#malaprop

…and then, when questioned, explained that, “you know, people compare things to gloves because gloves are… good?”

mal·a·prop — /ˈmaləˌpräp/ (n) - the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo ” (instead of flamenco ). — He shouldn't be here. (Sequel to Champion)

Content Warning: unsanitary conditions, bullying, spoiled food

Mob wasn't particularly good at understanding people but even still...it was hard to form proper social skills when you spent the entirety of your life alone. Was it odd that he, a middle schooler, was living alone without his parents? Perhaps, but it's not as if he minded.

It was better this way, wasn't it? He wouldn't be a burden on them if he wasn't with them. He could better himself and not bring them down. Everyone was better off without him.

("I'll admit," a caterpillar notes from the milkweed near his bedroom window, "that I might have adjusted your life a little to my liking. My point stands, Kageyama: you are only afforded kindness because you are surrounded by people who protect you. Take those away, expose you to the cruelties of man, and if you can keep with your delusions I might call it an ideology instead of a farce.")

Mob wasn't smart, he wasn't fast, he wasn't strong. Mob was a background character, a mob, and one only had to compare him to his peers to prove that point.

The volleyball slammed into the ground inches from his feet. One of his classmates sucked on their teeth and sneered. "You just stood there like a statue."

"Sorry," Mob ducked his head. He had tried to reach for the ball but...he wasn't fast enough.

"Don't apologize. Jeeze. Just...do something." His classmate hissed at him, eyes angry and voice glass shards against Mob's skin.

He flinched and tried to not let it show on his face. They never liked it when he showed them that he was hurt.

Some of it must have shown though because his classmates rolled their eyes and walked off to talk to their friends instead of him. Mob exhaled and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of the awful soup of emotions bubbling beneath his skin.

His teacher had yelled at him for not knowing a math problem. He tripped and dropped his lunch on the ground. He had been chased by a dog on the way to school. This was only the latest failure in a day full of terrible events.

As Mob walked to the sidelines of the gym, he was tripped. Someone laughed at him. It was the new girl, Asagiri Minori.

She had been the inciting incident of a couple bad moments for Mob today. Maybe she was lonely and looking for friends. Maybe she didn't know how to interact with people either.

She was surrounded by their classmates though. They laughed with her—at him—and asked her about what her dad did and wanted to get to know her.

Still, she had to be lonely. Otherwise she wouldn't be acting out.

Nobody is that mean.

("You're too forgiving," a black cat hissed, then cleaned itself with its forepaws. "There are people in this world that aren't worth the shit on your shoe. They aren't misunderstood or sad or lonely. They're just vile, miserable bastards and you're going to have to learn the difference if you want to not get stepped all over.")

first posted in facebook march 5, 2022

chie fueki -- "nikko" (2018)

"i am interested in the symbols that are flooding our world, which everybody can recognize, but which have almost no meaning" ... chie fueki

"we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time" ... t.s. eliot

"currently, the paintings i'm working on are based on real people and specific events, but the figures are even more abstract. i am open to the fluidity of symbols shifting: for instance, from the circle-head of a traffic symbol to a moon in a landscape" ... chie fueki

Mala and Prop found something mysterious in the woods!

Bro: Where did you put the charmelion tea?

Me: ...

Bro: Oh no.

Me: IS IT A POKEMON?

Bro: You know what? I’m standing by this. Get me the Charmelion tea. 

mal·a·prop — /ˈmaləˌpräp/ (n) - the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo ” (instead of flamenco ). — He shouldn't be here. (Sequel to Champion)

Dimple was an old spirit with complex feelings and complicated emotions. He had seen everything from the rise and fall of great psychics to the first ever living power transference between a psychic and non-psychic. He had even seen the largest amount of natural psychics to ever gather in one area. All this is to say that his relationship with Reigen Arataka was a weird thing considering he used to be a spiritually lacking non-psychic.

Key words being 'used to be'. Past-tense.

See, against all odds, Reigen Arataka was now a psychic.

(He was being incredibly insufferable about it too.)

Reigen was a blowhard and a liar and a stubborn idiot who wouldn't admit his apartment was burning until the fire department pulled him from the wreckage. Suddenly awakening to psychic powers did little to change this aspect of his personality (even if he had become somewhat more willing to share whatever burden he was championing at the time, willingly or through empathetic bleed).

Psychic powers just meant he was a smug little shit about the few piddly tricks he could do now, instead of just being a smug little shit because he could pull the wool over idiots eyes with quick words and platitudes and fancy hand gestures.

Dimple was impressed, as much as he might be loath to admit it, at how fast Reigen had adjusted to being Awakened. His powers—no longer Shigeo's massive pool of energy—were significantly weaker than any of the psychics he regularly spent time with but that wasn't the strangest part of his whole deal. No, that award was reserved for how even the densest non-psychic could see every arc of his energy as he worked. Reigen's specialty was just that: his powers were flashy. Visible to anyone and everyone, a testament to how starved for attention the man wielding them were.

It was funny, in a pathetic way.

Speaking of...

"Hey Reigen?" Dimple made sure to hover in front of him, blocking his view for maximum irritation.

"Yeah?" Reigen flicked his gaze up at Dimple's face, a flicker of irritation cutting through his regular end of the day worn. Goal accomplished.

"Next time you take a job in fuckoff nowhere, make sure you take a job in fuckoff nowhere you can do on your own." He was, of course, well within his rights to bitch.

When a weak adult esper, a very strong middle school esper, a spirit, and a tangentially related psychic from the Rising Sun Psychic Union have to deal with four back-to-back urban legends, it's mostly on the powerful ones to do the heavy lifting.

(Not that it hadn't been funny watching Reigen haul ass away from the kuchisake-onna. If Dimple hadn't also been hauling ass—his and that Shinra Banshōmaru guy's—he might have had a good laugh about the whole situation. Reigen, trailing pink and green like streamers behind him, tripping over his feet as he almost cried. What a responsible adult.)

Reigen, as if he understood exactly what Dimple was complaining about, waved a hand dismissively. "It worked out, didn't it?"

"Shigeo was traumatized."

"It's a good stepping stone for his journey of physical improvement."

"You're full of shit." Dimple sniped. A flash of acrid nicotine flared up as he continued, "You know what I mean."

"Well I'm not planning on taking on anything that complicated again, if that's what you're asking." If Dimple wasn't dead and if Reigen didn't have a weirdly powerful natural barrier—likely a holdover from when he was using Shigeo's powers—he would have strangled him to death just then.

"Yeah?" Dimple floated over Reigen's shoulder and stared at the letter in his hands. "And what about that?"

"It looked important and official." Reigen rolled his eyes. "Who am I to deny a customer? Let alone one as prestigious as Asagiri." Greed rolled off that name, flickering rich alcohol fumes off Reigen's aura. Dimple shuddered a bit. Revolting. (Hypocritically so, but shut up.)

Dimple read the letter without speaking, eyes raking over every character on the paper. Then he huffed and floated back a little to laze in the air. "That's a trap."

"Eh?" Reigen snapped his head to look at Dimple, confusion and irritation bleeding together into a muddy thing that snaked around the spirit like fingers.

"Cash payout that big? No information on anything important? Details as sparse as your morals? That is a trap for sure."

"The hell you mean? I've had clients who give me less information than Asagiri." Reigen sounded affronted. Beneath his tone, his aura popped with flakes of glittering desire.

"Reigen, trust me," Dimple had to wait while Reigen let out a vicious peal of mocking laughter, "I know people like Asagiri. This money is a carrot. Whatever the fuck is the problem is a stick. And see how it's addressed to 'esteemed psychic'? No name, no personalization? I'll bet you this man has sent this invitation to any and all psychic in the greater Seasoning area to try and fix whatever's wrong. Men like this throw money at their problems, even if they're too big or too broken to fix."

In what ways do you communicate online? If you feel good dance, a flamingo. But this may be a pigment of my imagination. When it comes to marriage I believe in monotony. It is obvious I meant monogamy but that’s how things are online. A Very Short Boring Story -An etude. That was in 10th grade and I told a short story or a joke during a presentation. I was just starting to find my voice. I…