infomodder | IC contact [Mask or Menace]

[ She listens, not inclined to take offense to a technicality that protects her in this place. Hilarious, really. She's one of those monsters people warn each other about in the night, scaring children into behaving, or the Titans will eat you, even if it's not the truth. The shifters weren't cannibals. Not by nature, and not by choice.

It's the people stuck in the nightmare who are, who devour without knowing, who can't wake up and walk on lost for decades as a monster that tries to reclaim what some portion of itself remembers as being right.

Titans, who would be humans. Humans, who would be Titans. Monsters in a fucked up world.

Mankind always invents itself as its own worst enemy. ]

They only allow the best. Which is unfortunate. The Military Police recruit the top graduates each year, and they're the ones who never face the threat we're all trained to handle.

[ Sliding past age. Sliding past the rest; juvenile delinquency, as if delinquency restricts itself to an age group. Curfews means punishing before they can get into more trouble at night. Add a pressure, set a fear. It works.

It always works, for the majority of normal people. Those who like the thrill of breaking with the social law that guides their lives also like the fear of being caught, or fight against it.

Curfews... she needs to keep those in mind. ]

Secured in the center of the human empire, the most capable soldiers humanity has never face the threat of the Titans destroying humanity.

[ Oh what a wonderful world... There's derision there, derision and knowledge; Annie aimed for this group. Not for the reasons she's said, exactly; not because they're safest, but indeed, because she wants to save herself.

Aim for the middle. Aim for the heart. Finish her objective, and get the hell out. It's the only way she's ever getting to go home, and as far as she knows, that's impossible anymore. ]

[Will's opinions on protect the children!!!! might be seen as warped, accustomed to children killers as much as he's accustomed to their fully grown counterparts. Curfews were good and well and all, that pressure, that fear, but they were still capable. They'd find ways around it if they really wanted to. People could murder with or without a curfew, regardless of age.

And he had to clean it up. Had. Not anymore. Not here. He won't let it happen. One whiff of a Ripper murder and it all comes tumbling down for someone else.

His own world is a mess, so it goes, so it goes, and this one is, too, in its own way. He is not yet, however, feeling like he owes it anything. The monsters he knows don't seem to roam here as much, what good would it be for him to get a desk job? While monsters may roam, as long as they don't leave body art to announce their presence, well.

So it fucking goes without him.

This has taken a turn for something he didn't expect, has his eyebrows lifting slightly and lips thinning out. Nothing too expressive just yet. He can control his face.]

So it was...a cushy job for the best, you're saying? Never going out in the field?

[He's not judging, not deriding the idea of a desk job. Some people wanted to sit at desks. He's got knowledge of that.

He wouldn't have minded it so much.

But the more he learns, the less he thinks he'd have liked Annie's home much at all.]

The field?

[ She breathes out, a small, short huff of amusement. ]

The world I come from has its own sense of humor. The best at fighting the threat to humanity are taken away from that fight. They're brought in to police over humanity itself, under the order of the King, and among them, the youngest, newest recruits are most heavily relied on to perform.

There's a field to work in - several, in fact - but it isn't where they could be most effective. Not for the fight against the Titans.

[ For a very different fight, a political, social battle, it's brilliant. The most loyal are rewarded with the kinds of lives that bred corruption by teaching how to look the other way, brutally and effectively making the world conform to those expectations. ]

You go where you're ordered to go. You fight, capture, interrogate as you're told. You hunt down missing family members, you track down people dodging taxes, you escort drunks out of taverns, you stand watch when important prisoners are moved through your district.

We're the enforcement and the executioners when called for. Yet we don't have to stand and fight the biggest known threat for the last hundred years. Funny... isn't it.

[ She doesn't find it funny in the slightest. So it goes. ]

[Will doesn't find it funny in any sense of the word, but he knows his idea of funny is its own beast. This was not the conversation he was expecting to have, not what he thought he could hear, but no matter. Life would be static if he could predict things that well, and in a place full of people from completely different worlds?

It's nice to listen and be completely wrong about things from time to time in ways that don't mean someone else dies.]

You don't think that's unique to where you're from, do you?

[He's careful to add that question mark at the end in his voice. Otherwise, it might sound like he's quietly mocking her, and that is not it at all.]

[ She appreciates that nuance. Wouldn't have minded the mockery, had it been there; not enough to do mor than be irritated in passing. ]

I'm not so optimistic as all that, Will.

[He doesn't want to mock or irritate, honestly, but he ends up doing the latter more often than not. Just by being himself, himself that he's fully capable of controlling to the point where he doesn't end up irritating her.

He's going to try to keep it that way.]

It's not all that unique. [There's the sound of a bell, the door to the shop opening, and he leans back, fiddling with his name tag.] My world's got a long history to it, that wouldn't be out of place.

[ the bell. She doesn't hear it often enough at stores, avoids going in to so many, to identify it as readily as she might later on. ]

Sounds like so many worlds have long histories, especially compared to ours. Ah... but I won't keep you on this.

[The fact is that Will could get up and go to the back room, tell the customer he'd be out in a few minutes if they had any questions, and no one would get onto him for it. But this conversation has gone unexpected places, has probably run its length, and there's no shame is using the out provided. Otherwise, they could be here for...well, a while.]

If you ever get interested, you know you can ask. [Ask him. Or Gideon, even if he's not sure how that visit went. Not that he would suggest Annie spend a lot of time around someone like Gideon, but hell—she shouldn't spend a lot of time around someone like him, either. No one should. And yet...] Hope everything works out and like I said, I'll check around for boats if you ever wanna go on one privately. Just give me a head's up.

[And yet he's still inviting her out somewhere she can't get away from him if anything goes wrong.

Well done.]

[ It's the better thing, ending a conversation she'd never intended to really have. Breaking out of text is strange enough; necessary, too, but strange. ]

Thank you. [ Words with their own ring of sincerity. What, in all of this, she's most thankful for is up to debate, but it's true, much as her own inevitable inability to escape something far worse than Will, or the sea. Herself. ]

I will.

[ Wasting away again in Margaritaville... ]

[No, he Will. Ha ha. So funny. Never used that one before.

He doesn't say anything else, gives her the closest thing to a smile he can, nods, and she gets to hear half a question about some rod on show before he cuts the feed.

Whatever, he'll have her in the shop one day. Soon.

Better get an oven.]

IC contact [Mask or Menace]

which one she has multiple oh no i'm forgotten songs (bittersweet with my tears)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeb6zN7TEYQ the one with that for the name (unacceptable)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYunO8SZe30 randomly this is the one that came to mind for me

stop ship pushing

ships all the way across the /sea/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqwqsKcTNE

musical interval..............

no jimmy buffett, noh-varr would be amazed

but would he be impressed

no, will is not kree enough