#you don't have to rush it :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inkskinned · 1 year

Text

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

#this is objectively bad advice #don't listen to it protect yourself and do real work on yourself find one of the good posts i've made about this #but also. u know. if u want to have fun while u do the work of setting boundaries #.... it IS fun #i will say that my fear of him went SO down after i just started. fucking with him.#bc i used to get SO fucking upset #i'd spend WEEKS arguing with him. tearing my hair out. sick with anxiety and dread and anger about all of it #and now i just LITERALLY do not engage #instead i'm like '' haha :) mole people" and get the HELL out of any tense conversation #i kind of think some of these people are literally addicted to drama as a form of connection #they like the rush they get from arguing #but those arguments are incredibly damaging for me #so like..... i am in the process of literally rehabilitating this person to figure out how to find connection thru #NORMAL CONVERSATION #he doesn't get it yet #i also do talk to them like they're preschool kids lmafo . ''are you using a safe and kind voice right now?''#'' do you need a snackie? you sound a little upset. let's have some hummus and come back to playtime when we feel ready''

32K notes · View notes

theeretblr · 2 months

Note

I think when you wore that strawberry dress. It changed something, started seeing a lot more men in dresses that year. Maybe I sought it out but I do think u did something.

I have had a lot of people and fellow creators tell me that seeing me wearing a dress so confidently made them feel able to do it themselves.

The ones I hear about most are the Stawberry Dress and the Bi dress I wore to the first Streamer Awards, which was also the first time I wore a dress in public.

Trying to work out my gender and sexuality while being exploded with public attention was terrifying, but I feel like things have chilled out a lot, and I finally think I have worked stuff out.

It makes me so happy to have inspired so many! Be who you want to be! Don't let anyone stop you!

Fuck gender roles! <3

#askeret #gender #lgbtq+#genderqueer #genderfluid #bisexual #tbh im still working stuff out lol #it takes time #you don't have to rush it :)

1K notes · View notes

calware · 10 months

Text

how did jake know he had a peanut allergy

#idk much about allergies so i don't know how you find out about it unless you start having a reaction and then get rushed to the hospital

1K notes · View notes

ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 4 months

Text

I dunno what Pigsy was expecting to happen when he hugged a touch-starved monkey

were i not constrained by the limits of my computer i would have a great deal more of these

377 notes · View notes

fairweathermyth · 1 year

Photo

He wants more of me. Fuck him! No. I want more of me.

THE GREAT 3.06 Ice

#previously oscarspoe #thegreatedit #tvedit #perioddramaedit #the great #catherine x peter #empress catherine #emperor peter #made by carolyn #getting this out of my system before i confront the rest of the episode 🙃#don't forget to blacklist spoilies if you don't want the spoils!!!#made this in a rush earlier and have since replaced all of the gifs lol #1k

1K notes · View notes

iroissleepdeprived · 2 months

Text

Zeus' favourite.

#this was very rushed I don't have much energy after so many doodles #this is a very simplified version of his design #tell me if you want to see more :D he is very fun to draw!#apollo #greek gods #digital art

300 notes · View notes

demigod-of-the-agni · 3 months

Text

kurunthokai, 168 — “what the hero said to his heart”

#i did this in a rush. that's why some things look wonky and weird and T-T #me drawing vague shapes then scribbling over them #here is some pavayatri for you #goldenmodel #pavitr x gayatri #literally whatever you call them #i tried translating slash rewriting the original kurunthokai poem #but it's in pure tamil so most of the words don't really line up with modern tamil/english #so i put my degree in bad writing to use. hopefully this does the poem justice #anyway yeah. have these babies #i love pavitr and gayatri so much!!!!!#i saw this poem and immediately thought “you know what would be absolutely sick. asm121 redraw”#and then I DID IT #no i am not sorry. not really. dw i gave myself psychic damage while drawing this #“the night gayatri singh died” be like #gayatri singh #pavitr prabhakar #spider man india #atsv #atsv pavitr #spider man #artoftheagni #its 1am rn if you have any beef with me please wait another six hours. i hate staying up so late

223 notes · View notes

starryluminary · 2 months

Text

No pressure. (there's lots of pressure) No planning. (that much is true) No. Pookums. (only call him shnookums)

Masterlist | Bonus

DeaKids watermark and original screenshot!

151 notes · View notes

graciousdragon · 4 months

Text

OH MY FUCKING GOD

I JUST WENT TO MY LOCAL HOT TOPIC THAT I'VE BEEN GOING TO FOR LIKE. 5 OR 6 YEARS NOW RIGHT??

I GOT SOME MCR STUFF BECAUSE. OF COURSE. IF YOU'VE SEEN MY RECENT POSTING HABITS YOU KNOW. THE BRAINROT IS REAL

I WAS TALKING WITH THE CASHIER ABOUT THEM BECAUSE HE WAS ALSO A FAN AND HE FUCKING SAYS "you wanna know a fun fact? this is the hot topic the lead singer used to work at! :D"

FUCKING WHAT

GERARD WAY USED TO WORK AT MY LOCAL FUCKING HOT TOPIC?!?

AND AFTER I LEFT I LOOKED IT UP TO MAKE SURE HE WASN'T FUCKING WITH ME AND YEAH. HE WAS RIGHT. WHAT THE FUCK

SORRY FOR THE ALL CAPS THIS IS LIKE. WORLD-SHATTERING INFORMATION TO ME AND HE JUST DROPPED THAT SHIT SO CASUALLY WHAT THE HELL BRO. I NEEDED TO SCREAM ABOUT THIS SOMEWHERE

#rys.txt #tw caps #caps #LIKE. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??#I KNEW THEY WORKED AT A HOT TOPIC WHEN THEY WERE YOUNGER BUT I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS THAT ONE #ok. its ok i'm normal now (i'm not)#on another note. why are all hot topic employees like the nicest people on this earth. at least they are at mine #they always greet you when you walk in and ask if you need help and if you don't they leave you alone which is nice #and then when you check out they're always really chill and don't rush you and if you're buying or wearing something they also like they'll #talk about it with you #like. i know you have to be nice to people for a retail/customer service job like that but it always feels really genuine from them #same thing goes for spencer's employees too they're also like that #idk its just really nice for someone like me who's scared shitless of social interaction with strangers. it makes me way less anxious 👍#anyways. light and love everyone 💖 i'm gonna go recover from learning that information now #my chemical romance #mcr #gerard way

240 notes · View notes

satari-raine · 4 months

Text

I'm still not used to fully talking on here but I just have to talk for a minute about Sleep Token and Wembley.

They did fantastic. After touring so much this year, doing back-to-back shows, dealing with a band member having to take a leave of absence for most of their final tour, incorporating new changes to their routine and style, and with Vessel having hurt his voice during such a huge show, they did fantastic.

I watched along with Discord. Mostly lurked. And everything I saw from the effects on stage, the fun antics, the performances, the playing - guitars, bass, drums, the dancers, the choir - they did fantastic. And Vessel. I said it in chat that he doesn't need to hurt himself or his voice to earn the love of those who listen to his music, but he kept going. He sang, and pushed through when he had every right in the world to put a stop to the show and focus on his health. He kept on going while also giving to the crowd the chance to carry him through, and seeing everyone - from those on stage with him to the crowd to people in chat and what I saw on here - still loving him, loving them?

They did fucking fantastic, and I dare anyone tell me otherwise. As a community, we should be celebrating them despite any differences of opinion - being kinder and supportive of one another is literally everything they've shown with III's situation and in general. It's what so many of us showed back to them with the hand salutes for III and the marked ? on our hands during specific songs. Their new outfits have fan-made decals to them, for fuck's sake. They are absolutely, without a doubt, genuine about making everyone feel loved.

Look, I'm just a stranger on the internet at the end of the day but this band has come to mean so much to me since I found them, to the point where they've honestly kept me going some days - them and the wonderful people I've met through them - and I just need them to know that they did fantastic, their music still brings people together despite hiccups along the way, and regardless of any of those hiccups, they are so loved. Loved beyond belief.

The night didn't just belong to all of us at Wembley, but to them, too.

#Satari rambles #Sleep Token #I'm sorry if this is too much but I just had to get something out #I usually don't swear much either but just #Yeah #Had to ramble #Especially after seeing him do BloodSport despite his voice and health and then seeing the entire crew and band rush to him to celebrate #The way he fell to his knees and bowed so low his forehead touched the stage #I cannot tell anyone how much his strength and emotional depths and just him #What they all have started meaning to me #If anyone needs me I'm going to be throwing love at the Discord mods and vibing with the lovely people here while I try not to keep crying #And people are more than welcome to reblog this too if it resonates #And it goes without saying that they all deserve as much rest and downtime as they want #The band and the crew and the dancers and choir #Everyone #Love you all

150 notes · View notes

canisalbus · 10 months

Note

What?? Why on Earth would they bloodlet Machete when he's already anemic?

Anemia wasn't discovered until 1852, so his physicians have no idea. He's just moody and achy and visibly unwell and bloodletting happens to be the cure-for-all fix at the time.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it was one of the most used treatments in western medicine from ancient Greece to 19th century (and even earlier than that in Egypt, for example). There weren't many ailments that a little bit of breathing a vein wouldn't alleviate, supposedly. This whole concept is based on humoral theory which is a fascinating cornerstone of medical history and also completely unfounded nonsense, look it up if you haven't, it's interesting. People believed that blood didn't circulate through the body, it was created, used up and then the bad blood would stagnate in the extremities. Having too much blood would disturb your humoral balance and create illnesses so removing it was beneficial to your wellbeing. Even completely healthy people would sometimes go get themselves bled a bit just to be sure.

You kind of need blood for your body to function so this treatment was completely pointless at best and life threatening at worst. If you were sick to begin with it would only weaken you further (and expose you to potential infections, which in the absence of antibiotics, wasn't great). The only viable use for it would have to be rare blood disorders where your body produces too many red blood cells, like polycythemia vera, essentially the polar opposite of anemia.

#answered #anonymous #blood #Machete #I think the only thing Machete is getting out of these bloodletting sessions is a vague sensation of lightheaded tiredness #created by the combined effects of bloodloss wooziness and a mild pain induced endorphin rush which is a very dumb way to get high #and maybe that's enough for him to mistake it as a good thing especially if his doctors keep assuring him it's effective and necessary #he'd have a lot more vitality if they didn't actively sap his literal lifeblood but what can you do #the cuts aren't big but they can be deep so he's got lots of tiny scars on his arms especially inner elbows #which was often the most common site you'd operate on #they're flat and white enough that you don't see them unless you're looking very closely #he's relatively fine with bloodletting but leech therapy really squicks him out

384 notes · View notes

suddencolds · 2 months

Text

The Worst Timing | [5/5]

we made it!!! part 5/5 + a mini epilogue (5.6k words) at long last 🥹 (aka the installment in which i remember that h/c has a c in it in addition to the h, haha.) [part 1] is here!

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

The world comes back to him in pieces—first the wooden panels of the ceiling, the sloped wooden beams. The coldness of the room, the slight, monotonous whir of the air circulating through one of the vents overhead.

He’s leaned up against the wall, seated on the floor in the hallway, and Vincent is kneeling beside him, his eyebrows furrowed.

It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He had been about to head back to the courtyard, hadn’t he? He doesn’t have much memory of anything that happened after, but judging by Vincent’s reaction, he thinks he can probably guess.

“Hi,” Yves says, for lack of a better thing to say.

He watches a complicated set of expressions flicker through Vincent’s face—relief, first, before it turns to something distinctly less neutral.

“You’re awake,” Vincent says. He turns away, for a moment. Yves notes the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his grip—his fingers white around Yves’s sleeve.

“Was I out for long?”

“A couple minutes.”

Yves wants to say something. He should say something. Anything to lighten the tension, anything to get the point across that this is all just an unlucky miscalculation, on his part. It really isn’t something Vincent should have to be worried about.

“I’m sorry for making you wait,” he starts. Really, what he means is, I’m sorry for making you worry about me. “I promise I’mb fine.”

The look on Vincent’s face, then, is something that Yves hasn’t seen before.

“Why do you have to—” he starts, frustration rising in his voice. He sighs, his jaw set. “I don’t understand why you—” He drops his hand from Yves’s sleeve, and it’s then when Yves notices the stiffness to his shoulders, the tension in his posture. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out another short, exasperated breath. “You’re not fine.”

It’s strange, Yves thinks, to see him like this—Vincent, who usually never wears his emotions on his face, looks clearly displeased, now.

“Hey,” Yves says, softly. He reaches out to take Vincent’s hand. Vincent goes very still with the contact, but he doesn’t say anything. “I—”

Fuck. His body seems to always pick the worst time for unwanted interjections. He wrenches his hand away just in time to smother a sneeze into his sleeve, though it’s forceful enough to leave him slightly lightheaded.

“Stay here,” Vincent says, getting to his feet. “Lay down if you get dizzy again.”

Yves blinks. “Where are you going?”

“To tell the others that we’re leaving.”

Yves wants to protest. Dinner is already halfway over. It’s not as if the festivities are particularly strenuous. They’ll probably move inside after dinner, where it’s warmer.

But he thinks better of it. Judging by how exhausted he still feels, how much his head aches, it probably wouldn’t be wise to push it.

“Don’t tell them about this,” he says.

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“Aimee is going to worry if she finds out,” Yves says, dropping his head to his knees. He doesn’t want to look at Vincent, doesn’t want to know what expression is on his face. “Just—let them have this night. It’s—supposed to be perfect.” I really wanted it to be perfect, he almost adds. There’s a strange tightness to his throat as he says it, a strange heaviness to his chest.

He knows what it means. If, after he’s tried so hard to do his part, their evening still ends up ruined on his own accord, he’s not sure if he could live with himself after.

For a moment, Vincent doesn’t say anything at all.

“Okay,” he says, at last. “Just stay here.”

And then he heads down the hallway. The door at the end of the reception hall swings shut behind him. Yves thinks he should be relieved, but he finds that he doesn’t feel much other than exhausted.

—

The ride home on the shuttle is silent. Vincent sits next to him, even though all of the other seats are empty. Yves thinks the proximity is probably inadvisable. He opens his mouth to say as much, and then shuts it.

Vincent sits and stares straight ahead, his posture stiff, and doesn’t say anything for the entirety of the ride. It’s strange. Yves is no stranger to silence—Vincent is, after all, a coworker, and Yves has endured more than a few quiet elevator rides and quiet team lunches at the office, but it’s strange because it’s Vincent.

Vincent, who usually takes care to make conversation with him, whenever it’s just the two of them. Vincent, who stayed up through the lull of antihistamines a couple months ago to talk to Yves, until Yves had given him explicit permission to go to sleep.

Yves tries not to think about it. Through the haze of his fever, everything feels unusually bright—the interior of the shuttle, with its leather seats and metal handrails.

The shuttle stops just outside the main entrance to their hotel. Just before he gets to the doors, he stumbles. Vincent’s hand shoots out, instinctively, to steady him.

“Sorry,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. It’s not that he’s dizzy. The roads are just uneven, and it’s dark. “I can walk.”

But Vincent doesn’t let go—not for the entirety of the walk through the cool, air-conditioned lobby, through the hallways to the hotel elevators. Not when the elevator stops at their floor, not when they pass by the grid of wooden doors leading up to their room.

Before Yves can manage to reach for his keycard, Vincent has already swiped them in, scarily efficient. He slides the card back into his pocket, pushes the door open.

“Thadks for walking me back,” Yves says. “Sorry you couldn’t stay longer. You mbust’ve been halfway through dinner.”

“I already finished eating,” Vincent says.

“Even dessert?” Yves says. “I think Aimee got everyone creme brulee from one of the local bakeries. I was excited to try it. Maybe Leon can save us some.” he muffles a yawn into his hand. It’s too early to be sleeping, but his pull out bed looks very inviting right now.

“Take the bed,” Vincent says.

Yves blinks at him. “What?”

“The bed’s warmer.”

There’s absolutely no way he’s going to let Vincent take the pull-out bed in his place, Yves thinks blearily. He’s spent the past couple nights muffling sneezes into the covers—if there’s anything he’s certain of, it’s that he really, really doesn’t want Vincent to catch this.

“I dod’t think we should switch,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve been sleeping here ever sidce I started coming down with this. I’mb— hHeh-!” He veers away, raising an elbow to his face. “hh—HHEh’IIDZschH’-iEEW! Ugh, I’mb pretty sure I contaminated it.”

“We can both take the bed, if you’d prefer,” Vincent says. As if it’s that simple.

Yves opens his mouth to protest—is Vincent really okay with sharing a bed with him?—but then he thinks about Vincent finding him in the hallway—the stricken expression on his face, then, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched—and thinks better of himself.

Instead, he lets Vincent lead him to the bedroom. The bed is neatly made—the covers drawn, the pillows propped up against the headboard.

“Lay down,” Vincent says, pushing lightly down on his shoulders. Yves sits. He peels off his suit jacket, folds it, and sets it aside on the nightstand.

“Hey, I kdow that was sudden,” he says, in reference to earlier. “I’mb sorry you had to witness it. I… probably shouldn’t have pushed it.”

Vincent says nothing, to that.

Yves lays down, shuts his eyes. “You didn’t have to accompady me home, you know.”

Silence. He exhales, burrowing deeper into the covers. “It’s not as bad as it looks, seriously.”

He opens his mouth to say more. He has to say something, he thinks, to convince Vincent that it’s really not that big of a deal. Anything, to assuage that look on Vincent’s face.

But he’s so tired. He can feel the exhaustion now that he’s finally let himself lay down. The bed is traitorously comfortable, with its soft feather pillows and its fluffy layers of blankets, and Vincent was right—it really is warmer.

He feels the press of a hand on his forehead, feels the cold, unyielding pressure. Feels gentle, calloused fingers brush the hair out of his face.

“Sleep,” Vincent says, firmly.

And Yves—

Yves, already half gone, is powerless, when Vincent says it like that.

—

When he wakes, it’s just barely bright outside. He takes it in—the first few rays of sunlight, streaking through the curtains. The bed, a little more well-cushioned than the pullout bed he’d spent the past few nights on—higher up and decisively sturdier. He blinks.

Beside him, seated on a chair he recognizes as belonging to the desk at the opposite end of the room, is Vincent.

Vincent, awake. Yves isn’t sure if he’s slept at all. He certainly doesn’t look tired, at first glance, but closer inspection reveals a little more. It’s evident in the way he holds his shoulders, stiff, and perhaps a little tired, as if there’s been tension sitting in them all night.

He’s reading a book. Whether he bought it at the convenience store downstairs, or on one of the other days when Yves was busy running errands for the wedding and Vincent was elsewhere, or whether it’d been sitting in his suitcase since the start of the vacation, Yves doesn’t know.

“How’s the book?” Yves says.

His throat is dry, he realizes, for the way it makes him cough, afterwards. Vincent’s eyes meet his, unerringly. He shuts the book, sets it down on the bedside table.

“It’s a little boring,” Vincent says. “How’s the fever?”

Before Yves can answer, Vincent leans forward and presses the back of his hand to Yves’s forehead. His touch is unerringly gentle, and Yves allows himself to look.

Vincent’s eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, and Yves wonders, suddenly, if he’s been this worried for awhile, now. If he’s been this worried ever since he’d walked them both back into the hotel room last night.

“I’m fine,” Yves says.

It has the opposite effect he intends it to.

Vincent’s expression shutters. “The last time you said that, you passed out in front of me,” he says, withdrawing his hand with a frown. “So forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you.”

Yves sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s a fair point. “I’m usually more reliable whed it comes to these things.”

“What things?”

“Kdowing my limits.”

Vincent says, “I think you knew your limits. I think you just didn’t want to honor them, because you decided the wedding took precedence.”

He’s… frustrated, Yves realizes. Still. He’s sure he can guess why. Their fake relationship does not extend to Vincent having to look after him, to Vincent having to drop everything in the middle of a wedding, of all things, to take him home. To Vincent having to worry about all this—the fever Yves knows he has, now, and the bed he’s currently taking up—on top of everything else. As if being in a foreign country, surrounded by people he knows almost exclusively through Yves, who, for the most part, converse in a language he barely speaks, wasn’t already enough work on its own.

And Yves gets it. He hadn’t wanted this to happen, either. He’d told himself that if this—this pretend relationship, this pretense—is contingent upon both of them playing their part, the least he can do is be self-sufficient outside of it.

But now—because Vincent is here with him, and because they share a hotel room—all of this is now Vincent’s problem, too, by extension.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks.

Vincent smiles at him, a little wryly, as if the answer is evident.

“You gave up your bed just for me to steal it,” Yves says, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s really comfortable, and all, but I’mb pretty sure they make these kinds of beds for two.”

“Is that a proposition?” Vincent says.

“Maybe.” Yves thinks it through. “Realistically, probably ndot, until I have a chance to shower.” He’s still dressed in his dress shirt and slacks from yesterday, a little embarrassingly—he should probably get changed. “Speaking of which, I should do that soon, so you don’t feel the need to stay up all night reading—” Yves leans forward, squints at the book cover on the nightstand. “—Hemingway? Somehow, I didn’t expect you to be the type.”

“I’m not,” Vincent says. “Victoire lent it to me.”

“Oh,” Yves says, trying to think of when Vincent would’ve had time to ask her for a recommendation. “Yeah. She’s—” He twists aside, ducking into his elbow. “hHEH’IIDzschh-EEW! snf-! She’s quite the literary reader. Is it really that boring?”

“I can see why people think the transparency of his prose is appealing,” Vincent says. “But I��m fifty pages in, and nothing has happened.”

“Isd’t that the sort of thing Hemingway can get away with, since he’s straightforward about it?”

“In a short story, maybe,” Vincent says. Then: “You are trying to make me feel better.”

Ah.

Yves laughs. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”

Vincent just sighs. “I would be exceptionally unobservant not to notice when I’ve seen you do the same thing all this week.”

“What?”

“Telling people that you’re fine,” Vincent says. “And distracting them when they don’t believe you.”

Yves doesn’t think that’s entirely accurate. It’s not like he was trying to be dishonest. It’s just that it was never the most important thing to address.

“Distracting is a bit disingenuous.”

“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, with a frown. “You’re so insistent on putting yourself last, even when you were obviously—” He sighs. There it is—that expression again, the one that makes itself evident through the furrowed eyebrows, the tense set of his jaw—frustration, and maybe something else. “You’re surrounded by people who care about you, so why not just—”

“There are plenty of things more important than how I’mb feeling,” Yves says.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

But of course it is, Yves thinks. A wedding is a once in a lifetime occurrence. An illness is nothing, in the face of that.

“I promised I’d be there,” he says, because when it really comes down to it, it’s true. He had no intention of going back on his word. “I didn’t want to be the one to let them down. Is that so hard to believe?” He reaches up with a hand to massage his temples. His head aches, even though he’s slept for long enough that he feels like it ought to feel a little better, by now. “It’s already bad enough that I had to drag you into this.”

“You didn’t drag me into this,” Vincent says. “I came on my own volition.”

Yves tries a laugh, but it’s humorless. “I made you leave halfway through the wedding dinner.”

“I’d already finished eating.”

“Ndot to mention, you practically had to carry me upstairs.”

“Because you’re ill.”

“That’s no excuse.” Yves wants to say more, but he finds himself beholden to a tickle in the back of his throat—irritatingly present, until he concedes to it by ducking into his elbow to cough, and cough.

When he looks up, blinking tears out of his vision, Vincent isn’t looking at him.

“You should get some rest,” he says, simply.

Yves can tell—just by the way he says it—that there is no argument to him, anymore. Just like that, Vincent is back to being closed off—poised and perfectly, infuriatingly unreadable, just like he is at work, his face so carefully a mask of indifference, even in the most stressful presentations, the most frustrating disagreements. Yves wants none of it.

“Hey,” he says. A part of him itches to crack a joke, to change the subject—anything to take away this air of seriousness. A part of him wants to reach out, again—to take Vincent’s hand, entwine their fingers; to reassure him, again, that he’s really fine.

“I’m sorry,” he says, instead. Maybe it’s the fever that loosens his tongue. Maybe it’s just a combination of everything.

He can feel Vincent’s eyes on him, still. Vincent has always held a sort of intensity to him, a quiet sort of perceptiveness. “I’m not sure I follow,” Vincent says.

“This visit was supposed to be fun for you,” he says. “And now you’re here, stuck in the hotel room because of me, even though today was supposed to be for sightseeing.”

It doesn’t feel like enough. What can he say to make it enough? There’s a strange ache in his chest, a strange, crushing pressure. Yves is horrified to find his eyes stinging. He’s held it together for so long, he thinks. Why now? Why, when Vincent is right here?

But a part of him knows, too. Of course traveling to a different country would be more involved than going to a party, or spending an evening at a stranger’s house. But there was a time when he thought this could really just be a fun excursion for the both of them—half a week in his family’s home country, with someone who he thoroughly enjoys spending time with.

And now, because of this untimely illness—or because of his own short-sightedness in managing it—it isn’t. He didn’t get to stay through dinner, didn’t get to wish Aimee and Genevieve a good rest of their night, like he’d planned to. He has no idea if things went smoothly in his absence. To make matters worse, Vincent is here, having endured a sleepless night, instead of anywhere else.

And really, when he thinks about it, who does have to blame for all of this, except himself?

“I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this,” he says. “So I’m sorry.” He resists the urge to swipe a hand over his eyes—surely, he thinks, that would give him away.

He turns away. It’s convenient, he thinks, that the embarrassing sniffle that follows could be attributed to something else.

“You’ve been nothing but accommodating to me, this whole visit,” Vincent says. “If anything, I should’ve insisted that you take the bed earlier. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”

He says it with such certainty. Yves opens his mouth to protest this—or to apologize, for all the times he must’ve kept Vincent up, including but not limited to last night—but Vincent presses on.

“You spent all of yesterday morning helping everyone get ready, and when I got back, you apologized for not being around—as if the reason why you weren’t around wasn’t that you were so busy making sure everything was fine for everyone else.” Vincent pauses, takes in a slow, measured breath. Yves is surprised to hear that he sounds… distinctly angry, in a way that Yves is not used to hearing.

“And then you showed up to the rehearsal and the wedding, even though you weren’t feeling well. And you still think you have something to apologize for? Are you even hearing yourself?” Yves hears the creak of the chair as he stands, the sound of quiet footsteps. Feels the dip of the bed as Vincent takes a seat at the edge of it.

“You know, after you left the dinner table, Genevieve was talking about how much she liked your speech? Do you know that yesterday morning, Solaine told me how grateful she was that you helped her with fixing her dress? Do you know that when I got lunch with Leon and Victoire, they told me how much time you spent preparing for everything—the speech, and the wedding, both?”

Oh. Yves hadn’t known any of those things, and he knows Vincent isn’t the kind of person who would lie about this sort of thing.

“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, sounding distinctly pained to say it. “How could you possibly think that you haven’t done enough?”

Yves finds himself taken aback—by the frustration in his voice, by the fact that Vincent has noticed these things in the first place, by the fact that he’s deemed them important enough to take stock of. He makes it sound so simple.

“I don’t know,” Yves says, at last. He shuts his eyes. “If it was enough.”

“I’m telling you that it was,” Vincent says.

But Yves knows that he could have done more, if the circumstances were different. If he hadn’t been so out of it during the wedding. If he’d taken the necessary precautions to avoid coming down with this in the first place. If he’d been able to stay through dinner, at least; if he hadn’t needed Vincent to accompany him home.

“You don’t believe me,” Vincent says, with a sigh.

Yves doesn’t say anything, to that.

“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Vincent says. There’s the slight rustling of the covers as he shifts, rearranging one of the pillows at the headboard. “But I had fun.”

Yves’s heart twists.

It’s sweet, unexpectedly. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better,” Yves says.

“When have I ever said anything just to make you feel better?” Vincent says, with a short laugh. When Yves chances a look at him, he’s smiling down at himself. “I mean it. Meeting your family has been a lot of fun. It’s not often that I get the chance to be a part of something like this.”

Whether he’s referring to France, or the wedding and the festivities, or being surrounded by Yves’s large extended family, Yves isn’t sure. But if Vincent is trying to cheer him up, it’s working.

“I can see why you like France so much,” he says, turning his gaze out the window, though the view outside is filtered through the semi-translucent curtains. “It’s beautiful.”

“Today was supposed to be the last day for sightseeing,” Yves says, a little regretful. “But you’re stuck here.”

“In a sunny, luxurious hotel room, with a view of the pool and the garden?” Vincent says, with a scoff. “I could think of worse places to be.”

Staying up all night, just to check up on Yves, more accurately. Vincent must be tired, too—yesterday was already tiring enough. And now it’s morning already, and he hasn’t gotten any sleep.

“Reading Hemingway,” Yves adds.

Vincent looks a little surprised. Then he laughs. “Yes. I guess you’re right. Perhaps it’s an agonizing experience after all.”

The yawn he stifles into his hand, after that isn’t half as subtle as he tries to make it.

Yves feels his eyebrows creep up. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? There’s plenty of room.” He scoots a little closer to the edge of the bed, just to make a point.

Vincent peers down at the space beside him, a little hesitant. “At 10am?”

“It’d be, what, 4am, back in Eastern time?” Yves says. “By Ndew York standards, you’re supposed to already be asleep.”

“That’s not how it works,” Vincent says, but he dutifully moves a little closer to Yves anyways. He’s changed out of yesterday’s wedding attire, more sensibly, but now he’s wearing a knitted cardigan which Yves thinks looks unfairly, terribly good on him. Yves finds himself marveling at the unfairness of it all. How can someone look so good wearing something so casual?

Vincent smells good, up close. When he lays down next to Yves, pulling the covers gingerly over himself—leaving a careful amount of room between them, but still dangerously, intoxicatingly close—Yves feels his breath catch in his throat.

Vincent is right there, less than an arm’s length away from him, closer than he’s ever been, and Yves—Yves is—

“See,” Yves says, as evenly as he can manage to, in his current state, as if his heart isn’t practically beating out of his chest. He swallows. His throat feels dry. “This bed definitely fits two.”

“I suppose it does,” Vincent says. “Now you can tell me if I’m a terrible person to share a bed with.”

“After everything I’ve put you through,” Yves says, “I think I’d honestly feel reassured if you were.”

Vincent smiles, again, as if he finds this humorous. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

“Positive,” Yves says. “You should sleep. I’ll wake you if I ndeed anything.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” Vincent shuts his eyes.

It’s not long before his breathing evens out, not long before he goes perfectly still. He must really be tired, Yves thinks, with a pang.

Yves, for some reason, finds that he can’t get to sleep. He stares up at the ceiling for what feels like minutes on end, shuts his eyes, all to no avail. Maybe it’s because he’s already slept far more than his usual share. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Maybe it’s merely Vincent’s unusual presence—the strangeness of having him so close, in an environment so intimate.

But when he allows himself to look, he sees—

Vincent, his eyes shut, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks. From the window, the filtered light gleams unevenly across the crown of dark hair on his head. There’s almost no movement to him at all, aside from the even rise and fall of his shoulders.

And Yves knows what the feeling in his chest is. He’s regrettably, intimately familiar with it.

He just isn’t sure he likes what it means.

—

Vincent—despite falling asleep so quickly—is up before him. When Yves wakes, next, it’s to a hand to his forehead.

“Hey,” Vincent is saying, softly. “Yves. You have a visitor.”

Yves opens his eyes.

He’s feeling—a little better, remarkably. Still feverish, still a little unsteady, but leagues better as compared to yesterday. When he looks over, he sees—

He doesn’t jolt upright, but it’s a close thing. “Aimee!”

He barely has a chance to ask before she’s crashing into him, encircling him in a tight hug. “Yves!” she exclaims, pulling back from him. “How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, when I heard you left early because you were unwell, I was so worried…”

Yves grimaces, turning away. “Sorry, I had every idtention of staying until the end—”

“You came all the way out with the flu!” she says. “I honestly can’t believe you. The fact that you still took the trouble to attend with a fever—”

“It—” Yves starts, but he finds himself twisting away, lifting an arm to his face. “hhEH-! HEEhD’TTSCHH-iiiEEw! Snf-! It’s fide, snf-! I’mb practically recovered already.”

“I should’ve told you not to push yourself when you told me you were coming down with something,” Aimee says, shaking her head. “And you stayed and gave such a lovely speech, even though you weren’t feeling well? When I was talking to Victoire after, she mentioned that you’ve been sick for days and Genevieve—you should’ve said something.”

“I’ll say somethidg next time,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. “Did the wedding go okay?”

Aimee visibly brightens, at this. “It was more than okay,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “It blew every expectation that I had out of the water.”

Aimee fills him in on everything that happened after he left, last night—dessert, the first dance, the cake-cutting; her favorites out of the photos they’d taken after the ceremony (a shot of Genevieve braiding her hair during the cocktail hour; a shot of them leaning in close, for the dance, tired but smiling; a shot of the cake with its multiple tiers, the frosting strung like banners across it; another where both of them are holding onto the cutting knife together and Genevieve looks like she is trying not to laugh; a shot of the bouquet toss, the flowers suspended in mid-air). She tells him about the conversations she and Genevieve had with others about marriage and their futures and their plans for their honeymoon.

Then she lectures him on how he should worry about his health first, next time. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she’s fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind the next time he tries to pull something like this. She insists that his health is more important than anything. Vincent stands off to the side the entire time, his arms crossed, passively listening in, but when Yves looks over helplessly, mid-lecture, he definitely looks a little smug.

All in all, she doesn’t seem disappointed in him at all. And, more importantly, she seems happy. Yves finds himself relieved, at this.

Genevieve stops by, too, a little later, to thank him for the advice he’d given her the day before the wedding. She hugs him too, and she leaves him a bag of tea that she promises “is practically a cure to anything—I hope it makes your flight home tomorrow a little more tolerable.” Victoire stops by, with Leon, and Yves resigns himself to more lecturing from the both of them. It’s humbling, a little, to be lectured by his younger sister and his younger brother, though he concedes that perhaps this time, it might be at least partially warranted.

Then Leon opens their hotel fridge to show him the two creme brulees he and Vincent had missed out on, packaged nicely in small paper containers. (“Vincent told me you were interested in these,” he says, and Yves finds himself slightly mortified—but perhaps also a little endeared—that whatever it was that he’d said last night, offhandedly, Vincent had deemed it important enough to text Leon about.)

Later, after Yves showers and gets changed—when he and Vincent eat the creme brulees at the table in the living room, and Vincent tells him that he’s finished the book, perhaps a little masochistically (“it doesn’t get any better,” he says, sounding a little spiteful)—Yves finds himself smiling.

He’s happy, he realizes, despite everything that’s happened. Even with the slight headache, and the lingering congestion, the fever that hasn’t quite gone away entirely. The revelation comes as a surprise to him, at first. But when he thinks about the people he’s surrounded with, he thinks perhaps it isn’t all that surprising.

—

EPILOGUE

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Vincent asks.

“Yes,” Yves says. It’s not a lie.

This time, he’s seated right next to the window, and Vincent is in the middle seat. Yves had offered to take the middle seat instead, but Vincent had insisted(“If you wanted to sleep, you could lean against the window,” he’d said, and Yves had accepted only because it would be better to fall asleep against the window than do something embarrassing, like fall asleep on Vincent’s shoulder).

“It’s just the annoyidg residual symptoms, now,” he says. “I—”

God. He always has the worst timing. He veers away, muffling a tightly contained sneeze into his shoulder.

“hHEH-’IIDDZschH-yyEW! Snf-! I’mb — hHhEHh’DjjsSHH-iEW! Ugh, I’m fine. I feel better thad I sound.”

“Bless you,” Vincent says, leaning over to press his hand against Yves’s forehead. “No fever,” he says. “That’s good. But you should take another day off when we get back.”

Yves doesn’t think taking another day off is necessary. “I spedt the entirety of yesterday sleeping,” he says. “I think I’ve rested enough.”

Vincent just raises an eyebrow at him. “Need I remind you that someone very wise told you to take it easy?”

“Since when has Aimee been your spokesperson?”

“She made a lot of good points,” Vincent says, deceptively unassuming. “I think you should consider taking notes.”

Yves looks at him for a moment. “You’re laughing at me.”

This time, Vincent smiles. “Maybe.”

Yves leans back in his seat, reaching up with one hand to massage his temples. The changing cabin pressure is not exactly comfortable—his head still hurts a little, but he’s flown enough times to know that it won’t be as much of a problem once they finish their ascent.

“Thadks again for coming,” he says, unwrapping one of the small, packaged pillows the airline has left on their seats.

“You invited me,” Vincent says, blinking. “All I did was show up.”

But that isn’t true at all, Yves thinks. Vincent is the one who spent time learning basic French, who met Yves’s family and who spoke with everyone with genuine interest, who bought Yves medicine and water, all while being careful to not be overbearing. Vincent is the one who left the wedding early to walk Yves back to the hotel, who stayed with him the entire day afterwards.

“That’s such a huge understatement I don’t even kdow where to get started,” Yves says. “Thanks for meetidg my family—they love you, by the way. They’re going to be askidg about you every summer from now on, I just know it.”

He can already picture it—June, this year, after busy season is over, if their fake relationship lasts that long. Another flight where they’re next to each other. Another dozen conversations about how they’d met, about what it’s like dating a coworker, about what their plans for the future are.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. This was never meant to be a long-term arrangement in the first place. But something about this—about being here with Vincent—just feels so unthinkingly easy.

“It’s no problem,” Vincent says. “The feeling is mutual. I’m glad I got to meet them.”

“Thanks for looking after me, too,” Yves says, with another apologetic smile. “I’mb sure being stuck in a hotel room all day wasn’t how you were planning on spending your last day of vacation.”

“I don’t mind,” Vincent says, sounding strangely like he means it. “I like spending time with you.”

Yves nearly drops the pillow he’s holding.

When he looks back at Vincent, Vincent looks faintly amused. “Is that so surprising? I think I’d be a terrible fake boyfriend if I didn’t.”

“You make a really good one, as it stands,” Yves tells him, sincerely, and Vincent smiles.

Yves looks out the window—where the city beneath them begins to resolve itself into miniature, where the sky stretches where he can see Vincent reflected faintly back at him, from the glass—and finds that he feels impossibly light.

#sneeze fic #snz fic #sneeze kink #snz kink #snzfic #when i set off to write a slow burn h/c fic i don't think i expected it to be 28k words #this was a journey for me... thank you sincerely to everyone who's joined me for the ride 😭#i am not sure if this specific chapter feels rushed? or if it's too short? (if it does i'm very sorry 🙇‍♀️)#some thoughts... (spoilers ahead; pls read the chapter before proceeding)#1) this installment in particular is something of a turning point in their relationship development (and i hope that's not too subtle)#2) vincent not being like a traditionally 'soft' caretaker and having his frustration show a little more openly is something i've had in my #head for awhile :') it was fun to let that crystallize this chapter #yvverse #my fic

101 notes · View notes

marzipanandminutiae · 8 months

Text

losing my mind that someone thinks that some women wear Kim K waist trainers to the gym because historical costumers/dress history specialists dare to talk about corsets not being torture devices online

see screenshot below:

my guy

those are demographics with NEGATIVE overlap

#corsets #corset discourse #historical costuming #most historical costumers don't even waist-train and the ones who do #are aware that it's a temporary change that only lasts as long as you have your corset on #so working out in it serves no purpose #but again the vast majority of us wear corsets for...bust support and a base layer in period outfits. or in everyday life if that suits us #nobody is watching Bernadette Banner and then rushing off to buy a Walmart cincher. I promise you

333 notes · View notes

mari-lair · 1 year

Text

Mitsuba is a mess, and his relationship with Kou just high light it.

(Head up: I’ll call the human ‘Sousuke’ and the supernatural ‘Mitsuba’)

Mitsuba wants friends, and he seems to have focused on Kou to get that, which in hindsight, is a very strange decision. Kou was not his smoothest interaction in Hell of Mirrors, he wasn’t even Mitsuba’s first interaction outside Tsukasa: Nene was.

Nene had no expectations of how he ‘should be’ based on Sousuke, and she had a lot of time to bond with him.

They bantered and tried to help each other from danger even when scared, and Mitsuba did feel a connection: He ran to her rescue before even Hanako and Kou when the ceiling fell, and he treated her as the priority, only saying his farewells and looking at her fondly when he kicked everyone off his boundary.

It seems like they are already friends, or at least, on friendly terms, so why does Mitsuba focus on Kou after Hell of Mirrors? What changed?

He got obsessed with the idea of identity.

Wanting an identity has been a big part of his character since his introduction.

Mitsuba’s existence is depressing: He thought he was a ghost, a human that died, and forgot his life. He tried to remember who he was but he couldn’t, so he felt isolated, and empty, and this feeling got worst when Hell of Mirrors didn’t show him anything. No reflection, no fear, nothing.

He displayed some fraction of a desire here: “Who am I?” "I want memories.”

It’s a wish that stuck with him before even the basic ‘wish’ to get out, which was what lead Nene to him and kick started the arc in the first place.

Mitsuba said “who cares” when Nene talks about seeing him before (seeing Sousuke) but he does care. A lot. It is not a passing wish, it genuinely bothers him.

Unfortunately, this wish to ‘remember’ is crushed before it can even became a proper goal.

He is told he is an artificial ghost, he never had a life or a heart for No.3′s mirrors to read: He’s an empty monster, created for the hell of it.

Mitsuba is not an idiot, he can see Kou is using him to pretend Sousuke is still around and Tsukasa is using him for his entertainment.

The lack of love sticks to him, it hurts, but what seems to have affected him the most is his lack of previous life. The idea that he was never human and have no life to remember.

That he doesn’t have anything.

And he can’t accept that.

Unlike Sousuke, Mitsuba's main goal isn’t to make friends: It’s to have an identity, to be somebody.

When he masters his school mystery powers he doesn’t seem to spare Nene, Tsukasa, or even Kou, much thought, but he gets obsessed with Sousuke: He watches his life from the moment he steps into the school, to his graduation, and his destruction.

The mirrors finally show him something, and even if there is this disconnect between himself and Sousuke, it’s still something.

We are told his wish is “to be human”, and that is a big part of it, he wants to have a life, to be visible and tangible, but he wouldn’t have tried to be Sousuke if his goal was simply to have a human body and experience being alive.

Mitsuba is contradictory: He wants to have his own identity, be worthy as himself, but he doesn’t like himself, he feels like an empty frankenstain monster built on the shadows of Sousuke, and being a human with no memories, no connection, no goals outside ‘living as a human’, is still empty. Barely an existence.

So he tries to be Sousuke, he gets lots of friends that call him Sousuke, which is a first name he doesn’t have, and tries to have the relationship he had with Kou. He steals Sousuke’s backstory and Sousuke’s dream, and tweak it to convince himself he is living his own dream.

He keeps following the previous No.3 rumor, even if by accident or force: First by stealing No.3′s seat number “to not disappear”, and after by stealing Sousuke’s dream “to have something"

But there is still a distance between him and Sousuke that shows replacing him was never his intention: Mitsuba doesn’t guard the photography book Kou gave him in Hell of Mirrors, he doesn’t try using a camera at all in picture perfect, he doesn’t like being mistaken for Sousuke.

He just likes to feel like somebody that can realistically be loved.

Even if deep down he is convinced it’s not true.

He only snaps out of his Sousuke obsession and goes back to pay attention to Kou as an individual, not as a major link to an identity he feels empty without, in chapter 48, after he opens up and Kou pays full attention to his wishes as Mitsuba, not Sousuke, for the first time.

He begins to care about Kou on a personal level: He stops watching Sousuke and starts watching Kou.

Considering how much free time Mitsuba have, I assume he watched more of Kou’s life through the window: The way he saved Hanako in the Young Exorcist arc, his big talk when he learned about Nene’s life spam, and so on. But even if he didn’t, since I have no proof he did, Mitsuba still witnessed how he did not fight back while in danger with Sousuke, and everything in picture perfect.

He knows Kou has a martyr complex.

Kou wants ‘perfect’ solutions and feels very distressed when he can’t have them. He’ll put himself in danger to give ‘anyone’ a happy ending, this, paired with Mitsuba’s view of himself, makes this conclusion perfectly reasonable:

So even though he doesn’t feel comfortable calling Kou a friend, Kou still makes him feel like he matters. Like he is worth grieving.

He likes when Kou listens to him and notices things about him, because it makes him feel like his existence is loved, which Mitsuba has convinced himself it does not, and never will.

An act as simple as remembering he has a fondness for penguins made him melt.

And while I am sure he would be happy if anyone did something so nice to him, he is extremely affected by Kou in specific. He values what Kou does much more than anyone else, his actions stick with Mitsuba to the point of madness since their first meeting.

In Hell of Mirrors, Kou should have been perceived as a lunatic: He is a stranger that’s way too touchy and speak nonsense about personal things Mitsuba wasn’t a part of, but even though he doesn’t even know Kou’s name, he is speechless by Kou.

The memory that stuck with Mitsuba in Hell of Mirrors wasn’t this weird stranger grabbing his face and demanding he remember something that he never experienced, it was Kou’s watery smile, the clear love, and relief he felt when seeing what he had believed to be Sousuke.

I’m sure Mitsuba had no idea how to react to having someone cry of joy to see him, but the way Mitsuba's survival instinct stopped working when Teru tries to kill him is unbelievable: Mitsuba is so focused on how Teru remind him of Kou, on how seeing someone that looks like Kou with such cold and cruel eyes doesn’t compute, that this ‘wrongness’ take all his attention, leaving him uncapable of processing the deadly sword on his face.

He sees Nene, Sakura, and Natsuhiko, distressed on many occasions, and while he does get sad for Nene and can empathize with them all, when Kou is the one troubled he pays full attention, he goes out of his way to help and freak out when Kou gets too sad. He goes as far as to put a pause on his wish to die to make Kou stop.

His joy also affects him more than anyone. When Kou is happy Mitsuba is always star struck.

He forgot every Nene smile but played Kou’s watery smile on repeat after Hell of Mirrors. He constantly frames Kou as if he is bright like stars or larger than life.

Even when he completely disagrees with what Kou says, Mitsuba still pays full attention. Is like he can’t look away when Kou is paying attention to him.

Because of it, instead of being dismissive or unimpressed, he gets very shaken and frustrated when Kou promises things he doesn’t believe in.

Kou have a lot of power over Mitsuba, which Mitsuba doesn’t nescesarily appreciates.

He wants to get closer but he also want a break from Kou.

Mitsuba isn’t very good at handling strong emotions, but he also has the bad habit of dismissing casual feelings or forgetting them.

He may be a very sweet supernatural, more emotional and empathetic than most, but in the end, he is still a supernatural: He does not get attached to people easily, and have an odd sense of priority.

He doesn’t have a high standard of how ‘caring or nice or alive’ someone need to be for them to be worthy of being his friend, he just want someone, anyone, to hold on to.

And yet he unconciously doesn’t allow himself that.

We can’t justify his sudden lack of interest in Nene, who was the closest thing to a certified ‘friend’ he got in Hell of Mirrors as him putting a mental block on her after learning of her lifespan: He just has no desire to be closer to her, be it because she wasn’t awake when he was told he is a frankenstain and therefore doesn’t see Mitsuba as the monster he sees himself, so he feels a disconnect, or because of something else, but regardless, he has convinced himself that she isn’t someone that he can care about, or isn’t someone that will care about him.

The same goes for the broadcasting club.

It is understandable why he doesn’t consider Tsukasa a friend, since despite how useful and competent Tsukasa is (he kidnaped no.4 as a present for Mitsuba, keeps him alive, gives him no.3 power and so on), he is hurtful and scary. But Natsuhiko and Sakura have shown to worry about him and go out of their way to make him happy.

They welcomed him with open arms, and they may not be perfect, but they do try to listen to him, they do care.

Natsuhiko was genuinely distressed when Mitsuba was in danger. He may be very goofy, but he tries to help enough that even Mitsuba acknowladge.

But Mitsuba does not consider Natsuhiko a friend, an annoying sibling, or anything.

No matter how desperate he should be to connect with others so he doesn’t feel empty he just... don’t.

He can’t put a label to the people he surrounds himself by, not on his own. He doesn’t cling to any bond he might have created, so he still feels alone, and with no reason to stay in the near shore.

He gave up on his current connections.

He gave up on being human and making new connections.

He would have gived up on the idea of friends as well, if it wasn’t for Kou.

Kou have a lot of power over him, and Mitsuba want to be Kou’s friend very badly but he was basically told point blank Kou doesn’t feel comfortable calling him in specific a friend.

He does get his hopes up after Kou jumps off the roof for him in picture perfect, but throughout all of the manga, Kou never called him a friend, he only ever called Sousuke a friend.

So once Mitsuba’s body started be unable to hold itself together, and he had to eat supernaturals to stay around, any kind of hope grew too troubling, not worth the pain and self hate of merely existing, so Mitsuba gave up on being his friend. He decided he just doesn’t care anymore. About anything

Or so he told himself.

The moment he sees Kou all happy to see him and worried about his health, he can’t look him in the eye. He either doesn’t have the courage to hurt his feelings (cause he knows Kou's sadness makes him super uncomfortable), or his determination to die wavers.

He hold on to him, and instead of giving up on this connection too, his ‘last wish’ is to spend time with Kou.

He still clearly want to be Kou’s friend, or more than friends, he just didn’t want to think about it.

The penguin destruction wouldn’t have distressed him so much otherwise. The idea of going to a festival with Kou wouldn’t be useful if Mitsuba didn’t get excited and looked forward to hanging out with Kou.

#if you feel like i rushed at the end is cause i did i am sorry #but i swear i tried my best to put the boy under a microscope properly #i just don't have the brainrot nescesary to go insane at lenght on a main character #tumblr i love you pls show it in the tags #character analysis

465 notes · View notes