(a/n): double update!!! also the app i used when i was working on this a bajillion years ago isnt the same anymore so i had to downgrade. can’t find a good way to fake tweets atm sadly but i’ll keep looking!!!
Me: "Geddy Lee never whizzed in a restaurant's mop bucket while bitching about his host country's president.
Rando: "You can't blame Miley Cyrus! Fame corrupts!"
Me: "Mama Cass never pole-danced and humped a married man onstage in front of underage fans."
Rando: "You can't blame Chris Brown! Fame corrupts!"
Me: "John Legend never beat the tar out of his girlfriend and sent her to the hospital."
New rule - when yet another celebrity arrest or scandal is leaked, instead of just spouting "fame corrupts" like a lawyer's parrot, think of a celebrity who HASN'T fallen into that "corruption" and ask yourself WHY.
Rando: "But - But - The Beebs! Fame corrupts! FaMe CoRrUpTs!!!"
Me: "Dingle-dork. When people petitioned for Bieber to be sent back to Canada after his arrest, their government refused to take him back. If the US even JOKED about keeping Geddy Lee, we'd have kidnapping charges and a war on our hands. Pull your head out of the mop-bucket."
(a/n): see i worked on it! i know there are several people out there who requested to be on the tag list for this way back in the day, but i’m not sure who’s still active and interested. just starting from scratch for that. so if you wanna be tagged lmk!
processing // losing all of it // next | tw: cursing, suicide mention, violence mention
A tense silence fills Armin’s Prius, so much so that he’s actually struggling to breathe. In the time since the worst meeting he’s had in his career, he’s had to stoop to some pretty low places. Having Eren disregard his apology was tough, but this car ride has been excruciating.
No one has heard from Eren in four days. Of course, Armin knew something like this would happen soon after their meeting, but he was hoping it would just be him that was left out in the cold. Unfortunately for him, Jean, Mikasa, and Connie were also a part of that and, naturally, became concerned for their friend. Which leads him to this moment: the band members shifting in their seats and Armin suffocating under their gazes.
Jean breaks the silence: “You promised us an explanation, man.”
“I-I know, just.. give me a second”
Armin inhales deeply. He wishes he had a screen to protect him like last time.
He spends the next several minutes explaining the worst idea he’s ever had. It’s reflex, robotic, and emotionless. It’s how he survives the shame.
He glances in the rear view mirror periodically throughout. The disappointment on Mikasa and Connie’s faces is plain. Unignorable. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see every sigh Jean lets pass his lips, even if the sound doesn’t quite make it to his ears. Yes, this is remarkably worse for him than last time. Yes, he knows he deserves it.
“I can’t believe that you trust us that little, Armin,” Mikasa mutters.
“It’s not that, I—“
“But it is, man,” Connie interjects, “If you did, you’d let us help you.”
“That’s definitely why Eren’s so pissed,” Jean sighs.
“What I don’t get is why he’s so upset with us,” Mikasa mumbles.
Armin can tell that Eren’s vow of silence has bothered her most. Based on the angry red rings around her eyes, she’s worried. Perhaps for his life.
When they arrive, Eren’s apartment is dark. There are Amazon packages on the stoop. It’s clear that no one has been in or out for a while. Shuffling up the walkway, Armin’s heart beats ever faster, afraid of what lies behind the door. He has never faced a consequence so daunting before.
Jean knocks on the door three times in rapid succession. They wait, praying for some sign of life. Nothing happens.
Jean sighs and tries the doorknob. Surprisingly, it’s not locked. They tiptoe across the living room, wordless.
Eren’s bedroom looks as though a bomb went off inside of it. There are bits of paper, torn and crumpled, strewn across nearly every surface. Splintered drumsticks litter the floor, and so do the remains of Eren’s cell phone. It’s clear he demolished it, it’s possible it was with his own two hands. Everyone’s eyes scan the room, finally landing on Eren’s bed. He lays there, face down.
Mikasa’s breath shudders as she nudges Jean forward into the room.
He clears his throat.
“Eren? Hey bro, you alright?”
A pillow flies across the room, landing squarely on Jean’s chest.
“Get out,” Eren asserts, voice muffled by his mattress.
“Really? Armin told us everything, he said he’s sorry, so just—“
“Oh, yeah, Armin’s sorry! Everything is just fine now because Armin’s sorry.”
Eren, now sitting up in his bed, looks terrible. His hands, cut and bruised, toss his comforter to the floor. His hair clings to his sweaty forehead. Bloodshot eyes, wide with fury, scan the posse of people standing at his door. With every heave of his chest, the smell of alcohol wafts closer to their noses.
“Oh, fantastic, you’re here too,” he mutters in Armin’s direction.
“I am sorry, Eren, for the record,” Armin adds, shakily.
Eren rolls his eyes.
“I don’t believe you, and it’s way too late for you to be sorry.”
He regards everyone, his expression unchanging.
“I quit. Find a new drummer, and go home.”
“You don’t mean that,” Mikasa stammers, through freshly brewed tears.
“I do, I really do.”
“So you were just gonna ghost your best friends instead of telling us you didn’t wanna be in the band anymore? That’s mature,” Jean fumes.
“We thought you were dead!” Mikasa cries.
“If you guys were my best friends, then maybe you would have noticed I was miserable enough to kill myself a little sooner.”
“Are you serious? You think we didn’t notice?,” Mikasa takes a breath to steady herself, “We thought that making more music would fix that.”
Eren stares at her, so intensely that she starts to shrink underneath his gaze.
“Nothing would make me happier than never seeing any of you again. Fucking traitors.”
With that, he returns to laying face down on his bed. The band shares a look — dumbfounded and heartbroken. All of them know how impossible it is to change Eren’s mind. In tandem, they leave his apartment, lifeless and defeated.
He’s not so sure about everyone else, but Armin can practically see his future crumbling in real time. It was once so bright and clear, but now it is nothing but darkness. He knew he would lose something today. He knew his pride was long lost. His relationship with this band, their trust in him, and his standing in the industry, hangs in the balance. Losing Eren, however, is losing his life. It’s losing all of it.
“Armin.”
Mikasa interrupts his mental flogging. All he can do is look at her.
“Do you still have (y/n)’s number?” she asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“I think we should give her a call.”
She’s right. If there’s anyone left who would get through to him, it’s (y/n).
He immediately fishes his phone out of his pocket and begins to dial.
“Put it on speaker,” she adds, “I want to talk to her too.”
losing all of it // our fans // next | tw: cursing
“Uh… hello?”
“(Y/N)! Hi! I’m here with Mikasa, Jean, and Connie, Cannibal’s new guitarist.”
Everyone greets you all at once, happily mumbling over one another.
It seemed weird to you that Armin called you in the first place. The last conversation the two of you had didn’t necessarily seem like an invitation for friendship on either end. However, your personal mission to end the controversy surrounding LOVESICK! is at a standstill. Eren has been missing in action for days; he never even read your message. You were hoping Armin could shed some light on the situation. Now, hearing all the voices on the other line, you are filled with a potent anxiety.
“Woah, uh, hey everyone,” you stutter.
“It’s alright, no need to panic, I get that this is a lot,” a reassuring female voice on the other end pipes in.
Mikasa. God, you miss her. With your feelings about Eren on the forefront of your mind, you never stopped to think about how long it had been since you two have spoken. You two had such fun together once upon a time. She didn’t deserve your silence.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Mimi.”
She chuckles at the nickname.
“You too.”
“Anyway,” Armin redirects, “this is actually a business call. A better one than last time, I hope.”
Your stomach drops.
“I’m listening.”
“We just left Eren’s apartment. He’s in really bad shape, and he’s very angry at all of us. So angry that he just quit the band.”
“Wow… that’s tough.”
You don’t quite know what else to say. It’s not undeserved, at least when it comes to Armin, but this puts everyone else in limbo. Knowing how close Mikasa and Eren are, you can’t imagine she’s taking this well.
“We’re not giving up,” Mikasa asserts, “We’re gonna try to win him over.”
“How? Eren isn’t exactly a wishy-washy kinda guy. I’m sure he meant it,” you question.
“You gotta talk to him.”
“And say what exactly?”
Silence. You figured that they may not have thought very far ahead, as all of this sounds pretty fresh.
“I actually have an idea,” a new voice pipes in.
“Oh, great, more plans! We definitely don’t need any of that shit right now, Connie,” Jean grumbles.
“This is actually something I think will work, and to be honest I didn’t even come up with it. Our fans did.”
“Our fans?” you question.
“Yeah, they actually exist. They’re just harder to find because the big accounts are… extremely opinionated.”
“What’ve you got, Connie?” Armin asks, optimism injected back in his voice.
“People are looking at the release date and thinking that it’s on the same day because we have features from each other on the singles. The idea’s gotten some attention, good and bad. But from what Armin said to us earlier, it sounds like we wanna get rid of the people who don’t respect the art. I think this would be a good way to do that, and it would be a good way to squash the beef. And if we do that…”
“Eren might be back in,” you finish.
“If you’re in,” Mikasa affirms, “Eren will be too. We can all tell he cares about you still.”
“Yeah, pretty much all of our songs have been about you since he met you,” Jean adds.
Your chest flutters.
“All of it?”
“I wish I was kidding. Some of them made it on the last album, but the dude is constantly writing sappy lyrics about you. He refuses to write anything else.”
A part of you assumed Armin was exaggerating when he told you the ways in which Eren has dimmed since you two parted ways. You’ve come to expect that from him. Jean, however, has always been straightforward.
It was always easier to hate Eren, knowing that he hated you too. Over the years, it became a shield to hide your pain behind. Very few people know exactly how difficult his leaving was for you. Your discography displays some of that pain, but there are still parts of it that are unknowable to you. All around you are reminders of him, all the time.
It only was a few months of your life, but you’ve known for years that these small, every day pains would stick with you forever. Your reluctance to participate comes from a fear of facing it — a fear of making small pains large again — but it’s being slowly replaced with hope.
You inhale deeply, knowing you could easily come to regret what you’re about to tell them.
☾ Cannibal! is the band's self-titled EP, released in 2015. Eren wrote, composed, and recorded these songs with his band when they were all very young. The executives at Titan Records loved their boyish sound, and signed them before any of them had even graduated high school.
- cannibal’s Eren Jaeger on their earlier work: “When I look back at our old projects and songs, I get embarrassed… [The lyrics] have all of these ideas about complicated things, like love, and I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that we didn’t know what the hell we were talking about.”
☾ Like It or Not is Cannibal!'s* first album, released in 2016. When the band was introduced to the public, Titan Records elected to keep the youthful energy that the band brought with their EP. Teenage girls ate it up and they became popular rather quickly.
*The original band name was, in fact, "Cannibal!", but after a revamp in 2018 to reflect the band maturing, management chose to change the case and punctuation to "cannibal".
- Cannibal!'s Jean Kirschtein on the band's rapid rise to fame: "I really wasn't sold on the idea that we should start posting on YouTube when Armin [Arlert} brought it up... now, I can't thank him enough!"
☾ Smile! (You're On Camera) is Cannibal!'s second album, released in 2017. It is universally known amongst the fanbase as their "party animal era". It does certainly reflect the band's activities at the time, as they were all constantly seen partying with other bands in the pop-punk scene. This also happened to be a planned move on their management's part to shift their reputation from "boy band" to "rockstars".
- Cannibal!'s Mikasa Ackerman on the track "I Don't Wanna Be in Love": "I'm not usually involved a lot in the songwriting process, but I actually came up with the idea for this one! [Jean Kirschtein, Eren Jaeger, and Reiner Braun] were all talking about not picking up any girls the night before, and I mentioned that I'm just totally uninterested in dating right now... [and then] we just started writing."
☾ râler is cannibal's third album, released in 2020. Following the Smile! (You're On Camera) tour with LOVESICK! in the summer of 2018, Eren Jaeger, the band's principal songwriter, spent many hours writing and rewriting the tracks for this album. Fans speculate that the inspiration for many of the songs came from the mysterious altercation that he had with LOVESICK!'s (y/n) (y/l/n) during their joint tour. Those rumors have neither been confirmed nor denied.
- cannibal's Eren Jaeger on the title of the album: "[râler is] a French word that basically means 'to complain'."
