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luvnami · 3 years

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𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 (here) | 𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 | 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 | 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 - This is my entry for @jjkmag Summer Collab! It’s my first long fic in a while but I had a lot of fun writing this (that isn’t to say I think it’s very good. I hope the plot/finality was pulled off decently ok lol). I hope you enjoy it! I chose the prompt 'coming of age', though there are definitely scenes where the other prompts were present as well. Reblogs, comments, shares and likes are really appreciated!!

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 - @getousuguruwife @amjustagirl @aliteama

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Amnesia, Memory loss, Blood, Mild gore, Death, Blood loss, Bullying, Mild Racism (only in the first part), Corpses, Food, Manga spoilers, Pre-canon and canon compliant to a certain extent, Nightmares

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - Nanami Kento's life has been... Good, bad, and everything in between. He (and many others) thinks he's mature, independent, the definition of what a proper adult should be like. But really, the only way he's made it this far is because you've been holding his hand the entire time.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 6.4k

The first memory Nanami has of you sits in a blurry haze at the back of his mind.

You’re probably four or five years old at best, squatting by a puddle in the empty kindergarten playground. Nanami wonders what made him waddle over to you that warm afternoon.

His shoes, scribbled with ugly caricatures in marker, carry him to the other side of the puddle. A shadow cast by a plastic slide slices your features neatly in half like a Greek theatre mask. Nanami doesn’t speak a word to you as he stares at your chubby fingers that push a fallen leaf around in the water as the surface ripples silently.

You look up at Nanami. He’s an odd child, excluded by the other kindergarteners because of how quiet and strange he is. Nanami’s blond hair is abnormal to the immature local Japanese children. They knee the back of his legs while calling him names like ‘banana-gaijin!’ and making fun of his fancy leather shoes.

“Do you wanna play with me?”

Nanami wonders if the words you speak to him are from your heart or something constructed from a plan to bully him again.

“My mama taught me how to make boats with leaves. See?” You point to the puddle. “We can race them.”

Nanami carefully selects a leaf off of the playground’s floor. It’s still green, freshly fallen from its branch. You grin toothily, your eyes sparkling.

“That’s a perfect leaf!” you declare.

Nanami thinks he wants to play with you forever.

He follows you around in school like a lost puppy after that, clutching his hands nervously when you stand up to the children who bully him. Nanami wonders if you’ll ever turn your back on him. He arrives earlier than you every morning and hurriedly scrubs at your table with his handkerchief to get rid of nasty words and obscene drawings, heart thumping against his cotton polo. When his mother asks him why his new handkerchief is so dirty, he remains silent and grips the hem of his shirt tightly.

Children are children; Nanami learns. Afraid of abnormalities, they defend their right to innocence and ego with harsh words and various schemes. He learns to ignore the whispers behind his back. What he can’t disregard, though, is when they lash out at you.

They jeer when you trip during P.E. classes and bump into you on purpose when you carry your lunch tray. You pretend that it doesn’t hurt when Nanami holds your hand gently and leads you to the nurse’s office with scraped knees, hiccuping and swiping at your eyes roughly.

He wonders why you don’t take the easy way out and just stop being friends with him. What’s wrong with you? You hold him tightly, a bundle of thorns, in your soft hands and pretend that you’re not bleeding.

“Ken-chan?” you sniffle.

He turns.

“You’re my best friend, right?”

Nanami gulps. He doesn’t question why you cry on graduation day, bidding your final farewell to him with vague promises of meeting in the same elementary school. Something in his chest doesn’t sit right; the kind of feeling when his mother threw out his old stuffed toys after she deemed him too old for them anymore.

He watches you grow smaller and smaller in the rear window of his family car till you’re the size of an ant, his knees digging into the leather seats.

“Sit down, Kento,” his father chides.

Nanami ignores him. He watches you wave your hand in the air as the car turns around the corner and lurches into the seat.

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s genuinely surprised when he finds out that his assigned seat is right next to you on the first day of elementary school. You’re no different, mouth wide open in an ‘o’ as you stare at him.“Ken-chan!”

You almost yell, and Nanami shushes you as his face heats up. He finds out that your mothers had conspired to put the both of you into the same school. He can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing just yet, but peace settles into his chest the same way the wings of a bird return to its sides after flight when you giggle at his flustered expression.

Through nine years of elementary and junior high school together, Nanami learns that you always arrange the tips of your pencils to face the right side of your pencil box, and you keep the torn bits of movie tickets shoved into your bedside drawer. You find that Nanami has a knack for dry humour — he’s blunt at every moment possible (which caused much distress after he talked back to a teacher that one time) and can usually be bribed for any favour as long as you pay him in food.

What the both of you find oddly shocking, though, is that no one else can see the creatures that swim through walls and perch in dark corners of the school.

They make you sweat whenever they get too close, bulbous eyes and strange bodies twisting in ways that shouldn’t be physically possible. Sometimes they make noises, whispering or coaxing or shrieking or crying in broken sentences.

Nanami learns to treat them as background noise. You, on the other hand, find that a little more complicated. Sometimes you latch onto him when one brushes against your arm, squeaking and swatting at them in an attempt to chase them away.

“They’re so gross!” you’d whine, pressing yourself even closer to Nanami. “Did you see that one in the gym yesterday? It had tentacles!”

In cases like this, the blond clears his throat and ignores you, averting his gaze. He doesn’t admit to anyone, not even himself, that the warmth of your skin through your uniform makes his heart skip a beat. You’ve grown so close to him that you even know that Nanami sleeps with Doraemon pajamas (absolutely, abhorrently embarrassing. He made his mother throw them out the night after you came over for a sleepover). It was inevitable for him to develop feelings.

Nanami shoves his feelings below a lid and sits on top of it, keeping them under lock and key. He’s sure this is just something to do with puppy love or ‘infatuations’ that are underlined in the puberty print-outs the school distributed, alongside scientific diagrams of genitals that the boys in his class giggle at.

Being friends is enough. Or so he thinks, anyway.

☆*: .｡.

It’s a Friday evening when the sky is dark, and street lights flicker in the distance. Nanami munches away on melon bread from a convenience store while you sip on a carton of juice. Your clubs had ended late today, so the sun was down by the time you left school.

“How’s the bread?” you ask, slurping up the last drops of your drink.

Nanami chews and swallows while you dab at your mouth with a yellow cotton handkerchief.

“It’s okay. Not as good as a bakery’s, though. Kinda stale.”

He crumples the plastic packaging in his hand and sticks it into his pocket, planning to dispose of it later. The both of you round the corner to the bus stop, and your feet fall still. A large curse sits in the middle of the road.

Numerous cars are crumpled like drink cans, smoke, and gasoline leaking onto the streets. There’s blood. Too much blood, in fact, that they seem like puddles of rain on the dark tarmac. Your juice box drops from your hand.

The curse turns to you, its teeth split vertically down the centre of what constitutes a face. Multiple eyes run down the length of its engorged body where various hands and feet stick out at random parts.

“Blood… Blood…” it moans in a cryptic voice.

Nanami stands with his feet frozen to the ground, eyes wide in horror. His knuckles turn white as he grips his school bag. Run, run, run! He screams internally, but his limbs don’t listen to him. The curse slides over the road towards him, slipping through the blood easily.

“Give me… Your blood…”

A part of the curse’s body bubbles up into a large hand. It swings itself back before throwing its newly created appendage towards Nanami. RUN RUN RUN! His legs don’t move. He squeezes his eyes shut, awaiting the impact. Except that it doesn’t hit him. Nothing hurts, except the shrill scream that pierces his ears. Nanami’s eyes snap open in horror.

“Kento!” you yell, dangling upside down as the curse pulls you towards its mouth.

Your school bag lays on the ground below, books scattered as their pages turn red.

“Run!”

Nanami drops everything as he scrambles towards you, tripping over his own two feet and landing face-first in the blood. His hands and knees sting. He shoves himself and gets up with his teeth clenched. You kick your feet in the air in a poor attempt to escape the curse’s grip but to no avail. Another groan is squeezed out of you as the curse opens its mouth, the foul stench of rotting bodies engulfing you.

“Run, Kento!” you plead.

How can he turn his back on you? Sweat drips down his forehead as Nanami pulls his hand back. The adrenaline that rushes through his blood clears in a split-second moment of raw emotion; anger, disappointment, confusion, sadness. A tingling sort of energy floods his body, and Nanami takes a sharp breath of air. He sees something like a ruler — a line divided equally with ten markings, the seventh one crossed out. His fist connects with it.

The curse lets out a weak moan of pain, shaking you around as it recoils from Nanami’s hit. It’s not much, just a surface injury at most. Nanami’s limbs tremble with exertion. One more time, again and again, until you’re safe-

A thick, gross liquid engulfs Nanami as the curse explodes in front of his very eyes. He coughs, running a slimy hand over his face. It smells like death.

“Woah! You put too much into that again, Satoru.”

“Shut up!”

Nanami looks up as he hears footsteps move towards him, the quiet splashing of blood beneath shoes.

“Ugh, this place is so gross.”

“You okay there, kiddo?”

Nanami looks up to find a male with his hair pulled back into a bun staring at him. Behind him is a white-haired teenager with sunglasses (strange, hasn’t the sun already gone down?) and an imposing-looking man.

Where are you?

Nanami glances around frantically amidst the dead bodies that lie on the ground. Not you, not you, not- A tiny sliver of hope slips into his heart when he spots your uniform, and he stumbles over.

“Woah! Slow down!”

He calls out your name, slipping and collapsing onto his knees. Your eyes are closed, and a wound on your head oozes blood. A young girl with short hair reaches out to touch you, but Nanami pulls you into his chest, his eyes wide.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

His head spins. Are these good people? How did they just destroy that big monster? He hadn’t even seen them coming. Were they going to hurt you?

“Calm down, man! We’re good guys.”

“No one’s going to trust you when you say that, Satoru.”

The girl stares at Nanami.

“I’ll take care of your injuries. Can you let me see them, please?”

He relaxes. His grip on you loosens, and the girl feels for your pulse, nodding in affirmation.

“Alive.”

Nanami breathes a sigh of relief. At this realisation, his body begins to tremble like a leaf in the wind. He digs his nails into his palms but still they quiver. His heart pounds in his chest and he struggles to take a deep breath, exhaustion overtaking him.

“Hey, you okay?”

His eyes fall shut.

☆*: .｡.

Nanami finds out over a hot cup of tea that those monsters are called curses, and not everyone can see them.

“Lucky you!” Gojo chimes in.

Lucky? His face wrinkles in despair and Getou laughs so loud at his reaction that he has to step out of the room.

Nanami had sustained minor injuries — nothing beyond a few scrapes and some trauma. You were fine for the most part. After hitting your head on the ground, you remained unconscious for a few more days after Nanami had woken up. You were covered in a few bruises, but otherwise alright.

Nanami was infinitely thankful for that

Yaga tells him that he has enough aptitude to become a full-fledged sorcerer. The school he teaches at is called Jujutsu High and is located on the outskirts of Tokyo. Since he’s in his final year of junior high, why not give it a thought if he wants to join them? Nanami holds Yaga’s name card numbly.

He looks up at Yaga, only one objective clear in his mind. He doesn’t want to see you hurt any longer.

“Will you teach me how to exorcise curses?” he asks.

Gojo laughs outrightly and Geto snorts. Yaga gives him a confident smile, clapping Nanami on the shoulder (he doesn’t quite like that, but he overlooks it for now).

“You can count on that.”

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s a little apprehensive about entering Jujutsu High, especially when you decide to enrol as well. Given the ability to see curses, you were adamant about learning to help others with this ability you were gifted with. He relented and sulked for the rest of the day until you gave him a cup of pudding.

The first day Nanami and you enter Jujutsu Tech, you meet a wide-eyed boy named Haibara Yu. He’s overly optimistic and passionate — precisely the kind of person that Nanami tires of interacting with. In fact, the very first thing Haibara says upon meeting the both of you irritates him.

“Woah! Blondie, are you from an emo band or something? Your hair really matches the vibe!” Haibara had gasped.

You struggled to suppress your giggles, biting on your lower lip as you turned to the side. Nanami, on the other hand, didn’t find it quite as funny.

“No, I’m not. Nice to meet you too,” he replied monotonously.

It takes all of the following month for Nanami to get used to Haibara’s eccentricities. He always does his best during training, mingles enthusiastically with the upperclassmen and chows down on at least two bowls of rice during break time. The most annoying part about him is how Haibara seems to get along so well with you.

You laugh too loudly for Nanami’s liking at his jokes, squeeze in between Haibara and him (brushing shoulders with the both of them! Seriously!) when they’re standing together just to listen in on Haibara’s monologuing, and sometimes even end up sparring with him instead of Nanami.

The blond curses that there is an odd number of first years and peers in the mirror after his shower as he wonders what he would look like with a black bowl cut. He even tries to finish more than one serving of ginger pork on one particular day and gets sent to the school nurse for a tummy ache.

Though, the three of you have chemistry that works out when fighting curses. Nanami is the primary damage dealer of the group, while you learn how to provide support with Haibara and create openings for Nanami to attack. So on your first ‘real group mission’ assigned to you by Yaga, you can’t help but set off with overflowing excitement.

It isn’t often that you have the opportunity to step outside of Jujutsu High on your own without supervision. Even on weekends, you’re usually expected to train or study. The sun shines warmly down upon the streets of Asakusa, and tourists and locals alike swarm the city area.

“Hey! We should totally give Sensou-ji Temple a visit later!” Haibara suggests, pumping his fist in the air.

“We’re not here to sightsee,” Nanami sighs.

“That’s what you said the last time we went to Okinawa, and guess what, Nanamin! We didn’t even get to try their sushi!”

“Yeah, and you forgot to bring back souvenirs for me, Ken-chan,” you chime in.

“I told you to stop adding -chan to my name.”

“Why not? Doesn’t it sound cute?”

“Mhm!”

Haibara nods furiously. Nanami ignores the both of you with a sigh. He slings a bag containing his sword over his shoulder once more as the crowd barely makes space for you to move through.

“We can’t take too long,” he relents.

The cheers and high-fives that you and Haibara give each other make a vein bulge on Nanami’s temple. He tries not to read too much into the way you immediately begin discussing what places to visit and eat at with Haibara — didn’t you care for his opinion? He shakes his head and increases his pace, leaving the both of you behind.

Nanami ignores the cries of ‘Ken-chan!’ and ‘Nanamin!’ that ring out through the crowd. Whatever. If you want to be with Haibara, then Nanami will gladly get out of the way for you. He drags his feet on the pavement and settles for a cup of iced tea in a nearby cafe gloomily.

What Nanami is doing is… childish. He knows, at the very least, that he should be happy the both of you have met a nice new friend. But he can’t help the jealousy that rises in his chest like smoke in a chimney when he sees you cling onto Haibara the same way you used to do to him.

Was Haibara nicer, more good-looking, stronger, funnier, gentler, better than every single trait in Nanami combined? You no longer ask Nanami how he slept the previous night, instead running over to Haibara and greeting him cheerily. Forget about how you used to come over to Nanami’s house to study after school — you and Haibara disappear to who knows where after training everyday.

He bites down on his straw. The bitter taste of a lemon seed fills his mouth and Nanami spits it out onto a napkin with more force than necessary. He takes a deep breath. He should make things clear to you, then, and let you know how he feels about you. To him, it sounds a little like love.

Nanami’s face flushes with embarrassment. Love is… Love isn’t this. It definitely isn’t getting jealous over your relationships with other people, nor is it forcing you to accept his feelings out of spite. He finishes the last bit of his iced tea, the straw making a gurgling noise as it fails to suck up any more liquid. He leaves his money by the counter and walks back outside, returning his heart back to its safe, clicking the lock shut once more. His shoulders sag as he lets out a pent-up sigh.

Nanami squints at his phone. The golden sunlight makes it difficult to read his messages, but he manages to pick out four missed calls from you and a hundred text messages from Haibara. His blood runs cold when he scrolls to the last text that he received.

Haibara Yu, 4.25p.m.: curse help 6 cho

It’s currently 4.35p.m. 6-chome is a 15 minutes walk away, five minutes if he sprints fast enough. Nanami hopes that you’re okay, that Haibara has enough sense to call for other back-up or avoid the curse.

Nanami’s feet pound under him as he shoves his way through the crowds, earning distasteful looks and swears. He doesn’t care. Not when you and Haibara are facing a possible grade 2 curse alone, and not when it’s because of Nanami’s irresponsibility and useless emotions that had caused the three of you to be separated.

His breath comes quick and hard and his thighs burn, screaming for relief. He makes a sharp turn and almost crashes into a bicycle.

“Watch where you’re going!” an angry housewife yells, but her words fall on deaf ears.

Just a little more, he begs.

Nanami hears the fighting before he sees it. The sound of metal meeting metal and the roar of the curse sound uncharacteristically comforting to him as he draws his sword, racing to bear a fighting stance.

But he’s too late.

“Yu!” you cry out as Haibara crumples onto the ground.

His eyes meet Nanami’s. His uniform is tattered, face bearing wounds and his right arm is bent at an unnatural shape, almost like a knotted tree branch. You seem relatively unhurt, although your breathing is laboured.

“Kento,” Haibara wheezes.

Nanami’s feet don’t move. His chest heaves, perspiration pouring down his face and drenching his uniform. The grip on his sword slips ever so slightly. The curse stands at the end of a ruined district. You aren’t trained to fight in such close quarters, or reduce the number of casualties to a bare minimum.

And Nanami hadn’t been here to provide damage to exorcise it.

“Who are you? Another small fry?” the curse scoffs.

It takes the body of a geisha, dressed in luxurious robes that whip about in the air. Consciousness? This isn’t a grade 2 by any means — it’s a special grade curse. The will to fight slips out of Nanami like water from a cup, trickling from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

“Haibara!” Nanami shouts.

The male gives Nanami one last smile from where he is.

“You’ve got it from here,” he whispers, lips barely moving.

The geisha stretches out its hand, a portion of its obi moving along with it. You and Nanami watch in horror as Haibara’s head is neatly decapitated from his body. His blood drips off of the ends of the robes as the curse cackles, his head rolling to a stop as his half-closed eyes stare up at Nanami like a dead fish’s.

“You think you can beat me? Look at your little friend!”

Fury rushes into Nanami like a wave meeting the shore.

“You’ll die here by my hands!” the curse roars.

You take a step back as the geisha prepares to launch another attack, silk sashes drawn back into the sky before they plunge back at you two in an aerial attack. Nanami leaps through the attacks as his body moves faster than he can process it.

You, on the other hand, create a shield out of cursed energy to try and deflect the attacks. At the very least, Haibara deserves a proper burial. There isn’t time for mourning now, and you have to wipe away the tears that pool in your eyes. You try to ignore the way his head rolls closer to your foot and bumps against it gently.

Nanami lets out a yell of anger. His cursed energy swells as he cuts his way through the sashes, movement based on momentum than anything else at this point. His mind is clouded with regret and frustration. Nanami channels his anger into his sword, the ten destined lines appearing before his eyes once more.

The curse lets out a cry of pain as it stumbles back, sashes redrawn as it tries to gauge its wounds. Blood gushes from a slash on its side and Nanami darts forward again — again, again, again, until its dead. His legs, however, are weaker than what he thinks they can bear. Nanami stumbles in his step.

“Ken!” you shout.

The curse grins. It takes little to no time to regenerate, skin overlapping raw flesh as it gets back onto its feet.

“You’re weak,” it taunts. “First your friend, now you. I’ll be sure to savour the last one as well!”

Nanami struggles to get back onto his feet. He gasps, heart ripping a hole through his chest. He’s so exhausted; so worn out, that his arms refuse to raise his sword above chest height. He curses.

You run over to Nanami, grabbing his uniform and dragging him back. The curse starts to chant ominously. Its face turns dark, taking steps that sway its body with thick, lacquered geta. You shove Nanami back as you’re engulfed by its domain, swallowed up by darkness and spit into a tatami room. He barely has time to call your name before you disappear.

“Shit!”

Nanami stumbles back onto his feet, but sinks down onto his knees again. His shoulders quake as he tries to suck in breaths of air, but his throat is too dry. He coughs and adjusts his grip on his sword. Shit, shit, shit. All of his partners tossed themselves at death as if it was an idle thing just to protect him. What was Nanami doing? He would never become a sorcerer like this, never be able to protect you.

He grits his teeth. He’ll never be enough.

Nanami picks up his sword, wrapping his fingers around its hilt one more time. He dashes towards the domain, tasting iron as he hacks and slashes at it. Again, again, and again. His hands turn numb and his cursed energy flickers like a candle’s flame, but there’s one thing Nanami’s insistent on — getting you out of there.

The domain finally collapses as Nanami finally steadies himself on his feet. You roll to the ground, breath shallow. Your uniform is sliced up in different areas and a pool of blood begins to spread where your head meets the floor.

“Ken…?” you whisper.

Nanami smells it — the scent of death. Why did he ever choose to become a sorcerer over an ordinary high school life? He wouldn’t have dragged you into this mess, caused you to be hurt time and time again. Nanami calls out your name tentatively. You don’t respond.

The curse roars with laughter as your eyes fall shut, “Don’t you see how I’m so strong? You’re nothing compared to me-”

Nanami sees red. He launches himself forward, brandishing his sword even if it’s for the last time.

He doesn’t remember what happens afterwards.

Nanami sinks into a pool of blood, head spinning with exertion. Your body lays to his left, Haibara’s head to his right. He collapses to the ground.

☆*: .｡.

When he comes to, Nanami’s eyes struggle to adjust to the white light that floods the room. It smells vaguely like antiseptic. He slowly sits up, body aching with exhaustion with telltale bandages wrapped around most of his exposed limbs.

A drawn curtain separates his bed from the rest of the room, which he assumes to be Jujutsu Tech’s sickbay. He runs a hand over his face and lies back down, letting sleep take him by the hand and lead him a step further from reality.

Nanami wakes up a second time when Shouko returns to the room. He stares at her, blinking once, then twice.

“Nanami?” she asks softly. “Can you hear me?”

He tries to reply, but his throat is parched. He ends up coughing, wrinkling his face as pain spreads through his ribs. Shouko rushes to get him a glass of water and calls the rest (namely Yaga and Gojo) over. Nanami nurses the glass as Yaga takes a seat by his bed.

There are no questions, only condolences and murmured explanations of what had happened. The only thing Nanami picks up is that you’re alive. That’s more than enough for him to relax, nodding dumbly along to Yaga’s words.

The curse had been on the brink of death when Nanami collapsed. However, he had put up enough of a fight for nearby sorcerers to come to his aid and finish it off. There was no doubt about it — it was a special grade curse. Yaga apologises for the miscommunication and loss of Haibara’s life. Nanami doesn’t reply.

No amount of apologies could turn back time and bring Haibara back.

It takes him a few more days before Nanami’s able to hobble around the school, aided by crutches. Gojo pokes fun at how he seems like a grandpa but even his jokes don’t bear the mean edge they usually do. Getou leaves a can of vending machine coffee by his bedside table and Shouko brings him some wildflowers. Nanami leaves the plush cat Yaga had made for him untouched.

Nanami struggles against the nightmares that plague him. In one Haibara cradles his decapitated head in his own arms, asking Nanami why he hadn’t saved his life; in another you die, guts spilling onto the streets with your eyes bulging from your skull. Nanami wakes up in cold sweat. He calms his breathing alone and doesn’t sleep a single wink.

It’s a rainy day when Shouko lets him enter the morgue. Haibara’s body is laid in a shroud of white, his head positioned to appear attached. Had he ever been so pale? Nanami’s fingers grip his crutches, gritting his teeth.

How long his eyelashes had been! A small scar runs down his left temple (“After my sister shoved me in the playground!” Haibara had chirped), and his bangs remain as perfectly cut as they had been when he died. Nanami half expects him to sit up, to grin and laugh at his twisted face.

“Why’re you so stiff, Nanami? It’s just a joke!”

Justajokejustajokejustajoke.

A chasm opens up in Nanami’s stomach. His crutches clatter to the floor as he races out of the morgue, stumbling when pain shoots up his right leg. He retches dryly and tears pool in his eyes. Shouko silently covers Haibara and closes the door, Nanami’s tears falling alongside the pouring rain.

That night in his dreams, Haibara slices Nanami’s head off. He wakes up with his heart racing and tears slipping down his cheeks.

Nanami visits you the next day. He had been reluctant to do so — what if you blamed him for everything, for Haibara’s death and your injuries? He wouldn’t be able to bear it, to be hated by you. His hand hovers over your dorm doorknob, hesitating. Nanami takes a deep breath as he swallows his anxiety and opens the door.

It’s as if nothing had ever happened.

You sit on your bed, neatly tucked under the covers with a book sitting on your lap. Warm sunshine pours through the open windows and the penguin plush Nanami had won for you at a festival still sits by your desk. You look up when he walks in.

Nanami calls out your name. You stare at him.

“Sorry, but… Who are you?” you ask quietly, a sense of confusion lacing your words.

He stops by the door and Nanami’s heart sinks to his feet.

“I’m Kento. Nanami Kento,” he repeats, words tasting like ash in his mouth.

Checkered curtains flutter in the wind and the pages of your book butterfly open to an unread chapter. You keep your eyes focused on Nanami, eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” you reply.

☆*: .｡.

A toxic mix of trauma and a severe head injury had caused your amnesia. Nanami lays in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling. If only he hadn’t let his emotions overtake him, if only he had been there a minute earlier, if only if only if only. Regret dulls his sense of taste and emotions. He no longer takes joy in eating anything (even those croissants Getou had bought while out on a mission), nor does he even crack a smile at Gojo’s antics.

Nanami returns to training once he is physically well again. He becomes the only first-year to attend Yaga’s classes, sparring practice conducted with the second years. He goes out on missions alone and learns to provide both defense and offense for himself. Nanami trains, he exercises curses, he returns to school. He repeats this same cycle mindlessly over and over again.

Time heals, they say. Nanami wonders how much time it must take for him to let go of everything.

Nanami learns to hide his disappointment. His face becomes a strong facade for whatever his weak heart truly feels. The quiet sigh he lets out when no one’s around, the stretching of his neck after yet another fruitless day of training — Nanami decides that he’ll leave the world of sorcery once he’s graduated.

Seasons change and Nanami becomes a second year, then a third year. Getou falls away. The seniors graduate and new freshmen enter the school. Nanami keeps these things in the back of his mind as he raises his sword for a countless time, striking the training doll with ease.

You work with Shouko in the infirmary, occasionally helping out with office work. The school had deemed it better to keep you under their care than to release you outside. Like a rehabilitated animal, Nanami thinks.

You still remember no memories of him. Nanami brings you sweets and souvenirs from his missions, letting you trace your fingers over the fancy packaging with a sparkle in your eye. At this, Nanami swallows back his confession of love once more. He can’t bear to burden you with his feelings.

You form new impressions of him. Nanami turns into the stone-faced and adorable boy who treats you like fine China, always sticking his hands out awkwardly when he tries to give you something. The tips of his ears burn red when he lies — especially when you ask him, “Nanami, did you buy this for me?” and he shakes his head furiously.

You think he’s kind. He comforts you when you cry over lost memories, unable to remember the faces in photographs that had once been so familiar. The first thing Nanami does after returning from a mission is to rush to you. Were you okay? Did you have your meals? One time, he came over without getting his injuries checked and collapsed by your feet. You scolded him after that, tenderly dressing his wounds.

“Nanami!” you said crossly, a pout on your face.

He tries to forget how he had asked you to stop calling him ‘Ken-chan’. He ducks his head, hissing when you douse his skin in antiseptic.

Some things don’t change, though. You still keep your pencil box immaculately neat — the tips of your stationery always pointing to the right side. Though you don’t have any more movie ticket stubs, you carefully clip the pictures of your childhood Nanami had given to you together and keep them under your pillow.

One day, you munch on a yummy biscuit Nanami brought back for you. He sits on the floor and polishes his sword, peering at it from every angle to make sure it’s evenly oiled.

“Nanami?”

He hums.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like you’re from an emo boy band? Your hair matches it.”

Your shy laugh rings out in the room as bile rises in Nanami’s throat. He sheathes his sword and lays it on the ground.

“Yes, they have.”

He struggles to smile, his gut twisting.

☆*: .｡.

On graduation day, no one else but Nanami receives his certificate with a flower corsage pinned to his chest. The room is empty save for him and Yaga, the chirping of spring birds breaking the silence.

“I’m glad to have been able to teach you, Nanami,” Yaga broods. “You’ve grown a lot.”

Nanami does not reply. He bows deeply and strides out of the main building. All of a sudden, the traditional architecture and nature that surround Jujutsu High seems stifling. His skin crawls with the urge to leave as soon as possible.

“Nanamin!”

He jumps. Turning around, he finds you grinning happily with a bouquet of flowers in hand.

“Congratulations on your graduation!” you chirp.

Nanami accepts the flowers awkwardly and rests them in the crook of his elbow, his other hand clutching his certificate. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of nearby trees and a wave of sakura petals descend from their branches like rain.

“Nanamin,” your voice grows softer. “Are you leaving forever?”

He swallows, then nods wordlessly.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I wanna be with you forever, Ken-chan!” you wailed.

“Forever’s a long time,” Nanami replied.

He handed you his yellow cotton handkerchief, face wrinkling when you honked your nose into it. Gross. His neck hurt from sticking it out of the car window. He can hear his father tapping a finger onto the wheel impatiently, his mother silent as she stares out the front.

“B-but!”

Your bottom lip quivered and Nanami let out a sigh.

“Fine, fine. I’ll be with you, okay?”

“Really, Ken-chan? Forever?”

“Yeah, really. Forever.”

You grinned in the waning sunlight as your mother tugged you away.

“I’ll never forget you, Ken-chan!” you shouted.

The car window rolled up and he watched you disappear into the horizon, turning as tiny as an ant.

Nanami swallows his heart into the pit of his stomach.

“Probably.”

“That’s not a definitive answer, Nanamin.”

“What do you want me to tell you, then?”

There’s a slight tremble in his voice. The plastic wrapping of the flowers crinkle under his grip and waves of emotions rush over him; the biggest out of all of them regret. He struggles to breathe underwater, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and nose plugged up. A sakura petal lands on his shoulder. He doesn’t bother brushing it away.

“Say,” you whisper, taking a step to close the distance between Nanami and you.

He gulps as you place a hand upon his chest. He can feel the heat of your skin through his uniform and Nanami’s too dumbstruck to respond.

“Why don’t you give me your second button?”

Your eyes meet his. A smile toys with the corners of his lips and suddenly Nanami blurts out a nervous “Okay.”. His mind flickers back to Haibara momentarily; how you had appeared to like him so much back then. But he chooses to shove those memories into the back of his mind once more as you produce a small pair of scissors and snip the thread.

“You always take care of me, Nanamin. It was natural of me to fall in love with you,” you breathe, cradling the swirl patterned button in your hands.

A gust of cool air slips into his unbuttoned shirt and Nanami’s breath hitches.

“Do you like me too?”

Your question is innocent. With the way you peer up at him, there’s no way that Nanami can lie. Your glittery eyes were the same ones he had fallen in love with all those years ago. He wonders if he still loves you in the same way as he did then; as faultless and innocent it had been. His heart sits on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah, I do.”

Your eyes crinkle at the edges as you smile, an evident sigh of relief escaping your lips. You slip the button into your pocket before tugging Nanami even closer towards you. He yelps as your chest presses against his and the tips of his ears turn red.

You plant your lips by the side of his.

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen angst #jjk x reader #jjk fluff #jjk angst #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk fic #nanami kento #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento fluff #nanami kento angst #nanami kento fic #nanami x reader #nanami angst #nanami fluff #nanami fic #jjk nanami #jjkmagsummer

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azenkii · 4 years

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Sokka/Suki/Zuko Brotp Headcanons

These three are a god-tier brotp and i'm here to prove it

100% that one friend group who does the stupidest, most impulsive shit but they’re also super nerdy at the same time?

Like they'll be left alone together and you can guarantee that by morning they'll have broken into several heavily guarded government buildings. But like,,they didn't even steal anything important? they just wanted to see if they could find bosco's birth records and figure out why he's a regular bear

The last time they got drunk together they woke up on the Beifongs' roof in librarian's robes with a fully labelled diagram of a nonbending submarine in front of them

Suki and zuko braid each other's hair and sokka got jealous that he couldn't join in so he grew out his hair until it was long enough to braid

Suki teaches zuko how to fight with kyoshi warrior fans and he's absolute shit at it

In return, he teaches her how to fight with dual broadswords and she is not shit at it, which zuko thinks is unfair

all three of them spar together, all the time

sokka’s the unofficial leader of the group

he’s almost always the one who suggests the dumb/smart ideas

suki and zuko are pretty much on the same wavelength as him when it comes to plans so whenever he suggests something it goes like

sokka: so you guys know the new ozai society? well i was thinking about the pipes under the city-

suki: that’s a great plan. dibs on scouting the eastern block, zuko can you-?

zuko, nodding: the night market? on it

no one else can ever eavesdrop on their conversations because they just don’t make sense

the story of their escape from the boiling rock becomes legendary and they make a game out of retelling it. every time someone asks about it they’ll add something new. eventually the story ends up involving a platypus bear named Mai II, Chit Sang’s identical twin, a rope made out of bedsheets and three separate riots

sokka and zuko thought for a solid year that suki didn’t really like drinking because she always ended up relatively sober whenever they went out. turns out she drinks more than both of them combined and she’s just really, really good at holding her liquor

the amount of decrees they’ve passed while drunk is honestly ridiculous. only half of these decrees were cancelled afterwards because the other half actually made sense

suki once genuinely threatened to throw hands with one of zuko’s ministers. her reasoning was ‘he kept making weird faces whenever sokka suggested anything’

sokka and suki once ganged up against zuko. they called it ‘nonbenders solidarity’

zuko retaliated by creating a super-secret best-buds-only handshake with toph and they did it in front of sokka and suki whenever they could. sokka and suki eventually went ‘okay OKAY we GET IT also can you please...teach us the handshake it looks really cool’ and zuko was like ‘hm. no i dont think i will’

he then proceeded to drive them insane by immediately teaching the handshake to everyone he knew. aang? knew it. katara? knew it. mai and ty lee? knew it. every single one of his ministers knew it. the kyoshi warriors knew it (and wouldn’t tell suki). hakoda knew it. iroh knew it. that random regular visitor to iroh’s tea shop knew it.

sokka and suki gave up on ever learning the handshake. exactly one (1) day later zuko and sokka were playing their own modified version of pai sho with suki watching them and then zuko just casually went ‘so now that you’ve given up do you want to learn the handshake’

sokka and suki went FERAL and suki flipped the board

sokka: HOW DID YOU KNOW WE GAVE UP

also sokka, exactly 0.02 seconds later: also yes please teach us the handshake sifu hotman

the handshake is the stupidest most needlessly-complicated thing in the world but they learn it anyway and they don’t stop using it for approximately a month

and oh did i not mention that they made their own version of pai sho? they call it die sho and it features 16 homemade tiles and a set of rules that only suki understands. one game can last anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 days

they once wrote a book together under the pseudonym Wang Kyo-Lee. The book was a 500-page rant about plant husbandry. it became a bestseller in the earth kingdom.

they also once did a role swap for a day. zuko dressed up as a kyoshi warrior/the fire lord’s elite guard (complete with makeup to hide his scar), sokka was acting fire lord, and suki was his water tribe ambassador. that was how they discovered that they worked together so much that their jobs were literally interchangeable

there are rumours that the three of them are involved in a poly relationship. when asked, none of them will give a definitive answer

sometimes they’ll just go on holiday to some random obscure place without telling anyone and come back four days later with a frog, three new swords, a crate of theatre props and a valuable compilation of historical accounts that’s been lost for over a century

the most memorable thing they ever brought back was druk, aka a literal dragon

out of the three of them, suki makes the best tea. however, she’s also the worst cook

sokka learnt how to knit and promptly made them matching scarves. the scarves were ugly af but suki and zuko wore them anyway

when zuko overworks himself sokka and suki will literally manhandle him away from his desk and into his chambers, all while lecturing him as he nods sleepily and dozes on his feet

when suki overworks herself sokka and zuko will bring her tea and wrap her in blankets until she eventually falls asleep

when sokka overworks himself suki and zuko will drag him out somewhere under the open air and just sit with him until he relaxes and falls asleep on one or both of them

they have a running joke where suki and zuko will, in the middle of a discussion, go ‘GODS you remind me of this one guy i met while i was travelling’ and then proceed to describe sokka until he realises they’re talking about him

they all have a very dark sarcastic sense of humour that can honestly be alarming to anyone who doesn’t know them. mai thinks it’s hilarious

suki knows how to juggle. she tries to teach sokka and zuko and they both fail miserably

sokka takes them ice-dodging. sokka (once again) earns the mark of the wise. suki earns the mark of the brave. zuko earns the mark of the trusted.

(does zuko earning the mark of the trusted make him cry? perhaps)

hakoda takes one look at suki and zuko and immediately goes ‘oh ok youre my children now’

zuko can handle himself pretty well in the cold (breath of fire, remember?) but that doesn’t mean he likes it. sokka and suki constantly tease him about it whenever they visit the south pole

zuko once startled suki while she was sleeping and she accidentally chi blocked him. sokka laughed until he cried

they 100% have heated debates about super niche topics

anyway they’re all bffs who may or may not be dating each other send tweet

#atla #headcanons #sokka #zuko #suki #zukki #platonic zukki #zukka #sukka

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scourgewins · 3 years

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Great, thank you so much! Also I totally understand about the school thing. In fact, school for me ends in 2 weeks and I'm in a lot of pressure as well! So take your time, we will gladly wait! 1. How can I make all the faces look different? 2. Arms??? Looking normal???? PLEASE??? 3. Just a general tip for drawing bodies well? 4. How can I draw comics well? (aka make characters have different expressions and body language in a way that makes sense) Again, thank you so much!

Aw, good luck to you! Thanks for being understanding!

1. I actually struggle with this a lot 'cause I got TONS and TONS of characters! I just choose a few facial features I like to vary. My favorites are hair on the top of the head, bangs, noses, jawlines, and eyebrows. I just have a few different ones I'm good at, and I kinda rotate through them. Grant and Wally have the same square hair with square-lifted bangs, but their noses and jawlines are different, for example. I also like getting the general flavor of the being you're conveying and just adapting the shapes to that. (I just started designing human Transformers on our other blog, so I'm getting a lot of exercise with that due to the HUGE NUMBER of Transformers...)

2. Haha, arms are super hard! I'm weird and I just eyeball the proportions, but if you have trouble, you can always measure with your fingers to see if the elbows end near the hips and the hands end up halfway down the thigh. This can vary for certain characters: for example, Jack has tiny arms and Norman has longboi arms. The shapes are what make me able to eyeball the arm lengths... I got inspired by a few particular artists to make the brachioradialis muscle really defined, and to make the elbow essentially just round. I always cheat and make dudes wearing dress shirts so I can just make it as puffy and round as I want! Here is a dumb little diagram of the breakup. (Red is biceps and shoulder, green is extensor carpi or the round thing under your elbow, blue is the brachioradialis (the part that makes it super cartoony if you accentuate), and the yellow is the inner elbow and armpit.)

3. In my height charts, you can see how I generally make my bodies. Right now, I'm kinda struggling with back shapes and positions that aren't standing. Basically, I take a bent bean for the middle, make the legs extend from it, then draw the outside of the arms to start. I don't know if this'll be really helpful for you, but that helps me understand the general shapes and movements. Sometimes, I look at old comic book poses or pause cartoons to help! (The bottom one doesn't make much sense until you draw the rest of the arms, but...)

4. Ah, the question of a lifetime!!! I've spent years and years reading comics and watching cartoons and just stopping and being like, "That right there is cool. I will remember that." Some people think it's really useful to make the face yourself or use it as reference, but I can't ever figure out how to turn that into shapes. I have a few base shapes and just adapt them to look different. My favorite is the many-use "Sammy mouth" I discovered when I first started developing Sammy. I also heavily rely upon eyebrows creasing in the middle. The biggest way I get the expressions right is trying over and over again until it just feels like what it should. I'm always personally afraid of going too far and making ugly faces, but that's sometimes what you need. You can add more creases around angles or scrunchy parts to get more dynamic expressions. Just play around with it a lot. It's a good excuse to draw your favorite characters a lot!

Body language is something that you can pose for pretty easily! The thing is to remember where the action or attention is. For example, a punch can be shown as overly round to bring attention to the motion. Legs can be bent to show gremlin-like excitement... I personally overuse shoulders as expressive details 'cause my comics are usually from the head to the shoulders. I discovered it when I first started Bendy stuff, and I haven't been able to part with it since! It's a pretty easy way to show emotion without the rest of the body... You can act it out and draw what comes naturally as your character, too. I actually use animal poses sometimes 'cause they're shortcuts by instinct.

With comics, the biggest thing is to remember is to make the actions clear. The important words and actions need to be biggest or centered or darker... (You can see with mine I have background things and additions in grey instead of black or small.)

Thank you so much for asking me!!! It makes me feel so special to be trusted to give advice like this! I hope this is helpful in some way... Your art is adorable from what I've seen! I hope you keep creating and getting inspired! Good luck on your artistic journey! Keep practicing!

#Drawing Entity #Not Batim #Ask #Art Help #Gee it's so nice to yeet this knowledge at other people!#It's helping me learn about myself as well!

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dirtyfilthy · 3 years

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The Betrayal Of Chelsea Manning By The Coward Adrian Lamo

I have only participated in “cancel culture” once that I can remember. Once, over the broad course of my life, and that was when Adrian Lamo sold Chelsea Manning out to the authorities. Motherfucker has the sheer gall to call himself a hacker, and then rats someone out — not because of his principles, but from a constant desire for pure narcissistic supply -- and all this from a position of trust no less…

I was real angry, and I wanted to put the boot in, any way I could. There was a special circle of hell reserved for people like Adrian Lamo… and as it would turn out, he was already in it.

Amongst petty vendettas like stuffing his wikipedia page with all the well referenced dirt I could dig up, along the way, and kind of by-the-by, I ended up doing a lot of research on the guy, and then, well, the picture of Lamo that emerged…

Jesus.

He’s been a hardcore benzo addict since his twenties. If you know what to look for you can tell in some of his interviews, slurring his words and looking very spacey. He never really had a real job, never broke into the industry he was aways on the fringes of. It’s kinda crazy, if you search for “homeless hacker Adrian Lamo” you can still see what the mass media thought of him before he turned in Chelsea.

He’d kind of weaselled his way into popular consciousness by being a shameless self-promoter, and then managing to get caught in that spectacular “rebellious teenage hacker” vs. “huge faceless corporation” way that tends to capture people’s imagination.

There were whole articles about him in Wired. Multiple in fact. Here’s one of earliest from 2004 (unfortunately now behind a paywall), “New York Times vs The Homeless Hacker”. The first few lines can still give you the gist, however

A self-styled security expert and serial self-promoter, Adrian Lamo made headlines as a grayhat hacker. Then the Gray Lady came down on his head. Not long ago Adrian Lamo was exploring an abandoned gypsum processing plant in West Philadelphia with two friends, when a police cruiser drove slowly by. Lamo’s friends were high on methamphetamines…

https://www.wired.com/2004/04/hacker-5/

Even during this phase of his life, a lot of people in the scene didn’t like him. At least, there were people complaining on hacker boards about him stealing exploits and then burning them for the publicity. In the end he got off with probation and home detention, and that was the end of blatantly hacking into shit. Any more and he would certainly end up in prison. Attitudes were changing, the authorities had stopped seeing hacking as just high-spirited teenage hijinks. and the increasingly severe penalties could land you some serious time.

After this, he just sorted floated around. He never got job in the industry like the rest of us, and I suspect he may have been basically unemployable for one reason or another. The next time he popped up in my news feed was in 2010 with a strange article from ex-hacker turned journalist and friend of Lamo’s,, Kevin Poulsen — “Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized, Diagnosed with Asperger’s”

The first paragraph or so reads:

Last month Adrian Lamo, a man once hunted by the FBI, did something contrary to his nature. He says he picked up a payphone outside a Northern California supermarket and called the cops.

Someone, Lamo says, had grabbed his backpack containing the prescription anti-depressants he'd been on since 2004, the year he pleaded guilty to hacking The New York Times. He wanted his medication back. But when the police arrived at the Safeway parking lot it was Lamo, not the missing backpack, that interested them. Something about his halting, monotone speech, perhaps slowed by his medication, got the officers' attention

— (https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lamo/)

The article claimed Lamo had been arrested for acting strangely and then institutionalised, basically claiming the police had arrested him because he was autistic. At the time, I didn’t really give this a second thought, “oh well, ho-hum”. As itt turned out, this was a case of the most spectacular kind of “spin” I think I’ve ever seen; the only place the article actually intersected with general consensual reality was in stating Lamo had been arrested and placed on psychiatric hold.

The real story, which is entirely far more pathetic, was that Lamo’s family had become worried about his benzo use (“prescription anti-depressants”) and had cut him off. He totally lost the plot at this point and stormed out of house. Concerned about his mental state, and with fears for his physical safety, it was actually his own family that called the police to try and find him.

When confronted about this fairly massive discrepancy, Lamo claimed he hadn’t exactly “lied” as such, and had simply withheld some facts due to personal privacy concerns.

It was at this point I finally began to see the whole tattered trajectory of Lamo’s entire life — trace the greasy path of his rainbow with my fingertips, and watch as the once bright twine became increasing gray and frayed as each thread began to curve back towards it’s inevitable impact with the earth, when, at which point, everything important would begin to totally unravel around him.

At his core, Adrian Lamo was a narcissist, and so Adrian Lamo absolutely believed in the Adrian Lamo narrative, as only a narcissist can. Near of beginning of his tale, this was easy to do. He was a wandering Daoist sage, a renegade techno-monk character in a Neal Stephenson cyberpunk novella, and anytime he wanted to see his own reflection he could simply look in any of the major newspapers.

After his arrest and release, the rest of the world moved on. His peers all settled down to well-paid industry gigs, and you couldn’t just pop the New York Times through an open proxy any longer — well, at least: not most of time, anyway. His own sword, never the exactly the sharpest in the first place, was beginning to show some signs of a serious structural rust.

Without the constant assurance of people telling his own story back at him, what was he exactly? What did the mirror portray to him now? An unemployed, semi-homeless drug addict, a hacker who couldn’t hack his way out of wet paper back with pick axe, the tired punch line to any number of bad jokes...

Of course, the many similarities to my own life were not exactly lost on me. I was basically a case of being a few near misses and unlucky hits away from sitting in his exact position. I had made the transition to an industry career successfully, but I was still a drug addict with mental heath issues. I had gone through my own narcissistic stage when I was younger, but thankfully grew out of it, the old moons no longer pulled on my tides the way they used to.

The essential Lamo pattern had began to emerge. Still chasing the same bright stars that had long since sunk beneath the horizon line of the ocean; Lamo would begin to feel irrelevant — Lamo would get then his name in the media in some fashion. A momentary peace was then achieved, then came a brief period of post-orgasmic. cosmic serenity.

But of course, the wheel of karma will not stop spinning for anyone, and so, soon enough and all-to-quickly, the entire process of personal renewal, would have to, you know….. begin anew.

A few other case studies were observed. An unreleased, permanently unfinished documentary featuring Lamo was mysteriously leaked on the internet. Of course, Lamo himself had leaked it. And there was always appearing on various morning television shows, Good Morning America, Fox News & the like.

But then the mother of all opportunities just dropped into his lap.

Chelsea Manning needed someone to talk to.

Chelsea knew Lamo was Bi, so he was at least in the LGBT community. Adrian was a hacker too. He’d fought against the system in his day, he was certainly someone who would “get it”, she was very sure of this. And when she did reach out, he was indeed very sympathetic. Honestly, it seemed like he really cared. Just a genuine human being, reaching out across the vast emotional void to provide a sense of empathy to someone who really, really needed it right now..

He was very sympathetic when Chelsea told him all about her struggles with gender identity, and he was very sympathetic when she said she was leaking gigabytes of information to Wikileaks…. But behind his sunglasses, Lamo eyes had already morphed into a marquee LED matrix endlessly scrolling his own name. Think of the news coverage!

This was big. This was very big.

It would, in fact, turn out to be fucking huge. Of course, within in the hacker scene, and to a certain extent, even outside it, everyone just fucking loathed him now. Eventually even the news moved on, nobody wanted any more interviews, and in the end, when everything has already been all said and done: you are ultimately left with only yourself….

… a pathetic drug addict. Of course, I have to keep telling myself that one point of intersection does not an entire venn diagram or an actual equality make. But I can’t shake the feeling that, perhaps, maybe we weren’t really all that different. Maybe my own betrayals have had the simple luck of being a lot less public.

Perhaps my own sins were just as ugly, but far less ambitious.

Adrian Lamo died alone, from a drug overdose, in a private unit in an aged care facility in Wichita, Kansas. He was 37 years old. An autopsy showed his kidneys were already failing.

I guess Sartre got it wrong. Hell isn’t other people, it’s being left totally alone, with nothing else around but the tedious company of your own terrible self, and of course, the fucker won’t stop talking...

So obviously there was nothing more I could do to hurt Adrian Lamo, nothing that Adrian Lamo hadn’t done already. He had long since locked himself away in a prison cell of his own making. I do wonder if maybe one too many silent 3am’s hadn’t come crawling around the clock face when he was there & awake to witness it, lying in bed & staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about things.

Like I’m doing.

Shit, I hope don’t go out that way.

#adrian lamo #chelsea manning #nonfiction #creative nonfiction

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allthingslinguistic · 4 years

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Linguistics Merch Gift Guide 2019

Looking for gift ideas for a linguistics major, linguistics grad student, or linguistics professor in your life? Are you a linguist and want to help your friends and family with linguistic gift suggestions for you? Here are some ideas!

From top to bottom, left to right, the items in the pictures above are:

Socks with IPA and esoteric symbols prints on them (also available on scarves and ties)

Mugs with IPA print (also available as notebooks)

“Congrats” and “thanks” cards transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Liquids for your liquids water bottle (also available as a mug)

Little longitudinal language acquisition project baby onesie (also available with “not judging your grammar, just acquiring it”)

“Glottal bottle” water bottle

Vocal Fries mug (redbubble)

Yoda best linguistics professor (etsy)

fffffff hard enamel pin (etsy)

Praat phonetics logo t-shirt (redbubble)

Other gift ideas:

There are several linguistics projects which have Patreon pages, and some come with bonus content or other behind-the-scenes perks:

Lingthusiasm (at the $15 level you get you own IPA character and a place on our supporter wall)

History of English

Vocal Fries

Talk the Talk

Etymonline

The entire original Wug Test as a book, featuring wugs and other fantastical nonce creatures, to try on any children in your life.

Other linguistics merch lists and gift guides:

I’ve avoided duplication from year to year on gift guides, so do check out the guides below, as many of the items are still available and awesome!

A very long list of pop linguistics books and lingfic

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

My 2015 Linguistics Merch list (including schwa earrings, which I now own)

My 2016 Linguistics Gift Guide (including The Ling Space’s ugly linguistics holiday sweater/cushion, which continues to be great)

My 2017 Linguistics Gift Guide (including IPA scarves, which I now own in several colours)

My 2018 Linguistics Gift Guide (including tree diagram scarves and several earring/sticker options)

Superlinguo’s Seasonal Gift Guide 2018

Superlinguo’s Seasonal Gift Guide 2019

Lingthusiasm merch page

#linguistics #lingblr #tumblinguists #gift guide #merch #lists #roundup #linguistmas #lingthusiasm #linguist lifestyle #socks #shirts #pins

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tiburondientes · 4 years

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HC: Mask Mechanics, #JustSharkStuff

Headcannon time, namely the mechanism through which Tier’s Mask operates when outside of her resureccion (Which will be super important for this blog because outside of combat she ain’t gonna be in it.) Below will be a Diagram, and then an explanation of her Mask’s mechanisms

(A Readmore because I had to draw a diagram and I don’t want my ugly-ass art on dash. )

Going forward, the diagrams will be referred to as Figures A(Top) B(Bottom Left) and C(Bottom Right).

Figure A: We see the Mask in it’s default state. Snug to her features and covering all the way back to her jaw. The Mask also is slightly tented, extenging slightly past her face and giving her a sort of a mild muzzled look. The Mask sits well below the U signifying her eye.The Protrusion is shown as a reference point which will become relevant in figure C. Tier can speak in this state without much trouble so long as her true mouth(beneath the mask) does not open beyond Threshold 1.

Figure B: Tier’s True Mouth opens beyond the initial parameters to open her mask. The Upper plate slides up and covers her eyes like a Visor ( We can see the U signifying her Eye is now covered by the upper jaw), this protects her eyes during biting, much like how natural sharks roll their eyes back and have protective skin that slips up to guard them. The Lower jaw swings down on it’s hinge and Tier’s True Mouth(Which is hanging open), Lips, and Nose become fully exposed. The mask can be held in this position so long as it remains above Threshold 1 and below Threshold 2.

Figure C: Tier’s True Mouth opens past Threshold 2, unhinging it from her face and causing the mask to slide forward. Upon closing her mouth, the Mask snaps shut, extending forward as it does away from her face (The Protrusion that is generally beneath her eye can now be seen almost to the very front of the face, showing the extension. This is very similar to how a Shark will extend it’s jaw forward in order to latch onto prey. Closing the True Mouth once it’s past threshold 2 triggers the extension in addition to the closing of the mask, if the true mouth does not reach threshold 2, but has passed threshold 1, the mask will close without extending. After completely closing while extended, facial muscles pull the mask back and it returns to it’s Default position snug against Tier’s face.

The Mask itself is anchored to Tier’s Jaws, and operates based on certain angular thresholds as well as the operational facial muscles which contract to tug it snugly against her face. Threshold 1 opens the mask, causing the upper jaw to cover and protect her eyes while the lower jaw slides down, Threshold 2 extends the mask forward. And then transitioning back below Threshold 1 after Threshold 2 has been reached results in the snapping of the mask while in the extended position before it pulls back.

Because Tier’s Mask raises to shield her eyes, she will not engage in activities that require it (Eating, Drinking, Recreational Activities) in public as she must rely on her sense of touch, smell, and hearing when in position 2. As a result, partaking in these activities in the presence of someone is a significant sign of trust.

Note: This is a sort of Rough Overview of the mechanisms. I am not familiar enough with human or shark musculature/bone structure to homebrew a design which would accomplish these features. This is simply a guide for the general operations of the mask.

#[Behind the Serrated]#A special thanks to Skyvar for helping me think my way through this

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genesisguide · 4 years

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“God, The Creator”

God, The Creator

Genesis 1:1-25

Key Verse 1:1

Question 1

Memorize verse 1. What does “in the beginning” refer to? Why is the word “created” significant? What do you learn from verse 1?

The starting point of time and space. Verse 1 says “In the beginning”, not “at the beginning” which would indicate a specific time point; the 2 are grammatically different.

“In the beginning” refers to eternity. In eternity God chose a time to begin creation. His creation is what Genesis and the whole Bible is about. There is a beginning and an end as well as an end purpose to that which God created. We study the Bible to learn about it which God created.

This is in contrast to looking at history as an endless flow of randomness, or believing that life is a walking mutation. Some people say, just live. They say life goes on and there is no end.

The World tends to think life just goes on and there is no necessity to acknowledge God’s existence; we just accept that God created us and now we are here. <— not so, there is a meaning and purpose to life which God creates.

Heavens are things above us, outer space; earth is the physical and visible world. However, the Bible does not focus on the heavens, and it is not about the earth. He created humans whom he loves so very much. That is why the Bible is about earth.

There are 2 different meaning for the word “created”.

Asah is to make something from other resources. Verse 16 describes some of those resources: there are metals like iron, gases such hydrogen and helium which produce light, also oxygen. Wild animals like bears and wolves were made from the earth materials. Even Man is created from dust.

Bara is more true to meaning of create. Bara is to make something from nothing. We humans don’t really do bara. That’s something that God primarily does. In verses 1 and 21 we see that sea creatures including crabs and birds are created from nothing, bara. Out of nowhere they appeared. They are flowy and floaty.

God is the origin and the cause of everything in the universe. Before you were born, God was considering what your life would be like. Your value is inherit; it comes from God just like my value comes from God. We are creatures of God. Nothing can change that truth.

Truth has to do with what and who you are, what you must do and where you are going, all of which can be found in the word of God.

Verse 1 tells me that God created it all. God has always been there, and what he wants is to meet us. <— that is God’s special revelation about himself. Therefore, the 1st thing we should know is, why did God create us? If anyone chooses to ignore the Word of God’s purpose for our life, then they are sinning. It’s a waste to know God’s purpose and not live for it.

_____

Question 2

Read verse 2. When god created the earth, how did it look? (cf. Jer 4:23) What was the Spirit of God doing?

Formless, empty and dark. Not round, but blobby. He created it, but it was not finished. There was water and then some dirt, all mixed. Devoid of life and defining features. No substance or content. No such thing as light. Everything was chaotic until God started arranging things into their own positions. Sea and land. God arranged it all until it all became harmonious.

When things are arranged appropriately, there is a framework and life is very beautiful. You know what to do and what not to do. It’s structure and form for your life.

Without the Word of God, people’s lives are chaotic and ugly and messed up. They do things they should definitely not do. Their lives become empty. So meaningless and sad, no purpose to their life. It ends up very dark and without hope.

The Spirit was hovering over the waters, thinking. The Spirit God is 1 person of the Trinity. He was working continually even in the chaotic situation. Similarly, He is planning how He can make our lives so beautiful.

_____

Question 3

Read verses 3 through 31 and draw a diagram showing what was created each day. In the 6 days of creation, is there any external or internal order?

Day 1: Light and things that emit light

Day 2: Sky and waters.

Day 3: Vegetation on the land for animals that would come to live on the land.

Day 4: Stars in the sky, a sun to govern the day and moon to govern the night.

Day 5: Birds, sea creatures and every moving thing in the sea.

Day 6: Livestock, land creatures and wild animals. Also, man and woman.

We see there is order in creation. The progression is from the environment to things which can be supported in that environment. This shows that nothing was being created at random, but according to a blue print. Environment for monkey, then monkey. Foundation and framework, then life. Maybe we don’t always see his purpose, but there is no reason to have sense of meaninglessness. God has such a divine purpose for sending us into the world.

_____

Question 4

Trace the verses where the phrases “God said” or “And it was so” appear. What can we learn here about God? (cf. Heb.4:12; 11:3; Gen.17:1)

“God said” appears in verses 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30.

“And it was so” appears in verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 29.

God could have scanned existence into reality, or blew a wind that whisked everything together. Instead, unfancy, he says it and it happens. So we can trust and put our confidence in it. It carries salvation power.

_____

Question 5

Find the verses in which the phrase “according to their kinds” is repeated. What are the things that were created according to their kinds? What can we learn about God?

“According to their kinds” appears in verses 11, 12, 22, 24.

Vegetation, sea and air creatures, then livestock and wild animals.

There something like 17,000 kinds of butterflies, and 12,000 kinds of ants. Can you imagine designing so many unique creatures for yourself? He is so creative. Ants, for example, all have 6 legs, 3 body parts, and yet He never runs out of ideas for new models. He can create more things and more varieties of those things than we can.

_____

Question 6

Find the verses in which the phrase “And God saw it was good” is repeated. What does this expression teach us about the purpose of God’s creation? (cf. Ps.19:1; 139:14)

“And God saw it was good” appears in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31.

If a thing did not please Him, He would delete it and redo it. The original purpose was to please God, and if it didn’t, he would rework it. We are here to please God.

This helps answer the question, what is our divine obligation? Our special purpose is to please God. Alternatively, a person can choose to please other people, but that is a rejection of God’s point of view. We are to be good to God. He is an expert in us. The goodness of creation reveals the goodness and greatness of God. The goodness culminates in the book of Psalms, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”.

Things will deteriorate in sin, but when things function according to their plan, it pleases God. If we seek to please God, then we begin to be good and show that to others.

#Genesis #Genesis 1 #Bible study #Bible #study guide

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hozukitofu · 5 years

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james bond can piss right off

okay, fine.

maybe wooyoung has too much pride in espionage. maybe thinking that he is the best won’t help him in the long run.

fine.

that doesn’t explain any of this though. it doesn’t explain the unsuspecting traps, the literal net and poison combo deal that nabbed him the moment he rigged into the warehouse.

wooyoung is good at his job. it’s how he can demand a ridiculous sum of payment up front and collect even more after the job with guarantee that he will do well. but right now? he can kiss that diamond encrusted knife collection goodbye as he slumps sideways and hit the floor.

vaguely he can hear soft footsteps and a small chain of giggles as his vision tunnels and shutters off.

he wakes in a really undignified lump - flailing and rocking on a bound chair, legs coming off the ground. he’s inside a warehouse - surroundings are unclear to determine if it’s the one he’s meant to break into - tightly knotted to a chair. just a simple kitchen chair, wooden, can easily topple if he decides to rock a little too hard and fall over, breaking his nose on impact.

he received training to get out of chairs in these very specific situations, yes, but wooyoung’s fatal flaw is that when a situation hasn’t arrived in more than two years he tends to be slack on the details of how to deal with it specifically.

his mortal undoing will be his carelessness with a side of pride

“you’re up!” a soft voice cheers. “i thought we had to resort to a cold bucket of water to the face if you didn’t wake up and leave the party.”

“that wasn’t a very fun party,” he grouses, peeking open an eye. tall, his capturer is tall. male, so that makes fighting his way out probably a little bit harder. “where are all the music and terrible alcohol?”

“didn’t have that, but you did take in a healthy dose of chloroform,” the culprit bends down, lower, until he reaches eye level with wooyoung, goggles and a face mask obscuring all signs of possible identifiable features.

yeosang is going to cut him open and eat his liver if he returns without either the intel needed or some form of identification on the one who managed to usurp his unshakable post as Master Spy.

“no wonder my mouth still tastes sweet,” he laments, though not bitterly. everything is still too woozy and baffling that he can’t exactly put a finger on it.

“i try my best,” the man in the shadow, the thing with the sweet voice - seriously, is that a real voice? is he just hallucinating? can he tell how many fingers are there in front of him if someone does try to test his sight? “apologies for the ambush. i can’t have others jeopardising my objective.”

“i can understand that,” wooyoung grunts, working a wrist free as he wobbles and pretends to have terrible balance on a bound, shaky chair. uneven legs, ha ha, he can claim. “emphatically.”

“i’m so glad we have something in common,” he can hear the smile and the genuine pleasantry, dripping from his culprit’s drawling tone. why does he speak Like That?

“yeah…” he inches away, shaking loose and sweaty hair from flopping even further into his eyes and eyelashes. “so glad…”

“your sarcasm wounds me. i thought we had a connection,” the person laments, hand clasping the front of his long sweeping coat - can people genuinely move in that, wooyoung just want to talk.

“we would, if you would show me your face,” he coughs, hoping that it’s loud enough to mask the rip of fabric that just went on in the back of his tightly bound hand. he thinks it’s the handcuff, hybridised with something that hitches on top of holding him in. unlike the chair situation, he actually paid attention when the knots lectures came about. his long lost dream was to be a sea pirate, so he obsessed over knots and ship diagrams when he was younger, and then that dream had to be adapted to becoming an internationally hunted espionage agent, occasionally boarding ships to dig through people’s loots and information before escaping through the steam room’s window and swimming to a canoe waiting nearby.

but pirate childhood dream aside, he still can’t get out. the problem is that while he is great at tying people up, he can’t get his brain to do the reverse of untying himself from difficult knots that he can do himself fast enough to avoid a rapid round of gunfire or a hostage situation, which, he is unfortunately in one at the moment.

“i don’t do interrogation until the third date,” there is a wink in there, wooyoung can tell. damn, his brain is bad with memorising voices. he is a visual learner, and right now the entire assemble this guy has got going for him is really bloody effective. he can’t ascertain a definitive height, body shape, face shape, eye - nothing. nada. zilch. Zero.

argh yeosang and hongjoong-hyung are both going to gang up and dangle him on the top of a telecommunication tower somewhere, for failing this mission. there is no winning if he isn’t in the specified location that he was meant to target and rob the intel of, there is no winning if he had been gassed and bound and definitely no victory in not being able to pinpoint who captured him and jeopardise his mission.

“damn,” he sighs, dramatic and dejected. wait. date.

maybe -

perhaps…

he’s good at what he does because all his skills and arsenals are trained towards efficiency at spying and getting himself out of compromising situations. he himself had never been a. been in a seduction mission before or b. been on the receiving end of an odd proposition in the middle of a mission gone sideways.

there is a first for everything. there are always ways out, you’re not looking hard enough, hongjoong’s voice nags at him in his coconut numbskull.

okay. okay. he can do this. play this game, and see if he can do anything about it.

“what do you normally do on your first dates?” he throws himself forward, dragging his chair with his lurch frontward.

his kidnapped in black only laughs, catching him across the shoulder and righting him. he doesn’t smell like anything, deceptively free of cologne or aftershave or a brand of detergent. nothing. zero signs given to him. damn. not even a crumb.

“well, we’d tell each other what we would go by, but i can see that you’re at a slight disadvantage - i did a bit of a facebook stalking round, don’t feel bad if you haven’t done the same yet. the woes of blind dating,” the voice is charming, and it’s nice to listen to, but the fake cheeriness is slowly bleeding out to genuine cheek. okay so wooyoung is mostly an obstacle to be removed, but he also garnered enough interest to prompt this chat and the subtle veneer of maybe mockery in his cheery voice.

he can tell that much, but he’s not an idiot. he knows he’s been researched inside out to be rendered into a chair and bound, and that’s the kind of research he’d like to have insight to, because wooyoung is a ghost story among the spying world. people don’t think he exists, and have to go through a chain of convoluted communication lines to reach out to him and request his service, with money always at the ready. he is famous, but literally only ten people know his face, because his face is similar to many others - a curse, but now a blessing. he had pretended to be park jimin too many times for him to count, an apology to the politician himself, but, if the shoe fits, he’ll take that shoe and running off with it.

so maybe this is just an opportunity to gloat - look at me, i one upped the great wooyoung, got him tied up in a chair, as i skip away with the intel he was meant to collect for his mission.

that is deeply uncomfortable to think about. wooyoung has to one up him back, return the favour. he’s playing this game with literally no arms, no sight, just his ears and his brain working overtime. he thinks he might scrape a crumb from this situation yet.

“wouldn’t it be common courtesy to let your date know something to call you by? i’ve been so kind as to show up to the date. you wouldn’t break a poor man’s heart by leaving him in the dark like this?” he thinks this is a good attempt of a breathy, seductive voice, from the vague corners of his memory of how ‘seduction’ is supposed to work.

“ah,” there is careful consideration in that one sound. wooyoung hopes it’s an hmm i might indulge in your silly requests and give you a fake name, and not now i have to kill you because you’re getting more annoying by the minute and my gloating moment is over. “i thought you don’t play the seduction game.”

wooyoung nods until his brain catches up with the words and he’s nodding as his brain plays W H A T to the accompaniment of a cambodian gong as everything goes off in flames .

“you’re special,” wooyoung winks, greasy and disgusting, and lets the playful expression slides off his face completely. “also you one upped me and i have to play you right back.”

“that’s not very gentlemanly of you,” the stranger chides. “now how can i give you a name or a hint?”

“a hint cannot be any more misleading than a name, so,” he hangs his head, aware that there are hands still planted on his shoulder. he shrugs them off, hopping back on his chair, brain thinking hard. a wrist of his is loose enough to twist around and smack this one across the face, but then he has to let that distance be regained. gain back the weird tantalising space that hostage and kidnapper allow between them, prey and predator, moments before disaster strikes.

“well,” and the first step is taken. wooyoung watches, narrowing his eyes, as the distance between them is lessened, as the shadowy figure kneels in front of him, hand pressing into his vest. “if you interest me enough, i promise to give you a useful hint.”

he doesn’t know jackshit about being interesting or anything pertaining to that, but he knows an opportunity when it presents itself to him, and he rips an arm socket nearly loose from his shoulder joint, swinging it across the face of his kidnapper, the reaction going exactly to plan, dislodging the ugly pair of glasses away, revealing the temple and mellow skin, sweet golden baked pastries.

damn wooyoung needs to eat something. he keeps thinking of people and things in terms of edibility. he half wanted to munch on his handkerchief just hours before. snack, whenever he gets back, and a lot of it.

“ah,” hard pressed eyes, really deep brown - almost black, squeeze into a pleasant line of smile at him - can a person smile with their eyes? he’s not sure, but this one is doing it, and doing it brilliantly.

he has some eyes. he’s literally never seen anyone with those eyes before. surely yeosang can do something, like scan security footages with matching eyes or something.

eyes are really not much to go on for, but look, he scraped himself a crumb, at the cost of nearly dislocating his arm. he should get some brownie points for that.

“i guess you already ripped the hint away from me,” the eyes, animated and lively, squeeze themselves into two crescents of pleased surprise. wooyoung can take comfort in not being sniped in the chest by this guy, but, once again, he still thinks there are guns hidden somewhere in that ridiculous billowing coat and the stupid cowboy hat. he himself had hidden twenty guns and fifteen knives in his suit before, and it was a semi-casual suit. it’s not that hard with weapons nowadays.

“what a damn shame,” he drawls right back, vicious and petty, just like who he is, deep down, when he loses at a game. “i was going to beg, but,” he shrugs, half checking on his shoulder, half flexing on this guy. one all, bastard. your move.

“but you are above that, i am aware,” the eyes mirror the amused tone the voice puts out, flashing brief caramel under wooyoung’s chloroform gassed up head. “it wouldn’t be a fun game if one of us has the upper hand perpetually.”

those are really pretty eyes, and under different circumstances, outside of his job, when he’s just jung wooyoung, international politics graduate, dance enthusiast, not WY, elite spy master, then maybe he could’ve gone for it.

not now, not here. they’ve started on a bad foot already. he doesn’t know what he might do if they do encounter each other, mask completely stripped off from each other.

“yeah, gotta keep my standards high, my guys lower,” he winks, trying to wriggle his way out of his hold. “what are you going to do with that intel?”

a gloved hand taps the inner lining of his coat, an eye blinking into a wink.

“sell it.”

wooyoung breathes out harshly. of course he would.

“of course you would,” he rolls his eyes. “and i was just a little bit later and less experienced in coming up against you.”

“i wouldn’t say you’re less experienced,” the man twirls a long finger, gloved, completely black. “just a little unprepared. i had the element of surprise on my end this time. next time, well,” he leaves that hanging, stopping right in front of wooyoung. “it’s fair game.”

“i don’t know how long you’ve been playing on this field for, but there is no such thing as fair game,” he hooks a finger into his stun gun, drawing it out, pointing point blank, between the nice eyebrows and expressive eyes. “it would only hurt a little.”

“you never cease to surprise me, wooyoung,” is all he gets, before the mask is tugged down, a line of a hooked nose ridge, before a shower of smoke, and the complete disappearance of a master ghost spy.

okay. okay hongjoong and yeosang would not be happy with this.

nobody should know wooyoung’s name. how did this one know?

part 2!

#ateez #spy au #choi san #san is wearing that cowboy get up in the hala hala dance practice vid #wooyoung is so mad that he's being one upped by san #are they flirting or threatening each other - unknown #san is trying to flirt but it looks like a hostage situation #he's trying his best #wooyoung's uniforms are always suits #jung wooyoung

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sidpah · 5 years

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Self-Portrait

I’m too late, ‘cause I’ve already given it all away… I would have you see a different man than the one who types in a foreign land touched by the meddling hands of a dozen different peoples, not looking to trade their culture’s wisdom but to strip the land of all that was of value… I’m as exhausted as these trampled streets, these thrashed jungles infested with foreign soldiers protecting their investments of ruby mines and narcotic crops… These filthy marketplaces mirroring the worst of the west… I feel this land’s pain, sweaty, asshole on fire from weapons-grade curry… Feet bare and stained black from disintegrating sandal felt smelling vaguely of stale vinegar…

One worn mala on left wrist strung from a seed whose name I’m too tired to recall... Night steals precious chemicals of communication… Ramakrishna? Ramirez? Rudraksha! Seeds are homage to a rival deity, Shiva. But he can’t be my rival because I’m a loner, no member of a team. I have no church, no faith, no dogmatic practice…

There are no gods left in Sidpah… they’ve all been driven into the sea… In their place is an amorphous web of beliefs constantly respun to create fresh, deceptively vibrant yet undeniably asymmetrical patterns… Sneezing. Spittle web strung from this bulldog face.

This is not how I would have you envision me. Not ten pounds overweight. Or twenty. Not greasy-scalped and hairy-shouldered. Not in boxers three days worn. Not with fresh semen dripping down inside of chaffed leg. Not delirious or deliriously lonely. Not a fermented berry of a man… Not wrung like a wrong number or my hands on a too-hot, two-handjob sleepless night of grey panel torture and anxiety whispers from the dark hollow faces cursing my room... There’s hardly a man to be seen. Sure, there’re fingers and hormones and tree sprouts of white matter, but this vacancy is my truest fingerprint…

Maybe I’m a long way from knowing anything of value – Maybe all these garish visions are only detours – Mara’s little tricks to keep me from realizing that he doesn’t even exist – From realizing how content I could remain, entwined in vines running tree cloud to packed sod – Kusa grass and prayers are sustenance – Filled with admiration for the holy, I feel lazy and defective. Unable to live up to my own nobility –

Body’s a common machine with subtly varied proclivities – This unit spins on tales of letters and adjectives – faulty electronics, broken strings, healed strangers expecting repetitious miracles… It refuses to sit on cushion for more than a few minutes of banal torture –

Who can I lie to but myself? I’m a bear born in the year of the horse who would rather be a bird cutting the sky over a tropical island free and clear. A bachelor, tried, tested and confirmed – Allow yourself to be there – The backs of my hands look offensively large and rough under this light. They’ll sink like a stone. Shatter a keyboard or a cheekbone. Split a vein down the middle. Play an ugly one-stringed melody. Too rarely thumb bodhi seed mala and chant for purity. Too rarely fold into mudra for health or circulation of prana. Never stroke her cheek, or twist knots in her auric hair, or slip surreptitiously beneath silk blouse... They’re always rough sand mortar and burlap, unwieldy bricks in a room of June bugs. And they are but one-twentieth of the whole… Our best features are sometimes the most ungainly –

Nothing can make you feel more self-conscious than an unsolicited portrait. Well here is my self-portrait whether I like it or not: My bones have turned russet from sweat and oil. Tanned skin is painted to walls in gobs of brown and red… Tribal tattoos – Whose tribe are they? Hoary old stalactites… I’m all moles and telengiectasia – Red spots threaten bloodletting – Black dots threaten melanoma – Porous brown bones contemplate fractures deprived of nutrients or forced upon by physical labor – Brain lies in wait for AVM to seize its chance – Colon responds same spastic way to grease, parasite or imaginary humiliation – Eyes grow longer causing me to see things closer and closer – Hair follicles poisoned by drugs, recreationally pharmaceutical, or maybe genetics, give up their will to push – Gums infected ruby red rather than healthy coral, so says dentist. Veins are thick with stony plaque – Torso (most dangerous place) thick with roll of collected fat – Heart overworked and underpaid – Adrenal glands jacked up, depleted, now wilted and suffering, unable to respond with proper chemical dialogue – Convenient codified diagrams of peptide sound – Sinuses full and swollen shut, fine steroid mist unable to penetrate packed cavity – Lungs full of soot and yellow phlegm –

Every cell now thriving, still dying – Skin losing elasticity – Will losing control over mind – Erection still works, though one testicle aches like it’s being tapped continually by a tiny spoon – Mandible muscles tight, jaw crunches clicks, teeth grind with stress or over-taught concentration watching repetitions of breath – Blood cells becoming ineffectual against infection – Antibodies awaiting a battle they will eventually lose – Thus far, all wars have been successfully fought – winning streaks can’t last forever – And still I manage to sit and laugh – this trivial life away –

I’m a fictional beast, leaden of feet and shaggy of back. Reptilian face and beady squint eyes size up each flickering movement for a taste of prey I pray never to taste. A pitiful mirror painted on fat chest reflects the vulgarities of the external world, ignoring the vulgar black tain of my own soul...

Disbelief in my own soul reflects the myopia of others that I live to destroy, condemning them to feel equally base – And I grin knowingly, all the while knowing nothing...

Fixating on microscopic sensation of flesh, the intangible workings of my own conscious thoughts… I dwell until they are their own universes, fashioning civilizations of bigotry, torture and carcinogens. I can see clearly with distaste every vile behavior yet reenact, reenact, justify and reenact them all until I swoon from degradation, frustration, stupidity and self-pity...

I can never be a martyr because I lack a cause. Mild disinterest, no more acerbic than a warm glass of soymilk. I’m neither political nor spiritual. Not even secular because I don’t believe in distinctions. I’m a realist who finds all phenomena to be thoroughly unreal... I will leave nearly all stones unturned and all books unread. The meager knowledge accumulated in my lifetime just so many dusty trinkets in a collapsing display case. One leg bound to give out and destroy the few items of relative value buried within... Whose gain? Whose loss? I’m a beggar for salvation. But I’m too proud to take a teacher’s charity... Lift my head to the warm eclipse of Sunrays, devastating in their splendor… And degraded I sigh, sheepishly grin, and turn away where my mind fondles something or someone else, distracting itself from the fact that I will never be attractive to society…

I’m a rare beast. I know what I want and also why I shouldn’t want it. It doesn’t curtail the cravings, but it makes me feel guilty and ridiculous for desiring them in light of this knowledge… Like lusting for a hammer when you have to drive a screw into the wall. Like lusting for a screwdriver when you have no walls or screws. I’m an unfortified mess…

What is a mess? These parts are not this man. There’s no man, but a mash of aggregates held in six-foot net – And these parts are not eternal. They are already replaced! Even this outer shell replaced every twenty-eight days! These transient parts are not even these parts! They are particles of energy with no essence to be ashamed of!

My atoms are shinier than your atoms! My electrons are faster than your electrons! My protons look better in a bikini! My neutrons have reached higher states of meditative bliss!

My anger is crimson and molten as your anger. My love as passionate and fleeting as your love, and my wisdom as deep and true as your wisdom. It’s only our learning, stilted and prejudiced that keeps us from knowing this. That keeps me from knowing that I am not these emotions. I am not these colors, melanin, blood, bile, iron…

I am not this face or hands or organs, not this beard, or these callused soles. I am not a brain running strings of 0s and 1s. I am not recollections of old escapades, not every movie watched or novel read with this body placed in role of protagonist – I am not a list of preferreds, a list of don’t-likes, a list of aspirations, a list of disappointments to be avenged, or sulked upon each day to keep their memories alive – flowers on their headstones… I am not the photograph friends, family, acquaintances carry in their tattered wallets – The image they try to bind me to expecting a scripted response to their own erratic behaviors… Unaware that they are not they as much as I am not I. And I am not an I – I am a We, I am an Us, I am a No! I am a Bah! I am infinitely manageable, malleable, fallible…

My mistakes are empty as all the things I ever got right and then wished like hell I hadn’t... All the battles I ever thought I won. All the dreams I ever woke from disappointed to be awake... Cravings repressed until the cauldron boiled over, and I binged night and day until the urges were sated –(Mara kicked back with a cigar and a smug grin…) All the technology I bought then broke, couldn’t find a use for, discarded or lost on dusty shelves in a cluttered basement – All those times I was inches from death, and relieved, died anyway, unbeknownst to this pathological brain – It can’t comprehend that I’ve already perished, that I’m eternally here, already in my final and only and everlasting incarnation as a sublime manifestation of life eternally creating itself – But if it can’t comprehend it, how was it thought, considered, written, embraced, known? I am more than any of us will ever understand. And maybe this is all there is to know –

#self portrait #fiction #memoir #poetry #spirituality #Buddhism #Atheism #philosophy #enlightenment #epiphany

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thewildwaffle · 6 years

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Abduction - Chapter 3

This is going pretty well, I think. Thanks again for all the support! It’s really helping me stay motivated to keep writing!

This is a continuation from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

Chapter 4

It was really bright. Like, stupid bright. Who has lights this bright? Ow.

Mike had to squint long before he could even think about opening his eyes. His nose really itched too, it felt like it was stuffed up. He reached up to scratch, but his hand was stopped by something that felt almost like a soft plastic dome. Maybe it was rubber? What the heck is this? He felt around, there were a lot of wires and tubes. Was he in the hospital?

“Ohhh…” his voice caught on his dry throat. “My… everything hurts. What the heck did I do this time?”

He moved his hand up to his eyes, shielding them from the light to try to get a look at the room he was in.

There were instruments attached to the walls, standing on wheeled carts, or hanging from the ceiling. Some were connected to hoses and nozzles. There were wires, screens, cupboards and drawers against several walls. The platform he was resting on had most of the wires and tube connected to or around it. There were diagrams posted on the walls, but not in a language Mike recognized. There was a beeping sound, like a heart-rate monitor, but the tone was higher and sounded like it was coming from some sort of musical instrument.

It certainly looked like a hospital. Just not like one he’d ever been in before. There was something… alien about it.

Oh.

Alien.

Mike gave a start as the events from the past few months rushed back. His scout ship, sent to do a quick orbit of Saturn to pick up an observation drone. The mysterious ship. Bright light. Then darkness. Cages. Food that could hardly be considered edible. Aliens that kind of looked like some ugly, hairy bug. Different needles, blades, vials, injections. He’d felt treated more like an animal than a human being. No, not even treated like an animal. More like a science experiment. Or a punching bag.

The machine in the background started beeping faster.

Oh no, he thought, Oh no, no, no, no. Where am I? What happened?

Clawed black hand reached to undo the lock. Exoskeleton clinked against the bars. They’d become relaxed around their prisoners. Thought they’d broken them. Complacent. Still dangerous. Just waiting for the right moment. That moment.

Them.

Two.

Where was Wenona?

The beeping was getting faster. A new sound started, a lower, longer sound.

They had snatched the guard’s weapon, knocked him unconscious. Locked him in one of the cells they’d been held in. They snuck their ways through the halls, taking out guards or officers when needed until the alarm sounded. They’d been found out. Even though they’d both been weakened by their time aboard the alien ship, there wasn’t a creature aboard that could stop them. Cuts. Burns. Scratches. Barricades. Blasters. They fought through them all to get to and take the control bridge. Wenona had been trying to figure out their position when another alien ship appeared on the screens.

Pain. Blood. The adrenaline was wearing off. It was getting harder to see, harder to stand up straight. Wenona helped him to hide. Tried to stop the bleeding.

Mike tried propping himself up to see if he could find Wenona. They’d both been captured around the same time. They’d been each other’s sole companionship during their time as prisoners. She’d saved his life. He needed to make sure she was still nearby, still okay.

The heart-monitor beeps got faster. The lower, longer sounding beeps got louder.

Mike pushed against the strange plastic-y cover. It moved easily enough, swinging away on hinges of some sort. He tried turning around to get a better look of the rest of the room. Owwww… ahhhh. It felt like every muscle in his body was made out of frozen rubber. He had been covered by a thin, soft blanket from the neck down. As he sat up, it slid down. He wasn’t wearing anything. The torn, bloody rags were gone. Probably a good sign, right? Whoever’s ship this is, at least cares enough to clean me up, and… He felt his side with his hand, Those are new scars. Completely healed scars.

How long have I been out?

Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was definitely alien.

If Mike had been standing, the alien would probably have been as tall as his chest. Looking at it quickly, one might mistake it for some strange, dry octopus, but the legs under the main part of the body was long and sturdy, ending in four stockier tentacle-feet. It’s skin was varying shades of brown ranging from the color of a dark chocolate candy bar to a lighter brown of a cardboard box with spots and streaks of purples and blues that must have formed some sort of camouflage pattern back on whatever planet it must have originated from.

“Krouschee fen glub you een denoo ing? You are abrehmf kroot. Dooka you understand kama I’mehs seraying?”

“What?”

“Dook. You. Underswand. Kat. I’mehs. Seraying?”

Mike looked puzzled at the alien. It didn’t seem dangerous. The features on its face looked… curious? Maybe even concerned?

“Umm… I understand you? Mostly.” Which was already saying a lot more than the previous aliens he had encountered. Good step. Good step.

“Kold on a momentehk. We’ve equipped you koob ap translator. It eereha take a momentehk to adjust, so I goos I will just keep talking until everyshringreh is sounding the way it should to you. Let’s see, I’m trying to thinkek of things to say, things to skray. My name is Demfar, I am the head medic. Todayshk I ate three kerber patties for my meal. Uh, I’ve been assigned to the ESS Gladius for nearly six of my world’s solar cycles. That’s about, oh.... I want to say about seven and a half deca-partecs?” He paused, he looked like he was running out of things to say. “Is this working yet, or not? Sometimes it takes only a few words to sync, but I’ve heard instances where it took half a day before it started getting everything translated properly. Can you understand me?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s working. I, uh, I understand you.”

A smile spread across Demfar’s face. Was it a smile? It at least it looked like it should be a smile. His large eyes creased slightly and the fins on the side of his face moved almost comically far upwards. Mike smiled back.

The fins on Demfar’s face dropped and his eyes widened. “Oh, my, I apologize. I didn’t mean to upset you. I meant no offense.”

“What? No, I was... I was smiling, it means I’m happy. I thought you were smiling, so I smiled back.” Demfar tilted his head to the side slightly. He lifted one of his tentacled arms and a small holographic display appeared and seem to hover over a small watch-looking device on his… um, wrist? Or wherever his “wrist” would be in comparison to Mike’s own arm. He seemed to be reading something. “Ah, yes. A smile. Your species often display your happiness by baring your teeth like that, I see.” He smiled again, though the fins on the side of his head did not reach quite as high. It was still enough to make Mike smile a little bit, though he made sure he didn’t show his teeth this time.

Demfar looked at Mike and then to the display again. “I do apologize. We learned as much as we could about humans from our ship’s internal database, but seeing as we did not have any humans aboard, it was quite limited. We’ve managed to send for more information, but it’s been slow. We’re still a ways out from the nearest Federation outpost, and communication is often disrupted by cosmic interference during warp.” The display disappeared and Demfar stepped toward Mike and lifted the blanket that was still partially covering Mike’s torso.

“Incredible,” Demfar murmured quietly.

“What?” Mike’s muscles tensed and he felt himself leaning ever so slightly away from Demfar. Breathe, he thought, it’s okay, he seems nice. He’s a doctor. I’m his patient. It’s okay. I’ll be okay. He’s a doctor… an alien doctor.

Demfar paused and gave Mike the same concerned look he had when he first came in.

“I understand you’ve been through quite an ordeal, but I can assure you, I mean you no harm human… uh, human…” the fins on the side of his face tilted back closer to the side of his head. “Oh my, do excuse my lack of manners. I have told you my name, but have not asked for yours.”

“Captain Michael Rockwell,” he responded automatically. “Uh, but my friends just, most people just call me Mike.”

“Mike, yes. Very good. Well, human-Mike, as I was saying, I mean you no harm. No one on this ship does. We are on an exploratory and diplomatic mission for the Galactic Federation to the outer sectors. Those that abducted and harmed you and your companion have been taken into custody and will be punished for their crimes. Now, about your injuries, we’ve done our best to-”

“Hold on, hold on, my companion? You mean Wenona? Where is she? How is she? Is she okay?”

“Wen-no-na? Is that her name? Yes, she’s fine, or at least as fine as one can be in such circumstances. Most of her wounds, much like yours, have healed remarkably fast. She’s been awake off and on for about half the day-cycle, but she has so far refused to speak to anyone. She took a good swing at me earlier when I tried to check her wounds after she first woke up.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” So she was awake. Good. Maybe if he could convince Demfar he was well enough, he could go see her. He scooted over and dropped his legs over the side of the platform he’d been resting on.

“Whoa now, hold on! Where do you think you’re going? I still need to check you out and make sure you’re alright!” “I’m fine. I need to make sure Wenona is okay. She’s probably freaked out right now, she needs me. She needs to know I’m alright.” He stood up, the muscles in his legs and lower back protesting the movement. The blanket that had been on him slipped and fell. Mike tried quickly to grab it before it reached the ground, and in doing so nearly lost his balance.

Oh boy, dizzy.

He righted himself again and wrapped the blanket around his midsection. Demfar looked more than a little dubious. “I’m fine, just a bit sore. I need to see Wenona. And I need some clothes.”

#abduction #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are awesome #humans and aliens #aliens #space #novel #jebannuck #mike rockwell #wenona #thurrin #salora #gladius

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lunartryptamine · 5 years

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COSMETIQUE ASTROLOGY

The Libido Fuels Spiritual Growth, Intelligence, and Beauty. Don't Sever Yourself from it. 🔥🐍

The lunar masses prefer and relish hypocrisy and duality when it comes to sexuality, the libido, and the female body. These masses seek to punish, criticize, degrade, and demonize anything that pulls on their libido, stirs their animal nature, and make them feel out of control of themselves. For this reason, often times it is the women who are most in touch with their sexual power who are most violently criticized, simply for refusing to hide their unique sexually-centered strengths and suppress their magnetism to protect others. All of the comments on social media that are violently judging models, instagram models, and sexualized women follow the same pattern, which revolves around beauty or sexuality as being inherently "morally" bad, and implying that there is a trade off in a spiritual sense if you are physically attractive or enjoy your form. The idea pushed on women like it is the gospel, not by complete and satisfied people but by those who are bitter, is “I’d rather be self-realized than beautiful.” Or, “I went to college and am smart so I don’t have to degrade myself and show my body.” as if a female had to be ugly to liberate themselves, or that having plain features or an unfit physique is necessary to go to college. This link between beauty or sexuality and stupidity is all done as a mental censor on their part, and has no basis in scientific studies or physical reality whatsoever (in fact, science proves quite the opposite; in reality, science confirms the doctrine implicit in the Sanskrit language that a persons vibrational and spiritual essence is perfectly represented in their physical form). True female strength isn’t the sacrificing of beauty to attain “higher” things of the intellectual or spiritual realm, but of embracing femininity and its power so fully that you laugh at people’s attempts to suppress or shame your unique beauty and body and you show them that, instead, aligning yourself with your feminine power

and severing yourself from these childish & primitive dualities actually brings you the #spiritualgrowth & intelligence that they will never have. It brings fast transformation and growth fueled by the fire of your satisfied, uniquely expressed libido (connected as well to your improving intuition) growing hotter and stronger in response, burning away your dualistic perspectives, hangups, and jealousy. This all relates to the fact that the chief difference between true occultists or tantriks and the common masses is that tantriks do not create a distinction between reality and their sexual libido, but actually worship the generative force for what it is. An Occultist understands that their balanced sexual desires are inherently connected to Truth, and the root of all life and goodness. This underlying sexual foundation behind any relationship is actually the basis of the relationship, just as the Muladhara center is the base of the body. In reality, the male body is projecting and its first “attachment” to a female is to her form, which then leads to deeper levels of love. if a man chooses a woman only rationally and is not attracted to her body, he is living in a fantasy without having made the first important energetic connection for the male sexual flow, and this is why masturbation to porn is rampant in sexual relationships. There can be no stable relationship without a pure and strong sexual foundation, and everything else grows out of it. All emotions and even the intellect are powered by the sexual foundation, and if there is a false sexual foundation, the relationship will not last no matter how much you want to delude yourself. Sex is the primary and first consideration for a romantic relationship and if there is not sexual compatibility, there is no hope of spiritual development, because spirituality in a nutshell is the control and worship of your sexual energy.

This is why a big part of spirituality, especially in the modern world, revolves around returning back to the truth and root of reality, which revolves around one’s own sexual energy, due to modern society spinning so much illusion and falsehood around this subject and driving a huge wedge between a person and their own life-force. From an elemental perspective, it must be understood that the Earth element is the most complete element, being a condensation of all the preceding elements. The earth element is, of course, shown as our physical body, which becomes beautiful only if we have elemental harmony. A truly “beautiful” person has the intellectual capabilities of having a harmonious air element, the emotional articulation and communication skills of a harmonious water element, the drive and ferocity of the fire element, and the stability and sensuality of the earth element. All of these internal elements then go on to produce beautiful physical features, the air element creating subtlety and length to the appearance, the fire element creating luster and vibrancy, the water element creating magnetism and charm, and the earth element creating voluptuousness or muscular size. Without the corresponding internal virtue, there simply cannot be the physical or external sign of beauty. On the contrary, any distortion of the physical form is a result of an internal moral defect. A person who is always angry or never angry will have a distorted fire element and lack bodily luster in the case of a weak fire element, or will develop acne or oily skin from an overactive one. This is the theory and practice of #Ayurvedic treatment, which teaches a person to achieve and maintain an elemental balance and harmony within their own body for health. This is also the basis behind exercises in #Occultism like the observation of the elemental "tides" that flow at the different times of the day, and also of rituals that utilize visualization of the elements to balance them like the "lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram”. In Freemasonry, we find the metaphor for spiritual practice being likened to the shaping of a crude, ugly stone into a beautiful and perfect one.

This metaphor is most appropriate and the crude, ugly state of the stone initially represents our own #Muladhara center and libido, which must be worked on carefully through our spiritual practice to refine into into a perfect and balanced one. This "cornerstone" is like our libido, the foundation of our practice, not something to be thrown away or neglected. So, you will aways find that Adepts who are the truly "spiritual" people, are not frigid individuals with no life force, but very sexual in a refined sense, and possessing beauty. Upon viewing most individuals who place a severe division between libido and moral goodness, they often look unshaped or unsculpted or dull, in that they neglect their own vitality in fear or hatred of their libido. On the contrary, those who embrace the foundational fires of the libido are “burned” and shaped in accordance with its harsh truth, producing distinct vitality, symmetry, and beauty. This is why #Tantra and Occultism are elitist in nature; it is not that they exclude the common masses from worship, but that the masses exclude themselves from their own dualistic mentality towards sex. The masses fear their own sexual nature and so view the idea that it is holy as blasphemous, and so think Tantra or Occultism is impure or debauched. An Adept indulges the senses and engages in sex in a way that produces liberation, and so they do not fear it or anything else. In Hermetic Qabalah, if we examine the Tree of Life diagram, the sexual foundation is known as Yesod and this sits directly below the center known as Tiphereth or “beauty ”. In this way, it is explained that any expression of sexuality that is not directed towards beauty or #Tiphereth leads eventually to imbalance and evil, due to the departure from the middle pillar of equilibrium, and balance which these two centers sit on. CLAIRE NAKTI

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