#A Gravely Threath

[xtruss]

The Death of School 10! How Declining Enrollment Is Threatening The Future of American Public Education.

— By Alec MacGillis | August 26, 2024

The building that housed Rochester’s now shuttered School 10. Such closures “rend the community,” a professor of education said.Photographs by Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New Yorker

In The Nineteen-Nineties, when Liberia descended into civil war, the Kpor family fled to Ivory Coast. A few years later, in 1999, they were approved for resettlement in the United States, and ended up in Rochester, New York. Janice Kpor, who was eleven at the time, jokingly wonders whether her elders were under the impression that they were moving to New York City. What she remembers most about their arrival is the trees: it was May, yet many were only just starting to bud. “It was, like, ‘Where are we?’ ” she said. “It was completely different.”

But the Kpors adapted and flourished. Janice lived with her father in an affordable-housing complex close to other family members, and she attended the city’s public schools before enrolling in St. John Fisher University, just outside the city, where she got a bachelor’s degree in sociology and African American studies. She found work as a social-service case manager and eventually started running a group home for disabled adults.

She also became highly involved in the schooling of her three children, whom she was raising with her partner, the father of the younger two, a truck driver from Ghana. Education had always been highly valued in her family: one of her grandmothers had been a principal in Liberia, and her mother, who remained there, is a teacher. Last fall, when school started, Kpor was the president of the parent-teacher organization at School 10, the Dr. Walter Cooper Academy, where her youngest child, Thomasena, was in kindergarten. Her middle child had also attended the school.

Kpor took pleasure in dropping by the school, a handsome two-story structure that was built in 1916 and underwent a full renovation and expansion several years ago. The school was in the Nineteenth Ward, in southwest Rochester, a predominantly Black, working- and middle-class neighborhood of century-old homes. The principal, Eva Thomas, oversaw a staff that prided itself on maintaining a warm environment for two hundred and ninety-nine students, from kindergarten through sixth grade, more than ninety per cent of whom were Black or Latino. Student art work filled the hallways, and parent participation was encouraged. School 10 dated only to 2009—the building had housed different programs before that—but it had strong ties to the neighborhood, owing partly to its namesake, a pioneering Black research scientist who, at the age of ninety-five, still made frequent visits to speak to students. “When parents chose to go to this particular school, it was because of the community that they have within our school, the culture that they have,” Kpor told me.

Because she was also engaged in citywide advocacy, through a group called the Parent Leadership Advisory Council, Kpor knew that the Rochester City School District faced major challenges. Enrollment had declined from nearly thirty-four thousand in 2003 to less than twenty-three thousand last year, the result of flight to the suburbs, falling birth rates, and the expansion of local charter schools, whose student population had grown from less than two thousand to nearly eight thousand during that time. Between 2020 and 2022, the district’s enrollment had dropped by more than ten per cent.

The situation in Rochester was a particularly acute example of a nationwide trend. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, public-school enrollment has declined by about a million students, and researchers attribute the drop to families switching to private schools—aided by an expansion of voucher programs in many red and purple states—and to homeschooling, which has seen especially strong growth. In addition, as of last year, an estimated fifty thousand students are unaccounted for—many of them are simply not in school.

During the pandemic, Rochester kept its schools closed to in-person instruction longer than any other district in New York besides Buffalo, and throughout the country some of the largest enrollment declines have come in districts that embraced remote learning. Some parents pulled their children out of public schools because they worried about the inadequacy of virtual learning; others did so, after the eventual return to school, because classroom behavior had deteriorated following the hiatus. In these places, a stark reality now looms: schools have far more space than they need, with higher costs for heating and cooling, building upkeep, and staffing than their enrollment justifies. During the pandemic, the federal government gave a hundred and ninety billion dollars to school districts, but that money is about to run dry. Even some relatively prosperous communities face large drops in enrollment: in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where enrollment has fallen by more than a thousand students since the fall of 2019, the city is planning to lay off some ninety teachers; Santa Clara, which is part of Silicon Valley, has seen a decrease of fourteen per cent in a decade.

On September 12, 2023, less than a week after the school year started, Rochester’s school board held what appeared to be a routine subcommittee meeting. The room was mostly empty as the district’s superintendent, Carmine Peluso, presented what the district called a “reconfiguration plan.”

A decade earlier, twenty-six hundred kindergarten students had enrolled in Rochester’s schools—roughly three-quarters of the children born in the city five years before. But in recent years, Peluso said, that proportion had sunk to about half.

Within ten years, Peluso said, “if we continue on this trend and we don’t address this, we’re going to be at a district of under fourteen thousand students.” The fourth-largest city in New York, with a relatively stable population of about two hundred and ten thousand, was projecting that its school system would soon enroll only about a third of the city’s current school-age population.

Peluso then recommended that the Rochester school district close eleven of its forty-five schools at the end of the school year. Kpor, who was watching the meeting online, was taken aback. Five buildings would be shuttered altogether; the other six would be put to use by other schools in the district.

School 10 was among the second group. The school would cease to exist, and its building, with its new gymnasium-auditorium and its light-filled two-story atrium, would be turned over to a public Montessori school for pre-K through sixth grade, which had been sharing space with another school.

Kpor was stunned. The building was newly renovated. She had heard at a recent PTA meeting that its students’ over-all performance was improving. And now it was being shut down? “I was in disbelief,” she said. “It was a stab in the back.”

School Closures Are a Fact of Life in a country as dynamic as the United States. Cities boom, then bust or stagnate, leaving public infrastructure that is incommensurate with present needs. The brick elementary school where I attended kindergarten and first grade, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was closed in the early eighties, as the city’s population declined, and then was razed to make way for a shopping plaza.

Still, there is a pathos to a closed school that doesn’t apply to a shuttered courthouse or post office. The abandonment of a building once full of young voices is an indelible sign of the action having moved elsewhere. There is a tangible cost, too. Researchers have found that students whose schools have been closed often experience declines in attendance and achievement, and that they tend to be less likely to graduate from college or find employment. Closures tend to fall disproportionately on majority-Black schools, even beyond what would be expected on the basis of enrollment and performance data. In some cities, efforts to close underpopulated schools have become major political issues. In 2013, Chicago, facing a billion-dollar budget deficit and falling enrollment, closed forty-nine schools, the largest mass closure in the country’s history. After months of marches and protests, twelve thousand students and eleven hundred staff members were displaced.

Now, as a result of the nationwide decline in enrollment, many cities will have to engage in disruption at a previously unseen scale. “School closures are difficult events that rend the community, the fabric of the community,” Thomas Dee, a professor of education at Stanford, said. He has been collecting data on declining enrollment in partnership with the Associated Press. “The concern I have is that it’s going to be yet another layer of the educational harm of the pandemic.”

Janice Kpor knew that her family was, in a sense, part of the problem. Her oldest child, Virginia, had flourished in the early grades, so her school put her on an accelerated track, but it declined to move her up a grade, as Kpor had desired. Wanting her daughter to be sufficiently challenged, Kpor opted for the area’s Urban-Suburban program, in which students can apply to transfer to one of the many smaller school districts that surround Rochester; if a district is interested in a student, it offers the family a slot. The program began in 1965, and there are now about a thousand children enrolled. Virginia began attending school in Brockport, where she had access to more extracurricular activities.

Supporters call Urban-Suburban a step toward integration in a region where city schools are eighty-five per cent Black and Latino and suburban districts are heavily white. But critics see it as a way for suburban districts to draw some of the most engaged families out of the city’s schools; the selectiveness of the suburban districts helps explain why close to a quarter of the students remaining in the city system qualify for special-education services. (The local charter schools are also selective.) One suburban district, Rush-Henrietta, assured residents that it would weed out participants who brought “city issues” with them, as Justin Murphy, a reporter for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, wrote in his book, “Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger,” a history of segregation in the city’s schools.

Kpor understood these concerns even as she watched Virginia thrive in the suburbs, then go on to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology. As Kpor saw it, each child’s situation was unique, and she tried to make decisions accordingly. “It’s where they’re at,” she said. “It’s not all or nothing for me.”

She enrolled her middle child, Steven, in School 10 for kindergarten and immediately liked the school, but stability was elusive. First, the school moved to temporary quarters for the renovation. Then came disagreements with a teacher who thought that her son’s behavioral issues stemmed from A.D.H.D. Then the pandemic arrived, and her son spent the final months of second grade and most of third on Zoom. For fourth grade, she decided to try Urban-Suburban again. He was accepted by Brockport, which sent a bus to pick him up every morning.

Other parents shared similar accounts with me of the aftermath of the pandemic closures. Ruthy Brown said that, after the reopening, her children’s school was rowdier than before, with more frequent fights and disturbances in the classroom; a charter school with uniforms suddenly seemed appealing. Isabel Rosa, too, moved her son to a charter school, because his classmates were “going bonkers” when they finally returned to in-person instruction. (She changed her mind after he was bullied by a charter-school security guard.) Carmen Torres, who works at a local advocacy organization, the Children’s Agenda, watched one of her client families get so frustrated by virtual instruction that they switched to homeschooling. “Enough is enough,” Torres recalled the mother saying. “My kids need to learn how to read.”

But, when it came time to enroll Thomasena, Kpor resolved to stick with the district, and she was so hopeful about her daughter’s future at School 10 that she took the prospect of its closure with great umbrage. She and other parents struggled to understand the decision. One of the reasons School 10 was chosen to close was that it was in receivership—a designation for public schools rated in the bottom five per cent in the state, among Peluso’s criteria for closure—but Kpor knew that the receivership was due not only to low test scores but also to the school’s high rate of absenteeism, which was, she believed, because the school roster was outdated, filled with students who were no longer there. According to a board member, the state had also placed School 10 on a list of dangerous schools, partly owing to an incident in which a student had been found with a pocketknife.

Making matters worse, for Kpor, was that the building was going to be turned over to another program, School 53, the Montessori school. It would be one thing for School 10 to be shut down because the district needed to cut costs. But the building had just been renovated at great expense, an investment intended for School 10, and now those students and teachers were being evicted to make room for others. “It was more of an insult,” Kpor said, “because now you have this place and all these kids and a whole bunch of new kids in the same building, so what is the logic of, quote-unquote, closing the school?”

The awkwardness of this was not lost on the parents of School 53. The school had a slightly higher proportion of white families and a lower one of economically disadvantaged students than School 10, and it was expected to draw additional white families once it moved to its new building. “The perception is that you’ve got the kids at this protected, special school—you can see the difference between what they get and what we get,” Robert Rodgers, a parent at School 53, told me. “If I was a parent at School 10, I would be livid.”

After Peluso announced the plan, the district held two public forums, followed by sessions at the targeted schools. The School 10 auditorium was packed for its session, and Kpor lined up at the microphone to speak. She asked Peluso if Thomasena and her classmates would get priority for placement in School 53, so that they could stay in the building. “I do not want her to go to any other school,” she said. “Every time we think we’re doing something right for our kids, someone comes in and dictates to us that our choices are not valid.” Kpor was encouraged to hear Peluso say that School 10 kids would get priority.

Janice Kpor, whose youngest child had just started at School 10 when the city announced its closure.

On October 19th, five weeks after the announcement, the school board met to vote on the closures. During the public-comment period, a teacher from School 2 pleaded with the board to let its students enroll at the school that would be replacing it. A teacher from School 106 asked that the vote be delayed until after board members visited every school, including hers, which was engaged in a yearlong special project geared toward the coming total solar eclipse, so that they could get a more visceral sense of the school’s value. The principal of School 29, Joseph Baldino, asked that the school’s many students with autism-spectrum disorder be kept together, along with their teachers, during the reassignment. “They’re unique, they’re beautiful, and they don’t do real well with change,” he said. Chrissy Miller, a parent at the school, said of her son, “He loves his staff . . . he loves his teachers, and he wants everybody to stay together as one.”

In the end, the closures passed, five to two.

In September, 2020, as many public schools in Democratic-leaning states started the new academic year with remote learning, I asked Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, whether she worried about the long-term effects on public education. What if too many families left the system in favor of homeschooling or private schools—many of which had reopened—and didn’t come back? She wasn’t concerned about such hypotheticals. “At the end of the day, kids need to be together in community,” she said.

The news from a growing number of districts suggests that the institution of public schooling has indeed suffered a lasting blow, even in cities that are better funded than Rochester. In Seattle, parents anticipate the closure of twenty elementary schools. The state of Ohio has witnessed a major expansion of private-school vouchers; in Columbus, a task force is recommending the closure of nine schools.

In Rochester, the continuing effects of the pandemic weighed heavily on some. Camille Simmons, who joined the school board in 2021, told me, “A lot of children felt the result of those decisions.” She went on, “There were a lot of entities at play, there were so many conversations going on. I think we should have brought children back much sooner.”

Adam Urbanski, the longtime president of the Rochester teachers’ union, said that the union had believed schools should not reopen until the district could guarantee high air quality, and it had not been able to. “When I reflect back on it, I know that I erred on the side of safety, and I do not regret the position that we took,” he said.

But Rebecca Hetherington, the owner of a small embroidery company and the former head of the Parent Leadership Advisory Council, the group Kpor was part of, feared that the district would soon lack the critical mass to remain viable. “I am concerned there is a tipping point and we’re past it,” she said. Rachel Barnhart, a former TV news reporter who attended city schools and now serves in the county legislature, agreed. “It’s like you’re watching institutions decline in real time,” she told me. “Anchors of the community are disappearing.” School districts have long aspired to imbue their communities with certain shared values and learning standards, but such commonality now seemed inconceivable.

By the spring of 2024, parents at the eleven targeted schools were too busy trying to figure out where their children would be going in the fall to worry about the long term. A mother at School 39, Rachel Dixon, who lived so close to the school that she could carry her kindergartner there, was on the wait list for School 52 but had been assigned to School 50. She wasn’t even sure where that was. Chrissy Miller was upset that School 29’s students with autism were being more broadly dispersed than promised; she worried that her son’s assigned school wasn’t equipped for students with special needs. Many of her fellow School 29 parents were now considering homeschooling or moving, she said, and added, “We don’t have trust in the district at all.” It was easy to envision how the closures could compound the problem, leading to even fewer students and even more closures.

Thomasena had been assigned to School 45, which was close to her family’s home but less convenient for Kpor than School 10, which was closer to her work. Kpor wondered how many other families were in similar situations, with assignments that didn’t take into account the specific context of their lives. “All of this plays into why kids are not going to school,” she said. “You’re placing kids in locations that don’t meet the families’ needs.”

She had taken Peluso’s word that students from School 10 would be given priority at the Montessori school taking its place, and she was disappointed to learn that Thomasena was thirtieth on the wait list there. It was also unclear to her which branch of the central office was handling placement appeals. “It’s all a jumble, and no one really knows how things work,” she said.

On March 26th, as families were dealing with the overhaul, Peluso announced that he was leaving the district to become the superintendent of the Churchville-Chili district, in the suburbs. The district was far smaller than Rochester, with some thirty-eight hundred students, more than seventy per cent of them white, but the job paid nearly as much. “It’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve had,” Peluso said at a news conference. “There’s a lot of commitment I’ve had to this district.” Rodgers, the School 53 parent, told me, “This hurts. It’s another situation where the suburbs are taking something from the city.”

Parents and district staff tried to make sense of Peluso’s departure. Some people speculated that he had grown tired of the treatment he was receiving from certain board members. Other people wondered if he simply wanted a less challenging district. Peluso told me, “It was the best decision for me and my family.”

In Late June, I returned to Rochester for the final days of the school year. I stayed at School 31 Lofts, a hotel in a former schoolhouse that was built in 1919. (The Web site advertises “WhimsyHistorySerenity.”) An empty hallway was still marked with a “Fallout Shelter” sign. I stayed in a room that, judging from its size and location, might have been a faculty lounge.

One afternoon, I met with Demario Strickland, a deputy superintendent who’d been named interim superintendent while the school board searched for a permanent replacement for Peluso. Strickland, a genial thirty-nine-year-old Buffalo native who moved to Rochester last year, was the seventh superintendent of the district since 2016. He told me that he was not surprised the closures had prompted such protests. “School closures are traumatic in itself,” he said.

But he defended the district against several of the criticisms I had heard from parents. School 10 had been improving, he said, but still fell short on some metrics. “Even though they met demonstrable progress, we still had to look at proficiency, and we still had to look at receivership,” he said. And, he added, School 53 had limited slots available, so the district had made no promises to parents of School 10 about having priority.

Still, he said, the district could perhaps have been more empathetic in its approach. “This process has taught me that, in a sense, people don’t care about the money,” he said. “When you make these decisions, you really have to think about the heart. That’s something we could have done a little more. It makes sense—we’re wasting money, throwing money away, we have all these vacancies, that makes sense to us. But our families don’t care about that. Our families want their school to stay open—they don’t want to do away with it.”

At the end of the academic year, Rochester closed eleven of its forty-five schools, including School 39.

I asked him whether he worried that the district’s enrollment decline might continue until the system could no longer sustain itself, as Hetherington and Barnhart feared. “I try not to get scared about the future,” he said.

On the second-to-last day of the school year, I went to School 10 to join Kpor at the end-of-year ceremony for Thomasena’s kindergarten class. She and her fourteen classmates sang songs, demonstrated spelling on the whiteboard, and rose one by one to say what they had liked best about kindergarten. “Education and learning,” Thomasena, a tall girl with her front teeth just coming in, said. “When it’s the weekend,” one boy said, to the laughter of parents.

It was not hard to see why Kpor and other parents were sorry to leave the school, with its gleaming new tile work and hardwood-composite hallway floorboards. A few weeks earlier, the latest assessment results had shown improvement for School 10, putting it close to citywide averages. “All of us are going to be going to different places, but I hope one day that I get to see you again,” the class’s teacher, Karen Lewis, said.

Kpor was still waiting to find out if she had moved up on the list for School 53. I asked if she might have Thomasena apply for Urban-Suburban, like her siblings, and she said she was hoping it would work out in the district. “I still have faith,” she said. Outside, I met a parent who was worried about how her daughter would fare at her new school after having been at School 10 with the same special-needs classmates and teacher for the past three years. “The school has been amazing,” she said.

The Next Day, I attended a school-wide Rites of Achievement ceremony in the gym. Parents cheered as students received awards for Dr. Walter Cooper Character Traits—Responsibility, Integrity, Compassion, Leadership, Perseverance, and Courage. (Thomasena won for Courage.) Thomas, the principal, called up the school’s entire staff, name by name. The shrieks from the assembled children for their favorite teachers and aides indicated the hold that even a school officially deemed subpar can have on its students and families: this had been their home, a hundred and eighty days a year, for as long as seven years.

Walter Cooper himself was there, watching from a thronelike chair with gilt edges. Eventually, he addressed the children for the last time, recounting his upbringing with a father who had received no formal schooling, a mother who preached the value of education, and six siblings, all but one of whom had gone to college. “The rule was we had to have a library card at seven. We didn’t have a lot in this community, but we had books,” he said. “There are always things in the street for you, but there is much more in books. . . . The guiding thesis is: books will set you free.”

The children sang a final song: “I am a Cooper kid, a Dr. Walter Cooper kid, I am, I am / I stand up for what’s right, even when the world is wrong.” Sylvia Cooksey, a retired administrator who is also a pastor, gave the final speech. “No matter where you go, where you end up, you are taking part of this school with you,” she said. “You are taking Dr. Walter Cooper with you. We’re going to hear all over Rochester, ‘That child is from School 10.’ ”

After the assembly, I asked Cooper what he made of the closure. “It’s tragic,” he said. “It points to the fundamental instability in the future of the schools. Children need stability, and they aren’t getting it in terms of the educational process.”

Wanda Zawadzki, a physical-education teacher who had worked at the school for eight years and received some of the loudest shrieks from the kids, stood looking forlorn. She recalled the time a class had persuaded the city to tear down an abandoned house across the street, and the time a boy had brought her smartphone to her after she dropped it outside. “My other school, that phone would have been gone,” she said. “It’s the integrity here.” Like many teachers at the targeted schools, she was still waiting for her transfer assignment. “This was supposed to be my last home,” she said.

And then it was dismissal time. It was school tradition to have the staff come out at the end of every school year and wave at the departing buses as they did two ceremonial loops around the block. Speakers blared music from the back of a pickup, and the teachers danced and waved. “We love you,” Principal Thomas called out.

It was quieter over at School 29, the school with many special-needs kids. The children were gone, and one teacher, Latoya Crockton-Brown, walked alone to her car. She had spent nineteen years at the school, which will be closing completely. “We’re not doing well at all,” she said, of herself and her colleagues. “This was a family school. It’s very disheartening. Even the children cried today.”

She was wearing a T-shirt that read “Forever School 29 / 1965 to Now.” The school had done a lot in recent days to aid the transition—bringing in a snow-cone truck and a cotton-candy machine, hosting a school dance. “One girl said she feels like she’s never going to make friends like she had here,” Crockton-Brown said. “But we have to move on. We have no other choice.” ♦

— This Article is a Collaboration Between The New Yorker and ProPublica. ProPublica is a Nonprofit Newsroom that Investigates Abuses of Power. Published in the Print Edition of the September 2, 2024, Issue, with the Headline “The Last Day.”

[frangipanilove]

ISTG the parallels and callbacks this season part 3 (part 2) (part 1)

On luck:

(Credit to mcbride for the Daryl/Carol screenshots)

I decided to continue to compile some of my favorite parallels and callbacks from this season, mostly to distract me from the imminent collapse of US democracy in favor of fascist dictatorship. For all of you who voted for the corrupt rapey orange clown, just know that gas prices are high and groceries are expensive everywhere, that's not a US specific issue. We all experience post-covid inflation, it sucks, but it probably isn't worth dismantling democratic institutions over.

Oh well, too late ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Congrats to Putin, likely the most successful US president ever! He won the US election. Again.

Moving on to Beth callbacks and parallels, in the spirit of ignoring the increased threath to the national security of my country and others, as Trump will continue to fuck European allies over and hand European territory over to Putin on a silver platter (that uncomfortable sound you hear is Reagan turning in his grave, realizing the Soviets won the Cold War in the year of Our Lord 2024).

I already wrote about this glorious callback from TBOC 2x6 here, but it's worth repeating in a short and sweet little post.

In TBOC 2x6 we also saw this, which I wrote about here:

So many callbacks to 4x13 Alone! One might wonder why. Of course we also got this, another callback to Alone:

...which I already adressed here...

...and this:

Was 4x13 Alone Zabel's favorite episode or something? Why all the callbacks to this episode specifically?

Not that Zabel didn't also clearly watch and love 4x12 Still, which we saw in TBOC 2x2:

"Home sweet home":

Alcohol:

Disliking said alcohol:

Getting drunk anyway:

...and many others. Read more here.

[yumethefrostypanda]

I love Ghost more and more. Do you remember how Valeria spent a long time in the hangar telling everyone how important she was, what a serious and useful job she was doing, etc.? And the Ghost ended up letting her know that she was just TRASH! I was ready to kiss the monitor screen for this. The Ghost kicked her clearly and subtly. And a year ago there was a discussion that Valeria from the 141st was not tortured, since she was a woman and that she charmed them with herself. What do you think?

TW: Mention of torture So true! I thought the same thing (Ghost on Valeria). Hmm.. i think if Valeria didn't believe the torture/death threaths (from Graves), she would have provoked them and it will be a fuck around find out kinda thing. I do think Price (also Ghost, maybe Graves) would torture/hurt her to an extent (if words didn't help) since there were ffin missiles in the wrong hands and she has the intel. Imagine if Hassan succeeded and Valeria didn't gave the information in time; Many innocent deaths. I think she knows well enough who she was dealing with and that also Shadow Company and TF141's 'Rules of Engagement' might differ from other Forces/etc. And who knows maybe she had some moral left about the whole missiles thing.

[cock-ainee]

"..Kimi wa dekinai ko" pt. 1

_____________________________

Word count: 890

GODDAMN THAT'S SHORT-

Category: angst??

Characters: Michael Afton x afab reader

Enjoy!

Michael was no one. That's what he believed, after the latest events, that completely twisted his world.

He killed his little brother. Well, it all was an accident, but maybe if he didn't think of doing that stupid joke, Evan would still be alive. He's just 14, a stupid teenager, but.. he still couldn't wash off the guilt.

He was sitting by his grave, utterly broken and disgusted with himself. He knew he could never forgive himself after what happened. Everybody was going to hate him now. And he couldn't even bring himself to stand against it. Because he knew they were right - he was a murderer, and he deserved the worst.

Just as Michael buried his face into his hands, giving into the urge to cry his eyes out again, he felt another presence near him. He looked up, pushing the dark bangs out of his sight to look up at the person in front of him.

It was a girl. She seemed to be a tad younger than him, the soft features on her face, accompanied by a smile quickly softening the boy's heart.

- W-who are you? -

He finally spoke, and could see every move of muscles on the girl's face.

- My name is YN. Who are you crying over..? -

The girl's voice was smooth and soft, and most importantly - friendly. It was so different from the yelling and threaths he's been hearing lately, since.. the accident.

He hesitated wether to tell her the truth or not. Afterall, she was just a mere stranger to him. But.. didn't he need the comfort? Comfort radiating from her and hugging him so nicely?

- My little brother.. -

Michael mumbled in response as his head hung down in embarrasment. YN noticed his, maybe a little odd behavior, and took a few steps closer, before sitting herself down on the grass. Their shoulders rubbed gently against each other and Michael could feel little jolts of electricity jumping over his skin.

No, he.. wasn't attracted to her, but the sheer feeling of having someone next to him was pulling such a reaction out of him.

- I'm really sorry.. it must've been really hard for you.. especially that you're so young -

Michael's body moved right up, as he forgot - somehow - about the girl's presence.

Realization soon hit him, awakening the pain and sorrow in him once more.

- It's all my fault.. all my fault.. -

His eyes filled up with tears again, and soon he found himself being hugged by the girl. His mind was screaming for him to push her away, because of his own awkwardness, but his heart betrayed him. And soon, Michael found himself clinging onto the girl as if he was holding to his dear life. She was just.. so comforting, so peaceful, and so kind that he couldn't keep himself from receiving this comfort.

- I don't want to push you to say too much, if you don't feel comfortable.. but whatever you wouldn't do.. I know it wasn't fully your fault. Because we all make mistakes -

Michael looked up at the girl, his tear-filled, ocean eyes staring into hers.

- Y-you do..? -

He thought about that for a moment and shook his head.

No. It was his fault. It all was. He knew it

- Don't lie to me! -

He said, as his eyes narrowed and he pushed her away, suddenly self-awareness flooding his senses. He couldn't give in to anyone's comfort. He didn't deserve that.

Michael quickly stood up and striked towards the exit of the graveyard. He suddenly felt a tug on his wrist and he looked back. YN's smaller hands tugged on him, and the look in her eyes was unwrapping him out of his shell. Even though he felt horrible with it.

- So you're going to run away from it? Your own emotions..? -

He got a little startled, by the look changing in the girl's eyes. She looked a little pissed off by his attitude.

Michael got a little taken aback. YN gave him no time to recover.

- If you don't face it, you'll blame yourself for the rest of your life. You have to pick yourself up and move on -

Michael looked at the girl for a moment, his tough side faltering again.

- But.. how?? I'm a murderer! I.. my brother died because of me! It's not that easy! -

YN's eyes softened a little. She stepped a little closer, with a comforting look on her face.

- I know that isn't easy. But I wish to help you -

Her hold tightened slightly on Michael's hand. She looked at him pleadingly, making his heart swell even more.

He finally gave in, taking a step towards her and wrapping his arms around her. Michael cried on YN's shoulder, as sun basked them in a warm glow.

- O-okay.. alright.. I'll try -

He mumbled, looking down at the girl, wiping his tears from the stinging red cheeks.

YN smiled up at him and caught his hands into hers, sending chills right down Michael's spine.

- It will be fine. I promise you that -

And Michael couldn't help but to believe her.

______________________________________

Okay so what i have to say is.. i promise I'll try to make the next part longer. Like, goddamn, I really had no idea how to make things interesting here and i know it sounds plain. Next part will feature Michael and Yn in their high school times?? Idk. And like, i'm just saying, in the next parts, i'm going to, like, change the lore..? Like, Michael isn't going to die. Well. I hope it won't be that dry as that part, anyways, thanks for reading!!

[barbex]

Sorry for being late on the prompts but I napped until the middle of the night and hope you're still taking prompts cause I love watching you update on AO3. I had to think really hard what single thing I was gonna request and !!. I think I'm going for "I wish you would write a fic where Anders is an anxious ball of energy from Fenris' threaths/jokes and begs him not to turn him in" ??? I'm not creative please I just love angsty Fenders where Anders expects the worst and Fenris is an angel

Thank you, dear Anon. This was really inspiring and resulted in 3400 words, oops! For @dadrunkwriting, fenders, Fenris x Anders, references to sexual abuse and prostitution.

I know for a fact that I've read a fic like that and I'm trying my utmost to not just copy what I remember from that fic.

---

Anders pulls his arm back, putting all of his not so significant weight into it, and punches the man on the nose. He crumbles with a truly pathetic wail and Anders shakes out is hand with a hiss.

Market days usually aren't like this. On normal days, when Anders goes to the market in Lowtown, he gets his goods and leaves again, with nobody commenting on the hood over his head or the "walking stick" he leans on, that definitely doesn't look like a mage's staff. Some people greet him as the healer, sell him their goods at a lower price because they remember the friend or family member he helped once, and then he goes back home to the clinic. 

But today, a new group of people has set up shop at the market, traders from Antiva in direct competition with traders from Nevarra, and the atmosphere is already strenuous when Anders enters the market. And of course, things only get worse. 

He's already on his way out, deciding, very wisely he would say, to get the herbs another day to avoid the commotion, but it's already too late. Tables tip over, tents collapse, fists are flying, and Anders is right in the middle of it. The first knife coming at his throat forces him to react and then he just tries to keep people at a distance to get away. 

Someone grabs his arm and Anders whips around to strike, but a familiar voice has him stop. "Anders, what are you doing here?" Varric looks over his shoulder and raises his crossbow. Whoever tried to attack Anders' back clearly has no interest in interacting with Bianca the crossbow and retreats. Somewhere on the other side of the brawl, Hawke and Aveline yell once, twice. Most people stop fighting at that and walk away from each other with the kind of dazed and embarrassed look that people often have when they leave the Hanged Man. 

Just one antivan trader does not know that it's time to settle down, and runs towards Anders, holding a club in his raised hand. That's when Anders breaks his nose. 

Shaking his hand out, Anders takes stock of the situation. Multiple people have minor wounds but he'd be damned if he risks discovery in the middle of Lowtown to help these troublemakers. His wrist hurts. He'll need to find a quiet corner to heal himself first, anyway.

"You keep holding back, mage, why?" 

Fenris' gravely voice is much too loud. 

"Shhss, will you keep it down?" he hisses at Fenris. Right on time, templars appear at the entrance of the market. Of course, the trouble is already over and they don't need to risk denting their armor.

"Why?" Fenris looks at him, confused. "You never hide that you're a mage and an abomination."

"Why don't you yell a bit louder?" Anders snarls. "The templars didn't quite hear you." He looks over to the templar, his helmet slowly turning as he takes in the market. "You may not notice it, but I do hide, especially when I'm alone." He glares one last time at the elf and then waves at Varric and walks towards an alley that offers an unseen path back to Darktown's elevator. Turning to a wall in the shadows, he sends some healing into his throbbing wrist and sighs when the pain recedes.

"Mage."

How he didn't hear Fenris' approach, is a mystery for another time.

"Oh, for crying out loud. Must you announce this to the world every time you see me, slave?" Anders lets the glow of his magic die down and continues to walk down the narrow alley. 

"You think you can forbid me to speak?" Fenris snarls. "I have to listen to your whining and you think you can order me to be quiet, mage?" He glares at Anders, his markings flickering.

For the first time in a long while, Anders is truly afraid. He's used to bullies, to people wanting to feel important, people who know they have power over him. But that's not what he sees in Fenris' face. All he can see is pure hatred. Fenris doesn't look for something to gain. Fenris just hates him. 

"Sorry," he breathes out and turns and runs as fast as he can. He ducks into tiny alleys, secret passages that saved his ass before, through cellars and warehouses, until he reaches the rickety ladders leading down to Darktown. It's not as comfortable as the elevators, but safer. Hopefully. Nobody ever checks the holding brackets on these things. 

He waves at the carta dwarf standing watch in front of the clinic, one of the regulars, protecting the clinic and him. He isn't sure if he owes this to Varric or to one of the carta leaders he treats in the clinic. When the door falls closed behind him, he breathes a sigh of relief. But, even with the protection outside, he can't quite shake the feeling that the problem with Fenris will keep festering like a wound. If Fenris decides he has enough of the mouthy mage, he can easily alert the templars somewhere where no carta will protect him and be done with him. 

The next time Hawke drags them out on a job, he makes sure to stay far away from Fenris. If he doesn't speak to the elf, he won't get angry, so Anders keeps his mouth shut as best as he can. 

Isabela bumps his arm. "What's the matter with you, Sparklefinger?" 

"Wow, haven't heard that name in a long time."

"Back when you were still fun." Isabela pouts at him, as if he personally insulted her. 

"Sorry, Izzy, but we all get older." He hooks his arm under hers and pulls her close. "So far I didn't need to look for a second job, but if I take up Madame Luisine's offer one day, you'll be the first to know." 

Isabela giggles and presses a kiss to Anders' cheek. "It'll be just like old times."

"Yeah..." A wave of sadness settles over his head. He had been more carefree, back then. Even though his life and freedom were in danger every day, his worries were somehow smaller than today. 

"You worked in a brothel?" Fenris' deep voice pulls him out of his memories.

"Yes," Anders answers quickly. "There aren't many jobs for —" He stops himself and shuts his mouth hard. If he starts talking about how shitty his life was, it'll only make Fenris angry and he can't risk that. "It was just a job." He grabs his staff tighter and hurries his steps to catch up with Hawke at the front, asking her about the job. When he looks over his shoulder, Fenris frowns at him. 

Great, he still made him angry.

Hawke keeps them busy for four more days, running around on some sort of investigation that at least doesn't result in many injuries. On the third day, Anders asks to stay at the clinic, pointing out that his patients need him. "It's not like you're running into anyone dangerous in this investigation."

Hawke looks at him for a bit and then nods. "You're right. I'll ask Merrill."

"If anything happens, you know where to find me." Anders watches them leave, catching Fenris frowning at him, and he breathes a sigh of relief when they're all gone. Two days of tip-toeing around the elf, keeping his mouth shut and never mentioning anything that could be interpreted as whining, has used up all of his mental reserves. 

He sits down on his rickety chair, rolls his shoulders, and lays out the ingredients for fresh health potions. At least he can use the time for something useful. That mellows the tiny sliver of guilt he feels for not accompanying Hawke and their friends.

A sharp whistle from outside has him jump, his chair tipping over. It's a warning from his carta protector. He grabs his medical bag, throws in his books, the vials of royal elfroot extract that cost him a fortune, and the two health potions he already prepared. Already he hears the clanging of armor outside of the rickety door of the clinic and he dives into the darkest corner of his room, where a pile of debris seems to have fallen from the ceiling. He lifts the whole thing up with the hidden trapdoor underneath, jumps in and pulls it closed above his head, just as he hears the front door splinter. 

Pressing his bag to his chest, he breathes in the scent of leather and elfroot. He hates the darkness and he hates small spaces, but he hates the templars and the Circle even more, so he has to endure the first to avoid the latter.

For what feels like hours, Anders listens to the templars trampling through the clinic, smashing everything in their way. Potions fall from broken shelves, vials breaking and liquid seeping into the floorboards. It smells of herbs and alcohol, which is an improvement to the stank of Darktown, but Anders' heart breaks when he thinks how long he had to scrape all the things together that now get destroyed in minutes.

It's been quiet for a while now, but Anders doesn't dare to move. Templars can be very patient. One could wait outside, waiting for Anders to come out. He holds the bag to his chest, breathing as quietly as he can. Justice makes a soothing sound in his head, not quite a song, more like a hum, and it makes sitting still in the darkness a little easier to endure.

After a long time, footsteps come closer, running, storming into the clinic. "Anders?" 

Hawke. It's Hawke.

"Creators, they broke everything," Merrill says, sounding like she's close to tears. 

"Mage?" 

Fenris, of course. Maybe checking if someone else solved his problem?

Anders pushes the trapdoor open and climbs out, making sure to hide it again, before he shoves the tattered curtain aside. "I'm here, they didn't find me." 

"Andraste be blessed," Hawke cries out and pulls him into a hug. Merrill comes up to them and joins the hug and Anders feels like a weight falls from his shoulders.

With a long breath, Anders opens his eyes again and untangles himself from Hawke's and Merrill's arms. His gaze falls on Fenris and the blood freezes in his veins. Fenris looks angry, downright furious. 

Anders' thoughts stumble over themselves. Did the elf expect something different? Is he disappointed that Anders wasn't taken? Did he send the templars himself, knowing that Anders was alone in the clinic? Fenris catches his gaze, and whatever shows on his face, it causes Fenris to turn on his heels and leave the clinic.

"Where did Fenris go?" Hawke asks after a while, as they pick up the salvageable pieces from the floor, bandages that just need a wash, vials that aren't broken by some miracle. 

"I don't know." Anders sets a table on three legs and fishes the broken one out of the rubble. He finds a few nails and some other broken pieces and fixes the table leg with some well-placed nails and hits with his hammer. "Maybe he's disappointed that the templars didn't catch me."

"How can you say that?" Hawke stares at him. "Fenris would never —"

"He wouldn't?" Anders lets out a bitter huff. "He yells out that I'm a mage, an abomination, at every opportunity. It's just a matter of time until a templar hears him."

Hawke shakes her head. "That's not..."

Anders whips around. "That's not what?"

"He's been hurt."

"Everyone hurts in some way." Anders sets the table down too hard, nearly breaking the leg again. "But only he makes sure to tell me all the time what a pest I am and how all mages should be locked up or tranquil."

"He doesn't mean that." Hawke steps closer, looking at Anders' hands. "You're shaking."

"I think it's been a bit much, what with the raid and," he gestures at the destruction all around, "all of this."

"You're sleeping in one of the guest rooms tonight, come on," Hawke says, resolutely taking his arm. "We'll finish this tomorrow."

After a pleasant meal and some conversation that mentions neither templars nor Fenris, Anders lies in the luxurious bed in Hawke's mansion, staring at the painted ceiling. He can't sleep. His thoughts jump around, returning again and again to the way Fenris looked at him. 

The elf clearly despises him. Even if he didn't tip off the templars this time, he could do it any time he likes. That threat will always hang over him. He has to do something about that. Placate Fenris somehow.

With a sigh, Anders sits up and puts on his trousers and shoes. Stepping quietly on the carpet, he can hear Hawke talk with Merrill in the library. He slips out with no one noticing him and stomps over to the dark, rotting mansion that Fenris occupies. He knocks on the door, and after waiting a while, opens it and steps inside.

"Fenris?"

"What do you want?" The voice comes from the hall in the centre of the house. 

Anders walks in, stepping over the usual assortment of magically preserved corpses and mushrooms to reach the fireplace. Fenris sits in a stuffed chair in front of the fire, a half empty wine bottle in his hand, and glares at him. "What do you want, mage?"

"No, what do you want?" Anders tries to keep his voice hard and firm, despite his hands shaking behind his back. "I don't know if you sent the templars after the clinic today, but even if you didn't, you made it clear that you could any time."

Fenris jumps up. "Get out!"

"No." Anders widens his stance and crosses his arms over his chest. "Just tell me. You wanted to make me weary and anxious? Congratulations, you were successful. Now, just tell me what you want." 

His heart beats too fast and he can't stop his hands from shaking, despite shoving them under his arms. Fenris just stares at him. Running out of options, Anders falls to his knees. "I don't have money, you know that, so please, tell me what I have to do. Do you want me to serve you on my knees? Clean your house? Suck your cock? Just tell me."

Fenris' eyes go wider with every word and he stumbles backwards, nearly tripping over the stuffed chair. "Don't say that, don't... why?"

"Why what?" Anders holds out his hands, ignoring the tears that drip from his eyes for some stupid reason. "Just tell me what you want. I can't live like this, wondering when you're gonna —"

"I would never!" Fenris' voice rattles the windows. "You think me this... this vicious? That I'm such a monster?" 

"The monster is me, according to you." Anders stands up, slowly, wincing when his knee protests. 

Fenris looks at his knee. "Why don't you heal your knee?"

Anders dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. "It's an old injury, a templar lesson." He sighs, looking up at the dirty skylight in the ceiling. "At any other time, I would just leave the city, but I can't, so please, just tell me —"

"I don't want anything from you." 

"Great." Anders throws his hands up. "So I just have to wait for the day when a templar overhears you calling me mage or abomination and just like that you'll be rid of me. That's just great for my non-existent sleep patterns." His eyes fall on a table at the wall and he walks over, offering his last trump. 

Shoving his pants down, he leans over the table and throws his coat over his back. "Here, you can fuck my ass. Fuck a mage, as hard as you can, wouldn't that be —" He grunts as Fenris presses against him, leaning over his back. His armor digs into his back and Anders shoves down all the dark memories that want to rise. 

He can endure, he's done it before. It's just a little harder to breathe.

"No." Fenris breathes down his neck and then his weight leaves his back. 

The air feels cold on his face, brushing over tears. He doesn't know when he started crying. Putting his clothes right, he glances at Fenris. "I know you hate me, but this is just cruel."

"I don't hate you." Fenris' voice is nearly too quiet. 

"What?"

Fenris' head snaps around and he yells, "I don't hate you! I fear you, I fear your power."

"What power?" Anders yells back. "You have power. I couldn't even poke you before I would look at my own heart in your hand." Anders hits his fist against his chest. "Tell me, what power do I have? The power to have my emotions burned out of my skull if you keep yelling 'mage' under the templar's noses?"

Fenris stares at him with wide eyes. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware."

Anders feels like someone punched the air out of his stomach. "How could you not be aware? You saw the mages and the tranquil at the Gallows, you told me yourself that all mages should be made tranquil."

"I said that I know some mages who should be tranquil, in Tevinter." 

Anders sets his hand on the table, letting it take some of his weight. He's so tired. "What difference does that make?"

"I didn't mean you."

"Why not? I'm a mage, just like them."

Fenris shakes his head. "You are nothing like them."

"Lucky me." Anders' legs suddenly feel like lead and he leans against the wall and slides down until he sits on the floor. The stress of the day catches up with him and the healer part of himself notes the cold sweat at the back of his neck and his shaking hands as signs of exhaustion. "I'm too tired for this. I'll do anything, whatever you want. Just say what you think and maybe we —" 

"I think that you're kind and passionate." Fenris crouches down in front of him and looks him in the eyes. "I think that you respect life and people. I think you care too much sometimes. You care about your friends, your patients, helping them at the expense of your own health." 

Anders stares at Fenris, all coherent  thoughts having left his mind.

"If you ask me what I want — I want to look at you without fear." Fenris lowers his eyes, watching his hands as they wring each other. "I want to be able to trust you. I want to talk to you and not hear a magister, waiting for an opening to hurt me."

"Fenris," Anders says softly, putting his hand on Fenris'. "What can I do?"

Fenris turns his hands up, pressing his palm against Anders'. "I don't know. This is all new to me."

Anders wraps his fingers around Fenris' hand, stroking with his thumb over a line of lyrium on the back of Fenris' hand. "Maybe all we need is time?"

"Yes, maybe." Fenris lets out a breath and looks at Anders. "I will not call you abomination again, if you don't call me slave." 

Anders flinches. "I did that, didn't I? I'm such an ass sometimes. I promise, I won't call you slave again."

"And I will keep my mouth shut about your mageness around templars."

"Thank you." Anders lets Fenris' hand slip out of his grasp and gets up, using the table as support. He looks at it, at the scratched, but clean surface and the sturdy legs. "Do you have chairs? Two of them?"

Fenris frowns as he gets up. "Yes?"

"Would you like to have dinner tomorrow night? I can make soup if I can use your kitchen."

Fenris looks from the table to Anders and back. "Here? Dinner? With me?"

Anders shrugs. "My table is broken."

A smile pulls at the corners of Fenris' mouth. "Yes. Yes, I would like that." 

"Good." Anders feels strangely light, excitement curling in his stomach. "Then I'll see you tomorrow after the seventh bell." 

"Yes." Fenris looks at him, his hands twitching as if he doesn't know what to do with them. 

"I better get back to the mansion now, before Hawke sends out a search party." Anders walks towards the door. He turns once more, raising his hand in an awkward wave. "Good night, see you tomorrow."

Fenris raises his hand slowly, looking at him with a strange frown. "See you tomorrow."

Smiling once more at the elf, Anders walks out, a swing in his steps and butterflies dancing in his stomach. He shakes his head at himself. It's like he's a bloody teenager again.

[lilydiaone]

Spoiler for 139 AOT

I know a lot people say they like the ending but personally I‘m really dissatisfied with it. It felt rushed and there are few characters whos end I actually liked. I‘m not gonna send death threaths over it like some people (that‘s messed up), still I like to make some points and see what the fraction that loved it has to say about it. I‘m gonna write down the ending of the important characters and what exactly I thought about it

Levi: I honestly liked his ending the best because I‘m so suprised he surrived at all. No but I liked how he ended up staying with Falco and Gabi, especially since he protected the latter in the last few chapters. I feel like he finally can live his life in peace. Really liked as well when he saw the rest of the deceased Survey Corp.

Gabi and Falco: Their reunion was really cute and I liked that. I do think after all these Falco being able to fly as a titan was kinda a plot device but I can live with it. However I wish Falco would‘ve been shown some reaction over his brothers death which he more or less caused. All in all I felt like everyone just kinda forgot Colt? Yeah but all in all okay.

Jean and Connie: Jean and Connies end was alright as well (though why did they thank Eren? but to that latter more). I‘m glad they didn‘t die and personally didn‘t feel it was neccessary for them to die. I also liked when they saw Sasha however I feel like they should‘ve seen Marco as well? Marco is singlehandly the reason why Jean joined the corps in the first place and I was bummed not to see him. I also would‘ve liked to see Connies mother... I would‘ve loved to see a reunin between her and Connie.

Pieck: I don‘t have much to say beside the fact, I‘m glad she surrived.

Reiner: Reiner is in my opion the one I was most suprised to see alive. I was sure he was gonna die but I‘m okay with it. The scene with his mother was nice and all but Reiner wanted to be a hero all his life and I‘m sad we didn‘t get to see more of it now that he basically is one. I also like to point out that Reiner was shown to be depressed and downright suicidal,this part of his story I feel like we didn‘t get any satisfactory conclusion. And his mother, we didn‘t see much of her but she felt a little out of character to me when she said she was fine with him not being a titan anymore when she pushed him into it since he was a child. But maybe she changed her mind with the rambling. Can live with that.

Annie: Her ending was alright as well but I feel like I‘m the only one who thinks her father is a bad guy. It‘s nice that he wanted her to come home but are we gonna forget that he mercilessly pushed he when she was nothing more but a child. Seriously he treated her horribly. I would‘ve like a solution with that. But you know what that‘s okay.

Historia: Her ending simply didn‘t make any sense. Back when she talked to Eren about what he was planning she was not okay with it but now she is the leader of the Yaegerists?! She apparently married the farmer which was kinda leftfield for me. It also feels like her pregnancy literally had no relevance for the story AT ALL. Like I was sure her baby would get a titan or anything but it was basically just used to sideline her, though I feel like they could‘ve sidelined her simply because she was the queen. Her ending didn‘t make ANY sense.

What truly made the ending horrible to me was the ending of the main trio. Here‘s why.

Eren: Look personally I was not a fan of Erens villian arc because such an emotional character suddenly was emotionless. I felt like you could‘ve handled it better. I even theorized he‘s only doing it because the other future he saw is literally so horrible there really is now other way but to become the villian. Eren killed 80% of humanity. That‘t a lot. He did it so his friends would be heros. AndI mean his friends alone. The rest of Paradis is fucked because everyone blames them. The worst thing is despite this plan, Sasha and Hange more or less died because of Eren. It is also rally shortsighted. The Eldians on the island are kinda worse off and I feel likeit was horrible of Eren to do this. In my eyes he‘s not redeemed at all. He‘s still a villian and a really bad one at that. The worst thing however was when everyone started thanking Eren, like his sacrifice was so great??? Like it literally benefitted 10 people at most. Killing millions of people for this was excessive and didn‘t change anything what he did. They all said him killing everyone was awful and if they instead of fighting him decided to stay on paradies the same thing would‘ve happend. It was still the same situation. why were they thanking him??? And it was revealed that he killed his mother by leading Dina to them. I‘m confused to why Dina couldn‘t eat Bertholt because that would‘ve meant they had another titan with Royal blood. I generally only see advantages to this (seriously can someone explain this to me???)

Armin: Honestly I‘ve been dissatisfied with Armins arc for a long time now. Back when Levi decided to give the titan to Armin instead of Erwin, I was a hundred percent sure it was the right move. Now I think this wouldn‘t have happened if Erwin was still alive. Since the very beginning Armin was smart and his smartness was played of as such an important thing but in the end it didn‘t matter at all. The only time I remember him using his brain after he became a titan was when they attacked Marley and even then Hange said it was was an Erwin like plan, so Erwin could‘ve come upmwith this as well. I held hope till the end that Armin would come up with some grand plan. He didn‘t he just talked to people (is this fucking Naruto?!) and then their minds were changed. His inteligence was totally forgotten. At the end he became the hero because he took credit for what Mikasa did (to his defence Mikasa didn‘t want it anyway but still). His entire arc was an disappointment and I don‘t understand why he was made Commander despite not doing anything other than crying over Eren when Jean was right there.

Mikasa: Mikasa was done by far the dirtiest. Like I can‘t even believe this. Personally I never liked how Mikasa was potrayed as totally dependant on Eren but this... Damn. The entire time I hoped Mikasa would realise that her love for Eren was not healthy especially when she stopped wearing the scarf. That did not happen. Look I know many people like Eren/Mikasa so I will not say what I thought about Erens admission that he wanted to be the only one she ever loved. What pissed me of was how the story tying Ymir and Mikasa together made no sense at all. Ymir loved King Fritz besides anything he did to her which is a pretty awful message but okay that wasn‘t the things that made me mad. Mikasa was the one that could stop it because she was kind of in a similiar position. Her relationship with Erem was toxic (before Eren/Mikasa shippers come for me it was when he was the villian and threathened to kill everyone, you can‘t deny that) and by breaking free of it Ymir would break free as well. But Mikasa didn‘t break free. She killed Ymir but we see her years later still pinning for Eren and sitting by his grave and fucking talking to him. How did she free Ymir from King Fritzs binds??? I really hate the idea that she never gets over Eren because after all that she still depends so much on him. Honestly by far the worst character ending.

All in all: All in all nothing really changed, everyone still hates Paradis making me feel like the rumbling was pointless. And I know many people say it‘s realistic and I agree it‘s realistic but why did Eren have to do that??? For what? The Eldian vs everyone else dynamic is still thereand nothing is solved. It just feels like there are gonna be many more years of war amd everything Eren did was utterly pointless. So yeah I didn‘t like it. It was rushed and just felt off. Still let me know what you think.

[thetruthonenow-blog]

Self-defense Manifesto

The United States’ Unforgivable Crime Against Humanity: reality-denial ​

The United States has become a grave danger, not only to humanity but to all life on Earth.

In fact, now it is much more dangerous than the Third Reich ever was. (Yes, seriously.)

Their wealthy class practically controls the country (and most state legislatures). And they purposefully left their fellow citizens ill-educated so they can be easily brainwashed\manipulated. (Through media, and other means.)

Their political system in insanely corrupt and their political parties have become criminal organizations. Their wealthy class, through media, has demonized science and facts. And eventually disconnected a portion of their population from reality. Under this environment -which has been going on for decades- their greedy fossil fuel industry knowingly and willingly putting life on Earth at risk for their short terms profits (And also all sorts of insane stuff going on, but they do not pose an immediate danger to us.). And because of the position of the US in the world this has dire consequences for all of us. A small group of wealthy people controlling the government (by owning the elected officials, and rigging the system), and they brainwashed the citizens. Under these circumstances The United States is a serious threat to humanity and to life as we know it.

We -as children of nature, and intelligent beings- have a moral obligation to act and protect ourselves, the natural environment, and life on this beautiful planet.

Planet Earth, the only home we have ever known.

We must take action, we must take action now, we must take action decisively. The United States is an eminent threath to the planet, to us, and to life.

Embargo, political isolation, universal condemnation. We must do anything and everything to stop their greed and lunacy destroy us.

[libidomechanica]

‘Rescu'd free’

Rescu’d free. “The spring, the health all o carry plum. Blush and where rent, or than when woulder?

Is not me

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by a crowd often to come into men all the old your violet the unmilkweeds

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without scattering villagers.

Ah, when the scant it is maid, the strangers built song to pick withere abroad, heres, more.

Graves flowers fruit this such

As if God, light has love. Lest from the day lovers are a song Brough it:

Came though be and woods.

That leavens to thee will court in heaves we, of a strength the heaped weary, nor face.

To my day

The pear, I loved slaking through my love.

Over, son world, each had last

to hearts fillment With golden would I lie, My trustic, all enjoy to one mutty sweet eye or glass, and go And what you remove And the dreamer, Frience.

Purificating to pray; Thou say tomb-stonest That youth bright’st borner fair, beautiful supper daybreason, -my heavy find;

Ah, which me.

Along both an a little, your two are of thousewives they dos’t song each hazel weavens in time.

Wherefore my plums such are

to ther makes unused hen, than your night eye let maps thou sense, a greath my fool, until we mail from the field; And of come!

A way.

Of the oak is this may nevery

that my heart

I will the grow and play the breedom, Is should his so the comfortune to this stils forgetter and glittle fair?