#but it’s not impossible and sometimes even having an emotional response you can’t control? doesn’t mean you throw it at the other person

[howdydoodydodis]

I see where you’re coming from! Context does matter a lot here, and that’s one of the reasons why I find the “sharks are smooth” prank funny where other “innocent” lies or insistence on falsehoods is frustrating.

I grew up with a big loud family of engineers with autistic traits if not autism itself. We split hairs and argued over semantics ALL the time, and those kinds of verbal spars are still something that happens with me and the people I’m closest with. Sometimes that sort of pedantic nitpicking is a fun kind of playfighting, but like physical playfighting sometimes it goes too far and becomes frustrating and hurtful when one or both of us begins to get too caught up in the weeds of who’s right. The biggest difference that takes it from fun to infuriating is when I can’t tell that it’s playful.

That’s why the “sharks are smooth” never bothered me, even though I otherwise relate: the troll made it increasingly transparent that his “evidence” was coming from made up, badly photoshopped stuff. People who kept coming back to argue repeatedly and putting a lot of time into correcting him even in such a long-standing and public refusal to see the light on a clear factual matter made it a little bit more clear that it was a troll.

I don’t think people who offered one comment, or even a second comment with a source, especially near the beginning of the thread, should be targeted for being “annoying” because that does disproportionally hurt autistic people. But the thread DID ensnare some people who are of the unhealthy personality type where they HAVE to be right. Learning to recognize when someone won’t change their views and when to stop putting effort into an argument is a skill that both neurotypical and autistic people can learn. So I can’t blame anyone (especially a neurodivergent person) for being “oh let me offer a helpful correction,” but there’s definitely a limit where the doggedness in trying to correct someone who refuses to listen does become funny (and a little sad) regardless of the corrector’s intent (or neurodivergency imo). It’d be a different story if one individual was gaslighting another individual about sharks being smooth, and if the whole debate wasn’t public, and if the troll hadn’t given clearly doctored evidence.

Not to say that you “should” find the joke funny or anything! And the fact that their skin is teeth IS fucking cool as hell! I wish that had been a viral part of that meme…

But maybe I just found it amusing to look into a dark mirror and remind myself how it looks from the outside when I try to be the one who’s RIGHT goddammit! I’ve certainly fallen into the trap before… in more subtle contexts of course, but still :p

The joke about smooth sharks has never been funny to me, partially because "insisting on something wrong and making fun of the other person for trying to correct you" was constantly used against me when I was an (autistic) kid and as a teenager I often assumed people were arbitrarily lying to me when they made innocuous statements. I was afraid to respond sincerely to anything and often ignored advice and information people gave me because of the chance it could be a joke at my expense.

It's even more grating in this case because people explicitly say they think the joke detects and entraps people who are already "annoying" and "need to be the smartest person in the room."

(Never mind that the "outcome" is entirely contingent on subtle differences in context and how social rules in the exchange were followed; the person that said honey is made by putting bees in a bee grinder got ridiculed even though they were doing the same thing—confidently asserting something stupid on the internet.)

The other reason I hate the "sharks are smooth" joke is that it obscures the reality that sharks are literally covered in teeth. They evolved from teeth, they are morphologically teeth. TEETH

[kindheart525]

How strained would the rest of Auora's relationships get after Iolite is defeated in the au?

Refresher on how Aurora’s doing since I haven’t answered asks on this AU in a little bit

I don’t think Aurora has any relationships that don’t have at least some level of strain. I’ve already covered the strain in her relationship with Snowcone, whose lover brutally died at Aurora’s unconscious hooves, but that kind of guilt informs Aurora’s interactions with everyone else she’s close with. For example, she also had a role in the murders of Shining Armor and Flurry Heart, her own uncle and cousin but also her mom Twilight’s beloved brother and firstborn niece. I imagine Twilight does not have as much difficulty separating Aurora’s brainwashed actions from her personal tragedy—that is, she doesn’t even subconsciously hold Aurora responsible and makes sure she knows that. (Not that Snowcone doesn’t have that ability, but her emotional association is much different from her intellectual understanding.) But some part of Aurora still holds herself responsible for the tragedy so she can’t fully believe her mom’s assurances. It’s not just about the death of family members, but also the fact that Iolite killed one of Twilight’s best friends and caused the rest to be separated. The fact that Twilight had to lead an entire kingdom through crisis while dealing with this heartbreak. Aurora desperately wishes she had stopped Iolite before she got too powerful so all of this could have been avoided, even though such a feat was impossible.

During this time I think Aurora would be closer with her mother Tempest, who also carries guilt from past villainous deeds. Tempest carried out horrible orders for the Storm King while fully conscious and willing, while Aurora had absolutely no control over herself, but she’d understand the guilt is no lesser. Though she would make a point of acknowledging how noble it was of Aurora to try to fight against it and to work so hard at making amends thereafter, both of which display a strong moral compass despite everything. She would have more concrete steps to offer Aurora for her rehabilitation than Twilight and her simplistic “don’t feel bad you did nothing wrong” approach. Of course, Aurora’s guilt is not completely gone around Tempest, and she sometimes catches herself comparing her situation with her mother’s (how many actual deaths was Tempest responsible for?). Still, she finds a lot more comfort in her.

Since Iolite was Aurora’s best friend and that…obviously didn’t end well, Aurora isn’t sure how closely she can count on other friends. Although she trusts the other vigilantes as much as she can trust another outside of her family, she isn’t sure she’ll be able to go back to anything like her friendship with Iolite before everything went down.

[official-megumin]

I have been doing more work on the bug people from yesterday, and I think I have a good enough idea for a first draft. Please tell me if there are any changes you would like me to make, I would be happy to.

Some earths have progressed relatively similarly to our own, animals, plants and ecosystems existing in forms we can recognise; but some earths didn’t, evolution going in an entirely different direction, leading to a world completely alien despite technically being earth. From one of these earths came a people known by most as the bugfolk or hivefolk, but despite their namesake they aren’t even bugs, being closer related to Radiodonta who in their reality didn’t go extinct and eventually colonised the land. Their world has many other examples of evolution going a different way then our world, specifically plants… or the lack of plants; their niches being evolved by something closer to fungi who evolved chloroplasts like plants. Unlike the other races of this world, the hivefolk don’t communicate through speech or gesture, all hivefolk of colony share a telepathic link, each individual having their own identity, but always being interconnected, able to communicate to each other using this link. Due to this, they have never developed a language that could be spoken, able to directly share thoughts, meanings, ideas and emotions in ways that words and body language can’t mimic. Very rarely a hivefolk will become separated by a traumatic brain injury, there is a specific part of their brain responsible for the the telepathic link located at the back of the brain near their brain stem, and if it is severely damaged or removed and they don’t die in the process, they will be separated from the rest of their colony; but due to its sensitive location it is nearly impossible to disable their telepathic link without killing them. All hivefolk colonies have a queen, acting as the leader of the colony and the sole member able to reproduce, the role seems to be electoral with regular hivefolk being “voted in” by the rest of the colony, but the process isn’t well known by outsiders. Hivefolk can learn to speak and display emotion, but this is a learned skill and doesn’t come naturally to them like humans, almost solely being learned by traders and diplomats, and sometimes (especially with unskilled diplomats and traders) emotions can seemingly come across forced and unnatural, unskilled hivefolk traders often give of an “aggressively friendly” disposition, as they don’t naturally display emotions outward, instead hivefolk tend to display emotions telepathically between colony members, making displaying emotions to non-colony members mostly an act of mimicry. Often hivefolk who have been separated (due to the part of their brain controlling telepathy being damaged) will seem to learn to display emotions more naturally, their brain adapting to its new circumstance. Hivefolk buildings tend to resemble termite nests scaled up, huts made from combining dirt, mud, sticks and other detritus with a special adhesive they can produce, while often appearing crude they are remarkably sturdy and easy to build.

you know I'm afraid of fungus, but everything about this is so fucking cool. Like omg

I love that these are essentially anomalocaris people.

I'm gonna be honest, I think you should save this idea for your own world. Not because it's bad or I don't want it in mine. Quite the contrary actually, I love them and think they could make for a super interesting race. I just think it's so good you should use it on something of your own instead of wasting it on something that's mine

[k3rm1e]

cuddling headcanons! ★~(◡﹏◕✿)

this is more of a test thing to see if i like writing this way and if this blog does well

other imagines and headcanons won't include everyone i write unless it is specifically requested and is a prompt i really like

includes: wilbur nihachu karljacobs quackity dream georgenotfound sapnap p!tommyinnnit p!badboyhalo p!skeppy p!eret p!philza p!tubbo p!ranboo

cw: cursing

wilbur:

wilbur is a very cuddle-y guy

to me he seems very soft

i always see people saying he would like spooning, but i disagree

i feel like he would do more of a half-spooning thing with his head on your chest or the other way around

mans would DEFINITELY make you run your fingers through his hair

i feel like he would lay on your chest and just *nuzzle* into the space between your shoulder and neck

anytime you tried to leave him, whether it was because he had to do something or you had to, he would whine. so. fucking. much.

It would probably always go something like:

you - i need to piss

wilbur - no <3

but the moment he decides its time to stop cuddling its fine

and if you complain that you’re gonna miss him he’ll just call you clingy and tease you

like??? sir???

all in good fun though, no bad intentions :)

nihachu:

i feel like you and niki would face each other

with your head like under her chin and in her chest (this is a bad description but look at the “honeymoon hug” on the list for better explanation ;-;)

she would always want to protect you

so she does that by like almost guarding you and keeping you close

niki would definitely do the arm thing where she just lightly moves her hand up and down you arm

i’m so sorry if you don't understand that, it just feels like something she would do

if you haven't experienced that it kinda sorta feels like spiders??? but in a good way???

but generally she is very protective

she just holds you so close the whole time

even if she doesn’t want to let you go, she’s more understanding about it

she would be upset but wouldn’t show it because she doesn’t want to make you feel guilty

niki is generally just an amazing cuddle-r (is that a word?) and has a super comforting presence

karljacobs:

karl would definitely keep your head on his chest

the whole time he would just absolutely squeeze the life out of you

he would constantly bend his neck down to kiss your head

and instead of just like leaving his head down so he could kiss you it would just be:

*inner monologue karl* hmmm i wanna kiss them on their head

and he would lean down to do so which, cute

but then five seconds later he would do it again

and again another five seconds later

and again

very cute karl but please sir, your neck is gonna be so messed up after this

when you had to leave he would be upset, but like niki, would try not to show it

except karl is very bad at that and his pouting would be so obvious

so you would feel guilty and layback down with him

immediately he just becomes (●´ω｀●)

like a happy little puppy

karl is just too adorable for you to deny

quackity:

now we all know this, quackity is a huge dork

which is why i believe he would DEFINITELY use your butt as a pillow

not even in a weird way

i just feel like quackity isn’t too comfortable with touch so this is sorta his way of being close to you without it being a whole serious thing

like he still is able to be goofy and comfortable without it being a whole big thing

him doing this would almost always come with a flatty patty joke from you

which always causes him to threaten divorce, even though you aren’t married

while it isn’t a very good position for things like physical touch, it is good for talking and having conversations

for some reason i feel like he’s the type of person to text someone when they’re right next to each other

so while he’s laying down he’ll just send you random photos of himself

very annoying when your phone is spammed, but also good blackmail material >:)

i don’t think he’d be too clingy

obviously, he enjoys spending time with you

but if you told him you need to go do work or something he wouldn’t throw a fit or pout

big q just seems like he’d be more rational about stuff like that

overall a 420/69 cuddle partner

dream:

one word: spooning

mans just envelops you and has no shame

very big: “no you are mine! >:(“ energy

while he’s sleeping he’ll unconsciously nuzzle his head into your hair/the back of your neck

when you guys got to bed patches usually climbs in and you hold her

i love patches so much i could write headcanons just about her

dream always wants to be cuddling you

if you try to leave he won’t pout, there simply isn't a discussion on whether you’re moving or not

incase you haven’t caught on yet, the answer is no

you need to do work? just bring the laptop to bed

he needs to edit? just sit in his lap at his desk, duh

obviously, he knows at some point you guys need to stop cuddling

he just isn’t too stoked about it

when it comes time where he absolutely can’t cuddle with you, i feel like he’d be more chill

mainly just annoyed

georgenotfound:

i feel like george, like quackity, also wouldn’t be too touchy

i’m pretty sure he has a hard time expressing emotions (please correct me if i’m wrong!!) and i think that would crossover to his sleeping habits

i think he would prefer a sort of back-to-back cuddling position

it seems cold, i know

but also he would most definitely kick at you

so every night while trying to go to sleep suddenly you would just feel *kick*

and then instead of sleep you’re suddenly playing footsie

lots of laughter and warm feelings involved

george would probably pretend that you kicked his leg hard or something and act like you hurt him

the first few times you were actually worried

but then after a few months your only response was a sarcastic “cry about it”

which just led to more laughter

sapnap:

sapnap and you would do a sort of leg hug thing

you both you try to go to sleep in a cute spooning-type position

but the moment one of you fell asleep it all unraveled

you would wake up apart but you’re legs would still be touching

sapnap would joking blame it on you

“wow can’t believe you don't wanna be close with me even when we’re asleep”

“it’s not my fault! i can’t control where i end up when i sleep!”

“no, no. you don’t have to lie. i see how it is.”

“>:(“

but it's okay!

your legs are the first thing to react in a flight-or-fight situation, so they usually react in an honest way

which is like your legs are both reaching to hold each other!

p!tommyinnit:

i don’t get a very touchy vibe from tommy

i feel like the most he would do is put his arm over your shoulder

not in a flirty way, just in a “hey, there isn’t a lot of space, this will make sitting down more comfortable” way

he will let you sorta fidget with his hand/arm

i don't know if that makes sense but what i mean is that he’ll pretty much let his arm go *flop* so you can control it (by like moving it around or playing with his fingers)

in the beginning he would get annoyed

but eventually he would get used to it and wouldn’t really care

it sounds a bit strange but i personally find it very comforting to just have something to fidget with while watching youtube or netflix in bed with my friends

and it’s entertaining (sometimes i do this to me sister to annoy her :>)

he would act like he didn’t mind if you left him

but holy shit he is so clingy

If you try to leave it’ll just be “no, why??? stay here dumbass”

you would be slightly annoyed when he had to leave  but knew he had to film and stream and all that so you would be okay

p!badboyhalo:

you would kinda sit within bad’s lap

like not on his lap, but more of in between his legs

he would have his arms around you

and his phone would be in front of you so you two could scroll through twt or instagram together

or you guys could watch skeppy’s youtube ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

rat would sit in your lap

she’s just;;;;;;;; so adorable

rat is just so soft and fuzzy in your lap and everytime you move to pet her she just melts

rat is the the superior cuddle buddy to any of these block people

p!skeppy:

skeppy, similar to quackity, is a total dork

he would make sure you guys were in a position where he could effectively troll you

so if your head was near his lap he would just flick you or some

“dude can you please stop hitting me in the head”

“it turns out i am not actually hitting you in your head because based on the perpendicularity of the bisector multiplied by the photosynthesis of the dividend, it is impossible for me to do so”

“wtf”

lya is so goddamn sick of you guys

she's trying to get him to actually do something but instead he’s just sitting there throwing paper airplanes at you while you sleep

he’s an annoying asshole but it's okay because he gives you money for absurd reasons

p!eret:

eret has such a comfortable presence

i feel like she wouldn’t be up for cuddling too much

more of like putting your head on a friends shoulder so you can see the tweet their showing you

but they do like to hold hands

holding hands isn’t very intimate but it's also just such a sweet comforting thing

she even holds your hand when you guys are out walking around

like if you guys were getting food somewhere (post-covid of course)

you most likely would get addressed as a couple

and he would just be like”...wut?”

it’s happened so many times at this point you just go along with it

“you guys look like such a cute couple!”

“oh we aren't-” “thank you!”

can you tell that i love eret?

p!philza:

phil always has such dad vibes

i feel like the closest he would get to cuddling is hugs and hand holding

even though cuddling isn’t inherently romantic, he is married to kristen

so i fell he would get most of his touch in with her

but with you he’s just so fatherly

hello dadza

whether you have a good or bad relationship with your father, everyone can admit that philza minecraft is dadza

this is such a dad thing, but tries to hold you hand when you cross the street

no matter the age, he just feels the need to protect you

hugs are similar

uses hugs as a way to comfort you and protect you

just so amazing all around

p!tubbo:

tubbo would love cuddling in any way, shape, or form

if you guys are hanging out at like the park or something and lying down

get ready to become this mans pillow

this is really fun to do with your friends but imagine you guys are hanging out in a field type area (with my friends we hand out in the field next to the cemetery but it can be any open grass area)

tubbo would just use your lap as a pillow the whole time

and when you guys were walking back to his house he would sorta drape his arms over your shoulders (assuming he’s taller than you)

he would do the same thing when you guys were sitting in chairs or at a desk

just drapes his arms over your shoulder with his chin on your head

if it's really late and he's tired he’ll just hug you

p!ranboo:

if you thought tubbo is bad, ranboo is even worse

not even really cuddling, he just likes having a sort of skin-to-skin contact

so handholding and laying on top of eachother

if he’s streaming he will legitimately message ou to just sit next to him

so sometimes if he’s just chilling by himself on the smp you’ll end up on his streams

he’ll have you next to him just because he likes be near someone

and so randomly it’ll just be like “chat, a real human is here, behave”

chat does not behave

(they heavily bully him)

he’s pretty clingy but when you HAVE to leave he’ll understand and just be a bit bummed out

holy shit this took me so long-

if you read this whole thing thank you!

[kageyuji]

asking him how to confess to your crush (him)

⤷ oikawa, suna, bokuto, iwaizumi ; [gn!reader]

TAGS: fluff/crack if you squint, confessions

NOTES: please reblog or i’ll cry

━━ OIKAWA

you can’t miss the momentary look of sadness, but he quickly hides it with a cocky smile

he tells you the cheesiest possible way to confess to someone. he doesn’t even know if it’ll work on not

(he actually hopes it doesn’t, but he can’t just be an asshole and tell you something that clearly won’t work)

but once he realizes that he is the person you like, his mind jumps to several different places all at once

he’s happy but also he can’t properly form words, please bear with him </3

“Oikawa?”

He hummed a response to you, ghost of a smile on his lips. He always liked the way you said his name, even if it was just his family name.

“I have a favor... so there’s this guy that I like, and I wasn’t sure how to tell him. Do you think you could give me ideas?”

You don’t miss the pout on his lips, the way his eyebrows furrow, the hurt in his eyes. If one were to blink, they wouldn’t have missed it. He smiled and laughed, quickly trying to hide how much his heart ached.

People — in reality, only makki and mattsun — had asked you if you had feelings for someone. But you never gave them an answer, just a flustered smile and a shrug.

“Uhm... I don’t know, depends on the person. You can get a bouquet or something, and chocolates maybe?”

A smile lit up your face. He had looked so pained to say it; his nose was wrinkled up a little, one hand at the back of his neck, eyes looking anywhere but you.

“Oh, yeah! That sounds sweet, he might like that. Should I ask him what his favorite flowers are?”

“Yeah.” His heart sunk impossibly lower.

“Got it. So, what are your favorite flowers?”

He looked up from where he’d taken a sudden interest in the floor, looking around for someone else. But no one seemed to be engaging in a conversation with you — actually, he realized it was only you and him in the room.

“No, I meant ask this guy that you like.”

“I just did.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, eyes wide and lips parted. There’s something in his eyes that you can’t quite read. Shock, or was in confusion? There was also an undertone of hurt, like he couldn’t tell if this was some sick joke or not.

“You mean... me? I’m the- you have feelings for me?”

Your heart fell then — of course you’d been nervous to tell him. But with the constant flirting, you were beginning to think that maybe it wasn’t just harmless and playful anymore. That maybe even if it was still done playfully, there was truth behind those words, behind the smiles and the winks he sent you.

“If you don’t feel the same way, it’s fine, I just-”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was just a little surprised is all. I feel the same way, and you’re great, really, I just figured I wasn’t your type.”

“But you are.” You said, heating rising in your cheeks. Nothing could mask the smile he wore, even if he was trying not fight it.

“And you are my type. Guess we’re both lucky, hm?”

━━ SUNA

he is determined not to let you notice how his heart stopped in his chest

he still holds the same disinterested, bored look on his face as always, although he’s unaware you could see right through him

refuses to give you advice on how to go about confessing

in fact, the last thing he wants to do is be around you — he knows you were never his, so he can’t be upset, but it still turns his stomach

tell him before he can find an excuse to leave, or else your confession will be a lot more painstaking due to him dodging any interaction with you

“So uh... if you were to confess to someone you like, how do you think you would do it?” Your voice sounded so sweet, so genuine.

“Why? You have a little crush on somethin’?” He laughed.

“Yeah, actually.”

Oh.

You don’t miss the way his nose scrunches and the look in his eyes. He’s looking at the floor with narrowed eyes, almost as though the floor was the cause of his jealousy.

Well, not his jealousy — he wasn’t jealous, was he?

“Hm,” He hums, and you find him putting back on the same incurious face that he always wore. “I don’t know, elaborate confessions are pointless. Just tell the person how you feel. If they really like you, they won’t turn you aware for being simple.”

“Ah, that’s true.” You smile, though it’s fueled with nervousness. “So, one more thing I gotta say then.”

“Make it quick, I’ve to be somewhere soon.” Suna hates the bitter taste in his mouth.

He knows he shouldn’t care, after all he’s never worked up the courage to spill his heart to you, so he doesn’t have a right to feel like something is being torn — no, stolen — away from him.

“Right. You said simple, so... I like you, and I think you’re really sweet. And you’re funny and you’re so caring, even though you would never admit that. Um, I hope that was boiled down enough for you.”

“You’re kidding right?”

The tone in his voice is almost accusatory, although he doesn’t mean it to be, he just genuinely doesn’t believe you. When had you ever shown interest in him? Not that he was complaining.

“No. But it’s fine if you d-”

“I never said that. If you mean it though, maybe you can tell me the longer version of everything you like about me. Over coffee or something?”

━━ BOKUTO

ok first off, let me stop you right there, because baby boy is gonna get so sad :(

there is no hiding the hurt he’s feeling. he’s always expressive, even though he’s trying to hide it

please stop him there because his mood is only going downhill

actually tells you some elaborate, thought out thing that you assumed was from the top of his head

(although in reality, he’s thought about telling you how he feels on countless times)

but when he realizes that you’re talking about him he instantly does a 180, he looks like he’s in heaven

“Bokuto!” You call his name with a smile. You’ve found you can always get a matching one from him whenever you do so.

And of course he smiles back at you, the same excited look in his eyes as always. “Y/n!”

“I need advice.” You say.

His expression drops into one of worry at your tone. If there was anything that Bokuto hated in this world, it was seeing you upset.

“What is it?”

“I need to know how to tell someone that I have feelings for them.”

And just like that, you can see his heart break through his expression. His eyebrows pin up and he presses his lips into a thin line. You can tell that he’s trying not to show you how bothered he was by that one sentence.

He always was bad at pretending he was fine though. It was clear, if nothing else you could see his watery eyes.

“Oh... uhm. Can I ask who the person is?”

You’re hesitant to say it. But you don’t know why, because his reaction was your final bit of proof that he had feelings for you too. He hadn’t been subtle before, but now it was obvious.

“You.”

“What?” Bokuto said, although the word was breathless.

He doesn’t wait for you to respond to him. Instead, the wide smile he always wore appeared back on his face and he wrapped his arms around you.

Usually, Bokuto’s hugs are tight anyway. They’re filled with a need to be close to you and a need to convey the emotion of ‘you are the only thing grounding me right now��.

But this one was tighter. He buried his face into your neck, but you could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “I may have to confess to someone too.”

━━ IWAIZUMI

iwaizumi is a gentleman about it, as much as he doesn’t want to be

if anything, he wants to tell you right then and there about his feelings

but the fact (or rather, the thought) that you’ve taken an interest in someone else is all the evidence he needs to stop himself

the last thing he wants to do it mess with your emotions so he intends to stuff he feelings down to deepest parts of his mind in hopes that they’ll one day disappear

until of course, he realizes that he is the guy you’d been talking about

he gets giddy, believe it or not. he hates to admit it sometimes, but unbeknownst to you, you have so much control over his emotions

“So, Iwa?” You said, and he tried to overlook the cautious tone to your voice.

“Hm?”

“Uh, theres this guy that I kind of have feelings for. But the thing is, I don’t know how to tell him.” You sound nervous.

Iwaizumi assumes it’s from the thought of having to tell this person your feelings, yet he doesn’t realize that said person is him and it’s coming sooner than he’d realized.

He doesn’t say anything in response to you at first. His eyes narrow only slightly, then he takes a deep breath and turns back to you with his usual expression.

“If you’re going to tell them, do something sweet and simple. If you get all extravagant with it, it might freak ‘em out. Maybe... I dunno, buy a little gift and tell them?

He hid it well. The mix of jealousy, regret, and sadness in him was painful, but he clenched his fists and tried not to let his voice crack. If there was someone you knew that didn’t cry, it was Iwaizumi. Yet here he was, doing everything in his power not show how upset he was.

What was he even doing anyway? He was helping you find a lover that was not himself. Not that you even knew that, because in reality he’d never shown to you that he had feelings towards you.

That was something he was regretting a lot now.

“Oh I see, what kind of gift would you like?”

Ouch. As though this couldn’t hurt more. “I don’t know, depends on the person. Ask him, not me.”

“I just did, dummy.”

It took him a few seconds to process that, then another few seconds for the relief and happiness to wash over him. A smile rugged at the corner of his lips.

“That’s cute. You and I can go out somewhere this weekend and I can help you pick something out, hm?”

[ghcstvalleychief]

@adeliyaka

Both Kinn and Vegas have the shared experience of having an abusive dad. They both do, although Korn’s abuse is way more psychological and subtle than Gun’s method of abuse. Both of these men have had considerable power and dominance over their sons. Even though Korn isn’t going around hitting Kinn or his other sons, it doesn’t mean that he’s not abusing them in his own way. The reason Korn was able to control Kinn all this time when it comes to the things he’s done in his father’s name is because of the psychological conditioning that had been taking place for years at this point. There have been countless times where Kinn has said in the show that he’s done things because Korn told him to. A lot of what Kinn did throughout the series was on Korn’s command and word. Kinn punishing Porsche in episode 5? Korn. Kinn ensuring that Porsche had no choice but to take the job as his bodyguard? Korn. I think it’s less about what Kinn needs to learn and more about the undoing of the years of psychological torture and abuse. Vegas isn’t emotionally stable at all, but he gets it honestly because his father was pretty emotionally volatile too. He could possibly become a better leader eventually, but there’s a lot he needs to learn because most of his conditioning was so he would beat Kinn at all costs. Vegas’s conditioning and training at his father’s hand wasn’t centered around being a good leader but on competing with Kinn and the major family. The tools necessary to lead the family/underworld isn’t something Vegas has at this point, unfortunately.

@carlamptt​

What I think makes Kinn a good leader is his ability to think on his feet. Kinn has the ability to remove emotion from a situation and think rationally enough to make a logical choice. Kinn has a pretty good poker face too. While in these meetings with various leaders in the underworld, Kinn is as cool as a cucumber and it’s difficult for the other leaders and possibly enemies to determine what he’s thinking so they don’t have an obvious weakness to exploit. Even in the first episode, the guy that mentioned Kinn’s sexuality wasn’t able to get Kinn to react or respond to him when he asked if he still liked men. He even asked about it in a vulgar way, but Kinn didn’t respond in the way the other guy was probably expecting.

Despite all of that, the thing I think would hurt him in the long run is that Kinn doesn’t seem too sure about some of his decisions sometimes. Yes, he’s fairly capable at making certain calls but it appears as if he’s not truly confident in his decision-making at times. He’s flying blind a lot of times, but that’s due to him not truly embodying the traits people assume are more befitting of a mafia leader. Kinn’s natural state of being is too soft and tender-hearted, so I think he has a difficult time turning that off. Even when Big died, Kinn took it to heart and he blamed himself because he felt like his lack of effectiveness as a leader is what caused Big’s death. Kinn’s weakness is other people. He cares too much. He shoulders the burden of other people and he’s far too concerned with saving everyone, even though it’s almost impossible to do so in this line of work. His bodyguards are there to protect and shield him, but Kinn doesn’t quite accept that. Think about his response to Pol getting shot in the shootout in the final episode. Kinn willingly enters a room before his bodyguards and we’ve seen him do that countless times, which tells me he doesn’t care if he dies as long as everyone else lives. While it’s a good thing that he genuinely cares about his people and it will ensure they stay loyal to him until their untimely demise, Kinn is far too self-sacrificing. You can’t lead your people if you’re dead.

[phoenixyfriend]

Jangobi 5 for the soulmate thing? Because that would make the fight on kamino just *chef's kiss*

soulmate au prompts

5. the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you touch them.

Apparently there’s never any skin to skin contact in the movie? Because armor? So......... we’re gonna just. Quick little thing.

Also I’ve been doing a lot of “marginally less shitty” Jango, but this is just-as-shitty-as-canon Jango. It’s, uh, not much of a romance, because Kamino. Actually it’s mostly just a lot of angry yelling about human rights violations.

...I’m sure they’ll get together eventually. It’s just, you know... it’s going to take a while.

------

Jango’s heard about this Jedi.

The man isn’t famous, or particularly acclaimed. It’s just that Mandalorians gossip, and Death Watch isn’t exempt, and Dred Priest still has friends in the terrorist group. So do a few others.

(Jango sometimes wonders if he’d have invited Priest, had he knows the monster was only a step away from being Death Watch himself.)

(Probably not.)

(He’d at least have been able to see the battle circles coming.)

Death Watch hates one specific Jedi above all others: Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It’s almost enough to make a man like the pretty bastard, except the reason Death Watch hates this specific Jedi is because he kept Duchess Kryze alive, and Jango isn’t much of a fan of hers, either.

In the moment, though, the main thing this all means is that Obi-Wan Kenobi knows Mandalorian customs.

First meetings, out of armor, mean ensuring the arm clasp has skin contact.

His eyes flick down to where Jango is reflexively pulling up his sleeves, and the man just... does the same, sodden as the beige-on-brown-on-dark-brown robes are.

Jango can’t just play it off. He has to, ugh, arm clasp with a Jedi.

Kenobi probably guesses how unpleasant this is for him, going by the grim little smile that he wears, the one Taun We can’t read and Jango can, but they touch forearms and le--

They do not let go.

“Oh kriff,” Kenobi swears, and then it’s just... it’s too late. It’s too late to stop anything.

“Jetii,” Jango spits as if it’s a swear.

He doesn’t want to be soulmates with a Jedi. No sane person ever wants to be soulmates with a Jedi, but as a Mandalorian, and as specifically Jango Fett, who signed onto this project for revenge against Jedi, the idea is just... excruciating.

“For revenge? Not entirely unexpected, but I’m still somehow disappointed.”

“Stay out of my head.”

Kenobi smiles at him, completely devoid of anything but the blackest of humor. “Are you staying out of mine?”

And, well, no. They’re soulmates. Kenobi has more of an idea on how to control how far his mind wanders into Jango’s, but in this moment, just seconds after being bound together by the universe... Jango’s slamming into Kenobi’s shields with an embarrassing lack of control.

“Is something the matter?” Taun We asks.

“I do believe we need to speak alone,” Kenobi says. “Unfortunate timing, but this is our first meeting, and it appears we are soulmates.”

“Ah. We were informed of the human tendency towards such.” She blinks, too large eyes impossible to read for Kenobi, but entirely readable for Jango after all these years. She’s irritated. “I apologize, but it appears we were unable to remove such unpredictability from the product.”

A wave of revulsion leaks out of Kenobi’s mind and into Jango’s. The man just nods. “I understand. As it is, I imagine that the near instantaneous communication on the battlefield will be a boon, if any are bonded to each other or to active soldiers.”

“I defer to your judgement as client, Master Kenobi,” Taun We hums, still irritable. It’s less visible in her face, but... Kenobi can feel it. “I shall leave you to get... acquainted.”

Aaaaaaaand she’s expecting them to sleep together the second she turns her back. The disgust she feels at the thought of such carnal activities is thirdhand to Jango, but he can still feel it, because Kenobi can feel it, because they’re soulmates.

“Oh, do tell me how you really feel,” Kenobi mutters, sweeping past him into the apartment.

Jango wishes he could slam the door as he storms after the Jedi.

“Listen here--”

“Absolutely not,” Kenobi says, with the kind of bland, impersonal smile that Jango’s heard Dred Priest bitch about at least a dozen times. “I need you to answer me this: why are you selling your children into what is clearly slavery?”

“They’re not my children.”

“You choose to be dar’buir, then?” Kenobi clucks a tongue, acting like he can’t even feel Jango’s waves of hate that are just growing by the second. “Shame on you, Mand’alor.”

“I am not the Mand’alor.”

“No. You are demagolka,” Kenobi says, the sweet words of Jango’s first language falling from his lips like poisoned honey. “They are your children, Fett. Your clones, just as human as you.”

“They are little more than droids, Jedi. The Kaminoans--”

Kenobi laughs, sharp and bitter, and it’s enough of a surprise that Jango stops talking. The Jedi strides closer, and it takes everything in him to not step back at what little emotion the Jedi allows through.

“Let me show you,” Kenobi hisses, putting a hand on either side of Jango’s head and it’s too much this is not a sense he is meant to have.

Kenobi cannot lie to Jango, not in this mental space. Not in this existence. He can cherry-pick what he shows, he can exaggerate, he can hide, but he cannot present a falsehood.

What Kenobi shows him, as he pulls Jango into his mind and drowns him in the sensation of the Force, is how each and every clone shines, bright and unique and so very human, so very sentient, so very alive.

These are your children, Kenobi says, directly into his mind and with no room to pull away. If they choose to disown you for your crimes against them, then that is their right, but until they do, they are your responsibility. You’re playing in denial and cognitive dissonance, soulmate mine. If I have to drag you into caring for your children the way any Mandalorian would, then so be it.

“Kriff off,” Jango manages to grit out in the real world. Kenobi looks unimpressed, when he lets go. The sensations in Jango’s mind, the jangled distaste and horror and anger, those are worse.

“Are you going to be dar’manda?” Kenobi demands. “You, who were once king of your people, have you really sunk so low to be the worst of your kind? To be so horrible that even Kyr’tsad would be shamed? Or worse, approve?”

“You have no place--”

“You are violating one of the core tenets of your culture!” Kenobi shouts. “You are being the worst of what you could be, Jango Fett! The most important, the absolute most important element of your culture, the care and nurture of children, and look at what you’ve done--”

“The clones--”

“Your sons!” Kenobi growls at him. “Your children, Fett. I’ve a student that is, by every Mandalorian standard, my son. I know what it is to take in a child that is not yours by blood, to raise a foundling, and you are cutting off millions that are your blood. You aren’t turning away an orphan to another family because you cannot care for them as they deserve, you are breeding your children for war like bantha to slaughter.”

Jango throws the first punch.

Kenobi throws the second.

By the time the fight ends, the room is in ruins, for all that they do not draw blasters or sabers. Kenobi has Jango on his back, straddling his chest with knees on his wrists, a vibroblade to his neck. Kenobi’s lip is bleeding, and Jango thinks he might have caused a hairline fracture in the cheekbone. Both of them have at least one broken rib, and Jango’s currently blind in one eye from the blood pouring out of a cut on his forehead.

Kenobi’s a good fighter. If it weren’t for everything else, Jango might have even been able to appreciate that.

“You,” Kenobi growls, fisting one hand into Jango’s curls and yanking for emphasis, earning himself a snarl in return. “Are going to fix this mess you’ve helped create. If I have to drag the entire Jedi council, the entire senate, if I have to drag in all of Mandalore to make you fix this, I will.”

There’s determination in those words, angry and a little spiteful, but mostly just... disappointed.

“Of course I’m disappointed,” Kenobi spits out, like the words are hot coals. He’s expressive. Jango wants to like it, but mostly he just resents the trait. “I hoped to never find a soulmate; it just complicates things. Opsec becomes a nightmare and holding to the code is difficult. And now I have a soulmate, and he’s an absolute monster that views his own children as little more than droids.”

“War is going to come for them no matter what,” Jango manages to say, and Kenobi’s look is back to unimpressed. “Don’t pretend you haven’t heard of the separatists. There’s an army of actual droids, metal and code, just waiting for the right moment to pick a fight. It’s too late to stop it.”

“...you’re not only raising an army of your own children, but engineering the war that’s going to kill them?” Kenobi almost screeches, and the wave of nauseous loathing that slams into Jango is almost enough to make him actually vomit. Kenobi didn’t pull punches, not in the actual fight and not in whatever mental battle they’re apparently having via emotions and words.

“I’m not engineering it,” Jango says. “I’m just one part in a bigger machine. I got my payment. The rest is on Tyranus.”

He doesn’t even stop the images from flickering through his mind, throwing the man who hired him under the speeder.

“Master Dooku?” Kenobi whispers, horror growing. “No, no, I killed the--the Sith can’t--I killed the one on Naboo, and the Council mentioned the Rule of Two, but... oh hells.”

“You know him?” Jango taunts.

“He’s my grandmaster,” Kenobi says, and Jango can’t imagine the rest is meant to reach him, but the undercurrent is there.

Count Dooku is, by Mandalorian law, Kenobi’s grandfather.

Jango... suddenly feels a little regret about the taunting.

“I’d rather you feel regret about your children,” Kenobi snaps at him. “Every single one of them is a person, one that you chose to bring into this world, and they are your children.”

The argument is going in circles, but there are still places to take this.

“Your army is all adults, Kenobi,” Jango decides.

“They are ten years old,” Kenobi retorts. “Accelerated aging, sure, but they are children.”

“They’re soldiers.”

Disgust again, the same thing Kenobi has felt every time Jango has reasserted the purpose these children were born to, the same thing Jango has told his son, his sergeants, himself, for over a decade.

“A son?” Kenobi whispers. “Is your denial that strong, Fett? That you would claim one and not the rest?”

“Payment,” Jango says, and lets Kenobi feel the rest, since he seems so karking keen on it.

“Keeping one child in exchange for letting yourself be the creator of a slave army,” Kenobi says, and he doesn’t seem impressed. “Weren’t you a slave? Two years on a spice ship, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t you dare--”

“And you would put your sons in chains,” Kenobi hisses, hands going for Jango’s head again. It’s a sense memory, this time, of dark tunnels and exploding collars and a dar’jetii that... was his older brother. According to the Jedi way of thinking.

It’s a twisting fear and pain and I will die so that others may live while looking at an older man, a Master, who can maybe save the other slaves at the expense of one too-angry Initiate’s li--

“Get out of my head!” Jango roars, and he still can’t move his arms, and his legs are held down by the Force, but he twists his head to bite and Kenobi snatches his hands away.

Kenobi glares down at him, almost sneering with the amount of disdain he has for Jango’s general existence. “I’m your soulmate, and had we met fifteen years ago, I might have even thought that an alright thing... but whatever you are now isn’t something I can abide by. You won’t listen to morality, so let me say this instead: a Jedi does not kill an unarmed opponent, but I have full authority to arrest you, even here. I will take you back to the Republic, to be tried for your collusion with a Sith, and you will go to prison. You can try to run, but I am in your head, and you’re in mine. Once you’re in prison, what happens to your son?”

The implication is there, but even if it wasn’t, Jango hears the thought:

They’re soulmates. The Republic would place Boba with Kenobi.

He refuses to have his child raised by a holier-than-thou Jedi.

“Holiness doesn’t have any meaning in Jedi philosophy,” Kenobi says, relaxing just the slightest bit. “Other religions, yes, but no place in ours.”

“You’re a self-righteous bastard,” Jango says flatly. “Despite threatening a child.”

“You mean threatening to take custody of a child being raised in an unhealthy environment, one where he’s being taught to devalue his brothers, engendering a mental dissonance where he has to convince himself he’s special for a reason and that you won’t just drop him if he fails to be perfect?” Kenobi asks. “I prefer to keep children with guardians who love them, but the argument that he’s better off away from you isn’t a difficult one.”

“Oh, like a child-stealer--”

“My mother tried to drown me when I was a toddler,” Kenobi says, even flatter than Jango had been a minute earlier. “Because I was Force-Sensitive, and it was considered curse on my home planet. A Jedi saved me. Tell me that was a kidnapping and not being saved.”

Jango grinds his teeth. “You’re damned smug whenever you have some sob story that outranks mine.”

“This isn’t about who has the bigger sob story,” Kenobi says, and Jango can feel how he’s just as ready to start clenching his jaw to deal with Jango’s bullshit. “It’s about you doing your damned job as a Mandalorian and a father, and taking responsibility for your children. All three million of them.”

It really, really is a pity they didn’t meet before Jango took this job. They could have been great together.

As it is, Jango goes for the groin shot the second Kenobi lets him back on his feet.

[sun-pluto]

Moon-Saturn aspects

This took me such a long time to even think about LOL so this will be a bit of explaining the aspect, and a little bit of recounting my experience with these aspects. I have my Moon conjunct Saturn in a tight orb (2°) in the 8th house as well as a Cap IC, and well firstly, because Saturn does what it does, things do not start out pretty. A lot of people I know with Moon-Saturn aspects have had to grow up and support their family REALLY fast, or at least mature and take on an ‘older sibling’ role when they were very young. Even Moon sextile/trine Saturn has had to, which is something I find really interesting because it’s considered a less harsh aspect. Then again, Saturn brings lessons to anything it touches, and it makes us wiser and more experienced with our emotions, feelings of comfort and home, etc. The people I know with softer aspects between Moon and Saturn are actually much better at absorbing and comprehending lessons from Saturn, almost like seeing these lessons as something that could potentially uplift them right from the start. They’re also usually quick to grasp experiences in life that they turn into lessons to help themselves and others. Usually seen as wise and experienced people by their peers or even people older than them/authority figures, especially when it comes to sorting out their feelings.

But when it comes to Moon square/opposite/conjunct Saturn, that’s usually when we hit a roadblock. Regarding my Moon conj. Saturn, how I felt and emoted and what I expressed (or lack thereof) was never considered important to me in the past, or what my family considered important for that matter. I’ve realised while growing up that I have compartmentalised so much just to get a job done, do well in every aspect (as much as possible), to stay quiet and not ask for help. I have grown so used to denying my own feelings, especially vulnerable emotions like sadness or hurt or inferiority. And when you’re always having a harsh grip on your emotions in fear of vulnerability, you’re also denying yourself softer emotions like contentment, feeling cared for, feeling listened to. You’re in extremely high danger of being misunderstood when you’re silently offering support and taking on burdens without showing how you care and feel. I am so shut down and cold sometimes to cope on my own to the point my own family says I’m the one neglecting them (verbatim). People with harsher Moon aspects to Saturn often experience the extreme sides of Saturn before they start to put their foot down and learn to grow instead of self-sabotage with regards to their own emotions. I am known as the responsible ‘no-nonsense’ one in my family, but also named ‘emotionless’, ‘a stone cold bitch’, ‘untouchable’, ‘a stone doll’, among other things. (My own family has once asked me if I can even love.) I am not any of that, but it took me a very long time to unlearn unhealthy coping mechanisms and be free, to care for myself enough to be vulnerable with others. I am in fact still learning how to find a space where I can fully express what I feel and unpack all the softer emotions I’ve suppressed. I feel this could be different for Moon opposite/square Saturn, where instead of mixing with Saturnian energy (like the conjunct), there is tension instead. These people may constantly feel like they’re fighting an uphill battle, that they’re always rejected/abandoned, and they have had to take their own feelings of comfort and safety into their own hands after many trials and tribulations. They could feel like, well maybe not necessarily the scapegoat, but someone who is always judged and belittled for their needs and wants, and one way or the other they decided to learn on their own and go down their own way, through rebellion and/or trial and error, what was actually good for them, to seek what they want elsewhere, what they actually want and need, and what grants them emotional growth.

People with Moon-Saturn aspects have had to learn how to fight for their own freedom of expression, even if it’s against themselves. How to inhibit themselves less, and to fight for their own comforts and needs, and afterwards retain them. But once they do, they are incredibly powerful. You reap what you sow with Saturn, and when the Moon aspects it, it fills your life with important lessons that lend you a hand to emotional resilience, responsibility, and at the same time, finding what truly comforts and soothes you. I’ve seen a lot of Moon-Saturn aspect natives also retain this certain level of grimness, like they’d bite the bullet if they have to, there’s a quiet resolve to them. You learn to cut away what isn’t necessary, what doesn’t fulfill you, and who does not have a place in your life. You learn to grow your own happiness and emotional growth, what you truly need and seek out what you want, and you have the power and resilience to get there. I’ve had to learn ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead�� is not a good mindset HAHA, pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion and not allowing myself to complain or even feel is self-sabotaging at best and self-destructive at worst, and self-isolating while judging myself for not living up to impossible expectations is just… not conducive at all. Being the ‘rock’ and getting things done for everybody will mean nothing if you can’t even support yourself, when you don’t have a fallback plan or someone to turn to. There’s also a need to learn that what people push onto you, whatever they restricted and controlled about you in the past, you’re capable of breaking free of it if it doesn’t serve you anymore. Self-expression, emotional maturity and your own truth are what grows here if you learn the lessons of Saturn.

[option-monad]

so instead of writin my thesis i am thinking about disco elysium’s stated aim being absolutely impossible and the game trying for it anyway

everyones seen that gif of kurvitz talking about how like. games can sort of represent your (character’s) body in some way or another with a big pile of statistics and having those statistics rise and fall and ultimately constrain your decision making, and trying to replicate that with the way that your (character’s) mind is also a thing to some extent outside their (your) control and this also constrains what you’re allowed to do, right. and the goal (or, one of the goals) of disco elysium is to bring that to the fore, to represent kind of explicitly the gap between intellectual/academic intent and the reality of having an irrational animal brain inside your skull. and this comes up, obviously, most directly in terms of dialog choices -- harry can’t choose when he does or doesn’t freak out any more than he can choose to gain or lose health, and while you can influence the makeup of those mental stats you can’t really remove the fact that they’re a constraint to begin with.

but then the problem that you invariably run into, that has become such a taken-for-granted piece of game design knowledge that it doesn’t even register as a fact any more, is that the player is pretty much invariably going to be within a fairly narrow range of emotional states and those are never going to reflect what harry is going through, and that there’s a physical component to those emotional states that cannot ever be properly relayed. we can, as players, understand “losing hp” as a negative stimulus in that it eventually leads to a game over and should be avoided, but we’re never going to make decisions that actually revolve around avoiding physical pain the way we would in real life. we can approach physical injury from an entirely rational perspective when it isn’t happening to us, but there generally aren’t videogames in which the kind of biological decision-making override associated with being in pain is a factor in the way we approach the game world. and this is baked into how game characters act, because otherwise the gap between what our character is thinking and what we’re thinking becomes too large. horror games are the only genre i can think of which manage to tiptoe around this by combining fear + shock responses to intentionally put the player in an irrational state of mind and bring the player as close to diegetic decision-making as possible, but they manage this through a very specific bag of tricks which aren’t broadly applicable to something like a crpg. if a character’s actions in a crpg became suddenly wildly constrained by stress or pain, the player deals with an entirely different sudden loss of control. actions that are in one setting totally in line with human cognition are, from the player’s perspective, out of line with human cognition, and every time you create a gap like that you remind the player that there’s an artificial interface between them and the game world, and the “immersion” (for lack of a better word), or the player’s positioning of themselves as an actor within the game world, disappears. they may understand the character’s position, but they stop “being” the character and start “commanding” the character (and the being/commanding distinction is on its own a fascinating one in the context of videogames, but story-driven ones largely prioritise being).

but then you encounter disco elysium, where there are plenty of times when harry is just going to lose his shit at stimuli that just don’t arouse the same response in an observer, and you get the same sudden disconnect. and that exact moment is i think where disco elysium drops the ball sometimes, specifically when it offers you the “all these dialog options are insane” dialog option. because it strips away the ability to role play as harry losing his gourd, since harry’s gourd is still intact enough for him as an entity separate from you, him as the entity that cobbles together the list of things he can try to say and you as the thing that clicks them, to recognise how weird this is. and that’s not how my brain works in situations of extreme stress at all, i freak out and decide to pick a dumb thing from my list of dumb things long, long before i look back at that action and think “wait, this is silly”. but in the moment where harry is about to say something dumb, i’m thinking “oh no, that is silly”. so it’s almost as though they’re trying to close that gap a little, but they’re mostly just... pointing it out.

and the thing is, the notion of harry as “you” is reinforced constantly. everything from the perspective to the second-person narration to the marketing materials puts you squarely in the “being” end of the being/controlling spectrum. this is pretty much par for the course in crpgs, because they’re based on the tabletop roleplaying tradition in which the player/character gap is often negligible, and that’s part of why crpg (and, generally, fantasy) characters don’t act remotely like human beings. but then disco elysium is also deeply humanist, or naturalist, or however you want to say that everyone in it acts like a human. and it tries very, very hard to get across this gameplay idea in which harry is a flawed human, and you are also a flawed human, and you’re very similar... but it tries to bring harry to you instead of bringing you to harry. which is an understandable choice, because bringing you to harry is basically impossible, but going in the other direction creates this very strange experience at times.

[funkymbtifiction]

Enneagram Centers

Sometimes if you're not sure of your core type, you need to consider the "centers" in order to figure out where your focus lies. (And... don't allow yourself to tritype yourself until you're 100% positive of your core. It will explain most of your behavior and coping mechanisms, so tritype isn't an excuse to mistype.)

Centers... there are three. Each one makes decisions differently and focuses on different things. Sometimes you can narrow down your type to the center, and from there, decide which of the three fits you best.

Centers: heart, head, gut.

They are exactly the way they sound.

Heart types make decisions from an emotional place, because their focus is on earning love. How are you seeing me? What image am I presenting to you? What do I want you to see? They are all about a conscious crafting of "self" in comparison to others. Others can see them as emotional, as needing approval, or as making decisions based on what others think of them. It's an image center. How do I feel about this? What does it lead me to do? (2 - find love, earn love. 3 - impress to earn approval. 4 - too broken for love, separate, must show my uniqueness to get love.)

Head types make decisions from a rational place, because their focus is on being secure. They think, think, think. Over-think. Analyze. Observe. Gotta think about that. Need time to mull it over. Their energy is all in their head. Nervous energy. Active energy. Thoughts. What I think, not what I feel. Buzzing. Busy mind. Converting everything to thinking about it. Distrusts their emotions. Emotions lead you wrong. Must be rational! (5 - detach, observe, don't participate. 6 - too many thoughts, unsure, find something to trust, hold onto it. 7 - stay busy to avoid anxiety, lots of thoughts, run with them all, don't want to feel stuck.)

Gut types make decisions from an instinctual place, through body energy. How things "hit" me. What I "sense" is right. How the world slams up against me, and the barriers I build against it. Putting up boundaries to protect myself. Are these boundaries stable? Knowing what to do. Or not knowing. I just know. It's an obvious choice. This is where I'm being lead. (1 - set firm boundaries, I know what's right and wrong. 8 - be a wall others slam into, expand to maintain control, things anger me and make me push back. 9 - the world seems to be taking me over, it's easy just to go along with it, pretend to agree and then do my own thing, avoid conflict.)

Another thing, which goes for mistyping in MBTI as well -- lots of people think they are X so they "act like X" -- but acting is pretending; it's not real. A fix or a core or a type is real when there's no acting involved; it's just what you naturally do, the air you breathe. For a 2 fixer, pretending to be separate, and broken, and craft an identity as a 4... that is hard work, tiring. For a 6 to pretend to be a 9, and stay calm, and not be full of thoughts and over-thinking, is impossible. It's draining. People start acting THE BEHAVIOR instead of looking deep into their motivations. "Oh, I will act like a 7!" You can't act like a 7 and be convincing, a 7 generates those behaviors through their thinking process. Identifiable behaviors are the result of mental energy. Heart processes are the result of emotional energy. And gut responses are instinctual, immediate, no thinking necessary, my body is reacting, sometimes before I can even think about it. ("I felt sick through my body before I even knew what was happening...")

Social variants are much the same, in that your dominant trait is where your attention goes immediately when you are asked a question or forced to come up with a conversation on the spot. It's rapid. Your dominant instinct absorbs most of your thoughts and focus and concern, even if you aren't aware of it.

Like the typing video I linked to the other day -- when asked questions, Megan Fox drew attention to sexual topics and encounters, because she views her past in an sx-dom way; she remembers school by the first boy she French kissed. When she wanted to interrupt her interviewer and pull him off a "boring topic," her brain said: admit you have a crush on him in a "there are only three guys I'd do" way. Again, sx. Her photos -- sx displays. Provocative clothing intended to elicit an sx reaction from others.

With variants, give yourself time and space to discover it. Your variant is probably more obvious to other people than yourself, because they see it's where your mind goes. You can't think your way through this, head types ;), you have to get an instinctual sense of things through comparisons. Think about the variants on their own, what they are about, what their focus is on, and then put them into the context of your core type and what that means.

If it's sp, look for sp's in the world around you. What's their focus on? Sp concerns. What does that mean? They focus on... my body, how I feel, what I can do, can my body withstand this? What's this look like? The guy you know who is an exercise master. The person neurotic about their health. The 2 who focuses on "health and home." (What does that look like? Well, he checks my tires, changes the oil, etc, for me without being asked! Mom makes lunches for us all, packs them, has them waiting by the door, and makes sure to take care of us at home!)

Socials? Inspiring others. Being the go-to person. Sharing what they know in a friendly manner. Focus on community, on inspiring, on being socially appropriate, on noticing when others AREN'T playing by the rules. What's that look like in person? The 1 who sets a moral example through their behavior and frowns on misbehavior. The 3 who wants to impress you with their inspirational journey. (Not their stuff, stuff is sp. Admire my new car? Sp 3!) The 5 who loves to share their expertise about ancient Egypt (their one thing). The likable 2 who runs a YouTube channel about "how to..."

Sexuals? Focus on sex. Heat. Attraction. Scent. Impact. Provocation. Am I turning you on or off? I want to find out, that's why I do it. People are either drawn to me or hate me. That's fine. Attracting them all isn't interesting to me. What's that look like in number terms? The sexy 2 who only "helps" their special person. The 6 who is protective of their mate, while also being anxious and suspicious and fearful of being left OR who goes to an extreme to become attractive in an expected way (the hot girl next door, the man who can protect you, the sensitive man, the tough girl). The 9 who molds themselves into another person and disappears into them (Bella).

It's an area of over-focus, neuroticism, a need you have to fill, whereas your second fix isn't that important. It's how you play, dabble, the stakes aren't as high, and your focus doesn't always go there first. I want this, don't always chase it. (Sx? Intense heat comes after social awareness or self-protection. Soc? Socially aware, but being an influencer comes after sx drive or "my health and home." Sp? Survival comes after public influence or awareness or sx pursuits.)

Being "blind" means... I rarely focus on this. It's not on my radar. Sp blind? Safety?? Survival? Eh, it'll all work out fine. :) Sx blind? Throwing myself recklessly after intense attraction, thirst traps, being super provocative, seems tasteless and risky. Soc-blind? Oblivious to how that statement made you feel about me, or judge me, unaware of how I dress or act being inappropriate to a situation.

[scripttorture]

You mention in posts how torture doesn’t make people obedient and usually makes them spiteful (which obviously makes sense), but isn’t it realistic for someone to comply out of fear rather than loyalty? Whether that was giving up information or obeying orders or something else entirely. I imagine it depends on the person, and they would probably still be willing to turn on their torturers if given the chance, but would it be possible for them to obey orders in hopes of avoiding more pain?

This is a much more nuanced and complicated topic then we’re taught to assume.

 When it comes to giving up information it’s pretty clear cut. No, torture can’t lead to accurate information for a lot of interconnected reasons. I have about six separate masterposts covering the reasons for this.

 One of those is the antagonism torture produces. Another is the memory problems torture causes. Another is the effect that the use of torture has on organisations and the chain of command. Another is the effect torture has on torturers.

 Torture drastically increases the chances of memory loss and it also increases the chances of inaccurate memories. So not only is a torture victim less likely to talk, they’re more likely to be wrong if they do talk.

 But the effects on victims aren’t the main reason torture doesn’t work as a way of getting information. You’re assuming that torturers have access to people who have information.

 The reality is that torture destroys an organisation’s ability to gather accurate information. Most information comes from volunteers: when torture comes into play less people volunteer information. This means that an organisation which tortures is more likely to be questioning someone who knows nothing. That person is then abused until they start making things up.

 Because there’s less access to volunteered information and because humans are very bad at telling when someone is lying, a lot of these made up stories are believed. And this then effects who else the organisation arrests and tortures. This creates a sort of spiral, with lies leading to more lies.

 Additionally the torturers themselves make things worse. There’s less quality research on them, but the research and anecdotal accounts create a pretty clear picture of their behaviour. They undermine the chain of command, they lose the skills the originally had as they turn to torture, they’re aggressive, incredibly competitive and they have a… fracturing effect on their organisation.

 Basically they’re incredibly difficult to work with and totally convinced of their own importance. And this effects their colleagues. It totally divides organisations. The worst case I’ve read about involved members of the same organisation killing each other over access to prisoners.

 That’s a short run through of the main factors. Torture, in the legally defined sense, means all of these factors are in play. Plus a few more I’ve omitted to keep this shorter.

 With all of that together you just can’t get accurate information.

 If you want longer posts I’ve made on the subject I suggest looking for the ‘torture doesn’t work’ tag and the ‘torture as interrogation’ tag. You can also read the masterposts. If you want a much more in depth look at why torture consistently fails as a way of getting information I recommend O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work and Rejali’s Torture and Democracy.

 O’Mara is a neuroscientist and goes through the effects torture has on the brain in a way that’s accessible, explaining the damage torture causes and how that destroys the evidence torturers claim to be seeking. Rejali’s book is a breeze block but it’s really a must, it is the textbook on torture in a broad sense. He ties together information from across the globe creating a broader picture of what torture does, not just to victims but to societies.

 The question of compliance under threat and pain… is more complicated.

 People can be forced to do some things. That much is obvious from a brief glance at human history and things like slavery. But it’s important to listen to what people in these scenarios say.

 And my opinion, based on what I’ve read, is that what these people say doesn’t support the idea that humans will easily obey instructions when they’re hurt or threatened. I think instead these people are making hard headed, rational choices in absolutely awful situations. I think when we don’t have these experiences of torture or slavery, it’s easy to look at the surface of the situation and assume that pain alone assures obedience. I think that happens because it’s hard for use to understand the rationale when we don’t have that lived experience.

 Let me give some examples. So it probably goes without saying that slavery goes hand in hand with physical abuse. One of the major researchers on slavery, whose data I quote pretty regularly, assumes throughout his writings that pain is the deciding factor which ‘makes’ people obey.

 But he also describes a couple of very obvious consistent patterns in the ways slavers behave. Slavers almost universally do the following things as well as using physical abuse:

Separate enslaved people from their community

Bar enslaved people from other forms of support

Make enslaved people financially/materially reliant on the slavers

Tell enslaved people that going to the police/authorities will lead to the enslaved person being arrested

Try to convince enslaved people that they will be better off if they comply, usually by framing it as a debt to be worked off with promises of riches after a period of time

 Now here’s the thing: we know from studies on cults and studies on ICURE techniques that a lot of these strategies will result in obedience when there is no violence or physical abuse.

 Given that I don’t think we can assume that violence is the deciding factor. In fact I think the evidence we have from forced confessions under torture suggests the violence may lead to less obedience and a lower ‘success’ rate then a set up that used emotional abuse or other exploitative techniques without violence.

 We have two sources of historical data that are used for statistical studies on forced confessions. One is from historical France. We think that this data set only involved torture to force a confession; no other method of coercion just violence. The rate of forced confessions varied a little in different areas but over all it’s about 10%. The second data set is from the ‘London Cage’ a British prison during the second world war. Here we know that torture was combined with blackmail, bribery and other kinds of coercion. The rate of forced confessions there was about 30%.

 And while this is just two studies, while the data is lacking… That is one hell of a jump.

 Let’s circle back to ICURE. ICURE stands for Isolation, Control information, create Uncertainty, Repetition and Emotive responses. It’s a set of techniques which can, sometimes, change someone’s beliefs when it’s applied consistently over a long time.

 Notice the effort slavers put in to isolating their victims. Notice that the behaviour pattern I’m describing means the slavers are creating uncertainty over seeking help and repeating those messages as well as messages that the victims will be better off if they just go along with it.

 Slavers will generally also try to control the information their victims have access to, taking phones and blocking access to news sources and other resources. Now a lot of slavers will transport their victims to other states or countries putting a language barrier in place. They sometimes also use emotive responses in attempts to persuade victims to comply.

 I’ve read multiple accounts where survivors of modern slavery described slavers telling them that the money they were making was being sent to the victim’s family and without it the family would not survive. (Sometimes the slavers do send small amounts to the families of their victims, sometimes they pocket everything.) I’ve also read accounts where gangs of slavers used religion and oaths taken in a religious setting to persuade their victims they’d be punished by God for not complying.

 Even with all of this, all these techniques we know can sometimes ‘work’- lots of people refuse. Lots of people disobey. Lots of people escape. Lots of people actively sabotage the operations the slavers put together.

 And if you look at that same history of slavery, that shows us people can sometimes be forced to work, you’ll see that this has always been true.

 We have records of historic enslaved people attacking slavers, forming organised militias, forming parallel societies, sacking towns, taking over an entire Caribbean island and beating off four European armies in the process. We also have records of smaller acts. Sabotage, worship of banned deities, speaking banned languages, destruction of property, aiding in the escape of others.

 What I’m saying is: this isn’t black and white. The evidence, modern and historical does not paint a clear picture of violence leading to obedience.

 Instead I believe that it shows humans are resilient, stubborn, adaptable creatures. People can survive all kinds of horrible situations. It is more accurate, more human, to assume that people make rational choices.

 Sometimes those choices involve short term compliance while looking for a better option or a way out. But we tend to hear less stories about the people who completely refuse to comply. We tend to treat that as an impossible fiction when it is a recorded historical and modern reality.

 Bringing this back to writing as a general rule the more complicated the act the less likely you can force someone to do it. Because the more complicated it is the more opportunities they’ll have to sabotage it or use it against their abuser.

 I recommend reading up on the history of Haiti pet. Then Brazil via Palmares.

 I’ll end this by bringing it back to those statistics on forced confessions in historical France. Imagine the conditions with me for a moment. Unsanitary, cramped cells. Dehydration, starvation and disease. Plus the kinds of scarring torture that are conjured up in the minds of most Western people when the word ‘torture’ comes up; thumb screws, leg irons that tighten until the bone snaps, whips.

 Picture it. Try to imagine the pain those people went through.

 And remember that 90% of them did not comply long enough to sign their name.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[zuko-always-lies]

i’m sure you’ve talked about this before, but did azula abuse zuko?

No. The Azula-Zuko relationship was extremely toxic, but Azula didn't act in an abusive manner or out of abusive motivations, and in fact it's almost impossible to construct reasoning which supports "Azula abused Zuko" without the same reasoning also supporting "Zuko abused Azula." It's important to consider all of Azula's actions toward Zuko within context:

1. Yes, Book 2 Azula lied to him, manipulated him, used violence against him, etc. None of this is good. But she did this within the context of Zuko being a declared traitor(whose very status made him a massive implicit threat to the throne, and who is traveling with another, even more dangerous traitor) who she's been ordered to hunt down by the Firelord, absolute ruler of her country. To put this in modern terms, it is as if your sibling was an exceptionally dangerous terrorist and it was your responsibility to hunt them down. An awful situation to be in, but you using violence would not make you "abusive." And it's worth noting that Azula doesn't strictly prioritize her mission against Zuko and Iroh, like you would expect she would if she was obsessed with controlling and/or hurting Zuko, but instead prioritizes other objectives for most of the season.

2. Azula gives Zuko a 100% chance genuine chance to regain his status and to prove his loyalty. It's worth noting that this is one of the times that being Azula's sibling works in Zuko's favor, because she would not have done that for anyone else, and no one other than Azula would have given him a second chance.

3. Azula responds to realizing that Zuko might be lying to her and throwing her, the Fire Nation, and their father under the bus by setting it up so that if Zuko was in fact lying, he would suffer the consequences for it, while also giving Zuko an opportunity to fix his mistake. "Abuse" is not a good paradigm to understand this, especially since the safest thing for Azula to do would have been to tell Ozai that she suspected Zuko was lying(but Zuko would not have had good things happen to him then, so you can see why she didn't go down this route).

4. As a result of #2, Azula destroyed the power-imbalance between the siblings and gave Zuko an equal, if not superior, status to her by getting him back in favor with Ozai and by getting the Fire Nation to regard him as a hero(remember, Zuko was seated at Ozai's right hand at the war meeting). There's every indication that, had Ozai chocked to death on a cheery pit, she would have supported Zuko's accession to the throne and loyally supported his regime. Again, these are not the actions of an "abuser."

5. First half of Book 3 Azula was generally kind to Zuko and made a serious effort to look after his emotional wellbeing. She's actively defensive of his status in "The Beach." And yes, she sometimes made fun of him and went too far in this, but that's normal in a sibling relationship.

6. After Zuko betrays her and throws her under the bus, commits massive amounts of treason, and joins up with a group which aims to overthrow the Fire Nation's government and kill Azula's father, yes, Azula treats him as a traitor and enemy of the state. But that's not "abuse," that's just being reasonable at that point. And yes, she's also extremely angry at Zuko in this period, but their relationship is mostly defined by being on opposing sides in a war.

In contrast, Zuko is almost continually motivated by his desire to violently "put Azula in her place" and/or kill her because he can't stand the idea of her being better than him. I need to make a more detailed post about this, but in almost every Zuko-Azula fight scene, Zuko actively pursues or seeks out the fight, or at least has an easy opportunity to retreat, but chooses to fight her because he wants to inflict violence on his sister. However, I wouldn't call this abuse because it's ultimately motivated by Ozai's abuse, and more importantly because it's not clear how far Zuko would go without the context of the war. Still, it's Zuko's personal motivations which drive him to try to hurt Azula contrast a lot with Azula's motivations as discussed above.

And it's not like we can take what happened in #1 out of the sibling relationship, especially since it played such a big role in the relationship being as toxic as it got, but it's important to understand Azula's motivations there.

[sugarstickery]

An Allegory Within the Dark

This is an unofficial fan translation of chapter 3 of Jujutsu Kaisen’s first light novel, Departing Summer and Returning Autumn by Gege Akutami and Ballad Kitaguni.

Summary: Mahito stumbles across an unusual human in his search for a place to call ‘home’.

Featured characters: Primarily Mahito, with brief appearances from Hanami and Jogo, along with an unnamed novel-only character

Timeline: An undefined time prior to the events of the Vs. Mahito arc

An Allegory Within the Dark

If you want to hide a tree, you go to the middle of a forest.

So if you’re looking to hide a person, you should go to the middle of a city.

Following that logic, it makes sense for curses worthy of being the true humans to set up their hideout in the city center.

Cursed spirits would actually have it much easier if they spent their time in places crammed with fear where humans and the like can’t live: deep in the mountains or in densely wooded areas, for example.

But for a group of curses plotting to overturn the current era, a base in the heart of the city is crucial for invasion and seeking refuge. That being the case, it’s also better to try aiming for a location with a high concentration of negativity.

Anyway, that’s how some employees from a scam business ended up massacred.

“This really is the simplest way to handle it. All of them nest together up here away from the public eye, so clean-up is a cinch.”

Jogo laughed while trampling the burning remains of a corpse underfoot.

Roughly two minutes ago, there were about six humans in the office.

The curses considered a few ways to handle dispatching them but ultimately decided that burning was the fastest, so Jogo quickly turned them to ash.

“But humans used this building, didn’t they? Won’t it be a problem if there’s property management or something?” Mahito asked, poking at an ostentatious vase displayed on a shelf.

Apparently the concern was unnecessary. Jogo tried to answer with a grin, but a nonsensical language cut into their conversation.

“⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ⎎⍜⋏⏁ ⟟⌇ ☊⎍⌇⏁⍜⋔”

“Oi, bastard—! Stop talking, Hanami! It makes my head itch!”

Though Hanami spoke in nothing but meaningless sounds, the intention behind it was somehow transmitted directly into the minds of others. This was usually unpleasant and it irritated Jogo.

When he noticed Mahito still looking his way, Jogo continued to explain despite his frustration.

“Hmph... What? There’s no need to worry. I asked Geto what his aim was, and it looks like these were the kind of underhanded humans who got involved in plenty of unethical things.”

“Hm. So basically, other humans won’t actually come close if they get that curse stuff happens here.”

“Exactly. Any respectable, straight-laced human would never come near this place under normal circumstances. It’s the perfect city-center hideout.”

“Is it really?”

“...What is it, Mahito? You don’t seem satisfied. What’s there to worry about? It would put us in a great position to start preparing our plans for the city, and it’s great for a quick escape if we need one.”

“Mm... No, you’re right, but...”

“But what? Spit it out.”

“It’s just... This room is really tacky.”

“Huh?”

With a pop, a small eruption burst forth from Jogo’s head. His narrowed eye looked like a painting of a gently sloping mountain.

“It’s tasteless, isn’t it? Stuff like that gaudy gold lion in the sparkly jar or this cheap-looking sideboard.”

“What are you even saying?! I have no idea what’s gotten into you lately, but you’ve been so annoying!”

“Movies.”

“Movies? Are those overly-embellished portrayals of humans really that interesting?”

“They’re references for my studies on the structure of a soul,” Mahito replied with an ambiguous smile.

If humans could see him, they might be reminded of a proud elementary schooler discussing the knowledge they gained from a book report.

“If I’m being honest, I don’t find the stories that interesting either, but I don’t hate the sense of visual aesthetics that humans have. That said, this room has too many useless colors and really hurts the eyes.”

“Such bratty, selfish complaints... We can just burn or toss anything that’s an eyesore.”

“No need, I’m going to look for a place to settle down on my own.”

“What? Ah, hey— Where are you going?”

Not waiting for Jogo’s response, Mahito waved over his shoulder and vanished like smoke or a gentle breeze, off to who-knows-where.

“Geez… Maybe it’s because he was born from human fear, but even knowing he’s a curse, he tends to be way too frivolous. Watching movies and all…”

While grumbling out his complaints, Jogo took a pipe from his shirt pocket to put in his mouth.

Unlike human cigarettes, this wooden pipe somehow imitated a screaming face when smoked.

“But that Mahito...”

Jogo spun around to survey the room with his one eye.

“...He says that, but it doesn’t seem tacky to me.”

“⊑⏃⋏⏃⋔⟟”

“I already said shut up!!”

--

You can only find a hideaway that suits you by looking for it on your own.

Mahito wandered through the city with this in mind. He alternated left and right turns on a whim any time he happened across a traffic light, walked alongside stray cats, or sometimes simply went in the direction of clouds that he liked the shape of.

While traveling along his chosen path like this, he keenly felt just how laughable humans were.

Though the city belongs to them, no one walking in and out of it was more free than Mahito.

Everyone seemed constrained. They were captured by ties of obligation and vanity, living in a wide, deep, big city with such narrow outlooks.

Unaffected by the enormous sky sprawling out endlessly overhead, they box themselves into their concrete city with their own hands and limited perception of souls, passing the time by whittling their lives down further and further.

Mahito even learned the words for some of these human concepts to study later.

For example, they call it “morals”. They call it “common sense”. They call it “emotion”.

But a human soul isn’t anything more than the resulting mechanical movement that comes from external stimuli.

And so they let go of freedom and live tightly controlled lives, fearing the judgmental stares of others, stooping to flattery for society’s approval.

“...What a waste.”

Everyone is bound by ostentatious shackles of their own making.

That’s why these curses know there has to be a change, as far as humans go. Those who cannot do anything but crawl in such an unsightly way under the magnificent sky must hand over the world.

Mahito thinks. He ponders over any topic his soul turns toward. He walks wherever the wind blows him.

Before long, the time had come for the sun to descend in the western sky. He could hear the burbling of a river.

--

“Not bad.”

The hideaway Mahito found was under a bridge, across the river.

It was a tunnel, vacant and huge like a temple.

Pipes ran along the inside, clear water flowing from them and into the river. It looked like wastewater was drained here after being purified, so there wasn’t much discomfort.

Apart from the humid air and the moss that emitted a peculiar grassy smell, it seemed wide enough to splash and jump around in, and the concrete’s cool texture provided a refreshing welcome.

There’s a season that curses are partial to.

Negative human emotions accumulate from the end of winter to spring, and it could be said that the rainy season served as the so-called peak of their ripening.

The inside of the damp tunnel held the same atmosphere. There was a gloominess there in the dim lighting that could easily nurture fear. It gently moistened Mahito’s skin; he felt cozy.

“Yeah, let’s stay here.”

When choosing a place to live, it’s best to trust your instincts.

Perhaps humans should do the same, but what they can’t readily do, Mahito can decide without hesitation. If he’s free when he wanders, then he’s free when he settles down, too.

Mahito stepped into the tunnel in good spirits, knocking solidly on the concrete floor.

The soul’s metabolism smooths out in comforting spaces. But…

“Huh?”

After walking a short distance, Mahito discovered “that”.

He initially thought it was some garbage or something that a human illegally dumped. But before long, it became clear that it was a sack-like silhouette leaning against a wall.

At first glance, it perhaps looked like a mere collection of rags.

But the shape of a soul was there.

—Ah, it’s alive.

Yes, just as Mahito had realized, it was a human.

The tattered clothing and wildly overgrown hair and beard hid his shape, but it was undoubtedly a human.

His exact age wasn’t clear from his outward appearance, but whether he was 60 or over 80, he looked elderly.

Mahito thought it was a bit of a pain.

There was already a visitor living in his precious hideaway.

Of course, taking care of this issue would be an easy matter for him. But he felt the same discomfort as a homeowner finding a stain on the wall of their new house.

‘Anyway, if I’m gonna deal with this, let’s get it done,’ Mahito thought, reaching out toward the old man with a little sigh.

Whereupon, unexpectedly, the old man spoke.

“...I’m sorry if you’re displeased.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know what you came here to do, but... I’m sure your mood has soured after stumbling across the home of an old fool. But I have nowhere to go, either.”

Mahito was a little taken aback.

The old man was clearly aware of Mahito and turned toward him to speak. This wouldn’t be surprising at all if he was talking to a fellow human.

But Mahito is a curse.

The eyes of a mere human can’t clearly perceive cursed spirits.

It isn’t impossible, though. If humans are born with cursed energy, it isn’t unusual for them to be aware of the existence of curses.

What caught Mahito’s attention was this old man’s lack of ‘eyes’.

As in, he had no eyes in the physical sense. Instead, in the empty sockets that once held them, there was a burn scar that was painful just to look at.

Even sorcerers rely on their eyes to view the world.

They depend on their field of vision to spot cursed spirits. That’s why so many of them use sunglasses and the like to conceal their line of sight, as it helps them remain unaffected. It also helps them maintain a balanced mind when their daily life overflows with curses.

However, that was not the case for this old man.

“Can you see me?”

When Mahito asked, the old man answered with a gentle nod.

“At the very least, I can feel you.”

“But you can’t see the world?”

“Naturally. That includes the scenery, what you look like, what color your skin is, and even your gender. Even so... I know you’re there.”

“...Are you a sorcerer?”

“Most likely not.”

“You’re being pretty vague, even though you’re talking about yourself.”

“For a long time, that’s what I’ve been the most vague about.”

Mahito began to notice something strange.

He can feel the shape of a human’s soul.

He knows the movement of a soul’s metabolism, whether it takes on a harsh form, withers weakly, or flickers with liveliness.

However, this old man’s soul was hardly metabolizing.

It was like a meadow with no wind, or a still sea, or the blue sky on a cloudless day.

No, it would be most appropriate to compare it to a stone.

His soul was like a stone on the side of the road.

No fancy ornamentation, no polishing. Unmoving, unwavering.

Calmly passing the time while growing moss.

That was the shape this old man’s soul had.

No matter how calm or how old a person is, the human soul always flickers.

As the years stack up, common sense doesn’t disappear, selfishness isn’t eliminated, and fear isn’t conquered.

But this old man was different.

The old man’s soul was at peace. He had sincerely accepted that everything would decay with time, but that didn’t mean he would throw his life away. It was truly similar to the way in which nature existed.

It was Mahito’s first time meeting anyone like this.

--

For a while, the tunnel became something of a den for Mahito.

He had gotten a hammock from somewhere, which he hung up between the pipes. He lounged in it and read, passing the time in comfort.

In a movie about life on a deserted island, a human who was desperate to survive made a hammock. Through it, he was able to regain a little peace of mind.

Since it looked surprisingly comfortable, Mahito gave it a try and it worked out nicely.

The arguments and fights of the outside world didn’t reach the inside of the tunnel, where only the burble of the small stream could be heard.

It provided a good environment for soothing the soul.

While leisurely absorbing new knowledge from his books, Mahito would sometimes absentmindedly gaze up toward the ceiling, or glance down at the corner where the old man squatted, looking as he always did.

“How do you live like this? It’s pretty mysterious...”

In the end, Mahito didn’t kill the old man.

It’s important to note that the old man wasn’t much of a hindrance for him. If it would make no difference whether he was there or gone, then Mahito figured getting rid of him would be more of a hassle.

The old man was just there, even quieter and more carefree than a stray cat.

Mahito knew the phrase: ‘man is only a reed, but he is a thinking reed’.

He found it hilarious and also genuinely liked it. It simultaneously boasted about being trapped in thoughts of the soul, while also showing that humans were frail as weeds.

It could be said that the old man was an unthinking reed, then.

No – he was even quieter than that; more like grass or some type of moss. In any case, the old man said nothing and simply carried on living.

Every now and then, the old man would suddenly shuffle off elsewhere, but he would be back to sleep before Mahito knew it. He was surely getting food from somewhere, but he never seemed to gain weight. If he lost any while in the tunnel, he would eat just enough to gain it back when he left, and no more.

It was a style of living so close to nature that it seemed more like a phenomenon than a life.

“That’s why I seriously wonder if you can see me.”

The suspicion was uttered suddenly.

Mahito wasn’t exactly speaking to the old man. Rather, his tone was that of someone talking to themselves.

But when he noticed that the old man’s soul didn’t waver even after hearing him speak, Mahito finally addressed him directly.

“How long have you been here?”

“Let’s see… I think a few winters have passed, but I’m not sure,” the old man muttered, his reply quiet.

Since they were two beings with souls who were aware of each other’s existence, Mahito felt it would be more natural to chat every now and then.

“Don’t you get bored?”

When spoken to in a soft tone, the old man also responded softly.

“I’ve forgotten how to be bored.”

“How do you usually pass the time here?”

“I don’t do anything, really. I just listen to the sounds.”

“The sounds?”

“The sounds of the water flowing.”

“...Is it fun?”

“It’s not. But I forgot how to have fun a long time ago, too, so it’s not an issue.”

So it was like that. Mahito nodded.

If this old man could no longer even feel the pain of boredom, perhaps his soul was worn down.

Humans of the city gasp and struggle through the hurt of not having enough, yet always wish for more even when they get what they wanted. Their souls grew fat and tattered through the rich accumulation of these negative feelings.

So in that regard, from Mahito’s point of view, the old man had a thin soul – but it could be said that was clever of him.

A fat and full human soul leads to a fear of losing the gratifying present moment, which in turn gives birth to curses.

“It’s hard to get your attention. What’s your name?”

When Mahito asked, the old man looked into the air for just a second.

“I left that behind. You can call me whatever you like.”

“There are humans without names? Even curses have them.”

“If you don’t meet other people, you don’t need a name.”

“Isn’t it a problem if you don’t have one?”

“When is it a problem?”

“When it’s time to be buried.”

“I don’t need a gravestone with a name. I can just be stuffed into a common grave, or maybe I’ll rot undiscovered and return to the earth that way.”

“Can’t you take a joke?”

“…Was that a joke?”

The old man didn’t laugh. Neither did Mahito.

But Mahito had the feeling that this old man was childish, contrary to his appearance. His lack of attachments created an unsullied disposition that might make him younger than he looked.

His interest in the old man simmered and surged.

It was his first time seeing this type of human, his first time feeling a soul with this form. For Mahito, this was a rare specimen.

What kind of path must life take to make this kind of human? What would be the most intriguing shape to make with a soul like that? What uses could one plan for such a person?

And what kind of curse would be born from them?

With these questions fueling his curiosity, Mahito started to chat with the old man.

“Why are you here?”

“…Why?”

The old man looked up toward the ceiling through his unruly bangs.

His eye sockets were empty, but it seems like even without sight, humans tended to stare into nothing when they were thinking. One curiosity of Mahito’s was satisfied.

“You weren’t born and raised in this tunnel, right? As a human, you must have been in that noisy city.”

“Ah, that. I lived a fairly busy life a long time ago. I inherited the house, worked, made money and supported my family.”

“So you were a human in a pretty good position.”

“In human society, yes. Looking back on it now, it was all meaningless.”

“So... what, you basically started living in a hole like a mouse, then?”

“I did that because I lost everything that I needed up to then. I lost my social status, my money, and a place where I belonged.”

“You lost it all?”

“I was tricked. That’s when my eyes were burned, so I lost my sight then, too.”

Mahito incidentally recalled the company Jogo attacked.

“You got tricked, huh? You seem pretty good-natured about it.”

“That’s because I didn’t care much about being tricked.”

“You’re a weird old man. Is this some kind of hobby where you get your kicks when people deceive you or something?”

“I’m just saying, that’s the kind of person I was back then. The ones who tricked me were my old friend and my wife. My eyes were burned in that so-called “accident”¹; they claimed I wasn’t of sound mind and body after that, and under the guise of caring for me, they stole everything I worked for before I knew it.”

“That’s a pretty flashy way to trick someone, isn’t it? You’re talking like it’s someone else’s problem.”

“Those two loved each other, and I was loved by no one. Knowing that was more monumental to me than being tricked.”

It was hard for Mahito to interpret what the old man said.

Love. Is it really such an important word?

It’s said that curses born from love exist in the world. It seems there are tremendously powerful ones among them, too. But Mahito doesn’t understand how the mechanism by which people love each other is any different from a cat’s attachment to a blanket.

Still, Mahito knows for a fact that people are obsessed with it.

“Didn’t you curse them? The ones who tricked you.”

“Not really.”

“’Not really’, huh. You know, normally a human in that situation would get angry and hold grudges, and it would make the shape of their soul deteriorate.”

“It’s true, though. I don’t think I had the energy to even consider seeking revenge or hurting them.”

“...I get it.”

Mahito nodded, filling in the blanks.

Regardless of whether or not he can guess the trends in human emotion, Mahito has studied many movies, novels and poetry so far.

Then there were the humans he tinkered with. Mahito could put together the pieces he gleaned from those things and use them to break down the old man’s story.

“So basically, you were in despair. So much despair that it was like your soul was about to die. That’s how you broke through the creation of grudges and curses and ended up like this.”

The old man slowly shook his head.

“I may have been disappointed, but I don’t believe I felt the intense despair you’re thinking of.”

“Are ‘disappointment’ and ‘despair’ different?”

“They are; this is just my personal experience.”

The old man raised his face, following the memories.

“There was no burning resentment or turbulent sorrow. It’s just... I was tired, I guess. Between work, assets, reputation, my life situation and duties, dealing with others, caring about the family name... I think I was probably just tired and worn out because of it all.”

“And that’s why you didn’t get mad even after being tricked?”

“I was at peace. They say the soul gets lighter after going through disappointments.”

The old man’s voice was calm.

It had a cool quality to it, like muddy water that had been filtered clean.

“I couldn’t see, I had no money, I had no love... But as I was walking through the city with nothing to my name, it all suddenly became inconsequential. And then, as I looked around, I saw the city in a new light.”

“Even though you can’t see?”

“Yes. When you can’t see anything, it’s just sound and wind that goes on forever anywhere you are. I couldn’t even see the walls blocking the city in. It was just endless darkness spreading out forever, like a starless night. For the first time, I understood how wide the world was. And I thought to myself... ah, I’m free, aren’t I?”

Mahito blinked rapidly.

This old man’s thinking didn’t fit any other case he had gathered so far.

Even hearing about his past, he couldn’t understand the old man’s thoughts.

But even from Mahito’s point of view, the old man was certainly free.

Without so much as leaving the middle of this tunnel, he knew that the sky was vast.

Perhaps he knew it better than any member of high society walking around freely in the city. He knew the wide spread of the sky, the soft caress of the wind, the gentle sounds of the water.

This old man, who looked like a simple rakugoka², had no property or social standing. He even lost his connection to other humans... And maybe that’s precisely why he could uncover the elusive meaning of the word ‘freedom’.

He was just existing, just being alive, without attachments, grudges or curses.

“So basically ‘not all those who wander are lost’?”

“Yes, though quoting Tolkien’s works might be a little tedious.”

Mahito smiled when the man immediately caught the reference to a book he just happened to read.

“Were you a bookworm?”

“All I did was cram a lot of information in.”

“It’s good to be well-read.”

If curses are born from the fear that humans feel, could this old man even be considered human?

As Mahito is, he struggles with the expression of human emotions.

But he was calm.

For the first time since coming into contact with humans, he had a feeling of peace.

“I think if everyone in the world was like you, I wouldn’t have been born.”

Mahito looked back at his book.

The old man, staring into nothing as always, fell silent again.

Curses are born from humans, but they also kill humans. There is no way for the two to coexist.

But in this tunnel, a curse and a human were doing exactly that.

Though distorted, this peaceful period of time flowed by gently.

--

It’s only natural for humans to hate and fear other humans.

Since they can’t see souls, they can only make guesses about the feelings of others, and they’re swayed by their own emotions.

They don’t understand that these things are just a reflection of the soul’s metabolism. They don’t even know where their soul is.

Mahito investigated the matter.

This blind man lost his sight and his connection to others, so his soul received less stimulation.

And so, no longer influenced by unnecessary things in the physical world, he spent a lot of time facing his inner world and reflecting.

“It’s kind of like a monk’s training. Through strong introversion, a person looks at their soul more often.”

Mahito walked around the city, skimming through a beaten-up copy of the Heart Sutra.

It was a sutra handbook that focused on controlling the soul. It looked like humans of the past did their own research into freeing the soul from the material world.

The old man’s life ended up in a similar state without him setting out to do it on purpose.

That was likely how he learned to feel other souls through the darkness he lived in. Mahito concluded this was the reason he was aware of curses.

“I think he was already predisposed, but... seems like it’s easier for introverted humans to show promise.”

If he gave the old man’s situation even deeper consideration, he could probably make a lot of guesses about a sorcerer’s training. There’s even a way to encourage the first manifestation of cursed energy.

In that case, it should also be possible to take a talented person and ‘make’ them into a sorcerer or curse-user.

Unleashing a curse-user made by a curse onto a sorcerer...

That might be a fun experiment. It’s easier to shake up a human’s soul by having them fight other humans, rather than just exorcising curses. Sukuna’s vessel should be no exception.

Although...

—Maybe it’s fine to do that a little later?

Yes, Mahito thought it over at his leisure.

He is free. When it’s time to move, he moves. When it’s time to rest, he rests.

And he was not in the mood to launch that plan into action.

Rather, for the time being, he just wanted to gather knowledge and indulge in thought. He also got some new books and wanted to read fantasy novels while basking in the quiet comfort of the tunnel.

Mahito’s gait became lighter. While walking alongside the throng of people, he even began to hum.

Suddenly, a loud voice rang out from between two buildings.

“—so damn annoying, yeah?”

Looking over that way, he saw two young humans: a man with long, thin hair, and a muscular skinhead. They were undoubtedly people who looked like trouble.

The long-haired man listened as the skinhead rambled on with his complaints, seemingly in some kind of sullen mood.

“Damn, it’s seriously freezing. Anyway, every last one of ‘em just puts on shitty airs, but it’s all just talk. Nothin’ but excuses. Ah, I wanna kill ‘em all...”

“You say that, but come on. You talk big about wanting to beat these guys to death when you’re pissed, but could you actually kill someone?”

“Sure. Ain’t like killing’s hard.”

“Seriously?”

Mahito squinted and listened, the conversation going in one ear and out the other.

It’s not that he disliked the way they acted or how they spoke bluntly about their heart’s desires. But Mahito knew people like this were all talk.

“Yeah– seriously, anyone’s fine, I just wanna kill someone.”

Then maybe you should do it without saying anything.

Better yet, he thought about practicing some killing methods on them. But Mahito felt the light weight of the book in his hand as he reached out, and he stopped.

Rather than sparing any consideration for this, he just wanted to go back to the comfort of the tunnel and read.

“I’ll kill ‘em.”

The skinhead’s grumbling voice sounded like a spell.

But the words would find no power or heart to shelter in. Shut away between these buildings, the most a person can do is talk to themselves. It’s best for humans like this to stick to the narrow back alleys, foolishly thinking they’re enjoying a wide world.

Mahito averted his gaze and made his way back home.

--

“Why did Gregor become a bug?”

Mahito suddenly asked the old man, not taking his eyes off the novel.

It was a famous book by Franz Kafka.

A story in which a human unexpectedly turns into a poisonous insect.

“The most popular theory is that the bug is a metaphor.”

“Metaphor?”

“It means he was a person who was hated and oppressed within society, treated the same way a human would treat a bug. Kind of like an old man who was suddenly blinded and tricked one day.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Not exactly.”

It was detached and dispassionate, but an answer would come back any time Mahito said something. When conversing with the old man, it felt like talking to a dictionary. He had a lot of information.

He knew about things like the inner workings of the mind and human culture, and he was smart enough to explain it simply in discussions.

For Mahito, who analyzed human souls through books and movies, this old man’s knowledge and conversation helped in its own way.

When do humans get angry? Why do they grieve?

How do they trust and in what ways are they betrayed?

Mahito lived with a different sense of ethics when compared to humans, so there were many things he struggled to interpret. The old man explained them and helped him understand.

He had a strong interest in the experiences of the old man, who had once lived among humans but didn’t act like them.

“After becoming a bug, Gregor eventually hid away like he was told to, but he still ended up being spotted and it led to his death. Jii-san³, why do you think that is?”

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

“That’s a quote from Virginia Woolf, right?”

When Mahito immediately and correctly guessed the source, the old man raised a brow slightly.

“You’re a pretty avid reader, too. Conversations with you are really stress-free.”

“Do you have to go back to living with other humans, then?”

“If you don’t have any attachment to the human world, there’s no need to run from it or stand against it⁴.”

“I see,” Mahito murmured to let the other know he was listening, eyes still on the book.

Even if he wasn’t looking at it, the old man’s perpetually calm soul was aglow in the dark like always.

Mahito read his book in the dim room lit by the brilliance of that soul instead of a candle.

Time quietly flowed through the darkness.

Outside of the tunnel, signs indicating the end of summer crept up.

--

The end came abruptly.

One day, when Mahito was heading back to the tunnel with an abandoned poetry anthology that he picked up on an aimless walk through the city, he felt a noisiness that shouldn’t have been there.

There were one, two, three swaying souls.

One had a very familiar shape, but it was terribly frail. It was like the dying flame of a candle weakened by the wind.

With the same unchanging gait as always, Mahito stepped into the tunnel.

As expected, the old man was there.

But the unusual thing was the crumpled, strange position that he was in.

He was also sandwiched between two younger men who were looking down at him.

“Oooi, isn’t this bad? Did this guy seriously die?”

A man with long, thin hair spoke in a tone that was not particularly anxious.

“Didn’t I say it? I said I could kill,” a muscular skinhead replied, his voice casual.

“But ain’t this just impulsive?”

“Yeah, well, the old man had some real cheek, looking down on us when he’s this weak. So why not just kick him?”

The skinhead likely played sports, given that his legs were as thick around as logs. Kicking an old man to death would be easier than crushing a can.

The two didn’t seem to have a single scrap of interest in the old man, his life or his soul.

There was no reason, no grudge, no clear murderous intent.

It seemed like they simply arrived at the tunnel somehow. They took the opportunity to do as much violence as they wanted. They beat him on a whim.

It could be said that this way of being is freedom for humans.

Mahito crouched down, peeking at the old man’s face.

The beaten visage of the man with burned eyes came into view. But even at a time like this, his expression was as calm as always.

“Are you going to die?”

Mahito searched for even a mumbled word or two in response.

“...Seems so...”

The old man answered in a hoarse voice. He likely barely had the power left to speak now. It appeared as though the two men didn’t hear him over their loud conversation.

He intently inspected the old man’s soul.

The peaceful soul was not flickering, nor did it hold anger or grief; it was simply coming to an unhurried end.

Mahito was impressed.

This old man had found the true meaning of freedom. He really was released from every tie of obligation in this world. Even on the verge of death, that didn’t change.

Being able to make sure of that with his own two eyes, Mahito felt considerably relieved. In the same way he would watch a flower wither and fall, he observed the old man’s death.

Nevertheless...

“Jii-san?”

He had a feeling.

It’s like seeing a plot twist you don’t want to see if you keep turning the pages of a book.

Or like knowing the contents of a present before you open it.

That kind of buzz spread through Mahito’s chest.

While he puzzled over the instinctive alarm bells screaming at him to stop watching, everything was heading toward its end.

“...I thought I would die alone.”

The old man’s soul dimly flickered.

A smile was on his swollen face.

“...To have someone... here to witness this old fool’s last moments...”

The flicker might have been insignificant, like a single drop breaking the water’s surface. Even so, for an instant near death, at the end of it all...

The old man’s soul ‘metabolized’.

“...Tha...nk... y...”

The old man died smiling.

“. . .”

Mahito’s eyes opened wide, and for a moment, he was frozen.

He thought the old man was different when compared to other humans. To Mahito, he seemed unfettered.

Mahito thought the unique philosophical views stemming from such an extraordinary state of mind had freed him from all the shackles of this world.

But despite all of that, the old man was still captured right in his last moments.

On the brink of death, he clung to someone else so he could avoid a lonely end.

The old man was only human.

For a human, it was likely satisfying enough. Perhaps it was even the proper way for one to die.

“. . .”

Mahito said nothing.

But what felt like a dry wind blew through his chest, leaving him cold.

He didn’t know the name humans gave that emotion. But his consciousness was like yarn tangling in on itself, wriggling around like a worm—

And suddenly, it all cut off at once.

The only thing left behind was the sensation of standing in a dry and barren wasteland.

“—So basically,” the skinhead’s voice echoed. “Police probably won’t do a proper investigation. Not for this old nobody.”

“Hey, hey, hey; that’s still a person,” the long haired man answered lightly.

“Yeah, well, that guy started it.”

“He shoulda looked at who he was talking to before he picked a fight.”

“Anyway, my pants are dirty from all that kicking... That’s a problem.”

“So fussy. That’s what you’re worried about when you just killed a guy? How funny.”

“That ain’t a person. Anyway, don’t you know I like being clean? Ahh, the blood won’t come off... Water doesn’t do any good, right?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t – but more importantly, if you’ve settled down, I’m hungry. Let’s stop by a convenience store.”

“I dunno. If you’re gonna look, buy a bento and let’s get outta here.”

Mahito quickly stood up in the same way one would when they finished looking for something in a store.

A sense of fatigue was deeply ingrained in his body.

Their incoherent voices persisted, reverberating through the tunnel, smeared with excuses and attempts to escape reality. He couldn’t hear the soft burble of the stream.

With deep-seated listlessness, Mahito approached the skinhead as one would move to pick up fallen trash.

Idle Transfiguration. The technique spreads quickly.

And thus, the moment he tapped the man’s back, its shape was no longer human.

“Ee—!!”

If he just killed them, it would create a nuisance in the form of a corpse, so he simply folded it up into something palm-sized and kept it alive.

Then, with a careless sweep⁵ of his hand, he folded up the other man as well.

“Begh—”

It fell silent.

Mahito gathered up the two, now no bigger than chess pieces, and turned his attention down toward the remaining corpse of the old man.

It was now just a bag of meat full of bones. Not even the soul remained, so he couldn’t use Idle Transfiguration to fiddle with it.

He was briefly troubled by its disposal, which served as the biggest inconvenience.

In the tunnel, there nothing but the sound of running water.

--

--

It was a day where the sky seemed farther away than usual.

Clouds peeked out from around the buildings and a good feeling was carried in on the wind.

Mahito aimlessly walked about the city.

“Maybe I’ll catch a movie. It’s been ages.”

He picked a tiny, somewhat old-looking theater and snuck in.

He’s had high motivation lately, and it seemed like some unnecessary things had peeled away from his soul, leaving him more carefree than ever.

Thanks to that, he had also begun to toy with humans more often.

If he can fold a person up and make them small, he wanted to test out inflating one instead, but he slept on the idea overnight. It was pretty fun, but he knew that he was getting too absorbed. He also felt that carrying on with too much persistence wasn’t a good thing.

A change of pace every now and then was fine, too.

He hadn’t closely checked to see what was being screened. It was mostly just plain and obscure movies, but if one went in with no expectations, they might come across a surprisingly interesting tale.

Curiously, he had that kind of a feeling.

While walking through the hall of the theater, he casually felt through his pocket, which had grown bulky with the ‘small humans’ that he had touched.

—Speaking of which, he thought that was a nuisance.

He carelessly tossed some of them away.

Opening the door, he stepped into the theater.

Perhaps because it was a weekday, there weren’t many customers. The silhouettes of what appeared to be students filled out a few seats here and there.

From where Mahito stood in the corner, he had a good view of the screen.

Soon, instead of a curtain raising, the theater was engulfed in darkness.

--

T/N: [1] In this sentence, the implication is that the “accident” was very much orchestrated by the old man’s friend and wife, who burned his eyes somehow and then merely made it look like an accident [2] The rakugoka is the storyteller in rakugo, a form of (often) comedic theater that relies solely on spoken word from the rakugoka, who only uses a fan and hand towel as props [3] A way of referring to old men in general, basically like “gramps/grandpa”; Mahito never calls him by an actual name [4] Essentially, the old man’s saying that he (or anyone) can exist parallel to human society without interacting if they have no attachments to it and can still find peace, contrary to the Woolf quote [5] Kanji reads sweep, furigana reads cleanse (the same word for exorcism that sorcerers use)

Thanks as well to Pixi for help with editing and tl checks!  If an officially translated version of the novel becomes available in your country, please consider purchasing it, or consider buying a copy of the original novel in Japanese if possible!

[alicanta77]

[9:24pm]

“I don’t know what you want me to say!” Jisung almost shouts at you. The argument you’ve been having for the past hour, spiralling so far out of control that you’d almost forgotten why it had even started in the first place.

“It’s not about what I want you to say! You can’t just say the things you think I want to hear, you need to be honest about how you feel, even if it upsets me sometimes. If you can’t be honest with me, then we’re just wasting our time here.” You retaliated, your voice just as loud and just as emotional as Jisung’s.

“I want you to be happy, is that such a bad thing?” Jisung looked at you, confused. Neither of you could see the other person’s point of view, both being so wrapped up in your own idea of how the argument should have gone.

The three members of the 00 line who lived in the Dream dorm had locked themselves in Jeno’s room. All of them too nervous to come out while your emotions were as high as they were. The tension could be felt all the way from the living room and the boys were nervous. You and Jisung had never had an argument this bad before, and they had no idea how you two were going to cope with the fallout of it.

“Well, then tell me what you really feel! Stop pretending things are okay just for my sake.” You said, exasperated that you were repeating the same thing you had said at least twice already.

Jisung rolled his eyes.

“When will you understand that I’m not lying. Trust me, y/n, if something was wrong I would tell you.”

“Why don’t you then?”

“Because nothing was wrong!” He fully shouted then, his voice making you jump from the power behind it. 

“Why don’t I believe you?” You challenged.

Jisung just stared at you, not quite being able to comprehend what you had just said.

“Because, apparently, you don’t trust me.”

“Maybe I don’t. Do you trust me?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

A heave silence fell over the two of you. The room may have been silent but the walls were echoing all the hurtful things that had been said over the past hour.

“Maybe you were right.” Jisung continued, speaking through gritted teeth. “Maybe we are wasting our time.”

You were so fulled on anger at this argument for getting so out of control that you could barely register your own reply.

“Maybe we are.”

Tears of frustration pricked at your eyes and you realised that you couldn’t stay here right now. Jisung watched you with an unreadable expression on his face as you turned on your heel, grabbed your phone and bag, and walked out of the dorm, slamming the door shut after you.

Jisung let out a frustrated scream and turned to his left, throwing his right hand forward. His fist met the wall in a hard punch, the sound rippling all the way to Jeno’s room, where the rest of the boys ran out to see him.

Jisung wasn’t having it though. He walked straight into his own room and slammed his own door behind him, the older boys flinching at the loud noise it made.

“Jesus...” Renjun breathed. “I did not see that getting so out of control.”

“Me neither.” Jeno agreed. “What the hell does this mean for both of them? I don’t know about you, but that sounded kind of final to me.”

Jaemin stayed silent for a minute, watching as Renjun nodded in agreement at Jeno’s worry. Thinking back on the times that the two of you had shared, and the moments he caught you when you thought you were alone.

“I don’t know either. But do you really think they’ll break up over this?”

Renjun and Jeno just looked at the third boy in disbelief.

“Jaemin... I know you know their relationship best but, that was insane. It seems almost impossible to come back from that.” Renjun said gently.

Jaemin shook his head. “Dear god I hope you’re wrong.”

“Yeah, me too.” Renjun agreed, his serious tone only adding to leftover tension in the air.

The boys sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water, waiting to hear a sound from Jisung, none of them wanted to leave in case he came out and needed them. When they had heard nothing for almost two and a half hours, Jeno stood up.

“I’m going to check on him.”

Jaemin opened his mouth to disagree but he was cut off.

“I know you said we should let him process his emotions alone but, normally he talks about them with us. Plus, he’s been in that room for a really long time, he needs to talk about it before he punches another wall.”

Jaemin shut his mouth, knowing that Jeno was right.

Jeno walked forward, making his way through the corridors before reaching Jisung’s door. He knocked on the door gently, calling through for the younger boy, but was greeted with silence. Jeno opened the door slowly, praying that Jisung would be asleep but was greeted with the opposite.

Jisung was curled up against the wall, his knees pulled into his chest and his hands supporting him from the floor as he tried to calm his rapid breathing. He looked up as his older brother entered and Jeno saw the multiple tear tracks down his face.

Jeno’s eyes shot open wide as he called out for the other two boys. He crouched down in front of the shaking boy as both Jaemin and Renjun ran down the hall.

“Oh my god. Jisung, you need to breathe, you need to calm down.” Jeno said, mentally kicking himself after, knowing that it wasn’t the greatest piece of advice to someone having a panic attack.

Luckily, at that moment, Renjun and Jaemin arrived, almost throwing themselves into Jisung’s room.

“Holy-” Renjun whispered at the sight of him.

Jaemin wasted no time in moving down beside Jisung. Jeno moved to the side slightly, letting Jaemin grab Jisung’s face gently and pull his eyes up.

“What-” Jisung’s irregular breathing was making it difficult for him to get his sentence out. Jaemin shushed the younger boy, gently stroking his hair and pulling him in for a comforting hug.

“What if- if she never comes back?” Jisung sounded so broken, so helpless that, for once, Jaemin had no clue what to say. He was so thankful for Jeno reaching forward and placing a hand on Jisung’s shoulder, making sure to reassure him.

“She’ll come back, Jisung. She’s not gonna leave it like that, that’s not y/n. You’re not going to lose her over some fight.”

“But the- the things I said... I said-” Jisung hiccuped through his tears, causing Jaemin’s heart to clench at the sight of it.

“People always say stupid things.” Jaemin said. “It doesn’t mean that you can’t make up for and learn from them.”

It was at this moment that he realised that Renjun had disappeared. He shot a confused look at Jeno, who simply shrugged in reply and went back to comforting Jisung. 

Renjun reappeared soon after that and sat on the other side of Jaemin, slipping his phone into his back pocket.

Jisung was still having a panic attack and none of the boys knew how to stop it. 

Jaemin had no clue how long they were sat there for, all he knew was that Jisung wasn’t getting better. It scared Jaemin to think about how long he had been in this state before Jeno had found him.

Suddenly Jisung looked up, meaning to look at Jaemin but his eyes widened as he stared right past the boy in front of him and looked at the door. 

Jaemin looked over his shoulder and found himself looking at you.

You seemed to be in just as bad of a shape as Jisung was, your chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths and your face marked with countless tears, both fresh and dried. 

You began to move forwards towards Jisung, Jaemin quickly grabbing Renjun and Jeno and standing up. Jisung’s arms reached out for you and you immediately fell into them. 

Jisung pulled you onto his lap and wrapped his arms around you waist, holding you tight as he buried his head into your neck and cried. You responded with wrapping your arms tight around his neck and placing your head there, as well as wrapping your legs around his waist.

You were both sat on the floor, holding tightly onto the other as if they would disappear, when the older boys left you.

By having Jisung back with you, and holding you as tightly as he did, you managed to calm yourself back down. But the same could not be said for him.

His erratic breathing only continued as fresh tears made their way down his cheeks.

You gently mumbled words into his neck, your voice cracking slightly with emotion.

“Hey... you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. I’m here, we’re together.”

You repeated this over and over, like a mantra, and gradually Jisung’s breaths stared to calm until he was quietly crying into your shoulder.

Finally, he spoke, for the first time since you had arrived.

“I love you so much.” His whispered words as loud as screams to you.

“I love you too.” You whispered back, moving you head just so that you could place a kiss on his cheek.

You had no clue how long you sat like that for, just relishing in being back in the other’s embrace, until finally you made a move to stand.

Jisung looked up at you with scared eyes, worried that you were going to leave him again. But you kept a tight grip on his hand, and pulled him up too.

“I’m not going anywhere. Nowhere expect to bed.” You chuckled slightly. “It’s been a long night, for both of us.”

Jisung nodded in response, the small smile that danced across his lips, not going unnoticed by you.

“That’s slightly better. I like it when you smile.” You came up close and placed another kiss on his cheek, watching as his smile grew again at that.

A smile of your own stretched across your face as you lent in to give him a proper kiss. His arms wrapped back around your waist, pulling you in as close as possible as he kissed you back. You gently ran your fingers through his hair, savouring the feeling of his lips on yours.

When you pulled away, you were greeted with the sight of Jisung practically beaming.

“Now that’s more like it.” You said, leaning in to give him one final peck.

He pulled you down onto the bed next to him and wrapped his arms around you once more. You were thankful that you were both already in comfy clothes because all you wanted to do right now, was fall asleep next to him and wake up tomorrow morning, still next to him.

You looked at the boy lying with you and gently brought up a hand to wipe away his drying tear tracks.

“Next time you’re panicking, try to think of your safe place. The one place you always feel calm and happy, it can help you regulate your breathing slightly.” You mentioned quietly, praying that he would never have to be in such a state again.

“That’s the problem though. You are my safe space. So when I thought I lost you, I had no where to go.” For once Jisung looked straight into your eyes when saying that, not blushing or looking away or mumbling, he wanted you to know just how important you were to him.

You leaned in for one final kiss, thanking every deity you had ever heard of for the boy in front of you. You snaked one arm around his waist, placing your other hand on his chest as Jisung’s arms tightened around you again. He gave you another kiss, this one on your forehead and whispered a quiet:

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” You replied honestly. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.”

You felt Jisung nod, before leaning as far into his embrace as you could and falling asleep, your dreams filled with the boy you loved.

[finalfantasyandnerdiness]

Want

Prompt from the discord server by @imlilyyfromff13: “I want to kiss you.” 

Fandom: FFXIII (post!LR)  Pairing: Hope/Light

A short one-shot about Lightning confronting Hope about becoming a self-destructive workaholic again. 

For the eighth time in about the same number of minutes, Hope’s phone buzzed. He picked it up from the kitchen table, glanced at it, frowned, and then put it down again. Lightning sighed. Serah pursed her lips in annoyance. Sazh muttered something about kids and their addiction to anything with a touch screen. Fang and Vanille exchanged a look that probably carried a full conversation only they could understand. Snow kept shoveling pie into his mouth as if he hadn’t even noticed.

Months ago, right after they’d all arrived in the new world, Serah had declared that Sunday nights were family dinner nights. She’d decided that once a week, they would all gather at her and Snow’s house—and somehow, she’d managed to make it a mandatory thing. Some excuses were acceptable, like Noel and Yeul being abroad, but that was about as far as Serah’s leniency went. Sunday nights were family dinner nights. Period.

Lightning had always been a loner at heart, but even she found joy in these little gatherings. Everyone was so busy living their own lives nowadays that if they hadn’t all feared being hunted down by a passive-aggressive Serah, they probably wouldn’t have been able stay in touch like this—a thought of that scared Lightning more than she would ever admit. She finally had a family again, and she wanted to keep it. Even if it meant having weekly dinners in a kitchen that definitely wasn’t big enough for the entire gang.

The room wasn’t quite as crowded now as when Noel and Yeul was in town, but the seating arrangement was still far from comfortable. Lightning had to dodge Snow’s elbow every time the big buffoon reached for something, and her thigh was pressed flush against Hope.

It was fascinating, really, how the warmth of Hope’s leg could somehow be more distracting than the risk of getting elbowed in the face.

Hope’s phone buzzed.

“Could you please turn that off?” Serah asked. “The world won’t end just because you’re unavailable for an hour.”

“You’re giving the world way too much credit,” Hope muttered. He ran his fingers through his silver hair, a deep wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. The ever-growing concern in Lightning’s chest nagged at her. Hope’s eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and every time she saw him he seemed to have lost another pound or two.

When Hope had said that he wanted to work as a researcher again, she’d been happy for him. Of course he’d want to figure out how the science of the new world worked, and of course he’d want to help people find ways to make their new lives work in this unfamiliar environment. What she hadn’t realized was just how much everyone would come to rely on him. Everyone seemed to want a piece of his intellect and his lifetimes of experience. He was being torn apart right before her eyes, and there was nothing she could do about it. Every time she brought it up, he just brushed it off. They’d been partners once, but now, he wouldn’t let her in. He’d shut her out.

“Hope…” She glanced up at him. “The world isn’t your responsibility anymore, you know? Just because everyone wants your help doesn’t mean you have to be there for them constantly. You have to think about what you want, too.”

“I can’t have what I want.” There was a strange combination of heat and sorrow in his eyes when he met her gaze. “I don’t deserve it.”

Lightning fell silent as she tried to get her emotions under control. She sometimes wondered if Hope had any idea how frustratingly attractive he was, with his chiseled jawline, full lips, and ocean-green eyes that still gleamed with an understanding of the universe that no other human on the planet possessed.

She also sometimes wondered if he knew how he made her brain malfunction by simply looking at her. 

It wasn’t his appearance that made her feel the way she did. Seeing him as an adult had only made the final puzzle piece of her conflicting emotions fall into place. And now, when she’d finally realized what their bond truly meant to her, he was shutting her out.

Hope’s phone buzzed.

Serah gave him a glare that could have slayed a behemoth. “That’s it, Hope, you’re turning—”

“It’s okay.” Hope gave the screen a final glance before standing up. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the dinner, Serah. It was perfect, as always.”

“Hope…” Serah paused. After countless dinners ending the exact same way, they all knew that there was nothing they could do to make him stay.

Lightning watched him leave the kitchen, his narrow frame slimmer than ever, and just… reacted. This time it was her elbow that nearly connected with Snow’s face when she rushed after Hope. She caught up with him in the hallway as he was putting on his coat.

“Enough.” She placed herself between him and the door.

“What?”

“I said enough.”

They stared at each other. Hope’s face went from confusion to annoyance to melancholy in a matter of seconds.

“I really have to go, Light,” he said, giving her a humorless smile. “We can talk later.”

“There will never be a ‘later’, and you know it.” Lightning leaned back against the door, effectively blocking his only escape route. “We’re still partners, right? Or did that change when we arrived here?”

Hope blinked. “Of course we are. Nothing will ever change that.”

“Then, as your partner, I’m putting my foot down.” Lightning raised her chin and crossed her arms. “I’m not going to stand by and watch you tear yourself apart to keep the world afloat. Not again.” She swallowed hard. “Never again.”

“Light…” Hope slowly approached her until their bodies were only inches apart. Lightning’s heart began to race. She refused to look away, though. She was taking a stand, and she was not going to let her emotions get in the way of that.

“If you’re going to say you’re fine, then save it. I know you’re not. Have you looked at yourself lately? Can’t you see what this is doing to you?” A hint of desperation somehow found its way into her voice. “You’re putting the needs of others over your own, and I… I feel like I’m losing you again.”

“I’m sorry, Light. I never meant to… I’m sorry.” Hope looked down. “It’s just that everything’s a mess, and considering the part I played in all of this, I feel like it’s my responsibility to fix it.”

“It’s not. That responsibility lies on humanity as a whole now. You and I… We may have contributed to the destruction of the old world, but we also helped creating this.” Lightning nodded toward the kitchen, where their little mess of a family chatted and laughed together. “A new world. A blank page. We create our own fates now. I know it’s hard—trust me, I know it is—but we deserve a new start too. It’s time for all of us to start living the lives we want to live, and that includes you.” She gently stroked a wayward strand of hair from his forehead. “What do you want, Hope?”

“What I want?” He looked up at her, letting out a bitter sound that wasn’t quite a snort but not quite a laugh either. A shiver ran down her spine. He had that look in his eyes again, hot and sad and hungry. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“Try me.”

He hesitated. “There is one thing I want. More than anything.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, his gaze lowering until it landed on her lips. Another moment of hesitation passed. 

“I want to kiss you.”

Lightning’s eyes widened. Her cheeks burned. Her heart pounded hard enough to drown out her thoughts—which thankfully wasn’t that much of a problem. In this situation, she didn’t need to think.

“Then kiss me.”

Hope’s lips crashed into hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his as her back slammed into the door. Her head spun, and all her repressed emotions sprung into life. This was what she’d been craving ever since she first saw him in the new world. This was how things were supposed to be. This was right.

Their kiss deepened. The rest of the world seemed to disappear. All she could focus on was him—his smell, his warmth, his hands in her hair, and his impossibly soft lips.

When he finally pulled back, an astonished smile played on his lips. Soon, he would most likely rush out the door as usual to once again fix whatever it was that someone had screwed up, but this time he’d at least gotten something he wanted for himself—something she’d been more than happy to give it to him. She wasn’t delusional enough to believe that a kiss would change his self-destructive behavior, but maybe, just maybe, it was a start.

“What about you?” he murmured, slightly out of breath. “What do you want, in this hypothetical utopia of yours?”

She smiled. That was probably the easiest question he could have possibly asked her.

“You.”

[himbo-beel]

DiaBarb is not my favorite Barb ship but it is one I think a lot about. Because they’ve been together probably for forever? Barbatos likely served the king before Diavolo became Prince. Barbatos and Diavolo know each other best! They can communicate without words and express themselves flawlessly with sublte shifts. 

And then. 

And then there’s the fluff. 

Because I headcanon that Barbatos  doesn't even have a bed in his room but there is a couch that he’ll occasionally nap on, but he’s more likely to be found napping around the castle rather than his own room. He doesn’t have much downtime after all and it’s rare that he actually sleeps through a night and instead he'll do a few tasks and either just nap on a couch in a guest room or in a chair in the kitchen and sometimes in a corner of Dia’s study.

Maybe whenever he's not in Dia’s study but Dia finds him anyway, he leads him to an actual horizontal surface for a better nap, waking him up gently because though Barb’s magic is controlled by Dia, when he mentions that he can’t use the full extent of his power without his lord’s permission, some of it will always slip through during intense emotion and when he’s not wearing his gloves and when he’s asleep. His mind wanders through realities rather than dreams and upon waking up he never knows exactly where he is so Dia wakes him up with a time and a place rather than a greeting least he wants a tail grabbing his leg and yanking him off balance or a knife against his throat. 

And Barb is an ugly sleeper whether he's sleeping sleeping or just napping. He's face first onto the table, drooling, arms dangling at his sides, and Dia finds it adorable as he fixes barb up and just helps him to his feet and pulls him to a couch or somewhere comfier. Normally the usual put-together butler would be downright mortified if he had a second longer to wake up, but then he's back to laying down and nuzzling his face into a pillow. he never really rests, you know? Not when you have the entire world in your head and a demon lord child who doesn't want to fill out his paperwork so if he can knock out for another five minutes he will. Even though he always says he doesn't have the time for it or he's too busy or it's unbecoming when he has so much responsibility and then you see him passed out so hard half sprawled out on the couch because he got to close his eyes for another hour

BUT if he's curled up in Dia’s study that's a totally other story. 

He only does it when he has no choice, when either he's dead on his feet and can't make it down the hall without someone seeing him in that shape or there's a party going on and he just needs a moment of quiet before putting on a face again or he has to babysit the demon prince when he keeps finding excuses not to work, he'll just fold himself up on a cushion or a blanket, knees tucked under him, leaning against a wall. When Dia eventually finds him, whether it's peeking over his paperwork to see if he can sneak another break or looking for Barb he knows that couches will do little good this time. He wont wake Barb up, especially since in times like these it would be nearly impossible to wake him up, so Dia just picks him up and carries him to his room and tucks him in and leaves him for the day.