rusty

Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9

Chapter 10: labyrinth of the heart

Chrollo didn’t need a mirror to know he looked the same.

He’d spent years learning what people did when he offered them quiet attention. How they leaned in. How they confused being seen with being chosen. How easily they donated pieces of themselves- time, loyalty, secrets- just to keep the thread between them from snapping. A question asked in the right tone. A pause long enough for someone else to fill it with confession. He didn’t need to force anyone. He only had to hold still and let them step forward on their own.

That was his talent.

That was his curse.

He’d built the Spider out of it- out of people who would bleed for him, out of blind faith shaped into weapons he would use. He could split a room without raising his voice. He could end an argument by saying nothing at all. He could look at someone and watch their spine straighten as if they’d been tugged by a string. Even now, even with the city gearing up for September first, the world outside moving toward violence with the inevitability of a tide, he still felt that pull in people. That reflex. That surrender.

Until he stood at the edge of your bed and felt all of it go weightless.

Power didn’t mean anything in here. Not the name that made men flinch. Not the reputation that kept strangers obedient. Not the fact that outside this door, people would have killed for a single second of his attention. None of it mattered when the room revolved around a single thing he couldn’t control. Not really.

You.

You were everything. He saw it all. The way you’d hesitate at first, suspicious and sharp, and then when the conversation hit the right thread you’d light up before internally scolding yourself. You’d rant about a passage like you would never be able to talk about it again unless you said it right then. You’d say something witty and then immediately look away, embarrassed that you’d let him see you being yourself. You had a habit of biting the inside of your cheek when you were thinking, and often you’d make a point that forced him to stop and actually consider it, not because you were trying to impress him, but because you couldn’t ever pretend to be less intelligent than you actually were. He saw how you would shy away from your own points and avoid his eyes when he looked too close. 

He loved it all. Your intellect, your sarcasm, your smile, your determination. 

He loved that you made him work for your attention. He loved that you didn’t give it away cheaply.

Chrollo wondered how you could possibly be insecure of yourself, when you were just so… perfectly you. 

But now, you gave nothing at all.

He watched you sleep and tried to find the person he’d met in the bookstore in the small movements you gave- your breathing, the slight twitch at your lashes, the way your brows would furrow occasionally- he would love it if you would tell him what you were so intently dreaming of. But every time your eyes opened lately, it was like looking into a room after the furniture had been dragged out. A dark void. Nothing to hold onto.

Void wasn’t quite the word.

He realized now that there was a darkness that didn’t sit right behind your eyes, pulling him towards it, slow and patient, the way deep water didn’t look dangerous until you stepped in and realized you couldn’t feel the ground anymore.

He’d wanted your fear. Your anger. Even your hatred.

Those at least meant you were still there. 

But this- this quiet, dull nothing- made his chest tighten in a way that was almost unfamiliar, like the first time he’d ever realized something could be taken and never returned. It was suffocating, not because it hurt him, but because it didn’t touch you at all.

And that was his worst fear, wasn’t it?

Not that you’d scream. Not that you’d fight.

That you’d slip away from him.

That you’d stop reaching for anything- water, air, words, even spite- and leave him holding a body that merely survived while the person inside it ran into the light- too far away to follow. 

The pounding in his skull strengthened, and the voice telling him that he had to possess every last bit of you started to scream his name over and over.

He didn’t speak when your lashes fluttered.

Because if you opened your eyes and looked through him again, he wasn’t sure what he would do to keep you from disappearing completely.

—-

Chrollo was already there when you woke up.

He stood at the edge of the bed like a statue, still as the furniture, hands hanging at his sides. You watched his face and caught the way his gaze kept drifting off, landing on your hands, the floor, the edge of the nightstand, anywhere but your eyes. This time he wore a long coat, fur-lined at the collar, and the bandages were gone, his hair falling forward in a way that looked more boyish than you remembered. The overhead light carved soft lines into the fabric, and caught on the cross on his forehead. 

Your eyes lingered on the cross when your index finger twitched.

Surprised, you shifted your focus back onto yourself. It was small, the kind of reflex you’d ignore any other morning, but ever since he had started feeding you the paralyzer every meal you hadn’t been able to feel your body at all. You stared at your arms, and waited for the familiar dead weight.

But instead, your arm obeyed. It didn’t lag behind your intention like it had been doing for days. You flexed your wrist once, twice, and watched the tendons shift under your skin, and the dull thought drifted through you without much emotion: you could move.

You raised your other hand too, turning both palms over like you were checking for something you’d misplaced. There was no numbness. No buzzing. Your limbs felt normal in the plainest sense, like someone had flipped a switch back on and expected you to be grateful.

You didn’t feel grateful.

You didn’t feel much of anything, honestly, just a familiar exhaustion that sat in your bones and made everything look far away

Chrollo didn’t speak. He didn’t move closer. He only stood, and you could tell there was something different with the way he watched you.

You lowered your hands back onto the blanket and turned your head toward him.

“Well?” Your voice came out flat, not even trying to bite. “You haven’t given me my medicine.”

It took a second for the words to land in the room.

You saw it in his face, it looked like a thread had frayed and snapped behind his eyes. They were desperate, swirling with some other emotion you couldn’t pinpoint. He’d stared down men who begged and threatened and cried. None of them had ever made him look like this.

He stepped closer, stopping at the side of the bed, and for a heartbeat he seemed almost… stuck. Like he’d planned for you to wake up frightened, furious, pleading, anything with heat in it. Like he’d planned for every version of you except this one.

You watched him in silence, because you didn’t have the energy to fill it. Your hands rested open on the sheet. Your eyes didn’t sharpen. Your voice didn’t crack. You just waited.

Something in Chrollo’s expression shifted again, deeper this time, the composure thinning in a way that made him look briefly unfamiliar. His gaze dropped to your face, lingered on your eyes, then fell away as if he couldn’t hold it.

And then he sank to the floor.

Not slowly nor dramatically. Just down, clean and quiet, knees meeting the carpet beside your bed like it was the only place he could put himself without falling apart. It was like the time he knelt to clean the broken glass, but this time his hands settled on his thighs. And his head dipped slightly. He didn’t look up.

“[Name], I’m sorry. I won’t put you on the medicine anymore.” 

For a second you didn’t understand what you were looking at.

Chrollo Lucilfer, on his knees, in the room he’d built to contain you, with the same restraint he wore like skin now turned inward, like a knife pressed against his neck. 

You looked at him on his knees and didn’t bother pretending you understood why. You didn’t care enough to name it. You only registered the simplest part: he felt guilty. Guilt sat in him like a hook, and for once it wasn’t aimed at you. It was aimed at himself. 

For the first time since you’d been dragged into this place, something became very clear to you.

If this could pull him down, then it could pull him somewhere else too.

And if he could be moved, then he could be used.

—-

For the first time since you’d gotten here, you were able to think. Like really think. Not in scraps between hunger and fear, or in that slow, hazy way where every idea dissolved before it finished forming, but in full sentences that actually stayed put when you reached for them.

After Chrollo had silently walked out, you allowed yourself to retreat into your mind. The paralyzer was gone, and the fog went with it, being able to hear thoughts in your head again felt almost loud.

The strange way people treated you ever since you got here slid into your mind. 

Gon’s glazed over eyes when he caught you as you were about to fall, Killua’s sharp inhale when he grabbed your wrist, and Chrollo… Chrollo touched you through fabric most of the time, careful in his usual manner, but you’d noticed it anyway. The difference. The shift. How something in him sharpened the second his bare hand found your skin instead of your sleeve.

Your stomach turned, cold and unpleasant, and you forced yourself not to think too hard about the way he had forced medicine into you through a kiss.

It was the same pattern, over and over- people who wouldn’t have spared you a glance, people who were completely out of your league, suddenly orbiting you like they’d been pulled in by something they couldn’t name, fixating on you in this strange, obsessive way. 

You replayed the past days like you were sorting through evidence rather than memories, and the same detail kept surfacing no matter how hard you tried to push it away: touch. It always happened after contact. A brush, or a grip just a second too long. That tiny pause where someone’s body seemed to forget what it had been doing, where their face went blank and then tightened as if they’d had to wrestle themselves back into place.

Touch was the only pattern you had, and it sounded ridiculous even inside your own head.

You’d touched people your whole life without consequences. You’d held your mother’s hand as a kid, warm fingers laced through yours. You’d bumped fingertips with classmates, traded papers, shared pencils, grazed shoulders in crowded hallways. Nothing had ever happened. Nobody had ever flinched like you’d burned them, or stared like you’d done something they couldn’t name.

And yet there was nothing else. No other common denominator.

So you decided to test it.

You sat up slowly, tentatively waiting to see if there would be any side effects from the days you spent paralyzed. So when your arms lifted without dragging behind your thoughts, when your fingers curled and uncurled like normal, you felt something cold and steady settle into your chest. It was just a simple awareness that you had access to your own body again, which meant you could do things instead of only enduring them.

Your gaze drifted to the door.

Phinks was there- you knew his name and a little of his personality when the members would talk as they rotated- and from what you could tell, he seemed like a decent person. Decent enough for a group of criminals, you thought bitterly. 

He was posted by the wall like he’d been nailed into place for his shift, arms crossed, weight on one leg, he looked irritated from boredom. He’d been standing there for at least an hour, occasionally lifting a hand to cover a yawn, then dropping back into that stillness as if he could force you to disappear by refusing to acknowledge you.

He looked terrifying with his slicked blonde hair and green tracksuit. Like some evil gym trainer.

But everyone else was the same kind of scary. Especially that short black haired guy, you thought slowly. Preferably, you would’ve wanted to try this on one of the girls, Machi, or the one with glasses, but they weren’t here and time was running out. You remember feeling the betrayal when Machi had coldly walked in your first day here, not giving you a second glance when she saw you curled up. 

Clearly, you didn’t have time or options to be picky.

You slid your feet to the floor and stood. The carpet felt strange under you, it had been too long since you were able to walk freely, it felt like it wanted to catch and hold you in place. Your knees wobbled once, your stomach tightened, and you let your face stay blank because you couldn’t spare energy on pretending you were fine.

Phinks noticed immediately.

“The hell are you doing?” he said, voice rough with irritation, like your movement was an inconvenience.

You took a step anyway, slow enough that it didn’t look like a challenge, careful enough that it didn’t look like you were about to sprint. You could feel his eyes tracking you, and you forced yourself not to look up at him yet, because you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing fear arrive on your face on time. 

Sweat beaded on your forehead, and you felt your mouth going dry, not from thirst this time, but from the old instinct that still remembered what monsters looked like up close.

You needed him close enough to make contact.

So carefully, you let your foot catch the edge of the rug, just barely, turning your weight wrong so your body pitched forward in a way that looked accidental enough to be believable. The stumble wasn’t dramatic, it didn’t need to be, because the moment you started to tip your hand reached out on reflex, fingers catching his sleeve at the forearm.

Phinks froze.

You snapped your head up to record his reaction- and it wasn’t subtle. His muscles locked so fast it made his whole arm go rigid under your grip, and his breath hitched like he’d swallowed wrong. For a split second his eyes went wide, not with anger, but with something startled and ugly, like his body had reacted before his mind could cover it up. 

Then his ears went red.

The color climbed up the back of them so fast you almost missed it, because he snapped his face back into place immediately, jaw tightening, glare slamming down like a door.

You let go as if you hadn’t noticed anything at all, as if you hadn’t just felt the exact point where his composure cracked.

“Sorry,” you murmured, keeping your voice low and plain, keeping your hand close to your own chest as if you were only steadying yourself.

Phinks stared at you like he was trying to decide whether to yell at you or to run, and the hesitation in him was almost worse than the anger would’ve been. He opened his mouth, shut it, then dragged a hand over his face hard enough to pull his skin, like he could wipe off whatever had happened.

“What the fuck was that,” he muttered, and it came out rough and confused in the same breath.

He stepped back too quickly, as if distance could undo it. His shoulders stayed tight. His eyes flicked to your hand and away again like he didn’t want to give it a second look, like looking too long would make whatever he felt real.

“Don’t touch me again,” he snapped, but it landed late, like he’d only thought to say it after the reaction had already betrayed him. 

And then he left.

The door clicked shut behind him, and the room went quiet in that suffocating way it always did, like the walls were listening.

Your hands started shaking a second too late, once you were alone enough to let it happen, and you wrapped your arms around yourself to keep it from showing if anyone happened to be watching through whatever cracks you hadn’t found. Your heartbeat was loud in your ears, your mind spinning, fear spiking sharp and hot because you’d just poked something dangerous and lived.

But now you knew there was definitely something there. You weren’t going insane. At the thought, a tiny smile, mixed with relief and terror, tugged sharply at your lips. 

Now, you just needed to be sure. 

—-

The next morning dragged in slow, gray increments.

You stayed in bed with a book open in front of you, eyes moving over the same paragraph until the words blurred together. You weren’t really reading. You were listening for his footsteps, for the shift of weight outside the door.

When the lock finally clicked, you didn’t look up right away.

You waited until the new presence settled into the doorway like it belonged there, until you heard the faint scrape of a boot against the floor, the quiet exhale of someone trying too hard to sound like they weren’t thinking about yesterday.

Then you lifted your gaze, knowing who you were about to see.

Phinks was back.

He stood in the same spot as before, shoulders squared, arms crossed, posture loud with effort. He looked at the wall over your head instead of your face, like if he kept his eyes away from you he could pretend nothing had happened yesterday. The tension in his jaw gave him away anyway. So did the red that hadn’t quite left his ears, faint but stubborn, like his body was still pissed it had betrayed him.

You turned a page you hadn’t finished, just for the motion. Your finger trembled for half a second before you forced it still. Then you rolled over, innocently, glancing at him over the cover of your book.

Phinks shifted his weight, a fraction too sharp.

“Don’t start,” he said, voice rough, like he was cutting you off mid-sentence even though you hadn’t spoken.

You blinked at him, slow and mild. “Start what?”

His eyes snapped to you before he could stop them. The look was pure irritation, but it didn’t sit right. It kept slipping, catching on your hand where it rested on the paper, then jerking away like his brain had yanked it back by force.

“You know,” he muttered, and his fingers flexed where they dug into his own forearm. “That… act.”

You tilted your head slightly, not enough to be cute, just enough to make him feel like he was the one being unreasonable. “I really fell yesterday. I’m not acting.”

“Yeah,” he said too fast, then caught himself. His mouth tightened. “Right. You fell.”

Silence stretched between you, thin and tense.

He looked like he wanted to say something else and didn’t trust his own mouth to do it. You watched the fight happen in his face in small tells, the way his brows kept pulling together and releasing, the way he breathed a little too shallow like he was trying not to give himself away again.

You let your gaze drop back to the book. You forced yourself to keep the page steady.

“Come closer,” you said, like it was nothing.

Phinks gave a short, humorless laugh. It didn’t reach his eyes. “No.”

You didn’t argue. You just looked back up at him, patient in that soft way you’d been practicing, and waited.

He held your stare for two seconds before he broke first, scowling as if he hated himself for it.

“What,” he snapped. “What do you want?”

You shrugged, small. “I can’t hear you from there.”

His lips parted like he was about to swear at you. He didn’t. He dragged a hand through his hair instead, rough enough to make it stand up, and then took one step forward like it physically hurt him to do it.

“Better?” he said.

You didn’t answer.

You just watched him, and after a beat his scowl deepened and he stepped closer again, slower this time, as if he’d decided it was better to get it over with than keep standing across the room with your eyes on him.

“Closer,” you repeated, voice still flat.

“Are you fucking-” He cut himself off, jaw grinding. Then he moved again, until he was near the foot of the bed, close enough that you could see his adams apple bobbing in his throat when he swallowed.

You held his gaze. You made sure your face stayed empty.

“Closer.”

Phinks stared at you like he couldn’t believe he was doing this. Then he leaned in, bracing one hand on the edge of the mattress like it was a compromise, like if he kept part of his weight on the bed it meant he wasn’t really giving in.

His face was close now. Too close. You could smell him, surprisingly sweet with soap and something metallic under it, like a coin. You forced your breathing to stay even.

“Say it,” he said, low. “What did you do yesterday?”

You let your eyes flick over his features as if you were considering him the way you might consider a puzzle. His nose. The hard line of his mouth. The way his eyes kept darting between yours and your hands like he couldn’t decide which one scared him more.

“I didn’t do anything,” you said.

“Bullshit.”

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t smile. You just lifted your hand, slow enough that he had time to stop you.

He didn’t.

Maybe he thought you were going to push him away. Maybe he thought you were going to touch his sleeve again where it was safe, where it could be explained away. Maybe he didn’t think at all.

Your palm met his cheek.

Bare skin on bare skin.

It lasted less than a second. Just enough to confirm it wasn’t a fluke, just enough to feel the exact moment his body reacted like it had been struck.

Phinks jerked back so hard the bed frame creaked. His hand flew up to his face, where you had touched, fingers splayed like he could hold the sensation in place or scrub it off, and his eyes went wide again- wide and unsteady.

“What the fuck,” he choked, and his voice cracked on the last word like it wasn’t built for whatever had just hit him.

You pulled your hand back into your lap as if nothing had happened, as if you hadn’t just watched his whole nervous system glitch in real time. You smoothed the blanket once. Pointless, casual.

Phinks took another step back, then another, breathing hard now like he’d run a mile. His ears were bright red, full color this time, and his mouth kept opening and closing like his brain was stalling out between anger and something worse.

“You—” He swallowed, throat bobbing. “You can’t—”

“I’m thirsty, Phinks,” you said, softly, interrupting him the way he’d tried to interrupt you earlier. “Could you get me some water, please?”

Phinks stared at you.

You watched him try to remember how to be dangerous. You watched him search your face for fear and not find it, and the lack of it seemed to make him angrier than if you’d screamed.

“Are you playing with me?” he hissed, “And how do you even know my name?”

You blinked. “I’m not playing anything.”

That was the part that made his expression stutter.

He looked like he wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of you. Instead, he spun on his heel like he couldn’t stand being in the same room as your hands anymore, and yanked the door open.

He paused in the doorway, shoulders tight, as if he was fighting himself about whether to leave at all.

Then he left anyway.

The door shut.

Your breath came out in a shaky exhale you hadn’t felt building and you felt sick, alive, and terrified all at the same time.

You stared at the door where he’d disappeared, felt the thought settle into place with ugly clarity, and you didn’t bother dressing it up as anything kinder than what it was.

You could use this to your advantage.

—- 

When Phinks came back, he didn’t announce himself.

The door clicked, and then the glass appeared on your nightstand with a heavy thud like he’d been trying to be quiet and failed at the last second. He let it go a little too carefully, fingers lingering on the rim before he pulled his hand back as if the thing had bitten him.

“There,” he muttered.

You glanced at it, then up at him. He wasn’t looking at you. His eyes were fixed on a spot above your head like the wall had suddenly become fascinating, his arms folded tight across his chest, posture rigid enough to pass for annoyance if you didn’t catch the faint pink still sitting at the tops of his ears.

“Thanks,” you said, and kept your voice mild. Almost normal.

Phinks flinched anyway, not visibly, not enough for anyone else to call it a flinch, but his shoulders hitched like your tone had brushed him somewhere raw. He cleared his throat, shoved his weight from one foot to the other, then retreated back toward the door like distance might fix whatever was wrong with him.

Silence settled.

You reached over and took a sip of water just to give your hands something to do, then placed the glass back down and picked up your book again. You weren’t really reading. You let your eyes move over the lines so it looked like you were reading. It was easier than looking at him. It was easier than looking at anyone here really.

Phinks stayed in place, still refusing to meet your gaze, but you could feel him watching you in quick, stolen flashes the way people looked at a bruise they were tempted to touch. Every time you shifted, his attention snapped over and then away again, like he was angry at his own reflexes.

You turned a page you hadn’t finished.

A beat later, he spoke, rough and low, like he was doing you a favor by breaking the quiet.

“You always read this much?”

You blinked slowly, as if the question surprised you. “When I’m bored.” 

Phinks huffed a laugh that didn’t go anywhere. “When you’re… bored.”

You shrugged, small. “What else am I supposed to do?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. His jaw tightened, then loosened, like he’d bitten down on something and decided not to chew it.

The room went quiet again, but it wasn’t the same quiet as before. It felt slightly less sharp around the edges, as if he’d accidentally admitted you were a person instead of a problem.

After a while, you spoke without looking up.

“Does it ever get boring for you?”

Phinks paused. You heard the faint scrape of his boot against the floor.

“…No,” he said automatically, then he corrected himself like the truth annoyed him. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

You hummed, thoughtful, and turned another page. You kept your tone light, even. Like you weren’t holding a blade behind your back.

“So what do you do when you’re bored?”

He scoffed and kicked at the floor. “I don’t know. Stuff.”

“Like what?”

Phinks made a sound like he was about to tell you to shut up, but the words didn’t come. Instead he dragged a hand through his hair again, rough and irritated, and let out a breath through his nose. As you peaked at him from the corner of your eye, you thought his actions came off as more embarrassed than irritated honestly. 

“I don’t do storytimes,” he said harshly. Then, after a second, quieter, “I mess with people.”

You let a small pause hang, just long enough for him to feel the space and try to fill it.

“Back in-” he started, then stopped, as if he hated that he was about to say anything personal at all. “There was this idiot who thought he could beat me in cards. Real cocky. Kept flapping his mouth.”

You didn’t smile. You didn’t react too much. You just listened, eyes on the page, like his voice was background noise you happened to tolerate.

Phinks kept going anyway. The story came out choppy at first, then steadier, the details getting sharper as he warmed to the memory: the bet, the crowd, the way the guy’s face changed when he realized he’d lost. Phinks tried to make it sound casual, like it hadn’t mattered, but his mouth kept twitching at the corners every time he got to the part where he’d won.

“So I took his money,” he finished, and then added, like he couldn’t resist, “And his ring.”

You glanced up then, briefly. “You stole it?”

Phinks bristled on instinct. “He bet it.”

“That’s still stealing,” You paused, “cause you cheated.”

“It’s not stealing if he agreed,” he snapped, “And I didn’t cheat.” Then caught himself and leaned back against the wall, scowling like he was annoyed you’d made him defend himself. “Whatever. You asked.”

“I did,” you said quietly, and went back to your book. “It’s fine.”

Phinks went still at that, like the lack of pushback threw him off more than an argument would have.

More minutes passed. Awkwardly, he told another story, then another, each one dumber than the last, like he was deliberately choosing the least meaningful parts of himself to hand over. You let him. You let the silence in between feel safe enough that he didn’t bolt.

At some point, he said a word you’d been circling for days without being able to name.

“…Nen,” Phinks muttered, almost under his breath, like it slipped out before he realized you could hear it.

Your fingers paused on the page.

You made yourself keep breathing. You made your face stay empty.

“Nen?” you repeated, gently, as if it was nothing. As if it was just another strange word in a stranger’s mouth.

Phinks’s whole body tightened. His eyes snapped to you for the first time since he’d walked in, sharp and warning, like a knife turning in its sheath.

“You didn’t hear that,” he said.

You tilted your head slightly. “But I did, you just said it.”

His jaw clenched hard enough you could see the muscle jump. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What is it?” you asked, trying to make yourself feel soft and harmless, “Like… a gang thing?”

Phinks stared at you, and for a second you thought he might actually answer, might actually explain, because his mouth parted like the words had lined up behind his teeth.

Then his expression slammed shut.

“It’s nothing you need to know,” he said, colder now. Not cruel. Just closed. “Drop it.”

You looked back down at your book like you hadn’t cared in the first place.

“Okay.”

The word came out easy. The act slid back into place like it belonged there.

Phinks didn’t relax, but he stopped looking like he might explode. He exhaled through his nose, posture still tense, gaze drifting back to the wall as if he could forget the slip if he stared hard enough.

You turned another page, slow and steady, letting the quiet return.

And underneath it, tucked away where he couldn’t see it, your mind kept working.

Nen.

So it was real.

WHEN I TELL YOu. it is a RARE occasion when i find a reader insert that isn't slightly afraid of diverging from the original plot (they don't follow the anime's step by step and reader is out doing somm else yk??) and even RARERR when they do it sooooo correctly!! AUGJJFJWOF I LOVE THIS SO MUCH WORDS CANT EXPRESS IT. i love the way SOME characters arent immediately overly coddling the reader, LIKE they can exist not as an extension of the reader, theyre still their own character JUST MESSED UP. 😭 that is SOMETHING I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR IN A LOOONG TIME BRO. the writing, the descriptions the scenes are so seemingly original, unique and NEVER lack in depth 🥹 I CAN GO RAVE ABT THIS ALLLLL DAY. DONT GET ME STARTED ON CHROLLO BRO.

(The best of this post and its reblogs, but with links that work)

Here is a website where you can scroll down to all the different levels of the ocean 

Here is a website where you can see the future of the universe

Here is a website where you can press a ‘make everything okay’ button, over and over, until things really are okay

Here is a website that you can read if you feel like a burden

Here is a website where you can look at strobe illusions (TW strobe/flashing)

Here is a website where you can cut stuff up (TW blood/sh)

Here and here are websites where you can play with sand

Here is a website where you can draw with macaroni and other fun foods

Here is a website where you can paint someone’s nails

Here is a website where you can grow a garden with emojis

Here is a website with hundreds of videos of people hugging you (rightfully dubbed ‘the nicest place on the internet’ because it really is, y’all, it made me cry)

Here is a website that will take you to other useless websites

Here is a website where you can make a tiny cat play bongo drums (and other instruments!)

Here is a website to help give you gentle reminders <3

Here is a website where you can grow a tiny farm

Here is a website where you can take a bunch of scientific personality tests

Here is a website of calm rain noise

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”