. Some stay unmoving, some whisper with their roommates, some are stuck in their own heads, and some decide to love each other like it’s the last time.

Because maybe it is.

You can’t remember who started it, but you and Levi usually get clingier as expeditions near, and you find yourselves huddled in a mess of pillows and sheets and blankets not so long after your arrival to your shared quarters for the night.

It started steamy, harsh, hungry, but true emotions eventually surface, and neither of you is able to let go of the other. You begin to tear up when reality finally hits, seeing the silver band on his ring finger twinkle in the dim light of the room that copies your own, and you break when he begins to speak.

“We’ll be fine.” He’d said then , voice clear and soothing.

“I’ll follow you wherever you go,” He says now, eyes glossy, voice strangled.

When you pull him to wrap your arms around his neck, your mind is too conflicted between the complete opposition of emotions rushing through your head, running back and forth between pleasure and grief of what to be lost in a few hours. You can’t help the noise you make as tears continue to flow freely while he gives you his all, fucking every emotion he feels right into you.

“I can’t exist without you anyways, can I?” He mumbles in your neck, making sure you hear him over your own noises before he bends up to take a good look at you, to make sure your image is burned in his memory like a stamp, branding his very being as your own.

Teary, flushed face, hair a mess on the sheets, mouth open wide with uncontrollable pleasure, he doesn’t think you ever looked as vulnerable as you look right now. Your droopy eyes pour into his own, neither able to look away, neither able to feel anything but the other.

“Walls, you’re the best fucking thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

You’re close. The invisible string keeps tightening and tightening for the walls-only-know time, and your overstimulation is melting your agonized pain away. Levi notices by the way you tighten around him again, the way a hand flies to your hair, the other reaching desperately out to him, and he’d rather stop breathing than not reach back to you.

He is bending back down to hold you through your orgasam when you finally let go, you twitch and squirm in his arms, his name the only thing on your tongue.

“Levi!” You whimper.

“Levi…” You whine.

“Luh-Le’vi.” You sob.

Levi kisses every available patch of skin his lips can find, sweet nothing tumbling out of his lips. He fucks you through your orgasam, chasing his own with the sticky reminder on your stomach burning through him; that he should pull out soon.

You become incredibly tight around him that he feels the air getting knocked out of his lungs even more. With one last kiss to your cheek, he begins to lean back up, ready to pull out and let go, but he finds himself locked in place.

You hold him with all your might, frightened eyes locking with yours when he raises his head.

“It’s okay,” You tell him, his hips faltering. “Please. I need you. I need you.”

Levi’s head swims, he does his best to slow down his movements. His eyes look within yours for an answer to his unspoken questions.

“What?” He can’t help but let out.

“Just this once,” Your eyes well up once more. “I want to feel you just this once.”

His own overstimulation seems to get the best of him because this was his breaking point. Levi can no longer suppress his emotions, but he does his best to hide his face away from his lover.

He kisses you hard this time. A hand cages you to the bed while the other caresses your soaked cheek, and you sob when he starts to move again. You arch your back, doing your best to meet his every need as you both cry in each other’s arms, with another inevitable build tickling the back of your brain.

The overflowing emotions delay his release just enough for the pair of you to let go together, bodies pressed so close that they almost mold into one. Whimpers and moans of each other’s names echo in the empty quarters, exhausted bodies relaxing as you feel your walls painted warm with his release.

Levi can’t hold himself up anymore. The pair of you are overstimulated to the brim, crying and crying and crying over everything that you can’t control, and you feel your heart melt at your bond as it gains even more strength with each and every silent or audible sob.

Minutes later, after you both managed to calm down just enough to be able to function again, Levi raises his head from your chest, bloodshot eyes a mirror of your own.

A shaky hand creeps to your cheek. He tries again.“We’ll be fine.”

“I love you,” You whisper, eyes closing to lean in his touch.

And it’s cruel that this is your way of saying goodbye, untrusting of the world to let you be in each other’s arms one more time.

Reijean’s Bizarre Adventure(s) ☆ fanfiction:

⋆ Post-Rumbling:

Beyond Evil (completed, 1/1)

Jean and Reiner after the end of the world.

Stand by Me (completed, 1/1)

Jean doesn’t know they are dating. Reiner wants to take things a little further. ReiJean Week 2024.

⋆ Canon Divergence AU:

From Shiganshina with Love (completed, 3/3)

The Cart Titan never comes to his aid, and Reiner is taken hostage after the Battle of Shiganshina.

My Best Enemy (completed, 5/5)

Jean is caught in an explosion and presumed dead during the Invasion of Marley. The Armored Titan finds him.

Never Let Me Go (completed, 7/7)

Pre-S4. Marley no longer needs the Warriors. Forced to flee from the continent to avoid being executed, Reiner, Gabi and Falco arrive on the Island of Paradis where they run into Jean. Reiner offers him a deal: his life and the Armored Titan’s powers for the children’s safety.

The Lost Boys (completed, 3/3)

When the Scouts lose the Battle of Shiganshina, Jean is left at the mercy of the Warriors.

Battle Tendency (3/7)

A series of bizarre events causes Jean to join the Military Police after the Battle of Trost. Tasked with finding an escaped convict, he accidentally discovers Reiner’s true identity before the 57th Expedition.

Lost but Won (completed, 1/1)

As a part of the plan aimed at stopping Eren from the attack on Liberio, Jean is spying on the Warriors before the festival. Reiner catches him. ReiJean Week 2024.

⋆ Modern AU:

One Night in Marley (completed, 1/1)

In a modern world where the Titans still exist, two opposing gangs meet on a Halloween night to go over the terms of their truce. Jean gets hit on.

⋆ Other AUs:

Far from Any Road (1/3)

The Ballad of Sheriff Reiner and Outlaw Jean.

⋆⋆⋆

Reijean Asks, Headcanons, Meta (tag #veecanons)

⋆⋆⋆

like what i do? consider buying me a ko-fi

AoT - Marley & Eldia Alt. History Outline

Exactly what it says on the tin. Most of this is "pre-canon" headcanon. Breakdown below the cut:

Paradis is discovered in the early 1800s by a group of Eldian and Marley explorers. The group spends a year or two there and find giant trees and plenty of wild animals, but no humans. They assume this is untapped land and Marley decides to bring more people (predominantly Eldian) to settle there over the next several decades.

By now there's a thriving community of people throughout Paradis.

In the 1860s, one Eldian man (let's call him Fritz) comes into contact with a strange, worm-like creature (the Hallucigenia) while exploring the glittering caves beneath Paradis. He transforms into a giant humanoid monster, then unintentionally triggers the rest of the Eldians on his team to transform; while the Marley do not transform and are subsequently devoured. Fritz eventually turns back into a human and initially tries to convince himself it was some bizarre nightmare. Then he finds the bodies around the settlement, destroyed buildings—ALL the Eldians on the island transformed. Horrified, he attempts to kill himself but keeps reviving/stitching together (Hallucigenia won't let him die).

Soon after, Fritz discovers a small number of citizens have escaped by boat, effectively abandoning him on the island (they go back to Marley and say that there's a horrible curse on Paradis that turns Eldians into devils; Marley covers it up as a plague).

While Fritz is human again, his colleagues are stuck as Titans, and start attacking each other or wandering off. They don’t bother with Fritz at all. Soon after, Fritz enters a trance and is "contacted" by an unseen force (whether or not it's Ymir, PATHS or he's just losing his mind remains to be seen), who teaches him to create "new life" from the sand on the beach. He "resurrects" his family and colleagues, similar to how the Founding Titan could replicate past Titans. They're not really alive per se, but he's starting to lose his mind and has no intention of returning home.

Over the next several years he becomes more proficient, creating a civilization of gestalt-type Eldians (they look human, but can't reproduce and will go on to become Wall Titans). During this time, Marley sailors keep catching sight of giant humanoid creatures and claim they're building a castle on the horizon. Marley hears enough complaints that they send their military to investigate this threat. But what they find is something strange. Fritz is initially welcoming, even pleased to see that Marley is interested in doing business with his country. The gestalt Eldians don’t say much, and when the Marley inquire, Fritz calls them Subjects of Ymir. He is not interested in assimilating back into "civilized society", but he's also starting to deteriorate physically and resembles a man several decades older than he should be.

Enter two characters: Albrecht Tybur (military diplomat, Willy’s grandfather) and Heinrich Xaver (a neurologist and Eldian made honorary Marleyan).

Xaver proposes they bring Fritz to Marley in order to study his powers, and that there is a difference between mindless Titans and Titan Shifters. Even if they'll never be normal again, they still have some use for manual labor or warfare.

No, says Tybur, Fritz is clearly out of his mind. It's humane to end his misery, not prolong it by putting him in a human zoo. Besides, there's no telling if these Titans won't one day turn on their sickly creator. Worse, if they reveal this information to the public, there will be a mad rush to claim Paradis. Marley can’t fight off the entire world.

They elect to kill Fritz, who just laughs and says he's already tried. As long as Ymir inhabits him, he cannot die. He'll just "live on" in the next Eldian and the next—whatever that means. Fritz asserts that Ymir told him the Pure Titans would be compelled to eat humans in order to ingest their spinal fluid, as it’s the one way to become human again. The Eldian facsimiles he created can't eat/sleep/reproduce. Fritz requires a real Eldian to carry on his lineage.

Xaver asks what he is proposing here. Fritz laughs and says he's talking about starting a family, not cannibalism.

Back in Marley, Xaver proposes that Fritz’s spinal fluid can be injected into a viable candidate. Because Fritz technically cannot die of natural causes (a fate worse than death), he's got a theoretically limitless supply of it and would be willing to cooperate with the world if they leave the island alone. The Marley military ignores this request and sends their navy.

Instead of a two thousand-year Great Titan War, the Mid-Eastern Conflict involves Fritz ravaging the Marleyan coast and navy with a band of Colossus Titans. This attracts the attention of the Mid-Eastern Alliance, an enemy of Marley.

Fritz calls an armistice, and states he will seal off Paradis behind three massive walls, on the condition that all Eldians be relocated to Paradis (whether they want to or not). Fritz offers to wipe the memories of the inhabitants of Paradis with the cooperation of the Fritz family, who will inherit his powers, & Titan Society. Marley accepts, and over the next decade and a half, Marley rounds up the Eldians and sends them to heaven—er, penal colony.

The rest of the world now suspects Marley has been harboring these Eldians as some kind of secret weapon. The surviving Eldians must be dealt with, as will be any Eldian sympathizers who thought Fritz did nothing wrong or deserved to be treated humanely.

Xaver is targeted by Marley’s Pubic Security Authorities for his “pro-Titan study agenda”, but the Mid-Eastern Alliance is interested in his ideas and offers all the money and Eldian POWs he wants to start up a secret military program on Paradis. He’ll be working alongside the world’s finest minds (particularly Marley and Hizuru) as they attempt to create Titan Shifters from military aged-men.

Most of these candidates can't withstand multiple transformations and die in various ways (succumb to severe burns, nerve damage, etc.) or get absorbed in their Titans, whereupon they have to be killed. The money isn't endless. Marley is growing frustrated, but Xaver has a theory. Perhaps without Fritz to lead, these Titan candidates are operating off their subconscious. He and Marley’s scientists come up with a revolutionary new technique involving hypnosis.

After a year, the Shifter candidates are able to reliably control their powers, follow instructions, and transform back without dying, but still burn through their human bodies quickly. The Mid-East is working with Hizuru on anti-Titan weaponry—just in case. The Titan Society suggests using child soldiers, as they can be hypnotized from an early age and operate in their prime years of life rather than burn out during middle-age.

Xaver protests, saying that this is way too far. He’s accused of feeling sympathy towards subhuman monsters. Either he can experiment on kids, or be exiled to Paradis with the rest of them. He eventually concedes, but secretly feels that this program was a mistake and the Shifters should never have been discovered.

During Kruger’s, Grisha’s and Eren's lifetimes (1870s-1910s), Paradis mostly operates as a penal colony. Eldian dissenters/political prisoners of Marley are sent to "heaven". The designated royal family within Paradis, Wall cultists, and most of the interior population are aware of the truth but sworn to secrecy.

The Azumabito clan is made responsible for Paradis's military weapons. They operate in the northern region of Rose & Sina (blades & ODM gear). Officially, they’re supposed to have have diplomatic immunity b/c of their military ties to Mid-Eastern Alliance, but inside the Walls, things tend to get more lawless and not everyone is lucky (such as Mikasa’s family).

Just woke up from an intense nap dream. I was in the world of attack on titan, but the walls were replaced by green poisonous thorns and everyone where moomin characters except for levi, who was also in his wheelchair despite this being pre-Marley…

An Album of Christmas Carols - 4

This time I'm going to cover the, I assume, lesser-known musical adaptation of the classic story, the 2004 A Christmas Carol based on the 1994 stage musical by Alan Menken.

"A Christmas Carol" (2004, Kelsey Grammer)

To be honest, the whole vibe of the film really betrays that it began as a stage show - sometimes it's endearing but in other places the stage directions don't translate to the film format that well.

We open not in Scrooge's counting house but the Royal Exchange, where a conspicuously underdressed Cratchit (feat. influenza) runs around after his employer and a definitely-not-Cratchit expy asks for a loan extension for himself and Tiny Tina.

I mean look at her. Girl has a withering scowl that could peel paint. She is apparently "Grace Smythe" in the credits but the only time she's named is kinda muffled by the singing.

In this opening monument to raw, Victorian capitalism, I admit I do enjoy the lines:

"Thank the Lord our profits have been huge / Thank the Lord we're not in debt to Scrooge".

Anyway! On to the...

Ghosts? Ghosts!

In an unusual twist we're introduced to the Ghosts before Marley - Past is a lamplighter, Present is a ticket hawker for a charity pageant, and Yet to Come is a blind beggar woman (Incidentally portrayed here by Charlie Chaplin's daughter, Geraldine!).

Marley himself appears in theatrical manner not through the door but popping out of the wall. This Marley has a jovial tone, genuinely happy to see Scrooge, and seems more resigned to his fate than lamenting it. He (and some of his and Scrooge's former business partners) perform "Link by Link" with a mix of moral haunting and... just being very extra.

Christmas Past... awkwardly appears as an attractive younger woman poledsncing on the end of Scrooge's bed. I suspect in the original stage show they had a professional dancer for this and the actress tries but doesn't quite nail the graceful movements. Rather than whisk Scrooge from his bed, she shoves his astral projection into a photo album.

This version gives us the "Scrooge's dad went to debtor prison" excuse, which I'm neutral about. Comes up in a few adaptations, and it works but I'm just not fond of Freudian excuses.

The Fezziwigs (here a banking firm) dance, romance occurs, blossoms, we see Scrooge and Marley set up their business and become increasingly more ruthless.

Now I just want to comment on one specific bit that really falls flat, in my opinion. Fezziwig comes to the pair for a loan to save his failing business. Scrooge refuses on the basis that it won't prevent the bankruptcy, merely postpone it.

Then both Fezziwigs turn on the emotional manipulation - "I helped you both get started", "he treated you like a son", etc. I hate this. It cheapens both Fezziwigs as characters and actually Scrooge is right to refuse the loan. But we're meant to see this as him becoming hard and uncaring. Ruins a core moment of character development.

Anyway - engagement breaks off, Marley dies of a heart attack, yadda yadda, Past leaves in a puff of smoke.

Christmas Present puts on an agonisingly long stage show and... comes off a bit like a pimp, with the staging and the chorus girls. And the cane. And the fur-lined robe. It's not great. We see more of Tiny Tina because Tiny Tim had supernatural scheduling conflicts or something.

The Cratchits have their deep emotional song about shoes and counting your blessings. I'm normally not a fan of these bits but... Actually I'm okay with this one. There's a big medley of people celebrating across London, and I think it does a way better job than "Abundance and Charity". Nephew Fred's party segues in at the pre-finale lull - and incidentally this is the only version I know of where Fred has a kid. He gets one line, in which he's a snotty-nosed brat. We return to the Cratchits, then close out on a brief Ignorance and Want looking... I'm not gonna lie, they look like they're completely out of it.

It's time for some real trippy haunting.

Christmas Yet To Come transforms from the blind beggar woman into a white/grey banshee figure who takes Scrooge into another musical number a confused amalgam of visions. I really like this! I know it's being done for practicality, but it helps get across this idea of the future as being shadows, shifting and changing, still malleable.

Also the song's a bop.

Another small detail I like is the undertakers attacking and robbing Mrs Dilber Mrs Mops for pennies after they've hawked Scrooge's belongings to Old Joe. It's quite visceral in the middle of the song, and each time I see it, it reminds me how women like Mrs Dilber may be easy to judge, but in Victorian society they really had a very fragile existence. Nobody cared for the widows and elderly. After all, are there no prisons? No workhouses?

Scrooge's redemption is indicated by a much softer and happier round-up song in which he sees a vision of his departed mother and sister. Aww.

We close out on Scrooge temporarily kidnapping a child, finally making Tiny Tina crack a smile, passing the three ghosts in Incognito Mode, trolling Bob and going to Fred's for dinner. Then it snows on cue.

Highlights & Humbugs

The film's not one of my top favourites but it's still in my rewatch cycle. The songs are catchy, as you'd expect from Disney veteran Menken, with some clever reprises. Marley's "Link by Link" is good fun, but the Ghost of Christmas Present's "Abundance and Charity" really overstays its welcome, especially since the song immediately after it does a better job at getting the point across.

I think I've already commented on what I think works and doesn't work in this version, but I have yet to mention the most haunting image of all.

Kelsey Grammer's hairy chest. Be glad I couldn't find a higher quality snap.

Overall, a jolly musical with some flat notes, but a pretty good jab at the story. 6 out of 10 Humbugs.

Attack on Titan - Season 4 Finale A Rewatch Commentary

(manga spoilers)

-as far as i've seen, the reactions to the finale have been overwhelmingly positive and my heart is at peace. it’s what aot deserves.

-i've been waiting for this since the manga; to see the beautiful jean/reiner bromance animated

-gosh, our ackermans are so beautiful

-hello yuki kaji's bb <3

-the desperation in annie as she fights hallu-chan

-i just want to know! did eren explicitly tell mikasa about the mouth, ymir, and visiting the others, or did she sense it path-like and they just committed to the living together scenario until the end?!

-i guess there were two paths. one path, eren ends up with mikasa and condemns paradis. the other path, eren ends up with armin. in hell. and condemns the world.

-EREN'S REFLECTION ON THE WINDOW HAS THE TITAN MARKS

-YES ARMIN GRAB THAT LIL BITCH'S HAIR (i love you eren, but.)

-how is aot so heartwarming amidst all this tragedy. there's just these moments that are so heartwarming. that’s the point, isn’t it -it's an excellent choice that they delayed eren telling armin that 80% of humanity dies. it makes sense for armin to chat and enjoy the sights when in his mind the only place that's been destroyed for sure is marley, their natural enemy.

-"ONLY IMYR KNOWS" MY ASS! WE KNOW WHY, EREH! because mikasa was a strong woman who loved deeply the one person who could actually get to the paths and bring about change and cause mikasa to bring about change! idiot to the end. i'm sure armin will explain it to you the next time after the next time.

-lil snek armin wanting to provoke a reaction from eren with his mikasa stuff

-it's so armin, to want to bear eren's sins together with him, and it's so damn heartwarming seeing eren so moved at realizing he's not alone and that he won't be alone and i just, argh, ARGH. eren seeing that he's so unconditionally loved, armin accepting his own responsibility, like, "you're not alone, you were never alone, you weren't driven to this alone, you should not be blamed alone, you should not bear it alone." and they're FINE with that, is the thing. they find peace in that, in the fact that they'll share the burden and be in hell *together.* what's interesting to me is that eren doesn't contradict armin. he doesn't tell him "no, you're not going to hell." either he understands and acknowledges armin's complicity and sins in general, or he just appreciates the thought, i can’t decide, but either way he feels relief. eren and armin, i cry. they always had a strong relationship, but this just elevates them to top friendships of all time. the anime strengthens their bond so incredibly much. through their shared fate, friendship, goals and crimes, they will end up together because they paved this road together - along with so many others, with so many good intentions. it's this relationship that shone the most to me in the anime ending, whereas in the manga ending the focus feels more on mikasa (ofc marina inoue also killed it throughout the ep, so she elevated armin by 110%). -and visually: the hair and teeth on eren's hand vs the seashell in armin's, both covered in blood. armin, in the midst of hell, giving eren a symbol of peace, freedom, life. armin, eren's ride-or-die, who formed eren and eren formed him, showing eren that he will never leave him alone, smiling as he says they'll be together forever. eren finding peace and relief in the fact during his darkest moment. -i respect armin's acknowledgement that he is the catalyst of eren's idea of the outside world, and that he played a role in everything. eren the founding titan didn't sprout off the earth like a cabbage, he was led to this by every single person in his life and by his own personality, everyone is complicit. but armin, bb, that's not why you're going to hell if any of you go to hell. i'm pretty sure pre-rumbling, armin is the paradis soldier with the highest kill count of civilians, out of a plan he orchestrated. he leveled marley's port and everything surrounding it. let's start from there, lil cinnamon roll, yes? -it's interesting to see how differently eren's two strongest relationships play out in the end. for mikasa, he creates a dream scenario, a clean-cut version of himself that's genuine but not his current state, the what would-have-been if mikasa had given a different answer. mikasa needs calmness, kindness, an anchor, and that’s what eren gives her, the part of him that she never fails to see even when eren’s at his worst. to armin, he's his current self in all his glory. scared, pathetic, self-loathing, confused, messed-up, kind (eren's always been kind, that's as non-debatable for me as it is for mikasa), insightful etc. he cries, he screams, he reasons, he loves. he hugs armin so hard. he hides nothing, because armin's always seen eren's ugly side and vice versa. armin needs truth, not kindness. in a way, mikasa sees through eren’s worst self, whereas armin accepts eren’s worst self for what it is, and both are right, and both love him as he is, as they are.

-eren's titan hand on armin's titan, i cannot

-mikasa has been so alone, man. so alone. i HOPE that's jean. i hope it's jean that’s with her. no one could understand her better than he can -excellent choice that they show what levi et all are doing three years later, instead of where they are. nice that they're addressing the environmental aspect of it all. -i don’t know how to conclude this. aot is a masterpiece, and although in many ways it’s been a torture getting to know it, i love it with all i have. i cherish the characters deeply, i adore the story, i am in awe of the world-building, and it’s affected me so deeply and profoundly that i feel bonded to it. it’s something really close to my heart.

One Last Time

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/B2raT6Y

by jearminbrainrot

“Don't look at me like that," Eren implores, and the tenderness in his voice makes Armin's intellect fade. It's the first thing he's said to him since their fight.

“Like what?" Armin asks, but he knows the answer. And Eren knows him too well to not recognize that.

“Like you fear me." Eren relinquishes anyway, caressing Armin's bruise softly as if asking for forgiveness.

 Or… Eren wants to “talk” to Armin one last time.

Words: 3123, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert, Yelena (Shingeki no Kyojin), mentioned - Character, Mikasa Ackerman

Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager

Additional Tags: im so bad at tagging but lets try, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Post Marley Arc, Pre War for Paradis Arc, Eren Yeager Needs a Hug, Armin Arlert Needs a Hug, Resolved Sexual Tension, Yet somehow still, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Sad Ending, like… brutally sad ending, Is this enough tags?

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/B2raT6Y

agnus dei

Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Pieck Finger/Yelena Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, The Rumbling (Shingeki no Kyojin), Song: Castle (Halsey), First Meetings

read on ao3

The flair of hidden greatness lies somewhere in Yelena’s person. She’s destined for the top seats—to pull Marley up by the roots, brick by holier-than-thou brick.

(Written for @bothzangetsus for the Playlist Exchange. <3)

“Want to get drinks sometime?” the tall soldier asks, one afternoon after shooting practice.

She slips the invitation into Pieck’s earshot while everyone’s tidying up at the sidelines, and she’s packing up her holsters and gun-straps into a case, the ash-tinted Mauser she uses, pretending at busyness. Pieck slows her leisurely march to a crawl, angling her face in the soldier’s direction. She’s striking to look at, though not for the reasons one would immediately assume.

The soldier is tall. But there’s something else, too. Pieck roves her eyes from the soldier’s green-plastic helmet to her starched, desert-stiff boots, taking in her vertical giftedness—she towers high enough to block out the sun, to substitute for an umbrella-stand. Her uniform bears two insignias, one for her membership in Marley’s many battalions, and one for her corporal rank.

And her pistol bears the recognisable marks of a firearm that has been handed down from prior comrades and predecessors, beginning—likely—with the first corporal it saw killed-in-action, entrusting itself now to any luck she’s accumulated in avoiding the untimely and mythopoetically inadequate demises that plague soldiers on battlefields. Her words are clipped but lightweight, nonchalant, and Pieck tips her head up towards her—eyes crinkling in airy curiosity, lightly impressed by her mettle. She’s Eldian, but the Warriors outrank most Marleyan cadets, even those leagues older than them. It usually takes guts to approach her, though she tries to maintain an air of friendliness.

“Sure,” Pieck says. She smiles, waves of her midnight fringe falling away from her face. “What time sounds good?”

The soldier stares down at her, working her face like a hinge into a smile, cool friendliness. “Eight tonight, at the bottom of the old Elbe factory.”

Pieck nods and says, “I’ll see you,” and that seals their meeting.

Pieck heads there after Commander Magath’s dismissed the Warriors for the evening. The place is a speakeasy, and she first has to find a garment workshop, search behind the foreman’s desk, press a concealed lever, traverse the night-thin depths of a stairwell, then—finally, finally—produce a passcode to a cloaked man at the door to enter. A place etched into the most invisible and sinister levels of the capital’s underbelly, open to you once you blow past its guarded entrance. Well, she gets there with the same ease one has sliding into an old haunt. She’s been a regular there since she learned to listen out at daytime cafeterias for intel from patrons, and ferreted the secret for this out from an Eldian neo-Restorationist’s napkin scrawl.

She knows the reason the place is nested so deeply: it’s a meeting-place for rebels, radicals, sanguine and cynical Marleyans alike. A trading spot for anti-establishment sentiments. So going to the trouble to find it is a mark of trustworthiness for its clientele. With this piece of information, she already knows enough to blow the soldier’s cover wide open, or report her to the authorities for sedition—and also that she has enough currency to trust her by.

If the soldier’s here, she’s probably sympathetic to the Eldians’ plight. A surge of reality: Pieck isn’t entirely fond of Marley herself. As it happens, she likes the irony of her situation—a trusted weapon, close to a rotten country’s heart, turning out to be its adversary—a little too much. And there are boons to keeping downtown lifelines, like this bar, open.

After thirty minutes, the soldier finds her at a dark-corner table. Pieck learns her name about five drinks in. They’re both in plainclothes, and not in uniforms, with an understanding of shadowed norms common to those attuned to and living in a country of the unsaid, a nation staked on the circulation of secrets. Yelena, the soldier divulges. All in line with her biographical file. Pieck had checked her particulars earlier in the day back at the base. Pieck nearly tells her Porco’s nickname as a joke when it’s her turn—Pock resembles her name closely enough, like a brother to a sister would—then decides to be honest instead. Fair’s fair.

“So you’re a born and bred Marleyan,” she says to Yelena, drawing circles with her finger in a nearby ashtray. She was able to tell from Yelena’s accent. “As grey-eyed and blue-blooded as they come. Why come down to this place?”

Why play among us Eldians, she means—why risk your safety for the fires of insurrection? She expects a serious answer, because Yelena’s looked like an earnest person so far, eloquent if aloof. But she takes a deep breath—all verdict-like anticipation, like a hangman readying the switch—then says, deadpan, “I want to see posters of my face printed in history books.”

Silence ticks past for ten whole seconds over her facetious answer. Then Yelena belts out a gunshot laugh. Pieck doesn’t stir or laugh, though she smiles, in good-natured sympathy. “I’m kidding. It’s simple. I don’t agree with what the government’s doing. Depriving other states of their sovereignty—it goes against every value our modern world should rely on.”

All the same, when Pieck leans back to study her face—her strong and handsome brows, her arresting statue-gaze—only one thing comes to mind: that she's destined for the top seats. To pull Marley up by the roots, brick by holier-than-thou brick. The flair of hidden greatness lies somewhere in her, and Pieck is attentive to it, tugged to it like a seismic pull. Earlier in the day, at the shooting range, Yelena had looked at her gun like she cared not for what it actually was, but the rarefied potential it held: the ways it could, aimed properly, be a threat, a peace-maker, a flare to strike the match of a revolution.

She’s one to watch: that's the final and decisive assessment Pieck settles on.

“Well,” Pieck says, placing an especially warm hand on Yelena’s, thumbing her pulse with intent. Closing the gap. “It sounds like we can be friends.”

Yelena gives her a meaningful look, eyes darkened, corners of her mouth curling up into a smirk. “I dare say we can be more than that.”

----

She’s climbing stairwards towards the top of the castle now, above the Yeagerists’ holding cells, tasting but not feeling the whipcrack-sting of the high winds sneaking in biting into her cheek. She has filtered out all nonessential detail, leaving enough attention to deal with her surroundings—to watch out for disturbances, among Eren’s flock now gathered before her.

She’d run into Yelena while being escorted by Eren. A practical inevitability, with Yelena’s new god—sorry, “gods”—given line of work, and they both certainly knew this; there was not an inch of surprise in Yelena’s knowing face, when Pieck rounded the corner, only a professional blankness.

They said their bitter non-goodbyes ages ago, when Yelena was bound for a journey with no return on Marley's ill-fated naval convoy. Now they’re in the same castle—weaving along trajectories plotted a lifetime ago in that basement speakeasy, things Pieck saw coming, in hindsight, from the beginning.

“So, good to see you,” Pieck says wryly when she’s within Yelena’s earshot. Yelena looks cleaner without the beard, more like the person she once knew, she'll give her that. But the beard had been a decent attempt at a look.

Yelena doesn't dignify her with a response, eyes simply widening, jaw tightening ever so slightly. Her gaze skims over Pieck’s neck, chin, hands like an executioner’s blade. Pieck lifts her chin up in the ghost of an old reflex, a has-been illusion, that her neck is bared and vulnerable to Yelena. Ready for a brush of heat from her lips, begging for violence.

Yelena had wanted Paradis free too, years ago. Thought Marley’s throne an unjustified one, built on the backs of titans it requisitioned from another empire, war-torn suffering. But—their roads had forked away from each other, diverged in a messy undertow of irreconcilable political difference, and now Yelena’s fist is raised aloft on the rooftops, ready to give a signal to every one of Eren’s followers to shoot or come to heel. Their heartlines once veining uniform territory; their methods divided.

She can almost remember the way she ruffled Yelena’s hair in comfortable mornings at the cafeterias, or in stolen moments behind hidden staircases, or in Yelena’s rickety rented house. Gentleness now providing the scaffold for fresh resentment.

Yelena had been headed straight for the highest places she could dream of, after all. Just not the ones where Pieck would be around, too. But she can topple this castle, and every remnant of Yelena's power with it. No castles should exist in such a world, where they will never defend against the chains of bloodshed, the long unforgiving shadows of history they cast the same no matter who's at the helm.

A few more steps, and a relaxed walk, and she’s where she needs to be for the Warriors’ plan, an audience of enemies gathered before her. Pieck has lived through many watershed moments, not least the destruction of her hometown, squandered collateral in a bigger impersonal game. She stands far away but facing Yelena now, unrevealing gaze against unrevealing gaze, at the very edge of the ramparts’ border. Eren asking the question: where is the enemy? The direction her hand falls in will determine everything.

She grasps Gabi’s hand in hers, smiles, and points.

time to reveal what a mess my wip folder is to y'all 😭 i swear most of these (some of them) will be finished eventually

and thanks for the tag @levi-supreme <3

genshin impact

three months // three days (childe character study, 4+ chapters planned but currently it's just a bunch of disconnected dialogue snippets and scenes)

pulp fiction au drabbles for hu tao, ningguang, childe, and thoma (just notes so far)

fem!character love language headcanons (finished ganyu & yoimiya)

untitled childe x reader femdom (drafted & waiting for revisions)

scara x reader camp counselor au (possibly part of a larger summer drabble series? just notes so far)

one piece

first love late spring (acesan/zosan soulmate au angst, set during alabasta; drafted but in need of major edits)

attack on titan

pulling the bodies out of the lake (pre-marley arc armin character study with jean and levi talkin' bout grief; very close to finished at 6.5k words but i've been sitting on it since march so who knows)

nice and easy (jearmin abo; like half done at 2k words)

jujutsu kaisen

no curse more twisted (heian period sukuna & uraume character study ft. erotic cannibalism; 1 part out of 3 drafted)

tagging @gendervapor14 @wurm-food @strawhatsoraya @stoned-eren and any other writer moots!! and ofc no pressure if you don't want to share, i'm just nosy hehe

Birthday Musician Finley Quaye, born 25th March 1974, Edinburgh.

Quaye comes from a musical background with Ghanaian lineage - his father was the jazz singer/pianist Cab Kaye, while his brother Caleb Quaye played guitar for Hookfoot and Elton John in the 70s, followed by a stint with Hall And Oates in the 80s. Quaye was raised in Manchester and on leaving school he returned to Edinburgh, where he worked as a paint sprayer, and often drove to Newcastle to attend gigs by artists such as 808 State and Soft Cell.

Moving back to Manchester, he embarked on a BTEC course in music and sound engineering, but did not complete his tuition. He briefly relocated to London where he joined the Donga Tribe and practised drumming. His aspirations towards a singing career began when he returned to Manchester, where he voiced a track for A Guy Called Gerald in one take. Shortly after the session, he returned to Edinburgh, where he unexpectedly heard the track on the radio, and subsequently began listening to dub music. His initial inspiration came from an unorthodox source, the New York-based avant-gardist John Zorn’s ‘Black Hole Dub’, although he was later inspired by more conventional performers.

Quaye recorded his first solo outing on a four-track tape, singing and playing drums, bass and guitar. In March 1997, he released the Ultra Stimulation EP, which demonstrated his diverse influences, including Charles Mingus, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. He also embarked on the live circuit, debuting at Bristol’s Malcolm X centre, where he supported Luciano.

In June, he released ‘Sunday Shining’, which gave a nod to Bob Marley’s ‘Sun Is Shining’, as well as other reggae hits including Dennis Brown’s ‘Money In My Pocket’. The song, delivered in a style similar to that of a young Burning Spear, became his first UK chart hit and Quaye’s unique approach was much lauded by the critics. The promotional wheels were set in motion with appearances at the major summer festivals, including the Essential Roots Day alongside Everton Blender, Cocoa Tea and Anthony B. in Finsbury Park, London, and the release of his debut album. Further chart success followed with the singles ‘Even After All’, ‘It’s Great When We’re Together’, and ‘Your Love Gets Sweeter’, and he was voted Best Male Singer at the 1998 BRIT Awards.

I wish I could say Leither, Quaye had gone from strength to strength, but he has had a troubled life since then, appearing in several courts on various charges after unsavoury incidents, one was over an argument over Game Of Thrones.  He was once booed off stage halfway through a performance at a Madness festival in 1998, billed as a pre World Cup bash, Finley endeared himself to the English partisan audience by making derisory statements concerning the England football squad’s likely performance in the competition, just normal Scottish banter, but the English didn’t see it that way! 

In 2015 he played a gig in Gloucester, not turning up for the soundcheck, eventually the gig began at 9pm and Quaye started playing with his back to the audience, the gig promoter appeared and ended it, kicking him off stage telling the audience he had never seen a man act so unprofessionally and telling them he would refund their money. In 2019 he was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work for punching a bar manager and threatening to stab him during an unprovoked drunken attack.

He was convicted of  of criminal damage after he admitted throwing sign through a bus door during a row over a fare that happened in 2020. 

He is back was back on stage a couple of years ago, as he celebrates the 25th Anniversary of his double-platinum debut album Maverick A Strike at Edinburgh’s Liquid Rooms on Wednesday 1st June and Glasgow’s Oran Mor on Thursday 2nd June 2022, he is also playing The Garage, London on May 27th.

I've not found a lot oof Finley lately, I hope he is well, I guess he does struggle with his mental health, like I do and\many more of us.

scrooge 1951 but theyre figuring out jorkins is embezzling

Scrooge but like 30: They're onto me, dude. Those guys are sharp as nails up there. You can't put anything past them. Oh, my God, dude, I'm freaking out. I am so stressed out. I feel like I'm having a panic attack.

Marley but like 30: You want to talk about stress? You want to talk about stress?! Okay? I've stumbled onto a major company conspiracy, Ebenezer. How about that for stress?

Scrooge: What the hell are you talking about?

Marley: This company is being bled like a stuck pig, Scrooge, and I got a paper trail to prove it. Check this out. Take a look at this.

Scrooge: Jesus Christ, Jacob

Marley: That right there is the mail. Now, let's talk about the mail. Can we talk about the mail, please, Scrooge? I've been dying to talk about the mail with you all day, okay? Pepe Silvia... This name keeps coming up over and over again. Every day, Pepe's mail's getting sent back to me. I look in the mail. This whole box is Pepe Silvia. So, I say to myself, I got to find this guy. I got to go up to his office. I got to put his mail in the guy's goddamn hands. Otherwise he's never gonna get it. He's gonna keep coming back down here, so I go up to Pepe's office, and what do I find out? What do I find out?! There is no Pepe Silvia. The man does not exist, okay? So, I decide, "Oh, shit, buddy. I got to dig a little deeper." There's no Pepe Silvia. You got to be kidding me. I got boxes full of Pepe! All right, so I start marching my way down to Jorkins in HR, and I knock on his door, and I say, JOOOOORKINS, Jorkins, I got to talk to you about Pepe." And when I open the door, what do I find? There's not a single, goddamn desk in that office. There is no Jorkins in HR. Scrooge, half the employees in this building have been made up. This office is a goddamn ghost town.

Scrooge: Okay, Jacob, I'm gonna have to stop you right there. Not only do all of these people exist, but they have been asking for their mail on a daily basis. It's all they're talking about up there. Jesus Christ, dude, we are going to lose our jobs.

Marley: Well, calm down, 'cause here's one thing that's not gonna happen.

Scrooge: What?

Marley: We're not gonna get fired.

Scrooge: We're not?

Marley: 'Cause we've already been fired.

Scrooge: We've lost our jobs?!

Marley: About three days ago, Jorkins sent pink slips in the mail. One for you and one for me. So what did I do? I mailed them halfway to Siberia, okay?

Scrooge: Jacob, if we've lost our jobs, that means we've lost our health insurance, which means all of this was for nothing. Goddamn it, dude. I'm having a panic attack. I am actually having a panic attack.

Marley: Oh, will you settle down and have another cup of coffee?

Scrooge: I am, bro.

Marley: All right, well, fine. You know what, Present? Give this guy a cigarette. He’s freaking out.

Scrooge: Who?

Marley: Present. He's the guy who tipped me off to Pepe Silvia.

Scrooge: Present?! Who the hell is Present?!

Marley: You don't see Pre...? Oh, shit, where the hell did he...?

Scrooge: You've lost your mind. You've lost you goddamn mind, Jacob.

That's it, folks. Thank you for all your lovely comments, I'm very happy I could share this story with you 💜

Never Let Me Go

status: 7/7 (completed)

ship: Reiner Braun/Jean Kirschtein

what: angst with a happy ending

warnings: explicit content, canon-typical violence and gore, not for minors

summary: Canon Divergence AU – Pre-S4. Marley no longer needs the Warriors. Forced to flee from the continent to avoid being executed, Reiner, Gabi and Falco arrive on the Island of Paradis where they run into Jean. Reiner offers him a deal: his life and the Armored Titan’s powers for the children’s safety.

sneak peek:

Morning light is filtering through the clouds of dust, settling on Jean’s shoulders and the bare skin of the Titan charging at him. Suddenly, the swords in his hands begin to feel heavy. What right does he have to fight Eren? They are both doing what they believe to be fair, after all. Eren is only demanding justice and Jean’s head for his transgressions. And Jean himself? He made a promise. He has to survive. But surviving doesn’t necessarily mean killing those who are after him.

Jean doesn’t believe in destiny, but if something akin to it really exists, he has just this one chance to take it in his own hands. Shivers are running down his spine as the ground keeps on trembling, the distance between him and Eren becoming shorter with every passing second. For some reason, Jean feels like the heaven itself was about to fall down on his head.

He hides his blades and turns on the propellers to dodge the attack. Eren’s fingers scrap at the ground, his sharp nails leaving long ruts in their wake. Jean lands at a safe distance, but is soon forced to move again.

“Eren! Calm down!” he yells and dodges another attack, escaping seconds before the Titan’s fist turns him into a wet stain. Jean shields his face from the debris and stones that get thrown into the air when Eren punches a hole in the street. “Listen to me, you idiot! I know you’re angry with me! But we haven’t exhausted all the options yet! Let’s talk! Together we can—Fucking hell!”

The Attack Titan roars, trying to swat at Jean with its hand as if he was just an annoying fly. Jean throws himself to the side and flies above Eren’s arm before it hits one of the buildings. Another roar permeates the air, and Jean decides to put some more distance between them. He escapes into a narrow street, hoping it will prevent Eren from following after him, but the Titan rushes forward, trampling everything in its way. Jean is flying at a high speed, using up more gas than he should, but even with the alarm sirens wailing in the background, he can still hear the screams of people dying in the rubble underneath Eren’s feet.

Jean doesn’t dare look back.

continue reading: ao3

Didn't Marley and the rest of the world feel threatened by the possibility of Paradis launching the rumbling after the founding titan was usurped

That's called a pre-emptive strike is not a justifiable response to start a war let alone genocide. You can't justify a war because "well they could attack us." You could use that to justify wiping out any country with a comparable military to your own, anyone with a nuclear weapon, etc.

And you'll note, Eren didn't move a muscle until Tybur declared war on Marley. (Now, there is something to be said that Eren knowing the future kind of means he can't do a pre-emptive strike? Because its not a matter of 'they could destroy us' it's a matter of 'I saw the future, they are going to destroy us' but, well, if Eren can act to change the future it's a null point and still a pre-emptive strike, if he can't then eren has no free will, oh well.)

Back to the main point, you can't justify a war, let alone a genocide on a maybe. Its the lesson of many war stories, look at Marvel's Civil War 2 for example. It also goes against the principle of 'Innocent until proven guilty' and 'guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.' You can't prove guilt when there's no guilty act to prove.

The man of the hour, Sygna Suit Giovanni, has arrived.  Finally, someone with good Ground-type and Poison-type damage.  And it comes from a Johto unit.  Perhaps the most significant Johto unit of all.  A guy who wasn't even in the Johto games until the remakes, and is decisively Kantonian.

General Overview Yeah, this guy's good.  By sheer damage numbers, he's some of the best, packing Hit the Gas 5 on a Ground-Shift Mega Kick that can't miss.  Listen, why do we even give damage bonuses for Normal-type or inaccurate attacks anymore?  They're all just going to convert to a specific type and get Piercing Gaze or enough self-buffing of accuracy to offset the "downsides" anyway.  Kris is the only honest option, and she's considered garbage because we only just got Aaron who can actually help fix the problem.  Now we're going to powercreep this stuff by just making a singular passive that's both the type shift and Piercing Gaze at the same time?  It's nonsense, is all I'm saying.

But that's just one of his boons.  Iron Tail and Poison Jab are similarly rare offensive types, and he's got them too, packing similar levels of multipliers.  Oh, and he can Dynamax.  So all these moves also come pre-loaded with a super powerful attack behind it that can buff his defensive stats or help allies with special attack boosting.  And in case you were wondering, yes, they’re all Top 3 damage in their respective types.  Hell, Iron Tail is the strongest Steel-type move damage, outside of Kimono Grimsley’s Metal Burst, just in case you were worried his tertiary attack type wasn’t good enough.  Oh, and his trainer move caps attack, and gives guaranteed crit next. But not to worry, he gets a grid node that makes it so every time he crits, he gets guaranteed crit next again forever, which makes this even betterer than +3 crit, because now you can’t even get trolled by missing the 80% crit chance on sync.  Because god forbid a Kanto unit have to suffer a flaw.

Well that’s not entirely fair.  His one actually serious flaw is that he needs 3/5 for any of this to work.  Even without it, he’s a top Ground and Poison-type damage dealer, so 100% worth getting just based on the offensive coverage alone.  This unit was practically created just to fill in gaps.  But without 3/5, you don’t get the sync multiplier, you don’t get the extra power behind max moves, you lose a lot of power on Poison Jab by losing Furious Brawn, and most devastating of all, you lose the guaranteed Crit Next effect every time you crit, making him fully reliant on a crit buffer.  As a result, Giovanni is a 1/5 just for the offensive coverage and you’re willing to support him to do it, or a 3/5 project to become a self-sufficient nightmare in three under-represented types.  So...really, even without 3/5, he’s still well worth it.

If it isn't obvious, Giovanni's stupid good, to the point I'm legitimately annoyed about it.  It actively annoys me how powerful this unit is.  This is the Johto villain arc, and yeah, it makes sense for Giovanni to be here, and there will be a part 2.  But like...remember in Sinnoh, when Cynthia dropped and was stupid good, and Lucas was stupid good, and then SS Cyrus and SS Dawn, who should have been the big focal points of the narrative, wound up being good but also kinda awkward?  I’m worried that the obvious popular guy in Giovanni is going to get the big appearance, and everyone else in Johto is gonna be...around, and just kind of okay.  And thus Johto gets shafted in its own villain arc by a Kantonian.  Masters does well with keeping things balanced, so this might be me worrying over nothing.  But I’m hoping the other Johto units keep up, because this?  This is a high bar.

Team 1: SS Giovanni, Nanu, Marley That's it, that's all you need.  Marley provides the speed buffs for gauge control, Nanu debuffs defenses, Giovanni kicks everyone in half.  Or punches.  Or...smacks with his tail.  Really, any of the options work here, it's not like there's a problem.

Team 2: SS Giovanni, Hop/NY!Lillie, Marley Maybe you don't want to use that one grid node for constant guaranteed crits.  Maybe you want to do it the old fashioned way.  That's fine.  Hop can do the buffing and Giovanni can go straight to killing.  Or maybe just bring NY!Lillie, use the defensive buffs from a Max Move to fuck with the enemy by boosting evasion too.  Sky’s the limit, really.

Final Thoughts Look, I don't know what else to say here.  SS Giovanni is insanely straight forward.  You bring something for speed, you bring something for debuffing defense or taking over the crit situation to conserve energy, and you blast.  There is nothing complex about this kind of fight. You are here to deal infinity billion damage, and there is literally nothing that can stop you.  Barring Gauntlet gimmicks, I suppose, but frankly just bring the needed gimmick.  Oh no, it's Uxie, that'd be scary if BP Erika and Lucy didn't exist.  Oh no, it's Latias, good thing we have Lucian.  Hell, you want to get really nasty to Regirock?  Palentine's Marnie.  Let's see how it does against a guaranteed hit Iron Tail with Hit the Gas and Steel Zone.

There's nothing else to say about this guy.  He's ridiculous.

It just occurs to me that Ground-weak Diantha was designed for Courtney, with her weakness being defense and speed debuffs. However, Courtney's defense debuffs are far from reliable pre-mega, so...

Siebold: The sides loved spamming Muddy Water, which was kinda scary for frail units like SS Erika and Brendan. Luckily, SS Morty was just too awesome he wouldn't let any of his team members go down, ever. The accuracy debuffs were a little annoying, but thankfully this team pulled through even with accuracy debuffs.

Drasna: Okay, I got to think a bit about this teambuilding. I refuse to use SS Steven, he's only for emergency cheat button, so Lear. I know he doesn't need terrain so I won't use Bianca. The problem was the Poison, and Sp. Atk debuffs needed to negate Furious Brain. Also I think this stage constantly debuffed speed but I'm not sure. So, I went with Marley and Lodge Dawn. Lodge Dawn proc-ed Mind Games 2 a lot I'm actually impressed. Once Marley ran out of trainer moves, she lasted for two another turns before going down, but thankfully Lodge Dawn could stay alive until the end. Lodge Dawn also had Natural Remedy but she got poisoned again after that, one turn before the battle ended. Lear luckily didn't get poisoned at all. This team worked rather well even though Marley had to go down.

Malva: Even though I was using the weaker Sidney build (the Critical Charge 9 build for gauge control in exchange of significant sync power), Malva still went down first sync. Sidney is awesome. And Summer N took care of the rest. This team didn't need high-tier supports like Halloween Caitlin or Champion Calem, Sawyer did a pretty good job too, his flinches helped a lot.

Wikstrom: I tried using Roxanne, I really tried. I only grabbed Strength Up 2 and Power Up 2 at hit (you know the ones), with attack debuffs from Darach, some defensive buffs from herself and she still went down way too quick, like 4 hits including the Endurance. I suppose Wikstrom hit way too hard. I went with Leaf, and plenty of overkill happened, like SC Diantha dealing 85k second sync and 93k third sync. Maybe this is the team I'll go for.

Diantha: Been a while since I used Ground-build SS Serena, or used SS Serena for CS at all. She, like SS Steven, is a cheat button that I only use if the situation is dire. Naomi was an amazing F2P Ground striker, except in this stage where everyone was so happy at debuffing Sp. Atk and Speed, as well as AoE moves to endanger Naomi further. So, yeah, this was the situation that forces me to use SS Serena. I brought Courtney in hopes of her proc-ing defensive debuffs to power up SS Serena, and Ground Zone. Ingo was the gauge control, since this team's gauge needs was quite high and the opposing team debuffs speed constantly. In the end, Courtney didn't proc Defense Crush 2 at all, unlike Lodge Dawn, but her Ground Wish helped a lot so she at least contributed in that aspect. She also spent most of her turns spamming trainer moves because Ingo didn't proc MPR on his trainer move. Thankfully the Ground Wish helped a lot to boost SS Serena's significantly weaker Thousand Waves damage, to presync clear this stage.

Attack on Titan - Season 4 A rewatch commentary (because of course I have more things to say) Full manga spoilers (including the ending)

-i love aot, i'm tearing up :') top-notch story, top-notch animation throughout.

-aot only benefits from rewatches. they only add to the greatness

-you know. pre-time skip!eren would never in a million years have responded to falco by asking if the candidate that he doesn't want to see become a warrior is a girl. his mind just wasn't working that way- romantically. another clue that now romance is part of his life (or unrequited love. or whatever he has going on with mikasa, idk)

-aot has SUCH good music

-"declaration of war" is SO. GOOD.

-L I S T E N tho, when warhammer titan asks for eren's last words and he says "now, mikasa"... TECHNICALLY this applies to what his actual last words could have been had he spoken them.

-i wonder. if eren knows the future, is there any point when he's genuinely afraid for his life? isn't it a given that he'll live to do the rumbling? his surprised reactions when attacked must be just that, the instinctual reaction of surprise and the fear of pain, right? not fear for his life. i'd say, and that's totally a theory, that in marley he is actually worried, because he's only just starting to go on the offensive. but he makes it out, gets even more jaded and settled in his plan, and by the time pieck threatens him at gunpoint, he's seasoned enough to know she won't kill him. and then gabi does -technically- kill him, which he didn't foresee at all.

-the nerve of using galliard as a nutcracker, i'll never get over that

-yuki kaji is so good. i'm never gonna stop singing his praises.

-but why did shirtless wonder escape from prison shirtless? aesthetics aside

-little-shit-eren is lying to armin and mikasa through his teeth i cannot.

-eren's eyes in close-up look disdainful and pained at the same time, respect to the animators.

-the EMA restaurant scene always hurts me so much. so much. it legit makes me look forward to the ending for its (soft and low-key) resolution.

-i mean, eren's not lying to gabi, he actually thinks he can save falco by luring out pieck and co. avoiding an altercation would mean no scream, which would mean safe falco and a successfully incomplete rumbling, which would also mean a safe falco.

-i've been thinking, eren didn't expect marley to attack so soon. it wasn't part of the plan. so what was the plan? eren's plan for paradis didn't involve violence. shiganshina was evacuated, and arguably no one within the other walls would have to die - arguably they would have been held back by the yeagerists, had they not had to rush to shiganshina to fight. eren's going along with the wine plan was a safe option, because zeke was never supposed to scream in the first place; there weren't supposed to be titans and marleyans to fight, just a passage to shiganshina on the appointed time. no one on paradis was supposed to get hurt, or if they had to, the casualties were supposed to be minimal. this chaos and disaster was never the plan. "sit tight, shut up and wait until the gang stops me," basically.

-the satisfaction i get every time, when yelena tells titan eren to come out and not fight and he ignores her. so much satisfaction.

-i love how everyone in the main cast has so distinctive personalities. they’re not archetypes, they’re just distinctive people

-the last-ish shot of eren screaming in the op with his hair getting loose still lives rent-free in my head. it's so raw.

-i just find it interesting how eren is struggling so much (reiner is straddling him at the moment), and he still gasps and tells zeke to wait when he's about to scream, he still protects his people (or tries to). he's not unfeeling or indifferent, nor careless.

-("brothers" ep) i'm like "it's okay, you know what happens, you've watched it happen, aot can't hurt you anymore,” but this.fucking.hurts! i suffer!

-HOW DID I JUST NOTICE THAT EREN SEES MIKASA AND ARMIN FROM SCHOOL CASTES IN THE PATHS

-ah yes, grisha hugging the zeke-shaped air with the accuracy of... something. you get the point.

-the most unrealistic thing about aot is mikasa's scarf making it in one piece and seemingly unscathed until her old age.

-interesting how falco stabs himself with a nail to turn into a titan. he doesn't have the experience nor the unrelenting tenacity nor the wrath of the others to just chomp on his hand

-the "his and hers" ep hurts. a lot. (i don't even care what 4x28 is actually called, it's such a his-an'-hers ep)

-cool cool cool, baby eren woke up crying from his dream as he saw older eren being killed by mikasa in his founder form. nice. cool. this is fine. this is. great. sure.

-i really like the aot cast, man. everyone is so well-crafted, there's no weak character in this damn story.

-eren the paths!calls spammer

-on a side note, i don’t understand how some still believe that eren didn’t accomplish anything and that it was all meaningless. he accomplished all of his goals. he wiped out the titans, stopped the titan cycle, ensured long lives for (most of) his friends and peace for paradis for about a century at least, and he got to experience what he considered freedom. mission accomplished.