Tumgik
#who has MAJOR issues with letting things go
royal-confessions · 3 days
Text
Tumblr media
“I suspected Kate was probably going through a bigger medical crisis than what they announced. But it didn't occur to me that she'd had cancer removed. KP should've managed things better instead of letting speculation escalate to this point when they knew she was this ill” - Submitted by Anonymous
“Why did Kensington Palace release the doctored photo and then throw Kate Middleton under the bus for it when they’ve presumably known this whole time that she’s dealing with cancer??? Why do they hate women so much???” - Submitted by Anonymous
“Am I sorry that Kate has cancer? Absolutely, yes - I wish her a speedy recovery. Do I think that the PR situation behind this was a complete clown-show and incredibly badly handled? Yup...” - Submitted by Anonymous
“If KP had a decent PR team, none of this unnecessary noise would have happened. Had they not released that photo out of pressure from jokes on Twitter, no one would have taken "Where is Kate" so seriously and major publications would have stuck to the original statement about Kate being out until Easter. Instead, major publications joined in on reporting about Kate being missing. Now Kate seems as though she's been forced by all the speculations to reveal her cancer diagnosis instead of doing it when she felt most comfortable to.” - Submitted by Anonymous
“Idk how anyone who looks at this situation can feel anything but compassion for Kate and anything but scorn for the Kensington Palace pr team. What a bunch of incompetent people. And their boss aka William, the Prince of Wales really is a wanker. You'd be stupid to think he didn't approve every one of those inane press releases. Poor Kate, I hope she powers through the preventative chemo and doesn't have to deal with any complications again” - Submitted by Anonymous
“Catherine's cancer doesn't change the fact that the KP team is a mess incapable of handling what is actually an incredibly easy PR problem to deal with.” - Submitted by Anonymous
“So we're supposed to ignore that Kensington Palace lied about the operation being planned, issued a statement that any idiot could see was only going to cause a public frenzy, published a super obviously fake photo, and engaged in two equally obvious papwalks. ? Yeah, I don't think so.” - Submitted by Anonymous
29 notes · View notes
missgallavjch · 4 months
Text
imo jon is so connected to the 8th house omg!!! i'm not an astrologer but from what i know the 8th house is all about death&rebirth, transformation, power, sex, inheritance, the occult, taboos, secrets, subconscious fears and so on, themes that are all related to jon in one way or another 🥺 and the way he's very observant and introspective and deep reminds me a lot of scorpio too
4 notes · View notes
ziracona · 2 years
Text
K after playing 5 DA games though I have to say Bethesda has a mountain of issues but BioWare fans got NO room to complain about tech support issues.
4 notes · View notes
treasure-mimic · 7 months
Text
So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.
Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.
For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.
But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.
"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."
He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".
So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.
A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.
Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.
Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.
Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.
This is a flat fee per number of installs.
They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.
There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.
I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.
Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.
This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.
Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.
It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.
Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.
Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.
They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.
Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.
Tumblr media
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!
Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.
Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.
That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.
And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!
This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.
On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.
I fucking hate it here.
-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]
That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.
Tumblr media
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]
Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.
Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.
While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says
The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.
However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:
The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.
Screenshot for posterity:
Tumblr media
That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.
Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).
And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.
Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.
Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.
Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.
That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!
Okay. I think that's everything. So far.
There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.
A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.
On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.
I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.
So, with all that said, what do we do now?
Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?
(I fucking hate it here.)
And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.
[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]
That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.
The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.
Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.
6K notes · View notes
bambiimutt · 6 months
Text
He makes you cry during an Argument.
Arguments with these boys? What could possibly go wrong..
ೃ࿔*:・
Headcannons and short stories under the cut!
ೃ࿔*:・
TW!! talk of Hoodie stalking, but not major! I think that’s it!!
Tumblr media
Jeffrey Hodex:
- you’d think an argument with your boyfriend who loves you oh so dearly would hopefully end in him apologizing. Wanting to make sure he didn’t say anything to you to hurt you.. but you sometimes forget he’s not the normal person.
-Jeff has anger issues and it’s not a surprise to anyone when it’s brought up. So typically with any argument he has, his anger tends to get the better of him.
-which means if the argument is small it’s bound to be blown out of proportion, if it’s a pretty bad argument it’s about to be even worse.
-he doesn’t like to listen. To him he’s always right. He’s never wrong even if deep down he knows he actually fucked up he doesn’t want to admit it because he doesn’t want to look “weak” or too “soft”
-he typically doesn’t feel bad if you end up getting hurt emotionally, you’ll get a good ol scoff and roll of the eyes while he tells you “it’s not that big of a fucking deal, you don’t need to be so emotional.” Along the lines of that.
-but… you might just tug a few heart strings when he realized he’s made you cry. It’s when he sees that he’s scared you that he breaks a little. He’s got a habit of punching walls, breaking shit around the house when you both argue, screaming in your face.. and if it all leads to you finally breaking down and shaking that’s where he finally draws his line.
-he didn’t mean to scare you.. not like that at least. The last thing he wants is for you to be scared of him. He loves you.. even if he shows it in odd ways. He’s an asshole yes but he’s your asshole.
⋆.ೃ࿔*:・
“Would you just fucking Listen!” Jeff screamed out. His hands were immediately gripping onto his pants, trying his damned hardest to not punch the closest thing to him. But he can’t help himself the moment you cross your arms and give him that fucking look. “Jeffrey. Cut it out, I’ve listened to you for the past 40 fucking minutes.. you need to listen to me-“ you’re cut off quickly hearing his hand collide with the wall and a loud grunt leaving his lips. He’s slightly heaving, breathing heavily and hair a bit messy in front of his face. You jumped a bit, backing up quickly when he immediately whipped around to trudge towards you, black combat boots making him taller then he already was. His large hand was quick to grab your jaw and squish your cheeks together just slightly. “No you fucking listen to me. Stop being a fucking bitch. Why do you have to pick at everything I fucking do, huh?! Huh?!” If he was a scrawny guy you’d say you’d be able to at least get free but no.. no he was a big guy, tall. Muscular, broad shoulders.. built chest. His biceps twitched slightly as his grip grew harder. There was no way you were escaping this. Not with him. Your small hands pushed at his arm and your eyes watered, a tear falling onto his fingers. Oh.. Jeff’s grip softened as he slowly let go. His form lowering himself so he was at your level. “Oh baby.. oh..” his hands hesitated before cupping your cheeks and his lips are kissing at the corners of your lips, trailing towards your ear. “I didn’t mean it..” his voice is deep, gruff and low in your ear as you immediately wrap your arms around his waist. “I’m sorry..” really it’s the only time you’ll get a sorry out of him, a genuine one at that.
Tumblr media
Tobias Rogers
- he’s one of the ones who’s a bit more understanding. He can’t exactly understand physical pain or frustration but he can completely understand emotional pain and anger.. and how fucking awful it can be to handle. So when he’s stood, tall and lanky in front of you, hands swinging in the air and his voice raising he can suddenly feel the room shift to a hurt.. deep cut feeling.
- he tries not to yell he tries to hear you out when you both have an argument, but having BPD can be an issue when it comes to that.. you say one thing in a slight tone and he’s set off. Oh? So this is his fault suddenly? Why did you have to say it like that? You could have said it this way. Why do you have to be such a fucking asshole?
-when in reality that’s not how you meant it at all.. and yes Toby does feel bad for it afterwards he shouldn’t have lashed out that way, he should have sat and listened and maybe asked why you said it that way.. but sometimes things get the better of us.
-he’s not always the one to apologize afterwards but he does when he knows he really fucked up. He can’t lose you not to something so fucking stupid. “I-I’m sorry.. you didn’t deserve to hear that.. to e-endure any of that..” with a sniffle you look up at him teary eyed. Oh that really hurts. “It’s okay Toby” he’s immediately at your side, hands brushing your hair back and placing gentle kisses to your jaw. It kills him when you cry.
⋆.ೃ࿔*:・
“I don’t know Toby I’m just tired..” this is what set him off. The way you said it. You were tired? of this? Of him? Of this relationship? “Are you fucking serious?” He speaks with his teeth clenched together, his head resting in his hands before he’s looking up at your slowly. His body slightly twitches from time to time, though when he was angry it usually became an issue for him, twitching far too often, clearing his throat more aggressively. His tics would normally become more violent in some ways. “Are we just d-done then? That’s it just b-because you’re tired yo-you can’t fucking walk away-“ his arm flys up in the air as he stands, his hands coming to rub at his face and the patch of hair on his chin. His tired droopy eyes dart towards you. You didn’t necessarily start crying because he scared you it was more of the the stress of the situation. “Toby please that’s not what I meant.” He still hasn’t noticed as his tall figure is rambling on, tics making his occasional grip and smack to his leg but he of course can’t feel it. When he finally looks at you he realizes you’ve been crying and it stops. The room becomes quiet and he twitches a few more times before softly kneeling on the floor where you sat. “I shouldn’t have assumed like that.. I’m sorry..” he’s softly laying you down on the floor as his lips trail your neck, his hands placing your arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry.” He mumbles against your neck.
Tumblr media
-Ben Lawman/drowned
- to be honest he’s probably not the one who started it. He’s usually pretty calm, and quiet…. Except for when he wants to act like a child and become ignorant and downright inappropriate.
-he can be perverted.. gross and this is usually where the arguments start, not that you don’t like him nor the way he acts it’s more when he says things he shouldn’t be saying. So you typically end up yelling at him and he will normally sit embarrassed and feeling a bit guilty.. he didn’t think you’d get so upset.
- on occasion if the argument isn’t about that and about something else he still is usually the one to just take it but there are rare moments where he snaps back. And when he does. Oh boy.
-constant pacing back and forth, hands in his hair, sharp glares at you and laughing in disbelief. He’ll sometimes say things he doesn’t mean. He’s usually not one to yell but when he does you aren’t really expecting it. So it scares you.. and the tears finally break.
- ben only stares for a moment. “Shit.” Yeah he fucked up big time. He immediately feels guilty and he immediately rushes towards you to pull you into a tight embrace. He didn’t mean to take it that far.. he really didn’t, knowing it was him who made you cry makes him want to break down himself.
ೃ࿔*:・
“You can hate me yknow, I won’t blame you, or be angry..” Ben mumbled against your hair, your sniffling shattering his dead heart even further. You look up at the blonde, your fingers lacing their way into his hair as you force a bit of a smile “I just.. I hate when we argue like that..” your voice breaks causing Ben to swallow. Oh no. There’s that lump in his throat. His hands rub at your back before feeling his way towards your lower half, squeezing gently. “I know babe. Don’t listen to me when I get like that yeah?” You give a gentle smile as he softly lifts you up, bringing you closer as he grabs his controller, getting ready to play his game and have you relax against him. Occasionally he’ll presses kisses to your forehead. He doesn’t like to talk about the arguments, maybe because he doesn’t know how to handle his emotions and yours at the same time or maybe he’s just scared it’ll lead to another argument, but he apologized like he always does and makes sure your comfy against him while he games. As long as you’re content with it, he’s content.
Tumblr media
-Masky/ Tim Wright
- a bit like Jeff I just think he’s a bit more mellow, he won’t ever apologize unless he knows he’s actually in the wrong. Which ends up being majority of the time. You know he has his episodes, where he blacks out and doesn’t remember a lot of the things he ends up doing.
- he will sometimes black out during an argument. It’s not often but when he does it’s like arguing with a brick wall. Like Jeff he won’t listen. He refuses to listen to anything you say because In the moment he’s the one who’s right. But he’ll never go as far to say mean things like Jeff does. No Tim tends to stop himself before he does.
-he storms off frequently. I think he more or so hates the emotions that comes with this. He hates the yelling, the way you look at him with disbelief and anger.. Its more so he doesn’t feel like fucking shit up for being an asshole to someone who genuinely cares about him. So he leaves you to your emotions to figure out, and if they aren’t figured out by the time he gets back he tries his best to help. Even if he does seem annoyed.
- typically your arguments are more him being snarky, sarcastic and being too logical, he can raise his voice from time to time but he’s only ever yelled at you once, and he still beats him self up for it to this day. Seeing you cry at how angry he got, how you still reached out for him in your meltdown caused by him.. and you still reached for him.
ೃ࿔*:・
“They’re pills y/n, prescription pills. I’ll be fine you know I need to take them. Why do I need to keep telling you thi-“ you cut him off quickly your voice already laced with concern as it shook. “Because you take more then you should be taking Tim. I don’t like it I don’t want you to hurt yourself..” he understood where you came from yes but what you needed to do was stop it. Just stop worrying about him. “Please for the love of god, I’m fine! I’m fucking fine! I’ll be fine! Please just stop it. I hate how much you worry and stress yourself over me. They’re fucking pills, I take them when needed. So just stop!” Now he didn’t scream super loud, but it was loud enough for you to feel the lumpy tingly feeling in your throat bubble, your hands softly twisting together “s-sorry..” you squeaked out. Tears brimmed your eyes as your bottom lip quivered. He watched you carefully for a moment, grimacing a bit as he watched your face twist with sadness.. and you slowly making your way towards him. Tim opens his arms and quietly pulls you in, one hand rubbing at the back of your head and the other gripping your back. “I’m an asshole. I know you’re just worried.” He mumbled quietly, lips pressed to your forehead as you hide your face in his chest. “You’re okay..” he continues to mumble, awkwardly trying to find a way to comfort you further.
Tumblr media
Hoodie/ Brian Thomas
-he’s quiet. Very quiet. I think he’s the most gentle when it comes to arguments with his S/O. He’s scared to hurt you, always in any circumstances. He’s more observant, he knows when the argument gets too much for you just by a single movement.
-though he does have his moments where he does get angry back, he can normally control his temper. Usually the argument starts by something he’s done so he can handle it, he can deal with it. He tells you “I promise I’ll change, just give me some time” and you believe him because he does change but then he falls back into his habits, leaving for weeks on end, taking too many pills, his stalker tendencies.
-the argument this time is unclear, you probably don’t even remember by the Time Brian starts yelling back at you. His hair is messy from running his hands through it one too many times, he’s clenching his fists and trying to breathe as he shakily keeps his voice down.
-even in moments like this he still thinks of you. Not wanting to hurt you nor scare you.. he just lets you have your outburst and then you both move on. But tonight was different.
-he tends to ignore you when he gets worked up in an argument. If he’s not yelling back then majority of the time he’s just silent. His back towards you. But only when he’s angry right back at you. He’ll give you that silent treatment for hours.
-but this time. He made you cry. And he’s stopped dead in his tracks, eyes softening, getting down on his knees and resting his head against your stomach,his hands holding onto your waist. Sigh… he just had to fuck shit up again didn’t he.
ೃ࿔*:・
“Brian you can’t just leave me for weeks on end.. you can’t just.. disappear then show up like nothings happened. Where do you go..? Is there someone else” at this point he’s just been listening to you, letting you vent out but when you suddenly accuse him of cheating on you.. he snaps. You really think HE would cheat on you?! It’s not like he didn’t spend months watching you, becoming so infatuated with you to the point that it would make anybody so fucking sick to their stomach. But he couldn’t tell you that he couldn’t tell you he’s loved you far longer. So he stands, looks at you with anger in his eyes, a hint of sadness flashing on his face “don’t fucking accuse me of cheating on you.” He points a shaky finger in your face “don’t you ever. You don’t understand the shit I’d do for you, the shit I DO for you.” He’s close now, watching as you look up at him shakily. “This S-still doesn’t explain where you go Brian.. you-“ he’s grabbing your wrist and pulling you close “no listen to me. I want to tell you I want to tell you so badly but I can’t. I can’t. I just can’t.” His eyes are averting he’s becoming shaky himself, he’s panicking. Trust him. Is what he wants to tell you, that It’ll all be okay, he’ll be okay in a couple of days, he’ll change just give him time.. but he can’t lie to you.. not now. It would only make shit worse for you in this moment. When he finally looks back at you he sees you staring up at him, not a word spoken but tears streaming down your face, and your wrists still held tight in his large hands. “I..” he softly brings your hand down, lowering himself to the ground as he watches you still stare straight ahead. He scared you. Brian goes silent and lets himself sit on his knees, his hands running up under your shirt to hold onto your waist and burying his head into your stomach. “I’m sorry” he whispered gently, shivering when he feels your hands curl into his hair and finally look down at him. You know he feels guilty. He’s only trying to protect you.
3K notes · View notes
complete-clownery · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Hahaha okay rant about this amazing fanfic (you probably heard of this one already but still)
So whenever it comes to explaining and writing under my posts I just get lazy but I need to push through this cuz I need to talk
So the fanarts were made for the lmk fanfiction sunbreak, that a lot of you (probably mostly shadowpeach shippers) had read, and it is amazing, I read trough it as fast as my brain let me and as you can see it has pleasantly scratched my brain so much so that I even (attempted) to make fanart for it
Ngl if I wasn't a major pussy I would try to illustrate the whole thing or make covers for each chapter but Im unable to work on something more than 2 hours and I would want those to look good, but good looking art (if I don't mess up) takes 6 hours ughh--- annoying much---
Anyways I'm not good with literature but man is this fix a masterpiece *chefs kiss* its everything its amazing, I was unable to put it down once I started it
Okay i dont think I have the brain capacity to explain how much I worship the writer of this masterpiece @ladygreenfrisbee , so i'm just going to talk about the drawings a tad
So first picture with Red Son and MK its sort of like an au in the fic where the whole lbd plot is somehow nonexistent and after Macaque gets to his sisters domain they settle down and raise the kids together without much of an issue aside from assassinations keep happening and trying not to get in trouble with the heavens
Id like to think that Gongzhu still wouldn't let the court tailors to put any form of red or gold on MKs outfits and only allowed the yellow after when MK was old enough to declare that yellow was his favorite color, but even now she would insist on some form of purple and shadow motives to let others know who the mother is
We also got baby MK and toddler Red Son and sassy LIF and Mac
Third pic with the lion: I don't know what it was or why but I just love general Song so much--- he's a major dickhead but sgvshshsevkdididhr (actually I kinda love all the original characters in this one, from the generals to the old lady in the beginning of the book, (gosh I also wanna draw some scenes from those chapters I loved how Mac and she interacted hshsjsj))
so chapter 34 was probably my favorite so far I re read it about two more times cuz it was amazing to see Macaque being the schemer he is and try to piss of Song lol
Last picture: its a sketch/a wip or whatever (probably not going to finish it but im still putting it there cuz its somewhat decent looking)
Its the part where Wukong remembered of Macaque finally finding him and asking for him to come back to flower fruit mountain.
I tried to make Macaque look more unhinged on this one but since I didn't finish it I dont think its that noticable so fuck that but I also gave him a halo like the saints to symbolise his suffering and what not (thought it looked cool and fitting think whatever you want about it lol)
And that all ((((hollly mother))))
If you read this trough, thank you and congrats👏👏
2K notes · View notes
gb-patch · 3 months
Text
GB Patch Games: 2024 Intentions
Tumblr media
[Adorable guest art by @dreamtydraw]
Welcome to 2024, everybody 🥳️
This is the year of Our Life: Now & Forever (and 2025 will be too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves that much). After a good five odd years of making Our Life: Beginnings & Always content, it's amazing to look ahead and see only the progress that will be done on this new game. Qiu and Tamarack are the center of the GB Patch Games universe now. But even though I'm not creating any new OL1 scenes, there may still be some exciting developments for the existing stuff. Cove hasn't been forgotten.
💚❤️️💙
If you want to know about what will be accomplished specifically in January, you can read that HERE. Now here's the entire year's goals-
Honestly, 2024 is gonna be the most basic year in a very long time, haha. There's not gonna be major launches of new DLCs, or a full game going live, or any bonus Moments. It's simply making progress on OL: N&F. That's pretty normal for game development. It's just not something we've had to go through since 2019. But we're hunkering down for the long haul on this one.
Specifically, Step 1 will be fully completed in 2024 and I'll make as much headway into Step 2 as possible. There will be two updates to the public demo, one probably in May and another sometime in Fall/Third Quarter 2024. Those will focus on Step 1 scenes still. I can't guarantee we'll be able to rework the Step 2 part of the demo with new content this year. As it is, the content was made to be a demo preview. A lot is gonna change for the complete version.
And that's about it for our main game. I appreciate all of you who decide to follow along with the process.
Beyond that, the Our Life: Beginnings & Always digital artbook is going to become available through Steam and Itch.io in early 2024! Maybe not January, but ideally no later than February.
Finger's crossed, we will also launch Our Life: Beginnings & Always for Mac on Steam and make it available for Androids through the Google Playstore. I can't state it with confidence, since there's constantly been roadblocks/issues with those, aha.
My final little note for this coming year is that, potentially, there could be more information coming out about the game that's going into production after OL2, "Project W".
▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾ ▴ ▾▴ ▾ ▴
And that's what you can look forward to. Every year I'm amazed I can continue to do this as my fulltime job. I'm always wondering when that will end, but I'd be lying if I said I could see that point. The support GB Patch Games has gotten, and still gets each day, is more than enough to for it to continue for the rest of OL2's development.
I'm pretty confident in assuming that when that game does launch it's going to be successful enough for Project W to go into full production. It's a truly wonderful thing. Thank you so much for being here. We'll do our best with the time and attention you've given us.
Happy New Year 🥰️
1K notes · View notes
ao3commentoftheday · 5 months
Note
Idk if this is too broad of a scope for this blog, but if you could answer this, it'd be great.
I've been in a writing rut since I started getting serious about writing, and I've identified the issue in the past month or so: I slant heavily on the gardener end of the writing spectrum and all the advice on writing I've ever seen was for architect-style writing. Not once in the eight years I've been serious about writing did I find any guides on gardener-style writing (and if it says it's gardener-style, it'sreally just architect-style with gardner aspects), and my experience has just been more or less jamming a square peg into a circle hole, getting nothing written and feeling bad about it.
Now I'm unlearning all the architect-style habits that are destructive to me as a writer, but I can't find any resources for gardeners aside from Stephen King's On Writing. If you or any of your followers know how to help a gardener's writing, that would be great. I have so many fic ideas I want to write, but can't since I'm learning to write all over again.
For those who don't know what gardener and architect refer to when it comes to writers, a gardener is a writer who starts with the seed of an idea and lets it grow in whatever direction the light shines. They prune it and weed it as they go but otherwise let the idea lead the way. An architect, on the other hand, plans their stories out first and then writes them. They have a structure and the details all mapped out first and then the writing is just executing on that vision.
As a gardener myself, my biggest piece of advice is to avoid writing advice. Like you've said, the majority of it is aimed at people who do things like plan and plot and worldbuild ahead of time. Because of the structure that that writing style enjoys, providing "one size fits most" writing advice works well for it.
I tend to find a lot of that advice to be counter to what I need to do. Planning a story out ahead just makes me feel like it's already written. Building out the world before I start writing it feels like a hollow exercise - more like writing an encyclopedia than developing a land and culture for my characters to inhabit.
What I find useful is taking an episodic approach to writing. The entire story will be like a season of a television show and each chapter is like one episode. I always have my eventual "season finale" end goal in mind, but any particular chapter can meander closer to or further from that goal. It's alright to take a circuitous route, as long as I get to my destination in the end.
It's also alright if my destination changes as I'm writing. Sometimes those meandering paths take me in a more interesting direction than I was originally going down, and that shifts the story. As long as you're vaguely following a three-act structure (or 5 act or 7 act), the flow of it will feel familiar to your readers and they probably won't really notice it happening.
This advice I'm giving might not ring true to you either. You didn't have a specific problem to address, so I've been wandering a bit in my reply. Really what it comes down to is paying attention to yourself and your needs. Figure out what it is that keeps you writing and what it is that makes you stop. Do more of the former and less of the latter - and don't worry if what you're doing is "weird" to someone else.
I write directly into the AO3 window (which AO3 specifically tells you NOT to do, btw) because drafting first in google docs or something takes the fun out of it for me. I post my chapters without previewing them first. I write in 800 to 1500 word sprints, and I focus on dialogue, and I almost always try to end on a joke or a pun or a cliffhanger. These are all things that make writing an activity that I want to do.
I can't really say anything much more specific given your ask, but I hope something in here was helpful. Let's see if any gardeners out there have some resources or advice that might work for you.
1K notes · View notes
Text
My dear lgbt+ kids,
Can you have a healthy relationship with a narcissist?
Well, if you trust many social media posts, then the answer would be a resounding "No". Narcissistic is - apparently - a synonym for abusive, and of course you can't have a healthy relationship with an abusive partner!
But, well, social media is not always right. A lot of topics get oversimplified, terms get misused and black-or-white thinking is rampant - and "narcissistic means abusive" falls into all three of those pits.
Let's look at it a bit closer: "Abusive" describes a set of behaviors - while narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) describes, well, a personality disorder. It's a mental health condition.
I am not a trained mental health professional, so I'll use a medical source here. According to mayoclinic.org (link to article), symptoms and their intensity may vary from one affected person to the next (just like the exact symptoms and severity of depression or anxiety may vary!). A person with NPD may
have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance
have an excessive need for attention and admiration
have low/no empathy (struggle to understand or care about the feelings of others)
have low self-worth
be easily upset by criticism
struggle with social interactions
have difficulty managing their emotions
experience major problems dealing with stress 
And, again just like with other mental health conditions, NPD can negatively affect the person in a lot of areas of life. For example, struggling to manage their emotions and stress levels may make it hard for them to hold down a job and cause financial worries, or they may avoid participating in social events, which may lead to them becoming isolated and depressed etc. And yes, of course some symptoms may also lead to problems in romantic relationships.
Therapy for NPD usually centers around talk therapy, with the goal of helping the person to better understand and manage their emotions, to learn how to cope with self-worth issues, and to create/maintain healthy fulfilling relationships and communication with the people around them.
Now, you can look at all this and go "See? The social media posts are right! They are self-centered, have no empathy and are easily upset! That's abusive!" - but that'd be jumping to conclusions. None of those things are behaviors.
An autistic person may also easily get upset and they may also feel low empathy. So could a person with major depression. Yet, we do not treat "autistic" or "depressed" as a synonym for abusive. We do not assume that their symptoms will definitely lead to abusive behavior. So, why would that be different for people with NPD?
Am I saying no person with NPD has ever been abusive? Of course not. That'd be black-or-white thinking, too. What I am saying is: People with NPD are people. And people can show abusive behavior or they can not.
If someone who easily feels upset hits you, that's abuse... but hitting would be abuse, even if they didn't feel easily upset. A partner with or without NPD shouldn't be hitting you. If someone with no empathy degrades and insults you, that's abusive... but that would be abuse regardless of their ability to feel empathy. A partner with or without NPD shouldn't be degrading and insulting you.
A person could have NPD and behave abusive - but "some people are X and Y, so all people who are X must be Y" is a flawed logic.
So, let's circle back to the beginning: can you have a healthy relationship with a narcissist? Yeah. It will be a relationship with someone who has a mental health condition and that's something to be aware of because mental health conditions do affect everyday life (duh?).
You should set boundaries and take warning signs of abuse seriously - like you should do when you date anyone, regardless of health status.
With all my love,
Your Tumblr Dad
711 notes · View notes
jv · 1 year
Text
There is a stream of Reply Guys everywhere these days saying things like "oh, it turns out that Twitter keeps working with less than half its employees? Wasn't it going to crash as soon as Elon took over? He proved that all that people were just doing nothing but making Twitter unprofitable with their salaries!". And it's hard to contain myself and not go into a reply burst mode each time, so I guess it would make sense to write a post on the matter.
See, did Twitter need 7000 employees and 5000 contractors to keep working? Oh fuck no. Of course not. See, on Tumblr we are about 200 between full and part time employees (part time meaning "people that do work for tumblr at times and for other parts of Automattic at others"), plus a number of contractors I don't know (dealing with things like internationalization or human review of reported content), plus a bunch of "operations" teams that work at automattic-level and covers Tumblr on their duties (HR, payroll, events, etc).
So let's say that if Tumblr was its own company, it could sustain the current level of operation with maybe three or four hundred people.
Now, Twitter has at least one order of magnitude more users than Tumblr has ever had. That makes things a little bit more complex, but not extremely: it probably makes the work of people like systems more "interesting" so they need to be a bit larger. Other things like security or support also need to be scaled up. But others, like development, design, data science, editorial, internationalization, sales, etc are not really affected by the number of users. So let's say that Tumblr could keep the current level of operation with 600-800 people if it had the same traffic than Twitter.
Then, why Twitter needed so many people? Why haven't it break already if they were needed?
Let me start making something super clear: Twitter had been breaking for the last couple of weeks. Very clearly if you know where to look at. The fact that they haven't had a major outage is a sign either of a very well designed architecture or that Musk kept enough domain knowledge around to keep the engine going. But multiple smaller systems have been going down without no one to lift them up again.
Some examples are the web SSR system: that's server side rendering, and it means that when you load Twitter (or Tumblr) the server creates a "picture" of your dash and send it to your browser. From that point, the server only sends raw data and it's your browser who is in charge to create that picture, but SSR makes you see your timeline in one or two seconds, instead of 5-10. I hate SSR, most devs do: it makes our lives much more complex and needs a lot of work. It also makes the user experience much better. Well, Twitter SSR has been off since at least one week ago (that's when I noticed it). You may have not realized about it, but if you go to your Twitter account and what you see is the UI loading and then a loader where the timeline should be and it takes several seconds for the tweets to show up: that means SSR is off and your browser is doing all the work.
There are also issues with certain methods of authentication that went down two weeks ago and still don't work.
There are also reports of the advertisers tools being broken.
There are a clear issue with the performance of their CDN (the images take ages to load and sometimes they don't even do it).
These kind of things are not really very noticeable by the average user, but they are clear consecuences of the lay-offs. How?
Well, let's go back to Tumblr. As I said, we have enough people to operate and keep the platform stable. Even to develop one new thing at a time and improve one or two of the existing ones. But thats it. Twitter, until last month, operated on an entirely different plane of existence. They did A LOT of things we can't do in tumblr: from having complex reporting tools for advertiser to having more than a coupe people working on internal tools (for example, to make support folks life easier), having strong international teams focusing on each country, etc. They were able to fix bugs, even the smaller ones, probably within the day. They were probably working on half a dozen major projects at the same time.
Are those things necessary for Twitter to be online? No, not at all. But they give it several layers of polish we can't have at Tumblr: how often you see something buggy going on in Tumblr that takes a few days to be fixed? How often that happens on Twitter (or Instagram, or TikTok, etc?). That's the difference: on Twitter, someone reports a bug, and that bug is going to have a few engineers on it almost immediately. If they can't find the solution, someone else will take it from them once it's their time to log off. Until it gets fixed. Here? It will need to go to the queue, and if it's not major, it will take days, or weeks , for someone to get it fixed. Because there is not a lot of us and our hands are full already with something else that in that moment has a bigger priority.
This is the world Twitter is entering too: SSR probably broke because any of the quick changes they were doing with the verification checkmarks (our SSR worked as a champ when we introduced the important blue checks, just saying :P) and its there waiting for someone to be able to take a look and figure out why. The advertiser tools maybe got broken by some change in the database that needed to be reflected also there, but there is no team working on them to keep them updated anymore, so they will be broken until someone scream enough at Musk so he decides to take a couple of engineers away from other project for a few days to fix them. Etc etc.
So if Twitter just go to operate with a much more limited team, it probably will be able to be online (thought major disruptions are way more probable), but the service level expectations will have to be much, much more reduced than what they used to be. Seeing bits and pieces of Twitter that don't work or are bugged, as we are already seeing, is going to become the norm. How that will play with the "normie" crew that uses Twitter will have to be seen. And how the different government branches, both in the US and the EU, that were keeping an eye over Twitter as hawks over a rabbit running on a clear field will also something interesting to pay attention to.
6K notes · View notes
galileosballs · 2 months
Text
Undergrad Etiquette
One thing that has come up a lot in the notes of my various academiaposting posts is that there seem to be a lot of people who were happy to see the invisible rules of the university environment spelled out more explicitly. It looks like a lot of people aren't learning this sort of thing in high school. That gives rise to an equity issue - the only people who learn how to navigate the university are people who can learn it from their parents, and that's obviously going to leave a lot of people out. So, I hope you'll forgive me the pretension of what I'm about to do, which is make some of the invisible rules visible.
My mission here is not to shame, it's to help. I truly believe that the majority of unpleasant student/instructor interactions stem from miscommunications and misunderstandings, not instructors being cruel or students being lazy. The world does have cruel instructors and lazy students in it, but most people are just doing the best they can under imperfect circumstances. The key point is that this is all etiquette, not moral strictures. I'm not saying that all of these things are morally wrong (some of them might be), I'm saying they're rude. If you've done these things before, well, now you know. No hard feelings. With that in mind, let me give you a few pointers. (nb. all of this applies to the US and Canada, but I have no expertise teaching in other locations. If you're an instructor in another place, please feel free to add or subtract points below).
Do: Go to office hours. It's not an imposition. The time has been specifically set aside for you. Your instructor wants you there. Any topic from the class (or related to the class) is fair game, up to and including just talking about what you like about the course or subject. Your instructor is typically someone who likes this subject enough to have written (or be in the process of writing) a 200-page book about this subject, so they're typically pretty down to chat about it.
Don't: treat your instructor like a free therapist, doctor, or conflict mediator. We have no training in those areas. If you're having a mental health crisis the most we can do is point you in the direction of the university's counseling center, so you're better off just going there to begin with. Other things your instructor is not in a position to do include: diagnose you with an illness, make a different instructor change their schedule, prevent another girl in class from stealing your boyfriend, prove to your mom that this degree is worth it, comment on controversial world events beyond the scope of the class, and go on a date with you. These are all real examples.
Do: Communicate problems you are having with the class early and directly. We can't stop the train unless we know that someone has been left behind. If you're struggling with something, we want to know - both so that we can help you, and because it's quite likely that someone else in the class has the same problem and also needs help. The more information we have the more we can do.
Don't: Do any of the above without first a) reading the syllabus and b) making one solid attempt to do the work on your own. It is infuriating to answer endless emails from students asking questions that are answered in a document that they already have and that I already asked them to read. This is the most mystifying one of all. I do not know why students don't read these things. The syllabus is always on the LMS. It will answer 80% of your questions. Similarly, homework is designed to give you an opportunity to learn something. It does not assume you already know how to do it. Even if what you're looking at is very unfamiliar to you, try it on your own first to see if it clicks. If it doesn't, we're there to help.
Do: Stay home from school when you're sick. I won't be impressed with your diligence if you come in sniffling, I'll be annoyed that I'm going to be sick again. Anyone who works in education gets sick just constantly. And before you think 'but I'll be punished for not attending and I need a doctor's note!', check your syllabus first. Very often this is not the case. Some real old-timers insist on perfect attendance, but most instructors don't care. Sometimes we'll slap a really tiny nominal penalty for attendance on, but that's just to help people actually get out of bed in the morning. Usually it's not enough of a penalty to worry about for a one-time illness.
Don't: Go on vacation during the term. This is the other one I just find baffling. No, you can't reschedule the test because you've decided to leave early for Spring Break. I'm not going to re-teach you all the lessons you missed because you 'needed' to go to florida for your cousin's birthday. Doing this is an extremely good way to annoy your instructor, who almost certainly cannot go on vacation during the term. We're not going to do extra work for you so that you can go have fun. You are paying (quite a lot) for the opportunity to take a set of classes in a term. That does not mean you can just decide to get the benefits of those things on any schedule you please. We are not an on-demand service and it does annoy us to be treated like one.
Do: Ask questions about why you were graded the way you were. If you don't understand why you got the mark you got, it's fine to ask us directly. You can't learn from something you don't understand. So long as you go in with the goal of understanding (rather than changing) your grade and don't accuse us of anything shady, we're pretty happy to explain it. You can also do this before the project, to an extent. For some people it's much easier to do well at a task if its purpose has been explicitly explained. Don't try to get 'cheat codes' or anything, but feel free to ask questions about the purpose of the assignment if you're confused. Professors often forget that you might not already know what these things are for. You'll get way more out of school if you try to understand why you're doing what you're doing.
Don't: Beg for grades or extra credit assignments. It's not fair to the rest of the class for us to give you these just because you begged. We shouldn't be doing it, and mostly we don't. If the stakes are really as high as they invariably are when I have this conversation, you needed to have been keeping an eye on your grades throughout the term and correcting early, before it was too late. Hopefully the fact that I'm making this post in January will make sure that's the case for you.
Do: Make your own arguments, even though you're not an expert. Most humanities classes present a body of material that the instructor does not all think is right. We typically try to present multiple perspectives on issues and let you figure out what you think. So, even if an author is a big fancy famous historical guy, you're absolutely still allowed to disagree with him. We want you to do that. Just try to take your interlocutor seriously on their own terms so you don't end up with a weak argument. And no, it is not sufficient to merely mention that the author is a white cis man. Some of them are right about stuff too.
Don't: let your mother phone me. And if your parents are the sort of people that do wildly inappropriate things without your permission, don't give them enough information to contact me. In many jurisdictions I'm not even allowed to talk to them (or anyone else) about your grades. Even in jurisdictions where it is allowed, I'm not going to do it. If you're in university, you're an adult and will be treated like one. Also I don't enjoy being threatened.
Do: Back up your files. Computer problems do happen, but you're still responsible for your work when they happen. That's true in every other human context. Shit happens, so bring toilet paper. There are a million ways to do this - pick one that works for you.
Don't: try to submit written assignments in a format other than .doc, .docx, or .pdf unless you have explicit permission to do otherwise. These formats are industry standard and basically all programs do one of them. I'm not going to risk my computer trying to convert your shit from whatever baroque new .fhqwhgads extension you've given me, I'm going to mark it late.
Do: Read comments we leave on your work! Those are there to help you improve! I know it's a difficult thing to muster up the will to do, but we really are only trying to help you. It's very dispiriting to watch a student who could easily improve a lot make the same mistakes over and over.
Don't: Eat in class unless the instructor has explicitly said it's ok. It's straight-up banned in lots of buildings for reasons of historical preservation or pest control. Moreover, a lot of instructors and fellow students (present company included) find the sight, sound, and smell of students eating in class to be intensely distracting. If there's a medical reason you have to eat, tell your instructor and they'll propose a reasonable alternative (like ducking out for a few minutes to have a granola bar).
Do: send your instructors things like news articles or memes about course material. We want these things.
Don't: send your instructors porn, fanfiction, thirst traps, or pictures of you relaxing at the beach. Yes, I've heard of all of these things happening, and one happened to me. We do not want these things. Even if it's really funny, like that one Newton/Leibniz smut fic.
Do: check what your university's standards for plagiarism actually are. They are very likely not what you think. Your professor has to use them, so you had better know them. Arguments from ignorance will not save you.
Don't: post any classroom recordings, photographs, or notes online. Even if they're funny. When students do this it doesn't typically result in armed nutjobs turning up at our place of work and trying to kill us, but it doesn't never result in that. Also, classroom recordings contain the voices and faces of other students, and you don't have permission to use them. Don't record anything without getting your teacher's consent first. Some of us need to be a lot more careful than others.
Do: fill out your course evaluations! Most students don't, and typically the only ones who are sure to fill them out are the ones who are salty about something or other. If you thought the class was good, give your prof a hand (especially if that prof is a gender or racial minority, and especially especially if they have an accent that's unusual in your region. Those factors make student evaluations measurably worse).
Don't: talk about how much you do or don't want to fuck us on Rate My Professor. We try not to look at it but curiosity always gets the better of us eventually. Please also do not be mean about our voice, appearance, or dress sense.
In general: do deal with us as if we're all good-faith actors trying to make education happen. Don't treat us like we're arbitrary monsters.
I'll be monitoring the notes on this post if anyone would like additional clarification. Making education accessible is something I care a lot about, and this is part of that. I've tried to explain the reasons for all these things as best as I can, but I can elaborate upon request.
1K notes · View notes
cy-cyborg · 1 month
Text
Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart
Tumblr media
When a character in a story becomes disabled, they'll sometimes experience a trope that I like to call "the disabling change of heart". This is when the character goes through a massive change in their outlook, their personality, their goals or even roll in the story, specifically because they became (or are about to become) physically disabled. Sometimes, this will be in relatively small ways: the happy-go-lucky comedic relief character might become bitter, angry and jaded after getting into an accident that caused a spinal injury, or the severally depressed and nihilistic character might suddenly start acting more cheerful and hopeful, stating that loosing their leg has "put things into perspective and showed them what really matters". In other cases though, the impact is much larger, the heroic character you've been hearing about looses an arm thanks to the main character's actions, causing them to become consumed with anger and self-loathing which they take out on everyone else, eventually becoming an antagonist as they seek revenge for what the main character did to them. The morally grey or even villainous character is injured by their own scheme, giving themselves a permanent disability in the process, which prompts a change of heart and leads them to turn their lives around and become better people, maybe even deciding to team up with the heroes.
Now, having a character go through a personality and goal change due to a major life event, such as becoming physically disabled, isn't inherently bad. A lot of writers are told to tie major shifts in your character's development to major life events, because realistically, something like becoming newly disabled will at least impact how you view the world around you. I very frequently talk about how if I didn't loose my legs, I would have become a vastly different person, but the issues with this trope depends on how it's used and the reasons behind these developments, and whether or not the change suits the character in question.
Before we get into things, I would like to specify that in this post, I'm only going to be talking about how this trope is used with physical disabilities and other easily visible forms of disability. It does show up with characters who develop disabilities under the mentally ill and neurodivergent umbrellas, and is actually a bit more common than what I'm talking about today, but the specific ways its utilised are so different that it's more or less a separate trope, and one that deserves much more attention than I could give it here as this is already going to be a pretty long post. So for today, I'm keeping to it's use with physical and visible disabilities, and we'll talk about how this trope is used with neurodivergence and mental illness another day.
The main thing you need to be mindful of is ensuring that you, as an author, are not including your ingrained biases about disability into the reasoning behind the change. Let's look at one of the examples from before, an evil character who, after loosing their arm (because it's almost always loosing an arm for some reason) becomes a villain and wants revenge against the main character. In a story like this example, the character who became an amputee often views this new disability as something that has ruined their life. It's something that has caused them to suffer, and they want to make the main character (or whoever has "wronged" them) suffer like they did. Stories like this example portray disability as something that is not just horrible, but life-destroying, especially with villains who become all-consumed by the misery this disability has brought them. Many stories that utilise this version of the trope also often perpetuate the idea that if you become disabled, you'll have to give up all the things you love and your goals, even when this wouldn't necessarily be true for the character in question.
Let's say your character was a knight, and the main character cut off their arm in a training accident. obviously you can't be a knight with only one arm because you can't fight anymore, so they left their order. Now this character has become a villain and has found power that "makes up" for their disability, perhaps magic or some other force that doesn't exist in the real world, and are back to get revenge on the character for ruining their lives. Here's the thing though, the loss of a limb, or at least, the loss of an arm specifically, often isn't the career ender people think it is, even back then. In fact, there are many historical records of real amputees continuing to serve as knights and other similar military roles after loosing an arm or at the very least, continuing to fight in other ways. One such example was Götz of the Iron Hand, a mercenary knight who lost his arm to a cannon. Götz had fought as part of the Roman empire's military in 1498, but shortly after left to form his own mercenary company. He lost his hand in 1504 and continued his career as a mercenary with the help of an iron prosthetic capable of holding his sword and the reigns of his horse, among many other things such as writing, for another 40 years. Götz wasn't unique in this though, several suits of armour from the same time period have been found with integrated prosthetic hands, though the names of their owners are unknown. There was also Oruç Reis (aka Aruj Barbarossa), A privateer admiral who served the Ottoman Empire in and around the Mediterranean who lost his left hand - earning him one of many nicknames: Silver-Hand, thanks to the colour of his prosthetic. Oruç, like Götz, continued his career for several more years until he was eventually killed in 1518.
My point in bringing this up, is to highlight how important it is to double check that the reason your character's whole motivation for turning to villainy, isn't just based on your ideas about what a disabled person can or can not do. Actually double check it, research it, especially if it's important for your plot.
Even in the cases where the disability in question actually would stop someone from being able to do something, the incorrect assumptions can still occur and cause issues in different ways. For example, a character in a more modern setting who looses their arm due to an accident the main character was responsible for while serving in the military would be discharged, ruining the character's plan to become a general some day. This absolutely would be devastating for a character like that, and they realistically could struggle to adjust, both in terms of getting used to their disability and finding new goals for their life. They may well feel anger at the main character, however, if you are portraying just living with a disability, in the case of this example, living with an amputation as inherently "suffering" for no other reason than they are disabled, it is still perpetuating those really negative ideas about disability. I've said this a few times in other posts, but villains who are evil or even just antagonists purely because they're disabled or are trying to avoid becoming disabled is a trope all its own and one that is best avoided if you yourself aren't disabled, as even outside of spreading these negative ideas about life with a disability, it's just an overdone and overused trope.
But what about when this trope goes in the other direction? when you have an antagonistic or even just morally grey character who becomes disabled and this is the catalyst that turns them into a good guy?
For the longest time, I knew I usually disliked this version of the trope too, but I couldn't put my finger on why. With disability being the reason someone became a villain, the underlying reason it's there is often able to be boiled down to "I, the writer, think being disabled would be terrible and life like that is inherently suffering, so this character is angry about it," which is obviously an issue (the "inherently suffering" bit, not the anger). However, when a character becomes good due to becoming disabled, the reasoning is usually more along the lines of, "this is a big change in a character's life that has caused them to reconsider and revaluate things" (or at least, that's what I thought). This isn't bad, nor is it necessarily unrealistic. Hell, as I already said, I do consider my disability to be a catalyst that made me into who I am today. I also know plenty of people who, after becoming disabled later in life, did have a big change in how they viewed themselves and the world, and who consider themselves better people since becoming disabled. It's far, far from a universal experience, mind you, but it does happen. So why did this version of the trope still not sit right with me?
Well, I think there's a few reasons for it. The first being that there's a tendency for non-disabled people to think real disabled people are just incapable of evil deeds, both in the sense that they aren't physically capable of doing them (which is bad and not even always true for the reasons we already discussed), but also in the sense that there's this idea that disabled people are, for some reason, inherently more "good" and "innocent" - As if breaking your back or loosing a limb causes all evil and impure thoughts to be purged from the body. This is a result of many folks viewing disabled people as child-like, and thus attributing child-like traits (such as innocence) to them, even subconsciously. This is an incredibly common issue and something disability rights organisations are constantly pushing back against, as this mentality can cause a lot of unnecessary barriers for us. With how often I and many other disabled people are subjected to infantilization, I would be honestly shocked if it wasn't at least partially responsible for people thinking becoming disabled is a good reason to kick off a redemption arc.
This infantilization isn't unique to physically disabled people by the way, in fact it's way, way, more commonly directed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - or at least, people are more open about it, but as I already mentioned, how that is reflected in tropes like The Disabling Change of Heart is vastly different and deserves a post of it's own.
That's mostly just speculation on my part though, since that infantilising mindset does show up a lot in media, but not usually as part of this trope specifically.
However, it's not the only reason I wasn't a fan of it. When the disabling change of heart is used to fuel redemption arcs, I think, once again, that the disability itself being credited with causing the change directly is another factor. When this happens, it's usually because "it put things into perspective for me and showed me what really mattered."
This sounds better than our previous example on the surface, but stories that use this logic are often still portraying disability as an inherently bad and tragic thing, something so bad, in fact, that it makes all the other (legitimate) issues they thought were massive before seem so small by comparison. This is a type of inspiration porn: content made to make non-disabled people feel inspired or just better about their own situation. It's the mentality of "well my life is bad, but it could be worse, at least I'm not disabled like that!"
In a fictional story, this might look like an athlete character who dreamed of making it big so they could be famous and get out of poverty. They were a dick to anyone who got in their way but only because they were worried about not being able to make rent if they don't constantly win. One day though, they overworked themselves and got into a car accident on the way home because they were too tired, and now they're in a wheelchair and can no longer walk, which is (supposedly) absolutely tragic and way worse than anything else they were already going through. But they end up becoming a better person because it has put things into perspective for them. Yeah they were struggling to make ends meet, but at least they weren't disabled! Now that they are, they know they shouldn't have cared so much, because money doesn't matter when compared to not being able to walk, right?
As well as portraying disability in a negative light, these kinds of stories dismiss and diminish the other struggles or challenges the character is experiencing, placing the status of "not disabled" above all else.
There's also the fact that, when a lot of real people say their disabilities had positive impacts on their lives, they don't usually mean the disability itself is directly responsible for the change. There's exceptions of course but for myself personally, and most of the people I know who say they are better people because of/since becoming disabled, the disability has been more of a neutral catalyst than the actual cause of positive change. Meaning, it opened the door to allow those changes to happen, but it wasn't the direct cause. For me personally, becoming physically disabled at a young age didn't make me a nice person like people expect, I was still a little judgemental asshole for a lot of my childhood. However, because I was disabled, I had to travel a lot, initially because I needed medical treatment that my local hospital wasn't equip to provide, and later, because I started competing in disability sports. because of both of those things, I met people I never would have otherwise who made me reconsider what I'd been taught on a wide range of subjects, and made me question where those beliefs had come from in the first place. When I say my disability played a part in who I became, it wasn't because my disability itself change me, but it helped me meet people who were positive influences on me and my life. but when creatives make characters who experience arcs like this, they ignore this, again, defaulting to the "this was a bad thing that just put all my other problems into perspective" reasoning.
Some iterations of this trope also use disability as a kind of "karmic punishment" where the disability is portrayed as a rightfully deserved punishment for an evil character's deeds - usually something relating to the disability they acquired but not always. An example might look like an evil tyrant who punishes the rebels they captured by cutting off their hands. Eventually, this catches up with him, maybe the friend or a child of one of the rebels is able to capture the tyrant and cuts his hands off as payback so that he gets a taste of his own medicine, a taste of the suffering he imposed on others. Now facing at least one of the same realities of the people he subjugated, he realises the error of his ways. With some pressure from the main characters, he has a change of heart and surrenders himself, steps down to let someone else take his place, or perhaps he decides to start changing policies to be more in-line with these new morals until some other character usurps him, becoming an even bigger threat than the previous former tyrant.
Once again, stories that use a disability like this are still portraying the disability as an overall inherently bad thing, but there's the added layer at play in this example. The thing is, there are a lot of people in real-life who actually believe disability is a punishment from God. I remember one time when I was over in the US, an older lady came and sat down on the seat beside me on the bus and started asking me about my disability and specifically, how I became disabled. This isn't an unusual interaction, it happens fairly regularly whenever I use public transport, but on this particular day, the conversation suddenly shifted when I told her I became disabled when I was very young. This woman, despite the bus-driver's best efforts to get her to stop, ended up lecturing me for an hour and a half (during which time I couldn't move due to how my wheelchair was held in place) about how my disability was punishment from God for my parent's sins. She then tried to convince me to attend her church, claiming they would be able to heal me. And the thing is, this isn't an uncommon experience.
A lot of disabled people are targeted by cults using this same method: they'll convince people their disabilities are a punishment, make them believe they deserved it, that they just weren't good enough, but don't worry, if you repent and come to our specific church we can heal you. There was even a case in Australia recently that uncovered a cult called Universal Medicine, who taught that disabled people were reincarnations of evil people, and that being disabled in this life was their punishment, as well as that parents who have disabled children were being punished for other sinful behaviours. They were found to be operating a disability care service named Fabic that was being paid for by the NDIS, a subsection of the Australian government funded healthcare system that specifically aids disabled Australians by paying for and subsidising treatments, technologies (such as mobility aids) and other services relating to their disability. Fabic was found to be stealing excessive amounts of funding from their disabled clients under the guise of therapies and carer services, but was not actually helping their clients at all. Whether it's just taking advantage of them to get their money, or actually using this logic as a justification to mistreat them, this mentality of "disability is a punishment" actually gets real disabled people hurt or worse, and so seeing it come up in media, even if there is no ill-intent, can be very distressing and uncomfortable for disabled audiences.
So with all this being said, is the disabling change of heart a trope you should avoid in all it's forms and versions? No, but it does need to be handled with extreme care. I do think it should be avoided as a reason for a character becoming evil for the most part. If that really can't be avoided in your story though, at the very least, ensure that you foreshadow the change. Your happy little ray of sunshine, embodiment of sweetness and innocence type character probably isn't going to turn murderous and want revenge for an accident for example. A character who is likely to be driven to that kind of extreme of wanting revenge for their disability, so much so that they become a villain, probably already had at least a few traits that would predispose them to that line of thinking already, before becoming disabled. As for when it goes in the other direction, and you have a character becoming a good guy, avoid using the reasoning that "the disability put things into perspective for me". Instead, if you must use this version of the trope, use the character's new disability as the reason they encountered other people and situations that challenged their views, things they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. No matter the reason though, be very careful to avoid inspiration porn, and as always, try to find a sensitivity reader to give your story a once-over, just to make sure something didn't slip under your radar.
[Thumbnail ID: An illustrated image showing the same elf character twice. The picture of her on the left shows her laughing evilly, two tiny horns protruding through her brown hair. She is wearing a black dress and red shoes. On the right shows her in a yellow dress, sitting in a bright pink wheelchair with her head held eye and her eyes closed. The horns have been replaced with a glowing halo. In the centre is text that reads: "Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart." /End ID]
463 notes · View notes
keerysfreckles · 2 months
Note
Hey! Dan I request a Luke castellan x reader where reader is the daughter of hades and Luke has a crush on her? Though, reader has major trust issues, and often feels like she doesn’t belong on camp because people are either scared of her, or don’t like her (and soemthing shows that to her) because of how her father is viewed (negatively), so she’s pretty much alone. Especially since she has no siblings at camp, so it’s just lonely and cold in her cabin.
burn — luke castellan
Tumblr media
pairing: luke castellan x hades fem!reader
warnings: use of y/n and she/her pronouns, angst at the end
a/n: rereading tlt and im giggling so hard BABY PERCABETH UGH
masterlist !
꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱
y/n l/n always felt like she didn't belong at camp half-blood. ever since she stepped foot into the idiotic summer camp, all eyes were on her. the campers, and even herself, could feel a negative aura around her. no one knew why.
until she got claimed by her father, hades.
y/n felt like a bigger outcast than before when a large black glowing scepter appeared above her head after fighting off a hellhound that got into the camp. as soon as she looked up and saw the message from her father, campers around her instantly backed up. the older ones had looks of disgust on their faces, while the younger ones seemed more scared of the girl.
the only camper who didn't view y/n differently was luke castellan. he believed the half-bloods were nothing like their godly parent, so why would his mind change for y/n?
cabin thirteen was off to the side of the rest. it made y/n feel like even more of an outcast, again. the walls, columns and roof were all black wood. they were fading and each corner had cobwebs. maybe y/n would finally feel at home once she stepped inside.
she was wrong.
the inside looked even sadder than the outside. there were six bunk beds, three on each side. y/n didn't know why. she knew she wouldn't be getting any siblings any time soon. the lighting in the cabin was grey, the dusted windows were barely letting in sunlight.
that night at dinner, y/n felt even worse. she sat at table thirteen, getting even more stares than normal. the only person who looked at her like a real human, was luke. his eyes were soft, while the other camper's eyes were still filled with fear.
luke stands from his table. all eyes drift towards him as he walks towards y/n's empty table. even her eyes follow him with worry.
"you know if you sit here it's practically suicide," y/n watches as luke sits across from her.
luke shrugs, "i know you're not as bad as everyone thinks you are."
luke saw the faintest smile appear over y/n's features.
"you know everyone's going to start some dumb rumor about you now, right? all because you're sitting by me," y/n messes with her half eaten mac and cheese on her plate.
"so i'll let them talk. they don't know the truth about you. they can start whatever rumors they want, but i'll know the real you," luke smiles.
"you're brave castellan, for thinking there might be a friendship here," y/n chuckles, gesturing between the two.
a small horn echoes through the outdoor mess hall. all the campers walk by the fire with their plates with their offering to the gods. no one dared to stand next to y/n at the fire, besides luke. the two kept brushing shoulders and if you squinted you'd see a blush forming on both camper's cheeks.
for once, y/n felt normal. she only felt normal when she was around luke. he stayed by her during archery lessons, and talked to her while they waites for their turn on the climbing wall.
the feeling didn't last long. y/n was walking back from the girl's shower room. it was late and she figured no one would be out of their cabins. she had her pajamas on, and her clothes from today and towel were in her hands. she was so close to getting back to her cabin, when her things fell out of her hands, right into the mud.
just as y/n thought her night couldn't get any worse, she heard clarisse and her goons laughing behind her. she turned and her suspicions were correct. clarisse was holding a bow and arrow. that had to be what knocked y/n's belongings onto the floor.
"clarisse can you please just leave me alone? i've had a long week," y/n pleads.
before clarisse can get a word out, luke's voice makes the camper's head turn.
"she asked you to leave, so leave before this gets ugly."
"oh no," clarisse taunts, "the daughter of hades can't even fight her own battles. pathetic."
"leave," luke's voice is stern as he's now standing in front of y/n.
clarisse finally does as she's told, with the ares' sisters following behind her.
luke guides y/n back to her cabin in silence. his hand never leaves her lower back, and y/n could've sworn she felt jolts of electricity flood her veins at his touch.
"are you okay?" luke asks y/n. she sits on her bed, rubbing her face.
"i don't know," y/n's honest.
"is there anything i can do to help?"
"i don't know luke!" y/n exclaims, "i don't know how you could possibly help me!" y/n stands and walks closer to luke, her voice raising with every word. "i've felt like a loner ever since i got here, and having hades and my freaking father doesn't help. i'm stuck in this stupid cabin, all alone with no one to talk to. no other campers besides you talk to me. chiron and mr. d both look at me like i had something to do with being hades' daughter."
y/n takes in a deep breath, "i'm just so sick of this."
she hides her face in her hands as she begins to cry. with no words luke steps forward and brings the poor girl into his arms. he rubs his hands up and down her back while resting his chin on the top of her head. she can't remember the last time she was held.
"i know it sucks for now, but i promise y/n, things will get better," luke's voice is calm compared to the girl's outburst she had moments ago.
"i promise," he whispers once more.
509 notes · View notes
bimbobaggins69 · 1 year
Text
Daddy Issues
Tumblr media
older rockstar eddie x band mates daughter fem!reader
summary: you finally get to see corroded coffin live, and you really want to fuck the lead singer/guitarist, the only thing is he’s your dads best friend and your dad is the bassist.
⚠️warnings: SMUT 18+ MDNI, pictures are purely for aesthetic purposes, mentions of alcoholism, little mention of eddies past drug abuse, mentions of childhood trauma, age gap (reader is 21, eddie is in his 50s), dom eddie, oral sex (m & f receiving), unprotected p in v sex, hair pulling, dirty talk, spit play, cream pie, daddy kink, eddie and reader are bi.
A/N: another one shot, I actually enjoy writing these. Let me know what you think, I’m not sure whether I like this or not but, fuck it! It was fun to write.
Tumblr media
It’s been four years since your dad became the bassist for corroded coffin, when he got the call after his audition you were already packing your things up for college—being accepted into Perdue university majoring in psychology.
You and your dad had a rocky relationship almost all of your life. He was an alcoholic and chronic womanizer, he cheated on your mom and every other woman that gave him the time of day—of course you loved him, but there were just too many things said and done that could never be taken back. He lived the rockstar lifestyle in every sense of the word for as long as you could remember, even being kicked out of bands for his rowdy behavior—so it was an utter miracle when he finally decided to go to rehab and get help, that was two years before he started touring with corroded coffin— now he’s completely changed his life around, which you couldn’t be more happy about. Since, he’s gotten extremely close to his band mate Eddie who is the guitarist and lead singer —they’ve apparently become best friends, Eddie even helping your dad with his sobriety since he had a drug problem years back, almost acting as his sponsor and trying to sway him from going back to that life as often as he could. You’ve never been able to meet any of the guys but you’ve watched some of their interviews during long nights of studying and have said hi through FaceTime calls, on occasion—you might have also developed a mini crush on the guitarist, but you’d never admit that.
After finally graduating college and returning home, you’ve been staying with your dad and his new wife Catherine—until you can fully get on your feet. Things have been great, but trying to hook up with men and women in your fathers house is just weird, even though he allows you your privacy and tries not to ask questions. In college you weren’t really the hook up type—you focused more on your studies, you may or may not have been fucking your English professor on the side, but we’re not gonna get into that.
It’s a lovely Friday afternoon when you get a FaceTime call from your dad, he’s been out of town for a couple weeks touring surrounding cities, and he has a show tomorrow night in town.
“Hello?” You say raising the phone to your face
“Hey, angel” your dad says—you can hear loud instruments in the background so they must be doing sound check
“Hey, dad what’s up?” You say with a sweet smile
“Just missed you kiddo, wanted to call and check in” he says warmly
“Miss you too, how’s tour?” You question
“Tours good, as good as it can be, now.” he says with a chuckle
You giggle back, knowing exactly what he means.
“Hey, listen angel, would you want to come to our show tomorrow night? Meet the guys and hangout backstage?” He questions with hopeful eyes
“Yeah, of course I’d love to!” You answer back with a big smile
“Okay, cool. I’ll put your name down on the list, when you get here just give it to them and they’ll bring you backstage” he says with excitement
“Cool, can’t wait! I’ll see you tomorrow then, be safe dad” you say shooting him one last smile
“Bye angel, see you tomorrow” he says before hanging up
Tumblr media
As the day goes on and rolls into the next, you start getting ready for the show. You’re excited to see your dad—but you can’t lie to yourself, you’re really excited to see the sexy guitarist/lead singer, so of course you’re going to dress to impress— not that you have a chance, but a girl can dream
You have an hour before the show starts, you took forever to get ready perfecting your makeup and hair— you decide to wear your white corroded coffin shirt your dad sent you awhile back tucked into a plaid mini skirt, socks and your low platform doc martens. Finally you climb into your little Prius and head out to the show.
When you arrive it’s packed, the line is almost down the street, and there’s hints of weed smoke in the air. You walk up to the entrance door and give your name to the gentleman wearing a headset— as you give him your name, he says something into it and then ushers you off to head backstage.
You finally get backstage after pushing your way through a crowd— your dad spots you before you get the chance to look around, calling out to you with his hands cupped around his mouth, as you see him you smile and saunter over to him.
“Angel, I’m so happy you made it” he says as he fidgets around— he always gets nervous before a show no matter how many he’s played
He leans in and gives you a hug while kissing the top of your head— “of course I made it” you say as you both pull away
“I want to officially introduce you to the guys, let me find them first” he says
“It’s okay dad, just wait until after the show” you insist — “actually, where can I find a bathroom?” You ask
After your dad directs you to the nearest restroom you begin your quest but quickly get lost, you come across a couple red doors, as you’re walking down the hall one of them swings open and you come face to face with Eddie Munson, the man that has been haunting your dreams for 4 years, he walks out with a pretty blonde girl but she continues walking back to the crowd.
“Well hello,” he says with a smile — “you lost?” He asks
“Oh uh, no no I’m not lost” is all you’re able to stutter out
“You sure?” He says with curious eyes “pretty girl like you shouldn’t be back here, alone.” he says with a smirk
“Yeah,” you say clearing your throat “I’m not lost, I’m actually looking for the restroom” you say with pink tinted cheeks matching those of a cherub
Eddie’s eyes trail all over your body and back to your face as he licks his lips “I’m Matt’s daughter, y/n” you spit out as you hold out your hand. Fuck, why did you say that? He’s not gonna want you, after learning you’re his best friends, daughter.
“Oh, shit. Um, hi nice to meet you,” he says as he shakes your hand
“I gotta head back, we’re about to go on stage.” he says as he does his best to avoid looking at any other part of your body
“Ok” is all you can say, tone laced in disappointment
After you head to the backstage area, you decide to watch your dad and Eddie play from the side stage. The show is amazing, the crowd is crazy; with crowd surfers and pits, the whole band looks totally in their element, like they all really love what they do, which warmed your heart.
After the second encore is over, the guys clamber backstage, sweaty and out of breathe. Your dad picks you up and swings your body around, still buzzing off the high from performing, placing you down. He starts to call out to his band mates
“Guys, guys” he says as he waves his hands around. “this is my daughter, y/n. Y/n, these are the guys: Eddie, Gareth and Jeff” he says as he points to each individually
They all say “hi” in unison with a wave. All, except Eddie.
You wave back as you let out a shy “hi”
As you continue with your night, hanging out with your dad and the guys backstage. Some talks of going to a bar come up, and obviously your dad declines per suggested by Eddie. You see how close, him and your dad are. Laughing at only jokes they understood and silently talking with their eyes. You’ve never known your dad to keep friendships or relationships for that matter, so it was refreshing to see.
Your dad comes up to you to bid you a goodbye. He says that he needs to go home to see his wife and avoid all this temptation, you and Eddie chuckle at that.
“Well, I’ll go with you.” you say to him
“No, no. You stay here, hang out, get to know the guys, have fun, angel” he says as he heads towards the exit.
As the night went on you talked a lot with Gareth and Jeff about your dad, touring and how corroded coffin started. They were older and married so there were surprisingly no groupies backstage like you normally picture at a metal show. Eddie wasn’t married but he was trying to cut back on his sexual appetite of both men and women alike. He had his fare share of hook ups, and by fare share you mean he’s had a lot of sex and a lot of different partners all over the world since the 90s. But, as much as eddie was trying to control his “appetite” he couldn’t help but secretly sneak looks at you and your hot little body. Fuck, if you were both around the same age and you had come to one of his shows in the 90s, he would’ve definitely snatched you out of the crowd. He couldn’t deny your beauty, you must’ve gotten that from your mom, he thinks to himself.
Gareth and Jeff both head to the bar with their manager to have a couple drinks, while you and Eddie decline. As they leave Eddie whispers out a “fuck” while looking at his phone.
“You okay?” You ask
He looks up from his phone, as his jaw clenches.
“Uber keeps canceling” he says through gritted teeth
“Where are you headed? I drove here, I can just drop you off where you need to go.” you offer sweetly
“You sure?” He says with his eyebrows raised and eyes wide
“Yeah of course, I’m parked just over here.” you say as you head to the car park. You glance back to check if he’s following behind, as you do he shoots you a little side smile
You press the button on your keys unlocking the doors and before you can even get to it, Eddie is racing around to open it for you.
“It’s the least I can do” he says sending you a wink, that almost made your knees buckle. He gets in and after putting his hotel address in the maps app on your phone, you and him get to talking, laughing and maybe even a little flirting, if you’re reading it correctly, It’s almost like you both had known each other in a past life. You’ve never understood, why people say cheesy shit like that but woah, now you do.
Eddie can’t help but look at you when you talk, he’s enamored by your beauty and how eloquently you carry yourself, but you’re also witty and sarcastic, which he loves. You kind of remind him of himself just way prettier with an almost old soul maturity, he’s never had
As you pull up to his hotel, you don’t want to say goodbye, you wish you had the balls to ask if you could hang out more with him, but that might be weird considering you’re his friend/band mates daughter, and if your dad ever found out you were hanging out with Eddie one on one in his hotel, who knows how he’d react, your dad was kind of a loose canon in that way.
Suddenly Eddie’s voice broke you out of your all consuming thoughts—“do you want to uh, come up? I have a bottle of wine I don’t wanna finish alone” he says with a smile and the most adorable puppy dog eyes you’ve ever seen
“Um” you says as you stare at your dash board “yeah, shit why not?” You say as you smile back, you park into one of the open spots and head up to Eddie’s hotel room.
Once inside he tells you to get comfortable, and says you can sit or lay on the bed if you’d like, so you choose the latter— you toe off your docs and crawl onto the king sized bed, plopping your head against the fluffy pillow—as you lay there your eyes follow Eddie around the room, his pants hanging low on his hips, shirt hiked up a bit from him rubbing his hand underneath it, he grabs two glasses and the bottle of wine out of the small fridge and walks back to the bed setting them down on the nightstand— “I’m gonna take a quick shower, is that okay? Like five minutes I just want to rinse off” he says — “be my guest” you say as you gesture towards the bathroom, making him smile
He wasn’t lying when he said five minutes because once you heard the shower stop you looked at the time on your phone and it had been exactly five minutes—butterflies began erupting in the pit of your stomach, you’re alone with this man you have fantasied about for years, thinking those thoughts would never come to fruition, since the whole situation was completely taboo—but holy shit here you are in his hotel room alone with him, if you wanted to make a move you totally could.
Eddie walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel around his hips water droplets adorning his skin, holy fuck was all you could think as you gawked at him from your place on the bed
“You like what you see?” He says to you with a devious smirk
“I do” you accidentally blurt out, cherub cheeks returning from earlier
“Oh?” Eddie says with his eyebrows raised “is that right?” His tone becoming increasingly more sexy and almost dark
At this point you’re so turned on you say “fuck it” and decide to indulge in his little game, hoping the prize is his dick buried deep inside of you by the end “mhmm I do, Eddie” you say as you bite your lip—that’s the first time you’ve said his name all night and it made his dick twitch, well that and that sexy fucking look on your face—he can’t hold back any longer, he knew what he was doing inviting you up, but he held out hope that he could be strong and just have a little night cap with a friend who he’s instantly clicked with, but Eddies not as strong as he thought he was.
“Watch out baby, not sure you know what you’re asking for, there” he says with a pleased look on his face — “Eddie I’m a grown woman, I know exactly what I’m asking for” you challenge back with a raised eyebrow -oh you were good- he thought to himself
“You sure that’s what you want, princess?” He asks eyes almost as eager as yours—the pet name made your pussy flutter
“Yes, Eddie I want you, please?” You say with innocent eyes as he’s walking up to the side of the bed you’re sitting on, the wine on the nightstand completely forgotten about
“Mmm, not sure you can handle me, baby” he says back with a shit eating grin
“Well then I guess your gunna have to stretch my tight little pussy out so I can, handle you” you shoot back with a smile matching his—Eddie’s face instantly dropping into a look of hunger that made a chill run down your spine, and made your heart speed up
As his thighs hit the side of the bed, you get up on your knees and crawled over to him, he reaches out grabbing your lower back and pulling you flush against his body— but instead of kissing you like you expected, he reaches to put some hair behind your ear as he whispers out a “so beautiful” that made your eyes slightly water—growing up you never heard words of affirmation, like that and now every time you did, it made you want to cry
“Thank you” you whisper back with a wobbly voice
Eddie grabs your chin and brings your eyes up to look at his—“you okay, sweet thing?” He asks and you nod with a smile
“I really want this Eddie” you whisper back “I have for awhile”
He seems taken aback by your words as his eyes widen
“What do you mean for awhile?” He says curiously
“Ever since I watched a stupid interview of yours after my dad made the band” —- the mention of your dad, slightly making him cringe but not enough to stop
“Did you have a little crush on me, baby?” He says cockily
“I did”—“I do” you say as you correct yourself
“Aw, that’s cute, that’s real cute”—“what the boys in college not doing it for you?” He teases
“I’m not interested in boys” you shoot back “I only associate with men” you say with the same eloquence he thought about in the car
“Well lucky for you baby, I’m all man” he says making you snort out a laugh at his cheesy line
He tackles you onto the bed playfully, as he kisses all over your face—this felt too perfect, like it’s something you both had been doing for years, not like you’d just met for the first time tonight
Finally he kisses your lips, giving you a few pecks before it starts to turn heavy, he slips his tongue into your mouth rubbing it against yours, he was an amazing kisser—you definitely didn’t want to think about how he’d gotten that way—but woah you’ve never gotten wet from just making out before—his hands start to roam over your body, down to your thighs, spreading them apart so he can fit between them. He breaks the kiss to look down at your spread legs—pretty red see through panties on display for him “fuck” he moans out as he notices the wet spot, just for him—“look at that baby” he whispered down to you “fucking pussies already so wet for me”—“did my kisses do that to you, baby?” He asks
“Yes, everything you do gets me so wet” you whine out
“Mmm, is that right?” — “I like the sound of that, maybe I’ll keep you, princess. Use this wet little pussy every time I come back from a show, would you like that?” — “I would, daddy, I would love that” you moan out
“Daddy?” Eddie says as his eyebrows raise into his bangs
“Shit, sorry if that’s weird” you say back tone full of embarrassment
“Ya know, it shouldn’t turn me on coming from you, but fuck, everything you do is so sexy”—-“well lucky for you I never call my dad that, it’s only reserved for someone special” you say as you bite your lip—“oh really? Special you say?” He says with a smirk—-“okay yeah, I can be your daddy, that means something different to you kids today anyway, right?” He says “I’m not a kid, but yeah exactly” you say back
Eddie begins kissing you again, this time with more passion and desire, he reaches down between your thighs rubbing over you clothed pussy—“can I take your panties off, sweet girl?” He says as his eyes bore down into yours
“Yes, please” you say in a sweet tantalizing voice
He begins ridding you of your red thong as he shoots them toward his nightstand, they land on the neck of the wine bottle and you both laugh—“I’m keeping those” eddie says to you as he brings his fingers down to your dripping sex, he gently runs his calloused finger tips over your little bundle of nerves, making you moan out—“that’s right baby, let me hear you” he whispers as he begins nipping at your neck— Eddie moves his fingers down to gather your slick and then returns back to your clit—“can I taste you, baby?” He asks sweetly
“Please Eddie, yes” you can’t help but moan out
He decides to lift up your shirt to take it off—“cute shirt by the way” he says as he pulls it off of your body and over your head, making you giggle. Once your shirts off, Eddie reaches behind your back expertly unhooking your matching red bra with one hand, letting the straps fall down around your arms, he picks it up and throws it haphazardly across the bed, landing in front of the desk on the other side of the room
He begins moving down your body, with soft calculated kisses, occasionally sucking different spots, he stops and lays in front of your most intimate area, grabbing your thighs to spread them a bit more and getting a good look at you all wet and bare before him—-he growls as he sees your pussy on display for him “fuck, you have such a pretty pussy, baby”—“bet it tastes even better” he says as he kisses the top of your mound where a little patch of dark curly hair sits, you bite your lip at the intimacy of it—-this didn’t feel like just a one night stand or random lay, it felt special— Eddie begins by licking you from your little hole to your clit finally giving it the attention it so badly wanted, you moan out as he swirls his tongue around it and then takes it into his mouth, lightly sucking—-nothing but loud moans and filthy sounds of sucking and licking fill the room—-“oh my god, Eddie yes right there, that’s so good, daddy” you borderline scream out—god this man knew how to use his tongue, he was incredible.
He continues to lick and suck as he brings two fingers to your entrance, he gently pushes them inside of you stretching you out for what’s about to come, your moans get louder and he can’t help but smile—your moans sound like the best song he’s ever heard, he wants to hear them over and over again forever
Once he curls his fingers up and hits that spot deep inside that you were never able to reach, the coil in your belly begins to tighten and your legs shake as your hand reaches down to tangle in his hair—“that’s it baby, cum for me, cum for daddy” he says pulling you over the edge, your pussy clenching around his fingers as he works you through your orgasm, you grip his hair and mewl out obscenities—- after you’ve fully come down from your high, Eddie moves up your body, You can feel the hardness rubbing up against your overstimulated sex, you grab the towel around his waist and rip it off as you look down waiting to see the dick you’ve had wet dreams about, it springs out all pretty and pink, thick and curved, pre cum oozing from the tip, it twitches a couple times and all you can think about is having it buried deep inside your throat—“can I please suck your cock?” You ask up at him with puppy dog eyes, silently begging and Eddie can’t believe how such filthy words could come out such a beautifully, innocent looking face—but it makes him growl, makes another side of him, he didn’t want to show you, come out.
“Get on your knees on the floor, now” he demands, change of voice throwing you off
“Now, don’t make me say it again!” he growls back — “yes, daddy” you say as you hop off the bed and fall down to your knees in front of his leaking tip “open up wide” he says, voice laced in desperation, you open your mouth as wide as you can while sticking your tongue out—“good girl, that’s a good fucking girl, you take direction so good baby” he says “good girls get rewarded, okay? So keep listening to daddy and he’ll take care of you, understand?” He says, you nod as you wrap your hand around the base of his cock
He grabs your hair and pulls your head back while he bends down to get in your face “nope, I need words baby” he says through gritted teeth “yes, daddy” you whimper out in shock at his behavior, no one has ever been this rough with you but you would be lying if you said it didn’t make your pussy gush, you were loving this—“that’s it, good girl, open that mouth up wide again for me, sweetheart” he says—you open up and stick your tongue back out, Eddie let’s a glob of spit fall right onto it, making you moan out—-fuck this man was gunna be the death of you, you didn’t know you could get this turned on from such filthy acts you only seen done in porn—but here you are wetness dripping down your thighs from how worked up you’re getting
You leave Eddie’s spit on your tongue as he begins to work his cock into your mouth, spit mixing with yours to make the tip and base extra wet, he bucks his hips hitting your throat, you breath through your nose and take him to the hilt, eyes watering and jaw tingling— “that’s it, that’s a good girl” — “fuck baby that mouth of yours is amazing” he says as he begins moving in and out of your mouth. He moans out your name and a couple fucks as he gathers your hair in a makeshift ponytail, guiding you up and down on his cock continuously hitting the back of your throat—finally he lifts you up and off of him back up to your feet. Your lips and chin filled with spit and pre cum, cheeks and eyes filled with tears—“fuck you’re so pretty, baby, look so fucking pretty for me” he says as he kisses your lips, backing you up until your legs hit the bed and guiding you to lay down as he grabs and spreads your thighs, he gets down into your face as he asks “are you ready, sweet girl?”
“Yes, yes I’m ready please” you respond with a whine
“Whatever princess wants” he said with a gentle smile, a complete 360 to how he was just treating you earlier, but you didn’t care, you really liked both sides of him
He begins to line himself up with your entrance, cock still wet with your spit, as he pushes in, you can feel yourself stretching for him, but it felt so good, so full. “Oh my god, yes! Don’t stop please” you moan out “I know baby I know, i won’t stop, I won’t fucking stop” he says as he begins thrusting deeper and faster inside you, he brings his forehead down to yours as you both moan into each others mouths—-this wasn’t fucking, this felt like love making and so different from any sex you’ve ever had—-it felt intimate and sensual, like Eddie fit your body like a missing puzzle piece
“Oh fuck, baby, your pussies so tight, it feels so good, so good”… he continued repeating
Your belly filling with that familiar burn as your second orgasm hits you like a freight train, your pussy tightening around his cock even more, making him moan out—“fuckin pussy just milking my cock, where do you want it baby?” He says as he bites his lip “inside me please, please cum inside me daddy” you grunt out “fuck, fuck I’m cumming!” He shouts as white spurts paint your insides.
Eddie falls on top of you, kissing all over your face again, making you laugh—“I’ll be right back” he says, after a couple minutes he’s coming back to clean up his mess between your thighs. You move back to your place on the pillow as Eddie lays beside you, pulling you into his chest “that was”…”wow” he says —-“yeah” you say back, you both laid there in silence staring up at the ceiling
-fuck I’m in trouble- Eddie thought to himself
Tumblr media
THANK YOU FOR READING! 💗
COMMENTS & REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED
3K notes · View notes
ddarker-dreams · 5 months
Text
Golden Girl.
Tumblr media
Gojo Satoru x F Reader x Geto Suguru.
Warnings: The psychological damage inflicted from Gojo Satoru's presence, canon-typical violence, Gojo and Geto are both kinda questionable in their own ways. Word count: 16k.
-Index-
Tumblr media
April 1st, 2005. 
8:02 a.m.
-
You don’t get it. 
This campus is huge. Unbelievably so. If someone said you’d waltzed into the Imperial Palace, you’d believe them, and not just because you’re gullible. Although, that’d certainly play a significant role. 
Your suspicions strengthen after you walk over the third arched bridge. That’s an arched bridge too far. No school can have this many fancy-looking bridges, the schools back home are practically held together by chewed pieces of gum and scotch tape. Your jetlagged brain combs through the whirlwind you’ve endured in the past few hours. Did you give the wrong address to the taxi driver back at the airport? 
He did look confused, but you hadn’t given it much thought then. 
You go as still as a statue. 
… What if this is the Imperial Palace? If that’s the case, you’re definitely trespassing, right?
How do you explain that to any guards that might happen by? You can envision the headlines now — Foreigner Extradited for Trespassing, Sentenced to Life, No Chance at Parole. All those hours you spent working on your student visa would be for nothing! And you’d be in prison, which is a bummer, because you’re not rich enough to weasel out of the criminal justice system. 
You’ll have to join a prison gang, there’s no way around it. Would they let a fourteen-year-old in? In the event they don’t, you could always form one yourself. Leadership’s never been your thing, but it beats—
“Hey there,” a feminine voice calls out. “You lost?” 
You whip your head around to the sound’s source. Instead of seeing an intimidating guard ready to haul you off, there’s a girl about your age. She has brunette hair styled in a bob, a beauty mark beneath her left eye, and an unlit cigarette hanging from her lips. 
Unless the Emperor is issuing major budget cuts, this can’t be a guard. 
You consider her uniform. The high collar, sheer tights, long sleeves, and brown shoes match yours, but the skirt’s different. Yours flares out and cuts off right above your knees. This minor discrepancy makes you wonder if you’re breaking the dress code on your first day. You push the concern aside for future you to deal with.
“That obvious, huh?” You laugh. 
“Just a bit.” 
She introduces herself as Ieiri Shoko, a first-year student like yourself. You respond in kind, offering up your own name and grade. It’s a relief to know you won’t be arrested or wandering this complex for an eternity. She walks by you and turns on her heel, tilting her head. 
“Gonna come with?” 
You nod and happily fall into step beside her. She doesn’t seem to be in a rush, not that you mind. It gives you time to admire the idyllic scenery around each turn. There are lush green forests, gardens, and more traditional buildings than you can count. The only detail you find odd is how empty the area is. Besides Ieiri, there isn’t a soul to be found. 
“Ieiri-san, is today a holiday by any chance?” 
“Just Shoko’s fine,” she says, feeling around her various pockets. “And I don’t think so. Why? Too quiet?” 
“It’s almost like a ghost town.” 
Shoko smiles. “Enjoy the quiet while you can.”
Well, that’s a bit ominous, but you’ve yet to meet anyone in the jujutsu world who is 100% normal. You think it might be an unspoken requirement at this point. 
Shoko gives up on whatever she was searching for — a lighter, if you had to guess — and tucks the cigarette away. This reinforces your theory that those involved with jujutsu have one quirk at the bare minimum. By that logic, you must have some peculiar quirk of your own. Recalling your earlier Imperial Palace debacle, you realize it might be more than one… 
“Oh, by the way. All our classes got canceled,” Shoko says. 
You blink. 
“On… the first day…?” 
“Yeah. Something about a last-minute meeting,” she stretches her arms above her head and yawns. “I’m heading back to the dorms for a nap. I think yours is near mine, there are boxes with your name on them in the hallway.” 
What a relief! There had been no word on the packages full of your personal belongings you shipped here ahead of time. The hellscape that is checked baggage had no bearing on you. Immensely pleased with this revelation, you set aside the urge to explore and accompany Shoko to where you’ll be living for the foreseeable future. 
In keeping with the spirit of the rest of the school grounds, your room is spacious. 
Shoko left you to your own devices. You can faintly discern her presence in the room beside yours, laying down as she said she would. You thought you’d want to do the same, but something about the crisp morning air sliced through your exhaustion. You’ll ride the high and crash later. 
Adventure awaits — the exploration of the unknown, the sharpening of a faint, hazy image. 
You’re back outside again. It’s amazing how, no matter where you are, you can feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your cheeks. This serves as a grounding reminder that you’re real. Reality and the ambiguous nature of jujutsu are often at odds with one other, fighting to occupy the same space. Each side spins a convincing speech about why you should give it credence while discounting the other. 
Unlike a politician’s diatribe, there’s no changing the channel or turning down the volume. This invisible and perennial battle won’t ever gain total victory or retreat. There’s bound to be collateral, such is the nature of war. For some, it’s their life in a literal sense, for you, it’s sanity. Coherence. The incorrigible truth that two plus two equals four.
See, young kids aren’t given enough credit. They’re always watching, learning, and absorbing. They get the basic idea that two plus two equals four before they even know what numbers are. For instance, as a baby, you cry and writhe until your needs are met. There’s a framework. An adult in the vicinity plus wailing equals getting fed. Then later, it gets more complex. Not eating your vegetables plus getting mouthy equals timeout. So on and so forth. 
You accrue this network of information that makes life navigable. 
Then, while visiting some distant relative in the hospital, a massive hole gets blown into this previously steady network. Such was your experience. 
Something strange sat atop the IV in the small, cramped hospital room. The adults exchanged well wishes for the man surrounded by beeping equipment and blinking screens. Everyone present focused on this man, except you. You observed this thing, about the size of a sparrow, that flitted to and fro. Whatever it was, it had too many eyes. Each rolled in a different direction, like a bowling ball that couldn’t stop spinning. 
Eventually, a long yet thin appendage emerged from the unidentifiable creature. You stood petrified as it entered the man’s ear canal and sipped. The man groaned, beeps increased, and numbers flew high. It sipped harder. His screams grew louder. Everything got chaotic. People in white and blue entered the room. You heard words like ‘cardiac arrest’ and ‘defibrillation.’ Your parents dragged you away. 
The creature continued to sip. 
On the car ride home, you asked why no one stopped it. The creature plus its sipping equaled the man’s horrible pain. That’s what you figured, anyway. They asked for clarification. What creature? Where had it been? What did it look like? Since young kids are smarter than they’re given credit for, you recognized the tone that was directed toward you. Disbelief, but in a nice, adult way. 
If you insisted on the creature’s existence, they grew worried. When you told your friends — who in turn, told their parents — their worry grew. If every drawing you scribbled tried to depict the creature’s likeness, their worry overflowed. You overheard words like ‘traumatic experience’ and ‘coping.’ 
So, you stopped mentioning it. This stopped the concerned murmurings you’d overhear. You tried really hard to believe what they said about nightmares and mean imaginary friends. This worked well enough until you noticed similar creatures everywhere. On the playground, bus, graveyards, and abandoned houses. They weren’t all the size of a sparrow either. Some were tiny enough to be mistaken for gnats. Others were huge and salivated large pools against the ground.
It was around this time that you developed a second shadow. A spinning golden ring that could fit in the palm of your hand followed you everywhere. No one else could see it, but unlike the creatures, this ring didn’t scare you. Just the opposite, in fact. You considered it a guardian angel. 
If the gnats got too close, it’d slice through them. 
When the huge, drooling ones reached out their mangled hand, it’d cut through their wrists.
Later on, you’d learn this ‘guardian angel’ was called a ‘cursed technique.’ 
Smiling, you descend a flight of stairs. From today onward, you’ll be surrounded by people who don’t discount the equation you spent your early years erasing. They’ll be around your age too! You already like Shoko, she’s pretty and has a calming presence. You wonder what the others in your class will be like. How many will there be? Twenty? Your social studies class topped out at thirty-four. 
You hope you can befriend everyone. 
The gears turning in your head grind to a halt upon noticing the view. Maybe it’s how the morning sun casts a soft glow upon the verdure, or maybe you’re just easily impressed. Whatever the case, the sight stokes awe inside you. Trees line both sides of the gravel path ahead, their canopies inclining as if leaning down to hear a whisper. Smudges of green streak through the air, accepting any destiny the wind bestows.
What an image, straight from the pages of a fairytale book! 
You fish out your new phone, a hot pink Razr V3, recalling its camera feature. Even if the photograph isn’t award-winning, you want to preserve this moment. 
You can’t explain it. This intuition isn’t rational, it doesn’t adhere to that ever so reliable two plus two. It transcends. The fall of a domino, a flap of a butterfly wing. Seemingly unrelated yet intimately interwoven by invisible lines. 
Whether preordained or the consequence of chain reactions you’d have to trace since birth to understand, what happens next stains you its color. The soul grasps what logic dismisses. And right now, your soul says this moment in time and space should never be forgotten. 
As for why, your soul suggests you uncover that for yourself. 
Alas, you can’t actually stop time. Perception and reality don’t always agree. While it felt like everything came to a grinding halt, the wheels never stopped turning.
And so the powerful gust soaring from your right punches the air from your lungs. 
Gritting your teeth, you dig your heels into the ground. The sheer force pushes you back some inches. Next comes a hail of debris. Chunks of soil, sediment, and splintered wood descend. Recognizing this threat, your mind yells at your body to move. Those earthly implements are soaring faster than a bullet. However, the baleful gale restricts precise movement. You’re nothing but a bag of flesh and viscera to the indifferent swell. It’ll send you tumbling the instant your feet lift off the ground. 
Dodging isn’t an option. 
Those rocks… your cursed technique could dice them up, but then you’d get pelted with shrapnel rather than stone. 
Which is the better outcome? A body littered with numerous holes or a few craters? 
Your arms fly up to protect your major organs. You’ll endure what you can. 
Except, instead of enduring an onslaught, nothing happens. Nothing hurts, rips, or gets torn to shreds. 
The wind hasn’t stopped, but it no longer touches you. You jump back, out of the line of impact. The debris parts like the Red Sea and grants you safe passage. From this vantage point, you’re a witness rather than an unwitting participant. The unrelenting force rages on. You gape at the path of destruction it’s left behind, indiscriminately swallowing trees, foliage, and the ground. It looks like a meteor surged in a straight line through the forest. 
No matter what you’d chosen to do, if it weren’t for that abrupt opening, you would’ve died.  
Heart thumping wildly, you snap your head toward the direction this miniature storm originated from. Was it a curse? If it is, then you’re hopelessly outclassed. 
No, that doesn’t seem right, you think. You’re familiar with how it feels when a curse is nearby. Should it be close to your power level, it’s like getting splashed with frigid water. For curses above your abilities, that sensation gets amplified. It’s as if you’ve been plunged into the Arctic Ocean. Right now, you’re not experiencing either of those sensory nightmares. 
A silhouette walks through the dusty haze that destructive force left behind. 
“Whoops,” the person within says, “That was close.” 
You run over, swatting the dust lingering in the air. Anyone close to that force could’ve gotten severely injured. Concern seeps into your being as the figure emerges. 
“Are you okay?!” 
The first thing you notice is a head of white hair. Next is this person’s height, you have to crane your neck to meet his eyes. Eyes that were, for some reason, covered by circular sunglasses. There’s a sideways grin on his face, the absolute last expression you were expecting. From his uniform, you guess he’s a student like yourself. His most prominent feature isn’t anything visible. It’s the sheer aura he exudes, you’ve never experienced anything similar. There’s no hostility, but it’s intense. 
You inhale shakily. 
“Never better. You?” 
He sounds chipper. 
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” you reply, giving yourself a once-over. 
You pinch your eyebrows together while assessing your condition. The white-haired figure notices this and asks, “Ya sure? Nothing hit you, right?” 
“That’s the weird thing, though,” you frown. “I should be covered in dust, but there’s not a single speck.” 
His grin widens, like he’s in on some joke you aren’t. This plucks a cord of irritation within you. Narrowing your eyes, you take a step back. You focus on the cursed energy engulfing him, then compare it to residuals left behind by the force. The residuals in the path it carved out are too faint to properly discern. All you have implicating his involvement is a hunch. 
You remember how the gust itself felt, though. The ferocity that had every nerve in your body ringing funeral bells. 
Your eyes flit between the gaping maw and the sunglass-wearing stranger. 
“Want a hint?” He asks. You don’t miss the teasing lilt in his voice. 
“You caused that surge,” you deadpan. 
“Close enough, I’ll give half credit. Next question! What stopped you from getting buried in layers of dust?” 
You have no reason to play along, yet scampering off feels like you’d be conceding something. The competitive nature boiling in your blood refuses to admit defeat. Especially after he subjected you to that terror, without even apologizing! It’s the least he could do. What an inconsiderate jerk. You’ll knock him down from that high horse if it’s the last thing you do. 
Crossing your arms over your chest, you consider the information you have to work with. Whatever he did had to involve his cursed technique. Did he apply a shield to you? It’s the most obvious answer, but that doesn’t explain everything. A shield would lessen the damage, not negate it entirely. 
How did he pull that off…? 
As you’re piecing this puzzle together, someone in the distance yells, “Satoru!” drawing out each syllable. The person before you winces but doesn’t lose his boyish smile. You sense another presence heading this way. After you turn around to face this new addition, two large hands settle on your shoulders from behind. You bristle and try shaking them off, but this weirdo doesn’t let go. 
An older man with a severe expression stands atop the staircase. His uniform is pitch black, denoting a different status than a student, if you were to guess. 
“One hour,” he huffs out, “One hour, I ask for you to sit still and behave. And what do I come back to? An entire tunnel running through the school grounds?” 
“It was for good reason, sensei,” this ‘Satoru’ insists. He squeezes your shoulders. “[First] here mistook a bug for a curse and yelped, ‘Kya, there’s a curse!’ I, being the good samaritan I am, dispatched the threat with what I thought to be an appropriate amount of force at the time.”  
You make a face. “Eh?” 
“Huh?” Yaga must find this explanation as convincing as you do. His countenance filters through multiple emotions. Confusion, frustration, disbelief, and then, finally, exhaustion. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?” 
“I didn’t come up with anything! Tell him, [First]! Are you going to abandon your savior when he needs you most?” 
Yaga turns his attention to you, pity evident in his eyes. 
“Satoru did… sort of protect me from something… in a way?” You mumble. 
Satoru’s fingers twitch when you speak his recently learned name.
Yaga sighs. “We’ll discuss this later, Satoru.” 
And with that, the first teacher you’ve met walks away, shaking his head. His demeanor reminds you of a disappointed parent. Suddenly cognizant of the unwelcome contact on your body, you jerk your shoulders forward. This time, he releases you. You get the sense he could’ve easily held on if he wanted to.
“Man, you suck at lying,” Satoru whines. 
“Me? What sort of cover story was that? If you ever become a defense attorney, your clients are screwed.” 
He throws his arms behind his head and grins. “You gotta admit, the impression was solid.” 
“That was the most egregious part!” 
“I thought it was a nice touch.”
You roll your eyes. Before this back-and-forth drags on, there’s a specific detail that’s nagging at you. 
“By the way, how do you know my name—” 
“Suguru, how long are you gonna sit back and watch? Voyeurism is frowned upon, y’know,” he cuts you off mid-sentence. 
Your eyes practically bulge out of their sockets at his not-so-subtle implication. Thrown back into a weirded-out limbo, you start slinking off. Forget trying to understand how he knows your name despite never telling him. These are the types your parents warned you about, you need to flee! Hormonal high school boys should be sectioned off until they’re no longer threats to society. Nuclear warfare pales in comparison. 
“She’ll never want to come near you again if you keep saying things like that.” 
Another student calmly strides out from behind a nearby tree. You squint, ensuring this isn’t an illusion. How long has this guy been here? Why couldn’t you sense his presence? Especially when he’s been so close, just a few measly feet back. The black-haired addition gives you a closed-mouth smile. Similar to Satoru, he’s rather tall. You’ll need a neck massage from all this looking up. 
“Geto Suguru. It’s nice to meet you,” Geto greets. 
You introduce yourself as well. 
“It’s your first day here, correct? How are you finding everything? Have any questions?” 
“None that I can think of, but thank you! It’s been uneventful, up to a certain point.” 
Satoru yawns obnoxiously loud, interrupting your exchange. “Look what you did, Suguru. She’s all prim and proper now. I might fall asleep.” 
You shoot him a scathing look but bite your tongue. 
“What? No need to hold back. Say whatever you want, I can take it,” he asserts, tilting his head enough for his sunglasses to slide down. Two pools of frosty blues bore through you. You freeze up at the sight. Snowy eyelashes, glittering, gemstone-like eyes, why would he ever hide them? You’ve never seen such a bewitching color. 
He strikes like a serpent at the opening you’ve given him. 
“All this staring’s gonna make me shy. You can take a picture, if you want. I don’t mind.” 
Any spell you were under withers and dies. 
“Actually, I was just thinking that you remind me of a celebrity,” you say. 
Satoru preens, interpreting your words as a compliment. Before his ego inflates enough for him to float away, however, you give him a smug smile of your own. 
“Ever heard of Sanrio’s Cinnamoroll? You two could be twins! It’s adorable.”
His shoulders droop and Suguru chuckles, the sound coming out muffled from behind his hand. You spin around, content, humming to yourself as you walk up the stairs. You block out whatever Satoru shouts in retaliation. His words go in one ear and out the other. Something tells you this is the best strategy for dealing with him. 
So far, you’ve met three classmates, and that was enough to exhaust you thoroughly. 
You wonder what everyone else is like. 
-
Later that evening, Shoko explains it’s just you four in your class. 
You finish chewing your takeout, swallow, and then reply, “Eh? Seriously? But this place is crazy big.” 
“Not many folks can use jujutsu,” Shoko says. She picks a mushroom up with her chopsticks and places it in your container. “Four students is a high amount, all things considered.” 
You plop the mushroom into your mouth. Savory flavors coat your tongue, warming your heart and your soul. Delicious food is the antidote to all woes. Presently, your biggest woe happens to have white hair, unfairly pretty eyes, and a knack for getting under your skin. Recalling your previous encounter makes you grimace.
“Hey, Shoko. Would I get in trouble for spraying Satoru with water?” 
Instead of responding, she stares at you, blinking owlishly. 
“What’s up?” 
“Haven’t heard any student but Geto call Gojo by his first name,” she explains. “We’ve only been here a few days though, so who knows.” 
You tilt your head. “Who is Gojo?” 
“Satoru. Gojo Satoru’s his full name.”
“... Ah.” 
You swipe a pillow from Shoko’s bed and slam it into your face. 
“I’ve been calling him by his first name?!” You whisper yell, heat rushing to your cheeks.
That’s far too intimate. This is awful, a tragedy, the end of your life that had just begun! 
Shoko rubs your back reassuringly as you process the harrowing information. 
-
This has been the first proper school day. 
Teachers have come and gone depending on the class. You and Geto have been taking notes, Shoko’s fallen asleep, and Gojo occasionally throws a wadded-up note at the three of you. Shoko’s collection piles up on her desk, Geto throws his away after reading them, and you chuck yours back at Gojo when the teacher isn’t looking. 
He catches it with a grin each time, as if you’re playing a friendly game of baseball. 
This guy really irks you. 
When it’s time to eat lunch, he’s the first to get up. 
“What does everyone want from the vending machine?” Gojo asks while clapping, earning your attention. “It’s on me.” 
Suguru requests Coca-Cola and Shoko, newly awake, says Oi Ocha. 
“I’m okay, but thank you,” is your response. 
Gojo swaggers over and you immediately regret sounding so polite. 
“First you don’t open my notes and now you won’t accept my generosity? Is this what it’s like to get bullied?” 
“I think bullying is typically worse than that,” you respond. His deep frown, although likely an act, still tugs on your heartstrings. Empathy is truly a double-edged sword. “... Georgia canned coffee, please.” 
Gojo points a finger at you. “Aha! I knew it! Something about you struck me as a caffeine addict.” 
(You throw a pen at him, which he easily sidesteps).
“Does the resident sugar addict have any room to talk?” Geto hums. 
“Plenty. When you eat sweets, it’s to enjoy the flavor. In other words, an experience! When you drink coffee, though, you’re only torturing yourself to keep your eyes open.” 
“Some people like coffee’s flavor,” Shoko chimes in. She rests her chin on her fist. “You would if it was sickeningly sweet.” 
You take in the sight of your classmates bickering. It stirs a warm, pleasant feeling in your chest, like walking outside on the first day of spring. Such a simple exchange instills a sense of normalcy, no matter how fleeting. Gojo’s larger-than-life personality, Geto’s sneaky ways of goading him on, and Shoko’s occasional wry comment; you sear it into your memory. 
There’s no real weight to the jabs everyone flings around, it’s like water off a duck’s back. 
“You’ll meet lots of interesting folks, I’m sure,” your jujutsu mentor, Ishimoto Akane, had told you. “Make the most of each day. Forgetting to live is the worst injustice you can commit toward yourself.” 
Smiling, you retrieve your pen/ammunition, intent on hitting Gojo with it eventually. 
-
Drizzle and heat olive oil in a pan. Add grape tomatoes, seasoning, and minced garlic. Stir occasionally until the grape tomatoes break down. 
A mouthwatering scent fills the dormitory’s kitchen. The clock reads 10:04 p.m, indicating how late this dinner is. You keep an eye on your pan as different shades of red smear together, forming the basis for your sauce. Content to leave it unsupervised for a spell, you walk to the drawer silverware is kept in.
The plates are up in an overhead cupboard. You stand on your tiptoes, straining your arm to grab a plate that has no business being up so high. 
“Need help?” 
You could recognize that voice in your sleep. Or, to be more specific, your nightmares. 
“I’ve got it,” you insist. 
“Yes, obviously, my sincerest apologies,” Gojo's cadence shifts to a somber, apologetic tone. “Please proceed.” 
You stretch your body to its limits, the muscles in your arm crying out for reprieve. Your fingertips brush over the plate’s outer rim. Mistaking this for victory, you pull it out at an awkward angle. The porcelain comes tumbling down to its imminent demise. Out of instinct, you squeeze your eyes shut, bracing for impact. 
In the moments that follow, you hear nothing shatter.
Confused, you reopen your eyes to see Gojo Satoru holding the still-intact plate.
You stare at him.
He stares at you (from behind his sunglasses, despite the sun not being out). 
Remembering your manners, you say, “Thank you.” 
Gojo hums. The low note injects dread throughout your system, as you can guess how the melody will continue. You reach for the troublesome plate. In accordance with your premonition, he takes sadistic glee in raising it high above your head. It stays up there as if it were a full moon. 
You take a deep, deep breath. 
“Gojo-san, can I have that back?” 
“Say ‘Pretty please, Satoru,’ and I’ll think about it.” 
“...” 
He stares at you.
You stare at him. 
“From this day forward, you cannot have any more of my cooking,” you announce as if you were a politician making a new law known. 
In what’s an exceedingly rare occurrence, Gojo doesn’t have an immediate retort. You may be unable to see his eyes, but you can tell his expression fell at your proclamation by the muscles in his face. 
“Wait, really?” 
“Really.” 
“Really really?” 
“Really really.” 
Gojo silently hands over the plate with a bow. 
“For you, madam.” 
His melancholic act is so convincing and disproportionate to the situation that you can’t hold back your laughter. Gojo’s true strength is his ability to annoy and endear in the same breath. For this reason, your irritation toward his antics never lasts long. You’re sure he’s aware of this and uses it to his advantage. So long as it remains innocuous, you’ll play along. 
“Start helping by chopping that basil and I’ll reconsider your verdict.” 
Gojo gives a hearty salute. 
“Yes ma’am!” 
-
Geto plucks the manilla folder you’re holding and says your name. Perplexed, you glance at him.
“This isn’t worth rereading a fourth time,” he explains. “It won’t be anything near as dangerous as it’s been made out to be.” 
He closes it and slides it across the table. You watch through heavy eyelids, blinking off sleep’s seductive whisper. The contents within — census data, maps, photographs — each piece of information refuses to absorb into your weary brain. You’re amazed you had the cogency to slap some proper loungewear on and stumble to the dormitory’s shared living space. 
“S’gotta be somewhat important, though, if we got woken up at three in the morning over it.” 
Geto laughs airily at that. “You’d be surprised.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“He means that anything involving the Zenins gets a fast track to becoming everyone’s problem,” Gojo adds from the doorway. 
You turn your head in the direction of his hoarse voice. He didn’t bother to fix his bedhead or put on anything half-decent. He’s wearing a gray v-neck and slacks, unlike Geto, who at least put on a pair of jeans. His trademark sunglasses sit ajar on his nose. 
Despite yourself, your heart skips a beat. He’s kinda cute.
Gojo gives you a lazy wave and grin. “Wow, you’re actually awake. I thought we’d have to drag you out of bed.” 
“In the spirit of maintaining harmony, I’m going to ignore that comment,” you grumble, getting up from the floor to sit on the couch. Gojo sits to your left, slouches into the armrest, and throws his legs on the table. What terrible posture. “Going back to what you said — who are the Zenins? Are they important or something?” 
Gojo furrows his eyebrows. 
Geto blinks. 
You glance between the two of them, feeling increasingly out of the loop. “W-What?” 
Gojo, being the fiend that he is, breaks out into unapologetic laughter. You gape at him, your cheeks going from cold to scorching. Geto shakes his head in disapproval over Gojo’s behavior. Still, a small smile works onto his face, further exacerbating your embarrassment. Gojo loudly poking fun at you is one thing, but you’re used to Geto having your back Or at least abstaining from either side.
Vexed, you shoot up, ready to storm off, but Gojo’s hand encircles your wrist. 
“My bad, my bad,” he manages through the occasional chuckle. “Come back. We’ll explain it to you.” 
You grumble beneath your breath yet ultimately acquiesce. 
Gojo peers at you from above his sunglasses. “Ever heard of the Big Three Sorcerer Families?” 
You shoot him an unimpressed look. “Would we be having this conversation if I had?” 
“Man, that must be nice. I almost feel bad ruining your innocence like this,” Gojo sighs, ever the melodramatic performer. “Hm… let’s see… think of them as the lame, jujutsu versions of Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres.”
Sitting patiently, you wait for him to elaborate. 
He doesn’t. 
“Geto-kun, care to translate?” 
“With pleasure. So, since cursed techniques are inherited, families often want them passed on from one generation to the next. The Big Three come from bloodlines that hold some of the strongest techniques. As you can imagine, this has granted them lots of influence and power over the centuries. How they leverage these advantages, well…” 
Geto trails off and clears his throat. 
“—They use it to advance their own agendas and snuff out any meaningful change,” Gojo finishes for him. 
You nod. 
“Okay, I think I get it! So they’re like jujutsu lobbyists?” 
Gojo bursts into another fit of laughter. “I like that! Yeah, let’s call them that. Most of those geezers aren’t even jujutsu sorcerers themselves. They just sit around in the dark and scheme. It’s pathetic.” 
Gojo doesn’t care about mincing words. He’s the type to call it as he sees it, for better or for worse. Rarely do you sense such acrimony festering beneath the surface of his remarks. This matter is different. He’s smiling, but there’s a tense underpinning to how he sets his jaw. 
“Wait, okay, so, there’s the Zenins, but… who are the other two?” You ask. 
“The Kamo and Gojo families,” Geto answers.
Gojo, gojo… that name sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? 
This reveal doesn’t knock the breath from your lungs. You’ve been able to guess for some time now that Gojo came from money. How much exactly, you weren’t sure, but his designer clothes raised your estimates high. Your rich kid radar is as accurate as ever. 
You point an accusatory finger toward the white-haired male beside you. “We have a double agent in our midst, Geto-kun.” 
“It would appear so. How should we proceed?” 
You stride over to Geto’s side, creating the appropriate distance between you and the traitor. 
“Imprisonment without trial,” you declare, much to Gojo’s chagrin. “Solitary confinement too. Cosplaying as the working class is a federal offense.” 
“Hah? What sort of kangaroo court is this?” Gojo complains. He removes his legs from the table and sits properly, then crosses his arms over his chest. Continuing your charade, you pay him no mind. Instead, you stand on your tiptoes, cup your hands, and whisper into Geto’s ear: 
“The convict is disparaging our blameless judicial system. Shall we add ten years of hard labor?” 
A malevolent gleam passes over Geto’s eyes. 
“Let’s make it twenty,” he whispers back. You nod. Great minds think alike.
You return your attention to the couch, intending to update Gojo’s sentence, only to find he isn’t there. Yours and Geto’s deliberation couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds! Where did your prisoner run off to? His presence vanished as well, leaving not a single trace. It should unnerve you how in control he is of every aspect of his being. Maybe it would’ve had you not known him personally. 
Warm breath fans against your ear from behind. “I’m taking this corrupt official hostage.” 
With that, your legs give out faster than your brain can register. Your equilibrium is thrown into chaos as two arms lift you. The abruptness of it all has your limbs flailing for purchase and a squeak escaping your lips. Gojo takes care to ensure you don’t fall or harm yourself, but he doesn’t bother hiding his sadistic glee. You’re held bridal style against his firm chest. 
Trying to wriggle loose is a meaningless endeavor. Accepting your fate, you go limp, but not without requesting assistance. 
“Geto, are you really going to abandon me to the machinations of this criminal?” 
Geto walks over, consideration etched into his countenance, stoking hope of rescue in your chest. He reaches for you. It’s almost imperceptible, but Gojo’s grip tightens ever so slightly. However, his hand doesn’t pry you from the jaws of the beast. He just pulls down your shirt, which has risen to reveal a sliver of your stomach. 
Wow, what a gentleman.
“Did you ever consider that I might be a double agent?” Geto challenges, relishing in your visible frustration as much as Gojo. Such is the plight of those who wear their heart on their sleeve. 
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson alright,” you retort. The foreboding nature of your words isn’t lost on them. They await your next move, which you swiftly deliver. “Gojo-san, let me down. If you don’t, I will bite you.”
You can feel how he beams down at you. “Oh, I never would’ve guessed that’s what you’re into— ah, Suguru, a little help here…?” 
Geto assesses the situation. After thinking it over, he helps steady you, then uses his newfound leverage to pull you free. He takes great care in putting you down, holding you steady until your feet are firmly on the floor. Your balance rushes to restore itself. In the meantime, Gojo clicks his tongue, processing the weight of Geto’s betrayal. 
You give Geto a thumbs up. “Good work. No one ever sees a triple agent coming.” 
“It was a split-second decision,” Gojo dismisses with a wave. His impassive expression morphs into a knowing smirk, like he just had a seismic revelation. “Ah, I get it.” 
“You do?” Geto hums. 
“He does?” You ask. 
“Yes and yes. Suguru, you were holding out to see if she’d use her cursed technique, right?” 
Geto doesn’t respond immediately, indicating Gojo’s theory holds some merit. Gojo stuffs his hands into his pockets and slinks back to the couch. His gait radiates smugness, although you can’t imagine why. Is that supposed to be a ‘gotcha!’ moment? 
“I’ll admit, I am curious,” is what Geto settles on saying, his smile apologetic. Or it’s meant to come off as such. 
“Why didn’t you say so sooner? It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything.” 
Geto and Gojo exchange looks. 
“You should be careful who you go about revealing information like that to,” Gojo warns. You’re not used to hearing this serious timbre in his voice. “Some cards should remain close to your chest.” 
Even if he’s being sincere, you can’t help but feel patronized. You’ll be the first to admit it — certain nuances of jujutsu society are lost on you. Akane wasn’t the type to care for such details. She said worrying about all that bureaucracy would age you prematurely. You half agree with her. Certainly, you shouldn’t let that influence you in the areas it matters most, like combat. However, while you’re in Japan, you’re under their regulations. It wouldn’t be wise to forget that. 
You purse your lips. “Obviously, yeah. I’m not going to go blabbering it off everywhere. But, I mean, you two are my friends. This’ll be our first time on the field together. Knowing what cards you have to deal with seems useful to me.” 
Gojo turns his head to the side and a few seconds pass.
“Friends, huh?” Geto finally murmurs, testing the word on his tongue. His next smile reaches his eyes. “Who would’ve thought a little sincerity is all it takes to get you flustered?” 
Gojo snaps his head back at Geto’s taunt. “Sorry, what was that? Aren’t you the one who—” 
You clap to redirect their attention. 
“Hey, hey, cut it out already. We’re going to be together for the next few days, right? Let’s all get along.” 
“You just care about going back to sleep,” Gojo accuses. 
“Yes. Exactly. That is all I care about right now. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m headed to bed.” 
You don’t wait for their response. As stealthily as you can, you sneak through the hallways, careful to avoid creaky floorboards. Upon returning to your room, you kick your house slippers off. The digital alarm clock on your nightstand says 3:53 p.m. Those two kept you up far later than necessary! If this assignment isn’t a big deal like Geto claims, you wish he would’ve said so sooner.
There’s always the option of sleeping during the car ride, but if there’s anything you know about Gojo, it’s that everything in his vicinity can be subjected to torment. You wouldn’t put it past him to draw on your face or blare the horn once you finally nod off. 
Your head hits the pillow and you pray for rest to take you soon. 
Meanwhile, back in the shared living space, Gojo stares at the spot you once occupied. 
“Satoru.” 
“Hm?” 
“I think I get it now.” 
“That so?” Gojo runs a hand through his hair. “As long as you don’t get it too much.” 
Geto chuckles. After a pause, he muses, “Neither of us would be very good for her.” 
“You gonna let someone else scoop her up?” 
“Are you?” 
“They can try,” Gojo smiles. There’s no kindness behind it. 
Although this conversation could last well into the morning, in an unspoken understanding, they leave it at that. 
-
“Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.” 
Ink blots descend from above as if the sky were weeping. The viscous teardrops curve downward, creating a dome that swallows the surrounding area. Geto and Suguru have gone ahead, leaving you to carry out basic protocol. You jog to catch up with them. Geto slows down enough to make rejoining them easier, unlike Gojo, who carries on. 
“So, this is the stomping grounds of the mean ol’ curse that sent Kenji Zenin packing?” Gojo hums. 
“He sustained some serious injuries,” you remind him. Gojo just shrugs. “A fractured sternum and twelve broken ribs… that’s not exactly a walk in the park.” 
“A Grade One sorcerer getting whooped that bad by a Grade Two curse? Probably deserved it.” 
You sigh, recognizing that Gojo won’t empathize no matter what you say. 
The three of you were driven from Tokyo Jujutsu High to Kaizu for this assignment. According to Geto, the information you received likely exaggerated the curse’s capabilities as a way for Kenji Zenin to save face. It looks better for him if the higher-ups deem the threat he faced severe enough to ship off two of the school’s most promising students to handle it. Regarding your inclusion, Gojo so kindly said, 
“You’re like the little garnish on top of the entrée.” 
You can’t find the energy to get upset if he’s right. 
There’s no denying the immense gap in your abilities compared to theirs. You could feel it in the air the instant you met Gojo. For Geto, all it took was hearing a description of his cursed technique. The potential for storing and controlling curses at will is beyond your comprehension. There are so many applications, and so many advantages… you’re utterly outclassed. 
Should this demotivate you? Perhaps. You’ll never be as strong as them, it’s delusional to think otherwise. An individual’s proficiency with jujutsu is almost determined at birth. That doesn’t mean it’s static, it just means you have to find ways to excel with what you’re given. Envy is a waste of time. You want to learn from them and hone your abilities. For this reason, you’ve avoided an inferiority complex. 
What could be better than learning from the best? 
The atmosphere inside the curtain is dingy. It’s like a dark filter glazed over your eyes, maiming any bright or vibrant colors. 
Grass crunches beneath your feet despite summer’s abundant rainfall. Nature itself flees the scene, retreating into the woods surrounding this derelict nursery. The briefing you were given went over the business’ murky past. In the seventies, there was an unprecedented boom in births around this area. Working parents needed proper childcare until their children were old enough to attend school. What few facilities existed nearby found themselves overwhelmed. Then an older, childless couple, Mikami and Fujikawa Tetsuo, purchased a plot of land outside the town with their retirement money. They cited the picturesque scenery as their reason for choosing this location, believing that the unpolluted air would be good for the children. 
The nursery was built and opened. For years, parents entrusted their little ones with the tight-knit staff headed by the Tetsuo’s. Nothing of note occurred until early in the eighties. On March 24th, 1982, a child was hospitalized after crying ceaselessly for three hours straight. The mother reported that when she picked her daughter up from the daycare, her daughter had been unusually distraught. She didn’t think much of it at first. Toddlers are known for being emotional. However, as time went by and her screams became hoarse, she felt something was terribly wrong. The little girl was given mild sedatives and IV fluids as her body began to suffer from dehydration. 
The next day, all seventeen children at the daycare suffered the same mysterious ailment. 
Each child underwent tests ranging from bloodwork to brain MRIs to determine what the inexplicable cause of this nightmare could be. Professionals in every area, ranging from renowned neurologists to child psychiatrists flew in from around the world. Naturally, an investigation was opened into the nursery and its owners. No formal charges were made against Mikami and Fujikawa, since no evidence of foul play could be found. Regardless, the community ostracized them and any employees present during the incident. 
Tragically, none of the eighteen children recovered. From the instant their sedatives wore off until they were administered again, they’d screech, thrash, and display aggressive behavior toward nurses and family members alike. Parents were faced with the impossible decision of keeping their child ‘alive’ through life support, holding out for a cure that may never come, or granting them a peaceful yet permanent rest.
Only one family kept their child on life support. He remained in a vegetative state and died from complications related to an infection two months later. The seventeen other families, who had grown close through the harrowing ordeal, turned the machines keeping their little ones alive at the same time. 
This report might be one of the worst things you’ve read. 
Scanning the area, you note faint residuals of cursed energy throughout the decrepit playground. The swings, slide, and both sides of the seesaw contain trace amounts. Did curses form as a consequence of what happened here, or did a curse initiate the disaster? It may not matter now, but all those families never receiving proper closure makes your chest feel tight. 
Painfully so. 
Considering the officials never found physical evidence, you believe a curse was the cause. What were the victims supposed to do? What could they do? Non-sorcerers can’t perceive curses, much less defend themselves. They have to be chewed, swallowed, and digested. 
You kneel at the playground’s edge, inspecting the planks of rotten and peeling wood. It must’ve been assembled by hand. Each piece was planned, cut, and dutifully laid down. All to hold the wood chips that’d protect the kids as they ran, laughed, and played. This place should’ve been a fond memory for them to recall throughout their life. 
Instead, it’s the reason they’d never got to have one.
“The cursed energy is concentrated in the nursery room itself,” Gojo determines. 
You follow his line of sight and squint. You could tell the building was submerged in cursed energy, but you couldn’t pinpoint an exact location. 
“It’s moving in the same pattern, like a grid,” Geto says. Another observation you couldn’t make. “Starting in the top left corner, ending in the bottom right, then starting the process all over again.” 
Standing up, you dust the dirt off your skirt. “Why would a curse do that?” 
From a tactical standpoint, moving predictably is reckless. Any combatants could use the knowledge to their advantage. Curses have some degree of self-preservation, hence why they don’t waltz everywhere without a care in the world. They’re intelligent enough to avoid spots that sorcerers frequent. Fly heads are the lone exception, but that’s because they lack the intellect necessary to care for their survival. 
A curse capable of inflicting such serious wounds on a Grade One sorcerer can’t be that weak. 
Gojo exchanges glances with Geto, a semblance of understanding connecting them. You’ve witnessed this wordless exchange before. No matter how much they bicker over conflicting values or petty non-issues, they maintain the ability to synchronize their thoughts and actions. 
“What is it?” You snap. As soon as the acrid words leave your mouth, you regret it, although they don’t react. Taking a deep breath, you try again. “Communication is important for these missions, guys. Keep me in the loop… please?” 
Geto parts his lips, but Gojo cuts him off. “There are eighteen cribs inside. The curse is fixing the blankets in each one.” 
You shiver. 
“... Oh.” 
“How do you want to go about this, Satoru?” Geto asks. “It can’t be as simple as walking in and exorcising it.” 
“Why not? Its cursed energy is consistent with what you’d expect of a Second Grade. We both know this job’s smoke and mirrors, anyway. Let’s wrap it up already and head home.” 
“Isn’t it strange the curse hasn’t been drawn out, despite a curtain being cast?” You point out. 
For the first time since exiting the car, Gojo looks at you. You stare back at the two black circles that obscure his omnipotent eyes. Something’s been off ever since you embarked on this mission. It’s like an itch you can’t scratch, as its location shifts elsewhere whenever you try. His words have had an edge to them when directed at you. You’re used to his lackluster manners, but this is different. 
This cuts and it cuts deep. 
Are you that incompetent to him…? 
Gojo redirects his gaze toward the ramshackle building. 
“I’m getting this over with,” he says. Simply, decisively. Leaving no room for argument. 
Leaving no room for you. 
Massive tendrils of cursed energy coil around him, flowing unimpeded like water through a rushing brook. You step back solely from reflex. Anticipation thrums through the air and ignites every nerve in your body. You’re left wide-eyed and breathless as it gathers and grows, its potency hundreds of times greater than anything you’ve been able to achieve. It feels as though minutes have dragged by, reacquainting you with the surreal sensation you underwent upon meeting Gojo Satoru that fateful day. 
“Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.” 
Up until this point in your life, you thought you knew destruction. What hubris, what naivety. Gunfire, grenades, tanks, bombs, missiles; they are nothing but ants before the looming skyscraper that is Gojo Satoru. 
This is destruction in its raw, purest form. 
This is what it means to be the strongest. 
… Somehow, you feel lesser than that ant. 
A speck of dust would be a more fitting description. 
You expect total disintegration when you reopen your eyes. You aren’t disappointed.
Concrete, wood, glass, steel, plastic, stone, and fabric alike were eviscerated. The ground where the nursery once stood is gone. A bygone era wrought with tragedy. The force behind this apex of energy blasted the wood partition around the playground, leaving nothing but a shadow to signify it ever existed. 
Gojo lowers his hand and turns away from the wreckage. 
“Don’t you think you went a bit overboard, Satoru?” Geto’s tone reminds you of the many scoldings Yaga has given the white-haired menace. 
“Just wanted to ensure the threat was dealt with, so Kenji can sleep through the night without wetting himself,” Gojo replies, smirking. “Alrighty then, who wants to sightsee—” 
“Naptime… naptime…” A garbled voice intones from the aftermath of Gojo’s attack. 
The deformed curse lifts itself like a marionette fastened to invisible strings. It’s tall, with an emaciated build and haggard skin. Long clumps of thick hair emerge from its scalp, greasy and matted. Each feeble step it takes is accompanied by a snapping sound, as if its joints are begging for collapse. The humanoid shape disturbs you most of all. Cracked lips, bloodied eye sockets, chunks of deathly pale skin sloughing off brittle bones; this curse looks more like a corpse than anything else. 
Most damning, however, is the sheer power it’s radiating. 
“Do… they… slumber…?” It croaks.
Suguru assumes an offensive position, but Gojo puts an arm out, stopping him. 
“Something’s off,” Gojo warns. If you thought he sounded serious before, that doesn’t compare to his timbre now. “Don’t attack it.” 
The curse’s legs give out. That doesn’t stop it from crawling on. Lanky fingers claw at the rubble, searching desperately.
Geto summons a handful of curses in its radius. He keeps them on standby while the three of you track every movement, every ebb and flow of cursed energy. The curse grabs and cradles the sediment in its crooked hands, then rocks the amalgamation as if it were a baby. 
“Did you hit it?” You whisper, knowing fully well the question is pointless. You don’t care. You need any semblance of control possible when confronted with the terrifying unknown. 
“I did. The impact inflicted zero damage,” Gojo removes his sunglasses and tucks them away.
“A special condition, then?” Geto proposes. “One that makes it impervious to all harm until…” 
You hear a sniffle. 
Then a whimper. 
And a gurgle. 
“Hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush—” 
The curse repeats this mantra with increasing aggravation until its shrill voice is all you can hear. The cursed energy that enveloped it seconds prior flows out in multiple directions, like a heart pumping blood to the rest of the body. The energy is absorbed. Not a meager trace remains, every drop was sucked dry by multiple sources. 
All is still. 
All is silent. 
A bloodcurdling wail reverberates throughout the curtain. 
Eighteen appendages propel out of the curse in the middle, puncturing it from the inside out as if the limp mass was a cocoon. 
There’s no need for deliberation.
The three of you scatter in different directions. 
“Cursed Technique: Ophanim.” 
Two glowing, golden rings the size of wheels manifest by your side. The outside surface is adorned with closed eyes, each arranged individually on top of the other rather than in pairs. The two rings work in tandem to slice through the appendage barreling toward you. You recall them to your side, running at a breakneck speed to avoid the five fleshy appendages still seeking your demise. 
Gojo and Geto are in a similar predicament. Running, leaping, and dodging the seismic attacks that leave massive craters in its wake. A single hit from that would crush your body in an instant. Then there’s the disorienting wailing, originating from multiple locations throughout the curtain’s interior. You can’t pinpoint where the sounds are coming from. 
Adrenaline pumps through your veins, oxygen rushes with each sharp inhale, and your muscles strain to keep up with the demands you make of them. 
The sixth appendage, which your cursed technique cut through, lurches from above. Whole and better than ever. Unlike before, its momentum is lightning-fast. The change is so instantaneous that you have no time to respond accordingly. Death’s harbinger looms, engulfing your existence in its hungry shadow. Instead of slicing it off at the wrist, you propel your rings up, accelerating their spin at the cost of speed. Flesh and cartilage rips above you in the shape of a thin slit. 
The appendage plummets down. 
Through the ringing in your ears, you hear voices yelling out your name. 
An unpleasant, viscous substance coats you from head to toe. 
You grimace and wipe off what you can. Geto’s curses managed to cut the appendage off at the joint, preventing it from rising and trying to crush you again. Your rings barely managed to carve a hole big enough to span the width of your body. That doesn’t mean you’re safe just yet — the five remaining appendages that have you as their target are seconds away. Unlike the one you just faced, their speed is manageable. 
The more damage inflicted, the faster they are after healing, you think. This must be why Gojo and Geto are dodging instead of going on the offense.
However, since you remained still to avoid getting crushed by what your rings hadn’t cut through, the other five appendages are inbound. They’ve fanned out, blocking any angle you’d use to dodge. 
You dismiss your cursed technique. 
What can be done here? This curse is easily a Grade One. The centermost part is invulnerable and the eighteen limbs growing off it speed up when damaged. Summoning more rings so you can escape this attack means the next will come swifter, building and building to unimaginable speeds. You know your limits. The second healed limb was a hair below the fastest you’ve ever run. 
Gojo and Geto could handle the levels above that. Maybe there’s a limit to how many times the limbs can regenerate, reaching that could exorcise the curse. No curse is truly invincible, even if it seems like it in the moment. You must be the reason why they haven’t commenced a counterattack. They knew anything above a second regeneration would do you in. 
Is that really the only way? 
Something wet drips on your head.
You use what little time you have to glance up. 
Suspended midair is a small outline, made visible by the viscera that spurted from your cursed technique’s earlier attack. Sluggishly, you blink, wiping the blood from your eyes to ensure you aren’t hallucinating. The outline’s edges wriggle and squirm. You realize that it’s doing so in time with the incessant wailing. 
“What do you think you’re doing, spacing out in the middle of a fight?” 
Gojo must’ve warped in front of you.
You recognize the hand motion he’s making, and cry out, “Don’t! That’ll only make it—” 
“I know, I know,” Gojo launches a devastating blow that obliterates the five incoming appendages, reducing them to pitiful scraps. “I didn’t just run a marathon for you to give up and become a pancake.” 
“I didn’t give up,” you snap back. 
He glances over his shoulder and grins. “Good. Cause we need to hose you off as soon as possible.” 
You let out a noise in between a laugh and a cry. How can he crack jokes under these dire circumstances?
“Gojo—” 
“Ah ah ah,” The menace cuts you off, “Satoru. Call me anything else and I’m leaving you to handle this on your own.” 
While speaking his untimely quips, he continuously forms and releases his Cursed Technique Lapse, Blue. This forces the broken appendages into a cycle of stitching themselves together only to get destroyed again. It stuns you, how he can casually hold a conversation while performing a technique that’d use all your cursed energy to execute once. Never mind countless times in rapid succession. 
“Satoru,” you try again, to which he hums, “This… thing above me, do you think it’s…?” 
“The weak spot for this Ju-On ripoff? Yeah. Just noticed that. Suguru’s curses are self-destructing near them, so their invisibility’s useless.” 
The six appendages that tracked Satoru join the fray, granting Geto additional space to maneuver unhindered. Floating blobs covered in the innards of curses appear one by one like macabre lanterns in the night sky. You can’t stop yourself from admiring how effortless they make it look. It was all you could do to avoid the curses’ attacks, that required every ounce of your cognition. Meanwhile, they pieced together the curses’ gimmick and started countermeasures. 
“Anything broken?” Satoru asks. 
“Just a few sprains.” 
“Great. Now, I’m about to ask for a lot, but it’s nothing I don’t think you can’t handle.” 
You exhale shakily. 
“There’s another application of your cursed technique, right?” 
How does he know that? 
You’ll worry about this oddity later. 
“There is, but,” you stare down at your blood-soaked hands, “Why are you asking?” 
Satoru takes a moment to consider his response. The gory splatters are reforming faster and faster, you’ve lost count of how many blasts he’s used to cut them down. It’s almost imperceptible, but you can tell he can’t keep this up forever. Each subsequent use of Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue requires more energy than the last. If he’s a sliver off in his calculations, then the appendages will heal instantaneously and skewer your body faster than death can claim you. 
Geto leaps down from a hovering curse. 
“There are seventeen sources, just like you said,” he huffs, wiping the perspiration trickling down his temple. “Each one is visible now.” 
Seventeen sources? 
“This eyesore’s a distraction. Those screaming curses — they’re the real target here,” Satoru says. 
You consider the curse a few feet above your head. “So we should attack them, right?” 
Geto shakes his head. “We tried that. They didn’t sustain any damage.” 
“Seriously?” 
“This is just a theory, but,” Satoru takes a deep breath, “Seventeen of the eighteen victims from this place had their life support pulled simultaneously, right?” 
Huh. So he did read the briefing after all. 
This conjecture prickles at your skin like tiny needles. The screaming, the small stature these curses have, every detail comes crashing down at once. Maggots writhing beneath your skin would be more pleasant. 
It isn’t them, you tell yourself, because you have to. It’s an echo. The curse they left behind. 
You steeple your fingers. Cursed energy thrums around and through you, reverberating in your bones, and crackling throughout your soul. Simultaneously. That’s the key here. These curses can pull off their various immunities by using conditions to their advantage. 
The two warding off the original curses’ attacks before you are strong, yes, but this niche fits you well. 
If you’re able to perform it properly, that is. 
You accept every drop of cursed energy your body can handle. Once you’re filled to the brim, it’s expelled, rushing through the air like geysers. 
“Cursed Technique: Null.” 
Your ability is versatile if not simple. 
You can call forth golden rings that perpetually spin clockwise. Their size, speed, and sharpness are determined by you. At this point in your training, you can maintain two of these rings without sacrificing speed or sharpness. Should you bring out any more, they will dull and slow down for each addition made. Two could slash through steel, four could cut the same slab halfway, six would make a sizable dent, eight would leave a scratch; so on and so forth. 
There’s an additional application beyond this. 
Cursed Technique: Null — the pinnacle of the innate ability you inherited, Ophanim.
The sorcerer creates three rings around any object or organism. One spins around the target horizontally. The other two slant left and right respectively, all spinning counterclockwise. The closed eyes adorning the ring’s outside fly open. Unblinking, hypervigilant. If what they’re enclosed around is significantly weaker than the sorcerer, it can halt the movements of whatever or whoever is within. 
Your record is halting thirty mice for a total of two minutes and four seconds. 
Afterward, you can either dispel the rings or pull them toward the epicenter. The rings then slash through the target like a fruit slicer. 
You see the seventeen silhouettes emphasized with blood. 
As you will it, three golden rings surround each one. The cursed energy swaddling them hisses and resists your designs. Their wailing crescendos, culminating at an ear-piercing pitch. The fussing stops abruptly as the eyes on each ring open wide. Seventeen different targets, fifty-one rings… it is draining cursed energy from you fast. 
Four seconds. This is as long as you trust the halt to work.
That leaves the issue of cutting through them. 
These aren’t the used soda cans you’ve practiced on. They are curses, Semi-Grade One if you were to guess. You’re a Grade Three sorcerer. The chasm here won’t be bridged by a miracle, you’ll have to risk catapulting across and plummeting to your demise. Satoru’s likely unaware of your technique’s specifics, as even you required trial and error to determine this much. You never found documentation on Ophanim. Every unraveled facet is owed to you. 
These fifty-one rings are too dull. They won’t make so much as an indent.
What you need here is a binding vow. Your own strength isn’t enough. Risk, danger, and death breathing down your neck; these are the ingredients you require. There’s a chance it won’t work and you’re condemning yourself to an early grave. If you don’t try, though, you don’t know how long Satoru and Geto can keep those appendages down. 
Time to leap across. 
For every second I don’t exorcise these curses, ten of my bones will break, you think. Should I reach ten seconds, my heart will stop.
Cursed energy surges through you. It finds the prospect of your end tantalizing, but without providing itself, won’t have the opportunity to claim you. 
One.
(The rings gain immeasurable speed).
Two. 
(It hurts, but the curses will hurt too). 
Three. 
(Simultaneous incisions are made through seventeen curses).
The wailing stops. 
So does your breathing. 
-
August 15th, 2005. Grade One Curse  ‘The Caretaker’ and Semi-Grade One Curses ‘Little Ones’ were exorcised at 9:34 p.m. in Kaizu.
-
Hospital rooms aren’t renowned for their interior design. 
Flimsy pillows, scratchy gowns, thin blankets, bright yellow lights, ghostly white walls, it’s an affront to the eyes. You almost want to continue resting if that’s all you’ll get to look at. Considering how stiff your neck is and how your limbs feel heavier than a grand piano, you assume you’ve done enough sleeping. 
You prop yourself up as much as you can. This slight shift makes your body complain, nice and loud. 
Footsteps rush over to your bed. You hear your name spoken, intermixed with a relieved sigh. 
“You don’t stay knocked down for long, do you?” Geto muses. His smile is gentle and his eyes crinkle in delight. “Welcome back. How do you feel?” 
“Like I got run over by a train,” you rasp. 
You’re in desperate need of some vocal warmups. 
Geto grabs a water bottle from the windowsill and hands it over. While you gulp the heavenly elixir down, he continues speaking. 
“You weren’t out for long — two days. Well, two and a half days. It’s noon now.”
You relax after hearing this. Geto knew how to assuage any worries you might have before you dared to voice them. Everyone has their own way of bringing kindness into the world, this happens to be his. 
“Seriously? I was expecting you to say it’s the year 2010 or something. No flying cars yet?”  
“None that I’ve seen,” Geto’s laugh sounds light and airy. “Shoko’s reversed cursed technique is truly a marvel. It accelerated your healing, but I imagine the pain will linger a while longer.” 
You’ll have to cook Shoko one of her favorite dishes when you get back. You don’t want to think about how long it would’ve taken for you to heal naturally, much less if it’d heal right. Bones are finicky like that. You imagine yours weren’t happy at how you offered them up on a silver platter. 
She spared your family so much pain. You’ll forever be indebted to her for that.
Glancing around, you notice three mismatched chairs surrounding your bed. Geto follows your line of sight.
“Shoko and I finally chased Satoru out about an hour ago. He’s lived in this room since you were admitted. Didn’t sleep a wink either,” Geto gives you an expression you can’t quite place. “Around the forty-two-hour mark, he started making strange suggestions.” 
Heaviness seeps into the air, thick and palpable, like a noxious gas.  
“What kind of suggestions?” 
“Suggestions like killing the higher-ups, for starters.” 
Your thudding heart leaps to your throat. “... Huh?” 
“It’s not anything he hasn’t said in jest before. This time, however,” Geto fixates his attention on the intravenous line threaded into your arm. You can feel the weight of his stare. “He wasn’t joking.” 
It feels like you’re in one of those dreams that mimics reality so well, the line separating the two becomes increasingly distorted. You entertain the theory briefly. A single sweep of the room dispels the illusion. The loose thread on Geto’s shoulder, the sounds of carts rolling down the long hospital corridors, the lemon-tinged scent from cleaning supplies; could a dream be this detailed? 
You don’t think so.
Sensing your haziness, he clarifies, “I talked him out of it by speaking in your stead. I assumed you wouldn’t want that.”
“What… what do the higher-ups have to do with anything…?” 
How do they factor into the two plus two equals four equation? 
Geto pulls a chair over to your bedside, sits, and contemplates. Such a grave visage doesn’t belong on a fifteen-year-old’s face. It reminds you of a father preparing to explain why he and their mother are getting a divorce to their children. 
He weighs his next words on a scale only he’s privy to.
“Satoru had a gut feeling that there was more to the Kaizu mission. He must not have wanted you to have that in the back of your mind out on the field, since all it takes is one mistake to—”
He cuts himself off. His complexion takes a pallid shade.
You give him a gentle smile. Geto is more considerate than you initially gave him credit for. Ignoring the dull ache, you lean forward, placing your hand over his.
“It’s okay. You can keep going.” 
The tips of his ears turn red. 
He blinks rapidly, clears his throat, and then soldiers on. “R-Right. Well, you saw how he acted. With his Six Eyes, he spotted the remains of another sorcerer when he looked at the nursery. The briefing conveniently omitted the fact that Kenji wasn’t alone. This confirmed Satoru’s suspicions. He wanted to wrap things up fast to get you out of there, but… that curse proved challenging.” 
“I’m getting this over with.” 
Ah. So that’s why he came off that way, you think. Still… couldn’t there have been a better way? Why is blocking people out his go-to?
“We believe the Zenins — those in Kenji’s immediate circle, to be specific — hoped that you’d be… killed, to emphasize how formidable the threat he faced was. Since this job was assigned through the school, some of the higher-ups must’ve known and granted their blessing.” 
“... Oh.” 
The room’s air conditioning whirrs to life, billowing the beige curtains draped over the closed window. Outside, a cicada crawls over the glass pane. It pauses to recite its buzzing melody. Since it’s summer, you can expect to see and hear these insects until autumn’s chill sweeps away the heat. 
You hope Satoru witnessed a similarly trivial scene while sitting in this room.  
It’s important to remember just because you feel stuck, the world won’t stop spinning onward. 
“Would it be okay if I called you Suguru?” 
He nods without hesitation.  
“Suguru, earlier you said that you changed Satoru’s mind by voicing my perspective since I couldn’t,” you start, your cadence gentle. You handpick each word with great care. “Does this mean that, personally, you agreed with him?” 
His countenance is like that of a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. This look doesn’t overstay its welcome. Once he assesses you, from your open posture to your soft stare, he’s back to his usual self. 
“Busted, huh? And here I thought you’d be too groggy to pick up on anything incriminating.”
“A corrupt official such as myself must remain vigilant,” you reply with a cheeky grin. Then, you reorient yourself to communicate what’s been gnawing at you properly. “There’s a lot I don’t know about these ‘higher-ups’ or ‘Zenins,’ that you keep referring to. What little I do know doesn’t paint them in a favorable light. For all I know, they could be irredeemable in every sense of the word. But…”
“... Even though this is a selfish wish, I’m making it anyway. Say they do have to go. That it’s 100% certain they’re just that bad. I don’t want you or Satoru to be the ones to carry it out. Intentionally killing someone… could there be anything worse than that? Doesn’t a part of yourself die with them?”
A lump grows in your throat. You force it down. 
“So, thank you for stopping him and yourself. Sorcerers are meant to fight curses, right? Protect those who can’t protect themselves. That sort of stuff.”
Suguru squeezes your hand gently, as if you were made of porcelain. 
It stops you from shattering. 
After a few minutes, your erratic breathing settles. He whispers your name like he’s making a promise.
“You’re right,” he says, a newfound resolve built into the very fabric of those two words. “Protecting the weak is what matters most. Tossing everything into disarray would threaten that. It’s easier to fix what’s broken than to demolish and rebuild from scratch.” 
… Is that what you meant? 
Exhaustion clouds your senses. You must’ve burnt through your scarce reserves of energy. You can vaguely discern Suguru running the pad of his thumb over your hand, before detaching himself. He readjusts your pillow so it supports your head better. After murmuring your gratitude, you sink into sleep’s warm embrace. 
Right as you’re traipsing the fine line between wakefulness and the unconscious, there’s a light sensation of something brushing your hair back. 
This unknown doesn’t inspire fear or outrage. 
Instead, it lulls you further into the recesses of peace. 
-
You’re discharged from the hospital later that day. 
An auxiliary manager from Tokyo Jujutsu High drives you back. You spend the car ride staring out the passenger side window, taking in the bustle of busy citizens and dazzling lights. It never fails to amaze you how people wordlessly maneuver around each other to maintain the flow of traffic. It’s a tempo that can’t be instructed, rather, one must adapt in real time without a conductor.  
Can non-sorcerers truly be considered weak? 
The description torments you as if it were a thorn in your side. 
Your fingers drum over the dashboard.
What does it mean to be strong, anyway? 
-
The next time you activate your cursed technique, you can summon and maintain four rings without sacrificing sharpness or speed. 
For the past few days, you’ve been playing around with different formations. Four rings orbiting your body provide considerable defense from projectiles and close combat. Then, if you let two out, you gain the means to attack. Lastly, ditching defense to pour everything into offense is a viable option as well. Your biggest obstacle is how mentally taxing it is to track and manipulate four rings at once.
It requires great concentration. This isn’t an issue if you’re alone, but you doubt that curses will play nice and let you stand perfectly still. 
You flip your My Melody notebook to the next page and scribble down, 
Two rings uptime — twelve hours.Four rings uptime — one hour. Four rings uptime w/ distractions — ten minutes. Maximum distance — one hundred meters. Maximum rings at once — sixty. Uptime on maximum rings — five seconds.
Thinking back to The Caretaker, you twist your lips.
If you’d been sent on that mission by yourself, would this have been enough to win the fight? You’re alive because you were with Satoru and Suguru. There’s no denying the infallible truth. You can’t always rely on reports to accurately grade a curse. There’s also the chance once certain conditions are met, the curse can gain strength throughout the fight, and—
“Cute handwriting.” 
“Eek!” 
Hugging your notebook to your chest, you jump back, indignation rushing through you like molten magma. Who snuck up on you? How did they do it? You can ascertain the presence of others in your vicinity well. You know when Shoko’s sneaking out through her window at night, if Suguru’s about to enter the room, or when Utahime is seconds away from busting into the classroom to lecture Satoru about levitating her lunch onto the roof again.
Squinting, you assess the assailant. Pearly white hair, round sunglasses, a lean and towering figure… 
“Satoru? You’re back?” 
According to Shoko, Satoru was called to Kyoto for business relating to the Big Three not long after they returned from the hospital. It’d been two weeks since then. You’ve gotten so used to having him around, that his absence felt pronounced. Shoko mainly lamented that her ‘walking free meal ticket’ was gone whereas Utahime rejoiced. You’ve never seen your upperclassman so ecstatic. 
Her hopes and dreams will be dashed come morning. 
“Just got in, yeah. Why? Oh! I know! You must’ve missed me terribly. Here, here. It’s alright. C’mere and tell me all about it— oof!” 
There is a barrier that separates Satoru from everyone and everything. 
‘Infinity,’ he calls it. The ability to slow down encroaching mass to such a degree that it appears as if it stopped. He can keep it activated for long lengths of time. One day, he intends to reach a level where he’ll never have to turn it off. Anyone else who proposed a goal like that would either be conceited or delusional. The amount of cursed energy necessary to pull that off is immeasurable. 
Satoru isn’t just anyone, though. 
So when he sets an impossible goal, it enters the realm of feasibility. 
His infinity is active once you leap toward him, lasting up until the very last millisecond. When you breach the threshold that denies access to anyone else, it recedes, rushing away to accommodate your presence. Infinity remains present, molding itself around your shape. The top of your head, the slope of your shoulders, down to your soles; for a fleeting moment in time, infinity chooses you over Satoru’s parameters.  
Your cheek hits his chest. He has to steady you so you don’t go tumbling back. While he does this, you snake your arms around him, squeezing him tight. In doing so, yet another anomaly occurs. 
You’ve rendered Gojo Satoru speechless. 
When you pull back, you notice his sunglasses are crooked. You straighten them out for him and nod in approval. Smiling ear to ear, you chirp, 
“Welcome home, Satoru!” 
He scratches the back of his neck, uncharacteristically quiet. 
“... Isn’t this a school, though?” He finally manages to get out. 
“Pfft, I didn’t think you were the type to get hung up on details like that,” you laugh. “Home’s anywhere you want it to be. For me, that’s here.” 
You gesture to the surrounding area. Tall trees sway per the wind’s wishes, their green leaves painted blue and silver by the night sky. The moon overhead serves as your silent witness. No matter where you are, it will find and pursue you to the ends of the earth. Crickets chirp, cicadas buzz, and frogs croak by ponds rippling with their young. The night air is damp, but the coolness granted by the sun’s absence makes it tolerable. 
“Honestly, I don’t know what to make of you sometimes,” Satoru tries painting a veneer of nonchalance over his words, but you can see through the cracks. You’re getting better at doing that.  “Suguru said you were as peppy as ever; I didn’t believe him. They checked for brain damage, right? How many fingers am I holding up?” 
(He holds up two). 
“Ten,” you reply without missing a beat. 
“Funny girl.” 
“I learned from the best.” 
You both silently size one another up. Or, in Satoru’s case, down, because he’s freakishly tall. You’re the first to break the supposed standoff. Laughter rings through the air, just yours at first, but it’s soon joined by his. The two of you stand in the middle of a forest at midnight cackling like a bunch of witches before a sabbath. 
You feel absurd and giddy in a way that only comes from being around Satoru.
Some point after the laughter dies off, you can feel Satoru’s eyes scanning over every dip and curve of your being. 
After reaching some conclusion, his shoulders droop. The dopey grin on his face shifts into something more neutral, more reserved. His hands find their way into his pockets. He kicks a pebble into the woods, and you both listen to it tumbling downhill until the sound fades away. The thickets shift from wildlife’s constant antics, accommodating what little fauna lives inside Tengen’s barrier. 
“I’m not going to take back what I said, because I meant it,” Satoru asserts. He doesn’t have to elaborate — you know what he’s referring to. “Had you… had that mission gone as they intended, I wouldn’t have hesitated.” 
An owl hoots on a distant tree branch. 
Chills nibble all over your skin like little bug bites. You hug yourself to stave the sensation off. 
“Even if you knew that isn’t what I’d want?”
“Even then.” 
“So, you’re admitting it’d be for your sake?” 
“Most things are.”
“I don’t buy that,” you frown. “You’re kinder than you realize.”
His eyebrows pinch together and his rosy lips part. It takes him a moment to dislodge the words stuck in his throat.
“... Not many people would agree,” he smiles thinly.  
“Fine, just me then, since that’s easier to prove,” you hold up a single finger and raise another for each subsequent point. “One, you always leave my favorite coffee cans where you know I’ll find them. Two, whenever we’re facing a curse, you step in front to guard me. Three, if I look all sad and homesick, you make stupid jokes to take my mind off things. And four, there’s what happened in Kaizu. You—” 
“I told you to use a technique you weren’t ready for.” 
You blink. 
He tucks his sunglasses away, removing yet another barrier. His crystalline eyes shimmer beneath the moon’s glow. 
“How much do you know about your mentor’s history?” 
Ah, yes, your mentor — Ishimoto Akane. 
She stands at 5’8, boasts piercing green eyes, short, tousled black hair, and a tattoo of a thorny rose that envelops her entire left arm. When it came to reading the room, no one could fail as spectacularly as her. She never minced words, found basic tasks boring, and doted over her iguana named Wormwood like he was the second coming of Christ. When she wasn’t pampering Wormwood, she could be found in her very disorganized garage, tinkering with cars or motorcycles. Her neighbors filed numerous sound complaints thanks to her speakers blasting disco at unholy hours. Somehow, she never got caught. 
For lack of a better word, your jujutsu mentor is eccentric. 
Most notably, she saved you and your parent’s lives from a curse when you were six. You’ve been joined by the hip ever since. 
As for her history…
“Um, well, I know that she’s from Omachi. She moved out of Japan in her late teens because ‘jujutsu sorcerers are an absolute drag,’ or something like that.”
“That’s a start,” Gojo hums. “Let me fill in the blanks. The Ishimoto family goes back a ways. They might not be as influential as the Big Three, but their connections are nothing to scoff at. They’re like little leeches, sustaining themselves off others. Arranged marriages are their whole thing. Akane was set to marry some third son of a Zenin bigwig. She dipped on the day of the wedding.” 
That sounds like your mentor alright. 
“Personally, I find that hilarious. Her family and the Zenins aren’t of the same opinion. They essentially disowned her. Anyway! Fast forward a few years. Rumors spread that the infamous Akane is popping up in Tokyo every now and then, with some kid by her side. Ring any bells?” 
You point to yourself and he nods. 
She took you on training trips under the guise of an ‘exchange student program’ in the summer, which your parents considered to be an excellent opportunity. You felt bad for deceiving them, but explaining the whole ‘fighting invisible monster things with emotion magic’ would’ve made for a rough conversation. 
“It wasn’t until a couple of months back that I ran into her. I came right out and asked what I’d been curious about — why did she come back? She just shrugged and said she was done being a teacher. That answer didn’t satisfy me. She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that. I’m far worse though,” he boasts, fully looking and sounding the part. “In return for picking up her tab at an izakaya, she fessed up the truth.”
He steeples his fingers together, pantomiming a hand motion you’re intimately familiar with.
“Cursed Technique: Null, the advanced application of Ophanim. Akane’s convinced an ability like that, at its full potential, would be crazy strong.” 
She never said anything like that to me, you think.
You shake your head. This isn’t the most pressing matter now. 
“Satoru, what are you getting at here?” 
“That you shouldn’t think I’m kind. I wanted to judge your technique’s potential for myself, so I had you take on more than you could handle.” 
“You wouldn’t have let me die, though.” 
He chuckles mirthlessly. “And what a hero I am for that.” 
You purse your lips. You’ve never seen Satoru be this hard on himself. His cadence is the same — lighthearted, easygoing — but there’s an underlying acrimony to it. His smile doesn’t reach his brilliant eyes. He comes across as a spirit mimicking another’s likeness. This should unnerve you, maybe it will upon further reflection. 
Right now, however, you just want him to get across that you aren’t upset. What’s done is done. 
“It’s—” 
Satoru puts a hand up, stopping you prematurely. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t forgive me, not yet, anyway. You need to get better at looking out for yourself. You’re nice to a fault.” 
You glare at him halfheartedly. “What’s so wrong with being nice?” 
“Living in a world like this, where there are people like me.” 
“A world full of Gojo Satoru’s… that is a terrifying thought,” you murmur. His lips twitch upward, but he catches himself. “Bleh, what is it with you people and rejecting basic human decency! Akane was the same way. I’m fed up with it!” 
You storm toward him, your eyes narrow and jaw set tight. 
“I’m going to be who I want to be and that’s that. Maybe I’m naïve—” 
“—Oh, it isn’t a maybe, you definitely are—” 
You hush him by placing your finger to his lips, much to his surprise, if his wide eyes are of any indication. 
“—But you don’t get to tell me how to act or think or feel. That’s my business. I forgive you, alright? Now cut it out with the brooding. Let’s be real here. Doing that’s for you, not for me.” 
There’s an intensity to his stare you’ve never experienced prior. It makes your head feel light and hazy. Remembering yourself, you pull your hand back, heat rushing to your face. You may have gotten carried away. He isn’t wrong about you exercising more vigilance, but something about him critiquing a core aspect of your identity stings. The description ‘oversensitive’ can join the same limbo your ‘nice to a fault’ and ‘naïve’ proclivities hang out in. 
Finding your current predicament too overwhelming, you break eye contact. 
“Alright, alright, I get it, quit scowling. Remind me never to piss you off again, it’s scary,” he sounds more like himself, much to your relief. “I thought of a happy medium, just for you.” 
Satoru compromising? Did you die during that fight after all? You never thought you’d see the day. Shoko isn’t going to believe you. 
“And that happy medium is…?” 
His dumb grin makes a triumphant return. He knows he’s got your attention, no matter how cool you try to play it. 
“Keep being your sweet little self. If anyone tries taking advantage of that quality, and I mean anyone, come tell Suguru or myself. We’ll take care of it.” 
What is he, a member of the mob?! 
Whatever, it’s a step in the right direction. You think. Maybe. 
“I’m not a snitch,” you huff. 
“Fine, I’ll use my own discretion then.” 
“You’re impossible.” 
“And you’re gonna have to get used to it.” 
You quirk an eyebrow. “How do you figure?” 
“Call it intuition,” he hums, smoothly sliding his sunglasses back into place. It makes you angry how cool he looks while doing so. “Or, better yet, love at first sight. Yeah. Let’s go with that, actually.” 
Wait, what? 
Your heart thunders against your ribcage and you gape at him like a fish. 
“You…! Y-You can’t just say something like that!” 
“But I did.” 
“Ugh, I’ve had enough. I’m headed to bed. Go find somebody else to mess with.” 
Satoru pauses, considering the words you’ve spoken without any real bite. Then he smiles. Not in the cocky, arrogant manner he’s infamous for either. The curvature is gentle. Almost sentimental. It takes you aback and makes you wonder if your eyes are malfunctioning. 
“I can’t,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It has to be you.” 
It has to be you, it has to be you, it has to be you… 
These five damning words loop in your head like a mantra. Who gave him the right to sound so sincere? 
“Sleep well. You get all grumpy if you don’t. Having one Utahime around is more than enough, I don’t need you getting on my case too.” 
Satoru turns around, pulling one hand out from his pocket to wave halfheartedly. You observe his retreating figure before snapping out of your daze. He drops a cryptic line like that and dares to casually waltz away, whistling while he does so! The nerve! The audacity! The whistling is off-pitch too! Jujutsu Tech seriously needs to consider adding music theory to the curriculum. 
You jog to catch up with him and his stupidly long legs. 
“Hey, Satoru!” You call out. 
He stops and looks at you from over his shoulder. 
“If you’re gonna watch out for me, I plan to return the favor,” you say, your tone leaving no room to argue. “You hear me?” 
He waits until he’s facing forward again to respond. For this reason, you can’t see his expression. All you can make out is the outline of him giving a thumbs up, the edges of his skin swathed in silvery moonlight. 
“Mhm. Loud and clear.”  
-
December 23rd, 2017. 
8:02 p.m. 
-
You assess the man in front of you.
Pearly white hair, bandages wrapped around his eyes, a lean and towering figure… it’s Satoru, alright. There’s no mistaking his remarkable cursed energy. You could sense it — sense him — even in your deepest sleep. Amongst those at Jujutsu Tech, you’re the only one who can tell when he’s about to warp out of thin air. It’s become a running joke of sorts. Gojo Satoru has the Six Eyes and you possess a sixth sense for him. 
Or so you thought. 
“Are you hearing yourself?” 
He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “Loud and clear, yeah.” 
“This isn’t funny, Satoru!” 
“I’m not laughing, am I?” 
“No, but,” you inhale shakily, wisely taking a second to tame your tongue. “You’re not taking this seriously— not taking me seriously.”
He frowns. You come close to regretting your words, falling just a few inches short. Arguments aren’t your forte. Determining when to surrender ground, bolster your defenses, or charge into enemy territory; this is a skill that requires practice. Especially when facing Satoru. You don’t want to consider him an opponent, but that’s what he feels like right now. An imposing wall blocking you from the road you have to take. 
You regret turning up the duplex’s heat. Chilly as it is outside in the throes of winter, the air in this room has become scorching. 
“Is that genuinely what you think?” 
And there it is. He already knows the answer, as do you. He simply wants you to have your confession on record. 
You grab the water bottle you left on the kitchen countertop, drinking enough to help ease the lump in your throat. This isn’t the time to cry. Not yet. Not before anything major occurs. The crisis hasn’t taken the stage, Christmas Eve holds that honor. Illogical as it may be, you don’t think you’ve earned the emotional release crying brings. That should remain a consolation prize to you in the future. 
The you who will witness the horrors Geto Suguru plans to orchestrate. 
The you who will learn how this decade-long saga ends. 
Can the human heart endure anguish worse than this?  
Tomorrow, this question will receive an answer, whether you want it or not. 
“... It isn’t.” 
“Good,” he says, somehow soft and firm. He opens up his arms. “C’mere.” 
You’re sinking into him before he finishes the word. He secures you against his chest and the two of you tangle together like you’d unravel should you part. Satoru rests his chin on the crown of your head, mindlessly tracing patterns into your back. Or so you think, until you recognize the distinct grooves and curves of the characters which form Gojo. 
He engraves it into you over and over again as if casting a spell. 
This action must soothe him. You count each thump of his heart, noting how it settles into a steadier rhythm as the seconds tick by. The world’s strongest sorcerer is made of flesh and blood just like you are. It’s easy to forget that those you love and admire are mortal, regardless of how well they hide it. Those close to godhood must act the part, lest their audience murmur in suspicion. 
“I don’t think I could do it, Toru.” 
He doesn’t need to ask what you mean. 
“Intentionally killing someone… could there be anything worse than that?” 
No, you desperately scream to your younger self, as if there were any way to make her hear you. There really isn’t. 
“I know.” 
“... Could you?” 
Satoru’s muscles stiffen. From this alone, you can glean his answer. From your lack of prodding, he must piece this together too. Talkative as you both are, it’s in these pockets of total silence that your communication shines best. Everything from the subtle hitching of breath to the twitch of one another’s lips reveals streams of information to sift through. 
You can tell he doesn’t want to let you go, but you manage to wriggle out of his vice-like grip, creating a few inches of distance.
Reaching up, you undo the bandages around his eyes. He leans down to aid you in your task. Once the last strip comes off, you fold the linen neatly and put it aside. Satoru’s pretty eyes follow your every movement. When your attention returns to him, it’s impossible to overlook how hard he’s straining to fight back a smile. 
He quickly abandons the farce. 
Large hands seek out yours. Subconsciously, you meet him halfway, automatically drawn to him as if you were both different ends of a magnet. His slender fingers interlace with yours. His countenance radiates such fondness, such unfiltered reverence, that you find yourself getting embarrassed.
“W-What?” You choke out. 
“Just thinking about how I’m the luckiest guy alive, is all,” he hums. His grin widens at how his unabashed compliments fluster you. Shame isn’t in his lexicon. “You went from looking like you wanted to bite my head off to doting on me.” 
You roll your eyes yet chuckle nonetheless. He visibly perks up at the sound. He must’ve made you laugh thousands of times over the years, but he still treats each instance as if he’d experienced the most delightful composition. 
He whispers your name. 
“You trust me, right?” 
“Of course.” 
“Then do this for me, baby.” 
“But…” you trail off, unable and perhaps unwilling to reinforce your argument, “Everyone is going to be risking their lives. Nanamin, Ijichi, ours and Iori’s students; even Shoko’s going out on the field. How am I supposed to sit still knowing that?” 
“You don’t have to sit still, my little energizer bunny.” 
The deadpan look he receives has him (wisely) reconsidering his word choice. 
“I’m not asking because I don’t trust you, I’m asking because there’s no one I trust more,” Satoru tries again. You bite your lower lip. It’s unfair how much his rare glimpses of sincerity move you. 
“And this is all based on a hunch?” 
“Mhm.” 
Satoru lifts your left hand. He caresses your skin, his smile softening into something tender. An expression that’s exclusively for you. 
“Historically, my hunches are rather reliable.”
You can’t argue with the truth. 
Suguru appears to have some unknown design for Okkotsu Yuta, who is to remain at Jujutsu Tech during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. The special-grade curse Orimoto Rika poses too many risks for him to be on the battlefield alongside allies. Since everyone down to the Ainu society is being called upon to deal with this threat, you’ve been awaiting your assignment. There’s no way they wouldn’t utilize every resource available. 
Satoru ruined this assumption.
He personally requested that you remain on standby at the school. 
He didn’t even tell you this himself. You found out from Maki of all people, who earlier asked why you were stuck ‘babysitting the exchange student.’ You were confused. This made her confused. Then you both remembered the menace that is Gojo Satoru and everything started adding up. 
His explanation upon answering the phone? 
“Oh, I was just getting around to telling you about that!” 
Needless to say, you didn’t share his enthusiasm. 
“Alright,” you sigh. “I’ll keep an eye on Yuta until everything is finished.” 
Content, he squeezes your hand. As he does so, the gemstone on your ring finger catches the light, mesmerizing you both.
You close your eyes and smile. 
‘Call it intuition,’ huh?
819 notes · View notes
Text
So I have theory about Luo Binghe’s fake jade pendant.
(Major spoilers if you haven’t finished the book btw)
I was just reading a fic and author pointed out something about Luo Binghe’s pendant and how it’s a metaphor for Shen Yuan.
Looking back at the book, there are a lot of parallels between Shen Yuan and the necklace.
The pendant is a counterfeit jade carving of the god Guanyin.
Shen Yuan is a counterfeit of Shen Qingqiu, a powerful Peak Lord who dresses in jade colored robes.
Guanyin is noted to be associated with compassion, and Shen Yuan changes the entire fate of the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way by being compassionate.
Luo Bingmei ends his story with his one fake jade pendant while the extras specifically note that Luo Bingge has several real jade necklaces in his possession. Those necklaces are even called out to be fine grade and best money can buy.
Obviously the real jades are a metaphor for Bingge’s harem of peerlessly beautiful women while the fake jade, which has infinitely more value to him, represents Shen Yuan, aka Luo Bingmei’s one and only true love.
However I think there’s more to it than that.
If you track the pendant throughout the book, you’ll notice that Luo Binghe is only ever in possession of the pendant when Shen Yuan isn’t there. In fact, he actually loses the pendant shortly after Shen Yuan transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu. For the rest of the book, the pendant is in Shen Yuan’s possession, only returning to Luo Binghe at the climax.
But here’s the thing that’s strange about that scene: for whatever reason the System could not load the pendant when SQQ tried to summon it. At no other point in the book has the System have a problem loading things in.
So why is it when it does load in, it’s right as Shen Yuan dies for the third time?
My theory is that Shen Yuan is the pendant itself.
Now obviously Shen Yuan comes back and Binghe still has the pendant, but in the last couple scenes of the book, Shen Yuan is always right by Luo Binghe’s side.
Now I know that Shen Yuan was an actual person before dying and becoming Shen Qingqiu, so therefore he isn’t the necklace given human form. So how can Shen Yuan and the pendant be one and the same?
Well let’s go back to the aforementioned climax scene where the System cannot physically summon the pendant until Shen Yuan dies.
Seeing as how the System is essentially an AI and/or a computer program, this kind of issue reminds me of how a computer cannot open a file if another of the exact same file is already running.
I think, that when inserting Shen Yuan into PIDW, the System needed a way to tie his soul into its program and Shen Yuan’s fate to the protagonist. The System needed a physical entity to tie him down so it linked his code/soul to the fake jade pendant. That’s why Luo Binghe loses the pendant so soon after Shen Yuan transmigrates and why the System couldn’t load it in until Shen Yuan’s soul left his body because they’re part of the same file.
This is also evidenced by how when Shen Yuan dies the second time, out of all of his items, only the Jade pendant is kept in his inventory when he wakes up in the Sun and Dew Mushroom body.
Not to mention that Shen Yuan and the pendant have the same effect on Luo Binghe! The pendant has the ability to essientially shock Luo Binghe out of a qi deviation, but is only a one time use. But during Luo Binghe’s first qi deviation, Shen Yuan is able to do the exact same thing but doing so kills him. The pendant reduces Luo Binghe’s anger, and Shen Yuan is the only person in the world Luo Binghe will ever be soft and submittable to.
Tl’dr; The System tied Shen Yuan’s soul to the fake Guanyin pendant.
556 notes · View notes