#that's so personal to me. It's nothing I'll ever go into on this tumblr very deeply but that hit like nothing has before.

[varjopeura]

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[anonyanonymouse]

I finished the update and can I just. Discord screenshot copy paste

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Just had the idea of doing a Roxy askblog that's based on it being a secret blog she's not allowed to have and every so often if someone asks her something she just says stuff like "To the Fazspy reading this, I'm not the real Roxy." to try and throw the staff off her trail lmao

Will probably never make a blog like that, but it could be kinda funny. Maybe I bring the idea of an 'ask Roxy anything' game back where I draw the answers for it instead so it's not a whole ass blog dedicated to Roxy being a sneaky lil shit on the internet

[everyonewooeverywhere]

MDNI 18+ BLOG -> ageless blogs and minors WILL BE BLOCKED

pairing ✭ bf!jongho x f!reader

synopsis ✭ when you come home from a less-than-perfect day, your boyfriend is nowhere to be found, but you don't want to call him and ask him to come home while he's out with friends. even though he'd drop everything if he knew you were struggling.

content/genre ✭ smut 18+ MDNI, established relationship, non-idol!au, hurt to comfort, slightly angsty, relatively fluffy (certainly the fluffiest thing i've ever written here)

word count ✭ 2.5k

note ✭ so this was something i really needed to write for myself, i think. for those who don't know (which is all of you lol) i have adhd. where i see it the most in my own life is chronic procrastination. it's something i've had to learn to cope with a lot throughout my life. a lot of times, when i feel the need to avoid feeling the stress of my personal life, i'll scroll on instagram or tumblr forever. which then leads to a heaping ton of guilt in the following hours as i try to make up for lost time. it's a wonderful cycle.

anyway, this is to say, that coping alone can be incredibly difficult. don't get me wrong, i have a handful of wonderful friends (who go to school across the country) and an angel of a therapist, but i often romanticize having someone there to help drag me out of those hopeless cycles. and not because i think i need someone to do it for me, but having that person is a really comforting thought. and, today, that is jongho i guess 😀

that being said, this mc doesn't necessarily have adhd, but they are certainly experiencing something that i experience very frequently as a byproduct of it.

like, is this smut? yeah, but im allowed to be emotional 😗

warnings ✭ mc is stressed af, protected sex, really soft sex (they're in love 😤)

✭✭✭✭

It was a terrible day. One of the worst you’d had in a while. Nothing seemed to be going your way. You’d ripped your favorite pair of tights this morning when getting ready in a hurry after waking up super late. You’d locked yourself out of the apartment. The seven dollar coffee you’d bought for yourself to cope with aforementioned events had spilt all over your desk, ruining the book you had just received as a gift from a coworker. And, to top it all off, your boss had demanded you to stay late to finish what was supposed to be his job.

So when you finally made it back to your apartment, after waiting in the lobby forever waiting for your landlord to let you in, you wanted nothing more than to collapse on the couch with your boyfriend and fall asleep in his arms. 

You were plagued with fatigue as you slipped out of your work shoes and made your way through the kitchen and into the living room, not finding him anywhere. The bedroom the two of you shared was also completely vacant. Nothing had changed since you’d left this morning. He hadn’t been home all day.

Maybe he’s just working late, you thought, slightly defeated knowing you’d have to wait for him, not knowing how long it would take. 

Trying to take your mind off of it, you scrolled on your phone for a completely indiscernible amount of time, feeling completely defeated with the day you’d had. Moving in with Jongho months ago has been an incredibly helpful step for you. Before the two of you had lived together, you were a master of procrastinating your own feelings. Constantly letting yourself rot away in your bed and letting the day pass you by. Only to be plagued by that crushing guilt that came with letting a day go by unproductively. Living with Jongho had given you someone to hold you accountable. To pull you out of bed because sometimes it was impossible to do it on your own.

But on nights like these, where your boyfriend was nowhere to be found, which was not a common occurrence, you felt yourself slipping back into the endless cycle of losing yourself in your phone for countless hours. 

Hours passed and the sun was almost completely down before you received a text from your boyfriend.

| jongho 🐻🤎: hey love, sorry i had to stay late for work today. i’m gonna go get some drinks with my coworkers.

| jongho 🐻🤎: that ok?

God, you felt so helpless. How horrible and controlling of a partner would you be to tell him ‘no?’ Did he ask? Yes, but you desperately didn’t want to be the girl who always needed to be by her boyfriend’s side. Telling him he couldn’t go out with his friends would make you feel like such a nuisance. You stared at the screen for a good two minutes, biting your thumb, trying to think of how to respond.

| jongho 🐻🤎: y/n? 

| jongho 🐻🤎: i can see you read the message. is everything alright?

Before you could even draft a response, his name flashed across the screen. Taking a deep breath, you slid your thumb across the screen, answering the call.

“Hi,” you picked up.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” You could hear some of his coworkers in the background. He must already be at the bar. 

You held in a sigh, “Nothing, I’m alright. Why?”

“Y/n, you read and didn’t respond to my message. Like you were overthinking a response."

You didn’t say anything. Overthinking yet another response.

“Love, I don’t even want to be here that badly. If you need me to come home, I will. But you’ve gotta tell me.” He was being so patient with you. So much more patient than you thought you deserved, though he would certainly disagree with that.

You took a deep breath, nearing tears, “I–” this was so incredibly hard, “Can you please come home? I didn’t really have a great day.”

“Of course, I’ll be there in about thirty minutes. Do you want me to stay on the phone?”

“No, it’s alright. I just need to see you.”

“Ok, just hang in there alright. Why don’t you hop in the shower, and we can watch a movie when I get back. I’ll pick up some takeout on my way, too.”

When you hang up, you force yourself to get out of bed and get in the shower. It’s so rewarding and feels so relaxing that you can’t imagine why you ever couldn’t get out of the bed in the first place. But, of course, you say that every time. 

✭✭✭✭

By the time you had gotten out of the shower and dried your hair, Jongho had made it home with the takeout he’d promised in hand. 

When you left your bedroom, you saw him sitting on the floor in your living room. He’d lit a candle on the coffee table and set the food down with it. You could tell he’d changed out of his work clothes into a hoodie and basketball shorts, mirroring your almost identical outfit. He didn’t notice you at first. He was chatting to someone on the phone, seemingly a friendly conversation, and not one you wanted to interrupt. When he saw you, though, you heard him say goodbye to whoever was on the line. 

Throwing his phone down on the couch, he got up from the floor and met you at the door of your bedroom. Pulling you into a big hug, he placed a kiss on the top of your head. 

“No pressure, but, if you wanna talk about your day, we can.”

You shook your head, “Not really. I just wanna eat, I think.”

The two of you ate, sitting in comfortable silence on the floor in your living room. You noticed as you took in the scene around you, that Jongho had turned off all the overhead lights in the room. Leaving only the candlelight and the string lights around the ceiling to illuminate the room. There was something about warm lighting that made everything feel so much more cozy and comfortable. 

Your boyfriend wasn’t the most physically affectionate individual, but he never failed to make you feel loved. He always noticed the small things. He was hyper aware of your emotions in the least patronizing way possible. It was little moments like bringing home food for you and turning the cool-toned overhead lights off that reminded you that this man knew you better than anyone.

And that wasn’t something that happened overnight. He tried harder than anyone you’d ever met to know you. Your likes, dislikes, discomforts, phobias, and even your little habits. He knew it all. What he knew most is that you desired so bad to have someone to pull you out of your slump. Which is why he had come home early.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t stay out with your friends,” you whispered, staying focused on the food in front of you.

“I didn’t come home because I felt any obligation to. It’s not that I couldn’t stay out with my friends. It’s that you needed me here at home, and I wanted to come home and comfort you.” He ran a hand over your hair as he finished up his own food. 

That was another thing you loved about him. He wasn’t saying this because he wanted to make you feel better. He wanted you to know that you were not alone. That you were free to feel your feelings, and he’d always be right beside you to comfort you through them.

“Thank you,” you looked up at him, “I love you, you know that, right?”

“How could I ever forget? I love you, too, y/n.”

✭✭✭✭

After the food was gone and the coffee table was cleared, Jongho had put on a movie laid down on the couch, holding out his arms for you. When you finally sat between his legs and leaned into his chest, he pulled a quilted blanket over the two of you, wrapping his arms around you.

You paid very little mind to the movie playing on the TV. Instead you were focused on the rhythm of his breathing, the steady beating of his heart, and the minor movements his chest would make when he let out a soft laugh whatever he was watching.

He played with your hair, running his fingers through the strands, softly brushing his fingers over your neck with each pass. This position couldn’t have been more comfortable. Being with the man you loved as he comforted you in the way he knew best with absolutely no complaint was more than you could’ve ever dreamed of.

Jongho would claim that it was the bare minimum, but you always felt the need to let him know how much he really amazed you. 

When you reached your hand up to his cheek to brush your thumb over the skin, he looked down at you, completely forgetting about the movie playing. He grabbed your hand from his cheek and kissed your fingers, your palm, the back of your hand, the inside of your wrist.

Pulling yourself up to his face, you kissed him as softly as he’d done to your hand. Everything was so soft. From the way he kissed you to the way he caressed the skin under your hoodie right above the waistband of your shorts. From the hand you had in his hair to the way he lifted you to sit more comfortably in his lap.

He kissed your neck just as softly. You sighed contently. Fully basking in the way he took care of you. His movie was fully disregarded at this point as he gripped the bottom of your shirt.

Looking into your eyes he asked, “can I take care of you, love?” You nodded, helping him lift the sweatshirt over your head. 

Before you could even comprehend the nakedness of your chest, he lifted you into his arms and carried you to your shared bed. Laying you on your back. Your bare skin taking immense comfort in the softness of your sheet. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw his pants off to the side.

He immediately went back to kissing you. Hands moving from your cheeks, down your neck. His thumbs caressed your collarbone as his lips brushed the crook of your neck and then your shoulder. You shuddered when one of his hands took your breast. His lips met the other one, causing you to let out a breathy moan and weave your fingers through his dark hair.

He continued to kiss and touch every inch of your torso. When he got to your waistband, he left a small kiss under your belly button. His big brown eyes meeting your own as he pulled your shorts and underwear off together. Tossing them to the side of the bed. 

Lifting one of your legs onto his shoulder, he kissed your inner thigh, still meeting your eyes. The eye contact wasn’t broken until his thumb met your clit. Brushing over it slightly, making you toss your head back into the pillows under you. His mouth replaced his thumb, slowly teasing you. 

With his free hand, he took your own hand, the one that wasn’t gripping his hair, and threaded his fingers through yours. Thumb brushing over the back of your hand.

He felt so good. His tongue working so hard to make you feel pleasure. Everything was so gentle, but felt so euphoric. His fingers pumping in and out of you as he sucked on your clit. You felt like you could’ve floated away with the way he caressed your hand and your thigh. It wasn’t long before you were washed with a wave of pleasure. Everything was hot. You felt it rush through you from your ears down to your cunt. He kissed your thigh one more time after you came, fingers pushing you through the finale of your orgasm. 

Your breathing was ragged when he made it back up to your face, kissing you tenderly. Reaching a hand beneath the pillow under your head. He pulled out a condom. Before he could open it, you plucked it out of his hands, tearing it open as he stripped himself of his own underwear before you rolled the rubber onto his length. He groaned at the touch.

“You ready?” He asked, grabbing your arm and kissing your wrist.

You nodded, smiling, “yes. please, baby.”

When he pushed into you, you gasped and threw your head back again. He kissed your neck and shoulder, slowly thrusting into you. On most occasions, you’d beg him to go faster, but his subdued nature in this moment was so incredibly comforting. His thumb massaged your clit.

He kissed you deeply as he thrust into you. Completely overtaking your lips with his own. His kisses were so full of passion that your head spun. His adoration for you was so evident from the way he looked into your eyes when he stopped kissing you. Your foreheads pressed together, separated only by a thin layer of sweat. 

“I love you so much, y/n,” he says, just above a whisper. So close that you can feel his breath tickle your lips when he says it.

You moan softly, feeling yourself reach a second high, “I love you, too.”

It’s only a matter of minutes before you reach your orgasm. You grip his shoulders tight as he coaxes you through your climax. Walls fluttering around him as he finishes inside the condom. 

He kisses your lips once more before pulling out. He pushes himself off the bed to throw it away. When he comes back, he slides back into bed with you. Breath still slightly ragged. 

You laid on his chest, listening to his heart beat once more.

Running a hand over his stomach, you said, “Thanks for coming home early today.”

“Of course, love. You know I’d drop anything to come home to you if you were struggling.”

“I just feel like such a nuisance asking for you to come home,” you groaned.

He ran a hand over your hair, “I will never ever see you asking for help as a nuisance. Sometimes you just need a little push. Or sometimes you just need to lay in someone’s arms. I will always be there to do that for you. No matter the circumstance, ok?”

You wanted to protest, tell him he was too much, too good to you, but he kept going, “I trust you. I know that when you ask me to come home, it’s not because you're insecure or controlling. It’s because you need help, and I want you to always feel comfortable asking for it.”

He’d left you just a little bit speechless. All you could respond with was a gentle kiss on his lips.

For him, though, that was more than enough.

✭✭✭✭

note ✭ ok this shit got really personal 💀 but i did really enjoy writing it. it's not often that i write a whole oneshot in one sitting but i did today (other than my minor break to eat dinner).

also, i was actually between writing this for vernon or jongho because i felt like they both kinda fit the vibe (sorry if the knowledge that this could have been a hansol fic makes anyone sad), but maybe i'll write something similar for him next time i'm feeling it

again, i hope you enjoyed this! thank you so much for reading 💗

mwah~

[klerothesnowman]

The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.

[moirindeclermont]

5+ things I love about the Carriage Scene

also know as horny edition, I decline every responsability if "feelings" arise during the reading of this thread. Buckle up, folks! This is going to be a wild ride. Take a shot every time I use an innuendo for maximum results (don't, please)

1) The build up. Especially on rewatches, I do enjoy the momentum as it gets created. His confession, her "what" - I wrote about that moment "One word. Four letters. A word spoken so often it was laughable that *that* word could mean so much to her." The seconds before they kiss. Half of my fun is the build up.

2) His face when she touches him. I believe it was one of my first daily thread and it's so dear to me. The absolute devotion and pleasure that man is experiencing in that moment always send me to places. It's raw and uninhibited and he is just in the moment, his mind blank as he takes in her touch. He is a man starved and Pen it's his answer.

3) This scene is all about passion. There is no space for nerves or shyness, nothing is thought about or planned. It's just them, coming together for the first time, both their feelings acknoledged and reciprocated. They are both giving each other everything (I know many don't like it, but I think it's an appropriate song choice).

4) I sound like a broken record, but the nod, the consent, is so sexy to me. She doesn't know what's going to happen - my personal headcanon it's that she knew a very vague version of it but not the specifics - she just knows she trusts Colin to take care of her. And it spokes volumes about their connection, even at this early stage.

5) And talking about uninhibited, all the beautiful expressions and sounds that Pen makes (and Colin, if you listen to the version without music, 10/10 no notes). Thing is, we - real and modern people - are much more easily scandalized than they were at that time. She is just open about her pleasure and it's a detail that many people don't like because it's too much, too intimate, too personal, and I understand that. But I like it exactly for those reasons.

6) Their laugh and their kiss after they arrived at Bridgerton house. The softest, cutest touch. Their smile, basking in the moment they just lived. It makes my heart tremble, because even after everything changed, nothing really is changed. They are still friends.

7) The "what you are doing" when Colin is fixing her dress. The delivery of that line just strings my heart every time. She still can't quite believe it's happening and she still have doubts, so there is an underlayer of stress there that Nicola deliver so well.

8) What stands out it's their connection. It's not the steamiest scene ever shooted, but it's deep and for me it's intoxicating because of this. And I have to mention this lip bite because of reasons

Feel free to add your own. I'll go have a very very cold shower.

And as always if you want to ask for a specific 5+ things I love go to my Tumblr or my Ig @moirindc - you can ask about Bridgerton, IWTV, Buffy or Supernatural

[s4lv4tions]

numerology; nsfw

pairing; gojo satoru x reader / gojo satoru x geto suguru (past) / geto suguru x reader (past) summary; numerology — the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. or: trying to move on. wc; 13.4k cw; death, angst, requited unrequited love, violence, smut (at the very end, but mentions throughout), canon divergence, spoilers for manga an; if you think you've read this before, you probably have! i posted this on my old tumblr a year or so ago, and it's still available on my ao3. this version is slightly updated and edited, but still diverges from canon as it was created at the start of the culling games arc :)

1.

The first time you bathe with Satoru, he cries.

You don't notice at first; he's quiet — abnormally so —, and his face remains pristine, unchanged. The only hint you get is a small, barely audible sniffle that stops as quickly as it starts — and you think he wants it that way. You don't think he's ever cried in front of anyone.

That's why you don't say anything. Just continue washing the suds from his hair, and pretend that the tears rolling down his cheeks are beads of water dripping from his hair — but you take extra care to massage the conditioner in, and peck his cheek as you finger-comb through silky, cloud-white strands. 

It occurs to you afterwards — as he lounges on your bed, scrolling through channels with a wayward hand planted on his stomach — that perhaps, it's the first time somebody has taken care of him. The first time ever, or just the first time since… since…

Geto Suguru's face smiles up at you from your vanity — a tiny polaroid, his face no bigger than the nail of your thumb. Beside him, Satoru grins, cheeky and bright-eyed — you don't think he's ever been any different —, and in the corner, the smudge of your thumb covers the lens. You don’t have to lift the photo and check the back to know what’s written there, in your scratchy, looping scrawl; the strongest, 2006.

"Lord of the Rings?" Satoru calls, carefree as ever. A yawn catches in his throat, and his fingers slip underneath his shirt to scratch absentmindedly at his chest. "Ooh, haven't seen this one yet…"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

It was a better time. Less pain. Less responsibility. Less death — or maybe the same amount, just shielded by the blinding cover of childhood inexperience. Suguru was still alive and burning bright, Satoru was happy (happier. He didn't cry in the bath, at least). Shoko didn’t self-medicate as intensively as she does now. The days were spent in childish ignorance and stupid indulgence, and even when things seemed their darkest, you never lost hope. 

(It probably says a lot about you that, if given the chance, you wouldn't return. Whether that's because of what you know is bound to happen, and the pain is too much to experience again, or because you're so utterly pathetic that you'll take sadness and grief and a tiny shred of affection over… whatever it is you were back then, you don't know. A smudge in the corner of a picture of the jujutsu world's greatest.)

Suguru's eyes seem to burn into you. You turn the picture over, and rejoin Satoru on your bed.

2.

"It's been two years."

Satoru doesn't like to talk after sex. Not in any way that's really meaningful, you mean, nothing that lets you in. He loves jokes, empty small talk, work politics. Chatter that's deep enough to show he cares a little without bearing any part of himself — your injury healed up? When was the last time you had a break? There's a new teppanyaki place in Shinjuku, I'll treat you. Don't work yourself too hard, you'll put me out of business! 

If you're being honest, you didn't go into this expecting anything more than a person to scratch an itch with. 

You're already friends — though, you're not sure friends totally encapsulates what Satoru is to you, romantic or platonic. You've been friends since you were 12. Satoru, Suguru, you — and then Shoko, when you all met in your first year at Jujutsu Tech. That's how it's always been.

You swear sometimes you know him better than yourself. You swear sometimes it's his voice you think with. Is that what "friends" encompasses? Somehow, it doesn't seem enough.

Whatever. The point is that your relationship with Satoru is already strong; foundations tall and proud and unshakeable. You didn't start fucking Satoru in the hopes of forming a relationship — one was already there.

It's just... Satoru is young, yes, and he enjoys flirting, but (contrary to common belief) he's not all that keen to sleep with the first person who's willing. You don’t say this with the belief that you’re special. It’s just that with work, and especially with — y'know, his… romantic history, Satoru hasn’t found the time or will to just sleep around. At least, according to him.

Sheer willpower isn't enough to make those urges go away, though, and… well, you had them too, and you were willing, and he trusts you. And you'll take anything he'll give you, really, even if it's just scraps. Even if sometimes it makes you feel worse.

Today's one of those days.

You feel sick, after. Not because of him — because of yourself. Your polaroid of Getou and any other photo he's in has been turned over, anything that could remind you of him tucked away, but — but he's everywhere today, everywhere, and you'd fucked Satoru despite it. And Satoru is covered in memories of Getou, of course. Every freckle, every shifting of muscle, every jut of bone — did Getou touch him here? Caress every bit of him he could get his hands on? Tangle his hands in his snow-white hair, breathe against his collarbone? 

When you came, you cried. Pretended it was just because it was so intense, but behind your eyelids, dark, cat-like eyes stared back.

"Hm?" Satoru hums as if he didn't hear you, eyes fixed on the TV. Dumb doesn't suit him — it's honestly a bit of an insult for him to even try it. Like you didn't sense the stiffness of his limbs the second he'd stepped inside, or the crumbling edge of his smile, or the way he'd forced you to love him harder — pull his hair harder, scratch his back deeper, his Infinity turned off and his skin yours for the marking. 

Satoru's mannerisms are scribed into your brain. You catch yourself emulating them, sometimes; hands waving, head tilting, grin wide and posture open. You wear it like an oversized coat, an ill-fitting costume, and sometimes you wish you could stop taking on pieces of him. The more you take, the more you must throw away — and it's Suguru that your memory discards. You find yourself forgetting how he hummed when he woke up from a nap, or filled his cheeks with food like a hamster; how he scrunched his face up when he laughed, pretty all the while…

The point is that even with his incredible knowledge, his awesome strength, the sheer holiness of his existence — you know Satoru. And the fact that he came to you today isn't mere coincidence.

You decide to come out with it. You've tiptoed around it for 24 months, give or take, had a shockingly brief mourning period before the jujutsu world forced you along, and… even with what he did, Suguru deserves better. "Suguru died today."

A beat of silence. Then:

"Mm, I guess he did."

You'd spent the day staring out at the grey sky, the miserable sight of soaked pavement. Grey, grey, grey. Concrete jungle. Heavy rain clouds and an ocean of multicoloured umbrellas, bobbing and rolling to destinations unknown. You hadn't said it aloud; hadn't even thought of it, specifically. The knowledge of it had just sat over your head like a thick, sweltering fog — and if you know Satoru at all, you know that he'd done the same. Maybe he hid it better.

You don't have to look now to know that his lips are pressed thin. You find the sudden thought of looking him in the eyes daunting, anyways, so you turn onto your side, back facing him, and pick mindlessly at the sheets. You don't want to see what his reaction will be when you say—

"Did you know that I loved him — back then?"

You don't want to see the shock, or the confusion — and you'd rather not see a lack of them, either. What's worse, you wonder — him knowing and loving Suguru too, or not knowing and loving him?

"...Yes."

You screw your eyes shut and try to will away the sudden surge of cold, like a sharpened dagger to your chest. 

(It turns out that knowing is much more painful.)

Suguru Geto had been the apple of your eye ever since you'd met. 11 and gangly and stupid in a way that all children were always stupid, Suguru had been a bit kinder than his white-haired counterpart. Satoru, being Satoru Gojo, had grown up with no fear of authority, no mindfulness for his less-powerful peers as anything more than people who existed around him. You and Suguru were allowed the title of friends, but very few were. Anyway — he grew out of that mindset, of course, but your fondness for Suguru stayed.

(Though they'd always seemed to be on another level than you — not even just in terms of power, but… just caught up in each other, always. Suguru had only ever wanted Satoru. And vice versa.)

And then Suguru changed. Right under your nose, he changed, and his sudden quietness made sense. His fatigue. The way his hands would always shake when swallowing an exorcised curse, always had since you were kids, and then suddenly they were ingested with a scary calm. Nobody understands the taste of curses. Not even you, not even when he’d explained it in sickening detail.

You sigh, then. Tired and lethargic and not from physically straining yourself for an hour. This is bone-deep, soul-weary. It's been held in for 730 days, or maybe more. Maybe you've carried it with you since birth. "I never apologised."

"For what?" Satoru asks — and he laughs, jolly, and the sound fits awkwardly in his throat. A clear attempt at feigning indifference, but he's a bad liar. He always has been, because he's never needed to lie. Perks of being the strongest, you guess. You can just come out and say shit — and if you can't, not saying anything technically isn’t lying. 

"I hated you, after," you confess. You dig your thumbnail hard intoyour pinky finger, taking momentary refuge in the sharp shock of pain. "I couldn't stand to look at you. When I did, I saw… I saw what you did. What you had, and what you had thrown away. I blamed you for Suguru. I blamed everyone except Suguru."

Another snicker, a bit too humourless. "You can't stand to look at me now."

"I…" You don't know what to say to that.

Truth is, you don't want to see his face. Contorted in pity, or disgust, or sadness for you. You've gotten used to living in his shadow — most everyone has — but that doesn’t ease the ever-present blanket of insecurity that you carry around your shoulders. It doesn’t dull the ache of inferiority you’ve been housing in your chest from the moment you were saddled with your technique. As you aged, you got better at hiding it, and you generally prefer your self-pity to go unnoticed, but Satoru—

He could always read you like a book. And you hated it. You hated being pitied by someone who was as powerful as him — someone as close to God as one could get. It was demeaning. Patronising. It makes you feel like a child again, bowing your head as your mother makes excuses for you.

You shift over — onto your back, and then onto your other side — and you look at him. You force yourself. Blankets pooled around his waist, his skin so pale it could be translucent, eyes icy blue and framed with fluffy white.

"You were forced to do it," you murmur. Your eyes remain trained on his chin — his are much too bright, much too all-seeing for comfort. "If you hadn't, he would've gotten worse. He never would have stopped. You knew that, you always did. It… took me a while to come to terms with it."

Satoru sighs. Then, he slumps down so that — like you — his head rests flat on the pillow, and his body arcs towards yours. He's forced himself into your sights again, in a way that’s gentle, but not so much that you wouldn't be able to figure out what he's doing: forcing you to face him.

"Would it have made you feel better," Satoru begins, reaching forward to brush his fingers against your chin, "if you were there when I did it?"

Would it have?

Would it have given you closure? Would you no longer spend your nights wondering what he'd looked like, what his last words were, his last thoughts? If he had spittled and roared in anger, if he had wept in fear, if he had attempted a smile, a joke? If he thought of you, or if you were just another insignificant blip in his radar?

In your mind, Suguru exists as his 17 year old self — smiling and mischievous, polite yet humorous. He puts extra broccoli on your plate and gently berates you to eat more. He tells you that you're a precious part of the team, that none of them would be who they are without you. He calls you crybaby because you always wear your heart on your sleeve, and tells you not to worry about things you cannot change.

Change what you can. Forget the rest and leave it to me, crybaby.

The bubbling hatred that had festered inside him has no place in your head. You want him to stay as he is, your Suguru that was never yours, shining like gold in your mind.

"No. He hated me at the end, I think," you say quietly. For a second, you dare to meet his eyes — bright and pointed in how they stare at you. You know he can see the tears that have begun to burn in your waterline, the way you ball your fists so hard you dig half-moon into your skin. He doesn’t need to be blessed with the Six Eyes to see.

"I wasn't interested in changing the world like he was, even with my Technique. That made him despise me, I think."

Satoru stares for a few more seconds. You wonder what he's thinking about. A second in your time is a lifetime in Satoru's; he must be thinking hard. 

But he blinks, at last; sighs so deeply that his chest caves in with it, before he winds an arm around your waist and pulls you close, bare chest to bare chest, only atomic space between you.

There's nothing sexual about it. You're nothing but bones and skin and blood, here. He moulds your head to his shoulder with one large hand and cocoons you in his embrace, warm. Protected. You're not sure who the action is meant to comfort.

And just when you think the conversation is over — just when minutes have passed with nothing but the sound of the TV between you both — he speaks.

"Suguru could never hate you. Trust me."

You don't want to know what that means. You're only beginning to get over it, two years later.

3.

Satoru is holding three onigiri in one hand, and two Starbucks' cups in the other — extra sugar, extra cream, extra ice, extra unicorn-marketing, just the way you both like it. 

"There she is!" Is the first thing he says as he meets you just outside the metro, grinning. 

It's sweltering hot today — the sun had risen early and would surely set late, and Satoru seems to be taking advantage of it. Gone is his Jujutsu Tech uniform and thick blindfold, but he's stuck with the all-black theme like he usually does — black jeans, black linen shirt, black socks and shoes. Even the frames of his sunglasses are black.

(Handsome. He's handsome. He's always been handsome — years later, you'd think you'd stop feeling the effects of it.) 

Lucky for him. You're not, y'know, the strongest sorcerer in the last century, so there's no leeway for you — and even in your summer uniform, the skirt and short-sleeved blouse, you're sweating. Your only respite is that the combined force of you and Satoru will mean this mission is going to be a breeze.

Satoru tsks. "Took your time. I almost ate your onigiri."

A man nearby jogs past, clearly in a rush, and Satoru has to step closer to you to avoid him. He could've stayed still. He wouldn't have touched him, anyway, with his Limitless.

"And you would've had to buy another, genius."

A pout. "You only love me for my bank account, don't you?"

(He's joking. It's a joke. 

But your hand shakes — a miniscule tremor — as you reach out to take one of the cups, and you know he sees it because he's Satoru and he sees everything. You turn away as quickly as you can, setting off in the direction of whatever place it is you're here for, and pretend that the fact that he can say it so casually doesn't kinda fucking hurt. 

(He could never say it like that with Suguru — so bluntly, so crassly. Not without softened eyes and softened smiles and a gentle tilt of his head — those are mannerisms reserved only for him, never to be seen again. Instead, you get snickers and digs in the arm and teasing pulls of your hair. Of course it’s a joke. That’s all you are.

Perhaps you should just be grateful for what you get. Perhaps you should try to stop comparing yourself to a man you once loved. Perhaps you should try to stop comparing yourself to a dead man. Perhaps, in the end, you just love the pain of it all.))

"Yeah," you reply, taking a large, sugary sip. "And don't you forget it, either."

Satoru catches up to you quickly, effortlessly; his arm flops around your shoulder as he tugs you in the opposite direction, chastising you for going the wrong way — but it stays there long after it needs to.

4.

Itadori Yuuji — Sukuna's dead-but-not-really vessel — thinks your cursed technique is powerful. He thinks it’s amazing that you can use reverse cursed technique — you must be really powerful, right? Gojo-sensei says you’re special grade. He also thinks you're very pretty. He tells you this over his fourth grilled pork belly wrap — this one bursting at the seams with kimchi, garlic, and roasted sesame seeds.

He doesn't say it in a flirtatious way — it's just an observation to him, simple and blunt, and you figure he has about as much of a filter as Satoru does.

"O-oh," you say, metal tongs frozen over the sizzling meat. "Thank you, Yuuji."

You had briefly met him for the first time before his death — Nobara, too. Megumi, the third piece of the golden trio, has been something of a little brother ever since Satoru had taken him in, and you know him well enough to know that Yuuji's death (or lack thereof) is weighing on him terribly. 

(There are too many parallels you could make. Suguru and Satoru. Haibara and Nanami.)

Hiding it does make you feel guilty. To experience that grief, that loss — even if it will soon go away when Yuuji rejoins jujutsu society — isn’t something to take lightly. But Yuuji needs a guide that isn’t completely off the rails. Satoru and you balance each other out, and balance seems to be something Yuuji needs.

He reminds you terribly of Satoru when he was younger. Maybe that's why you have such a fond spot for him — he's too goofy and well-meaning and genuine to dislike.

"Why are you acting surprised?" Gripes Satoru, chewing with his mouth open. "I tell you that all the time."

Your eyes narrow. You place a perfectly cooked slice of marinated beef on his plate. "You're you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He whines. "We're best friends, crybaby!"

"You don't say I'm powerful. You say I'm helpful. There's a difference. And don’t call me that."

"Is there?" Satoru asks, turning to Yuuji for guidance. The teen boy shrugs, preoccupied by assembling his newest monstrosity. "I call you pretty, too."

"Yeah, when—"

When you're eight inches deep in me, face buried in my neck, trying to get yourself off. Your cheeks flush with warmth at the thought, and you shut your mouth. Yuuji doesn't notice your slip up, busy as he is; Satoru does completely, and fixes you with a grin so sharp that you vow to not give him any more meat until Yuuji is completely full.

"It's not the same," you say, voice final. It's a lighthearted lunch. You don't want to ruin it by getting touchy over semantics, and that's exactly what'll happen if you keep going. "You say it to reward me. Like tossing a dog a bone."

You reach for the scissors to snip the meat into little pieces — and in doing so, you miss the brief frown that presses against Satoru's brow.

Neither of you say anything more on the matter.

5. 

Satoru has known you for five years when he realises that he resents you. Not completely, and not for one particular or solid reason, either. He prefers not to think about it, in any case, because you're one of his closest friends — and even at 17, he knows that that's hard to come by. Especially as the Strongest.

Satoru stares up at his ceiling; stares at the miniature striations only he can see, the starburst-shaped gyrations of clay used to finish it off. 

Tonight, he's thinking about it. And many other things.

He hates that you're so hesitant about everything — he hates that you believe yourself so weak that you have to tiptoe. You, with your reverse cursed technique — which is a feat in and of itself — that could transcend time and space, just like he could. A technique passed down for hundreds and hundreds of years, accumulating power all the while…

(Your technique has lots of rules and regulations, of course. A handicap, and he understands it frustrates you, but his own frustration eclipses his understanding. Why should someone so strong feel anything but their own strength?)

He hates that you curl in on yourself when you're sad, or lonely, or angry. He hates that you wear your heart on your sleeve — he's never allowed himself to, not fully. He can't, never fully, because there are people who are watching him, people who hate him, people who want him dead. He can joke. He can make his political desires clear — but he can’t love like he wants to, and God forbid he cries.

He hates that you close your eyes and bask when it's sunny, like a cat in a sunspot; hates that you remember that he doesn't like chicken wings and prefers thighs; he especially hates that you watch over Suguru like it's your job, when Suguru doesn't need it.

And some part of Satoru hates Suguru, too. It was strange for him to come to terms with it, fond of him as he is, but as he grows Satoru realises that there's no love of his that isn't closely affiliated with hate. It makes the love all the more strong.

Satoru, for one, dislikes how polite Suguru is, even when he doesn't need to be. He hates that Suguru becomes a straight-faced, unfeeling thing when he's upset, and tries to hide it — the emptiness in his eyes unsettles him like nothing else.

Most of all, above all, Satoru hates that Suguru loves you, crybaby, and is too pussy to do shit about it. Satoru doesn't understand why, anyways, because he'd made it clear that if he wanted, Suguru could have you both and Satoru wouldn't care. Usually, the thought would offend him. How can you love someone when you already love me? When you've already sworn yourself to me? You already have the strongest, who else do you need? 

But… he doesn't know. He kinda understands. You're precious to him, too, after all, sunflower soaking up the sun. 

Like he said: there's no love of his that isn’t closely affiliated with hate.

6.

Six and a half hours after the hours-long meeting that followed the ruined School Goodwill Event, you find yourselves in a diner somewhere in Harajuku. It’s one of those weird fusion places, loaning ornamentation and tokens from classic American diners, serving omurice with fries, sushi with mashed potatoes, with a cute little mascot that looks like Elvis. It’s loud enough and bright enough to make you feel timeless. It's a sensation you can appreciate. 

Something’s been telling you that time’s ticking, and you’re not quite sure what it is. Trauma, probably. Anxiety. The fact that curses have been banding together, learning spoken language, amassing power — planning an attack on Jujutsu Tech, gaining intelligence, gaining anger.

Satoru doesn’t say it — doesn’t want to say it — but you think it’s unnerved him, too. The last time outsiders entered school grounds was… two years ago, wasn’t it? It’s crazy. Everything always seems to lead back to Suguru.

The attack has fueled something in both of you, anyways; something that makes you both stay up instead of knocking out like you usually do; something that makes you both hungry and restless and liable to travel across Tokyo past midnight. By public transport, no less. No warping or high-speed flying for you, tonight.

But you appreciate it. And you think that Satoru is taking things slow for the same reasons you want to — to take things in, to appreciate what you never think to appreciate. To admire the mundane, even for a little while. Satoru’s less emotionally attached to the jujutsu-less aspects of life than you are — bullet trains and waiting in line and standing on the train platform, escalators and traffic — but he enjoys them all the same when he has time to. And it’s not often The Strongest gets to experience pure, genuine normality, too, so maybe sitting in this gaudy diner and watching the world pass you by is a luxury he rarely affords himself.

He orders the most complicated drink they have — a sakura-caramel milkshake topped with whipped cream, glacé cherries, and an entire slice of cheesecake. He’s down to the last dregs of melting cream within 10 minutes, swiping fries from your plate between sips, ignoring your chides of rotten teeth and high blood sugar.

Blindfold swapped for glasses. Strands of hair drifting down against his forehead. 

You’re always reminded at the worst times of how handsome he is. It’s not like it’s a secret, or he’s unaware of it — and he takes pride in his looks, if his extensive skincare shelf and general attitude is anything to go by — but he puts much more stock in his strength, in his usefulness to others, his intelligence. The things he can provide for others. Not many people realise that.

Maybe you shouldn’t act so high and mighty. It’s not like you don’t appreciate his appearance as much as the next person — hell, half the time you’re trying to stop it from distracting you — but maybe you get a pass. Y’know, as a person who actually has reason to marvel over the stretch of his neck and the flush of his cheeks and how his lips go the prettiest pink when you kiss him. Or the cords of muscle along his arms; the slender-yet-thick bands of muscle of his chest and legs. The large, veiny expanse of hand — slim, delicate fingers wrapped around a paper straw…

"Are you gonna eat those?" Says Satoru, slurping obnoxiously. “Haven't eaten since dinner."

You push the basket across the table, uncharacteristically void of argument. "Go crazy."

Satoru sets his empty glass aside, but the straw remains in one hand. The other he uses to pluck up fries, 4 or 5 at a time, his gaze suddenly fixed on you as he chews nonchalantly.

"Y'know," he says, licking salt from his fingertips, jabbing the straw in your direction, "I can always tell when you're horny."

"Excuse me?"

"You squirm," Satoru continues — matter-of-fact, casual, as if he's talking about the weather. "And you get quiet.”

“I’m a quiet person,” you snap, nails pressing against your palms under the table. “Sorry I know when to shut the fuck up—”

“And then you get flustered. And when you’re flustered, or embarrassed, you get angry.” He raises his hand — signals the cute waitress for another basket of fries, and leans back with his arms splayed along the back of the booth. “Don’t look so surprised! How long have we known each other?”

If you were a better person, you’d probably admit that yes, he’s right. You do get quiet when you’re horny, and you do get angry when you’re flustered — if you were a worse person, though, you’d remark on how you're the first person he crawls to when he’s sad, or overwhelmed. How getting you into bed and losing yourselves in each other is a sort of therapy for him. How he always tries to distract you with cheeky grins and sly, flirty comments, but then afterwards he cries in the bath as you clean him up. 

You don't say that, obviously. Seems like a pretty shitty thing to bring up today of all days. He'd probably deny it anyways, but you don't think it's a coincidence that the attack has left him restless and he obviously wants to take you home.

The new fries are delivered to the table, but he looks right past them. He bows his head slightly, glasses slipping a little further down his nose so that his white-framed eyes peek over the top of them. 

"Let's warp home," Satoru says — and oh. There's that voice. That drop in tone, that lack of boisterous humour he always employs. It's soft enough to have goosebumps rising on the back of your arms, smooth enough to have you squirming — yes, squirming, you admit it — in your seat. "Alright?"

"Yes." And it's embarrassingly breathless, and embarrassingly quick, but Satoru doesn't tease you. Just smiles, raises a hand for the bill, and watches you all the while.

7.

You count seven stitches in the forehead of Geto Suguru.

Count, because it's all you can do. Everything else is lost to you. 

Breathing.

Standing.

It feels like even your heart has stalled. Because—

Because—

Because Geto Suguru is dead. Dead, in the ground, no longer breathing, no longer living. Satoru had killed him. Satoru had demolished him.

The lips of the Geto in front of you twist — a sickening, stomach-turning imitation of the smile you once adored. On his face it's a sneer, a mockery. Your Suguru did not smile like this when you knew him.

"Hello," he greets pleasantly. His arms are hidden within the sleeves of his yukata. Hair down. Suguru always tended to wear his hair up, unless he was fresh out of the shower. Unless he was upset. It was too much hassle to take care of. You know when he took over the Time Vessel Association and donned the gojo-kesa he began wearing it down. "_____ _____, yes?"

You can't answer. Your ears are ringing. Your stomach gives a worrying lurch that winds up your throat — you think you're going to be sick. 

How? Why? Who — who is this in front of you? Because it's not Geto, not Suguru — and you don't say that because of longing or a pathetic desire for ignorance. This thing feels wrong. Inherently, blasphemously wrong. Looking at him for too long makes your cursed energy prickle. Seeing Suguru's image painted in such slimy, rancid energy has you gasping for breath.

Satoru, your mind whispers. Satoru needs to know.

He should. He needs to. But this pseudo-Geto does not look friendly in the slightest, and you are isolated.

Looking back, it had seemed fine to go alone to exorcise curses in the belly of Tokyo's metro. Taking old service tunnels and eventually entering abandoned tracks hadn't felt scary. You're a semi-special grade sorcerer with years of experience under your belt and a powerful cursed technique that could get you out of most, if not all, pinches, restrictions and regulations be damned.

"I'm sure you're very confused. I apologise, really…"

The reality of the situation hits you. Maybe hit is the wrong word — it doesn’t come as a bloody, stinging smack in the face. It’s a trickle of ice-cold water down the nape of your neck, drawing dread from your head all the way into the pit of your stomach. You don't think this is a pinch you'll come out of — at least not battered half to death, especially when a silver-haired curse decorated with stitches steps out from behind pseudo-Geto. The curse Kento had fought. The one that he said to look out for. Patchwork.

Immediately, you know fighting isn't an option. But what else is there to do, in the face of pseudo-Geto and his silver-haired, sentient curse? Your technique may not be limitless in your possession, but in theirs? If they did to you what they did to so many others — transfiguring you past the point of recognition, stealing your body and technique, desecrating your corpse with cursed energy…

"I can feel it from here," titters the curse excitedly. "So warm… I have to have it! Her soul, I have to have it!"

Fuck.

You could try to escape, but you wouldn't have enough time to run past them and through the winding corridors of the underground, even while distracting them with your cursed technique. They'd catch you within seconds. You’re sure they have curses lurking around waiting to thwart you, too.

You could burst directly into the layers of concrete and metal above — use your technique to revert them back millions and millions and years to their very first forms, atoms and subatomic particles, and then rebuild them up as an ascending platform — but that would take too much time, and you'd be completely defenceless while you did. Not to mention the toll it'd take on you.

(Not to mention the fact that you'd be bursting into the public eye from a giant crater in the ground.)

"I'm sure you know what I'm going to do," continues pseudo-Geto, amiable. "I would ask you to join us, but I know that is impossible. Therefore, there is only one course of action."

Can't fight. Can't escape. Can't get answers. Can't stay clueless. How contradictory.

You're not dying, that's all you know. And if you have to do the one thing you never wanted to do, then so be it. Anything is better than death. Death is not an escape, in this scenario — it’s a guarantee of imprisonment.

"It's a shame," pseudo-Geto sighs, bloodlust swelling. "Such a waste of a good technique."

You make a Binding Vow with yourself within seconds.

Using a magnitude of cursed energy usually out of your reach, your entire body will be reduced to atoms — intangible, untrappable, unkillable — for as long as it takes to retreat to safety. In return, you will be unable to think, unable to move according to your own will, only a mere pawn to entropy as the rest of the galaxy is — high risk, high reward.

There are many things that could go wrong.

In reducing yourself to essentially nothing, in splitting your cursed energy into billions of particles, you could reach a state of such low cursed energy concentration that you are, for all terms and purposes, considered dead. In doing so, your Binding Vow could break, and you would be unable to return to living. 

Or you could float for days, weeks, years — safety is subjective, subjective is dangerous when it comes to contracts, and you can only hope that your own understanding of it sets the standard.

It's either this, this fleeting, terrifying chance, or death. With one, you can return to your school, your students, your Satoru — you can tell them what happened. You can bring justice to whoever has disturbed Suguru from his slumber. With the other — nothing. Just plain, utter nothingness forever and ever.

(You know which you'd rather.)

The last thing you recall, in spotty haziness, is the heart-stopping sight of Suguru surging towards you, eyes bloodthirsty, face contorted in malice. 

The last thing you hope is that Satoru isn't too upset about the risk you've taken.

8.

Eight days after your solo mission, you resurface — a discombobulated, stumbling mess on the outskirts of Shibuya, eyes glazed and mouth stuttering over syllables. A nearby Window calls the college within seconds, and Gojo is there just as soon — hands shaking when he grasps your arm and turns you to face him, fingers trembling when he cups your cheeks and brushes them under your eyes.

It’s you. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you, and he can breathe, he can fucking breathe, his chest is lighter than it’s been for those entire 8 days — all the while, he burns with an anger so intense it hurts. And Satoru is no stranger to anger, of course — knows it as intimately as he knows himself — but he's not sure if he can remember the last time it had rendered him breathless, trembling. Bloodthirsty.

It's not the time to think about it. Not when you're shaking in his arms, so frail and weak everywhere except your hands — no, your hands remain strong, fingers digging into his clothes and skin. He turns off his Infinity. The sting of your touch grounds him.

Shoko is already waiting in the clinic for him — she’d been preparing ever since the call first came in. The students (the ones on campus, at least) crowd together at a distance, buzzing anxiously as Satoru disappears swiftly into the depths of the infirmary with you in his arms.

Bad things happen often. Too often. Satoru isn’t sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that they haven’t gotten used to it yet.

“Gibberish,” Satoru answers when Shoko asks if you’ve said anything competent since he picked you up. “Just gibberish.”

Shoko is poking and prodding you with the usual doctor's shit — stethoscopes and thermometers and that blood pressure band that goes around your arm — and you just lay there and take it. Head rocking side to side, limbs trembling, mouth lolling open, and Satoru's trying not to lose his head because what good is taking your temperature? Do you look like you have a fucking cold? Is the way your eyes focus and unfocus normal? The way you can’t string together two syllables that make fucking sense?

But even with how he can see your cells malfunctioning all over your body, Shoko knows more about this shit than him. So he sits pretty on her swivelling chair, twisting back and forth, body the image of boredom but mind anything but. Time and time again, he’s reminded of how unprejudiced tragedy is — how it leaves no hint, no mark of itself, no time to prepare for the toll of it all. 

Satoru had greeted you briefly before you’d left. Said something about getting lunch together, that you better be careful because you were treating him — the same shit he said time and time again, his real plea hidden within the folds and twists of his jokes and quips. Be careful. Don’t die. I can’t lose you. You’re precious to me.

You’ll be okay. You have to be — he won’t allow anything otherwise. But if he’d known last week that you’d end up like this, would he have said those things out loud? He doesn’t think so. He’s cowardly in that way.

A few moments later, Shoko straightens up. Immediately reaches into the pocket of her lab coat and pulls out a cigarette and a rusting lighter, and is puffing out clouds of bitter air just seconds later. 

Shit. That’s not a good sign.

Shoko sighs. Rubs at her dark undereye circles and only makes them worse, taps her cigarette so that the ash falls to the floor. “I know what it is.”

Well fucking tell him instead of keeping it in!

“Oh?” Satoru says instead, leaning forward onto his knees. “What is it, then?”

“She used her technique on herself.”

“She does that all the time to heal."

“She didn’t heal herself,” Shoko snaps — and Satoru remembers that he’s not the only person you’re important to. That while he and Suguru had gotten ahead of themselves being the strongest, they’d left you and Shoko to stroll humbly along your own paths. The only girls in their year. The only person Shoko could fully confide in, really — at least in Tokyo —, the only person who had bothered to check up on her when she drank too much, smoked too much. Even if Shoko hated it. 

Shoko is upset. Satoru doesn't what to do with it.

(Alcohol — she likes alcohol. Satoru reminds himself to pick up the most expensive bottle of the stuff the next time he's out.)

(No. She’s trying not to drink so much, isn’t she?)

(Whatever. Life is short.)

“She dissipated herself.”

Satoru knows about your technique intimately enough that it immediately gives him pause — but he runs over the details in his head, just in case, as if it isn’t already imprinted on the flesh of his skull.

Your cursed technique allows you to disassemble items down to their most basic units — subatomic particles — while your reverse cursed technique allows you to reassemble them. Items can be reassembled into their previous form, or to another related form, but you cannot exceed the item’s natural entropy threshold. If you do, the item cannot be reverted back to a physical state, and you will bear the brunt of the resulting shift in energy.

It's a finicky technique. Finicky and fickle and the risks tend to outweigh the rewards — but you'd always used it so elegantly, so gracefully. Even when you doubted yourself, you had a handle on it. Satoru admired that about you.

("You don't say I'm powerful. You say I'm helpful. There's a difference."

You'd said that to him once, when he brought you and Yuuji to lunch. You'd acted like it didn't bother you but he could tell it did — he didn't need his Six Eyes to notice how your nose twitched and your eyes narrowed, displeased. 

But Satoru believes in two types of helpfulness. 

The kind he is — powerful, needed, a force to be reckoned with. Someone that keeps things afloat, that acts as a beacon in the dark.

Then there's the other kind. The usefulness of pawns, of bait. Necessary, but not fundamental. Desired, sure, but rarely crucial.

You've always been the first. Always. You and him and Suguru and Shoko, always. Even he could admit that.)

You disassembled yourself into atoms. Into nothingness. You lost your mind, your body, your energy, everything—

Satoru sighs. He's been doing that a lot today.

“I didn’t know she could do that,” Satoru says. His throat is covered in a layer of sawdust. He can’t remember the last time he had to actually focus on not throwing up. “Why would she do that?”

“She talked about it, before,” Shoko says. She leans against the bed you’re laying on, gazing over her shoulder — and the way she looks at you turns his stomach, the upturn of her brows, the sad downturn of her mouth. It’s as if you’re already dead. As if she’s looking at a living corpse. “Just… as a theory. A last resort to help her get away, if needed, but—”

“But what?”

“She knew she didn’t have the power for it,” Shoko mutters. Breathes another puff of cigarette smoke. “If she tried, she'd end up just… fading away. In breaking herself up, she'd negate the cursed energy that gives her the power to put herself together.

"And the side effects would be… well, you can see that for yourself. Stupid, so fucking stupid…”

“Well, obviously she has the power for it,” Satoru murmurs. “Or made the power for it.”

“A binding vow?”

Satoru shrugs. Clenches his jaw, watching as you scratch at the faux-leather underneath you. “It'd make sense. Explains how she put herself back together."

(But for what? What could have driven you to such lengths? 

A curse like Jogo wouldn't be all too difficult for you to defeat.

So who…?)

Shoko hums. She stares into space for a moment, eyes unfocused, and for a moment Satoru sees her younger self — the one who just started smoking, just started drinking, who carried the weight of all the people she healed (and those she'd failed to) tucked in her pocket. The Shoko that would make sarcastic quips and humble them when they needed humbling, but humour them when she knew the outcome would be funny.

A time when they had very little responsibility. Even him, shackled with it since birth. Comparing his duty from then to now is like comparing a boulder to the weight of the world.

He feels very old, suddenly, at 28.

"There's nothing I can do for her," Shoko says, softly. Regretfully. "If she did make a binding vow, I can only assume she made a condition about returning to normal. If so…"

Satoru can’t do anything about it, basically, she explains. Your condition is one that will only heal with time, patience, and the odd boost from Shoko’s technique. Maybe, she says — she's still unsure about that last bit.

It sickens him. It festers as a deep, curdling annoyance in his bones, his uselessness. It’s a sensation he had only felt once before, standing before the slumped-over body of Geto Suguru. Nothing he could do for him except put him out of his misery, and even then that felt like a cop-out.

So… he can't go directly after the thing that had forced your hand, because they had left no trace. He can't heal you, either. He can't take care of you while your body repairs itself, while your supposed binding vow returns you to your rightful state — that duty will fall to Shoko, or one of her interns. 

He can do nothing. And Satoru is nothing if he cannot be of use.

9.

Nine months after the events of the culling games, Satoru enters your room to see you sitting up — eyes wide, eyes seeing, and it only takes you fixing him with a single look to know that you're okay. 

(Subjectively. Relatively.)

Suguru Getou — Kenjaku — is finally dead — exorcised. He’s not sure which is the right word to use. All of his allies, killed or exorcised too. Nanami, murdered. Nobara, comatose. Yaga, dead. Inumaki, Maki, Okkotsu, maimed; the great houses of sorcery destroyed and rebuilt in the image of Satoru’s will. 

Itadori Yuuji — dead. Sukuna Ryomen — exorcised.

Adding up the gains, subtracting the losses, carrying the ones… Both sides seem to have lost pretty evenly. And he should be happy about it, too; things could have turned out much worse. And they would have, too, if he hadn’t pushed himself out of his pouting and escaped the prison realm — a feat that was half out of spite and half concern for the outside world, and maybe a little curiosity. Rage. Longing to see the bastard who’d stolen Suguru’s face and body, who dared to reanimate him and rouse him from peace — longing to slaughter the thing that had rendered you bedridden and half-mad for months.

He had been the one to kill Kenjaku. It only felt right to be the one to do so — he’d killed Suguru, after all; had been the one to leave him defenceless and open to manipulation. If Suguru hadn’t been dead, Kenjaku wouldn’t have been able to steal his body. 

Of course, Satoru ignored the fact that the very last rotten, desperate dregs of Suguru would have enjoyed Kenjaku’s plan — it was the only way he was able to keep his eyes open when he blasted his brain to bits. It was hard enough the first time.

All of these things sit on his tongue, bitter and souring and curdling — every detail of the battle, of the culling games, the colleagues and peers and students he’d held in his arms, the ones he’d comforted as they slipped away, the ones he’d reassured and promised. 

(Pink, blood-covered hair; a smile that never dimmed, a nervous murmur (“It’s okay, Gojo-sensei. I know what I got into.”). The shaky laugh that had followed.)

Satoru’s hands tremble at his sides.

Your eyes are wet with tears when you look at him. 

“How long has it been?” You croak — voice dry and cracked with disuse, whining in some parts, low and wheezing in others. Bone-deep, the fear in your voice, and for good reason — things had already been at a boiling point when you’d been taken down. Everything had moved past you. “Satoru—?”

Another selfish decision on his part: he doesn’t tell you. At least, not now, when the words threaten to vomit out of his mouth, when the pain is suddenly too fresh and too raw. 

(For one strange, too-long second, he’s reminded of his mother — weak, presence-less, powerless as she was. Empty-eyed and unhappy. She was hardly even a mother with the amount of governesses he had.

Somehow, though, every problem would seem worse when her eyes were upon him; every cut and bruise was more painful; every slight against him a grave insult; every mistake a cause for self-pity and temper tantrums — and none of it mattered, as long as she took him into her arms.

A rarity, yes, but… maybe one of the only fond memories he has of his childhood in the Gojo household.

Satoru feels like a kid again — suddenly sniffling from a bruise he swore didn’t hurt, his mother ready to pat his head and baby him and coo his name. Satoru. Not Gojo-sama.)

He crosses the room and plants himself upon your bed and takes you into his arms for the first time in months, and—

And for the first time since Yuuji’s death, since Nanami’s, since Suguru’s, since your injuries—

He cries. Openly. Heaving, chest-wrecking sobs; red, wet nose and ugly whimpers. It’s overwhelming. It’s cathartic. It makes the pain worse, for a second, before it begins to taper out in a bruising wave; with it, he remembers his darling underclassmen who died, his colleagues that he’d wanted to live at least a few more years; he remembers that despite years of being told so, he’s not God — he couldn’t stop Yuuji’s death, or Suguru’s, or Toge losing his arms, or—

“Thirteen months,” he manages to get out. “Thirteen months — you couldn’t talk, or move properly, or—”

Satoru grabs handfuls of you — hair, waist, belly, it doesn’t matter. He can feel you beneath his skin. Rushing, pounding blood, cells, micromolecules — and he doesn’t need to, but he engages his Six Eyes for a moment — actually engages them, doesn’t let them run unconsciously in the background. It’s a comfort to let himself see each receptor interact with each signal on each plasma membrane, to let himself see the tissues that formed organs that formed organ systems forming you, breathing, living, sentient—

He kisses you — or you kiss him, he’s not sure — but it’s far more intimate, far more tender than any touch he’d delivered unto you; hands clutching the sides of your face, your fingers digging into his wrists. You’re crying, salt on his tongue — and he only knows they’re not his own tears because you give a great, shuddering sob when you part, trembling like a leaf in the wind. 

“I had to,” you gasp, and he wants to tell you that he knows, he knows, he doesn’t blame you, sweet girl — did what you had to do to live, to survive— “I had to—”

“Only go where I can follow, okay?" His eyes are burning again, voice cracking with the promise, regardless of the fact that he’d rather you do it 100 times over than die. But it's the only way he can tell you he loves you without telling you he loves you, and he can't remember the last time he said the words aloud.

(He does. He remembers. And he remembers that Suguru wouldn't mind if he said it to you — that Suguru loved you as he loves you. And he remembers that Suguru is dead and doesn't have an opinion anymore, so it really doesn't matter, anyways.)

Satoru calls Shoko when he rights himself, barely pulling back from your embrace to text her something barely understandable and hurried. You don't say much while he does; still acclimating to being aware, being awake — he catches you with your eyes screwed shut and your nose buried in his jacket, fingers tight on his arms again. Grounding yourself. Reminding yourself that you're alive, and with him.

Shoko scolds you between rummaging around for a thermometer and scribbling your prescription in messy, barely legible cursive — calls you a dumb bitch for doing what you did, tells you that you owe her a bottle of wine and a trip to a fancy hot spring, and it all seems a little lighter.

(She cries a little — if the slight glassiness of her eyes can be considered crying. Satoru only teases her a bit for it, though you're quick to mention how he'd blubbered like a baby when he saw you, and he's humbled quickly.

It's the most normal he's felt in weeks.)

Shoko clears away after a few hours — gives you strict orders to rest, and sends him a knowing look that he's not all too sure of the meaning of. 

"You look tired, Satoru," you finally say when you're alone again. Your smile is sad, knowing, and Satoru curses it all. You deserve a grace period, a moment of ignorance before the grief settles in. "What happened?"

But when have you ever wanted a moment of ignorance? When has he ever been able to hide the truth of things from you? When have you ever been anything but his equal, his confidant?

"Everything," Satoru says. A short, humourless laugh punctuates his single-worded sentence. "Everything, crybaby. Everything that we thought could happen, and everything we thought couldn't."

A flicker of a smile — uncomfortable, flat. Your eyes flicker down to the bland, starched sheets of the hospital bed. "Did you see him?"

He doesn't need you to elaborate. There's really only one person you both mean when you say him.

"Yes."

"Who was he?"

Satoru shifts in his seat. "An ancient sorcerer named Kenjaku. His cursed technique allowed him to transplant his brain between bodies and possess them."

"And he chose Suguru."

"Yes. And many others, too."

"And you killed him."

"Yes. For Suguru, and for you. But mostly for Suguru.”

“I’m glad,” you say, but your fingers twist the sheets tightly. “When I saw him, I was angry. So angry, I… I wanted to kill him. I knew I wasn’t strong enough, and I knew he would kill me, but for a second—”

He understands. God, does he understand. “You wanted to take the risk.” No matter the cost, no matter the damage to your own body. Anger like that consumes.

“I did.” You swallow. Your eyes meet his. “It was like… adding insult to injury. As if it’s not enough that Suguru is dead, but this — this Kenjaku has to puppeteer him too. Disturb his peace."

The wind rustles the trees outside. The late-afternoon gold of the sun settles along the horizon, a burning orange that stretches the shadows and warms the wind and turns the side of your face honey-soft and sad.

“But I realised that I was probably the first person he’d revealed himself to," you continue, "so I was the only one that could warn you."

Always thinking about the good of others. It was another thing he admired about you — Nanami, too. Satoru, for all his big talk about changing the world of jujutsu, about being better than those who came before him, is really quite selfish. 

It's why his hands had trembled when he'd had to kill Yuuji. It's why he couldn't put Suguru in the ground the first time they met after he became a curse user. Even when he knows things are necessary, he tries his damnedest to hold on — just for the chance of it all. The chance that Suguru could change his mind. The chance that Sukuna could be removed from Yuuji without him needing to die. 

"And…”

One snow-white brow raises. “And?”

“You’ve already lost too many people that you love,” you say simply, shrugging — like it's a simple fact, no need for experimentation, no need for an academic paper complete with its own abstract and footnotes. Like you've always known, in some little way, but you're only able to bring yourself to say it now.

And Satoru — well, it's no secret to him, is it? He's known it since he was 13, 14, 15 — had a bit of a buffering period, sure — and now here at 28, he knows it just as well. The point is that you're not supposed to know. Not while you're still healing from Suguru and… being attacked by fake-Suguru.

Regardless of what he knows and how long he's known it, Satoru feels his throat begin to close up, twisting and turning and holding his breath tight. He doesn’t like the feeling.

“Love?” He echoes. His voice has gotten a little empty. It's too soon for him to say it aloud, he thinks. It was okay when he whispered it in his head after making love to you; it was easy when he grinned at your scrunched up nose and scoffed comments and thought fuck, I love you. It was easy when he could pretend it was a simple, passing comment, a trick of the mind — but having it said as fact? 

Not so simple. But you don’t need to know that. “Is that so?"

You don't seem to notice his momentary pause — a lifetime of rambling in his time, a second's hesitation in regular time — too busy staring at the space where his fingers stretch apart over the sheets. Just inches away from yours. "We're friends, aren't we?"

Oh.

"Oh." Satoru blinks back. "Oh, yeah. Best friends, you and I, crybaby."

"I know it's normal for us," you say, ploughing ahead, "to just lose and lose and keep losing, but… I'll be honest. I never fully got used to it, and I don't want to."

He wishes he could say the same, but he can't.

He understands, in some capacity. Nobody wants to see the people around them die, a continuous and vicious cycle. Nobody wants to get so used to loss that most funerals no longer hold any emotional significance. But getting used to it had saved him. Getting used to it helped him act without consequence, without remorse, and that's what the battlefield both needs and requires of him.

He could count on both hands the people he wants to save in this world — about half of them were dead, at this point. A lot of them died while he was imprisoned. Two, he had to kill himself. He swore he'd protect the rest with all Six Eyes, every non-existent boundary of his Limitless.

So Satoru doesn't care much about getting used to death and dying and loss and grief. As long as you're okay, he's okay. As long as his job as the Strongest is done, everything is as it should be.

He doesn't say that to you, of course. You'd probably curse him out and call him a heartless bastard. Instead, he nods, hums and agrees and tells you the names of those who died when you work up the courage to ask.

It's a long night. It's an even longer list.

10.

Shoko keeps you for observation for 10 days after you wake up — three days longer than necessary, but she won't hear it from him, no matter how many times he reminds her that technically she falsified her degree—

He's joking. Mostly.

Satoru volunteers himself to help you back home, taking with you the plastic bag filled with your cleaned sorcerer's garb and weapon. He carries it over his shoulder along with two teddy bears, a half-wilted bouquet of tulips and a half-eaten box of chocolates (all courtesy of the second years — except for the chocolates, which are half-eaten because of him). He winds his other arm around your waist even though you can walk perfectly fine, but — it's just in case. Purely precautionary. For once, you don’t argue about being babied.

In the midday sun outside, you tilt your head back and close your eyes and smile. For a moment, it's as if the sadness has melted away from you — the tears you shed over Yuuji, Nanami, Suguru. The tears you shed over him, and he wasn't even dead. Satoru is glad your eyes are closed — even beneath his sunglasses, it's painfully obvious that he's staring.

You decide to take the subway home — it's my first time outside in almost a year, you remind him, so he pushes down any arguments he might have and enjoys the too-cramped journey towards Akihabara. You’re both shoved standing together, between a panicked looking man holding a tray of coffee and a woman with her child hanging about her legs, your head bobbing against his chest as the train moves. 

For a moment — as the train passes momentarily out of the underground and becomes encapsulated in light — it's easy to drown in the normalcy of it all. For a moment, he sees himself looking in as a stranger would. Here, he isn't the Six Eyes; just a simple man taking his girlfriend home, standing close on the train, wishing to be closer. Riding home to your shared apartment where he'll peel oranges and feed them to you, where he'll lay his head in your lap and hold your hands to his heart.

His nose wrinkles. He prefers reality, he thinks, where he can be powerful and have you by his side; where he can protect you, uphold peace, change the jujutsu world for the best — and then go home all the same, and have you to hold.

"What are you thinking about?" You mumble against his collar.

"Oranges," he replies.

"I don't have any at home," you say, "or if I did, they're rotted."

"Don't worry — we cleaned your kitchen up. Me and the kids." It was an afternoon of Yuuji attempting to shove rotting potatoes in Nobara's face. That was before Shibuya; before everything, really.

"Oh? You got your hands dirty?"

Satoru tries to not think about that same beaming, smiling Yuuji's last breaths. "Of course! This is me we're talking about, honey. I was front and centre."

You snort, soft against his neck. It's a wonder he went almost a year without you. "Housewife Satoru. I'll keep it in mind."

When you return to your apartment, you shower together for the first time in forever. He spends extra time and care massaging shampoo into your scalp, detangling each knot; spends extra time rinsing the suds out, tilting your head back with a gentle tap to your chin. 

Steam clogs his mind. Almond shower oil and citrusy shampoo fog his senses. The realisation that you could have potentially been taken away from him sits heavy like a stone in his stomach — why it hadn't sunk in in the past, oh, 13 months or so, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he's terribly bad at caring for precious things — but if he could, if it's possible, he'll remould and reshape his hands, his heart, his mind, just for the chance—

"Satoru," you breathe against his lips, "Bow your head."

(Bow your head, you say. He'd kneel if you asked him to.)

You brush your hands through his hair; rinse him free of suds and bubbles and kiss his temples as you shut off the water. What is supposed to be healing for you is quickly becoming therapy for him — muscles relaxing, mind clearing of all responsibilities, mournings, obligations. All he knows are the soft, newly washed sheets beneath him and your nose in the crook of his neck.

It's a strange sensation, the lack of tension, his brain not working overtime. But hardly unwelcome.

11.

Satoru asks you if you saw anything when you were indisposed. Memories, flashbacks, prophecies? Blurry half-truths, nonsensical babbling? You tell him that you can't really remember — and you can't, not really, but you do remember one thing.

When you were 11, you met Satoru and Suguru for the first time. It's that memory that you can remember playing in your head, over and over and over again: Satoru and Suguru, scrawny and still-faced in their yukata. 

Satoru was from a great, traditional house. Suguru was not, but upon discovery of his powers, was taken into unofficial custody of the higher-ups. In most circumstances, you wouldn’t have been allowed within two feet of them — but the elders had deemed your cursed technique a great gift, and so you were warily accepted into the upper echelons of jujutsu society, a stranger, a foreigner.

Introducing you to the most powerful sorcerers your age was nothing more than political play, of course. The adults followed behind as you walked through the grand grounds of the Gojo family — (maintained by a team of 12 gardeners, according to the Lady of the house) — muttering and scheming between themselves, making sure nothing would go awry.

Nothing did, of course. Satoru picked his nose and Suguru told him it was rude and they bickered for a while — Satoru bickered, Suguru replied calmly and quickly. Satoru asked you if your technique was good or bad ("No such thing," interjected Suguru) and whether or not you think you could beat him in a fight. 

(That last question was to stroke his own ego, of course. Everyone knew he was the strongest sorcerer born in the last century.)

At some point, Satoru made you cry. 

You can't remember what about, all these years later — you'd think you'd remember, considering the fact that you know the amount of gardeners employed by the Gojo estate — but you know that you had tried to stop it; fists balled, teeth gritted, full-body heaves. Crying was the last thing you had wanted to do. Crying meant weakness. Weakness meant being taken advantage of.

But you were so scared. It was all so alien. You wanted to go home, but home didn’t exist anymore. You wanted your mother, but your mother was long gone. All you had left were stone-faced adults that were only interested in your abilities. 

Suguru had been confused at your reaction to what he took as a harmless quip — a little callous, as most children are — but he had reassured you nonetheless.

"Don’t cry. Satoru speaks before he thinks," he'd said, nudging your shoulder. "Sometimes you have to ignore him and he'll be so bored that he has to think."

"I can hear you," Gojo huffed. "I didn't mean to."

"See?" Suguru smiled. "Works like a charm."

Yes, Suguru had always been there to protect you. Emotionally, at least. He was willing to be kinder to people. More gentle, more forgiving. He'd believed that it was his duty as a sorcerer to protect those that couldn't protect themselves, and—

Well. That had changed, by the end, but having that memory replay in your head made you see the bigger picture of it all. Suguru's place in things. Your place in things.

You'd loved Suguru, no doubt. And you’ll probably always carry a piece of him with you — you'd hate to do otherwise. You’ll carry his kindness and his jokes and his catlike smile, all tucked away in bubble wrap somewhere in your chest cavity — but you will never disregard his wrongdoings. Since his death, you'd argued against the two sides of him; felt guilty for loving him after what he did, felt guilty for hating him after loving him and knowing him for as long as you did. Two halves of a whole. Darkness in light and light in darkness.

He was both of those things. You love him, but you don’t forgive him, and you probably never will. He will never again be the boy that comforted you after Satoru made you cry; he will never again be the boy who let you braid his hair back. He won't be the boy who slaughtered innocents, either — death's funny like that. Indiscriminately doing away with both the good and the bad.

And that's okay. Kenjaku is dead, after all, and Suguru can finally rest — and with him, your warring mind.

12.

Midnight strikes and you're still awake. You don’t even seem tired, and that's after a long shower and takeout and a movie. Usually you'd be a drooling mess by now, but tonight is different. Feels different. Satoru isn’t sure if it's just a year's worth of built up sexual tension or something else, but he feels it regardless. 

He's flopped on his stomach, hair still damp; you're curled up in the shape of a C, skin reflecting the light of the TV. He might visit Nobara tomorrow. Megumi usually goes on Wednesdays, too — they could make a day out of it, and you could tag along, too. He's got a craving for the pistachio macarons they sell near—

"I'm in love with you," you announce. 

Satoru doesn't bother asking you to repeat yourself because he knows he didn’t mishear. It isn't the knowing that shocks him — he's not stupid, and you wear your heart on your sleeve — it's the sudden, quick verbal affirmation of it that catches him off guard. After all, haven’t you two been putting this all off? Yearning for a dead man? Being pulled from two opposing poles?

He turns his head towards you, opens his mouth to ask you just that, and—

"After Suguru, I thought I'd never be happy again," you say, and you’re smiling like you didn't just say something inherently heartbreaking. But no, you look fond — content, even, blinking slowly at him. "And I thought I'd never feel for someone as strong as I did for him. But here I am: happy, and in love, and okay."

Satoru opens his mouth — then closes it quickly. For some reason, he remembers something Suguru said to you when you were younger: "Satoru speaks before he thinks." But he wants to think about this — about what he should say. How does he respond to you quite literally baring your heart to him? How does he tell you what he wants to tell you, what you deserve to hear? He's never been good with real, genuine words — emotional shit never came easy to him out loud. His thoughts are much more concise than his mouth is, but he guesses it's because it moves so fast in comparison.

Pity you can't read his mind. It'd make things much easier. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” but he wants to, don't you know? "You don't have to pretend. It’s okay. I know that… maybe you don’t love me as much as you loved Suguru, but I know you love me in some way, at least—”

Satoru frowns — strings of ideas and thoughts bunching up and stopping short as your words register. “As much as I— hey, stop putting words in my mouth—"

"The truth is," you continue on, "I feel lighter than I have in years. I don't dread life so much anymore. I don't dread you anymore."

"You… dreaded me?"

You hum. Your legs stretch down, arms forward, face scrunched up in a passing yawn. "I'm not stupid to think you didn’t know how I felt, but… I hated that I was so obvious about it. Even when I was fighting with myself about it, I was obvious. It made me hate being around you, sometimes."

You sigh, then — not as heavy and melancholy as they used to be, no. This is a sigh of relief, of cathartic release. 

Satoru blinks, and attempts to wade through the seventy-or-so compulsions telling him to make a joke, to laugh, to tease you. Maybe he should actually be serious for once. Say it straight and say it firm, so you can't take anything the wrong way. If there was ever a time for him to not beat around the bush…

"I've liked you since I was 17," he confesses, finally. "Me and Suguru, we were together, y’know, and we were happy. And Suguru loved you, and somewhere along the line I… began to do the same, but we were so young and then… Everything changed so fast. Everything broke so fast.”

Your fingers brush against his, and he breathes in a sigh. Your eyes are wide and watery, low light reflecting like glitter in your eyes. 

"Sometimes, it keeps me up at night," Satoru says, laughing a pained sort of laugh. "Out of everything, that's what keeps me up — that we could've been happy together, all three of us. It never would’ve been enough to make him change, but…"

At least you would’ve known what it was like. To be happy together in that way. To be content. To find your places in the world, hand and hand. To know what it was like — even if Suguru’s fall from grace was inevitable — so you wouldn’t have to keep wondering until your untimely, gruesome, sorcerer-style deaths, or whatever. 

Back then, Satoru didn’t understand why Suguru never told you how he felt. He couldn't understand how he could be content watching from afar, looking but never touching. What Satoru wanted, he learned to take; the Strongest didn’t need to ask for permission, only forgiveness. 

He learned quickly that some things were better left unsaid. And now, 28 years old, half of his friends, students, colleagues dead — he understands even more. 

He remembers how Yuuji had tried to stave off tears when he realised he had to die; remembers how his student’s throat had felt being crushed in his hands. He loved Yuuji like a little brother. Like a son, even. He was family. He was his student, and yet his death had been necessary, and Satoru battled with it. It allowed him to succeed in the mission he was born to complete. But he had given up Yuuji in return.

There is no curse more twisted than love.

Therein lays the problem, he supposes. The second you love someone, you run the risk of having them end up like Yuuji did. Like Suguru did. Like Nanami did. When you are burdened with incredible power like Satoru is — like Suguru was — you must be able to sacrifice for it. The closer that people are, the more likely they are to be caught in the crossfire, the more likely you are to be hurt. Suguru hoped to avoid that at all costs. It was easier to watch from afar, less painful. 

Satoru is a tad more selfish. Which is bad, he knows, because he's too prepared to sacrifice. Even now. Even now, he knows that if caught between saving you and saving society, he would be forced to — to—

Satoru inhales. The only thing for it is to simply stop things from getting that far. 

He could explain all this to you. He could talk circles around you about it, in fact, but the truth is that it's all conjecture. Suguru isn’t here to tell him why he did what he did. He can’t speak for him, no matter how well he knew him.

"I don't know why Suguru never told you," Satoru says instead. He folds his fingers tighter, taking yours in his grip as he does so. "Guess that's something he took with him to the grave."

"I've stopped wondering," you say. “I’ll never stop regretting, but I’ve stopped wondering. I can’t stay rooted in the past any more. It was doing more harm than good."

And you raise your interlocked hands — nestle them under your chin and screw your eyes shut, like you're wishing on the evening star, like he's something precious to be treasured. All of a sudden he's 17 and confused about why he can't stop staring at you. He doesn’t have Suguru to tease him about it, now.

“I’ll never forget him,” Satoru announces — a warning, or a reassurance, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s telling the truth and nothing but the truth, and whether or not you like his truth is not his concern. He respects you too much to lie about this to you.

Your lips twitch upwards, a phantom of a smile. “Neither will I. "

"I'll never forget you, either."

The smile grows, blooms, blossoms, until it stretches bright and full across your face. The first smile of yours he's seen in a while that wasn't at half-mast, or tinged with sadness, or pain, or fatigue.

"How lucky I am," you whisper, "to be known by you, Gojo Satoru."

It should be the other way around, he thinks.

(12.5.

It's the first time he makes love in years.

Satoru has always fucked you. Always. No matter how tired you both were, no matter how injured — he'd always force himself to be rougher, force his touches to not linger as much as he wanted them to.

If he felt too much, he'd crack a joke instead of drowning in it; if he felt his eyes beginning to burn he'd bury his nose in the crook of your neck and push it down. If he thought of long, dark hair and cat-like eyes, he'd tighten your grip in his hair and the shock of pain would clear his mind. He fucked quick, and when he was done he'd lay far away enough that he couldn't feel your skin against his.

Tonight, he lets himself love and be loved again. 

You're on top of him, ass flush against his thighs, taking every inch he has to give you; his hands have found your jaw, thumbs brushing back and forth across your dewy, sweat-slick cheeks. One hand of yours clasps around his wrist; the other bands to his chest, nails digging red into his skin. Your cursed energy blooms, flushes, flourishes when he opens his eyes to look at you. 

He sees every pore, every hair, every dimple, every broken capillary, every scratch and scrape. Every part of you, bending to him in some places, unfalteringly stubborn in others. 

"Look at you," he mumbles, blinking dumbly. "So… pretty…"

You snort something like a laugh, and continue: up, down, up, down. Slow, grinding gyrations of your hips that make his head spin pleasantly; and with his Limitless nullified, he feels every inch of skin, every tensing of muscle, every scrape and press fully and completely. He’s never felt so engulfed in it before — the sensations of it all, the warmth, your scent, your weight above him.

He'd drown in you, if he could. Take you in his mouth and nose and ears and everywhere, until he's left gasping for air and grappling for something of substance. Maybe once upon a time he would keep those thoughts to himself, for whatever reason — but now he's allowed to be selfish in his affections, allowed to give more than surface-level compliments and vague declarations of love.

Between pleasure-ridden shudders and sloppy, wet kisses, he breathes:

"I want you everywhere," he says, "All the time. Over me, on me, in me—"

You raise a brow, impudent and teasing in a way that makes his abdomen tighten. "In you?"

And maybe he didn’t mean it in the way that you took it, but he plays along anyways, waggling his brows. "You heard me."

"You're terrible."

"I'm not joking," Satoru argues — but it’s hard to take him seriously when his voice quietens, when he arches up eagerly to meet your lips— 

When his grip on your lower back becomes painfully tight, when his lips part in a moan and his eyes screw shut and he throws his head back, hips rutting up to meet yours, and—

His peak rises to greet him — and his heart swells all the while. He finds himself clawing for you as his orgasm builds, hands clambering against your back, your neck, your hair, until (with a great, shaking breath, may he add): "Fuck, I — mmf, I love you—"

It carries him off to a state of fuzzy, empty-minded ignorance — pleasure tightening his entire body, fizzling from the tips of his fingers to his curling toes. Your name on his tongue, slurred and mellifluous, his smile dizzy and drunk. 

As you smile down at him, so unbearably fond, Satoru thinks that he doesn’t mind saying I love you aloud after all.)

[yeloenk]

i want to apologize more formally for answering the anon who gave me a false list of proshippers.

ever since making a post asking proshippers to please block me (i had some who were following me), people have been anonymously sending me some lists of proshippers/controversial people in the UTMV fandom.

i have answered a few, but only those that were calling out proshippers that have actually confirmed to be proshippers.

when i received this ask in particular, i just saw someone giving me a list with no ill-intent behind it. so, without giving much thought, i replied to the ask.

my intention with this was to let others know who to block/avoid; not to harass, witch-hunt, etc. i am aware that these kinds of lists can encourage this behavior, which i take responsibility for. i genuinely apologize for using my platform in this way—even if it was done unintentionally, it was still wrong of me to do.

this being said, i do NOT stand for harassment in any way, shape, or form. even if it is directed towards proshippers, that is no way to solve the real issue. proshippers need help, they do not need more reason to need help. purposefully going out of your way to stalk, bully, send threats, or ANYTHING of that nature is wrong.

i made my first apology in a panicked rush, once i saw people telling me that the anon was spreading misinformation. however, in that blog, i did not acknowledge how my actions could have harmed people listed (especially ones who were listed falsely).

if you were affected in any way by my response to this anon, i apologize personally to you. please know this was not my intent: even if you are a proshipper, my only thoughts regarding that ask was "hey! cool, a free blocklist."

everyone is human, and nobody should be treated this way. although i think proshippers are morally wrong, and need help/therapy, they are still real people behind the screen. real people affected by your actions: mine included. the best thing you can do in the situation of seeing a proshipper is blocking them instead of instigating interaction.

i will no longer be doing anything like this again now that i am taking into consideration that some people are using these lists as witch-hunt lists. i should have checked all of the names before replying, especially since the list included no proof whatsoever. in the future, i do promise to be mindful and very cautious when addressing topics like these, especially when it comes to checking facts.

i do hope i can be forgiven, but i understand if not. i understand my actions have consequences, and i understand i was in the wrong taking a hand in spreading false information and encouraging harassment.

the purpose of this apology is to acknowledge what i did wrong, learn from it, and move on. and, to clear up why i replied to the list. keep in mind that it is not an excuse for my actions, but a reason for them. i still made the choice to answer this ask and not at least clarify to block them instead of harassing them.

to the anon who sent that ask: do not spread false information, please. it only hurts those who are involved, nothing good comes out of it for either side.

one more thing i wish to add:

to the grown adults sending me asks, insulting me: what is wrong with you? i am a 16 year old. i am going to make mistakes. it's a part of life, a part of learning. if you seriously think you're doing good by being nasty to a kid on tumblr because of a stupid choice they made, you further strengthen my belief that proshippers need help.

there's also been people just blatantly insulting things about me that are unrelated to the situation as a whole? my art, for example. please stop.

i don't want my blog to be focused on drama, so i'm not going to post much at all about stuff like proshippers anymore. i'll probably just be sharing art for the most part.

[junkdyke]

That Time I Hooked Up With A Tumblr Mutual

Ok. Let me start by saying this is not a callout post, and this should be read as a humorous story, with some takeaway lessons at the end. Please enjoy my story of my weird ass encounter with a Tumblr mutual.

Part 1: The Backstory

Alight so boom. I had just returned home from a trip where I met a different Tumblr mutual. That trip was great but didn't end up going to plan, so long story short, ya girl was horny. I had never really had a one-night-stand or sought out a solely sexual hookup, so I started thinking maybe I could try it out, see how I like it. And through the sheer power of manifestation, that opportunity presented itself.

I was scrolling Tumblr and one of my mutuals posted asking if anyone was in (my area) and wanted to hang out. Mind you, I have never spoken to this mutual before. No DMs, maybe like 1 or 2 comments through tags and that's it. But, most of my moots are far as fuck, so when I saw she was near me I was like oh ayo, I'm free! Why not, I had nothing else going on! So I reply, and she DMs me.

So she introduces herself, we'll call her Chicle for reasons I'll get to later in the story lmao. Anyway, she gushes a little bit, saying she's been too shy to DM me and that I'm a really cool tattoo artist mutual, I say she's cute and seems cool, and she asks if I've ever been to this particular mall. I say I have and if she wants to cruise the mall with me. She says yeah I'd love to cruise the mall and "if I like her vibe, then maybe we can do something more fun." I say I'm down, she gives me her number.

So here is what I'm envisioning. We'll meet up at the mall, walk around and talk, get to know each other, have some laughs, get a snack, it was a Friday so maybe we could go out to like a bar or go dancing, and then maybe after that, possibly make-out or even have sex! I am not opposed to having sex after a first date if I'm really vibing with the person and if we've been talking for a bit before. Girls, this is not what happened.

Part 2: The Meeting

I get ready, and I drive to the mall. I park, we text on where to meetup and I head over to the Gamestop. I see her at the counter, go up and I'm like "are you buying Pokemon cards?" She starts laughing, she says "I didn't want you to see this!" I'm laughing, I told her it's cute, she finishes paying and we walk around. Cute start and thennnn it all starts to go downhill from here.

As we are walking out of the Gamestop, a minute and thirty seconds into meeting this stranger, she wraps her arm, not around my waist...but around my ass. And pulls me close. I'm instantly uncomfortable by how close this gesture is. She starts cooing in my ear about how she's "so glad I'm not a catfish" and "if I like her vibe because she really likes mine". We met not even 5 minutes ago, I have not had time to evaluate any vibes! But anyway! She asks if she wants smoke 🍃 so I agree, and we go outside, right across from where we just were.

I get to take like 1 hit from this pen, she then steps close to me and says "I'm so glad you're real" kisses me and squeezes my ass. I again feel the need to emphasize that at this point, it has still been less than 5 minutes since we've met, and we have exchanged about 10 messages only a couple hours prior. This is a stranger to me. ANYWAY.

We go back inside, she asks if I wanna walk around, I agree. We chat for a short bit of time, before we go to the food court. I wasn't hungry, so she got some food and we sat and talked. I had made some mention about my past and she wanted to know more so I'm like "okay, I'll give you my lore while you eat" so I basically tell Chicle my life story. Afterwards, we go to walk around more and I start trying to ask her questions so I can get to know her more. It becomes very apparent that she is not interested in getting to know each other lmao. I ask what she does for work, and what she's interested in, and she tells me she's interested in getting into (something animation related) and i'm like "oh ayo, that aligns with what I do" and start trying to get more info cause i'm curious, annd I get just the shortest fucking answers. Ok.

She ends up making a comment about how I'm probably more experienced than her, and I'm like "oh really? Well how many people have you been with?" and Chicle asks "are we counting online?" Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with this...but it does become more clear on just how "online" this person is. Anyway, she has only been with a few people, never had a partner. It becomes very clear as to why she may have never had a partner.

Part 3: Inappropriate Behavior

We are walking around the mall, stopping in a few stores to look at stuff. Chicle is walking next to me and I am still trying to invoke conversation. But Chicle is not interested in conversation, because instead, she is deliberately and blatantly staring directly at my tits. What I mean is, mid-walking, she is at my side, craning her head to the side to make it incredibly clear that that is what she is doing. I straight up ask "are you...staring at my tits?" she confirms as such, and says something about her being a dog. The dog thing will come up again.

Chicle is at different points, holding me, kissing me, and saying various suggestive things. She grabs me and whispers in my ear "do you want to go back to my room" and I nervous laugh and say "uhhh, we'll see!" At another point, she says "you're so small, you want me to manhandle you and throw you around?" and I again nervous laugh. We're like in Hot Topic, and she start trying to makeout with me and grabbing my ass and says "you're making me so hard"(we'll put a pin in that) and I push her away and say "not in public". I can do a little PDA but this is a lot, and at this point I have known her for about 40 minutes, maybe an hour.

Continuing on, as we're walking through this crowded mall, she drapes her arm over my shoulder and starts grabbing my boob and trying to pinch my nipples, which I immediately pull away from and again say "not in public". Chicle again says "do you wanna get out of here and go back to my room" and I'm questioning what exactly she means, because the phrasing is a little weird. "what do you mean 'your room'?" and she says "I have a hotel room" so I'm a little confused cause I thought she lived in the area. She does.

"i got us a room"

Ya'll, this bitch preemptively booked a MOTEL ROOM without even asking me.

At this point, she has asked multiple times and each time I nervous laughed and said "haha maybe, we'll see, ehhh we'll see" To any normal person, my body language was extremely clear that I was uncomfortable. And again this is not a callout post, she is not a bad person, and everything that ultimately happened, I did consent to. But I will not sugarcoat the fact that this behavior was definitely inappropriate harassment, and there was absolutely some pressuring with the continuous asking. But as I mulled it over, there were 2 reasons I ultimately decided to agree and meet her at that motel.

I was craving intimacy

I had never done something like this before so..fuck it, let's do it for the plot.

And so, she gave me the address, we got in our respective cars, and we met at the motel.

Part 4: The Motel

We go to the room, put our stuff down, and I go to use the restroom. I'm thinking "oh shit, this is weird but alright, let's see what happens"

I come out of the restroom, wash my hands, and she comes over and we start kissing. Already it's fucking weird because the way she is kissing me is so goddamn fast, it's like someone inhaling a meal because they think it's gonna run away from them. Now idk about ya'll, but I like a slow, deep kiss. So already it's a mismatch, but whatever. She lifts me onto the sink, despite the weird kissing, it's hot. She has some really minty gum in her mouth, hence the name Chicle. Put a pin in that.

After a bit, we go to the bed, and I keep saying "how did you get me here" because honestly, I'm not fully comfortable, it's just a weird situation for me and I'm surprised I agree to it. But agree to it I did, so we get on the bed, and keep going. Now, even though she does not have much experience, she's not bad! But...I can tell there's certain things she's doing that I've seen. Or rather, read. Whew lad.

As we're getting into it, my clothes are coming off, she's saying "You're my favorite Tumblr mutual. I can't believe this is what my favorite Tumblr mutual is into." I don't even really know what to say to this because quite frankly, mentioning social media in bed in any capacity is kinda fucking cringe. But it just gets worse.

So, she's spitting on my pussy. And I, personally, have a strong aversion to spit. It's something that I tell anyone that is a potential sexual partner, but it this case, we obviously did not have a prior talk about our sexual boundaries. In this case, I'm like "okay whatever as long as it's just there" but I quickly say "hey uh, just please don't do that in my mouth or i'll throw up" lmao. She's like "Oh okay sorry sorry". But then at some point, without warning she smacks the FUCK out of my pussy, and I'm so taken aback I immediately say "UH DON'T DO THAT" and she again apologizes and says

"Oh sorry, you know I had to try that one. Like that Tumblr post, you know the one."

Ya'll, everything this bitch is doing, she is referencing posts from Tumblr. She is referencing the sexy fantasy butch/femme text posts from Tumblr and she is referencing them out loud. In the middle of real life sex.

She goes on to reference more posts, and the worst part is I know exactly the one's she's talking about. "Mutuals to lezz out with" etc etc, it's so fucking cringe, and she tells me about how she started wearing more of a certain article of clothing after I reblogged a picture of her in it and how embarrassed she is to admit that (I thought that was kinda cute actually) anyway

She's still going way too fast with like all her movements, I tell her to slow down and relax and I think at this point I mention how she did not have to do all that PDA shit from before. She says "well you know, on my Tumblr I do say I'm a dog" and then uh, she starts barking. 💀 literally starts going "woof, woof" and I tell her to s t o p. Jesus fucking christ.

Anyway, after mentioning Tumblr and calling me her favorite Tumblr mutual way too many fucking times, I'm on top of her. Mind you, this whole time, I'm kinda in and out dissociating, just due to how not fully comfortable I am with this. But ya know, I'm still going for it. Her shirts off, she has really cute boobs, and then I notice a really fucking huge bulge in her pants. And I fully dissociate. Not gonna lie, I started feeling really panicky, because straight up, I was not prepared for this. Physically, I'm still touching her, but my mind is fully disconnected, and I'm thinking "oh fuck. When she said 'you're making me so hard' was she being literal? I don't know if I'm comfortable with this. Should I tell her I want to stop? But I don't wanna hurt her feelings. Should I just take it? Well no, I don't really want to...maybe I'll just say 'hey is it cool if I don't touch it?' I mean, she's cute so ehhhhh let's just see what happens!" SO. We continue on.

We flip and she's now on top of me. She references another fucking Tumblr post, and says "do you wanna suck on this lesbian cock?", unzips her pants and pulls out...this MASSIVE transparent strap on. And I'm like oh, it was fake LMAO. Then I say "...yeah, so that's not going in me"

She ends up taking it off, I don't even know how the fuck she hid it in her jeans that entire time, and we continue on. Around this point, I'm starting to feel pretty spent, she did some other things like opening up my pussy to stare at it and describe the color, whatever, I'm kinda done and I just wanna cuddle. So we cuddle for a bit and again, it's physically nice but it's just so weird because she is SUCH a stranger to me that I can't get fully comfortable. She starts trying to start up again and I'm just not really in the mood anymore. She keeps playing with my nipples and typically whenever I'm touched in a way I'm not digging, I'll just take their hand and move it away as a silent but pretty clear way to indicate "no". But uh, I had to do that like 4 times with her before I verbally say "hey, please stop" and her response is "why" 💀 like wdym "why" bitch, cause i said so. I'm kinda surprised by this response so I start to say "Uhhhh, it's...kinda specific" and she goes "oh okay, sorry sorry".

So, honestly, I kinda just wanna go home but I don't wanna be mean and just take off. But there's also no way in hell I'm sleeping over in this motel room. So, I suggest we go out and maybe go to a club or something and she's like "uh, no. I don't like going out" 💀 like damn, maybe you should spend less time on FUCKING TUMBLR AND TRY GOING OUT IRL but whatever, instead we just go get food and bring it back to the room.

Part 5: What Could Have Been

We got some burgers, and she wants to open the Pokemon cards. We do, that's fun and cute, and she asks if I wanna keep some of the stickers that came in one of the packs.

Then she tells me that she had went to the library and checked out a book on tattoos since "she knows I'm a tattoo artist, and thought we could flip through it together." And I genuinely think this is such a cute fucking gesture, I think it's really sweet, and it frustrates the fuck out of me because of what this could have been.

I told her that she did not have to do all the PDA, it was a lot and it was excessive. She is not apologetic about it, and says that the reason she was like that was because "she needed me to know what her intentions were and that this was not just a 'friendly' meeting." so I reiterate that she did not have to do ALL OF THAT just for me to know that. And she just insists that in the past, girls have treated her like just a "bestie" so she needed to get her point across. Now call me old fashioned, but you could have just verbally fucking communicated "hey, i'm really attracted to you" and I would have caught the fucking drift. But okay!!

She asks me if I have any knives because I guess femmes tend to have a knife collection. I say no. And she fucking pulls out this huge ass lethal switchblade thing and is like "this is mine!" and i'm like oh god, this is it, I'm gonna fucking die in this motel room. But she doesn't kill me, she just shows me the cool knife and then puts it away. I have known this person for like 4 hours.

So, we flip through the book, and it's funny and cute, but she keeps trying to kiss me and instigate, and i'm just not interested, I just wanna flip through the book and go the fuck home. And that's pretty much what happens, we finish, I'm like "aight, ima head out" but

before i do

we end up making out again and then I think she was helping me put my shoes on?? she's on her knees in front of me and...she asks me to spit in her mouth. Once again, I have a major aversion to spit and i really, truly, do not want to spit in her mouth. But she says please...so I do like a half assed spit and hope it's good enough. She asks me to try again....so I get an accumulation and spit in her mouth, and she swallows it and i am so so sad about it 😭 and I finish getting my shit and I go the FUCK HOME.

Now here is what frustrates me about all this. Physically? This girl is extremely my type. I like the way she dresses, she has really nice arms, she has a cute face, she's really fucking attractive. She's interested in getting into the animation industry, which I'm currently also working on getting into as well. We could have talked about that and really had a cool discussion on what kind of projects she wants to do and what style she works in. She likes video games, we could have talked more about what games we like. She got this tattoo book because she knows I'm a tattoo artist, and I think that's really fucking cute. There's so many non-sexual aspects that could have made this a real fucking date where I got to know this person, and feel comfortable, and then we could have had really great sex because straight up, the girl was good. She may have learned it from Tumblr, and some of it was weird, but for the most part? She was damn good, especially for only having limited experience. This could have turned into something real! But NO. Chicle, instead, wanted to grope my tits in front of families an hour into meeting me, and made no effort to really let me get to know her in any capacity whatsoever! And it's not like she wanted this to be just a one-night-stand, because she had told me she was looking for a gf and asked me what I was looking for!

It just could have been so much better than this weird ass situation. And after the fact, she texted me and I answered a couple times, but when the following morning she said something to the effect of "it felt so good having you on my lap" I just never answered. Because prior to this, there was absolutely no established relationship, friendship or otherwise. And I could not see anything moving forward, because we couldn't backtrack into the aforementioned "could have been". I considered communicating how I didn't actually feel super comfortable with how things went, but I ultimately just decided to not reply. Shitty on my part, but again, there was no prior anything. And we just never spoke again, we remained mutuals, and so I never talked about this because uh, obviously she would see it. But since she blocked me, heyho now you all get the story!

Part 6: Epilogue

Now, the reason I decided to call her Chicle (Spanish for Gum)

So, while the nice minty gum was a nice gesture, her spitting that gum juice all over my vagina resulted in me getting a yeast infection💀 No more hookups.

So what lessons did we learn!

It's important to talk about sexual boundaries before having sex with someone!

Internet fantasy is not real life! Don't just do shit because you read about it in a fucking internet post or saw it in porn! (Especially when that person doesn't even make those kinds of posts, i don't reblog most of those for a reason)

Don't chew gum before going down on someone

Communication overall is really important for setting up any foundation, even if it is just a one-night hookup!

(yes this is ok the RB cause I spent forever writing this and I do genuinely think it's a very funny story. Sometimes ya just gotta do things for the plot so you get a good story out of it. No regrets, and my pussy is all healed up lmao)

[ko-existing]

Hello Ko! I'm so glad you joined Tumblr, I think out of everyone I know and follow, you are the most trustworthy person to get information from. You truly know what you're talking about and you're very very helpful to us with questions. ❤️ I'm gonna try to make this as short as possible because I don't want to make you read a long, rant-ish question. Basically, I really really need some guidance/advice. Like I need some serioussss help..

For about 6 years, I've been "trying" to manifest, reality shift etc. I was focused on desires and getting. I was focused on doing methods to get things and "trying" things. would look all the time for information and "how to's" because I just wanted to shift realities so badly so I could experience all of the crazy things I would imagine. Nothing ever worked for me, not once in those 6 years. I eventually started to panic and think I was wasting years of my life on stuff that wasn't real (yet I'd still hope and try anyway) however I found non-dualism. Like I said, I was VERY focused on desires and getting, so as much as I told myself that I understand non-dualism, deep down I was still attached to ego and understood nothing. I viewed nondualism as a method. I still wanted desires deep down, even if I tried to say "No I want to be free!". I've now come to accept that if I truly want to be free, I need to genuinely STOP seeking desires and things of the ego. I need to accept that if I'm gonna be stuck on desiring, then ND isn't for me. So with that said, I told myself I'd follow non dualism properly and I wouldn't use it as a manifestation or shifting method.

This is the part where I ask for advice. When you're someone who has been stuck up on wanting to shift realities and get things so badly, for SO long, it's hard to let it all go suddenly. I don't know how to drop these thoughts that I get. I feel delusional and depressed because I hate this "life". I remind myself that it isn't real but then I feel insane and I tell myself I need to accept reality and stop hoping for miracles. I no longer wish to fulfill desires or use methods, I want to be free from feeling like this, I want to genuinely not live as if I'm ego anymore but it feels like my thoughts never stop. In the back of my mind, I always think "but I just wanna shift" "I'm delusional" "I am this body/mind"

Ko, I need any kind of guidance. Is there some materials I should read? I'll honestly read whatever books necessary. I don't know what to do 😅 I want to have the same understanding you do. I go to sleep every night thinking "maybe I can wake up in a new reality" and it completely defeats the purpose of me having no duality. I'm always hoping and trying, even when I don't want to "hope" or "try". I get so confused so easily and I think about going back to manifestation, but it never worked and I got depressed because of it. I want to free myself from these ego emotions, free from thinking I need this or that, free from having duality. I want to TRULY understand nondualism and live that way. Forgive me if this is long! I didn't intend to trauma dump or vent in your ask box, like I said before you're just one of the people I trust most. You're very knowledgeable on nondualism and I appreciate your posts very very much 🤍

First step, understand that Non dualism is ONLY(!!!!!!!!!!) a POINTER to what 'you' are. Being fixiated on 'trying to understand ND' is a trap you shouldn't fall into. I used it as a pointer(!) i do not "practise" any concepts.

I cannot stress enough how it is ONLY A POINTER, NOT THE "SOLUTION" NOR "ABSOLUTE TRUTH". "THAT" which you fundamentally are, IS Absolute.

Who has been "trying" all this time? -> The 'person' you THINK you are.

Who "wants" to understand? -> The 'person' you THINK you are

Use it as a pointer and then drop it.

I'm so serious, NEVER see it as the solution, it is a trap to do so. It will help as a start but go BEYOND that. It is nothing but another concept TO HELP.

A lot of you speak about the "ego" like it is some separate entity causing confusion and suffering but it is not. It is ONLY(!!!!!) who you THINK(!!!!) you are. If you stopped thinking about it, could you tell me who you seemingly are?

There are no books needed to """understand""" the basics of this concept, even if you read it, to drop it and be beyond such illusory concepts, is something that is done with or without books.

What you are can NEVER be defined. "THAT" has no name, no label, no characteristics. Nothingness. Yet it seems(!!!!!!) to contain "everything".. but "everything" = "nothingness".

By repeatedly returning to "Nothingness", it becomes clear that you never actually left that "Nothingness" and that it is everywhere.

Drop every label and concept. Everything you SEEM to know. What are you left with?

-> " "

If 'you' want to, you can listen to "YourHigherSelf" on YouTube or the shorter videos of Swami Sarvapriyananda on YouTube.

But again, seeking continously for the Absolute, is a funny game and an even funnier trap. Have enough discipline to not do that and simply BE.

[nintendonut1]

I absolutely despise making posts like these, I just turned 35 years old and have little room in my life for online drama, but this has gotten to the point where folks' actual safety has become a legit concern of mine, so I don't think I can let this go without saying something.

At this point, for everyone in the SMRPG sub-fandom, or any other fandoms, honestly, it's probably a safe bet to block Yoylecake420 wherever you see them.

I don't have time for details or screenshots, I'll just summarize my personal experience with them.

At first, I got plenty of asks from them about their hyperfixations here on tumblr. I'm busy as hell, so most of them got lost in my inbox, and the ones I saw I had little time to entertain with an answer.

Then, they joined my Discord about a month ago, where they were active in sharing their art and stuff. Then me and the mods caught wind of them sending unsolicited DMs and friend requests to various members of the server, often with uncomfortable topics. We gave them a fair warning to stop. They did not.

This repeated behavior ended in a ban from the server. During this, they were also repeatedly making a mockery of my webcomic's OCs by making uncomfortable art/captions and submitting the characters to Kiss-Marry-Kill-style blogs despite me asking them not to, so I blocked them on Discord, Tumblr, deviantArt, and Art Fight. I know this is small potatoes compared to harassing people, but it's important context for the following.

A day after the ban from my server, they joined up the Spiderforest server, knowing I'm a part of that webcomic community. I was even warned by the mods, who were aware of Yoyle's behavior as they had already been messaging the SF tumblr about my comic.

A week later, they joined ComicFury, and replied to me on the forum, complimenting my work. Like nothing had ever happened. Like I didn't have them blocked everywhere else. Like they hadn't fully disrespected me, my work, and my community.

I directly messaged them telling them to leave me alone. Their response was a slight apology, but also admitting to being obsessed with my work, having a hard time moving on, and, ultimately, wanting the attention.

So. There it is. It pains me, knowing this is giving them the attention they want, but I'm too fucking old for games like that and the need for me to look out for everyone's safety is more important.

Yoyle is a person who does not care about others' personal boundaries. If you ignore them, they persist. If you tell them to stop, they do for a day or two, and then persist again. And if you block them, they'll evade it and stalk you to somewhere else on the internet.

Of course, it's not my place to tell anyone how to interact with others, but I am suggesting a pre-emptive block if you make, at the very least, Geno fanart, and aren't interested in being harassed across multiple platforms and having your boundaries stomped on. I do not suggest interacting with them, as they are the embodiment of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile."

I've got one screenshot here from a friend of all their alt accounts (this is publicly available on their main tumblr) for any pre-emptive blocking on those sites:

[ethelschapel]

do you have any idea about the story of willoughby and ethel and logan and can you explain it?

We don't know much about either character, especially Logan as the only real source material we have about him is the song Western Nights. However, I'll start with Willoughby as he's been hailed Ethel's first love. House in Nebraska is about him, the song clearly stating Ethel's extremely strong feelings for him but also outlining his departure or death or whatever happened to him that caused his split from Ethel. There's speculation that he died, that Ethel did something that caused him to leave her. A lot of what we know about Willoughby is purely conjecture, however in one way or another, Ethel and him separated before she met Logan and long before Isaiah.

There's an excerpt from a page of "Diary of a Preacher's Daughter" which Hayden posted herself saying, "As for me personally, I lost Willoughby that night. The only thing I've ever truly loved in this wretched life and I left him curled between the couch and the coffee table when it all got too loud. "Be mean" is what he'd tell me, every time I'd start my shaking. What he didn't tell me is that you can be mean and still be a coward. Some things you have to learn on your own."

You can read the full thing here.

Again, we don't know the full story surrounding Willoughby and probably never will until the book is published but that excerpt could lead us to believe that he died in the tornado. There's also another piece of source material, a fictional magazine called "Thoughts and Prayers for Ethel Cain," available to read here where the question "What about Willoughby Tucker? I know you two seemed pretty close before he moved away, have you kept in contact at all?" is asked. There's another interpretation here that he moved away, that Ethel could've done something to drive him away etc. I have to reiterate though that it's not confirmed what happened to him.

You may have also heard about the "B-sides" which are said to be all about Willoughby. You can find some collected information about them in this Reddit post. Note that although some of these things have been "confirmed" the artistic process is unpredictable and a lot of what's been discussed in asks and lives may not make it to the final project. The B-sides are also probably not coming for a while but Hayden has not scrapped the project as when saying her next project will have nothing to do with Preacher's Daughter she said, "no this doesn't mean b-sides are scrapped."

There's a lot to be revealed about Willoughby Tucker however he is a very important and frequently mentioned character by Hayden and the fandom.

Now, Logan is a different kettle of fish. He is Ethel's second love interest but is abusive, supposedly using Ethel for sex if you were to interpret the lyrics of Western Nights.

There's little known about Logan and he's very rarely mentioned by Hayden so just like with Willoughby, most of his lore is speculation. He is however a criminal, outlined by the line "Breaking in to the ATMs," and Ethel is dragged into the lifestyle alongside him. If it helps you visualise him better, Hayden has said before that Logan is a "hunky daddy." So...do with that what you will!

Either way, the relationship between the two is short-lived as he dies in a police shootout after robbing a bank causing Ethel to go on the run, ruminating on her relationship with Logan and how the abuse is a mirror of her relationship with her family, shown through the song Family Tree.

The most recent piece of lore we have was posted by Hayden on tumblr where she summarises the plot of Preacher's Daughter. See that here.

As I've said, it's not likely that much will be revealed until the book is out. I'm not Hayden and I don't have access to her head so understanding every detail is hard to do. I've tried to give different interpretations, piggy-backing off asks and source material that Hayden has posted herself, because the particulars are unknown and there's lot of contradictory things spread around. Art is meant to be interpreted though so do with this information as you wish.

If you want to do some of your own reading/listening, here's some other sources that could be useful:

. The lore page on Reddit

. Preachers Daughter document

. Thoughts and Prayers Mag

. Alt Press Mag

. The Line Of Best Fit Mag

. Artist Decoded

There's also another document which gives the basic interpretations of the story rather than lyrical analysis.

I hope this was helpful! And I hope I've made it clear that literally most of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt lol.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I send in screen shots to someone that made a callout post about a former friend?

Please read this entire thing before your decision. I understand the "blurb" may make me seem like a backstabber and someone you wouldn't trust, but I have my reasons I'll detail why this person is a former friend.

I'm a former friend of someone we'll call Marie. Marie, idk how to explain it, but she kind of didn't care about anyone but herself. Anytime someone would talk about something she'd make it about herself and it was very annoying. Marie also would make a lot of us uncomfortable at times. She said some racial slurs to us various times and claimed it wasn't racist. One was towards me and I asked her not to, basically I told her she can't call me a slur because she's white and made me feel uncomfortable. The other was some Irish thing I had to google because our friend who is Irish was uncomfortable and I'm still horrified with what I saw.

Marie would reblog my vent posts on tumblr a lot. None was ever to console me. One was where she reblogged and said "this would be a good ice breaker for a date." I did go off on her since at the time I had such a nasty break up and my vent had absolutely nothing to do with that. Now here's the issue, besides reblogging my vent posts, someone archived her reblog of my vent posts on the wayback. Multiple ones. I contacted wayback, but they said they only delete archives if the blog owner makes a statement on their blog. For reference, i have had multiple chronic stalkers and Marie was very well aware of it. So I already had wayback not allow archives of my blog because one stalker was using it to archive everything on me online. So a stalker found a loophole in the form of Marie. Now, this was before Tumblr had allowed us to disable reblogs. So no jumping to the comments saying it's my fault when this was years ago before that function was available. So, Marie refused and told me its whatever and if anything they were probably archiving her edits despite all of the archives on her blog had my vents she reblogged, like every single time she reblogged it got archived.

Now lastly, Marie was one of those people who would never celebrate anyone's victories. It was so weird, someone could say "oh, I got a new camera for my photography" and she'd say something like "in 3rd grade someone shat on my camera, so I never got a new camera". It would make stuff so awkward and make us not want to talk in our discord. I got a scholarship one year she decided to go to school (she was 12 years out of highschool) and she lost her financial aid in one semester because she didn't do any of her school work! Yet somehow "the government picks favorites and doesn't want to pay people that deserve it". Her words, I was very offended since she knew I worked full time, was a POC, and was not eligible for financial aid. Let me have the scholarship win without making it about you!

So one day I just blocked her everywhere after I deleted the friend discord we had. It wasn't right after, I waited over a year and became more and more distant. She did contact me again, but surprise surprise, she wanted me to help build her a website for her "oni-sona". I declined and we haven't spoken since.

Now the callout part. She has a callout under her new alias and it has her previous too. In this callout it's talking a lot about how she treats people like shit and uses them for her own gain. It details as well to not support her or any of her projects because she steals (idk about that, I've personally never witnessed it, but I'm believing OP because everything else is true.)

Now, would I be the AH if I submit stuff to add to the callout? I was just going to send in how she reblogged my vents and someone archived them on wayback and she refused to contact way back to delete them despite knowing I had stalkers. Maybe I'll submit more stuff, but not caring I had stalkers is my biggest gripe and something I think should be added since she allowed my stalkers to do that.

[arcanegifs]

On Gifmaking:

So season 2's coming soon, and I wanna reflect on making gifs ever since I came back to Tumblr. I can't believe it's been 2 years of making gifs for this show!!!!! Look at how large my folder is lmao

And those are JUST gifs lol

Anyways, over time, my style has changed, especially how I color edit Arcane gifs. I kind of strayed away from a stylized filter color into just something that looks a lot more "natural" and works with the original scene.

Initially, I thought I'd save time, but I ended up not using my old arcane preset PSDs and resulted to coloring almost every scene manually. So in the end, it takes even longer to make them HAHAHA. It takes around an hour and a half for me to make a 10 gif set, basically. It also helps that I have a photography background, so coloring/editing is a lot simpler for me.

Here's a lil before and after of a dark scene (hiiiii viiiiiii <3)

Arcane is a REALLY dark show, but it goes for most of TV shows. Many of them are darker and harder to bring up the lights to make stuff look nice as gifs. Some people don't like to color their gifs, and that's okay. I personally just like color edited gifs more.

I've started learning how to upscale scenes myself, so that I have a better resolution and leeway to make things look "HD" more.

If you're wondering why my stuff look so "crisp", it's a combination of the scene's lighting, my sharpening settings on Photoshop and knowing how to upscale everything into 4k resolution. Of course, doing this needs an extremely beefy pc, which I am very lucky to own one.

Here's another before and after of a nicely lit scene. These are much, MUCH easier to do than all the darkly lit scenes because of shadows and lighting (caitlyn kiramman truly the rizzler <3)

I've been very lucky to be able to essentially take a nice, long break for like a month doing nothing after being so damn busy for the last year and a half, so it's nice that I was able to make a ton of gifs and be chronically online for a short while LMAO.

It's been so fun! But it's time to go back to reality lmao. I closed reqs for a bit because I was just so swamped with them the last few days, and I wanted to gif scenes that I like this time. I've done like 2 weeks worth of gifs. And you will see Vi a lot bc she's on my mind a lot heehee 🥰what can I say, she's such a babe <3

Here's a lil sneak peek, just look at herrrrrrr 🥰🥰🥰 and yeah, 4k upscaled resolution really helps making these tight crops, it's why i never went back to 1080p lol. It's how I’m able to make zoomed in gifs look decent (like the kirammountains gifset lol)

Thank you so much for all the support, likes, reblogs, and the nice tags you guys give. Yes, I can see and read all of them (both the nice and nasty ones lmao). If you have nothing good to say about the characters or my editing style, or anything related to the edit, please I beg you, just write a separate text post about it <3 If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it in my edits.

Lastly, thank you to the people who share my stuff outside the site and credit the blog and link them back here. I see you and appreciate you <3 You guys don't know how much I appreciate shoutouts and link backs, because people stealing my gifs is something that I've dealt with after making them for like a decade.

Tumblr is sadly not what it used to be in the 2013-2015 era. There’s definitely less activity as time goes by, so I appreciate all the people who credit and link back to this sideblog. Unfortunately, there’s more people who just repost them and it gets wayyy much more traction in other soc med sites. Yeah, ofc I get a lil jealous, but eh what can you do 😞 can’t really stop em.

I also don’t like putting watermarks because it personally looks tacky to me, but I understand why other people do it.

Anyways, if you reached at the end of this lil rambling of mine, thank you! I sadly might be busy during November because that's usually busy season, but I'll try to make time for making gifs of Season 2! Thank you and enjoy your stay on this lil sideblog :)

[listentoace]

This will freak you out

... or at least I hope it does. Yes, I know most of the stuff I post on here is just kinky and horny talk and that's totally fine. By now, thousands of users have found their way to my blog and I'm very grateful for the support. I know I don't share much about myself, but the following will be about a more personal matter. I work in IT, or more specifically, with data. Lots of data. Being into data science, I am hyper-aware of the constant collecting and aggregating of user data. I know it's somewhat common knowledge that you're being tracked, but I want to take this opportunity to point out how bad the situation is and why privacy matters. I'll try to keep it as easy to follow as possible, so please bare with me!

The Trackers

Right now, you're on Tumblr. As you are reading this, your app connects to over a dozen servers that are not from Tumblr itself. They are from companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, but also lesser known companies such as Adjust and Moat. Within a single day, the Tumblr App sends about 5.000 tracking requests to the aforementioned and more companies, sharing your personal data. That's once every 15-20 seconds, regardless of whether you have the app opened or not. While I can't say exactly what data is being shared, it is likely that this is personal information that can be utilized to assume your opinions, target ads, or predict future behavior, as these are ways how companies will ultimately make money. Depending on what permissions you have granted the Tumblr app, it might also scan your gallery, your entire file system, access your call history, or your camera and microphone. By granting this permission, you are essentially giving Tumblr the keys to your phone on a complete "just trust me, bro"-basis. To me personally, that sounds scary.

But why do you use Tumblr yourself, then?

Very good and fair question! I actually am conflicted regarding using Tumblr, but I have put several security measures into place to minimize tracking potential as much as possible. While Tumblr can still see when I go online, read all the messages I send to others, know what content I view, like, comment on, and otherwise engage with, that is about it. Tumblr cannot acces my general file system, it cannot remotely access my camera and microphone, and even all the aforementioned trackers are blocked. I'll go more into this later.

"So what, I've got nothing to hide."

It's great that you think that! That's just what the big tech companies want you to believe. But answer me this: have you ever found it uncomfortable when a person next to you was reading all your texts, looking at your gallery, and just generally kept an eye on what you do on your phone at all times? Well, if a single person doing that is bothering you, how much worse must it be to know that several companies with thousands of employees spy on you for a living? Yes, they have seen your nudes, your breakup texts, your hours of Whatsapp calls with your best friend. It's literally a Big Brother Dystopia.

"Why would they be interested in me?"

I bet you have heard about the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal from 2018. Just to summarize: a data analytics company CA worked closely together with Facebook to target adds specifically tailored to users to manipulate them into voting for Donald Trump as President. If you are asking how specific this could be, just look at this demonstration by Signal, where their ads are extremely specific to a point where probably only a few thousand if not only hundreds of people would fit the description and just those exact people saw their ad.

"You got this ad because you're a newlywed pilates instructor and you're cartoon crazy. This ad used your location to see you're in La Jolla. You're into parenting blogs and thinking about LGBTQ adoption."

Facebook took it down within hours. But imagine you seeing this ad of a random company knowing this much and lots more about you. Note that Instagram and WhatsApp belong to Facebook/Meta, so even if you're not using Facebook directly, you're still being watched just as closely.

Knowing exactly what you like, dislike, fear, and love, strong emotions can be triggered for political or financial gain. You're into sustainability? Buy this product and we will retrieve one pound of plastic from the ocean! You are conservative and maybe slightly racist? Immigrants are taking over more and more healthcare jobs! You are scared by a possible nuclear war? Vote us for safety and peace!

This is how Cambridge Analytica managed to pull in millions of voters in the US and manipulate the election in a way that Donald Trump wouldn't have won without their manipulation. This is literally a threat to democracy. And as you know, my allegiance is to the Republic, to Democracy!

You might be aware of how right-wing and extremist parties all around the western world use very polarizing and emotional topics in their campaigns and are doing very well on social media. Often much better than more centered, leftist, or conservative parties, who tend to polarize less. This is not a coincidence. Not only is this because of customized, targeted content, but it's also because strong emotions generate more attention

Doom Scrolling & Dopamine

Social Media has had decades to perfect their dopamine lottery. The algorithms know exactly what you are into, no matter how much of a niche it might be. A good, user-oriented algorithm would show you a few posts, the best ones of the day, and then simply say "well, that's been all the good stuff. Wanna see the rest anyways?". But that's not how it works, is it? When opening an app like Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, etc., you usually immediately land on a recent top-post. This is to give you the instant gratification and that sweet hit of dopamine.

Have you ever noticed how you had to scroll a bit before you got a post again that you really loved? That's by design. The mix of top-posts and mediocre ones is on purpose, to keep you waiting for more. You never know when the next super funny TikTok will come by. All you know is that it might be the next one. In-between top-posts, you're met with mediocre garbage and an add or two and just before it gets too boring, you hit gold again. The constant release of much higher than normal amounts of dopamine make your brain temporarily lose touch with what levels are normal. Why is it that you feel drained and tired after scrolling through social media for a few hours, even though you've done nothing but sitting around? You didn't think hard, you didn't move much, so what is it? It is the dopamine-rollercoaster that is mentally straining you. And there are tens of thousands of highly trained software engineers and corporate executives designing their platforms to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. If that little chiming sound increases your screen time by as little as 2%, it will be added. It is designed to suck your life away, chain your eyeballs to the content they want you to see, just so they can literally sell you to anyone who has the cash. You need that new gadget, visiting this country is an absolute must, this new sports competition is amazing, definitely vote for this cool party. Trust them. They know what you want. You don't know anything about them, but they know everything about you.

"What do I do now?"

Well, it is unlikely that you'll stop using social media at all. I mean, even I am still here. But there are things you can and should do for your mental and financial health, and for your own safety and protection against manipulation. Here is a list of things you should consider

Limiting social media to only a few apps you actually use and are interested in

Spend no more than 2 hours on social media per day

Meet friends irl instead of only texting

Stop sharing personal information. It is not illegal to enter false names, birthdays, etc into random sign-up forms! Protect your children as well!

Use privacy- & user-oriented platforms, such as Signal instead of WhatsApp, or Mastodon instead of Twitter. They finance themselves through volunteers and donations instead of by selling your data and lifetime to any buyer

Use privacy-oriented frontends (the visual interface and application you interact with), such as NewPipe or FreeTube instead of YouTube. You also won't be seeing any ads there

Don't buy anything impulsively. Take a week or two to think about whether you really need and want it.

Check facts, do your own research, use multiple sources, be critical

And in case you're interested in what I use:

I'm have an Android phone running /e/OS and a total of 5 computers/servers which run Linux and a Windows laptop for work. My phone block any trackers, fakes my GPS location (not VPN/IP) to where I am in Barcelona. All devices have a 24/7 encrypted VPN connection. I don't have WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or even a Google account. For personal use I have Signal, Element (Discord alternative), and Proton Mail. That's it. Every website or platform I have an account on has it's own, unique, single-use email, a randomized password and 2FA whenever possible. I use KeePass as my password manager, encrypted with a password, key file, and hardware key. I enter false data into any random form, use hardened Firefox browsers to resist fingerprinting and tracking, and back up all my data at home on a hard drive instead of using a cloud service. (Yes, there is much more)

For my content, I use Tumblr and a semi-active Discord account, Reddit accounts are banned.

For my professional life, I am forced to use Microsoft Teams and Outlook, yet I only use those on my work computer & phone.

Privacy = Freedom

Yes, I know my measures are far beyond average, but I wanted to present an example and hopefully inspire some of you to take back your online freedom and privacy! Because that's what it is! Privacy is Freedom!

I hope this inspired you and please ask any questions in the comments! This truly is a topic that means a lot to me so thank you for reading all the way through it. Please reblog to further share this important topic and encourage others to protect themselves!

- Ace

[utopiastri]

hiiii!

soooo i read and reread all your f1 fics.

since they are all so effing amazing, well written, funny when needed, you must have a great taste in fics. sooo do you maybe, perhaps have any landoscar fic recommendations??

have a mega day!

-💫

hi 💫 anon!!! this was. the absolute loveliest ask to wake up to this morning so thank you SO much for sending it 💕💕💕💕💕

you are so kind and please know all of these compliments have absolutely made my day!!!!!

and GOD i would LOVE to give some landoscar fic recommendations, there is nothing i love more than talking about authors i adore

i very much started rambling about these fics so i'm putting my recs below the cut!

ok immediately we're off to a rogue start because i'm going to recommend a fic that isn't posted yet but @1425fivefive's upcoming fic Learned Behavior is just honestly going to be one of the best things you will ever read - i have been honoured to receive SO many wonderful snippets from it and every single one is just as amazing as the others and i am SO excited to see the full thing

i am legally and contractually obligated to put three-sixteenths by @ipleadbritney on here because i am actually three-sixteenths' biggest fan and as part of that it is in fact my job to make sure everyone has read one of the most DELIGHTFUL magical realism fics of all time, one that fills me with such joy every time i think about it, let alone read it

by love remembered by @lellabellas is just. i LOVE fairytales so much and the way this is such a gorgeous homage to fairytales whilst also being one of the most wonderful fanfics you will ever read is honestly just. a sign of talent of truly the highest degree!!!!

brevity is the soul of wit by a_new_anon because i absolutely have to recommend one of the absolute CUTEST texting fics i have ever read. i grinned my entire way through reading it and i cannot recommend highly enough oh my GOD

the devil in me by @its-all-papaya because who am i as a person if i'm not constantly Obsessed with the idea of jealous oscar piastri. GOD this fic has everything - including one of my favourite final lines of any fic like. ever

AND on top of all of these, because i am a firm believer in showing love and affection to tumblr drabbles as well, please have a few of my favourites of those as well:

I'll Wait (I'm Sorry) by @wanderingblindly because liquid reblogged this again recently and this version of landoscar has NOT LEFT MY BRAIN SINCE!!! i reread it and had to sit down lest i faint. concept of all time i fear!!!!!!!

fireworks - prompt by @foggieststars because every so often i think about what landoscar will be like when they're no longer teammates and then i remember it doesn't matter because i can just think about one of the Sweetest drabbles i have ever read about lando and oscar dealing with oscar leaving and i am calm again

immortal - osctober prompt by @nyoomfruits because sad immortal vampire oscar has actually been haunting me for the last month and i am still SO SAD ABOUT IT (but like. in a good way obviously)

ok i will cut myself off there but !!!!! anon thank you so much for allowing me to ramble on about all this writing i love so much!!!! and thank you again for the kind words 💕💕💕

also if anyone would like to not be tagged, please let me know!!!