#and still suffering the social adjustment

[rems-writing]

The Doberman

》 Pairing: bodyguard!Yeosang x rapper afab!reader

》 Trope: friends to lovers

》 Wordcount: 2,443 words

》 Rating: mature

Nets: @mirohs-aurora-society @othersideoutlawsnetwork @illusionnet

I am tagging @acupoftaewithsomesuga since I love fucking with her and @frenchkisstheabyss since Yeo has been wrecking her lately :3

You had just wrapped up yet another concert for your world tour and even had a special guest come out to perform a new song that you three have collabed on. 

The special guest was the rapper duo Matz. 

After you had thanked everyone in the crowd for coming out tonight and bid them goodnight, you walked off backstage and took off the fur coat that you wore throughout the performance. As you took off the ridiculously huge sunglasses that were bedazzled with so many tiny diamonds, you blinked rapidly to adjust your sight to the dimly lit dressing room that you had walked into. You sat in front of the brightly lit vanity mirror and proceeded to remove your makeup. Since you were jumping around and moving a lot, it had caused a lot of sweat to drip down your face. While you were putting on facial moisturizer, you felt a pair of huge arms wrap around you. Since you were sitting on a stool, those arms were securely around your waist. You relaxed under the familiar touch and looked up to see your best friend smiling at you. 

“Hi, Sangie~”

Kang Yeosang, known as the Doberman, was by far the most intimidating bodyguard you’ve hired. A lot of people never took him seriously at first due to his statue-esque face and his overall soft personality, but you knew better. Ever since you two were kids, you’ve known him to be a tough guy. He may not seem like the confrontational type nor the type to get angry so easily, but push the right buttons and you just might find yourself underneath the unnerving gaze of the angel turned demon. You recalled the first time you guys met. 

You were being bullied by your old high school’s football captain. He tripped you while his girlfriend, the head cheerleader, popped her bubblegum bubble and laughed wickedly at you as you tried to get up and gather your things. The laughter from the cheerleader soon turned into a frightened whimper and you looked up to see a furious Yeosang squeezing the captain’s wrist harshly, almost to the point of breaking it. Afraid that an adult might see, you stood up and hugged him from behind quickly. 

“Please… not here. Someone might see.”

When he looked at you, you swore you were staring into the eyes of an angel. His fiery fury melted into the softest expression that you knew would be reserved for you one day if you played your cards right. He let the captain go with a shove, causing him to stumble backwards and topple onto his teammates. He whipped his head around and spoke in a voice that basically clawed its way from the depths of hell. 

“If I catch you bothering her again, you will suffer from more than just a broken wrist.”

That’s how deep it was. 

You saw them run away and you looked up at him, bewildered by the fact that he now looked at you with a small shit eating grin on his face. 

“Come have lunch with me!”

And the rest was history. 

From that moment alone, you knew that you two would be attached at the hip and support each other along the way to your rising careers. When you first got signed to RM Records, owned by Kim Namjoon himself, the first thing you established before signing the contract was to have Yeosang as your personal bodyguard. Namjoon was hesitant at first, but once he saw Yeosang, he was impressed with his strength and the way he carried himself as he protected from harm. Since then, he’s always been at your side. From the beginning until now. 

“Ready for the afterparty?”

“Absolutely not. But tonight was successful so I might as well go.”

One thing never changed and that was your hatred for social gatherings. Luckily, you never went to a lot of them. However, you still had a lot of adrenaline in you so you figured that you’d use it all up at this afterparty that you were invited to. After making sure the moisturizer was dried up, you stood up and went into a different room to change into a different outfit. Per usual, Yeosang stood outside your door with his mask on and his sharp eyes looked around everywhere. When you finished, Yeosang turned around and his jaw almost dropped. 

You looked gorgeous. 

You wore a gray AC/DC shirt that was cut and styled into a crop top, a dark green plaid skirt that was high waisted, and emerald green Converse shoes that were low-cut. Another thing that never changed about you despite your career as a rapper? Your grunge/punk rock aesthetic when it comes to your clothing. Yeosang knew that the tight clothing that showed a bit too much was something you didn’t like, but since you didn’t want to be mistaken for the lead singer of a rock band, you had to research what female rappers wore and you made sure that the tight clothing was only reserved for concerts. After all, you wanted to keep your rapper persona and your true self separated. 

“Ok, Sangie. You can close your mouth. You might catch a fly. I know I look good.”

“Damn right you fucking do.”

Yeosang said it quietly to himself as he watched you gather your things and follow you towards the limousine that was parked outside of the venue. He would never admit it, but he fell for you a long time ago. However, he blatantly assumed that you didn’t feel the same way so he kept his feelings to himself. The venue was packed with fans and paparazzi being held back by barricaded gates and a lot of security guards. You kept your head down and walked as quickly as you could while Yeosang shielded you from the blinding lights that each camera’s flash emitted. One lucky, or unlucky, photographer jumped over the barricade and ran towards you before aiming his camera at you. 

“SMILE, CHESHIRE!”

Before you could protest or even hear the camera go off, you saw a gloved hand reach over you and crush the camera lens into pieces. Your eyes widened as Yeosang glared at the photographer, who was shaking in his boots. 

“Step away from her.”

Yeosang practically growled at him and watched with a bit of satisfaction as the photographer ran away. Soon, that very same gloved hand rested itself on your lower back and urged you forward so you could step into the limo first. Once you were inside, Yeosang followed in after you and closed the door, sighing deeply as he closed his eyes and threw his head back. You didn’t know why, but you found the sight attractive. The way his chest was heaving up and down, his forehead glistening with sweat, and the strands of his black hair blocking the birthmark that you loved so dearly? Even when he was catching his breath, he looked like a god. It didn’t help that he removed his gloves so his hands could gently grab your thigh. It was natural of him to do that. You normally didn’t mind that, but tonight felt different. Yet you didn’t find it in you to shove his hand off. It just felt right. 

“Yunho, drive!”

Your driver nodded and soon took off to the place where the afterparty was. It was a bit of a drive so you had ample time to rest. As you closed your eyes, your mind drifted off to scenarios that involved you & Yeosang in a lot of different positions. 

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

You hated it. 

The afterparty was a full mess. The music was a weird mix of EDM and pop, there were so many bodies on the dance floor basically humping each other rather than dancing, and on top of that, the alcohol was absolute shit. You wanted to go home, but you knew Yunho needed to get his break in so you let him take his 30 while you were sipping on a vodka cranberry cocktail and observing the scene unfolding in the safety of a secluded booth. Yeosang stood beside you and watched everyone like a hawk to make sure you were safe. It was like this for a few minutes until a group of drunk guys and girls walked past you. One of them, who definitely had too much to drink, pointed at you and sneered at you loudly. 

“WHY DOES SHE GET TO SIT BY HERSELF WHILE WE HAVE TO WALK AROUND?!”

Yeosang noticed the commotion and came in between you and her. Even in the poor lighting of the club, you could make out every single trace and curve of his back muscles through the black dress shirt he sported. 

“Ma’am, I suggest you move along.”

“AYE DON’T TALK TO MY GIRL LIKE THAT! LET HER TALK HER SHIT!”

Yeosang resisted the urge to roll his eyes in annoyance and simply whipped out a black & silver dagger before aiming the sharp blade at the man’s throat. 

“You do not have to yell in my ear like that, sir.” 

Yeosang was thrown off by the woman’s overly manicured hand running over his arm. Each drag of her nails across his biceps and muscled forearm sent you spiraling downwards into a pit of unplaced jealousy. However, you didn’t have to do anything about it since Yeosang grabbed the woman’s wrist and squeezed it tightly. 

“If you and your posse do not move along, I will use force. And trust me. You do not want to push me any further.”

The venom dripping into his tone meant serious business. The woman freed herself from his grasp and ran away, her friends following behind. The man called him a crazy bastard before fleeing the scene as well. Yeosang sighed and put away the dagger before turning to you and reaching a hand out. 

“Come on, Y/N. Let’s go back to the hotel.”

You nodded wordlessly and took his hand before following him out of the club. 

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

How did you end up here? 

One minute, you two were seated side by side in the limo and Yeosang helped you sober up. The next minute, you were straddling him, kissing himself fiercely and passionately as your fingers tugged at his hair. Yeosang kissed back with the same fervor, his gloves discarded so his palms could map every inch of your skin as his hands cupped under your thighs. 

Finally, you two were back in your hotel room. You were on your knees, hands splayed on his slack-covered thighs, and your mouth stretched open by his undeniably thick cock. Yeosang threw his head back and let out such beautiful moans as his fingers tangled in your head and pushed you down even further onto his cock, forcing you to deepthroat him. You gagged a bit and Yeosang cooed at the sight of your fucked out face, eyes brimming with tears, and drool coming down the corners of your mouth. 

“Relax your throat, beautiful. Yeah that’s it.” 

You’d never thought you’d live to see yourself choking on your best friend’s dick, yet here you were. Were you complaining? Nope! Did you two need to talk about what you guys were after this? Yes. 

“Look at you, choking on my cock. You can take more, and you definitely did. You showed me that you’re such a good fucking girl by taking it all. Fuck! I love you so much.”

The praise and sudden confession lit a fire within you and you sped up your actions, fondling his balls as well. Yeosang couldn’t take it anymore and held your head still before moving his hips so he could fuck your face. You felt his tip touch the back of your throat and you moaned at the feeling. The vibrations sent a shockwave of pleasure through him and he knew he was close. However, he wanted something different. Without warning, he stopped and pulled out of your mouth quickly before helping you stand up and smashing his lips onto yours. You felt his tongue turn 180 degrees as he explored the inside of your mouth. When he pulled away, a string of saliva connected your moths before it broke apart. 

“Stand against the wall and strip.”

His deep voice was husky and sensual and you didn’t think twice before doing what he said. As you slowly stripped, you kept your eyes on him. He did the same while he unbuttoned his shirt with one hand and shoved his pants down with the other. When both of you were fully naked, you took a minute to admire each other before Yeosang came closer to you. He grabbed your hips and lifted you up before making you wrap your legs around his slim waist and sinking you down onto his cock. You mewled and whined at how easy he slid in yet felt the stretch since again, his cock was undeniably thick. Yeosang leaned in and connected your foreheads, taking in the feeling of being inside you before proceeding to thrust in and out of you at a brutal pace. Your arms were hooked under his so you took the opportunity to leave scratch marks down his back. It seemed to turn him on even more since he went faster. 

“Fuck, baby! That’s it. Mark me. Fucking mark me. Make sure the world sees that I’m yours. Because you know damn well that you’re mine.”

His dirty words caused you to moan and Yeosang looked at you briefly before leaning down to your neck to kiss and mark it up. His grip on you tightened and he groaned at the feeling of you clenching around him. 

“I’m close, Sangie!”

“Fuck. Me too.”

Seconds later, the both of you reached your orgasms together. Your arousal dripped down his cock while his seed shot up in you. He stayed inside of you for a few minutes to make sure every single drop was emptied out of him. He soon pulled out yet he still held you close to him. 

“Come on. Let’s shower together.”

“Ok, but… we need to talk about what we are in the meantime.”

“I know for a fact that I’m deeply in love with you and I’d actually take rejection over being friends-with-benefits. You’re too good for that and I hate sharing.”

“Luckily, you don’t have to worry about rejection nor establishing a situationship with me. I’m deeply in love with you too.”

Yeosang smiled and kissed both your cheeks before carrying you into the bathroom so you two could wash up.

“So what do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

[ofsunhillow]

the online person phenomenon reading constantly of united states social issues until you feel they're the whole world's issues is insane because like. they had segregation

[ropes3amthoughts]

I know people are just joking when they say stuff like “Mithrun is an old grandpa he doesn’t know he can’t say those words anymore he doesn’t know they don’t have any book tokens anymore” because of these extras below:

and whatever but like it honestly drives me kind of crazy. Like can we look at this for a second.

He was the lord of the dungeon for five years. Then he was being rehabilitated for TWENTY YEARS. That’s not super long for elves, that’s like four years for us, but that’s still a long time. And then he was the captain for another fourteen years, but he didn’t have any desire other than getting revenge on the demon.

Mithrun hasn’t really been properly socialized for a total of FORTY YEARS, which is like eight years for elves. He was totally shut off from the world, then he was rehabilitated, and then he was with the Canaries on a onetrack mindset to go after the demon. Mithrun was doing bad, he was recovering, and then he was better enough to be the captain of the Canaries again, but he was still not “better.” In all that time, the world didn’t wait for him when he was at his low point. It didn’t wait for him when he was spending all that time recovering. And by the time it’s near the end of the story where these comics take place he’s just been so far detached from the world. Like he’s most likely never tried to go buy a book token after becoming a dungeon lord. He’s most likely never talked to people and learned the new slang of the time, he’s never been caught up which words are good versus outdated. Mithrun is technically better enough to be captain, he’s better enough to have reintegrated into society, but he’s not quite adjusted yet. He’s been out for so many years suffering under the hands of the demon and scraping his way through recovery and trying to work to get to the demon that by the time he’s stopped and done stuff like gift exchanges or whatever many aspects of the world are vastly different from what he remembers. I think that’s a lot like a lot of people in real life too who have similar experiences. People in mental health centers or hospitals who spends even just months recovering can miss out on so much.

Does this make any sense? It’s kind of late so I don’t really know what I’m saying and I’m probably repeating myself but like Mithrun was at a low point and then he was recovering for so long!!!! And then when he’s reintegrated back into the world it’s changed without him!!!! He’s not some racist old man!!! The world just kept on turning when he was struggling and how is he even supposed to deal with that? Like he doesn’t have much desire but everybody is so upset with him for not knowing things like outdated terms or using cash because he didn’t know there were no more book tokens and he just can’t have known that because he literally wasn’t in a state to keep up with all of the stuff like that and now everything is different and maybe he doesn’t care because he has no desire to but like aghhhhhhhhhhhh sob sob sniffle oughhhhh 😭😭😭😭 Mithrun 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 imagine I’m shaking him back and forth that’s how I feel right now oughhhhh

[sassycheesecake]

Hii I love ur blog and I was wondering if you could do hc's of salusa kiyoomi, komori motoya, atsumu miya, and hoshiumis type of s/o? Thanksss❤️‼️

Hello little cake! Of course I can! I hope it is to your liking ❤️

Kiyoomi Sakusa

I am 95% sure Kiyoomi would have a s/o who is more on the quiet side yet still confident

Since he is dealing with loud teammates on a daily basis timeskip, he prefers it if it’s more quiet

Obviously his s/o can have their silly moments but they should know their boundaries

Kiyoomi would definitely look for a s/o who can take care of themselves, physically and mentally

His s/o would also have to bring great patience and understanding into the beginning of the relationship

It takes some time for the Outside Hitter to warm up to someone

But once his s/o has broken down his walls and melted off the ice-cold facade, Kiyoomi is the most attentive boyfriend

He cleans, he has impeccable hygiene and incredibly smart

He 1000% has a routine for how to do things at his home or how he spends his day, his s/o has to accept his busy schedule and adjust to it

THE BEST LISTENER!

Kiyoomi may not be the best advice giver but if you need to vent, man‘s gonna listen without interruption

Invites you to all his games and you need to wear his jersey

I headcannon Kiyoomi is a very jealous person fight me

Please no nicknames for him (his partner would get the famous scowl)

I can see Kiyoomi dating someone who does not have a lot of contact with other people in their work life, so probably IT or a writer for example

Tolerates medical field workers😂

Motoya Komori

Motoya is on the tier list of golden retriever boyfriends

He’s so understanding, so cute and very romantic

I think it doesn’t really matter to Motoya what his s/o looks like or if his s/o is more quiet or more loud

Motoya grew up with Mr. anxiety himself, so he knows exactly what to do if you have panic attacks or suffer under panic disorders

But with every professional athlete, Motoya needs someone who understands his busy schedule and shouldn’t get mad about him going away for quite a while on away games or longer training days

Trust is everything to Motoya!

His s/o shouldn’t be a sarcastic person, Motoya would get annoyed by it eventually

Lowkey needs Sakusa‘s approval

Motoya has a high social battery, so his s/o should be able to handle lots of meet ups and social outings

His partner should be able to get along with his family, especially Sakusa since he is very close with him

Communication is also very important to Motoya, his s/o NEEDS to tell him if something is bothering them

Atsumu Miya

Cheeky asshole (my bae)

I can see Atsumu going for either a confident person like himself or someone submissive

Either would work but it would be more compatible if his s/o would be more submissive (even in the bedroom)

His s/o would also have to be tolerant of his direct behavior and shouldn’t take everything he says directly to heart (Atsumu can be mean at times and if he’s mad or moody, his s/o shouldn’t be too sensitive about it)

Atsumu needs a s/o who is smaller than him, he is a big teaser and loves to be teased back

S/o shouldn’t be afraid of physical affection, Atsumu is BIG on pda (kissing in public, occasional butt squeezes)

His partner shouldn’t be too clingy, Atsumu is very dedicated to his sport!

If Atsumu loses a game, his partner should be respectful about him wanting alone time or comfort

His partner can be athletic or in not so top shape, yet he would probably prefer one that can somewhat keep up with his stamina and go on runs with him or even train with him

His s/o HAS to get along with his twin brother, if they don’t like each other, it’s an absolute NO-GO for Atsumu (he may never admit it out loud but Osamu is Atsumu‘s whole world besides volleyball)

Kōrai Hoshiumi

Seagull boi

Would need a s/o who doesn’t mind his loud mouth

His s/o should be his number one fan and be quite feisty and a proud character

His partner should definitely be around his height or taller than him

Kōrai is a very competitive person, he would love to have a partner he can have bets with or fight against (like gaming, playing sports etc)

Kōrai doesn’t care what body shape his partner has, he will love them regardless

The bigger nerd his partner is, the better

Would have to be a big fan of animals, since his best friend is a vet and Kōrai occasionally has pets staying with him

Probably will adopt like 2 dogs with his s/o

[cryptocism]

Since I think about clones like I’m getting paid for it, I've been rotating those alternate universe "what if Bart and Thad were actually raised together" scenarios in my brain, with Thad either post-redemption-arc or pre-villainy. Because adjusting Thad's character to fit an ally role while still keeping true to his core motives and personality is so so fascinating to me.

Like I think there's an immediate first instinct to slot Thad into a "bad" twin category: ie rebellious and prickly, doesn't get along with people, mean lil shit. And obviously it's not wrong bc we're outside the realm of canon, but the reading still feels a little left of center.

Because Thad is mean and prickly in canon. In the Impulse comics he belittles Bart and Bart’s friends/family constantly in his appearances. He loves to goad, and monologue about his own superiority and intelligence. He’s very Not Nice, and he causes many problems, and he even does it on purpose.

But, I think it’s important to consider the context. From the jump Thad knows very little about anything except which team he’s on and who he’s playing for. He gets his orders from an unseen authority and he carries out his tasks because success means his team wins.

For all his self-aggrandizing talk, everything he does is in service of an end goal that doesn't actually center him. He's trying to get revenge for grievances he's never personally suffered, retribution for actions never committed against him. Everything he does is on someone else's behalf.

Thad sees in black and white, us or them. Up until the final few issues of Mercury Falling, Bart and co. are Thad's enemies, of course he's not going to be nice.

So Thad's motivation seems pretty simple: Thawne Supremacy™.

But it’s in Mercury Falling where this starts to fall apart, and the real core of his motivation gets revealed. Thad pretends to be Bart and suddenly Helen is nice to him. Bart’s friends think he’s funny. Bart’s teachers are impressed with his grades. Max ruffles his hair and gives him hugs and tells him he’s done a good job.

If he was actually an inherently mean and standoffish character, if Thad actually had significant personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict, the weight of such tiny acts of kindness wouldn’t completely break him the way that it does in canon.

Thad thinks his goal is superiority and revenge and Thawne Supremacy™, but he's chasing validation. Thad doesn’t have a personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually destroyed Bart and his family. Thad's personal victory would be the recognition after the fact: the praise and attention from the other Thawnes (a group of people he has literally never met) for his success.

He wants validation. That's basically it. And the fact that he gets it so easily from Bart's family and friends doesn't align with how he's told himself things are supposed to work.

Actually tangentially, Bart and Thad’s respective relationships to authority is so diametrically opposed and tbh kind of subversive in a superhero narrative. Where the hero is the one carving his own path without regard to social or societal rules, no fucks to give what anybody thinks of it. And the villain is a chronic people-pleaser.

Just based on Thad’s reaction to simple praise and affection from Max I really think Thad’s motivation has more to do with the response he gets than whatever the details are of any given task. He has no actual personal convictions beyond getting positive attention, and whatever he did have crumbled as soon as Bart’s friends laughed at his joke one time. Which of course leads into the core of his whole conflict at the end of Mercury Falling. He cares too much about Bart’s friends and family now, he doesn’t want to kill them, but worse than that, he’s faced with the sudden realization that he’s on the wrong side.

The Allens gave Thad everything he actually wanted and needed, but his conception of himself is inexorably tied to the Thawnes: who gave him jack shit. These two facts are in opposition to each other, and he can’t reconcile the reality of it.

Anyway all this to say, in an AU where Bart and Thad are raised together or Thad gets an actual redemption arc etc etc, I think my personal take on Thad’s personality whether it be pre-or-post-villainy would be one that is extremely socially conscious. He is much more of a people-person than Bart. Whether he's actually accurate in assessing people's feelings and how to respond to them can be hit or miss, but he wants to behave in a way that gets people to like him.

Pretending to be Bart isn’t remarked upon as, like, a difficult task for Thad. In his internal monologue he’s literally bragging to himself about how easy it is. But what’s especially notable to me is where his act differs from Bart's typical MO. Everyone notices, and lots of people comment, and presumably if Thad didn’t have the excuse of Max’s illness to “motivate” Bart to do better he would’ve been found out immediately. And those things are, specifically: paying attention in class, doing his chores, staying on task, and being helpful around the house. The one thing about Bart he chooses not to emulate is Bart’s rebelliousness.

Thad wants to prove himself, constantly, to whatever authority he respects (probably Max in this scenario) and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. In contrast to Bart, who only listens to authority when the shit they're saying actually makes sense to him. It’s excessively difficult to convince him to go against his own interests. (And I think a key part of that is Bart’s security in knowing that no matter how much he fucks up or doesn’t listen, the people he loves will always love him back.)

Thad’s got the people-pleaser in him that has to deserve whatever he’s given. It’s why he’s happiest when he’s given a clear goal or objective to complete, because it gives him an opening to prove himself.

All this to say that if we are quantifying Bart and Thad as a "good" or "bad" twin, in the eyes of every authority: Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the bad twin, Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the one who doesn’t care about school and whose grades vary wildly depending on his personal interest. He’s the one who goes off to do dangerous shit for fun and gets in trouble constantly and doesn’t do his chores and is thoroughly unconvinced by any authority figure trying to sell him bullshit. 

Thad is the one who needs to know all the rules just so he can experience the joy of following them. Relentlessly obedient. He'll put all his effort into doing all the right things that’ll endear him to whoever he wants to impress - meaning he’s the asshole who reminds the teacher about the assigned homework. Bart might be the most popular boy in school, but Thad is a pleasure to have in class.

Like Thad can (and should) still be high-strung and short-tempered and sarcastic and edgy and mean, because he is. But he can’t be doing all that without rhyme or reason. Colouring every interaction has to be that one-zero binary of ally or enemy. He needs to have somebody he’s proving himself to: a team he’s on and a team he’s against. He’s not an inherently rebellious character. He can go up against The Enemy, whoever he deems as such, but it has to be in service of a hypothetical future in which somebody eventually tells him he did a great job.

And in the interest of continuing to beat a dead horse, it connects to their respective upbringings. Thad and Bart were both raised in VR, but Bart’s experience had the side effect of basically hard-wiring him against insecurity. His world was a playground tailor-made for him, and he was never made to feel bad or insufficient about any aspect of himself. His first interaction with a real human person was Iris moving heaven and earth to save him, without him knowing her, without her knowing him, with no reasoning for the act needed beyond Being Her Grandson. Which is probably a significant factor in why Bart moves through the world with frankly atomic levels of autistic swag.

Thad’s VR upbringing installed self-consciousness in his psyche before any other personality trait. As in: he is immediately made conscious of himself and his relationship with everyone he will ever encounter. He’s told two things: he’s a clone of someone else (inherently derivative, lesser) and that he was made to be superior (a status to achieve). Which is such an instant clarifier for Thad’s everything. Where superiority is a condition that everyone either has, or does not. It’s the one-zero binary again: are they better than me or am I better than them. Being above others is mandatory, and if his superiority is ever challenged by hard evidence or god forbid nuance Thad’s brain physically cannot take it. He needs to be better, to be worse is unthinkable, and there is no other way to be.

And this status of better or worse is, crucially, not up to Thad to decide. He needs The Authority to validate him. Bart never tries to prove himself because he has nothing to prove. Thad’s entire identity hinges on the self-worth he gets from doing a Good Job.

It is such an inherent part of his motives in the Impulse comics canon, which is why it always feels a little off when he’s interpreted as a jackass indiscriminately.

Like I don't think he needs everyone to like him. But I do think he has either one person or a set of very particular people that he needs to like him. Everyone else is either in that circle or outside of it.

(Which is why Bart is such a great foil for Thad tbh. There is no set of words or behaviors that’ll change Bart’s opinion of Thad, because Bart is unaffected by obedience or charm. So ironically Bart is probably one of few people that Thad doesn’t bother to put on even a little bit of an act for.)

While Bart goes with his instincts, his personal beliefs and convictions at all times, Thad is hyper-conscious of big-picture goals. They balance each other out that way. Thad's keeping track of whatever expectations he has placed on him, and how his actions reflect on him and the team beyond short-sighted solutions. He's a team player. AND he's an asshole.

[argentnoelle]

The Impact of Light Yagami's Time in Confinement

This meta draws from the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy paper Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement by Stuart Grassian.

While solitary confinement is generally used in TV shows as a less extreme method of torture or interrogation, since it does not involve physical violence, it is actually quite brutal. People who undergo solitary confinement may experience perceptual distortions up to and including hallucinations involving multiple senses, as well as paranoia and obsessional thoughts, and difficulties thinking and concentrating, along with violent outbursts and self harm. "Prisoners confined in solitary confinement for no longer than one week were oftentimes found to have acute psychotic breaks," and there is a group of symptoms that tend to show up in cases of solitary confinement that are quite distinct, and some of the hallucinatory symptoms are ones that commonly show up in neurological illnesses.

Solitary confinement was first popularized in the American prison system, with the idea that it would allow criminals to think and repent—however, what was instead found was a baffling pattern of mental illness that correlated with the people who were put into such sensory restrictive states. After this was realized, the extreme measures of solitary confinement in prisons were scaled back, but solitary confinement continued to be used as a method of torture.

Not every person who undergoes solitary confinement will have the full range of symptoms. Some people deal better with it than others, and there are a few underlying reasons why that is. Firstly, "an individual who receives clues which cause him to experience the isolation situation as potentially threatening is far more likely to develop adverse psychiatric reactions." How does this apply to Light?

For the first seven days Light spends in confinement, he still has all his Kira memories and knows that he is locked up because he wants to be, as part of his grand plan. He seems quite in control and generally even-keeled. Then, he loses his memories. Instantly, he panics, because he suddenly believes he's been framed and unjustly imprisoned for the crimes of Kira, and he has no clue if he'll ever be freed. Light's isolation immediately becomes a threatening experience. Canon glosses over the full fifty-three days of his confinement, but we can see a little bit of how it wears on him in the few panels it cuts to him, as he progresses little by little over the days to increasingly apathetic postures.

Going into more detail on the symptoms of solitary confinement, adjustment to isolation tends to take one to three weeks. This will include anxiety and hyperactivity. But gradually, the prisoner "gives up all spontaneous activity within his cell and ceases to care about personal appearance and actions. Finally, he sits and stares with a vacant expression, perhaps endlessly twisting a button on his coat." This is something we canonically observe in Light's time in confinement, as the Light at the end of his confinement spends his days apparently lying on the floor and staring into space, when L isn't interrogating him.

There is another reason that doesn't bode well for Light's time in solitary confinement, and that is his personality. The people who do the worst in solitary confinement include psychopathic individuals and people with ADHD. The reason, the study surmises, is that solitary confinement is in effect extreme sensory deprivation, and these personalities already suffer from being chronically understimulated. Without diagnosing Light, I think it's possible to surmise that he would do badly in solitary confinement, as he is canonically "unable to tolerate routine and boredom" similar to those who suffer the most in solitary confinement. The quoted paper makes this remark: "Individuals with high needs for novelty and new sensations, ... who are emotionally unstable, or who are unconcerned with social approval seem unsuited for ... such environments ... The opposite [traits are found in] those who adjust well." Bad news for Light all around.

On the plus side, Light is educated and functioned quite well in day to day life before confinement, which are some of the traits found in those who do the best in such a situation. Even so, although individuals who do the best in this situation don't suffer the same psychotic states, they still experience perceptual disturbances, anxiety, panic attacks, and difficulties in cognition and memory with frequent mental fog.

Fortunately, the acute symptoms of solitary confinement quickly disappear the moment a person has been released from the situation. Unfortunately, there are also many long-term effects such as PTSD including pervasive feelings of hopelessness and depression, hypervigilance, withdrawal, and personality changes including intolerance with social interaction.

I would argue that Light canonically shows evidence of some of these long-term effects, as the Light we see in part 1 is social, friendly, and outgoing to all appearances (despite his inner thoughts) and even while being suspected of murder, is a generally optimistic and happy person. Yotsuba arc Light is rarely the focal character, and is mostly seen "performing" for the rest of the task force and L, but in part 3, after the time skip, where Light is again the main character, we can see that he lives a remarkably different life.

Despite quickly rising through the ranks of the police and growing the scope of his Kira activities, Light spends most of his days in one single apartment, interacting with the same five people. He does not seem to have any social life outside of this. He is markedly less social than his younger self, and frequently blindsided by events that one can assume his younger self would have taken in stride. He spends plenty of time gloating about his superiority over Near, yet Near is able to easily undermine him again and again—and I argue that it's not that Near is so much smarter than L, or even that Light is in a worse-off position now than he was back then. At least not to start.

The real difference is in the way Light reacts to threats and the fact that he spends so much less time cultivating his social image and disregarding his allies.

There are many possible reasons for the difference in Light's character pre- and post- timeskip, but one I've never seen brought up is the potential effect of the solitary confinement he underwent.

[starcurtain]

hihi sorry to rant in your inbox but i hate when people use aven's line about jade that says her kindness comes with a price to make their relationship seem worse than it is. while the ipc is. well. the ipc i dont thinl it would benefit her to harm him like theyre both stonehearts AND hes her subordinate. personally i think the price he mentions is like, testing him like she did in her social media post with the ores. it certainly would be less incongruous with her want to guide those that come after her..

I think that people really struggle with Jade. They took one look at her dommy mommy appearance and her status as one of the top three in the Stonehearts and they just want her to be unrepentant evil soooo bad.

Don't get me wrong, she is definitely a master manipulator and she definitely has a specific personal goal she's working toward using the IPC as her vehicle to do so. Her overall idea of creating an endless vortex of desires that can't ever be sufficiently met is very Voracity-coded and not really the kind of idea a very well-adjusted person would be espousing. We have no idea how loyal she really is to the IPC's goal of aiding Preservation against Destruction in the War of the Aeons.

But she's also, over and over again, been painted as having "True Neutral" moral alignment in-game. She's literally xxxHolic's Ichihara Yuuko with a bad case of capitalism: She always demands a price, but never asks more than is fair.

It's literally Fullmetal Alchemist's first law of alchemy: Human kind can not gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.

All of Jade's exchanges are equivalent and none of her customers enter into a bargain without understanding the price they are paying. In fact, she won't even let Firefly try to make a deal at all without doing her research in advance to truly realize the extent of what she is asking for. Jade is inherently an honest businesswoman.

The issue is that greed is all-encompassing. The ability to have any wish granted is a temptation that virtually no one can escape in the end.

Therefore, I think the best way to understand Jade is as the Honkai Star Rail equivalent of Mephistopheles. In the legend of Faust, the eponymous Dr. Faust longs for more in his life--he is endlessly pursuing knowledge and power, but has hit the limits of his own ability. He meets the devil, Mephistopheles, who agrees to enter into a pact with him: Mephistopheles will fulfill all Faust's wishes while Faust is still alive, but then Faust's soul will belong to the devil when he dies. The deal is fairly presented. The terms are not unclear: If Faust agrees to the bargain, he knows what will happen to his soul in the end.

Mephistopheles doesn't trick him or force his hand when it comes to this bargain. Faust could say no. He could resist. But he doesn't. He agrees, because human greed and pride are simply that overpowering. He thinks he's smarter than the devil; unlike the thousands of others who have come before and suffered damnation for their deals with the devil, Faust thinks he is different, better than others, more deserving... The actual temptation doesn't come from the devil. It comes from human hubris.

Like Mephistopheles, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Jade merely presents the choice--it's humanity's endless desire that leads to the downfall.

It's a snake and an apple and a contract for a reasonnnnnn, Jade haters.

So, I don't think that Jade represents any danger to anyone who can resist temptation. Firefly walks away from Jade's exchange entirely unscathed. Trailblazer isn't pressed into surrender.

But Aventurine?

To be honest, I think his relationship with her is a bit more complicated.

Aventurine likes Jade. She did him a solid when he was at his lowest in life. His character stories make it clear that he views her as, essentially, someone "safe" in the IPC, unlike other Stonehearts.

But... I do agree that Aventurine approaches Jade more cautiously than he approaches others. And I think that probably stems from a couple of different factors:

Jade has positioned herself as Aventurine's "pseudo-mother," and Aventurine responds to her as if she, indeed, a mother figure he has to obey. He is more respectful of her than anyone else we see him interact with in the game--Diamond and Opal get called by name, but Jade is always "Ma'am." Which is very close to "Mama;" this is not an accidentttttt. When Jade disrupts his banter with Topaz, Aventurine immediately does as he is told, hands over his room card, and simmers down. Even in joking social media posts, when Jade asks Aventurine to do something (judge the uncut jade stones she sent him), he does it even when she rejects his high demand for profit sharing.

But:

2. Jade actually failed Aventurine's moral litmus test. From the beginning of his adulthood flashbacks, we see Aventurine explicitly troubled by the fact that his human dignity was denied and that a market value was assigned to his existence. And not even a high value. He was sold for pennies. It's the ultimate mortification, and we can tell it is still bothering him to this day because even "future" Aventurine brings up the sting of that bone-deep insult during Aventurine's long walk through Penacony. In response to the indignity, Kakavasha gave his original master a moral test: Kakavasha says that he'll go willingly into the hellscape of the death maze if his master will give him 30 copper Tanba, just half his market value. His master refuses, demonstrating that he does not view Kakavasha as a human being, worthy of any respect. By refusing this tiny, insignificant request, the master exhibits his utter moral depravity, from which there is no return. In response, Kakavasha ultimately kills him and takes the 30 copper coins he asked for (nothing more, nothing less) from his corpse.

When Kakavasha meets Jade, he then makes the exact same demand: He wants 30 copper coins and exactly 30 copper coins. At this point, it is very clear that--to Kakavasha--the coins are emblematic of his value as a human being. (I promise you, somewhere in his apartment right now are the 30 bloody coins he took from his master's cold corpse.) His freedom, his dignity, his worth... All of these things hinge on being able to acquire the original 60 Tanba coins. Thus, those who refuse his requests for the coins also symbolically refuse his request for basic respect, his request to be seen as an equal human being who deserves to not be reduced to mere pennies on a bill of sale.

And Jade refuses this request. She treats the demand for Tanbas like a paltry sum and instead ignores the specificity of the request to give a general "We'll give you riches beyond your imagine, more than you could have ever thought to want." But that isn't what he asked for. She stepped over the request he actually made in order to supplant her ideas, on her terms. Kakavasha made the tiniest, most easily completed request in the world, and in failing to actually just respect what he personally wished for, Jade demonstrated that she ultimately will not really respect him.

Just like his slave master, Aventurine represents a value on a page to Jade. For this reason, even if she extends pseudo-maternal behavior to Aventurine and he laps it up like a starved kitten drinks up milk, we see that he remains more cautious toward her than he does to any other female character in the game. Aventurine comes across as more comfortable talking to Acheron than he sounds when he talks to Jade... Because in failing the most basic and seemingly meaningless test, Jade revealed exactly to what extent Kakavasha can--and cannot--trust her.

Does Jade actually mean Aventurine any harm? No, I really don't think so, and you're right, those who claim that she does are really over-exaggerating Jade's negative traits, mostly because they've almost universally got a strong anti-IPC agenda and hate everything from the IPC except Aventurine on principle. Everything in Jade's character stories points to her honestly wanting to develop the hidden talents of others, to "polish" rough cut stones into true gems, and to see her fledglings thrive. Kakavasha is someone she picked up out of the dirt and dusted off. If he excels, that means her faith was well-placed, her judgment was correct, and her team as a whole excels.

It's exactly like a business owner who takes great pride in producing a fantastic product. Only when the product succeeds can the business itself succeed.

But business owners see their products as objects, not equals.

Jade is a fairly neutral figure and I think she wants to see Aventurine grow and achieve greatness. But at the end of the day, their relationship is very predicated on the notion of investment (Jade puts up the original capital to make Aventurine great, and he repays her faith in him by generating wealth for the IPC). It is clear she just can't be trusted to value Aventurine as a person above a means of profit--and Aventurine knows (and accepts) that too.

[cross-word]

GOOD LUCK, BABE

after years Ethan still regrets what he did to you.

Word count: 1162

When I first started to date Ethan I knew he had a best friend Amanda that everyone thought he was dating. All of his ex’s used to warn me on social media but I was never the jealous type.

That was until I received a phone call from a random number in the middle of the night I answer to hear lewd noises, moaning and someone moaning a name “ah, fuck Ethan keep doing that” it took me forever for my eyes to adjust to the light difference but once I realized what was going on.

I realized I’ve seen that number before. On Ethan’s phone labeled as Amanda, my heart broke as I heard her moan his name over and over again “why do you have your phone out” I hear him say, grabbing the phone flipping so that the screen was facing him to see me watching “y/n..” before he can say anything else I hung up going back to sleep.

The next day I felt numb watching your boyfriend fuck his best friend that everyone warned you about is humbling. The whole day I could see Amanda smirking at me from the peripheral vision Ethan kept trying to talk to me. His excuses going into one ear and out, “that was not what you thought”, “that was the first time I ever did that”.

As the day went on Ethan finally did it, he cornered me enough to finally get me to talk to him “please baby” he pleaded “no.” I said in a dead voice “what?” He asked “I said no. You can’t fix this. I watched you fuck your best friend you can’t get back from that no amount of pleading can change that” I told him he stood there hurt. The audacity. “No, baby please I’ll do anything I’ll block her, I’ll get rid of her from my life please just don’t call it off I’m begging” he said.

“I hate you Ethan” I told him, pushing him out of my way. Ethan stood there watching my body as I walked away, as I grew distant from Ethan I heard him and Amanda argue.

That was 15 years ago, that experience taught me that love isn’t a guarantee of trust.

I stood there in the Walmart at almost 9pm picking up groceries for my mom. It was Christmas when I was visiting her when I heard a voice too familiar “y/n?” I turn to see Ethan. He looked older, not in a good way. It seemed like he suffered for those 15 years I didn’t see him.

“Oh, hi Ethan” it was awkward for sure two grown adults that used to have history just staring at each other like they were soul mates. “Ethan baby” I hear coming from behind him a woman I stood face to face with the two people who betrayed me 15 years ago.

“Oh. You're back in town..” Amanda said, staring at me eyes darting to Ethan who hasn’t spoken since we locked eyes, sensing tension rise I walk away. “WAIT” Ethan yelled I paused hoping he wasn’t about to say what I think he will. “Do you wanna come over to our house for dinner to catch up?” He asked. I turn to face him “no, I think it’s best if we don’t talk at all” I say leaving him and Amanda in the aisle.

“Are you okay honey?” My mom knocked me out of my daze. “yeah I’m fine” I smiled at her as petite came up next to me looking for food “I think I’m gonna sleep early mom” I said kissing her head walking back to my childhood room.

A loud ringing hit my ear in the middle of the night. I see my phone vibrating showing me a number, immediately seeing the number “ugh, what is it now” I pick up “is he with you?” Amanda asked in a panic.

“You’re joking right” I asked “no. I had a bad feeling and I woke up. I turn around and I see him gone. Please I’m begging is he with you” she sobs through the phone “listen I don’t care about Ethan or you anymore the faster you two leave me alone the better please stop calling me” I tell her hanging up.

I walk downstairs to grab a cup of water to see headlights flashing into the living room. I wondered who would be driving at this time of day but deep down I knew. I unlocked the door to see the car turn off and Ethan walk out.

Towards me. “Your wife is looking for you” I tell him bluntly “I’m sorry” he says completely falling to his knees melting all the snow on the porch.

“I woke up next to her and I realized I don’t want her, the only reason I stayed with her was because I felt bad for the way we ended,” he confessed with his head in his hands. “I don’t have anything going on for me y/n I’m considered to half of the people in this town as Amanda’s husband” he sobbed. “All I can think about after I saw you at Walmart was the way you talked to me the way you looked at me the way it seemed like with you my whole life was fulfilled” he stared at me tears rolling down his cheeks.

“And what do you want me to do about it?” I asked him, colder than the winter night. Do you want me to say I told you so? Cause if it gets you back to your crying wife I will” I said sternly.

“Ethan” I say crouching down to face level with him “were shoelaces attached together my love, but we were cut no matter how much you’d like to connect us together again it will never happen the tear and used shoelaces will never stay together that’s why you buy new ones” I breathed in “Ethan it’s time to move on, I moved on the second I got that call in the middle of the night, go home. Your wife thinks you're cheating on her” I tell him, walking back inside and locking the door.

As I walk down the aisles of grocery I pass a person “I’m sorry I slept with Ethan” Amanda told me as I pass her we both stopped but the difference is Amanda looked back and I didn’t “you and him need to get over that, I don’t care anymore you two are the only ones keeping that flame alive, maybe it’s your subconscious feeling bad but either way, work it between you two or breakup” I tell her walking away never to look back again.

I woke up in my New York apartment to a voicemail. I recognized it as Ethan’s number. “Amanda asked for a divorce, please answer me I want to be with you” I sighed as I blocked his number.

[n3kk1tty]

Imagine Singing an inappropriate German song in front of Nightcrawler.

Readers Mutant powers- Mechanical transfiguration. You can turn your body or manipulate machines into different kinds of machines/ weapon.

Night Crawler wants to get to know the reader but the reader suffers from social anxiety and is neurodivergent.

You were still pretty new to the mansion and though you tried your best to feel part of the team sometimes it was hard being the new recruit. It was especially hard to connect with some of the others as more often then not it felt like you stayed coped up with Hank geeking out over machines. This led to keeping to yourself outside of missions unless you were with Hank or being forced to discuss mechanical maintenance with Professor Xavier and Scott. Outside of those three it was your goal everyday to stay out of everyone else's way which didn't deter a certain group of them from trying desperately to befriend you.

This is what led to your now bizarre schedule which truly shouldn't overlap with everyone else's. Prep your meals early in the morning and take them to your mini fridge before anyone catches you then proceed with morning walk then training. This way there was no need for awkward conversations or worse forced social interaction between the extroverts. Rogue, Jubilee, Morph and the worse offender Nightcrawler. You were like a frightened dumpster cat they were trying desperately to befriend but there outgoing personality mixed with your introverted neurodivergent led to situations you dreaded as you never knew what to connect about.

It got so bad you jumped out a window before the group rounded a corner as they were trying to find you to go out somewhere. Hank of course scolded you for hiding out with him when they were having a man hunt again as he tried coaxing you out of the danger room computer system. " I know you're a little shy but I assure you (Y/n) they will adore you just like I do. I quite cherish our shared passions and friendship but making friends with your other teammates will be beneficial for you. " Hank sits at the computer chair staring at the hardware in front of him. "Nope. Nada. Not happening. " Your body slowly forms out of the mechanical hardware staring at your blue friend as he frowns.

" Hank. You understand that Kurt's teleporting alone randomly keeps my anxiety on edge. What happens if he knows where I'm at teleports in front of me and before I can even process it I've punched him across the room with a full force power punch. How will I ever look anyone in the face again. They will all think I did it on purpose and that I'm a newbie with a attitude problem, or even worse I'm not x-men material like Xavier thinks I am. " Hank sighs as like a mole you disappear back into the machine at the sound of the door opening. Jean walks in waving to Hank as she can already tell what's going on. Kurt had asked her a favor to use her telepathic powers to locate you which she had done but knew it would be better to give your location only if you wanted to be found.

"You know (Y/n) your a pretty hard person to find. Is there a reason your so difficult to locate outside of missions. " Silence hangs in the air. You don't dare make a sound but you know she knows you're here. It's not like you could hide your consciousness in the machine. Jean gently sighs sitting in the chair next to Hank. " It's okay I'm not mad. I just want to know why no one can find you. Truthfully your little fan club asked if I could locate you but I didn't want to give away your location if you didn't feel comfortable with it. I already know you asked Scott not to tell anyone else your schedule. I just want to make sure you're adjusting well and if there's anything I can do."

You don't dare to come out the machine but the gentleness of her voice helps lure a response out of your frightened form. " I just don't feel comfortable with the extroverts high energy. It feels like everyone's eyes are on me as the new person and I don't want to embarrass myself outside of missions. One on one I can handle the attention but all three at once it's just too much and I just shut down and panic. " Hank taps his pen against his check board. " (Y/n) has trouble understanding social cues at times and thanks to past rejections now has severe social anxiety thanks to it. She is worried that she won't say the right thing when she interacts with the others outside of missions."

Hank pats the control desk your body is currently absorbed to almost like he's patting a child's head. " This is why she's gone out of her way to avoid them. Which as you can tell Jean has led to where we are now with her using her mutant powers to avoid them. " Jean looks empathetic as you slowly reform your body out of the machine. Crawling out onto the floor slowly standing up as you embarrassingly stand there. " Do you not wish to interact with them at all? They really just want to be your friend and get to know you better. All of us do. Though I do understand everything has been a lot, but you have been doing wonderful on missions and the repairs around the mansion. Even the students adore you. Just have more faith in yourself okay (Y/n) I'm sure they are just excited to get to know the real you. "

Hands fiddle with the end of your sweater. Rubbing the fabric between your fingers was helping just slightly with your nerves as you stand in front of Jean. " I really do want to make friends with them as well. It's just hard to. I don't think I'm ready to face them today but I definitely will try better in the future to make steps to get closer to the rest of the team. If you could do me a favor though could you tell them I'm sorry if I've appeared rude and that I'm sorry if it seemed like I didn't like them." As Jean stands up satisfied with the conversation you quickly grab onto her arm in a panic. " Please don't tell Kurt we're I am though. Tell him I went to bed early. His teleportation makes me anxious as I'm worried he's gonna scare me and I'm gonna accidentally knock him out in panic. I feel like I've already royally screwed up our relationship with my running away. The last thing I need to do is accidentally send him through a wall. He will really think I hate him. "

Jean laughs patting your hand in comfort. " Well I'll make sure to tell him that next time he wants to talk with you that he should try walking in instead of teleporting and scaring you. Trust me I understand the shock that it can have on someone. It took a lot of us months to get used to the scare. " Jean had fulfilled her promise to you informing them all about your social anxiety and to give you space and patience. Exspecially making sure to drive the point home to Kurt that his teleporting scared you not because of his looks but because it suddenly scared you. To bad though that Jean was too late to prevent the groups scheming. See Kurt was so infatuated with getting to know you because he had a small crush on you ever since you shared candy with him on your first mission together.

He had successfully convinced the other extroverts to help with his plan of getting to know you better. This was no small task though as somehow you had managed to be the hardest person to find ever outside of missions. Even trying to learn your schedule was impossible as Scott wouldn't tell any of them at all. When Jean had comeback to tell Kurt you had already gone to bed but that you did want to get to know him he was over the moon. Taking the instructions of trying not to scare you with his teleportation to heart he was fueled with excitement to carry out his plan. See they couldn't figure out your schedule from Scott but that didn't mean you were safe from some good old stalking.

Your dorm room was right across from Rogues and with some late night staking out she was able to get a rough outline and idea around the time you'd get up. The group was able to figure out that you got up at Four every morning and would be in the kitchen prepping your meals for the day before coming back to leave them in your room. It was the only part of your schedule they had figured out but now with the encouragement that you actually wanted to know them in place they could carry out with their match making scheme. All Kurt had to do was catch you while you were cooking. Maybe make it look like he woke up early on accident and you were just so happening to be in the kitchen.

It was the perfect scheme because there was no way you'd abandon your meal prep to hide or run away so this was Kurt's chance to make some progress. Jubilee was so excited to carry out this plan as it was like playing a real life dating simulator. She excitedly prepped Kurt for the first attempt chattering on about how you were like a romantic interest and all he had to do was slowly fill your heart meter to gain more playable interactions. Morph pitched into the plan by transforming into you to help Kurt practice his first interactions. Though he didn't really appreciate the teasing he got from Morph while they wore your face. " I don't think pickup lines would go over well for a first interaction. "

Jubilee chastised Morph as they teased the furry blue elf. " Hey who doesn't like flirting. It may be a great hit with (Y/n)" Rogue shook her head not really agreeing with it either. " Now she already is like a scared cat in a rainstorm. You heard Jean we gotta be aware of her anxieties. Any mess ups may set our progress backwards. " Kurt gulped at the thought of messing this up. You were so sweet and caring on missions always worried about everyone and how things would affect civilians. The first mission he ever went on with you after the fight was over you stayed for hours making sure people were taken care things were cleaned. You had done it all with a never ending kind smile and when leaned against a wall exhausted you had offered Kurt a soft salted caramel from your pocket.

He swore that those caramels tasted like heaven. Now he was determined to win your friendship then hopefully if he was blessed enough your heart. He set off for bed putting his alarm to wake him around the time you were expected in the kitchen. He rehearsed his conversation multiple times as he lay restlessly in his bed before eventually drifting off into dreams about soft caramels.

Now was cooking all your meals at once in the dead of the morning when no one else would possibly be awake a little annoying. Maybe. Was it worth it for uninterrupted personal time before you went to go galavanting in the woods. Definitely. I mean before the X-Men you were used to this schedule as making ends meat in an adopted family of mutants was hard. So waking up to avoid the extroverts and meal prep was just easier for you in the long run anyway. Not like it was much different then back in the junkyard. Though a habit you never could break from your time in the junkyard was working in the dark. There really wasn't a need to turn on lights when your automatic eyes would just adjust to night vision anyway.

So here you were in the pitch dark of the kitchen only the slightest flame from the gas stovetop lighting the room. Which truthfully made no difference in the inky black abyss as pots clattered and things bubbled on the stove. You had on your list of foods today to make was your homemade salted caramel squares. Headphones in coffee at your side you bounced around the kitchen dancing and singing along to the songs. Of course you had a built in system to tell you how loud you were being to make sure you didn't wake anyone but that didn't stop you from aggressively dancing along to what ever came on in your play list.

I mean it was like a mini concert with just you and the stove. If anyone did wake up the turning on of the lights would alert you to cease your unrestrained shenanigans. Your previous song stops and suddenly the night-cored version of the song Doktorspiele starts blaring through. Jumping up and down you sing along to the perverse lyrics in German. You were aware of how raunchy the lyrics were actually but it's not like a lot of people knew the lyrics at first hearing. The only people you had to worry about hearing was Kurt or Anna Marie. There was no way they would catch you so swaying your hips bouncing your weight from left and right you sang your heart out to the song.

At one point you were so into the song you were singing into the spoon that was stirring the caramel while running your hands from your thighs up into your hair being playfully sensual like the song. Blissfully unaware of the Blue German speaking mutant sitting in shock and amusement on the counter furthest away from you. He could never imagine that the girl he had a crush on would be standing before him singing in his native tongue about a raunchy game of playing doctor. I mean he didn't want to stop you the words rolling from your mouth were incredibly enticing to him. If your relationship was a little closer he may have even had the confidence to act up on the lyrics suggestions.

Not wishing to ruin this he sat watching you be so open and free. He wanted desperately for you to be like this all the time. He almost forgot you weren't aware he was there until when you did your finishing move for the song spinning around his direction posing your heart out. He couldn't help but clap, enamored by the sight. That was until electric robotic eyes opened spotting him in the night vision sight. The sound that came out of you was robotic high pitched and squeaky. Like a voice synthesizer breaking to replicate as it got more robotic. You threw the spoon in pure panic leaping back in fear before crawling behind the kitchen counter as your heart and mind raced away in embarrassment.

Kurt almost immediately by instinct dashed after you trying to apologize. " Oh no, please don't run away!" You curl into a ball eyes closed tight as your heartbeat races in your ear. So tightly round up that you couldn't spot Kurt gently crawling next to you. " I'm so sorry, liebling. Even after Jean informed me to not scare you I've done it anyway. " It's like the disappointment can be heard through Kurt's voice as something about it stings. " I-i'm okay. I'm so sorry I was singing that song Kurt. I know it's perverse and I shouldn't be singing them for others to hear. I didn't wake you did I?" Bright glowing doe eyes just slightly peak into glowing golden orbs from above warm hands. Kurt smiles at how much you look like a mouse hiding like this in front of him. He truly wanted to pull you into a hug begging you to sing it again for him just so he could know the dirty promises made in German but he knew that wasn't the way to go about this.

"Do not fret over me. I was just coming to get some water. I was trying not to scare you with the lights but I couldn't help watching you be so lively and energetic. " You slowly lift your head to see the soft smile on Kurt's face as he intently looks into your glowing orbs. " You don't mind the lyrics? Or my terrible singing?" Kurt pats your hand almost jokingly scoffing at the comment. " There is no reason to mind. It is a catchy song and it sounds even better sang by a beautiful woman like you. If you wanted I could help you practice your German pronunciation. " This eases your mood as you laugh a bit. The anxiety's slowly melting away as you see the passion behind Kurt's eyes. " Maybe I should take you up on that offer in the future. "

You share a few more jokes between each other before the sound of the stove bubbling over catches your attention. Darting up you lunge towards the sweets boiling monstrously. " Oh no the carmel !?"

[rageprufrock]

Superposition | The Devil Judge WIP

Just a sneak peek into the inevitable outcome of me finding out that I can write a story about a 17 year age gap.

After the fire, Yohan wakes up every morning knowing that Isaac is dead. 

Elijah wakes up every morning convinced her father is alive. 

It's the crush damage of new grief each day, too big for her tiny body and too heavy for her to carry. It's worse than all of Yohan's years under his father's belt; it's not until he loses Isaac and Heejin, until Elijah cries herself unconscious in his arms, that Yohan realizes that his father had been a clumsy jailer, that for all his cruelty he'd been a blunt instrument compared to all the ways suffering can visit itself upon a person. 

It's a miracle Elijah is alive, surviving multiple complex fractures and then delayed treatment. They save the flesh and bone of her legs, piece her back together with literal pins and needles. Her x-rays are difficult to look at; the scarring across her ghost-pale skin is worse. She hurts, in a relentless way that is at first impossible to explain to a child, and then is so ordinary she goes quiet with it, turns it inward. She stops crying. She's too weak and immobile for her once-infamous tantrums. She goes quiet instead. She throws books, toys, anything that Yohan brings into her beautifully appointed private room to try to distract her. 

"It will be hard, and it will take time," her doctors say, with an infuriating paternalism, as if their performed empathy could dampen constant burn of searing fire across Yohan's shoulders, cut into the shell of him. "But she's young and she's resilient—she'll surprise you." 

For the first six months, Yohan spends his limited waking, functional hours desperately trying to hold back the flood with his bare hands. He wakes and he's in too much pain to function. He sleeps and his doctors adjust his pain management regimen. He wakes and he tries to comfort Elijah. He sleeps and he dreams about the skin grafts he's been informed are needed. He wakes and he calls Lawyer Ko. He sleeps when he knows Isaac's Social Responsibility Fund donation is canceled. He loses hours and entire days in the labyrinth of the hospital, winding between the VIP ward and the children's wing, meeting with Elijah's orthopedic surgeon, her occupational therapists, the revolving cast of nurses that transport her from procedure to scan to bedside. He arranges Isaac and Heejin's funeral, and ends up back as a patient when Elijah's meltdown at the gravesite has him tearing one of his barely healed graft sites trying to contain her flailing arms, to swallow all of her screaming pain into the bottomless well in the base of his spine. 

It's eight months and six days after the fire that Yohan hears Elijah laugh again. 

***

Later, he'll get a comprehensive readout from the hospital grapevine, but the day he meets Gaon for the first time, all he knows is that he's been summoned by the terrifying peds nurses because Elijah and her new friend have committed some kind of juvenile crime.

Yohan's not ignorant to the fact that Elijah is a nightmare child, but he's still a little confused about how a five year old who is—frankly—abysmal with her new wheelchair is any kind of threat to society. He fetches up at to the pediatric OT clinic fully prepared to act like a complete entitled asshole about this, because while Elijah is a monster, she's his monster and therefore completely innocent of all sin, original or otherwise. 

Except halfway down the hallway there, he hears the sharp cackle of Elijah's laughter, a goblin shriek of pure wicked joy. It lands like a punch, like a blessing, it leaves him lightheaded. 

When he rushes the door, it's to find Elijah in full glory, giggling so hard she can't speak. Her hair is tied up in a series of tiny ponytails that frame her face like a lion's mane, her face is covered in marker, and she's clutching a filthy orange cat to her chest. 

"Kang Yohan-sshi," says one of the nurses, who is trying and failing to look severe, from the way her mouth keeps wobbling and her voice is trembling. "As you can see, we have a situation."

"I—where did she get the cat?" Yohan asks, faint.

Another nurse, who is making no effort to hide her grin, says, "Apparently, they found him behind a trash can in the garden and snuck him into the hospital." 

Yohan slants his eyes toward her. "They?" 

"I'm really not sure how you missed her very obvious partner in crime," the nurse tells him, actively laughing now, and when Yohan turns to look again—turns to see anything other than the miracle of Elijah's smiling face—he sort of understands her point.

Because sitting next to Elijah is a skinny teenaged boy wearing Elijah's headband, all of his short hair pushed back and sticking out like a massive frill around his thin face, his nose colored black and whiskers drawn across his cheeks. He looks less embarrassed than he probably should be, and more incriminating, he's holding some contraption made out of stolen hospital supplies that looks like one those little fishing toys for cats—a single inflated glove hanging from the end—that the fat orange on Elijah's lap keeps reaching for with outstretched paws. 

Standing in the doorway, surrounded by staff and other parents who are barely containing their hysterics, the whole thing is even more batshit. Nurse Woo Yeji, the iron fist of the pediatrics ward, is looming over Elijah and the kid on the ground, hands on her hips as she booms out:

"Kang Elijah-sshi, give me that creature immediately." 

Elijah narrows her bright little eyes. "Oh no," Yohan mutters.

"My cat," she declares, her chin stuck out in defiance.

"He was so sick and skinny, we had to rescue him," the boy chimes in, with the admirable application of a pair of doleful, sweet eyes. It might be more effective if his face wasn't covered in washable marker and he didn't have a purple heart drawn over his left eyebrow. 

"That cat is at least 4 kilograms overweight," Nurse Yeji tells them both, unmoved. "And let me say: Kim Gaon, I thought you had better judgment than this."

The boy, Gaon, takes the comment with the ease of long familiarity with disappointment, but Yohan still sees his eyes go briefly flinty, briefly cold, before he pastes on a smile and says, "I rode my motorcycle into a wall. If you thought I had good judgement, that's your own fault." 

"Yah! Kim Gaon!" the nurse yells, which just sets Elijah off again into pealing laughter. 

And from the back of the room, Yohan watches the way this mouthy kid, this little punk, glances over to his niece, watches how the fake grin on his face dissolves for something softer—something run through with tenderness too old for his years. 

***

Kim Gaon is 17, orphaned, and a frequent flight risk from the group home he's been remanded to with both his parents dead. In the 13 months since his father had died by suicide, and the 10 months since his mother had followed, he's been picked up by the local cops at least a half-dozen times: for smoking, for drinking, for fighting. Yohan looks up photos of Gaon's once-happy family, reads SNS posts mourning the closure of their family restaurant, the police reports about the suicides, the note in Gaon's hospital file that notes that he's going into arrears for his parents' funeral costs. Kim Gaon's social worker talks about him with a sort of resigned apology, approaches Yohan's interest like another black mark in the boy's service jacket. She looks at Yohan's suit and briefcase, takes his business card and calls him Lawyer Kang, spills the whole of Gaon's history, reassures Yohan that however self-destructive, however volatile, Kim Gaon's never displayed any violent tendencies toward children, that Lawyer Kang should feel free to reach out immediately if he feels concern that Gaon has become Elijah's friend.

"If you'd like me to speak to him, to tell him you're not comfortable with him spending time with you niece, I completely understand," his social worker says. 

Kim Gaon has been treated for two different STIs and tried to kill himself with a motorcycle three months ago. The only people he has left in the world are a childhood friend from down the street and Judge Min Jeongho, who used to eat lunch at the Kim's restaurant every day. 

Kim Gaon is 17 and entirely alone.

Yohan smiles at her. "No need," he reassures her. "I'll handle this on my own." 

***

Too much of Kim Gaon's character reference is ultimately hearsay. Yohan doesn't trust himself, exactly, but he trusts his judgement, so he watches quietly from the sidelines, collecting data. Yohan hears all the nurses talk about how Gaon is achingly polite, how they can't understand how such a nice boy could be such an evident wild child he would ride motorcycles with reckless lack of self preservation. He watches Gaon do other peoples' homework, quizzing them on Joseon history and showing a middle schooler who's learning how to write with his left hand trigonometry. Kim Gaon plays Smash Brothers with a flock of elementary school kids and ruthlessly kicks their asses every single time.

The Kim Gaon that's considered a neighborhood menace, the one sends his teachers into a blind fury, that's the protective armor. Yohan knows from defensive adaptations. 

But being a nice kid isn't the same as belonging in Elijah's life in any meaningful way, Yohan acknowledges, and spends a pointless day drafting soul-killing discovery motions and wondering why he's devoting so much time to this distraction. Maybe it's how Elijah's sleeping through the nights better, communicating her pain and what she needs better. Maybe it's how she tells stories about her friend Gaon, and it briefly feels as if they've traveled backward through time, that Yohan's watching her for the night, hearing and becoming deeply invested in all of her day care drama. 

"Elijah-ah, why do you like Gaon so much?" Yohan asks her one night, midway through the intricate ritual of her bedtime routine.

From her bed, Elijah says, "Gaon is funny and cats like him and also his parents are dead, so someone has to take care of him," and without missing a beat, points her sparkling princess wand toward the closet, commanding, "Check there, too." 

Yohan climbs off of the floor where he'd been checking under the bed and goes.

"Would you want to see Gaon even outside of the hospital?" he asks her, doing a careful four-point inspection of the closet: more clothes than one child could ever wear, 200 pairs of shoes, a stuffed sheep the size of a horse—no monsters. "Closet's clear."

Elijah makes a considering noise. "Gaon-oppa said he was a really good cook, so I want to eat his food," she decides, and shy now, she waves Yohan toward her, tiny hands flapping. "Samchon, come here. I want to tell you a secret."

Yohan cherishes every secret he has with Elijah. Since she was born, he's kept so many for her: that she stole a cookie, that she's really really not scared of thunder, that she loves her uncle best, that church is boring. 

"I'm ready," Yohan promises, and sits at the edge of her bed with his most serious expression. 

Elijah looks left and right, as if there are spies around every corner, before she cups her hands around her mouth and Yohan curls over her so that she can whisper:

"Sometimes I forget I'm sad about Mom and Dad, but Gaon-oppa says that's okay because I never forget that I love them." 

It lands somewhere in Yohan's soft underbelly, in the forever ache of his scare tissue. He looks down into Elijah's solemn little face, her riverstone eyes, and he wonders what kind of benevolent God allows this—forces children to patch one another's broken hearts. He used to wish that he would have died instead, that he could trade himself for Isaac, for Heejin, but he's comforted Elijah through too many nightmares of his own death to entertain it any longer. Love's always been a chain, whether wrapped around his wrist with a cross or trapping him in his father's house. 

"You will, you always will," he whispers back. 

"And they love me, too, of course, in heaven," she tells him, with the haughty confidence of a spoilt only child, who'd grown up with three adults circling around her in constant adulation. 

"And I love you here, on Earth," he says, and does not add, your grandfather loves you, too, from where he's burning in hell.

Elijah goes suddenly quiet, thoughtful and a little distant, and Yohan waits patiently until she says at last, "Gaon doesn't think his parents love him in heaven." 

Yohan stills. "Did he say that?" 

"He told his friend, the unni that visits sometimes," Elijah reports, and staring dead into Yohan's eyes, she adds, "I was hiding behind a curtain listening. He also said he can't be her boyfriend." 

"Okay, well, time for little goblins to go to sleep," Yohan says, because he absolutely cannot start laughing about this because somewhere out there, in the beautiful hereafter that Isaac so fervently believed in, he would be furious if Yohan encouraged this kind of behavior.

***

For all Yohan's been investigating the mystery of Kim Gaon, he's wholly unprepared to be confronted by the reality of the boy while sitting in the hospital cafe at half past five, working his way through a stack of files for court the next day.

"Kang Yohan-sshi?" comes a voice, and when Yohan looks up, it's into the shaggy bangs and thin face of the boy who makes Elijah laugh, standing awkwardly at the edge of his table.

"Ah," he says, flipping his pen across his knuckles. "You're Kim Gaon."

Gaon's eyes round. "You recognize me?" 

"The nurses tell me you're friends with Elijah," Yohan says, and waves at one of the empty chairs at the table, shuffles a few folders around to make room. "Please."

It takes more than a little maneuvering for Gaon to take the offered seat, between his backpack and his crutches, his leg still in its cast, and Yohan offers him a steadying arm, takes his bag, helps shift the table this way and that way. Gaon looks mortified the whole time by these small courtesies, stumbling over thank yous and apologies. It tells on him in ways Gaon can't possibly know, but that Yohan can't possibly ignore.

"What brings you to my temporary office?" Yohan asks, when he's sure the kid isn't going to tip over and break anything else, and is only in immediate danger of blushing to death.

Gaon squares his shoulders, and taking a deep breath, says, "I wanted to talk to you about a cat."

This is how Yohan learns that the orange furball that he's first seen that day in the OT room all those many weeks ago is a stray that's been named Gam, and that Elijah's youthful enthusiasm for petty hospital-based crime has undergone a metamorphosis toward more elaborate heists.

"Not that I don't admire her ambition, but I'm pretty sure you'd notice the yowling lump in her sweater when you pick her up from OT," Gaon says, still nervous and too polite, darting wary little glances upward at Yohan. "I tried to talk her out of it, but she started arguing about how cold it was going to get and I had to admit defeat."

Yohan feels the corners of his mouth curl up, reflexive. "There's wisdom in recognizing when you're beaten," he says. "And I appreciate your letting me know."

"Sure," Gaon says before going quiet for a long measure, some unfinished sentence still hidden behind his lashes. Yohan's patient, waits him out, and is rewarded when a half-minute passes and Gaon says, with a brittle courage and poorly concealed vulnerability, "I—I'd take him with me if I could. I like Gam. But the house where I have to stay won't allow pets."

Yohan can hear a universe in between the confession here: that Gaon must have been worried about the cold weather long before Elijah even noticed, that he'd tried to find an answer all on his own. Yohan feels, tugging in the hollow underneath his breastbone, a hurtful recognition of a younger version of himself, all those raw edges fraying, and maybe—sitting here—he can understand a little of Isaac's quiet sadness, the way Yohan had carried all his suffering alone, as a matter of course, without ever trying to ask for help. 

He looks at the slope of Gaon's shoulders, the wrinkled collar of his school uniform shirt, his terrible haircut, the little divot of a piercing in his ear. Yohan thinks about the sunburst of Elijah's laughter and all the terrible things he's willing to do to sustain it; it's strange to realize he hadn't anticipated something so easy, something that wouldn't hurt at all. 

"Do me a favor," Yohan sighs.

Gaon's head darts up. "Um—if I can?" he says.

"Back me up when I tell her that I thought long and hard about this, and that I'm going to be a strict taskmaster about this cat," Yohan says, with a rueful certainty that there's no way in hell that Elijah is going to buy this narrative, because it looks like the sun is rising in the brightness of Gaon's eyes, the pink happiness of his too-thin cheeks. This kid couldn't lie effectively if his life depended on it. In this light, Gaon looks a little like Isaac, if Isaac was too thin and too hopeful, all gamine pleasure; it makes Yohan feel his bones creak just to look at him. 

"I will, I absolutely will," Gaon promises, smiling now and still shy, but so achingly sweet that it makes Yohan want to buy him hot chocolate, to tell him he's done a good job, to ask if he's eaten dinner. 

He forebears, and starts packing up his work documents instead. 

"Come on," he tells Gaon. "If I'm going to make a fool of myself trying to trap a feral hospital cat, you're coming with me."

Yohan ends up scratched to hell and back, his hand-tailored wool trousers covered in mud, while  Gaon laughs at him with a wide-open happiness that makes something in Yohan's chest feel too big for his rib cage. He decides not to think about it in favor of fetching Elijah from her PT and ferrying her down to his car, where Gaon is waiting for them both, a sulking Gam zipped into the front of his hoodie like an uncooperative child. His smile could light every building in Gangnam. Elijah's shriek of pure joy when she spots him leaves Yohan half-deaf for the drive home, and so the warm patter of Elijah and Gaon talking in the backseat rolls over him in indistinct syllable noises until he drops Gaon off at his group home and helps him to the door. 

"Thank you, for today," Gaon tells him, starry and still rosy, covered in cat hair. 

"Elijah's already drawing up plans for shared custody, so don't be a stranger," Yohan warns. 

He'd been ordered by Elijah to participate in an exchange of contact information with Gaon because everybody in the car had a unique and unaddressed relationship with the trauma of abandonment, and so of course Gam could not be suddenly bereft of one of his humans.

"I won't, I promise," Gaon swears, and nods back toward the car, where Elijah is holding Gam up against the window and waving his paw at them. "You should get her home."

Elijah talks nonstop during the drive out of the urban density of Seoul into the forested beyond where their family home is perched on a melodramatic cliff above a lake. Yohan hears about her nurses, her rivalry with another little boy in OT who sounds like he has a world-ending crush on her Gaon-oppa, and listens to the way Elijah sometimes stops mid-sentence when Gam meows at her and then replies, as if she can understand cat. 

Whatever is bubbling in his veins, its too violent to be the warm kindness of joy. This ferocity feels like some holy gratitude, feels like the way Isaac used to talk about God. Yohan has never any good at faith, but he thinks—to himself, so loudly he hears it over the roar of blood in his ears and the chattering happiness of Elijah, vividly alive—he thinks, thank you, thank you, to whoever is listening: to God, to fate, to fortune, to the fucking cat—to Gaon, waving at Elijah with both hands, a smile on his face and Gam curled close against his chest. 

[ellaphnt]

Saw ur Toshiro post, and I absolutely agree that Toshiro's outburst will be a stepping stone for both um an Laios to grow and that the buildup was because Shuro didn't want to ruin situation he was still trying to figure out. But the funniest thing is, afaik, Laios and Falin are *also Foreigners* for quite far away. Their country is simply Scandinavian/northern Europe themed. I don't think we see any long-lived races in their flash backs (baring the dead man buying a ring of elves?). And both Falin and Laois definitly are the equivalent of nobility/Local chiefs kids. But instead of being send out with all their assistants and guards, Laios ran away and suffered in the army and then on his own in a caravan , and Falin was send to a Magial School full of other races and people. They both had time to 'adjust' to the wider world (and still carry a bit of home-grown uh...prejudice (mountain people)). So when they met Shuro both of them were well used to meeting people not from their Country. Toshiro not being either from the tiny Island or the nearby lands simply didn't mesh with how they had adapted to behave. Plus, obviously, Laios textual Autism. But I feel like Laios could totally have figured it out if he had met people from Shuros island before who would have told him, he does after all know how to behave around Dwarves and such, who also have quite diffrent culturual norms. Sorry for the ramble xD Good Toshiro post!

Hi hi! I’m really glad you’re adding onto my silly brain thoughts hehe - I’m super happy to hear yours, especially since they make me think more! Warning this is going to be long, talking about dungeon meshi is just a lot of fun.

When I said foreigner, I should have clarified that that I meant he’s a stranger to the CULTURE. A good chunk of the people in the island are not native to it! But culturally, they have the social background to fit in. They didn’t all come from the same place, yes, but they grew up in European-esque cultures and interacted to some extent with other races. Even Kabru and Rin are not foreign to this type of culture because they grew up with Western/European socialization.

Gonna elaborate bc I think it’s fascinating: From what we know about the Eastern islands, the worldview is very very different. In the Adventurer’s Bible where Kabru talks to Hien, they talk about how the East defines “humans” as “tallmen”, and oni/ogres were the only “other”. In the post-canon snippet where Toshiro talks to Falin, he even refers to Eastern thinking as “backward” due to the lack of long-lived races. Because of his delayed exposure to other races, and because the worldview is far more different than the one the Toudens experienced, that’s where I make the statement that he had more to adjust to.

I’ll also note, the fact that the Toudens are subjectively more adjusted to seeing and accommodating other races makes Laios’ statement that Toshiro “had an odd appearance” an even more bizarre thing to say. And although we can assume Toshiro also has his biases, we don’t see them highlighted like other characters have had (to my knowledge). So it makes it seem like he was more thoughtful/careful towards other races from the get-go, despite his lack of knowledge. His main issues were always with other tallmen, just like Laios.

It’s good to point out that the Toudens are outcasts in their own right. Both of them went through a really hard time, and it changed them. Laios’ cycle of failures and giving up and being bullied are especially important to characterizing his relationship with his sister and his disinterest in humanity and lack of close friends. Falin at least had Marcille. Both Laios and Toshiro have reasons they’re inexperienced in friendship, but one of them stated it in the story and the other didn’t. There’s more misconception about Toshiro’s character than Laios’. So my post was to talk about that one a bit.

ALSO OOO I COMPLETELY FORGOT but I WAS going to mention how both the Toudens and Toshiro came from families of influence! Thank you for bringing it up! Laios and Toshiro diverge from that upbringing, while making Toshiro and Falin a little more similar. This goes into another whole thing where Laios and Toshiro parallel (and foils?) each other but that’s too long of a discussion. Just as long is how this divergence distinguishes the Touden siblings (too many people have said their only difference is gender..)

Lastly, yes, Laios does need more exposure to Eastern people and Eastern culture to get a grasp on it. He really wants to learn! It’s just that Shuro isn’t his encyclopedia and until he gets that chance, he will make ignorant takes. I can think of two more that will occur in the main narrative alone. (but like Toshiro said, Laios has no malicious intent, that’s what makes it all the more complicated)

While there’s good conversation to be had about the fight from a ND vs NT POV, I’ve seen SO much discussion about Toshiro possibly being read as autistic too, and neurodivergent individuals who can relate to his experience. Often it comes as an intersection between both being autistic and being a poc. I think it brings even more nuance to the narrative. Plus I’m just glad there’s people who can relate to him. He’s meant to be relatable! His problem with Laios is just as much a character flaw as it is human.

Hope this post was a thoughtful response to yours, I tried to tackle everything you mentioned! Thank you sm for the ask :D

Edit: for the sake of context, here’s the og post that’s being referred to!

[copperbadge]

Well, Still Salty.

I was cranky yesterday and I thought a good night's sleep would provide some adjustment in perspective, but unfortunately "spending yesterday not on tumblr" also offered perspective and got there first.

Up front: feel free to comment or reblog on this post (replies may be heavily delayed) but if you feel the urge to Like, I'm going to ask you to take one more step and go to https://www.tumblr.com/support, select "feedback" as the category, and enter a line or two about the new dash. It can be as simple as "Your new dash design is difficult to use and is driving people off the site". I'm not asking everyone to do it, but if you're going to Like this post, that would be a helpful action in addition. You can delete any response they send; no reason to expose yourself to the unique combination of incompetence and condescension with which they handle feedback generally.

Also up front: yeah, if I find somewhere else to go and go there, I will certainly let you guys know beforehand, I'm not going to just evaporate. I'll be broadcasting about Tumblr's replacement on Tumblr very heavily. But I can't deny that it is now an active goal of mine to find a viable replacement for this site. (More on this in a moment.) You will always be able to find me on AO3 as copperbadge, or via copperbadge@gmail.com. (More on this in a moment also.)

This kind of thing is why I refuse to fuck with staff now or ever; I don't trust them and I never will. Watching @wip respond to almost every complaint or suggestion with "but that would be really hard" is telling. Whoever is pushing blocks around at Tumblr wants a lucrative site that's easy to code, but lucrative is hostile to community and code is difficult by nature, and when the architecture of the meeting hall is hostile and cheap, people don't stick around.

I've been watching the site as every change made it incrementally worse, from a buggy post window that doesn't allow ease of editing to the new dash (which is the reason I'm writing this in a text window off Tumblr). I genuinely do not think I can use desktop Tumblr like this unless I can install something that will put it back the way it was, and roughly 40% of the content you guys get HAS to come through desktop. It's impossible to do on a phone or so time-consuming it's not worth it. I cannot code Radio Free Monday on a phone; it's a struggle to code it on a single-monitor laptop (I usually write it on my work computer, where I have two monitors). Even writing image IDs on the phone is difficult and something I rarely do. Tumblr is becoming an actively difficult place for me to make content, introducing friction left and right.

But where does one go? I've tried other platforms and they're either worse to use or they don't have the constituency. The problem with a lot of discourse around internet addiction is that it often points out how glued people are to their phones without asking what it is they're doing on those phones. I'm not addicted to social media; I don't doomscroll, I don't care what celebrities have to say, I don't find 140 characters useful or interesting, I don’t find most “funny” videos very interesting. I create a lot of original content for public consumption, significantly more than many social media users, and if that becomes difficult, then the site suffers more than I do. But it's undeniable that social media, and this social media in specific, is where my people are, and yeah, I like seeing you all every day. It makes it difficult to leave even when Tumblr is the best of a bad set of options.

It seems like a lot of the internet, lately, is the best of a bad set of options.

All that said, Tumblr forced a sudden, unwanted, and unchangeable reskin on me a day after I listened to a two-hour podcast about addiction while working on building a newsletter system for my author site. I spent the evening before this happened in contemplation of my relationship to social media and to my readership and how I might alter it to my benefit regardless of whether that's also to Tumblr's detriment. Their poor timing, I suppose. A lot of the theories advanced on the podcast were, to put it kindly, bunk, but one of the suggestions for people questioning their relationship to an activity was a dopamine fast -- removing something in your life that gives you quick but unsustained dopamine hits, so that you can take some time to level out and examine your behaviors. On the one hand, that's not at all how dopamine works; from the jump it's a bad theory. But on the other, pulling back from something you think may be causing you difficulty is generally speaking a good tactic.

Removing myself from Tumblr yesterday was an active process: because I have ADHD and often will forget something exists if I don't systematize my engagement with it, Tumblr is normally pinned to my browser, with the app on my phone's top screen. Removing the app and closing the window meant that while I occasionally reached for Tumblr, it was less frequently than I expected, and the lack of access reminded me why I wasn't there. I missed you guys, but I didn't miss getting distracted from work by my dash, or the pressure to respond to the volume of communication I receive through the site daily. I don't think my use of tumblr as my sole social media has been unhealthy, per se, but certainly yesterday felt both quieter and calmer after I walked away.

But that's a temporary relief, because you are my community, and not only do I not want to leave my community, it's a resource for me. One of the reasons I do things like Radio Free Monday and the weekly Hug on Saturdays is that I try to make sure that resource is reciprocal. Leadership involves service. Leaving would be easy in the short term, but in the long term, leaving my community without having another place to meet it, or another community to go to, would be harmful to both of us. I'm already someone who isolates, and while I have a strong brickspace circle of friends, they fulfill sometimes different needs.

Though I do appreciate the wild vote of confidence from the comments to my last post telling me people would come with me where I went. That means a lot to me. I will attempt to make it either unnecessary or as painless as possible. Just know, I see your faith and friendship and I appreciate it.

Sometimes at my old job I'd be in very tumultuous meetings where a lot was discussed and not much agreed on, and the most useful thing to me was always to say, "What are our next steps? What would you like me to do because of this meeting?" So what are next steps, all this being the case?

First, I'm going to be off Tumblr, mostly, for another couple of days, because clearly I need the break and a few days won't matter too much. Again, I will be back either to continue on the site or to let you guys know, at length and volume, where I'm headed. The former is much more likely.

Second, I'm going to be actively looking for both a widget I can install to reset the dash (recommendations welcome, I currently don't even use xkit) and a wholly new platform that's a realistically viable alternative. Even if the dash gets reset, the shitty post editor is here for good. Attempts to source alternative platforms in the past have taught me that it needs to have a mobile-friendly site or an app, a similar structure to tumblr, and a reasonable chance of actually attracting users. That's a heavy venn diagram unlikely to be fulfilled anytime soon, but I'm now invested in finding it, instead of just passively waiting for it to happen to me (as Tumblr did when it pulled me off LJ).

Third, I do have an email newsletter in the works! I'm just wrestling currently with setting up how people sign up for it. This wasn't meant to be "my main broadcast platform"; it's meant to be a once-monthly email to share book news, targeted at people who aren't on socials or who just really love content from me, I guess. :D The plan was for me to assure Tumblr users that it was not extra content, just select content repackaged into a digest. But it will be one way to ensure that if I'm moving around outside of Tumblr, you'll know about it. I hope to have a link to a signup page soon. (I'm....dealing with some code issues.)

Fourth, I'm going to be combing through the last ten years I've spent here and pulling anything I think is of value into an archive. For now everything will remain here as well, and I'll let you guys know if I think that's going to change, but it's clear that this space is moving only one direction, towards a place I can't exist, and when/if it crumbles I want to have already evacuated what's important.

So there you go. I'll possibly be posting sporadically (the Saturday Hugs are queued six months in advance so that'll happen) but if nothing else and if not sooner, I'll be back full-time next week starting with Radio Free Monday. I appreciate your patience and your kindness in the meantime!

[mhin-t]

Touchstarved OC MC Ref Sheet (...kinda :>)

Text on the bottom left and me chatting below the read more ^^

Cassius He/Him | The Hound Strength - 1 | Luck - ??? | Wisdom - 2 Aloofness - 5 | Desperation - 4 Used to living in a city's underbelly and already secretive, Cassius (aka Cass) quickly adjusts to Eridia, but finds its inhabitants difficult to deal with and too easy to trust.

This guy is still in the early stages of development, so things might change (especially as the game progresses), but I'm glad I got this done. I haven't actually tried to plan out an OC for a specific media like... ever. but this was fun and I wanna keep working on him cause it'll give me something to do while I wait for the full game to come out TvT

I'm still trying to work out relationship dynamics, but god I want him to hate Leander because I love Leander so much I need him to suffer more <33333333 Also I might be using him to channel my autism-related social awkwardness. Just might. :3

[evlynmoreau-blog]

EULR playbook

My doodles are cute, but in play events would be more tragic.

Regard slots: 5 (naturally the most social of the playbooks)

Harm boxes: 3

Moves (usable once per cycle)

Working bee: pick 1 extra result when doing your duty

Nurse: you can treat someone to heal 1 harm and 1 stress, when you do so adjust regards.

Graceful: roll for a move with +1 instead of the assigned stat, on a 10+ also take +1 forward for your next move 

Gentle touch: when alone you can calm a corrupted replika by touching her, roll +resolve. On 10+ she calm down, cry and become catatonic, on 7-9 she hesitate but can still attack, you take 1 stress, on a miss she hurt you, suffer harm and degradation (1).  

Multi purpose: once per day cycle, insert yourself into another character scene to allow them to reroll their lowest die. If they roll 10+ you are barely noticed, on 7-9 you make things a bit awkward, on a miss you fumble and take the blame. 

Dark Gossip: take degradation to start a hurtful rumor, take +1 forward when using this rumor to your advantage.  

Marks (mark your character when a move or the GM ask for it)

An EULR unit from your cadre is decommissioned

Get pushed around all day  

Sing or listen to a song in loop

Suddenly panic over your appearance 

You become the object of a gossip

Nickname someone or receive a nickname

Make a friend or take a lover

Cry until someone intervene

Clean someone mess

Pick up a knife and refuse to discard it

Access a gestalt memory, advance and grow

Embrace Death and face your final destiny.

Gestalt Memory prompts

Practice dancing alone, your feet bleed

Overcoming stage fright

Stage performance moment

Someone playing music for you 

Treating wounds in a war hospital

Serving food in a refugee camp

…

I should probably make a solo version of the game where you play cycles and record the events in your mandatory journal.

I got the feeling that it will be difficult to gather enough fans of both Signalis and TTRPG to play with a group.

[qqueenofhades]

May I ask for new year’s eve Dreamling watching the ball drop because Hob celebrates every year, Morpheus isn’t the sort of person who cares at all, but Hob forces him to celebrate and wear the dumb paper glasses and stuff anyway

"Hob," Dream says, not for the first time, in a deeply pained tone. "I simply do not see why this rigmarole is necessary."

"It's necessary because I say it's necessary, you joyless git." Hob dulls the sting by leaning over to plant a kiss on Dream's cheek, adjust the 2024 cardboard glitter crown from Tesco that is perched atop the dread dark head of the immortal King of Dreams and Nightmares, and throw an arm over his shoulders -- all of which Dream suffers with the tense, bristled wariness of a cat suddenly subjected to excessive snuggling. "Plus, there's going to be a general election this year -- fucking finally -- and the Tories are going to get thrown out on their kleptocratic arses. Good as any reason to celebrate, if you ask me."

Morpheus mutters something under his breath that Hob can't understand but doesn't sound particularly complimentary, but for once in his eternal-ageless-stubborn-bastard life, decides not to press the point. He's already been horribly traumatized by enduring the New Year's Eve party and being forced to socialize with Hob's friends from around London and the South East and colleagues from Goldsmiths and all the other strays he's picked up over the years (indeed, very much like Dream himself). All right, socialize might be a stretch. More like lurking ominously with a single glass of prosecco and giving the other guests a fright when they come round the corner too fast, but at least he hasn't run screaming into the night or huffily evaporated into the Dreaming never to return, so Hob is going to optimistically count that as a success. Besides, it is tacitly agreed between the two of them that Hob's love language is cheerily bullying Morpheus into taking part in normal human courtship activities and Morpheus's concession is to act like this is the worst thing to ever happen to him in literally eighty billion years, but still grudgingly put up with it. Baby steps, Hob thinks, taking a swig of his own bubbly and looking back at the television. Baby steps.

It's already the New Year in Oz and the rest of Down Under, and five hours off yet in New York, where they're still greasing up the ball drop in Times Square, but it's just about time in London, the fireworks over the Thames are all set to go, and Hob and the ten other people in his flat (hardly an excessive number, not that you'd know it from Morpheus's face) lean forward in eagerness. The bloke on the BBC leads a countdown, it rolls over to 00:00:01 GMT, 1 January 2024, and everyone lets out a boozy cheer, raising glasses to salute each other and making more please-God-help-us jokes about the Tories. Hob, meanwhile, turns to Morpheus, who gazes expectantly back at him with those luminous, star-flecked eyes, and leans in to kiss him -- quickly, chastely, nothing to make the silly goose come over in his melodramatic conniptions all over again. "Happy new year, darling."

Dream huffs, but he does look slightly pleased. (It's a subtle art, reading his expressions, and to the untutored looks no different from "mildly constipated," but Hob still knows his Stranger well.) "Happy new year, Hob Gadling," he allows, after a long moment. "I still do not understand why you feel it necessary to celebrate all this. Have you not seen so many that it is no longer special?"

"See, that's exactly why." Hob should get up and refill the pigs-in-blankets tray, as there is evidently nothing that British academics love more and it has been descended on like starving vultures, but he doesn't feel like it, not yet. He grins at Morpheus instead, lowering his voice, not that there's much risk of anyone overhearing. "A bloke born all the way back in God's Year 1356, and I'm still here, ringing in the fucking year 2024? That's a bloody miracle, you ask me. And with you, no less? What else would I want in the whole world?"

Dream's expression melts a little, despite himself. A faint pink flush climbs into his elegant ice-sculpted cheeks, and he huffs. "You are quite the flatterer, Robert Gadling."

"Eh." Hob takes a more comfortable position, settles deeper into the couch cushions, and feels, with great vindication, Dream's head tip and lean and rest on his shoulder, snuggling closer entirely of his own volition. "You love it."

[lassieposting]

Chinhands

Okay so like, long post incoming, but here me out:

This isn’t my first post on Astarion & CPTSD – there’s this one here, about some of the more obvious symptoms he might end up dealing with during his healing journey; there’s also this one, about some ways his lover might use magic to help support him in a world without therapy; and then there’s this one, which is headcanons rather than meta, but has my thoughts on vampires as camouflage predators, and how Astarion might change physically as he goes from starving to well-fed. Those kinda tie into this so, linked for easy context.

But those posts all focus on the visible aspects of CPTSD – the symptoms everyone around you can pick up on. And. The thing is. A lot of the longterm effects of extensive trauma are actually not outwardly obvious. They're quiet. Insidious. Fundamental facets of your worldview become warped and twisted by your traumatic experiences. You look at the world - or at least, the parts of the world affectd by your trauma - through a goddamn funhouse mirror, and that's your normal. And part of the healing process - I'll pause here for us all to share a collective bitter laugh - is realising just how broken your idea of How The World Works is, and having to relearn from the ground up how things actually function outside of your trauma bubble.

So, y’all know what I think Astarion would struggle with without even realising it?

Disordered eating. A messy, complicated, love-hate relationship with food and how feeding makes him feel about himself.

Like. Most living things are hardwired to avoid certain negative experiences. A creature that has starved will often hoard food to ensure they won’t starve again. A creature that has fallen from a great height and experienced physical pain will be more careful to avoid other falls in future. A social creature that has experienced humiliation or disgrace will be distressed by those feelings, and adjust their behaviour to try and avoid feeling them again. The more bad experiences we have with a specific stimulus – drinking blood, in Astarion's case - the more we associate that stimulus with the negative physical or emotional consequences we will suffer, and the more avoidant we are likely to become.

As a real life example: an autistic child who talks enthusiastically about her special interest and is met with mockery and social rejection by her classmates will learn to hide her authentic self from the world to try and fit in: the pain of the bullying motivates her to distance herself from her own autistic tendencies, which are an essential component of how her brain works. She ends up trapped between her deep desire to engage with her special interest, and the training she has received from her peers that to do so is bad, unacceptable, social suicide. She learns to hate her autistic behaviours for causing her to be bullied, but she still feels the need to engage in them.

Astarion is in the same boat. He craves blood anyway as a vampire, and the hunger is made all the more intense because he is starving. But for the first 200-ish years of his undeath, we know that feeding has been a deeply unpleasant experience for him, and that will have left a deep imprint on how he sees the act of feeding, how it makes him feel. To eat is one of the most basic instincts of every single living (and, in this case, undead) creature, a fundamental source of positive emotions (satisfaction, fullness, satiety, enjoyment, happy taste buds etc) with a massive impact on a creature's quality of life - and Cazador has gleefully warped and twisted the very concept into an attack on his spawns' personhood. He uses it to dehumanize and humiliate them, and that's all they've ever known. So they will have learned to associate feeding with deeply negative emotions - humiliation, shame, disgust, fear and pain. For example:

STARVATION

Astarion tells us that Cazador fed him just barely enough to keep him functioning. Starvation is a trauma that, on its own, is likely to cause disordered coping behaviours in the victim. We actually see some of these in-game:

Astarion keeps a sizeable stash of bottled blood in his tent. This is an example of resource hoarding – he’s afraid of starving again, and he’s stockpiling food as a safeguard.

Individuals who have suffered starvation (or who have been forced to follow a restrictive diet by a parent as adolescents) often find that they struggle to impose healthy limits on their own food intake once food is plentiful lor they age out of the parent’s dietary control). We see this in Astarion during the bite scene: he can kill the player character if they fail a roll to convince or force him to stop feeding before he drains them dry.

We know that Astarion's feeding time is late at night – he tells the player that he’ll come to them for a meal once they’re in their bedroll and everyone is asleep. This seems like a strange choice, considering Astarion's tenuous self-control, but my personal headcanon is that he feeds so late because, like many starved creatures, he’s food-aggressive. Cazador absolutely seems the type to throw an insufficient number of rats to his starving spawn for them to fight over: Astarion is likely used to having to viciously defend his paltry meal, or one of his siblings will take it from him. So the player starts out offering him breakfast along with everyone else – but they’re interrupted, Gale nearly loses a hand when Astarion snaps at him, and the decision is made to feed him separately, so he doesn’t feel threatened.

SENSORY DISTRESS

Astarion talks about being compelled to choke down the blood of bugs and putrid rat corpses - at one point idly remarking that, "I've eaten things that would disgust most vultures." - so we know that a lot of what Cazador was feeding him was a) already dead and b) actively going off, and that offers up so many potential sensory triggers.

After death, blood begins to coagulate, clotting and curdling into a semisolid - that could be a texture issue.

Rotting corpses smell vile - that could be a scent issue.

We know putrid corpse blood doesn't taste good to vampires - iirc he calls it sewer water or dirty ditch-water, in comparison to "plonk" (woodland animal blood) and "fine wine" (the player character's blood).

Corpses often also come with the lovely bonus of maggots, which are a hardcoded signal to humans (and presumably elves) that food is no longer fit for consumption. The disgust response is instinctive, to make us avoid eating the rotten item. But Astarion would’ve had to choke it down anyway – probably wanting to hurl all the while.

NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

Astarion tells us at one point that if he refused the disgusting carcasses Cazador gave him, his alternative was being flayed alive. That makes the disgusting food a choice, and one he doesn't really have any choice but to make. He would also need to be fed after his torture sessions in the kennels, to give him enough blood to heal himself before being sent out after more victims. This would eventually build a link in his mind between being fed and being hurt.  

There's also a dialogue where Astarion explicitly tells us that Cazador would suggest they dine together after Astarion brought someone home for his master to feed on. The alternative, as above, is getting flayed. So that makes a horrible three-way feedback loop of negative emotions: being forced to prostitute himself -> being forced to feed -> being tortured -> being forced to feed again -> and round and round again.

BODY IMAGE

This one is more headcanon than theory and ties into my other post about vampire biology, but it's still a point worth mentioning imo. Astarion's life has essentially revolved around sex, however unwilling, for 200 years, and that's become intrinsically linked with his identity - the way he sees himself, the way he interacts with the world. He makes several comments that all but explicitly state that he views himself as a prostitute, and his entire survival strategy in the outside world hinges on his ability to essentially leverage his attractiveness and his bedroom skills to snag himself a smitten protector. Iirc, there's a point in one of the breakup dialogue trees where he'll bitterly refer to sex as his only talent and say that he knows what people think he's good for. He is putting on an act almost constantly, always thinking about how best to portray himself to get the outcome he wants, how to make use of his target's desire for him.

And? This man has, for 200 years, been taught that people like him starving. He knows that the dehydrated-muscle, prominent-collarbone, deathly-pale hungry-eyed vampire look works for him. He's been found consistently desirable even though he doesn't look anything like a healthy, well-fed vampire should, and for someone who's so reliant on being hot, that's going to be hard to let go of. At this point, it may well make him anxious to be so well-fed that his body functions start coming back online, that he can fill out a little to how he looked when Cazador first turned him, that his unshakeable seducer act can be disrupted by things like blushing for flattery. After 200 years of seeing your body starving and thinking that that is how you are at your most attractive, being able to far better imitate a living elf could well be quite distressing for him.

So. At this point, as the game begins, Astarion most likely mostly hates feeding. It makes him feel terrible – degraded, humiliated, disgusted – and has almost no redeeming features. The blood he’s getting doesn’t even taste good, let alone sate his hunger. Feeding him is, essentially, just another torture technique of Cazador's. And yet, he still craves it desperately – debases himself begging for it, feels pathetically grateful for the tiniest scrap he’s given, finds his mouth watering at the sight of vermin. That’s already a horrible, mixed-up place to be emotionally.

And now it's going to get more confusing for him. Enter the player character.

Astarion gets to feed on a thinking creature for the first time, and with it, an array of positive emotions and sensations he's never gotten to experience before, in all the time he’s been a vampire. For example:

SOCIAL SUPPORT

When the PC calls Astarion out for trying to sneakily bite them in their sleep, he explains that he usually feeds on animals, but he's currently too weak and slow to bring any down. This is interesting, because in his Origin, it's a nightmare about Cazador that prompts him to bite a companion. But...I don't think it's a lie. We see multiple times throughout the game that Astarion doesn't cope well with being put on the spot - he gets flustered and kind of starts rambling - but this line comes off without hesitation. It is, if not the truth, still a truth. And the PC doesn't take advantage of that admission - he's vulnerable, but the PC doesn't hurt him or try to make him pay them with sex. Instead they just...feed him.

PHYSICAL STRENGTH & MENTAL CLARITY

He explicitly tells you that he feels strong after drinking from you – and he goes straight out hunting, backing that up – and he has a surprised exclamation that his mind is “finally clear”. He’s been living with hunger-induced brain fog for centuries. He must feel like you’ve given him his brain back.

JOY

He’s sated. He just had a meal that tasted good. He's getting all those positive food feelings for the first time - a massive rush of endorphins to a brain starved of happy chemicals for two hundred years. How many things have made this man happy since he died? It would be overwhelming.

CONNECTION

Held up against how Astarion is used to being treated, this gesture from the PC is an overwhelming show of kindness and generosity. They choose to trust him - even though, as he'll admit in the graveyard, that's an objectively stupid thing to do - and they offer freely something that makes him feel good. Him, a man who's usually forced to degrade himself for "rewards" that make him feel terrible. And as if that's not enough, they accept him for what he is, continue to give him the protection of a group, and they defend him to the others in the morning. He's feeling grateful and giddy and warm for the first time in centuries, and he knows it's all thanks to you.

But

That's going to give him a lot of complicated feelings, because he still has all those negative emotions related to feeding too. And they're not going to go away just because he's found out thinking creature blood is actually nice. They're going to clash against that new enjoyment and make him feel all confused and weird and mixed up. He might still feel shame, even though he enjoyed the meal. He might still find himself wrestling with pointless dread, because he associates feeding with torture and abuse, even though he knows Cazador is miles and miles away. It's a small step towards seeing feeding in a less negative light, but that’s all. And like, up to this point he hasn’t even realised that he might be able to enjoy drinking blood, because to him, Cazador's horrors are normal. That’s all he’s ever known – the only experience of food he’s ever had as a vampire. Feeding Is Horrible And Degrading is a fundamental fact of life that he’s just starting to realise...may not actually be true. That’s like...having a rug yanked out from under his feet. Scary. Distressing. Out of control. Which could make him lean more towards avoiding feeding for a while, to get that control back.

So how do the scales start to tip more towards really enjoying feeding?

I think it would be the introduction of the social aspect. As just this once becomes regular feeding arrangement, he's going to realise that he gets the high of all those positive emotions every time he feeds from the PC, and he's going to start associating that giddy, happy feeling with them specifically. Because we know that while animal blood is Fine He Guesses, and he does get merry on bear blood at one point, it's nothing remotely close to person blood. Woodland creatures still make up a decent chunk of his diet, but he doesn't get the same emotional kick out of them.

And like. He likes feeling good like that. It's addictive. So he'll keep wanting to go back for more – making excuses to spend more time with them, with feeding being a very convenient excuse. He's creating a positive feedback loop for himself of happy chemicals and like, crush feelings, and every time he indulges, he’s unwittingly handing over tiny little fragments of trust and affection in exchange. It's difficult not to start liking someone who makes you feel good, especially if you're so unfamiliar with the feeling. He finds himself that little bit less tense around his willing midnight snack. He laughs more easily around them, finds he's more inclined to indulge do-gooder tendencies, realises he's starting to enjoy spending time with them. He doesn't necessarily realise it, but feeding is no longer just about quenching his blood thirst. It's become a bonding activity. He’s like a semiferal rescue animal, building an emotional connection with you as protector and provider. He’s learning that you’re trustworthy.

And then, as your relationship with him develops and deepens, sex gets involved, and he plays himself.

In one of the dialogues where Astarion offers the PC sex, he explicitly calls it a reward for feeding him, and flirtatiously brings up PC's biting kink - that he can tell they enjoy it when he drinks their blood. This always lowkey makes me laugh because like. Up to this point, Astarion has had no reason to ever connect feeding with sex. Cazador doesn't let him drink from thinking creatures, and since Astarion talks about his prey being "dragged away" to be fed on, it seems like Cazador generally took his meals privately, so mixing the two isn't something Astarion got from watching him. This is something he's picked up from you.

Anyway. I'm not sure which way around they happen, but during his first sex scene, Tav gets the option to encourage him to bite them again, and he will. Obviously, he's not going to turn down "vintage wine", but this also makes strategic sense from the perspective of his plan to get Tav to protect him - he's probably thinking that he's locked them down because they can't scratch this particular itch elsewhere. They now need him. Except - whoops, he actually likes sleeping with them, and he's starting to catch feelings. And because he's come to associate biting Tav with all those good feelings anyway, making it A Sex Thing just shifts his perspective a little, makes him realise that he’s getting something out of these interactions that he gets hooked on.

Feeding has become a source of emotional intimacy. He's beginning to feel loved, cared for, valued. Close to the PC. And that, to someone so utterly love-deprived, is potentially enough to make it feel more positive than negative over time.

(As a side note, I quite like the idea that it'll become a sort of self-soothing strategy for him for a while. If he's stressed or afraid or hurting, he'll nibble on the PC to remind and reassure himself that he can - that he's safe and loved and no longer starving. He'll nip at them to deliberately induce those positive feelings of emotional closeness in himself, if he thinks they'll outweigh the bad ones that come with.)

But even so, those bad associations will probably never fully go away or stop affecting him. He’ll probably still always hear Cazador's belittling laughter if someone walks in on him feeding – look at you, boy, not so proud now, are you? Crawling on the floor for vermin, how utterly pathetic. He’ll probably always wrestle with feelings of stress and anxiety after feeding for no obvious reason, because his primitive lizard brain still treats it like a traumatic experience sometimes even when he's feeding on his living, trusted lover. It’s going to take him such a long time to wrap his head around just how fucked up all the reactions Cazador trained into him are, how different from his new experiences as a free vampire.

Anyway. Idk how well I explained all these thoughts but. Yeah. Astarion + disordered eating issues.