#and is often frustratingly unspecific on what actually happens

[mantisgodsdomain]

The part that you haven't heard about in more detail here, for reference, is our miscellaneous research on typography, calliography, and type design, because we haven't done it in anywhere near as much detail and still arguably know nothing. In this case, you get to hear "oh yeah we're relearning cursive" as part of an unrelated ramble. This is because if we don't have at least one thing to chew on throughout the day, we wind up in a dull, grinding state of mind where we start losing chunks of important things, such as our ability to not be a huge asshole and/or hit people with sticks.

Sometimes, this means gnawing on plots, either ours or others'. Sometimes, this means learning new things. If we're operating on any subject in particular, we prefer to keep a level of basic competence high enough to let us feel like we have reasonable authority in saying something. If we are expressing an opinion, we want it to be one that is informed, because seeing people say things where they obviously don't know what a single word in that sentence actually means makes us want to chew through glass and people spreading blatant misinformation and unexamined, unbelievably blatant bias makes for our absolute least favorite dish. If we don't know something, and it's worth knowing, then we should bother to learn, because it is worth it to know at least enough to know when someone's bullshitting you, and be able to apply the knowledge you have acquired in one field to other ones over time. Many things work along the same basic lines - if you look at enough of them, then eventually, you'll learn the intersections, and the way one thing interacts with another.

In unrelated news, now that we are officially in formal education again and thus interacting with people who feel very confident in the idea that they are bringing an objectively correct perspective to the room, we are learning that apparently our "basic level of knowledge that we feel like we need to possess to feel even vaguely confident talking about the subject in any context" is most other people's "at least bachelor degree level knowledge". We are unclear on if this is a new discovery or not, as last time we were in an actual physical school it went badly enough that our memory of the year it occurred in is functionally irretrievable. This is not good for the superiority complex, probably.

is the fountain pen thing why your broskis been rbing the occasional fountain pen post or was that shared brainrot

It depends which broski you're talking about but probably. We have been exploring the ins and outs of the fountain pen since, like, the start of this month and we have already regaled our MOTW group with "hey did you know that you can buy a fountain pen that looks like a shark for three dollars" and similar such thoughts.

Though not all of our miscellaneous interests make it onto this blog, as we try not to post on things until we are reasonably informed on them, our close friends get to be regaled with the lovely story of whatever niche subject that we have dedicated our time and energy to learning things about every week or so, and we've been talking about pens for slightly longer as we learn more thoroughly how to work with them, and being told about things by an enthusiastic insect tends to get you looking at things (whether you like it or not)

[saturatethe-written-whitewa-blog]

oikawa week 2017, day 1.

oikawa week 2017, day 1: lust/chastity

pairing: oikawa tooru & terushima yuuji

for a reason none other than my unnecessary particularity/thoroughness about things, i’ve decided to set all of the fics for oikawa week in a fantasy AU although none of these fics are connected unless stated so; this is the only fic that’s obviously non gen but the rest of the fics are unspecific enough that they’re open for interpretation and really i’m talking too much

❝I been doing stupid things, Wilder than I've ever been, You've become my favorite sin.❞ —Bad Decisions, Ariana Grande.

The day slows down, just for the busy, tired ones, so the minutes feel longer than they really are, and Tooru notices with aching clearness just how many pass between sips of oxygen. Tooru sits idly on a chair, as vacant and influential as the winds that pass from an open window, looking at the mess of his room until something thrills him with a scream or until he tucks back a strand of hair that tickles his lashes in a playfulness he can't appreciate.

His thoughts leak slowly, frustratingly, almost nothing. Tooru thinks they too are resting with empty glasses in a space of familiarity like he was, but he finds himself expending his bored sighs often enough he'll have nothing left for the weekdays.

Tooru leans back on his chair, wastes another sigh thoughtlessly and peels the collar of his shirt off of his chest. He reaches for his phone, fingers a pencil instead. He flicks that back on the desk disapprovingly, finding his phone where he left it; face-down and silent.

He dials Yuuji's number, glad his fingers don't trip over themselves as he mutters it like malicious malediction. Yuuji answers two rings too late, and Tooru can already imagine the dead ladybugs he would always find outside Yuuji's window; Tooru had always thought their colors would bleed in a funeral of washed rainwater, for Tooru had been taught that dead things were ugly shells of a brilliance that ceased to exist. Tooru only learns that their legs fall off at the prod of a stick, and they make the most hideous crunching noise whenever he steps on it with his sandal.

Yuuji grunts, the sound of men who've had Tooru's strange schemes darted quickly, painfully in their minds like sedation you can still feel hours later.

"Say, Yuu-chan, what would you say to an opportunity to spend time with me?" was what Tooru had told him, and Yuuji chortles two rings too pleasant too Tooru's ears.

"Doesn't this lake have wild hippocampi?" Yuuji asks cautiously. Tooru doesn't answer for a few seconds, kicking off his shoes and dipping his feet into the water.

The water was cool, not the kind that made Tooru shiver; not a lot of things made Tooru shiver, only dead spiders by his doorway, spilled ice cubes and a lover's touches. It was so sickeningly cliche, an excerpt from a year-long writer, a painting only discovered by those passionate enough. Of a lake undiscovered, sung to by songbirds perched on trees that listen with the carefully-constructed hum of their leaves, with its edges shallow and sparkly enough that Tooru could coax Yuuji into the water and laugh at their childishness.

"A family, I think," Tooru says, "don't worry too much about it, Yuu-chan! As long as you don't kill a baby then you have nothing to worry about!"

Tooru turns around and sees Yuuji, muttering curses at the blades of grass that tickle his skin as he bends them under the weight of his wriggling butt. Behind him, Tooru sees entire lifetimes of a forest told by the single hour Tooru's borrowed from it, the unshakable trunks they cross while Tooru crosses his eyes trying to discern cricket from decomposing leaf.

"Yuu-chan are you- are you scared?" Tooru's face goes alight with the idea, and he's never seen Yuuji turn so quick to correct one of his sentences.

"Who wouldn't be scared? They're literal seahorses but that's not the point, they could kill me or you- why aren't you more scared by this?" Yuuji looks at him accusingly, and Tooru smiles carelessly.

"Like I said, Yuu-chan, as long as you don't kill a baby then you have nothing to worry about! Just like people, really," Tooru's satisfied with his answer, and he continues playing ripples with the water. Yuuji stares at the lake with its water spread innocently for Tooru, who's finger deep in it, and in ten minutes he could draw a diagram with Tooru's blood about how hippocampi are worlds different from human beings right after a large, angry one emerges out of the center of the lake and crushes Tooru with its powerful jaws as they make whatever noises hippocampi make.

It's a disturbing image, and Yuuji is the last person to want to see crystal blue washed red when he only wanted Tooru to brighten his day with his dumb charm. He considers reaching for Tooru's fingers, finger, even, even if they're wet until the knuckle and blissfully unaware of danger.

Yuuji's content and malcontent on his pit of dirt and grass, linking his own fingers together behind his back as clouds swirl above him and Tooru, who's just screamed when he splashes water onto himself. Yuuji snickers, tells Tooru he got what was coming.

In the eyes of a young rose, beautiful and yawning to its mother earth, with its thorns untrimmed and virgin, the two lovers that sat at a length that they would begin to miss the other's fingerprints were bittersweet. Brightness and vivid color in their eyes, inside a place that lived and died in the earthly tones they were close. It would watch, with dewdrops caught in its eyes, until sunset comes and the lovers leave, and its petal close over its eyes like a whispered lullaby, like death.

Tooru fawns over a seashell that peeks out of the sand shyly, striped and grooved in a fashion that both of them could admire. Tooru puts in his pocket, keeps it in his memory.

Nothing exciting happens after, a few minutes of Tooru digging through the sand until he gets too scared he'd break a nail and Yuuji looking at Tooru's back, at the looseness of a shirt he's seen Tooru wear from a time even before they became lovers, imagining the expressions of Tooru's face.

The skies darken above him, a massive being that Yuuji learns not to mind. Yuuji has his hands folded over his knee, his heart beating in patterns that mess when Tooru calls his name. Tooru's the only thing that reels his eyes, the only thing that ever will, for Yuuji found himself often looking at his side, disappointed when Tooru wasn't there, smiled when Tooru was.

"Oh my God, Yuu-chan, look!" Tooru shouts, loud enough that Yuuji's definitely shocked. "It's a baby hippocampi!"

"If you kill it I'm going to kill you before the parent hippocampi come to kill you."

"And then we can die together! Aww, how romantic of you, Yuu-chan!" Tooru swoons dramatically, and Yuuji shakes his head.

"Come on, Yuu-chan, it's cute!" Tooru says. He points to the shallower ends of the lake, deep enough Tooru doesn't dare venture into because his shorts couldn't roll back any further than he had them (and the sight of Tooru’s thighs, pale as cleaned fossil, were only a marvel when Yuuji was kissing them undone.)

The baby hippocampi swam in waters of its own enjoyment, wide-eyed and thick-necked. The color of its skin reminded Yuuji of the plumage of a peacock, neck arched and head held high, or of a dragonfly that zips over water. It was an awkward little thing, like all baby animals were, with limbs too long and minds too new to be able to do anything with either. It clicked when Tooru beckoned it over, moving in awkward, unfinished hops that Yuuji almost laughed at.

"Tooru, I swear, don't kill it," Yuuji warned.

"Oh please, Yuu-chan, the only killing I'm going to do is stopping its heart!"

"Oikawa, what the actual fuck."

"I meant stopping its heart because of how god damn charming I am!" Tooru argues, holding his arms out wide for the baby that hopped aggressively.

Yuuji can only shake his head, smiling in anticipation when he notices a clump of dirt that gathers after it's been splashed on.

Ten minutes later, Tooru was soaked enough that Yuuji's had a good laugh about it ("Boo hoo, Yuu-chan, I got to play with a baby hippocampi!") and when another hippocampi peeks its head from a deeper portion of the lake, Tooru's the first one to run away, at the distressed cries of the confused baby. Yuuji has a good laugh about that, too.

"I mean, at least we didn't die, right?" they had told each other, agreeing pleasantly. Yuuji held Tooru's hand then, told him that he could smell the lake on him. They agree to stop at Yuuji's room to get a change of clothes and a drink a squeeze of summer shirts and four packed puffs of relief later.

They forget the drinks, but remember to take off Tooru's clothes. They kiss, not knowing why, roll against Yuuji's walls, knowing they wanted something.

Tooru traces his fingers up Yuuji's side, bumping over a hipbone that slanted beautifully. Tooru's reminded of ancient Greek sculptures that bend their marble bodies in vague scenery, swooned at now by young, starry-eyed, contemporary artists. Tooru's touch was light, as if not really there, as if cleaning the folds of a shirt that Tooru took great care to remove in their earlier frenzy. It makes Yuuji shiver, makes the hairs of his body prick the air where they want to be handled by the warmth Tooru cradles in his palms.

Tooru utters a promise, one that makes Terushima nod his head back. The way they fall onto the bed is delicate, gentle like the way Tooru holds Yuuji's face in his hands as he kisses him; but it's also loud, tangled and bursting, like the drizzle that raps its beginnings onto a curtained window.