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thisavrou application;
OUT OF CHARACTER
Player Name: Liam
Are you 16 or older: yup
Contact: PM this journal, or![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
alienchrist
Current Characters: n/a
Tag: armin arlert (crau)
IN CHARACTER
Name: Armin Arlert
Canon: Attack on Titan
Canon Point:
Age: 16
History: on the wiki. Armin is taken after chapter 59 of the Uprising Arc, not long after his emotional talk with Levi and Jean about having to take a life, and directly after he’s used as a decoy to capture Hitch and Marlowe.
MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE HISTORY
Midnight Syndicate (MS) was a game based on the concept of characters being brought to the world of Mokosh by seven sisters known as the Maeve, each whom represented one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Those brought to the world by the Maeve were expected to have sex - either with each other or with patrons in the nearby city-state of Eros - in order to generate power and magic for the sisters. Each sister had a wing in a lavish mansion called Lilith’s Crossing, but the residents were frequently influenced by magical spells and drugged food to behave in a more sexual manner and explore their darkest urges.
Be appraised MS was a sex game, and Armin was underage. His very presence there could be considered inappropriate, coercive, and nonconsensual due to not having truly understood/agreed to living there (in spite of having “agreed” to come to Lilith’s Crossing to pay off his sins). There were also many situations where he was not in his right mind due to magic or drugs, and one situation where he was forced into a sexual act on threat of violence.
Still reeling from the recent shock of having been the first in his squad to kill, Armin arrived in Eros and became a patron of Perdita, the witch of Pride. Finding himself with no one familiar and a host of amenities, both modern and magical, Armin was both overwhelmed and suspicious. Ever a survivor, he formulated a strategy in hopes he would not be forced into sex, and decided to service others until he found someone he felt comfortable losing his virginity to.
One of the first friends he met was a boy his age named Goku (Saiyuki), with whom he shared “first crush” sort of experience with, practicing kissing and cuddling with. Through his other connections he learned a more professional way to swim, got help understanding and researching the world of Eros, and discovered he sort of liked being dominated.
After almost two months living under the witches’ rule, Armin met Eggsy Unwin at a carnival event. Eggsy was offering favors to anyone who could beat him at a shooting game. Armin immediately pegged this as a scam, but decided he could definitely use a favor from someone as clever and tough-looking as Eggsy. So he set out to beat him by whisperings something very lewd in his ear during Eggsy’s round, making him throw the shot.
However, this carnival being an event thrown together by the Maeve, those who had partaken in wine or stayed at the carnival after dark found themselves giving in to their darkest urges. Their first meeting peaked with some enjoyable intimate activities back at Eggsy’s room at the mansion.
After Eggsy fell asleep, Armin left and returned to the carnival to look for any friends from home, as new people often arrived at the monthly events. He met Goku instead - or rather the Seiten Taisei, the demon-like beast sealed away within Goku. Armin recognized Goku in the Seiten Taisei in spite of the fact he’d clearly been on a violent rampage, ripping people apart with his claws. Realizing Goku’s sexual interest in him still came out in the Seiten Taisei, Armin attempted to physically soothe and calm him to distract him from his rampage. The Seiten Taisei eventually used Armin’s mouth to achieve sexual release which calmed him enough so Armin could get away safely. In spite of the fact the Seiten Taisei could very have easily torn him to shreds, Armin could not truly accept this act as rape, especially from a friend as dear as Goku, and believed he “seduced” the Seiten Taisei out of weakness even if he could not have stopped the situation or defended himself. This toxic thought continues to plague Armin to this day. He came to think of himself as a whore, and thus did not often give second thought to being promiscuous as a matter of survival and method of distraction.
Armin met up with Eggsy again while Eggsy was being punished by Eve (the head sister) for impudence. She’d sealed his mouth shut and it would only come free after an allotted amount of sexual activity. Armin figured out a way to communicate with him (having him write things down) and offered to service him sexually. Eggsy was shocked he would help, and though it didn’t work, returned the favor.
When they met again after he recovered, Eggsy was shocked and horrified to realize the age difference between them. He wanted to know that Armin was alright, and worried very much about the consequences of their being together. Armin didn’t think it was a big deal (and still doesn’t), though he liked the idea of being able to get a guy as good-looking and older like Eggsy. Armin thought they had more in common than not and found them to be sexually compatible. He opened up to Eggsy about his situation back home and over the next few months they began pursuing a sort of sex-friendship. Eventually Armin lost his virginity (or what he considered to be such) to him in every way.
One night everyone was evacuated from Lilith’s Crossing to board an airship to Onsra, a nearby city state by the sea. Armin experienced the ocean from a distance and then in person in this beautiful, tropical, picturesque place. He spent most of his time in Onsra walking by the sea, overwhelmed by the idea he’d achieved his dream of seeing it without his friends Eren and Mikasa.
He ran into Goku for the first time since the Seiten Taisei assaulted him. Armin allowed Goku to explain the situation to him, and accepted his apology for it, saying it was not him, but the witches were to blame. In truth, their friendship never recovered from the incident, and Armin grew to mistrust people’s intentions even moreso than he had because of Bertholdt and Reiner’s betrayal
Armin found the servants had packed both a suit and beautiful ball gown. He experimented with wearing the latter, and found he actually quite liked the feeling of wearing such fancy clothes. He danced with Eggsy and shared some surprisingly intimate times with him. However, sensing Eggsy’s vulnerability and growing affection for him, Armin refused to stay the night with him after sex, insisting he still wanted to fuck his assigned roommate instead while he still had the chance.
Armin thought that would likely be the end between them, but Eggsy showed up to Armin’s door and asked him to his room for a movie night. After a night of experiencing the wonderful world of film, they had one of their many heart-to-hearts, and Armin admitted he wanted to intentionally drive Eggsy away due to the impossibility of faithfulness between them. They agreed they liked each other and wanted to continue seeing each other in spite of this.
Jean Kirschtein (Attack on Titan) arrived in Eros, and Armin found himself quite occupied with helping him adjust to the new world and its rules. He never quite got up the nerve to tell Jean he killed someone to save his life. Due to their strong friendship and teenage hormones and various machinations of Lilith’s Crossing, they also became sexually involved. Armin admitted to Jean he was afraid he’d fallen in love with Eggsy. Jean encouraged Armin to be honest about his feelings.
During a river festival, creatures that resembled long-lost loved ones or dead people rose up from the water. Eggsy managed to free Armin from the creature. They fought the monsters together. Armin was bitten lost of a lot of blood. Fortunately, healers were able to patch him up and they returned to the mansion safely, though both were shaken by the experience enough to take comfort in one another’s bodies.
Jean and Eggsy ended up getting into a drunken fight in town that Armin had to bail them out from. After an intense discussion about their issues (embarrassment at a previous tryst they had, jealousy issues, and Jean’s struggle with desiring them both) they wound up having a threesome with Armin in the middle. Jean later admitted to Eggsy he wanted both Armin and Eggsy, and Eggsy floated the idea to Armin about seeing him, suspecting Armin was interested in also pursuing something with Jean. Armin was overwhelmed, realizing Eggsy had read his mood and all the things he was ashamed to admit, and they began to three-way date.
Armin took a potion from a client thinking it was a sexual enhancer, but it transformed him into a catboy. He became selfish and unmotivated, wanting mostly to eat, sleep, and have lots of rough sex. During this time he stopped talking to Eggsy, which worried him deeply. Armin attempted to initiate sex with Eggsy, but Eggsy turned him down since he was in an altered state. In the aftermath, Armin apologized for not telling Eggsy what happened, admitting he was ashamed and didn’t want Eggsy to see him like that. He also confessed his love for Eggsy, which Eggsy reciprocated.
Armin bought a 2 bedroom apartment to have a safe space away from Lilith’s Crossing and lived with Jean and Eggsy there. He delighted in the privilege of having a space totally his, in spite of having ‘earned’ the money by having so much sex. He soon learned that living away from Lilith’s Crossing hardly exempted him from his status as Perdita’s servant, and didn’t mean he could avoid the spells, curses and drama involved.
After blurting out “it’s fine dick sucking weather” to an older client, Armin was forced to take etiquette lessons from Rafael Barba (Law and Order: SVU), whom he grew to see as a sort of mentor and someone he looked up to.
Armin rescued Jeremy (Barairo hoo no koro) from some trouble he’d gotten himself into with the natives of Eros, and befriended him. Jeremy introduced him to smoking, a habit which he took up to combat the stress of his emotional, traumatic life in Lilith’s Crossing.
During an autumn festival, Armin took time to remember the dead - his dead squad members, his family, and the many deaths he felt responsible for. He befriended Gojyo, a friend of Goku’s who wanted to learn more about his friend’s disappearance. He talked to Gojyo and continued to connect with him in spite of his past with Goku, and his secret belief that Goku, who’d hurt him so badly, had been allowed to go home when he had not.
Eggsy partook of an enchanted apple which made him desperately possessive and needy, to the point of being somewhat violent. He needed Armin to prove his love, his self-consciousness whispering to him that no one loved him. Though Armin felt threatened by Eggsy’s behavior, his love for Eggsy - and the fact Eggsy was calling that love into question - made it impossible for him to walk away. That night he could not help but feel like a whore for the first time with Eggsy, as he felt having sex with him was only about calming him down and keeping him from hurting himself or others. He tried to tell himself it was an act of love, but reminded him of the violent incident with Goku, and made him feel deeply disgusted and ashamed. When the effects wore off, Armin still felt fragile and rubbed raw from the whole thing, and Eggsy was horrified by how he’d acted. Even though they both knew Eggsy had not been in control, they fought and could not find an easy way to reconcile what happened. After all, Eggsy had been able to refuse Armin when he was in an altered state, but Armin felt that he could not emotionally nor physically refuse Eggsy in a similar situation. Eggsy wanted to make clear that Armin always had the right to walk away and he would never want Armin to be unhappy or uncomfortable. It was their first real fight as a couple, and Armin could not really forgive Eggsy right away for it despite knowing the circumstances were probably a one-time thing. Still, they resolved to take things slowly as they still loved each other and couldn’t bear the thought of being apart. In the end the incident was something Armin mostly callused over, though he wished to withdraw completely from sex for awhile and Eggsy respected those wishes. The Maeve’s magic often had him going back on this this desire.
Jean and Eggsy threw Armin a surprise birthday party and invited every friend from Lilith’s Crossing. Jean was in charge of amusing Armin and taking him out to buy as many books as he wanted for his birthday treat while Eggsy prepared the party. Rafael Barba performed music and gave him a collection of musicals on DVD, increasing Armin’s interest in ‘modern’ music and musicals. Jean and Eggsy lavished Armin with gifts, but most importantly, Eggsy gave Armin a little ginger kitten he rescued from an alley. Armin named the kitten Eliza Mewlittle, after the main character of their favorite movie. Armin was deeply touched, though a trifled overwhelmed. No one had ever thrown a party like this for him before. On this day in November, Armin turned 16.
In his final month in Eros, Armin used vacation he accrued from all his sex to buy an off-world vacation for he and Eggsy. They visited Eggsy’s version of 2014’s London. Armin got to meet Eggsy’s mother, Michele, and his little sister. For the first time since they met, they truly had to confront their age difference. Michele was worried for Armin, a teenager who should’ve been in school, dating her son in his twenties, no matter how much she loved Eggsy. She told him to take it slow. Armin experienced a very intense panic attack. He was ashamed about how they met and how they couldn’t ‘take things slow’ as Michele suggested. He also felt guilty that Eggsy was willing to give up the love of his family to return to Eros with Armin, and tried to tell Eggsy he should simply stay in London. Eggsy reassured Armin that Michele would understand if they could find a way to explain their circumstances, and that Michele and his baby sister were fine without him, while Armin would not be. In the end, the question didn’t need to be answered, as their portal back to Eros never re-opened.
Personality:
Armin is an extraordinarily intelligent young man with a gift for tactics. Though he seems weak, he has an extremely strong will and wit, and thinks nothing of standing up for what he believes in regardless of the consequence. Even while being beaten by a group of larger children for expressing his heretical beliefs, as a child Armin said, "If you hit me, you're just confirming I'm right!" Later, he faced a firing squad with arguments that saved the lives of his best friends. Though at times he struggles with self-loathing and self-doubt, his brains and resolve ensure the survival of his comrades time and again. Armin holds within him the capacity to be bold, manipulative and incisive, even violent. Yet he also remains a loyal friend who cares for humanity's future and also holds a deep desire to understand and explore the world.
Armin's keen observance lends him an extraordinary sensitivity. He is often emotional, prone to tears in moments of extreme emotion, be they fear, grief or happiness. Armin not only understands things on a very deep level, his reactions and emotions regarding those things are equally deep. When the Colossal Titan appeared in Shiganshina, Armin immediately understood that the town and Wall Maria, and perhaps all of humanity was lost. He is able to understand situations quickly, as well as their potential consequence, and plan accordingly.
Armin's ability to examine situations from so many angles quickly means he makes tough, even ugly, calls. Within him he has the capacity to be incisive and merciless, if that's what the moment calls for. This is perhaps most evident when he lies to Bertoldt about what's become of Annie, and later when he makes a killing shot to save Jean. He's practical and states "Those who are not willing to sacrifice everything won't accomplish anything." Unlike Jean, who objects to the lives lost during their missions, he admires Erwin Smith's ways of furthering his goals.
Armin is intensely pragmatic, a quality that becomes more evident over time as he becomes more involved in the war. When it comes to dealing with his more human-like enemies, he has a knack for manipulating their root emotions due to his clear understanding of others feelings. Not only are his words motivated by empathy, but on more than one occasion he's used others previous trust of him to his own end. Would a face that sweet lie to you? The answer is yes. And that face can get scary, too.
While most of Armin's actions are very calculated and his words can be cynical, he is not cold. He cares for his friends and for others. He is deeply attached to Eren and Mikasa, and is ready to defend an unconscious Jean at the cost of his own life rather than abandon him during the mission to rescue Eren. He also took a killing shot to save Jean. Rather than excuse his own actions, he wondered why he was the one who was able to pull the trigger, utterly haunted by the act. This suggests that while he theoretically agrees with carving a bloody path that he stands at the precipice of truly accepting that road.
Armin is extremely harsh with himself. He remembers that he depended on Mikasa and Eren to defend him from bullies growing up, but not the fact he stood up to the bullies in the first place. He hates that he depended on them, thinking he gave nothing back to deserve the help. He saw himself as useless for not doing more during the attack on Shiganshina, when in reality his quick thinking saved his friends' lives. Since helping formulate many important and successful missions, as well as having his friends' faith in him reaffirmed, Armin has begun to unpack these issues, but being the first in his group to kill has clearly weighed on him.
Armin still dreams of visiting the natural wonders of the world outside the walls. He loves to learn new things and explore. He fights most of all for a chance to have the freedom to do these things unimpeded with his friends. In another life, Armin might have been a very gentle person. But this is total war in the face of annihilation, and Armin has willingly pledged himself to the front lines. He knows the only way to change things, and to challenge the injustices behind the walls is to fight.
MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE:
Armin’s baseline personality hasn’t changed that much since his 10 months in Eros. He is still intensely pragmatic, opinionated, calculating, and quick to blame himself. He’s become a little more knowledgeable about the idea that he has PTSD and anxiety, though he is reluctant to seek help for them. However, some of how he looks at the world has changed considerably.
Armin has seen the sea of his dreams and experienced other worlds and levels of technology. This increased his anger toward the situation of his home world, as he can see what humans are capable of when not impeded. However, he’s seen time and again that humans are still impeded by their own prejudices and small minded thinking. Without a concrete goal in mind like ‘see the ocean’, his goal has been to return home and fight with the new magics and technologies he's seen. He often experienced guilt in Eros over enjoying his time with Eggsy and Jean and other friends, and not working as hard as he could to return to his own world. This guilt will likely continue to haunt him, and he will be desperately searching for a way back to his own world. On the other hand, his capacity for wonder has only increased with knowing how many unimaginable things there are out there, and he still feels the pull to learn new things and explore.
Unsurprisingly, Armin’s habit for risk-taking has changed since living in a world where rape and mind and body altering spells were normal occurrences. While Armin would frequently ‘fight’ with bullies and consider a fight ‘won’ because he didn’t run away, he is not willing what he now sees as a very real threat of being violated by picking fights. Maybe he’d consider a fight won with a chipped tooth or a bruised rib, but he did not feel he won after what happened with the Seiten Taisei, in spite of accomplishing his goal of stopping him. Like many survivors, he lives in fear of something like that happening again. While he has always been willing to lay down his life for his beliefs, experiencing that level of emotional pain and humiliation is too much to want to try and survive again. In spite of all this, he would be quick deny that any of what happened was all that bad. He refuses to think of the Seiten Taisei’s assault on him as rape, since in his own mind, he consented to it and it was his own idea to have things go that way. This of course is not the case, as he would have likely have been torn to shreds had he run, and the Seiten Taisei was expressing interest in his body.
Because of the way the Maeve’s magic to turn a friend into an enemy or change a person’s entire personality of physical make up, Armin has even more of a problem with trusting friends than he did in the aftermath of Reiner and Bertholdt’s betrayal. He’s begun to believe that violations of trust may not only be occasionally expected, but inevitable. Since he was intimately betrayed by someone he had great romantic affection for, he also worries he is not a good judge of character in spite of having been very shrewd and understanding of people in the past.
Armin’s view on sex and love evolved quite a bit while living in Eros. Before arriving, he was a virgin who mostly considered sex to be something to do with someone you loved and planned to marry, and thought he would probably die before ever meeting such a person. He did have a very strong, deep friendship with Jean, but never considered anything further as he thought Jean was only interested in Mikasa, and by extension, girls.
Being surrounded by sex, being encouraged to sex by magical spells and being forced into sexual situations, Armin soon became sexually precocious and somewhat promiscuous. His sense of appropriateness and boundaries are skewed, and he would easily turn to sex or seduction as a method of solving problems when he might never have considered them before. He would not necessarily enjoy doing this, but he has no sense that his body or consent are all that valuable in a general sense. He currently sees himself as a whore first and a soldier second, figuring there’s no reason to worry about what he wants if he’s already debased himself this far.
On a more positive note, his constant connections with Eggsy, and later Jean, made him realize he was capable of romantic love and that monogamy was not essential to it in spite of what he’d been raised to believe. He grew to see sex with his lovers as an essential part of his life, and something he did for comfort and to take his mind off the current situation. In fact sex is one of the few things Armin knows will shut his brain off from its constant noise.
Armin’s view on gender and gender presentation have also changed somewhat. He grew to like feminine clothing, finding they sometimes provided him an advantage in people underestimating him, and also simply that they were prettier and more varied, and fit well on his slim, small body. Armin grew his hair out longer and often dressed in skirts and dresses, which was totally acceptable in Eros. While the concept of gender identity is new to him, he has started to think of himself as more gender-fluid.
Contracts: Armin would be fundamentally mistrustful of the situation considering what he was put through by the Maeve in Eros and the government in his own world. In spite of not believing in the captain’s offers, he would board and agree to work, figuring he has a better chance with people from other worlds than he would all alone on an unfamiliar planet by himself.
Abilities/Skills: Armin is an ordinary human. However, he's been undergoing military training for the last 3 years. In comparison to the rest of the 104th, he doesn't have a lot of strength, speed or endurance. However, considering people often washed out, ran away or even died during his training, I think it's safe to say his athleticism is above average. While he's hardly the most graceful at utilizing the 3d maneuvering gear and swords, he possesses the acrobatic skill set and spacial reasoning required for it. He knows and plans complicated military procedures, can ride a horse and operate a flare gun as well as a rifle. He also graduated at the top of his class in terms of academics. In general, his greatest weapon is his mind: his ability gather and recall general knowledge as well as details others miss. He reasons and plans out things quickly, which makes him excellent at chess. He's also really good at yelling!
Strengths/Weaknesses: Strengths: Fast acting, fast learning, inquisitive, brave, highly intelligent, eloquent, pragmatic, determined, curious, vivid memory, extremely valued tactician, planner, shooting. Weaknesses: Anxious, balks in leadership positions, physically less fit, dextrous and hardy than other soldiers in his world, extremely poor self esteem and PTSD, suspicious of authority
Items: Armin will be wearing a sea-green dress and shoes suitable for dancing, and carrying a small purse with a little cash, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and make up inside. He will also arrive with his kitten, Eliza Mewlittle (Liza for short).
SAMPLES
Network Sample: I know there must be a lot of people like me here who have come from some place very different from the Moira. The change can be a little difficult to adjust to. For me, it’s change over to digital. Typing and so on is more convenient but it takes a long time to get used to using computers, and a long time to develop those skills. I never thought I would miss the messiness of quills and paper, or having to whittle back a pencil, but I really do. And I miss the smell of books, of libraries. The physical feeling of a book in your hand, all that accumulated knowledge. The weight of the spine, the smell of the leather binding and glue... I understand that these things are unnecessary, and aside from the potential loss of data if something disastrous happens without a hard copy, digital is superior in every way. But I miss it.
Prose/Action Sample: On the TDM.
Are you 16 or older: yup
Contact: PM this journal, or
Current Characters: n/a
Tag: armin arlert (crau)
IN CHARACTER
Name: Armin Arlert
Canon: Attack on Titan
Canon Point:
Age: 16
History: on the wiki. Armin is taken after chapter 59 of the Uprising Arc, not long after his emotional talk with Levi and Jean about having to take a life, and directly after he’s used as a decoy to capture Hitch and Marlowe.
MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE HISTORY
Midnight Syndicate (MS) was a game based on the concept of characters being brought to the world of Mokosh by seven sisters known as the Maeve, each whom represented one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Those brought to the world by the Maeve were expected to have sex - either with each other or with patrons in the nearby city-state of Eros - in order to generate power and magic for the sisters. Each sister had a wing in a lavish mansion called Lilith’s Crossing, but the residents were frequently influenced by magical spells and drugged food to behave in a more sexual manner and explore their darkest urges.
Be appraised MS was a sex game, and Armin was underage. His very presence there could be considered inappropriate, coercive, and nonconsensual due to not having truly understood/agreed to living there (in spite of having “agreed” to come to Lilith’s Crossing to pay off his sins). There were also many situations where he was not in his right mind due to magic or drugs, and one situation where he was forced into a sexual act on threat of violence.
Still reeling from the recent shock of having been the first in his squad to kill, Armin arrived in Eros and became a patron of Perdita, the witch of Pride. Finding himself with no one familiar and a host of amenities, both modern and magical, Armin was both overwhelmed and suspicious. Ever a survivor, he formulated a strategy in hopes he would not be forced into sex, and decided to service others until he found someone he felt comfortable losing his virginity to.
One of the first friends he met was a boy his age named Goku (Saiyuki), with whom he shared “first crush” sort of experience with, practicing kissing and cuddling with. Through his other connections he learned a more professional way to swim, got help understanding and researching the world of Eros, and discovered he sort of liked being dominated.
After almost two months living under the witches’ rule, Armin met Eggsy Unwin at a carnival event. Eggsy was offering favors to anyone who could beat him at a shooting game. Armin immediately pegged this as a scam, but decided he could definitely use a favor from someone as clever and tough-looking as Eggsy. So he set out to beat him by whisperings something very lewd in his ear during Eggsy’s round, making him throw the shot.
However, this carnival being an event thrown together by the Maeve, those who had partaken in wine or stayed at the carnival after dark found themselves giving in to their darkest urges. Their first meeting peaked with some enjoyable intimate activities back at Eggsy’s room at the mansion.
After Eggsy fell asleep, Armin left and returned to the carnival to look for any friends from home, as new people often arrived at the monthly events. He met Goku instead - or rather the Seiten Taisei, the demon-like beast sealed away within Goku. Armin recognized Goku in the Seiten Taisei in spite of the fact he’d clearly been on a violent rampage, ripping people apart with his claws. Realizing Goku’s sexual interest in him still came out in the Seiten Taisei, Armin attempted to physically soothe and calm him to distract him from his rampage. The Seiten Taisei eventually used Armin’s mouth to achieve sexual release which calmed him enough so Armin could get away safely. In spite of the fact the Seiten Taisei could very have easily torn him to shreds, Armin could not truly accept this act as rape, especially from a friend as dear as Goku, and believed he “seduced” the Seiten Taisei out of weakness even if he could not have stopped the situation or defended himself. This toxic thought continues to plague Armin to this day. He came to think of himself as a whore, and thus did not often give second thought to being promiscuous as a matter of survival and method of distraction.
Armin met up with Eggsy again while Eggsy was being punished by Eve (the head sister) for impudence. She’d sealed his mouth shut and it would only come free after an allotted amount of sexual activity. Armin figured out a way to communicate with him (having him write things down) and offered to service him sexually. Eggsy was shocked he would help, and though it didn’t work, returned the favor.
When they met again after he recovered, Eggsy was shocked and horrified to realize the age difference between them. He wanted to know that Armin was alright, and worried very much about the consequences of their being together. Armin didn’t think it was a big deal (and still doesn’t), though he liked the idea of being able to get a guy as good-looking and older like Eggsy. Armin thought they had more in common than not and found them to be sexually compatible. He opened up to Eggsy about his situation back home and over the next few months they began pursuing a sort of sex-friendship. Eventually Armin lost his virginity (or what he considered to be such) to him in every way.
One night everyone was evacuated from Lilith’s Crossing to board an airship to Onsra, a nearby city state by the sea. Armin experienced the ocean from a distance and then in person in this beautiful, tropical, picturesque place. He spent most of his time in Onsra walking by the sea, overwhelmed by the idea he’d achieved his dream of seeing it without his friends Eren and Mikasa.
He ran into Goku for the first time since the Seiten Taisei assaulted him. Armin allowed Goku to explain the situation to him, and accepted his apology for it, saying it was not him, but the witches were to blame. In truth, their friendship never recovered from the incident, and Armin grew to mistrust people’s intentions even moreso than he had because of Bertholdt and Reiner’s betrayal
Armin found the servants had packed both a suit and beautiful ball gown. He experimented with wearing the latter, and found he actually quite liked the feeling of wearing such fancy clothes. He danced with Eggsy and shared some surprisingly intimate times with him. However, sensing Eggsy’s vulnerability and growing affection for him, Armin refused to stay the night with him after sex, insisting he still wanted to fuck his assigned roommate instead while he still had the chance.
Armin thought that would likely be the end between them, but Eggsy showed up to Armin’s door and asked him to his room for a movie night. After a night of experiencing the wonderful world of film, they had one of their many heart-to-hearts, and Armin admitted he wanted to intentionally drive Eggsy away due to the impossibility of faithfulness between them. They agreed they liked each other and wanted to continue seeing each other in spite of this.
Jean Kirschtein (Attack on Titan) arrived in Eros, and Armin found himself quite occupied with helping him adjust to the new world and its rules. He never quite got up the nerve to tell Jean he killed someone to save his life. Due to their strong friendship and teenage hormones and various machinations of Lilith’s Crossing, they also became sexually involved. Armin admitted to Jean he was afraid he’d fallen in love with Eggsy. Jean encouraged Armin to be honest about his feelings.
During a river festival, creatures that resembled long-lost loved ones or dead people rose up from the water. Eggsy managed to free Armin from the creature. They fought the monsters together. Armin was bitten lost of a lot of blood. Fortunately, healers were able to patch him up and they returned to the mansion safely, though both were shaken by the experience enough to take comfort in one another’s bodies.
Jean and Eggsy ended up getting into a drunken fight in town that Armin had to bail them out from. After an intense discussion about their issues (embarrassment at a previous tryst they had, jealousy issues, and Jean’s struggle with desiring them both) they wound up having a threesome with Armin in the middle. Jean later admitted to Eggsy he wanted both Armin and Eggsy, and Eggsy floated the idea to Armin about seeing him, suspecting Armin was interested in also pursuing something with Jean. Armin was overwhelmed, realizing Eggsy had read his mood and all the things he was ashamed to admit, and they began to three-way date.
Armin took a potion from a client thinking it was a sexual enhancer, but it transformed him into a catboy. He became selfish and unmotivated, wanting mostly to eat, sleep, and have lots of rough sex. During this time he stopped talking to Eggsy, which worried him deeply. Armin attempted to initiate sex with Eggsy, but Eggsy turned him down since he was in an altered state. In the aftermath, Armin apologized for not telling Eggsy what happened, admitting he was ashamed and didn’t want Eggsy to see him like that. He also confessed his love for Eggsy, which Eggsy reciprocated.
Armin bought a 2 bedroom apartment to have a safe space away from Lilith’s Crossing and lived with Jean and Eggsy there. He delighted in the privilege of having a space totally his, in spite of having ‘earned’ the money by having so much sex. He soon learned that living away from Lilith’s Crossing hardly exempted him from his status as Perdita’s servant, and didn’t mean he could avoid the spells, curses and drama involved.
After blurting out “it’s fine dick sucking weather” to an older client, Armin was forced to take etiquette lessons from Rafael Barba (Law and Order: SVU), whom he grew to see as a sort of mentor and someone he looked up to.
Armin rescued Jeremy (Barairo hoo no koro) from some trouble he’d gotten himself into with the natives of Eros, and befriended him. Jeremy introduced him to smoking, a habit which he took up to combat the stress of his emotional, traumatic life in Lilith’s Crossing.
During an autumn festival, Armin took time to remember the dead - his dead squad members, his family, and the many deaths he felt responsible for. He befriended Gojyo, a friend of Goku’s who wanted to learn more about his friend’s disappearance. He talked to Gojyo and continued to connect with him in spite of his past with Goku, and his secret belief that Goku, who’d hurt him so badly, had been allowed to go home when he had not.
Eggsy partook of an enchanted apple which made him desperately possessive and needy, to the point of being somewhat violent. He needed Armin to prove his love, his self-consciousness whispering to him that no one loved him. Though Armin felt threatened by Eggsy’s behavior, his love for Eggsy - and the fact Eggsy was calling that love into question - made it impossible for him to walk away. That night he could not help but feel like a whore for the first time with Eggsy, as he felt having sex with him was only about calming him down and keeping him from hurting himself or others. He tried to tell himself it was an act of love, but reminded him of the violent incident with Goku, and made him feel deeply disgusted and ashamed. When the effects wore off, Armin still felt fragile and rubbed raw from the whole thing, and Eggsy was horrified by how he’d acted. Even though they both knew Eggsy had not been in control, they fought and could not find an easy way to reconcile what happened. After all, Eggsy had been able to refuse Armin when he was in an altered state, but Armin felt that he could not emotionally nor physically refuse Eggsy in a similar situation. Eggsy wanted to make clear that Armin always had the right to walk away and he would never want Armin to be unhappy or uncomfortable. It was their first real fight as a couple, and Armin could not really forgive Eggsy right away for it despite knowing the circumstances were probably a one-time thing. Still, they resolved to take things slowly as they still loved each other and couldn’t bear the thought of being apart. In the end the incident was something Armin mostly callused over, though he wished to withdraw completely from sex for awhile and Eggsy respected those wishes. The Maeve’s magic often had him going back on this this desire.
Jean and Eggsy threw Armin a surprise birthday party and invited every friend from Lilith’s Crossing. Jean was in charge of amusing Armin and taking him out to buy as many books as he wanted for his birthday treat while Eggsy prepared the party. Rafael Barba performed music and gave him a collection of musicals on DVD, increasing Armin’s interest in ‘modern’ music and musicals. Jean and Eggsy lavished Armin with gifts, but most importantly, Eggsy gave Armin a little ginger kitten he rescued from an alley. Armin named the kitten Eliza Mewlittle, after the main character of their favorite movie. Armin was deeply touched, though a trifled overwhelmed. No one had ever thrown a party like this for him before. On this day in November, Armin turned 16.
In his final month in Eros, Armin used vacation he accrued from all his sex to buy an off-world vacation for he and Eggsy. They visited Eggsy’s version of 2014’s London. Armin got to meet Eggsy’s mother, Michele, and his little sister. For the first time since they met, they truly had to confront their age difference. Michele was worried for Armin, a teenager who should’ve been in school, dating her son in his twenties, no matter how much she loved Eggsy. She told him to take it slow. Armin experienced a very intense panic attack. He was ashamed about how they met and how they couldn’t ‘take things slow’ as Michele suggested. He also felt guilty that Eggsy was willing to give up the love of his family to return to Eros with Armin, and tried to tell Eggsy he should simply stay in London. Eggsy reassured Armin that Michele would understand if they could find a way to explain their circumstances, and that Michele and his baby sister were fine without him, while Armin would not be. In the end, the question didn’t need to be answered, as their portal back to Eros never re-opened.
Personality:
Armin is an extraordinarily intelligent young man with a gift for tactics. Though he seems weak, he has an extremely strong will and wit, and thinks nothing of standing up for what he believes in regardless of the consequence. Even while being beaten by a group of larger children for expressing his heretical beliefs, as a child Armin said, "If you hit me, you're just confirming I'm right!" Later, he faced a firing squad with arguments that saved the lives of his best friends. Though at times he struggles with self-loathing and self-doubt, his brains and resolve ensure the survival of his comrades time and again. Armin holds within him the capacity to be bold, manipulative and incisive, even violent. Yet he also remains a loyal friend who cares for humanity's future and also holds a deep desire to understand and explore the world.
Armin's keen observance lends him an extraordinary sensitivity. He is often emotional, prone to tears in moments of extreme emotion, be they fear, grief or happiness. Armin not only understands things on a very deep level, his reactions and emotions regarding those things are equally deep. When the Colossal Titan appeared in Shiganshina, Armin immediately understood that the town and Wall Maria, and perhaps all of humanity was lost. He is able to understand situations quickly, as well as their potential consequence, and plan accordingly.
Armin's ability to examine situations from so many angles quickly means he makes tough, even ugly, calls. Within him he has the capacity to be incisive and merciless, if that's what the moment calls for. This is perhaps most evident when he lies to Bertoldt about what's become of Annie, and later when he makes a killing shot to save Jean. He's practical and states "Those who are not willing to sacrifice everything won't accomplish anything." Unlike Jean, who objects to the lives lost during their missions, he admires Erwin Smith's ways of furthering his goals.
Armin is intensely pragmatic, a quality that becomes more evident over time as he becomes more involved in the war. When it comes to dealing with his more human-like enemies, he has a knack for manipulating their root emotions due to his clear understanding of others feelings. Not only are his words motivated by empathy, but on more than one occasion he's used others previous trust of him to his own end. Would a face that sweet lie to you? The answer is yes. And that face can get scary, too.
While most of Armin's actions are very calculated and his words can be cynical, he is not cold. He cares for his friends and for others. He is deeply attached to Eren and Mikasa, and is ready to defend an unconscious Jean at the cost of his own life rather than abandon him during the mission to rescue Eren. He also took a killing shot to save Jean. Rather than excuse his own actions, he wondered why he was the one who was able to pull the trigger, utterly haunted by the act. This suggests that while he theoretically agrees with carving a bloody path that he stands at the precipice of truly accepting that road.
Armin is extremely harsh with himself. He remembers that he depended on Mikasa and Eren to defend him from bullies growing up, but not the fact he stood up to the bullies in the first place. He hates that he depended on them, thinking he gave nothing back to deserve the help. He saw himself as useless for not doing more during the attack on Shiganshina, when in reality his quick thinking saved his friends' lives. Since helping formulate many important and successful missions, as well as having his friends' faith in him reaffirmed, Armin has begun to unpack these issues, but being the first in his group to kill has clearly weighed on him.
Armin still dreams of visiting the natural wonders of the world outside the walls. He loves to learn new things and explore. He fights most of all for a chance to have the freedom to do these things unimpeded with his friends. In another life, Armin might have been a very gentle person. But this is total war in the face of annihilation, and Armin has willingly pledged himself to the front lines. He knows the only way to change things, and to challenge the injustices behind the walls is to fight.
MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE:
Armin’s baseline personality hasn’t changed that much since his 10 months in Eros. He is still intensely pragmatic, opinionated, calculating, and quick to blame himself. He’s become a little more knowledgeable about the idea that he has PTSD and anxiety, though he is reluctant to seek help for them. However, some of how he looks at the world has changed considerably.
Armin has seen the sea of his dreams and experienced other worlds and levels of technology. This increased his anger toward the situation of his home world, as he can see what humans are capable of when not impeded. However, he’s seen time and again that humans are still impeded by their own prejudices and small minded thinking. Without a concrete goal in mind like ‘see the ocean’, his goal has been to return home and fight with the new magics and technologies he's seen. He often experienced guilt in Eros over enjoying his time with Eggsy and Jean and other friends, and not working as hard as he could to return to his own world. This guilt will likely continue to haunt him, and he will be desperately searching for a way back to his own world. On the other hand, his capacity for wonder has only increased with knowing how many unimaginable things there are out there, and he still feels the pull to learn new things and explore.
Unsurprisingly, Armin’s habit for risk-taking has changed since living in a world where rape and mind and body altering spells were normal occurrences. While Armin would frequently ‘fight’ with bullies and consider a fight ‘won’ because he didn’t run away, he is not willing what he now sees as a very real threat of being violated by picking fights. Maybe he’d consider a fight won with a chipped tooth or a bruised rib, but he did not feel he won after what happened with the Seiten Taisei, in spite of accomplishing his goal of stopping him. Like many survivors, he lives in fear of something like that happening again. While he has always been willing to lay down his life for his beliefs, experiencing that level of emotional pain and humiliation is too much to want to try and survive again. In spite of all this, he would be quick deny that any of what happened was all that bad. He refuses to think of the Seiten Taisei’s assault on him as rape, since in his own mind, he consented to it and it was his own idea to have things go that way. This of course is not the case, as he would have likely have been torn to shreds had he run, and the Seiten Taisei was expressing interest in his body.
Because of the way the Maeve’s magic to turn a friend into an enemy or change a person’s entire personality of physical make up, Armin has even more of a problem with trusting friends than he did in the aftermath of Reiner and Bertholdt’s betrayal. He’s begun to believe that violations of trust may not only be occasionally expected, but inevitable. Since he was intimately betrayed by someone he had great romantic affection for, he also worries he is not a good judge of character in spite of having been very shrewd and understanding of people in the past.
Armin’s view on sex and love evolved quite a bit while living in Eros. Before arriving, he was a virgin who mostly considered sex to be something to do with someone you loved and planned to marry, and thought he would probably die before ever meeting such a person. He did have a very strong, deep friendship with Jean, but never considered anything further as he thought Jean was only interested in Mikasa, and by extension, girls.
Being surrounded by sex, being encouraged to sex by magical spells and being forced into sexual situations, Armin soon became sexually precocious and somewhat promiscuous. His sense of appropriateness and boundaries are skewed, and he would easily turn to sex or seduction as a method of solving problems when he might never have considered them before. He would not necessarily enjoy doing this, but he has no sense that his body or consent are all that valuable in a general sense. He currently sees himself as a whore first and a soldier second, figuring there’s no reason to worry about what he wants if he’s already debased himself this far.
On a more positive note, his constant connections with Eggsy, and later Jean, made him realize he was capable of romantic love and that monogamy was not essential to it in spite of what he’d been raised to believe. He grew to see sex with his lovers as an essential part of his life, and something he did for comfort and to take his mind off the current situation. In fact sex is one of the few things Armin knows will shut his brain off from its constant noise.
Armin’s view on gender and gender presentation have also changed somewhat. He grew to like feminine clothing, finding they sometimes provided him an advantage in people underestimating him, and also simply that they were prettier and more varied, and fit well on his slim, small body. Armin grew his hair out longer and often dressed in skirts and dresses, which was totally acceptable in Eros. While the concept of gender identity is new to him, he has started to think of himself as more gender-fluid.
Contracts: Armin would be fundamentally mistrustful of the situation considering what he was put through by the Maeve in Eros and the government in his own world. In spite of not believing in the captain’s offers, he would board and agree to work, figuring he has a better chance with people from other worlds than he would all alone on an unfamiliar planet by himself.
Abilities/Skills: Armin is an ordinary human. However, he's been undergoing military training for the last 3 years. In comparison to the rest of the 104th, he doesn't have a lot of strength, speed or endurance. However, considering people often washed out, ran away or even died during his training, I think it's safe to say his athleticism is above average. While he's hardly the most graceful at utilizing the 3d maneuvering gear and swords, he possesses the acrobatic skill set and spacial reasoning required for it. He knows and plans complicated military procedures, can ride a horse and operate a flare gun as well as a rifle. He also graduated at the top of his class in terms of academics. In general, his greatest weapon is his mind: his ability gather and recall general knowledge as well as details others miss. He reasons and plans out things quickly, which makes him excellent at chess. He's also really good at yelling!
Strengths/Weaknesses: Strengths: Fast acting, fast learning, inquisitive, brave, highly intelligent, eloquent, pragmatic, determined, curious, vivid memory, extremely valued tactician, planner, shooting. Weaknesses: Anxious, balks in leadership positions, physically less fit, dextrous and hardy than other soldiers in his world, extremely poor self esteem and PTSD, suspicious of authority
Items: Armin will be wearing a sea-green dress and shoes suitable for dancing, and carrying a small purse with a little cash, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and make up inside. He will also arrive with his kitten, Eliza Mewlittle (Liza for short).
SAMPLES
Network Sample: I know there must be a lot of people like me here who have come from some place very different from the Moira. The change can be a little difficult to adjust to. For me, it’s change over to digital. Typing and so on is more convenient but it takes a long time to get used to using computers, and a long time to develop those skills. I never thought I would miss the messiness of quills and paper, or having to whittle back a pencil, but I really do. And I miss the smell of books, of libraries. The physical feeling of a book in your hand, all that accumulated knowledge. The weight of the spine, the smell of the leather binding and glue... I understand that these things are unnecessary, and aside from the potential loss of data if something disastrous happens without a hard copy, digital is superior in every way. But I miss it.
Prose/Action Sample: On the TDM.