Changes

[sarafina]

THING I'D CHANGE

Because nobody's perfect!

HOW TO PLAY
↺ Forget those blank comments, info in the subject, usual memes. In this meme, we use the subject line to put the one thing our characters would change about themselves whether they'd usually admit it to anyone or not. Their choice can be a physical, mental, or emotional one, a personality trait, a past mistake or choice, whichever's the most dramatic.
↺ Then: welcome to the peanut gallery! Everybody else comments.
↺ You know that's the meme.

Comments

[nogodsnoheroes]

[She's quiet for a moment, folding her arms around herself and scowling. She doesn't want to give him anything, and she doesn't need to defend herself, but...]

Is there a part of none of your fucking business you need explained?

I'm hard to kill. That's sort of a power.

[abandonhumanity]

Is that all?

[He won't be minding his business, clearly.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

I can't turn into a turbo-giant murder machine and bite holes in people, if that's what you mean. I just heal quick and shake off getting drunk way too fast, and locking me in a crate with no water in sub-zero temperatures didn't do half the damage it should've. And I don't scar. And I'm pretty tough.

I didn't say they were good powers.

[abandonhumanity]

Being hard to kill isn't a bad one. [For as much as he might have said about her being useless and powerless - still true in the grander sense of things, but in a more practical sense, sure - surviving longer than others is generally considered to be a positive thing.

[It has its trade-offs.]

Do you consider yourself human?

[nogodsnoheroes]

[It's hard to see how she can bristle, when her hackles are already so thoroughly up. She bristles, anyway.]

Fuck off!

Yes! They don't get to fucking take that!

[abandonhumanity]

[His eyebrows raise just slightly. Perhaps he should have expected such a violent reaction. The first time someone asked him that, though, he wasn't so certain.]

"They?"

[nogodsnoheroes]

[Fuck you fuck you fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufucky oufu c k]

[The sound of her teeth grinding is actually audible, her fingernails digging into the tops of her arms.]

Yeah. They.

[You want more than that, Eren, you're going to have to actually ask. Just because she keeps letting details slip out like this, doesn't mean she wants to.]

[abandonhumanity]

[God. Merely talking to him makes her fucking miserable. He feels a little too much power, at that - common problem for Eren.]

Who are "they"? Someone forced your powers upon you?

[In ways, he can relate to that.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

Yeah. Grabbed me when I was a kid, stuck a shitton of tubes and wires in me, tortured me for two years, threw me out in the snow when I didn't turn into a magic super-soldier or whatever the fuck they were trying to do.

They figured the ends justified the means, I guess. You might've gotten along.

[abandonhumanity]

[There's a moment's pause.]

You and I have more in common than you realize, I think.

[nogodsnoheroes]

I already hate you. You don't have to give me more reasons.

[abandonhumanity]

[Back to her earlier point, then:]

Despite what you might assume, I'm not particularly fond of human experimentation.

[nogodsnoheroes]

No? Just happy to do all the violent bullshit with none of the data?

It's the same fucking thing, you idiot. It's treating people like things. You can tell yourself whatever you want, you've made your position pretty fucking clear.

[abandonhumanity]

I don't see people as things, either. [Animals, maybe, depending; but, no. Eren was well aware of the inherent value of each and every human life when he made his decision.]

I'm not saying it to comfort myself. I don't need that.

You seem to find everything I say offensive. [Not that he's necessarily saying she's wrong for that.]

We could easily talk about something else.

[nogodsnoheroes]

I find you offensive.

[She thought that was pretty obvious.]

You're a genocidal piece of shit fascist who still acts like he's better than me. I don't have to care what you think.

Or what we've got in common.

[abandonhumanity]

We've got a lot in common. [He'll say it until her head explodes. It's true.]

You're right, though. You don't have to care what I think. You can tell me I'm wrong until you're face turns blue. That's fine with me.

[nogodsnoheroes]

And you'll, what, vomit out more nihilistic moral relativism until you get mad and rip my arms off again?

Great. Sounds like so much fucking fun. I love being condescended to by Nazis.

[abandonhumanity]

Did I get angry? I don't remember getting angry.

You got angry. I remember that. [No nihilistic moral relativism in that one. Now he's just trying to get under her skin.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

No shit. I'm always fucking angry.

I know I'm a fucking mess. We're not talking about me.

[Bethan... you literally were.]

[abandonhumanity]

[Trying to get this woman to calm down long enough to stop slinging assumptions feels impossible, so...Eren will just continue poking the bear. What does he have to lose?]

This feels familiar. You're a fan of talking in circles.

You don't seem to want to talk about me, either. What's the alternative, then? I'm listening.

[nogodsnoheroes]

You could fuck off and die?

[He has a point, which makes it worse. She doesn't like being reminded of how much she talks in circles - how much the mental spiralling can turn into verbal spiralling, too. Or, given how she's starting to pace, into physical spiralling.]

[She rakes both hands back through her matted hair, grinding her teeth. Part of her wants to take the cycle the rest of the way - attack him again, get her ass handed to her again, die and wake up and feel like shit. It wouldn't achieve anything, but then again, none of this is going to achieve anything regardless.]

[Eventually, she turns on her heel and flops down on a nearby wall, still fidgeting, scratching at her wrists and the backs of her hands. Her glare is sour and impatient, but she does seem to have decided to change tack a little, at least.]

Okay, fine. What do you think we've got in common, besides both being crazy? I'm all fucking ears.

[abandonhumanity]

[They'll start with the objective. Maybe she'll actually entertain a conversation.]

I was changed as a child too. I'm not sure if you'd call it an experiment since the result was well known, but I was given inhuman abilities. I'm sure you remember.

"Super soldier" sounds fitting. A weapon.

[nogodsnoheroes]

You seemed like less of a super soldier. More like a fucking kaiju.

[She is, genuinely, trying. She chews at her fingernail until she manages to draw blood, her shoulders hunched up around her ears and her eyes not meeting his at all. But she is trying to entertain the conversation, if only because there doesn't seem to be much alternative.]

Who by?

[abandonhumanity]

[He'll try too, then - be honest, even (not that he hasn't been - it's a bit refreshing); anyway, it isn't exactly a secret.]

My father, in so many words.

[In so many words.

[There's a pause.]

What's a kaiju?

[nogodsnoheroes]

[That cuts through to her, where nothing else has. It shows in her expression, which for a moment registers something other than anger or disgust - a genuine horror, and, behind it, a genuine pity.]

[For all that she has been through herself, the one thing she has always had - whether she wanted it or not - was family. It's the one thing that anchors her, which keeps her, if not sane, at least somewhat grounded. It feels almost physically painful to imagine what it would have been like if, instead of being the one who she knew deep down would save her, her father had been one of the faceless men in the lab. If he had been the one holding the scalpel.]

Fuck. I...

That fucking sucks.

[What else can you even say?]