#find it easier to accept a ugly little star fish

[oifaaa]

I honestly forget Jarro exists 99% of the time and then someone will mention him and like a sleeper agent my thoughts instantly turn to pure hate for that stupid star fish

[isshuns]

word dump

untitled kuroken fic in the lex miserables series :’) tw: eating problems, feeling disconnected from oneself, anxiety, idk if there’s depression in this lolol

the realisation that something is wrong with himself comes to kenma one day when hinata invites him to one of the firm’s after-work bonding sessions. 

these bonding sessions usually take place on friday evenings, taking advantage of the happy hour policies of the bar down the street. the usual participants - tora, ryuu, noya, inuoka, lev and hinata - gather by kenma’s door while hinata beams at him expectantly, waiting for his acceptance to an invite that goes rejected every week. 

it’s admirable, really, that hinata tries so hard to include him in the after-work team bonding sessions. it’s a benefit fully paid for by the firm, courtesy of the partners insisting that any costs for team bonding ought to be shouldered by the employers, but kenma is always the last person to ever take advantage of this benefit. it is probably the one single benefit of his employment that he rarely takes advantage of. 

“come on, kenma, it’ll be fun!” hinata grins, radiant like the sun. 

kenma blinks, steals a glance at the time displayed by the corner of his desktop, and sighs.

“sorry, shouyou, not today.” it ought to get easier each passing time he rejects hinata’s offer to drink themselves silly, but somehow it isn’t. the guilt that crawls through his skin consistently makes him sick with anxiety every time.

“it’s okay, next time, kenma! i’ll be sure to get you to come one day!” 

hinata is welcome to try.

hunger faintly registers itself in his brain, but he has no appetite at all. he works backwards to identify his thought patterns for the past few days. he either stress-ate and had more meals per day than he usually did, or he didn’t eat at all despite knowing that he would get hungry the next day, 

if kuroo noticed anything, kenma is only grateful that he hasn’t commented on it at all. 

it feels strange, swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other end back and forth day by day. at the end of the journey, all kenma feels is bone deep exhaustion, bitter hopelessness and a sense of resignation.

on one day, he felt better, and indulged himself with an expensive unagi bento set from the michelin starred sushi restaurant down in roppongi. without digging in yet, he passed by his favourite bakery, saw his favourite apple pies fresh out of the oven, and bought two large slices on impulse. 

kenma ate everything in one go for dinner. in the aftermath, the food he ingested probably washed away all the good cheer he had too. he felt sick, fat, and sluggish with too much food in his now round belly, and desperately wished that his stomach would stay flat forever instead. kenma felt disgusted with himself then, but not to the point he would stick his finger down his throat and purge everything out of his disgestive system. it was a passing thought, one he gave serious consideration to, but did not act on it because kuroo would find out. 

the next day, he somehow felt dissatisfied, craved for the hash browns from mcdonald’s, and bought a breakfast set on a whim. kenma finished the entire meal on the way to work. and then he had lunch with the department, and by the time the sun was setting across the tokyo skyline, he lowkey disliked the feeling of ingesting food so much that he skipped dinner that night and forgoed all proper meals for the remaining days of the week. he survived on one single meal during lunch time, and continued to drown in the loss of appetite.

kenma hates this. he hates his relationship with food. he hates that therapy isn’t helping him to deal with this, that all the coping techniques he’s learned throughout therapy never prepared him for this. his next session with takeda-san is scheduled after another three weeks or so, and kenma is about to fling himself off the tokyo bridge if he has to continue surviving the days like this. 

after hinata leaves, kenma continues to stare at his desktop, a blank expanse stretched across the monitor. he’s supposed to start on the submissions after trial for a case, but the cursor continues to blink and taunt him from the beginning of the blank page. 

quietly, kenma slides open the drawer beside him, and quietly peruses the takeout menu kuroo left on his table last week before he travelled to hokkaido for a week-long trial. the yellow post-it note is still stuck onto the top left corner of the flyer. 

just in case you don’t feel like going out for meals~, it reads. 

it ought to feel endearing, and it would have, but kenma is stuck in some sort of fugue state with no exit in sight. so all he feels is emptiness, and disappointment in himself for failing to appreciate and capture the true emotion the post-it note meant to provide. 

distantly, kenma feels the signs of hunger incoming. all he had for today was one salmon mayo onigiri from the local familymart at ground floor at noon. right now, time has trickled by and is inching closer towards 8pm. with the pandemic, restaurants will close soon. 

i should order something, kenma tells himself, but the lack of appetite overpowers all semblance of rationality, disconnects his thoughts and shuts down his brain. by the time kenma leaves the office, the takeout menu is tucked back into the drawer, out of sight, out of mind.

-----------------------------------

kenma hears the sound of something frying coming from his apartment before he actually smells food in the air. the train leading home was oddly empty today for a friday evening, and kenma had almost the entire carriage to himself. hunger never came back to find him while he stared blankly out of the windows, lost to the static buzzing across his mind.

kuroo is back today, early, his brain tells him unhelpfully as he fishes out his key and unlocks the door, kuroo is cooking.

his mouth waters at the smell of fried oil wafting through the air, but somehow he still doesn’t feel hungry, nor does he feel the need to eat. if he doesn’t exert himself tonight and sleeps early, kenma is confident that he can power through the night without sustenance until lunchtime next morning. 

“welcome home~” kuroo chimes, voice rising above the sizzling sound of hot oil frying in a pan. 

kenma doesn’t need to wait for long before his partner appears before him in the genkan, ridiculous pink apron draped in front of his expensive armani dress shirt as he brandishes a pair of long chopsticks in kenma’s face.

“i cooked dinner.” kuroo declares proudly. because i know you have not eaten yet, goes unsaid.

what should kenma say now? i know, or that’s nice, or perhaps i’m not hungry? which response should he give that would not trigger kuroo to overreact and fuss over his recent lack of appetite? kenma doesn’t want kuroo to worry again. kuroo should only smile, and not have to worry about his wellbeing.

kuroo must have picked up on his mental dilemma, and gives him the easy way out. 

“why don’t you go wash up? i’ll be done in five, then we can eat together.” he smiles, and ducks to peck a chaste kiss on kenma’s forehead before going back to the kitchen.

kenma’s heart twists in guilt. 

when he’s done showering, kenma stands in front of the wardrobe mirror in nothing but kuroo’s oversized shirt hanging off his wiry frame. his face is thinner now, cheek bones more prominent. his fingers travel down from his jawline to press against the collarbones hidden beneath pale skin. 

the hard touch of bones brings him comfort, somehow. with this, kenma will never have to feel disgusted with himself by eating too much and having food fill up his stomach. the sick feeling that he gets from eating one meal too much a day won’t return to haunt him anymore like this. his brain is now quiet, nothing is telling him that he needs to eat, that he needs to pick up the phone to order for food, that he needs to put on decent clothes and walk down the street to get food.

nothing, except kuroo, who is walking up to him this instant, fond expression painted across his handsome features, and planting his large hands over his hipbones.

“have i ever told you how much i love seeing you in my shirt?” kuroo dips his head and presses a kiss against kenma’s shoulder. 

kenma rolls his eyes. kuroo’s smile grows wider, brighter, and he releases him after stroking his thumbs across kenma’s hipbones not once but twice.

“come, kenma,” kuroo leads him to the table, where a bowl of udon and assorted tempura awaits him. kenma’s shoulders drop a little more. 

“eat,” kuroo says.

kuroo takes a seat across him, still smiling, and waits for kenma to start digging in. instead, kenma waits and counts the seconds it would take for that smile to disappear off kuroo’s face. 

in this house, there is no need to pretend to force food down his oesophagus and feel shitty about it later. kenma chooses not to touch his food, just like how kuroo hasn’t touched his either. 

“are you feeling unwell, kenma?” the smile is still there, perched on kuroo’s lips, but kenma notices the way it tightens a little and loses the casualness it once possessed mere seconds ago.

“... no.” 

“are you not hungry?”

kenma fidgets in his seat. how does he tell kuroo that he just doesn’t feel like eating? that he looks at food and his brain doesn’t tell him to consume them for sustenance anymore? 

“yeah. i’m not hungry, sorry, after you cooked and all that.” he says, quietly, like the walls of this house have ears and nowhere is safe for his ugly feelings to go. 

“that’s alright, kenma. you don’t have to be sorry, we can save this for lunch tomorrow.” kuroo gestures vaguely in the air, “we have snacks. eat something. let’s not go to bed on an empty stomach.” 

kenma shrinks further into his seat. he really doesn’t want to eat at all today, for some reason. the thought of food swimming in his stomach makes him feel a little sick. 

“hey, kenma,” kuroo reaches out to touch him, voice soft, “what’s wrong? you can tell me, I won’t be mad.”

kuroo stands from his seat, and comes to sit beside kenma and pull the latter into his arms. he always comes to him, never the other way around. kenma doesn’t know what to make of it, but he feels touched yet guilty at the same time. he knows he should reach out to kuroo more often, reassure him whenever things are looking up, but it’s always kuroo that reaches out first because he knows and understands how difficult it is for kenma step out of his anxiety and take the first step. 

kenma doesn’t deserve kuroo’s love. he will never be worthy of his affections.

“i just... don’t feel like eating. lately.” the last word comes out softer, barely a whisper, but from the way kuroo’s arms tighten around his shoulders, kenma knows kuroo has picked up the intended meaning behind his words. 

“it’s okay to feel that way,” kuroo tells him kindly, “it’s okay.”

“i don’t know why. i just... feel disconnected, somehow, from myself.” 

“thank you for telling me, kenma. what can i do to help?”

kenma wants to cry. well, at least that’s a feeling other than emptiness in him now.

“I don’t know, kuro.”

“we’ll figure it out. it’s okay, we’ll take baby steps, one step at a time. i will be here with you to support you.”

kenma closes his eyes and leans against kuroo’s lean body. he buries his nose into the juncture between kuroo’s neck and shoulder, seeking warmth and comfort. he feels the tension seep out of kuroo’s shoulders when kenma finally reciprocates, knowing that kenma isn’t closing himself off to the world now, to kuroo. the door leading to kenma’s being is still open and nobody has slammed any door closed yet.

kenma sighs.

“thank you,” he says.

[antigenius]

Could I get a matchup for BNHA? I’m a really tall 20 year old straight girl. I’ve got dark hair & dark eyes. I’m in college right now and I’m too obsessed with doing well in school...I spend most of my time playing animal crossing and talking with friends. I’m empathetic and soft hearted and lowkey pretty shy. Like I’ve still got my weenie hut jr. membership card and I really just want everyone around me to feel loved. Anyway, I really LOVE your writing so keep doing what you’re doing!!

Aw!! You’re so sweet and I WANT ACNH SO BAD BUT I DON’T HAVE A SWITCH HHHHH

I think you’d best suit…

Tomura Shigaraki!

Okay, hear me out, at first I thought you’d be PERFECT for Tamaki, but then I thought about it further-

Tamaki needs someone confident and protective, not saying he wouldn’t work well with another timid person, but I’d find it hard for two very timid people to get together-

Thus, Shigaraki was the next answer that came to mind! He’s bold and he’s determined, but istg he’s just a soft introvert that acts like he’s all that POWER

And like, he’d love someone so adorably cute AND YOU PLAY ACNH??? YO YOU WAIT THIS MAN WILL GIVE YOU HIS WHOLE H E A R T

Ahem.

A date with Shigaraki

Honestly? You really didn’t expect this.

What you expected was hopefully a cute guy with messy hair in a beanie and a sweater. He’d have some black rimmed glasses and a backpack with lots of alien enamels, or maybe like some cute pastel pins.

The guy in front of you wore a baggy black hoodie; a mask covering the lower half of his face. He had gloves on his hands and eyes that made shivers run down your spine.

“It’s you, right?”

You nod shyly in response, looking down at your feet. “Ye-yeah. Sorry if I’m not what you expected.”

A nervous laugh escapes your lips, floating carelessly on the chilly night air. Despite your concerns about him, you knew that he was actually a chill dude when it came to it. It wasn’t good for you to judged people based on their appearance after all.

You had met him after making your island public on twitter, asking for criticism on your new layout. Truthfully? You thought it looked really good. So did most of the people who came to your island.

Iago was… Different.

He came onto your island and you welcomed him, as you do. He went straight past you and walked into the myriad of rare flowers you had arranged in a cute fashion. He stands there for a moment, typing.

Iago: Put it in bundles, it’ll be easier to water. It looks ugly when you try to put into patterns like this.

You were taken aback by his blunt attitude, but nonetheless noted the advice he gave. He then checked out the whole island, deftly picking out each and every fault, whilst asking you what style it was you really wanted to achieve.

Iago: A soft style? I have most of the spring-time recipes, that would suit it better than this… weird patio thing you’ve done.

Iago: Also, move the bench, it’s not centred. It sticks out so much it physically hurts.

His harsh words hit a nerve in you. It was just a game, and you had done really good!

Well, you thought so anyway. Who did he think he was? The AC CEO or something?

(Y/n): But I wanted it to be here so I could place the telescope.

Iago: No. It’ll look bad.

He’s silent for a moment, but a ping comes not too long later.

Iago: Come to my island, you’ll see what I mean.

You scoff. The audacity of this guy to go around like he’s got the best island out there. You’re not saying yours is the best either, but it’s pretty good, you have to admit. You blow your hair from your face.

“Whatever, let’s just go see this guy’s ‘aesthetic’ island.”

The loading screen to land gets your fingers tapping impatiently on the side of the switch. You weren’t normally a person who would have such mean thoughts, but this guy was being a dick. You held no expectation at all for his decorating abilities, honestly regretting accepting his invite in the first place.

Your character walks out of the airport and onto the docks.

Your jaw hangs open.

The island has been completely terraformed so that the cliffs he made looked like mountains. The entrance from the airport was paved in a gorgeous red tile pattern that complimented the colours of the golden roses waving to greet you. The guy doesn’t seem to notice your character just standing in place and looking around in awe.

Iago: This way, patio’s here.

You follow him down the path, only to goggle at how much detail he put into his island. His orchard was filled with each type of fruit in the game, even cherries, which you had been struggling to find. He had EVERY flower and villagers you had never seen before. His rivers were almost somehow strategically placed to ensure that you could fish to the best of your ability whilst still looking pretty.

Iago: Gimme a second, I gotta get something, stay put.

He walks into his house. You trail behind despite his orders, curious as to how he did his house.

It was like looking at the work of an interior designer. The home had a total cottage aura to it; you envied the countless amounts of items he seemed to own. He sure walked the talk, that was for sure.

Iago: I told you to stay put. You suck at instructions.

… He was a dick though.

After exploring his whole island, mentally archiving certain ideas and convincing him to give you some cherries to grow, you leave the island, excited with the creative boost rushing through you.

Almost moments on going back to your island, you get a friend request. It was him.

Thus began your game nights, tips on AC, debates on the best Pokémon and conversations on your favourite JRPGs that last for hours on end. He was a pretty geeky guy, seemingly knowing all the good games to try next or expertly playing each smash character no matter the situation. He even talked about real-life like it was a game, which you found pretty endearing, though sometimes annoying. He was passionate, determined and smart. Though there were many a time where you would see flaws in his plans, telling him a different way to do it. He was stubborn, usually dismissing your ideas, but he would then say the same idea a day later, worded differently and claimed it as his. You were simply happy he liked your idea.

Iago: Hey, you wanna meet up?

It all leads back to this very moment in time now with you, timidly staring at the ground like it was the most interesting thing you had ever seen. His eyes glanced at you from behind his pastel bue locks.

“Come on then.”

He does a one-eighty turn, hands in his hoodie pockets. Your heart thumps rapidly in your chest. You couldn’t move, even if you wanted to. He seems to notice, eyebrows screwing in frustration.

“What? Are you stuck?”

Internally, you apologise again and again. Externally, you stay in place. Something seemed… Familiar. He looked familiar.

He grabs you by the hand with a huff.

“I’ll just drag ya then.”

His hand was cold, despite being in a glove. It was adorably small, filling perfectly into yours. You dawdle behind him, trying your best to keep up with his pace. The crisp night air welcomed itself into your lungs, the smell of rain on asphalt wafting through. The stars twinkled dimly in the heavily light-polluted environment, watching, observing. Gravel crunched under your flats as he led you to god knows where.

“Sit here.”

It was a large sakura tree, branches devoid of any flowers. It was barren, but eerily beautiful. The roots curled and twisted in peculiar patterns at the base. He sat down on one of the roots, you do the same.

“It’s easier to speak here.” He says, eyes watching the late shift workers drive their cars on the highway. “It’s also… Nice… Here.”

Your breaths come out as white wisps, little baby ghosts dispersing your toxic gases into the atmosphere.

“It is.”

A silence hangs between the two of you. It was one of those rare silences that you enjoyed, just admiring the city from where you sat, it was relaxing.

“Would you join me?”

You blink, turning to him. He had taken off his mask, staring straight at you. His crimson eyes turned your blood to ice.

It was Tomura Shigaraki. That’s why you knew him.

“It’s an easy choice, I won’t force you but…” He sighed. “With me showing myself to you now, I’d need to keep your mouth shut somehow.”

You gulp as he smiles.

“Make this easy, hm? I don’t really wanna kill you, you’re actually… alright.”

He holds out his gloved hand.

“Lend yourself, to the League of Villains.”

(It’s extra long because I had some extra inspo with this one!! I hope you don’t mind ^^)

[wittywallflower]

@wolfshadow thaaaaank you. I called into work today and this is definitely a better way to spend my time :D

1) Family vacation that includes Schneider

Penelope really wants to take a family trip before Elena goes off to college because while she is so, so proud of Elena getting into Bryn Mawr, she is already feeling a little panicked about her daughter moving so far away.

But Lydia still hates flying, and Dr. B has been letting Penelope run the office more as he starts to consider retirement, so its hard to find enough time to take a trip before the end of summer

Schneider blasts through a dozen suggestions but especially wants to take them hiking in British Columbia. Not a single Alvarez is interested in that. Most of them grew up in LA, they aren’t exactly one with nature.

He’s kinda sarcastic when he suggests Disneyland because it hardly counts as a trip when its only an hour away, plus its such a cliche, right? Alex is too old to really experience any childlike wonder anymore and Elena never enjoys huge displays of blatant consumerism. She probably has 3 articles at ready discussing the environmental toll of theme parks.

But no one voices a single objection because Penelope’s eyes start shining at the idea of her family in Mickey Mouse ears and she starts imagining (hallucinating?) her kids when they were younger, back when she could barely afford to take them to a street fair let alone Disneyland. Sometimes her papi shows up in the imagined memories; sometimes Victor is there and they had never separated. Weirdly, Schneider is always present in these visions.

Schneider is pumped when Penelope agrees. Yeah, he might have been joking when he suggested it. But he’s totally been to Disneyland like 6 times. All the sights and sounds, the frenetic energy, the sugar overload from all the churros... its like an innocent natural high that doesn’t trigger his addictive personality.

Penelope starts fishing change out of the sofas and recycling cans for extra spending money but Schneider insists on paying. Penelope hates it when he spends money on them like this. Bringing over a load of groceries he is going to eat most of it is one thing, but Disneyland isn’t cheap and even though they are comfortable financially these days, it still feels like charity.

Schneider finds several clever ways around this. He insists he has to treat Elena, a combination farewell and birthday present. Schneider has never been able to shake the feeling that he still owes Alex after that ugly scene in the laundry room so obviously Penelope has to let Schneider do this for him. Dr B has an extra pass to the park he never uses, so Lydia only needs to be kept hydrated.

They’re a little worried about how Lydia will manage all the walking until Alex shows her a couple viral videos of older folks doing stunts on electric scooters set to rap music. She is willing to be convinced that a Rascal can be cool so she can join the fun. “And when you get tired, papito, you can ride with me.” Sometimes she forgets Alex isn’t a little boy anymore and wont exactly fit into the basket.

Once convinced, Penelope goes all out. She is hunting groupons and researching where to find the cheapest deals in the park. She has matching t-shirts and caps made for everyone, to make it easy to find each other if they get separated

The best part of the entire endeavor for Schneider is when Penelope hands him the cap embroidered with ALVAREZ, and the shirt with his name screen-printed across the shoulders like a jersey. Everyone has a matching one of their own. He’s never felt more included in their lives as when he is strutting around with the Alvarez family name written all over him.

Elena throws up. Twice. But she’s determined not to spoil the day for anyone. Eventually she figures out what part of the rides to close her eyes for, then she doesn’t feel nearly as dizzy after. Schneider stops buying her churros though.

Penelope goes on a few rides when the kids beg her to but mostly enjoys the mami moments of waving to Elena and Alex as the rides spin them closer and then away again.

When Lydia needs a break from the sun, Schneider keeps Penelope company as she watches. The childlike part of him is buzzing to run on to the next ride, the next cotton candy stand, but mostly he enjoys how the scene feels. Standing next to the best mom he knows, seeing the joy on the kids’ faces as they wave madly at him on their way past.

Schneider never expected to have the life others had with a happy home, a partner for mutual support, kids to watch grow up, taking family vacations together, sharing good times as well as bad. He knew his addiction would never let him build that kind of life. Yet somehow... here he was. With everything he never thought he deserved.

He is not getting choked up with standing less than 5 yards away from someone in a Donald Duck costume. He just isn’t.

As the fireworks fade from the sky at the end of the day, the exhausted family prepares to leave. Elena is bogged down with bags. It turns out blatant consumerism is easier to ignore once you find the lgbt pride merchandise section in the gift shops. Schneider bought her every single thing she stopped to coo over. Alex is regretting his shoe choice. Yeah, he looks fly, but there’s zero arch support in the trendy sneakers and his feet are sore.

Lydia managed to kill the battery in the electric scoot when papito convinced her to try stunts with it and they spent 20 minutes doing donuts outside the bathroom while Elena was puking. They almost hit like 3 people and it was the best thing for everyone that Penelope was inside helping her daughter clean up

Lydia’s cane was.... somewhere in their mess of merchandise. Possibly in the bag that contained authentic Disney mouse-ear caps with embroidered names. Rather than stop to dig it out, Schneider hefted the tiny woman up for a piggyback ride. She giggling like a teenager and the aroma of violets managed to overpower the theme park smells.

Instead of taking the tram to the parking lot they end up at one of the resort hotels and Penelope is too tired to scold Schneider for booking them a suite without asking. Instead she ignores how much it must have cost him and just thanks her lucky stars she didn’t have to make the drive home.

She barely manages to get Elena and Alex through a shower before they collapse, too tired to even complain about sharing a bed with each other

Lydia is fast asleep in the bed Penelope cant wait to crawl into herself.

First she wants to thank Schneider again for giving them this day. Its hard for her to accept a big gift like this, even when she knows the money doesn’t mean anything to him. But she takes his hand, trying to convey how much it means to her that he wants to give this kind of joy to her children just because he loves them.

They fall asleep on the sofa, hands still linked, heads pillowed on each other, both still wearing their matching ALVAREZ gear.

This got long, imma have to do another post for the other prompt. Thaaaaaank you again for giving me an excuse to rave about the Alvarez family for a bit.

[flightofaqrow]

sleep is for the simple

qrow + Morado Guerrera ( @memxntomori​ )

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

qrow typically doesn’t like talking about what goes on in his thoughts, but on this particular topic with this particular person, it comes more freely, “… just can’t turn my brain back off once it gets goin’ sometimes.”

Alright, Morado could be a teacher, even after hours. “Anything in particular making it fire off on tonight?”

“nothin’. everythin’.” qrow answers none-too-helpfully. he sighs, runs a hand through his hair before that flops behind him too. another breath. another heave. he can expel this particular pin from the grenade of his heart, he must. “classes. fightin’. bein’ civilized. grimm. alla th’stuff Headmaster Ozpin’s been havin’ us work on. it’s all one big mess, ain’t it? …things used t’be so much simpler.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Hey. Can’t sleep?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“uh… hey,” qrow gave a slow greeting, clearly not expecting anyone and trying to adjust to the idea of company, “pretty much. sometimes wonder if you ever sleep.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“No. I avoid sleep because showing up unpredictably and looming out of dark corners adds to my aesthetic,” he replies, closing his book with one hand and leaning forward. “Also to the mythos that I’m always watching, which tends to keep all you in line.”

Qrow looks tired. Really tired, he notes with a narrowing of his eyes.

“You an insomniac or is it something else?” From what he knows, and has gathered, about Qrow and the Branwen’s he can hazard a few guesses. He’s got Ozpin’s blessing to keep an eye on them, but there’s more than that. They’ve got potential. The whole team, in fact. But the twins have the background that’s far more Morado’s speed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

qrow has a good laugh at that one, and honestly relates. which does nothing but wake him up all the more. heh, Morado could watch all he wanted, if qrow ever misbehaved, he would do most of it right to his face. he tended to get away with too much, and even if not, some consequences were worth it.

“oh i wouldn’t call it as much as insomnia,” he muses, somber once more. he typically doesn’t like talking about what goes on in his thoughts, but on this particular topic with this particular person, it comes more freely. he has more hope of finding understanding, maybe even guidance, if there’s any to be had.

“… just can’t turn my brain back off once it gets goin’ sometimes.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Morado’s ears flatten back a little, wondering what it could be. Qrow’s laughter was fleeting and welcome, but obviously there was something heavy on his mind.

Alright, he could be a teacher, even after hours.

He pat the bench next to him before fishing his pack of smokes out of his pocket and plucking one from the wrinkled paper. “Anything in particular making it fire off on tonight?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

qrow accepts the invitation. might as well. he sinks into the spot, more than sits. oozing long limbs over the edges and letting his head lull back to stare through skylights. it’s easier to talk without having to look at someone. so many less things to process from another person, when he struggles just getting his own pieces to align.

“nothin’. everythin’.” he answers none-too-helpfully. he sighs, runs a hand through his hair before that flops behind him too. another breath. another heave. he can expel this particular pin from the grenade of his heart, he must. “classes. fightin’. bein’ civilized. grimm. alla th’stuff Headmaster Ozpin’s been havin’ us work on. it’s all one big mess, ain’t it? …things used t’be so much simpler.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mori’s lips twitch in a smile at the answer, but he listens patiently as he lights a cigarette. He gets it. The heaviness of it, the weight of the world. Knowing there’s even more in store for Qrow once he graduates, if STRQ agrees? Well, he can sympathize with the stress.

“Would you have it return to being simple?” he asks, tilting his head to look at Qrow. “Knowing what you know, having seen and done what you have, would that life be what you want?”

He knows what his own answer would be. No, never. Even knowing Salem’s out there doesn’t make him wish he could return to that life of bliss.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“nah,” the answer comes surprisingly easy as he watches smoke drift up into the air. the bigger the world got, the more he wanted to see. the more he saw outside of the bandit tribe - other places, new ways of living - the further he found himself wanting to get.

not that everything had be terrible, but he likes the idea of picking and choosing what trinkets and traditions of what places to keep in his life instead of being bound to any one dogma. maybe somewhere out there in the great wide world there would be the tiniest of holes even someone like him could fit into.

and yet all that knowledge and the terrible uncertainty of hope spinning around in frantic, chaotic circles is exactly what keeps him awake.

“…i jus’ wish i knew a better way ‘a sortin’ it all.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“I think most of us wish they do. Not everyone has it all figured out. The trick is just making it look like you do.”

He’s not afraid to admit that, anyway, as he sprawls out a bit, arm over the back of the bench, one long leg stuck out before him, the other ankle resting on his knee.

“Talking at least helps. Having someone in the know be able to be an open ear. You’ve got your teammates. And I suppose if you look around in the shadows enough, you can find me.” Morado pauses again, taking a drag, and looks up at the green glow of Beacon tower obscuring the sight of any but the most prominent of stars. “Sometimes it helps too if you know what you’re fighting for. Makes stuff easier to put into the ‘important’ and ‘unimportant’ boxes in your head.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“heh,” that comment lifts his head a little, “well, i got plenty ‘a practice with that.”

qrow learned real quick and real young how to put on a strong face, and doubly so when every day he has to fight to get people, most of all himself, to believe anything he tried to build wouldn’t collapse like a bunch of pins into the gutter with one strike of a bad luck bowling ball.

he continues to stare past the tower, into the night sky. Morado’s not the first to tell him talking things out helps, but that only contradicts looking put together, doesn’t it? talking, feeling, is weakness; showing it is even worse. he sighs and wonders if there can be compromise, grinning, “talkin’ to shadows doesn’t sound so bad.”

legs stretch out before him and cross at the ankles, “so whatdya fight for, then?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Not a question he’s been asked for some time, and he feels somewhat uncomfortable as he considers it.

“…good question,” he jokes.

Ivoire and Tahlia were both dead. Jax was far, far away in Atlas. His sister and her family were in Vacuo. His answer wasn’t so much a who anymore, like it had been years ago.

“Guess I’m gonna go with survival. And not a ‘back against the wall’ kind. I mean… I mean what we have? It’s not bad. It’s got room for improvement,” he punctuates this with a wiggle of his ears, “but it’s not bad. And it’s getting better. So… survival. Mine. Yours. Whoever comes next. They deserve better than what’s waiting out there.”

Salem, he doesn’t say.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

qrow takes the praise, even if reality pegs the phrase as more of a platitude. he likes to think he’s good at asking questions, has a natural exploratory attitude. maybe being more curious about the world and others in it just became a nurtured extension of not finding much worth knowing about himself.

he still stares into endless nothing until the twitch of ears in the corner of his eye pulls his attention over. a lifetime hides in those words, qrow can tell. it sits in his brain like… a more personal way to swallow altruistic sentiment. interesting it’s in the form of survival, when he had been raised to believe that kind of thinking could get one killed.

he quietly taps a foot and looks down to the space between where each sits, “huh. sounds a lot like that whole ‘makin’ the world a better place’ ideal the academy totes, jus’ in more words. protectin’ the future an’ all that.”

in other words, bigger than just fighting back grimm. or other huntsfolk. yet another item tossed onto the pile of less simple things.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Not as simple as that, but I can’t get into the details,” Mori says in response. “If you’re in, you’ll get it then. The world’s pretty ugly when you start scratching back the layers.”

Mori sighs and stretches, the motion catlike as he yawns, then flops back against the bench.

“But unless I’m mistaken, you can handle ugly. You and your sister both.” And Summer and Tai, but he’s more invested in the Branwen’s. Chiefly the man next to him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“oh, of course it’s not,” qrow waves limply in the air, right back to bemoaning life tonight.

and apparently just ‘cause he said he wouldn’t go back for things not being simple, his teacher decides to give him one more reason to possibly never sleep again. his caveats sound like they have some pretty ugly layers themselves. tonight will leave qrow with more questions than answers.

“but yeah,” he confirms again with scratchy, sighed words, turning to face away and scowl at a nearby stone column. several images flash through his head in quick succession, and he talks about none of them.

“bring it on.” barely come of age, and his voice drags from his throat with the heaviness of resignation more than a youthful passion for challenge.

[de1228jessieaso]

Notes

Tiffany’s Epiphanies

We learn gender stereotypes, we are not born into them.

People can only thrive in ponds, then in fish bowls – women jumping out of fish bowl because they need flexibility and inclusive culture. – need allowance to grow

Just because you can do something quicker and more efficiently doesn’t mean it is better time for us. – women a lot on our plate – women just do it to get it off our lists – someone else can do it better enough.

Asking for help is your gift to other people – don’t deprive them of it.

A lot of people just waiting for them to be helped.

It’s not always obvious when other people are trying to help us – filter for what we want to hear – oblivious to what’s going on – Pay attention to what their saying

Stop and ask what matters most to me – pledge the answer to that question in the future – do what matters – prioritise your to-do list

Ask other people what their expectation are of you, before you try to live up to them – their expectation was far lower than the expectation she had of herself.

If the hurdle is too high, lower it! – life go round = full time job at home and at work – expectations about all the things were supposed to accomplish are impossible to actually accomplish – they’re inhuman – beat ourselves up over it constantly that we can’t get all of this done – choose 3 things over 3 days that are important to accomplish – gold star after accomplishing just those three things

In order to find the north star in a relationship you need a couple’s compass – prioritise your decision making – both confident that no matter where they go, be on track and achieve what matters most

Pace yourself – push through to get the work done – never get to the bottom of the to-do list – stop and sit – important for own nourishment

It just all falls on me – both lack of agency – nothing to do with what happens to us – life doesn’t happen to you when you make life happen – juggling demands of full time career and being boss inside of home – a lot on plate can feel like the walls enclosing onto you

Our fear is not that we have too much to do, our fear is that what we’re doing doesn’t matter to us – what matter most to you

Life’s easier when you’re okay with a few broken dishes – frustration to get the men in our lives to chip in – 30% of men intentionally complete home tasks poorly to not be asked again – it works – home control disease, want things done our way – pretend outcome is okay, for them to practise to get better – less to-do’s

People can’t see what you don’t do – share what you don’t do

Round up – waiting for all qualifications before applying and promotion – accept imperfections

Get the feedback you need to hear, not just the feedback you want to hear – hard to advance leadership

The key to success in life is knowing what you do extraordinary well with very little effort – highest and best use – in order to achieve what matter most leverage your highest and best use

How you spend your day is how you spend your life – what would you do – what I want to do in my day – filter out cool things that can be awful

If the voice that you hear is making you feel terrible, it’s probably not your own – self-doubt – not good enough

If a lot of people are having the same problem, it probably requires a collective solution – public qualities, paid childcare and but what do women actually need

The person that you are trying to help, is the best determiner of how you should help them – thought money was more valuable

It’s not the early bird that catches the worm, it’s the bird that follows up – developing an eco-system for help – connecting with people and following up

What you do is less important than the difference you make – focused on what the job is for – contribution for helping people more

If you want something that you never had before, you’re going to have to do something that you never done before, in order to get it – goal or skill you want

It’s okay to rewrite any of the job descriptions for the roles we have in our lives – Good mother, good daughter, etc – what job qualities matters most

Feel like mothers do more in the home – resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die – not directing the bitterness to the right source – largely women do more in the household – because we have all grown up seeing who should do what – what is happening that feels so unfair

Resentment about our own contribution often blinds to the contribution of others – no judgement

If you feel guilty you probably aren’t – guilt is a damaging and insidious feeling – feel like bad person

Don’t take for granted the difference you make – not understanding the impact you make

Be relentless about your highest and best use – reduce carbon foot print

Don’t let the guilt kill you – so many women feel this way when trying to help their lives – true source of emotion, devotion – it’s not my fault that I love them

Your happiness is their happiness – faith in others – inside home women still rain – impact on people around you

What you see is what you get – people generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for - whether bothered by behaviour or the lens that your viewing the behaviour

If you don’t send the elevator back down, it’s going to get lonely at the top – mentor so many on the way up

Live your story – start off different roles, daughter, student, worker, wife or mother – women put default in all roles – expectations – two questions – what does a good ex do, daughter, worker etc, how do you know it is good.

It’s less work to assume you’re a valuable candidate, than to talk yourself to being one – assume easy to win – women struggle to accept because they feel unprepared, have self-doubt

Dropping the ball could lead to ugly appliances, but it’s worth it – when the going gets tough, remember it’s worth it.

If you’re struggling with your view, widen your lens – obsessed with what we don’t have – popular after all

Your nemesis is in the mirror – when your annoyed or irritated by someone else’s behaviour, do you do it too?

Working nonstop is not a work ethic it’s a work fallacy – judge people who don’t work all the time – learnt that amount of time isn’t always reflective

In order to teach our girls to be strong we have to be vulnerable – shield from pain, tears – important to let them see fallen humanity to see how to be human

You’ve already earned a standing ovation – female leaders still feel the need to prove themselves – the commitment and resolve in daily life

You can only pick up a ball after someone drops it – difficult to shift behaviour until we do it

Housework doesn’t fuel ambition – no public ovation for it – engaged in life that make you feel ambitious