if i died, i wouldn't be able to remember you

[apinkpeonyfrommygarden]

Pink peony after the rain.

[floatan]

[loveage-moondream]

“It was a fine night early in April. A myriad stars mingling with the light of a sickle moon,”

— Virginia Woolf, from The Complete Works; “Orlando: A Biography,”

[autumncozy]

[hortensius-deactivated20240909]

hellsite this, hellsite that….absolute bullshit. where would i even be without classics tumblr? to whom would i turn to share niche interests?? twitter??? don’t make me laugh

[thisivyhouse]

[kafaminguzelligi]

[sansgod]

Our mother Jenny Slate

[sunson]

when y’all say mikasa ‘tops’ in em.......... ok sure everyone has wrong opinions sometimes.........

[sunson]

Idk what’s going on with the snk plot and at this point I’m too afraid to ask

[sunson]

i havent been on here forever omg hey guys ive had like several different mental breakdowns since the last time i was here xp also im a lotr/silm stan now and finrod is my husband  

[sunson]

may your silhouette never dissolve

A twist on them EM moment in 123. Title taken from Pablo Neruda’s Don’t Go Far Off. Unbeta-ed and unedited. 

“I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

He’s stepped on this land a million times before. In his dreams, in his memories. As his father, as Kruger, as all the other titan shifters that came before him. It shouldn’t feel like such a shock to walk into a place that is so familiar, but it is. It shouldn’t feel like dread, or disaster, or whatever it’s called when something terrible is about to happen. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t. And yet, it does. 

Eren thinks that every second is a ticking time bomb. Every minute is an eternity. The slow wait for annihilation and trauma and death. He feels that way now, looking around his surroundings, looking at everyone. They’re all laughing and smiling, all in a world of their own, and he wants so bad to join them. But it’s like his feet are stuck in sand and his body feels so heavy to move, and for a moment, it’s like he isn’t even there. On the outside looking in. He wonders if anyone notices. Wonders if they might even care.

Even if they didn’t, it’s not their fault. He would never blame them for being filled with wonder at this moment. He wants them to be happy, even if that happiness is a lie. 

Footsteps reach him, deft and soft, almost as if they want to be heard, and he doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is.

Mikasa’s voice is just as gentle as her hands when she says his name. He doesn’t even realize that he’s been crying until she calls out to him, and quickly wipes his tears with his sleeve.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone, it’s dangerous,” she says, almost stern. “Everyone’s been looking for you.”

“I know,” he says, and turns to face her until he catches a glimpse of the boy from the marketplace, waving and smiling at them. Next to him stands an older man, probably his father, or grandfather, smiling gently, and Eren manages a weak wave and smile at them both.

“That’s the boy from the market,” Mikasa says. Almost hesitating, she asks, “Eren, what are you doing out here?”

Funny, he could almost swear that she’s asked him this a thousand times before. He can’t quite recall the specifics, but it’s always a variation of the questions. ‘Eren, what are you doing? What have you done? What will you do?’ And the fact that it’s always asked in Mikasa’s voice isn’t strange. He’s known long before that her guidance will always be something he needs. The conscious in his unconscious. The voice of reason in a world that seems so devoid of it. She’ll ask again, in his head always, ‘Eren, what are you doing? What have you done? What will you do?’

He was fifteen when he realized he would never be as strong as Mikasa. And now he realizes that he never will be. Not in her raw strength, which is of course, an uninhibited and destructful force. Not in her courage or bravery. Not in any of that. But always in her hope. And for some reason, her hope still lies with him, and he has never been more afraid to let her down.

It is what he’s always known; he has never been Mikasa’s protector. She was his. 

He washes down these thoughts, as far as he can. As far as he can will them to be, and says something as close to the truth as he can manage. “No, nothing yet.”

She looks at him dubiously, “What do you mean?” She looks around the vast set-up camps and the candle light that glows within them. “This…”

“Is us.” He says. “Almost. It’s us from when we were fleeing war. When we lost our homes and everything we knew. When our entire world was stolen from us.”

The anger is familiar, almost too easy to latch onto. He can feel it in his veins, but it’s a shadow of what it used to be. 

If he tries hard enough, he can see his mother’s face in the distance. He can almost recall her smile, the colour of her eyes. It leaves him too early, though. Leaves him without enough time.

“Your wrong.” Mikasa says, turning to face him. “They aren’t us. They’re better. They’ll live.”

She says it with such strong conviction that it almost leave him speechless. As if it’s not something that can be argued with. And he doesn’t know what it is, if it’s perhaps the strength in her eyes, or if it’s the way the moonlight makes her glow (and she’s always looked, for some reason, more beautiful at midnight than any other time of the day), or if it’s something more, something he can’t seem to form or reach. It’s something, and it hurts him far more than any injuries he’s ever sustained, and he just, needs to know.

“Mikasa,” he starts. “Why do you care about me?”

The question takes her by surprise, and she looks at him with uncertainty, almost as if she can’t believe that he’s asked her this. “What?”

“Is it because I saved you as a child?” He steamrollers on, not caring for her confusion. “Or is it… is it because I’m family?”

She only looks at him, confused, startled and almost scared, but he needs to know.

“What am I to you?” He says, finally. He almost dreads hearing the answer.

The silence is loud, and all he can hear is the sound of boisterous laughter coming from miles away, and her grey eyes look at him, and her face is red (with shame? His stomach almost turns. He hopes not), but she’s looking at him and he could almost, almost tremble, until- 

“Everything.” She says, and for a second, the world stops. 

This is not a love story. It’s not a story about anything, really. But there is a rush of something, and it’s not the familiar anger or the sadness that lies within reach. It’s something that’s intense but feels so pure. Good and kind and nurturing. Something that he only gets whenever he’s with her.

Perhaps it is love. 

She touches his face, wipes a tear that’s fallen down, and whispers low enough for him to hear. “Everything.”

When he kisses her, it’s not like the poems, or the songs, or the stories where the knight saves the princess. It’s wet, and mushy, and kinda gross if you think about the entire process in detail, but it does feel like a revelation. And it feels like hope too. Like future. 

When they pull apart, she presses herself against his chest and he can feel her breathing, her back rising up and down. She feels more real in his arms. He wants to keep her like this, always. 

[wlst]

[sunson]

just finished reading the latest chapter, and you know what? my heart. is so full. 

but you wanna know what get to me the most???

this. this gets to me the most.

and it’s not because of the fact that mikasa is the biggest piece in eren’s memory (i mean it is but still), but its the fact that it is this mikasa that eren chooses to remember. the person mikasa was before everything. the child mikasa was before everything. it is the part of mikasa that has not been tainted by war and grief. the mikasa of before, the mikasa who eren laments on not being able to adequately protect.

it is the mikasa who wears his scarf, who trusts him, who has shared a childhood with him. it’s the guilt lodged in him for not being able to do what he could to protect her, to show her a better future, a better way to find a peaceful future. 

it is that girl he remembers. that girl who he would go through hell for. the girl who dreams of a content future, if not a happy one. it is the girl who remembers him as he once was. 

[softearth]

for @ityabuoy

[candybisous]

[arsantiquis]

Allegory of Government: Wisdom Defeating Discord, by Jacob de Wit