[ 𝐚𝐧𝐧 ] 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥.ᐟ

ann has Not updated

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── ★ ˙ ̟ .ᐟ.ᐟ╒"…𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑪𝑨𝑵 𝑾𝑬 𝑺𝑨𝒀 𝑾𝑯𝑬𝑵 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑰𝑺 𝑨 𝑾𝑨𝑳𝑳.ᐣ" ╛ ann ⟡ she / her ⟡ 18+ ⟡ m.list ⟡ ao3 ⟡ wattpad ⟡ sfw blog

── ★ ˙ ̟ .ᐟ.ᐟ╭ "𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐋. 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘, 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐈𝐓." ╯ #ann on air — my posts #ann writes — my writing #ann draws — my drawings #ann answers — asks #ann designs — collages #ann squared — icymi #ann reads — fic recs #reblogs — reblogs

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Norway you need to beat the engl*sh to the ground. For us

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my shayla #1

[pinrelin]

why doesnt the big re9 Leon S. Kennedy eat the tiny re2r Leon S. Kennedy, is he stupid?

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rotating them in my mind

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we are so fucking back baby !!!! I read twoooo books this week

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chp30 was actually insane

like the description was so vivid and intense

i wonder how her plans will change now she technically has nothing to lose

and now i have many questions like

why was she brought here? if she’s been in the paths before can she go back?

AHH IDK i’m really excited now

idk why but i wasnt expecting that at all so it feels like anything can happen now

WOOO i poured my soulllll into that chapter im so so happy yall like it!!!! now that she had nothing to lose, what will she do? she could just go all in-whats the worst thing that could happen, death? been there done that and its honestly more peaceful than whatever the fuck is going on. or. she could just. not care. whats going to happen? death?

as for the questions... well. you'll see

[drabblesanddreams]

To Chain A God Sources — Masterlist

ICYMI, To Chain a God (TCAG) is an Attack on Titan massive longfic (current word count 100+k) that deals with an alternate political universe, probing questions of diverse forms of justice (racial, procedural, recognitional, environmental, etc), accountability, Indigineity, and what we owe to each other as humans in times of political strife and violence. 

More than anything, TCAG is a divergence from the canon conclusion, and it does this by deepening the world-building specifically around racial/ethnic communities, religion, and politics. 

As such, I’ve spent a LONG ASS time researching the necessary material to shape the story in a way that I hope is responsible for these themes. As you may or may not know, I’m a sociology PhD student studying very similar topics, so thankfully a lot of the reading I already do was super useful to pull from for fleshing TCAG out. 

And because I’m a grad student, I take research and sources very seriously, and I absolutely love to share what I use with others, especially if you find yourself in any shape, way or form inspired to learn more from the story. That being said, if you want to read any of these sources and are paywalled or can’t access for any reason, PLEASE don’t be afraid to hit me up and I’ll send them over for free :) I’m a big fan of knowledge democratization so don’t be scared to drop a message! 

There are several things to note about this list.

It’s not a complete, finalized list and will be updated accordingly as I continue to write chapters.

there are specific topics I’m incorporating into TCAG that I will not yet include my sources from because it’ll be a complete spoiler for certain plot points if I do.

A lot of these sources are not layman-friendly; that being said, please let me know if you’d be interested in more layman-friendly recommendations!!

And finally the * indicates a source I heavily used. 

TCAG is a complete labour of love that I’ve technically spent the last five years or so engrossed by all alone and take very seriously so it only felt right and natural so share what the process has looked like so far <3 

(also sharing this bc the last thing I want are AI allegations tyvm)

Religion

Brubaker, R. (2013). Language, religion and the politics of difference. Nations and nationalism, 19(1), 1-20. *

Roman catholic religious dress *

Vestments worn by priests

The Colour of Vestments for Catholic Holidays

Cults

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

Munro, D. (2024). Cults, Conspiracies, and Fantasies of Knowledge. Episteme, 21(3), 949–970. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.55

Bowden, H. (2023). Mystery Cults in the Ancient World. Thames & Hudson.

Robbins, T., & Anthony, D. (1980). The Limits of “Coercive Persuasion” as an Explanation for Conversion to Authoritarian Sects. Political Psychology, 2(2), 22–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/3790815

Military Strategy

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn) by Antulio J. Echevarria III

Kennedy, P. M. (Ed.). (1991). Grand strategies in war and peace. Yale University Press.

Three Levels of War by USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education

Strategy vs. Tactics: Why the Difference Matters *

Political Sociology 

Power: A Radical View by Steven Lukes

The Sources of Social Power Vol 1-4, Michael Mann (selected excerpts ofc) *

Bringing the State Back in by Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol *

Moore, Barrington. 1993. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press. *

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *

Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Cambridge: Wiley. *

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1976. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. *

Hooks, G. 2020. “War, States, and Political Sociology: Contributions and Challenges.” In The New Handbook of Political Sociology, pp. 924–950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Evans, Peter and Patrick Heller. 2015. “Human Development, State Transformation and the Politics of the Developmental State.” In Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State, eds. Stephan Leibfried et al.

Tuğal, Cihan. 2021. “Populism Studies: The Case for Theoretical and Comparative Reconstruction.” Annual Review of Sociology 47.

Polletta, Francesca, and James M. Jasper. 2001. “Collective Identity and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology27:283–305.

Tarrow, Sidney and Charles Tilly. 2007. “Contentious Politics and Social Movements.” In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics.

Erin, Ş, & Chase-Dunn, C. 2020. “Global Political Sociology and World-Systems.” In The New Handbook of Political Sociology, pp. 953–972.

Race & Ethnicity

Theories

Banton, Michael.  [1987] 1998. Racial Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *

Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. 2016. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. *

Brubaker, Rogers and David D. Laitin. 1998. “Ethnic Violence and Nationalist Violence.” Annual Review of Sociology24:423–452.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 1935. Black Reconstruction in America, Ch. XIV, “Counter-Revolution of Property.”

Mills, Charles W. 1999. The Racial Contract. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press. 171 pages *

Indigneiety

Igoe, Jim. 2006. "Becoming Indigenous Peoples: Difference, Inequality, and the Globalization of East African Identity Politics." Afrian Affairs 105 (420):399-420.

Niezen, Ronald. 2000. "Recognizing Indigenism: Canadian Unity and the International Movement of Indigenous Peoples." Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 42 ( 1 ):119-48. *

Rodriguez-Lonebear, D. (2021) ‘The Blood Line: Racialized Boundary Making and Citizenship among Native Nations’, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. doi: 10.1177/2332649220981589.

Bowen, John R. 2000. "Should We Have a Universal Concept of 'Indigenous Peoples' Rights'?" Anthropology Today 16 ( 4 ):12-16.

Tsing, Anna. 2007 . "Indigenous Voice." Pp. 33-67 in Indigenous Experience Today, eds. Marisol de la Cadena and Orin Starn. New York: Berg. *

Dhillon, J. (2021). Indigenous resistance, planetary dystopia, and the politics of environmental justice. Globalizations, 18(6), 898–911. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1866390 *

Whyte, K. P. (2018). Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of climate change crises. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1(1–2), 224–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618777621 *

Multiraciality 

Harris, D. and J. Sim. 2002. "Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race." American Sociologial Review 67(4): 614-27.

DaCosta, K. 2020. "Multiracial Categorization, Identity, and Policy in (Mixed) Racial Formations." Annual Review of Sociology 46(1): 335-53 *

Telles, E. and C. Sue. 2009. "Race Mixture: Boundary Crossing in Comparative Perspective." Annual Review of Sociology 35(1): 129-46

Roth, Wendy .2016. "The Multiple Dimensions of Race." Ethnic and Racial Studies 39:1310-1338

Appalachia

"The Last Bastion of Colonialism": Appalachian Settler Colonialism and Self-Indigenization by Stephen Pearson *

Romani Communities

Books

We Are the Romani People by Ian Hancock *

The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution by Ian Hancock *

Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-speaking Society and Literature *

Gypsy Folktales: A Timeless Collection of Eighty Diverse Stories Spanning Cultures by Diane Tong

Layman-Friendly Articles

Knock on wood? Crystal ball emoji? Those are rooted in my Romani heritage

Marime: Roma Culture's Central Value *

Marime in Gypsy Society

Academic Articles

Talewicz-Kwiatkowska, J., & Kołaczek, M. (2024). “… but this fear, which was in you, you pass on to your child, with the mother’s milk.” In D. Strauß (Ed.), RomnoKher Study 2021: Unequal Participation. On the Situation of the Sinti and Roma in Germany (pp. 91–115). Springer Fachmedien. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-44650-5_3

Romani Creators

Florian Specifically — Meeting the Sinti people, often misunderstood, of Germany and France. *

[overthinkingghost]

Spoiler warning: Pantheon

I genuinely think Pantheon is one of the greatest pieces of media ever created. I think art is an expression, wrt Pantheon is the expression of the creator's idea in an animated medium. Anything can be art (if you think hard enough), but the quality that makes a work of art great is that a great artwork makes you think, in my opinion. Great art makes you think, reflect and question ideas presented; it is especially hard in the age of passive over-consumption of content. Pantheon does not make you ignore or forget it, every little detail can be interpreted about a different thing. The monologues present profound ideas, and each could be an analysis, there is so much to ponder upon once presented - it is magnificent.

One of the core themes is change, the transition of humanity's evolution through technology. The world changes in the show, the lives of characters change and their sense of being alive changes. One thing I particularly like is that the character changes, but instead of they representing particular viewpoints, their own perspectives shift. Maddie and Ellen completely reverse by S2E7, they change. Caspian's arc is about taking control of his life after learning the truth and dealing with his destiny, the purpose of his creation - which causes him to swing in different directions to do the right thing, even embracing the thing he was running from. Though in the end he proves his identity, he is willing to die for his principles like Yair says. He is not Holstrom for his relationships (mainly Maddie) with other people giving him his sense of self, they change his destiny, another core theme of the show on how other people give us identity. The reason Holstrom couldn't crack integrity is because his abusive environment he grew up detached him from people. He only cared about himself. This is why he couldn't understand, even when presented the solution - other people are important for existing. Holstrom never loved anybody, not Renee or his mother or his friends or his cult. He chose evil instead, not that he lacked compassion for some reason as Caspian is filled with it despite his life, Stephen never wanted compassion in his life. He saw them as the pawns in chess. He wanted to be the saviour of humanity, not for saving humanity but to refrain from his fear of death, and to fulfill his own desires - being the God as he was convinced on his outlook of life is the correct one. He wanted to be the God, for he felt entitled to it. He was willing to die to become god but Caspian was willing to die to save humanity. This is why in S2E7 it feels like we lost, half of humanity is UI as change is inevitable. Technology doesn't disappear only humans adapt. On the surface level it feels like this is the utopia Holstrom wanted - but when you look deeper it is not. The UI don't have any God, they are democratic society. It is not a utopia, conflict still persists, maybe it always will for our existence as life. They can choose to die. And this is the evolution of uploaded globalisation in the world of Pantheon. The themes are fleshed out even in majority of side characters, Chanda goes from a normal enginner to an antagonistic force blinded by anger, then unfolds most of plot by sending the UI technology out of his own loneliness and then decides to establish a UI society and a part of it was probably desires godhood but he wants guide the UI race and from a sense of ego or attempt to make sense of his situation decides to the prophet. But after his villain arc, he starts a redemption arc. He sees Ellen 's interview and realised his actions and blind anger has caused effects and now the realisation hits. The guilt is eating him away. He decides to take action and hence tells everyone about the virus plan and goes against the world he wanted when his humanity kicks in. That is why he dies with a smile, he knows he did the right thing. He is not the main character but a point of the plot device. Even Farhad and Yair, at the end of lives and instead of extension of their nations communicate as people, try to understand the history of hatred and decide to change into a CI for that action transcends everything they knew in pursuit of an attempt for something better than the world they lived in.

Its writing is about pushing limits. The decision to not end the show after the big bad guy dies is what makes it memorable. Evolution doesn't stop with one thing ending, change is inevitable. We see the exponential growth of UI as Ellen references in Moore's law. The ending is beyond what I thought any show could achieve. The experimental concepts it pushes are ground breaking but makes it a show of a lifetime for me. The themes are so well integrated into the plot, it is phenomenal. The most important thing is, it is one of the stories which clearly knows what it is doing. That is the most important thing, the world building is great and the pacing works into the theme and has reason. The first episode is slow as the introduction but it represents how time feels for Maddie and Caspian - slow and painful. The last two episodes feel fast because it is in perspective of Caspian, we (viewers) are in the same place of known information 20 years into the future and hence it is supposed to give you a feeling of confusion like it does for Caspian. The pacing is faster in S2 because the world is moving fast and hence the plot.

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and where would I be without my iPad

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there’s a reason reader remembers her [spoiler] that night too I didn’t just pull it out of my ass I swear

[someonecomegettheirchild]

Are you really best friends if you don’t have matching fuck ass bobs????

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if. hypothetically. i opened requests

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── 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 | eren jaeger ⟡ chapter 30

⊱𖣂⊰ | In which you fall into a fictional world with the key to Pandora's box. ── ★ ˙ ̟ . 🗝 .ᐟ.ᐟ masterlist ⊰– prev   next–⊱

── 𝟑𝟎 | 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝

⟡ chapter word count: 3.4k

⟡ content warnings: blanket warnings, asphyxiation, nightmares, panic attacks, fire, graphic description of death and afterlife

⟡ a/n: Oh my god. I cannot believe I'm finally here. This was written two years ago. Insane. I am literally shaking rn it Is That serious to me. Anyway. Hope this chapter solves some questions! Im kinda afraid of posting this ngl, i fear i've hyped it too much and it wont live to expectations lmao

Thanks for reading!

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐀𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐃 much since childhood. 

There's a chair propped on the corner, covered in not clean but also not dirty clothes. Your bedside table sports a funky looking lamp, a second hand find you don’t remember how you got. Your dresser has stickers stuck to it in the lower half, courtesy of toddler-you.

On top of it there's costume jewelry strewn across, while your real jewelry, a gift from your grandma, sits pretty inside a velvet-lined box. A pair of beat up shoes lays by the lower-left post of your bed, accompanied by your backpack, which has a few seams ripped from use. You have a half-filled bookshelf, filled with trinkets, novels and the occasional manga. 

It's nothing like the pictures of bedrooms you see in magazines; those are too artificial, sterile, organized. Yours, you explain when your mom tells you off for the mess, is lived in. 

The sound of your alarm is not what wakes you up that day. The honor goes to the sharp breath you take as you shoot up in your bed, hand reaching for the collar of your shirt, searching for the intangible thing that blocks your airway.

You don’t find anything. Your heart settles.

You blink. Your fingers grip tightly the fabric of your comforter, before relaxing. What were you so stressed about?  

You blink. You’ve already changed out of your pajamas, and are now checking yourself in the polaroid-covered mirror after fixing your bedhair.

You blink. You are walking down the stars— the stairs with your backpack slung over your shoulder, family photographs oddly foggy in your peripheral vision. 

You blink. The voice of your mother is a distant echo reminding you to eat your breakfast. Your father’s distorted cadence wishes you good luck with your upcoming test.

You blink. The door to your house creaks as you close it. You hesitate, a small part of you wanting to come back in. But for what? your brain questions. There is nothing you forgot, nothing left for you to grab. 

You turn around almost robotically, the urge fading away with every step you take. Still, you feel as if you are forgetting something. But are you really? Maybe you haven’t forgotten. After all, how could you forget what you know you are missing?

Was there someone else in the house? You can’t remember.

Your footsteps echo against the pavement, and the muffled sound reaches your ear, delayed. There is something eerie in the air today, electric even, that makes you dread an approaching storm.

The clamminess of the atmosphere clings to your sweater, following after you like a loyal dog. There is nothing loyal about it though, and it feels more like an omen than a companion. The crows sing, cawing soft warnings at whoever is smart enough to decipher them.

Crows. You—there were crows—

You ask yourself if the warnings are meant for you, if whatever they are sounding alarm for is inevitable, fated. It is not the first time you hear them, you realize. There is an uncomfortable familiarity in the caws, and deja vu coats the scene, running along like water, drowning you in the recognition it holds for you.  You walk the length of the familiar sidewalk, feeling nothing but dread as the seconds tick by.

It’ll be over soon. 

Faces of other pedestrians blur alongside you, the morning commute nothing more than a faint drone in the background. You cannot distinguish faces, people, stores. It is all covered in fog, and not even the blinding light of the sun is enough for your brain to process the world around you. Everything is drenched in shadows, everything is drowning in light. There is no place your eyes can properly focus on that is not the path upfront. 

Your feet move as if strung along, body following the script that was written. You stop at an intersection and goosebumps riddle your skin. The people moving around you turn further to mist, their figures blurred like the old footage from your childhood you mom hung onto.

You take another step and the sidewalk transforms into the off-white, specked tiles of your school. The sun is replaced by fluorescent lights that coat the hallway in a sickly yellow haze, and the morning commuters by teenagers, all in varying states of worry for the upcoming exams. 

Textbooks find their way to your backpack, and in a flash, the first half of the school day is over. You wave goodbye to your friends, and begin to head the other way. One of them rushes back to you. Asks to borrow your calculator. You reach for it and realize you have left it in the last classroom you were in.

There are ten minutes to spare before the bell rings again. You purse your lips, but your friend’s pleading eyes win. You reroute, and promise to meet them halfway back, after they get their material from their locker in the opposite direction. 

You walk to the classroom. Across the building, up one floor, the first past the restroom.

There is no teacher and no students inside. Just a forgotten pencil on the floor, a rolled up ball of paper on the corner, a lunchbox someone left behind. And your calculator, where you had left it. 

You almost trip on your way over. A quick look down confirms what you had suspected—your laces are untied. While you kneel, one knee on the cool floor, a shrill alarm begins to ring. 

Distantly, you register it as the fire alarm. It had already gone off twice this week, both with no fires at all. Some kids had set it off on purpose, you had learned, all to skip some particularly gruelling midterms administered by some of the least liked teachers in the staff roster. 

You finish tying your laces with a calm that does not mesh well with the repetitive but urgent sound that blares through the room. You’d be mad, if it were any other day, where the protocol would interrupt your daily routine. But today, with a test you didn’t fully study for on the way, you’re kinda glad. It should give you more time. To study, to freak out about how little you actually remember—anything but the exam.

You grab your calculator and stuff it on the side pocket of your backpack. An old packet of gum springs from it, and you mindlessly make a detour to the trashcan to throw it away. With everything you need, you make your way to the door and make a grab for the handle—

And it's warm. 

Oddly warm. Warm enough that it warms the air around it, warm enough you don’t have to touch it to know. Warm enough to be a cause for alarm.

Shit.

The alarm.

The volume of the piercing pitch rises, as does the frequency of the bursts of sound. Your vision starts to swim—either because of the smoke that slithers through the cracks of the door or from the fear fueled tears that fall from your eyes.

Fuck. Okay. 

Your eyes dart from one side of the room to the other.

The door. 

The widows. 

Maybe if you could crack one open—no, they’re too small, and they have those metal screens. You could rip them? But—oh goddammit, you’re pretty sure you don’t have your scissors on you. Not that they’d do much, the unhelpful side of you rationalizes. 

A chair. If you could break a window with one—

—or maybe you could kick the screen away—-

—would you get charged for it? Maybe, but you’d be alive—

—wait, you're on the second floor, how would you even—

—if only you were in the art classroom; or the science lab. They for sure had a surplus of sharp objects—

—could you make the jump? You’ve never been particularly athletic inclined but—

—all of this because of a stupid calculator—

—just your luck that there is a fire the one time you take more time than normal—

Something falls outside, interrupting the messy stream of half-formed thoughts that pump adrenaline through your veins. Your left pointer finger feels hotter than all others. It's bleeding. Your right index starts too. Your thumbs are both stained with—oh, your mom is going to be so disappointed you’ve fallen back on bad habits—

YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING.

So the windows are a no go. The screen makes it impossible for you to escape through it, and even if you somehow managed to crack it loose the space is too small for you to crawl through. 

Okay.

Okay. Don't panic.

Too late for that, you’re already hyperventilating, you notice. Or is everything just going by really fast? You feel disconnected and razor sharp at the same time. 

Fires. 

You’ve participated in fire drills before. 

There's the—the thing. 

What was the thing?

Right—stop, drop roll. Wait no, that’s just if you catch fire. Are you on fire? No. Your eyes flit down anyway, and no, not a part of you is on fire. 

Okay. What else?

A wet rag under the door, your brain provides, finally deciding to be useful for once. Just one slight problem with that—there's no rags. Or water. 

You’ve lost count of how long you’ve been standing, frozen in the middle of the room. It's been what, a minute? Two? It feels like it's been three hours and five seconds at the same time.

Your eyes sting. You bring the collar of your shirt up in order to block some of the smoke that fills the room, but the hacking cough that follows is proof it's not enough.

The floor is closer now. One of your knees rests against it, while the other serves as a balancing point for your upper body. 

There is not much you are thinking now. What little thoughts you can form are blurry, and they come to life through sludge, lazy and undefined.

Your vision swims. Your muscles give out.

The last thing you see, the last thing you feel, is the warmth of the burning fire that invades through the door, enveloping your body in one last embrace. 

Your vision turns black without the need to close your eyes. You go limp in the middle of the room, wrapped in the ash of smoke, in the growing flames. 

Still, it does little to warm your ever colder body. 

In the end, it is not the fire that kills you, but the smoke that penetrates your lungs until oxygen is purged from within. 

And just like that, you’re gone. 

There's a certain peacefulness that comes with dying. 

You float in nothingness, you float in everything. The universe hums a soothing tune as you pass through nonexistent curtains, their transparent fibers tickling your face, your torso, your arms.

There is no light, there is no darkness. 

There is only peace.

Your body doesn’t obey your orders. The burning sensation of not being able to breathe is not there anymore, and it seems neither is any other. Your body doesn’t obey your orders because it is not there anymore.

You’d always figured you’d be mad if there was consciousness after dying. Of course, the thing you are right now is not necessarily conscious but it's the only way you can describe it. It's light—not the kind you see, but the feeling of floating. Not in air or in water—rather, in yourself.

A fourth dimensional cube is the closest allegory you can think of from Before. You don’t need to explain things now—you are you and what is happening right now and you’ve never felt so whole—but it brings you a weird type of comfort. 

Everything is weird now. Quiet. But also loud. And also not really. You don’t have senses anymore, and yet You still Are. Am. Was. Is. You, you, you. An Embrace from non corporeal hands that also belong to you, that have waited for so long for you to join Them, that are you, you, You. 

And then it ruptures. 

You start to feel pain again. Agonizing, burning, incomparable pain. 

You’d scream if you had a voice to work with. Everything you’ve felt during your Life—the skinned knees, the wood bark scrapes, the sprain from the third grade—is miniscule in comparison. You are being torn apart. Not your body—you. 

The Embrace begins to fade. You cling to It with all your might, and It clings to you with as much force. It is the mirror that completes you, the newfound Something that you have longed to return to and only now realized. 

It doesn’t matter that You are One. The link between You shatters, and with it you do too. 

The calm melody that had once enveloped you fades, and one with more discrepancies in its harmonizations takes its place. It is still beautiful, still ethereal, complex, but it is also more turbulent. The same song rewinds and plays again, different notes taking different places each time it does so. 

You do not appreciate it, for you are too busy writhing in the agony of being ripped away from all you’ve ever wanted. 

A sky full of shining stars fills your vision, ripples of light rupturing the celestial sphere. You watch—eyes? You have eyes again—as they reach outwards into the unknown, converging at the center. 

You know this place. 

You know this place, just like you’ve known all of today.  

Your fingers twitch, and the worldly pain returns, before it is again soothed by silky sand. It is molded to the cavities that make up your body, returning it once again to pre-mortem condition. The agony from You and Them and It is eased too, but rather than curing it it is instead dulled until you can no longer remember what you are missing.

Is this heaven's mortuary? Is God your mortician?

Your essence mixes with the damp earth, and you are put together by gentle hands. Your eyes lazily trace the path from the star-filled sky to your side, where the heavenly reconstructor is rebuilding your body. 

Somehow, you don't find it strange that a young girl is tending to your bedside. Her hands expertly sculpt your body, not only with knowledge but with familiarity. She is tender when she reassembles you, gently forming what mangled mess you have become in your journey here. Your heart beats again, softly humming in harmony with the melody in the air. Your lungs take up air again, softly inflating and deflating in tune with the thrum that pulses through you. 

You try to speak but nothing comes out of your mouth, you try to reach out but the weight of your arms is too heavy. 

Time ticks by, rushes to a stop. Rewinds and starts back again in just one blink of an eye. Details get fuzzier as your vision clears, memories of fire and smoke slipping through your fingers like the fine sand that surrounds you. It is then when the girl reaches to cradle your burned face, her touch tender and merciful.  

You do not ask who she is, where you are, or what is happening. You know, subconsciously, that you’ve been here before, and that you’re safe as long as she is looking over you. She may seem younger in age, but her hands speak of millennia witnessed. She is neither usual nor unusual, just a fading point in the distance you’d never thought you’d touch. 

And yet there’s something different about her. From what you’re pulling, exactly, to make that comparison you have no clue, but it is undeniable that something has changed within her. 

She holds no soul, you come to conclude. After all, eyes are the windows from which the soul peers, and it seems hers are nowhere to be found. 

Your blood starts rushing through your veins like a wild river.

Or maybe she is the soul. And the eyes from which she peers are in the bright, petrified lighting tree in the middle of the dunes. 

She used to have eyes, you distinctly recall. Where are they now? 

Lost beneath the primordial sand? Locked in her tomb, hidden from view?

No matter, you don’t have time to linger on such thoughts. Your consciousness begins to dissolve again, carried away by the soft ripples in the sand. 

The nonexistent wind picks up, and the particles beneath you gain flight, surrounding you, embracing you. The drum of your heartbeat is all you hear now as the hurricane closes in. You yearn for her gentle touch as the sand beneath you rises, eyes desperately looking for any vestige of her presence. 

You only catch a glimpse of the girl before you fade away, ripped apart and stitched together once again. 

The dunes dissolve, as do you, and the ethereal light is replaced by organic sunshine, only to be snuffed away when your eyes snap open. 

You wake with a gasp, your hand coming to clutch at your shirt, your chest, your heart. Your eyes dart frantically around the room, and sweat rolls down your back, down your forehead. In the darkness of the night you try to stand up, failing to do so when your legs get tangled in the bedsheets. 

You heave as you try to control your breathing, and tears roll down your eyes as you clutch your torso, feeling for long-healed burns in your lungs. Your bed creaks as you move, compensating for your erratic moving.

In your mind there is only the classroom, the smoke, the fire, the silence that came after. The peace. The agony. The reconstruction.

You…

You died. 

There is no way you wouldn’t have. You are pretty sure you didn’t just feel as if you were being suffocated—you actually were. 

Even if by some miraculous event the firefighters and paramedics arrived in time and found you, the smoke in your lungs, combined with the scorching heat of the fire, would be enough to seal your fate.

And you hate that the more you think about it the more it makes sense. You died, and somehow found your way to the Paths, to this world. Your body was repaired by Ymir, your soul stitched into place by her intrinsic powers.

You are looping your own death over and over again, (and isn’t that weird, that you know death more intimately than yourself) when, amongst the blaze of your memories, a colder feeling settles in. 

The antithesis of the coolness of it against the heat in your mind is enough to partially snap you out of it. Not completely, not until you are fully enveloped by it and your tear ducts run themselves dry.

Eren’s hand rubs soothing circles on your back, supporting your head with his shoulder, as your heart threatens to tear itself out of your chest, fueled by anxiety and rage and despair. 

You’re grateful he doesn’t ask questions, for you try to speak anyway and all that comes out is a mangled sob. His shirt grows damp with tears, but you don’t care. Or notice. There’s too much going on.

You're dead and he's going to die. You're dead and he's going to die. You're dead and he's going to die. 

What a pair.

You’re looping your death—death. Death? D eath—when something presses against your forehead. Eren mumbles something—an affirmative, a realization, you can’t be too sure—and his arms tighten around you.

Everything else after that is a blur. 

You don’t know how long it has been since you’ve been curled up on the floor, but sometime later your tears finally run out. The pain doesn’t, but your tear ducts have called it quits. You don’t blame them. You want to call it quits too. 

Little by little you return to your body. Your ankles protest at your unconventional posture. Your lungs ask for more and more and more air. Your throat is raspy from the sobs that wrecked it. 

Your breathing is soothed by the feeling of fingers running through your hair.

“...Nightmare?” you hear Eren ask. His voice is still a little blurred on the edges, but it's clear enough you understand.

Your face is still pressed against his shoulder. “Memory,” comes your muffled reply. 

He tenses again. “Future memory?”

You swallow.

“No. Past.”

“Oh.”

You have to tell him before you lose your grit. You don’t want to, because speaking of It out loud means it becomes real—but then again, these past two years have been spent with impossibilities becoming reality. Fiction coming to life, Titans, a whole world against you. Why not resurrection? 

“I know how I came here,” you force out. “I died.”

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THE NEW KEY UPDATE??? I'M???? I DID NOT EXPECT THAT OH MY GOD

I seriously loved it Soooo Much!! I wasn't sure if we would get an explanation as to why tr was there (or if it was always going to be sort of a mystery) but I'm so glad that I did

this changes everything!! 😭 Although I'm sure she's going to be so depressed at the fact that she can't go back home... i'm not ready for the angst but i'm so ready for it!

YAYYYYYY im so glad you loved it!!!! i really do hope it answers some questions and poses others,, it really does change everything fr. rip reader you were never going back </3

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okay so. Disclaimer, the chapter I just uploaded is Not edited bcs I just finished it and I am tired lol

Goodnight everyone see you in the morning

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Out of context for chapter 20

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okay yeah there is no way this is happening in three chapters

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Out of context for chapter 28

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FINALLY