The Waiting Room:
Somewhere, in time and space, between fiction and reality lies the waiting room. A gathering place for characters from all across the various forms of entertainment: comics, shows, anime…Everything was present. However, to keep from being too hectic, every form of media was divided. And in one Room in particular, Shingeki No Kyojin's, things were starting to get interesting…
To explain: all entertainment has to come from somewhere, so all waiting rooms were four-sided and there was only one wall that mattered: the fourth wall. Installed in the fourth wall was a door and a speaker set. Whenever an up-and-coming writer had a new idea for a story, Muse would call over the speaker to dictate which characters would be needed for this story. To keep them from being overworked, they only ever had to show up during the writing phase. The door was always constantly shifting, moving from one mid to the next, most often visiting The Creator. The Creator wrote their true fates, adding characters to the room at will. The only exception being Original Character, known as Ori by everyone else. He/She just walked in the door one day. They were always caught in an odd superposition of being both male and female yet neither at the same time. Their body constantly shifting forms. Hair melting from one color to the next: black to brown to red to blonde, with other non-traditional colors occasionally thrown in for good measure.
"I swear I'm fucking quitting this shit-hole," Levi said, his voice laced with poison. He'd just gotten done finishing up with some…compromising…work with Erwin Smith.
"As if I enjoyed it any more than you did," came Erwin's exasperated response, "At least you weren't 'catching' this time."
"You didn't have your mouth where shit comes out," Levi bit out, "It's fucking unsanitary."
The angry man went to sit on a couch by his friends Isabel and Furlan. He would never admit it, but this was the only thing he liked about the Waiting Room; death was meaningless, because the other authors tended to keep even the deceased characters alive. It wasn't without its own side effects, though. Deceased characters (a common occurrence in this room) seemed to almost be see-through; as though, if the viewer tried hard enough, they could gaze upon the other side of the room. Their touch never seemed to be as solid either. Some characters had it worse than others. Erwin, for example, was still very solid, likely due to the fan-bases refusal to accept his demise. Whereas Marco's right half always seemed slightly more transparent than the rest of him.
"Come on, big bro, it couldn't have been that bad~" Isabel said with a smile. She enjoyed having her brothers back in her life. Heck, she enjoyed just having a life. She wasn't all that familiar with Waiting Room protocol and thought the end was the end. However, after her final chapter, she immediately hugged Levi and Furlan to celebrate their continued relationship.
"Easy for you to say, you're not quite as popular in that god-forsaken smut category," Levi replied, his patience and resolve wearing thin, "That's the third one this week and last week, I was even paired with the damn brat and shitty glasses at the same time." He was as close as he would get to screaming while he gestured over to Eren and Hanji. Eren just sheepishly turned away while Mikasa gazed daggers while holding his arm and Armin patted him on the back. After their first piece together, she'd given up hiding her feelings and had decided just to go with it. Eren had been taken aback when it happened but had resolved to give it a try. All the while, Hanji was having the time of their life, constantly exclaiming when their body suddenly morphed to fit one gender or the other.
"Please calm down Captain and have some coffee," Petra said, trying to defuse the situation.
"I'm not going to calm down until those shitty stories stop," Levi spat back, while still accepting the cup, "At least with you, nothing unsanitary ever happens." And thus, Petra turned a brilliant shade of red, remembering when their stories first began. Sure, she'd hoped a relationship would eventually develop, but she hadn't expected to be paired off with him moments after her "demise."
"You could stand to lighten up, this room isn't the worst," Ymir commented form across the room. As far as she was concerned, this was heaven. She had her arm around Historia who was snuggled into her side. Everything was perfect.
"You must be constipated, because shit just came out of your mouth," Levi replied, his eyes darkening. But before he could follow the comment, the speaker came to life.
"Greetings, Levi, Armin, Mikasa, Eren, Erwin, and Hanji! All of you will be needed soon for a M-ranked story. I'd suggest stretching first, because this one is a doozy!" And with that, something in Levi finally snapped.
"I'm getting the fuck out," he said, dashing over to the still-morphing door, "I'm going to break this shitty door to pieces." He grabbed one of the artisanal plants and began wailing on the locked handle. Erwin looked as though he might try to stop him, thought better of it, and started rallying the others to pick up a couch to use as a battering ram. Many of the guys, especially Jean and Marco, seemed to have the same idea.
"One more hit and we're through!" yelled Reiner. And suddenly, the door burst open to reveal…a palace. And in this palace were other doors leading to places labeled things like Sailor Moon, Sherlock, and Steven Universe. It wasn't flashy, but it seemed clean and well lit, except for a dark hallway that seemed to be closed off.
"Can I help you?" asked DC. The others just stared, not comprehending where they were.
"Hello, we seem to have stumbled upon your mind," Hanji said, as though they'd merely gone to the wrong address and not broken down a metaphysical door.
"A couple of our members seem to have gone stir crazy," Hanji continued, giving a pointed glance to everyone who broke down the door.
"Sorry to hear that, but I don't think I can do anything," DC replied sheepishly.
"Well, what we really seem to want is some commentary about our treatment," Armin chimed in.
"Okay…anything in particular?"
"Fix your damn, shitty smuts," commented Levi with a tone of annoyance.
"I haven't written any for you all yet," DC said, thinking, "Anything in particular?"
"Well…" Eren said, finally speaking up, "I guess we could live with doing them, but…do all the guys have to be so…well-endowed all the time? Being on the receiving end isn't as comfortable as everyone writes…" He immediately turned red, his eyes facing the ceiling. Many of the guys and especially the girls nodded their assent with remarks of "…so hard to walk afterward…"; "…sore for a week…"; and others being tossed into the fray.
"As long as we're speaking of such things," Mikasa added, "The girls would like to be attacked less." Encouraged by a fury of nods she continued.
"Just look at us," she said, as she and the rest of the girls lifted their shirts to reveal six packs, "We train and fight hard. We're tired of being victims for the sake of a clichéd romance; at the very least, the average attacker should have a hard time against us…"
"Alright, anything else…"
"About my gender," Hanji said, suddenly shyer than usual, "I'd like to have it portrayed properly; I don't currently identify as either and it would be nice to be recognized as such sometimes…"
"Absolutely! Anyone else have any requests…?"
"Well, anything else seems trivial now," Erwin replied, "It's about time we finished our tantrum anyway. The Creator may miss us. Best of luck and try to relay our thoughts."
"Will do!" DC replied with a smile, waving off her temporary guests as they disappeared back into the doorway they appeared from which repaired itself behind them, "I have an idea…"
A/N: Greetings! I just wanted to say, I have nothing against anyone else's stories. In fact, I quite like smut (despite being asexual) since I think they have the most entertaining plots. It's just that, while reading some, a thought popped into my head: what if the characters were aware of these stories; all the stories? What if they had to act out the plots? And thus, this fanfic was born. I tried to get my head into that of the characters, but I might have failed...Hope everyone enjoys this ^_^