text / anonymous (before the last day of the party)

[heartstopping]

[Rolo's not generally bothered by what anyone thinks, but somehow this feels like an extremely embarrassing thing to have to ask, so he sticks with posting anonymously like he has been so far.]

How does one go about "forming bonds" with people on purpose?

[ don't laugh please he has literally only ever stumbled into this by accident ]

Comments

[heartstopping]

[ ???? sounds sus ]

Alright.

[fieldtrip]

Be picky.

Go have your little friendship outings or whatever and see if you actually like any of them. It's not about how many people you know or spend time with, it's about how many people you really care about.

[ It's not too often someone pulls Toph's social intelligence side out of her, primarily because it involves talking about mushy feelings, but she's forced to reduce this down to basic elements for whoever this is.

No wonder they got this as their sentencing task. Sheesh. Maybe she should be revising her opinion of the Council's overall ability to determine effective punishments. ]

[heartstopping]

[His response takes a while. He has to really digest that, because it certainly doesn't make things any easier, but he doesn't know a way to ask "how do I make myself care" without it sounding terrible, even to him.

It's not like he's totally incapable of it. But caring about just any random person clashes hard against how he was raised to function. Even caring about Lelouch had happened pretty much by accident and against his will, and he's since leaned so hard into it that it's hard to imagine feeling the same way about anyone else. Surely it'd be too much.

But that one connection is what's being threatened if he doesn't manage this, and that's not something he's willing to risk.]

I'll try.

[fieldtrip]

[ This response is more of a concession than she'd expected, including the time it took to reply, which Toph can infer means they were thinking about what she'd said. Toph doesn't need people to agree with her so much as listen to her, and feeling like she's been listened to, she's satisfied. ]

That's all you can do, I guess. I can tell you have some personality in there, so you're not a totally hopeless case. You're a little feisty.

[ Which she likes, if that wasn't clear from the faintly amused and approving tone. ]

[heartstopping]

Thanks, I guess?

[He's been called a lot of things in his life, but never "feisty".]

[fieldtrip]

Lean into that a little. If you make it too easy, no one will respect you.