#could coding get more obvious

[kittydragondraws]

Is no one gonna talk about how Zooble's speech about not liking their body could easily be reinterpreted to be what it feels like to be trans

[moe-broey]

Why did I start like three other projects when I was already working on a big project when I just got hit with the autism exhaustion beam (requires. At least One Full Day just dead in bed, and then some more Taking It Easy time after)

[terrorbirb]

I'm bored at work so I'm seeing if I should report my old company for violating labor standards.

[chaosmenu]

sometimes i feel so bitter about how the usamerican trans community has essentially written off florida as unsaveable. like trans floridians really are just a model for what happens if The Bad Guys Win and theres no concern for the trans people living here. we dont get aid or support outside of ourselves. idk its just really disheartening

[thecodeveronica]

Oh boy, Dead by Daylight patch time tomorrow. You know what that means! Time for me to unreasonably get my hopes up for new RE skins to be in the datamine and then feel the crushing disappointment when they aren't!

[rogue-translator]

crazy that we're going on 5 years since the confession and people still don't understand that the real reason for all that was network censorship, and not the writers who worked hard for what we got

crazy that the spn writers were like okay we're gonna do destiel but only halfway, which one should confess their love and which one should we try to imply 'can't reciprocate' and they chose cas to confess and dean 'kills himself when cas dies' winchester supposedly 'can't reciprocate' lmao what were they smoking in the writers' room

[seumyo]

BAKUGOU KATSUKI ✰ THE DRESS CODE

Bakugou was in a bad mood.

It was stupid, really. Absolutely stupid. But he couldn’t help the scowl on his face as he approached your desk.

“Oi,” he snapped, crossing his arms. “What the hell are you wearing?”

He had taken his time this morning, making sure the maroon shirt he picked out was one he actually liked. It wasn’t over the top or anything—just a plain shirt with a white skull on the back, paired with some casual black pants.

But it was the principle of the matter. You were supposed to match. That was the whole damn point.

The UA student council had this dress code specifically to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Maroon for those who’re in a relationship, blue for those in a situationship, green for those in the “friend zone,” black for those who are admirers from afar, and the plain school uniform for those who are more inclined in their studies to even bother with romantic relationships.

Was this your way of subtly denying him as your boyfriend? It wasn’t like you two were in hiding—and it’s not like he doesn’t mention that you two are seeing each other whenever someone pesters him about it.

You looked up, eyes wide and innocent. “Huh? My uniform?”

Bakugou’s brow twitched. “Yeah, I can see that. Why?”

You blinked, clearly not understanding what he was getting to. “Because… it’s Friday?”

“Did you forget what today is?”

You stared blankly at him, confusion written all over your face.

“...Friday?”

“Valentine’s Day!” he barked, causing a few of your classmates to glance over in amusement. He jerked his thumb at his own shirt—a simple red tee with a black skull printed on the back. “Maroon’s for people who are dating. Thought we were gonna match.”

You felt as though your soul just left your body.

“Oh... oh.” Your hands flew to your mouth. “I... I didn’t know! You never told me!”

“Didn’t think I had to. It’s common sense.”

“And you don’t even like Valentine’s Day! So... I thought we weren’t doing the dress code thing...”

That was true. But still! He was adamant on making you look like the one in the wrong here.

“Well, I am,” he pouted. So subtle it could be mistaken for his signature grimace. “And I heard from Ears that you were planning on wearing maroon, you idiot.”

“I told her—I was thinking about it, though.”

Bakugou’s shoulders sagged, the irritation draining a little. “Yeah, well... I went and did it. Thought it’d be obvious we’re together if we matched. You had a shirt with a golden dragon on the back, too, right?”

Your heart fluttered, your gaze finally meeting his. He remembered. The realization hit you like a ton of bricks—Bakugou Katsuki, the loud, brash, and unapologetically stubborn hero-in-training—your boyfriend, wanted to show off your relationship. Publicly. On Valentine’s Day.

A moment in history!

You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Instead, you jumped to your feet. “Wait here!”

Before he could argue, you bolted out of the classroom, leaving Bakugou standing there, baffled. He turned to find his classmates blatantly eavesdropping.

Mina’s eyes were practically sparkling. “Awww, Bakugou, you wanted to match with [Name]?”

Kaminari snickered. “Dude, that’s so cute.”

Kirishima grinned, throwing an arm around Bakugou’s shoulders. “You really have gone soft, man.”

Bakugou’s eye twitched, and he shrugged Kirishima’s arm off roughly. “Shut it, Shitty Hair. I just didn’t wanna look like an idiot wearin’ maroon by myself,” he grumbled. “And Sero’s wearing green—‘nd I don’t see anyone picking on him!”

“Cool it, man,” Sero laughed, shaking his head. “The incident still stings.”

“We salute you, brave soldier,” Kaminari replied.

Mina sighed dramatically, resting her chin on her hands. “Young love...”

His cheeks turned crimson. “Mind your own damn business!”

Before his embarrassment could escalate, you came running back, slightly out of breath, with something red clutched in your hands. You unfolded it and slipped it on—a maroon cardigan. It hugged your frame just right, with allowance to spare, the color bringing out the warm shimmer in your eyes.

You looked at him, your fingers fiddling with the buttons. “I had this in my locker. Does this work?”

Bakugou stared at you, his irritation disappearing like a factory reset process. You looked... cute. Really cute. But he wasn’t about to say that out loud. He cleared his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah... s’fine, I guess.”

Your face brightened, a smile breaking across your lips. “Really?”

He looked away, his voice gruff, though there was no heat in his reply. “Whatever.”

Their moment was interrupted by Mina’s dramatic squeal. “And they say romance is dead!”

Kaminari gave a thumbs up. “Didn’t think Bakugou could be such a romantic.”

Kirishima laughed. “Man, who knew you’d be such a softie?”

Bakugou’s eye twitched, and he spun around, his hands sparking. “One more word and I’ll kill all of you!”

His classmates laughed, not the least bit intimidated. They could see right through him—Bakugou Katsuki was completely, undeniably, head-over-heels for you.

Turning back to you, his voice softened, his anger dissipating. “C’mon, let’s go. Cafeteria had those stupid snacks you wanted.”

Your smile never wavered as you followed slightly behind him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Katsuki.”

“Yeah, yeah... Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Bakugou hopes the next Valentine’s Day to come is when he can properly match with you. He won’t let you forget this time around.

SEUMYO © 2025. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, PLAGIARIZE, MODIFY OR TRANSLATE.

[not-a-heretic]

do you know what a knave is?; an unprincipled man, rogue.

nigel’s

white void of doom and sketch

details

[sangunary]

BatBoys × Civilian Reader!

SYPNOSIS: How they act around their crush when they are in their costumes.

IMP: All scenarios happened when they are still Robin, Reader is the same age or older or younger your choice.

- Dick Grayson.

He's too obvious.

Bruce told him to not talk or stare at you specially. He knew that the boy was infatuated with you and was sick of hearing your name even hour.

Dick was never tired of speaking about you, from fact to thought he could go on and on about you which Bruce found cute but distracting.

Tho he never quit to mention you. Just because you were his luckcharm. So, you got yourself a code name.. So he could mention you freely.

Whenever he ran pass you he made sure to atleast brush your hand with his, so he could look back and apologise.

He wanted to hold your hands, not just to comfort you... You meant so much more than just a comfort. Although, he haven't even had a chance to have a conversation with you.

He tried to milk every situation just so he could talk to you, hear that sweet voice that kept him awake at night.

The way you would speak to him when he saved you from any situation, he can't help but smile, looking at you like you were his world and it was obviously weird to passerby.

That smile he practiced for you and the moment he saw you he completely forgot everything and his mind is full of you, and his whole demeanour become alot more comfortable.

His ears silencing the siren that was everywhere, listening to your sweet voice.

His eyes blurring out everything but you, savouring every inch of your body.

It's bad enough for him to be acting like he got bewitched staring at you so deeply, but who could blame a him when you were infront of him.

You were just some fleeting crush, you cannot imagine how much time he thought about a future with you. Even tho you two weren't even friends yet.

Even when you were panicking and embarassed you look so good.

you were perfect.

How much he wanted to lean in and capture your lips with his and be with you already... Instead of having to just stare at you.

He just wanted to be himself with you even with the mask on, forgetting everything like a fool in love and maybe just maybe get a kiss from you to show him gratitude?

But before he could do anything stupid Bruce would pull him to the next destination leaving him to daydream about it, twisting and fixing how it would end.

- Jason Todd.

Not obvious but is trying.

Jason doesn't want to be obvious that he was staring at you when he was supposed to be catching those rookie thief.

So, instead he resort to looking at your amused face from the reflection of the window.

He just can't face you at times, he's afraid of fucking up and rambling on and on about something Jason would know but not Robin would know.

It was exhausting, thinking about what he was supposed to say and making sure you won't know that he was Robin. How he would rather talk to you in sign than verbally.

He just stop a thief? Looking around to see your face and stopping just so he could memorized your reaction and celebrate about it later when you aren't around.

Bruce is made at him for being too harsh? He's definitely bringing you up to make sure he was listening.

Even tho he tried to act like he doesn't know you it doesn't always work

The way his hands would remain on yours after he stopped a guy from stealing your bag.

He look lost, his eyes remaining on your eyes. You could see that star's in his eyes shining so brightly with adoration and untold love.

And a smile straight from every part of his body.

And after he realised he accidentally admire you he would leave very quickly. No looking back just out of there.

He would stay near rooftop looking down at you, his heart racing as he tried to not feel so embarassed about his own actions.

Watching you silently, hoping you would smile or even look around for him or just anything... He can work with anything you gave to him.

You made everything so much harder yet so much easier.

Hes definitely going confess one day... Maybe when he's abit older.

- Tim Drake.

He's going to die.

Tim knows you like the back of his hands. Blame it on him having too much time or making a special time for you.

He can't help to look at you not when you have the best smile in the world.

He would smile back at you like you were already his and you knew who he was and for a moment he thought you were his, tho he snapped out of it quick.

He just couldn't have you distract you too much, but that doesn't mean he hate it whenever you distract him.

His hands would guide you to stand back up again with a slight redness on his cheeks, he tried to not stare but you truly hypnotize him.

It doesn't matter how much he tried to not stare at your perfect face, his eyes would stare at you before he even notice it himself.

He hate to see you whenever he was out patrolling, he hate it when he would randomly hear your voice playing in his head suddenly, he hate to remember that you were alone.

He should be happy that you were available. But, it just made him worry and think about you more... Everything about you is killing him slowly.

The way you avoid his gaze after he helped you up, how perfect your hands felt around his- like you two were made for eachother.

He couldn't smile but his eyes speak so much more word than his lips could.

His touch was alot more gentle and kind, his word clear enough for only the two of you to hear and his heart beating against his rip violently.

It's frustrating on how you were his yet.

- Damian Wayne.

Not obvious.

He doesn't have the same nagging feeling to look at you constantly, he doesn't want to put you at risk, he would rather cut his hand than ever do that to you.

He would rather not see you around when he is wearing his costume.

He doesn't like the idea of you being so close to violence and being idiotic enough to watch him fight rather than running.

He would definitely lecture you as Damian if he saw you standing idly while literal danger was there infront of you.

Cause he definitely can't always be around and he need you to have some common sense so he could atleast sleep at night, and not stay up late than usual thinking about how he would lecture you.

Although whenever he had mission where it involve unknown civilians your face is the first one he search for, grabbing them by the shoulder and looking at their face and the sigh of relief after everything.

Even when a building was collapsing and you were inside he would always choose you to save.

Leave you somehow safe and without a word left to save the others.

It doesn't matter who is inbetween you two, a president, celebrity or anyone he's coming an extra mile just for you.

He would leave without any word and continue his job like he did not just ignored others and went straight for you.

He doesn't wait for a kiss or a hug... He already planned how that would happen.

[jeonginsleftcheek]

By The Pool

pairing: hyunjin x afab!reader

genre: smut, strangers to ???

wc: 2.5k

warnings: unprotected sex, fingering, pinch of degradation, reader is called 'slut' once, cum tasting, creampie

a/n: since i found out he has a lifeguard license on skz code i needed to write this🫠

masterlist

You thought it was going to be another boring month at the resort.

It was a place you knew very well ever since you were a child, your parents always took you there, every summer was the same.

Even now, when you were a student and no longer living with them, you couldn't escape the three weeks they wanted to spend there with you and your brother as a family.

But, there was nothing boring about the eye candy you noticed by the pool.

Every year, there was a new lifeguard on duty and though they were all fit men and women, no one captured your attention like he did.

There was something about him and you made it your mission to seduce him, wanting to have some fun and spice up your summer.

Quickly, you asked around since you knew the staff well, finding out his name is Hyunjin, he's your age and here on a student job, and most importantly single (though you have no idea how no one has snatched him up yet).

You came to the pool every day, happy that you bought some cute swimsuits that revealed more than they covered.

You made sure to be right in his view as you put on sunscreen, slowly spreading the thick liquid all over your body.

You saw him staring and gulping, before averting his eyes and acting unaffected but the tips of his ears matched the red color of his swim trunks.

Of course, you amped it all up with bending over as you spread your towel over the deck chair, showing Hyunjin your cleavage.

Giggling to yourself when you saw his eyes twitch as he adjusted in his lifeguard chair, you lay down with your sunglasses on so you can feast your eyes on him the whole time.

Hyunjin did his duty well and you watched him like a hawk, any time he had to jump in, he would toss his shirt off and you loved to admire his muscles.

He was made to be in water, looked so natural as he swam and he did his job perfectly, making it obvious why he was hired.

By the fifth day, you got fed up with exchanging looks and nothing else so you decided to take matters into your own hands.

If he wasn't gonna approach you, you were gonna do it yourself.

It was a nice sunny Friday, not that you really cared what day it was since you were on vacation, the day was only important because you planned on having Hyunjin all to yourself today.

As per usual, you watched him work and he stole glances at you as much as he could.

After some kid was making a mess in the water and Hyunjin had to jump in to stop them, you watched his wet body, the clear droplets of water running down his back and shoulders as his muscles flexed.

The summer heat was nothing compared to the heat erupting inside you.

You waited patiently for another hour before his shift ended.

The other lifeguard then came to take his shift and you saw him and Hyunjin talking, which was your cue to stand up and run to the pool house where lifeguards usually leave their things and change.

You made sure no one was there and waited for Hyunjin to make his way to you.

You heard footsteps and with bathed breath you hid behind the wall like some stalker and almost laughed at yourself for doing so much for just some dick.

But it wasn't any dick.

You've never wanted anyone as much as you wanted Hyunjin.

Ever since you set your eyes on him, you couldn't stop fantasizing about him, every night when you touched yourself you imagined different scenarios and they all included Hyunjin.

You peeked and saw him get in and then you waited a few moments before knocking on the door and coming in just as he called out.

He probably thought it was one of the staff members, judging by the shocked look on his face when he turned around and saw you.

You giggled, as he gave you the elevator eyes, you were wearing your skimpiest bathing suit yet.

He quickly looked up as you cleared your throat, struggling not to look down at your breasts again.

"D-did you need something?" he stutters, clutching the towel in his hand.

Oh he is simply adorable, you just wanna devour him whole.

"Yes, you." you answer without even blinking and his face becomes red.

"Excuse me?" he swallows, his adam's apple bobbing up and down deliciously.

You chuckle and make your way towards him slowly and he takes one step back, colliding with the table behind him.

He quickly looks back at it, and you find the way he put his hair up in a little ponytail so endearing.

"I think you're hot." you state, standing in front of him now and his lips open and close a few times before he laughs awkwardly.

"Thanks. I- um think you're hot too." he says rather shyly, driving you even more crazy to taste him.

Your hand lands on his arm and you squeeze a little, before slowly dragging it up and down.

"Then, there's nothing else to discuss, is there?" you smirk and lean in, so close to his lips that you feel the shaky breath he lets out on your face.

"I- I- someone could walk in." he whispers and you chuckle.

"I don't care." you're quick to cup his face and crash your lips into his.

A surprised exclaim from Hyunjin gets muffled as you start kissing him and his eyes go from wide to fluttering closed as he returns your kiss eagerly.

Yes, he saw you by the pool every day and he knew what you were doing.

He wanted you just the same as you wanted him but he enjoyed watching you struggle and try hard to get his attention even though you already had it.

He smirked to himself as your bathing attire became more revealing every day and he knew you were slowly losing patience.

Hyunjin wanted you to hunt him down and now that you were here, he decided to reciprocate and show you how much he's been wanting you too.

As the kiss deepens, Hyunjin's tongue swiping over yours and tasting you, his hands slide to your waist and he squeezes before gripping you and swiftly moving the two of you until you were pressed into the wall.

You gasp as he leans back to look at you, a sly smirk on his face.

"You were tempting me on purpose, weren't you princess?" he said in a sultry voice, his hand caressing your cheek, fingertips sliding down to your neck to touch your sensitive spot.

"Was I that obvious?" you tease, letting your hands finally roam free on his hot shoulders, arms and chest.

"Mhm. Waving those tits in my face constantly. Wiggling your ass. What if some poor soul drowned because of your distractions, hm?"

"That wouldn't happen, you're too good at your job." you smirk and he chuckles.

"Sweet talking me won't get you out of this. You're gonna get exactly what you wanted, princess." Hyunjin smirks.

Before you could even realize what's happening, he grabs the strings of your bottoms and swiftly undoes them, letting it fall down and reveal your wet cunt to him.

You gasp, your heart beating hard in your chest in thrill as he hoists your leg up and you hook it around him.

"Is this what you imagined, hm?" he asks with the same smirk as he runs his fingertips on your wet folds, pressing them into your clit every time he comes up.

"Y-yes." you moan, chasing his touch as you rub against his hand and he chuckles, his other hand gripping your breast harshly.

You slide your hands back and undo the strings on the top part of your bikini and Hyunjin helps you with the strings around your neck, the item falling down on the floor as you keep staring into his eyes.

Hyunjin hovers over you, leaning in to kiss you passionately, his lips are so soft but desperate against yours, his tongue is wild like he is trying to remember the way you taste forever as his teeth nip into your bottom lip.

You moan when he starts pinching your nipples and playing with your tits, his fingers pressed into your sensitive clit, massaging it in circles.

You're going crazy as his lips lower to kiss your neck and you can't help grinding against his hand, your wetness spreading all over his fingers as Hyunjin bites into your skin, squeezing and fondling your breast.

"You want my fingers, princess?" he says into your neck before licking a stripe over the bite mark he left on your flesh.

"Yes." you whimper, gripping at his arm.

"Beg." he leans back to look at you and you want to slap him but you know you're too far gone to be snappy.

"Please, fuck me with your fingers." you bat your eyelashes at him and he smirks again, pushing his fingers into you immediately.

"Ah!" you moan as you take him in easily and he lets out a low chuckle.

"You're such a desperate slut. Letting some stranger finger you in a pool house." he laughs, fucking you semi-fast immediately and you moan loudly, meeting his thrusts and not giving a single fuck about someone hearing you.

"So good that you can't even speak?" he fucks into your sweet spot, his thumb pressing into your clit as he presses you against the cold wall, a contrast to your heated body.

"H-Hyunjin." you moan and he chuckles, of course you know his name.

"Say my name louder." he looks at you with a cocky smile and you stutter for a moment as he fucks you harder and faster.

Your legs shake and you hold onto him as he keeps scissoring you open for him, nothing coming out of your lips except his name.

"Cum on my fingers, princess." Hyunjin whispers in your ear as your nails dig into his shoulders, your whole body shaking against him as he keeps plunging into you, the squelching sounds of your arousal filling up the room.

"Ah! Hyunjin!" you whimper loudly as you squirt all over his hand, grinding against him to ride your high as he observes you.

"Taste." he pulls his fingers out, leaving you empty as he brings them to your trembling lips.

You wrap them around his digits instantly, sucking on them and licking them clean as he keeps eye contact.

As soon as he pulls his fingers out, his lips are on yours again, kissing you hungrily as he grabs your other leg, effectively lifting you up and making you squeal as he leads you to the couch.

You're thrown down on it, albeit gently before he quickly takes his swim trunks off and your mouth waters at the sight of his dick.

He is perfect everywhere, you think as your eyes roam all over his sexy body.

Hyunjin is quick to kneel between your legs with a smirk playing on his lips.

"I don't have any condoms." he chuckles at the reality of the situation.

Even though he knew you were trying to seduce him every day, it's not like he thought you were actually going to come in after him today and kiss him so he wasn't prepared.

"I'm clean. Please." you whine, your legs wrapping around him and bringing him closer.

Hyunjin chuckles again, he can't believe you are so desperate to have him.

"Okay, princess. You think you can take it?" he gives you another smirk, sliding the head of his hard cock on your soaked folds.

You whimper as you look at his length and nod quickly.

"Yes, I can take it." you're almost breathless and Hyunjin pushes in, making you moan at the feeling.

His fingers couldn't prepare you completely for his cock but the stretch is delicious and your pussy welcomes him eagerly.

"Shit, you feel so good!" Hyunjin whines as he bottoms out, pushing his entire length inside you and filling you up perfectly.

He leans down as his arms cage you, kissing you sloppily before he leans back and starts fucking you at a steady pace, making your orgasm build up already.

You gasp and moan, spreading your legs more as you take him, the sound of skin slapping against skin making you feel even hotter.

You've never been this wet, your pussy pulsating in arousal as you moan loudly, your body shaking and feeling like you're going to explode any second.

Hyunjin looks down at you darkly, low moans escaping his lips as he keeps trying to bury himself deeper inside your warmth, so close to losing control over himself as your pussy constantly clenches around him, gripping his hard cock.

Hyunjin grabs your breast and your thigh, bringing one of your legs over his shoulder as you whine loudly, the new angle making you feel like he's fucking his cock even deeper inside you and his eyes roll back as he fucks into you harder.

You're so loud that if someone passes by they can 100% hear you moan Hyunjin's name as you grab his ponytail and pull on it while you cum all around his throbbing cock.

"Fuck!" Hyunjin almost growls as his hips stutter, fucking you with even more fervor as he chases his high, his hand leaving bruises in the soft skin of your thigh.

"Gonna cum." he whines, wanting to pull out but you grip at him.

"Cum inside me, I want it so bad." you groan, your eyes filling up with tears of pleasure as the head of his cock keeps brushing against your cervix.

"Fuck, you're so dirty, princess." Hyunjin pants, the sight of him all sweaty and flushed above you takes you over the edge and you cum again, clenching hard around him, his name slipping off your lips once again.

His eyes widen as his cock twitches and he unexpectedly cums hard inside you, spurts of the hot liquid painting your insides and filling you up.

Hyunjin collapses on top of you as he feels you still clenching around his now soft member.

It's quiet for some time and just then you realize that you can hear all the sounds from the pool and some people walking and talking next to the pool house, making you realize that everyone probably heard you fucking.

Hyunjin lifts up to look at you and something tugs at your heart, making your stomach fill up with butterflies.

"What's your name?" he asks and you burst out laughing, realizing you never even introduced yourself properly.

"Y/n." you answer and he smiles.

"Y/n. Pretty name for a pretty girl." Hyunjin leans in to kiss you, his cock slipping out of you and you feel the trickle of his cum seeping out of your pussy.

"Are you free tonight?" he asks, his lips traveling on your cheeks, you jaw and your neck, making you shiver as you caress his upper back.

"Depends what you're offering." you smirk and he looks at you.

"Dinner, movies, a walk on the beach?" he asks and you giggle.

"With a happy ending, of course." you say.

"As many happy endings as you want, princess." Hyunjin chuckles.

"Then I'm free." you say and he smiles before kissing you again.

This is going to be a fun summer.

taglist: @moonchild9350 @janepg @velvetmoonlght @hwanghyunjinismybae @jehhskz @laylasbunbunny @porangporangmeong @jeonginslefthand @laughatdanger @sapphirewaves @simpforleeknaur @s3ungm1nxxl0ve @painterhyunjin @starlost-mochi-x @saintcosette @ooshyana @frehyun

[lilybecca1]

Wait, Bakudeku is literally considered canon in the Japanese fandom???!!! Like no joke, in Japan Bkdk being canon is actually a widely accepted thing?? Like, let me get this straight.

The manga was meant for Japanese audience mainly, so the romance would also be something that is suited for Japanese audience, not the direct and straight forward approach that non-japanese shows have when it comes to romance. And you guys remember the "Rest of our lives" scene? Well yeah, that's actually a marriage proposal in Japan. In Japan they don't say Will you marry me? Some of the most common proposal lines are literally:

“Let’s spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Having you by my side is what completes me.”

“I can't imagine my life without you in it.”

“I wish I could give you everything, but I hope that this ring is enough.”

"I will protect you forever."

Like bro what?? These are literally Bkdk coded. Like Izuku fr thought once that he can't imagine his world without Kacchan in it. And the “I wish I could give you everything, but I hope that this ring is enough.”?? Replace ring with hero suit and you get the freaking ending of the manga. And I will protect you forever is also so them like I just can't yjxnsjxjnxjdkkxkxkxkxkkdk

I know we were all waiting for Horikoshi to make Bkdk canon in some big way like at the end they're revealed to be together or some confession or some shit but we do forget sometimes that this is set in Japanese culture and in Japan things are very different. Much more subtle and way less straight forward and obvious. Most japanese husbands and wives don't even normally say I love you to each other, because they express love through different ways, like action. And that is very hard for our non-japanese brains to understand cause it's just so different over there and instead of being expressive, love in Japanese culture is more about gratitude expressed through actions and devotion. It's much more symbolic.

So then when we think back on all those Cherry Blossom official arts, well NOW it doesn't seem too far fetched to think it might mean something, does it? For us, all these little hints and symbolism are just that. Hints and symbolism. But for Japanese people? They know how to read it very well and it's common in Japan to express certain things through symbolism. Like "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" Is a full on marriage proposal line. It doesn't seem like it to us, but to them yes. Also let's not forget we literally have a scene with Deku looking out at the moon and Bakugo too 😭

So, if we look at it in a Japanese sense, and that in japaese culture, love is expressed in a more symbolic way, and through actions and devotion, then it isn't so hard to believe anymore that Bakugo and Deku are actually fully implied canon in the manga. I mean talk about devotion..Bakugo literally spent 8 YEARS to help fund that suit for Izuku. He took "actions speak louder than words" fcking seriously.

Like would it be better if Horikoshi actually made them say they were in love or made then kiss or something? Yeah, but realistically speaking that probably wasn't gonna happen either way. And the fact that the Japanese fandom, who the manga is literally meant for, is fr congratulating Bakudeku for being canon!!!! Like y'all if the japanese fandom thinks that they're canon then it's safe to say that they are. Because in a sense, Japanese people can read and understand that "language" behind those hints better than us. And if they say it's canon, then I bet my ass it is.

TOO BAD I AIN'T FCKING JAPANESE

Like seriously why is it so hard being European. We wouldn't believe something was true until the cold hard evidence was literally laid right in front of our freaking eyes.

[alinathinkstoomuch]

DENIM DAY

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader (part of my fake!fiancee series, but can be read as a standalone) summary: its denim day at work and you opt for the shortest miniskirt you own, but not before snapping a pic and sending it to your boyfriend who is not a happy bunny. warnings | an: suggestive, lots of teasing, allusions to a footjob LOL, hotch puts on tights for reader, hotch is whipped we all say in unison, yall this was going to go in a complete smutfest direction but i decided to behave... for now, established relationship word count: 2.3k

✧ masterlist

Hotch should’ve been relieved to not be out on a field case. To know that he’d be getting out of the office at a decent time, that there wouldn’t be extra forms or reports that needed to be completed because he was behind his desk all day. It should’ve been a pleasant reprieve – except that it wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

Not since he stupidly opened the picture you sent him.

Apparently, it was Denim Day at your office, and instead of opting for a pair of jeans like any reasonable person might, you’d decided on a skirt – if he could even call it that. He wasn’t sure there was enough fabric to qualify.

He wished, with everything in him, that your workplace had a strict dress code. But even if it did, it wouldn’t apply to you. You were in charge, after all. Hell, Denim Day was probably your idea.

And he vaguely remembered you mentioning shoots scheduled all week, which meant people. Lots of them. Models, makeup artists, photographers – all of them walking around while you were dressed in that ridiculously short skirt. All of them seeing what he was still trying to unsee.

He managed to make it through the rest of the morning with some semblance of focus, though his attention span had taken a noticeable hit. He read the same report three times, signed a form he wasn’t supposed to, and snapped at Anderson for no real reason – though in his defence, Anderson had knocked over his coffee.

By the time noon rolled around, his jaw was tight, his tie felt too constricting, and he’d definitely spent more time than necessary staring at the clock. He was just about to stand when Rossi strolled into his office, holding a printed menu like he was offering a peace treaty.

“We’re ordering from that little Italian place you like. You want your usual?”

Hotch shook his head, already reaching for his coat. “No, actually. I’m stepping out for lunch.”

Rossi’s brows lifted. “Stepping out? You?”

“Yes, Rossi. I do occasionally eat outside the building.”

“Of course you do,” Rossi said, clearly humouring him. Then came the smirk – that smirk. “Seeing your fiancée?”

Hotch exhaled slowly, fingers pausing on the lapel of his jacket. “She’s not my fiancée.”

“Eh. Technicalities.”

Hotch didn’t respond, mostly because the longer he stood there, the more obvious it became that yes – he was going to see you. That the whole morning had been a slow, agonising burn of frustration and that if he didn’t get in his car and head to your office soon, he might actually lose his mind.

By the time he slid behind the wheel of his SUV, Hotch had managed to convince himself – for exactly three blocks – that this wasn’t a bad idea. He told himself he was just going to check in, maybe have a quick lunch. A normal, professional, not-at-all unhinged visit to the woman who had sent him a photo in a skirt that had no business being worn in public.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

This was ridiculous.

You’d done this on purpose. He knew it. You’d chosen that skirt knowing exactly what it would do to him, knowing how tightly wound he was, how much of your games he could barely tolerate when you were in sweatpants, let alone when you looked like that.

He tried to talk himself down, told himself that he should just turn around and go back to the office. Eat the damn Italian food. But as he pulled into the parking lot outside your building, he was already unbuckling his seatbelt.

And getting out of the car anyway.

The one small mercy was that your office was on the ground floor – no need for stairs. Not that anyone needed to take the stairs, not with perfectly functioning elevators in the building. But of course, you were the exception.

He’d learned the hard way that you sometimes insisted on taking the stairs “to get your steps in.” You’d even lectured him about it once, accusing him of being “alarmingly sedentary for someone who tackles serial killers for a living.”

He really, really hoped today wasn’t one of those days.

The front doors slid open as he stepped inside, the cool blast of air conditioning doing nothing to steady him. The office was its usual burst chaos. Racks of clothing being wheeled around, someone shouting about a missing pair of heels and a latte order gone wrong, but all of it blurred in the background as he spotted Bella at her desk near the entrance.

She looked up from her laptop, blinked once, and then grinned. “Agent Hotchner, didn’t expect to see you here today.”

He nodded, keeping his expression neutral. “Is she in?”

Bella didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head slightly, as if weighing how much trouble she wanted to cause. “She’s in her office,” she revealed, casually reaching for her phone. “Door’s closed, but I’m sure she’ll make an exception for you.”

Hotch ignored the insinuation. Or tried to. “Thanks.”

He started down the hallway, taking long strides to your door. When he reached the frosted matte glass, he could make out the faint outline of your silhouette behind it.

He raised a hand and knocked twice.

 “Come in,” you called out.

So he did just that.

And did he get there just in time.

You were bent over your desk, heels planted, back arched slightly as you read whatever was in front of you. At the sound of the door slamming shut behind him, you straightened immediately, nearly jumping out of your heels.

“Aaron!” you gasped, hand flying to your chest as you turned around. “You scared me.”

“Good.”

You circled behind your desk, all faux professionalism. “Did we have something in the calendar? Did I forget lunch?”

“You forgot pants.”

You laughed, pulling the measuring tape from around your neck and tossing it aside. “I’ll have you know I’m absolutely wearing pants. Under this one-of-a-kind denim skirt, thank you very much.”

He didn’t respond, just stared.

“Is that why you came all the way over here? To conduct a pants investigation? I’ll let you guess the colour if you’re so curious.”

“They’re red. And I got a full view of them the moment I walked in.”

You grinned, entirely unbothered, grabbing a stack of images from your desk before striding over to the whiteboard. “And?” you tossed over your shoulder. “Do you like them?”

He liked not seeing them anywhere but your apartment. Or his.

“You’re very quiet today, Hotch Hotchner. Something on your mind?” You pinned one photo up, then glanced back at him. “Have you had enough water?” you added sweetly. “And no – coffee doesn’t count.”

You pinned another image to the board, like you hadn’t just called him Hotch Hotchner and asked about his hydration levels while wearing a skirt that should not be allowed in a professional setting.

“Water,” he echoed finally. “That’s what we’re talking about now?”

“Well, we could talk about the real reason you’re here… if you’d prefer.”

His eyes moved down to your skirt and then back you to your face – your smug face because you knew exactly what you were doing. “I came here to see if you’d like to grab lunch.”

You turned back to the board, smoothing an image with a soft gradient of colours. "Lunch," you repeated thoughtfully. "Hmm. That sounds suspiciously wholesome for someone who's been undressing me with his eyes for the last five minutes."

Hotch sighed through his nose. "It's just lunch."

You glanced over your shoulder, eyes sparkling. "Right. Just lunch. And what if I said yes?"

"Then we go," he said, folding his arms. "I open the door for you. You roll your eyes at me. You make fun of my order. We eat."

"And then?"

“And then I bring you back here.”

You turned around slowly, lips quirking. "All very gentlemanly of you, Agent Hotchner.” You let a breath out, dramatic as ever. “Alright, I’ll bite. You can take me to lunch as long as I'm back before two. I have a very important meeting with Milan."

His eyes tracked you as you moved to a drawer on the far side of the room.

And bent over - again.

His jaw tightened, his hands slipping into his pockets, like that would somehow stop his mind from going straight to hell. You were still talking, something about calendar holds and fabric samples, but he couldn't hear a single word. 

Because that skirt? It should be classified as a weapon. 

Then you turned, holding out a small bundle of black fabric like it was nothing. "Could you give me a hand?"

He eyed it warily, already suspicious. Tights.

Of course it was tights.

Still, he took them without hesitation, because you could've handed him a live grenade with that expression, and he would've thanked you for it.

"My hands are super dry and the fabric always snags when I put them on. Honestly, it's a sensory nightmare. Could you do the honours?"

"Your hands are super dry?" he repeated, just as you reached for his jacket and started tugging him towards you, walking backwards until you perched on the edge of your desk, like it was the most reasonable place in the world to stage a wardrobe adjustment.

"Yes, it's gross, really. Skin's peeling off and everything. I'd usually slather them in hand cream, but l've been touching samples all day and I don't want to leave greasy fingerprints all over couture, so now I'm suffering."

That sounded almost half logical. Right up until you kicked off your heels, lifted one leg, and rested your foot just shy of his crotch. He tensed just as you pressed your heel the slightest bit closer. “Pretty please? You know I have delicate hands.”

He should've walked away. Should've told you to put them on yourself. Hell, he could've offered to go grab lunch and save you the trouble entirely. But what did he do instead? He lifted the tights – the ones made of delicately-thin fabric that somehow felt heavier than his gun – and began to bunch them up in his hands.

His eyes dropped to your legs, still resting against him like an invitation. All he had to do was take your ankle, lift it just a little higher, and he'd have a full view of the red lace panties he already couldn't stop thinking about.

If Rossi ever found out what he’d gotten himself into the one time he decided to step out for lunch, Hotch would never hear the end of it.

Before you could get him off with nothing but the arch of your foot, he forced himself to move, sliding the tights up your leg. “This is absurd.”

“You’re doing great,” you encouraged delightfully. “Though, should I be worried that you’re good at this?”

He didn’t look up. “Good at what?”

“Doing what you’re told.”

He could’ve argued, told you you’re wrong, but his mother raised him to be an honest man. You said things – ridiculous, flirty, completely inappropriate things – and he listened. You smiled at him, and suddenly, everything seemed negotiable. Boundaries, logic, professionalism, the whole lot of it.

Because it was you.

Because you could ask him to kneel in a room full of fire and he'd probably say yes, ma'am on the way down.

“I’m banning you from sending me photos while I’m at work,” he muttered, fingers dragging the fabric slowly up your calf.

“Oh yeah?”

His grip tightened a fraction. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to make a point. “You think I’m kidding?”

“I think,” you said, drawing the word out like it was your favourite accessory, right alongside lip-gloss and claw clips. “I should’ve sent you the one I took of me from behind.”

He froze. Just for a second. Then his hands moved again, dragging the tights up your thigh, and even he was a little surprised he hadn't torn them yet. You were smiling again, clearly enjoying your second-nature ability to make him weak in his fragile knees.

He shouldn't be taking you to lunch.

He wanted to – wanted to open the door for you, order your favourite, sit across the table while you made snide, flirty remarks and shamelessly stole the croutons off his salad like they were yours by right.

But the other part of him, the one you were clearly trying to provoke, had no interest in lunch at all. That side wanted to take you home and teach you a filthy, thorough lesson that had nothing to do with menus or linen napkins...and everything to do with that damn attitude that skirt had given you.

But you were at work. He was due back at work soon. And he figured there was no better way to get back at you – to beat you at your own game – than to make you wait. Make you squirm. Make you regret every single syllable that had left your pretty mouth since he walked in and caught you bent over, ass on display like it wasn't completely deliberate. Like he hadn't seen the phone in your hand. Like he hadn't noticed Bella reach for hers just before he walked in.

Because if you thought you were good at teasing, you had no idea what it looked like when he decided to play.

So, instead of acting on the thousand things running through his head, he let his touch soften, fingers smoothing out the tights and moving on to the other leg like his thoughts weren't indecent and laser-focused on exactly what he planned to do the second he had you alone.

He stepped back once he was finished. "I'll be at the front when you're ready.”

You blinked, lips parted like you were waiting for him to do anything but walk away.

And that was the best part. He didn't even look back as he adjusted his tie and headed for the door, fully aware of the way your eyes followed him.

Now?

You were the one with your composure slipping. 

And when he decided you'd waited long enough... he was going to make sure you remembered every second of it.

tags - @fandomscombine @dohmeti @pastelpinkflowerlife @hazzyking @bernelflo @risenqueen1521 @jazzimac1967 @camihotchner @abschaffer2 @ill-be-okay-soon-enough @pacmillo-blog-blog @stilestotherescue @kiwriteswords

nanny!reader with a choking kink coming up next to an alina-blog near you!🌟

dividers by cafekitsune

[starcurtain]

Comparing Phaidei and Other Hoyo MLM Ships (Part 1)

I barely know how to begin, honestly, because I'm still so taken aback by the absolute Phaidei feast that was 3.1. But perhaps because we were so overfed by the patch, I was actually jarred a little out of the story itself--too busy turning over the broader ramifications of such blatant queer-coding of two male characters in a modern Hoyoverse game.

Of course, Hoyo isn't remotely new to queer-coding their characters (or to queer-baiting, either, gacha games gotta hustle at all times). They absolutely have a history of hinting at both WLW and MLM ships and of including fanservice between the player's MC and other playable characters regardless of gender. Strangely enough, due to the unique confluence of their target audiences' tastes, the Hoyoverse team has an active profit motive to create gay characters:

WLW ships are appealing to heterosexual male players.

MLM ships are appealing to heterosexual female players.

Simultaneously, WLW and MLM ships are appealing to queer players.

Heterosexual ships with characters other than the MC are unappealing to a large percentage of the game's playerbase, particularly to heterosexual male players who want to keep their waifus to themselves but also to female yumeshippers.

Hoyo's market is literally telling them that 1) male characters sell better when they're ship-baited with other male characters, and 2) players don't actually want heterosexual ships between playable characters if the MC isn't involved. (Hell, look at Firefly--players hate romances with the MC too lol!)

But at the same time as the market is telling the devs to keep making queer characters, Hoyoverse also faces immense social pressure to avoid including actual queer content.

Let me hold off on the political and legal consequences of including gay characters in Chinese media for just a second, and look at the situation from the perspective of Hoyo's target audiences first:

Take this data with a grain of salt though; I'm not sure where they got their numbers.

First, Hoyoverse games are increasingly global and surprisingly popular in conservative/religious countries such as Russia, Malaysia, and the UAE. The western world as a whole is shifting increasingly right on LGBT+ issues. For the games to be marketed well across the globe, they've got to avoid challenging the morals of these highly varied audiences. (Perhaps this is why past Hoyoverse titles seemed more open to LGBT+ content than present Hoyoverse games do; a broader audience actually means more restrictions on content.)

Second, even though conservative heterosexual male players are actually surprisingly fine with MLM ship tease, that only applies so long as it stays at the level of "I can pretend I don't see it." As long as anti-LGBT+ players can write off any MLM content as "just close friends," the dev team can get away with frankly shocking amounts of queer interaction between male characters. (I'm sorry to any straight male fans reading this [could there possibly be any?], but half of y'all could win gold medals if mental gymnastics were a sport. The lengths I have seen some male Genshin players go to try to explain away Haikaveh are honestly awe-inspiring. 😂) However, the boundary must be respected. The moment a male character's queerness exceeds subtext and becomes text, when even mental gymnastics cannot come up with a heterosexual explanation, and the plausible deniability goes out the window, it is no longer acceptable to anti-LGBT+ players, and they will be "turned off" from pulling that male character en masse. In essence, the market is telling the devs: 1) Huge amounts of queer-coding = a-okay, but 2) Actual canon queer content = that's gayyyy, no wayyyy.

And third, the obvious: China's stance on LGBT+ people is weirdly stricter in media than it is in "real" life. It is not illegal to be gay in China but it is illegal to be gay in a video game in China. Restrictions on media portrayals of gayness are significantly more strict than restrictions on actually being gay (which is interesting cognitive dissonance for those from outside the country, but that's an essay for another day). Hoyoverse legally cannot show characters engaged in any explicitly queer behaviors--at least that can't be explained away.

Furthermore, the rules apply very differently for male and female characters. WLW content gets way more of a pass from the censors. Bronya and Seele can blush at each other, but Alhaitham and Kaveh cannot. You would never see "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" happening with male Hoyoverse characters. The censors literally would not allow it, strictly because Chinese standards for portrayals of men are different--and more strict!--than standards for portraying women. Legally, there are strong and serious limitations on what Hoyo can do with their male characters.

Summing all of this up, in trying to create their male characters and content, Hoyoverse is actually fighting a battle of conflicting pressures: Male characters sell better when they are queer-coded, but their interactions can never rise to the level of being canonically gay.

Everything must exist in the realm of implication.

(Yes, I can hear you: "Can you please get to Phaidei already?" 😂)

All of this foreword was to lay a foundation for the actual point I want to make about Phaidei: Because Hoyoverse can only queer-code and not actually queer their male characters, they have (in their modern games), fallen into a sort of pattern with their MLM ship bait. Certain plots and personalities keeps reappearing again and again. They've developed a sort of short-hand set of traits to give to their male characters--the Hoyoverse "queer-coded MLM starter pack" if you will lol.

While not every popular MLM ship in Hoyo's games has the same traits (obviously not), certain elements seem central to creating the delicate necessary gray area between "They're just baiting fangirls" and "The devs intended these two characters to be canonically gay but just couldn't state that textually."

And yet... And yet...

You're not imagining things: Phaidei is actually different.

To demonstrate just how different though, I wanted to take the time to compare Phaidei with other popular Hoyoverse MLM ships, looking at both the similarities (the patterns that Hoyo relies on to reliably queer-code their characters) and the noticeable differences (where Hoyo pushed their own boundaries in surprising ways).

Unfortunately, in the interest of full transparency, my own Hoyoverse experience is limited, so I can only use examples from Star Rail and Genshin Impact. I just haven't played HI3 or ZZZ, so I don't feel comfortable trying to use examples from those games, although I think there may be many ships that fall into similar patterns in those games as well. (Maybe some people can share in the comments?)

Anyway, let's start with similarities:

1. A Pair of Equals

The number one "rule" for popular Hoyoverse queer-coded MLM ships is that the two characters must be evenly matched. This isn't to say they have to have identical levels of physical strength (although that is also often the case); instead, the audience needs to perceive them as being on equal footing in some way. They must either be intellectual equals (Alhaitham and Kaveh), political equals (Ratio and Aventurine; Neuvillette and Wriothesley), equal in social standing (Tighnari and Cyno), or, yes, actually physically equal their capability for going toe-to-toe against each other (Blade and Dan Heng; possibly Zhongli and Childe; for those who ship it, Diluc and Kaeya).

For modern Hoyo games, queer-coded MLM ships with noticeable discrepancies in power dynamics are particularly rare; possibly the only one that comes to mind is Ayato/Thoma (though this is mitigated by the game deliberately telling us that Ayato treats Thoma like family, rather than like a servant). And I think this actually says a lot about the devs' thought process: They are deliberately avoiding scenarios in which one male character seems capable of "preying" on another, where the queer-coding could accidentally be perceived as sexual perversion due to a discrepancy in power dynamics.

They're intentionally averting the "depraved homosexual" trope by--sometimes literally--spelling out for the players that both male characters in their queer-coded MLM ships perceive each other as, and are interested in each other as, equals.

We see this explicitly with Ratio and Aventurine in Star Rail:

And Alhaitham and Kaveh in Genshin:

Even Blade and Dan Heng are likened to "a pair" of identical objects:

So of course, Phainon and Mydei push this to an extreme. Phainon describes himself and Mydei as "friends and foes," and the game goes out of it way to reiterate over and over that they are perfect equals. Although they compete in everything they do, there is never a clear victor; their score card is constantly balancing out because they match each other's skill and power perfectly.

But there are even hints in the game that this isn't just happening naturally, but also by choice: Even when one of them triumphs over the other, they both backtrack and insist on getting on equal standing again. Whether you win or lose the "competition" in Kremnos in 3.0, the outcome is the same:

Phainon and Mydei perceive each other as perfectly matched (in strength, right, right...) and are actively working to keep it that way.

The game also goes out of its way to insist that Mydei and Phainon aren't just equals in terms of strength but also in social standing. It theoretically should be impossible to match Mydei's place on the social ladder--he's the literal crown prince of an entire nation of world-renowned conquerors. Even Aglaea is not a queen; we see her on screen being forced to contend with Okhema's Council who are fighting her for power. There technically isn't anyone in Amphoreus (at least that we've met so far) who should be able to stand on equal political or administrative footing to Mydei.

Except, of course, for Phainon, who supersedes all others by virtue of being the literal prodigal son, the "Chosen One."

The game insists on putting this in our faces over and over again: Mydei may be a king in the making, but Phainon is the "Deliverer." They are equally matched in terms of authority.

The game even goes out of its way to tell us they're perfect mirrors in personality too:

Hoyo, in the kitchen cooking up another gay ship: LISTEN GUYS, they're equals, do you understand me? A MATCHING SET.

But also...

2. Diametrically Opposed

It isn't enough for the queer-coded men to be each other's perfect equals. They also have to be opposites, typically in terms of their personalities. This is the pattern that repeats itself most consistently across Hoyoverse MLM ships with strong textual support: the two men may be equal, but they're also nothing alike. (At least on the surface.)

Alhaitham and Kaveh's entire plot hinges on their directly opposing personalities and morals, representing the clash between rationality and sensibility. Dan Feng was reserved and cool-tempered, while Yingxing was "arrogant" and brash. Hell, Xingqiu and Chongyun are "refined and clever" versus "forthright and trusting." I actually think Zhongli and Childe, despite being the most popular Hoyoverse ship in the western fandom, have very little canonical support, yet they still fit this pattern, with Zhongli as the refined gentleman to Tartaglia's blood knight tendencies.

We know how Ratio sees himself and Aventurine:

Hoyo really said "Opposites attract" and ran with it for every single MLM ship they ever teased.

And there's a logical reason for this. Making the two male characters dead opposites actually slightly decreases people's ability to argue that they're "just friends"--if they have next to nothing in common, they're not usually bonding over mutual hobbies or basing their connection on shared similarities. It becomes harder to portray two male characters as "bros who just get along great" when they're deliberately written with opposing tastes and personalities. (Real friends can sometimes be dead opposites, obviously, but most friendships are built on mutual interests rather than opposing ones, while romantic relationships hilariously have the "opposites attract" stereotype.)

There's no reason to shove polar opposites together again and again except to watch the sparks fly.

Even Hoyo's male characters' color schemes are often perfectly opposite. Plenty of people have figured out if you palette swap Alhaitham and Kaveh, Dan Heng and Blade, and Ratio and Aventurine, you end up with the same colors. Ayato and Thoma match the pattern here too ("red and blue gays" is a well-known trope).

But once again, the devs pulled out ALL the stops for Phaidei:

They're red versus blue. They're sun and moon. They're outgoing versus introverted. They're a king and a peasant (if we believe what Phainon's telling us about Aedes Elysiae). They're the "outsider" and the "golden boy." One fights with strength and the other with technique, brains versus brawn (actually they're both kind of idiots though, so take this one lightly lol).

However, what I think is most interesting about Hoyo's pairs of MLM opposites that is that the devs deliberately subvert expectations by assigning the opposing traits to the "unexpected" character. In both Haikaveh and Ratiorine, it's the rational scholar who is more overtly caring and attuned to their partner's feelings. In Renheng, it's the kind-hearted Yingxing who is consumed by anger, while the aloof, expressionless Dan Heng's voice trembles in wonder at the mere mention of Yingxing's name.

For Phainon and Mydei, this inversion of opposite traits occurs with their personalities specifically. People expected Mydei to be a gruff, hot-headed, battle-hungry berserker with a sarcastic or arrogant personality at best.

Instead, Mydei is an extremely thoughtful person, who struggles with his fate not because of what will happen to himself but because of a desire to bring the greatest good to the greatest number of his people. He's a respectful, gentle (when he needs to be), and even sentimental young man who continues to hold on to love for those who have long passed away. He's reserved around strangers but generous and warm to his companions, and struggles to express himself but has a clear desire to be considerate of others.

We also know he's deeply aware of and emotionally affected by the racism his people are experiencing in Okhema; one NPC in Okhema reports how Mydei, despite being new to Okhema himself, stood up to the very council still plaguing Aglaea in order to protect his people:

Despite having difficulties expressing his own thoughts, he even scolds Phainon for approaching their farewell with a nonchalant expression--Mydei doesn't reject emotions or shy away from becoming close with people he cares for.

Instead, it's Phainon who actually struggles to be honest. While he might connect easily with others on the surface, seeming outgoing and kind-hearted, he is actually a much more private person, one who is reluctant to show his true feelings and dismissive of questions about his past and identity. As opposed to Mydei's desire to avoid Nikador's power, Phainon is (despite his doubts) eager to prove himself, spurned on by the pressure of the prophecy telling him he needs to achieve greatness. We're told that he craved the power of strife specifically, while Mydei summarily wishes to reject it.

It's Phainon who frequently has to be reined in by others--he was ready to kill Oronyx for delaying his rescue of Mydei--and Phainon who fails to let go of his hatred and desire for revenge, causing him to fail Nikador's trial, which Mydei easily clears.

By inverting the traits of the characters, creating designs which visually oppose each other while assigning the actual opposing personality traits to the "mismatched" character, the devs hammer home an implicit message: These two characters complete each other. They fill in each other's gaps. What you expected to find in one of these men, you will instead find in the other. What they wish to be, they will be drawn to in each other.

(Frequently bought together, do not separate!)

3. The Distance is Artificial

Okay, so if they're so obviously written as a "pair," being perfect equals and perfect opposites, how are they just "queer-coded" and not explicitly queer? How is Hoyo keeping up the illusion of the characters not being an obvious couple when they're literally written to complete each other?

Hoyo has one major tool in their arsenal to do this: Prickly personalities.

With the exception of Renheng, which I'll get to in a second, Hoyo has a favorite method for enforcing the rule of plausible deniability, the idea that "Nooo, we promise, they're not in love; they don't even like each other, see??"--and that's giving one of the characters an intractable personality.

This can manifest, like Alhaitham and Kaveh, as constant bickering, where the pair's main method of communication is to devolve into petty arguments or sarcastic quips.

Fans who support the ship can view this as an "old married couple" dynamic; but for those who do not support the ship and choose to insist that Hoyo isn't actually queer-coding their male characters, they can lean on these arguments as "proof" that the characters don't actually love each other.

A similar pattern was recently repeated with Sethos/Wanderer, with Wanderer's prickly personality being used to keep Sethos at bay.

By placing the characters at odds with each other through bickering, Hoyo introduces just enough doubt to make the "They're only friends/roommates, we promise" argument hold some water. This allows them to get--quite honestly--a lot of queer content past the censors and past homophobic audiences too.

We see them repeat this trope with Aventurine and Ratio in Star Rail, introducing the two characters as initially "at odds" with each other and trying to pass it off as Ratio despising Aventurine.

Even after revealing that they were plotting together, the game insists on introducing some lingering doubts, suggesting that Aventurine fears Ratio would actually betray him.

This creates the necessary "gray area," the gap that Hoyo can use to hide in--no, Aventurine doesn't trust Ratio at all, see? Maybe they don't even like each other? Who knows! The doubt doesn't exist because the story particularly needs it, but simply so that Hoyo has a shield to hide behind if people begin to question how close the two male characters are.

Even in comedic material, Hoyo intentionally keeps this "necessary distance" in order to allow themselves wiggle room. Is Ratio an enamored tsundere who can't spit his real feelings out, or does he actually think Aventurine is illogical, mediocre, and ridiculous? Was the "Keeping Up With Star Rail" video an example of Hoyo deliberately baiting by making Ratio flustered over Aventurine "on air," or is he being Aventurine's biggest hater in this clip?

It's just questionable enough that those players who hate MLM to interpret it as the latter, and provides just enough doubt to help Hoyo slip queer-coding under the radar. Those who want to see it will see, while it's written just vaguely enough that those who don't want to see it will not see it.

(That's the point Owlbert, that's the point.)

When in doubt, and when stuck with a pair of characters who aren't likely to bicker with words, Hoyo sometimes has to progress to the next level: making them actual enemies.

What's better for creating plausible deniability than one of them trying to kill the other? (They definitely were not fooling around in a past life. We promise.) In an ironic twist with Renheng in particular, the fandom seems to have somehow come to the (mistaken) consensus that Dan Feng and Yingxing were "confirmed canon" (truly, I see this stated everywhere; we love when reading comprehension fails in the right direction for once lol), leaving only Dan Heng/Blade as being of questionable "canonicity." However, this still works as far as Hoyo is concerned, because only Dan Heng and Blade are left on screen.

By insisting on their present inability to reconcile, Blade and Dan Heng are able to introduce just enough doubt into the equation to offset even significant ship tease for Dan Feng/Yingxing.

Enemies to lovers 150k+ slow burn, please look forward to it.

Okay, but back to Phaidei. At first, it seems like Phaidei is going to follow this pattern to a T: When Phainon first introduces Trailblazer to Mydei, the two seem to be at odds, bickering over how Mydei is choosing to confront the enemy. Mydei even calls Phainon out for an unintentionally insensitive statement (when Phainon demands to know why Mydei isn't "protecting the citizens," Mydei asks "Who are you implying is not a citizen here?" i.e., "Are you saying because I'm Kremnoan I don't count as a citizen?" You can see Phainon practically bite his tongue to take back his words.)

Also known as: Mydei experiences a microaggression.

Mydei's very first line directly to the Trailblazer is to insult Phainon's hospitality, and we know they definitely have plenty of silly insults to lob at each other while competing.

But this is actually where we see the first deviation from the pattern for Phaidei. Although there's a few cursory lines throughout their early dialogue, that's all there ever is--just cursory attempts at suggesting the two bicker and don't get along.

Within one scene, the "tension" present in their first meeting entirely devolves into purely playful banter, and it is clear by the time we finish 3.0 that Phainon and Mydei are actually very close and get along well, with virtually none of Haikaveh's biting comments, Blade and Dan Heng's violence, or Aventurine and Ratio's questions of loyalty. Phainon and Mydei took one look at the rest of Hoyoverse's MLM ships and said "How about we skip that will they-won't they?" lol.

But I'm not quite ready to talk about the places where Phaidei departs from the normal pattern yet, so I'll leave this point by just saying that Hoyo did start Phaidei on the same path as a majority of their other MLM ships, making a vague attempt at using their rivalry to suggest they wouldn't get along--thereby allowing for the alternative interpretation to quiet the haters (and the censors).

4. The (Physical) Distance is Non-Existent

Okay, but if Hoyo uses personalities to inject just enough distance into their queer-coded pairings to avoid crossing any boundaries, then what do they do to tantalize the audience, to make it seem like the characters might actually like each other?

They use body language!

First, just to reiterate a basic video game design principle: All animations and character placements have to be programmed by someone, and that means that all animations and the physical locations of characters in scenes are intentional. Nothing happens in cutscenes by accident.

Designers are constantly making a series of choices any time they have to put together a cutscene, and one of the key choices they have to make is how to express each character through their movements and their positions relative to other characters. (I've talked before, for example, about how Aventurine frequently turns his back on people, forcing their eyes to follow him throughout his cutscenes, taking physical control of the reactions of people around him.)

Hoyoverse games have somewhat standardized scene layouts for conversation cutscenes, with characters typically being placed at different distances from each other depending on their relationships. A majority of conversations happen from a generally cordial conversational distance, which means that any time characters cross this gap and close the distance, the dev team is intentionally sending the players a message.

Like, no one mistook what this was about, right?

Heterosexual jumpscare in my queer post; I'm sorry, I was just too tired to find a video with Lumine lol.

Repeating for good measure: Unless it is with a male playable main character (where the presence of the female main character is what lends the deniability), Hoyo legally cannot show their male characters engaging in physical contact that could be construed as romantic. Male characters can't hold hands; they can't even really hug unless it's "caught you as you fell after battle" (props to Dan Heng for being the only male character in Star Rail to get a "hug" with Jing Yuan lol.) There's a boundary that Hoyo male characters do not cross, and that's almost universally the realm of physical touch.

But Hoyo can place their queer-coded male characters into scenarios of physical closeness that they don't typically show among other characters.

Alhaitham and Kaveh's table says hello.

So does Tighnari and Cyno's single tent from this same quest; Cyno's Story 2, truly the quest that kept on giving.

Aventurine, a character who traditionally keeps half a room's distance between himself and the people he's talking to, suddenly doesn't seem to mind closing the distance with Ratio:

And even Renheng, the eternal enemies, are depicted as crossing physical boundaries, explicitly "getting in each other's faces." Yes it's a battle, but also, I've seen yaoi with less domineering poses lol.

You might think these lightcone examples are a stretch, but seriously: Go look at all the lightcones in the game. Does a single heterosexual couple have a lightcone where they are in each other's space in this manner? No, because physical closeness is actually a tool Hoyo is consistently using to queer-code. (Well, there would probably be more heterosexual closeness too if the incels weren't so weird...)

Anyway, when I saw the devs might be heading the direction of baiting Phaidei, I fully expected that we would see them side-by-side more consistently and with less of a gap between them than between other characters. But I wasn't remotely ready for the degree to which Hoyo would take that.

Here is an example of Phaidei exhibiting the "normal" Star Rail conversational distance:

Andddd... here's where they spend the other 90% of their scenes together:

The unnecessarily large distance between them and the Trailblazer gets me every time. Like they are not leaving room for Jesus Kephale.

Even when they aren't standing practically on top of each other, the devs deliberately choose camera angles that frame them both in the cutscene at the same time, which is relatively rare for Star Rail (not unheard of, but usually the camera will just go for the "first person POV" when two people are speaking, allowing for a close up of the speaking character). Instead of back-and-forth close ups, many of Mydei and Phainon's conversations are framed from a "behind-the-shoulder" angle, to catch them both in the frame. This creates the illusion that they're standing closer together than they are, and also reinforces a sense of intimacy in their conversations--the camera (and thus the player) becomes an "outsider" while their bodies turn toward each other.

Again, Hoyoverse is under pressure to avoid showing physical contact between male characters that could be construed romantically. They can't show Mydei and Phainon tangoing like Black Swan and Acheron. When it comes to queer-coding male characters, they have to use the tools available to them, and their primary tool for visually signifying the possibility of romantic closeness is physical closeness.

The camera is telling you that Mydei and Phainon are close.

Anyway, just one more point I wanted to make before moving on to discussing how Phaidei completely crushed the mold for Hoyoverse queer-coding, but...

5. Oh God, We're Turning Into Your Parents

Listen, I'm a reasonable person. I can fully accept that I play games with LGBT+ goggles on at all times. Despite being fantastically aroace myself, I love yaoi. I love yuri. I even like plenty of straight ships. I'm a fangirl first, academic second, so believe me when I say that I understand how skeptics might view some of the points above. "You're just fangirling. Being equals and opposites doesn't automatically imply romance. The devs might have intended close friendship, not a relationship." This counter-argument is valid!

So I want to end with one more point which I think is actually the lynch pin to proving that Hoyoverse isn't "accidentally" making their male characters come across as queer. Hoyo's queer-coding for certain ships is very intentional and even sometimes very overt. In a few cases prior to Phaidei, they were already skirting the upper limits of plausible deniability, and I think the modern ship that previously pushed the boundary the most is Haikaveh.

You can say what you want about other Hoyo MLM ships and their lack of canon textual support (I love you ZhongChi, even if the devs actually hate you lol), but I believe people who unironically say "The devs are not baiting Alhaitham and Kaveh as a ship" are so media illiterate that it's actually embarrassing to share air with them. Whether you think the devs are just doing it to cash in on yaoi fangirls or because they actually want to depict gay characters, it is indisputable at this point that Alhaitham and Kaveh have in-game ship tease. They just do, and one of the most obvious and unmistakable instances of this is when Kaveh's hangout paralleled Kaveh's relationship with Alhaitham to the heterosexual marriage between Kaveh's mother and father.

To draw a direct connection between Kaveh's father and Alhaitham, who is repeatedly described as not being able to understand Kaveh's artistic sensibilities and idealistic world view but nevertheless chooses to stay by Kaveh's side through his many troubles, while simultaneously reinforcing the idea that Kaveh is his mother's spitting image, both physically and emotionally, can really not be interpreted in any other way.

Hoyoverse took a queer relationship and made a one-for-one analogy to a heterosexual relationship--Alhaitham and Kaveh are a direct reflection of Kaveh's very married parents.

This isn't something that can happen on accident. This is deliberate and unmistakable queer-coding.

Which makes it absolutely wild that it happened twice.

I've posted already about the obvious parallels between Mydei's parents and Phaidei, and I'm actually almost out of room for new images here, so I can't post the images again, but I hardly need to at this point: Mydei's parents met when Gorgo challenged Eurypon at the Kremnos Festival. They fought for ten rounds, determined that they were (what do you know) perfect equals, and Eurypon proposed on the spot. Eurypon is explicitly described as a swordmaster, while Gorgo used a spear.

Later, the game repeatedly (and in various separate instances), emphasizes that Mydei and Phainon's first meeting consisted of a duel lasting ten days and ten nights, where neither of them could secure the victory, proving them to also be each other's perfect equals. Phainon's role as Okhema's swordmaster is emphasized, while Mydei wields a spear just like his mother when killing his father and after taking on Nikador's divinity.

Then there's... everything that came after. Eurypon betrayed Gorgo, effectively stabbing her in the back, and took her life. The foreshadowing that Phainon will do this exact same thing to Mydei is unmissable.

Phainon has even expressed an explicit desire to take part in the same competition where Mydei's father crowned the winner his wife:

In the (very limited) Kremnoan dictionary, I'm pretty sure this is how you say "I'm down to fuck."

Just as in the case with Haikaveh, there is no way that this parallel could have occurred by accident. The devs did not go out of their way to give us entire flashbacks of Gorgo and Eurypon's meeting and downfall for no reason. You're supposed to see the one-for-one connection between Mydei's very heterosexual, married parents and Phainon and Mydei's relationship.

Simultaneously, the devs also parallel their MLM ships to heterosexual relations by incorporating shades of domesticity normally reserved for "traditional" male-female relationships into their MLM ships--including levels of domesticity that heterosexual ships in Genshin and Star Rail usually don't rise to. One of Genshin's most popular MLM ships shares a single-family home and has a chore chart. Thoma is Ayato's housekeeper. Tighnari and Cyno are just flat-out joint raising a child. Jiaoqiu cooks and Moze cleans. Yingxing and Dan Feng accidentally(?) made a baby.

And Phainon and Mydei aren't any exception. They live an apocalyptic world that is constantly calling them away to battle, but the devs went out of their way to tell us Mydei is an extremely good cook who prepares everyone's food and deliberately ruins Phainon's when he's annoying, which is definitely old married couple behavior lol. Mydei is framed repeatedly as being good with children, not just in the distant fatherly way but in the "plays house" and follows-along-after-unaccompanied-kids-like-a-mother-hen way. Yet when Mydei has to leave, taking the classic "I'm going off to war" ancient Greek exit, he doesn't depart without leaving Phainon his people--with the camera panning specifically to the little Kremnoans. Phainon got the kids in the divorce. D; The tragic domesticity is already off the charts, and then they hit you the second punch when Mydei's last question (just one or two lines later) confirms that it was Phainon who got the ring for him. Hoyo couldn't actually have given us a more heavy-handed "parting husband and wife" parallel if someone held them at gunpoint. That whole thing was some Odyssey level bullshit. I see you devs, I see you.

You might be tempted to say that is just heteronormativity, which it could be, but I actually think it serves a very specific place in Hoyo's queer-coding repertoire. In comparing gay relationships to heterosexual marriages, the devs effectively "legitimize" their queer characters, suggesting that the relationships between gay male characters are no less real or valid than those between men and women. In demonstrating that male characters can achieve stable and healthy domestic lives with each other, the devs reiterate that players are not supposed to notice a difference between gay and heterosexual relationships.

There isn't any clearer way for Hoyoverse to legally say "We want you to think of these two men as romantic partners" than to say "Wow, isn't it interesting that their relationship is identical to a married couple's." It's on purpose; at this point, you really can't say the queer-coding isn't deliberate without looking like you can't read, and if it was intentional when Haikaveh paralleled Kaveh's parents, then it was doubly so the second time Hoyoverse pulled this trick to parallel Phaidei to Mydei's parents.

PHEW! Okay, I finally made it through the foundational traits for Hoyoverse MLM ship-bait and where Phaidei fits in with those. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk! 😂

But... the whole reason I started this post was actually because I wanted to talk about differences between Phaidei and other Hoyoverse MLM ships, and particularly how bold Hoyo actually was in 3.1, pushing the envelop to an extreme degree to ship-tease Phainon and Mydei.

So, since the post was way, way too long, I've spit the rest of my point off into a second post.

Check out Part 2 over here. ->

[bunnis-monsters]

Cafes and knotting

Werewolf x Vampire!Reader

PREVIEW

warnings: breeding, knotting, blood drinking, mating, grinding

WC: 2.5k

It was one of those nights, the type where you spent every moment of your eternal life on your feet, jogging back and forth between customers.

Working at a cafe for monsters wasn’t terrible. If anyone asked, you would say it was a fun job with great perks.

The only problem you had was the pushy, rude customers that either wanted the manager or something inappropriate from you.

Thankfully, some of your regulars always stuck up for you when a situation got out of hand.

Especially him.

Standing at a little over 6 foot and with a muscular frame, his eyes always followed the sultry sway of your hips as you moved around the cafe.

Usually, he came in twice a day. Once in the morning for a black coffee and donut before work, and once at night for a protein shake and any pastries you had left to fuel up for the gym.

So when someone got rowdy, he was quick to run over and get up in their face. Tobias was that kind of guy, always ready to help.

You had no idea that he had a thing for you, and that’s why he was so defensive over his cute vampire barista.

To most it was obvious you were crushing on him like crazy too, but neither of you were aware of your shared love.

Most of the time you spent the day sighing wistfully, watching him from the register as he chowed down on your freshly baked pastries. He had a huge appetite after his workouts, so you decided to treat him.

Although today was relatively peaceful, the werewolf was still on edge, as if he could sense something was about to happen.

“Toby, something up?”

You walked over, placing a pastry in front of him. “Here, it’s on the house.”

Tobias looked up at you as if you offered him the world, taking the pastry into his hands carefully. The man loved his baked goods, and giving him something like this for free meant a lot more to him than you knew.

“Thank you… and it’s nothing, I just…”

His wolf ears perked up when the bell chimed, signaling someone had just walked in. A nasty looking monster walked in, his horrible body odor spreading through the cafe like a thick miasma.

None of that mattered to you, though. You politely greeted him, smiling as you gestures towards your menu. “Welcome, what would you like, sir?”

“Hey, toots. Black coffee and some of those bagels, stat.”

Code: hunni for 20% off of your first month of membership on Patreon!

Wanna read this story early? Go to Patreon or Kofi! There are plenty of other early and exclusive stories to read there!

[somesaintiam]

Guys... We moved on from this shot WAY too fast

First of all, it's pretty obvious that this shot is from Johnathan's perspective. Before this shot is shown, a shot showing Johnathan looking at this mirror is shown. What I see most people commenting about this scene is the rainbow in the mirror and the romantic lighting here. While these are both true and are clearly Queer-coding, I feel like there is a lot more here.

As we know, Will is an unreliable narrator. (For a quick recap, some evidence which proves this are many of the scenes in Rink-O-Mania, with Will seeing Mike and El as a happy couple roller-skating, but a scene following shows Mike and El looking pretty unhappy.) This shows Will's perspective of him loving Mike but sacrificing his own feelings for mileven's relationship because he believes Mike would never love him back and his belief Mike is happy with El (+more with Will's own internalized homophobia towards himself).

Johnathan shows an outside perspective of the van scene, showing how Mike is endearingly and nervously watching Will as Will is speaking to him. Johnathan knows something is up here, he knows his brother, and he knows that his brother is giving a veiled confession to his best friend. This is further shown in Will's coming out scene in the Surfer Boys Pizza restaurant. In other words, based on this (referring to the gif) scene's existence and its lighting, Johnathan either knows, or might suspect that Will's feelings for Mike are requited. This scene is set up for the audience to be rooting for Will, and to not rule out the possibility that Mike likes Will back.

+ Johnathan being Will's brother, it's possible he knew something was up with the both of them long before this scene. He and his brother have always been seen as outcasts (and they have always both supported each other), so he probably didn't rule out the possibly that Will and Mike have something more than friendship for each other.

The point I'm trying to make here is that Johnathan is probably going to play a big role, or some sort of role, in byler getting together in season 5. He clearly knows something is up, and he knows how Will is, and he knows Will likes Mike.

The only way byler is going to happen is if there is some sort of outside force which is going to lead to them/push them into confessing to each other. This could be one of them almost dying, Vecna exposing a secret, and/or a lot of other things.

Johnathan is probably going to be one of the main outside forces who is going to contribute to a byler confession happening because he was heavily involved in the season 4 byler plot.

(my bad if this has already been said and it's kind of unnecessarily long due to the background information/recaps, but I wanted to talk about this)

[snowstormarts]

Cuddling time [Date Everything x GN Reader]

Just some cuddling with the boys, headcanons maybe & co. I'm just dipping my claws in the water here so don't expect too much since its been a few years since I last wrote anything really ^^"

Also feel free to send me ideas or requests, I have a hard time coming up ideas to write for (which will be probably a bit obvious, sorry) but have fun reading, reblogs & likes are appreciated

[Feat: Daemon, Chance, Hector, Mateo & Dirk/Clarence]

[Dividers by ithemes]

🐾 Mateo Manta 🐾

- His arms wrap around your waist, they fit perfectly around you as he pulls you closer letting your head rest on his soft, warm chest. Not to mentione that if you're still cold or need something weighted he will gladly share his jacket with you that smells like Vanilla & Tasslehounds

- I headcanon that the Jacket he wears is weighted like a weighted blanket, which can help with his Anxiety

- Once you got all cozy he will tell you about his day, be it the chaos his/the other residents critters have caused while under his care or what new stray he had found. And of course he listens to what you have to share, laughing, nodding along & hugging you when it was an especially hard/overwhelming day. Blocking out all the stress for the time being, letting you be pulled into a wall of pure comfort & safety

- His Critter family is of course, also here in the room, you can't keep them away from you guys. Stitch & Davi sleep at your feet, curled up against each other while Sprite lays on top of Mateos head

🪲☣ Daemon ☣🪲

- Seeing as he is a Game Bug, he hasn't experienced a lot besides breaking a few game scenes and trying to scare you, so when you offered to cuddle with him, he simply just said "sure" and went along with it, not expecting much

- But the second you cuddled up to him on the bed you realized quickly that he was quiet stiff, laying straight on the bed staring up at the ceiling. He wasn't quiet sure what to do seeing as the scrapped files didn't have cuddling codes, so you would need to lend a hand...or two...

- But once he got it down, it was the strangest yet comfiest cuddle session you ever had. Sometimes besides the arms around you midsection you would feel other arms carassing you, massaging your shoulders as you felt his lips on your neck, forehead and back even though he was facing you, never daring to look away from you

- He also produces a silent, whitenoise-humming sound, so if you ever have problems sleeping he's the man to go to...If you can ignore his glowing, white eyes that will stare at you the whole time

🎲 Chance 🎲

- Can be the little or big spoon, he's quiet happy with either or. As a little spoon he will talk about the characters he has for G&G, their storys, motivations, design ideas and so much more. While as a Big spoon he will tell you a story, whatever you want it can be adventurous, a horror story or just a fairytale so you can relax while he fills the silence

- He will always cuddle up to you, either burrying himself into your chest or shoulder or curling himself around you. Cocooning you into a save hold, legs drapped over yours as he rests his forehead against the back of your neck

- Makes the coolest pillowforts, the pillow walls are super sturdy somehow and he even got some fairy lights. Overtime he will build them out to a point where they basically become less of a pillowfort and more of a pillowcave with a secret back entrance & snack hoard

💨❄ Hector ❄💨

- Poor man will be too anxious to leave the attic at first, he showed himself to you and that did help with some of his self-esterm issues but not all of them. So you decided to build a little nest in the attic with him, so you could still get some cuddling experience with him

- He's a great cuddle buddy, he can change his body heat to whatever you desire which means even when it's in the middle of summer you can enjoy a good cuddle session in his arms without breaking a sweat

- He's a small spoon through and through, he curls up into a ball (much like a cat) and gets as close as he can without making you uncomfortable. He will also pull a blanket over himself to stay hidden because of his never ending reddening face [He will be gently teased about it by some of the others in the Attic]

👕🕸 Dirk/Clarence 🫧👕

- Dirk is a chaotic cuddler, he will drap his arm and head over your chest and use you like a cuddly bed plushy. He also sleeps without a shirt on so you can run your fingers across his back, admire the tattoos he has, draw shapes across his body that will have him teasingly ask you what you are doing. Though be warned he will retaliate if you do somehow find a ticklish spot on him, cuddle time can wait that man would be on a tickle war path

- Clarence on the other hand is a more neatly cuddler, he will pull you to his side and let you rest on his shoulder. On the otherside of you is of course the Batman Bodypillow, keeping your back protected from not only the cold but also nightmares [Acording to him at least]

- Dirk always brings a plushy around that you had washed once but never got back, you thought you lost it somehwhere but nope he simply "borrrowed" it and then hid it behind Washford whenever you came around. It was one item that brought him comfort after he and Harper had a rough fight, the lil' guy was basically his vent buddy while he was with her

- He has a solid grip, no matter if he's in a dirty or clean, once he has you in his arms it will be a feat to escape from him. And don't even try waking him up, that man sleeps like a rock...