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

[abandonhumanity]

[He'll take this one - force their hand, even.

[But the moment has passed. He'll keep their favor to Bethan, and to him, to himself.]

Let me ask you a question. [It's a dangerous one.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

Can I fucking stop you? Kinda seems like you're gonna ask me anyway.

[abandonhumanity]

What's your name?

[nogodsnoheroes]

[She opens her mouth to snap at him, and then blinks as her brain catches up with her. That's not at all what she was expecting.]

[So, like... why?]

[The problem is, Bethan isn't a common name. Uncommon enough that she constantly needs to tell people it's Bethany without the Y, dumbfuck, anyway. And she's now mentioned her family, and he clearly doesn't like her (which, like... why would he?), and she's fine with herself getting ripped apart, but if he knows her name, and he knows who she is, and fuck, she can't remember if she mentioned any of her family's names, but there's always fucking Google, and just...]

[This, she realises, is stupid. She doesn't even know if her family is here. Wherever here is.]

[She sighs, and scratches at her wrists, and chews at her lip. Fine. Whatever. It's honesty hour around here, anyway.]

Bethan. Why?

[abandonhumanity]

["Bethan" with the younger brother and the unique name, who was made into a monster, who was born as a human.]

I'm Eren.

[That's all.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

That's not a fucking answer, dipshit. Why do you care what my name is?

[abandonhumanity]

It's a pretty common question, don't you think? Why do I need a reason?

[nogodsnoheroes]

It's a pretty common question when you meet someone. Not after you pull their arms and legs off and grill them on their fucking life story.

[abandonhumanity]

I skipped a step. [Humor? Hard to tell. Eren doesn't really do that anymore, and was never much good at it anyway.]

Try not to think too hard about it. [Yeah right. He had a reason after all, actually.

[Remember his name. He wants you to.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

[She sneers.]

I think too hard about everything. 'S kind of my whole deal.

[In between thinking way too little. Thinking about things doesn't mean being sensible about them, anyway.]

[abandonhumanity]

Your mind must be a crowded place.

[Hm. There's a beat of silence.]

Are all of the memories in your mind your own? [Only wondering...]

[nogodsnoheroes]

Fuck're you talking about? Yeah, they're mine. I'm not fucking psychic.

And I don't even have half of them, anyway.

[Or, well... she does, but muddled up and missing parts. And she's not about to correct herself on that, since she didn't mean to say it in the first place.]

[abandonhumanity]

[Too late. She's said it.]

You don't have them, or they aren't clear? [He's more than psychic, but he can't read her mind; he just has certain suspicions about the mutable nature of memory.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

What are you, my fucking shrink?

[Funny joke. She hasn't seen a psychiatrist or a therapist since she bit that one doctor's arm when she was twelve.]

None of your fucking business.

[abandonhumanity]

A "shrink"? [Not exactly an apt term, considering.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

Psychiatrist.

Where the fuck did you crawl out of, anyway?

[Stupid question, and she knows it. But, really - how do you not know what a shrink is, Eren?]

[abandonhumanity]

Hm? [Eren cocks one eyebrow up; to his credit, it's more expression than he usually shows.]

What do you mean by that? The reality I came from?

Even if I told you, you wouldn't know what I was talking about. Paradis Island on a planet called Earth. Probably not the same as yours. Apparently there are a lot of places called that.

[nogodsnoheroes]

And they don't have psychiatry there?

Fuck. Maybe it is Paradise. [Tongue in cheek, obviously. Much as she hates doctors, she's not actually dense enough to think Eren's world sounds good just on that.]

cw: ableist language

[abandonhumanity]

[He does know what psychiatry is, vaguely, and he's had experience with it, believe it or not, so he gets the joke. He thinks it's odd that she bothered making one. It's always dangerous to start seeing someone as a human, but that impression has already settled in by now. He wishes she'd smiled. He wants to know what it looks like on a face like Bethan's. Not quite right, if he had to guess.

[Realizing he must have mumbled, he raises his voice just a notch and corrects her pronounciation.] Paradis. [That is: pair-a-dee.]

Though, some do call it Paradise. [Somehow, his tone is dryer than its ever been, when he says that; cold, but he continues.]

I hadn't heard of psychiatry there. Our doctors only worked with bodies, as far as I know. My father was one. [Yep! Same fuck off he mentioned earlier!]

Growing up, we didn't know that the mainland - Marley - existed. Once I went there a while, I learned about psychiatrists. Doctors that treat the insane, right? [He's really not trying to be an asshole when he says that. It's the term they use.]

I knew a few. [He inclines his head a bit - perhaps a touch of...humor, if not wryness, to this, himself? Essentially saying - Me? Spending time with doctors for the insane? Shocking.]

But I've never heard them called a shrink before.

[nogodsnoheroes]

[What, like she's not allowed to know French?]

[(She does not know French.)]

Doctors that try to. [Important distinction. As a self-described crazy bitch, she can't say it ever did much for her.] 'S not like they're any smarter than the rest of them. Just weird motherfuckers trying to get in your head.

And they're patronising as fuck.

cw: fictional racism, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, medical abuse (yeah it's bad)

[abandonhumanity]

[Eren quite brazenly scoffs, which is, again, more than he usually gives - and it's in commisseration.]

Trust me. [Funny.] I know.

They don't actually try to help anyone. Not where I come from.

Eldians are kept in their hospitals to keep them quiet until they rot and die. That's all. [Has he even mentioned the word "Eldian" to her yet? He can't remember.]

Actually, they'll try to kill them faster if they can. Or more slowly, so long as they suffer.

cw: medical paranoia

[nogodsnoheroes]

See, I knew it! I fucking knew it!

[She seems to have forgotten to hate him, for a moment, in favour of something strangely triumphant. Rationally, she doesn't know it at all: rationally, she knows that she's paranoid and that most of the doctors she's seen probably weren't war criminals trying to cull the excess population. But irrationally...]

[Listen. Sometimes, it's weirdly validating to hear someone echo back the voices in your head.]

They're all the fucking same!

[abandonhumanity]

[Eren doesn't realize that it's paranoia talking, and his expression shifts just barely into something...

[Intrigued, if not vaguely concerned - but it's most likely that the emotion itself is hard to decipher regardless.]

They did that to you? Where you're from?

Why? [The same reason? He wouldn't be surprised.]

[nogodsnoheroes]

[She blinks, and looks, for a split second, a bit embarrassed. Just briefly, before she rallies back to righteous disgust.]

Not to me. But, you know... people. Tuskegee. Nelly Bly. All that shit.

[Which, she's realising as she says it, definitely means nothing to him.]

cw: fictional racism allusion

[abandonhumanity]

I've never heard those names before. [And there is just a bit of an edge to his voice that relays this should be obvious. She clocked that one right.

[He has a guess - a revealing one, but it isn't a secret.]

A race? [There's just a beat, and then.] In our case, anyway. That's my guess.