put a “define ______” in my ask to hear how they learned that concept

A transformation is kind of this stagnant in between period of changing. It’s like…adapting. When you find something better for yourself, you act upon it, and you let it warp you into something that’s supposed to be perfect, but is definitely far from perfection. It’s loneliness.

And it happens loads of ways. Sometimes you’re out in the field and someone throws a grenade at you and it does this little clang and bounces twice and lands next to you, and Kuwata’s yell causes you to automatically pick it up and chuck it back and you hear the boom and you just know you killed someone. The transformation is when you don’t break down right there, you break down at home…and then sooner or later, you don’t break down at all.

Sometimes you’re just sitting in your room, reading a book on Norwegian fairy tales when you realize the horror of your situation—when you realize that, when you look out the window, you won’t see breezy meadows or cars zooming by. You’ll see wreckage and empty buildings and the occasional riot break out. And the transformation is when you go from being transfixed by this crazy new scene to just simply taking a glance outside to check the weather, then returning to the story about an ice queen.

Sometimes you have to break every glass in the kitchen before re-bandaging your hands and instead of thinking ‘I should kill myself’, you’re thinking ‘where can I find new glassware?’

A transformation is re -breaking your heart until it’s stone and won’t break any more. Trial and error.