why are we here? just to buffer?

i'm like if an omniscient narrator didn't know shit. you can call me cal / 30s / friendly neighborhood cruciverbalist. [ID: avi is a close-up of a woman looking unimpressed from the thomas anshutz painting "a rose" (1907). header is a slaps roof of car meme i have edited to read "moi, lisant le dico: *gifle toit de langue française* ce truc de dingue peut contenir tant de mots de ouf dedans" /end ID]

[uovoc]

the Murderbot situation (killer robot attempts to integrate into a nonviolent communalist utopia, but somehow always ends up shooting a bunch of people) is on some level kind of symbolic of Martha Wells's writing (old sci-fi/fantasy from the long and venerated tradition of evil races and boss battles, now writing for the new sci-fi of cozy cottagecore settings and talk-it-out conflict resolution, yet always wraps up the finale with a big shootout)

[fairycosmos]

issue with being mentally and physically ill and/or broke is that all you ever do is survive and that sounds like enough on the face of it but it is very normal to want and even need more than that. and it feels almost dismissive to pretend like there’s not a lot of grief associated with the experience. because there just is

[rexalogy]

[castformi-deactivated20241025]

dystopia au where we are all assigned one of two chosen genders at birth

[peppylilspitfuck]

Thanks to ultrasounds, the genders can be assigned before birth.  The people are so excited to conform they throw “Gender reveal parties” to make sure their offspring exist in a strict binary since before they can even form thoughts. 

[slightlykylie]

Children are color-coded according to their binary assignment. 

[darkersolstice]

One of the genders is seen as inherently inferior.

[yothobro-deactivated20200505]

This all sounds really effing creepy when you put it that way

[rooksandravens]

#BECAUSE IT IS

[fuckyeahfeminist]

And if you deviate from the assigned gender you can be disowned by your family, fired from your job, and beaten by authorities.

[rodserlingofficial]

[coquelicoq]

[ID: Rod Serling from "The Twilight Zone" with a speech bubble as though he's saying the above post. /end ID]

[coquelicoq]

What a catch!

Or: Abe finds out. Suyama suffers. 1.6k.

“And s-omeday,” Mihashi hiccuped, “he’s gonna look. Like. His dad!”

Suyama and Sakaeguchi exchanged a desperate look. “And that’s…good?” Sakaeguchi hazarded.

“YES it’s good,” wailed Mihashi. “Have you SEEN. H-his dad?!”

“We’ve seen him,” Suyama said cautiously.

“S-so—broad,” Mihashi moaned into his arms. “So soft…”

Sakaeguchi patted him on the back, mouthing What do we do?? over his head at Suyama.

Suyama was wondering the same thing. He had been enjoying a very normal evening when Tajima blasted the old Nishiura group chat with an emergency request: Ren was getting drunk and being maudlin, by himself, in public. Could whoever was nearest go pick him up and get him home before he got recognized?

Abe lived closest, but his response time had become downright erratic since starting his first clinical rotation. Suyama and Sakaeguchi were on opposite sides of the city but about equidistant to the izakaya and figured it would be easier with two—one to be lookout, one to be human crutch—so they’d met up in the middle and walked there together. But now that they were here, they couldn’t get Mihashi to stop talking long enough to take him anywhere.

It wouldn’t be such a problem if he were talking about something else. But it had been half an hour of Mihashi sadly enumerating all of Abe Takaya’s finest qualities (many of which Suyama had not heretofore been aware he possessed, and to be honest still wasn’t completely sure that he did in fact possess), and whatever else was unclear, it was pretty clear that it was for gay reasons. And it was also pretty clear that Mihashi was not out to the entire world of pro baseball. If they could just get him to keep it to himself for two minutes while they got him in a cab…and then hope the cabbie didn’t follow sports…

If you’d asked Suyama back in high school, he would never have thought that someday they would have a problem with Mihashi talking too much.

He was aware he was no expert on crushes, or whatever, but really. How much more could there be to say?

“And now he’s. Lost. Forever,” Mihashi was saying in tones of deep tragedy. “H-he’s going to be too. Busy, and all the—with—the—the patients, w-who have in-interesting. Conditions, and so he. Will never. Look at m-me—ever—again,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word.

“Uh,” said Suyama. Was that how it worked? It didn’t seem right to Suyama, but what did he know.

“They’ll. Need him,” Mihashi cried. “He l-loves that.”

“Well,” said Sakaeguchi. Abe did love to be needed, that was true. But again, there was something off about the way Mihashi was looking at it.

“I’m not. Weird enough for him anymore!” Mihashi burst out. “He’ll think I’m—boring. How c-can I com-compare with patients? He—he can look at, at their bones. Their bones!”

“Oh…no,” said Suyama, in a tone he hoped passed for supportive. He barely managed to keep it from coming out as a question.

“Bones! In-inside of them! Do you. Know. What h-he said. When I asked i-if he wants—to look—at my bones?” Mihashi gave Suyama a look of such pure despair that he could swear he felt his heart wrench sideways, despite not understanding in the least what could be so devastating about a person looking, or not looking, at one’s bones.

“What did he say?” Sakaeguchi said breathlessly. Maybe the bone thing made sense to him.

“H-he said. ‘That would be. An.’” Mihashi buried his face in his hands. “’Ethics violationnnnnn!’”

“It would?” Sakaeguchi asked, enthralled.

“What if I. Want him to e-ethically violate me,” Mihashi said sadly.

“Oh, buddy,” Suyama said, patting his hair.

“And n-now I’ll. Never get the chance,” Mihashi whimpered, pushing his head into Suyama’s hand like a very needy cat. “H-he’ll be—People th-throwing themselves at him—P-parents of…of everyone wanting—son-in-law… A doctor…sexy genius who kn-knows all my favorite—m-mochi flavors—”

“Would that be a selling point for others, do you think?” Sakaeguchi interjected weakly, but Mihashi didn’t hear him.

“And someday he’ll. Look like his hot dad and—ugh, he would be s-such a—good father—!”

“Would he?” Suyama said, not managing to keep out the skepticism this time, but Mihashi wasn’t listening to him either.

“When he’s looking at-at you, you feel like you could do—anything,” he whispered, and his face crumpled. “As long as he’s—watching, y-you’re real…”

Suyama looked to see if Sakaeguchi was as alarmed by this as he was, but Sakaeguchi’s expression had gone thoughtful. “You know, Ren—” he started.

“What’s going on?” said a gruff voice as the door to their private room slid open. “Why isn’t he already home?”

“TAKA!!” Mihashi shouted, and spun himself around so fast he immediately toppled over.

Abe caught him, saying, “Easy, easy. I’m here.” He spared a glare for Suyama and Sakaeguchi. “I just got off a shift, but haven’t you been here for like an hour? What’s taking you so long?”

Suyama opened his mouth, but Mihashi preempted him. “Takaaaaa,” he said, petting Abe’s face to get his attention. “Don’t l-look at them. They’re not important.”

“Well, hang on,” Abe said, glancing back at them almost apologetically. “That’s not—”

“No, that’s fair,” Sakaeguchi said. Suyama nodded. It would be nice to be not important at this point. Maybe he could go home.

“Shh,” said Mihashi, putting his hand over Abe’s mouth. “Shush. You’re m-making—me dizzy.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Abe said from behind the hand. “Do you think there might be another reason you’re dizzy?” He looked pointedly at the empty beer bottles scattered over the low table.

“No,” said Mihashi emphatically. “It’s—you’re—I’ll tell you. Listen.” He took his hand away from Abe’s mouth to place it on his shoulder and leaned in. “You c-can’t be a doctor, Takaya. You—can’t take. Heartbeats.”

“What?” Abe said, confused. “A pulse? Yeah I can. They taught me to. In medical school. And it’s not really that difficult to begin with.”

“Y-you think you can,” said Mihashi, “but you don’t know. It’s the—wrong heartbeat. You-you’re in-interfering.”

“Ohhhh,” said Sakaeguchi quietly, grabbing Suyama’s arm. Ohhhh, what? Suyama was lost. So was Abe.

“It’s wrong,” Mihashi said again. “You—mess it up. When you come in. The r-room. Faster—just because—you’re there—"

Ah. Suyama could see where this was going. Not bad for a guy without a romantic bone in his body.

“You’re saying…the presence of the doctor throws off the results?” Abe frowned. He was proving to be slower on the uptake than Suyama, but then again, he hadn’t been privy to Mihashi’s litany of his virtues. “Well, going to the doctor’s can be stressful for people, so their readings might be elevated—”

“No. Takaya,” Mihashi interrupted. “Not the doctor. You. Because they—w-want you, b-because, it’s you, and you’re you, a-and—” He started gasping, his breath tearing out of him in sobs. “You’re gonna—f-find somebody, and—forget—about me—”

Oh, shit. Was it too late for Suyama to leave? Or should he stay to support Mihashi?

“Whoa, Ren, slow down,” Abe said, voice rising in alarm. “I don’t even know what—how could I forget about you, huh? Are you stupid?” He thumbed at the tear tracks on Mihashi’s face and said more calmly, “And I don’t know where this is coming from, but nobody wants me, Ren, that’s ridiculous—"

“Wr-wrong,” Mihashi interrupted again, almost shouting now. “Everybody. To—to talk to you and h-hold you and sleep—with you and have your—at-attention! Forever and ever!”

Abe stared at him, stunned. Suyama was losing sensation in the arm Sakaeguchi was clutching, but it was nothing to how excruciating this conversation had become. What was anybody supposed to say to that?

“Ren,” Abe breathed. “Hey, Ren.” His eyes were shiny. He was still cradling Mihashi’s face in his hands. “You’re—you’re my most important person.” He took a deep breath, and the tears spilled over. “I’m not—you could never lose me. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Mihashi reached out slowly to catch a tear as it dripped off Abe’s chin. Then he opened his hand and placed it flat against Abe’s chest. Over his heart.

Suyama would have liked to take that as his cue to leave, but that would require wrenching his arm out of Sakaeguchi’s death grip, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw any attention to himself. So he could only endure.

“I just—” Abe shuddered and closed his eyes. “I can’t play baseball anymore. So I thought…”

Mihashi blinked. He opened his mouth. “Are. You stupid?” he said.

Suyama had to agree. But again, he had been there for the litany. Mihashi should probably repeat it to Abe at some point. When Suyama was far away.

Abe choked out a laugh and opened his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe?” He inhaled. “It’s just…Who am I to you, if I’m not your catcher?”

What a question. Could Suyama plug his ears without being rude?

Ren clenched his hand into Abe’s shirt. “You’re just mine,” he said fiercely. “If. If you want to be.”

No, that would definitely be rude.

Abe swallowed. “Even if…even if I’m stupid? Even if I don’t have time to work out anymore and I turn into my dad?”

Suyama and Sakaeguchi coughed in unison. Abe looked around at them in surprise. “Oh, you’re still here?” His eyebrows drew down. “Thanks for looking after Ren, but would you guys mind leaving? We’re having a private conversation.”

“Yes. Yep. Absolutely,” Suyama said immediately, and forgave Abe for everything.

[oofuri2003]

[leohtttbriar-deactivated2025082]

i mostly just pretend that the curzon-loving-jadzia thing didn't happen because acknowledging it honestly makes me so frustrated and uncomfortable and it reveals too much of the biases underlying the writing of one of the more interesting star trek characters (to me) in any series. but, setting aside my reactive feelings about this reveal, i can read a narrative purpose and theme in this that i don't think was deliberate but is still interesting.

by the time she finds out that the reason she was rejected and then accepted into joining with a symbiont was due to curzon's feelings for her--attraction and then guilt, she'd already: a) held up curzon's promise, at the risk of her own lifelong imprisonment, to protect curzon's former lover, b) held up another of curzon's promises to kill a guy in battle (despite being told she shouldn't have to by kira of all unlikely people), c) had her symbiont taken away from her outside of her choice and then joined with the person who took it at gunpoint, and d) learned that the symbiosis commission lied to her to cover themselves about the fact that her symbiont had once been joined to a murderer, a person she then had to accept within herself or die about. and then she learns that the most recent host of her symbiont had feelings for her, who she was pre-joined. on top of all this, sisko has been calling her "old man" since he met her because sisko remembers curzon. and it's a joke--she's a young woman, it's ironic--but that's still the nickname he gave her. this man, curzon, who she has to carry with her for the rest of her life. who was a burden (which she accepted with a certain kind of nobility) before she found out about his feelings and his subsequent unjust actions because of those feelings.

she learns and experiences all this and then she meets lenara. and lenara breaks her heart and chooses trill society and custom. and lenara says to her, explaining why she's not going to choose to be adventurous or brave and go against the norms, "we don't all have a curzon inside of us". which is sort of crazy for her to say given that it was torias's memories that inspired jadzia's initial connection to lenara, not curzon's. (and like torias was established in the show as being a daredevil pilot who took big risks. so why mention curzon at all?)

and then after jadzia meets worf, she accidentally gets all the main crew trapped on a planet in "children of time" where she meets both her great-grandson and future host of her symbiont and it's his actions that have ensured she crash there and have to commit to reproducing with worf so he and the rest of the colony can exist.

so, counting, that's curzon, varad, joran, torias, and yedrin--all male hosts of jadzia's symbiont and all who in some way hurt her. and in each instance the conclusion to her agential action in each story was simply accepting it.

the curzon of it all is the most frustrating part. people have joked that jadzia is like a klingon "weeaboo" and it's true, there's so many instances where she performs klingon culture--sincere or not, there's still a level of performance. and that interest and that memory of past relationships with other klingons comes from curzon. and it's one of the reasons i was a little annoyed that sisko scolded her like a child and insisting she's a prideful young woman when she doesn't want to go through a ritual she had promised to do to marry worf. he calls her “old man” constantly, the value of her curzon memories has been celebrated again and again, the value and source of her personal choices have been attributed to curzon, her life as a joined person came solely down to curzon’s control, curzon is the previous host mentioned most who is implied (deliberately or not in the show) to have the most influence over who she is—and she’s called a little girl over a moment of maybe unearned pride and told she is not curzon.

all of this would read better to me if: a) we got way more substance about who jadzia was as a person before being joined and b) if dax’s other previous hosts, like, perhaps, some of the women, were given equal consideration and implied screen-presence. but as it is, as it’s written, deliberately or not, jadzia’s story is one of accepting the things that come at you and the people that hurt you, especially if you have to carry them in the most intimate way. this frames a lot of her actions in later seasons as one of a person who has to keep learning this lesson and then frames her death, with all its other accidentally concordant details like quark and julian lamenting they’d never gotten with her or the random introduction of her wanting a baby with worf.

obviously i think the intent when writing jadzia dax was not to write someone who swallows her opinions and convictions and pride. i think the intent was to write someone both youthful and old, fun and intelligent, committed to the ideals of exploration but also committed to her brothers-in-arms, so to speak, and in all that they succeeded. she’s a really fascinating character and is performed and written still with a richness of person that i think a lot of fans don’t give the character credit for. but the resulting character also has all these instances of learning a similar lesson over and over: accepting people who have wronged her and also that an enormous portion of her value comes down to curzon--the memories that she didn’t make but she still has to honor and own.

this is also why i sort of wish they'd had a plot where, like, jadzia is injured, she insists they remove the symbiont to send it back to trill to be joined to another, they do but it pisses julian off and he and his augmented-brain team figure out how to keep jadzia alive after the symbiont has been taken away, and like it’s a dire and permanent solution and it’s disabling maybe in some way, but it works and she’s alive, and then lenara hears about what’s happened when she realizes the dax symbiont is being joined to someone else and she races to jadzia’s side because now it’s just a gray area of the law, being together, and jadzia is like “i’m just jadzia now” and lenara is like “cool, can you help me build an artificial wormhole again? one that lasts?” because like, jadzia has several science degrees. one of exactly two things about her pre-joining self that is fully textual. and lenara returing specifically to be with jadzia would have implied an enormous amount of non-curzon-derived worth. and that’s how jadzia dax is written off the show, instead.

[leohtttbriar-deactivated2025082]

none of this to say we're given nothing about jadzia pre-joining:

she has a mother she writes a letter to every time she's "going into battle" therefore pre-joining she had some sort of loving relationship with her mom

she has a sister who once gave her a pair some glasses she didn't like. lots of different things could be extrapolated from this but my initial read is that she and her sister often tease each other

she excelled in school and achieved a very high-level of education in several subjects--one of which was "exoarchaeology" which is why she's tasked with translating some ancient carvings on an ancient bajoran stone at some point which is particularly fun to me personally

she was decided and determined to be joined ("ever since i was a little girl" and the fact that after being rejected she applied again--that's a unique type of self-championing and fortitude)

all of this is really wonderful stuff of character and makes her feel very much like a person which makes the setting and weird sci-fi alien conceit she's depicting more interesting with her presence. and also why it would've been delightfully painful to see her try to confront having to live on without a symbiont.

[guelwaar]

people love the idea of the mean girl nurse pipeline because it problematises medical abuse as a personal perversion rather than understanding it as a product of broadly held ableist values and its like, if this was only about ontologically evil teenage girls choosing to enter a profession because of their unique sadism then you really wouldnt expect to see the exact same forms of abuse pervading all arrangements of paid, unpaid, formal, ad hoc, and familial caretaking as well -- its more comforting to believe the nurse was just a preexisting bad person than that most of the world broadly hates disabled people and will abuse, neglect, and gaslight them if given power over their care

[loveridden1999]

problematic sudoku solving skills gap

[featuringmarkhoppus]

[littencloud9]

[ID: Tweet by @/GianmarcoSoresi that reads: My gf is so much better at crosswords than me that I worry she loves me like a dog /end ID]

[nathanielthecurious]

academic writing these days is always like “be/longing” “re-membering” “(under)standing”

[662607015]

STEM academic writing is like "we present the results of the ACRONYM project (A ContRived mnemOnic is NecessarY Material)"

[sharkgirldick]

So what makes a butcher knife more butch than other knives?

[nature-nerd-sarah]

The knife itself isn't necessarily butch. It's named that because it's wielded by a butcher, who is more butch than the other food shop owners

[sharkgirldick]

Hmm, I see.

What, then, makes the butcher more butch than other food shop owners?

[dragongirlbunny]

the knife

[coquelicoq]

weirdest thing happened the other day on the phone with my sister. she was talking, and suddenly she just started repeating the syllable "he", but with normal sentence intonation. she was like "we're going at the end of september. he he he he he he he he, he he he he he he." as though that was a regular thing to do. so obviously i was like what? and she was like what? and i was like did you just say the word "he" over and over instead of a sentence? and she was like no?? and i was like okay, well then i don't know what you just said, and she said it was "i know you don't like traveling, but you're welcome to join us." and i was like THAT SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE HE HE HE HE? and she was like WHAT IS HAPPENING???!?! so either i had some kind of neurological event for the space of exactly one sentence, or my phone or her airpods had some weird glitch, also for the space of exactly one sentence? neither of which seems very likely?? what WAS THAT

[knifearo]

it’s really cool to see someone who is in the exact same kind of relationship that i am for once. i get comfort from both the “aros can be in romantic relationships too” as well as the “aros dont ever have to date” kinds of posts but it always feels as if both of these awkwardly exclude me. i never thought i’d find someone else who was fine with their partner calling the relationship romantic for them but not for themselves. relationships can be just as messy and nuanced as identity itself but i dont think most people are ready to admit that.

even in places where relationship anarchy is talked about (the aro community being a big one, at least from what i've seen) it's still difficult to find people's accounts of like. how they put relationship anarchy into practice. i don't know. relationships are like gender to me in the way that every social construct is the same. every person is an individual. every individual is going to have their own approach to gender: just because we have these two major categories doesn't mean that it isn't infinitely variable and extremely personal. relationships are typically categorized as romantic, platonic, or familial, but the truth is that those categories are just as made up as the binary gender system. sure, they pop up a lot, and sure, they might be helpful for you to apply for yourself, but ultimately, every relationship is unique. once you start thinking outside of those arbitrary boxes— hold on i got so caught up in thinking about how to explain it that i stopped writing this post to draw a diagram

with anything listed being a stand-in for whatever else you can think of, obviously. but that's the thing it's like. you don't have to use the presets. everything is infinitely customizeable. you are ALWAYS creating unique relationships with other people you just don't think of it that way... once you approach every relationship in your life with an open mindset suddenly there are beautiful beautiful possibilities for all kinds of connections with other human beings... as always i fall back on my favorite phrase. which is "you can do whatever you want forever". because you can

[jessicamiriamdrew]

i do actually think people should try to use a word other than cabal

[coquelicoq]

Caught out

Or: Abe finds out. 2.1k.

Ayumi had been enjoying herself at her second ever Pride festival until Kei-chan tugged her hand and said urgently, “Something’s happening to Mihashi-kun!”

Mihashi-kun was the baby they had found wandering the festival in a daze, clearly alone and brand new to all of this. It reminded her of last year, when she had been brand new, and some older lesbians had been kind enough to take her under their wing. And she’d always wanted a little brother. She had adopted Mihashi-kun immediately.

“What? Where?” she said, whipping her head around to see what Kei-chan was looking at.

A taller boy had Mihashi-kun’s arm in a death grip and was towing him away as he scrambled to keep up. She looked at Kei-chan, distraught, and they broke into a run to follow.

They caught up just past where the booths ended. Mihashi-kun was sitting on a bench, his shoulders around his ears as the stranger loomed over him, yelling. They were just in time to hear him say, “thinking, dressing like that in this weather? I don’t suppose you put on any sunscreen? No, of course not. You’re probably not even hydrating. Then next thing you know you’ll end up with heatstroke and you’ll be telling me it wasn’t on purpose. Might as well be on purpose! Willful negligence!”

Ayumi exchanged a look with Kei-chan. They hadn’t quite expected this. But they still had a job to do.

“Mihashi-kun,” she said. “Is this guy bothering you?”

The stranger spun around, and his expression was so distressed she almost took it back. He looked like he needed support more than Mihashi-kun did, somehow. But Mihashi-kun had dibs. And he was smaller. And definitely gay. Jury was out on this guy.

“N-no!” Mihashi-kun stammered. “That’s—he’s—this is Abe-kun. My catcher.”

“Your…” Kei-chan’s brow wrinkled. “Oh, your catcher. I see.”

She nudged Ayumi, who suddenly got it. She was still somewhat new to gay slang, but now it clicked. “Oh, so that’s how it is.” She considered. “Well, even so, he could still be bothering you.” She looked at this Abe-kun coolly. “I don’t much like the tone you’re taking with Mihashi-kun, kid.”

Abe-kun shot her a dirty look. “Well, I don’t much like your idea of looking out for Mihashi-kun. Did you even tell him to put on sunscreen? Do you have any idea how easily he burns?” He scoffed and turned away from whatever her face did in reaction to that. Crouching in front of the bench, he slung his backpack to the ground and began angrily pulling things out. “Drink that,” he said, shoving a water bottle into Mihashi-kun’s hands, “and hold that,” handing over a small battery-powered fan. “Now where is the—here we go.”

He settled back on his heels, thumbing open a bottle of sunscreen he was apparently carrying around with him. That was actually really responsible. Maybe Ayumi should have thought to do that.

She looked over at Kei-chan, who was watching Abe-kun vigorously rubbing sunscreen into Mihashi-kun’s thigh with her hand over her mouth. “Hmm,” Kei-chan said, sounding amused. Abe-kun had started on another litany of remonstrations and accusations of idiocy and irresponsibility that now seemed to have expanded to include her and Kei-chan. What a rude boy! They had just met, and they were older than him. And how were they to know about Mihashi-kun’s delicate complexion? He wasn’t an actual baby. Shouldn’t he be trusted to look after himself?

“You seem pretty invested in Mihashi-kun’s physical condition,” she said, and then could have slapped herself for how that came out. She wanted to be supportive, but she didn’t actually need to hear the details of anybody’s physical condition or how it was maintained.

“Obviously I’m invested, didn’t you hear him? He’s my pitcher. It’s my job.” Abe-kun had finished one leg and moved on to the other. “I better see you finish that water, or so help me,” he added.

His job? That was kind of a weird way to look at it. Maybe she should be worried about Abe-kun in his own right, and not just as a threat to Mihashi-kun? “You know, he’s a big boy,” she ventured. “He can take care of himself.”

“He can, but does he,” Abe-kun muttered darkly. He finished with the leg and stood up. “Okay, shirt off,” he ordered. Ayumi opened her mouth, but Mihashi-kun had already stripped off the mesh crop-top Kei-chan had given him and was looking up at Abe-kun expectantly. She closed her mouth. She was beginning to get the impression this was normal for them.

“You do the front, I’ll get the back,” Abe-kun told him, and then, sighing dramatically, “Is that glitter? So you can slather glitter all over yourself, but not sunscreen. Okay. I get it. I’m being punished.”

“N-no!” Mihashi-kun insisted. “My fault! S-sorry, Abe-kun.”

Abe-kun sighed again. “You know, maybe just put the glitter on after the sunscreen. Or get sunscreen with glitter in it. They probably make that somewhere.”

“Mm!” Mihashi-kun chirped. “I will! Next—next time!”

“As long as it washes off before games,” Abe-kun said. “There’s probably some rule against it. Do you want the ump benching you?”

Mihashi-kun’s eyes had gone big and liquid. “N-no…”

Kei-chan elbowed Ayumi. “Ump?” she said. And then, to Mihashi-kun, “Do you play baseball?”

Abe-kun gave her a withering look. “What other kind of pitcher is there?”

“Wait, so…” Ayumi frowned. “What are you doing here, exactly?” She thought she had figured that out, but if they had been talking about baseball…

Abe-kun frowned and looked her over. “Do you have heatstroke?” he said.

“No, I—” She threw up her hands, exasperated. “Never mind.”

“You should really be hydrating too, you know,” Abe-kun said, quite bossily.

That wasn’t a bad idea, but did he have to be so annoying about it?

“Okay, hold still while I do your face,” he was saying to Mihashi-kun, who obediently closed his eyes and thrust his chin into Abe-kun’s hand.

So maybe they weren’t together-together. And maybe all baseball guys were like this. But just in case they weren’t, and just in case Abe-kun didn’t know, Ayumi felt it incumbent upon her as a wise gay elder to do her part to help the youth.

“Kei-chan can do that,” she said. “I want to talk to Abe-kun for a minute.”

“I’m almost done, just hold on one—”

“Nope,” she said, plucking the sunscreen bottle out of his hand and giving it to Kei-chan. “Now.”

He sighed heavily and glared at Mihashi-kun, but apparently he had enough etiquette trained into him to obey a direct order from a senior. He followed her to a fountain where they could see the bench without being overheard.

“I’m not a medical professional,” he said immediately. Yeah, no shit. They would hardly give a medical degree to an infant. “If you do have heatstroke you should really—”

“I don’t have heatstroke,” Ayumi said impatiently. “I just wanted to ask you something. What do you think this is?”

“What?”

“This event. Do you know what it’s for?”

He frowned. “It’s a festival,” he said.

“And?” she prompted. “What kind of festival?”

He scratched his head. “There are a lot of rainbows.”

“Yes…”

“And—skimpy contraptions. Made out of leather.” A light dawned in his eyes. “Oh no, all of these people need to hydrate—”

She snapped her fingers in his face. “Focus, kid. You’ve almost got it. Rainbows. Leather. Crop-tops. Body glitter. Did you happen to read any of the signage as you were plowing through the crowds dragging Mihashi-kun’s helpless body?”

“I wasn’t dragging—” He glared at her. “It’s. Well. I guess it must be.” He looked down. “For gay people?”

“Ding ding ding!” She held up a finger. “We have a winner! Congratulations. So what do you think Mihashi-kun is doing here?”

He kicked at the ground. “I guess he must be gay.”

“You guess?”

He rolled his eyes. “Why else would he have come?”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So let’s say Mihashi-kun came here because he’s gay. Why do you think he invited you?”

Abe-kun frowned. “He didn’t invite me.”

Just when she thought she had it figured out, again… “So you were just here of your own accord and happened to run into him?”

“No. I tracked his phone and followed it here,” he said, also confused, as though this should be obvious.

“You tracked his phone?!” What was with this guy? “Does he know you’re doing that?”

“Well, yeah!” Abe-kun shouted. “I wouldn’t do that without his permission! Obviously it was his idea!”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Wait, no. What? He told you to track him here?”

“No, he just,” Abe-kun sighed. “He finds it easier to talk to me in person. So he said, if I have something to talk about, I can check his location and come to meet him. Whenever. Not just today.”

“Okay, that’s—” Ayumi pondered. “That’s fine, whatever, as long as it works for you. Sounds kind of inefficient, but. It’s beside the point. Which is. Um.” If Mihashi-kun hadn’t invited Abe-kun, maybe she had misread the situation. Maybe Mihashi-kun wasn’t pining desperately for his devoted yet hopelessly clueless catcher? She needed to stop reading so much shoujo manga. “Maybe not relevant. After all.”

Abe-kun gave her a helpless look. “What is going on,” he said in a plaintive voice. “It’s just one thing after another today. No one tells me anything.”

She patted him on the arm. “Sorry, kid,” she said. And she was sorry. She should have kept her big mouth shut.

She was saved from having to figure out how to gracefully exit this conversation by Mihashi-kun running over, covered head to toe in sunscreen. “Abe-kun!” he said breathlessly, though apparently he was an athlete, so he probably had decent lung capacity. Interesting.

Abe-kun turned to face him and their hands rose to meet each other in an automatic reflex. Innnnteresting.

“Don’t overexert yourself,” Abe-kun scolded him. “We have a game tomorrow.”

Mihashi nodded earnestly.

“And drink water!” Abe-kun said. “If you’ve lost weight I am going to lose my mind. I mean it. I’m hanging by a thread, Ren.”

Given name? INTERESTING.

“A-Abe-kun?” Mihashi-kun said. “Um. If you wanted…you could. Stay?”

Abe-kun blinked. “What. Stay?”

Mihashi-kun nodded again. “You could. Come to the fest-festival. With me. We could go. To-together?”

Abe-kun looked gobsmacked. “To…this festival? You want to go together?”

Mihashi-kun nodded once, shyly. “It—it’s fine if Abe-kun doesn’t. Doesn’t want to,” he said, sincere.

“No, I—” Abe-kun flicked a confused look at Ayumi. She grinned at him and raised her eyebrows. He swallowed and said in a small voice, “Are you sure? I could call one of the other guys if you want—Tajima, or maybe Izumi—”

Mihashi-kun shook his head. “I’m just in-inviting Abe-kun.” He raised his head and straightened to his full height. “I just want Abe-kun!”

Holy shit, Ayumi thought at Kei-chan, who had sidled up to her silently and was slipping Ayumi’s hand into the crook of her elbow. Are you hearing this???

Crazy, right? she imagined Kei-chan thinking back at her. Couldn’t have happened to two weirder guys. Or she was probably thinking something like that. Unfortunately Ayumi had yet to achieve a perfect mind-meld with her girlfriend.

Abe-kun had slapped his free hand over his eyes. That might not be a good sign. Now he was rubbing at…wait, was he crying??

“Uh,” he said, in a choked voice. “That’s.” He cleared his throat and dropped his hand from his face. He was looking down at where his other hand was gripping Mihashi-kun’s. “Are people gonna try to…like…put glitter on me? Or. Make me dance?” He frowned. “I don’t want to dance.”

Mihashi-kun smiled. “I-if you keep, um, holding my hand,” he said, “and making your. Your normal face—” His smile brightened. “I—I don’t think anyone will…will bother you. And if they do,” he added, squeezing Abe-kun’s hand, “I’ll pro-protect you.”

Abe-kun looked up at that, and then seemed to lose the power of speech at whatever he saw on Mihashi-kun’s face. He swallowed a few times, and finally managed, “Yeah. Okay. Let’s. Let’s go to the festival.”

The force of Kei-chan’s gleeful nudge sent Ayumi staggering. Mihashi-kun’s smile could surely power the sun. Abe-kun closed his eyes as though the sight of it was too much to bear, and said, “But we are finding you some electrolytes.”

Mihashi-kun laughed. Ayumi, suddenly overcome, closed her eyes too. The kids were all right.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

one of the funniest conversations I ever had with my ex was when they were still getting used to Celsius and asked me "what's 20 degrees?" and instead of converting it, I said "it's the highest your dad will ever let you set the thermostat and when you say you're cold he tells you to put on another sweater, we're not made of money" and they went "oh, 68"

the fact that this reference was that fucking precise was something they went on to tell people about for years.

[the-hawks-rye]

[Image Description: a screenshot of a digital Celsius to Fahrenheit converter, showing that 20°C is exactly the same as 68°F. End Description}

[neurovarious]

love the concept of <2 as an aromantic symbol/emoticon because not only is it a spin on the <3 heart (typically romantic) symbol, but it literally is written "less than 2" and idk as a non-partnering aroace that just speaks to me