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Hi!
If there’s anyone out there who by any chance remembers me, it seems like it’s been a whOle year since I last showed up. If I’m being honest, that’s what motivated me to start over, the anniversary vibes or something. But you see, this whole year gave me the chance to think things through and I eventually decided to change some stuff about this work. Starting with the prologue, so here you have the new one.
Let’s start over. Hello to both of you, reader who just found this work and reader who was wondering whether it had been abandoned. It seems like it hasn’t been because I’m back, at least for now. And, well, that’s basically how this is going to work from now on, I’ll be back from time to time, dropping a new chapter each time. For a normal fic, this planning sounds like shit, but for this fic, I think it’s the best thing to do, both for me and you.
Why is that? As you can read in the summary, this work won’t be a story, but rather a compilation of thoughts and ideas. That means that each chapter works as some kind of independent essay. The problem I initially had with this work, which had me on hiatus for a year, is that I intended to link the chapters and give them a very specific and interconnected structure. That didn’t prove to be the best option for me because as I have already mentioned sometime before, I struggle a lot with getting myself back to work on projects like that. So, now I believe that the best thing I can do is give each chapter as much autonomy as possible, making it easier for me to write in a free and dynamic way and also avoiding the long waits that come when you are expecting a continuation. In other words, each chapter is like a one-shot about a very specific thing that I want to analyze.
Now, what will this essay-one-shots be about, exactly? Anything concerning Mikasa and Annie, really. Initially, this work’s main goal was to trace a comparison between them that could justify why they would be a perfect couple. However, this new version won’t revolve so much around that. There will definitely be chapters that will expose the possibilities of a romance between them, but it won’t be the main focus this time. In this new version, you’ll find all kinds of analysis: independent character studies or compared ones, deconstruction of certain misconceptions about them, scene analysis,... Each chapter’s theme will be a surprise, even for me, because I’ll write them as I get new ideas and as I write them down.
The first two chapters are written according to the initial planning I had for the work. I decided to keep them because I believe they display interesting ideas and I didn’t want to fully disrespect the last summer version of myself who was really excited about this project. The third chapter will pick up the topic that was left hanging in the second one, as some kind of redemption/goodbye to the old version of this project. After that, we’ll go fully freestyle.
Lastly, I’d like to encourage you readers to share your own thoughts and ideas if you want, or even criticize my own (constructively, pretty please) if you feel like it’s needed. It would be lovely to build a safe and enriching place where we could share our thoughts about these two incredible characters that Isayama gifted us with. There’s never enough words to cover Mikasa and Annie’s bewitching complexity.
Thank you for your time! I hope to see you around (and to be around) as much as possible!
Violet ✾
[Edited: 08/10/2023]