#personal sort of

[aruanimess]

Baby's 1st bday!!!

It’s been one year since By Each Crime and Kindness (I’m bound to you) made its debut on ao3.

The writing of this story started, of course, earlier, in late October of 2023. I had binged Attack on Titan that same month along with my partner and had been holding back my love of the AruAni ship, lest I be called a delusional romantic (not in so many words but you know what I mean). But then we got to the second part of season 4, and I first beheld Armin kneeling, repentant, in front of Annie’s crystal, begging her to speak to him, and… well… I couldn’t be contained anymore.

I scoured the depths of ao3 for fic, started stalking blogs here on tumblr, desperately searched for fanart and meta about these characters. My obsession inevitably led me to create. 

The initial inspiration for this fic was reading @flailingkittylover's Paranoid in one go, absolutely devouring every detail and, after finishing it, immediately thinking: “This was great. I need fifty more fics just like this one injected directly into my veins.” Sadly, there weren’t fifty more fics of this kind, so as you can imagine (be the change you wanna see in this world and all that), I decided to start my own. 

Of course, the story changed significantly from this early conception. I had the advantage of hindsight and was more than happy to include more and more details that would tie the later storylines of the series with its beginning. Cadet Armin and Annie became more fleshed out into my mind, my version of them shining brighter the more I wrote, brainstormed and outlined. By the time I published the first chapter, I was confident that I had put my own unique spin on the characters and the plot (despite it still being very reliant on the source material). I was uncertain about whether the fandom would enjoy it, but I knew I wanted to share my joy with the rest of you no matter what.

Since then, I’ve met many lovely people, read countless other stories, had many insightful discussions and overall enjoyed myself more than I could possibly have imagined in my wildest dreams. The AruAni fandom taught me that fandom is, first and foremost, a community built on love, something which I knew but hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing in the past. For this reason (and many more), I’ll be forever grateful and beholden to each and every one of you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you 💜

[starlitflowers-secretgarden]

Getting excited about the style class I signed up for next week.

[sergeantnarwhalwrites]

I may not have written fanfic in years XD But there are very specific crack ships I want to see more of and I can only get it by writing.

[depressedhatakekakashi]

[darkness-compelled]

When something happens and I'm the only one who witnesses it, I 100% doubt that it happened.

But anyway, the past 3 days, a bird has come to the window. There's a metal grate over the screen, which is torn up at the bottom. The first time I saw him in the afternoon.

Me and the dogs were chilling and I heard something weird, so I finally got up to look and this lil brown bird is gripping the grate and picking at the window.

Yesterday I was hungover af but I got up to pee at like 8am and from the hall, I saw him again. He heard me and took off right away.

Why is he coming back?

Anyway, I fell asleep super early last night, and so I'm up at freaking 7am lol. But I got a lil video and a picture of the lil guy so I can feel a lil less crazy and lil less obsessed about it.

You can see him behind the green onion jar.

I was trying not to wake the puppy or scare the birb.

There was a lil red breasted bird hanging with him. I wonder if he wants the screen or the plants on the sil.

[hydrattan]

I was feeling agitated and artblocked yesterday so I decided to give my brain a rest by watching TV and then the next thing I knew these were in front of me

[sparrowlucero]

like the most politically neutered movie of all time unironically

[artsymeeshee]

Thinking about the idea I had a LONG time ago about Mabel sending motivational and complimenting stickers for the boys and Ford saving a “write your own message” one just for Stan and had to draw it.

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[officialspec]

what are we, some kind of league of legends?

[goldensunset]

did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back

[aruanimess]

I wanna see the pretty art but I'm scared the bird app will be the end of me 😔

[dirt-goth]

As much as I want to be a wholly joyous about the fact that Henry Kissinger is finally fucking dead, as he deserves... There's a lot of me that can't help being upset with. With the fact that he lived to 100 years old. He got better medical care, better housing, and a better, more stable life for those 100 years than billions on this planet ever going to see and he did it specifically through exploitation, state sanctioned murder, and lies. He lived to 100 years comfortably on a legacy of violence that rarely threatened his personal comfort. I want to be joyous that he's finally dead, because the world IS better with him dead, but the reality is he won a long time ago.

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[uncanny-tranny]

Fat people deserve mobility aids, too. No matter if it's connected to their fatness or not, because having a mobility issue that is connected to one's fatness won't change that they're still fat and still have the issue at hand. Fat people don't deserve to "tough it out" because fatness should be this divine punishment doled out to those who "deserve" it. Fat disabled people deserve to have the peace of mind that they can exist in whatever way is most comfortable and accessible to them

[sparrowlucero]

Psittacosaurus