#but then their solutions were to give the same survey to other majors

[therulerofallpotatos]

It's always so interesting whenever I'm in a class on a Topic right; the psychology of prejudice, disability counseling, sex psychology, any women and gender class, history of autism, etc etc and the inevitable class discussion of "what are some ways we can combat ignorance and discrimination?" and without fail most of the class goes "just educate people" and while that's a worthy goal and a very good method...it also sometimes feels like we are ignoring the fact that the reason "just educate them" worked so well on the people present in that room at that time is because we are all literally academics who sign up for classes like psychology of prejudice, disability counseling, and sex psychology.

If just telling somebody that a thing they believe is racist worked, we'd have a way easier time getting people to stop saying racist things and that's including well-meaning people who are not interested in being unfair or prejudiced to others. it is simply more complicated than that and it sometimes feels like there's a lack of self-awareness amongst the "study self-awareness" group.

[govindhtech]

Dell APEX: Simplify Your IT Infrastructure as a Service

According to an IDC analysis, Dell APEX Pay-Per-Use solutions offer 194% three-year ROI in addition to speed, agility, and scalability.

Continued investments in technology are necessary to stay competitive across all industries and geographical areas. Technology is the engine that drives business, giving it speed, agility, and scalability while also empowering companies to build stronger futures.

Dell APEX Solutions

Dell APEX Pay-per-Use solutions

Despite knowing this, IT leaders are concerned about staying up to date. According to a recent IDC report, 69% of global IT leaders are very concerned about the rising amount of money that must be invested in technology in order to stay competitive and resilient.

This growing worry is addressed and profitably by Dell APEX Pay-per-use solutions, according to the same IDC survey. IDC conducted interviews with Dell APEX Pay-per-Use clients to learn about the concrete, measurable results that these solutions produce. It users break even in eight months with a 194% three-year ROI.

Lowering Operating Expenses

Based on data from companies utilizing Dell APEX Pay-per-Use solutions for compute, storage, and data protection, IDC computed the ROI over a three-year period. Over a three-year period, organizations experienced a 35% reduction in operating costs.

These operational savings result from optimizing infrastructure costs and raising worker productivity across multiple domains:

Optimization of infrastructure costs

Reduced compute expenses by 31% and storage costs by 22%.

31% less expensive data security.

Higher employee output and 51% greater total efficiency.

96% more time to create new things.

This level of operational savings is noteworthy.

Beyond the financial KPIs, other business features that help organizations achieve higher-order outcomes are made possible by it’s Pay-per-use solutions.

“They just pay as Dell grow with it, but they also reduce that as shrink.” One Dell APEX Pay-per-Use user said, “It’s been crucial to the expansion of IT business unit, and They really couldn’t have done it any other way.

Increasing Agility and Speed in Business

Adopting Dell APEX Pay-per-use solutions has improved study participants’ performance, scalability, and agility. The ultimate benefit of digital revolutions for organizations is better business outcomes. Better business outcomes are supported for Dell APEX Pay-per-Use clients by the ease, agility, and control that these solutions offer.

Improved business outcomes start with quickness. Users report deployments that are 67% faster for new storage resources and 60% faster for new hype converged/compute capacity in the IDC study. Organizations get newfound agility from these speed improvements.

Organizations acquire new capacities to satisfy changing market demands and maintain their competitiveness with this agility. According to a survey by IDC, Dell APEX customers experience 91% fewer unplanned downtime and report annual revenue increases of $9.21 million per organisation.

“Being able to embark on this amazing digital transformation journey is the biggest advantage of Dell APEX because it gives us access to things they didn’t have before and that Pay-per-use Dell APEX user: “will eventually provide the customer experience IT industry demands.”

Quickening the Process of Development

In order to meet client needs, keep firms sustainable, and keep up with the market, Dell APEX users also expedite product development. IDC discovered that enterprises may increase development team productivity by 16% and shorten development lifecycles by 16% by utilizing Dell APEX Pay-per-Use solutions.

They were unable to scale in a way that would allow us to fulfil their schedules. As a result, the time to revenue was prolonged, which caused a major delay in receiving income. You can therefore appreciate the value Dell receive from Dell APEX’s consistent ability to meet its deadlines. A Dell APEX Pay-per-Use customer said, “It has clearly benefited the organisation.”

Keeping Ahead of Client Requirements

To anticipate and satisfy the demands of a developing market, IT must continuously advance. The efficient management of this ongoing enhancement is facilitated by a versatile, consumption-oriented framework that can promptly adapt to changing market needs.

Customers of Dell APEX Pay-per-Use say that the capacity-on-demand feature of the solution is essential to being “at the ready” and consistently satisfying client needs. By using Dell APEX Pay-per-Use solutions now, these businesses are putting gasoline on the fire for a more robust tomorrow and the near future.

“With the Dell APEX Data Centre Utility agreement, a consumption-based model is great since it allows us to have capacity on demand without requiring large capital outlays, which are just not feasible. One Dell APEX Pay-per-Use user said, “As a new business unit, what Dell APEX Data Centre Utility has enabled for us is to build out capacity well in advance of demands from IT customers.”

Create APEX Subscriptions

Create APEX Subscriptions in three simple steps.

Select the technology that you use.

Servers, storage, cloud platforms, data security, converged, and hyper-converged infrastructure are available. Set up the capabilities according to your particular needs.

Choose your offerings.

APEX Subscriptions require deployment and support. To fulfil your company demands, you can expand your infrastructure and add managed services to support people, processes, and workloads.

Cover the cost of what you use

Gain financial freedom by matching costs to real usage instead of projected usage, and enjoy piece of mind knowing that monthly billing will be capped at 85% of installed capacity a feature that no other infrastructure supplier can match.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[cyphershieldtech]

Security in the metaverse emerging scams and phishing risk.

The metaverse and web3 may still be evolving, but they are sure to bring lasting changes to the way we work, play, and interact. For companies, we see four major areas of opportunity: staff experience, customer experience, process improvement, and new products and services. Considerable innovation is already taking place in each of them. But, as is often the case, the approach and technology of cybersecurity and anti-fraud have not kept pace with the rapid growth and development of the metaverse.

This emerging space presents new opportunities for criminals to exploit inexperienced and unaccustomed newcomers for monetary gain through targeted cyberattacks such as phishing and social engineering scams. In addition to direct financial losses, there are obvious reputational risks for brands and creators (as well as harm to consumers, although this paper focuses on the business perspective). And depending on their materiality and frequency, the attacks could also lead to unwanted scrutiny or lawsuits from consumers, consumer protection groups, investigative agencies, and regulators.

An unreliable metaverse could also stall progress. In our 2022 Metaverse Survey of more than 1,000 executives and 5,000 consumers, both groups said cybersecurity and privacy were the top concerns holding them back from adopting it. The metaverse could allow existing cybercrime to flare up and create new types of it.

But the metaverse, powered by a blockchain-based web3 infrastructure, could also be the place to find solutions, such as improved cyber protection and protocols, the ability for users to control what data is shared, and a better data verification process.

Understand what you're up against

While there are many types of scams relevant to the metaverse and decentralized web3 world, phishing and social engineering scams are some of the most prevalent. The crimes are the same, but the metaverse is fertile ground for novel and little-known ways of targeting victims and stealing their assets.

Let's look at four common attack vectors used by scammers today.

Scam messaging and social engineering:  This takes many forms, including unofficial websites and social media accounts, fraudulent emails, fake tech support, and bot-driven messaging on community management platforms used to facilitate communications between consumers and administrators. environments. Although metaverse environments consist primarily of real-time voice communications, these environments can also include text-based instant messaging and chat functionality. These fraudulent tactics have been effective in tricking victims into clicking malicious links or attachments, interacting with fraudulent web forms or smart contracts, or divulging sensitive information. 

The metaverse has also introduced "3D social engineering," in which scammers arrive via a lure that closely resembles a known domain and takes the form of a 3D avatar designed to impersonate coworkers or other contacts. acquaintances. The idea is to get victims to share confidential information and access. Earlier this year, the server for a metaverse environment, with blockchain-backed transactions, was compromised and fraudulent messages were sent to members about an "exclusive giveaway." Hundreds of thousands of digital assets were stolen from the wallets of unsuspecting members who navigated to the imitation website contained in the message and interacted with the attacker's fraudulent smart contract.

Airdrops and malicious giveaways: Legitimate companies use airdrops as a way to reward their investors or early adopters and as a marketing tool to incentivize users to purchase products and services available on their platforms. Many project owners often give their native cryptocurrency tokens or an NFT to their investors allowing them to navigate to their website, connect their digital wallets, sign a smart contract, and claim the airdrop. 

In many cases, scammers take advantage of this method to trick unsuspecting individuals into clicking malicious links or signing fraudulent smart contracts that give cybercriminals full access to their victims' digital assets, which disappear moments later. In one case earlier this year, a malicious airdrop phishing scam carried out through compromised social media accounts managed to steal around $1 million worth of digital assets.

Seed phrase phishing: A seed phrase is what gives users access to your private keys over your digital assets. Scammers obtain a user's seed phrase to gain control of the victim's digital wallet and digital assets, which they then use to conduct transactions purportedly in the victim's name. Note that if a user's seed phrase is stored offline, the only way for an attacker to obtain it is if the user gives it to them, or if they steal it from the physical space the phrase is in. seed (for example, on a desktop in the user's home). 

Aside from social engineering, another common way scammers carry out this phishing scam is by copying legitimate websites that require and ask victims to create an account and "log in" using their seed phrase. In late 2021, copycat websites of several popular digital wallets were created where scammers managed to steal half a million dollars through a seed phrase phishing campaign. Since a digital wallet is often needed to interact with metaverse environments, this campaign was able to take advantage of first-time users. In addition, some mobile wallet applications may by default save a copy of a user's private keys in a cloud backup,

Ice phishing: This is a novel scheme that tricks people into assigning or delegating approval of their cryptocurrency address to the attacker. This occurs when an attacker changes the address of the victims to that of the attackers by injecting a malicious script into a smart contract and waiting for the victim to authorize a transaction. Once this occurs, the smart contract allows the attacker to carry out transactions on behalf of the victim.  

Due to the general complexity of the smart contract coding language, it is difficult for an inexperienced user to realize that a smart contract has been tampered with. This is further complicated by the fact that window interfaces that appear on a user's screen rarely provide a clear, understandable, plain language description of what the transaction allows the smart contract to do once authorized. This increases the likelihood that a person will authorize a transaction that he does not understand.  

In one case, scammers created fake websites associated with a metaverse environment (in this case, a 3D Internet site) and, using web ads, paid to have their fraudulent metaverse site appear at the top of search results. . Once on the copycat site, users connected their wallets and signed what they thought was a harmless agreement allowing them access to their metaverse account, but in reality they were signing a contract that changed status and gave scammers access. to their digital wallets.

How to protect the company and customers

Since the web3 and metaverse space is relatively new, there is little to no regulation protecting consumers, and few remedies for victims who have had digital assets stolen; and little is required of companies operating in this space. Still, there are certain proactive measures that can help organizations identify and protect themselves and their customers against these types of scams.

Focus on the controls. Maintaining and applying checks to determine the validity of messages received from third parties (and flag or block malicious ones) is especially critical, as fraudulent messages can also come from legitimate accounts that have been compromised and taken over. The commercial development and deployment of these types of controls is likely to be an area where further innovation continues as adoption and user activity increase and the security posture of metaverse environments evolves. One basic control that can be effective is the use of two-factor or multi-factor authentication. It can be an effective preventative control to protect against email and social media account hijacking risks.

Apply content moderation. To mitigate the risk of fraud associated with a metaverse project, companies can implement an impartial moderation or content governance feature in their community management platforms and any text messaging features within the environment, if any. This may carry out due diligence on project contributors, including removing or banning abusive users who don't follow community rules, identifying and removing malicious or misleading messages, and performing regular IP scans and network, among other functions.

Promote correct hygiene of purses.This means using multiple wallets, each with a specific purpose. At the consumer level, it is common practice for a user to have a "mint wallet" (hot wallet), a vend wallet (warm wallet), and a vault wallet (hardware wallet/cold wallet). The minting wallet is the most interactive with the blockchain, but should only contain low-value items and enough cryptocurrency to mint an asset (for example, an NFT representing an avatar, character, or wearable item ) in order to limit the risk of financial loss. Selling wallets are typically used to interact with exchanges and marketplaces, while a vault wallet holds a user's high-value digital assets. At the enterprise level, there are several custodial platforms that you can use to customize the wallet experience (for managing corporate digital assets) and align it with your business goals. For example, a corporate wallet can be configured as a multi-sig or multi-party computational (MPC) wallet, requiring the authorization and signature of multiple designated wallet addresses (users) before executing a transaction on the blockchain. Similarly, companies creating or sponsoring metaverse spaces may wish to educate consumers on the benefits of holding multiple wallets to help reduce risk and potentially help make it easier to set up such a multi-wallet structure to promote wallet hygiene. portfolio between users.

Stay up to date and be transparent. Lastly, it's hard to prevent an attack you don't see coming. Stay up to date on new scams and provide regular education and communication to stakeholders, particularly employees and customers, about asset protection and threat recognition and response. This includes verifying a link before clicking on it, verifying the sender of a link, doing independent research on the metaverse and web3 projects and platforms, being aware of the types of smart contacts you are signing, and not engaging with direct messages. incoming, but rather navigate to the "official links" page of a project before participating.

Conclusion: As vulnerabilities exist in the web3 spaces, Cypershield is one of the kinds of Security and Smart Contract audit company rendering exceptionally professional smart contract auditing services for varied Crypto projects. In the process of rendering your projects, full-on auditing services help you come over your smart contract vulnerabilities and reach a higher scale in the market.

[seo411]

Sound Masking Offers a Privacy and Productivity Booster

In most workplaces, controlling sound is a challenge - but a challenge worth taking on for facility managers. Part of the difficulty is the expense involved with acoustic materials. Creating sound barriers and outfitted surfaces with acoustic material is costly and may require significant alterations to the space. Sound masking technology is an alternative to sound blocking or absorbing materials. It works by blanketing areas with background sound - an invisible fence through which private conversations and distracting noise cannot pass. The Modern Office is Full of Noise Distractions Sound masking solutions are effective in a variety of places, but they're most often found in office buildings. That may be due, in part, to how distracting the modern workplace is. Research developed by UC Irvine found that the typical office worker is interrupted every 11 minutes by noise. And for some workers, it takes more than 20 minutes to get back up to the same working speed. These interruptions can damage your company's bottom line, even if they appear harmless in isolation. It's different for every employee, but the average worker is losing around 5 percent of their day to audio-based distraction. The more employees your company has, the more those productivity losses add up. Adding a sound masking solution to your facilities may save a lot of time in lost man hours. Speech Privacy is a Major Concern for Employees and Companies, but it's Difficult to Find The other sound-related challenge facing many workplaces is speech privacy. With open offices the standard for professional work, it's nearly impossible to find a place where private conversation can be had. This isn't a trivial issue, either, as worker surveys like the University of Sydney's shows. More than half of the surveyed cubicle and open office workers stated that they were dissatisfied with the speech privacy in their workplace. Only professionals with a private office had a positive impression of their workplace's speech privacy. In professional settings, it's best to keep private conversations private. Many of these conversations, if overheard, could give HR migraines. More importantly, conversations between employees may include sensitive information that your company is legally required to protect. If your organization is regulated or supported by any of the following entities: - HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) - GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) - HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey) - FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) Then it's of paramount importance that employees have the comfort and privacy they need to exchange critical information. Sound Masking Technology Can Create a Comfortable Audio Environment Creating that comfortable, private space for workers is possible with sound masking technology. Sound masking solutions are simple in design, with steady audio piped through a series of emitters installed throughout the building. These emitters are essentially speakers that can output white noise or pink noise. For most applications, noise that resembles rushing water or wind is the preferred option. However, sound masking systems can be tied to your facility's larger audio system, so it can be used to output music or deliver announcements. The primary goal of sound masking is to make human speech unintelligible over shorter distances. In other words, if a conversation would normally be heard 60 feet away, sound masking may reduce that distance down to 15 feet. Every system can be calibrated for a different "radius of distraction," or the distance at which human speech can no longer be picked up. Ideally, emitters are evenly distributed throughout the floor and in high enough volume to ensure 100 percent coverage. Complete coverage is important because it will interfere with how uniform the system sounds. And if the sound masking solution itself becomes a distraction, that defeats the purpose. The Difference Between Direct and Indirect Sound Masking There are numerous sound masking solutions on the market, and most of them can be placed in one of two categories - direct and indirect sound masking. What's the difference? - Direct-field systems - With a direct masking solution, the emitters are installed in the ceiling itself and broadcast the audio directly into the workspace. The primary benefit of direct-field solutions is that they can be easily zoned. Facility managers can set the level of audio masking in different spaces, which allows for a custom radius of distraction. - Indirect systems - An indirect solution places the speakers above the ceiling tiles, in the building's "plenum" where cabling conduit and HVAC components lie. This means the emitters remain invisible, so workers cannot pinpoint where the masking audio is coming from. This can help ensure the system does not become a distraction. During operation, indirect systems cast the audio upwards, toward the ceiling deck. It then reflects and diffuses through the ceiling and into the workspace. The diffuse nature of indirect audio masking makes it easier to create the uniform sound that installers are going for. Where Can Sound Masking Solutions Help? While sound masking technology is an ideal fit for any office space, there are plenty of other applications. They include: - Meeting rooms and huddle rooms - Research laboratories and engineering labs - Educational settings, such as libraries and testing rooms - Hotel reception areas - Spas - Hospital and clinic patient areas - Banks - Call centers - Courtrooms and high security facilities - Airports - Churches Certified AV Integrators Can Help Design and Install Sound Masking Solutions While sound masking technology is simple from a hardware standpoint, installing it isn't as simple. A single project may involve installing dozens of emitters in the ceiling - or above it. Proper emitter spacing and configuration is essential, too, so installation is best handled by a trained hand. Certified AV integrators have the expert personnel on hand to oversee sound masking system design and installation. With a certified integrator's assistance, your organization will have no trouble identifying what features to look for in a solution, and which system comes with those features. An AV integrator can also layout the system, install it, and provide ongoing support, ensuring it remains viable for years after installation. Read the full article

[bondsmagii]

I remember once we were talking about the Holocaust in school and we got into a debate about whether or not German soldiers had it bad bc they were forced into the war no matter what. And I was like no I don’t really feel sorry for them bc when the war ended most of them actually got to go home to their families. You know unlike 6 million other individuals. And ppl were like that’s wrong poor nazis >:( but no one could say why it was wrong exactly 🤔

the problem with war is that it sucks for absolutely everyone involved underneath a certain level of the military hierarchy. Nazi Germany was a fascist government, and the level of support for Hitler in the country was... really not very high at all. a survey in 1946 reveals the following numbers, to give us an idea of popular support for Hitler:

37% agreed that the "extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryan races was necessary for the security of Germany"

33% agreed that "Jews should not have the same rights as those belonging to the Aryan race"

these are pretty grim numbers, but they are a small minority. that's what makes this kind of thing so scary, and it's why we shouldn't assume that, say, people like Trump aren't a threat, because only a third of the country seems to like him. it doesn't take a lot for unsavory people to get into power, and Hitler was a fascist dictator. he was not interested in being kind and supportive towards his citizens. he was a paranoid brute who played constant games with his inner circle, and organised to have people in said inner circle and/or the mechanics of the government or country killed if they went against him. he was a megalomaniac with a lot in common with Stalin: both men ruled their countries with an iron fist, and speaking out against the leader was absolutely forbidden and carried dire consequences.

a majority of the German people, soldiers included, were unaware of the so-called "Final Solution". Hitler and his cronies kept this on the downlow, because even they knew it was so fucked up that publicity would not be a good thing. the extermination camps were kept secret and were located out of the way and disguised as other things; they were very often in occupied territories, and the Nazis who staffed them were put there because of their discretion and the fact they could be trusted not to talk about the atrocities being committed there. the average German soldier on the front would not have known that this was going on.

if a German soldier supported the Nazi regime and subscribed to the propaganda about Jews and other non-Aryan enemies in any way, I would agree and have zero sympathy. however, there were plenty of soldiers who were forced and conscripted into the army, and many more who had been spoonfed propaganda in a country that was literally a cult. it's very easy to point fingers, but given the culture at the time, these people were literally brainwashed. when we're talking about the soldiers who were coerced or threatened or forced into the army, I do feel some sympathy for them. despite the abhorrent nature of their government's regime, they themselves were unaware of the true nature of the evil the government was committing, and in their own lives they were frightened for themselves and for their families. dictators are horrific to live under. I don't think any of us can point fingers and say we know for sure how we would react if a disctator essentially told us it was a choice between mandatory military service, and imprisonment, death, exile, or other issues that would ruin us or our families.

war is horrific, and there is a lot of nuance. it's very important to remember that in war, all of the decisions are made by very few people, and those who give the orders are never the ones in the firing line. war is a sick exercise between often egotistical leaders, who have no qualms against playing games with the lives of millions of people. the Holocaust is always going to be the stand-out evil of WWII, and I don't think anybody should necessarily have sympathy for Nazi soldiers despite the nuance. but I do think it's important to remember that being forced into war is not something that anybody deserves, and for the soldiers who had no choice and no knowledge, their only mistake was being born in a country at a time where they were going to fall under the leadership of a total nutcase. many soldiers had no idea of the extent of their government's crimes until after the war, and many of them, being regular people in their daily lives, were disgusted, horrified, and ashamed -- as this photograph of German soldiers being shown footage of recently liberated concentration camps shows.

those soldiers were lucky to return home when so many others did not, but I think it's possible to hold both that opinion and the opinion that being coerced or manipulated into war by a fascist dictator is not exactly a fun time. many Germans lived with shame over fighting in WWII, and Germany has made incredible efforts to acknowledge and learn from its mistakes. it's very important to acknowledge the nuance of war and the insidiousness of fascism, and it's important to understand the workings of a fascist government. none of us are safe from ending up in a situation like this. applying black and white morality -- "they fought for the bad side so they are just as evil as the leadership" -- achieves nothing. it's so much more complicated than that, and so much scarier, too -- because it shows how all of us could end up in this situation.

we need to know the warning signs so we can recognise them in our own lives, and to do that, we need to have some measure of understanding. to do that, we need to have a more complicated view of war than "that side bad, my side good". the average soldier on the front lines is not there because he supports his government unquestioningly, but rather because he feels his own insular world is threatened in some way. for Allies, that threat was the evil of Nazi Germany spreading through the world. for at least some of the Germans, that threat was also Nazi Germany, because it was a fascist hellhole who would have thought nothing of killing or imprisoning its own citizens for deserting the "cause". fuck the Nazis who planned the regime, and organised it, and assisted it, and believed in the Nazi doctrine. but for those ordinary footsoldiers who had no idea, and perhaps even no choice? I think it's possible to agree, even if sympathy is still hard to come by, that it was a shitty situation. as is always the case in fascist dictatorships, the delusional power fantasies of one man and a few of his cronies becomes the pain and torment of millions, in countless different ways.

(and because this is Tumblr and it needs to be said: no, I'm not saying that this is on the same level as the Holocaust. of course the systematic and deliberate genocide of innocent civilians is going to be the stand-out horror here. I'm merely saying that war is complicated and nuanced, and refusing to even entertain the humanity and choices (or lack thereof) of your enemy does absolutely nothing to help, very often blinding you to similar issues within your own government or country.)

[rax-writes]

Enchanted - Part II

Fandom:  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Pairing:  Caliban x Reader Warnings:  Violence, death + resurrection Notes:  Part I ♥ Here’s part two! Hope you all like it!

Your relationship with Caliban did not remain a secret for long. Your sister was the first to know.

As you jogged over to her at the carnival the following weekend, you said, “Sister, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I know how the Plague Kings’ plan to overthrow you. They’ll be keeping an eye on you for any missteps, and once given probable cause, they will force you and Caliban to embark on a quest to retrieve the Unholy Regalia.”

She was visibly stunned, and understandably so. “That’s great! But how did you find all that out?”

“That would be the bad news.”

As if on cue, Caliban then materialized, and wrapped an arm around your waist – which was immediately noticed by Sabrina.

“What did you rope my sister into?” she snarled at Caliban, but you held up a hand to silence them both before the bickering began.

“Caliban came to me and stated that he wished to court me. I first tried to convince him to end the coup in exchange for courtship, but he explained that even if he wanted to, he is unable to stop the Kings. So, instead, the exchange became useful information for courtship.”

“Mhmm,” Sabrina mused disbelievingly, glaring at the man at your side. “And for how long does she have to date you?”

“The only requirement to fulfill our agreement is a single date, hence our presence at this mortal affair,” Caliban answered, then smiled warmly at you. “After that, the status of our courtship is up to my lady.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad,” Sabrina muttered, then shrugged as she turned to you. “At least you can get this night over with and never have to see him again.”

“In all honesty… I am not entirely opposed to seeing him again,” you admitted hesitantly, and Sabrina’s jaw dropped slightly as her brows furrowed in agitation. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Sister. For Satan’s sake, have you seen him? He’s more than a little easy on the eyes.”

Caliban chuckled, both at your compliment and your sister’s obvious annoyance. “Come, little dove. Let us explore this fanciful event.”

Though the evening had been a delight, and you enjoyed your time with your date, you couldn’t help but notice that Caliban seemed slightly on edge all night. After the sun had gone down, and you’d surveyed the majority of the carnival, Caliban requested to take you to dinner in a nice restaurant. You agreed, and he thoroughly surprised you by taking you to a quiet, romantic rooftop restaurant in Italy, having remembered you stating that Italian was your favorite food. It was the following morning before you realized that he’d been sensing the impending danger of Herod’s attack. Coincidentally, he had disappeared for a short while during dinner, and although he’d claimed to have gone to the restroom, you learned from Sabrina the following morning that he’d actually returned to Greendale to collect King Herod's crown.

Naturally, the two of you had bickered about him cheating your sister the next time you were together, but his soft lips and skilled hands had done wonders to dissipate your anger. Although you refused to admit it, you were positively hooked from thereon out.

You told yourself that you continued the dates and the trysts simply because it was merely an enjoyable pastime. But in truth, it was because you were slowly falling for the prince. Knowing it was a mistake due to his allegiance to Hell, and his position as the enemy of your sister, created a forbidden nature to the romance, and it only made you crave him more.

Little did you know, Caliban felt the same for you. Your smile set his soul aflame, and your laughter made his chest tighten with affection. The sight of your hair fanned across your pillow, mouth slightly agape in pleasure, was not one he would ever grow tired of. He had fallen well and truly in love with you.

This information was kept secret from one another, because both of you were scared to admit such a thing and risk scaring the other away.

It wasn’t long after your mutual realizations that he met your aunts and Ambrose. Although they were all pleased to have met the object of your affection, and they remained civil with him, it was evident that each member of your family distrusted him, and questioned his intentions with you.

Their distrust turned out to be short-lived.

Immediately following your coven’s Hare Moon celebration, one of the Pagans had developed a very intense dislike for you. All it took was for her to sense that you were a very powerful member of your kind – that is, until your powers faded – and she, being a harpy, notorious for their insatiable hunger and lust for torture, had decided that she would feast upon your witch flesh as her next meal.

It was that evening when she appeared. You had been relaxing on the front porch of the Spellman Mortuary, and at first, you thought she was merely a mortal woman – then her wings spread out from behind her as her glamour faded, bird-like legs sprouted from her torso, and her face became hideous, decayed and rotting. You had instinctively tried to run, but it was futile. After all, harpies were originally thought to be the personification of wind, so it was unsurprising that you were in her clutches before you even made it to the door.

The harpy’s sharp talons dug into your shoulders, and you screamed for help as she launched you into the yard. You fell flat on your back, which knocked the wind out of you, and she was on you again in the blink of an eye. As you felt the most impossibly intense, agonizing pain across your abdomen, you screamed again as you glanced down and realized she had torn you open. She began feasting on your flesh and organs, blood dripping from her claws as she ravaged you.

You were vaguely aware of a horrified scream from Sabrina somewhere behind you. She had just swung open the front door of the Spellman household to see the ghastly scene before her, Aunt Zelda, Aunt Hilda, and Ambrose right behind her. With a roar of pure rage, Ambrose charged at the harpy with his blade drawn, which drew her away from you. Sabrina and Hilda then kneeled beside you, the former with tears in her eyes and a terrified look on her face as she held your hand, and the latter clearly trying to hide her panic as she unsuccessfully attempted to heal you. But your injuries were far too extensive, and your loved ones’ magick was far too weak.

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot pierced through the night air, and you weakly turned your head to see Aunt Zelda holding a shotgun, Ambrose a few feet from your attacker, and the harpy lying dead on the ground. The two then ran over to you, both dropping to their knees at your side, their faces just as solemn and fearful as Sabrina and Aunt Hilda.

It was then, looking upon the panic-stricken faces of your family, that you knew you were going to die.

Darkness began to cloud your vision, and you vaguely heard your sister sobbing, and aunts and cousin begging you to stay conscious, giving you empty promises that they would find a way to fix this, and that everything would be alright. In the midst of all their hysterics, it seemed an idea donned on Sabrina.

“Caliban!” she screamed desperately into the night, her voice breaking from the force as she put behind it.

He appeared instantly, the usual vortex of flames escorting him onto the scene. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make a smug retort to Sabrina’s unceremonious summoning, before his eyes fell on you.

“No,” Caliban whispered in disbelief, still frozen on the spot. Blood poured from your abdomen, and the sight of you torn open and half-dead filled him with a sense of gripping terror and worry he had never before experienced. He ran over to you, skidding to a stop on his knees and gently cradling your head in his hands.

“Do something!” Sabrina begged, a sob raking her body. Caliban panicked for a split second, then a solution came to him. It was a last ditch effort kind of plan, but seeing as your eyes had already drifted shut, and your body was growing colder by the second, he knew that he must do something that would absolutely ensure your survival.

“With a desperate heart and no time to waste, I call upon all three Fates!”

In a cloud of smoke, three hooded figures appeared. Each had clouded eyes, long white hair, and greenish-gray, wrinkled skin.

“Fates, I beseech you to save this woman’s life,” Caliban pleaded.

“In exchange for our aid, you must give up the fate you have been pursuing so fiercely.” The Fates spoke in unison, their voices raspy and eerie. “You must cease your pursuit of the throne of Hell, and no longer seek to make Earth the tenth circle.”

“I shall. Here and now, I end my quest to become King of Hell, and remake the Earth as the tenth circle,” Caliban vowed. The lack of hesitation and conviction in his voice astounded each of the Spellman’s, although that was but a minor thought in the back of their minds at the moment. “Just save the woman I love, please.”

The Fates disappeared without another word in another cloud of smoke, at the same moment that a ragged, desperate gasp tore from your lips. The Spellman’s and Caliban all snapped their eyes back down to you. The fatal wound had been healed, and even your clothing was fixed. You sat bolt upright, as if you’d just been necromanced back to life – and, technically, you had. As you looked around at your loved ones, the realization that you were alive and safe sunk in, and you immediately began to cry.

“I saw Dad. I saw him,” you sobbed pitifully, and your family took you into their arms. You despised how weak you sounded, but seeing your father was something you were entirely unprepared for. Caliban rubbed his palm up and down your back, not wanting to interfere with your familial embrace. Still crying into Auntie Zee’s chest, you explained, “I died. I died and Dad was there waiting for me. He hugged me and told me that he was happy to see me, but it wasn’t my time yet.”

It was several minutes before you were able to compose yourself, although you supposed that was somewhat to be expected for someone who had just died then came back to life. After your aunts wiped your tears, you turned around to look at Caliban.

“I know you had something to do with this. We’re all powerless right now, so that is the only explanation,” you whispered. “What did you do?”

Caliban hesitated a moment, so Ambrose answered for him.

“He called upon the Fates. They demanded that he give up the fate he has been pursuing, in order to save you. So, he vowed to give up the throne of Hell, and said it was to save the woman he loves.”

You looked slowly from Ambrose back to Caliban. He appeared slightly perturbed that Ambrose revealed what he’d said in that moment of fear-fueled vulnerability, but didn’t bother to deny it.

“Caliban… is that true?”

“As I’ve told you before: anything for you,” Caliban answered, giving you a soft smile. You threw your arms around his neck, and he immediately wrapped his around your waist.

“I love you,” you murmured, your face buried in his neck. Caliban held you tightly and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“And I love you, little dove.”

[ptitelidio]

Secret Mission in Marley:

Involving: Petra Ral and Levi Ackerman.

Summary: the scene takes place when the survey corps infiltrated Marley undercover some years after Eren and his friends reached the sea. In this version, the special operations squad (or Levi squad) didn’t die and won against the female titan, the major difference is that Levi isn’t their captain and squad leader. It is instead Petra squad; she is a veteran soldier whereas Levi is an Eldian from Marley living in the continent. The humanity’s strongest soldier in Paradis is Mikasa Ackerman whereas the humanity’s strongest warrior in Marley is Levi Ackerman. They didn’t know each other until the survey corps leader Hanji Zoë sent their best hope to infiltrate the Marleyan recruits, Petra Ral.

Point of view: Petra’s.

-> Italic font = flashback

PS: I drew something for one specific moment, hope you’ll like it!

Hanji sent me a letter yesterday, they said it’s important to remember who we really are. I think she is right; identity is the exact reason for which the human VS titan war began a long time ago. To know who we are, where we belong, and where we go makes the difference to such a point that people are ready to die for it.

War is awful. And yet, here we are. Repeating the same old mistakes again and again. I should say that Hanji’s opinion is incredibly brave, I saw them overworking to prevent direct conflict, they always preconized discussion. Unfortunately, it’s not the most common opinion, it’s so much easier to give in to fear. That’s why Hanji sent me here, in Marley, I have to find a way to stop that war. I know it’s not a one-person job but little by little, step by step we will find a solution. I’m looking forward for a bright future.

I remember the very first time I came here in Marley, we were all startled. We saw things we never could have imagined in Paradis. It was a brand-new world full of possibilities or that’s what I thought because I learned that even here terror was reigning. I fully experienced it when I joined the Marleyan warriors two months ago, it was very complicated to make me enter but Hanji managed to get an accomplice from the new Eldian Resistance Group and with their help I could join the recruits with a yellow armband. Soon enough I got to get along with Marleyan and honorary Marleyans, they were not that different from us. We had the same dreams, the same histories, we were human after all regardless our origins. However, this was something Marleyan people couldn’t accept for many reasons… the main being power.

I didn’t think my life would change briskly but it did happen. One of the nine original titan owner died, he was named Porco Galliard and I was selected to inherit his titan overnight, it was 2 weeks ago. The jaw titan. It was one honorary Marleyan Captain who handpicked me, Levi Ackerman. He has that peculiar expressionless face you can’t forget for sure. The thing I noticed about him is that he wears a red armband which means he’s also a titan shifter. But which one I still don’t know. I remember what he said back then to his higher up when he pointed his finger at me

“I want her in my team. I think she is able to get Galliard’s titan.”

I remember how the man he was talking to didn’t argue and congratulated me for my efforts. After handshaking, I experienced one of the most traumatic thing in my life which was to eat someone as a titan. That’s when Captain Ackerman kind of took care of me when I joined his team.

Thanks to this, I was becoming even closer to my goal even if it meant deceiving him and the other people I met, I had no choice; my fate was already decided, and I couldn’t give it up right now.

“That’s weird.”

“Uh? What are you talking about, Captain?” I answered.

“You seem pretty quiet today, that’s not like yours. You’re usually such a crappy chatterbox.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I was just lost in my thoughts.”

“Well…”

The thing is, I just remembered the first time we walked here together. The situation was… a mess, actually he nearly discovered who I really was.

As we were taking a strolling together in city, I couldn’t resist observing everything around me to the point it got suspicious. It was my first time in here. Liberio was lively, and people were preparing the fair looking forward the head of the Tybur family speech in a few days.

I didn’t notice at first, but I felt Levi’s glare on me as if he were thinking of something about me. I should say ever since I entered his team, he’s been keeping an eye on me as if he suspected something, but I hope I’m just being paranoiac. The second following that mere thought happened to answer to my question.

Without the time to think, I was carried away in a narrow street, Levi blocked me against the wall holding a knife at my neck. Was he… intimidating me?

“Okay ginger, you’re gonna tell me every single thing about you.” He said with a threatening voice.

“Eh… I mean… if you want to get to know me better… there are other ways… you know…” I nervously laughed. I was totally in distress because I knew he knew something but I couldn’t… no I didn’t want to admit it.

“Don’t play dumb with me… who are you? I’ve been watching your awkward behavior.” he kept asking.

“I’ll tell you if you promise to not kill me.”

“Why would I f*ucking do that? To leave you wandering around with bad intentions. No way. I could put an end to your life right now and no one would know.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Do you forget I have the jaw titan? Besides, I don’t fear death. You’re too late.”

“Whoever you are, I promise to discover it as soon as possible. Now walk.”

After a moment of reflection, Levi pulled me out of the wall by griping my collar and made me walk toward the principal avenue. He hid his knife from people’s glare pretending to be unharming.

Fortunately that day he spared me… well he never told he knew I was from Paradis, but I still think he keeps suspecting me anyway. Suddenly Captain Levi stops himself and I look back to understand what was going on. Without asking, Levi lifts up my chin and says

“Stop driving attention to us, Eldian”

Eldian? Did he say Eldian? Then… he finally guessed after all. It was useless to deny it right now.

“Y-yes…”

“The way you kept saying “soldier” instead of “warrior” was a hint ya know… but you successfully deceived us all. Congrats.”

“Well… what are you going to do with me now?”

“What am I gonna do of your shitty ass? I really don’t know.” He finally said after a long sigh. As we resumed our little stroll, I couldn’t resist to ask

“You could have denounced me a long time ago. Then why?”

He didn’t answer as if he didn’t know what to say either. But then he lifts up his eyes toward the sky with a pensive expression.

“I actually suspected you from the beginning, but I didn’t want to believe it. Besides, I was the only one. You’re good at it I guess…”

[thesunshinebunny]

When the world falls apart, the only thing we can hold onto is ourselves (Part III)

Series Master list

pairing: canon Eren Jaeger x reader

content: Angst, unstable relationship, breakup, smut/nswf+18, major character death, violence, blood (obviously), war (pretty obvious)

Summary: War and hate. It’s what defined the world at this exact moment. You failed your comrades, and by failing them, you failed yourself. Your relationship is hanging by a thread and your enemies will not only be found on the other side of the sea, but also in the mind of the person you love the most. How will you take the reins in the face of so much destruction?

Chapter summary: It will take more than a betrayal and blood blath for the reader to stop protecting those who really need it.

Words count: 4.7k

I knew things were going to go from bad to worse when we returned to Paradis; but I never imagined that I would have a letter from the Supreme Commander on my desk. Days had passed since my fiasco conversation with Eren, spreading the word of my insubordination towards the lack of notification to the respective authorities. Sure, the guards had let me into the cell just because they knew me, but I never had the decency to tell Hange-san or even ask for a meeting with the Supreme Commander.

And here I was. Wrapped up in a much bigger shit roll since I decided to enlist in the Survey Corps, with a simple letter demanding my presence in his office for a little "talk."

The medical center where I could do my practices with ease was quite far from the justice’s court where the Supreme Commander was, having to go out to ride through the beautifully paved streets. A street I crossed, a street I saw citizens read the newspapers that had brought so much catastrophe to peace within the walls. People were revolting against the militancy, demanding Eren's immediate release, praising he was the only one who could lead Eldia to its ultimate glory.

If they could heard themself right now. They spoke as if Paradis itself had become an empire, a power on the verge of attacking and taking every country under its feet. It was as if they wanted to turn the game around, to be us the empire and our enemies the war slaves.

I was still far from my destination, but the crowd could be seen cowering above the barred court doors. Men and women with posters screaming without sense or unity, an angry mob demanding explanations, ready to use violence to make their way into the hierarchy.

I got off my horse when I faced the crowd, needing to get up front and through the secured gate and with my loyal traveling companion I wasn't going to make it. I left him tied up outside a local, asking the owner to take care of him, if necessary, I would give him a monetary compensation on my returned.

I tried to get through the mob, asking permission, even nudging some people, but no matter how hard I tried to take a step forward, there was always a bastard blocking my way or pulling me back; They even had the decency to grab my coat and throw me off.

"Excuse me, but I need to pass"

Empty words at this situation. If they didn’t listen to the specialized people of the militancy, it was obvious that they wouldn’t listen to me, a simple doctor in practice for the legion.

"Free the leader of the Eldian empire"

"Free Eren Jaeger"

"Give us some damn answer"

"Fuck off you cheap bitch"

The day wasn’t even beginning and I was already receiving hateful comments, typical of closed minds.

I looked around for a solution, I was wasting valuable time and starting to get irritated. If I was late for my meeting with the Supreme Commander, who knows what punishment he would give me apart from my insubordination.

Besides of the mob there wasn’t much more than a few elegant houses and shops, no other entrance except the one in the backyard, but to get there, I would have to go all the way around the building and it would take much longer. The walls were too high to jump alone and too smooth to climb, otherwise enough people would have sneaked in by now.

I turned my head towards my horse, which was still in the same position where I left him, patiently awaiting my return. Surely what I was about to do wasn’t going to please him one bit.

I ran as fast as I could and unhooked him from the wooden post, ignoring the comments of the owner of the premises who was indisputably claiming for his pay. Without turning my head to such scum, I motioned for the horse to turn around and run down the avenue, against the crowd. Being at a considered distance, I again instructed him to turn around and go as fast as he could.

"I'm sorry Phillip, you're going to have to forgive me for what I'm going to do"

We were a few meters from the mob, mentally preparing myself for the feat that was about to be accomplished. Almost arriving, about to impact, I gave him a little jerk to the right, guiding us towards the wall, and raised my legs towards his back, squatting against him, waiting for the right moment and the impulse he would give when braking hard.

When he was about to slam his trunk against the wall, Phillip stopped his galloping, propelling me forward and flying toward one of the door columns. I grabbed the stone as best I could, avoiding falling on my backside, and raised my legs towards the top, finally reaching my goal. Being already on top and looking at the terrified faces of the rebels, I went down to the other side of the door, slightly hurting my feet and hands in the fall.

"That was quite a show"

Hitch was already in front of me, malicious and proud on her face. She was giving a few applause to the air, trying to lift the spirits of the people of the military squad, even if her acting was a bit cocky.

"Desperate situations call for desperate measures." I waved my hands over the coat, looking at her with the same smug visage she was giving me.

I didn't like Hitch per se, but we weren't friends either. The way she acted and talked gave me bad vibes and I planned to stay as neutral as possible in her presence. Even her gazes seemed to want to pierce the soul of whoever she was speaking to, as if she wanted to undress you internally and seek your darkest and most shameful secrets. I would stick my hands in the fire by assuming that in her younger years she had been a bully or a blackmailer.

But it was better to keep those thoughts for yourself, before generating greater repercussions in the times that hugged us.

"Did you come to see Armin and Mikasa?"

Any thoughts I had of her dissipated.

"They ... are they here?"

I was fuzzy. Not because of the fact that I was uninformed about their actions when they left the legion barracks in the morning, which I was getting used to since last year, but because they were in the same place as me. What a coincidence.

To be honest, the two of them never owed me anything and it wasn't their duty to tell me where they were going every minute of the day, just like Hange. Each one of us had their own will to go where we were sung; But if the three of us were in court, and if they gave me the chance to guess, I would say that to see the Supreme Commander, it made me a bit suspicious.

"Yes, they are talking to the Supreme Commander to try to go talk to Eren"

I must have hit my head at some point in the battle of Marley, because lately every occurrence was quite impossible to believe. They were the ones who asked me to go talk to him a few days ago, they were the ones who questioned me when I returned to the waiting room where the few survivors of 104° Squad were;it was them who gave me a compassionate look as they saw I hadn’t accomplished much and I had ended any relationship that bound me with Eren.

And now here they were, demanding an audience with their childhood friend, while I would have to be judged for the same action. Something wasn’t fitting. I looked around trying to find them, or maybe to find an answer to the thousands of questions that were forming in my head, and finding no help, I turned to Hitch.

"What is going on? Why-"

Before I could finish my question, an explosion rumbled across the cobblestone floor, hurting our ears and knocking us to the ground. Fire and debris couldn’t only be seen in the air but also smelled, flooding our nostrils, causing us to cough and cover our eyes with debris.

I looked up to find a flare coming from one of the court offices and a heavy body falling in our direction. I couldn't make it out until it fell to the ground, leaving a stain of blood and ash around it, apart from leaving a trail of smoke from where it flew off. My eyes were opened with shock and amazement, since the person in front of me was nothing more and nothing less than the same militant leader, half of the body lost and burned by the explosion.

"Well ... that's new"

In all my years of service I have seen every horror inside and outside the walls. True, even the Survey Corps had acted against the law, but it was for the greater good, to expose the bastards who lived on the wall farthest from the sea. I had seen people hit and kick another for a piece of food when the wall Maria fell. I had seen how we were massacred one by one with bullets to the head as we tried to go beyond the walls.

But never in those years I had seen a rebellion like the one taking place, being willing to eliminate such an authoritarian figure as Darius Zackly.

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The chaos went unnoticed by a large part of the population, only those who were present at the time of the explosion and the military police were aware. Faced with such an atrocious event of treason, a small meeting was convened involving the most important heads of each faction; unfortunately I couldn’t be there, my presence had been required in a clinic a few meters from the court. There were quite a few injured.

Some had mild and harmless burns, others had large parts of the body with third degree burns. Some had splinters stuck in their arms and faces, some had a piece of wood stuck in their stomach.

A couple of hours had passed which seemed like weeks to me. I had been assigned the milder cases, but as I pulled the splinters out of a patient's eyes, I had the countless howls of people echoing in my head, listening as they took their last painful breaths. People who asked to die on purpose to ease the pain.

Hours passed and welcomed the next day. I had terrible black circles under my tired eyes, hands stained with dried blood and splintered; they’re fucked up and I needed to heal them as quickly as possible before they got infected. I grabbed the cutting tools and placed them on a metal tray, the cold of the surface soothing the pain in my hands, and although it wasn’t too heavy I felt like it trembled on my grip.

I heard the door open wide at the other side of my last patient's room, the front door, letting in multiple heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor. Apparently, the soldier who had entered was in a hurry or was about to deliver terrible news...I wish I had been wrong in the second option.

"Bad news, Eren Jaeger has escaped from the underground cell"

I dropped the metal tray on my feet, making the sound of metal and utensils rumble across the room. My hands were shaking even more and surely if I saw myself in a mirror I would see my face completely pale.

"If you want to free yourself from this cell, go ahead"

My words invaded my mind like a bucket of cold water, as if they wanted to make me see that I was to blame for his escape. I knew that sooner or later he’s going to free himself, his eyes showed it and by not getting an answer that contrasted with mine, it was perfect evidence of his plans. But even knowing it, even Hange knowing it, I didn't expect him to do it in a moment of such betrayal.

I cleaned my hands as best I could with a towel hanging over the room sink and grabbed my coat, rushing out of the clinic.

"I’m sorry, I need to go"

But where to go was the question. I had no idea where Eren might be, and even if I knew what he was going to win, surely he was with his followers and with the simple image of me approaching from the horizon, I would be dead in a matter of seconds ... or imprisoned, whatever happen first.

At the exit of the clinic, there were two soldiers of the military police standing guard and watching the justice’s court from the distance. I approached them with the intention of asking them about the whereabouts of the Survey Corps, but they looked at me like I had the plague and pushed me aside hostilely, almost knocking me to the ground. I kept my composure as best I could and looked for someone else to ask; I didn’t have to wait long, since a woman of my age with mahogany hair, extremely black and matted, pointed the way where my comareds had gone. According to her words, they’re heading towards a large and luxurious building in the middle of one of the main avenues, recognizing the word restaurant from the conversation between the riders.

The only place that matched that description was the restaurant where Nicolo worked.

I hurried out with Phillip galloping through people, avoiding stepping on them and apologizing on my back. If there was something clear to me in all this mess, it was that Hange would go to find answers among the working Marleyans of that place. Maybe something could be solved.

I was very wrong.

I rushed into the building, finding only a long entrance hall and a corridor that led to god knows where. No one was even around to see me panic and I didn't see a soul nearby either, the only thing if I could hear a heated discussion far away and heavy footsteps on the floor. I let myself be guided by the sound, running back to its origins and finding a bizarre and meaningless scene in front of my eyes.

The room that seemed to be the main one hosted the orphaned children of the Blouse farm as well as Sasha's parents, sad and anguished parents if I paid better attention. The children were just as sad, with tears in their eyes, especially Kaya; they were crying the same way as on the day Sasha's death was reported. They were cornered under a window all together, hugging each other and letting the rays of the sun streaming through the window illuminate their figures, as if those rays could replace the heat that Sasha had left behind.

That scene broke my still fragile heart. I would have liked to reach out to them and try to help them move on, as I would have liked to stay on the farm with them when we came back from Marley to help them get by; obviously I could never have replaced Sasha and they could never have replaced my family, but in these times of battle, what mattered most was healing the wounds between all of us.

I would have liked to talk to them, but my eyes shifted from the Blouse family to the figure of Hange carefully placing a child on the floor. The blond boy was very badly injured on the side of his head, he was bleeding and his clothes had stuck to his body due to the large amount of liquid that had flowed down his torso.

"Hange-san, Wha-" As I stared at the blond boy on the floor, I could see that he was one of the children who had sneaked into our war balloon.

“Isn't that one of the Marleyan children? Why is he here and why is he bleeding?"

Unconsciously my body leaned forward, resting on one knee on the ground and reaching out to the boy. My instincts as a doctor were screaming for me to tend to the poor injured boy regardless of his race and I was willing to do so.

"We will take care of him, go to the room continue with Mikasa and Armin"

I got up without hesitation, taking one last look at the room I was in and it was just at that moment that I recognized Nicolo and Jean in a corner away from everyone else. They both looked very distressed, but I didn't have the opportunity to ask why, they had given me an order and I had to carry it out. I would have to wait until got back to base to understand this terrible situation.

The room they sent me to was at the end of the corridor, the door was closed but every step I took I could hear the soft voices of Mikasa and Armin, apparently talking to someone else. Well, that conversation must have to get a pause because I was about to slam the door in and leave the doors wide open.

“What the hell is going on? Why is a Marleyan child unconscious in the kitchen?"

Upon entering, all excited, my eyes only saw the figures of Armin and Mikasa around a table. They both looked up at me in disbelief when they saw me standing on the threshold. For the second time that day, I looked back across the stage in front of me and spotted a small brown-haired figure sitting at the same table. With a little more attention, I saw that the small figure was trembling, perhaps from fear or from adrenaline, at the same time that its face was bruised and full of blood; and putting all my attention on that bloody face I realized that I recognized those eyes, those same eyes that I had looked at with contempt and had looked back at me with the same feeling the night of the invasion.

The missing girl from the Marleyan duo was sitting across from me staring with sheep's eyes.

All exaltation I had in my body dissipated, my gaze fell, leaving nothing more than a neutral countenance. But ... anyone who could see through my eyes, would know they reflected the fatigue and sadness of several accumulated days. Seeing the girl was perhaps a way of attaching all the harmful feelings in a single part of my body.

I let out a long sigh and closed the door slowly behind me. I walked slowly towards where the girl was, running Mikasa to the side and looked at her with the best possible adult countenance. She had a red nose, it looked like it had been hit right on her septum causing her to bleed and stain her dress, which I assumed was courtesy of the Blouse family. Her cheek was scratched and red too, traces of broken and inflamed skin could be seen around her wound, but without any bleeding. This girl would have a swollen face the next day if we don't give her some ice.

“You’re hurt. Care to explain me what happened?"

I reached my hand out to her, but was greeted with a flinch from her. I could tell she was scared and she had every right to be.Either way, way I brought my hand to her face, placing my index finger and thumb on her jaw to move her head and look for other injuries.

Her face was the one that received the most impact, nothing in her eyes which was a very good sign, and I didn’t notice any kind of fracture in the bones of her cheek or septum. Good. I looked around the room for something I could use, but I only found empty tables adorned with a classic tablecloth and a very well elaborated and cared wine cellar, apart from showing off one of the best wine collections in recent years.

"Armin, can you go get some alcohol to disinfect the wounds? Surely they have something in the kitchen "

The blonde gave me a slight nod and left the room, leaving me alone with Mikasa, who was absolved of the situation, but still maintaining an imposing posture. The girl was still shaking on my hand, so I pushed her away and inspected her body for more injuries.

The palms of her hands were stained with blood, I guessed from the bleeding from her nose, but they also had some slight scratches, perhaps she had fallen to the floor. Her dress didn’t seem torn in the area of ​​the knees, so I assumed that they weren’t injured or it was a very slight scratch, almost no bleeding. Her arms seemed intact as did her torso. I turned to the back of her head, running her hair gently trying to find any trace of blow that could generate a contusion. I didn’t find anything that could be fatal or serious, but I did see something that caught my attention.

“You have marks on your head, diffuse, but they are there. What happened?"

"... A horse bit me"

Of all the situations that could have led to those brands, I didn't expect to hear this one. I didn’t expect it, not at all. It caught me off guard and I let out a giggle which I covered with the back of my hand.

"Sorry, shouldn't laugh… you deserve it thou" I gave her a little pat on the top of her head before ruffling it a bit and bending down to look into her eyes.

Armin returned to the room, alcohol in hand and a clean cloth. Thank God something was clean in this whole city, I was beginning to lose my faith in the cleanliness of this people. I reached for the items and I proceeded to apply a large amount of alcohol to the cloth and apply it first to the frightened girl's cheek.

"Why are you so good to me? I killed a one of your friends"

That comment made me stop for a second, just like I stopped looking at her wound. My gaze fell to the floor in search of an answer; I searched, searched and searched for answers to questions that didn’t have one or weren’t as simple as they seemed...or simply looked in the wrong places and the answers were always in my mind, only that my heart wasn’t prepared to face them.

"The girl you killed the night of the invasion was called Sasha Blouse and she was the best archer and sniper of the legion"

I turned my gaze to her, continuing to heal her wound on her cheek. When I saw that there was only a small pink stain left on the surface, I moistened the cloth further with alcohol and ran it under her nose, removing any trace of blood. The girl pulled back a bit when she felt it’s smell her nostrils and I had the opportunity to cover her nose for a few seconds to stop the bleeding.

"You know ... you remind me of a boy exactly like you"

When I saw that the bleeding stopped and the girl stopped moving due to the burning and itching that the alcohol was surely causing, I grabbed her hands and began to clean them with small touches avoiding tearing her skin.

“Just as intense and ready to fight for what he thinks is fair. You are just a little girl who was taught that we were the bad guys. It’s the way you were raised, the way you see the world. They taught us something else, but at the end of the day, apart from everything... we are the same"

It hurt. Yes, it hurt to see the one guilty of the death of my best friend, but it hurt more to see in her eyes the hatred and contempt they had taught her towards our race. The hate cycle we were getting into wasn't going to get us anywhere and it was better to nip it in the bud, even with baby steps.

When I finished cleaning all her wounds, I put the cloth on the table and looked at my performance with deep pride. It wasn't much, but it was enough; Not only had I cleaned a few simple wounds, but perhaps, I wished that perhaps, it would begin to heal her mind ... and mine as well.

I got up heavily, noticing how my knees creaked when squatting for a long time and I stretched my body generating more crunches, but noting at the same time how the heaviness of my back left and leave behind a much lighter load.

“Very good, you’ve been a good patient. Surely there is something sweet in the kitchen that I can give you” I patted her head again and gave her a sincere smile, one that I hadn't given anyone for quite a while. I headed to the door unconcerned about the situation I assumed was still going on in the main room.

"What's going to happen to Eren Jaeger?"

What will happen to him? And why does she ask me that?

"Don't worry, I'm not letting him put a finger on you" A sincere answer to a question asked out of fear. I reached the door and in the middle of the sentence I turned the knob wanting to make my way into the hall, but a tall figure blocked my way.

Eren was right on the threshold with the intention of opening it.

Well mark me impress

My body jerked back instinctively, avoiding taking my eyes off his. I moved to the right side, avoiding the figure of the Marleyan girl from being in Eren's point of view. I didn't know why he was here or if the others knew about it, but whatever the reason, he surely wasn’t alone and this wasn’t going to lead to anything good.

"Sit down"

He took a few steps forward, closing the door with his foot, not even paying attention to his surroundings, or maybe yes, now everything was a confusion when it came to the brunette in front of us.

"You can't tell me what to do" I planted myself in front of him, without taking a step back. We were both facing each other, him carrying me several inches tall, several dominating inches that made my legs shake and my heart race.

If it had been in any other situation, that trembling, that acceleration would have been very well received. It was impossible not to feel small next to Eren, the damn bastard had hit a big stretch and there was a great difference around the body between the two, a difference that I always loved to admire.

But not now. Not at this moment when everything was going to shit and I had to stand up to the figure of a little girl who was internally dying of fear thanks to him.

"Sit. Down"

Few centimeters separated us from each other, his chest too close to mine, I could feel how it swelled with each breath. He raised his hand to my face, letting me see his cut palm and dripping blood. Fear took hold of me, making me stand even more in my position, but I wasn’t going to give in so easily.

"You wouldn't" I looked him in the eye, defiant, longed for and everything in between.

"Try me"

It was all he said before grabbing onto my shoulders and pulling me back. My body collided with the table and instinctively I placed my hands on it. I heard how Armin and Mikasa tried to get closer to where we were, but a single glance from Eren made them stay still, submissive, as they lost in their positions. His gaze returned to mine. My breath hitched and I had to avoid with all my might thinking about the position we were entwined.

It wasn’t the time to think about how my hips were slightly elevated, just my butt up on the table and one leg dangling, his knee between my legs, preventing me from closing them and keeping the leg that was hanging in the air. His gaze wandered between our bodies and he returned to my eyes. He tightened his grip on my shoulders and pushed me to the side of the table, dropping me onto the chair next to the girl.

"I said. Sit. Down"

He took his hands off my shoulders, took the seat next to me and Armin and Mikasa sat with him, leaving an air of discomfort and tension in the environment.

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[tundrainafrica]

that moment when you realize levi's last memory of hanji was her laughing - her last laugh. oh and levi would never have a body to bury. Also, I was wondering if you have done an analysis of the solute that levi did - you know keeping his hand over her heart. I personally headcannon that levi meant hanji to give her heart to him, to be his and that's why he kept his fist over her heart. (sorry if it sounds cheesy lmao)

OKAY SO WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF CH. 132 AGAIN. So imma assume you guys really wanna hurt yourselves more so allow me to drop this really amazing animation of 132 which really captures Hange and Levi’s facial expressions well along with a lot of symbolisms about Hange so please, even if you’re not gonna read the whole meta I have down under. Please watch it. You won’t regret it. It’s beautiful. Here’s the link (The lyrics are good too, so I’d recommend you check the English translation out, the second verse all the way to the chorus, it really fits.)

that moment when you realize levi's last memory of hanji was her laughing - her last laugh. oh and levi would never have a body to bury. 

How are you so sure that Hange’s last memory was her smiling and laughing?

I actually like to entertain the possibility that Hange and Levi made an extremely conscious effort to avoid looking at each other, especially in the eyes. Why is that?

Maybe, the scene in 126 was that much of a profound scene relationship wise that they couldn’t look at each other after that? But I can’t help but think the Levi and Hange’s dynamics were particularly distant in 132? Especially if you compare it to just a few chapters ago where Hange couldn’t even leave him right? Like she was always next to him on his sleeping bag. 

That’s why I really hc-ed that maybe when she was changing his bandages, particularly removing the ones covering his mouth, they had a conversation. And I wrote out my take on it in this fic.

There are just way too many panels about them talking about so many deep things and in all of them they’re looking away from each other.

You can say, towards the last panels, of course he’s not looking at her, he knows she’s going to sacrifice herself, why put her to the pain?

And even the dedicate your heart scene right? He wasn’t looking at her. 

So the point is, do you really think his last memory of her was her smile? 

And was it really her laugh? Personally, when I see people smile, I don’t look at their mouths, I look at their eyes. I’m an eyes person. I think eyes talk more than someone’s mouth. 

And Hange wasn’t smiling at all, look at those eyes.

And do we really count a ‘haha’ as a laugh :’). Do you think Levi... who has seen Hange laugh so many times before, and had seen that same wonder in her eyes before and how she constantly smiles with both her eyes and her mouth, do you think Levi would have counted that as a laugh?

Anyway, I like to headcanon the last clear vivid memory Levi had of her was when she was changing his bandages back in the ship. They were avoiding each othe rtoo much, Levi was really avoiding looking at her this whole chapter and I really suspect there was a deleted scene, a conversation in the ship which changed their whole dynamic in that chapter before Hange chose to sacrifice herself. 

Anyway, moving on to the next question:  

Also, I was wondering if you have done an analysis of the salute that levi did - you know keeping his hand over her heart. I personally headcannon that levi meant hanji to give her heart to him, to be his and that's why he kept his fist over her heart. (sorry if it sounds cheesy lmao)

Omg, that is such a cute headcanon I didn’t think about. Thank you for sharing that <3 I’ll add that to my own personal list of headcanons that I’ll be sharing below. 

Before I move on to sharing it, I just have to say: 

I love the original Japanese translation.

For most western languages, you have to mention the “your” in Dedicate your heart because it just doesn’t flow well to say “dedicate heart” nor would it be consistent with Erwin’s iconic statement being constantly translated to “Dedicate your heart” suddenly being translated to “Dedicate heart” which is wrong grammar anyway. 

With 心臓を捧げよう, we only know there is an unspecified number of hearts which are to be dedicated. 

So Levi’s message could be translated to either “Dedicate your heart.” or even “Let’s dedicate our hearts”

So as a Levihan shipper I could headcanon this in so many ways. 

1. I’ll drop the vanilla one first.  “Dedicate your heart” okay Hange while sacrificing yourself, make sure to dedicate your heart okay, fight to your heart’s content, which is the most conventional interpretation. 

2. The next one is: Let’s dedicate our hearts. This could mean that he feels the war is reaching it’s climax and if she’s ready to die, Levi is willing to join her soon and he will dedicate his heart the same way. Since Japanese tenses in relation to time aren’t specified and future tense doesn’t exist in Japanese, it makes it vague enough to even foreshadow Levi’s own intentions to really dedicate his heart like his own comrades did. And the fact that Levi said see you later Hange? That only supports this headcanon. 

3. Another head canon I have is Levi figuratively left his heart with her with that salute and in that moment, maybe he was talking to himself when he decided to dedicate his heart to her. With that dedication and with Hange’s impending sacrifice, Levi showed his readiness to lose his heart and have it die with her. 

4. This is actually an analysis I read a while back from a Japanese website I’ll leave the link below and it’s definitely one of my favorites for this scene. 

So to summarize the analysis, the Japanese fans see it as a symbolism of unity for Hange and Levi. 

Remember Hange was betrayed by the Jaegerists a few chapters back probably less than a few days ago manga time. Hange is one of the few people who have this idea that what Eren is doing is wrong, the violence, the rumbling. And with Zeke, Flock and Yelena all explicitly disagreeing with her, she was living with this idea that she was doing things wrong especially since only recently a majority of the survey corps actually betrayed her. Yet Hange still continued to hold on to her idea that their ideas are all wrong, there must be a more peaceful way to end all this. Also, remember even do Hange had such an idealistic way on how she wanted it to end, no one explicitly agreed with her. 

Thus, she was lonely. And with that ‘dedicate your heart’ scene, Levi recognizes that loneliness and by saying “let’s dedicate our hearts” he’s telling her he is dedicating his heart to that same cause she is fighting for. And even if no one agrees with it, he agrees with her cause. 

He’s empathizing with it, he’s affirming it and he’s telling her what she’s fighting for isn’t wrong and he wants to clear her of any doubts in her final moments so she can fight till her hearts content. 

And I think that’s beautiful. I got the analysis  here.  

The “dedicate your heart” could mean one of all the things above but it can also mean all the things above at once. I like to hurt myself by thinking, Hange and Levi talk more with gestures than words and maybe Levi meant to say everything up there. 

And maybe with this face Hange gave we can see... 

She might have gotten all five messages before she sacrificed herself. 

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[nikakistos]

The mindset of Eren Yeager: The reason he rumbled the World

The topic I will be analyzing this time is Eren Yeager’s decisions and motivations in the final arc of the series. Many words have been said about our main protagonist, especially after his appearance in the final chapter, which made many question him and his actions. Given the dialogue between him and Armin it is not really hard to understand why. Isayama’s word choices have confused many fans. So, here I am. Trying to explain to the best of my ability what was going through Eren’s mind. Of course, I might be wrong. There have been many interpretations of the character after all, not to mention that Isayama will be releasing a character book the next month, which might explain things better. But, seeing as I will be in the army at the time, I figured I should write this now and compare my view to Isayama’s later on.

To begin with, we have to answer a very important question. What was Eren wish and what kind of life did he want to live? This question can easily be answered just by looking at Mikasa and Armin, Eren’s two most beloved people. These two represent what Eren wants out of life. Armin is responsible for Eren’s desire to be free. The outside world for Eren is freedom. Mikasa on the other hand represents Eren’s desire to be loved. She is his home to return to. You see, these two desires perfectly correspond with the visions Eren shared with his two friends in the paths. He used the paths to see with Armin all the places from Armin’s book that they imagined back when they were kids and he used the paths to live with Mikasa the life they never had the chance to live in the real world. Eren himself says he doesn’t want to die. He wants to live with Mikasa and everyone else. This is the kind of life he wants.

  But he couldn’t. And it wasn’t because of some supernatural force that guided his own actions and prohibited him from making another decision. No. It was because of his personality and the circumstances he found himself in. After Eren saw the future his attitude changed. He was by far more silent and sad than usual. He saw himself committing mass-genocide. He also learnt that the world was not what he imagined it to be. Eren wanted the world to be just like Armin’s book described. Empty of humans, but full of beautiful places. However, between himself and his dream stood enemies. Countless people who had never seen them, all wishing them dead.  The outside world had betrayed his expectations. For him, all these people that stood between him and his dream were just like the walls in Paradis. An obstacle. This is why, despite knowing that the Rumbling went against the justice he was supposedly fighting for, he decided to complete it. Deep down, he hated this world and he wanted to burn it down. This is in part due to his idea of freedom. For Eren, freedom is living your life the way you want it to, without ever taking orders from anyone. Doing whatever you want. This is why he was surprised by Levi’s follower attitude towards Erwin. With all his strength, he expected Levi to be the freest person in the legion. A world that continued to chain him down and disappoint him was something Eren could not tolerate. And when he got the power, he just wanted to erase it. He was free to do so.  It is no coincidence that the panel of his father saying to him “you are free” appears at the same time that Eren reveals his desire to destroy the world. This burning desire of his to erase the world contradicts his view on people being special because they were born in it. If this world makes people special just because they were born in it, then why the fuck would you completely destroy it Eren? Well, that’s exactly the point. Eren’s though process is entirely irrational. That’s true for all humans to a degree. Our deepest and darkest desires are irrational. The part of Eren that wanted to bring the Apocalypse, just because the world wasn’t like he wanted it to be is exactly that. Eren had to choose between what was just and what made him feel free. He chose the latter.

Moving on to the more rational side of his motivations for doing the Rumbling. That is the safety of his friends and his island. Eren genuinely cared for all of his friends. Mikasa and Armin were special, but he also cared for Historia, Jean, Connie, Sasha etc. He even cared for fucking Floch. And, obviously he cared for the island that he was raised in. He couldn’t just let the world annihilate them. This is like, the core of his ideology. If you fight, you might survive. If you just roll over, then you get fucked. Eren is not the type to get fucked. However, this did not mean that Eren wouldn’t opt for a different solution if a better option presented itself. After all, he did appear in the speech given by the Organization that protected the rights of the Eldians. The first problem here is that when Eren saw the memories of the future he had just 8 years left to live. Zeke had 5. Eren was displeased with this lack of time. The second problem was that he was stuck with a hilariously incompetent leadership. The leadership of Paradis failed spectacularly in finding a good solution and wasted half of Eren’s remaining lifespan. At the rate the Survey Corps were progressing, Zeke would have died and without him they wouldn’t be able to use the Founding Titan at all.  Additionally, none of the solutions they tried to find were exactly great. The 50 Y.P. required the sacrifice of Historia and her line, without ensuring with 100% certainty the eternal existence of Eldia. Since Eren cared about Historia and the island, he couldn’t accept such a proposal. The rest of the Survey Corps felt the same way. Hizuru on the other hand didn’t help them at all and Hange’s plan to approach the Organization that wanted to protect the rights of the Eldians failed spectacularly. Eren was left out of options.

The biggest turn off for him though was the revelation of Zeke’s real plan. When Yelena learnt that the SC would visit Marley she approached Eren and told him all about Zeke’s euthanasia and how to contact him. From this point on, Eren really had no other option left to save Paradis. If the meeting with the Eldian Rights Organization were to fail then he would have no choice but using Zeke’s blood, especially given his brother’s limited lifespan. He would never get another chance to visit Marley, nor was it certain that Zeke and he would manage to make contact. Worst case scenario, Zeke dies before meeting Eren, Colt gets the Beast, the Global Alliance attacks Paradis and they get fucked. Or, the SC somehow manage to find a serum to turn Historia into a dumb Titan, have Mikasa and Levi alongside Eren restrain her and use the Rumbling anyway, while also having sacrificed Historia.

  Things might have been different if Eren had actually decided to talk about the future he saw. Knowing what would happen if they didn’t try hard enough, might have made the Corps work harder. Of course, Eren just couldn’t predict the outcome of such a decision, so he decided to stay quiet, since, as established above, deep down he wanted to destroy the world.

Eren’s decision in the end came down to this: either he destroys the world or he says “fuck all” and elopes with Mikasa. He loved her enough to abandon everything and live his last few years peacefully with her. His dream about the outside world, Armin, Historia, Paradis, he was ready to turn his back to all of them just so he could selfishly survive with Mikasa. However, both he and Mikasa are incredibly shy people who can’t quite express their feelings easily. So, instead of telling her that he was in love with her, he left it all to her. To top it all off, he framed the question in such a way, that gave her the chance to pick an easy answer, without risking rejection. Then they got interrupted and the rest is history. He said fuck it and accepted his fate.

Attack on Titan’s world does operate under a fixed timeline. Destiny exists. Ever since Ymir became a titan up to Mikasa killing Eren was predetermined. They were meant to happen, exactly as they happened. However, the reason for that is not entirely supernatural. It is just that the personalities of each and every major character led to the result we saw. It is entirely because Eren cared about his friends and because he dreamt of freedom that he chose to rumble the world. It is his and Mikasa’s shyness that robbed them of a future together. Ymir had nothing to do with all that. It wasn’t Ymir who made the Santa Titan dumb enough to not bite Eren properly, nor was she the one who made the Azumabito clan greedy as hell or the Marleyans imperialists.

Eren knew what he would do and this of course played a major role in his decisions. But nobody forced him to do it. And, more than anything, he also knew why. Deep down, he knew. Eren decided Rumble the world, because he wanted his friends and island to be safe and because he hated the world. Eren accepted his fate, because he was left with no choice that he liked, time was running out and because Mikasa didn’t give him the right answer. The result? 80% of humanity dead, some of his friends dead, the ones who survived are mostly well, with Mikasa being the saddest one. The world is slowly marching to war, with the Yeagerists having regrouped and Armin and the co are trying to prevent this. The island’s survival is by no means guaranteed.

  Was it all for nothing? I don’t think so. Eren saved Paradis for some time, giving the chance to Armin to save humanity. After all, he did tell him so himself. Eren believed that with the Rumbling leaving the world in the state we saw, Armin would be able to find a solution. The series seems to imply that this is what will eventually happen.

In the end, Eren acted just like himself. Just like he told Falco. His reasons are not that complicated. He kept moving forward, because he was seeing something beyond this hell. We know now what that something was. His actions make total sense. It is just that his deep desire to end the world is rooted in his own childish view of freedom and of the world. In a story about children who need to become adults, Eren remained a child. His two friends on the other hand didn’t. Armin accepted his role as the Commander of the Survey Corps and despite the world not being what he wanted it to be, still fought to protect it from the person he once wished to explore this earth with. Mikasa accepted her role as a guardian of humanity and not Eren’s, like she believed herself to be, and despite wanting to share her life with Eren, she killed him. Eren saved Mikasa and Armin. This is his legacy. A world without titans.

[mybrokenlullaby]

I wish when people talked about Eren’s trauma I saw more discussion about how it wasn’t seeing his mother killed or even seeing other trainees and Survey Corps members killed that fucked him up the most. It was that people died to protect him. It’s that “you’re a monster” and “you’re the hope of humanity” are just different sides of the same dehumanization coin. It’s that he was the irreplaceable hope of humanity that people died to protect but actually he was completely replaceable and his power could have gone to virtually anyone else.

All this happened to a boy who already didn’t have a mentally healthy view of the world. Eren didn’t just struggle to see grey because he was a child, which is something I’ve seen a lot of people claim. He said he’s been like this since he was born, and maybe that’s true, but seeing shit in black and white to the extent that he can justify killing people at nine years old with “They were just animals that looked like people.” Yeah, he did it to save Mikasa, but the aggression and complete lack of fear or horror at killing other humans already shows signs that something was wrong.

So we take this literal child, kill his mother and destroy his home, dehumanize him both as a monster and as his people’s only hope, inform him that he was disposable all along, inform him that he only has eight years left to live, inform him the world is full of people who hate him and everyone like him, give him his father’s trauma to compound onto his own, give him memories of a future we probably haven’t seen yet, tell him the only solution is to sacrifice a friend and her as of yet unborn children...

I am absolutely not justifying the shit he’s doing and I always find it unnerving when anyone acts like what he’s doing is good. I do get enjoying dark shit in fiction, but Eren himself hasn’t seemed happy about this outside of that one scene where he was a child in the clouds. He cried about how much he didn’t want to kill everyone and he’s been emotionally flat for the vast majority of time we’ve actually seen him since at least chapter 90. So I look at this depressed and broken man and I see people acting like his behavior doesn’t make sense -- again, not justified, just consistent -- or act like the shit he’s doing *is* justified and it’s just so weird to see so much discussion about a man whose biggest failing is his black and white view of literally everyone and everything boiled down to two extremely black and white views more often than not.

[shotofire]

bonjour,how are you ? well a oneshot for levi with a kind and shy cadet s/o, who respect everybody but when she gets mad, she'll answer with sarcasm cuz she's dumbass without being afraid or caring about the punishment(even if it's keith or another chef, no body have the right to treat her like a shit) merçi beaucoup ^^✨

Hi friend :p i’m great and I hope you are as well ! Thank you for the request <3

LEVI ACKERMAN x F!READER

Warnings: cursing, age gap (legal of course)

Season: not specified

-

Becoming apart of the Survey Corps was everything but glamorous. Not that anyone would think that, but things definitely were on the ugly side most of the time. To be a scout required discipline and a huge amount of focus. To lay down your life without a second thought would be hard for just about anyone. For some reason, you found it rather easy.

Not a single person believed when you’d say it wasn’t that complicated. Of course knowing you’re going to die isn’t the most exciting thing to come to terms with, but every scout needs to. When your mind is set like that you only excel from there, and that’s exactly what you did. Many of your peers found you admirable, and only wished they could think they way you do.

Levi Ackerman especially found interest in you. At first to find a girl younger than him was controversial, only to him, and he worried that others would accuse you of trying to climb up in the ranks. Soon everyone knew Levi was not the reason you excelled. Sure he’d help you train and push you to your limits, but your natural inner strength is what has kept you alive.

The two of you never classified your relationship, but it was obvious it was closer than an ordinary friendship. There has been several occasions where a group of cadets have spotted you sneaking out of his office. One time Erwin saw you go in without even knocking, that’s the day he knew Levi Ackerman was definitely whipped.

Many couldn’t imagine how you two even came together. Levi was quiet, and only really spoke when giving orders. Then there was you, the quietest girl that had ever entered the Survey Corps. Nobody was being dramatic when they said to hear you speak was rare. You tried to keep to yourself, getting close to others was a weakness. Then Levi entered your life and screwed up that little plan, and now you were perfectly smitten with the captain.

The relationship, or whatever you’d call it, was kept at a minimum to the eyes of others. The furthest it had gone to give others a clue were the office visits, and the way you’d smile at him in the halls or during training.

Before the two of you became a thing you’d given him a few sarcastic remarks. Initially he saw you as someone who needed remediation, but that soon changed. The man saw so much of himself in you it was ridiculous, and he soon started to understand you. On the occasions you’d been a urchin he realized that you were simply sticking up for yourself.

It shocked many to hear the quiet girl stand up for herself, especially to someone as scary as Levi. Unlike everyone else, you didn’t find him intimidating. In all honestly, you didn’t find any of the commanders, chiefs, or captains worth cowering over. You’d experienced titans break down the wall to your home village and devour people in your late teenage years. A couple of humans were the least of your fears, especially men.

Those sarcastic remarks and dramatic eye rolls is what drew the captain in. Not to mention your strength was something they hadn’t seen in years. Some would go as far to say you were worth a hundred soldiers. The raven-haired man made it his mission to get closer with you. This feeling had never been within Levi, that’s how he knew you were special.

He knew you so well after years of watching you become stronger and more skilled. You may be young but you were better than half the soldiers who’d been fighting for a decade longer.

Levi was worried about today, it had been on his mind for weeks. It was time for commander Keith to do his annual checkup. Levi found it rather pointless but it had to be done. The sunkened eyed man always came when he brought a new batch of soldiers. Levi had managed to steer you clear of him year after year, but it still worried him. Keith was a loud and rude man most of the time, and that was your biggest pet peeves. To come face to face with a walking version of the things you hated wouldn’t end well. He knew if the man pushed your buttons in the wrong place you’d have plenty to say.

He spent majority of the day convincing you to train with him away from everyone else. It was his usual solution for this day, to have you separated. As the years went by you started to pick up on it, it’s not like you were dumb. Around the same time every year Levi did this and it started to become obvious and you knew something was happening.

Right now you were trying to take the wooden knife from his hand and pin him down, which was something you hadn’t done since the earlier years. It had been round after round of outsmarting him and throwing him to the ground that you finally spoke your mind, “Levi what’s going on? Everyone is gathered out front and we’re here, I want to get the experience that the others are.” He could see the frustration running through you, and the annoyed on your face expression was prominent.

You didn’t like when Levi took you to do things one on one when everyone else was together. There was a fear of judgment, what if they thought you were getting special treatment? This is what that was to you. Levi was much more skilled than anyone else out there and you were getting to do combat with him, which is unfair in your eyes. “I just wanted to have some alone time with you, is that okay?” The man may have a face that mainly consists of one expression, but you knew he was lying.

He knew you saw right through him once you scoffed. “I’m going to join everyone else, feel free to come with.” There was no stopping you now, even if he tried it’d be more obvious that something was going on. Your eyes scanned the groups of your fellow cadets, and a few you didn’t recognize. Did we get a new group today? You asked yourself.

Before you can really process what’s going on, a bald man with weird eyes is making his way towards you. You recognized his face from past expeditions, but didn’t care enough to remember his name. “Late to meet new fellow cadets?” He asked baffled, a bit dramatic in your opinion. Getting new cadets was nothing special or new, so who cares if you were late? Half of them would be titan food in the next month.

He was quick to talk before letting you answer, but you weren’t sure if you were even going to say anything. For a second you considered just walking away. Someone coming up to you and raising there voice for no reason was enough to irritate anyone. “You’ve been here for years but have never bothered to show up to one of these, maybe you should learn some respect cadet.”

Levi watched from afar with wide eyes. Of course Keith was already talking to you, the man had it out for you. He’s complain that you kept to yourself too much and it was suspicious, and hated that you never showed up to these. Half of that was obviously Levi’s fault. Keith wasn’t aware of that and also wasn’t aware of your relationship with the captain.

Keith’s eyes become staggered when you let out a light snicker, cheeks upturning into a smile. “What the hell is funny?” He asks with his arms crossed, still trying to be intimidating. “The fact that you think i’d ever be afraid of someone like you.” Your words made his mouth fall, no one had ever said something like that to him. He’s pretty much convinced himself at this point that everyone feared him in some way. Then there was you, showing him he was completely wrong.

“You should have some respect!” The man says, stepping closer to you. “So coming up to me without introducing yourself and yelling in my face earns you respect? I don’t know where the fuck you came from, but we say hello first here.” He was down right astonished by you. The smirk on your face made his blood boil, you had zero alarm of him. Before he could come back at you, which he was struggling to think of something, Levi’s hands were on your waist. “Oh well okay, i’m gonna take her away from you now.”

Levi nervously laughs as he pulls you away from Keith. You didn’t want to be around him any longer so Levi taking you away was perfectly fine with you. “What’s that guys deal?” You asked with your lips pushed up and you eyebrows knitted. “As you can tell, he’s not a fan of you.” Well duh, you could tell. You look over Levi’s shoulder to see the man was still looking at you with his same crossed arms. “What a freak,” you mumbled and Levi huffed.

“That freak is pretty important to the scouts, he could have you removed if he really wanted to.” That statement didn’t scare you one bit. Everyone would raise hell if you got taken away, Levi even knew it. “He said I never show up to these, do you know why?” Your brow is quirked and your hand is on you hip, fingers tapping against it. It had become evident that Levi had kept you away from the man, but that seemed to have made things worse over the years.

“I’m sorry,” he said while scratching the back of his head. He knew you had already figured it out by the way you were looking at him. You laughed a bit at his mannerism, the guy really had you isolated from someone like Keith. “It’s fine, you just need to understand I can handle myself.” You smile and Levi ruffles your hair. “I’m well aware you can handle yourself. I experienced the (y/n) attitude when you first got here, don’t think I forgot.” You chuckle thinking of the hard times you used to give him.

“Oh you loved it, didn’t you? I mean look at us now.”He rolls his eyes at you and you can’t help but let out another laugh. “Yeah yeah, whatever you brat,” he says playfully, “Just avoid Keith till he leaves. I don’t feel like listening to him complain about you, I may use choice words with him myself.” You scan to make sure no ones looking, Mainly Keith, before you smack a kiss on his cheek. His cheeks heat up at the gesture, which you’d never done in public before. “You sound like an old man, I may use some choice words,” you voice deepens as you restate what he had just said.

Before he can say anything your giving him another kiss on the cheek and walking off, “I want to meet some cadets this year, unlike all the times before this.” He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek and narrows his eyes at you playfully. You walk off with a smile and wave, getting ready to greet the cadets. This would probably be the only time the new comers heard you speak to them directly.

Levi’s eyes watch you, then they widen when he sees Keith headed straight for you.

Shit, not again.

[cyphershieldtech]

Security in the metaverse emerging scams and phishing risk.

The metaverse and web3 may still be evolving, but they are sure to bring lasting changes to the way we work, play, and interact. For companies, we see four major areas of opportunity: staff experience, customer experience, process improvement, and new products and services. Considerable innovation is already taking place in each of them. But, as is often the case, the approach and technology of cybersecurity and anti-fraud have not kept pace with the rapid growth and development of the metaverse.

This emerging space presents new opportunities for criminals to exploit inexperienced and unaccustomed newcomers for monetary gain through targeted cyberattacks such as phishing and social engineering scams. In addition to direct financial losses, there are obvious reputational risks for brands and creators (as well as harm to consumers, although this paper focuses on the business perspective). And depending on their materiality and frequency, the attacks could also lead to unwanted scrutiny or lawsuits from consumers, consumer protection groups, investigative agencies, and regulators.

An unreliable metaverse could also stall progress. In our 2022 Metaverse Survey of more than 1,000 executives and 5,000 consumers, both groups said cybersecurity and privacy were the top concerns holding them back from adopting it. The metaverse could allow existing cybercrime to flare up and create new types of it.

But the metaverse, powered by a blockchain-based web3 infrastructure, could also be the place to find solutions, such as improved cyber protection and protocols, the ability for users to control what data is shared, and a better data verification process.

Understand what you're up against

While there are many types of scams relevant to the metaverse and decentralized web3 world, phishing and social engineering scams are some of the most prevalent. The crimes are the same, but the metaverse is fertile ground for novel and little-known ways of targeting victims and stealing their assets.

Let's look at four common attack vectors used by scammers today.

Scam messaging and social engineering:  This takes many forms, including unofficial websites and social media accounts, fraudulent emails, fake tech support, and bot-driven messaging on community management platforms used to facilitate communications between consumers and administrators. environments. Although metaverse environments consist primarily of real-time voice communications, these environments can also include text-based instant messaging and chat functionality. These fraudulent tactics have been effective in tricking victims into clicking malicious links or attachments, interacting with fraudulent web forms or smart contracts, or divulging sensitive information. 

The metaverse has also introduced "3D social engineering," in which scammers arrive via a lure that closely resembles a known domain and takes the form of a 3D avatar designed to impersonate coworkers or other contacts. acquaintances. The idea is to get victims to share confidential information and access. Earlier this year, the server for a metaverse environment, with blockchain-backed transactions, was compromised and fraudulent messages were sent to members about an "exclusive giveaway." Hundreds of thousands of digital assets were stolen from the wallets of unsuspecting members who navigated to the imitation website contained in the message and interacted with the attacker's fraudulent smart contract.

Airdrops and malicious giveaways: Legitimate companies use airdrops as a way to reward their investors or early adopters and as a marketing tool to incentivize users to purchase products and services available on their platforms. Many project owners often give their native cryptocurrency tokens or an NFT to their investors allowing them to navigate to their website, connect their digital wallets, sign a smart contract, and claim the airdrop. 

In many cases, scammers take advantage of this method to trick unsuspecting individuals into clicking malicious links or signing fraudulent smart contracts that give cybercriminals full access to their victims' digital assets, which disappear moments later. In one case earlier this year, a malicious airdrop phishing scam carried out through compromised social media accounts managed to steal around $1 million worth of digital assets.

Seed phrase phishing: A seed phrase is what gives users access to your private keys over your digital assets. Scammers obtain a user's seed phrase to gain control of the victim's digital wallet and digital assets, which they then use to conduct transactions purportedly in the victim's name. Note that if a user's seed phrase is stored offline, the only way for an attacker to obtain it is if the user gives it to them, or if they steal it from the physical space the phrase is in. seed (for example, on a desktop in the user's home). 

Aside from social engineering, another common way scammers carry out this phishing scam is by copying legitimate websites that require and ask victims to create an account and "log in" using their seed phrase. In late 2021, copycat websites of several popular digital wallets were created where scammers managed to steal half a million dollars through a seed phrase phishing campaign. Since a digital wallet is often needed to interact with metaverse environments, this campaign was able to take advantage of first-time users. In addition, some mobile wallet applications may by default save a copy of a user's private keys in a cloud backup,

Ice phishing: This is a novel scheme that tricks people into assigning or delegating approval of their cryptocurrency address to the attacker. This occurs when an attacker changes the address of the victims to that of the attackers by injecting a malicious script into a smart contract and waiting for the victim to authorize a transaction. Once this occurs, the smart contract allows the attacker to carry out transactions on behalf of the victim.  

Due to the general complexity of the smart contract coding language, it is difficult for an inexperienced user to realize that a smart contract has been tampered with. This is further complicated by the fact that window interfaces that appear on a user's screen rarely provide a clear, understandable, plain language description of what the transaction allows the smart contract to do once authorized. This increases the likelihood that a person will authorize a transaction that he does not understand.  

In one case, scammers created fake websites associated with a metaverse environment (in this case, a 3D Internet site) and, using web ads, paid to have their fraudulent metaverse site appear at the top of search results. . Once on the copycat site, users connected their wallets and signed what they thought was a harmless agreement allowing them access to their metaverse account, but in reality they were signing a contract that changed status and gave scammers access. to their digital wallets.

How to protect the company and customers

Since the web3 and metaverse space is relatively new, there is little to no regulation protecting consumers, and few remedies for victims who have had digital assets stolen; and little is required of companies operating in this space. Still, there are certain proactive measures that can help organizations identify and protect themselves and their customers against these types of scams.

Focus on the controls. Maintaining and applying checks to determine the validity of messages received from third parties (and flag or block malicious ones) is especially critical, as fraudulent messages can also come from legitimate accounts that have been compromised and taken over. The commercial development and deployment of these types of controls is likely to be an area where further innovation continues as adoption and user activity increase and the security posture of metaverse environments evolves. One basic control that can be effective is the use of two-factor or multi-factor authentication. It can be an effective preventative control to protect against email and social media account hijacking risks.

Apply content moderation. To mitigate the risk of fraud associated with a metaverse project, companies can implement an impartial moderation or content governance feature in their community management platforms and any text messaging features within the environment, if any. This may carry out due diligence on project contributors, including removing or banning abusive users who don't follow community rules, identifying and removing malicious or misleading messages, and performing regular IP scans and network, among other functions.

Promote correct hygiene of purses.This means using multiple wallets, each with a specific purpose. At the consumer level, it is common practice for a user to have a "mint wallet" (hot wallet), a vend wallet (warm wallet), and a vault wallet (hardware wallet/cold wallet). The minting wallet is the most interactive with the blockchain, but should only contain low-value items and enough cryptocurrency to mint an asset (for example, an NFT representing an avatar, character, or wearable item ) in order to limit the risk of financial loss. Selling wallets are typically used to interact with exchanges and marketplaces, while a vault wallet holds a user's high-value digital assets. At the enterprise level, there are several custodial platforms that you can use to customize the wallet experience (for managing corporate digital assets) and align it with your business goals. For example, a corporate wallet can be configured as a multi-sig or multi-party computational (MPC) wallet, requiring the authorization and signature of multiple designated wallet addresses (users) before executing a transaction on the blockchain. Similarly, companies creating or sponsoring metaverse spaces may wish to educate consumers on the benefits of holding multiple wallets to help reduce risk and potentially help make it easier to set up such a multi-wallet structure to promote wallet hygiene. portfolio between users.

Stay up to date and be transparent. Lastly, it's hard to prevent an attack you don't see coming. Stay up to date on new scams and provide regular education and communication to stakeholders, particularly employees and customers, about asset protection and threat recognition and response. This includes verifying a link before clicking on it, verifying the sender of a link, doing independent research on the metaverse and web3 projects and platforms, being aware of the types of smart contacts you are signing, and not engaging with direct messages. incoming, but rather navigate to the "official links" page of a project before participating.

Conclusion: As vulnerabilities exist in the web3 spaces, Cypershield is one of the kinds of Security and Smart Contract audit company rendering exceptionally professional smart contract auditing services for varied Crypto projects. In the process of rendering your projects, full-on auditing services help you come over your smart contract vulnerabilities and reach a higher scale in the market.

[wannabe-fic-writer]

Natasha Romanoff x Reader : Future Holds

Summary: Time is an illusion that helps things make sense.

Warning: Language

Word Count: 2,673

* * * * * *

“Uh, guys we’ve got an enhanced on the field!” 

Blue blasts shoot through the air, pained grunts fill your ear from the coms, and your teammates speak to you as you fight through the barrage of enemies. All the while keeping your eyes trained on the person surrounded by blue energy.

“Obviously Y/n.”

You roll your eyes,“ this is no time for jokes Tony, he’s making people fucking disappear.”

That grabs everyone’s attention. Continuing to fight, they look to the person you mentioned. Just as he presses his hands to the shoulders of two guys and consumes them with the blue energy.

You frown at the familiarity of the energy. It’s definitely something you’ve seen before.

“Thinking hard Y/ln.” 

E/c eyes flicker to green ones and you chuckle.

“Always Romanoff.” Sliding under the legs of the enemy in between you two, you dodge out of the way when Natasha shoots a widow’s bite at him.“ Awe, you’ve always got my back Tash, that’s best friend material.” You smile teasingly. 

She rolls her eyes, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear,“ I don’t recall signing up for that position.” She jokes back.

You’re mid laugh when you notice her eyes widening, gaze behind you. Moving quickly, you duck down and trip the enhanced. Only for his energized hand to land on Natasha. Her instantly disappearing, replaced with a blue mist. 

“Tasha!” You exclaim in shock, turning to fight the man.

Noticing your shout, the team engages as well. 

It’s obviously overwhelming to him but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hold his own, effectively disappearing two more of your teammates, before Bucky knocks him out. 

Jaw clenched you glare down at the guy, secretly hoping that he hadn’t- no, you didn’t want to think of that.

“Pick him up,” you tell Steve and Bucky,“ we need him to figure out what just happened to our friends.” 

They nod and together you and the rest of the team takes the enhanced back to the compound to get Tony, Carol, and Natasha back.

* * * * * *

“Hey, Nat,” her body rocks as light fades into the dark,“ Natasha wake up.” 

Finally opening her eyes, Natasha blinks to take in her surroundings. 

Green. Yards of grass. Surrounded by trees.

Tony and Carol at her sides. 

The billionaire is looking around, murmuring to the AI in his suit. Only for the helmet to retract.

“We’ve got a problem.” Both women frown at him.“ I can’t get F.R.I.D.A.Y up.”

Carol is the first to nod and move. Brushing her pants off,“ then we need to move. Figure out where we are and how to get back home.”

Natasha and Tony agree and together the group heads North. 

Eyes wander all over as they keep walking. Until finally they reach the road. There doesn’t seem to be much traffic which is equally as bad as it is good. 

Tony sighs,“ we need to find transportation. Walking is productive but it doesn’t seem like there’s much around so we’ll be doing this for a while and I prefer not to.” 

Carol scoffs and shakes her head,“ I’m sure we’ll find something soon. And we don’t have options so let’s not get picky.” 

And so the three continue to walk. Minds reel as they think of ways to get home and where they are. There were guesses but they weren’t sure. Everything was black when they were transported wherever they are. 

It seems like hours pass before they find some sort of salvation. 

Hopeful, the three trudge up the graveled path, stopping at the fork in the path. One leads up to a white paneled home and the other leads up to a matching garage. 

The shared glances point in two different directions. Carol is thinking they take whatever car they find in there and Tony is thinking they go to the house and offer to buy whatever car is in there. Natasha stops the argument before it can begin and nods to the garage. 

She’d rather not deal with a third party, it complicates things. 

“Give me a minute, I got this.” Carol says cockily, before looking for something to unlock the Buick SUV. 

Natasha and Tony survey the garage and keep watch. 

Natasha’s confusion sky rockets when she sees the digital clock in the corner. The time reading 4:10 and the date reading 11/13/32. 

That’s seven years in the-

“Bingo!’ Carol exclaims, finding something, just as Tony says,“ uh ladies-”

“Hands up, disarm yourselves, and step away from my car.” 

All hands raise, a clang sounding through the area at the crowbar Carol dropped. And slowly they turn to face the source of the voice.

Frowns and wide eyes masking the faces of each person. 

“Y/n?” Natasha asks wide eyed. 

She watches as you frown, noticing the slight differences in your appearance. 

Darker, definitely tanned skin, lighter eyes, is that a wrinkle forming above your brow. You look. . .Older.

Are they really in the-

“Who are you? Whatever sick game this is, cut it out now! I know all about aliens shapeshifting and facial reconfiguration tech so cut the shit.” You snap, aiming your gun at Natasha but keeping your eyes on Tony and Carol.

Tony laughs,“ we could say the same. How do we know this isn’t some mind trick being played by that energy wielding guy.” 

Your frown deepens. 

Natasha can’t believe this.

There’s always a way to find out if this is real. She’s had her mind altered enough to be able to spot unrealistic inconsistencies. If this is, in fact, a mind game, somethings bound to be missing. 

“Y/n,” Natasha’s voice speaks and she watches the familiar tick of your ears as you focus on the sound of her voice. 

She considers this being real. A small detail like that couldn’t be mimicked so perfectly in a mind game. 

“My name is Natasha.”

You falter. Hands clench the gun in harder as you look over at her. 

“Sure it is. And that’s Tony and Carol. I’m not stupid. If you’re the real Natasha where’s your car?” 

They’d all noticed the empty spot in the obvious two car garage. 

Her car? Why would her car be here? Wherever here is? 

Their lack of reply has you taking a small threatening step forward,“ drop the façade or I shot and I promise I don’t hesitate.” 

Natasha’s green eyes search yours and she’s sure this isn’t a mind game. But something is definitely wrong. In order to figure that out she has to stay alive. Which meant proving she’s actually Natasha.

“This isn’t a façade Y/n. We’re not aliens and we’re not wearing any face tech.” She speaks slowly to calm you as she’s coming to terms with what’s happening in her own mind.

It’s not far fetched. She’d been to the future before it just was a lot more complicated than the simple touch of an enhanced individual.

But you’re still frowning,“ prove it.” 

She wracks her brain for a way to prove it’s her. So she needs fact.

“You have a scar on your thigh just above your knee.” She rushes out, eyes flickering to your finger on the trigger and back to your eyes,“ you got it in Thailand. We were leaving a base and while I was securing the data we retrieved you jumped in front of me and were shot in the leg.” 

Confusion clouds your eyes, the frown that had been aggressive now curious. If you’re the real Y/n, and this is indeed the future, you’d remember that. It was your first mission with Natasha alone.

The mission that had drawn you two so close together. She’d learned she could trust you and your friendship bloomed from there. 

“What’s going on?” You breathe, hand still holding the gun, finger hovering by the trigger despite it being at your side. 

Something Natasha had taught you when you were a recruit at S.H.I.E.L.D.

Carol slowly moves around the car to speak directly to you,“ we aren’t sure. We woke up a few miles south of here. We were trying to find a way home.”

“Actually,” Natasha steps forward,“ I think we’re in the future.”

The woman’s words receive frowns from everyone. Not because it makes no sense but because they aren’t sure how she’s drawn that conclusion. So she steps aside and points to the clock she’d seen.

Carol gasps quietly and Tony groans,“ why hadn’t I considered that?” He mumbles to himself more so than anyone.

Hearing this makes your freeze and stare at the three people in your garage. And Natasha watches, especially as panic flickers in your eyes. Said eyes then snapping to the black sports car pulling into the driveway.

“Stay here. Don’t move.” You sigh, pushing two buttons on your way out of the garage.

Lights flicker on above as majority of the sunlight is cut off by the closing garage door. 

Tony quickly turns back to the two,“ we need to get to the compound. I need my lab to figure out how to get us back. I’d need to find a way to recreate the time space gps but alter the time mechanism to be permanent. If not we’ll end up coming back to this time and-” his words trail off. The man heading to the table behind Natasha as he picks up a piece of paper and stats writing. 

Carol and Natasha know that he’s no doubt working on the solution. 

It’s exactly thirty seven minutes later when you return. The garage’s side door opening instead as you come in, an overly familiar red head behind you. 

Eyes widen to the size of saucers this time. 

Also it turns out, seeing yourself in the past/future breaks no time traveling rules. Proved by the fact that Natasha is staring into her own green eyes from across the garage. 

Her older self chuckles, looking at the older you, then mumbling something only you hear. 

Natasha watches intently, picking up on the body language of the older versions of herself and you. The way the two stand in each other’s personal space. The hand her older self has on your lower back. The way they look at each other. The just barely grazing hands. The rings?

Are you two-

“So, messing with time traveling again.” Older Natasha jokes. 

Little does the group realize, the memories of this problem are piecing together in her mind. Same as yours.

Tony rises from his seat,“ you two wouldn’t happen to be able to get us in the compound would you?” 

“You won’t need the compound. Turns out your tech obsession pays off. You have a lab here, follow me.” Older you tells the billionaire before waving for them to follow.

All of you leave the garage. Natasha trails behind, mind still racing about what she’s seeing and the assumptions she’s making. 

She knows what a romantic relationship looks like. She understands the closeness of that kind of relationship. She just doesn’t understand you and her having that kind of-

“Don’t let what you see here change things.” Her own voice speaks to her, but she can hear how it’s matured.“ No matter what you see here, let everything play itself out.” Older her speaks, side eyeing her.

Younger Natasha frowns,“ what am I goin-”

“MOMS!!”

Everyone halts in their steps at the small but loud voices. 

Younger Natasha sees the smirk on her older self, then the look she gives the older you.

“I’ll handle it.” Older her smiles,“ it’s best you get them back to their present before space and time rips itself apart.” 

Even as they all turn to keep following you, Natasha finds herself curiously looking back.

Older her climbs the steps of the back porch, happily scooping a young h/c boy into her arms, and kissing his cheek. Then grabbing the hand of a slightly older red head girl. 

Moms.

Moms?

Natasha ends up with children. Children with you. Her friend. 

What? 

The two of you are just friends. But that changes along the way? 

How is she supposed to not let this change things? She marries you!

“Natasha!” Carol’s voice pulls the red head from her thoughts,“ you okay?” She back tracks with concerned eyes.

It’d be easy to say no. She knows Carol sees what she sees. It’s actually pretty clear. 

So she nods and gives an assuring smile.

Carol doesn’t completely buy it, but she understands how this wouldn’t exactly be easily processed, so she goes with it. The two simply following after your older self and Tony who are both talking through the plan to get home.

None of them are expecting you to take them to a shed in the woods, that doubles as an elevator. The metal box taking them down to a fully functioning lab. 

Tony’s eyes light up at the familiar and unfamiliar instruments around.

“Don’t break anything Stark. I know you haven’t invented half of this stuff yet.” Older you snaps at the giddy looking man. 

Holding himself together, the man asks,“ why is this lab here?” 

“I take it upon myself to learn a thing or two from you. Also you and Morgan like to tinker when you come to visit.” 

An amused scoff leaves his lips. So Morgan is just as into tech as her dad seven years in the future. 

“So let’s get you back to your time so you can experience all as the universe intended.” Older you moves around the lab easily.“ This’ll take time. And I’m talking days so get comfortable.”

* * * * * * 

“God dammit!” You exclaim, fist colliding with the triple paned glass separating you and the enhanced man.

It’s been days. Questioning him, threatening, and even beating him and he hasn’t said a word. Bucky had to pull you from the guy when you’d angrily went into his cell.

Your frustrations had gotten the better of you. 

All you know is that he’s a H.Y.D.R.A experiment. His powers derivative of the scepter which held the space stone. That’s how he was able to make them disappear. 

But you still have no idea where he sent them. Space encompasses too much. 

“Alright, Y/n, I think it’s best you take a break. We’ll keep questioning him but you need to step away before things get out of hand again.” Steve speaks calmly, knowing you’re upset but also that you shouldn’t let your anger carry. 

Taking a deep calming breath, you step back, turn on your heel, and leaving.

No one follows. Giving you space to relax.

Hands run through your disheveled hair as you leave the building altogether. A growl leaves your mouth as frustrated tears pool in your eyes. 

You’d dealt with losing Natasha and Tony in the past. It’d taken years to bring them back from what had happened with your final battle against Thanos. You can’t lose them again. 

You need them. You need her. She’s your closest friend here.

“And here I was thinking Natasha’s emotionlessness had rubbed off on you.” 

You roll your eyes,“ are you ever not a smart ass Stark.”

Wait. Stark! 

The three friends stand a few feet ahead of you with smiles on their faces and you just stare at them in shock. 

“You’re back!” You exclaim, throwing your arms around Carol and Tony first. The two hugging back.

Once they let you go, you pull Natasha straight into you.“ Almost thought I lost you there best friend.” You joke, despite the now happy tears in your eyes. 

Natasha doesn’t make some sarcastic or joking comment back. She just squeezes you tighter and holds you a little longer.

“Everything okay?” You whisper, now wondering if something bad had happened wherever they were.

You feel her head shake,“ everything’s fine.” She pulls away.

Her eyes catch your frown.

“What happened? Where’d you go?” 

A knowing smile hits Natasha lips,“ you’ll find out. Eventually.” 

* * * * * *

I honestly don’t know. I hope this fits the request. I wasn’t even sure how to begin it but I hope it makes sense.

One down nine to go😅

[hmshermitcraft]

Glitter Showers

Tango checked the chest in his base. Inside was a book, and much to his chagrin, free glass. Tango collected the glass and set the stack in his item sorter, then opened the book. It was unsigned, he noticed, and 30 pages. He flipped through it, finding the first twenty nine to be nonsensical gibberish. The last page had a set of coordinates. 

Tango entered the coordinates in his comm, then set off to the coordinates, uncertain of what awaited him. Without even a guess as to who sent the book, he really had no idea what he was getting himself into. Whatever it was, at least Impulse and Zedaph would be beside him, because they touched down at almost the same time he did. 

“So you guys got glass and coords too?” Impulse asked softly, checking his comm. “These are the coordinates.“

“So, what exactly is meant to be here?” Tango asked, scanning the jungle around them. 

Zed pulled both of his oblivious lovers over to the entrance of Etho’s bridge. “This, ya dum dums.” He replied. The bridge was an amalgamation of blocks sporadically tossed together. If anyone else had built it, it’d be hideous, but Etho had an eye for making mishmash look tasteful. 

It was absolutely no surprise to any of them that they missed a pressure plate in the mess of other clicky blocks.Tango barely had enough time to try to shelter the other two from… glitter?Where in the hell had Etho gotten his hands on glitter, of all things? 

The flower petals were probably pilfered from Xusima’s flower farm, as Etho had pretty much been glued to their admin’s side since Tango began building Decked Out. Anything to avoid the trio, really.  It kind of hurt, but Tango had correctly assumed their cryptid needed time to process Tango’s confession. Impulse and Zedaph thought it’d scared him off. 

Off in the distance, Etho’s laughter rang through the trees. A firework popped, then the white haired boy landed in front of them gracefully, wiping mirthful tears from his eyes. “Oh man, you guys look ridiculous,” He chuckled, looking away to catch his breath. He glanced back to them and the giggle fit started again. Tango surveyed his lovers, and yeah, they looked stupid. Well, The flowers sort of suited Zed, but Impulse just looked… annoyed, mostly, because the petals and glitter were soaked in something to make them sticky. 

Despite the absolute mess Etho made of them, each of them found it easy to laugh along with Etho, congratulating the prankster on a job well done. Then, as if struck by lightning, Etho straightened and sobered up. 

He cleared his throat. “Okay, I’m sorry. But this was a necessary part of this plan working. Xu has officially given me the boot, and told me to talk to you guys, but you all know I can’t take anything that seriously.” He began softly. “So I stole some petals from him. Sorry in advance, Xu. They went to a good cause,” Then he bit his lip, presumably to contain more giggles. 

“I’m sorry I avoided all of you and went ghost.” He began seriously, an odd demeanor for Etho to take. Tango was kinda into it, though. “So naturally, Tango dropped a major bombshell on me, and I needed some time to wrap my brain around that. Tango confessed, so Zed, Impulse, were you all actually flirting with me?” he asked. 

“I thought we were being pretty bloody obvious,” Zed joked, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. “But yeah. We were,”

Impulse nodded. “We tried, anyways. Clearly, it didn’t land if we have to clarify.” he replied. 

Etho shook his head. “No, it didn’t. But I’m just.. trying to learn your love languages,” he explained with a casual wave of his hand. A breeze blew some petals from the ground, sticking to Etho’s wrist. Tango picked them off, sticking the stray petals to Impulse. 

“But how does all of this.” Impulse gestured to the trio of ridiculousness, “ connect to that?” he questioned. 

Etho blushed. “You see, It’s hard to feel stupid when the people you’re looking stupid in front of look worse,” He laughed. “Not that it worked. I still feel kinda dumb saying this..” Etho trailed off, looking down at the mishmash of blocks under their feet. “I really like you guys too,” he mumbled, and if Tango didn’t have sharp hearing, he’d have missed it. 

“We didn’t catch that, E,” Zed said softly, touching his shoulder. Etho looked up at him, lips pursed in an uneasy smile.Even with the mask, Tango knew. “Hey, we aren’t gonna judge you, ya know,” And there was the Zed that won him over. Soft, easy going, and always reassuring. Always caring for others. 

Etho nodded. “I said: “I really like you guys too,” he clarified, louder.

Impulse and Zedaph were stunned into silence, and Etho looked ready to bolt. Now was the chance, and Tango gently caught his wrist before the firework lit up.  “Don’t run. Give those idiots a second. They did it to me, too,” Tango smiled, aiming for reassuring, but probably failing. Etho still tensed, poised for.. Something. A hit, Tango realized, jarring him a little. 

Instead, Tango pulled the taller boy closer, locking him in a tight yet gentle hug. Etho blinked in surprise, but melted into the contact, barely jumping when Impulse joined in. He didn’t jump at all when Zed pressed close, resting his cheek on Etho’s shoulder blade. Right in the center of them, where he belonged. 

“I think this goes without saying, but the feeling is mutual,” Impulse commented softly. The quartet laughed, then Etho wiggled out of their grasp.

“Sorry. Four way hugs in the jungle are not a great idea,” he chuckled. “Especially with a half imp and a satyr, No offence,”

Zed laughed. “No worries. I just didn’t want to be the first to let go,” he confessed. “But yeah, hugging Tango and I at the same time is a slippery slope to sweating.” He admitted. 

“This is why we chose cooler climates, E,” Impulse explained. “But with our redstone brians, we can make a solution,” 

“Yeah, I’m sure we can, too,” Etho replied, looking down at himself. The glitter and petals now clung to him as well. “Well, that was a bad call, but at least we match,” he giggled, nose wrinkling as Zedaph pressed a glittery kiss to his cheek. “Stop it. Gri will never quit giving me shit for this,” he mumbled half heartedly. 

“He’s not even here?” Tango reasoned, more of a question than a statement. 

Etho smiled, saying nothing. The smile itself, even hidden behind his mask, said everything.

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 1, chapter 5

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Content warnings: None

Morgan awoke to the sound of humming. He stretched, groaning as his muscles protested. Evidently his choice of sleeping positions had not been ideal, but he'd been too tired to care when he'd settled in. The humming stopped, and Deckard Cain turned to him from where he had been tending a pot over a small fire nearby.

"Would you believe," he said, "that none of the Sisterhood would give me your name, friend? Such a strange thing."

He would believe it. He'd learned long ago that it was generally not worth the trouble to correct people once they'd decided what they wanted to call him. The strange thing here was how little Cain seemed to be troubled by his presence. He would enjoy it while it lasted.

"It's Morgan."

"Well, Morgan, we have much to discuss. But before we get started, let us eat. You must be famished after yesterday's events." He held out a bowl of steaming soup, which Morgan accepted gratefully. It was hot and filling, exactly what he hadn't realized he needed. He'd gotten cold overnight.

Morgan briefly summarized the request that had brought him here: to disturb the progress of the unidentified manifestation of darkness taking root in these lands. Cain filled in quite a lot of details while Morgan mainly listened, asking occasional questions for clarification. A great and ancient evil had come to light in Tristram, leading eventually to the tragedy that had befallen the city. Although a hero had been successful in defeating that evil, it seemed he had been unfortunately corrupted by the same. He had fled eastward, but to complicate matters, another powerful demon had arisen to trouble the area.

Cain suspected this new demon to be Andariel, the Maiden of Anguish. Quite a title. He shared what he knew about her: a venomous demon queen with the power to enthrall mortals unlucky or unwise enough to look her full in the eyes. Like most major demons, her power also manifested in a sort of influence that spread out from her like a miasma. By Cain's estimation, this would be apparent through increased emotional sensitivity in those affected, to complement the physical anguish she was capable of inflicting. That would be something to look out for; emotional regulation was the foundation that gave strength and clarity to the priests of Rathma. To have it disrupted would compromise his ability to act in the best interest of the Balance. Morgan would have to be careful about that.

He was enjoying the conversation, to his surprise. Cain had a vast wealth of knowledge and seemed eager to share it. He was explaining his interpretation of a particular prophecy when Blaise stalked up to them with a sour look on her face. She glared daggers at Morgan, crossing her arms.

"Good, you're awake. Come with me, we have work to do."

"We do?" He'd expected - hoped, if he was honest with himself - that her involvement would be finished after retrieving Cain. That was as far as Kashya had demanded it, anyway. "I thought you-"

"I thought this nightmare was over too, but I just finished arguing with Akara. One of our old commanders has risen from the dead to attack us, and she blames you." She looked back toward the gates. "I told her that's not how your stuff works, but she didn't believe me." That was a surprise - he would not have guessed she might speak up in his defense. He wondered what had changed. Maybe Cain had convinced her somehow. The man was good with words, with people, in a way Morgan knew he could never hope to echo. "So if you don't come with me to put her back in the ground, you're probably going to regret it," Blaise continued with a pointed look.

Well, Morgan couldn't argue with that. He stood and stretched, taking stock of his belongings as Cain pressed Blaise with questions. She bore them with more patience than he'd expected. One of the other scouts had survived the attack, but her recovery was not going well. It sounded like she'd been poisoned. A shame they hadn't kept the arrow; he might have been able to identify the toxin. But then again, if he tried to treat her and failed, they would be even less willing to trust him. If Cain was right, it would be a moot point anyway - he thought the resurrection was Andariel's doing, meaning that the poison was likely due to her influence. He had no experience with that type of venom.

"Oh, Morgan, I almost forgot," Cain called out as they were leaving. Morgan turned to see him holding something in an upraised hand. "You had better take another scroll of town portal, in case you should need to return with haste."

"Thank you." He accepted the proffered scroll with a small bow of his head, tucking it into his belt.

"Let's get a move on already," Blaise called. She had already started walking. Morgan jogged to catch up, already apprehensive about the journey ahead. Her mood had softened around the old scholar, but it seemed Morgan would not be privy to those benefits. He hoped this situation would be resolved quickly so he could begin planning his attack on Andariel.

The battle was over in short order. The reanimated rogue captain had called out to Blaise by name, which confirmed Cain's guess about her origins - only very powerful forces could resurrect both flesh and spirit. She must have been buried inexpertly, leaving her vulnerable to those malign forces. Most funeral proceedings not led by the Order of Rathma or other experienced practitioners were more for the benefit of the living than the dead. At any rate, it served only to fuel Blaise's already considerable anger, and she'd defeated the revenant with only a moment's hesitation. Several piles of earth were evidence of Morgan's attempts to provide support. Each golem was ever so slightly faster to rise than the last, but this enemy had been agile enough to render them all but useless until she'd stumbled over a previously flat spot of ground. Not an elegant solution, but effective enough in the end. Now Blaise was examining the body, brow furrowed.

"Hey. Ghoul... uh. Morgan." That was a surprise. Cain had called him by name in front of her, but he'd assumed she wouldn't be bothered to remember it. "If you do that... ceremony. Like in Tristram. Will it... help her?"

"The final rites will lay her spirit to rest, and consecration should prevent her from rising again." He'd planned on performing them anyway, as a matter of course. At the very least, they would prevent her from being wholly resurrected again - powerful magic could overcome a properly consecrated body, but it could not pluck a spirit back once it had passed on.

Blaise seemed reluctant to ask outright, but she did step in to help when he went to move the body back to the grave it had clearly clawed out of. He opted for a more thorough consecration ritual and a shorter liturgy, both of which seemed to be well received. Blaise didn't raise any objections, at least. The interment was easier than the last ones, the ground more yielding, but a frown crept onto Morgan's face as he stood up and surveyed his work.

"What are you making that face for? Didn't it work?"

"No, that's not it. Your commander is at peace now, but there are many restless dead here. It must be Andariel making them stir like this." He could barely hear their whispers at the edge of his awareness if he concentrated. It was a little unsettling; usually he could only just sense a hint of the spirit lingering on a set of bones, nothing near this strong. He lacked the natural facility with spirits that drew some of the acolytes to his Order. At any rate, their agitation was cause for concern.

"I don't have the supplies to handle this many."

"I guess we'd better take the fight to Andariel, then. Don't look so surprised," she added, folding her arms across her chest. "The Sisterhood doesn't want there to be a... demon queen or whatever just running loose. She's killing our people. And apparently bringing them back again, and that's just fucked up. I may not like you, but you're the only person who's come through lately and survived. So we might as well work together on this."

"Yes, of course. You're right." The suggestion was wholly unexpected, but sound. Their objectives aligned, at least on the surface. If that was enough for her to tolerate working with him a little longer, he wasn't about to turn down her assistance. She was many times stronger than him. Luckily, she seemed capable of putting aside her personal feelings temporarily in order to meet a goal. It was really about as favourable a partnership as he could hope to make.

Now seemed like an opportune time to present a peace offering of some sort. But given her previous overreaction to a completely innocent comment, he didn't really want to risk giving a gift that could be taken as a token of anything he didn't intend. Perhaps... knowledge? There had been few of his brethren in the Order who'd had trouble with the portal scrolls, but their difficulties had always been resolved with a little coaching. It seemed like it would be worth trying.

He plucked the scroll from Cain out of its spot on his belt and held it out to her. She eyed it suspiciously. "Here. These are useful. You should try it again."

"It isn't that far to go back, you know," she said, not making a move to take the rolled parchment.

"The object is to see if you can use it. Not to actually travel. You might need one in the future."

She snatched the scroll from his hands and unrolled it with a snap of her wrist. "I can't even read what it says," she grumbled.

"Neither can I," he said. She looked up from the parchment with a perplexed frown. "It's not words, it's more like a spell," he explained. The look on her face told him she was going to need more than that. "You just have to believe it's going to work. Try telling it that it's going to open a portal for you."

"You didn't have to tell it anything when you did it yesterday."

"I already know how it's going to work. I just have to... acknowledge that I expect it to let me travel somewhere, and think about where." It was much easier to do than to explain. "Just try," he urged. "You don't have to say it out loud," he added, in case that helped.

She looked back down at the scroll. Her lips moved a little, and shortly a small circle appeared in the air in front of her. Her eyebrows rose in surprise.

"See, it works for you. Now try to think about a specific place," Morgan advised. Slowly an image came into focus within the circle. It looked like the inside of a building. There were rows of beds lined up, presumably the barracks of the Sisterhood. Blaise looked cautiously pleased as the portal opened up fully now that it had a destination.

"I guess it's not so hard to use magic, is it?" she said with a smile. It was strange for a moment, having that smile aimed at him.

"Not this kind," Morgan agreed. There were many different types of magic and some of them were quite difficult to use even for experienced mages, but he suspected this would not be the time to get into a discussion on the topic.

"How do I close it?"

"It will close on its own when you come back through it, or if the spell is disrupted. Yesterday I tore the parchment to close it."

"Huh. Thanks."

Morgan nodded an acknowledgement and turned to go. The walk back would give him a chance to think about how to best approach the situation. Andariel was probably lurking within the nearby cathedral, if the patterns of undead were to be trusted. Demons often liked to pervert religious spaces, and major demons tended to draw flocks of lesser evils around them.

"Aren't you coming?" He turned back to see Blaise standing by the portal, hands on her hips.

"I'm walking. It isn't that far to go back," he parroted.

"This is easier, though. And faster."

"That looks like your sleeping quarters," he pointed out. "I doubt I would be welcome."

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Good point. I'll see you back outside the encampment, then." She turned and paused for a moment, then strode confidently through the portal. Morgan waited until it had flickered closed behind her before taking his leave. He would have preferred to be able to put more of the spirits to rest, but that could be seen to after Andariel had been defeated. There would be little point in wasting his energy on a task that was likely to be undone. He stopped at the cemetery gate and knelt, touching a hand to the soil. A thin line rose up, curling around itself in a simple sign. It marked the area as requiring the attention of a priest of Rathma. This way, if he was to fall in battle, the next of his Order to come along would be able to soothe the unquiet dead.

He raised another golem and started walking. With this new partnership, there could be a reasonably good chance of defeating Andariel. He wondered what state the cathedral would be in, and how many skeletons he might hope to find lying beneath its floors. He hoped there would be some stained glass still intact. Not for any strategic purpose, just because he liked it. It was his personal opinion, not endorsed by the priesthood, that artisans who spent their efforts on creating beautiful things were doing work for the Light. Of course beauty and skill did not appear in the list of attributes that added up to make the weight of a person's goodness or lack thereof, and it was really just idle musing on his part. Still, he appreciated beauty where he found it.