them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT
biologist:
Like literally the only reason we didn’t go extinct is because we are aggressively social creatures who community organized and helped each other when faced with disasters that drove other species over the brink.
(Like we’re so aggressively social that we looked at APEX PREDATORS and went ‘they look soft! Friend????’)
(The answer was yes because wolves are also aggressively social and they adopted the strange tall not-wolves just as eagerly.)
humans @ wolves: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll let us pet them?
wolves @ humans: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll pet us?
Hiruma taking Kuroko under his wing was amazing. Worth the price of admission alone. I hope they stay in touch tbh.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!
Oh my god, I can seriously die happy now. I mean, this picture would have made me endlessly happy just because it combines some of *my* favorite things– that is, KNB and ES21– but I am doubly honored that my fic could be the inspiration for this story! Especially since “American Football Which Kuroko Plays” has a special place in my heart, because it was the first fanfic I wrote (in this part of my life, at any rate), and the writing of that story lead to some many happy things in my life. So I view it as the story that started it all, so to speak.
No lie, the only reason I posted that story is because I just wanted one other person besides myself to read it. I had finished this story I didn’t think I was going to finish, and it was a story I seriously thought no one else would want to read since it was such a random crossover, but I just thought, “Well, surely there is at least *one* person who will want to read this weird crossover of mine.” So I am always just so incredibly happy that people like that story.
But never in a million years did I think that story would bring such amazing art like this! Kuroko as Hiruma’s protege is still a favorite headcanon of mine, and look how happy and smug and evil Hiruma is! All the best looks for Hiruma!!
Today I went to the bookstore to buy the Arden edition of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore because I need it for one of my term papers. But I looked at my punchcard and realized buying it would get me a free book, and because I’m standing right there in the drama section I start browsing around. Enter the Mansplainer. Now, I can only assume that this guy saw me flip through a few books and put them back and decided I didn’t know what I was doing. Mansplainer to the rescue. Up he swaggers. Now, this guy is average-looking but so am I, so at first when he says, “Oh, are you looking for some Shakespeare?” I’m willing to entertain the possibility that he might be worth flirting with or at least talking to, but he literally doesn’t give me enough time to even answer the question before he says, “You know–” And this is like, the most fatal phrase in a dude’s vocabulary, because as soon as he says it odds are 90 to one he’s about to start telling you what he thinks you don’t know. So I shut my mouth. I shut my mouth and I stand there and smile and nod like I’m in utter awe of all his manly wisdom while he proceeds to tell me every wrong “fact” he learned about Shakespeare in secondary school. For those of you who don’t know me, here’s what makes this hilarious: I’m getting a master’s degree in Shakespeare. I’ve been a Shakespearean actor for ten years. I’ve written a fucking book about Shakespeare. I know more about Shakespeare than this guy knows about breathing.
Anyway, for two, maybe three minutes I let him go on about how the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet is actually a sonnet and they were both like thirteen because that’s how young people got married in England in the 1700s and so on and so on. (All of this is wrong, by the way.) Towards the end he starts to flounder, because he was clearly expecting me to jump in and start cooing like a fucking pigeon about how romantic it all is or whatever the Great Mansplainer expects a woman to do when he dazzles her with his dizzying intellect. He finally finishes with a showstopping, “So, yeah.” And this is my cue. So I say, “Actually,” and then proceed to correct literally everything he said while I beam at him like the fucking sun because I want to watch his ego shrivel up like a fucking raisin. And it does. By the time I’m done (which only takes half the time because if women take up more than 25% of a conversation men think they’re dominating it and I’m 100% certain his little Mansplainbrain would just explode under the stress) he’s physically taken two steps away from me and is looking toward the door like he’s grappling with some intense fight-or-flight instinct. So I stop and smile again and because I just can’t resist I wave my staff pass and say, “Sorry, I need to go now, I have to be at the Globe in twenty minutes.”
And that is the story of the time a guy tried to mansplain Shakespeare to me and I will cherish the look on his face until the day I die.
Every article talking about this study talks about how bosses can squeeze more labor out of workers, or how workers can squeeze more labor out of themselves, but the reality is that the human brain only has so much capacity to focus on unpleasant tasks, and people generally won’t work more than that without the threat of force (like in manual and service industry jobs where work is easily quantified and workers are being monitored all the time to make sure they don’t slack off; the threat of being fired and losing one’s ability to eat is the threat of force). People in hunter-gatherer societies do about that same amount of work.
The working day isn’t only about productivity, it’s about keeping you busy too, so you’ll have no time do to other things (like study, discover that you can fight back capitalism, organize, things like that).
There would probably be less unemployment if more workers were needed to fill the hours, too
Kasamatsu Yukio spent
the majority of his life being largely indifferent to Valentine’s Day. Having
no sisters or female cousins or female childhood friends to give him obligatory
chocolate, and being absolutely incapable of holding a conversation with the
girls in his class, it never really seemed like a holiday that was worth his
attention.
He expects this holiday
to be slightly different, only because it’s Kise’s first Valentine’s at Kaijo,
and if nothing else, Kasamatsu expects to spend the day thoroughly exhausted
with having to deal with Kise and his fanclub.
So it is somewhat of a
surprise when he gets up in the morning only to realize that Kise has left for
school without him.
*
“I hate this holiday,”
Kise says, in dark thunderous tones. Kasamatsu has never heard him speak with
such intense loathing.
“Er,” Kasamatsu starts.
He’d jokingly said, “Why did you leave to school so early? Were you that eager
to get chocolate from your fans?” and he didn’t quite know how to respond to
this proclamation.
“This holiday is the
worst thing ever,” Kise continues.
“You have a lot of
chocolate, though, right?” Kasamatsu frowns. Because surely this isn’t the same
thing as Moriyama’s constant bemoaning of the “wretchedness and cruelty of this
day.” Moriyama, like most of the basketball players, never got chocolate.
Kasamatsu can already see Kise
with his accumulated piles of chocolate.
“That’s not the point!”
Kise insists. “The point is, it’s a stupid holiday! It emboldens people to
confess! Which is dumb! No one should confess their feelings, ever. Especially
not because a holiday told them too.”
“I guess?” Kasamatsu
says, seeing some of the logic there but certainly not all of it and also
wondering where the heck Kise was coming with all of this.
“Also, it’s completely
sexist and unfair. Boys should give chocolate too. Why can’t boys give
obligatory chocolate to the people they care about? Why is that not OK? Boys
might want to give chocolate to the people in their life they care about.”
“If you want to give
chocolate to someone, you should just give chocolate to someone,” Kasamatsu
says.
“I don’t want to give
chocolate to anyone,” Kise says, pouting.
“You’re not making any
sense,” Kasamatsu says.
“This holiday is the
worst.”
*
“Were you taking
chocolate out of Kasamatsu’s locker this morning?” Moriyama asks.
“I have no idea what
you’re talking about,” Kise says through gritted teeth.
Some realization flashes
across Moriyama’s face, “There were rumors last year of some crazy chick going
around threatening people who prepared chocolate for Kasamatsu. I didn’t really
believe it at the time…”
“And you don’t believe
it now, right, Moriyama-senpai?” Kise seethes.
“Riiiiight. You know
most of that was just obligatory chocolate anyway, you can’t really deny a guy
obligatory chocolate on Valentine’s Day, that’s just petty—yeah, fine, fine,
you be you.” He backs away at Kise’s glare.
Valentine’s Day is full
time work, and Kise resents the hell out of this. It is the dumbest holiday in
the world and he doesn’t even get chocolate from Kasamatsu. There is no
point to this holiday even existing.
*
“It’s just obligatory
chocolate,” the women’s basketball captain says. “I’ve known Kasamatsu for these
past three years—”
“If it’s just obligatory
chocolate, then you don’t really need to give it to him, do you?” Kise
says sweetly, while continuing to block her path.
“You can’t seriously
object to this, you’ve accepted dozens of chocolate today!”
“Listen, this is war,
all of the movies say so,” Kise insists. “Desperate times call for desperate
measures. Even obligatory chocolate is a confession of feeling something and
I can’t risk it. Also, I will bite off your hand if you keep trying to give him
that chocolate.”
“Fine!” She throws her
hands up in the air. “God, you are such a child!”
“A child who gets to
SLEEP IN THE SAME ROOM as him!” Kise tosses back, because let’s face it, he
needs to count his victories where he gets them.
*
Kise flops down on his
bed and hates everything. There was nothing like having a whole holiday
dedicated to expressing love to really drive in the unrequited nature of his
own obsession. And while yes he did see Kuroko’s point (who had been
very judgey, during Kise’s guerilla attack last year on Kaijo without anyone
knowing it was him thwarting all the chocolate delivery) that his behavior was
immoral and depraved and fine he also could see Moriyama’s point that
blocking the obligatory chocolate was kind of petty, he also didn’t
care. One bit. Because all the chocolate in the world didn’t make up for not
getting chocolate from the one person it matters and he hates everything.
Something drops on his
chest, causing him to look up and see a bar of chocolate, the kind sold at
convenience stores.
“Here,” Kasamatsu says.
“I have no idea what’s up with you, but stop being so cranky.”
“Senpai?” Kise says,
barely believing what was happening. If any of the other Miracles had the power
to shapeshift like he did, he might expect this to be a cruel prank.
“I stopped on my way
home to get some chocolate for Mizuki and Ren. I thought about what you said
about boys giving obligatory chocolate and I was thinking it’d be pretty sad
for those guys to not get anything just because we’re a family of all guys. I
figured I’d get some for you and my dad while I was at it.”
“Senpai! Thank you so
much! This is amazing! This is the best thing ever!” He stops himself from
gushing too much and also from jumping on the other boy. He can be restrained!
He can be! He looks down at the chocolate in wonder.
“You’re so weird,”
Kasamatsu says, laying down on his own bed. “You’ve gotten chocolate before.”
Kise has to hide his
face, so Kasamatsu won’t see his reaction. He’s sure that he must look
pathetically in love right now, so he just curls up facing the wall, still
clutching the chocolate. It’s only obligatory chocolate, he thinks. But
every chocolate was a dangerous sentiment, that’s why he couldn’t let anyone
give any to Kasamatsu before.
So this was a feeling,
even if it was an obligatory one, and he’ll take what he can get.
Maybe this holiday
wasn’t so bad after all.
A/N: Thank you, anon-friend!
I am very glad to hear that you enjoy Designation: Miracle! And I am always happy to write pining!Kise and oblivious!Kasamatsu. I
hope you don’t mind that I took this chance to write a Valentine’s Day fic.
It’s set before they hook up in Designation: Miracle, although I have no idea
when exactly because I am so bad about trying to navigate timelines. Woo for
lazy writing. Thanks again!! Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!!!!
