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jungtified · 4 years

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convenience store | j.j.h.

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: college student! Jaehyun x college student! Reader

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄: fluff & a tiny dot of angst <3

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 1.5k

𝐀/𝐍: honestly, if anyone reads this, I don’t actually know what was going in my mind when i decided to write this lol. I don’t even like this but I ain’t wasting my time and effort so... if you like this enjoy <3??? and if you don’t then high-five! bitch same. + if there are any mistakes, let me know! I’m kinda blind sometimes. last but not least, any feedbacks would be greatly appreciated :) enjoy!

your phone had been ringing continuously for the past 5 minutes. you cursed silently and rubbed your eyes, turning to your side table where your phone laid before picking it up finally.

“hey beautiful, let’s go get some ramen,” Jaehyun said playfully. you groaned after his words. “what’s wrong with you, it’s literally 3 a.m., I’m trying to get some sleep!” you replied with a tired, raspy voice.

“damn, you sound sexy. come on, I’ll be at your door in 5.” he joked and hanged up before you could even say something. ‘this asshole, is he even living in the correct time zone? he called me beautiful and sexy though…’ you thought and whilst annoyed at him, you blushed.

Jaehyun is the one guy favoured by all. you didn't think you'd be friends with him one day, let alone pay attention to you. but after he sat next to you in class, he found himself beside you more often and becoming best friends in no time. you were very much surprised to be a quiet person like you are usually, that he would hang out with you. even the campus gossiped about you both for a while after you unexpectedly hanged out with him.

with the vibe Jaehyun had around him, you instantly hated him the first time you met each other. but it all changed after he managed to treat you to coffee, ending up spending hours there just talking about life. you found out that he isn’t what he’s always like, cold and a dry texter type of guy. actually kind and friendly, he also likes getting you to be adventurous, trying many new things you wouldn’t usually go for.

the amount of time you had spent around him was ridiculous, it’s like you can’t live without him. of course, you started developing feelings for him over time. you can’t remember when exactly, but you were clear of it after he hung out a couple times with a girl named Wendy. you couldn’t understand why you were jealous of them at first, but your knowledge of how protagonists fall in love in k-dramas and fiction stories made you realise you were crushing on him.

finally, out of your tiny daydream, you got out of your bed to check yourself. you looked exactly to what you thought you would look like, a whole wreck. unlike you, when some people wake up, they actually look good, like Jaehyun. what in the world was god thinking while he was making you and Jaehyun? did he miss an ingredient or something?

a knock was heard when you were combing your hair. immediately knowing who it was, you shouted, “come in!”. Jaehyun walked in and was scared by your glaring looks at him. “okay, I’m sorry for calling you so late at night. let’s go!” he said.

“but I have to look decent!” you replied.

“ma’am you look perfectly fine to me, let’s get going right now!” he said while dragging you away while snatching the comb off your hands.

sitting outside the 24/7 convenience store, Jaehyun told you to wait for him. you looked up to the sky, stars shining bright. it’s beautiful but, it constantly reminds you of how Jaehyun’s like the stars. so fucking gorgeous, people admiring him just like how people admire stars. yet you’re just an ordinary girl, working hard in school and getting good grades to graduate university just to get a good job in life without having fun in your school years. that was your plan until he came along.

you couldn’t believe that someone like him found you entertaining. he told you once that you were fun to be with. he told you that you’re a great person. he told you that he loves how you treat people equally, even him. those words made your heart flutter. sometimes you just want to shout your feelings out for him, you want to be with him forever. he makes you feel happy and worth. all the times he made you feel better after a bad mood, or whenever you get your period, he never fails to surprise you. your favourite foods? his appearance? simply anything he does just makes you smile.

the thing is you didn’t have the courage. you tried multiple times to hint that you like him, but it didn’t work. getting scared that one day you’d miss the chance of being with him, you had to build tons and tons of courage. obviously, the number one reason for not telling him about your feelings was quite obvious you were scared that he won’t be able to reciprocate your feelings and end up ruining the friendship the both of you have built up over the past year.

but today, right now, you felt like it was now or never. you are ready to risk your friendship for love. was it the energetic feeling of being awake at 3 a.m.? or just the sight of how you saw Wendy was all over Jaehyun last week made you bold? you couldn’t take it anymore; you were sick of it. ‘okay, don’t be nervous, don’t back down you scaredy-cat. when he comes out you must tell him.’ you assured, telling yourself that it’ll be okay.

the moment Jaehyun pushed the door of the convenience store open, you stood up and gathered your courage to speak out your feelings to him. “Jaehyun! I-I have something to tell you…” you stuttered for a moment, nervous of what was to come. “okay… you seem a little nervous,” he answered as he sets down the ramen and snacks he was carrying.

“you know, w-we have been f-friends for quite some time n-now right, Jaehyun?” you said, eyes starting to water. you felt so overwhelmed by your feelings for him, along with the turning feeling inside you.

“Y/N, calm down, are you okay? you’re making me nervous.”

“no-no, I’m fine, just listen to me yeah,” you assured him. “uhm, I’m really thankful for all the times you’ve spent with me. I’m so happy that you became my best friend and whatever happens, you’re still my friend, right?” you asked with a cracked voice, twisting one of your rings around your finger.

“you… did something wrong? or you don’t want to hang out with me anymore?” he questioned nervously speaking fast and hands turning clammy. he liked your company, a lot. which explains why he was really scared that you would leave him one day.

“no Jaehyun, listen to me. I-I uh, I really like you. like, like-like you, and I can’t stand the sight of you and Wendy together anymore. I can’t help but feel so pissed off and jealous all the time even if I don’t show it. I’m sorry for that and you probably don’t like me back. I think just ruined our friendship; I hope we still can be friends after this.” you spilled, fingers fidgeting and tears running down your face.

you looked at him for a response. no matter what it’s gonna be, you told yourself you’ll accept it even if it’s a rejection. but all he did was to stare at you with such intense eyes. it wasn’t sadness, lust, or hatred. you couldn’t make out the emotions he’s having, therefore you decided to leave since you ruined the atmosphere.

“I-I should just go…”

you stood up to walk back to your apartment, feeling so overwhelmed from your confession. you felt so sad but so good that finally, you spilled your feelings out. the stuffiness was gone, but the thought that you will never be the same around Jaehyun again made you feel worse.

turning to the direction of your apartment, you felt Jaehyun grabbing your arm. “what now?” you coldly reply turning around to shake his grip off you. somehow, he managed to hug you. “Y/N. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a long time now. the reason why I’m asking you out for ramen right now was to tell you, I have liked you since the first time we’ve met.” he spoke calmly, holding you tight. as a response to his words, you hugged him back. you never thought that he would like you back, especially the way he treated you usually.

however, inside his mind was full of regrets, regretting that you were the one to confess first and not him. it should be jealousy, but he regretted that he made you wait too long. also, the fact that you thought he and Wendy were in flirting terms made his heart break a little.

“but I thought you liked Wendy,” you questioned, breaking his train of thought.

“since when? she’s irritating, I only saw her as a friend,” he assured you.

the moment he told you that, you began to cry harder. of all the times you saw them together and telling yourself that he doesn’t like you, were purely just some imagination that you perceived yourself to believe. he pulled away, hands now holding your waist. attempting to wipe your tears away, you ended up crying more out of joy. you couldn’t believe it.

“are you sure you like me?” you ask as a confirmation.

“yes Y/N. I’m in love with you.”

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shinidamachu · 4 years

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No Place I Would Rather Be

Summary: We're a thousand miles from comfort. We have traveled land and sea. But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be. Word Count: 3.617 Genre: fluff Fandom: InuYasha Pairing: Inukag Format: oneshot AO3 Link: 🌹 Fanfic.Net Link: 🌹

Boredom was eating him alive.

Days had passed without a single lead about the jewel fragments. So much that their little group had disbanded for the time being. Sango went back to what was left of her old village. It had been a while since she last paid homage to their dead. Kirara, of course, was her loyal company — and also ride. Miroku was visiting Mushin’s Temple, as if the place hadn't been profaned enough, already. Shippo was still around, but keeping his distance due to InuYasha’s stormy mood.

The frustration of it all got him desperately wishing for some kind — any kind — of action. Something that didn’t involve sulking under a tree and watching time crawl. Every second of this idleness meant another second Naraku was out there, still breathing. Collecting the shards was a small mean to achieve a bigger, imperative ending. It gave him purpose, a sense of getting closer to his ultimate goal step by step. Waiting got them nowhere. It only granted him to be alone with his thoughts and the combination was nothing but disastrous.

Lucky for him, his private source of distraction was not too far away.

Kagome was humming a foreign tune, the same one she liked to sing whenever she was happy. Following the melody was almost mandatory. InuYasha didn’t realize what he was doing until he arrived to the other side of it, where the girl thumbed through her hair in a futile attempt to tame her hair, the lake’s surface a natural mirror at her convenience. InuYasha made his presence known before his own reflection joined hers.

“It’s no use, ya know.”

“Jerk!”

The girl glared at him and retaliated by splashing water on his direction — of which he easily dodged. InuYasha had to admit her reaction was justified, given his past tendency to be utterly unkind to her. This time, however, although his tone wasn’t devoided of casual teasing, he was being completely honest. When you spend sunrise to sunset with someone for so long, it was inevitable learning a thing or two about them. Kagome had a wild hair. Not in a bad way, but it sure had its own will. Especially in the humidity, which was definitely the case of that afternoon. To an outside viewer, the strands could pass as straight. Noticing the shy waves at the end and how they used to stand out after getting wet was a privilege for the few allowed to look closer — a privilege InuYasha cherished. She always had her hair down and he liked that she did. It was destined to be free, to go with the wind. And it had grown a hell of a lot since they first met. The half demon wondered if Kagome was aware of how much. He certainly was.

Then she got up, revealing clothes that were undoubtedly new to his eyes. It was one piece, all lime flowers and malleable fabric against her cream skin. A bit longer than what she usually cared to wear, but leaving her arms and shoulders at plain sight in compensation. The view was thrilling, until his eyes caught the yellow backpack laying by her feet, causing his grin to falter. He understood the implication behind it, even if the question had yet to pass his lips.

“What’s with the weird kimono?”

“Oh, this.” Kagome lowered her gaze, inspecting for herself. Her combative attitude swiftly turning into a cautious posture. “It’s a sundress. I’ve been meaning to ask… can you please give me a ride to the well? I’m going home.”

There it was.

Somehow, getting his suspicions confirmed did nothing to prevent the scowl from forming on his face.

“Thought the school thing were over for the summer.”

“Well, yes...”

“Then why the fuck ya going home for? We still have plenty of supplies!”

“Because I promised I’d go to the movies with Hojo and now that we’re on vacation I don’t have excuses not to go, anymore. My grandpa literally ran out of diseases I could have. And what’s the point, anyway? Jewel hunting is going through a dry spell, everyone left… and I haven’t seen my family in weeks.”

Half of what she said didn’t make any sense to him and InuYasha positively hated the half that did.

“What if something comes up? I can’t see the damn shards like you do.” He argued.

“You jump through the well and get me.” She shrugged, as if the idea was highly unlikely. InuYasha opened his mouth to list the many, many reasons her solution was flawed. She bit him to the punch. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be back tomorrow. I bet Miroku and Sango won’t even be here yet.”

It wasn’t fair.

In general, storming off to her era was Kagome’s way of punishing him for being a massive asshole. He got that. To tell the truth, more often than not he deserved it. But InuYasha was in his best behavior — despite feeling rightfully entitled to throw a tantrum, given the circumstances — precisely because he needed her close. He needed her to stay. Picturing Kagome hanging out with someone else instead was the worst kind of self torture. Would she change her mind if he swallowed his pride long enough to say so? Would he ever get the guts to let it out? She hadn’t invited him to come along. Was this Hojo guy really that important to her? More than InuYasha was? Trying to talk her out of it was a dangerous move. He’d put his foot in his mouth, she’d put his face on the ground. That’s what they did.

Either his expression betrayed the turmoil inside or Kagome became too good at figuring him out. Whatever it was, her smile shined, reassuring and warm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be so quick, you won’t have time to miss me.”

“Who says I’d miss ya?” He dismissed, his indifference unconvincing even to himself.

InuYasha perceived another presence approaching. Shippo. His arrival couldn’t be more providential. Kagome had a soft spot for the brat. If anyone could get her to stay, it was him.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just the runt.”

Like he had been announced, the kid emerged from the trees in a hurry, Kagome’s bow and quiver looking gigantic on his tiny hands.

“Kagome! InuYasha!”

“Shippo-chan! What’s going on?” She asked, as soon as the boy reached them.

“There are rumors of a jewel fragment, two villages to the west.” He explained, with the pomposity the information called for. “Kaede sent me.” His chin was up high, like the statement added a final hint of importance to the message. “Here,” continued the kit, offering Kagome her weapon in a formal manner.

She hesitated.

“Kagome, let’s go!” InuYasha was prepared to move at the sound of the word ‘jewel’, their earlier argument happily buried and forgotten.

“Wait! Don’t you think it’s strange? For days we had no leads, and now, just when we splitted up…”

“Yeah, well, so what if it’s a trap? It wouldn’t be the first.”

Coward that he was, Naraku resorted to the nastiests schemes in order to get what he wanted. His disgusting fingers laid on every happenstance that had ever caused them harm. What choice did InuYasha have, though? Ruse or not ruse, he had to check it. Regardless of anyone else’s help, it was his duty to get vengeance on the bastard — for Kikyo, for himself — and Kagome knew that.

She sighed and took the bow and arrows from the fox’s hold.

“Thank you so much, Shippo-chan! Now can you do me another favor?”

“Anything!”

“Go back to Kaede. Tell her InuYasha and I are on our way.”

“I’m not coming with you?” He whined, as confused as InuYasha. They never traveled without the child.

“That’s right. We don’t know how dangerous this may be. I need you to stay and if we don’t come back tomorrow by noon, get Miroku and Sango and send them to us. Can you do that for me?”

Shippo resolutely nodded .

“I won’t let you down, Kagome.”

“I know you won’t.”

And through the same path he had appeared he went. Kagome fixed a pleading glance at InuYasha.

“Can I at least change clothes before we g—”

“No time to waste.” He said, grabbing Kagome and her bag to leap towards west.

Kagome was whistling that same song again.

It took him an enormous amount of self restraint not to whistle along.

He was happy. So wonderfully happy. It was astonishing, the effect that tiny, bossy human girl had over his humor. The fact they were following the possible whereabouts of a lost jewel piece also played a role on his attitude swing, there was no denying that. But even if this turns out to be nothing at all, it would be a small price to pay in exchange of spending more time with her.

“Weren’t you mad about not coming home just now?”

His curiosity was genuine. Kagome had been angry since they left and InuYasha would be the person to know. She had two kind of anger. The one he could hear and the one he could feel. Even though she had been unusually silent, her frustration was palpable at first. Mercifully, it seemed to fade away the more ground they covered. Her one complaint was the soreness that too many hours on the same position inflicted upon the muscles, which was why they were both walking. As a rule, he was strictly opposite to anything that might slow them down, and the human pace was unbearable once you had a taste of demonic speed. Running free, with trees and people alike turning into a blur on each side of him, was an unparalleled sensation, amplified tenfold whenever Kagome was riding his back. He didn’t regret giving in, though. They weren’t far from their destination, after all. In addition, her comfort came to be a priority, despite him still being unaware as to when or how.

“Well… yeah, but… what can I do, right? Besides, I haven’t realized how much I missed this.”

Clueless, InuYasha searched their surroundings, unsuccessfully intending to spot what she could possibly be referring to.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?”

“This!” She spinned around, open arms and face to the sky, chasing daylight like a sunflower, the movement bringing her garment to life. “You. Me. An adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shippo and the others, I’m glad they joined us. It just feels like we haven’t had as much quality time together as we used to, after they did.”

“Y-you miss that?”

She shook her head up and down with enthusiasm and a content smile fought its way across his lips.

“I know we could hang out in Kaede’s village, but it’s not the same as going out. O-on a trip, I mean.”

Although InuYasha couldn’t make out why her cheeks were suddenly burning red, he did see the logic her reasoning, and the feeling was mutual. There was a certain level of closeness only the road could provide. No curious eyes. No sly comments. No need to explain themselves. InuYasha had missed that as well.

He often played with the thought of stealing her away, of placate his selfish thirst for her undivided attention. Not once had he imagined Kagome would be as eager to go as he was to take her. Regardless, the timing wasn’t right. It never was. From the moment they met, they were tossed into a mission and there was hardly space for anything else. So he settled for whatever he could get until it was over.

“Why would you miss those trips? It ain’t like I was nice to ya back then.”

It didn’t make sense to him that she would. His memories were of a spoiled little girl, complaining about the bugs and her aching legs and the fact she hadn’t bathed in days. There was no escaping InuYasha’s share of responsibility on the issue. He could have made her life easier, had he bothered to. But at the beginning he saw Kagome as a potential threat he would eventually get rid off. How could he have guessed, after the many betrayals he had endured through the years, that his heart would be safe on her hands?

Kagome limited herself to a shrug.

“You are now.” She stated, as if it made up for his unexcusable former behavior. Her unconditional forgiveness amazed him, no matter how regularly she had shown it to him. “Also, it feels like old times.”

“It doesn’t unless you get kidnapped, somehow.”

“It happened once or twice!”

“Keh! Stop kidding yourself.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“No, shut up. I’m sensing a shard and it’s moving away.”

Wordlessly, InuYasha returned the backpack to her and offered her his back.

They raced at full gallop, Kagome guiding their course. The forest transitioned into arid highland, where dirt, thorns and rocky surfaces took place.

“Hey, you!” Kagome yelled at the youkai emerging in their camp of vision. Their target. Over his shoulder, the startled creature sneaked a peek at them and increased speed. Growling, InuYasha matched his rhythm. “Wait up! We won’t hurt you.”

“I’m pretty sure Imma hurt him.”

“Give the jewel fragment to us peacefully and you’ll be free to go!” She went on, his snide remarks as ignored by her as her plead was by the demon. InuYasha’s patience was wearing thin. Now that the rumors turned out to be true, his focus was entirely aimed at the task at hand.

“Are those fancy arrows of yours just for show?”

Kagome let out a deep breath. Shooting was her last ressource. She preferred to sort things out with words first. It rarely worked. Still she always tried.

“I suppose we have no choice.”

The arrow hit the creature in the calf and his groan of pain reverberated through the field. Not lethal, but enough of a nuisance to make him drop the run. InuYasha closed the distance between them within seconds. Kagome climbed off him and together they inspected their opponent.

On the floor, a possum demon hissed and exhibited his fangs at them, his ugly face twisting in agony while he pulled the arrow out. A cascate of blood immediately flowed from the wound. InuYasha was not fooled by it. Being a full youkai, he would be healed soon.

“Where is it?” InuYasha asked Kagome, not daring to leave the bastard out of his sight.

“His belly.”

“Step away, you filthy half breed!”

“Excuse me?” Kagome defied, any trace of courtesy forgotten.

“That was quite the damage she did on ya, there.” InuYasha released Tessaiga from its sheath as he approached the fallen man. “Think I can top it, though.”

“Step away, I said!”

His fear was palpable. InuYasha could feel it. See it. Smell it.

Smell it.

Faster than realization, the odor filled his lungs. It burned his nostrils, his throat. He could taste the toxic substance on his tongue. It was unbearable. And gasping for air only resulted in the pungent scent flooding him further, overwhelming his senses. A defense mechanism, he thought, his vision blurring, his knees giving in. I’m going to faint. No. No, no, no, no, no. Kagome. He had to protect Kagome.

There was a cry of his name.

And then an awful lot of darkness.

InuYasha came to abruptly, uncertain and alarmed by the new reality.

In one minute, the sun was up and he was succumbing, his consciousness leaving him to drift. In the next, he was awake and crickets sang the night’s arrival.

It was tempting to think he had dreamt the whole thing. A stupid, ridiculous, crazy ass dream. However, the lingering smell left no room for argument. It happened. The scent was weaker. Fading. But was there, overpowered by a significantly nicer aroma. A familiar one, sweet on the nose and soothing to the soul. Kagome’s.

He was lying half naked in her sleeping bag.

Sitting up, InuYasha seeked for the priestess, desperate to make sure for himself she was safe and sound.

The fragile light of her modern lantern illuminated the cavern that sheltered them. At its entrance, a girl rested — her silhouette contoured by a starry sky.

“Kagome.”

“You’re awake!”

She rushed to him, tripping over her own eagerness. Her beautiful clothes were dirty and a bit ripped at the hem. A small scratch cut her cheek, remnants of dry blood tainting her skin.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine!” Kagome kneeled in front of him, a gesture he appreciated. There was no peace for him without an up close inspection of her well being. “I purified the demon after you blacked out. Turns out it was a trap. Thousands of Naraku’s second-class demons came for the shard when I took him down. I tried to purify those too, but more of them kept coming and I ran out of arrows, so I casted a barrier and—”

“You casted a barrier?”

InuYasha was beyond impressed. Barriers required great power and discipline. Even from Kaede or the monk. Kagome had apparently done it all by herself. Effortlessly. On the spot.

“To be honest, I don’t know how I did it. I just… I saw you lying there and I… anyway, the barrier purified the ones who touched it. Eventually they all died or left. How are you feeling?”

InuYasha didn’t answer the question.

“I’m sorry, Kagome, that you couldn’t rely on me.”

Guilt pulsed within him like a heartbeat. Constant and compulsory, expanding the outcomes of its work through every inch of his body.

“It’s not your fault. Your nose is too keen, of course you’d be affected the most.”

“But you got hurt!”

“In the thorns. I was careless. Don’t worry about it, it’s not even going to leave a scar.”

“It shouldn’t have even happened. I’m supposed be the one protecting you, not the other way around.”

It could have been worse. InuYasha should be grateful for that. He wasn’t. It could have been worse. And he wouldn’t be able to help her, to save her from this insignificant peril while she had already saved him in every conceivable way there was for a person to be saved.

“I’m not as helpless as I used to be, you know? I’ve grown a lot.” She had a point. InuYasha himself had told her that much, once. Kagome had faced scarier dangers than that. And she could absolutely take them. But he didn’t want her to have to. “Not to mention, it was totally worth it.”

As a proof, she exhibited a jewel fragment, glowing in the healthiest shade of pink.

“You got it!” InuYasha captured the shard, glancing at every angle of it in awe.

“Don’t act so surprised.”

Kagome went for her backpack and came back, falling on her knees again. Her hand dove in and emerged holding the glass container in which they kept the other pieces. She opened it and tilted the receiver to InuYasha, hinting for him to do the honors.

It was as if she had been waiting for him so they could do it together.

As if it was their private, sacred ritual.

He did as she wanted, mirroring her satisfied smile.

“Where’s my haori?”

“Oh! I… I put it away.” Blushing, Kagome tore her gaze from his and InuYasha followed it to a corner of the cave, where a huddle of scarlet fabric laid forgotten. “I figured you’d heal faster with that smell gone and your haori is soaked on it. Sorry.”

“D-don’t apologize, stupid. It was the right call.” To feel useful — and to occupy his brain with something other than the image of Kagome undressing him — InuYasha searched her backpack for the first aid kit, a tool from her era he was sadly too intimate with. “Now let’s take care of this cut.”

“Okay. You have to g—”

“I know what to do. I’ve seen you do it a thousand times.” Her lips parted, and InuYasha added: “Don’t act so surprised.”

He cleaned the wound with cotton, water and soap, then used a different ball of cotton to carefully apply the content of a smelly little bottle to the extension of it. Kagome hissed, but he ignored it in favor of wrapping it all up with a band-aid. To ensure it was properly stretched, he gently ran his thumb through it, allowing the touch to linger more than necessary and his stare to go from her cheek to her eyes.

Her eyes.

The most stunning maze.

Let yourself get in, you are sure to get lost.

She blinked before he could, keeping them closed and leaning into his palm, her hand lifting to cover and caress his.

It would be so easy to grip her chin. To turn her face to him. To bring her to his lips.

So easy to steal a kiss.

Why do the easiest actions have to carry the most difficult consequences?

Clearing his throat, InuYasha transformed present into a loving memory.

“Take some rest. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me.”

On the way to claim Kagome’s prior guarding position by the entrance of the cave, InuYasha collected Tessaiga while she busied herself with getting cozy inside the sleeping bag.

“Kagome?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“InuYasha, I think we’re way past saying thank you for saving each other’s lives.”

“No, not for that. I mean, for that too, but... for coming. For staying by my side.”

“Stupid.” She mocked him, her voice lethargic as exhaustion finally caught up to her. “Where else would I be?”

A/N: this was some serious self indulgent bullshit. I regret nothing.

@inukag-week here is another piece of contribution. Kind of merged the Loyalty and the Instinct prompts here. Oops.

#Inukag Week #InuYasha #Inukag #Kagome #Kagome Higurashi #My writing #Inukag Fluff #Inukag Oneshot #Inukag Fanfiction

149 notes · View notes

ksbwnotes · 3 years

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Chapter 8, Part 2

*groans in hands* I have to finish reading everything by September 14. I have no clue if I have the drive for this, but fuck me for having more determination to read this than any of my nursing books...

1. ...So it...wasn’t because...he was killing his prey???

Oh my god I hate that smirk on your face Sangstop.

But...now that does make me wonder if this is true and to what extent it’s true. Bum has been picturing Sangwoo slicing into women while he was downstairs and we also see Sangwoo’s hands often damp. So honestly, installing that pulley can’t be the only things he does there.

Actually now that I think about it, the dampness is more from having to clean the basement and making sure there’s no residue from the woman that he killed. He’s very thorough.

But...that pulley. Maybe he really did install that just in case? He’s starting to use methods he has never did before. Because he has an outlier in his life now that he never expected. So he needs different types of punishments whenever Bum steps out of line, things that won’t break Bum completely like blades and sledgehammers will. If he’s going to keep Bum by his side and properly train him, then he can’t keep using the same methods he uses to kill his victims.

Because, ultimately, he doesn’t want to kill Bum. (later on, when he does decide he’ll kill Bum, we see him reach a new level of destruction that he wasn’t capable of earlier. He had to break more in order to reach that point. So, losing Bum made Sangwoo lose whatever little hope he had and, metaphorically, killing Bum means Sangwoo is killing whatever hope he had)

2. *wince* yep

God your reactions are delayed, but...yeah.

Sangwoo’s first reaction was to treat Bum favorably with a little kiss. To show that, yes, that’s one of the correct actions Bum could’ve taken--one of the ways to change his mind. But 1) Bum still came onto him sexually. Sex seems more of a trigger for Sangwoo (honestly, I think 99% of the women Sangwoo has slept with have died lol). 2) If Sangwoo let Bum have his way, then Bum will have the upperhand and he can’t have that. This is about making sure Bum knows what he did wrong and that he won’t do it again.

So even if a part of him does like what Bum did, it’s not something he can overall accept.

Oh one thing about his delayed reactions...it might be another coping mechanism of his? As a way to build up resistance to what he’s about to do. Whenever he does something impulsively, you see him lose it. But when he takes the time to do things, his expression is more dead-eyed than wild-eyed.

3. Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars

But i still can’t help but laugh lsjg;ijeog

Also, Bum, please...just...connect the dots faster please...but one notable thing about his character is that he doesn’t. While Sangwoo experiences delays in understanding, Bum disconnects entirely from the reality. Koogi keeps this trait of his goddang consistent.

4. Wait what the fuck

This is...worse than cutting??? You can literally snap someone’s neck with the force of pulling them up straight from the ground. How is this supposed to be a better option?? Also, lets be real, Bum’s trachea would’ve been done in by the force of this. Honestly, I’m surprised Bum’s jaw is fine. Fkk, what about the SPINE, HUH SANGWOO!!??!?!? The fact that Bum’s still able to even speak afterwards and does not have burn marks from the rope is...is whyyyyy this is a piece of fiction, Aetas, not real life sjgo;erjg.

Anyways, okay, so Koogi must have chosen this as Sangwoo’s alternative for a reason and I do think Sangwoo believes this is genuinely a better option. Even though, just speaking from personal experience dealing with patients, they always respond more dramatically to airway closure than blood loss.

If I think about my earlier idea, he uses violence not really as a sexual outlet (though, probably at this point, he doesn’t know how to get off without--at the very least--being rough and treating his partner as an object), but as a way to hurt people in the way he has perceived them hurting him. The bonus is giving them bruises and scars that he can see--visible marks for the invisible pain they’ve given him. It’s...validating for him, maybe?

So, this way, Bum is still suffering and being punished for making Sangwoo ‘suffer’, but won’t have visible marks. In this way, this is less validating for Sangwoo because there’s no “proof” of pain, so Sangwoo perceives it as less painful. Because he’s a fucking asshole and that’s putting it too kindly (lol Sangwoo worsening instead of getting better and dying at the end is literally the only reason why I decided to read this and why I respect Koogi).

Also, from what I see later, Sangwoo knows for how long he can hold Bum there without him dying. So I’m not sure who the hell he is tried this on...says me who literally used fkkn google to research how long it takes for someone to pass out from hanging. Which can range anywhere from 3 seconds to 1.5 minutes. So. It varies lol.

Ohhhh also this is much faster than cutting Bum open. That probably could’ve taken half an hour to even more than that if Sangwoo went that route. But with hanging, Sangwoo knows it can only go for so long, which is why he doesn’t go for more than one session of this. Bum can suffer for either 30 seconds via a very acute session of asphyxiation or he can suffer for thirty minutes or more via cutting.

Ohhh this is actually very smart of Sangwoo. I can see now why he chose this. He understands that hanging is much scarier and will make the victim really feel like they’re gonna die. So, this explains why Sangwoo decided to set this up for Bum. Because he believes only Bum would be able to prove that, yes, Sangwoo can choose the alternative because he won’t hurt Sangwoo past the point of no return (in a way, death for the victim means that Sangwoo can no longer forgive them because the pain they gave him is just as bad as death).

5. I don’t have anything to back this up, I really don’t, BUT--

Even though Sangwoo is smiling like an insane freak, it...kind of seems like he’s emulating all the hollywood serial killers we’ve seen on TV. People who are doing this smile like they’re truly enjoying life and blah blah blah. Honestly, Koogi probably means Sangwoo to be like this, like the classic serial killer that gets off other people’s pain.

But for me, it’s like Sangwoo is acting a part. Again, the eyeless thing. Sangwoo is taking on a persona--rather than truly allowing his brain to be present, to think about the situation for himself--that is meant to enjoy this just for the sake of it.

I also don’t think Sangwoo ever goes into these things planning to kill his victims right then and there. Like, right now, I don’t think he’s planning to actually hang Bum to his death. I can assume Sangwoo has done enough research to know when to stop so that they don’t actually die (but again, it will depend on how his victim responds to the hanging).

Because Sangwoo keeps giving Bum (and all his other victims) a chance. He probably gave CEO girl a chance right before deciding to kill her because, unlike Bum, she kept screaming and begging for her life. That is why Bum won. Because he proved worthy of a ‘second chance’.

And back to not wanting to actually kill them, that’s because killing them means he’s alone again. I honestly think he’s only doing this to people he has genuinely felt attached to in some way. He wants them to save him. To say, no, he’s not a monster, that he’s still worthy of being loved, that the way his mother loved him is not the type of love he deserves.

If they’re unable to save him, then that means they’ll only destroy him. And, so, he must get rid of them first before that happens.

6. Seriously no hands why the fuck and what the fuck Sangwoo

Okay, this is gonna be a loooooong one.

And this ties in with my idea about how Sangwoo never actually goes in with the conscious plan to kill his victims (this is very similar to how Bum goes in thinking of one thing, but his actions end up suggesting something entirely different).

It’s like he ends up killing them as a reaction to what they did

Similar to someone shooting a home invader dead and having it be self-defense

Also, this acts as a mitigating technique to avoid any guilt he feels

I think this also ties in to why Sangwoo doesn’t ‘plan’ things too deeply and just takes things step by step

Because the more he thinks about what he’s doing, the less he’s able to see himself as a human.

In a way, Sangwoo’s guilt and shame is driving him to do things that just worsen his guilt and shame.

Because he knows he can never be forgiven

He can never forgive himself

The reason why he wants someone to magically save him is because ‘helping him’ is a two way street

A hand may reach out to him, but he has to be the one to take hold of it--and it won’t end there

He has to trust the hand to keep a hold on him, no matter what happens--and he has to put in continuous effort to keep holding on as well.

He cannot trust someone to not only help him, but keep helping him and, more than that, he cannot trust himself.

He has no hope in the world around him and has no hope for himself, so in a way, the constant killing is a self-preservation act as well

Since, subconsciously, he knows that he cannot live a normal life because of everything that has happened--

--and the world keeps going on in their own bubble despite his pain--

--He has to do something to keep that from crushing him.

So, instead of killing himself, he’ll continue killing others because it’s what he’s familiar with anyways. And in survival, familiarity is necessary--a form of homeostasis--because that is when protection is possible.

And actually, back to that wanting a savior part.

Sangwoo has never once been truly protected

He has never felt a sense of security as a child

So, to protect himself, he has made himself impenetrable--stronger and always making sure he has the upperhand

Anyone who threatens him in any way should be dealt with swiftly so that they never take away his sense of security

So, wanting a savior seems totally opposite of what he should want, but everything he’s done to strengthen himself is in response to never having someone protect him

He wants to be protected for once

He wants someone he can rely on to guide him every step of the way, to be there for him when he’s weak and be his strength

It is something he has been looking for in every one of his victims and Bum is the closest that he can get to fulfilling it

Unfortunately, a savior is exactly what Bum is not.

And a savior is exactly what Sangwoo does not fkkn need to get better, if he even can at this point.

There are no such things as saviors, just like there are no such things as protagonists. The moment you put ‘getting better’ as someone else’s responsibility rather than your own, you’ve made it so that you can never get better.

7. Goddang boy, you really know you have nothing else but the grave waiting for you

Hmmmmn...actually, this is...huh. Oh. Okay. Okay. Uhm. So.

Remember when I said that Sangwoo doesn’t go into these things planning to kill his victim?? Okay so that’s not wrong...but not right either.

I thought that Bum did the whole hanging this solely as an alternative punishment, which I still think has merit, but now I’m like...okay so, Sangwoo does every little thing he can to make it so that no one can love him. He tries to make it fkkn impossible, which he succeeds at.

He knows that hanging will bring out more dramatic effects from a person. And Bum has this thing where he can say one thing, but then completely do a 180 from it. And asphyxiation can really force someone to be more...open about their thoughts lol. It’s the lack of blood to the brain, so the brain will have less barriers to keep their filter in check.

I don’t think he made the pulley as an alternative or lesser punishment, but as a “finality”. He gets that Bum is crossing into ‘unforgivable’ territory, but at the same time, is at the ‘I can still save you’ precipice, which is a hope that is more destructive to Sangwoo. Having that hope then it being torn down will be the last act that destroys his sanity (which is exactly what we see at the end of the comic).

Because, in a way, he’s still controlling himself in his killings. He’s not just killing anyone, he’s specifically choosing his victims, which reduces the amount of people he kills. If he has to keep on killing, his conscience will make it so that he won’t just start going on random killing sprees and making the body count explode. That is the last tether he has to his sanity.

So, before that tether snaps--by way of having his hope destroyed completely by people like Bum--he’ll put an end to it before it gets any further. This hanging thing was meant to bring out the ‘truth’ from Bum. It was meant to break down all the barriers and finally show his true colors. Which is when Sangwoo can kill Bum via hanging. This will be very different from what he has done before, but Bum was different as well. So him breaking from his habits is his way of applauding Bum.

8. Sangwoo’s Doki Doki moment lol

I like how Koogi put those black lines in there as a form of a ‘blush’, but not actually a blush because nothing about this moment is romantic lol. And that ‘thump’ is a facsimile of a person’s heart beating when falling in love.

I honestly think this is the moment where Sangwoo falls in Lima Syndrome.

Sangwoo is expecting Bum to react in a way that will finally let Sangwoo kill Bum once and for all. Screaming ‘motherfucker’ again. Curse him and say he will die a painful death, like his mother. Beg ‘please’ and for help, like CEO daughter. Anything but Bum still calling Sangwoo’s name, like he’s still a human instead of a monster.

Just like my first instinct to be like “fucker this is way worse than cutting someone” and reminded me of why Sangwoo should die, Sangwoo knows that what he’s doing to Bum warrants Bum treating him like a monster. But from Sangwoo’s point of view, that isn’t what Bum is doing.

9. Lol, Sangwoo, stop fucking romanticizing this oh my god

KOOGI. STOP OH MY GOD. NO. YOU’RE KILLING ME. SANGWOO’S EXPRESSION. NO. DON’T. I WANT TO STRANGLE MY HEART FOR MAKING ME FEEL FOR THIS FUCKER.

But seriously. This expression. It’s like Sangwoo’s prayers are actually being answered and he can’t believe it. It’s like he’s looking at God reaching out to save him from all the demons threatening to pull him down into hell. There’s this heartbreaking sense for hope and Sangwoo is so scared that it will fall through his fingertips and shatter on the ground at his feet.

But it is worthy to note that Bum calling out to Sangwoo via his name is actually pretty normal. I think it’s more common for children calling out for their parent to stop, because the person who is hurt them is more often then not the only person who can help them. And if throwing away your pride to appeal to your abuser is the only way to make this pain stop, then no fucking duh they will.

Just because Bum is the only one who has done so at this point doesn’t mean Bum is ‘special’. He’s a fkkn human being who has been abused ever since he was a child and is familiar with the other ways of begging for his life. If anything, I think this is more indicative of how specific Sangwoo’s victims are and that he hasn’t actually killed that many people.

10. Goddang Koogi, so much respect for you

Seriously, the way Sangwoo reacts to this is the same way when he later reacts to Bum saying “I love you” while Sangwoo is raping him.

So going off of that future incidence, Sangwoo here is being affected by Bum on a personal level. This is the level where, if triggered, the more he’ll want to keep Bum by his side because this is the closest Sangwoo can get to genuinely/healthily loving someone.

But the thing is, THIS is how he reacts to it. With aggression. And there’s this muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth that even suggests fear. Because that is how Eunsoo conditioned Sangwoo to react to ‘love’. Love is not something to desire, it’s something to repel because it’s a threat to your existence. But, of course, Sangwoo still wants love--he wants to be shown how love was meant to be in the first place.

And that is why he saves Bum.

Because Bum is his only--damning, dangerous, terrifying--hope for experiencing that.

(which is exactly why he fucking snaps later when he realizes that Bum cannot give him what he wants and if Bum can’t, no one can, so what’s the point of anything?)

11. O_O Oh...uhm.

I’m...yeah. So I still don’t think Sangwoo is the type that gets sexual gratification from killing and torturing people. Him holding Bum up by his legs so that he’s no longer choking is, I think, evidence of that.

In a way, this is more from a twisted version of demisexuality. I’m sure Sangwoo got hard the moment Bum started taking off his clothes to crawl over to Sangwoo, which triggered Sangwoo’s danger senses. Because not only love, but he equates sex to something horrifying and disgusting--and the way Sangwoo is grimacing in that last panel does suggest that he’s revolted by his hard-on. It’s just that he can’t help it, because his experiences conditioned him to only finding release via situations that make him feel disgusted.

Sangwoo didn’t reach peak arousal when Bum was thrashing around the moment he was being hanged. He reached it when Bum was calling out his name, still treating him like a person with a name rather than a monster who deserves to die. He wasn’t turned on by Bum, he was turned on by Bum’s ‘acceptance’ of Sangwoo. Rather than heterosexuality or homosexuality, this is closer to demisexuality because what he wants is someone to love him despite being a monster among humans.

Oh, I want to note that Bum calling out Sangwoo’s name could be likened to calling out Sangwoo’s name during the...throes of passion lol.

12. Wow you’re really enjoying yourself there, Sangstop

Hmn so again, I do think this is another showcase of demisexuality.

He doesn’t care that he’s getting off to manly cries, holding onto legs that are more boney skin than shapely meat, and a penis ‘hanging’ (omg i can’t believe i was able to fit a pun in here) above his head there.

He looks super blissed out here and I don’t think he’d be looking like this with any woman he has fucked. It has probably been a long time since he has even been this aroused by another woman. And the first time in a long time that he has been aroused was by some skinny, creepy loser who’s not just a loser, but a man.

Because it wasn’t the genitalia that was getting him off. It was Bum’s treatment of Sangwoo. So, in a way, he’s starting to like Bum IN SPITE OF his dick lol.

13. *blinks* oh I can’t be quite sure

But I think Sangwoo made sure Bum would fall onto the bed rather than the concrete. I don’t think the position of the bed was...right over the pulley...or maybe Sangwoo made sure it would be? Because he knows that hanging Bum could go either way: kill him or let him fall free.

14. How...do you think of these things, Sangstop...

I mean, creativity aside (which makes me go down a whole bunch of avenues and I really really just want this to end already), Sangwoo actually uses the words “Before I do something I’ll regret.”

Again, Sangwoo’s Lima Syndrome starts here. Had this been earlier, Sangwoo would’ve done something he wouldn’t have regretted. Actually, had Bum not called out Sangwoo’s name, Sangwoo would not have regretted killing him. He could’ve fooled himself into thinking he was relieved because he got rid of an outlier that threatened his last piece of sanity. That he was free from the danger that was Bum.

But no. At this point, Sangwoo knows that if he does something that ends up killing Bum, he will regret it. The release he had earlier fooled him into thinking that Bum was special and could give him something that no woman would ever be able to give him. If he could ‘train’ Bum more, if Bum can exceed his expectations, than he can probably finally get what he has been searching for in all of his victims.

And this is why he pushes Bum’s head in the water. Because now it’s no longer /just/ inflicting pain in order teach a lesson--to get revenge. It’s also about training Bum to make Sangwoo feel like he’s human.

15. Hey, I think this is the first time Sangwoo mentions how he has been treating Bum

Before, it’s always like “Bum you liar” or “I can’t believe you made me do this”, but now Sangwoo actually says “I treat you better than I have ever treated anyone else before, and this is how you repay me??”

Now it has become personal. Sangwoo’s feelings are involved because he is now acknowledging that, yes, he is treating Bum in a way that he could’ve never imagined treating anyone. So, now, Bum can actually do things like scratch Sangwoo’s skin and NOT get killed, which is fucking foreign to Sangwoo.

Because, before, it was all about never letting anyone have the upperhand. The moment someone threatens him, he asserts his dominance to the highest level he possibly can while still being under the guise of “law-abiding citizen”.

Bum, in effect, has become the only person who can physically wound Sangwoo and still live to tell the tale.

Aaaaaaand because there is more for me to unpack but I’ve reached a point where my brain is mush and I can no longer make sense of what I’m writing down, I’m actually going to end it here and pick it back up tomorrow.

Oh my fucking god.

#chapter 8 #volume 1 #jfc this is so long #and i can't believe i STILL have more to say #why the fuck are there going to be 3 parts to chp 8!?!?!?!?

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therealeagal · 3 years

Text

The truth about truth.

Is your truth different from my truth? Or do we share the same truth?

What even is the truth? Can I hold it in my hand? Can I see it with my own two eyes? What does the truth smell like?

Decide for yourselves whether my words have value or if they are naught but the ravings of a madman.

Whichever you decide, don’t @ me, bro. I’m not here to debate, just to philosophize. Or fauxlosophize, as the case may be.

Let’s begin.

People act like the truth is inviolable. Singular and unchanging throughout the eons. A monolith to which we must always aspire. People are, of course, wrong.

Once upon a time the world was...not at peace, as such, but in a state of something resembling equilibrium. Point is, everyone knew the score.

Everyone was shitty to everyone else because that’s just how people are.

As a very wise woman once said, “That’s the way the world is, dear, and I’m the only one you can trust.“

And I am the only one you can trust. So trust me when I say that the truth is ephemeral.

One day, some asshole got his ass kicked and decide that fairness was a thing and then he ruined everything by deciding that the way he was being treated was not that. And he repeated this claim many times and eventually it became the truth and that, as they say, was that.

Once upon a time, racism didn’t exist, and that was the truth.

Then it existed, but it didn’t apply to people of color, and that was the truth.

Then it applied to people of color but only the “respectable” ones, and that was the truth.

Then it applied to all people, and that was the truth.

Then it only applied to people of color, and that is the truth as we know it today.

Then anyone who complained about this state of affairs was “fragile”, and that is also the truth as we know it today.

And the truth is, racism can only be experienced by people of color. And complaints about this state of affairs are, at best, frightfully ignorant.

That is the truth. Why is it the truth? Because people said it was often enough that it became the truth.

Everyone’s always pissing pissing and moaning about what liars politicians are, always shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, at the very idea that someone in an elected position might tell anything that wasn’t the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Let’s not beat around the bush here. These people are wrong.

Oh, they’re not wrong about politicians being liars. They are liars. Point out any politician on the planet, any one. If they told me the grass is green and the sky is blue I would go outside and double check before I took them at their word.

What they’re wrong about is being angry at them for being a liar, when what they really need to be angry about is that this mystery politician didn’t tell the right lies. They should be mad that they didn’t tell the correct lies to get them on our side.

Put enough words between “People are shitty” and yourself as you can. Even if they aren’t true now, tell them often enough and they will become truth.

The truth is, the truth is subject to change as much as anything else in this world.

You’ve heard the old saying: the only two certainties in life are death and taxes.

You’ve never heard the old saying: the only three certainties in life are death and taxes and the truth.

When you seek to change the world, the way to do it is not to tell people that they are wrong. Do not tell them that they are bad. Or evil. Do not, under any circumstances, tell them they are sexist, or racist or any other kind of -ist. Even if they are. Especially if they are.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say. “Does this mean I should let them be whatever kind of -ist they are being?”

Excellent question. The answer is no. Change requires action. According to the truth as we currently understand it, objects at rest tend to stay at rest until acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Nothing changes on its own. People do not change unless given a reason to change.

More than that, people don’t change unless they want to change, and they won’t want to change if you challenge their perceptions of what’s right and wrong and they SUPER won’t want to change if you tell them they’re wrong. That will just cause them to dig in their heels and resist change even more.

But convince them that what you want is what they want and they’ll run barefoot over broken glass to support you.

So my advice to you, my children, is this: Lie. Lie until you can lie no more. Never tell the truth unless you benefit in doing so.

The truth is not an ideal to aspire to. The truth is a tool to be used and discarded as convenient.

Tell the next person you meet that the grass is actually blue. The color we perceive as green is actually blue, but society has forced us to accept a fabrication at the behest of the crayon industry.

The next time you meet a Conservative greet them like an old friend and tell them the Liberal deep state Illuminati run by Hillary Clinton opposes the rights of unregistered immigrants.

Tell them that Fuhrer Hitlery is against people coming together in peace and harmony and condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestine.

So wouldn’t it be the ultimate blow against the LIBTARD power base if they voted in favor of combating climate change the next time it comes up?

After all, God made transgender people. When John Q Public wants to shed the facade and embrace her true identity as Jane Q Public, isn’t that just according to God’s keikaku? (keikaku means plan)

Dude moves in mysterious ways and all. Who are we to doubt the keikaku? Don’t doubt the keikaku. The keikaku is love. The keikaku is life.

By supporting endeavors to close the gender wage gap, we are supporting God, so isn’t it a good thing that you voted for police reform, fellow believer in the good words of our Lord?

When seeking to change the world, you need to convert as many people to your way of thinking by whatever means are necessary to do so.

Never back down. Never entertain the possibility that you could ever be wrong.

Plant your tree of lies beside the River of Truth and even if the whole world is against you, you tell the world, “No, you move!”

In time, everyone will come around to your way of thinking, because hey, that tree is planted beside the River of Truth. It wouldn’t make much sense if there were a tree of lies planted beside it. Therefore, it’s obviously a tree of truth. Q.E.D.

Don’t take the high road. Take the low road. The lowest road possible. The moral high ground was invented by people who are just mad that they didn’t win.

You can either be a liar in a world where no one experiences discrimination or you can be a truth-teller in a world where people are barred from participating in life because of factors outside of their control. Because they don’t fit inside the neat little boxes other people want us to stay in.

I know which one I want to be. Which one do you want to be?

Sincerely,

The Real Eagal.

#the truth #lie #lies #death and taxes #just according to keikaku #river of truth

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silver-and-ivory · 6 years

Text

There are people who will use another person’s perceived anger as a reason not to engage with them. This is shitty, and also a logical fallacy. After all, if someone says “you motherfucking asshole, the sky is blue, I hope you kill yourself” the sky is still blue and you should not believe the sky is green because that person was a dick.

It is also relatively common for people to use accusations of someone else being a jerk to recenter the conversation around that person’s jerkishness rather than around whatever thing the first person did to make the second person be a dick to them. That’s derailing! And kind of awful!

In addition, the kyriarchy is in general a lot better at recognizing asshole moves against privileged people than asshole moves against marginalized people. So you get people saying “Jeez, I just said ‘tranny’ and this crazy tranny blew up at me. So oversensitive!” No, dude, you’re a dick and she got pissed at you cuz you’re a dick. Reasonable people get pissed at dicks.

from Ozy’s (otherwise excellent) Certain Propositions Regarding Callout Culture.

I disagree with this quote. It is not shitty to use someone else’s perceived anger as a reason not to engage with them. It is a good thing to do if you dislike people being angry at you. Many people find engaging with others more difficult if they feel that someone is angry at them. Angry people are worse at noticing their opponent’s good points, and often don’t enjoy being engaged with. Things angry people say can be legitimately hurtful; it is painful to be called a motherfucking asshole and to be told to kill yourself. It’s a logical fallacy to say, “You used a mean tone at me, so you’re wrong”. It’s not a logical fallacy to say “You used a mean tone at me, so I’m not going to labor to understand and engage with your position unless you are nicer”.

Secondly, it is okay to recenter the conversation around someone else’s jerkishness if they were actually a jerk. If someone tells me to kill myself, it’s okay to tell them “hey, I think it was pretty shitty of you to tell me to kill myself and for that reason I’m not going to pay attention to the rest of what you said unless you apologize and start using a nicer tone”. It’s not only okay but it is actually a good thing, because if people tell other people to kill themselves they should expect to not be listened to even if they are justified in being upset.

What about things that are less than mean telling someone to kill themself? What if I just tell someone that they’re a nasty ugly cocksucker, or something? Not all incidences of jerkishness are equal!

Well, if someone is a moderate jerk for a good reason, then that’s actually different from when someone is a moderate jerk for a bad reason. It’s an object-level issue of “was this person being a jerk for a good reason or a bad reason?”, not a general rule.

If someone being a jerk for a bad reason is treated like someone being a jerk for a good reason, then people will feel like it’s their fault when someone is a jerk to them for bad reasons, or like it’s always their responsibility to defend what they did and they are not allowed to object to being treated poorly. Some people will start to feel like anyone being a jerk to them means that they’ve hurt that person really badly because that person lost control at them.

(Source: whenever someone was a jerk to me, I felt like it was my fault to discuss and engage with them about how I could improve my behavior to avoid hurting them so badly that they were unable to control their anger.)

In all cases, it’s completely fair for someone to not want to engage with someone else in any direction. But in cases where someone was justifiably a moderate jerk, it’s important to remember to discuss the thing that caused them to be a jerk as well as the fact that they were a jerk.

#hm #last paragraph not as strongly endorsed as the others #tone arguments #sj #abuse cw #about her #transphobia cw #slurs cw #suicide cw #bullying cw

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unspilledink · 5 years

Text

The Art of Heroism

Hailey Parker became a hero when she was seven.

Some might pass it off as a ridiculous notion, something only a child could come up with. There were no heroes in the world. If there were any, they won’t be seven-year-old girls battling imaginary dragons in a sandbox. At least, that was what her father would always say.

Hailey sighed and looked at her ruined sandcastle. Were there really no heroes in the world? She could hardly believe it. In the books she read, heroes weren’t only those who battled imaginary dragons. Sometimes, heroes had no idea how to fight a magical beast and shied away from any opportunity to do so. Other times, heroes were children who lived in a cupboard for 11 years. Heck, the dragons could even be their own heroes!

Does this mean her father was wrong? But he would never lie to her now, would he?

Hailey slumped at the idea. If what her father said was true, then the world is a devastating place. She would rather live in a cupboard under the stairs or trek a sea of monsters. She smiled at the thought before shaking her head. That would be easier for sure, but Hailey was not the type to sit around and mope about things beyond her control.

If there were no heroes in this world, then she would be the first one.

Little did she know that the stars have aligned long before she made the wish. Her destiny had been written across time and space for centuries, carefully designed for all of heaven to see.

A sudden yelp broke Hailey’s thoughts. ‘Hmm…. What could that be?’ she said to herself. Peering to her right, she caught the glimpse of a boy near the monkey bars. He was quite pale, which made it easier to see the bruises on his knees.

‘This is it.’ Hailey wasted no time. She bolted out of her sandbox, making her way to where the boy was. He looked like he was crying. His cheeks were stained, as if traces of slugs on leaves. Maybe she came off as nosy because not a moment too soon, the boy was furiously rubbing his cheeks with the sleeves of his green sweater.

“Oh no, please don’t be mad!” Hailey exclaimed, “I just wanted to help!”

The boy looked at her with curious green eyes. “Help?” He asked, his voice hoarse.

She nodded. “Yes, of course! Why wouldn’t I? Father says when you hear somebody cry, it means that person needs help.”

“But… what if I don’t want any help?”

She froze at this. “What do you mean?”

“It means,” he said slowly, “that I don’t want any help.”

“Sure,” she drawled, “That much is obvious. Doesn’t mean you don’t need it though.”

“Wha… No… I…” He shook his head adamantly. “I do not need help.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Oh really, now? Try standing up then.”

The boy glared at her, but ultimately decided to pursue her challenge. He was halfway through standing, when a pained shout escaped from his lips. He fell, his bruised knees giving up on him. “Alright! You win! I do need help! You happy now?”

She almost grinned. “Well, close… but not so much. Not when you’re still wounded.”

She knelt beside him, and took a closer look at his knees. She huffed. “I don’t have any water or alcohol to rinse this with, and I’m sure there aren’t any in this place, but hang on…”

Grabbing a pocket of wet wipes from her pocket, she set off to clean the boy’s wounds.

He stared at her in wonder. “Why on earth...”

She laughed, as she gently pressed the wipes on his skin. “Father told me that if I really wanted to join the Girl Scouts this year, I needed to prove it.”

He broke a smile. Then the moment was gone, his gaze drifting far away, along with his smile. “Speaking of dads…”

Following the boy’s line of sight, Hailey was faced by a man walking briskly towards them.

“Levi Montgomery! What did I tell you about running off like that? I nearly embarrassed myself in front of…”

The man’s voice trailed off when he neared the scene, gasping in shock, “What the hell, Levi? Look at the state of you! You’re a mess!”

There was no attempt to acknowledge the presence of Hailey. The older man was far too busy grabbing the boy, Levi, and forcing him to get up. He stifled a whimper as he tried to stand. The man grunted in response, cursing as he grabbed Levi by the shoulder and carried him off.

It was when their two figures faded into the distant blur of crowded streets that Hailey felt it.

Something sharp was dragged against her cheek. It stung her skin at such a painstakingly slow pace. It almost felt like she lived another life waiting for the pain to go away. Her fingers were trembling as they reached for her face, feeling up the cut that was making its way through her skin. The world spun around her, moving faster and faster until her eyes could only make out the blue sky above, as if to ask the heavens, “What was happening?”

This was Hailey Parker’s first wound.

And no, it was not because she fell while climbing a monkey bar. That was not how it worked for her.

Like some who were born to hold a pen, Hailey was born to carry a golden heart, shaped beyond the borders of humanity, possessing a selflessness no man could ever fully grasp. The universe designed her to be perfect, however perfection comes with a price.

Most people get wounded when they trip over staircases or experience a car crash. They feel pain when they’re ill or when they’re shot. However, if Hailey was exposed to such scenarios, each of them would leave her out alive. No bruises. No injuries. No bodily harm. Tradition would call it a superstition. Alchemy would call it equivalent exchange. Religion would call it a miracle. Whatever reason human society could offer, it could never wholly explain the kind of life she would live. Yes, she did not get hurt under normal circumstances, but that never stopped her from getting hurt under her own circumstances.

This was Hailey’s gift and curse: every selfless act she makes begets a most unbearable pain.

After her first wound, everything became a blur. The only sense of clarity in her life was when she helped others. This she chose to pursue in spite of the scars slowly littering her body. Each scar was a story, but more than that, it was a step closer to becoming the hero she so desperately dreamed of.

When Hailey was eleven, she became friends with a girl named Mara. She rarely brought any lunch to school, much less requirements needed for the day. She wore baggy, hand-me-down shirts for which the class wasted no time teasing her for. She could barely answer during recitation. The most a teacher could get from her were stutters. Hailey never mustered the courage to ask Mara why she was like this, so she did the only thing she knew how: by helping her. Everyday, she shared her lunches with Mara. During break, she would let her borrow textbooks to catch up on the lessons. When she struggled with studying, she tutored her during breaks. Hailey hardly noticed the cuts forming on her back and thighs until one day, the teacher announced that Mara dropped from the class.

Someone from the class snickered, “It’s about time she went back to where she belongs. A girl from the slums doesn’t fit in here at all.”

It was the first time Hailey felt betrayed. Why couldn’t Mara see how much she tried helping her? And why couldn’t their classmates see how much people like Mara needed help?

The same questions echoed in her head when she stood up for a boy named Jasper during sophomore year. He played football, and some of the other players were not happy with having a ‘closeted queer’ as part of the team. They blackmailed to out him, get him expelled, and nobody was trying to stop it. Watching it unfold was horrible: Jasper breaking down on his knees, getting beaten up by several people with no fighting chance. The image pained Hailey more than the threat of deep wounds on her thighs.

These were the moments she could not grasp, and she did not dare to. A sense of defeat hit her in waves, and soon enough, even her enthusiasm for normal, everyday scenarios drained like quicksand.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!”

Hailey blinked, seemingly recovering from her trance. “I’m sorry what?”

She was faced with a boy looking back at her with an exasperated expression. “I said watch where you’re going! You crashed into me, and now my sketches are all over the place!”

Hailey slowly glanced at her surroundings, as if in a daze. It took her a few moments to process the presence of papers lying around on the stone pavement. They were drawings of wide meadows and greener pastures so vivid that she almost lost herself in their reality.

She was pulled back to the present by the annoyed voice of the boy in front of her. “Are you deaf or just plain dumb? You crashed into me. My sketches — which are due today by the way — are on the ground, possibly wet and stepped on, and you’re not gonna do anything?”

She was about to respond when the boy just cut her off. “You know what? Nevermind. I don’t have time for inconsiderate assholes like you.”

He was picking up pages near the fire hydrant when Hailey joined him in his task, an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry. I just… wasn’t myself today. I didn’t even know I bumped into you until you were telling me.”

She passes to him some other drawings, hoping he did not notice her arm suddenly clutching her stomach. She smiles meekly then says, “Here. I’ll help you with the rest.”

Even helping old Mrs. Smith crossing the road was getting more and more tedious as time passed by. It was thrilling talking to her about the milestones of her new grandson while walking, but lately, Hailey found herself in a constant, mindnumbing stupor, as if she was going through the motions of life stuck in a bubble, separated from the world she grew to love and vowed to help in any way she can. She has done so much, risked so much, more than enough to last for a lifetime, and the signs were painted all over her in different shades of red and purple.

No one ever saw, for the mind is significantly bound by its humane mediocrity that it perceives only what it believes something to be. Whether it is this or simply the universe at work, one cannot truly know.

For ten years, Hailey let her fiery golden heart consume her, until one day, she was nothing more than mere ash.

It started around seven or eight months back, when Hailey’s mother and father encountered more fights than they ought to. The household was gradually filled with sounds of shattered glass and broken voices. However, what struck Hailey the most was seeing the same shades of color she was far too familiar with on someone else’s skin.

Hailey couldn’t believe it herself, not even when she saw her mother’s purplish skin filled with bruises desperately being caked by powder. No, not until two nights ago.

It was a bit early, around half past five in the afternoon. There were no theatre rehearsals or pending projects from the school publication, so she headed home. She was just entering the porch, when a shriek pierced her ears. Immediately taking hold of the door, she was greeted by a scene that would plague her every waking thought.

Her father looming over her mother. His fist colliding with her face. The dull thud of his hit, reverberating in the walls of Hailey's mind. The first note of her self-destruction.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The next thing she knew, she was beside her mother, searching... searching for a pulse.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

She hears her own voice bellowing. She feels a burning rage. Her body was trembling, and she was terrified, but the fear wasn't enough to quell the fire within her.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Her fists were sore. The world was spinning. She felt a churn at the pit of her stomach, rising to her throat and numbing her senses. A bitter taste on her mouth... blood?

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Every step she took was a burden lifted from her shoulders. She didn't know where she was going, but there was only one thing in her mind.

Run. Run. Run.

She knew it was coming. She braced herself for the familiar sting of a cut, the nasty smell of iron, deep from the walls of her flesh. Her legs were weakening at the thought of it, but she urged herself to get as far away from that horrid place as much as possible.

Run. Run. Run.

The pain came at full force. Her innards were being twisted. Her lungs were being crushed. But most of all, her heart was being ripped apart, piece by piece, and she had no means to fix the debris.

Soon enough, the pain became too much. She couldn’t run any more than this ‘gift’ of hers would let her to. The weight of it was becoming too unbearable, and for once in her life, she wished none of this ever came to be. For what was the point of being a hero, of saving other people, when she couldn’t even save herself?

She then remembered the seven-year-old Hailey. The one who looked up to her father. The Hailey who swore to be the first ever hero. She laughed at the thought of it now. She knew being a hero meant giving yourself up for other people, but nobody told her how that included monsters as well, beasts and demons of every kind. Nobody told her how giving up one’s self also meant being empty-handed in the end.

Maybe this was why the world had no heroes.

She didn’t know how, but she reached the bridge connecting her small town to the city. The road of the bridge itself was empty, and the sky was void of any stars, a blanket of pitch black accompanied by a crescent-shaped moon. Below these was a river, its waters rushing but silent.

Catching her breath, she leaned her back against the railing and sighed. She could still feel the pain, but she was becoming numb to the intensity of it. A good sign? She was still yet to judge.

Hailey was about to run again when something caught her eye.

There was a boy, about her age. He was standing on the railing, centimeters away from falling. His eyes were closed, and his arms were spread wide, as if he was an angel with wings, as if he could fly and be free to roam the sky.

“This is it,” she gasped in realization, managing a smile. She didn’t have to go through this anymore.

“Hey! Hey, you there! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She yelled, walking up to where the boy was. “Get down from there! You might die!”

The boy chuckled derisively, but his eyes remained closed. “That’s the point. Now go away.”

“Are you meaning to say,” she said slowly, “that you plan on killing yourself?”

“I thought that was fairly obvious, especially for a girl of your talent.”

Her body froze. He could see the wounds? But… nobody could, that much she knew by heart. “A girl of… Wait… You…”

“Know who you are?” He finished nonchalantly. His eyes opened, returning her gaze.

Green.

His eyes were green.

Suddenly, it all came back to her, a spectrum of photographs flashing before her eyes in different shades of green, as if his irises were the only colors mankind could witness.

Green like the grass he fell on.

Green like the sleeves of the sweater he wiped his tears with.

Green like the meadows he sketched on paper.

Green.

Green like...

“L… Levi?”

He stared in wonder. “Incredible… How even…”

Now she was confused. “What?”

“You… you remember.”

“Of course,” she said, “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

His face was blank, except the corner of his lips, in the making of a smirk. “You never changed, did you? Just as kind and helpful as before.”

“And neither did you, I see.”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t need any help.”

“And you seriously expect me to believe that? That you’ve got this all figured out?” She said, motioning to the bridge, then to the river.

“Now look who’s talking,” he laughed sardonically. “You’re saying that as if you got me all figured out. Just because you cleaned my wounds, and saved my sketches when people were walking all over them, you think you can waltz into my life again and think you understand me and my choices? News flash: you don’t.”

Hailey looked at him, perplexed. She turned her eyes away, and stared at her worn out Converse. “I’d like to though.”

Her skin tingled. She could feel his eyes burn right through her.

“Excuse me?”

“You said I don’t understand you. Your choices. Why you’re doing this,” she paused, “if that’s the case, help me understand then.”

Hailey forced herself to meet his gaze. “Help me understand your choices... Help me understand why you’re doing this… Help me understand you.”

“Ugh. You make it sound like it’s so easy!” Levi grunted as he stepped out of the railing, where he came face to face with her. His eyes were searching for something, but she didn’t know what. Sighing, he turned away, and sat on the metal floor, his back against the railing. Hailey followed, her eyes on him.

“I can't explain it!” he exclaimed in frustration. “It's not like there are words for them.”

Hailey tried to clarify what he meant, but he went on, “Don't start with your motivational bullcrap, smartface. I don't want to hear you explain what's wrong with me, so don't even try. You don't think I've heard all of that before? I have. I sat on a chair in front of some snob trying to psychoanalyze me. If, with all their mighty degrees in Psychology, they haven't figured out what's wrong with me, neither will you.”

But she knew him. She knew him far too well than a stranger should. She did not need the words to be uttered. Levi knew that. That’s what scared him the most. They got to know each other without words. So as the thick silence enveloped them both, time ceased to exist. At that moment, it was only them. Beneath the starless sky, they became their own stars.

The world waited for them to crash and burn, to spark and turn into an explosive ultraviolet chaos.

A masterpiece.

“You’re an artist then.”

Levi glanced at the girl beside him, surprised at her sudden statement. “You could say that.”

“... But?”

He smiled at this. “But I’m not.”

Hailey frowned in confusion. “That’s… ridiculous. I’ve seen your work, and they’re beautiful.”

“You saw them briefly on the surface of a sidewalk, being stepped on by dirty shoes and stained by people spilling their rush hour morning coffee,” he pointed out.

“Okay, maybe I haven’t seen them in their full glory,” she conceded, “but they were still beautiful art.”

“Beautiful maybe, but... art?” He shook his head. “That’s the one thing my work is not.”

“Based on whose judgment?”

“Mine,” he asserted.

“But… isn’t that unfair?” Hailey asked, looking at him with an unexplained fascination.

“How?” came Levi’s nonchalant response.

“You can’t get a second opinion,” Hailey said, trying to make him laugh. This time she was rewarded with another grin, so she took it as her cue to continue, “Seriously though, you have so much talent. Don’t you want people to recognize how much?”

“I don’t sketch because I want to, but because I have to. When we were kids, you ran to help me, right? You felt like you had to. It’s the same sad story. Sketching. Painting. Those are my good deeds. They make me feel like my day has some remote purpose when in reality, it’s how I cope with pain. It’s how I own it. Every stroke reminds me that this pain is mine. Mine and mine alone to bear.”

Levi must have been thinking deeply because he barely noticed Hailey shivering. She was cold, but she wasn’t about to interrupt him, especially when everything was finally starting to make sense.

“You know it’s funny how people romanticize tragedy. They look at my paintings, say it’s heartbreaking and have the nerve to call it fine art in the same sentence. It’s not fine because I’m nowhere near fine.”

When Hailey did not say anything, Levi concluded, “It’s not art.”

“Then what is art?” She asked, fighting the urge to close her eyes. Her lids were becoming too heavy to keep open, but she pushed through with the conversation, “You kept telling me what art is not… but you never really told me what art is.”

“How would I know?” Levi grinned, “I’m not an artist.”

Little did he know that he already was. The perfect artist for her masterpiece.

“And... what about you?” he asked.

Her lips were quivering. “What about me?”

“What are you not?”

“A hero,” Hailey answered softly.

She wanted to say that out loud for months, maybe even years, but no one understood her situation enough for it to mean anything. Now that she found him and he inspired a freedom in her she never thought she’d have, she was letting it all out.

All of it. Well as much as what he’ll consider sane.

“Okay, smartface. I’ll bite. Why is your do-gooder ass not a hero?” Levi asked, now more playful than mocking.

“Being a hero is a lie.”

Her lips formed a weak smile before continuing, “When I help people, they act like they're doing me a favor, like I owe it to them that they're letting me. Thank you is seldom heard, and when it is, it's masked with nonchalance or malice. All those I can take, but what hurts, what really cuts deep is when they do the same mistakes over and over again. They never learn. Worse, they put themselves in the same situation because they crave being saved,” Hailey said, with a faraway look on her face. “I can work as hard as I can, put all I have into doing the right thing and bad things will still happen, either because they’re bound to or because people let them.”

“Hey,” Levi muttered. He wasn’t really sure what to say next, so ‘hey’ seemed appropriate. It was enough to snap Hailey out of her trance.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe…” he started, but he was unsure how to continue.

“Maybe?” Hailey urged. She knew she wasn’t going to last in this cold much longer, but she wanted to hear what Levi will say, especially after what she shared.

“...And why, pray tell, are you trying so desperately to be everyone else’s hero? It seems pointless. The world will always have problems, and if you base yourself on how good all the people you’ve helped are doing, you’ll die waiting.”

“That must have been a mouthful coming from you,” Hailey teased.

“Whatever. I’m just trying to help, smartface.”

It was easy to embarrass Levi. Just put him in a position where he has to comfort someone, and he was done for. Hailey knew that, so she appreciated that he made an effort to make her feel better. More than the comfort, she knew he was right.

Hailey was always someone’s hero, never hers.

“I know. Thank you.”

After being out in the cold for hours, Levi finally noticed how pale Hailey was and that her entire body was shivering. Her face was pale, lips turning a light shade of purple, and he could distinctly hear her having difficulty breathing. He knew it could just be because of the cold, but his gut told him otherwise, so he asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m the best I’ve ever been.”

“Your lips don’t think so,” Levi joked. He was feeling a lot lighter now, not okay but good enough to get there.

“We should both get some rest,” he suggested. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

“No need,” Hailey said, smiling at him. ‘I already am,’ she thought.

“Okay then, I’m gonna head home now. You should too. It’s getting late,” Levi said, gradually walking away from the railing. Hailery watched him retreat further away from her, feeling so many emotions at once — but mostly gratitude. She was surprised when he turned one last time, and asked, “Do you have a name, smartface?”

Hailey froze before she stuttered, “What?”

“Name!” Levi shouted to the other end of the bridge, “I’ve known you since we were kids but I don’t know your name!”

“Hailey!”

“Well, see you around, Hailey! I’m Levi.”

‘I know,’ Hailey thought, smiling to herself as her eyes followed the streets where Levi disappeared to.

This is it.

The cold was taking over her body, and she was numb everywhere. She didn’t need to see the bruises and the cuts to know that they now cover every inch of her body. The pain she felt was more than enough warning.

It wasn’t long now.

How she knew that, she could not really say. It was instinct, she guessed, like how she knew what cuts she’d get each good deed she accomplished or that Levi was special the first time she saw those green eyes. She just knew.

Like the universe predicted, her star was dimming. She wasn’t getting a supernova like most heroes whose masterful deaths await. Hers is subtle and barely noticed because Hailey, as she now realized, wanted to be her own hero.

And today, as Hailey turned 18, she finally saved herself.

#flash fiction

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itwasalladreamwedreamed · 7 years

Text

“Flarda” (to be continued)

Sometimes you notice something showing up in your life frequently in a short span of time. You can’t help but recognize the possibility of it being symbolic. Other times, you don’t realize something showing up in your life in such a short span of time. The possibility of symbolism can’t phase you, because you are completely oblivious to whatever that something may be; therefore, unaware of how often it is showing up in a limited time period.

This essay is about sea turtles, besides the fact that this essay is not at all about sea turtles.

I was recently on “vacation.” I use that word lightly, putting it in quotations because technically I was on vacation. I was using paid time off to leave the state I live in to go to a place with a drastically different geography than my current home for more than a weekend. In respect to that widely accepted version of defining a vacation in the 21st Century, I was on vacation. In reality, however, I was practicing what felt like a gesture of true family love (read: guilt) for my vacation time to go visit my parents, my siblings (& their significant others), my nephew, and a few select friends for six days on the gulf coast of Florida (i.e., a place where I had disdained my residency for a solid decade+ of my life).

When I moved to New York two years ago, the question I was persistently asked (mostly by acquaintances so removed they may as well have been strangers in essentially passing encounters) was why I would leave “Flarda.”

Sidebar: Nobody in the NorthEast knows how to pronounce Florida properly. Ironically, nobody in Florida knows how to pronounce Florida properly either, beyond the Midwestern transplants. Hypothetical West Coast transplants would also pronounce it properly if they had moved there, but nobody from the Pacific side of the US would ever ruin their lives with a move to Florida. Florida is the Poor Man’s Cali (as my very wise older brother says), and that sentiment does not hold weight in classism, but quality of living. In fact, there are probably people out west who are only saying the word Florida when they are discussing how awful it must be to live there, and are pronouncing it properly during these sparing conversations.

Anyway, the question of why I left Flarda was never standalone. It was always one full thought inquiring as to why I would leave Flarda, because the weather there is so lovely compared to the awful northern winters. Let’s talk about all of the elements of this question that are troublesome.

1.)Typically, as mentioned before, this question came from people I didn’t know, mostly by people who were checking my ID. These were people who had no interest in actually knowing why I would leave Florida for New York. That’s fine. It’s not that enthralling of a story as is, so it’s totally cool if you don’t want to hear about it, stranger. Nevertheless, they would ask and in the same breath add the part about the weather. In other words, my answer was irrelevant to begin with. It wasn’t a question, but an opinion they wanted to express by masking the statement in a question.

2.) Our society has a small talk problem. Asking a question that includes a “why would you” and adding your opinion before you got an answer that you don’t actually want to hear the answer to is inherently small talk. It’s a conversation you feel like you have to have without actually having it.

Yet another sidebar; however, this one will be essentially a necessary rant. If you don’t think this is worth your time to read, you can skip this section and everything about symbolism and sea turtles and vacation will still make sense:

It’s a strange phenomenon that small talk is perceived as politeness. For some reason, making conversation about the weather is synonymous of how genuinely good of a person you are. You are exchanging words with somebody you don’t know about something nobody cares about. As somebody who has worked in hotels for the past six years and was born in Minnesota, where for real manners are legitimate, I find small talk to be...inconsiderate, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a conscious realization for most people. Herein the problem lies, and it’s complex for layers of the human psyche I am (probably falsely) convinced I have some understanding of from a combination of undergrad psych classes and general overthinking.

We’re often forced to have interactions with other human beings we would otherwise never have encountered because of things like grocery stores and restaurants and plumbing services and doctor office reception desks and the list goes on and on and on. In other words, you are often interacting with people who are working while you are not working, even though you likely work a similar amount of hours per week. In doing so, you feel compelled to combine politeness and professionalism in this interaction, which somehow results in small talk. As though just being nice during this interaction that only actually needs a few necessary exchanges of sentences isn’t good enough, you instead add another layer of the interaction to make it seems less formal and less routine. The funny thing about small talk is everybody small talks about the same thing, so even though whomever is initializing it is having an original conversation about something generic for the first time that day, the initiee is having the same fucking conversation they have already had X amount of times that day, but is forced into pretending like they care.

I guess there are two more relevant points to bring up. First of all, it’s seemingly much better to be a chronic small talk starter than it is to be a straight up asshole. It’s appreciated that an effort into being polite is being made, but the problem is, you can still be nice without faking conversation. Besides, what’s the point if you’re being nice anyway? Chances are we’ll never interact again after that minor small talk excuse of a conversation. If we do interact again and the first time we had some bullshit small talk, chances are that will be less memorable than if you had just initially been nice and not tried to forced it. It’s a slippery slope.

Secondly, though, the guy who is being a jerk to the stranger is never going to win. If you’re first instinct upon meeting somebody you have no connection with beyond the immediate interaction that will be over shortly is to be mean, then I don’t want to know how you treat people you would see more regularly or all the time. But I can’t help but play the devil’s advocate on this situation, or any for that matter. At least if you’re being a jerk and you’re kinda just a jerk than you’re being more real than the small talkers. You can’t trust small talkers. Their moods will shift upon any minor inconvenience. They will be pleasant until they don’t get what they want, and then the small talk goes into a more full force dick mode than the person who was initially a dick upon first interaction. At least with the person who wasn’t nice to begin with you can only expect the worst of and are surprised when you grown on them and you get some form of genuine politeness from them .

In conclusion, we should really all just practice playing nice with one another. When I’m on the other end of the spectrum of small talk potential, like at a restaurant or bar or in a taxi, I’ll say my please and thank yous, adding a “dear” in sobriety and a “babe” after a few drinks in me. I’ll blindside people with a deadpan joke, and if they get it they get it and if they don’t they don’t. It doesn’t matter either way. All that matters is I’m treating them like a human being, and small talk is the thing so many people are convinced serves that function, but realistically being able to have the essentially the same conversation on any given day gives off the impression you view strangers as interchangeable.

That’s all I’m saying.

3.) I understand that the winter sucks, and I don’t personally think that because of the cold and the snow. Given I haven’t had the experience of owning a car up north, so I don’t have that experience to frustrate me over the inclimate temperatures. Regardless, however, the thing I hate most about the cold weather & the snow (the thing most people say are worst about the weather/winters in New York) is that I spend so much money on tights. The thing about the winter that gets me is the short days. The late sunrises matched with the early sunsets & the perpetual greyness of the sky above, despite the daytime hours and sun’s attempt to shine through. What’s my point? If they question were “Why would you leave Flarada for here? The beaches are beautiful and you can drive drunk and, like, 98% of the time get away with it,” this essay about symbolism and sea turtles might not even exist. It’s the weather thing, though. People don’t realize the importance in the change of seasons, not just for nature, but for themselves.

I have a theory that holds no legitimacy, but I strongly believe the constant sunshine causes more severe mental health disorders than the months of falling back for Daylight Savings in the winter do. This is coming from someone who lived in the Sunshine State for over a decade, and also is incredibly privy to Seasonal Affect. The lack of season change influences a strange mania, seemingly subtle, coped with by daydrinking before anything because happy hour is actually so cheap & all the cool kids are doing it.

If you’re not convinced that constant sun added to all the other tourist trap elements of the state with no public transportation (so that people are just alone with their thoughts isolated from others by heavy steel objects on wheels), can cause extreme mania, let me hit you three words: Florida Man stories!

If you take away anything from this essay, please let it be that Florida Man stories can only exist because of the perpetual state of sunshine in a geographically lovely state whose nature appeal is cancelled out by being covered in new money shawty suburbs and plasticity fake world theme parks.

4.) Okay, okay, okay, so maybe I wouldn’t move to Washington state because of the constant rain & my inability to handle the lack of sunshine, but I also would be completely skeptical of somebody who would move somewhere shitty exclusively based on the weather patterns.

Again, I digress.

What’s funny about the question of why I would leave Flarda because the weather is so great is that while on my recent six day “vacation” there, there was only one day where it didn’t rain and wasn’t miserable or muggy.

#vacation essays writing

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unholyoffspringofcereal · 7 years

Text

Gravity of Souls

So today I was sitting in physics, listening to the last review we would get before the AP exam in about two hours, and Dr. Castor’s just going on, got his little review out on the smartboard, doing his best. Love that guy, great teacher. Anyway, we get to about the third chapter and my brain decides you know what? Let’s think about some things.

There is an attraction between all things. But nobody knows why! A simple statement, to be sure, and one I’d heard probably thirty times in the last few months. The force of gravity is simple, a very tiny constant G directly related to the masses of the two objects you want to measure, and inversely related to the square of the distance. G(Mm)/(d*d). And yet. I just kinda sunk into that little room in my head like, what?

So I’m off in my head like, imagining the universe, the planets pulling each other together (never apart), and then another random thought just kinda wandered by, because we had been talking about electrons, too. The force of electricity is like that of gravity in almost every way, except that gravity cannot repel, only attract. Mass cannot be negative, right? According to Gabe, who has been rambling about negative mass for the last six weeks, not quite.

He brought it up as a joke because Doc Castor is really cool and isn’t a grouch, all like, yeah sure do whatever, and I feel bad because we take advantage of that at times, but anyway. The point. Some random neuron connection in my brain was like, FIRE, and the rest were like AAHHHH, and then I was thinking about souls. What are souls? I mean, people have had the concept of souls for as long as humanity has existed probably. That question of why are we different from the beast. Science tells us its all those little squishy gray parts up in our heads, lightning blasting chunks of my beef soup left and right nanometers at a time, eventually creating that thing we call personality. Religion tells us it is some gift from some almighty god, that it is the makeup of our sins and impulses. Logic tells me it’s the ability to reason. Nobody knows who’s right, and I make no claims to veracity.

But sitting there, at the worst possible time to be thinking about something that wasn’t immediately helpful to academics (isn’t it always?), a half-formed thought drifted through, written across a tiny piece of paper. Here then gone, it, I, we asked if souls could be made of negative mass. Now, before I go any further let me elaborate; that wasn’t the first thought. There are many many things in the world that we, as humans, lack the ability to perceive. For instance, our human ears are only built to hear from around 50 to 20000 Hz. Cats can hear much higher, as can dogs. Whales go lower. I had a conversation at lunch the other day about wanting to be a shrimp, because their tiny little eyes catch something like eighteen more colors than ours. I don’t know if that’s primaries or just shades of green, but that’s impressive. There’s a whole light wave spectrum out there we wouldn’t know existed if not for science.

On another small tangent, there were glasses created to allow colorblind people to unravel the veil holding the colors at bay and paint the world bright. If we tried to do that with shrimp, our eyes would be like, no, that’s just blue. Stop that. Do you see where I’m going with this? What if the idea of souls isn’t actually some misguided attempt of humanity to make itself greater than it is, rather something we lack the senses to perceive?

This thought came from my best friend, a people genius. I will readily admit that I wind people around my little finger. I can spend a few minutes around someone and know what makes them tick, grab, and twist on that to make them do what I want. Y’know, within reason. Usually that’s just to stand around and listen to me jabber, like I’m doing to you guys. But I digress. A people genius. I don’t know what it is, maybe a bit too much acid or weed or something, but she has this sixth sense when it comes to people and she can just know things about them. Specific things? No, she can’t meet you and know you have an intense love of beef jerky, you’d have to tell her, but she gets impressions of shit like I can barely explain. She’s friends with everyone because she can’t bear to show she doesn’t like anyone and she likes to have people around her, so she smiles and laughs and if you hadn’t heard her speak the words yourself you’d never know.

But anyway, these ‘feelings’ she gets from people are scary-accurate. I have a friend, slightly more than kind of an asshole but a good friend. From a stable background, parents at least well off, if working class it seems, he’s the picture perfect american boy. Dark hair, blue-eyed whip-smart, friendly with everybody. Polite and respectful to the teachers, just enough snark to his friends to be normal, one of the few people I consider a close friend. She basically went off on him in the hallway, words into seeds of strangle vines, growing wrapping around his throat and a voice like a scalpel, so sharp you don’t feel it at first but then god it burns, surgically placed to do the most damage. From a passerby’s point of view it wasn’t much, just her being kinda snippy because he barely reacted to her, but to anyone who had ever heard her before it was a mauling.

She confided in me later she had one of the worst feelings she had ever felt in her life from him, and I can’t blame her. As much as I love the guy, he’s at least slightly unhinged and away from reality at the best of times. That week, I’m pretty sure the school barely survived a mass shooting, and only that because it was too tame for him, not enough pain. “Mother always taught me to share, and if I took that the wrong way well it couldn’t be helped, could it?” Not him, but I think it describes what I was trying to say pretty well.

Anyway, the point of that was it’s like she has an extra sense to feel people, so why couldn’t there be a way to sense the soul? I think people may even already be capable of it, even if they don’t understand it. That is to say, it’s the parts and pieces of your brain, those primitive, primeval that tell us to run away when faced with danger, that tell us yes, reproduce with that person, become a gibbering wreck in their very presence because that’s just a great idea, those bits. There’s actually a debate in psychology over that, if it’s the brain that runs the human body by sheer need and instinct, or if the human consciousness, the comparatively very small piece of us that we bestow with our own name, our everyday life, the one who sat and typed this thing you’re reading (I think).

Anyway, what I was saying was that people already act in strange and inexplicable ways, for seemingly no reason. You see it the most in kids. Kids notice things, whether because they haven’t been trained to ignore that stuff because it’s etiquette, don’cha know, or they have less in their memory banks and so rely more on the ancient parts of themselves, the beast that clawed its way through the depths of the primordial muck of the universe, and so they see things. Simply put, our brains analyze huge amounts of information at all times, and we learn to block it out from childhood because it’s too much and it hurts. (On a side note, I’ve noticed the smartest people are the ones who pay the most attention to the small details, the ones who kept trying to remember everything at a glance and built it up little by little, inch by inch, devoted themselves to it above all else, because they had a burning need and they couldn’t do it without. The hardest ones to catch relaxed are the ones that never relax, as obvious as that sounds.)

So when your brain is sifting through all that information, it encounters things that it knows, things written deep into the genetic bones, the movement of predators, the eyes of the helpless, the bright smile pasted on top of the bloody wound, and sometimes it’s nothing more than a half-formed thought, barely paid attention to because you’re busy, or a strange reaction to a smiling face (KILLER MURDERER DEFILER OF BONES KIN SLAYER WRONG BAD BAD WRONG WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG-).

What if part of that was the soul? Something our brain couldn’t identify into right/wrong yes/no red/blue/green but still something anyway that couldn’t be quantified but was still there? An instinct, from a bygone era, created for whatever reason?

Anyway, not all of this makes total sense, or even reliable physical (hey, physics, just realized that) sense, but it was an idea. My truth, my belief, my adamant pillar holding up the sky, my religion of thought. I know I talked way too much to convey such a simple concept, and that I danced around everything until the end, but I wanted to explain why, the evidence, the intensity of the emotion behind all of these stringed together concepts so that anyone reading it wouldn’t just think I was blowing smoke up out of my ass trying to be #deep. Anyway.

Tl;dr? Souls are cool. So are brains. Go read it, you might enjoy it more than you think.

#stuff #brains #physics #souls

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