#and why’s it always Koreans and such that they’re changing their race to? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lalalian · 9 months ago

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⚠️I’m Asian myself⚠️

I am not AT ALL trying to police anyone or tell anyone what to do, this is just an ick of mine! Do what you want, I’m not watching anyone obviously!!! Please don’t harass me for not feeling comfortable w race changing! If you don’t like my opinion, of course that’s completely fine, just ignore this! Ty~

If you’re the person that made this confession, I would probably not read this bc it would make your feel really bad. And I don’t think you’re that bad of a person, so plz don’t read this, I’m sure you’re very very nice 🫶🌸

‘I want to be as pretty as them’

bleeeeehhhhhh 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Ik the sentiment on here is that you can do whatever you want in your DRs, including breaking morality codes (idk how to word it, sorry) in this reality, which yk I respect (trust me, I do, I have a whole DR that I’m scared of talking abt bc there’s a lot of emotional angst) but there are some things I really just don’t like. Call me a snowflake, fine, I really don’t care. I’m 19, not 12, so I guess I take a few of those comments lmao.

Has anyone seen the RCTA tiktoks where they talk about shifting just to be Asian? And then you see their inspo photos on what they’d look like and experience in that reality? I remember feeling really gross in my own body seeing that (I always do, but those vids made it worse).

In those RCTA videos they’d talk about how ‘cute’ ‘doll-like’ and ‘fragile’ East Asians are, how ‘soft’ and ‘delicate’ Japanese or Korean girls are… 🤢🤢🤢

Ew.. Another one that comes to mind is when an RCTA person tried EA food and can you guess the food that they tried?

Boba, mochi, white rice, xiaolongbao

Come on now… if you’re trying to be Japanese at least try natto or smth like.. get cultural 😭😭😭😭 why try all the trendy foods? Is cuz you know your white lookin ass is too picky to eat mackerel?

This confession made me feel the same like 😭 I want to be like ‘them’. So ‘otherly’. I don’t don’t don’t like it 😭😭

I think my problem with RCTA people (the ones that are serious) is that they’re promoting the fact that all Asians are ‘kawaii’ ‘soft’ ‘submissive’ and ‘childlike’. That is literally the aesthetic too, that is what they want 😭 there is a reason to a lot of these behaviors and a lot of people in the west wouldn’t like it

You want the look, not the struggle, not the fact that nobody will ever take you seriously when you’re upset because ‘oh you’re so small’, not the fact that you’re a pedophile magnet, not the fact that people grimace at the mere mention of your more cultural food, not the ‘eat some Mac and cheese… why are you eating raw fermented crab???’, not the beatings, not the tiger parents, not the social pressure, not the fact that people don’t take your parents seriously because of their accent, not the ‘go back to your country’, not the ‘can you read this’ when the writing is in Japanese when you aren’t even Japanese, not the ‘can you see?’ Or ‘can you see properly?’, not being hounded by your PE teachers in elementary school because you were ‘glaring at them’ but you actually were just sitting there, trying to listen to them, not the ‘I thought you were smart’, not the ‘oh wow you can speak English?’, not the ‘damn people should invent language translators so I can make sure those Asians aren’t talking smack about me’ in a restaurant, not the ‘hey are you Thai? You know, you can sell your daughter for a high price in Thailand’, not feeling embarrassed to date a white man because gross people will tell him that he’s made a good choice because I’d be a ‘good housewife’ or ‘cute in bed’, not wanting to date out of your race in general because of the fear of rape and fetishization, not the ‘Asians like that though’, not the fact that ignorant people think Asians take racism well because we don’t really say anything when someone’s racist, or we go along with it to not disrupt the harmony

And yes, I know many POCs, especially BIPOC are completely fine when a white person or someone else shift to be their race. Hell, I think I’ve seen a Chinese American guy confess that he doesn’t think it’s that bad of an issue. But I think since I’ve dealt with fetishization all my life (including my own fucking dad) it’s so so much harder for me to pretend to like race changing. The reason is crucial for me— solely to be ‘soft dolly pretty kawaii Asian girl uwu named sakura kobayashi sama 🌸’ is straight up gross (TO ME, again, my opinion, I know a lot of people straight up don’t care cuz obviously it’s not their problem [[NO SHADE BTW, someone else’s DR is literally not my problem]]) but I think race changing to fit a certain time period like the Joseon dynasty where literally no POC or PWOC people live, or honestly even TGCF is completely understandable. I think changing could also be okay to fit the plot with like family trees too. With K-Pop, idk if I care or not but as long as the intentions aren’t sticky icky gross, I feel like it’d be okay.

All in all, this is mmmyyyyyyyyyyyy opinion, so if you don’t agree, that’s fine! I’m not policing anyone or trying to demonize anyone, this is just an ick of mine bc of alllllllll shit I’ve dealt with in my life. I do know tho that some RCTA people actually do want to go through this kind of struggle, so if you do want that, go ahead ig.. It’s not like I can stop you

It really is YOUR DR so guess what yall? My opinion really doesn’t matter! Anyway if you wanna shift to be Asian for this confession’s purpose plz plz plz plz plz do not follow meeee! Or look at my content!!! It makes me uncomfortable. Oh and trust me, I will know. And I will block people that I’m uncomfortable with!

oki, this was too long

ty ty for people who actually read this 😭😭😭😭

Cuz I know I wouldn’t have

is it wrong to shift to be asian just because you find them beautiful and you want to learn more abt the culture? i know you can learn about the culture without race changing, but i just want to be as pretty as them.

#reality shifting #shiftblr #shifting realities #desired reality #shifting community #shifting #shifters #shifting blog #shifting diary #scripting #lalalian

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blu-joons · 4 years ago

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When Their Families Worry About Them Dating A Foreigner ~ BTS Reaction

Jin:

When his parents mentioned to him that they were worried about your future together, Jin couldn’t help but sigh. He knew what he was getting into when he decided to date you, even if you lived on the other side of the world.

His eyes glanced across at them both as they spoke, “we’re making things work as best as we can, and that’s what is important.”

“Where is she now?” His mum asked.

“At home,” Jin responded, knowing exactly what point they were trying to make. “She’s flying back over next week, it’s not like we’re ever apart for too long.”

His father’s head nodded, “what do you do when the two of you decide that you want to settle down.”

“That’s something that we can think of in the future.”

“But what if you leave Korea?” His mother asked anxiously, “do you really think that you could see yourself leaving for Korea and living in a different country.”

“I’d do it for Y/N,” he assured them both, “I know you worry, but I’m going to follow my heart, wherever it is that it takes me.”

They glanced between each other before looking back across at him, “we just don’t want you to regret this or get too far into things.”

“I’m regretting nothing, I promise you.”

Yoongi:

Your first meeting with his family had gone far from well, they were sceptical and concerned to say the least about how the two of you would ever be able to last. Especially when you could barely say two words to them.

Once you left the table, they were quick to voice their concerns. “How are we ever going to build a relationship with Y/N?”

“She can barely say a word,” his dad added.

“She’s learning,” Yoongi quickly spoke, shutting his parents down, “you can’t expect her to speak Korean overnight, but she’s making the effort to impress you both.

A sigh came from his mother, “what if she doesn’t learn it and doesn’t want to be here anymore?”

“That’s not how she feels right now, she’s happy.”

“What does she think of us?” His father then asked him, leaning forwards against the dining table, “does she think that we’re nice people.”

“She understands that there is a language barrier,” he admitted, “but she’s hoping you guys will make as much effort with her as she is with you.”

They both nodded back at him, “we want to get to know her, but it’s proving difficult right now when she’s not Korean.”

“Just give it time, and she’ll prove you both wrong.”

Hoseok:

When his family first heard about you from Hobi, they instantly began to worry. They were a close family, and Hobi obliged his parents every word, but now that you were around, they began to wonder how things would change.

One evening when they had him alone, they finally spoke their concerns. “Do you think that you’ll leave Seoul? Even Korea.”

“I don’t right now,” he honestly answered.

“This is your home,” his dad pointed out to him, “you’ve spent all of your life in Korea, we won’t ever get to see you if you move abroad and be with Y/N.”

Hobi shrugged back at them, “we don’t know where we’ll settle yet, but this will be hard on Y/N too.”

“What exactly do her family think about this?”

“They’re supportive,” Hobi clarified immediately, “her family always said they’d come out and visit if we decided that Seoul would be the place for us.”

“We’d come and visit you too,” his mother defended, not wanting to be lesser than your family, “but we’d miss you a lot.”

Hobi nodded, understanding their feelings, “you’ve gone months without seeing me before, if you had to do it again, you’d be alright.”

“I’d much prefer to have you home for a while instead.”

Namjoon:

His parents had always been supportive of the two of you, until the first discussions of marriage came about. You had always been open about having a wedding in your home country too, which wasn’t quit the dream of his parents.

Their expressions said everything as to how they felt, “will you guys bail on a Korean wedding, because that’s important.”

“Not at all,” you quickly spoke up.

“We can do both,” Namjoon assured the two of them, taking a hold of your hand, “we want to be inclusive of both our families and our cultures as well.”

His mother smiled weakly, “we can help you organise everything for when you’re in Korea to marry.”

“We can organise it all, we won’t forget anything.”

“There’s a lot that comes with it,” his mother reminded him, as Namjoon nodded, trying to stop her worrying yet again. “It’s not what Y/N is used to.”

“I’ve told her about it,” Namjoon interjected, “just please stop worrying that we’re not going to follow Korean customs too.”

Her head slowly nodded as Namjoon’s father spoke up, “you both just need to do something for both of your homes and families.”

“And we will, you really don’t have to worry.”

Jimin:

Pushing the door open of the arena, everyone was surprised when you walked through the door. Jimin raced over to you as his parents both remained on the sofa, stunned that you had made an appearance at his concert.

His eyes studied you closely, “what are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming over to Korea?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” you chuckled.

“Mum and dad were convinced you wouldn’t make it,” he quickly spoke, glancing across at their guilty expressions. “I told you that Y/N would make the effort for me.”

His mother frowned, “we didn’t think she’d make the effort to travel so far just for you and a show.”

“Of course, I would. I wanted to be able to support him.”

“I’m impressed that you went to so much effort for our son,” his father then spoke up, taking you by surprise. “That means a lot that you came all of this way.”

“I always told you that it wouldn’t matter where I was in the world, I’d support your son,” you pointed out to them.”

Their heads both nodded together, “maybe we were a little doubtful that Y/N wasn’t Korean without giving her a fair chance.”

“I think you should trust in Y/N a lot more, both of you.”

Taehyung:

You sat back as Taehyung’s parents both lectured him about dating you and how his focus had to be on work. You were terrified as you listened to them talk, almost as if you weren’t in the room with them at all.

Your eyes rolled as his mother spoke, “travelling to visit a foreigner is going to take so much time out of your schedule.”

“I know, but it’s worth it,” he assured them.

“How?” His father then added, “you’re busy enough as you are, to have to spend extra time flying and travelling is really going to take it out of you.”

Taehyung’s head shook, “it’s already what I’ve done for years, a few more air miles is nothing.”

“Is this really something that you think you can make work?”

“Of course,” Taehyung smiled, reaching across to take a hold of your hand, “it doesn’t matter to me that Y/N isn’t Korean, we can find a balance between the two of us.”

“Is this something you agree with Y/N?” His mother asked, letting go of a gentle sigh as your head nodded back at them.

You weren’t quite sure where to look as you spoke, “I’m not going to bother Taehyung anymore than a Korean would, I promise you.”

“We trust you both, let’s see what happens.”

Jungkook:

When the invite came to stay for Chuseok, you were beyond surprised. Jungkook’s family had expressed a lot of concerns about you, but they saw that Jungkook was happy, and they wanted to make the effort too.

As you arrived at their house, his mother quickly took a hold of your hand. “I can tell you all about what we do for Chuseok Y/N.”

“I do know about it,” you smiled.

“Mum,” Jungkook warned from behind you, “Y/N knows about Chuseok, just because she’s not Korean. I’ve told her all about it, you don’t need to explain.”

Her eyes looked across to you, “sorry, I just didn’t think that she’d know much about our holidays.”

“I’ve taught her everything she needs to know.”

“I appreciate the effort,” you assured her with a soft smile, “but I’ve done a lot of research so that I can make sure that I impressed all of you guys.”

“Oh,” she stuttered, looking around the room, “I’d even prepared a small video to show you a little more about what we do.”

Jungkook appeared beside her, throwing his arm around her shoulder, “the effort is appreciated mum, but Y/N’s foreign, not alien.”

“I know, I just wanted to help, that’s all.”

---

Masterlist

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inkribbon796 · 2 years ago

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Egotober 2022 Day: 23 Stalking Treatment

Summary: Nothing says “good patrol” day like being followed.

Prompt: Creepy

Characters: Jackie, Silver

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

Jackie knew something was wrong. Henrik was still gone and Anti had been unnaturally quiet for a long time.

In the years and years that Jackie had fought against Anti, he knew that the demon liked to toy with whoever he was hunting. And usually he got too impatient for long, drawn out hunts. And Anti was suddenly creeping around his territory, stalking Jackie in particular.

Anti was up to something, and it was getting bad.

Jackie was on a patrol with Silver, they were walking around Althone and he could feel someone watching him.

“Any changes?” Silver asked quietly as they got to a Korean food truck they both liked to hit during patrols.

“Not yet,” Jackie said as he grabbed his own little meal tray and they took their food up to a random rooftop so they wouldn’t be interrupted or scare people.

“He’s been stalling around my house,” Jackie admitted around a mouthful of rice.

“He found another place you live at?” Silver paused eating to stare at Jackie in horror.

“Yeah and he hasn’t done anything yet,” Jackie said. “He hasn’t bothered my girlfriend, hasn’t bothered our cat, hasn’t even marked the house yet and that’s always the first thing he does.”

“Should we get the brainiacs and do something?” Silver asked.

“Not yet, Henrik is sending texts but they’re weird,” Jackie said. “The first few were fine, but now I don’t know what’s wrong with them but I don’t think Hein is sending them.”

“Do we know where he is?” Silver asked.

“No.” Jackie stabbed at his rice with a fork. “But Anti might, and that’s why he’s acting weird.”

“How do you know that?” Silver stared at him.

“Cause Henrik and Anti have kinda been conjoined at the hip for a long time. And we know they’re probably dating, but if it keeps Anti from killing people every week then who cares?”

“How long has this been a thing?” Silver asked.

“Officially, for a while,” Jackie said. “How long they’ve actually been dating, we don’t know. We kinda hoped if we didn’t bring it up before they did, that Anti wouldn’t get uppity and he’d just stay calm.”

“That’s certainly better than having a knife-happy demon on the streets,” Silver agreed.

“Yeah, but it just feels weird, you know?” Jackie said.

Then he looked down at the street.

“Hey, Silv, watch my food for a second so the birds don’t get it,” Jack set his tray down and zipped down to the streets and zipped past a normal looking dark blue van to see a read of the license plate. Something about the van set his teeth on edge. He didn’t know why he didn’t trust it, he just didn’t. Then he quickly raced back to Mark up on the roof.

“Bad news?” Silver asked, handing him back the tray.

“Thanks,” Jackie told him. “Maybe. It doesn’t seem to be Anti though. I noticed that van down there following us twice, it has the same license plate as the other ones I saw.”

“Should we say something to them? You sure they’re watching us?” Silver finished his food as Jackie just inhaled the rest of his.

“Maybe not yet, don’t want the feds on our case just cause we knocked on their door,” Jackie said.

“Yeah,” Silver picked up off the roof top as Jackie stood up and got to fully stretch out and then went back to trying to trail Anti. All the while the white van would periodically follow them, and then they’d lose Anti’s trail for a bit.

So Jackie called them off to go somewhere else. The van followed them for a bit before they completely lost track of it. Anti crossed their path close to the base and Jackie and Silver went in to talk to Bing about the situation.

Jackie saw the van still following him while on patrols. Jackie’s unease didn’t led up either but he waited. He waited for himself or someone else to get attacked. He was not starting this fight, but he was certainly ending it.

#Egotober2022 #Superhero AU #Masks and Maladies #jackieboy man #Silver Shepherd #stalking #getting lunch on patrol with the bestie

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jjungkookislife · 4 years ago

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Fic Recs 2020 Pt. 1

Seokjin

let’s get married [SMAU] @hangsangwithbts

Summary: seokjin has no intention of getting married, but after facing tremendous pressure from his family to finally settle down, he comes up with the brilliant idea to fake a marriage. the lucky bride just so happens to be you.

voice mail @joonary

summary: kim seokjin is best known around campus for his romance advisory podcast, voice mail, but to you, he’s just your lovable idiot of a best friend. but when he accidentally lets it slip that he’s fallen for one of your fellow peers, you can’t help but be a little bit curious (and quite frankly, a tad bit jealous).

Yoongi

cheers if you agree @out-of-jams

summary: If it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t know who you were or even how to get into contact with you, Yoongi wouldn’t be posting all over Weverse for anyone to see. Not that he thought anyone would be smart enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together with how many people responded to his posts anyway.

snake kisses @peekaboongi

summary: You are grossly unprepared for the snake hybrid that enters your life. Yoongi is quiet and sneaks around you but eventually, even the cold reptile warms up to you.

under construction [SMAU] @luffles424

summary: In which y/n is just trying to figure out what to do with her life with the help from her (un)helpful friends

Hoseok

going once, going twice, sold @bxebxee

summary: But the real reason anything at all started with Hoseok was something much simpler, and probably wholly unexpected - not that you ever planned on any of the other members of the MBA Society to find out.You leave your unlocked phone in his car before stumbling your way into your tiny, studio apartment. And he sees a twitter notification asking you for further discount on your panties.That is all it takes.

just practice @lamourche

summary: The second time you hook up with Jung Hoseok, he doesn’t remember the first time. You’re surprised. It was only a few weeks ago, and you were in a broom closet. That has to be different, right? (Well, not really, you’ll learn.)

game over @9uk

summary: your boyfriend has been gaming all day without paying much attention to you. that is until his friends on discord brings up the moaning noises in the background.

you’re my kryptonite @dovechim

summary: Superheroes are immortal, they are everything we are not. The Krypton are a race of superhumans sent down to Earth to protect humans, and they are the epitome of nobility and protection. You have always believed in their immortal, God-like powers, revered and admired them your entire life. Your wish for your very own superhero is granted when you meet Jung Hoseok, a Krypton with the most unique, powerful abilities you’ve ever seen.

Namjoon

first, do no harm @yandere-society

summary: Dr. Kim is well known as the most skilled heart surgeon in the hospital, but when you notice his mortality statistics seem skewered, you discover all is not what it seems. Now, Dr. Kim is offering you a choice: will you join him? Or become yet another broken heart beneath his scalpel?

internet friends [SMAU] @bts-celestials

summary: meeting through online, namjoon slowly starts to fall for the person who likes all the things he’s into. maybe having friends online is fun.

Jimin

reset @dovechim

summary: We are made of the pieces of what we remember, and we hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there are memories to call our own, there can be no true loss. But Park Jimin has no such privilege.

paparazzi (tw: flash banner) @chinkbihh

summary: What if the roles were reversed and it was Jimin who was the fan and you who was the idol? But what if he wasn’t just a casual fan, but an avid fan? Maybe even a sasaeng…

Taehyung

the morning after @softlyjiminie

summary: one night, full of passion, whispered promises and heated kisses. one morning, full of regret and unwanted memories. is a night with your ex enough to send you running back into the arms of the devil?

fake love @mygsii

summary: an arranged marriage between you and taehyung leaves behind feelings of bitterness and hatred. will your heart be able to survive, especially when you’ve loved him all your life, or will it fall apart with this marriage?

cheap skate @gukslut

summary: Who doesn’t know Taehyung and his lady? Cutest couple in town, I’d say, and have been since they started dating in their college days. Oh, that was a while ago, though. And still, they’re happy as can be in that place they have together. Almost hate seeing one without the other, y’know, it’s like seeing just one testi- oh, right, I’m not supposed to talk like that. Anyhoo, I only say that because I saw Taehyung at a jewelry store the other day while I was buying my sweet Jiminie his presents. Maybe that boy’s finally gonna pop the question, but I do hope he’s got a good plan for it. Something sweet and romantic. Maybe I’ll find out after Jiminie gets back from that cabin he’s visiting.

baby i @jiminsfault

summary: a one night stand with a stranger leads to so much more than just great sex

Jungkook

only for love [SMAU] @lysjeon

summary: for almost four years it had been just him and sarang, and he had no plans on changing the life they had become accustomed to any time soon, but of course y/n has to come and shake his world.

one time in your room @ubemango

summary: There are papers to write, and virgins to daydream about. (You can think about Jeongguk’s dick later.)

piss off your parents @littlemisskookie

summary: In an effort to piss off your parents you move in with their worst nightmare- a boy with tattoos, a rock band, and an irresistible charm.

departure @nomnomsik

summary: As a flight attendant for Korean Air, you’re scheduled for a thirteen-hour flight to Japan. However, things get intimate between you and your partner and co-pilot, Jeon Jungkook, when he realizes Park Jimin, the famous idol from Korea, broads the plane and blatantly flirts with you.

curiosity @hobidreams

summary: when innocent jungkook comes to you with a not-so-innocent question… you decide it’s easier to just demonstrate.

inkling @gguksgalaxy

summary: Jungkook is your brother’s boyfriend’s co-worker, they own a tattoo and piercing parlour. In other words, he’s tall, gorgeous, has his passion literally etched into his skin, looks incredibly good in a man-bun, and is semi-unattainable for you. Why? Well…you’re not entirely sure but him ditching right after a very heated make-out session sure isn’t a good sign. His extremely poor mood the next week sure isn’t either, but the only way to fix it is to face the beast head-on. Right?

j’aime @baepop

summary: You’re the newest hire at a local café and head barista Jeon Jungkook takes you under his wing.

pop goes the cherry @1oserjk

summary: jungkook comes back home to find you visiting as well, all grown up — in more ways than one.

skirt chasers @1kook

summary: “Baggy clothes are in, but you wouldn’t know that, Miss I Draw Inspiration From Catholic School Girls.”

kiss it better @jincherie

summary: When one goes to Kim Seokjin for advice, it’s almost guaranteed to never end well. This is something Jungkook learns quickly when he mistakenly follows treasured advice to ‘be smart’ and ‘use his assets’. He just did what he was told! Of course, the execution was a bit poor… and embarrassing. But hey, if rocking up to cheer practice in a skirt doesn’t woo your crush, what will?

pay by play @yoonia

camboy!au

deeply poisoned @xmagicxshopx

summary: Kiss me on the lips, a secret just between the two of us. Deeply poisoned by the jail of you. I cannot worship anyone but you and I knew the grail was poisoned but I drank it anyway.

speeding ticket @minstrophywife

summary: Caught speeding to get home in time, you find yourself pulled over by a very delicious cop. Perhaps you can talk your way out of the ticket.Or,“I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a cavity search ma’am.”

OT7/Multiple Members

buttercream @minniepetals

summary: you were always adorable in their eyes, sometimes a little too adorable.

dulce periculum @forgottenpasta

summary: Devious and devilish, your two new impish hybrids never miss a chance to torment you for your hopeless attraction to them, knowing exactly what they do to you. But is sly sexuality and enigmatic allure all there is to the tiger and wolf hybrid, or do the depths of their eyes hide something more for you? Part ½

tropicana @dragunjk

summary: groovy punch sippin

amaranthine @koyamuses

summary: As the sole owner of Nightshade, a quaint bed and breakfast on the outskirts of the city, you find pleasure in rising each morning to tend to your guests but behind closed doors and within the shadows, you are the covenant leader to a group of young vampires who have claimed you as their mate.More often than not, your day is brimming with a mix of daily chores and back door deals that ensure the survival of your covenant. However, everything changes when three werewolves come stumbling into your life, all three of them claiming it was your scent that drew them closer as the words true mate ring into the silence.

testosterone boys @kiwiscript

summary: A little end of the year party tradition gets taken too far.

operation love letters @ve1vetyoongi

summary: When every student on campus is going crazy about a survey that claims to make true love bloom, your best friend manages to convince you to join in on the fun — except you’re disappointed to find out that your results just seem to be lost causes. That is until a love letter from a mysterious secret admirer turns up and you find yourself on a mission to find the person behind the pen — but you quickly realise it’s going to be a lot harder than you initially thought when you have 7 possible bachelors to investigate, right? Operation: Love Letters a-go!

our princess @iridescentjin

summary: In your newly established poly relationship, you are intimate with both Taehyung and Seokjin at the same time for the first time.

#fic recs #fic recs 2020 #fic recs masterlist #jjungkookislife fic recs #jjungkookislife fic recs masterlist

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the-brohood-of-hotties · 3 years ago

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Forget me not

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman REBORN! Pairing: Hibari x Reader Wordcount: 2,210

Summary: Hibari is a weird man, famous for his rather aggressive aura. After he moves into your neighborhood, an oasis inside a big neon town, Hibari Kyouya brings with him the weirdest situations into your life, as he makes a startling entrance with an accident with his "co-worker", Yamamoto Takeshi.

This is an entry for #khrevents April Angst 2021/ Day 8/ Yearning, Longing/ Reincarnation AU/ "I don't want to forget you."

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30658199

The glass door from your coffee shop and gardening club swings open, you don’t really care to see who’s there because it’s almost the end of your shift and you’re really entertained with social media, though you did greet the person entering. “ Good evening. Welcome to the Daily Lily.”

“Good evening, I’m afraid we’ll have to check out your storage.”

“Are you the police?”

“...No.” The voice seemed hesitant, you notice.

“Then I can’t help with that, we have a promotion on cheesecake today though.” You smile and finally look up, afraid it might be a man trying to mess up with you. Well, it was two men, in fact. You’ve heard the rumors around the neighborhood, that Hibari Kyouya was a man with a weird aura that just moved in alone with some exotic pets, while he seemed delicate and handsome, he just had this introverted, aggressive aura and you’d never expect him to show up in your small business as the companion of another guy. Tall, tan skin, dark hair, buff, a scar on his chin in contrast with a bright gentle smile. He seemed to carry a baseball bat in his back, which made the combination of sports and their suits really off, they both seem to be either Japanese or Korean.

While Hibari, the grumpy one, seemed to not be so happy about being with the other guy. Like a puppy and an old cat. "We don’t wanna bother you, but-..." The baseball guy was cut off by a loud noise coming from the back of the store. Normally you would be worried that your co-worker got hurt or something, but today? You’ve been alone for the second half of your shift. It’s not supposed to be noisy there, you’re frozen in the spot.

Hibari immediately bursts into the staff-only area of your shop, and before you can protest, the other guy gently grabs your shoulder. “Everything will be fine, we’ll take care of this situation. I just need you to hide in the restroom.’’

“Excuse me?!” No time for excuses, you heard someone grunting and the loud noises start getting too repetitive. Your phone was given in your hands and you basically got pushed into the room by the taller guy. “Sorry, huuh I really need to go there… ” He said as the door slammed on your face. The restroom was cozy enough, you had it decorated as you wanted, and you were firmly holding your phone in case you needed to call someone...But then, who would you be calling? The police would probably make things worse, especially because they seemed to be armed, or worse, maybe these guys are the police in disguise. You fidget your fingers along the cold black surface as a way to calm down a little, it seemed pointless. The noise was too loud to just put on earbuds and ignore them, but you realize: And if this is all a scheme? Rushing to peek at the door, as your eyes meet the pastel walls of the store, you realize it seems like no one’s here at all. Until you hear the cranky storage door opening, and as soon as you see the Baseball guy again, you close the door. Don’t want him thinking you’ve been spying on whatever happened in the storage, with your heart racing, you hear a gentle knock on the wooden door, accompanied by his voice. “Everything is fine! You can come out. I’m sorry I didn’t say my name before, I’m Yamamoto Takeshi and my company here is Hibari Kyouya.”

Decide to close the shop soon as you could for the day, you come out of the restroom, greeted by the two men.

“I am not your partner, Yamamoto Takeshi.” He mutters, Hibari looks completely clean, you could still mistake him with a businessman. While Takeshi seems to have bruised his hand a little. You offer him your first-aid kit which he accepts, then you close the curtains so there’s no curiosity about that’s going on inside. “So, what happened in my storage?” You cross your arms, with a cotton stained with blood between your fingers, slightly annoyed by the whole situation. Making mental notes of what to tell your therapist later, then going back to cleaning the dry blood on Yamamoto's calloused hand.

“Two burglars, they were armed but easy to deal with.” Hibari finally says something directed to you, maybe it’s the first time he bothered to look in your eyes. Not that you’re annoyed by that, perhaps he’s just introverted. But at the same time, now that he looked at your face, it's like something inside him got frozen, awkward. It's such a weird feeling, especially since he doesn't really show it off, you just can tell. “Are you guys police officers?” You change the subject, brushing it off your mind, Hibari looks away, you can’t tell if he’s offended by being compared to a cop or something else. “Not at all! We just know how to handle them. We’ll send you a check to compensate for the damage and the working time you spent in the restroom as well.” Yamamoto finished his bandage and happily hands you paper and pen. “Just write down your shop’s address and info and the check will arrive in 3 to 5 days.”

You couldn’t really believe in such kindness, or at least knowing how to deal with the consequences of their vigilante work but since they already know the shop you write it down anyway. “ Are you all putting me in some pyramid scheme? You two seem like stage actors.” They do look like handsome actors, you think.

“We aren’t.” Hibari actually pulls out an unused bullet from his pocket to show they’re not lying, effective but scary. He just turns away and keeps browsing the plants you got for sale, examining the quality of an English Ivy’s vine. “Don’t scare them, c’mon. Isn’t this shop your neighbor now?” Yamamoto jokes around, Hibari sends him a deadly look and you decide you won’t touch the neighbor subject ever again.

“If you two excuse me, I have to close the shop and go home. It’s getting late and I don't plan to work more today.” You operate the register and turn off your computer for the day, swinging the keys in your index finger. Anxious to get home to your cat and a nice hot bath to relax. “Thank you again for your kindness, next time you visit the shop anything from the coffee and plants is on me. But don't do crazy stuff again.” You smile as everyone leaves the inside area with you. “By the way, who’s going to take these two burglars out? Did you guys called the police?”

“Kusakabe already took them, before you got out of the restroom.” Hibari says in a beat, interrupting Yamamoto before he could say something else. “Who’s that?” You raise an eyebrow, the Baseball guy blurts out, dismissing any curiosity you might have. “He’s a friend of ours who’s actually a cop!” That’s weird, you didn’t even see a vehicle, and usually, when cops stopped around they were always noisy and had the blue and red lights on. Off-duty cops, detectives, spies, what are these people doing around? Your curiosity around these two can only grow. It’s not like your hometown has anything important in the first place. Anyway, you say your goodbyes and already invited them to come once more. Perhaps it will be good to have these two around, at least against burglars.

Hibari turns to Yamamoto as soon as you disappeared in a street corner, with earbuds on, bursting your playlist for a nice walk and everything “That’s why we shouldn’t operate with any civilians nearby, we might be compromised now.”.

“It wasn’t that bad, I think they got to sympathize with us, it’ll be just a weird day on their life.” Takeshi stretches his arms, it’s quite complicated to deal with you and Hibari all at once. “But, still if we didn’t interfere these guys might take them hostage, steal the shop, or whatever their intentions were. We’re lucky you saw they had guns when passing by the street.”

“I am sure Kusakabe will find out their true intentions, but meanwhile we cannot afford to bring attention to us. No more.” Hibari walked down the street, ready to get to his new apartment. “And, Yamamoto.”

“What?”

“If you get back here in the shop, don’t do anything weak and stupid.” A threat, how much that suits him, it must be a serious matter, no wonder the Foundation decided to settle in that small town for a while. Once Hibari got home, greeted by Hibird’s singing, he lets out a long sigh. What happened today? Two Mafia men going out for a civilian’s small business as if it’s a serious matter for them. But especially, the Cloud Guardian feels like he just knows you from somewhere. Your voice and eyes seem oddly familiar, but if he was to put this feeling into words it’ would simply smell like bullshit. Herbivore bullshit. He takes a long shower, and gets to bed to read something before sleeping, but can’t concentrate on his book. It can’t be, he even loses sleep and feels exhausted, only falling asleep when his body couldn’t take it anymore.

He wakes up in a bad mood, feeds Hibird and Roll, and opens his fridge: nothing, just a bottle of water. Well, he has to remind Kusakabe to do his groceries, but for now, he’ll be ok with going to your shop for breakfast. He gets changed from his kimono to casual clothing, it’s 07:00 AM when he walks down the block and notices no one’s inside the shop beside you, as he opened the door a ring is heard, you turn your head to see who’s there, the shop seems clean and decorated with paper and fairy lights hanging on the wall, plus with the plants of all sorts, making the place lively, with soft lo-fi music in the background. “Hey, good morning Sir.” He murmurs a response and orders blueberry pancakes with a black coffee on the balcony. “Thanks for coming after yesterday, I came here earlier to clean but your partner Kusakabe was waiting at the door to help me out.”

“Good.” As you manage the register, he notices you have cupcakes with colorful glaze and cutesy decor right beside you, and a poster that he can’t read from that distance. You see he’s staring at something and offers him one of the cupcakes. “Today I’m throwing a small event here, the shop will celebrate 2 years of business, come by if you want to.”

“I’m not letting you give me everything in the shop for free.” He rejects and suits himself a table nearby the window. “I don’t like parties, or crowded places so I’ll stop by tomorrow.” This hurts your ego a little bit, but it would probably be embarrasing to have a stranger around, he’s quiet most of the time. You wonder if Yamamoto is more of a party person, then, your thoughts drift to the question: Is Yamamoto Takeshi single? He doesn’t have a wedding ring, and neither does Hibari.

You shake your head before you could turn red in front of him. “Well, I’ll save you a piece of cake my parents made then.” You say, as you get prepared to do everything for today’s menu ready.

“You don’t have to.” Ouch. You decide to not offer him more things, but this behaviour makes you wonder if he has a jealous partner.

Usually you let everything sort-of-ready so you just need to heat them in the oven on the back of the balcony. Cooking is time-consuming, but at least it’s pretty lucrative. “I think I’ll take around 30 minutes since you’re an early bird. You can use a laptop to work or shop for flowers if you like stuff like gardening.” You turn your head to talk to him, but to your surprise, he’s already looking at some pots and examining some other gardening products you have around, you didn't expect him to be this kind of person, gardening takes nurturing, care, and a lot of attention towards a living being who doesn't even communicate like animals. He does like gardening apparently, you expected him to pull off a MacBook and have an online meeting over his meal or something, maybe doing finances of whatever organization he's probably the leader at, at least that's what his expensive suit tells. When you get to serve his plate, the spare chair has a basket full of gardening materials, seeds for fruits and veggies, some pots, a small rake, and a trowel.

As the clients come in and you get busier, he didn’t want to be a burden, so he just sat there and tried to enjoy his breakfast, even though the place was a little more crowded than he would like to. But still, Hibari can manage that for a bit, and then he realizes how the situation just got weirder to him, how come he’s doing that for you? And why did you felt so familiar? Spending most of his life there, just occasionally traveling he never noticed a person that matched that specific scene in his head. Is this some Herbivore bullshit? Maybe. Hibari is still pondering over this subject but as long as no one from the Foundation or Vongola finds out, he just found out a place with good pancakes, open from Monday to Saturday, how convenient. The whole saved your business and life thing or the fact that you’re attractive is just a small detail. When he’s done, Hibari gets up from his table and your co-worker comes to clean his spot. He takes his basket to the balcony for payment, but not before adding a purple flower to his shop list. When he gets to pass all the products, which usually the clients would take one or two plants, but he got around seven, letting the purple flower for last.

A small vase blooming with forget-me-nots, as you pass it on the register, you read the silly little tag you put in some pots as decoration, each has a quirky phrase or pun with the names, that one reads:

“Don’t forget about me”.

#hibari kyoya #KHR Fandom #khr fanfic #fanfiction #reader #hibari x reader #yamamoto takeshi #forget me not #I kinda want to continue this fanfic hhhh

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seraphemin · 4 years ago

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wish I were...

after Harry kisses reader, she watches him mesmerized as his ex walks by

‘heather’ by conan gray WARNINGS - ANGST. WORD COUNT - 2,109

A/N: this is the first imagine I’ve ever posted on here hehe. but this most likely will be a 2-3 part mini series of pure angst...so yay!

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"My goodness, I can't believe it's been a year and this is how we're celebrating it? " I take a sip from my wine glass with a raised brow towards Harry. We were sat on the floor at the recording studio, having a makeshift little picnic to celebrate a year. A whole year of a beautiful friendship. "Well I thought it'd be fitting, ya know this is where we met and stuff. Look, I even got those Korean chips that you snacked on that day!" I laugh as he comically picks up a chip and places it in his mouth, followed by an exaggerated moan. I try to hide the blush rapidly heating up my face at how much effort he put into this silly thing. It started as a little joke I brought up to him one day when we were having a lazy day, and of course Harry would take it seriously. He planned the little picnic basket after a day in the studio when everyone else left and he had asked me to stay a little longer to help him with lyrics and whatnot. It was a complete surprise and I couldn't help but adore how happy and proud he was setting this up.

"Alright I gotta give it to ya H, you are the bestest friend anyone could ever ask for. I'm just happy that you didn't include those disgusting kale chips of yours." The smile that hasn't left his face drops into a shocked and offended look.

"Hey, you said you wouldn't make fun of my addiction anymore." He scoots closer to me, gently poking my rib to which I immediately jump and swat his hand away. "I'm sorry- I'm sorry!" I giggled when he makes himself comfty sat right next to me.

Subconsciously, I move closer till his shoulder touched mine. "I like this sweater, it's fluffy and keeps people warm." I say, huddling into the fabric that Harry gave me to wear when it got colder. "You know what, I like all your sweaters H, they're all impeccable." He chuckles, "really? It looks better on you than me, bubs." I smile, using the over-sized sleeves to cover my face and faking a groan. "Oh you would with that cliché ass line." "It's true! Beautiful in m'clothes." He mumbles and I had to only respond with gratefully lending my shoulder as a resting spot for his head. Considering he literally had to bend his whole body to do so every time he does this, I never understood how he found this comfortable. We shared a comfortable silence for a minute, sipping on our wine, the bottle nearly finished. The courage coming from it is telling me this would be the perfect time. It's the right setting to finally tell him that my feelings go beyond friendship and that it has been since the first month. The thought made me nervous at first, but there had been so many signs from him that had me thinking he's feeling the same way. Maybe those were just my expectations and how loving Harry is, but every time I look at him, I'm mesmerized. "Honestly don't know what I'd do without you bubs." Harry suddenly says and I snap out of my thoughts to glance down at him staring at his empty glass. My heart started beating fast and my breathe hitched when he pulls away only a few inches away to look back at me "This was a tough year and you've been there with me through it all, haven't been this close to someone in that short of time." He says lowly, looking right into my eyes. I take his hand in my small ones and play with his fingers in comfort, as we reflected on how this was both the best and worst year for him. While he became such a successful solo artist after the band and created the best relationships in his life, he reached a mental low dealing with his own insecurities and went through a breakup that took a major toll on him. They ended on good terms, but Harry went through the aftermath of a loss alone. I came in a month after his break up, hired as a lyricist to help him get out of this creative block but also to help him realize how much he was really worth as a person. It was a gradual slow process of friendship at the start, but it quickly blossomed into becoming best friends, growing feelings in between for me. "You're so good to me, I don't deserve it." He was so close and I couldn't tell if I was leaning in or not. My chest feels like it's bursting. "Harry, you've done so much for me, don't put yourself down like that. You deserve my love, mkay?" He looked so vulnerable, staring into my eyes as I couldn't pinpoint what emotion he was feeling right now. I was always able to read Harry easily, but maybe it was the wine that made it harder to understand what was racing through his mind. I couldn't register it. His lips on mine were foreign but felt right, like they fit perfectly. His hands cupping my face gently made me realize this was actually happening. My best friend who I've loved for so long was finally kissing me. "You absolutely deserve mine... " *** My anxiety was getting the best of me. The party wasn't like any other rowdy and crowded New Year's Eve celebration. It was a gathering of close friends and mutual at a penthouse with just enough drinking and fun shenanigans. I knew all these people and they knew me, yet it wasn't easy to breathe regularly for some reason. I smiled and laughed along with the conversation among the circle of friends I situated myself in with Harry standing to my right, two people in-between us. I anxiously played with my fingers wrapped around a bulbous wine glass, zoned out but somewhat participating with the group. I caught his eyes, both of us giving a smile when he shot me a quick goofy face. His eyes trailed down to my hands, an obvious tell. I respond with a reassuring smile, placing my hand on my chest to which he steps outside and moves to stand next to me. I soften as he places a hand casually on my back, rubbing up and down. The nerves die down a bit. Usually, I would of been full comfortable but it was different now. After the kiss Harry and I shared, nothing had changed as much as I wanted it too. There was still the casual flirting and touchy gestures, but other than that, Harry never brought it up. "Soo, what now?" I had asked him when he dropped me off at my apartment. He gives me a tight smile and takes my hand in his, bringing it to his lips. "Still my best girl." I was confused afterwards, not fully understanding how he felt towards me. "Hey, I kind of wanted to talk to you about yesterday... " I approached him in the studio, his sweater keeping me warm that morning. "Oh yeah, you never told me what you wanted for Christmas. And by the way, I'm gonna need that sweater back sooner or later." He chuckles, going back to writing down chord progressions. Him avoiding the subject made me think he didn't want to talk about it, so I stopped trying. It made me insecure a bit to show him any type of affection back, but I didn't have it in me to tell him when I'm engulfed in his huge frame, feeling safe and happy at the moment. What made me snap out of my thoughts was his hand leaving my back and slipping into his jacket pocket. He then started being part of the funny story Mitch was telling, including his own side and little comedic comments that made the group laugh. As much as it brought a smile to my face, there was nothing more I wanted to do than take his arm, wrap it around me and kiss his cheek before laying my head on his chest. He took a second here and there to glance at me, probably aware how tired i was getting even though it was only a few minutes before midnight. The kiss defiantly affected something here, as much as Harry was trying to show that it hasn't, I can at least appreciate the acknowledgment that he shared similar feelings towards me. Maybe this was him thinking about the possibilities afterwards, knowing Harry wasn't very much a confrontational person and has taken time to learn to process things more logically rather than pure emotional instinct. When he catches me staring and throws a knowing smirk followed by a wink, I melt right on the spot but at the same time, holding back from rolling my eyes. I felt his stare kept on me when I looked away, feeling less frustrated and more understanding of his situation. Maybe I do just need to give him time... When I looked back at him, he was now looking away at something else apart from the group. I didn't give it a second glance till I noticed he was fully distracted before Mitch kept calling his name but getting no response back. Harry was in deep trance at something more fascinating than his friend's story, and when I caught sight of what was distracting him, I fully understood why. She stood out, so it wasn't to hard to point her out. But of course she would, she looks stunning in that dress that happens to only be a different shade of color from mine. The natural glam and brightening smile on her face as she talked to mutual friends perfected her look, but it was the sound of her melodic voice that just set the deal. It was her laughter from across the room that caught his attention first, what made him break his gaze on me to her. My first thought was concern for Harry and if he was suddenly feeling overwhelmed or distraught by her presence after a breakup. But then I looked back at him and only saw longing and adoration. It was a look I only was recently familiarized with. I purse my lips to hide the frown set on my face while I felt my heart beat much faster initially, watching him mesmerized as she walks across the floor to greet more party guests. Her blue eyes wide and shining, most likely something Harry was dying to see once again as he hoped she would turn his way. Is this what hopelessness feels like? Mitch gave up on trying to catch his attention as soon as he realized who Harry was looking at, and so did the rest of the group. But here I was, desperately looking up at him in hopes that he would suddenly break away and meet my own eyes that stood right next to him. "Guys! The count downs about to start!" Someone called out, followed by cheers and applause as everyone slowly started gathering towards the balcony to see the firework show and celebration of the city below. She moves away from the crowd though, choosing to be semi alone next to the aquarium with a glass of martini in her hand. More people started crowding around us, the group disintegrated into a whole, but my focus was on Harry. As much as my anxiety and tiredness was getting worse, it couldn't compare to the ache in my chest when he takes a hesitant step towards her direction. In a second, my hand flies towards his and gently tugs to me in a last ditch of desperation while I softly call out his name. Maybe it was the way he stopped and turned his head slightly before completely pulling away and walking towards her, leaving me engulfed with the crowd alone. Or that I could picture the loving look on his face when she finally sees him approaching and gives him a welcoming smile while the sound of people counting down from 20 is muddled into the background. All I could imagine to hear was his small 'hi' and compliment for how beautiful she looks, knowing how nervous he would be. "3, 2, 1! Happy New Years!" The celebration of those around me drowned out my glossy eyes as I see Heather take Harry's hand in hers, sharing that same complete adoration look on her face that I was only just becoming familiar with.

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part 2 A/N: feedback would greatly be appreciated :)

#harry styles #harry styles angst #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfiction #one direction #heather #i really listened to this song on loop for 2 hours going through it

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serenedash · 3 years ago

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🏳️‍🌈 go feral with your kh babes

THANK YOU FOR ENABLING ME ANON you said go feral and I fucking did. I have. many headcanons and many are important to me and 99% of this is khux,

Hyperfix ask meme: do you have any headcanons (lgbt, race, neuro, etc) that are important to you?

Xemnas is a mlm trans man and literally has so much mental illness. like nomura made the perfect ND character and I love him so much. He has so so much dissociation all the time.

Vanitas is a nonbinary icon you look at him and tell me he knows what a gender is. Also mental illness hours with him too that’s a given-

Ira is genderfluid (he/they/she) and gay!!!! Also obligatory him and Invi are twins moment- they are both Korean. He also has killer makeup and is very pretty. I hc that he has a lot of anxiety and has trouble making eye contact with people (that’s why I draw him with hair covering his face bc he doesn’t like people looking at him-) He doesn’t talk a lot, he only talks when he thinks it’s necessary! He internalizes a lot of things and isn’t vocal about his own feelings; he will always put others before himself.

Invi’s sexuality is lesbian and it’s also her gender. Unlike Ira, she’s very loud and has no problem being blunt. She can and will fight you and I love that for her :) Honestly she’s a very black/white person.

Aced is literally a bear like idk what you want. I hc him as black! He HAS to think out loud and say everything that’s on his mind. He has!!! Very big emotions too!!! In back cover he cries like twice and I’m like oh my god man please catch your breath. After the war I think he would have a lot of self esteem issues with how he acted and would rather distance himself from the others bc in his eyes he’s caused enough trouble already and can’t see the others forgiving him.

Gula is a trans man and bi and we love that for him. I hc him as white and Mexican! I think it’s a somewhat common hc that he’s a street kid and I think he already had a lot of trust issues going into his apprenticeship and obviously MoM made them. so so much worse. He tries to seem really aloof and mysterious and his resting bitch face helps but also he’s very anxious all the time and needs approval from everyone constantly he’s really bad at actually hiding anything. Like the way he runs to Invi about everything? The way he willingly tells Player and Skuld EVERYTHING despite the fact HE REALLY SHOULDN’T??? He’s very smart but like. His need for approval from others is his downfall. After the war I think he literally won’t trust anyone except for Ava like if his duty wasn’t keeping him there I’m sure he would ditch everyone.

Ava is agender!!! They/she :) no gender here!!!! I actually have a few headcanons for how they look bc I really like playing around with their illusion powers and them changing their appearance. I think the athlete Laurie Hernandez and Ava’s voice actress (Isabela Merced) are really good facecanons for them! I think Ava also has trust issues but they’re a lot more lowkey than Gula’s and are really only a result of the events of khux. I think they have a really strong sense of justice and self preservation where the other foretellers are more likely to think and feel as MoM tells them to. I also hc that Ava is lowkey like. such a girlboss and will do absolutely anything to get what they want. I think they have mixed feelings on the others and MoM but ultimately feels like they HAVE to oblige to whatever MoM has planned for them and their siblings.

Luxu is a nonbinary trans man (he/they) and pan! You look at post kh3 Luxu and tell me that man cares about gender. I hc him as being black and indian! khux Luxu I hc as having no filter and he will just talk and talk and TALK for so long and none of it will honestly make sense. This is a headcanon I stole from others but Luxu is chronically late to everything and the foretellers run on Luxu Standard Time.

Luxu part 2 I have a lot to say: anyway he’s a very genuine and trusting person and his role was really difficult at first bc he had to learn how to hold all his thoughts inside and be more serious. Over time I think he would go through many cycles of terrible emotions over himself, the others, and MoM. I think he’s extremely loyal to MoM to a fault and no matter what he does or what he thinks nothing can shake that loyalty even if he mourns the person he once was. He’s had to throw away his whole identity and all his own dreams/goals (if he ever had any) so he could help mom. He’s struggled a lot with his identity and personhood over the years and by the time of kh3 I think he would not even view himself as a person but more of a tool for MoM. I am a big MoM hater so I like to think deep down he would resent MoM for making him carry out a role for so long by himself but at the end of the day there’s nothing he can do about it and he’s going to see this through to the end.

Skuld is a trans girl!!!! And she is SO TALL!!! I know a lot of very tall gorgeous trans girls so I just look at Skuld and I Know. I think she’s a very social person but has a lot of self esteem issues that makes it hard for her to make friends. I like seeing her when she meets Player vs her at the end of khux bc I feel like she’s grown a lot and I love seeing her with friends!!!!

Ephemera is genderfluid, any pronouns, we love to see it. I like to actually think Eph is. not that great of a person (at first). Like very driven but is only looking for their own goals yknow but gets closer to people thru Player, Skuld and the other dandelions. I think a lot about post khux Eph struggling with some self image issues bc of what happened to the Player and I Want to hug Eph. so badly.

I have such a soft spot for trans man Strelitzia!!!! I like it when Him :))) just Strelitzia looking the exact same very pretty and cute but also rocking the he/him pronouns. I love weird girl Strelitzia so sooooo much like once he gets past his horrible social anxiety he’s going to make you a necklace made of bones. Where did they come from? idk. don’t worry about it

Lauriam is a mlm trans man and doesn’t bind we love to see it

Blaine is just like. mlm nonbinary virusgender icon, he/they/it pronouns or whatever pronouns are most confusing at the moment because it’s funny. Idk what it is about him that makes him like, such an easy character to project mental illness onto but like oh my god. A lot of it is very personal to me so like, I won’t say everything,, but a big one is trust issues that he works thru with the others (oh my god I cry about blaine when he was first introduced vs the end of khux HE CARES ABOUT EVERYONE SOOOO MUCH) also he does not like being perceived stop looking at him right now-

You look at Ventus and tell me he knows what a gender is. He doesn’t. what’s a pronoun. just straight vibing

Elrena is so lesbian and so not cis idk they’re just out here. Elrena hates everyone but would like to hold hands with Strelitzia very much

This last one is soooooo so niche but like. Holding the former captain of the sewer squad and the new captain. they are in lesbians.

#you can tell I'm a foreteller stan bc I really went off with them #tried not to write an essay about luxu #some stuff I didnt mention bc its very personal and I'm shy and anxious adfgfshd #headcanons #khux #kh #kingdom hearts #ask #anon #khux essay

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life-rewritten · 4 years ago

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Start up: Nam Dosan and his helping hands

I find it challenging to accept finding clues for 'the husband scavenger hunt' type kdramas because they always have this leftover annoyance and unfairness when the second lead gets duped and broken-hearted in the end. Shows like the Reply me series, Hospital playlist, Dreamhigh etc. always use this device, flesh out both men and their reasons and love for our main girl whilst making us hurt with the push and pull of how both men are perfect for her. If one loses her, we all lose. In Start-Up, Jipyeong joins that list of the second lead men who are known to play with our heartstrings and get us rooting for him. He's Cyrano; he's pitiful, the one who's been by the girl's side this whole time, the one who spoke to her and won her heart, the soul of the letters she clings to in her mind as her happiness and person that she wants. Her fantasy for a prince come true. He's exactly that. This is why he should end up with the girl except the main lead Dosan isn't someone to forget, he seems determined and driven to get the girl, he looks ready to give it all for her. Who should she choose? After watching episode 1 and 2, seeing the in-depth and sad yet profound background story of Jipyeong, our minds automatically leans towards him. It makes no sense why he is second lead; he has this incredible bond with her grandmother, he's precisely the guy on paper she's looking for, and he has this innate thing in him ready to protect and look out for her. In a way, fortune has brought them back together again so why is Dosan still the one she probably will end up with? I've written this analysis to stand behind Dosan despite the many people who have dropped him and gone aboard Jipyeong's ship. I want to say that as a writer the show has already given Dosan the girl 80% he's the endgame why you ask because of Fate (Luck)—warning a very long essay upcoming.

Nam Dosan and Dalmi are meant to be together

The first reason Nam Do san enters Dalmi's heart without knowing who he actually was (she held onto his picture, his name and also how smart he was (from seeing him win the awards) is because fate wanted them to interact and meet each other. Hear me out before you roll your eyes, it feels more like fate is pushing her and Jipyeong together since he's the one who wrote the letters that got her out of her depression and were her rock and anchor when she was broken and looking for something to hold on to. His words comforted her, but fate still made happen in Dosan's name. Fate has supported Dosan and Dalmi from the start. It's fate who pulled Jipyeong to notice Dosan on those tv screens winning his gold medal (a psychological trick to get him to pick the newspaper later on and be open to using him as a proxy for the letter). Likewise, him seeing Dosan winning a gold medal also hints to who's winning at the end of this. The medal has other meanings as we find out in episode 5 so I'll just move on from that for now and continue with this first. Here's how Fate/The universe is on Dosan's side instead of Jipyeong.

The universe is supportive of Dosan's journey. Most things that happen to Dosan and Dalmi seem convenient and just random luck because the universe supports them in the story. Dalmi mentions this in episode 5; it's the writers warning us already. First Dosan is good at manifesting what he wants at the right moment and time:

He needed to get support from Jipyeong (his role model who he adored and looked up to) to get into the Sandbox (something Dalmi's inspiration created/she's also the little girl on the swings). This is manifested to him by Dalmi showing up and him selling baseball being the reason she finds him (follow your dreams). Because of her, Jipyeong has to pay attention, mentor and push him into wanting to be better. It's all fate conspiring to get him what he wants; his dreams to succeed in his company despite everyone looking down on him because he's a loser.

The universe provides him with Dalmi's love and support. Dalmi is the companion he never knew he needed (he realized it so much in episode 5 as she was giving his speech; she was his missing piece to his company). She's his catalyst for inspiration and the spark that was missing from his company's startup. He's given a chance to get into Sandbox because of her, (first because of her, Jipyeong backs him in Sandbox hoping he fails, and then second she chooses him to join her team)

The universe has set someone else on his team; Alex, the other Korean American, is also another way Dosan manifests his dream into a reality. Despite everyone looking down on him, Alex is amazed at Dosan and has a past with him that he wants to repay (I'll talk more about how both Dosan and Dalmi's 'choices' is why fate is on their side in another post)

Fate is on Dosan's side, and it keeps on helping him to get there with the presence of Dalmi. Fate wants them to be together regardless if she doesn't know that he's not her first love, the universe already set him up like that by his name being the proxy for the letters, they were destined from the start.

Nam Dosan always chooses/gets the real Dalmi

The second reason why Dosan and Dalmi are meant to be together, for now, is because he loves and knows the real Dalmi. Jipyeong has been writing letters to Dalmi, listening to her express her self and he never paid attention or remembered who the real Dalmi is. That's already a sign that his slowness will cost him the win in this race. Dosan who the letter was intended for from the start (because it was to his name) reads her messages, and he's affected by who Dalmi is. He chooses to keep going to her side because of this. Her words inspire him, and her genuine self makes him want to push out of his comfort zone and want to win. Her presence in his life is so significant to him because she's meant to be there and it's vice versa for her. They both needed each other, both being pulled to each other without knowing why. Its destiny.

Let's focus a bit more on this fact about authenticity, both Dalmi and Dosan are on equal grounds (they may seem like they're just acting with each other but they're not they see through each other when it matters), they both think they're nobodies, they're not necessary, they lose on purpose for other people's happiness, and they react the same way to things. The first time we're given this idea of how similar they are is when she understands why he would lie about being wealthy and prosperous; she just did the same thing in episode 1, so it made her understanding and grateful instead of thinking about the fact she lied to him, Dalmi focused on how she found someone just like her, someone who understands what it's like to be her(it brought her comfort and confidence that he's the right partner for her)

Dosan is her father’s mirror image (the right choice)

The third, Dosan, is a mirror character for her dad. The show has had so many people come to her to mock her for choosing to stick with her dad. When in reality, as we know it was the right choice, that consequences for her choice are slowly unveiling. It's also the reason why fate is on her side She's the inspiration of Sandbox (she's always been destined to enter and become CEO, she became great at what she does because of how many times she spent helping her dad with his own startups, and she stayed untainted by greediness and wealth because she chose him she has heart and different perspectives to the others who just follow things by the books; this is important because that's what her most significant strength is).

The show is already showing you that Dalmi always choosing things that may not seem perfect for her in the long run rather than the ideal choice (Jipyeong), is already foreshadowing why she'll pick Dosan at the end (if he doesn't change). I noticed Dosan's connection to her dad when he mentioned that the food he wanted to eat in episode 3 was Fried chicken, and Jipyeong told him to erase it and criticized him for his lack of communication skills. Dosan is like that fried chicken (a weird symbol but hear me out this show has so many signs for these two), it's not very fancy, or romantic as a meal (both Injae and Jipyeong reject and look down on it because it holds the opposite connotations to wealth and success).

Still, it has a sense of comfort and authenticity for Dalmi. See again; authenticity makes its way back to Dalmi and Dosan. Fried chicken is what connected Dalmi to her father; it's also what he went to get for her before he died. It represents family, unity and just a time she was the most grateful for because it brought her to spend time with her father. It was all he could give her without it seeming like it was something, it's just like Dosan who she appreciates his hands, it may seem like nothing, but it means the world to her that he's just there by her side, together and close and real (chooses her authentic self). Just like her father needed Dalmi's steadfast support, Dosan also needs her by his side because of that; she's also his helping hand. Still, he also is that to her by choosing her to become a CEO of their sandbox company, thereby helping her achieve her father's dreams. This is again the universe supporting and bringing them together to make their dreams a reality.

Jipyeong; the fanstasy and ideal man/The mentor

First look at the ending of episode 5, the show already shows you through visual cues what Jipyeong represents; a mentor for both Dalmi and Dosan. And it breaks my heart. Life already assigned him to be behind the scenes a tool to bring them together. Let's pause and look at what Jipyeong represents. Jipyeong represents fantasy. As much as he was important to Dalmi when she was younger by being the reason she was happy all those times, he was like a fantasy to run to that wasn't real. He wasn't the real Nam Do San. As much as behind the scenes, he's the reason for why Dosan entered her life (both times), and he's falling for her slowly. Like I said the picture above is pretty telling what he is to her and Dosan, life has assigned him as a mentor. Apart from his wealth, knowledge and being her ideal guy on paper, he isn't doing much for Dalmi as of now. (Hear me out before you lose your minds) Yes, he helped her in episode 5 by teaching her how to speak and present and its all cute that he's there. He isn't Dosan who stayed up with her and stayed by her side through the whole making of the product. He is helpful as a mentor, able to offer his knowledge and wealth to help Dalmi become successful but as we've seen that's not what Dalmi needs, she just needs someone to hold her hand and be by her side and inspire her to be better. (Do san keeps on doing this for her). Jipyeong represents idealism of our first love, a fantasy, an ideal situation, but that isn't enough to make him the right person for her. Both her and Dosan actually catalyze and affect each other positively, they push each other and provide for each other things they didn't know they needed. Still, they also provide (through the lessons from each other) a healthy but dose of realism.

That's what love is meant to be about, both equally providing and aiding the other by each other's side, pushing each other to their calling.

I keep on saying it, but the Jipyeong/Fake Nam Do San she fell in love with is a fantasy, he's good with his words, but they don't hold as much authenticity as Nam Do san's actual words to her, she may fangirl over his texts and letters, but it doesn't mean anything. I fangirl over fantasies (celebrities speeches, love letters written by other people, movie characters) all the time, doesn't mean it's my true love or my soulmate you know? Unless Dosan's character switches, nothing has made me think Jipyeong is even close to being who Dalmi needs, I don't see him as her one despite him realizing how great she is and helping her from behind the scenes because he's been assigned by life to be her helper, not a soulmate. Sorry, not sorry.

Symbolism, Foreshadowing and Visual Devices pointing to Dosan

Lastly, the proof is with the writers: Symbolism, subtext and foreshadowing devices for Namdosan and Dalmi.

Let's mention a few:

1. The music box; she wrote about it in her letter. In episode 3, after spending time with him, she realized opening it was wonderful. Foreshadowing, knowing the real Do san, she finally opened the music box. This inspires him to go to her side and choose to stay there despite what's to come)

2. The baseball that brought them together despite Jipyeong and Grandma thinking there was no way it would happen. Fate had other plans. The ball received says what they are meant to be for each other, a way to follow your dreams. It's a representation of fate pulling them to each other to make their dreams a reality. Emphasis as if I haven't said it enough times already they are meant to be with each other, and they are destined to be together.

3. His hands; Her helping hand she needs, a hand pulling her up when she's down, lifting her when she's low, pulling her to her dreams, a companion by her side always, comfort, intelligence (as his friends explained in episode 5. This is also what he's looked down for when it comes to romance; his logical, robotic personality but its needed for her company, and to teach her.) Lastly, his hands represent his authenticity and potential. (like his friend said it's not about how it looks but what he does with it)

4. Her letters and his name; the messages affect him and make him choose her because of her real voice and her authentic self. His name is what makes them meet again, remember he's the actual recipient of her notes from the start.

5. Sandbox; both their dreams and reason for inspiration. They were always on their way to get there; to get her to make her dad's plans a reality, to make his company dreams a reality, a place for a push to become better, both are a team here, both are meant to work with each other on equal ground, and again both are inspiring each other and bringing their positives out.

6. And even fried chicken; her dad, authenticity vs fantasy, comfort, warmth, togetherness and looked down upon but what she wants in the end

From episode 5:

1. Tarzan and Jane; from the story, Tarzan is slow and can't provide accurately for Jane the romantic/ideal things she is meant to like and want (Flowers, bunnies etc.). Just like Jipyeong can provide for Dalmi all the things that are intended to be an ideal for Dalmi (his wealth, his status, making Dosan look rich, providing the texts for Dosan to send to her, the letters etc.). Still, it isn't what she wants in the end. Dalmi says out loud that she overlooks the pretty on the surface things, she wants the useful stuff, like Dosan's helping hands, Dosan's presence by her side, and his words of wisdom to help them create a product in episode 5. Tarzan may seem like he has nothing to offer but the rocks and the gifts he gave Jane is actually what was needed to survive and be happy. Dalmi recognized that. That's foreshadowing who she will choose.

2.The sweets: At first, I wondered why they kept using it as a recurring motif to show Dosan eager to choose what Dalmi chose for him. But no it's foreshadowing. Jipyeong tries to steal the sweets from Dosan unintentionally, and interferingly (just like he's been unintentionally falling for Dalmi and is slowly starting to want to reveal the truth). Still, Dosan chides him and takes back all the ones she chose for him. This foreshadows that he will lose her to Jipyeong, but because of his heart, and determination, he'll get her back. She's also like the sweets; people don't see the importance to her yet, but Dosan and his friends are excited and eager to have all the free food and sweets because they've struggled for a bit, they have this childlike fascination with it, and she joins them as well later. Dosan doesn't overlook Dalmi's importance, she means a lot to him, and he appreciates and is grateful for her just like the sweets.

3.Lastly, the handwriting test/ the ability to test forgery: Another symbol for both Dosan and Dalmi. It's telling that the test was able to see 99.8% of what was real and what was fake (idealism vs realism), but it failed to recognize the new handwriting created by Injae and the others. This is foreshadowing there will be a moment when Dalmi won't be able to acknowledge idealism vs realism when Jipyeong reveals who he is. However, it doesn't mean that the handwritings were authentic, they were still forged even though the machine picked them up as real. Dalmi will question things, but at the end of the day, she already said it with the Jane metaphor, she will choose what's accurate and useful to her. This also makes the metaphor she told her grandmother (Jipyeong overheard this I think) about the rain and the storms to create something sweet, instead of choosing again what is ideal (just sunshine), Dalmi chooses the other way all the time, and she appreciates the results of it. That's why I believe she will end up with Dosan/choose him if he doesn't change.

So yeh for now Dosan is endgame for Dalmi, Jipyeong has been shoved into the role to bring them together and fulfill their goals and destinies. This could change because there’s so much more stuff that can happen, Dosan maybe tempted by greed later on and change and that will pull Jipyeong ahead. But if Dosan doesn’t change, then there’s no doubt that Dalmi even after she knows he’s not her first love, will not choose him. Let’s see how it turns out.

#start up #tvn start up #start up kdrama #kdrama net #analysis #november #fcsed #cwg #nam do san #seo dalmi #han jipyeong #nam joo hyuk #bae suzy

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olderthannetfic · 4 years ago

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It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.

#fandom meta #fandom history #Anonymous

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yournameyn · 4 years ago

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Feeling Deeply

Genre: Fluff so much fluff. Arranged Marriage fic.

Pairing: Namjoon x OC

A/N: Aaaaaa this is the first fic I'm posting ever ever. It's basically a way to follow the red thread of my desires. OC is named Brishti. She's Indian. She's Bengali & curvy & an introvert. This whole fic is 90% going to be a slow burn fluff fic about two introvert nerds getting to know each other. Seriously there's like hardly any real angst, maybe slight angst about okay when are these two going to bang - if you look very carefully but basically its just slooooow fluuuufff. Hopefully you all like it. Please let me know what you think. Current Chapter: This one is loooong. Remember this is all happening in the 1960s. OC & Namjoon are both really well off first gen immigrants. In this chapter we have our couple coming closer together - talking about some issues they've both had in their lives. Also this is the chapter where you'll get to know one of my favourite Namjoon songs and like why the OC is named what she's named. Also just a reminder because im a bit paranoid - Rim Jhim (referred to as Rim) is our OC Brishti. Its a pet name that's introduced in this chapter. And Namjoon being the wordsmith that he is makes it shorter, with the korean meaning of the word.

Previously in Feeling Deeply: Preface-ish Chapter 1

Chapter 2

And so it went for the next few days, the two of them quietly discovering each other. They were finding out the normal, casual, small things - how he didn’t like mint chocolate, how she loved bitter black coffee. Since both of them worked, they decided to split the chores at home. It worked out great because Namjoon liked to sweep & Brishti loved to do the dishes. They both struggled to cook but they decided to learn how to cook each other’s cuisines. So she was learning how to make kimchi (the green onion one) & he was learning how to prepare daal (the yellow one). They split the rent & decided to create a separate bank account for their savings. Talking about money increased warmth because they discovered that neither valued it excessively.

Slowly, they began talking about things a little more intimate. Meanings of names were revealed. She was impressed that his name meant genius. And he loved that hers meant rain. Pet names were introduced. He called her Rim - an even shorter version of her daak naam Rim Jhim. He told her to call him Joon. She looked away, smiling, then - silently telling him they’re not there yet. What he didn’t tell her was that he was already making up a fairytale about Joon, the genius & Rim, the brilliant jade that makes him so.

They spoke about books the most. Between them, they had half the globe's literature covered. She had read Indian authors & Russian & Spanish ones. He loved Korean authors, Japanese literature & all the Greek Classics. He geeked out about philosophy & poetry while she nerded over nature writing & music. They spoke about how they might take a look at other European writers & musicians together. To that end, Namjoon brought home a book of love poems by Rilke.

He hadn’t told her that he wrote poetry too. He hadn’t mentioned anything because it seemed like an indulgence of the past, poetry. But that night everything changed. After a late dinner, Brishti had asked to read aloud from the book he’d brought. As she read ‘To Music’, Namjoon saw tears float in her eyes. Secretly, something inside him had wept too. And just like that, he knew he would begin writing soon.

Each week the two watched late shows of classic hollywood musicals in a nearby theatre because they’d decided against a tv in their home - opting, instead, for a record player. Meeting for a movie each of the two Fridays they’d spent together so far was an experience both looked forward to - not only for the movie. In the darkness of the movie theatre, they experienced the first glimpses of intimacy. Soft smiles, whispering, silent glances, hands caressing each other. He loved how she laughed with abandon. She loved that he would tear up during the emotional scenes.

Her smile was getting wider, warmer toward him, Namjoon noted everyday. He’d been sleeping separately since their wedding night because he wanted her to feel safe. He was mostly okay with that except if he thought about it… If he thought about a time when he would get to touch her - Namjoon almost felt dizzy with feelings.

This happened the most when he saw her read by the window, he ached to touch her. That was her - Brishti - that was who she was at her core. Reading, running her fingers through her short hair, staring out the window, thinking, looking at clouds & then going back to reading. She was still quiet, but less so. She spoke about the rain and the trees and when she was happiest, he learned, when she really trusted that no one was going to judge her, she spoke about the moon. It had happened twice in the last few days.

He couldn’t stop looking at her. As though that needed reasoning, he thought about it at the office too. It wasn’t the only answer he could come up with but Namjoon had never seen a body like hers. She didn’t seem brittle or delicate, the way most women looked - or were “supposed to look”. She didn’t care what a body is supposed to look like, at least, it seemed that way to him. Brishti’s curves were not subtle. She was short and while almost everyone was shorter than him, Brishti was just… sexily so. She’d do these things… seemingly normal, everyday things but they would quickly, embarrassingly, inspire an arousal in him. Like, that thing she did, when she stretched after waking up or even if she stretched her arms or her neck… for some reason that turned him on so much, he’d have to hide… or excuse himself. His breath hitched, everytime he thought about how he hadn’t still actually seen her body.

Brishti, too, enjoyed looking at him from afar. Sharing, creating a living space with a man was never something she thought she would enjoy. They had exchanged the basic stories of how they had reached each other.

Namjoon had said, “I’d met a couple of women… girls… but they just seemed either plastic or porcelain… you know? I mean, not all of them could have been that but that's how they… presented themselves? You… I saw your photos in a pile that the matchmaker labelled ‘rubbish’”

“What?!”

“Yeah… I’m sorry but it’s actually a compliment to be labelled ‘bad’ by a matchmaker. That’s why I was looking in that pile in the first place… when I heard you wanted to keep working… Honestly I was so relieved...”

She smiled, “At least you got a look at me… I didn’t even know what you looked like till we met. I had no choice at all. A boy had agreed to marry me - despite… me… so that was the end of it. That was the bargain with my brother… otherwise I wouldn’t have been allowed to work either.”

“Wow… I’m so sorry, Rim. That’s really… really unfair.”

“Hmm yeah… I just figured if I can keep earning & the man turns out to be wrong, at least I can leave.”

“That’s… thanks for not leaving...”

Brishti smiled, “I got lucky...”

Namjoon understood, then, that Brishti might be an introvert but that did not mean she was shy. She made him blush & laugh. She made him speak without inhibition. The more time he spent with her, his feelings poured out.

“Thanks… It’s been really nice to share this home with you. Just to have you to talk to… My life was not going that great...” he said.

Brishti nodded, even though she already knew this. Whatever he said, strangely, she could see a deeper melancholy behind it. They spoke about being strangers in a strange country. She told him how she had to fight at the library for Tagore to be considered classic literature. How she was slowly but surely, being accepted in the oddball group that ran the library. She was not the only non-english person there, so things were easier for her. Besides, true readers had always been more accepting of the different.

Something made her regret sharing her happiness about this because his struggle in this foreign land was far more intense… she could sense pain behind the words he used. Namjoon did not enjoy his job the way she did. He worked overtime most days and came home bone-tired. Kim Namjoon was in many ratraces at the same time - races Brishti felt he didn’t want to participate at all. Being a lawyer, being an asian - the ‘model minority’, being a slightly well-off Korean in a sea of white men, in a sea of less fortunate asians who were being treated much worse than him. Trying to create a name, an identity of his own was wearing him out... chipping away at his soul.

Brishti sometimes saw him and saw a great banyan cutting itself down, trying to be a shrub just to fit in. When she asked him how his day was, he always smiled. It was real, the smile and yet it couldn’t hide the sadness in his eyes. Something that was beginning to bother Brishti more and more, these days. He... had begun to matter more and more these days.

Now, about two weeks into their marriage, she was experiencing butterflies about the smallest things; Things like watching him sleep on the fold out, bringing him coffee in the morning. She felt a pull deep inside her take over when he would come out of the shower in the bathrobe, skin glistening from the shower & musky man-scents launching her body in a fantastical arousal & her mind in overdrive. Somedays, Brishti even went for a shower after he’d been, just so she could soak in his essence & bathe in a trance she had never felt before.

On their third weekend together, Namjoon didn’t have to go to work the whole weekend. He’d spoken to his superior at the firm to let him have weekends free - after all, he was married now. Post lunch that Saturday, Brishti and he kept unpacking, organising while talking (well, later on, it was just coffee & talking) into the early hours of Sunday. They spoke about things they loved, people they had loved. About fictional crushes and real ones. Both of them spoke about their past relationships. Something Brishti was delighted about - especially since Namjoon told her he was not the type to hold someone’s past against them.

Brishti couldn’t believe it when Namjoon had correctly guessed, “It was the photographer, right?”

“What-?! How- Where- How did you…?” Brishti couldn’t even form a question.

“Your photos, at the matchmakers… something was different. All the other pictures women give out for arranged matches seem... fake. Yours were… real… private. You looked comfortable… looked like you were being teased...” What he didn’t say was how much it seemed in those pictures like she was with someone she truly liked… maybe even loved.

Sat on the ground opposite Namjoon, Brishti kept her gaze on him. It unnerved Namjoon that she could really see him. She unnerved him further when she said, “You should say what you aren’t saying… or… asking?”

“Did you love him?”

“Not really… it was just... a different kind of friendship… ended almost as soon as it began. But I- I don’t regret it. It wasn’t the kind of love-” she trailed off. She looked away, smiling but trying to hide it. The same way she had in the photograph.

He pressed further just to tease her “Kind of love...?” Namjoon was intrigued because she was blushing now & he wanted to plant a thousand pecks on her. Instead he said, “So you can just… stop what you were saying? Mmm. Okay. I see.”

She looked at him then, “I’m feeling… a lot… of… different things these days. Especially because of a couple of dimples...”

Just like that, she turned the tables & his dimples appeared. He blushed, “Yeah… same. I mean… you don’t have dimples but I’ve-”

She nodded to let him know she understood. And then asked, “Uhm... Have you… had sex?”

Namjoon bit his lip, “Yeah… yes. I... had a girlfriend in law school. It… uh… wasn’t serious… for her.”

Brishti looked away nodding, as if stopping herself from saying something.

He looked at her… knowing what she probably wanted to say. He wanted to hug her but he only said, “It doesn’t matter, does it? For me it doesn’t. Doesn’t matter if you’ve had sex too… I know how people can be about virginity… I- honestly… it's just another way to control people.”

She looked at him with a mixture of emotions. She took a minute to compose herself & then said, “I’ve never met a man like you… and it's a little confusing and annoying… Not that you are annoying… not at all. It’s just the world is annoying because this is how low the standard is for a man. A man accepting that the woman has a past makes him… forward…? But of course the woman has to… because, well, he’s a man and he has needs. We’re all told that… Shirley... who works with me… she knows it too. Women just aren’t supposed to talk about their pasts. All women.”

She paused & got flustered further because of how dedicatedly Namjoon had been listening. It really seemed as if he was taking notes. The serious expression on his face, it made Brishti's ears feel hot. Almost as a distraction, she went on -

“It's crazy but that seems to be the only thing THE WHOLE WORLD has agreed on - they can’t agree on one way to make bread but they all agreed that women are inferior. It’s such a basic thing to just let me work… because I want to… but it's annoying that it makes me feel lucky. My best friend had to go through hell because she thought she could trust her husband with the truth about her past… so it makes me feel lucky that… you won’t…”

Namjoon could see the pain in her words. Maybe that’s how she could always sense the pain in his words, he thought.

After a calming silence passed over them, he spoke - “I won’t. I don’t really know what it’s like for a woman. And… maybe you won’t like to hear this, but… I was the same, Rim... I was the man my society had trained me to be. Everything changed when I came here. When, for the first time in my life, I understood what it’s like to be treated inferior. Since then, I just… I cannot be the cause of a feeling like that within anyone... So… you’re right. I’m not doing anything everyone shouldn’t already do. All of this should be normal. Expected. Hopefully the world learns a bit faster…”

Brishti smiled at Namjoon. She chuckled when tears pooled up in her eyes. He instinctively reached out for her & placed a hand on her leg, just below her knee. A jolt went through Brishti and she looked surprised. He did too. Namjoon retracted his hand immediately & looked away, blushing. That’s when Brishti laughed out loud. She stood up. And asked him to stand up, silently.

He did. It always made Brishti’s heart flutter just how gorgeous and tall he was. Someday, she would tell him. Someday, she would show him. For now, she couldn’t help feeling bashful as she asked, “Can I get a hug, Joon?”

This was the first time she’d used the pet name that he’d asked her to call him by. This was what his family called him. And her using this name assured Namjoon of just that - she was becoming family. Her question had made his heart flip. He moved without really thinking, because this is what his body had wanted since the day he saw her. He pulled her up in his arms. He felt like he was melting. She was soft. Warm. Beautiful. And in his arms.

Brishti gasped a little when Namjoon had scooped her up in his arms. She was on her toes, literally & figuratively. She held onto him, less as a hug & more as support… at first. Then, she felt his arms… the strong arms that she had been ogling at, around her. It was as if a knot came undone, within her, suddenly. And in its place, the softest silk suddenly flowed through her body.

She closed her eyes and breathed him in. The same essence that she’d been soaking in after he had showered, that she had been breathing in whenever he would pass by or reach past her. The essence that she had now become so hungry for that she had been secretly sleeping with the shirt he’d worn from the laundry basket. That essence was now all over her. Her chin turned up, resting on his shoulders, her cheeks touching his, her hands - on their own - reached the nape of his neck and began to play with his hair.

When she did that, Namjoon held her tighter, pressed her on to him. He felt her body react to his. One hand reaching her shoulder around her back, he moved the other closer to her waist, so his hands could fold over her curves. He could feel her breath hitch when he did that.

Brishti was revelling in the feeling of his hands, his fingers, feeling his fingertips press into her - that was a feeling she could never have imagined making her so... so... drunk. She was drunk. She ran her hands up and down his vast back, all the way up to his hair. All of a sudden she could feel herself overcome with emotion. Tears began pooling in her eyes again. And she said, before it was too late, she said, “Thank you, Joon, for everything… thank you.”

When he heard the tremble in her voice, Namjoon pulled away, just so he could see her. Brishti quickly retracted too - to wipe off her tears, trying to laugh off the silliness, apologising. Namjoon replied, “It’s okay… I understand… I… Thank you, Rim. I hope you… you know what I mean...” What he wanted to say, what he hoped she understood was that she was what was helping him come alive. But being unable to, Namjoon knew someday he would. Someday soon.

Brishti nodded to say she understood. Namjoon tried to lighten the atmosphere, saying, “You’re not… just anyone, you know? So… maybe you should tell me something I could do which is… not just basic decency, but something that can be considered truly feminist, you know. I’d love to do that for you.”

Brishti smiled and nodded. She suddenly felt tired & almost of its own accord, her body stretched into a yawn. She said, “I’ll think of something. We- I should go now… Do you want- anything?...” Brishti was delighted about how drunk she had gotten from one hug. It was exciting that she knew she’d be sleeping with the sweater he had tossed in the laundry basket tonight. She decided to take a bit more time to enjoy being intoxicated without a substance, together and alone.

Later that night, as Namjoon laid on his fold out sofa, alone, he thought of how great it had felt to have Brishti in his arms. To have someone who wanted to know about his day. To feel her heartbeat, like raindrops, knocking on his chest like it was a window pane, almost as if asking to be let in…

Thoughts like these, they made Namjoon reach for the notepad & pen that he always kept close by. He wrote. He wrote of being world weary and suddenly having a friend. Suddenly feeling like the world wasn't rushing him, that he didn’t need to run, that he could take time, be slow, be a poet. His heart tugged at his pen as it wrote lines about what it felt like to have someone cry for him. To have someone be full of feelings for him, to have someone to embrace his weary body. He wrote about how he missed that embrace and yet it was okay… as long as she was still here, maybe not just next to him, yet. Maybe someday. It was okay because she asked how he was every day and Brishti was here, forever. Namjoon felt tears run down his own face, as he titled the first poem he’d written in almost five years - Forever Rain.

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Oooooh god you read it?! Thank you so much! Please please let me know what you thought! Get into my messages about it! I would love nothing more than to hear what you felt about this!

#bts kim namjoon #fanfic #namjoon fluff #namjoon arranged marriage #namjoon x oc #arranged marriage #slow burn #slow burn fic #fluff fic #bts fanfic #bts #indian oc #red thread fics #forever rain #brishti

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sepublic · 4 years ago

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The Importance of Kipo’s Dual-Nature

Anyhow, aside from being wonderfully refreshing; I think another reason why Kipo’s lack of angst upon learning she’s half-mute is…

She has NO reason to doubt her personhood because of this? The entire show up until now has been about Kipo recognizing the personhood of Mutes, seeing them as people, and unconditionally no less! Kipo already knows that SHE is a person, there’s no debating that, being Half-Jaguar doesn’t change this whatsoever… And obviously there are non-sapient Mutes and Kipo’s Jaguar-side comes from that variant, but I think Kipo is being VERY reasonable in evaluating her personhood as something that objectively exists. It’s not like learning she’s Half-Jaguar changes this, because she’s evidently always been like this, yet has also always been just like any other human or Mute, or indistinguishable from them at least, because to her there’s no meaningful difference in the end; They’re all just people!

It’s like if someone who thought they were only one ethnicity, found out they were biracial! Racism aside, there’s no doubt in your personhood, there’s literally no reason to angst… And would you have it, Kipo herself IS biracial, being Half-Black, Half-Korean! I’m not sure if this was intentional, but I think this character trait further reinforces Kipo’s motif of ‘being of both worlds’, and how she’s already been conditioned to rightfully accept this as a totally normal facet of life… If being biracial is normal, then why not being part-human, part-mute?

That isn’t to liken certain races or ethnicities to literal animals… But in the context of Kipo’s world, and the kind of open-minded person she is; They’re ALL just people in the end, trying to live their lives! Any discrimination that suggest otherwise is framed as negative by the narrative for good reason, so being LIKE an Otter or a Rat is no insult! Kipo has no identity crisis because she fully sees Mutes as people, no strings attached; Sure, there’s the LOGISTICAL concerns, such as how her claws might hurt others… And the pragmatic ones, such as how others may not be as open-minded and judge Kipo for this; But in the end, Kipo herself has no issue with being Half-Mute!

Of course, there IS the inevitable culture shock about learning you’re actually Half-Mute, especially when this is unprecedented… But in the end, having Kipo suddenly doubt her personhood from HER perspective would imply that, up until now, she low-key saw sapient Mutes as being ‘less’ people than humans… And that of course is antithetical to who she actually is and the values that Kipo rightfully champions! Kipo’s overjoyed nonchalance is a wonderfully built-up-to result of the show’s previous themes and lessons, and her past personality and values as a person, and how she engages with others!

And obviously there’s concerns about Kipo losing sight of ‘who she is’, and needing that anchor… But considering how her ‘anchor’ is her familial attachments, amongst whom consists of Mutes… I think it’s safe to say that besides a pragmatic, logistical worry and not an existential one, Kipo’s concern about losing herself is clearly meant to be interpreted from a metaphorical sense as well! Of losing touch of one’s identity and culture, of feeling like you have to stick with ONE side of your identity and choose, instead of embracing both parts!

#kipo #kataow #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #kipo oak #analysis

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route22ny · 4 years ago

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What My Korean Father Taught Me About Defending Myself in America

Born in 1939 during what would be the last years of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, my father, Choung Tai Chee, also called Charles or Chuck or Charlie, came to the United States in 1960. He was flashy, cocky, unafraid, it seemed, of anything. Wherever we were in the world, he seemed at home, right up until near the end of his life, when he was hospitalized after a car accident that left him in a coma. Only in that hospital bed, his head shaved for surgery, did he look out of place to me.

A tae kwon do champion by the age of 18 in Korea, he had begun studying martial arts at age 8, eventually teaching them as a way to put himself through graduate school, first in engineering and then oceanography, in Texas, California, and Rhode Island. He loved the teaching. The rising popularity of martial arts in the 1960s in Hollywood meant he made celebrity friends like Frank Sinatra Jr., Paul Lynde, Sal Mineo, and Peter Fonda, who my father said had fixed him up on a date with his sister, Jane, in the days before Barbarella. A favorite photo from his time in Texas shows him flying through the air, a human horseshoe, each of his bare feet breaking a board held shoulder high on each side by his students.

When I complained about my wet boots during the winters growing up in Maine, he told me stories about running barefoot in the snow in Korea to harden his feet for tae kwon do. His answer to many of my childhood complaints was usually that I had to be tougher, stronger, prepared for any attack or disaster. The lesson his generation took from those they lost to the Korean War was that death was always close, and I know now that he was doing all he could to teach me to protect myself. When I cried at the beach at the water’s edge, afraid of the waves, he threw me in. “No son of mine is going to be afraid of the ocean,” he said. When I first started swimming lessons, he told me I had to be a strong swimmer, in case the boat I was on went down, so I could swim to shore. When he taught me to body-surf, he taught me about how to know the approach of an undertow, and how to survive a riptide. When I lacked a competitive streak, he took to racing me at something I loved—swimming underwater while holding my breath. I was an asthmatic child, but soon, intent on beating him, I could swim 50 yards this way at a time.

For all of that, he was an exceedingly gentle father. He took me snorkeling on his back, when I was five, telling me we were playing at being dolphins. There he taught me the names of the fish along the reef where we lived in Guam. He would praise the highlights in my hair, and laugh, calling me “Apollo.” And as for any pressure regarding my future career, he offered something very rare for a Korean man of his generation. “Be whatever you want to be,” he told me. “Just be the best at it that you can possibly be.”

Only when I was older did I understand the warning about being strong enough to swim to shore in another context, when I learned the boat he and his family had fled in from what was about to become North Korea nearly sank in a storm. In Seoul as a child, he scavenged food for his family with his older brother, coming home with bags of rice found on overturned military supply trucks, while his father went to the farms, collecting gleanings. His attempts to teach me to strip a chicken clean of its meat make a different sense now. I had thought of him as an immigrant without thinking about how the Korean War made him one of the dispossessed, almost a refugee, all before he left Korea.

When I began getting into fights as a child in the U.S., he put me into classes in karate and tae kwon do for these same reasons. He loved me and he wanted me to be strong. I just wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take on a whole country.

We moved to Maine in 1973, when I was six years old. My father had taken us back to Korea after I was born, to work for his father, and then moved us around the Pacific—from Seoul to the islands of Truk, Kawaii, and Guam, in his and my mother’s attempts to set up a fisheries company. Maine was his next experiment, and not coincidentally, my mother’s home state. On my first day of the first grade, in the cafeteria, after a morning spent in what seemed like reasonably friendly classes, my troubles began when I went up to take an empty seat at a table and the blond haired, blue-eyed white boy seated there looked up with some alarm and asked me, “Are you a chink?”

“What’s a chink?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I had never heard this word before.

“A Chinese person. You look like a chink. Is that why your face is so flat?”

This was also the first day I can remember being insulted about my appearance.

“I am not Chinese,” I said that day, naively. In a few years I would learn I was in fact part Chinese, 41 generations back, but at that moment, I tried to explain to him about how I was half Korean, a nationality and situation he had never heard of before. Half of what? And so this was also the first day I had to explain myself to someone who didn’t care, who had already decided against me.

He was a white boy from America, and he was repeating insults that seem to me to have come from a secret book passed out to white children everywhere in this country, telling them to call someone Asian “Chink,” to walk up to them, muttering “Ching-chong, ching-chong.” To sing a song, “My mother’s Chinese, my father’s Japanese, I’m all mixed up,” pulling their eyes first down and then up and then alternating up and down.

I was struck, watching Minari a few months ago, when the film’s Korean immigrant protagonist, David, is asked by a white boy in Arkansas in the 1980s why his face is so flat. “It’s not,” David says, forcefully—so many of us have this memory of someone saying this to us and responding that way. Why did a boy in Arkansas and a boy in Maine, in their small towns thousands of miles apart, before the internet, each know to make this insult?

When I got home from that first day at school, I asked my mother what the word “Chink” meant, and she flinched and covered her mouth in concern.

“Who said that to you?” she asked, and I told her. I don’t remember the conversation that followed, just the swift look of concern on her face. The sense that something had found us.

I was the only Asian-American student at my school in 1973, and the first many of my classmates had ever met. When my brother joined me at school three years later, he was the second. When my sister arrived, four years after him, she was the third. My mother is white, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American, born in Maine to a settler family. I have six ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, but none of them had to fight this. I don’t know how to separate the teasing, harassment, and bullying that marked my 12 years of life there from that first racist welcome. It makes me question whether I really had a “temper” as a child, as I was told, or whether I was merely isolated by racism among racists, afraid and angry?

My father dealt with racism throughout most of his life by acting as if it had never happened—as if admitting it made it more powerful. He knew bullies loved to see their victims react and would tell me to not let what they said upset me. “Why do you care what they think of you?” he would say, and laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “They’re all going to work for you someday.”

“Don’t get even, get ahead,” was another of his slogans for me at these times. As if America was a race we were going to win.

Two decades after his death, writing in my diary while on a subway in New York City, I began counting off all of my activities as a child—choir, concert band, swimming, karate and tae kwon do, clarinet, indoor track, downhill and cross country skiing—and I asked myself if my parents were trying to raise Batman. Then I looked down to the insignia on my Batman t-shirt, and I laughed.

These lessons my father gave me—to be the best you can be, to fight off your enemies and defeat them, to swim to safety if the boat sinks, and in general toughen yourself against everything that would harm you—these I had absorbed alongside certain unspoken lessons, taken from observing his life as a Korean immigrant. To have two names, one American, known to the public, and one Korean, known only to a few intimates; to get rid of your accent; and to dress well as a way to keep yourself above suspicion. Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe.

But if I thought of superheroes, it was because my father was like one to me, training me to be like him.

One legend I heard about my father when I was growing up is the story of a night he was being held up at gunpoint, while he was unpacking his car. Whoever it was asked him to shut the trunk and turn around and raise his hands in the air. He agreed to, slamming the car trunk down so forcefully, he sank his fingertips into the metal.

By the time he turned around, the would-be stick-up artist was gone.

He would often ask me and my brother to punch him, as hard as we could, in his stomach. He was proud of his abdominal strength—it was like punching a wall. We would shake our hands, howling, and he would laugh and rub our heads. One time he even used it as a gag to stop a bully.

A boy on my street had developed the habit of changing the rules during our games if his team started losing. We had fights over it that could be heard up and down the street, and one day I chased him with a Wiffle bat, him laughing as I ran. My father stepped in the next time he tried to change the rules during a game and prevented it, telling him all games in his yard had to have the same rules at the beginning as the end—you couldn’t change them when you were losing. When the boy got mad, he said, “I bet you want to hit me, you should hit me. You’ll feel better. Hit me right here, in the stomach, as hard as you can.”

The boy hauled off and punched my dad in the stomach. I knew what was coming. The boy went home crying, shaking his hand at the pain. His mom came over and they had a talk. The rule-changing stopped.

I tried teasing my classmates back after being told to by my father. Stand-up as self-defense requires practice, though: During a “Where are you from?” exercise in the second grade, I told my classmates and teacher I had “Made in Korea” stamped on my ass, which elicited shocked laughter and a punishment from my teacher. I remember the glee when I called a classmate an ignoramus, and he didn’t know what it meant—and got angrier and angrier when I wouldn’t tell him, demanding that I explain the insult. When told to go back to where I came from, I said, “You first.”

Increasingly, I just hid, in the library, in books. When given detention, I exulted in the chance to be alone and read. I was an advanced student compared to my classmates, due in part to my mother being a schoolteacher, and I learned to make my intelligence a weapon.

The day several boys held me down on my street and ran their bicycles over my legs, to see if I could take it, as if maybe I wasn’t human, that felt like some new horrible level. I don’t remember how that ended or if I ever told anyone, just the feeling of the bicycle tires rolling over the skin of my legs. The day I bragged about my father being a martial artist to my classmates, they locked me in the bathroom and told me to fight my way out with kung fu, calling me “Hong Kong Phooey,” after the cartoon character, as they held the door shut. This was the fourth grade. After I got out of that bathroom and went home, I told my father about it, and he told me it was time to take tae kwon do. I had to learn to defend myself.

I would never be like him, never break boards like him, but for a while, I tried. I still cherish the day he gave me my first gi and showed me how to tie it. I learned I had a natural flexibility, which meant I could easily kick high, and I took pride in my roundhouse and reverse roundhouse kicks. But after a few years, my father took issue with a story he’d heard about my teacher’s arrogance toward his opponents, and he pulled me out of the classes. “It is very dangerous to teach in that spirit,” he told me. And he said something I would never forget. “The best fighter in tae kwon do never fights,” he said. “He always finds another way.”

I have thought about this for a long time. For the ordinary practitioner, tae kwon do and karate prepare you to go about your life, aware of what to do in case of assault. They offer no guarantee, just chances for preparedness in the face of the violence of others as well as the violence within yourself. At the time I felt my father was describing the responsibility that comes with knowing how to hurt someone, but I came to understand it as a principled if conditional non-violence, which, in this year of quarantine and rising racist violence, is one of the clearest legacies he left to me.

Like many of us, I have been trying to write about these most recent attacks on Asian-Americans, some of them in my old neighborhood in New York, and I keep starting and stopping. How do we protect ourselves and those we love? Can writing do that? I know I learned to use my intelligence as a weapon to keep myself safe from racists, starting as a child, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough. The violence is like a puzzle with many moving parts, but the stakes are life and death. “You’re really going to homework your way through this one?” I keep asking myself. The people attacking Asians and Asian Americans now are like the boy I met on my first day in the first grade. They don’t care whether or not we are actually Chinese—the primary experience Asian Americans have in common is mis-identification. The person who gets a patriotic ego boost off of calling me a “chink” isn’t going to check if they’re right about me, and I don’t imagine they’ll stop their fist or their gun if I say, “You’re just doing this because of America’s history of war in Asia,” even though we both know this is true. And so I have been thinking of my father and what he taught me.

The most overt way my father fought racism in front of me involved no fighting at all. He founded a group called the Korean American Friendship Association of Maine, which helped new Korean immigrants move to Maine and find work, community, and housing, along with offering lessons on how to open bank accounts, pay taxes, file immigration paperwork, and get drivers’ licenses. For both of my parents, community organizing, activism, and mutual aid like this were commitments they shared and enjoyed and passed along to us, their children, and this led to much of my own work as an activist, teacher, and writer. I am not my father, but I am much as he made me.

There’s a difference between fighting racists and fighting racism. Where my father stayed silent, I have learned I have to speak out, which has felt, even while writing this, a little like betraying him. And as a biracial gay Korean American man, I don’t experience the same identifications or misidentifications he did. I am mistaken for white, or at least “not Asian,” as often as I’m mistaken for Chinese, and have felt like a secret agent as people speak in front of me about Asians in ways they would not otherwise. I learned most of my adult coping strategies for street violence from queer activist organizations after college.

Even as I write, “I wonder if he ever felt fear living in America,” it feels like a betrayal, especially as he isn’t around for me to ask him. I think again about how my father always made a point of dressing well, for example, but it always felt like more than that. Men wearing suits as a kind of armor, that isn’t so strange. He had his suits made at J. Press, wore handmade English leather shoes—shoes that fit me. I sometimes wear them for special occasions. Among my favorite objects of his is a monogrammed J. Press canvas briefcase, the name “CHEE” in embossed leather between the straps. After his father gave him an Omega Constellation watch when I was born, he eventually acquired others. For a time I thought he did this aspirationally, but most of his family in Korea is like this: Well-dressed, with a preference for tailoring and handmade clothes. All of my memories of my uncles coming from the airport to visit us involve them arriving in their blazers.

The first time I followed my father’s advice to wear a sports jacket when flying, I received a spontaneous upgrade. I didn’t have frequent flyer miles and the person checking me in was not flirting with me either. There was nothing but the moment of grace, and the feeling that my father, from beyond the grave, was making a point as I sat down in my new, larger, more spacious seat. Because I had never tried out this advice while he was alive.

Like much of my father’s advice, it came from his keen awareness of social contexts, and it worked. His wardrobe came from the pleasure of a dare more than a disguise. You don’t acquire a black and gold silk brocade smoking jacket in suburban Maine because you want to fit in with your white neighbors. Sometimes his clothes were a charm offensive, sometimes just a sass. The jacket advice may well have been an anticipation of racist treatment, of a piece with perfecting his English so he had no accent, and raising us to speak only English. My mother spoke more Korean to us as children than he did—a remnant of her time living in Seoul.

Now that I am old enough to choose to learn Korean, I still feel like a child disobeying him, just as I do when I dress too casually, or acknowledge that I’ve experienced racism. I know I am just making different choices, as you do when you are grown, but also, I am stepping out from behind his program to protect myself. I feel the fears he never spoke about, and instead simply addressed with what now look like tactics. At these moments I miss him as much as I ever do, but especially for how I would tell him, this may have protected you. It won’t protect me.

In my kitchen the other day, as I was making coffee, I fell into the ready stance, with my right foot back, left foot forward, and snapped my right leg up and out in a front snap kick. This is the basic first kick you learn in tae kwon do. And you do it again, and again, and again, until it is muscle memory. You move across the room this way and then turn to begin again.

I wasn’t sure if my form was exactly right, but it felt good. Memories came back of the sweaty smell of the practice room, the other students, the mirrors on the walls, the fluorescent lights. All those years ago, I had thought my father had put me in those classes in order to become him, but as I sent my practice kicks through the air, I remembered how even learning them made me feel safer, protected at least by the knowledge that he loved me. I could not have said this at the time, but after those attacks, I had feared I wasn’t strong enough to be his son.

I still fear that. I suppose it drives me, even now. It is dehumanizing to insist on your humanity, even and perhaps especially now, and so I am not doing that here. Each time I’ve tried to write even this, a rage takes over, and then the only thing I want to do with my hands doesn’t involve writing, and I stop. But I know from learning to fight that hitting someone else means using yourself to do it. My father’s advice, about fighting being the last resort, has given me another lesson: You turn yourself into the weapon when you strike someone else—in the end, another way to erase yourself—and so you do that last. In the meantime, you fight that first fight with yourself, for yourself.

You may never be able to protect what you love, but at least you can try. At least you will be ready.

Alexander Chee is most recently the author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A novelist and essayist, he teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.

#asian-american #anti-asian hate #racism in america #alexander chee #long reads

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