Jinxer

Attack on Titan: Somnium

Awesome posts! That was a good morning to wake up to.

I'll have one up when I get back from work, circa ten hours or so.

Attack on Titan: Somnium

That or it's a damn Rick Roll.

Attack on Titan: Somnium

@Solace@wolverbells

Maybe we need to return to find out what's in the box after the time skip?

Attack on Titan: Somnium

@Solace

It's a fair point you're making and I don't disagree. I also don't want this to fall down to a "what's done is done" scenario because then everyone is unhappy.

In my case, I personally planned to have a post up before things sped up. I'm in a different time zone to most of y'all, you're mostly posting when I'm asleep and then I'm at work so I'm often going to be 18 hour behind or so; in this case splitting one's post between pre-attack and then to cover the attack itself seems to be the best course of action for those who didn't get another in before events took a turn.

It's difficult for GMs to balance keeping a pace and allowing everyone to post and, in this case, there wasn't a time skip meaning that everyone completely misses out and they can split their posts to cover initial reactions to the attack. My impression that the main aim of this RP was for during their training and then after they 'graduate', as it were, and the battle in Trost. Spending more time in the 'prologue' stages has its own advantages but I also see the benefits of starting the main events.

Also, I have more confidence in those assembled here for this not to descend into a simple "we all have PTSD" situation. Again, a valid fear and quite possibly a likely outcome but, judging by the posts so far, I doubt that'll happen.

Tl;Dr: I don't disagree, perfectly valid point, best solution is to split posts between before and after attack posts.

Attack on Titan: Somnium

@Solace

Most of them are going to have severe personality changes after this, I think. It makes sense to me to have it happen so suddenly, as in the series, so that everything is cut short.

Else we might tail off as we ran out of things to do/explore and the pressure would be ramped up too much.

Attack on Titan: Somnium

Lauren Jones - Wall Maria: Shiganshina District

"Oh, Lauren!" She had been calmly observing the untold mysteries of cloud movement until the familiar voice broke her calm reverie, making her shoot up into a sitting position and glance all around. Her eyes fell on a girl her age, with a slightly older boy standing beside her, waving and calling her name again. "Lauren! Come join us!"

Lauren grinned and stood up, brushing her trousers free of the loose grass that clung to them, before hurrying up the slight incline to join the two siblings. Another, younger, girl was there and Mora seemed to know her, at least by name. When Jade mentioned about the bakery Lauren was able to place the vaguely familiar face; she bore considerably resemblance to the the bakers her mother often took her to visit after returning from occasional tours of the outer walls.

"Hi, I'm Lauren." She greeted Jade and took a seat as the basket was laid down. Mora was calling other people she knew over, a boy Lauren didn't know, who proferred hand as way of a greeting and introduced himself as Gabriel. Lauren, after Jade, shook it and introduce herself as well. They sat eating as Reese, a boy she remembered as not being native to Shiganshina, joined them and took a seat. As they sat, talking, eating and laughing, she noticed the Cain was a little quiet and looked quite red in the face.

"Are you feeling okay, Cain?" She asked, leaning forward to catch his gaze. He looked uncomfortable and jittery to her, like he was coming down with a cold or the flu. "You look like you've got a temperature!" Pushing her hair back she leaned over, without letting him respond, and pressed her forehead against us, his skin much warmer than her own. "You're probably working too hard in this heat, Pa tells me it's important to drink water especially if you're working. You should take better care of yourself or you'll come down with something."

She sat back down, munching on a bread roll, as the ground shook beneath them and a flash of light, momentarily brighter than the rays of the sun, cast long shadows from the walls. An eerie silence settled on the group; on all of Shinganshina, as all eyes turned to the gate. Dust or smoke rose above the gates, obscuring the Sun, and then a giant hand apparently made up only of muscle and bone, rose over the wall and gripped it, cracks visible even from their picnic.

Then the head, with eyes casting their implacable gaze across the town, reared above the wall. They sat frozen, out of shock or fear it did not matter, for the Titans were coming. The gate exploded under an impact unseen to them, a wave of dust and shattered mortar consuming the neighbourhoods around the gate and huge boulders crushing houses and people with impunity.

Lauren broke free of her reverie, launching to her feet, her thoughts zeroing in on her mother who was somewhere up on those walls, or by the gatehouse itself. She began to run down the field, towards the gate, seeing the Titans emerge out of the whole but desperate to find her mother. Words rang in her head, the strong and commanding voice of a soldier. The voice of the person she ran to help.

"If you ever see Titans, you run. Do you hear me, Law?"

"But you'll be fighting, won't you?"

"Yes, so that you can run. So you run, my little girl, you take your friends or your father and you run. You go to the gate or you go to the river and get on a boat. Don't turn back, don't come for me. Don't go home. Just run. Do you understand me, Law? I need to know, so Ma can fight without worrying for you.

She stopped dead still, her muscles tense, every part of her screaming that she should find her Ma or her Pa, find someone. Someone who could fix this all, make it all just a bad dream and let her return to the spontaneous picnic surrounded by friendly faces in a lush field with a brilliant Sun shining from above. But this was real. Ma was fighting out there so that she could run. She couldn't make her worry, or Ma couldn't fight.

With every ounce of willpower she had, Lauren turned and trod up the field to the others. She wasn't a leader, she couldn't get them to follow her, it wasn't in her nature. But she had to do something. She knew Mora, she was her friend, and that meant she had to help her. They had to escape. She caught her by the hand, forcing the other girl to focus on her.

"Mora, we need to go. Now. We need to go now! Ma said so, to the gate or a boat, so she could fight. Please, help me get the others!"

Attack on Titan: Somnium

I'm-a posting

Attack on Titan: Somnium

Lauren's also in the field, just chilling and watching the clouds go by.

Attack on Titan: Somnium

@LordVoldemort

Those dreams will soon turn into nightmares!

*Cackles maniacally*

Attack on Titan: Somnium

Lauren Jones - Wall Maria: Shiganshina District

"Lauren, can you come help me with the laundry?"

The young teenager snapped her book shut, sitting up at the sound of her father's booming voice. He was a big man so it came as no surprise that his voice filled a space easily but she knew him to be a gentle sole, a medic by trade who had only the intention of healing people and leaving the violence of a military life to his wife. She had been lounging in the low boughs of a tree, a small seat formed by interlocking branches her favourite place to be when there weren't any other kids in the area to run about with.

"Of course, Pa." She climbed nimbly out of the tree, swinging down the few branches between her hideout and the ground with practised ease and then running up their small garden to where her father was setting down a laundry tub by the back of the house. He grinned as he saw her leap up onto a low brick wall, the only place she could reach the washing line well enough to hang anything on it, before handing her some wet clothes.

They didn't speak much as they carried out the task, enjoying each other's company in the warm sunlight without feeling the need to fill silence. He asked about her friends, when she would head out later to meet them, but avoided her questions about his own work; he sometimes took Lauren to help him but that was usually some time after he had begun treatment so that she was spared the worst of the horrors.

When the bells began to toll, announcing the return of the Survey Corps, they both looked up from their work, her father sighing and dropped an armful of wet clothes back into the tub.

"Can you finish this up, Law? I need to fetch my things." She nodded her understanding and he smiled, ruffling her hair affectionately before heading into the house with a serious expression on his face. After finishing her chores, her father long since left, Lauren headed into the nearby fields to get away from the busy streets and enjoy some peace away from the crowds greeting the Survey Corps' return. Finding another, slightly younger, girl there she headed a little further down the hill before lying on the grass and looking up at the clouds drift lazily by.