Honesty - Blog Posts

4 Traits

Warnings: graphic gore, bad cuts, violence (?), fighting, the traits listed below, cleaning wounds without proper knowledge, unsafe cleaning, let me know if I missed anything!

Read on Ao3 :D

4 times Monoma showed his traits..

Perfectionism

Honesty

Determination

Pride

Perfectionism

Today was the day of the sports festival, it had to be good, great. This was the day that he could show how great his class was, not just to the A class but to everybody! He woke up with an excitement, going through his day with a smile, he hadn't even seen Class A yet, he had a feeling that his class were spending their time doing something actually important, like decorating. 

Currently they were setting the flags to go on the side of the building, the multiple colors going well with the cool gray; he picked them out obviously, and was currently telling Pony where to put them, making sure it was perfect. He stared at it for a few seconds before deciding that it was good, before turning around to look at the other side, where Ibara and Jurota were sitting the other string up.

“Wait” he hums, “a little up on the right side, Ibara.” She moves the string up a bit more with her vines before looking back to the self proclaimed class president, looking for clarification. Momoma then nods, “Yeah, that's fine.” The others walk back from the wall and turn off their quirks, intending to help with something else around, since they have quirks that help wonderfully from nature, or as Ibara puts it. “Thank you.” Monoma adds as he turns to walk away, the two smiling and saying ‘You're welcome’ as he walks away.

He walks to the opening of the building and finds Juzo and Tetsutetsu on ladders putting up the lanterns, that Monoma also picked out of course, and they were on the sides of the opening already having put up the one that goes in the middle. He keeps walking and when he gets out in the walk way before the opening, he turns around and puts his hands to his face, tilting his head and says, “Juzo, more to the left,” then after Juzo moves it, “Okay, more down” then that happens two more times before Netio says its fine. 

Juzo gets off the ladder with a ‘Geez’ and Tetsutetsu hears that and says, “You know he doesn't mean anything, He thinks we're great!” with one of his toothy smiles. Yes, the boy knows this, but yes he still thinks he’s a little pushy at things. The metal boy puts his arm around his shoulders, which makes him lean a bit forward, and then directs him to someplace else, leaving the ladders there. 

This keeps happening until the whole set-up is done, and yes his class does get a bit annoyed with it, but it's okay since they love him. Does he still stay up later than usual that night from not knowing it's absolutely perfect for the rest of the days? Yes, and he was still thinking about it the whole day, and kinda stressing about it. But, it's okay because he can fix it tomorrow. Or that's what he tries to tell himself.

Honesty

He was with Class-A, which by itself was just annoying. He was constantly telling them that they were wrong or that his class was better, in his opinion that was all true. They were testing out their new costumes together, since the teachers thought it would be easier. Did Momoma agree with them? Eh, kinda, he can wrap his head around it. Still didn't make it better that he had to be with Class-A. He could get over it with insults and manic laughter though, even better if it made the other class more attracted to his presence. He likes attention. 

They were doing costume tests by fighting and using their quirks on them, and asking each other whether or not their costumes were fine. It was mostly the more quiet people asking if it looked good on them, Monoma not going to say anything about that, but he will be honest when someone asks. He's not going to lie, they asked, they wanted his opinion. It was his opinion, he knows others don't have to care about his opinion, trust me he knows, so he doesn't have a problem with stating it.

So when he was in a group of people who were trying to test out how their new costumes do against certain quirks, and someone brought Jiro into it, he didn't mind telling them how he thought when she asked. She had asked the group of Class-B students and some Class-A students how they thought her costume looked and everyone mostly responded with positive things, a few with some constructive criticism. He had said, “You look like a ripoff Y2K Roblox character.” with the whole looking the outfit up and down. 

Everyone who had heard him turned to look at him, when he looked up from the outfit, mainly from the boots if you had asked, he just saw everyone's faces looking with pure astonishment of what he just said. He stood up straighter and turned a bit, looking at them. He didn’t think he said anything wrong, It's not like what he said mattered. He looks back to Jiro and sees a kind of hurt in his eyes, one that shouldn't be there, and Jiro knows because why should she care? But it still gets to them. 

“Monoma?” less of a question, more of a demand of an explanation of why he said that, it came from Setsuna, he looked to face her, un-crossing his arms to extend a hand in the air questionably. 

“What?” He really didn't see what he said that made her feel so emotional. “She asked, I told her.” he paused for a second; looking back to Jiro then to Setsuna “I told her my opinion” hes shrugged and then re-crossed his arms and then walked away, feeling the presence that he wasn't wanted there anymore. That's okay, he thought this would be like middle school anyway, maybe it just took longer.

Everyone started comforting Jiro, they weren't crying or anything, but still were telling her that he just had different thoughts. He walked away and went to another building, deciding to sit by himself since he really didn't want to have to confront another person about that. He didn't mean too. He was just telling the truth.

Determination

Okay, this time. He took a spin to kick at the punching bag again, this time almost falling. It seemed like he was getting worse at this. No, he was definitely getting worse. He was alone in the gym, since it was already dinner time and even if the UA gym is still open people like to eat. He did eat about an hour ago, so he could sneak off here to do some training on his kicks. He wasn't good at kicking and he knew that, though he didn't really know how to get better by himself he was going to try.

Okay, he can do it. He touched Tetsutetsu on his side before he put his arms up to block him with his own quirk, he could do this. The other that had naturally had the quirk, kicked at his legs. Momoma fumbled but didn't fall, gaining back what advantage he could when Tetsu pushed him back to try and make him fall. They were doing balance training or something like that, where they could see how long they could hold off while defended against each other. They were split into groups and he got put with Tetsutetsu as a sort of place for Kirishima. Tetsu kicked at his leg again, this time catching the back of his knee and pulling him down.. Next time.

Okay, this is easy. He was jumping around pipes and in between buildings, he knew how to do this. Or he thought he knew how to do this. The pipes were slippy and Monoma was not prepared for that. He kept falling, and falling, and falling. He was going to have so many bruises.. It's alright, he's a hero, heroes don't care about bruises. But it does hurt. He's pretty sure he sprained his ankle.. As he tries to jump another big gap, he feels his ankle crack. He falls forward, heading straight for the ground. As a split second decision he tucks and rolls, he does land more softly than he would if he would've just fell, and he's proud of himself for the quick thinking. It still hurts.

Okay, it's nothing. He’s fighting Pony, and he has to constantly dodge all of her horns, and if you didn’t know, it takes a lot of energy to jump around and dodge while trying to get close. Especially when it's the end of the day and he's tired. He only got a few hours of sleep last night since he was up doing english work, and he's so exhausted. You can only put him through so much before he's done, and even if he thinks he isn't done his body is. As the horns are still coming at him, he feels one slice his leg and when he moves toward the right he feels one go by there too. He is panting, and his vision is getting blurry, he's dizzy and his class can tell. He’s falling, oh he's falling.. He hits the ground falling backwards and a little to the right. He might've hit his head on the ground, all he for sure knows is that his vision is black and that Vlad King is calling the fight.

Pride

He didn't need help. He never needed help. He was a grown person that could help himself. Even if he had no real knowledge on it… He was fixing where he got cut up earlier. It was pretty bad, it was 5 inches long; but it didn't really have any depth to it. It wouldn't be too bad to fix if he had any idea of what he was doing, but no. he doesn't. It was the start of the year and they weren't taught this yet, and he couldn't be bothered looking it up because it hurt and he didn't even know if that stuff would be true or not. He has to settle with what basic knowledge he knows about cleaning, wrapping, and all that stuff with wounds because he's not going to ask for help, because he hates even the idea of that.

In reality, yes he knows he sucks at this, and yes, he knows he should get help, and yes he still won't. He doesn't even know if he could walk right now, since it's his shin that got cut. It burns though, and as soon as he pours the rubbing alcohol on it he grips at the counter in left hand as tight as he possibly could, it does hurt his hand a bit but not more than the alcohol on his cut. He has a rag in his mouth too so he could be quiet, and good thing because he almost screams, it muffles the sound a bit making it a lot less louder than it would've been. He would have woken up someone if it wasn't there. 

After the burning calms down, he looks down to see it cleaning the wound, so that's good. Even though there's still blood pouring down his leg; he’s got this. He wont die from something like this. Well, actually you could die from something like this. He's not going to think about that though, because he won’t. He knows what he's doing. Once all the bubbling stopped, he began wiping it with a rag, making sure that most of the blood is off, even though there is still some trailing down his leg, he probably should’ve stopped the bleeding first.. Too late for that.

He grabs the bandages that he has to reach for, making the wound move and causing more pain and more blood. When did stuff like this become so annoying?? He winces as he gets them in his hand and pulls back, he can tell that he's getting fuzzier. That's really not good. Just has to make it until he wraps the bandages around it, that's what he tells himself. He knows it'll be bad if he passes out. He knew that he was already low on energy to deal with this because he got it near the end of training, he hasn't showered or anything obviously, and he really does not want anyone to see him like this.

He manages to wrap them around his leg and closes them off before he can tell his vision is going black, he doesn't try to stand, does not try to yell, does not try to call for help. He lets himself fade off into the black, and yes that was a bad idea. But better than anyone else seeing him like this.

Credits to @/strangergraphics for the dividers

hope it was good :P!

Some of my poems got accepted for the first issue of a lit magazine. I haven’t told anyone but my sister. I’m scared they’ll change their minds by the time the issue comes out, and I’ll have looked silly for thinking my work was worthy of publishing.

• Same old, same old. -

Heres a silly little poem!

You love them, You want them, but you could never reach them.

Will you still love them after their face is no longer obscured?

Will you still want them after the filter that once sheltered the laughable features is absent?

Honesty is always present, favorable or not.

It is always there, waiting for the moment to obstruct them.

They sure don’t.

(—I’ll do a happy version of this later, since it’s two sides of one coin. ;) )

via weheartit

If only he was able to tell everything.....

I've expanded the instructions I gave for apologizing into a detailed listicle. I hope it'll be helpful. Some of the points, however, are very specific to the English language.

1. Don't explain what happened, it will sound like you're justifying your actions. And because of the way our brains work, you're likely to actually start justifying your actions. At that point, you're no longer apologizing. Remind yourself that the apology needs to have priority right now, and that there will be time later to identify causes and solutions.

2. Be specific, or at least use more words than "I'm sorry." "Sorry" is used so often as a polite noise, nearly meaningless, that it's difficult to be sincere, or even sound sincere when using it for a formal apology. Again, this ties into what @theconcealedweapon wrote: we're trained to say "sorry" when we don't mean it, so that becomes the core of the word's meaning, without our even realizing it. And if you're Australian, it gets even worse!

Personally, I use "I apologize" or "My apologies," or in dire circumstances, "Please accept my apology." This allows me to break my conditioning and focus on my genuine contrition, as well as making it clear to others that I'm taking the apology seriously.

3. Apologize for what you did, and absolutely NOT how it made someone feel. The latter is often used for manipulation.

Other things not to apologize for:

that the consequences of your actions happened

what you don't like about the person or group you're apologizing to

being right

being better than the people you're apologizing to

allegedly not having any idea what you're supposed to be apologizing for

...you'd think all this would go without saying, but it can be subtler than you might expect, and sometimes we do it without thinking, because we picked it up as children, from the nastier adults around us.

Instead, take a moment to focus on what you did, and how to describe it clearly in a way that accepts your fault and/or responsibility for the situation. Again, don't bring anything else into the apology, lest you make it seem less of an apology. People are so used to hearing the above crap from unrepentant people, that they will not give you the benefit of the doubt.

4. Watch your tone of voice. This is actually two separate points.

First, yet another thing we unconsciously pick up as children is the obviously sarcastic mock apology. It's not always a bad thing, it can be a joke or a verbal gesture, but you have to make sure you don't let that habit find its way into a genuine apology, and ruin it. This is where the bit about "Say it like you mean it" comes from. The easiest way to say it like you mean it is to mean it. See next paragraph.

Second, if you can't be respectful and express regret, you shouldn't be apologizing just yet. You're not ready. Leave the art of convincingly faking an apology to the con artists and cult leaders. You will probably need to just keep your mouth shut for a while. Acknowledge (to yourself) the possibility that you might change your mind later. In some rare cases, it may be possible to tell people, "I'm not ready to apologize just yet," but don't count on it.

5. (optional) If necessary and you can do it honestly, either characterize what you did, or agree with others' characterization of it, or promise to/ask how to not do it again, or multiple of the above. Say that it was wrong or inappropriate or a failure or whatever. Name people who called you out, say they were right, and repeat what they said about what you're apologizing for. If you promise not to do it again, don't pivot to talking about how great you will be in the future, keep it focused on the apology.

This might be a bit too much for less dire apologies, and you may not be able to manage this if you apologize the minute you can bring yourself to be sincere, but otherwise, you can build yourself some credibility by immediately seeking to improve yourself and make sure that YOU never do whatever-it-was again. It's more for privately apologizing to your direct supervisor, or to a friend.

On the other hand, beware of doing this if you're the authority figure, or are apologizing to a large group, because politicians routinely pivot away from making actual apologies by making big promises for the future. People are wise to this, though, and your whole apology is liable to be dismissed as bullshit if you try to use it for self-promotion.

So many people seem completely unaware of what a genuine apology is.

And that's because children are forced to say sorry on command.

Before they ever had a chance to process what they did, why they did it, what effect it had on others, or what they should have done instead, they're expected to say that they're sorry. And they're expected to "say it like you mean it" with no indication of what that even means and with no time to figure out how to phrase it correctly.

Sometimes, even when the child's actions are justified by any logical reasoning, they're expected to apologize because an authority figure demands it.

The goal of saying sorry ends up being solely to avoid punishment. And they phrase the apology in whatever way the authority figure will accept.

The result is an entire society filled with people who give completely useless apologies that appear like they're only trying to avoid punishment.