#i know there are so many labels people use and it can also be complicated or fluid

[whump-polls]

interested in some demographics, so

[genderqueerdykes]

is it entirely possible for me to want to, like, identify as cis AND trans ? for context I was born female, but I'm a transman .. To put it simply .. And I have an odd and confusing relationship with my womanhood, but it feels right in a way to say I'm a transman but also transfem ?? Buf like, cis trans man and transfem. Does this, work ?? I could probably ramble for hours about why I want to use both these labels. But I'm not sure if it'd be, disrespectful ?? misusing the terms ?? Just plain odd ??

Your blog is incredibly informative and your answers are as well so, yeah. can I use the labels transman and transfem.

yes! this absolutely works!!!!!

you are the type of person i've made a ton of posts about and i hope you don't mind if i'm kinda long winded here because i've been begging people to understand folks like you exist for weeks now and people just keep calling me transmisogynistic and it's absurd, i had no idea so many people didn't know your identity existed. here are some of the posts i've made about bigender cis men/transfems:

there is a long, long history of people who identify as cis men and a trans woman or transfem person. this is so common it's unreal. back in the 50's and 60's a lot of drag queens had this exact relationship with gender- sometimes presenting as cis men, or maybe still presenting as femme but being men. there were femme gays hanging out at the drag bars flirting with men and lesbians- identifying as femmes and men. there were drag balls held by people who had this exact relationship with gender going on around the time. you can read about a lot of these people in leslie feinberg's works actually!

the thing is is being cis doesn't cancel out being trans. bigenderism is complicated. if someone wants to consider both of their identities trans, they can. if someone wants to consider themselves cis and trans, they can! you are not in the wrong for being this gender! i've met so many people in your shoes! i lived with a lot of transfems for a while and a lot of them were cis men and trans women at the same time! a lot of trans women still feel like cis men, especially gay men. that's totally fine!

im really glad you took the time to send this ask because this is what i mean when i say that it's not okay to shit on cis men in the queer community or in general because cis men *can be queer*. you can be a cis man and a trans woman or any other number of genders at the same time and it doesn't not invalidate your transness! they don't have to cancel each other out, they exist at the same time independently of one another and it's a beautiful thing!

if you'd like to talk about it, please feel encouraged to do so! i've been trying to get people to understand people like you are out there and to not be shitty to people who are or read as cis men. it's okay to be a cis man and another queer identity! i think you rock! there are a ton of bigender cis men/transfems out there! you are not alone!

[bohoteacher]

Navigating Betrayal: Reconciling Admiration with Disillusionment

Like many Neil Gaiman fans this month, I've been shocked and distressed by the news regarding the SA allegations. I won't go over the details, as they're readily available online. I'll start by saying that I believe the accusers, and even the most lenient interpretation of events is still troubling enough to discredit Gaiman. For a long time, I didn't know what to say. I was just shocked and, somewhat naively, felt betrayed. I don't typically idolize actors, authors, or other public figures—I'm here for the characters, they're who I love and believe in. So, how did I end up believing in this man and his rhetoric?

I only had a parasocial relationship with him, which is to say no real relationship at all. But I took his Masterclass on writing, spent hours taking notes, and learned from him. I feel betrayed by someone I saw as a beloved teacher. I know this is insignificant compared to what the women who came forward experienced, but it's a valid feeling, and I needed time to process it. My initial reaction was to throw out and discount everything he’s ever written or done—of course it was.

This isn't just about my love for Good Omens, although how can it not be? I learned so much from this man—about writing, about not being too hard on myself, about the creative process. I read his books to my middle school classes, and we all learned how to be better people from them. Today, I saw and bought Instructions, a children’s book by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Charles Vess, from the used bookstore where I volunteer. It was a used copy, so no royalties will go to him. It’s a beautifully illustrated book where the main character walks through a land that clearly symbolizes life, learning lessons like saying please and "if any creature cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain." How could someone write this and then do what he did? I asked myself. "What an evil hypocrite," was my first thought. But then I recalled a line from another author, Stephen King. In The Stand, a character is described as "awake at the lectern, but asleep at the switch," meaning they know the right thing to do and can talk about it, but in the moment of choice, they act without integrity.

I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I think it’s too easy to label Gaiman as simply evil, as if he intentionally manipulated us by saying the right things just to make us read or watch his creations. The reality is likely far more complicated. Within this man is the amazing, thought-provoking, life-affirming wisdom that many of us have tried to live by, but also the hard, thoughtless, selfish cruelty that led him to abuse young, vulnerable women. The wisdom does not justify the abuse, and the abuse does not nullify the wisdom.

I think it's too simplistic to say Gaiman is despicable and always has been, hiding it from us all along. This doesn't acknowledge the complexity of human nature—that there is potential for both good and bad within us all. As it’s said, possibly by Terry Pratchett or possibly by Neil Gaiman, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Gaiman is a man who has done some fundamentally good things and some fundamentally bad things. I can’t forget either one.

This is just my opinion. I know some people want to cancel him, while others want to exonerate him. You do you. As for me, I will continue to love Aziraphale and Crowley. I will continue to read and create fan-fiction. I will continue to find comfort and wisdom in books that have meant so much to me over the years. But I will also remember that they were created by a very flawed man whom I can no longer trust.

I understand that opinions on this matter vary widely. I know some people might feel that not discarding everything associated with him is wrong, but this is where I stand. I’m not looking to debate this or be told how I should react. I just needed to process my thoughts in writing and move forward in the way that feels right for me.

[heliza24]

I want to talk a little bit about Daniel in the Interview with the Vampire show, because the new trailer material has me stuck thinking about him, and also I’ve never written about how meaningful he is as disabled character to me before.

I don’t see many people thinking about show!Daniel in these terms, but he’s a canon disabled character. And I think the way he is written is just SO good. The acerbic wit, his relationship to doctors and his medication, his rueful acceptance of the way his disability has changed him. It is all so correct!! It’s really incredibly rare to have not only a disabled character written this well but specifically a chronically ill character written this well. His illness is always present; it doesn’t get forgotten about by the story. It gives Daniel insight into the vampires (more on this in a min), but it also gives Louis and Armand leverage over him. When Louis triggers his Parkinson’s symptoms? Deeply not ok. But that’s what made it such a great scene, and really made Louis feel dangerous and threateningin that moment. Armand and Louis arranging Daniel’s meds is a sign of great care and also great power over Daniel. It’s the perfect way to communicate the complicated power dynamic in their relationship.

I also just fucking love that this show takes place in 2022 and doesn’t erase the pandemic. Covid is a very present concern for Daniel and I cannot describe how validating that is for me as someone who is clinically vulnerable to Covid and who has had to really limit my life and take a lot of precautions because everyone else has decided to stop caring whether they pass on Covid or not. The fact that Daniel gets on a plane to Dubai is a BIG DEAL. He’s risking his life to talk to Louis and Armand before he’s even in the room with them. He really wants to be there. I have to make a similar calculation every time I travel, and trust me, getting on that plane knowing getting sick could spiral you into even worse health or kill you is really hard.

I think making Daniel disabled and including the pandemic is kind of a genius level decision on a thematic level. Of course Daniel is now facing down his mortality, which gives him a whole new lens on the vampires and the fact that he once asked them to turn him. And the pandemic further highlights his fragility, and is also possibly being used as a cover for drama that’s happening in the vampire world. But I think it also really sets Daniel up as a foil to Louis.

There’s a lot of analysis of the vampire chronicles that reads vampirism as a metaphor for queerness. But I would actually propose that it’s a much neater parallel for disability and illness in a lot of ways. So many of Louis’s initial experiences after being turned resonated with me, as someone who became chronically ill in my 20s. My appetite and relationship to food completely changed, much like Louis. My relationship with the outdoors and the sun changed, because of dysautonomia and allergy reasons. I was very mad, and very depressed, and I too have missed out on birthday parties and big life events like Louis did because I was too sick to go. Hell, you can even say that the way that Louis is treated as evil by his family, that the way vampires literally can’t be a part of society during the day, is reminiscent of ableist exclusion and ugly laws. (Ugly laws were laws that forbid disabled people, especially those with visible differences, from being out in public, and they were on the books in many American municipalities until the 1970s.) You can look at Lestat being an out and proud vampire in the first few episodes on the season and imploring Louis to leave his shame behind as a queer thing, but you can also view it as a disabled thing. Disabled people are portrayed as monstrous so often (and in a way that has gone relatively unexamined compared to say, the queer coded villain trope) that sometimes it’s just easier to embrace that label: I’m the monstrous Crip, but at least I’m not ashamed of or disgusted by who I am anymore.

I do think the real strength of this adaptation is that while you can find parallels between queerness or disability or other forms of marginalization with vampirism, ultimately it’s not a one-to-one parallel. It speaks to the real world but ultimately it is a gothic horror story about supernatural monsters. So I don’t mean to say that vampirism directly equals disability, because it does not. But I do think that making Daniel disabled was an intentional choice to help draw out some of those parallels, and I think the text is richer for it.

So Louis and Daniel have had these kind of parallel experiences of uncontrollable and difficult things happening to their bodies. It sets them up perfectly as foils, and even, I would argue, as the A plot and B Plot protagonists. This is one of my favorite ways of kind of examining the structure of a TV show (or maybe it’s that most of my favorite shows seem to be structured this way?). When TV was all episodic, it would be common to refer to the A plot (mystery of the week), B plot (interpersonal drama happening as the mystery gets solved) and C plot (any overarching plot tying the season together) in an episode. Now that stuff is serialized, there’s often a main protagonist, who has the main dramatic question and the most agency, and then there is often a secondary B plot that explores similar themes and mirrors the A plot, or presents a second main character who is the ldifferent side of the same coin” to the main protagonist. (My favorite example of this is Flint and Max in Black Sails, and I’ve also made the argument that Wilhelm and Sara fit this pattern in Young Royals.) In IwtV, Louis is obviously the main protagonist of the show, especially in the A Plot, which is the stuff taking place in New Orleans/Paris. But I would argue that Daniel is the protagonist of the B Plot set in Dubai. At the very least they’re intentionally set up as mirrors of each other:

They are both unreliable narrators, who are struggling with the way memory contorts (through memory erasure, illness, deliberate obfuscations, and just the passage of time). The most recent teaser trailer, where we hear Louis saying “I don’t remember that”, with panic in his voice, further underlined this similarity between Louis and Daniel to me. I don’t know if it means that Louis has also had his memory tampered with, as I’m assuming Daniel has, but I do think it means that Louis is going to be struggling with feeling out of control of his own narrative more in season 2, a thing that was already starting for Daniel in season 1.

They are also both locked into power struggles with people more powerful than they are. The fact that Louis is under Lestat in the flashbacks and above Daniel in the Dubai scenes in terms of power/status makes it all the more interesting. And, if we want to go ahead and assume that the Devils Minion’s years have happened in the past by the time we get to Dubai— it’s possible that both Daniel and Louis are united in being the less powerful partner in their own respective fucked up gothic romances.

They’re also both the audience’s entry point into their respective stories. Louis’s narration guides us into the world of vampires. Daniel’s questioning satisfies our human curiosity in Dubai.

I think one of the things that makes the show so special is the way that these two protagonists interact. In a lot of shows the a plot and the b plot stay pretty separate. I love talking about Black Sails for this because I think it’s such a good example; Flint and Max never exchange dialogue the entire show, even though they’re so clearly affecting each other the whole time. But the way that Louis and Daniel clash in Dubai is so exciting. We see them both wrestling for control of the narrative. It’s thrilling to watch and it just hammers home the theme of how complicated and changeable stories can be.

I am SO excited to see how the Dubai scenes play out in season 2 because of it. I really can’t wait. I’m really hoping we’ll see Daniel and Louis’s relationship evolve in surprising ways, and I’m holding my breath that we’ll get a lot of Armandaniel material to work with. (I have a whole other post drafted that’s much less smart than this one and is just me waxing poetic about Devil Minion’s theories which I may post at some point. You have been warned.)

I do have two wishes for Daniel in the new season, and they’re 1: that he gets to have romance/sex, because disabled (and older!) characters are so often seen as unworthy of being desired, and I would like to see that challenged and 2: that he continues to refuse to be turned/is not offered a vampiric cure for Parkinson’s. The magic cure for a disability or chronic illness is probably my least favorite disability trope, because it serves to erase disabled characters and representation from the narrative, and I want to see my experiences continue to be reflected in Daniel’s. That means that whatever ending Daniel’s story has will probably have at least a bit of tragedy baked into it, but I’m ok with that.

[linddzz]

While yes, Viktor is confident too, but...

This man isn't shy? He's hyperventilating and nervous-tapping over the idea of giving a speech!

This man?

I guess Im not getting across like, the Vibe that I always see that bothers me? Viktor's got the social anxiety for sure, and it's VERY fair to assume that his condition makes him even more self conscious to be up in front of a crowd full of topsiders. He's pretty clear in episode 1 that he's aware of how topsiders see him and his cane use, and that's before his disability is even more visible.

But ALSO very few people ARE good on a stage in front of tons of people. And also there's a very specific connotation to "shy" that is beyond social anxiety.

Shyness to me, is its own flavor of social anxiety plus timidness. The actual definition is a bashful, timid nervousness. It has connotations of the wilting flower personality. Viktor, even when he's quiet around other people doesn't come across as nervous or timid in the slightest. His first introduction has him VERY confident and collected surrounded by enforcers and not taking Jayce being snappy and angry at him. As a kid there's more of an argument to be made because what awkward socially isolated kid isn't going to be shy. But at the same time he doesn't try to shrink away from Sky's attention, he still looks right back up at her, he just keeps on doing his own thing. Mostly he comes across as someone who does not know how to casually interact with people so he doesn't. He's got tunnels in his eyes lmao.

Viktor is complicated. Viktor is nuanced. It's why he's Ultimate Blorbo. He's withdrawn and awkward and not very good at interacting with people, but he's not timid about it. He is very self assured in himself.

But when I say fandom makes him shy it IS much more of the wilting flower timid woobie that I kept seeing in Season1 fics. There was SO MUCH of Viktor being the nervous soft spoken anxious thing who was just so happy Jayce was even giving him the time of day as if Viktor didn't sass Jayce about his notes right after he stopped the man from jumping lmaoooo

And idk not to be TOO OBVIOUS with my projecting but it's the part of Viktor I can relate to the most. I consider myself a quiet person who gets annoyed when people think that me being quiet = shy. I'm able to speak up well on zoom calls with colleagues and I also would rather drop dead than have to go up on a stage in front of a bunch of normal people who I know were expecting someone very different. I get nervous and shaky speaking up in front of a crowd of colleagues even! but afterwards I can go right up to people like "your presentation was insane tell me more right now." I am often quiet and uncomfortable in large social situations because I know that most people there are operating under a different wavelength than I am, I do not know what the right responses to things are, or I full on do not know how to not accidentally come across as a huge asshole and I don't want to be an asshole. And when I was younger I would have so many people come up and act like I was a little wallflower (bc oh boy can I also relate to being quiet while physically small meaning being constantly infantalized) who "didn't need to be so shy" and every time I was like "I'm not shy. I just don't feel any engagement with this conversation and I don't want to be a dick and tell you that, but if you gently tell me it's ok to talk one more time I'm gonna start biting."

(It got better as I got older bc I learned that if you're quiet but making active eye contact instead of staring off into other directions - not to avoid attention but because you're just thinking of other shit - people will stop labeling you as shy and instead say "intimidating" or "mysterious" which is also hilarious when what you're thinking about is "machine herald big naturals lmao" but it's better than being labeled "shy")

[blessedbucky]

we tried the world, good god, it wasn't for us! (part 5.1)

pairing: autistic!satoru x suguru x autistic!reader

word count: 12.5k (why do i yap so much)

summary: a bunch of traumatized teenagers try their best to keep their world from collapsing.

tags: autistic!reader, autistic!satoru, bisexual!reader, bisexual!suguru, bisexual!satoru, mayhaps some poor coping mechanisms, maybe some codependency, loss of virginity, fingering, vaginal sex

beautiful people who asked to be tagged 💕: @ichikanu, @iceheartsice, @anders-is-being-a-simp-again, @honeydew-cheesecake

author note: JUST BEFORE PREMATURE DEATH ARC WHO READY! like the summary says, this is just a bunch of dumb teenagers making reckless decisions because they're also traumatized as fuck and mentally ill. there some really messy and complicated feelings reader has for Satoru and Suguru that's trying to be processed.

chapter links: 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2, AO3

[YEAR THREE]

[PART ONE]

A cherry blossom slowly flutters down from a branch and lands square in the center of Suguru’s forehead. Not that he knows this because he sprawled out on the picnic blanket and was asleep not even ten minutes later. And yet, despite how much he sleeps, the place under his eyes seems to be getting darker and darker. You pluck the blossom from his forehead, careful not to touch and wake him up accidentally. You’re worried about him. Sometimes, in the dead of night when you’re alone, you’ll worry yourself sick.

Something cold and wet presses your forehead.

“Plum Fanta,” Satoru announces. After you take the bottle from him, he shuffles to plop down on the blanket next to you. “Eh? Is he seriously still asleep?”

You nod slowly. “It seems like all he’s been swallowing lately are high grade. You know those are the hardest on him.”

“Just on his stomach, though, right?”

Until last year, you naively thought that, too. Back in your village, when he swallowed them, he would nap after, but he always told you that it was to sleep off the stomachache. Maybe that was true. Now…it’s different. Everything is different. You naively thought that your lives would settle after Zen’in Toji. You knew it would never be the same, yes, but you thought it would level out.

You were wrong.

“I don’t know, Satoru. If I had to spend almost every single day swallowing something fouler than words can describe, that might take a toll on me, too.”

“Sorry,” Satoru mumbles dejectedly.

You sigh. “It’s not your fault, Satoru.”

“I feel like I could be doing more. Maybe I can volunteer to take on more assignments so there are less on his plate.”

“That’s not your responsibility, Satoru.” You take a deep breath, resisting the urge to get snippy. You shouldn’t take your bad mood out on everyone else. “You’re human, too. The truth is that you’re both stretched thin.” The grip you have around the bottle tightens. “I just…wish things would change. It shouldn’t be like this.”

Satoru tilts over until his head is knocking against yours. “How else would it be?”

“I don’t know. Not this, though.” Absentmindedly, you pick at the label of your soda. “This just isn’t a sustainable system. I wonder how many Special Grade sorcerers there have actually been, but they just couldn’t reach their full potential because old men sent them off to die.”

“Maybe you’re just not cut out for this line of work, Sketch,” Satoru poses.

The sting of that reality is lessened by his flippant tone. It was meant to be a tease. But a sting is a sting. “Everyone doesn’t need to keep reminding me of how weak I am. I get it, alright? I know I’m useless, but I’m trying to—”

“Give it a few years and you’ll literally be able to control minds. It’s never been an issue of strength with you, Sketch. It’s just that you’re…soft.” He pauses. “Gentle.” Then, he hooks his pinky around yours. Turns his head ever so slightly so his lips brush against your temple on every word. “You’re so worried about everyone else that you’re not taking care of yourself. How much sleep have you been getting?”

“I haven’t given it much thought,” you lie. You’re averaging about four hours a night, probably. “No sleep isn’t a new thing for me, though. I’ve always had trouble with sleeping.”

“Oh? Me, too.” He pokes you hard in the side making you squeak and flinch away. “Why are you on my case, then?”

Feeling petty today, you sink your claws into his sensitive spot which is to say that you dig your fingers right into the nape of his neck. “Because I’m not the one frying my brain twenty-four seven with my cursed technique,” you hiss.

Satoru hisses back at you, the two of you like a couple of feral alley cats. Neither of your drinks are open yet, so they end up rolling off somewhere on the blanket while you two start tussling. Trying to get hands on the other’s most sensitive spots. You have a height disadvantage, but you have sharp teeth, damn it. There’s an outraged squawk from Satoru when you first bite him, but it gives him permission to get dirtier with his tricks. So, the bastard rolls you both over off the blanket, pinning you under him, right on top of the grass.

“No,” you whine pathetically when he holds your cheek against it. “Satoru, bugs can get in my hair! It’s like thousands of tiny needles stabbing me!” A little dramatic. It’s more poking and itchier than anything else, but you still hate it. “If you don’t let me up, I’ll throw all your melon soda stash in a pond!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll return those oil pastels that I got you!”

“Idiot, you can’t return those! You got them last year and they’re almost used up!”

He blinks. “Oh.” In the blink of an eye, his expression is very serious and concerned. “Do you need new ones?”

And have him spend that much money on art supplies again? Absolutely not. You’ll use those things until they’re specks and then never speak of it again. But you don’t tell him this because you take advantage of the distraction. With a powerful buck of the hips, you manage to throw him off to the side, rolling over with him so you’re straddling his waist and quickly reaching for his neck. He grabs your wrists before you can, worry replaced by outrage at the presumed cheating—or so you think he sees it that way, but honestly, it’s Satoru.

“Satoru? Squid?”

Both you and Satoru freeze, turning your heads, staring wide-eyed at Suguru. His legs are crisscrossed and he’s rubbing at his eyes, scowling. His hair is almost completely out of the bun which only makes him grumpier because it’s probably sticking to his skin now. It’s actually a really warm day for spring, an omen of the summer to come, and you’re under the sun. All of you have thrown off blazers and you even took off your leggings—making the sin of the grass even more unforgiveable in your eyes, but you have a grumpy Suguru to deal with now.

Suguru, annoyed, goes on to ask, “What are you doing?” His eyes drop lower, to something behind you. There’s a look in his eyes. Angrier than simple annoyance. Then, he tells you, “Your ass is out, Squid.”

Oh. Right. Skirt.

No wonder Suguru is so mad. You’re probably embarrassing him. Face hot with shame, you try to move away, but Satoru digs his fingers into your thighs.

“Don’t let him embarrass you, Sketch! You’ve got a nice ass!”

You knock Satoru right in the stomach.

When you make it back to campus, you announce that you’re going back to your room to take a nap. Yu wanted to eat at an actual restaurant instead of konbini snacks and none of his upperclassmen can say no to him, so you’re mentally exhausted already. Suguru said the same. Shockingly, Satoru didn’t follow after you two, but he has a lot of energy today, so it sort of makes sense. Anyway, Suguru follows after you to your room.

Suguru picks up the book he’s currently reading off your desk, opting to just keep them here now. He says that there’s never enough peace in the boys’ dorm to focus on reading. As soon as his back is against the headboard and he’s settled, you crawl in next to him to put your head in his lap.

“I’m sorry for embarrassing you like that earlier,” you apologize quietly. Suguru hasn’t even opened his book yet, but it’s been on your mind since earlier. He stares down at you, puzzled. “You were angry when I was wrestling with Satoru, right? I know it’s probably a hassle—me not knowing how to act in public, even after all this time.”

“What? No. That’s not—” he takes a deep breath. Presses a thumb to the center of his forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t care about things like that? I wasn’t mad. I just woke up and you know how I can be. I’m sorry for giving the wrong impression.”

Suguru is lying. You may not be able to read people well, but you’ve had Suguru by your side since you were six. You know his tells like the back of your hand. Doesn’t he know that? No. The bigger question is why he’s even lying to you in the first place. Is it because he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings? That might be it. You’re sensitive. You cry. You…maybe Satoru was right, after all.

“Should I quit being a sorcerer?”

He puts the book down on the mattress, a little harder than necessary. “What did Satoru say to you?”

“Why are you assuming that Satoru had anything to do with it? Are we first years again?”

Suguru says your name harshly.

You turn your head away, glaring at the wall. “We were worrying about you. I said I wished this stupid system would change and he…I know he was joking, but he asked if I was cut out for this line of work and…” You trail off, bottom lip wobbling. That, that reaction, makes you angry at yourself. Crying? And for what? “I don’t think he’s wrong.”

He repeats your name, quieter now, less aggressive. When he places a palm across your forehead, you look up at him. “Do you want to quit?”

“I…I like that I help people. It’s more than I’ve ever thought I was capable of.”

“Do you want to quit?” Suguru repeats. “Remember what we promised. Wherever you go, I’ll go.”

You close your eyes, sighing shakily. “You can’t keep letting me hold you back.”

“I’m not letting you do anything. I want you by my side.”

“I know you do, Suguru,” you whisper sadly as the tears finally fall, slipping from the corners of your eyes and leaving a trail down your temples. “You really would fall behind if it meant staying with me.” You open your eyes, meeting his gaze as you have a horrifying epiphany. “Are you sure you’re not just holding onto me because you’re afraid of change?”

“I’m not Satoru!” Suguru shouts. He squeezes his eyes shut, hands moving to clutch at the blankets. Quieter, he goes on to say, “I don’t care about strength. I don’t.”

You lean up from the mattress, scoffing bitterly. “Yes, you do. The stronger you are, the further from our shitty hometown you get. Don’t act like it’s just out of duty that you’re here. We’re here,” you correct quietly. “We want to be more than our parents told us we’d be.”

“My parents have nothing to do with this.”

Yeah, sure they don’t. Maybe Suguru isn’t even consciously aware of it, but you see it. All those little details add up. The way that no matter how furious he is, he’ll never raise his voice or hand. The way he shouted just now is the loudest that he’s ever been. Meanwhile, his father was boisterous and explosive. His appearance is as neat and clean as he keeps his room, the opposite of how his mother kept their home. He has a sense of duty that his parents never had.

“Well, mine do,” you mumble miserably. “I wanted to prove that I wasn’t the simple, stupid girl that’d never be able to take care of herself without help. And where am I now? All I did was trade my parents for you. The only difference between here and home is you don’t complain about taking care of me.”

“You’re definitely right about being stupid.” He runs a hand through his hair, more agitated than you’ve seen him in a really long time. “It’s amazing, how you see things in such a…transactional way. How can someone be so empathetic yet apathetic at the exact same time? Is it really that hard for you to believe that you’re the most important thing in my life?”

Before you’ve even had a chance to process, Suguru is up and storming out the door.

You burst out into tears after Suguru left. When you got it all out, it left you numb and physically exhausted. Your mind, though, would not settle. So, you’ve been curled up under your blankets all throughout the day. As the sun is setting, there’s a tap against your window, but you don’t move. You can sense who it is, anyway.

Since your back is to the window, you don’t see him, but you hear the thump as he kicks his shoes off and the clatter of his sunglasses against your desk. Just wanting to be held as soon as possible, you skip the questioning if you’re good to be touched stage and roll over on your other side when he slides into bed. You meet him by wrapping your arms around him and bury your face against his chest.

“Oh, man, it must’ve been super bad if you’re this cuddly,” Satoru teases, trying to bring levity to the situation. “Wanna tell me why you and Suguru are fighting and how I got roped into it because he was mad at me, too.”

Ugh. Leave it to Suguru to be like that. Either drop something so fucking profound like he did to you or throw up a wall between himself and everyone else like with Satoru. You really don’t want to talk about this more because you’ll be forced to admit that what Satoru said hit a little too close to home and potentially hurt his feelings. But you know Satoru and he won’t let it go, so it’s either let him hear it from you or Suguru.

“I asked him if I should quit being a sorcerer and it got out of control.”

“Aw, Sketch, seriously?” See? Exactly what you wanted to avoid. “I was joking.”

“I know you were, Satoru. I’m sorry that my brain is stupid and runs the wrong way with things.”

“Oi. Don’t call yourself stupid. It’s not stupid. I get it.”

You huff. “No, you don’t, Satoru. Thanks for trying, anyway.”

He laughs in such a carefree way, so completely at odds with what he says next. “What? You don’t think I feel left behind? Just because I’m the strongest physically doesn’t mean I’m strong in any other way that counts. I’m as jealous of you as much as I look up to you, y’know?”

You lean away from him abruptly, blinking in shock. “Jealous? Of me?”

“Yeah! I mean, everyone loves you, Sketch. Well, they love Suguru, too, but he doesn’t struggle with the same stuff that you and I do, so that’s why I’m more jealous of you than him in that way. You can connect with people, even if you don’t understand how they work. You’re really kind and caring. You know how to talk to people and, yeah, yeah, I know you said it’s because you just learned to study and copy people, but so have I and I still suck. You’re sad right now and all I can do is talk about myself. I don’t know how to comfort anyone. I don’t know how to reach out to Suguru after what happened. I’ve been selfish and leaving it up to you.”

Leaning up on an elbow, you push some hair away from his forehead, trying not to let your eyes linger on the little scar off to the side. “It’s not for nothing, Satoru. Some people aren’t good with talking, but you make up for it in other ways. Sometimes, being here physically is more than enough.”

Briefly, he looks away from your gaze, cheeks getting dark. “You’re doing it right now. Comforting me when it should be the other way around. Maybe Sensei is right. Maybe you do coddle us too much.” But his expression softens and that makes you feel a little better. Jeez, maybe making people happy is your comfort. “Sketch, I don’t know what to do with you. I constantly move back and forth between wanting to tell you to leave so you’re safe but wanting to keep you close by my side because I don’t know what life would be like without you in it.”

You smack your face against his sternum, not wanting him to see you cry. You’re on the verge of it. After trying to swallow down the lump in your throat, you grumble, “Why are you and Suguru dropping such heavy things so casually?”

“Eh? What did he say?”

“That I’m the most important thing in his life…”

“Oh. Yeah, okay, that’s true. You’re the most important person in my life, too.”

“What about Suguru? Shoko? The underclassmen?”

“You’d think you’d have learned how I think by now. When I say you, I mean you and Suguru. You’re like a package deal inside my brain. You’re both equally the most important people in my life.”

There must be something terribly wrong with you because hearing something like that isn’t supposed to be breaking your heart.

***

I’m sorry for hurting you.

You’re the most important thing in my life, too.

You had physically written down your apology and slipped the note under his door the next morning. It felt cold to send it as a text. You left it at that, too. It was your olive branch, and he would act on it when he was ready is what you told yourself. You didn’t want to pester him, as much as it killed you to not have any contact with him at all.

It’s been a week now, and Suguru still hasn’t talked to you.

And, yes, you respect his privacy, but…you’re leaving for the Kamo clan compound. The higher-ups decided that it’s finally time for you to work with seals. For the last two weeks, they’ve had an expert working with you on learning them. This wasn’t part of the deal, but what are you supposed to do? Tell them to fuck off? You stamp down your irritation by reminding yourself that this prevents the strengthening of cursed spirits or outright outbreaks. It means less work in the future for fellow sorcerers.

So, you head to the smoking area that you’ve been avoiding the last week. A text to your new partner, Kento, informed you that Suguru wasn’t in his room, so there’s only one other place that he’ll most likely be. And, sure enough, Suguru is there. Hunched over a little, taking long drags of his cigarette, staring out at nothing.

“Suguru?”

Blinking back to awareness, he turns his cautious gaze on you. “Hey.” It’s not exactly a cold welcome, but definitely not a warm one, either. That’s fine. You won’t take long.

“I’m leaving for my special assignment now,” you tell him as you fiddle nervously with the aglet of your sweatshirt. Suguru doesn’t immediately respond. He ducks his head down instead. What else could that be but a dismissal? But you did what you came here to do. “Okay,” you whisper. “I’m going now.”

Suguru doesn’t let you get far. He suddenly lashes out, snatching your wrist and yanking you back so suddenly that you almost trip over your feet. You stumble back, spinning around to try and get your bearings, and catch yourself on his shoulders. Your face is very close to his and his amethyst eyes are…the best you can come up with is that they’re sad.

Instinctively, you stroke a thumb over the dark circles under his eyes. “What’s wrong, Suguru?”

“Squid,” he starts quietly and cups your cheek. “If I was selfish and asked you to stay a sorcerer, stay with me on this path, would you?”

You sigh. “Forget what I said. I was being stupid—”

“Stop,” he interrupts. “It’s not…don’t say that about yourself. I know this is hard on you. I worry about you as much as you do about me. Not because you’re weak, but because you have a gentle heart.” It’s intense, the way he’s looking at you, and you have to dart your eyes away. “But I need to do this, and the only thing that’s keeping me sane is you. This is a lot to drop on you, I know, but it’s how I feel. So…will you stay?”

“I’ll stay,” you mumble while reaching out to touch his face, too. “It’s not selfish. I understand. This is something we both need to do. I just haven’t found my place in the world yet, but I will.” You smile softly as a reassurance. “I think things will be easier when we graduate.”

“Yes,” Suguru agrees. “When we graduate.”

***

“Leave it to you to cry during a horror movie.” Satoru is laughing as he keeps stroking your cheeks with his thumbs, trying to catch all your stray tears.

Through your sniffling, you tearfully defend yourself, “I didn’t expect the mother to sacrifice herself like that! And then…then, her spirit was stuck in that building!” He’s still laughing, the asshole. “Stop it! You’re being mean! I can’t help what does and doesn’t make me cry!”

“No more Sketch. Only Crybaby.”

You give him a wobbly scowl before you lean forward to smack your forehead against his sternum. His laughter dies down to snickers, and he shoves you away by your forehead. When you’re looking him in the eye, you pout and demand, “I’m sad. Let me have your last Pocky.”

“What? No way! It’s choco banana and I don’t have any boxes left around here!”

That has you pouting more. “Just buy more.”

“I don’t wanna go all the way to the konbini!”

“You can literally teleport now, Satoru.”

“I’m not that exact with my locations yet!”

“This is not how you treat a lady. I’m in emotional distress.”

“No, you’re manipulating me now.”

Oh, to hell with this. You throw yourself to the side to snatch the box with one single Pocky stick left inside. Satoru dives after you with a cry of outrage, his fingers closing around yours at the exact moment that you get a hand around the box. You try to yank yourself out of his grasp, but he won’t let go. You manage to roll over without losing your hold on the box and try to shove your knee up in his stomach as a dirty trick.

“Yeah, you’re so upset!” Satoru snaps while trying to squirm away from your knee as much as he can. “You’re a dirty liar—” he dodges a knee to the groin with a yelp. “A cheater, too! What happened to my innocent Sketch?”

“You emotionally devastated her with a sad horror movie! This is the price you pay!” He’s right, though. You’re not as sad anymore because you’re grinning. Giggling as you two roll around on his bed, trying to get control over the box. It must be an infectious thing since Satoru’s pouting slowly makes way for his own smile.

Things get a little too rough, though. Both of you skirt too close to the edge of the mattress and you go rolling off. Satoru isn’t winning any awards for gentleman of the year since you’re the one that ends up slamming against the floor. His sunglasses are askew, his hair is a mess, but he’s straddling you while proudly shaking the box. Little does he know that it’s crushed to the point where the plastic package is poking out and you can catch a glimpse of yellow.

You lash out, stealing the package from the box and quickly ripping out the Pocky stick. Satoru squawks, scrambling too late to yank it away, and then stares down at you in disbelief after you shove the end coated in candy in your mouth, smirking smugly around it.

“Cheater!” Satoru accuses again.

Your only answer is to tilt your chin in challenge. This is Gojo Satoru, of course, and he can’t not take that bait. The stick nearly slips from your mouth that goes slack when he hunches over to snatch the other end of the stick between his own teeth. He gives a savage grin.

Someone clears their throat.

Both of you turn your heads, but there’s enough of a delay that the Pocky stick finally snaps, and you end up with most of the good part. Satoru leans back on his haunches, crossing his arms over his chest while munching grumpily. “Nanamin,” he whines loudly and more annoyingly than usual. “I lost the last Pocky because of you!”

Kento is looking as stiff and uncomfortable as he did in his first year, something that you thought he was past with you, at the very least. “Pardon my interruption,” he says directly to you. “Sensei is asking for you, Senpai.”

“Ugh,” you and Satoru groan in unison.

“Did you turn the report in after our assignment at the Kamo clan?”

You open your mouth to confirm because, yes, you did…but maybe you didn’t? Shit. That’s right. You were trying to figure out how to word it without implicating your weird attachment to cursed energy. So, you snap your mouth shut, teeth clacking. Kento frowns in disappointment. “Senpai, that’s very unlike you. Are you sure you’re not being negatively influenced by Gojo?”

“Rude!” Satoru huffs. “Sketch was probably so eager to get back to Suguru that she forgot. They got over their little lover’s quarrel right before you guys left.”

“A quarrel that you caused,” you mutter under your breath. Then, your brain processes, and you sputter. “Damn it, Satoru, it wasn’t a lover’s quarrel! Don’t give Kento the wrong impression!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Finally, Satoru rolls away from you, dropping on his ass so you can freely move. “Get going. It’s about time you get a lecture from the old man.”

Kento watches you and Satoru with a weird expression on his face before he walks away.

***

The second that the bulge has slipped down his throat, you’re holding out a stick of cinnamon gum to Suguru. He takes it, trying to smile in thanks, but it comes out as a grimace. You don’t ask him if he’s okay because you know the answer already. The only thing that hasn’t changed is your immediate wishing that you could take some of this blowback for him. Wishing that he didn’t have to taste them the way he does.

When it’s you two on the case, you don’t need to use a veil. That cursed spirit wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, it was using an old department store as a hideout, and the only people who snuck inside the building were fellow teenagers on dares. You see their names in graffiti as you two head toward the staircase.

“Is sneaking into haunted houses romantic?”

Couples were the curse’s preferred prey. For a higher graded curse, it becomes a better hunter, becomes pickier. You can understand the appeal that a spirit might have in couples. It’s double the fear to feed on—a human’s fear for their own life and for their lover’s. What you don’t understand is why a couple would put themselves in that situation in the first place.

Suguru chuckles. “Not particularly, but romance is subjective, I suppose.”

Still skeptic, you lowly agree, “I suppose…”

Your tone isn’t lost on him. “I know you don’t have much experience in the way of it, but you have to know that much. Why do you sound so suspicious?” With his longer legs, he’s automatically in front of you. So, he stops at the top of the staircase, forcing you to do the same. “Were you being romantic when you did whatever it was to make Nanami ask me if you and Satoru are dating?”

You hum. “I didn’t think Kento was one to make assumptions like that.” Also, why did he go to Suguru to ask that? Weird. “It wasn’t anything like that, jeez. We were fighting over the last Pocky stick.” You pause then admit, “Well, I guess it could’ve looked like a compromising position. He was on top of me and was trying to take the Pocky with his mouth. I think it might’ve been like a weird game of chicken.”

He snorts. “Or it was Satoru trying to get you to kiss him.”

And then it…slips out. “I doubt he’s interested in doing it again.”

In the silence of the building, you can hear Suguru stop breathing. Just for a moment. There’s no emotion on his face when he quietly asks, “Do what again?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. There was a reason why you didn’t want to talk about this with Suguru. You didn’t want to make things weird between the three of you. Suguru’s kneejerk reaction is to be protective. Who knows what he’ll do to protect your virtue or whatever. You can’t imagine how he’ll react when he hears that Satoru hasn’t brought it up because Suguru knows you well enough to figure out that it makes you…upset or…confused or…you don’t know.

Stomach tying itself in knots, you try to figure out the best way to put this. “It…it’s not a big deal! He, um, maybe sort of kissed me—” Suguru’s face twists. You start scrambling. “It was that day when we agreed he was high! So, yeah, he probably doesn’t even remember! That’s why I’ve never brought it up to anyone! I don’t want to make things awkward! None of us want to deal with me acting like…like a needy girlfriend or something! Not like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend or anything!”

Then, Suguru asks a question that hits you like a punch to the gut. “And…how do you feel about Satoru?”

How do you answer that? Seriously? How do you answer that? The idea of trying to compress your enormous feelings for them into a neat package is…overwhelming. It makes you want to cry. Or it might be this confrontation that’s making you panic. You have been actively avoiding this conversation. There’s a place in your neatly organized mind that’s wild and unmarked. It’s too daunting, always making you turn back in defeat before you even start to think about it.

“The same way I feel about you,” is your answer. Simultaneously enough of an answer and not. They are equal in your heart and mind, but what they are is unidentifiable.

Suguru doesn’t believe you and tries to call you out on it, “So, what? You’d let me kiss you?”

“Yes,” you blurt automatically. You’re afraid to back down. If you do, you’ll be forced to think about this more. You want this awful conversation to be over already.

Suguru, eyes narrowed, takes a step toward you. “Really?”

There’s a lump in your throat that you try to swallow down, but you stand your ground. “Really.”

Another step. “Right now?”

“Right now,” you confirm breathlessly because he’s so close to you now that a deep breath would brush your chest against his.

Another game of chicken, you can’t help but think as he cups your cheek. Those eyes that stare down at you are challenging you, but there’s also more. Something wild. Desperate. You wonder how he can be so calm, but when he hunches over, and his face inches towards yours, you can feel his quick, shallow breaths against your skin. You briefly clutch at the front of his blazer before splaying out a hand, desperate to feel the rapid thump of his heartbeat under your fingers. His other hand reaches down to wrap around your wrist—maybe for the same reason.

Dazedly, moronically, you point out, “There’s…you have gum…”

His throat bobs. You think it’s nerves, but then he sticks out his tongue to show the gum is now gone. Right. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. He’s serious about this. You’re serious about this, you suddenly realize. Because he touches your cheek, and you lean into it. Your eyes have never left his mouth.

And it’s you that closes the distance.

It’s so similar and it’s also not. You know to tilt your head to the side a little when your noses bump, and then they’re slotting together like what happened with Satoru. Heat rushes throughout your body again, too. But Suguru’s hand feels so much bigger and skitters down to the side of your neck, taking up so much space that a finger is behind your ear. Cinnamon explodes across your taste buds when his tongue slips past your lips.

Someone’s ringtone echoes.

The two of you tear yourselves apart. Suguru looks beyond irritated, leaving you self-conscious, but he’s pissed at his phone because that is what he glowers down at when he pulls it out of his pocket. He actually snaps when he answers his cellphone with a harsh, rude, “What?” Blood is rushing in your ears, and you press your hands against your scalding hot cheeks. You can’t hear what’s being said on the other end. “Yes, it’s been taken care of. We apologize. We thought there was another spirit,” he lies in a clipped tone. He presses his thumb to the center of his forehead. “Okay. We’ll be there shortly.”

Oh. That must’ve been the manager. You forgot that you texted her that you were done. Has it really been long enough for the manager to get worried? You don’t even want to check. You know you’ll get all flustered, thinking about how you spent all that time kissing Suguru.

Holy shit, you kissed Suguru.

Holy shit, you kissed Satoru.

Holy shit, you kissed them both.

***

“Holy shit, you kissed them both.”

“Gojo, of all people,” Utahime adds with no small amount of disgust.

You knock your head against the table, sighing heavily. If you tried to brain yourself right now, would they stop you? “Very helpful commentary, Senpai.”

“I just thought you had better taste, is all,” she mumbles in response.

Shoko laughs—relishing in your misery, most likely. “You told us, so now what? Are you wanting advice? Need help picking between them? Because I’ll also say you shouldn’t choose either of them.” You straighten up, sighing again, putting a thumb to the center of your forehead. “Hey, who did it first? You or Geto?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“The forehead thing.” She demonstrates by pressing a thumb to her forehead and pulling an exaggerated angry face. “Are you just now realizing that you do it, too?”

“Oh.” You stare down at your hand, genuinely shocked. You’ve never been consciously aware of it, but, yeah, you do actually dothe same thing as him. When did it even start? Which one of you started it? Was it you or was it him? “Um…no. It’s…I think it’s been this way since we were kids.”

Utahime’s nose is scrunched in distaste when she asks, “So, are you in love with them?”

“How would I even know?”

“How would you not?”

Shoko clucks her tongue, visibly irritated with Utahime. “Don’t make her feel bad. It’s not like you’ve ever been in love.” To have Shoko take that tone with Utahime is a shock. Your eyes dart to Utahime whose jaw is clenched and grip tightened around the coffee cup. This…tension between them…that’s new, right? You’re not imagining it, are you? But then Shoko turns back to you, gaze softening, as if nothing just happened. “Do you feel differently about them than anyone else?”

“I…” You know the answer. Deep down, you know it’s different with them. So…why can’t you admit that? There’s something that’s blocking you from accepting the truth, that has you skirting away from that place in your heart. For some reason, it seems unfair. You don’t know to who or why. Maybe you’re mistaking unfairness for wrongness. Shoko said it was okay to love more than one person, but there’s still that mental block in your head. You’ve been conditioned to love only one.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself if you keep thinking that hard. Calm down. You don’t need all the answers now,” Shoko tries to assure you. “There doesn’t even have to be an answer, either. This doesn’t have to mean anything at all. Just because they were your first, you don’t have to make these important. I didn’t.”

“Oh. You kissed someone?” That’s new. Definitely new. The last time you checked, when the school year first started and you two were catching up, she said that nothing happened in the way of her love life. She’s never admitted to it outright, but she’s been crazy pining for Utahime.

“Yeah.”

“How come you didn’t tell me?” It’s been busy, you haven’t seen each other much, but you’re a little hurt that neither she nor Utahime told you. Because it had to be Utahime, right? Then again, why is Shoko being so callous when discussing the kiss? She cares a lot for Utahime.

“Because, like I said, it doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

Utahime’s head is ducked down, but you can see her profile. If she glares any harder at that cup, it might shatter. Shoko, putting her elbow on the table and settling her chin in the palm of her hand, is feigning indifference. But there’s an air about her that tells you she’s anything but apathetic right now. Also, she’s now watching Utahime carefully.

The tension has you cringing. This is a delicate subject for everyone, so you’ll be the one to put a stop to it. “Maybe we shouldn’t keep talking about this—”

“Aren’t you gonna ask me who it was, Duck?”

“Why don’t we wait until we’re back on campus—”

“Mei was my first.”

It all comes crashing down. Literally. Because everything on the table clatters and tumbles over when Utahime lashes out to snatch Shoko’s wrist, her knee bumping against the underside as she moves. Her eyes are wide with panic. “Your first kiss, right?” Shoko’s mouth thins. “Right?” Still no response from Shoko. She’s resolute in her silence. Utahime’s anxiety is so palpable that your rises along with hers with every passing second that her question goes unanswered. “Right?”

Shoko snaps and yanks her wrist back from Utahime. “What does it matter to you?”

“It matters if you did this just to get back at me because I didn’t do what you wanted when you were drunk!” Um. You…feel like this has suddenly become a private conversation that you should not be hearing. You sink down in your seat a little. “Were you drunk when you went to her, too?”

“I’m not a slut, Utahime.”

“I wasn’t implying—”

“Not everything is about you!” Shoko shouts, the loudest you’ve ever heard her be. It startles you and Utahime. And Utahime drops down in her seat, shrinking as Shoko slams her hands against the table and rises to her feet. “You rejected me! You made it clear you don’t think about me the same way! Why do you care about what I do with who? And you’re so self-centered that you think I did it to get back at you! Give me a break!” Shoko storms away, grabbing your wrist and tugging you along as she snarls, “Let’s go, Duck.”

For the entire trek back to campus, Shoko hasn’t spoken. Neither have you. You’re not sure how to talk about it. So, you’ve watched her work through two cigarettes. You’ve also seen her blink back tears or scrub at her eyes with a sleeve. It’s when you’re on the way up the stone path that you finally decide to speak.

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?”

Shoko barks out a laugh. “And fight with one of them? No thanks.”

Heat crawls up the back of your neck. You should’ve known better than to think Shoko wouldn’t figure it out. “They don’t spend the night with me when they’re both on campus. They sleep with each other instead. Suguru has an extra futon in his room.”

“Yeah. I can’t imagine both of those giants fitting on a bed together.”

You fiddle with some lint in the pocket of your hoodie. Do you want to talk about it is on the tip of your tongue, but you bite it back. Instead, you press her with, “So…sleepover?”

“Sure.”

“No alcohol, though.”

“Such a dutiful citizen.”

“Because I don’t have a technique to heal the suffering that I put my body through. Just because you can do these things doesn’t mean you should.”

“You can look away from the corpses. I can’t. Sorry that I wanna have some fun to forget about the fact that, one day, it’ll be one of you on my table next.” She curses, drops her cigarette to the ground, and smashes it with her shoe. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She rubs her forehead. “That went too far.”

It’s true, though, isn’t it? You’ve never thought about it, but with her technique…she could heal any ailment. She can’t reverse aging, but everything else is free game. She doesn’t throw herself into danger like the rest of you. She can live a long life. Time is a luxury for most sorcerers. It’s a dauting reality to face so young. Still, when you die, that’s it. One day, Shoko will be left behind.

How lonely must that be?

“You could be a normal doctor,” you whisper as you take one of her hands in yours. “You can walk away from this life after we graduate. You can save people instead.”

“I appreciate the concern, Mama Duck, but it’s okay. If I wasn’t around, you’d be dead already from a brain bleed. I want to keep all you idiots alive as long as possible.” She squeezes your hand back, grip unbearably tight. “I think I’ll actually take you up on that sleepover invitation. I wanna be the little spoon.”

“Ugh, fine.”

***

In the seiza position on a cushion that’s probably worth more than your childhood home, you and Kento wait to meet with your escort today. The room you’re in is beautiful, decorated with a mural of a pond with elaborately detailed dragonflies. You itch for your sketchbook. You never had the chance to see this the last time you were here. The party was held somewhere else.

“It’s still so hard to reconcile the fact that he came from such a serious and distinguished clan.”

You bite back a smile. “Kento,” you try to scold.

Kento simply shrugs in response. For someone that lectures Satoru so much about the blunt way he speaks to people, Kento can be pretty ruthless in his own assessments. He’s of the mindset that sugarcoating words is unproductive, especially when it’s in regard to jujutsu. It can get people killed, in his opinion. You agree wholeheartedly which might be why you get along so well with him.

The sound of footsteps approaching has you straightening up. Three people enter the room, all with matching white hair and blue eyes. Duller than Satoru’s sparkling eyes, you notice. At the front of them is the current head of the clan. Satoru’s…great-uncle, you think he told you and Suguru? What was his name again? Did Satoru even tell you? Satoru spent more time gossiping than actually introducing.

His great-uncle was the strongest in the clan until Satoru came into the picture. He’s more obsessed with strength than even the Zen’in clan—which is a lot, Satoru said. Before Satoru’s birth, his great-uncle went behind his wife’s back, knocking up mistress after mistress, desperate to produce a child with the Six Eyes. So, when his brother’s bloodline was the blessed one, he grew more and more bitter.

Same thing happened with the Zen’in recently, actually, Satoru had mentioned that night of his birthday party. Or so the rumor mill says, anyway. Someone got knocked off the throne when they had some non-sorcerer kids. Our clans hate each other, but we suffered the same fate. Well, it was a blessing in disguise for my clan because they get me, but my great-uncle probably wouldn’t agree.

Satoru’s great-uncle might remember you because he coldly says, “You came all the way here for nothing. I did not authorize this. We don’t need some girl poking around in our personal collection as an experiment. I tried to call Gakuganji, but he didn’t answer. Tell him that the next time he makes decisions on our behalf, there will be consequences.”

“Big talk from someone that’s running on borrowed time!”

Everyone else in the room—Kento included—sighs in aggravation at the sound of Satoru’s voice. You, however, perk up when you watch him stroll into the room. He sprawls out next to you rather than his fellow clansmen, casual as can be. It’s infectious, because you find that the tension in your body is slowly bleeding away.

“Satoru,” his great-uncle starts through gritted teeth, “did you know about this?”

“Yeah,” Satoru answers boredly. “You geezers keep yapping about how I need to be more involved in clan business if I’m gonna be the head soon. So, I handled it for you.” A vein throbs on his great-uncle’s temple. Satoru zeroes in on it. “What’s got you so cranky, old man? My gramps says it’s been years since anyone’s been in our stash, so who knows what shape all those seals are in?”

Ah. His great-uncle has been posturing. You don’t know how the hell Satoru has been able to handle all these complicated rules and customs and interpersonal relationships. And you thought it’d been bad with the Kamo. You’ve heard of the Gojo ego, but the Zen’in are supposedly worse. You’re not sure you have the mental fortitude to deal with all this.

“You should remember your place,” his great-uncle hisses. “You’re not of age yet. You have no authority—”

“Nah, old timer, you need to remember yours.” Satoru rudely points a finger, clearly mocking the man. “What are you gonna do, huh? Fight me? We know who’ll win that. You’re just keeping the seat warm for me.”

Right. This is getting out of hand. “Satoru,” you speak up. “You’re being very rude right now.”

Satoru turns his head to pout at you. “Aw, c’mon, are you seriously taking his side?”

“You’re being rude,” you repeat because, no, you’re not taking his great-uncle’s side. This is just getting uncomfortable. All you want is for this to be over with as soon as possible.

Satoru groans loudly, like the drama queen that he is. “Fine. You’re lucky that I like you so much.” To his great-uncle, he declares, “I’ll escort them around the place. If anything goes wrong, the strongest sorcerer will be there. It won’t, though. My Sketch knows what she’s doing.”

My Sketch.

Did he have to say it like that? And in front of his family, no less?

The Gojo keep their collection deep inside the estate, in the basement. When you visited the Kamo clan, it took a lot to convince Kento to leave you alone. In the end, you succeeded when you told him that you can’t mask his presence so it would only agitate the few fly heads locked inside a cage. You assured him that if something went wrong, he’d sense a surge in cursed energy, and that you’d be okay because, as previously stated, you can hide yourself.

Kento stays at the top of the staircase that leads down to the basement. Satoru is suspiciously agreeable to staying behind and hands the key over without a word of complaint. Even Kento is skeptical, eyeing Satoru with the same wariness that you know is on your face.

You should’ve known he was only biding his time.

You’re distracted when he slips inside the room with you. The caged fly heads are off to the side of the room. You don’t need them. Never have. Their agitation is a warning sign that somethingis leaking inside here, though. Actually, it might be more than one something with how much cursed energy is festering in here. None of the seals are quite at their breaking points yet, but it’s enough that someone should worry.

Frowning to yourself, you mutter, “Does no one check in here?”

“No, not really.”

Something…very weird happens.

This ability of yours, you’re still testing out. You never thought of it as something to be aimed until Satoru forces your attention on him. There’s no other explanation for why you didn’t notice his overwhelming cursed energy before. And when you do, you get smacked in the face by nervousness. But it’s not…yours. Oh, this is weird. Because, somehow, you intrinsically know that this doesn’t belong to the fly heads, either. It’s diluted, not as potent as if it were your own, but it’s…cleaner than if it came from a cursed spirit.

“Why are you nervous?”

Satoru’s mouth parts and the smirk falls from his face. Suddenly, he yanks his sunglasses off, staring at you so intensely that you know he’s using the Six Eyes on you. His eyes widen before he rushes forward to take you by the shoulders. “Stop before you give yourself another brain bleed, idiot!”

Oh. Yes. Closing your eyes, you become increasingly aware of your body. Not only is your head throbbing, but blood is dripping from your nose. Definitely not as bad as that day on campus when you broke that old man’s hip, but still bad. Satoru’s hands on your shoulders are quickly becoming the only thing keeping you upright. He steadies you when you wobble dangerously.

“Hey,” he mumbles after a few silent moments of you catching your breath. You blink owlishly. “Are you resonating with cursed energy now?”

You wipe blood away from your nose with the hem of your sleeve. “If by resonating, you mean I can feel it then, yes, I can.”

“Thought it was weird when I watched you put the fly heads down,” he remarks while tapping his chin in thought. “Also, makes sense why you were all shifty when you told us about Ryomen Sukuna’s finger, too.” As with all new things, he’s immediately intensely interested, so he hunches over to lean his face in close to yours. “What does it feel like?”

“Sure, ask the person new to this.” You roll your eyes before taking a step back. Your heart is already about to burst from his scare. You don’t need your brain overthinking the closeness by wanting to kiss you again. Ugh, great, now you’re thinking about that. “It’s…emotions. I don’t know if that’s what it actually is or if that’s what my brain is translating it to, but that’s the only way I can describe it.”

“How does it feel?”

“What? For the seals about to break?” He nods. You shrug. “Depends, but mostly…giddy. No, that’s too positive. These are cursed objects. It’s that kind of excited that you get when…when someone that you don’t like gets what’s coming to them. Some of them are angry, like they’re pissed that they’re sealed and are waiting to make everyone’s life hell.” You turn to look at one of said objects. “Most of the ones in here are angry, by the way.”

“Eh. Everyone’s a hater.”

“Satoru,” you start with a deepening frown. “I’m going to strengthen these seals, but you really need to talk with your clan about checking on these more often. There’s no excuse for the shape these are in. I know most of your relatives have Infinity, but not all of them, right? And what about the little kids that I saw running around earlier? Seriously. This isn’t safe.”

Satoru picks up on your seriousness and, for once, doesn’t try to brush it off. “I didn’t know they were this bad,” he mumbles.

“I know. You do have an excuse because you’re in Tokyo.” You scrub a hand across your face. “Forget it. I already got a lecture from Principal Gakuganji about keeping my opinions to myself. Apparently, the Kamo clan was offended when I left. They said that I, and I quote, shouldn’t meddle in the affairs of clans.”

“Well, as I’ve already established today, I am the Gojo clan. I’ll bully the geezers until they assign someone to check in on this place more often.”

You shake your head. “You’re so lucky that you have the bite to back up your bark. If not, your clan would overthrow you in a heartbeat because of your shitty attitude.”

“That’s so mean!” Satoru whines.

“It’s what they call tough love. You need to take things more seriously—”

“I did!”

“Partially, but you’re still down here, distracting me from doing what I came here to do.” You cross your arms over your chest, shooting him an unamused look. “Unless you have something serious to talk to me about, will you leave me alone so I can work on these seals? I don’t need a babysitter. Is that why you were so nervous?”

Satoru’s face scrunches up briefly before he smooths it out by forcing a smile. “Heh. Yeah. Sorry. I’ll…just…” He points over his shoulder toward the door. Your brows furrow, confused by his behavior, but you’ll have to ask him later when you’re done with this. He turns, takes a few steps toward the door, but then stops.

“Satoru?”

Satoru takes a deep breath before he whirls around and stomps back over to stand right in front of you again. “Why’d you tell Suguru that I didn’t remember it?”

Okay, you’re just genuinely baffled now. “Uh…what?”

“I remember the kiss.”

Wait. Why does he look so betrayed? Is he seriously about to pin this on you? No. Absolutely not. Offended that he’s offended, you hiss, “You never said anything to me! What was I supposed to think?”

“I didn’t say anything because you didn’t say anything! You’re supposed to be the one that’s smart about emotions and stuff!”

“Huh? I’m sorry, but do you know who you’re talking to? Suguru is the smart one when it comes to that, idiot! Besides, when was I supposed to bring it up? As soon as you came back from the dead didn’t seem like the best time! And I hardly ever see you anymore! And…and how do I even bring that up?”

Satoru scowls. “I don’t know! We don’t even have to talk at all!”

“Then, why are you so upset?”

“No! I mean—” he groans loudly, frustrated by his inability to express himself. “I liked the kiss! I want to do it again!”

The confession comes at you like a sucker punch. You don’t expect it, and it leaves you wide-eyed and breathless. Your body is still burning up, yes, but it’s not because you’re pissed anymore. No, this asshole has you all flustered now, to the point that your mouth opens and closes because you can’t figure out what to say.

Weirdly, what ends up coming out of your mouth is a sheepish, “I liked it, too.”

It’s amazing, how much Satoru perks up. You can almost imagine the dog ears raised high and tail wagging excitedly. His cheeks are flushed, but he grins. “So…can we? Again?”

“Um. Sure. But—”

Satoru doesn’t wait to hear whatever it is you have to say. As soon as you give him permission, he’s reaching out for your face, and hunching over to smash his lips against yours. In his eagerness, your teeth catch his lip the wrong way, and his blood smears across your bottom lip. You can’t help but laugh, a little delighted that he’s so excited to kiss you again. The thought of finishing up in here with the seals floats away when he starts kissing you right.

Just a few kisses, you swear to yourself.

It ends up taking thirty minutes to pull away from him.

***

July is sweltering.

“I’m melting,” you announce to the room morosely. Suguru, a fellow starfish that’s sprawled out on the floor in front of the box fan, grunts in acknowledgement. You fling your hand over, lightly smacking it against his chest. “Get my pencil. It’s on the bed,” you demand.

Suguru snorts. “Excuse me? Where’s my Squid with her good manners?”

“The manner part of Squid’s brain fried from the heat. You get needy Squid now. And Squid wants to draw but needs her pencil to do that. I’ll draw whatever you want. No commission fee, either.”

“How benevolent,” he drawls sarcastically. “You have hands. Get it yourself.”

“Please?”

“Seriously? It’s right there. You’re closer to the bed.”

“But I’m melting.”

“Squid.”

“I’m a squid puddle.”

Suguru is laughing quietly, a beautiful sound that seems so rare these days. “I spoil you too much.” And yet, he rolls over on his hands and knees, so seems like you’re the real winner here. “Too hot to move but not too hot to draw,” he continues to playfully complain.

Suguru clambers over, hovering above you. His knees bracket yours in, he has one arm next to your head and uses the other to fumble around on the mattress for your pencil. You smile apologetically when he scowls at you, coming up empty. Even with his long arms, the pencil must be further away than he can reach like this, and he’s disgruntled about it. You can’t blame him. It is pretty hot. So, Suguru gets on his knees totally, sitting back on his haunches.

The thing is…the thing is…that when he moves around, he sets one knee between your thighs. Oh, this is familiar, you think to yourself with no small amount of panic. Before you can move, though, his knee is already moving higher to press right against your core.

It’s an instinctive thing, pushing back against his knee, chasing that feeling. Just as you lowly whimper, your brain catches up to what you’re doing, and you cover your mouth but it’s too late. That sound is already lost to the ether. Above you, Suguru freezes, eyes slowly widening, arm hovering there in the air.

Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, your brain screams in some desperate hope that he’s become telekinetic and can pick it up. You are, of course, not lucky like that. And, slowly, Suguru drops the task of getting your pencil completely and moves down to hover over you on his hands and knees. You can’t quite hold back the flinch when his hands drop on either side of your head, keeping you pinned there with no way to escape without resorting to violence.

You might have to resort to violence.

“Squid,” he sings in that sickly sweet tone that he always uses before he teases you. Is he really going to make this worse? Shoko was so wrong. Suguru doesn’t have a crush on you and now he’s probably disgusted by your reaction. If not disgust then he’s, at the very least, feeling awkward. “What was that?”

You resist the urge to cover your face. That’d make you look guilty. You can get away with no eye contact, though. After all, that’s not out of the ordinary for you. “Nothing!” Oh, yes, that was so smooth. You’re a moron.

He raises a brow. “Really? It didn’t sound like nothing to me.”

“I…um…my back hurts from being on the floor for so long!” Yes, yes, that sounds like a reasonable excuse. You can run with this. “Here. I will get the pencil. Then, I’ll get the futon! Because y’know, my back is killing me, but I still want to stay low to the ground with the fan and where all the cold air is,” you rant nervously.

Shockingly, Suguru allows you to squirm out from underneath him. You might not completely be out of the clear yet, though, since he’s watching you so intently that you even feel his gaze on your back when it’s turned to him. You do what you said you would—grabbing the pencil and dropping it on the floor by your sketchbook before you go to his closet to grab the futon sitting on the top shelf.

As soon as you settle down on the futon, you sprawl out on your stomach, and nervously start to scribble in your sketchbook. Just little doodles and random patterns. Anything to make you look busy. You’re desperately hoping that the shift back to something normal will make him forget what just happened.

You know better than that, though.

Geto Suguru is like a dog with a bone when he wants something.

It doesn’t matter that you’re on your stomach now. Suguru crawls on the futon and moves back over you once again. There’s no point of contact, technically, other than his hands that grasp your wrists to stop you from sketching.

“Suguru,” you complain with a huff. “Get off me.”

“Not until you tell me the truth,” he declares.

You turn your head to the side, glaring at him with one eye. “I did. Now, can you stop being weird?”

Then, Suguru is shooting you one of those…stupidly handsome and infuriating cocky smirks. “Oh, so I’m the one that’s being weird? That’s rich coming from the person that tried humping my leg.”

Jerking your head back around so he can’t see your face, you give an outraged shout of, “I was not doing that!”

“You weren’t, huh? So, you wouldn’t mind if I…”

It gets suspiciously quiet, then. You’re on edge, waiting for an opening that doesn’t come. What does happen is that Suguru shifts around and, horrifyingly, his knee starts to slide up between your parted thighs. You try to snap them shut too late and it just ends up sending his knee bumping against your pussy yet again. You’re prepared for it in that you can bite your lip to hold back any noises, but not so much for the way he’s actively rocking it against you now.

“Suguru, stop!”

When his response comes, it’s right by your ear, and you’re seriously shivering now. “Not until you tell me the truth.”

“You know what it really is! Why do you need me to say it?!”

He’s grinning, you just know it. “I don’t want to presume…”

“It’s turning me on, okay? Are you happy now? You’re such an asshole! Why are you teasing me about something that my body does? This is a completely normal reaction! What if I started rubbing up against your dick, huh?”

“Who said anything about teasing, hmm?” Suguru’s mouth brushes against the shell of your ear. “And you don’t even have to do that much to make it hard. It is right now. Just from hearing you moan like that.”

…eh?

“Do you want to feel, Squid?”

The gears in your brain spun so hard that they blew up. They’re melting away. Nothing is left in your skull. That must be why you nod. It’s a simple thing, when he presses his weight down and that hard thing touches your ass, but the breath rushes out of you regardless. You fist the fabric of the futon, warming up, waiting for him to do something more. He doesn’t. You’re not sure what you expected since he just asked if you wanted to feel, not if you wanted him to start humping you.

“See? Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

It’s out of you without a thought. “What are we doing right now?”

Suguru doesn’t say anything immediately. He lifts away enough to grab your hip, squeeze, and then nudge as a silent order to roll over. You think about not doing, about running away, but…he…he’s turned on, too. So, you relent to his silent request and move to lay flat on your back. You blink up at him owlishly, waiting.

“Ever since that talk, the one where you told me to hold out until graduation so things can get better…I’ve been thinking.” This thing he has to say is making him nervous. His eyes skitter away, his cheeks are darkening, and his voice has the tiniest wobble to it. “Do you remember what we swore to each other after we graduated middle school? We were skipping stones.”

It takes you a few minutes to remember something from what feels like a lifetime ago. He rudely doesn’t say anything else to help your memory along, either. Finally, you remember it since there was really only one noteworthy conversation from around that time, right before you came to Tokyo.

Hey, if we’re still virgins by the end of high school, want to take each other’s virginities?

Surely not…that isn’t what he’s talking about, is it? Just the thought of it has your stomach twisting and heartbeat kicking up a little higher. To verify that that’s really what he’s referring to, you remind him, “We haven’t graduated yet.”

“As good as,” he whispers.

Ah. So…yeah. You guys are really having this discussion. Right. Okay. That’s…fine. But because you are how you are, you get boggled up in the details. “We have seven more months left.”

Suguru leans down, face hovering over yours. His long, dark hair that he didn’t bother to put in the usual neat bun falls like a curtain on either side of your faces. Almost as if you’re both being hidden away from the world. “Are you planning on losing your virginity to anyone else?”

Your throat clicks as you swallow. This conversation suddenly seems very…weighted. “No,” you whisper. F

“What’s the problem, then?” Amethyst eyes sweep over your face, heated in a way that you’ve never seen before. It’s a contrast with the almost hesitant way that he reaches up to hover next to your cheek in question. “This isn’t meant to pressure you,” he adds solemnly.

With a tilt of your head, you bump your cheek against his hand in silent permission to touch. “I know it’s not.” You do, truly. No lie. You’re a little overwhelmed, but it’s not necessarily bad. It’s…unfamiliar. “If anyone was pressuring, it was me. That was a weird thing to force a promise over.” Your brows knit together. For some reason, Satoru flashes across your mind, but interest in kissing isn’t the same as interest in having sex. Which is why you’re shocked that Suguru is bringing this up. “You’d seriously be okay with losing your virginity to me?”

Suguru smiles, small but genuine, and says your name and then, “It’s you.”

It’s you.

There is so much trust in that. Simple yet enough to shift the world ever-so-slightly. Things aren’t going to ever be the same, you realize, before recognizing that things have never been the same since last year. It’s you, he declares, and it’s true but so much more than that for you. It was always going to be you.

Curiously, you reach up to touch his cheek, as he does yours. Your thumb brushes the darkness under his eyes. The angles of his face are sharper, as obvious as the fact that he’s losing weight.

“Will this make you happy?”

Suguru’s gaze brightens with the impending mischievous comment. “Well, if you’ve had an orgasm, I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is obvious, Squid.”

“Not many, actually,” you casually admit. “They’re kinda lackluster.”

“That’s…really sad.” Then, he smirks smugly. “I’ll make your orgasms amazing.”

“That’s a pretty bold declaration for a virgin to make.”

“You have some nerve using virgin as an insult like that when you’re a virgin, too.” His eyes narrow playfully. “I’ll know my way around your body better than you’ll know mine.” You raise a brow, curious where that confidence comes from. “I’ve seen a JAV or two.”

“Pervert,” you intone.

Suguru doesn’t take the obvious bait meant to throw him into a tizzy. “I’m being honest with you. You’ve never had an issue with that before. What don’t we know about each other, hmm?” Yeah, okay, he’s got you there. “So, do you want to do this? It’s okay if you don’t. This doesn’t have to change anything between us.”

“You never answered my question. Will it make you happy?”

“Doing anything with you makes me happy.”

“Okay. If it makes you happy then it makes me happy, too.”

Then, for a long time, there’s no words spoken.

In a way, you think that this was always going to happen. For the last ten years, you’ve shared everything with each other, so why would you not give your bodies to each other? There’s no judgement as you slowly strip down. There never has been. When you’ve borne your heart and soul to someone, seen the darkest parts of them and shown yours in return, nakedness seems like such a trivial thing to fuss over.

Between the kissing and leaving marks along one another’s necks and shoulders, your hands slide lower. At some point, you think he whispers something like, it’ll hurt less if you’re wet. And like that very first time that you felt true desire, this is so wildly different from when you touch yourself. He’s clumsy, unable to stick to one place in his curiosity, fingers gliding over your clit and then dipping down to slip inside you.

It’s a stretch. Stinging and painful with how much larger and longer his fingers are compared to your own. But the constant pressure on your clit has pleasure winning the war against pain. You fumble to keep your hand wrapped around his stupidly big dick, but the thoughts are quickly flittering away.

You’re not even sure how you manage to rub enough brain cells together to breathlessly ask, “Do you have a condom?”

Suguru freezes. “Uh…”

Ugh. No wonder Utahime says that men only think with their dicks. What does that make you, though? Because the halt of his fingers makes you whine and scramble to keep this pleasure going as long as you can. “Just…make sure to pull out before you come. Okay?”

He nods enthusiastically. “Okay.”

Something interesting builds inside you. Not an orgasm, but an ache. A gnawing hunger to fill the emptiness inside you. It must be inside him, too, because he murmurs, “I’m putting it in now, okay?” You nod as eagerly as he did. He kisses the place behind your ear. “Tell me if it hurts too much. I mean it, Squid. We can stop whenever you want.”

“I know,” you reply quietly. Then, you gently yank on one of his bangs, making him lean away a little to look down at you with a raised brow. “The same goes for you, too. If you want to stop, say so.”

Suguru’s expression softens so much that it makes you a little shy again. You try to turn your head away, but he tilts it back with a hand on your cheek and kisses you again. With all the things that you two have done so far, this is what makes you the most breathless. Kissing him always does. And just because you can, you place your hand over his heart, reassured to feel that his heart is beating as fast as yours is.

Fingers, you figure out, are nothing compared to that thing between his legs. It hurts, you’ll admit it. More than the twinges from before. It’s an easier glide than any of the times you’ve tried fingering yourself and you think that might be because you’re so wet, exactly like Suguru said. You bear down on instinct when he starts to press in. He hisses through his teeth, immediately pulling out.

You blink open your eyes. “Huh?”

Suguru’s cheeks are so red. He refuses to meet your gaze which is a rare thing indeed. “Sorry. You’re…you were squeezing me really tight. And…um…it’s…hot inside. And…wet…”

You giggle nervously, understanding that he was about to come. “It’s okay. You’re big, I’m tight, so this is good. It’s good for both of us if you go slow, right?”

“Right.”

For most of the time that he’s pushing inside, you’re kissing. Suguru will inch inside you a little further each time before abruptly pulling out. Each time he does this, he lasts a little longer, and you relax a little further. It starts as a painful stretch, shifts to more of a pinching, and then gets sore. The soreness, though, slowly becomes dulled against the blossoming pleasure.

By the time his pelvis is pressed to yours, you’re slipping your arms under his, clinging to him and begging, “Please don’t pull out this time.” Both of you are breathing heavily, soaked with sweat. “Please, Suguru. I know you’re not trying to tease me, but that’s how it feels now. I can’t stand how empty I feel when you leave.”

Face buried in the crook of your neck, Suguru breathes a sigh of relief. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? I’ve been going slow for you.”

“You didn’t catch on from the noise?”

“Did we not establish how important communication is here?”

That was meant to be a reprimand, but it sounds like there’s a smile in his voice. You won’t be able to maintain the eye contact long, you think, but you want to see his face. Just for a little while. So, you grab a fistful of his hair, giving a slight tug. Suguru reacts in a way that you definitely don’t expect. He moans and maybe unintentionally bucks his hips. Your grip gets tighter and the nails of your other hand dig into his back.

Suguru leans on one elbow, avoiding looking at you while he gently grasps your wrist, pulling it away from his hair. “Let’s not do that again,” he suggests hoarsely.

“You’re really struggling with this.” He scowls and you shake your head to it. “It’s…kind of a compliment. Am I that hot?”

He laughs quietly and strokes the high of your cheekbone with his thumb, suddenly looking so unbearably soft. “Squid, I’ve dreamed about this since we made that deal at the river. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen since I was six years old.”

This unknown emotion in your chest swells to the point where it’s unbearable. It’s a confession that you can’t handle. “Please,” you whisper, unsure what it is that you’re begging for.

Suguru takes the plea as one to move. He does. A tentative, unsure rolling of his hips. Your forehead lolls forward, pressing against his shoulder. It feels as if you’re about to burst out of your skin. The heat and pressure building inside you like a bomb. It all adds up, the little things. The brushing of fingers over nipples, the digging of nails into skin, the intertwining of your limbs, the breaths you feed each other when you kiss.

On the precipice of orgasm, Suguru moans loudly in your ear. Then, he pulls out, the warm ropes of his release coating your pussy and inner thighs. He doesn’t even catch his breath before his fingers roughly stroke your clit, throwing you over the edge with an arch of your back and fingers clutching at the fabric of the futon.

Suguru collapses on top of you, both of you giving an oomph. Your nerves are like livewires, so when he rests his cheek above your heart, it’s like you can feel his breath wash over your skin. You feel the need to say something, but he rests an arm over your bare waist, grips you tight, and kisses the spot above your breast. With a tilt of your head, you see his eyes are closed. His face is flushed, skin shining, but he looks…peaceful.

Yes, this is peaceful enough.

[wheelie-sick]

I wonder about your thoughts on fluctuating support needs? Not necessarily fluctuating between medium and low or medium and high but specific IADLS and BADLS that fluctuate? For instance I usually able to do most of my IADLs frequently enough to like mostly function - but not to the same frequency as is usually considered required or healthy ex. Going a day or two without eating, unintentionally waiting until the very last second to use the bathroom (and subsequent UTIs) not showering frequently enough etc… for BADLs it’s similar where I am able to live on my own and mostly do them but also need help a lot of the time. So there aren’t really any tasks that I always consistently need help with, but there aren’t many tasks that I can always reliably do without help either- some tasks i usually need help with and some I usually don’t, but it varies a lot as well. so I wonder about how much or how frequent the support needs to be in order to be considered a support need if that makes sense?

Okay I'm gonna try to write this without sounding super gatekeepy and harsh. just know my tone is supposed to be gentle

also, I'm not an expert in this so people who know more are welcome to weigh in or correct me

I would ask yourself about survival. one of the biggest factors in support needs is survival. while fluctuating support needs absolutely can be hard to deal with and complicate your position on the spectrum if you can survive without support I would put yourself in low support needs.

for myself, if I had every support taken away from me I would end up homeless and likely die as a result.

it sounds like you absolutely need support but I want to remind you (/general you) that needing support ≠ higher support needs. low support needs people still require support, sometimes quite a bit of it. to me the difference between the two really lies in the ability to survive without support. that's what ADLs are really trying to communicate-survival skills. that's why they are only the most foundational skills needed to get by in this society

the label MSN being about survival is so important for communicating the position we are in. being unable to survive without support is a scary position to be in. the idea of losing my mom is terrifying in a different way than it is for other people.

I am not going to tell you where you sit because I do not know you or your needs beyond what you've shared in a short ask. that's something you have to decide for yourself but I would seriously consider your ability to survive.

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

Hello there!

Mod applications open

Mod team:

I’m Jamie but I also go by Jay! I’m gender queer and use any pronouns but I am masc leaning (he/him), don’t be afraid to ask! I’m aegosexual-pansexual and a romance repulsed aromantic! I am neurotypical and the OG owner of this blog!

Hey people, my names Noah and I use they/them pronouns :) I have a long list of labels cause I'm a complicated human being lol. I'm non binary, lesbian oriented aroace, with a handful of microlabels (quoiromantic, apothiromantic, aegoromantic, apothisexual and aegosexual). I also experience platonic, aesthetic and sensual attraction B) I have diagnosed adhd and I'm an infp :D

My name is Ray! I go by any pronouns and I’m a Agender Cogirl. I am cupioromantic and aegosexual (and many other things, just ask if you want to know!). I also have diagnosed autism and I’m an ISFP

Carl D, all pronouns, allergic to garlic, aroace

We’re here for all your Questions, Rants, Vents and Confessions!

Ask box is always open and we’re always here for your asks!

We are here to educate, explain and help with anyone who needs it!

Stay safe, remember you are valid and its your box!

LOVE U ALL U ARE VALID

Commonly asked questions!

Link to my Aro-spec post

Link to a post containing most Ace Spec identities

Asexual Wiki, Aromantic Wiki,

the Asexual Visibility and Education Network -Asexual resource

AUREA - the Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy

List of Aroace Spectrum resources

The Battle of the Phobics Link to link post

The comments section link to a helpful article on how to educate/beat the acephobes

This user acknowledges that the land they stand on always was and always will be aboriginal land. Sovereignty has never been ceded. This user recognises the past atrocities against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this land and that Australia was founded on the genocide and dispossession of First Nations people.

Recommend blogs

please feel free to ask me first, if I don’t provide a good answer or you want more you can ask again or go to one of these blogs! Please tag more blogs I should add to this list!!

@asexualadvice - asexual advice! (Read blog but helpful info!)

@aegosexual-moments - the aegosexual blog of all time (excluding myself /j)

@aromantic-diaries - Very cool aro person!

(Yes I know my profile pic is off center, suffer, its still off centre, suffer more)

(It’s seperate because aroace is unfortunately usually viewed as one identity, ace and aro are separated spectrums)

(If I hear one more complaint about my icon I’ll change it to what ever random piece of art crosses my dash next and you wouldn’t like that would you??) (i did that and got a new profile pic :D)

The Blogs

blogs that are kinda fan accounts???? wtf????

@aroaceplaceforsome they’re the neutral party here, they use pronouns

@throwawaysoiwontgeteatenbyjamie a whore

@jamies-a-great-person @aroaceappreciationplace -more whores (lovingly)

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO @la-creechura for drawing our profile pic!!!

Banner art by @pride-flag-planets

The forces:

A collection of multi member blogs dedicated to one country of aspecs… all against Denmark

@aussieaspecforces

@indianaspecforces

[coquelicoq]

Shuuichi had always found autumn a lonely time: his breath a haunting ghost in the air; branches stretching, naked and imploring, to an indifferent sky. His birthday, never a particularly populous occasion, was in November. After his first magazine profile, shortly before his twenty-first birthday, he had started getting mail about it from fans, which only made the lack of any in a personal capacity all the more jarring. The first time Natsume wished him a happy birthday, he barely kept the surprise off his face. Surprise, and something else, something tangled he couldn't quite name, despite his hard-won expertise in identifying and replicating emotions. There were too many facets, overlapping, mutually exclusive in a way that should have canceled out, but didn't.

Natsume said it awkwardly, of course. He seemed unsure if it was all right for him to acknowledge Shuuichi's birthday, given he'd only learned about it through some friend of his who was a fan, and only in the second year of knowing Shuuichi.

"Of course it's all right," Shuuichi told him, the wind pushing them forward as they walked side by side. "It's nice, actually." It was many things, but nice was one of them, so it wasn't a lie.

"It's just," Natsume said hesitantly, "I know birthdays can be complicated." Shuuichi had time to wonder how he could have found out (Did such a vast reserve of spiritual power allow a person to read minds?, he wondered, not for the first time), before Natsume continued, "When I was younger, it was easier if no one knew when my birthday was. Then there couldn't be any expectations."

Shuuichi thought, Garden variety childhood neglect, then. Nothing to do with those strange, fleeting years of having somebody to share birthdays with, or the years after, when he knew what he was missing. But Natsume wasn't wrong, either. He thought, briefly, of his own early birthdays, waiting to see if his father had remembered, and knew it must have been worse for Natsume. This kid, with his big heart, with his undampened spirit—or rather, dampened and in the process of undampening. Shuuichi felt a familiar rush of affection that didn't even hurt anymore.

"And now?" he asked Natsume. "How are you feeling about your birthday nowadays?"

He looked in front of him, at his breath, at those damn branches, giving Natsume time to respond. "I'm…still getting used to it," Natsume admitted after a moment. "It's weird, having people pay so much attention. It's hard to get used to. And…maybe I don't want to get used to it."

In case it stops, Shuuichi completed mentally. It was easier never to trust, and never to be disappointed. It hurt less. But it wasn't better.

Shuuichi turned and gifted Natsume a smile. He had so many different smiles: charming smiles, ironic smiles, selfie-with-a-fan smiles, smiles for when a stranger professes a desire to eat jelly beans out of one's belly button. Dozens upon dozens of smiles for every conceivable occasion, labeled and slotted into place in his mental storehouse. He had crafted them, each one; they were his tools, his currency. But this smile he felt like Natsume had created—or maybe it had always been inside him, in potentia, and Natsume had been the one to wake it up.

It was gentle, this smile. Like Natsume.

"It is hard," Shuuichi said. "But I'm proud of you." It didn't really make sense, didn't seem to follow directly from what Natsume had said, but Natsume ducked his head, embarrassed, and Shuuichi, feeling merciful, changed the subject.

Natsume took him home for dinner, where the Fujiwaras also knew what day it was, and where nobody said anything about why he didn't have anywhere else to be, anyone else to celebrate with. They thanked him for coming, like he was the one doing them a favor. Touko-san made a huge meal, a feast really, and in front of Natsume's foster parents that cat of his couldn't even make snarky comments about puny human lifespans. It was a good birthday, his best since…well, in a while.

They offered to set up a futon for him (it's already so dark, it's cold, all that time on the train!), but he had an early shoot in the morning. He was halfway home when he realized he'd left his glasses behind, but fortunately he always carried a spare. He wondered what the Fujiwaras thought his glasses were for, now that they knew he could see well enough to forget them.

Off the train, through the park, along the water. Twenty-five. A fake number. Most days he felt himself already an old man. The wind picked up, scraping the denuded branches against each other. He felt loud, present. With the noise he made wading through leaves, surely anyone could hear him coming from a block away. Unless, of course, it was drowned out by the sound of the wind, and their own wading.

A crack ahead, and something thumped to the ground. A small branch, snapped off, still covered in maple leaves. Ironic, that the bare branches should be fine, while this lively specimen, heavy with color, had fallen. But then again, those branches weren't dead, were they? Maybe it was their lightness that had saved them. And they would be green again, come spring.

His building now, thick with warmth. The elevator: a weary man, face and suit equally creased, heading home late from the office. His door, and now he was inside, taking his time untying his shoes, not wanting to turn on the lights, which were always depressing at night, glaring off white walls stark and unforgiving against the darkness.

He went over to the phone and plugged it in, in case someone tried to call him about the glasses. If Touko-san found them, she'd be sending Natsume out here with them at the earliest opportunity, which wasn't necessary. In fact, maybe he should call them first and head off the possibility. What time was it now? Was it too late to call?

A ringing. Speak of the devil. He picked up the receiver, but suddenly it occurred to him this could be a curse call instead, not about his glasses at all. In his moment of hesitation, a voice came down the line.

"Shuuichi-san," it said, natural, like it hadn't been years since he had heard that name from that mouth. "Happy birthday."

A beat. His heart began to pound, knocking against his gums. The lizard burrowed frantically under a sleeve. Not Natsume, and not a curse. Or not the kind of curse he'd been thinking of. Shuuichi clutched the phone. He felt—what did he feel? Why must there be so many nameless emotions?

He didn't know what to call this. But he felt something stirring, a familiar sensation. A smile, a different one, dormant, waking up. It was groggy, and far from his mouth, but it was there, it was possible. It had been there, waiting, for spring.

"Seiji," he said, with a mouth that wasn't smiling but could learn how. "Hello."

[ariestarfairy]

Did Mystra Groom Gale?

My answer to that is, it's complicated, or perhaps not in the conventional way that people tend to think grooming happens. When I see posts about Gale being groomed it's accompanied by the assertion that Mystra found Gale when he was a child and was his mentor first. From a timeline perspective this doesn't make sense, we would have to throw out so much lore. Mystra was murdered by Cyric in 1385 initiating the Spellplague, she didn't come back until the events of the Sundering, so around 1479. Baldur's Gate 3 takes place in 1492. The earliest she could have met Gale would have been 1479/1480 which gives us a time frame of their relationship possibly being around 11-12 years. If we conclude that Gale is ~30 years old then the youngest Gale could have been is 17. If we conclude that Gale is ~35 years old then the youngest Gale could have been is 22. This lines up with Gale referring to himself as a very young man, not a child, when the events of their relationship took place. Also Gale makes another comment that suggests that he likely wasn't a child during his relationship with Mystra. If you romance Gale, he remarks that he had lovers before Mystra, but not after. If we assume that Gale met Mystra as a child then Gale would have to be much younger than we think he is. Now onto the subject of Mystra and Gale's relationship, adult grooming is a thing and the power imbalance is very real. A teacher getting into a relationship with a student is also problematic in any relationship where there is a teacher and student dynamic. Mystra has a history of changing and removing abilities from her servants and chosen, often times without their consent. This clearly illustrates an exploitative relationship. Also Gale, in all of his naivety of youth, perceived his relationship with Mystra way differently than Mystra did. Mystra has many chosen and most of them do not know one another. He thought she loved him, but he was amusement for her for a time until he messed up and she denounced him. Not only that but in order to maybe, possibly, earn her "forgiveness" Gale has to kill himself and even then forgiveness isn't assured. That's a steep price to pay. If you think Mystra is a good soul and Gale is a horrible person who stomped all over her boundaries, then you you need to learn more about Mystra's gross meddling with mortals. She is by no means innocent and has not only stomped on boundaries, she has done things that cross way over into non-consensual. The Gods are gross, Mystra is not an exception because she's a Goddess and presents as a woman, she's not vulnerable nor is she helpless. She is in the position to exploit and demand and she does it frequently. What also really gets me is how Gale gets labeled as being manipulative and abusive and Astarion is a beacon of perfection. He's not, he targets your character just to manipulate them, and that is his MO for a huge chunk of the game. His tragedy and changing over the course of the game doesn't reverse that, but it's somehow overlooked? Of course you have to view a person in terms of a snapshot. Looking at Gale based on a snapshot within his relationship with Mystra does not make him toxic and it does not mean that he was the abuser. Of course because Astarion was abused by a man, it's a different story, but Gale is a male character stepping on a woman's (Goddess) boundary, so he's necessarily toxic. It doesn't occur to people who play BG3, who have very little knowledge when it comes to the Gods in Faerun that Mystra is truly toxic and that a man can be abused and manipulated by a woman (Goddess) . Don't misunderstand, I love Astarion just as much as I love Gale, but I think it's a double standard to vilify Gale (who WAS mistreated by Mystra) and lionize Astarion while ignoring his machinations towards you in the beginning. Astarion is a classic case of hurt people hurt people, it explains his behavior but it shouldn't be ignored in criticisms of other characters. He's not perfect, if he were he would be boring and not nearly as interesting.

[autistic-caden]

what the HELL is romance

I genuinely mean that. I've never understood the concept of dating. What's the difference between romantic and platonic affection? Where is the line drawn?

If you go out to dinner with your partner, it's a romantic date. But friends go out to eat together all the time, with only two of them. It's not romantic if they're friends. Why not? It's the exact same thing, with different labels. Two people eat dinner, alone together at some restaurant. The only thing that seperates them is that the former are in an "official" relationship.

When you have a crush on someone, you want to get to know them and you want to spend extra time with them. When you want to be good friends with someone, you want to get to know them and you want to spend extra time with them. Is the line drawn at sexuality? Is it because you'd only have sex with a partner?

There's no way it's like that. So many people value the romantic aspects of relationships and don't care for the sexual, which means there has to be something else special about it. But what even are the romantic aspects? To me, it sounds like they're the same as friendly gestures, but with a different label. Is it kissing? I doubt people would go so far as to create a new genre of relationship just for kissing.

My theory is that people value romantic relationships because of the limitation. You can have many friends, but (for whatever reason) you can't have more than one partner. It's special because only one person in the world can give you this relationship at a time. But that theory falls apart when you put polyamorous people into the equation. If romance is special because it's limited to one, what do poly people find valuable in relationships? Everyone in the relationship deeply cares about the others, but more than their close friend/s? From what I've seen, the only difference between mono and poly people when it comes to romance is that the polyamorous can have more than two in their relationship. I've seen no difference in their actual feelings towards romance.

My old therapist tried explaining once (great therapist btw). According to him, romantic relationships are a layer above close platonic relationships. A special bond is shared, you care about them more than anyone else, and you do things you wouldn't do with a friend... That makes no sense to me. I wouldn't put anyone above my best friend, and I have a bond with her without it being romantic. Also, loads of people care about friends more than they do partners.

I've tried dating before. I mistook my strong platonic feelings for him as romantic, when really I don't even know what romantic feelings are. While we were dating, I subconsciously saw us as best friends but with a different label. We hung out, spent lots of time together, called it romantic, and kissed sometimes. But I didn't feel anything when we kissed. Our relationship wasn't on a higher level than my other platonic relationships, and the bond I felt was no different than with my best friend. I'm still friends with the guy I dated, and I think it's better like that. There are less confusing feelings this way.

I'm not particularly upset that I don't understand this. I'm not meant to know everything about the world (although that would be cool), and it's okay that some things leave me confused. This extra level of relationship just seems complicated and unnecessary, anyways. But sometimes romance seems to be all anyone is talking about. Listening to people talk about their love lives makes me feel alien; I wish I could relate.

[genderqueerdykes]

Heyyy so I've very much travelled across several different corners of the queer interwebs and along the way I've seen a lot of different perspectives on controversial topics that have helped me form my own opinions, but theres always been one I never really understood. Is "femboy" offensive?? Like, I've heard from, unfortunately, anyone except trans women that it's offensive to use because of the way it's used against trans woman to misgender them, but I've also heard from a lot of people that people who say that are just chronically online.

It's just bothered me because as a trans guy (one that often gets mistaken to be a trans girl by strangers, might I add) I've been on the end of people using a femboy as an insult by people who know I'm a trans guy and people who thought I was a trans girl and honestly upon further consideration..they're not wrong and I'm perfectly okay with that, but I don't know if it would be a problem to call myself a femboy so I guess I'm just looking for a second opinion. I've heard "rosboy" as an alternative but I think I'd rather punch a wall bare handed than call myself a rosboy, just doesn't feel right.

Sorry if this ask is too rambly or somehow rude :[

i've gotten a few questions about this that i haven't answered due to how divisive people are on this one, but i figured it's probably time to give some feedback on this one since people are. extremely heated about this term. and it's not the hill to die on.

i felt like i didn't have a right to talk about this for a while, but as a transfeminine & transmasculine intersex person, i really need people to understand that queer labels, especially slurs, are way more complicated than that. now i feel like i DO have the right to speak about this, because i actually ended up having to stop being friends with a few people, and even leave my own queer discord server because of this very conversation topic.

believe it or not, this is one of the things that made me fed up with my old server. i was, at the time, friends with someone who kept pushing this narrative and would not stop to listen to anyone who pointed out that this term affects multiple groups of people. at the time, i forced myself to agree with them because they were so adamant, but as time passed i realized it was a bullshit take that was negatively impacting our server members. it is an extremely chronically online take, i agree with you. this mentality was cooked up by people who spend way too much time behind a screen theorizing about hypothetical offended trans people that don't exist.

femboy is an insult and slur that does heavily target trans women, but that does not mean its the only people it's used against. much like how queers other than just gay men qualify as fags in queerphobes' minds, there are many people that they are willing to call effeminate cis men, trans men, intersex people, genderqueer people, and so on femboys. i unfortunately used to hang out with 4channers and i have seen it used to misgender trans women a lot, but i also saw it being used to misgender cis men and trans men, as well. the amount of trans men i was seeing misgendered by this term was 1:1 with the amount of trans women being targeted by it.

it's a strawman argument. who are these hypothetical trans women they're talking about, here? where are they? i'm transfem, and the wild thing to me is, i have a lot of IRL transfem friends and i have never, once, in my life, had the "only transfems can use femboy if anyone else uses it they're transmisogynstic" conversation... ever. like i've literally even had my irl transfem friends ask ME why people are so fucked up over the term femboy. like. my other transfem friends have come to me to ask why people are so riled up over trans men and other queer people using femboy. the very people that folks think are super pissed off have asked me "wait, since when was this a big deal?" of course there will be transfems who believe the term should only be reclaimed by transfems, and i see the logic- but it only makes sense in a vacuum. in practice, the use of the slur is much more varied and complicated.

the thing people don't seem to realize is that someone throwing around a slur does not know how the other person they're targeting identifies. they're not going to sit there and go "oh you're a trans man so i can't call you a femboy. i guess i need to come up with a new insult" like. that is not how slurs work. and i just kinda find it bullshit that for some reason, this one term is special, whereas every other queer slur (save for intersex slurs) can be reclaimed by people of other identities if they're targeted by it. like, for example, butch lesbians, especially butch4butch couples get called fags all the time, and are allowed to reclaim that. why the hell is this one special?

i honestly hate that people forced transmascs to come up with an entirely different word (rosboy) in order to express the basically the exact same identity. honestly all this smacks of is people wanting to shit on trans men and transmascs and police our language. like. the friend i had to part ways with was. really fucking transandrophobic. i actually ended up hating myself for being a trans man for quite a while and tried to stop identifying as one because this person was just. so fucking shitty and rude to the transmascs in our lives, and in the discord server i used to be in. this basically just boils down to people wanting to shit on trans men and finding every excuse to do so. this take was born from people who scrutinize every single little thing trans men do in order to demonize us.

like i do NOT see people getting mad about the idea of an effeminate gay man using femboy... but they always target trans men and tell us we can't use it. why are trans men the ONLY people who are excluded, here? hmm. smells like transandrophobia to me

anyway, you're free to use the term. you shouldn't have to settle for an alternative that feels wrong and doesn't suit you, especially if you've literally been targeted by this slur to misgender you. as a transfeminine person, myself, i don't give a fuck, it's not going to hurt me if you want to reclaim something that you have been targeted by. like. if this is something that you have personally dealt with, you shouldn't have to pretend it didn't happen because some chronically online people decided they make up the rules of the queer community.

this will never be a hill to die on. it's dumb as fuck. it's made up bullshit internet drama that doesn't ever come up outside of internet discourse.

[theteasnake]

I'm once again talking about Danny Johnson because fucking brain rot.

But also character analysis because that's how I show love to my favorite (comfort) characters. 🩵

I swear I'm not trying to flood the Danny tag.

I've seen a lot of characterization of Danny, ranging from abusive and manipulative to a man whore who's a perv.

And I'd like to throw in: just a very tired dude who happens to be mentally unwell.

The only thing keeping this guy from offing himself is his hobbies, which just so happens to be creating stories and murdering. Like, if things went differently and he didn't turn to murder, he'd probably just end up a horror writer (good ending).

Other than stories/killing, he has adrenaline, but those almost always end in a crash. And at some point, he's gotta settle down for bed.

He's never made any meaningful connections to anyone outside of his dad, and even then, it seemed very... unpleasant and complicated. Even he can't tell if he has positive or negative feelings for his dad.

Even if he interacts with other people, he's still isolated because they don't know the real him. He's people-pleasing to the max because his livelihood and survival depends on how likable he is, because why would such a nice and young man commit all these murders all over the country? The same can be said about him and his dad, he had to be what his dad wanted him to be. It's not said if his dad was physically abusive, but military dads who came back from war tend to have a track record of being unkind to their sons.

I don't think he's ever felt a moment of relaxation or peace. He constantly has to watch others and keep a distance, and even when he's alone at home, all he does is sit and stare over his work. He has no sense of identity outside of his murders and stories.

I also saw that the developers called him narcissistic, mainly as an insult, and I don't know much about NPD (I've seen others say he has symptoms and most likely has it), so I can't comment on that. But I don't think the insult is even justified, he's not using others for his own needs, he keeps others at arms length because as soon as someone gets too close, he's done for. He also doesn't seem to be too showy with his work outside of his Ghostface persona, it's even said that he's only written some of the articles on GF (meaning his job in Roseville).

I doubt he's even been in a genuine romantic relationship. He's probably entertained the idea just to keep face or to blend in more because it would be weird for a young guy to not be looking for a girl to settle down with.

Not to mention the exhaustion from getting up early, working a 9-5, then staying up late to stalk/kill, then having to constantly play a character and following a script almost 24/7, while being on alert nearly his whole life. Then then suddenly being thrown into a slower pace environment where he doesn't have to worry about dying or being caught or having to pretend.

I could only imagine the whiplash he had.

Not to mention being labeled the Entity's (basically the god of this realm) golden child and favorite. I wouldn't be surprised if that title also adds stress/pressure.

Sure, he probably enjoyed it for the first hundred or so trials. But eventually everything starts being the same, and it's always the same people each time, and he's only allowed to do so many things in the trials, it eventually gets boring.

He went from taking his time to learn his prey, planning out an extravagant kill to rushing everything and doing things on a whim or following the same script over and over again (check gens, expose people, chase them, hook them, rinse, and repeat).

And we don't know how trials actually work in universe, we don't know if they canonically get breaks or even if the killers get breaks, or if they actually have places to stay in in-between trials, or if they're just overworked with trials back to back to back. We don't know if he is even given a chance to explore things and himself in the realm because he sure as hell never got one in his world.

Tattoos and piercings? Couldn't get them, those are identifiers and he'd stick out, plus it would leave a trail (idk in the 90s, but I had to give up ID to get my tattoo, and certain piercings need ID as well). He would constantly have to change his hairstyle and hair color, along with using makeup to make himself look different (that scar on his forehead is an identifier). He'd be forced to wear clothes that would match his current character's taste, never his own because that would be too consistent. He'd have to change up his way of talking (adding accents, switching up his vocabulary to match the locals, maybe even changing how his voice sounds). Constantly talking about topics he barely knows about because people around him enjoy it, pretending to be in the know to stay in the crowd. The only thing that he knows he enjoys is horror, but even then it doesn't scare him anymore and he only longs for the days when it did (and also probably rock considering his terror radius has some rock elements)

Who is he really? Who knows because he sure as hell doesn't. Maybe even that goofy side is just another facade to make others like him more.

I know a lot of his personality is hidden and not shown because it's supposed to be "it could be anyone" type of thing, but also, that could just play into the fact that he's technically a "nobody". Forever changing and blending in. I doubt even his Ghostface persona is the real him, it's probably just another character in his stories.

[heliza24]

Being a physically disabled Dimension 20 fan breaks my heart sometimes

I’ve been thinking about this since last Wednesday’s episode when we finally got a real scene with Lydia, one of the few physically disabled characters in the entire canon of the show. It was nice, but it was really just a lore dump. An excuse for exposition. A moment for Kristen to look good by expending sympathy/pity. (I’m a little frustrated about how that interaction went down. Extending the help action was nice but patronizingly touching the neck of a full-ass adult without consent was not. It was weird and not something she would have done to a nondisabled character).

I have watched almost all of D20 (still missing a couple of seasons) and as far as I know here’s where our list of canon physically disabled characters stand: Lydia Barkrock, Jan de la Vega (who feels pretty problematic to me, maybe more on that in a later post), one of the Dwarven statues in the temple in The Seven (who is not given the dignity of being brought to life like Asha), and Pete’s coworker in TUC2 who is in exactly one episode and is so unimportant I have forgotten his name. I guess you could make an argument that Gunny is disabled, but I don't feel that Lou or Brennan really talk about him or play him through that lens. So in terms of canon physically disabled PCs-- that leaves us with 0.

We do a bit better with neurodivergent characters and characters with mental health problems; Ayda (my beloved) is very well developed and Adaine is a PC. There have been some openly neurodivergent players, like Omar and Surena, whose characters also read ND to me. But that isn’t labeled or discussed in canon, so it's hard for me to know where to class that. I am going to focus the rest of this post on physical disabilities, since that is my area of lived experience. If another fan wants to write about their perspective of neurodivergence rep in the show, I would love to hear that, and will happily amplify.

There has never been a character with a sensory disability or a limb difference or a chronic illness (not a fantasy one, a real one) on Dimension 20. The only NPCs we have are nondescript, similar wheelchair users. And there has never been a physically disabled player at the table. On the flagship show of Dropout, a company founded on diversity and inclusion. It feels extremely pointed to me.

In fact as far as I can tell there has only been one (1) physically disabled performer on any of Dropout’s shows. (Shout out to Brett, you were great on Dirty Laundry.) Obviously I haven’t seen every episode of everything they have produced. If I have missed someone, please do let me know in the comments/reblogs. But it’s a problem. And Sam Reich even agreed with this criticism when I asked him directly about.

I do really hope they’re working on it, as Sam says. But why has it taken so long?

Dimension 20 has had trans and nonbinary and queer players. It has had players of many different races. I’m not saying that the diversity here is perfect; there should always be more POC in the dome, more queer people. We should keep pushing for that. (And we should also push for performers at the intersections of these identities!) But we’ve seen the ways this diversity has expanded and improved the different seasons, because diverse players create sensitively drawn, diverse player characters. They add details to their PC’s experiences that make them feel rich and alive. I’m thinking about each of Ally’s PC’s incredible capital G gender and Aabria “all my characters (even the stoats) are Black” and how excellent they all are. D20 would not be the show it is without this input.

And yet. And yet.

There are 1,000 interesting and complicated themes to explore around disability. Dealing with access. Dealing with ableism. Dealing with compassion and community care. Dealing with none of it and just being a cool fantasy or sci fi character that happens to be disabled. We don’t get any of it.

I watch my favorite show and I see myself in the ace rep and the female characters. But I don’t see all of me. I see a silent but ever present message: you aren’t quite welcome here.

I have this fantasy that I play in my brain sometimes that someday I’ll get to talk to Brennan in person, like maybe if I buy a VIP ticket and risk Covid to go to a live show or we run into each other on the street or something. I am able to look him in the eye and articulate why he NEEDS to include a physically disabled player in an upcoming season. I reference the ways he’s talked about inclusion and writing diversely on Adventuring Party. Maybe I hand him a handwritten letter, or hell, a printout of this post. And because he really cares about diversity and his shows and his fans he would listen to me, and cast a physically disabled performer in the next season.

But I think that might be giving that nondisabled man (whose work I adore, who I respect so much) too much credit. Because he’s had Jennifer Kretchmer, a physically disabled actual play performer, on adventuring academy to talk about access in gaming. He’s hired disability consultants. He knows about physically disabled people, enough to give us shoutouts as inconsequential npcs. And he still hasn’t thought to include us at the table. In over 20 seasons. None of that other stuff matters if we aren't given a seat at the story telling table, and the agency to craft our own narratives equal to other participants in the game.

When Lydia was telling her story in the last episode, I kept wishing for a prequel, where she is more than a plot delivery device and a kind but unimportant parent. I want to know about her adventures with her adventuring party. I want to see a talented, wheelchair-using actor play out the scene when she decides to put the gem in her chest. I want to hear about what happened after. I want to know how she survived. I want it so badly it hurts.

I am in the process of trying to find new indie actual plays that feature more disabled talent. I am learning how to GM myself so I can tell these kinds of stories. But it’s not the same as being a fan of something. Sometimes I don’t want to have to make my own representation. Sometimes I just want to turn on my favorite tv show, the one that I have cosplayed from and written metas about and loved whole heartedly, and see myself included.

If you’re another disabled or neurodivergent fan I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. If you’re not, I’d love for you to reblog this. I would love for the absence of physical disability in this show to be a topic of fandom conversation, at the very least.

[clown-prince-of-gay]

Happy Pride everyone~~

I drew me and my lovely boyfriend @king-of-vertigo, (I love you honeybee~), We are being gay and transing all your children. Watch out or you're next.

Anyways. Happy Pride to those who celebrate. (And especially happy pride slay queen girlypop month to those who don't) Under the cut I'll have each flag and an explanation of what it means to me~

Likes and reblogs appreciated!! Do not repost!

I would like to preface this with: I am not an expert in all of these identities (despite being a part of them) and my connection to them is hugely shaped by my own experience and interpretation of each label. My only hope with all this is to hopefully make someone feel less alone, (because my god i spent a long time finding some of these labels-)

Aceflux

Aceflux us defined as a person with a fluctuating feeing of sexual attraction to others, I sort of think of it like a dial being turned up and down based on the moment. (there are also romantic and aroace versions of the label I beleive, along with another variation of the flag with a purple/red gradient striping.)

In my own experience that results in differing kinds of days, some where I feel really strong attraction, others where I feel little to none. Sometimes it changes day to day, sometimes its the same for weeks, or it changes throughout the day based on context.

This label was one that took me. An entirely too long time to find. and this is one that feels. right. because I had very flexible and changing feelings and attraction, I knew I could place myself somewhere on the ace spectrum, but not exactly where because it wasn't consistent at all (wowee i wonder why that is because its not like thats the whole thing lmao) and I ended up cycling through so many aspec labels. This is one that I can feel comfortable in, and I'm hoping others resonate with it as well.

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term and very ambiguous identity that can essentially encompass anyone that identifies with it.

So- my sexuality is. incredibly nuanced and complicated when it comes to describing who I find myself romantically, aesthetically, or platonically attracted to (I know there are so many other ways to be attracted to someone, those are just the simplest for me to explain). For example: I can (when allowed by my silly demiromantic ass) be romantically attracted to men and masc (or even non aligned) presenting and identifying people, and I in fact, have a lovely boyfriend whom I love a lot! And as for femme aligned people its more interesting because I don't feel particularly romantically about them, but I can experience aesthetic, or platonic forms of attraction, and Queer is simply a label that I connect with that has the space to encompass all of that.

Demiromantic

Demiromantic is a label that essentially encompasses the idea that an individual doesn't feel romantic attraction to another unless they have an emotional or platonic bond with that person. (there is also an ace and an aroace version, which I think is super neat)

Demiromantic is a label that I personally connect with, be that because I'm naturally incredibly slow to make connections, or maybe connected to the fact that I'm very neurodivergent, (although thats a post for another day-) and feeling comfortable being and feeling romantic about someone is already incredibly rare, and I feel like I need a connection to someone personally until I can feel romantically (I say that like I control when I feel romantic. Its kinda. I dunno I can't control it. this label is just one I felt encompassed it. which is the point.)

Transgender

Transgender is an umbrella term in which someone doesnt connect or identify with the assigned gender given at birth. (I'm very sure I have made it no secret that I am transmasc. We love the transes here)

However. no matter how many labels I find to express and explain my gender being 'masculine' (with several different question marks. I'm a boy in the same way orange soda is the same as a regular orange. same sorta spirit. completely different executions.) above all. I am still trans. and I will always be trans. that's who I am <33

My gender is. an interesting topic. In the way that I have not yet found a label to describe it other than being transmasc. which I know as different to being a trans 'man' in the fact that I didnt transition to be a 'man', not binarily being a man. I bounce between being androgynous and being masculine, but in a way where labels like demigendered/demiboy or boyflux (other labels I've considered) don't seem to fit. because it is in a way where some days I feel more or less masculine to completely genderless. (If anyone can think of a label that fits that- I would love to hear it. I haven't even gotten into My pronoun search. maybe a seperate post on that later.)

[aspec-paradise]

Figuring out if you're grey-ace/aro/platonic

Notes: I am referring to grey- as the umbrella term. In addition this doesn't mean you have to identify as a grey- term like demi or -flux. This is just to help those who are struggling

Perhaps you're struggling because you do experience some level of attraction that feels "weaker" or different than what you'd expect with allos, or maybe you've noticed a potential pattern in which you experience attraction, but you're feeling doubts or confusion. It's completely normal to feel confused or anxious about this.

I won't tell you that labels don't matter so don't worry about it since that mindset doesn't work for everyone. I will say to take your time and allow yourself to breathe. There is no time limit in figuring things out and the beauty about being aspec is that you can easily just call yourself aspec, grey-, or unlabeled while you figure it out. You also never need to use any specific identities should you choose to use any labels. For example some people may be greysexual + aromantic, asexual +greyromtic, or grey for both and just call themselves aroace. Some people call themselves demi even if it's a bit more complicated than that.

"but how do I know if I experience attraction differently than someone who's allo?" It's a bit complicated but it boils down to asking yourself if it feels differently to you. Does it seem like your experiences don't really align with a lot of allos? Is your relationship with attraction complicated? Do you feel attraction but it's not a big deal to you, seems weak, or another circumstance that feels "different"? Then you're probably aspec.

As an allo-appearing aspec person, this is something I've struggled with, too. A lot of the reasons I identify as aspec is because of how my attraction usually forms and my own experiences compared to many allos. For example, while I do enjoy adult content, it's because of the mental fantasy aspects instead feeling attraction to the people shown. I don't feel comfortable with seeing sexual content without warning or consent..I don't relate to the desire to sleep with people I don't know well. I don't view platonic relationships in the typical way, in fact it's hard for me to form platonic attraction and then it's 0 or 100.

There's a lot of aspec identities out there, and aspec people CAN experience attraction strongly at times! -spike identities cover just that. You can feel attraction constantly to a specific person or specific people (like when you're demi).

And remember, it's okay to try a label and realize later that it's not quite right. You may think you're completely without attraction until suddenly you find a circumstance in which you do. You could be in such a long relationship that when it ends, that's when you realize you don't always experience attraction to people who are typically your "type", so on and so forth.

Aspecs can enjoy the form of intimacy associated to an attraction, aspecs can have attraction but not enjoy those things or only enjoy them sometimes. One piece of advice I have is to not focus too much on how much you do or do not like those things when you're in the early days of figuring this out. There are identities related to this, but in my opinion it's a bit less complicated when you focus on the attraction aspect first, and then your relationship with those acts later.