mikasa and annie's incredible capacity to love and their yearning to be loved in turn despite being two traumatized, war-shocked, exhausted young women... are two of the most human and compelling facets of their characters... is part of what makes them so easy to root for

it takes so much strength to be vulnerable and soft and allow yourself to Want in the middle of what seems the be unrelenting, uninterrupted violence, in the middle of the end of the world... but it is SO human... uniquely, even. is there anything more Humanizing than love...

eren tells mikasa to forget him so she can kill him and save the world and she says No she says I will not Choose you will not make me choose I'll remember you and Live and that is how the world will go on

armin says annie should just keep on being annie and what he means is go, be safe, go and save yourself the fight and the heartbreak and I'll be glad for you... and annie says no I can finally choose for myself now and I choose to come back and be with you

is there a motivation more grandiose and earth-shattering and yet as keenly relatable as love is there anything else that can make sense of the insanity that is the apocalypse. "boo hoo where my strong wahmen" shut up and romanticize things for once in ur joyless lives!!!!

and of course the other half of this equation is that they Are loved are so loved in turn... eren who loves mikasa beyond time eren who is afraid of dying but what he really means is death the second time over... is afraid of being forgotten is afraid of being loved no longer +

as though being mikasa's dearest being her beloved is integral to the idea of Eren Yeager as though he'll cease to be himself if he isn't loved by her even beyond death... the childish thrashing against the inevitable the struggle having to be selfless for her happiness... Love

in the end love killed him but love set eren free, too... laid him to rest not as a devil but as a lover in the literal sense... eren who had existed, who had loved, eren who was loved in turns, is loved to this day, will continue to be so

nothing else could've humanized him nothing else could've made us all mourn him, suddenly reluctant to say the farewell we were so ready to give in 138...

and armin who kept vigil for years armin of the companionship that asked for nothing in turn who saw first hand the massacre and concluded it was empathy she needed who said this isn't diplomacy or damage control it's /you/... if the two of us are monsters it's you i want, annie

it's the duality that requires... that armin is the ruthless strategist is the soldier to his core who could point the finger at a comrade if need be is a total manipulative bastard... and still fell in love with the enemy... still had the softness in him, refused to concede it

in conclusion... when is a monster not a monster? when you love it.