Surprisingly, human beings are the only creatures that looked into themselves. Movement of a blade sharpened to max, lightning fast, no hesitation. Peeling back skin and draining sinus. Bodies (alive, young), huddled around bodies (dead, damaged), to examine and poke and tear and say “I see, that one is the Inferior Vena Cava”. These abominable actions saves lives. Curiosity and morbidity guided a way of survival, of rescue. Later, the same sentiments, mixed with desperation, guided a way to destruction.
Bearing the remnants of humans, their organs pulsating in its body. A machine. A child of man.
Angels, on the other hand, are made perfect. Healthy body, strong will, and filled with holy light right off the bat. Vicious in battles. No need for learning, little need for healing. The smoothness and perfection of their skin akin to marble and sea glass. All creations pale in their presence. Nothing beats perfection. Certainly not creatures of cold unfeeling metal. Lightless, soulless, running on a fixed program of 0’s and 1’s set by the expired words of self-destroying, world-destroying, rotten images of God. Heretic. Even in their perishment, they set to ruin. Systems that they themselves can no longer escape from. Samsara of endless pain and death.
It is a wonder then, that when the machine finally tear through Gabriel’s helm, he become faintly aware of the things hidden deep inside. The ugly, raw things inside. The things he must have known but were never brave enough to face: the same pulsing gore that pushes through the gaps of his skin is the same as the one in the mankind’s bodies; the wires that prods through the throbbing organs is the same as that runs through the chassis of the machine. His body echos the lesser beings. For a second, he could not distinguish himself from man nor machine. How ridiculous, he thought, it thought. To be of this state. To see his/its image in his/its body. To have his/its strings/wires cut so late. The taste of spectacular freedom at the last millisecond of his/its life.
As the last drop of holy light seeps through his helm to stain the machine’s optics, he recognizes himself as heaven’s machine, and the machine as mankind’s angel. And now they are the same.
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Insp is this post by @sinew-lattice!
thank u for infesting me w brain worms i enjoyed hosting the wiggly thing very much (also pls let me know if u don't like ppl writing/tagging i can always take stuff down:] )
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KOITO YUU and ALEXITHYMIA
What is Alexithymia?
To put it simply, alexithymia is a neuropsychological phenomenon in which a person has difficulties identifying and describing emotions in oneself or others.
‘Disorders of affect regulation: alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness’ describes four main components that alexithymia is traditionally defined by:
difficulty identifying feelings (DIF)
difficulty describing feelings to other people (DDF)
a stimulus-bound, externally oriented thinking style (EOT)
constricted imaginal processes (IMP)*
*note that IMP has been largely left out of research studies and assessment tools for various reasons.
A person with alexithymia may often have difficulties distinguishing between emotions and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal, for example, they can tell they’re anxious due to the physical symptoms that follow anxiety rather than feeling anxious as an emotion. This makes specifically positive emotions difficult to identify, as there are rarely such physical symptoms. This can make it feel like they’re constantly unhappy, or just emotionally dull.
People with alexithymia can sometimes seem as though they go through life ‘as robots’, thinking things through from a logical point of view with very little emotional input. They often have trouble describing emotions in themselves and others outside of adjectives like ‘happy’ and ‘unhappy’.
Many people with alexithymia are often described as indecisive, tending to defer to someone else when asked or going by what they’ve deemed the more socially acceptable option.
Who is Koito Yuu?
Koito Yuu is the main protagonist of the 2010’s manga and anime series Bloom Into You (aka Yagate Kimi Ni Naru) by Nakatani Nio. She’s a first year high school girl who joins the student council, where she meets the school heartthrob Nanami Touko.
Yuu overhears Touko rejecting a male classmate’s love confession, and seeks her out for advice on turning down a boy who confessed to her at the end of junior high. The reason Yuu is drawn to Touko is her claiming that she has no intentions of going out with anyone, due to her inability to feel anything towards her suitors, something that Yuu relates to.
A central part of Yuu’s character is her perceived inability to fall in love, and how she eventually wants to fall in love with Touko regardless. She comes to the conclusion that she simply cannot fall in love after the confession she received at the end of junior high made her feel nothing, as opposed to the feelings she was expecting to feel as described by all the shoujo manga she reads.
When Touko reveals that she’s fallen in love with Yuu, Yuu agrees to keep letting Touko love her and indulging her with kissing and cuddling, despite her supposed inability to love Touko back and not being a couple.
How does Alexithymia show in Yuu’s character?
Over the course of the series it’s shown that Yuu has issues identifying positive emotions in herself, but seems capable of doing so with some more negative emotions. She openly displays and talks about discomfort regarding public speaking and being on stage for the play, meaning that she can identify being uncomfortable well. She seems to feel some level of jealousy, though she never appears to verbalize that. She also frequently complains about Touko.
The reason why her being able to identify discomfort specifically is important, is because she shows none of that regarding her ‘indulging’ Touko via kissing and cuddling. When Touko unexpectedly kisses her for the first time, Yuu specifically points out that she feels unbothered by it (and questions why). She first comes to the conclusion that it’s because of her curiosity about kissing, and ultimately realizes that she does find some solace in how it makes her feel no longer alone. She shows some level of attraction to Touko, even prior to Touko’s confession.
The only times Yuu is uncomfortable with kissing Touko (when Touko asks Yuu to be the one to kiss her after the sports festival and before the play on the rooftop), she brings it up, and her discomfort is not caused by the kiss itself but rather what it represents in those specific moments. She admits that she doesn’t dislike kissing Touko.
Yuu seems to really start realizing her feelings for Touko when Touko talks to her about her self hatred, and how she can’t love someone who loves what she hates. She’s not only uncomfortable with how Touko sees and talks about herself, but with the idea of losing Touko and their not-relationship. Discomfort is what helps her figure out her feelings towards Touko, in a way, rather than directly feeling her love for her.
It’s shown that other characters seem to be better at reading Yuu’s emotions better than she can, Maki (another first year, who is completely averse to the idea of being in a romantic relationship himself, but finds them fascinating to watch develop for others) in particular appears to be very good at this. He frequently brings up how Touko is obviously very important to Yuu, and how much she clearly cares for her. He openly disagrees with Yuu’s notion that they're the same, and calls her out on this. Maki’s words are seemingly the last push Yuu needs to begin a relationship with Touko.
Natsuki (Yuu’s childhood friend) mentions that during their time in the softball team, Yuu was the only one to never cry when they lost a match, seeming largely unaffected by it. Yuu seemed to enjoy softball and did her best on the team, but it wasn’t her passion like it was for Natsuki. She says that she wanted to ask Yuu to join her on the softball team in her school, but refrained from doing so because she knew Yuu would say yes, even if it wasn’t what she really wanted. She wanted Yuu to find something that she was actually passionate about. Natsuki describes Yuu as someone who rarely complains in earnest, and has never actually seen her get as worked up as she does talking about Touko, which she says is a sign that Touko and the student council must be very important to her.
IN CONCLUSION:
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thinking of writing a (kinda sorta) the summer i turned pretty wilmon au
simon and sara and linda are close family friends with wille and erik and kristina and ludvig, and have spent every summer for as long as simon can remember at their beach house, in some cute quaint little town by the ocean. kristina and ludvig are like second parents to simon and erik is like the big brother simon never had. but wille...wille is a year old than simon, and they've been thick as thieves since they were small. simon's had a crush on wille since absolutely forever, and there's been hints over the years that wille likes him, too (he gave simon his cross necklace, once, and it was oddly sweet). except, up until now it's all been childlike and innocent and nothing but a regular friendship between them. but this summer-
this summer, simon has just turned 17, and he's out to all his family and friends, and rosh and ayub (his friends from home) keep telling simon how good he looks, and simon starts to think that maybe this is the summer he and wille will finally admit their feelings for each other and actually do something about it.
simon's ready, ready to fall in love and have the best summer of his life, but when they arrive at kristina and ludvig's beach house, wille is different- he's sullen and withdrawn and so moody, not goofy and fun like simon remembers from years past, and simon is totally heartbroken: he feels like wille barely wants to be his friend anymore, much less anything else, and he doesn't understand why
(it turns out erik is sick and he and kristina and ludvig are hiding the news from everyone else, including wille, so they can have one last perfect summer, but wille found out anyways and doesn't know how to deal with the idea of potentially losing his brother and also that his whole family is keeping something so huge from him)
meanwhile, kristina is trying to convince simon to take part in the beautillion ball, the male equivalent of the debs ("it's very progressive now," kristina tells him. "they don't care if you're straight or gay or whatever kids are calling it these days") and she's offers to pay for the whole thing. simon thinks it's a totally antiquated tradition and it will just be him and a bunch of rich kids, so he isn't interested, but erik convinces him- he did it when he was younger and it wasn't that bad (plus erik secretly wants wille to offer to escort simon to the ball because he knows it will make wille happy, and erik wants to see his brother fall in love, because he might not be around for another summer) so simon agrees to it
except- simon has no idea how to even talk to wille anymore, so he hesitates to ask wille to the ball, and wille is also scared to bring up the idea of being simon's escort (he and simon are best friends, or at least, they were, and if wille might lose erik, he can't share his true feelings for simon and risk losing him, too)
so, simon grows more and more distant from wille. he ends up going on a bunch of dates with another boy who is in town for the summer named marcus, who simon guesses is nice enough and can relate to everything simon has been going through with micke (he and linda divorced last summer), and simon thinks about asking marcus to escort him to the ball, but he can't stop thinking about wille and doesn't think it's fair to marcus to ask, and he debates breaking the whole thing off
meanwhile, wille is...not doing great. he's stressed and overwhelmed about erik being sick, and he's sad that simon might be falling in love with someone else, and he wants to take simon to the ball and show him off in front of everyone, but- he can't. so he starts drinking and smoking more and taking pills that august deals him during the late-night beach bonfires, and he isn't himself at all, until he finally blows up one night. he tries to fight marcus or do something really dumb that forces simon to call erik and beg for help and it all comes out that wille knows erik is sick and dying and why wouldn't he tell wille
and now simon understands why wille's been acting that way he has, but wille is still having trouble opening up, until he starts giving sailing lessons to boris, this old man who has lived in the town forever, and boris gives him sage life advice and wille realizes he needs to tell simon how he really feels, like, now, or he might actually lose him forever
wille has this realization the same night as the ball, and he tells boris he has to go and hurries back to his parents beach house- but simon is no where to be found. it turns out simon has already gone to the ball early to prepare, and is planning to be one of the only boys that's participating without an escort
wille tries to get to the ball but it's across the town and he's held up (by a bad storm?? and his car gets stuck in the mud or something equally inconvenient and ridiculous) and when he bursts in, simon is just about to be announced, and wille is sopping wet and breaking every antiquated rule of decorum of the ball as he marches across the ballroom, dripping water, and says that he's simon's escort and he'll be giving him away (or however the heck these balls work i have no idea)
and he and wille dance and laugh the night away, and after they sneak off to the beach and really talk, for what seems like the first time that summer, and finally, they kiss each other for the first time, and it's way better than simon ever imagined over all these years
(and it turns out that erik's been accepted into a trial for an experimental cancer treatment that's had successful results, and his blood results are looking okay, and there's a chance he might be fine after all, what a relief. and maybe linda has also found love this summer, too, and sara is reveling in her first real friendship with felice)
so simon and wille spend the last few weeks of the summer together in that little beach town, and with sara and their parents and erik and they soak it all in
also there is lots of drive-in movies and beach bonfires and fireworks and rich kid parties and maybe a charity sailing tournament where simon totally doesn't stare at willes arms the whole time, and late night swimming and skinny dipping and whatever other summer stereotypes i can possibly think of
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