Hey there Skeptics! Today I want to talk to you all on how I work with spiritual beings even though I am even skeptical of their existence.
I like to believe in spirits even though I personally have no real evidence. I do have one experience as a child with a spirit, but it could have easily been sleep paralysis. Either way, I find comfort in believing in spirits and a spiritual realm. But as a Skeptic, it’s hard for me to feel comfortable in believing things I don’t have proof of.
I have two techniques I use:
I will use the concept of spiritual beings as symbolism for whatever I am doing.
OR
I will allow myself to suspend my disbelief when I want to work with spirits. Basically, I give myself permission to not hold myself to such a high standard of proof.
It’s possible to work with spiritual beings without totally being convinced they exist. And as long as you aren’t getting hurt or harming innocent people, there really is no problem with suspending your disbelief with it.
I wrote a new essay reflecting on the toxic nature of cynicism and the need for skeptics in the misinformation age. Cynicism is easy. It’s cowardice disguised as wit. It’s choosing not to play rather than risk the sting of defeat. We can and must do better.
The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44
I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so I read on.)
It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.
I didn’t go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What’s more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.
These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern “knowledge” is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. “If I am the wisest man,” said Socrates, “it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, “John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that “right” and “wrong” are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.
However, I don’t think that’s so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.
When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree? Let’s take an example.
In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence. It was not just a matter of “That’s how it looks,” because the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on.
Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth’s surface does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that of the Sumerians.
Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days.
Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the “curvature” of the earth’s surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn’t deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.
Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn’t. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That’s why the theory lasted so long.
There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the earth’s shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling.
All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth’s surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a sphere.
What’s more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever.
About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all the shadows would be the same length if the earth’s surface were flat). From the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference.
The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.
Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn’t taken into account and if the earth isn’t considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can’t be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one’s own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered spherical rather than flat.
Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an “end” to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.
So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory.
And yet is the earth a sphere?
No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties - for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.
That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth differ in length.
What gave people the notion the earth wasn’t a true sphere? To begin with, the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly spherical in shape.
However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.
Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the body’s substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.
The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.
The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an “oblate spheroid” rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. This “equatorial diameter” is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this “polar diameter” is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).
The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the “oblateness” of the earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 of 1 percent.
To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On the earth’s spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth’s oblate spheroidal surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.
The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the earth as flat.
Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth–and therefore its shape–with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was.
There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, the pear-like deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.
In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.
What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.
This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.
Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.
Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.
But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.
If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.
Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.
The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today.
The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.
Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.
Skeptic: Boss, we found out who the mole is. It’s Polyamorous Tony. Re-Destro: That rat fuck! I want him dead! I want his wife dead! I want his wife dead! I want his wife dead! I want his wi—
We don’t usually post sold items here, but this 18th-century print after the Flemish painter David Teniers, titled “Philosopher Laughing at Magick,” intrigues us. It might be presumed that the fantastical creatures and supernatural forces associated with alchemy and magic that surround the philosopher — a man of reason — are described in the book that he is reading with a bemused and skeptical smile on his face. The title of the print states that the philosopher is laughing at magic, but its overwhelming presence in the print makes his relationship with mysticism and the occult somewhat ambiguous. Is he instead an alchemist or fascinated by the theories of alchemy? See more here: https://www.georgeglazer.com/wpmain/product/old-master-philosopher-laughing-at-magick-david-teniers-antique-print-london-c-1775/
After@fungusfangs made that really cute sequence with Geten and Skep I felt compelled to write a kink fic based on that scene with some burps and wholesomeness attached ;3
Redestro and Curious were working tirelessly to finish up so they could all head back to the villa. After a long hard day some rest was desperately needed~especially for Skeptic and Geten. Lunch that day turned out to be a dreadful affair for the two of them. They both made the mistake of ordering the soup; Geten because he loved the feeling of something warm flowing down his throat and filling his tummy and Skeptic because he just wanted something quick he could drink without it interrupting his work.
Well evidently the soup really didn’t agree with either of them be it the intense spices and peppers used or the meat itself possibly being undercooked. Whatever the case the end result left them both incredibly sick. Skeptic had been violently throwing up for several minutes straight. He only ordered a cup of soup yet everything stirred so miserably that he was still aggressively expelling bile until his entire body felt hollowed. The end result left him shivering and weak but it also gave him an incredibly painful migraine.
Skeptic was on the couch after Redestro insisted he take a break. He’d popped several migraine pills in the vein hopes to dull the throbbing pain pulsating from his temples.
But too bad for him his migraine wasn’t made any better by Geten…
Uh-HuuUUUUUUURRRRPP!!!
A thick and noisy burp rang out from the youngest member of MLA which left him panting. Skeptic clenched his eyes shut and gritted his oversized teeth when the sound made the throbbing worse.
Geten groaned and shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to the older taller villain. His puffy blue jacket was undone and wrapped around his waist. Geten’s usually flat tummy bulged out noticeably against his navy blue t-shirt stretching it out and pushing down on the jacket tied beneath his waist. One hand rested gently against his belly and rubbed it carefully up and down as a thick acidic gurgle rumbled forth. It was immediately followed by another large burp that blared out from the normally quiet boy.
“…Unngh…ulp…your one saving grace is usually how quiet you are…” Skeptic all but hissed queasily after the sound made his headache worse.
“…S-Sorry…” Geten mumbled quietly seconds before yet another thick burp rang from his mouth and exposed his almost fang-like teeth. “Ahh…it’s helping a lot though…”
“...You’ve literally been burping for ten minutes straight…” Skeptic sneered while pressing his fingers against his temple and kneading into them. “Seriously how the fuck are you this gassy…?? Even that burnt staple-covered scrotum isn’t this bad…and he’s awful!”
“…I ate more soup than youuuuUurhp!!” Geten replied then accidentally burped the word ‘you’ out. He huffed after and patted his belly. Skeptic cringed when he actually heard all that soup slosh rather noisily inside of the boys tummy.
“…I can see…and hear that…” Skeptic said dully. “But who told you to order a goddamn pint of that horrible slop?”
“…I-I was hungry,” Geten said defensively and then he shifted again and murmured under his breath something about how good warm stuff feels in his stomach. “Maybe if you burped more you wouldn’t have thrown up or wouldn’t still be sooOoOOOoorp-ah…q-queasy…”
“Because it’s worked wonders for you right?” Skeptic said dismissively.
“…I haven’t thrown up yet…” Geten replied a little more self-consciously.
Geten cringed when his tummy gave an especially forceful grumble. It made him lurch forward in his seat and hold his hand over his mouth like he was about to be sick. Instead Geten let rip a huge painful burp that dragged on for a few seconds and caused some drool to fly out of Geten’s mouth and pelt his palm.
Skeptic clenched his eyes shut when the sound made his veins feel like they were going to burst in his temple.
“…I swear to fucking fuck...”
“Unnf…I-I can’t help it!” Geten said defensively after grunting in relief. “It’s better than me throwing up isn’t it?” He gripped his turbulent tummy firmly in his hand and let rip a really throaty burp that left him grimacing until he palmed the side of his belly firmly and let rip an even thicker burp right after that.
“...Can…you…at least..trrry…to hold those in...”
Geten frowned and shifted again in his seat like he was a little embarrassed. Usually when his tummy gave his grief and he had to burp most of the other MLA members didn’t keep drawing attention to it. But he usually suffered alone so having to deal with Skeptic who was notoriously verbal about his bitchiness wasn’t something Geten was used to dealing with when he felt nauseous.
A sizable gas bubble worked its way up his throat but because he wanted to at least try and keep Skeptic’s migraine from getting worse he pushed his fist firmly against his mouth and let rip a really raunchy closed mouth burp. The gas rumbled heavily in his mouth for a few seconds and puffed his cheeks out. Geten cringed and burped in his mouth again.
He huffed and blew the gas off to the side. His hand very gently rubbed his churning tummy while it stirred painfully. Its gurgling grew so intense that it eventually worked up a big closed mouth burp that rumbled for nearly five seconds and very dangerously came close to rupturing past Geten’s lips. It took genuine effort to hold a big one like that in and the end result looked painful judging by the strained look of discomfort
Skeptic could see on Geten’s face.
Skeptic could also see Geten looking like he was getting a touch green. Muffling the gas wasn’t bringing the relief that Geten needed and seemed to be making him increasingly more nauseous than when he was letting loose freely and loudly. And for as absolutely asinine and headache inducing as geten’s burps were getting Skeptic didn’t want the boy to start throwing up the way he had been earlier.
So he sighed and shook his head in defeat.
“God dammit…lean back…” he finally ordered.
“Huh?” Geten replied a little groggily.
Rather than repeat himself Skeptic surprised Geten by grabbing the boy and carefully leaning him back against the couch. Despite his quiet reserved nature Geten yelped rather uncharacteristically when Skeptic did something equally uncharacteristic and put his hand on Geten’s belly. It was obviously from from its bloat but there was a soft and subtle sloshiness to it thanks to Geten being so full of soup.
Whatever the case Skeptic began to rub Geten’s churning tummy in circles. The boy swallowed thinly and blushed intensely. He wanted to ask what in the world Skeptic thought he was doing but found himself biting his lower lip in a flustered kind of way. Not only was he a deeply affection-starved young man but Skeptic’s long delicate fingers running over the glutted curve of his belly felt so unbelievably good. Better than any physical sensation he’d ever felt before.
“…O-Oh…w-wow…” he murmured quietly.
Skeptic just shook his head and grumbled. He’d have much rather been stroking Hawks’ tummy but he was just beyond sick of dealing with this so he thought he’d clear Geten up now.
“Your stomach is pent up with gas. I’m stimulating the stomach muscles by rubbing like this. Doing this to ease the tension in your belly so I can force it all up,” Skeptic said in a biting kind of way.
Not that it mattered because the feeling of having his tummy rubbed felt positively divine for Geten.
The boy’s blush intensified when Skeptic’s rubbing caused his shirt to ride up and start to expose his bare pale tummy in the process. It teased just around his belly button while Skeptic continued to knead smaller and smaller circles into the middle of Geten’s tummy.
A thick churning erupted from inside of Geten’s stomach after a while.
“That means it’s working,” Skeptic said with a begrudging sigh. He wasn’t happy about what was about to happen when his long delicate fingers rested on the upper center of Geten’s belly. The villain braced himself right as he pushed down on the troubled organ.
His migraine was not made the least bit better when Geten’s jaws parted way to give the most aggressively loud and harsh sounding burp Skeptic had ever heard…and he’d unfortunately eaten with Shigaraki and Dabi on multiple occasions! That eruption dragged on for what felt like eternity until it left Geten panting. Skeptic’s temples throbbed but he was in it already so he pushed both thumbs into Geten’s belly once again and leaned into it. Geten released another gigantic burp so harsh that not only did some drool fly out from his mouth but it sounded almost painful coming up.
It was like a cork had been popped free with that monstrous eruption Skeptic squeezed out. Suddenly a rush of gas was flying out of Geten’s mouth causing him to let rip one tonsil-ratting burp after another. It was making Skeptic’s headache so very much worse. To the point where he almost felt like his own nausea was creeping back up on him.
But he powered through it and pushed down one final time. Geten’s last burp had to be at least six plus second in length!
When it blared from his mouth the ice quirk boy gave a comically cute little hiccuping burp. He panted breathlessly then slumped back in his seat with his bloated tummy rising and falling with his labored breathing.
“Faaaah…hhhaaah…” he groaned out breathlessly.
Skeptic’s veins were throbbing in agony but he managed. He experimentally pushed down on Geten’s belly a few times but mercifully nothing else came up.
“…Good it’s all up…thank the fucking lord…” he murmured and then slumped back against his side of the couch to massage his temples.
Geten was still heaving to catch his breath but then groggily addressed his fellow villain. “…Haaah…th-thank you…”
“…Thank me by just being quiet already…” Skeptic groaned out as he rubbed his forehead in a stressed out and aching kind of way which pulled his bangs back to actually expose his stressed out looking eyes.
Geten frowned then tugged his shirt back on over his pooching tummy. Yet again he squirmed uncomfortably but not because his stomach was giving him grief. “…Look I know you don’t think very highly of me but I do-”
“Tch. Idiot kid,” Skeptic mumbled to himself dismissively which caught Geten by surprise.
Skeptic was always a jerk to everyone who wasn’t Hawks Curious or Redestro but even for him that was kind of cold. Geten wasn’t a big fan of the villain. The two never got along even if the younger villain at least respected Skeptic’s talents.
But the way Geten looked down made it seem like he was actually kind of hurt by that. He may not be the friendliest member of the MLA himself but he still had feelings and was often a bit self conscious. He even with his turbulent tummy still giving him grief he wanted to just get up from the couch and leave Skeptic alone.
That was until Skeptic continued talking.
“You’re one of the most skilled meta-users I’ve ever seen, compounded by your abilities as a highly effective strategist. You read your enemies even in the heat of battle and exploit their weaknesses to maximize their defeat and minimize chance of them coming back against you. You’re one of the most invaluable guardians that the Grand Commander could have protecting him. How you could possibly think otherwise is just plain idiotic…”
Geten sat there completely stunned. His jaw parted open slightly as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Skeptic…the supreme bitchiest being in all of Japan…filled him with praise so genuine and matter of fact that it legitimately left Geten at a loss for words. It also left his face redder than one would even think capable for the icy boy.
“…Y…Y-You really think that about me…?” Geten asked in a quiet almost genuinely hopeful tone of voice.
“Would I waste my breath if I didn’t?” Skeptic asked in a way that made it sound like his answer should have been obvious.
“…I…d-don’t know what to say…”
“Nothing? Nothing would be a really great start…?” Skeptic replied with his snark as sharp as ever. But not as sharp as the searing headache he was still suffering that led to him hunching over and putting a hand over his own stomach as it burbled sickly.
“…Ngh…If I throw up again I’m gonna lose it…”
Geten frowned. Even if the two didn’t necessarily like each other Skeptic at least helped to make Geten’s tummy feel a lot better. And after the shocking words of praise Skeptic just gave him it was only fair he repay the favor. So with Skeptic still hunch over cradling both the side of his head and his stomach Geten raised his hand and thumped
Skeptic’s back a few times.
Skeptic’s eyes very sharply turned to Geten with startled outrage.
“…What the fuck are youuuUUUUUUUuuurrrAAAAAARRRLHP!!!!!”
But Skeptic’s question was soon answered when his words were cut off by thick rumbling burp that rang out of him for a few seconds straight. He quickly covered his mouth and glared daggers back at Geten.
“Did that help you feel any better?” Geten asked seemingly oblivious to Skeptic’s embarrassment.
He wanted to shout every insult he could at the young ice wielder. But he couldn’t help but sigh softly at the realization that the sour feeling in his stomach had dimmed tremendously. With a huff he begrudgingly nodded.
“…Thanks,” Skeptic finally verbalized some gratitude to the boy whose face almost seemed to light up.
Skeptic had to admit. There was something oddly endearing about seeing the usually quiet and stoic Geten smile like that…
…A smile disrupted by Geten wincing and hitting his chest to work out one last especially thick and noisy burp that left him panting and once again apologizing quietly.
“…E-Excuse me…still a little gassy I think…”
Skeptic could only sigh at that point.
…Next time they were on a job, Skeptic was definitely going to invest in some soundproof headphones…
This is a commission I did for one of my favorite people @fungusfangs that features Skeptic after getting drunk with Dabi. And the bitchy boi only nags him even further when it turns out alcohol and Skeptic tummy don’t mix. I had soooo much fun with this one and I hope you all enjoy it too <3
“Dude I knew you were a wuss but I didn’t think you were thatmuch of a lightweight,” Dabi admitted with a soft hiccup that left him rubbing his chest. The way he staggered just slightly and that glossy look in his radiant blue eyes seemed to indicate that he was pretty drunk.
But Dabi’s intoxication was nothing compared to what his “drinking “”buddy””” was experiencing.
“Unnnngh…hlc…I hate you so-hic-m-much…” moaned Skeptic as he laid against the frame of his bed in an uncharacteristically sloppy manner hiccuping a few times in a row. His lavish hair was spread over the mattress from the way he rested his head back against it. Those raven locks glistened with sheen from the high end shampoo and conditioners he used. And though his bangs covered his eyes, like always, his big mouth hung open with a drunken groan of misery, interrupted by another sharp hiccup that jerked his body and left him palming his flat chest.
“Is it my fault ya literally have the tolerance of a six year old?” Dabi said with a light chuckle. Even in his state he couldn’t help being deeply amused at the sight. “And believe me, I’ve beenthat drunk six year old.”
Skeptic hiccuped again and whined loudly. “Of course you-hilp-mph…have.Hic! Unf…I didn’t even want to drunk, you uncultured-wait…no…hic-oof…shit…” He winced and rubbed his chest some more with a look of discomfort until he burped lowly between his clenched teeth and huffed after, hiccuping sharply again and covering his mouth as he mumbled to himself. “…What was I…right, scratch that. I don’t drink because unlike you neanderthals I don’t need to be inebriated in order to have a good time…!”
“Yeah I’m sure your anime boy love pillow is…urf…thrilled,” Dabi joked but trailed off towards the end and looked mildly uncomfortable. “Oof…” he grunted then brought a fist to his mouth in time to give a thick closed mouth burp that Skeptic could hear reverberate inside of Dabi’s mouth which made him cringe. Dabi put his free hand on his belly and muffled another thick burp into his fist but still looked uncomfortable.
That was at least until Dabi dropped both hands onto his stomach and let out a large full-throated burp that rattled out of him raucously and forcefully. Even with his eyes concealed behind his glorious bangs Skeptic appeared both annoyed and disgusted. Dabi on the other hand moaned with relief.
“Ohhh fuck I needed that…” Dabi groaned pleasantly and patted his belly.
“First of all, you’re a disgusting pig,” Skeptic spat out before ironically stifling a deep drunken burp of his own between his teeth. He huffed and held up a finger. “Secondly, the nerve of you to make a joke like that! You realize if I wanted to have sex with something attractive I could just make a puppet, right?” Each point Skeptic brought up, he raised another finger for emphasis with his middle finger being very conveniently raised in time for his third point. “Third, fuck you. Fourth, anime boy? Really? You’re in your early twenties and you still watch childish cartoons about pretty jailbait? And you have the audacity to call me a loser?? Fifth, fuck you again. And finally-”
Dabi was only half-paying attention to whatever Skeptic was saying. Though he did pay attention when the villain’s drunken nagging was interrupted by an incredibly noisy burbling sound that erupted from his tummy. Skeptic froze in place and felt his cheeks grow incredibly heated when his stomach started gurgling quite intensely and unpleasantly. The grumbling sound was almost as loud as Skeptic’s drunken whining.
Dabi looked down at the well-dressed even more well-groomed villain and went slightly wide-eyed. “Jeez booze really doesn’t agree with ya, huh.”
Skeptic wrapped his arm around his tummy protectively then hiccuped rather loudly. He covered his mouth and blushed a little as he mumbled something drunkenly then rolled a little to his side which was still pressed up against his bed frame. Dabi couldn’t quite make out what he was saying but he picked up on “your fault” and some other bit of slurred insult, no doubt about Dabi’s intelligence.
It was around this time that Dabi actually glanced down at Skeptic’s stomach and took note of something. Between Skeptic’s near-skeletal frame and the fact that his fine black turtleneck was so tight-fitting against his lanky body, there was a visible bloat protruding from Skeptic’s middle. Dabi was a little bloated too since he had consumed way more alcohol than the latter villain. But because he actually had some muscle and definition across his patchwork body, it wasn’t quite as visible as it was on the much skinnier tech-villain.
He looked down and saw Skeptic cringing with discomfort when his belly gave another unpleasantly thick groan. Skeptic hiccuped sharply then drunkenly grasped at his long jaw stifling another thick hiccup that made his torso jolt and left him groaning sickly. Each hiccup jerked his lanky torso so hard it made his chest and throat hurt from the sudden sharpness constantly erupting in his chest. And all that movement was murder on Skeptic’s tummy which was not made any less gurgly from the spasms constantly shaking all that miserable beer in his stomach around.
That is until Dabi settles down next to Skeptic and, to Skeptic’s mortal shock and dread, Dabi proceeded to slip his hand under his turtleneck to lift it up. “Wha-you staple-faced bitch! What in the name of total-fuckery do you think you’re-hic-d-doing…?!” He was so outraged and flustered at the same time he couldn’t help hiccup sharply in the middle of his sputtering tirade.
He squirmed and resisted but was simply far too drunk to successfully prevent Dabi from raising his shirt up and fully exposing Skeptic’s immensely pale bare tummy. Skeptic’s lanky frame was contrasted quite immensely by the way his stomach curved out from the beers he’d drunk up to that point.
Poor Skeptic looked as though he was on the verge of blowing a gasket with the all too familiar and casual way Dabi slipped his hands under his turtleneck and dared to put his hands on his belly. “Y-You…! You unbelievable…!” He couldn’t even finish his sentence he was so outraged! And also drunk…
“What’s unbelievable? That another human being’s actually touching you?” Dabi snarked in that dry and sarcastic way of his.
“Y-You’re not human! Hlck!You’resubhuman!Less than subhuman~!! Absolute trash!A-hic-oof! A shameless trash monster stapled together by-”
Dabi cut him off by gently running his oh-so-warm palm up Skeptic’s belly. His fingers gingerly sank into Skeptic’s flesh and kneaded into it. Skeptic was lanky and because he had virtually no muscle mass it meant that even when it was empty his stomach was very soft. When it was protruding with so much beer as it currently was, it was even very noticeably squishy. It wasn’t bulging out nearly enough to jiggle like a full-on beer belly. But the curvature combined with Skeptic’s muscle-less frame caused Dabi’s palm and fingers to sink into that smooth soft flesh.
Skeptic’s tummy actually felt oddly pleasant to the touch precisely because of how smooth and delicate his skin felt. Thus Dabi ran his hand up to the highest crest of Skeptic’s tummy kneading into the tensest portion of flesh. Then Dabi slid his hand down to Skeptic’s underbelly brushing his fingertips just around the waist of Skeptic’s pants and ghosting his thumb across the trail that led from Skeptic’s belly button down to his pelvis.
The sensation of Dabi so delicately rubbing his tummy froze Skeptic in place. He hated being touched by others. They were too grabby and mindless not to mention their hands were always so cold. Anytime he tried to make his puppets rub his tummy for example, it always ended up being a miserable experience for that very reason.
But Dabi was different. For as crude and careless as the young scarred villain was about anything and everything there was an uncharacteristic gentleness to his touch. He stroked Skeptic’s soft belly like he’d known him for years. It was such a strangely comforting feeling and not just for how sensual and relaxing it felt. Though the latter half didn’t hurt especially since, compared to his puppets, Dabi’s hands felt like a heating pad being rested against his delicate tummy.
So Skeptic didn’t swat Dabi’s hands away from him. Instead he seemed to settle with his back against the frame of his bed and allowed Dabi to keep massaging his grumbling tummy. Dabi grinned cheekily and teasingly kneaded the middle of Skeptic’s bloat an inch or two above his belly button. “Huh. Guess subhuman trash gives good belly rubs after all. Who’d ‘uh thunk it…”
Skeptic snorts through his nostrils and turns his head away. “Being good at one or two things doesn’t make your trashiness any less trashy,” Skeptic groggily slurred his reply out defensively. But it did nothing to mask the growing blush on his pale cheeks. If only his bangs were longer, that might have helped.
Dabi’s grin widened when he leaned closer to Skeptic. “Maybe you like subhuman trash more than ya realize…” Dabi teased quietly and oh-so delicately drew circles around Skeptic’s belly button.
The extra sensitive skin around his navel made Skeptic shudder without him even realizing he was doing it. When he caught himself he glared behind his bangs at Dabi. “I like trash as much as I like a kick in the head from a robot donkey. Don’t get that confused you Jigsaw looking motherfucker!”
“Ain’t he a Punisher villain? I thought cartoons'n comic books were childish,” Dabi said with a sly cat-like grin.
Skeptic sputtered indignantly realizing his own intoxication was leading things to slip out that should stay clamped behind his lips. He was once again working himself up enough to upset his tummy so badly that it gave another noisy, gaseous gurgle which Dabi could feel reverberating beneath his fingertips. It made Skeptic attempt to stifle a hiccup behind his closed mouth which made his chest jerk out and only caused another hiccup to follow suit. He tried to breath but a third hiccup erupted loudly out from his open mouth making him clamp his mouth shut in time for a fourth hiccup to jolt him and morph into a thick burp that rumbled wetly in his mouth.
Dabi smirked in amusement. “This is fun,” he teased. And as if to outrage the drunken hiccuping Skeptic even further Dabi rested his ear against Skeptic’s bubbling tummy. Dabi listened to the thick churning that was still erupting from inside the troubled organ. Skeptic blushed profusely. He hated how much he didn’t quite hate the way Dabi’s spiky hair felt prickling against his tummy like that. Or how Dabi’s face felt so warm like his hands.
Damn it all why did someone so insufferable have to be so oddly comforting…?
“Sounds like a lotta build up,” Dabi commented. “Y'know there’s a reason I was burpin’ so much a few minutes ago.”
“Yes. It’s because you’re a crass pig who knows less about table manners than he does about-HIC-gah…than…French literature,” Skeptic drunkenly scorned but struggled to wrap his head around a solid insulting punchline after a loud hiccup cut off his train of drunken thought.
“…Uh-huh,” Dabi said dryly as if he was agreeing completely. “But also 'cuz beer sits pretty heavy in my gut too. So when I get the air out it doesn’t feel as heavy an’ keep addin’ pressure to my esophagus or whatever.”
“Your-hlp-point?” Skeptic asked impatiently when a small but hard hiccup cut him off.
“This,” Dabi replied a moment before pushing down on Skeptic’s tummy.
A thick gurgle rose up from Skeptic’s stomach and up his throat. And before he could stop himself, a thick throaty burp rumbled heavily out from his mouth and lasted nearly three seconds. Skeptic immediately clamped his mouth shut and went bug-eyed behind his bangs while his cheeks practically fumed from embarrassment and outrage. He glared at Dabi like he was trying to melt the scarred villain with his eyes alone.
“…H-How…ffffucking…dareyou…?!?!” he sputtered in shock and anger.
“Good one dude,” Dabi said with a cheeky grin as he gently patted Skeptic’s tummy. Then he held up a finger. “Notice anything?”
Skeptic was twitching violently like he was contemplating what in his room he could use to strangle Dabi with.
After several seconds Dabi tapped Skeptic’s belly again. “Not so grumbly anymore, huh.”
Despite his outrage Skeptic paused for a moment and listened. It was true. His tummy was a lot less noisy than it had been all night. His chest also felt a lot lighter now that the pressure had been released. His angry expression softened when he realized what Dabi had just done for him essentially curing his hiccups with one embarrassingly strong eruption.
“…I still hate you,” Skeptic whined.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Dabi grinned honestly then resumed gingerly stroking Skeptic’s tummy.
The villain seemed to settle down a lot more as Dabi rubbed away. He didn’t fight the urge to groan pleasantly at the way Dabi’s hand seemed to glide effortlessly across the entirety of his belly. Or the way the warmth that emitted from Dabi’s hand to Skeptic’s tummy seemed to radiate throughout his whole body making him feel even more relaxed. He especially didn’t hate the way Dabi occasionally fondled his navel while tending to the lower center of his soft stomach.
“Say what’s your name anyway?” Dabi blurted out randomly.
“…You’ve been here…how long now…?” Skeptic asked not nearly drunk enough to be any less dumbfounded by the question.
“Dude I barely listen to half the shit you nag out. I think you said it like once or twice around me?” Dabi asked with a shrug and drummed his fingers atop Skeptic’s tummy in thought. “Was it Septic? Nah it was…somethin’ stupid. Like uh…Sarcasm? No wait it was Sparticus! Nah it was…shit was it Septic? It was Septic right?”
“It’sTomoyasu, you brainless patchwork fuck,” Skeptic spat angrily…not realizing yet that he was so drunk he accidentally told Dabi his real name instead of his code name.
Skeptic stared at Dabi in deadpanned silence. “…I hate you. I’ve mentioned that I hate you, haven’t I?”
“Once or twice,” Dabi answered then resumed massaging Skeptic’s tummy some more.
Skeptic settled more into Dabi’s touch and huffed in a relaxed stupor. The rubbing coaxed another pressure pocket up Skeptic’s throat which made a low burp leak out between his clenched teeth sounding more like a growl than a burp. He was too relaxed to even care at that point. And after a while Skeptic was fast asleep breathing heavily while Dabi continued massaging his tummy.
What happened next surprised Dabi a little though.
Perhaps subconsciously, because Skeptic was so intoxicated and because he was out like a light…he actually leaned into Dabi. The scarred villain’s eyes widened a little when the classier of the two villains rested against Dabi’s torso even leaning his head against Dabi’s athletic chest and seeming to rumble pleasantly. For all of Skeptic’s constant nagging about how much he despised the League and especially Dabi, he seemed not quite as averse to embracing the young patchwork villain when his guard was as down as it was.
Dabi didn’t fight it. For as prissy and bitchy as Skeptic was Dabi actually wrapped an arm around the man and tugged him close like he was embracing him with a single arm. Skeptic’s soft almost lush feeling hair felt pleasant against the portions of Dabi’s cheek which still had feeling left. He couldn’t help but sniff at Skeptic’s hair. Whatever product he used smelled incredible.
Even with the man out cold Dabi continued to use his other hand to gently stroke Skeptic’s belly in his drunken sleep. It caused Skeptic to smile as he slumbered which in turn made Dabi smirk a surprisingly gentle smirk as he continued comforting the drunken villain.
Though Dabi being who he was, his smile gentle or not, wasn’t for any good reason.
The villain looked around Skeptic’s bedroom and observed the cameras set up all around them. Then he chuckled softly and contently.
“…I’m totally stealin’ the footage of us together'n usin’ that to blackmail you later.”
Skeptic’s only reply was a small hiccup he gave in his sleep. It was downright adorable. And was going to make his inevitable blackmailing even more fun when he showed hi that clip.
Sufficed to say, Dabi hoped the two of them could go drinking together again soon…
