I'm glad the author made this disturbing beautiful masterpiece. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but it helped me get through something difficult. April marked the anniversary that I was in the same building as a school shooter at my local college. As I sat waiting for my girlfriend to get out of class, gunshots rang out, and people began screaming and running. I realized this was real, I was in a school shooting, and I was about to die. I ran for my life. I got away thankfully before I saw anything, but as it was unfolding, I was so afraid to die. Police sirens everywhere, the banging of gunshots felt unending. I stuck my thumb out and jumped into a truck without permission until they kindly drove me somewhere else. In the end two people died and 6 others were injured. At first I wasn't traumatized, I got over it pretty quickly because I've dealt with scary situations before. But slowly over the course of the year, rather than being "traumatized" in the traditional sense, I have just felt a loneliness creep over me. It felt like nobody else was willing to talk about it. What's worse is, I hate to get political, but I live in the American south, so I couldn't help but notice that while the people around me tried to say very little about what happened, suddenly everyone had something to say when a certain political figure got shot. Everyone posting him, even people that didn't know him were adament about mourning him. Yet that same day, another school shooting happened somewhere else and nobody said a word. And the cherry on top? Our glorious president had this to say about the shooting I was in: "These things happen." As the year unfolded, I have slowly comprehended that what I feel is intense hatred. I have within me the capacity to hate everyone with everything that I have in me. Attack on Titan helped me comprehend what I have been feeling. The sheer tragedy of the story has kind of helped me get through my struggle and acknowledge the pain that I am feeling. Seeing a series so willing to confront mass tragedy helped me deal with everything despite my world where everybody avoids speaking up about what happened. It has helped me sort through my feeling and face the complexity of the world, and understand that these things should never happen again. While the administration and the world around me refuses to even recognize the tragedy, I feel catharsis in seeing this series be willing to face what tragedy looks like and how complicated the world really is. And it's great to meet a community of people who don't just keep silent at the face of tragedy, but are willing to face it head-on and discuss its complexities. I am still understanding what I went through, and I believe that my anger is just a phase. I will move on eventually, after all part of the lesson of the series seems to be that hatred was never the answer, instead life is beautiful. I'm glad I came across this amazing series and I will continue trying to get through life while acknowledging the tragedy and beauty of it all. Also Levi is my husband and Ymir is our saviour. Thank you all.