#complaining about long posts of the past

[oceanwithouthermoon]

ive been unhealthily fixated on kubosai for the past few weeks, i just have no idea how to put it into words. kuboyasu aren and saiki kusuo are in love btw

[this-is-chaos-magick]

idk about y'all but me?....I love longgg and frequent flashbacks in movies and shows. I love knowing more about the characters. Idc if it's "unnecessary long" or "a waste of time" Like I love it when the flashbacks is about us knowing who they are before the "traumatizing or major incident that made them the character that we know" happens to them. I love finding out facts about them. Especially if it's a childhood or teenage years flashback....god i Iove those...I love seeing young version of my fav characters... seeing them interacting with their childhood acquaintances or literally just doing anything.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I’ve seen quite a few people discuss TSATS specifically in the manner that it’s supposed to be a middle-grade book, and I’d like to throw my two cents into the hat.

Particularly, I don’t think it’s reasonable to excuse the failings of TSATS just because it’s supposed a middle-grade book. The failings of the book are primarily structural, both narratively and just in basic writing structure, neither of which are excusable of a middle-grade novel - Especially given this is Mark Oshiro’s first major foray into middle-grade, as they typically write YA. It also seems that TSATS’ rating is actually upper middle-grade, so there’s even less excuse for the quality of the book. The problem isn’t that the book is bad to a non-middle-grade reader, or even bad as a middle-grade book, the problem is that the book is bad in general. So much of the book’s quality and execution feels just so poor in ways that you would typically expect to get caught very early on by the editorial team. Being middle-grade doesn’t excuse it being structurally bad for any reading level. It feels like the editorial team didn’t care about the quality of the book at all. There’s an unreasonable amount of places where the sentence and paragraph structures are poor, the writing is unclear, there’s basic continuity errors within the same sentence, the pacing is bad, and an overall lack of grammatical consistency (you can actually tell which portions of the book are written by Rick Riordan versus Mark Oshiro based purely on the use of s’ or s’s - if you see something like “Hades’s palace“ then it’s Riordan, and if it’s something like “Hades’ palace” then it’s Oshiro - this type of inconsistency should have been made consistent by the editing team).

The book also completely fumbles its attempts at handling its intended themes with any kind of grace or respect to the reader. TSATS being middle-grade (particularly upper middle-grade) doesn’t mean it can’t feature heavy themes, or that it has to dumb them down for a younger audience! I speak as someone who is extremely familiar with the Animorphs series - which is actually lower middle-grade. It’s basically like the poster-child for presenting complex themes and ideas appropriately in a middle-grade series. The way middle-grade is formatted is it’s about the writing structure (how simplified vs complex it is and so how easy is it for a middle-grade reader to understand) and how the concepts are presented, not about the actual concepts themselves. Animorphs is a really good example of this in that most of the books are less than 300 pages and the language is very simple. However, it doesn’t shy away from strong topics or dumb concepts down for the audience. It balances heavy topics with jokes in stride (see: The entire book about psychochemical warfare and the ethics of that, but the psychochemical warfare in question is dumping instant maple and ginger oatmeal on space slugs). And a lot of Animorphs books are actually ghostwritten! I would also argue the Warrior Cats books are another good example, particularly the novellas. They’re a similar length to TSATS, again written by a team of authors, are middle-grade rated, and don’t shy away from some pretty graphic stuff. They’re not the best books in the world, I mean, they’re rapidly churned out cat books for middle-schoolers. And they also tend to be full of errors. But at the very least most of the errors in the Warrior cat novellas aren’t basic structural stuff that you’d expect an editor to comb out within the first couple of passes or major basic details for a very prominent character or worldbuilding. Something equivalent to the types of errors in TSATS would be like a warrior cats novella about Brightheart not remembering how she got her scars or who Swiftpaw was or what Shadowclan is called, and every three chapters you read the jankiest sentence you’ve ever seen.

There are absolutely ways for the types of themes they were trying to handle in TSATS to be presented to a middle-grade audience appropriately, effectively, and with respect. TSATS was not even close to that. Again, I point to Animorphs! You wanna talk about writing PTSD for a middle-grade audience? Animorphs is your series. Animorphs gets into some heavy shit. But the way it’s presented is always appropriate for a middle-grade audience. Middle schoolers can handle more than people give them credit for (have you ever read middle-schoolers roleplaying warrior cats? I have. they do not hold back.) - they’re at the exact age where that type of stuff is not only interesting to them and they want to read about it, but that it’s important for them to begin to be introduced to those types of concepts in a way that’s appropriate for their age so that they’re prepared for when they encounter those topics or themes when they’re older.

The first Percy Jackson series actually does this really well! Percy has PTSD in the first book from Gabe! This is very clearly acknowledged and referenced throughout the first series (and even into Son of Neptune!) - and it’s specifically from Gabe, not being a demigod. We see characters grapple with grief and witnessing death and being in shock from that (the “dam” scene post-Bianca’s death, and the explicit acknowledgement that all the characters are so emotionally exhausted and harrowed from witnessing Bianca sacrifice herself for them that they get all giggly over stupid “dam” jokes). TSATS refuses to allow any emotional pay-off from the scenes. The Gorgyra interludes are the only thing keeping the pacing from being absolutely abhorred for half the book. There’s tons of narrative set-up that goes nowhere. There’s sentences that are so disjointed you wonder how they got written in the first place. This book shouldn’t have gotten past the editors, honestly.

[radio-4-is-static]

「LOST CORNER」 クロスフェード | Kenshi Yonezu listen to the new album here!!

[mapsofnonexistentplaces]

obviously i think its good to grow out of mocking people relentlessly especially to their face but honestly i think people should also grow a bigger backbone with regards to like. someone saying their interest is lame or sucks. like a lot of people have turned the idea of 'oh we need to kill the idea of cringe culture and public shaming for harmless fun' to 'i have to take every post against my interests personally and people should never complain about anything so that they dont hurt my feelings'

[bluesidedown]

🌷🌼🌷

[discoreptile]

Beasties of Greenhollow soundtrack! Some tracks on this are from older projects like elphame but all of them have been reworked in some way. Most of them are entirely new. Enjoy!

[konfizry]

because who's gonna vouch for her existence? who can say for sure that she is a real person who existed, say, 5 months prior to the game's events?

no one!!!!!

[fionnaskyborn]

pros of learning how to play fighting game:

undergoing a learning experience, trying out something entirely different from anything i have previously played

i get to look at a little guy do cool things on my screen :)

cons of learning how to play fighting game:

i am clumsy as all hell with the inputs

the order in which you press and/or hold buttons to create inputs is less like trying to get a sequence of movements right and more like playing a rhythm game (down then while not letting go of down press forward then let go of down and THEN press an attack button on the other side of the keyboard). i suck at rhythm games. hell world

sometimes, the damn things just... won't register? at all? you do a half circle to forward input and the game says "half circle forward? oh, sorry, that's ensenga :)" or, worse, "too slow, that's a regular heavy slash move :)". brother. why must you do me like this.

the area between the knuckles of my ring and little finger hurts like a motherfucker (though this has hurt in various areas since at least this morning, but i'm willing to bet that practicing quarter and half circle inputs for at least an hour did not make the situation any better)

[takaraphoenix]

It’s not like you’re contractually obligated to read every single post in a tag.

But, I don’t know, if you feel like screenshotting it to post and complain that going through the tag is a hassle in a manner that suggests the post is inappropriately crosstagged, maybe you should read it, after all.

Or just, like a normal fucking person, scroll past posts that are too long for you to engage with and move on with your life instead of screenshotting them to complain. I mean what the fuck.

[orcelito]

:/

[playingonedchess]

i keep getting the same ads constantly its either eat non limp vegetables now, spend £40 on non limp frozen vegetables and get a free monopoly board shop at the co op our food is actually cheap or have you considered putting moisturiser on your skin you should

[sophiamcdougall]

I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

[jadevine]

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[satoruxx]

pairing: toji fushiguro x reader | 1.2k words summary: boyfriend!toji again, fluff, soft!toji, grumpy x sunshine, that obligatory sick fic, bickering, affectionate scolding, pet names, this is very self-indulgent !! rheya's note: had this written for so long and never posted it oops !! but yeah resident grump worrying over his fav what's new?

toji knows something is off as soon as he steps into his apartment. he comes to the conclusion almost immediately, because he isn’t greeted like he normally is when he comes home.

normally, he’ll push the door open and you’ll trip over yourself as you stand from the couch, a giddy smile on your face as you jump into his arms. and being the asshole that he is, toji never hesitates to grumble about it, clicking his tongue as he says things along the lines of “dammit kid one day i won’t catch you” or “jeez baby let me get in the house” or something similar. but despite all that his hands will still be attached to you, rubbing your back as he smothers an amused chuckle against your hair.

but not today. today he’s greeted by quiet and emptiness—a clear lack of you. he had opened the door ready to catch you in his arms, but all he can do is raise a brow at the silence. as much as he normally complains about it, this absence makes his gut churn. he pushes all that aside, more concerned than anything as he drops his jacket onto the couch and heads for the bedroom.

toji is nothing if not observant, paranoid as his eyes dart from corner to corner of the small apartment. it’s ingrained into him—this fear that his past will come back to haunt him and take you away in the most brutal way imaginable. but he tries to ignore that, continuing to head down the hall until he pushes the bedroom door open.

his shoulders drop in relief, seeing you laying on your stomach, face buried in the pillows, and he lets out a sigh. he sees you shift a little, signaling that you’re awake, so he takes a few steps forward.

toji climbs onto the bed and lays down next to you, dropping a heavy arm over your back. “what’s wrong?”

“don’t feel good,” you answer back. toji’s brows furrow, and he manages to push his free palm against your forehead. heat pulses against his skin, and his frown deepens.

“the fuck did you do to yourself?” he asks, not unkindly but still stern—you can only glare at him hazily.

“it’s not my fault!”

“uh huh,” toji rolls his eyes, threading his fingers through your sweaty hair and pushing it back from your forehead. “so me telling you to put some layers on when you go out in the cold has nothing to do with this?”

you huff, face heating under his pointed stare, and all you can do is shove his hand away, before pathetically burying your face into the sheets again. “shut up.”

“don’t be a brat.” toji lets out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head indulgently. “it’s your fault for not listening to me.”

“if you’re just gonna lecture me, go away,” you complain, cheek pressed into the pillow. toji snorts, though his hand rubs what you assume to be soothing circles on your back.

“who’s gonna make sure your dumbass doesn’t get into more trouble?”

another indignant huff, and toji only chuckles. “alright c’mon kid. let’s get you in better shape, yeah?” he grunts, looping his arm around your waist and tugging you up. you immediately protest, whining out a plethora of curses attached to his name, and he rolls his eyes. “okay, alright shut up.”

he maneuvers your body into sitting position, leaning you up against the pillows and pulling the blankets up with furrowed brows—meticulous in a way that he is only with very few things.

“you eat anything today?” he asks, still fussing over the blankets, and you gulp quietly. one look and toji’s frown grows deeper. “kid.” the word comes out stressed, like a scolding, and you wince.

“i didn’t feel like it,” you groan, trying not to wilt under his pointed glare.

“don’t care,” he huffs. “your body needs energy, stupid.”

“rude,” you mutter, crossing your arms and toji rolls his eyes.

“whine all you want—“ he stands up, rolling his neck until he hears a satisfying crack. “—still gonna make you eat something. soup okay?”

you don’t want to admit how tempting it sounds, so with an unrelenting amount of stubbornness you glare at him. “fine.”

his lips quirk upward into a smug little grin, and you try to refrain from throwing something at him. he pats your leg. “alright.”

he heads into the kitchen, leaving you to your thoughts. you hear the occasional sounds of cooking and utensils and before long, the comforting smell of soup wafts through the apartment. you try not to show toji how your mouth is watering when he walks back in, a bowl in his palm.

“here,” he grunts, propping a knee onto the bed that dips under his weight. “eat up, doll.”

you sigh, already hating the feeling of the cool sheets when you move even slightly to reach for it.

“you gonna make me spoon feed you?” toji’s brow quirks—smug, and obviously amused.

“i can do it myself thank you—” you try to take the bowl from him with a glare but he raises it out of your reach and clicks his tongue.

“will y’just let me do this one thing for you, jeez,” he complains, glaring down his nose at you.

you cross your arms with a huff, tone going slightly apologetic. “i feel bad—”

“why the fuck do you feel bad?” he asks sharply, eyes narrowed and confused and caught off guard like you’ve said the most out of pocket thing.

“because—” you stress, throwing your hands up miserably. “you were out on these crazy missions—probably tired as hell. and instead of relaxing you have to come home and take care of me because i was too stupid to look after myself.”

toji groans, putting the bowl on the bedside table before sitting on the bed completely. “kid,” he says emphatically, taking your face in his palms firmly. “how many times do i need to tell you this? i don’t mind lookin’ out for you.”

“yeah but—”

“no shut up,” he snaps, an exasperated sigh escaping his lips. “you always worry about bothering me or inconveniencing me or some other crap like that. i’m telling you—don’t.”

his thumbs gently press into the apples of your cheeks, and your lips part under his pointed gaze.

“i like doin’ shit for you, okay? ‘n takin’ care of you when you’re sick? that’s nothing.” his lips tug into a lopsided smirk. “who else is gonna look out for you anyway?”

you purse your lips, throat going tight because toji rarely talks like this—so honestly open. and though you’re sure that many people out there would say he’s harsh and mean and not good for you, it’s things like this that prove how wrong they are.

“what’s wrong? did i break your brain?” toji asks, reaching up to knock his knuckle against your head, and you huff out a laugh, pushing his arm away.

“shut up,” you mutter, falling into his chest heavily. he chuckles, low and throaty as he pats your back.

“you up for eating now?” you can feel him reaching for the bowl, and you smile against him, pressing your face further into his warmth because toji will always be nothing but safe for you.

“in a minute,” you answer, looping your arms around his waist. he sighs, shaking his head but he doesn’t say anything else.

but you think you can feel him smile against your hair as he drops a chaste kiss to your forehead—you don’t tell him that though.