Thinking of how annie and mikasa spent the start of their childhoods isolated from the rest of the world, how they had to brutally learn at a young age to fight for survival, how they both always just wanted to make it back home.

How their developments are the inverse of each other, annie learning to stop running away and that it’s okay to let people in, that although the risk of getting hurt is real, it’s always worth the potential pain. A broken heart still beats, and that counts for something.

Mikasa values her connections above all else, her love is the force behind her strength and it motivates her will. She had to learn that letting go doesn’t mean she’s too weak to keep them, or that she’s stopped loving. There’s strength in living for love, even beyond a life lost