synopsychic | [some time into the coffeshop liminal] Informed voting

Exactly.

Yeah, all of the Hunters went out as an organized team, selected a specific target, and went in with a plan.

This might sound dumb, considering I was a weasel and fighting a cow at the time, but... It almost felt like being part of a Survey Corps expedition again. Except without the constant fear and wondering who wouldn't make it back.

I don't think it sounds dumb at all. I mean, you just said both the gear and tactics were similar, even if you were a weasel fighting a cow. There were probably organizational similarities as well, weren't there?

Kind of. But the Hunters were... Well, they were hunters, not a military branch. And in the Survey Corps our goal usually wasn't fighting. It was to go outside the Wall, set up some kind of outpost for a longer expedition in the future, and get back inside the Walls with as few casualties as possible. We had a long-distance scouting formation using signal flairs that let us avoid confronting most Titans. The Hunters didn't really need to worry about cows coming in from their flank and trying to eat them instead.

That sounds like a really hard job.

[Especially if there are a lot of Titans.]

Yeah, man-eating - or, well, weasel-eating - cows would be kind of worrisome.

It was, but not as hard as it sounds. I don't think, anyway. I never got to go on a normal expedition. ...Guess that's part of what made joining the Hunters in Brockengard so nice.

Man-eating cows getting revenge against humanity for making them into cattle definitely would've explained why humanity died out, but I don't think it was anything that, uh, intense.

I can imagine.

[She's not going to pry any farther; she doesn't want to hit him with any of his past traumas. But never going on a normal expedition is... suggestive.]

Especially if they were normal cow-sized cows. Not that I don't have a lot of respect for large animals like that, but still.

...Although I guess if they were like demon cows or something, that could have done it.

[He appreciates it, but he feels like he needs to give some context to that.]

Yeah, turning into a Titan before I'd had a chance to officially graduate from training and join the Survey Corps made things a bit weird. Didn't help that the enemy shifters and my own government started trying to kidnap me. And I've only been a Scout for four months if you don't count the years I've spent Traveling.

A real cow-Titan would probably be even bigger than a typical human-Titan, so that definitely would've done it. But I guess those would've only been interesting in eating other cows and would've left the humans alone.

I can see where it would, yeah. On the one hand, there's trust issues, and on another, there'd probably be people hoping to use that somehow.

[Minako can honestly relate. She knows she's damned lucky she didn't end up in Strega.]

Or else they might have been fighting with other cow-Titans over grass and other vegetation; I could see that happening too.

I almost got blown up by the Garsison at the time. Which I can kind of understand, but they tried blowing up Armin and Mikasa too and that still pisses me off. As for the central government... long story short, my old man was a Titan Shifter the whole time and never told anyone, and he ended up stealing the royal family's Titan power. They wanted that back.

Nah, Titans don't have to eat, they get their energy from sunlight. So a cow-Titan would be eating the normal cows because they were instinctively trying to turn back into normal cows themselves.

[Which doesn't bring up up any disturbing implications about human-Titans and their human-eating behavior at all...]

Because they were friends with you?

[Or because they were collateral damage? Either way, ugh.]

You can steal other people's Titan power? General you, I mean.

So if a cow-Titan is trying to eat normal cows because they want to be normal cows again, then human-Titans eating humans are...?

[And today in 'really disturbing lines of thought'...]

Friends who stayed by my side and tried to defend me. They knew I wasn't some kind of traitor to humanity and argued on my behalf while I was still passed out from exhaustion. ...And Mikasa made it pretty clear that she'd kill anyone that tried to get close to me. That's probably what kept me alive but couldn't have helped them much.

You can if you're already a Titan too, and... Right, I still forget sometimes that's not common knowledge. Guess I've gotten used to the idea. But as messed up as it is, at least there's a reason. The Titans weren't just malicious things killing us for sport, like we first thought.

[She might be able to see why Eren doesn't talk much about how he ended up a Shifter in the first place. Especially since he's already admitted it was his dad who stole the royal family's power, so if Eren has it now? Yeah, it's not a fun memory.]

Ah, I see.

[She's not really sure how much to say about that; she doesn't know what had happened with Eren and the Mikasa who'd been here, but she knows enough to know it was complicated and probably painful.

And yeah, she can see that through-line, and part of her aches for younger-Eren. Even if he hadn't been conscious of what he was doing at the time, finding out later must have felt awful.]

That kind of knowledge has always felt like a double-edged sword to me. I'd rather know than not know, but...

[Technically it's a 'different versions of the same world' situation, so it's not as painful as Minako might think for him to talk about her. But he also doesn't realize why she hesitates, so Eren leaves it at that.]

I'm glad I know it. I was a dumb kid, and after the Fall I became obsessed with my hatred and my desire for revenge. Almost forgot all about the dreams that'd motivated me in the first place. My anger drove me to do some really stupid shit. But once I realized the things I hated so much were humans trapped in a nightmare they couldn't control, and that for a moment I'd been one of them, I didn't hate them so much anymore. I felt bad for them instead, and suddenly I only wanted to kill them so they could be free. It let me finally start to get my priorities straight.

Yeah, I can understand that.

[It had hurt to find out that she'd been a human cage for Death. It had hurt more to realize that it had been Aigis who had done that to her. But she'd also understood why it was done, and that Aigis hadn't had any choice at the time.]

There's no way to cure them, is there?

Without making them a Shifter? If there is, we haven't found it yet. I'm really hoping there is though. There's one we managed to capture, because its limbs are too deformed for it to move. And it turned out to be Connie's mom. Other Titans are just too dangerous to contain like that. I was told the attempts to capture even a few for study before we knew what they were would almost always result in multiple casualties. So killing them isn't only the most merciful thing we can do for them with the information we have, it's the safest option for us.

[And making them Shifters seems like an imperfect solution at best, one that she wouldn't be surprised has some serious downsides.

Of course, that's not the only disturbing thing about this.]

How did she end up as a Titan? If you don't mind my asking.

[Because it sure as hell doesn't sound like Titans get that way naturally. Unless his friend Connie is part-Titan somehow, but that brings up issues about genetics and especially consent and Minako is really not sure she wants to follow this particular line of thought any farther because the necessary implications are too disturbing.]

We're not sure. Every time we've been able to confirm how the transformation happened, it was because of an injection. But that doesn't make any sense here. As far as we can tell the entire population of Ragako village was transformed at once, and a good number of them were in their homes at the time.

What we do know is that the Beast Titan had something to do with it.

And it probably wouldn't be something like pheromones because those are scent-based. I mean, I guess it could be, but if it was the Beast Titan's they'd have to be within proximity, and if it was the other Titans', nobody could be around them without protective gear.

Have you tangled with the Beast Titan directly before?

Feral-whats? [At least 'scent-based' gives him enough to hopefully answer her question.]

We have, once. He and the other enemy Shifters ambushed us during the mission to retake Wall Maria. It stayed at a distance, killing everyone by throwing rocks. Captain Levi was able to get close and defeat it, although the Shifter inside got away. Levi has the same powers as Mikasa, which might give him some kind of special protection, but if just smelling it turned most people into Titans it would've made more sense for it to try to get close.

Edited (Realized I forgot to use Network formatting) 2020-06-03 22:49 (UTC)

Are hormones common knowledge in your world? They're basically chemicals your body produces that regulate physiology and can even influence behavior, like fight-or-flight responses. All living beings including animals have them, or at least the organic ones do. Pheromones are another kind of hormone, but they're meant to trigger responses in other members of the same species. Not enough to out and out control them, but enough to get their attention somehow. There are a lot of different pheromones, and they vary by species. Most people can't consciously control them.

That doesn't seem like what the Beast Titan's doing, then, if he's mostly keeping his distance. Maybe contaminating their food supply?

...Sorry. I'm probably bringing up stuff for you, aren't I?

They're not, this is the first time I've heard of either of those. The pheromone things are really damn creepy.

[Considering Eren's everything it's a good she specified that pheromones are meant to get attention rather than to control. He still doesn't like the idea, but at least Minako's spared the rant about freedom that would have otherwise happened.]

Maybe. But Ca- Commander Hange said everyone would've had to be transformed at once. If it was the food or water they would've ended up eating or drinking it at different times.

[There's a bit of a mental sigh.] It's fine. I'd rather people know than make assumptions about me and my friends without knowing anything. Besides, too many of the problems in my world happened because someone was withholding information. Like hell I'm going to contribute to that.

[And that's why she was careful with her phrasing.]

Yeah, they are.

And okay - that's good to know. And yeah, I know what it's like to have to deal with something that could've been avoided if someone had just said something.

[Of course, it also helps if the someone who's saying something is actually telling the truth, as she and the rest of SEES had found out to their sorrow, but that's neither here nor there right now.]

That's true... hm.

Maybe it's a multi-stage process? Like a contamination phase followed by a trigger event?

[Agreeing nicely avoids any other reasons Eren might start ranting - something even he's relieved about, since it means she likely already has a view of freedom he'd approve of. If she keeps this up she will definitely make a friend.]

I'm sorry you've had to go through something like that too. I hope whatever you had to deal with turned out okay.

That- [There's a moment's pause.] ...That would explain a lot. And I really don't like the implications of that.

It turned out as well as it could, ultimately. We needed a miracle at that point and we managed to get one.

[But miracles aren't cheap.]

Me neither.

[Granted, she doesn't have Eren's lived experience with Titans, but everything he's told her is disturbing, and if this particular hypothesis is correct, that makes it even more so - and that much more dangerous as well.]

[some time into the coffeshop liminal] Informed voting

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