#also just bc their romance doesn’t work for me doesn’t necessarily mean i think it straight up sucks

[niningtori]

an iron man | oneshot

pairing: choi beomgyu x you

summary: beomgyu has only ever known how to live function as a rental sexbot. he fucks whoever and whatever comes his way with a forced smile plastered on his face. that is, until you, a self-proclaimed trainwreck, come along.

genre: android!au, sexbot!au, angst, romance, fluff (more than i ever thought i could ever write i fear...), skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

warnings: very brief and vague mentions of beomgyu being forced to engage in sexual acts he does not want with previous clients, skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

smut warnings: unprotected sex, creampie, cockwarming, praise, dacryphilia, sub!gyu

word count: 14.7k (trust i will not be writing this much again if this flops BWNWJSJEJDK)

notes: terrified to post this one because this is probably my favorite thing i've ever written and if it gets a bad reaction i might die :,) also very unsure if this is the best time to post it since it's during kinktober so i'm not sure if the demand is there but i love this work so so much i pray you all like it. if you don't read anything else from me, i hope that you read this bc i rlly care ab it :,) please don't be mean i beg

beomgyu doesn’t know how long he’s been living like this. living is an odd term, too, and it’s not just because “life” is ill-defined for an android, but because to call what he experiences a life feels like a bastardization of the term. his power is turned on at some point, usually late at night, he fucks or gets fucked by somebody he probably doesn’t know, then he does the same shit all over again. so yes, he may be “alive”, but he wouldn't dare to call what he experiences living. living is too precious of a term to be used so cheaply on a sex android who’s made available for rent for the highest bidder of the night.

he’s seen how people live through his scattered vignettes of human life. he only gets them when he’s powered on, but he soaks them up with pleasure because they’re the only thing he’s ever known. some people do it wildly, living unattached to everyone and everything. their lives are not completely dissimilar to his, in a way, except they have a choice in the matter. they have time to find themselves, what their likes and dislikes are, and they get to connect with people in a way he will never have the power to. others, though, live the kind of life he really wants. they live by loving and being loved, knowing and being known. he wonders what it’d be like to know somebody outside of whatever secret deviant sexual pleasures they have. he wonders what it’s like to be known, too, but he guesses you would need to have something for someone to care enough to know about in the first place. he has no such thing.

it’s a night like any other when he’s powered on by a total stranger. he briefly takes in his surroundings and notices that it’s a really nice place, but you wouldn’t be the first rich person to rent him — not by a longshot. next, he takes you in. now, there’s no reason for you to dress up, really. you have no need to tempt him, as he will be able to feign attraction no matter what you look like, but he still finds it odd that you seem to have forgone any effort to appeal to him, if only because most people’s fantasies require them to look and feel sexy; but you don’t look sexy at all. you look like you’ve just gotten home from a long day at work, and honestly? you kind of smell like it, too.

“do you think you could do the dishes for me? i’m exhausted,” you ask with a perfectly-timed yawn. what… ?

he short-circuits for a moment as he tries to think of an appropriate response. he’s never had anyone try to get him to do chores for them, but maybe this is some sort of weird roleplay? maybe you want him to act as a house husband for you before doing the deed, which isn’t necessarily a problem since he’s well-versed in acting, but there’s just one issue.

“i don’t know how,” he tells you honestly.

“you don’t know how to do dishes?” you ask curiously, 

“it’s not in my programming,” he replies. if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s embarrassed because of the way he hesitates and looks away from you when he says it. he can’t possibly feel that, though, so it must just be your imagination.

“oh… that’s alright. okay, do you know how to clean a room? mine’s kind of dirty,” you try. 

“n-no,” he says, and he wishes the earth would just swallow him whole. he’s never failed at living up to expectations, and never so badly, at that. just what kind of fetish is this? 

“that’s okay,” you sigh, and he may not fully understand it, but he can sense your disappointment. “well, what can you do?” and the question is not asked maliciously, but with what seems to be genuine wonder. ah. he knows how to answer this one. slowly, he walks up to you and loosens your hair. you look up at him in shock, but he just cups your face, swiping his thumb across your lower lip. 

“i can do whatever you want me to, baby,” he whispers alluringly. “just tell me how you like it.” you’re so stunned at his switch in demeanor that you forget how to speak for a moment, but you quickly recollect yourself and pry his hands off of you.

“i don’t want you to do anything,” you insist. “i’m just tired. if you can’t help me clean, that’s alright. you can watch something if you’re bored. i think that’s it. well, goodnight.” beomgyu is malfunctioning at the moment. he thinks the gears in his head might be sparking while he tries to understand this new development. you don’t give him time to process it, though. you just slam your bedroom door shut behind you. he thinks he hears you lock it, too.

genuinely at a loss at the thought that he has nothing and no one to do, he sits himself on your couch. he tries not to make himself too at home at first, just barely making a dent on it and scooting to the very edge of the cushion as to not appear to be too relaxed. what if this is some sort of test? what if you’re actually going to come out soon so you two can fuck? until then, what should he do next? thoughts like this plague him until he accepts the fact that you are actually sleeping. your obnoxiously loud snoring is a dead giveaway, and he finally, finally feels brave enough to fiddle with your remote control. 

he scrolls for something to watch. movies and shows have been on as background noise during sex before, so he’s somewhat familiar with them, but he’s never gotten the opportunity to pick for himself or actually pay attention to what's happening on screen. he settles on a romantic movie about a robot who joins human society. the robot falls in love with a human girl, but in the end, the robot has to leave the girl because the town won’t accept him, even after using him. she marries a human man and has children, and eventually grandchildren, too. she still loves the robot even though he’s gone, which he thinks is supposed to make him feel sorry for her, but all he can feel is pity for the robot, who spends the rest of his life alone. 

it’s enough to make him cry, which he shouldn’t be able to do in a non-sexual setting, but he does it, anyway. it’s just so unfair to him. the girl is able to live a normal life while the robot is doomed to be alone forever. why? because he was born different? it’s not his fault that he was invented, but he spends the rest of his time on earth paying for the crime of existing in a world not built for him. the more beomgyu thinks about it, the more wronged he feels. he’s outright sobbing by the time you plop down on the couch beside him. he jumps up and straightens his posture while trying in vain to regain his composure.

“yeah, this movie makes me cry, too,” you quietly remark. he’s silent, not because he didn’t hear what you said, but because he genuinely doesn’t know how to act after being caught red handed.

“can i ask you something?” you ask in lieu of his lack of a response.

“yes?” he feebly answers.

“why are you crying?” you question with a tilt of your head, but something in him tells him that you already know.

“because the movie made me sad,” he admits after a pause.

“are androids supposed to feel things like that?” 

“... no,” he replies after a pause. 

“then why can you?” 

“i… i don't know. just please don’t say anything to my owners,” he pleads. he knows that if the company that owns him were to find out about this, he’d be scrapped in a heartbeat. or worse, they’d analyze him like a labrat to try to find the anomaly within him. his “life” as a sexbot will be over, and he’d really rather be a box of scraps than live as a case study in a lab somewhere. 

“it’s okay,” you tell him with a reassuring smile as you watch him trying not to spiral. “i won’t tell them. it’ll be our secret.” beomgyu has never had a secret to share with anyone before, so he feels an overwhelming amount of excitement at the idea that he will finally have one. his chest feels warm at the thought.

“thank you,” he says with a grateful smile.

“no problem,” you reply with a yawn. “i’m tired, so i’m heading back to bed. i just wanted to get some water. goodnight, for real this time.” 

“goodnight,” he murmurs softly. you return his words with a sleepy smile and go back into your room. he finds that he’s smiling even when you leave. 

he spends the night consuming as much media as he conceivably can before he has to leave. usually, he'd be powered off after he’s done being used, so he greedily savors every moment he can. who knows if he'll ever get this chance again. when you wake up, you're surprised to see that he's exactly where you left him, still watching the screen intently.

“good morning,” you say while stretching your arms. 

“good morning,” he replies. 

“are you ready to be returned?” you ask. 

“... yes,” he lies. 

“okay. i think somebody will be here to pick you up in an hour or so. you hungry?” 

“i don't really eat,” he bashfully answers. for some reason, he's embarrassed at the fact that you're treating him like a human while he's unable to fully act like one.

“oh. i guess that makes sense,” you nod. 

things are quiet until he’s picked up, but it’s not an awkward silence. you sit next to him on the couch as you wolf down some breakfast and let him watch whatever he pleases. when he eventually hears knocking at your door, he feels an incomprehensible sense of dread.

“i think that's them,” you remark, breaking the silence. 

“y-yeah,” he replies. 

“well, it was nice to meet you,” you say, reaching out your hand for him. he’s unsure what to do with it. not missing a beat, you gently grab his hand and shake it. he's stunned at the physical contact, and he's still reeling when you let the man from the rental company in. you have a brief conversation with him before he walks towards beomgyu.

“goodbye,” you tell the android with a smile and a little wave. 

“... good—” and the man switches him off.

-

the next time beomgyu is powered on, he’s in your house again. relief floods him when he realizes it. you don’t seem as exhausted as the last time he saw you. when that was, he has no idea, but if he had to guess, he’d say it was just last night because of the fact that he’s so popular he’s rented almost every day.

“hey,” you greet him with a smile. he’s still feeling relieved before he realizes that tonight might be the night where you ask him to have sex with you. maybe you were just tired last night and had no desire to fuck, but he can tell that you’re feeling more energetic tonight. 

“i didn’t catch your name,” you add. 

“... beomgyu. i’m part of the choi line, but i’m a custom model, so they gave me a name,” he tentatively replies.

“nice,” you nod, and you briefly introduce yourself before asking if he wants to watch a movie. 

“watch… a movie?” is this some sort of euphemism for fucking? it wouldn’t be the first time he’s heard of something like this. as mentioned before, some people like movies as background noise. 

“yeah, you can pick,” you say, casually plopping down on the couch and patting the cushion next to you. he hesitantly takes your cue, and he’s mentally preparing himself for what comes next before you take a blanket and cocoon yourself in it so tightly, it’d be impossible for him to touch you.

“what’s wrong?” you ask, and he jolts a bit when he realizes that he’s been staring in disbelief. “oh, are you cold? do you want a blanket, too?” 

“‘m fine,” he replies.

“are you sure? the clothes they make you wear look a little thin,” you observe with your nose wrinkled, and he feels impossibly small under your surveying eye. “here, i’ll get you some sweats. i think soobin left some the last time he was here.” 

“who’s soobin?” he asks a little too quickly. so quickly, in fact, he doesn’t even have time to process why he even asked.

“my friend. stay here, i’ll grab them for you.” 

when you return, you have a long pair of sweatpants in hand and a big t-shirt. 

“you can change in the bathroom. it’s down the hallway and to the left, okay?” he nods in response.

he strips his clothes off as best as he can, and it feels like he’s shedding a second skin. when he’s finished undressing, he pulls on the clothes you gave him and stares in the mirror. it’s in his programming to always be mindful of how he looks, but he feels especially self-conscious now that he’s wearing a normal outfit. he fixes up his hair and clears his throat before exiting your (messy) bathroom and making his way back into your living room. he finds you fiddling with your phone before you look up at him.

“took you long enough,” you tease, and he blushes, which stuns you. just how human is this guy?

“s-sorry, i —” 

“hey, i’m just kidding. you’re fine. you look pretty good in those clothes — soobin would be jealous,” you chuckle. his ears perk up at the mention of soobin again. is he your boyfriend? he must be. why else would he have clothes at your house? is that why you don't want to sleep with beomgyu? because you have someone already? if that's the case, why rent him at all? but he is not brave enough to ask these questions, so he settles for a soft “thank you” and returns to his spot on the couch.

you toss him the remote and he catches it with ease before unsurely flipping through your streaming services. he finds something that piques his interest and turns to you with an uncertain look before you nod encouragingly. he selects it and lets it play. he doesn’t mean to, but he finds himself sinking further and further into the cushions as it progresses. 

it’s a sweet movie — a romantic comedy about an amnesic woman whose memory is wiped clean every morning, but a man falls in love with her, anyway. she never remembers him, so he has to make her fall in love with him in a new way every day. he finds himself smiling throughout it, but a particularly funny scene has him actually laughing for the first time. it’s a squeaky sort of thing, and he has never laughed before, so he’s somewhat surprised as it leaves his throat. he looks to you in trepidation, but you just smile warmly and respond with a soft chuckle of your own. he finds that he looks to you every time a new development occurs, and you always answer encouragingly. 

the end of the film surprises him. it’s bittersweet in that she never does get her memory back, but the man makes a video recounting their entire love story for her to watch every time she wakes up. it ends with them living happily together in spite of everything, and it’s enough to make him sob. he turns to you and sees that you’re teary-eyed as well, but you seem to be enjoying his reaction so much that there’s still a grin on your face. after the film ends, you can tell that he has something on his mind.

“what’s wrong? didn’t you like it?” you gently ask.

“i did. i just don’t understand,” he replies timidly.

“don’t understand what?” 

“why he would do all of that for her, i guess,” he says. 

“because he loves her. when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you always find a way,” you tell him, and the sentiment seems to strike a chord within him.

“even if they’re that different?”

“of course.”

-

beomgyu spends the following nights with this same routine. he’s switched on, sees you standing in front of him with a smile, gets comfortable, and watches as much media as he possibly can while you two chatter away about every scene. he learns much more from it than he ever did from experience with his previous renters, and he finds himself becoming more and more emotional by the day. you never try to question him or press him to explain any of his feelings, and it just makes him feel even more comfortable with you. 

one day, he even feels comfortable enough to ask you a question. the question. 

“can i ask you something?” 

“of course! what is it?” you reply in earnest. beomgyu has never directly inquired about you.

“why do you rent me? i mean, i know we watch stuff together now, but why rent me in the first place?” and even when he feels exponentially more at ease with you than he ever has in any other context, he’s still nervous when he asks it. 

“oh, my friend did it as a joke, i guess,” you shrug. “he thought i needed to get laid or something, but i’m not into stuff like that, so i just thought i’d ask you to help me clean. obviously, that’s what i actually need,” you giggle. what he feels at your words can only be described as disappointment. “stuff like that”? so you’re not into sleeping with sexbots? is it because you find them disgusting? is it because you find him disgusting? he’s not sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it.

“oh. so why don’t you buy a cleaning bot?” he asks softly, and while you are usually pretty perceptive of his emotions, you don’t register the fact that he’s at a loss right now.

“i dunno. my parents were always against that sort of thing. they thought it was wrong, i guess, so i didn’t grow up with them like everyone else did. i didn’t really have an opinion on them until i met you,” you tell him while grinning and lightly nudging him with your elbow. he tries his best to smile because, in theory, your words are really sweet. you see him as more than just another android, so why does he feel like that’s not enough? 

the fragile connection you two have made seems even more fragile now. at least, it does to him. you only met each other because of a joke your friend just so happened to make, not because of fate or the divine intervention that he always sees in the movies. maybe in another world, your friend rented a different sexbot. maybe you’d even treat them the same way you treat him. the thought alone makes something ugly burn in his chest. 

still, you are oblivious to the internal war raging within beomgyu. 

“hey, i’ve got an idea,” you tell him, and he perks up a bit. “have you ever listened to music?” 

“not really,” he replies solemnly. people have played it in the background of their sexual escapades, but he hasn’t really gotten the chance to listen the same way humans do. you finally register his crestfallen appearance, but you chalk it up to him feeling like he’s missing out. 

“why don’t we listen to some? i can play a bunch of different genres so you can find what you like,” you suggest, and he agrees to it. truthfully, he doesn’t fully understand how music can be better than movies and shows, but he is curious to find out what makes it so special. 

and special, it is. he doesn’t like every song you play, he realizes, but that’s only natural given how different they are from each other. he finds himself being drawn to the more emotional and moody ones, but he can’t help but enjoy the way you quietly sing and nod along to the more upbeat tunes. 

as you continue to sit together, you begin to fiddle with your hair. you’re scoffing and loosening it for the umpteenth time before you’re about to give up, but beomgyu stops you.

“let me do it,” he says.

“do you know how?” 

“i think i can. i’ve been watching you,” he says simply.

“... okay.” 

you turn your back to him to give him access to your hair and he scoots closer to you. closer than you’ve ever been. his touch on your head is careful as he gently gathers your hair and begins to braid it. you’re not sure how much time passes because he’s actually quite slow, but it’s relaxing all the same. you find yourself softly humming to the tune of the song playing. the lyrics are a little dark, but you follow along in earnest, and beomgyu thinks he finally understands why people like music so much. for moments like this. he tries to soak up every detail he can, from the way the light hits your frame to the melody you hum, and he wishes this moment could last forever.

but you only have so much hair, so the moment does have to end, eventually. he ties up your hair and you pull out your phone camera to admire his handiwork. admittedly, it’s a lot better than anything you could’ve done. it seems that he’s a fast learner.

“this looks perfect! thanks, beoms,” you say warmly. he’s stunned for a second at the nickname.

“beoms?” 

“yeah, like beomgyu. beoms,” you say with a casual shrug, and something in his chest blossoms. “i give all of my friends nicknames.” and something in his chest explodes at the title of “friend”. 

“you do?” he asks excitedly.

“yeah. like, i call soobin ‘soobinie’ or ‘soobie’, sometimes,” you giggle, and the bloom of hope in his chest dies with it. 

“are you two close?” he asks, even though he knows the answer will probably hurt him.

“very. he’s my best friend,” you answer fondly. oh. you’re beomgyu’s best friend — you’re beomgyu’s only friend, and tentatively at that. the idea that the deep connection he feels with you is even deeper with someone else, at least in your eyes, makes him feel sick. do you let soobin play with your hair? do you hum along to songs you’ve shown him while he does it? do you smile at him after he’s finished and compliment him on his skills? probably, probably, probably. the ugly feeling that was previously completely foreign to him now takes its usual place in his chest, and it makes his stomach hurt so much that if he could vomit, his metaphorical dinner would be all over the floor.

“oh,” is all he can say. 

-

days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, but every time beomgyu awakens, he finds you smiling up at him. this can’t be good for your bank account — he’s quite expensive to rent, after all — but he’s far too afraid to actually bring it up. what if you realize just how much money you’re sinking into him and want to stop renting him? what will he do if you don’t want him anymore? he feels an incomparable sense of dread at the thought. 

he prepares to sit on the couch and watch something, listen to music, or even play a video game with you. you two have gotten into them recently, and he’s discovered that he very much enjoys playing with you, even when you’re yelling at him and demanding that he stop letting you win. he can’t help but grin when he thinks about it. you start playing a song, and you do, indeed, invite him to sit on the couch, but you don’t sit down next to him and start babbling away about your day like you usually would. 

“do you think you could do me a favor?” you ask. 

“what, do you want me to wash your dishes?” he jokes, and you share a laugh before you say your next words, but all laughter and joy is profusely sucked out of him when you say them.

“no, smartass, but can you braid my hair for me? i’m going over to soobin’s tonight, and i want it out of my way.” 

“soobin’s?”

“yeah, it’s been a while since i’ve stayed the night, and he said we’re way past due for it,” you tell him, and the world as beomgyu knows it comes crashing down around him. 

“you’re staying the night with him?” 

“mhm. he’s right, it’s been too long; but don’t worry, i bought a pass so you can play video games online. there’s even a headset so you can talk to people, if you want. maybe you’ll even make some friends,” you say while playfully waggling your eyebrows. beomgyu’s silence is pensive, to say the very least, and you worry that he’s apprehensive of making a friend that isn't you. 

“seriously, you might like it. it’ll be good for you to meet more people, honestly. i’m sure it’s driving you crazy to only have me to talk to,” you jokingly add, but to beomgyu, it’s the worst joke he’s ever heard. no, it does not drive him crazy to only talk to you every day. in fact, even though he’s not conscious during the time you spend away from each other, he thinks, deep down, that he still somehow misses you when you’re apart. and no, he does not think he needs to have anyone but you. you are more than enough for him, so how could you ever think he needs more? again, he is taunted by that same strange and implacable feeling he’s been having ever since he met you, yet he can’t quite put his finger on it, even when he nods and tells you that he’ll try making new friends. 

but as he brushes out your hair and you sing along to the words:

"i’m glad i didn’t die before i met you

but now i don’t care

i could go anywhere with you

and i’d probably be happy"

he finally understands what that feeling is. that warm, all-consuming feeling. that feeling of comfort, safety, and unconditional understanding. that feeling of infinite curiosity about the other person. that feeling of wanting to known and be known in a way so profound it physically aches. 

yes, as he gathers your hair and ever-so-gently twists it in his hands in preparation for you staying the night with a man you clearly prefer over him, the feeling becomes clear as day. love. what he feels for you is love — an emotion he should never be able to even fathom, yet he does. 

and it makes him loathe himself to a degree he never thought he was capable of.

he’s so put off by this sentiment, he almost can’t finish the braid because his hands are shaking so much, but somehow, he finishes, anyway. 

“are you done?” you ask as you fiddle with your hair and look back at him.

“mhm,” he replies. 

“yay! thank you!” you say giddily. 

“you’re welcome,” he mumbles. you’re not stupid, so you notice that something is off about him, but you just assume it’s because he’s nervous about being left alone to make new friends. you feel guilty in a certain sense, but it’ll be good for him to branch out and meet new people, so you tuck the feeling away as best as you can before packing your nightly essentials and getting ready to leave.

“i’ll be back tomorrow morning,” you tell him, and he only nods with his lips pursed, which makes your heart feel sour.

“try not to miss me too much,” you tease, but it doesn’t seem to cheer him up in the slightest. 

“have fun,” he replies weakly, and your previously sour heart now kind of aches, but you have to do this for him. you can't always be beside him for everything, right? besides, it's only for the night.

you open the door to leave, but before you go, you turn back to him and he senses hesitation in you. before he can question it, you’re opening your arms, and his eyes widen when he realizes you’re inviting him in for a hug. you almost regret doing it as soon as you open them for fear of making him uncomfortable, but he embraces you before you have time to process such feelings. on beomgyu’s end, he has always been wary of touch for obvious reasons, but he gravitates towards your open arms like he was meant to be in them.

he rests his chin on the top of your head for a moment and you spend an unknown length of time just standing with your arms wrapped around each other. 

“i’ll miss you,” you admit, and before you can smack yourself for being so dramatic and sentimental over what will ultimately only be one night, you can swear you feel his grip tightening even more around you.

eventually, you break away and look up at him with a smile. you ruffle his hair and promise to see him later, and he answers you with a nod. then, you're leaving and locking the door behind you.

immediately, beomgyu feels a sense of loss he’s never felt before. after all, to experience loss, you must have something worth losing in the first place, and he has never had anything like that. at least, not until you. so he stands at the door for who knows how long, just like a puppy waiting for his owner to get home. 

-

soobin can sense you’re out of it before you even finish crossing through his doorway, and it puts a halt to your typically overdramatic greeting. 

“what’s the matter? are you feeling okay?” he questions concernedly as he pulls you in for a hug. you nod before you break apart from him and walk through the threshold. 

“y-yeah. it’s just, i don’t know, i guess i just feel bad about leaving beomgyu all by himself,” you tell him as you plop down on his couch. 

“the android you’ve been renting?” he asks incredulously. “i’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually. why’re you renting it so much? i barely even see you anymore. is the sex that good?” 

“you know i don’t use androids like that,” you snap in annoyance, partially because he’s calling beomgyu “it”.

“i know, which is why i’m so confused. why rent it in the first place if you’re not getting anything out of it?” 

you struggle to answer his question. you promised beomgyu you’d keep his secret, but you trust soobin, and you know he won’t judge him, or worse, report him. besides, it’ll be good to have an unbiased third party weigh in on the situation. with this in mind, you tell him about beomgyu, skipping over some of the more personal details. he’s in disbelief at first and actually thinks you’re just fucking with him, but as you tell him more and more about the time you’ve spent together, his smile falls and his face turns serious. 

“so that’s why i feel so guilty about leaving him alone,” you finish with a deep sigh. he’s silent for a few moments before collecting his thoughts.

“god, i can’t believe this is actually happening,” he whispers.

“i know. it’s insane, but it’s true. he’s just so… human. you should've seen the way he looked at me when i told him i was leaving. i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone look so sad before.” 

“well, you’re right about him needing to make friends,” he says with a nod, and it validates all of your misgivings about leaving him alone. “but don’t you think you should, i don’t know, think about what all of this means?” 

“what do you mean?” you ask, and in that moment, he knows you have no idea about the way beomgyu probably feels about you. he’s not 100% confident in his deductions, but the way you describe how beomgyu acts around you pretty much tells him everything he needs to know. 

“i mean, you basically have a completely sentient creature who relies on you for everything. if he’s as human as you say he is, then he can probably feel everything that we do. right now, i’d guess that he feels like you’re all he knows.” and the sneaking sense of guilt that was previously threatening to creep up on you is now completely overwhelming. you’re all he knows. and you left him all alone to fend for himself and make his own friends. yes, he needs to learn how to make connections, but how could you expect him to know how to do that? it took weeks for him to finally seem comfortable around you, so how could he possibly know how to make them on his own? moreover, even though it's nothing to you, you're his entire world. he must feel like you abandoned him.

“i’ve gotta go,” you mumble.

“what?” he asks. 

“i–i’ve gotta go home,” you repeat as you hurriedly stand up and hug him goodbye. 

“wait! i think you should —” 

“love you, bye!” you shout as you book it out of the doorway. 

-

when you return home, you open the door to see beomgyu listlessly staring at the television screen. when he hears you, he turns to look at you with watery eyes. he looks so lost in this moment, and all of your suspicions are confirmed.

“beoms, i am so sorry,” you tell him as you rush over and throw your arms around him. 

“for what?” he asks with a gulp as he stays in your embrace, shakily wrapping his arms around your waist.

“i’m sorry for leaving you all by yourself. i thought it was just for one night, so it’d be alright, but you don’t have anyone but me right now; and i realize that it’s unfair for me to expect you to meet other people all on your own when you’ve never had to do it before. if you want friends, i’ll help you, okay? i’ll be there with you as you do it,” you tell him, and you feel his body trembling. 

“i-i’m sorry. i know it’s not a big deal, but when you’re not with me, i feel so scared. i… i don’t know how to do anything by myself. i’m s-sorry i need you so much,” he whispers, and your heart breaks. 

“don’t be sorry,” you say gently. “how about this: i’ll join you online and we can talk to people together. then, when you’re ready, you can start hanging out with my friends in person, too, okay? we can keep going until you don’t need me anymore.” beomgyu outwardly agrees, which seems to put you at ease, but there’s just one issue: he’ll always need you.

-

gaming online is actually really fun, but making friends is hard for someone like beomgyu. he’s quiet and a little awkward at first, but after a few nights and with your help, he finally warms up to the people he games with. he gets so comfortable, in fact, that he’s even able to shit talk with them a little. 

“fuckkk, that’s so unfair!” his new friend, kai, wails over the headset. 

“it’s not unfair, you just suck,” beomgyu chuckles, and kai whines again. you laugh at their interaction before kai continues.

“how are you so fucking good at this game? you’ve only been playing for a few nights, and you’re already better than me!” he pouts. 

“i’m just gifted,” beomgyu boasts.

“very true,” you add, and he beams, but kai’s next words throw him off-kilter.

“whatever. stop asking your girlfriend to argue with me — you two make me sick,” he jokes with his signature maniacal laugh, but the two of you are too stunned to laugh along. you look at each other in sheer embarrassment, and you can see beomgyu’s ears turning bright pink beneath his blond hair. you’re not sure why you feel so mortified, but you do. this is beomgyu, for god’s sake. there’s no earthly way you could ever see him in anything other than a purely platonic way, so why does your heart feel uneasy at the notion? while you’re still too stunned to speak, beomgyu tries to pipe up and respond.

“sh-she’s — we’re not, uh —” 

“damn it!” kai yells as his character dies yet again, and any momentum beomgyu previously had to clear up the misunderstanding is killed stone dead in its tracks. 

he turns to look at you unsurely, but the awkward moment seems to have passed for you as you laugh at kai’s character’s death. if only he could be as unfazed.

after kai goes offline, you two decide to quit gaming for the night. you turn to beomgyu nervously, and he immediately knows that you’re going to say something serious. he hopes beyond hope that it’s not about what kai said.

“can i ask you something?” and his heart sinks. oh god, you probably caught onto his feelings. he’s not sure he has the confidence to tell the truth, but how could he lie to you?

“y-yes,” he replies, voice a bit unsteady.

“okay, you can say no if you want, but soobin invited us to a get together he’s having pretty soon. it’s not anything too crazy, so there’ll only be a few of us. i think it’ll be a good start for you. maybe you’ll even make some new friends, you know?” he’s silent at your words just out of sheer shock. he’d definitely missed the mark when guessing your intentions. 

“it’s okay to say no,” you hurriedly add, “but my friends are really nice, and i’d be with you the entire time. even if you don’t talk to anybody, you can talk to me.”

“okay,” he agrees before he can even really think about it. he guesses he’s just relieved that you still don’t know about his feelings, but part of him aches even still. 

“really?” you ask incredulously. “oh my god! i have to tell soobin — he’ll be so excited!” you babble, and his lips curl upwards at how happy you are. he wishes he could always make you happy like this, and it seems that he’d agree to absolutely anything if you were the one asking.

-

work has been especially taxing today, which is nothing new, but you have this insatiable suspicion that something feels… off as you finish up for the day. as you’re about to head out for the night, you wonder what beomgyu will want to do once you get home. maybe he’ll want to play games with kai, or maybe he’ll want to watch a movie with you. maybe he’ll let you cuddle up to him for warmth, which he’s been very willing to do, lately. the unspoken rule that you two will never touch has become blurry for some reason, but you’re pretty touchy with all of your friends, so it only feels like a matter of course to you. 

you’re thinking about all of the potential ways tonight could play out when it hits you: you didn’t reserve beomgyu. you spit out a curse and hurriedly take out your phone to book him, but it’s too late. he’s already assigned to someone for the night. fuck.

when you get home, you’re anxious beyond belief. you haven’t spent a night without beomgyu in months, but more importantly, he hasn’t spent a night without you. you try not to think about how scared he will be when he’s powered on in a stranger’s home. you hope he’s able to just switch back to his initial programming, but somehow, you just know it won’t be that easy. you feel sick with worry when you think about how someone so human will have to involuntarily turn his feelings off and pretend to enjoy something he’s being forced to do — with no compensation, no less. he must think you abandoned him. he must think you don’t care about him. how could you forget to reserve him when he needs you so much? fuck how busy you were with work, his wellbeing should have been your first priority.

so you sit and watch the hours tick by. you try to relax. you try to tell yourself it’s only for one night, and he’s been doing it for years, but something just feels wrong, wrong, wrong. you’re about to try to force yourself to go to sleep so the night ends more quickly when you hear a rapid knocking on your door. it’s strange for someone to call on you so late, indeed, but when you look through your peephole, you see none other than the very boy you’ve been worrying about. 

“beomgyu?” you say incredulously when you swing open the door. immediately, he embraces you, and you feel hot tears streaming down your neck as he nuzzles his face into it. you hold him as best as you can as you rub circles into his back and try to shush his cries.

“it’s okay, i’m here,” you tell him, and he whines. you try to break away to get a good look at him, but he just pulls you in even closer, as if you’re his only lifeline in this world, and in a way, you are.

after his breathing slows and his sobs die out, he reluctantly parts from you, so you hold his hand and lead him to your couch. his eyes are swollen and bloodshot while his nose is a bright pink, but he never once takes his eyes off of you for fear of letting you out of his sight. in his mind, you can’t leave as long as he can see you.

“are you alright?” you tentatively ask, hand still holding his and soothingly caressing it in an attempt to calm him down. he goes to nod before stopping himself and shaking his head in the negative. your eyes soften even more at the action.

“do you want to talk about what happened?” you try, and he nods before clearing his throat.

“i, um, i woke up and i was at this woman’s house. she… she wanted me to get undressed, but i didn’t want to, so she started doing it for me.” you wince at his words, but he’s not finished yet. 

“she kept touching me, and it was so disgusting i just — i just couldn't stand it, so i ran away and came here. i don’t mean to make your life harder, and i won’t ask for you to stay the night with me anymore, but if you could just let me stay here, i promise i’ll learn how to clean or do anything you want. please, just don’t make me —” 

“beomgyu, stop it,” you say softly, but firmly. “you are not making my life harder. you can stay here as much as you want and do whatever you want while you’re here. i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean for this to happen. i was just so busy with work, and by the time i realized it, somebody had already booked you. i promise you that it’ll never happen again, okay? so you don't have to be afraid. i’m not leaving you, and i won’t let anyone hurt you, either.” 

you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look so relieved before. it looks as though you just saved his life, and to beomgyu, you essentially did. he holds your hand even tighter, as if you’re the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of this planet. 

“wait here, i’ll get you some clothes,” you say gently, but as you go to leave, he holds you even tighter. your eyebrow quirks in a silent question at his actions, and he looks sheepish for a moment before saying his next words.

“c-can we just stay like this for a bit? just for a little while? i’m still scared,” he mumbles, and your heart melts.

“of course. come here,” you beckon, and he falls into your arms and rests his head on your shoulder, breathing your scent in as he tries to imprint this moment into his hardware. you stay like that for a while before you finally convince him to change out of his uncomfortable clothes. he reluctantly lets you go, and his eyes follow you everywhere you walk. 

that night, you stay up later than usual to spend more time with him. he stays glued to your side and ensures that he’s always touching you in some way, which is endearing in a way you can’t seem to put into words. when you’re about to head to bed for the night, you swear you hear him whimper, but he lets you go, anyway. as you lay your head down and get comfortable under the covers, you hear a timid knocking on your door. you call him in, and his gaze shyly flickers between you and the floor. 

“c-can i stay with you tonight? i won’t bother you, i swear. it’s just — i just still feel weird. y-you can say no! i just thought that —”

“come here,” you softly interrupt, and he doesn’t hesitate to listen. he closes the door behind him and shuffles towards you, stopping uncertainly at the edge of the bed in a silent plea for permission to enter it. you feel a weird, warm feeling in your chest when he does it. you scoot over and pat the open space next to you before he gathers enough courage to slide in. you cover him with your blanket, and he stiffly accepts it. you giggle at his awkwardness and cuddle up to him, placing your arms around his waist before thinking better of it. how could you just invade his personal space when he’s clearly traumatized? you go to remove your arms and scoot away before he firmly locks you in place.

“it’s okay,” he whispers, settling himself into your embrace and mindlessly toying with the ends of your hair.

“are you sure?” you ask.

“i’m sure.”

it isn't long before beomgyu hears your breathing slow down, and eventually he hears you begin to snore. he smiles at the sound. he can't really sleep, but he's perfectly content with watching you rest. he continues to play with your hair, and you nuzzle into his touch every so often. he doesn’t want to repeat the events leading up to tonight, but he would do it all over again — any number of times — with a smile on his face if it meant he got to be with you like this again. 

-

the next morning, beomgyu waits for the usual delivery guy from the company to pick him up, but it’s currently way past the usual pickup time. he’s most certainly not complaining, but you don’t seem even remotely fazed by the matter. however, while you’re casually flipping through your streaming catalog literal hours after he’d already be gone, he can’t stop himself from asking:

“um, d-do you know when i’m being picked up?” you pause, and he worries that he may have said the wrong thing before you turn to him.

“do you want to be picked up?” you ask solemnly.

“n-no! of course not. it’s just, you know, i’d usually be gone by now, so i —” 

“do you want to stay here? with me, i mean,” you interrupt.

“i… i do,” he replies with a gulp. usually, that’d be all you get from him, but it feels like the perfect opportunity to be honest about his feelings. “i always want to stay with you, but i know i’m expensive, and i don’t want to be a bother.” he looks ashamed as he admits it, but if he had the courage to look in your eyes, he’d note the fondness that lies within them.

“i told you that you’re not a bother to me. i also told you that you could stay here for as long as you want, remember?” and he does, so he nods. 

“alright. i meant it when i said it last night, and i mean it now. if you want to be here, you can stay for as long as you’d like. you don't have to worry about your owners anymore, i promise.” and he thinks he’s never seen you as serious as you are now. he wonders what you mean before it dawns on him.

“you… did you buy me?” he asks in disbelief.

“y-yeah. i’m sorry, it sounds so gross when i hear it out loud, but that doesn’t mean that i own you or anything. what i really wanted to buy was your freedom, so you can stay as long as you want, but that also means that you can leave whenever you want, too.”

“i’m so sorry,” he says in a hushed, hurried tone. “i know i'm expensive. i’m really sorry.”

“money is not an object to me,” you dismiss in faux arrogance with a wave of your hand in hopes that it’ll lighten the mood, but beomgyu can’t stop the tears from falling over his waterlines, and you’re afraid your attempt to help him only made him feel more indebted to you. all worry is promptly washed away when you feel him pull you into his arms. 

“thank you,” he just barely breathes out. “i don’t know how i’ll ever pay you back, but i’ll try, i swear.”

“you don’t have to do anything for me, beoms. i should’ve done it a lot sooner, but i’m just a little slow, i guess,” you muse, and he chuckles softly into your neck.

-

sleeping with beomgyu should’ve only happened once, but every night when you say you’re heading to bed, he looks at you with puppy eyes and you find yourself inviting him to come along. each time, he looks so excited that if he had a tail, it would most certainly be wagging. he obediently follows you to your room and settles into the empty space next to you before holding you in his arms as you drift off. he’s even taken to humming the tunes of songs he likes when you struggle to settle down, and his baritone voice lulls you to sleep like a charm every time. he spends his time by just looking at you and trying to reconcile with his new reality. this is real. he gets to spend however many nights he wants next to you, as per your own words. even if you didn’t mean them, he plans to take them seriously. he is perfectly content with spending the rest of his life just sleeping with you, looking at you, being with you. 

-

soobin’s get together is tonight, and you look different than usual. your typical look is very casual, which makes sense because you’re only ever at home when you’re with him, but you are now primped and ready to be seen, and it makes him anxious because you look even more lovable. he knows these people are your friends, so they must’ve seen you dressed up before, but that only makes him all the more uneasy; they know a side of you he is only now seeing, and it makes that same old ugly feeling he's grown so accustomed to sprout in his chest. 

when you arrive at soobin’s place, the first thing you do when soobin swings open the door is jump in his arms like you didn’t just see him a week ago. he spins you around with a dimpled grin that’s so sincere, beomgyu feels emotionally decimated by it. you both giggle as you break apart, and the jealousy beomgyu feels brewing within feels unpacifiable. 

“is this beomgyu?” soobin asks, grin still very much apparent.

“yes! you’re gonna love him,” you answer giddily. 

“it’s nice to meet you,” soobin says warmly while stretching out his hand, which beomgyu awkwardly shakes while he tries to force his lips to curl upwards in what he prays is a believable smile.

“nice to meet you,” he mumbles.

“everyone’s already here, but you’re late as always,” soobin playfully chastises, and you pout in response.

everyone greets you when you walk in, mostly by hugging you and lightheartedly scolding you for not coming out anymore. they’re very clearly bantering with you, but each reproach feels like a knife to beomgyu’s heart. he’s the reason you haven’t seen them in so long. 

clueless to it all, you introduce him as your friend to everyone, which only makes him feel worse, somehow. he is just one friend out of many, meanwhile you’re his entire world. you’re far too caught up in the joy of seeing some of your favorite people after so long to notice his dismay, however.

you lead him to soobin’s couch to have a seat with you and one of your friends, taehyun maybe, offers him a drink, to which he awkwardly declines. you quickly follow up with something to the effect of “he isn’t much of a drinker,” and beomgyu nods in affirmation. you try your best to include beomgyu in conversation, but they’re all talking about people and places he doesn't know. all he knows is you, and the world you two built together seems smaller and smaller with every new topic of conversation. 

he notices that soobin seems to be eyeing him somewhat strangely, though he tries his best to play it off. he could just attribute it to surface level curiosity, but his intuition tells him it’s much deeper than that. is soobin sizing up his competition? maybe so, but there’s not much to see. beomgyu is handsome, and he knows it, but soobin knows a side of you beomgyu has only ever heard stories about. you’ve told him about your friends and the goings on between you and your coworkers, but it pales in comparison to actually meeting them. he makes an internal note to ask even more questions than he usually does the next time you’re telling him about your day. until then, he sits as close to you as humanly possible and clings onto your arm, which is so second nature to you, you don't even notice that he’s doing it. 

soobin, who is usually not the inquisitive type, can’t help but question the dynamic between you and beomgyu. at first, the lingering glances and intimate gestures were innocuous enough to be written off as mere friendliness, but when you whisper something in beomgyu’s ear and he flushes a bright pink, soobin knows he can’t ignore it any longer. he especially can’t ignore it when you turn away from beomgyu and he raises a hand to the ear you just whispered into as if he’s reliving the moment. well, time to test his theory. 

soobin slides into the open cushion next to you and begins excitedly chattering about how pretty you look tonight, and he even takes your braided hair into his hands and twirls it between his fingers.

“your hair looks pretty,” he muses.

“beomgyu did it, actually,” you grin, and soobin glances over to said boy, who is currently glaring daggers at him. the look in beomgyu’s eyes is so intense, he almost wants to back off, but he has to get to the bottom of this. 

“did he? you know, it’s been a while since you stayed over. wanna have a sleepover tonight? you have some clothes here from last time, and we can cuddle, i know you like that,” he says as innocently as he possibly can. 

before you can even reply, beomgyu is slamming his hands on the coffee table. you turn to face him in surprise, and the look on his face is the angriest you’ve ever seen him. his eyes are dark and his nostrils are flared as he heavily breathes. he’s never been angry at all in front of you, actually, so to say you’re taken aback is the understatement of the century. 

“beoms? what’s wrong?” you ask concernedly, completely turning away from soobin. your voice is enough to somewhat placate him, but before he can fully calm down, soobin is saying his next words.

“i’m sure he’s fine. beomgyu, you can find your way home tonight on your own, can’t you?” beomgyu is positively seething at this. before you can question him again, he’s gripping your hand so tightly it’s like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning, so you excuse the both of you and drag him to the bathroom for some privacy.

“are you alright?” you ask, frantically scanning his figure for some sort of sign of pain or discomfort. 

“i-i’m fine, i just, uh, i don’t feel good,” he says flatly. 

“what’s wrong? is it too much? do we need to go home?” he’s so flustered, he barely registers that you’re calling your house “home”, but he still notices it in spite of everything, and it’s like a balm on his aching heart. 

“y-yeah, can we go home? please?” he pleads, and you hurriedly nod. 

“of course, just let me say bye to everyone before we leave, okay?” and he wants to say no, but he’s as weak as ever in front of you, so he relents.

that doesn’t stop him from gripping your hand, though, as you say goodbye to everyone. you go to give soobin your usual hug, but beomgyu pulls you back to him even more tightly. you write it off as him not feeling well and just wanting to leave as soon as possible, to which you oblige, and before you know it, you two are scurrying out of soobin’s place like there’s something chasing you.

as you’re driving home, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket, but it isn’t until you’re walking through your doorway that you check it. 

soobie: we need to talk. call me as soon as you get home

you’re worried beyond belief at his serious tone, so you tell beomgyu that you’ve got to make a call before ducking into your bedroom. you don’t shut the door behind you, because why would you? 

you quickly call soobin and the line connects after just one ring.

“what’s wrong?” you ask anxiously, and soobin just sighs, which makes you all the more anxious.

“we have to talk about beomgyu.” 

“beomgyu? what about him? is something wrong?” you question.

“yeah, i mean, maybe. this might sound crazy, but i think — i know — he likes you.” you’re stunned silly for just a moment before bursting into laughter.

“likes me? what the hell are you talking about?” you dismiss, and you sense his agitation even through the phone.

“i’m serious. i had a feeling before, but tonight just confirmed it. he likes you.” you’re silent for a moment, just trying to process his words, but once your mind somewhat clears, you can’t help but deny, deny, deny.

“you’re wrong. it’s not like that at all. i’m just the first person who’s ever treated him nicely, and i —” 

“you’re not listening,” he cuts in irritatedly. “he looked like he wanted to skin me alive tonight. how else do you explain that?” 

“soobie,” you sigh. “you’ve got it all wrong. maybe you’re right and maybe he was feeling insecure, but that’s probably because i’m the only person he knows. he most likely just felt like you were stealing my attention away.” 

“you’re always so dense about these things, you know?” he groans. “okay, look, i’m not sure how they came about, but i do know that he has feelings for you. maybe it started out as dependence, i’m not sure, but it’s definitely much more than that now.” 

“that’s impossible,” you snort, actually feeling a bit impatient now. how could he possibly think that your relationship with beomgyu was anything other than platonic? 

“why? because he’s a robot?” oh, that shuts you up. “just think about it. if he were a human, would you still be saying the same thing? like i said before, if he’s as human as you say he is, he can feel the same way we do, and he’s definitely capable of feeling love, too.” you are, again, stunned into silence. suddenly, as if there was a fog that covered your brain before, things that you never really considered become clear to you. the soft touches, the gentleness. sleeping in the same bed and waiting for you to get home. wanting you — needing you — around all the time. the way he plays with your hair. the way he’s so interested in everything you have to say. the clinginess, the dependence. it all makes so much more sense to you. 

“i —” you begin, but you just so happen to glance up and see beomgyu right outside of your doorway… looking absolutely devastated. 

“i’ve gotta go,” you tell soobin as you hang up, not even bothering to say your usual goodbye. 

“beoms, did you hear us?” you ask tentatively, and he flinches a little bit before looking down at the floor and nodding.

you’re unsure of how to navigate this situation from here, but while you’re still trying to figure it out, beomgyu speaks.

“i-i’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly. “i understand if you don’t want me anymore.” 

“w-what? no, i —” 

“i’m just really sorry,” he says, looking as ashamed as a person ever could. “i know it’s wrong, i know it’s disgusting, but i —” 

“beomgyu.” 

“but i can’t help it. i wish i could, but i just can’t; and i understand if you want to return me or whatever, but if you could just —” 

“beomgyu, stop it,”  you interrupt firmly, no room for argument. he stares at you with defeated eyes, and you feel your heart break in two. “i am not disgusted, and i don’t want to return you.” his eyebrows furrow as if he doesn't quite understand, so you continue. 

“your feelings are not disgusting to me, don’t ever say that again, okay? please? it makes me sad,” you plead, and he hesitantly nods. “i think it’s normal, actually. you don’t really know anybody else other than me, so of course you’re confused.” 

“confused?” he asks incredulously, eyes snapping up to meet yours.

“confused,” you nod. “it'll change once you meet more people, i swear.” you try to smile reassuringly, but suddenly, you see tears welling up in beomgyu’s eyes. 

“beoms?” you carefully try.

“i don't need to meet more people. i just need you,” he chokes out. “don't tell me i'm confused because i'm not. i-i'd rather you just say you don't want to be with me than tell me that.” your heart clenches at his words, but he continues. 

“i just want to be with you, no one else,” he tells you desperately. “i can understand if you don't feel the same way, but i can't stand to hear you say i don’t love you, because i do. i really, really do.” and as if you're dissociating, your mind is bombarded by times where he's shown you this exact sentiment. again, you go back to every intimate moment you two have ever shared. it was easy to just chalk it up to his lack of experience, but when he's telling you that's not the case so earnestly, is it truly possible to still believe it’s nothing? after a while, you decide that it most certainly is not. 

the question is: do you feel the same way? you try to put a name to the feelings you have when you’re with him. the trust you have, the understanding. the desire to share everything you know and like with him, no matter how mundane it may seem to others; and consequently, the endearment towards him when you see how eager he is to listen. more than that, the intimacy between you two. how you like waking up to him smiling down at you, and how when something happens, he’s the first one you want to tell, good or bad. how when you listen to new music, you feel excited at the prospect of sharing it with him. 

you realize you want to know more about him, the happy things and even the sad things. why he is the way that he is, why he thinks the way he thinks. the peace you feel when he’s running his fingers through your hair and holding you close when you watch the same film for the dozenth time. you try to picture a world where somebody else rented him. a world in which somebody else got to see him as soon as they wake up or as soon as they get home from a particularly grueling day at work, and you finally understand that you wouldn’t like that at all. but why? you’ve only ever thought of him as a friend, right? so why does it matter to you? 

your eyes focus on beomgyu again, and you notice how utterly defeated he looks. his heart is on full display for you — and you alone — as tears stream freely down his pretty, doll-like face. are these tears just for you? you think so. is it safe to trust that these feelings he has for you are real? you’re not sure, but you want to. still, there’s something stopping you.

“i think… i think i feel the same way,” you admit, and his previously downtrodden appearance immediately lights up with hope. “but we shouldn’t.” and the words are like lead in your mouth. 

“why not?” he asks, clearly distressed. you just gave him an inch, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take a mile. he never in a million years would have thought that you’d ever reciprocate his feelings, so he can’t just let them go so easily.

“i just… it’s just not something that i can —” 

“is it because i’m an android?” he questions, voice teeming with self-loathing. 

“n-no! i mean, we’re just so different,” you tell him, trying to skirt around the topic as best as you possibly can, but he won’t have it.

“whatever it is, i’ll change it. please? i can do anything,” he pleads. 

“it’s not like that. i want to, but we can't. i-i'll get older. i won't look the same — i won't be the same,” and it’s embarrassing as hell to admit it out loud, but you mean it. beomgyu’s urgent gaze softens, and he inches closer to you before he’s standing before you. he reaches out to gently cup your face and tenderly pushes your hair behind your ears.

“and what about me?” 

“what about you?” you scoff, but you don't pull away from his touch, though your eyes do dart away. “you’ll still be you, and i’ll be old and —” 

“what about when my parts start creaking? what about when i don’t remember things like i’m supposed to? you’ll still love me then, right?” he asks, but he already knows, and your eyes snap back to his.

“th-that’s different. you can get repairs. i can’t —” 

“then i won’t. you’ll get old and gray and i’ll get rundown and out-of-date. i don’t care what happens, as long as i’m with you.” you’re silent in the wake of his heavy words, so he quickly continues.

“you told me that when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you said you always find a way, and i want to find a way to be with you.” your heart simultaneously warms and aches at this sentiment. 

you consider what it would be like to be with him. things would be difficult, yes, but not impossible. maybe you’ll come to regret it someday, but you don’t want to think about that right now. you feel like the luckiest girl in the world when you think of the fact that somebody so beautiful, inside and out, wants to be with you. you don't think you’ve done anything particularly special for him, but he still wants and accepts you for everything that you are and ever will be.

“okay,” you say shakily, and you finally recognize that his hands are still very much cupping your face, fingers lovingly rubbing against your cheeks. he smiles in pure relief at your answer, but he makes no move to break away his hold on you. 

you notice how his gaze flicks between your eyes and your lips, and you decide you'll have mercy on him as you lean up to him and press a chaste kiss on his pouty lips before parting. he’s visibly red at the action, and you grin at how flustered he looks. on beomgyu’s end, he feels another bloom of excitement and swell of hope threatening to overcome him. when he looks at the playfulness in your eyes, he smiles even wider. 

“i love you,” he whispers affectionately.

you pause before you tell him:

“i love you, too, beoms.”

-

that night, beomgyu is even clingier than usual. he sticks like gum to your side. when you head to sleep, he eagerly nestles in your bed and holds his arms wide open. you follow his lead and settle into his warm embrace. he sings you one of his favorite songs you’ve ever shown him. the last words you hear before you sink into sleep are:

“to die by your side

is such a heavenly way to die

to die by your side, well

the pleasure, the privilege is mine”

notes pt. 2: sfw work ends here!

you and beomgyu have been “together” for a few weeks now, so the relationship is still very new. surprisingly or not, things seem more or less the same. you guess you never realized just how intimate you two have always been until you put a label on things. the only tangible differences are that instead of just a mere hug when he greets you, he plants kisses all over your face before finding his ways to your lips. and when you’re watching movies or even just talking, he’ll steal a kiss or two. and when you head to bed, you know you can expect him to catch your lips like a man starved before you sleep. things get heated, sometimes, but they never lead to anything besides labored breaths and promises to calm himself down. you take his hesitancy as him wanting to take it slow and treasure your first time together, and you realize he still may be traumatized from the years he spent as a sexbot. 

you have apologized to him for telling soobin his secret. you let him know your reasoning for telling him, and he accepted your apology quite graciously. honestly? he was never mad, and he tells you that very clearly, but you still feel somewhat guilty even when he says he understands. your guilt is only absolved when he says he’s thankful you told soobin because things may have never changed without his wise input. he says that he’s grateful to soobin for being a voice of reason in the face of your emotional density. you blushed when he told you this, and apologized for being so slow on the uptake, but he just assured you that he wouldn’t have you any other way, which made you love him even more, somehow. 

you’re now about to go to soobin’s again for another get together with your friends. second time’s the charm, you cheekily told him when you brought it up, and he blushed in response. when you two walk through the doorway, everyone cheers. you greet everyone as usual, and beomgyu tries his best to keep his searing jealousy at bay, but his anxiety starts clawing at him as soobin seats himself next to you and asks you how you are. 

you giggle and tell him you’re doing well, and he responds by updating you on his tumultuous work life. beomgyu immediately wonders why you haven’t told soobin about your new relationship. are you embarrassed to be seen with him? it’s not like he doesn’t understand, what with him technically being made out of wires and machinery. of course a human like you wouldn’t want to be seen with a metal man like him. you could have the entire world in your hands if you wanted, so what’s the point of playing pretend with a fake like him? maybe, if he were you, he’d be embarrassed, too. he likes to think that maybe you aren’t like that, but at the end of the day, how could you not be? he’s nothing more than a robot masquerading as the real thing. 

his anxiety worsens the more in depth your conversation with soobin gets. you try to include him by briefly giving him context about the stories soobin tells, but he can’t stop himself from worrying. again, he feels like soobin is stealing you away from him, and his mood sours. 

your other friends try to talk to him, too, but he’s very obviously in a bad mood as he watches you two continue to laugh together. when you finally do turn to beomgyu, you immediately notice how awful he looks. 

“beoms? are you alright?” you ask gingerly, but beomgyu’s discomfort is not at all placated even at the term of endearment. 

“‘m fine,” he mumbles, and you’re genuinely in shock at his change of attitude. soobin looks very concerned, but he excuses himself to get a drink so you two can work it out, though he has an inkling of an idea of what’s triggering beomgyu. 

“what’s wrong with you?” you ask concernedly, but he shakes his head sulkily.

“do you wanna go home?” you offer, and he immediately nods. you look torn for a second, but when you see how sad he looks, you know you can’t deny him.

you say your goodbyes to your friends and apologize for leaving early, but everyone says they understand. soobin makes you promise to host the next get together, though, to which you happily agree. 

the ride home is mostly silent, but you look over to beomgyu in concern every so often. you grab his hand and squeeze it in a way you hope is comforting, but he doesn’t look any better at all.

when you enter your house, you immediately head to your bedroom, and he follows you in silence. you sit on the bed and pat the space next to you. 

“beoms, what’s the matter?” you ask pleadingly as you grab his hands, and his heart, which was previously aching, is (a little) soothed by your concern. 

“i-it’s nothing,” he answers, but you can tell that he’s lying because of the way he refuses to make eye contact with you. 

“baby, i can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong,” you say. you’re right, and he knows you’re right, but you’re already doing him the favor of a lifetime just by deigning to be with him. how could he dare to ask for more? he’s ashamed at the thought, but you look so sincere, and he knows in his metaphorical heart that he needs to be able to communicate with you if you two are going to have any shot at a lasting relationship.

“i-i’m just j-jealous,” he sputters. 

“oh, baby, why?” you ask. 

“because i’m not like you,” he admits after a pause. “i already feel like i’m not good enough for you, so seeing you with someone who actually is makes me feel awful.”

“who? soobin?” and you’re absolutely petrified when he sheepishly nods. 

“honey, it’s not like that at all,” you tell him. “we’re just friends, i promise.” 

“but it would be so much easier to be with him. you wouldn’t have to be ashamed about telling everyone you’re with an android,” he argues. 

“beomgyu, i am not ashamed of you. i just wasn’t sure if you felt comfortable with me telling everyone. if you want me to tell them, i’ll happily do it. you’re so good, how could i ever be embarrassed of you?” his eyes soften.

“do you mean it?” he asks, and you nod. 

“do i not show it enough? how much i love you, i mean.” he furiously shakes his head no, but you know it’s a lie. beomgyu himself will admit that he needs more validation than most people, and it’s going to take him a while to ever get over it because of his own issues. that doesn’t mean you can’t try to help him, though, so you brush his cheek with your hands before wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. 

“does this make you feel better?” you ask after you pull away, but he still looks somewhat depressed, so you pull him in again before pressing your lips against his. this time, you swipe your tongue on his pout, which makes him gasp. you tease your tongue against his and electricity thrums between you two when you do it. he reciprocates your enthusiasm immediately, and before long, you’re both sucking and teasing each other until you’re out of breath.

you pull away again and rest your forehead against his. 

“better?” you question.

“a little,” he says. “m-maybe a little more?” you grin at his coquettishness, and you go in for another kiss. your tongues tangle, but you don’t stop there. your mouth travels, peppering kisses down his jaw to his sensitive neck. he shivers at the contact when you swipe your tongue over his unmarred skin before lightly sucking. he lets out a broken moan when you do it, and it reverberates throughout your entire body and straight to your core. 

“better?” you ask again.

“m-more,” he pants. 

“anything you want, baby,” you tease before your lips hungrily capture his. one of your hands snakes its way up his shirt, and he gasps when you roll his hardened nipple between your fingers. beomgyu is more sensitive than most people, as is the nature of his model, so every little touch drives him crazy. 

you seem to have noticed this, so when your other hand palms his hardened length through his sweatpants and he almost screams, you have to bite back a giggle. 

“d-don’t tease,” he begs, and you’d do anything for beomgyu, really, but not this time.

you palm him even more harshly and his breath catches in his throat. 

“more?” you ask, and he fervently nods. you oblige, sliding your hand under his waistband and teasing the sensitive skin around his length. your fingers brush against it every so often, and he involuntarily bucks every time you do. 

“c-can i touch you?” he practically implores.

“of course, my love,” you tell him as you remove your devious hands and pull your top off before unclipping your bra. 

his mouth waters when he sees you, and you can see him gulp almost comically as his big hands meet your breasts. he copies your movement from earlier, rolling your sensitive buds between his very clearly experienced fingers. you let out a contented sigh at the action, but you won’t let this be all about you, so your hand sneaks it way back down his pants. this time, you grab his girthy cock and give it a harsh tug. his actions stutter, and you smirk devilishly at how fucked out he is when the fun part hasn’t even begun. 

you pull at his waistband, and he eagerly tugs his pants and boxers off as soon you do it. he even goes as far as to tear his t-shirt off over his head before he pulls your half-naked body flush against his, falling onto the bed as he desperately kisses you for everything that you’re worth. eventually, he situates himself on top of you, rutting his thick, long cock onto your still clothed thigh. you didn’t really get a chance to get a good look at him before, but you’re able to look down at him now, and you realize his dick is gorgeous. just like every other part of him. it stands tall, blushing profusely at the tip and practically weeping precum. it’s a bit hooked, too, no doubt to elicit the most pleasure out of his clients. your pussy is drenched just thinking about how it’ll feel when it’s inside of you.

he almost rips your bottoms off of you and his mouth waters even more at the sight of your pussy, all slick and glistening in anticipation for what’s to come. 

“so gorgeous,” he whispers as he prepares to lay himself between your legs, but you hook them around his waist before he can do so. tonight will be all about him, you’ve decided, so you tug him closer and put one of his pretty nipples in your mouth, swirling your tongue on it and occasionally nipping at the sensitive skin. your other hand continues to tweak the other one before you alternate between the two, causing him to let out a low, guttural groan. 

eventually, he goes in for another kiss, all tongue and teeth and saliva, and you take one of your hands and harshly clench around the base of his throbbing cock. 

“is this what you needed, beoms?” you tease, and he nods pathetically as you tug again, harder this time, and let your hands stroke all the way up to his reddened tip. your thumb glides over his slit, and he’s seeing stars. 

“i don’t know why you’re so jealous of someone else, my love. you’re so perfect,” you praise, and his ears get even redder, somehow, in spite of the situation you’re both in.

“i — nghh — i don’t like when you’re with him,” he pants, in spite of everything you're doing to him. “only want you with me.”

“oh, baby, you have me,” you coo. “always.” and with that, you begin to feverishly jerk him off with one hand while the other returns to his nipple. his hips buck with every movement, and his eyes are screwed shut. you can tell he’s about to come before you completely take your hands off of him. 

“n-no! w-why?” he asks with a crack in his voice, watery eyes shooting open at the sudden action.

“don’t you wanna come in my pussy, instead? it’s warmer and wetter than my hand,” you ask with faux innocence with a tilt of your head, and his previously aggrieved demeanor morphs back into pure lust. 

“that’s what i thought,” you giggle as you grab his length and rub it against your slickness. he groans at the feeling, but you don’t immediately take him in, opting to instead roll your hips up, just barely letting his flared head catch against your entrance. 

“baby, please,” he whines, and with a smirk, you finally wrap your legs around his waist and line him up with your entrance. you just barely take the tip in, easing it into your pussy, before you force him out again. he gasps raggedly at how tight you are, and he’s wound up so much, he feels like he’s on the brink of exploding. he’s about to take matters into his own hands before you guide him back inside of you, and he feels your walls struggling to accommodate him. 

“s-so tight! h-how are you so tight?” he hisses, eyes reddened and face strained, but you’re far too busy with the euphoric feeling of him finally inside of you to reply. he eases in inch after throbbing inch, and it is a snug fit, indeed. he almost wonders if he’ll even fit, but though the stretch burns you, the pleasure is too great to ignore. finally, your walls slightly relax, and he’s able to completely sheath himself in you. you both moan as his tip pulsates against your cervix, and he considerately gives you time to adjust, walls contracting wildly around him, before he attempts to pull out and really begin. 

“stop,” you command before he can do so, and his eyes fill with worry at your words. 

“w-what’s wrong?” he stutters. 

“oh, nothing,” you say between pants. “i just want to see how long you can last.” 

“w-what do you —”

and you interrupt him with a kiss. he ravenously reciprocates it, and he can’t help but unconsciously thrust his hips, tapping deliciously on the deepest parts of you, but you prevent him from ever fully pulling out. you tangle one of your hands through his hair and grip it — not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him groan into your mouth. 

“c-can i move?” he pleads, but you shake your head no. 

“why?” he whimpers, but you just smirk as you kiss him again and bite his bottom lip. 

he doesn’t know how long you two stay like that, but it’s far too long for his liking. he feels his dick swell, and you still refuse to let him move, but you teasingly scrape your fingers against his balls and it’s all he can do not to come. 

“p-please let me move, it hurts,” he cries, tears now flowing from his eyes. for once, sex is all about beomgyu and what feels good to him. he could cry just from the sentiment alone, but his current tears are the direct result of how you’re teasing him.

“and where does it hurt, baby? use your words, i know you can.” 

“h-hurts, my c-cock hurts,” he sputters out. 

“and would pounding my pussy make you feel better?” you goad, and he whines even louder at the imagery. 

“y-yes,” he sobs, and you smile as you say your next words.

“such a good boy. you can move.” and that’s all it takes, really, before he’s pulling out despite your cunt’s attempts to suck him back in, and ramming himself back inside of you again and again.

the curve of his cock hits places previously untouched, and your walls spasm around him at the sensation.

“does it feel good, beoms?” 

“s-so good,” he mumbles as drool pools off of his tongue and out of his mouth, eyes rolling to the back of his head. “so warm and t-tight.” you clench against your will at his filthy words, and it makes a strangled cry leave his throat. 

“pussy so good, baby. your pussy is the b-best,” he babbles, and your lips meet his again before your mouth travels down, sucking a blooming hickey onto his neck. he trembles at the pain that comes with the pleasure, but somehow, he still has the presence of mind to roll his skilled fingers against your clit. just a few touches, and you already feel your orgasm approaching. he can feel every spasm of yours, and it makes his dick twitch inside of you as he wildly fucks you open. 

he’s drilling into you so hard, you have to dig your fingernails into the skin of his back to keep yourself grounded. with each thrust, you feel more and more like you’re about to burst. 

“gonna come!” you whine. 

“do it, baby. c-come all over my cock,” he pleads.

“come inside? want it so bad,” you mewl.

“of course, my angel. a-anything for you,” he tells you as he tenderly brushes your hair out of your sweaty face, and he hammers himself into you at an inhuman pace as you feel the pressure in you crescendo into a searing hot orgasm. you clench even tighter around him while you come, gripping him so forcefully he can barely pull out, so his thrusts become sloppy and uncoordinated before he rams himself into you one last time and paints your inner walls with his cum.

you two stay like that for a while, just panting and basking in the feeling of closeness you feel. he presses a kiss on your forehead as he relaxes his arms and lays on top of you. you giggle at the intimacy and he finds himself sharing your laughter, your joy. 

“you’re so beautiful,” he says between breaths, nuzzling his face into your neck and sighing. “i love you.”

“i love you, too, beoms,” you tell him, and you do love him. unconditionally.

notes pt. 3: :,) :,) :,)))))) i'm very sorry if this was disappointing but i hope it was worth it! i would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions you may have about this fic/universe. feedback is needed to a disgusting degree bc i need validation to survive #sorry

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[sems-diarie]

"The tension" girl that's just how cooks act. We all act like we're gonna fuck but obviously we can't bc we work together but we WILL do everything except that. Would we be perfect as a couple? Yeah probably. Unfortunately dinner service must Go On and we can't focus on anything but how far behind pantry is on closing.

But tbh the type of relationships that come out of kitchens are so intense and close but so completely devoid of any romantic experiences because truly we see one another at our absolute worst and our absolute best and the closest well get is having a shifter and joking about how terrible that service went. Ever cook is immediately bonded by how terribly we're treated and how awful we feel all the time and how great it feels to be out of the kitchen after closing is done and the floors are scrubbed and the salamander is finally cleaned out after putting it off for so long. Every man I've dated who isn't in the industry is IMMEDIATELY and IMMENSELY jealous of the relationships I have with the men in the kitchen bc they all think we want to fuck, but truly they are like brothers to me.

It's so poetic to watch as someone in that type of dynamic and to see people not in the industry pine so desperately for romantic relationships makes me LAUGH. I'm sorry but we're all too damaged for that bestie. No one in this industry is in it because we're capable of healthy relationships. Neways. Sorry. We're all just whores by design and we love the idea of being sluts but we're all too exhausted for it. The closest to romantic we get is bumming a cig after service in the alleyway.

“we’re all sluts but we’re too exhausted” made me giggle ngl. um strap in, this got long

i don’t think sydney wants to be a slut. there’s really nothing in her character to indicate that.

i also think the narrative was setting up romantic connotations because it drew an obvious parallel btwn syd & the restaurant as the two/one thing(s) most important in carmy’s life. when carmy’s getting distracted by claire, syd is inbetween every shot of them, whether sydney is at the restaurant or by herself, or by herself doing stuff for the restaurant—

and even down to the way claire represents carmy’s past and is painted narratively in strict contention/competition with syd for carmy’s time & attention! the first time we see that girl, she clearly still thinks the restaurant is named the bear (a clear indication of her place in his past, & the adjustments & commitment tht wld be necessary to make her part of his present/future)

and especially the table scene—when sydney says she isn’t jealous, it’s not really hard to believe that she was lying: we’ve already seen that she doesn’t always say what she means, i.e. with marcus: she’s clearly still feeling awkward w him after he tried to ask her out, but tries to overcome it bc the beef comes first!

like you’re saying men you know are jealous of the relationships u have w ur coworkers—marcus is right on the edge of being jealous about sydney’s devotion to carmy. it’s not necessarily explicitly written that way, but it’s also not super duper far fetched.

but anyways, the romance itself isn’t even hidden forreal. carmen tells this girl—who is devoted to his cause, his family restaurant and all the burdens it carries—“you deserve all my attention, all my time. i can’t do this without you—i wouldn’t even want to. i’m sorry.”

in every other context ever, and on paper—that’s a fucking love confession!

and the way he says he wouldn’t even want to; carmy has such a complex relationship with the art and technicality of cooking, and i think syd really reminds him that it’s something he’s meant to enjoy. it’s something that he does genuinely enjoy, even if he has to dig past the pools of sorrow & resentment that live in him to do. especially because there’s all that sorrow & resentment in him; he has to learn to enjoy not just cooking, but his own day to day life.

like people come damaged. and before they really get into the romance, i’d love for carmy to have some amazing character development! (we’re calling them a slow burn for a reason.) but even the way syd deals with him now is very romantic. bc it’s not necessarily her dealing with him; it’s a partnership. this guy (carmen) goes and buys syd a $2k chef’s uniform that’s pristine and pretty and makes her look even more angelic than she did before—he knows her size and everything?? the guy from pretty woman did that shit and it’s regarded as one of the best romance movies of all time.

not to even mention the panic attack. the stiles/lydia memories hit me like a fucking truck & i loved every second of it.

also! it’s kind of interesting how carmy thinks of claire in these romantic pictures, she herself is never really doing or saying anything; she’s just there (besides maybe her hair blowing in the wind). meanwhile, carmy thinks of syd in memories, in dialogue, in action. he thinks back to the beginning of her, when she first enters his life like a ray of sunshine, and i think that’s a way to acknowledge the way she’s added so much to his life in such a short amount of time. sydney is his rock! she keeps him grounded in a way not even this girl he’s been obsessed with (supposedly) for years can.

anyways, the narrative analysis aside—they look cute together, they act cute together, & i’ve seen romances built on far less than what seasons 1 and 2 have already propped up between/for them :3

[max--phillips]

Max you may find this funny but i was reading a book yesterday and it's a queer romance right. Girl x girl. And when it came to the sex the build up was nice but i didn't get it 😔 like not to be someone who has never had sex (w anyone) or whatever but um yeah not sure if it was written in a way where idk what's going on bc i know sometimes that happens to us readers doesn't matter the smut (gay or het or whatever) sometimes we have no idea in what position they were in. Honestly I think i get how it was happening but they were doing some other stuff that left me a bit confused and i didn't know how to imagine. It was my first time reading girl x girl smut. I rarely very rarely read it on fanfiction and in the end i rarely see girl x girl fanfic on my dash (i read x reader fics mostly) anyway so yeah. The book is great but yeah that first sex scene made me a little confused. But the build up was nice and i had fun after wards if u catch my drift. I hope if there is another sex scene i do understand what they're doing.

OOF yeah I know what you mean, idk what book you’re reading or who the author is but I’ve found that unless the author is herself a woman (not even necessarily queer tbh, just, like, a lady who knows how her own body works) sometimes FF sex scenes sort of fall flat or get confusing because like. If the person writing it doesn’t even know where the clit is, and they’re writing about a scene where TWO clits are involved, like, that’s a recipe for disaster.

I also feel like a lot of times even if it is written by a queer lady or whoever, it can sometimes fall into “this is basically just mainstream lesbian porn but as words” which. Sucks. Because 99.9999% of mainstream lesbian porn is not, in fact, for lesbians, but is entirely made for men.

ANYWAY I feel ur pain and I also hope that any future sex scenes are less confusing rnfndnsjs

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[wafflesetc]

I follow you on Twitter but your ao3 listed this account. I’m asking bc you don’t have the tellonym like fromiftowhen which you should start but what I want to know is what are your thoughts on all this jay stuff

I’m glad you found me, even when all my accounts are not the same handle!

I made a post a few days ago about what my initial thoughts were like, and frankly, my thoughts are more or less the same. I will say they have evolved a little bit more.

Overall, I am all over the map. It varies by day and by thought and by my mood.

I’m trying to hold out a small amount of hope (there was some BTS of Hailey wearing her ring today!) but just because she is wearing her ring doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t kill him.

There has been so much character growth for both Hailey & Jay as individuals on the show, and their relationship and it’s progression has only added to their development as individuals. Now they are so integral to one another, if they do kill him…It would ruin Hailey.

I know Hailey loved Garrett. I don’t doubt that, but that was a long undercover case. It was also when she was young(er), new on the job, and figuring life out for herself. She needed Garrett for survival in a lot of ways… Then she went to robbery homicide, then she went to intelligence, then she met Jay.

The difference for me is she needed Garrett for survival but she doesn’t need Jay. She wants him. Jay was the one person who broke down all the walls she built up, the one person who pushed her to become a better cop, the one person who was always in her corner. He seeped into the furthest corners of her heart, the ones she was so dead set on not letting anyone into. Yet, there he was. Time and time again. Showing up for her. Protecting her. Challenging her when she was doing something wrong. He never once let her down. (I will die on this hill, by the way)

But moving along, it will be a slap in the face to both of their characters and their relationship if they do kill him. A world in which Hailey & Jay aren’t together just doesn’t make sense. I’m saying that almost as fact because that’s how the writers have laid the foundation of them/their relationship. I can only hope, that showrunners like Gwen (who are one of their biggest shippers), does them justice. I’m hoping for some kind of promotion/transfer that leaves the off screen romance and the option for him to come back if he chooses.

As far as JLS on his actual exit. There’s a lot that has come out from the networks that show some issues with budget and budget cuts. Could he have fallen victim to that, like Kelli Giddish did on SVU? Yes, absolutely. Could he have decided to leave himself? Yes, absolutely. Sadly, in a world of NDA’s, we are probably never going to be at liberty to know what actually happened and what the circumstances around his exit are.

I said this in a Tweet today, but I’ll say it here: I’ll also point out, contracts include two parties. If a mutual decision wasn’t made between the two parties & someone does decide to walk, it still doesn’t mean they *wanted* to leave. I have no insight to what happened, but just know this is how contracts work. If they were going back and forth and back and forth, he could have ultimately decided to wash his hands because this is his life and his career. If he didn’t like the terms of employment, he has every right to try and fight for better terms to keep him there.

Does that mean he doesn’t love the character? No.

Does that mean he doesn’t love the show? No.

Does that mean he doesn’t love the crew? No.

Does that mean he hated with Tracy & the other cast? No.

It just means, he valued his quality of life & we, as fans, shouldn’t hold that against him.

Now, all of that being said, I truly don’t know if it was his choice to leave, whether he was forced out, or they did “fire” him. JLS has been liking some tweets that indicate I don’t think he necessarily wanted to leave BUT here we are.

My sentiments are the end of the day are mostly this, I hope they do Upstead some justice. I hope they honor ten years of Jay Halstead. I hope they don’t ruin Hailey’s character development in the void of not having him around her. But most of all, I hope that JLS is at peace with his decision and happy.

(And if fan campaigns to get him back work, then so be it.)

This is lengthy, but I hope it answers your questions!

Xx,

Waffs

[iamanartichoke]

I'm creating my own post in order to avoid adding negativity to someone else's, but I will link the post that inspired this one for context. This post talks about the theory that King Loki is the one pulling the strings, and it's mostly a theory that I can get behind as laid out by OP, but I have a serious problem with the role Sylvie may play in it, which is what this post is about.

So, okay, I was with [OP] right until this part -

Except, King Loki never met Sylvie. King Loki is everything Show Loki could’ve become if he hadn’t met her. Who he still could be, because it’s possible for him now to kill King Loki and take his place. But he won’t do that, because meeting Sylvie set him on a different path. Because she taught him how to love himself, he can let go of his need to grasp at power to feel special and important and in control of his life.

I'm not saying this is wrong (and my criticism is no reflection whatsoever on OP's theory in general, which is pretty sound overall), but I am saying that if the show chooses to go this way, I'll probably rage quit. It's a lazy trope to fall back on - that the only thing that could prevent Loki from becoming an evil mastermind and/or supervillain is meeting "the one" (in this case, Sylvie) and falling in love with her. It's so over simplified.

For one thing, I don't see how Sylvie taught him anything, let alone how to love himself. They may have a bond even after knowing one another such a short period of time; I'll give them that, since they're variants of one another and that strips away some of the layers and allows them to connect more easily. But Sylvie's existence isn't a lesson and while Loki may admire her for what she's accomplished, it doesn't automatically mean he can see himself capable of the same things. Whether he is capable or not isn't the point. He clearly doesn't hold himself in as high regard as he holds Sylvie (which is super in-character for him, to downplay his own strengths and potential even while recognizing the value in someone else's). Maybe he can learn to view himself as favorably as he views her, but to me, that's not what "teaching someone to love themselves" means.

(It's worth mentioning - but I won't digress too much - that at this point in the show, Sylvie shows no indication that she returns Loki's feelings, nor has she gone out of her way to build him up or show him that he's worthy of love, so it really is just Loki's feelings for her that we're relying on, that this point, to carry the love story.)

To be honest, I don't think he even necessarily views Sylvie as a variant of himself, as much as he views her as a separate person. She may know what it feels like to be a Loki, but her experiences are so different from Loki's and her path is so far diverged that it's more akin to meeting someone who knows what it's like to struggle with depression (or mental health in general): their perspectives are similar, and their emotional cores may align, and meeting may make each of them feel like they're not so alone - but she is Sylvie and Loki is Loki and neither one of them can step into the other's shoes and know exactly what it's like to be them. The way that he interacts with her implies that Loki is aware of this - that is, he's aware that they are two separate people, even as Mobius insists that they're the same.

So my point is, even if Loki admires Sylvie or falls in love with her bc of reasons, I would still fail to see how that put him any closer to loving himself. But say it did, for arguments' sake, since that's what the writers are going for. I still feel like it would be lazy to say that this is the one thing that stops Loki from becoming the most evil version of himself. It undermines Loki's legitimate trauma and layers of issues, like his fear of abandonment, his crippling lack of self-esteem, his belief that his worth has never been equal to that of Thor's, his identity crisis and struggle with the idea that he is "a monster," figuratively and literally. By virtue of all of these things being major contributing factors to Loki's fall and his villainy and his need for power to feel in control - which I believe that they are - it would naturally follow that, unaddressed, these would be the major contributing factors to Loki becoming more and more evil until we have a King Loki masterminding the TVA (and, by extension, the timeline, the multiverse, and free will itself - like, that's some pretty significant evil, or at least power).

(Again, it's worth acknowledging that it didn't go that way for Prime!Loki, who proved more than once that he was a good person at heart, and he never met Sylvie either - but, that's beside the point right now.)

But Sylvie can't be the sole person who inspires Loki to address these things, nor would these things just go away or fail to hold the same weight once Loki meets and falls in love with her. Loving Sylvie doesn't change that Loki is a frost giant and has never come to terms with that. It doesn't mean he's suddenly not afraid of abandonment, or of being alone. It doesn't fix the complicated twist of emotions (understatement) Loki feels when it comes to Thor and the concept of worthiness and the truth of their parents' love for them.

At best, one could argue that Sylvie may act as a support system that Loki might not have otherwise had, which would allow him to then confront and untangle his way through these issues to ultimately suceed in becoming the best version of himself. This still renders her role in Loki's life a supporting one as opposed to the one thing that can stand between Loki as he is now and Loki as he has the potential to be (in this case, a full-fledged supervillain).

Loki's issues are issues that will not go away until Loki faces them head on and does the work. Which is a journey, admittedly, too long and complex to be accurately portrayed on-screen in a limited series, but the narrative can either imply that Loki's journey is one of self-love with his feelings for Sylvie acting as a catalyst to his working through the things standing in the way of that self-love - or, it can skip all of that and say that Loki's self-love journey begins and ends with his love for Sylvie, and not only does this "fix" him but it's also the one thing that prevents him from becoming a supervillain who presumably controls all of these things - the TVA, the timelines, etc - without remorse.

I, personally, would have no interest in the latter option, so if it does go that way, I think that'd be it for me. And I realize that a lot of my argument here is focusing on Loki ending up as King Loki, which is still speculation and it may not go that way at all. But I think that - since the show has confirmed it's going to explore self-love through a romance - my points about Sylvie's ultimate role in Loki's journey of self-acceptance are still worth mentioning, I think.

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I'm surprised people see Tadashi as the victim in his relationship with Ainosuke, when it's Tadashi the one who time and time again takes away Ainosuke's agency, without being able to see that he is throwing him unto unhappiness. I can't help but think that if Tadashi was not working at Shindo's house, Ainosuke would have maybe left or broke with the family. But he can't do that if he wants the relationship with Tadashi going on, seing how Tadashi is set on enforcing the family rules...

Hmm.. I def agree with the fact that Tadashi is not what most fandom makes out of him, my man (I mean, Adam’s man) is a 100% Slytherin. But I disagree with blaming him for this, after all the revealed info. The environment they were both raised in made their situation complicated.

I like Tadashi a lot, he’s probably my fav thing about this anime, bc he’s a dark horse, and I’m once again surprised, that so little ppl see him for who he really is, portraying him as an innocent puppy, which he is definitely not.

Now to why I think both Tadashi and Adam are victims of the dad and aunties in this situation. 

We can of course say “if only they told each other how they really feel...”, but like we can say it about any love story really. Every author knows it’s no fun. The truth is that yes, they both hurt each other, and yes, if they were honest about their feelings things would’ve been different, but as I’ve already wrote under that “toxic” commentary on YT, lets look at the whole situation from both of their point of views:

We know that Adam when he was little always treated Tadashi as an equal, he never ever thought of him as someone lower than him and after their fall out, the only reason for this “harsh” treatment (well, besides their confirmed kink) was that Adam tried to get a reaction out of him, so Tadashi would stand up for himself, bc Ainosuke got mad about Tadashi caving to his dad’s wishes and abandoning him, when he needed him the most. 

But now, knowing the fact that Tadashi was his dad’s secretary and was under his control, let’s see it from his perspective: Tadashi wanted to stay by Adam’s side, Adam’s dad implied that if Tadashi did say smth, he’s gonna be.. well, dismissed and they won’t see each other ever again. That’s what caused Tadashi to stay silent in that moment. Ainosuke instead saw this as a “he’s not on my side” thing, well, because. Tadashi won’t tell him his problem, bc dad and aunties control everything, so even if he does tell him, what a teen would do really? He didn’t have any powers back then to make his dad do anything. 

And that’s when it all gone to shit, since they both were hurt for their own reasons. It’s easy to say leave the family, but 1stly nobody explained to Adam still that he’s physically and psychologically abused by his family, he sees it as them “loving him” and sadly also loves them, bc nobody told him, that love wasn’t supposed to be like that really. He definitely feels that smth is not right and feels emotionally exhausted there bc of this treatment, but did he ever consider leaving? I really don’t think so. He feels obligated to be worthy of a family, who “loves” him.

Do you think, for example, that Akashi Seijuro hates his dad for what he did to him? No. Does he understand that he wasn’t at fault for what happened to him and that his dad instead of comforting his child after his mother’s death, who was his only safe haven, made everything worse? I don’t think he does. Like his mom gave him basketball, an escape from all that family’s obligations and strictness. After her death, it was the only thing left that brought him joy, but his dad ruined even that, saying that if he’s gonna be bad at it/lose, he’d take it away from him too. Does Akashi see this as emotional abuse? No, he sees it like “well, I have to be the best bc I was born in such powerful family, so if my dad says that I must be best at everything, then I must.”

I personally hate such parents a lot. To me it doesn’t matter if Adam’s dad didn’t know about aunties hitting his child. Like if he was too busy to notice this and have no time for his kid and made his childhood miserable, it doesn’t make it any better really. 

Same as with Akashi’s dad. Some are like “he was probably also grieving about his wife”. Emm? He was like this from the beginning, bc he treated Akashi not as his son, but as his heir. And yes, that’s different things. Same with Endeavor and Todoroki. Your child is not your post production thing.

2ndly they were too young, even if they knew about each others feelings and he didn’t feel obligated and told everyone to fuck off, they’d be on the streets now, but also Adam’s dad doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave them alone really. Also eloping seems very romantic, but I don’t think it is, esp when you’re teens. Did you want him to sell some expensive watch and go live on Hawaii or smth? Bc finding a decent job there would be difficult at this age, esp with everyone knowing who your dad is. Chen Ke from “Antidote” survived bc he was 27 and had connections and some great friends. Adam was in high school, where would he go exactly?

Now let’s go back to now. Obviously all this time it didn’t even cross Tadashi’s mind that for Ainosuke he comes first and that he would throw everyone under the bus to make Tadashi stay with him. As we see at the end, he legit believed that Adam was planning to send him to jail and didn’t get that he said it just to shaken he up and that he knew who he’d set up for this from the beginning. 

To Adam obviously it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a quarrel or not, he would never him go. Yes, he’s mad at him, he’s angry and hurt, but Tadashi’s still the person he needs the most, he’s still the person who brightens his days, even tho he deliberately behaves like he annoys him. He always looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, but then hisses smth to hurt him. Bc he knows that he needs him, but he also hates that he needs him, bc he thinks it’s unrequited.

And that’s how their classic romance goes in hellish circles. No one wants to talk as usual. Adam is mad Tadashi is like that bc his dad turned him into a slave with no opinion, while Tadashi is scared that Adam would be taken away from him bc of his ugly family. 

Now I still think that no one and I mean no one can take Tadashi from Adam now, he is his precious. So my plan is... if Tadashi made aunties do smth against him or to get rid of him, aunties will go for sure. The problem is Tadashi still doesn’t get that he comes first, so we’re stuck in this hell still.

So anyways, my point is Adam’s heart basically sings “you got a hold of me, don’t even know your power” to Tadashi, but he doesn’t hear it, bc of his insecurities, the way he was raised and his status. But yes, he holds all the power. He’s both Adam’s sanity and insanity. No matter how cheesy it sounds he was basically his only ray of sunshine in the darkness, if you take it away, that’s what it leads to, that’s why Ainosuke-sama needs more ppl who care for him. I don’t want anyone to die next time, just cause Tadashi and Adam fought about where to put their new couch lmao. I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. And kill the aunties, pls seriously, we need to be free.

Also ppl need to remember that like lots of animes/characters are parcially inspired by some other animes/characters, also the chosen seiyuus are also very important, there are lots of stuff like jokes and references, that creators use, from characters being fully inspired by smth like “Assassination classroom” characters based on KNB, to little stuff like Levi dressed in Akashi’s uniform in chibi AOT bc Hiroshi Kamiya. Utsumi already said before stuff like she sometimes think of a perfect voice for the character and then fully forms him, we also know her clear love for sports animes. So yes, I doubt Tadashi/Kuroko thing is a coincidence and even tho someone was like “zone? is this knb or smth?” I was like no, zone is actually a common thing in sports, even tho most associate it with KNB including me, it’s not like its their invention, but there were things inspired by this for sure, and from other sports animes too and no, I don’t mean the basic sports anime tropes, I mean, like way too specific things, some character designes, too. And yes, Langa appearence and personality wise is a rinharu child for real, I can literally split his scenes in “that’s Haru”, “that’s Rin”.

That’s why I’ve said that this situation in fandom reminds me of Kuroko/Akashi situation a lot, bc same as here in KNB ppl for some reason automatically thought that Kuroko is this innocent sheep and Akashi is the wolf (but also like it was Akashi who chose to dress as red riding hood, while Kuroko was a wolf lmao), not even seeing who is in reality more dangerous and who can easily control who. It just buffles me bc it’s not some deep analisys really. I mean once again there’s a reason for the saying that the sub holds all the power over the dom. 

And like just bc someone yells or threatens ppl constantly doesn’t necessarily mean he is a psycopatic killer, and just bc someone is quiet and doe-eyed, doesn’t mean he isn’t. I didn’t think we needed to explain this to someone, but aparently we do?

And it honestly kills me just how superficially ppl are watching things these days. It really gives me war flashbacks to stuff like the last mdzs s1 episode, where ppl started to comment things like “how LZ can be so heartless” lmao. Or that anonymous ask “do you think haru misses rin?”. Like you don’t see thing at all? Grey substance no needed, while watching things?

P.S. I also would die to see Adam vs Tadashi race just bc I for some reason can bet all my money, that it’s the same situation as with Akashi refusing to ankle break Kuroko, no matter how mad he is. I just can’t imagine Ainosuke hitting Tadashi in the face with a board. Like 100% sure he wouldn’t even try tbh.

[chucklegigglechortlesnort]

Domestic Headcanons for the Obey Me! Demon Bros

bc these thoughts plague me and i need to get them out somehow-

Mammon sings in the shower

He thinks no one can hear him

however, everyone, in fact, is able to hear him

No one says anything though because his voice is actually amazing???

like duh they were all once angels, of course they’re all amazing singers

You definitely hear every one of them singing or humming a little tune every now and then

Beel has a super deep singing voice

that shit rumbles and it’s honestly hard not to be lulled by his voice

he sings belphie to sleep

they low key (but not really) fight over who gets to sit next to you for movie nights

mammon is always quick to use his “I’m her first man” excuse, but that get’s old really quick

Lucifer and Satan are hella condescending about it and absolutely roast him

“Mammon, I didn’t know MC mattered to you so much”

“N-NO! Why would I care about some dumb human?”

“Well, if you don’t care about MC then you wouldn’t mind if they sit by me tonight?”

“HEY WAIT-”

It’s too late, he’s talked himself into a corner

“Why does it have to be one of you? Let MC pick who they sit next to” - Levi, in a huffy tone

“Levi~ are you sure you not saying that because you want MC to yourself? Can’t say that I blame you, they’re just so nice to hold don’t you think?” - Asmo

Chaos ensues

Eventually Beel just calmly walks over to you, hoists you up from wherever you’re sitting and plops you on top of his lap, Belphie snoozing not too far away

He wakes up only to snuggle into your chest and then he’s out like a light

Beel loves to cook with you, but Satan makes a better cooking partner

Sorry Beel

He just ends up eating too much of the food

Satan is surprisingly lax in the kitchen, as long as you don’t get in his way too much

He’s definitely picky about how certain foods are prepared.

If you’re not chopping something to the right size, he’s quick to reach around you and guide your movements

does this subconsciously and doesn’t seem to understand the romantic implications of it

(he totally does, he just has an excellent poker face from thousands of years of practice)

rolls up the sleeves of his sweater to make sure they don’t get in the way of food prep

the sight itself is something to drool over, let alone the lovely aroma coming from the stove

Lucifer works really late into the night and sometimes forgets to sleep at all

I mean we all know this but more often than not he tries to get at least four hours of sleep a night but sometimes he just... forgets

so the mighty Avatar of Pride isn’t perfect after all hA

ok but bring him tea

He usually prefers to make it himself, but if you bring it to him in the middle of the night his heart melts, just a little

tells you to go tf to sleep but is actually really grateful

but as soon as you shut the door he has the s o f t e s t expression

It’s not often that he’s the one on the receiving end of care so it’s nice, even if your tea is a bit on the watery side

self care nights with Asmo

SELF. CARE. NIGHTS. WITH. ASMO.

Has literally every skincare product known to all three realms

but only the best of the best when it comes to the both of you

there’s a plethora of delicious but health conscious snacks to choose from, and some cheesy drama playing in the back ground that neither of you are paying attention to

Asmo loves giving you makeovers to get a rise out of his brothers

but he also loves the way you can’t stop looking at yourself in the mirror when he’s finished

Wants you to love yourself as much as he loves himself you

Levi swims in his fish tank when he’s upset

and just whenever he wants to in general really, but there’s something about being in water that makes him feel calm

...

Wants you to join him but he’s hella nervous about it

When he finally works up the nerve his face is beet red and he nearly runs away before you can answer

>is super confident when he’s in his element

He moves through the water so gracefully it’s hard not to fall into a trance watching him swim

notices you staring and it’s such a boost to his ego omf

definitely makes like he’s about to get out and when you reach out to help him he yanks your dumb ass in with him

your DDD is ruined and Lucifer is mad but in Levi’s mind it was all worth it, even if he got in trouble and is mildly embarrassed about it

Mammon is super receptive to affection when he’s tired

he fell asleep on you once when the both of you were hanging out in your room and woke up to the feeling of you running your hands through his hair

he’s so groggy he can’t find it in himself to muster up the tsundere act

he just nuzzles deeper into your hand

if Belphie finds you napping he is 10/10 times going to join you

You’re not “safe” napping alone anywhere that isn’t your room

he doesn’t want his brother’s disturbing you and he himself doesn’t want to disturb you

so he just cuddles up next to you

at first this was especially shocking, not only to you but to the brothers as well but it soon became such an often occurrence that everyone stopped questioning it

partly because Belphie would never answer any questions, opting to just nonchalantly shuffle away

honestly it happens so often and you’ve grown so used to it that it’s more of a shock when you wake up and he isn’t there

is oddly protective of you

has a sixth sense whenever you’re in danger and will straight up materialize to scare away the threat by looming over them with his intimidating aura

asmo does everyone’s nails

you think lucifer has the time to do his own nails??

or that beel would be able to concentrate long enough to finish his second hand with out wanting a snack??

or that belphie would waste hours he could spend napping waiting for nail polish to dry??

no

asmo takes it upon himself to do their nails for them

the only other person who does it themselves is Levi, who paints his nails while binging long running shonen anime that only requires a part of his attention

they use gel nail polish so it dries quicker and doesn’t chip as easily

you’ve never had a better nail salon experience than at Asmodeous’s at Home Beauty Parlor

He does the hand massage and everything, but only for you

He’s had millennia to practice his craft so if course you’ll be getting the best of the best with asmo

Satan is a closet weeb

now LISTEN- l i s t e n

he probably stumbled across one of levi‘s TSL collection and decided to investigate and was immediately enthralled by the plot and the amazing artwork they held

now he regularly checks out manga from the library and pre pre-orders new upcoming series that catch his eye

his favorited genre is romance, but he also gravitates to magical girl series

make no mistake tho, if you find out somehow, he will have to kill you

please give them affection, none of them are used to it and once you start being casually affectionate with them they’re hooked almost immediately

Obv some are less receptive at first than others - satan, belphie, luci - but that’s okay just give them time

Asmo and Beel are the most comfy with affection and are willing to initiate majority of the time

Asmo always has an arm linked with yours whenever he’s next to you, at the least. He likes to hug you from behind and rest his chin on your shoulder so he can nuzzle into your neck to tickle you

Beel will casually pick you up for hugs, and hold you in his arms to make you safe. he also likes to hold your hand just ‘cause

Levi and Mammon want in on the action once they see beel an asmo being so touchy with you, but are definitely in denial about it for like, a week before they give in and stop being so wussy about it

mammon likes to throw an arm around your shoulders just so others stay away, bc you’re HIS human ofc. also likes it when you play with his hair as previously stated.

Levi is a little more shy about it, but loves it when you link pinkies or choose to sit next to him at the dining table and link ankles with him. He’s also hella smug when you lean on him but is also a blushing mess.

Satan, Luci, and Belphie (for obvious reasons) take the longest to warm up to affection. Satan is the first of the three to warm up to it - he loves reading with you cuddled up beside him. not necessarily on him, but with your sides pressed together as you each read your own book or whatever it is you’re doing while he reads

belphie is next, before lucifer surprisingly. this is kinda when he starts joining you for naps and you’re kinda too scared to question it. also seeks you out to use your thighs as a pillow bc they’re the softest

Luci’s heart kinda melts when he sees you being so close with his brothers. His affection is typically head pats that are more him gently and barely combing his fingers through your hair and tucking it behind your ear

In short i love them all more than words

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[rahleeyah]

So Rich Girl Liv and Funding a Women's/Children's Shelter with Her Own Money Liv got me thinking...

Have you ever read the In Death series by J. D. Robb? It's a Mystery/Romance with some futuristic sci-fi tech type elements as it takes place in 2060s. (SPOILERS: In it, it's got a main couple who were both abused as kids, her sexually and physically, him just physically. He ends up one of the richest people in the world, and she is a murder cop in New York City. He/they end up creating and funding a shelter, as well as a live in school for foster kids designed to give them all the support and advantages that the two of them never had. As he's so rich he doesn't necessarily *have* to have fundraisers, but they attend them occasionally for other charities and such.) But after your other post, it got me thinking that I could absolutely see Rich Girl Liv doing that kind of thing. And in a universe where Rich Girl Liv married not rich Elliot (Coachverse, or even just where he's a cop, whether she is a cop or not), I am just picturing them at these functions in the city, her schmoozing for donations and him being himself and still like accidentally getting donations, both to their own stuff but also to other things they support (does Melinda or some doc they know from the hospital also have a free clinic?, maybe their lawyer friends also offer free services to battered women or abused teens who the system failed by ditching them back to their abusive parents so they help them get emancipated?), and they go home together every night knowing they're trying their best to help kids not have the childhoods they had.

I haven't read JD Robb, but my mother was a huge fan. We had like. An entire bookshelf Nora Roberts/JD Robb books. I remain forever in awe of just how prolific that woman is my god.

Anyway

I LOVE THIS

Olivia schmoozing the Richie Riches bc she knows how to play the game, wandering through fancy parties in beautiful dresses, holding court, Elliot with his working class accent a little out of place, but they find it charming, and he puts up with it bc their dollars help support the work that means everything to Liv and El. Them having a network of people to help support them, free clinics and social workers and counselors. I like to think most of the working girls in Manhattan have heard of Benson, know that she's one of the good guys - the only good guy, maybe - and maybe that's true in this verse, too. Liv doesn't discriminate. She just wants to help. However she can. By any means necessary. And Elliot will always, always back her play.

[ceilingfan5]

professor or teacher au?

YOU’VE OPENED A CAN OF GUMMY WORMS MY FRIEND

idk if you know this. but i am a teacher and i have many strong opinions about this sort of au

first of all the teacher/parent trope is WEIRD AS HELL

dont even get me started on a few. other ones. 

but IF YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT (idk if i would write it bc i would want it to be perfect but maybe i am the pal for the job) 

1) (forgive me for this indulgence) taako is a primary teacher. we’re talkin little ones. you’re gonna be like what the fuck. and so would he. but also i dont think he would like teens as much as he thought and probably figured out after his first year that some of the big kids are mean little fuckers and when you cannot call them mean little fuckers they get hard to deal with and also little kids are the greatest and so full of wonder for the world and you get to take them from knowing BASICALLY NOTHING to being LITTLE READERS and the first time taako experiences this he almost considers religion

but definitely not kindergarten. He cannot. Nope. 

AND KRAVITZ, WELL, HE’S ON THE OTHER SIDE COMPLETELY. he’s that high school teacher that doesn’t even necessarily want to interact with the freshmen, but he’s much beloved. he teaches english and drama and is also in charge of the drama club and he has many strong, strong opinions on shakespeare and he’s the one all the baby pre-out gays latch onto hard 

2) and they work for the same school district and their bubbles barely even touch and they kind of like it that way and they meet at a big district meeting and make dumb jokes the whole time and they’re a team for a dumb kahoot quiz bc kravitz doesnt have a smart phone, he’s got a fucking ancient nokia with a slidey keyboard which he asserts is too much for him even. anyway they play kahoot together as a team and they get incredibly competetive and they ALMOST WIN and they have STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT IT and taako looks at kravitz and he’s like. hey how about a drink sometime

3) and they exchange numbers and they go out for a drink maybe something really dorky like a trivia night at a bar and this time they KICK ASS TOGETHER and they get a tiny little trophy and decide they have to have joint custody of the damn thing until they win another one. anyway this isn’t a meetcute au this is an incredibly self indulgent established relationship au

4) and kravitz grades papers on the COUCH and taako teases him and cooks DINNER and they live together and theyre HAPPY and theyre domestic as hell and people either want to be them or have no idea theyre together and they come home and collapse on the couch together and fall asleep at like nine pm after a glass of wine and a half on a wednesday and they are happy 

5) and theyre in love love love and they love what they do and they enjoy it so much and they have someone to talk to about teacher things and not annoy and taako listens to the drama club drama and kravitz watches taako light up as he talks about his lowest kid finally getting all 26 letters, kravitz, every last damn letter!!!!!!! letter names, we’re still working on the letter sounds, but theyre on their way babe and theyre gonna be blending by the end of the year if he has anything to say about it and he’s gonna make cookies to bring to the staff lounge because he needs attention and he packs lunches for himself and kravitz so kravitz eats his vegetables and kravitz makes them coffee in the morning and sends taako with two tall travel mugs every day and theyre so in love, so, so in love, and sometimes taako comes and picks him up from work not because of car reasons but just because they like each other and theyre so happy and in the SUMMERS

6) BONUS IN THE SUMMERS THEYRE GAY AND THEY TRAVEL DUAL INCOME NO CHILDREN BABEY THEY SEE THE WORLD AND READ LOTS OF BOOKS AND KISS SO MUCH 

im sorry if that was boring but from my perspective, that’s some fucking romance

[ladykissingfish]

*cue sad Naruto music*

ya’ll ever think that Sasuke left the leaf village after the war not to go on an “atonement journey” but to ensure Naruto achieved his goal of being Hokage? like, it’s weird to think modern day issues like sexuality or politics would play a role in Naruto times but I think it did. I think Naruto would have gotten together with Sasuke. maybe not married, but openly dated/lived with him. and this image of a male Hokage dating another male wouldn’t have flown with the village elders, or anyone else save maybe some rare progressive thinkers ((see: Kakashi)) (((off-topic but I think Hashirama came close to this as well; he almost gave up everything to be with Madara. fuck Tobirama didn’t necessarily hate Uchihas; he hated Madara. specifically, Madara, because that guy would have messed up his big brother’s chance at the future he had been working so hard to create))) no. a male Hokage should be with a woman, and should have a traditional family. or else stay single ((again, see Kakashi)). but Sasuke being around in any capacity would not have allowed Naruto to hide his feelings or even pretend that they weren’t there. hence why he had to physically go as far away as possible, to remove that temptation. look at America; even in 2021 who would people be more likely to vote for as President? a guy and his boyfriend or a guy with a wife and two children? which is where Hinata comes in. Hinata who doesn’t want to be a ninja. Hinata who can cook, clean, raise kids and keep Naruto’s household in order. Hinata who doesn’t argue or contradict Naruto’s wishes in any way. Hinata who I don’t really think Naruto has romantic feelings for. strong friendship, maybe, and gratitude, but not romance. It’s always been my opinion that NO MATTER WHAT if you’re truly in love with somebody you make time for them above any and everything else. this includes the supposed mountain of work that Naruto faces each day as the Hokage. this would mean him coming home more often, eating with his family, sleeping under the same roof as them instead of at his desk like five nights a week — like Sasuke not calling or so much as sending a message to Sakura in, what was it, 12 years? despite having created a literal human being together? kinda feel like he “married” her and gave her a child because, like Naruto with Hinata, he felt both a sense of guilt and a strong obligation to repay Sakura’s kindness to him . I think maybe he even figured that a child was something that she could lavish that love on that would actually be returned, something to keep her occupied while sasuke had no real intention of ever coming back, or even trying to be a real, stable family with her. look not at the anime but in the manga itself. how sasuke looks to be in physical pain when he’s around his wife and daughter. then look at his facial expressions when he’s around Naruto and tell me, TELL ME the difference isn’t noticeable. and you know. people throw a lot of hatred at Sakura. but in my opinion she doesn’t really deserve that. her irrational love for sasuke aside, she’s a good mother, and she starts a freakin’ hospital to care for injured children. but she needed to grow up a little and realize that the person you love isn’t always the person that is best for you. honestly feel she would have been better off with Rock Lee ((but that’s another rant)) also in manga and anime there’s always this concept of “taking responsibility” in a romantic sense. Naruto took responsibility for Hinata’s feelings for him, the way Sasuke ((kinda, half-assedly)) “took responsibility “ for Sakura’s. but I literally think with my entire damn soul that the two of them only LOVED each other. loved each other enough to be selfless enough to stand back and let each other do what would be in each other’s best interests. honestly sasuke wasn’t coming back to Konaha after the war. why the fuck would he? after being public enemy number 1 on top of that lonely life living in a compound echoing with the memories of his slaughtered clan? Konaha with its idealism and darkness and cover-

ups? he would always have gone.

but Naruto should have gone with him.

the two should have travelled the entire ninja world, the world the both of them saved, together.

sasuke had stepped away from konaha and therefore understood the freedom of choice that comes from not being tied to the village and its (often questionable) practices ((like ordering a young boy to slaughter his entire clan, parents included, making him a criminal and outcast and casting him into an eternal pit of depression and emptiness SEE ITACHI)). but Naruto never had that benefit and therefore got snared up in it like a fly in a spider’s web.

everyone looked at sasuke like he was crazy when he said he was going to kill the five kage and start a damn revolution but fuck HE MADE DAMN GOOD SENSE. he saw how fucked up the system was and he knew it needed to be destroyed.

sasuke may not agree with it but he loves Naruto to the extent that he puts his personal feelings aside and takes these dangerous missions in order to help Naruto keep the Leaf protected, aka help him do his job.

it’s like 2:30 in the morning and I’ve tapped this entire thing out with one finger on my phone’s notepad and in the morning I’m going to look back at this and be like wtf were you talking about like this makes no sense bc I’ve never been good with successfully articulating my feelings about something all I know is I ship Sasuke and Naruto for multiple reasons ok not just for a yaoi reason but because I see two humans who have had awful and love-starved pasts that clearly love each other and would probably heal each other’s souls by being together.

also they have matching palm tattoos.

[space-malex]

There's lots of back and forth on who Victor should be with, but all s1 and s2 showed me is that Victor isn't cut out to be anyone's partner at this point in his life. He did Mia dirty and couldn't even properly apologize for it in s2 and the Victor who actually prioritized Benji's happiness and tried to take all responsibility for their kiss with Derek so they can keep dating disappeared in s2. He couldn't even articulate that breaking Benji's trust was wrong with spilling his secret to Rahim, let alone understand him at any point during the season. I don't know if it's supposed to be an international character flaw to be worked on or if the writers think having everything from Victor's POV is a good excuse, but it bothers me a lot. I really thought Malex was the height of showrunner bias and uneven writing, but Venji is so much worse. Alex at least always had a POV and a well-defined personality I could easily empathize with. You can't pile a ton of trauma on a character and never explore it, especially if it's supposed to be half of your main ship. I don't know how reflective a Twitter poll is of the audience split (the one they did on Instagram was much more overwhelmingly in favour of Venji, but they also don't show how many people voted), but it's not surprising that a dynamic that was basically written to be pretty much perfect so far and a fun alternative for the main ship's drama is appealing to so many people. They could have easily sold Venji better this season as a couple. They can lay a better foundation for future romantic them if they spend real time together platonically in s3 and stop putting each other on pedestals. They can also ruin what's appealing about Vahim with drama in s3. It's anyone's guess how s3 is going to play out. All I know is if Venji is still the endgame, I don't want a redo of s1 with Victor trying to work harder at a relationship he ultimately doesn't want to be in than he ever tried to make it work with the guy he's supposedly in love with. That's a recipe for disaster. A lot of shows are guilty of never showing us an endgame ship actually working on screen before putting them back together at the end of the show. I really want better here.

A lot to unpack

Victor did apologize to Mia, said he loves her and never meant to hurt her. It’s a bit complicated because Victor never went into the relationship with bad intentions and it took him the majority of the season to come to terms with his sexuality. Yes, he should’ve ended it right away when he figured it out, and he shouldn’t have kissed Benji when he was still with her. But still, there is a fine line here because there’s only so much of an apology Victor can give without it feeling like he’s apologizing for who he is, for being gay, and that’s not something he needs to feel sorry for. I think we should also keep in mind that Mia had her little thing with Andrew at the same time and never told Victor about it. She didn’t cheat or anything (or when he kissed her she stopped it) but she had obvious feelings for Andrew that she hadn’t dealt with. Luckily they finally got resolved in s2 but they were definitely there when she was still with Victor.

Now, what is it with this Victor slander in my house? He and Benji were pretty much constantly arguing or making up, but I’ve rarely seen people apologize to someone else as many times as Victor did to Benji about things that weren’t even his fault. He spent all season apologizing for his mother, even though he has no control over what she thinks or does, but also assured Benji that she is trying and that she is getting better. And he would know that better than Benji because he knows his mother and Benji does not. Or apologizing for not being ready to come out to everyone. And then turned around and did it anyway, which was what he wanted to do, but it also felt a lot about Benji and something he was doing for him as well. Which, fine, it’s Victor’s decision and he didn’t regret doing it. But then when there were consequences that hurt him by his team being homophobic, Benji first shrugs them off and then encourages Victor to quit the team so that he’s not around homophobic people. Which okay, first of all homophobes exist everywhere but I digress. Victor was miserable after he quit the basketball team. It’s not actually what he wanted to do, and he loves basketball, and Benji had no respect for that either. He acted like basketball with some kind of leftover heteroness that needed to be expelled from Victor. And he talked shit about it with his friends right in front of Victor. In fact, every time Victor tried to express himself, he would be essentially shut down by Benji and end up apologizing. Until episode 6 with the birthday and episode 8 after Isabel caught them together.

So look, I don’t think Benji had to tell Victor anything about his alcoholism because it’s his personal business and it’s really difficult to talk about something like that and it was definitely up to him when he wanted to open up. But then he turned around and was basically pissed at Victor for knowing even though Victor found out by accident. And then he refused to talk about it. And then when Victor expressed his hurt that Benji didn’t want to talk to him, Benji responded by completely attacking Victor and straight up saying it was exhausting work being with him bc he’s got a religious homophobic mom and is newly gay. Like….what?? 

Benji judged Victor for 1) being a jock 2) his mother and 3) being a baby gay. Victor never once judged Benji for his alcohol problems, he was just hurt Benji didn’t share with him. He didn’t judge Benji for anything else for that matter. He definitely shouldn’t have told Rahim about Benji, even though I do understand he needed someone to open up to and he trusts Rahim, it was a violation of Benji’s trust and not okay. But that’s like…the only bad thing Victor has done all season.

As for the pov thing- it wouldn’t be such a big deal if they actually developed Benji as a character, which they have not. We get no moments of him where he’s not with Victor (except the one conversation with Isabel, which was about Victor). If you’re going to have a character not share about their life to the protagonist, you need to find another way to share it with the audience. It leads to a disconnect and lack of emotional investment in Benji for many people. The fact that I feel I know Rahim better after 5 episodes than I do Benji after 20 is saying something. But the writing has given Rahim development that it hasn’t given Benji. It’s not surprising a lot of people in the audience are feeling more connected to Rahim as a result. Polls are never the most reliable thing since it depends on who sees them and how many people (twitters was about 20k respondents iirc but no idea about ig). I see a lot of vahim shipping on twitter and ig, tumblr not so much. But I will say I’ve seen people coming around on vahim who are watching the season now, as opposed to the smaller number who immediately watched the moment it came out, went in shipping Victor and Benji and had a knee jerk reaction about the possibility of another romance for Victor.

This is not comparable to malex in any way so I have no clue why you’re bringing them up.

And personally, I was never invested in Victor and Benji’s relationship. Even in s1 I was like 🤷🏻‍♀️ And now, with or without vahim, I think Victor and Benji should break up. They’re just not a great couple and I feel like the show would do well to make it okay for your first relationship to not necessarily be right for you. Especially for a gay couple because that like…NEVER happens on tv. It doesn’t take anything away from what v*nji mean to each other. Sometimes people just aren’t compatible. I didn’t start shipping vahim bc of anything with v*nji directly, I just loved their dynamic. I love seeing Victor light up. I love seeing him comfortable instead of constantly feeling insecure and apologetic. To me, vahim connect in a way v*nji do not.

Victor did not develop feelings for Rahim just because he was having issues with Benji. Just like Benji did not develop feelings for Victor just because he was having issues with Derek. Implying that does a disservice to both relationships and kinda takes agency away from a character and their feelings. But I want him and Benji to end things for real before anything happens with Rahim. Which might mean trying to make it work for a while longer. 

We will see!!

[springday-aus]

Superpower!AU with Hyungwon

—

Group: Monsta X

Member: Chae Hyungwon

Genre: fluff, romance, small [very minimal] angst

TW: car accident - don’t worry, no one died 

Type: Bulletpoint AU 

Word Count: approx. 2.8k

→ Inspired by the AU Prompt: “I know you can read minds and I really like you so I’m constantly filtering my thoughts—stop making fun of how I think of fighting giraffes, it’s my go-to when I think about you shirtless” 

so Hyungwon has the power of telepathy

how he got it was rather odd

he wasn’t necessarily born with it—it kind of came to him

despite what people might think, it wasn’t radioactivity

it was actually due to an accident

when he was young, there was a minor encounter

basically, there was a car and semi-truck incident

next thing he knew, his parents were in critical condition and he was being rolled into the ER for surgery

when he woke up, he was in his hospital bed and the ventilator was hooked up to him

he heard the voices of the nurses and the doctors, but their mouths weren’t moving

originally he brushed it off since he hasn’t fully recovered and his vision kept going in and out

but once he did recover… he could still hear them

luckily, his parents were okay

and that was how he was able to confirm his new-found power

he was able to hear theirs first and it was…. insane

he was freaked out, his parents were freaked out 

once they calmed down, they tried to figure out what to do—they eventually came to the conclusion to just let it happen

they can’t control that so they might as well figure it out together 

at first, it was uncontrollable, so he heard these voices whether or not he wanted to hear them

it was always loud and his own thoughts were never heard in his own head

oh, the amount of migraines he’d gotten from a young age…

but, don’t worry, he learned to maintain it as he grew up

now, he’s able to listen whenever he looks at someone and concentrate a bit more

he’s got a better control of it, but it also means he has to be careful as to where he looks bc he doesn’t wanna listen in on someone’s private thoughts

he’s always been getting in trouble when he was trying not to get in trouble when it comes to his telepathy

that tends to happen a lot in general though

because you’re hearing a lot of thoughts that you’re not trying to hear

which is why music became a good route of distraction

at first, the monsta x boys made fun of him for not getting airpods, but, after telling them about his telepathy, they understood why he got those big ass headphones

but, we’ll get to them later

anyways

bruh, high school was extra rough on this man

can you imagine hearing all of those thoughts? especially of hormonal teenage boys?

nasty

anyways

I like to think that this is why he sleeps so much

when he first got it, it was very emotionally draining for him and he slept like twelve hours at a time

unfortunately, he got into this habit and now he can doze off if he zones out enough

he slept a lot in high school, considering that he was trying not to hear his teacher’s thoughts and the other students and focus on the lesson and would end up falling asleep on his desk and then getting in trouble with the teachers

again, it’s that whole getting in trouble without meaning to get into trouble

so anyways

his family are the main people who know and god

the amount of family tea he’s gotten from his parents’ thoughts

while he does hate being able to hear all these thoughts without a choice, his favorite is the family gatherings and reunions

homeboy could make a tv novella with all the information he’s got on his family

because his immediate family are the ones who know, whereas his cousin that’s like twice removed doesn’t, but that’s justifiable

also, his parents have to be careful when they’re talking about him or his younger brother tho

(Hyungwon: “dad, am I not your favorite?”

his dad: “I don’t have have favorites”

Hyungwon: “the lies”)

other than his family, his long time friends also know, i.e. the monsta x boys

I’m talking long term because he’s so comfortable with them and Hyungwon was stupid and let it slip

Jooheon: I know we agreed on Chinese but I kind of wanted pizza

Hyungwon: “we can get both if you want”

Jooheon: “get what?”

Hyungwon: wait a second

oh, whenever they play games, Hyungwon uses this telepathy to help him cheat

and Changkyun was suspicious of how Hyungwon, the guy who falls asleep 20 minutes into a movie, had such good gaming tactics

his suspicions were confirmed when Hyungwon told them but they all also lowkey were confused and didn’t believe him, altho it did fill in a few of the gaps

like how Hyungwon gives perfect gifts for people that they can actually use

and how he can easily solve issues before they can even become bigger issues

there were just bits and pieces that came together and he did get to prove it

Kihyun: “what am I thinking about?”

Hyungwon: “I don’t think you would want me to say it in front of our Minhyuk here”

Kihyun: …… “okay, you pass”

but revealing this also means a lot of questions

especially from Minhyuk, who’s bouncing around and is curious as to how it works

and isn’t like always being verbally asked

like, the questions will just pop into their heads and Hyungwon hears it

actually what he hears is

Minhyuk: can he hear animal thoughts?

Minhyuk: do they speak English? or do they speak in that animal sound?

Minhyuk: should I ask him? or am I going to be bothering him?

Minhyuk: okay, try to be casual and slip it in and-

Hyungwon: “I can only hear people’s thoughts, now can we please get on with the meal?”

Minhyuk: oh right he can hear mine

Hyungwon: “YES I CAN HEAR IT PLEASE BE QUIET”

Wonho: …. “what’s going on????”

this is why he favors you compared to the others

you’re curious, but not like super curious like Minhyuk

but it’s also because your thoughts are the most hilarious ones

it’s primarily because you censor a lot of your thoughts with other thoughts and they are….. eccentric

there’s a reason tho

long story short: you like him

you two are basically childhood friends

you met in middle school and woke him up before he could get in trouble and it was all history from there

it wasn’t until around the college years that the feeling hit you like a ton of bricks

and when it did hit, you were lucky Hyungwon wasn’t around to read your thoughts

because……... oof

he went from that kid with acne that you used to spray water at to keep awake

to a handsome young man that makes your heart pound so loudly in your chest

he had told you about these powers of his about a year into college, when he realized you weren’t going to disappear from his life so easily

but also because you were thinking about how the fbi is definitely listening in on your conversations because you got an ad on instagram about those sleeping bags that make it look like you were being eaten by a shark and he HAD to make a comment

Hyungwon: “dude what the fuck”

You: “what?”

Hyungwon: “how bad is your anxiety that you’re worried about the fbi agent in your phone?”

You: …… **narrows eyes** “I didn’t say anything about an fbi agent”

Hyungwon: ah shit, here we go again

anyways

that’s just a small glimpse of what Hyungwon has to hear

your thoughts were hilarious to tune into, to the point where Hyungwon listens in when you’re daydreaming and it’s like his news for the day

and it only got worse (at least for you) because you were constantly censoring your thoughts after your self-discovery of your feelings for him

you two were studying in the library one time for finals and he got real close to get a good look at the textbook to see where you were

and you couldn’t stop thinking about how close he was

but when he looked at you

you immediately switched your thoughts to think about that time Wonho choked on his ramen noodles

Hyungwon: “why are you thinking about Wonho choking?”

You: “because it’s funny?”

Hyungwon: …… “fair point”

and so now, you have something to turn to each time an incident happens

whenever he says something that makes your heart flutter, you think about Ted Bundy’s yellow buggy

whenever he makes you unconsciously jealous, you think about fat cats sitting on glass tables

you have something for everything

and Hyungwon has no idea because you’ve gotten so fucking good at hiding it

until one day, you were out with the boys, trying out this new restaurant that opened beside the river

Jooheon talks about how nice it would be nice to go to the beach sometime

Shownu tries to start plans and says y’all could plan a barbeque and make a whole trip out of it

but then Kihyun whines, saying he’s not ready because he hasn’t gone to the gym in a month

Wonho: “you haven’t gone to the gym period”

Kihyun: “better than me living there like you do”

Wonho: “and who’s the one with the abs?”

Kihyun: “son of a bitch”

that got you thinking

Hyungwon? on the beach? that means he’s just gonna chill on the side

but that also means….. a shirtless Hyungwon

Shownu: “what do you think (y/n)?”

You: “nothing, absolutely nothing”

Hyungwon looks over at you with a knowing look in his eyes

You: “what?”

Hyungwon: ………….. “why are you thinking about fighting giraffes?”

Minhyuk: “.... is that really what (y/n)’s thinking?”

Changkyun: “dude”

You: “sorry for thinking about the zoo?”

Hyungwon: “we were talking about the beach, why were you thinking about the zoo?”

You: god, I wanna die

Hyungwon: “well, are you going to die before or after the beach trip?”

Shownu: “we need to keep track of the body count, (y/n), this is important” 

sometimes you also wonder why you like him when these moments occur

but then he gives you that smile and you think to yourself

it do be like that 

and because you all are trying to plan out the beach trip, you couldn’t stop thinking about…. shirtless Hyungwon

therefore 

starts up more thoughts about fighting giraffes ensue

and more teasing on behalf of Hyungwon to you

Hyungwon: “do you wanna go to the zoo instead???? is that why you keep thinking about these giraffes????”

You: I. want. to. die.

Hyungwon: “you’ll die if you join the fighting giraffes—oW OWW OKAY I’LL SHUT UP”

the nonstop teasing for weekkkkkksss

until he finally asks you, the day before the trip

Hyungwon: “seriously, are you upset that we went out to the beach instead of the zoo?”

You: ugh, this whole ass man keeps making fun of me for thinking about fighting giraffes, this is your fault for being so fucking attract-

You: WONH O CHOKI NG ON RAMEN

Hyungwon: “WHOA NO FINISH YOUR THOUGHT”

You: NO

You: WONHO. CHOKING. LALALALLALA-

you avoided him for the rest of the day and filled your head with more censored thoughts

so he couldn’t hear anything else

and he didn’t

homeboy was left so confused because

he really likes having you as a friend but

having you as a partner would be so much better

he’s liked you since high school

hearing your thought process and little quirks

he grew fond of them

he knows it’s really invasive, but, in his defense, he was still learning to control them

and he found himself staring at you more and more, accidentally hearing your thoughts

one thing he really hated about his power is that even when he’s just taking in your presence………… he can still hear it even if he doesn’t try to

but anyways

he was sure of his feelings, but didn’t wanna push anything until he was absolutely sure

and now just might be that chance

so, after ducking him the entire day, which is hard to do when he’s trying to find you the entire day

(it’s not that hard considering all he hears from you is “FBI AGENTS GET OUT”)

(at least, that’s what you were trying to think so he doesn’t hear anything else about how you were going to explain yourself)

and he manages to catch you when the boys set up a bonfire and there’s no other spots…… except the one next to Hyungwon

which he totally, 100% did not plan

;)

anyways, you try to distract yourself by focusing your attention the marshmallow you have roasting over the fire

whereas he’s trying to read your mind, but it goes to waste as your attention is solely focused on the marshmallow

hence the tune of IU’s Marshmallow being played in your head

some of the other guys leave the bonfire, either to take a nightly beach stroll or to sleep 

and that left you, Hyungwon, and a melting marshmallow that you were trying to keep from completely burning

before you could flee though, Hyungwon speaks up

Hyungwon: “what? no fighting giraffes?”

You: “I will hit you with a flaming marshmallow”

you thought about it for a second tho, why did you think about fighting giraffes?

the boys were talking about the beach and then they talked about the trip

and the beach made you think about a shirtless Hyungwon

…………. shirtless Hyungwon

FIGHTING GIRAFFES

Hyungwon: “wait what”

You: fuck

You: “fuck”

and then your worst nightmare happens

he starts laughing

You: “sssttttoooppppppp”

You: “it’s my go-to when I think about you shirtless, okay? are you satisfied?”

he keeps laughing

Hyungwon: “do you like the image that much that you have diverted your thoughts from it?”

You: bitch

Hyungwon: “I heard that”

You: “I KNOW YOU DID” 

there’s a bit of a lull and you try to focus on your marshmallow again, but the heat on your face isn’t from the fire alone

Hyungwon: “don’t be embarrassed”

You: “I’m embarrassed because it’s you, idiot”

Hyungwon: “why?”

You: because I like you

Hyungwon: “how dumb of you to think I didn’t feel the same way”

you turn to him

You: really?”

Hyungwon: “yeah really”

Hyungwon: “your marshmallow is burning”

that’s not the only thing burning 

you both assumed that was the night that you both agreed to date

the next day, were the boys shocked that the two of you are dating?

not exactly

bc they knew Hyungwon liked you for quite some time and also the fact that whenever one of them did think you were cute….

let’s just say Hyungwon’s mouth said idc but his eyes said he could murder them and get away with it

also he trusted you enough to tell you about this secret of his, so there was definitely a high chance he was going to develop romantic feelings for you anyways

*cue a sad Minhyuk in the corner somewhere*

KIDDING

or am I

anyways

there isn’t much change to your relationship

other than additional cuddling and pecks here and now

altho there are a couple of changes

your thought processes are more clear because now you have nothing to hide but

they are also unclear because it’s like

Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hyungwon. Hy—

he also tries more and more not to hear your thoughts, but sometimes it’s hard not to hear them, especially as he openly stares at you more and more

but then again, because of that, he’s gaining better and better control of his powers

he lowkey does use it when you get into arguments because it gives him a better understanding of your perspective and that allows him to provide his and it opens up more communication between you two, even if you don’t have telepathy

also he tried to make up for it by saying everything he’s thinking

that was a very bad idea from the start bc you got annoyed really quickly

but you also kind of sympathized with him

You: “I’m sorry you have to hear my thoughts all the time”

Hyungwon: “that’s not your fault”

You: “but that’s not yours either”

he loves being able to talk to you about these things bc it really feels like someone’s in his corner

you try to understand him better and make things easier

whether it’s getting him better headphones

or distracting him with your own obscure thoughts

I’m very sure that anyone who dates Hyungwon in general is going to nap with him so…

many many naps with him with lots and lots of cuddles

you both take care of one another, physically and mentally

especially since you know he isn’t the type that opens himself up to many people

and hearing all of these thoughts, yours and others, must be exhausting for him 

anyways in this household we love and protect Chae Hyungwon bc homeboy is just tired and needs a break 

[florvinhara]

my detectives (part 1)

kjahfjhsj i can have a little infodumping... as a treat... anyway this was originally gonna be 1 post but then i got carried away so part 1 in the series of me ranting abt my detectives!

Kira Isabella Song

Romances N, F, or M

Age: 25 at the start of book 1, currently 26

Birthday: February 7

Star sign: Aquarius sun, Taurus moon, Scorpio rising

Height: 5’7”

Hair: Short, ash blonde, a little longer than chin length

Eyes: dark brown

Race/ethnicity: Korean-American

Other appearance details: Several beauty marks on face and body. a few subtle scars on face/legs from falling out of trees, etc. fingers are callused from band practice and left hand fingers are a little crooked from being broken.

Languages: English, Spanish, a few basic phrases in some other languages

Stats:

Charming/Intimidating

Impulsive/Cautious

Sarcastic/Genuine

Friendly/Stoic

Easygoing/Stubborn

Heart/Mind (equal)

Optimist/Pessimist

Team player/Independent

Primary skills: Science & combat

Strengths: Trustworthy, strong, courageous, calm under pressure, compassionate, thorough, clever, good intuition, self-sufficient, sure of herself

Weaknesses: Petty, caustic, distrustful, secretive, lackadaisical, insubordinate, emotionally unintelligent, can be disdainful, uncommunicative, contrary

Personal:

overall body language is casual and unbothered, lowkey her posture is kind of yikes RIP but she has a very fluid way of moving

her voice is smooth and somewhat low in pitch, very even in tone

Loud and/or jumbled sounds sometimes overwhelm her; she usually has noise cancelling headphones with her just in case

Rebellious as a teenager; she started skipping school and getting into fights, did some graffiti and one time she stole a street sign that she may or may not still have

When she wasn’t breaking rules, etc. she was taking boxing lessons, chilling in the library, going on runs, or playing bass guitar in her band

Wanted to get out of Wayhaven as soon as possible after college but was arrested after she came back because she was selling fake IDs and stole a car; absolutely did not want to be law enforcement but Rebecca and the captain essentially made her

The deal was that she would work at the station for 5 years and if she did well/stayed out of trouble she could then quit- she's 3 years into it

deep down if she wasnt a detective she would want to be a paramedic

She shares a lot of mannerisms with Rebecca and they’re way more similar than she’d like to admit

Birds FREAK her out seriously; she’ll deny that she’s afraid of them but she’ll cross the street to get away from them, also hates crowded places and deep water

Scary resting face and has a habit of just... eerily staring at people who are bothering her until they get spooked, but she's not actually that angry or grouchy, she's really just Vibing u know? she's not gonna correct anyone's impression though or they might start like... Talking to her :/

Loves any book/movie/show with a secret society or spy element and stories about a Hero and their Journey, also loves angsty philosophy books; her favorite movies are cheesy but feel-good (The Mummy, Pacific Rim, anything with big CGI monsters)

Doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth but would kill someone for strong coffee; if she’s really tired you can catch her drinking it cold straight from the pot with a straw

Emo/pop punk teen and she definitely cried when MCR broke up, she also listens to a lot of Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Dottie West, Patsy Cline, etc

She’s been drawing since she was a kid- mainly works with charcoal and sometimes pastels. her sketchbooks are like her diaries and she’s never shown them to Anyone Ever

In her spare time, she still plays some guitar, draws, or reads; her library is extensive because she keeps every book she’s ever read or intends to read (it’s one of the few things she’ll drop real money on)

Very tactile person and fussy about textures, she prefers ultra soft blankets/pillows and her bed is basically a nest

Practical, efficient, frugal- she doesn’t necessarily find joy in cooking or anything but she can do it well enough, quick showers, uses cheap soap/shampoo, cuts her own hair

Her hands get super dry/chapped in the winter and it hurts very much :(

Never yells; when she gets angry she’s very cold & will Not hold back; every word is designed to hurt bc she’s purposefully poking at things she knows are sore spots

At the start of the books, she’s kind of... sleepwalking through life? like, she was in a not-great place mentally for most of her teens and didn’t really have a plan for the future but law enforcement was definitely not it? She isn’t feeling super passionate about what she’s doing and it kind of sucks to not have joy in purpose :( luckily that’s changing and is gonna be a significant part of her journey through the series!

Her apartment is cluttered but clean and she knows where everything is, if someone moved one of her things she would not be able to find it and it would bother her until she located it

She’s not stubborn exactly? Like she’ll concede an argument if it’s not super important to her and has no problem with losing or backing down in many cases; she’s pretty open minded in that respect, but if something is central to her values then she will Die before she backs down

On that note she’s overall a very logical person but when it comes down to it she'll follow her heart/first instinct

Does not care about rules or procedures At All, she'll follow them if it suits her end goal but otherwise... nope

Lowkey she… did not care about the reveal? it was a surprise but not her first priority in the moment- she kind of already thought UB was sketchy and didn’t trust them, so mainly she was pissed off that Rebecca had sent them to babysit her instead of actually help solve the murders

Speaking of Rebecca their relationship is kind of yikes. Kira isn’t exactly mad that Rebecca was gone so often, but she does think that she kind of forfeited her parenting rights and was annoyed that Rebecca was interfering with her life; first by getting her on the force and then by dropping UB on her. So now it’s Very Awkward between them because Kira doesn’t want to be like… mean but honestly what is there to say?? They’re trying but neither of them like to share personal information so it’s rough

On the subject of sharing, she just… genuinely doesn’t like to open up. Like, it doesn’t come naturally and in her mind it’s just… nobody else’s business what she’s feeling/what’s going on in her life

Genuinely does not realize that people care about her unless they openly tell her lmao... sad hours but at this point in the story she honestly doesnt think that any of UB cares abt her beyond their job besides the one she's dating :(

"Everyone should be allowed to feel things and rely on the support of the people around them, their emotions are Valid. not me though, this is my personal problem and as such its dumb so i have to get over it alone"

Her primary love language is acts of service, she wants the people she loves to have everything they might need; she’s Soft and really just wants snuggles but also she does not want to address it out loud

Her way of asking for affection is to just... stand/sit there and occasionally glance at the person... hovers like a sad ghost until she gets a hug... literally like 🥺👉👈 sjdhdkn Clown girl

She’s sarcastic and makes a lot of snarky comments, but generally she’s pretty honest unless she doesn’t want to talk about something (in which case she’ll brush it off and deflect or change subjects) which is why it annoys her so much when people are willfully dishonest or conniving

Pretty adaptable and capable of rolling with the punches but she generally dislikes surprises and being the center of attention

genuinely she's pretty chill! and a Huge enabler of chaos as well, like unless it's specifically bothering her she's gonna let it happen and mostly she thinks it's pretty funny to watch from the sidelines

in short she's basically like a feral cat who stares suspiciously at everyone from a distance until they successfully pspspsps their way into her heart and then she would die for them <3 but if she's mad she will make direct eye contact while shoving glasses off the counter

ahdgsksg ok last one i swear she Cannot Sit Properly, always has to be some flavor of lounging or leaning or sitting twisted into a pretzel

[chaoticspacefam]

(Fandom meme) B and N 👀

Thank you for the asks, Pinky! @palepinkycat I’m gonna stick to SWTOR for this one since I p much live in this fandom now, y’all are never getting rid of me. I’m like the lil funky ghost that comes with the apartment 🤪😂

This got long again oops, so under a cut to avoid eating/lagging ppl’s dashes bc of the gifs. No specific trigger warnings tho, so continue without a worry, this is just because it got kinda long :P

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind 

I have a couple, actually!

1) Lana/Koth (and by extension Saarai/Lana/Koth) - this one actually started as a silly animatic idea to the song “Sorry I Stole Your Girlfriend” by Stereo Skyline (which, yes, is also where their ship name comes from ;) XD) which I shared with one of my friends on Discord (who afaik doesn’t have a tumblr, but they’re gr8 and I love them very much owo), and then in a cider-tipsy 3am revelation my brain gremlins took control and put to me the idea of “But what if they ALL kissed?” basically. Fren encouraged me to do it bc they thought it sounded cute af, and around that time I also started vibing with Bagel over Discord, who further jumped on the “polyam triad gremlin train” and that was that. So y’all can blame my anonymous amazing Discord friend and @darth-bagel for encouraging me to make the OT3 a thing even tho there was pretty much NO content of the sort (I think there’s one other Lana/Koth fic on AO3??) So this is literally a case of:

They’re very cute, I love them SO much they are literally my new favourite ship to write. I would die for all three of them 🥺🥺🥺 & the haters can die mad about it lmao

2) Sith Inquisitor(F! mostly for me but ya know, I think M!Inquisitor could work just as well :’3)/Andronikos: at first I was very reticent to try this one, bc I started out with a M!Inq and I was worried Andronikos would be like Doc 2.0, but I saw a lot of nice fanfics for them and decided to try it out with Ni’kasi and that’s it. I love them now. I would die for them just as much as the OT3 XD

3) F!Jedi Consular/F!Sith Warrior: Again, because there is just a stunning lack of this content on AO3, see the gif in #1 😂  This is 100% Ariano’s fault, they’ve wormed their way into my angstyfluff brainrot. This pairing has so much potential guys. THE DRAMA. THE ✨A N G S T✨ I cannot talk about it enough 🥺

Honourable mentions for: Jaesa/Vette and Ashara/Jaesa which are rlly darn cute, and also bc it was the first longfic I ever read, and idk the author’s tumblr or if they’re even active anymore, but I need to go back and re-read the fic one day: F!Jedi Knight/F!Sith Warrior and Jaesa/Vette/Kira because the way they wrote them in that fic was so good I cri ;A;

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

1) Repeatable 👏 Companion 👏 and 👏 romance 👏 cutscenes!!! BIOWARE. GIVE ME. NOW. I don’t care if it’s the same 3 - 4 animations/cutscenes that can be replayed at my leisure/whenever I want, I WANT IT. ghsyugyudfd

2) More vanilla companion and romance content in general. A lot of my toons have romanced either Koth or Lana so we get a fair bit in KOTFEET but after that even they haven’t had much. Poor Vano hasn’t had a decent convo with Vette, who she considers like a sister, since her re-recruitment in KOTFE. GIVE ME CONTENT, DEVS, I MISS THEM *stamps my tiny feet* Also, leading in from this: more “neutral”/non-romance dialogue options without having to be a dick to ppl, please?!?! Just bc I don’t wanna smash doesn’t mean I wanna be mean (to everyone. Some of them deserve it, but most of them, I would actually like to be friends with, pwease?! XD)

3) More varied companions!! There’s a whole goddamn galaxy of REALLY COOL interesting species, why are like 90% of our perma-companions all human Bioware?! I know you can do better than that. Gimme more Purebloods, Nautolans, Mirialans, hell, every species tbh. I just think they’re neat ok.

Honourable mentions: POLYAM RELATIONSHIPS IN CANON: LET ME KISS THEM BOTH BIOWARE, YOU COWARDS! ✨ Vaylin “redemption” arc ✨ (and by that I don’t necessarily mean that she has to join the Alliance but at least a tiny sort of rapport with an Outlander who is willing to try enough to plant the thought in her head that they hate Valkorion as much as she does, who can help Vaylin get away from all the conditioning and let her disappear off to Voss or wherever she needs to go to heal herself from all that trauma bc Vaylin deserved better goddammit!), more “repeatable” content in KOTFEET style, I know it’s probably reaching/impossible but I really want the option to rerun the class stories without having to make another clone ok. I’m gonna run outta those slots eventually bioware P L S 🥺 , options to “recruit” long-running NPCs from the other expacs that we never see again e.g. Cytharat and others I can’t think of rn but like...lemme?? pls, bioware 🥺🥺, aaanddd finally, more female companions that aren’t your padawan/apprentice/significantly at a power loss in comparison to you??? it’s super creepy c’mon ughh.