#i’m gonna try i’m gonna TRY to make something a bit more mainstream. maybe a c.od fic/headcanons or smth (latter if i can find a good prompt

[iinmysights]

i lied it’s gonna be another lee christmas fic

[oddballwriter]

Various MH & EMH Guys with an S/O who can Speak a Different Language

Summary: How Jay, Brian, Tim, Evan, Jeff, and HABIT react to a s/o who can speak a different language

Warnings: HABIT is here

Relationship: romantic 💕

Author’s snip: This idea came to me when thinking about a few headcanons that I have and then thinking about how some of the slenderverse guys would react to you speaking a different language.

Notes: There is no specific language and also if you can speak more than one foreign language that’s awesome. And if you have a native language feel free to place that here too. I just felt like making something for my bi-/multi-lingual peeps.

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy!

꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦

Marble Hornets

Jay

He’s actually the one who gave me the idea for this because I hc that he knows how to speak Spanish

Idk where this hc came from but I just hc that he knows it to the point that he can hold a decent conversation and probably learned it from foreign language classes in high school or whatever

Idk the foreign language requirements for Alabama high schools but I’m just gonna assume that that’s where he got it from

Anyways, if you speak Spanish then it’s fun for him since you guys can talk in a completely different language which feels weirdly fresh to him. Maybe you can help his Spanish become better by doing that

If you speak another one that’s fine too

Jay would probably get curious and ask if you can teach him some words in that language or maybe even how to speak it a little

If English isn’t your first language and sometimes only remember how to say a word or thing in your native language then he’ll have a bit of fun trying to guess what your trying to say via you trying to describe it like it’s charades

You: It’s like… a bug…

Jay: Okay.

You: But like, it’s not born that way, it’s something else at first. Like a worm?

Jay: A caterpillar?

You: Caterpillar! Yes but then it turns into something?

Jay: Oh, a butterfly?

You: Butterfly! Yes!

Brian

He thinks it’s fancy that you can speak a foreign language

Even if it’s not one of the fancy or romantic languages like Spanish, French, or German or whatever languages are considered fancy to know

I actually think he wouldn’t really notice till you were on the phone with a relative or talking to someone who only speaks that language

Once he does he asks you what language you just spoke and what you said

He does the same as Jay where he’ll then ask you to teach him some words and even laugh at some that he thinks sound funny

It’s not to be mean when he laughs obviously

He just thinks that some of the words sound funny

If you forget how to say a word in English then he’ll let you take your time trying to remember

He does however think it’s cute when you try and describe it by trying to imitate the sound that it makes or describe what it looks like

Tim

He doesn’t know how to speak any languages other than English so he finds it interesting whenever you start speaking in any language other than English

Soon he actually likes it when you do at some point even if he has no idea what you’re saying

Idk he just likes hearing you talk

He’d gladly let you teach him some words

Hell, maybe at some point he’ll even ask you to teach him how to speak it so that he can have conversations with you and understand you

It’ll obviously take him a while to get the hang of it but he finds it pretty fun

If the language you speak has weird vocabulary and grammar he’s definitely gonna ask questions

Tim: Wait so even if there’s way more girls than boys in a group, you still use the plural for the boys in Spanish?

You: Yup.

Tim: That’s a bit sexist.

You: Haha, yeah.

EveryManHYBRID

Evan

Look me in the eyes and tell me that he knows any type of foreign language or words that aren’t known in mainstream media or foods

He thinks it’s so fucking cool that you know how to speak a language fluently

He begs you to teach him how to speak that language

Of course he wants you to teach him how to cuss in it first /hj

But no, seriously, he wants you to teach him so bad cause he likes the thought of being able to talk shit about people with you in plain earshot of them and also just having a cool way to talk

He realizes that that’s easier said than done later but he’s still committed to trying

Once he gets the hang of it he thinks he’s so cool because he knows how to speak a foreign language

Let him bask in that glory, it’ll wear off in a bit

He also likes to guess what you’re saying whenever you forget how to say a word in English but he genuinely treats it like a game of charades

Jeff

Here comes Mr. romantic lover boy 🙄 /hj

No, because he thinks it’s so attractive that you can speak a foreign language regardless of what language it even is

He also begs for you to teach him since he wants to be able to talk to you and even flirt with you in it

He likes to use you teaching him how speak that language as a form of date

Maybe once he knows enough to have a basic understanding then you guys can watch movies with the dub of that language so that it’s still a movie date but he’s also still learning how to speak it

HABIT

So I have this hc that since he’s humanity’s bad habit. He inherently knows all of the languages in the world and maybe even some forgotten ones

He’s a weird inter-dimensional demon so it’s not that crazy to think that

Plus he canonically knows French since some of the videos he’s put in the EMH channel’s titles are in French

Im getting slightly off track, anyways

What I’m trying to say is that you can have a full on conversation with him in the language that you speak

Even languages if you’re tri- or multi-lingual

He won’t teach you any tho

He doesn’t have the patience for that

But 100% if you wanna talk in any language at all, you can just start speaking it and the second he realizes which one you’re speaking he’ll just start talking in it

[fancyfade]

Hi so I’m a Damian fan, who is still trying to get into comics and DC in general and stuff. I do know some tidbits from fandom and different blogs that I follow that do analysis.

However after a discussion with my brother (who’s been in special-ed), came this question? I don’t really know how to ask this but I’ll try to phrase it the best I can??

When it comes to schooling realistically would he be put into Special ED (Special-Education?)

While Damian doesn’t have a disability, I think because of his upbringing. Okay let me explain a little. Since Damian has college levels of education, being put into regular classes wouldn’t be considered challenging enough and if he were to be tested, the teacher probably would have to meet with his parents on whether or not to have him move up several grades?

And if the whole reason for Damian to being put into school is to help socially, then maybe special-Ed would help him? Because, the teachers are more hands on and (according to my brother) more focused on social development. And Special ED usually more works on basic life skills which probably is more of Damian needs.

But anyways, I know probably comic writers are not going to do that. But I thought it was an interesting thing to bring up for discussion?

I don't have personal experience with special education, so I can't comment on that. Teaching experience wise I can say there are two different ways people adapt content for students with disabilities:

Accommodations are ways you help students learn the same content as their peers. This can be making sure the content is conveyed via multiple means (ex: always having something visual to help explain while you are talking), breaking stuff into smaller chunks for students with ADHD, and like... a gazillion other things.

Modifications actually change what is demanded of the student, so you are asked to learn different content than your peers. I am under the impression that some special ED programs might allow for a modified curriculum, as im doing some research.

WRT hands on teacher stuff, I know that some students genuinely have a hard time managing their behavior in a regular classroom and can benefit from more individualized attention. We do know Damian isn't one of those students, though.

Continuing to connect this to DC comics characters, with my general lack of experience in special education in specific? If his parents were putting him in a non-mainstream-school thing I'm not sure why they would choose special ed instead of a gifted program, when both would presumably involve smaller classes with a more hands on teacher, but the special ED teacher would probably have a wide range of abilities to teach to. I think Damian also has had lots of experience working with teachers in small classroom environments (getting tutored 1-on-1 for most of his childhood :P) so I assume if he wants to learn more about peer social interaction he'd benefit more from something he's not used to, like a bigger classroom size? IDK. He's had small class sizes a lot of his life.

I do want to point out that Social Emotional Development is a current buzzword in teaching (and some people think it's getting too much attention and teachers are being asked to do things that reasonably should be parents responsibility but... :P not gonna get into teaching discourse since I do not have a lot of strong opinions on it) and lots of people want to try to work on kids development socially even in mainstream classes. However obviously that's hard with big class sizes.

Anyway TL;DR: I'm not really seeing how it would come up realistically, but take that with a grain of salt due to my lack of experience.

EDIT: Ok after reviewing my notes and a teensy bit more research, I don't think it's realistic I can't believe I fucking forgot the least restrictive environment thing XD and while obviously the least restrictive environment for any given student is not always a mainstream classroom, in many cases kids who receive special education services do spend time in mainstream classrooms, and at least in the US (which he is going to school in US so I think I can use this generalization :P) the goal admin would have is that the kids in Special ED do spend time in mainstream classrooms as they can, you don't spend like the whole day in a separate room. A lot of the general thought atm is that kids are not separate from their peers without justification.

[bakubabes-tatakae]

Event Status: Closed (assigning characters for remaining spots)

Another milestone is upon us and for 8k we’re gonna change it up and do something that we’ve never done before. You guys are in charge of who these pieces will be involving, but I’ve already got an idea for what is going to be in each of them, it’ll just be molded to whomever is chosen for that day.

For anyone that isn’t already aware I’m a huge Machine Gun Kelly fan and what better way to bring him into my work than by using his latest album as a milestone event. Each of the songs off of his new album has found a way to inspire a piece for me. This is an entire event of song pieces.

You’ll find the tracklist underneath the cut and each piece will quite simply be named after the song. Some of these pieces will be NSFW and some of them will contain some content that not everyone will enjoy so if you’re familiar with the songs please make sure you choose wisely. As always my writing will be x fem!Reader because that’s what I’m most comfortable doing, but any of them that I am able to I will be trying my hardest to keep GN. And I’ll obviously be tagging everything accordingly, but just some disclaimers before they come out.

Any space that says TBD are the tracks left open to select from so request aways lovelies.

It’s first come first serve for who gets the pick for characters! Simply send me an ask with something as simple as “Ken Ryuguji with track 3” or “Eren Yeager and Drug Dealer” and if that track hasn’t been selected then that will be the character I choose! Character repeats are fine, but I encourage everyone to try to pick different characters, just to spice it up a little bit since I do tend to write for the same people over and over.

These pieces will start rolling out as soon as 8k hits and will continue to roll out every other day for the next three or so weeks after we hit the mark. 19 pieces in all! Some of them are already labeled NSFW because of the context of the songs, but others may change as I get them written.

If you don’t want to be involved with the fun in the 8k event then go ahead and blacklist the tag: #mainstream sellout event or #bakubabes celebrates 8k

9 Lives || Zuko x fem!Reader

More Than Life || Katsuki Bakugou x fem!Reader

Why Are You Here? || {NSFW} Beelzebub x fem!Reader

Last November || Rin Okumura x fem!Reader

Born With Horns || Naruto Uzumaki x fem!Reader

God Save Me || Satoru Gojo x fem!Reader

Maybe || Goku x fem!Reader

Drug Dealer || (will contain drug use) Osamu Dazai x fem!Reader

Mainstream Sellout || Shuji Hanma x fem!Reader

Make Up Sex || {NSFW} Benimaru Shinmon x fem!Reader

Emo Girl || {NSFW} Ichigo Kurosaki x fem!Reader

5150 || Izaya Orihara x fem!Reader

Papercuts || Sasuke Uchiha x fem!Reader

WW4 || Megumi Fushiguro x fem!Reader

Ay! || Shikamaru Nara x fem!Reader

Fake Love Don’t Last || Manjiro “Mikey” Sano x fem!Reader

Die In California || Renji Abarai x fem!Reader

Sid & Nancy || {NSFW} Ken “Draken” Ryuguji x fem!Reader

Twin Flame || Eren Yeager x fem!Reader

©2022 bakubabes-tatakae, please do not repost/modify without my permission, please do not use my work as ASMR without my permission

[danielfuckingricciardo]

Me and my friends went for a day out today, and I just wanted to share with you all the experience we had at a karting place. Trigger warning for Sexism in general and mention of Andr*w T*te. Gonna put this under the cut because it’s a bit of a rant.

Obviously I’m a big f1 fan, and I’ve gradually managed to drag some of my friends into being fans too. Because of this, when we saw a karting place for adults we were like ‘fuck, this is so cool! We can race each other and have fun zipping around the track together!’ So naturally me and two others, both female presenting, decided to give it a go.

We paid, and then headed to the track to get seated in our karts. At this point, one of the guys staffing the place (probably around the same age as us, maybe mid 20s or so) name drops Andr*w T*te over the tannoy system. I initially laugh it off, thinking he’s taking the piss out of him for his stupid comments on F1 he’s made in the past.

As my friends and I are getting into the seatbelts, another guy comes to check they’re secure and fastened, and as he does so, asks each of us ‘do you like Andr*w T*te’

I say no, obviously I don’t. He’s a fucking top tier douchebag with some of the worst opinions on the planet. He’s sexist, homophobic, transphobic and so much more. So naturally, to me and my female presenting friends who are also LGBT+ started to feel a little uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, we’d paid for the experience, so we get to racing. It’s fun. Really fun. I loved it, it was great to race my friends and go around the track. But I can’t shake what these guys had said from my mind, and neither could my friends.

We get out of the karts once finished, and return to the other three friends and tell them about what they had said to us. Naturally, they were outraged.

These weren’t just innocent comments. They were loaded in sexism because we were, to them, three women. Just three women wanting to drive fast around a track. And they thought that the most professional thing to do was to make us feel uncomfortable immediately before we had even started driving.

This is how harmful people like T*te are to society. The influence he has been able to have over men and their attitudes is really showing. Especially when we were doing something traditionally ‘male’ or ‘masculine’ like karting.

Idk what I’m really trying to articulate here, it’s late and I’m running on four hours of sleep, red bull, and spite, but I just cannot help but think this is really a reflection of the world of racing right now in general. Like is it any wonder that women aren’t able to do well in things like F1 when these are the attitudes women are faced with??

We see it in the grandstands, in the commentary boxes, on social media. Time and time again women are harassed, hated and teased for no reason other than their sex. And it’s fucking disgusting.

Anyway, this was just my experience at one karting place somewhere in England. But I can guarantee other places contain the same kind of staff who have been indoctrinated by the king of discriminatory attitudes presented in the media by people like T*te.

We were made to feel uncomfortable doing something we had paid to do, just because of the sex in which we were born which is just simply fucking disgusting.

I’m unsure how or where I would be able to report them, or even if they would face any punishment or reprimand for their actions today. Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve been on the end of sexist comments and it certainly won’t be the last.

I just want to document this here to, I don’t know, maybe provide an extension to the bigger picture that mainstream sexists like T*te are having on societal attitudes, particularly those of young men.

I wish we could live in a world where people are not judged for things they cannot change. Things they cannot choose, and that don’t have any impact on the quality or worth of a person. However, that’s clearly just a dream, a fantasy world that will never be because in 2022, men like him are still allowed a platform.

Thanks for reading x

[xplrvibes]

yeah i can see why it would feel long, at some specific points it felt repetitive but honestly i don’t mind because it makes it feel more realistic in a way. you’re not gonna get activity and answers all the time so it’s interesting to see that other side. and for the first time i’ll say i’m thankful they didn’t give us a backstory and got straight into it because i’m exhausted of hearing the same story over and over again of that place. it was relieving that i didn’t have to hear for the nth time about ed, lorraine, the possessed family and all the previous stuff that went down. on their uss salem video (which i’m currently watching) they give a bit more of a context by including the explanation from the caretaker/owner/guide so i’m guessing they chose not to do it bc the conjuring house is already very well known even outside of paranormal niche.

now let me tell you something - when i realized there would be no background music, no over the top editing, it was just good old simple investigation, i was relieved. like i genuinely let out a breath of relief. that’s exactly what i had been looking for. i love snc but i always feel depleted and exhausted after watching their videos (and i only recently realized that after watching Seth’s and HN’s videos and not feeling like that after) and it’s not because of paranormal activity/content. it’s because of them. their videos are always chaotic - the constant background music, the constant loudness of their behavior, the constant pictures, it’s all too much all the time. there’s not a point where you just sit there and absorb what you’re watching because you’re being fed too much information constantly, it’s almost sensory overstimulation. so when i watched HN’s video and saw their calm approach + simple editing with no music, pictures or whatsoever, i was actually relaxed. i paid way more attention to the details and noise, even if I couldn’t fully make them out. i pray they keep that up bc honestly i’m tired of hollywood-esque mainstream videos - if i wanted that, i’d turn on my tv tbh. i don’t need youtubers to have that so HN really spoke to me.

it’s funny because i got to know seth and HN through snc and now i like those three’s content more than i do snc. snc to me is just like… entertainment point of view. truly hollywood-esque type of thing. i see them the way i used to see zak’s show. seth and HN have literally become my go-to for paranormal content filmed, due to their approach, the way they do things and use equipments, etc. like it’s just different, i can’t fully explain it but snc rarely seem to take things seriously, while the other three have a more serious approach every time. as someone that has talked to mediums and entities, respect is very important to me - but that’s just a personal preference coming from personal experiences.

and yeah, the seven popping up was interesting. i’m unsure if it was referring to the soldiers or the number of spirits trying to communicate. or maybe even referring to something else. and steve… like he’s intimidating. i feel intimidated by him (but in a good way). it’s a calm intimidation - he’s very respectful without letting himself vulnerable for possible attacks. i truly like how incisive he was when asking questions, he didn’t just leave it open for interpretation of things. he was very clear and direct, i liked that.

overall i just loved the vibes of the video. i’m a person that hates breaking immersion. if i’m watching something and i’m invested in it, i’m entertained and immersed, i absolutely hate when something or someone breaks that for me. their video followed the same pace constantly with the same eerie vibe and i could actually see what an investigation in a place like this is like. when you’re watching a video like snc’s you think “oh it’s not even that hard/scary” because (again) you’re being fed too much information. but when you watch a video like HN’s you can feel the silence. you can actually understand why the atmosphere affects people so much and you can understand when they hear noises and get jumpy because everything is silent. it’s only them in the house (at least the only ones with flesh and blood lol). even the damn air is stale. it feels like you’re investigating with them and you’re not even there lol. the vibes were a 10/10 for me. kept me on my toes all the time. loved it.

Oh, I agree about the Conjuring backstory- I do know it all already, lol. It's just weird to not have that in a video...but I'm glad they go more into that in the USS Salem video!

And I completely understand where you are coming from- and that's really the big difference between their videos and snc's. SNC's are made to entertain and hold an audience that's looking for all the bells and whistles that comes with entertainment content, whereas this video felt more like just old school, almost vlog style content. Again, no frills, just straight to the point. I think, at the end of the day, that comes to down to just a preference. Personally, I can go either way, although my perfect scenario would be someone in the middle of the Haunted Nights to Sam and Colby scale, lol. But, I can watch and be immersed and see the upside to both sides of the coin!

Anyway, I'll probably give the USS Salem a watch at some point, just to see how I like that. But overall, the Haunted Nights are definitely not bad!

For some reason, I have trouble getting into Seth's content- and I don't know why, because I do like him when he pops up in snc videos! But both times I tried to watch his video, I wound up falling asleep. He's like melatonin for me, lol. I have to try to watch him after a having a good night's sleep, in the middle of the day, while drinking caffeine. 🤣

[aiura-stan]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me tell you about you and your shipping preferences based on your Saiki K OTP! And also psychoanalyze you a little bit.

I was originally gonna make this a quiz, but I’ve never made a quiz before and it sounds too hard with this many ships. Sorry if I missed your ship; just @ me and I’ll add it. The number of possible ships in this show is ridiculous. I haven’t done the math, but I’m sure it’s a ton.

I’ve put every Saiki K ship I can think of in here. You can command + F to find your ship; all ships are written Character A/Character B at the beginning of the description.

I’ll only judge you a little on the ships I hate. That’s not too many, though. Warning for some adult humor but nothing that’s not already in the show. I tried to keep all of the descriptions at least 50 words. Enjoy…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SaiTeru

Saiki/Teruhashi- What can you say? You’re a romantic. You like what you like, and you like the classics. Some could even call your tastes mainstream; you prefer the term canon. People tend to underestimate your potential.  Those people really don’t know what they’re doing, and you will more than likely surprise them with your fortitude, flexibility and sensitivity. Also? Teruhashi haters have it coming.

SaiAi

Saiki/Aiura- You prefer the unconventional couple over the other options. Who said romance has to be boring?? Honestly- it’s only boring if the characters in it are boring. You don’t actually believe in soulmates, but you do think the idea of destiny should count for something, right? And fortunetelling and Astrology are just cool. Who cares if it’s ‘real’ or not. Opposites attract appeals to you the most, but you wouldn’t say no to a good friends to lovers. So long as they have something in common that isn’t just a sense of obligation.

SaiKetchi

Saiki/Akechi- You’re huge fan of childhood friends to lovers. And personally? You don’t really ‘get’ the appeal of a dynamic like SaiTeru. Shouldn’t there be at least some positive basis for a good romance? But hey, to each their own. And you certainly have a mountain of canon evidence to point to for your ship. You’ve got it all organized on a google doc just in case anyone asks about it. You’ve also memorized some of the finer details of the Akechi-figures-out-kusuo’s-powers episode. Honestly? Good for you; I wish I could do that. You’re probably a bit of a romantic and slightly embarrassed about it. But there’s really no need for that- after all, some people ship embarrassing things like Saiki and Makoto…

KaiSai

What did the dark reunion say to the chunnibyou? Nothing, the dark reunion doesn’t exist. But that sure hasn’t stopped this guy.

You think there’s something cute about two of the main characters getting together. Plus, what would happen if impostor syndrome and chunni syndrome actually got to know each other? Interesting things, is what you’ve been trying to tell everyone. Their opposite delusions are fun, and it’s not too often that you see a character like Kaidou who uses an unrealistic but positive self image to cope with stuff. You think Saiki could use more of that in his life, and Kaidou could definitely use someone looking out for his best interests who actually has the ability to help him. Your ideal fic focuses on the unexplored implications of the power reveal, and forces both characters to confront the parts of themselves they don’t like, but really should.

ToriSai

You know that one channel who does comedy one liners about what your [series] ship says about you? Well *you* believe in the inherent eroticism of being an unapologetic pervert. In all seriousness, you certainly have some interesting tastes but hey, it’s not like there isn’t plenty of stuff in canon that you can point to and back up your point. You think stalking isn’t such a bad couples origin story; who knows, maybe it will be funny to tell the kids in the future. You’re pretty misunderstood because of your tendency to act outlandishly, but you’re just trying to cover up the fact that you’re quite a shy person internally. You enjoy nonsense and borderline tortuous angst, but at the end of the day, you secretly like sappy romance as much as anyone else.

SatouSai

Saiki/Satou- Give it up for the only (sort of) canon gay ship in the show!! Anybody?? Anybody?? You just want people to acknowledge how cute (and low key creepy) Saiki’s obsession with the normal dude is. Poor Saiki can’t catch his attention and you think that’s too bad. In any case, there’s always fic, right? Well… sort of. *looks at the total of 26 works in the tag* sigh.

KuboSai

Kuboyasu/Saiki- You think other ships pull punches- literally. Come on. Where’s the fun in shipping without the action? And boy oh boy, do you love a ship where the main characters literally have each other’s backs. You probably have seen Kobra Kai multiple times and loved it, and you don’t believe in the kind of ships where participants dance around their feelings for an eon. That’s a no on slow burn, but a ‘yes’ on slowly getting to know each other, and a definite yes on being fiercely protective of each other no matter what.

SaiMera

Saiki/Mera- Some people would call your ship boring. You don’t care about people’s poor tastes in ships. You’re doing just fine in your corner with two characters who clearly deserve better and could definitely bond over their shared love of things high in both sugar and calories. You like how protective Saiki is of his friend, but wish he’d have taken her plight a little more seriously. Oh well, at least there’s some great fanfics ft. Saiki showing her compassion via school lunches.

NenSai

Saiki/Nendou- when Nendou said “Oi, Aibou, wanna get some ramen?” you really felt that in your soul. You’re a fan of superpowered genius x superpowered idiot. You’re either morosexual or sapiosexual, probably both. In any case, you think Nendou hate is completely unjustified. After all, he’s one of the best and funniest characters in the entire show. I couldn’t agree more.

SaiHara

Saiki/Yumehara- Do you believe in love at first sight?! Well, neither does Saiki, apparently. Your ship was sunk before it ever left the harbor but you’re fine with that. It is a comedy after all.

Like this ship’s name, it’s a bit of a desert. By the second half of the first season Yumehara’s already moved on to greener romantic pastures with Kaidou. You love these two all the same. And after all, that’s what fan content is for- making ideas that would be absurd, unnecessary or redundant in canon possible and relevant.

SaiRo

Saiki/Hairo- You saw Hairo seemed to be missing out on all the action and thought it was unfair. Also, Saiki really loves the running gag about his ass. That’s kind of gay. Not to mention he’s one of the few people Saiki says that he likes. And why wouldn’t he? Hairo is one likeable dude.  Saiki’s invested in Hairo’s sexuality, and so are you. After all, how cool would that be if the nicest, most likeable character in the entire show was gay? Pretty nice, in your opinion.

SaiHii

Saiki/Hii- You’ve always been a rarepair shipper and unfortunately that didn’t stop with this series. You prefer het though. You think Saiki needed someone to show him what bad luck *actually* was and you’re glad that person was Suziyuma Hii. After all, her dedication to taking things like a champ is impressive. I think you should watch Milo Murphy’s law. You would probably like it.

SaiSai

Saiki/Saiko- Maybe you like alliteration, I dunno. In any case, you’re a fan of the whole holier-than-thou thing that Saiko’s got going. You think he’d make a decent couple with Saiki because as much as Saiki complains about not wanting to stand out, he’s a bit of an egotist himself. Both have daddy issues they refuse to confront and deal with in opposite ways. There’s a lot of potential, in other words. Plus m/m rivals-to-lovers that doesn’t feature godawful characters and isn’t problematic.

KusuKu

Saiki/Kuusuke- I don’t know their actual ship name. Like their DNA, their names are WAY too similar for anything more coherent. You love one-sided feelings, obsessions, and one sided rivalries. So when you saw the potential for all three in a single ship, you jumped at the opportunity. You don’t mind the kind of ship where one character utterly ruins the other one (insert I could make him worse meme) and there’s a more-than-decent chance you’re into noncon. You don’t particularly mind that your ship is abusive. If I said I wasn’t judging you for this I would be lying. *Shoos you away to go sit in the sibcon corner with MaKomi*

Saiki/reader- Hello simp. You’re a saiki simp. You really did not need me to tell you that.

ToriHii

Toritsuka/Hii- You think these two deserve each other. When Hii chan was introduced and Toritsuka got put off by her, you were thinking Finally! Someone who can hold their own against Toritsuka. That said, you don’t think a little romance is out of the question here. Plus, you just love the humor in the only girl willing to date Toritsuka being literally the unluckiest girl alive. You really enjoyed when he committed that selfless act at Saiki’s firm prodding, and you’re quite proud of your boy Toritsuka’s character development over the series.

ToriKechi

Toritsuka/Akechi- your favorite ship dynamic is willfully stupid x death-by-monologue genius. You’re also quite fond of characters who annoy the hell out of each other and deserve each other in that respect. If you had to describe your taste in ships, you’d say characters who REALLY weren’t meant to be. Because that just makes you ship it harder.

ToriAi

Toritsuka/Aiura- You love bickering couples a whole lot. The less it’s a joke/friendly prod, the better. You know some people like the kind of ship where both parties can tease each other and enjoy it. You are not one of those people. In the end, though, both parties have to be there for each other when it counts.  Honestly, you’re kind of lonely here in this fandom. There’s only one story for them on AO3, and you’re not surprised or heartbroken, per se, but you do low-key wish you weren’t the only one here.

KuTori

Kuusuke/Toritsuka- Not to be confused with ToriSai. This is one of those ships where I have to lowkey judge you. You’re probably into the idea of kidnapping a little bit too much. Genius mastermind x hapless pawn happens to be one of your preferred dynamics. You think cute and fluffy ship dynamics are for cowards. I think you should watch Kakegurui. If you like yuri (bait) that is. In the interest of not throwing stones in metaphorically fragile houses I’ll give you a pass.

AiHii

Aiura/Hii- The fortuneteller and the misfortunate! The one who tells the future and the one who experiences it! The one who calls the shots and their shy but loyal follower! You think there’s a lot of things to love about this ship. Aiura can be Hii Chan’s knight in shining armor any day of the week; you love to see it. Congrats on having some of the most unique ship tastes (in my opinion.) I’d love to see some content from you because I am not sure I’ve ever seen anything of this pairing before.

SatoHii

Satou/Hii- They’re just cute, okay?? The fact that Satou’s supernaturally average luck is totally unaffected by Hii chan’s supernaturally horrible luck is great. They’re practically made for each other. Just something about not needing to be anything more than average to be happy, and someone always being there for you to pull you out of bad situations and offer you a handkerchief… You do believe in love after all, you think, even in this unfair, broken world.

YumeAi

Yumehara/Aiura- Gossip girlfriends- that’s your ship. You think there’s so much untapped potential in the one who sees the potential in all relationships vs the one who sees the raw likelihood of those relationships working out, in terms of percentage. They’re sort of opposites, but dang, if they ever ran a love advice business, it would be world famous. They’re a power couple in the matters of love and the heart. You probably really like fluff that gets serious, and awesome plotlines that come up out of nowhere and seize your attention.

YuMera

Yumehara/Mera- You like cute girls, and you think the one who doesn’t have time for love is the one who needs it the most. Also, the correct answer to Yumehara’s loneliness is femslash, because Saiki and Kaidou obviously aren’t interested. You’re more than a little judgmental, but you make up for it by being a good, supportive friend to those you are close to. You mean well even when your attempts at solving the problem don’t go over well. You probably think fics with a happy ending should be mandatory fandomwide, period. Yumehara is compassionate and considerate and Mera is matter of fact; they balance each other out, the way you see it. You’re probably fond of those cooking shows like Barefoot Contessa, where the personality is part of the reason you watch the show. That said, you definitely actually put those recipes to good use, even if you go heavy on the substitutions.

Kunirumi-

Kuniharu/Kurumi- You’ve never been one for soulmates but these two are clearly that to each other. Plus they are canon, so… You love these two to death, but you really wonder what is going on with them that their children are so weird. At least they’re trying to be good parents.

MerSaiko

(Mera x Saiko) You take “eat the rich” extremely literally. You’re fond of crackships with cursed implications, and probably have severe daddy issues. But hey, we can’t have it all, right. And money can’t fix everything but damn if it can’t fix a lot of stuff.

KaiMera

Kaidou/Mera- They hardly interacted but that’s not stopping you from shipping it. Two underdogs who have a lot on their plates- that sounds appealing to you.

NenKai

Nendou/Kaidou- You are a little nuts, but you’re okay with that. These two have that bickering, grating friendship that you always look for in a ship. You’re down for maximum chaos, but you’d prefer if it wasn’t too weird. You weren’t looking for tall and beefy x small and scrawny when you stumbled across this ship, but hey, you’ll take it. Both seem to live in their own version of reality, and you love that for them. Plus it’s a smart x dumb dynamic. Someone has to have the braincells in a relationship, after all.

ImuTeru

Teruhashi/Imu- You’re a fan of lesbians and things that might as well be canon, if the author wasn’t a coward that is. You also love friends to lovers, not that you’ve gotten anything out of it thus far in your shipping career without pulling teeth, especially as a femslash fan and drama officionado. You’re extremely protective of your friends. This is not negotiable and if people are mean to someone you care about, they will pay. So what if you’re petty? Everyone’s petty; most people just refuse to admit it. Honestly? Respect. You do scare me a little though.

AiTeru

Aiura/Teruhashi- Congratulations on having impeccable taste, fellow femslash connoisseur. You really liked the scene where Aiura meets Teruhashi and sees her aura. Rivals in love to lovers? Can I get a hell yeah? Anyways. You think love triangles are really overrated, and Saiki Kusuo definitely agrees with you. So, there’s that going for your ship!  

YumeTeru

Yumehara/Teruhashi- Established friends to lovers is your cup of tea. Multiple cups, really, because you’ll take as many as you can get. You are also probably a KuboKai shipper, and possibly a SaiTeru shipper. They are friends, after all, as much as Saiki tries to deny it, and as much as Teruhashi tries to push it in a romantic direction. You like the casualness of a relationship where the couple can confide in each other about their crushes without worrying about the other party getting jealous or hurt feelings. Being there for each other is probably the biggest gesture of love in your opinion.

HiiTeru

Hii/Teruhashi- Points for a fun shipname! You’re not really concerned about what is and isn’t canon. Shipping is for fun, right? And why not give your lady (un) luck some love. You’re quite curious about how the whole luck thing in the Saiki K universe works, anyways. You personally just think that Lesbians, you know? No object or prepositional phrase required in that sentence. You’re probably a multi shipper as well, but you prefer the ladies.

Teruhashi/Reader- you’re a proud, unashamed and unabashed admirer of Teruhashi Kokomi. She thinks she’s a Goddess and she is, unironically! Who needs SaiTeru when you, personally, can imagine yourself falling in love with Kokomi. That’s so much better. You think she should have gotten *more* screentime, not less. You actually don’t care that much for the show or any of the other characters, aside from getting a few laughs here and there. You’re mostly just here for Teruhashi Kokomi, the Perfect Pretty Girl.

MaKomi

Makoto/Kokomi- I don’t even know if this is their real ship name. I really do not want to know. 

You are Makoto Teruhashi. Like Makoto Teruhashi, I am really glad you didn’t get what you wanted in the end. You’re among the people who take Saiki K way too seriously and you’re okay with that. The fact that this is a satire anime may just have gone entirely over your head. You simp for both of the Teruhashis hardcore and are a-OK with fictional incest. Congrats, and also I want nothing to do with you.

YumeKai

Yumehara/Kaidou- Romance is dead? Um, obviously that’s not true. You’re dedicated, in the real meaning of the word, not hyperbole. It’s easy to underestimate the staying power of love, but that stuff is even tougher than 24hr hair gel. Okay, maybe you’ve got your priorities a little wonky, but it’s sort of sweet anyways, right? Please keep dreaming of love in the meantime in stead of the rest of us cynics, dear YumeKai shipper.

SaiKoto

Saiki/Makoto- You are a crackshipper. I can’t believe there’s more of us… hello…

Anyways. You believe nothing has more potential in a ship than two people who really get on each others’ nerves. You don’t know what it is about these two aside from that. Maybe the total lack of boundaries on Makoto’s part, or maybe the complete lack of romantic feelings in the dynamic that really adds that zing (at least until it sneaks up on one or preferably both of them and bites them hard in the ass.) Whatever it is, you ship it… like, a lot.

Thanks for being embarrassing so I’m not the only weirdo who ships this. But also, if you like writing, please I am begging you, put it on AO3. There’s like four fics there. Please…

MaKuusuke

Makoto/Kuusuke- You absolutely love chaotic relationships. The more cringe-inducing, the better in your opinion. If two trashfires of a human being come together, it’s bound to create a beautiful conflagration of love in the process, right??  …No, but I appreciate your enthusiasm. You’re the kind of person who would say “arson” when asked what crime you would commit if you were legally permitted to do so.

Kuusuke/reader- What do you see in him?? Yeah, he’s a genius, but he negates that by having a personality that sucks. If left to his own devices he’d cause world war III, literally. He’s sort of fascinating but not even remotely in a hot way. Yes, I’m throwing stones and I said that I wouldn’t. Oh Well. Sooner or later one will rebound and I’ll get knocked in the teeth so don’t worry about it.

KuboKai

Kuboyasu/Kaidou- You’re basic. But you know what? At the end of the day, you’re totally right. Those idiots are in love and it’s about time everybody acknowledges it. Friends to lovers is your jam (no surprise here) and big and friendly (on the exterior) x small and feisty is kind of your thing. You think a problem that a lot of shippers have is they refuse to go back to the basics. After all, childish games, sleepovers and dorky school shenanigans form the backbone of most highshool age relationships. There’s no need for all that BS with soulmate-starcrossed-alien-lovers and whatnot. Let’s get real here.

NenRo

Nendou/Hairo- You think buff and/or sports-loving dudes should be gay together, as they were meant to be. You probably ship LawRusso if you watched Cobra Kai (if you haven’t, go do that. You will definitely like it.) That wrestling scene? (patcha perfect hand sign meme.) But to be a little more serious about the matter, bros being bros is way more interesting to read about than pining. And the two hunkiest dudes in the show just so happen to be some of the funniest as well. Score.

NenTeru

Nendou/Teruhashi: The perfect, pretty girl and the uncouth, somewhat crass but loveable himbo. Your taste in ships is unique, and you wish it wasn’t! You could really stand for some company in this already super tiny fandom (and even smaller subset of shippers, forget about someone who ships your OTP.) You are a verified Nendou appreciator; you think his straightforward but well-meaning approach to friendship is refreshing. You think Teruhashi has a lot of potential as a character that never really got addressed. At least she got some character development.

ToriKai

What did the pervert say to the chunnibyou?

Are you the Jet Black Wings? Because just like Dark Reunion, I wanna be all over you…

Canon? What’s that… You’ve never heard of her. Anyways! You’re banking on these two wimpy losers to fall for each other. Who knows, maybe Kaidou would be impressed by Toritsuka’s very real supernatural abilities. After all, he believes in powerful ghosts… You can see something forming there.

[a-dragons-journal]

i dont "kin for fun" but through tiktok i found out about the whole kin for fun vs actual otherkin... situation ig? im having a really hard time taking it seriously... maybe im just burnt out and bitter from dealing with the worlds current events, and maybe its because on tiktok the only people i saw mad about it were white people, but you're the most reasonable person ive seen talking about it (a lot of other posts have this odd tone that 12 year olds on tiktok saying kin is the worlds greatest opression and it weirds me out) so ig my question is just... why exactly does this matter? why does it matter enough to post about and care about and not just ignore? /gen

Hey! I don’t blame you for being a bit weirded out by it, we’re a weird subculture and we’re well aware of it! xD I appreciate you taking the time to actually look into it past your first knee-jerk reaction, especially considering burnout and the state of things.

I’m not totally sure if you’re asking why otherkinity matters or why the “kin for fun” being wrong matters, so I’ll answer both - they’re pretty well tied together anyway.

The short version:

Otherkinity is an identity. It’s who we are, we can’t choose to pick it up or put it down, and it comes with struggles - though no, ‘kin are not systematically oppressed (though we are pretty badly bullied and, at this point, pushed out of our own words and spaces).

What people calling roleplay/relating to/projecting onto characters “kinning for fun” does is steal our words, make them meaningless, and in doing so, make it difficult or impossible for us to find each other. If someone says “I kin [x],” I no longer know whether they mean “I am [x] on an intrinsic level” or “haha I relate to this character a lot”. I no longer know whether they actually share my experiences or if they’re going to turn on me and call me “crazy” as soon as they realize I’m not exaggerating or joking or roleplaying. It’s done massive harm to the community as a whole because it’s become difficult to tell whether someone is actually ‘kin or if they’ve misunderstood the whole thing - and because antikin rhetoric, which I’m seeing more and more in KFF spaces, hurts far more when it’s coming from inside what you thought was a community space than when it’s coming from self-labeled “antikin.”

There are other words for roleplaying and relating to and projecting onto characters. Hell, there are words for strongly identifying with-but-not-as characters/things, though usually KFF people don’t even seem serious enough for those to fit in my experience. I’m really not sure why these people are so determined to steal and misuse our words, words that were specifically created to mean something else, when they already have their own and are just refusing to use them. (Or, hell, if you don’t feel like those fit, make your own. We did. It’s your turn to put in the work. (General you, not you-the-anon, of course.))

An analogy, if that still doesn’t quite land for you:

Consider, for a moment, the transgender community. I am aware this is a dangerous thing to say, but bear with me. Obvious CW for hypothetical transphobia up ahead is obvious.

Consider if you were part of the trans community (I don’t know if you are or not), having finally found a word to explain why you feel the way you do about yourself, why your experiences don’t seem to match up with those of everyone else around you. Having found a community, a home, full of other people like you, people you never would have met if not for words like “transgender” and “gender dysphoria/euphoria” that were created specifically to describe your experiences.

Now consider if people suddenly stumbled across your community for the first time who were not trans themselves. They see community jokes and lighthearted posts out of context, because Tumblr and Twitter aren’t exactly conducive to making sure people find the Transgender 101 information posts first. They don’t bother to do further research, assuming they understand: ah, these people like to crossdress! They like to pretend they’re a different gender! This seems like a fun hobby, I want in!

They begin to post things like this. They post photos of them crossdressing and caption them “hi, I’m [name], and I trans men!” and things of the like. Suddenly the concept of “transing for fun” seems to be everywhere - and it’s not at all what being trans actually is, but these people either don’t know or don’t care. When actual trans people try to politely correct them, they’re accused of “gatekeeping” - and to be clear, this is not “nonbinary people aren’t real,” it’s “transgender means you identify as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth, and you’re self-identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth 100% and telling us this is just a fun hobby for you, therefore you’re not trans, you’re crossdressing or doing drag or being GNC. That’s fine, but it’s not being trans - you have other words to describe that, use those.”

(Yes, I am aware these things have a history with the trans community - please just ignore that for the sake of the analogy and bear with me on the slightly simplified version of this. “Kinning for fun” does not have that same history with the otherkin community.)

...And then the response to those attempted corrections, in some corners, turns into “wait, you ACTUALLY think you’re another gender? idk that sounds pretty unhealthy, maybe you should see a psychologist or something :\” and “you’re taking this too seriously.”

I imagine, in this hypothetical scenario, you’d also be pretty fuckin peeved.

(Obviously, in this hypothetical scenario, systematic transphobia would be an issue as well, which isn’t the case for otherkin - again, you’re gonna have to bear with me on the simplification for sake of analogy there.)

(EDIT: this is not an anti-MOGAI/exclusionist argument, this is “you’re literally telling me you don’t fit the definition,” explanation on that here)

The long version, which is probably still worth reading if you have the time and energy:

Otherkinity is... pretty core to who I am, who we as a group of individuals are. We live with being otherkin on a daily basis. Many of us spent a long time feeling different and disconnected and not understanding why until we found the otherkin community. Even people like me, who don’t share that experience and still had social connection - I’ve still had to live with weird differences that I had to learn to mask when necessary; instincts that don’t line up with human society well, feeling body parts that weren’t there and that no one else ever seemed to have, things that other kids grew out of because it was just make-believe for them and I... didn’t, because it was never make-believe for me to begin with. Oh, sure, I played make-believe too - I played warrior cats and house and all those things with the other kids, but there were things that weren’t play-pretend for me too. I didn’t have an explanation for it for a long time - it was just how I was, I was weird, and fortunately for me personally I was okay with that (many of those with species dysphoria or more trouble connecting with humans have more problems from that than I did).

And then I found the word “otherkin.” And suddenly everything fell into place, and I had an explanation for the things I’d been experiencing, and there were other people like me. Something I’d assumed didn’t exist. I found others who shared my unique experiences, who were talking about how to cope with the instinct to growl or snap jaws at people instead of expressing annoyance in a human way instead of just saying “that’s weird, don’t do that”, who were talking about dealing with phantom wings and tails, who understood me. I wasn’t weird, I wasn’t broken, I was exactly what one would expect from a dragon living in human skin. I found an explanation for myself. I found a home.

That is why otherkinity matters - it is who we are, it’s not something we can walk away from (certainly not most of us, anyway), and it’s something many of us need the support of the community to help deal with on a daily basis. Being a nonhuman in human society isn’t always easy, but it’s not something we can just magically stop being - it’s core to who we are, we (generally) didn’t choose to be this way, and we (generally) can’t choose to stop. Which is fine - the vast majority of us can cope with it just fine, with a little advice and help and space to be our authentic selves in. We found each other, we built this community from the ground up to make a space and words to make finding each other easier - or possible at all.

Thus we come to the second half of our story.

It was only a couple of years ago that the “kin for fun” trend started getting big. It had existed before that, of course, but it only started going mainstream two, maybe three years ago, from what I can tell. Suddenly people were treating “kin” like it meant relating to, projecting onto, roleplaying as, or just really really liking a character or thing - not being that thing, which is what it actually means. Not long after that, it became hard to tell whether someone saying “I kin this” meant they were that thing, that they were actually part of our community - or that they really really liked that thing and either didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered to learn that that wasn’t the case for us.

Not long after that, it became relatively commonplace to hear phrases like “otherkin are ruining kinning!!” and “you’re taking this too seriously” and “idk, if it’s that serious for you that sounds unhealthy. maybe you should get some help :\” (all directly quoted, or as exactly quoted as I can remember, from things KFF people have said to me or people I know).

It is a special kind of hell, I think, to be told “you’re taking this too seriously, that’s unhealthy” by people who are taking words created to describe your experiences, not theirs, and misusing them to mean something that you do for fun on a weekend instead of something that’s intrinsic to your being.

Perhaps more importantly, like I’ve said, it’s making it almost impossible to know whether someone who says “I kin [x]” is actually ‘kin or if they’re misusing our words to mean something else entirely. The entire point of words is to communicate ideas, and once you start misusing words to mean something totally different than what they actually mean, that communication falls apart and suddenly we might as well not have those words at all. Especially when the community is small enough and obscure enough that we’re starting to be outnumbered by the misinformation. We’re being run out of our own words, words we created to describe our experiences specifically - because we’re a small community that the wider internet can easily drown out by sheer numbers of people who either don’t know any better or don’t care to learn.

That’s the harm it does - the harm it is doing, right now. That’s why it’s important enough to post about. That’s why it matters - because we’re fighting desperately to hang onto our own words so that others like us can actually find us. Because we’re seeing young nonhumans go “this isn’t a kin, I actually am this” and screaming “No, I’m so sorry that this is what the misinformation has done to you, that’s exactly what otherkin means, you have a place here, please don’t let these non-’kin misusing our words drive you away from the very community you’re looking for and that you belong in.” Because we can’t even communicate effectively about our own experiences anymore except in semi-closed spaces like Discord servers and forums (and the number of Discord servers overrun with KFF people is absurd).

......This got very long. Hopefully it at least explained why it matters so much to me and others a bit better ^^; Thanks for hearing me out, and thank you again for looking into this beyond your initial knee-jerk reaction - I really do appreciate it.

(For further reading, if that text wall didn’t blow you out of the water completely, I recommend my “kin for fun” tag, which has more posts like this in both short and long form.)

[sundaysundaes]

My Words, Your Thoughts (Teaser)

Lee Donghyuck/Haechan X Reader | Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Smut | Soulmate AU, Friends-to-Lovers AU

Part of the beautiful ‘Aubade’ collaboration hosted by @hyucksie​

Synopsis: As an introvert, you are familiar with the silence. Drowning yourself deep in your thoughts has been a habit you’ve become addicted to. Your life begins to change, however, ever since the day you turned twenty. Suddenly, there’s this song that’s stuck in your head, and no matter how much you yearn to hear your thoughts or be comforted by the silence, it keeps on playing. You only get to find the answer to your problem when a young, cute barista hands you a cup of coffee one day, with that song’s lyrics written on the side. And you realize that you’re not the only one who’s been hearing voices in your head.

Warnings: explicit sex, expletives, mentions of physical abuse and astraphobia (not for the main characters)

WC (Teaser): 4k

Release Date: June 27, 2021, 10 AM KST

It’s weird. It’s so weird.

It’s weird that you’ve been hearing this song replaying over and over again in your head when you’re sure you’ve never listened to it before. It’s also weird because sometimes the song sounds like the ones you often hear about on the radio—complete with instrumental accompaniment and everything—but most of the time, it just sounds like someone is humming to it. Sometimes quietly, but more often than not, vehemently like they’re having a concert in the shower, not caring if the neighbors might hear.

As someone who rarely listens to mainstream music, you don’t keep up with the trend these days but the tunes are catchy enough that you think, maybe, it’s one of those Justin Bieber’s songs people always talk about. You’re not fond of it, though, so even if you’ve heard it somewhere in a cafe or a mall, there’s very little chance you’ll be humming it in your head.

And yet, it keeps on playing.

It gets worse when it goes on for a whole day—a whole fucking day—that your brain feels like it’s seconds away from bursting into pieces. It doesn’t even sound like your voice. It seems like it belongs to a male, a bit light and a pitch higher than most. Though it sounds pleasant, the voice is unfamiliar to your ears and that’s what bothers you the most. 

Trying your best to escape, you plug in your AirPods to your earholes, choosing one of the most beloved tracks from your playlist—today, it’s Bloom by The Paper Kites—to help you relax as you lie down on your bed. But no matter how many times you turn up the volume—it’s practically turning you deaf, ironically—you can still hear that one goddamn song playing.

“Oh my God,” you groan, projecting a murderous glare at the ceiling of your room before you shriek all of your heart’s content to your pillow. “Make it stop!”

This has been going on ever since your twentieth birthday and it’s been three months since then—three months of suffering, to be exact. Fortunately for you, you haven’t been listening to the same song for those amount of time—God, you would’ve killed yourself if that was the case. The song changes without warning. It can change ten times within a day, or stay the same for ten days. You have never heard of these songs except for the popular ones, and even then, you only ever listened to snippets as they don’t suit your taste. 

So… It doesn’t make sense that you could recite the whole lyrics, does it? 

And yet, you can. 

Somehow, you already know every word, every tune, even every ad-lib in these songs and it both amazes and creeps you out. It’s as if somebody else is singing about it in their mind, and you, somehow, are mentally connected to them.

But that’s surely not the case, right?

With more days passing by, as your brain deteriorates little by little, you start to think that maybe that is the case.

Or maybe you’re just going crazy.

It’s nine in the morning and your eyes are bleary from how you involuntarily skipped sleep last night. With the loudest sigh and your half-charged MacBook sitting still in your backpack, you let your wobbly legs carry you to the nearest coffee shop. There’s a new Starbucks store opening just a couple of blocks away from your apartment and it’s perfect since you’re going to pass it every day on your way to college. 

You’re not excited though, not when you have Michael Jackson’s Man in The Mirror playing in your head for the, approximately, thirty-fifth time that day. And it’s only nine in the fucking morning.

When you enter the coffee shop, greeted by a cute Christmas tree and festive decorations spreading all over the place even when it’s still three weeks away from the holiday, you almost weep in joy when the song stops playing in your head. It does happen from time-to-time, sometimes it stops for a few hours before it starts again with the same song or an entirely different one. But in most cases, it only pauses for a few minutes which just doubles the torture whenever you’re trying to concentrate on your paperwork.

“Hi.” You display a timid smile at a female barista, slightly wincing when the song in your head starts blaring again, as expected. It’s still the same song this time—so that thirty-sixth by now, Jesus Christ—but instead of someone humming it, it’s the original version that plays. You’re having trouble focusing on her greeting when the sound of a synthesizer echoes through your ear, stridently so. “I would like a tall skinny latte with a double shot, please.”

“Would you like anything else to accompany your drink?”

Perhaps a gun to blow my head off? “No, thanks. That’d be all for me.”

“Is that for here or to go?”

You take a quick scan of your surroundings. You still have an hour before your first class starts and since the place isn’t that crowded, you figure you might as well just spend some time here. “For here.”

You tell her your name and slide down your card to complete the payment. “All right. We will call your name once your order is ready.”

“Fantastic. Thanks.” As the female barista takes an order from another customer, you drag yourself to an empty seat in the corner of the room, next to the glassy window where you can glance at passersby. You lay your head down on the table, cheek pressed against the wooden surface, lower lip jutting out in weariness. You’re drowsy and you want to think about the snow that’s probably gonna fall sometimes near Christmas’ Day and maybe the sight of a warm fireplace where you can cozy up with your imaginary boyfriend (also known as Jung Jaehyun—that one perfect boy who lives just across of your hallway), but no, unfortunately for you, you no longer have any space left in your brain since Michael Jackson is performing a damn concert and it doesn’t seem like he’s gonna stop anytime soon.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror…” Great, now you’re singing it. “I’m asking him to change his ways…”

The music in your head abruptly stops again but before you can close your eyes to finally enjoy your silence, a familiar voice chimes in.

“It’s a great song, isn’t it?”

Shocked, you quickly lift your head to identify a male barista placing down a cup of your ordered latte on your table. You swear you recognize his voice but his face doesn’t ring a bell.

“Hi,” he greets, smiling a bit sheepishly. “I don’t usually bring orders directly to the table but I think I misheard your name so I couldn’t call you out from there.”

“That’s, umm, that’s okay…” You hide the bottom half of your face behind your scarf as you’re not used to talking to a stranger, especially one that looks overwhelmingly pretty. “What did you think my name was?”

“Umm…” He rubs the back of his nape awkwardly. “I don’t think you want to know. It was a bit… inappropriate.”

“R-right…” You glance at the cup. “It says ‘Michael.’”

He chuckles but with only a slight hint of amusement in it. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had to come up with something and it was the first thing that came to mind.”

“And it has…” Your eyes widen when you notice the words he’s written on the side of your cup. It’s not a greeting, it’s not a motivational sentence, it’s the fucking lyrics to Michael Jackson’s Man in The Mirror.

“Yeah, okay, so—” Noticing the appalled look on your face, he hurriedly tries to reason out. “I’ve had this song stuck in my head all day long—I just listened to it a minute ago while making your order—and the lyrics are just so inspirational so I decided to write that down. I hope that’s not too weird.” Then he laughs a little, a tad more genuinely this time. “But I heard you singing that song just now. What are the chances, right?”

You swallow hard. He’s been thinking about that song too? Listened to it a minute ago? What are the chances of this is happening? Is he the one whose voices I’ve been hearing in my head—

The male barista abruptly takes a step back, his tray nearly slipping out of his hold. He has a hand pressed against his ear, eyes blinking several times in disbelief. “Holy shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You—” He splutters, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I can’t believe it’s real.”

“What?” The way he seems like he’s looking at a ghost sends goosebumps all over your skin. “What is it?”

“Think about something.” 

“Umm—” What is he talking about?

This time he gapes, his jaw dropping low. “Holy shit, I can really hear you. Think about something else—think about me.”

“Look, I don’t know you and you’re being weird.” The sudden change of conversation baffles you but when his words sink in, you can’t stop yourself from thinking about him as he orders. He’s cute, his entire features are cute—you’ve noticed that from the first second you laid your eyes on him, but what catches your eyes the most is his lips—the way they’re shaped so beautifully, like a cupid’s bow—

“You’re thinking about my lips? Seriously?” He asks, but might as well splash cold water to your face. “If you said something about my eyes, sure, I mean, they are attractive. One might even say that God Himself took the stars from the sky and put them in my eyes—but my lips? Huh, that’s new.”

You loudly gasp when you’re finally aware of the situation, hands flying to your face to cover your gaping mouth. “You can hear my thoughts!”

“And you can hear mine too!” He points out, and as startled as you are from the previous realization, you instantly frown upon his words. 

“I don’t think so,” you reply. “I can only hear—”

“Donghyuck-ah!” Another barista comes to interrupt from the other side of the room. “We didn’t pay you to flirt, come back here!”

“I wasn’t flirting!” He shouts back, tips of his ears reddening. When he turns to you again, he has a prominent scowl on his face which makes you squirm on your feet. “We need to talk about this. My break is in an hour, do you think you can wait?”

It sounds more like an order than a request. “B-but I have a class in an hour.”

“Skip it.”

It takes all the strength in your body to be brave enough to retort back with, “Why don’t you skip your work?”

“I’m already half-done with my work, I can’t bail out now.” He rolls his eyes. Suddenly, his courteousness just vanishes without a trace. “Look, I’ve been hearing your thoughts for months now and I have a lot to complain to you about.”

You grimace. “It’s not like I can control my thoughts—”

“I know, I’m not blaming you.” He picks up the tray, his gaze softening but only slightly. “I just want to complain. You’ve been driving me crazy these past few months.”

You glance away, pouting. Wow, he surely knows how to befriend a stranger.

“I can hear you, you know.” He sighs as if talking to you is exhausting, when it should be the other way around. “Look, I’m sure you’ve been going through the same thing. Don’t you want this to stop?”

You’re not wasting any second. “Yes, please.”

“Then wait for me. We’ll talk this through.” He pivots on his heels, his tray glued to his side. When you can finally breathe properly, exhausted from the social interaction as you sink back to your seat, the barista—Donghyuck—adds, “Oh, as you wait. Can you please stop thinking about my lips? Or just how cute I am in general? It’s sweet but I gotta concentrate so I won’t write another Michael on my next order.”

You slam your forehead down the table, face aflame. “I-I’ll try.”

“Thanks.”

***

“You just can’t stop thinking about my lips, can you?” Is the first thing Donghyuck states out as soon as he’s approached your table. He runs a hand through his brown hair, which looks out-worldly fluffy that you begin to wonder what kind of hair product he’s been using. “Or my hair.”

Mortified, you mumble out, “I’m sorry,” with half of your face covered by your hands. The more I try not to think about his lips, the more I do—shit, is he hearing this too—

“Yes,” Donghyuck says, but this time with an amused smile. “Man, I didn’t know my lips were that appealing to ladies. You’re gonna make me blush.”

Well, he’s making you blush for sure. “Would it be too much to ask for you to stop listening to my thoughts?”

“Believe me, woman, I’ve tried.” He groans, taking his apron off before he sits in front of you. He loosens up his collar, unbuttoning two buttons of his white shirt—which is two more than necessary to your liking—and you have to gaze away before another thought forms inside your head about a certain part of his body. 

“Sorry if I came on too strong before. I’m Lee Donghyuck,” he introduces formally, offering you his hand. You reply with your name but you’re reluctant to shake his hand since you’re sure you’re breaking into a cold sweat, and an overly sweaty palm doesn’t really scream attractive—

“It’s literally just a handshake,” he says, stifling down a laugh. “I’m not gonna start judging you about it. You’re cute, sweaty palms or not.”

You nearly choke. “If I can’t ask you to stop listening to my thoughts, can you please be quiet about them?”

“That’s also impossible since talking is an integral part of my charm.” He leans back to his chair. “I’m pretty good with my mouth.”

That was… a poor choice of words, you think, as you stare at his lips and can’t help but wonder what can that mouth do other than talking. You take a bite of the bagel you just ordered, desperately trying to avert your attention.

“It wasn’t a poor choice of words.” He winks. “I did mean that in every way possible.”

This time, you really are choking.

“Okay, so what’s happening to us?” Donghyuck questions, after you manage to shed a tear or two during your attempt in relieving your throat. “Why have I been hearing your thoughts? I don’t even know you.”

“Same here.” You’re still going through a hard time keeping eye contact with him, but with more seconds passing by—and him pronouncing every bit of your thoughts out in the open—the knots inside your chest begin to loosen. “Ever since I turned twenty, I’ve been hearing these songs playing in my head that I’d never even heard of.”

“Never heard of?” Donghyuck snorts. “What, you never listen to Billboard’s top forty?”

You weakly shrug. “I prefer indie music better. Or instrumentals.”

“I would say that you have a soul of an old lady but the way you’ve been thinking about my lips reminds me of my sister who’s going through puberty.”

“Okay, this isn’t fair.” You shake your head, ashamed and tired of being humiliated over something you can’t fix. “Why can you hear my thoughts but I can’t hear yours?”

“Believe me, you’re much better off this way.” His face contorts in pain which makes you feel somewhat sorry if he’s not constantly being an ass about it. Hearing your insult, he notes, “Also, I’d prefer to be called with terms of endearment in the future, if that’s okay with you. Something like Babe or Darling.” The way he raises his eyebrow is just strictly illegal. “And in return, I’ll call you Sweetheart.” But before you can say anything—or run toward a running bus to put an end to this endless humiliation—he questions, “Wait, when you hear the songs I’ve been thinking in my head, does it sound like the original version of the song, or like me singing it?”

Finally, a proper conversation. “If you’re listening to the actual music, I can hear the original song as if I’m hearing it through my headphones. But when you’re just thinking about it, well, I‘ve never heard you sing, but,” you decide to tease him back—which startles you from how blatant you’re being. “From how amateur and pitchy this voice sounded in my head, I think I’ve been hearing yours.”

“Cute.” He scrunches up his nose. “Okay, let’s try again. Can you hear what song running through my head now?”

You stiffen, sitting in silence. After a few seconds pass by with only you exchanging stern stares at each other, your eyes gleam with a spark of hope. “Wait, I can’t hear you. Does this mean it stops? Because we’ve met in person?”

“Sadly no, because I was just thinking about how silly you looked when you choked over your food earlier.” He chuckles to himself and sends you another wink when you degrade him in your head. “Okay, let’s try again.”

“For real this time?”

“For real this time, Sweetheart.” He closes his eyes, holding back a smile when he catches how you flinch a little at his pet name for you. This time, you really do hear him humming inside your mind. “Don’t tell me by words,” he immediately adds, “Just think about them.”

Heaving a sigh, you close your eyes too. I’ve heard this song somewhere.

“If you’ve never heard about this song, I will literally cry and apologize to the world on your behalf.”

Be quiet, please, I’m trying to concentrate.

“Worried that you’d be thinking about my lips again?”

You almost fall from your seat. Almost. Okay, you’re singing to… You knit your eyebrows together as you provide your best effort to remember the tunes. You’re singing to Super Mario Bros theme song?

“Correct.” He taps his fingers to the table, simpering. “This is actually pretty cool. We can be, like, partners in crime or something.”

You shudder. “Please don’t tell me you’re an actual criminal.”

“If looking this handsome is a crime then I am, yes. Guilty as charged.” He makes a kissy face when you think about throwing the rest of your bagel to his head. “You look like someone who writes fan-fiction about their idols having sappy first kisses in your spare time but you’re actually pretty wild in your head, aren’t you?” He loves seeing your reactions, you know that, so you give your all in trying to act nonchalant. “Now, let’s try again. Did you bring your headphones with you?”

You check your coat’s pocket. “I got my AirPods.”

“Perfect. Put them on and play something from your phone.” As someone who’s pretty carefree, he can get serious at times. “Play as loud as you can until you feel like you’re going deaf.”

“I’ve tried that many times.” You nearly wail at the memory. “But it’s hard to drown your voice since it comes from inside my head.”

“Yeah, I know that. I’ve been hearing your thoughts too, remember? Don’t you think I would at least try something like that?” You narrow your eyes menacingly at him but he simply waves you off. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m trying to do. Put them on and you’ll see.”

He’s ordering you around. He just met you and he’s ordering you around. Socializing with people in general already zaps your energy pretty quickly, so socializing with a brat—

“I’ll grow on you, don’t worry.” He smirks and you take a mental note to really learn how to control your thoughts this time.

You follow his lead, as requested, connecting your AirPods to your phone and play something relaxing—because God knows how desperately you need it—as loudly as you can bear. Okay, go try… whatever it is that you want to try.

He smiles and shifts slightly on his seat, facing the window. His eyes glimmer under the light when he parts his lips, mouthing some words—no, singing something that you can’t hear.

Wait. I can’t hear?

Donghyuck glances at you, a grin breaking further on his lips upon hearing your thought. He gestures to you to take your AirPods away and you nod. Vacation Manor’s You promptly fades as his voice enters, and it’s weird because you’ve heard him sing in your head so many times yet it doesn’t do justice to how beautiful he sounds in real life.

It’s almost angelic, the sound he makes, which is kind of ironic for a little devil that he is. His honeyed voice is soothing, almost like the patter of rain on your window at dawn, lulling you back to sleep. You’re no expert in music but to you, he sounds impeccable that you run out of words to describe how pleasant his voice is to your ears. It’s so distinct, soulful—

Donghyuck giggles. “Thanks.”

—and annoying. “Okay, so what happened?” You try to divert the topic. “I can’t hear you when you’re singing out loud, but I can hear it when you’re thinking about a song?”

“I guess so.” He furrows his eyebrows, deep within his thoughts. “I figured it out when I couldn’t hear your thoughts whenever you spoke out loud. I think we can work from this?”

“So instead of thinking about what I have to say, I should focus more on saying what I want to say?” You shake in horror. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“What, you don’t like talking?”

“I’m…” You swallow your breath. “I’m not really good at that.”

“You’re talking to me just fine now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, because you make it so easy.”

“Aaw,” he purrs, a lopsided smile painting his face. “Thanks, Sweetheart.”

“No.” You hold up a hand. “I mean, since you can hear my thoughts, I have no other choice but to speak. Also, you seem like you’re the type who just says whatever that comes to mind without worrying too much about my feelings—”

“Hey, now you’re just making me sound rude—”

“You are rude,” You emphasize. “But it works well with me because then I don’t have to hold myself back and pretend to be somebody else.”

“Why do you have to pretend?” He frowns. “Because you’re afraid people are gonna hate you? Judge you on your words?”

“It’s…” You look away, nibbling on your bottom lip. “I just… I’m trying to be a good person so people will like me—”

“I like you,” he says casually as if he was talking about having a cute Pomeranian as a pet, and there you are, almost fainting in your seat. “I mean, in the last forty minutes I’ve known you, I think you’re great the way you are. You don’t have to be good, you just have to be you.” He shifts closer, crossing his arms on the table, and lays his chin on them, gazing up at you with a soft smile that doesn’t match well with his previous attitude. “Don’t you think it’s great if people accept you the way you are?”

You hurriedly take a sip of your coffee, pretending to swallow even if it’s already empty. “You’re… not so bad yourself.”

“What was that?”

“Okay, well I think I should go.” There’s no way you’re gonna repeat that. Donghyuck titters, taking a hold of your wrist when you’re about to stand up from your seat.

“We still have loads to talk about.” You observe the way his fingers linger around your arm, his sun-kissed skin feels silky smooth against your own. “Why don’t we have lunch together? My treat?”

“D-don’t you have work to do?”

“I’ll make an excuse.” 

A barista with the word Jeno written on his name tag walks by and slaps Donghyuck on the back of his head as if it’s something he’s done on a daily basis—probably is. “You’re not going anywhere, asswipe, get back to work.”

When the brunette boy turns to you, he winces. “Or maybe you can give me your number so we can meet up later?”

***

A/N: I’m both nervous and excited for this as this is my first collaboration. Thank you so much, Denise, for having me on this wonderful collab!

[shadowfae]

Not trying to be rude, I am just a little confused. “People were already afraid of sharks when Jaws came out. It amplified that fear and fed back into reality.” So why would fiction romanticizing pedophilia not amplify and feed back into reality? Also, have you read Lolita? Again, I just need clarification because I’m trying to genuinely learn the arguments so I can find where I stand

I have. And it was a horror story with an unreliable narrator. That was also how it was intended, and I’m a little surprised not everyone got that. You know what it did? Take pedophilia from something never talked about and taboo and brought it into the international limelight to be studied and talked about, because suddenly pedophiles could be well-liked priests and good people everyone likes, not just always some scummy guy in an alleyway. It was monumental to help victims, because suddenly they could be believed. No big “oh okay pedophiles and giving children horrific trauma is okay now this book I read said so :)” happened whatsoever.

As for why Jaws did what fanfiction doesn’t: people already were afraid of sharks, and my fics that don’t top two hundred views and ten kudos aren’t being seen in theatres worldwide, and seriously dude how many people do you think are secretly okay with pedophilia in real life???

If fanfiction was going to normalize anything, Game of Thrones would have normalized it. And if you won’t go after GRRM, don’t go after some queer writer who doesn’t get paid to deal with your shit. GoT has incest and rape and pedophilia up the wazoo, and none of it’s tagged, and yet somehow people aren’t falling over themselves thinking dragons are real and it’s okay to fuck your sister.

Almost like fiction isn’t likely to change your mind unless you were already open to it, and it’s far more likely to validate what you already know, and if you’re reading fanfiction looking for a moral to the story... there is something wrong with you, dude, and I the writer am not obligated nor going to help you work through that. Maybe try an English class for third graders that makes you do basic literary analysis. And that probably sounds harsh, but it has to be. I do more work than fucking Game of Thrones to ensure people don’t get hurt if they want to read my fic, and I get called one of the worst things to ever fucking accuse someone of in return. You know if you call someone a pedophile in real life, they usually lose their job? You know that sort of accusation ruins people’s lives? You remember that? You haven’t forgotten it and reduced the meaning of a horrific child predator and abuser to someone you don’t like on the internet?

I do nothing the average YA author doesn’t do. I am going nowhere that hasn’t been gone before by people far more mainstream. And nobody has a problem with them, so if you’re gonna have an issue just with me and not them because I write fanfiction... Your misogyny and queerphobia is showing. Misogyny, because what is fanfiction if not women’s writing (and I acknowledge that as a man); and queerphobia, because this argument LITERALLY ONLY HAPPENS against queer writers. You’d forgive whatever show by and involving white men of all their sins, of course they can’t be better, but shred every queer thing to bits if it isn’t perfect. Dream Daddy, Thomas Sanders, Steven Universe, you fucking name it - it’s all Problematic and Secretly Pedophilia and Secretly Fascist Propoganda because it’s queer and not picture perfect with a moral for babies.

I’m not mad at you personally, anon, but there’s no other way to demonstrate how fucking asinine this entire thing is. If someone’s looking through my fic for a moral of the story that can be applied to real life: get lost and go read a book for five year olds. I’m not writing for you.

[cellard0ors]

Fic: Movement (2/?)

Still dedicated to the wonderful @peachworthy. you read part one than you know - GMM Rhink AU - College Student Link/Pornstar Rhett AU

“Got it right again, man! You’re going to ace this test!” Rhett crows as he tosses down another notecard and Link pumps his arms in triumph. The two of them are settled in the kitchen, piles of books and notecards spread around as well as few bottles of beers and some bowls of chips.

Link picks up one chip and pops it into his mouth, grinning at his roommate fondly, “Well, couldn’t’ve done it without you, pal. You are, without a doubt, the best study buddy I’ve ever had.”

“Aw shucks, gonna make me blush,” Rhett laughs even though it’s Link who feels his cheeks actually grow warm, his friend’s laughter a common cause of the occurrence.

They’ve been living together for over a month now and it’s been beyond amazing. Link would’ve never guessed a guy like Rhett and a guy like him would work so well together.

It’s like they’re the world’s weirdest, most convoluted puzzle yet all the pieces click together to form a full picture that is nothing short of a masterpiece. True, there’s a lot about Rhett Link doesn’t know yet (and gosh is there a lot he wants to know) but their friendship is running smoothly.

Well, smoothly save for the massive crush Link has on the guy, albeit he’s doing his damned best to squash it. Yes, Rhett’s attractive and yes, he’s the first guy Link’s ever met that he’s felt a real zing for, but the fact of the matter is – Link would much rather have him as a friend and roommate than lose him as a…well, Link’s not sure if he’d lose him, but the mere possibility keeps Link’s lips sealed.

Besides, it’s okay to crush on someone and never act on it. People do it all the time. Not to mention that it’s a bit…odd to crush on someone in Rhett’s line of work. Isn’t it?

Link can’t think of too many people who will admit to crushing on an adult film star. Regular, mainstream film stars, sure – but adult film stars?

Yeah…

Although, to be frank, Link’s sure there are some that do. And, hopefully, some of them are not the creepy internet troll-y kind of people, but genuine salt of the earth folks like himself. Because, okay, he is crushing on one so…

Rhett is toying with the cards, maybe looking for the next question to quiz Link on when he asks idly, “Y’know, Link – I gotta say, I admire your stamina.”

That remarks makes Link choke on the drink he’s just been consuming, a cough clearing it up some as he croaks, “I’m-I’m sorry?”

Rhett hums noncommittally, as if not noticing the gaffe, “You’ve had yet to grill me about my job. Normally, once folks hear about it, that’s all they want to talk about.”

“Oh,” Link breathes out loosely, “Well, ah-? It-? It just…seemed rude to-to ask…”

“Been over a month living with me now. You telling me you ain’t interested?”

“I didn’t say that!” Link quips back much quicker than he would like, but Rhett just gives him the most perfect smile. All sincere and warm beneath his beard and remember, Link, you’re doing you’re best not to crush on him!

Rhett is still toying with the cards, eyelashes downcast, the very visual definition of shy as he murmurs, “Just sayin’…I don’t mind if you wanna ask some stuff.”

Link’s eyebrows rise in such a way as to damn near bump his glasses off, “Y-You sure?”

Rhett draws in a deep inhale and then sits the cards down. He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, looking quite serious even despite the casual red flannel and jeans, as if this was more of an interview (or perhaps an interrogation?) than anything else, “Shoot.”

The a million and one questions that Link has kept at bay about Rhett’s job and more personal life threaten to cave his skull in as they crash about in his mind. However, he has to go with the obvious, “Know this’ll be predictable, but…why?”

Rhett just bobs his head in an understanding nod even as Link pushes on, “Why and how?”

Rhett sucks on his teeth before picking up his own beer and taking a fortifying sip before continuing, “The two are kinda interconnected to be honest. Had a fallin’ out with my family. Think I mentioned it in passin’ to you once. But, to clarify; they weren’t too happy with my chosen living destination nor with the fact that I’d come to terms with the notion that I’m attracted to both the ladies and the gents.”

Link’s mind immediately (and joyously) clings to ‘the gents’ remark, bookmarking it for future reference, even as Rhett continues his tale, “You grew up where we did. So you get it.”

Link does. And then, to nail the point home, Rhett adds, “Probably get it a lot more than others. If my…instincts are to be believed.”

Shit.

SHIT.

Link’s whole body immediately bursts into flame, the tips of his ears so hot he’s sure they’re glowing bright red.

Rhett knows I’m gay. He knows. I thought having a radar for that kind of thing was bullhonkey, but he knows and oh, lord, oh lord – do I give off some sorta vibe? I know that girl in my screenwriting class, Stevie, she teased me about being an A-Level twink or something, but I didn’t think-!

Rhett’s laughter carves right through Link’s insecurities, “Take a breath, brother! Look like you’re about to pop!”

Link does and Rhett just shakes his head, still grinning, “Point being – I was pretty much a babe in the woods when I came to LA. Not two nickels to my name, so I took whatever gigs I could get. Managed to snag a few commercials and things of that nature, but you know the drill. Jobs are hard to come by. And a guy of my height?”

He blows out a big breath and tosses all of those luxurious curls about with a rueful head shake, “Yeah, most people fingered me for a baller, so – again – jobs were hard to come by. But then, wouldn’t you know it? A friend of a friend of a contact told me about this part they thought I’d be perfect for.”

Another deep barrel chested chuckle emerges as he reminiscences, “Mighta been nice of ‘em to let me know it was actually a part of me they thought would be perfect.”

Do not zero in on his crotch! Do NOT zero in on his crotch! Charles Lincoln Neal the Third DO NOT-!

Link keeps his eyes so steadfastly forward he probably looks like some bug eyed zombie. If Rhett notices, he doesn't comment, “Anyway, when I found out what the role was, I had planned to politely decline but, y’know, the money they offered…”

There’s an easy shrug and this Link can look at. He looks at Rhett, who looks a bit sheepish as he scratches at one side of his beard, “I mean, again, you grew up where I did. So, you know how the whole ‘wait until marriage’ thing was drilled into your head, but I figured it wasn’t like anybody would know. My family’d cut me off, my friends were few and far in between, and the people on set…”

Now he looks a bit happier and Link can’t help but smile along with him, “The people on set were all right. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the kind of stories people tend to spin – the exploitation, the drug abuse, other questionable stuff…place I was at wasn’t like that. I mean, maybe I just lucked out or something, but it was…”

Another shrug and he goes for his beer again. Link figures this is as good a time as any to get in another question, “So, you did that and then you…? Just kept going?”

Rhett nods as he drinks, the bottle leaving his mouth with an obscene pop that Link is going to do his best to forget all about right now and certainly not recall at any point in the future (and most certainly NOT when he’s jacking off later), “Yeah, I did the one and the director really liked me. He pull me aside and told me about this company he was trying to set up with a couple of buddies of his. They wanted to go in a classier direction – know how funny that sounds, but he was serious.”

“So, what? No, like, blockbuster porno knock offs? Like ‘Sex in The City and ON the City’ or ‘Arma-get-it-on’?”

“Think you stole that last one from an episode of CSI.”

“I did, doesn’t change the question.”

They’re both smiling like a couple of fools, but the mood is good and the atmosphere light as Rhett sighs, “Yeah, nothing like that. I’ve actually worked with a few female directors, shot some things with great budgets, nice lighting, good costumes…”

“Oooo, costumes,” Link teases in the silliest voice and Rhett swats out at him. Link avoids the hit even as Rhett rolls his eyes, “I’m serious, dude. Some of the things that department pumps out looks better than anything you’d see in Hollywood.”

“Hmm, some kinda wood,” Link snickers and this time Rhett’s swat makes impact, brushing Link’s shoulder and Link would be embarrassed by the giggle he lets out, if it weren’t for the way Rhett’s nose is all scrunched up, making him look beyond adorable, “You’re sucha brat!”

Link sticks out his tongue and Rhett just laughs. They turn their attention to the drinks and chips for awhile before Link circles around to another question, “You like it then?”

“It’s a living,” Rhett confirms, not really answering one way or another, “Like I said – make great money, work with some really nice people.”

“Uh,” Link scratches behind one ear, “Hate to ask, but, um…clean people?”

Rhett doesn’t seem offended, “You bet. Have to be. Another reason I’ve done this as long as I have. Money's great, but the safety is even better. I’m currently under contract with that same company I told you about – the one that director brought me under. On top of wanting to,” he air quotes his next words, “be classier’-”

He drops the quotes, “They wanted to provide an excellent work environment. Heck, me and the other actors and actresses probably have a cleaner bill of health than the entire state. Can’t shoot scene one until you’ve got the A-Okay.”

“Huh,” Link absorbs that with some surprise, but then, he supposes it really shouldn’t be. The adult film industry is a big lumbering beast right alongside it’s more recognized counterpart. No reason one shouldn’t be as cautious as the other. If anything, one has more right to be cautious.

Thinking on this, Link suddenly feels an odd pang. It’s a shame in one way that’s one viewed as more reckless than the other, more questionable. But, when viewed through a mostly puritan lens…

Not wanting to get too philosophical, Link switches gears, “You been in a lot of films?”

“My fair share.”

Another dodge, but Link will let him have it. However, he can practically feel devil horns rise as he asks with a naughty gleam to his eye, “Win any awards?”

Rhett’s practically preening, “Several.”

“Really?” Link asks with some surprise, but Rhett suddenly looks quite naughty himself. Naughty and…a bit too hot for Link’s liking as the heat that always seems to surround him when he’s near Rhett rises and woo boy, he’s really failing at this squashing-the-crush thing.

“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll show you one of my trophies some time…”

Everything in Link melts into a puddle and he’s not sure what expression he’s wearing, but it’s one that makes Rhett’s whole face light up, “…or maybe, just maybe, I’ll show you a little somethin’ else…”

If it’s possible for a melted puddle to also explode, then Link’s just done it. Rhett bursts into guffaws as he reaches forward and, very smoothly, pushes Link’s jaw up because Link’s jaw? It dropped. He didn’t even feel it drop.

And then, to just add more fuel to the fire, Rhett rubs the pad of his thumb along the bottom of Link’s chin, right below his lip, “Damn, son…you’re just too much for words.”

“I…”

That’s it.

That’s all that Link can offer.

Just one sound, one vowel.

Silent and stunned and Rhett draws back, looking like the cat that ate the canary as he lets him go and rises up from his seat, “Think you need a moment. I’ll be back in a bit.”

And – just like that – Rhett saunters out of the room.

[goffilolo]

Revival of Midoriya Izuku: Chapter 4 "My depression may be chronic, but my ass is iconic"

I bet you didn't think you were ever gonna see an update. well neither did I. What can I say? writing with a broken hand is a struggle.

Link to the fic on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929483/chapters/81090403

Izuku’s first day of high school was interesting, to say the least, or it would’ve been if he actually went to school instead of spreading mayhem amongst UA’s first years. Shinjuku Metropolitan has been rather lenient in regards to his attendance or lack of thereof, thanks to whatever bullshit Shin wrote to the school on his behalf to ensure that the faculty would accommodate his ‘condition’. Which is just fancy wording for ‘I got a get out of school card’. Truth be told, this is probably the best thing that the doctor has ever done for him since Izuku was nowhere near ready to return to mainstream education, not after everything that has happened in middle school. The last thing he needed were looks of pity and guilt-induced niceties from people who otherwise had no problem laughing at his misfortune.

So instead Izuku has decided to spend his time productively - if you could count tormenting your ex-childhood friend and having an accidental family reunion as such.

Uncle Shouta always had a bit of a mean streak to him, although it never really felt as such when Izuku himself interacted with him. From what little of his childhood he could remember that didn’t involve trauma and discrimination, his uncle was a somewhat kind, but grumpy man. He believed in a brand of tough love - that somehow did not correspond with the way his mother raised him in the slightest and went above and beyond for things and people he held close to his heart. Sure they haven’t seen each other since Izuku was 4, but if his uncle’s empty threats from today’s Quirk Apprehension Test are anything to go by, not much has changed.

Which brings him back to now; sitting in an empty classroom that he does not belong to - a school that he does not belong to, writing down his ever-so-detailed notes about the quirks he will only be able to admire from afar. Not much has changed , indeed.

It almost feels like a betrayal. Almost , being the operative word, because he has no reason to cling onto the things that he no longer cares about - should no longer care about, for they had died along with him that day on the roof, and were properly buried within the four walls that Izuku called his own during his stay in the hospital.

But well...looks like today Izuku is in a mood to dig up old corpses.

Metaphorically, that is.

“God, you’re still here!”

“Kacchan we’ve talked about this” he replied, rather dramatically “God is dead and all that’s left is me”

Kacchan clearly did not appreciate his superior sense of humour, if the lack of response is anything to go by. “No seriously, why are you still here?”

“I could ask you the same”

“I actually study here you fuckwit!” the blond exclaimed in his ever explosive fashion “Besides I had to come back and get my change of clothes since that demonic pet of yours was sitting on them when we were all leaving for the test”

“Huh, that actually reminds me...where’s Bandit?”

“Oi, don’t change the subject you shitty Deku” replied Bakugou, as he kicked one of the chairs over towards the desk that was currently occupied by Izuku and slumped down in it in a way that would perhaps appear as non-caring to absolutely no one “I didn’t know your uncle was a pro-hero.”

Ah, so that’s what he was bothered about.

“That makes the two of us”

“Wait, really?!”

“Honestly Kacchan! Did you really think that IF I knew my uncle was a pro-hero that I would be able to ever shut up about it?”

“No way in hell!”

“Exactly!”

Well, now that the topic of his uncle has been cleared up, there wasn’t much else to talk about, at least not much that wouldn’t result in collateral damage or a Bakugou shitshow 2.0. Both of the boys were well aware of it of course, but let it never be said that either of them could be stopped by things like common sense, especially when it came to avoiding conversational land mines.

“So...what are you scribbling over here?” asked Bakugou in a rather poor and possibly the most awkward attempt at establishing small talk that has ever been known to man and sheep kind alike.

“Ok, no! That is not happening” snapped Izuku, who very much saw where this was going and was having none of it “We are NOT having a civil conversation!”

“Why the fuck not?!” replied the blond, his anger as booming and apparent as his quirk.

“Because that is not something we DO Kacchan!” shouted the teen, banging his hands against the desk, his notebook long forgotten.

“Well, maybe we should?!” exclaimed Bakugou, who was quick to anger, yet quicker to notice his ex-friend’s unusual mood as he tried to make an effort to de-escalate the situation.

“Oh? Should we really? !” sneered Izuku, feeling the kind of anger and disdain he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since that fateful day in the ward.

“That’s rich coming from you” he continued as he stood up form the chair, unable to keep still in his fury as he circled the classroom “All you ever did was shout at me, insult me and throw baseless accusations at me left and right for god knows how long, but suddenly YOU want to have a conversation with me? Isn’t it enough that we kinda talked about our feelings that one time when I was still stuck in the psych ward?!”

Honestly, what do you expect Kacchan?” asked Izuku, feeling raw and hysteric and all kinds of wrong, spilling his metaphorical guts to his ex-bully/friend “That we will just start having normal conversations like nothing ever happened, act like we’re friends or some shit? Because let’s be honest, we haven’t been friends for a very long time, that ship has sunk long before I even attempted suicide! ”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” screamed Bakugou, feeling equally angry, but mostly out of his depth in the situation. He expected Deku to possibly mock him for his awkward attempts at small talk. What the blond didn’t expect was for him to snap, in a way that was somewhat familiar but not quite, as even the few times they’ve spoken back when Izuku was in the hospital or when he got released, his tempter felt controlled in a way it was not at the moment. Katsuki wasn’t sure what exactly triggered such a strong response, but he was not looking forward to having another fight, at least not one initiated by him.

“I’m not trying to pretend it didn’t happen” he explained “I just want to move forward. I’m not the same asshole I was last year and neither are you, so I don’t want to be stuck on how things used to be ! It makes me feel like I’m going nowhere.”

“Ok! Fine! You wanna talk?! Then let me fuckin TELL you something! You asked me what I was ‘scribbling’ over here?” exclaims Izuku, as he stomps his way back towards the desk and snatches his notebook, waving it aggressively in front of Bakugou “IT’S THE SAME STUFF I’VE BEEN SCRIBBLING THE ENTIRE GODDAMN TIME!” he screamed “Those quirk analysis notebooks you used to mock me for? It’s another one of those because as it turns out  I still AM the same asshole I was last year! Now then, can YOU tell ME how many of those I’ve had?”

“Thirteen…” mutters Bakugou, feeling like he’s walking into a proverbial trap.

“Good boy, you can count! Now, can you tell me what number does it say on this one?” sneers Izuku sarcastically as he points once again at the notebook in question.

“Is this a trick question? There’s fuckin nothing on it”

“EXACTLY! And you want to know why?” screamed the distressed teen, no longer feeling angry, but tired and vulnerable, unable to stop himself from having a conversation he didn’t even want to be a part of “Because these notes used to serve a purpose, a purpose I no longer have. Hero Analysis for the Future , to be exact. But guess what Kacchan…” he whispered, no longer looking at the red eyes that used to bring him so much pain “...I no longer have a future…”

The blond hung his head in shame as he listened to his childhood friend break down in tears while hiding his face behind the very notebook that started their argument, all the while Trash Bandit who woke up due to their screaming was trying to get his owner’s attention with pathetically quiet ‘baaah’s.

“You have the right to be angry with me, after all this shit I put you through” stated Bakugou after what felt like an endless silence broken only by Izuku’s stuttering sobs. He never thought of himself as a coward, but at this moment he could not find enough bravery to sit face to face with the crying teen.

“I KNOW that you shithead-” replied Izuku as he shakily tried to take a breath in between the sobs “-but what good is that gonna do?! You’ve actually admitted that the way you treated me was wrong, hell you even voluntarily went to therapy! You’re basically going through a whole-ass redemption arc and what do I do? * sob * I’m still stuck in the past and I can’t let go of my grudges, which isn’t doing me or you any favours. I’ve told you to get your shit together, and this is exactly what you’re trying to do and instead of being h-* hic *- happy for you I’m mad-”

His rant broke off as he took another breath with tears still rolling down the freckled cheeks despite the boy’s best efforts. Izuku slumped down in his seat and with shaking hands he took out a cigarette and lighter from his backpack that was still hanging by the hook on the side of the desk. And although putting the cigarette in his mouth was relatively easy, lighting it was another matter. As Izuku grew more frustrated with the quiver in his hands, so did Bakugou. The blond became impatient as he grumbled “give it here damn it” much more quietly and gently than he normally would’ve done as he leaned forward, all the while grabbing the other teen by his shoulder with one hand, as he used to the other to quickly light the cigarette with a small explosion. Izuku’s flinch at the sudden but familiar noise and heat did not go unnoticed.

To say that Izuku was shocked by his ex-friend’s action would’ve been an understatement, but he was pleased nonetheless. If anything it proved his point that Kacchan was trying to be nicer to him, even if the attempts were somewhat awkward. The freckled teen, feeling only marginally better, leaned back in his chair facing the ceiling as he continued to blow circles of smoke up into the air, trying to regain his original train of thought.

“You’d think they would have a fire alarm in here or something” mused Bakugou as he stared at the disappearing circles.

“Hmm” replied Izuku, absentmindedly “You’d think”

The silence has once again stretched between the 2 boys, although this time it felt less oppressive in its need to be filled. Bakugou was happy to wait for Deku to finish what he started, it was the least the blond could do seeing as he was at fault for the current state of things between them.

“I’m so fuckin angry...” stated Izuku as he crashed the burnt out cigarette against the desk, which Bakugou conviniently ignored seeing as the desk was his. “I’m so fuckin angry-” he repeated despite his tone and words not matching at all “-because this proves that you could’ve gotten your shit together this whole time” he continues while gesturing vaguely between the two of them.

“You could’ve stopped this bullshit and apologised to me!” exclaims Izuku in a tone that is half resigned and half accusing “You could’ve spared me the misery, and yet you didn’t. I feel like I’ve suffered for nothing-”

“You did!” interrupted the blond.

“What?”

“You’ve suffered for nothing” clarified Bakugou “There’s literally NO good reason for you to have gone through even half the shit you did”

“I dunno about that Kacchan” teased Izuku “I’m pretty sure the reason is sitting right in front of me”

“I said no good reason damn it, don’t go around twisting my words you fuckin Deku!”

And Izuku couldn’t help but break out in laughter, because he was pretty sure that this was the first time ever that Bakugou had made a joke at his own expense and this moment was going to live in his brain rent free from now on.

“Oh God, Kacchan-” he wheezed, trying to stop himself from laughing “You were right, you really aren't the same asshole that you were last year!”

“I sure fuckin hope not” replied Bakgou who was just as close to laughing “Otherwise I would’ve had to demand refund for all of those shitty therapy sessions”

“Look at us Kacchan” said Izuku, his laugh now subdued “We’re still a fuckin mess”

“I guess we are” agreed the blond as he stared down at his friend’s notebook in a thoughtful expression.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the truthfully embarrassing heart-to-heart with Kacchan, Izuku wanted to do nothing more than sink into the void for the next eternity, or at least until he gets his reminder text that he’s running late for yet another therapy session. Unfortunately neither of these options were viable seeing as he was on a self-appointed mission to catch up to his uncle. The boy hoped that uncle Shouta would still be somewhere on the premises seeing as his ugly-ass sleeping bag was still in the classroom. Izuku used that to his advantage as he gave the sleeping bag to Bandit who promptly sniffed it and began to follow the scent of a premature-midlife-crisis. Who knew that sheep could make such good hounds?

Bandit had dutifully led their owner through an ever inconvenient maze of corridors, which eventually ended with the two entering the teacher’s lounge like they had every right to be there (which they kinda did, shoutout to Nedzu!). As expected, Izuku’s uncle was in the lounge, surrounded by fellow members of staff as they tried (unsuccessfully, at least by Izuku’s standards) to get any information out of him regarding his class this year. Uncle Shouta for the most part looked like he’d rather be doing anything else and so Izuku has made an executive decision to insert himself obnoxiously into the situation.

“In my humble opinion-” he said, as he sat down next to his uncle, while Bandit jumped up on his lap “that Mineta kid should’ve been expelled. Like, we get it uncle, he has potential ” continued Izuku, as he spat the word distastefully “But how far is that potential gonna get him when all he does is harass the entire female population, like every other mediocre straight guy with self awareness of a sea cucumber?”

“A sea cucumber? Really?” asked uncle Shouta, sounding like the unimpressed bitch that he is.

“I mean don’t get me wrong” he continues, completely ignoring the unnecessary commentary “Straight people are already embarrassing as they are, but this guy is on another level, the kinda level that usually leads to a straight jacket, am I right?! Hah- I just made a pun!”

“The little listener does have a point, Shouta” replied Present Mic.

“Also, did he just say uncle ? Shouta, is there anything you’d like to tell us?” asked Midnight, you know, like a traitor.

“No”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t until they walked past the gates of the school that his uncle finally stopped in his tracks to voice at least a portion of the questions that have been bubbling in his mind since the impromptu family reunion with his nephew.

“Izuku” says Shouta, with as much concern as an uncle-who-you-haven’t-seen-in-almost-a-decade is allowed to voice “What the fuck?”

“Look, I heard that question far too often in my lifetime, mostly from my therapist, so you’re gonna have to be a bit more specific” replies Izuku sounding like the unimpressed bitch that he hopes to evolve into through the sheer power of genetics and generational trauma.

“Look kid-” says the hobo looking man that has the privilege of being related to Izuku as he puts his hands together, takes a deep breath and prays to whichever God he believes is not yet dead for some guidance on how to handle this “-as much as I’d love to elaborate on the sheer amount of confusion I am experiencing right now due to your questionable way of life, I do actually have to go on a patrol so this conversation is gonna have to be postponed. In the meanwhile give your mother my regards, and I’ll hopefully see you in the near future when you decide once again to wreak havoc in my classroom.”

“No” replies the freckled teen in a total disregard for other people’s prior engagements, thus truly earning his title of a problem child.

“What do you mean no ? Izuku, I have a job to do!”

Instead of replying, Izuku has decided to simply pull a pro-gamer move, by quickly taking out a familiar pair of handcuffs from the side pocket of his backpack, cuffing one side to his uncle’s hand and the other to his own. That on its own is probably not particularly impressive, however it is the speed of the action that has earned it the title of a pro-gamer move, which Izuku is quite proud of. His uncle on the other hand is definitely less so, looking at his cuffed wrist like it has somewhat betrayed him.

“Please tell me you did not just do that”

“I did not just do that”

After wasting about 10 minutes of his life on fruitless struggle of trying to get the handcuffs off like an untrained dog trying to chew off its own leash, Aizawa Shouta; the underground hero Eraserhead, the infamous Erasure Hero has slumped in defeat, internally swearing to himself to one day get revenge on his unruly nephew.

“God, I am so going to have a talk with my sister about this” he says, as if a threat of authority had any meaning to the green headed teen.

“Yeah, no shit, that’s the whole point, we’re going to my house now” replies the teen, completely disregarding any attempt at ‘ an adult asserting their authority ’ over him.

“I still have to go on a patrol tonight” repeats Shouta, as if it was somewhat relevant.

“That sounds like a you problem”

[alfredosauce50]

would you be down to do 2p china hc’s? im very curious on how you characterize him!

I’m down! I’m guessing you figured I had my own interpretation of the guy after I answered an ask saying I’d write for him. I really like 2p! China as a character, but I have to say, I haven’t properly written for him before. Nevertheless, I’ll give you my thoughts on him as a person!

2p! China Headcanons

Zao’s appearance doesn’t give away much of his personality. He’s got a bit of a baby face, and he has a sociable and pleasant demeanor for the most part. So if you didn’t know him well enough to see past those traits, you would be surprised at how shady he can be.

Appearance

Like his 1p counterpart, his dark brown hair goes past his shoulders and is tied back in a low ponytail. It’s pretty thin too, so it stays flat against his back. But that’s what makes it look so good. He isn’t the tallest guy out there, as he stands around 170cm or 5′7″. Doesn’t mean you can easily take him out in a fight, though. He’s quite slender, but he’s muscular and knows a few martial arts to boot.

He has a lot of tattoos, and he doesn’t try to hide them. He has dragons curling down his arms, as well as Chinese characters etched into his back. Most of the time, he wears traditional clothing, such as a sleeveless Tang suit, so his arms are exposed. It’s almost as if the colors black and red were made for him. And he knows it. So unless he’s having a bad day where he’ll go for a simple T-shirt, he likes to dress to impress. Not that he even needs to try.

He’s devilishly attractive, and the way he talks gets girls flocking to him.

Personality

Zao is very easy-going and open-minded. He’ll talk about anything with anyone. Everything is fascinating in a way, and nothing seems to faze him either. So he’s the type to question the most trivial things in life--or list drugs as casually as you would your favorite candy bars. It’s also difficult to shock him, or anger him. When life deals him a bad hand, or springs up inconveniences, he’ll go with the flow because that’s life. So unless something involves the person he likes, he keeps himself pretty level-headed.

With his willingness to talk about anything, comes his brutal honesty and bluntness. So sometimes, he’ll find himself offending people even if he never meant to. If he does this to women, they’ll slap him before storming off, leaving him in confusion at what he did wrong. But if he does this to men, he’ll have to be quick on his feet to escape a potential fight. Unlike a few other 2ps, he has a good temperament so he avoids violence, but he’ll resort to it if he absolutely has to.

Despite the careers he’s depicted to have, like being a drug-dealer, something in adult entertainment, night-life, or anything illegal, he has strong fraternal instincts. If somebody embodied the “big brother” trope, it would be him. He cares a lot for his younger siblings, and they look up to him as a role model. But he’ll always tell them, “Do as I say, not as I do!” As comfortable as he is in his own skin, his own identity, he wouldn’t want them taking after him.

He’s very flirtatious, and a huge tease. How he shows he likes you is through making you blush, or embarrassed. He’ll call you pet names. Shower you with compliments. Refer to you as if you and him are already an item. If you bumped into him at a grocery store, he’ll help you shop, then say, “So, is that all we need? I can’t wait for dinner tonight.” Zao is also unapologetically dirty-minded. He’s all about dirty jokes, conversations, and gestures. The bigger reaction he gets, the more addicting they are.

He doesn’t have any qualifications, not even a high school diploma, but he’s street-smart to make up for it. That’s how he makes so many connections and hustles his way up to the top in shady businesses. If you need something, anything, legal or illegal, expensive or cheap, you can ask him, and 99% of the time, he’ll say, “I know a guy.” If he likes you, all he wants in return is something perverted. A kiss, maybe. Or maybe your underwear.

Interests

He loves anything cute, and he doesn’t hide it. Sanrio is a must--he keeps a collection of their plushies, most of them being Hello Kitty, but he also likes other characters such as Cinnamoroll and Pompompurin. Sometimes, he can get a bit obsessive over whatever sells fast. So if he has to, he’ll stay up and keep refreshing the page selling whatever he has his eyes on. If he’s infamous for his connections that let him get pretty much anything he wants, surely he can get his hands on the limited-edition Hello Kitty-themed towel, right!? He isn’t against having other kinds of merchandise either, like household items, but he keeps it lowkey for functionality.

In his house, you’ll find a lot of imports from East-Asian countries. Not only is he used to using them when he was back in China, they’re better than what you can find in America. Or at least, in his opinion. This includes cosmetics, snacks, alcohol, and decorations.

Although he doesn’t have a lot of time to, he enjoys watching anime. That’s why he makes sure to get through the most popular and mainstream ones first.

Zao likes to keep connected with his culture. He doesn’t care to assimilate, and being ‘different’ doesn’t bother him at all--he thinks it’s what gives him a unique personality and background. Since he doesn’t have a lot of friends to speak Mandarin with, he’ll look for his neighbors who can, and strike up a conversation every now and then. As well as that, he’ll give his siblings red pockets for Chinese New Year so they can spend it on food, videogames or whatever they want.

He can’t cook for shit. Even then, he has strong opinions on food, especially Chinese. While he enjoys westernised take out like Panda express, he wishes people would stop assuming Chinese cuisine is just dumplings, fried rice, noodles and yum cha. They’re B-tier at best. For a country with that rich and long a history, there’s so much more to indulge in. Too bad he can’t make anything if he tried.

Psychology + romance

Zao is used to being a second choice. His cheerfulness and bluntness make other people think he’s creepy or weird, so he can’t quite wrap his head around somebody liking him to that degree--or getting particularly close to him. At least, emotionally. There are a lot of girls who want him for one-night stands. But this doesn’t stop him from flirting with someone he genuinely likes, even if he doesn’t expect anything in return. It’s fun because they get flustered, after all. But when they start returning the same energy, get persistent, or even make him suspect that they like him back, he will get nervous. He’s used to being the chaser, not the other way around. So if the tables turn and things start getting real, he will back away.

As confident as he is with his image, it’s difficult for him to get intimate with somebody romantically. He’s open, but can’t be vulnerable. He’d rather keep things casual, so when he really falls for someone, he’ll be conflicted between keeping things the way they are, or pursuing them.

Eventually, these feelings will deepen to the point being just friends becomes suffocating. That’s when Zao loses his cool and gets frustrated. It could happen due to a build-up of his emotions, or an event that makes him explode from jealousy. He’ll get desperate after so long of not doing anything and make it very clear he wants you. “Just date me already!”

When he finally gets together with you, prepare to be coddled. He’ll want to help you with anything the best way he can, and go to extreme lengths to do so. Nothing seems extreme when it’s for somebody he cares so much about. While he never holds it against you--how much he does for you--he may or may not guilt trip you into giving him more affection. But only subtly. Instead of him kissing you, he'll loiter around your presence until you kiss him. And when you do, he’ll smile like an idiot.

He never makes it explicit when he wants to take you out on a date. Zao will just ask you if you’re free, and take you out for the night. He doesn’t see a point in labelling it as a ‘date’, because he doesn’t just see quality time with you through a romantic and sexual lens. He values the friendship aspect of it as well, and you really appreciate him for it.

Zao loves to cuddle. He doesn’t hug you much throughout the day, but when you’re at home and about to sleep, he will hug you, a lot. He won’t let go while he talks to you, and will only loosen his coils when you fall asleep.

Acknowledgements

I was mainly inspired by the 2p! China in the story, “Dragon District”, written by xYourHero. So props to them. The fandom’s perception of him has definitely deepened because of it, and it’s great seeing underrated 2ps finally getting the attention they deserve! I’m one of the people who’s had my characterization of Zao take after hers, so I’ll also be crediting her for my headcanons.

You can find the story on DeviantArt, Archive of our own and Wattpad. I adored that fic back in the day. Such good memories. I wasn’t even writing back when I was reading it. Any who, let’s get right into it. I’ve divided the headcanons into subcategories, appearance, personality, interests, and psychology + romance.

(Look at this fanart is by Amphany on DeviantArt. It was drawn for xYourHero. I’m gonna put it here for reference. https://www.deviantart.com/amphany/art/Dragon-smoke-548426383)

[about-faces]

The director Joel Schumacher has passed away, and everyone's reactions have boiled down to two topics: 1.) "He was the guy who made the bad Batman films," and 2.) "Hey, he did lots of great films besides the bad Batman films!"

Thing is... I get it. I remember being a teenage comic fan in the 90's. Not just any comics: especially Batman! But ESPECIALLY Bart especially Two-Face. I remember how "Joel Schumacher" was a name that could invoke white-hot rage in myself and everyone in the fandom. He was our modern equivalent of Dr. Fredrick Wertham, the boogyman who had (far as we were concerned) single-handedly destroyed the mainstream credibility of superheroes.

Look at that picture, and try to imagine that this was the face so loathed and mocked by Batman fanboys in the 90′s.

Never mind that Schumacher didn't WRITE the Batman films. The main credit for that goes to Akiva Goldsman, who has gone on to win an Oscar and continues to find A-list success despite ruining other geek properties like Jonah Hex and Dark Tower. Never mind that Schumacher was at the mercy of producers who wanted the movies to be nothing more than merchandise machines and toy commercials. No, Schumacher was the only name associated with the films, and he was cast at the villain.

The fact that he was openly gay played no small part in making him an easy target.

One year after the disastrous release of the infamous Batman & Robin, the beloved fan-favorite cartoon Batman: The Animated Series (then rebranded as The New Batman Adventures on the WB network) produced an episode that featured a pointed jab at Schumacher. The episode was titled "Legends of the Dark Knight," a reworking of a classic 70's Batman tale where a group of kids share their own ideas of what the mysterious Batman is really like.

Halfway through the episode, the kids are overheard by another kid, who shares his own ideas about Batman. The kid, whose name is Joel, has long dirty-blond hair, and works in front of a store which bear the sign "Shoemaker," despite clearly being a department store. He waxes dreamily about the reasons he loves Batman: "All those muscles, the tight rubber armor and that flashy car. I heard it can drive up walls!"

This last line--a reference to a silly bit in Batman Forever--he says as he flamboyantly tosses a pink fur stole around his neck. To drive home the joke, one of the kids dismisses, "Yeah, sure, Joel."

At the time, it seemed like a cathartic joke for us REAL Batman fans. Now, it's clearly just cheap and gross. Instead of any actual criticism about the films, Joel Schumacher was just seen--even if just subconsciously--as the fruit who ruined Batman.

Over time, the hatred for Schumacher lessened. Starting with Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man, on through to Batman Begins, Iron Man, and onward, superhero movies became huge mainstream successes, with greater fidelity to the source material than most adaptations we saw up to the time that Schumacher "killed" the superhero movie. There was no point in hating him anymore, if there ever was (again, Goldsman more deserves that ire, if you're gonna be angry about anyone. Why does he still get work?! WHY IS HE NOW WRITING FOR STAR TREK?!?!).

But even still, especially among Millennial and Gen-X fans, Schumacher is still--at best--considered a low point for fandom. Even though the same generations have come to appreciate and love some of his other films, such as The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, and the chillingly-prescient Falling Down, there's still this need for people to dismiss the Batman films as embarrassments that are best forgotten in favor of Schumacher's better films. And if they're to be remembered at all, it's to trash them all over again in a tone suggesting that the films are objectively, irredeemably bad.

Except they're not. Oh sure, if you go in looking for a grim and gritty capital-M "Mature" take on Batman, of course you'll hate them, just like you probably also hate the Adam West Batman show. Remember, that show also used to be hated by decades of Batman fans because of how it didn't take the comics seriously.

... except it did. The show was VERY faithful to the Batman comics of the 50's, which often out-weirded and out-sillied its TV counterpart. If anything, the show made some of those stories even more entertaining with camp value and jokes that added different levels of enjoyment to the adults watching. Comic fans resented how Batman became a pop culture joke, and increasingly fought against anything that was colorful and campy (which makes me wonder if this might also be related to latent homophobia). Whether or not they admitted/realized it, the Batman fans of the 70's and 80's carried a chip on their shoulder about a show that DARED to make Batman FUN.

And really... how is that any different than Schumacher's two films?

You don't have to agree, but I think Schumacher's films are fun. I think Batman Forever is highly entertaining, that Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey are bringing their hammy A-games as much respected actors like Burgess Meredith and Caesar Romero brought to their roles. Same goes for Arnold and especially Uma in Batman and Robin. They KNOW what movies they're in, and they're all having a blast.

(How many of us remember the exact line Eddie says at this moment? I bet you probably do too, which should tell you something about how memorable this movie is)

Now, BF and particularly B&A are by no means GOOD movies, but you can't tell me that you couldn't have a blast putting the latter on at a party and riffing it with friends. It's not a pretentious, ponderous, self-serious slog like, say, the shit Zack Snyder cranked out (apologies to the one or two cool Snyder fans here, I just find his films interminable). Even besides the many things I could say to defend Schumacher's Batman films (that's a whole other essay), you can't say they were boring. They were entertaining, even if on a level of making fun of the film, and that is NOT as easy as it looks.

Let me put it to you this way: Batman Forever has, objectively, one of the worst takes on Two-Face I've ever seen. He's one-note, he's kind of a rehash of Nicholson's Joker, he gets completely overshadowed by the Riddler, he gets killed by Batman in a way that completely betrays the whole “DON’T KILL HARVEY” arc with Robin, and worst of all, he CHEATS on the coin toss. That alone would be enough for me to condemn this depiction in any other Two-Face story.

And yet, even I--the most passionate, opinionated, and picky Two-Face fan you will EVER know--still have a soft spot for Tommy Lee Jones' take on ol' Harv. He’s just too fun, too flamboyant, too damn extra not to love. If only all bad takes on Two-Face could be this fun!

But that’s the thing: it’s not because the script was good. Oh god no. I've read the script, and if it were put on the page like a comic, I would have hated it just like any other bad Two-Face comic. I have to imagine that, as director, Joel Schumacher deserves the bulk of the credit for pushing the restrained and laconic Tommy Lee Jones into that oversized performance, and making it a delight to watch despite everything it does wrong.

I'm rare for my generation to have learned how to stop worrying and love Schumacher's Batman. But the younger generation, the up-and-coming Gen-Zs getting into Batman, don't share the same grudges we did. There's a genuine, shame-free enjoyment of those films among The Kids, many of whom are LGBTQA+, who love the jokes, the silliness, the camp, the Freeze puns, the swag of Uma Thurman, and the homoerotic subtext between Two-Face and the Riddler. Maybe it's just a reaction to so much GRIM, SERIOUS shit that DC and their fanboys are trying desperately to push even today.

But comics--especially Batman--have a long history of colorful, stupid, fun shit. Schumacher's films carried on in that tradition, and they should be appreciated on their own merits by those of us who aren't limited by narrow ideas of what Batman "should" be, and who still remember how to have fun.

Schumacher's Batman films should no longer be seen as embarrassments. They didn't ruin superheroes. They didn't ruin Batman. They didn't even ruin Two-Face. Nor should they be disregarded in favor of Falling Down, like losers in a respectability competition. They're fun. They're entertaining. And they didn't pretend to be anything else.

And if you still think they're bad... I mean, objectively, you're not wrong! But be mindful of the reasons WHY you think they're bad, because on another subjective level, you may not be right either. And it's certainly not worth holding a geek-grudge over after twenty-five years.

[noperopesaredope]

A Dumb, Pointless, Random, Relatively Biased Review of Annie (2014)’s Music

I have no idea what I’m doing. This will be a halfway biased review. I say halfway due to the fact that I will be comparing them to the original movie’s versions, but I also liked some of the musical choices they made. There will be the occasional commentary about the visuals if I find something particularly good/bad. Just remember, this is a very subjective review. It will not be technical or scholarly. It will all be based off my personal opinion.

(Warning: This review is REALLY long. Continue at your own risk)

Anyways, onto the nonsense.

1#: Overture

I literally don’t care about overtures. I’m not sorry I’m skipping this one’s review.

2#: Maybe

Okay, so this one is one I have some things to say about. I personally do not like it and it is far less memorable. If the OG movie didn’t exist or wasn’t a cultural touchstone and I watched this reboot, I would not remember this song. I think what made the original so memorable as a song is how absolutely heartbreaking and emotional it is. This one is a little too...whimsical? It doesn’t have a fitting tone. Sure, it is them day dreaming about their parents, but it’s original and more effective purpose was to show that they truly are orphans. They desperately wish for a family to call their own and parents who love them. In the original, Annie sang it to a little kid as what was basically a lullaby and a comfort. This new one just...doesn’t work for me. Also, it relies too heavily on the background instrumentals, which end up taking over a little too much near the end and ruin the peaceful aspect it could have kept, undermining any and all emotion without even allowing a swell.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, that what made “Maybe” work in the original was its tone and narrative purpose of showing just how tragic and miserable Annie and the orphans’ lives were, and makes Mr. Warbucks’ fostering of her that much more wonderful and impactful to her. She needs this, and it makes the song truly beautiful. This cover doesn’t do any of that, and therefore doesn’t really work from a narrative or musical structure.

3#: It’s a Hard Knock Life

(Warning, this is gonna be a bit of a long one)

I’m very conflicted about this one. I have a few major complaints, but I also really liked one thing about it. I’ll get to that though. First, I want to get my gripes out of the way.

Okay, so one thing this movie consistently does is listen to kids with what I assume are relatively good and strong voices, and then it says “let’s autotune the crap out of them.” It’s trying to modernize the music, right? And what’s the most major aspect of 2014 mainstream music? Autotune, obviously! So they decided that literally every child needed to be autotuned regardless of their musical talent. Because of course. The thing about “It’s a Hard Knock Life” is, that it really doesn’t need autotune, whether or not they kids sound great or not. They just need to sound like kids, which is something that apparently this movie doesn’t get. But enough about the autotune because enough people have complained about that. I just wanted to address the autotune once in this review before never really complaining about it again.

My smallest complaint is that the kids aren’t really all that miserable, or at least, this song doesn’t actually show that they are living “a hard knock life.” This and “Maybe” are meant to establish how absolutely crap it is to be an orphan, and the original really showed it. When they said “no one cares for you a smidge when you’re in an orphanage,” it felt more like “if you died right now, no one would care.” It was legitimately brutal and they seemed like child workers. The OG really sells it. This doesn’t really do that. I think they should have maybe done something different than just cleaning to show how the kids were suffering. More hard labor. But that’s actually my smallest complaint about this song.

My biggest complaint is the visuals and dancing. “It’s a Hard Knock Life” (1982) was kind of a masterpiece, not just because of the singing (which was pretty good), but mainly because of the dancing. You would see this kids performing straight up acrobatics and amazing feats of the human body, like it was extrodinary. And this new version did not do that. It does not have any of the spectacle or fun that the original had. It’s dancing is a disappointment to me and I’m disowning it forever.

But despite all this, I keep relistening to it. I actually like it as a song. And it’s all because of the one thing this song does really well, that this movie does pretty well. The background instrumentals are really amazing. Whoever composed them, I applaud to you. You honestly saved this whole song for me. I really love the instrumentals here, as they truly do capture the spectacle of the dancing in the original. I think if this song just had the original actors and visuals with the new instrumentals, it would be one of my favorite song sequences of all time. The dancing in the OG and the instrumentals in the remake would go fantastically together and excentuate each other really well. But alas, it could not be so, which will forever disappoint me.

4#: Tomorrow

I’m not gonna complain too much about the autotuning again, but I will say, they really didn’t trust this girl with her singing, and that takes down the musical power of this song. This song relies on the power of the singer’s voice, and they didn’t really let her use her natural voice powerbelting the final note, which I know she can do. It just brought the song down in quality because of the autotune.

But, I did notice a small visual element in this sequence. In the windows, there would be reflections of people having fun with their kids, but when it cuts away from the windows, you would actually see an inanimate object, showing that Annie simply imagined it in her head. But it’s still a pretty clever and occasionally subtle visual representation of her desire to have a family with a parent (or parents) who loves her. I think something like this would have worked slightly better in “Maybe,” but honestly, it doesn’t matter. I still liked that little visual element.

5#: I Think I’m Gonna Like it Here

I’m gonna be honest; I liked this version better than the original. No offense to the original, but it felt kinda like a less good version of “Be Our Guest.” But this one is a bit more fun to me, and Annie, the social worker, and Grace Farrell’s goofy dancing together was really charming and fun. It also really established Grace and Annie’s mother-daughter relationship really well for me. Like, they were bonding, and Grace was sharing Annie’s excitement and wonder, joining her in the fun because she understands the joy this kid is experiencing. It’s just really cute and fun to me, and I liked how it sounded.

6#: You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

Sia’s autism move ruined most of her songs for me personally, so I automatically fell weird about her singing it, but I have a few other reasons I don’t completely like this one. One, it’s a popstar cover of it, and two, it’s not sung by a kid. These two elements together make it lose it’s charm. The original was nice because it was basically a cute song you would legitimately heard a kid sing, with their sweet and optimistic encouragement making it all the more lovely. It also shows a bit about Annie’s character. Like with “Tomorrow” and “Maybe,” it shows that no matter the circumstance, Annie tries to remain optimistic and encouraging towards everyone. Having a popstar cover it in the background just makes it kinda okay I guess.

7#: Moonquake Lake

Okay, fine, I liked this one. I was moving in my seat while it was playing. Fine, you got me, it was pretty good, I’m going to move on now.

8#: Little Girls

I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Usually, in order to make “Little Girls” work, the singer basically needs to sound like Carol Burnett and have that quality to their voice. They need to have some musical theater and 1920s to their voice. Cameron Diaz is not Carol Burnett, and she does not sound like Carol Burnett. She has a bit of a pop aspect to her voice. Also, the song generally wouldn’t work in a modern music style. But they managed to make it work. How? By changing the lyrics and main melody. Honestly, this changed version fits better with this specific version of the character as well. 

1982 Hannigan was an older lady who has probably been working one of the hardest possible jobs in the world without any help for what has likely been at least a decade or two. She longs for her glory days, and has gotten really tired of this job. Even kindergarden teachers can get tired of their job, and she never really gets a break, not even when the day is done. It’s a full time job, and it’s honestly understandable that she’d dislike or even hate kids at this point. Her version of the song really captures this, and fits her character well.

2014 Hannigan is a lot younger, probably in her early 30s at most. She is at the end of her more golden years, and has entered an age where you are expected to settle down and or have your life together (doesn’t mean you will or need to, it just means that that’s the expectation). She is probably a bit new to this whole childcare thing, and isn’t really ready for kids. She feels like she just missed all her chances to do something more with her life, or that she’s still living out some of her golden years fostering kids she hates in a place she barely likes. She wants to do something more, but she just can’t seem to. This song captures that.

This isn’t a knock against the actor, but I don’t feel like Cameron would have been able to put off the original. But she pulls this off really well. I honestly think this was a good choice in this case. They made a slightly different song that fits the actor and new character rather than haphazardly trying to make the actor sound like someone she isn’t and the song sound off.

#9: The City’s Yours

This song was okay, I just personally didn’t like it. It was the only one to really make me cringe. I’m sorry. I don’t feel like getting too into it. I can’t really figure out why I don’t like it. But it’s okay.

#10: Opportunity

Okay, this is probably my favorite song in the film. It actually made me pretty emotional for some reason and sounded really really good. I also think this is where they used the least autotune on the actress, and she sounds a lot better because of it. Also, the instrumentals are absolutely fabulous. This one is just really pretty to me. It’s the most emotionally impactful song, and its cuts to Jamie Fox’s reaction actually make it a lot more sweet. He’s getting attached, and actually starts to care about Annie a lot more. He’s proud of her. And it show what Annie is thinking and feeling about her new situation and in this moment. She didn’t have any opportunities before, and now she has so much more than before. It’s just all really great and I like it.

#11: Easy Street

I’m sorry you two, but you didn’t stand a chance. “Easy Street” only works in it’s original style and context. Changing it would be a sin. I can’t even really get mad, it just wouldn’t work no matter how hard they tried. But then they changed some of the lyrics and music. And unlike “Little Girls,” it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work at all. This was born to fail for me, and oh did it fail hard. They should have just recreated the original exactly the way it was and changed absolutely nothing about it.

#12: Who Am I?

Cameron Diaz owned this song, and I actually really liked her acting in it. It was basically her song. But then they added the other two, and it just kinda became meh for me. I really only remembered Cameron and also feeling immense disappointment at the rest of it.

#13: I Don’t Need Anything But You

Okay, this was a great ending song. It was very celebratory, fun, cute, and really funny. It had some fun jokes and was basically just everyone skipping off into the sunset. I liked it.

--------

Anyways, that’s the end of the review! I’m tired or writing all of this. This was incredibly dumb and I’m sorry. This better get some notes because I worked far harder on this than I should have. Again, I’m sorry about this review.

[brw]

i think the reason why the fantastic four don't have many fans compared to the avengers of x-men aside from the obvious issue of less popular adaptions is for two reasons; a) they're an incredibly inaccessible bunch, and b) there's a noticeable lack of diversity on the team

like with the avengers & x-men, there's definitely a larger history and mythos to both teams, but the lineups so often change and there's so many reboots that there's a lot of entry points for new readers to get into. there's also a lot of variating teams, so someone can consistently read x-factor or dark avengers or something and never have to worry too much about what's happening in the main comic line, unless with events. but the fantastic four.... don't really have that? while writers change and there's definitely some series' that are made with new readers in mind, the fact that the team mostly doesn't change means that each character has a lot larger and more complex story behind them, which is very intimidating for new readers. and the fantastic four are much more compacted into their own corner of the universe than the avengers or x-men i think? like the avengers & x-men have crossovers fairly often, there's multiple teams that do different things and whatnot and there's a larger demand for reboots, but the fantastic four are so "classic", i suppose, that most people don't really tend to do much with them other than like, maybe have them move house for a bit, but eventually they'll come back to the baxter building. the avengers and x-men's status quo goes through a lot of change; avengers will have a split, or will be outlawed and have to go undercover, or someone will get hold of a cosmic cube or whatnot, and the x-men will suffer another genocide or move to a new island or a fire bird will come to fuck things up, but the fantastic four are much more consistent with their status quo, at least on eye level. the fantastic four, being just the four of them, are a lot more compact and to the average reader i think this makes it hard to get into them. also, if you read an avengers or x-men comic, you're usually gonna have one team show up or one member at some point, but the fantastic four keep to themselves for the most part, and don't really play a large enough role when they do show up for anyone to be interested in learning more.

and the diversity problem is definitely like, A Thing. because they're so family based and really don't work as the fantastic four without the core members because they're just so iconic and associated with the team, the members rarely change, and when they do it doesn't tend to be for long, and those members were all conceptualised and debuted in 1961, where having more than two reoccurring white female characters was virtually unheard of in mainstream comics. this doesn't mean they're completely devoid of diverse characters; ben grimm is jewish and is occasionally portrayed as having chronic pain, alicia masters, ben's love interest, is blind, wyatt wingfoot, johnny's best friend and she-hulk's love interest during her 80's tenure is a native man, reed is a what i call "comic book canon" autistic man (he's been described as autistic on panel and some writers have knowingly portrayed him with autistic characteristics but he's never received an on panel diagnosis or described himself as autistic in the 616 universe), black panther, one of the most well known & iconic black comic characters debuted in the fantastic four and often shows up to aid the team, black bolt is a mute inhuman who debuted also in the fantastic four, doctor doom is probably marvel's most iconic villain and is a romani man, and tong, a member of the future foundation, is a transgender girl.

but the core four, ben, reed, sue and johnny, and the two main kids, franklin and valeria, are all white cisgender heterosexuals. past attempts to add a little diversity to the team (jessica alba who played sue in the 2005 & 2007 movies is latina, although given that they put her in a blond wig and gave her blue contacts i'm not sure how much this counts, alicia masters in the same movie was portrayed by a black woman, and micheal b jordan played johnny in fant4stic) have been accompanied by widely considered bad films, which doesn't help matters either. meanwhile, the avengers and x-men, while initially being very similar to the fantastic four in that all of the founding members where white cishets, often change rosters and have more diverse line-ups of characters.

i don't really have a conclusion to this or anything, but yeah, this is mostly why i think the fantastic four remain not necessarily "underground", but definitely a lesser known and not as popular team. this isn't like, insulting them or anything, i well and truly love this team it's probably my favourite in comic books generally, but there is a definite issue in ff comics with accessibility and diversity with the nature of the team just being the four of them, and while i'm trying not to be too hopeful i do hope the mcu attempts to ease these matters a little.