#core convictions

[i-love-dean]

My magnum opus

[tlgtw]

//Spoilers for Everything in AC6: Fires of Rubicon//

The Meaning of the Motif of "Borrowed Wings" and how G5 Iguazu Exists to Reinforce It

What seems to fly over everyone's heads about G5 Iguazu is that the point of his character is how 'deciding upon a goal and having the willpower to strive for it, no matter what' is literally as important as the line between life and death.

You need to find a purpose for yourself that you personally believe in. Cause no matter how grand or how petty that purpose is, if you don't have one... you die!

With whether or not you actually succeed at that goal being completely irrelevant... to your conviction for it.

(Something, something, it's the ambition that you're living for, not whether or not you get the accolades at the end.)

A moral proclaiming the importance of "deciding upon a purpose of your own free will, and then pursuing that goal no matter what setbacks you encounter" is all nice and easy when you're main character e621, who experiences no setbacks because, as the player, you're necessarily going to be strongest fighter in the galaxy.

But it's pretty obvious how trite that is on its own, where your only canonical character trait is that you always win no matter what.

And so, Iguazu's purpose narratively is to show how, beyond any ounce of doubt whatsoever, that 'winning' is not a relevant part in what makes "having a purpose" so important, or so necessary.

In essence: It's what makes Iguazu live.

Start of the Game: Volta and Iguazu both want to beat up Michigan.

- Volta gives up, and then he gets sent by Michigan to die at the Wall.

- Iguazu deserts. And he does not die at the Wall.

After Gallia Dam he send you hatemail to say that the Redguns will scale the wall, but Iguazu himself doesn't even approach the Wall after this. As G4 Volta's last words reveal, he deserts before the operation is attempted.

Iguazu *himself* watches from the sidelines, costing him no less than an almost certain death like Volta's.

And the reason Iguazu changes his mind about scaling the wall with the Redguns is because, after Gallia Dam, Iguazu decides upon his purpose. His personal conviction.

Iguazu personal goal becomes -> He wants to kill you.

We love pathetic boys.

But the reason Iguazu deserts for the sake of this new goal is specifically because he wants to become stronger than 621, and not want his obligations as part of the Redguns to get in the way of this goal of his, he goes independent.

--- Correction ---

Iguazu deserts the Redguns at Watchpoint Alpha, prior to the death of G1 Michigan. He doesn't desert the Redguns at the Wall, he only goes Away WithOut Leave. The reason for which he goes AWOL being to take independent work, as we see an example of at Grid 086. Outcomes of everything are still the same, I just mixed up the order.

Also;

Volta: "Iguazu, listen, like, Michigan really like cares about us...! It's like we're part of his family, man, just give him a chance."

Volta: *Gives Michigan a chance*

Volta: *Gets killed under the leadership of G1 Michigan*

It's really funny but sad.

It's also really funny and sad how effective at Yank-bait G1 Michigan was.

But it's illustrative of how effective it is to break down someone's expectations and feelings of self-worth to legit 0, such that empty platitudes like simply saying the right words, like the names of the expendables themselves or to bring in the medical teams after a battle (as if they wouldn't have come otherwise?), will leave such an impression that they think you really do care about them--even in despite of how worthless they obviously are~!

And all at the same time as your direct actions and orders lead them straight to their meaningless avoidable deaths.

What could be more cost-efficient for your employers than soldiers who're literally suicidal for you, right?

Ha!

--- ---

And not only does this decision directly lead to Iguazu not dying at the Wall, but, no longer squeezed under G1 Michigan's boots, G5 even directly improves as a fighter.

This is shown in how his AI differs between his fighting at the Gallia Dam--where he's overly defensive, constantly having his shield up, despite wielding two guns.

And then, later at the Grid--where he actually fights aggressively like his AC's loadout is built for.

The second major encounter with Iguazu is Watchpoint Alpha where he either fights you directly, and dies there. Or he hires Coldcall to kill you, and survives elsewhere. Again, this is an instance of Iguazu's legitimate determination towards his chosen goal directly separating him from life and death.

When he hires Coldcall, Iguazu focuses on his goal, and let's go of distractions like his personal pride and image.

Ridiculous, right? Iguazu letting go of his pride?

But consider how it's directly Iguazu's personal feelings that lead him to facing 621 personally. He doesn't *just* want to kill you in that instant, he wants the glory of killing you as well.

But the accolades at the end aren't what makes it worthy to pursue a chosen goal.

Iguazu wants 621 dead. And when he hires Coldcall, this is him coming to terms with pursuing his goal, regardless of his personal setbacks. Iguazu faces the fact that he personally wouldn't be able to kill you. And, because he comes to term with this setback, he finds an alternative method that would still lead towards fulfilling his chosen purpose.

To confirm, of course, Iguazu's purpose is really dumb and terrible. But it's not whether one's chosen purpose is 'a good goal' or not that the value of pursuing it comes from. The value comes from it being one you decided for yourself, as opposed to, for, for example, by a corporation's profits. (Not a coincidence narratively how Balam's forces, united most in their complete idolization of G1 Michigan, following *his* word no matter what even knowingly to their deaths, are the deadmost losers in the story.)

Unlike for example e621's chosen conviction, or Rusty's chosen conviction, (Also no coincidence narratively that G1 Michigan, who only exists as the weapon of his corporation and put out a bounty for his own assassination--expressing how he has no personal plans for the future and literally wants to die--is guaranteed to be taken out by either of these two, no matter what.)

It's not the loftiness of a goal that determines if it's of worth to decide upon one of your own free will and pursue it in the first place.

The 'value' of pursuing a goal is unrelated to what that goal itself is.

What makes pursuing a goal valuable, is the conviction.

You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be emotionally mature. You don't have to be a good fighter. You don't even have to be brave.

You just need to choose your purpose and follow it.

This is what the motif of 'wings' and 'borrowed wings' are all about in the story as well. It's about pursuing a goal that was chosen by someone else, versus pursuing a goal that was chosen by you yourself.

"They choose what to fight for, and take to the skies in flight."

"One cannot fly on borrowed wings" in this case literally meaning that if you pursue a goal not because you want it, but because someone else wants it, it will directly lead to your death.

Criticizing their "borrowed wings" is what Ayre and Rusty chastise the RLF for for solely repeating slogans and "not bothering to think [for themselves]."

And Iguazu, deciding he doesn't care about how he'd be seen by others, and only caring for the goal itself to be accomplished. Survives, where Coldcall dies in his place.

Coldcall, a far superior fighter to Iguazu. Dies, instead of Iguazu, because he was flying for Iguazu's purpose -> Fighting on borrowed wings.

Etc etc "this is hell, we're in hell!" and so on and in the Alea Iacta Est true ending of the game Iguazu, outta nowhere!, becomes the legit Final Boss of Armored Core 6.

How the hell did this 4th-gen AC pilot, otherwise a completely random nobody without a purpose not given to him by his employer, get to outer space and stuff, right?

Well, consider how the complete rando that was e621 does the same: Their personal conviction.

"But Iguazu only got to become the final boss out of dumb luck," right? ALLMIND chose him for little else but that he was the only old-gen Augmented Human that was still alive. If ALLMIND wasn't there, he couldn't have accomplished anything, so obviously it can't actually be meaningful.

But how would 621 have escaped Institute City without being rescued by Carla? How would we have escaped Arquebus re-education without the AC that Handler Walter secretly assembled left for us?

And, most relevantly here since this is the Alea Iacta Est route itself: How would 621 have known about V.II Snail planning to ambush you in Institute City without ALLMIND herself's very assistance?

C4-621 is, at a glance, just as much a recipient of dumb luck as Iguazu.

But thematically, it's not pure happenchance.

It's the results of the both of these characters continuing to fight for a cause they chose to believe in, no matter what.

So Iguazu survives. He survives the hijacking of Watchpoint Alpha by ALLMIND. And he even goes so far as to survive the hijacking of his own brain by ALLMIND, taking over the final boss even after being assimilated.

"What essential difference made ACs superior to unpiloted craft?"

The answer is simple -> One cannot fly on borrowed wings.

Unpiloted craft can never have a purpose that is actually their own. They exist only for the person who's wings they borrow--who's purpose they serve--who built them.

That's why piloted ACs are better. *Not* on borrowed wings, in this case, they can fly higher.

For C4-621, that chosen goal is to achieve Coral Release. (Since it's is still the mission you yourself choose that finally puts you on the Alea Iacta Est route or not, it fits within the theme of free will. Even though, as a videogame, there's an obvious limit to just *how* much free will the player is actually able to express. Within the story, however, when 621 chooses the mission to begin the path to an ending, that's them deciding for themselves 100% that's that the goal they want to achieve, no matter what.)

For Iguazu, that chosen goal is to kill you. (The goal he wants to achieve, no matter what.)

And so, because he was not flying on borrowed wings. Iguazu survives fucking everything. Stupid wings, yeah. But that just shows: What matters is only that they were his own.

Even against the most powerful super duper AI mastermind that ALLMIND was, the biggest loser on Earth, G5 Iguazu, survived.

Where even she is made to give way to Iguazu's conviction -> Killing e621.

Hammering this point home is why "I'm only here for what *I* want! I don't care about ALLMIND's goals, just my own!" is basically the only thing Iguazu says across like 2 entire 3rds of the final boss.

Iguazu's chosen goal is not ultimately successful.

But it wasn't whether or not Iguazu ultimately killed 621 in Rubicon's exosphere that lead to him not dying at the Wall like G4 Volta, or at Watchpoint Alpha like G1 Michigan and Coldcall, or upon the destruction of his physical body by ALLMIND.

It was his conviction that lead him past those things. His WINGS!

He chose what to fight for, and he fought for it.

On the wings of his free will, Iguazu flew above even the very clouds of Rubicon itself.

And that's why he was the Final Boss.

The only thing able to finally kill him being the person with a conviction even greater, C4-621.

(As a sidenote; Taking account of the main moral of Armored Core 6 really puts into perspective how many trillions of times it gets repeated explicitly across the game lol.

VS Rusty, VS Rusty when he calls you "power without a purpose," VS Cinder Carla, VS Handler Walter, Ayre's description of what the name "Raven" is literally supposed to mean, etc.

They all talk about how you've chosen your path and you'd made sacrifices to get this far and you finally have a conviction that is your own and how big a deal that is and so on.)

[itspileofgoodthings]

it’s the way Ryan Gosling plays Ken’s feelings for Barbie for me. because the feelings are unreal and fake in the way of a doll but they’re also intensely real in the way of his actual personality/who he actually is.

[jynersq]

i beg western liberals to think for a single fucking second before making sweeping statements about how any random israeli citizen deserves to die because of their government’s horrific actions. two seconds, maybe. if you’re a usamerican, maybe reflect on the unspeakable brutality of the bush era a little. you’ll get there.

[brittlebutch]

actually, having a kind of revelatory moment here of if HRT was something i have been considering for this long, but has remained inaccessible to me, then that means i Do actually have opinions about my appearance/presentation, so just because i can't take That Particular step doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other avenues i could be pursuing (ie, clothing/accessories/etc.) that i just haven't let myself up until this point. like i don't have to shove it All aside just because there's one thing i can't get -- I'd probably still wind up a lot happier if I took those other steps I've spent all these years ignoring

[um-vvhat]

i have re-watched so many times and my views on characters change/grow/evolve each time but one thing stays the same every time:

Team Rafael, always and forever

[bigboobshaunt]

Idunno! Alex and Sandra are soooo clearly both alter-egos to Alexandra* that I can't help but feel any read that would treat them as different people is very disingenuous, like... their genderfluidity is a reference to the color-changing nature of their alexandrite core, it could not be any clearer...

[cocteautwinslyrics]

friendlyjordies fell off

[lemongogo]

not 2 complain but i love to complain

[ginpotts]

sobbing over nozue’s confession scene again

[girlhorse]

kinda wanna get into making paleoart or specbio.. maybe when i can actually sit down and draw. i enjoy parts of worldbuilding but ive always struggled to suspend disbelief because i enjoy things that make "sense" unless they're truly absurd on purpose

[mcmansionhell]

the motel room, or: on datedness

I.

Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.

As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)

To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.

But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.

We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.

As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.

But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.

II.

I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.

At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.

Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.

However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.

One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.

In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)

Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.

When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.

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[husband-in-law]

As of tonight, the story I'm currently writing is now the longest thing I've ever written

[astralnymphh]

♱: a/n: i don't know much about how prison works in piltover (because we did not recieve any details or storyline regarding that era) so this is just for make-believe funsies! need to be vi's prison wife rn.. mdni.

being involved with the least-upstanding convict, violet, has its pros and its cons—but one outweighs the other. on the more heart-pounding side of being dubbed “cupcake” by her, with no ounce of sweetness or cherried disposition to owe you it, there are moments that make you wish you were a good girl.

made you wish you'd met outside prison.

pros: violating the rules got you in here, you and vi have that in common. which, in all cases, facilitated your time together; you can break them with someone else. freerunning is an all-time favorite. sprinting across ledges and vaulting over light-seeking crevices to adjourn—or escape—is your shared idea of freedom. though, before midnight hit, you both made sure to be spotless of adventure, and in bed. another pro: it was always hers.

your thumb presses at the ink-job on her neck, and she bites your shoulder with a grunt, eliciting something in return. subtle, pleasurable pain pulls through the godless corners of your neck. “dammit, vi. if we get caught because of you..” a dopey giggle is pressed into your pulse point, it tickles. you swallow it. “i can't get in trouble again.”

a cold spot of spit is left to evaporate, vi moving from your cartoid to��well, you assume—spare an answer, but she shuts your lips with hers. she spends a moment of silent mouthing, tugging, licking, grinding the seam over her groin into your clit, to shun the claim. it almost pulled more than a moan: a buck, a bite, or a slap if you felt generous. so, you nudge her off. and violet—of course—eyes you with low-browed, puppy-eyed concern and confusion—like she didn't hear you before. for once during your time here, your wrist genuinely ached to slap this idiot you call your prison-girlfriend. “i need to be on fucking gold-standard behaviour. we can do this when we're both out.”

you slip and inch out from under—just an inch, before fingers you're most familiar with, inside and out, tug your core back to where she wants it to belong. striking, baby-blues hold you in that place. “stay,” her voice delicately cracks; she tries to keep you near with a soothing tone. her grip is tight, while her demand is too soft and sentimental to not laugh. regardless, these hands worked some magic on you—considering one feathered touch to the inside of your thigh, and a whine escapes. “trust me, they're going to find a reason to keep you in here. the least you could do is be a good girl while you are.” vi's crass statements and perversions are the only con you could think of: they get you fucking wet—too wet to forget.

[loriache]

Kabru, impossible mutual understanding & unknowable objects

Despite his concerted and constant efforts to understand other people, it’s established in a few extras that Kabru believes that true mutual understanding between certain different races is impossible. Specifically, between long-lived and short-lived races, and between humans and demi-humans. Partially, we can trace this conviction back to specific hang-ups caused by his life; the trauma of the Utaya disaster, prejudices he carries from his childhood, and his experience of racism among the elves. In this “little” essay, I’m gonna discuss how I think those experiences formed this belief, how it comes out in his actions, and how some of his actions seem to contradict it. The question of whether it’s possible to reach mutual understanding with other living beings despite our differences is one of the core themes of the manga, and I’ll also touch on how this aspect of Kabru’s character links to that.

Seeking understanding

Kabru is a character who devotes a huge amount of time and effort to understanding people, and he is very good at it. In his internal monologue, we can tell how advanced and complex his skills of analysis are. He is able to read a huge amount of information just from looking at people's faces and body language.

People are, to him, what monsters are to Laios. This is something that's been expanded on at length in other, excellent meta. It's the fact that they're foils; it's the fact that Kabru is also very easy to read as autistic, with a special interest which is the opposite and parallel of Laios'. It's something that came out of trauma and alienation, as Laios' special interest in monsters also began as a coping mechanism.

The complicated origin of this "love" for monsters and for people comes through, I think, in the fact that one of the places we see both characters use their fixation is in being very, very good at killing the thing that they love. This also ties into the idea that loving something isn't even remotely mutually exclusive with using it to sustain your own survival; using it for your own purposes; hurting it or killing it. Love can be, and often is, violent, possessive and consumptive. This understanding is part of what makes Kui's depiction of interpersonal relationships so compelling to me.

While Laios fixated on monsters and animals to seek a place of escape, in both his imagination and his self-image, from the humans who he couldn't understand and who couldn't understand him, Kabru seems to have fixated on understanding people in order to navigate the complex, socially marginal places that he has been forced into throughout his life. As an illegitimate child raised by a single mother with an appearance that marked him out as different to the point his father's family wanted to kill him, and a tallman child raised among elves who didn't treat him as fully human and wanted him to perform gratefulness for that treatment – treatment that, after he met Rin at age 9, he certainly always understood could be a lot worse – his ability to work out what people wanted from him, whether they were friendly or hostile or had ulterior motives, wasn’t just an interest. It will have been an essential skill.  

Milsiril, I think, was a flawed parent who tried to do her best by Kabru and did a lot of harm to him despite her best intentions. She may have treated him much better than an average elf would have, but like Otta and Marcille's mother, there are other elves with different outlooks on short-lived races. How would they judge her treatment of him? We don’t have any insight on what it could be, but to be honest, the person’s whose opinion of her I’d be most interested in knowing is Rin’s.

But even if she'd been perfect, living as an trans-racial adoptee in a deeply hierarchical nation with a queen who is a 'staunch traditionalist' who wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a half-elf like Marcille (according to Cithis) is an experience that would deeply impact anyone.

Elves & Impossible mutual understanding

While Kabru was living with Milsiril - in other words, while living in the Northern Central Continent - he came to believe that "there was no way to achieve mutual understanding with the long-lived races."

This is evident in his political project: he wants short-lived races to have ownership over the dungeon's secrets. Despite his dislike of the Lord of the Island, he's a useful bulwark to stop the elves taking over. Despite his doubts about Laios, Laios needs to be the one to defeat the dungeon, because if he doesn't the elves will take over.

Kabru still carries a deep scar from Utaya, one that was exacerbated by the fact that he never got an answer to any of his questions about what happened or why. This, despite the fact that Milsiril knows about the demon and how it works. Do you think Kabru, with his social perceptiveness that borders on the superhuman, wasn't aware that she knew more than she would tell him?

Given that, the fact that he gets to a place where he "doesn't have any particularly negative feelings about [elves/long-lived species]" .... well, to put it bluntly, I believe that he thinks that's the case, but I kind of doubt it. After all, if he did have resentment, of Milsiril (someone who was his primary provider and caretaker since age six, and who despite her flaws, loves him and who I do think he loves) or of elves (who he has had to play nice with for most of his life, in order to survive, and will still have to play nice with in order to achieve his goals, since they hold all the power) what would that do except hurt him and make his life harder? Kabru is Mr. Pragmatic, so I don't think he'd let himself acknowledge any such feelings he did have. Exactly because he can't acknowledge them, they're well placed to get internalised as beliefs about the Fundamental Unchangeable Nature of the World.

However, these stated beliefs seem to contradict his actions. Despite his belief in the impossibility of forming a mutual understanding, he certainly seems to try to understand long-lived people, just as much as he does short-lived people. There's no noticeable difference between his treatment of Daya & Holm versus Mickbell & Rin that isn't clearly down to their relationship with him. His skills of human analysis were honed and developed while living amongst elves, and as soon as he's alone with Mithrun he immediately sets to understanding him - his interests, his motivations, his needs, and his past.

He treats him considerately and without bias, and despite the fact that Mithrun conquering the dungeon for the elves is both a reenactment of a core part of his childhood trauma and a political disaster for his aims, that doesn't seem to colour his perspective on Mithrun negatively at all.

This is something I find extremely laudable about Kabru, and it's another way he parallels Laios. He seems to understand that people, as a rule, (in Laios' case, he understands this about monsters - and eventually, all living beings) will act in their own interests, and if those interests conflict with yours, might harm you. But that's just their nature, and it's not something that should be held against them; you're also doing the same thing, after all. The crux of Laios' arc is precisely that he has to accept the responsibility of hurting someone else in order to achieve what he wants.

Kabru is deeply concerned with his own morals, what he should and shouldn't do, but mostly in the context of responsibility for the consequences - a responsibility he takes onto himself. He isn't scrupulous about what he needs to do in order to create the outcome he wants, but if he fails to create that outcome, then....

He blames himself to the point of thinking he should die. He doesn't blame Laios, or seem at all angry with him, despite concluding he should have killed him to prevent this outcome. That's because in his eyes, ultimately Laios was going to act according to his own nature, and it's Kabru's fault for not understanding that nature well enough. He's extremely confident in his ability to understand and predict others, (including elves and other long-lived people). Then, where does his conviction that mutual understanding is impossible come from?

Partially, it's the "mutual" part. I'm sure Kabru, who isn't able or willing to deny Otta's insinuation that Milsiril saw him more like a pet than a son, has felt that his full interiority, the depth of his feelings and his ability to grow, act, and think as a fully equal being, was something that the elves around him just couldn't grasp. Because that was their excuse for it, he came to understand this as a gulf between short-lived and long-lived beings, an inevitable difference in outlook caused by their different lifespans.

This experience might be part of what leads to his iconic “fake” behaviour. He trusts his ability to understand others, but if they aren’t able to understand him, then there isn’t any benefit to being honest about his feelings and thoughts. If his attempts to reach mutual understanding with his caretakers were never able to be fulfilled, then it isn’t any wonder that he reacts with such surprise and horror at blurting out his desire to be Laios’ friend.

In his experience, making yourself vulnerable in that way only leads to being hurt. Soothing him, hushing him, lying to him, talking to him like a child that isn’t able to use proper judgement – that’s an inadequate and deeply hurtful way to respond to genuine distress, the desire for autonomy, or disagreement. Ultimately, I think that’s why he comes out on the side of being grateful to Milsiril; because she did equip him with the skills and knowledge he’d need to reach his goal, and let him go.

Though he could understand them, they couldn't understand him. To the extent that was true - which I'm sure it was - it wasn't due to anything about lifespan. It was due to the elves’ racism, and the solipsitic mindset & prejudiced attitude that it caused them to approach him with.

Because, if it needs to be said, the idea that there is an unbreachable gap in understanding between the long-lived and short-lived species is not true. Marcille and Laios have a much greater difference in lifespan than any full elf from any short-lived person, and they’re able to understand each other – maybe not perfectly, but better than many other people who are closer in life-span to them.

That doesn’t mean that I think Kabru is wrong about this, however. Because there’s an interpretation of his statement that is reflected in his actions and is true. When he talks about his problem with elves, it’s not just their attitudes: it’s their power, and what they use it to do. They “explain nothing and take everything”. Though it’s presented in the guise of ‘guiding and protecting’, in fact it’s a simple case of a powerful nation using their military power, wealth, access to resources, and historically stolen land – including the island itself – to protect their own interests and advance their own agenda. That’s why they’d be able to show up, seize the dungeon, and forcibly take Kabru’s party and Laios’ party to the West. If Kabru wants to stop that from happening, or change that status quo, persuasion or a bid to be understood would be completely pointless. Between the political blocs formed by long-lived species and the interests of short-lived species, “mutual understanding”, given their current, unequal terms, would be impossible. This is something that we see reflected in Kabru’s actions; before he asks his questions about the dungeon, he grabs Mithrun as leverage. He never really attempts to persuade the canaries to see his point of view, because that would be pointless: they’re agents of the Northern Central Continent’s monarchy, and will act in its interests regardless of any individual relationship with him.  

I don’t think Kabru sees the different dimensions of this belief of his in quite such clear terms, however, as is evidenced by the other group who he thinks it’s impossible to communicate with.

Demi-Humans & Unknowable Objects

The other place that we see his conviction about the impossibility of mutual understanding is in the kobold extra.

I'm including the whole thing, because I think it's an excellent and clever piece of world-building. Aside from what it says about Kabru, which I'll expand on shortly, what this extra does is deconstruct and call into question the usual "fantasy ontological biology" present in these sort of DnD-like settings. Essentially, the kind of worldbuilding where a race (such as kobolds) can be described as war-like, and that's establishing something essential about their biological nature. That's common to the point that if Kui didn't include this, some people would probably come away thinking that's the case about, e.g., the orcs.

But here, despite what Kabru is saying, the information the reader actually gets is:

the conflict between short-lived humans and demi-humans such as kobolds is mostly over access to material resources that they need to survive.

These resources are scarce because powerful nations, such as the elves, have monopolised them.

Kabru, who has grown up in a place at the centre of these conflicts, ascribes essential, negative traits to a cultural group which was in direct conflict with his own. Communication with this other group is impossible; they aren't people, they're more like objects.

oh yes! just like this conflict between groups of tall-men, a conflict which the reader will immediately interpret as more clearly analogous to real-life racism. Our other protagonists also carry prejudices from growing up in a place where a marginalised group was in conflict with the dominant group over scarce resources. It's definitely impossible to communicate with these people, and you can only kill them.

Woah, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad!

But also, nobody walks away having had a realisation or unlearned their prejudices - because they don't have the tools they need to do that work. Yet. I do think, to an extent, it could happen - especially with Kabru, since it's suggested in the epilogue that Melini might become a safe-haven for demi-humans.

To focus in on Kabru, the key here is his statement that you should think of demi-humans as "unknowable objects". Even his extraordinary powers of understanding have seemingly hit a limit. Part of this is just inherited prejudice, and doesn't need to have a complicated psychological explanation, any more than the elves who were prejudiced against him need one.

But also... this is probably somewhat linked to the way demi-humans seem to be considered "pseudo-monsters". They're the place that the strict delineation between the human and the monstrous is permeated. Laios, who is not interested in humans, remembers and is excited by Kuro. Chilchuck and Laios argue over whether it's OK to eat a mermaid. Kabru's prepared to (pretend to) roll with the idea that Laios ate the orcs.

But these are people, aren't they? Of course, this is a social construction, as we see from the fact that in the Eastern Archipelago, the label of "human" is reserved for tallmen, but in most of the rest of the world it depends on some obviously arbirary classification based on number of bones; "demi-humans" aren't in any essential way monstrous, except to an extent in their appearance, and physical location - due to their marginal social status, they're pushed out to live in unsafe places such as dungeons.

Therefore, Kabru's view of demi-humans as fundamentally "other", unable to be understood - monstrous - could be read as akin to abjection, the psychoanalytical concept described by Julia Kristeva. In order to create a bounded, secure superego, that thing which permeates and calls into question the border between self and other, human and animal, life and death, is rejected and pushed to the margin.

“Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A "something" that I do not recognize as a thing.[...] On the edge of nonexistence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There, abject and abjection are my safeguards. The primers of my culture.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 11) “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. ” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 13) “The pure will be that which conforms to an established taxonomy; the impure, that which unsettles it, establishes intermixture and disorder. [...] the impure will be those that do not confine themselves to one element but point to admixture and confusion.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 107) (discussing food prohibitions in Leviticus)

This is both (due to its affinity with food-loathing and disgust) a very fruitful concept to apply to dunmeshi, and a psychoanalytical theory which I wouldn't exactly cosign as True Facts About Human Psychological Development. You may also know the abject from its utilisation in the classic essay "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" by Barbara Creed - that's a lot more approachable than Kristeva if anyone's interested.

Key here, though, is that through the symbol of the "demi-human" is embodied a step between "human" and "monster" - and that's a prospect that puts at risk the whole notion of an absolute separation between those two categories in the first place. To Laios, that's something wonderful, and to Kabru, it's terrifying. We can see this principle further embodied in the relationship both characters have with the notion of becoming monstrous.

To Laios, this is transcendent, and represents a renunciation of everything human - in fact, if it didn't, it wouldn't "count".

To Kabru, it's a deeply-held fear, established by his childhood alienation (due to his illegitimacy, his eyes, and perhaps also his neurodivergency), deepened by monster-related trauma and the sense of responsibility and survivors guilt he feels for what happened at Utaya. His identity as a human who is not monstrous is key to his sense of stability and safety; he doesn't want to touch monsters, he doesn't even want to see them.

To acknowledge a kinship, a possibility of similarity between the things he loves (humans) and the things he hates (monsters) would be more than touching them - it would be putting them inside him. We know, quite explicitly, that this notion is triggering to Kabru. He literally has what seems to be a flashback when he's about to eat the harpy omelette.

So he abjects it, classifying the demi-human as fundamentally unlike him - an unknowable object, or an object that he refuses to know. Because in understanding it, he would interject the things he hates and fears into his self, which is already, always under threat by that hated and feared object.

Of course, again, Kabru isn't very good at enacting this refusal in practice. For one, when he chooses between his desires and ingesting the feared object, eating monsters... he eats monsters. Part of this is treating himself badly, the "ends justify the means" mentality. His goal is to destroy all monsters, so if he needs to become monster-like to do that, he will. But part of it is also the other motivation that he didn't even seem to know about until he said it: he wants to become Laios' friend, and to learn from him how a person can like monsters. He wants, at least in some part of him, to reconcile the feared and hated object into something he can understand.

For another:

Kabru can speak the kobold language. In the first place, while this may have been common in Utaya, it also could have been something he chose to learn, an early expression of his interest in understanding and talking to all sorts of people. It isn't the kind of thing you learn if you believe that communication between yourself and the group that speak it is impossible, is it?

It's possible to harbour prejudices against a group while being kind to an individual, and given Kabru has those prejudices regardless of his reasons, that is what he is doing. But also, his treatment of Kuro doesn't reflect a sincerely held belief that he's an "unknowable object" at all. His approach is exactly the same as it is to any other person: an analysis of goal and motive, and an attempt to help if he's sympathetic and their goals align - going out of his way to give language and local knowledge lessons in secret. His conviction that Mickbell and Kuro will truly become friends when they can properly communicate is completely contradictory to any sense of demi-humans as fundamentally different, or impossible to reach mutual understanding with. To me, it seems like this self-protective shield against the corruptive force demi-humans as an idea present to his identity, this abjection, when Kabru is face-to-face with one, just simply can't hold up against his finely honed skill of intellectual empathy. Perhaps because he's autistic, it seems his "empathy" is less an emotional mirror response, and more a set of cognitive skills for analysis of others. That instinctual, emotional empathy might not trigger when presented with a member of an out-group, but if it’s possible for Kabru to turn his cognitive empathy off, we don’t see him do it.

This isn't to say that this prejudice doesn't affect his behaviour. For one, it could negatively impact his judgement of politics and policy, where individual people don't enter into it. For another, I'm not convinced he'd be willing to overlook Mickbell's exploitative relationship with Kuro if Kuro wasn't a kobold. As it is, since both of them are satisfied, he doesn't feel like he needs to intervene, regardless of the fact Mickbell isn't paying Kuro. But if Daya and Holm were in a relationship, and Holm took both Daya's and his own share from their ventures, but only compensated her in living expenses and kept the rest, do you think he'd tolerate it, for example? Even if she said it was OK?

Conclusion

The kelpie chapter establishes that "people can never know what monsters are really thinking." That isn't just true of monsters, though.

True mutual understanding is impossible - between anyone. We can never truly understand another person's heart. This is touched on in, for example, the existence of shapeshifters and dopplegangers. Even a monster that seemed like a perfect copy of a person wouldn’t be that person, and wouldn’t be a satisfactory replacement.

We’re intended, I think, to understand the winged lion's repeated suggestions to just replace people who have been lost with copies as something uncanny, which demonstrates the way that the winged lion never manages to attain a complete understanding of humans. A version of a person who was created to fulfil your memories of them, to be the person who you wanted them to be, would be a terrible, miserable thing.

Disagreeing, coming into conflict, and misunderstanding each other, are essential parts of what it means to be living beings, as fundamental as the need to eat.

The only thing to do is not to take more than you need to eat to survive, and not impose your own desires onto others. To do your best to sincerely communicate your desires, even if they're embarrassing or vulnerable or strange, like Kabru eventually does with Laios; like Laios does, bit by bit, with the people around him; like Marcille does, Chilchuck does, Senshi does... to hope they will accept you, and do your best to understand them in return.

We can re-examine, in that context, Kabru's line about the elves' tendency to "explain nothing and take everything".

They have the power to impose their preferred "menu" onto less powerful groups. And in that context, mutual understanding being impossible just means that they won't give up their power because they're asked nicely. Kabru's goal is to seize the truth that they won't give to him, and to create a situation where they can't take everything. Because he's accurately surmised that nothing about the treatment of short-lived races will change so long as the power imbalance remains. Despite the way he mistakenly ascribes part of that to "long-lived vs short-lived" or "human vs demi-human", the actual gulfs in understanding he identifies are structural, are about power and about access to material resources and safety.

I think he could come to recognise this. Yaad is teaching him political science after all, and while a prince's lessons on political science won't exactly get at much that's radical or invested in the interests and perspectives of the marginalised (Capital is a critique of for a reason after all...) I believe in Kabru's ability to learn critically and get more from a lesson than it was intended to teach.

[aestheteanime]

how long they last during a sex ban

your boyfriend has been a little too... bold for your liking recently. after getting caught fucking in the training room, you felt it was necessary to enact some sort of punishment to make up for your embarrassment.

✶ ft: ichikawa reno, hoshina soshiro, furuhashi iharu, narumi gen

✶ cw: afab, semi-public sex, grinding, mutual masturbation, cunnilingus, pet names [baby, pretty girl, etc.], edging, orgasm denial (very very briefly)

✶ wc: 2.9k

✶ author's note: i've never written for kn8 so im not totally sure how well im gonna be able to write for these boys but i tried my best, hopefully it's okay lol

nsfw minors DNI

— ✶ ICHIKAWA RENO | 4 days

at the beginning reno thought he had this whole "sex ban" punishment in the bag. it's not like his sex drive was higher than yours-- so why, after only four days, was he begging for you like he had been deprived of your touch for eons?

"please, baby," he mumbles, face pressed into your neck as you shift uncomfortably on the couch.

you wanted to touch him so bad. wanted to indulge in him as much as he wanted to indulge in you, but you knew you had to keep a cool head. this was his punishment after all, and he had to face the consequences of his actions.

you had been mortified when kafka walked in on you two fucking against the wall, bodies sweaty and sticky-- and so so so close to orgasming. reno had been humiliated too, apologizing profusely on both of your halves and begging kafka to keep this a secret. he'd reluctantly agreed, but it was definitely still awkward between them. so then if reno was as embarrassed as you, why was he so eager to fuck you again?

reno's hand caresses your cheek, pressing a soft kiss under your ear before peppering them down your neck to your collarbone. they're soft, delicate even, almost as if he's afraid he'll hurt you if he kisses you any harder. it was infuriating. you wanted more-- needed more. "i'm sorry," he murmurs against your skin, fingers trailing to your chest before finding your tit, squeezing gently. "it won't happen again, i promise. just please touch me." his voice drawls out into a quiet whine and you can feel arousal begin to soak your panties.

his hand moves yours to palm at the erection through his pants and you nearly moan for him when your hands shift slightly to cup his balls.

shivering at the feeling of him smirking against your neck-- almost as if he knows he's won-- your head falls back to expose your entire neck to him. every passing second you feel your composure begin to slip. each touch seers hot against your skin, aching-- no, begging-- to give into him. it had only been four days. four days. a mere 96 hours and he was already on you like a dog in heat. "reno," you warn, though you're not sure how much conviction your voice displays. in fact, you're pretty sure it shakes with each breath.

"come on," he sighs, whining-- you can practically hear him pout. "it's been long enough, hasn't it?" his voice is raspy in your ear, vibrations going straight to your core. "wanna touch you. want you to touch me."

you groan in frustration, finally looking into his eyes only to see them glazed over. reno's pupils are dilated, focused solely on you and you alone.

his hand pulls your face closer to his, eyes fluttering to your lips, then your eyes, and back to your lips, silently asking for permission to close the gap.

you finally oblige.

your lips collide in a mess, spit mixing with each other's as reno moves to pull you into his lap in one swift motion. legs straddle his as your arms move to hook around his neck. your tongue slides against his, a fire lighting itself in your stomach as reno's lips move against yours, only proving to further fan the flames. there's a primal desire in the way his hands roam your body, squeezing your waist and pulling you against him, back and forth against his groin.

hands move to unbutton his pants before your lifting your body so he can pull them down, cock springing free as you notice your mouth practically drooling at the sight.

regardless of how many times you had fucked before, you somehow keep forgetting how pretty it is. the way it curves slightly to the left, veins running up the shaft, and oh the way it twitches when your hands find it.

reno nearly cries when you spread the precum along his head, jerking up into you at just your mere touch alone.

the sight is beautiful. reno's hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, head leaned back against the couch as his hands have no idea what to do with themselves. it's as if he was a bumbling, nervous virgin all over again.

that thought is quickly relinquished however, when he lets out a, "fuck, baby... missed this."

— ✶ HOSHINA SOSHIRO | 2 weeks

it wasn't soshiro that broke the sex ban. in fact, he could've gone longer just to prove a point. but with the way you were cuddled up next to him, leg slung over his, pelvis flush with his upper thigh as he felt the pulse of your cunt against him, he figured two weeks was plenty long.

he could tell you were pent up-- knowing that he was jacking off in the same bed, night after night, while you struggled to even reach your own release. it was a constant battle, and the humiliation of envying his right hand only seemed to intensify the torment. you needed him to get the job done, it just wasn't the same by yourself.

hearing the slick of his cock as he stroked himself every other night was pure, psychological torture-- and he knew it.

he knew listening to his rapid, heavy breathing riled you up. he knew his quiet, restrained moans and muffled whimpers soaked your panties. he knew not being able to see or feel his cock pulsing in his hand drove you crazy.

"soshiro," you mumble, your breath tickling his ear as your hand finds the curve of his neck, fingers tracing the line of his jaw before settling in his hair. "sex ban is over." your voice has a hint of embarrassment that soshiro immediately picks up on, and you brace yourself for what's coming next.

he hums, glancing down at you over his phone before setting it on the bedside table. "hmm?" he coos, eyes meeting yours as you prepare for the worst. "done already? you need me that badly, huh?" he speaks in an almost mocking tone and you have to hold back from turning over, red-faced and giving up. but you needed him, no matter how embarrassed he made you.

"don't tease," you plead, hand tracing a path down his chest until it reaches the waistband of his sweats. they hang low on his waist, hugging his hips oh-so-perfectly that you can't help but palm at his length through the fabric, wishing nothing more than for him to just let you have him.

you missed the feeling of him in your hand, jerking when you first brush your thumb over his tip, smearing the precum down his length. you missed how sensitive he gets when your mouth is wrapped around him, tongue swirling around his head, teasing his slit. you missed the unintelligible whimpers that leave his throat when you take him all, spit pooling at the base of his cock, nearly choking at the size. you missed how--

"you can't even handle your own punishment, baby," soshiro breathes, words laced with a dangerous amusement. his head falls back at the feeling of your hand against him. a shaky sigh escapes him, heat spreading to form a knot in his lower belly as he feels his cock harden. "shit," he mutters. "shit, shit, shit."

you smirk at the profanities he so rarely says, fingers inching to dip under his waistband as you trail down the sensitive skin, causing him to shudder. "you want it too," you pout, eyes fixated on the rhythm of his chest rising and falling-- the way he brushes a hand through his hair in an attempt to calm himself down. "or... maybe not?" you tease, pulling your hand away before moving to turn over, but not before soshiro's hand can grip your wrist, stalling your actions.

soshiro's skin is hot, face flushed as he relishes your touch, yearning to feel your soft, velvet walls wrapped around him. it had been too long, he thinks. too long of trying to convince himself he didn't need you, but now, with you so willing to give yourself back to him, he's changed his mind.

"i do," he whispers, although his actions speak louder when he pulls you back to him. "fuck, i want you."

your hand is placed back on his cock, and through the fabric you feel him throb, begging to be taken out. the drawstring of his sweats seemingly unties itself when soshiro pulls the material off, watching as it springs free-- tip leaking with precum. silently gazing at you with hooded eyes, he pumps himself one, two, three times.

sochiro lets out what sounds like more of a whimper than a sigh, "stop gawking and help me out here, would you?"

— ✶ FURUHASHI IHARU | 20 minutes

iharu is a simp through and through. as soon as you enacted the sex ban, he made it his life's mission to eradicate it. i mean, he couldn't just let his girl go without having his cock, right? that would just be too cruel...

"come on, baby. that's not fair, i didn't do anything wrong. it's not my fault vice-captain walked in on us. how was i supposed to know he trained that late?" iharu rambles, pressing his body against your back. his body is hot, still sweaty from the session earlier.

it had been 15 minutes since you had made it back to your dorm in total and utter embarrassment. both of you had left the the gym with red faces and blue balls.

iharu's cock had been slamming into you at an unrelenting pace, one that you weren't even sure was human. too enamored with the way your pussy squeezed him, all he could muster were lazy fingers messily rubbing circles against your clit. you could feel yourself throbbing against his girth, each thrust practically molding your walls to the shape of his cock-- memorizing each detail.

his muscles flexed as he held himself above you on the bench press, the red leather beneath you wet and shiny with sweat, sticking to your skin.

he looked like a god, hell, he felt like a god, with the way his breath fanned your neck, balls slapping against your ass. each slap echoed through the quiet gym, the filth of the sound only spurring the both of you on. "so pretty for me," he mumbles, tongue swiping up your neck before letting out a shaky sigh. "so good to me." your back arched, leaning into him as the heat in your stomach grew, breath picking up in an attempt to chase your orgasm.

and then the door creaked, causing you both to freeze in place and look for the source of the sound. there, hoshina stood, eyes wide as he swiftly turned, back facing you so that you can only imagine the look on his face. "gym is closed after midnight." he'd stated, voice loud, almost like he's trying to block out what he just saw. "go to bed." walking out and closing the door behind him you lay there, iharu's cock still twitching inside you.

"sex ban for two weeks, iharu." you turn to face him, crossing your arms to push him away, watching as he nearly trips on the end of your bed.

his mouth drops, hands gripping your shoulders in a plea. "what? why?" his hold on you isn't strong by any means, just firm, and you can tell you've struck a nerve.

you know he was still pent up from being cock-blocked earlier, but you make no motion to even spare his hard-on a glance. "what do you mean why? i told you we were going to get caught and we did!" your voice raises but you nearly instantly regret it when iharu takes a deep breath, trying to calm the ache pressing against his sweat pants.

he only gets hornier when you're mad at him.

you lower your voice this time, taking his hands off your shoulders. "you didn't listen to me."

"you liked the idea." he lowers his head to whisper in your ear. "i heard the way you were moaning, begging for me to let you finish. how much tighter your pussy squeezed me than normal at the thought of someone walking in." iharu's hands move to the small of your back, tracing his finger tips up and down your spine.

you huff, trying not to concentrate on the way his nails tickle your skin. your head dips down, attempting to calm your breathing before realizing your mistake.

your eyes meet the bulge in iharu's sweats and you nearly let out an audible gulp, thighs pressing themselves together at the sight. he wasn't the only one still pent up.

you hear a low chuckle from above as you absentmindedly move your hands to untie his drawstring.

"so much for a ban," you hear him mumble before shooting him a glare. "not that i mind though, pretty girl."

— ✶ NARUMI GEN | 2 days

there was a mutual end to the sex ban between the two of you... well, sort of. gen had broken it but it's not like you were mad about it.

your breathing was hot and heavy when your eyes open to a half-lit room. absentmindedly, you reach for the right side of the bed, feeling an empty, cold space. it was strange, usually you'd wake up to the man clingy to your side, shivering from the blasting air conditioner.

you had gotten used to his weight as he laid half of his body on you, lips pressed into the crook of your neck. he'd curl into you like a cat, and you swear some mornings you could hear him purr. his hands rested under your body, one cradled your shoulder while the other rested protectively across your waist. it's be a funny looking sight to outsiders-- japans strongest, the number one anti-kaiju combatant in all of the country, snuggled up on top of his girlfriend-- but to you, it was everything.

gen was nowhere to be found next to you, so you nearly jump when you feel a wet kiss press to your upper thigh. you're quick to lift up the covers, your aforementioned missing boyfriend squinting at the light. his hair was a tousled mess, colored ends curling to frame his face. had he been not been between your legs, you'd have thought the sight innocent and sweet.

sleep-heavy eyes meet yours, glazed over in exhaustion before he's swiping his tongue between your folds. you shiver.

it's such a dirty sight. the way he smirks into your pussy, maintaining eye contact. the way his lips find your clit and gently suck, slurping at the excess arousal dripping from your cunt.

and god the noises.

the wet slurping of his mouth savoring your juices filled the room, breath fanning hot against you. the feeling of his lips latching to your clit, tongue gliding through and dipping into your hole caused you to jerk up into him and he only smiled, chuckling at your reactions.

the humiliation burned, too embarrassed to look any longer. but his touch, the rough calluses of his hands holding your legs apart despite your desperate attempt to close them around his head, was intoxicating. "mornin' sleepyhead," he mumbles, pressing a caste kiss to your lower stomach. it was sweet compared to the sight from two seconds ago.

the pads of his fingers trace circles along your thighs, eliciting chills from your body. yet his hands are warm, especially against the cold air. with every shift of your body, a rush of air brushes against your cunt. you shiver, not saying a word but instead curling your hands through his hair and pushing his mouth back to where you needed it most. you needed the warmth-- needed him.

no further words needed to be said as gen drags his tongue ever so slowly through your folds. it's agonizing, it's not enough, it's nearly torture the way he curls his tongue and laps at your juices. so so so slowly as you twitch and buck into him, grinding against the muscle for more. he just huffs out a laugh, actions somehow slowing even further and you finally build up the courage to seek a glance at him again.

his gaze remains firmly fixed on you, meticulously observing every subtle twitch of your body in reaction to the flick of his tongue. and he notices when your breathing starts to pick up, chest rising and falling with increasing fervor as you feel yourself near your release. you close your eyes, concentrating on the heat rising in your core. it's hot and it's approaching fast, bubbling down your stomach and to your cunt.

and then he stops, a gasp leaving you at the sudden halt and your quick to scoff in frustration. sliding up the bed to rest his entire body on you, gen presses a long, wet kiss to your lips.

your eyebrows furrow at the action but relax when his head rests against your chest. "not gonna let you cum until the sex ban is gone," he mumbles into you. hands sliding under your shoulders.

you groan, hand gently slapping the back of his head as he just laughs. "it was gone the second you started eating me out."

"well in that case--"