yuuta exhibits such previously abandoned, recently adopted dog behavior. incredibly anxious all the time, even though nobody’s out to get him or leave him behind. waits for you to return home or from school or from work excitedly, just to see you when you walk through the door. follows you around senselessly, hovering in your space just for the sake of companionship. initiates affection in prodding ways—starts off next to you, then a hand on your thigh, then deems it safe to lay all the way down, then slowly pushes his head into your lap. gets up whenever you need to get up, and resumes his position as soon as you’re ready. brings you gifts as a sign that he’s thinking of you, and maybe because he likes the affection it brings out in you, maybe because he likes the gentle affirming touches of a hand in his hair or a pinch to his cheek. rests his head on your stomach or his chin on your shoulder when he’s sleepy, stays there, immobile, and will not move unless absolutely necessary. sometimes he gets surprised when he hears you calling for him, there’s a moment of disbelief as he thinks “me? really? you need me?” but it’s very quickly overshadowed by this compulsive need to show up, to please, to do anything for you, which is why he always answers when you call. he doesn’t realize that he has puppygod eyes, especially when he’s excited or confused, but he does and it’s incredible endearing. very reluctant to share your space or attention after a while, considers that to be sacred and he won’t risk being let go or lost again, so as a safety precaution, he keeps himself right by you, waits for you always. 

i think gojo would be TERRIBLE at any type of imposter game. like those mafia games or among us etc etc. HE WOULD SUCKKK. he has never won a single game. ever. he just gets so excited whenever he's The Bad Guy and he gets this glint in his eyes and it just makes it so fucking obvious that he's the one lmao. and then he's soooooo sad when he loses:(((( like c'mon guys how'd you know it was me:(((( BE SERIOUSSSS YOU LITERALLY WENT "MWAHAHAHA" WHEN THE GAME BEGAN???????????????????? he's stupid i can't believe i love him

I don't think Willow and Hunter start dating immediately after the events of W&D. They know they're something and they're both open to exploring that when they're ready. But they also agree that it would be in their best interest to adjust to their new normal and do some soul searching before they make themselves an official item. They don't consider themselves dating but they don't consider themselves single either. And the way the two of them approach their feelings for each other in this murky limbo state is vastly different for both of them.

Like if somebody asks Willow if she's in love with Hunter, it's like

Willow: Am I in-...? Well, it's...complicated. It's a very complicated situation we're in and I don't want to make any bold decisions right away. Do I love him as a friend? Of course I do. Am I physically attracted to him? Yes, but hormones don't mean love. Am I also emotionally attracted to him? Yes, but a crush isn't love. Do all of these things at once equate to being in love? Well, that seems like the kind of question that would keep a very nervous very scared person lying awake all night. Good thing that's not me, haha. It's not like I'm scared to be in love and I'm subconsciously avoiding confronting the fact that I am. I just believe in staying rational and analyzing your emotions so you don't get too reckless and dive into things without thinking. You'll hurt yourself. I've heard that's it's really easy to hurt yourself when you're in love. You see it's...we...Hunter and I met at a really crazy time, when I was just starting to become the witch I want to be. And then everything got so much crazier and we were confused and scared and it was hard to think about who you wanted to be when you weren't where you wanted to be. So now we're home. And finally, we have the chance to figure ourselves out. And that's exactly what we're gonna do. I want to be with him...eventually. When we're ready. I like him and I want to kiss him but I'm not in love with him. I'm totally not.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Bonesborough

Del: Willow seems like a nice girl.

Hunter: Yeah. I'm in love with her.

Do the matoran even know what the difference between male and female is. Did the great beings ever instil the knowledge in them or is it just something that they like. Picked up from other species like the vortixx and skakdi. And makuta i guess. Do they assume female and male are an oversemplification of the elemental thing. So like you have female which is Water and then all the other elements just get funneled into male which instead of a specific element is just Not-Water.

How do they rationalize lightning matoran then. Like are they a subkind of ga-matoran? Because water is a good conductor for lightning? And what about Orde and the psionics. Great Beings go well we cant have you be male now bc youre too destructive, lets make the next ones all female, and Orde is just like what the fuck is a male. Or a female. Never heard of that in my life.

Yeah, that clears up nothing...

Listen I like Tim and Steph but I don't go there, however.

Sometimes I remember that one monologue from the Diane of Bojack Horseman when her ex-husband got another girlfriend and think about Steph wondering how did she not have a mental breakdown regarding her and Tim breakup until today.

Because if Red Robin is still cannon and I was her I would have very much a mental breakdown eventually.

Monologue under the cut

"You accidentally see your soon-to-be-ex-husband kiss someone else. At first you think, oh, it's a fing. Whatever. They're drunk. It's a party. But then he puts his hand on the small of her back exactly the way he used to do to you. It means, "I got you." And when he did it to you, it made you feel safe. And you realize he will never do that to you again. And it breaks your heart again. After you thought your heart was so broken that it could never get any more broken. You thought it was safe. But it somehow finds a new way to break. Because even though you're the one who asked for this, now that you've got it you are completely adrift. With no compass, or map"

Need to rant.

I spent an hour and a half working on The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I only got 50 pages in. The reading is easy, but I’m annotating a LOT so it’s going super slow.

But I’m annotating a lot to remind myself of all the bullshit, so I can properly roast it. There are some good ideas and points in there but omg he sounds like an insufferable asshole writing a book for himself, ignoring that other people can have totally valid ways of being. Fatphobic undertones, implying there are definitely good values and like, limited ways to correctly prioritize them. I’m now 45% through. I am hate-reading at this point, and I’m torn between:

do I just want to finish it off quickly from here on out? (he has started going into specific things that are negative that he thinks everybody should value highly, versus talking more about his general philosophy)

Or do I want to keep going through slowly making notes ripping him apart.

On one hand: I’m definitely enraged and I kinda want it to end because it’s so irritatingly wrong. On the other hand: i want to give it such a scathing review because of its wrongness that I want to have everything wrong with it detailed meticulously because I enjoy that level of thoroughness.

I’m hoping there will be less to annotate tbh.

(zookeeper au) eiden: hey yakumo why do you always use the stall

rei: damn can't imagine asking someone why they pee the way they do. why do you show your dick to pee. imagine being so overconfident in your ability to piss you just stand and make a mess on the floor for a janitor to clean up (THIS DIVERSION WAS MADE BY 1/3 OF THE CLOACA CREW)

TSJFSFK THAT WAS MY INMMEDAITE THOUGHT -->defensive rei (bc i instinctively project my personal reaction as the first rxn)

if eiden's all "why are you shy yakumo? u can pee right next to me 🥰" *pats urinal next to him* i can imagine rei walking into the room with 1 of 3 reactions:

Fight Mode: "imagine asking someone what they do in the toilet. i could report u for sexual harassment" <- he would not, bc rei ain't a snitch, but i can imagine rei sassing eiden bc he feels like it

Apathy Mode: "i use the stall too. it's nbd. this is unimportant." (continues with his life, uncaring)

Generous Mode: "you're curious? come in here and i'll show u"

have i mentioned i finished The Path We Walk here yet?

continuing my verse crossover hypotheticals: i think.....stockfly & kaijuverse would make an interesting pair & would get along <3

Heartless

This month's Carnival of Aros theme is "Humanity and the Non-Human" and these prompts were particularly resonant with me:

It’s been a fairly well-documented phenomenon that many aromantics tend to feel some sort of connection to some sort of fictional non-human species, whether as specific examples, or as a whole. If you relate, what are your thoughts on these characters and concepts as an aro(-spec)? Do you have any experiences in any subcultures related to non-humanity, such as Voidpunk?

So I thought I'd write something about my personal experiences.

It will come as no surprise to people who follow this blog that I am a heartless aromantic and I'm also a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. (To anyone who isn't familiar with KH, in the games there are beings of darkness called Heartless. There's a lot of designs and some are cooler than others so here are a few of my favorites:)

[ID: Various Heartless from Kingdom Heartles, in order, a Shadow, a Neoshadow, a Soldier, and a Darkling. End ID]

These beings are both literally and very much not literally (it's complicated) heartless. They are manifestations of the darkness in people's hearts and seek to steal more hearts to transform into Heartless.

(something something beings that are recognizably human but also . . . not and yet still have the instinctual desire to reclaim what was taken)

A common stereotype about aromantic people is that we are heartless and unfeeling because we don't experience romantic love. Aromanticism may influence a person's emotions and definitely impacts views on romance, but to say that all aros are cold and emotionless is hurtful and arophobic. But I also genuinely identify with the term "heartless." Not feeling romantic attractions makes me feel alienated from amatonormative society, and "heartless aro" is the best way for me to describe that feeling.

My love of Kingdom Hearts is also a huge influence on that. When I say KH rewired my brain, it's only a half joke. I was 5-6 years old when I first discovered these games and this bizarre Disney/Final Fantasy crossover was a very formative experience. "Heartless" is not just a way to describe my aromanticism, its a defining aspect.

What is it, to be Heartless? To be human, once, but now something . . . other: a being born of darkness. Darkness is a force that is often used for evil, but still KH makes a point of not making it inherently evil. Darkness exists in every heart. It can overwhelm, but it can also be accepted and mastered, like in Riku's case. To choose to become Heartless, in Sora's case, is a defining moment of humanity.

My blog url might be aro-sora (because let's be honest, he's super arospec) but the title, "My Heart Belongs to Me," is quote from Roxas, one of the best examples in KH of someone being denied humanity for supposedly not having a heart, yet being one of the most caring and emotional characters in the series. He's not an actual capital-H Heartless (that's Sora, briefly) but his story and his struggles just . . . resonate with me. "I am me! Nobody else!" I want for people to stop thinking of me as something I am not, as desiring relationships I don't want, or even being a gender I am not.

I don't have much experience with voidpunk culture (but now I want to look into it), but recently I discovered the term otherhearted: "Identifying strongly with something nonhuman and/or fictional, without literally identifying as that thing." (I'm a bit on the fence between being otherhearted and otherkin, but otherheart literally has the word "heart" in it and the KH influence is strong.) It's a very queer experience to want to change your identity and be something other than what people see you as. Sometimes I imagine that for myself—claws of darkness, eyes of burning gold. Darkness cannot exist without light, but neither can light exist without darkness. Nothing can destroy me, because I am the shadow at the very heart of the world.

I guess that would make me Heartless-hearted. An ironic term, I know, but similarly to my personal heartless aro identity I find it absolutely hilarious. So many parts of my identity are "contradictions": being bigender, being human and heartless. It fits with the lore of the Heartless themselves: some technically do possess hearts and some don't. (it's complicated)

I call myself heartless the same way I call myself queer. Bigots will use them as insults and an attempt to make me lesser and other and nonhuman, but to me these are my words. They are mine and I give them power, no one else. Someone thinks I'm "heartless" for not experiencing a certain feeling? Fuck them, I AM heartless. And I am still human because I choose to be, not because humanity is something to be given or taken away. I don't have to prove anything about myself to anyone. I define my own heart, NO ONE ELSE.

And if they still think that being heartless—being aromantic—is something "wrong" or "unnatural" or not human? I only have a warning for them:

Beware the darkness in your heart. The Heartless prey upon it.

hello!! i don’t really want to harp on this issue, but this is just a small reminder that Mindy Kaling has actually NOT done a lot of the horrible things she’s being accused of! You don’t have to personally like her or her humor, but I beg of you to please at least do some research on her supposed problematic behavior before you start treating her & the things she makes/contributes to so viciously :(

If you have a reliable source detailing something shitty she’s done, by all means please leave it in a reply/reblog! The more knowledge the better! But I do ask that you be civil about it!

hmmm

Izuku and Tomura really out here saying the most confusing shit out of context

recovery win! rewatched million dollar baby and got so jealous of hillary swank’s arms that i convinced myself to eat lunch